“But,” Mikail continued, “it seems that the fortuitous duet of storms that has plunged this part of America into utter darkness, has had—is having—some serious effects. We were able to take this prison—and all of Warwick—because the guards and many of the employees either couldn’t make it here to work, or chose not to come in for some selfish reason of their own. As we mentioned last night, the prison didn’t even have a ghost staff on duty when we took over. The town fell just as easily.”
“I don’t know Warwick, and I don’t know Russian, and I don’t know you, and I don’t have any idea what any of this is all about, Mikail,” Clay stated, frustrated and starting to get angry.
“We’re pretty sure that you are telling the truth, Clay. Unhappily, whether you knew it or not, whether you were a spy or not, whether we took over the prison or not, you probably were not going to make it out of here alive,” Mikail said in a matter-of-fact tone. He showed that he was not particularly concerned one way or another with what Clay thought about what he was saying. “You see, you’ve stumbled into a very secret compound, Clay. Once you got into this building, you were not getting out alive. This place doesn’t exist. Warwick doesn’t exist. As of last night, man, you don’t exist.”
“What is all of this, then, Mikail? Why are you telling me any of this? Do you think that you are some movie villain, some brilliant psychopath who has a soundtrack playing everywhere he goes and likes to talk his victims to death? Why not just do whatever it is you’re going to do?” Clay asked.
“We’ve come to take you to a meeting, Clay,” Mikail said, smiling. “We’re waiting on word that a ‘high value target’—is that what you people like to say?—has been captured, then we’re going to have a little town meeting in the gymnasium. Nothing so sinister as you imagine. We’re just filling time, being neighborly. I am glad you liked the food.”
As Mikail finished talking, Clay saw another young man enter and some words were shared between him and Mikail, and then the young man exited again without having looked at Clay at all.
“Time to go to the meeting, Clay, are you ready?” Mikail asked, smiling.
“What do you want me to say, Mikail?”
“You don’t need to say anything. Just put your hands behind your back. We’re going to take a walk.” Mikail pulled out a set of handcuffs and before Clay could even think of some plan to fight or escape or shout, the handcuffs were clamped on to his wrists behind his back, and he was gently pushed toward the door. Mikail and Sergei walked before him, Vladimir walked next to and somewhat behind him, holding him lightly by the handcuffs.
The first thing Clay noticed was that the door to the hallway down to the cell clusters, the hallway down which he had first seen the prisoners, was completely intact. There was no damage to it at all. In fact, as he walked toward the office and followed Sergei into it, he saw no damage anywhere. No wood particles, no pieces of glass, no blood. There wasn’t a single clue that there had ever been a riot. Of course, he thought, he’d only heard it. He hadn’t seen any of it.
Rounding the corner into the security office, as soon as Sergei and Mikail had moved to the right and cleared from his vision he saw, sitting at his desk, completely unmarred, unbeaten, and fully alive… Officer Todd Karagin. The man smiled like the cat that ate the canary, the smile of the magician who was savoring his lifelong best reveal.
“Good morning, Clay,” Todd said with a wink in his voice, if not exactly in his eye. “Good to see you. Welcome to the Charm School.”
CHAPTER 8
Never, in the long history of humankind, at least since Plato wrote of The Cave, had a man appeared so surprised and confused as Clayton Richter did in that moment. He stood in the prison office, handcuffed, before the man that had, he had thought until this very moment, died in an effort to save him. And now it turns out to be a con? But… why the charade? Clay wondered.
For his part, Officer Todd was, for the moment, enjoying the surprise. He was acting like he’d just won a prize fight. He stood up and cracked his knuckles, and sucked his wind in and did one of those shadow-boxing dances, before raising his arms in mock triumph. “What’s the matter, Clay? Cat got your tongue?”
If Clay had been a bit more clever and if this new shock hadn’t stolen his breath, he might have replied, “Yes, Schrodinger’s cat,” and while these Russians tried to figure out what he meant by that, he might have rushed headlong into the officer or straight through the office, down the hall, trying to find a door, anything, any way that might lead to out. But none of that happened, because he was surrounded by captors, deep inside a locked prison and sometimes cowardice and fear are the things that keep endangered men from engaging in heroic stupidity.
As it was, he stood there like someone about to be administered a test he knew he’d flunk. No. It was worse… It was that he felt so overcome by a sense of helplessness and disgust that his knees buckled slightly and he turned pale. Too many weird things. Too much to handle. Best to just observe my right to remain silent. He caught his balance with a shuffle of his feet and then straightened, but he didn’t answer.
Todd reveled in the obvious reaction. Clay wasn’t sure whether the man couldn’t, or wouldn’t, wipe the smile from his face, but he knew instinctively that there was a difference. The officer reached down and snapped the black holster on a service pistol, patting the gun with his right hand and winking at Clay as he saw Clay trying to remember whether he’d been armed when he first met him.
“My real name is Fedya Leonivitch Karaganov,” the officer said. “My friends call me Teodor, or just Todd. You are in Warwick, but I guess you know that already. It is the place of our birth. It will be the place of your death. We call it Novgorod among ourselves. Perhaps you’ll get to see some more of our little town before your short visit with us comes to a close.” He smiled at this, pleased with himself, and Clay wondered why. Then he leaned over Clay and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. It was the kind of gesture that you make when you make an obvious bow, like that one the servant makes before the throne. Todd made that kind of gesture, then he stood up and said in his best mock British, “And might you have any bags, Guv’nuh.”
Clay looked at him and all of the throbbing pain and discomfort from the recent beating intensified and he could feel his broken ribs expand and strain with his breath, and as a man he just wanted to punch Todd in the face. But, he didn’t. He was still processing the fact that Todd was not dead and here the man was before him, and in the seriousness of the moment and with all that had happened, Todd was playing the clown as if life and love and hate and tragedy and comedy were all the same thing and that there was no proper place for each.
“And might you have any bags in yuh guest quarters, sir, or will you just be traveling with what’s on your person? Have we advised you of our check out policy?” Somewhere in that last sentence he had lost the accent, probably about the word “sir.”
Clay just stared. He didn’t know what to think. Was this just Todd’s weirdly aggressive finale in acting out a too-scripted end to the little production they’d just so obviously put on for his benefit? Or was it an actual, honest-to-goodness threat.
Clay looked at the other men in the room and noticed that none of them carried weapons or made stupid jokes. He wondered now if he had been wrong in his assessment that Mikail was in charge, and Mikail seemed to notice his doubt. He’d been standing to the side, watching, like the others, for Clay’s reaction, but now he stepped forward into the center of the men. “Enough, Todd,” Mikail said sharply. He barked out what sounded more like an order than a question. “Has Volkhov been captured?”