Chapter 18d06

Chapter 18 (Draft 06)

Two weeks later.

"Please, when can I speak to my son? I've done everything you've asked of me, even to the point of putting my patient at risk."

"Young Benny is getting along well, doctor. You don't have to be concerned about him so long as you keep working."

"But…"

"I take it you've received and put into study the chemicals delivered to you yesterday?"

Howard looked repentant as he dropped his head. He was ashamed of himself both as a doctor and as a man. "Yes… I have. The bottle marked 'ADAM 1K10 was injected into Mrs. Carmichael's choroid plexus this morning."

"And… how is our patient recovering?"

"Can you at least tell me what I'm injecting this woman with, Mr. Bezuhov?"

There was a pause. "If I have to tell you again the consequences of saying my name out loud, doctor…"

"I'm sorry! Please… forgive me. I'm just… so worried about my son… and… the stress of the situation here…"

"I will not warn you again, Doctor Howard. The consequences to those you care about will be deliberately dire."

Howard was pulling unconsciously at his hair.

"Now then, the serum in question is just a cocktail of various peptidase proteins."

"I don't know how you expect me to tell you what's happening to my patient without understanding first what I'm doing to her with these injections."

"You role tonight is rather simple, doctor. Tell me how Mrs. Carmichael is recovering."

Howard was rubbing his eyes. The strain had surpassed the breaking point days ago. The only thing keeping him focused was the face of his son staring back at him from the frame on his desk.

"Doctor… I'm waiting."

"She seems to be doing fine. I already sent you the lab results you requested."

"Yes, I have read them. Our patient is quite remarkable. Has she complained about any headaches yet, any bouts of confusion?"

Howard frowned. "No… should I be expecting…"

"I'm sending you the address of a trusted neurosurgeon; you should begin a series of MRI scans every morning until the ADAM1K10 treatments are complete. Have the scan results sent to that address."

"Scans? What am I looking for?"

"Any newly formed masses."

"What?" Howard swallowed hard and then looked back at his office door to insure it was closed. He dropped into his chair and leaned forward to whisper, "Are you telling me that I might be influencing cancer growth in this patient?"

"I'm afraid there that small possibility, thus my instructions for doing the scans. Choroid plexus carcinomas can be somewhat aggressive by nature if not identified and treated early. The neurosurgeon I'm recommending to you is vastly experienced in the latest and minimally invasive techniques afforded the situation."

Howard's heart was pounding and he was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.

"It must be said, your results showing a stimulated cleavage of klotho without the presence of insulin was very enlightening to me, doctor. You are sure of the numbers you put in table five? The corresponding expression of antioxidant enzymes… they are correct?"

Howard's head was swimming. "I'm afraid… I'm finding it difficult to…" he was starting to hyperventilate.

"I believe I might have pushed you too hard over the last few days, doctor. Although I should be upset with your inability to remain focused in our conversations together, I am not displeased with your results. However, I suggest you gather your strength quickly. There is much yet to be done. I will expect another report tonight. Good day, doctor."

There was a soft click in Howard's ear and man fell forward onto his desk. He reached out with a shaking hand to clutch the picture of his son tight and then pressed it hard to his face. He started to cry uncontrollably.

"Did you get anything?" Ramirez asked, looking back at the other FBI agent wearing a headset. The agent looked back at his friend and shrugged.

"God damn it!" Ramirez threw his own headset to the floor. "All this equipment and we still can't we get in on these conversations."

Special Agent Koslov bent down to pick up the headset. "Because we don't have a warrant to do what we're doing, and our Russian friend has a bigger budget than we do for keeping his conversations private." He handed the set back to his friend.

"Well that's all going to change once we get that judge to sign off on the warrant."

Koslov looked at Ramirez and raised his eyebrows knowingly.

"What's the matter?"

"I didn't want to tell you before the call, because I thought we might get something in their conversation to soften the blow."

"What the hell are you talking about? What blow?"

Koslov took out a cigarette. "We didn't get the warrant."

"What! What the hell are you talking about? Sheila told us the judge said she'd sign it this morning. What happened?"

"She didn't sign it, that's all I can tell you."

Ramirez looked skeptical.

Koslov lit his cigarette and took a drag. He shrugged almost uncaringly. "Our Russian has many friends. I'm sure he probably knew about our warrant request even before it cleared the printer. When I heard Doctor Howard received the new cell phone this morning I knew the old man was on to us. I expect Sheila will be calling you shortly with the bad news."

Ramirez shook his head in disgust as the door to the office opened. It was Robert Coleman.

"Well, did you get anything? Did you hear what they were saying?"

Koslov and Ramirez looked at each other and Ramirez said, "You want to tell him or should I?"

"Ethan, you told me you would take me home."

Ethan Dodge was just as frustrated as Sally. "Yes, that's what I said and I meant it. If you feel you've had enough I will keep my promise to you."

"Sally — please," Kari pleaded. "What's a few more days going to matter? Let Glad finish what he's started. He still seems to think…"

"Kari, I was never told how intrusive these so called tests were going to be, and even as I suffered through them I didn't complain or make a fuss. But injecting chemicals into my brain is going too far. I want you to tell your uncle I won't go any farther. As soon I my strength returns, Ethan will be taking me home."

"But Sal… we shouldn't give up on this…"

"Enough, child! Please, respect my decision, I beg you."

Kari looked like she was about to cry and she looked at Ethan pleadingly, as he heaved a relenting sigh.

"We've both said what we wanted to say, Kari. While we might not agree with the decision, if this is what Sally wants… then I intend to help her leave."

Another man entered the room.

"Hello, Mrs. Carmichael, how are you feeling today?"

Doctor Sheil Sajid was a young man in his early thirties and one of Doctor Howard's most trusted employees. Of all the doctors working to understand Sally's condition, Sajid was the one most capable of remembering her as a person. Immensely brilliant, the young man was always willing to listen to Sally's fears and concerns, which endeared him greatly to both Ethan and Kari. Being of Indian decent, his parents arrived in America more than fifty years ago and Sally was heartedly impressed by the fact this first generation son had accomplished so much in his life. She always said he possessed the true American spirit, fit to fight off the hardships delivered to his people even in her time.

Sally settled back in her bed. "Hello Doctor Sajid. I'm feeling a little better, thank you."

"Now, now," Sajid said, wagging an accusing finger at her, "you promised me that you would call me Sheil, remember?" He smiled brightly as he came around the bed and Sally could see his brilliant mind multi-tasking as he began his morning evaluation. "Would you so honor me?" he asked her again.

"You should not give up your well-earned entitlements so quickly, young man. Remember: the rules of etiquette provide a guideline to proper behavior in all of us," Sally replied with a wink.

He shrugged. "Yes… but my mother would say I was getting too full of myself." He smiled at her.

Sally reached out to grasp his hand. "Then have your mother come to see me, and I am sure we could come to an agreement on best qualities she's already bestowed upon you."

Even through his dark complexion, they all could see the man was blushing. He turned to smile back at Sally's friends. "It's so easy to love this woman."

After gathering Sally's vital signs, something he never seemed to trust to all the electronic gadgets attached to her, Sajid made his customary walk around her bed to check her hands and feet. Finally, with a nod of satisfaction, he opened his chart.

"I have some good news for you," the doctor said matter-of-factly, and everybody looked up with unexpected apprehension. He continued to write in the chart, a dramatic pause within the elevated interest surrounding him. They caught him peering up at Sally and then he lowered the chart to smile.

"Good news?" Kari replied, suddenly looking nervous.

"I think so. As you know, we've been watching the interactions between fibroblast growth factor twenty-three and the fibroblast growth factor receptors, as well as the signaling between FGF-nineteen and twenty one. We're starting to see an interesting trend in the metabolic activities of these endocrine fibroblast growth factors."

Even Kari, who had thrown herself into understanding the details of her uncle's work more closely, was lost to understand what Sajid was saying.

"Doctor…" Sally replied with a frown, "I would say your mother's tongue has always been pleasant to the ear… but… in English, please?"

Sajid laughed and then came around the bed to look down at Sally again. "I mean… it's slowing down, Mrs. Carmichael. You're not diminishing as quickly now as you were when you were still at Mercy Center."

"You mean she's stopped getting younger?" Ethan replied hopefully. He looked at Sally. "That's wonderful!"

"No, no, I didn't say that," the doctor interrupted. "What I said is we've seen a slowing trend, but she's still getting younger."

"But this is good news, you said."

"Yes it is, because it gives us the hope her condition might eventually stop on its own, but it also gives us another valuable data point in our understanding of what's happening to her."

"Do you have any idea how much younger…I'll become?" Sally hesitated.

"Unfortunately, no. It's definitely slowing, but I cannot tell you for certain that it will completely stop unless we can find a way to control it within our studies."

"So what you're saying is," Kari interrupted, "it's now become a race between her condition stopping on its own verses her body growing so young that it can't sustain itself."

Sajid looked at Sally and nodded. "That is essentially correct."

"What do you think you're doing?" crowed an invading voice from the door. It was Doctor Howard. "Sheil, I specifically told you not to divulge this information to the patient until I was ready."

Sajid seemed taken aback. "Yes, sir, you did, not until we were able to verify the results. Those results just came back and they verify the positive trend we discussed." He reached out to hand him the results and Howard snatched them away angrily. He looked down to study the tabled numbers and then looked up.

"These results mean nothing, which is exactly why I told you to wait."

"But, Doctor Howard, clearly you can see the interactions between FGF- twenty-three and FGF receptors…"

"Enough! I want you to prepare Mrs. Carmichael for another series this evening and then an MRI in the morning."

Sajid seemed surprised. "Another series, sir, but I thought you said we had completed that sequence."

Howard looked down at the test results again. He looked flushed and nearing exhaustion. "Apparently not," he whispered to himself angrily.

Robert was standing at the door behind him. Although he had only been within earshot for a few seconds, he didn't like what he'd heard in Howard's mutterings. The call from Bezuhov had added something insidious to the situation.

"Is everything all right?" Robert said, entering the room fully. Nobody spoke.

Howard looked at Sajid again. "You heard me. Prepare the patient for the next treatment.

"No."

Howard was already scowling as he looked across the room for the individual seeking to argue against his orders. It was Sally.

"I think you've done quite enough, Doctor Howard."

The look on Howard's face immediately changed from anger to terrified alarm. "But Mrs. Carmichael, these treatments are necessary, essential to our understanding your condition. You must appreciate the fact that in order to slow what's happening to you, we must…"

"I said — no!"

Once again the room fell into silence. At first Howard seemed resolved to accept his patient's wishes as he slowly turned to Sajid. "Prepare the team."

"Did you not hear me, doctor?" Sally replied, irritated, her youthful appearance suddenly taking on a more powerful presence within the room.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Carmichael, but you don't seem to understand the risk to yourself. It's imperative that we continue your treatments. Without them, you will most likely…"

"Die!" Sally shot back. "Yes, I understood that reality well enough before I came to you, doctor." Her stare narrowed. "I appreciate what you and Doctor Sajid and the rest of your team have been trying to do for me, but this has gone far enough. I'm leaving the hospital."

The first to react to this declaration was Robert, of course, because he could clearly see the explosion coming. Doctor Howard's hand was shaking as he slowly reached up to remove his glasses. Robert stepped in front of his friend.

"Glad… I want you to look at me." Howard looked up and into the detective's face and Robert could immediately see something in the man's eyes he didn't like, something he had only ever seen once before in his entire life.

It was a case he had been working ten years earlier. A father's fourteen year old daughter had been raped and murdered by the man sitting on trial. Robert could tell even as the murderer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole that the father was not satisfied. It was in his eyes; Satan himself had entered the man's soul and set an infection there that could only be healed by what happened next. The father leaped over the banister in the courtroom and stabbed the killer through the back of the heart with a sharpened stick.

Robert never thought he'd ever see the devil's presence so closely again, but he was seeing him again in Howard's eyes.

"Glad, I know what you're doing right now. You're thinking about your son."

"She doesn't understand," Howard said, his face twisting itself into something assimilating both contempt and rage.

"But I do, Glad, I do understand. I know that maniac has your son."

The rage in Howard's face was building. "She doesn't understand."

"What does he want with Sally, Glad? Why is she so important to him?"

The doctor wasn't listening. "She's going to ruin everything."

"Talk to me, damn it. Glad — what does he want with Sally?"

Howard moved Robert aside to look at Sally in the bed. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Carmichael, but you cannot be allowed to leave. We still have a number of tests we need to run."

Kari and Ethan looked at each other in shocked surprise.

"Uncle Glad, you're obviously upset," Kari replied, "and I want Sally to stay too… but you can't keep her here against her will."

"Yes, I can."

Sally threw the blankets aside. "Ethan, take me home."

"You're not going anywhere," Howard answered her, his voice rising.

"Now wait a minute," Ethan started to argue.

"I have contacted the Center for Disease Control to warn them of your condition. I told them it wouldn't be safe to let you leave." Howard raised a finger. "One call from me and I can have armed guards standing outside this door."

Robert's mind could see the Russian phoning in the order to the CDC. Sally Carmichael's cell was being prepared. He quickly opened his phone and dialed.

"You what?" Kari was surprised. "Glad, you had no right! Sally isn't in any way contagious. What in the world have you done?"

Doctor Sajid stepped forward. "Doctor Howard. I don't understand. Why have you done this? In all of our meetings and briefings together, we have never once even discussed this possibility."

"Shut up," Howard fired back. "You don't understand what's going on. You only know what I've decided to tell you."

Robert finished his call and stepped forward. "Sally, I'm escorting you out of here right now. Can you get up?"

"Yes, I believe so." She quickly swept her feet to the side and tried to stand. She wobbled a bit and reached out.

"Help her, Kari. We're leaving right now."

Howard rushed forward, "NO!" He dropped the chart and grabbed Sally and used his weight to push her roughly back to the bed. "She can't go! I won't allow it! She mustn't!"

"Glad! Stop it!" Kari tried to pull her uncle away, but he turned and pushed her to the floor.

Robert rushed forward and grabbed Howard by the back of his collar. With a twisting shove he slammed Howard's front against the wall.

"God damn, Glad, stop this!" He pulled his wrists behind him and pulled out his handcuffs.

"Let me go! You don't know what you're doing. You don't understand!"

FBI agents Koslov and Ramirez suddenly rushed into the room.

"Hold him!" Robert shouted, pushing Howard into their arms. He turned again to Kari and Sally. "Come on. We have to go right now!"

Ethan came forward. "Robert, what the hell is going on? Why are we in a rush to leave? What's happening?"

"There's no time to explain right now. Just trust me when I say it's vital that we get out of here now!"

One thousand miles away, Bezuhov was reviewing his last report from the hospital. He looked up at the muscled man standing at the foot of his bed.

"Это - вторая попытка ФБР, чтобы заставить ордер слушать в на телефонных беседах Доктора Говарда." ("This is the second attempt by the FBI to get a warrant to listen in on Doctor Howard's telephone conversations.") The old man tossed the report to the foot of his bed. ("Make the necessary calls to have those agents removed from the university.") His servant bowed slightly, picked up the folder, and then left the room.

Bezuhov went back to reading one of several files his people had given to him on the individuals closest to Sally Carmichael. He stopped to stare at a color photo of Kari Dietz. As he continued to read through information about Sally's best friend, something caught his eye in her personnel file from the Mercy Center. The old man frowned as he read, 'The patient has been experiencing visual hallucinations manifesting themselves as red-Xs on the foreheads of individuals she believes are in mortal danger at the hospital. The patient has been suffering from these visual symptoms for a period of three months, starting with several dying patients in the hospital and gradually progressing to the point of complete physical and mental exhaustion. The crisis center has evaluated the patient and conducted a number of tests for alcohol and drug abuse, Charles Bonnet syndrome, Lewy body dementia, Parkinson's disease, Temporal lobe epilepsy, and Vertebro-basilar artery syndrome. All tests were negative, with inconclusive results defining…' Bezuhov skipped to the back pages of the report where Mercy's resident psychologist wrote:

'While chronic cases of hallucination and delusion can typify psychiatric ailments such as schizophrenia and other disorders, none seem to be present in Miss Dietz. Our tests have shown the patient's mind completely capable of good reasoning and sound thought processing, deferring the need for any further testing for delusions. Individual counseling has helped the patient immensely in handling the stress and pressures in her nursing role and her red-X manifestations have slowed as the anxieties in her job at Mercy have lessened. Our final recommendations will include a change to group counseling and a move to another nursing role encompassing less stress.'

Bezuhov lifted a copy of a crude pencil drawing clipped to the report. It was obviously something the psychologist had asked Kari to draw for them while in session. The face of a person was looking out from the page with a faded X in the center of the forehead. The old man's eyes widened as he stared at the picture and soon his own head was slowly falling back against the pillowed headboard to remember the portions of his past he thought long forgotten. A minute later, he was dreaming once more of his days as an ambitious youth working for the Soviet State.

"Пробудитесь, товарищ Мотова." ("Wake up, comrade Motova")

Motova awoke with a start at the boot jabbing into his sore ribs and squinted up at the lights above him. He rolled to his side on the hard floor to see the young man sitting at the desk again, casually doing his paperwork. Three more days had passed, but nothing had changed for the man. Every morning we was awakened by the toe of the young man's boot, given some food and water, and then left to share the rest of his day alone with his jailer. He didn't say anything to the young man out of fear he might entice more of his fuming retributions. This time his jailer had caught him dreaming of his friend Vikenti, who he now believed was probably dead.

The smell in the room was horrible from the bucket of excrement and piss sitting in the corner, but the pungent smell of shit and mold never seemed to bother the young man sitting at the desk. He was joyously dedicated to his work, sometimes whistling as he dipped a broken quill into the inkbottle before writing only God knew what on the yellowed paper.

And then, about halfway through another cold and boring morning, Motova noticed the young man staring at him in a most peculiar way. His jailer seemed fixated on his forehead in a way that unnerved the prisoner so much it made him shudder with fear. Of all the terrible things that had already happened to him, it was that stare that would haunt Motova's dreams in the nights they were apart.

For his part, the jailer was confident he was fulfilling his plan for extracting the information his superiors wanted from the man sitting on the cold floor below him, and it was soon to come. Bezuhov knew this because he was getting very good at his job; in fact he had never failed. And the more success he delivered, the more he would be rewarded both in treasure and future opportunity. The man Motova meant nothing to him; he was worthless except for his bones, which would eventually go to the dogs guarding the prison. Very little evidence was ever kept of the keeper's crude processes.

Although worthless in all the ways that mattered, for some strange and unexplainable reason Bezuhov had become very intrigued with his prisoner, though Motova hadn't uttered a single word since being socked in the jaw. At first the jailer thought he was just imagining it, but as he watched the man moving around in the cell throughout the day, he could see something odd fading in and out around his head. It was a thin, almost translucent line of light just above his eyebrows. As the man walked about, Bezuhov could see the line reappearing and then disappearing again and again, but not all at once. It would start as a faded dot about three inches away from the center of his forehead and then trace a path around the man's skull until it connected with itself again in the front, the faintest line of blunted white rematerializing and then fading as he moved back and forth under the room's bulb.

He stared at the man for hours and hours, watching this halo-like vision appear and disappear over and over again throughout that first day and in the days that followed. Although he never told anybody, Bezuhov would see this "vision", as he went on to think of it, in many individuals in the decades that followed and eventually he came to understand it well.

Like the Kari Dietz woman, the psychiatric profession might have called it a delusion, or maybe a hallucination, but Bezuhov knew the truth. He knew what it was the moment he saw it again around the forehead of a second prisoner, on the woman he and the other jailers had been raping in the cell next to Motova. As Bezuhov angrily plunged himself into the woman, he could see the halo appearing brighter the more she suffered.

He could well have decided it was the beginning of a sickness embedding itself into his own mind, perhaps seeded by the guilt brought to pass by his terrible deeds. Regardless, his opinion of what he was seeing never changed from the first moment his saw it. It was a warning from God. A warning that he, Bezuhov, was forcing the innocent to suffer. Were these people really saints, those beloved by God more than all the rest? Perhaps. This made sense to Bezuhov after torturing and killing so many others in the years that followed that day in the cell with Motova. He noticed the youngest victims of his ambitions had halos that were most obvious.

These deductions were reinforced more when he was instructed to kill some of the most ruthless leaders working for the State, those who had fallen from Stalin's grace. Those individuals never showed any such manifestations encircling their foreheads. Eventually, these visions penetrated Bezuhov's soul and forced him into realizing one decisive truth: Though it never set his ambitions aside for the sake of power and treasure… Bezuhov knew then that God was real and was watching everything he did to his beloved apostles.

On the fourteenth day, Bezuhov continued to watch Motova and his reappearing-disappearing halo pacing back and forth across his cell. The jailer knew the man's time was soon coming to an end, even as the prisoner insisted he didn't have any information the government would find vital. Nothing to increase their understanding of the things troubling them in the city, or about those who felt themselves more understanding of the needs of its people than did its leaders. What fools they were to believe such things.

The only reason Motova was still alive was because his jailer was still deciding if his future ambitions were more important than whatever wrath God had reserved for those killing his saints. Bezuhov's final decision was horrific and far different than the decision he might have made as a man with fewer days ahead than those behind him. No, the eager young man making the decision was looking forward to a long life ahead, a life in which he would take full advantage of the generosities his superiors were willing to share. He knew very well of course his decision would hang over his head for the rest of his life and especially as he grew older. Every time he murdered the innocent, the manifestation would act as a reminder of his own ultimate judgment still to come. Still, God gave man the free will to make such decisions on their own… and so he did.

Bezuhov stood. "Я думаю, что это - время для Вас, чтобы начать говорить нам всем, что Вы знаете о тех, которые работают против Государственных амбиций, товарища." ("I think it's time for you to begin telling us all you know about those working against the State, comrade.")

Motova turned to face him. ("But I don't know anything.")

Bezuhov sneered and then reached back to rap on the door behind him. The door opened and three men quickly entered the room holding a chair. Motova's eyes widened as the men came at him.

("No, please, I told you I don't know anything. I don't know anything!")

They grabbed the man and lashed him to the chair once again. They removed his shoes and tied his bare feet up on a stool. As they turned to leave, one of the men threw a bag on the desk in front of Bezuhov.

("See to the woman next door,") Bezuhov instructed them.

They smiled as they left, leaving the door open behind them. Motova could hear another door open in the hallway beyond and the woman in the room next to him started to scream again.

("Hold her!") yelled one of the men and Motova could hear somebody slapping the woman as she screamed and cried out in pain.

("Comrade Motova, you will tell us all you know about the following individuals,") Bezuhov said. ("Slava Mikhaylova, Nataniel Porkhomovskiy, Arkadi Shostakovich, Pavel Shulgin, and Dominik Vydrina.")

Motova looked frightened. In all the time he was a prisoner, he never believed he could tell them anything of vital importance. Now he wasn't so sure. The men called out by his jailer were people Motova knew personally. Good men with wives and children. If he were to tell the guard anything about these men, would they also be hauled into this horrible place and beaten?

("Do you know these names, comrade?") Bezuhov asked him.

("Some of them, yes.")

("How do you know them?") The woman in the room next door screamed again. Motova could hear them whipping her.

("I want you to start from the beginning, when you met each of them, when you spent time with them, what you discussed, and whether or not you know of any anti-government activities where they were involved.")

("But these men are not anti-government. Mikhaylova and Porkhomovskiy are musicians. Vydrina is a teacher at the University.")

Bezuhov stood to come around the desk and opened the bag. He removed a thick wooden club from within its folds. ("Is there anything else you would like to tell me?")

The woman next door screamed again.

("Please, there's no reason to hurt me. I swear I'll tell you all I know, and then you will see these men have done nothing…")

Bezuhov reached back and slammed the bottom of Motova's arches with the club and the man yelled out in pain. Another blow was delivered again before Motova had a chance to catch his breath. It sent the man into a fit of pain so intense, he felt the muscles in his neck popping as he threw his head back to scream. Another seven blows were viciously delivered before the jailer stopped. Bezuhov came forward quickly and grabbed the top of the man's hair to yank his head forward.

("You and your friends are traitors, comrade Motova! You will tell us everything you know of these men, or you will never walk out of this prison!") He was released and Motova cried out in chorus with the woman in the adjoining room.

Bezuhov was slowly circling the man. ("You should understand, comrade… it is not just your life you put at risk for these so called friends of yours. Your family is in great danger as well.")

Through the pain and the tears, Motova peered up at the man glaring down at him.

("My family?")

("Especially… your wife.")

There was another scream from the next cell and Bezuhov looked over at the wall and then back again to Motova. The look on his face darkened.

("No…,") Motova mumbled through his sobs. There was another scream through the wall and the man tried to think. Was that his wife's voice? Was that the mother of his children in suffering and screaming? He looked up again at Bezuhov.

("No!")

("No? So you doubt me, comrade?")

Bezuhov turned and left the room and Motova could hear him entering the cell next to him.

("Stop!") Bezuhov yelled out over the woman's screams.

("Shut up, bitch!") Bezuhov yelled at her. ("I want you to say your husband's name!") She was slapped again. She started to cry louder and suddenly Motova thought there was something in her voice that sounded terribly familiar.

("Your husband is in the room next to you. Call out to him!") She was hit again. ("Call out to him!")

Finally Motova heard it, his own name bellowing into the hallways of that hellish place.

("Timofei!")

Motova was instantly overcome with panic and fear. ("Alina! Alina! Please, don't hurt her. Please!")

("Timofei?") The woman could hear her husband's voice. ("Timofei! Don't let them hurt the children!") She was slapped again. She screamed and then yelled out, ("Timofei, they took the children!")

("No! Stop it! Please… I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anything! Please let her go.") The man Motova slumped over as he listened to his wife being beaten and battered.

Ten minutes later, Bezuhov reentered Motova's cell and the prisoner watched with tears in his eyes as his jailer reached down to button his pants.

("Please… let my wife go. She knows nothing, nothing.")

("I told you days ago… you didn't know what you were missing over there, didn't I?")

Motova was completely lost in his sorrow and pain, but still his mind was repeating his wife's words of warning again and again. ("Is it true? Do you have my children in here as well?") He waited in horror for the answer.

Bezuhov smiled. ("Your boys are in another building, but your daughters…") he shrugged, ("are soon to be enjoyed by my men much like your wife.")

That was truly the beginning of the end for Motova. He told his captors everything he knew about his friends and even some things he knew to be false because he thought it might make the information more valuable to them. Friends or not, all he cherished in the world was screaming in the rooms around him. Afterward, several men who knew Motova were arrested as part of the great purge in the city of Moscow. And on the twentieth day of his captivity the blast of a bullet shattered Motova's halo, the most fragile sign of light God had ever created.

The gun's explosion awoke Bezuhov from his dream with a start. His bedroom door had been slammed open against its stops as the muscled man entered the room.

"Мы имеем проблему в университете." ("We have a problem at the university.")

174