My body tenses and I try and put this all together. Vladimir’s expression and body language are completely congruent, but then again Russians aren’t exactly known for being easy to read.
“Why didn’t you just call the police?”
“The police? Russia’s domestic intelligence service, the FSB, had warned the FBI in 2011 about the bomber and what did they do? Nothing. Now we take matters into our own hands.”
“Vigilante justice? So you fashion yourself as one of the Avengers?” This almost seems ridiculous.
“We protect Americans more than law enforcement does in this part of New York.”
“So you’re maf—” his hands comes up to stop me.
“The right members of law enforcement know who we are. That is all that matters.”
“And this is…legal?”
“We are kept at an arm's length so they can immediately distance themselves from us if anything goes wrong. Distance and deny as they like to say.”
“So this is like some sort of black ops Special Forces thing?”
“Something like that.”
“So what does that have to do with me?”
“Everything. Since the first moment I saw you everything has to do with you.”
CHAPTER 9
Julie
I’m not sure if that was a date or a debriefing or some sort of warning, but the minute I step back inside my apartment I call my dad.
Thankfully I don’t have class today so I can devote the entire day to figuring out what the heck is going on and getting to the bottom of this.
“Hey honey,” my dad, John, says.
“Who’s Vladimir?”
“Vladimir?”
“Huge guy. Russian. Always in all black clothing. Looks like he could have starred in The Expendables alongside Statham and Stallone.”
A moment passes before I hear my dad exhale hard.
“He approached you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He says me.”
“What?” my dad blurts out. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“What deal and what the fuck? I’m not some bargaining chip!”
“I didn’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to say is he wasn’t supposed to make himself known to you.”
“Make himself known? How could I have missed him and why did you have somebody tail me around town?”
“It’s my job…”
“Tell me. I want to know.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Vladimir sure made it sound simple.”
“What did he tell you?” I can hear my dad exhale again.
“He said the Russians tried to work with the West…that they paid for PR, bought football teams, as Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich did when he bought the Chelsea football club in the U.K. He said when he did that he was given a permanent residence permit, but when it came time to renew the British government just sat on Abramovich’s application and let the U.K. visa expire, without actually having the balls to give him a yes or a no. Then Abramovich went to Israel and was granted Israeli citizenship and moved to Tel Aviv.”
“What does some Russian in the U.K. have to do with anything?”
“Because it shows a pattern of relations between Russia and the West. When a man buys one of the premier league football clubs for one hundred and forty million British pounds and can’t get a residence permit to watch his own team play, what does that say?”
“It says some people think the Russians are meddling.”
“Do you know who Dmitry Peskov is?”
“Of course. He was Putin’s influential press attaché.”
“And according to Vladimir, he did a deal with the PR firm Ketchum, on behalf of the country of Russia to improve their image here in the U.S. Apparently the Kremlin spent sixty million dollars, over nine years and today Russia is viewed less favorably than it was back in 2006, when its relationship with Ketchum began.”
“Things don’t always work out. Swaying public opinion can be very challenging.”
“So the U.S. and the U.K. remain willing to launder this big Russian money, but only in a way that benefits themselves.”
“The Russians are doing it too. Over there they have this form of cannibalistic capitalism where state agents exploit their own criminals. Did he tell you about the 2016 raid on the apartment of Col Dmitry Zakharchenko, the acting head of a department within the police force’s anti-corruption division? They found one hundred and twenty three million dollars cash in the guy’s apartment. It became famous because investigators had to pause the search until they found a container large enough to hold it all. We think today that the money wasn’t all his, but more of a common fund of a gang of oboroten, or “werewolves,” as organized crime groups within Russian police ranks are known.”
“So then what? The Russians started buying these expensive penthouse apartments in London, Miami, Montenegro, Cyprus, Dubai and a host of other places to launder their money? And then the sanctions came, right? So after Marina Butina infiltrated the NRA here in the States, they found out she was funded by Moscow billionaire Konstantin Nikolaev via Igor Pisarsky, a Kremlin-linked PR power player who was the face of the financing, acting like he was distributing grant money.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to confirm that I’ve got this story straight…and I’m not done. So then after this the sanctions come in and the Ruble starts collapsing. Then comes along The Common Reporting Standard, or CRS, which is an information standard for the Automatic Exchange of Information regarding bank accounts on a global level, between tax authorities, which the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, developed in 2014. And here’s the kicker. The U.S basically got the ball rolling on this, and almost all countries now participate but the U.S.”
“Why do you care about this?”
“Because that funneled all that global dirty money out of places like Switzerland and into the U.S.”
“Again…why do you care?”
“Because I am studying law, this is extremely fascinating, and it does affect me in a very direct way.”
“How so?”
“So first Russia tried to hire the PR firm. That didn’t work. So then they tried to do it themselves with spies and spending. That didn’t work. So then Russia can’t work with anybody but the U.S., but their Rubles are collapsing at an alarming rate and because of the sanctions it’s even somewhat tricky to get the money they have left into the States.”
“Look, I really have to go if this doesn’t have some sort of point. The only thing I see coming out of this is Vladimir getting a phone call telling him to stay away from you. I’m sorry he got involved.”
“Oh, I’m glad he got involved, because now I see how it all goes together. See when your dad is a lobbyist it makes so much more sense. You know Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, ‘If you look at the U.S. Congress, eighty percent of them have never left the USA, so I’m not surprised about Russophobia in Congress.’”
“Look, I have to go. I don’t need some foreign policy history lesson.”
“Of course not, because you’re writing the future of it.”
“Watch your tone with me young lady.”
“So why, during the last presidential election, did a campaign staffer named Daniel Gelbinovich reach out to a number of Washington lobbyists requesting them to shield well-heeled Russians from U.S. Sanctions? And why did Adam Waldman, U.S. lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, have so many meeting with Julian Assange over the last few years? And here’s the kicker…Vladimir told me he was your best friend, to which I laughed in his face and told him it wasn’t true. You know what he responded?”
My father says nothing.
“He said, and I quote, ‘Your father can not be seen with me in public, rubbing shoulders at private, high-class parties, but whose calls does he take in the middle of the night? Mine.
CHAPTER 10
Julie
I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling in my room. I’m reminded of that old quote, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
I’d always thought my dad was lobbying for more foreign aid for kids in foreign countries. He’d never actually said as much, but some of the things he said made it seem that way.
Did I fill in the blanks in regards to his professional life with what I wanted to believe, or what he led me to believe?
I don’t know but either way this isn’t good.
I’m about to cry but my mind moves back to Vladimir. I can’t stop thinking about how he’s open and honest, a real man, even if what he does is probably pretty f’ed up most of the time, if not all of the time.
I try and put myself in his shoes. He’s taking extreme measures to do things for his own country. As much as I love baseball and apple pie I can’t say I’ve really made sacrifices to live my cushy first-world life, despite the fact that I feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above water at times.
In reality I’m probably just spoiled and need to grow up and become a woman in the truest sense of the word.
I think back to the way our lunch date ended.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I’d asked.
“Because you are an adult and I am an adult. It would be dishonest to speak to you as if you did not deserve to know this information. And I am tired of waiting for you.”
“Tired of waiting for me?”
“Yes. You will be my woman. My intentions are straightforward and honest, but I want you to have the truth first. You do not deserve to have the wool pulled over your eyes by your father, especially considering he and I have a working relationship.”
“Who says I’ll be your woman?”
“You have always been my woman. You just did not know it until I first saw you and told you so.”
“You’re scary, you know that?”
“And you are mine. I asked for one chance for this meeting today. Did I disappoint?”
I’d shaken my head, realizing he himself hadn’t disappointed. If anything he may have given me a new perspective on the world, and my life, that I wasn’t ready for and that yes…it was disappointing.
But he hadn’t disappointed in the ways that were much more important. His honesty. His desire for me. His intensity.
It’s so confusing. It’s like an ignorance is bliss kind of situation, and when that ignorance is replaced with knowledge that maybe I wasn’t ready for, I can’t shoot the messenger who delivered it. If anything I should thank them.
“Give me one more chance to show it to you. Go on a date with me. I will show you.”
“And if I don’t give you another chance?”
“I will show you anyway.”
I feel like I can still hear his words and the devotion he had to making them come true. It wasn’t even a thought that he was going to give up pursuing me. It wasn’t some kind of chest thumping bravado either, although it had a serious caveman sounding ring to it.
So, my dad hired Vladimir to keep an eye on me while I was in New York. He said it was normal.
Now I know why…because of the kind of people my dad works with.
Are they bad or good? I don’t know, although I’d say they think what they’re doing is just as noble as any proud patriot.
I’m questioning just how much I know about my dad at the moment, but the one thing that I can’t question is that when he wanted me to be safe he turned to Vladimir.
And something inside me tells me I should do the same.
CHAPTER 11
Vladimir
I tip back my coffee from the side of the street opposite her apartment building.
The workers have another day before everything is finished, so that means I have no plans of leaving before then.
My body jerks so hard I almost spill my coffee, wiping it from my lips with the back of my hand like a feral beast.
She moves toward my SUV and I drink in the sight of her.
“One chance, and it’s not a date. We’re just friends,” she says before she’s even reached my window.
Right, just friends.
I nod.
“Give me ten minutes to get ready.” she says.
“You are already ready.”
“I have to—”
I raise a finger, silencing her. “You look perfect always.”
She smiles and damn it hits me right in the gut.
“Okay, but let me change clothes and brush my teeth at least.”
I nod.
She runs back into the building and I can’t take my eyes off her ass. Damn, how I want to slap that thing, knead it in-between my fingers, even sink my teeth into it.
Ten minutes later and she’s back.
I open her door and help her up and in.
“You have spoke with your father, yes?”
She nods.
“And now you are angry…now that you know the truth.”
“Yes.”
“I know just the cure.”
CHAPTER 12
Julie
We drive through Brooklyn until we reach a peach colored building, which we park in front of.
Tucked just in-between a restaurant called Vacarro Cucina Italiana and a Hong Kong pharmacy, there’s a small entrance to a place called Bay Ridge Rod and Gun Club.
I remind myself that if Vladimir wanted me dead I’d already be dead, but why in the world is he taking me to a place like this?
He exchanges pleasantries, if you can call some back and forth grumbles pleasantries, with the guy behind the counter and a few minutes later we step inside the pistol range.
I can feel adrenaline shooting though my body as I hear the rounds leaving the weapons of the other shooters. The loud snaps each time they fire has me coming up on my tiptoes. I feel alive, excited, and nervous beyond belief.
“Let me show you how to do this,” Vladimir says.
He gives me a quick lesson in safety and how to stand and hold the gun. A moment later a target appears and he gets into position and fires off a few rounds quickly. I’m just a few feet behind him, but I practically feel like I’m the one doing the shooting.
“Now your turn. Do not forget to be prepared for the recoil.”
I get all lined up and then turn back around to Vladimir who’s watching me intently. He motions with a finger for me to look forward, a reminder of his lesson that the weapon goes where the eyes go, although I was good and didn’t turn my hands with my head. I kept the weapon “down range.”
I brace my feet and take a deep breath. I slowly squeeze the trigger but nothing happens. I stay in position, my body beyond tense, as I keep squeezing until finally the pistol kicks in my hands and my head moves back, but I manage to keep the weapon under control.
The rush of adrenaline that shoots through my veins is like no other. I get lined up and fire another shot, and then another.
I didn’t even realize this other side of me existed. In a world where women are making progress quickly it’s still very much in our best interests to be more feminine than masculine. But hot damn is there ever something to exploring this masculine side, so to speak, that we all possess.
I don’t know if it’s primal or just the feeling of power, which I never knew I had a thirst for. There’s just something about feeling like I’m in control and I’m not a victim to anyone when that weapon is in my hand.
It’s downright scary what it does to me mentally and the rush it provides.
We shoot for about fifteen minutes and then I suggest we go. I’m not sure how I feel about this whole violence thing. It feels too…enticing and exciting and I can see it turning into something like a drug, not that I’ve ever used but I can imagine that this is the kind of rush and addiction that can mirror using illegal substances.
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