by Tim Tigner
“I have an idea. But I think it would be helpful if you reached the same conclusion independently. Now that you know what I do.”
Achilles saw the wisdom in that, and began thinking out loud. “Beginning with the end in mind, we have two approaches. We could either go to Russia posing as Glick, or we could lure Korovin to Switzerland. Of the two, luring Korovin here for the kill is preferable, because that gets him out of his castle.”
“Agreed.”
“To lure Korovin here, we’ve got weekly letters, back and forth, eyes-only between Korovin and the Swiss banker managing his stolen billions.”
“Right.”
“And of course we’ve got Glick’s location and identity. What else do we know?” Achilles chewed on that for a few seconds. “We know that Korovin goes to great lengths to keep Glick’s identity secret. He does this to hide his stolen treasure, thus protecting it and his position.”
“Exactly.”
“So Korovin and Glick never speak. And they never meet. Because Korovin doesn’t trust telephones, and his movements are tracked.”
“Except when he slips away,” Max corrected. “As your boys discovered.”
“Right. Except when he slips away. And what would make him want to slip away to visit Glick? Some kind of banking emergency? A huge and unexpected loss of portfolio value, I assume.”
“That was my conclusion.”
Achilles pondered the plan for a few seconds. “I’m not sure that will be provocative enough. If it’s too big, he’ll assume it’s a typo. Five billion instead of fifty. If it’s too small, we can’t be certain that he’ll immediately hop on a plane.”
Max canted his head. “You have something else in mind? Something more provocative?”
Achilles looked back toward the Swiss mansion. “I’m thinking Korovin is about to acquire a major stake in Vulcan Fisher.”
Chapter 78
Winsome Whisper
Seattle, Washington
WANG PAUSED before climbing aboard the first of three yachts. This was a big step in his career and his life. A turning point. A beginning and an end.
The yacht broker watched him, sensing Wang’s excitement and apprehension, but assuming an altogether different causation. “Take your time exploring. I’ll wait here in case you have any questions.”
“Any chance I could borrow your phone to call my wife. She needs to be in on the decision.”
“By all means. By all means.” The salesman couldn’t wait to hand over his phone.
“She’s in China,” Wang added. “But I’ll pay for the call.”
Bobby waived his hand. “Forget about it. It’s important to me that she be happy with your selection.”
Wang had to give the guy credit for not flinching. He accepted the Samsung and leapt from the dock. The craft he landed on was a schooner built in 2008. Yacht was a generous term for the sailboats he was inspecting. Although the three under Wang’s consideration were fifty feet long on average, all were well-used and far from flashy. Still, they had everything one needed to live. Any of them would make a fine hideout, and each could be sailed on the open ocean by just one man.
He’d been expecting the schooner to rock when he hopped aboard, but it didn’t. Perhaps that was the result of the 3,000-pound keel the broker raved about. Wang ducked into the cabin and dialed China.
“Wei.” Qi’s voice was groggy.
“How are the girls?”
“They’re sleeping. As was I.”
“School going okay?” Wang asked, dismissing the first yacht at first glance. Just not his style. Too cramped and gloomy. It felt more like a prison than a getaway.
“Same as always,” Qi mumbled. “Why are you calling?”
“I’ve got news.”
He decided to leave her hanging for a few seconds, hoping that would recalibrate her attitude.
The second boat was a fifty footer made in France, a Beneteau Oceanis named the Winsome Whisper. Although older, it was more modern inside, and looked easier to handle. Three suitable staterooms, and a big common area. He even liked the name. That was important. Changing a boat’s name was bad luck.
“Tell me,” Qi said, her tone much more attentive.
“I found out who’s funding my side project. It’s the Russians.”
“The Russians,” she repeated. “That’s good, right? They’ve got money. Are you sure it’s them?”
“I’m sure. They reassigned the slick Brit and now I’m working with a couple of obvious Natashas.”
“How much do you think we can get?” Qi asked, most definitely awake now.
It was only we when it came to money, Wang noted. All other topics were either I or you. But he didn’t let the observation get him down. He was about to beat the Russians at their own game, and make a mint in the process.
His people told him that the circuit boards they’d been ordered to produce were most likely a manual override. They speculated that engineers had taken some Vulcan Fisher system and figured out how to hijack it. Well, now Wang was going to do the same. He was having his engineers add an override to the Russian system. Nothing nearly as sophisticated as theirs. Nothing either of the Natashas would notice. Just a simple circuit breaker with a 256-bit encryption code. A code that would lock the Russians out of their own devices.
Wang’s favorite pastime of late was speculating how much the Russians would pay him for that code, once the units were installed and they were at his mercy. That was his wife’s favorite question of late as well. Besides their two daughters, a shared dream of that payday was the only thing he and Qi still had in common.
He took a deep breath, and answered his wife’s question, knowing that the conversation would quickly turn unpleasant. “How much they’ll pay depends on what the system does. If the Russians are plotting to gain control of fifty military satellites, the value might be billions. If it’s drones, that might be worth a few hundred million.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but it might be something far less exciting. In fact it probably is. If it were big, they wouldn’t be leaving it in the hands of girls.”
“Can you find out?”
“I’m thinking it doesn’t matter.”
“You’re talking in circles,” Qi said, using an exasperated tone he heard far too often.
Wang wasn’t surprised by the criticism. His mind had been spinning for days.
He’d been toying with the idea of pulling a double-cross and disappearing ever since securing the extra $1.5 million for the hacking job. The windfall had stoked his imagination and whet his appetite. Then the Russians had replaced Max with amateurs and made his decision a no-brainer. He’d even made preliminary arrangements to get Qi and the girls out of China, although they didn’t know that yet.
The tricky part of this stage of his plan was figuring out how much he could extort. The wise part would be tamping that number down to what he could get away with.
Bracing himself for the backlash he knew would come, Wang said, “I plan to ask for twenty million, regardless. No more, no less.”
“What! If you can get a billion, you ask for a billion. Even your dumb uncle knows that much. Just imagine how we could live as billionaires!”
“The trick isn’t just getting the money. It’s living to spend it.”
Qi took her time responding, and when she did, her voice was clipped. “Why only twenty?”
“It’s not only twenty. It’s twenty million dollars. Say that, Qi. Twenty million American dollars.”
“I’d rather say one billion.”
Wang looked out over the dark water of Puget Sound and took another deep breath. “Twenty million is my Goldilocks number.”
“Your Goldilocks number? Are you telling me you’ve met someone?”
Oh, that it were so, Wang thought. “It’s a reference to the fairytale. Twenty million is just the right size. It’s big enough for us to live like royalty for the rest of our lives, yet hopefully small enough in context th
at the Russians won’t think twice before paying it. Twenty million feels just right.”
“What if it’s not a big project?”
That was Wang’s worry. “Then we forget about the extortion. If the project is not worth twenty million dollars, then crossing the Russians won’t be worth the risk. They don’t mess around.”
He knew Qi wouldn’t give up that easily. He could picture her standing with hands on hips and a steely stare on her scowling face. She said, “Do you want to hear my Goldilocks number?”
Wang wasn’t about to start that negotiation, so he changed the subject. “Did I tell you where I am?”
By the time Wang hung up with his wife, he was sold on the Winsome Whisper. He really liked the French style. He’d look at the third boat, the 52-foot ketch, but only to keep from tipping his hand in the subsequent negotiation. The Beneteau was the boat for him. All that remained was a bit of haggling.
And of course, the operation that let him afford it.
The way he figured it, as long as his demand was financially inconsequential, and he could remain hidden from the moment he made it until the Russians paid, he was golden for the rest of his life.
Thus the boat.
He’d anchor it somewhere off the beaten track in Puget Sound, and he wouldn’t come up on deck until he saw his bank balance rise. Then he’d send them the activation code and turn the bow toward Mexico.
If the project was big enough.
But he couldn’t wait to buy the boat until he was certain of the project’s size. He had too much to prepare. The time had come to roll the dice and take a leap of faith that the project’s size meant the Russians wouldn’t think twice about an extra twenty million.
He rejoined Bobby on the dock. “Thanks for the phone. Pending a satisfactory technical inspection, I’ll pay one-eighty for the Winsome Whisper. Today. In cash.”
Chapter 79
The Lion’s Roar
Zurich, Switzerland
THE SWISS, like the Germans, are a people in love with rules. Not legalities — the technicalities that American tort and defense attorneys are so fond of — but rather codes of conduct. Civility permeates the Swiss psyche, and so order pervades Switzerland. Swiss streets are immaculate not because they have more people cleaning them, but because nobody litters. That wouldn’t be proper.
Today Achilles and Max were going to take advantage of their orderly nature. And they were doing it in a flatbed delivery truck. As the German speaker, Max was driving.
“Can I help you?” Glick’s gate guard asked, setting aside his morning coffee.
“We’re here to deliver the replacement lions.”
“What? Lions? You have the wrong address.”
“Marble lions,” Max clarified. “We’re with Evergreen Gardens. During the last service, we had a mishap with a shovel. Knocked the paw off one of the sculptures you have guarding the front door.”
In fact, Achilles had shot the paw off two days prior while the gardeners were working on the other side of the estate. He’d been up in the same oak they’d used for their initial reconnaissance, some two hundred yards away, using a Remington 700 with a Kestrel 308 Suppressor.
“Oh yes,” The guard said, frowning. “I saw the result. You brought a new one?”
“We brought two. So they’d match.”
The guard came out of his booth to inspect the back of their vehicle, which looked like a tow truck but with a crane. Roped in beside the crane, the guard saw twin Carrara marble lions looking back at him, their paws raised in a gesture similar to the regal emblem on his gate. The Saussure Group’s emblem. “Your truck doesn’t have the Evergreen Gardens logo.”
The guard was no slouch, Achilles realized. What else would he notice?
Max didn’t blink “It’s a rental. We don’t usually need a crane, but those statues weigh two hundred forty kilos each.”
The guard stepped back for a second, admiring look. “They’re beautiful. How long will this take?”
“Less than two hours.”
The guard nodded. Long enough to do a proper job, but not enough to dawdle. “Be sure it does. I expect Mr. Glick back at 10:00 a.m. As you know, he prefers his help to remain as invisible as garden elves.” The guard made a note in his log, pressed a button, and the big wrought-iron double-gate swung wide.
Glick’s neoclassical estate had a circular drive surrounding a water feature that had more in common with Trevi Fountain than with Achilles’ modest lawn fixture. Achilles voiced his admiration. “This has to be the nicest private residence I’ve ever visited.”
Max backed the truck up toward the front door. “You should see Korovin’s Black Sea estate. It looks like the Palace of Versailles, although it probably has one more of everything, just for the record.”
The lions on the flat bed behind them were the real deal, and the guard’s appraisal had been spot on. They were stunning. Drilling holes in them had taken six hours. The Italian craftsman had grimaced throughout the delicate process. But in the end, each lion had a bore hole ten centimeters wide and a meter deep rising up within its base. Enough to pack over 7,500 cubic centimeters of ANFO explosive, and Tovex boosters.
They had used ammonium nitrate fuel oil rather than military explosive because mining explosive was far less regulated and much more widely available. This made it infinitely easier to obtain, something they did from a hungry quarryman.
ANFO had the added advantage of being made of the same core ingredients as fertilizer, so the dogs wouldn’t go wild when sniffing it in the garden. Although Achilles didn’t expect them to detect it sealed under all that marble.
The plan was to detonate the two lions as Korovin passed between them on his way to the front door. There was no type of armor or contingent of bodyguards that could save him from a blast of that magnitude. The quantity of ANFO packed into the lions would level the entire front half of Glick’s estate. Crushed between competing shockwaves like a bug between colliding bowling balls, the president of Russia would simply vanish.
Chapter 80
Best Laid Plans
Zurich, Switzerland
ACHILLES AND MAX had been working around the clock since the first draft of their plan came together during Glick’s morning swim. Max had focused on luring Korovin to Zurich, while Achilles prepared to kill him once he got there. Now that they were back together for the explosive-lion installation, they finally had the opportunity to catch up.
Or so they’d thought. Manhandling the heavy beasts ended up demanding much more focus than either spy had anticipated.
“How’d the letter swap go?” Achilles asked, once they’d finally lowered the second lion into place.
Max wiped the sweat from his regal brow with a crisp white handkerchief. “It was easier than it should have been. I knew which mail slot it would be in, from the last time I picked it up. And of course my face was familiar to both personnel and guards. But borrowing the envelope for the switcheroo was so easy it was anticlimactic. Wait till you see the video.”
Back in the Seattle hotel room, Achilles had insisted on a couple of safeguards before agreeing to go with Max’s proposal. The first was that Max and Zoya would not be allowed to communicate during the mission. He reasoned that if they couldn’t talk, they couldn’t plot subterfuge. The second safeguard was that whenever he and Max were separated, Max would wear a button camera that Achilles could either watch live or from a cloud recording. Neither precaution was foolproof, but they weren’t flimsy either.
“How’d you make the new letter look like the old?”
Max went to work with a whisk broom, cleaning up around the base of his lion. “The letter itself was nothing special. Laser printing on plain white paper. Completely anonymous. Adding 4.9 percent of Vulcan Fisher stock to Korovin’s portfolio was as simple as replicating his letter with 4.9PPVCFR added to the buy column. Then all I had to do was seal it up in a fresh diplomatic envelope labeled with Glick’s delivery code, and return it to the proper m
ail slot for my friend to deliver.”
Achilles detected no signs of deception, nor could he think of a reason for Max to lie, but he would still scrutinize the video. Trust but verify.
“You get the passports?” Achilles wanted fresh false identities for their upcoming trip to Moscow. Max said he knew a guy in that department, and he had taken their passport photos with him to the embassy.
“We’re all set.”
Achilles checked his watch. Quarter to ten. The installation had taken longer than he’d planned. “We need to get moving. I don’t want the guard coming around. Make sure the wires are well hidden.”
They’d identified two weaknesses to the exploding lions plan. The first involved the mechanics of the detonation. Remote detonation required them to leave a signal receiver outside the lions. It was small enough to hide in a nearby bush, but it had to be hard-wired.
The wire was tiny, but scrutiny on the Glick estate was high. Rather than leaving the connecting wire exposed during the week it would take for Korovin to learn of his Vulcan Fisher ownership, they decided to come back later with the signal receiver and hard wire the connections. Meanwhile they’d tuck the wires out of sight in the tiny gaps between the statues’ edges and the stone walkway.
The second weakness was the need to identify Korovin quickly. They’d likely only have a couple of seconds. Just the brief period of time during which he’d be walking from his car to the front door. Given the secrecy with which Korovin would treat this trip, they expected him to show up in an unmarked car, perhaps even wearing a disguise. He might well be surrounded by bodyguards, or using an umbrella. In any case, they didn’t want to get it wrong. So when they returned to connect the signal receiver, they’d plant video cameras as well.
“I’m thinking the spiraled hedges look good for the cameras,” Achilles said, as they tidied up. “They’ll give us both left and right angles. I’ll take pictures to help us prep.”