Olympic athletes were always in demand. Lavrenty Skachkov would win many gold medals for the motherland.
Lavrenty's trainers didn't need to experiment on their young protege with dangerous doses of chemicals-either legal or otherwise. Lavrenty came by his skills naturally.
He was an accomplished swimmer and diver. He was graceful enough to be a gymnast, though he was a bit too large and had not begun the formal training at an early enough age. When it came time to decide on what skills would best serve his country, his speed won out. The Olympic coaches chose to groom young Lavrenty as their greatest track and field star. And one day soon he would win gold medals.
He trained hard and long. And when his time finally came, Lavrenty Skachkov-the prodigy that everyone said could not lose-lost to an opponent no one expected. History.
December 25, 1991, brought an end to the Soviet Union. The entire Russian Olympic training program collapsed with the old Communist regime.
Lavrenty had bought into the promises of the state and of his coaches. When Russia collapsed, Lavrenty Skachkov saw his dreams collapse, as well.
For years his creature comforts-though few in number-were supplied by the state. But with little money offered by this new democratic government, Lavrenty was forced to find a job to subsidize his own training. The strain on his regimen dashed forever his Olympic dreams.
It was too humiliating to bear. After twelve years away from home, he returned in defeat to Sevastopol, where he crawled inside a vodka bottle. There he marinated.
Lavrenty might have followed-albeit belatedly-the pattern established by all preceding Skachkov males if not for one fateful day.
He was in the squalid apartment he shared with a raunchy Russian techno-punk band. When the pounding started at eight in the morning, Lavrenty, who was still hungover from the night before, assumed it was the band rehearsing. It took several bleary moments to realize that someone was at the door.
Head spinning, Lavrenty staggered to answer it. The impatient figure standing in the filthy, urine-soaked hallway wore a look of haughty disdain. "You are drunk," his visitor said in introduction. Lavrenry didn't remember much after that. The effort to open the door had been too much for him. As the stranger's face soured, Lavrenty's world spun crazily around his head. Spewing vomit, the former Soviet star athlete passed out.
When he awoke on his torn sofa it was afternoon.
The apartment had only one window. Brilliant yellow sunlight streamed in through the torn black shade. Lavrenty tried to blink the pain from his eyes. When he rolled his head to one side, he found he wasn't alone. The threadbare easy chair across from the couch was occupied.
"You are disgusting," his visitor sneered. "You live like a pig. This apartment is filthy."
"Who the hell are you?" Lavrenty snarled. Hand pressed to his forehead, he sat up.
"I am the person who is about to give you an offer that you do not deserve."
Bloodshot eyes suspicious, Lavrenty pushed to his feet. "It sounds like I'll need a drink for this," he said.
"Don't bother. I dumped all the liquor down the sink while you were unconscious."
Already halfway to the tiny kitchen, Lavrenty stopped. The apartment continued to spin.
"You what?" he demanded.
"Alcohol is not permitted in your new training regimen," his visitor said calmly.
With those words it was suddenly all very clear. Lavrenty's shoulders drooped and he fell against the nearby wall for support. "No, not again," he moaned.
"I am not with the Russian Olympic team. I have nothing to do with your silly running games. I am offering you something new. Something that you might not deserve and that you certainly do not now have. I offer you a life, a future. Both rare commodities in Russia at the present time. You need only say yes and your life changes today."
Lavrenty was still leaning against the wall. It was greasy. The floor was worse. Moldy and rotted. Rats scurried around it at night.
"I have heard this promise before," the former athlete said weakly. There was surrender in his voice. His visitor leaned forward. "No, you haven't. Before when they came for you, you could not decline." The truth of his visitor's words hung heavy in the fetid apartment air.
The stranger stood. "You will have food and shelter. There is no drink, and the training is difficult, but it is a better life than you will ever have here."
Lavrenty dragged his eyes around the dirty apartment. His gaze finally settled on his guest.
"What is the name of the person for whom I will be working?" he asked with tired acceptance. There was not a hint of satisfaction on his visitor's pale, chiseled face.
"My name is Anna Chutesov," she said crisply. And a glimmer of something that might have been regret touched the depths of her blue eyes.
A BLACK VAN WHISKED Lavrenty Skachkov to the airport that afternoon. By nightfall he was in Moscow. His training at the Institute began the next day.
Those first two years were a living nightmare. Everything he had learned as an Olympic athlete had to be unlearned. The lessons were endless. The instructors far more demanding than those in the Olympic training facilities.
He watched them in action a thousand times. A thousand times a thousand times.
The two men carried themselves with a grace of movement that was impossible, nearly inhuman. The first few hundred lessons, he couldn't unravel the complexity. When at last he saw the truth, he realized that it was simplicity disguised as complexity. At the same time the opposite was true. And in that paradox was their secret.
They never spoke. Never said a single word to Lavrenty. Yet they became his greatest teachers. One moved with a skittering grace, the other with a confident glide. They seemed able to appear and disappear at will.
"May I speak with them?" Lavrenty asked Anna Chutesov one afternoon after his first few months of training.
Anna glanced at Lavrenty's two teachers. A strange expression settled on her beautiful face. "No, you may not," she said quietly, as if afraid they might overheat.
"Then you tell me," Lavrenry whispered in awe. "How do they do what they do?"
"I don't know," Anna admitted. "But if you follow their example properly, you may one day be able to do the same."
Lavrenty couldn't believe it. Yet he had signed on to the program, called Mactep, and so had no choice. In an underground training chamber, Lavrenty was covered with grease-smeared electrodes. His silent teachers joined him. Technicians were in a sealed booth above the chamber to monitor his progress. Success went unrewarded. Failure was punished with excruciating electric shocks. Lavrenty received many shocks during his first months of training.
It was frustrating beyond belief. Much harder than the training he had endured in his youth. Most times he was certain that he could never succeed.
Then one day, when he least expected it, he actually matched a move.
Lavrenty was shocked. It was a small thing. A mere baby step compared to the abilities of his teachers. But to Lavrenty, it was life-changing. In that moment the impossible became possible.
A few more arduous years followed, during which Lavrenty eventually matched every move made by his teachers. When he was done, he couldn't believe how easy it had been. There was an obviousness to it all that should have been evident to him on that very first day.
A handful of others had preceded him in the program. These, he learned, had used their skills to protect the Institute from the mobs at the end of the Communist age. They had christened their skills in blood.
Lavrenty was better than them all. He surpassed the skills of all who came before or after him in the program. His superior ability inspired awe in the men with whom he shared quarters in that big, ominous building in Kitai Gorod. So revered was he that the others bestowed the program designation on him. Lavrenty became Mactep to them. Master.
Yet all his awesome skills were for naught. While some of the others had been able to put their lesser talents to use during the prodemocracy uprising, the great Master Lavrenty Skachkov was given no such chance.
When his training was complete, Lavrenty had gone to see Anna Chutesov.
She was in her small basement office. The big floor safe in the corner was open. As Lavrenty stood before her desk, he noted the rows of videotapes lined up on the shelves at the back of the safe.
"What is it, Lavrenty?" Anna had asked.