Daisies In Hell: Love, Hope and Treachery In 2039

By Ron Neff, Ph.D

Masha, a Russian ex-patriot, was now with the SIS -- the storied British secret information service. On assignment in Moscow, she and her co-agent Thor were in a race against time. The menace of the hemisphere, a seeming genius to his most informed adversaries, had the rest of the world, and certainly Europe, at his evident disposal. Now, as age was numbering his final days, he appeared to want to leave no one behind, no one to mock him at his grave. Everything was on the line, you name it: Love, country, family, not to mention anything resembling freedom. Although Masha viewed him as pretty much a die-hard womanizer, attracted to any comely female in sight, Thor was actually determined . . . to eventually win the heart of his partner in espionage, a noble beauty at once cunning and refined. But would she have him? . . . And would they live to see?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483498430

Ron Neff, Ph.D

Ron Neff (Ph.D University of Iowa) is a semi-retired professor and psychotherapist. In recent years he has published several self-help books: Goodbye, My Love: How To Mend A Broken Heart (2016), Loving Well: Keys to Lasting and Rewarding Relationships (2016), Your Inner Mammal: How To Meet Your Real Emotional Needs And Become Stronger - For Self And Others (2017), and Surviving Divorce & Winning in Family Court (2021). He has often been told he should write novels, probably love stories, since he has studied and worked with issues of the heart most of his life. Hence, The Color of the Moon (2017), Daisies in Hell (2019), One Heart Over the Line (2019), Heroes, Hellions and Hot Rods (2019), and now Sometimes They Came Back (2022). At other times, his novels have been more in the “action adventure” or “science fiction” genres, including Enough With Those Humans: Was It Time for a Higher Intelligence? (2020), The Trouble With Eve: Forbidden Fruit in a Big Sky Paradise (2020), Sidewinders & Sassy Skirts: Blame It on Texas (2020), Up to Alaska: The Rush Of 2032 (2021), and Post-Earth: Searching the Stars for New Life (2021).

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CHAPTER 1

Your Mission, My Sweet

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CHAPTER 1

Your Mission, My Sweet

Masha ignored the message on her zip. It was probably Thor and she did not care to see his face just now, much less to hear his voice and watch his attempt to charm, however clever. Were it agency business, the message would have come on the strep.

It had been a tolerable morning, as she was treating herself to a peaceful view of the well-kept grounds, savoring her tea and slow ease into the day.

The news could wait as well. Like most of the populace, she knew enough to update only as necessary on the larger events of the day. In 2039 such things were less than delightful.

No message yet from central, so there was no urgent fire to put out. Even an SIS agent was entitled to a little tranquility at times.

Thor, too, though toying with the thought of sending a morning zip to 99.6, by which Masha had asked him to address her (as a marker he knew), was guardedly relaxed for the moment. After all, it was a pleasant morning. Might as well enjoy that. As to 99.6, she wanted to stick to protocol, of course, but she was also a bit cool toward him. He knew that. She seemed to prefer the artistic types, he gathered. Best to let her be, for now.

Most of Eastern and Central Europe had been compromised by the Russian encroachment machine in the last decade, leaving NATO in tatters. As such, SIS, the storied British intelligence service had more on its Royal shoulders than ever.

At the same time, with advanced counterintelligence, especially the all-seeing electronic surveillance, now everywhere, another day alive was a dicey bet for an SIS agent.

But not today. Or so they thought.

Yes, for London, it was exceptional out today. Sunny, warm and … OOOOOOGHH! … The day’s peace was abruptly shattered. The mournful scream of the Moog – the blaring warning of air poison – saw to that. It was not altogether clear, but most people blamed those intermittent poison threats on floating air currents stemming from industrial dumping in the oceans (legal in some other countries). SIS knew better.

Everything was on the line, you name it: Love, country, family, not to mention anything resembling freedom.

The menace of the hemisphere, a seeming genius to his most informed adversaries, had the rest of the world, and certainly Europe, at his evident disposal. Now, as age was numbering his final days, he appeared to want to leave no one behind, no one to mock him at his grave.

A handful of souls, an essential exclusivity, had a plan to alter that – literally a plan to derail the unthinkable. But would it work?

Masha and Thor were home on a brief respite, back from Moscow, where they would soon return, in newly altered identities. The SIS secret plan was not fully finalized, a few details remained, awaiting further intelligence. Plans, tragically, are only as good as the information behind them. As computer scientists have warned for decades, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.

Of course, a still older watchword might also apply for our intrepid pair, should they misstep: Dead men tell no tales. Nor women, my sweet.

Another zip message, and this time Masha thought it best to have a look. It wasn’t Thor, but her dear friend Clare, asking about dinner at Baileys, famous for their exotic seafood creations – and lush desserts! That was a go for her, and she was doubly glad she’d checked, as it was Clare’s zip earlier as well. Of course, that first zip was before the poison alert. Now they would have to monitor afternoon reports.

Because of that Moog alarm, Masha had immediately gone inside, where her mood had dimmed. Having been abruptly robbed of the pleasant view from her balcony, she was now pensive. What, she wondered, was that Thor up to?

Of more serious concern, wasn’t it ironic that she and Thor might actually be safer in Moscow than here at home? After all, she did know that Moscow had no air poison issue.

Professional questions came to her mind as well. Was the air poison problem essentially non-existent in Moscow, because unlike London, and indeed most of the world’s largest population centers, Moscow was not an old sea port, not a coastal city, but located well inland? Or, on the other hand, was it simply that the new Tsar was not about to poison himself?

SIS operated strictly on a need to know basis, to be sure, and for security reasons, that was absolutely necessary, so neither Masha nor Thor had been told of the agency’s conclusions on such questions. Yet given their own proximity to some of the facts, they could form educated guesses.

But that was enough of that, she thought. Those questions were beyond her grade, as they say in the military, and it was her day off, Damn it!

Still, she was kind of stuck on the more personal question – about Thor. What was he up to? she still wondered. And what was it with him? Was he just a damned womanizer? And where was he, anyway? Yeah, she kind of missed his familiar smirk just now.

Down at central, Boggs was more concerned with other agents, not their whereabouts or current undertakings, but their reports. Unfortunately, recent reports did not contribute to the solution, the plan, but only to an increasingly stark picture of the problem, its scale, and its uncertain but clearly impending timetable.

Boggs, so calm and methodical as to be commonly referred to among his staff as the machine or the tortoise, was maintaining his steadiness and composure even now, but he did realize that this was one hell of a sticky wicket, a phrase he would occasionally indulge, as a properly vintage metaphor — tracing to the sport of cricket – for a highly challenging matter.

Thor had returned to sleeping in, and not with that chatty but appealing redhead he’d met last night. Best he could win from her chattiness was a zip number. He had to wonder, of course, if that was actually her number. He hadn’t tried it yet.

Masha’s parents, Mac (Maximillian) and Adel, were hoping to see her again before she was off to wherever. They did understand that, for whatever reasons, she had to keep her travel plans undisclosed, even to them. They had agreed to tell their friends that she was a flight attendant of sorts – for an insistently secretive business tycoon. They were pretty sure she did something for the government but respected her need to keep that unsaid. Mostly, they were quite proud of her, and the stellar successes she had racked up at Edinburgh, the highly prestigious university. They did worry a bit, of course, but what parents don’t?

Masha was actually on much firmer, and hence less treacherous, ground than Thor when they were undercover in Moscow, as she was of Russian descent. Indeed, even her name was distinctly Russian, and in more than one way. Russian people normally have several names, including a diminutive assigned as a child (which may or may not have any particular historical connection with their first name), a formal name, a last name (spelled differently for males and females) and a patronymic (a derivative of the father’s name), which typically functions as a middle name. Further, when the diminutive, first formal name, last name and/or patronymic are used varies depending in part of the person’s age, on their claims if any to high family standing, region of the country, and also in part on the tradition in their own family.

Masha, although most often a childhood diminutive of Maria or Marie, may, as in her own case, have nothing to do with her birth name or names. Its literal meaning is ‘bitter." Some people, more often females, choose to be called by their childhood diminutive well into adulthood, but many others do not. Indeed, the diminutive may even be preferred in relatively formal matters, such as the authorship of a book, or, again, it may not be. Confused yet? That is the point here. It is but one of many examples of the subtle nuances of the Russian culture. Not that this is unique to Russia. German culture, for instance, certainly contains quite as many subtle aspects, very difficult for a foreigner, however well-schooled in the formal German language or its history, to master. French culture is every bit as subtle in its nuances. That is just the way of cultures. It‘s also the reason it is so very difficult to be a polished foreign agent, operating outside one’s own native world.

In short, Masha had a big advantage over Thor in Russian espionage assignments. Accordingly, she had the superior status, both as assigned by SIS central, and in the situational reality of their work.

Lest there be any thought otherwise, it should be noted that Masha meaning bitter did not reflect any negative connotations intended by her parents. In fact, many Russian diminutives, especially those assigned in childhood, have such ironically negative-appearing tones. The reasons for this are not clear, but it’s often suggested that such things may trace to the harsh nature of Russian life, not only set in a harsh climate, but overseen by consistently tyrannical Tsars for centuries, then the even more cruel Stalin, displacing and even slaughtering millions of his own people, followed by the Soviet era of total surveillance and disinformation by a gigantic and all-powerful party apparatus — as well as a history of nearly constant economic hardship, including a scarcity of food. This, too, is highly relevant information for any aspiring undercover agent, as it helps to explain the stoic Russian character, and today’s Russian tolerance, perhaps even stubborn admiration, for their current totalitarian leader, under whom at least their economy has improved of late.

Back in London, Thor was thinking about soccer. On one level, that was one thing that Russia now shared with Britain. But, as with other matters, Russian fans were measured, wary, lukewarm in their attention to that or any other sport. Not so the Brits! Before the poison alert, Thor had thought to grab a bite at a pub after bit, it being rather late for breakfast by any proper standard, and where he had hoped to share in the sporting atmosphere of the soccer fans. There was a big tourney underway, and, as well as enjoying the atmosphere, bawdily cheering one’s team is a way to rally the blood and vent some pent-up stores of male hormones. Now he’d just have to settle for leftovers, the fish and chips from last night, and taking in the soccer on the telly. That was a bum deal, not the same at all, leaving him as glum as Masha.

Maybe he would try to zip the redhead later. Or maybe his partner. Nay, one better, why not both?

•

Masha and her friend Claire had made it to Baileys for dinner, a fine one, although two days after Claire’s invitation. Now agent 99.6 was dining at another of her favorite London eateries, P. Franco. This time with Thor. Her co-agent was being his usual pursuing self, now trying to feed her delectable, French-style cuttlefish from his own fork. For some reason, she was not finding that so boorish now. Hey, the good weather had returned that day, and the horse-drawn buggy ride there, despite its transparently romantic intentions on his part, was truly delightful in the cool evening breeze. If he was trying to get her into a good mood, well, he was succeeding.

Yes, she was out on the town with agent 0006 (his assigned code, by which she might soon want to address him, as measure of self-defense). Although Masha viewed him as pretty much a die-hard womanizer, attracted to any comely female in sight, he was actually more intrigued by her than she espied. Thor admired not only her expansive education and prodigious knowledge, but her cannily quick instincts, as well as her poise and calm repose (a manifestation, perhaps, of that characteristic Russian stoicism). Besides, she could certainly say, H-R-R-Ruuuusha, with that distinctive rolling of the r — which for reasons known only to poets, Western men find as seductively appealing in a female voice as they find it noxiously irritating in a male’s.

Three masked thugs with large military weapons suddenly appeared – right in front of their faces. Others there were gasping, screaming and taking cover. Not so the secret agents. It was an artificial reality projection – quite realistic in 3D, but they had seen it before. So had every other SIS agent. To them, it was just another intimidation effort compliments of the Tsar, a commonplace part of their lives.

Masha and Thor had something to celebrate, in any case. They had heard from SIS central. On their return to the land of the Bear, they would be moving up in the world – living in the Tretyakov Gallery Area. That is one of the central districts of Moscow, and in Moscow, those are the most desirable residential areas. Rather than in a grid pattern, Moscow is laid out in rings, much like the cross-section of a tree trunk, emanating out from the Kremlin. Just as with the rings in a tree-trunk, the inner rings occupy the smallest amount of area, and residences in these central neighborhoods are accordingly scarce – and expensive. In brief, this is a high-rent district, with all the best housing, coffee shops, boutique bars, restaurants, cinemas and nightlife.

It’s also in easy walking distance of a remarkable outdoor attraction, Gorky Park. Not only the largest city park in Russia, at nearly 300 acres, it is also the oldest, first opened in 1928.

In its early years, Gorky was pretty much just open, and largely unmaintained natural terrain, and the surrounding city dwellers used it to plant their own gardens, harvest wild berries, hunt wild game, and, even notoriously, as a dumping ground for their garbage. Over time, there were gradual government efforts to manage and improve the grounds, as well as erecting monuments in places. But, as with Russia as a whole, through most of its history, it would suffer from economic doldrums and never rise to be much more than an eyesore by Western standards.

Then in 2011, at much expense, the park was entirely redesigned – and it is now truly a beautiful place, with a massive rose garden, featuring dozens of varieties of roses, including over 500,000 new plants added each year, equally beautiful ponds, with interior off-limits areas populated by many varieties of wild bird and small animal species; as well as greenhouses, and well-maintained places to lounge, play on the lawns, or just stroll. A bank of the Moscow River, which runs for three miles along one side of the Park, offers many inviting paths, as well as an urban beach modeled on Paris’s Seine-side plages. Why the dramatic improvements beginning in 2011? Oil money, big oil money.

Although not so at times in the past, since 2011 the park has also been open to all — with no admission fee. Given its attractions and touristy location, not surprisingly, Gorky is well attended, with about 20,000 visitors each day.

That would be moving up in the world, to be sure. In their most recent assignments to the Russian capital, to keep a low profile, Masha and Thor had been located in residences in the far outskirts, where life is meager at best. In those perimeter areas, natives have long coveted and tried their best to pass down to their heirs, the barest, near prison-like, one-room apartments in old concrete-block buildings, with or without running water, let alone toilets of their own. Toilets and showers there are normally down the hall, and shared. Amenities? That would be living within reasonable walking distance of places to buy the most basic necessities.

Yes, life in Moscow is, within just a few miles, drastically different for its native residents, depending on their locations. Curious to outsiders perhaps, but not to them; they accept this knowingly and without resentment or ire. To ask why is to ask about the character of a people so long, generation after generation, accustomed to the same. Many, including Russian expatriates do wonder about this accepting nature; they can only note that it seems to be either in the natives’ genetics by now (after ancestors with other dispositions were sent to the Gulags or simply executed), another example of that stoicism, or simply what they know, their normal.

There was more good news for the partying secret agents to celebrate. Central had also assigned their new covers. Masha would assume the identity of a tutor, befitting her advanced education and her single status. (For some reason, female tutors, like nannies, were always single.) Thor would be a tourist, direct from Iceland, in keeping with his blond good looks, as well as his origins. Yes, his family traced, in part, to Iceland. They did have the option of declining these identities, should they find them unsuitable, but they found them quite comfortable. Incidentally, because of the art gallery, with Gorky Park right outside its doors, and all the amenities there, not to mention the many historical buildings, monuments, and other sights, the Tretyakov Gallery Area is, as already suggested, crawling with tourists, making Thor’s new cover even more appropriate.

All of this called for a couple of toasts. "To our good fortune at the behest of