by Greg Smith
“At very least, your scarecrow, he has mild concussion. I do not think this is his case, but I cannot rule out inside hemorrhage or maybe swelling of cranium. Either one, very dangerous, hey?”
Nadia’s eyes grew wide with concern.
Griggor didn’t want to alarm her, but he didn’t want to completely alleviate her fears. He wanted her to understand that the stranger would be better off in a hospital.
“Nadia, I say I do not think this is his case. But I am not neurologist, hey? I do not like that he does not respond so much. He maybe needs professional care. More than I can give, hey?”
As a doctor, Griggor was genuinely concerned for the injured man’s health. As Nadia’s protector, he was more concerned for her safety. He felt the stranger could pose a danger, wanted the tall man out of the apartment. Nadia knew Griggor well enough to realize he was hinting her gift should be sent elsewhere.
“He just needs more time. Three days isn’t enough.”
“I do not agree. Nadia, he–”
Nadia quickly cut him off.
“Griggor. You remember what we agreed? That we’d wait until he wakes up. And now he’s awake. And he’s not dangerous. He exhibits no violent behavior. He shows us no harm. You can see that, da?”
“Da,” Griggor allowed. “He does not appear to be dangerous. For now. But perhaps he has dangerous friends, hey? Peoples who look for him.”
Nadia didn’t believe that was probable. However, she knew telling Griggor so wouldn’t allay his concern. She shrewdly appealed to the old man’s ego.
“You’re all the doctor he needs, Griggor. You’ll do fine. He’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
True, Griggor had dealt with much worse. Bullet wounds. Broken bones. Even a severed limb on one occasion. A few stitches and a blow to the head were nothing by comparison.
He also knew it would be fruitless to argue with her.
“Well, perhaps he is better in morning, hey?”
Nadia followed Griggor downstairs to lock up after he’d gone. Hat and coat on, medical satchel in hand, the old man turned before opening the door.
“You will be okay when I go now, hey? You and Ewan (Ewe • on)?”
Hearing Griggor call the stranger by name caught Nadia by surprise.
“Ewan? How do you know–?”
“He is Ewan Doh. Mystery man, hey?” Griggor explained.
Nadia laughed.
“You mean John Doe.”
“Da. Ewan Doh. We must call him somethings, hey?”
Nadia was amused by Griggor’s Romanian pronunciation of the name. She hugged the old man.
“I’ll be fine. Go home,” she said affectionately.
Returning to her upstairs apartment, she finished fussing in the kitchen. She dried the last utensil, folded the dishtowel on the counter, made certain everything was orderly. Satisfied, she went to the front room, leaned against the doorway to study her gift.
Though gaunt, the stranger was a handsome man. Nadia could tell his beard would fill in nicely. If he continued to remain unshaven. The color was consistent. The stubble formed perfect matching lines down each cheek. There were no sparse areas. She wondered at his age. Whether or not he was married. Then shamed herself for the indiscretion.
As the Romanian woman turned to leave, the stranger spoke, sending a feeling of dread through her.
“Is Alex safe?” he asked without taking his eyes from the television screen.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 15
Dragos Grigore Alexandru Vasilyev was born in 1933 in the tiny village of Maguri in the Banat area of western Romania. He lived on the Vasilyev farm with his parents and paternal grandparents. It was an idyllic life for a boy. When he wasn’t attending school, had finished his chores, he was free to roam the countryside with the family dogs, Ursu and Buna. Both Bavarian Mountain Scenthounds.
He spent much time hunting and fishing with his bunic (grandfather), Alexandru. The two were inseparable. The elderly Vasilyev doted on the boy. Often kept Dragos out of school when seasonal activity on the farm was heavy and he needed extra help. Or, when he just wanted a companion for a hunting or fishing trip.
Exhibiting a keen eye and a steady hand from an early age, young Dragos was an exceptional sharpshooter. A proficient hunter. He favored his bunic’s “sniper rifle.” A Mosin-Nagent 1891/30. Taken from a dead Russian comrade while fighting against the Germans during WWII.
Dragos was also a superb student. He aspired to go to medical school, become a doctor. The Socialist Republic of Romania had other plans for young Dragos, however. At eighteen years of age, he was drafted into the Romanian Army. There, he soon made a name for himself as a superior marksman. Within months, he was competing in national and European shooting events. By the end of his first year of service, his name was being mentioned in connection with the 1952 ISSF World Championship and the 1952 Summer Olympics.
Fate, however, had selected a different path for Master Sergeant Dragos Vasilyev.
Romania was under communist occupation and the Soviets had infiltrated the Romanian army with their own officers. These Russian commanders were among the most arrogant and corrupt individuals Dragos had ever encountered. Their contempt for Romanian soldiers was blatant. When the young sharpshooter’s favored Mosin-Nagent misfired during shooting practice one day, sending metal fragments into his face, temporarily blinding his right eye, Dragos suspected Soviet intervention. The Russians certainly were not above orchestrating an “accident” to eliminate a potential challenger to their own Olympic shooting team.
There would be no investigation for Master Sergeant Vasilyev. No 1952 ISSF World Championships in Oslo. No Summer Olympics in Helsinki. After his injury, Dragos was promptly mustered out of the army. Though unhappy about his treatment, outraged that he would not be participating in the World Championships or the Summer Olympics, the former soldier was now free to pursue his dream of attending medical school.
Dragos received his degree from Carol Davila University’s Faculty of Medicine in 1958. The same year the Russians withdrew from Romania. He immediately accepted a position at Coltea Hospital, Bucharest’s oldest medical institution. The newly licensed doctor of internal medicine would never set foot inside that facility. This time, it was the Communist Party that had other designs for Dragos.
Though the Soviets were gone, Romanian leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s communist regime was in power. The Securitate, one of the largest and most brutal secret police forces in the Eastern bloc, remained Dej’s enforcer. Exerting persuasive indoctrination on the many political prisoners who were still guests of the Romanian government. Dr. Dragos Vasilyev was assigned as a prison doctor at Jilava Prison, home to hundreds of political detainees. It was there that Dragos began his slow indoctrination into the Securitate’s merciless methodologies.
Jilava Prison was a dreadful place with a violent history. It had been the site of the 1940 massacre of sixty-four prisoners by the Iron Guard. The site of the execution by firing squad of former Prime Minister Ion Antonescue in 1946, as well.
While working at Jilava Prison, Dragos gradually became accustomed to the callous ways of the Securitate’s brainwashing and re-education procedures, much of which involved imprisonment and torture. The young doctor was soon caught up in the Securitate’s philosophies. Rationalizing its use of brutality. Using his medical and pharmacology knowledge to advance the Party’s ideals.
Dragos worked at Jilava Prison for five years. Before being transferred to Gherla Prison in Transylvania. At the time, he was thirty-two years old. He’d slowly changed from an idealistic national athlete/soldier-turned-medical-student-and-doctor to a hardened operative of Romania’s communist political regime. He had no social life. No friends. No family. He had only his work. Brainwashing. Re-education. Psychological espionage.
It was while serving as Gherla Prison’s facility physician that Dragos met and fell in love with Tatiana Belododia under tragic circumstances. It wa
s there that Dragos exacted his horrible revenge on her tormentor.
Tatiana had been arrested and imprisoned in 1956, at the age of eighteen, for her role in the student protests in Bucharest. Her original four-year sentence had been extended because a guard who was a close friend of the prison warden had taken a personal interest in her. Gheorghe Mitu tortured, beat and sodomized Tatiana Belododia for years. Yet, Mitu had been unable to break the brave girl’s spirit. Tatiana continued to abhor communistic ideology. She detested the Soviet occupation of her country. And she loathed Gheorghiu-Dej’s leadership.
Dragos met Tatiana when she was brought to him for a surgical procedure.
Ordinarily, starvation, beatings, freezing cold, torture and general prison conditions caused spontaneous abortions among Gherla’s impregnated inmates. However, stillborns were not uncommon at the prison, and a handful of live births had occurred within the facility’s walls. Once discovered, newborns were immediately taken from their mothers. Left outdoors to die of exposure. On occasion, Dragos had been called upon to perform an abortion or two. In the spring of 1964, he was ordered to perform such a procedure on Tatiana Beladodia.
When Tatiana came down with an infection after the procedure and Warden Zlotnik refused her further medical care, Dragos sought her out, snuck antibiotics to her, cared for her. During these frequent visits, he began talking with the girl. Her spirit was admirable, courageous. Somewhat contagious. Despite the girl’s emaciated condition, Tatiana’s beauty was apparent to Dragos, who had never had time for women. The young doctor soon fell in love with his patient.
Tatiana’s situation proved to be a perilous quandary for Dragos. Due to the girl’s poor physical condition, her tormentor had temporarily lost interest in her. Once she was healed, however, Mitu was sure to turn his perverse attention on her again. Dragos was torn. If he didn’t continue to provide medical care, Tatiana would surely die. Once she was healthy, however, Dragos would lose the woman he loved to Mitu.
In the midst of this dilemma, word of the government’s general amnesty reached Gherla Prison. Dragos was encouraged. He expected Tatiana to be released, along with hundreds of other prisoners. He felt hopeful that he and the girl he had come to love would be able to pursue their relationship under normal conditions.
He couldn’t have known Gheorghe Mitu intended a more fatal future for Tatiana Belododia.
Just days before Tatiana and the other prisoners were to be released, Dragos headed to her cell block. Turning a corner in the dank hallway, the young doctor glimpsed something that sent an immediate lightning bolt of dread straight to his heart. His knees buckled. He stumbled against the wall. Hanging from the celling of Tatiana’s cell was a figure that appeared to be nothing more than a clump of rags dangling on a clothesline to dry.
Tatiana!
With a loud moan, Dragos fell to his knees. A voice broke the silence. A voice Dragos knew all too well.
“She hanged herself, good doctor, because you cut my son from her womb.”
Mitu emerged from the shadows, smirking. A lit cigarette dangling from his pillow-sized lips.
Dragos rose. Roaring loudly, he rushed the guard. Mitu simply stepped aside, delivered a hammer blow to the smaller man’s back. Winded by the wallop, Dragos collapsed to the concrete. Mitu kicked him in the ribs. A second kick, this one to the head, rendered the doctor unconscious.
When Dragos regained his senses, he was lashed to a chair. Mitu and three other guards stood nearby, along with the prison warden.
“Dr. Dragos,” Warden Zlotnik said, shaking his head sadly. “You’ve put yourself in a very serious situation.” The warden glanced to Mitu. “Fortunately for you, Gheorghe has graciously declined to file charges. You are free to go.”
The warden, Mitu and the other three guards chuckled.
“There’s just the small matter of the death certificate,” Warden Zlotnik added. “We need your signature. On your statement that Tatiana Belododia’s death was…an unfortunate suicide.”
Dragos had reluctantly signed several such declarations of death during his service with the Securitate. While he detested the thought of putting his signature on this false document, he felt helpless. He knew Mitu had been behind Tatiana’s death. Knew also that the big man was protected by the warden. Well-liked by the other guards. Even if Dragos had not been bound to the chair, Mitu and the others would easily overpower him. He could very well end up dead.
Like Tatiana.
It was the most difficult signature he would ever provide.
It took less than a week for Dragos to exact his revenge.
Dr. Dragos Grigore Alexandru Vasilyev ceased to exist that July day in 1964 when he found his beloved Tatiana hanging in her cell. After executing the three guards, leaving Gheorghe Mitu to his fate, the disillusioned doctor had eluded the militia and the Securitate, escaping to the Carpathian Mountains where he joined one of the few remaining bands of haiduci (outlaws) fighting for the Romanian anti-communist resistance. He remained with them until winter of that year. Before leaving Romania, making his way through Hungary into Austria. He worked as a laborer in Austria for three years. Until he’d saved enough money to emigrate to America.
The man who arrived in New York City in 1968 bore little semblance to the young boy who had roamed freely in the Romanian countryside with the Vasilyev family dogs. The favored grandson who had hunted and fished with his bunic. Only thirty-five years of age, he had the eyes of a man who’d seen twice as many birthdays. He’d experienced more human suffering during his eight years of work with the Securitate in Romania’s prisons than most people see in a lifetime. He would see plenty more in the City of Sin.
Finding work wherever he could – on the docks, in warehouses, driving trucks – the former doctor managed to eke out a quiet, peaceful existence in New York City. The few months spent fighting with the haiduci against the tyranny of the Romanian government, and his three years in Austria, had done little to alleviate the young Romanian’s anguish over his part in the Securitate’s brutality. Though he’d sworn to abandon the ruthless ways of his youth, he became involuntarily enmeshed in the Big Apple’s immigrant underworld.
Through circumstances outside his control, Grigore “Griggor” Alexandru, the former Dr. Dragos Grigore Alexandru Vasilyev of Maguri, Romania, soon found himself working, on occasion, for a vicious Russian mobster known as “The Omsk Boar.”
Initially, Griggor simply patched up the many battered men The Boar sent his way. He’d stitch them, set an occasional bone, supply them with painkillers, send them on their way. Crime was a violent profession. The Boar was a violent man. Dr. Grigore Alexandru was not at a loss for customers. These men often found their way to Griggor’s doorstep by way of Arkady Muskolov, The Boar’s distant cousin and emissary.
It was his work for The Boar that inadvertently entangled Griggor in the abortion business. A career path the young doctor had not envisioned for himself when he’d enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at Carol Davila University.
A month or so after Griggor’s first encounter with The Boar’s handiwork, Arkady arrived at Griggor’s door with a girl. And an explanation that the girl had “a little problem” Arkady was authorized to pay handsomely to make go away. The girl was a young teen. Perhaps only fifteen or sixteen. A run-away trying to make a life as an eighteen-year-old. A life that had settled on a career of prostitution. She’d obviously been roughed up a bit, required mild medical care.
Setting aside his deep contempt for The Boar, Griggor reluctantly took care of the young girl’s problem. He rationalized it was better he, than some back-alley butcher, who did the job. He knew, should the girl choose not to comply, chances were her future included an appointment with Death. In some dark alley or abandoned tenement. With a needle in her arm.
There was no need for an explanation with the second girl. Or any girl thereafter.
Eventually, friends of the troubled girls Griggor had “doctored” began showing up. All with the same
“little problem.” Then friends of the friends of those friends. Griggor soon realized that New York City was full of troubled girls. All willing to pay to make their little problems go away.
With the money he earned repairing The Boar’s broken hooligans, his damaged woman, Griggor was able to fund a clinic providing free medical services for many who couldn’t afford insurance. The neighborhood’s poor. Its underprivileged. Its outcasts. Those who didn’t know the young doctor’s history considered Dr. Griggor something of a modern-day Robin Hood. In truth, Grigore Alexandru was attempting to atone for the sins of his past.
In his free time, Griggor could often be found sitting in Madam Magda’s, the restaurant he’d financed for his older cousin, Magda Tchaikova. He found the restaurant’s Romanian cuisine to be quite delicious. He also enjoyed the company of both Magda and her granddaughter. Nadia. A girl who would become like a daughter to him.
Magda and Nadia would be the closest Griggor would ever come to having a family in America. He would never marry. Never return to his country of origin. He would be content with his work at his clinic, his time with Magda and Nadia. His life in America. He would tolerate his connections with New York City’s criminal element in order to sustain his clinic. All the while masking his intense disdain for Viktor Muskolov. The Boar. And, eventually, for Viktor’s son. Sergei. All the while awaiting the opportunity to do something about these renditions of Gheorghe Mitu.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 16
Sunday, September 16: Day 5 post-9/11
The stranger again awoke in a room he didn’t recognize. He had no idea who he was or where he was. He didn’t know his own name. He had no recollection of waking up the day before. Didn’t recall Nadia or Griggor. He had no knowledge of 9/11. His memory was completely blank.
He’d slipped into a state of stupor, was sitting on the side of the bed thinking of nothing when Nadia knocked on the door, entered the room carrying a stack of new clothing. She’d gone to a Big and Tall Men’s store the day before. Matching sizes with the clothing the stranger had arrived in, she’d picked out pjs, shirts, trousers, boxers and shoes. Had made certain to purchase only long-sleeved shirts. She’d also stopped at a drug store for a toothbrush, toothpaste, other toiletry items. After some hesitation, she’d added a bag of razors and a can of shaving cream to her cart.