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Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing my third novel. If you are interested in it, you can follow its development step by step on this page. I can promise you one thing: it is not going to be boring. This is not a fiction. All events are described exactly as they happened based on my life.
The real thing. And it is developing as I write the book. Something new? You bet, just like my gravitation theory. And there is more: I do not know how it is going to end.
So, here it is.
THE KOENIGSBERG FACTOR
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CONTENTS
ALEX'S HELL
CHILD OF WAR
DEATH OF A CITY
MAN VERSUS WOLF
A DANCE WITH A QUEEN
TEN YEAR LEAP
GOD, PLEASE STEP ASIDE!
LENA
DEATH OF MERCY
THE BIG QUESTION SURPRISING ANSWER THE CALENDAR GIRL
THE ODD MAN OUT THE HONOR CHOICE
CEMETERY HUNT TO KILL A SAINT
CRAZY GRAVITY
UNIVERSAL COUNCIL
NO LONGER A SECRET
FACING DESTINY
ALEX’S HELL
It was hot and stuffy in the apartment. Alex tossed his cover sheet aside and opened the window next to his bed. What a relief! His bare skin could breathe again. He sighed.
“You are getting soft, old man,” he said.
Admitting the discomfort was a regretful attitude, not soldier-like at all. He slept in the desert, and its cold nights have never bothered him. He slept in the muggy jungle able to ignore its main discomfort: mosquitoes. He was a soldier of fortune tested in many climates, and he always passed the test.
So, what was the problem now? Why couldn’t he fall asleep?
He tried the folk remedy, counting sheep, but that didn’t work. Sheep simply refused to jump over the log. Other, stronger images pushed the sheep aside.
Five Sandinista heads on stakes stared into space silently. Chispa spat on the headless corpse. Lejano dragged another headless body into the bushes. Five inanimate faces were a bloody-stained testimony to the ultimate cruelty of man. What would be the reaction of the next Sandinista patrol that stumbled upon the “work of art”? Would they scream in horror? Or freeze in stunned silence?
“It had to be done.” Alex tried to convince himself.
He reached the night stand and pressed the top bar on the clock. The clock faithfully beamed the red digital image of time on the ceiling: it was two o’clock in the morning.
“Got to get some sleep.” Alex murmured. He lifted his head, puffed up the pillow, then turned toward the window and closed his eyes.
More imaged appeared. They, the team of six soldiers, faced two squads of Sandinistas, the Sandinistas in front and the swamp behind. Mortar bombs were closing in. Chispa and Lejano were wounded. A sliver of shrapnel in Alex’s shoulder stung. His associate Jim dripped blood – a bullet grazed his forearm. They were trapped, the swamp behind them was the only way out. The badly wounded had to be carried, that load condemned the team. Alex had to make a very painful decision. He shifted the little lever on his AK from “auto” to “single”.
Don’t hesitate, man, pull the damn trigger.
And he did.
“It had to be done.” Again, he tried to convince himself.
The neighborhood slept. Even the tree next to Alex’s window, the noisy tree as Alex called it, because its leaves always moved in the slightest wind and rustled, now slept. A dog barked in the distance.
Finally, Alex dozed off.
Someone nudged him. Alex turned. Chispa?! But how could that be? Chispa died in the jungle of Nicaragua, Alex executed him. Or maybe it was Alex who was dead?!
He screamed and jumped.
There was someone else on the other side of the bed. Lehano?
Alex stumbled and fell on the floor. His heart raced. He broke out in the cold sweat. Chispa and Lejano were back perhaps to get even with him!
In fear, he turned around to face them and suddenly discovered that he was alone. He fell on his knees and tried to catch his breath. Then silence filled the room.
He crawled into the bathroom and, holding onto the sink, pulled himself up. Lights on! He splashed cool water in his face.
He was alive! Chispa and Lejano were simply a nightmare.
He hesitated to go back to bed. Instead, he stepped into the kitchenette and mixed himself a drink, Southern Comfort 100 Proof and cranberry juice, fifty-fifty.
“I am definitely going schizo.” He said. “Bottoms up!”
In the last two months, his nightmares acquired a pattern: insomnia, then, about two in the morning, he dozed off, and then he woke up to face one of his victims – Chispa and Lejano, or the old man in Brasil, a former Nazi, or the Mau-Mau terrorist in Africa resembling Obama, whom he castrated in 1964.
Good old days! Alex forced a smile.
Sleeping in dirty places, eating yucky food, associating with seedy friends, and fighting someone else’s wars – that was the world of a soldier of fortune, Alex’s world.
“Miss Death is a beautiful lady.” Alex used to say. “To survive, one must become her friend.”
What did he mean by that? Alex’s score, in four wars, was fifty two confirmed. Perhaps twice as many, a terrible count. How does one live with it? By adopting an escapist philosophy “the world is a stage and I am an actor”. This philosophy liberates one from being responsible for his actions. It’s all just a big game, a play. All one had to do is to play his role convincingly, and the audience will be pleased. If the audience is pleased, it is not going to throw rotten eggs and tomatoes at him.
In his younger years, Alex attempted to be himself. He had heroes whom he admired and whose example he tried to emulate. But that never worked. The mold simply didn’t fit. So Alex learned to play different roles. He played a Komsomol (Communist Youth League) leader, a storybook sailor from Jack London’s novels, a Soviet dissident in the Turkish jail after he jumped a storybook ship in Dardanelles. That almost cost him his life. After he came to America, he played a double agent in the KGB, that again almost cost him his life. So, now used to danger, he played a mercenary commander – that role was the easiest to play because it was close to his true nature. But he could not sustain the part, his hands began to tremble. He decided to play safer roles from then on. He played a good husband and father though less successfully than he expected – his wife was smarter than he gave her a credit for, she divorced him. Simultaneously with his good-husband-and-father role he played a computer programmer, the longest and the dullest role of his life.
Now, where did he stand?
During one’s lifetime, every person comes to the point when he or she must make a major decision: in which direction to go. Simply drifting no longer applied. One must select an option in order to continue. Of course there is always an option to stop – commit suicide.
Alex always considered himself as a rational man. When he faced a crisis, he tried to brush aside his emotions. He ignored the discomfort, subdued panic, and fought fear. Logic prevailed. He was a rational man. But rational men do not see nightmares. They do not wake up in the middle of the night in the cold sweat.
So, what went wrong? Was he afraid of death? Was he afraid to face what awaited him on the other side?
Alex approached the refrigerator, opened its lower door, and pushed aside a bag of oranges on the middle shelf. There lay his pistol. Its handle was cold and reassuring. With a pistol in his hand, he was safe! Nine rounds, caliber 45, would stop anybody.
He had enemies. How many, who they were, which direction could they come from? He didn’t know. Someone took a potshot at him on the local trail a few months back. He caught a glimpse of the man – a Spaniard, or an Iranian, or an Arab. How did Alex react? He ran and dived in the bushes. But the man did not pursue him. Why? Perhaps the man said to himself, “I’ll get him the next time.” Or, possibly, the man was afraid of Alex because Alex was a dangerous target. He was quite successful in accomplishing his missions one of which generated so much hate in the man on the trail.
Hate! That is why the man missed. His hand trembled during the moment when he pulled the trigger.
Alex did not hate anyone. Every mission he went on was just another job – difficult, sometimes dangerous, but only a job. His hands never trembled when he pulled the trigger or dipped the knife into the flesh.
But now his hands trembled. Not hate – fear! He was afraid to face what was awaiting him after death.
Every fall, an important event takes place in Raleigh: the International Festival. Many nations erect their stands at the Dorton Arena or downtown. These stands display nation’s culture. And there is a wide stage for groups to show their national dances.
On one occasion, an Iranian dance group flowed out on the stage. Pretty girls, colorful costumes, a beautiful song and an elegant dance – that is what Alex watched with his friend Tom. These girls were of the right age to be daughters of the soldiers Alex killed in Iran during the Iran-Iraqi war. The chance that even one girl was a daughter of such soldier was very slim, but the “small world factor” always followed Alex. Bumping into the right person from the past in New York City, population eight million, is impossible, but it happened to Alex. Then later he met a girl, a pretty girl from Finland. They dated for awhile, and then she dropped a bombshell on Alex. She mentioned that during the Second World War her father was a Finnish sniper on the Russian front. He was killed in the woods of Karelia. Alex was speechless. Finally, after collecting himself, he asked her where exactly in Karelia was her father killed. She didn’t know.
Should I tell her? He hesitated. How would she react to the statement that perhaps my father killed her father?
Alex’s father served in the Red Army and participated in the Finnish campaign of 1939 in Karelia and Finland. He was assigned to an NKVD (the future KGB) detachment. The detachment usually stayed behind the front lines, but sometimes, on special occasions, it advanced into the enemy territory. During one of such excursions, one of the detachment’s vehicles, a truck with important materials and documents, was ambushed by the Finnish unit. The driver and his help were killed, and the truck was stuck in the freezing mud of the woods of Karelia. Two volunteers tried to extract the truck and, too, were killed by a Finnish sniper.
That’s when Alex’s father volunteered for the task. He went alone. He didn’t like to talk about the incident, something about it bothered him, but from what he related Alex had the picture. His father found and killed the sniper, then he extracted the truck.
This incident was reported to Beria himself who was the Head of the NKVD. At that time, father didn’t know that his heroism saved not just the fucking truck but his family, his wife and Alex starving almost to death in the mountains of Kazakhstan on the Chinese border. Beria did Alex’s father a big favor: his agency located Alex and his mother and brought them to Leningrad when that city’s blockade was lifted.
Alex’s father used a knife, a silent method of killing, to finish the Finnish sniper. Father’s selection of a weapon profoundly influenced Alex’s life later. At the time, Alex did not understand his father’s reluctance to discuss the details of the operation, but later he understood it totally. To shoot someone from the distance is a relatively easy task. It is very impersonal, one does not see the face of the victim. But to kill someone using a knife is totally different event. The “face factor” becomes an obstacle and a very personal experience, and, like in Alex’s case, a cause of the future nightmares. Victim’s eyes, widely open mouth, and the last breath – a never forgettable vision – will follow one for the rest of his life.
And now Alex watched one or more girls who lost their fathers, the fathers he killed. Alex could not hold back his tears. His regret was overwhelming. And there was more to it. After his death, how could he face those soldiers in the afterworld? What could he say to them?
“Oh yeah, by the way, I saw your daughter’s dance, man.” Yes, that would be dandy.
“But look at the other side of the coin.” Alex searched for some kind of defense. “If one of those soldiers killed me, he would be in my shoes. I have a daughter, too.”
Alex’s gaze scanned the dark interior of his apartment.
“Who gave you the right to take someone else’s life, you worthless scumbag? How could you justify what you have done? There could be no excuse.”
He stared at the window.
“I sentence you to death.” Alex placed the cold barrel of the pistol into his mouth…
CHILD OF WAR
Alex was born into the most savage war, the Second World War. One could say, “That was unfortunate.”, but Alex would disagree.
What would Alex’s life be if the war did not happen? He would remain in Moscow, would grow up peacefully in its suburbs, graduate from the high school and be assigned by the Soviet government to one of the local factories (perhaps to the candy factory Krasny Front). He would marry his high school sweetheart, have a couple of kids, work until his retirement, drink a lot of vodka and die prematurely.
How exciting!
No, that was not Alex’s destiny. The war broke out, and Alex’s life took a totally different course.
His father was drafted into the Army and fought on the Finnish front in Karelia. Germans advanced toward the main cities of Russia. Their bombers began systematic bombing of Moscow.
Alex and his mother moved temporarily to Voronezh, a city south of Moscow and stayed with relatives in the early fall of 1941.
That is where Alex had a taste of war for the first time. Although he was only five years old, he remembered the event vividly.
For whatever reason, his mother and him were crossing an open field on the outskirts of Voronezh. A growing noise behind them attracted their attention. Suddenly, they discovered that they were a target of a diving Messerschmitt-109, a German fighter. Mother threw Alex on the ground and covered his body with hers. The roar of the plane’s engine grew in intensity, the airplane was almost on top of them. The pilot’s finger probably rested on the trigger.
But the pilot did not pull the trigger. Perhaps at that moment he thought of his own mother and his heart warmed up toward that Russian woman on the ground and her little son. The plane whistled-roared just a few feet above the two bodies on the ground, and the gust of wind in the wake of the plane touched Alex’s face. The plane shot up in the sky and disappeared.
They did not comment on the event, just walked in silence, but Alex knew how close they came to their demise only a few moments ago.
They returned to Moscow, they had to, otherwise they could lose their apartment.
Nightly bombings soon became a routine. When sirens whined, that meant that German bombers were just about to start another deadly run. Neighbors came out and crouched under small canopies of buildings. No one wished to be buried in the rubble if a bomb hit their building. Canopies protected them from a falling shrapnel of the anti-aircraft artillery shells, the metal chunks which sometimes peppered tin roofs.
Search lights scanned the black sky attempting to locate elusive bombers. Sometimes they did. Then the search beams crisscrossed on the caught plane. One could see a cluster of bright flashes around it. From time to time, an unlucky bomber was hit. It became a reddish ball of fire falling from the sky and leaving behind a long grey trail of smoke – the death sentence to the crew, no parachutes visible. Everyone applauded, that became a nightly entertainment.
One time, a bombing raid caught Alex and his mother downtown. That was an early raid, a surprise – it was not dark yet. There were screechy sirens followed, almost immediately, by an approaching roar of explosions. There was no time and no place to hide.
Suddenly, hell broke loose around Alex and his mother – loud whistle of bombs, flashes, smoke, dust, flying debris, and a deafening roar, no separate explosions, just a continuous roar.
Mother threw Alex on the pavement and covered him with her body to protect him from a falling glass. Both watched a man across the street sitting on a sidewalk and covering his head with a wire mesh empty wastebasket. Apparently the man believed that the basket could protect him.
A bomb hit the building across the street. The building collapsed on the man with the wastebasket. The air became an unbreathable acidy thick mixture of dust, smoke, debris, and flames. Shattered glass from above rained on Alex and his mother.
They were lucky, they paid their dues only with a few cuts and scratches. The man on the other side of the street paid the creditor with his life.
The German troops approached Moscow, and the mass evacuation of the city’s residents began. Alex and his mother were shoved into one of the overcrowded (standing room only) cargo railroad cars and rolled south, to Kazakhstan.
They spent three years in the mountains close to the Chinese border. Those were the hardest years of Alex’s life, and even worse for his mother.
The evacuees (about six or seven families, the total of twenty) arrived in the mountains in the middle of the winter. No protection from the weather and no food. Bonfires kept them warm. The local officials brought several loafs of dark bread with crushed shucks mixed in. Two weeks later, the officials erected one large tent. The evacuees stayed in the tent until the spring.
When spring arrived, each family dug out a hole in the side of a steep hill facing south and constructed a shack made of twigs and clay, then built a clay stove inside. The quality of each shack stood one step above a death trap. Roofs leaked, stoves filled the interior with carbon monoxide gas if closed too early. Sometimes Alex and his mother woke up with tremendous headache due to the carbon monoxide gas poisoning.
But the main problem was the lack of food. Mother prepared a soup using road weeds, pancakes from the black mush of the last year potatoes dug out in the frozen field, and the rotten (very smelly) meat of dead horses permeated by maggots. Mother boiled the meat and scooped the maggots on the surface with a spoon. She, laughingly, called the dish the “myaso s dushkom” – meat with a special aroma.
Lice were another problem. Every seam in everyone’s clothes was full of lice eggs, rows and rows of those. And the head lice! Mother used a fine comb to extract the lice out of Alex’s hair. She simply combed them out on a sheet of paper.
Then it became worse: lice brought typhus. That sucker was deadly. A Jewish middle-aged couple from Poland, Alex’s neighbor on the left, soon died. A family of four, neighbors on the right, caught it, too. Grandmother and mother were in bed, well, on a blanket on the floor, down with typhus and cholera. Two brothers, Alex’s playmates, were spared, but not for long. One morning, Alex went outside to play with them. There stood two officials by the brothers’ shack. Alex asked one if he could play with his friends, and the officials told him to go home. They said that all members of the family were dead, the cause – carbon monoxide gas poisoning, overnight. One of the men, probably seeing how undernourished Alex was, gave him a loaf of bread.
Alex went back and handed the bread to his mother. Then he cried, cried for the first time he could remember.
Then, luck! An official came to their shack and told Alex’s mother to get ready to go. She asked where, and he answered, “Out of this hellish place.”
From the original twenty evacuees, Alex and his mother were the only survivors. That was the end of Alex’s childhood. He grew up at the age of seven.
The family was allowed to join Alex’s father in Leningrad right after its blockade has been lifted and the German troops were pushed west. Leningrad was a pitiful sight. It was a large city, and one third of its population died during the blockade.
In the total disorder of communications, Alex’s father could not be found. Resourceful mother found the solution to the food problem. She, and Alex in front of her, stood by the entrance to the bread store. Bread was sold not by loafs but by grams. Thus, there always were small pieces of bread called “doveski” to complete the exact count of grams. That’s what Alex and his mother were after.
Alex held an open sack, and some of the shoppers dropped “doveski” in it.
Later in life, Alex encountered a little Indian girl in Tegucigalpa selling Indian trinkets, one dollar a piece. The girl, about three, sat next to her blind grandmother on the pavement behind a spread covered with blue stone rings and earrings. The little girl was a breadwinner of the family. Alex remembered Leningrad. He paid five dollars for a pair of earrings, and the little smudge-face thanked him with a precious microscopic “Gracias, Señor.”
How old one has be to grow up in the Third World? Russia’s answer is seven (Alex). America’s answer is three (the little smudge face).
A week after their arrival in Leningrad, mother and Alex found Alex’s father.
And the war continued.
Four months later, father’s detachment, renamed the “column ten-ten”, was sent to Poland, behind the advancing Red Army. Father was influential enough to be able to take his family with him.
The column consisted of several trucks carrying the NKVD personnel and supplies.
The scenes of total destruction followed one after another. Alex remembered one stop at a very peculiar site surrounded by a barb wired fence. That site was a former German concentration camp. It was empty, all inmates were transported elsewhere.
A Major in charge invited Alex’s father and the family to take a look. For some reason, mother refused to go, but Alex went.
There was a row of neat elongated piles of ashes covered by a thin layer of snow. The Major casually remarked that those were human ashes, the ashes of cremated inmates of the camp.
A corner of one pile was disturbed, and the ashes spilled across the path. They did not circumvent the ashes, and the ashes crunched under Alex’s feet. At that time, Alex did not recognize the significance of what he saw – he was eight. Human ashes? So what, no big deal, it was a war time, and Alex has seen worse.
Only much later in life, looking back, he finally realized that what he saw was monstrous.
They returned to their truck. Mother cried, and Alex could not understand why.
The column stopped briefly at Warsaw, or what was left of it, and split in two. One half went to Breslau, Germany, and Alex’s half proceeded south, to Zamostje, where the NKVD troops were building an air strip for the Russian bombers.
That is where, for the first time, Alex saw the enemy, the German prisoners of war who were forced to build the air strip. They starved, the NKVD was not very generous feeding them.
The resourceful mother took full advantage of the situation: one loaf of bread cost a gold wedding ring. Alex became a smuggler. The guards knew him well and always let him through.
Alex was totally blond at eight, and one German soldier told him in broken Russian that he looked like his son in Munich. He patted Alex on the head. Alex hoped that the soldier could survive and see his son again, although chances for that were extremely small – the NKVD was quite merciless.
Mother and Alex met the end of the war in Zamostje. That night, May 9, 1945, they were awakened by shooting outside, multiple automatic weapons. They didn’t know what that shooting meant. Mother was sure it was an invasion by the pro-German forces, and they were going to die because they were Russian. There were pro-German bands in the area, in the woods surrounding Zamostje. Later mother confessed to running to the bathroom, the fear factor.
Alex stepped out on the balcony and observed the muzzle flashes of submachine guns practically from every other balcony of all buildings. The Poles (everyone had a weapon) were shooting into the sky.
The woman neighbor was banging on the door and screaming, “Pani!.. Pani!..” (Ma’am, in Polish). She burst in and embraced Alex’s trembling mother. Mother did not understand Polish, but Alex had Polish playmates in the street for almost five months and began speaking Polish. He translated what the woman was screaming about: the war was over! The Poles heard the news on the radio and were celebrating the end of the war.
The road back to Russia included a few detours. Passing through the Western Ukraine, everyone in the column was on edge. The woods hid a sizeable hostile force commanded by a guy name Bandera. That was very fierce anti-Communist force. The Bandera band attacked convoys like the column.
The column approached the area controlled by the band and stopped. Someone came up with the idea to show Bandera how fearless his opposition was. A few guys pulled out their PPSh submachine guns and fired them in the air.
Alex wanted to join the party. Someone handed him a submachine gun. He had an idea of his own.
Why in hell not? He thought.
Instead of firing up in the air, he sprayed the woods with bullets. That was the first time he fired an automatic weapon.
He heard an applause.
They stopped at a little village near Lvov and stayed there for a couple of months waiting for the rest of the ten-ten returning from Germany to join them.
Alex’s family was housed at the farm owned by a Ukrainian family. The family had a little daughter. Her name was Kviata (flower, in Ukrainian).
Alex was eight and the girl was seven. They became friends. They went on outings in crop fields and little trails that only she knew. They enjoyed each other’s company. They lay in the grass looking at clouds in the sky and laughed at the scarecrow. Alex collected Kviata a small bouquet of local blue flowers, and they kissed. After the hell that Alex left behind, that was an incredibly happy time in his life. Love and peace, nothing else mattered. A lot of sunshine, slight breeze, smell of flowers, beautiful blue skies, a few white clouds above, and the scarecrow both Kviata and Alex laughed at . How can you ever beat that?!
Kviata cried when Alex was leaving. Both knew that they will never see each other again. She was Alex’s first love: incredibly, a girl of seven going on thirteen. And him, a boy of eight going on eighteen.
In Moscow, Alex’s mother took Alex to the Gorky Park, which exhibited the Russian trophies from Germany: its best airplanes, its mighty tanks, its super artillery. How could Russia win against all those super weapons? Alex wondered.
But closer to the immediate concerns.
At this point, it is only appropriate to mention that there was another very brief episode in Alex’s life concerning another girl, name Erna, in Poland, but Alex refused to discuss the subject. She died, and it was painful to Alex to talk about her.
In Moscow, the ten-ten was disbanded, dissolved. Alex’s father had to find a job. He had high ranking enemies in the NKVD, and he was too proud to ask Beria for another favor. He found a job as a mechanic in a small town called Kupavna, about twenty miles east of Moscow.
Here, they stayed for three years, and here where Alex met another exceptional girl. Her name was Tanya. She was one year older than Alex, pretty face, blond hair, blue eyes, and already well developed body – well ahead of Alex in maturity.
They became very close friends, but that was all. She tried to introduce Alex to sex, but he was not ready. What turned him off was her blunt approach. He thought that he was supposed to do all the work of approaching a girl. Very immature! And regretful, because he was not going to have another opportunity to be close to another girl for awhile.
Meanwhile, Alex played with Tanya exclusively. He noticed his father’s gazes on him and Tanya. It appeared that father became suspicious and concerned with Alex’s behavior.
“Why don’t you ever play with boys?” Father asked.
Alex could not find any reasonable explanation. But the answer was simple: he just preferred to play with girls, he related to the opposite sex easier, he understood girls better than boys. He did not wish to become a girl (he never even entertained a thought of playing with dolls), he just liked girls more than boys, it was as simple as that.
DEATH OF A CITY
East Prussia, a country next to Poland, at the Baltic sea, belonged to Germany for centuries. It was a beautiful country: neat clean farms with red-tiled roofs, fertile lands, a fruit-and-berry garden by every house, and large patches of still preserved wild woods.
In the evening, if one sat by any pond, he could observe frequent splashes by plentiful fish. Herds of the local black-and-white hide breed cattle, brown horses, and unusually colorful poultry. And, of course, a very peaceful landscape.
The Russian invasion of 1944 has ended the idyllic life of local Germans. Their main city, Koenigsberg, was totally destroyed by allied bombing raids and subsequent ground battles. After the defeat of Germany, East Prussia was annexed by the Russians and its population repatriated to East Germany. Not a single German was allowed to stay. The forceful relocation was completed by the spring of 1948. East Prussia became Kaliningradskaya Oblast (Kaliningrad region).
The Soviet government opened a campaign to repopulate the region with Russians from all over the Soviet Union. As an incentive, the government granted twenty thousand rubles to each family willing to settle down in the new lands.
Alex came to the region in one of the first waves of new settlers. His family was assigned a house in the newly created Soviet farm number 50 comprising several hamlets. Germans called those hamlets “missions” (Gross Mischen, Klein Mischen, Tassen Mischen…). Domhoff was Alex’s “mission”. New settlers continued using these German names.
Alex’s father became an all-around handyman. In the winter, he repaired trucks, tractors, and other agricultural machinery, and in the summer, he operated a combine, a harvesting machine.
The farm, officially called sovkhoz (soviet enterprise) was located about six miles from Koenigsberg. Alex always liked to explore the unknown, and here he had vast, no longer populated areas, scattered empty hamlets, some intact and others burned down probably by their owners just before they had to leave, they knew that they will never return. Countless fruit gardens, a vast garden of Eden in the summer and in the fall. Also, a junkyard of half destroyed war machinery: airplanes, tanks, artillery, small arms and ammunition of every kind.
A disabled Tiger tank obstructed the road to Alex’s hamlet. The tank’s long barrel extended across it, and one had to walk or ride around it to pass. The tank’s interior was moderately mangled (a hand grenade did the damage), but Alex found a neat knife with a pearl handle. The knife probably belonged to the former tank commander and became Alex’s first trophy in the German lands.
“Thanks, Hans,” he commented.
The new environment was a paradise to Alex… except for one little thing. He was alone, no close neighbors, no playmates. And there was another new and unpleasant development in Alex’s life – his mother changed.
In spite of the fact that Alex’s father was, a bit, on the short side, he was a handsome man and attracted attention of many women. Mother strongly suspected that he cheated on her. She was very unhappy and took her frustrations out on Alex. All he had to do was just to look at her the wrong way, and the punishment followed. A physical punishment by a folded leather belt on a bare skin, it stung like hell. During the procedure, usually, Alex pleaded with her promising that whatever he has done he will never do that again. But that didn’t work, the beating continued until she was out of breath. Alex did not cry, he just screamed.
Soon, a new family moved in, the next house neighbors: parents, two girls (sixteen and five), and a boy of Alex’s age. The boy’s name was Ivan, or Vanya. Alex and Vanya quickly became friends. The new friends had something in common. As they describe it in the civilized circles, Vanya’s mother beat the shit out of him, just like Alex’s mother beat the shit out of Alex. That happened when Vanya committed “unspeakable crimes” like stealing a cookie.
Often, Alex and Vanya explored the new world together. That was more fun, they could share their opinion on the objects they found.
“Let’s drop this mortar bomb in the bonfire and see what happens,” Alex would suggest.
“Are you crazy, man?” Vanya would object to the idea, his slightly slanted blue eyes would stare at Alex in disbelief. “They’ll try to collect your pieces and they would never find your balls.”
Once, they decided to explore Koenigsberg.
“That’s too far to walk.” Vanya objected initially, but quickly changed his mind. “Yeah, the whole city to ourselves.”
A letter from Alex to his daughter Lara survived. It relates Alex’s experience in the city better that any detached impersonal description.
“You walk toward Koenigsberg. In about two miles, you cross the paved road to Rauschen. You see a German sign ‘Nach Rauschen, 20 km’ (To Rauschen, 20 kilometers). That’s the road to the shores of the Baltic sea on your right. Traffic is non-existent. Then, after another mile, you approach Ober Olkein, a medium size former military air base – totally empty, deserted, with several destroyed German military aircraft scattered around.
Continue toward the city. The first thing you reach on the outskirts of the city is a very long (about one mile and a half) straight street. It’s an amazing sight. There is not a single building on either side of the street that survived, not a single wall, not a single tree – just two straight parallel rows of charred brick chimneys as far as you can see.
You walk farther and climb up the hill. And there you stand stunned. You can see the whole city of Koenigsberg, and there is not a single building standing intact – all done in by bombs and ground battles, no roofs, just half destroyed walls, charred, chipped and dented by bullets and shrapnel. All the way to the horizon! An eerie view. You see a very tall factory smoke stack with the top sheered off by a direct artillery hit.
Then you descend down the hill. At the next corner of the street, you spot a rusted round metal booth, an information booth – a poster stand with two hundred holes pierced by bullets and shrapnel. You note the direction of hits. You realize that whoever defended this intersection against the advancing Russian troops saw hell. Nothing has survived intact. Just a few mangled trees here and there. Not a single building standing – just walls with gaping holes where windows used to be and through which you can see the sky.
At that moment, I did not realize that this intersection will become the yardstick for my future mercenary activities – the degree of man-made destruction possible. That’s where it all started for me, Lara – at that intersection, the intersection of my life, at the age of twelve.
I wondered whether any of the defenders survived. Extremely unlikely. The Russians overwhelmed the defenders by sheer numbers, that is how they win: by quantity, not by quality. Vanya did not understand any of this. As to my future mercenary activities, I think those were only minor events comparing to what took place at that intersection in 1944. I can read a battlefield, somehow I always could. I could see the demise of two Russian tanks even long after they have been removed, and of how many soldiers? Twenty? Thirty? The Russian commander didn’t care. A hundred soldiers and three tanks (that’s the usual support) against eight or ten Germans. The defenders never had a chance to survive this battle.
The tank at Domhoff’s where the tank commander lost his life and left his personal pearl-handle knife to me, as if he knew who will inherit his knife, and the soldier on the left flank of the intersection who fired the first Faust-patron (a rocket-propelled grenade) at the Russian tank before he died. My heart is with them. Were they my enemies? Yes, but there is more to it than just this narrow view. There are bigger values. My top respect to the defenders of that intersection. I know what it took to hold it for a while – a superhuman effort, the last stand, an unprecedented degree of heroism that no one gave them credit for. I give them that credit now. I know its value. The determination of their commander deserves a praise, perhaps an Iron Cross in the German military system for everyone of them, probably meaningless in the afterlife but very meaningful to them. Maybe in the afterlife I’ll meet them, I hope, and shake their hands – that will be an honor for me.
Here, Lara, you see another paradox. Why do I sympathize with the Germans? I am a Russian, an enemy of Germans. They destroyed my country, they pillaged, raped, and killed... they are the enemy! Then why do I understand them? Why do I pity that German POW in Poland who patted me on my head and said that I remind him of his son in Munich? He probably knew that he will never see his son again. So, what is it? Do I have something in common with those Germans? If you understand it, please explain it to me.
But back to my little adventure. You enter the city, but there is no city at all. Some streets are cleared to allow for traffic, but… there is no traffic, and there are no people, no animals, no birds. It’s all EMPTY, silent, dead. Buildings are gone, there are just large piles of rubble (collapsed floors) with a few chunks of burned out dented surviving walls still standing. And in the rubble, still undisturbed, are tens of thousands bodies buried under the rubble. The city is one gigantic cemetery.
I ask Vanya if he can smell it.
He enquires, ‘What?’
He cannot smell it, but I can. It is not a stench of rotting flesh anymore – that one smells pungent. It is something more profound, something I have never encountered before, something that permeates everything around – a smell of death! It hangs, it covers the whole city like a thick blanket.
I feel chills, my arms are covered with goose bumps, and that is not from a cool wind. There is no wind, everything is still and silent.
Vanya pulls me by the sleeve and says, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
I read fear in his eyes. We leave, we do not look back.”
End of the letter.
MAN VERSUS WOLF
The region was scarcely populated yet. It will take another two years before a sufficient number of Russian families would be persuaded to relocate to the new lands and the local agriculture could yield meaningful crops. The working force was too small.
In the spring, Vanya and Alex were hired to take care of about seventy horses left behind by the Germans. The job included taking horses out to nearby meadows in the morning to graze, keeping an eye on the herd and preventing horses from wandering away.
Partners loved the freedom to select any horse for riding. They did not use saddles. In their opinion, saddles were created for wimps. The bareback ride was the preferred mode of travel, the Mongolian style. There was just one little problem, at least in the beginning: how to mount a horse without a saddle and the saddle straps?
In the evening, they brought horses back to the stables briefly stopping by the local pond and giving horses an opportunity to quench their thirst.
Horses did not understand Russian. If they had to be maneuvered in the stables, Alex’s job was easier when he issued commands in German. Individual cells were narrow, horses had to be moved backwards into those cells.
“Zurück!” Alex commanded, and the horses made several steps back into the cell just like in the circus.
Skrebnitsa, a pregnant mare, was Alex’s favorite horse. Her mild disposition, obedience, and total understanding of his commands made her the smartest horse in the herd. Alex and Skrebnitsa developed a bond. When he came to the stables in the morning, she always greeted him with a nod, and when he approached her, she nudged him in the shoulder gently. He, then, surprised her with a carrot or a turnip, he liked to spoil her.
When the summer came, boys no longer had to bring the horses back to the stables. They just moved from one meadow to another and stayed with the herd day and night.
Living in the open was fun particularly sleeping by a bonfire. They carried a shotgun to protect themselves and horses from wolves in the woods. Wolf howls did not alarm horses – they were used to those. When the wolves came too close to the herd, Alex lifted the shotgun and fired it in the air. That scared the wolves away.
In the morning, Alex counted horses to be sure that none wandered away during the night.
And one morning, a horse was missing. Vanya and Alex recounted horses. Yes, one horse was missing. It was Skrebnitsa.
Alex and Vanya mounted horses and split in different directions.
Alex checked three meadows and rode back. He hoped that Vanya found Skrebnitsa. Suddenly, he heard a growl in the woods and stopped. Wolves! His heart skipped a beat, he knew what that growl meant. He dismounted his horse.
He found Skrebnitsa or what was left of her. Apparently, wolves separated her from the herd and chased her into the woods where she found a trap – a military underground shelter covered by thick beams and a layer of soil. Skrebnitsa’s legs slipped between the crisscrossing beams and she could not pull herself out of the trap.
Seeing Alex, three wolves retreated, but the fourth one stayed. Probably he was the leader of the pack. The wolf apparently considered Alex to be just another predator trying to claim his share of the fresh meat, a competition for food, a rival in the hierarchy of predators. The wolf bared his teeth and growled at Alex.
What Alex felt was something new: rage and sorrow intermixed. He approached the wolf. The wolf assumed a defensive stance, the fur on his back raised, his teeth bared all the way.
Alex pulled out his pearl handle knife.
Who will start the battle? Wolf?
In one long leap, Alex pounced on the furry body of the wolf, the body of the enemy, the enemy who killed Alex’s best friend. The blade of the knife sunk into the enemy’s neck. The body twisted, but Alex held it tightly. He could feel the warm blood flowing down his hand and forearm. The wolf gave it another effort. His body strained, and he attempted to jump.
“Not a chance, you goddamn piece of shit.” Alex hissed and twisted the blade to cause more damage.
The body shuddered and relaxed. The combat was over, the wolf lost! Alex pulled out the blade and cleaned it against the sleeve of his shirt. That was Alex’s first kill.
All those stories and myths about wolves! Most of those are wrong. A man cannot lose to a wolf. A man is smarter and faster. All he needs is courage, to be more courageous than a wolf. Jack London was right. The man in his novel White Silence defeated a wolf. So did Alex!
Jack London was an American writer of the beginning of the twentieth century. He was Alex’s most favorite adventure writer. He was like Alex a few years forward: a sailor on the high seas and a daring adventurer willing to take risks. In a sense, Alex competed with Jack London and his novel heroes. This time Alex won. His adversary was not a sick wolf, but very strong vicious animal which could kill Alex. But Alex was faster and smarter. He selected the right angle of attack and sunk the blade of the German tank commander in the wolf’s throat before the animal could reach his neck.
The wolf was dead, but Alex slashed its throat anyway. That was the final revenge slash. Then Alex cried mixing his tears with the wolf’s blood.
The wolf was stronger than Alex. So, how could Alex win? Speed! To be a second ahead of the enemy. That second is the difference between one’s victory and death. That’s what Alex learned in the woods of East Prussia. That knowledge will save his life more than once in the future.
They say that after killing someone, even on a battlefield, one’s life changes forever. How true that is! It’s like wasting a part of oneself, losing a dole of good. After killing a wolf. Alex’s experience also encompassed a loss of a friend, Skrebnitsa.
Once or twice, Vanya noted, “You are very quiet today, Alex.”
“Yeah, some things on my mind.”
There were no things. Alex just was a bit numb inside, with less feelings to express.
After that summer, Alex was home again, and his beatings resumed. During the second beating, things changed though. Alex clenched his teeth and remained silent instead of begging his mother to stop. She paused, looked into his eyes, and collapsed crying. Perhaps she suddenly realized that Alex was no longer a kid. She never raised her hand on him again. Alex was twelve.
The financial problems arrived. The government “resettlement” assistance ran out and Alex’s family faced tougher times. All foodstuffs had to be rationed. Once one ate his share of any particular foodstuff, he or she had to be content with observing how the other two members of the family consumed their share.
That’s when Alex discovered a new source of nourishment. It walked around all the time, and Alex simply did not notice it… until his stomach growled demanding Alex’s immediate attention to its needs.
The source of nourishment announced the arrival of every new day in the morning and cackled incessantly. But what was more important – it lay eggs. Germans, before leaving, let their poultry out in the open. That is how chickens obtained their freedom. They roamed fields searching for food individually and in flocks, did what comes naturally, and lay eggs in the tall grass. Alex was perfectly happy to drink those eggs raw. Thus, eggs became an important supplement to his diet.
But the bonanza did not last long. Other settlers discovered the mother lode and began rounding up the “wild” chickens. Soon, the fields became silent, all chickens were caught. The stream dried up.
A DANCE WITH A QUEEN
After finishing his mandatory stint of four years in East Prussia, Alex’s father, a restless soul, found a job in Grozny, Chechnya, and the family moved again.
Chechnya was conquered by Russia during the previous century and became a symbol of defiance to the Russian rule. Even the name of its main city – Grozny – was symbolic. It meant terrible, threatening.
The city spreads within a horseshoe of hills with an opening to the south. Its industrial complex (oil processing plants and chemical factories) is in its southern half ending with a lake and a power plant generating electricity for the entire region. River Sunzha running north cuts the city in two. Woods extend further south for about twenty kilometers all the way to the majestic Caucasus mountains.
Alex liked his new neighborhood, Vremennyi Posyolok (Temporary Settlement), built on the side of a hill. He could see the railroad below, an acetone plant, TETS (the power plant), the river Sunzha behind the plant, and the woods on the other side of the river.
Alex’s home life though was hell. His parents quarreled. Mother accused father of infidelity. The conflict intensified and reached the boiling point. Mother and father were ready to split. But Alex was an obstacle. Neither father nor mother wished to have Alex on their hands.
“You are a darmoyed (a freeloader).” Mother accused him.
And Alex made a decision: he was going to leave home. He was not going to be a freeloader anymore.
He was sixteen, he was going to get a job and be on his own. He still had to finish high school, but he could work at night. In the Soviet Union, reaching the age of sixteen meant acquiring full rights (except for the right to vote).
The woods south of the city became Alex’s new home, at least during the summer. Alex was always comfortable in the woods.
The bordering state crop fields donated vegetables and the river offered an unlimited supply of fish for Alex’s “kitchen”.
And there were no wolves in the woods! Just foxes and rabbits.
With not much to do, Alex divided his free time between obtaining food and exploring the neighborhood.
A mysterious compound of one story buildings surrounded by a tall wooden board fence was one of Alex’s new discoveries. If Alex did not stumble upon the compound, it would be hard to find it. It was as if someone tried to hide it in the tall woods. Why? The inconspicuous entrance into the woods did not attract anyone’s attention: that was an entrance to nowhere. The builders of the road and the compound did their best to de-emphasize the importance of the place. When Alex discovered the compound, he became curious: why did they hide it in the woods? What was it? A sandy dirt road snaked through the woods to the compound and its gates. The gates were manned by one uniformed guard armed with a rifle. That had to be some kind of a government facility.
“Definitely, stay away from it.” Alex said and went to find a log to climb up the fence. Alex simply had to know what was behind the fence. Was it an army ordnance dump, or was it a research facility?
Alex leaned the log against the fence, climbed to the top and peeked inside the compound. He could see its interior around the corner of a faceless windowless building -- a clean courtyard. Two meters to the left of the building rested a large garbage container. On the other side of the courtyard two more buildings stood in the background. At least those had windows. But no inhabitants were visible.
“I’ll be back,” Alex Schwarzeneggered and slid down the log.
Alex liked staying in the woods. A total freedom and almost a total independence from the “society” except for one little thing – food! Alex could eat only so much fish. Alex fried, boiled it, and tried to invent other ways of cooking it. But there was a limit on how long one could exist on vegetables and fish.
Alex came from the carnivorous generation. He had to have red meat in order to survive. Like in Kazakhstan, those other families died without red meat which could sustain them for another few weeks, or months. Alex could eat the rotten meat with maggots and he survived. Those families did not understand the significance of animal flesh proteins, but Alex did. This world is based on the survival of the fittest. If one cannot adapt, one dies.
And now Alex could not consume any more fish, the fucking trout. He needed red meat.
Rabbits were the solution to the animal protein problem. But how does one kill a rabbit? Alex did not have a gun or a spear. He had a knife though, the German tank commander’s knife.
Day after day, after day, Alex practiced throwing the knife. And then…success! He surprised and nailed a rabbit. That afternoon, he had a party.
The red meat problem solved, Alex could return to his object of interest: the mysterious compound. Alex found a better vantage point where a tree branch touched the fence right above the garbage container. Now he could observe the interior of the compound without being seen.
And one day Alex discovered the compound’s identity.
“Electricity, Konstantin, electricity. It does the trick every time.” A harmless looking man in an undershirt was talking to another man.
Konstantin! Alex always disliked that name, he didn’t know why.
Electricity? What was the man in the undershirt talking about? An electrical research? An experiment?
Both men finished smoking their cigarettes and went inside. Suddenly, Alex heard a scream inside the building. And everything became clear to him: the men gave someone inside the building an electric shock. These men were the KGB, and they attempted to make someone inside talk. A chill ran down Alex’s spine.
Get the hell out of here, he thought, but he couldn’t move, he simply froze.
The mystery compound was no longer a mystery. It was the KGB setup, their local interrogation center.
Alex was scared, but he was coming back every other day, he wanted to know more. The morbid curiosity prevailed.
Two weeks passed. Then it happened.
Even before Alex approached the compound he sensed that something has changed. What was there did not belong there. He heard music. The compound was lit up like a Christmas tree, totally out of its usual grim character. Alex climbed up his log and peeked inside.
He saw a crowd of men and women talking, laughing, dancing, and… eating! Three tables, end-to-end, were loaded with an endless variety of delicacies. There were no sandwiches made. Just rings and rings of Ukrainian kielbasa, chunks of Tea kielbasa, one half side of Volga ossetra sturgeon, an open plate of sevruga sturgeon grey caviar, a plate of red caviar, a plate of black caviar, and loaves of freshly baked white bread. And a row of vodka bottles, of course.
Alex haven’t seen such an abundance of delicacies even in his wildest dreams. His own recent diet, even with the rabbit component, was not up to par. His saliva flowed. And a daring thought crossed his mind. What if?!
What if he simply descended quietly inside and mixed with the crowd. Certainly, it was unlikely that everyone knew everyone else.
Like a gymnast, he flipped over the fence, slid down and crawled to his right, behind the building, to the darker side of the compound.
The triple table was an irresistible magnet. Alex’s legs carried him straight to the rings of Ukranian kielbasa. He did not bother slicing bread and the kielbasa to make a sandwich, there was no time for that totally unnecessary procedure. Alex was too impatient to sink his teeth into the ingredients. He simply sliced off a chunk of bread and a chunk of kielbasa.
He was in heavens!
“I haven’t seen you before.” The voice belonged to a man in a black shirt. “My name is Sasha.”
Alex shook the man’s hand, “I am Alex.”
“What subdivision are you from?”
“From Kaliningrad subdivision.” Alex had to think fast. “I was transferred to Grozny a week ago.”
“Oh, welcome to our retreat.” Sasha smiled and put a small glass of vodka in Alex’s hand.
“Thanks, I don’t drink.” Alex declined and returned the glass.
“I assume you don’t know many persons here. Let me introduce you.”
“Vorobyov… Odariuk… Pavlov… Kriuchkov…”
Alex tried to memorize the whole array of new names the best he could. The main name he had to remember was Ivan Aleksandrovich Sokolov. That man was the head of the Grozny subdivision (otdel) of the KGB. He was the one who could unmask the Great Impostor present at the party whoever that impostor was. Fortunately, Comrade Sokolov was already quite inebriated. He shook Alex’s hand and patted him on the shoulder, “I am glad to see someone from the West Coast.”
Sokolov was the king of the Grozny establishment.
But if Sokolov was the king, his wife, Lena, was a real queen. She was a beautiful, incredibly beautiful, young woman. About twenty five, perfectly oval face, straight straw blond hair, pug nose, pale-green eyes, and a smash figure.
Alex was stunned. All movie stars he has seen in the movies could not compare to her in beauty. He approached her.
“May I have this dance?”
She accepted, and they waltzed.
“You waltz well,” she commented.
“The German style, I picked it up in the East Prussia.” Alex smiled.
“You said your name is Alex? My name is Lena. So you came from the East Prussia, Germany. How interesting!” She studied Alex’s face very close. “You lived there?”
“Yes, I am from the wolves’ country. I went there with my father. He was assigned to Koenigsberg by the NKVD when the Germans were still there, before their resettlement to Germany.”
There was something cat-like in Lena’s manners: how she walked, how she turned her head, how she moved her arms, even in how she smiled. A stunningly beautiful cat.
“I have to hear more about this.” Lena purred. “By the way, how old are you?”
“I am eighteen,” Alex lied.
The waltz ended, but the best was still to come.
“Well, wolf man, I hope to see you again soon, before I move.” Totally unexpected, she leaned against Alex, embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. He felt the softness of her full breasts on his chest. “My husband is being reassigned to Leningrad. What a pity.”
She sighed and moved away.
“May I have your autograph?.. and a copy of your will?” That was Sasha. “Ivan Aleksandrovich is a very jealous man.”
“Ivan Aleksandrovich is being reassigned to our Leningrad subdivision.” Alex played a trump card dealt to him a minute ago.
“How did you get this information?” Sasha’s eyes became large and round. “No one is supposed to know that.”
“Oh, I have my sources.” Alex shrugged his shoulders casually and thought, Uh-oh, I hope I am not in trouble now.
Lena approached.
“May I have this dance?”
The dance was a slow tango, and that time Lena did not have to embrace Alex: the dance did the job. Alex held Lena very close and sensed that she liked his moves.
“Tell me more about Koenigsberg.” She purred again. Her breasts pressed against Alex’s chest. “Is it true that the city was destroyed?”
“Totally, Lena.”
“You said that the Germans were still there when you moved to Koenigsberg. Tell me about the German women. Were they beautiful?”
“Not even a fraction as beautiful as you are.” Alex knew that his compliment will hit the target.
She smiled contentedly.
“Did those women teach you how to dance?”
“Yes, Lena.”
“I am jealous, Alex.”
“You should not be. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” And Alex meant that.
Lena put her arms around Alex’s neck, bent him down to her, and kissed him on the lips.
Then the dance was over, and Lena rejoined her husband.
Alex was flabbergasted. Where was he? In one of the most evil places or in paradise?
“Man, I hope you know what you are doing,” Sasha whispered. “Please watch out. Lena is a trash. Don’t sacrifice you career, man.”
Oh yes, Alex did not belong in this place. It was a beautiful vision, but only an illusion.
Alex put his arm around Sasha’s shoulders.
“You are absolutely right, Sasha. You are a very good man. You do not belong here.”
It was time for Alex to leave. He already stretched all possible limits.
How about taking some of the delicacies with me? He thought. The Ukrainian kielbasa and the Ossetra sturgeon look real good.
He implemented his plan. One step remained: how to exit inconspicuously? He could sneak out behind the building, reach the garbage container, climb it, crab over the fence, and jump, but the container stood in the open plainly visible from the courtyard.
Fuck it! How about the main gates? Alex hesitated. Yeah, let’s do that.
The guard at the gates saluted, and Alex saluted back. That was simple.
Most of the time, beautiful dreams are never fulfilled. But Alex will meet Lena again in the future. Alex was not an ordinary man.
TEN YEARS LEAP
One can side with the statement that every year of our life counts. But one can also say that not every year of our life is interesting.
The next ten years of Alex’s life were ordinary. Things did happen, but very few of those would be of interest to an average reader.
The reader would not want to know how Alex unloaded boxes from railroad cars at night to make a few rubles for food, and went to school when everyone else went to school. He would not be curious where Alex slept in the winter time: he slept under the local sports stadium in the dusty maintenance room next to steam pipes.
The reader would not give a damn where Alex bathed: he bathed right outside the power plant’s waste water outlet from the plant’s steam generating section which dumped hot hard water into Sunzha river.
Alex entered the Maritime College, a military institution, in the fall of 1954. The college was something of a breed of the Annapolis, its atmosphere at least. It wasn’t big: only 250 cadets, which made it very exclusive. It was an anachronism from the World War Two. Its purpose then was to produce officers for the front because there was an acute shortage of those after Stalin’s purges of the Red Army in 1936-38. The college offered two lines of study parallel to each other with two degrees upon graduation – a civil and a military. The civil line offered an equivalent to BS, and the military a rank of Second Lieutenant in anti-aircraft artillery, either in the Army or in the Navy. The emphasis was on the military.
Cadets wore a traditional Navy uniform, which was very prestigious in the Soviet Union after the Revolution and particularly after the war. It was the Russian Baltic Navy who fired the first shot at the Winter Palace in Petrograd in October of 1917 and started the revolution in Russia. It were the troops in traditional black Navy uniform (the marines) who stormed German fortifications on the Russian front during the war, and which Germans called “the black death”. The Navy uniform earned the respect.
The college was special, there were only four of those in the Soviet Union and all were very small and exclusive. It was almost impossible to get into one. To pass, one had to have a perfect scholastic record. But that was not enough. One’s family had to be politically clean: no one fought in the White Army during the Civil War of 1918-22, no one ever went to prison, no one was under the German occupation during the Second World War, no relatives abroad, and so on. As far as Alex was concerned, his father distinguished himself in the Finnish campaign of 1939, before the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in 1941. Alex’s father paved the way for Alex. In the Soviet system, the Maritime college entry conditions beat the Annapolis to the pulp.
Once accepted, a cadet had the top security clearance and was trusted with extraordinary duties abroad if assigned. One was even above the KGB. Many KGB agents could not go abroad, but if one was a graduate of the Maritime College, he had no restrictions. If he wished, he could just walk across the Soviet border. The guards would not detain him, they would only salute him.
All teachers of the military subjects were distinguished officers, in wars and other endeavors. Their rank: one First Lieutenant, one Captain, and the rest of them Majors and Colonels. The type? The type of Major Reichman in the movie The Dirty Dozen, rebellious, independent, and tough.
Captain Kladov was in command of a border station on the Turkish border. A handsome man and a dashing officer, he projected an image of Lermontov’s hero, perhaps of Lermontov himself, from that author’s novels about life in Chechnya conquered by Russia in the nineteenth century. Somehow, Kladov managed to bring his bride from the other side, from Turkey, across the border. He “took the bride to the mountains” (the Turkish expression). Of course that deed was illegal. Kladov was demoted from Major to Captain, transferred to other duties, but not discharged from the Army (or the KGB) owing to his outstanding record on the front during the war. And he even was allowed to keep his Turkish wife (Mrs. Kladov was a very beautiful woman).
Colonel Gabolaev came to the college straight from the Korean war where he served as a military advisor to the Korean and Chinese combat troops fighting the Americans in the South Korea. He also planned and directed the Russian MIGs operations during the Korean war.
Other officers were as distinguished and colorful as Kladov and Gabolaev.
Major Kantemirov was Alex’s direct commanding officer. During the Second World War, Kantemirov commanded a Penal Battalion in Stalingrad, a collection of criminals with major violations, sentenced to long prison terms, or to death. These guys were the death squads, literally. They were deployed on the front line and were assigned impossible military tasks, like taking impregnable fortifications, or simply sent to clear German mine fields by passing through those and being blown up until the passage through such mine fields was clear. Very few survived. Those who survived were granted an amnesty. During each action, Kantemirov and two machine gun crews stayed behind. The retreating soldiers were mowed down. Thus, by the end of the war, Kantemirov killed several hundred Russian soldiers, he did not know how many. All cadets in college were afraid of him.
But Major Kantemirov became Alex’s mentor and personal friend, the only friend. How did that happen?
One day, Alex received a letter from his girlfriend Lyuda from Grozny, his home town. She dropped Alex for someone else. The letter was nice and apologetic but it hurt like hell. The next morning, Alex cut himself while shaving, then missed breakfast. That morning they had to go to the firing range and practice shooting carbines.
Alex was given an SKS carbine, the model he disliked. He also discovered that his firing position was a large rain puddle. When he assumed his position, his stomach, his chest, and his elbows were in the dirty water. He could not concentrate and kept missing the target. He complained to Kantemirov about the puddle, but was told to use it anyway. He continued missing and blamed it on the carbine. Kantemirov approached and barked at Alex, “Can’t you hit the target at least once, you ugly sissy?”
And that’s when Alex exploded, “You hit it, you fucking son-of-a-bitch!” He hissed and threw the carbine into the Major’s hands almost hitting him with the weapon.
Major’s face became red like a beet. No one ever dared to insult him like that. He put the carbine on the ground and approached Alex. Alex could smell liqueur in Major’s breath, even from distance. The Major was drunk. Kantemirov unbuttoned his side-holster and removed his Makarov pistol. He aimed the pistol between Alex’s eyes, and Alex realized that that was the end of the line for him. Kantemirov already killed how many? Five? Six? Seven hundred? He was drunk, and Alex could see the rage in Kantemirov’s eyes looking straight into Alex’s eyes. The pistol neared Alex’s face.
“Click!” The pistol was not loaded.
Major studied Alex’s face, then asked, unexpectedly very calmly, “Aren’t you afraid of death, Cadet Petrov?”
And Alex answered, as calmly, “Yes, I am, Comrade Major.”
“You certainly did not show it.”
Actually, Alex was scared, but he did not blink when the pistol clicked. Somehow he was cold inside, maybe he knew deep inside that the Major was not going to kill him.
Kantemirov lifted Alex’s carbine and fired three shots at the target. He missed, intentionally. Alex knew that there was nothing wrong with the carbine. Kantemirov just saved his face and his own face at the same time.
“Go and reset the sights, Cadet Petrov.” He said.
And two weeks later came the main surprise to Alex and everyone else: at the next Komsomol meeting, he was nominated and elected to the post of the Komsomol company leader, over all Juniors and Seniors, a very powerful political position. The college Head of Komsomol, name Farshakov, was the only political person above Alex. There was one equal, the leader of the second company. Suddenly, the half of the college body, 127 cadets, became Alex’s subjects. That political position gave Alex almost absolute power to decide the future of 127 cadets. He had to decide what kind of punishment to bestow upon those who committed various infractions of discipline and rules, up to expulsion (that one he had to decide only with Farshakov). Farshakov never interfered with Alex’s decisions.
Elections in the Soviet Union were not the same as in the United States. There, the Party (or Komsomol, the Communist Youth League) elite nominates one candidate, one of their own, and then everybody votes for that candidate – just a farce. Kantemirov saw something in Alex he liked. So, he came to Farshakov and suggested Alex’s name. The rest of it became history.
Alex’s position guaranteed him the best employment upon graduation – the Black Sea Merchant Marine. Kantemirov became Alex’s mentor and friend. He became one of the very few persons in the world that Alex respected, and the example to follow, even a challenge – someone to beat.
Alex’s life began to pick up speed after his sophomore year.
His visa was open, and, in the summer, he ventured on the high seas for the first time in his life.
Every summer, cadets of the college were assigned to tankers and cargo ships of the Black Sea Merchant Marine as apprentices for three months.
Alex’s first voyage had an element of excitement. Their tanker stopped at Port Said where Alex stepped on the foreign soil for the first time. Then they sailed the Suez Canal to Suez to land right in the middle of exodus by British and French citizens and their families from that city.
The Suez Canal war of 1956 was just about to break out.
The captain worried about not making it through the canal before the bombings started and getting stuck in the canal for the duration of the war.
But they were lucky. The war broke out two hours after their tanker reentered the Mediterranean Sea. Here, right next to the entrance to the Suez Canal, a “blind date” took place. The two parties though were not going to find out about the encounter for twenty four years.
An American destroyer monitored the sea traffic and logged in the passage of the Soviet tanker “Kazbek”. The name of the person who made an entry in the log was Lieutenant R. Johnson. The name of the person on the Soviet tanker who entered the bridge log concerning the encounter with the American destroyer was Alex Petrov. These two persons will meet in the United States in 1980. Dr. Richard Johnson will be Alex’s boss at the A. F. Fortune Computation Center, N. C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is indeed a small world.
The next summer, Alex sailed to Sweden. Their tanker carried a derivative of toluol, infinitely more volatile than its relatively stable parent. In other words, they carried a liquid explosive for Swedish ore mines. The crew wages were upped by ten percent for the duration of the journey, a “hazard” pay, the wages of fear as the crew called it.
Everything went smoothly until they entered the North Sea. A storm hit hard. Their tanker was tossed around like a toy, and Alex listened how that damned liquid splashed in the tanks.
Alex looked at the captain and asked what they could possibly do.
“Pray, if you know how.” The captain smiled, he was a very brave man.
And there was another scary factor added to their already perilous predicament: the storm dislodged several mines from an old German mine field, and those were floating somewhere ahead of their tanker.
Captain ordered two lookouts on the bow who tied themselves to the guardrails by chains not to be swept overboard into the sea. Alex wanted to be one of those two, but the captain turned him down.
“Sorry, but you are not experienced enough,” he said.
But, again, they were lucky. They reached the Kiel Canal uneventfully.
A Greek cargo ship following then fifty miles behind was not so lucky. It struck one of those mines and blew up. There were no survivors.
The incident was not reported in the world news. There are too many of such “incidents” on the high seas. How many per year? Thirty? More? No one knows. They are of no interest to the media unless it is an ocean liner in trouble.
Once they entered the Kiel Canal, their misadventure was over, right? Wrong.
They sailed uneventfully to the port of Flaksenvik. Alex was assigned to the engine room. He preferred to be on the bridge, but it was his turn, as an apprentice, to be in the engine room.
Apparently, their ship approached the pier with greater speed than recommended, because the arrow on the speed command indicator suddenly shifted from “Slow” to “Full Reverse” and the Captain’s voice on the intercom, which happened very rarely, urged the action.
Perhaps the Engineer mistimed the response – the engine quit. The intercom cursed. Alex saw the pale-white face of the Engineer. If they hit the pier, the cargo would explode and wipe out the whole harbor of Flaksenvik with its facilities and its population. Alex has been a few times in stressful situations to see if someone froze. The Engineer did.
Alex screamed, “Restart the engine!.. and reverse it!”
The Engineer came back to his senses and attempted to restart the engine, but that didn’t work.
“Do it again!”
And the engine came to life.
“Reverse it!” Alex yelled and the Engineer complied.
The ship backed out and cast the anchor in the bay, about a mile from the port. The Swedes brought barges and unloaded the cargo using rubber pumps.
That is when Alex discovered that he was not a hero. His knees weakened, his hands shook, and his voice trembled. He was scared.
Seaman’s is a very hazardous job.
But back to Alex’s college. After his Senior year, he did not sail. He was sent to Sevastopol in Crimea to receive his final training at the Army’s anti-aircraft artillery batteries. He was now the Second Lieutenant of the Soviet Army.
The place where his battery sat was special – the Cape Khersonnes. When the German armies approached it in 1941, they surrounded one of the Red armies and literally pushed it over the edge of the cape on the cliffs below. Then the Red Army came back and surrounded a German army on the same spot. The German soldiers jumped and rode their motorcycles to their death below. The ground was totally barren and was littered with shrapnel both German and Russian. The Russians erected a monument in memory of the fallen Red army on that spot, on the tip of Khersonnes. That’s where Alex stood. It was an honor to stand there, it was almost equal to standing on the hills of Stalingrad.
Alex’s duties included commanding the battery during the absence of its regular army officer. Twice, the American U-2 spy planes passed right over the battery. Alex requested permission to launch surface-to-air missiles but was told, “Let them go!” He did not understand why. The U-2s flew back to Turkey. He held the destiny of international relations in his hands, but he was denied the opportunity to take the credit.
After Alex left the place, he met one of the heroes of the October Revolution at the Museum of History in Sevastopol, one of the old guys who started it all firing the Aurora guns at the Winter Palace in Petrograd (Leningrad). That was another honor.
After his graduation, Alex sailed tankers and cargo ships around the world for two years. But that is another story.
Then, Alex’s life was turned upside down. He kept a diary of his voyages and his adventures in which he expressed his negative views of the Soviet system. The diary was discovered and read by the First Mate (political commissar). Alex’s sailing career was over. He had two choices: to be confined within the borders of the Soviet Union sailing river boats, or jump the ship. Alex selected the option number two. How he did it is described in this author’s another book -- Siberian Agenda. Just a chapter would not be enough to cover that adventure.
The next six months were a dangerous ordeal and a poker game with high stakes – Alex’s life. Alex managed to remain unscathed and came to America – the subject of the chapters that follow.
Alex’s ship was returning from a long voyage to Argentina, then Italy, then Greece, and now it speeded on the final leg to Odessa. Alex’s diary was unearthed between Italy and Greece. At the Greek port of Itea, he was confined to his cabin, he was not allowed to go ashore.
The final leg did not present an opportunity for a safe escape: the Mediterranean, the strait of Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, the strait of Bosporus, and the Black Sea – that was the final route – no land connection. Alex calculated that they would enter the strait of Dardanelles at about 11:30 pm and the Bosporus at about noon of the next day. If he planned to jump the ship, the best bet would be the Bosporus: only about three thousand feet to swim to the shore, but to make it unnoticed was not possible. So, the only workable option was the strait of Dardanelles. But in September the water was cold, and Alex had to swim at least two and a half miles.
Alex’s cabin was small for four persons toasting to what? To Alex’s last voyage? Everyone knew that Alex’s visa was going to closed: the diary, by the Soviet standards, heavily incriminated him. Still, everyone pretended that the diary incident was insignificant. Alex opened the liqueur bottle purchased in Buenos Aires, the Bolls, very sweet liqueur with floating silver shavings. The little gathering was Alex’s farewell party.
“I know you are going to jump.” Michael whispered.
“What gave that idea?” Alex was surprised.
“I know you for almost four years. We came from the same college, remember? I know that you are a crazy son-of-a-bitch.”
“Michael, you just watched too many adventure movies.”
“Take me with you.”
“Hey, Michael, the jump in the cold water is a kiss of death.”
But Alex jumped.
Perhaps if he made the move two months earlier or six months later, he would not get in the middle of Turkish political mess. The Turkish government was in the total disarray following the military coup, which turned the country upside down. The president was
about to be hanged.
Alex spent six months in the Turkish jail in the less than friendly atmosphere. He was accused of being a Soviet spy. As the Turks saw it: when someone plans to defect, he slips away quietly at the nearest port, he does not make a spectacle of it for everyone to see.
After six turbulent months, the Turkish government stabilized, and Alex was saved by the American CIA. The CIA was not a charitable institution, it was an organization which needed information from the inside of the Soviet Union (the Cold War was at its peak after the U-2 incident). Alex was right in the middle of it. He was whisked from Istanbul to Athens and then to the United States.
GOD, PLEASE STEP ASIDE!
America! What is it? America is freedom, freedom to be, freedom not doled out by the government, but granted by the Constitution.
Alex read a lot and learned a lot about history of the world, its philosophies, sociology, and natural sciences. Natural sciences was his main interest, particularly astronomy and astrophysics. In the future, Alex will concentrate on the concept of gravity and even will develop his own theory of gravitation, but not yet.
His immediate concern was to find a job. He still dwelled in the seaman's world. Sailing around the world! What could be more exciting than crossing the equator in the Atlantic, then stopping for a fire drill in the middle of the ocean, lowering the boats, holding the steering rudder and
aiming the boat bow into the sun under the strained sail, and inhaling the salty wind?
What could be more thrilling than facing the angry ocean? Alex encountered vicious hurricanes in the Atlantic and furious typhoons in the Indian Ocean, a phenomena of incredible strength, when his ship's companionways and handrails were smashed and twisted beyond recognition. A few times Alex swore that if he survived, he will never sail again. But he could not quit, the ocean was his world, he couldn't leave it. And when the menace passed, he returned to his cabin, stood in front of the mirror and said, "See? That wasn't so bad."
When the Greek cargo ship hit the rogue German mine in the North Sea and sank, Alex mourned its crew, they were his brothers. Alex knew Athens and Piraeus very well, particularly Piraeus, its red lamp district with its dangers and delights.
Then he jumped the ship, and his life was never the same. In New York, he attempted to find a job as a simple sailor on any of the international lines, but couldn't. He was told that in order to get a job he had to be a member of the Maritime Labor Union. But to join the organization, he had to graduate from one of the Maritime colleges or the associated schools, catch 22. Alex's Soviet Maritime college and his two and a half years on the high seas did not count.
Thus, his way back to the sea was closed.
What other qualifications did he have? Military, he was an officer of the Soviet Army. He stopped by the U.S. Army recruiting center. No, he was told, he could not become an American officer unless he graduated from something like the West Point. Still, Alex was not ready to give up.
"Let's try one of the foreign sources," he said.
He placed an ad in one of the military orientation magazines, and, voila! He received a phone call from Brussels. The man asked whether Alex would be willing to join a small group of soldiers run by a private subcontractor. That was a mercenary group. And Alex answered, "Yes."
In Brussels, Alex joined the group: three Belgians, one French, two Germans, one Italian, one Polish guy, and one Greek (Alex). Alex traveled using the passport issued to him in Athens before he came to America.
No one knew what the next step was going to be. Meanwhile, they mingled. Alex expected to encounter a warm camaraderie, the French Foreign Legion style, like in the movies, but discovered that no one wished to be friendly and talk about themselves, except for the Polish guy Nikos. Five members of the team spoke English. French was the official language. Only three had combat experience, Alex had not. But the group needed a sniper, and Alex qualified in that category.
Pierre Rousseau, the Belgian, was in command. The rest were listed as foot soldiers: Denis, Marcel, Jacques, Gottfried, Hans, Luigi, Nicos, and Alex.
Two days later, they flew to Leopoldville, the capital of Belgian Congo. They stayed in that city for two weeks waiting assignment.
Finally, it came. Their task encompassed protection of Belgian settlers south of Leopoldville. The local liberation movement against colonialism, supported by the Soviets, was on the rise. The group's main adversary was the Mau-Mau organization which originated in Kenya and then spilled over into Congo -- a very hateful and very dangerous black racist anti-European association.
Pierre's group has been assigned to guard a small village about 20 kilometers away. The village housed, besides the natives, three Belgian families including a priest.
Alex saw his duty as a highly noble task and looked forward to his first patrol in the jungle protecting Belgian families.
They arrived to the village in two jeeps and instantly knew that something wasn't right. Natives scattered.
The Mau-Mau came here first, and the scene they left behind was horrifying. They emasculated all white males and stuffed their mouths with cut off genitals before killing them. They raped all white women and girls and then massacred them with machetes and spears.
After the initial shock, the group scattered searching for answers.
It is impossible to describe the degree of rage every member of the group felt. They found two local Mau-Mau collaborators and dismembered both in the manner similar to Mau-Mau's, doing to them what the Mau-Mau did to the priest and the other white males. But... they did not kill them, they left them to die slowly, in agony.
Then something totally unexpected happened. The action developed spontaneously, without command, from all sides of the village. Shots crackled, screams rose up, then died. They massacred all natives including women and children, then slaughtered all livestock: pigs and chickens, plus dogs. They did not burn down the village -- the scene was more terrifying that way: empty and quiet with nothing alive in it.
Alex outscored everyone in the team. As he saw it, that was the right thing to do. The Geneva Convention did not apply here.
Then they buried all white victims including the two girls, age 8 or 9. Alex buried them. He cried. He will never forget their peaceful beautiful faces.
After finishing that sad task, they had a short conference: what to do next. Pierre insisted upon waiting for orders from Leopoldville, but Alex stepped in and proposed revenge, before the Mau-Mau disappeared in the plains and in the jungle of Congo. The team had the information from the natives where the Mau-Mau headed.
The commander protested and threatened to shoot Alex for insubordination, but other members of the team sided with Alex.
They tracked the Mau-Mau to the next village, rounded them up and executed them all in a very gruesome fashion. Then they returned to Leopoldville.
That was the end of Alex's Belgian stint. A Belgian Colonel,
after reading Pierre's report, fired Alex for insubordination.
Alex returned to the United States.
He couldn't sleep well for a week, nightmares woke him up in the middle of the night. He was a changed man. He cried on the graves of those two girls and he will do that again in the future.
Years will pass, and Alex will hear the song Africa by Toto. There are words in the song "... frightened of this thing that I've become." After several mercenary missions, that applied to Alex. The whole song applied to him, and he was frightened.
"A hundred men, not
more, can ever do." That applied too, strongly. And "Hurry back! She is waiting (Africa) after you." That applied like an unfinished business, the task that was not completed in full.
But Alex knew that he will never go there again. He lost his innocence there, he lost his faith in the goodness of man including himself. He has committed unspeakable deeds, he will never be the same man. And he cried... If he went back, what would he find? The graves of those two beautiful girls were shallow graves, just small mounds of dirt. By the present time, they would be broken up by strong winds, washed away by tropical rains, and the bones would be scattered. It all was a pitiful loss, two beautiful girls were wasted.
So much for the love of man! That was as far from love as you can possibly get. A sheer hate, so much of it one could explode. How do you reconcile that with God? Where was he? Did he know? Was he simply powerless to help those two girls? Did he care at all? Did he use Alex's hands to bring justice and covered them with blood? What about Alex? He will never be the same.
Alex took justice in his hands. He said, "God, please step aside. I will do your job."
European magazines picked up the story.
"A white man could never commit such atrocities." One magazine claimed, and the statement by a surviving Mau-Mau man claiming to the contrary was ignored.
Still, another magazine followed the trail and accused Alex.
Later, Alex confided in his future friend David, "Even if that event really took place, how could one bureaucratic desk reporter accuse anyone? He was not there. You have to be there to understand it. Yes, we, the white race, can be as savage as the Mau-Mau when provoked."
And here is the postlude to the event, a small part of a letter from Alex to his daughter Lara.
"Maybe one of those days, perhaps in the afterworld, I'll ask you to do me a favor: to go with me to Africa, on the invitation to a special dinner. Please wear a long white dress and a diamond necklace. You can fly helicopters, and I can fly corporate jets. You fly us to the Raleigh International, and I'll fly us to Africa. We are invited to dinner by two very special girls. In the afterworld, I am powerful enough to give those girls a present -- the continent of Africa. It belongs to them, they will rule it for all the time to come. We land at the Leopoldville Airport, and both girls will meet us there. They'll give us a big hug and take us to their place. We'll have a wonderful dinner!"
As the song chants, "Hurry back! She is waiting after you."
LENA
Lena!
What are the chances of encountering someone you met on the other side of the globe ten years ago? Practically nil.
“May I have this dance?” Alex stood in front of the most beautiful woman in the world.
She hesitated for a moment, then she accepted.
“Do I know you?” She asked.
“Yes, ten years ago. Grozny, woods, a party at the KGB compound… Remember?”
“Oh, yes, I remember. The wolf-man, hand-to-paw combat!” She laughed. “Alex isn’t it?”
“In person, Lena.”
She remembered him, he wondered why, just after one brief encounter ten years ago.
“They searched for you. There was a man name Sasha who tried to find you. Do you remember him? But you vanished without a trace.”
“I have a confession to make. I was not a part of the KGB. I was an outsider.”
“That is incredible. How were you able to infiltrate the compound?” She laughed. “That was impossible. How did you accomplish that?”
“Well, you were too beautiful to resist.” Alex attempted to steal a credit.
Her eyes became wide open.
“You really did it because of me?” She asked.
“And because of those three tables, end-to-end, loaded with delicacies."
She laughed, “You are funny.”
And then she added, “You are the last man I expected to meet
here.”
Her pale green eyes stared straight into Alex’s eyes, and Alex was mesmerized. Lena was as beautiful as she ever was.
“You killed a wolf. Are you really that dangerous?”
“A wolf without his pack is just another dog.”
“That’s very cynical. As I remember, you were just a boy from East Prussia, they say half German half Russian. Who in hell are you?”
“I am Russian, Lena.”
“Then what are you doing here, in America? You said you have no connection to the KGB. Why are you here, at the dacha?”
“We have a common friend, David Stein. He thought that I could broaden my horizon by visiting this place.”
“Yes, he is from the family who sold us the dacha.”
“Okay, now it’s my turn to ask. What are you doing here?”
“My husband is the Security Chief of this place, and I am with him. He told me that all local Russian immigrants call the place the Khrushchev’s dacha because the Premier stayed here when he visited the United Nations.”
“Oh, when he banged his shoe on the podium during the session and threatened to bury America?”
She laughed, “Yes, that was embarrassing, wasn’t it?”
“Well, maybe he just wanted to make a point.”
“But back to you. Why are you here?”
“I used to sail on the high seas, then I changed sides. I am a traitor.”
“Did you really defect?”
“Yes, the hard way, I jumped the ship.”
“I always knew that there is something different about you.”
“You are not condemning me?”
“Are you kidding? I am surrounded by a bunch of dry, dull, dedicated Communists. You are a fresh breath. You defeated a wolf, none of them did. You defeated the system, none of them did. By the way, where are you staying?”
“I am almost your neighbor.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
That was the signal!
Outside, the crescent moon extended its pincers toward the nearest star as if in the attempt to catch it.
“So, how did you like the Khrushchev’s dacha?” David laughed.
“Well, David, you will never believe it. I met someone I knew ten years ago – Lena.”
“You mean the jackpot?”
David was astonished.
“Yes, I knew Lena from the Grozny times.”
“My God! I don’t believe that. She is my wet dream. How did you manage that?”
“Destiny, my dear friend, destiny.”
“I have to tell my father about this. He is one of the most ardent Lena’s fans.”
Who were the Steins? Besides anything else, Alex’s friends. Moshe Stein, the father, ran the local real estate firm, quite extensive and politically influential. Moshe’s wife died of cancer three years ago. Moshe’s son David, the only child, was not really in his father’s business, although he did graduate from the New York City College Business School.
“Why the New York City College and not Harvard or Yale?” Alex was curious. The Stein’s family had all the money.
“My father asked me the same question. Well, my girlfriend went there.”
They sat at the bar.
“I meant to ask you about Michael.” David said after two tall glasses of beer. Michael met
Steins a month before he died.
The story with Michael wasn’t clear. The official version of it stated that Alex and Michael jumped together, but Alex denied that.
“I would never risk disclosing my plan of escape to Michael or anyone else. No Sirrie, not in the Soviet society. Michael did not jump, he left the ship in Istanbul, and, after six months without knowing anything about each other, we were reunited in Greece.”
They had another glass of beer.
“So, what happened?” David lit a cigarette.
“Well, I don’t believe that he committed suicide.”
“Why not? He grieved about his family: his wife and a little daughter that he left behind in Russia.”
“Yes, I know, but there are other factors involved. He had a friend in Sea Cliff. Her name was Lyalya Messner. The night before he died he told her that dark forces surrounded him. He did not clarify what those mysterious dark forces were, but there is a sinister tone to it, don’t you agree?”
Michael’s end came as a total surprise to everyone, particularly to Alex.
That night Alex was out.
A week earlier he bought a car, the first car in his life, the Plymouth’56 with the push button gear switch on the left side of the dashboard, the dashboard of the future!
During the last month Alex and Michael did not see much of each other. Michael worked regular hours and Alex the nightshift, till midnight. Every night, as soon as Alex’s shift was over, he hopped into his Betsy (that’s the name he gave the car) and took off for another night of adventure. He did not earn his driver’s license yet, but who cared? He cruised the Long Island Expressway to Manhattan, then crossed the Brooklyn bridge back to Long Island and to Coney Island, then, intentionally, lost himself in the maze of unfamiliar local towns, and really enjoyed the freedom of travel totally unknown in the Soviet Union.
It was about six o’clock in the morning when Alex pulled up to the Vladimirov’s residence in Sea Cliff, the place where both Alex and Michael stayed. He saw three police cars flashing their blue lights in front of the Vadimirov’s house.
“Uh-oh!” Alex whispered. “They found out that I am driving without license.”
He parked short of the driveway and walked to the house.
“Are you Alex Petrov?” A police officer asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Please follow me.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing, but we have to identify the body.”
What body?
They took Alex to the attic of the house, and there he was! A man hanging from a beam across the ceiling. His face was dark blue, almost black, his mouth wide open, he bit his tongue, and a dark blood streak covered the right side of his chin.
That was Michael. Not a censored picture usually shown in the movies but the real thing: dark blue face, bulging eyes, bitten-through tongue, and a blood streak on the chin.
Alex froze.
Two police officers cut down the body and put it on a stretcher.
Michael was buried at the Roslyn cemetery in an unmarked grave at it’s edge. Poor Michael.
During the solemn ceremony, a man approached Alex. He said
that he was a Russian physician and he was present during Michael’s autopsy at the Long Island morgue. He took Alex aside and quietly warned him to watch out. He stated that Michael was drugged with an anesthetic and then hanged. Michael was fully conscious during the gruesome process but could not move a muscle.
At that moment, Alex swore that he will do whatever in his power to revenge Michael's death. He was going to infiltrate the KGB and mercilessly execute those who participated in Michael’s killing.
But things changed. It was not the KGB who killed Michael. Lena asked her husband to find out exactly what happened at the Vladimirov’s residence. Her husband informed her that the KBG knew nothing about the incident. So, who did it? That remains a mystery to this moment. Officially, the incident was written off as a simple suicide.
“Very sad.” David extinguished his cigarette and changed the subject. “By the way, did you know that a billionaire from Texas offered Lena a million dollars for just one night with her? She refused. So he upped the offer to ten million. Could you believe that?”
“So, what happened?”
“She turned him down.”
The next day Alex called Lena, and they met.
“I’d like to see the place where you stay.” She said.
“It’s just a room.”
She closed the window curtains and stood waiting.
Alex approached her, and their bodies touched. They kissed. He unbuttoned her blouse. Her skirt fell on the floor. His pants and the shirt followed. Their naked bodies pressed against each other. The bed yielded.
Ten-million-dollar woman in Alex’s life? Large breasts with small nipples, full soft buttocks, a slender body, and an angelic face!
“Who are you?” She asked. “I don’t know you.”
“I am a wolf-man, Lena.”
Their bodies intertwined…
Their “honeymoon” began. They spent as much time together as the circumstances allowed, mostly in Alex’s room.
Large breasts with small nipples was Alex’s biggest turn-on. Lena became a goddess. She always was. But Alex worried.
“What would happen to you, if your husband found out? What then?”
“Well, he is in charge of the local assets. He is a dictator of security and the king of finances. If I spent a million dollars, he could justify that.”
“That is really funny.” Alex quipped. “I know the system, but I didn’t know he could have so much power abroad.”
“Yes, he has it all.”
“Well, it seems to me that you own the world.”
“In a sense, I do. The Soviet State is the most powerful state in the world. Don’t you agree?”
“I hate to admit it, but I do.”
Lena stared in Alex’s face very close.
“Why did they make you the Russian James Bond?” She asked.
“What are you talking about?” Alex was surprised by her question. “I am not James Bond.”
“The KGB. I read your file. Are you really a superman?”
“Wait, wait, wait, Lena. I still don’t understand what you are talking about.”
“Your adventures, your successes, your incredible ability to survive non-survivable situations. It’s all in your file.”
“Come on, Lena. Sometimes I was lucky, that’s all. What you said is flattering, but I really do not deserve that praise.”
“Even the Turks, it is in their files, gave you the top mark.”
“With Turks, I simply didn’t care. I defied them on every step.”
“Well, I still think that you are something special. At least in bed you are. Still, why the KGB gives you the top marks?”
“I think I know why. The guys who compiled my file are romantic men who have never been outside the Soviet Union. They never met me, they just read reports about me, about how unpredictable I am, how I defied the odds. To them, probably, I am James Bond. But I am not, believe me.”
“But your record! You can’t deny that.”
“I was lucky.”
They embraced and made love again. And again. The honeymoon continued.
"Thank you for picking up my mail, Alex." Moshe was in a very good mood. "By the way, David told me about your friendship with Lena. Unimaginable achievement. If you need privacy, my place is your place any time. Here is the key. You have access to the comforts of my abode, day or night."
"That is very generous of you, Sir. Your hospitality is overwhelming, from the beginning. Your family was the one who really welcomed me here, in America."
Alex met Lena the next day.
"He did what?" Lena's eyebrows rose. "He gave you the keys to his place?"
"He did."
"Why would he do something like that?"
"He is my friend."
"How could he be? He is a Jew."
"You have something against them?"
"Plenty. Did you know that when he sold us the dacha, he charged us twice its market value?"
"So he made a profit."
"That's dishonest."
"That's the free market, the stem of American capitalism."
"Fuck it!" Lena was angry.
Who was Lena? She was a representative of the Russian (not Soviet) culture with all its traditions. Dislike of Jews was one of those.
"David is your friend too, right?" She sneered. "He is a fucking nerd. Why do you associate with him?"
"He is not a nerd." Alex felt that he had to defend David. "His father is a Zionist, but David is not. His fiancee is a Catholic. As a matter of fact, she is totally a Nordic type: blond, blue eyes. So, David's Jewish line will extend, but only so far. They are slowly becoming us -- Gentiles."
"Okay, but I do not trust them. I will not stay in their mansion. Your room is the only place where I feel safe."
"That is perfectly fine with me." Alex smiled.
"By the way, I am leaving the United States in about a month." She said. "My husband is being transferred to the Moscow otdel."
"That is very upsetting." Alex put his head down. "I cannot visualize my future without you."
"I'll find a way to contact you. You know, my husband is quite omnipotent."
They made love.
She turned, "Why, in hell, do you like me, Alex? I am an ordinary woman. Well, maybe a bit better looking than the average woman, but by not much."
"Are you kidding, Lena? You are not an ordinary woman. You are the best of the human race. Just glance into the goddamn mirror and then look at the American television, at the Negro models. How could they ever compare to you? Slavic and Nordic types -- they represent the real beauty. You are the ultimate woman."
She laughed.
Yes, Alex had the privilege of knowing Lena, the privilege of possessing her. He was the luckiest man alive. And what about him? His looks probably reached 6 on the scale of 1 to 10, about average. But, like at the modeling agency where he was employed as a body guard in the past, he just stepped into the right place at the right time -- he was lucky.
Lena had her own standards as to which men were worth of her friendship and which were not. As a matter of fact, she was quite choosy. Her men were "something special". Alex was proud to fit that category.
Still, Alex kept Moshe's key, just in case.
"What did you say?" Moshe's eyes bulged. "She is leaving? I can't believe it. My God, I'll miss her."
"Not as much as I will. Yes, the Goddess is leaving."
DEATH OF MERCY
When Lena went back to the Soviet Union, Alex cried, cried quietly.
"But life continues." Moshe said. "Would you like to take a vacation, say, to Bahamas? I'll finance it. Take David with you."
"No, thanks. I am not in the mood for vacations." Alex stood up, approached a window and looked up at the sky. Moshe's residence had very tall windows. "I am still trying to find a job."
"Speaking of jobs," Moshe paused, then continued, "David told me that you went to Europe recently. I spoke to one of my old friends in Germany, and he related a strange story to me, something about one Belgian operation in Africa. You wouldn't know anything about it, would you?"
Alex was silent. Did Moshe know about the Belgian Congo operation? And if he did then how?
"I do not wish to pry." Moshe continued. "But my organization is interested in men with special skills."
"All that is interesting, but why are you telling me all this?"
"One French language magazine in Belgium is demanding an investigation, a search for a man name Alex who came from Greece. They say the man initiated a massacre of Congo natives south of Leopoldville."
Alex approached Moshe.
"Here is your key, Sir. I don't think I'll need it." Alex walked toward the door.
"Wait, wait! I am not trying to pin you down, Alex. I am your friend, remember? But you said that you need a job."
Alex stopped.
"It's a noble job." Moshe approached Alex. "An elderly couple has located a Nazi officer responsible for the death of their friends at one of the German concentration camps. He lives in Brazil right now. They want to sanction him. The job pays twenty thousand dollars, plus travel expenses."
"You know, Lena was right about you. She said that you are a dishonest wheeler-dealer and a scoundrel."
"I take it as a compliment." Moshe smiled, went to his office, and returned holding a small brown envelope. "Five thousand, your travel expenses."
The job encompassed travel to Rio de Janeiro and then to a small town Volta Redenda. The target lived on its outskirts in a small house at the end of a dirt road.
Usually, before going on a mission, Alex travelled to the destination under his real name on a recon. Then, after planning and preparation, he, as Joe Green, and his team, if needed, travelled in small groups, reached the destination, and executed the task.
But this job seemed simple enough to spare the reconnaissance. So, Alex decided to make it, as he called the category, a hit-or-miss.
"Well, Lena, wish me luck." He said. "See you in another ten years."
That became Alex's usual comment before he went on a next mission.
For the first time in his life, Alex, pardon me, this time Joe Green, travelled in the first class front section of the airline jet.
"What do you drink, Sir?" The stewardess asked.
"How about the Napoleon brandy? Do you have that, Miss?"
"Yes, we do."
"Splendid."
The airliner landed at the Rio de Janeiro airport late in the afternoon. Before passing the customs, Joe found a moment to remove his pistol from the luggage and place it under his jacket, in the back under his belt. The customs did not conduct personal searches. They just asked Joe whether he had anything to declare and then opened his luggage, lifted his folded shirts, found no suspicious items, and stamped his passport making his entry legal.
He decided to stay at an inexpensive hotel to appear as inconspicuous as possible. This was a two-day operation: a trip to Volta Redenda for a local recon and planning, and the next day and, possibly, night the "truth day", as Joe called the action day.
The reconnaissance did not disclose anything unusual about the target. The old man was planting something in the little vegetable garden next to his house. He wore a hat and gloves. A harmless old man. That is all he was.
"Piece of cake." Joe commented.
He had a rib eye steak and a baked potato for dinner at the local restaurant. Then he slept good and woke up perky and refreshed.
"I don't have to do that at night." He decided. "Let's do that in the afternoon."
How was he going to do "that"? By simply walking to the house, knocking at the door, facing the old man, and shooting him point blank, one bullet into his heart and one more into his brain, or is it the other way around?
The door had a small glass porthole in it. Thus the old man could scrutinize Joe before letting him in.
The door opened, and a short barrel revolver pointed to Joe's chest. A long silent pause followed.
"I am Joe Green. I was sent by your friend Aribert Heim." Joe was glad that he did his home work. Originally he believed that the research was not necessary.
During the Second World War, Doctor Aribert Heim conducted medical experiments using inmates at the Buchenwald detention camp, and the man now holding a revolver selected suitable subjects for the experiments from the general population of the camp.
"Dr. Heim? Where is he now?" The old man finally spoke up.
"In Santiago, Chile." Alex realized that he was in trouble.
How are you going to get out of this one? He thought. Speed is the only chance, remember the wolf?
"Do you speak Portuguese?" The old man asked.
"Not a word."
As soon as the old man lowers the revolver... Joe planned.
"Does Dr. Heim live alone?"
"No, he stays with his daughter."
Another pause followed.
"Yes, I remember the little girl." The old man suddenly smiled and uncocked his revolver. "Please come in."
Man, the research always pays off. Joe sighed with relief.
Joe entered the house. The old man closed the door.
Do it now! What are you waiting for? Joe hesitated.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" The old man passed Joe and entered the kitchen. Joe watched how the old man placed his revolver into the refrigerator in the manner Joe usually did that.
The old man was not a monster as the Jewish couple described him. He was a harmless, generally kind, quite amiable old man.
The job, Joe, the job! Joe repeated in his mind again and again.
He followed the old man into the kitchen.
"Do you live alone?" He asked.
"Yes, I am quite comfortable staying by myself."
Now! In one quick movement, Joe placed his right arm around the old man's head and with left hand lifted the man's chin, took a deep breath, and twisted the head easily breaking the old man's neck, the commando style. The man's body sagged, but Joe held it in a standing position. He reached down and pulled his knife out of the Velcro boot strap sheath. A quick slash across the the man's throat finished the job.
He washed the knife and his hands in the kitchen sink.
"That was easy." He said.
He took a late-afternoon flight back to the United States.
It was raining when Alex stopped by Moshe's place the next day.
"Did you?" Moshe opened the door and stared at Alex.
"Hey, hello to you, too." Alex swung his wet umbrella spraying drops of the rain water on the steps outside. For few seconds, both stood in silence. Finally, Alex acknowledged, "Yes, I did."
Moshe smiled and stepped aside letting Alex in.
"Welcome back. Let's celebrate."
"Celebrate what?" Alex folded the umbrella.
"Your success of course. Scratch Herr Rudolf von Ledendorf." Moshe opened the wall cabinet. "What are you having? Vodka? Rum? Gin? Whiskey?"
"Do you have Southern Comfort?"
"No, I don't have that one."
"Okay, rum will do."
"Oh, don't let me forget it." Moshe handed Alex the drink and walked to his office. Then he returned holding a brown envelope. "Twenty thousand, your fee."
They settled in comfortable armchairs.
"You are always prepared for everything, aren't you?" Alex sipped his rum. "By the way, when did you decide to offer me this job?"
"When you conquered Lena." Moshe grinned.
"But that was easy, she conquered me."
They spent the rest of the afternoon drinking and talking. Moshe's sentences became less cohesive, he was drunk.
"We, I mean my organization... hiccup... is very grateful to you, Alex."
"I wanted to ask you something: what exactly is your organization?"
"I cannot talk about it." Moshe's gaze wondered from his glass to Alex's face and then back to his glass.
"Okay, you don't have to give any details. Just tell me, is it a Zionist organization?"
Moshe was silent, he just stared at Alex's face. Then he answered, "Yes."
Alex got up and walked toward the wall cabinet.
"The rum bottle is almost empty, Moshe." He commented. "Put it on the list the next time you get the stuff."
"You know, you are a real cool individual. Whiskey please." Moshe stretched his arm with the empty glass and smirked.
They touched glasses.
"Alright, Moshe, I have one more question: did your organization kill Michael? He was Jewish."
A pause stretched into the eternity. Finally, Moshe spoke up.
"You know, Alex, how much I love my son David. He is all I have. I swear on his life that my organization had nothing to do with Michael's death. Do you believe me?"
Alex emptied his glass.
"Yes, Moshe, I do believe you."
Moshe got up and approached Alex. They shook hands.
THE BIG QUESTION
"I have both this time Southern Comfort and cranberry juice, Alex." Moshe declared. "And your favorite: the Swedish chocolate Stella, that one was hard to get, a special order."
Alex smiled dryly. Moshe was up to something which was not necessarily to Alex's liking.
"You've been to Cuba in the past, right?"
"Yes, to the port of Caibarien on the north coast, in 1959, right after Castro seized power in Cuba. Oh yes, and a bus trip to Santa Clara, to shop."
"How would you like to revisit it?".
"What do you mean? As a tourist?"
"No, as in a small commando operation."
"How small?"
"A boat and three men, you are in command."
"What do we have to destroy?"
"Nothing. All you have to do is to bring a man to the boat, and we'll take it from there."
"Who is the man?"
"Raul Castro, Fidel's brother."
"Wow!" Alex fell backwards in his comfortable armchair. Suddenly, the armchair was not as comfortable as before.
"There is a resort in Caibarien that Raul likes and visits from time to time. That is where he keeps one of his favorite mistresses."
"I know the place. We stayed in Caibarien for two weeks and we were welcome at that resort, courtesy of Fidel."
"We'll know when Raul is going to visit it three days in advance. There is a person very close to both Castro brothers. She will notify us. We will stay on the ready status, so we can initiate the operation three days ahead of Raul's visit."
"From Miami?"
"No, from Kingston, Jamaica. We will fly you to Miami and then to Kingston. There you'll board a British speedboat and sail to Caibarien."
"Why not a speedboat from Miami? It is much shorter distance to cover."
"The Cubans watch all the approaches from Miami and Key West. They do not watch the waterways from Haiti and Jamaica."
"Why the British?"
"The operation is too sensitive politically for the United States to be involved officially. Besides, the MI-6 always welcomed operations like this one. They have a strong sense of adventure, you know, James Bond's style, and we do not."
"Yes, that's what Lena said: me living in the James Bond's world. What are you going to do with the guy?"
"We are not going to harm him. We just want the information on Kennedy's assassination. We are not going to torture him, we'll pump him with a double doze of scopolamine; that should do the job."
"And then what?"
"Then you take him back to where you found him."
"All very simple, isn't it?" Alex smiled with a shadow of sarcasm.
They had another drink.
"How do you like working with us, Alex?"
Alex wondered why Moshe asked him this question.
"I don't mind."
"Do you know why you are associating with us?"
"Yes, I know."
"Of course you do. You crave action, adventure. It is like a drug for you. And, let's not smooth it out, you like to kill. No, no, get those feathers down. It is one of your needs, otherwise you would not become a soldier of fortune. You discovered this need in Africa. I give you the opportunity. It becomes justified, almost legitimate."
Alex remained silent.
"You are a nice person, sometimes even kind and compassionate. You are not crazy, you are not a psychopath. You are a sociopath. Society is based on authority, you hate any kind of authority. You hate socialism and communism because those systems are governed by the highest degree of authority."
Alex finally responded, "And what about you, Moshe? Where do you stand?"
Moshe smiled, "I am a sociopath like you. Give me another drink, will you."
"You know that I am not going to accept your assignments for long."
"Yes, I know. You want me to tell you about your future?"
"Go ahead."
"Soon, I don't know how soon, you will approach your limit. I do not know when that will come. After the score of fifty? Maybe even a hundred, but it will come. It will surprise you. You will begin seeing nightmares. Your hands will start trembling every time you are ready to pull the trigger. When you use a knife, the blood on your hands will burn your skin. You'll wash the blood off, but you cannot wash off the sense of burn."
"Is that what has happened to you?"
"No, but I've seen it more than once."
"I am sure, it cannot happen to me, Moshe."
"Well, as one sociopath to another, to your health, pei-do-dna."
They touched glasses.
"Okay, Moshay, give me the details."
"Sure. The big question is: who assassinated Jack Kennedy? First, why do we care? Well, Kennedy tried to stop our nuclear program Dimona at the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Israel. Now there are rumors in some circles that Israel was involved in Kennedy's assassination. Thus we decided to find the real assassins before the rumors have escalated."
Moshe paused, then continued, "There are four organizations involved: the Cuban secret service G2, the Cuban exiles in Florida, the CIA, and the Mafia. Which one, or which ones had participated in Kennedy's assassination? That's what we have to find out. Kennedy brothers, Jack and Bobby, planned several attempts on Fidel's life. There is a guy in Texas, name George Bush, a multi-millionaire, who assisted Kennedys in creating and partially financing the so called Operation 40, a group of trained assassins recruited from the immigrant Cuban community in Miami, from the CIA, and from Chicago, from Sam Giancana mafia. When some of the attempts proved to be not workable and other attempts failed, Kennedy authorized the invasion of Cuba by a group of vengeful volunteers from the Miami Cuban community. The Bay of Pigs became a total and very embarrassing failure. Kennedy blamed the failure on the CIA, and the local Cuban community blamed it on Kennedy."
"I read some material on the subject." Alex commented.
"Okay, Kennedy, overnight, acquired powerful enemies on all four fronts: Fidel, the Cuban immigrants, the CIA, and the organized crime. The latest, before the invasion, put up very high stakes on the opportunity to regain one of the most lucrative markets -- the Havana hotels and casinos. Someone decided that Kennedy had to go. Now, no one in their right mind buys the theory of a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald."
"Neither do I." Alex agreed.
"We have two teams: foreign and domestic. You are the main foreign operative. Cuba is your assignment. Another guy will take care of the domestic investigation."
"Who is the guy?"
"I cannot give you his name, but I can give you the scope of his assignment. Why? In case he fails. Then you take over. So, here it is, the domestic scene. There is a person in the CIA, name David Phillips, who stands high in the CIA ranks and who has always been a fierce enemy of Kennedy brothers. Also, he had very close relations with the organized crime. They kind of helped each other on several occasions. Some of the Chicago assassins even became Phillips's personal friends, particularly Charles Nicoletti and John Roselli. Nicoletti had an associate, name James Files. Phillips was a controller of these characters, as well as of Oswald. He had a plan. Oswald was to become a "lone assassin", a patsy to be killed right after the task had been completed and before he could talk to the authorities. He would be shooting from the book depository right after Kennedy's motorcade passed the building. Nicoletti and Roselli would shoot from the Grassy Knoll facing the motorcade. But the last moment Roselli got cold feet. So, Nicoletti asked his associate Files to serve as a backup. He handed Files a Remington Fireball rifle and six special rounds of mercury load prepared by a guy called Wolfman, an ammunition expert for the Chicago mob. Remember his name. He could be very useful for your future operations. One of those rounds hit Kennedy close to his right eye at an angle literally blowing his brains out on the right side of his back skull."
"Yes, that was a spectacular shot."
"And then the operation fell apart. Oswald was supposed to return to his home. Instead, he went to the movie theater. Perhaps he smelled the rat. Another Phillips's man, we do not know his name, waited for Oswald, and when Oswald did not show up, the man went to find him. For some reason he was stopped by J. D. Tippit from the local police, and the man decided to shoot the officer. That killing was not done by Oswald and had no direct connection to the Kennedy assassination. The officer 'just got in the way'. Oswald was arrested before the man got to him. So, Phillips sent Jack Ruby to finish the job. Jack Ruby knew that he had a terminal cancer. So, he volunteered. He had nothing to lose but the history exit. Officially, Oswald was blamed for everything. But he could not testify and defend himself: he was dead, poor patsy. The Warren Commission has never received any of this information. They came to the conclusion that Oswald acted alone. The photos of Kennedy's head wound were altered, retouched before they were submitted to the Warren Commission. Against the testimony of all witnesses present at the autopsy, the photos did not show any explosive head wounds. That was a cover-up. The man name Arlen Specter has tempered with the evidence. A couple of independent investigators are working on this, but they were not able to get far. The red tape. One of them is demanding the JFK's body exhumation, but Kennedys and the government agencies are against it."
"The mercury rounds would prove the conspiracy. If the JFK's body is exhumed, it would contain traces of mercury, the traces of mercury do not disappear."
"True, but..." Moshe smiled conspiratorially. "Kennedy's body is not buried in Arlington. We have a very reliable source in the CIA. He claims that Jack's body had been dumped into the sea. Do you know who is in Kennedy's grave? It's the body of Milosh Keres, a recent Hungarian immigrant who committed suicide by blowing his brains out. He has no traces of mercury in his body."
"What about the dental records?"
"Presently, that path is closed. So, we are forced to treat all this information as a hearsay. We have to find a way around the
obstacles."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. We'll start with Cuba. A Cuban agent, Oscar Marino, gave us the information about Raul Castro and his assassins sent to Dallas on the fateful day. Then they ran as hell to Mexico, one by a car and the other by an airplane. Do you know what is interesting? The agent who flew to Mexico departed the same day to Cuba. A scheduled flight of a Cuban Airline was delayed for four hours. It took off as soon as the agent arrived. He was the only passenger on that flight. Don't you think this is suspicious? We have to look into that matter. Your mission could give us the answers."
This time, Alex, as Joe Green, traveled in the tourist class, no luxuries. When he arrived to Kingston, he was met by a pretty young woman.
"My name is Janine." She introduced herself. "I am going to take you directly to your coterie."
"Coterie?!" Alex laughed. "A noble name for a group of hoodlums."
"Sir, I do not see myself as a hoodlum. How can you say such a thing?"
"Sorry, I didn't realize that you are a part of the group."
"I am an interpreter and an interrogator."
"Are you the MI-6?"
She did not answer.
Good start, man. Alex thought. Like a bull in a china shop.
They parked close to the harbor and walked the rest of the way.
"How did you get involved in this cloak-and-dagger stuff?" Alex thought he'd better try to repair the initial damage to his lame public relations.
"I am a graduate of the Cambridge University, history and languages. I thought I could help you out. They told me that you are a real gentleman." She smirked.
"Call me Joe." Alex hoped that switching to the first name basis could soften up the learned young woman's attitude toward the barbarian.
"We sail tonight, Mr. Green." No, the relationship remained very official.
"Fine." Alex gave up.
The speedboat was a strange hybrid of a torpedo boat and a luxury yacht.
"Mr. Green... Mr. Bowen... Mr. Boker... " Janine introduced everyone.
James Bowen was another graduate of the Cambridge, he never disclosed in which field (and Alex never asked). Dirk Boker came from the military, Royal something.
"Do you have any liqueur onboard?" Alex inquired. "I'd like to propose a toast to the success of our operation."
No one responded. Finally, James Bowen said, "It is not how we do it, Mr. Green. We plan, then we execute, we celebrate later."
"Okay, I see. It is all proper and commendable, but that is not how I operate. We plan, then we improvise! That's how it's been done in the real world. Do you wish to survive? Stick to the five thousand years of old experience."
"Mr. Green, we know what we are doing." James voiced.
"Okay, what kind of equipment do we have?"
"A dinghy, three Sterlings, one pistol with a silencer, a chemistry set, a recorder, and three bodies -- us."
"Four bodies." Alex corrected. "Janine is coming with us."
"What?!"
"Yes, a change in our plan. It is just one round trip. We go, we find the subject, we interrogate the subject, and then we return. The job will be done in half time. It is safer that way."
The silence prevailed.
"But... " Dirk began.
"Wait, wait!" Janine interrupted. "Mr Green is right. His plan is better."
"Thank you, Janine." Alex did not expect to acquire an ally. "We land ashore a quarter of a mile west of the resort at about two o'clock in the morning. I know the place. We enter the registration room and ask the clerk to show us where the subject is lodged. We corner the bodyguards, tie them up, together with the clerk, and proceed. Sounds simple? It is. We surprise the subject and his mistress probably in bed. Sorry about that. No killings! That's it. Any questions?"
"No killings? " Janice inquired when James and Dirk left the cabin. "That contradicts your reputation. How long have you been in this business?"
"For about two years."
"So, why so liberal?"
"Not liberal, cautious. Your two guys appear to be gung ho. That is the last thing we want on this mission. It is okay in the jungles of Nicaragua, but not here. We have to remain the most quiet creatures -- the mice. Not very flattering, but necessary."
"I agree."
"Then, I think, you and me can accomplish this mission. The guys? They are in your league, not mine. I am just a Maritime College, not the prestigious Cambridge. But you are. Keep them at bay."
During their journey, Alex had a chance to overhear the following remarks concerning his person.
"That American has no class at all." James commented. "He is undisciplined and irresponsible."
"I partially agree." Alex whispered. "I am not in James Bond's class."
"Must I give him the pistol with a silencer?" Dirk moaned.
"Yes, he is in command."
They entered the lagoon west of the Caibarien shipping entrance.
Alex recalled the events of 1959. His cargo ship Ugleuralsk sailed to Cuba. It carried miscellaneous arms: everything from Makarov pistols and AK-47s through mortars up to light field artillery and, of course, the ammunition and ordnance.
It was February 1959, one month after Fidel seized power in Cuba. Ugleuralsk did not sail to Havana. Instead, it stopped at Caibarien, about two hundred miles east. It kept very low profile. They could not enter the port itself -- it was too shallow. They cast the anchor between islands at the entrance to the port.
Barges unloaded the cargo, then replaced it with cane sugar.
The crew of the cargo ship had a great time: high sun, warm waters, sea shells, exotic tropical fish, and... a few barracudas and sharks to spice up things. Jungle covered the islands, no conventional woods, which was fine with Alex. He felt at home here, just like in the woods of Koenigsberg, Lithuania, and Kupavna. He belonged there. But he also belonged to the world of tankers and cargo ships, boats and airplanes, bombs and AKs, crooks and dictators, and, occasionally, to the world of beautiful women, which was the event to come.
"Alex Petrov, you are wanted on the bridge." The intercom announced.
Alex ascended the companionways to the bridge.
"Okay, Alex." It was the captain. "My Third Mate's English is good enough to communicate with the harbor pilot to get us here, but not good enough for public relations. Plus you have some knowledge of Spanish. So, you are the man for the job: communications with Cubans. Coordinate all public relations with Cubans. We'll have guests -- ten models, courtesy of Fidel. Assign them as to our crew's needs. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Captain, I understand." Alex smiled.
"By the way, ignore the First Mate's screams. He is new, he is not a seaman, he does not understand the foreign public relations. I am the captain, you follow my orders."
"Yes, Comrade Captain."
The models arrived, all young and damn beautiful.
"Me llama Maria... my name is Delores... my name is Aleksa (the most beautiful one!)... ".
"Aleksa?! My name is Alex."
The captain went all the way out to please the guests, so did Alex. They served champagne and the best cold cuts on the ship. Then they danced.
How can one describe a happy crew? The crew that did not have any contact with the opposite sex for over a month? Romantic? Starved? Having a glass of cold water in the hot desert? Something stronger?
Alex monopolized Aleksa. They did not waltz or tango, they rock'n'rolled. Rock'n'roll -- the forbidden dance in the Soviet society. The First Mate (political commissar) protested, but the captain approved.
"Go, Alex, go!"
And Aleksa and Alex communicated. She spoke English and the commissar did not. Then came the main moment, in Alex's cabin.
"Who are you, Alex?" Her soft breasts yielded to his touch. Destiny smiled at Alex.
"I am a wolf man. You don't have those in your country, do you?"
"You are weird."
That heavenly hour took place several years ago. Everything has changed. This time Alex came back not as a friend, but, potentially, as an enemy. He was no longer an MC to entertain Cuban models, he became a carrier of death, if that became necessary. He no longer played a rock'n'roll tune by Bill Haley, he carried a Sterling which could cut one in half at the close range.
"Janine, stay close to me at all times." He said. "Well, it is time to rock'n'roll."
They landed west of the resort.
"The office is on the other side. Walk in the open as casually as you can."
The clerk at the office did not offer any resistance.
"Vamonos." Alex said and the clerk complied. "¿Donde es el Señor Raul Castro?"
"Hey, your Spanish is good." Janine whispered. "Where did you learn it?"
"Not in the classroom. I learned it in the jungle of Guatemala and Nicaragua."
"Very impressive and 'modest'." She smiled.
Raul's bodyguards offered no resistance either. Apparently, they did not expect to be cornered in the lightning manner and, from all places, here, inside the resort.
"Tie them up using strips of bed sheets about one foot wide, twist those before using them." Alex instructed.
"That's interesting." Janine commented. "Where in hell did you learn these tricks, Joe?"
"The clerk, too. You babysit with them, Dirk."
The door to Raul's room was unlocked. Thick window curtains blocked the light from the outside. Two figures on the bed had to be those of Raul and his mistress.
Alex flipped the switch and pointed his pistol at Raul. Raul's hand quickly reached under his pillow and remained there. Raul hesitated apparently trying to decide whether or not to pull his weapon out and defend himself.
"Tell him, Janine, that he will live, if he offers no resistance."
Janine translated.
The blanket moved, and a pale face of a startled woman emerged (she hid under the blanket when Alex turned the lights on).
"Lo siento mucho, Señorita." Alex apologized.
Raul pulled his hand from under the pillow. Alex approached the bed and removed Raul's pistol.
"Okay, now we can talk. Tell Raul that we are not going to harm him, his lady, and his bodyguards. All we want is information."
Janine translated.
"What kind of information?" Raul inquired.
"Tell him that we are seeking no information which can hurt Cuba. We just wish him to give us answers to some questions concerning John F. Kennedy's assassination."
The woman said something to Janine.
Janine turned to Alex, "She would prefer to get dressed, so does Raul."
"That's fine."
The woman slid off the bed. She was naked. She turned to Alex and smiled shyly.
"Raul has very good taste in women." Alex commented.
Raul put on some kind of provincial style garb. Now he resembled a bum more than a general.
"Tell him that he looks more like a schoolteacher from Wisconsin than a general."
Raul laughed, "As a matter of fact, I would prefer to be a schoolteacher from Wisconsin than being a general. Tell that to your commander."
"Tell Raul that I, too, would prefer to be a tourist from England instead of being a commando from the United States."
Raul laughed again.
"What are you saying, Joe?" Janine was appalled. "This is a covert top secret operation."
"Only a moron would believe that this is a British operation and that the British are interested in Jack Kennedy's assassination. Please translate everything I say, do not hold back."
Alex turned to Raul, "¡Qué la muchacha bonita!", then he glanced at the woman, "Se llama Luisa, ¿verdad?"
"Sí, Señor." She smiled shyly again.
Raul and Luisa sat on the bed.
"Start the recorder, Janine."
Janine placed the recording device on the night table next to the bed.
"Okay, to business. Raul, I'll be totally open with you. This is an American operation. Me and the British team are just hired guns. I am Russian but I live in the United States. I am a contractor not very sympathetic to the American interests, but I understand their needs. We know that two Cuban agents were in Dallas during Kennedy's assassination. Tell us everything you know about their role."
"I do not know why, but I trust you, Joe. I'll give you all the information you need. Like you said, fuck the American interests, and as I say, fuck the Soviet benefits. I do not remember those agents' cover names but I can give you their real names: Rafael Domingo and Tomás Griebe. The second one is of the German ascent... "
Raul described the Cuban task in all the details. Yes, the two assassins were present at the scene, but someone was one step ahead of them. They spotted two armed men at the Grassy Knoll. They observed the incident and left the scene as quickly as they could.
"Is that all you need, Joe?"
"Yes, that's it."
"The United States government should appoint you as an Ambassador to our country. Our ties would be infinitely more friendly than they are now. Mr. Johnson simply does not understand. But you do."
"I cannot become their ambassador, Raul -- I am not a citizen of the United States. You can turn the recorder off, Janine."
"Then maybe you could become our Ambassador."
Both laughed. Unexpectedly, James joined in. Up to this moment, he was quiet holding his Sterling on ready.
"Go and check how Dirk is doing." Alex suggested.
"I realize that this sounds totally out of place, Joe, " Raul leaned back and held himself on his elbows, "but I'd like to invite you and Janine to visit Cuba as tourists. I mean after all this shit sinks. You will be my personal guests, and I will show you the best time of your life."
"I visited Caibarien before, in 1959, one month after your brother assumed the responsibility for Cuba. I sailed the Soviet ships then, and we brought you arms. I was familiar with your country, this town, and this resort. That is why the Americans hired me. I love this resort, I love your islands, the clear waters, sea shells, and even your barracudas and sharks. It is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. And my trip to Santa Clara as one of the most exciting days of my life. Please do not laugh, but in Santa Clara I acquired a poster of one of the most beautiful Cuban models."
"Have you met any Cuban women?"
"Yes, I have. I met Aleksa. She came, as a guest, with other models, to our ship. I wish I stayed here in 1959."
"I'll tell you what. When you visit Cuba as a tourist, I'll find Aleksa for you. That shouldn't be hard."
"Well, I think it is getting to be an early morning. It's time for us to go."
"Where are you sailing?"
"To where we came from -- Jamaica."
"Well, sail safely."
They shook hands, and Alex gave Luisa a hug.
The impatient captain helped them back onboard.
"How are things?" Alex asked. "Did you get any sleep?"
"Are you kidding?! Not a wink. I expected a Cuban gunship to arrive any minute and blow our boat out of the water. How did it go?"
"A walk in the park. Let's go."
"Where to?"
"Course northeast, to Bahamas, then to Miami."
"Why Bahamas?" Janine asked.
"In case Raul will change his mind and will send his coast guard fleet to intercept us on the way to Jamaica, or to Miami." Alex turned to captain. "No lights, we have about two hours of darkness."
No alarm sounded behind them. Raul was a gentleman. Only waves splashed against the boat. Both James and Dirk went down to the main cabin. Alex overheard Dirk's remark to James, "That American bastard pulled it off somehow."
"I can't believe any of this!" Janine laughed. "I am impressed with how you handled it, Joe. And you did not have to use the truth serum either."
"Calculated risk." Alex unscrewed the silencer. "Are you sure there is no liqueur onboard? I need a drink."
"You know, I think Raul meant what he said about us being his guests. Maybe we should accept his invitation and visit Cuba as tourists, you and me. What do you think?"
"I think this is an excellent idea, Janine, and... please call me Alex."
SURPRISING ANSWER
The sun was ready to quit another long exhausting day and sink below the reddish horizon.
"Congratulations on the successful completion of your mission, Alex." Moshe, totally unexpectedly, gave Alex a big, long hug.
"That was much easier than I anticipated." Alex was taken aback somewhat by Moshe's friendly greeting.
"Let's toast to it. Mix us both a nice stiff drink."
"What's your preference?"
"Plain Royal Canadian whiskey will be fine."
They touched glasses, then Alex related the report.
"Splendid!" Moshe stretched his legs.
"Any progress on the domestic investigation? I mean Kennedy's case."
"All solved." Moshe smiled. "We uncovered all the participants, who was where and who did what. We just connected the dots."
"Fine."
"But to be sure that our picture was the right one, we needed the key -- a witness. You brought us that key. Those two Cuban agents on the scene were the witnesses we needed. They observed two armed men at the Grassy Knoll and witnessed the action. The key you brought us was the final brush stroke on the whole fucking vile painting."
"So, what's in the painting?"
"When you connect the dots, the painting shows one of the basic geometrical forms -- a triangle, a power triangle: the government - the CIA - the FBI, Lyndon Johnson - John McCone - J. Edgar Hoover. It becomes elementary, Watson."
"The top level conspiracy and the cover-up, that's what you mean."
"Precisely. Jack Kennedy stood outside of that triangle, and they considered him to be a very dangerous president. He messed up relations with Cuba and almost plunged the country into the Third World War by challenging Russia, plus some personal scores with
his Vice-President and the two other characters."
"I think he did the right thing by challenging Russia."
"That may be, but the opposition did not see it that way."
"Okay, one more question: where do you fit in all of this?"
"I'll tell you after another drink."
They touched glasses again.
"Any news about Lena?" Moshe asked casually as if the subject was of no particular interest to him.
"None."
"Perhaps she will contact you in the future." Moshe could not hide his disappointment.
"Perhaps."
"Alright, back to your question. Titles are tags and names are labels -- those are interchangeable. But facts are not." Moshe pulled out his handkerchief and cleaned his nose into it. "Do you know who we are? Probably you do, we are Zionists, that is why you asked about Michael's death and his connection to us. That is why you volunteered to assassinate that Nazi in Brazil. You knew the score and you went on the mission. Thus, I believe that you support our cause."
"Don't forget the twenty thousand dollars." Alex threw a handful of dirt in the clear water.
"I vouched for you before the Council. I am a mere coordinator, one of many. I have two backups in case something happens to me, so that the overall operations are not disrupted."
"Very efficient." Alex smiled.
"Yes, that's the experience of many centuries. We learned, by trial-and-error, what works and what doesn't. Get me another drink,
please."
"Vodka or whiskey?"
"Hey, trial-and-error I said! Let's experiment. Make it both, fifty-fifty."
"You'll get sick on that one."
"I can hold my liqueur." Moshe wobbled and spilled a few drops of liqueur on the floor. "Let me make one step back and talk about you. You lost your best friend Michael. He was your college mate and then your shipmate. And he was a Jew. But you were ready to fight the KGB because you believed that they were responsible for Michael's death."
"So?"
"Well, he committed suicide because he couldn't accept where he stood. He was a good man but he was weak, not like you. You always knew where you stood and where you are going. You support our cause."
"The twenty thousand dollars." Alex mudded the clear water again.
Moshe laughed.
"Okay, we the Jews control the money. By controlling the money we control the world, well, the most of it. We control education, arts, medicine, law, politics, and media in this country. We control foreign relations as well."
Alex leaned back in his, this time comfortable, armchair.
"Don't you exaggerate a bit?" He remarked.
"Not at all. Do you want me to show you? Take public relations and politics. We have created an atmosphere where even a single word against Jews is considered to be anti-Semitic act punishable by the loss of one's career. We promoted several high profile events of such 'misconduct' and played those on every news channel for the country to see."
"Yes, I've seen those."
"By the way, we brought up another related issue: we equated anti-Semitism with racism -- a big benefit for Negroes. Not that we really care about those fucking flat-nosed monkeys, but they are very useful to us. We finance their causes, we promote them in education, sports, and employment. We glorify them. And they vote Democratic -- our
main tool party, the great political tool. But one unpleasant side effect emerged: blacks began mixing with the white race. It is unnatural for human races to intermix: blue jays do not mate with crows."
Alex laughed, "That is where you have really exaggerated."
"We control the Republicans almost as firmly as the Democrats." Moshe continued. "Thus, in elections, it doesn't matter who wins."
"How do you control all this?"
"Masonic Lodges, my naive friend. Those are the main instrument to control the Goyim controllers, our puppets."
"Why are you telling me all this? Aren't you afraid that I can talk?"
"Talk to whom?" Moshe laughed. "To whom?"
Alex did not answer.
"I know you won't talk. Why? Because you are in the shaky boat. Africa? Brazil? Other missions?.. Wait, wait! Please forgive me. I am on the wrong track. You will not talk because you are on our side." Moshe paused. "Please stay there."
Alex did not comment.
"Okay, I'll give you another example: media. No piece of information reaches society without passing through our control. Do you ever hear a single protest against Israelis mistreating Palestinians?"
"No."
"I rest my case. Pour me another drink."
Alex walked to the liqueur cabinet and played a bartender.
Moshe sipped from his glass.
"By the mercy of God, Jew were scattered, which seemed to the world to be our weakness but proved to be our power, which has brought us to the threshold of universal sovereignty. " Moshe hiccuped. "The Goyim are like a flock of sheep -- we are the wolves. We govern the masses by making use of feelings of jealousy and hatred kindled by oppression and need. Our strength lies in keeping the working man in perpetual want and impotence, because by so doing, we retain him subject to our will. All those so-called 'rights of the people' can only exist in ideas which are not applicable in practice."
"That sounds like you are quoting from the Talmud. "
"Not from the Talmud but from the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Have you read the Protocols?"
"I heard about it but I have never bothered to read it."
"Well, read it. Ignore all the comments about it, just read the text."
"What about it?"
"That's our main program. Like Hitler's Mine Kampf against us. Did you read that one? Hitler was right, you know."
"No, I did not."
"Well, read both."
"Where do I find those? I bet they don't stack those books on the shelves of regular bookstores."
"I'll give you a copy of both. Hiccup! Pour me another drink."
"You had enough, Moshe. No more tonight."
"You think I am drunk. You are, partially, right. But I know what I am doing, I mean, what I am saying. I want to talk about this. I always wanted to talk about our importance in the world. And you are the only man I can talk to. I trust you."
"Thank you."
"Okay. First, I'll show you what we have already accomplished. We promoted, financed, and helped to elect every politician in the House and in the Senate. Only those whom we can control. How do we do that? We see to it that everyone occupying any important position has a skeleton in his or her closet. We whisper, 'Obey our rules, or we will ruin your career by yanking the skeleton out of your fucking closet.' Very simple, isn't it?"
"That is how you control me, too. I have several skeletons in my little closet. It is quite crowded in there." Alex leered.
"No, no! It's not like this at all, Alex. To begin with, you don't have any career to be threatened. Then, you are a man who can strike back, I know you can. The Protocols offer an important warning about persons like you. It says that there is nothing more dangerous than personal initiative. If there brains at the back of it, it may do more harm to the Zionist program than the millions of people whom we have set at one another's throats. But you stand alone, you survive alone, you know how to do that. You are dangerous. But I trust you."
"I appreciate your trust in me, Moshe. Please continue."
"I'll skip all the intermediate steps and come to the final move. We shall create an economic crisis the looks of which the world has never witnessed. We'll ruin the economy of the world and rebuild it to our liking. We will control it all."
"Sure you will." Alex laughed. "Keep dreaming, Moshe."
"We will, mark my word. The existing constructional scales will soon collapse because we are continually throwing them out of balance in order the more quickly to wear them out and destroy their efficiency."
"Okay, enough about politics. Let's talk about something else."
"Women! That is your favorite subject, isn't it?"
Alex laughed, "This is your favorite subject, not mine."
"Fine, so it is. Lena, for instance -- that's the top woman! Would I chase any traditional Jewish woman? Ugly hooked nose, sweaty smelly
hairy armpits, hairy legs, dark submissive expressing nothing eyes? No, dear friend. Nordic and Slavic blondes are the most beautiful women in the world. Who can dispute that?"
"I have never been to Israel, but I am sure they have beautiful women there, even blondes."
"Imported from Europe and America. By the way, do you know how much blonde girls cost on the international slave market? A fortune, up to $30,000 each. A Hispanic girl -- a mere $300, an Iranian or Arab girl -- $100, and a Negress -- $10. Little girls go for a slightly higher price. How do I know? I have friends in those circles. It's a tight international network. When blonde girls disappear and the crime remains unsolved, you can bet that a large percent of those girls will appear on the international slave market and wind up somewhere in the Arab world: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria."
"In Israel, too?"
"No, not in Israel. We have the money and we own Hollywood where the most beautiful Nordic and Slavic women come attempting to become movie stars. We give them that chance in exchange for their favors. We marry some of them and perpetuate the species along the Nordic and Slavic, not the traditional Jewish, lines. Originally, we came from those dumb Arab tribes, just one of the bunch, Semites, who separated from other Arabs during the times of David. We upgraded the line when we mixed ourselves with Slavic blondes and became the East European Jews -- Ashkenazi."
"Interesting."
"Where was I? Oh yeah, the Hollywood. Sometimes we just show those women the money, and that is enough to succeed. Those stunning Nordic and Slavic women belong to us as much as they belong to Goyim."
"Well, this is a free country."
"Sure it is."
"I'll tell you what, Moshe. Let's have one more drink together, and I will put you to bed."
"Okay. You know, you can help us, Alex."
"But I don't believe in any of this. So how can I?" Alex refilled glasses.
The glasses touched with a crystal tone.
"You are a good man, Alex. Maybe a bit on the naive side but a good man."
"So are you, Moshe."
"I talk too much, don't I?... Please help me to find the bed before I pass out."
Alex supported Moshe through the hall, both waving from side to side, and helped Moshe to undress.
"You are still my friend, Alex, aren't you?"
"Of course I am your friend."
Alex turned the lights off.
THE CALENDAR GIRL
Then it happened. Someone knocked at Alex's door. The knock was unusually soft, Alex could hardly hear it. That was David.
"My father is dead." That was all David said. He entered and walked toward the couch.
About fifty men and women attended Moshe's funeral. The local rabbi read a touching eulogy, two women wiped their tears. Stony-faced David stood facing the rabbi, not the grave site. David's fiancée stood by him.
When the solemn ritual was over, Alex approached David.
"How did Moshe die?" He asked quietly.
"A heart attack."
"I was not aware that he had a heart condition."
"I am surprised he did not tell you about it."
"Our wedding is one month away. We'll send you an invitation." David's fiancée's large blue eyes studied Alex. She did not at all appear to be saddened by her father-in-law's death.
"Yes, I was going to mention that." David added.
"Thank you."
Later, David and Alex sat at one of the local bars.
"You know, my father and me have never been close. Probably you were closer to him than I." David sipped his vodka martini. "He never approved anything I did. He protested when I enrolled in the New York City College. He insisted that I went to Harvard or Yale. He practically twisted my arm trying to persuade me to join one of his damn Zionist organizations. The only thing that he approved was my engagement to Mlada, my fiancée. I always wondered why. That was before I went to college."
"She is a natural blonde, isn't she?"
"Yes. Why?"
"That is why. Moshe always favored blondes."
"Yes, I see the pattern. He liked Lena a lot."
"Well, I can tell you one thing: he loved you very much, he said so."
Moshe, surprisingly, did not leave a Will. Thus, all his possessions became David's, automatically.
David's wedding took place at now his estate. A lot of music -- a band was hired, and one Jewish dance after another, the "ya-ya-ya-ya-ya" style, reverberated at the front lawn. Alex discovered that only he and Mlada did not know how to dance in the Jewish manner.
"You are not Jewish!" She exclaimed.
"Not a chance." Alex smiled.
"Good, then you and me can dance our way."
The 'our way' was the pop culture style, which probably appeared odd to the Jewish crowd.
"David told me a few things about you, Alex. I don't know how much of that is true."
"What did he tell you?"
"That you jumped ship."
"That is true."
"And... " she hesitated, "that you are a hit man. Is that true?"
"I am a soldier of fortune, not a hit man."
"What is the soldier of fortune?"
"Fighting someone else's wars, for money, among other things."
"Like Clark Gable?" She laughed.
"Well, not that romantic and not that honorable."
"May I reclaim my bride?" David approached.
"Of course." Alex yielded.
Alex did not dance for the rest of the gala. He couldn't help feeling being out of place. Also, he couldn't help noticing Mlada's glances at him. She was, obviously, curious about that "non-Jewish Russian".
No one else paid any attention to him, no one else but an elderly gentleman in the brown jacket. The man openly scrutinized him.
A colleague of Moshe's. Alex thought. How much you wanna bet that the gentleman will introduce himself this evening?
"You are welcome at our estate any time, Alex." Mlada surprised him, his attention still rested on the man in the brown jacket.
David approached.
"Yes, I was going to mention that."
"Thank you."
"What do you think of the gathering?" David motioned toward the noisy crowd. "Don't you feel like a stranger? Because I do."
"Colorful. That man in the brown jacket, who is he?"
"My father's friend. He was asking me about you. Stay away from that man. I don't trust him. By the way, do you have any plans for the next weekend?"
"Aren't you going somewhere on your honeymoon?"
"We already had our honeymoon a year ago." Mlada put her hand on Alex's shoulder. "Stay with us for a couple of days."
"I'll be delighted to." Alex smiled.
The man in the brown jacket did not approach Alex this evening.
The next weekend rained. Moshe's place changed: his furniture was moved, the floor rugs vanished, all photos of Moshe's acquaintances disappeared, a few Zionist and Masonic symbols, including the big G on the living room's wall were replaced with more cheerful ones, including a poster of a sandy-blonde pretty little girl.
"That's me." Mlada declared. "I was the Miss July calendar girl, one of the Young Miss wall calendars in the fifties."
"Very, very pretty." Alex complimented her.
"Thank you."
David entered. He wore a business suit -- a dark grey matching set of jacket, vest, and trousers, plus a black tie.
"What's the formal occasion?" Alex asked.
"A business meeting in New York. With two of my lawyers. Finalizing the transfer of my father's company to me. I'll be back late in the afternoon. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." David kissed Mlada on the cheek.
Mlada and Alex were going to spend the whole day together.
"I am still trying to get used to this place." Mlada said. "I mean to know where everything is."
"Well, the powder room is at the end of the hall on the left," Alex smiled, "and the billiard parlor is next to the living room on the right."
"You really liked Moshe, didn't you?"
"Yes, he was my friend."
"Then, I think, I should warn you. Moshe was a crafty son-of-a-bitch and he had a few, as crafty, associates. Both in his business and social circles."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"David and me like you. We do not wish you to be hurt in case one of Moshe's associates approached you."
"I really appreciate your concern, Mlada, but I know all about Moshe's connections."
"Okay then."
"How did you meet David?"
"Through friends, at a party. When I saw him, I thought, 'Who is this timid innocently looking guy?' And I introduced myself."
"You think he will fit into this 'shove-and-push' real estate business?"
"I don't know, he is a smart man, but perhaps not aggressive enough."
"I would not like to be in such business. I am a peaceful person."
"You are a peaceful person?!" Mlada laughed. "Are you kidding me?"
"Yes, I am. What I do is a job only. I am a seaman at heart, I like to challenge the sea, not men."
"That's not what David told me."
"And I'll tell you something else that will knock your socks off, I mean your stockings. I see myself as a scientist. Now, you will really laugh. Do you know what my field is? Astrophysics."
Mlada laughed.
"Funny, isn't it?" Alex smiled.
"Now you are really kidding, Alex."
"No, one of those days, I am going to dethrone Einstein and drown him in his gravitational waves."
"That I have to see. Meanwhile, there are a couple of things about me that will surprise you, too."
"Nothing gross, I hope."
"I am into judo, and I'd like to learn a few things in the field you call 'a job only'."
"Now, it is my turn to laugh, Mlada."
"I am not joking."
"Okay, what would you like to know?"
"I want to know how does one kill using a knife."
Alex was silent for a few moments, finally, he answered, "I'd rather show you how to shoot."
"No, that is simple. The knife, Alex, the knife."
"May I have a drink first?"
"Fix me one as well."
Their glasses touched.
"Okay, Mlada, first, in order to do what you have to do, you have to have very strong arms."
"I have that. Remember? I am a brown belt."
"Right. Then there is a special technique. Using whichever method of deception is available, you must position yourself behind the target. It is preferred that the target is not aware of your knife. You move as close to the target as you can, in other words, you embrace the target from behind and cover the target's mouth with your left hand. Are you right-handed?"
"Yes, I am."
"That position offers you a double protection. First, the target cannot flip you over, you know that from your judo, and second, the target's hand, even with a weapon, cannot generate enough momentum to hurt you. You are safe!"
"That is interesting."
"You are in the 'embrace' position, and your knife is in front of the target, to his left. You turn the knife at forty five degrees. And you slash the target's throat to the right, pivoting the knife, as it goes, from the negative forty five to positive forty five degrees. Don't be afraid to cut yourself, the upper spine of your enemy will protect you."
"And then what?"
"Then you wash the knife and your hands." Alex smiled.
"Real cynical, isn't it?"
"That is why your friend, Alex, throws up in the middle of the night."
"When was the last time you killed someone using a knife?"
"One month and a half ago."
"My God! How exciting!"
"Are you kidding? After the deed, you cannot sleep for a couple of weeks, and your hands burn."
She paused, then said, "Now, Alex, how would you like to acquire a partner? Ah? "
There were only two times in Alex's life, when he became speechless . This was the third time. A calendar girl wishing to become a killer!? How should he respond? Answer this beautiful, daring, and, let's admit it, rebellious woman seeking some excitement, adventure, a new experience and escape from her basically dull life and boring husband? An untamed woman challenging her predestination, testing her fate, defying barriers. Isn't she like him, Alex? Isn't it what he was doing his entire life? Smashing barriers?
But wait! His background is his strong base. Mlada has no base. She is just a spoiled child, a poster girl. A serious adversity could destroy her.
"Look, Mlada, you still think that this is some kind of romantic game. It is not! This is an incredibly dangerous business. Every time you go out on a mission, it is deadly gamble, a fifty percent chance for your not coming back."
"You take those chances."
"Thus far, I was unbelievably lucky. And I have, what they call it, the sixth sense. I always see the danger coming."
"Alright, what was your chance of survival when you jumped the ship?"
"About ten percent."
"But you took it anyway."
"I had no other choice."
"Then Africa?"
"Okay, let's look at it from a different angle. What would David say, if you went out on a crazy mission?"
"He would have a fit." Mlada laughed.
"Well then?"
"I am everything David is not. I can handle him."
"I see: timid David and feisty Mlada -- opposites attract." Alex laughed.
Mlada refilled glasses.
"So, what is your decision, Alex?"
"Why, in hell, not?"
She stood up, walked toward Alex, bent over, and kissed him on the lips.
"Well, that seals it." He smiled.
"What's the next step?"
"Remember that elderly gentleman in the brown suit? At your wedding?"
"Yes, what about him?"
"I have a feeling that he is going to approach me and offer me a job."
THE ODD MAN OUT
"My name is Rostislav Rostycz." The man extended his arm. "I am a friend of Moshe's, well, used to be."
"Yes, I know who you are." Alex accepted the handshake.
They stood in front of a coffee shop.
"I noticed your glances at those pastries in the window. May I buy you a pastry and a cup of coffee?"
"You are a mind reader." Alex smiled.
That was the "man in the brown suit", except that this time his suit was of the dark grey color.
They sipped coffee in silence studying each other across the table.
Finally, Rostycz said, "Moshe spoke of you very highly."
"Moshe was a highly successful businessman."
"Yes, speaking of business, I am not going to beat around the bush, are you available?"
Alex put his cup down on the table. The man in the dark gray suit certainly did not waste time.
"Are you offering me an assignment?"
"Yes, and it is urgent."
Alex was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he asked, "In which country?"
"In Venezuela."
"Caracas?"
"No, in a secondary town, a tourist spot."
Alex finished his coffee.
Rostycz motioned to the waitress, "Refill, please."
"What's the target?" Alex slanted the sugar container and poured some of its substance into his coffee.
"Colonel Santos, Emil Santos, an Army Colonel."
"Emil?" Alex squinted.
"He is Jewish. He holds an important position in the Venezuelan military. He used to be our man, but about five years ago he went on his own. He decided to become rich. He is a renegade and he did us some damage. He has to be taken out."
"What's in the tourist town?"
"The colonel's home and family. He visits them every weekend."
"What's my base?"
"There is a man in Caracas who is cooperating with us. He will supply you with the necessary tool of your choice. Do you need anything from me?"
"Yes, two passports for a married couple."
"You have a partner?"
"Indeed I do."
"Name?"
"You choose it."
"Photos?"
"I'll get those in a couple of days."
"Well, Mlada, the D-day is the next week." Alex studied her face. How is she going to face the test? Probably the hardest test of her life? Will she take it head on? Or will she try to evade it?
Alex had all the details of the coming operation, and she had none. How could he prepare her for the task? Of course, he was going to give her all the details. But then what?
Their flight to Caracas was generally pleasant and uneventful. The airline served a good meal.
"I am not very hungry." Mlada said. That was the first sign of her anxiety.
"Relax, Mlada." Alex covered her hand with his. "It is not as hard as it seems. Eat, enjoy the meal. As Confucius said, 'Take good care of your stomach, without it you are dead.'"
She smiled, "Confucius never said that."
"I am Jorge Caveras." A middle-aged man met them at the post-customs gates.
"Debbie and Paul Aronson, your guests." Alex shook the hand
of their Venezuelan host.
"Señora Aronson is a very beautiful lady." Jorge kissed Mlada's hand ceremoniously.
They had a dinner at Jorge's place -- one spacious comfortable apartment.
"You are a good cook." Alex complimented the host. "Where did you learn how to fix 'pollo con arroz'"
"'Arroz con pollo' is a family recipe." Jorge shrugged it off. "Señor Santos arrives tomorrow night about nine by his airplane to stay with his family for the weekend. Is Remington okay?" Jorge did not linger on unimportant details.
"Let me see it."
Jorge approached the book shelve and pulled it to the side opening his hidden arsenal of weapons, "Voila!"
"Got to see one!" Mlada beamed with admiration.
Alex lifted the Remington sniper rifle off the two hooks.
"That one will do."
"The sights are preset for one hundred meters." Jorge commented. "Wind zero, humidity fifty."
"That is fine." Alex was satisfied.
The next day, Friday, Alex and Mlada spent training. Jorge stood out of their way, just observing Mlada whom he apparently became quite fond of.
"In this trade, one has to be as inconspicuous as possible, blend into the environment, not to attract attention. It is easy for me: I have an ordinary face. But you, Mlada, are very attractive, and everyone pays a lot of attention to your face. Still, you can use it to your advantage: no one will ever believe that a beautiful woman like you can be a deadly killer." Alex smiled.
"I never thought of myself that way."
"Okay, then one has to possess certain qualities and skills. The knowledge of languages, for instance, the minimum of three. For example, I speak the three main languages: English, Spanish, and Russian. Thus. I am able to establish a channel of communications at just about any place in the world."
"I speak Polish."
"Fine, one must learn to shoot many weapons. This rifle, for instance. It is heavy, you must rest it on some kind of a barrier before using it."
"That doesn't seem to be very hard."
"It's okay when the target is at the short distance, but when the target is far away and it moves, the equation becomes complex.
Then, there are other necessary skills: driving, flying, sailing, and navigating. Maybe those are the main skills."
"What about you? What do you have?"
"I can drive just about anything that moves. from a bike to tank. I can sail anything that floats, from a yacht to a tanker, and fly any aircraft, from the Cessna 150 to a passenger jet, except for a helicopter and a spacecraft."
"Hey, you have your limits after all." Mlada laughed.
"Yes, as Clint Eastwood, I mean Inspector Callahan, said, 'One's got to know his limitations.'"
Alex paused, then added, "And one more important skill: one must know navigation both in the air and on the high seas."
"Not much to it, is there?" Jorge finally joined in.
The crash course on how to become a soldier of fortune was over.
"I'll take you to the site tomorrow afternoon." Jorge lit a cigarette and extended his arm offering Alex one.
"Thanks, we don't smoke."
The site included the main terminal, two hangars at the angle of ninety degrees to the terminal, a sloping grassy ramp with a few parked small aircraft, and a single unpaved runway behind it.
The colonel was going to walk from the ramp to the terminal in the open, his left side facing the hangars.
Alex and Mlada positioned themselves on the storage level above two small airplanes scheduled to be repaired below, on the main floor of the first hangar.
"That vertical opening in the wall is our firing position. It is very convenient to have it, the muzzle flash of the rifle cannot be seen from the outside. Here is the box you will use as a rifle support."
"Wait, wait! I'll be using it as a rifle support? You mean, I'll be shooting?" Mlada's eyes became large and totally round.
"Oh, did I forget to mention that?" Alex made an innocent face. "Yes, Mlada, this is your mission."
"But..."
"Don't worry, you'll do just fine. This is an easy shot."
"I wish you prepared me."
"You are prepared."
"Am I?"
"The colonel should arrive in about one hour. Okay, the distance is one hundred and twenty meters. The sights are preset. The colonel will be walking right to left. Keep the crosshair on his nose, he will walk into the bullet's path. Oh yeah, hug the rifle, press its buttstock against your shoulder. The rifle will kick back, strongly. Stop breathing before you pull the trigger."
"Okay."
Alex readied the rifle and placed it on the box, its muzzle toward the opening. They lay on the dirty boards of the storage level.
"You think I can do that?" Mlada worried.
"Of course you can."
The twin-engine Piper landed right on time.
"Take a deep breath, Mlada, and let's roll it."
She positioned her body like on the range, spread her legs for stability as if she was doing this kind of thing her entire life. Alex stood to the side next to the vertical opening and observed the "killing zone" through the opening.
"Three men, Mlada. The first one is the colonel. Do it in five seconds."
The rifle banged... The man fell.
"Okay, let's get the hell out of here. Leave the rifle."
They slid down the primitive wall climber and exited through the back door into the street.
"Do not cross the street." Alex whispered. "We'll find Jorge later."
"Where are we going?" Mlada expressed her concern.
"To the terminal."
"What?.. Why?"
"The security will be looking for a person running away and not for someone standing right next to the victim. Got it?"
"Yes."
Two men ran out of the terminal building, someone screamed.
They entered and walked to the ramp door.
A small crowd gathered next to the body.
"I want you to see it." Alex said.
She did not resist. They squeezed through the crowd.
Half of the colonel's head was missing. The surviving eye fell out of its socket and hung to the side. Colonel's right shoulder soaked in the pool of black blood. His brains splattered on the pavement in the gradually diminishing chaotic pattern. It seemed Mlada placed the bullet in the right spot.
Alex watched her face, her round eyes and half-opened mouth. Yes, she did it! And she couldn't believe it. She killed the man. She stood hypnotized by the scene of gruesome butchery of the man. She did it!
"Alright, let's go." Alex whispered, but she did not move.
"Mlada, let's go."
She finally came to her senses and looked around.
"Go, go!" Alex nudged her.
They walked out of the building. Everything was quiet, there were no sirens, no alarm, no police cars, no anything, as if nothing extraordinary happened at all.
Mlada stopped.
"You are alright, Mlada." Alex reassured her. "Let's find Jorge and get the hell out of here."
She leaned against the wall and threw up. Alex waited, he gave her enough time to recover.
"How did it go?" Jorge asked.
"A piece of cake." Alex smiled.
"I'll take you directly to the airport. You'll catch the eleven thirty flight to New York."
The late flight took them back home. Mlada cried quietly.
"Why did you have to show me?! Why?"
"There was no other choice, believe me, Mlada. You had to see it, you had to know."
She sobbed.
"I cried too over my first kill. I faced a pack of wolves who ambushed my favorite mare. I killed the leader. Then I cried. I cried over the mare and her unborn colt and I cried over the wolf."
"How do you live with something like that?"
"That's hard. It is even harder when you use a knife. You see your enemy's face, the face of a dying man. The eye-to-eye contact. He sees your face, the face of his judge, jury, and executioner. How do you think he feels? He is staring in the face of his DEATH!"
"Stop it!"
"We are Christians, Mlada. You are a Catholic and I am a Greek Orthodox. We are not Jews, we have a heart. It is very hard for us to kill. We are not fighting for our survival or dominance as Jews do. We have no excuse to kill."
"Then why do we?"
"It's a job."
"A job?! I do not need a job, I am a wealthy person."
They landed at the Kennedy's International.
"Here is the passport, Mr. Aronson. You'll have to find another partner. I do not wish to do that again, ever. Please do not come to our place."
She started walking away, then she stopped, turned around and said, "Sorry about that, Alex."
Who was Alex? His lucky number was 13. Many important events in his life took place on the date of 13: his first woman at the age of 13, meeting Lena, making love to Lena for the first time, getting out of the Turkish jail after his jump, and many other events. In the future, he will get married on October 13, and his granddaughter will be born on September 9 -- all odd number dates, even the last two digits of his North Carolina Driver License number are 13. Nothing important had ever happened on the date of 12. Alex was the odd man. And now he was out, the odd man out. He will never step into Moshe's house, never shake David's hand, and will never have another glance of the beautiful calendar girl.
THE HONOR CHOICE
This morning, the Guardian Angel was in the good mood. Nothing urgent was pending, no meetings scheduled. He could catch up on the previously postponed matters and then simply relax.
He browsed through his Journal of Events and marked off several little unimportant matters he could attend to.
"I understand, my Beloved, that you still keep track of that piss-flavored fruitcake, what's his damned name? Alex?" He turned to his better half.
"Yes, my Light, I do keep track of him."
"What's his status? Please run it by me."
"Well, he still lives in the region called the United States, the little empire on the little planet called Earth."
"Yes, very troublesome little planet, isn't it?"
"He settled down, got married, and has three children: two sons and a daughter. His wife divorced him and moved, with the kids, to another state."
"Is he still marauding?"
"From time to time. He deems it necessary to supplement his income in order to support his family. He has a job, but it doesn't pay well."
"I got the picture. The next time he goes on one of those forays, do not use your protection shield on him. If he dies, he goes to hell, end of the line."
"But he is a good man."
"He killed, didn't he?"
"So did God!!!"
Alex's life was very complicated. Actually, he lived not one life, but three at the same time, each one with an intangible connection to the other two.
The first life, his work at the North Carolina State University, was totally in the open, visible to everyone around Alex. He got up every morning, shaved, had a quick breakfast, and drove to the campus. He did not have anyone whom he could call a friend there, just coworkers. He gave the entire day to the university and then he was free to go home. He rented an apartment at the Royal Hill, later renamed to Northampton, across from the Crabtree Valley Mall.
He had several neighbor acquaintances, whom he usually met at the swimming pool: the apartment subdivision manager, a middle-aged woman, who indicated that she was interested in Alex; a man name Doug, with whom Alex occasionally sunbathed by the pool; two mothers, with whom Alex, sometimes, had meaningless conversations by the pool; and a man name David, a father of a very pretty ten years old girl Angela who played with Alex's younger son and a daughter when they visited him. At that time, Alex did not know that Angela was going to be a person who will profoundly change his life.
The mercenary business was Alex's second life. It brought him a supplementary income. He created a mercenary organization comprising the cream of military talent. Top Risk Action Group was the name of his organization. It included top experts in just about any military skill, from using a knife to creating a nuclear weapon, though using the latest talent was not in Alex's cards.
Finding time to go on a mission was somewhat difficult since Alex's university job was full-time and the main source of his income. He could not afford losing it. Thus, he had to employ every trick in the book, and some tricks which were not included, as an excuse for his occasional absenteeism. A flu was the easiest one, everyone gets it once or twice a year. The grandmother's funeral in Greece was the riskiest excuse since his grandmother did not live in Greece. As a matter of fact, she died thirty five years prior to Alex's half-tearful request for the time off to attend her funeral and take care of her Athens estate which did not exist.
Weekend plus one day jobs abroad did not present any problems. What presented a big problem was switching from one mode of living to another. Switching from a very stressful weekend, which could include slashing a tyrant's throat, to a peaceful sunbathing by the Royal Hill swimming pool and carrying a casual conversation with one of the mothers about her children playing in the shallow part of the swimming pool, was a hard task. Sometimes, Alex wanted to stand up and scream. Or coming back from an Iranian mission, where his team of eight killed fifty three Iranian soldiers and lost five, and saying 'good morning' to his coworkers, then logging in to his university computer account for another day of work, was incredibly incongruent with anything. At the end of the day, Alex hurried back to his apartment and poured himself a two hundred grams glass of cognac, gulped it down, and then smashed the glass in the fireplace.
Alex's third life was totally incompatible with the first two. Since his childhood, Alex was interested in astronomy. The Solar system and beyond! And what about alien beings? Not just on Mars, but on other planets rotating around other suns. And the space travel!
Alex read all 'to reach the unreachable star' science fiction novels that he could put his hands on. The more he read, the more he got involved in everything connected to the outer space.
Physics and mathematics paved the way to astrophysics and to Einstein's relativities.
What a brilliant man! Alex thought. Mathematical models of both special and general relativities were beautiful even though disconnected from everyday physics.
Well, there must be a connection. Alex thought. I just cannot see it. Probably, I am not smart enough.
He studied works by other physicists and mathematicians. But he could not get rid of the nagging feeling that there was something wrong with Einstein's vision of the universe. Time was time and space was space. Mathematically, one could combine both into spacetime, but in physics that concept didn't make any sense. Clocks made by different clockmakers could tick at the different rate, but time could not change. Space could be seen differently by different observers from different frames, but its essence remained unchanged. An inch would remain an inch on Earth and at any other location in the universe and beyond it. A giant would see an inch as a speck, and an ant would conquer it in several steps, but the distance remained unchanged.
Then gravity! What was it? Every mass in the universe attracts every other mass no matter how small and no matter how far it is.
That assumption appeared to be a flagrant absurdity. Gravity did not emanate like light, gravity, obviously was a force field. And if it was a force field, then it had limits like any other force field.
And Alex developed a new gravitation theory which he called the Gravity Spheres theory. He talked about it with a couple of university physics professors.
One put his hand on Alex's shoulder and said, "It is interesting, but the established theory has been tested and it passed the tests. And if you are right, then all textbooks on physics would have to be rewritten from scratch. The scientific community will never accept that burden."
The other laughed, "Are you challenging Einstein? You are mad."
Alex had a free access to the university's computer network, as well as to Cornell's ten-CPU IBM supercomputer and Princeton's Cray supercomputer. Thus, he could create and test any mathematical simulation. He was free to build a model of gravitation and test it on the best machines in the world.
That activity became Alex's third life.
History of the human race is an endless chain of conflicts some of which were resolved by negotiations and deals while others were solved by force.
A war is an open conflict, a covert operation is a hidden foray. A hidden foray was Alex's specialty. His main resource, the personnel, included eighty five exceptional men and women. He assembled a mercenary organization.
Commanding officer of a mercenary organization is the one who receives an offer of the next operation and he decides whether to accept the offer or turn it down. If he accepts the offer, he is sub-contracted by the client.
Each operation involves a certain degree of risk. The chances are that some members of the next team are going to die in the process. In Alex's operations that treacherous toss-up was rather a rule than an exception, and that is why outsiders called Alex's organization the Suicide Squad. The adventure magazines strongly advised their readers to stay away from the Top Risk Action Group.
Alex needed replacements. Searching for qualified persons he placed his ads in the Soldier of Fortune magazine. He never sugar coated the dangers of joining his organization. Just its name suggested the risks one would encounter.
The hardest task for Alex, when accepting members, was to filter out the fakes. That task was very time consuming. It started when Alex was employed, as a Software Manager, by a German software company in Raleigh in 1980. One of his German friends, Fritz, spotted an application form by a potential member and a photo of the applicant.
"That guy looks like a real crook." Fritz exclaimed. "Who is he?"
The guy was a crook and a fake. He had no military qualifications.
At that time, Alex had his own problems assimilating in the German company. Its Director, Hans, brought the team from the parent company in Munich, Germany, to work on American projects. Hans complied with the German trade union laws. That was a very costly move. Alex objected, he suggested to hire local talent, but to no avail.
There was another unexpected obstacle. The German team resented the fact that the Russian manager was going to tell them what to do. The Russians conquered Germany in 1945, and Alex
automatically filled the category of an enemy. The members of the team did not realize that although Alex did not speak German, he, to some extent, understood it (credit to Screbnitsa, the German horse in Alex's childhood). They openly called him the untermensch (the subhuman). But the subhuman was in charge.
At the end, the company folded.
The company folded, and Alex lost his main job. But his second life continued uninterrupted. Alex sent the members of his organization on different missions. Sometimes he joined his "colleagues".
Charity was one of those colleagues. Of course, like all other members of the group, she was an extraordinary person, Alex did not accept anyone below that level.
California, Los Angeles, its honorable university and its Gymnastics team! Charity was on that team. She reached the highest level, she competed in the inter-collegiate championships.
Alex was always partial to gymnastics. That attachment started in Koenigsberg. The war ended, but its remnants were scattered everywhere. Mine fields, booby traps, and unexploded bombs and artillery shells littered the city and the country.
Curious kids, including Alex, explored the land and, inevitably, stumbled upon these dangerous toys. Some of those kids paid the highest price.
The Soviet Army sent multiple teams of sappers to locate and disarm anything that could explode. One of those teams was posted to where Alex lived. They were soldiers, they did their job, they found and blew up numerous dangerous devices in Alex's neighborhood.
Their day usually started with a good physical workout. They ran, lifted weights, and... they exercised on a single bar, at least some of them did.
Those single bar exercises fascinated Alex. Spins, twists, and turns! Could he do that, too? When soldiers were in the field, Alex used the chance to mount the bar. He learned to accomplish that exercise in one move. Then he swung and twirled like the soldiers did. He discovered that he could even perform the underknee rolls culminated in a fall and landing on his feet, safely. His muscles strengthened.
Although Alex's gymnastics skills reached only the elementary level, he knew what it takes, how much effort one has to apply, in order to conquer each exercise.
So, Charity reached the highest level. But there was more to Charity than met the eye -- she, like Alex, had the second life.
How can one identify a person who lives two or three lives? One can't. A wimpy looking guy like Alex does not fit the mold. A beautiful dainty blonde like Charity fits it even less.
Charity answered Alex's ads in the Soldier of Fortune magazine and sent her application with a photo. Strikingly beautiful blonde -- that's what Alex needed in his organization. She did not have to be a tough soldier, she didn't have to be able to hit the target at the two hundred yards range, she didn't have to earn a black belt in martial arts -- anyone could do that. What she possessed was much more valuable: the quality of being very attractive, being a "magnet".
Slashing the tyrant's throat? Alex would not be able to accomplish that deed without Charity's help. When they entered the tyrant's country, the tyrant could count his remaining days on one hand. Alex's first life was firmly on the
track again, his job as a Systems Analyst for the North Carolina State
University and the access to the best computers gave him an opportunity
to develop his gravitation theory. Of course his lives number one and
number three did not interfere with his life number two.
Then everything changed, overnight.
"My wife left me again." David said. "Could you take care of my daughter while I'll try to find my wife?"
"Sure, your daughter can stay with me for as long as necessary. Good luck with your search."
Alex was fond of Angela. He called her Little Angel. She was very pretty, very sociable, and very, very smart, far above her age of ten.
Alex was working on a complex programming problem for two days already and was facing one very unpleasant dead end.
"What's the problem?" Angela asked.
"Don't mind. It is a chemical problem." Alex tried to brush off the issue. That was his problem, not Angela's.
"I like chemistry." She said. "My chemistry teacher said once that you can split the atom into its levels, the shells, as she called them, and see where they fit. You know, to analyze the problem."
"What?!" Alex was flabbergasted. "What did you just say? The levels?"
"Yes, the levels."
"My God!"
Angela solved one very complex problem with one wave of her hand.
David's problem was solved, too. He found his wife, and they reconciled. Judy, David, and Angela were reunited again and moved to Kenly, a small town twenty five miles southeast of Raleigh.
Alex was saddened. There was no more Little Angel to meet him at the door after work.
Two weeks later, the phone rang. That was David. He informed Alex that the family was ready to move to South Carolina. Alex asked whether he could pick up Angela the next day and take her to the Carawinds amusement park in Charlotte as a good bye present. David did not object.
That day was one of the happiest days of Alex's life. They took the rides, again and again, pigged out on ribs and french fries. They had a great time that day. And then they had to go back to Kenly.
Alex said good bye to the family and cried driving back home: he will never see his Little Angel again. Angela was more than a smart friend, she was a family, perhaps a temporary family, but a family nevertheless. And now Alex was alone again. So, he cried.
"What do I have left in my life?" Alex asked. "My family is in Pennsylvania, Little Angel is gone. My gravitation theory is being questioned. What's my next move? The American company in Guatemala, I used to work for, offers me a job. Should I accept it? Definitely, yes."
The phone rang. That was David.
"I am back in Raleigh." David declared. "I got a job here."
"What about Judy and Angela?"
"They stayed in South Carolina with their relatives."
Alex didn't know why he felt happy. Suddenly, there was a chance that Judy and Angela will come back.
Fuck Guatemala. Alex thought. There is nothing wrong with working for the State of North Carolina.
One week passed, and Alex received another phone call from David.
"Can you do me a big favor, Alex?" David's voice trembled. "Please drive to South Carolina and bring Angela to your place. Judy left again, and, I think that Angela is in danger staying with her uncle. Please hurry."
That was a piece of very beautiful news.
"I'll do it with no delay." Alex answered.
What a delightful day that was! To rescue Little Angel from "evil" uncle, even if the uncle was totally innocent!
They drove back to North Carolina.
"What is your work?" Angela asked.
"Computers." Alex answered.
"That's what I'd like to do." She said.
"It's very complex."
"That's what I like about it."
Extra smart Angela! Alex was very proud of being the number three out of sixty in his class in college upon graduation. Try to beat that!
Angela graduated from the NCSU in Chemical Engineering with honors and was offered a scholarship by five major universities in the country. Oh, yes, plus by the one of the most prestigious universities in the world: the Cambridge University in England, the James Bond's university!
She chose the Notre Dame.
Why did so many universities offer Angela scholarships? Because Angela was the number one out of 7,200 other School of Engineering students, astronomical odds, in Alex's eyes.
That is why Alex quit his life number two. Angela became something which was much more important, she was far above Alex's level! Alex quit his life number two to promote Angela's life number one.
That was the honor choice, and Alex made it.
CEMETERY HUNT
Everything has a beginning and an end.
A crippled airplane, no longer able to fly, sits in a hangar motionless. What a sad end!
A beautiful woman! She develops quickly, blossoms briefly, then ages slowly and dies. What a waste! Or even worse, she is caught in a web of intrigue and is incarcerated, confined to a jail cell. She is a gorgeous woman destined to remain an old maid. Like a waning flower, she withers and dies.
Or the woman from Alex's life (in his first book), name Zoya. She did not die. She was persuaded to return to her mother country, Russia, by no one more powerful than its Premier, Yuri Andropov. He said, "Please return, and no action will be taken against you. I promise."
Zoya was his darling. Vladimir Semichastny was no longer in the picture, neither was Alex. The darling beautiful Zoya was.
This book should end here. Alex quit his life number one, end of the story. Unfortunately, or, perhaps, fortunately (so I can relate it), it was not the end of the story, but its very dangerous continuation.
Alex always believed in the existence of the sixth sense. It warned him of an impending danger, well, maybe not every time, but sometimes. It went like this. Something wasn't right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew it was there somewhere -- something threatening, possibly dangerous. Or, perhaps, the whole thing was much simpler than any sixth sense. A face in the crowd flashing more than once, a face which did not belong there, a face out of place? Like of that dark-skinned gentleman on the corner of Alex's street, just standing there with no apparent purpose and watching Alex.
There was not just that gentleman, but the team of three who watched Alex: two men and one woman, all of the Middle Eastern origin. Who were they? Iranians? Egyptians? Or Israelis? Three places connected to Alex's Iranian operation Golden Camel (described in this author's second book Back Door to Hell). There was one more place, Iraq, but the team could not come from there -- Saddam Hussein was Alex's ally.
Alex saw the team members almost every day, they took turns watching Alex. They were an intelligence team. Sometimes, he almost literally bumped into them. Once Alex walked in the street approaching the building where he worked, when a car passed him. The car side window was open. He saw the gentleman number one who turned, and his stare was transfixed on Alex. The gentleman's car almost collided with another vehicle at the intersection. That was not professional, perhaps the gentleman was an amateur in the business of spying. But that did not make him less dangerous. And he, apparently, was the team leader.
On another occasion, Alex entered the man's room in the library across the street. To his surprise, he saw the gentleman standing by the urinal ready to go pee. Alex took the adjacent stand. The gentleman glanced at Alex, and Alex could see a frank expression of surprise on the man's face.
They peed in unison. The gentleman finished first and exited the man's room in a hurry. That was funny: Alex should be frightened by the encounter, not the gentleman.
Alex did not underestimate the potential danger. It was possible that the team was sent to assassinate him. What other purpose could there be? If the attempt materialized, the team had to be the Iranians. The Egyptian connection was loose. The Israeli tie was unpredictable. Those guys proved more than once that they were capable of stabbing a friend in the back, just look at the Liberty incident in the Mediterranean Sea during the Egypt-Israeli war.
Whoever they were, Alex had to be very, very cautious.
The game of cat and mouse (with Alex being a mouse) was very familiar to Alex. He played it in New York after he jumped the ship and came to America. Then, the situation was much more dangerous: both the NSC and the KGB hunted him.
Still, never underestimate your enemy, Alex thought.
Clocks ticked, but nothing was happening. THEY watched, and HE waited. For one year, exactly to the day. Then they were gone never to be seen again.
Peace and tranquility, my friend? Not on your life. The year that passed was only a prelude, the symphony was about to come.
When the mysterious team disappeared, Alex breathed easier.
So they were not the assassins after all. He thought. They watched me just to see if I was up to something possibly against them. My God! The expenses they incurred supporting the team! All they had to do was to pay me one half of the sum, and I would leave their country alone forever.
But that didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that THEY left HIM alone.
"Well, let's spoil myself a bit." Alex said. "Chapel Hill, here we come."
His favorite deli did its spoiling business in Chapel Hill, still Alex's favorite town in North Carolina. It carried a lot of foreign delicacies (please excuse Alex's European tastes, that is where he was brought up): cured hams from Germany and Italy, pastries, and, you name it, they have it, at the University Mall.
It was late in the afternoon. Alex started his Camaro and enjoyed the ride.
While in the deli, he spotted a man he has seen in Raleigh earlier in the day, he was sure of that.
Well, he thought, the guy likes the same things I do.
Still, a little alarm buzz rang in the back of his head.
Just to make it double-sure that his suspicions were groundless, he did not take the usual shortest way home. He decided to drive through the town of Chapel Hill staying in the well lit streets to see whether any car would follow him in a couple of turns (the trick Vitaly Gerasimov, from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, taught him in New York): Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue turns, into campus. And one did!
"Okay, buddy, try to beat Camaro." Alex whispered and sped down the Cameron, right in the middle of the campus.
Ahead, a truck blocked the street, there was only one exit to the right into a construction site. There were no street lights. The dead end!
"Shit!" Alex cursed spinning the car around. The spin was incomplete, he had to back up in order to turn around. Something screeched and crackled in the dark: Alex hit a stack of beams and rails.
"Give me another second, buddy. How would you like to play the game called 'chicken'?" Alex intended to make it the head-on. He had no other choice, he was cornered. If the stranger stayed on the road, they would have a spectacular head-on collision, and the outcome would be decided in a hand-to-hand combat. But if the stranger yielded, then Alex would have enough time to evade the hunter (Alex lived in Chapel Hill before and knew all its entrances and exits).
Something hit the windshield at an angle and penetrated it. A bullet! It missed Alex's head by a few inches and exited at the open side window. Alex did not hear the shot. A weapon with a silencer? He turned off the engine and listened.
Snapch!.. He ducked. Yes, the hunter's pistol was armed with a silencer. Alex knew that sound from the old times in New York.
"Better run, man." Alex whispered, opened the car door, and fell onto the soft dirt.
The hunter's car idled, then its engine quit. The door slammed.
Alex got up and dashed down the hill.
Snapch!.. Snapch!.. Alex serpentined. He passed a building, he wasn't sure where he was. He dashed across an unknown street, jumped over a stone barrier, and suddenly realized where he was: inside the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery! One block from where he used to work when he and his wife moved to North Carolina. That is where his North Carolina life started and now that is where it was going to end. If only he had his pistol with him! Then he would ambush the hunter and reverse the roles.
But he was denied the right to carry a concealed weapon.
Not originally though. Alex used to carry the North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit bearing his Driver License number ending with one-three.
The permit was about to expire. Alex stopped by the Sheriff's office to renew the permit. He pulled out his wallet to pay the renewal fee.
"Your permit has expired two days ago." The woman behind the window said.
"Yes, I know. That is why I am here."
"You cannot renew your permit because it expired two days ago."
"So what is my next move?" Alex was puzzled.
"You must complete a certified training course again, then resubmit your application, your photo, and the proof of your residence! " The blubber lips parted in a sadistic smile. "Those are the rules".
The course included scheduling oneself for the next available slot in the class, one week of lectures, a shooting range, and a sizable fee.
Alex crossed the hall to the Sheriff's office to find out whether the bureaucratic rule could be bent, but the Sheriff was not available.
Alex wrote a letter to Donnie (what an endearing first name!) Harrison, the Sheriff. He stated that he served as an officer in the Army, that he was a sniper in the field, and he already passed the course once.
The Sheriff never called back, never answered the letter.
In the past, Alex donated money directly to the Sheriff's office, and Alex's Camaro carried the stick-on emblem of the Sheriff's Department. Never again!
The rule! The idiotic bureaucratic rule, which will, probably, cost Alex his life now in the middle of the fucking cemetery!
Snapch!.. Alex dived behind a headstone. The headstone did not carry any mournful inscriptions or dates. Just a name: FOISTERS.
"Sorry about that, Mr.Foisters. I didn't mean to disturb your peace." Alex whispered.
Another bullet chirped. It hit the headstone and ricochetted.
"Thanks for protection, Mr. Foisters." Alex rolled away, stood up, and ran.
Alex's exit was not the most glorious one. He wound up in one of the storage rooms of the North Carolina Memorial Hospital where he slept for the rest of the night.
He still had to retrieve his car in the morning, and that presented a real, impossible to circumvent, danger.
He was sneaky about the venture. He traced back his escape path joining the group of university students taking a shortcut to the campus site.
If the hunter was waiting for him by the car, then Alex would simply continue walking with the students. If not, then Alex would take a chance and remove his car from the construction site (his father accomplished the fit in the Finnish war, didn't he?).
Alex's car stood where he left it, with its door still open.
Alex worried that the open door left the inside lights on. These lights could drain the battery overnight.
But the car started. His beautiful Camaro! He will never get rid of it! He will just replace its windshield, nothing else. Sorry about the scratches on the side, that couldn't be helped, it was too dark at the construction site.
TO KILL A SAINT
"Rostislav?!" Alex was surprised to face the man from the past.
"Never say never again."
"Why are you in Raleigh? To see me?"
They stood in front of the Barnes & Noble bookstore.
"Yes. I see that you are interested in books. What kind?"
"Not books, coffee. They have a coffee shop inside. Would you join me?"
"I don't mind if I do."
They ordered coffee and sat by the window.
"I have a job for you, Alex, in Italy. The guy is a priest. A Catholic priest."
"Why, in hell, don't you give me something other than an assassination. Just something to blow up, anything. James Bond's kind of a job. What is it? Was he better than me?"
"Well, you are not James Bond. He was a fictional character, you are real. If we wanted to blow up something, we would employ the local help. That is simple. But to remove a living obstacle, one must have a professional help -- you!"
"I grade that low?"
"No, you grade that high. Thirty thousand?"
Alex never graded himself that high.
"Well, let me think about it." He said.
"By the way, we heard about your unpleasant encounter at the Chapel Hill cemetery." Rostislav laughed. "Please believe me that guy was not an Israeli."
"Then who was he?"
"We don't know. Perhaps someone from the South America. Do you have enemies there?"
"I have enemies everywhere."
"Well, do you take the task?"
"Yes."
"Make it as low profile as possible. Your job is in Venice, your contact is in Margera." Rostislav reached into his inside pocket and removed an envelope.
The envelope contained two photos, a brief material concerning both the contact and the target, and five thousand dollars.
"You operational expenses." Rostislav smiled. "Anything else you need? A passport?"
"No, that's it. I have my own documents up-to-date. Paul Aronson's passport has expired."
"Alright, then we are in business."
"How soon?" Alex asked.
"Any time." Rostislav sipped from his cup. "Their coffee is good here."
"When I am back, where do I find you?"
"Contact me in New York, here is the phone number. Good luck."
To kill a priest? Isn't that a mortal sin? Before God?
Okay, the priest betrayed several Jewish families, innocent families, in Italy. They died in concentrations camps in Poland. Wasn't he accountable for their death?
God, please step aside.
What a life Alex lived! Monday through Friday, he worked for the NCSU, but on weekends and nights he ran from hunters on park trails and in cemeteries and dodged bullets.
Even at home, in his apartment, he was not safe. Someone hurled a rock at his window harassing him. The window did not break, it cracked. Whoever threw the rock could not enter Alex's apartment because he knew with one hundred percent certainty that he would die.
Alex always thrived on competition. That was the final challenge. First, it was Major Kantemirov, his mentor, the hero of the Stalingrad battle, he competed against. But how can one compete against someone who killed between five and seven hundred of his own penal battalion soldiers, the guys who retreated in the face of overwhelming odds against them? That was a plain waste of soldiers who could be used in other ways in the battle. But, the mine fields had to be cleared! Kantemirov killed many German soldiers as well. He was a genuine hero of the Stalingrad battle. Sure he could castrate a savage animal in Africa, like Alex did, but could he survive the swamp battle in Nicaragua?
Kantemirov always stayed on the "safe" side of the battle lines, he never ventured into very hostile enemy territory. He always killed from distance. Behind the lines is a totally different grade of combat, two notches more dangerous. Could Kantemirov survive the battle at the Iranian compound? Eight against fifty three? With the odds totally against the eight? Would he have the nerve and the determination?
Then, Alex competed against Jack London, the adventure writer, and against the heroes of his novels. Jack London was a seaman who sailed on the high seas. So did Alex, and Alex could bet that Jack has never experienced the danger of sailing through a typhoon in the Indian Ocean. Alex's tanker then almost broke in two. Or sailing in a storm next to the old German mine field in the North Sea.
One of Jack's heroes fought and killed a wolf in Alaska's wilderness. So did Alex in East Prussia, and Alex's adversary was not sick as the Alaskan wolf was -- Alex's wolf was a healthy, very strong animal, the leader of the pack.
And now Alex competed against James Bond, a fictional hero. In one of the James Bond's movies, Bond came to Venice with a very beautiful woman who gave him a full support. Alex came to Venice alone with the purpose of unknown value -- to kill a priest. He came to snatch someone else's life, someone who was on very favorable terms with God.
But the priest betrayed the "chosen" ones, and, thus, in a sense, he betrayed God. That was a grey area.
James Bond killed an old woman who "had her kicks", the SPECTRE's agent. Well, actually, James Bond's girlfriend did the job. Alex was going to terminate a saint man. How do these two compare?
The city of Venice was as beautiful as when Alex visited it several years back when he sailed Russian ships. The Saint Mark's square still was full of tourists (and pigeons), the Palace of Doges, a museum now, displayed such interesting items as chastity belts, and the "Bridge of Tears", the enclosed passage from the Palace to the torture chambers, was still there.
Alex's Hotel Rialto with an overlook of the Grand Canal and the bridge bearing the hotel's name, all those romantic sites, were the last things on Alex's mind.
The saint's church was not the one visited by many tourists, but its location right next to one of the canals was very convenient to Alex's purposes. He carried a pistol, but that weapon was the weapon of the last resort. His main weapon was... a rubber mallet. That was not his favorite silent weapon (a knife was), but that is what the job demanded. Rostislav emphasized to make it as low profile as possible. That meant no signs of assassination. An accidental death! A mallet knockout and the body's fall into the canal.
"Why is it always so complicated?" Alex complained.
Entering the city of Venice presented no problems, just a minor inconvenience: no wheeled vehicles are allowed within the city limits, only boats and water taxis.
"Let's find the church, a lot of walking," Alex murmured, "and see how saint the priest really is."
The priest did not read the sermon, an understudy did. The priest dispensed little round crackers to the line of worshipers. He put those onto tongues of the attendees. Jews had a similar inducement at their religious meetings: they broke bread. Alex read about it.
"I have something much better." He said and stuffed his mouth with a slice of pizza.
"Hey, this is not a diner." Someone behind him whispered.
"Sorry." Alex apologized.
Alex selected a direct approach as to how he could meet the priest.
"I have a problem." He declared. "Do I have to reserve a booth with a little window to communicate with you in the adjacent compartment?"
"No, my son, you don't have to reserve anything. I'll see you in the ecumenical quarters of our church. That's on the second floor. No one will disturb us there. Give me a minute to change."
Alex ascended to the second floor and stepped into the ecumenical room. He wore sneakers so that his footsteps could not be heard.
"You startled me." The priest exclaimed.
"Yes, I am very good at that." Alex pulled out the mallet from the inside of his jacket, swung it, and landed it on the top of the priest's head.
The priest slumped forward.
Alex delivered a devastating blow to the back of the priest's neck rendering him unconscious and paralyzed neck down.
Cruel? Of course it was, but so was the betrayal of several families, perhaps even more so.
CRAZY GRAVITY
Alex continued living three lives. He had no other choice.
He could not quit his life number one, that was his main reliable source of income. He still had to support his family in Pennsylvania.
He tried to quit his second life, but that was possible only if his enemies quit. The park trail attempts on his life and the cemetery hunt shattered any hope of stopping the silent warfare. Alex had to accept the inevitability of fighting the enemy and defending himself against the invisible adversary.
Given enough time, one can get used to just about anything, no matter how uncomfortable the predicament is, be it the incurable illness, jail, or a threat, a threat to one's life.
Alex dived into his life number three. When he started traveling on that path, he was totally on the side of Einstein's theories. But, as he studied the theories, he didn't have any other choice but to discard those theories one by one, to peel them off. They all rested on a very shaky foundation of dubious assumptions.
Their mathematical models seemed logical, but... those models were built on the questionable assumptions.
To build a model on the dubious assumptions, all one had to do was to assume that those assumptions were not dubious.
But they were.
Alex expected to find peace, harmony and definite joy of new science discoveries in his third life. Instead, he found hostility, bigotry, and hate (that was surprising). It was just another war theater!
So, what did Alex do? He took it head on. He was used to warfare of any kind, he was in the mercenary world long enough.
He was against the Germans in the Second World War, against the Communists in the Cold War, and now against the brainwashed physicists of the modern times.
Alex became used to stand against the stale minds!
He created a website www.gravityspheres.com.
That website became another battle front. Alex was assailed on every point, insulted, and threatened.
Access his website, you'll see the number of contacts, over six thousand now. Those contacts were not the man-in-the-street. Those contacts were the professors of astrophysics of all major universities of the world and their graduate students.
What did they say? Some of them understood at least the need to re-examine the present theories. Others were enthusiastic about the possibility of the stand of the new theory.
And more, much more...
Alex visualized what his gravitation theory was going to bring: exit from the dark ages and entrance to the next era, the era of exploration and discovery, perhaps even the first contact with an intelligence other than human. If "flying saucers" were real, that meant that the other intelligence mastered gravity and used it in the interstellar travel because gravity is just another force field. And if it is a force field, then it has direction and energy -- the components
necessary for propulsion.
Meanwhile, the back-and-forth email exchange between Alex and the academia continued.
Dr. Rainer Weiss, the founder and the technical brain of the LIGO project by the MIT and Caltech, was the most notable scientist who contacted Alex. A giant of the mind, he breathed life into the project. He firmly believed in Einstein's theory of gravitational waves and in their possible detection and measurement.
And there was nothing technically wrong with the LIGO project. It would work if the gravitational waves existed.
Alex attempted a bold move. He sent Dr. Weiss the following proposition.
I understand your dedication to Einstein, but to me, he is a false idol. He was wrong on several points. Your project is built on one of those points. The space antenna is not going to solve the problem either. What is not there cannot materialize.
So I propose a way out for you. Do the unthinkable: dump Einstein, he is a lost cause. I do not expect you to abandon the project. Maintain it for as long as you can. But start an alternative program along the lines of my theory. Encourage scientists to investigate it, then take your share of the credit.
That's my proposition.
The reply was long and, unexpectedly, cordial.
I have no reasons to doubt Einstein's formulation of gravitation... and so on... As to your proposition, I am taking bets on good old uncle Albert.
That was fine. Alex never expected to convert Dr. Weiss, but what was the most interesting -- how Dr. Weiss ended his letter.
Should it be that we do not observe the direct evidence for gravitational waves when we achieve sensitivities where it would become awkward not to; let's communicate again. That eventuality would be as important as a direct measurement.
Dr. Weiss allowed the possibility that gravitational waves could be a fantasy.
Alex did not wish to quote any negative responses, but he was more than willing to cite the following application from one of the Caltech students.
I am contemplating the idea of doing a PhD in astronomy and I found your web page about gravity spheres. I think it is very exciting theory, and I wondered whether you could take me as a student to work with you.
Sincerely,
Yacine
This was the time when Alex met one very special man, Tom Gigliotti (pronounced Gilotti), his future associate. Alex met him on the park trail, yes, on the trail where he was shot at by the opposition and had to dive into the poison ivy jungle of Crabtree Creek.
The man did not seem to be particularly impressive.
A fucking wimp. Alex thought. Probably from one of those apartment complexes on the side of the trail.
But, as Alex discovered later, the man was as far from being a wimp as one can get. The man was one tough motherfucker.
"I keep bumping into you." Alex said when they almost collided under the bridge. "Don't you have anything better to do than wander the trails?"
"That 's where I live." The man answered. "That's my world."
"You mean you walk here every day?"
"Yes, I do."
"Well, I think I walked far enough for today." Alex said. "Need a cup of coffee. Will you join me? McDonald's is right at the turn of the trail."
They relaxed in one of the open compartments.
The morning sun ray breaking through the front window, the heavenly aroma of fresh coffee, and the peace-and-quiet of the place, were conducive to a friendly conversation.
Alex found out that Tom had a family in Raleigh, a sister, though they did not stay close. With a slight hesitation, Tom admitted that he was a "black sheep" of the family.
"Hey, so was I." Alex smiled.
Tom had a degree from college, in economics, but, presently, he was unemployed.
While they talked, Alex drew doodles on a napkin. He weaved in Tom's name into the messy scribble.
"What are you drawing?" Tom asked.
"Here." Alex pushed the napkin toward Tom. "You figure it out."
"I see my name weaved in." Tom surprised Alex who was sure that it was almost impossible to detect the pattern in the jumble of curves and lines.
They agreed to meet again the next Tuesday.
"The next time I'll bring you another doodle," Alex promised, "which you will not be able to decode."
"Don't bet on that." Tom smiled.
That is how their friendship began. They met every Tuesday at McDonald's (Alex called it the choke-and-puke), and every time they brought with them an enciphered challenge for the other party to decipher.
Alex was repeatedly surprised at how easily Tom could figure out Alex's riddles no matter how imaginative and inventive they were.
Alex's respect for Tom's mind grew. He decided to disclose his third life.
"How much do you know about astrophysics?" He asked Tom.
"Practically nothing."
"That's what I am working on. I have a project. Would you be interested in joining it?"
And Tom joined the project. He surprised Alex again and again.
"How did you come up with these equations?" Alex would ask.
"From thermodynamics."
"But thermodynamics has nothing to do with astrophysics."
"I thought it fits in this case."
That is when Alex made a binding promise to Tom.
"Our theory is revolutionary. When it will be accepted by the scientific community, and we will win the Noble prize, I will install you as a Professor of Astrophysics at the MIT. I have connections there."
"That's a long shot." Tom laughed.
Tom was an extraordinary man.
Interestingly enough, Tom and Alex had absolutely nothing in common. Alex was boisterous and defiant, Tom was reserved and quiet. Alex was very ambitious, Tom went with the flow.
Oh, yes, they had something in common after all. Once, a very pretty blonde girl entered the choke-and-puke through the back door. Alex followed Tom's gaze. Hey, Tom liked blondes. So did Alex.
"I invite you to the NCSU Gymnastics competitions in February and March." Alex said.
From then on, they did not miss a single important women's gymnastics event at the NCSU campus.
Tom, for the first time, opened up.
The way he talked about blondes on the trail! Yes, Moshe, too, adored blondes, but not as much as Tom did. To Tom, blondes were nymphs, goddesses in their own right. Alex has never encountered a man so fascinated by blondes!
Alex did admire blondes himself, but not to that degree. Yes, Nordic and Slavic blondes had a narrow delicate nose, very subtle nose, and straight blonde hair of course. But there were other beautiful women. Not to Tom!
"Well, Tom," Alex said, "think of all those university blondes you will encounter at the MIT -- academic mind and the Playboy beauty combined."
UNIVERSAL COUNCIL
This is the part that the reader should have taken with a grain of salt, because Alex himself had. The experience is controversial, at least Tom thinks so.
Alex was awakened in the middle of the night. Still groggy, he found himself standing in front of a circular hole, about eight feet in diameter, a portal of some kind. It glared hazy blue.
Alex felt being drawn into it, as if it was a magnet of a sort.
The hazy blue void seemed serene.
I am invited to enter it. Why don't I? He thought.
And he did.
He found himself in the weightless world, suspended in the grey mist. He tried to orient himself, but there were no other objects around, no walls, no up and down, no distance, and... time was suspended or it simply did not exist.
Then the mist dissipated, and Alex stood on the floor of an immense hall in front of a glowing red elevation. Twelve white robed deep hooded figures sat on a long bench behind the elevation. Alex could not see their faces.
One figure in the middle stood out: he or she wore a red hood.
"We are the Universal Council." A woman's voice addressed Alex. The red hood in the middle moved.
She must be the Head of the Council. Alex thought. Where, in hell, am I?
"We have summoned you, Alex (at least they knew his name), to ask you a few questions." The woman said.
Alex remained silent.
"You are, the first on your planet, to describe the true nature of gravity. You are an exception! Our question is: what are you going to do with this knowledge?"
This must be the Inquisition. Alex thought. Like the church in the Dark Ages.
"Please answer the question."
"I want to contribute to science." Alex answered.
I have nothing to hide. He thought. If there will be a punishment, fuck it! I'll take it.
Suddenly, he realized that he has seen that style of robe before. It happened very long time ago. He and his wife Pat came to North Carolina, just two of them, they had no kids then. A small house they rented in the country, about thirteen miles from Chapel Hill, had more than enough space for them to feel comfortable.
One night, Alex woke up, he thought that he heard a noise in their bedroom. And there it was, the robed figure stood next to their bed, the hood and all. The road light from the outside cast a shadow on the wall behind the figure. That was a very tall man, it had to be. The man studied Alex silently.
Alex froze. The "Inquisition person" turned and walked out of the door into the living room.
Alex woke up Pat and whispered that they had an intruder in their house. He had no weapons in the bedroom, it was going to be a hand-to-hand combat.
He peeked into the living room, the "Inquisition person" was not there. Cautiously, Alex strolled into the kitchenette and pulled out a butcher knife. Pat followed him very close.
To their astonishment, the intruder was gone. All windows were latched, all doors were locked. The intruder could not exit without living a trace. But he did!
That intruder could be one of those twelve on the bench behind the glowing red elevation.
I wonder if they can read what I am thinking. Crossed Alex's mind.
They asked him several questions, nothing simple, galaxy astrophysics, and not a single question concerning the Earth. He sensed that they were totally satisfied with his answers.
Should I ask them who they are? Alex considered. They could be aliens, or even gods.
Obviously, their technology was beyond his comprehension.
Hell, I'll ask them. Alex decided.
"Are you mortals?"
Silence ensued. Then the woman answered, "Yes, we are."
"What are your limits?"
"We have no limits."
That answered it all.
A grey haze filled the hall. Then Alex sensed the incredible speed, but he wasn't crushed. Instead, he found himself standing in the middle of his bedroom. Disoriented? No. It all seemed very natural, as if events like his intergalactic travel happened all the time.
He laughed. Maybe that was his hysterical reaction to the unusual events. So, he laughed.
"My God!" He exclaimed. "It is so simple. I just do not know their technology. Their superior technology -- that's all it is. They are no fucking gods. They are like us. But they decide the fate of galaxies. And I know their secret. It's gravity! That was all they asked about. They are no Inquisition, they are just the Universal Council. No big deal at all."
He poured himself a drink.
Was it a dream? But dreams do not come in color: the hazy blue circular portal and the red hood of the lady in the middle?
For the next several nights, Alex couldn't sleep well. He woke up in the middle of the night and scanned the bedroom for the image of the blue haze circular portal. But the portal did not re-appear. Alex's call to answer the Universal Council was a one-time event.
Still, Alex hoped. He pictured one of several possible scenarios, when he could re-encounter a member (or members) of the Universal Council.
He would walk at the mall, just shopping, and he would spot a figure in a white robe.
"My God!" He would exclaim. "That must be one of the Council members! What is he doing here? Looking for me?"
He would walk toward the figure.
"I am here." He would say.
But the figure would answer, "I am not looking for you. There are other persons who can see things you see."
"But I thought..."
An elderly lady would stop and ask Alex, "Who are you talking to?"
"I am talking to this gentleman." Alex would point toward the 'Inquisition person'.
"What gentleman?" The elder lady could not see the white-robed figure.
"Never mind."
And Alex would continue shopping.
If Alex could talk to the Universal Council again, he had a hundred questions. One of those was: where did you get the information about me and my gravitation theory? Of course, they probably monitored all science magazines, but nothing about him has been published so far.
Oh yes, the Internet and his website. They probably monitored the activity in the science circles on the web. They probably monitored all major universities just like the universities themselves monitored their accounts for violations by the university personnel.
Alex was quite familiar with those unwritten rules.
Incidentally, that is why professors and students avoid using university accounts when sending email to Alex. Their curriculum has been aligned along the Einstein lines. One cannot deviate. Any deviation could be interpreted as a violation of educational standards, and the professor could be reprimanded or even dismissed. Supporting Alex's anti-Einstein stand could jeopardize the professor's career.
The Universal Council was probably aware of these political policies by the university web security sections snooping through all communications by the university personnel. Thus, the Council did its own snooping, and that is how they got the information.
"Still, why did they summon me?" Alex wondered. "Perhaps to verify that I did not borrow someone else's ideas, like Einstein did.
That is why they asked me several 'galactic' questions which Einstein would not be able to answer."
NO LONGER A SECRET
Just when Alex's life number three was becoming more and more surreal, the life number two surfaced with a big splash.
"Rostislav!"
"Yes, I'd like to see you at the nearest coffee shop."
"There is one just around the corner."
Cheese Danish hit the spot.
"We do not have anyone qualified to do the job in Russia, you are the only choice. Thirty thousand? After the job is done, you can fly to Bahamas for three months and relax in the sun. How does that sound?"
Right now, I have two thousand dollars in my savings. Alex calculated. Thirty two thousand would make my life a bit easier.
"It's in Sochi on the Black Sea coast." Rostislav began.
"I know the place well."
"His name is Benjamin Hayim. We want him sanctioned."
"What did he do? Cheated in tiddly winks?"
"A bit more than that. The guy is a skunk. He sold very sensitive information to the Russians."
"What kind of information?"
"Concerning the transfer of nuclear technology from the United States to Israel."
"Yes, that's sensitive. No wonder Arabs hate us so much."
"Then, when the FBI was on his ass, he defected."
"What is he doing in Sochi?"
"The Russians gave him a cozy job: a project inspector at the construction sites of the next Winter Olympics in 2014."
"Winter Olympics in the subtropics of Sochi, palms and all?" Alex laughed. "Are you kidding me?"
"No. The Olympics project is in two clusters fifty kilometers apart. The Sochi cluster will contain ice skating facilities including two ice hockey rinks, speed skating, a short track stadium, and a curling rink. Krasnaya Polyana, a ski resort in Caucasus mountains, will host skiing, snowboarding, bobsleighing, and ski jumping events. It's the most expensive Winter Olympics ever -- about ten billion dollars."
"Yes, the Russians never ran away from any big project. They are good at making the impossible possible."
Rostislav handed Alex a brown Manila envelope. The envelope contained a short biographical material concerning Benjamin Hayim, his photo, a copy of his letter originally accompanying the sensitive material, but not the material itself, five thousand dollars, and sixty three thousand rubles.
"You can buy Sochi for that amount." Rostislav smiled.
"That would not be fair, we already bought Alaska from them."
"Now, it is better to travel by train. They do not pay as much attention to railroad passengers as they do to airline travelers. Here is your Russian passport. The Russian authorities will check it two times: once on the train and again by the Russian border guards. That's it. Then you are free to travel through the country."
"Trofim Solovyov? Born in Moscow?"
"In Sochi, do not stay in a hotel. Find a room for rent. The local residents rent rooms to tourists routinely, nightly or weekly, very inexpensive. Also, hotels check your passport, local residents don't."
"Your knowledge of Russia is remarkable." Alex complimented.
"I do my homework."
"Well, anything else?"
"Make it an accident. Good luck."
Alex studied Hoyim's material. What were his weaknesses? What was exactly the sensitive information that the Russians were ready to buy?
Alex examined the copy of the letter originally enclosed with the sensitive material. In it, Hayim disclosed not only the qualitative stuff but the quantitative data as well.
"The total number of nuclear warheads transferred, as of this date, is XXX." Alex read.
The XXX was blotted out as a small black rectangle. Alex measured the rectangle and superimposed its image on the number of characters next to it. The number of characters the rectangle covered was three, on the dot. Since all three digits were full in width, it meant that the first digit was anything but 1. As a matter of fact, none of the three digits were 1. Thus, the number could only be 200 and up.
Israel acquired over 200 nuclear warheads. That was the inescapable conclusion of Alex's analysis. Yes, that was very sensitive material. Israel could destroy all Arab states surrounding it, if it wished, and Arabs could not retaliate.
"My God!" Alex whispered.
The Sochi Winter Olympics was a gigantic project. Hayim probably spent a lot of time on both sites. That is where Alex was going to find him. It was time for Alex to acquire a work robe and a hard hat.
What was Alex's plan of action? There was no plan, well, maybe just a hazy outline. There was no contact in Russia who could supply a weapon. Alex could not bring one with him either. After the fall of towers in Manhattan, airline baggage rules became strict. Russia also learned a few lessons in safety: Chechens were a threat. Thus, Alex had to improvise on the spot.
But he didn't worry much about it. After being in the field for most of his life, he knew that there is ALWAYS an opportunity, just play it cool.
Sochi, here he comes!
Sochi train station became a fairy tale castle with a watch tower and a needle of steeple on top of it. The tower displayed a giant clock with Zodiac signs encircling the sun.
The city changed since the times when Alex switched trains here on the way to his college in Batumi further south.
There were no more soft delicious pirozhki with liver stuffing sold by an elderly lady in the head scarf carrying a steaming box right by the train. Man! Alex missed those pirozhki.
Sochi used to be just another quiet provincial town. Now it became a noisy traffic-choked city. It had a few new charms though, like yellow Summer Theatre with its six-Roman-columns front, a giant statue of Neptune by the sea (sitting silently and holding a tri-spear), and a new Maritime Terminal with its incredibly tall needle-like steeple similar to the railroad station steeple. It all changed.
The only thing that did not change were the majestic massive peaks of the snow-capped Caucasus Mountains in the background.
Finding a place to stay wasn't hard. Alex passed the luxurious tall Radisson SAS hotel (that is where he would prefer to stay) and entered the streets of the less shiny social status up the hill. That was the old familiar Sochi, the Sochi that Alex loved.
The landlady scrutinized Alex and made an unexpected comment, "I know, you are from Krasnodar, aren't you?"
Hey, he fit in the new Russia well! How would she react if he told her that he came from the United States? She, probably, wouldn't believe him.
Also, unexpectedly, the family downstairs (Alex's room was on the second floor) invited Alex for dinner.
Precious typical Russian hospitality! They didn't have the New York distrust of strangers. It was totally different world over here, in Sochi. Strangers were treated as valuable guests, as interesting sources of 'outside' information.
Not much has happened here, at least not until Sochi was selected to be the site of the next Winter Olympics.
"Are you an important person in the Olympics?" The landlady's husband asked.
"Not as important as you are." Alex replied.
They laughed.
"Okay, woman, bring us a bottle of vodka, will you?"
They celebrated the new era of Sochi, the era of International importance. They have never been in such a spotlight situation before. And Alex was right in the middle of it!
"To your health!" Glasses touched.
Maybe I should re-defect back to Russia. Alex considered. No, that wouldn't work. I brought too much damage to the Russian state in the past. Facing their Secret Service would be a big problem for me.
The next morning, Alex entered his first construction site, the hockey hall. In total, there were going to be forty three construction sites. Now, he had to track the elusive 'inspector', it was not going to be easy.
"Do you know the guy name Benjamin Hayim?" Alex asked the manager of the site.
"Never heard of him."
Alex covered four more sites that day. The answers were: "Not on this site.", " Try the railroad tracks to Krasnaya Polyana.", "Is he your relative?", and "I don't have the up-to-date list of all the employees. It's fluid. They come and go."
He returned to his room quite exhausted. Probably, the landlady heard his cursing (he did it in Russian) because she invited him to join the family's supper.
Dear woman! He was grateful. No one in America, except, maybe, for Moshe, treated him that well.
"Did you find the job?" The woman asked.
"No, that is not what I am looking for."
"What are you looking for?"
"A piece of shit." Alex did not realize that he said that in English.
"You speak English?" The woman understood.
"Net. Ya ne govoryu po-anglisski." Alex tried to repair the damage. A big mistake.
Think in Russian, man. He thought. In Russian only.
"Don't worry. I am not going to report you, Trofim, or whatever your name is."
"Where did you learn English?"
"My son is studying at the Moscow State University, the faculty of Foreign Languages. He drilled me in English."
"Your son is an outstanding man, ma'am."
"Yes, that he is. Okay, the dinner is not ready yet. Would you like a shot of vodka meanwhile?"
"I am not going to turn down that one."
They toasted to Russia.
"So, who are you?" The woman asked.
Her green eyes stared right into his.
Hell, I have to trust someone in this world. Alex thought.
"I am an American, and I am looking for a traitor."
"What are going to do when you'll find him?"
"Kill him."
The silence hung like a heavy middle ages curtain. Then she said, "I think I can help you."
"How?"
"I have a friend in the Ministry of Interior. He can give me the list of all employees at the Winter Olympics. I mean where they work."
"I need only one: Benjamin Hayim."
"Why won't you relax tomorrow at our beautiful beaches? While I'll take care of that name."
"Then, ma'am, I owe you the best dinner at the best of Sochi's restaurants tomorrow."
"I know I will enjoy it, plus you must tell me more about yourself."
"That's the deal."
"I have wonderful news for you, Trofim." The woman beamed. "The man from the Ministry checked it out, and here is what he said. The guy you are looking for died in a construction accident one week ago. He slipped and fell two stories down, hit a beam, and broke his neck. That's it! The end of the story."
Yes, that was a piece of good news for the woman. She was relieved that Trofim did not have to go through with his dangerous plan. But to Alex, that was a setback, a disappointing situation. An easy target simply dropped. He was cheated out of the thirty thousand dollars.
"I still owe you a dinner. He said. "What is the best restaurant in Sochi?"
"Calipso of course. The best Lulia-kebab with the red Satsebeli sauce Georgian style with slightly salted cucumbers."
"Calipso it is!"
Calipso resided right in the center of Sochi, not far away from the Maritime Terminal.
"Maybe it is time for us to get acquainted." Alex said. "What is your name?"
"Svetlana, and yours?"
"Alex."
"It is nice to know you, Alex."
The Lulia-kebab was as delicious as Svetlana claimed it to be. Alex did not have such an outstanding meal, washed down with the red Georgian wine, in months.
"So, what are you, Alex? Are you from the CIA?"
"No, no." Alex shook his head. "As far from it as possible. I am just a man for hire."
"A mercenary?"
"A soldier of fortune."
"What is the soldier of fortune?"
"Fighting someone else's wars."
"That is unbelievable! Like in the movies?"
"No, not that romantic."
Then they walked up the hill.
"Thank you for the outstanding dinner." She said.
So, Alex had on his hands a 'deflated mission', just a sightseeing trip, wasted time. Still, he re-visited Russia. After all, it was his country. He was comfortable here. Persons, like Svetlana, were so familiar, so easy to understand.
But wait! He was also an American. He spent more time in America than he did in Russia.
"I'll sort it out later." He murmured boarding a train to Moscow.
FACING DESTINY
Alex never played by conventional rules. What he should do was to disengage himself from Rostislav, move to another place, change his name, and become as quiet as a mouse.
Instead, Alex did the opposite. He came out in the open and announced himself. He decided to write this book, his third book, and the rat was no longer under the hat. The rat escaped.
Alex used to combat the NSC and the KGB at the same time in New York, and he survived (his first book). But now the battle escalated, the stakes became bigger: Alex disclosed the Israel's top secret, its nuclear potential, to the world, and acquired a new enemy, much more dangerous -- the MOSSAD of Israel.
So, where was Alex? Oh yes, in his apartment in the middle of the night staring at the window and holding a pistol in his hand. Will he place the cold barrel into his mouth and pull the trigger? We'll know soon enough.
But at the moment, perhaps it was time to draw the final line and put the total under it. His life's total score. Were there any regrets? Yes, there were.
Not his missions. He already pronounced his sentence for those. There was something else. There were two episodes in his life which had a great meaning to him. Those may seem unimportant to someone else, but to Alex, these two episodes were something he could not forgive and forget even though they happened long before he went on his first mission. Nothing outrageous, just something that he would do differently if he had a second chance.
The first episode had happened when he was ten years old. His father, his mother and him moved to a small place near Kupavna (a few houses in the woods, about twenty miles east of Moscow toward Noginsk). They occupied one half of a small house, the other half had been taken by one of Alex's teachers in the local school and her niece Tanya. Tanya's parents were killed in the war. She was eleven. They became friends, very close friends. There were very few playmates near where they lived. So, they spent most of the time after classes and two entire summers together.
Girls were Alex's preference for playmates anyway, all his childhood. The problem with that was that he treated girls as playmates, friends, and not as girls. He was a bit slow in maturing.
Tanya was a blonde, with short cut hair, blue eyes, pretty, and as tall as Alex was. But he did not assign any significance to her feminine attributes. He was just a boy not ready for anything but playing. Tanya tried to invite him to do something more than play, two times, by exposing herself once and a finger-in-the-hand signal to have sex, but he turned her down. In the principle, he could do that, but he had no desire. She was much more mature than him. She already had small breasts and a shapely figure. But Alex simply wasn't ready.
But his major regret was how he treated Tanya on the day when his family moved. They were going to Baltics, to former Koenigsberg in East Prussia. The open truck was loaded with their possessions, and Alex was sitting on top of boxes and suitcases. Tanya stood by the wall and was looking at Alex. Alex's mother said that he should go and give Tanya a goodbye hug and a kiss, but he, stupid he, refused. He considered that a sissy stuff. He was that macho guy from war movies and did not wish to stoop to something so sentimental as a hug.
They started moving, and Tanya cried by the wall. Alex never said goodbye to her. He had never wrote her a letter either. That is what he felt guilty about, it could never be repaired.
His second blunder? Please do not laugh about that one: it concerns a dog. It happened soon after Alex and his wife Pat moved to North Carolina. They rented a trailer on the outskirts of Hillsborough. It was nice and clean, on a secluded lot, not in a trailer park.
There was a dog name Sheeba who visited Alex and Pat frequently, soliciting tasty tidbits from their kitchen. She belonged to one of their neighbors, one of the houses nearby. She was a friendly mutt, very shaggy, dark grey eyes hiding behind the fur on her face.
One night in the summer, about nine o'clock, Sheeba came to their trailer as usual. It was hot, and the trailer's door was open. Alex always fed Sheeba outside, they did not want her shaggy hair on the carpeting. This time, Alex was in the bad mood (he didn't even remember why). Sheeba attempted to enter the trailer for the first time. Probably she thought that their relationship was advanced far enough, and it was okay to come in. And Alex kicked her in the face, not very hard, but hard enough to hurt her, particularly to hurt her feelings. She thought that they were friends, and here that idiot called Alex kicked her in the face.
She walked away very slowly. She stopped several times and looked back at Alex. He already felt guilty, but he did not call out to her. He thought that the next time she came back he would make it up to her somehow by apologizing and hugging her.
She never came back. In her place, Alex wouldn't either. But in his eyes at that time she was just a dog, a shaggy mutt. He did not realize how intelligent she was, how fragile her feelings were. He still could go to her house, find her, and make up, but he didn't. He thought that would be stupid. Now he regretted leaving that episode open, now it was too late, dogs do not live longer than eighteen years.
"Guilty on all accounts." Alex said.
He wished he could start his life from the beginning. Then he would not make a single mistake. How wonderful that would be! But he could not change the past, could not shed it. Chispa and Lejano, the man in Brazil, the priest -- they all pulled him down like a heavy weight tied around his neck.
The way out? He squeezed the handle of his pistol. That was his exit. He released the safety guard.
"Hell with it all." He said and placed the cold barrel of the pistol into his mouth.
The phone rang.
Who could that be. Alex thought. In the middle of the night?
He put the pistol aside and picked up the phone.
"Are you alright?" That was Angela. "I read your email. It seemed strange, didn't sound like you at all."
Beautiful Little Angel! That's what Alex called her. His friend, his only friend in the whole world.
My God! What am I doing? He thought. If I pulled the trigger, I would hurt her for life.
"I am fine." He answered.
"I am glad, I had that weird feeling, I don't know why."
The timing of her call was eery. If she delayed the call for another five seconds, things would never be the same.
The next day, Alex cleaned his pistol, wrapped it in a protective plastic sheet, and shoved it in the corner of the top shelf of the closet. What has changed? Why did he give his life another extension?
"The Koenigsberg factor." He said.
That is where he matured. That is where he discovered the true meaning of life (and death). A beautiful dead city on the shores of Baltics! It will rise again, like Phoenix, from its ashes, and it will celebrate its rebirth with cascades of colorful fireworks on the 1st of May, like Moscow.
The city of Moscow has always presented the highest, the densest, the most spectacular fireworks in the world.
"I've got to see those again." Alex raised the window shades and glanced at the Carolina-blue sky.
"It's tough shit, Chispa." He said. "What's done is done, and I am not going to apologize for it."
Alex was back to his usual defiant self.
"And you, Mister Albert Einstein, prepare yourself to be dethroned."
E N D
The follow up:
The book has been published. See www.amazon.com. Click on Books, then enter my name Igor Pavlov You'll the list of my books. The Koenigsberg Factor is the one.
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