The Cabal, Chapters 1 & 2

                                                   The Cabal

By Andrew Selsky

© copyright 2017 Andrew Selsky

                                        CHAPTER 1

MOSCOW, Sept. 20, 2013

Boris Sharpov drew the cool Moscow night air into his nostrils, trying to counteract the numerous shots of vodka he had downed in the last few hours with other political opposition leaders in a bar near the Moscow River. Despite Sharpov’s attempts to clear his head, the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral that stood ahead of him a quart-mile away shimmered slightly in his vision, the domes’ swirls of candy colors bathed in bright spotlights.

The opposition leaders had covertly met in a private back room of a restaurant as they planned for a rally to be held tomorrow near the Kremlin.

The meeting had lasted well into the night, and after the details and logistics of the rally were decided upon, the drinks began flowing freely. It had been almost a celebratory mood. Different factions of the opposition had banded together, which itself was a feat, and were going to stage the biggest anti-Putin rally ever.

Sharpov patted the interior breast pocket of his brown Armani jacket for perhaps the tenth time that night. The report was still there.

Just before the rally, Sharpov was going to release the report to the media, with advance copies to go to select news outlets. It described corruption involving senior Russian government leaders and certain business interests, some domestic and some foreign. Sharpov, who had made his fortune in natural gas leases, took a firm stance was against corruption, unless the money wound up in his own pocket.

The report was as explosive as nitroglycerin. To ensure that no leak could invite a preemptive media blitz by the Kremlin, Sharpov had the only copy.

He walked onto the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. The Moscow River moved black and swiftly beneath him, pulled inexorably by gravity to the Caspian Sea. Beyond St. Basil’s Cathedral, the spotlighted walls of the Kremlin were a red smear against the black sky.

There was little traffic. In a few hours, the road would be a slow-moving parking lot of vehicles. Sharpov checked his watch. 12:30 a.m. Time to get some sleep, he thought with a yawn. These days, he wasn’t able to hold his alcohol as well as when he was younger. But at 55, he felt fairly fit. Running, cycling and squash kept him that way.

A shiver went through him. Cold air from the river was creeping like icy fingers beneath Sharpov’s jacket. He reached the halfway point of the bridge. In less than a mile he’d be home. He flipped up the collar of his jacket and jammed his hands into its pockets, pulling the jacket tighter around him.

The sound of a car engine crept up behind him. Judging from its soft purr, the vehicle wasn’t one of those cheap Russian models with the sputtering engines. German, probably. He took two more steps. The car should have passed him by now on the empty road. Why hadn’t it? Was it someone slowing to ask him for directions, or was it someone stalking him?

Boris looked over his shoulder. It was a BMW. An elegant silver-haired man was at the wheel. Another man, this one with a ponytail and a face like a hatchet and eyes as black as onyx was leaning out of the front passenger window. In his hand was a pistol.

“Hey Sharpov, you traitor,” the man spat out. “This one is for you.”

Sharpov turned to make a run for it, but it was too late. He could feel the bullets hitting his back. No pain, just solid thumps like he was being hit repeatedly with a club. He heard the crack, crack, crack of the gunshots. Then a slug penetrated his heart and there was nothingness. The curtain was drawn on the final act of his life before he even knew it. Sharpov saw the sidewalk rise up to his head but when he collided with it, he didn’t even feel it. He was already dead.  

The gunman got out of the car, leaned over and felt Sharpov’s neck for a pulse. He reached inside Sharpov’s jacket and extracted the corruption report. Then he stooped over and picked up the bullet casings from the road and sidewalk. He got back into the car and looked at the driver.

“Mission accomplished?”  the driver asked, in Russian with the slightest hint of an American accent.

“Yes, he is dead. Confirmed,” said the man with the ponytail. The driver, a former CIA man named Princeton Saylor, looked out the window. Sharpov’s body was motionless on the sidewalk. Without another word, Saylor put the BMW into gear. As they slowly passed the body, Saylor just touching the brake pedal as he looked over to ensure no evidence was left behind, the taillights and brake lights momentarily cast a red glow onto the body. Blood was running down the sidewalk in a rivulet of red. Then Saylor hit the accelerator, headed in the direction of the Kremlin.

MOSCOW, Sept. 28, 2013

Paul Saylor walked on the sunny boulevard past fashion boutiques, cafes and a sleek Apple store displaying Mac Airs and iPhones. Women in high leather boots and tight jeans sashayed along the sidewalk, their long blonde ponytails swinging like metronomes. This was not the drab, gray Moscow of old, Paul thought.

In the reflection of a polished store-front window, Paul saw a man who was slightly stooped with hair going gray. Paul stood up straighter to look more closely at the man, and the reflection did the same. With a start, Paul realized that it was himself. Damn, 36 years old and he looked a decade older. He filled his lungs, threw his chest out to correct his posture, and kept walking.

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It was a year ago that he was sitting at his desk in the newsroom.

“Got a minute?”

The instant message flashed on his computer screen. It was from his editor. Paul swiveled around in his chair, and there was the editor inside his glass-fronted office.

Glenn summoned him over with a beckoning bend of his finger.

Paul had known Glenn since they were 20-something reporters at a newspaper in Texas, Paul covering the police beat and Glenn education and features. They had taken different career tracks, Glen going into management and Paul becoming a foreign correspondent. Then, years later, they had wound up working at the same newspaper again, this one in Florida, with Glenn now being Paul’s boss as foreign editor. The only foreign correspondent at the newspaper was Paul, plus a handful of stringers scattered around the globe.

Paul walked into Glenn’s office, bringing a pen and notebook. Journalism is a somewhat raffish profession, with reporters generally seeing themselves as outsiders who scrutinize officials and institutions, aiming to expose wrongdoing with the lofty goal of speaking truth to power. But Glenn didn’t look looked raffish, rakish or free-spirited. He looked like he belonged in a country-club, sitting at a table for lunch.

“Sit down, Paul, and close the door behind you,” Glenn said. He wore an expensive-looking tie over a blue business shirt with the silhouette of a polo player adorning the pocket.

Paul took a seat facing the newsroom. Though the window, Paul could see a few reporters and editors at work at their computers or on the phone. A lot of seats and desks were empty. The newspaper had downsized, leaving a trail casualties. When Paul closed the door, some of the journalists looked up at Paul and Glenn. Usually when the door was closed, someone was being dressed down or bad news was being imparted.

On Glenn’s wall hung several placards, including an award for a series of stories that Paul had done on wanted criminals fleeing justice by going overseas. The authorities had barely expended any effort trying to pursue them, even though some described their whereabouts on Facebook. But when the series ran, the public was outraged. The authorities established a team to go after such fugitives.

“Paul, there’s no way to sugar-coat this so I’ll get right to the point,” Glenn said. His eyes wouldn’t meet Paul’s. “I am very sorry, but the publisher has decided to eliminate your job. In this day and age, the paper has decided it can’t afford a foreign correspondent anymore and will go more local.”

Paul didn’t say anything. He just looked at his old friend. He supposed he was struck speechless, as the saying goes.

“I know this is a terrible time, with your father having disappeared and all, less than a year ago,” Glenn said.

“Yes. Though there’s no good time for losing your job.”

“Any word on your father?”

“None. He was last seen in Moscow. As you know, he worked for the CIA, and not long before he disappeared, the agency began suspecting that he was spying for the other side but never had proof. It’s like he was just swallowed up by the ground. He hasn’t surfaced on anybody’s radar.”

Glenn opened a window, lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window. He offered the pack to Paul, who shook his head.

“Is decision this irrevocable?” Paul asked. “Can I appeal it? Can I explain to the publisher that my reporting brings value to the newspaper and makes it stand out?”

Glenn now looked at Paul full in the face.

“I know it does, Paul. I told him all that. The paper is hemorrhaging money, and he’s cutting the position. He just won’t budge on it. I’m really sorry.”

“This doesn’t mean anything?” Paul asked, tapping his left leg.

“No one asked you to go to Iraq, Paul,” Glenn said.

Paul sighed. Of course the newspaper had wanted him to go cover what was then the biggest story on the planet, but bringing that up at this point would be useless.

“How about you, still got your job?” he asked.

Glenn’s eyes again shifted away from Paul’s, embarrassed.

“Yes.”

“Doing what, since you’re not going to have much of a foreign-coverage operation to run anymore?”

“They’ve given me the obituary section to run, besides society.”

Paul looked at Glenn and tried not to smile or laugh.

Glenn laughed first.

“The symbolism is not lost on me,” Glenn said. “Newspapers are a dying industry and it’s a dead-end job.”

“Right,” Paul said, joining in the laughter.

“Let’s go get a drink,” Glenn said, standing up and grabbing his jacket off a coat tree.

They went to the tavern down the street and got a pint, and then another, and then another, while swapping stories about their early days in Texas. Paul had been inspired by Hemingway and wanted to be a foreign correspondent. Glenn’s inspiration was Watergate. He had wanted to be the Woodward or Bernstein of his generation. Now look where they were.

Paul ordered another round.

The next morning, Paul was not only jobless but hungover too.

Then he found out that a kid fresh out of college had gotten Paul’s job, at one-third of his salary.

“Yes, it’s true,” Glenn said over the phone when Paul called him to confront him. “The publisher made this decision, Paul, not me. Listen, while I have you, would you mind turning over your source list to the new reporter?”

Paul removed the phone from his ear and stared at it. The gall! To fire Paul and then ask him to hand over his sources whom he had carefully cultivated over the years. Unbelievable. Paul heard Glenn’s voice squawk from the little speaker on his cell phone. He put it back against his ear.

“Hello, Paul, are you there?” Glenn was asking.

Paul sighed.

“Yes.”

“So, can you? It would give Bridger a good start.”

“Bridger? Like Jim Bridger, the mountain man?”

“No, Bridger’s his first name. He’s a Mormon. Graduated not too long ago from Brigham Young University.”

And working for about the same salary as a bagger as the grocery store, I’ll bet, Paul thought. He sighed again.

“Okay. I’ll download my virtual Rolodex file onto a thumb drive and come by the office to drop it off.”

The next day, Paul went by the Sentinel building. Glen wasn’t in. He left the thumb drive on his desk with a note.

“Glenn, Good luck with the new hire. Best, Paul,” it said.

Glenn returned to the office after a long lunch, saw the thumb drive and walked over to Bridger’s desk in the newsroom. Bridger looked up at Glenn with blue eyes set in a chubby, pale face. Bridger was wearing a crisp white business shirt with razor-sharp creases and a necktie tightly knotted just below his Adam’s apple. His brown hair was short and gelled with a part on the side that was so severe it looked almost painful.

Bridger was so straitlaced -- he didn’t drink, smoke or even utter the mildest curse word -- that Glenn had gently chided him for not even drinking a Coca-Cola.  

“Here,” Glenn said, handing him the thumb drive. “This should help you to do some reporting.”

Ten minutes later the newbie reporter was at Glenn’s office door. His face was no longer pale. It was as red as a fire engine, and in fact Bridger looked like he had been singed on a hot grill. His tie was wrenched to one side, and the top button of his shirt was uncharacteristically undone. His eyes bulged, blue marbles about to pop out of his skull.

“What is it?” Glenn asked, mildly alarmed.

“You know what it is,” Bridger shouted at him.

Now Glenn was more than mildly alarmed.

“What’s wrong?” he said, half rising from his chair.

Bridger spluttered something incomprehensible, then said “Come here.”

 He stalked back to his desk.

“So this is how you make fun of Mormons?” he asked, pointing a stubby finger at his computer screen.

Glenn bent over to take a look.

A video was running of a naked woman giving a man a blow job.

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Paul skirted a large Russian woman who plowed through the crowd on the sidewalk like an icebreaker in the Bering Sea.

It felt like yesterday that he had lost his job. It was one year ago. Bridger had quit in a huff and gone back to Salt Lake City, but Paul’s revenge on Glenn didn’t make him feel that much better.

Then, the week after Paul was fired, his girlfriend left him.

Rebecca seemed sad, breaking the news to Paul in a back booth of a diner, her tears making her black eyeliner cascade down her cheeks and turning her into either a clown or a sad Alice Cooper, he couldn’t decide which.

“I’m sorry Paul, but I’ve found someone else,” Rebecca said, pulling a Kleenex from her fake Louis Vuitton purse that he’d gotten her while on assignment in Bangkok.

“This is hard for me,” she added.

“What, it’s easy for me?” Paul asked.

Paul left the diner and walked into the warm Florida night. The ocean was dark green under a half moon. Waves heaved onto the shore and broke in a white phosphorescent line. Dry palm fronds above his head blew in the offshore breeze, rattling like a skeleton’s fingers. Paul told himself that he had never really been in love with Rebecca anyway, and she knew, now that he had been fired, that he wouldn’t be sticking around Fort Lauderdale long. He wasn’t from there. He wasn’t from anywhere really. He was from everywhere. He had grown up a CIA brat, two years in this country, two years in that country, two years in northern Virginia so his father could work at the headquarters in Langley, and then overseas again, thrust into a new school and a new life each time.

After losing his job at the paper, he had made some calls to journalist friends and sent out resumes. No luck. Everyone was downsizing.  Even Pulitzer Prize winners were being laid off and couldn’t find work in journalism. The only reporting jobs that were open were entry-level position at smallish newspapers at starvation wages. He was only in his 30s but his career seemed already over.

Paul dropped his gym membership and downgraded from craft beer to crap beer, his stomach ballooning as a result of these decisions.

As he sunk into depression, his mother, of all people, threw him a lifeline. He could still hear her voice on the phone.

“Paul, I have an assignment for you. I will finance it. I want to find out what happened with your father. The CIA won’t pay death benefits because they refuse to formally rule that he is dead, even though everyone thinks so. How can a person, in this day and age, just disappear? Also, I am sure they are holding back the benefits because they think that he betrayed the agency and was working for the Russians, something they were never able to prove because I’m sure it was false.”

“I don’t know, Mom. If the CIA couldn’t find him, how can I?”

“Paul, you’re an investigative reporter. And do you have anything better to do?”

Paul was sitting on his sagging couch in his rented Florida apartment. He flicked some ash from his cigarette into an empty beer can.

“I am wallowing in self-pity, Mom. That’s what I’m doing.”

His mother laughed, her voice sounding like wind chimes in a fresh breeze.

“Paul, case closed. I want you to do this, for yourself and for me.”

So, Paul was in Russia.

The Moscow sun ducked behind a big dark gray cloud. Warm one second, chilly the next. It was that time of year. September. He had no desire to still be in Moscow when winter descended, paycheck or no paycheck. Not that he and his mother had decided how much she would pay him. For the time being, she was taking care of all the expenses. There had been no discussion of how much he would earn.

Paul zipped up his jacket and flipped up the collar of his leather jacket against a gust of wind that whipped around the corner of the newly renovated Bolshoi Theater. He walked across Teatralny Proezd at a traffic light. Stalls lined the sidewalk selling Lenin T-shirts, KGB whiskey flasks and other fake knick-knacks heralding the Soviet era. His knee throbbed where it met his prosthesis.

He maneuvered past other pedestrians who were bargaining at the stalls or were heading for Red Square.

Paul was searching for his own father, but he felt a strange emotional detachment from his mission. He and his father, a cold and distant man who seemed more wrapped up in his work as a spook than his family, had never really been close.

He was supposed to rendezvous in Red Square with one of his father’s old CIA colleagues, Brendan McHale. But, damn, how was Paul supposed to find Brendan? The sidewalks were crowded. Red Square, a major tourist attraction, would be a sea of humanity. Brendan hadn’t gotten a cell phone yet, so he couldn’t call him.

Paul walked through an arched entryway into Red Square. And there, sitting on the steps of a gold-domed, wedding cake Russian Orthodox church in the nearest corner of the square, was a man of bearish physique, his stomach and chest like one of those wooden barrels you age wine or whiskey in. He had red hair, longish and combed back. Despite his age - he must be in his mid-60s at least, Paul reckoned, Brendan said he never dyed his hair, and it did look natural.

Paul walked toward him. Brendan hadn’t seen Paul yet. He was holding a Zip-Lock bag and staring into space, as if in a reverie.

“I was just thinking of the times Marge and I spent in Moscow,” Brendan said as Paul walked up. So Brendan had noticed him all this time. An old CIA trick of observing while not appearing to be observing. The edges of the stone steps of the church were rounded from the footfalls of all the faithful and of the hopeless over the centuries seeking solace in God. Paul sat next to Brendan.

“Some special times?”

“All my time with Marge was special, Paul. Every moment.”

Brendan looked down at the bag in his hand. It contained a gray substance, some of it powdery and some of it chunky. Brendan rubbed the outside of the bag with his fingers, almost as if it was a good luck charm.

“Well, without further ado,” Brendan said.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Over by the wall of the Kremlin would be perfect. Marge can eavesdrop on Putin,” Brendan said with a laugh.

They got up and crossed Red Square. Down the length of the square to their left was St. Basil’s cathedral, its onion domes a riot of colors and designs. A cluster of tourists was following a guide who was explaining in an authoritative and loud voice the history of the square. Paul never did go in for the tour group stuff, preferring to read up on places and observe on his own once there. But Paul still listened to what the guide was saying as he and Brendan walked past.

“After the architect designed and built St. Basil’s cathedral for Ivan the Terrible in the mid-16^th century, according to legend, the ruler had the architect blinded so he could never build something so beautiful again,” the tour guide said, smiling broadly as she looked at the horrified expressions her words produced on her listeners.

“Is that just a myth?” Paul asked Brendan.

“I certainly hope so, for the architect’s sake.”

The two men walked over to the red brick wall of the Kremlin. Brendan reached into the bag to grasp some of the ashes.

“May the road rise up to meet you,” Brendan said. He sprinkled some of the ash onto the wall, like a farmer tossing seed to his hens. Paul chimed in, having memorized the words of the old Irish prayer after participating in two other ceremonies with Brendan, in Barcelona and in Paris.

“May the wind always be at your back,” they said in unison. “May the sun shine warm upon your face.”

“May the...”

A hand swooped into Paul’s view and snatched the plastic bag from Brendan.

“What is this!” shouted a voice in Russian.

Paul turned around. The speaker was a man of about 40. He was wearing a dark suit and a scowl. His thin, oily black hair was combed back onto his skull.

Paul took a half step back. The man was obviously some kind of official, most probably a security type. Paul looked over at Brendan. His older friend’s face was growing a florid red. He could actually see the hue rise up from his neck onto his jaw and his cheekbones, like a red light bulb slowly illuminating. Paul remembered that Brendan, who came from Irish-Scots extraction, had a temper.

Brendan snatched the bag back, surprising the official.

“Unhand that, sir,” Brendan shouted righteously. “Those are the ashes of my dead wife.”

Brendan’s right hand still grasped some of Marge’s ashes. He opened up his hand as if he were a magician showing the grand finale of a trick, brought his lips close to the pile, and blew the ashes into the man’s face.

“Let’s go,” Brendan said, tugging hard at Paul’s sleeve.

Paul, shocked and horrified, looked at the man who had accosted them and who was now temporarily incapacitated. His face was gray with ash. The stuff must have gotten into his eyes, which were now clenched tightly shut. He sneezed and gray sputum erupted from his face.

“Aaach,” the man managed to say.

“We’ve got to get out of here. Let’s go. I mean it,” Brendan insisted, and he pulled Paul’s arm again and broke into a trot toward the gate of Red Square.

For a big man, Brendan moved quickly. They dashed through the passageway.

“Halt,” the man shouted. But the shout came from far behind them and the people whom Paul and Brendan were rushing past paid it no mind.

They exited the arched entranceway, then slowed and made a right-hand turn.

Paul was already winded. Damn, he was out of shape. His stump ached. Brendan, twice his age, hadn’t even broken a sweat and looked like he had stepped out of the bar of the Ritz, as cool and calm as could be as they tried to mix in with the crowds of tourists.

Paul scanned the crowd of people and he saw one man, taller than the rest, pressing a finger against his ear, almost as if he was pushing in an earpiece to hear better. Yes, that was precisely what he was doing because the man craned his neck and also began scanning the crowd. His eyes quickly locked on Paul’s. He lifted a device to his mouth and began talking into it.

Paul could imagine him saying, “I have spotted them and am in pursuit.”

The man began running at Paul. Brendan had been looking the other way and didn’t see all this. Paul gave him a shove, down the sidewalk and away from walkie-talkie man.

“Go!” Paul urged.

A taxi was up ahead, waiting in a line of cars at a red light. It was empty except for the driver. Just as the light turned to green, Paul and Brendan reached it and yanked open the doors.  Brendan got into the front seat and Paul into the back.

“Hey, get out of here. I’m off duty!” the driver said.

Paul glanced out of the rear window. Their pursuer was about 20 paces back. He’d reach the taxi in about five seconds.

Paul looked forward again and Brendan already had his wallet out and was handing the driver a fifty dollar bill.

“Just go,” Brendan said.

The driver snatched the bill from Brendan’s hand and stepped on the accelerator. The car shot forward. Paul looked to the rear again and their pursuer was throwing his hands in the air in disgust. He resumed talking into his device, probably announcing the taxi’s model and license plate details. But they were getting away and they could ditch the taxi after a few blocks and melt into the many pedestrians on the street or they could duck into a cafe.

The driver glanced into the rear view mirror and saw what Paul had been seeing.

He hit the brakes.

“Wait a minute!” he shouted. “You’re being chased? That man back there is talking into a radio. Get out! I’m not going to lose my taxi license for fifty dollars.”

They had gone only half a block. Paul saw that the man with the earpiece was resuming his pursuit. Brendan snatched the fifty, got out and slammed the door. Paul also exited and he and Brendan began hoofing it down the sidewalk.

A shrill siren sounded from somewhere up ahead. It quickly got louder. A police car shot into view out of a side street, its emergency lights flashing. It screeched to a stop and the driver got out, simultaneously drawing his gun and aiming it with both hands at Paul and Brendan.

Jesus, this had gotten quickly out of control.

Seconds later Paul and Brendan were face down on the sidewalk, their wrists being fastened behind their backs with handcuffs as the arresting officers dug their knees into Paul and Brendan’s backs. Why is it that cops all seem to have the same take-down technique,  Paul wondered. Maybe because it’s effective, he told himself.

“What’s going on here?” Paul asked Brendan, feeling the grit of the sidewalk pressing into his cheek and his belly. He tried to draw in a breath against the arresting officer’s knee that was squeezing his diaphragm.

“I wanted to keep a low profile in Moscow,” Brendan said.

“Well you certainly did that,” Paul muttered.

  

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They were taken the short distance back to Red Square in the police car and were frog-marched through a doorway in the Kremlin wall. A soldier in parade-ground uniform stood at attention by the door. He snapped a salute and clicked the heels of his high black leather boots together as the security officers and their quarry passed by.

Two other men were flanking and just a half-step behind Paul and Brendan like it was a practiced move. One of the men bumped into Paul, and his arm felt like a slab of stone.

The two Americans were led down a series of corridors. One of the hallways led to six holding cells, three on each side. They were all empty. They stopped before the metal door of one of the cells.

The man in the dark suit was leading the procession. He looked at the clear plastic bag containing Marge’s ashes, then held it at arm’s length like it contained dog shit someone had removed from the sidewalk.

“I am with the FSB,” the man announced. “Russian security service. You are in a lot of trouble.”

“Hey, wait,” Paul said.

The security men ignored his plea. They patted him and Brendan down, took their wallets and Paul’s cell phone and unceremoniously shoved them into the jail cell. The security boss seemed to relish slamming the steel door shut and driving the bolt home with a clang, just like in the movies. He could hear their retreating footsteps through a grate in the door.

Two iron beds were attached by chains to the concrete walls on either side of the cell. Neither had a mattress. A single high-watt bulb in the 10-foot-high ceiling cast a bright light on the men, making the age lines on Brendan’s face and the bags under his eyes appear starker. Metal mesh covered the bulb so it could not be broken and used as a weapon, or as an instrument of suicide by a despondent prisoner, Paul supposed. The walls were painted in a sickly green shade that corresponded with nothing in nature, except perhaps vomit.  

“We may be here a while,” Brendan said. “You see how these Russians are? Nothing has changed. Suspicion. Enmity. You should give up trying to trace what happened to your father. Nothing good will come of it.”

“Well, running away was suspicious. So, again, what was up with that?”

“I told you. I wanted to keep a low profile. I thought we could get away.”

Two hours passed. No one came to see them.

This business had seemed like a wild escapade, but Paul was now worried. He couldn’t afford to be kicked out of the country. He needed to find out if his father was dead, and how he died. 

“Hey!” Paul shouted in Russian through the grate in the cell door. “I want to speak to my embassy.”

His voice carried down the empty corridor. No one came. Nor did anyone tell him to shut up. Paul and Brendan appeared to be alone down in the basement.

“Deposited deep in the Kremlin and forgotten,” Paul said with a sigh as he sat down on his iron bed. Brendan was lying on the other one, on his side with his arm making a pillow for his head. He opened an eye and looked at Paul.

“I’m sorry, Paul. You were good-hearted to join me in the ceremony in Moscow, just like you did in Barcelona and Paris. And now I’ve gotten you into a situation.”

“Oh, that’s okay Brendan. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

“Well, thanks Paul. This thing will be settled soon. I just hope I get Marge’s ashes back. This is kind of comical, if you think about it. I’m sure Marge would have had a laugh. Here, in Moscow, right in Red Square, she was a weapon against an FSB officer. Did you see the look on his face when the ashes hit him? Priceless, as they say in those TV commercials!”

“Yeah.”

“What made me think about doing that was how this whole thing about spreading Marge’s ashes got started. Did I ever tell you about that, and how a disaster almost happened when I tried to drop her ashes from a plane onto a beach near our place in Florida?”

“No. And we’ve got some time to kill. So tell me. I’m your captive audience.”

Brendan sat up, using the wall as a backrest. He brushed his hair back from his face with his fingers.

“It was my friend George’s idea. You remember George. He used to be a pilot for Air America in Southeast Asia. Anyway, after Marge died and was cremated, I had planned to scatter her ashes along her favorite beach in Florida.”

“It’s a beautiful place, Brendan.”

“But George couldn’t picture it, me in my swim trunks, dropping Marge’s ashes along the shore with all those bathers and sun worshippers around, the tide bringing the ashes onto the beach. He was right. That wouldn’t have worked very well. So I thought about doing it when it was dark out and the beach was empty, but George suggested that we go up in his Cessna, fly along the shoreline nice and low, open the window and let Marge’s ashes drift down onto the water and the sand.”

“Yeah, that’s beautiful. How did it work out?”

“Well, it was a good idea, in theory. I brought the urn onto the plane, and a small measuring cup to scoop the ashes up and fling them out the window, little by little, so they could drift down onto a long stretch of beach, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“It was a lovely morning. The sun was still low over the Atlantic. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Had Marge still been alive, she would probably have taken a long walk along the beach on a morning like that. She would have come back to our house with some seashells and perhaps a sand dollar or two in the pocket of her cardigan.”

Brendan paused and rubbed at his eye.

“Anyway,” Brendan continued. “George banked the plane slightly as he flew parallel to the beach and over a cresting wave. I tossed a big measuring cup of Marge’s ashes out the window. And they immediately flew back into the cockpit! It was a cloud of ash swirling around. I couldn’t see. George couldn’t see. The gritty stuff was getting in our eyes. The plane rolled to the right, then to the left. George didn’t know where the horizon was so he didn’t know what was up and what was down and couldn’t fly straight. I slid the window shut and the ash cloud settled. George was able to wipe the ash away from his face and eyes quickly enough before he completely lost control of the plane.

“I remember George saying, ‘Damn Brendan. We were supposed to throw Marge’s ashes out of the plane, not wear her!’

“We were both coated, ash on our shoulders, in our hair, on our eyebrows. We looked like those people in the photos who were fleeing the World Trade Center after the towers came down.”

“You guys almost died while spreading the ashes of a person who died,” Paul said with a laugh, then perhaps worried that he shouldn’t laugh at this story because Brendan was still grieving. “That would have been ironic.”

“Yes, ironic,” Brendan said, breaking out into a laugh himself. He kept laughing until tears sprouted from the corners of his eyes. The laughter echoed down the barren passageway outside their cell.

“Whew,” Brendan said, wiping his eyes. “Anyway, that’s when I decided to travel around the world and scatter the rest of the ashes in special places.”

Paul heard voices, a man and a woman, speaking in English down the corridor. Soon the door to the cell swung open, revealing the FSB man who had arrested them and a woman who looked out of place in the dank subterranean corridors of the Kremlin. She had strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and a spray of freckles across her pert nose. She didn’t look much more than 30, if that.

“You can go,” the FSB man told Paul and Brenda. “This nice lady from the U.S. Consulate has vouched for you.

“Mr. McHale,” he continued, looking only at Brendan now. “We know that you are ex-CIA. We do not appreciate ex-CIA people coming to Red Square and placing suspicious powdery substances on the walls of the Kremlin. Who knows if you have a loose screw in the head and still feel that Washington and Moscow are enemies? Imagine if a retired KGB officer was found scattering powder on the walls of the United States Congress, or on the White House. Would the Secret Service not act, maybe even shoot? And then you attacked me and ran! You are lucky to still be alive. We have confirmed that the substance consists of ashes. You may pick up them up at the security desk on your way out.”

They walked down the corridor, the embassy woman’s high heels click-clacking on the cement floor. As they gathered their things, they could hear loud voices outside in Red Square. Paul looked at the embassy woman for an explanation, since she had just come from the square.

“They’re having a demonstration against gay people,” she said with a lift of her eyebrows.

They emerged into the edge of a mob in Red Square. Skinheads and some soldiers were among them. Signs held aloft denounced gays and Africans.

“Queers are ruining Russian values! Such scum would never have been tolerated in the Soviet Union,” shouted a man into a megaphone. The crowd applauded. “Death to gays,” someone shouted. One man next to Paul took a drink from a bottle of vodka and handed it to a compatriot, who up-ended it and drained it into his mouth.

“I’m Meghan Argyle. Mr. McHale. I hope you’ll choose more, um, neutral grounds to scatter Mrs. McHale’s ashes in the future. I was able to convince that FSB man that you are in grief and that you lost your head when he grabbed the bag of ashes.”

 “Thank you for getting us out,” Brendan said. “But how did you know we were in there to begin with? Did these guys that detained us call the embassy?”

“Our microphones are planted everywhere, Mr. McHale. Our microphones,” Meghan said in a conspiratorial whisper while leaning toward Brendan. Then she gave a girlish laugh, revealing braces on her teeth which made her look even younger. “Just kidding! We got word that two Americans had been temporarily detained on Red Square. Lots of tourists saw it. Is it really true that you were in the CIA, Mr. McHale?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think this matter is closed, hopefully,” Meghan said. She gave each of the two men her business card. Paul tucked it into his wallet.

“Goodbye,” Paul said. “Thank you for helping us.”

“It’s no problem, gentlemen,” she said.

She walked away. The two men watched her go. She stumbled on one of the cobblestones in her high heels, tottered a bit and then regained her balance. She didn’t look back. The two men looked at each other and smiled.

Paul and Brendan walked out of Red Square onto a side street. They turned a corner and saw two women headed their way. One wore a Pussy Riot sweatshirt, torn jeans and a nose ring. She was holding hands with a brunette in a black leather motorcycle jacket.

“Don’t go into the square. There are some bad people there,” Paul said to the nose-ring lady, wishing that his Russian was better so he didn’t have to resort to the lame-sounding “bad men.”

Some of the demonstrators had rounded the corner too, behind Brendan and Paul. Then there came the sound of shattering glass as one of the demonstrators smashed an empty vodka bottle against the curb.

The woman looked past Paul at the ruffians approaching and her eyes got wide. Paul had his hand out. The woman let go of her partner’s hand and she grabbed Paul’s. She whispered something to the other woman, who then reached for Brendan’s hand. The foursome wheeled around and walked away from Red Square, just two contented couples taking a stroll. Or in Brendan’s case, more like father and daughter.

Once they got away from the thugs without incident, the woman gave Paul a kiss on the cheek.

“Spaceba,” she said. The women left and Paul and Brendan kept walking. Soon they were in the opulent lobby of their hotel.

“I’m going to St. Petersburg,” Brendan said. “Marge and I spent some memorable times there. Care to join me?”

“No thanks, Brendan. I’m going to meet Vladimir Yavorsky.”

“Vladimir! The ex-KGB guy? Why on earth would you want to see him?”

“I’m trying to find a thread that I can follow. The CIA suspected my father of spying for the KGB. Vladimir knew him and might have a lead. He might have access to records that show that that accusation is bullshit, and it might give leads on whether he’s alive or dead.”