The Perestroika Effect

By Cecilia Tanner and Tom Mavrovich

In this novel, Sergey, (Colonel Brushev) and his fellow agent, Yuri, are dispatched to investigate a report of sabotage at a nuclear plant in Northern Siberia. The story takes place late in 1992 when Russia was in disarray with the cultural, political, and personal upheavals after Glasnost and Perestroika. Even remote Siberia is affected by the rumbling disorder. Sergey and Yuri meet the forces of evilâ their fellow persons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987928337

Book preview

2010.

Chapter 1

The contrast was startling, much like cold Iceland and its thermal pools or the freezing nights on the hot Sahara Desert or this freezing northern Siberian village with its nuclear powered plant. And Sergey looked like a big contradiction himself, a former KGB operative in a little village, current population 225, in the outback of the planet.

The job was at a remote facility in Seytchan that produced the silvery white metal, Plutonium 239, a power plant that was highly automated and self-sustaining. Only the electrical power generated by Reactor-4 left the plant. One single reactor generated enough electrical power to provide light and heat and operating electricity for the entire plant, for all of the homes in Seytchan and for the houses down on the Lena River basin. All of the plutonium that the plant had ever produced, over a thousand tons of it, was still stockpiled at the site.

Because the plant had been built in a mountain cave that formed a natural containment vessel, it was virtually impossible for an accidental explosion of the reactors to breech the cave walls or for radioactive debris to escape into the atmosphere. The plant had been built in secrecy and was never on official record. It was remote, and everyday Sergey was made more and more aware of the distance the community was from more progressive centers, almost as though the social development of the village was unchanged for two generations.

Two weeks before, when Sergey and Yuri were having coffee in his office in Moscow and Sergey told him about the job in Seytchan, Yuri had swung his feet down off the desk, thump. "Siberia, Sergey? Siberia? Northern Siberia? We haven’t done anything terrible, have we?"

Yuri, my man, it is an honor and a privilege to take a fall holiday in the pristine beauty of the far north. It promises to be an adventure of the highest order. The state will even buy you a big fur hat with big fur earflaps.

Earflaps? You think you can persuade me with bloody earflaps?

And long winter nights with your beautiful wife and daughter. They always want more time with you Yuri.

Uh huh. Yuri ran his fingers through his dark curly hair, You are proposing we move from the penthouse to the outhouse. Isn’t that how it is? And a very cold outhouse at that, where I can wear my nice fur earflaps?

No, no, no. A chance to make new friends, a small village, new friends. Get away from the pollution and intrigues.

Yuri raised his eyebrows at Sergey, and sat back again, a miserable look on his face. No intrigues? Have we ever gone anywhere where someone wasn’t plotting some nasty thing for someone, usually us? And what nasty thing is the General sending us to northern Siberia to do, exactly? Measure snow drifts, harvest permafrost, build a better yurt?

Ah, now. The General is concerned about a nuclear power plant out there. He picked up a rumour…?

A rumour about some nasty thing connected to nuclear power. A nuclear-powered nasty thing. Probably no worries there, eh, Sergey?

Sergey ignored the demanding question. Mind you, no opera for you out there, Sergey grinned.

Yuri looked up, helpless as a smile nudged his moustache, What no shrieking cows?

Ever since Yuri had seen a poster with the diva of an opera wearing a metal helmet with horns, he dismissed the whole genre with the same ‘shrieking cow’ comment.

And money, Yuri, yes, money, my friend… and …I’m going.

He waited, leaning back in his tilting chair.

I’ll have to talk it over with Magda.

How modern of you, Yuri. Not the Cossack way.

It’s the Russian way, as you well know, boss.

I’m sure they will have vodka and crosswords, and maybe some hunting and fishing. Clear our heads.

Freeze our heads, for godssake. He threw his hands in the air knowing he was mounting a losing resistance. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Madga, - Siberia, Sergey, Holy Mother Russia. He paused, Unless I don’t tell her.

You will have to tell her.

Not if you just happen to tell her, old boy. Sergey was two years older than Yuri, but Yuri used the ‘old boy’ stuff whenever Sergey was stepping on his neck.

So here was Sergey driving to the plant late in September as the Siberian winter sent signals of the deep freeze that was coming fast.

He sang boisterously, drumming a beat on the steering wheel with the fingers of his right hand as he drove the cumbersome uncomfortable, old, as in very old, grey J40 Toyota Land Cruiser with its raised axle and big tires over the mostly deserted snow-covered streets through the village, the headlights on as dusk settled over the early Siberian night.

When I am a rich man, yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum, All day long I’ll drink vodka by the glass, When I am a wealthy man…

The sky was a wispy dark grey without a horizon as a few tiny snowflakes flickered down. Gradually, bigger, fluffier snowflakes sparkled in the headlight beams like white moths as they fluttered down, sometimes reversing and lifting briefly before dropping once again toward the windshield. As he drove, the flakes gained momentum and size increasing in numbers until he was straining to see through the curtain of flakes. It was beautiful. Sergey knew that it would soon be too cold for this kind of snowfall as the country moved into the deep freeze of winter.

Sergey missed the luxury ZIL he had left in Moscow. It was his happy place. The interior of the ZIL would have been dark, warm, and comfortable with only the dim glow of the dashboard instruments and reflections from the headlights to ease the darkness. The heater would have been blowing a steady current of warm air from under the dashboard to combat the cold. This wreck of an old J40 Toyota Land Cruiser was neither warm nor comfortable, with cold drafts from every direction, but it was a find compared to the other wrecks available, the jacked-up Lada, put together with many different colored parts from many different Ladas, and an unidentifiable car that had been cut in two with a box welded on to the front half to simulate a truck supported on a big raised frame on monster truck wheels. Given the choices, the beatup J40 most resembled a working vehicle and looked the least ridiculous. The seats in the thing were bumpy and hard like the original jeep it was modeled on. But, if the Toyota could adapt to the Sahara and the Australian outback, it would probably function fine in Siberia. One thing it had was traction.

Besides, in his big black ZIL, he would have looked like a mafia ganglord to the locals, and he wanted to be perceived as a man of simple honesty and honor. Which, of course, he was.

I wouldn’t have to work hard, Ya ha deedle, deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum… thump thump

There was plenty of land on the edge of the tundra, and the streets were wide, iced dirt expanded in honeycombed permafrost most of the year, - and the houses were set well apart from each other. Unlike southern European towns which had grown beyond the traffic expectations with lanes and streets too narrow to accommodate modern traffic; a century on, there would be no need to move anything in order to widen the streets for more people in Siberia. Though Sergey doubted that in another hundred years, there would be that many more people who would want to live there.

Chapter 2

Sergey pulled the Toyota up to the store as the snow eased off. Cigarettes and coffee – the universal diet. He shut down the engine – it was not yet cold enough to have to leave it on. Pulling the greatcoat together he got out of the vehicle. There was a government Skoda parked in front of him. Sergey took a second look. That certainly looked like his cousin Oleg. Couldn’t be. But he was looking at Oleg’s balding fair-haired head with the round face and the bulky shoulders. The only indication that he was an academic and not a labourer were the glasses that every academic wore. It must be Oleg.

He rapped on the window. Oleg broke into a smile as he recognized Sergey. He shut off the engine.

Get in. But Sergey just stood leaning forward on the driver’s door, disbelief written loud on his face.

What are you doing here, Oleg?

Sergey, I came looking for you, but I have to get back to Moscow. I’ve been to a geological site near Yakutsk, and I’m just heading to the airport. Hoped to have a visit, but the plane was delayed getting here, and now I have barely time to pick up a coffee before it is leaving again…

That sounds like the Oleg we all know.

I can’t believe people willingly live in Yakutsk – they must know it is the coldest city on earth.

You can escape a lot of unhappy situations out here in Siberia, Oleg. Who’s going to come looking for you? Certainly not a woman who likes her comforts.

Too high a price, Sergey. Way too high. He looked in the rearview mirror. Are you driving that battered piece of junk, Sergey?

Just for a few days until my car arrives, he lied, pointing his finger in Oleg’s face. I can’t believe you came out here and you weren’t going to see me.

Well, I had hoped to but connections are difficult, and the weather plays such an important role in everything it seems. I just had no idea.

Time for another coffee or Knass?

That fizzy stuff made from rye bread? You aren’t drinking that slop, Sergey, come on.

Sergey laughed. I thought you were in America.

Oh I was, I was. Last week, energy conference on the West Coast. Nice place. Town called Seattle.

Did you give a paper or something?

No. To be honest, I registered, went to the opening address, and then I dodged back to my hotel room. You wouldn’t believe the TV shows, Sergey, 24 hours, gorgeous skinny women with boobs – movies, mysteries, sports, migod the soccer matches– spectacular. It was worth all those years learning English. Spent 2 days eating room service meals and watching American TV. I tell you, Sergey, if people in Russia had seen American TV, perestroika would have happened years ago.

Sergey didn’t know what to make of this cousin. He had become closer to Oleg and his wife after his dad died and his brother went missing and then his mother ended in the home where she died. With no other family, the tenuous relationship with his cousin became more precious. Even so, he really didn’t know him that well.

And he certainly didn’t know what to say to this grown man playing truant from his science conference. He just smiled.

All those beautiful women, Sergey – I couldn’t get enough of them. Oh, and cheeseburgers. You haven’t lived til you’ve eaten cheeseburgers with onions and sauce. Migod, it was heaven.

We’ll probably be getting them in Russia soon enough, Oleg.

Man, oh, man, I hope so.

What were you looking for in Yakutsk?

Ahhh, the gas & oil boys are checking out the locations of some of the big reserves in Siberia, so I was meeting with some of the parties interested in extracting the stuff. Looks like a lot of people have found out about the possibility of making big money out here.

Where there is money to be made, you don’t need to send out invitations. Are you sure you can’t stay a while after travelling this far?

I’ve got a plane reservation. As I said, and you know me, I didn’t plan on the scope of the land and the complexity of negotiations.

Sergey’s hands were getting cold pressed against the metal door of the car. He rubbed them together, backing away from the car.

Okay, Oleg. Let me know ahead of time when you are coming next time.

Keep your feet warm, Sergey.

Oleg started the engine, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the crumbling muddy sidewalk, waving to Sergey as the car pulled out.

Sergey picked up the cigarettes and coffee in the store. He noticed the photos taped to the wall behind the counter. One of an ice sculpture.

Nice, no? the store clerk nodded, That’s the ice sculpture on the Lena River to celebrate Orthodox Epiphany outside Yakutsk. We can celebrate these occasions again.

Sergey looked at the picture of the people out in the middle of winter in Siberia making ice sculptures, their faces covered with face masks and rimmed with fur parkas, steam coming from their breaths like smoke.

And that one?

That’s the icicles on the houses when there is a thaw. Sergey noticed the icicles went all the way from the roof to the ground, and the picture showed a couple of muffled up kids laughing while smashing the icicles with sticks.

Chapter 3

As Sergey got back in the car, he wondered just what Oleg was really doing out there. This was a long way to come for something he could probably have discussed over a phone call. Oleg worked for the government and one wing of the government never knew what another wing of the government was doing, and most of the time this was deliberate. Nothing was ever what it was purported to be. He could probably find out if Oleg was telling the truth.

When I am a biddy bid rich, idle-diddle-daidle-daidle man.

In the isolation of the drive, his mind drifted to thinking what it would be like driving this road in the ZIL with Tatiana in the seat beside him. He knew he would be a different man than the one he was now. He knew he wouldn’t be so work obsessed, thinking of nothing but security issues and the mechanism of sabotage he was taking on. Though his mind’s default was Tatiana, he knew that dwelling on the if-onlys in his life led to depression. Feeling sorry for himself, blaming himself, regretting – ah, regretting - it was the door that opened the cupboard of despair, a cupboard he had climbed into before, and fought his way out of. This was where he was and this was who he was and this he knew was what he knew to do.

Often he let himself replay the sight of Tatiana when she danced because that wasn’t a regret. He had always lost the sense that he was watching a muscle and bones person hopping around on the stage. She became magical, a flow of movements weaving a story like Yoyo Ma on the cello - cutting through to the essential beauty of the music, the essence of an expression far beyond the technical performance, so that one was no longer conscious of the instrument or bow or body of the dancer.

How wondrous to be such a performer. He never got over the awesome warmth of being enveloped in the magic as he watched her dance.

But thinking of his bride brought back the pain as it always did. Yet how could he not think about her? So many people let their miseries eat them up, making them ineffective in their lives, making them liabilities, and when he found that his anger and his grief threatened his stability, he realized he could not let that happen.

Work, lots of mind-consuming work could stave off the blackness in the cupboard – lots of work and lots of music. He reached across to the passenger seat where he had a few of Rebroff’s CDs. He got a disk out while he kept his eyes on the road, inserting it by touch into the player that he had had the car dealer install. He may have to put up with this tin can on wheels, but he couldn’t give up the music.

He loved how the songs could fill his mind, obscuring the depths of darkness. He hummed along to Kalinka Malinka, marveling that Rebroff could make such dippy lyrics about his sweet little snowberry, snowberry, snowberry sound masculine and powerful. As always, Sergey sang the words to what he was looking at and thinking about, instead of snowberries, singing The snowflakes swirl, those white butterflies dancing, dancing spiraling twirling… It had always made Tanya laugh at his silly lyrics sung so loudly in Sergey’s full deep voice, but he felt they were never as silly as some of Rebroff’s.

He sat back in his seat while periodically bringing a half-smoked cigarette to his mouth to draw in the flavour of the Turkish tobacco. His olive green uniform was colourless in the bucket that carried him toward the atomic plant. His overcoat lay on the passenger seat, weighed down by the combat pistol in one pocket and the hefty package on top. Sabotage and nuclear meltdown soon replaced even the idle thoughts of music.

As he neared the plant, he reached into his inside breast pocket, his hand brushing against the shoulder holster of his faithful companion, a finely crafted Makarov pistol, and pulled out a still new laminated identity card, ready to present it to the guard who followed his approach from the dark interior of the gatehouse.

Sergey Andreshev, once a colonel in the KGB at the dreaded Lubyanka headquarters in Moscow, and now the new Director of Security at the Seytchan nuclear facility, manoevred (you don’t just steer this customized bucket) toward the main gate, correcting for a loose skid coming off the main road. He was pleased to see that the big large-tread tires did give the meccano-set vehicle some control on the slippery surface. Only a few tiny ice crystals tinkled glass-like as they hit the windshield.

It was only the closing of September but winter comes in fits of low freezing and deep freezing up north there near the Arctic Circle. It’ll be a good night to be working inside the plant, he thought, since the lack of heat was the last thing to worry about in there. Unlike the 18 million persons judged to be threats to the USSR that had been sent to the freezing camps in Siberia, most to never return, today’s workers at the nuclear facility had precious heat.

The J40 rolled up to the island of light surrounding the gatehouse. The guard inside put his pencil down on the crossword he was working on and got out of his chair. He pulled on his greatcoat and came out to the car. He carried himself well and, for a big man, he was clearly unexpectedly agile. His large hands were equally versatile threading a sewing needle or choking the life out of a man. Normally, he cradled a sub-machine gun on his arm but tonight he carried a white cotton sack.

Sergey cranked down the driver’s window as the gate guard approached briefly flicking the yellow beam of his flashlight across Sergey’s features, then snapped it off. The checkpoint routine was a ritual they engaged in seriously.

Good evening, Colonel, said the guard amiably.

Actually, Sergey had long since been promoted up from Colonel, but he still preferred to be known by that rank. It projected just the right amount of authority.

Hi, Yuri, replied Sergey.

Yuri’s moustache spread as he smiled at Sergey. Sergey was clean shaven but he admired how Yuri kept the beard and moustache trim, which was not an affectation as one might expect, but simply the work of a man who liked to see things done well, an artist taking pride in even the crafting of his beard, much like his dad crafed the perfect mortis and tenon joint in a cabinet.

Sergey flashed his identity card, then reached across the seat for the package wrapped in heavy brown paper and tied with butcher string.

Ubechek slaughtered one of the precious pigs two days ago and made fresh kolbasa. You can use some?

What more can a man ask for, Colonel, than a piece of pig in a package? Well, maybe fur mittens…

Yuri reached for the package. He and his family loved good sausage and sauerkraut, and Ubechek’s kolbasa was one of the best he’d ever eaten. Who would have thought to find such sausage in the beyond of Siberia? Sergey also favoured Ubechek’s kolbasa, but gave his share to Yuri; partly because Yuri’s family loved it, and partly because Yuri had access to the best home brew vodka you could find in a week’s drive. Yuri’s neighbour, two doors over, had a big greenhouse in the back of his plot. He grew the grain there that he used to make vodka. He harvested the grain and stored it in an outbuilding at his house. Technically, the making of home brew vodka was illegal. However, in the autumn, there was hardly a house in Seytchan that didn't give off the sweet aroma of distilled mash. The vodka produced by the townspeople was used as a tonic – a daily tonic for many - and for bartering. Every spring, there was a competition to determine which was the best vodka produced that year. A certificate proclaiming the superiority of the winner's vodka was highly sought after.

Yuri discovered on his first day in the village that his vodka-neighbour loved motorcycles as did Yuri. (Most relationships started with vodka in most of Russia.) The neighbour had a vintage Ural that demanded constant tinkering and adjustments to keep it at peak performance. Yuri spent what little free time he had in his neighbour's garage working with him on the motorcycle and sipping vodka and listening for information. And so the micro economy flourished in Northern Russia, and the skin-boot telegraph communicated most of what one needed to know.

Tucking the package under his arm, Yuri said, Thank you, Colonel. My Magda baked fresh bread today and now I have something to go with it.

He pushed the sack containing a loaf of bread and a two-liter flask of clear liquid through the window to Sergey's waiting hand. With a smile, he hurried back into the warmth of the guardhouse. He inserted his key into an electric lock on the control panel and turned it to activate the gate-opening mechanism.

Sergey waited for the large heavy gate to slide across out of the way, then eased the throbbing jeep through the opening. He saw Yuri wave and go back to his crossword puzzle as the gate closed behind him. Sergey turned the CD up a notch again.

He had been briefed on the facility and had spent his week there becoming as familiar with the layout and functioning of the plant as he was with his own kitchen. When he was fully confident, he would destroy the plans and information. No incidents had happened since he arrived but several had happened shortly before he arrived.

All that he could see conformed to the information he had been given. The four-meter high chain link fence surrounded the entire compound around the plant. The top of the fence, that sloped outward for a meter was strung with triple coils of razor wire. Probably when it was new, the zinc-coated razor wire could slice open a man like a sharp scalpel, even through the barest contact. Now, the dirty oxidized wire had the capability to infect wounds as well as inflict them.

The fence had another dangerous attribute. At random intervals, pulses of electricity energized the fence and stunned any living thing that happened to be touching it at the time. Ordinary bolt cutters could not chew into the hardened steel fence and its concrete foundation prevented tunneling under. Flood lights and television cameras were additional deterrents to trespassing, day or night.

He could trust Yuri to have checked every foot of the fence. Yuri was dependable, he was a friend, and they had meaningful history. That didn’t mean he could trust him completely, of course. Who could you trust completely? Sergey didn’t trust anyone completely, no one could. Sergey figured if you couldn’t anticipate what you yourself would do under any given circumstances, how could you possibly anticipate what a friend would do? You couldn’t, of course.

But over the last ten years, nothing Yuri had done belied Sergey’s trust – they needed each other to stay alive, and that is the best motive for trust. Once that is not there, or once a person’s life is better served by betraying another, trust was just unmapped territory full of surprises and often horror. This Sergey had learned very young and very well.

Sergey idled the Toyota just inside the gate to let the grader finish scraping