Sofia

     Toshek's response to our change in plans focused on how it would impact his business activities, "It is good for me. If I can work through the night, I can get things done and Ichthyol Magic Mousse gets to market faster." Cindy, on the other hand, said she was happy about doing something out of the ordinary flying to Chelyabinsk but once again got extremely pre-occupied with the new mission...and probably knew a lot more about things than she was willing (and possibly allowed) to say. She suggested that we go down to the bar and have "dinner or drinks or something".  I could tell that she was on edge because of more than just the upcoming work in Chelyabinsk, but it wasn't obvious to me what was eating her and I could see that she was very good at hiding things.

     "Yes, let's take advantage of the delightful gourmet menu of squid and Pacific Northwest halibut cheeks in the Intourist restaurant and bar, my Dear!" I joked. "Unfortunately I need to call Dima and cancel everything else that we had planned and make sure that he's not organized any sort of grand expedition to salvage Soyuz rockets in the wilds of the Siberian North." I reminded her.

     Unaffected by my grandiose attempt to make her laugh, she replied, "OK, do it. I am waiting. I am a little hungry and I want a drink."

     Dima was not mad at all when I called to tell him we were leaving town quickly. In fact, he was so busy during my call that he put the receiver down on me several times to take other calls. He would be talking to me about how he was managing the RFP's and then suddenly put the phone down and answer another phone...without any warning.  My years of high-level and not so high level meetings in Poland and Russia told me that Dima was a middle manager that had at least four phones on his desk.  From our decision to construct an RFP to get information from the dozens of participants interested in the MBA Joint program, Dima was creating all kinds of money making competitions and charging academic institutes for getting on short lists for the MBA program cooperation.  Those competitions included trips that he would insist he be included on to see satellite campuses or cooperating private sector businesses or he'd just flat out say he needed a vacation and if someone paid for it, they would be in a more favorable position to win.  I'd never seen anything more blatantly corrupt the way he was doing it and really worried how I would be received the next time I showed up in Novosibirsk.  I thanked Dima for all he had done, and was doing, and promised I would be back in 90 days or less...with my own short list of interested American MBA programs.

     I'd made the call to Dima from one of the phone booths in the lobby of the hotel and when I finished, stepped over to the house phone and called up to my room to let Cindy know I was free for "dinner or drinks or something"...as she had suggested.

     "Wow...I thought you would be out late like Russian man. It is good you are fast.  Get me something to eat and drink. I don't care what. See you in a minute. Thank you." she said.

     Vodkas, juice, and water were waiting with some stale pretzel sticks when she met me near the window where the last bit of light of day was coming in . I'd made sure that we were sitting as far away from where she and Georg had had bar sex. It was somehow in the back of my mind that her experience with him earlier was part of why she seemed out of sorts. I couldn't imagine anyone being so brave as she had been to do such a thing. If that was what was bothering her, I certainly understood.

     "Do they have food in the restaurant tonight?" she asked me when she saw the pretzel sticks.

     "Yep. Grilled filet mignon for you my dear!" I informed her. I knew she didn't believe it until the wonderful smell of fresh beef grilling came wafting out of the kitchen. Vincent knew we were leaving in the morning and was working his magic for one last big tip and goodbye. He also had some wild mushrooms that were sauteed and served with the meat. That and not so fresh rye bread and butter made for a fantastic meal all washed down with very average vodka and orange flavored drink. (They called it juice.)
   
     Cindy, happy that she'd eaten real food, made an attempt to steer our conversation back to Chelyabinsk and Yuri and Vlad...unsuccessfully...as my friend Kruk suddenly showed up in the restaurant with three huge PZL gift bags for his "first class passengers" as he called us. He was walking faster through the bar towards us than I could run and his hair, combed high and back, was rocking side to side with each stride he took. That was the old Kruk I remembered as he was introduced to me as my "operations man" three years earlier. He actually cried that first day from happiness to be wearing a "real American business uniform" as he put on a FEDEX polo shirt that I had given him.

     Kruk's one man show there in the bar was memorable:

     "You are Cindy! Billy told me about you! Americans aren't as polite as Polish men so let me introduce myself. I am Wladyslaw Kruk, former Operations Director for FEDEX on the territory of Poland, and currently the Chief Operating Officer of PZL's new operation for European and Asian Air Express Delivery Services...we don't have a name for it yet so I give you the full description. (He kisses her hand at this point.) Of course, FEDEX was our chance to study this business and now we will compete against them in a difficult market. I am a pilot and I will be your pilot and travel assistant tomorrow to Chelyabinsk. My good friend Billy (who by the way was my boss for a while) has given me this opportunity to serve you.  My gift bag is more than a gift bag. It includes your necessary flight jackets, goggles, and hearing protection as well as some snacks and small gifts from PZL - Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze - the Polish State Aviation Works.  We also have included a small first aid kit that has motion sickness tablets if you might have that weakness in your system. They also will make you sleep...so be careful. Will you please deliver the third bag to your colleague, Mr. Toshek?"  With Kruk out of breath by this time, I slid in an invitation to him to sit with us and have a drink.

     "Don't mind if I do...but only one drink. I must be fresh for flying tomorrow!" he was happy to accept our invitation and smiled as I'd never seen him. Kruk's body odor issues were on the edge of breaking out but he was very tolerable at the moment and he was being so nice to us there was no way we couldn't invite him to have a drink.

     He started back in:

     "At 8 o'clock sharp we have flight tower approval to take off with a slight northwesterly bearing to avoid some nuclear missile sites directly west of the city here. After we get past them, we will cut back a little south and west to put us on a direct flight pattern for Chelyabinsk. there will be a few sight seeing opportunities along the way so I will vary my altitude to give you the chance to see some interesting things."

     Cindy asked him point blank in Russian, "Will all these tourist related things slow our arrival time in Chelyabinsk? We have important meetings tomorrow afternoon."

     Undeterred from his mission to show us we would all be having a good time, he fielded her question and continued his pitch.  "Our delay will be minimal. You will all be given a chance to fly the airplane and we will practice using our parachutes before we depart. I have some delicious things...or maybe not so delicious since they might be old...but that will be ok. If we are ahead of schedule, we'll land for a picnic lunch and refuel at my favorite farm where many Polish families have been living for almost 70 years."

     "Is that one of the Gulag camps?" Cindy asked him.

     "Not exactly but half the residents at this place were forcibly moved there and a few were in Stalin's camps, as well."  Wladek answered.

     "Great! I bet that is a happy place. I know exactly what kind of lovely atmosphere that is. " joked Cindy.  I started wondering about Cindy's past since she was beginning to open up a little with her sarcasm and bit of facetiousness.

     In a way that only Kruk could do it, he smiled at Cindy despite her ribbing, toasted to her health, and drank his shot in one gulp. Sitting between me and Cindy, he patted us both on our knees and stood up to say, "Thank you! I must be on my way. Please be at the airport by 7:30. Looking forward to a nice day of flying with you!  Good night!"

     "Good night, Kruk! And thank you very much for taking care of us. I am very lucky you found me in Novosibirsk!" I told him with a big smile on my face. "See you tomorrow!"

     Kruk departed at the same speedy pace through the bar as his arrival. Cindy commented as he left, "Seems like a very reliable guy. I wouldn't doubt if he is loosely connected to Polish Intelligence Agency."  I had never doubted that possibility but I thought it was very interesting that she came up with that after just a few minutes with him.

     Cindy's mood took a turn for the dark when she asked me to discuss seriously the dangers connected with our Chelyabinsk mission and the "unknown elements of surprise" that might be there. "I want you to think about ending your activities now on this trip. You have big success with me and Toshek here in Novosibirsk and Joe can do without your involvement in his Soyuz debris trip I think.  It is your connections with Dima that you are best at. Your protections disappear when the bad people are all around you."

     "So you think that Yuri, Vlad, Toshek, and you are not enough protection?" I asked staring at her running her finger around the rim of her glass.

     "I only know for sure that Yuri and Vlad feel very insecure about it, too. That tells me to be careful.  Also, we have never done this kind of thing in the open wild country. If we get separated, we can get lost or, even worse, bandits who know the countryside can have a big advantage over us.  There is no morality in places like that. The Russian style mafia is different from Italian. There is nothing unethical in Russian version of organized crime.  When you met Vlad, he was getting rid of a body that was killed in a place similar to where we are going."

     "OK...OK...let's give it a rest for a moment." I urged her. "Let me think."

     Cindy grabbed my arm and added to her argument, "If you are now going to think, then please think about this:  I want to remind you that we are not employees and can accept or reject work whatever we want. As long as we don't do something completely stupid or take jobs from Russians or Chinese or terrorists, we will be asked to do more work. In other words, if we view the risk as too much, we should not accept it and go home."

     We were talking quietly but the lobby bar women could see that we were discussing something pretty intensely. Two of the women came over to our table and stood by it looking at me and shaking their heads. The taller of the two blondes said to me in English, "Why are you discussing it? Maybe she is too expensive for you!? Come over to our table."

     Cindy frowned a little and said to them in Russian, "My fiance wants to fly me to New York to get married and I want to be married in London. That is what we are talking about. Get the fuck outta here!"

     The shorter woman shook her head and said, "I don't believe it." and they both walked away.

     "That was well done.  So now we are engaged and can't decide where to get married. Maybe I should know your name finally." I took the chance of asking after her bold lie to the lobby bar "bitches" as she called them.

     "I am Sofia." she said quickly.

     "Thank you for telling me. Very nice name and it fits you a lot more than Cindy." I replied.

     "You are married and I am not. Tell me about your wife. You never talk about her."  Cindy asked with only a little interest it seemed, so I did not say a lot.

     "Joe and others at the Embassy say not to talk about family. That is why I haven't said much. Also my marriage is dying.  Her name is Magda. She was my Polish teacher. We've been together about ten years.  It will probably end soon. This life has killed our relationship. When my daughter and son find out, they will disown me." I told her.

     "What does it mean 'disown'?" she asked.

     "They will be upset and say to me, 'You are not our father any more.' " I said.

     "I see. Not good." Cindy frowned and asked.  "You like to have an official job, don't you? Does it help?"

     "My corporate shield is very difficult to maintain. Keeping a responsible job when this kind of work is also important to me, is almost impossible. I am always trying to take time off or I am getting sick or family members are dying to be able to leave my work for these things that we do. I am not very good at this masquerade."  I told her. She liked the word 'masquerade' and said it was a good word to remember.

     I decided to ask about her. "Can you tell me more about you, Sofia?"

     What Sofia told me did not come out in one monologue. It took some time and questioning to understand how complex her life had been. She told me she is from a Russian family that was relocated to Southern Ukraine but lived among Poles who had been in Gulags and conscripted to work farms without hope of returning to Poland. Her Polish came from that experience and the children running around the village that were secretly learning Polish at home.  Her father was a miner and took her on trips where Arabic was spoken, she has a working knowledge of Arabic and some Chinese/Mongolian. She never worked as a prostitute except when role playing for jobs...like with Georg.  Officially she has lived in 12 countries according to her various passports but thinks she wants to slow down and live in the British Virgin Islands soon. There is a healthy bank account in the BVI but not healthy enough. Friends in Miami have invited her and she was ready to go but the anti-terrorism team was forming and she wanted to get the account up to a more respectable level within the next two years. Men have come and gone in her life but she has luckily never been pregnant and hopes she can find a normal person in BVI or Miami.

     I asked her, "What was your first job for Joe?"

     She told me, "I was supposed to sit in a bar in Bucharest and record a conversation between two men. I had parabolic mics and a camera built into my purse. I got extra money for helping to steal a briefcase."

     "How much did he pay you for that?" I asked.

     "$500...cash in advance." she said. "And your first job for Joe?"

     "I sat in a cafe, a restaurant, and a bar outside Wroclaw for seven days counting trucks going in and out of a military base." I said.

     "How much did he pay you?" she asked with a smile.

     "Same as you. $500...cash in advance." I answered and returned the smile.

     It had gotten late and we both had said many times to each other that it was time to go to bed. We were even signalling to each other over Toshek's head as we walked into the room that neither one of us wanted to talk about ichthyol ointment, but Toshek was driven.

     "Which is better:  Miracle Ichthyol Salve for Treatment of Infected Staphylococcus Sores or Ichthyol Ointment: A Cure for All Pus-Filled Sores ?" Toshek asked me as he was scribbling out possible pitch lines for his smelly salve.

     'Actually, I don't like either one, to be honest, Toshek." I told him.

     "Me either. Not descriptive enough." Toshek agreed.  Sophia and I slipped out of ear shot of Toshek toward my room and the bathroom.

     So it was another awkward goodnight building up as Sofia motioned that she'd go to the bathroom first and I would go after her. Spending only a trifle longer than usual in the head, I had my usual 10 minutes to gather my sleeping things and cosmetic bag and leave them by the bedroom door to wait for her signal that she had finished and I could go in for my shower. Usually I would hear the door close behind her and the fan running for the short time that she'd open the door and then close it. I heard neither the door close nor any fan running and was slightly startled as my door opened and Sophia stepped in very quietly just six inches in front of me and shut the door.
She turned around and said in a near whisper and clearly almost crying,

"I feel very dirty tonight even after washing myself. This time in the restaurant with Georg was a short hell for me. He started to get up to call Anatoly so I had to stop him. I had to touch this dirty man who was stinking terribly, including from his open pants, until he came all over himself and me. If I go to bed alone, I will cry all night. If I can have you beside me and you will be nice company for me, I will be better tomorrow. Can you let me sleep next to you?"

     I smiled at Sophia and put my hands as softly as I could on her head and face the way she had done to me the previous night.  Before I could say anything, she looked at me between her straight hair that was in her face and said, "If that is 'yes' then please go to bathroom and come back soon. Don't worry about Toshek. He is worried about ichthyol mainly."

     I stepped out of my room and did my things in the bathroom. Toshek was almost always quietly talking to himself but when I stepped out of the bathroom, I could tell that his mumbling was a little louder.  He noticed I had just come out and motioned for me to come over to him. He did the same thing he had done earlier before we left the room for Anatoly and squared himself up in front of me to say something. I could tell that it wasn't going to be an ichthyol sales pitch.

     "Cindy probably told you Yuri and Vlad are not feeling completely safe taking you to the Soyuz sites.  Yuri is afraid because Vlad is afraid and knows some people that are asking for money and too many questions about our 'customer'. There are other ways for your Joe to get what he wants from rocket trash. You don't have to be the American businessman we are protecting. Risky mix. Very bad men around an American and a woman. For me it is fatal combination. It is only my opinion."  Toshek stopped for a moment then went on but had turned away and was no longer facing me straight on, "Good we are flying with your friend and get to Chelyabinsk quickly. Ichthyol to market faster means more cash.  I have another question. How big bottle should smallest bottle be for selling in America? Two ounces, three ounces?"

     Even though I was trying to wrap my head around what he was warning me about Yuri and Vlad, I thought about Toshek's ichthyol question and decided he deserved an honest answer. "Your smallest size should be what you can get 10 to 15 doses or applications out of. I also think that 0.5 oz sample packs would be good for selling at holistic pharmacies." Toshek was silent but smiled and shook his head as if he was digesting what I had said. He saluted me 'goodnight'.

     Once again, I was being warned to reconsider this final part of my mission. Having seen how proficiently Sophia and Toshek had assessed and handled the situation at the Intourist, I probably should have taken their advice more seriously and considered backing out.  I didn't, though.

     So Cindy -- now Sophia -- and I slept in the same small bed together. From what I remember, after I let myself in the room quietly, Sophia opened her arms to me and we held each other so tight that I was sure that I was smothering her...as she was doing to me. We only released our grip on each other through the night to move from one side to the other. If my back was to her, then she held me firmly...even as she snored a little. When she turned away, she took my arm and wrapped it around her with a tug to tell me to hold her tighter. Even when we faced each other, she was able to sleep while holding me and my full weight resting on her arm. I don't think we even kissed.   The only significantly unpleasant thing about the night was having a full erection from 11pm to 7am...almost nonstop. Even when I dozed off and then awoke, there it was standing at attention like a little dog waiting for its master to take it on a walk.

     At about 6 o'clock by my guess looking at the light coming in the room through my window, Sofia began to loosen her grip on me and I allowed her to slip away to the bathroom. She came back to the room fully clothed but wiggled her way back beside me between the sheets with her back to me. She asked very quietly, "Did you decide something about Chelyabinsk and our new mission? Will you continue or will you quit?"

     "I want to continue." I answered.

     It took a while for her to respond but she said, "OK...time to get started.  Thank you for the night of good sleep." Sofia turned and looked at me and then left.