Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

Instead of taking the longer ring route around the city as Sergey prescribed I do, I decided to travel right under the Kremlin and Red Square to reach the other side of the city and then one stop further to Kyivskaya. I was curious to understand from any reaction that Sergey might give at the hotel about my choice of metro lines, to signal if I was really being followed by another colleague agent of his, or if these three were really working outside of official orders. From the platform of the ring route, or the brown line, I could just see the platform for the red line down a small flight of stairs, that would take me to the same place, but perhaps without an FSB tail. As I saw the wind of the approaching train begin to blow the hair of the travelers standing on the platform below me, I quickly darted down the half flight of stairs and stood at the bottom to see who else might come down them to follow me. I waited for the exiting crowds to pass to the exit tunnels and then slipped in-between closing doors of the red line cars. I watched the platform behind me to see if anybody would appear looking on helplessly as the train pulled away. Nobody appeared. Either I was quick enough to shake the FSB tail, or there was nobody following me through the underground tunnels that evening and Sergey was spinning tales—I wasn’t yet sure which.

I waited patiently in my hotel room in the Slavanskaya hotel watching both local and international news on the television. Not having watched television for nearly five months I felt like a kid again flipping through the different channels. I stopped on a random news report from the BBC. How professional the newsroom looked! How rich and clean London looked! After an hour, I took a shower and dressed again. I didn’t dare leave the room until I had made contact again with Sergey, so I ordered a late dinner from the room service menu. I fidgeted and paced the room waiting for my food. Sitting still seemed impossible. Being alone with my thoughts and the possibilities of the next day was frightening. I tried to watch a report on international cricket matches. I surfed channels on the television. At eleven o’clock Sergey let himself into the room. I didn’t ask how he had a key. It didn’t interest me. We looked at each other with suspicion.

Sergey broke our mutual silence, “Good to see you kept our agreement.” I nodded without speaking. I kept my eyes on him.

“We have about twelve hours until you meet Sanning across the street. Until then you must stay in this room until I come back tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. You may not use the telephone. Watch as much television as you like. Please, relax and enjoy some good American food tonight. The service in this hotel is better than any Russian hotel,” Sergey commented in a patronizing way.

I nodded again without speaking. I was waiting for any comment from him about my stunt in the metro earlier. If he knew about it, it didn’t seem to bother him. I had to know.

“Sorry about getting the metro lines wrong. I misread the signs. I was nervous and took the wrong line,” I lied.

“You know your way around Moscow, do you? You seemed pretty confident when you lost our tail at Komsomolskaya, yet arrived here right on time,” he said with a smile, “Just don’t try something like that again tomorrow. Tomorrow we will shoot you if we need to. Don’t test me again,” Sergey retorted.

I nodded again submissively without offering excuses. He knew what I was doing, and we both understood that he had underestimated my familiarity with Moscow. Sergey left the room with visible displeasure. I bolted and chained the door as he left and collapsed on the bed and fell asleep, exhausted both physically and mentally from the intensity of last forty-eight hours.

I slept until the sun of the following morning woke me around eight o’clock. I woke with a start and jumped to the window to try to remember where I was. As I pulled open the drapes the sunshine flooded in, and below me, I could see the snaking Moscow River and just across that the menacing skyscraper that houses the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that stood at the foot of the famous Arbat street. I could see the map in my head. We were just a mile or two from Red Square and the Kremlin. The Supreme Soviet building was just across the river to the north of the hotel and the American Embassy sat just behind that. If I started running I could be there in fifteen-minutes, if my legs would hold out and if my handlers didn’t spot me first, catch me and beat me. It was all too risky so I did my best to put the panic of out my head. I sat down on the bed again and waited for Sergey and ten o’clock.

The chance that Del would have already anticipated this entire situation and had a plan was the only sliver of hope that I felt I had. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to slip away with guards in the hallways and the next room. I would have to wait until I was out in the open again with some distance between me and them. I turned it all over in my head again.

Would they move quickly to apprehend Del? Would they really just let me go? Wouldn’t they just take us both and dump us on the edge of town in a shallow grave? Would Del have the data with him? We didn’t talk about him bringing any data with him. Surely, if he had what the FSB was after he was keeping it someplace safe. If he really was an agent of the CIA, this information was already in the Embassy, or already long ago moved out of the country in a diplomatic pouch. What was Sergey really after? Why would Del stick his neck out for me if he even suspected I was being handled and managed by the FSB to get him to show his face? The questions were endless and they played over and over again on a loop in my head making me nervous and fidgety. At precisely ten o’clock there was a knock on the door.

At a quarter past twelve, I was standing in front of the Kyivskiy station facing Europa Square and looking again directly over the river to the same skyscraper I could see out my hotel window. It loomed large on the skyline, making it look deceptively close. Having walked most of Moscow the year prior, I understood that sprinting to a landmark in the distance in this city scape could easily turn into a marathon. Russia is a broad country and nothing is as close as it seems.

While I stood waiting at the taxi stand to be found by Del, Sergey and his men sat in three different types of cars in the chaotically designed parking and waiting area. Each was accompanied by a local Moscow agent. With no perceivable order to the way cars and taxis should park, there was no way for the untrained eye to spot these tails as being focused on me and whoever should approach me. Even those local operatives who stood outside their cars and leaned casually against a fender, arms folded over pot bellies, seemed to fit right in. I worried that Del would not spot the trap. Another part of me hoped he wouldn’t. Del showing up meant a chance for my escape.

Despite my familiarity with Moscow, it was still difficult for me to blend into a crowd of locals. My face, my hair, my clothes were always going to be different and the locals could sense it. While I waited on the curb I was approached by several cabbies asking for a fare. They would repeat poorly memorized phrases in English to attract my attention. Most would take me any place in Moscow for twenty US dollars. I thanked them all and brushed them off. I told them I was waiting for a friend to collect me from the curb. I waited and watched glued to that spot on the sidewalk to see Del emerge from the greenery in the park along the river, or out of the train station, and walk up behind me. I looked for an Embassy vehicle with diplomatic plates… and immunity! Instead, another taxi driver, unkempt, but courteous, approached me with his eyes downcast offering to take me any place in Moscow for seventy-six US dollars. My ears perked up. I spoke back in English.