Sylvia Tascher

The Bear Hug Sylvia Tascher

The Prologue of The Bear Hug begins at the new headquarters of the International Atomic Agency where Margrit Czermak is copying for a Russian agent confidential documents belonging to her husband John, who is a world renowned scientist and contributor to the development of the neutron bomb. Subsequently, the KGB agent sexually attacks Margrit, and as she is fleeing, her lover, Andrei Pushkin, intervenes and is shot by the agent. In Chapter 3, a Ukrainian dance ensemble had just finished its performance. During the cocktail party that followed, Andrei Pushkin-suspected by the CIA of being a covert Russian agent-delightfully observes the beautiful, charming Margrit Czermak gracing the arm of Boris Mikhailov, a prominent man with the IAEA. Meanwhile, two covert agents of the KGB, huddled in the background, are discussing the instructions received from the Kremlin to elicit from John Czermak, by whatever means necessary, his knowledge of the neutron bomb. A few months later, on Margrit's return flight from London where she had been attending her stricken brother; she encountered and was consoled by the compassionate Pushkin. In due course, he invited her to dine with him. As her husband's business travel necessitated his prolonged absence from the city, in a state of extreme loneliness, she accepted. In the interim, both the KGB and the CIA kept the American woman under surveillance, it being the KGB's intention to instigate an illicit relationship and the CIA's to use her as a means to entrap Pushkin. With the passing of time, the clandestine liaison between the American and Russian flourished. However, realizing the futility of their relationship, they had on several occasions unsuccessfully attempted to terminate it. Furthermore, the relationship with her husband continued to deteriorate and John made good his threats to leave her. Therefore, she beseeched Andrei to abandon his family in order to share a life with