Pandora's Ark by Rick Jones Page A

therefore, he wasn’t to waste another
moment.
    For years he worked on methods
and theories, having diagrams of buckyballs with scribbled notes wallpapering
the walls. He worked effortlessly, truly believing that he could be the next
Nikola Tesla, the Serbian genius.
    As months and years drew on,
as the wall crumbled in 1991 and with it communism, the new leadership refused
Sakharov any true freedoms and placed him under the auspice of the new
Directorate S, an updated version of Kremlin bureaucracy. 
    With pressure mounting and
with Sakharov struggling with the bottle, his work went well beyond stressful
and gains were minimal. With more pressure being asserted by the powers that
be, Sakharov finally snapped and erased almost ten years of data from all
computers and their banks, leaving nothing to be retrieved.
    This earned Sakharov nine
years in the prison system where he watched inmates die around him in the most
horrific conditions.
    But he did not blame Mother
Russia. He blamed himself, knowing that his ego was paramount and that his
downfall and failures was of his own doing.
    He still loved his country,
even though it was a marginal facsimile of what she used to be.
    But he survived Vladimir
Central. And by the time he was released, Russia had a new political face. And
it turned up its nose at him by telling him that he was aged and forgotten.
    But my mind is as sharp as
it always was.
    He smiled because this was
true.
    In Vladimir Central he would
draw diagrams and formulas in the mud, then commit them to memory before
erasing them at the approach of the guards. Now that his mind wasn’t addled
with drink, he could think, configure, and institute new measures of control if
given the opportunity to do so. He would be diligent and careful. And though he
quickly found a reason to purse his lips around the mouth of a bottle the moment
he was released from Vladimir Central, he would gladly give it up to prove to
himself that he was not the failure Mother Russia believed him to be since she
discarded him like yesterday’s news.
    He then raised the glass of
vodka to his lips and drank, the alcohol going down much cooler than the urine
that often left his body. You’re coming apart, old man . But he smiled at
the thought.
    Regardless, he had lived a
good life, developing weaponry he believed would serve as a deterrent against
the United States, for which they would fear retaliatory strikes derived from
Sakharov’s wares. The old man truly believed that he was once the front line of
his nation’s defense, when, in fact, he was just a cog in the scheme of
Russia’s massive operation that was well beyond his comprehension.
    He sighed. He stared. He
thought. And he drank; knowing once he left this apartment, once he left for Iran, and despite the promises of reliving his glory years, Leonid Sakharov knew his time
was limited.
    Again he smiled. And then he
lifted a full glass of vodka and extended his hand toward the lights of St.
Basil’s Cathedral and proposed a toast. “To my beloved Mother Russia,” he
whispered. “I have missed you so. And I promise to make you proud.” And then he
drank until the glass ran empty.
     

 
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Tehran , Iran , Three Days Later
     
    Deep in the center of Iran’s capital, by far the largest urban city with a population of over eight million
people, al-Ghazi found it easy to hide within the bustle of the major
metropolis. After meeting with Leonid Sakharov, he took an immediate flight
back to his central base.
    The weather was
hot and dry, the sky a deep blue, a cloud not to be seen. The stink of a big
city was evident with the smell of fumes and exhaust permeating the air as if a
sandstorm had swept through the streets, the atmosphere cloyingly thick with
haze the color of desert sand. People milled about the bazaars where animal
meats hung from hooks. And al-Ghazi took it all in as he sat at a table outside
an eatery enjoying a Sharbat, a sweet drink prepared