Coercion Read Free

to dance in her hair.  She looked like an angel with a halo of curly blond locks—Leo froze.  Little Georgy also had curly blond hair, and his mother kept it a little too long, perhaps … No! 
    Leo ran to his boy’s room and popped around the doorframe ready to fire.  He found … nothing.  Georgy, too, was quietly asleep in his bed.  
    Leo walked back to Maya’s room and sat on the edge of her bed.  Only practiced, diplomatic nerves kept him in check as he picked up the receiver again.
    “I’m there.”
    “Good boy.  Now, tell me today’s pass codes for the Ministry mainframe.”
    The Ministry the caller referred to was Russia’s Ministry of Foreign A ffairs, where Leo was one of six Deputy Ministers.  Handing over the computer pass codes would be like tipping Russia’s hand at dozens of high-stakes international poker games.  Other government organizations might have their books cooked for appearance’s sake, but negotiators at the MFA had to know what was of true strategic importance to Russia, and what was propaganda.
    “I cannot do that.”
    The mechanical voice did not waiver at the rebuff.  “Of course you can, Leo.  It is a simple choice, a trade really.  You give me the codes, and I let your daughter live.”
    Leo’s heart jumped back into his throat as the percussion recommenced in his ears.  He threw down the phone and raced to the front door, his finger poised on the Makarov’s trigger.  All was quiet.  He checked and double-checked the black-and-white screen of the intercom, unsure if he should trust the fuzzy image.  The guard appeared to be at his post.  Leo pushed the talk button.  “Anything unusual to report, Arkady?”
    “Nothing, Sir.”
    “Thank you.  Keep a watchful eye; I think something may be up.”
    “Yes, Sir.”
    Enough with diplomacy .  Leo returned to his daughter’s room and picked up the receiver.  Maya was still sleeping so he spoke softly, but firmly.  “ K chortoo!   Go to Hell!”
    “No, Deputy Antsiferov, it is your daughter who is going to Hell, and you are the one who is sending her there … Last chance Leo.  The codes.  Do not make me do it.”
    The speaker sounded sober and sincere.  Leo clenched his jaw.  He was by his daughter’s bed, gun in hand, guard at door.  In all probability it was a Ministry security check—severe but not without precedent.
    “No.”
    Three simple words followed, words that made it difficult for him to ask for anything ever again: “As you wish.”
    The scene that followed burned itself into Leo’s retinas.  It would be there every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life.  Little Maya suddenly lifted her curly locks and opened her big blue eyes to look up at him with a scared look on her angelic face.  She said “Papa” in her sweet soprano, and then she died.
    Leo stared in disbelief.  It was as though someone had turned out a light, Maya’s light, the light of his life.  His angel was dead.
    Some time later—whether seconds or hours he was not sure—Leo remembered the telephone.  He peeled himself off his daughter’s corpse and picked up the receiver.
    “I’ll get you!  I’ll get you if—”
    “Listen, Leo!  Listen!”  The mechanical voice cut him off with its icy command.  “Go to Georgy’s room.”
     

     
    Chapter 2
Siberia, August 1990
     
    This is no time for self-pity , Leo thought.  You have a problem to solve .
    Problem to solve?   More like disaster to avert.  With one careless slip of the tongue, just a few superfluous words in a bar, he had set his friend Andrey up to receive a similar midnight call.  Leo had to undo what he had done, and quickly.  Each sweep of the helicopter’s rotors brought Andrey that much closer to sharing his hell.  The question was how .
    Cruel coincidence had landed both Leo and Andrey in Krasnoyarsk on the same evening.  Fate had picked up the job from there.  Somewhere in the endless stream of vodka and war stories Leo