The Bear Hug

About the Book

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 her. But Andrei suffered continual, agonizing self-debasement, and he eventually took his own life. Shocked beyond belief by the receipt of her lover’s farewell letter, Margrit deliberated between life and death. Her friend, the Austrian Anna Winkler, who minutes before had heard of Andrei’s suicide on the midmorning news broadcast, drove frantically to reach Margrit in time. And John, unaware of the morning’s bizarre events but certain he wanted his beloved wife at any cost, rushed to make amends to her from the opposite side of the city.

About the Author

Sylvia Tascher, (deceased July 4, 2009) was able to write with authority on The Bear Hug’s diversified subject matter. During 1979-81, while her husband, a nuclear scientist, was in the employ of the International Atomic Energy Agency, she was engaged with the United Nations International Development Organization in Vienna, Austria, during which time she became self educated in Communist doctrine. Through her husband’s association with prominent nuclear scientists and her own activities with UNIDO, she had countless opportunities to candidly discuss many subjects with Soviet scientists, including the growing threat of nuclear disaster. Additionally, because of her close friendship with a Russian national and herself the victim of attempted subornation, she was able to describe with accurate detail the nightmarish episodes depicted in The Bear Hug. Her talent for creative writing was inherited from her parents, both of whom were respected authors. Before her passing, she had written many musical scores and several books for children, as well as The Bare Essentials, published by Xlibris.