“Ok, thanks for the straight answer. I wouldn’t have accepted a BS answer from you at this point. So here it is. During our last discussion, you were desperate to make a link between Mr. P. and the aviation sector here in Nizhniy Novgorod. We were puzzled by what Mr. P. said about his father leaving him some money to purchase the land of the hotel with. Do you remember? Well, two things, when I was trying to direct my research in a new direction away from Mr. P. as the university demanded, I mentioned then that I would like to study the government’s plans for privatizing the aviation factories here in town. Valentina went into a rage! She was foaming at the mouth and spitting on me, she was so mad, and more or less told me no, because that was a current or future interest of Mr. P’s entrepreneurial activities. She knew she had slipped up and she knew that I knew she had let too much be known. I think that is why the problems haven’t stopped for me. Second, and this is something I should have remembered from my meeting with the Dean: P. Is not Mr. P. ’s birth name. He changed his name when he was released from prison. His real family name is S. His father Ivan Sergeyevich S. just received a posthumous medal from the Red Army for his contribution to Russia’s military aviation development. Mr. P. accepted the medal for his father just before my bag got stolen. I was there and heard it with my own ears and saw him shake hands with the mayor in front of the whole crowd!” I revealed.
“What did you say the engineer’s name was?” Del jumped.
I repeated the name clearly, slowly.
“Do you know anything more about him?” he demanded from me.
“Only what I told you, and that he died in Tajikistan last year,” I was cut off by Del.
“In Bishkek? Did he die in Bishkek?” Del was now adding information that I couldn’t confirm.
“Do you still have the articles you showed me about the arms shows last year in Kirgizia and Tajikistan?” Del pushed.
“Sorry, Del. Everything I had worth keeping for my case studies was just stolen. All of it!.” I said with resignation. “That article though came from an issue of The Economist in late January, I think. Have you kept the copies I brought you each week?”
Del sprung from his chair and went to his office and came back with a small stack of magazines and quickly found the editions from January. Del leafed through them until he came to the article I was referring to. He read silently while moving his lips in inaudible whispers.
Del was silent as he paced the living room again as he did when he learned of Mr. P’s hotel plans and inheritance. He stopped and stared out the window onto the city skyline. He spoke with his back still to me.
“Peter, it will be very important that you are out of town by Monday morning. You need to pack up and get gone. As you will understand, if I am seen helping you leave Nizhniy, it could put you at more risk than you are leaving on your own. Mr. P. wants you gone, he isn’t going to stop you from going. The FSB will, however, try to stop you if you are traveling with me and Els. We can’t be seen together. You already gave your name to the cops downstairs so we can’t have any more contact. You’ll need to get your things as soon as possible and hop on a train to Moscow and fly away. Got it?” As he finished his thinking and speaking he turned to see my reaction.
I was silent. I was doing everything I could to hold back tears.
“Are you able to get back to your apartment and get some clean clothes, get fixed up and leave tomorrow morning? Take as little as possible with you. Don’t get delayed and bogged down by your luggage. Just go as quick as you can,” he instructed again.
I nodded and started to get up slowly from the couch. The pain in my ribs was now acute and laming. I straightened up stiffly and offered a hand shake to Del. He then handed me a business card from his shirt pocket.
“Kid, when you get back to the States, please call this number and leave me a message that you arrived in the States, or wherever you land, and that you are safe. Leave a number on the message machine and we’ll be in touch after some time. Understood? Do not call the apartment phone any longer and don’t come back here again,” his instruction seemed well rehearsed.
I nodded again and put his card in my pocket after glancing it over. I had no more questions and I couldn’t think of anything else to say and headed for the door. I collected my blood-stained jacket with my passport and wallet in it.
“Kid, don’t tell anybody where you’re going. Just go!” and with that Del opened the door and I slipped out and onto the street. With my bones and joints aching, I decided to hail a cab for the first time in Nizhniy. I did not speak to the cab driver. Twenty minutes later I was let out at the Proletarskaya Metro station and twenty steps from my door.
24. Yankee Go Home!
The apartment was quiet. Raiya and Natasha were still visiting with family further up the street. The apartment was dark when I entered and seemed colder than usual. Maybe they left the kitchen vents open, I thought. I fumbled for my keys in the dark with my uninjured right arm. Bending to pick them up was painful. Finally, I got the key into the lock and turned it. I was met by a stiff breeze rushing from my room into the hallway. I was very confused and disoriented by the rush of the air. Something was not right! I flipped on the light. The curtains were wide open and flapping in the wind. A pane of glass was broken and lay in pieces on the floor inside the apartment. The other windows had been left wide open. No effort was taken to conceal the crime. The room had been turned upside down. Every book had been shaken and thrown on the floor and their spines were broken. My table was on its side and the chairs smashed. My shortwave radio lay smashed in pieces on the floor. All my clothes were thrown out of the wardrobe and my bed was ripped apart. All the drawers were pulled out and overturned as well as the cabinet doors in the hutch. Everything I owned had been pulled out and strewn on the floor. For owning so little it had made a tremendous mess.
The timeline of the day’s events became clear as I stood there gaping at this violent scene of recent intrusion; not having found my research notes in my apartment the intruders stole my bag from my person. Mr. P. had to be sure before Monday’s meeting that I had no more materials and notes in my possession to potentially use to interrupt his hotel project, a project that would bring the big sharks to Nizhniy Novgorod and raise the bar of illegal and violent crime in the city. All the loose ends were being cleaned up now. Had Valentina been just a loose end too? I sat down on the couch and cried quietly a few tears of fright and helplessness.
After a few moments of despair, I dried my eyes and gathered up some clothes into a backpack. I changed from my ripped slacks into denim jeans, put on a new shirt and my orange rain coat and found my gray cap in the mess. I found my black shapka near the door and my address book among the broken books and stuffed them as well into my bag. I took my passport and wallet as well out of my bloodstained jacket and then threw it on the floor with the rest of the mess for dramatic effect. Taking mental stock of the scene, I retreated to the bathroom that seemed to have been untouched by the burglars. Being injured I took a stool from the kitchen instead of climbing on the edge of the bathtub and pushed on a small panel in the ceiling open to find my money belt and airplane ticket that I had hidden there a few weeks earlier, after retrieving them from Yulia’s apartment. I thought about writing a note for my housemates, but had second thoughts of involving them any further. l closed the double paned windows tight, the broken pane on the street side. I pulled the curtains closed, turned out the light and just before I locked the door behind me, I remembered the card Del gave me just before we parted. I found my slacks in the pile of clothes and took the card and put it in the jacket of my passport for safe keeping. Out of habit I locked the doors and took my keys with me, but knew I would not be returning.