Primary Threat

by Jack Mars

  Luke rubbed his forehead. He was just starting to wake up. He stood, brought the phone into the kitchen, and put the coffee pot on the stove. It was an old-school percolator, the kind he loved. He reached into the cabinet and found some coffee they had left behind when they moved.

  “So the Serbians sent footage of the operation, including footage of them committing a massacre and pretending we did it, to some kind of email spam factory in Russia?”

  “Luke, Swann and I went through a game of nesting Russian dolls, to figure out who the actual owner of these companies is. It was one shell company after another. Finally, we figured it out. The New Times is owned by Chekhov Media Worldwide.”

  Luke smiled. He was dumping coffee into the perk.

  “And? What does that mean?”

  “Chekhov Media is a front organization run by the Main Intelligence Directorate, otherwise known as the GRU. Chekhov Media also owns fifty-one percent of the Russia Now TV network, which was one of the first networks to air the doctored video.”

  “Russia Now is owned by the GRU?” Luke said.

  Talk about propaganda. It would be like the CIA owning its own second-rate cable TV station, then broadcasting its contents all over the world. Come to think of it, the CIA probably did do something like that.

  “Partly, yes. They own it in partnership with a group of private investors, including a handful of the oligarchs. They do a reasonably good job of airing things that at first glance, don’t seem ridiculously slanted. Mostly it’s gossip about Russian celebrities and athletes. They’ve even got game shows, variety shows, and stand-up comedians.”

  Luke was putting the pieces together, but it was coming slow. He was still overtired. His brain was not quite firing. Maybe an hour from now, after two cups of coffee, he would get it. But he suspected that Trudy had already done all the mental heavy lifting anyway. No need for him to burn out his wires.

  “What are we saying here, Trudy?”

  “We’re saying the entire thing was a Russian black op. They selected and trained a group of Serbian nationalists, who were angry about the war with NATO. The Serbians were expendables, and the Russians sent them on a suicide mission to take over an American oil rig in the Arctic. The Serbians fed video footage of the events back to a front company controlled by the GRU, to be doctored however the Russians wanted. Within hours, that footage was on Al Jazeera, then Russia Now, then everywhere. Luke, we were never supposed to recover that laptop. That last Serbian was supposed to blow himself up, destroying the laptop, and all the evidence, in the process.”

  “But why do all this?” Luke said. “Why kill all those men? Why risk open war with the United States? To give us a public relations black eye? They have to know that we would see right through this.”

  “The only way to find out is to ask,” Trudy said.

  Luke nearly laughed. “The last time I checked, the GRU weren’t the most eager people to share their motives.”

  “Right. But there’s an actual man affiliated with these media front companies. His name appears on much of the paperwork. He’s the president of this or that media company, the associate vice president of another. Chief Operations Officer. Government Relations Officer. He’s listed as the director of a couple of low budget movies, and the producer of probably a dozen TV documentaries. He seems to be a real person, and potentially a true civilian, not a spook. His name is Lenny Zelazny, and the storage account the video was sent to is controlled by him. It’s possible that he’s even the one who edited the footage.”

  “Great. And all we need to do is…” Luke began.

  He was going to be sarcastic, but he stopped halfway through the sentence.

  “He’s alive?” he said.

  “Yes, it appears so. Very much so. Or he was recently. He really does produce TV shows. Garbage for the most part, but I imagine it’s a living. He lives in Moscow, not far from the New Times offices.”

  “I need to talk to him,” Luke said.

  “I figured you were going to say that. We know exactly where he lives, where he works, and what kind of car he drives. We have photos taken of him within the past six months. If they haven’t killed him today, and they don’t kill him tomorrow, he shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

  The man was a loose end. It probably wouldn’t be long before they decided to tie him off. That meant Luke needed to get in touch with the man, in person, sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, the Russians knew who Luke Stone was. In all likelihood, he was wanted there because of the Sochi fiasco.

  They’d probably love to get their hands on him.

  Even so…

  “I need to go to Moscow,” Luke said.

  “I think you probably need to talk to Don about that,” Trudy said.

  * * *

  “No way, son. It’s out of the question.”

  “Don, just please listen to me for a second.”

  Don sighed heavily over the phone. “Luke, I will listen to you. I will hear out everything you have to say, and I will give it deep consideration. But I want you to listen to me first. How does that sound?”

  Luke felt like a little kid, jumping, excited, trying to convince his dad to let him have a pet giraffe. Don was more than his commanding officer in Delta, his civilian boss, or his mentor. He was a lot more. But this father and son game they were playing was beyond the pale sometimes.

  “Okay,” Luke said. “Hit me.”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  The question gave Luke the sudden urge to jump up off the couch. Was he sitting down? What kind of way was that to start?

  Out the bay window, a giant catamaran yacht with a blue and white sail, the mast probably ten stories high, crossed his field of vision from right to left, headed south toward the open ocean. Luke was momentarily distracted by it. It was a thing of beauty. He couldn’t imagine what such a thing might cost.

  “Yes. I’m sitting.”

  “Luke, in the past hour I’ve been contacted by both personnel from the White House, and by the Director of the Bureau. That video has made a real mess, and the brass have been looking for a way to clean it up. Meanwhile, the mess is spreading all over the world. There are anti-American protests taking place in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. There are candlelight vigils scheduled for tonight all over the United States and Canada. There are talking heads screaming on the TV set. Someone needs to be slaughtered for this, probably more than one someone, and the brass want to make you the first sacrificial lamb.”

  Luke’s shoulders slumped. He felt the breath going out of him. Here it comes again. He had just been suspended, unsuspended, investigated, and finally cleared, not even two months ago. How could they keep doing this?

  He couldn’t find a word to say.

  “You with me?” Don said.

  “Yeah. I’m with you.”

  “I told them no. Not on my watch. I told them that in no uncertain terms. I’ve spent my entire adult life in and around combat. I know what happens. And I know that the looks on men’s faces often don’t mean anything. The processing happens later. Also, that video is a shuck. A con job. And the truth about it will come out.”

  Luke felt numb. His hands were tingling the slightest amount.

  “What did they say?”

  “We negotiated,” Don said. “That’s half the game around here. We settled on a paid leave of absence, what they’re going to call a suspension, pending the outcome of the investigation. I told them I’m confident that when all the testimony is given, your description of the event will be consistent with that of the soldiers and other personnel on the scene.”

  Luke nodded. He knew what had happened. Murphy shot the guy because he was reaching for a grenade. Ed was there. There were four or five SEALs in the room at that moment. They all saw it.

  “Absolutely true,” he said. “But will it matter?”

  “It’ll matter,” Don said. “I’ll make it matter.”

  “So I’m out,” Luk
e said.

  He didn’t know what to make of that prospect. His reputation was in tatters, again. He remembered when he was a little kid, and how the schoolteachers would say, “This is going on your permanent record.”

  It was a scary thought. But now it was real. Luke’s permanent record included two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with V device, a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, and so many combat badges, marksmanship badges and clasps that he’d lost track of them all. He had passed airborne training, Special Forces training, had been recruited into the elite Delta Force, and served with distinction.

  His permanent record also included a botched special operation where only three men survived, one of whom committed suicide soon afterward. It included an inpatient stay at a psychiatric hospital. Somewhere, there might be a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, though if there was, he hadn’t heard of it. He had already been suspended from his civilian job once before, under suspicion of committing an atrocity.

  And now?

  “Why am I suspended?” he said. “Officially?”

  “You’re suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into your actions, and the possible summary execution of an enemy prisoner or prisoners, during the Martin Frobisher incident. That’s what it is. That’s how it’s worded.”

  It was baloney.

  “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

  To Luke’s mind, there was a lot to do. There was a chance of pinpointing the culprits behind the oil rig attack, and he felt they should take that chance. This was personal to him. He was there. He saw what those men had done. The people who masterminded it should pay. And they should be stopped before they did anything else.

  Don paused. The moment stretched out between them.

  “Well, to be honest, there’s not much for you to do. You’re out of the game. I’d say go and enjoy yourself, if you can.”

  Enjoy himself? “Enjoy myself doing what?”

  “You play golf?”

  Luke grunted. He almost laughed. “No.”

  Luke could almost hear Don smile over the phone. “Uh, in that case, I’d say take a trip to Europe. Why not? Rome is great this time of year. I hear your friend Big Daddy Cronin is in town. His doctor told him he has high blood pressure and should take some time off. Hell, son, why don’t you take your friend Ed Newsam with you? He’s requested some personal time, to rest up and recuperate after the recent operation, and I told him to take what he needs. Why don’t you both make a little holiday of it? Some time away wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Luke said. “You think I should go to Rome on vacation? Meet Bill Cronin there? And take Ed Newsam with me?”

  “That’s what I think, yes. You’re all on the sidelines for the time being, so you might as well make something of it. Put this whole oil rig thing, and this Russia fascination, right out of your head. I can tell you, when Big Daddy has a few drinks, he’s one heck of a storyteller. He’ll curl your nose hairs.”

  Luke let the weight of these words sink in.

  “I’ll bet,” Luke said. He’d never had a drink with Bill Cronin before.

  “I shouldn’t do this,” Don said, “but I’ll even sweeten the deal for you. I’ll have someone here arrange the travel. We’ll pay for it out of the petty cash drawer. You can reimburse us later.”

  “That’s really generous of you, Don.”

  “Go,” Don said. “Have a good time. And don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  4:50 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  Best Western Hotel

  King’s Dominion

  Doswell, Virginia

  Kevin Murphy was long gone.

  He was in a strange hotel or motel next to a large amusement park somewhere off Interstate 95, maybe a hundred miles south of Washington, DC, and just north of Richmond. The place had an onsite pizzeria that doubled as a bar, and also a Denny’s restaurant, apparently open twenty-four hours a day. There was a small outside swimming pool.

  On the near horizon was the amusement park. The roller coaster was visible from Murphy’s window. He watched it in a state of near hypnosis, again and again.

  At the beginning, the cars would slowly climb up a circular track, up up up to the sky, reach the camel hump at the top, seemingly pause to give the riders a terrifying view of what was in store for them, then whoooosh! Down and around and upside down. He could hear the screams from here.

  Murphy had trouble peeling his eyes away from it. He was that tired.

  He had decided to run. The trip to the Arctic had convinced him. If he hung around Luke Stone and the SRT much longer, he was going to get killed. The assault by boat was bad enough. The grenade bouncing around in the bow like a pinball was worse.

  But if Murphy had donned that underwater space suit, and climbed through that gravesite in the ice…

  He didn’t like to think about it. Probably, they all would have died.

  Stone was everybody’s bad luck charm.

  Not to mention the little fact that Don Morris wanted Murphy to spend some time in Leavenworth. Not to mention that Wallace Speck was floating out there, a loose end certainly, but more like a ghoul from a bad nightmare. It was all too much.

  So Murphy was leaving.

  He had a late flight booked tomorrow night out of Fort Lauderdale, under the name of one of his aliases. Florida to Grand Cayman, direct. His money was in a numbered account at Royal Heritage Bank, which was in a small, very tidy, very well-kept building right in the middle of George Town.

  The bank manager was Mr. Johnson. Johnson was a polite, well-educated black man, short, balding, always impeccably dressed, who knew his business backwards and forwards. He treated clients like long-lost family. He took you into his office and served you strong tea in little ornate teacups. It was all very civilized, and Murphy looked forward to seeing Mr. Johnson again.

  Murphy had been depositing bits of money at Royal Heritage Bank for years. But he had never made a deposit like the one that had come from the Montreal Score.

  That’s how he thought of it—the Montreal Score.

  With the $2.5 million that Wallace Speck had transferred in, Murphy’s account at the bank now stood at a little over $2.8 mil. Speck hadn’t sent the second payment. But that was to be expected, since the events in Montreal didn’t go Speck’s way. Speck was currently languishing in federal prison, preparing for a date with the needle still some years in the future.

  Murphy noticed his cell phone was ringing.

  The ringer itself was off, but the silent phone was lighting up. He looked at the phone there on the scuffed motel coffee table. It rang for a while, and then stopped.

  There were a bunch of brochures for nearby tourist attractions on the table with the phone. There was a brochure for the pizza place downstairs—you could call and they would bring the food up to your room. Murphy’s fake passport was also on the table, along with his real passport.

  They were both American passports, and they were basically identical. Once in a while, Murphy spent some time trying to notice any discrepancy between them. Other than the name, date, and place of birth, and the passport number, there didn’t seem to be any. It was a very clever forgery. He’d gotten it in Colombia.

  The Colombians were known for their devotion to quality. Cocaine. Marijuana. Cut roses. Counterfeit American money. Forged documents. If Colombians were doing it, they were generally doing a good job. Murphy had also gotten his fake Irish passport in Colombia, and his British one.

  He had credit cards under several different names. He had small piles of cash in several different currencies. He was good to go. A gun in his luggage might throw red flags, so he didn’t have one. He could pick up a weapon during his travels, if he felt the need for one. Which he probably wouldn’t. When dealing with normals in the regular world, he didn’t usually feel that need.

  He had driven south out of
the DC area, and within a short time, the exhaustion hit him. He could barely stay awake at the wheel. So he stopped here—wherever here was.

  The place was comfortable enough. The screams from the faraway roller coaster were oddly relaxing, like waves crashing on the beach. The carpet smelled a little funny, like they had treated it with disinfectant. But the king-sized bed was just what the doctor ordered. In a little while, he was going to crash out and he wasn’t going to wake up until tomorrow morning. Then he was going to drive like the devil to Fort Lauderdale.

  The phone started ringing again. He glanced at it. Okay, it was her.

  He picked it up. “Hi.”

  Trudy Wellington’s musical voice. “Murph?”

  It hurt to leave someone as beautiful as Trudy behind, but she hadn’t shown the slightest interest in him, so…

  “Yeah. Hi, Trudy. What’s up?”

  “Did I wake you? You sound tired.”

  “Uh… no, you didn’t wake me. I’ve been sleeping all day, but I got up a little while ago to make a bite to eat.”

  “Listen, I wanted to catch you,” she said. “I know Don gave you a few days off.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “I wonder if you want to spend those days in Europe.”

  Europe? The question gave him pause. Did he want to go to Europe? There was a catch here, and Murphy treaded lightly.

  “Just me and you?”

  “Ah… ha, ha, no. Sorry. Luke and Ed are going to Rome later tonight. Luke’s been suspended again—well, actually he’s on a leave of absence. And Ed asked for some recuperation time, which Don greenlighted. If you want to go with them, SRT would pay your travel expenses.”

  Murphy let the silence draw out. What were they doing?

  It wasn’t a vacation. It couldn’t be. Stone and Newsam weren’t vacation types, and if they were, it wouldn’t be to a tourist trap like Rome. What were they going to do, visit museums? Buy a bobblehead doll of the Pope? The idea was ridiculous. Stone and Newsam didn’t even seem to like each other that much. But if they did go on a vacation together, they’d probably go fall off a mountain somewhere, or get eaten by crocodiles.