“What do I tell the FBI?” I asked with some trepidation.
“Anything you want to. Tell them you’re going on vacation. Tell them you’re taking a different job, but don’t worry, they’ll have a very hard time finding you if you come along for the ride,” Del reassured me. “We have a client who will fund us for three years to bring down Zlobin. They’re offering all sorts of support that we’ve never had on a project before as they have also recognized these groups to be their largest security problem, just as you outlined in your thesis. This could very well create the momentum we need to put the internationals out of business and help the national agencies get control again and start to stamp out those cockroaches. This could be the beginning of the end for them.”
I sat without further questions of Del, just doubts about myself. I looked away as my thoughts raced in circles around my head. I reflected on my newly finished degree. What was I going to do with it? What kind of difference was I really going to make? Was the world really any safer because I wrote a paper? I thought of Dean Karamzin’s urgency to expose the local corruption. I thought of Yulia and her hope to continue Bolshakov’s work. I reflected of Major Dobrynin and his determination to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. I remembered the old lady on the bus in Nizhniy Novgorod whose grandson was going off to fight in Chechnya for nothing of value, nothing noble, but to extend corruption’s long arm of cruelty.
Del spoke again, bringing me back to the present moment, “Kid! Are you in?”
Copyright
Ⓒ Copyright 2017 by Val M Karren
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations with citing.