by Val M Karren
“Del, I really should tell you the rest,” I tried to interrupt.
“Just wait. Here is where it gets sticky. A city councilman has hired Mr. P’s thugs to go and visit the few expats that are already here for the different projects, and do their best to scare them into the housing project that they are now renovating. They think then if they can get me and two or three others to endorse it, after being chased out of our current housing situations, that they can get the big corporate contracts for any other foreign companies trying to set up new operations in town. They want to corner the market on expat housing and earn some fat profits. Not a bad plan. So, before Mr. Z. from the city council figures out that I am also looking to provide him competition and he sends his blokes with batons and pistols, as you see they are ready to do,” Del motioned towards me and my broken ribs, “I have also decided to stop my project. I have already instructed Misha to wrap up the property management activities and cancel all tentative agreements. This little project is not worth getting our throats cut by the little sharks in town,” he wisely concluded.
I nodded in agreement.
“So, kid, get your ticket and get out as soon as you can. So, what else did you need to tell me?” he finally asked.
I sat up straight the best I could. ‘Del, before I tell you what I think you want to know, I have a question first for you, and I need a straight answer,” I said seriously.
“Sure, kid. What is it?” he was curious.
“Can you get me out of Nizhniy tonight if I tell you what I’ve learned? I have the feeling Del that you are more than just a project manager for a construction company or a hotel chain. You have connections and knowledge that a project manager wouldn’t have. I’ve listened to you and Els the last few months and there is something that you are not telling me. If I give you this piece of information that you are looking for, for the reason that I think you are looking for it, I am going to need help to get out of town tonight. Can you help me with this?" I looked him straight in the eyes.
After a long pause with much consternation from Del and Els alike, Del shifted in his chair, sat on the edge of it and looked me straight back in the eyes.
“Kid, you’re as sharp as they come. We saw that after our first meeting. There is little fooling you despite some initial naivety on your part. But you’re young and untrained, so that should be expected. There are things I am not allowed to tell you, but it seems you have filled in the details yourself, so I am pretty sure that you don’t need a confirmation from me. Let’s leave it at that for now. Until I hear what further information you have, I can’t promise anything, so it’s best you tell me and then we’ll figure out what it means,” he had never sounded so serious.
“Ok, thanks for the straight answer. I wouldn’t have accepted a BS answer from you at this point. So here it is. During our last discussion, you were desperate to make a link between Mr. P. and the aviation sector here in Nizhniy Novgorod. We were puzzled by what Mr. P. said about his father leaving him some money to purchase the land of the hotel with. Do you remember? Well, two things, when I was trying to direct my research in a new direction away from Mr. P. as the university demanded, I mentioned then that I would like to study the government’s plans for privatizing the aviation factories here in town. Valentina went into a rage! She was foaming at the mouth and spitting on me, she was so mad, and more or less told me no, because that was a current or future interest of Mr. P’s entrepreneurial activities. She knew she had slipped up and she knew that I knew she had let too much be known. I think that is why the problems haven’t stopped for me. Second, and this is something I should have remembered from my meeting with the Dean: P. Is not Mr. P. ’s birth name. He changed his name when he was released from prison. His real family name is S. His father Ivan Sergeyevich S. just received a posthumous medal from the Red Army for his contribution to Russia’s military aviation development. Mr. P. accepted the medal for his father just before my bag got stolen. I was there and heard it with my own ears and saw him shake hands with the mayor in front of the whole crowd!” I revealed.
“What did you say the engineer’s name was?” Del jumped.
I repeated the name clearly, slowly.
“Do you know anything more about him?” he demanded from me.
“Only what I told you, and that he died in Tajikistan last year,” I was cut off by Del.
“In Bishkek? Did he die in Bishkek?” Del was now adding information that I couldn’t confirm.
“Do you still have the articles you showed me about the arms shows last year in Kirgizia and Tajikistan?” Del pushed.
“Sorry, Del. Everything I had worth keeping for my case studies was just stolen. All of it!.” I said with resignation. “That article though came from an issue of The Economist in late January, I think. Have you kept the copies I brought you each week?”
Del sprung from his chair and went to his office and came back with a small stack of magazines and quickly found the editions from January. Del leafed through them until he came to the article I was referring to. He read silently while moving his lips in inaudible whispers.
Del was silent as he paced the living room again as he did when he learned of Mr. P’s hotel plans and inheritance. He stopped and stared out the window onto the city skyline. He spoke with his back still to me.
“Peter, it will be very important that you are out of town by Monday morning. You need to pack up and get gone. As you will understand, if I am seen helping you leave Nizhniy, it could put you at more risk than you are leaving on your own. Mr. P. wants you gone, he isn’t going to stop you from going. The FSB will, however, try to stop you if you are traveling with me and Els. We can’t be seen together. You already gave your name to the cops downstairs so we can’t have any more contact. You'll need to get your things as soon as possible and hop on a train to Moscow and fly away. Got it?” As he finished his thinking and speaking he turned to see my reaction.
I was silent. I was doing everything I could to hold back tears.
“Are you able to get back to your apartment and get some clean clothes, get fixed up and leave tomorrow morning? Take as little as possible with you. Don’t get delayed and bogged down by your luggage. Just go as quick as you can,” he instructed again.
I nodded and started to get up slowly from the couch. The pain in my ribs was now acute and laming. I straightened up stiffly and offered a hand shake to Del. He then handed me a business card from his shirt pocket.
“Kid, when you get back to the States, please call this number and leave me a message that you arrived in the States, or wherever you land, and that you are safe. Leave a number on the message machine and we’ll be in touch after some time. Understood? Do not call the apartment phone any longer and don’t come back here again,” his instruction seemed well rehearsed.
I nodded again and put his card in my pocket after glancing it over. I had no more questions and I couldn’t think of anything else to say and headed for the door. I collected my blood-stained jacket with my passport and wallet in it.
“Kid, don’t tell anybody where you’re going. Just go!” and with that Del opened the door and I slipped out and onto the street. With my bones and joints aching, I decided to hail a cab for the first time in Nizhniy. I did not speak to the cab driver. Twenty minutes later I was let out at the Proletarskaya Metro station and twenty steps from my door.
24. Yankee Go Home!
The apartment was quiet. Raiya and Natasha were still visiting with family further up the street. The apartment was dark when I entered and seemed colder than usual. Maybe they left the kitchen vents open, I thought. I fumbled for my keys in the dark with my uninjured right arm. Bending to pick them up was painful. Finally, I got the key into the lock and turned it. I was met by a stiff breeze rushing from my room into the hallway. I was very confused and disoriented by the rush of the air. Something was not right! I flipped on the light. The curtains were wide open and flapping in the wind. A pane of glass was broken and lay in
pieces on the floor inside the apartment. The other windows had been left wide open. No effort was taken to conceal the crime. The room had been turned upside down. Every book had been shaken and thrown on the floor and their spines were broken. My table was on its side and the chairs smashed. My shortwave radio lay smashed in pieces on the floor. All my clothes were thrown out of the wardrobe and my bed was ripped apart. All the drawers were pulled out and overturned as well as the cabinet doors in the hutch. Everything I owned had been pulled out and strewn on the floor. For owning so little it had made a tremendous mess.
The timeline of the day’s events became clear as I stood there gaping at this violent scene of recent intrusion; not having found my research notes in my apartment the intruders stole my bag from my person. Mr. P. had to be sure before Monday’s meeting that I had no more materials and notes in my possession to potentially use to interrupt his hotel project, a project that would bring the big sharks to Nizhniy Novgorod and raise the bar of illegal and violent crime in the city. All the loose ends were being cleaned up now. Had Valentina been just a loose end too? I sat down on the couch and cried quietly a few tears of fright and helplessness.
After a few moments of despair, I dried my eyes and gathered up some clothes into a backpack. I changed from my ripped slacks into denim jeans, put on a new shirt and my orange rain coat and found my gray cap in the mess. I found my black shapka near the door and my address book among the broken books and stuffed them as well into my bag. I took my passport and wallet as well out of my bloodstained jacket and then threw it on the floor with the rest of the mess for dramatic effect. Taking mental stock of the scene, I retreated to the bathroom that seemed to have been untouched by the burglars. Being injured I took a stool from the kitchen instead of climbing on the edge of the bathtub and pushed on a small panel in the ceiling open to find my money belt and airplane ticket that I had hidden there a few weeks earlier, after retrieving them from Yulia’s apartment. I thought about writing a note for my housemates, but had second thoughts of involving them any further. l closed the double paned windows tight, the broken pane on the street side. I pulled the curtains closed, turned out the light and just before I locked the door behind me, I remembered the card Del gave me just before we parted. I found my slacks in the pile of clothes and took the card and put it in the jacket of my passport for safe keeping. Out of habit I locked the doors and took my keys with me, but knew I would not be returning.
When I left the apartment again only fifteen minutes had passed, but in that quarter hour, a resolve had developed in my core so that I knew exactly what I needed to do. I was determined to make the evening train to Moscow. From there I would take a taxi directly from Kazanksiy Station to the airport and catch the first flight out of Russia, using my Aeroflot ticket, or if necessary, winging it to any safe European capital and from there back to the United States. I was determined not to spend more than one more night in Russia.
The Moskovskiy station was all but empty at nine o’clock that evening. Only a few travelers were crossing the dusty granite floors and just a few taxi drivers were waiting for a fare. The city was still celebrating tonight in concerts and festivals in the old city. Nobody was traveling.
A feeling of despair and panic rushed through me when I found the ticket window closed for the holiday. The trains were idle for the fifty years anniversary. There were no departures listed for that night. I turned and looked again at the empty hall. My ribs throbbed, and in the gash on my left arm I could feel every beat of my racing heart and my head was spinning as I hadn’t eaten all day. My thoughts raced with all the horror scenarios that could happen in the next forty-eight hours if I wasn’t on an airplane by Monday morning. Del had told me specifically to be gone by Monday morning. Why? What was going to happen on Monday morning? Was Del going to try and stop Mr. P’s meeting with the mayor by exposing them both? The next train to Moscow wouldn’t be until Sunday evening at ten o’clock. Where could I hide out for the twenty-four hours? I couldn’t call Del anymore. Returning to and sleeping in my apartment was only asking for trouble; if they wanted to find me again I would be an easy target. I needed to stay hidden. Yulia was away in Moscow. Staying in a hotel would be just as unsafe as sleeping in my own apartment. Nothing happens in the hotels without the police and mafia goons knowing about it before it happens. Then my thoughts caught a flash of hope: Hans! Where is Hans tonight? Hans should be at home! I stepped quickly to the taxi stand.
I asked the taxi driver to take me only as far as Senaya Square via the lower embankment and the Kazanskiy Syezd so that if later questioned by any operatives of Mr. P., they would think of, and look first at Del’s apartment and not a few blocks further up at Hans’s apartment on Proviantaksaya street. The walk was a little too much for me with my entire body aching. I stopped several times and sat on benches near bus stops and in the occasional courtyard of another apartment building. I used this as a chance to see if I was possibly being followed by anybody. I highly doubted that anybody would have had the chance to follow me as I had moved quickly from my apartment to the train station by metro and then by taxi to the old city again. As the taxi driver hadn’t sent nor received any radio messages while I was in his cab, not even to radio his destination for his dispatch coordinator, I was pretty confident that nobody who might have been watching for me would have had the chance to be in place at Senaya Square where I exited the taxi. I walked along Bolshaya Pecherskaya instead of Minin Street down to Hans’s street. If I had been tasked with keeping an eye for myself, Minin Street is where I would have been waiting, and so I stayed in the twilight shadows a street over instead of walking right past the American Library again. There was nobody on this street; no automobiles, no footsteps, no street cars. There was not a single soul visible up and down the street as far as I could see. I needed to hurry.
Following a young family through the ground floor entrance of the building and off the street as they returned home from the festivities on Minin Square, I felt already a bit safer. At least, if needed, I could hide anonymously in this random stairwell if Hans wasn’t at home. Not wanting to sound and look panicked I waited a few moments until the adrenaline subsided and I caught my breath again before I headed up the stairs to Hans’s door. The building and the stairwell were quiet, the street even more so.
I rang Hans’s bell and waited to hear movement behind the door. I rang the bell again and then a third time in short bursts. This time somebody inside was stirring and padding quickly to the door. From the peephole a flash of pinpoint light pricked the darkness of the landing. The spy glass went dark. I could feel Hans blinking at me. I removed my cap and waved at him. The latches eventually were opened after a moment of hesitation and the door opened letting light spill from the apartment’s hallway on to my feet and legs. Hans stood shirtless behind the door, poking his head into the gap between door and door jam.
Hans was annoyed. “Peter, this really isn’t a good time” he was giving signals with his face and head movements that I had buzzed him at just the wrong moment. He seemed to be in earnest.
“Hans, I really need to sleep here for the night,” I whispered from the shadow on the landing. “I”m in serious trouble and have no place else to go.”
“Peter, not now! Really, not now! Please just come back in two hours…,” he was insistent.
From behind him I heard a woman’s voice call out from the living room.
“Who’s there, Hansy?" it was Tamara.
“Nobody, Mein Schatz, just a drunk guy looking for his keys,’’ Hans replied and moved to close the door.
Without thinking I put my foot between the open door and the door frame before Hans could get the door on the latch. His reaction was one of shock and disbelief. His face took on a concerned look and he peered past me further into the dark stairwell.
“Hans, I really need your help! Please don’t close the door,” I said firmly. I didn’t push the door any further, but I did not remove my foot.
Our
eyes met and we strained at each other’s glare for a few tense moments. To my relief his resistance gave way and the door opened a bit further and Hans waved me in with a defeated drop of his head and closed the door behind me. I glanced at Tamara’s bare legs and backside in the dark living room as she was picking up her clothes and dashed into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
“Peter, this had better be good!” He wheezed at me not wanting to raise his voice.
“Hans, thanks for letting me in. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have no other safe place to hold up.”
I calmly explained to my friend, grateful that he didn’t send me away. “Listen, I was robbed, beaten, threatened with a pistol and had my apartment broken into and ransacked. I’m trying to get out of town but there is no train to Moscow tonight. I have to be out of Nizhniy by Monday morning so don’t worry, tomorrow I will be gone.”
“Why do you have to leave Nizhniy by Monday?” Hans was now looking worried.
“Listen, I don’t want to involve you any further than letting me sleep here tonight. Tomorrow I will be gone, by Monday I’ll fly away to the USA and won’t bother you anymore,” I explained.
“Look, Peter, you’re not a bother. It was just a bad moment. Come in. Do you need some tea?” he offered.
“I haven’t eaten all day. Do you have something I could eat too?" I had no pride left.
I woke with a start! The room was dark. I could hear a terrible commotion on the streets outside with blue lights flashing and reflecting off the glass of all the windows up and down the buildings on Minin street. I panicked and rushed to pull my shoes on. In the dark, I stumbled over the coffee table and landed hard on the floor on my left side and let out a yelp of pain. My eyes were pulsing in the dark searching for the shadows coming to deliver more blows as I struggled to get up. How did they find me? I was so careful! Holding my wounded left arm against my ribs I stood up again from a kneeling position and moved clumsily to the hallway. Hans stepped out and turned on the hallway light.