Authors: Brian Haig
“To be precise, inside fourteen months.”
“What’d he do? Kill a warden?”
“An alleged visa violation.”
“Come on, you bullshittin’ me.”
“On my momma’s grave.”
“That’s an immigration matter. What’s your guy doin’ in a federal joint?”
“That’s what we’d like the government to explain.”
“He a U.S. resident?”
“That’s one point of contention. The government said yes. Now it’s saying no.”
She poised her chin on a pencil. “That prison in Yuma, it’s a badass place.”
“So Alex tells me. He’s locked up in D Wing, mixed in with the most rotten apples.”
She leaned forward, almost across the desk. In a low, conspiring, all-knowing whisper, she said, “Truth now. Who’d your boy
piss off?”
MP played along. He bent over and whispered back, “John Tromble.”
“Figures.” She picked MP’s motion out of the pile and smacked it down on her blotter. She paged through it, frowning and considering
the request with some care for a moment. “Gotta cousin works over at the Bureau,” she eventually remarked.
A sharp pain suddenly erupted in MP’s chest. Idiot. Why hadn’t he just kept his big mouth shut?
After a moment Thelma Parker added, “He hates that Tromble. Says he’s the worst thing happened since J. Edgar pranced around
in a skirt. Tell you what, you done this before?”
After manning this desk for fifteen years, she had seen thousands of lawyers pass in and out of her office. One sniff and
she could smell a cherry a mile away.
MP allowed as, “My usual cases are in immigration court.”
“Thought so. You never done this before?”
“Pretty much.”
A large, plump elbow landed on her desk and her large chin ended up poised on a curled fist. “Now, don’t you worry. Way this
works is, your motion goes to a judge. Now, you could maybe get lucky and it might end up in the box of, say, oh, Judge Elton
Willis. He’s a fair and judicious man. Then, assuming this thing gets stamped expeditious”—she winked at MP—“which might maybe
happen about three seconds after you walk outta here… well, then the government gets three days to respond. Got all that?”
“Three days,” MP said, winking back.
“Then it’s show-and-tell time. This kinda motion moves fast. You got your stuff together?”
With all the humility he could muster, MP replied, “It’s going to be an ass-kicking of historical proportions. They’ll carry
Tromble out on a stretcher.”
“Uh-huh.” A slow nod. “You got help? Sure hope you do.”
“Pacevitch, Knowlton and Rivers. A classmate from law school’s a partner over there. They’re lending a hand, pro bono.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Her eyes hung for a moment on the JCPenney polyester threads that hung loosely on MP’s narrow frame.
She smacked her lips and said, “No offense, but you gonna need a few thousand-dollar suits at your table.”
In a career that alternated between roaring barn burners and droning recitations of intolerable boredom, Boris Yeltsin was
producing the biggest thud yet. At least he was sober this time—what a rare and welcome change, his chief of staff was thinking,
as he rocked back on his heels and briefly scanned the crowd. Nearly all of them were staring edgily at their watches. A few
seemed to be asleep on their feet. He looked longer and harder, and for the life of him could not find one person who seemed
to be listening to Yeltsin.
His boss liked him along for these things. Principally it gave him a reliable drinking partner for the long ride back to the
Kremlin. Plus he could always rely on his trusted chief of staff to lie and say the speech was stirring and deeply inspiring.
They were a pair of wicked old politicians. The lies flowed easily and landed comfortably.
A man in a black leather jacket bumped up against him. He took a quick step sideways, to get some room. The man edged closer.
The man suddenly turned and looked at him with a spark of vague recognition. “Hey, didn’t I see you with Tatyana Lukin the
other night?”
“Who?”
“Tatyana Lukin. You know, she works for you.” The man studied his face more intently and continued, “I’m sure it was you.
Walking into a hotel together on Tverskoy Boulevard. Same place you and she spend every Tuesday and Thursday together.”
“You’re mistaken,” he replied in as much a hiss as a whisper. He tried unsuccessfully once more to edge away.
“No, there’s no mistake. Here.” The mysterious man pushed a plastic case into the hands of the chief of staff. All trace of
phony uncertainty was gone. With a mocking smile, the mystery man whispered, “You’ll want to listen to these alone. Believe
me, you won’t want company. You’re mentioned a lot on these tapes.”
Before he could reply, Mikhail jogged away in the direction of the road, where he jumped into an automobile with the engine
running and sped off.
The chief thought about just tossing the case away. Fling it as far and as hard as he could; forget about it and walk away.
Instead he opened the lid and peeked inside—just two unmarked cassette tapes and a few photographs. He tucked it into his
inside coat pocket and decided he’d get rid of it after he got home. Who knew what was on those tapes? Why risk having some
stranger find them? Who knows how bad it might be?
He arrived home at nine that night, fixed a tall glass of vodka, and removed his jacket. He felt the weight of the plastic
packet; he had nearly forgotten it. He withdrew it from the inside pocket and walked directly to the trash can. He promptly
dropped it inside, then stared down at the case for a moment. He should listen to it, he decided: maybe the man that afternoon
was a blackmailer. Who knew?
The photos fell on the floor when he pulled the tapes out, and he let them lie there until he knew what this was about. He
selected the first tape and inserted it into the cassette player on his desk, sat back into his desk chair, and sipped quickly
from his vodka.
It whirred quietly for a moment before a petulant male voice he didn’t recognize said, “Who was it?”
“Just some idiot law enforcement administrator from America.” This would be Tatyana: no doubt about it. He reached over and
turned up the volume.
“Oh, you’re screwing him, too?”
“You’re cute when you’re mad. Come on and screw me now.” A loud laugh. Definitely Tatyana’s throaty laugh.
“Don’t joke. I’m tired of sharing you.”
“You’re a fool. You’ve seen my boss. He’s bald and fat and not the least bit interesting. He’s so terrible in bed I have to
pinch myself just to stay awake. He’s so disgusting, I become nauseated afterward. I’m only doing this for us, Sasha.”
“You’ve been saying that for years.”
“And it’s true. Listen, we’re moving in on a huge fortune right now. Billions, Sasha, billions. My cut will be hundreds of
millions, and as soon as I have it, I’ll dump that old moron and quit my job. You and I will buy a big yacht and sail around
the world. We’ll never be able to spend it all. We’ll die rich and happy.”
By then the chief of staff was choking and coughing violently. The vodka popped out his nostrils, dribbled out his mouth,
and spilled down his double chin. He clutched his chest and thought he was having a heart attack.
He lurched from his chair and rushed to the cassette player. He punched stop, rewind, then listened again, and then repeated
the sequence three more times.
He put the machine on pause and sat back and rubbed his temples. He felt the onset of a crushing brain-splitter. “Nauseated.”
“Terrible in bed.” “Bald and fat, and not the least bit interesting.” The torrent of nasty words kept tumbling in his mind.
The headache quickly progressed from a five to a ten on the Richter scale.
That bitch. That lying, deceitful, two-timing, impertinent bitch.
Settle down, he told himself. He actually voiced it, out loud in the big, empty room—relax, take a few deep breaths. Get a
grip, for God’s sake. He walked over and refilled his glass with vodka, then sloppily filled a second and third glass; it
never hurt to be on the safe side. He carried them back to his desk, positioned them carefully and in order, freshest to least
freshest, pushed start on the cassette player, then settled back to hear everything. It was going to be horrible, he knew.
And he swore he would endure every last word.
Halfway through, he rushed to the trash can and picked up the photos from the floor. The first showed a smiling, handsome
young man dressed in the uniform of the national soccer team. He had no idea who he was, just a strong suspicion that it was
his whiny voice on the first tape. The second showed the justice minister accepting a fistful of dollars from a man whose
face he thought he recognized.
An hour later, after listening to the second tape, after repeating it once, as he had with the first tape, he knew more than
he had ever cared to about Tatyana Lukin. The sheer stereotypicality of it was hard enough to swallow; he was just one more
old, middle-aged, cuckolded fool, stewing with anger, self-pity, and regret. Worse, she had used him from the very start.
There she was bragging to her boyfriend, Sasha, about how she was running the entire machinery of the Kremlin while her fat,
drunken bore buddied up to his big pal Boris. There simply were too many barbs to remember; but also too many to forget.
“Well, guess what, bitch,” he grumbled, lumbering drunkenly up the stairs for bed. “Tomorrow, the fun will begin.”
The girl was tall and blonde with skinny legs that stretched from the ground to the sky, pretty blue eyes, and she was at
least forty years younger than him. She was even younger than his two granddaughters. If it didn’t matter to her, sure as
hell it made no difference to him. She gripped his arm and squished her ample breasts against its soft plumpness.
“You are so funny, General, I just can’t get enough of you.”
“I’ll bet,” Golitsin slurred as they staggered and swayed, holding each other up, in the direction of his shiny little Beemer
in the rear parking lot. The Lido was behind them, the newest city hot spot where the big-deal millionaires gathered in their
relentless quest for the best orgy in town. Somewhere between his fifth and eighth scotch—such a blur that he lost count—the
girl had become attached to his arm. Between his tenth or twelfth scotch, at some now indeterminate point, he decided they
were deeply in love.
“What did you say your name was again?” he asked her.
“Nadya. Please remember it, General. I’ve told you ten times already. I really don’t want you to ever forget me.”
Golitsin was again admiring the streamlined legs that seemed to stretch up to her armpits, when three men stepped out of a
dark alley. Two lunged straight for him. One banged his arms behind his back, the other shoved a filthy rag in his mouth and
then, very quickly, a coarse dark hood over his head. The girl started to step back and scream before the third man clamped
a hand over her mouth. “Shut your trap, tramp,” he growled, and flashed a knife to show her the request was serious.
A black sedan pulled up, seemingly from nowhere, and squealed to a jarring stop three feet away. Golitsin was bundled roughly
into the rear seat before two of the men spilled in beside him. The other man released Nadya. She stepped back and winked
at him. He winked back, before she disappeared into the night. He climbed into the front passenger seat and they sped away.
Twenty minutes and ten miles later, Golitsin was shoved through a large doorway, dragged about forty steps, then shoved down
hard onto a stiff wooden chair. His hands were tied, quickly and roughly, behind his back, and his chubby legs were roped
to the legs of the chair.
The hood was removed and tossed onto the floor. With a loud spit, the filthy gag flew out of his lips, though it took a moment
for his eyes to adjust. Another moment before he realized there were five of them in all. They were gathered in the middle
of a large, empty warehouse with a high, corrugated ceiling and an oil-stained concrete floor. They wore dark jeans and black
leather jackets. Rough faces all around. There were more tattoos and earrings and facial scars than he cared to count. A few
misshapen noses.
Syndicate thugs, that’s all, nothing to be overly alarmed about, Golitsin told himself.
And they had made a mistake, a big one. They were nothing more than common, everyday kidnappers who threw out a random net
and stupidly dragged in the meanest shark in town. Oh yes, this was a real boner, one they would deeply regret, and he decided
to inform them of this right away. He worked up his most scary sneer. “Do you punks know who you’re messing with?”
“Punks,” one of them answered. Whack!—Golitsin’s head bounced to the side. A spray of blood shot out his nose.
“Don’t you dare strike me again. You—”
Whack, whack, whack.
“All right, all right. Enough,” Golitsin insisted.
Whack, whack.
“Please… I… I said that’s enough.”
One of them pulled over another wooden chair, reversed it, then eased into it. Their faces were three feet apart. He looked
about fifty, older than the others, and carried himself like he was in charge. A hard, weathered face. Dark, piercing eyes.
“Listen up, Sergei. This can be hard or it can be easy. Understand?”
The punk had called him Sergei. He knew his name! It wasn’t a random kidnapping after all. Golitsin even, very briefly, entertained
the notion of reminding this scum of his proper title: General. But maybe flexing his muscles at this instant wasn’t such
a good idea. Maybe it was a terrible idea, in fact. That last whack had left him with a splitting headache.
“Can we talk?” Golitsin asked, trying his best to sound reasonable and unctuous.
“Sure, Sergei.” He leaned closer. “But it works like this. I’ll talk and you’ll listen.”
The other four men slapped their thighs and roared with laughter. This was funny? This wasn’t the least bit humorous. These
punks were just begging for it. “Can I at least have your name?”
The man in the chair, said, “For tonight, Vladimir. Let’s not worry about what to call me tomorrow. First, you have to give
us a reason to let you live that long, Sergei.”