Ghosts of War

by Brad Taylor

  Simon glanced again to the rear, where the security men were, and said, “Careful what you seek, Viktor. I have seen what catching the tiger brings.”

  Viktor slapped his leg and said, “Nobody cares about your prison time. That was the old days. When the oligarchs ruled Russia. This is a new age, where we rule. Gazprom is the single biggest weapon Russia has. We execute using our power. Our power. Not Russia’s.”

  Simon was amazed that Viktor actually thought his position brought him leverage. But, then again, he’d been burned once by the same hubris.

  Viktor unbuckled his seat belt, and the three nameless aides to his left did the same. Simon sat for a moment, reflecting, letting them exit first.

  In his youth, he’d worked as a dealer in an unauthorized poker den, carving a living out of the concrete and steel of a new Moscow and hiding his Jewish past. The men in the games would just as soon cut your throat as look at you, and he’d learned something significant from the manager who’d allowed him to deal the cards: If you couldn’t recognize the sucker at the table, more than likely it was you.

  He exited the aircraft behind Viktor’s entourage and in front of the security men, taking a seat in a Mercedes limo next to a guy with a bulging neck wearing a suit that didn’t quite fit.

  After a short drive, they pulled into the courtyard they’d flown over and entered the fantasyland that was modern Russia—if one were in a position to appreciate it. They walked through two gigantic wooden doors into an atrium that looked like a caricature of opulence, something from a Hollywood movie set, as if someone were trying too hard to show off their wealth. The only thing missing was a naked woman and a midget giraffe from a vodka commercial.

  They climbed a granite stairwell wide enough for two cars to drive up abreast, the clack of their heels the only noise bouncing in the hall. Simon’s trepidation increased with each step.

  They reached the top and entered a hall with a dining table the size of the landing deck of an aircraft carrier, the far end set for six.

  The security men motioned for them to sit, then retreated to the walls behind them. They did so, staring uncomfortably, no words spoken.

  After a brief interlude, another entourage entered, four men striding as if they were late for a meeting, breaking the plane of the room with a purpose. Behind them was the man. The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

  It was only the second time Simon had met him, and the first hadn’t ended very well.

  5

  At Putin’s entrance, the only thought that stabbed through Simon’s brain was, This is it. I’m dead. He had no reason to think that, other than the memories of a year in a Moscow prison at the whims of a man who did whatever he wanted with the lives under his control. But it was enough.

  While Simon and the others from the helicopter tried to compete for who could jump to attention the fastest, the men of the president’s party stopped at an unoccupied chair like a rehearsed parade, the president at the head of the table. He took a slow look around the room, then said, “Thank you for coming here with such little notice.”

  Viktor said, “By all means, Mr. President. We serve at your pleasure.”

  Viktor glanced at Simon with a smile on his face. Simon wanted to smash it off. He now understood who the sucker was at this meeting, but he had no idea why he’d been chosen. He’d learned his lesson. Learned not to cross the path of the Russian government. Or he thought he had.

  What had he done? He had several operations in play that could have drawn unwanted attention, but each would have taken no more than a whispered word and he would have quit. Stopped completely. What had he done to draw the ire of the president of Russia?

  The president said, “I’m glad you feel that way. Tonight, we will do a lesson in trust. Something I have found valuable. A way to learn that no matter what we do individually, we do so as part of a greater system. Yes?”

  Simon nodded weakly. Viktor said, “Yes, yes. By all means.”

  Putin said, “But first, a toast.”

  As if by magic, a man appeared with a bottle of vodka, poured a shot for each man, then set the bottle on the table.

  Putin raised his glass and said, “We live in a complicated world, do we not? And yet sometimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be. A bear in the woods does not hesitate, searching for a decision. He either attacks or runs. Simple. So let us become like the bear. To simplicity in all things.”

  Simon raised his glass and said, “To simplicity,” then downed the vodka in one gulp, wondering what hidden meaning was within the toast. No sooner had he set his glass on the table than the waiter began filling it again. A Russian tradition.

  When the waiter had completed his rounds, Putin raised his glass again and said, “But the bear fights alone, and we do not. The wolf is a better analogy. When they attack, they do so because they can trust the member to their left and right. Trust that they will do what is right for the pack. We do the same, do we not?” He glanced around the room and said, “To trust.”

  They downed their second glass and the security men came forward, each carrying plastic zip ties.

  Putin said, “Trust is the cornerstone of our existence. Without it, Russia would have been lost long ago. I need you to trust in this test.”

  The security men began cinching Simon’s wrists to the wooden arms of the ornate dinner chair. Simon offered no resistance, noticing they took care to place the ties over the cuffs of his jacket. When they were done, the security men stepped back again. Simon saw that everyone from the helicopter was cinched like him.

  President Putin spoke again. “I trust you men to work for the interests of the Russian Federation. I give you that trust.”

  Simon felt sweat gather underneath his arms. He glanced at Viktor and saw the man grinning stupidly.

  Putin continued. “I see that Ukraine has stated that they will no longer buy natural gas from Gazprom. That unless we lower our prices, they will turn to the European Union for their energy needs. And now Lithuania and Estonia are rumbling the same way.”

  Viktor flexed his hands and said, “Sir, they always say that. They have no choice but to use us. Nobody in the EU can compete with us.”

  “They had no choice before, but they have been diligently working on a gas line. Something you failed to stop. Something I trusted you to stop. Even Belarus is talking to the West now.”

  For the first time, Simon saw Viktor react, realizing he had skin in the game. He said, “Sir, yes, they are trying to wean themselves, but they cannot. We own all their energy needs. If we were to turn off the gas, they would freeze. Belarus would go bankrupt without our help, and they know it.” He glanced around the room for support, finding none. His voice cracking, he said, “Sir, we rule them with Gazprom. We rule them. . . .”

  The president walked around the table, tapping the wood and saying, “Yes. Today, that is true. But tomorrow is a different story. Because of you. Isn’t that correct, Simon?”

  Simon jerked upright at his name, unsure of what to say. His role in Gazprom ended at feeding the organized crime beast. He had no control over who or what did anything on the world energy markets. But he also knew his life hung in the balance.

  He said, “Sir . . . perhaps you are correct.”

  Viktor’s eyes flew open, looking at Simon in shock. And Simon saw the cards in his hand for the first time, realizing he was not the sucker in the room.

  Putin said, “I know I am.”

  The security men sprang forward, slapping a swath of clear plastic cling-wrap over the face of each Gazprom executive and pulling their heads backward, the plastic covering the mouths and noses of the men. Everyone except Simon. They wrapped the heads until each man was shrouded like a modern-day mummy.

  Simon sat still, watching the men writhe and fight, their hands locked to the chairs. Putin said, “It’s a shame, really. So
many Gazprom men having a heart attack at the same time. Or perhaps it will be a leak of carbon monoxide in a hotel. Either way, there will be repercussions. Investigations of Gazprom chemical uses.”

  And Simon realized why they’d used the flex cuffs over the suit sleeves. No bruising.

  Simon sat in a surreal silence, surrounded by the opulence of gold and granite, watching the men to his left and right die horribly, while the president of Russia clinically studied the suffocation. Eventually, the men ceased moving. At a simple flick of Putin’s wrist, the security men began dragging them away. His hands still locked to his chair, Simon waited.

  Putin said, “Simplicity, as I said before. Firing them or arresting them on charges would have left them licking their wounds, looking to return the favor in the future. Do you agree?”

  Simon caught the trap before he spoke. If he said yes, he was agreeing to his own death because he had been spared once before. If he said no, he was doing the same thing.

  Putin didn’t wait for an answer. He asked, “Do you believe in Russia?”

  “Of course I do. I have proven that over and over again.”

  “I know. You have been placed in prison for crossing me. Incorrectly, as it turned out. I regret that. Do you harbor any ill will because of it?”

  Simon had no illusions of what had happened to him. He had been doing the bidding of the state, and when his actions had been deemed a risk—because of the man in front of him—he had been hammered. The Russian system wasn’t built on guilt or innocence, but on who was more powerful. But he was not stupid enough to say that now, with his hands locked to a chair and four of the most powerful people in Russia now dead.

  He said, “Of course not, sir. On the contrary, I appreciate the state realizing I was innocent.”

  Putin picked up a butter knife from the table and played with it, saying, “You know it was I who released you.”

  “Yes. Of course I do.”

  Putin pointed the knife at the retreating corpses and said, “You understand why I did that? Understand the threat they represented?”

  Unsure of what to say, Simon retreated. “If you thought it was necessary, I’m sure it was.”

  Putin said, “I mentioned the wolf because I respect its dedication. Respect its loyalty to the pack. Do you?”

  Sweat building, Simon, unsure of what turn the conversation had taken, said, “Yes. Of course.”

  “Do you know the Night Wolves?”

  The biker gang? What do they have to do with anything? He didn’t voice that, instead simply saying, “Yes, I do. I have business with them on a frequent basis. They are what is pure with our own society.”

  Putin said, “We live in dangerous times. NATO is encroaching on our terrain every day. They cause one after the other of our former allies to join them. They fight us in Syria and prepare secretly for the demise of the Russian Federation here in Europe. You heard me mention Belarus. Have you any contacts there?”

  Simon fought to keep up with the turns of the conversation. “Yes. Naturally, I have some elements there, but not in the government.”

  Putin smiled and said, “The government is precisely my concern. The people of Belarus are a part of Russia, and yet the government continually makes overtures to the West. The Baltic states are letting NATO put military capability on our doorstep, and Belarus prevents us from building our own bases, despite the wishes of the people. The people are Russian. A part of mother Russia just like Crimea, yet the government of Belarus denounced our intervention into that area. They are vacillating cowards.”

  Simon was growing more and more confused by the discussion. He had nothing at all to do with the geopolitics of the Russian Federation. He knew, of course, of the discussions of a union between Belarus and Russia—an ongoing struggle to join the two entities into one that had been executed in fits and starts since the demise of the old Soviet Union—but he certainly didn’t understand the intricacies.

  Putin leaned across the table, and Simon felt the full force of his commitment. “I cannot let Belarus fall into the hands of the West. They agree to treaties with us, then break them. Agree to cooperative engagement with an outstretched hand, then clench the hand into a fist, spurning us. We can no longer wait for their government to do what is right. Now is the time to strike. NATO and the United States are stretched thin by Syria and the rest of the Middle East. China is testing them in the Pacific, and ISIS threatens them at home. They have no tolerance for further foreign entanglements, especially with a country such as Belarus. In Ukraine, I saw what they would do given the chance, and the answer is, very little. Like in Crimea, the people of Belarus will welcome us. All I need is a reason to go in.”

  Simon nodded, finally realizing where the conversation was headed.

  Putin said, “You, dear Simon, will give me that reason. Just as you did once before.”

  6

  Jennifer came back to the table carrying a couple of rum and Cokes and a bottle of Corona. She handed the beer to Knuckles and gave me a plastic Solo cup, saying, “Great choice. Nothing like getting fired in a dive bar.”

  Jennifer and I had come up to DC from Charleston because of a strange request from a couple of Israelis we knew. Although saying it was a “strange” request was redundant. Like saying, “Come to a complete stop,” because every damn request from those two was strange.

  Of course, I couldn’t come to the nation’s capital without grabbing a beer with Knuckles. That would have been sacrilegious.

  Kurt Hale had heard Jennifer and I were in town and had asked for a meeting, and I knew it was because of the current hand-wringing about the Taskforce. Usually, we ended up in a coffeehouse somewhere in DC, but this was a special situation. And with it came a special destination. A place called the Rhino Bar on the main drag of M Street in Georgetown. A wing bar with chipped tables, rickety metal stools, and rowdy patrons.

  My kind of place, but this time I could blame Knuckles. He’d picked it.

  He said, “What’s wrong with this establishment? It’s in the heart of Georgetown. There are rich folk all over the place. It’s not like I took you to the slums.”

  Jennifer held up her plastic cup and said, “A, they can’t afford real glassware. B, the floor sticks to my shoes when I walk. C, they don’t even have Bacardi. It’s some rotgut rum.”

  I said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and anyway, we didn’t have a choice. Aaron doesn’t want to cross Rock Creek. According to him, it’s some sort of no-man’s-land border and he’s forbidden from entering DC proper. Here, apparently, is okay.”

  “This is still DC. Didn’t you tell him that?”

  I took a sip and said, “Of course I did. Well, I told Shoshana, but there’s no reasoning with her. To them, this is not Washington, DC. Maybe someone should email the Mossad a link to Google Maps.”

  Aaron and Shoshana were operatives formerly employed by a Mossad project called Samson, something they referred to as a “special operations team,” but it bore little resemblance to what we Americans called SOF, because its entire range of operations encompassed killing someone. Put bluntly, they were a hit team. Born out of the heritage of the Israeli Wrath of God operations in the ’70s, they’d run around the world smoking anyone who was trying to harm Israeli interests.

  They’d left the services of the Mossad a couple of years ago and set up their own private intelligence business. A cutout, really, because in truth most of their money came straight from a black budget in the Knesset for operations that were deemed too sensitive even for the Mossad. Not unlike the company Jennifer and I ran, only our money was from a different black budget.

  We’d first crossed paths on an operation in Istanbul a few years ago, when I’d tried to kill Shoshana. Later, in Amman, Jordan, on a different mission, she’d tried to return the favor. Since then, we’d become fast friends and had quasi-sort-of started work
ing together, on occasion. In this case, Aaron had contacted me out of the blue saying he might have a “business proposition,” and requested a meeting “in Washington, DC, but out of the capital.”

  Since we were doing nothing with the stand-down of the Taskforce, and it gave me a chance to drink a beer with Knuckles, I’d agreed. There was no telling what the meeting would be about, but we could always just say no. Kurt’s request, on the other hand, was a complete blank, but it would be good to see him as well.

  Jennifer said, “So, Knuckles, why does Kurt want to see us? We haven’t been operational since we got back from Norway. Is there finally movement with the Oversight Council?”

  Currently checking out the co-eds walking down M Street, Knuckles didn’t hear the question. Jennifer followed his gaze and rolled her eyes. “So the choice of bars becomes painfully clear.”

  Knuckles was a fashion-plate, long-haired, male-model-looking guy with a hippie vibe that women found irresistible. For some reason, they always looked at me as a Neanderthal, failing to see that, as a Navy SEAL, he was exactly the same.

  Jennifer said, “Knuckles? Hello?”

  He whipped his head back, a little embarrassed, and said, “What?”

  “I said I can see why you picked this place. Would you like a napkin for the drool? Why don’t you just go out on the sidewalk and say hello instead of playing peeping tom? We’ll wait.”

  Jennifer, on the other hand, had always seen right through him. Just like she had with me, when she recognized that, past my craggy exterior, I was all warm and fuzzy inside, which is why we were together.

  Okay, that’s not exactly true. I don’t have a craggy exterior.