Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

More thoughtful looks from my interrogator and then he said softly, offhandedly, “Go clean yourself up. You look horrible,” as if it was my fault I was bleeding all over myself.

One of the henchmen showed me to the washroom but stood nearby in case I thought about bolting. Cold water on my face first stung in the cuts on my left cheek but soon it numbed the pains. Blood and water mixed and swirled down the drain. I didn’t dare look in the mirror.

While I was checking to make sure all my teeth were still in my mouth, I overheard my kidnappers talking over the information I had just shared with them. I continued running cold water trying to get my nose to stop bleeding but listened with one ear.

“How could Sanning not know it was P.? Certainly, the agency sent him here because of this family connection. How could the CIA have missed that family connection to Mr. S? Either the kid is lying to us or the agency doesn’t have good data on people outside of the Moscow circles,” said one voice.

“Perhaps Sanning was here talking with a go between and that man was making the deals with P.?” the second voice postulated, “perhaps keeping Sanning in the dark about the source.”

“Who then? We know everybody that is operating in Nizhniy. There are no Chechens here, no Uzbeks and certainly the Pakistanis and Chinese haven’t gotten this far out of the capital. We would have discovered them before the handover on Friday night,” said the first voice again.

“I still think the kid knows more than he is telling us about Sanning,” the second voice concluded.

My guard switched off the light in the washroom and told me break-time was over and I should return to my chair. I had no towel so I dried my face on my undershirt and was followed back into the living room of the apartment turned jail cell. The men were going through the contents of my backpack again, doing a more thorough search than the last time, finding nothing new.

“Please sit down,” the chief politely requested. “We have been watching you for many months and we know all of your movements except for the last week when you disappeared. You are a known associate of a foreign agent operating in the Russian Federation and for that, we could have you charged with espionage and for the procurement and transporting of state secrets compromising state security. We know of your dispute with Mr. P. and what his people did to you and your apartment, so we can establish motive and opportunity. With that and your change of appearance and trying to leave Nizhniy the day after P.’s murder, we have enough to take you to the local police and have you arrested on suspicion of his murder, at the least. The rest of the evidence we can take care of. You see Mr. Turner, you are in a very, very difficult situation. Espionage and murder charges are very serious. That is easily thirty years in a Siberian prison. Effectively a death sentence. The inmates do not tolerate traitors to Russia in prison with them. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I have told you everything I know and what I have been doing in Nizhniy. I told you where I have been the last week and why I changed my clothes and hair and face. If you don’t believe me, I don’t know what else I can do to convince you,” I pleaded.

“Do you have any stamps in your passport of your stay someplace else? Do you have a ticket from the boat you say you were traveling on? Do you have any photographs, any souvenirs, anything to prove your whereabouts for the last week as well as the night from Friday to Saturday?” he asked me rhetorically.

“No, I don’t” I whimpered.

“Do you have any witnesses that you were with who can witness that you were with them and not shooting Mr. P. on early Saturday morning, by the way, with an American made handgun?” my interrogator had turned prosecutor.

I thought quickly about how to get in touch with the Zhukov crew. I had no phone number of how to reach Irina or Nikolai. I remembered that I had Lara’s telephone number in my book and nearly blurted it out — but decided to hold my tongue and keep her out of all this. In five minutes, they could stitch her up for trying to assassinate Boris Yeltsin.

“No, no I don’t,” I sighed.

“Your only option then, Mr. Turner, is to cooperate with us to help us find Sanning and recover the data disc that he murdered Mr. P. for,” was the ultimatum given by the head officer.

I looked at the floor in dejection with mixed and raging emotions. I knew I was completely innocent of all their made-up charges and knew I was being used. I was angry with Del for having used me for information to further his hidden agenda without informing me. I didn’t even know if Del had been in Nizhniy to build a hotel or not at this point. I understood then that Del also had layers of a shadow life too. Was he even from Wyoming? Was Els his partner or his spouse? I was very confused.

“Well, Mr. Turner. Are you going to cooperate or do we turn you over to the local Militia, who by the way were on the payroll of Mr. P. and will only be more than happy to capture his killer? The killer who had disrupted a very nice flow of benefits to the chief of police and his lieutenants,” was the agent’s final proposition.

I nodded my head in despair and surrendered to his demands. I felt like a traitor even though I had no allegiance to any side in this fight. I listened to the demands on me.

“It is a simple order. You will use all of your connections and knowledge of Sanning to help us locate him and recover the stolen data. You will disclose to nobody that you are in our custody or working with us. While you cooperate, we will protect you from any revenge actions from Mr. P’s organization or his associates by keeping you hidden and watching you if it is necessary for you to leave this apartment to accomplish your orders. Is that understood?” the agent spoke this to me as if had been reading a sentence from the bench of a court room.

“Yes, it’s clear, but it may not be easy,” I muttered.

“You will have all the resources you need to get the job done. Just ask,” he replied with a polite and ironic smile.

“And what do I get in return?” I asked with some defiance.

“Mr. Turner. I already told you; Protection from Mr. P’s organization, freedom from arrest and prosecution by the local police for murder, and if you help us recover the disc, freedom from arrest and prosecution for espionage. What more could a man ask for? You certainly aren’t hoping for a cash reward! That would be very greedy, young man,” the condescension in his voice was ripe!

“I just want my passport and plane ticket back when I succeed. That’s all I ask,” I added.

“And so it shall be. As a show of good will…,” he reached for my documents from the table next to him and gave them to me. “Here, you keep them so you have no reason not to trust us.”

“I will need my address book,” I commented.

“No, we will keep that for security purposes. You just concentrate on finding Sanning,” was the agent’s curt response.

“I need the address book to phone him,” I stated bluntly with an angry stare at him.

This revelation stunned the agent and he looked again disapprovingly at his colleagues as if they had missed something so simple and vital in the book.

“Please explain,” he said looking back at me with just a bit more respect.

“When Del told me to get out of Russia, right after I told him that Mr. P. was the son of Mr. S., Del gave me a business card with a telephone number on it. The business card had only the name of a Swedish construction company and its telephone numbers. He told me to leave a message on the machine to let him know that I had made it back to the USA safely. He said I wouldn’t get a call back, but he would know that I was safe,” I explained.