former KGB for ten years. They had all achieved considerable rewards for their service, but the medals were kept private as was the tradition of the secret service.
The people of the village thought the newcomers would remain only until something better came along; which they thought may not be likely in such days of uncertainty.
He passed some kids playing with a stick and a puck on a patch of street they had pushed clean, taking turns on the slap shots, “ peh, zheh, kah, cheh, yu, myakee,..” they counted.
Sometimes Sergey marveled at where he found himself these days, the conditions he suffered, the demands he accepted since the former KGB was dismantled in 1991. General Samocherny had survived and had placed himself in a higher post in its temporary successor, the FSB. The best officers and agents of the former KGB were handpicked for the new secret service where Sergey ended up 2 ranks from the top. The rest scattered, some, unfortunately, to form the first new Russian Mafia.
He kicked the buildup of snow under his boots, bucking the toe sharply against the post of a fence at the side of the road to shake the clumps off. The two young boys stopped slapping the beatup hockey puck back and forth to watch the stranger. Sergey waved at them and they went back to their game. They were the first kids he had seen.
General Dmitri Samocherny was Sergey’s immediate supervisor, and as soon as he heard about the death of Tarasov, he sent Sergey and Yuri out from Moscow. The death of Tarasov was certainly suspicious, and there was an obvious need to remove the temptation for any ambitious party to overtake the plant. Without people knowing about the real activities in the plant, and as far as they knew, very few knew about the plant, it was best to curtail any possible private development that could imperil Russian sovereignty.
Also, Sergey knew that there was escalating confrontation between President Boris Yeltsin and his adversaries in the legislature. Sergey assumed the General was dispersing his most trusted and able troops when unavoidable situations with unpredictable results threatened his domain.
Though Sergey had hundreds of people under him in Moscow, he now had one agent and his wife. That did not matter. Sergey did not indulge in that Russian quest for the “biggest”, as in the Mir mine, the biggest mining hole in the world, or the biggest damn, or the biggest plant, the universal macho need to achieve the most and the biggest even when it destroys more than it achieves. Sergey took every assignment, big or small, as a personal challenge, and a merciful respite from nostalgia and regret. To him, this assignment was just as important as the political events unfolding in Moscow.
Sergey and Yuri had left within hours of receiving General Samocherny's orders. A 20 hour trip, planes, trains and automobiles, had taken them from Moscow to Yakutsk, ending with a smaller flight to Zhigansk from where Yuri, Magda, and Helena took the once-a-week bus that was still running from Zhigansk to Seytchan arriving a day before Sergey who was delayed getting the CD player installed in the Toyota at Zhigansk before driving up to Seytchan.
Chapter 6
Sergey drove into the plant parking lot for the meeting he had setup with the head of internal plant security, Zonda Pavlovich Glazan. Sergey ushered Zonda into his office. Zonda was a tall wiry man who didn’t smile readily, but he took Sergey’s hand willingly enough and gave him a strong handshake. He had temporarily taken charge after the sudden death of the Plant Director, Anatoly Tarasov.
Zonda briefed Sergey about the Director’s death. “Tarasov’s car and all his personal effects are locked up securely, pending investigation by the Zhigansk police. Right away I wrote up what I knew. You have it, right?”
“I do, thanks. Do you have the key, Zonda?”
“The key?”
“For Tarasov’s car.”
“Oh, right,” and he fumbled around with the keyring on his belt. Sergey wondered if Zonda was nervous since he didn’t make the key connection right away.
“Good, I’ll take a look at the car.”
Surprisingly, Zonda handed over the key, almost with relief. He had known Tarasov to be a good director, and, in the small community, the Director had a good reputation. His death left most of the town spooked, and Zonda did not want the responsibility of keeping the dead man’s belongings safe longer than necessary.
Did Zonda have anything to do with Tarasov’s death? He had had a week’s access to much of the Director’s information before Sergey arrived.
When Zonda left, Sergey reread Zonda’s report that he had only skimmed after he arrived. It helped to read the words when you could put a face to the person who wrote the words. Maybe Sergey had arrived too late. The report indicated that the evidence in Director Tarasov's possessions pointed to him as one planning to commit some disruptive act at the plant. Was the man working alone, however?
Sergey found Tarasov’s car in the containment area behind the administration building. Opening the door to the closed car released a miasma of foul air that knocked Sergey back on his heels. Death and a pungent smell – a horse liniment maybe. Whatever it was, the combination was overwhelming. He opened all the car doors and windows. The front seat was stained with Tarasov’s blood, and the windshield and dashboard was splattered with the brown stains as well. He checked every door panel, and the side walls of the trunk finding two extra pass cards and a box of computer disks for the master computer hidden in the trunk, along with a kilogram of high explosives and some detonation caps. It appeared that he had intended to steal the master program for controlling the nuclear reactor; a valuable commodity on the black market. If the damning evidence was indeed as damning as it appeared, the Director may have been discovered or he had simply lost his nerve; either one could have been enough, maybe, to make a man take his own life. The search turned up a ring of keys under the driver's seat. They had fallen or been thrown into the seat adjustment track and were all but invisible.
Comparing the story with the evidence he had discovered, he doubted that the Plant Director was the right man or the only man that he was after. It is too easy: the evidence too obvious. He had to entertain the idea that Tarasov may have been framed. And that meant that the saboteur was still in the plant, biding his time and waiting for the right opportunity to execute his mission.
To deceive his prey, should he be watching, and lull him into a false sense of safety, Sergey went back to his office and drew up plans to revamp the lax security measures at the nuclear plant. Yuri meanwhile was sorting out the personal lives of the employees; who was in debt and who was holding grudges. Sergey was starting to feel that he was getting a handle on the situation.
The elevator cab clanked to a stop and after a pause, the doors slid aside. A woman stepped out and was momentarily startled when she saw Sergey standing there.
"Hello, Colonel," she said, as she recovered quickly.
"Hello. Katya Bodnarchuk, right? Did I startle you?"
"My mind was occupied…," said Katya.
Her cool appraisal of this man was not unfavourable. He was dressed in a tailored olive green uniform and polished black soft-soled Georgia work boots he ordered in from the South. Didn’t he look quite a bit like that Mikhail Khodorovsky who was becoming known in the oil industry? Strength and competence was readable in his demeanor and countenance. The uniform was a perfect fit for his well-developed physique; close enough to present a figure of authority, loose enough not to constrain a man in action.
"Nor did I. How is the work going?"
"I need one more measurement to complete the data for my interim report, Colonel. I want to get that out of the way so I can start Phase Two tomorrow," explained Katya without a smile, so sober for a young woman and especially compared to Kushi.
"That