Days went by and Morgan had no more trouble from Bortsov’s men beyond angry looks. He shared most of his meals with Grushin, who told him about life on the outside, about his political radical girlfriend, and about how he was worried about her and how much he missed her. Morgan said little in return, and next to nothing about his life back home. But the young man was glad enough just to be listened to.
Morgan would’ve preferred to think he was above it, that he was better as a lone wolf. But the young man’s company was humanizing, in a place where most other interactions were opportunistic at best, cruel at worst.
It was about two weeks into Morgan’s internment when Vanya interrupted a dinnertime conversation with an announcement.
“Detonation tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we won’t get picked to do it, and have a day of rest.”
They got picked. It was a random draw, and theirs was the short straw—Morgan’s team and another, which Morgan saw that morning included the man he had defended on his first day there, the Arab. The twelve of them marched alone to the mine, along with six armed guards. The rest of the prisoners stayed behind and enjoyed a rare day of rest from hard labor.
On their arrival at the mine, the guards unlocked the dynamite shed and told them to get to work.
“Come,” said Vanya to Morgan.
“Why me?”
“What, you what me to do it? You are new. You do it.” Seniority applied in the mines, apparently.
Vanya first took a satchel from a shelf and stocked it with wires, detonators and tape. He then opened a green arms chest, packed with sticks of dynamite. “You carry.” He loaded it with eight sticks as Morgan held it.
Morgan lifted it carefully over his shoulder and walked with smooth and precise steps, trying to jog the volatile cargo as little as possible. Vanya led all of them into the depths of the mines, where two spots had been marked for detonation. Once they were there, Morgan set the satchel on the ground and the Arab came forward and drew out three sticks.
With deft fingers, he connected the detonators. While Morgan unwound the wire toward the mouth of the cave, the Arab set the sticks at the second site.
Once everything was ready, they unspooled the wire all the way to the outside. Vanya closed the heavy steel door and everyone stood clear. The Arab activated the charge on a car battery and the ground shook. Dust shot out from the corners of the door, which rumbled on its hinges.
The guards gave them a few minutes to wait for the dust to settle. They were smoking cigarettes, and in a rare moment of empathy offered each prisoner one. The Arab waved it away. Vanya smoked his with relish. Morgan took one and pocketed it. He might be able to trade. At least it might be a treat for Grushin.
They went back inside, coughing at the dust that was still thick in the air, dimming the reach of the electric lights. Vanya surveyed the collapsed rock.
“We did not do enough here,” he told Morgan. “We will need to do a second detonation.”
On the way back up, he knelt at a spot where stones had been knocked loose. The wire had been cut on a sharp edge.
“Shit. We do not have more. We will have to use fuses. I hate fuses.”
They went back for more dynamite. Morgan was given the job of carrying the satchel again. He, the Arab, and Vanya made their way back down, the dust now a bit clearer, to the first detonation site.
“This doesn’t look too safe,” Morgan said as the Arab set the sticks in the recess of the rock where they wanted to blow the new passage..
“Do it right this time,” said Vanya. He was pissy about all the extra work.
“Lighter,” said the Arab. Vanya reached over and lit the fuse.
“All right, clear the cave.”
They ran single file away from the hissing fuse. Ducking under a low passage, the Arab put his hand on a strut. Weakened by the explosions, it shifted, groaning, and then cracked. Morgan pushed him out of the way, and they rolled together on the ground. A section of the passage wall collapsed on top of Vanya. He was knocked forward and screamed. His leg was pinned against the ground.
“Help me!”
Morgan looked at the light of the fuse, burning not fifty feet away. How long did they have before it reached the stick of dynamite?
Morgan owed this man nothing. The sensible thing to do was to run away with everyone else and get clear of the blast before it went off.
Instead he grabbed a shovel. “Come on, help me!” he said to the Arab. He wedged the shovel under the rock and pushed down on the handle. It didn’t budge. “Help me!”
The Arab stepped forward and helped Morgan push the shovel down. They grunted at the exertion. With a creak, the stone moved a fraction of an inch. Under their combined strength, it rose, little by little, rocks shifting as it moved.
“Get him out!”
The Arab let go. Morgan held, giving every ounce of strength he had, as the man pulled Vanya’s considerable bulk backward, clear of the rock. Morgan let go, dropping to his hands and knees with exhaustion. The rock hit the cave floor, sending up a plume of dust.
“Move it!” cried Vanya.
Morgan and the Arab helped Vanya to his feet, and he limped, weight resting on their shoulders, as they moved together down the passage.
They walked barely ten paces when they were knocked off their feet by the blast. They collapsed into a pile on the cave floor, hot air running all around them. The passage behind them caved in, raising a cloud of dust. If they had gotten out five seconds later, they would have been buried.
“Is everyone all right?” the Arab asked.
Vanya didn’t answer, but he was moving and moaning, which was good enough.
“Let’s not do that again,” said Morgan.
Chapter Nine
That evening, Morgan sat to eat with Grushin at dinner that night, as usual. From their regular seats against the laundry building, he caught sight of the Arab doing his evening prayer halfway across the yard. At the back of the food line, Vanya was limping on an old-fashioned cast. That poor bastard. With a fracture like that, he needed to be in bed, but hell if Nevsky was going to be that compassionate.
At least Vanya caught something of a break. He was, Morgan found out, taken out of the mine and put on latrine duty.
Someone else was eating with them that day. An older man, his face deeply lined, what hairs were left him wispy and patchy. His eyes were sunken and haunted, but there was spirit in the geezer yet.
“Morgan,” Grushin had said when Morgan sat down. “This is Milosz. He is something of an institution around here. He has been here for many years, longer than anyone can remember. Even him.”
“How you like our home, young man?” Milosz said, in a raspy, guttural English.
“You speak English?”
“I learn in here. Sometimes there is British or American inside. They die or go away fast. But I learn. I learn good.”
“That you did,” said Morgan. “What are you in for?”
“I was fighter in Czechoslovakia,” he said. “In—” he turned and asked something of Grushin in Russian.
“Velvet Revolution,” Grushin said.
“Velvet Revolution!” Milosz said with a flourish of his hand. “I was leader.”
He related stories of his glory days before his capture, of beautiful women and killing Communists and daring escapes until he announced, “I go take a piss.” He rested a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Don’t get old. You piss all the time.”
“I’d rather that than the alternative.”
He helped Milosz to his feet and watched as the man walked toward the latrines. He commanded rare respect in the camp. Even the guards seemed to have some deference to the old man, and Bortsov’s men steered clear of him. No, there was something left of the outside in here after all. Respect for elders was too deeply ingrained to be rooted out all the way.
As he watched Milosz, Morgan saw the Arab walking over in their direction, a bowl of stew in his hand.
“I think that’s
for you,” said Grushin. Morgan stirred to stand up. “No, I was just leaving. Got some important business to attend to at the other side of the yard.”
Grushin made himself scarce, and the other man took a seat next to Morgan as he tipped the bowl of stew into his mouth, fatty broth filling his stomach. Both were facing forward and didn’t look one another in the eye.
“My name is Badri,” he said.
“Morgan.”
“American,” he said. “We should be enemies.”
“I guess we should.”
“There is honor in you. Perhaps you are a good man.”
“Nah. I’m just like every other asshole in here.”
“No. You are not. Most people here are criminals. People who are lost, who have no hope of righteousness. But you. I have been watching. You have a mind for justice, even in this place where there is none, not for any.”
“Those are big words,” Morgan said. “I see someone in trouble, I do something. It’s an instinct or something.” He sipped from his stew. It carried an aftertaste of rancid onion.
“Even one who should be your enemy.”
“Even.” Badri was testing him. He could tell.
“You have family?” Badri asked.
“Wife and daughter back home,” he said. “My daughter, she’s college-aged. You?”
“Wife, too, and two children,” he said. “But I haven’t seen them in a long time. I don’t know what has happened to them.” He rubbed his face. “Are you from the CIA? I do not know why else an American would be in here.”
Lying was going to do him no good. Plus, given the circumstances, it hardly seemed like it mattered. “I’m not CIA,” he said. “But I did work for an intelligence agency. Something clandestine. Totally secret. Not even working for the government, technically.”
A flash of ice-cold hatred passed before Badri’s eyes. “Then you are the enemy.”
“Well, I’m done with them anyway. I gave everything for my country, for the agency. And they betrayed me. Left me for dead. What are you here for?”
“For fighting the Great Satan,” he said. “For making jihad.”
They stared at each other in silence. Natural enemies, then?
Morgan scratched the scalp behind his ear. “Look, Badri, I’ve seen things. I’ve done things. I know what my country does, has done. Wars and bombing and assassinations for profit and ideology. Covering up war crimes and manipulating our people. I’m tired. I’m tired of the hypocrisy.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I saw something. In my most recent mission. I was doing reconnaissance in northwestern Syria. Town called Sarmada. A mission against the Islamic State. I was supposed to give my people the location of a group of leaders for a targeted bombing.
“Except when I got there, I saw a wedding. Women, old people, children. I told them not to fire. I told them to hold off.” He spit on the ground. “An entire family killed by a drone strike. A wedding party. Should’ve been the happiest moment of those young people’s lives. Instead, they died.” He gritted his teeth. “I’m sick of it, Badri. This has been festering in me a long time. I’m not one of them anymore.”
“Perhaps you see things as I do,” said Badri. “Perhaps you understand.”
“Well. It’s not like all that matters in here, does it?” He looked at the desolate wasteland surrounding the prison. A treeless wilderness, with no animals to be seen, cold and barren. “All that’s washed away. This is a corner of the world that God’s forgot. All we are in here is muscle and bone waiting to die.” Morgan took another mouthful of soup. “So I don’t see the harm in mortal enemies on the outside sharing a meal.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he said.
“Screw being right. I’m tired.”
Chapter Ten
Alex’s feet pounded pavement, a light summer shower cooling off her overheated body.
These days, she couldn’t do without her morning run. She’d long gone past the point when it was something she had to force her body to do, and now it was something her body craved, and would revolt if she did not.
She thought of her batch of recruits back at the training camp. They’d be at the range at this time, she reckoned. She realized she missed holding the rifle, missed shooting at a target, missed the endurance exercises and slogging through the mud and practicing first aid on her mates and stealth maneuvers.
She was thinking about checking out a local gun range when the music cut out in her earphones and the ringer sounded.
She stopped, catching her breath for three seconds before drawing her cell phone from its waterproof case and picking up.
“Hello?”
“How you get this number?” Through a heavy Russian accent, the man’s voice was nervous, slathered in a sort of manic paranoia.
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
“Don’t ask who it is. You called me.”
“I did?”
“You leave number.”
Then it hit her. “Is this Dobrynin? Valery Dobrynin?”
“Who are you?”
“Alex, I—Dan Morgan is my father.”
“How did you get number?”
“I found it in his things.”
The man swore in Russian. “The mudak was supposed to forget me.”
“Well, he didn’t. And you didn’t forget him either.”
“What do you want? You say he needs help?”
The rain started coming down harder and she turned to make her way back home. “He went missing in Russia a couple of weeks ago. I want—I need to find him.”
“And what is this to me?”
“You knew him, didn’t you?”
“A long time ago. I do not know anything about him.”
“You know he needs your help!”
The man muttered something in Russian she did not catch. “What kind of help?”
“He was on a mission to—”
“Stop. Watch what you say over the phone, child. These things I do not need to know.”
“Okay,” she said. “He’s missing. I have a name in connection with it, and not much else.”
“And what do you want me to do about this?”
“I want to find him. I want your help.”
The man did not answer right away, and all Alex heard was water hitting the pavement. “Is not my problem. Forget this name and this number.”
“You owe him!” It was a gamble. She didn’t know if it was even close to true.
“What did you say?”
“I said you owe him.”
“What do you know about that?” he hissed.
Time for another bluff. “I know enough. You want to get even? This is your chance.”
“Der’mo. Get even. Okay. You come here? To Moscow?”
“Yes. I’ll come to Moscow.”
He dictated the address for her in Cyrillic, which she was familiar with enough to write out on her cell phone’s notepad app.
“I will be waiting. If this is trick, I gut you with knife.”
Nice guy.
She went home and made straight for her father’s hiding place. She took out the duffel of cash. Then she looked up flights online. She could leave on one early the next morning. She paid for it with a credit card her father had left behind.
Her mother was out of town for a couple of days, so Alex just left a note.
gone to find dad. be back soon. love you.
–A.
Chapter Eleven
Alex’s plane touched down in Moscow in the late morning. She converted two thousand dollars to rubles and took a cab out of the airport.
She had the cab drop her off a few blocks away from her destination and walked the rest of the way. She was in an old neighborhood, where the buildings were quaint but run-down.
She counted the numbers until she was standing in front of a store window. She didn’t need to read Russian to know what it was. The hanging salamis and two massive pigs’ heads on display announced with crystal clarity that this was a
butcher shop. It looked like something that belonged to the Soviet era and had frozen in time in the late eighties.
She checked the address again and walked all the way back to the corner to verify she had the street address right. Then she walked back and checked the number.
There was no doubt. This was the address the man had given her.
Her face burned with embarrassment. Had this been a cruel trick? Something to get her off his back? She might be able to trace the phone number, but what was the point of tracking down a man who wanted nothing to do with her?
Still, she had come this far.
A bell rang when she opened the door. A miasma of butchered meat hit her at once, not helped in the least by the heat of the summer.
A woman of about sixty waddled in from the back, cleaning her hands with a filthy rag, and asked Alex something in Russian.
“Sorry, I don’t . . .” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, swallowing her embarrassment. “I’m looking for Valery Dobrynin?”
She tossed the rag and hollered, “Valyerey!”
A man came out of the back, grumbling under his breath, wearing a bloodstained apron. He had a long face with gray curls that were once black, and a long, thick nose. He exchanged bickers with the woman, and she retreated inside, spitting a last curse at him and slamming the door behind her.
“Chto ty khochesh’?” She could smell the alcohol on his breath from across the counter.
“Ya ishchu kogo-to. My Russian’s not very good. Mr. Dobrynin?”
“That is me. Who are you?”
“Alex. Alexandra.” Dobrynin didn’t make a sign of recognizing her. “Daniel Morgan’s daughter?”
“Ah, the girl,” he said, grumbling some more, and looked over her shoulder at the street behind her. “Did anyone follow you?”
“I don’t think—”
“Never mind. Come in.” He pulled a hinged section of the counter, motioning for her to come in.
They walked into a different door the woman had disappeared into, and emerged in a tiny dark kitchen. Its sink held to chipped ceramic plates, two forks and knives that had seen better days, and two aluminum cups. He sat in one of the two chairs and motioned for her to sit in the other, across a table covered in peeling vinyl.
For Duty and Honor Page 4