Best of Enemies by Gus Russo

Author:Gus Russo
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781538761311
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

10

AN OLD ENEMY

Guess who’s alive?

September 2005

Krasnaya Presnya Transit Prison

The next ring of hell for Gennady was the Russian mythic prison known as “Gulag Junction,” the hub from which all prisoners would eventually be transferred to work camps spread out across the country. Krasnaya Presnya was an overcrowded, overheated, rat-infested hole, infamous for its wrongful 1940s imprisonment of dissident Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who later exposed the gulag system to the world.

Gennady joined the ranks of the wrongfully imprisoned still wearing Dion’s bloody FBI Academy sweatshirt. He was ushered into an interrogation room, seated on a metal chair, legs shackled and hands bound behind his back, and sat there for what seemed an eternity with a high-wattage bulb in his face. Then he walked in, the man behind it all: Sasha Zhomov, the obsessive Russian mole hunter whose investigation had broadened in 2001. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, when the KGB split into domestic counterintelligence (FSB) and foreign spying operations (SVR), Sasha had been tapped to run the North America division of the FSB.

With Sasha involved, it was clear to Gennady that his latest false imprisonment had nothing to do with a weapons charge. In truth, his country suspected him of either being a traitor or selling one out.

At first, mole-hunter Sasha played a Russian version of “good cop.” He creepily told Gennady, “I’m putting you in prison to protect you.” When that had no impact on the prisoner, Sasha reverted to his true form and a menacing tone. “These FBI men were trying to buy the file on our source. They approached many FSB, GRU, and ex-KGB until they got it. And they were there with you, in America, again.”

Gennady protested his innocence. Begged for water. “Can I just call Masha to tell her I’m alive?”

“And then there’s these…” Sasha flung onto the table intelligence reports of Gennady with Dion in Macon and Atlanta. He showed Gennady grainy photos—taken from Gennady’s now ransacked apartment—of him with Rochford, Dion, and Cowboy, even their families. “Now, here’s what I don’t understand: you lost your pension, yet you are able to support two wives and two housefuls of kids—that we know of—a nice dacha in the country, and vacations in America, and right after someone sold our most precious files to the main enemy.” He paused. “You’re wearing the fucking FBI shirt he gave you! Do you think I’m a fool?” He slapped Gennady twice, and hard.

“I worked hard for my money. I sold no files! How would I even get such a file? I had been in fucking Guyana for four years before you threw me out of the service.”

Summer-Fall 1989

One year removed from his Lefortovo ordeal, Gennady struggled to pick up the pieces of his life; Cowboy Jack—his perceived betrayer—was dead to him. After initial, albeit fruitless, attempts at the import-export game (vodka, food, clothing—anything), Gennady found his salvation in the form of tremendously good timing.

Help for Gennady’s plight arrived courtesy of new Party chairman Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika.

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