The Mystery of the Russian Ransom

by Roy MacGregor

  The doll – or dolls – remind me of that funny thing Muck said to our parents the evening we got together to talk about this trip. What was it again? Russia is a riddle or something, inside a mystery, wrapped in an … an … enigma. Yes, enigma. Something impossible to understand – sort of like Nish!

  Olga said I should get ready for another workout on the ice, so I did. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I was glad for the chance to burn off some energy doing what I like to do best.

  The two young men, Pavel and Sacha, were there again. Both had on the same socks and jerseys as Olga had given me to wear – all red, except for the golden two-headed eagle.

  Sacha spoke very little English, but Pavel knew lots of English words. He was friendly – more so than Sacha. Pavel said we should run some more drills together.

  That was fine with me. It’s not much fun skating alone anyway. Once you’ve done the “alone” tricks – fire a puck off the crossbar, skate some crossover patterns, fool with the pucks – it quickly gets old.

  We were warming up when the quieter guy, Sacha, skated over to me.

  “Show me trick,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. So he pretended to be scooping the puck up the way I’ve been doing lately. He bent over, laid his stick flat on the ice, twirled it, and then held it out to me as if a puck were sitting on the blade.

  But I was alone when I did that the other day. They had come out later.

  They must have filmed me doing it. I guess Sacha saw it and was impressed.

  We went over to where the other skater, Pavel, had dropped some pucks. The ice was still forming, and the pucks weren’t frozen, so it was easy enough to do the trick. I got mine up first scoop, twirled, and handed it to Sacha.

  He tried it several times with no luck. Pavel came over and began working on it, too. He almost succeeded on the first try, but the puck flew away when he tried the twirl move to bring the puck onto the surface of the blade.

  I worked with them for a while. They were laughing at their mistakes, but soon they started to get the hang of it. Pavel picked one up perfectly and did a big whoop of triumph.

  A whistle blew. Loud.

  Standing on the players’ bench, staring hard at us from under his hat, was the tall man I had seen watching me before.

  He shouted out something in Russian. He seemed angry. Sacha and Pavel jumped at his orders. Pavel seemed especially upset.

  We began running drills. They set up the first ones: breakout patterns, three-on-ones against a pylon – hardly tough to get around that! – and a few skating drills that involved turning at full speed once you hit the red line and skating backward at top speed until you crossed the blue lines. I could soon tell that I was better at that drill than the young men.

  I didn’t see the tall man again – thankfully! – but I was aware that the cameras were tracking us. You could sometimes even hear the whirr of a camera turning if you were close enough to the boards.

  But why? What is the purpose of it all?

  What is at the bottom of this matryoshka of a hockey prison?

  13

  Travis leaned back and strained to look down the bench, all the way to the far end, where the spare goalie sat during games.

  Jenny was there in full equipment, gloves on, mask off, Screech Owls ball cap on her head, with her brown ponytail sticking out the back. Jeremy was in nets today for the Owls’ match against Saint Petersburg, considered one of the tournament favorites to take the gold medal.

  Normally, as the backup goaltender, Jenny would be the last Owl along the bench. But there was one more player sitting beyond her, one player seemingly separated from the rest of the team.

  Nish.

  Travis could see enough of the chubby Owls defenseman to know that Nish was in his “keep-out-the-world” position. His back was almost horizontal, meaning Nish was sitting with his head resting on his shin pads, his face staring directly down at his skates. Travis didn’t have to see Nish’s round face to know what color it would be.

  It was a wonder there wasn’t steam coming out Nish’s ears. Muck had told him to “staple” his big butt there right after warm-up. He didn’t need to explain. Nish was still in the coach’s bad books. First it was the glory goal against Minsk, then the incident with the giant-sized table-hockey game. Muck was sending a tough message to their assistant captain.

  Travis breathed deeply. The Owls needed Nish. The Saint Petersburg Pushkins were no pushovers. They were well outfitted, well coached and extremely fast. Not only that, but they had a good feel for the larger ice surface, which the Owls had only played on a few times. Dmitri had helped explain the added importance of “cycling” pucks out of corners and the little bit of extra time defense had to get shots in from the point, but being told in the dressing room and putting it into practice on the ice were worlds apart.

  The Owls could use Nish on defense. More significantly, they needed Sarah’s speed up front. Andy was a good fill-in, but he wasn’t the fastest skater, and so Travis’s line – with Dmitri on the far wing – was struggling.

  Muck had told them before the game that the Pushkins were named after a famous Russian poet. Travis thought a North American team named for a poet would be laughed off the ice, but the tough Russian side was up 3–0 before the Owls finally caught a break. It was Fahd, of all people, who broke up the middle with the puck. Fahd was the last Owl you’d expect to carry the puck – usually he was quick to dish off to whomever was closest to him – but it was almost as if little Fahd knew that if Nish wasn’t there to lug the puck out of the Owls’ end, he had better do so instead.

  Travis moved in behind Fahd and tapped his stick twice, quickly, just to let him know he was there. Muck had told them no one was more disliked on a team than a player who hammered his stick endlessly on the ice to signal he was open and wanted a pass. If you wanted to tell a teammate you were open, Muck said, a quick tap would do.

  Fahd dropped the puck as he went over the Saint Petersburg blue line, and Travis picked it up, curling over against the boards.

  He saw Dmitri coming hard down the right side, but there was no clear lane for a safe pass.

  Travis fired the puck hard instead, far ahead of Dmitri. It hit the far boards and spurted back, perfectly timed for Dmitri to pick it up in full flight.

  The Owls had seen it a hundred times before: Dmitri using his speed on the outside to loop around the defense; Dmitri cutting back to the net, a shoulder deke, front-hand fake, backhand, roofer – the water bottle spinning high as the puck flew in just under the crossbar.

  “I didn’t know you could carry the puck like that,” Travis said as he gently cuffed the back of Fahd’s helmet.

  Fahd was laughing. “Neither did I.”

  The Owls took it to 3–2 when Derek Dillinger managed to tip a Fahd shot – Fahd again! – from the point late in the second when the Owls got a power play after one of the Pushkins had tripped Jesse Highboy.

  And they tied the game 3–3 halfway through the third when Willie Granger took a hard shot from the right circle that bounced off two different Pushkin defenders, looped high in the air, and somehow dropped onto the back of the Pushkin goaltender and dribbled into the net.

  Five minutes left in the game. Muck walked to the far end of the bench. He passed right by Jenny and stood for a moment behind Nish, who was still sitting there with his face pressed hard between his knees.

  Muck leaned over and touched Nish’s shoulder.

  He hadn’t said a word. Nish hadn’t looked back to ask. Both of them knew exactly what it meant. Nish was over the boards in a flash, not even waiting for Jenny to open the gate, and was stretching and twisting as he moved down ice to take up his position for the face-off. Lars, the Owls’ other best defenseman, was on the other side. Travis knew immediately Muck’s strategy: go for it; put Nish out when he had something to prove.

  Travis smiled to himself. It was a wonder that Nish didn’t come with a bunch of buttons and switc
hes down his front, because Sarah and Sam knew exactly what buttons to push to get him going or to bring him down. And Muck always knew which switch to flip when he needed something special from the goofy defenseman.

  But that was Wayne Nishikawa, thought Travis. You couldn’t have one side without the other. You got the total nutcase, the troublemaker, the goof one minute; and the next minute, you got the skilled hockey player with the heart of a lion.

  Gordie Griffith took the face-off and managed to kick the puck back to Lars, who immediately skated back behind the Screech Owls’ net – “Lars’s Office” the Owls sometimes called it – and there he waited. A Pushkin forechecker swooped in to see if he could scare up a pass, but Lars calmly tapped the puck off the back boards and back to his own stick as the checker flew by.

  Lars faked a pass to Jesse on the one side, and instead backhanded the puck over to Nish in the far corner. Nish began to rumble down the ice, lugging the puck as if it were taped to his stick.

  Nish worked past all three forwards – then, just as he hit the blue line, he put the puck over to Gordie, who quickly rapped it off the boards back to Lars.

  Lars took it as he crossed the blue line, then did his spinnerama move to elude one checker. He faked a shot, balked on the down-swing as a Pushkin defender went down to block the shot, and gently threw a saucer pass over the outstretched body of the checker that landed to the left of the net, right in Nish’s wheelhouse.

  Nish hammered home a slap shot that gave the goaltender no chance.

  Owls 4, Saint Petersburg 3. Four goals in a row by the Owls to take the lead and only minutes left to play.

  The Owls on the ice raced to congratulate Nish, who could normally be expected to throw his body against the glass or go down spinning on his knees and fake he was shooting an arrow into the net. But this time there was nothing.

  Nothing.

  Travis and Dmitri started laughing. Here was something brand-new: Humble Nish. Humble Nish lowered his head, gave no high-fives, no cheers, not even a smile. He returned to the bench as quietly as if he were returning a library book, and sat once again at the far end.

  Travis couldn’t resist. He turned to look back. Muck was staring at Mr. D, who was rolling his eyes.

  Travis couldn’t be certain, but he thought that Muck was stifling a laugh.

  The Owls returned to the Astoria Hotel triumphant. They had beaten one of the tournament favorites 5–3 – Sam had scored in the final seconds into an empty net – and they must now be considered a favorite. And they had done it without Sarah Cuthbertson, their best player, and almost without Wayne Nishikawa, their top defenseman.

  The parents also came along to the Astoria. Dmitri’s father had said that there would be a meeting about Sarah. The police would be there. As would Mr. Petrov.

  They gathered in the hotel lounge. Mr. Yakushev spoke, at times translating what he said into Russian for the benefit of the police.

  “Sarah is safe and well,” he announced, taking off his glasses as if, finally, he could relax his guard.

  Travis felt such relief he thought he was going to burst into tears. Sam was already bawling.

  “Sarah is safe, and we know for sure she is well and healthy. The police have received photographs of her and a video message. She says in the video that she is fine and is being treated well. It is exactly as the police suspected.”

  “But she’s not here?”

  “Not yet. The message also included a ransom request. I will ask Mr. Petrov to speak about that.”

  Mr. Petrov moved to the front. He was breathing hard, likely feeling the same flood of relief the Owls all felt. He smiled before he spoke. He only spoke a little English, and Mr. Yakushev helped him along.

  “I consider this my responsibility,” he told the players and parents, with Mr. Yakushev’s assistance. “I am the one who brought you all, and Sarah, here to Ufa. And there can be no doubt the ransom is directed at me, not you. I am working with the police to negotiate a safe return for your teammate and your daughter. I can promise you, she will be returned safe and sound.”

  The parents spontaneously broke out in applause and cheers. Mr. Petrov smiled and seemed grateful to shake the hands offered by the parents.

  “How much are they asking?” Fahd asked when he got close to Mr. Petrov. Leave it to Fahd to ask the awkward, as well as the obvious, question. Travis was glad he had.

  Mr. Petrov swallowed, considering what to say. “They are looking for ten million rubles,” he said quietly.

  Mr. D whistled. The other parents seemed in shock. If he was willing to pay that much for her safe return, he was a very generous man. No way could Sarah’s parents afford that, or even all the team’s parents put together.

  “How much is that?” Fahd asked later, when the Owls had returned to their rooms.

  Data was already on his tablet, doing conversions.

  “In American dollars,” he announced, “it would be approximately $333,370, depending on the daily rate of exchange.”

  Sam sniffed. “Sarah’s worth a lot more than that,” she said.

  Travis could not even imagine $333,000 – he had about $20 in his own bank account – but he had to agree.

  Sarah was priceless to the Owls.

  14

  I was back on the ice this morning. It was very different.

  Pavel and Sacha were there again, and so was the tall man in the hat – always standing far back, as if he didn’t want to be seen up close.

  What was different was me. Before I dressed to go out onto the ice, Olga took me into this room where there were people waiting around. They seemed to have more to do with science than hockey. They had me lie on a bed, and they taped tiny sensors all over my head. What were they looking for? Brainwaves? Escape plans?

  They also taped sensors to my legs and arms. And finally they gave me a new hockey helmet. It was very different from the one I had been wearing. When I first tried it on, I thought it was too big – something a large man might wear – but then I saw it in the mirror and understood.

  The helmet had a built-in camera.

  Once all the sensors had been attached and double-checked to see if they were being picked up on the various computers around the room, they let me finish dressing to play hockey. Olga helped, because it wasn’t easy pulling on socks, for example, over the sensors and wires that had been taped all over me.

  I didn’t feel right at first, but after a few laps around the rink, I sort of forgot that I was completely wired and began fooling around with the pucks. Pavel managed to do the scoop perfectly and we all laughed.

  That felt very odd. Here we were, playing. I didn’t know who they were. I wasn’t there voluntarily. I was their prisoner – well, if not their prisoner, then surely the prisoner of the tall man who was watching. They should have been my sworn enemies, and yet here we were, playing on the ice and laughing at each other trying my little scoop trick with the puck.

  On the ice, they felt more like friends – especially Pavel. I wondered how they felt about me. They had to know that I was there against my wishes.

  After we had warmed up and tried a few simple drills – I even taught them one of Muck’s – the doors opened at the Zamboni end and a bunch of new players came out. As far as I could tell, all of them were girls. They said nothing to me.

  Pavel said we were to play a scrimmage and that they wanted me to try my best, because it would be the three of us and a goaltender against a full team on the other side, two full lines of five apiece.

  We wouldn’t stand a chance.

  I guess they knew me better than I know myself, though. My mother always says I’m hopelessly stubborn. According to her, I can never resist a challenge.

  This was going to be an incredible challenge.

  But it didn’t take more than a couple of rushes by the three of us, or a few rushes by the other side, for me to see that it wasn’t as impossible as it might have looked. The other players were good, but not quite as good as
Pavel and Sacha.

  And the three of us clicked. It may have been because of all the drills we had been doing, but it might as easily have been luck. Muck likes to say the “hockey gods” have control of the game. He says there is no way in the world that any hockey coach can map out plays the way football coaches can. Hockey has a magic to it that humans can’t understand and should simply enjoy.

  The three of us had that magic, just like Dmitri, Trav, and I have a bit of magic going for us. I always know where they’ll be. I know how Travis likes to curl away and look for the play. I know how Dmitri will always use his speed to drive to the outside, and how, nine times out of ten, he’ll try to roof the puck on the backhand, which goalies never seem to expect.

  Pavel has superb speed – sort of like Dmitri. And Sacha sees the ice unbelievably. I like to think that is my gift, too – I can see where the players are without really looking hard, and I can guess where the puck is going to go in the next few seconds. My dad once made me a sign for my bedroom wall and told me it was a quote from Wayne Gretzky: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

  Anyway, we worked well together. I even looped one of those high Lars passes down ice, and Pavel sensed the play perfectly. He flew by the other side’s defense and picked up the puck just as it slapped back down on the ice. He scored easily.

  It was tough, playing three skaters on five. I had to protect the puck a lot by keeping it in my skates when there was heavy traffic. I’m good at this, so we were often able to work a puck along the boards, me keeping it while Pavel slipped out into the slot, where I could feed him for a one-timer.

  We played first-to-ten wins, and we won 10–7. After I put in the tenth goal, I could hardly catch my breath.

  I was sweating heavily. I started laughing to myself, thinking the salty sweat might short-circuit the sensors.

  Actually, I had forgotten all about them. The reason was, I have to admit, I was having fun.

  15

  “No word?”

  Travis must have asked this same question a dozen times since they heard that Sarah was safe and a ransom had been demanded.