On the table in the conference room straddling the old USIA and CIA desk areas, were laid out my "tools" for my trip toolbox. Soil sample bags and soil extraction scoops were first. No problem understanding how to use them except I felt like I was getting a lesson on how to do a prostate exam by the way the fellow was describing the hand/finger and extraction motion preferred for a soil sample. Fine...got it.
Next, a GammaData hand-held geiger counter. Joe hadn't mentioned this. My instructor showed how to turn it on and off. He said taking it on the journey was optional...but recommended doing so considering the rif-raf I would be around. (I had other thoughts about it. I questioned how I would be received having a geiger counter when I was supposed to be looking for titanium and aluminum and maybe some other rare-earths. He shrugged and gave me a calibration lesson...which I appreciated later that year while on a different tracking job.)
A small Olympus camera that fit in the palm of my hand was next to a pen camera with an instruction sheet. Next to that was what appeared to be a black glass button with sticky tape on it. It was also a camera that could be placed almost anywhere and activated by touch. My teacher seemed to be getting bored after he showed me how to use it and said, "Use your imagination when it might be appropriate. It can be used in the dark, too." Three similar but smaller button-like plastic rings were wireless bugs. "We like to eavesdrop. They are easy to hide and you should assume that they are always on." he told me.
The "weaponry" was two scary looking ice pick-like daggers that were to be hidden in my clothing and my briefcase. I told him I couldn't imagine using them but the teacher went on describing the best ways to kill or severely incapacitate someone by severing arteries, delivering a hatchet like blow to the head and face, and inflicting the most lethal damage to blood filled areas during close fighting. Thanks...next.
A super swiss army knife was next. This thing was 3 or 4 times larger but still very light and, instead of blades and scout-like implements, it had various advanced looking tools for screwing, unbolting, bending, and whatever else Soyuz rockets needed to be disassembled. The instructor only pointed at one implement on the tool that he thought I would need. It looked like an advanced philips head screw driver with a curved head and an extension piece in the handle. I waited for the teacher again. He said what I expected, "Use your imagination."
Finally, 50 new $100 bills were in an open envelope. I asked, "Mine to keep? I didn't know that CIA stood for Cash In Advance" My instructor frowned and said, "Keep track of where you spend it or who you bribe. Remember, $100 still goes a long way in the former Soviet Bloc. Unnecessary spending will come out of your honorarium."
"And my shoe phone?" The teacher wasn't amused with my Get Smart joke. He was holding a pretty normal looking pen in his hand. "This pen is your panic button. Removing the inside spring and then replacing it says to us, 'I am probably in trouble, something has happened, and I want to abort the mission. I will take action on my own'. Removing it and not replacing for more than an hour says I am being held captive and in extreme dire straits. If you are being held captive and being moved from one location to another. Try to replace the spring after each move so we have a chance of finding you."
"How does it work?" I asked. "I mean, is it transmitting at some weird frequency?"
"A special satellite, of course, detects the transmissions. Has to be pretty new technology. The Russians are on their way to doing the same thing. Maybe that Soyuz booster you will be investigating lofted theirs into orbit ."
"This big envelope is for you, too. Instructions, maps, the stuff Dima gave you, and whatever else we could cobble together for you to learn so as not to get yourself killed on the first day out." He handed me a large manila envelope splitting at the seams with a lot of material. Joe and his staff had pulled together about 250 pages of people, places, targets, alternative targets, goals ranked by priority, dangers and suggestions for mitigating risk, survival techniques from a CIA handbook, a topical Russian phrasebook geared to the intelligence community, and as Joe had said, some letters to be delivered to faculty members at the University of Nowosibirsk. "Hey, Joe asked me to tell you that they are keeping that doctor's bag that Dima gave you. After chemical analysis, it appears that Dima has, maybe unknowingly, transported some bad stuff...and relatively recently. They found trace amounts of plutonium dust, sarin gas, depleted uranium, and other 'funny' things. If Dima was expecting you to give it back, tell him that it was stolen in the train station or something."
"OK, let me tell Joe. You aren't leaving for a week or so. He might have finished the tests he wants to do by the time you leave. There could be a few holes or some pieces cut out of it that were used for the tests, though."
"I can say a dog chewed on it or something. Thanks for asking Joe. I'd really rather get it back to Dima if at all possible. Even if it is a little radioactive and carries the scent of nerve gas.
***
My tools just barely fit into my little leather backpack I always carried. From that day forward, that backpack became, "My Toolkit". With that toolkit and a million thoughts racing thru my mind, I had to organize my time to study the materials I'd been given, work out a schedule with Dima and coordinate the trip with him and Joe (so Joe could get his/my people hooked up with me for the trip to Nowosibirsk).
It was beginning to dawn on me that I may have taken on a bit more than I really had bargained for. Weapons in my toolkit, classified sensors, bugs, and camera equipment. To date, I'd looked at my activities for Joe as grown up hide and go seek games. While I knew, of course, that I could get into serious trouble for what I was doing, it always seemed odds were in my favor to do what I was asked without people noticing or getting caught. And if I did get caught, I figured that the worst that could happen to me would be deportation. I'd seen in the late 80's American college students doing what I was doing and eventually getting caught. The Polish government at the time chose to make a big deal on TV but they were out of the country within 48 hours. What I had been doing since the Wall came down was more of a hide in the open and help keep bad things from happening game...except when they asked me to go to Moscow for a disinformation run. This trip, though, was different. I was out in the open and bait for Dima's competition and a target for those in Russia who would look for foreigners to kidnap and ransom. As far east as I was going, it was unnerving that sanity was inversely proportional to the distance from Moscow. Whereas even in post-Soviet era Moscow, there were laws and a functioning system of government, it was hit and miss the further you got away from there. I'd gone through one strange kidnapping and another failed attempt in the Ukraine and had this strange feeling that I was setting myself up for the charmed third time.
***
"My briefcase feels lighter, I think." Dima proclaimed as I gave him his radioactive and nerve gas tainted bag back, again at the Marriott Hotel. This time, though, we were in the downstairs lobby bar hidden somewhat from the crowds by the windows facing ul. Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Street). I purposely put my sweater and another coat and scarf on the chairs next to us to keep some distance from the other patrons in the bar. Dima sensed that I was either nervous or gearing up for a serious conversation and did what most Russians would do in such a situation, he ordered a whole bottle of vodka for just the two of us. Shit! I was trying to dry out a bit before my trip but I knew it would be a big insult to refuse him. I begged him to avoid song and dance as well as kissing and hugs as we talked...and drank. He seemed disappointed to have to hold his exuberance over our trip planning but, by about 8pm, with 3/4 of a liter of vodka in him, he wasn't THAT upset.
We worked out that the three strange northerly Soyuz debris sites would be accessible but he did not hide his disappointment that I had chosen exactly these. Bribes and negotiations with the rogue locals and mafia were going to be necessary he said. That would also require his man who arranges everything of that nature. And, of course, this guy would need to be paid, as well. I could already see that my $5000 extra dollars was now probably $4500. I would go by Trans-Siberian Railway past the debris sites to meet Dima. We would get together in Novosibirsk where I would spend a few days under his guidance meeting some of the academics that were in his group. That would give me time to deliver the letters that I had been given to faculty at Novosibirsk State University. and then we would travel together back to do the site exploration and extraction. These sites were at about the same latitude as Novosibirsk but far to the west of that city off the Trans-Siberian Railway route by several hundred kilometers. Photos of the sites showed mainly barren steppes with patches of woods and wetland not far away. I wasn't sure if camping in the open was preferable to being able to hide in the woods. Something told me that I was in for some hide and go seek in Siberia.
Dima loved the part about a possible collaboration with an academy or the university itself in setting up an MBA pilot program. That would give him the visibility that he wanted with the Economics department at NSU that had avoided his harping on about selling things to the West and building relationships with Poles and Americans. Dima wanted me to deliver part of my introduction speech in Russian to better gain the respect of this group. Damn! Another nerve racking presentation in a language that was beautiful but not my own. I always worried that I would use verbs that meant either farting or fucking in slang. My Polish wife had taught me quite a bit of that sort of verb play but I almost never got things right during parties with her university colleagues and embarrassed everyone more than once.
Three other technical institutes were on the table to visit that added several thousand more kilometers and logistics issues to our journey stretching from Chelyabinsk in the West to Krasnoyarsk in the East. A weapons related facility in Novosibirsk was on our "must visit" list. In Chelyabinsk, a weapons related instrumentation facility was identified as well as a nuclear plant for fuel cycle reprocessing. The facilities in Krasnoyarsk were also nuclear related: fuel cycle enrichment plant and a reprocessing facility. While Dima had been viewed as a small time operator, Embassy Joe's folks decided that we should give him a chance to open the doors to these places that were viewed as the most likely to "lose" nuclear material to bad guys. Providing an additional ticket "in" was really my goal...and the hopes for Embassy Joe. Grabbing anything off the Soyuz debris and getting soil samples became secondary to the plant visits but still an important part of the trip. A schedule was tentatively agreed upon and one last shot for the both of us was left in the Belvedere Vodka bottle. I picked up the bottle and poured our last shots into our elegant crystal glasses. I facetiously asked Dima if anyone was going to make any money on this trip or as a result of this trip. He answered, "It all depends on the characters we meet and the strength of our character."
I nodded and toasted, "Na zdrowie!"
I nodded and toasted, "Na zdrowie!"
How right he was about those characters.
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