Kith and Kin, or Spy brothers

By Andrey Tarnarutskiy

Synopsis of a melodramatic thriller about two step-brothers, American and Russian secret service agents

1979. The Wilson family and friends are celebrating John Wilson’s birthday. He is 33. John is a very private person. Only the immediate relatives and closest friends are present. After a next flattering address from one of his friends John stands up and makes two very important announcements: one – career-related, another one – personal. His parents - Michael and Samantha – knew correspondingly about the only one out of two: Michael about the first announcement and Samantha about the second one. But each of them was unaware about the other one. Michael works in the same field as John – diplomacy, foreign affairs. The first announcement is about John’s first major diplomatic assignment abroad – some business in Moscow (USSR) in relation to the Olympic Committee. The mission will be long and difficult. That is why he is making the second announcement – about his engagement to his long-standing girlfriend Mary – to outline his future back home. Samantha is happy: finally, her son has made a really mature decision, but she is totally taken by surprise by his trip to Moscow. Although she gets somehow very agitated and excited about his travel to the USSR. Michael is happy with both pieces of news. His son moves in the right direction: career and family are equally important.

Later, from a private conversation between John and Michael it becomes clear that both of them work for CIA but they strictly keep their diplomatic cover for the sake of Samantha and Mary. Michael is proud of John as John is his only son, who was born prematurely in February, 1946. Michael got together with Samantha, his high school sweetheart, in June, 1945, when they both returned home from the war in Europe. Samantha was very distressed and quiet as she was troubled by something. So, the instant they met again he decided to take care of her and proposed to her. Without giving it a long thought she agreed. After the birth of John, Michael found out that he could not have more children. Even he wanted it very much. The doctors found him sterile. And he put all his energy into bringing up his little miracle – Johnny, who, to his great pleasure, followed his career steps. Regarding John’s assignment to Moscow, Michael promises John that he is not going to be involved and he won’t parent John throughout the mission, but behind John's back he takes charge of this operation at the Firm.

Before his departure for Moscow, John has a private conversation with Samantha. Without any detailed explanations she asked John to find some Vasiliy Zhukov from Moscow. She briefly mentions to John that she met him in Germany, during the WWII. She just wants to know about his fate. John is surprised and intrigued.

Whether John is a regular American government bureaucrat or not, it has not made any difference for the Soviet authorities. Someone Vitaliy Lipov is assigned to help him with all his Russian business as a guide, interpreter, and assistant. He is a bit younger than John and very curious. John has no doubt that Vitaliy works for KGB and his name is just a fake.

John is quite successful at meeting his Russian agents, finding new ones and collecting all the information that he was given responsibility for bringing back home. Most of time he finds a way to get rid of Vitaliy’s company and drop his associate somehow. The better he gets at performing his spy’s tricks the more agitated and offensive Vitaliy becomes. Although both keep their communication cordial enough to continue playing those games of “cat and mouse”, John believes that “cat” Vitaliy is too slow and unqualified to catch “mouse” John.

John is getting reminded by his mom about her request to find Vasiliy Zhukov in Moscow. John manages to find all Vasiliy Zhukovs in Moscow and check their biographies. Very few are of the right age, went through the war and were in Germany at that time. He explains his interest to Vitaliy by a legitimate reason of finding about the WWII history because both of his parents were fighting. Vitaliy and John talk a lot about the WWII because Vasiliy’s father was also a soldier at that war. Vitaliy proudly talks about it. But when John wants to meet his father, Vitaliy hesitates a bit and then explains that his father lives too far from Moscow and rarely visits.

John is ready to report to Samantha about his failure to find Vasiliy when he decides to take a chance and to travel just outside of Moscow to a small town to see the last candidate. He leaves Vitaliy behind as usual and comes to a cottage of his last Vasiliy Zhukov. John introduces himself as a reporter who writes a book about Russian-American WWII friendships to publish it right before the Olympic Games in Moscow. Vasiliy is very careful with John about sharing his memories. But John speaks Russian very well and shows Vasiliy his ID card as a representative of the American Olympic committee. That seems convincing for Vasiliy but he still doesn’t get relaxed and open with a respectful and attentive American. John asks a lot of questions about his life, subtly leading Vasiliy to the days of fighting at the end of war and his meetings with Americans. They drink a lot of alcohol together, and Vasiliy starts feeling a much greater sympathy towards John. Finally Vasiliy forgets about his caution and gets totally engrossed in his memories. He locks with John in a separate room away from Serafima, Vasiliy’s wife. Vasiliy with tears in his eyes tells John about his love for an American nurse – Samantha. He escaped to her at nights from his army quarters despite his officers’ ban on such visits. It was the love of his life! And that is why he officially asked his commanders to give him permission to marry Samantha. At first everyone was for it and their wedding was going to be a great celebration of Russian-American friendship. But it didn’t take too long for the orders to come to ban Vasiliy’s marriage as the relations between the USSR and USA quickly turned from friendly and warm to very cold and hostile. Vasily was retired from the army forces and sent home. The only thing that he got from those times left is a photo of Samantha that she gave to him. Vasiliy digs out from behind the bookshelves an old folder with a photo of Samantha, and John recognizes his mother. Shocked John realizes that he has found his real father. And he understands also that his American dad, Michael, despite his known sterility, doesn’t suspect anything. They are look quite alike, too – John and Vasiliy. Vasiliy sees that something is going on with John and gets very anxious that the American has got sick after heavy drinking with him. John pulls himself together and leaves without any explanation.

Mary arrives to Moscow to see her husband to be. John needs to share with somebody what he found out about his real father, and he tells Mary everything. He is quite confused about performing his duties as a spy against the USSR, and asks Mary for advice. Mary takes it well, tries to calm him down and find a way out of a complicated situation. It will be the end of John’s career if he drops his assignment in the middle and quits, maybe even worse than the end of career.

But at this time the USSR starts the invasion to Afghanistan, and to some John’s relief, after the president’s announcement of the Moscow Olympiad boycott, he has to leave Moscow. There is no more cover for his activities. His father and supervisor, Michael, demands him to leave immediately.

But John cannot leave without seeing Vasiliy and telling him the truth. He is in rush and doesn’t care about being cautious enough. Vasiliy is glad to see the American again. He tells him that he finally told his wife about his war love story. He doesn’t want to hide anymore. John doesn’t listen carefully and announces that he is the Samantha’s son. And explains that as he was born in February, 1946 and his father was found sterile … Vasiliy finishes his sentence and that puts his poor wife Serafima in stupor.

This scene is interrupted by Vitaliy, who bursts into Vasiliy’s house and points his gun at John. Vasiliy yells at Vitaliy, whose real name is Ivan Zhukov, that Ivan (i.e. former Vitaliy Lipov) is not going to kill his brother. Ivan-Vitaliy nearly falls on the chair and starts listening to his father. After getting the proofs of his relationship to John, Ivan-Vitaliy tells him that he works for KGB and he knows that John works for CIA. When John visited Vasiliy for the first time it was the only time when John managed to escape from him. They (KGB) have all the evidence of John’s meetings with his Russian agents and gathering secret information from the different sources. At first, they wanted to use this to blackmail him into spying for the Soviets, to turn him into a counteragent, but after the boycott announcement they changed their mind and decided to arrest and sentence him in a demonstrative court trial to snap conceited Americans. And Ivan-Vitaliy is supposed to catch John at the right moment tonight with the last evidence, but Ivan-Vitaliy realized where John was going and decided to figure out first what the American spy has been doing in his parents’ house.

It was a nasty night with freezing rain, when father and his two sons were arguing, pacing around the brightly lighted living room of a neat cottage in a small town near Moscow and making some fateful decisions about the future …


Contact: Andrey Tarnarutskiy
Тел.: 8-926-670-8877 (Russia), 704-9925720 (USA)
e-mail:andreytarnarutskiy@yandex.ru, tarnarutskiyandrey@yahoo.com

© Copyright: Андрей Тарнаруцкий. Дата опубликования: 20.05.2009.

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