Eleven Days of Hell

by Yvonne Bornstein

  Yvonne and Danny, like most of the world, knew or cared little about these geopolitical developments and did not have any inkling of how they might be related to their kidnapping. It would take time for those pieces to fit together. Yet the fact that these people all around them seemed to be not exclusively ex-KGB agents or henchmen from the Moscow mob but rather a mélange of divergent forces that included churlish ‘gypsies’ with a whole different agenda could have meant that the Weinstocks were a ‘new’ kind of hostage.

  If so, no one could have known at the time just what atrocities had been spawned in the crucible of Chechnya. Actually, the seeds were planted earlier, when the Russians attempted to occupy Afghanistan in the late 1970s, emboldening Afghan rebels in the name of extreme Islamic fundamentalism—a movement that soon attracted the attention of a certain Saudi Arabian ‘businessman’ born into a family fortune, Osama bin Laden. In time, a blueprint was drawn up for financing the rebels’ bloody new methods of terrorism. A popular tactic was kidnapping and extorting for ransom wealthy Western businessmen. A decade later, the Chechens had read the blueprint and were seeking targets of opportunity. In retrospect, few could have seemed juicier or more inviting than Yvonne and Danny Weinstock.

  When the babushka put the tray down, she lingered in the bedroom, looking as if she wanted to tell us something. Then, she extended a crooked index finger and brought it up to her neck in an obvious throat-slashing pantomime—but not because she was threatening us, it seemed. Instead, she kept on repeating, ‘Miasnikov! Miasnikov!’ with those beautiful blue eyes afire in anger. No, we decided, she wasn’t threatening us; she was warning us. She was telling us to beware of Miasnikov!

  To be sure, Grigory’s feeble attempts to play victim had only convinced Danny and I that he was in on the plot. But if the babushka’s crude sign language could be believed—and she was, after all, a woman who seemingly relished nailing up nooses in her home—did it mean that Grigory and Oleg were not quite brothers in arms? Was there bad blood between the two? Though Miasnikov was—like the babushka and the interrelated members of the clan at the dacha—not purebred Russians by birth, there were numerous schisms between them, culturally and in their respective agendas. If Grigory and/or Mr Rud had hired the gang because they were appropriately both dumb as doorknobs and cold-blooded as a firing squad, they may have miscalculated the depth of resentment and distrust they would have for Grigory. If so, the babushka, the matriarch of the dacha, may have wanted to lay blame on Miasnikov, the outsider, in advance, in case things blew up on them.

  Then, too, if Oleg—as we suspected—was the harpy’s son, he may have communicated to her his own gripes about Grigory. If Oleg was a crime boss, he would have been a man used to calling the shots and not being questioned. Could this unwashed, Zorba-like character have tolerated taking orders from the prim and proper faux Russian businessman in a suit and tie—and who was as devious as Oleg?

  Of course, we couldn’t have known at that stage which side of the divide was worse, Grigory’s or Oleg’s. And we were hardly about to trust either. Not yet, not twenty-four hours after the kidnapping went down. Now, the notion of a cleavage between the two ‘bosses’ was no more than a fanciful straw to grasp at. Still, it was something we would keep in the back of our minds. Down the road, perhaps, the straw might turn into a lifeline.

  In the early afternoon of day two, the two protagonists—possibly antagonists—met up again. Oleg had awakened at around 11am, and when Grigory arrived at the house at 12:30, they spoke in the kitchen for half an hour before they had Danny brought down to the dining room, where the three of them sat at a long table, Grigory being there, according to the farce they were playing out, only as an interpreter. Although the men who came for Danny told me to stay put in the bedroom, I was able to wander out onto the landing atop the stairs. With most of the goons also downstairs, and the ones in the lounge still asleep, I could hear every word of the discussion, which began with Danny trying to put the scowling Oleg at ease. Danny tried some small talk, but with a clear purpose.

  ‘Are you Russian?’ he asked through Grigory.

  ‘We are gypsies, not Russians,’ came the reply.

  Danny mentioned an old gypsy folk song he knew called ‘Tizigane.’

  ‘Yes, ‘Tizigane,’’ Oleg said, though the word came out sounding like ‘Tizi-chane.’ This was useful for us because people from the ‘republics’ spoke in this dialect. Later, too, we would hear Oleg ask for a ‘chg-arette.’ So, at least we now knew with whom we were dealing. It would have been frightening enough to be held by a man like Grigory, especially if he was indeed trained in army intelligence methods. But were these ‘gypsies’ going to understand the intricacies of raising a million dollars on short notice, or be in any mood to wait beyond a day or two for it?

  When the men had come for Danny, they had rifled through our belongings for any useful information. They handed Oleg my wallet, which contained four credit cards.

  ‘You have money,’ he said through Grigory. ‘You have all these credit cards.’

  ‘They are not all credit cards,’ Danny said, checking them on the table. ‘This is a library card. This is a hotel discount card.’

  ‘But this one is an American Express card. You have money. You have American Express.’

  ‘No, we had an American Express card. The account was canceled last year. We owe $25,000 to American Express. Call them, check for yourself.’

  ‘Why does your wife carry all these cards when she can’t use them?’

  Danny must have laughed to himself hearing that and thought that these jokers don’t have a clue about what makes Western women tick. ‘Who can explain what a woman carries in her handbag?’ he said jovially. ‘We are here for two weeks, so she carries everything.’

  Oleg then changed course unexpectedly, with a stunning revelation. ‘We have sent a team to Australia,’ he said, ‘to speak with Mr Hurd. He says that you have money in secret bank accounts in Hong Kong.’

  Aha! So now it was out in the open. No more speculation was needed. I was right—Matthew, that rat, was in on all this, up to his neck. He had obviously intended to make good on his threat to ‘crucify’ us, if he hadn’t actually set us up from the start. He kept his bobo, Grigory, briefed about the financial particulars of Video Technology. Worse, knowing how paltry our liquid capital was, he had spoon-fed Grigory and our captors fabrications about us having secret bank accounts—a subject, as we would find out, he could speak about quite facilely—to keep the kidnappers salivating and eager to go through with their plot.

  I could tell by his delay in responding that Danny was a bit stunned. Then he said, ‘We have no secret bank accounts in Hong Kong or anywhere else.’

  ‘We know your father purchased a factory in Melbourne,’ Oleg went on. ‘You used some of the money you made from the fertiliser deal to do this.’

  That was, of course, another tidbit of information provided by Matthew, though again willfully misstated. And it revealed something we hadn’t realised—that when Mr Rud spoke of the bad fertiliser deal at the Sputnik Hotel in September, he had not believed that Danny and I had lost all that money at all, and that by the time he had informed us of the problem, we had actually pocketed the $1.6 million and contrived the story of the bad deal.

  Not that there was a shred of evidence about that—never mind that Danny and I were hardly good enough actors to have feigned the shock we had displayed when we learned about the queered deal. The truth was clear: This bogus charge could only have been meant to bolster the case for ransom. To the simpleminded Oleg, it was the only thing he needed to know.

  Exasperated with another of Matthew’s lies, but keeping his cool, Danny addressed the charge.

  ‘That is not true at all. My father had his own money to do that. And, in fact, he had to borrow most of it through a bank.’

  Oleg pressed on using a similar tack, no doubt fortified by Grigory’s photographs. ‘We know you bought a house for one million dollars.
You used our money to buy this house.’

  Though we had tried to set Grigory straight about the ‘luxurious’ house on his ‘sightseeing’ trip, Danny went through it again, about how we borrowed $700,000 from the bank and had a $9000 monthly mortgage payment on the house.

  Oleg though was just as dense in understanding it all. ‘How can you do this? We do not believe you,’ he said through Grigory. Danny explained again, making some headway.

  ‘Banka creditna?’ Oleg asked.

  ‘Dah,’ Danny said.

  Still, Oleg wouldn’t budge on his contention that we ‘owed’ $1.6 million. Danny tried to point out that we had never received that money—which Miasnikov surely knew, but not Oleg. ‘You will not like what I have to say,’ Danny told Oleg, ‘but this is the situation as I understand it,’ reiterating the matter of the broken bags and that only $400,000 had been received in the Hong Kong account—and of this, only $40,000 was left after meeting costs on shipping, commissions, insurance, repacking, and so on.

  ‘If an extra million dollars did exist,’ he concluded, ‘it’s in the hands of Matthew Hurd. He set up the original contracts. He negotiated the sale. He went to Taiwan.’

  Oleg wasn’t buying it. ‘Nyet. Matthew Hurd told us that you have money in secret bank accounts in Hong Kong. You have our money. Give it to us. There is at least one million dollars somewhere.’

  Danny was down to our last option, the one I had used the night before. ‘If you want the money,’ he said, ‘let us contact people in America who will get it for you.’

  Again, that seemed to be the magic words for Oleg. Both Danny and I had all but promised that America could lay golden eggs for this two-bit hoodlum. But I had been the one who had mentioned it first. Perhaps, Oleg thought, I knew more.

  Gesturing to one of his lackeys outside the dining room, he said, in Russian, ‘Bring Mrs Weinstock here.’

  So, now it was my turn to sit at the table. When I got down to the dining room, Oleg was saying something in Russian, but before Grigory could translate, Danny turned to me and began to fill me in about what had transpired. He said, ‘We were discussing—’ but before he could go on, Oleg, looking unstrung, cut him off.

  ‘Don’t talk!’ he bellowed.

  Apparently, Danny, without knowing it, had violated the twisted criminal etiquette of this lunatic mob, which was that one was forbidden to interrupt Oleg while he was speaking. A wee bit late for Danny, we had to be made aware in no uncertain terms that we were not to communicate with each other while we were in Oleg’s presence, unless we were told to.

  Oleg had been holding a thick, two-inch-wide black leather belt in his hand, wrapped around his palm, the buckle dangling ominously. He had seemingly been chomping at the bit to use it—and Danny’s impertinence gave him the excuse. In the blink of an eye, he shot up, toppling over his chair, bolted over to Danny, and lashed him with the belt, which made a crack when it burrowed into Danny’s arm just above the elbow. Danny screamed and tried to reach across with his other arm when Oleg grabbed him by the throbbing elbow, picked him up, and pushed him through the kitchen, to be deposited again in that wretched cellar.

  What would happen to me now? When he returned to the dining room, he was looking positively maniacal. Instead of sitting down, he stood above me, banging the leather strap rhythmically on the table. And, now, three of his men had come in and were standing right behind my chair, ready to receive orders.

  I looked at Grigory; he was, as ever, impassive, almost bored. I thought, What a bastard he is, and waited for the worst to happen. However, Oleg was controlled and contained, interested only in our finances. He asked, through Grigory, about the credit cards in my wallet. Having heard Danny’s answers to the same question, I essentially repeated it, saying, ‘I carry everything in my handbag, in case I need something, even credit cards that are no longer good.’

  ‘What do you know about the fertiliser deal?’

  Once more, I echoed Danny, but as I did, I looked at Grigory. He, of course, knew all about the fertiliser deal; he was there when Mr Rud told us about it. And yet, he seemed to be as anxious for the answer as was Oleg. Could it be, I wondered, that he really suspected that we had bilked Mr Rud? Or was he merely playing dumb for Oleg’s benefit? Whatever his angle, he looked grim. He began tapping the tips of his fingers on the table impatiently—a mime I had witnessed once before in the Chekhova Street office of SovAustralTechnicka, just before he had flown into a rage and fired an employee on the spot, in front of the entire staff.

  ‘The fertiliser was not all good quality, and the buyer would not pay anywhere near the value of it. We did not know everything that was going on in the office because Matthew Hurd did not allow us to know.’

  ‘Matthew! Matthew! Matthew!’ Oleg exploded, angered that we were laying blame on the rat whose bull he had bought, hook, line, and sinker.

  My body was trembling uncontrollably. This man was a complete psychotic. He had already shown he had no compunction about hitting a woman, and, having seen Danny bludgeoned for merely having spoken in his presence, I didn’t know what other of his demented rules I would violate that would set him off again. I was frightened, dazed, worried about Danny. That belt buckle was like a watch swinging back and forth, hypnotising me.

  Oleg, though, sneered at my discomfort. Grigory translated his next remarks: ‘You are play acting! If you do not give us more details, or stop saying ‘I don’t know,’ we will take you and shoot you now.’

  Only he didn’t ask for any more details. He was in the mood for more sick torture. He and three of his henchmen took me into an empty space next to the dining room. They tied my hands behind my back with that horrible belt. Then, with not a second of warning, someone dropped a yellow plastic garbage bag over my head and tied it tightly around my neck.

  I nearly blacked out in sheer fright. Everything went black. When I screamed, part of the bag was sucked into my throat, choking off my breathing. Feeling myself being suffocated, I was certain I was going to die. I began to conjure up thoughts about people who drown and how long it took for one to stop breathing. How long did I have?

  About sixty seconds passed. I was still breathing. I was struggling to get my hands free from under the tightened belt, but it didn’t budge. I knew I had only a few more seconds before oxygen would no longer reach my brain. I felt, heard, and saw the bag being ripped open, by what looked to be a Swiss Army knife being wielded by one of the goons. For a brief moment, I believed the knife was coming right at my throat. Would it slit my jugular? But the man was cutting away the bag so I could breathe freely. I was gasping for air, but, thank God, I was still alive.

  Upon reflection, I realised that Oleg would not have allowed me to die, not then, not yet. We wouldn’t outlive our usefulness until we had gotten that million-six to him. And yet, the chilling corollary was that, once he did get the money, the odds were that he would have to kill us. We would be able to identify him, the house, the other scoundrels involved. If we reached that point, our lives would be worth nothing.

  Every minute we could stay alive was a victory.

  His latest exercise in psychological torture over, Oleg now had me taken back to the bedroom. I went up the stairs, coughing, crying, worrying about Danny. As much as I was steeling myself to stay alive, one thought was always in my head: How much more of this ungodly torture would I be able to survive?

  OLEG’S KNIFE

  Danny was pulled out of the cellar an hour later and once more seated at the dining room table with Oleg and Grigory. He was instructed to write down all the details of the fertiliser transaction and the Weinstocks’ personal finances—with a very pointed warning from Oleg.

  ‘Mr Hurd is also preparing a report for us,’ he said. ‘If yours is different, we will kill you.’

  Danny asked for paper and was given a children’s book in which Oleg had been doodling during the earlier interrogation. Slowly, Danny scribbled about ten pages of notes, including the banking details of the h
ousing loan, all the while being hectored by an antsy Oleg, yelling ‘Doomai!’ (‘Think!’) again and again. It was a word Yvonne and Danny would come to dread, because it meant Oleg was especially frustrated and apt to make them suffer for it.

  ‘Doomai!’

  Danny tried to keep his wits, but found it impossible to concentrate. He was coming up empty on transactions, shipment dates, destinations, and the names of clients, etc.

  ‘Doomai!’

  Now Oleg boiled over again. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a long and frightful-looking carving knife, then came back, pointed the knife at Danny’s stomach and jabbed malevolently at him with it.

  ‘Doomai!’

  Ever more frustrated, he suddenly stopped. Thinking about what would make Danny even more cowed and how he could get better information, he turned on his heel and walked out of the dining room. Gripping the knife hard, he went upstairs.

  I was sitting on the bed, leaning up against a pillow and trying to recover from the bag incident when Oleg entered the room. His heavy boots booming on the wood floor, he came at me, holding a frightfully large knife. I tensed up in a crab-like position as he reached with his other hand for my right ear. Pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, it looked for all the world like he was going to cut off my ear! Though I knew that he wouldn’t have let me suffocate, I knew there was no such interdiction about cutting off my ear. I recalled that years ago billionaire J. Paul Getty’s grandson was kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigade, who cut off his ear and sent it to an Italian newspaper as proof they had the boy—and thereafter they were paid a $1 million ransom. And so I waited to feel the cold blade of that horrific knife.