Eleven Days of Hell

by Yvonne Bornstein

  He let fly an expletive. ‘Ten minutes,’ he muttered. ‘Ten goddamn minutes, and we would have had them.’

  It was a failure he vowed would not happen again. But would he get another chance? Or was one blown chance one too many?

  16

  DAY NINE:

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 14th

  THE DACHA, MOSCOW AND PHILADELPHIA

  It was yet another twenty-four hours of biding time and introspecting about our situation. As with most days, little mundane vignettes of seeming irrelevance tied the hours together. When I awoke that morning, I went into the bathroom only to find plastic washtubs piled on top of the closed toilet lid and a handwritten sign that read: ‘Nyet robota,’ meaning ‘It doesn’t work.’ The water pipes had frozen again. Danny and I would have to repeat our command performance for the amusement of the dogs in the backyard. At least that allowed us to get out of the house and feel the bracing cold going through our lungs, something that was always welcome.

  As usual, though, there always had to be an ominous sign, some reminder of why we were there and how helpless we were. For one, the babushka’s noose always seemed to be staring us in the face, swinging malevolently from its door arch.

  Another happened that day while Danny and I were sitting in the kitchen looking out the window. Hearing grunting noises and the sound of something being moved, I saw five of the men pushing down the snow-covered driveway the big, cumbersome Zil automobile that I had been thrown into outside Sheremetyevo Airport. Apparently, its motor had died, and soon it would be towed away. Watching that dreadful KGB car disappear into the distance, I cursed it and the memory of it that I knew would forever be in my mind. Hell would be its destination. Unfortunately, there were other Zils, Tipors, and whatever ready to take us away. To where? Certainly, we wouldn’t be entombed at the dacha for much longer. We had been here too long already from the gang’s point of view. It seemed obvious that we were only supposed to be stashed at the place for the short-term, a couple of days, only until the money was sent. That the ordeal had stretched to a week and a half could not have sat well with Oleg, and less so with his demented mother, who had become ever more agitated that these two strangers were traipsing through her house and eating her family’s food. While the babushka had kept away from me, avoiding any more incidents such as the window-washing brouhaha, her face had hardened into a fixed scowl, particularly when she saw me.

  Oleg’s concern was that, despite his control of the neighbourhood and the local police, keeping us in one place for so long was a risk; word could get out and seep into the corridors of law enforcement agencies beyond his control. If he had his druthers, I’m sure he would have much preferred not to feed us—except to the wolves.

  Knowing something had to give, Wednesday would likely be when it did; the optimism I had felt and tried to keep intact was now ebbing. Although I’d felt Danny and I had done all we could in our phone conversations with Ian and Wendy, that part of the drama was completely unfocused, a fantasia, a faint hope of some kind of daring rescue I couldn’t even fathom. All we had of substance was that the Raymans knew we needed help, and fast. Even if they were working with someone in law enforcement in America, how could that apply to where we were? It was all too unrealistic, a scenario from a James Bond story.

  All that day, I kept hearing in my head one thing Danny had said to Ian the day before—’ten’—when Ian asked how many people were with us. Someone, I surmised, would find that extremely important to know, but who?

  At the same time, it was also quite starkly apparent that being rescued was now our only option for survival. I couldn’t imagine that Ian was actually going to send the money. He didn’t have that kind of money and nowhere to turn to get it. In any case, it probably occurred to him, as it did to us, that the kidnappers wouldn’t let us go even if they were paid. We could identify them and the house. The irony was, the delivery of the money would in effect be a death sentence for us.

  I wanted Danny to bolster my outlook and my nerve. He had done so well literally under the gun in his phone interludes with Ian. He was so heroic, and for Danny, it must have been like living out a private fantasy. He loved to read Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre suspense novels, and prided himself on staying cool like the characters in The Bourne Identity and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. However, in our moments of lonely isolation, the façade cracked. Often, I had to bolster his spirits. He would say over and over, ‘We’re dead; they’re going to kill us.’ I would reassure him all the time. ‘No, we’re going to live to see the children again,’ I’d say. And I meant it. But now, I was withering.

  For the first time, I think, I began to make peace with the inevitability of facing death.

  SUMMIT IN MOSCOW

  Colonel Rushailo had no intention of waiting for the dilatory FBI to get its lumbering act together. Pending its authorisation from the bureaucrats to share information with his department, Rushailo, still simmering about his near-miss early Tuesday morning, called a top-level meeting at the MVD that afternoon.

  Wanting no slip-ups next time—provided there was a next time—he broadened the domain of the case. This decision was based on the exact bit of information imparted by Danny Weinstock and relayed by Dimitry Afanasiev: that there were ten men in the room with them during the call. That could mean there were many more involved in the plot; certainly, it was not a one- or two-man operation, and not the sole province of Grigory Miasnikov. It might not exclusively be the Mob, either; the spectre of terrorists was raised for the first time.

  Thus, a paramilitary unit was called for—the equivalent of an American SWAT team—to completely seal off several targeted raid locations at once and to be able to move in at the drop of a dime with overwhelming force if need be. As well, additional detachments of the Ministry of Interior police would support Rushailo’s own elite squad.

  Finally, extraordinary surveillance measures were taken. Rushailo chose an operational task force to be equipped with hidden cuff microphones and earphones. They would hit the streets in unmarked and beaten-up gray cars, making them indistinguishable from most other cars on Moscow’s streets. In choosing surveillance sites, Rushailo and his department went to their charts on which undercover cops kept tabs on the movements and activities of the city’s known gangs and their bosses. Members of one band in particular hadn’t been seen at their normal haunts over the last few days; there was some suspicious activity in the pattern of their movements. This set off an alarm bell in Rushailo’s head. He was given a list of the hangouts, seven in all.

  He put out the order to the surveillance team: ‘Move out to all of these places and don’t come back until you have something.’ For good measure, he sent one car to 25 Chekhova Street, to keep an eye out for Miasnikov.

  Rushailo had another thought. While he hadn’t received word that the FBI would share information with him, he sent by messenger a request to the US Embassy to be permitted to be on the embassy’s premises for the Weinstocks’ next phone colloquy with Ian Rayman.

  The canny Rushailo was ahead of the embassy. When they received the request, no one there, or in Washington for that matter, had talked about using the embassy as a command centre using simultaneous transmissions of the phone calls—which in turn would put the embassy’s own phone-tracing mechanism into effect.

  Again, the embassy staff was perplexed, but late that afternoon, half a world away in the FBI’s main headquarters in Washington DC, the new request reached the bureau. As the specific details of the Wednesday phone call corresponded with that of Gerry Ingrisano’s filed report from the day before, a light bulb lit up: The Russians were well aware of events in the case. They were also aware of Dimitry Afanasiev—and though they knew only that he had contacts within the Russian intelligence bureaucracy, as he had told Ingrisano, they wondered if in fact the Raymans were perhaps furnishing the Russian lawyer with key details.

  Some FBI agents now worried that if the case were cracked by the Russian police with the
aid of a Russian citizen in America—after being brought to the FBI’s attention without any resulting action—the bureau would take a public-relations hit; the story would be that it punted while two lives were at stake. Moreover, since it was clear the Russians were filching information anyway, it obviated the original argument about giving them access to FBI information channels.

  Late Tuesday night, Washington signed off on the two-day-old request to share information with and provide assistance to the embassy. The State Department would allow Russian police to monitor the calls, which, it was decided, would now be simultaneously heard by embassy personnel.

  The last step was to have the heretofore-recalcitrant Australian government rubber-stamp the FBI and the Russians to work to free two of its citizens. This was no mere formality, since the mission could just as easily lead to the Weinstocks’ deaths as their freedom. The former would raise hackles in Australia. The politicians in Canberra knew they couldn’t condone ransom demands made by gangsters or terrorists. The only option was to let the Americans and Russians roll the dice.

  Early the next morning in Newark, Gerry Ingrisano’s office received notification that the US Embassy would be given access to all files pertaining to the case and would cooperate in any way necessary to bring the case to a successful conclusion. Finally, Ingrisano thought, finally a point of contact (Rushailo) and a means of communication transfer (the US Embassy).

  The fax lines between Newark and the embassy began to burn hot. In Moscow, the embassy’s assistant regional security officer, James Pelphrey, was the third-ranking officer in the embassy chain of command. Before him was Ambassador Robert Strauss and the minister counsellor for management, Joe Hullings. Pelphrey was put in charge of the embassy’s operations for the case.

  There wasn’t much time for Pelphrey to get everything in order before the Wednesday-night call. He had to set up the unprecedented logistics of teaming up with the Russians without letting them see the inner workings of the embassy’s information-gathering apparatus.

  Pelphrey had the same gnawing ambivalence as everyone else in the embassy. Before going to Moscow several years prior, he had been the chief bodyguard of the American ambassador in Khartoum, in the civil-war-ravaged African nation of the Sudan. His instincts were geared to keep at a distance anyone his gut told him was a threat. Now, he’d have to rub shoulders with people who were making his gut growl in Moscow.

  17

  DAY TEN:

  WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15th

  THE DACHA, MOSCOW, AND WASHINGTON DC

  ‘WHATEVER ACTION DEEMED APPROPRIATE’

  Mid-morning Wednesday, Jim Pelphrey’s adjutant called Colonel Rushailo and asked him to return to the embassy for an early afternoon meeting to finalise all details for that night. When he arrived with Major Bryzgalov, Pelphrey was waiting with the first secretary of the Australian Embassy’s Consular Office, Bruce Scott. After politely shaking hands, the four men sat in a conference room, whereupon Pelphrey read aloud from the heretofore-classified FBI files of the case.

  For the two Russians, it was a redundant recitation of information they already knew. They fidgeted in their seats, keeping secret their pipeline with Dimitry Afanasiev, which had circumvented the FBI and possibly rendered it irrelevant.

  ‘Excuse me, but we are wasting time,’ Rushailo interrupted through an embassy translator. ‘What we need to know is that we can monitor tonight’s phone call.’

  Surprised, and not a little offended, Pelphrey, thinking that these Russians could use some lessons in manners, especially when in a foreign embassy, dropped the file on the table. If they didn’t want to know what was in it, then he’d be damned if he was going to tell them. Instead, he cut right to the plan on which the embassy staff had settled for the handling of the call.

  They would use the highest-priority line, the classified network called the International Voice Gateway, or IVG—the State Department’s PBX, or tie line, which until 2001 connected Washington DC government offices with overseas embassies. There were three such IVGs in the embassy: one for general use and one each for Ambassador Strauss and Minister Counsellor Joe Hullings. So as not to tie up the general IVG, Pelphrey asked Hullings to use his and received the green light.

  However, there was no way Pelphrey was about to let the Russians camp out inside the embassy as the highly secret phone-tracing procedures whirred on. Rather, he would transfer the IVG out to a phone in the cramped guardhouse by the front gate. That way, Rushailo’s men could listen in while staring at American soldiers with guns on their hip—a lasting impression everyone in the embassy wasn’t averse to leaving. Logistically, this made sense; all the Russians needed to do was walk a few steps inside the gate and back out if they wanted to make a quick exit to join the rescue effort.

  Rushailo was pleased. His men would be there with a translator all night if necessary.

  Though he still had a gnawing feeling in his gut, he was admittedly piqued about the deal, and a bit nervous. Undoubtedly, he figured, it would be a night to remember.

  By mid-morning in Newark, Gerry Ingrisano was apprised of the linkup arrangements with the embassy. He then composed another fax to FBI headquarters in Washington. In part, it read:

  [The MVD’s Department of Organised Crime] unit is prepared to do the following on 1/15/92:

  1. Monitor and identify the location of any telephone calls originating in Russia to telephone numbers to Dr Israel Rayman or his wife, Wendy Rayman.

  2. [Colonel Rushailo] will have his representation present … at the American Embassy to assist in the dissemination of information, which will be furnished by FBI, Newark.

  3. [The unit] will be prepared to identify any callback telephone numbers and take whatever action deemed appropriate to effect the safe release of Daniel Weinstock and his wife, Yvonne.

  The water was back on Wednesday, which meant that for the entire morning and afternoon, the women in the dacha were washing the dirty clothes that had backed up over the last three days. Natasha, Oleg and Rae’s nanny, bore the brunt of it. Having been given this backbreaking work, the teenaged girl washed by hand and wrung dry all the children’s clothes in the upstairs bathroom and then pinned them up on lines outside in the backyard to dry in the freezing cold. She must have gone up and down the stairs fifteen times.

  Finally, at 8pm she was done, nearly passing out in exhaustion. We weren’t the only slaves. These people just seemed to enjoy having other, less ‘royal’ Russians do their work for them.

  As for Danny and I, we were rather rumpled and dirty ourselves, and we waited impatiently for Natasha to leave the bathroom for good so that we could have a bath, or at least the sponge-down routine that passed for a bath in that bizarre purple bathroom. We hadn’t bathed for three days so it felt good to clean off, though we shared some gallows humor as we sponged each other down. If we were going to die, better to die clean than dirty. Live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse, we joked.

  The fact that we could tell jokes like this, at a time like this, only proved that we were surely going out of our minds. Fear had turned to dementia. Maybe we preferred it that way.

  However, when the night began to lengthen, drawing closer to the call to Ian, the cold slap of reality hit us, reopening the spigot of fear and sparking tension to clog the air. All the signs were there: Tonight was going to be the end of the line, one way or another.

  That theme was only corroborated when at around 9pm Danny, itching to get going to make the call, went downstairs looking for Oleg. Danny was standing in the kitchen when Boris came in and, apparently on the order of Oleg, said, ‘Boomaga,’ the Russian word for ‘paper,’ which we had heard often at the airport when customs asked us for our identification documents. Danny thought: What the hell is he talking about? Again Boris said, ‘Boomaga.’ All Danny could think to do was go back upstairs with Boris and take out the notes he had made with the telephone numbers for Ian Rayman.

  ‘Nyet,’ Boris told him. ‘Boomaga.�
� He gestured toward Danny’s briefcase, which from all the searches of our belongings the gang knew contained a clear plastic bag with stationery bearing the Video Technology letterhead and company seal.

  Danny took the plastic bag out, and Boris motioned for Danny to put it in his pocket and take it with him when he would leave to go make the call.

  After Boris then stepped out of the room, we wondered whether this boomaga thing was perhaps a sign of desperation by the gang. A logical deduction was that Oleg and Robert may have concluded that should the plot be blown without any money being delivered to the gang, a letter would need to be written on that Video Technology stationery explaining what went wrong—and that it would have been our fault rather than theirs.

  This, of course, begged the question of just who was the ‘Mr Big’ behind this plot. It was beginning to be clear now that this was someone over the heads of Robert, Oleg, Miasnikov and everyone else. Sifting through the black-hearted cast of characters we had come across over the past few years, we could think of only one person who could be that villainous: Mikhail Rud of the Vostok joint venture, the root of this whole fertiliser mess and our corrective detour in Moscow. Could Robert and Oleg feel so threatened by the execrable Rud that they needed to think of how to cover their sorry behinds if their plans went awry?

  It seemed to be a very plausible scenario. And one that, if true, actually led Danny to believe it would be to our advantage, at least in the short run.

  As he said, ‘If they need us to write letters, we’ll have to be alive to do it.’

  At around 9:30, the front door opened, and we heard the thudding sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Then the cloth in our archway parted to reveal the figures of Robert and Kuzin. Remarkably, given the stakes for all concerned—and irrationally, considering the likelihood that times were getting desperate—they seemed carefree, even giddy. They walked over to where Danny and I were sitting on a couch in the corner of the bedroom, wide smiles on their patrician Russian faces. They then took turns grabbing Danny’s hand and shaking it in an exaggerated fashion—a courtesy not shown me, as a member of the lowly opposite sex.