Chapter 2: Serialisation of the novel by Osman Khareef
CHAPTER 2
January winter, a transport cafe at the Polish-Russian border on the outskirts of Brest, ‘gateway to the East’. A large articulated lorry pulls off the highway into the crowded car park. It was snowing, the neon lights of the café flickered dimly through the blizzard. No warmly welcoming windows in this café — just the neon over the darkened door.
Igor Golemov parked the artic carefully in line and climbed stiffly down from the cab. Slowly and methodically, huddled into his red checkered coat, he walked around the big vehicle, examined the tyres and the big new locks on the diesel-tank filler nozzles, and rattled the back doors to make sure they were secure. He armed the central-locking and alarm systems with the infra-red key fob and trudged through the slush to the sad café.
He threaded his way through the room crowded with tables looking for somewhere to sit. They’re all like this now, he thought wearily. Capitalist fascist pigs. He missed the old days, his crisp clean uniform, the power to piss on this riffraff. The good Marxist certainties. Who would have believed the changes brought about by Perestroika and the collapse of Communism? Who could’ve predicted it? Not him, not Igor Golemov, a simple peasant, born of a Russian infantryman and a Polish nurse.
I don’t need all this shit! He thought bitterly.
He found a table by the wall. It was dirty with the food remnants and scattered cutlery of the previous customers. He sat down facing the crowded room and pulled the cap off his dark bearded face. He dipped a stubby finger into the gravy on the plate in front of him and licked it meditatively, letting his cold grey eyes drift carefully around the room.
He was early. Nothing yet. There would be time for a meal and a schnapps or three. Let the German bastards come.
He kept his coat on to conceal the Uzi machine pistol in its holster under his arm. Stretching his legs under the table, he massaged the calves of his legs and loosened the strap that held the spring-loaded throwing knife he kept there, day and night, when on the road.
This was his last job, he reminded himself. It was getting too dangerous. The long hours had taken a heavy toll on his health. It was not the driving; the big turbo inter-cooled DAF 280 they gave him to drive was modern, well equipped and as fast and as comfortable as a limousine. No, it was the fear that told on the nerves. Each flaring of the brake lights on the vehicle in front caused a jolt of anxiety and a stab of fear. No, it was definitely not like the old days. It was an age of chaos and lawlessness in which you resorted to desperate measures to stay alive and make a rouble, a kopeck, or a dollar. That was why he was here, waiting for the bastard German; waiting for his orders. No questions. Then Moscow and beyond.
They came while he was on his fourth schnapps. The food was good and plentiful here. Polish sausage, cabbage, boiled potatoes and coarse dark bread to mop up the thick gravy.
“Want some?” he asked as they sat down at the table. The German gave a grimace of distaste. Igor shrugged and looked at the other man.
“No, thanks,” he said politely, “we must move quickly if we are to make good time to Moscow.”
***
The Biophar Drugs Corporation management meeting had come to an end.
“Stay awhile, will you, Joel?” The CEO, John Visorkis, stood up and waved Joel Maniato over to the huge tall windows overlooking the night time wintery glitter of New York stretching towards the sea and the planes coming in to land at LaGuardia — a view now uninterrupted by the twin towers. On 9/11, John Visorkis had watched in fascinated horror from behind his desk, the mail unopened in front of him, as the World Trade Centre disintegration movie unfurled before his eyes.
The other senior managers and vice-presidents filed out silently to disperse to their homes and apartments, already mentally composing the complicated lies they would tell their respective wives, girlfriends, mistresses, partners, and dogs in response to the simple question… “Had a good day at the office?”
“They’re on their way into Russia tonight, Joel.” Visorkis barked. “I want you to supervise everything. We’ve diverted the orbit of the satellite to cover that area so you can be in constant communication with our people at all times.” He continued harshly. “There will be no mistakes. The consequences of failure are unthinkable. I don’t need to tell you how important this is to the Corporation, to us. We need a miracle and, by Christ, that is what we are going to get!”
Visorkis looked seriously ill. His normally smooth business-bland features were bruised and puffy with tiredness and fear. “You heard those stupid complacent bastards tonight, Joel. Christ! Every fucking R & D programme has gone down the fucking tubes and somehow those motherfucks at the FDA have gotten wind of the problems with FlavAdd. Jesus H! When I think of the money we’ve backhanded those greedy sons of bitches over the years and now they want to stab us in the back!” he ranted.
Joel had never seen the CEO so agitated, so coarse in his language. Knowing things were bad, he had secretly dumped his own BDC shareholding some time ago. He wasn’t sure why he was still with the Corporation — maybe he couldn’t really believe what instinctively knew. After all, it was incredibly difficult to face a catastrophic reality and a near-certain end to his career when life was outwardly so good, so prosperous.
John B Visorkis, CEO of Biophar Drugs Corporation, turned his full attention towards Joel Maniato, Head of Security, eyed him squarely, a strange unwelcoming glitter in his eyes. “I’ll give it to you straight, kiddo. Get me that icon or you’re doomed. I’ll also see to it that everybody goes down with me from the fucking President, the Cardinal and every other poor son of a bitch I can think of who has ever had dealings with us.” He handed Maniato a plastic key card. “Here’s the ComSat code. Now get outta here and leave me in peace! I don’t want to hear from you again until we have that picture in our Carolina research facility.”
***
Igor’s new companion for the ride into Russia was asleep, bundled up in a dark grey labourer’s coat, although it was warm in the cab. Igor studied him carefully in the mirror, which he’d adjusted for this purpose. Definitely not German, he thought. A Westerner, maybe French or Nordic. Well, he won’t know nothing, that was for sure. Not where he kept his stash of US dollars or his weapons. He figured no-one would dream of looking in the place where he’d hidden his money — his future ticket to freedom. He was not thinking about the one thousand US dollars in the money-belt around his waist. The same amount was given him every trip by the transport company, for diesel and to smooth his way past the inevitable militiamen, assorted roadblocks and robber gangs that now plundered the Mushinski highway between Minsk and Moscow. If he had any left after running this gauntlet of plunderers, he kept it as a bonus.
His own money was hidden in the exhaust manifold, in a sealed ceramic pipe he’d had specially made. Sure it got hot but never enough to destroy the money, whatever the vehicle they gave him to drive. Officials didn’t like getting their fingers burned, so they never checked. Anyway, he figured that they would think that the most likely contraband, drugs, would be destroyed by the heat. That’s what Customs and other officials were usually looking for. Mainly for themselves, of course.
The journey passed without incident until three in the morning, about 150 miles from the border, when Igor heard an insistent buzzing noise above the drone of the big engine. His companion woke up instantly and fished a mobile phone from one the pockets of his coat.
“Yes, what is it? I was asleep.” He used English. “Of course it’s me. Who the fuck else do you know travelling about bloody Russia in the middle of the night?” he said irritably. “Sure, I’m OK. Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know what’s happening. Any activity on the other front?” He listened to the voice and rubbed the condensation off the side window so he could peer out. “I can’t see shit. It’s three in the morning and snowing here. Goddammit! All right, we’ll do a comms check. Give me five minutes.”
He clicked the mobile phone shut and put it back in his coat pocket. Reaching under the seat, he pulled out an anonymous-looking briefcase and opened it. He took out an aerial device that looked like a Martian raygun and rubber-suckered it to the side window. The screen built into the lid of the briefcase flickered into life and he started tapping commands into the keyboard. High overhead, in its new geo-stationary orbit, the Biophar Drugs Corporation communications satellite paused for a millisecond in its ceaseless traffic of financial and business transactions to react to the private codes being transmitted to it from far below on the Earth’s winter surface.
Peering short-sightedly at the screen, JeanLuc Kuovic studied the email messages that downloaded. He switched off the PC and closed the lid of the briefcase. “Mind if I take a charge?” he asked Igor in fluent Russian. Igor made a non –committal grunt. JeanLuc opened the briefcase again, took a lead from inside and plugged it into the dashboard lighter socket. Christ! A real Neanderthal, he thought. I could murder for a good cup of coffee.
It was a risk bringing the laptop which was still a high value commodity in Russia. However, it should be okay. In addition to diamonds, he had enough dollars and marks on him to buy off virtually anybody, except the nutters who were intent on killing rather than robbery. God knows there were a few of those about. There were also the Chechen rebels to think about, but he been told they were infrequent this far North and West. Anyway he needed it for the job, as well as the hi-res hand-scanner and the digital camera he’d had built into an old Praktica 35mm camera casing. There was also another piece of equipment in the case that he needed to validate the transaction he was due to make, which was the main purpose of the trip. A little red LED glowed in the handle of the case as the unit charged.
They hit the first roadblock at four in the morning just past Minsk. There were only a few trucks on the highway and they were third in a convoy of five, travelling more or less together. The highway was blocked by Militia in armoured vehicles, blue and white lights flashing through the driving snow. Igor changed down through the gears and brought the vehicle to a stop, headlights sharply illuminating the high rear doors of the old Volvo truck about ten metres ahead. He kept the engine idling to keep the heaters functioning.
Turning to JeanLuc, Igor said, “Don’t worry. This is looks like a routine check. I will pay them. You will see.” He stretched up and took a large bundle of paper money from behind the sun visor. “We try first with roubles,” he said and pushed the notes into the pocket of his red-and-white check lumberjack coat. These coats were all the rage in Poland at the moment. Very mode, very Burt Reynolds! He put the coat on and they waited.
It wasn’t long till a uniformed officer and a guard with a Simonov SKS appeared in the glare of the headlights. They beckoned to Igor and he opened the cab door to get out.
“Stay here. I’ll deal with this,” he said as he jumped down. JeanLuc fiddled nervously with the strap of his case. I am expecting this, he thought. Stay cool. He saw Igor walk over, head down against the snow, to the two militiamen and start a conversation in the bright halo of the headlights. Igor pulled out his sheaf of roubles, but the officer stepped back from him suddenly and the guard quickly brought the Simonov to bear on him. The senior officer shouted at Igor who stood still briefly but then started back to the truck gesturing at JeanLuc to get out.
“The bastard wants to know who you are,” he shouted in his ear as JeanLuc climbed down. “Don’t offer him money unless he asks. Watch yourself,” he added.
JeanLuc walked carefully over towards the two men who stood waiting, the barrel of the Simonov aimed steadily at his midriff. The officer was a tall man in a thick uniform overcoat with the collar buttoned tight, the flat peaked cap with the red braid pulled down over his eyes. He was as tall as JeanLuc. With a sense of déja vu JeanLuc looked into a pair of intense blue eyes, rock steady and unblinking in their gaze. He looked away hurriedly.
“Name?” the officer asked flatly, looking down to study the papers that JeanLuc handed over.
“Alexei Fedorov.” “Occupation and destination?”
“Historian. Zagorsk.” Always try to tell some of the truth. Blank your mind, JeanLuc reminded himself.
“Why are you travelling now, by this route and with that ruffian?” he gestured towards Igor in the DAF, hunched gorilla-like over the steering wheel.
“The Institute gave me money to buy a ticket on the train from Warsaw but this way I can save money.”
“Don’t you have to pay him?”
“He is a relative. It is a favour for the family.”
“Which Institute did you say?” The officer stared at JeanLuc seemingly intent on the reply.
“The Priory Arcadia in Sigor.” JeanLuc lifted his gaze to the face of the man in front of him and waited to see if his coded message had registered. It had.
“Welcome to Russia, my friend. I am called Maraschino. I have your package ready,” came the reply.
A blast of icy wind out of Siberia blew a flurry of glittering snow crystals past them caught in the headlights. “Return to your truck, comrade. We will move on these other vehicles and then load yours with its special consignment. Please pull off the road when one of my men flags you down ahead.”
“Is the load heavy?” asked JeanLuc.
“Yes, very. That is why I asked your people to send a large lorry. Please return to your vehicle now. I will see to the loading at once. It is too cold and too dangerous to delay.”
JeanLuc turned on his heel and returned to the warm cabin of the truck. General Victor Morelin, aka “Maraschino”, disappeared into the darkness. Shortly thereafter the truck in front started to roll forward. Igor put the DAF in the first of its twelve forward gears and pulled away slowly. They passed a long black official car, and the two armoured vehicles pulled over on the side of the road, their blue and white strobes revolving slowly. Only the blurred outlines of the men inside could be seen through the condensation on the windows.
A few hundred yards further on and a soldier waved them into a lay-by and they stopped. The rest of the vehicles disappeared into the night. Igor and JeanLuc had only to wait a short time before a huge winter camouflaged Army lorry rumbled on caterpillar tracks out of the darkness and shrieked metallically to a halt beside them. Several soldiers emerged from the vehicle and stood waiting, sheltering from the wind on the leeward side. The long black official Zil they had glimpsed earlier drew up in front of them and General Victor Morelin stepped out.
JeanLuc turned to Igor who was staring ahead twitching nervously. “Don’t worry. This is all arranged. We are picking up a special load to take back to France on your return from Moscow.”
Igor glared at JeanLuc. “They didn’t tell me about any of this. What’s going on? Why all the Military? This is very dangerous! Who will pay them?”
“You don’t need to know, Igor,” replied JeanLuc more calmly than he felt. “Please now unlock the side panel doors for them, so that we can load up.”
Muttering a string of curses, Igor grabbed the keys, opened the door and dropped out of the cabin onto the icy road. He unlocked the side panels and slid them back. Six of the soldiers quickly laid a metal ramp in position between the two trucks and, obviously struggling, rolled across a small wooden crate that carried no markings. The hydraulic dampers of the DAF wheezed and hissed noisily as the full weight of the crate was taken on board. The General directed the soldiers to rearrange the cargo of tractor tyres to cover and hide the crate as much as possible. The job was soon done. Igor closed the side doors and returned to the warmth of the cabin.
JeanLuc stepped down from the cab and approached the Zil, carrying his briefcase. He opened the rear door and entered. In the car it was hot, muggy and dimly lit. Condensation rivered down the windows.
Morelin had sat on the black leather, a thin cigar in his mouth and a half-empty bottle of vodka on the seat beside him. The uniformed driver stared straight ahead, unmoving; hands on the steering wheel.
“You have my payment, Comrade.” It was not a question, just a plain statement.
JeanLuc nodded towards his briefcase as he slid into the seat facing the General. “It’s in here. Diamonds you asked for and that’s what we brought you, Maraschino.”
“All right, let’s take a look”. Morelin screwed a diamond merchant’s magnifying glass into his eye. JeanLuc opened his case and took out a small black velvet drawstring bag, which he handed to the other man. Multi-carat points of brilliance sparkled in his fingers as Morelin, taking his time, carefully examined each small glittering stone. Apart from the muttering of the Zil’s engine which hiccupped from time to time on the poor quality Russian fuel, and the muted whoosh of the wind outside, it was quiet in the car.
“May God forgive us both,” said Morelin, eventually. He took from around his neck a chain on which there were two small keys. He handed it over to JeanLuc who immediately put it over his own head and tucked the keys under his shirt, where they hung out of sight over his heart.
Business completed, the two men embraced clumsily in the confined space. There were tears flowing freely down the cheeks of the General. “You must go now. Destiny awaits you, my friend!” He cried.
“God be with us both!” said JenLuc huskily. He opened the car door, got out and, head down, returned to his vehicle. The other man poured a big slug of vodka into the glass beside him and raised it as if in toast to an invisible audience. He had what he wanted, what his men wanted — they hadn’t been paid by Putin’s government for more than two years and were on the verge of starvation and mutiny. Why then did he feel so bad? So guilty? He threw the contents down his throat and poured himself another. “Driver, take me back to headquarters. It’s pay day!” he shouted.
“Is everything all right?” asked Igor.
“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s cool. We can go now.”
JeanLuc opened his briefcase, booted up the laptop and started tapping on the keyboard with stiff cold fingers. Igor turned the keys in the ignition and the DAF started with a diesel roar which drowned out the new noise, a rapid rushing tick- ticking noise that now emanated from somewhere within JeanLuc’s bag of tricks on which he was tapping away. The big truck picked up speed, heading back out into the obsidian night, gusts of wind buffeting the high sides, digital lines of snow curving down, like heavy flak, out of the heavens into the powerful halogens.
Four hundred miles to go. Smolensk and then Moscow… for the next part of the operation.
***
John Visorkis, two thousand miles and a continent away, was staring unseeingly out of a window. But it was noon and the view, if he’d been interested, was across to the strange pigeon-encrusted Art Deco neo-Egyptian excrescences of the Chrysler building with Brooklyn in the hazy distance beyond.
“Your noon appointment is here, Mr.Visorkis,” Shelley Lang, his secretary, announced softly through the intercom. JV walked back to his desk, an original 1951 black Cadillac sliced up and remodelled with desk surfaces for working on, a networked PC, and three VDUs built in, permanently online and linked to share dealing desks in Wall St. He loved to sit at this desk in driving control of the vast empire of diversified business that was the Biophar Drugs Corporation. A naturally flamboyant character, his love of 1950s music, automobilia and films was indulged extravagantly and without discrimination.
Nevertheless, JV was a deeply religious Catholic and had been from his schooldays in Chicago’s Cicero district. Nothing in a turbulent and vicious business life of corporate ladder-climbing had affected this man’s unswerving faith and undoubted devotion to the Catholic Church of God and of his appointed authorised senior sales executive, Earth territory, the Pope. JV had never felt any incompatibility with the two aspects of his life. Archbishop Cody had always been most sympathetic and forgiving in the past when he’d made his confession in the privacy of the private steam baths they had both patronised in the Windy City. But now he really did have the ‘Fear of God’ in him and with good reason, he reflected bitterly.
He pushed the intercom button on the base of a solid gold Elvis statuette. “Show him in, will you, Shelley?” he said.
“Not your only icon, I see,” remarked His Holiness Cardinal Joseph Mirphy ironically as he walked in. Imposing was a good adjective to describe Joe Mirphy, Cardinal of New York, Papal Legate. Street clothes for his Eminence consisted of a plain grey business suit of immaculate conception. Only the clerical collar distinguished his outward appearance from that of a high-powered executive. That and a lack of personal ornamentation apart from a large heavy gold ring embossed with a faint insignia barely discernible in the palely glowing, much kissed, 24-carat surface.
The Cardinal walked over to the tall wide windows and surveyed the scene below. “This view has given me a theme for Sunday’s sermon, John,” he said.
“Oh yeah and what’s that, Eminence?” JV said cautiously. He was worried. The Cardinal’s visits were infrequent and always a harbinger of dramatic change.
“The Temptation of Our Lord at the start of His ministry when Satan takes him to a high place and says “Behold! Follow me and you shall be master of all ye survey”,” he misquoted smilingly at John Visorkis.
JV fiddled nervously with the aerial of his Cadillac desk and looked down as the Cardinal turned away from the windows and came back towards him.
“We’re releasing you from your duties as CEO, John,” he said matter of factly. Cardinal Mirphy levelled his gimlet gaze steadily at JV. He seemed strangely uncurious, even bored, by the effect this statement might have had. JV felt as if he were about to be eaten alive by a lizard.
“Wha- What?” he spluttered, the first tears in more than forty years springing into his eyes, making him blink rapidly.
The Cardinal continued, a slight Irish lilt in his voice. “We think it is time for you to take a sabbatical, a contemplative retreat. You need time to study the Scriptures and learn God’s Will. The Corporation has become a liability to us and Gelli’s people have arranged for it to be sold. The new owners are godless Japanese who will move in next month. All is agreed,” he said with an air of finality, brooking no argument.
“But … But, what about Project Maraschino?” he cried.
Cardinal Mirphy steepled manicured fingers against a clean-shaven chin, as if in prayer. “Project Maraschino is to be transferred directly to my control,” he said. “That is all. You may leave now. May the Peace of God go with you always.” He paused and then said, “Oh and on your way out, please ask Shelley to send for Mr. Maniato.”
The Cardinal sat down on the still-warm executive seating vacated by John Visorkis, who emerged on the cruel New York concrete sidewalk beside the Biophar Drugs building a beaten man. The word had gotten out so quickly — within minutes! He’d even had to open doors himself; to push the elevator buttons himself. Shelley had totally ignored him as he walked out of his office. His limousine had already been reassigned. His mobile wouldn’t work so he couldn’t contact his lawyer. He needed to call a cab but he carried no money. As far as anyone in the Company was concerned he was dead.
Shelley, the secretary, knocked her way in.
“Email for you, Your Eminence. Flagged Project Maraschino, so I thought you’d want to know,” she continued sulkily. “Please look at your personal directory on the network. Do you know how?” she asked prettily. “Shall I show you?”
“No, no! I understand!” he replied impatiently. “I will do it. Now please leave.” Shelley flounced out. She had already found a new job with a PR agency so why should she care?”
Mirphy logged onto his email, hit the decrypt button and stared at the brief message. His lips moved in involuntary prayer. He read … First transaction successful. Am proceeding as planned to Moscow for next objective. Wish me God speed! JeanLuc.
Mirphy deleted the message.
The die was cast. He felt a cold shiver of fear running down his spine. His stomach felt sick with tension. He should pray. He needed to pray. This was the beginning of the Fulfilment. This was what he, as a Seneschal of the Priory Arcadia, had been planning for so many years. This was what King Solomon’s diamonds, which the Priory had looted from the Temple in Jerusalem over a millennium ago, was paying for. This was Fulfilment of Prophesy made at the ‘Splitting of the Elm’ in 1188 when the Knights Templar and the Priory went their ordained different Paths — one to build an Empire, the other to disappear into the shadows to work secretly to bring about what was to be known as the Fulfilment. This was the enactment of the Prophecy of Malachi. This was the enactment of the True Interpretation of the Book of Revelations by St.John the Divine. The cleansing and rebirth of Christianity. The flushing out of Satan.
Yes, it was time to reformat the hard drive of history and install a new operating system, to use the terminology popular with his Vatican master, Pope John XXIV.
Cardinal Mirphy turned back to the computer at his desk and keyed in some commands.
Do you really want to DELETE everything? This process cannot be reversed.
Y/N
The screen contents disappeared leaving only the cursor on the black screen that blinked steadily, hypnotically. Blink, blink. Blink, blink — a coded light modulation from a pulsar star at the far end of a distant galaxy. He stared at it and hit Y.
Icon Rapture by Osman Khareef can be purchased HERE
