Motherland Page 8

  “What was so evil about the research?”

  “The Soviets were pushing the development of nuclear and chemical weapon research. But this was something different. It was against God. It was a weapon of mass destruction alright. It wasn’t just a biological weapon that could kill someone if they became infected. It was a weapon to destroy a whole race of people, based on their DNA. The Soviets were very advanced with this research. Much more than the rest of the world realized. The work was done in an extremely secretive manner.”

  “And the Americans were helping?”

  “They helped in the beginning, with scientific help and the like. But after the war ended, all the cooperation stopped of course. We saw each other as enemies.”

  “So you are telling me that the weapon being developed was a way to kill an entire race?”

  “Yes, one could release a virus into the open that would only attack certain DNA. You could make it very specific. For instance, to only attack those of German blood. Or Jewish, or whomever you wanted to exterminate forever from the face of the planet. As I said, it was evil. I wanted nothing more to do with it.”

  “Where do you think your brother is?”

  “I have an idea. But I don’t desire to reach him. And I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk to me. He thinks I am a traitor to the Russian cause. Or so I have heard, over the years.”

  “Let me ask you another way. If you could help stop the spread of this weapon, would you get involved? Help me contact your brother?”

  “Why do you ask me that?”

  “Because someone very evil is trying to obtain the weapon. They want to rule the world. They want to use this weapon. I am sure of it. I think they want to wipe out the Jewish race once and for all. They are trying to find out information about how developed it is, where the information is located, et cetera.”

  Gennadi seemed to drift off again. His eyes grew glassy, and he seemed to slump into a depression that was written all over his face. “I have feared this for many years. Now the time has come.” Connor didn’t push him anymore but let him think in silence. Finally he answered Connor’s question.

  “Yes, I will help you. But I cannot protect you. This road is very dangerous. I am old and it doesn’t matter if it destroys me. However, you are young. Are you prepared to find out what is behind the door? Are you prepared to take this where it leads you?”

  “I have no choice in the matter it seems. And yes, I am ready to take this where it leads me.”

  “Then I will help you find him.”

  With that, the man’s strength seemed to ebb. It was getting very late and Sam helped him to the door. Gennadi refused any more help and slowly walked out into the night to his home.

  Sam escorted Connor to the guest house in town, and they agreed to meet in the morning.

  The next day, Connor woke early and decided to take a walk through the middle of the desolate town. He strolled down the wide, empty streets. He decided the buildings couldn’t be designed to be any more devoid of soul. They were functional at a bare minimum level but lacked any type of artistic detail whatsoever. They were also dirty and run-down. Unless painted, everything was a dead color of gray, only the shading changed. The pavement was cracked and potholed. The grass grew wherever it could; no effort was taken to landscape or make the area more aesthetic. On the buildings that were colored, the paint was peeling off the walls. The geometric patterns painted on the outside of the walls of the apartment buildings were meant to be artistic but served only to highlight the ridiculousness and the lack of purpose of the town’s existence. In the distance, a smokestack belched waste from the local power plant. Dangerous crevices on the side of the road carried the water runoff away from the street. Connor was saddened just to be here. His phone rang.

  “Are you making progress?” the voice menacingly asked.

  “Yes, I have found a connection to the scientist from the weapons lab that was located here. I’m trying to track him down.”

  “Good. You are running out of time. Keep us posted.” Click.

  I had almost forgot about these assholes. I’ve got to figure out a way forward. Something will come to me. A plan. Something.

  Connor met Sam for breakfast at one of the few restaurants in town. It was an extended kitchen more than anything, located off one of the lobbies of an apartment block in the center of town. Connor was hungry and enjoyed the local food complete with whale blubber and fish oil. If he didn’t understand one of the dishes offered, Sam explained it to him.

  “I’ve never in my life heard Gennadi talk of such things. I had no idea.”

  “Thank you for introducing me to him,” Connor replied. “He is an interesting man. A good man, I can tell.”

  “Yes, he is a good person. But an old one. I’m not sure how he can help you. He is supposed to meet us here soon to get something to eat and talk further with you.”

  Two hours later, Sam and Connor were still waiting for Gennadi. “I’m going to go check on him,” Sam said in frustration.

  “I’m going with you.”

  The two men made their way to Gennadi’s flat on the twelfth floor on one of the apartment blocks via the tiny, creaking elevator, and soon were standing outside his door and knocked. The smell of food cooking in someone’s kitchen permeated the hallway. There was no reply to their repeated knocking.

  Sam turned the latch, and the two of them walked in slowly to the apartment. They found Gennadi sitting in a lounge chair in the middle of the main room, lifeless. A bottle of sleeping pills sat on the table next to the chair. Sam felt his neck. The body was cold. “He’s been like this for a long time, probably from last night.”

  “I upset him,” said Connor. “He couldn’t deal with the thought of being involved in that project, even though it was so long ago. I resurrected some old demons.”

  Connor reached down and picked up a piece of paper that was lying next to the bottle of pills. There was something in bad English scribbled on one side. It was a name of a person and also a town. Then the words, “Destroy the evil. I’m sorry.”

  “Must be his brother’s contact information.”

  “He was my friend. Rest in peace Gennadi,” said Sam mournfully.

  Sam then picked up the phone and called the police. Once they arrived, the police took the two men’s statements and then they were free to go. With an air of sadness, Connor and Sam went back to the bar where they planned to celebrate Gennadi’s life.

  Chapter Nine

  The Israeli prime minister walked up to the long, wooden, polished table, reached down, and pulled back a chair then sat in the plush padding. He slowly raised his eyes and met the gaze of the man across from him. This was a man whom he had distrusted from the beginning, when they first met. It was a gut instinct, but he never dreamed that the evil could be so complete. Here was the man who had attempted to destroy his country, Israel. Well, maybe he wasn’t completely in charge of the operation, but he let it happen. He had wanted it to happen. The prime minister was certain. That was bad enough. Prime Minister Dahan just knew the man was complicit in some manner, up to his eyeballs. And here he sat across from him, smiling, thinking the prime minister knew nothing. It was all he could do to maintain his composure, not to act in a way that was entirely unbecoming for a head of state at an international event.

  Two tactical nuclear weapons had been smuggled into Israel via an aid convoy for the Palestinians and on board a ship that eventually docked in the port of Jaffa. Only the incredible work of the Shin Bet, the Israeli security force, to find and disarm the weapons via nuclear detection devices invented in Israel had prevented Armageddon for his country. This bland result must have bothered the man sitting across from him. To have his evil goal within sight but then to have it snatched from him at the last minute. Prime Minister Dahan smiled as he thought of the instant the president of the United States knew his diabolical plan had been foiled. The prime minister made a mental note to ask his intelligence personnel if they had h
eard of any reaction from the White House that raised any suspicions Israel knew who was behind the attempted attack. He doubted there was any evidence to be found. President Chahine was very good at his charade. He hid his tracks for quite some time, that is, until Israel discovered who he really was.

  Israel had been chasing and attempting to find out who the Sultan was for some time before his identity was discovered. This sometimes mythical person, who controlled the Middle East and was bent on destroying Israel, was now all too real. The Mossad had tracked him for years, until finally one day, they put the pieces together.

  It was Reshma Nadir, an Arab Israeli agent, who discovered the cold trail that led them to unmasking this villain. She worked tirelessly to uncover the Sultan. The prime minister was grateful to her for that. An Arab had saved the Jewish State. If only the world knew the irony.

  The prime minister was jerked back from his deep thoughts when the president spoke. It was as if they were here to plan a party or something, rather than discuss an issue that was existential to Israel.

  “Thank you for coming to Camp David, Mr. Prime Minister. I hope the parties here can come to some agreement for peace for all of your people.”

  The prime minister looked around the table. They were all here, Israel’s enemies. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, Iran, the entire terrorist clan. They all smiled. They knew Israel was backed into a corner, and they smiled and acted like peacemakers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  “I am glad to be here to make peace, Mr. President. But, only a real peace, if that can be achieved. Frankly, I am doubtful.”

  The prime minister could see a faint flicker of anger cross the president’s face. Yes, I am sure you are angry I don’t bend over like a whore for you, Mr. President, the prime minister thought to himself. Israel is not dead yet, not by a long shot.

  The Iranian president spoke, “We are here to make a real peace, Mr. Prime Minister, but we agree, the peace has to be fair and long-lasting.”

  The only peace you want is one where Israel no longer exists and Iran is the nuclear hegemon in the region, the Prime Minister again thought to himself. “We will honestly consider your terms, Mr. President,” he said to the Iranian head of state.

  The meeting was set up by the American administration, with the goal of solving the Palestinian question and peace in the Middle East once and for all. The problem was that the solution the American president was proposing was for Israel to go back to the 1967 borders proposed by the United Nations. This was suicide for Israel and everyone in the room knew it. Without the territories Israel annexed from the Arab armies that attacked her, the country would be reduced to a small strip of land barely one mile wide at some points. It was a non-defensible footprint, and that was why everyone in the room was attempting to force the Jewish leader to accept this trade. Land for peace, they thought. It was a ridiculous proposal.

  The prime minister scanned the table full of monsters and then looked the twice-elected American leader in the eye. “Let’s get started, Mr. President,” he said tersely.

  The old, Russian man was tired. He read the letter of his brother’s suicide with extreme sadness as he sat at his desk. He glanced at a photo of them together, years ago, still hanging loosely on his wall. His brother had been such a weak man. A man afraid of doing what needed to be done to save his people. Yes, his people, their people. Why didn’t his brother ever realize that the ends justified the means? Why didn’t he realize that things had to be done, bad things, but necessary things?

  Anatoly sighed. It had been a long day, and he was very tired. He barely even remembered what his brother was like. It was that long since he last saw him. He walked over and took the faded, framed picture off the wall and put it in a drawer in the next room. Enough of him. I need to finish my work.

  Anatoly thought back to the days when he was a spy in the Nazi government for the Soviets. He spoke German then and still did mostly now. It was his original tongue that his parents taught him. He thought in German.

  He worked hard for the Soviets once he was back in Russia, after being secreted out of Berlin and into the Soviet Union, to work in Stalin’s laboratories, continuing work on the weapon to end all weapons. During that time, life in Provideniya was actually much tougher than it was now. They didn’t have the creature comforts or the direct communication with the outside world that existed today. Of course the communist overseers would arrive regularly via the airstrip to check on their progress. They were extremely interested in the weapon they were developing, as were the Americans. They provided much help, and there was regular communication via flights from the Alaskan territory to the lab in Provideniya. Once the war ended, that cooperation ended of course.

  In the end, the process of development took much longer than anyone expected. The research needed was not completely solved until decades later, when computing power became more readily available. His lab discovered and mapped human DNA much earlier than anyone thought, anyone on the outside that is.

  Later, after fall of the U.S.S.R., the lab was moved further into the interior of the country, in Siberia. His brother did not follow him. He said he had a problem with the evil nature of the research. Such small-mindedness.

  Even in this late stage of his life, Anatoly still managed his laboratory and the project. It was his life’s work. He would not stop until he stopped breathing. His people had to be protected.

  He walked to the window and looked outside at the mountainous landscape. It was necessary to move his project here. Leaving was the right thing to do. They had achieved much success in the last couple decades. The weapon was almost operational. It had to be perfected so that it did not cause mass death but only a targeted effectiveness. That was the key. We are so close. So close to protecting the Motherland against all enemies. I will not fail. I will succeed, or I will die trying.

  Peter Quinn didn’t go back to his hotel room; it was too risky and he was scared. Thankfully he had travelled light and left very little there that was important. He had his passport and money. That was all he needed.

  Peter didn’t know if he had been followed, or if Vitali had for that matter. It really didn’t make a difference. He couldn’t take any chances. He had to assume someone knew he was there and going back to the room would be suicide.

  But the man in the car was after Vitali, not him. At least, not initially. I’ll never know what he was really after, but he obviously wanted Vitali dead. The man looked Russian. It seemed that Vitali recognized him for an instant before he was killed. Maybe he and Vitali went way back. Maybe they had old scores to settle. Anyway, time to move on.

  Peter had found a small, rundown hotel across town. After the incident, he jumped on the nearby trolleybus and just rode for several hours, trying to decide what to do. Eventually he got off at a lower rent part of town, checked in to the hotel, and secreted himself in his room. He now sat on the bed, pondering the situation as the traffic blared outside the establishment in the middle of the night. Finally, he reached over and grabbed Vitali’s phone. Looking through the numbers, he eventually found one that didn’t match and was listed as CM. Must be Connor, thought Peter. Well, here goes nothing. He dialed the number.

  Connor was on the train, heading into Siberia. He was running out of time per his captor’s instructions. This was no way to live. He wasn’t sleeping and hardly eating. The stress was too great. He was lying on the top bunk in the black silence of the four-passenger compartment as the train rambled through the Siberian wilderness, wondering if he was going to live or die. An old, Soviet blanket was thrown across him to keep out the night dampness. It was dark outside and no lights were on inside the compartment. The other three passengers in the cabin were silent as well, two asleep, one on her iPhone.

  He tried to fit in with the Russian passengers as best he could. However, they knew he was American. It was obvious. They distrusted him. Connor wondered if they had alerted the authorities. Not many people were autho
rized to be in this area, in spite of his Russian passport. He was taking a big chance but he had no other choice.

  Connor wondered how he had ended up here, in this desolate place, with really no idea how to move forward. He was just running on instinct now and was losing faith that he would make it out of this predicament alive. The terrorists’ phone was in his pocket. He never let it get away from him, as he was afraid of the consequences. The incision in his arm was throbbing and had maybe grown infected. This is not good, he thought.

  The trip to the interior went easy enough, so far. He had boarded the train in Provideniya for the five-hundred-mile journey to the small city in the interior. It was not even marked on some maps. That was probably intentional, he thought. A weapons lab and all.

  Connor didn’t know what to expect. He was looking forward to meeting Anatoly. Although he had a number from his brother that he assumed was for Anatoly, he didn’t dare call. He didn’t want to warn the authorities, whom he was sure the old man would alert if he tried to contact him before arriving. So Connor took a chance. He decided to just show up in town and try to talk to Anatoly. It was his only lead and his only hope. He was running on fumes now.

  Soon the sun started to peek over the horizon of the Siberian countryside. The burly stewardess brought hot water and instant coffee a few minutes later. Connor managed to pay without causing too much trouble. The Russian he studied long ago in college came in handy. The other passengers in the cabin started to stir. The person under him was a young woman in her early twenties. She left the cabin dressed in sweats with her hair up, once it was obvious people were waking. She returned twenty minutes later appearing as a different person, having changed and applied makeup and combed her hair. She’s actually quite attractive, Connor thought. Actually stunning! I’m not in Kansas anymore. She did not speak to him, but he caught several glances out of the corner of his eye. She was definitely interested in who he was. Maybe I can use that to my advantage in this situation, he thought.