Val Karren: The Deceit of Riches

“Let me guess, you have more photos?” I remarked offhand.

“There is a term that we use in our business, Mr. Turner, it’s called ‘chatter’, and since Thursday the network has been replete with chatter about what happened at the museum. We know that Santander was there. We believe he was there to turn over data, Russian military data, to a wider terrorist network. Do you have any knowledge about the whereabouts of that data?” Arkadin stopped and looked me in the eyes. He was an open book. He had no shadow agenda and hid nothing. The USA wanted that data and saw me as their only way to get close to it.

“No, sir. I do not know where that data is,” I replied directly.

“Do you know the whereabouts of Santander,” he asked point blank.

“As I told you yesterday, sir, I do not know where the man is or where he was going,” I reiterated.

“How did you arrange your meeting on Wednesday?” he was getting aggressive.

“What’s in the data that the United States wants so badly?” I questioned back.

“We want to prevent this from getting into the wrong hands!” he emphasized.

“How did you find out about it?” I asked naively.

“Mr. Turner, the United States has the most powerful intelligence gathering tools in the entire world. We are professional security and intelligence officers. There is very little in the world that happens that we don’t know about first.” Arkadin was clearly annoyed at my amateur status, “Now tell me, how did you arrange your meeting on Wednesday.”

“By telephone,” I answered with an obvious irony.

“He just called you on the telephone, in Russia, and set up a meeting to hand over highly classified military secrets?” Arkadin was getting frustrated.

“No, for lunch. I met him for lunch on the Arbat, just like you saw. He called and asked me to meet him at twelve-thirty.” I was answering the man truthfully but he thought I was evading an answer.

“Mr. Turner! You are testing my patience and when that runs out the embassy services will be closed to you. Do you understand me?” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry but I am telling you the truth. I can’t make it like in the movies with secret passwords and computer chips in my brain. He called me on the telephone. Told me where to meet him. We had lunch, we talked, we went to the museum. I got shot. Here I am. Here you are. I was not involved in any transfer of military secrets to terrorists. I am a student. Sanning, or Santander was posing as a business man, we got to be friends, he helped me with some school projects, he tried to recruit me for what I thought was CIA work,” I bellowed at Arkadin and finished by looking at his silent colleague with a look of exasperation. He stood as still as a statue without a wince, not a drop of sweat on his brow in the warm afternoon sun and Moscow humidity, and then he spoke.

“Mr. Turner, I am special agent Jones, I have clearance to take you out of Russia today if you can help us contact Mr. Santander. Do you have any contact channels with him?” was the direct, uncluttered offer and question from the secret agent.

Arkadin turned a bit flustered and glared at his colleague for his interruption.

“I had a number to call. It’s a Swedish telephone number. I no longer have that number. If I can get my bag from the museum, that was checked there in the wardrobe, I could possibly supply you with that number. Can you get me that bag, sir? It was checked under number 375,” I replied calmly and businesslike.

“We trust we will find you here again later tonight?” the special agent asked.

“They have me under guard. I’m not going anywhere,” I confirmed.

They both turned and walked away to the exit, leaving me in the garden alone. I sat down on a bench and sighed a huge relief when they were out of sight. I felt my shoulder ache from the deep breath. I felt a twinge of anger at Del for getting me shot, but also a twinge of relief that he did what he did to get me out of the hands of the FSB. Was I ready to turn him in? Did I even have the ability to turn him in? I figured he would already be two steps ahead of me, the Americans and the Russians, and wouldn’t reply again to a call to his Swedish answering machine. With that, I resolved to turn over everything I had to Arkadin and Jones and use the get-out-of-jail-free-card that they were offering.

Just after finishing my dinner alone in my room, listening to a classical music radio station, Nelya, who should have been off duty, entered my room in a hurried manner and started quickly emptying my drawer with an urgency I hadn’t before seen in her. For the few days that she had been caring for me she was always very deliberate, never rash.

“Nelya! What are you doing? What’s going on?” I asked in a growing sense of panic. I watched the door as she demanded I get dressed. She would help me put on shoes and socks. I obeyed. Once I had my blue jeans on she quickly slid my socks over my feet and wiggled my shoes on to my feet and tied the laces.

“You’ll need a shirt!” she noticed I still had on surgical scrubs with my right arm immobilized under the loose-fitting top. She ran out of the room and ten seconds later came back with a light jacket, put my left arm through a sleeve, draped it over the right shoulder and zipped it up for me, leaving me looking like an amputee, right sleeve hanging empty and limp.

“Will you please tell me what is going on?” I demanded as she walked me down the corridor to the elevators.

“Dobrynin phoned me. He is coming to collect you now.” She was out of breath and had to inhale quick breaths before finishing her message. “Somebody just made an attempt on his life and he is afraid that they will be coming for you next. He will take you someplace safe.”

“I thought I was safe here!” I protested running my left hand through my short hair and looking instinctively for a hiding place in the hospital department. The doors to the elevator opened before I was able to decide on any alternate course. I followed the nurse instead into the elevator with my heart in my throat pounding with a refreshed burst of adrenaline that I seemed to have become used to after the last two weeks.

When the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, to my surprise Nelya did not rush us out into the lobby and out the front doors. She calmly brushed her hair into place, took me by the arm to give an appearance of a nurse aiding a patient to take a walk. We did not try to leave the secured zone but lingered inside by the exit to the gardens and patios. We found a bench in the relief of the corridor, just out of sight from the elevators and the security check point at the entrance to the hospital.

“We must wait here for Major Dobrynin. So now we just wait,” she whispered and patted my good arm that she was still holding.

After a few minutes of restless sitting and shifting my backside on the hard marble bench, I tried to stand up, but Nelya pulled me back to the bench.

She hissed in a whisper. “Do not stand up. If you stand they can see you from the elevator and the doors!” I sat down again.

“Who? Who can see me?” I asked in dismay, seeing nobody paying us any attention.

Before Nelya could answer, three cars pulled into the circular drive. Screeching tires were heard coming to sudden stops from high speed. The troika took up defensive positions in front of the main entrance-exit of the hospital, parking at angles to block a possible pursuit of the lead, or maybe a getaway car, parked a length ahead of the other two.

The cars were black, late model Mercedes sedans with all the windows blacked out. Blue lights flickered from the front and back windows and grills from all three cars. This was an official convoy. Had they come for me? One of the sedans had the passenger door dented and the wing mirror hanging like a lame appendage. The damage looked recent, the mirror hanging by wires.