by David Archer
“That's excellent,” she said. “Now, if you can tie it into the scenario we were talking about…”
“Already did. I took the actual flights we all came in on and made sure that the identities we used for the mission were tied back to these paper people I created. I set them up into teams, which fits with what the police saw when they arrested them, with Noah and Jenny as their leaders of course, and then I've created logs of certain communications between the Committee for Restoration of The Soviet Union—which actually does exist, by the way—and Noah and Jenny. Those communications can be deciphered fairly easily, and they're orders to activate something called Mission Zeta. Well, then, I created a file that I hid deep in the bowels of the SVR labeled ‘Mission Zeta,’ which details how the assassination of a deputy minister by American agents could be manipulated into a restoration of Cold War politics. Cold War politics, according to this mission plan, will result in the glorious resurrection of the Soviet Union and its policies. Since every major Russian politician in the last fifteen years has talked about how the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a terrible disaster and how they wished they could bring it back, just about every news agency in the world is going to find this extremely believable.”
“And incredibly damning,” Monica added. “Neil, this is brilliant. Is it ready to go out to my news contacts?”
“It's ready,” Neil said. “I'm also planning to send it to the CIA and Homeland Security. Both of them are likely to start raising hell over it, and the State Department should be able to use it to stall the executions, just on the basis that we want to prosecute them as spies on our end. If you can get the UN talking about it as well, we have the potential of a global viral story.”
Monica cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “Viral,” she said. “What about that? Is there any way you can sort of force it to appear on social media posts?”
Neil blinked and then grinned. “Actually, that wouldn’t be a bit difficult. I've hacked into most of the major social sites already, so give me twenty minutes to write a bot and I'll be ready to install it.”
He turned back to his computer and started typing while Monica leaned back in her chair and looked at Sarah. “We're going to pull this off,” she said. “This is going to be one of the slickest things I've ever been involved in, and I want to thank you for letting me help.”
Sarah shrugged. “I'm the one who should be thanking you. There’s no way in the world I could’ve done this without your help, and you know it. I just wish you were as big a bitch as I always thought you were, so it would be easier to hate you.”
Monica laughed. “Oh, come on, it shouldn’t be that hard. After all, I was the one who sold you to the Chinese, remember?”
Sarah glared at her, but it was tempered with humor. “I remember,” she said. “The funny thing is, that whole experience ended up making my life a lot better. I managed to work my way through a lot of old fears after that, and it was the fact that I had been captured and tortured that convinced Noah he really wanted us to be married. In a way, I guess I have you to thank for how happy I've been since then, and if we get Noah back, I'll be in your debt once more.”
Monica waved a hand at her in dismissal. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “Just the fact that you trusted me enough to take the watchdogs off for a little while is payment enough. I'm sure my supervisory committee is going to go through the roof when I get back, but as long as I can tell them we were doing something important together, I think I'll be all right.”
“I'll speak up for you,” Sarah said. “Now, once this story Neil created spreads all over the world, what do we do next?”
“That depends on how the Russian government reacts. Personally, I expect them to cancel or at least postpone the executions. They are going to want to investigate this story for themselves, and they’ll be dealing with God knows how many other countries that will be screaming for information. I wouldn’t want to be in any of the high-ranking offices in Russia right now, because the one thing Russians have always done is try to blame each other. The president will blame the prime minister, the prime minister will blame the president, both of them will blame their other politicians and the politicians will be blaming each other in every possible direction. It's going to be a nightmare for any of the Russian officials, but it might just end up resulting in a house cleaning this country really needs.”
“But what do we do about getting Noah and the others out of that prison? That's what I'm trying to ask.”
“Well,” Monica said, shifting her position to get a little more comfortable. “They are probably going to want to move all of them out of Lefortovo pretty quickly. They might try to sequester them in another prison, or they might actually take them to the Lubyanka. It's not actually used as a prison anymore, but it still has cells and facilities that work. Considering how high-profile these particular prisoners are going to be, that might be the best place for them to put them.”
“And will that help us in any way, as far as getting them out?”
“It wouldn’t hurt. The Lubyanka is currently the headquarters of the FSB, the federal police. Those guys are fairly tough, but they're not nearly as tough as the SVR. They’re also not really the type of people to manage a prison. It might actually be possible to break them out, if they go there. Otherwise, we have to see where they end up and then plan accordingly.” She looked at Sarah for a moment, then went on. “No matter where they go, Sarah, we're probably going to end up needing weapons and people who can use them. Unfortunately, I don’t have those kind of contacts in Russia.”
Sarah nodded. “If we get to that point, I can go to our man in the embassy. He might not help us directly, but I'm pretty sure he would know where we can hire mercenaries.”
“Good, because we're probably going to need them. Then all we have to do is figure out how to get us all out of the country. They don’t seem to know anything about me, so I shouldn’t have any problems chartering a flight. If we can figure out a way to get all of your people to the airport, we can all fly out together.”
“That might work, if it's possible. The original plan involved Noah flying us out under radar, going to Warsaw. From there, we would have gone home on a diplomatic flight.”
“Well, my charter flights are not diplomatic, but I'm worth enough money in all of my identities that I rarely get any interference. If we can get your people onto the plane, there shouldn’t be any problem at all.”
Monica closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, and Sarah sat quietly as she did so. Neil continued tapping on his keyboard for an hour, then finally looked up at Sarah.
“I sent it off to every news source Monica gave me, to the CIA, DHS, NSA and DoD, and I've got bots posting it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram like mad. An awful lot of people are going to suddenly be surprised to realize that they have so many friends interested in what kind of crap the Russians are trying to pull.”
“What you mean?” Sarah asked.
Neil grinned. “Let’s just say that almost everyone on those websites is now connected to several movie stars, and those stars are currently spreading the word about the terrible Russian plot to bring back the Cold War and the threat of nuclear weapons. You know what people do when they see a Facebook post or a tweet from somebody they think is famous?”
Sarah chuckled. “They repost it or retweet it. I know what you mean, I've even done that myself. But what happens tomorrow, when all those celebrities claim they never said any such thing?”
“Nobody will care. By then, this story will have taken on a life of its own.” He leaned close to his computer for a moment and tapped on it for a couple of seconds. “Here’s one I attributed to that guy who plays the superspy. I posted it under his name thirty minutes ago, and it's already gotten over six thousand likes and been reposted nine thousand times. Oh, yeah, this is definitely going viral.”
* * * * *
Slightly over an hour later, at just after three p
.m. Denver time, Allison’s phone was ringing on her desk. She ignored it, because she was already on her cell phone.
“I know, it's already all over the Internet,” she said. “No, I have no idea where it's coming from. Yes, Mr. President, I'm certain none of our people who were arrested are actually Russian double agents. I'll be happy to let you know as soon as I find out anything more. Yes sir, goodbye.”
She dropped the cell phone and reached for the one on the desk, but it stopped ringing. She leaned back in her chair and started shaking her head. Somehow, the word was spreading through the Internet that Jenny and her team, and Noah and Marco, were all Russian agents who had been planted in the United States for the express purpose of committing some crime against Russia that would allow the Communist Party to reinstate many of the policies of the old Soviet Union.
Donald Jefferson came through her office door without knocking, something he almost never did. “You’ve heard?”
“I just got off the phone with the president, what do you think?”
“Any idea what’s going on?” Jefferson asked. “This has to be related to what Sarah and Monica are doing, it has to be.”
“Of course it is,” Allison said. “This is exactly the kind of devious crap Monica would pull, but it's going to take the heat off of the U.S. for right now, so that's a good thing. The Kremlin will be doing nothing but denying, denying, denying all day, but this thing has already gotten so big that they won’t be able to keep it quiet. There are a dozen news services that are already running it as if it's a confirmed story.”
Jefferson nodded. “Okay, let’s get Molly in here. We need to start thinking about how we can use this.”
Allison picked up the phone and punched a couple of buttons, then told Molly to come to her office as soon as possible. The girl arrived only a minute later, carrying a tablet that she was staring at.
“A Kremlin spokesman has just issued a statement of denial, but he also said the president has ordered an investigation into where the story is coming from, and has postponed the execution of the alleged spies indefinitely.” She looked up at Allison. “What in the world is going on?”
“It's Monica,” Allison said. “We know she is over there trying to help the kids, and this is just the kind of thing she does. This will have almost every little country that used to be part of the Soviet Union ready to declare war on Russia by the end of the week if they aren’t careful. Most of them don’t want anything to do with bringing the USSR back. They may be small, but if enough of them decide to fight, then Mother Russia is going to be in some serious trouble.”
“Molly,” Jefferson said, “what we wanted to talk to you about right now is how we can best use this in the current situation. Any suggestions?”
Molly sat down in the chair beside the one Jefferson had taken and thought for a moment. “If it were to turn out that this story is true, which we know it won’t, Russia would be looking at an awful lot of angry nations pointing fingers at her. This would be considered one of the greatest deceptions any nation has ever pulled, and its obvious purpose would be to create political tensions between Russia and the United States. As far as bringing back the Soviet Union, they certainly could have used the argument that American assassins and spies meant that the U.S. was declaring itself to be a credible threat, and that only reinstating the Soviet Union could protect all those smaller countries. Now, though, since it looks like Russia staged the whole thing, all that’s going to happen is that each of those countries is going to be backing further away from any diplomatic ties with Moscow. If this story isn’t quashed today, you'll see massive arms buildups on every border between Russia and one of its former member countries. They’ll all be preparing for war, because they will be expecting Russia to try to force them into subjugation again.”
“Holy crap,” Allison said. “I've been worried about trying to avoid starting a war, and Monica is over there setting up a big one.”
“Oh, not really,” Molly said. “All of those little countries, Kazakhstan, Belarus, the rest of them, they will all be far too frightened to actually initiate hostilities. It's just saber rattling, but it will keep the Russian military worried about what could happen. If the Russians were stupid enough to actually try to invade one of those other countries, then all of them would probably attack, but I don’t believe the Kremlin is that dumb. I can assure you the prime minister is not, although the president might… No, he wouldn’t be that stupid either. The point is that most of those little countries have other allies, now, so Russia wouldn’t just be fighting its own little border wars. We would be talking about a major conflict, and even the United States would be involved. We might not be directly at war with Russia, but we do have some mutual defense treaties in that area. Japan and China would almost certainly get involved, and possibly even North Korea, but God only knows which side they would be on.” She suddenly smiled. “On the other hand, there’s going to be a lot of things hashed out inside Russia herself. A story like this is going to mean that every political faction is going to be blaming every other one. The Democratic supporters will be swearing that the Communist Party has to be behind the stunt, and the Communists will be blaming the Democrats. If it were really true, either one of them could be correct. The Communists might do something like this in order to try to bring back the USSR, but the Democrats might do it just so they can blame it on the Communists. All in all, this is one of the most brilliant moves I can even imagine. No matter what people believe at the end of the day, it's going to take Russia months, maybe even years to regain any trust in the world political stage.”
“I can see that point,” Allison said, “but is there any way this actually helps us get our people back?”
“Oh, of course. If we can find any way in the world to arrange a rescue now, the sheer power of this conspiracy theory is going to protect the United States completely. If the Russians say we broke them out and spirited them away, the rest of the world is going to point a finger at them and say they're lying. If they deny that they escaped or were rescued, then they won’t be able to produce them when the world court or the UN or whoever decides to conduct its investigation. That will make it look like they were executed quietly, so no matter which way it goes, Russia looks bad. They can’t point the finger at us, even if they know with absolute certainty that we did it, because it would only blow up in their faces. This is really, incredibly brilliant.”
“Yeah,” Allison said. “I just wish I had been the one to think of it. For that matter, why didn’t you think of it? You're supposed to be our resident genius, right?”
Molly’s eyes went wide and she stared at Allison. “Me? I–I…”
“Relax, Molly,” Jefferson said with a grin. “Allison is just being the Dragon Lady. Nobody would really have expected you to come up with a plot like this, it's too Machiavellian even for us. I'm beginning to understand how Monica managed to get away with manipulating the world so long. Dear God, the woman is some kind of political puppet mistress.”
“And she’s off her damn leash!” Allison growled. “Remind me to make sure Neil’s access to that server is terminated as soon as he gets back.”
Molly made a face. “Do you really think that would be a good idea? It's very likely that being able to disconnect her from that surveillance is what is making this possible. Not only are we now much more likely to get our people back, but by the time this is over, Russia will be too busy trying to make up with the rest of the world to give Uncle Sam any problems at all.”
“So much for the Gog and Magog theories,” Jefferson said. “I don’t know how many TV preachers are trying to say that Russia and China are the two powerful countries that will oppose God in the battle of Armageddon. Russia might have a hard time getting China to cooperate on anything for a long time to come. As I recall, the Cold War had a lot to do with the poverty conditions in China. I sincerely doubt they want to go back to it, and China is certainly big enough and powerful enough to put Russia in its
place if they had to.”
Allison leaned back in her chair and put her hands over her eyes. “God, this is giving me a headache.” She moved her hands and looked at Jefferson. “Did you find out about the mercenaries?”
“I spoke to Peter McDermott a few hours ago, and he will have a squad of his best in Moscow by the time the sun comes up there. Most of them will be Spetsnaz, and of general Russian or neighboring descent. If you decide they need them, all we have to do is call McDermott.”
Allison looked at him for a long moment, then nodded her head. “I think it's time we let the kids know we're rooting for them. Molly, I need you to get a message to Neil. Tell him that we arranged for a paramilitary group to help them out, and that we will send him the necessary contact information in the morning. Wait a minute, what time will that be for us?”
“Seven A.M. tomorrow in Moscow would be nine P.M. tonight, here,” Molly said.
“Okay, good. Donald, go ahead and call McDermott and tell him we need a way for Neil and Sarah to reach his people as soon as they get there. That should be only a few hours from now, so Molly can forward that information as soon as you get it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
President Ivan Feodor was furious. “I want someone to tell me,” he said, “how in the world this has happened. How did an American assassination of a Russian minister suddenly become a crime committed by my government?”
Leonid Ivanov, director of the SVR, stood in front of the president’s desk. The fury in Feodor’s eyes had him rooted to the spot, for the president was known to have a volatile temper and a number of loyal friends who would not hesitate to eliminate the problem for him. Ivanov himself had replaced Yuri Leskov after the latter had been found shot to death in his own apartment. No one talked about it, but it was well known that Leskov had refused a “request” from the president only the day before.
“I do not know,” he said. “Mr. President, all of this has only come to my attention this morning. I have not had any chance to investigate…”