Chapter 2 October 1999
And that was what I was told. I was to spend time undercover, as an ear, a rabochiy ili chernorabochiy, a manual worker, a labourer, in the Sitronics Company in Zelenograd. Sitronics had been founded in 1997 as a microelectronics company, and it would go on, later in the 21st century to produce nano-SIM cards for one of Russia's three big mobile phone operators. But even if the cold war was over, there was still iciness in the air, in relations, there was always the need for a spy.
-oOo-
What I got was a room. Nothing basic about it, a room, a fridge, why a fridge it was winter. An electric cooker, if you could call it a cooker, it was a two metal hot plates. The eating area? A fold away table and two chairs. I laughed inwardly, two chairs, who was I gonna entertain or interrogate? I looked at the sleeping arrangement. It would be years later before I would say the words to an Agent, "It's a convertible sofa. I slept on one for seven months." I hated to see the bathroom, as I opened a door or was it a cupboard off the main room, main room? Only room. Yep a shower, a toilet and hand basin…..basic as I said and I had the winter to contend with, six months of hell. I looked for a heater; I found a two bar electric fire which had seen better days.
As I was contemplating whether to live out my rucksack or to place what I had in it, in what as I looked about, could pass for a chest of drawers, there was a knock at the door. It took me all my brains not to question in English, yes who is it, "Da, kto eto?"I shouted.
"Petrov Aleksandr."
I thought yep, Callen, it was the name he had used in Serbia. I opened the door, and he walked in, took one look at it and laughed.
"This is a palace compared to mine," he offered in Russian, "My room-mate has the habit of belching, and stinks of vodka."
"I got the fold down, but what can I do for you?" I replied.
"Since it's your first shift at 18.00 thought you could do with a celebratory drink, if not a rite of passage, then at least to toughen you up against the elements and the noise and the heat. Anyway you need to meet your shift crew."
I locked up, I don't know why, the door was almost hanging off, one foot or shoulder and it would be off its hinges, but I had to.
"We on the same crew?" I asked Callen as I pulled my ex-military parka hood over my ears.
"Actually no, I got the morning shift. It works 12 on, 12 off, bars' open 24/7. On the 7th you get a day or night to recover and then we switch. Most workers go into Zelenograd or Solnechnogorsk. The factory runs a bus there and usually an ambulance or Police car back," as Callen looked at me and laughed, before looking at a figure coming towards us.
"Khorosho Sergi sdvig," good shift Sergi, Callen enquired.
"Net boss razdrazhen , my troye rabochikh vniz," No the boss is annoyed, we are three workers down.
"Eto Vladimir, on nachinayet segodnya , khochu vypit' s nami ?" This is Vladamir, he starts tonight want have a drink with us?
"Net," as the man walked on.
"Not much talk in the bars, the place to be is Solnechnogorsk, and there is a village called Lozhki, it has a brothel."
"You know this?" I asked.
"I listen…not my scene, but the Military come here often and they drink here, and in Solnechnogorsk, but Lozhki is the place, and they mention Povarovo," Callen concluded, as they reached a shack. The smell of stale beer and Russian cigarettes hit you before you actually opened the door. As I stood looking at the bar, the door opened and a body landed at my feet. The man looked at my shoes, before standing and wiping a bloody hand, across an equally bloody face, and then spat blood and what looked like a tooth on the ground.
I thought for one moment I was next, but he staggered away.
"That is the guy next door to me. Welcome to the "Gulag," Callen replied as he climbed the steps to the bar.