Spy Thriller: An Involuntary Spy: An espionage thriller (Involuntary Spy Espionage Thriller Series Book 1) (8 page)

     Bill was, of course, on the phone when Seth was shown into his office.  Bill flashed the usual fake smile, and nosed Seth to sit down.  After what seemed like an eternity of blah, blah, blah, he finally hung up.

     “Seth, how are you doing?”  Another shake and a smile.

     “Everything’s coming along Bill.”  Bill looked stoic.

     “That’s great,” he said.  “Uh – when can I expect your report?”

     “Just going through and analyzing all the data.  Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

     If Bill knew anything about the break-ins, it wasn’t showing.  But politicians were famous for double-speak and were consummate liars.  That’s why George W. Bush had to be their favorite president.  It’s easier to commit a fraud when the actor believes his lie to the point of a conviction.

     “Seth, take your time.  Team Two has already turned in their report.”

     Team Two was pretty quick.  It must be easier to work without getting whacked in the head every time you try to save your data.

     “Okay, Bill.”

     On his way back to the lab, Seth’s mind drifted to that thought that kept gnawing in the corner of his brain – the ecosystem.  Everything in life was interconnected, from the smallest insect to the tallest tree, but nobody cared about the ecosystem. 

     Nature was doing a good job thousands and even millions of years before GMOs but he wondered, “If the Bt that was killing the rats was that strong, what effects could it have on life in the ecosystem when the GMO plant pollinates?”  The results could be disastrous, from pollinator deaths to human respiratory problems, allergies, skin lesions and contamination and extinction of other plants, and God knows how many species that depended on them.

    The ultimate plan was for Germinat to own all the seeds, and to engineer the GMOs to be sterile so all seeds had to be purchased from the company.  But the current plants were still capable of reproduction, and the company had to take the alternative step of suing farmers who saved their seeds with patent violations.  Since the GMOs were not sterile, that meant that they could breed with natural varieties of corn, soy and cotton, and contaminate them.  And, finally, insect pests were very adaptable to changes in their environment and could easily develop resistance to the Bt toxin, resulting in crop failure anyway.

     The U.S. official policy was to bring GMOs to market as soon as possible, for the benefit of mankind, of course.  But oftentimes what was seen to benefit mankind was destructive to nature, without which mankind could not exist. 

     As Albert Einstein observed, human beings experience thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.  We forget that we humans are animals, inextricably connected to the world and everything in it.  In the rush to bring GMO food to the world because it was good for us, nobody had asked the question whether it would be good for the world.

     Strangely, Seth was almost fully assimilated into his life as an English professor in Russia.  He didn’t miss his moustache at all – he rather liked the clean-shaven look.  Sometimes when he looked in the mirror, he didn’t even recognize himself.  If Seth had to spend the rest of his life here, he thought that he could.  And he may have to.

     Unfortunately, he was obliged to stay in town and was not able to leave, so his sphere was somewhat limited.  But, when Natasha invited him to the country with her friends, he was tempted to break that vow he had made to Yuri.

     “Come on, it will be fun,” she said.

     Fun – what an interesting concept.  Seth’s clock had been set on survival so long that he didn’t realize that he was starving himself of an essential element of being, that of having fun.

     “I don’t know. I really don’t know anybody.”

     “That’s okay, you’ll be with me.”

     That was convincing.  The chance to spend the entire weekend with Natasha was as compelling to Seth as a porch light to an insect.  After all, he was no longer Seth Rogan, the American fugitive; he was George Aimers, the Canadian English teacher.  What could possibly go wrong?

     “Okay, I’ll go.”

     “Great!  We’ll come by your place Friday around 8 to pick you up.”

     That was good.  Yuri would have already made his obligatory visit and would have made plans to go out and get shit-faced and party.  Seth had already made it clear to him that his partying days were over and he could count him out.  Yuri left Seth alone for the most part on the weekends, so once he was able to sneak away, all he would have to do is answer his phone if Yuri should call.

     When 8:00 p.m. rolled around, Seth felt like a kid sneaking out of his parents’ house.  Natasha’s friend, Masha, and her boyfriend with the rhyming name, Pasha, drove them.

     “All the girls are bringing their boyfriends,” said Natasha.

     “Oh, does that mean I’m your boyfriend?”  he asked.  Natasha smiled shyly.

     “I’ll take that as a yes.”

     On the way to the country, the world outside the jeep looked frozen and cold, but it was warm inside and Seth had his Russian winter provisions for outside; a good pair of boots, a fur hat and coat, and fur lined gloves.  There was no room for
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
in Russia.  If you didn’t wear fur, you froze, so you wore fur.

     They pulled in to a compound with high security.  No passport, no passage, and your name had to be on the list.  The place was a camp for employees of the Russian Central Bank.  It had a sauna, a swimming pool, and several recreation rooms.  When they arrived, Masha and Natasha joined the other girls in the kitchen, and Pasha scurried Seth out into the great outdoors with the men to barbeque shashliki, a delicious Russian marinated meat.  Just as they didn’t believe in suspending the fur trade, Russians were not vegetarians either.

     The cold was biting at his tingling fingers through the gloves and his ears through the hat, so Seth warmed his hands near the open barbeque, which was pouring out a deliciously smelling combination of smoke and steam.  The guys were all gathered around doing the same thing and drinking beer.  Pasha tried to translate for Seth as he turned the meat with one hand and held a bottle of beer with the other.

     “So George, you’re from Canada?”

     “Yeah.”

     “What kind of a car do you drive back in Canada?”

     “A Lexus.”

     The guys all reacted in chorus.  A Lexus was definitely something they all would love to have.

***

     As they feasted inside, it seemed like every man had a toast for their new found Canadian friend. Seth couldn’t decide if the toast was a reason for drinking, or the drinking a reason for talking, and he decided it was the latter.  Alcohol is a kind of truth serum.  Without it, you may doubt sincerity. With it you can doubt sincerely.

     “Seth, how long have we known each other?” Pasha asked rhetorically, looking at his watch.  “I’ll tell you – four hours and nine minutes, and in those four hours and nine minutes I have seen only goodness in you.  So I want to say that I’m happy to call you my friend, and invite you to my home, anytime you want.  To you.”

     As Pasha raised his glass, eleven other glasses met each other at different levels in the middle of the large table, followed by a practically synchronized swallow, a joint exhalation, and the sound of twelve glasses hitting the table almost simultaneously. Seth discovered that night that he had two extra stomachs; one for vodka and one for overeating.

     Then one of the guys pulled out a guitar and started playing.  As members of the group joyfully sang old Russian folk songs, some of the girls began to dance.  Seth didn’t know any of the lyrics, of course, but chimed into the chorus phonetically.

     After the last bottle was emptied, the girls cleared the table while the guys went off to play billiards and table tennis.   Seth surprised himself again to find that he could actually play with competence two games that he had always thought he had sucked at.  When the girls were finished with their tasks, the guys all followed them to pool area for a sauna and swim.

     Seth sweated beads of vodka in the sauna room, while making small talk with the guys.  When he could stand it no longer, he made his way for the pool.  Spotting Natasha, he jumped in and swam underwater to her like a shark, pulling her under by the legs.

     “You’re drunk,” she said, as they surfaced.

     “Not any more.  I sweated every drop of vodka out.”

     Seth held Natasha and spun her in the water, then leaned in for a kiss.  She promptly pulled away and swam off, with Seth in pursuit.

     Being with Natasha set Seth at ease; so much so he forgot what had even brought him to Russia in the first place.  As their weekend was coming to a close, for the first time, he did not have a care in the world.

     The pleasant weekend had quickly come to an end.  As the car pulled out of the compound, everyone was in a jovial mood.  If this had been America, there would be no way that jeep could have navigated the ice packed, snowy roads, but Pasha skillfully slipped and slid along, like a professional driver who had driven icy roads every day of his life.  Everything was great, until they got to a police checkpoint near the river.

     The police motioned for Pasha to pull over, and he did.  Then, they looked inside the jeep and that is when things went from bad to worse.

     “Dokumenti, pajaoulasta,” said the officer to Seth, asking for his documents with an outstretched hand.

     Natasha quickly chimed in, speaking Russian, asking why, as Seth was a passenger, not the driver.  It was no use to argue.  Seth complied, giving his passport, and the officer took it into the police station, leaving Seth and his friends in the car. 

    There is a fine line between police and criminals, which makes it a better idea to play by their rules than to argue with them.  Arguing with a man who has the same emotions, fears, and pressures that we all do, but who also can deprive you of your freedom, is never a good idea.  There is no such thing as freedom of speech when you are dealing with a policeman.

     Seth took the opportunity to call Yuri.  Yuri’s voice was like an electric shock.

     “You what?  I told you not to leave the city!”

     “I know Yuri, but could we talk about that part later?  I’m getting a little nervous here.”

     “Damn right you should be.  What if they arrest you and take your fingerprints?  What then, smart guy?  Don’t you know you are most wanted man in world right now?  I make call.”

     Yuri angrily hung up and the police returned, but with more questions, not the passport.  Now they had his registration, with his address, his immigration card, and his passport.  If anyone wanted to run surveillance on English speaking white men from North America living in Russia, now they had a nice lead.

   Relativity should have been about the perception of time, because it has a strange knack for running out when you need more of it, and lasting too long when you want it to pass quickly.  Seth sat in the car and waited for what seemed like an hour.  Finally, he was invited to come inside, and Natasha tagged along with him as his interpreter.

     The policeman turned them over to another cop, who had Seth’s documents, and a ticket book and form.

     “He says your registration is not up to date,” said Natasha.

     “That’s impossible.  It’s for the whole year.  I haven’t even been here a year yet.”

     “Well, that’s what he says.”

     “Ask him how we can solve this,” said Seth.

     The solution turned out to be putting 1,000 rubles between the pages of the ticket book.  Seth had back his passport, his registration, his immigration card and a valuable lesson – fugitives don’t leave the hideout.

     “Seth you really fucked up this time,” said Yuri.  “This means no more privileges – no more restaurants, no more coffee shops – you go to work and you go home.”

     “Really, Yuri, there was no harm done.”

     “You don’t know that.  I’m sure they are looking for anyone who could pass as American.  There’s a lot of guys like that in Moscow, but here?  You’re a dead giveaway.”

     By putting Seth at the ends of the earth, Yuri was trying to get him farther out of harm’s way, but may have done the opposite.

     “For how long?  I can’t really live like this.”

     “But you
will
live.”

     Yuri chewed on his bottom lip, as if to stimulate his brain to thought.  “Let’s give it some time and, if there is no heat, you can do your coffee shops, but don’t ever leave town again.”

     The next several weeks were excruciatingly boring.  Seth had to curtail his time with Natasha to the university grounds, and he couldn’t explain why.  He hoped it would not be devastating to their fledgling relationship.  Seth looked upon his boredom as an opportunity – the time that he would not have otherwise had to do everything he never seemed to have the time to do.  In this time, he worked on his memoirs.  Someday his entire story would be told, and it was important to nail down just exactly what that story was.

     One day, strange as it may seem, another Canadian showed up at the university, claiming to be on a sabbatical.  Worse yet, he was a scientist.  Seth tried to stay as far away from the man as he could, but, at after a faculty meeting, the inevitable happened, and it was Natasha who introduced them.  As he left class one day, Seth found himself trapped in the corridor, nose to nose with Natasha and the new Canadian.

     “George, this is Dave Salisbury, our new biology professor, and guess where he’s from?”

     “I can’t guess.  Where?”

     “Vancouver!  Isn’t that great
?”

     Fucking wonderful
, thought Seth.  He didn’t know shit about Vancouver except that it was cold and rained a lot, and it was not far from Seattle.

     “George is from Vancouver too!”

     “Oh really?” said the newcomer.  “What’s your alma mater?”

     “Ya know, I’d love to sit with you and chat, but Natasha and I were working on a lesson plan, and we have to get to it.  Sorry, eh?”

     “Sure, no worries, maybe the two of you would like to get together with me and my wife for a dinner or something?”

     Natasha chimed in, “That would be great!” at the same time as Seth’s “We’ll see,” and he whisked Natasha away.

     “Why did you react that way?  He’s from Canada too.”

     “I don’t know.  Just seems kind of fishy.”

     “Fishy?  Why?”

     “Well, think about it, we are a zillion miles away from North America, and the only other guy who speaks native English is also from Vancouver?  Doesn’t that seem fishy to you?”

     “Well, yes, but I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.  And you don’t have any reason not to socialize with him, so…”

     Seth had every reason not to socialize with this guy and a great deal to hide, not to mention the fact that he couldn’t answer one question correctly about Vancouver.  He didn’t even know if they had a baseball team.  He had better read up on Vancouver and learn to change the subject every time it came up.

     “Let’s get together with them, it will be fun,” she said.

     Seth was not sure he could handle that kind of “fun” but it was true, he was becoming stir crazy in his new situation of “house arrest.”

     “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

     Natasha hugged him around the neck and kissed his cheek.  Seth would have to hit the Internet and brush up on Vancouver.