Bad Guys Bushwhacked

     Toshek and Cindy were talking very quickly when I burst into the room and, at that pace, in Russian, I could hardly pick up on details, but knew that they were coordinating their activities. Toshek nodded to me when I rushed in with his best -- almost toothless -- smile. From years of adjusting his mouth to show what teeth he still had, his smile curved to the left exposing the couple of teeth on that side. They went on talking and it sounded like there were four or five scenarios in which Toshek felt confident enough to enter our friends' room but he needed X amount of time if scenario one was initiated and Y amount of time if scenario two was opted for...and so on. Cindy kept saying "da" to each scenario but took no notes. I could also tell that there were others involved and waiting somewhere outside the hotel. There were policemen or some kind of law enforcement and there was a hazmat truck mixed in somehow. It was going to be my job to call Vincent when the operation began. He would be waiting down in the lobby for my call and was to step outside and raise both his hands as a signal to whomever these other people were.

     As their conversation slowed a little, I dared to interrupt and ask what was known about the call everyone had been waiting for.

     "Call was from Zurich. It has been traced and we were given the OK to pick up the hot bad stuff. There will be a hazmat truck from the Physics Institute at NSU and some Americans are waiting too."

       I was surprised and reacted. "Americans?!"

      "They never tell me and I am always confused.  You have too many intelligence agencies and you think you can send your legal people anywhere in the world when there is action." Cindy commented. "I just hope they don't fuck this thing up if it gets messy."

     "Legal people?  Like DOJ?" I asked
     "That's it." She said.

      Just as Dennis Jakoboski from Teledyne in Krakow had told me some time ago, DOJ guys are everywhere looking for evidence of international crimes. I thought it extremely brave of them to be in the heart of Russia's nuclear weapons belt throwing their weight around...if that was, indeed, who they were.

     The phone rang interrupting our conversation. Cindy snatched the receiver off the hook.

     "Da?! Georg?! He is downstairs in the bar now?" She asked.  As quickly as she picked up the phone, she threw the receiver down now and ran into the bathroom, shutting the door and yelling for me to pull a dress from the closet. "Daj mi sukienka najbardziej seksowna wedlug ciebie!"  ( Give me what you think is the sexiest dress. She said it in perfect Polish as if only we would understand...but of course Toshek could understand Polish, as well.)

     Since it was still late afternoon and the sun was quite a ways up, I avoided what appeared to be a leopard skin suit with lion fur and opted for a skimpy LBD (little black dress). She smiled at me as I opened the door and handed it to her...of course seeing her completely naked for the first time. Compared to her morning ready routine, she was out in record time and even had a decently done face on...albeit a tad sexier than usual...if I could be the judge.

     "Call Vincent and make sure he stays in the lounge! I'll be down in two minutes. Tell him to have an orange juice waiting for me at the bar!" Cindy anxiously barked out orders.

     Before she left, she quietly described to Toshek that she was going to keep Georg in the bar until we called down to say it was over or until she saw Anatoly and Georg being hauled out. Toshek looked a little scared but grinned and told her to be careful.  I couldn't be sure of it but I think Toshek asked Cindy if she needed anything to put in his drink. She emphatically shook her head , "NO".

     Cindy left and Toshek took a straight on stance in front of me to emphasize he wanted no misunderstanding between us about what was going to happen. He then said very slowly, "I am going in to Room 605 and will try to open or unlock the outside door to the suite where the uranium is. When I enter the room, call Vincent. He will signal to our outside help."  (The door to the small suite would not open from the hall.) "Anatoly will try to fight or argue with me. You will hear us. Go into the room and get the bags and take them to the waiting people downstairs. You must act very quickly...but do not disturb the bags too much...like dropping them. You understand why?!"

     "Possible criticality I suppose."  I said very nervously.

     Toshek grabbed a large towel from my bathroom. He also took the floor mop that was in the shower room...removing the mop head quickly and then soaking one of the towels before we left my room.  We sprinted down the hall and then down the stairwell to the sixth floor. Toshek went straight to the door to 605 and put his ear to it. He slowly checked to see if the door was locked. It was. I backed up and partially hid inside a small linen storage closet but with a full view of what Toshek was doing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an interestingly shaped metal rod and slipped it up his sleeve out of sight while he continued to listen with his ear glued to the door.  As he was standing there and I was hunched over looking at him, the little boy hiding in 608 opened the door slowly. Seeing him, I suddenly realized that I could call Vincent or tell the boy to call Vincent the moment Toshek entered the room. I'd suddenly broken into a nervous sweat realizing that I would lose precious time if I had to run back to my room to call and then hope that it wasn't too late to grab the hot bad stuff from the suite as Toshek had instructed me. Or worse, come back from my room and find Toshek beaten to death by Anatoly...who looked like a large version of Vladimir Putin and about five times meaner. (Even with his shirt on!)

     I walked over to the boy and told him to call Vincent downstairs the moment that Toshek entered the room. I also told him to close the door and do not come out until all the commotion ends.  And, as my Mother said to me many times during tornado warnings in Oklahoma, "Go lie down in the bath tub and don't move until it's safe!"

     Several minutes had passed and Toshek had not moved an inch. He had the wooden mop handle and towel in one hand and the door "jimmie" tool in the other. The towel was dripping on the floor and in that tense silence, I could hear the "plop...plop...plop" as the water began to form a small puddle at his left foot.  Toshek turned his head toward me after another minute and signaled that Anatoly was on the phone. He returned to his stance with his ear glued to the door. Another minute may have passed and then Toshek started to bob his head up and down. He turned to me and winked and then slipped the jimmie tool between the door and the frame where he guessed the bolt of the door handle would be. I was surprised by how quiet it had been. I turned to see if the young boy understood that this was the moment we had been waiting for and he shook his head and shut the door to go call Vincent.  Toshek stood at the open door for about five seconds and then I understood why he had chosen that moment to enter. I could hear the shower or bathwater running in the bathroom.

     In that ten minutes leading up to Toshek's entry to room 605, things down in the lobby were going well enough for Cindy and her attempt to keep Georg busy. While she had not said what she was going to do to "keep him busy", I assumed that she'd come on to him as one of the women of the lobby and promise him something lovely later on. She had entered the lobby bar lounge and grabbed her OJ that was waiting for her at the bar. Vincent had poured it himself and then pointed to it as she walked passed him scanning the room to see where Georg was sitting. When she finally spotted him, she realized he was in a spot looking out the window that would probably be the best vantage point to witness the approaching police and hazmat van in about five minutes. As nervous a guy as he was, he'd put two and two together quickly and cause a bigger problem than we already were trying to manage. She had to act quickly to get him re-positioned somewhere in the bar. According to Vincent, her "methods to entice him elsewhere were extremely effective". With a well placed hand to the back of his neck and something whispered in his left ear...the side of the head pointed toward the window...he stood with her and they fled to a dark corner, where they stayed...until the policemen came with clubs and guns to take him away. Poor Cindy got a bit of blood on the side of her face as Georg protested initially when asked to lie on the ground face down with his hands out from his sides. The billy club cracked him across the side of his face and nose. It was the blood from the nose that got on her. She later told me she was glad I picked the little black dress since the blood was not noticeable.

     Back at room 605, Toshek turned to the left after entering the room, away from the shower sounds and walked up to the door of the  suite room where we assumed the "bads" were.  But a naked and surprised Anatoly stepped out of the bathroom and saw Toshek reaching for the door handle. Anatoly screamed something unrecognizable at the top of his lungs and Toshek whirled around swinging the mop handle at Anatoly's head. Anatoly caught the full force of the wooden handle on his forearm and screamed in pain. Toshek then jabbed  the handle into his stomach, pulled it out, and gave Anatoly a hard crack to his left knee. Anatoly went down and was still yelling.  With the skill of a western calf roper, Toshek then flipped the wet towel around Anatoly's neck and shoved one end of the towel in his mouth. The move ended with a foot on Anatoly's neck and head, placed so that the towel was securely in his mouth and Anatoly's air flow could be "adjusted" with a slight tug.  The door was open all this time and, to our misfortune, that noise got the attention of the one security guard in the hotel that we had all forgotten about as we had planned our action. The security guard ran into the room and blocked the door saying he would kill anyone who tried to leave.  I am sure that a bloody, naked man in the middle of his own room, being strangled by two guys looking like thieves did not weigh very heavily in our favor. He spoke no English so I told Toshek to tell him to call Vincent downstairs and everything would be clear. He had a walkie-talkie and did so.

     Five tense minutes ensued and the guard finally motioned for me to leave when he understood from Vincent that the whole hotel was now involved in the anti-terrorist action.  I then entered the suite slowly. To my right were the two bags, sitting on the floor next to a sofa.  I gingerly lifted them and was surprised by how heavy they were. I didn't relish the thought of hugging them close to my body but as I tried to get a good hold on them, they would begin to slip. Holding them next to my chest was the only way I was going to make it all the way down the hall to the elevator and then down to the lobby. Luckily, the hazmat team, looking like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon's surface with full coverage suits, met me as I was approaching the elevators. They pointed to my heavy bags and motioned for me to put everything down on the floor, go back to my room, and shut the door. The police...or whoever they were...came right behind hazmat and nearly ripped the door off of room 605.  Dressed in grey camouflage with a variety of hand weapons on their belts and an AK 47 in their hands, the two SWAT team guys grabbed Anatoly who again was screaming as he spit out the towel he'd been sucking on. They threw him to the ground and wrenched his broken arm behind his back. These SWAT Team looking guys lifted Anatoly, each had one arm and one leg, and took him out of the building screaming the whole time.

     Toshek and I scurried back to my room on the 7th floor. His first words when we walked into the room were, "You know anyone that wants to buy a ton of Ichthyol concentrate?  I can have it delivered FOB Krasnoyarsk or CIF Kiev. No better quality.  No first aid kit should be without it!"  Yes, I could see that, above all, even after saving the Western world from another terrorist threat, Toshek was, more importantly, the Ichthyol King of Central Siberia.

     Cindy was not far behind us. She came in during Toshek's ichthyol sales pitch. Knowing exactly what it was for, she jokingly said she might need it rubbed all over her body after what she had just been through with Georg.

     "Not a good idea." quipped Toshek.  "Not recommended for large areas of skin." he added.

     Cindy rolled her eyes and asked if she could shower again. I nodded my head and pointed to the bathroom hoping she would take a long bath. Vincent had told me that she and Georg had been quite "engaged" as she was doing everything she could to keep him downstairs and occupied until the SWAT team arrived.

     "Give me 30 minutes?" Cindy asked. Toshek and I nodded at the same time.

     "So, I have a couple of questions, Toshek." I started as I was curious about a few things.

     "About ichthyol?" Toshek asked with hope in his voice.

     "No. Not exactly. Who were the SWAT guys? They didn't say much and they didn't show any badges or credentials."  I asked.

      Toshek pondered his answer for a moment,  "Let's call them locals with Western and Eastern anti-terrorist training. Your Joe Guy at Embassy has paid them for services more than once."

     "So, this anti-terrorist activity is all under ground? Nothing official? But who is leading it?"  I asked really wondering who was pulling all the strings.

     "No leaders but three or four very strong actors that sometimes make quick decisions and then inform the other three.  Might be something happens that Israeli's are coordinating and then Americans come in and help or take over. Problem for me is that I worry someone might get confused and decide I am bad guy. That's why I take money from everyone."   Toshek was saying a lot more than I expected and it matched what Yuri had said on our train trip from Samara. He added, "Risky business like this makes me hope for big success with ichthyol selling."

     "Good luck with that Ichthyol stuff!"  I told him. "It saved my ass more than once." I added.

     Toshek laughed when he realized I was talking about my own terrible boils.  I actually hated that stuff. It took a long time to work and was very unpleasant as pressure built up in the sore.

     Cindy called out from the bathroom interrupting my conversation with Toshek.  "Bill...can you come in, please. We need to make some decisions."

     "OK...you are decent?" I asked as I slowly opened the door.

     "Why do you ask if I am decent? In this case does it mean 'good' or 'not-naked'? Cindy asked shyly.

     "Not naked", I replied.

     "You won't see much. Come in, please." Cindy urged.

     "OK...can I sit here?" I asked as I pointed to the toilet seat where her LBD was sitting. I picked it up and draped it over the towels that were hung on the rack.

     Cindy, naked but completely covered by bubbles in the tub with only her head showing, said in a very serious voice, "Joe says we have some problems in Chelyabinsk with Yuri and Vlad. We need to be there latest time tomorrow afternoon but we already missed the night train."

     "You and Joe have been talking here while you are taking a bath?  I asked her more than a little confused.

     "I get messages during the day. Joe gave me magic message machine.  My message says we three should all go together to Chelyabinsk. Flying is better if we can do it." Cindy acted like she was telling me more than Joe would have liked me to know, so I did not ask anything more about her magic message machine.  (I later found out that she was getting coded telegrams from the hotel office. I never asked her if that was her magic message machine but assumed it was.)

     The offer to fly home with my old friend, Kruk, in his 60's era Antonov- 2, was still fresh on my mind as all this unfolded. How perfect! He'd just invited me to fly back with him. If those repairs he'd mentioned were complete and he could leave tomorrow morning, we could be in Chelyabinsk by noon.  I told Cindy about it. She answered, "Maybe you ARE a businessman after all.  There are no commercial flights to Chelyabinsk tomorrow until late afternoon. Please try with your friend, Kruk."

     "Can you tell me why do we have to be in Chelyabinsk so quickly? And why are you going? I thought we were going to say goodbye soon since you got your guys here." I asked Cindy as I started to worry what was up that Yuri and Vlad (and Joe) were rushing me to get there sooner.

     Cindy began squirming a little as she noticed that the bubbles hiding her body in the bathtub were disappearing rapidly. As she used her hands to pile them back up in strategic locations, she said, "Doors open and close sometimes. Door to your three Soyuz sites may close soon. Yuri and Vlad are keeping it open for another day or two. I might be able to help with other doors, Joe thinks. He already pre-paid me. Means it is important."

     What little I knew about how Yuri, Vlad, Toshek, and Cindy worked, I had a feeling that the element of "anarchy" was at work here and Joe trusted them the most to deal with it. I'd read of the Central Siberian mafia and the other mini-mafia spin-offs that they were operating everywhere that there was money to be made or influence to exert. I assumed that access to these Soyuz sites was difficult to get and there weren't "open tickets".  I left the bathroom before Cindy's bubbles all popped and went to make a phone call to Kruk at the TechnoPark dormitory. I was hoping that his Antonov - 2 was fixed, there was enough room for all of us and my friends would all be welcome to fly with him.

    Vincent came to the rescue again. I called down to the desk and asked him to try to find Wladek Kruk at the TechnoPark dormitory. Wladek called me back in about ten minutes. Excited to be playing pilot and host to me and my friends, he said, "Oh my God! I've got to get it gassed up, cleaned up, and ready for first class passengers!  Flight departs tomorrow for Chelyabinsk at 8 o'clock sharp!"