She acquired increasingly more responsibility, and soon earned the complete confidence of her superiors. It is easy to trust an attractive woman even in Ukraine. Eventually, they assigned her to help in their negotiations with the Islamists. They were interested in purchasing Russian Kh55 missiles that were previously stored in Ukraine, and abandoned by the Russians as they hastily vacated the country. Karen realized they were eventually intended to be used, one way or the other, against the United States or Israel, but she didn’t know what to do about it--until Charlie crossed her path once more.
With the help of the CIA Station Chief at the American Embassy in Kiev, Karen and he were able to find and destroy the blueprints and manuals that the Russians had prepared. Without them, the Kh55s were of no use to Iran, and the deal fell through. There was just one problem. The Ukrainian Government was furious, and had a good idea what happened. They blocked the airport and the railroad stations while they looked for Karen.
The Station Chief at the Embassy helped them with new passports, and booked them on an Intourist cruise ship, leaving that night down the Dnieper River for Odessa.
On board, they thought they were safe, and began to relax and enjoy the trip. Until they stopped at a small town along the way, so the tourists could visit the Cossack Glory Museum and attend a horse show.
When they returned, a local KGB agent had joined the group, following-up on an alert that had been issued for Karen. He began searching the cabins and eventually found her. He pulled his gun, just as Charlie entered the room. A look of sheer unmitigated hatred consumed the burly man’s face when he saw the two of them together. The two men fought, and the gun discharged killing the agent.
That night, under a starless sky, they threw his body overboard. The two of them were in Odessa and on their way out of the country before the KGB goon was missed.
Karen caught a freighter to Tel Aviv where she knew some people in the Mossad who would help her. Charlie never heard from her again. He vowed then that he would never get mixed up with the Agency or their people ever again.
~~~
That was then. Now, here he was in an out of the way hotel room in an out of the way country geographically and culturally on the edge of the world. Still in contact with Emmett and the Agency, and hiding a gun he had smuggled through Customs. It seemed that he had learned nothing. It is crazy how time has the ability to lessen the impact of bad situations. They say it heals all wounds. He didn’t know about that, but he had become well aware that memories seem less taxing as time goes on.
He would like to have become the callous practitioner he thought as he looked glumly around the light starved room, but he had never managed to keep from caring, and now it was probably far too late to change.
He took a small shortwave radio from his bag, and switched it on. He had carried it for years. It could be helpful in countries where the only news available was in a language you didn’t understand. He had tried the black and white television on the desk, but could get only a blurry picture, which would come and go at will.
The electromagnetic field in the area was too strong to allow stable communications. Even if the TV did work properly, he would be unable to understand anything the people were saying.
He fiddled with the dials on his radio, and listened to the world’s hum. A shortwave isn’t like a normal radio. It is more finicky and you have to play with it, particularly when you haven’t used it before in a particular country. The same broadcasts don’t always appear at the same time on the same position of the dial. You have to find them, and then remember where they were when you want to use them again.
He heard an English broadcast from China, soon replaced by NHK from Japan, before recognizing the chimes of Big Ben announcing the BBC.
A British soldier had been kidnapped in eastern Iraq, and there was an arrest of some terrorists in London who were planning to blow up the underground.
He would have to remember that spot on the dial. Finally, he found the Voice of America. They were playing music from the past. He liked that, and placed the radio close by on his nightstand.
Before going to bed, Charlie glanced out his window. A half moon cast a faint light on the yard below, forming a lacework of eerie shadows around the deserted motor vehicles in the nearby lot. Looking more intently, he thought he could see a moving silhouette leaving the hotel and heading toward the 4x4s. He wasn’t sure, and turned away. He paused, and then turned back again. A cloud had covered the thin moon, and the shadow had disappeared.
As he drifted off to sleep, the radio was playing a song he recognized from a long time ago. Dinah Shore’s voice came out of the small speakers and plaintively floated around the room.
Faraway places with strange sounding names, faraway over
The sea.
Those faraway places with strange sounding names keep calling,
Calling me.
Going to China and maybe Siam, I want to .......
Charlie finally fell asleep without fully appreciating the irony of Dinah’s lyrics.
10
A sound on his window awakened Charlie from a troubled sleep. He checked his alarm and discovered he had failed to adjust it to the local time zone before going to bed. It was later than he liked, but nevertheless he began his morning routine of sixty pushups. They seemed a little more difficult than usual, and he paused at thirty-five before beginning again.
Glancing out the window he could see that it had begun to rain. A torrent of raindrops formed refracted rivulets down the grimy windowpane. Great! That was all they needed. An introduction to a hostile group of out-of-work miners on a cold rainy day.
The bathroom was directly across the hall from his room. During the night he occasionally could hear a shuffling of feet, and the bathroom door opening and closing.
Inside there was a small shower/bath combination; a sink, a mirror, and a reasonable toilet. Thank God, it wasn’t a Turkish toilet as he had half expected. He had enough of those round holes in the floor on the project in Ukraine.
It was obvious that others had been there before him, judging from the stack of soiled towels piled haphazardly in the corner. He found a clean towel in a small cabinet by the sink and hurried through his shower before the tepid water turned cold.
While shaving he thought of home. During the night he had attempted to call Beth, but with no success. He had even been unable to make contact with an operator. It was not a surprise. He and his wife’s relationship had been marked by a frequent inability to communicate, literally but not emotionally. They had become familiar with long separations as he traveled the world, and she capably managed the family. He sometimes thought it had drawn them closer together. What was that about absence and the heart. Maybe it was right.
He had noticed, however, that his character seemed to gradually change after he had been gone for awhile. He seemed to become Charlie the traveler rather than Charlie the husband and father, as the thread binding him to his family became more tenuous with the passage of time.
Returning to his room, he decided on his navy camel hair blazer and white button-down shirt. He wanted to look successful with an air of informality. The miners would expect a seasoned executive representing the Bank, and he had no intention of disappointing them.
He caught up with Andre in the hallway. “I hope to Christ it isn’t going to be a Kazakh breakfast of warmed over besh—besha--beshamak,” he stammered, “or whatever the hell that stuff was called last night.”
Fortunately It wasn’t that. Instead it was left over rice and frankfurters. The two men looked at each other and grinned. It could have been worse.
The other men and the two interpreters were already seated around the table, and Charlie took an empty chair between Nadia and Henry Butts.
The accountant leaned toward him. “Last night I got hungry,” he whispered, “and I thought I would see if I could find something to eat. You know that bloody mess we…well anyway, when I got here I saw our man Sammie bonk
ing the dombra player--stretched her out on the dining table. She was making a lot sweeter music than she had last night at dinner,” he snickered.
“On this table?” Charlie asked, trying to reconstruct the scene in his mind. “Sammie?”
“Oh yes Sammie--it wasn’t that dark, and they must have been sure we had all tucked in. Apparently, our man Thursday is active on other days as well. The cheeky bugger.”
“Where Is Sammie?” Charlie asked turning to Nadia, trying to change the subject.
She didn’t appear to hear the question. The interpreter was busy writing on her ever present pad--bonk, bonked, bonking. She looked puzzled, then began to smile. Sammie? Sammie? She giggled.
The hotel manager heard Charlie’s question and interrupted her supervision of the breakfast service to reply that he had received a late night call, and had to return to Almaty.
“On that road? Late at night?” Charlie asked incredulously.
“He is very familiar with the area. He has been here many times,” she replied as she continued to clear the table.
The group wanted to see the conference room before the mine management arrived. They huddled in their coats against the cold rain as they formed a line from the hotel to the administration building.
The building was impressive even on a dank day. It was a large two-story structure fronted by four giant Doric Style Roman Columns supporting a high peaked roof. They were all surprised that the Russians had constructed such an elaborate building in such a remote and gritty location.
The expansiveness of the lobby did nothing to dispel the gloom of the mostly vacant offices. Their doors were open, and an occasional clerk could be seen sitting idly behind a large desk, or lounging in front of a stack of dusty filing cabinets.
The ground floor was made of expensive marble. A curved mahogany staircase led to the second floor where the conference room was located. There was also a series of additional vacant offices on the second floor, fanning out on each side of the larger room.
Elaina elected the largest, with the most equipment, and began to set up shop. The others proceeded to the meeting room. Inside rows of metal folding chairs faced a small stage with a lone speaker’s podium.
The night before the men had agreed on a sequence of events. Charlie would make the initial introductions, followed by the individual speakers. As the men reviewed again the principal points they felt it important to make, Nadia nervously circled the stage to find the best location to stand. She finally selected a position below the podium where both the speakers and the audience could best understand her.
On the wall behind them a large photograph of the President of Kazakhstan glumly surveyed the room’s activities.
The miners began to straggle in. They were a broad shouldered, square jawed, sullen lot. There was no conversation or forced congeniality among them that would usually mark a similar gathering in the Western world. They were apparently knowledgeable of where each would sit by virtue of their pre-established organizational level.
The general manager occupied the first seat of the first row, followed by the assistant general manager, and then the individual directors.
As the miners settled in, a faint odor of stale vodka and tobacco smoke quickly permeate the room. Their mood seemed to fit the weather, and the flickering fluorescent ceiling lights did little to improve the bleak atmosphere. Tension filled the room.
Once the men settled in their hardback chairs, Charlie took the podium, and scanned the room. These bastards really do hate us, he decided.
Charlie stretched his body to its full height, lowered his shoulders to relax, and pointed his finger towards the photograph on the rear wall. “President Nursultan Nazarbayev, he began, “is confident that with the proper investment and technology Tekeli can once again become an important and profitable mineral resource for the country of Kazakhstan.”
Charlie paused, waiting for Nadia to begin her translation. He was painfully aware from past experience that not all interpreters are qualified. Some were good--some were bad--some active--some passive. They were like a machine with an electrical connection from mind to mouth. Charlie had dealt with all kinds in his travels. Nadia appeared to be one of the good ones. She seemed to be applying the proper emphasis, with a more masculine tone, and hopefully the correct Russian pronunciations.
“He has therefore asked the Global Bank Corp. to assist him in evaluating this resource, and provide…” As Charlie spoke, he studied the audience attempting to determine if any of them were listening, and if what he was saying was having any visible effect. The miner’s faces were devoid of any expression.
Charlie’s palms were becoming damp, but he pressed on “….and he would like you to cooperate with us so that we can provide the best recommendations possible.”
Brevity was important, he reminded himself. Hell it was a god-damned necessity with this group. At least, he consoled himself, it can’t get any worse.
“I would now like to introduce Henry Butts who is our financial expert, and who will describe the type of information that will be needed for him to complete his financial analysis.”
Charlie sat down, and Henry took the stage.
Nadia continued to translate. Her face expressionless as she mentally converted from Charlie’s American English to Henry’s British English, and then subsequently weaving the words and phrases into the most palatable Russian vernacular she could possibly derive.
Henry squinted at the audience, attempting to convert their fuzzy features into sharper focus. “I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you, and to return to Kazakhstan, the place of my youth,” he told them with a forced smile.
Charlie had been trying to think how he could better reach these hostile miners to enlist their cooperation, but what was it Henry had just said about the home of his youth? Had he heard that correctly? He must have because the accountant was continuing to explain his previous exposure to the country.
Henry continued to speak, occasionally awkwardly inserting Russian phrases between his English terms. His lips began to quiver and his words became less distinct. Then, tears began to cascade down his wrinkled face. Suddenly he was seized by deep uncontrolled sobs, accompanied quickly by a flood of tears. A dark shadow had descended and engulfed him. His former placid demeanor had been replaced by one of deep sadness and melancholy. He began to sob uncontrollably.
Nadia turned toward Charlie, a shocked expression on her face. The two mining consultants stared in disbelief. Charlie would have liked to pull his sport coat over his head, and sneak out of the room.
Instead, he bolted to the podium thinking, ‘Oh my God it did get worse.’ What must these hard headed miners think of the consultants that had come to solve their problems?’ One thing people like these hate is a show of weakness, and Henry was displaying that in spades.
Placing his arm protectively on Henry’s shoulders he led him rapidly from the stage, Charlie attempted to explain how his companion was so overcome with joy on returning to Kazakhstan he was temporarily having difficulty containing his exuberance. It wasn’t a good explanation, but the best he could think of at the time.
As Henry returned to his chair, Andre quickly joined Charlie on the platform and began to tell the group, in his rough masculine voice, what he was planning to do for his part of the project.
Nadia regained her composure and implacably began to weave her linguistic way through a minefield of technical jargon.
Henry sat silently, once again withdrawn into himself. In a short while he, almost unnoticed, left the conference room for the solitude of his hotel room.
When Andre finished Dave Dieter replaced him, and began talking about how his responsibility was to evaluate the concentrator’s efficiency before recommending any logistical improvements in the utilization and scheduling of the mines trucks and railroad cars.
Nadia converted seamlessly from Andre’s slight French accent to the nasal tones of the Midwest. When she was unfamiliar with any
of his technical terms, she merely repeated them as best she could, hoping they were universally understood in the mining community.
When the presentation ended, Charlie asked for questions. There were none. The general manager stood, and perfunctorily thanked the consultants for coming. The rest of the men rose in unison and began to file out of the room.
Charlie leapt from the podium and approached the general manager, hoping to establish some form of rapport. The Russian ignored his outstretched hand and turned to leave. Charlie considered following him and trying again. Nadia recognized what he was attempting and took a position by his side.
Before Charlie could continue, one of the assistant directors inserted himself between the two. The man’s eyes were runny, and his breath foul. “Nazdorovia ya sons ze beeches,” he laughed, shoving Charlie backward while running calloused hands down his chest. Charlie was a tall man with broad shoulders and an aggressive temperament.
Death on the Silk Road Page 9
