by Terry Toler
Suddenly, she remembered Alex had finally called her. A feeling came over her and engulfed all her emotions. Similar to the feelings she had on the cruise when she was with him. When they touched, kissed, looked into each other’s eyes. An electricity. An overwhelming happiness was the best way to describe it.
But she remembered it had been four weeks. Did he leave a message? She took the phone out of her back pocket of her jeans where she put it right before the fight started. The notification read one voice mail message.
What did he say?
She smiled slightly. He called.
I actually miss him.
Jamie tried hard to return her focus to the more important task at hand. Listening to the message and calling Alex would have to wait.
She came around a building and was on the main road and hadn’t notice the two Militsia standing on the corner just ahead of her. They were on their radios and seemed a little excited. It probably wasn’t related to her, but she couldn’t be sure. If it was, then they had her description and suspected her of a robbery and attack.
She dismissed the thought. Word probably hadn’t spread that quickly. Unlikely anyone had even found the boys yet, much less pieced the facts together. She was being paranoid. But she had no reason to take any chances. Jamie spotted a gift shop still open, and quickly slipped inside without being seen by the police.
Once inside, she bought a baseball cap and a red jacket. Red wasn’t ideal because it would draw attention to her, but as the only one that fit her, it would have to do. She paid for the items which cost 12 rubles, about six dollars, then slipped on the baseball cap, tucked her hair inside, and put everything else in the shopping bag. Pleased, the bag made her look more like a shopper and less like a special operative of the CIA.
After exiting the store, Jamie went the opposite way to avoid walking by the two policemen, beginning to regret having taken the gun. When preparing for a mission, she always familiarized herself with prisons and procedures. What she read about Belarus made her shudder.
If they discovered her with a gun, in the best-case scenario, she would be sent to Pishchalauski Castle, more commonly known as the Valadarka, which was run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. It housed all death row inmates and was a pretrial detention center for political activists. Tourists that violated the more serious laws were usually sent there.
If she wasn’t lucky, they would send her to the Amerikanka, which was the other pretrial detention center run by the KGB—notorious for its inhumane torturing of prisoners to extract information. The European Union actually sanctioned two Colonels and one Lieutenant from the prison a few years before for what was described as cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment of detainees.
Even if Jamie wasn’t tortured, within a week she’d be sentenced to ten-to-twenty years of hard labor either in one of the two women’s prison facilities or in one of the nine prisons for the general population. Claiming she was with the CIA was not an option. They were supposed to notify the Belarusian government when they had an officer in the country on a mission. She couldn’t claim diplomatic immunity because she wasn’t traveling there on official business. She needed to avoid all those scenarios.
The last thing Brad wanted was for her to end up being interrogated by the KGB. If Jamie didn’t cave to the torture, which they were all certain she wouldn’t, they wouldn’t be able to get her out without exposing her as one of theirs. Unfortunately, the political price wouldn’t be worth it. They’d deny even knowing her. As an American citizen, the state department would demand her release, but that could take months or years.
If faced with a search, Jamie would likely use the gun rather than let them find it. The words of Brad were echoing in her mind, and she understood them better now. No guns. If you have a gun, you’ll be tempted to use it. He was right. She wouldn’t let them take her to prison without a fight. A gunfight, if necessary.
How would she explain to Alex if she went away for ten years? Ten years seemed like a lifetime to someone Jamie’s age. The best thing was to avoid detection altogether, which she was highly trained to do.
The contact had to be considered as well. His identity had to be protected at all costs. So, she decided to take evasive action to make sure she wasn’t under surveillance. If the police were on heightened alert, she didn’t want to lead them by chance directly to him. Protecting his identity was paramount to the mission, even above her own safety
Jamie made a number of turns as countermeasures designed to expose even the most sophisticated surveillance. If someone was following her, her cover as a tourist would be blown, but it would protect the asset. She was probably being overly cautious, but she hadn’t lived this long being careless.
Satisfied she wasn’t being followed she headed directly to Liberty Square. A quick glance at her watch confirmed that all of the distractions had taken too much time. She arrived seventeen minutes late. Hopefully, the contact wasn’t a stickler for details, or maybe his watch was running two minutes behind.
Liberty Square, also known as Freedom Square, surrounded the town hall in the Upper Old Town of Minsk. It used to be called Lenin Square before the revolution. Built on top of the highest hill, it provided a beautiful view of downtown and the Svislach River which flowed through the center of it. Several beautiful all-white buildings dominated the square, including what used to be the old City Hall.
In the middle of the square was a sculpture of a carriage. Jamie was to meet her contact there and then walk over to the Holy Spirit Cathedral where they would rendezvous inside. The carriage was easy to find, and several tourists were admiring it. She pretended to be doing the same.
People milled around but none she could identify as an agent. Jamie slipped off the baseball cap in case he was looking for a girl with long blonde hair. She shook out her hair and ran her hand through it, all the while scanning the square for any sign of the contact.
Over in the main area near the church, a dozen or so benches surrounded a beautiful fountain. A wide sidewalk led to the area and Jamie walked there and sat down on one of the benches.
Several kids were playing at the fountain, their parent nearby not paying particularly close attention to them. One of the kids waived at Jamie, and she smiled back. He pointed at the pigeons resting on the ledge on the top of the fountain taking the occasional drink.
Still no sign of the contact.
After a few minutes of waiting, she stood and walked to the other side of a square where the City of Scales statue stood. She was trying to make an appearance in every part of the square in case the contact wasn’t an operative skilled in meets—the term used for clandestine meetings.
More often than not, these flipped assets weren’t experienced, and someone like Jamie had to be careful they didn’t lead authorities right to them. While he might have trouble identifying her, she’d spot him immediately. He’d be nervously fidgeting, looking around from side to side in all directions.
Jamie knew how to surveil the area without making it look obvious. The choice of the location told her the contact wasn’t skilled. This wasn’t the best place to meet. Too many people around. The square was open with no place to hide or escape quickly, if necessary.
But there was no police presence. It seemed like a safe place for a family to bring their kids.
Her maps had shown an overlook, a viewing point. She made her way to that area, hoping to have a view of the entire park. Jamie had no confidence that the contact was there or would arrive any time soon. If he had been there, he left. Probably unsure what to do but determined to stick to the plan. She couldn’t see as well as she hoped from the viewing point. Darkness was falling, and while there were lampposts illuminating the square, buildings blocked the view to some areas, and the darkness made it hard to see faces.
After thirty minutes, she debated whether to leave or not. Always a bad sign when a mission started out with so many problems. First the tail, then the fight, and now
she missed her contact. The agent was supposed to bring her a satellite phone with a secure line so she could communicate openly with Brad. He also had vital information about the pipeline, including the name of the person running it.
When Jamie spotted two Militsia entering the square, the decision was made for her. The hotel was only a short walk from the square. Rather than going directly to the hotel, she stopped by another shop and bought three bags of miscellaneous clothes. Not that she needed them; she wanted to walk into the hotel with several shopping bags. The tail would likely be watching the hotel for her return. She wanted him to report back that all she did was go shopping.
At the hotel, she spotted the surveillance rather easily and skipped through the entrance, carrying her bags like she’d had a wonderful time shopping. Like she didn’t have a care in the world. She had many cares. How would she reach her contact? She had no idea who he was or how to get in touch with him. What about the hurt boys? She wondered if they were okay.
So many things were running through her mind that she’d almost forgotten to slip back into the jacket she was wearing when she first left the hotel. Fortunately, she remembered in time and quickly slipped on the black jacket and put the red one back in the bag.
Once in the room, she plopped down on the bed, exhausted from traveling and from the eventful evening. She checked the drawer on the desk. She’d left a small piece of paper in the back that would dislodge if anyone had opened the drawer.
The piece of paper was laying on the floor. Someone had searched her room. More complications. Especially now that she had a gun. While they wouldn’t likely search a second time, she couldn’t rule out possibility.
Even though exhausted, she took the gun apart and skillfully cleaned it to make sure it was in good working order. She constructed a hiding place for the gun where it wouldn’t be found without a thorough search. A six-inch cut right in the seam of the mattress on the bottom side provided a great hiding place. Just wide enough to slip a gun in, but not wide enough to be noticeable without considerable effort. Satisfied, she took the gun and sat it next to her bed. She always slept with one next to her bed at home. A gun was like her security blanket. She felt better having it there.
The magazine contained nine bullets. She wished she had more, but she couldn’t just walk into any store and buy some. Nine were better than none, and Jamie was a good shot and wouldn’t waste a single one. Using a bullet would be a last resort.
Some operatives actually slept on the floor in the closet. That way, if someone came in the room, they’d expect the person to be in the bed. They’d inspect it first or unload their gun into it if that was their intention. Being in the closet would be the last thing they expected, and the operative could react before the intruder knew what hit him.
Those were extreme measures, unnecessary at this point. Jamie could react quickly enough with the gun by the bedside. Besides, as tired as she was… no way was she sleeping on the floor.
She jumped in the shower, brushed her teeth, and fell into bed. Then she remembered her phone call from Alex. The clock read 08:17. Not too late to call him, but she was already too tired to even listen to his message. “It’s been this long. He can wait for me to call.”
With that last thought, she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
8
Jamie would’ve been the prime suspect in the savage and brutal beating of two twenty-one-year-old young men in an alleyway behind the Piatra Brouka Literary Museum except that her tail, Detective Fabi Orlov, had become her alibi. After she came back to the hotel, he returned to his office, filled out a report, and then went home. Rather than admitting he had lost her, he falsified her movements and claimed he had eyes on her the entire night.
Now he sat in the office of his boss, Lieutenant Nika Petrov, the Senior Investigator for the Minsk Militsia Police Force. Orlov could see two reports sitting on his desk—the police report and his surveillance report. Fabi was dreading the questions he knew were about to come.
Petrov lit a cigarette and stared at Fabi, who was extremely uncomfortable but trying hard not to show it. Petrov was five foot seven, a hundred sixty-three pounds and fifty-seven years old. He didn’t look a day over seventy. His gray, almost-white hair was mostly bald on top and his gray beard connected to a thin mustache. A worn black suit jacket covered a white shirt and crimson tie with Russian sickles. At eight in the morning, his tie was already loosened, and the collar unbuttoned. He smelled of vodka. Fabi knew he usually had his first glass before eight and would likely have his second before the clock struck ten.
Petrov sat behind a black metal desk that had been in that office since the second world war. There were no pictures of family, wife, kids, or grandkids in the room, only an old portrait of Lenin in a cheap frame hanging behind a credenza that had seen better days. With his right hand he picked up the police report from the night before describing two young boys who were beaten by a blonde, American woman. With the other he picked up Fabi’s surveillance report and waived them both at his young and scared-out-of-his-mind detective.
“So, your eyes never left her,” Petrov said in an accusatory tone.
“Nyet,” Fabi said hesitantly. His heart felt like it was doing laps around his body.
“Let’s go over this report again,” Petrov said as he set down the two reports, picked up his cigarette, and took a long drag from it letting the ashes fall on the reports. “She left the hotel, walked over to the Insomnia Bar off of Vulica,” he said, not reading from the report but summarizing what it said. “She had an espresso. She walked across the street to the outdoor mall and went in several shops. From there, she walked to the Chito restaurant and had dinner and then went to the piano bar where she stayed until she got back to the hotel around eight. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.” Fabi changed positions in his chair, crossing his legs and putting both hands on his knees. He immediately realized it made him look weak. Petrov couldn’t stand weakness. Fabi also knew Petrov couldn’t stand what had become of the young men of Belarus. He thought they were weak and undisciplined. Punks, he often called them. He’d try and use that information to his advantage if he got the chance. Petrov would not be sympathetic to the boy’s plight.
“One of the boys is in the hospital, the other was kneed in the groin, but he talked. He said the attack happened around six. I find it a strange coincidence that two boys were savagely beaten by a young, Caucasian, American woman with blonde hair, and a woman matching that description perfectly is staying at a hotel less than a mile from the place where the attack took place and was eating dinner just a few blocks away. Can you explain that to me Fabi?”
Fabi shrugged his shoulders. The less he said the better it would be for him.
Petrov reached across the desk and handed Fabi the police report. “Anything you care to change in your report?”
“There must be two women who look the same,” Fabi said after glancing at the report and then peering over his glasses. He was past the point of no return. If he admitted he lied on the report, he would be fired and sent immediately to the infamous Hrondo prison in West Belarus where he would stand trial for treason. The trial would be short and unfair. He would be given an attorney but one who worked for the state. He’d definitely be found guilty. If he wasn’t shot, he’d spend the better part of his life in hard labor. No way could he change his story. No one could prove his report was fake as long as he stuck by it.
He thought briefly about his wife and young child. They’d only been married for three years. When he was promoted to detective, they had celebrated by overindulging in a dinner and drinks they couldn’t afford on his salary. Now, he was wondering if becoming a detective had been a good idea.
He decided to take the initiative and defend himself. “How did a young woman beat up two guys?” he asked. “She’s just a tourist. She barely weighs a hundred and fifty pounds. And why would she beat them up? What was her motive?”
L
ieutenant Petrov reached across the desk and snatched the paper out of his hands, clearly trying to intimidate Fabi. He read from the statement. “She robbed them of 51 rubles.” The equivalent of $25.00 US dollars. There was no mention of anything else being stolen.
“She’s a rich American,” Fabi retorted. “Why would she rob them of what amounts to twenty-five dollars?”
“Why would the boys lie?”
“They seem like a couple of punks,” Fabi said, deciding now was a good time to play on Petrov’s biases. “Maybe they were trying to rob her. The boys were probably dealing drugs or something. The deal went bad and they got whacked. They saw her walking on the street and tried to pin it on her. It definitely wasn’t the girl. I never let her out of my sight.” He saw the Lieutenant pause, thinking.
“Wait right here,” he said as he stood from his desk and walked out of the room, not waiting for a response.
***
Petrov left his office and walked down the hall to see his boss, Maxim Kozlov, the Inspector of the Militsia. Inspector would be equivalent to the Chief of Police in an American city. He explained to the Inspector what had happened the night before. The Inspector already knew most of the details. Not much happened in Minsk that he didn’t know about.
“I would like to bring the girl in for questioning,” Petrov said.
Kozlov exploded. “On what basis? Your man says he was on her the whole time.”
He started to say he didn’t believe him but stopped himself. He didn’t want to admit to his boss that one of his detectives would falsify a report. That would make him look as bad as the detective.
