by Jeff Buick
"You've been watching the meltdown," Fleming said. There was little emotion in his voice. Actually, there was none.
"I have," Carson said. His head was screaming for an Advil, the banging threatening to push his eyeballs out of their sockets. He ignored it.
Fleming entered the room and leaned on the back of the chair facing Carson's desk. His eyes were dark and searching. More inquisitive than angry. Watching his department head - looking into his mind and dissecting how it reacted to acute pressure. "Benediem is the worst. I don't know if they'll survive."
"I know. It's ugly," Carson said quietly.
"No," Fleming corrected him. "Ugly would be if the SEC knew we had caused this mess and it was costing us money."
Carson didn't respond. Not verbally or with any sort of body language. He kept his eyes focused on the CEO and tried not to show his disgust.
Fleming cocked his head slightly and peered at Carson. "You're thinking that this isn't just about money." Fleming's tone made it clear it was a statement of fact, not a question and certainly not open to dissension. "Well, it is about money. Entirely. This is all about money and nothing else." He released his grip on the chair, like a hawk easing its talons from its prey. "Money doesn't care who owns it, Carson. It waits for someone to come along and claim it. If it's not us, it's someone else."
Carson swallowed. His throat felt like someone had poured a cup of sand in his mouth. He kept his eyes locked on Fleming. Neither man wavered. Finally, he said, "Shit happens."
Time screeched to an absolute stop. Fleming was judging him, looking for the slightest chink in the armor. Willing the younger man to show he was lying. That he did care. Carson gave him nothing. His eyelids didn't flicker. His lips didn't quiver. He was a heartless rock that made decisions and ignored the carnage those decisions inflicted.
Fleming smiled. Slowly. It started almost as a leer, then spread across his face until his lips pulled back revealing even, white teeth. "It does," he said. He turned and walked back to the door, then paused. "Have you noticed anyone in your department acting strangely?"
Carson responded, "What do you mean?"
"Someone acting differently. Suspiciously."
Carson shrugged. "I think everyone is a bit stressed over what happened with the algorithm, but other than that, no. Why do you ask?"
Another pause. Assessing him. "No reason," Fleming smiled again, this time a coldness crept into the gesture. "Keep an eye on Benediem and the other stocks. Watch how they respond."
"Of course."
Carson's gaze stayed fixed on the empty doorway for a full minute after the CEO had left. Fleming suspected something. He probably knew someone had hacked into his e-mail, but was unsure of their identity. If he knew who it was, he would have come out and said something. He was fishing - looking for a reaction. The question was unexpected and had caught him off guard. He wondered if he had given anything away. He had no idea. It had happened too quickly.
One thing was certain. The shine was fading fast on William Fleming. The Wall Street icon was a snake. Carson was beginning to despise him.
No, that was wrong. Not beginning to despise. He already did.
He was finished with Platinus Investments. He needed an exit strategy. Some way to bleed himself out of the organization without raising any red flags. It would take a bit of time, but his decision was made. There was no future here. In his world, people trumped the almighty dollar. A calmness settled in as he came to terms with the gravity of his decision. It was okay to back off from something that was wrong. It was better than okay - it was the right thing to do.
The only question that remained was whether Fleming had the resources and the tenacity to track down whoever had hacked into his computer. And if he did, then what?
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Chapter
41
Day 22 - 8.17.10 - Morning News
FOB Ma'sum ghar, Afghanistan
Outside the wire.
Russell was starting to wonder about the sanity of heading beyond the security of the Forward Operating Base. They hadn't been outside the main gate more than three minutes when the small arms fire started. It pinged off the armored Strykers as harmlessly as the stones churned up by the tires. But it kept them tucked inside the vehicle and peering at the hills through the three narrow slits on each side. The slits were mostly covered by kit - the equipment hanging on the outside of the armor. It allowed a very limited view of what was happening around them and blinded them to the threat of IEDs hidden in culverts and hastily buried in the roadway.
"This is insane," Russell yelled over the roar of the engine and the thuds of stones and bullets. "Why are they so close to the FOB?"
Andrew tightened his helmet and laughed. "If they were any closer, they'd be inside the wire. This is their turf and we're on it. Remember, Helmand and Kandahar are poppy-ville. This is where all the drugs originate."
"Where the bad guys live," Russell said.
"Not all of them live here. Hell, the central government is in Kabul. There's more corruption there than anywhere else in the country. The ISI are in Pakistan, and they're a bit like the CIA, except dumbed down. The big difference is, the guys who are here are the ones shooting at us."
"Man, it seems like everyone's shootin' at us over here," Bobby said. He had tagged along with Andrew and Russell and suggested to the journalist that he, Bobby, would make a great character when some studio picked up Russell's story for a movie script.
Russell thought Bobby was probably right.
The convoy was a mixture of Canadian Leopard 2 tanks and LAVs, which were similar to the Stryker, and American Strykers and supply trucks. It numbered over a hundred vehicles and kept a steady pace as it wound its way westward along Route Fosters. Despite the fact that the road had been cleared that morning, three vehicles hit IEDs before they reached Mushan. As they pulled up to the outskirts of the town, a Canadian LAV hit a bomb and flipped on its side. The front end was blown completely off the vehicle and smoke poured from its motor. Minor injuries was the good news. The bad news was that it was straddling an extremely narrow throat of road and had stalled the convoy. Almost ninety vehicles were stranded behind it, many of them in compromised positions near buildings, irrigation canals and grape-drying huts.
Troops poured out of the vehicles and secured the nearby areas with only sporadic incidents of small arms fire. Andrew poked his head out of the Stryker and motioned for Russell to join him. They scrambled out and hustled to one of the huts the locals used to dry their grape crop. The building's walls were a meter thick and made of dried mud, with slits to allow for airflow. They were a favorite for Taliban snipers as bullets from an M-4 couldn't penetrate the walls. It took a tank to mow one down or a well-placed RPG to blow a hole in the wall. Andrew entered the structure first, M-4 level and ready for action. Bobby followed, then Russell. The building was empty, save for a few pieces of wood and some cloth. It smelled dank and moldy, and the temperature was fifteen degrees cooler than outside. Andrew radioed in his position.
"If we're stuck here more than ten minutes, they'll be lobbing mortars on the trucks," he said, his eyes watching what was happening on the road.
"How do they get here so fast?" Russell asked. He was leaning on the edge of the entrance with his camera focused out the door.
"They have guys watching when we leave the FOB and they call ahead on their Motorola cell phones to their buddies, who then drive their Toyotas to where we're going to be in an hour or so. Then they sit around and drink Coke and make sure their guns and mortars are ready to fight the Western influence on their lifestyle."
"Okay, that sounded a bit jaded," Russell said.
"Oh, I forgot. A couple of them rush into
town and plant an IED in the middle of the road so one of our lead vehicles hits it and slows or stops the convoy. And none of the villagers think it's a good idea to let us know where it's buried."
"Crazy shit," Bobby said, nodding his head hard.
"They're scared," Russell said. "What happens to them after we leave if they tell us? The bad guys come back and kill them."
"They gotta make a stand," Bobby said. He checked his window, then sat back and lit a cigarette. He dropped the match on the ground and glanced back out the window. "What the fuck?"
Andrew and Russell both reacted without hesitation. Andrew by dropping to one knee and sighting on the door near the slit in the wall. Russell by switching on his camera and touching the shutter so the camera light-metered the room. A moment later a man, accompanied by a woman in obvious distress, entered the grape-drying hut. She was grasping at her extended stomach and waves of pain coursed across her face.
The man screamed at the soldiers in Pashto, but both Andrew and Bobby raised their hands and shook their heads. The man gestured wildly at the woman, who had collapsed against the wall, shaking and moaning. Fear gripped her dark brown eyes, and her hair was soaked and plastered to her head.
"Shit, man, she's pregnant," Bobby said. He kept a watchful eye out the slit. Time was becoming the enemy as they waited for the line of trucks and armored vehicles to get moving. "Really fucking pregnant. She's ready to pop."
"She's in labor," Russell shouted back. He snapped off a couple of shots, then slung his camera over his shoulder and knelt beside her.
Andrew was on the phone asking for an interpreter. He got an affirmative - one was only a couple of vehicles behind their location. He poked his head out the door and waved the Afghan in when he came running up the street. It took a couple of minutes to get the story. The woman was from a village two hours north and they had just arrived in Mushan. She needed a doctor, but had been told that the only medical person who lived and worked nearby was more than two hours away. The baby was not going to wait. She wanted one of the Americans to deliver her child.
"Tell her we're not doctors," Russell said.
"She doesn't care," the interpreter said. "You're educated people. You know these sorts of things. You can do this."
"Get on the radio and see if you can get a medic up here," Russell said to Andrew.
The soldier hesitated, then called it in. The response came back fast, almost as the first mortars began falling. The disabled LAV had been pushed aside and there was absolutely no way the convoy was staying put any longer. The mortar fire grew in intensity as the Taliban artillery found the range. Calling in fast air or attack helicopters was impossible. The Taliban were dug in with the civilian population and the collateral damage would be significant. They were on their own, a thin line of vulnerable vehicles spread out over the better part of a kilometer.
"Let's go," Andrew yelled over the noise of exploding shells. "Now."
"We can't just leave her," Russell yelled back.
Andrew reached out and grabbed Russell by the front of his vest and pulled. Strength and adrenalin yanked the reporter to his feet so their faces were almost touching.
"You didn't get her pregnant," he said. "Neither did I. This is not up to us to fix."
"She's in trouble. It'll only take a few minutes."
"One minute is all it'll take right now to get twenty of us killed." He pushed the journalist toward the door. Outside, the vehicle in front of their Stryker was moving. "I'm not fucking kidding." He kept a vice-like grip on Russell's vest and broke into a run.
There was nothing Russell could do but try to keep his feet under him and match Andrew's strides. Dust kicked up as they ran, Bobby bringing up the rear behind them and the interpreter. They reached the Stryker and piled in the back hatch. It was moving the second they were in. Behind them the entire line of vehicles was under attack. Mortars were blasting holes in the already pothole strewn road, making it even more difficult to navigate. An armored LAV took a hit but the mortar didn't have the penetrating power to disable it. The driver countered his steering and the blast failed to tip the vehicle. The column kept moving forward.
Small arms fire was coming from closer now. Muzzle flashes lit up some of the windows and there was no mistaking the bullets rattling off the Stryker for rocks. They reached the edge of Mushan and regained the advantage of open terrain as they pushed ahead to resupply the Combat Outposts.
Radio reports kept coming in. Miraculously, they had made it through the town almost unscathed. The first Canadian LAV was totaled and had been blown in place to keep the Taliban from cannibalizing parts for making IEDs. Two other vehicles, one Stryker and one soft-top truck, had taken hits but were mobile. Casualties were zero, except for a couple of minor bullet wounds. A far cry from what would have happened if they had been trapped any longer by the ruined LAV.
The sound inside the Stryker settled down to a deep, steady rumble. The commander opened the hatch and fresh air poured in. The soldiers sat in silence for a while, checking their weapons and snapping in fresh magazines. They were half an hour out of the Mushan before Russell spoke.
"She's probably going to die," he said. Despite how quiet he spoke, the words carried throughout the enclosed space.
Andrew sat with his rifle on his knee, moving with the rhythm of the vehicle. Finally, he said, "Probably."
"We could have saved her. We could have saved the child."
"Maybe. But I'll guarantee you that men would have died. One, two, ten - no idea how many. Guys like Bobby and me would be bleeding out in that shithole and a whole bunch more would be wounded. Shattered bones. Shattered lives." Andrew leaned forward on the bench, his eyes alive with raw energy.
"Here's exactly how that would have played out," he said. "Bobby and I dig in on the far wall while the medic works on delivering the baby. Mortars and RPGs start crashing down on the convoy and they make a decision to leave one vehicle to bring us out after we're finished. The Taliban fall into the void that's left once the vehicles move on. They fan out through the town, target on the lone vehicle and RPG the shit out of it. They pour into the hut where we're waiting. We take out a few of them at the door, but there's too many. They get inside and kill Bobby and me. Then they turn the guns on you and the medic. The woman's husband begs for them not to kill him and his wife. They see that she's asked us for help to deliver her baby and pump an entire magazine into her and the guy who's thrown himself on top of her."
He leaned back against the metal wall, his body swaying with the movement of the vehicle. "And that's how it goes if we stay and help deliver her baby."
Russell swallowed hard and stared at the soldier. The young man's eyes had lost their intensity and he looked relaxed sitting with his M-4 across his chest, his forearms resting on the stock and barrel. Russell knew he was right. They had gone with the only decision that made sense. If they had stayed to help, chances were that everyone would have died.
He closed his eyes and pushed his head back against the pulsating armor. How had this happened? How had Afghanistan slid into such a horrible state of despair? People living without the most basic services. Women and children dying in childbirth because there were no doctors or clinics. No medicine. No diagnostic machinery. No electricity to run it even if they had the tools. How could this be happening in 2010?
He wanted to fix it, but knew he couldn't. To stop the insanity and give these people what everyone deserves. Peace. A life with purpose and promise. Security. Simple things that most of the world takes for granted. It wasn't going to happen today, or tomorrow. The worst-case scenario. Maybe never.
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Chapter
42
Soho, New York
There was no fut
ure for him at Platinus Investments. Regardless of what came out of the two sets of e-mails he had found on Fleming's computer, Carson didn't trust the man and had no desire to work for him. There were plenty of firms that would take him on.
He sat in his favorite chair, Jorge Amistav's e-mails on his lap, listening to a CD with trickling water and soft music. Nicki was sleeping soundly in their bedroom, even snoring occasionally. She seldom managed a decent sleep for any length of time and was always tired. It was early for her to be turned in, but anytime she could sleep was good.
He checked his watch. It was a bit after eight on Tuesday evening. Certainly not too late to call someone in Washington DC. He slipped his Blackberry out and scrolled through until he found the name he wanted. He hit the send button and the wireless device dialed the number. A man's voice answered. Businesslike.
"Terry, it's Carson Grant in New York."
"Hey, Carson, how are things?" The voice changed immediately, taking on a friendly tone.
Terry Palmer was an old high school friend who had joined the military after graduation. He had done a couple of tours in Iraq before moving into procurement. If anyone understood how the military moved its weapons and men, it would be Terry. He had left the military and was in DC working as a lobbyist, but the knowledge of how things worked would still be tucked away.
"Things are okay here," Carson lied. "Nicki's doing pretty well and I'm crawling my way up the ladder on Wall Street. How are things in DC?"
"Okay, but not great. I feel like a used car salesman selling a lemon to a blind man."
Carson chuckled at the thought of Terry's commitment, or lack or it, to his new position as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. "It's much the same here. Wall Street has its moments."