Is Callen's father dead? The agent visited his grave in Ruza. But his sister was in a mismarked grave. Could the same said to be true of his father. And if he still is alive, where was he and what was he doing?
Disclaimer: The characters and sets of NCIS:LA are all owned by CBS, Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan. I only own a copy of the DVDs from season 1-5 (but I do have season 6 on order). I do get to play with everyone, but they all have to be home by curfew.
A/N: Thanks goes out to the two who kicked me often enough to keep me going with this story. G and S - you know this one is for the two of you.
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Thirty Pieces of Silver
He could feel them closing in. He had fled his country to avoid them, but they found others to hunt him down. He had to do everything he could to keep his family safe. So he left them on the beach as he got in his car to draw them away from his wife and children.
Major Nikita Alexandr Reznikov of the KGB had become very bitter with the leaders of the Soviet Union. The Soviet system was set up so that everyone was equal. Unfortunately, some of the members were more equal than others. And they were using their power and positions to further enrich themselves. There was no difference between the leaders of mother Russia and those in the great the evil of the West.
But then the leaders of the Politburo started to attack different people for fabricated reasons. Two of his superiors disappeared and were said to be sent to a Siberian gulag. Their families were impoverished as their homes and all other properties were confiscated.
Reznikov found that a member of his staff was targeted for 'political re-education' as they called it. He knew that the charges were fraudulent. Both the man and his family were loyal members of the state. His family did own a small vineyard that produced exceptional grapes. The local political leader had coveted that vineyard for years. He saw this as a way to take it over.
The major contacted an associate of his in West Germany. He had worked with Arkady Kolcheck in the past as an under the table contact with his counterparts in the West. It was Arkady who helped him to smuggle Hans Schreiber across the border. The East German spy was under a death warrant for failure in one of his missions, but Reznikov knew it was not his fault.
Now the KGB officer tried to smuggle the whole family out of the Soviet Union. The covert movement of the family was successful. Arkady was there and assured him that Schreiber would be hidden where he and his family could live in peace.
. . . . .
Because of these activities, Reznikov was the one that the Russian officials were now going against. Something must have gone wrong on one of the packages of people who wanted to live in freedom he delivered to Arkady. He didn't care that he might have to spend years in a Siberian gulag. What he did care about was his family, trying to live without him.
For the past two days, he had tried to get hold of Arkady. Either the man was no longer living in West Germany or he simply was ignoring his calls. And time was running out. He had already seen one of the Comescus following him.
He didn't tell his wife Clara because he didn't want to worry her. She had been a CIA operative when he first met her. As far as the agency was concerned, she had dropped off the face of the earth after she gave birth to their first child, Amy. In desperation, he tried to contact her former handler, Henrietta Lange, to come and take his family to safety.
The diminutive spymaster was surprised to hear about Clara Callen Reznikov and told Nikita that he didn't have to worry. She would meet the young woman and get her and her children to the West. With that assurance from the CIA handler, Reznikov kissed his wife, gave her the look to not to ask where he was going and left her at the beach near Constanta. He tried to lead them away from his family, waiting for them to be rescued.
. . . . .
What Nikita didn't know was that the Comescu family was not following him to fulfill the Soviet contract. They were more interested in his wife. There was a blood feud that went back to the time of World War II. The Comescus had vowed to kill off every member of the Callen family.
Right after Nikita had gotten into his car and driven off, another car pulled up near that section of beach. Two men got out, members of the Comescu family. They walked over to the woman watching the small boy.
"Clara Callen?" the first one asked.
"Yes," she raised her head to see a pistol with a silencer aimed at her chest.
"This is payback for what your father did to the Comescu family," the man spit out the words at her.
Two soft sounds were all that were heard, as two bullets slammed into her, ending her life.
"What about the kids?" the first man asked the second.
"We have no confirmation that they are hers. She might just be watching them for Reznikov. Our Soviet contract says nothing about dealing with his children." the second replied.
The first man walked over to where the small boy was building his sand castle. He reached into his pocket and took out a lead toy soldier and handed it to the boy.
"There will be more life in this toy than there will be in your father, that is, if he ever survives the gulag." he said to the child, an evil cackle to his voice.
The boy accepted the toy, not knowing what the man said since he did not speak Romani. He looked over at his mother, but she appeared to be sleeping. He decided to make his castle bigger, so he could stick the solder in it to guard its walls.
. . . . .
Amy was a little further down the beach playing soccer with some of the other children. She looked back at her mother and saw the man point a gun at her. It was just this year that both her parents started to teach her what to do if anyone came after the adults with a gun. Amy turned her back to her mother and continued to play until she heard the sound of a car starting up and driving off. Then she ran back to see what happened to her mother and baby brother.
. . . . .
To say Henrietta Lange was furious was like saying Mount Everest is a fair sized hill. She had given her word to Reznikov. Going to her superiors, she demanded an extraction team be sent immediately to bring the former CIA agent home.
Her superiors refused, emphasizing that Clara Callen was a former CIA agent who had been off the grid for the past six years. If a Russian KGB major wanted someone to escape from Romania, he should have the means to do it. The only reason that they saw for asking someone from the West for help was to implant a double agent. And after six years of not knowing where she was or what she was doing, they could have easily turned the CIA agent Clara Callen.
Hetty knew that none of her people would lift a finger to help her. She now looked for a neutral or Eastern block contact to help. Arkady Kolcheck was in West Berlin, hiding from his latest wife. He would be the perfect one to help unless he wanted his wife to find him. She called him on his private number. He was told what he was going to do for her, and what the consequences would be if they were not done. Of course he agreed.
. . . . .
Nikita Reznikov tried to lose the car that was chasing him, but his car was just not built for speed. They soon caught up with him and forced his car off the road. Pulling him out of his car by gunpoint, they tied him up, threw him into their back seat, and drove on to report in by phone. After the phone call, they started to drive toward the Russian border.
The driver looked at Reznikov in the rear view mirror. He laughed and told him, "This has been a good day for the Comescu family. Not only did we capture you, we also killed that Callen woman you were with. Our family is being avenged."
Clara, he thought, they killed my Clara? What about the children? I have to get back there and find them.
Reznikov waited for his opportunity. It came on a long curve through a wooded section of the landscape. He threw his bound hands over the head of the driver and pulled back with all his might. He snapped the man's neck and the car veered off the road. Reznikov saw the tree they were heading toward and braced himself; his other captor thought it was more important to reach for his gun. He was wrong. His head made a bloody smear on the inside of the windshield.
Since both of the men were dead, and the car was inoperable, Reznikov made his way back to the highway and started walking back the way they came. A truck stopped to pick him up and he rode with the driver for a few miles. Pulling out his captor's gun, he forced the driver over to the side and made him exit his truck. The former KGB agent drove the truck back to where his car was forced off the road. Switching vehicles, he sped off to go and find his children.
. . . . .
Arkady listened closely to what Henrietta Lange was telling him to do. He had a few run-ins with the tiny sorceress before, and he always came out on the losing end. He assured the little ninja that he would try to do what she asked.
She told him, "You will do it, or you won't. There is no margin for trying."
Arkady checked his records and found that there was an operative he knew in Constanta. If she would be available, she would do it for him, because he would then owe her a big favor. Marcela Mihalache would demand a lot for this.
He called the woman and she answered immediately. She was eager to do this for Arkady, already thinking of what she could ask in return. When she got to the beach, she saw the woman sitting in the beach seat-back chair, and the two children a short distance away, near a large sand castle that the boy must have been building. There were two bullet wounds in the woman's chest and Marcela could see that she was no longer breathing.
She went over to the two children and told them that their father had sent her. She would drive them to a place where it was safe, and the people who hurt their mother would not be able to find them. Both of the children were finally convinced that she was there to help them, and got into her car and drove away.
. . . . .
Reznikov finally made it back to the section of beach where he had left Clara hours ago. The sun was starting to set, and his wife looked like she was just sleeping. He drew closer and saw the blood stains on her chest. He tried to feel for her pulse, but the body was cold already. Standing up, he slowly turned around and around, searching for any trace of his two children. He found none.
The only thing that he could surmise was that his wife slipped back into agent mode and tried to bluff her way through to save the children. They saw through her facade, killed her, and abducted the children. Both of them would be sent to a state school in the Soviet Union to be indoctrinated, either as model Soviet citizens or possible Soviet spies. He made his way into town and placed a call to the US embassy in Bucharest. Informing them of the murder of an American citizen in Constanta, he hung up the phone and turned his back on the city. There was nothing to keep him there. His wife was dead. His children were gone. His life was threatened.
He found a tramp steamer where he could work for his passage to Odessa. From there he took odd jobs as he worked his way through the Ukraine, When he entered the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, he was no longer Major Nikita Alexandr Reznikov of the KGB. Konstantin Chernov was the simple man he had become, working his way back to Moscow.
. . . . .
Marcela Mihalache called Arkady and told him that she found the woman dead but did rescue the two children. She also told him what she demanded for complying with his request. Her brother, Gheorghe, had been arrested two years before for being involved in a smuggling operation in which one of the policemen had been killed. He was being held in Aiud prison in Transylvania, operated by the Ministry of Justice. She would trade the lives of the two children for the freedom of her brother.
Arkady knew he was in trouble, sandwiched between the wants of two powerful women. He tried pulling in every favor that was ever owed him. Explaining the situation to Hetty, he tried to get her to involve her government, or at least her agency, in an attempt to get Gheorghe released. But it was all for naught. The Ministry of Justice would not bend even the slightest little bit. Gheorghe Mihalache would remain locked up. There went Arkady's ability to work out a deal, and his ability to travel freely throughout Europe.
For where on earth could he hide from the CIA and that tiny woman who walked silently and lurked in shadows? She seemed to know what he was doing all the time, even if she was hundreds of miles away. She was relentless in the pursuit of the outcome of each of her cases, usually getting the results that she wanted. Arkady had the sneaking suspicion that this pursuit would be a thousand times worse. From all that he could sense concerning her words and actions, this was not just a case for the CIA agent, it was personal.
Arkady did find out that the CIA was not allowed to operate within the boundaries of the United States. He had planned on retiring someday, with a home in Moscow and one somewhere in the US. Deciding that day had come quicker than he once anticipated, he returned to Moscow to set up bank accounts and instruct his nephew, Miloslav Sedov, to take over his business interests in Eastern Europe.
All that was left for him was to decide where he should set up his new home. New York was too big and too crowded. Washington, DC was too full of spies and other people who were too interested in what a person did. Miami was too humid and had too many storms. Chicago had no life similar to the one he enjoyed. That left Los Angeles, and he immediately began to transfer his interests there.
. . . . .
Marcela found herself saddled with two children she no longer needed or wanted. She could just hand them over to Arkady, but there was no benefit to her in that. She could turn them over to the authorities, but that could cause them to think she was involved in the murder of their mother. The best option she could come up with was to get them to some organization that sought adoptive parents for orphan children.
The one that best suited her needs was in Belgrade. She could have the children dropped off at the Homeless Angels Mission School Orphanage there. The staff could find the children's relatives and see they were reunited. She entrusted this task to her aunt, Amalia Dimitru, so she could honestly say that she did not take part in that action.
The two children were left at the orphanage. It was obvious that the children were American, but how they ended up in Belgrade, no one knew. A search was made for their parents, but no police force in any nearby country had them posted as missing. Finally, the organization sent the boy back to the States when one family was interested in adopting him. That fell through when the father lost his job and they could no longer afford another child in the family. The boy was placed in a local orphanage, to wait a more favorable placement.
The girl was sent to the US just a few months later. For some bureaucratic reasons, she was placed in a different orphanage to await a family wanting to give her a new home.
. . . . .
Konstantin Chernoff had learned to live the simple life. He had a small flat in one of the older apartment buildings in Moscow. These buildings were mass produced after World War II and were tiny by today's standards. But they provided the housing the political bureaucrats needed to run the country at that time. Now, they provided places for the elderly and people with low incomes. His job as a nighttime janitor at the State Historical Museum, near Red Square, provided him with little more than money for rent and groceries.
One of the things he could not forget from his past life was his KGB training. Six months into his new life, Konstantin swore that he was being followed. He tried to use his anti-surveillance skills to find out who it was, but they were as good as he was. He could never prove it, but that nagging feeling at the back of his neck just wouldn't go away.
One morning, on his way home from work, a man bumped into him on the street. He tried to get around the man, but he grabbed his coat and pulled him into a clinch.
"I know that you are Major Nikita Alexandr Reznikov, and you once worked for the KGB," he whispered.
Konstantin immediately froze. Had the KGB found him out? Was he going to be sent to the gulag after all? He looked at the man but said nothing.
"We know what you did to help people. Someone will contact you tomorrow with a new proposal."
Konstantin nodded to him and the man brushed him off, apologized, and walked off.
The following afternoon, a man knocked on his apartment door. Konstantin invited him in and put the kettle on to make tea. The visitor looked around furtively and began to speak to him.
"There is an underground that seeks to smuggle people out of the country and to the West. We are not trying to undermine the safety and security of the Soviet Union. We are just trying to help people who are falsely accused or whose lives are threatened on trumped up political charges. This is something you are very familiar with since you experienced it first hand."
Konstantin nodded, then got up and poured the tea for them both.
"We don't think that it is safe for you to stay here in Moscow."
"And you know this, how?" Konstantine asked.
Ignoring the question he asked, his visitor continued, "We don't expect you to do all the work. You will quit your job here and move to Ruza. Stanislav Zhirov runs a trucking company there, moving things from Ruza to Smolensk and back. He is looking for a driver that he might make his partner and maybe leave the business to. The man is getting on in age and will not be able to carry on the business much longer."
"I have some money saved up in a safety deposit box. Would it help if I tried to buy a partnership from him?"
"That might be too obvious. Just go and work for him. Do the best job you can, so he wants to keep you as an employee. Then, maybe in a year or two, you could buy him out."
"But how will I know who needs to be moved?"
There is a small cafe in the town that has been operating since before the Revolution."
Konstantin again nodded and said, "I think I have heard of the one of which you are speaking."
You can use the cafe as makeshift office. They have a small room in back where you can have meetings. If someone comes in and buys you a cup of espresso, you will sit with that person and talk with them. Somewhere in the conversation, you will ask about the weather. If the person talks about how 'warm' it is compared to other years, they are in need of your help."
Instead of answering, the former KGB agent just raised his eyebrow, questioning this generic password.
"Under the table, they will hold out their hand, so you can tell it isn't just a general discussion on the weather. Into that empty hand, you will place one of these."
The man took out a roll of shiny, new, uncirculated silver coins with Lenin's head looking off to the right. You will accompany them from the cafe, or give them directions to your warehouse in town. They can hide there until the next trip you have to Smolensk. You will leave them in the warehouse there and park your van out in front of the warehouse instead of inside. The person who is in charge of the next part of the trip will pick up the package and put them on their way. You can return home then and await the next package that needs to be delivered."
"How will I be sure that those I help will finally make it all the way on their journey?"
"You will never know. All you will know is that the journey started at the cafe and you handed them the silver coin, and your part, the first leg of their journey, ended in a warehouse in Smolensk." his guest informed him.
"Do I get to think it over?" Konstantin asked.
"Unfortunately, I need your answer now. I will not meet with you again. When you run out of the coins, you part in this network will be over, and you will not be asked to do anything more."
"When do I have to be at the cafe?"
"Just put a sign in the window at the warehouse in Ruza that you are 'at the office' over in the cafe. They will come and seek you out."
Konstantin laughed and said, "I guess I am going to learn to love espresso."
His guest got up, placed the roll of coins on the table, and thanked him. With a final "Proshchaniye," [Farewell] he exited the apartment and Konstantin's life.
. . . . .
Konstantin looked at the roll of coins, wondering if he had made a wise choice. He took them out and counted them. Thirty new silver coins. Although he was not a deeply religious man, the irony of that number was not lost on him. The rest of the Soviet Union would also make the connection. He would be labeled as a betrayer of the motherland. He just hoped that this scheme was not as far-fetched as it sounded to a worried, systematic mind as he rerolled the coins.
Konstantin followed through on the strategic plan that had been presented to him. He moved to Ruza and applied for a job at Stanislav Zhirov's trucking company. The man was eager to hire him and he proved himself to be a valued employee. He purchased a small house just outside of town and spent the majority of his evenings in the small cafe in town. Charmed that the same cafe has been open for over 100 years, serving the same espresso, from the same espresso machine, Konstantin Chernoff was one of its most loyal customers.
For a year and a half, things proceeded normally, with no one contacting him for transport out of the Soviet Union. Then one evening, Pyotr Miloslav Chernoff, came to him and followed all the correct steps to ask Konstantin's aid. It surprised the former KGB agent because this was the man whose name he had taken when he went undercover. His wife, Ludmila Elana (nee Reznikov) was a distant cousin of Konstantin's. Besides their being hunted for her family connection with him, the two of them were devoutly religious. They were not afraid to live their faith, and this was something that the State could and would not tolerate. They became the first two that Konstantin sent on their way to the West.
. . . . .
When the couple that he knew as Anatoly and Svetlana Rostoff first arrived in Los Angeles, Arkady Kolcheck had everything that they needed to start their new life already made out for them. He knew that they were people who somehow fell into disfavor back in the Soviet Union. They had been moved out of the country by a clandestine system, of which he was the final part. He never knew that their real names were Pyotr and Ludmila Chernoff. Nor did he know what their crimes against the State were. Arkady just knew that these people needed his help. He was glad to do it because in his 'business' he could use it to call in favors throughout Eastern Europe.
The Rostoffs lived a quiet life in their new city. They purchased a small house and became active members in the Holy Transfiguration Russian Orthodox Church. The onion domes with the Russian Orthodox cross on top reminded them of home. They got an enjoyable chance to practice their ethnic language there with the priests and other parishioners through the liturgy and conversations after the service.
Life was good for this couple. In 1980, they added a girl to their family when Alina was born. The birth was somewhat difficult, and Svetlana learned that she couldn't carry any more children. Alina filled their home and hearts with such love, they decided to try to adopt a boy three years later. They originally wanted one a few years older than their daughter, but for some reason Svetlana was drawn to a teenager. The boy's small frame looked like he had been physically abused, and her heart immediately went out to him. They took him back with them, and for three months, his body and soul healed in their loving home.
They never understood why he left. He seemed to fit in well. Alina loved it when he bounced her on his knee. Anatoly was teaching the boy how to speak and read Russian, and he never had any complaints about Svetlana's cooking. One day, the boy's bag was missing from his room, and he never showed up in the house again. Alina cried when she found out he was gone, and both her parents hoped that someday the boy would find the peace he deserved.
They never knew that G. Callen had already developed a strong sense of protecting the broken and powerless. He left to make sure that a couple of the smaller kids he knew back at the orphanage had someone to watch out for their interests and protect them.
Even if the boy would not have left on his own, Arkady Kolchek would have seen to it that he would have been removed from the Rostoff home before too long. He had been informed that one of the Comescus was starting to snoop around that area. He remembered what had happened to the boy's biological mother in Constanta and he knew if the boy would be found at the Rostoffs, every one of them would be killed.
. . . . .
Throughout the years, Konstantin Chernoff provided a means of escape for many people. He no longer remembered the individuals and families that he helped on their first leg of freedom. They all seemed to merge together in his memory. He remembered the first, those were his relatives, and the largest one, a family of six, two parents, their three children, and the wife's younger brother.
And how could he ever forget the trip in 2008, in which he 'died'? The man never learned if he was was involved in an authentic accident, or if he had been found out and the 'accident' was arranged. He had delivered his package in Smolensk and on the return trip to Ruza, stopped to give an old man a ride. About thirty kilometers into the trip, he had to swerve to avoid a car that seemed to want to run him off the road. The truck overturned and caught fire. Konstantin pulled his passenger away from the growing inferno, but the man bled out before anyone came to help. Despite the burns on his hands and face, Konstantin took the opportunity to exchange wallets with his dead passenger.
The body of Konstantin Chernoff was returned to the city of Ruza and buried in the town cemetery. Many of the people of that community attended the funeral, for the man was very well loved by the inhabitants. The former KGB officer could not attend, for he was in a hospital in Smolensk, recovering from severe burns to his face and his hands. When he was released, he made his way back to Ruza and got a job driving for Yuri Zakharov, the new owner of his former company under his old name, Nikita Reznikov.
. . . . .
He continued to frequent the cafe, waiting for those who needed transport to the West. But there had only been two more trips that he made with people to whom he had given the silver coin, and the last one was five years ago. He began to wonder if he and the whole operation was obsolete, especially after the cold war thawed and it became easier to go to the West from Russia, without the stealthy underground operation.
But then Vladimir Putin, the Russian President invaded the Ukraine and annexed parts of it for Russia. Nikita expected that he would have to use up that last coin to get some dissident out of the country. But even though he was in the cafe every day and stayed until evening, the request never came.
Had they forgotten about him? Since he was down to his last coin, should he use it to finally get himself out of the country? He had no idea where he would end up, or if the whole route was still in operation. All he knew was that he gave them a coin and started them on the first leg of the journey. Was it finally time for him to find out just where that journey led?
. . . . .
Nikita began to get worried because people were starting to investigate around the cafe. There was the old Russian, whose sloppy command of Russian and heavily accented English told the former KGB agent that he was born in the mother country. Nikita felt funny about him, thinking that in some past life they might have met and he should remember the man.
There was the younger man, blue eyes, mid-forties, whose close-cropped blond hair already had a few streaks of gray, and who was perfectly fluent in both Russian and English. Again, when Nikita glanced at him, he felt like he should know the man.
The two of them seemed way too interested in the picture on the back wall, the picture in which he foolishly allowed his image to be captured years ago.
He knew that the younger man was looking for him. But why, he didn't know. His cerulean eyes frightened him; had he seen them before? His mind refused to drag the memory up from its archives. The man could be KGB or CIA. Nikita was guessing the latter. The big black man who was the younger man's partner or bodyguard seemed to speak only English.
No matter who they worked for, Nikita was afraid of them finding out anything more about him than they already knew. In either case, it was time for him to continue to avoid them and disappear.
One coin left. He would let the coin decide. He took it out and started it spinning on the table. If, when it stopped spinning, he would see Lenin's smiling face, it would be a sign for him to find a new spot to live and to continue his work of directing people to safety. If Lenin turned his back on him, he would use the coin to find a new life in a new land.
Spinning,
Spinning,
Spinning,
and finally wobbling enough to fall down onto the table. Letting out a breath that he did not know he still was holding, Nikita Reznikov picked up the coin, and wondered when the next person would come who needed to be moved to the West, and if he was still good enough to survive unnoticed, until that day came.