Alpha Numeric Synopsis
Tea Baker is a rising reporter for the New York Times. Fluent in Russian and a savvy investigative reporter, she is one of the up and coming bright stars the Times likes to unleash on tough stories. Lately though, Tea has been hitting the “glass ceiling.” With a new Editor in Chief installed, her reporting assignments seem to be more fluff than substance, and she is beginning to wonder if she’ll ever be allowed to write about the criminal stories that inspired her to go to journalism school, and for which she won numerous writing awards as a top graduate student.
An only child, Tea is close with her parents. Her father, James Baker, lives with her mother on a quiet farm in upstate New York . Baker is retired Army. Warm hearted and loving, he and Tea share a special bond. She’s Daddy’s little girl, but Baker also taught her to hunt, survive in the woods, and sharp-shoot like the son he never had. Tea’s closest friend is Olga, a Russian foreign exchange student who lived with her family in New York for six years when they were growing up. The girls spent their childhood skating on the frozen rivers in upstate New York , romanticizing about handsome fairytale Princes and the epic love stories idealized in classic Russian novels. Learning so young and with Olga, Tea’s Russian is as fluent and unaccented as a native speaker. And though Olga returned to Russia , the two women have remained as close as real sisters throughout twenty years of friendship.
At work, Tea lands what seems like a plum assignment. Though it’s, as usual, a fluff piece, she’s being sent to Moscow to cover the season premiere of the Bolshoi Ballet. It will be Tea’s first international story for the Times, and better yet, it will allow her to spend a week reconnecting with Olga and her daughter, Anya, Tea’s godchild. Excited with the news, she drives home for a last dinner with her parents before leaving the next morning. She gazes on the frozen river where she and Olga once skated, and fires off at clay pigeons with her father. He teases her that her aim is still sharp, her speed rusty.
Her first night in Moscow , Tea must attend the premiere of the ballet. All of Moscow ’s high society is there. She feels she is being watched, and notices a few faces, among them a beautiful, very elegant Blond Woman, covered in ermine and jewels. The whole evening, the people, the dancers the fantastic stage, reminds Tea of the romantic Russia that she and Olga used to read about as girls. Begging fatigue, Tea excuses herself from the VIP after party, and returns alone to her hotel on Red Square . A typical Friday night Moscow traffic jam, so she gets out to walk the short distance back to the hotel. The taxi driver warns her against it. But being a typical “invincible” American tourist, Tea shrugs off his warnings and strides off into the night. On a side street near the hotel, she notices a parked car and sees two Thugs unloading a large duffel “bag” from the trunk. Hiding until they leave, inside the bag she discovers lies a teenage girl, badly beaten, with a bar code tattooed onto her pale young wrist.
Tea runs for help. The police arrive, and she is taken to the precinct for questioning. Fluent in Russian, she understands the officers’ conversations, and is shocked at how little the Russian police seem to care about this girl, the torture she endured, or the numeric tattoo on her wrist. To Tea it seems like highly organized crime, not a random prostitute. Tea clashes with the Moscow Chief of Police, Nicolai Miltov. A handsome US Embassy Official, Marc Rollings, arrives just in time to take her back to her hotel. Marc tells Tea that she has inadvertently collided with what seems to be a Russian Mafiya run prostitution ring. As such, the police won’t do anything and it’s potentially very dangerous for her to be asking any sort of questions.
Marc reminds Tea that she is in Moscow as a guest of the Russian government, there to write a cultural article on the Bolshoi ballet, and “go home.” Although Tea is attracted to Marc, she doesn’t respect his “take” on the situation. They clash, though sparks fly.
Tea and Olga meet the next day and have a happy reunion. But the years have taken their toll. Olga is no longer the romantic idealist she once was. A single mother, barely making ends meet, she is frustrated by her inability to offer her daughter any hope of a brighter future. Anya is very pretty, rebellious, but underneath it all, still a young girl. Immature and unrealistic, all she dreams about is America and an MTV culture. It is obvious she hates school, her life in Russia and would do anything to get away. When Anya is out of earshot, Tea tells Olga about the shocking situation she stumbled into the night before. Olga tells her it is very common for young girls in Russia to get caught up in those situations. They are poor and naïve, with little to look forward to. That night, Tea has to go back to the hotel to file her story overnight to the Times. The friends arrange to meet up the next morning. Tea plans to pamper Anya with a big shopping spree, hoping to cheer her up. Anya remains aloof as they say goodbyes.
Marc runs into Tea in the lobby of the Romanoff Hotel where she is staying. She apologizes for being so rude. He was just doing his job. He invites her to an authentic Russian balalaika bar. There they spend hours, bonding over their mutual love of Russian literature, music, and the people. They begin to really fall for each other. He takes her home, and they kiss at the hotel door.
The next morning, the phone rings. Olga is in tears. Anya is missing. She has found a note and a crumpled piece of paper with an address. It seems Anya and a friend had been planning to run away, promised jobs with an “employment agency” that will take them out of the country to a new life. Both Olga and Tea have suspicions as to what kind of employment that may be. They meet. Olga is beside herself. Anya is her whole life. She feels that her own stories of her life in America with Tea’s family have somehow inspired the child to runaway.
Tea also feels responsible and promises she won’t leave Russia till they find Anya. She will have money wired from her account in the US . They will find Anya and pay off her employers or worse, her captors.
Tea goes on the hunt, uncovering pieces of information, connecting the dots, and questioning anyone who may know anything about the agency or the missing girl. The movements of any US journalists in Russia are followed. Tea’s investigation is attracting the attention of the Russian police and also, it seems, the Russian Mafiya. She goes to her bank and has money wired, and again notices the Blond Woman, leaving the bank.
Mark finds Tea and lets her know she is being followed. He questions her on the ten thousand dollars she had wired to a bank that morning. She questions him on his credentials with the “embassy,” and why he would have access to her private banking information. A very good judge of human character, Tea calls him on some of the weak story links in his “work” with the embassy. She also realizes the pockets of the Russian Mafiya run very deep, and that practically anyone could be on their payroll, even an American “embassy” official such as Mark. Frustrated, he warns her again that she is getting into very deep, very dangerous waters, and they separate.
Tea starts to put together more and more details and pieces of the prostitution rings. Names, faces and people who are involved begin to come to light. She calls her newspaper and family and says she will be staying on longer in Moscow . Her father is worried. She assures him she’s fine.
Mark picks up Tea in his car on her way to meet Olga. He says he’ll give her a ride, they need to talk. Her newspaper has confirmed that she is operating out of bounds. Knowing the paper would be very interested in the Prostitution Ring story, Tea threatens to blow the story wide open. Marc says he can’t let her do that, and that he is going to take her into custody and have her deported immediately. At a crowded stoplight, Tea bolts from the car. Fast on her feet, and trained in hunting and melting into landscape, she escapes from Mark in the enormous Moscow Subway.
We see Mark return, not to the embassy, but to a nondescript, Soviet style building. Inside we seem him at his real job. He is in fact a lead agent for Interpol. Marc briefs his superiors on the investigation he has been running. Via maps, charts, photographs and classified Interpol information, we learn that Marc is about to crack one of the world’s largest Human Trafficking Rings, centered in Moscow . His superiors know Tea has escaped. He is told to capture her at all costs, as she could potentially be harmed or even derail their carefully constructed, three year, global investigation.
Meanwhile, Anya is in Moscow with a small group of women and girls. The promises of employment and freedom seem to have quickly evaporated into a serious situation of intimidation and control. When asking if she can make a phone call to her mother, Anya is struck brutally across the face. Seeing that, the other women are silenced.
Not knowing what “side” Marc is really playing, Tea now goes into deep cover. She calls Olga and says that, for now, they need to stay separated, and that Olga should remain near home in case Anya tries to make contact. Tea leaves her hotel, and changes her appearance, dying her hair (dark or light depending on actress) to change her look. She then goes to see an old friend of her father’s, Colonel Conrad Briggs, a retired US military. Briggs, now a widower, married a Russian woman and has lived in Moscow for thirty odd years. He lives in a fabulous Imperial Russian apartment, and knows the city and its underbelly, like the back of his gnarled hand.
She says she is investigating a story on a prostitution ring. She has come across a name of a man perhaps involved, Sasha Constantin. Briggs pales and warns her to steer clear. As soon as she leaves, Briggs makes a phone call, to Tea’s father, James Baker.
That night, Tea goes to an expensive private European disco/bar in a five star hotel, frequented by very wealthy Russians and high class prostitutes. There she gleans further information on who to talk to about where to actually “buy” a girl. She meets a drunken salesmen in town on business. He admits he has purchased girls for the night, the weekend etc. She wants to know more. Though he seems surprised, she’s beautiful, she’s talking to him so he gives her a tip. He tells her to go to the Black Eagle bar and ask for Gregori Davidovitch. They will know what to do.
Tea goes, feeling that her language ability, bribes and a US passport will protect her from these people. She meets Davidovitch and is ushered into a back room. Suddenly face to face with Nicolai Miltov, the head of the Moscow police. In the background is Carl, the man from the bar, an employee of Miltov it seems. Miltov is furious that she has been prying into the story. He had already warned her to stay out of it. Tea is bound and drugged. She wakes up, 24 hours later, in a small dirt floor holding cell. There Miltov’s First Mafiya “Lieutenant”, Yuri, informs her that she is three hundred miles from Moscow , on her way to the Crimea , where her name will be changed, her looks altered, and she will be sent to work as an indentured prostitute, or a slave. They tell her she is their property now and that any disobedience or infractions will add to her debt. They convince her she is many hours from Moscow , from the embassy, and from any kind of help. (In reality, she is a less than an hour away). In another room, Miltov confers by phone with someone he refers to as “Sasha.” By the tone of Miltov’s reactions, Sasha is obviously not happy that an American has been taken into captivity. Miltov assures Sasha that all will be fine, and the girl will go missing like any other victim of kidnapping in Moscow . It’s his city. His police. There’s something about Miltov’s tone that lets us know there is more to capturing Tea than just coincidence.
In captivity, Tea finds herself held with Anya, as well as several other girls we have seen before. Tea warns Anya to behave as if she they don’t know each other. They all receive bar codes, tattooed painfully on their wrists. With tears in her eyes, humiliated, Tea’s sees she has a numeric bar code. She is Miltov’s, or even perhaps Sasha’s, property now. Back in the US , Baker tells his wife that Tea has gone missing and that the US embassy has asked for his help. Because of his extensive contacts and knowledge of his former Soviet adversaries, he’s been asked to go to Moscow . Helen is angry. She feels Tea’s disappearance has something to do with Baker’s past “career.” He remains silent.
Baker arrives in Moscow and is taken immediately to Interpol, treated with respect. It seems in his day, he was a superb Agent, running sting operations for them for years with an Army management contract as his cover. Marc is running the investigation, but asks Baker, as dispassionately as possible, to help put together a profile as to who might have taken Tea and why. They must realize that taking an American citizen could result in a huge international incident. Baker has his own suspicions based on his knowledge of the Moscow underworld. They bring him up to speed on the case, how the women are trafficked from Russia and all over the world, the various methods of intimidation used, the financial value of each girl in each market. Baker is overwhelmed with the tragic situation. Although Interpol also wants to find Tea, they have the overall picture of the investigation and many other lives to consider. Understandably, Baker’s fuse is short, his interrogation methods known to be brutal and old school. It is difficult for Baker to keep his anger in check. He knows full well every minute counts in the race for Tea’s life.
Marc’s men have taken one suspect into captivity, Davidovitch. Against Interpol’s High Command agenda, Baker goes to work beating him to a pulp, every blow intended to bring Tea back home. Though the US Agents and Officials are appalled, Baker extracts vital information quickly. He learns that the women are usually taken to an abandoned prison somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow , the exact location unknown. Davidovitch is just a Moscow middleman. He says the women are held there for medical examination, identity change and …subordination. Baker goes ballistic at the thought. Davidovitch says once this has been “achieved,” international transport arrives in various forms; usually quietly, swiftly and in the middle of the night. The turnaround time is short, usually 72 to 96 hours depending on how complicated the visas are to arrange.
Marc and Baker realize that with limited men and resources, finding one old prison in the middle of a Russian winter, is like finding a needle in a haystack. Baker calls upon his old friend, Briggs for help.
Briggs and Baker meet in public on the Rasputin bridge. Barely exchanging a word, Briggs informs him there is a circus going on. Rakoff, the circus owner will have some vital information. As Briggs is leaving the bridge, he is gunned down by several Mafiya hit men and Baker realizes he was “allowed” to live for a reason, and that he has brought death to his dear friend. Mark pulls Baker away. They organize a squad to infiltrate the circus that afternoon. Baker thinks he knows why Tea is still alive and why he wasn’t killed on the bridge as well. He keeps his thoughts to himself for the moment.
Meanwhile, Olga has tracked down the “employment agency.” A Police Officer there has indicated she should speak to Miltov. Olga knows what is required. She makes a deal with Miltov, and offers herself for her daughter’s freedom. Though beaten down by life Olga is still a beautiful woman. Miltov helps himself to Olga’s sexual favors, and promises to free her daughter.
In prison, Tea learns the story behind each and every woman in there. All were tricked into the employment agency’s scheme, promised jobs, promised money. Once in, some tried to leave and their children and families back home were threatened. All of them have already lost their morale and will to fight. Tea sees hope in the one of the Older Guards. She speaks to him in Russian and discovers he has been press ganged into this work; poverty and his family’s lives being the ransom. She works on him to get a message to the outside world. He refuses, even though she begs him as a human being, a father and an honorable man. He is terrified and says no. For Tea, any chance of escape is seems more and more hopeless.
Marc, Baker and a small team of Interpol agents go disguised as civilians to a large, Russian circus. There are dancing bears, juggling acts and about a thousand civilians inside the big top. They are aiming to find Rakoff, without injuring anyone in the process. Mark locates Rakoff’s caravan, and they attack. Before they can extract any information, the Mafiya arrive and blow Rakoff’s caravan to smithereens. Baker escapes within inches of his life, but stayed inside long enough to catch a glimpse of a photograph that perhaps that may offer clues as to the drop off point for the women.
The photograph on the wall was of one of Rakoff’s early traveling circuses, pictured near a train loaded with goods from the silk route. It seems that was the means of transport in the heavy Russian winters. This helps, but is still not enough information. There are several hundred train lines coming and going into Moscow from every part of the country. They go back to Interpol with the clock ticking.
Miltov arrives back at the Troika. He has heard about the Rakoff assassination and is in a fowl mood. The circus was one of his “arms” of trade, transport and cover. Angry and in order to utterly destroy the remaining shred of the women’s confidence, he has one of the girls brutally raped in front of all the others. Tea lashes out, scratching Miltov’s face.
The girl who is raped is badly injured. Miltov tells his Lieutenant to have the Doctor come as soon as possible. All the women need to be checked out medically to be sure they are not ill or carrying any infectious diseases before the expense of traveling them to distant prostitution markets. If the raped girl is permanently injured, Miltov tells his Lietentant to kill her. Damaged goods are not worth the price of transport.
Miltov has Tea pummeled with water from a freezing fire hose and thrown into an icy, solitary cell. The Older Guard secretly brings her a blanket and some extra food. In the night, the other women sing Tea a soft Russian lullaby to help her get through the humiliation and the freezing winter night.
Back in Moscow , Mark and Baker are trying to put together any threads of information. They go over any details of the transport pickup they may have missed. All their snitches have gone silent, some have been killed. Baker reveals that he thinks Miltov is after him in some way. He doesn’t know why. But that’s why Tea was taken.
At the Troika, female Doctor arrives to give the women medical exams and inspect the injured girl. When Tea is inspected by the Doctor she speaks to her briefly. Tea senses the Doctor is also being forced to do her job. Tea also notices the accents of the regional Guards and Doctor and puts the pieces together. She realizes she is actually being held in a suburb of Moscow , not three hundred miles away. She looks out the window and sees the sun setting, to the West. She is sure she is in the southwest of Moscow .
Frantic, Tea writes a brief coded message with a phone number, and begs the Old Guard to pass the Doctor the note before she leaves. The Old Guard breaks down, and crossing himself, slips the note into the Doctor’s bag at the end of the examinations. On the note is written a phrase from a classic Russian novel. Tea prays that it will get to Marc and that he will be able to make sense of it in time.
That night, Miltov comes back to the compound. Tea meets him face to face. She asks him questions. Because he is arrogant and somewhat drunk, he answers a few. She asks him questions about his “boss,” though he claims “he” is the boss. Tea plays along, but doesn’t believe him as she has heard him receive one call from “Sasha”, and sees his behavior on that call. Tea hears the name and ponders Miltov’s personality. She works further on Miltov’s vanity and male ego, complimenting him on his fine Italian suits and command of English. He thinks he has Tea completely controlled and reveals that he has known her father for thirty years. There is a debt between them, and by using Tea, he knows eventually Tea’s father will come calling. So she can thank her Father for still being alive. Any other nosey journalist would be long dead.
Anya having nightmares, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Tea begs the Old Guard to put the girl in her own solitary cell so she can help her get through the night. In her cell, Tea has been quietly digging away at the bars with the spoon from her meal tray. Hiding the dirt under their cot, she finally has worked the bars free enough for the two of them to slip out that night. But Anya is now so terrified, she refuses to leave, saying it’s different for Tea, an American. Tea promises her that freedom is just on the other side of those bars. That she needs to be strong. But Anya curls up into a fetal position, shaking with fear. She won’t move. Looking at the (now) loose bars blocking them from freedom, Tea stays with Anya and curls up beside her, sacrificing her own freedom, unwilling to leave the young girl alone.
In the middle of the night, there is commotion outside. A truck arrives and a woman wearing a head shawl enters. She pulls back the shawl and it is Olga! Olga embraces Anya. She lies as a mother would, telling the girl everything is fine. That Anya is going home to stay with her grandfather, while her mother goes away for a little while. Miltov tells the First Lieutenant to take Anya a short distance away from the compound and, “finish” her. She has seen to much, they could never let her go. When Tea and Olga hear a “shot” go off a few moments later, Olga realizes she has brought about the death of her own daughter and collapses in pain and grief. There is nothing Tea can do to comfort her dear friend. Bars of cold steel separate them.
In the morning, across the hall, Tea sees Olga’s legs swinging from the rafters of her prison cell. She has hung herself. Overcome with grief, Tea breaks down and passes out. When she revives, two Assistants are around her, cutting and dying her hair, preparing her and the other women for departure. She looks down and sees pieces of her long hair on the ground around her. She looks at the tattoo on her wrist and cries for her friend, for Anya and for all of their lives.
In Moscow , Marc has received an anonymous phone call. A woman’s voice reads a message to him. It is a line from an Old Pushkin novel, about “love in Russia sometimes rising like a sun from the South.” Marc’s mind races. He goes back to the map of Moscow . Between the train lines, abandoned prisons and the message from Tea, he feels sure the only place they could be held is a place known as the Troika. They leave instantly with small team of Commandos, armed to the hilt for hand to hand conflict.
At the Troika, Miltov is already in full preparation for departure. He is heard on the phone with Sasha, arguing that Tea will have safe passage and is perfectly healthy. The conversation ends heatedly. He barks orders to hurry up the departure process. A man from the department of the Interior arrives with sixteen fake Russian passports.
Marc, Baker and the convoy are racing against time and weather, slowly creeping towards the Troika. They arrive just as two small Cessna planes touch down and wheel towards the main building. Flattened on the ground, Marc sees the women, handcuffed together, being led to the plane. Though her head is covered, he can identify Tea among them. Marc and his men converge, but Miltov rushes the rest of the women into the two planes. They take off with the women before the Agents can fire a clean shot at the pilots.
Baker and Marc blast open the prison to find only the Old Guard. He has his hands raised, rifle on the ground, and in Russian, begs them to shoot him. The Mafiya will assume he talked and will kill him and his family. Marc presses him for information in Russian. The man breaks down and tells them that the women are being taken to “The Square.” No, not Red Square, but Times Square ; the ultimate insult to Baker. As they are about to leave the Old Guard grabs his own rifle, puts the barrel in his mouth and blows his own head off to avoid the wrath of the Mafiya.
Next we see Tea and the women arriving at night a private airport on an island off the coast of Maine . They are then transferred to boats and ultimately vans, taken to another holding area. Forbidden to speak. The Guards control them brutally. Drugs are being administered to keep the women quiet. One guard forces a sedatives down Tea’s throat. She “pretends” to take them, and acts very drugged and incapacitated.
Baker and Marc are now in New York City , collaborating with the Feds and NYPD. They get a call. Miltov wants to meet Baker, alone. Baker agrees, but wears a wire. In an abandoned longshoremen’s warehouse, Miltov and Baker finally have their face to face. Miltov’s hatred is unnatural. Unprecedented and because of a “ring” that Baker seemed to have blown open years ago. Humiliated, still angry, Miltov intends to maim Baker with an axe. Just before Miltov’s henchmen brings down the axe, Marc shoots him with a long range rifle. Miltov escapes by boat onto the river at night.
The next day, Marc gets a tip. There’s going to be a party for all the New York Russian big spenders, introducing them to Miltov’s “new girls.” Tea will surely be there. Marc puts every man available into action, and they stake out the premises where the party is supposedly taking place. As Marc and Baker surround the building, Tea is just being introduced by Miltov to her first client, a huge Russian bear of man. Tea is now a redhead, wearing fishnet stockings and seems totally drugged and out of it. The other girls now also have new identities as blondes, brunettes, none of them have any idea what country or city they are in. Tea hears sirens outside and the fire alarm goes off. She manages to escape her very inebriated “client” by giving him a swift kick in the balls, but outside, pandemonium has struck.
The building has been surrounded by police. Tea stays low, but suddenly is grabbed by Miltov, who plans to use her to escape. He drags her into a meat locker where they struggle fiercely. Enraged, and empowered by fear, she manages to heave Miltov off her, and he is sliced through the back, pinned on a huge meat hook. She takes Miltov’s gun, and shaking, creeps down the hallway, avoiding the other Mafiya in the building.
Tea figured it out back at the Troika. Sasha Constantin, a woman, was always the mastermind behind the entire prostitution and trafficking ring. A beautiful, wealthy and a powerful Moscow socialite, Sasha was above any kind of suspicion. Also above the social level of a man like Miltov, who had been in love with her for years. Having the Chief of Police in your backpocket made business run very smoothly for Sasha, so she maintained the hope with him and used him to her best advantage. In Miltov’s demented mind, the only time he had failed her was when Baker’s men cracked open one of their original and most profitable prostitution rings, years before. Because of that one failure, Miltov felt Sasha had lost respect for him and never again considered him as a potential mate. For that, his twisted mind blamed Baker, and for years he plotted revenge. Tea fell into his trap nicely. Miltov knew he could use Tea to bring Baker out of retirement and into Miltov’s hands.
Two months later : On the steps of the United Nations, Tea, her cropped hair somewhat grown out and somewhat more fragile looking for her harrowing experience, gives a speech to a group of Journalists and UN Officials. Delegates from Germany , the UK , France , Italy , China , India and the entire UN are present. Nearby stands Marc, Baker, his wife, and the women who have survived from the Troika. Marc gives her a nod of encouragement. Tea begins and gives a speech where she states that the laws for human trafficking are non-existent. That legally, Human Trafficking equals modern day slavery, but the laws for slavery are defunct and allow human traffickers legal loopholes. Only if all countries, the US included, regulate and modernize the legal definition of modern day slavery, can the heinous criminals behind global human trafficking be brought to justice.
When she finishes, there is enthusiastic applause. The survivors of the Troika swarm around her. Some of their families are now present as well. Marc hugs her warmly and passionately and together Tea and Marc walk away into a new life. Perhaps to continue to continue together (on screen) and in life as an inspired journalist and a world class Interpol agent in many future adventures to come. |