{"id":177,"date":"2019-06-20T11:38:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T17:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/?page_id=177"},"modified":"2019-10-31T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T18:30:00","slug":"brush-with-the-law","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/?page_id=177","title":{"rendered":"Brush with the Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>This is the abbreviated\nending of my first novel \u201cORDERS are ORDERS\u201d which is fiction based on fact, and you decide whether it or parts of it are fiction or are fact.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">July\n1961<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>At the time these\nevents occurred, I had finished my assignment\nwith the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> Marine Recon Battalion in Asia, had spent almost two\nyears at Annapolis before voluntarily dropping out, had completed Marine Corps\nOCS training and officially was now a 2<sup>nd<\/sup> lieutenant.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between\nOCS and Platoon Leader Training, I had\nfour weeks of leave, and instead of\ntaking it, I opted to stay on base and shoot as an alternate on the Marine\nrifle team in intermurals, competing against military teams from the United\nKingdom, France, and Germany. We won all are matches and were invited to come\nto Russia the following week to shoot against their crack Army and Airforce teams at Levashovo military airfield\nnear Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\nwere bused from Quantico to Dulles Airport where we boarded a Pan Am flight to London, and after a 4-hour layover there we\ntransferred to an Aeroflot flight to Leningrad. On arriving late in the evening\nin Leningrad,\nwe were taken to the Rossi Hotel overlooking the river downtown where they had\ndouble rooms with beer and snacks waiting for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the morning, we dressed in our fatigues,\nand after a breakfast of Blintzes and terrible coffee,\nwe were bussed to the rifle range at the Levashovo Military Airfield. When we\narrived, there were three Russian teams waiting\nfor us to begin the competition. There was the Army team, a team from the Air Force and supposedly Russia\u2019s top team\nfrom the elite Spetsnaz Commandos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I have a lot\nof details on the competition in the novel that I omitted here for brevity<\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We did well in the competition\nand easily beat the Army and Air Force teams. Unfortunately,\nthe Spetsnaz team beat us by a few points. I am sure our jet lag was the main problem\nas none of us shot as well as we normally would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following an amazing tour of the airbase, we went back to the hotel. After\ncleaning up and changing into Dress uniforms,\nwe joined the Russian teams in the dining room for a celebratory banquet of\nborscht, roast duck, caviar, and lots of vodka toasts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next morning, we went on a minibus tour of\nthe city to see all the famous sights,\nthe Hermitage, the Summer Palace, the Peterhof Palace, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That evening we had a banquet dinner again, but not near as formal as the first night.\nAlso, instead of the other Russian teams joining us, we were joined by a bunch\nof Russian teenage students with their teachers who wanted to practice their\nEnglish language skills. One of the teachers, a good-looking petite blond in\nher twenties, who spoke good English, spent a lot\nof time talking to me about America. She asked if I would join her privately\nfor a drink later that evening in the hotel lobby bar. I figured what the hell,\nthere was nothing to worry about as she was just a school teacher and we were\nonly going to lobby, so I said, sure, I would like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once everyone had left the dining room, I went back up to my room to freshen up and kill some time reading. At 8:00 PM, I told my roommate I was going down to the lobby for a drink, and if I got lucky, I might not be back for a while. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nheaded down to the lobby, and the teacher \u201cSophia\u201d was waiting for me at a\ntable with a picturesque view of the river. She convinced me to try chilled\npepper flavored vodka shots as those were her favorite. She continued to ask me\nall kinds of questions about America and what it was like to live there. After\na few shots, the questions became more\npersonal. A few more shots later, she put her hand on my thigh and told me she\nwould like to get to know me much better. I said I would like that, and I\nwould take you up to my room, but I have a roommate. I asked if she lived\nnearby and she said no, but she knew the manager of the hotel and could get us\na room for a few hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sophia\ngot up and said she was going to talk to the manager and would be back in a few\nminutes. Sure enough a few minutes later, she returned with a big smile and a\nroom key in her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After\nI had paid the bill, we headed hand in hand over to the elevators. When the\nelevator arrived, we got in, and Sophia\npushed the button for the 6<sup>th<\/sup> floor. After the door had closed,\nand the elevator started to rise, she wrapped her arms around me, pulled me\nagainst her and gave me a long, deep\nkiss. When we reached our floor, we were still kissing,\nwhile I was busily fondling her bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\nwalked down the hall to the room and using the room key, Sophia opened the\ndoor. She then indicated for me to go in first, and I stepped inside. There\nwere no lights on, and I vaguely remember\nsensing some motion on my left side when\nsomething crashed into my head. The next thing I remember was someone kneeling\nover me, holding a hypodermic needle that was stuck in my arm. I was then\nlifted and dragged down the hall to the freight elevator by two large men in\novercoats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When\nwe exited the elevator on the ground floor,\nI tried to fight my way free and was rewarded by another hard blow to the back\nof my head. Don\u2019t remember much after that. I vaguely recall a ride on the\nfloor in the back of a van and being dragged up some stairs, and that is all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When\nI woke up, I was in a small cell with a\ncaged light on the ceiling, and no windows, that stunk of unwashed bodies and\nurine. I was lying on a cot with a worn, dirty blanket under me and no\nmattress. I sat up, and my head hurt\nterribly. When I gingerly touched it, I noticed I had two big bumps that were\ntender, but with no blood. My watch, shoes,\nand my belt were missing as was my\njacket. My knees of both my trouser legs were torn,\nand when I inspected them, I noticed that both of my knees were badly scraped.\nIt dawned on me that Sophia had lured me into a Honey Trap, and I was totally screwed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nstarted banging on the door with my fist and yelling that I want to see the\nAmerican Ambassador. Finally, the window\nat the top opened, and someone looked in\nand said, fuck you American, spit at me and then shut the window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\nseemed like several hours later the door of the cell opened, and two armed guards\nstepped inside and motioned with their AK-47s for me to get up and go out the door where two\nmore guards were waiting. After they\nshackled my hands, I was forced to follow them down the hallway past other cell\ndoors and down the stairs to an office. Inside the office was a man in a suit\nbehind a desk. I was told to sit in a wooden chair in front of the desk. The original two guards stayed standing behind me, holding\ntheir weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nman behind the desk looked up at me stared at me for a while and lit a\ncigarette. He then said, so this is the mysterious Hank, or should I say,\nElliot? When I didn\u2019t say anything, he\nproceeded to introduce himself and said his name was Vladimir Yefimovich\nSemichastny and that he just traveled all the way from Moscow just to meet me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nopened the briefcase that was on the desk and withdrew a stack of papers and\nphotos. He looked back up at me and asked me if I knew where I was?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;I said, no. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nreplied, you are still in Leningrad and are at Bolshoy Dom or Big House as you\nwould call it in English. You are the prisoner of the KGB. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I replied I was an American Marine Corps officer, a guest of your government, and I insist on seeing the American Ambassador. You can\u2019t keep me, prisoner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His\nreply to that was, don\u2019t worry, we are not going to keep you long as our\ninternational socialist brethren in Vietnam want your company even more than we\ndo. They are sending a plane here just for you. By this time tomorrow, you will be their responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nsaid you are probably hoping that your\nembassy will somehow rescue you, but you can forget it. They have no idea where\nyou are now or where you are going. This morning after you disappeared, the\nAmerican Embassy personnel and your teammates looked everywhere for you, but\nyou had just vanished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a pause with a nasty smile at me, he continued. Let us get back to you and your crimes, Elliot. Nobody here got too excited about your shooting five Russian Political Officers as they are always easy to replace, but blowing up a general and two of his staff, was not something we could easily ignore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nsaid I don\u2019t know what he was talking\nabout. He obviously had the wrong person. I had never been to Russia before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nsaid he was not talking about Russia, he was talking about my adventures in North\nVietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nsaid I don\u2019t know what you are talking\nabout. I had never been to Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nsaid enough of your as you say bullshit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nsaid something to the guards in Russian and the next thing I knew, I was\nsmacked across the side of my head by a rifle barrel and knocked out of my\nchair. When I got back up, I had a gash\non the side of my head that was bleeding. He threw me a handkerchief and said,\nclean yourself up, I am through playing games with you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\ntold me his boss, Chairman Shelepin, wanted my head, but Premier Khrushchev\ndidn\u2019t wish to do anything that might\nmess up his d\u00e9tente plans with America. He said I was also wanted for multiple\nmurders in North Vietnam, and he was\ninformed Ho Chi Minh had personally requested that we give you to them. They\nhave promised Premier Khrushchev that if you were transferred to them that they\nwould execute you, so that takes care of both of our problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nsaid I still don\u2019t know what he was\ntalking about; I had never been to\nVietnam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nshook his head, and I think he was about to have the guard strike me again, but\nchanged his mind. After some thought he said, enough, would you like to hear\nall about our investigation and see the proof there is against you?&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\nhesitated a bit and said, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He\nshuffled through the stack of papers and began. Your ruse of pretending to be\nrogue French soldiers was surprisingly effective with the Vietnamese police and\nmilitary investigators. They believed that all the killings were being carried\nout by some leftover French troops in\nretaliation for the slaughter at Dien Bien Phu. They were sure some stragglers\nhad banded together and were doing all\nthe killings. It helped them explain why Uncle\nHo\u2019s son was targeted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We,\nhowever, were not convinced it was the French as the killings were just too\nwidespread, and it did not explain why they were also killing Russian officers.\nIt didn\u2019t make sense to us, so we sent 4\nof our top KGB investigators over to help in the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>He then went through the extensive details of their investigation,\nhow they determined it was Marines that had been doing all the killings and then on to how they conclusively identified\nthe individuals actually involved, including me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>He continued<\/em>, when we presented all the information, we had collected to General Giap and Chairman Shelepin the decision was made to issue murder warrants in North Vietnam and Russia for all the sharpshooters directly involved in the killings. And you Elliot, because of your particularly brazen exploits, made the top of our list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When\nthey saw your name on the list of Marine competitors coming to Leningrad, we were ecstatic and knew we had\nthe perfect chance to arrest you. We could not believe how stupid you were to\ncome here. All we would need to covertly entrap\nyou is to find a good-looking young lady\nthat you could not resist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That evening the door to my cell was opened, and two guards entered, accompanied by a Vietnamese officer. They shackled my hands and feet and put a hood was over my head. They then led me out of my cell, down the stairs into a van and transported me back to Levashovo Airfield to be flown to Hanoi for what I presumed was my inevitable execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>In the ending of my novel, I was executed, so obviously that was fiction. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the abbreviated ending of my first novel \u201cORDERS are ORDERS\u201d which is fiction based on fact, and you decide whether it or parts of it are fiction or are fact. July 1961 At the time these events occurred, I had finished my assignment &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154817921,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wpcom_ai_launchpad_about_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_gallery_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_contact_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_events_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_video_page":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_portfolio_piece":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-177","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaPDdH-2R","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":197,"url":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/?page_id=197","url_meta":{"origin":177,"position":0},"title":"What is Bliss?","author":"Elliot Actor","date":"20 Jun 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Is it happiness, is it contentment, is it satisfaction with oneself or just peace of mind? 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Maybe it is because I am a bit different, maybe even a bit weird, but the first thing that came to my mind when \u201cMarch\u201d was chosen as a topic was infamous \u201cBaton\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":199,"url":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/?page_id=199","url_meta":{"origin":177,"position":4},"title":"Peanut&#8217;s Big Advanture","author":"Elliot Actor","date":"20 Jun 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In the January 2016 Colorado Airstream Club Newsletter, I wrote in my Bio that I had to prepare for the Newsletter as the incoming Club\u2019s 1st Vice President, that we had a parrot and we were his favorite traveling companions. The Newsletter editor thought the comment was funny and asked\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":151,"url":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/?page_id=151","url_meta":{"origin":177,"position":5},"title":"MUSINGS and ESSAYS","author":"Elliot Actor","date":"19 Jun 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Click on the links below to view the article Origin of Electricity My Grandmother Baton Death March Promises Made Brush with the Law Can People Change? Toilets Christmas - Bah Humbug What is Bliss? Peanut's Big Adventure Pretentious Don't Fool With Mother Nature We Get a Vaccine - Now What?\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/154817921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404,"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/177\/revisions\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elliotactor-author.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}