Robin Cook - Vector

The day had started badly during Yuri’s first fare. As he was heading down Second Avenue, a bicyclist kicked a dent in the passenger-side door of Yuri’s cab after complaining that Yuri had cut him off. Yuri had jumped out and lavished the jerk with a string of Russian expletives. Yuri had initially intended on being more physically aggressive but quickly changed his mind. The cyclist was his height, squarely built, as angry as Yuri, and obviously in far better physical shape. At age forty-four, Yuri had let himself go. He was overweight and soft, and he knew it.

A slight thump coming from the rear of his car jolted Yuri. He leaned out his open window, shook his fist, and with his heavy accent, cursed the taxi driver behind him for bumping his car.

“Up yours,” the driver called back. “Move!”

“Where do you want me to go?” Yuri yelled. “What’s the matter with you!

Yuri settled back into his beaded seat. He ran an anxious hand through his thick brown, almost black hair. Reaching up, he turned his rearview mirror to look at himself. His eyes were red and his face was flushed. He knew he had to calm down, otherwise he’d have a coronary. What he needed was a shot of vodka.

“What a joke!” Yuri muttered angrily in Russian. He wasn’t referring to the current traffic situation but rather to his whole life. Metaphorically his life had a lot in common with the stalled traffic. It was dead in the water, and as a result, Yuri was completely disillusioned. By sad experience he now knew that the enticing American dream that had been his driving force was a sham, one foisted onto the world by the American Jewish-dominated media.

Ahead the cars began to move. Yuri lurched his car forward, hoping at least to get through the bottled-up intersection, but it was not to be. The car in front stopped short. Yuri was forced to do likewise. Then the taxi behind him hit him again. This second collision, like the first, was merely a bump, certainly not enough to do any damage, but for Yuri it added insult to injury.

Yuri stuck his head out the window again. “What the hell is the matter with you? Is this your first day driving?”

“Shut up, you goddamn foreigner,” the driver behind yelled back. “Why don’t you take your ass home to wherever the hell it was you came from.”

Yuri started to respond but changed his mind. He settled back into his seat and exhaled noisily like a punctured tire deflating. The driver’s comment had unwittingly awakened a sense of toska that descended over Yuri like a heavy wool blanket. Toska was a Russian word that connoted melancholy, depression, yearning, anguish, weariness, and nostalgia suffered all at once in the form of deep, psychic pain.

Yuri stared ahead with unseeing eyes. For the moment the disillusionment and anger about America was swept away by an evocative reminiscence. All at once an image popped into his mind of himself and his brother going to school on a crystalline, frosty morning in his home city of Sverdlovsk, USSR. In his mind’s eye he could see the communal kitchen with its conviviality, and in his heart he could remember the pride of being part of the mighty Soviet Empire.

Of course there had been some deprivations under the communist regime, like occasionally having the women wait in line for milk and other staples. But it hadn’t been as bad as people had said or as bad as the fools here in America wanted to believe. In fact, the equality for everyone, excluding those high in the party, had been refreshing and conducive to friendship. There certainly had been less social conflict than here in America. At the time, Yuri didn’t realize how good it had been. But now he remembered, and he was going home. Yuri was going back to Rossiya-matoshka, or little mother Russia. He’d made that decision months earlier.

But he wasn’t leaving until he had had his revenge. He’d been deceived and denied. Now he would strike back in a way that would get everyone’s attention in this smug, fraudulent country. And once home in Russia, he would offer his revenge as a gift to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the true patriot of rodina , the motherland, who would surely return the glory of the USSR if given the chance.

Yuri’s musings were rudely interrupted by one of the back doors of his cab being yanked open. A passenger tossed in an ostrich briefcase and then climbed in after it.

Irritably Yuri regarded his fare in the rearview mirror. He was a small, mustached man in an expensive Italian suit, white shirt, and silk tie. A matching pocket square ballooned out of his pocket. Yuri knew the man must be a businessman or a banker.

“Union Bank, 820 Fifth Avenue,” the man said. He sat back and flipped open a cellular phone.

Yuri continued to stare at the man. He saw something he’d not seen at first. The man was wearing a yarmulke.

“What’s the matter?” the man asked. “Are you off duty?”

“No, I’m on duty,” Yuri said morosely. He rolled his eyes before turning the meter on and then gazing out at the stalled traffic. It was just what he needed: a Jewish banker, one of those creeps running the world into the ground.

While the man made a call, Yuri was able to inch ahead by one car length. At least now he was on the brink of the troublesome intersection. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He toyed with the idea of telling the Jew to get the hell out of his cab. But he didn’t. At least the creep was paying for him to sit there in traffic.

“Whoa, a lot of congestion,” the man said after he’d finished his call.

He leaned forward and poked his head through the gap in the Plexiglas divider. “I could walk faster than this.”

“Be my guest,” Yuri said.

“I got time,” the man said. “It feels good to sit down for a moment. Luckily my next meeting isn’t until after ten-thirty. Do you think you can get me to my destination by then?”

“I’ll try,” Yuri said indifferently.

“Is that a Russian accent?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Yuri said. He sighed. This guy was going to drive him mad.

“I suppose I could have guessed by reading your name off the taxi license,” the man said. “What part of Russia are you from, Mr. Yuri Davydov?”

“Central Russia,” Yuri said.

“Very far from Moscow?”

“About eight hundred miles east. In the Ural Mountains.”

“My name is Harvey Bloomburg.”

Yuri glanced up at his fare in the rearview mirror and shook his head imperceptibly. He was mystified why people like Harvey wanted to tell him personal things. Yuri couldn’t have cared less what Harvey’s name was.

“I just got back from Moscow a week or so ago,” Harvey said.

“Really?” Yuri questioned. He perked up. It had been a long time since Yuri had been there. He remembered the delight he’d felt the first time he’d visited Red Square, with the Cathedral of St. Basil sparkling like an architectural jewel. He’d never seen anything so beautiful or moving.

“I was there for almost five days,” Harvey said.

“You’re lucky,” Yuri said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Ha!” Harvey voiced with disdain and a wave of his hand. “I couldn’t wait to get out. As soon as my meetings were over I fled to London. Moscow is out of control, what with the crime and the economic situation. The place is a disaster.”

Yuri felt a renewed pang of anger from the knowledge that the current problems ravaging Russia had been created by the likes of Harvey Bloomburg and the rest of the worldwide Zionist conspiracy. Yuri could feel his face flush, but he held his tongue. Now he really needed a glass of vodka.

“How long have you been here in the States?” Harvey asked.

“Since 1994,” Yuri grumbled. It had only been five years, but it felt like ten. At the same time Yuri could remember the first day he’d arrived as if it had been yesterday. He’d flown from Toronto, Canada, after a three-day problem with U.S. immigration, which resulted in his obtaining only a temporary visa.