Welcoming Committee

     Vincent had spotted our guys first. As was his job during the evening, he greeted incoming guests in front of the hotel, sometimes opening their car door for them as they rolled into the awning covered driveway marked "For Checking In Guests Only...Please!".  A cream-colored late model Volga had pulled up at about 7pm. His courtesy greeting as he opened the driver side door was met with a gruff Russian warning, "Shut the fucking door or I'll cut your nuts off you little prick!" Which Vincent immediately responded with an apology and shut the door, but not before he heard the passenger say to the rude driver, "Georg! Calm down you idiot!"

     Vincent quickly bowed out of any more greeting or bellman activities and whispered to his young assistant, "We need to delay these guys as much as possible. We will get a big tip if we can do it without being too obvious." He then darted into the lobby and called up to Cindy, "Cindy, they have arrived! I am 99% sure that Anatoly and Georg are in a cream colored Volga in front of the hotel."

     "Thank you, Vincent." was all Cindy said and she raced over to the desk in the room to review notes and pull my toolkit out from under the bed. She didn't open it but was praying I would arrive soon.  She placed it in the middle of the room then ran downstairs with cameras and bugs in purses for carrying out some version of the surveillance routine we had been practicing for the past two days. I arrived 10 minutes later, and opened the door to the room spotting the bag first thing. I was back in the lobby in 90 seconds.

     Cindy had taken photos of the men in "Self-Parking" removing their bags from the trunk of the car and from the back seat. She then got several shots as Georg was walking to the hotel to retrieve a bellman's cart and then rolled it back to the car. Anatoly, according to Vincent, had been swearing non-stop as he was moving the bags around by the car. We'd told Vincent that we needed close measurements of their bags and he had tried to offer them help bringing the luggage in. They had refused and Anatoly had again made reference to Vincent's testicles being at risk of violent removal if he touched anything of theirs. Understandably, Vincent sought other means of getting close enough to measure their bags.

     Anatoly and Georg both were quite dark complected and, as Cindy stated, "These guys look Romanian but their Russian is absolutely Moscow Central City dialect."  (I suspected Cindy meant that they looked like Gypsies or "Roma".) They both needed a haircut and greased their hair down quite close to their head. Both had sideburns that were not typical of the times and Cindy began to suspect that they were living in Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. She'd noticed their shoes and workman jackets were typical of that region. She took a two minute video of both men loading the bags onto the bellman's cart. She saw a huge difference between the way the men handled the two bags that seemed to be normal travel bags, and the two other bags that were heavy and were placed much more carefully onto the cart. Those bags were placed on their side whereas the normal luggage was standing like a regular suitcase might.

     Vincent's earlier suggestion to the young assistant gave pause to the boy to consider how to delay their progress getting to their room. Unbeknownst to us, he removed several metal pins that kept the wheels on the luggage carts. All three carts had at least one pin missing he told us later. The cart that they were using had made it out to their car, was loaded with their things, and was now beside them at the registration desk. The young boy had not told Vincent about removing the pins.

     In the time that it had taken them to get inside the hotel through the parking lot entrance, pass through the lobby by the business center, turn left at the concierge desk, and stop briefly at the convenience store to discuss where they would be getting food and drink; Cindy and I had placed bugs on their shabby coats, photographed them from all sides, swabbed their bags for lab analysis, made two passes with the geiger counter, and had gotten measurements of their bags using the swab stick and the geiger wand as a "ruler".  Cindy and I were acting like we were organizing our things with luggage and bags about 20 feet from the registration desk as they pulled the cart up to where they were going to check in.  Cindy had a 12" parabolic antenna hidden in a piece of luggage hooked up to a microphone and was listening to the conversation at the desk. Anatoly was speaking in a quiet voice to the hotel clerk so it was good that we had the antenna but we certainly didn't need it for anything that Georg said. He was pissed off at everything and threatening everyone's testicles...even if they weren't equipped as such.

     "I know the reservation was for a regular room with two beds but a larger room would be best. If you have a suite separated by a door, we would be willing to pay for that."  Anatoly told the desk clerk.

     The desk clerk looked through his vacant rooms list and politely answered,  "We have something like that but the second room is quite small with only a couch, coffee table,  and TV. It is not appropriate for sleeping in...and the couch is not a sofa bed. Cindy smiled and winked at me as she heard Anatoly say, "The luggage will go in the second room. We don't want to be in the same room as the luggage. Georg's dirty clothes are in it."  Cindy recorded this portion and played it back to me later. We imagined that even bad guys don't want to be too close to bad stuff that might make them sick.

     "How will you be paying?" the desk clerk asked Anatoly.

     "Cash now." he answered.

     "If you want to use the phone in your room during your stay, we will need to have a deposit or a credit card on file."  the clerk reminded Anatoly.  To which Anatoly responded, "Oh yeah...we have to make a call later."  Georg let out six or seven swear words loudly and told Anatoly to hurry up.  It was at this moment that Vincent's young buddy went into action without warning.  He told us later that he was standing with his back to them but watching in a mirror for the right moment to pass by them without being noticed. At the moment he thought was best, Vincent tapped the wheel of the cart with his toe, knocking the wheel off, and at the same time ran his hand over the top of the regular luggage bag, tripping the snap release and opening one side of the bag...as the cart was now falling over on its side where the wheel had been. The loose wheel was rolling quickly toward us.

     Even Anatoly began to swear as the cart was falling over dumping all four bags onto the floor.  "Oh, Jesus Christ! Georg! Fuck!"  Georg grabbed the upright on the cart but the action of pulling it back made the bags all slide more quickly off the cart. The opened suitcase spilled mainly clothes and some toiletries all over the rest of the bags. One of the heavy suspect bags came down very hard on the floor and clanked like a scuba diver's oxygen tank as it slid on the floor two or three feet and stopped when it hit the wall.  This bag, now more visible to Cindy and me, was actually a bag made of something like burlap or hemp  with cheap shipping tape wrapped around it. Whatever was inside had shifted and ripped the bag. Clearly visible through the tear in the bag was the radioactive symbol and less readable was a logo or symbol next to it.  Cindy's microphone bag had a camera next to the parabolic antenna. She stepped back quickly and snapped a photo hoping that it was high enough to see inside the tear that we were staring at.

     It was Anatoly's reaction that said the most to me about what was inside that bag, and scared me to death. Rather than move quickly toward his bags, he held his hands and forearms to his face as if he was afraid something would explode...or maybe, go critical...like enriched uranium. Everyone noticed it, including the night security guard who jokingly called out, "You act like you just dropped nitro glycerin."  Instead of going on another tirade about ripping someone's balls off, Georg had a weird look on his face and waved both Vincent and the boy away. He said to them, "Thank you. I'll take care of it. Sorry for the problem."

     Both Georg and Anatoly straightened out the mess, repacked the suitcase that had popped open and took their keys from the desk clerk that was holding them out for Anatoly. She said, "Room #605...Junior suite. Elevator is over there." and she pointed to her right. "Do you need help with your bags?" she asked.  Georg resisted the urge to threaten anyone's gonads as he gingerly pushed the cart toward the elevator while Anatoly followed close behind slowly shaking his head.

     "Well that was certainly a strange incident," said the desk clerk after the elevator door closed and Vincent walked out into the middle of the lobby with a broom and dustpan.  He then stepped toward me and asked if he and his colleague had delayed them enough for us to do what we needed to do. I said, "Absolutely yes. Thank you! And...please don't clean up yet where the baggage cart fell. Let me do something first."

     I still had the geiger counter handy and taped inside my heavy coat with the wand inside my sleeve. Running my hand with a wash cloth over the area where everything had fallen, I was getting a final swab for testing and doing a quick check with the geiger counter. The counter was screaming at me that bad stuff was around. I moved it over to a spot about 5 feet away and the screaming calmed down to a low growl.  It appeared that bad stuff had passed this way.

***

     "So we need to inventory what we've got and what we still need to get from these guys." I said to Cindy as we put our toolkits back under the bed and removed film canisters and tapes. "Do you think we need to keep an eye on their room tonight?" I asked her.

     "Vincent and his little buddy will come to the rescue for that type of work." Cindy smiled and said, and then there was a knock at the door.

     "Speak of the devil! Hi Vincent" I said as I saw Vincent standing in the hallway.

     "Sorry to bother you but I wanted to ask you for a favor. I told Ben, the guy that was helping me earlier, that you would tip him for his involvement. I hope that was ok?!" Vincent said sheepishly.

     "Not a problem. If I give you four $20 bills, is that enough to distribute between yourself and Ben?" I offered.

     "Wow...that seems like too much!" Vincent said with surprise in his voice.

     "Well, maybe not. We are hoping that someone can let us know if anything goes on unusual over at Room #605 tonight.  Also, we need to know how many nights they have reserved. Would that cover what you did today, finding out their length of stay, and watching the room tonight?"  I asked.

     "Yes. I'll call if anything happens." a smiling Vincent said as he saluted to me and looked over my shoulder to see if Cindy was there.

     "Bye Vincent!" Cindy said in a monotone,

     "Oh, Vincent!" I called out as I started to think about better instructions for him.  "These guys may get super drunk, have women over, get in a fight, order food, and cause general mayhem here at the hotel. None of that is cause to bother us. What is cause to contact us is if they both leave...with or without the luggage and if any of those bags are taken from the room...by anyone.  In fact, if any bag goes out, let us know. It's possible that they've transferred things to other containers since the whole hotel witnessed their embarrassing mishap earlier."

     "Got it."  Vincent said.

     "Thank you, Vincent. Good night." I said.

     The message phone in our room lit up about ten minutes later. I put in my code and listened to the message Vincent had just left:

     "Vincent here. Our guests are staying on a day to day basis. They said it could be one night and it could be up to five nights. They also said they are waiting for a phone call from Switzerland to be patched into their room.  Good night again."

     "Switzerland.  That could be the money guys or the consignees." I thought out loud.

     "Or both." Cindy added.

     "Novosibirsk...crossroads East and West and North and South. Makes sense they are waiting here for further instructions. Go West! Go South! Go Southeast!  Militant Islamic buyers and you go South maybe. Arabic terrorists hiding out in Switzerland call to arrange a letter of credit if their reps confirm delivery. But where will delivery be?" I thought out loud.

     "That's what Embassy Joe wants us to find out and why he sent me here to say Fifi 66 to you. Looks like we are only halfway to finish line." Cindy shook her head and said.

     "Hey, I've been curious about something and I hope you won't be mad at me if I ask."  I looked at Cindy and said.

     "You want to know if I am really a prostitute." Cindy said to me quickly and then turned to see how I would react.

      "Jesus Christ! Yes! That's what I was wondering!" I couldn't believe she had again read my mind.

      "And I am wondering if you are a real businessman." she countered.

     "I don't know what I am, Cindy." I said glumly and then said "Goodnight". Cindy watched me collect my things and make moves to go to my room. She stood motionless and then said, "Let's get up early and talk about next steps.

     "OK...I'm up at 6."

     Cindy reached out and touched me for the first time since we'd been together and stroked my face and head softly with both hands. We hugged silently for about two minutes and then she said, "Goodnight, Bill".

Russian Academy of Sciences & NSU

     Novosibirsk's rise to become the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union and now Russia's own center of learning and academic excellence did not come easily. The town and the success of its eventual Academic Techno-Park took some pre-planning and thought from a lot of visionaries, a token handful of self-serving tsarist decrees, a smattering of human enslavement by autocratic rulers, and a good dose of plain old communist tyranny.  The early seeds for development were planted in the late 1800's by the Russian Czar Alexander III.  He has been referred to as the Peacemaker and Construction Czar.  (An interesting note:  As Czar's at this time were not universally liked, a plot to assassinate Alex III was uncovered and the leaders were captured and executed. The brother of a fellow whose name you might recognize, Vladimir Lenin, was one of those leaders.)
     Alex III, though, stayed alive long enough to build railways all over Russia instead of getting Russia into wars that weren't really their business and usually wreaked havoc on an already unstable economy.  Among the dreams of this vast country with a network of rail service that would criss-cross the steppes and mountains, the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok is among them that came true.  In a very strange twist of fate, poor Alex III met his death it is said following a train crash in the Ukraine in 1888. Heroically attempting to hold up the roof of the collapsed rail car that he and his children were in during the wreck, the injuries he suffered eventually led to his death six years later. His son, Nicholas II was the last czar of Russia.
     Nicholas II also plays into our history of Novosibirsk. Once a location for the Trans-Siberian Railway to cross the Ob River in Siberia was decided upon, a small community of workers and their families grew to build the bridge for that crossing. That community became Novonikolayevsk...after Czar Nicholas and St. Nicholas.
The bridge was completed in 1897 and Novonikolayevsk became the most important transportation hub in the region. More railway construction that tied East to West and North to South reinforced the town's importance and by 1917, the population had reached 80,000 people. Novonikolayevsk was the largest industrial center of Siberia.

      As we all know, 1917 was an important year for Russia with Soviet power being established.  With a few major hiccups along the way, (The White Russian Army with Czech prisoners of war captured the town in 1918 and later the Red Army reclaimed it establishing Soviet control in 1919.) it wasn't until 1926 that the town was renamed to its current, Novosibirsk, which means  A New City in Siberia. Stalin's industrialization and electrification plans gave some focus to Siberia's mission for industrial development and the city was "granted" large facilities for heavy industry, food processing, and power generation.  Novosibirsk thereby earned its nickname, "Siberian Chicago".

By the mid to late 1950's, Stalinist terror in Siberia was eventually replaced with Nikita Khrushchev's desire to build a scientific powerhouse in the middle of nowhere. Novosibirsk certainly fit that description.

"Tucked away in a remote forest of birch and pine in the heart of Siberia, 3,000 km away from Moscow, at a place where winters are six months long with temperatures dropping to minus 40 degree Celsius and summers are swaddled with mosquitos, is a city built for scientists and researchers. This frozen wasteland is more suited for polar bears than scientific endeavors, but Nikita Khrushchev felt the distance from Moscow was necessary so that the country’s sharpest scientific minds could work together on fundamental research away from the prying eyes of bureaucracy. This is Akademgorodok, or “Academic Town”—the Soviet Union’s answer to America’s Silicon Valley."

--http://russiatrek.org/novosibirsk-city

     It was here at the Academpark Technopark or Akademgorodok that Dima had visions of us making a big splash with our desire to bring an American business school from a known university to Siberia and cooperate with either NSU - Novosibirsk State University, or one of the other 35 research institutes within the complex. That complex, located about 20 miles from the center of Novosibirsk, is a complete town or academic compound in itself. It has, in addition to the institutions of higher learning and the Siberian Headquarters for the Russian Academy of Sciences; libraries, restaurants and cafes, hotels, stores, hospitals, residential facilities, cinemas and clubs, and whatever other luxury amenities that Russians can come up with to serve the elite residents of the Akademgorodok. There is even an artificial beach at the edge of the Ob Reservoir that was created by hundreds of truckloads of sand along the edge of the reservoir.

     Focused on the hard sciences to support, among others, the Soviet military machine, the nuclear weapons program, Cold War pursuits, and the space program, Akademgorodok grew to house and support several hundred thousand people. With the level of Soviet support it was receiving, scientists and others that could contribute to the cause, were more than happy to escape from the totalitarian rule of Moscow to "hide" in the frozen steppes.  It was a privilege to live there and the conditions were quite unlike the difficult housing situation and career stagnation in the Soviet capital.  There was a level of freedom unlike anywhere in the Soviet Union and perhaps the whole Soviet Bloc.  Freedom to talk about and discuss difficult subjects like economic reforms, Western literature and free press, while listening to poets and protest songs not officially sanctioned by the regime was all OK there. Even the sciences themselves were freer: genetics, cybernetics, and other new fields, banned throughout the Soviet empire, were welcome pursuits in Akademgorodok.

     At the time of our visit, the TechnoPark had signed cooperation agreements with institutions all over the world in dozens of fields of study with the growing interest in "commercializing" research for business pursuits.  As a reminder, it was this uncontrolled access to the raw sciences that the intelligence gathering groups of the West were most concerned about. The newly formed Russian Federation had very little influence on these untethered and unfocused "teams".  The CIA and other intelligence agencies were making inroads to monitor and intercept the outflow of strategic materials - especially materials that should not be in the hands of terrorists. Embassy Joe had accepted my guise as a Scholar/Businessman to make contacts in the Akademgorodok. Dima wanted the prestige of bringing in an American academician and businessman.

    As for me...I wanted to make my speeches, hand out my cards, and get back to Cindy at the Intourist since we weren't really sure when Anatoly and Georg were going to show up at the hotel.

     Our first meeting was supposed to be with the Dean of the Economics Department at Novosibirsk State University and his invited guests. Stan, as he wanted to be called, rushed us into his enormous "conference room", (probably able to seat 300 people). It was next to an auditorium that I was told seated several thousand. We'd arrived late and I was surprised that no one was in the conference room waiting for us. Instead, after a few pleasantries and some mineral water, he shocked me by saying that the whole Academy of Science membership had been invited to this session and everyone showed up...all 2500 members. We were then launched into the grand hall where it was standing room only and every face looked anxious for a chance to cash in on the American Invasion to Akademgorodok.  My heart jumped into my throat and Dima could see that I was sweating this one in a big way.

     Stan was ahead of me and Dima was behind as we quickly walked to the podium and three chairs below the main speaker's lecturn. Before we arrived, I calmly turned to Dima and said, "This might be a disaster. Please help me if I am having problems."

     Dima nodded and said something like, "No mentioning that you are happy about political and economic changes!" His next words were only  "Blah blah blah..." and I didn't catch them.

     (In a previous book, OJT, I described a speech given also at the Academy of Sciences. That was in Moscow in 1995 during my Russian-based period with RR Donnelley.  That speech, not unlike this one in content, was to a far smaller crowd but an equally hungry audience to see what an American had to say about Russia and the possibilities of cooperation...in the world of high quality magazine printing.  In that instance, I was prepped by my wife at the time and by a Polish woman whose husband was a Russian citizen teaching Russian language at the university in Krakow...and a KGB agent, of course.)

     Cindy had translated into Russian and printed very legibly in English the phonetic pronunciation for the introduction of the speech I had planned. The rest of the speech, a description of how cooperation might be carried out (straight from the Krakow experience) and what an American university might have as it's list of desirables was in outline form. My planned conclusion was simply a promise to report to the colleges and universities that I knew might be interested and a follow up describing my progress through Dimitry Petrovic within one month. Extremely nervous, voice shaking during my first sentence,

"Good Afternoon, professors, administrators, and friends. My name is Bill Mays. It is my great pleasure and honor to be here in your beautiful country and to be invited to meet you in this legendary city of science and learning."

     With that line in Russian, I was greeted with a blast of applause that lasted ten times longer than what it had taken me to say those words.  I could hear some of the guys near the front row saying something like,

"The guy actually spoke some Russian. Not the usual American accent. Spy for sure! Ha! Ha!" that was followed with laughing, clapping, more joking.

     The crowd quieted and I got into the rhythm in what I hoped was exactly how Cindy had written it for me. She even wrote, "PAUSE HERE FOR SECOND...SMILE AT AUDIENCE" in two places after particularly affectionate claims to love the Russian language and people. She was right. They were waiting for opportunities to show their appreciation for my speaking more than a handful of words in Russian and again gave me two more standing ovations before I even got to the meat of the speech. At the end of this Russian lovefest as my introduction, I apologized for having to escape into English. I took a long drink of water and then pulled out my notes in English.

     With lukewarm stares from them as I described the Krakow-University of Detroit program and my involvement there, I remembered that Dima requested that I avoid suggesting that the cooperation be anything like the Polish model. Russians aren't particularly interested in following anyone else's model. I knew exactly what to say then at that moment when I curtailed describing the Polish model.  I felt myself beginning to speak with a touch of a bad Russian accent:

     "The much better Russian model of cooperation will therefore be our guide to a successful collaborative effort. What that Russian model will be, I am confident that the members of this most prestigious body in the world will quickly formulate and our program will be repeated everywhere."

     It seemed a cop-out line but it was received with thunderous applause again.  And then, feeling that I could bring the house down, memories from long ago drifted into my head as the clapping began to slow down. I had won a competition for extolling the virtues of communism in a History of Communism class at the University of Washington taught by Pedro Ramet, my mentor professor who was now Sabrina Ramet.  In that winning speech, I had memorized all of the Albanian lines of propaganda that the leader, Enver Hoxha and his government used describing the great Marxist Leninist State of Albania and the lines that described the imperialists from the United States and other Western "stooges".  I'd even practiced my delivery and cadence to match the rare footage of Enver Hoxha's speeches.  For some reason, on that podium in Novosibirsk, I was overcome with the desire to recreate that atmosphere and started talking off the cuff to build up some patriotism to offset these scientists' feelings that post-Soviet Russia would not be a good atmosphere for science and learning.  I cringe now as I remember that my bad Russian accent came along with the bullshit I now spewed.   The last part of it went something like this:

     "This incredible institution, the Russian Academy of Sciences, came into being and was forged to what it is now over decades. It is the foundation for a great nation...perhaps the greatest nation. It is that framework of greatness that will guarantee that our Russian-American MBA Program Model will carry itself as worthy of emulation by other countries that are seeking a grand model for success."

     It was the final standing ovation but it was the longest. Dima was frantically shaking hands with nearby people in the front rows and with men and women who were coming down to talk to him. I had planned on saying more to close out our visit and thank Dima and Stan for their invitation but the audience had interpreted that patriotic line as my final statement. It all worked out well in the end because the RAS requested only a small cocktail session afterward and did not put any of us on the spot to speak. Everyone had been present and now just wanted to drink and get us drunk.

     "Hello, Dr. Mays. Leo Meyerkov from the High Energy Physics lab here at Akademgorodok. Very nice speech today. I am interested in discussing sometime the American model for commercializing high tech innovation. Would you be interested in such a discussion?"   Bingo! Embassy Joe's kind of guy! Good hit #1 I thought to myself as I told Leo that I am not a PhD but knew a little bit about the subject since my own father was involved in nuclear fuels fabrication in the United States in Washington State.

     "Oh, probably your Hanford Nuclear Reservation where you make weapons grade fuel. I think your Japanese bomb material was done at Hanford, too."  Leo added when I told him about my father.

     "You are absolutely right!  I guess we are surrounded here by many institutes and factories for similar fuel reprocessing and weapons grade fuel fabrication, isn't it true?" I asked Leo.

     Leo seemed melancholy as he described to me, "At our highest production level, it was a busy time in the 60's and 70's. The economic crisis of the 80's and complete system collapse now in the 90's has us at a standstill. But you know that.  I would one day like to visit University of California at Berkeley and maybe MIT sometime."

     "I am sure you could get an invitation just by reaching out," I assured him. He smiled and we walked away. I wondered who else with access to nuclear material and potential bad stuff I could meet today. I then had an American style idea that didn't go over super well but it got some results.

    I went over to Dima who was talking to Vassily Alexiev's twin brother(the famous Russian Olympic style weight lifter from the 60's and 70's). During a break in the conversation, I asked him to try to announce that we would be delighted to get business cards from all the guests present since there would not be enough time to talk to everyone.  There was a very audible sound of disappointment but a lot of the people complied and we had quite large handful of cards by the time the evening began to draw to a close. One other discussion struck me as important as Dima seemed a little cornered by several men arguing about money. I couldn't tell what the context was, though.

     "What was that all about, Dima? Seemed serious."  I asked.

     "Some of my closer contacts from administration of a specialty metals facility near here. They want to know if we are going to talk about Soyuz debris with you. They are disappointed that your contacts chose to go back to Chelyabinsk for the three wild debris sites so far north. They are thinking that it would be good to talk about other subjects while you are in Novosibirsk." said Dima with some amount of consternation.

     "What other subjects would they have to talk about, do you think?" I asked him.

     "Specialty metals I am sure but it might be on the edge of legal. That means probably illegal until we pay someone money to make the paperwork legal." Dima strangely answered.

     "Make the paperwork legal or make the false paperwork look legal?" I asked.

     "Maybe a little of both, my friend. But it is enough money for us in my opinion to take risk if there is buyer you can find." Dima slowly said as if he was thinking about every word before it let it come out of his mouth.

     I almost wanted to say to Dima as if he was part of the terrorist team, "Sounds like bad stuff to me and we are in the business of bad stuff."  Instead I raised my eyebrows and asked him to find out more. I also told him I was probably busy all day tomorrow doing work in the hotel. He said he'd deliver a message to the concierge if he'd been able to set up a meeting with his colleagues.

    A quick glance and run through at the cards we'd gotten and the people I'd met, I estimated that seven or eight individuals were very interesting candidates for information on strategic materials and another 15 or twenty could have close ties to people that Joe was interested in. That alone seemed like a winning evening for me. Add Dima's disappointed "admin guys" and we weren't doing too badly I thought. Things were getting a little convoluted for me, though. I had 1) Cindy waiting for me to initiate our Anatoly and Georg plan, and worries of what that would turn into 2) Dima acting on the short list for MBA partners 3) The long list of MBA partners that were willing to pay money...and that I wanted nothing to do with but had to worry about since disappointment can be twisted into betrayal. 4) The NSU MBA proposal coming soon and who would the lucky US MBA program be? 5) I hadn't told Dima yet that he wouldn't be going to Chelyabinsk in a week 6) Fears of  Yuri, Toshek and Vlad not showing up in Chelyabinsk  7) Katerina and Zhenia...would I be able to see them again. 8) And what about Dima's mad money men? Christ!

     With that list of worries closing in on me, I hopped over to Dima and asked him if I could head back to the hotel alone. The cocktail was now a full-fledged party and I was able to sneak out without a problem. I am glad I did.

     When I got back to the hotel, Vincent and Cindy were all over Anatoly and Georg's arrival of just a few minutes earlier. As tired as I was, I had to rush into action, grab my toolkit, and start gathering information.

       Welcome to the world of following bad guys with bad stuff.

Partners

     This time Cindy went first and I was to follow within about 15 minutes. None of the 7th floor harem was hanging around the elevator so we seemed to be in the clear acting as if we meet for the first time down in the bar. Cindy wanted me to go straight to where she was sitting and ask if I could join her. She felt it would be a clear sign that I had staked out my claim and it would reduce the chance of any other woman trying to get between us.

     Things worked pretty much as we had planned. Cindy uncrossed her legs and motioned for the bartender to come over after she said, "You are very welcome to join me, sit here." pointing to the end of the booth that allowed us to sit close but also have our knees touching under the table. She reached her hand out and grabbed me on the leg pulling me slightly toward her as if to say, "Good. Keep close."

     The bartender, same fellow who had served Dima and me, came over and asked if it was a beer or a vodka. Cindy suggested vodka and said quietly without looking at me, "After your drink, we will say goodbye and you go to your room. I will make arrangements with the hotel so I have my "license". It may take some time. Your seventh floor ladies are trying to block my activity here."

     I understood what she was suggesting and saw that two of these ladies were sitting directly behind us. I nearly reached over and thumped one of them but Cindy could sense I was not happy with what she had said and made a face that said, "Not a problem, they aren't worth it." At that same moment, I saw my young friend, Vincent, who had delivered the Champagne and biscuits earlier walking toward the bar with a tray. He didn't seem particularly rushed so I motioned toward him to get his attention. He saw me and smiled, put his tray down, and came over to where Cindy and I were sitting.

     "Hello Mr. Mays! How are you this evening?" he was still smiling as he excitedly greeted us. Looking at Cindy, he waited for me to introduce her. "This is Cindy, Vincent. She is having some issues with the hotel and I would be grateful if you would help clear things up or direct her to someone who can do that quickly."

     "Why of course, Mr. Mays. We'll help Cindy immediately. I am on break and can escort her to the Assistant Manager for the evening shift whenever she is ready."  Vincent looked at Cindy and she said, "Just a couple of minutes, thank you."  Vincent went back to the bar and stood waiting for Cindy.

     I leaned into Cindy's ear and said, "I hope that was ok." She quickly replied with uncharacteristic sexiness in her voice, "That was perfect, Mr. Mays. See you soon."   I drank my vodka in one gulp and then we kissed each other on the cheek and I left for my room. Cindy and Vincent disappeared for the front desk and the seventh floor harem appeared to be losing interest in us. Luckily there was quite a crowd now...and 90% men on the prowl. Cindy and I would soon fade from the harem's memory.  I was also thinking about Vincent as I made my way to my room. If he, in fact, was going to painlessly help Cindy and would keep taking my money for little jobs, why not ask him to help us by signalling when Anatoly and Georg arrived and somehow assist in monitoring them. I had some ideas for getting Vincent motivated without revealing who they really were...and for that matter...who we really were.

***

     "Your Vincent is a hero." Cindy said as she entered the room no more than 15 minutes after we parted downstairs in the bar.

     "Good. I have some plans for him if you agree."  I said. Cindy smiled and said, "Let me guess. He will help us with the Anatoly-Georg project...no?!"   "You are absolutely right. We will see how much we can trust him but, at minimum, he can signal the minute they arrive, and we can go into action with the other parts of the plan...that we haven't worked on."

     "That's why I am here, Mr. Mays." she said as she began taking notes on the cheap looking hotel stationary on my desk.

     While I didn't voice it, that was what I was afraid of.

     She sat at the desk and organized our plan on the tissue paper-like INTOURIST stationary that was made available in my room. By the time we finished, we had alternative plans for how to go into action depending on how and when Anatoly and Georg would arrive. Split between the two of us and Vincent, the lobby would be covered at all times starting at 6am. There were a lot of places to hang out in and around the lobby that afforded a good view of entrances and the reception desk itself. We considered everything we could think of:
*which door they would come in through
*their possible use of the public telephone
*how they would be standing at the reception desk
*where the luggage would be sitting and what type of luggage they might have
*bags on shoulders or in their hands might be a bigger problem for radiation testing
*what rooms they might be assigned to
*will they use bellmen (we doubted that)
*would they be wearing coats
*could we be found out or suspected and how to react if we smell that they are on to us,
*how much should we try to accomplish in the short time we would have between arrival and getting to their rooms,
*possibilities of additional people being in their party or in tow that could notice our interest in them, *how should we behave with each other...completely independently with separate tasks or as a couple
     As we talked through and argued about the safest and most efficient way of getting things done, I realized that Cindy had done this type of surveillance before and her attention to detail was far more developed than mine.  At one point she asked me to bring out everything that Joe's people had given me. She did not act very impressed with my toolkit and its contents. Probably realizing that I was no professional, she commented, "We'll make due with what we have. It's not much but it could be worse."  Finally, the question of involving Vincent became critical and we took a long time considering his role. In the end it was our decision to limit his involvement so that he thought he was providing added intelligence in gaining an upper hand on our "business competition".

     These questions were all posed, discussed, and answers laid out on the toilet paper-thin stationary that Cindy was working on. I could tell that she had written more than one letter on such fine paper because she never ripped any page throughout the long hours we worked. Only about an hour before we finished did I pull out the champagne and biscuits that Vincent had left earlier in the day. And, I did so when Cindy started to ask if I had anything to snack on. At 3am, we put the paper aside and quietly sipped the decent tasting Soviet "Champagne" while munching on the rather dull cracker/biscuits (something between a cracker and a cookie by American standards). 

     Cindy began to doze off not long after. I offered the bed saying that I had some things to do and would just use the extra blankets and pillow in the sitting room chest of drawers to sleep on. She waved her hand to say no and that she just wanted to stay on the couch until morning. The afghan couch cover fit just over her and I gave her the extra pillow. Before I walked away, she reached up and grabbed my arm and said, "Thank you, Bill. Our first night together!"

I leaned over, kissed her on the top of her head, and said, "Thank you. See you in the morning."

***

     My alarm went off before seven and, suddenly realizing I was unprepared for two very important meetings today, one with the Novosibirsk State University Dean of Economics and faculty and a late afternoon cocktail with the Novosibirsk Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, I bolted to the bathroom not realizing that Cindy was inside getting ready for the day. She had a towel on and didn't overreact when I nearly ripped the door off its hinges.

     "Oh shit! I'm sorry, Cindy! I'll use the water closet. I panicked. I haven't even prepared for my meetings at NSU and RAS today.  I promised Dima that I would do a part of it in Russian." I was babbling as she was rubbing lotion on her arms and shoulders.

     "Write in English what you want to say in Russian. I will translate it for you and give you a pronunciation guide.  Do it quickly this morning and I will finish it before you leave with Dima." Cindy kindly offered. She added, "Close the door so I can finish...pizhalsta."

     Cindy stuck around that morning after I handed her my abbreviated version of my speech and helped me with improving my Russian pronunciation. Two dry runs and then some suggestions for behaving more Russian and less American to gain a few points of respect were also offered. She approved of my suit and choice of tie so, in that category, I was ok. Her only comment was, "You look good in suit but if you were at least 190 cm's that would be the best."  The front desk called up to say that Dima was waiting for me in the lobby not long after her 190 cm comment.  As I left with my favorite diplomatka and notes from Cindy, I hesitated at the door and asked her, "190 cm's is good for whom?"

The sun was shining through the window behind her so I could not see her face. She only waved goodbye and said, "Good luck, today."

Dima Gets His Wish - I Get a Surprise Visit

     Dima rattled off a dozen institutes, academies, and educational departments that would pay to have me sit and listen to their "dog and pony show" for a chance to cooperate with a western university setting up a joint MBA program. While I couldn't imagine not working with NSU's economics department, I thought it worthwhile to hear out a few of these possible candidates. Dima was thinking more along the lines of 12 x $500 = $6000. $3000 split between us would be a nice week's pay for being treated like royalty, then wined, and dined for another week.

     "Dima! How many of these disappointed candidates are going to be mad enough to hop a cheap flight to Warsaw and put a bullet through my head six months from now?" I asked. "I'd really prefer it if we could lower expectations a bit."

     "Lower expectations? Hmmm...$250 per meeting ok?  We each get $1500 plus food and drink for a week still pretty good."  Obviously Dima wanted a quick "win" from my being in Novosibirsk and cash was his preferred prize.

     "Can we come up with a short list of candidates, say four of them?  The others we can ask for whatever marketing collateral they can come up with and seriously review it to see if something floats to the top that actually sounds interesting." I said to Dima as he was staring at me like I had pissed on the fire and called the dogs in way too early.

     "My friend, I am not here to take money from them to have the right to meet and talk. If they are expecting to have to pay something, then you take it all.  You have done all the work to get things set up. I just don't want a dozen enemies that burn my bridges for returning to Novosibirsk in the future." It seemed best to say it in Polish since there were "customers" finally showing up all around us. I wasn't really paying attention until I finished talking and then noticed that the people at the tables were the women that had been up on the seventh floor and others that I had not seen before. Makeup looked freshly applied and the old standby cigarette and perfume mixed scent was wafting through the bar...of course, it was the beginning of their workday.

     Dima took his eyes off the women, pondered what I had said a bit and started to come around with a smile. He poured two quick rounds of drinks before he spoke.  "I can work with that. We've got the Krakow - University of Detroit materials so I will create an RFP (Request For Proposal) from it asking for candidate schools to detail everything they can contribute; what the goals of such a program would be; estimated student enrollment; marketing; funding; administration and teaching; facilities; and maybe proposed cooperation with local businesses and other institutes.  That should keep them happy for a while. I'm almost tempted to keep it at $500 since I'll be working my ass off reviewing this stuff."

     "Sounds like you have the makings for a pretty good RFP.  I can also give you some things from the initial meetings in Krakow as they contemplated how to assemble such a jointly run program." I offered.

     Dima and I sat a while longer chatting about the next 7 or 8 days and finally two women walked over to our table and asked us for a light. Dima immediately assisted them and quickly shut them off from anything more, asking them not to bother us. Dinner suddenly came out without warning but I think it had been pre-planned as Dima ate quickly and then excused himself, looking at his watch and then me several times. We shook hands, decided where to meet tomorrow for our NSU meeting, and I began to think about preparing for talks at the Russian Academy of Sciences, at NSU, and then talks that would probably focus on finding a common ground for a pilot program curriculum for an MBA to be offered in a couple of years.  (Even if all of this was complete bullshit, I needed it to be very credible sounding. Embassy Joe had promised me that if anyone needed references about me, they could contact the US Embassy in Moscow or Warsaw and the Cultural Attache would know what to say.)

     Dima's abrupt exit left me rather exposed to the predators that were oiling their way around the room for the kill. I wasn't the only prey for these Russian cougars, thank God, and a large group of Dutch men arrived that seemed to have more receptive thoughts of such a hunt on their minds. Nevertheless, the percentage of women to men was quite high making the more aggressive stalkers somewhat annoying.

     "Your friend left you. He was very rude. You will invite me to your room soon?" a taller brunette in a shiny polyester leopard print dress asked as she walked up to my table putting her hand next to mine.  "Perhaps a drink for us first?" she added.  The bartender was looking over his glasses at me waiting for my acknowledgment of approval. I agreed but I then stood up and took my drink with me towards the bathroom. The woman sat down at my table with her drink, I suppose waiting for me to return. I did not return.  I was hijacked before I got to the bathroom.

     Approaching me quickly from the right was another woman that could have been among the predators but I hadn't really noticed her. She looked quite "normal" without overdone makeup on naturally dark features, sandy brown hair to her shoulders and a simple dark maroon sleeveless dress. Her gait told me that she was not wearing high heels and that we were on a collision course about five meters ahead. I slowed down and looked at her. She slowed down and then stepped up to me, looked at me very intensely and said, "I am Fifi 66. Can we go to your room to talk?"

     It was very difficult to hide my shock. I felt weak and nearly dropped my glass of vodka.  She said she would knock on my door in 5 minutes.  I went straight to my room and waited for her. For some reason, I was very nervous and couldn't stop shaking.

***

     By the time this woman arrived and knocked at my door, I had calmed down enough to think about how I was going to behave and decide what I would say and not say.  The fact that she had the code words "Fifi 66" and wanted to talk to me, I had to assume for the time being that she was legit. If something seemed wildly out of sorts after talking to her, I'd decide what to do at that time. As I'd been told before by folks at the embassy, "get as much information as you can and give as little as possible".

     Stepping inside my room, she seemed deathly afraid of me. Was that real fear of me or fear of the situation or did she have bad information to tell me or was she planning to do something to me?  A dozen scenarios flashed through my head as she came in. I stayed calm and pointed to a chair where there was a table and a lamp. She had only a small cosmetic bag or something similar and nothing else on her that I could see. She'd only said "Thank you" when she walked in and went straight to the chair I had pointed to.

     "So...those words opened my door here for me to listen to you. What words were they, again?"
I asked her in case I had completely misunderstood down in the bar.

     "Fifi 66...did I pronounce them badly?" she repeated the words and then asked me.

     "No. Who told you that these words are important and who are you?" I asked

     "My contact told me that you are like me. I sometimes do things for money and I don't talk about it."

     I laughed and said, "So, you are talking to me for money, I assume."

     "Well, I think that probably it is not just money that makes us do what we do.  Do you agree?" She was starting to relax a bit since we were having some fun with this situation.

      "You are here meeting Dimitry the trader and businessman? Many meetings in Novosibirsk are planned? You are planning to go back to Chelyabinsk with Dimitry to do something there with him? You also have some meetings with other important people in Chelyabinsk.? Am I correct so far?" She slowly formulated her statements as questions and I nodded my head and said "Uh huh" each time.

     "Your man is named Joe?" she asked. Again I nodded and said "Uh huh."  By this time I was really wondering where this conversation was going.

     "So I have three instructions from Joe.  Listen carefully:

     Number 1:  Joe has something for you to do that is very important for him. On Thursday this week, two men will check into this hotel. Their names are, Anatoly and Georg. These men probably have some 'bad stuff'. You know what is 'bad stuff'?"  I once again responded, "Uh huh." and nodded.
"Joe wants you to do everything you can that is safe to take pictures of them, their baggages, see who they meet with, and try to use your radiation detection machine to test them and their baggages."

     "We say 'baggage' and not 'baggages'. It is correct for both one bag or many." I corrected her.

      Staring at me for a moment after I said that, she said, "No one correct me before. Why I not know that?". "It's ok, your English is great. Please continue." I urged her.

     "Anatoly and Georg will check out after one or two days. We find out where they are going if possible and someone maybe will follow them. Joe wants every information quickly when we get it."

     With the time I had in Novosibirsk and the plans that Dima had laid out, I was glad that we had trimmed the meetings he'd arranged down to four.  I also realized that even four meetings might be a problem if the timing wasn't right or if dealing with these two fellows according to Joe's new instructions got complicated.

     I realized I didn't know the woman's name sitting here in my room. I said, "You already know that my name is Bill. I don't know your name."

     "Cindy" she said. 

     "Oh come on. Your real name is...?" I countered with a frown.

     "I am known as Cindy here in Nowosibirsk. I don't want you to accidentally use my real name. I am Cindy until we finish Joe's job." she said with a very serious look on her face.

     "But Cindy isn't a real name here. Russians don't use that name do they?" I asked.

     "Prostitutes do. I will be 'working' in the lobby and around the hotel. You do your photos and radiation testing and I do my photos, interviews, and recordings."  I tried not to smile as she was telling me this looking straight at me very seriously. But, I am sure that I was visibly astonished.

     "You said there were three things from Joe." I reminded her.

     "Number 2 is that you should give me the envelopes from Joe that you were supposed to deliver and Number 3 is for you to do everything possible to travel back to Chelyabinsk without Dimitry."

     I gave Cindy the envelopes I had stuffed deep in my toolkit and tried not to think about letting Dima down on the trip for our Soyuz debris.  Cindy began to stand up to leave as she slipped the envelopes into her dress (I hadn't seen a pocket so I got the feeling she had just tucked them inside her underwear.)

     "These guys arrive in two days. Will we meet again to coordinate our activities? I still have a lot of questions." I asked feeling very nervous about these new instructions and not very confident about how to do what Joe was asking.

     "Of course, we will have a lot of time. Until they arrive, you are my only 'customer'.  We have this room to plan and coordinate."

     "Do you have your own room?" I asked sheepishly.

     "Yes...I have a place but I am trying to play like prostitutes here.  I should follow their rules so no one thinks I am different."  Cindy said.

     I knew enough about their world and how they talked about each other and understood that if Anatoly or Georg wound up being with one of the women that talked Cindy down, then her chances of success in this little adventure would be greatly reduced.

     Cindy got up and asked if she could use my bathroom to put on her makeup and go to work. I agreed and waited for her to come out as I started taking notes for my first speech at the Academy of Sciences. She came out in about 10 minutes.  Her transformation told me that she knew what she was doing.

     "My God! You are a different woman!" I exclaimed and felt my heart going a little faster as Cindy had stepped out of my bathroom looking twice as beautiful as any woman I had seen at the hotel so far.

     "Fifi 66...I am your only customer you said?" I asked feeling a little uncomfortable.

     "Until Thursday, Bill. Let's make some business together." She smiled and said.  "Please come down later and begin our acting.  I will make it easy for you. Don't worry. I am waiting."
   

   

The Intourist Siberia Hotel in Novosibirsk

     Very new construction in Novosibirsk in 1992 but not the best quality, Intourist Hotel Siberia in Novosibirsk was a lot like all the other Intourist services that had been cobbled together by the Soviets as international travelers sought to visit the USSR. Controlled and watched very closely by the government and the communist party, they saw opportunities to spread Soviet propaganda and to collect hard currency from Westerners that visited. The Intourist "chain" of hotels attempted to offer all of the services that international visitors might expect from a big and powerful country that had put the first man into space and was standing toe to toe with the United States as the Cold War raged. Dima, very proud of what the Soviets had accomplished and not shy about saying that he thought Gorbachev had ruined his country, put me up in the Intourist Siberia.

     Offering restaurants, cafes, a swimming pool, sauna, a games room, a bowling alley, lounges, and entertainment in the form of a night club and bar with live music and dancing; (most of which did not operate during my stay) the hotel should have focused on getting running water to its bathrooms, having light bulbs in lamps, stocking the restaurants with food and drink, and putting clean linens or duvet covers on beds. The walls in common areas were often unpainted and unplastered cinder block construction with Intourist Posters plastered around...the most interesting of all the artwork that was on display around the hotel.

     I was surprised by how bad it was considering my experiences in Moscow by that time. The Ukraina and Leningradskaya Hotels knew how to do things right even during the worst of times. Central Siberia had some catching up to do with the influx of tourists coming by train and plane. Novosibirsk would eventually become the third largest city in Russia and today there are more than a dozen four and five star hotels in the city that became famous as a center of science and technology mainly thru Novosibirsk State University. NSU can proudly claim itself as the producer of much of Russia's academic elite.  Those same claims were freshly being made in 1992 as I was there for the first time being hosted by my new friend Dima and his assistant, Sergey.  

     The Intourist was built for both the tourist and for visiting professors and researchers coming to NSU.  It is not difficult to tell the difference between a table with five physicists discussing high-energy physics in English, four businessmen speaking Italian and discussing their frustrations with banking in Russia, and a table where a family from Germany is visiting as tourists. The Intourist was filled with 75% the first type of visitor and 25% businessmen and tourists.  This overabundance of scholarly types did not stop the  prostitutes from camping out in all of the common areas and lounges during all times of the day.  As I entered my room for the first time, #738, I felt the door being held open as I carried my bags inside. The tall blonde woman in the yellow dress I had seen sitting in a chair by the elevator had followed me to my room. 

     "Hello. I am Lena. I am waiting for you near the lift." she thoughtfully let me know. I kind of laughed, said "Thank you" but closed the door quickly to make sure there was no doubt in my action or body language.  I felt so dirty after four days on the train without a decent shower I couldn't even imagine taking her up on her offer. From what I understood from Sergey, Dima wanted to have dinner at around 6 and would be there at about 5 in the lobby bar.  That gave me quite a bit of time to get cleaned up and relax.  

     A knock at the door interrupted my unpacking. I opened the door the two inches that the safety chain allowed and the room filled quickly with a cheap perfume I had smelled in flea markets in Krakow and sometimes in Moscow lounges. The woman at the door was a red-head with extremely over-done eye-liner and mascara. She asked if I would invite her in for tea or a cocktail. 

     ""No thank you. I am having a meeting soon. Good bye." I closed the door but had to push hard as she was pushing back on it.

     A call to the front desk followed this encounter, "Please ask the nice ladies in the hallway to leave me alone. I will not be needing their services. I am in room #738. Thank you."

     A man with a British accent replied, "Right right! We'll let them know, Sir!"

     With another knock at the door about five minutes later, I did not open it but loudly asked, "What is it?!"  

     "A gift from the front desk, Mr. Mays."  a male voice answered in English. I had already started to undress and asked him if he could leave it by the door. 

     "Not a good idea, it is champagne and some biscuits. It would be stolen in 5 minutes." the man replied.

     Surprised, I opened the door and took the bottle and box from the young bellman. I had two dollars in my pocket and gave them to him. He acted very surprised that I wanted to tip him. He seemed like a student-type and I wanted to make a friend here since the hotel was already presenting me with challenges.

     "How late are you working today?" I asked him through the small opening. 

     "Until midnight, Sir." he answered.

     "Maybe I will see you later, then. Thank you! What is your name?" I asked.

     "Vincent" he said. 

     "OK, Vincent. Thank you, again." I smiled through the crack in the door and then closed it.  I opened it again to watch him walking away. He looked about my height and had closely cropped brown hair with very Slavic features that could be Russian or Polish or any other Eastern European slav.  Depending on how long I stayed in Novosibirsk, a helpful assistant might be needed and since I was cash "heavy" these days, I thought about Vincent as a possible candidate.

***

     The front desk called up around 5:30 that afternoon to say that Dima had arrived and was waiting for me in the lobby bar. I was ready and headed out to meet him. By this time, three more women had joined the first blonde that I had seen sitting by the elevator. They were all either smoking or putting on makeup as they sat around a knee height table. I'd come out of my room quietly but there was one woman who had an eye on me and told the others I was coming their direction. I looked around to see if there were stairs I could take to avoid any unpleasant confrontations. No chance.

     "My friends have come so now you can choose.  You prefer blonde or brunette? Little big like Basia or small like me?" said the blonde I had met earlier.

     "Thank you. Good night, ladies." I said with a slight smile.

     "Why he said good night?" I heard someone ask another as the elevator door opened and I stepped in.

     "How was your trip Mr. Billy?! You covered thousands of kilometers going through the beautiful Russian countryside! It must have been a wonderful experience for you! Are you tired?" Dima loudly greeted me sitting one table away from the bar and bartender that was polishing glasses and putting ice cubes into a bowl. The bar looked strangely different from when I came through snooping for a place to get a beer or any drink for that matter. Nothing was available and it looked deserted just a couple of hours ago. Now there were actual liquor bottles on shelves and some cartons of juice were standing side by side...cherry, blueberry, elderberry, pineapple and orange.  And the ice really confused me. That was like a loaf of bread in China...out of place with the traditions and conditions that I thought I understood prevailed here.

     "If you want your beer, we have Budweiser for you. Would you like?" Dima asked me. Again, somewhat shocked but deciding not to act too surprised, I said, "Yes, a beer please and a shot of chilled vodka."

     "Chilled?" the bartender looked at Dima confused and asked.

     "Kholodno" he answered in Russian. The bartender nodded understanding.

     "Never too early for business but I want you to know that we have many official invitations to meet. Maybe too many. Some will be disappointed but I understand you have only 5 days for this part of your trip." Dima started our conversation.

     "Maybe more than five days if it is worth our time." I told Dima since my return to Chelyabinsk to meet Yuri and others was in not less than ten days.  On one hand I really hoped that I could come away from this part of the trip with good leads for Embassy Joe. On the other hand, I was scheming about sneaking back to find the family house where Katerina and Zhenia were staying to fill the time until I met Yuri.  

     "So tell me who is dying to meet with us, Dima? Also give me your opinion who we SHOULD meet with and why.  Let's assume that we have one full week here before we head back toward Chelyabinsk." I said to Dima as we munched on olives and peanuts, the only customers in the Intourist Hotel Siberia lobby bar.

     Dima motioned for the bartender to bring us our drinks. He looked at my beer, a Czech Budvar (Budweiser) and laughed.  "Breakfast drinks during business are bad luck but I'll let you have one first." he joked. I had noticed during our first meeting in Warsaw that he felt better when I drank vodka with him. As much as I hated to drink like this in a place I didn't know very well, I had a few shots...but a lot less than he did.

Chelyabinsk to Novosibirsk - A Glowing Report

     With another day ahead of me on this dirty train filled with cockroaches, very little water to drink, and that "duggity-duggity (2 seconds) duggity-duggity" sound non-stop, I decided to pull out and read some of the materials that Joe had given Yuri to deliver to me.  The train had finally pulled out of Chelyabinsk at 4pm  which would put us in Novosibirsk tomorrow around noon. A younger looking woman with two boys had planted herself in my compartment and immediately unhooked the upper and middle bunks allowing them to rest against the wall opposite my bunk. She looked at me and suggested I do the same so that no other passengers would be tempted to take the upper bunks...especially if the train didn't fill up as the afternoon progressed.

     Techniques for discouraging passengers from coming into your compartment ranged from spreading smelly food everywhere or placing baggage in such a way as to make others think that the compartment is full and the others are in the dining car. More aggressive tactics included putting a sign up that says "NO MORE PLACES" or "BUSY".  If the conductor came by and you gave him a few dollars, he might put the official sign up himself for you and deliver a nice cup of tea and cakes at some point in the journey.  That had happened to me several times traveling on Russian trains from Berlin to Warsaw.  On one of those occasions, the conductor had advised against coming out of my compartment until after the crossing into Poland. As I described in the previous book, On the Job Training, the rail car sleeper was systematically disassembled and all the smugglers on board were filling every possible hidden nick and cranny with goods (and whatever else) to avoid detection and, of course, to avoid paying customs duty or taxes.  Without borders to cross, I wasn't worried about customs issues but, judging from the crowds that were on the platform and the amount of luggage they were carrying, this rail route looked to be a major line. In fact, we were traveling on the same line as the famous Trans-Siberian Railway but a lot less elegant I was told.  The smells of Asian and Russian foods mixed in the dusty air as temperatures had gone up quite a bit and windows or vents were being forced open where it was possible.  Faces of travelers, often now began to reflect the changing ethnic groups here in the Caucasus and Central Asia. I pulled out my 'PLEASE READ" envelope from Embassy Joe that Yuri had given me and was given a bit of a lesson on this subject. More interesting though, was the info that the CIA was getting so early in 1992 on the relationship between entities that had access to nuclear materials and the groups that would be vying for and collaborating with local criminals to get the materials...and that also included the possibility of complete bombs.

This next part was for those that had been recruited like me:

********************************************

We know and are tracking organized terrorists actively engaged in using various criminal groups and corrupt connections to gain access to nuclear material and transport it to their desired locations. 

You are now involved in this tracking and reporting activity.

Similar to the US program that developed the atomic bomb, the Russians have organized and managed "closed cities" for decades. These cities are industrial towns that are organized to carry out the design and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction that includes nuclear bombs during the Cold War.  Within these closed cities, the criminal elements that could be motivated to sell materials to a terrorist include:  

• Convicts who have returned to the city • Ordinary workers motivated by non-payment of wages * Drug couriers/university students • Workers from the Tatar or Bashkir communities • City officials • Guards and disgruntled military and/or scientific personnel 

Once secured, nuclear material can be transported out of the cities via: • Corrupt soldiers among the military conscripts surrounding the city • a multitude of growing criminalized elements including "taxi services" and the so-called Russian Mafia groups • Construction industry transportation 

Once outside these closed cities, material can be transported by truck, rail, uncontrolled Russian airlines • experienced drug and gun runners supplying to southern republics for Muslim terrorist groups • Other ethnic criminal groups • Customs brokers •  

What is most important for you is that this material is already flowing out of these cities.  Through bribery and corruption at extreme levels, the security systems have been bypassed or disabled. The criminals within the closed cities and the terrorists are in the midst of wooing each other for their goods and money. This capacity for working together is growing.  Exacerbating this problem is the fact that law enforcement in these cities and in Siberian regions has deteriorated to the point that it is as corrupt as the criminal organizations we are talking about. The current political instability also adds to the uncertainty of the situation and the anarchic environment  that law enforcement officials are working in. While we are attempting to work with the former KGB in finding common ground for controlling this huge risk to the civilized world, we are not yet able to say that we have a good working relationship.  

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My general instructions to you:

Your role should remain passive and exploratory with the contacts you are going to make in Novosibirsk. Remain somewhat aloof while there and do not become a television personality...PLEASE!  Listen for opportunity. Don't believe everything that Dima says but be especially attentive to the nuclear group(s) and try to assess if they have information on the growing threat of criminal/terrorist marriages.  Stay clean in Novosibirsk and then when you meet Yuri in Chelyabinsk, we will ensure your safety going out to the Soyuz debris sites.  Yuri, Toshek and Vlad will take full responsibility for safety.  Do not risk your own safety if the sites are under criminal control...of any kind. If for some reason your security team doesn't show up at your appointed meeting time and place, give them a two day window and then leave if they have still not shown up. Vlad is also a little "on the edge" with an unpleasant task to complete that one of our partners threw in at the last minute. Give him some space for now.

(Now I understood Yuri's "two day window" request...and I wish I had read this before Vlad set out to decapitate me yesterday.)

     Thoughts of Artur and his magic fax machines in Warsaw began to come to my head. He'd said that all of his non-stop faxing had taken nearly a year to develop. The crazy nuclear material offers started coming a few months back. There had been one "special" Pole who had come to his office. He lived in Przemysl next to the Ukrainian border. He called himself "Scooby". We never knew his real name. He seemed filled with knowledge of what plants or factories beyond Samara were producing high value materials and acted willing to help Artur get involved in a "deal". Artur and I had surmised that this man's social skills and personal hygiene had precluded him from getting very far in a transaction but Artur's assessment of him was that he knew what he was talking about and probably had been approached by intelligence officers of at least one Western country to share his knowledge. (It was difficult to be in the same room with him for very long with his horrible body odor.) His German and Russian were perfect, though, and he spent all day on Artur's phone calling to Russia and to Germany.  He mysteriously disappeared about three months ago and the faxes from Samara, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Ozyorsk, Mayak, and others started up shortly thereafter. (Artur was left with a phone bill that was nearly $5000.)

     As I was getting up to speed on the geography and the demographics of these plants and the closed cities around Chelyabinsk, it started to make sense that Artur would eventually start getting such strategic material offers since most of the other metals refineries and chemical plants were located nearby. Scooby had probably given Artur's number to a lot of his agent contacts and, as the nuclear material market developed, Artur was on lists as an agent with possible buyers somewhere in his chain. Scooby always acted like I was some kind of "king pin" for Western contacts. Someone had told him that I hung out with the Kennedy Family when they were in Poland and he was certain I could pick up the phone and call anyone. He once suggested that I should call my "Kennedy Buddies" when he was pushing a deal to sell supertankers from Libya. He reasoned, "Kennedy family knows the Onassis crowd, so give your buddies a call and tell them they'll never get a better deal for a cheap supertanker parked 5 miles off the Port of Tripoli."

***

     The soup of the day in the dining car was goulash. Whatever the meat was in the goulash, it didn't look, taste, or behave like any meat I had ever eaten but it was a large portion and I ate it all. A mineral water and a small package of sugar wafer cookies and I was ready for a walk. My roommates in my compartment were eating sandwiches and sardines. The company was quite ok but I felt I should give the young mother some time without my presence. Most of the new passengers that had gotten on in Chelyabinsk had been able to get a proper seat in the compartments. Only a few passengers were sitting in the aisles on luggage or the pull down seats. It was quite easy, then, to make my way through the five cars that were all 2nd class compartments after car 7. In cars 11 and 12, I could see that there was somewhere between twenty and thirty workers in similarly designed coveralls. Most of them also had some kind of emblem on their left breast.

While not all of them had this emblem, ALL of them had the international radioactivity symbol at the bottom of the shirt.

    Staring at the symbol on their shirt breast pockets, I suddenly remembered about the secret cities of Chelyabinsk:  MAYAK, OZYORSK, Chelyabinsk-40, Chelyabinsk-65. These were all part of the Soviet Union's equivalent of the Manhattan Project. (Ozyorsk, Russia and Richland, WA have the distinction of being the first cities where plutonium was produced for the production of Cold War nuclear bombs.)  These workers were all from the Mayak facility in Ozyorsk...still a closed city due to the sensitive nature of the nuclear material that is produced.

(Take a look at Mayak now. The website has an English version you will see at this link:  https://www.po-mayak.ru/en/products_services/ )

Looking at these men getting drunk, probably headed home to villages outside the closed city after a week at the plant, it hit me that these are exactly the guys that could be pulling out material from the plant. I decided with some excitement to go back to my compartment and pull my trusty 007 geiger counter out of my toolkit stuffed deep in my bag.  Huffing and puffing as I finally made it to my compartment, nine rail cars toward the chugging locomotive, I saw that the young mother was napping with the smaller boy on her lap, also asleep, and the second boy was looking through one of my bags he had pulled out of my suitcase. Startled, I let out a loud, "HEY! Get out of there! Goddamnit!" To which the little boy started crying and jumped on top of his mother, who was already looking for something to swat him with. He tried to hug her as she was slapping him across the face. I turned my attention back to my things on the floor and saw that he had only gotten to my clothes and toiletries. Much further and he would have found my cute little leather "toolkit" and been playing with my ultra sharp self-defense tool and other spy-delights. He'd have probably cut his own tongue off if he'd put the scalpel-like blade in his mouth or sliced a finger badly if he'd run the blade along his hand.

     The mother calmed down and I put my bag up on the highest bunk with a double finger to the little boy saying "NO-NO!".  I left the compartment with my geiger counter (GC) stuffed in my coat and the cord to the sensor bar down my sleeve to my hand where I could turn the machine on and off without being seen.

     It took about 5 to 7 minutes to get back to the 2nd Class cars where the men were. In my haste to grab the GC, I'd completely forgotten to turn the volume down on the machine. As I entered the car where I'd seen most of the men, I touched the on switch and got a very loud positive sound for radioactivity. The flow of particle detection sounded more like a fire-hose on high.  I wasn't even anywhere near these guys and it was already going off. I thought about it for a moment and then decided to go to the bathroom to turn the "squelch" down on the device so that background radiation would be minimized and only relative increases would register. I turned the volume down, as well. Testing it, I pointed it at various things in the bathroom and got extremely high readings, especially on the floor and in the garbage receptacle.

     Coming out into the corridor, I put my hand up faking a stretching movement and touched the sensor wand to a bag that had one of the Mayak symbols on it, I could hear the crackling "flow" of particle detection going off as the wand brushed the bag. Noticing that the men were frequently going to the bathroom at the opposite end of the corridor, I planted myself on a seat nearest the compartments they were crammed in and easily allowed  5 or 6 guys to pass as I lightly touched their pant legs. Three out of the half dozen men were hotter than anything I had seen in the Krakow markets for Russian traders after the Chernobyl accident in 1986.  By comparison, the other people going by me were registering about the same as when I tested myself. The lower I got to the floor, the more radioactive I was. One lady passed with potatoes and some kind of vegetables in her bag. That bag was just as hot as the floor...off the scale.

     The GC was recording the measurements I was taking so I didn't have to memorize anything other than WHAT I was testing.  I stopped my experiment pretty convinced that when the sun went down we would all be glowing brightly in the Russian Siberian night.  These men looked to be blue collar workers from the Mayak factory. Their hands did not look to be pushing pens very much. Machinists, material handlers, millwrights, steam fitters, carpenters, steel workers, operators, and who knows what else they did.  I had no idea when they would be getting off the train but decided to go back to my compartment. My guess was that, since this train would be stopping soon in a small village, they'd likely be getting off there. I'd seen enough.

     The Global Security website devoted to monitoring the "progress" of reducing the spread of WMD around the world has a very good description of the history of the nuclear work done at Mayak and other facilities in the area. https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/chelyabinsk-65_nuc.htm
One of the paragraphs is particularly alarming as it describes the type of extremely dangerous materials that these guys had access to at the time of this trip of mine:

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"Chelyabinsk-65 has also been producing tritium and other special isotopes. At present, tritium and other isotopes (plutonium-238, cobalt-60, carbon-14, irridium-192, and others) are produced by the reactors "Ruslan" (start-up in 1979), and "Ludmila" (start-up in 1986-87).

Tritium is transferred to the Mayak's tritium plant, producing tritium components of nuclear warheads. The isotopes are transferred to the radioisotope plant (in operation since 1962), which manufactures alpha-, gamma-, and beta radiation sources, plutonium-238 and strontsium-90 thermal generators, and a wide range of radionuclides.

At present, three production lines of the RT-1 plant reprocess spent LEU fuel from VVER-440 reactors as well as HEU fuel from BN-600, naval propulsion, research and material production reactors. In addition to reprocessing of spent fuel, the RT-1 plant is a storage site for approximately 30 t reactor-grade plutonium, and is involved in radioactive waste management, and research and pilot production of uranium-plutonium MOX fuel."

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No finer dirty bomb could be made from the materials described above!  It is also worth looking into the horrible accidents that have occurred at these locations and at the nuclear generating facilities nearby. They rank up with Chernobyl and Fukushima in severity and the degree of human exposure to radioactivity.

***

     As I guessed, all the men were gone by the time I got to the dining car at around 7 the next morning. My chef friend had been replaced by a younger cook that smiled at me as I sat down at the same booth that Katerina, Zhenia, and I had had our first meeting. Just like everything else, as we headed East, the products offered for sale and the menu were evolving into more Asian flavors. He knew I was an American and offered scrambled eggs and toast with a special "off the menu" cup of coffee. I gladly accepted. He was from Uzbekistan and had a Ukrainian wife that spoke Polish. He understood everything I said in Polish and was happy to be serving someone who smiled at him.

     Taking my empty plate and cup up to him, I asked him if he was living around Chelyabinsk. He nodded and said he was from a village an hour away. I asked if he knew much about the radiation accidents that had occurred around Chelyabinsk over the years. He looked stricken with fear when I asked and told me that his parents and he had been forcibly relocated after such an event. He added, "No one in my family had felt the same since. We are chronically tired and always sick. All my aunts, three of them, have died mysteriously before they were 60 years old."  The way he described the accident (at least what he knew of it) it sounded like it was part of a well known accident near Chelyabinsk:

(From www.globalsecurity.org)
"the September 1957 explosion that occurred in a radioactive waste storage site involved some 20 million curies of material. A cooling system of a radioactive waste containment unit malfunctioned, and some 2 million curies spewed across Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Tyumen Oblasts covering a total area of 23,000 square kilometers inhabited by a quarter of a million people. Massive evacuations of the population were taken. Significant radioactive contamination covered an area of more than 800 square kilometers, and there are areas where the concentration of Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 are still hazardous to human health."  

     
     Dima had a man waiting for me on the platform at the station with a large sign that read, "Wilkommen Herr Mayes" as the train pulled up. He guessed correctly that I would be in a 1st Class car and I saw the sign a half mile before the train got to the station. (The damn thing was six feet long and four feet high decorated with American flags...but written in German.) I asked him in German why it was not in English and he said, "I don't speak English, why would I make a sign in English?"