Coercion

by Tigner, Tim

  It occurred to Alex that if he could work the wax out of his ears he would be able to hear if a guard was watching him. With that thought, the need to hear became as intense as the need to breathe. Removing a plug was easier said than done. He could wiggle his ears a little from the inside, and jiggle them a bit from the outside with his shoulder and the wall, but that seemed painfully slow and inadequate. What’s the problem, do you have something better to do?

  While he labored at inconspicuously getting the wax plugs out of his ears, Alex analyzed what he knew about his captors.

  Yarik was obviously a brute, but apparently he was above petty brutality. He hadn’t kicked or punched Alex after securing him. Ironically, Alex found that unsettling. It led him to suspect that Yarik was saving him for the time he could go whole hog. He figured Yarik’s restraint indicated that he did not want to spoil his own appetite, or deaden Alex’s. No sense dwelling on that thought either. Even more distracting, however, was the fact that Yarik had recognized him. That had been confirmed both by the look in his dark eyes, and by the treatment Alex had subsequently received. Alex had no idea how that had happened, but he assumed that the root cause was the same one that put Gold Frame on his tail. Before he left Russia, he would have that answer.

  What else do you know? Why is this happening? Looking at the big picture Alex knew that he had discovered an international industrial espionage ring run by either the KGB or an associated party. According to what he had seen on the acetates, the group was involved in multiple high-technology industries. He had seen the words microprocessor and photovoltaic several times. He also knew that in addition to Irkutsk, they had factories in Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk. And he knew that their headquarters was on a crescent-shaped lake just east of Academic City. Perhaps that was where his plane would be flying. At least he would avoid Aeroflot.

  Alex also knew that the group he was up against was ruthless. If what he had learned from Elaine was the truth, rather than some devious fiction invented to control her—and now him—then these people had the most diabolical device ever conceived at their disposal. Remembering the pain in his backside, Alex didn’t hold out much hope for the “devious-fiction” hypothesis. “Ruthless” however clearly had a poster child in Yarik. He wondered what the giant’s boss looked like.

  As he sat there contemplating the situation and working to dislodge his earplug, Alex began to get a grasp of just how big the picture was. That thought in turn made him acutely aware of how little he was; yet another thing not to dwell on. (His list of imponderables was about to surpass his list of ponderables.) Alex knew that Russia was in desperate need of a solid industrial base, one that would be competitive in a modern capitalist marketplace, one that would form the foundation for a restructured economy. Of course the USSR had lots of factories, but none of them was economically viable without the virtually-free energy supplied by mother Russia and the State-guaranteed monopoly with consumers in the fifteen Soviet Republics.

  Soviet factories were elephants, and with the iron curtain now down, they were being forced to compete in a world of tigers. They were too big to maneuver, too slow to respond, and too expensive to maintain. If this group was doing what it looked like it was doing, it would be filling an economic and political vacuum. Alex realized that such a vacuum could suck the conspirators right to the very top of their transforming nation.

  With that thought running through his mind, the paraffin-plug popped out of his right ear. Yes! While he continued to work at the paraffin in his left ear, Alex began surveying his surroundings with his right. It wasn’t easy. His head was still covered by the burlap bag so noises were a bit diffused, and as he only had one ear he didn’t get stereo sound, so direction was difficult to judge. After taking a couple minutes to adjust and process, he concluded that all sounds were originating from his right, as if coming through a large doorway before echoing off the walls. That fit with his airplane theory, for all the good it did him.

  All Alex really needed to know right this second was if he was alone, so he would know if it was safe to search for something with which to cut his bonds. To determine this, he thumped his feet on the metallic floor and then listened intently for any reaction. None came. Good. He set to work feeling around with his legs, all the while keeping his ear finely tuned to his environment.

  Alex was just finishing his first sweep of the floor when he heard footsteps approaching. He froze his legs and then dropped his chin to his chest in order to appear as though he was sleeping. That motion caused the left earplug to pop out. Yes again! He hoped the plug was not visible on the floor; the thought of another hot-wax session, perhaps topped off with duct tape this time, was not appealing.

  If Alex’s newly freed ears weren’t deceiving him, just one person had entered the cargo hold. The intruder walked toward him and paused. Then Alex heard and felt something heavy thump to the ground beside him. Could it be another body? A cauldron of boiling oil? A tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey? Alex braced himself for a kick in the chest, but instead he got a very different kind of wallop.

  “Alex … Alex, can you hear me?”

  It was the voice, the voice. He had only heard it once before, but he knew it like his mother’s. Standing before him, just the other side of the burlap blindfold, was the man who had called him the night of Frank’s death. Alex was about to meet his brother’s killer.

  Chapter 32

  Academic City, Siberia

  Anna awoke the morning after her date with Karpov to find a black cloud hovering over her bed. She rose and went to the kitchen to make tea, but the cloud followed. It was not that the date had gone badly as such, but rather that she had failed. Again. It seemed that everything in her life was dark of late. She feared a storm was coming.

  Although the ancient defibrillator had failed to jumpstart Petrov’s heart, it had resuscitated some sore memories, causing clouds to gather. Anna did not know the professor personally, but she knew him all the same. He was everyone’s grandfather: kind eyed, distinguished faced, frail bodied. Russia’s corrupt system had devolved to killing off the country’s best. And it wasn’t just the elderly who were dying either. Kostya was dead too. Some safety procedure had probably been underfinanced, or some well-connected administrator had gotten drunk... It wasn’t as though they were unaware of the dangers of nuclear power.

  Although the accident had been years ago, the wound still felt fresh. The memory of Kostya’s final hours continued to plague her thoughts on lonely nights. Anna could not bury his memory until she knew why he had died. From the looks of things, however, that information might never come. Then what would her future hold?

  Her future: there was another sore topic. When would the right man come along? When would she have someone to turn to, someone to help her trivialize the hard times and amplify the good? Every day people turned to her for help: her patients, her colleagues, her mother. She needed someone too—but not just anyone.

  It wasn’t just the big issues that were starting to take their toll. The small things were getting to her as well. She was two steps from the poorhouse and working without a net. Her pathetic closet contained just three sets of clothes. There was a casual set, which she wore to and from work every day, a suit which she wore to church and other formal affairs, and a red dress which she wore all too rarely.

  The rest of her apartment reflected the same Spartan theme. Apart from her hand-me-down kitchenware and a simple radio, the only things worth mentioning were a couple dozen books and the miniature glass figurines she had been collecting since her hair was in pigtails. The eight figurines wouldn’t be worth much to anyone but her, which was why she had been able to keep them—that and the thought of sitting at a flea market all day next to widows selling their husbands’ watches and their grandmothers’ china. Parting with them was a thought too depressing to contemplate: the memories of her life, on sale for twenty kopeks apiece, or six for a ruble.

  Snap out of it Anna. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and
you’ve got the clinic. It will remind you of just how lucky you are. Meanwhile, have some chocolate.

  Anna was pouring herself a second cup when the phone sprang to life.

  “Hello…Yes Doctor…Certainly. I’ll be right in.”

  A melancholy Anna had picked up the phone, and now a nervous one put it down. Was that thunder she heard?

  Chief Doctor Akchurin, the hospital’s administrative head, wanted to see her—on a Saturday no less. She couldn’t imagine why, but her best guess was frightening. Although Anna knew that her peers considered her to be one of the better physicians at the hospital, she was also the youngest and least connected, and thus would be the first head to roll from the perestroika cutback axe. Had it swung that far?

  Perhaps Akchurin was the type to dismiss people on the weekend to avoid a scene. She did not know him well. He was new to the job. It was a political appointment, and thus turnover was high. Their paths had only crossed in groups.

  If Anna lost her job at Academic City Hospital she would have to commute to Novosibirsk—assuming she could find work there—and that would take two hours each way. She knew life wasn’t supposed to be easy, but why did it have to be so hard?

  Half an hour after the call, Anna knocked on Akchurin’s door.

  “Come in. Doctor Zaitseva, it’s so good to see you. Thank you for coming in on your day off. Please, have a seat.”

  Was this his way of avoiding confrontation, playing good cop while insisting that it was the bad-cop accountants in Moscow who were firing her? If so, it was not going to work. She would not make it easy for him to make her life hard.

  “Coffee, tea, cognac?” he asked, moving toward the kitchenette in the corner.

  “Tea, please.”

  Akchurin prepared two glasses of tea and sat across from her in the second guest chair, rather then going back behind his desk.

  “I got your request for a new defibrillator after the unfortunate Podoltsev incident.”

  Was that what this was about? Anna knew her request was bad form because it amounted to assigning the hospital blame for Podoltsev’s death, but she would rather take a little heat herself—knowing full well that no good would ever come of it—than risk going through a repeat performance with the knowledge that she had not even tried.

  “I’d love to get us a new defibrillator,” Akchurin continued. “In fact, there’s a whole list of equipment we need, all of which is absolutely necessary. The problem, of course, is money. We don’t have it in the budget. Even if it were, the money might never come.” He paused to catch her eye. “You knew that when you submitted the request.”

  Anna bit her tongue.

  “I like your style.” He smiled. “The good news is that a solution has presented itself.”

  Really, Anna thought. That was fantastic news. Perhaps Akchurin wasn’t like the rest. Perhaps he knew how to work the system to do more than just protect his own hide. That would be refreshing. Anna felt guilty for having assumed the worst. She wasn’t usually so pessimistic. It was just—

  “How was your dinner last night?”

  “Pardon?” Anna’s first thought was that her ears must be deceiving her, but then realized that of course they were not. She could connect the dots from there, and the resultant picture left her feeling crestfallen and enraged. Anna was mad at herself for not seeing this coming, mad at Akchurin for scheming to use her, and mad at the system for making this necessary.

  “Your dinner with General Karpov, how was it?”

  “Fine.”

  Akchurin gave her an appraising stare. It was meant to intimidate, but it just made her feel like a two-ruble whore. He didn’t respond, obviously hoping she would say more.

  Anna did not.

  “Here’s the list of equipment we need. Perhaps you could give it to The General at your next rendezvous.”

  “I doubt very much that there will be another rendezvous.”

  “Oh?” He pulled his head back in surprise before leaning in to continue with false gallantry. “I’m sure there will be. A woman with your beauty, charm and grace is sure to get under the skin of any man. Trust me Anna. Why it’s as clear to me as, say, the benefits of doing so must be to you. Why, even if you set aside the fact that such an alliance would immunize you from the cutbacks men in my position are so often forced to make, and you just focus on the opportunities to help our hospital and all the people who come here, you’ll see that coupling with The General is obviously the way to go. After all, your letter pleading for me to do whatever I could to secure a new defibrillator for the hospital didn’t end with the phrase, ‘so long as it doesn’t involve me.’ Surely that wasn’t an oversight on your part, Dr. Zaitseva?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Splendid. Well, Anna, I am so pleased that we had this opportunity to meet. And again, thank you for coming in on your day off.”

  Anna stood, shook Akchurin’s hand, and left without another word as he turned his attention to the pile of papers on his desk. She walked down the empty corridor with her heels clacking out frustration on the linoleum floor, a spiritual SOS. Anna had not been lying when she said she didn’t expect to see Vasily again, but now she knew that a simple “No” would not be good enough. Akchurin’s intervention meant that she would have to find a way to make Vasily reject her. Not only did she hate games like this, but she wasn’t very good at them. Sure, she could concoct a plan, but she had already learned that her analytical mind was no match for Vasily’s political nose, and her heart just wouldn’t be in it.

  Anna tried to focus on the bright side. At least she would get another chance to gather information about Kostya’s death. She could push as hard as she wanted with no fear of driving him away, although it would probably amount to tilting at windmills. Anna’s overall impression of Vasily Karpov had not changed—she still found him too slick for her tastes—but she had gained an appreciation for him as an intellectual. There truly was much more to him than a handsome face. Oddly enough, he had probably come to the same conclusion about her. Vasily had also come to some other conclusion about her—she had seen that in his eyes. And although she could not figure out what that conclusion was, for some reason she knew it would frighten her when she did find out.

  Chapter 33

  Irkutsk, Siberia

  “Alex … Alex, can you hear me?”

  I most certainly can, Alex thought. He could not answer, of course, so he just raised his head confrontationally in the direction of the noise. A moment later, his hood was lifted.

  “I’m here to help,” the Russian said, producing a Swiss army knife. “Name’s Andrey.”

  Andrey cut the rope on Alex’s gag and pulled the racquetball from his mouth, then continued. “There is little chance of our walking out of here now unobserved, there are too many eyes around—eyes with guns attached. Can you handle a jump?” He nodded toward the parachutes on the floor beside Alex.

  So that was the thump. “Yes, I can handle it. Who are you and why are you helping me?”

  “Lean forward,” Andrey said. Alex complied and Andrey placed the pocketknife into his right hand. “If I were an American, I would say ‘I’m the guy who got you into this, so I’m the guy who is going to get you out.’ But I’m not and I have no such sentiment. The people who murdered Frank also killed a friend of mine, so for now let’s just say that common enemies make us friends.”

  Andrey paused to take a deep breath and study the plane’s interior. “Now, start working on your bonds with the knife. When you are free remain seated where you are so that you will look exactly as you did when I walked in.”

  Andrey stooped to pick the wax earplugs up off the floor. “Drop these?” he inquired with a grin before tossing them on top of a crate.

  “I’m going to hide in that bench over there.” He pointed to a long cargo bench running along the opposite wall. “Once we’re in the air, I’ll come out blasting.” He tapped his sidearm. “You be ready to lend a hand with the knife. I don’t
know how much company we’ll have.”

  Andrey then dropped the hood back into place, and a moment later Alex heard him cursing softly as he worked to fit his broad shoulders into the narrow bench.

  Alex set aside the surge of emotions the voice conjured up and focused on the words. They were the opening lines of a classic interrogation technique. Pretend to be helping a hostage escape, get his hopes up, make it emotionally painful for him to do anything but help, and then have him purge himself of painfully kept secrets as his contribution to the cause.

  “Tell me what you’ve learned, Alex.” Andrey spoke from the bench.

  Right on cue. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”

  “This is not the place for that discussion, it’s … complicated. The knife in your hand should convince you that I’m your friend.”

  “Oh I’m not so sure about that. You ever see the movie Marathon Man?”

  Silence. Alex wished he could see Andrey’s face, but all he saw was burlap. He decided that as a Russian Andrey probably had not seen the Dustin Hoffman film with the famous staged escape. He was about to clarify when Andrey said, “You got a look at Yarik. Do you think he needs help interrogating?

  Alex did not answer.

  “Look, Alex, I know you’re a pro. So am I. But there’s no time for the two-step; bullets will be flying soon. Just tell me things they already know you know. That might be enough.”

  There was a reason the ploy was classic, Alex thought. It worked. He could not afford to blow what might turn out to be his only chance at escape. “Fair enough.

  “I have learned that a group of people who seem to be connected to the KGB are stealing the blueprints for un-launched, cutting-edge American products and then manufacturing them here in Russia. They are doing this at privatized factories in Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, and Krasnoyarsk. Their headquarters is near Academic City. As near as I can figure, their modus operandi is to steal a revolutionary technology, then sabotage the company that developed it in the first place, presumably so they will have a monopoly on the world market. I do not know how they expect to get around patents. I do not know who they are or how long this has been going on. I do know that they are high tech, and that they are ruthless.”