Coercion (15 page)

Victor was steaming like
the devil’s iron when he disconnected the conference call. 
Alex was alive!

He went straight from the telephone to the gym where he spent an hour working those three words into a heavy bag.  There was nothing that got under his skin more than being pla
yed for a fool.  And this time, this time it had happened in front of his father.  He was apoplectic.

It wasn’t until he stepped out of the shower that he found the wherewithal to focus on anything but his own humiliation.  That was when
it struck him.  All Alex had accomplished with his deception was to exchange a sudden, painless death for a lengthy, excruciating one.  A warm feeling enveloped him, and it was not just the towel.  The more Victor thought about it, the clearer it became that there was nothing he would rather have happen to his rival than an encounter with Yarik.  At any moment now, Yarik would pick-up Ferris for interrogation and the fun would begin.  The largest member of the Knyaz made Torquemada look like the tooth fairy.

Victor would give anything to participate in that soirée.  Perhaps he should fly to Russia
to watch. 
Now there was a thought
.  A quick in-and-out would also give him a chance to pick up his shares of Knyaz AG.  No, there was still too much going on.  And besides, Vasily had wanted Ferris brought to him unharmed, so there would be nothing quick about it. 
What was all that about, anyway?
  He would have to ask Yarik the next time they spoke.

With those intriguing thoughts running through his mind, Victor returned to the Shell station.  He found a pile of
Lucy’s Ladies
business cards stacked in his phone booth.  He hoped it wasn’t a sign that he would soon be sharing his office with call girls. 
Then again, perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad
…

He
flipped through the cards.  Each had a different picture.  He pocked a few.  Then he took a special black box out of his pocket and set it lovingly on the metal shelf.  Reading from a little address book, he keyed fourteen digits into the box but did not push the transmit button.  Instead he picked up the telephone receiver, inserted twenty quarters, covered the microphone with his voice-distortion disk, and dialed Seattle.  He expected to find Dr. Davis home alone, as Clara had dance class Friday evenings.

“Hello”

“Good evening Mark, how are you?”

“I’m sorry, who’s asking?”

“Okay, right to business then.  I need you to mosey on upstairs to Clara’s room please.”

“What?  Who is this?”

“Look, Mark, don’t wear out my patience.  Now get your ass up the beige staircase, past the pink bathroom, the linen closet, and the circus poster, to Clara’s room, pronto.”

“O, okay.”

Victor liked this part.  It was like stepping into a Hollywood studio and acting out a role.  That was why he used words like mosey and pronto, and said the cruelest things with the kindest voice.

“Now, on the wall over the head of Clara’s bed there’s a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh holding a red balloon.  I want you to turn it over please.”

“Jesus!”

“Tell me what you see.”

“It’s a page from a magazine.”

“And what’s on the page, Mark?”

“It’s a picture of a girl.  A, a dead girl.”

“And what does she look like?”

“She’s been murdered.  Cut up.”

“And who does she look like?”

“Clara.  She looks like Clara.”

“I thought so too.  So, Mark, do I have your attention now?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Now, call Taffy.  Let me know when you’ve got her in your arms.”  It was hard for Victor to keep from laughing as he pictured the scene: panic mixed with confusion, rage with supplication.  Victor had half a mind to have Davis jump on one leg and cluck like a chicken.

“I’ve got her.”

“Good.  Now look into her eyes please.”

“Okay.”

“Are you looking, Mark.  Don’t bullshit me now.”

“Yes, yes I’m looking.”

“Good.  Now I want to hear you tell her ‘goodbye.’”

After a long pause Victor heard the word, soft and slow, and he pushed the transmit button on the black box.  A moment later, eight-hundred miles away there was a yelp and then Victor heard a lot of rustling.  Eventually Mark got back on line.

“What kind of a sick bastard …”

“Focus, Mark.  Focus.  What kind of a bastard I am is not what you should be concerned with at a time like this.”  Victor spoke with a voice as kind as a granny on her wedding day.  “Would you like to take three guesses as to what you should be concerned about?”

Victor heard the programmer crying and smiled.

“Clara?”  Mark’s voice was a whisper.

“Very good, Mark, Clara.  You are exactly right.  I knew you had potential.  Now, first of all I have some rules for you, and then I’m going to tell you what you are going to do for me.”

“
I said what you doing here?”  The question came again.

Alex turned and saw a large, bleary-eyed man in black coveralls.  No doubt Alex’s contrasting blue garb was the reason for the immediate challenge.  Alex kept his cool.  You didn’t position your best men in the maintenance room, and besides, Mr. Black’s tone was more startled than hostile.  Alex suspected he had caught the man sleeping.

Mindful of his expression, Alex looked around, as though he, too, were confused.

“Shit.  I done got myself turned around.”  He started to
leave then stopped. 

“Say, you got a cigarette?”  Alex walked forward a few steps
before the man could collect his wits and then sprang like a mousetrap, driving his fist up under Black’s chin just as he was opening his mouth to respond.  Black’s jaw slammed shut with a crack and bloody spittle sprayed forth. Alex whipped around to catch Black in a headlock as his scream blew the tip of his tongue out onto the concrete floor.

Alex wanted to knock the man out by using a headlock to crimp his carotid arteries, but Black was thrashing around too wildly for that to work so he looked for other options.  As they careened into the janitor’s cart, Alex grabbed hold of the crowbar and gave Black the good news on the back of his crew-cut head. 
That’s the price you pay for slacking off
.

Alex looked around while
catching his breath.  The wind had surely drowned out the scream, but nonetheless it was time to slip into high gear.  He stripped Mr. Black, noting by his pass card that his real name was Yuri Petrovkin, and moved him over by a storage cupboard.  Then Alex rearranged the cupboard’s contents so he could remove the bottom two shelves.  He gave Yuri a couple more whacks and locked him in the cupboard.  The blows were not enough to kill him, but they would ensure that he continued to shirk his duties for a few more hours. 
So far, so good
.

Still moving quickly, Alex donned Yuri’s black coveralls, which were the same size as Boris’s.  Then he transferred the contents of his blue pockets to the black, and added Yuri’s propusk and key ring.  Alex realized he was feeling pretty good; between Gold Frame, Boris, and
now Yuri, he was three for three.  Hoping he would not have to defend his title anytime soon, Alex opened the door and pushed his cart back out into the night.

Like the blue side, the black zone also used metal keys, rather than the electronic card keys Alex would have expected.  Upon inspection, however, he noted that they were much more sophisticated than traditional keys.  It was as though the black zone was set up to appear just like the blue one, when in fact it was much more.  A picture was forming, and he had the feeling that with a bit more jiggling, the pieces would start falling into place.  It was time to get lucky.

Alex tried not to think of the long list of legitimate charges that could now be leveled against him.  He had known even before boarding the plane in San Francisco that this was going to get messy, but it had felt different then.  He likened the change of sensation to the way you feel before ordering a fancy dessert versus after eating it.  He also missed that inexplicable confidence he felt when on American soil; you didn’t get that anywhere else.

Alex was sh
aking by the time he arrived at the main entrance to the black production facility, but didn’t know if it was shivers or jitters.  What he did know was that quivering hands made it difficult for him to work the keys.  To take his mind off the imminent danger while he worked, Alex let his thoughts wander to the scene that would be transpiring about this time at Max’s Place.  He could picture Boris drinking vodka from the navels of a half-dozen Siberian hotties.  Eventually his hat would slip off, exposing the deception along with his bald head.  He hoped that wouldn’t be too soon.

With that
wishful thought, the lock responded to one of the keys, and a moment later Alexander Temogen Ferris, International Private Investigator, stepped into the hot zone.  It had been a long trip.

Based on his tour of the blue side, Alex guessed
that the black facility would have offices along the side with the door, laboratories running perpendicular along the front, and a huge production floor filling the rectangle in between.  He was right about the overall layout, although one significant difference versus blue immediately became apparent.  The black zone was rich in amenities compared to its jealous neighbor.  Among them was a security camera recording him at this very moment.  Fortunately, the black zone did not seem to have additional security guards.

Contemplating that combination, Alex hypothesized that the owners probably were less concerned about physical security than about minimizing the number of people
in-the-know.  It also occurred to him that information security might be all the authorities really needed in Siberia.  As long as the KGB knew who committed a crime, they would find it easy to track the perpetrator down.  The arm of the KGB was long, their tactics were brutal, and their informant network extensive.  Alex decided not to dwell on that thought either.  He felt close to obtaining the information for which he was risking the gulag.  He wanted to get to it and go.  Starbucks had never sounded so good.

Alex again made use of Yuri’s keys, this time moving from the hallway to the production floor.  Passing through that threshold was like walking forward fifty years in time, and going from a construction zone to a surgical suite.  The dirty old building was squeaky-clean inside, and filled with modern equipment.  It wasn’t the equipment that riveted Alex’s attention, however, so much as the product of their labor.  On both sides of the mammoth room, lined up like eggs in a carton, were a dozen enormous aircraft engines.  Alex took a closer look and
confirmed his expectation.  The engines had gills.  He could almost hear a big piece of the puzzle plunk perfectly into place.

He had expected to uncover something like this, but nothing so grand or advanced.  To his eye, Irkutsk Motorworks was better equipped than United Electronics, and its production was certainly more advanced.  The student had surpassed the teacher.  Where did they get the money?  Surely the State had not sanctioned this.  If so, then perestroika would take on a whole new meaning, Gorbachev’s halo would rust, and the Cold War would heat up.

Alex would have liked to ponder the implications of his discovery further, but this was neither the time nor the place—and in his experience, philosophy was something best not conducted under duress.  Alex had gotten what he needed from the production facility, but he still had a lot to accomplish before the shift change, which was when he hoped to make his escape.  The whistle was just ninety minutes away.
Time to turn the tension up a notch
.

It was surely no coincidence that the entrance to the administration building was in plain sight of the guardhouse.  Unfortunately, there was nothing Alex could do about it.  As he pushed his cart up to the door, he prayed that the guard was at a particularly juicy scene in his novel.  At least the unbearable cold ensured that there was nobody dallying around outside smoking cigarettes.

The outer door of the administration building was unlocked, the inner one, locked.  This was probably planned to help the workers keep out of the cold, but with the fogging it also helped mask him from the guard while he searched the large ring for the right key.  This time it only took two tries to unlock the door to his next adventure.  Alex left it unbolted in case he had to make a fast exit, and headed for the elevator.

Guessing that the executive offices would be on the top floor, the third, Alex didn’t bother with the first or second.  The decor that greeted his eyes when the elevator doors opened
confirmed his hunch.  Things were definitely “more equal” here.

The administration building was horseshoe shaped, with offices running along the outside wall and the hallway running along the inside so its windows overlooked the courtyard.  The exception to the layout was the top of the horseshoe, where the boardroom was perched to enjoy a view out over the length of the courtyard, and the hallway widened to accommodate secretarial stations outside the executive offices.

Alex walked along the corridor, pushing his cart and trying the doors.  He planned to check the unlocked offices first, but there weren’t any.  The office in the most promising location, the large one directly across from the boardroom, was also the most dangerous as it had a direct view of the guardhouse—and vice versa.  He was about to start working his way through Ivan’s monster set of keys again when he decided to check the boardroom instead.  It was unlocked. 
Go figure
.

As an added bonus, it was relatively safe to turn on the lights since the boardroom faced the courtyard rather than the guardhouse.  Alex closed the door behind him, flipped the light switch, and felt his heart jump into overdrive.

It was obvious that the room had just been used for a long meeting, undoubtedly the one about which Boris had spoken.  There were empty coffee cups and bits of leftover sandwiches on the table and the chairs were all over the place as though the meeting had dragged on far too long and people had gotten restless.  Alex couldn’t care less about that—well, actually he was hungry, but food was not a priority.  His eyes had come to rest on something else.  At the far end of the room was an overhead projector.  Sitting next to the projector in a nice thick stack, was a pile of acetates. 
Jackpot?

The next forty-five minutes flew by as one
while Alex studied the overheads.  He knew he should have taken the stack and headed straight for the gate, but he was too enthralled.  Most of what he had come to Russia for was right here in his hands.  Unfortunately, he got to the end of the pile without finding one key answer.

Against his better judgment, Alex put one of the first acetates back on the projector.  It was a map of Siberia with
several locations marked by flags.  Irkutsk had a flag labeled Irkutsk Motorworks, Novosibirsk had another labeled SibStroy, and over in Krasnoyarsk a third flag was labeled RuTek.  Alex knew the production plans for all three factories from the other slides in the presentation.  But this slide also had something unique.  There, beside a crescent-shaped lake near the famous Novosibirsk suburb of Academic City, was a forth flag.  It was labeled HQ.  Alex burned the map into his mind.

T
his presentation completed two-thirds of the puzzle, the
what
and the
where
.  The missing piece, given that he still did not have a last name of Victor or any of his colleagues, remained the all-important
who
.  None of the pages contained names, and he could not fly home without them.  That would be like predicting the end of the world without a date.

Alex wrapped the acetates in a piece of flip-chart paper, and stuffed the package into the small of his back.  He was feeling good about the night’s work.  He had
come to the correct table, been dealt a great hand of cards, had played them right, and now he was winning.  But the game was not yet won.  Should he double down?  He had already been in there far longer than planned and the whistle was about to blow.  Still, the prospect of flying home tomorrow rather than going to Academic City was very appealing.  Alex weighed his options, and decided to take the risk.  He would play one more hand.  He would break into the offices across the hall, and—  

The boardroom door opened and the light came on.

“Not quite done cleaning yet,” Alex mumbled, stooping down to pick up some trash.

“Oh, I think you’re done.”  The voice was gruff, but its tone seemed satisfied.

Alex surreptitiously reached for the ammonia bomb while looking slowly up at the man who had discovered him.  He was a bald-headed giant with a face like a clenched fist and a neck that would moor a ship.  Alex knew the fight was over before it began.  Ammonia was no match for Mr. Clean, or the hand-cannon leveled before him.

“Sandwich?”