Six o'clock in the morning came unusually quickly for me. Cindy was up as usual doing her bathroom routine and I decided to take a stroll in the hallways...gravitating toward room 605. Padding down the stairs one level and then down the hall as quietly as I could, I noticed that the door to room 608, about 20 feet past 605 on the opposite side of the hall was open about four inches. I slowed and then saw our young friend from yesterday sitting on the floor with a notepad. I stopped and pushed the door open a little. He looked a little shocked but I smiled and whispered, "Thank you...but please be careful." I then pulled the door back to where he had had it and continued down the hall. I took the stairwell on the opposite end of the hall up to the seventh floor and then went back to my room. Cindy was towel drying her hair and turned around smiling when I came in.
"Having breakfast with Georg and Anatoly this morning?" she jokingly quipped.
"I wanted to but they were still snoring. I saw our young hero from yesterday on duty. He is in room 608 waiting for something to happen."
"I have some important news for us." Cindy said with a little more concern than I'd seen in her.
"Interesting. Please tell me." I said.
"Looking at the negatives from the last photo I took when the bag was partially opened on the floor yesterday, I would say that the container is for enriched uranium. The symbol we saw next to the radioactivity warning definitely starts with U2. The rest is not visible. But, I know a little about the standard cases used to transport U235 fully enriched uranium and I would say that they are definitely in possession of a weapons grade uranium container. Does that mean U235 is inside that container? Not necessarily...but I don't know."
"Should I call the embassy and try to talk to Joe?" I asked Cindy
"No. I already got some information from him." Cindy admitted.
"I guess you didn't get much sleep then." I said with a frown.
Cindy continued, "We are waiting for the call from Switzerland or wherever it will be from. There will be extra ears on that call and we will know what to do soon after. It is likely that we take the stuff from Anatoly and Georg."
"Somebody's likely losing their balls, then." Surprised, I said very seriously. Cindy rolled her eyes.
I thought about it. It made sense. The call gets successfully traced and enough information is gleaned from it to understand who the intended buyer is. The hijacked material needs to end its journey here. I was actually feeling I would be relieved to see this job end now. The last thing I wanted was to be told by Joe that I am assigned to be the naive American heading to Uzbekistan in a sleeping compartment with two guys carrying enough fissile material to blow up a city of 1.5 million people.
Cindy interrupted my thoughts as they were drifting towards mushroom clouds and armageddon, "Another little detail for you: We will probably have to share the room a night with one more person you know. Your old friend Toshek is arriving today late in the evening. He is coming here from Krasnoyarsk. It is possible that you and he will travel together back to Chelyabinsk. If the call comes from Switzerland, he will probably help with taking the Uranium. It is his specialty."
"Uranium is his specialty or taking things from people is his specialty?" I asked quite seriously.
"Definitely the second thing you said." Cindy replied shaking her head up and down.
Very surprised by hearing that Toshek was coming through Novosibirsk from Krasnoyarsk, a day's trip to the East, I just couldn't believe it. "But wait a minute. I left Toshek about two hours the other side of Chelyabinsk in the middle of nowhere just three days ago. He is coming from Krasnoyarsk? That is another day east of here. He would have to be traveling almost non-stop to be in Novosibirsk heading west on his way back to Chelyabinsk!"
"Sounds exactly like Toshek's usual program. Not unusual at all." Cindy said trying to sound nonchalant. "Toshek is the king trader of ichthyol ointment. Between jobs for Joe or whoever, he is always transporting or arranging transport for ichthyol concentrate going to the West."
"Masc ichthiolowa?" I asked. (Polish for ichthyol creme or salve) "That stuff for boils and other skin problems that's in every Polish grandmother's medicine cabinet?"
"Correct! Toshek is famous as the Ichthyol Man." she quickly agreed.
"Weird stuff" I commented. "I am surprised that it has a market in the West."
"Western European doctors have been using it a long time but the concentrate in raw form is best from deep inside Russia and China." Cindy knew something about it I could see.
Wikipedia helps us here:
***
More impressive to me than Toshek's fame as the Ichthyol Man was Cindy's up to the minute knowledge of so many things. She'd done all the photo development without a lab while I was sleeping. She had constant contact with Embassy Joe. She somehow knew about Toshek's whereabouts and impending arrival, and now was part of a plan being formulated to seize the uranium when given the green light after the phone call from Switzerland. I started to realize that my question about being a prostitute was really stupid. What a super-spy she was. I didn't have a lot to compare her to since she was the first real spy that I had collaborated with, but it was clear to me that her skills were impressive and my own awkward efforts were greatly overshadowed by what she was capable of...and actually doing.
Cindy finished with her "ready routine" (shower, hair and makeup) and said she wanted to talk to the boy in 608 and Vincent, if he was in yet. Rushing off with a quick wave in my direction, I decided to give Dima a call to find out when our next MBA dog and pony show would be. Those meetings were producing good contacts for my guy Joe at the embassy and I wanted to get as many of them done up to the point of the call from Switzerland. I'd nearly missed out on the action here at the hotel during the last meeting at NSU so I knew that I was risking the same by leaving again. We had no idea when the call would be coming in and it was pretty certain that Anatoly and Georg would move quickly when they got instructions.
During the call, I begged Dima to keep our meeting short. He was already acting on the RFP idea for dozens of institutes and collecting money for each. His obsession with setting up small meetings was starting to die, so I was no longer fighting his earlier over-exuberance to "meet and greet" every academic group in town. Nevertheless, we were scheduled as guests during the weekly board meeting of the Techno-Park. They were well funded by at least a dozen academic groups and close to 100 business interests in Novosibirsk and had regular guest speakers from around the former Soviet Bloc exploring economic reforms and how to implement market reforms in such a wayward corner of the Russian Federation. As this had been my original reason for going to Poland back in 1983, I was more than a little interested in attending this session. It was also the group that Embassy Joe's people had identified as Dima's core people that could be suspect of plotting to secure radioactive materials for big money. I really needed to attend this meeting and get as many contacts as possible.
During the call, I begged Dima to keep our meeting short. He was already acting on the RFP idea for dozens of institutes and collecting money for each. His obsession with setting up small meetings was starting to die, so I was no longer fighting his earlier over-exuberance to "meet and greet" every academic group in town. Nevertheless, we were scheduled as guests during the weekly board meeting of the Techno-Park. They were well funded by at least a dozen academic groups and close to 100 business interests in Novosibirsk and had regular guest speakers from around the former Soviet Bloc exploring economic reforms and how to implement market reforms in such a wayward corner of the Russian Federation. As this had been my original reason for going to Poland back in 1983, I was more than a little interested in attending this session. It was also the group that Embassy Joe's people had identified as Dima's core people that could be suspect of plotting to secure radioactive materials for big money. I really needed to attend this meeting and get as many contacts as possible.
Cindy came back as I was in the last stages of getting ready for my meeting. She was again very focused on details that were important if and when the call came in. She filled me in on her meeting with Vincent and the young boy. The boy in 608 was completely asleep when she knocked on his door and suggested that he get some sleep for later. He was happy to comply...and to be getting paid for it. Vincent was behind the reception desk and Cindy talked to him about allowing her to take a look at the ancient phone switching gear that the hotel was equipped with. After the manager on duty went out for a smoke, Vincent took her immediately to the phone room and she tied our room phone line to the phone line for 605. I wondered (and asked) how she had done it without making our line accessible to Anatoly and Georg. She just looked at me and winced. I assumed that meant that I needed to learn something about tracing and bugging calls.
"We'll know exactly when the call comes in and be able to listen to it. That call will be heard in Warsaw, in Washington DC, Zurich, and somewhere between Afghanistan and Kazakhstan...wherever Joe has his southern team working. " Cindy said.
"...and Room 734 at the Intourist in Novosibirsk!" I added. "How did Vincent react to you messing with the hotel phone system?"
"He let me do it. Didn't say anything. I think he assumes that everyone is doing some kind of dirty business. Since he kind of knows now that there is something terribly wrong with these guys, he's happy to help for now." Cindy answered.
"Do you think the rest of the hotel staff suspects anything about us?" I asked.
"They do but, just like Vincent, there is so much corruption around here, they are happy that guns aren't being used and people aren't dying in the hotel...yet." Cindy answered.
I wondered if she was armed and, if so, whether she was prepared to shoot anyone. With those sentiments from Cindy, I thought I might extend my meeting with the Techno-Park guys today.
***
Dima admitted that this was the group that he had been talking about when we met at the Marriott in Warsaw. He'd described academic professionals and business people working together on "projects". As he drove the Volga through the pothole filled streets on this sunny day in Novosibirsk, again towards the Akademgorodok, he got sentimental telling of the "sadness of the falling of the Soviet Union" and the resulting power vacuums that were created in all of the State dependent science and technology organs in this part of Russia. I got brave and asked him if the nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons industry had in any way been compromised by this "power struggle". He admitted that he knew that there was talk of it in the West but he couldn't believe that there was anyone in the "inner circle" of weapons bases and weapon building that could ever betray the motherland .
"Not even for huge money?" I asked. "A million tax-free dollars goes a long ways in this part of the world."
Dima was silent. It dawned on me that I may have gone a bit too far with this discussion since lab testing on his own briefcase had detected nerve gas and a trace amount of plutonium that had recently been carried in that diplomatka, with his knowledge or not.
Dima eventually responded to my "huge money" question. "Big money can make most people do stupid things. That is what government is for. Scare you enough to be good and not try to do, 'numer stulecia'". He added, "I think you know this phrase, 'numer stulecia' in Polish."
("Numer stulecia" is an expression in Polish that describes an enormous deal or transaction. The "deal of a lifetime" might be the best translation.)
"I DO know that expression, Dima. It sometimes worries me that the economic climate here is so bad that even your closest friends that we are meeting today are capable of something stupid possibly."
This time Dima did not comment.
We arrived at the Techno-Park building, parked in a reserved space, and were whisked up to the main conference room on the 10th floor where thirty or more men and women (there were actually quite a few women) were sitting in high backed leather chairs talking loudly and passing out waters and sodas so that everyone had one of each at the 30 odd places at that huge table. Lenin, Marx, and Engels were on the wall but so were Einstein, Tesla, and Abraham Isahakovich Alikhanov. (Russia's #1 particle physicist). I liked this kind of meeting because it allowed me to meet and possibly talk to every single person there. Dima spent two minutes pointing out who was who, instead of formally introducing every single person. Most of this crowd was composed of physicists, chemists, metallurgists, research engineers, aeronautical engineers, and then business people labelled as either marketing, finance, or operations for the various institutes that were represented. As I had come to realize over the years in Russia, scientists were a lot more fun to be around than bureaucrats and the nomenclatura that had been elevated to their positions by appointment from the communist party. I think I would have been able to guess with at least a 90% success rate who was a scientist or engineer and who was from the nomenclatura just by looking at them. (Scientists knew how to laugh and tell a good joke.)
Dima suddenly opened the meeting with a loud announcement that we should begin and the Techno-Park Director, Sergey, quickly thanked everyone for coming and introduced me. Very little in the way of juicy patriotism entered my talk today. Dima said that probably half of the people here had been at the NSU session and didn't need to hear another proud speech about their motherland. I spent 15 minutes describing MBA required courses in the US, deciding on a specialization, how the elective system usually works, and finally gave an example of business community cooperation and recruitment that goes hand in hand with many MBA programs.
When I finished and asked for questions, the discussion became quite heated over whether the program should be an MBA or a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration). Since the European Master's degree is the first degree earned after high school, it was suggested that they offer only a PhD in Business Administration. MBA didn't sound impressive enough. As that argument got going in the room, I suddenly recognized a face from Poland. Wladek Kruk, the Operations Director for FEDEX where I had worked at PZL, the FEDEX agent, was sitting at the table smiling at me. His "hi-rise" spiked hair cut and toothy smile were staring right at me. How I'd missed him, I don't know. The crowd was so engaged in the discussion, I got up and walked over to Kruk and shook his hand. He insisted on the traditional three cheek kiss so that caught the attention of those sitting around Kruk.
"What the hell are you doing here, Kruk?" I happily asked, using the last name we always used for Wladek.
"I flew one of our Antonov An-2 planes here yesterday delivering something from the Polish government and saw your name on an announcement in the dormitory where I am staying. They said I was welcome to come and see you." Kruk explained starting off in English then apologetically switching to Polish like he had always done in Poland as my operations guy.
"Isn't that the old Antonov that was like a 30's era bi-plane...two wings...upper and lower?" I asked Kruk because I couldn't imagine flying such an antique all the way here.
"Yes, exactly!" Kruk got excited that I remembered. "I stopped four times along the way. Beautiful trip! Maybe you will ride back with me?!" Kruk got even more excited at the thought of us hanging out a while together.
*************************
Kruk had been such a hard worker at PZL/FEDEX in Warsaw, I was very sad for him when FEDEX backed out of the contract and left all those people in the lurch. He was particularly fun to be around when we would travel on the job. His favorite line in English when he was excited was, "Oh my God! I'm going to pee all over my self!" Try that on for size when you are having dinner with the CEO of the European FEDEX group and Kruk gets excited telling about a work related incident. He probably heard that from a child when he went to America many years ago and thought it was a great line. The only real problem with Kruk was that when he got nervous or upset, his sweat glands went into overdrive. And not ordinary sweat glands. His produced an odor that made it very difficult to be around. One time, we were having considerable success clearing packages from customs for on-time delivery. The atmosphere was light and he smelled like an ordinary guy. Within a half hour, the customs agent suddenly became very difficult to work with and frustration set in. We'd slowed down so much that it was clear we'd not make the train departure to send packages to Krakow. Kruk's sweat glands got to working and it was impossible to be in the same space with him for the rest of the afternoon. The customs agent shut down our clearing space and told us to come back tomorrow.
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Kruk was especially hard hit by the fall of FEDEX in Poland. Ryszard Leja, the General Manager for FEDEX's agent, PZL, fired everyone connected to the FEDEX contract when news broke that the American express delivery company was high-tailing it out of Europe. Kruk had worked for PZL for nearly 30 years and had expected to leave on good terms eventually. He had been a flight engineer turned pilot and probably had done some work for the Polish intelligence agencies flying near the Western borders taking pictures of whatever the Soviet partners were taking pictures of in the 70's and 80's. When I had packed my things in my office, Kruk was the only PZL boss that bothered to come and say "Good-bye" as I was leaving. He told me he had been fired and would gladly work for me if I "started something". He said he liked the adventure of business startups and all the action associated with FEDEX's beginning. (As it turned out, Ryszard Leja hired him back to run an Air Delivery Service throughout the former Soviet-Bloc. This trip to Novosibirsk had been one of his important deliveries for the Polish government.)I had a real soft spot in my heart for Kruk and was very happy to see him in Novosibirsk that day. Unable to really spend more than a few minutes getting caught up, he quickly jotted his phone number at the dormitory where he was staying and his room number on a small wrinkled piece of paper.
I left the event early again without Dima when a phone message was delivered to me in the conference room. It read:
"The Swiss Show has started at the hotel. Please come quickly!...Cindy"
Kruk, who had come just to see me, wasn't interested in anything going on at the meeting and followed my as I was running towards the taxi line in front of the Techno-Park building. He called out to me when he saw I was going to hail a cab, "Hey Bill! I can drive you! I've got a car for the day. It's here! Let me take you wherever you need to go!"
"Kruk! You are a savior! Thank you! It's the Intourist Hotel. Do you know where it is?"
"Yes, yes. No problem." Kruk sped off in the East German Trabant ignoring lights and stop signs. I'd forgotten that he was the worst driver I'd ever been a passenger in a car with. I then started thinking about my fear of flying and if I could ever imagine flying with him as a pilot.
"How long are you in town, Kruk?" I asked him over the loud noise that the two-stroke engine of the Trabant was making.
"Two more days only. My plane threw a piston rod on the way here. I am having the engine redone."
"I will call you late tomorrow and invite you here for a drink." I offered.
As we pulled up to the hotel, I pointed to a street corner on the side entrance and said, "I have to run! Thank you, Kruk!" With that I opened the door and was in a full sprint toward the side entrance of the hotel hoping not to be caught in the middle of something Toshek and Cindy were staging. I also wondered if Toshek had arrived.
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