3:AM Magazine

By Andres Kahar

Thursday, May 1, 1997 - Buzz Factor News Service HQ, Riga, Latvia (former USSR)

The Gray Cardinal made it more than plain that he’d wait for no man.
 
So legend had it.

This hurled Buzz Kocharian, Armenian-American entrepreneur extraordinaire, into an unfamiliar situation: Buzz also made it a point of practice, principle and policy to wait for no man. Such a hard-nosed stance gave him a serial advantage over all interlocutors.
 
Since he was chairman of a supposedly burgeoning news empire based in the former Soviet Union, Buzz’s suffer-no-one style created a mood of urgency to cattle-prod slack-assed scribes. Buzz always associated this leadership style with his favorite community college business instructor, who taught the course that changed Buzz’s life (ORG 665-Using Leadership to Bridle People for Profit).

But, now, this Gray Cardinal — this demon from the past, this prophet of Bolshevism, this Soviet Lazarus — had the temerity to turn the tables on Buzz Kocharian.

“Code Thirteen!” said Buzz in a hushed tone, his sweat-soaked moustache brushing up against the intercom.

It was an intercom order for Irina, his executive assistant. Buzz’s fear was palpable. This much Irina knew. She suspected another pregnancy scandal — but she wouldn’t know that much until their media competitors at The Hansa Post printed the story. Irina’s knew what to do — and she didn’t need to consult the Kocharian Konsortium Executive Manual either.

Irina knew about Code Thirteen.

Although Code Thirteen had been invoked but once in Buzz Factor history, Irina always had her figurative finger on that figurative button. It was a fail-safe emergency protocol — a last-ditch, ripcord recourse. Just in case Buzz faced a true dilemma.

Not a “dilemma” in the contemporary usage: meaning a tough choice between two tough options.

We’re talking about a DILEMMA: the original Greek notion of an insurmountable problem to which there was no likely solution, from which there was no likely exit.

Buzz slid out of his black leather chair to the marble floor, sort of like an eel, and then crept over to the massive titanium door. From the specially-made peephole at floor-level, he looked out into The Kocharian Ante Chamber. Just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

No dream. There He was, in plain, peep-holed view:
 
The Gray Cardinal.

The Soviet-era legends about The Gray Cardinal were many, cryptic, and whispered far and wide across the former Soviet expanse. It was a century-old urban legend:
 
Some time before the Bolshevik Revolution, The Gray Cardinal was the man who dreamed up the ideas that Lenin would steal from him at a café table in Zurich, and later implement himself, as notoriously attested by history. The Gray Cardinal — reportedly an old man back then as well — swore revenge on Lenin. He swore revenge on everyone, give or take. He swore to return. He swore to do the Soviet experiment right — His way. He also swore to have at least twelve wives who look like Hollywood starlets, and host “Latvian-rules orgies” on a regular basis. But that was another matter altogether.

Some accounts say The Gray Cardinal struck a deal with the devil. Some accounts say the old man actually is The Devil. Some accounts say he has mastery over time.

All accounts promise that The Gray Cardinal would someday return.

So, the gray old man sat on Buzz Kocharian’s black leather couch, ramrod straight. Even sitting, one could tell this gray old man, though very thin, was still quite tall — over six feet. He wore a gray Chesterfield overcoat. His cadaverous claws wrapped around a bizarre walking stick, which looked to be carved into the likeness of a naked woman, vaguely resembling Demi Moore in the movie Striptease.

Buzz’s eyes tracked upward, following the curves of the walking stick, scanning past the still robust chest of the old man, and then — his eyes! The Gray Cardinal’s eyes, flaming ice blue, burned a line of vision directly through the peephole, straight into Buzz’s retina.

“I know you’re there, Mister Kocharian,” said the old man, punctuating his words with an Oxbridge-accented cackle. “You’ll serve My Revolution like a good boy.”

Buzz couldn’t breathe. Frozen.

Buzz scrambled to his feet, and bounded for his desk.

“Irina!” he whispered into the intercom. “Now!”

Irina rose from her seat and started for the newsroom. As she passed The Kocharian Ante Chamber, she thought she saw something move by the black leather sofa, and then her legs went wobbly for a second. She felt a bone chill. She stopped cold in the doorway:
 
No — the ante chamber was empty.

Empty — no one, nothing, silent.
 
She shook her head, said “Hm!” to herself, and then entered the newsroom.

Irina shouted at Sids Smallbirch, the newsroom’s managing editor. Her moist crimson enunciations barely rose above the click, rattle and hum of one hundred ostensibly writing typists.

“What, Sweetheart?” said Sids. “Can barely hear a word. Say, did something just happen over there in the ante chamber?”

“Did you see someone, too?” said Irina.

“Someone?.” Sids paused for a few seconds. “No. A flash of light maybe. I thought a light bulb blew — but damned bright. Anyway, what can I do you for?”

“Code Thirteen.”

Sids’ cigar — a prop — fell out of his mouth and onto his keyboard.

Sids also knew about Code Thirteen. Sids’ job demanded such knowledge: he was also the head of the Buzz Factor News Service’s so-called Writers Union.
 
Of course, in actual fact, Sids was heading neither a union in the labor collective sense nor a writers union in the old Soviet sense. This was merely a faux-puppet organization created by Chairman Kocharian for legitimacy purposes at foreign press gatherings.

“I said Code Thirteen, Mister Smallbirch.”

Sids regained his bearing.

“Ah, yes, indeed,” said Sids. “But would that be Code Thirteen, Subsection A or Code Thirteen, Subsection B?”

Now Irina was thrown.

“Just Code Thirteen, plain and simple. Chairman Kocharian is in quite a state, you should know.”

But Sids was having none of it. Although everybody else seemed to know that the Buzz Factor Writers Union was a sham — a non-entity — no one ever spelled this out to Sids. In fact, Sids had membership cards and lapel pins made up. He even convinced some touring California bubblegum punk band to record a Latvian-language version of “Solidarity Forever” for his union.

Sids, for the record, was also rumored to be ex-KGB. Read: wily fellow.

“Look, Miss Nadezhda,” he continued, “if Chairman Kocharian wants a strike, I think Union protocol is key.”

“Protocol?”

“Subsection A or Subsection B? Take your pick.”

“There’s nothing in the manual about that.”

“Not in your bourgeois version.”
 
“Chairman Kocharian is dead serious, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
 
“Blah, blah.”
 
“Go on strike now!”

“Answer me — A or B?”

“What’s the difference?”

“With Subsection A, you’ve got yourself an ordinary, straight-up strike, Honeybunches. Meaning, we just shuffle some papers, look disgruntled, put on our coats, and then we leave.”

“Okay. Subsection B?”

“Well, that would be something to behold, Doll-face.”
 
“Make it quick.”

“Okay, subsection B would give Chairman Kocharian a real disruption. We’d throw some things around, scream like monkeys, mess around with the archives, probably take Kocharian’s name in vain. Then we’d leave.”

“Oh, dear.”

“So which do you want?”

“Well, Buzz — um, Chairman Kocharian — sounded really upset. Let’s go with Subsection B. The situation calls for drama.”

“I don’t like it. It’s uncivilized. Un-Latvian. But, alright, you got it, Toots.”

Sids gave the order, albeit in Writers Union bureaucratese. And the strike was on.

Meantime, back in his sanctum, Buzz was reverting to his adolescent reflex of finger-gnawing and humming.

Buzz was cowering under his desk.

Then, Buzz heard a sound. Someone else was in the room — in his sanctum — standing on the other side of the desk.

Buzz was afraid to stand up and look.

The intruder spoke.

“And you wonder why I didn’t invite you to join my Fosse musical tribute in Yerevan last year!”

Buzz recognized the intruder’s voice, and he felt somewhat reassured. Yet, he stayed on the floor.

The voice belonged to Bruce Kocharian, Buzz’s musical-loving older brother — the blue sheep of the family, so to speak. Bruce was supposed to be in New York.

“I didn’t ask to take part,” said Buzz. “Musicals are for girls.”

“Oh, Buzz,” said Bruce, smiling, “you and your manly bizness bravado.”

“What are you doing here?” Buzz was stern. “I told you to always call first. How long have you been in my office?”

“I knocked, but no answer. I had a weird dream about you. The Devil was in your ante chamber. The Devil Himself. I had to make sure you were okay.”

“Yes, yes!” Buzz rose to his knees. “The Gray Cardinal! In your dream — The Gray Cardinal, right?

“Uh, no,” said Bruce, visibly confused. “I said The Devil. The real Devil. It was symbolic, I’m sure. You don’t still believe in that Gray Cardinal nonsense Dad fed us when we were kids, do ya?”

“Is he still out there?”

“Huh? Who?”

Bruce couldn’t say more. Their conversation was disrupted by the rolling thunder of worker solidarity, just outside the doors.

“What in Pippin is that noise?”

“Code Thirteen.”

They could hear heavy objects being overturned on marble floors, and other things thrown against titanium walls. The reassuring sound of keyboard clatter was gone. In its place there was the mounting opera of angry workers howling biological impossibilities about Buzz’s mother, in Russian to boot.

“Those are mean-spirited chants,” said Bruce. “They’re taking your name in vain.”

Buzz grinned. He wiped more sweat from his Thomas Friedmanesque moustache.

“That’s the joyous sound of Code Thirteen,” said Buzz.

“Ah, right, your smokescreen for lawyers and cops. Was this one underage, too?”

“No, not that! The Gray Cardinal, you blockhead! That devil — that terrorist — is out to hijack my consortium! He’ll turn the Buzz Factor News Service into a megaphone for his commie revolution! I’ll be damned if I let that happen!”

“Okay, so let’s assume The Gray Cardinal is here in Riga. And let’s assume he’s after you,” said Bruce, calmly. “How can you possibly beat The Devil himself? I mean, He’s the Devil!”

“I went to Pincher Creek Business College.”

“Oh, right,” said Bruce, nodding firmly. “But why Code Thirteen?”

“Distraction,” said Buzz. “Sweet distraction. I’ll make Buzz Factor look like such an amateurish operation that The Devil will lose interest and go straight to the competition. It’ll buy me time to make a business plan.”

“Hey, Buzz — I smell smoke.”

“Yeah. And the shouting about Mom stopped.”

Surely enough, the newsroom was ablaze.
 
Ablaze — as in, fire.

Irina knocked, and then she poked her head in the door.

“Um, Chairman, sir —phase one of the strike is over. The workers are leaving. The firefighters are on their way.”

Sids’ head appeared over Irina’s shoulder. He was grinning ear-to-ear.

“For the record, Chairman Kocharian,” said Sids, “I disapprove of your decision. But I must confess, not even in my dreams could I conceive of such a perfect strike. There were flames. There was chanting. Russian obscenities. If this is capitalism — then aces, I say!”

But Buzz wasn’t listening. His mind was focused on one thing, and one thing only:
 
The Gray Cardinal.

Buzz cleared his throat and spoke.
 
“Is The Devil gone?”

“What?” said Sids, plainly surprised. “What devil?”

“Irina,” said Buzz, “tell me — is The Gray Cardinal still out there?”

“Sorry, sir, I don’t follow.”

“The old man in the gray coat,” said Buzz, his voice cracking, “with the sexy cane and evil eyes. Did he leave during the strike? Or is he still there in my ante chamber?”
 
A beat.
 
A few more beats of awkward silence.

“Um, sir,” said Irina, “what are you talking about?”
# # # # #

AK:  I was living and working in Latvia during the time period of this story: that weird and savage transformation period of the 1990s, after the Soviet collapse. Being a journalist, I ended up circumambulating Latvia’s underworlds of media drama and political power. The Latvia of that time period — of that post-Soviet interregnum — probably doesn’t exist anymore. Back then, it seemed like shady machinations, soaring egos and bizarre happenings were par for the course: at moments, conspiracy theory was the defining politico-cultural paradigm. One simply couldn’t make some of that stuff up. And, now, years later, I’m still periodically haunted by caricatures — real and imagined — whom I knew, and sometimes loved, in the Latvia of that time and place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andres Kahar is a Toronto-based writer. He’s worked as a professional journalist and editor on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s been published in North America and Europe, quite possibly in multiple languages, but certainly in multiple time zones. He’s also done his share of stand-up/spoken word performance. He still plies his journalistic trade, does work as an editor, and enjoys scribbling stories — all from a happy place called home. 

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, June 17th, 2007.