Walls | Chapter 9

Jack Barsky had gone to Staten Island to retrieve the materials left for him at a dead drop site by the KGB.

The contents of the container would offer him an immediate pathway out of the United States and back to Moscow and then home to Germany.

But he was forced to leave empty-handed when he could not find the container in the dark of night.

Jack could not delay this decision any longer.

He was forced to make the choice between staying in America with his little princess Chelsea and wife Penelope, or going back home to Germany, where he would again be reunited with Gerlinda and Matthias.

As he walked out of the park, he made his decision.

I'm going home.

And home was Queens, New York.

Devil may care to hell with everything else.

I'm going to stay with Chelsea.

And honestly, it was really close.

I'm not trying to play the hero here.

Somebody else made that decision for me.

If I find the container, I don't know, but I think I would have left.

That was it.

I couldn't go back.

Now I had to worry about the

fallout from this decision.

But just because Jack had made his decision, it didn't mean he could just go silent and ignore the looming threat from the KGB.

They had been watching him.

He had already been confronted by the mysterious Russian on the subway platform.

He had to find a credible explanation for the reason he was not coming back.

I immediately sit down and I write a letter in which I express that I would not go back.

And that was the second biggest lie that I ever told in my life.

I just wanted to make clear to them that I wasn't defecting, right? Because for two reasons.