Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“We did not find this business card in your belongings,” he stated.

“I know you didn’t. I wrote the number in the address book,” I retorted.

“We found nothing,” he rebutted again.

“Did you call every number?” I asked with some sarcasm and a hint of ridicule.

I got no response from anybody in the room.

“I disguised Del’s number under an entry of my real Swedish friends. You see an address, you see Sweden and a phone number listed under that. It is not the phone number of my friends. I only write letters with them. I didn’t call them from the USA. We are poor students. It’s too expensive. That is the number to Del’s answering machine where I am supposed to leave a message for him. If you will give me the book, I will call and leave a message right now on any phone you can provide me,” I offered.

The agent threw the book at me with a look of surprise and compliment in his eyes and motioned with his head to one of his colleagues to show me to the telephone.

I was shown into one of the bedrooms that had been converted into a field station office. All the blinds were drawn tight and no light from outside could be seen through the darkening drapes, closed off from all prying eyes and curious neighbors. The wall was covered in a map of the city with what looked to be random pins and post-it notes. A few photographs lined the perimeter. Without pausing and looking too curious I did spot what I thought was my apartment with a flag on it. I wondered what Babushka and Raiya were thinking as I never returned after the Victory Day celebrations with them. For them, I had just simply vanished from one moment to the next.

“I will dial the number for you,” I was told by the second agent, the one who hadn’t punched me repeatedly.

We first had to call the local operator to provide us an international line. I let my host do the talking. After the line was procured, the second agent read the number to the operator. We heard the whirling and clicking of the phone line connecting to the Swedish line, seven hundred kilometers away. It took a few minutes before the line starting ringing. Then, an answer, in Swedish. The agent listened on an earpiece while I used the handset.

“Tack for att du ringde Sver-Invest konstruktion. Vara kontor ar for närvarande stängd. Lamna ditt meddelande och lamplig officer kommer tillbaka ditt samtal sa snart som mojligt. For English press two.”

I pressed the two-button on the telephone, but instead of the needed tone, the telephone pulsed twice with two quick ticks in my ear. The Russian phone system was still using pulses and dials instead of tones. I rolled my eyes with impatience.

The tone to leave a message sounded before any English explanation was given. I was taken a bit off guard.

“Hello, my name is Peter Turner. My message is for Del Sanning. Please call me back at…,” I stopped. I looked over at my clueless guard who obviously didn’t understand what was said in either Swedish or English, and asked in Russian “how can he call me back?”

The guard stopped the call abruptly and hung up my hand set.

“Sergey, come in here,” he shouted to his boss. Sergey quickly appeared in the door way of the office.

“How can Sanning contact the kid? What is the number of this telephone?” he asked in an unconcerned way.

“That’s not possible. Please hang up the telephones,” Sergey huffed, “Blyat! We’ll have to find another place to be able to be contacted. We cannot give this number to a known foreign agent. We’d get shot, you idiot!”

“The number works,” I reported, sitting studiously and thoughtfully at the desk.

“Get out of my chair, punk,” Sergey hit the back of my head and picked up by my collar and pushed me into the living room again.

We sat in a stalemate in the living room with Sergey, the chief agent, pacing the floor thinking. The two other agents looked rather sheepish and unsure about how to proceed and exchanged glances at each other every few moments for moral support. Everybody was at once very tense and unsure. Somehow, I felt I had the upper hand in this situation. Without me, they had no way to find Del, or else they would have been looking for him already someplace else instead of having waited for me to pop my head up again in Nizhniy. It slowly dawned on me as I watched the two agents and their superior officer scramble to get back on top of their strategy that perhaps this was not an official operation. Otherwise, why didn’t they have further resources at hand to track down state secrets? Why were they relying on a student and giving him so much influence? This wasn’t about the murder of Mr. P. This was about recovering the disc without letting their superiors in on the fact that they had lost track of it and it was in the open. They were in damage control and to ask for further resources would be to have to admit that they had lost their mark. I sat quietly observing their silent panic. I felt a bit of hope creep up in me.

Sergey abruptly ended the silence, “We will move to the hotel, and Sanning can call the kid back there.”

With this command, the other two quickly stood and moved toward me with hostile body language as if I had made a break for an open window. These men were attack dogs and all they knew how to do was bite! Their handler called them off.

“That’s not needed. The kid will have to check himself into the hotel without a bag over his head. I’m sure he is going to be very cooperative as he has no way around us,” and turning to me said in a grave tone, “Am I right, young man?”

I nodded in agreement, ready to take any olive branch of non-violence towards me that was being given, no matter how short or thin it was.

“Excuse me, sir,” I addressed Sergey politely, “I cannot check into a hotel wearing this, with blood all over my shirt. I have my own clean clothes in my apartment. Will you take me there and let me gather up the things I need to make this operation believable? Nor can I meet Sanning looking like this. He’ll see me and know to disappear again knowing exactly who is handling me. I must look myself or you won’t get your disc back and I’ll go to jail for murder and espionage. Something I know I don’t want.”

Sergey gave an understanding and agreeing nod.

We headed down the elevator and out to the waiting black Volga and sped through town, dodging street cars and old ladies crossing the road.

“I assume I don’t have to tell you my home address…,” I muttered with some irony from the back seat squished between Sergey and the second agent who enjoys punching people in the face. No response from the three, humorless counter-intelligence officers in the car. They all looked straight ahead. I found the comment rather humorous and felt my wits coming back to me after taking a beating and bleeding from Brutus, sitting left of me.

It wasn’t dark at all at seven-thirty when we arrived at Prolataraskaya metro station. The car was parked a distance from my apartment and Sergey and I walked together to my apartment. I had zipped up my jacket to hide the blood-stained undershirt. The left side of my face was swollen and aching, but luckily my eye hadn’t become swollen. I could see fine. As it was evening already the old ladies had gone inside to roost. Any earlier and they would have been outside still peeling potatoes and cutting vegetables outside chirping away like barnyard chickens. The Sunday evening was still and warm.

Through the familiar dark entrance, up a half flight of stairs, directly into the right dark corner of the landing I found my door by touch alone. It was dark enough for me maybe to make a dash for the door, but I knew that I couldn’t stay hidden long from the long arm of the secret police. They had patience and means longer than I could hold my breath. My keys slid into the locks. One, two times around, click, clunk. The door popped open a crack, released from the grasp of its deadbolt and I put my shoulder into it and leaned to push it open. The apartment was dark and quiet. How I hoped nobody would be there.