<Inside a car, driving on Toronto streets>
<music: _______________>
Call me Michael...
I came to Canada about twelve years ago.
<Car secvence.>
I'm a bartender now, here in Toronto.
I grew up in Romania under the peak of the Communist leadership
of Ceausescu.
I love adventures: adventures of a different kind, adventures that
change people.
These days, from time to time, I help out the Eastern European Mafiya
with some small favours.
But this is not the story that I want to tell you about.
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<//
...In the beginning, darkness was upon the face of
the deep...//
> Running screen text<
<music: _______________>
<music: _______________>
I was born in unusual circumstances in Kazakhstan.
My father was working back in the 50's as a military engineer in Romania.
He was sent to Russia on a classified mission. It was an experiment
performed on Russian nuclear weapons in a remote place in Kazakhstan.
After a few months, his superiors gave him a permit so that
my mother could visit. She was seven months pregnant at that time.
She stayed in Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan.
The preparations for the nuclear experiment progressed
slowly and time was flying fast. Finally, they got everything set
up. My father was out in the mountains conducting some part of the
experiment when my mother went into labour. She was transported to one
of the smaller hospitals in the city.
The nuclear bomb exploded, and I was born.
I tell you, it was a blast!
>>background music<<
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<// Transylvania
//
<_________________ background movie>
Of course, after all this, my parents went back to Romania. My father
registered my birthplace in a Transylvanian village. His superiors had
suggested that to him and my original birth certificate became a classified
document.
The purpose, of course, was to erase the trail of his classified
mission in Kazakhstan, a routine procedure for those days.
So, my early childhood was spent in Transylvania, which is a large
province in Romania. My father worked in a research laboratory in
a weapons factory, which was hidden in the Carpathian Mountains.
We were living in a small place called Parajd. It had the largest
salt mine in the country.
I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' home, which was in a neighbouring
village. Grandpa always told stories of the Great War ( the first one,
of course ). We visited many of the historical ruins in the region,
did long nature walks, or just played chess in the evenings.
I should mention my first memory about the secret police called
Securitate. It was a midsummer day. I was about ten years old, and
my grandfather sent me to buy some cigarettes for him. There was a pub
close by where I could buy them. While I was waiting in line at the bar,
the back corner of the room became very noisy. The father of one
of my classmates, who worked as a miner in the local salt mine, was
the cause of the noise. He was arguing with a guy who was a police informer.
It was a political argument about ethnic identity and who should be ruling
Transylvania. Anyway, it ended with the police informer's body past out
on the floor. The miner had punched him out. A week later this
miner from the pub had a fatal accident in the salt mine.
The rumour going around was that it was the Securitate that had
had a hand in it.
>>background music<<
<Temesvár background movie>
When I was about to begin high school, my father retired from the
army. We moved to Temesvár, the largest city on the western
side of Romania. Already, by the '70s, corruption and cheating started
to become a key element in politics and everyday life.
Ceausescu's government tried to pay back its' foreign debt as soon
as possible. So, they were exporting too many goods. That strategy
created shortages in many everyday items.
By the 1980's, the black market started to grow significantly.
People tried to defect to western countries with the hope of a better life
with freedom.
I liked to play chess and other strategic games. I even started
to believe that life was a big chess game.
After high school, I became a tool and die maker by trade.
There is only one problem with bad kids , they grow up!
<music: _______________>
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<// My first gunshot
//
<train travel background with dirty washrooms background movie>
It was the beginning of the fall of 1978.
I reached army age. As you know in Romania, military training is
compulsory.
After I was recruited, I was sent away to Bucharest by train.
<_________________ background movie>
Nothing significant happened in the first part of basic training.
Being in peacetime in the army is relatively safe, but you can die
of boredom.
However, excitement came soon enough the following spring
and it became the turning point of my army age.
A colonel of our military base set up a combat training competition,
something like war games. It was announced that it would take place
in two weeks. So, each of the ten men groups had some time to plan
their strategies. The prize was very attractive: one week of vacation
, free life from the base for every member of the winning team!
Most of our team members were planning the field combat tactics.
Ludwig, who
worked from time to time at the base canteen, and I , decided to
do the intelligence work…in other words, the CHEATING. The two of
us thought about how to get rid of the leading sergeants of the strongest
teams. They were the offspring of some high ranking officers of the
ministry of defense and we were sure that they would get some professional
help from their parents.
I spent a week with all kinds of wild plans in my mind, none of
them good. However, one Saturday when I was eating my lunch out on the
training field, my plan was born.
<music: _______________>
>>background music<<
I found some wild mushrooms in the field that I knew were poisonous
and would create several days of serious stomach sickness. I remembered
that from my grandfather's teachings. I collected some and dried them for
a few days. Then, I pulverised them into dust.
The day before the combat competitions Ludwig, at the canteen where
he worked, mixed the mushroom dust into the ice cream pails that were to
be served only at the officers' canteen. ( Regular soldiers never
saw luxuries like that). Our two targeted sergeants always ate there.
Everything was going fine until the unexpected occurred, which is just
the way it is in life sometimes!
<music: _______________>
>>background music<<
The next morning the ice cream pail was taken home by the commandant
of the
base. It was served that evening at his birthday party
and some of his guests were from high places, like the minister of defence.
They were hospitalised for several days.
The hospital analysed the ice cream, and the case got in to the
hands of the military police. They searched the canteen and found
irregularities in the books. They searched more at the base registry and
found more problems that they could blow up into a bigger scandal. The
commandant was moved from Bucharest to a remote unit somewhere else in
the middle of nowhere.
Ludwig and myself were lucky not to be caught… or at least that
was our impression.
And that was my first gunshot.
I missed the mouse, but killed the neighbour's cat.
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<// The " CC unit"
//
<___________________ background movie>
After I finished my time in the army, I moved back to Temesvár where I had lived before my military years. I started working in the maintenance section of a factory. I spent a lot of my spare time playing in chess competitions all over the country.
<_____________________ background movie>
In the late fall of 1982, I met a guy named Joe. He was also a keen
chess player.
One evening after a chess game, we were waiting for the tram
at the station, and he
came up with an offer. He said that he was a member of a secret
underground organisation and asked if I would consider joining.
The organisation had several nicknames like "Quality Control", or
"Cream on Crime", or "Circumstantial Crime creating unit". But they
usually use the shortest name: " CC unit".
<church outside background>
I made my decision within a few weeks.
I had the concept of life being only a game: so why not play
it for a while?
Everything was so boring at that time...
I met the recruiting officer on a dark day at one of the city's
old churches. He was dressed in an insignificant fashion and always
stayed with his face in the shadow.
//He was talking like somebody who had a bad soar throat.//
<echoing , with church inside background>
"Walk along and think with me, if you don't mind! I know about
your mushroom picking venture in the army... we had a member in the military
police unit... that is why you got away with it. Your friend was a traitor
who tried to help himself out of trouble by giving you up, but we were
there and saw some potential in you. Anyway , I'm here to tell you
about the " CC Unit"."
"First I have to tell you that the "Circumstantial Crime Creating
Unit", as we sometimes call ourselves, is NOT part of the secret police
or the army, despite the fact that we have members who work for these organisations
for a living; insiders we call them."
" Our purpose is to punish powerful people who abuse their
power. We won't have you, or any member, on any official payroll.
You have to continue your day job. On the other hand, sometimes unofficial
bonuses will be paid and special expenses."
"You won't have much help from us, only a beginner's training, and
maybe a few associates along the way. If you ever get in trouble
with the Secret Police, and that is very likely, you are alone. We
are looking for candidates who have a strong feeling for universal justice.
On the other hand, those who obey the law too much, or are afraid of revenge
are no good to us because they will be afraid to take any action if it
is needed."
"An order from a "CC unit " officer is only a suggestion.
You have to figure out the right way of action and ALWAYS think for yourself.
Never lose your temper! Never execute a mission with passionate hate or
anger against an enemy, because you will get less efective. You must
find a plan that you believe in because then you can follow it properly,
even if it is not the best one. Otherwise we can lose you wery easy if
you make a mistake.
Our organisation is beyond the law.
This all sounded like work and risk for nothing, a very familiar
idea in our country.
What do you think ... for the sake of the GAME?"
// With a little uncertainty ...//
" When can I join?"
< Slamming door noise >
<END OF SECVEN.>
>Written text on screen<// Training //
<_______________________background movie>
Pretty soon I got the message about my basic training.The messenger
was Joe from the chess club. He gave me the instructions and a map.
I had to take a few weeks of vacation from my work. My excuse was
that I had to participate in some long chess competitions. I had
to get to a far and remote place in the Carpathians. The compound
was about 50 km away from the last populated place with no telephone or
electricity. Since it was down in a rocky valley with cliffs, radio waves
didn't get in or out. I had to wear a small mask just before reaching
the target place and so did the other candidates.
There are a few things that I should mention about the training.
There were two training officers, a man and a woman. There were 12
students; 9 women and only 3 men. We had to wear masks the whole time so
we wouldn't be able to identify each other later on. We were not
permitted to socialise with each other or tell our identity. Every
day we had 5 hours of physical combat conditioning and training for weapons
handling. After that, there was 5 hours of brain training, mainly for memory,
self-control and making fast combinative decisions in unexpected situations.
A lot of this stuff, we might never use in life again. We managed to get
through it with only small injuries, except for the last day's final test.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
It was a wet day. One of the men, who was very competitive against
the women wanted to finish first. He slipped down from a cliff and broke
his neck. Several hours later, we found him dead. He was buried
in the woods in an unmarked grave.
The mask was never removed from his face!
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
Later in life, I found out that this man was an implanted secret
police agent. Our instruction officer had figured this out and had
finished him off. The compound was burnt after we left it.
Knowledge comes with sacrifice!
<END OF SECVEN.>
<music: _______________>
>>background music<<
>Written text on screen<// Martha //
Several months later I met my secret partner for future missions. Her name was Martha and since my name is Michael, we had funny initials together : M&M. She was about my age, short, skinny, with black eyes and dark hair. She had become a "CC unit" member the year before me. Martha was a nurse in the big municipal hospital. Previously, she had actually studied in university for two years with a dream to become a medical doctor.
Martha once did a practical joke at a friend's birthday party in
a big restaurant. Her problem was that there were some influential people
amongst the guests. One man was a Communist Party activist and introduced
himself to her. He kissed her hand, and suddenly Martha's freshly
kissed hand fell down on the floor with pieces of meat hanging out of it.
The activist's face turned yellow.
Martha then said to the guy victoriously, "That is how greedy
you politicians are, I give you a finger and you take my whole hand!"
She had stolen a human hand from the anatomy lab
at school and put it up her dress sleeve so it would look like her own
hand.
The director of the university expelled her from the medical school
with no chance to apply anywhere else in the country to study medicine.
She was lucky to get a job as a nurse.
Martha was attracted to the profession of healing. That is why she
accepted the offer to become a "CC unit" member. She thought that
she could perhaps carve out some cancerous parts of society.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<// The impersonator //
In the beginning, Martha and I got only insignificant boring jobs
like spying on certain people. We spied on their secret habits and things
like that. It was really successful if a mission was successful one in
five times.
Let me tell you about one of our first funny ones.
First of all you have to know that Romania's borders were seriously
defended, not against enemies but against its own citizens. If somebody
tried to cross illegally, was severely punished by the guards , and the
sentence was few years of jail. Knowing that, you had to think twice about
how to escape to the free world.
<music: _______________>
>>background music<<
So, back to my story. Our target was a border checkpoint customs
officer from the Romanian Yugoslavian border. He pissed off some influential
people because he was taking too much in tips and harassing tourists beyond
the necessary need. And our "CC Unit" wanted to replace him with one of
its own members. Later I'm going to explain why. We had many months
of preparation.
I got the idea for a plan at a pub while talking with some friends.
Gunter, German by ethnic background, was really desperate to leave Romania
forever. He even had a friend who was visiting from Germany who was about
his age and wanted to help him.
A few days later I got the necessary supplies and set up a plan
with the German guy.
All three of us met again for the last time to give instructions
to Gunter. The plan was that Gunter would drive his German friend's
car alone. He would have his friend's passport and I had already
modified the picture in it to match Gunter's face. We agreed that
he would have to cross the border at the place where our targeted customs
officer worked. Of course, it had to be at the right time of the day when
he would be on duty. I also instructed Gunter that if necessary,
he could try to tip the officer because he was known to accept tips. The
plan was that the guy from Germany would report the stolen car and passport
the next day.
Everything worked out fine. Gunter was a bit emotional at the border
crossing.
The officer noticed that so he searched the car. He found a relatively
old painting in the bottom of the trunk that had actually been implanted
by us. The customs officer filled in official papers, confiscated
the painting and sent it to the central office. Gunter became more
emotional, but paid a fine with a good tip included and crossed the border
successfully.
The next day, our German friend reported the stolen car and
passport. Because of the confiscated painting from the day before, the
police already had a description of the car. The customs officer
was removed from his position for failing to identify a passport impostor.
Gunter and his German friend are laughing today in Germany.
Mission accomplished.
By the way , the painting was not framed!
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
<END OF SECVEN.>
>Written text on screen<// Mission abort //
Our next successful job was similar.
This time we had to erase a young police detective's career.
He was a shadow of a general from the ministry of internal security.
More precisely, he was an untalented son-in-law who got a high position
at the passport office because of his wife's father. He was becoming a
pain in the butt for many people who were trying to emigrate. We
had to get rid of him because he had put an important member of our organisation
in jail because of a moneymaking scheme. Anyway, we had six months
to take him off the main stage.
We had to tail him for weeks to find out his weaknesses. We found
only one useful thing. He was having an affair with a woman named
Maria. She was living in a nearby village. We had the impression
that they were deeply involved, if you know what I mean.
Soon Martha and I came up with a long shot scheme.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
First, Martha had to become good friends with Maria.
We set this up by arranging a late evening street attack on Maria
by two hooligans. We paid them to do that whole fiasco. Of course, Martha
appeared by mistake at the right moment and saved her. After that Martha
and Maria started to meet each other several times a week. They became
so called "good friends". Martha, with intimate girl talk , found
out many details of Maria's life.
One day Martha stole Maria's birth control pills and replaced them
with some aspirins. These aspirins were going to cause a headache later!
After two months, Maria became pregnant and the father was our targeted
police detective. They couldn't decide what to do, and so a few months
went by. Of course, the police detective wanted to keep his love
affair a secret from his family. They were desperate.
Here I have to mention that abortion, at that time in Romania, was
against the law.
Anyone who performed abortions was severely punished. Anyone who
went to the hospital with complications after an underground abortion,
was in trouble. The emergency doctor was not allowed to help until the
patient told the name and address of the person who had performed the abortion.
That was usually a secret and there were women who died on the emergency
bed because they really didn't know this information.
Martha suggested an abortion to Maria. She even gave her the
phone number of an underground abortionist.
After another month, Maria and the police detective finally decided
that they would go ahead with the abortion. They set the date.
Of course, Martha being best friends with Maria knew exactly when that
was.
We knew that the guy who performed abortions wasn't very good at
his job because of the primitive conditions of his apartment. He
secretly rented in the middle of nowhere. However, he did have a connection
with a doctor at the emergency room of the municipal hospital.
This is where I stepped into the action. I gave inside information,
in indirect ways,
to that emergency doctor. This information was about a possible
undercover police action that was going to happen soon at the hospital.
I especially mentioned abortion-related cases. After so much
conspiracy, we just had to sit back and wait now for our luck to kick in.
>>background music<<
And we were lucky. Maria had the abortion at the abandoned apartment.
She developed a serious bleeding problem right after it. Both her and her
lover went to the
hospital's emergency room where the abortionist sent them.
Surprise, since the emergency doctor was afraid of the undercover
police action, he did not want to help until she wrote down the details
of the abortion. Time was getting short and our police detective
tried to hurry up the process by waving around his police badge.
That made the doctor even more nervous and he decided to definitely make
a report for the police.
Maria was already asleep and so our targeted cop filled in the forms
and signed it.
Maria survived.
The whole story about the abortion became a rumour at the main police
building.
Our police detective had to divorce his wife. By losing an
influential father-in-law, he also lost his job at the passport office.
But he and Maria moved in together and, even to this day, they think
that it was fate that changed their lives.
And that is how we performed that difficult abortion at the
passport office.
<END OF SECVEN.>
<music: _______________>
***
>Written text on screen<// Paydays //
After these successful missions, Martha and I got some bonus money.
It came in the form of a winning ticket, from a lottery jackpot,
that one of our superiors sent us.
You might ask…How did that happen?!
Well, "CC Unit" was paying some retired people to sit around in the
waiting room of the city's main bank. This is where the lottery winners
had to cash in their winning tickets. When these retired employees
saw a happy faced lottery winner coming through the door, they would offer
twice as much in cash than the jackpot was. If somebody agreed with
the deal, they got an address where they could do the exchange.
These winners got twice the money but they had to spend it very
wisely, so as not to attract the attention of the economic police.
You are asking now… Where did the cash for our "CC Unit" come from?
Well , some members were only money generators. I heard of only a few ways
that this was done.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
You know, there were many ethnic Germans living in that part of the
country and they wanted to immigrate to Germany. Many of them already had
some relatives living in Germany who sent money for tipping officials.
That was already a good money basket for our organisation, eh?
One of our members worked at the passport office in an insignificantly
small position, but he was there. He took large tips for helping with the
oiling of high officials for emigration passport forms. The truth
was that he did nothing for his clients. If his client's application
was accepted, he kept the money. If officials refused it, he gave back
the money to the applicant. People have always believed in influence,
and that was the key.
He got caught doing that scheme and jailed, by the detective
from my previous story. He was never suspected of being part of the "CC
Unit". Later, we found somebody else to do the same scheme for us.
Believe me, people spend a lot of money for only the impression
of beating the system.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>Another exotic
source of money came from selling the confiscated drugs from some of the
border checkpoints. In those years, the average population in Romania
heard about drugs only from movies, so almost nobody was using them. But
some drug producers and smugglers from the east were crossing Romania with
their goods, on their way to Western Europe.
Sometimes our implanted customs officers captured drug smugglers.
Of course, the drug was confiscated with no official charge of any kind
and the dealer let free. That is why we had to get rid of the customs
officer described in my first story. He had to be replaced by one
of our members.
These confiscated drugs were then transported by our agents to Western
Europe and sold to regular drug dealers. This idea was introduced
to our organisation's money machine by one of our members who officially
worked at the Romanian foreign spy department called D.I.E. (Departamentul
de Informatii Externe). The same scheme was also done by the official
Romanian spy agency. The difference was that their money was going to Ceausescu's
personal foreign account.
It was a good feeling to know that we actually shared the loot with
somebody who, at the same time, was undermined by us.
>>background music<<
<END OF SECVEN.>***
>Written text on screen<// Stalker in Stalemate
//
Back in the summer of '84, Martha noticed that she was under surveillance
24 hours a day by different individuals. We figured that it must be the
Secret Police because they were using at least three different people in
shifts. We also figured that the neighbourhood informers were involved
too.
I guessed that we were dealing with a crisis of our greed for adventure.
Somewhere
along the way Martha or me must have left an uncovered track that
had attracted the
attention of some secret police bureaucrat. Anyway, we couldn't
do much about them, so we decided to try some misinformation tricks.
We didn't have much. They saw me with Martha and so they figured
there was some connection between us.
Then one morning while drinking my coffee, I got an idea.
Let's use Kazakhstan, my birthplace to defend us. I
discussed it with Martha and, having no better idea on the table, we decided
to go ahead with it. Either we would succeed or get deeper in shit.
I asked an old friend of mine, who was fluent in Russian,
to call me from a public phone some evening when I was over at Martha's
place. I told him to tell me in Russian what the weather was like
in Kazakhstan and Alma Ata. I explained to him that I wanted to impress
a woman with my Russian knowledge.
The peculiar telephone conversation in Russian about Asian
weather worked out OK.
Since Martha was under surveillance, her phone calls were recorded.
That
conversation in Russian was also recorded. Our invisible enemy
from the Secret Police took the bait and checked out my background in detail.
He got back as far as the classified note about my mother
giving birth to me in a Soviet hospital in Alma-Ata. After trying to find
out more about my father, he just hit a wall of classified documents with
no access to them, because of the nuclear experiments.
Our stalker from the Police , figured out that maybe Martha
and I were a KGB connection string and he didn't want to get in a mess
with Soviet agents. He became the victim of his own vivid imagination.
Anyway, within a few days that routine surveillance on Martha ended,
and we were free again for new games.
You know, a fox sometimes runs back on its own old trail if it is
chased by dogs.
>>background music<<
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<// Silent Death //
It was the winter of ‘86. It was at that time that an internal confusion started within the Securitate (Secret Police). Rivalry between the officers was becoming the vulnerable spot of that feared organisation. The "CC Unit" leaders thought that it was time to start undermining the system. We were given more and more dirty jobs to do for them. Here is one of them...
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
Martha and I got an ultimate mission and, if it turned out successfully,
it would be our last one. Our target was a guy in his thirties. We
didn't know much about him except his personal appearance and that his
weekend house was in a nearby village. That was one of our organisation's
strategies: Don't give personal details to the executioners about their
victims because it might become personal.
At this time our superiors already made the plan for us. We got
our supplies and the help we needed.
It was a cold and dry winter with no snow. Everything looked
morbid and dark like it was the end of the world. This night would be,
for some.
Our mission had to be done in one single day and night. Martha and
I rented a rural home just across from our target's home. We had to watch
him go home and be sure that he was inside during the night. He had a traditional
house that was heated with coal fuelled stoves.
The target came home around eight with his friend. They were
drinking a bit and around midnight went to bed. This was unlucky for his
friend, who was sleeping in the guest room and by mistake, became
part of the collateral damage.
Around two o'clock in the morning, we sneaked over to their
back porch. Our weapon was a high-pressured gas tank filled with carbon
monoxide. We pushed a longer hose under the door, and in about half an
hour emptied the entire amount of carbon monoxide from the tank into the
house.
I have to explain that carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas. When inhaled, it combines with haemoglobin in the blood, preventing absorption of oxygen and resulting in asphyxiation. As little as 7 of 1 percent may prove fatal in less than 30 minutes. Carbon monoxide is formed whenever carbon or coal is burned with an insufficient air supply, like our victim's coal stove. That is what the books say.
After that Martha and I went back to our rented home across
the road. Our predatorial emotions and adrenaline were running high.
It was our last mission together.
And, for the first and last time, we made love. It was something
very special, I tell you.
Two days later the police found the two bodies. They figured out that the coal stove didn't function properly and that caused the carbon monoxide poisoning. This type of accident did happen a few times a year, since coal stoves were so common across the country.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
A few days after that last mission, I got the chance, with the help
of some planted bureaucrat, to change my identity.
I didn't change my name, just some other key background information
in my past. I even got a passport and left the country in a matter of a
few hours.
I couldn't say goodbye to anyone, not even my family and friends.
I also couldn't send them letters later on.
Officially, I was shot and drown in the Danube while trying to cross
the border.
My body was never recovered.
>>background music<<<music: _______________>
<END OF SECVEN.>
***
>Written text on screen<//... today there is even
more darkness ... //
<Inside a car driving on Toronto streets><music: _______________>
I didn't hear anything from Martha for almost 13 years.
That's how long it has been since I left from behind the Iron Curtain.
Then, last week, I got an E-mail with the subject: Martha is outback.
<E-mail on screen>
Subject: Martha is Outback
" Hello Michael!
I have been thinking for 13 years what possible name you chose
before you left.
You didn't change your name like every enemy of ours would think.
It is your style of thinking, after all.
I found you by your home page on the Internet and I recognised your
poems.
I changed my identity too, a long time ago.
My name is now Nadia.
I'm living in Darwin, Australia. I went back to study and
graduated from a medical school.
Today I am a family doctor and still single.
Goodbye for now : Nadia (for you Martha)
PS: By the way, I have a daughter. Her name
is Martha and she is 12 years old..."
>Written text on screen<// The End ?? //
>>Background music<<
<END OF MOVIE.>