Almost Back to Business without Butting Heads
Chapter 9
Pet’s demeanor hadn’t changed one bit overnight despite my awkward attempt at a little humor at her expense and likely embarrassment. She was cheerful and peppy, seemingly ready to move forward on our quest for Vladimir Booskowsky.
However, I wasn’t quite ready to start our game plan yet. I thought a little more exposure about our respective pasts were in order to break the ice, so to speak. So I cooly began disclosing, but just enough information so we would feel comfortable working together.
“Pet, I think we need to let our hair down a little before starting on our project. I think it’s important to have some insights about each other and begin building trust. So, I propose we tell each other about our backgrounds and interests to get things rolling in the right direction. Who knows? The telling stuff may prove useful if we get into a tight situation later on. I’ll start if you don’t mind. If you find this exercise uncomfortable, just let me know and we’ll stop. Feeling each other out is useful in getting to better know each other. Okay with you?”
Truthfully, I had another word in mind other than out, but carefully stayed mute for a change. There was no purpose to be had by revealing my inner thoughts and desires at a time like this. So, I’d keep things above the waist and businesslike, at least for now.
She nodded her head yes, but didn’t make a move to undo her cute Heidi braids. Too bad, I thought. I didn’t have much hair to work with so no problem with my part.
“I was born and raised in a lower, middle class family in the Chicago suburbs. If you don’t mind, I’ll skip my birth date.” She laughed, but I didn’t see anything funny. She probably wouldn’t get an AARP joke.
“I graduated from a no-name college in the Midwest with a major in English and a minor in History. With those credentials, most people would go into teaching, but not me since I couldn’t stand the thought of doing so. By happenstance, I became a private investigator for two, large detective agencies in Chicago; all at the tender age of 21. After a couple years, I took a trainee position in the field of Industrial Security with the U.S. Defense Department, also in Chicago, and spent the next seven years moving up the ranks. By this time, I was married with one child.”
“I then transferred to the State Department as a special agent and served in several domestic positions until I transferred abroad. My overseas experience included assignments to our embassies in Kenya, Thailand and Panama as the senior security attaché or regional security officer as such things are called in the DSS. Security Dick was another title bestowed on me by colleagues who were less than enthused about my role as the embassy’s top cop.”
“I took an early retirement from the Foreign Service and entered the private sector and held senior security positions with large U.S. corporations plus a two year stint as a security advisor to the World Bank Group in Washington. At that juncture I was mostly retired, but still took on overseas assignments for various government contractors, the beltway bandits as we call them.”
She laughed at the bandit part.
“Now I work occasionally as a retread for the Diplomatic Security Service. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” I tried to joke. “Now it’s your turn to show me yours. I mean your background and how you ended up in the SRV.”
“Dick, that’s a pretty impressive work history. Mine’s much more modest, I’m afraid. I was born and raised in Minsk, Belarus. My parents were members of the communist party which gave our family some privileges and perquisites that others were denied. I didn’t understand why we were better treated when I was growing up, but now see the class inequities that existed in my homeland. By the way it’s still the same there, unlike the rest of the former Soviet Union.”
“Belarus literally means White Russia. It’s a term that has various origins and no one is certain as to its exact meaning. One prevailing theory is that during the Mongol invasion from Eastern Russia, the invaders never made their way to the far west where Belarus is located. So the ethnic Slavs remained pure in blood without the miscegenation that can be seen in other regions in Russia, especially the eastern portions of the country. I realize that’s sort of a racial explanation for the name, but it’s still a popularly held belief.”
“I attended the best schools in Minsk thanks to my parent’s political influence, but otherwise I was pretty much an unremarkable kid. Like most of my classmates, I was expected to participate and excel in sports. Not to brag, but I did, especially in water sports where I won a number of medals in competitive swimming.”
“I later enrolled in Radcliffe as part of an exchange program and spent the next four years studying liberal arts and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. It was an exciting, wonderful time in my life. God, I really miss the States!”
“So, I returned to Russia and earned my master’s degree in political science at Moscow State University. It was there I was recruited by the SVR. My career has had a shaky start and I’m now doing penance for past sins when assigned to our London residency under diplomatic cover as an assistant cultural attaché. I can tell you this because my cover was blown and I can’t be posted abroad again. That’s a terrible disappointment and personal embarrassment.”
“I was attempting to cultivate and recruit a U.K. economist who specialized in European macroeconomics and taught at London University. He was a brilliant man and would have been a prized catch. And I thought I’d caught him as an asset. Turned out MI-5 had caught me up in a sting operation instead. The professor had reported my first contact with him and Britain’s security service fed me false information before declaring me an unwelcome spy and shipping me home.”
“It seemed I wasn’t cut out to be a Mata Hari or maybe just a bit of bad luck. In any case, I’m doomed to be a desk jockey for the rest of my career. That’s not necessarily a bad thing since there are some plum assignments within our borders. But I really looked forward to serving abroad for most of my career. I’m unattached and enjoy the travel and life overseas. After bouncing around SVR headquarters for a couple of years, I was assigned to research Vladimir’s activities and whereabouts. That’s where you come into this drama as my new friend and now partner.”
I appreciated her candor and found it particularly refreshing given that our governments were usually at odds with one another. However, I wondered if I could fully trust her and perhaps she wondered the same about me. Trust was of critical importance because we needed to watch each other’s backsides if we were to succeed and survive. But I didn’t mind the chore.