When the Past Came Calling

by Larry S. Kaplan

  Her lustrous brown eyes softened and then lit up with a new understanding as the meaning of my words became clear. But then a shadow crossed her face, and she looked distressed at whatever thoughts she was now contemplating.

  “But what about the letter, David? That should have made everything clear to you. If you had feelings for me, you would have written me back—you would have tried to find me.”

  “That’s even harder to explain, Lena. My friend, Benny, who you gave the letter to, was angry at me then, and his anger lasted for a very long time. You remember our rock group…well, Benny had been our manager and I had kicked him out. It ruined our friendship. We’d been completely out of touch until a few weeks ago. That’s when he showed me the letter. For the first time.”

  Lena looked at me like she wanted to believe me, but before she could say anything, Kostay suggested that the four of us sit down together in Philip Montgomery’s office since he had some important information to impart.

  “I promise,” he reassured us, “when you hear what I have to say, everything that’s happened will make sense.”

  So we followed Montgomery into the back, to a small room spacious enough for a desk and a table surrounded by some chairs. Lena and I took seats next to each other, and we held each other’s hands very tightly. I felt in that moment I would never let her go again, of that I had no doubt. Kostay and Montgomery sat down across from us.

  “So,” Kostay began, “there has been a lot of double, even triple dealing going on—not by anyone in this room but by others. And the three of you here have been the victims.

  “First, I’d like to explain something to David. The Truce of God had nothing to do with the release of the bomb over Greenland. I know that is what you were told—or maybe what you surmised when you were also made to believe the Truce of God people had kidnapped a scientist. How do I know this? Because we—the Soviet Union—deserve the credit for that disaster. One of our scientists had infiltrated Holt Industries, which is where Benny’s father worked. It is very unfortunate that Mr. Friedman took the blame on himself and committed suicide because of it, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with him. It was a Soviet plot designed specifically to embarrass the United States—and we succeeded brilliantly.”

  “I understand from what Kostay has told me,” Montgomery interjected, “that you believed I pretended to have an interest in remote control technology in order to learn state secrets from Steve—Benny’s father.”

  Kostay elaborated on this point. “Conrad told me you had come up with that conclusion, David, and he decided to run with it. I believe it was his cohort Ms. Newton who shared the information with him after a conversation with you. He wanted you to believe the Truce of God were the bad guys who kidnapped Whidden. That way, he might convince you to deliver Benny to him on the pretext that your friend might remember something helpful since they had been next-door neighbors.”

  “I assure you,” Montgomery explained, “my interest at the time was simply in remote control airplanes—nothing more.”

  From the look on his face, I couldn’t help but believe him.

  “Second,” Kostay continued, “the Truce of God had nothing to do with giving the Friedmans their house in the Towers, the one next door to the Montgomerys.”

  “But wait a second,” I interrupted. “The number of the real estate trust—713111—it was the same number on the bracelet Lena showed me. How do you explain that?”

  “That’s easy,” replied Kostay. “Did you actually see the real estate trust documents?”

  “No, but the FBI…”

  “Precisely, you were told by the FBI, by Sandra Newton, to be exact, that it was the number of the trust. But you never saw it yourself. The fact is Ms. Newton made it up, David. Made it up so you would think the Truce of God had plotted to set up Steven Friedman.”

  “But how would she know the number to make it up in the first place?”

  “Because you told her, don’t you remember? Conrad explained the whole thing to me. You told Sandra that a cameraman at Michael Eisenberg’s funeral had the number 713111 tattooed on his forearm and that it was a number connected with the Truce of God. So later she told you it was the number of the real estate trust.”

  It did seem to make sense, except for one thing. I thought about whether I should reveal it—reveal it in front of Lena and her father—or just share it with Kostay in private. It was the one fact that still seemed to implicate the Truce of God.

  “You look like you still have doubts, David,” Kostay said, evidently able to read me like a book. “What troubles you?”

  I decided I would tell all. “What troubles me is this. There was a cameraman at Michael’s funeral. And he did have the number 713111 tattooed on his forearm. I saw it—I didn’t dream it up. And this was before I said anything to Sandra, or anyone, about that number being related to the Truce of God. So what was someone from the Truce of God doing filming Michael’s funeral, unless—”

  “Unless what, David?” Lena asked, looking directly into my eyes.

  “Unless it was to make a video record of Michael’s friends who attended his funeral, so that the Truce of God could look us up to find out if Michael had shared anything incriminating.”

  “I think I can explain that one,” Lena said. “We heard about the death of your US Attorney—even here in Siberia. It was international news. And in any event, we always try to keep up with current events in Chicago since many of our members still live there.

  “I also knew that Michael had been a friend of yours. You mentioned he was your debate partner the night we met. I think I remember every word of that evening, David. Anyway, I presumed you’d be at his funeral, so I asked one of our congregants, a videographer by trade, if he would go and try to blend in while making a video of the attendees. I wanted to see what you looked like, David—get a sense of what had become of you. And when I saw the tape…well, I knew instantly that my feelings toward you hadn’t changed and never could.”

  “So the redheaded cameraman with 713111 tattooed on his arm was there for the express purpose of videotaping me?”

  “Yes, and that’s why it was so ironic that you helped him with his camera—which he later told me about.”

  “But then, why would he kill Benny’s mother?”

  “What?” Lena blurted out, clearly astonished.

  “When Benny’s mother was killed, a neighbor said they saw a stranger in the vicinity—a thin, red-haired man. He matched the description of the cameraman at Michael’s funeral.”

  “Did you talk to this witness?” Kostay asked.

  “No,” I responded, “but Sandra—”

  “She made it up,” Kostay interrupted. “She wanted you to believe that the Truce of God was responsible for killing Benny’s mother to further convince you that Benny was in mortal danger so that finding him was critical. Conrad’s people believed Mrs. Friedman had to know where her son was hiding, and from what I have learned, they didn’t mean to kill her. I believe she suffered a fatal heart attack during their overzealous interrogation, and then they decided to use her death as leverage with you.”

  That got me thinking about how I’d been duped by Sandra Newton. But I wasn’t alone. She’d deceived Michael as well—and he was a lot smarter than me.

  Then aloud I said, “I should’ve realized that Sandra wasn’t what she seemed that first day in my office. She was probing into my life far more than she needed to. She became really interested in a letter that happened to be lying on my desk. Asking me about…what was it…oh yeah, I remember…something called the WRP.”

  Kostay pounced on this reference. “WRP—why that’s the Workers’ Revolutionary Party.”

  “No. It was a letter from a law firm—Wrangle, Reynolds, and Peterson. Their letterhead logo is WRP, but she must have thought it was something else. She seemed engrossed by it at first, when she saw the initials. She picked it up and studied it…until, I guess, she was satisfied that it was just a letter from a
law firm.”

  There was a sudden lull in the conversation, as if everyone was stymied at this point.

  “After such a long trip, you must be hungry,” Montgomery remarked. “This is a lot of information for you to digest, and you’ll probably think clearer on a full stomach. Let’s go into our kitchen. We have some food already prepared for you.”

  “Herring?” I asked, negatively anticipating a favorite Russian dish that made me queasy just thinking about it.

  “No,” Montgomery responded. “Cheeseburgers, all ready to be heated up. We like to tailor our hospitality to our guests.”

  Chapter 35

  May 10, 1989

  After a remarkably delicious feast of cheeseburgers and Coca-Cola, I was energized and ready to ask the many questions I had for Lena, her father, and Kostay. I had been played by so many people I needed to be certain they were really on the level.

  “Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?” I asked Montgomery.

  “Please do,” he replied, appearing eager to put my doubts to rest.

  “What’s your connection to the Soviet Union? Conrad said you were probably a spy and that you used the Truce of God as a front to destabilize the United States.”

  “Actually, I, personally, had no connection to the Soviet Union before we came to Omsk in 1966. I come from a very wealthy family, David. That’s why we could afford the house in Lincolnwood Towers. In fact, it was my father’s house, before he passed away. As you might have guessed from my last name, my family is of Scottish descent, but my wife was born here. She died when my daughters were young, and her sister, Toni, moved in to help me with their upbringing.

  “Perhaps because of the wealth I inherited, and the fact that I never needed to work to support my family, I began to study theology. In the course of my exploration, I discovered the Truce of God, a medieval religion, and found myself drawn to its principles. It’s a religion of peace, David, and makes no judgments on other faiths. So I was astonished to find that of all the religions that have flourished through history, the Truce of God—the one that made the most sense to me—had such a brief and inglorious life.

  “I learned there were still a few adherents to its doctrine in the United States—mostly people who the mainstream would dismiss as fringe elements. Since they had no real leader—and I could bring some legitimacy to the group by virtue of my standing in the community as a person of some wealth—I sought to organize the movement and empower them through my leadership.

  “But then, in 1965, my youngest daughter Mary died. Toni had been like a second mother to her. And Toni had come to embrace the Truce of God as I had…maybe even more so. She started doing missionary work, traveling to remote, severely poverty-stricken places to help promote the concept and practice of universal peace.

  “Toni took Mary on one of these trips, to a remote village in India. Since I had left my children’s medical care to Toni, I didn’t know she had an aversion to vaccinations. She believed vaccines were dangerous and that our bodies were designed to take care of themselves. Unbeknownst to me, she refused to allow Mary to be vaccinated for polio. And since my daughters were homeschooled, there were no school authorities involved to insist on her vaccination.

  “The village in India that Toni took Mary to…well, polio hadn’t yet been eradicated there. Mary contracted the disease, and it proved fatal. Toni couldn’t forgive herself—in fact, she literally lost her mind when Mary died. Obviously, we were all devastated, but eventually it became impossible to live with Toni. I looked for someplace that could help her. Even, perhaps, here in her native country. But I was assured that the best care was to be found in the United States.

  “After we found a suitable mental hospital for Toni, the Cook County Sheriff’s office started making inquiries into our church. Before she was placed in the hospital, Toni had experimented with various occult practices to bring Mary back from the dead, and somehow the word got out. After a time, the rumors that ensued led the authorities to regard our religion with suspicion, and they started to restrict what we could do. For example, they refused to allow our house to be used as a church.

  “Then we heard from members of my wife’s family in Omsk. For years they’d been begging us to come for a visit. When I wrote back, mentioning my devotion to the Truce of God and my recent problems with religious persecution, they encouraged me to reestablish the church there. They assured me that the location would be so remote that we would never come under any kind of official scrutiny, and they were convinced that their community would embrace the tenets of the Truce of God. It seemed like the perfect solution to our problems, so I decided we should move to Omsk.”

  “And what about Toni?” I asked. “You just left her in the mental hospital and never came back to visit?”

  “We couldn’t,” Lena cut in. “We wanted to. I wanted to come back and try to find you, too…even though I thought you ignored my letter. But the Soviet authorities…although they didn’t bother us about the church, they refused to let us return to the United States, even for a visit.”

  “But what about the scientist, Emil Whidden?” I asked. “I was told they found a pamphlet of yours, Philip, in his locker…dealing with the genetic theory he was working on? Is that part true?”

  “Another fabrication,” was Kostay’s hasty reply. “There is no Dr. Whidden. It was all made up: first, to give you a reason to find Benny for them; and when that didn’t work, a reason to get you to come to a place like Omsk to meet with Lena so you could be taken care of…by me…with nobody ever finding out.”

  “And Lena,” I asked, “you don’t work for Spacebo? We didn’t have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow…to discuss customs and import-export law?”

  “No,” Lena replied softly. “I don’t even know what Spacebo is or whether it even exists.”

  “It exists,” Kostay interjected. “They used a real place just in case David tried to check it out before I got to him.”

  “And the name, Olinsky?”

  “That was my mother’s maiden name, and I’ve never used it,” Lena explained. “My last name’s always been Montgomery.”

  “So that was another lie…”I said.

  “Yes,” Kostay replied. “It was just a means of getting you to Omsk so you could be dealt with quietly. Once Lena’s aunt put the city of Omsk into play, they created this elaborate story about Lena being a successful fashion buyer, using her mother’s surname, and using your profession to legitimize a meeting with her so you could locate her father. But the real goal was getting you here.”

  I wondered if this incredible-sounding plot could be true.

  “But what about Whidden’s research,” I asked, “into inherited memories? Was all that made up too?”

  “Here is what I know,” Kostay replied. “Conrad told me he needed to impress you and your friend Michael with the importance of a scientific discovery that would pose a grave risk in the wrong hands. He was well aware of Brisbane’s research into inherited memories. So he got Brisbane to play along and attribute its discovery to a fictitious scientist. A scientist who had been brainwashed by the Truce of God and could not be found. But Brisbane is the man behind the discovery, not the made-up Dr. Whidden. And as you know, Brisbane is certainly not missing.”

  I pictured the middle-aged, non-descript scientist who had quizzed me about monarch butterflies. He had seemed so benign. He had played his part in fooling me exceptionally well. But there was something else bothering me I decided to share.

  “Kostay, I’m still having a tough time understanding how you fit into all of this…with the Truce of God, I mean. How is it that you know Philip and Lena? That seems like an amazing coincidence.”

  “You’re right,” Kostay replied. “That would be some huge coincidence. But I didn’t know them. When Conrad told me about the job he wanted to me to do—and it required that I travel to Omsk—I decided to look into this Truce of God church he told me about. So I pretended to be interested in possibly joini
ng, right, Philip?”

  “That’s correct. And I must admit you didn’t fit the typical profile, based on what you told us about your background. But we like to give everybody a chance, and so we explained our religion to you—as we would to anyone—”

  “And I must admit,” interrupted Kostay, “I was rather impressed. And when I met Lena, and knowing from Conrad something about your connection to each other…well, I guess Conrad was right.” He winked. “I do have a soft spot, even a guy like me, for a love story like that. How could I put an end to such a promising destiny?

  “But Conrad’s work is not finished,” Kostay continued. “I will report to him that I have fulfilled his objective – taken out the target so to speak. In fact, he is waiting right now to hear from me. But your friend Benny is next on Conrad’s list—and he knows he can be found in Mexico City. That much he learned from the photos of the manifesto taken by your seatmate on the flight to Moscow.

  “I mean, David, you could decide to simply stay here in Omsk for the rest of your life and live happily ever after with Lena. Conrad would think you are dead, and that would be the end of it. Or you might feel you have to act to protect your friend Benny. I have no further stake in this. But if you feel that you do, I can arrange for all of the necessary papers to get you into Mexico City.”

  It was a no-brainer for me. I looked at Lena, and she seemed to understand. I would have to go to Mexico City. I would have to find Benny before Conrad did.

  Chapter 36

  May 13, 1989

  I flew from Omsk to Mexico City via Moscow, where I had to endure a thirty-six-hour layover. I arrived in Mexico City on a Saturday. The papers Kostay had prepared for me worked as promised with every customs and passport control officer I encountered along the way.

  The Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City is at an altitude of 7,316 feet, and descending through the surrounding mountain peaks on the approach was both breathtaking and a bit frightening. I was happy to be alive as the wheels touched down, kicking up runway dust into an already smoggy sky. Although as far as Tristan Conrad knew, Kostay had put a bullet in my head several days earlier as I sat in the backseat of his Lada on a desolate road on the Siberian tundra.