In the Shadows by Mickey Bergman

Author:Mickey Bergman [Bergman, Mickey and Henican, Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2024-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

THE PANDEMIC HIT HARD. EVERYWHERE. THE WORLD WAS ON LOCKDOWN. I was on lockdown. And it was killing my spirit. Meetings and negotiations went from in person to Zoom, text, and phone calls. Far less effective for someone who draws so much from interpersonal interactions. Nuances were lost. Nonverbal communications were lost. Like so many other Americans forced to work from home, I found myself working out of a backyard shed, which I converted into a backyard office. Substituting text for in-person negotiations meant I had to break down complicated concepts into a million basic questions. It didn’t help that once in receipt of my texts and emails, many of my counterparts resorted to their mother tongues, which meant that our negotiations were also being conducted via Google Translate, which is brilliant and maddening, both at once. At least I had emoji. Believe it or not, I found those expressive little figures very useful in conveying emotions and tone. Often, they were all I had.

Winston Churchill supposedly said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Well, that’s how we approached the pandemic. With COVID raging around the world, especially in the world’s prisons, we figured there could still be an opportunity to stage some mutual humanitarian gestures to relieve this special burden on prisoners’ health.

With that in mind, Guv, Hume, and I went back into the Russian embassy in mid-May wearing the highest-quality protective masks we could find, hoping we could make progress on the Whelan case. “Look,” Guv said to Ambassador Antonov, “we’ve had success with mutual medical gestures. This pandemic is a major problem. It will be terrible for both sides if one of our nationals dies in the custody of the other. Let’s go right to the endgame. Can’t we find a way to get Paul Whelan home as a humanitarian gesture in the midst of this global pandemic?”

The Russians, as always, were prepared. “I believe we have already demonstrated to you,” the Russian ambassador answered, “humanitarian gestures will be reciprocated.”

Guv wanted to make sure he was hearing the ambassador correctly. “Are you saying that if we get Yaroshenko released as a medical gesture, you will do the same for Whelan?” he prodded.

“I am saying that humanitarian gestures tend to be reciprocated.”

Always the professional diplomat, that’s how Antonov responded. He chose his words carefully, and he stuck with them. He would get no more specific than that. He made us say it. And when we did, he used his silence and his gentle nod as his signal of agreement. Only now, when everyone was wearing face masks, it was even harder to read the nonverbal cues. But that’s what we had, and I couldn’t help but hear the nodding and the silence as a yes. Not in words, of course… but still. The Russians would agree to reciprocal humanitarian releases at this time of health emergency: Konstantin Yaroshenko for Paul Whelan.

I certainly liked the way that… not sounded… looked.

I rushed this information to Roger Carstens, President Trump’s newly appointed special envoy on hostage affairs.

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