Panthera Spelaea

The Moscow jail sucked, but my refusal to talk just ramped up the pressure campaign. After lunch, I was shackled, blindfolded, and placed in the back of a transport van. It drove through the Moscow streets for almost an hour before finally ending up in a dark loading area. The back doors opened, and two guards pulled me to my feet. They walked me out of the back and into the processing area. I was unshackled, hosed off with freezing-cold water, and dressed in boxer shorts, shower shoes, and ill-fitting scrub-like prison clothes. “Welcome to Lefortovo,” one of the guards said with a laugh as the guards marched me through the door.

Lefortovo was a prison famous for all the wrong reasons. Constructed in Tsar Alexander’s time, Stalin made it the center of political repression. Prisoners and dissidents imprisoned there were shot or tortured to death, their families presented the bill for the bullet used. The KGB and later the FSB used the prison for political and high-value prisoners.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent time in Lefortovo before his sentencing to the Siberian Gulag. I was the opposite; I spent time in Siberia to end up in Lefortovo.

The guards took me up in a service elevator up several floors. I expected noise and filth when the door opened, but that wasn’t the case on this cell block. The beige carpeting was clean, and there was little noise from the cells lining the hallway. As they brought me forward, there were even a few doors open on empty cells.

One of the guards opened a cell with a key, and the other pushed me inside. The cell was slightly wider than the single bed across the back wall with a grating and a heating radiator behind it. There was another metal bed along the right side. Opposite that bed was a small desk with a fixed bench seat, then a waist-high half-wall that separated the toilet from the rest of the cell. A faucet was above a floor drain next to the metal toilet. The door was steel, with a glass window for the guards to look through.

I was unshackled and left alone, the door slamming closed with a hint of its weight. Looking around, I could see the surveillance camera near the ceiling in the corner. It covered the whole cell, meaning you couldn’t sit on the toilet without a guard watching you. There was no radio, no television, and nothing to do.

I made my bed, then stripped down to my boxers and started a workout routine I’d developed for when I was on expeditions. Heavy on calisthenics and body-weight resistance, it wasn’t a challenge for the strength and endurance I’d gained since my shift. I stopped when a slot in the door opened, and a tray of food came through for dinner.

Quality food it was not, but I ate it all before returning the tray and fork to the guard when he returned.

Time was difficult to track, as there were no clocks. Eventually, I figured out the lights in the cell didn’t ever dim, and I rolled over to face the wall as I tried to sleep. Breakfast woke me up, and my next day in hell began.

Later in the morning, the guards came in and shackled me again. I was taken through the prison to a room with a table and two chairs, plus a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Some things are universal, I thought. The guards pushed me into the chair on the far side, attaching my shackles to the seat of the chair. They left me alone, but only for a minute before my interrogator arrived.

A woman in her thirties walked in the door. She wore a military-style uniform with three stars on the shoulders. Her dark brown hair was in a severe bun, and her face looked like it would crack and fall off if she ever smiled. “I am Senior Councillor of Justice Rozanova, Deputy Prosecutor for the Central Administrative District of the Russian Federation. I am here to take your confession.” Her English was excellent.

I looked at her like she was an idiot. “Then you have wasted your time, Senior Councillor. I want my lawyer and a representative of the US Embassy.”

She nodded as she opened up her briefcase. “Senior Investigator Kaprisov warned me you would be uncooperative.” She set a paper on the table. “This is a confession and guilty plea agreement. Confess your conspiracy to murder a police officer and twelve other individuals, sign the plea deal, and my office will take the death penalty off the table. This offer is one-time-only; if you persist in your claims of innocence, my office will seek the maximum penalty under the law.”

“I cannot plead guilty when I am innocent. I want my lawyer.”

She tapped the paper. “You’ve only had a taste of the Russian justice system, so bear with me while I explain your situation. The entire world is shocked at the barbarity of the murders, and you are directly responsible for these deaths. Each count of premeditated murder carries a twenty-year minimum sentence, with the murder of a police officer having a forty-year minimum sentence. Due to the cruelty of the deaths and the multiple counts, the death penalty is a certainty. If I walk out of this room, there will be no plea deal. You’ve seen a little of Lefortovo, but this isn’t the place you will end up. No, monsters like you end up in the Black Dolphin Prison, with seven hundred of the worst criminals in all of Russia. You’ll be in solitary confinement, alone in the cell with only books to pass the time. You’ll get ninety minutes of exercise in an outside cage each day, also alone. Guards will put a hood over your head when you move between areas, and soon only God will know where you are. A young man like you will go crazy before you are thirty.”

“I want my lawyer.”

“I’m trying to help you, Mr. Cantwell.”

“I thank you for coming, but I must reject your offer.”

She put the prepared confession back in her briefcase and closed it up. “Then I will see you at your arraignment. GUARD!” The door opened, and she walked out. The guards that came back in weren’t happy with me, and they took the time to work me over. They were professionals, knowing how to punch and kick to cause pain without damage that would show when wearing clothes. The kidney shots were excruciating, but the nut shot made me throw up. They dragged me back to my cell and tossed me inside.

I was hoping the rapid healing I’d experienced after getting shot would take care of it by lunchtime. It didn’t. The following day I woke up stiff, sore, and bruised. I felt like I was on a starvation diet, and I prayed my cat would stay hidden.

There was nowhere to go, and cameras were everywhere. I’d never last more than a few minutes before the guards filled me with lead.