14.2 Journey of Ascension

Salazar paced up and down in the spacious hotel room, beige walls and dark blue curtains, original antique furniture and exquisite works of art. Inspired by its 19^th century decors at the National Hotel in Moscow, a historic place done in opulent Art Nouveau style, opened in 1903. He stayed here before as he always chose spacious hotel rooms. He tried to recall if it was during his performance at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in 1954. He clenched his fists as he figured it was Room 107. This room was once occupied by Vladimir Lenin after the capital shifted from St Petersburg to Moscow in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. That was precisely the bed he slept.

He stared for a moment and caught an image of a mummified man. He briskly turned to look out through the window overlooking the Manege Square on the other side of Mokhovaya Street, the Historical Museum, Hotel Moskva, the crenelated tower and the Kremlin wall. The Alexander Garden added a greenish splendour on a warm day in July. Salazar wished to take a walk when the phone rang like a spiralling bell.

A woman from one of the Lubyanka offices just passed him a message to say Colonel Viktor Ivanov would see him at 21 Kuznetsky Most within an hour. Salazar ran down the staircase and entered the concierge to arrange a limousine.

Forty-five minutes later, he was ushered through a packed office filled with clacking noises of several typewriters and working ladies vigorously occupied, some of those typewriters with small keypads and tremendously large roller arms. He shouldn’t have flown to Moscow, he thought, but it was his only hope after he learnt what he learnt from Cherry’s psychic reading.

“Good day! Mister Salazar!” received the colonel who was pretty much a typical colonel wearing a monocle and in ‘wave-green’ uniform with red stripes, the ‘Russian green’ to his distaste of their distinct utilitarian look, “Sit down! It must have been ten years since we last met!”

He lowered to an upright chair uneasily after a brief but a firm handshake. “Ten years since I ceased my tours,” confessed Salazar modestly, “I have no friends in Moscow.”

“I have a Pernod in my drawer,” he offered.

“No thanks.”

“Alright, let’s talk! What brings you here?”

“I’m not sure,” he began nervously, “this writer, an American by the name of Tyler Friesen, is in one of the Gulag camps in Siberia.”

The colonel chuckled, “Who told you?”

“I have certain sources to apprise,” said Salazar.

Colonel Ivanov uttered bit amused, “No, no, my friend, there are no Gulag camps. The GULAG and all its operations have been dissolved long ago. On 25^th January 1960, the Gulag system was officially abolished.”

Under Nikita Khrushchev, widespread releases took place and almost four million political crime cases were reviewed. A period referred to as Khrushchev Thaw. The Gulag system was abolished in 1957 on the basis of reform and labour camps were shut down. The economy was no longer based on slave labour. The MVD ceased to function as the nationwide administration of centralised detention in favour of individual branches of the MVD to succeed.

“It cannot be!”

“It is, Mr Salazar. Anyway, who is this man?”

“He is a writer who came to stay at Tsaghkadzor, our village in Armenia,” Salazar explained to the colonel, “He was going to go to Georgia when he was abducted by the Blue Beret. I thought I have an obligation to look into his case.”

Colonel Ivanov leaned back on his chair, “These things, my friend, I can’t help much. Burden yourself with something more personal.”

“I thought so,” he could smell his coat.

“I can tell you a little about this person,” said the colonel who was in charge of the administration dealing with KGB espionage convicts handed over to the MVD or regional branches of the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, “I am aware of a circulating notice to look for him. So far, he has not been located. Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked the KGB authorities upon a request from the American Embassy.”

“He is in Turukhansk.”

“Exiles continue and of foreigners as well. If you think so, I will check on it. Off the record,” he cleared his throat, “the circular stopped to circulate at the General’s desk. General Vladimir Leonovich Silayev, The Sledge. I’m afraid, I can be of no help to you. He is out of my bounds. Perhaps, you find another way!”

“Of course,” his face touched with sweat on this warm day when the name was mentioned. Colonel Viktor Ivanov could have uncovered a state secret, carelessly or dramatically.

And the secret was so daunting that he felt too much to bear. Salazar decided then and there to wash his hands off and cease his calls to the KGB. General Silayev was the mastermind behind the arrest of Oleg Penkovsky who disclosed thousands of documents of state secret to the western enemies; MI6 and CIA. Those documents that the USA relied on to believe Soviet strength was no match to theirs. He used a Minox miniature camera provided by the CIA to take photos of classified documents from the GRU and passed the microfilms to the wife of a staffer at the American Embassy in Moscow. Every step of this man, a colonel by rank at the USSR’s military intelligence, was followed up to his arrest later in 1962, interrogated, tried and executed in the following year.

There were 7000 KGB agents to cover the area of Moscow alone and that could put his life in danger. This meeting was over. Samvel Salazar hastily left the building with utter disappointment and often glancing from the ZIL-111 uneasily to see if there was a tail on his back. He flew home to Armenia unrewarded.