by Dave Edlund
“Needless to say, the U.N. Security Council and secretary general were not supportive of Russia carrying out military operations in the territorial waters and on the sovereign soil of another nation. To say the least, it made everyone rather nervous. So when we explained the situation to President Pushkin and Prime Minister Petrovsky, they naturally chose the wise path of diplomacy over confrontation. You could learn a lot from Pushkin, you know. He’s quite the politician and statesman.”
The phone line was silent. Bryan was certain he heard a heavy sigh.
Bryan let the silence last a moment or two before speaking again. “It’s really up to you, Mr. Maldonado. You have a choice to make right now. We do not seek war with your country. We deliberately restrained our actions tonight, and President Taylor was very specific to the Joint Chiefs to limit the rules of engagement to exclude civilian assets. If you make the wrong choice, that too may change.”
“What do you want?” It was all the foreign minister could muster.
“We stand by our earlier demands. The government of Venezuela must immediately cease all support, direct and indirect, of terrorism—that includes both terrorist groups and acts of terrorism. And your government must pay compensation to the families of those you have murdered through these acts. The amount of the settlement will be determined by the International Court. You will not appeal their decision or attempt to delay the process, and you will make payment promptly.”
“But that could cost us tens of millions of dollars!”
“Mr. Maldonado, by my estimate, you lost something in the neighborhood of 400 million dollars’ worth of military assets tonight. I’d say your compensatory payments, whatever number the court decides, are a bargain compared to the future cost to your country if you fail to make the right choice, right now.”
Again the phone line was silent. The foreign secretary was thinking through his options. He had expected to play the indignant, persecuted small nation, being taken advantage of by their powerful neighbor to the north. Never had he imagined that the careful plans and secrecy shrouding their operation would be so fully compromised.
“President Taylor is also offering an olive branch. He will restore full diplomatic relations in addition to a generous aid package.”
“And what if my country says no to your demands?”
“That would be the wrong answer. My country has already secured international support to vanquish the Garza government if our demands are not met within twelve hours. You saw what happened in Iraq. In comparison, defeating your government will be a cake walk. I hope we understand each other, Mr. Foreign Minister.”
“Perfectly.” Maldonado’s voice was dripping with acid.
“Excellent!” Bryan’s polite charm only served to further aggravate Maldonado.
“I will have to confer with President Garza. You have not given us much time to make a decision.”
“On the contrary, President Taylor could have used the full backing of the United Nations to invade your country tonight. I would wager that if he had, President Garza would already be out of a job… and quite possibly dead. Perhaps you too might not have survived the night. So, I’d say that President Taylor has been extraordinarily generous. You have twelve hours. Please, use that time wisely. Oh, and one more thing—”
“And that would be?”
“Please be sure that President Garza understands that this choice is simple. There really is only one correct answer.”
Chapter 37
October 17
Moscow, Russian Federation
“All is well, Grigory.” As powerful as Grigory was, he always felt an uncontrollable needle of fear begin to prick his neck when Vladimir Pushkin called unexpectedly. He preferred such communication to be well planned in advance; he could not ensure he would be fully prepared when the conversation was not anticipated.
Grigory was at a loss for words. Had the president just asked a question? No, it was more of a statement. Still, he had to be cautious in his reply.
“Sir?” he replied. Grigory needed to listen carefully, since he still had no idea what the purpose of the call might be—only that it must be important. The call had come in on his private, secure mobile phone.
“Relax, Grigory.” Pushkin laughed lightly. He knew the extent of his power, and he enjoyed the fear he sensed in Grigory Rostov’s voice. He imagined the minute drops of perspiration beginning to form on the man’s forehead.
“I am simply calling to tell you that the Americans have taken the bait.”
Rostov was confused. “I am not sure I understand.”
Pushkin laughed again; this time it was a deep laugh. Grigory thought he might be drunk.
“Of course not. I do not share all my plans with you, surely you know this.” Another laugh, and Grigory was certain he heard the sound of ice cubes clanging against a glass. There was a pause, and he imagined Pushkin was swallowing his iced vodka.
“No, I share with you only what you need to know.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I have new instructions for you, my friend. You are to suspend your operations for a while. I will let you know when they can resume. But for now, do nothing unless I tell you to.”
“May I ask what has changed? We are very close to achieving the primary objective. I have our best operative positioned and ready to strike.”
“Your best operative,” Pushkin’s voice no longer was light and cheery; it had taken on a hard edge. “I presume you mean Ramirez?”
It was completely unprecedented to use direct names and Grigory was stunned into silence. If somehow this call was being intercepted, Pushkin had just shared fundamental intelligence that could be extremely harmful to the mission.
“The Venezuelans have just provided their last useful action to our mission. They are no longer our partner; really, they never were. I just allowed you to use them. And now they have outlived their usefulness.”
Rostov could not believe what he was hearing. To mention Venezuela was completely contrary to all established secure communication protocols.
“Sir, I respectfully remind you that we must follow proper communications—”
Pushkin cut him off. “Don’t you dare lecture me! If you hadn’t botched the strike in the Aleutians, I would not have been forced to deal with this situation!”
Grigory heard the tinkle of ice again as Pushkin paused. He missed the soft ding signaling the listener that encrypting was being switched on or off—it was only a brief sound obscured by the jingle of ice cubes swirled in a tumbler.
“Sir, as you know, no field operation can be absolutely certain. We implemented contingency plans, and those plans worked. The strike team was not captured alive. And they had nothing on their persons to identify them. We can still eliminate the target.”
“You have become arrogant and overly confident. You failed to plan adequately, and you abused my trust. Yes, the strike team was terminated, but the spetsnaz soldiers were captured, very much alive.”
“What? How could—”
Pushkin again cut off Rostov.
“The Americans have them, both of them. I had a most uncomfortable phone call with President Taylor. It turns out that the Americans were watching almost every step of your failed operation. They threatened to go public with their information.”
Grigory was swimming in confusion. His brain was working overtime to try to understand what he was hearing.
“But they didn’t take the information public,” he replied. “So they don’t know everything about the operation, only the strike on Chernabura Island.”
“Yes, but do not take pride in that minor stroke of luck. I should have you arrested for jeopardizing the state. Perhaps you should stick to your corporate affairs—maybe you can do a better job running your company. After all, it is your namesake.”
The pricks of fear on Rostov’s neck had become a full-fledged clawing. His breathing became rapid and shallow, and he was drenched in perspiration despite the cool temperature
of his office.
Pushkin laughed again, then resumed his conversation. “Do not fear, my friend. I will not have you arrested… not yet.”
Grigory swallowed deeply. His mouth was very dry and he thought he was in danger of losing his voice. “What can I do, sir?”
Pushkin swirled his glass of vodka again, causing the ice to clang noisily against the tumbler. At the same time he switched the encrypting device back on.
“Exactly as I said—nothing for now. I have salvaged your mission by convincing the Americans that it was the Garza regime that was behind the attack on their soil. I pledged not to bring Russia into the conflict should Venezuela ask for military assistance. By now I believe President Taylor has suitably chastised Garza. You are to cease operations until I tell you otherwise. That should provide convincing evidence that they have succeeded. Have I made myself clear, or should I have the state police pay you a visit?”
“I understand fully and, naturally, will comply completely.”
“After a bit of time has passed, you can turn your operatives loose and resume the mission. By then, the Oregon professor and his Japanese colleague should be living normal lives again, don’t you think?”
“Yes. We believe they may both be in protective custody at the moment, but that will end once the Americans believe they have neutralized the threat. We can then operate freely once more.”
“Good. You know, this evolution of the plan may actually be quite beneficial. The Americans find it all too easy to place blame on Garza. They are blinded by their dislike for his politics.
“I think that the best strategies parallel living organisms, don’t you? And as Darwin taught us, organisms must evolve in response to their environment, or they will become extinct.”
Then the line clicked as President Pushkin hung up.
Grigory Rostov was visibly shaking. He pushed himself back from his desk and rose from his plush leather chair. Stripping off his suit jacket as he strode to the wet bar, he let the jacket fall in a heap on the floor. He put a handful of ice in a crystal tumbler and then filled the glass with vodka.
Within a matter of minutes his world appeared to be on the verge of implosion. What had happened? As Rostov raised the tumbler, he stared at the ice cubes, his thoughts beginning to coalesce. He took a long drink, closing his eyes as the chilled vodka slid down his throat.
All was not lost. He would simply follow orders and postpone the final actions. The targets would assume they were safe, and the Americans would drop their guard as they always did. Patience. In the end he would prevail. Right now, he simply needed to avoid attracting any more attention from President Pushkin.
What a fool, he thought. Pushkin allowed himself to be rattled by the American president. Obviously intoxicated, he had seriously violated prudent communication practices. Fortunately the line was scrambled.
After Pushkin terminated the phone call with Rostov, he smiled inwardly. He shook his glass of ice water again and wondered who was easier to manipulate—the Americans or Grigory Rostov. No matter. Within the hour, the American intelligence agencies would be circulating classified transcripts of a selected portion of the conversation that had just taken place.
If he had encrypted the entire call it would have taken much too long to break the communication, if at all. By momentarily turning off the encrypting device he was ensuring that the U.S. intelligence agencies would get that portion of the conversation that he wanted them to have. The Americans would think it peculiar that several seconds of the call were not encrypted, but they would most likely assume that there was a glitch with the scrambling software—their good fortune and Russia’s bad luck.
Soon, the final piece of his strategy would evolve—and he would be clean. With the blame fully placed on another, he would be free of political fallout.
Chapter 38
October 17
Sacramento, California
“Tell me you’re joking, right?” Jim’s expression was deadpan as he listened to Ellen Lacey, Peter standing at her side. It was unlike his senior intelligence analyst to make light of her work, and already Jim felt his stomach begin to twist into knots.
“I wish I were, sir. But we knew all along that some pieces were missing. We didn’t have identification on all the parties who were identified only by code names. We still haven’t broken the code and identified them. But this call was picked up early this morning our time—late evening in Moscow. There is no mistaking the content. And it supports Peter’s theory.” Lacey handed a transcript to Jim.
“And it wasn’t encrypted? Why would they be so careless?” Jim commented, even as he was reading the transcription.
“Most of the call was encrypted—we are still working at breaking the code, but it will take some time. Only this short portion wasn’t—hard to say why. Maybe a simple mistake, maybe a malfunction of their equipment. It’s definitely President Pushkin; we have voice confirmation. We just confirmed the other party is Grigory Rostov.”
“Grigory Rostov… of Rostov Oil?”
“You know him?” Peter asked.
“Know of him, never met.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lacey, refocusing the conversation. “We’ve confirmed his ID by voice authentication against intercepted phone calls placed from his office.”
“And you don’t think it’s a decoy—misinformation?” said Jim.
“No, sir. We have debated that possibility at length, and we keep coming back to the motive, or lack thereof. Why would Pushkin expose himself? As far as we were concerned, it was an open and shut case with Garza. The Russians were out of the equation, and all was settled.”
Jim nodded. “Agreed. So you think that Pushkin is sacrificing Rostov to ensure that we don’t come back on his government.”
“Sort of. I think that it was Rostov, not the Russian Federation, and not Venezuela, who was behind this global plot to murder the scientists.”
Peter frowned. “That doesn’t add up. Rostov may be powerful, but I don’t think he could have ordered the submarine and soldiers into U.S. territory. That had to come from high up in the government.”
Jim was considering what he heard. It certainly made sense that Rostov Oil would benefit from maintaining high oil prices through limited supply. Did he have enough influence to convince an admiral to issue the orders to the captain of the St. Petersburg? How much money would it take to bribe the right officers? Probably not that much.
“What do we know about Rostov?” Jim asked.
“He’s not a complex character, only your basic nationalistic megalomaniac. His father fought against the German army in the Second World War. Wounded three times, lost his left leg below the knee—he was personally decorated by Stalin as a Hero of the State. Grigory was born in 1955, an only child. By all accounts he is extremely intelligent and ambitious—works fifteen to twenty hours each day.”
“That’s impressive. Okay, so he’s driven. Name a successful business leader who isn’t,” Peter observed.
Jim ignored the sarcasm. “What do we have connecting him to the Ramirez brothers and any of the known attacks?”
“It’s solid; you’ll find it all in the transcripts the lieutenant has,” Peter motioned to Lacey.
Jim pinched his eyebrows, eyes boring into Peter. “Look, I know you are vested in this. Generally, that’s not a good thing. You need to slow down and let me run this show, got it?”
Turning his attention to Lieutenant Lacey, Jim continued, “I need to be confident this has been thoroughly examined from all relevant angles. We can’t afford another mistake.” It didn’t matter that technically, the earlier conclusions regarding President Garza were preliminary and subject to revision. That is not how his superiors would see it.
“Now that we have reason to suspect Rostov, we compiled a history of calls originating from his office phone over the past five months. There were more than three dozen encrypted calls; nine of those calls were placed to the cell phone used by Vasquez Ramirez. Positive I
D on his voice as well. We also have five calls placed to numbers registered to the Iranian army, and four calls placed to numbers within the presidential palace in Caracas. The encryption is very sophisticated, based on a proprietary algorithm-shifting platform. We don’t have complete transcripts yet for any of the calls.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Here, sir, you can see for yourself. These are partial transcripts from five calls placed to Ramirez between June 7 and August 16. Still working on the rest.” Lacey handed two pages to her boss.
“Is this all you have?”
“It’s extremely difficult because the encrypting algorithm is changing during the call. A complicating factor is that the shift is not regular. We’ve had Mother analyzing the transmissions and the shift is completely random, making it almost impossible to know where one encryption stops and the next version begins. Many of the encryption codes just haven’t been broken. We’re still working on it.”
Jim began to silently read through the first page.
Transcription of encrypted call
from Rostov to Ramirez on June 7
[Ramirez] …just as you asked. You can read the details in the morning paper; no doubt this will be reported around the world. The blame will certainly fall on a Muslim extremist group. Now you need to do your part and make sure the investigation does not make any progress.
[Rostov] Leave it to me. I have high-level connections…
********************************
Transcription of encrypted cal
from Rostov to Ramirez on June 9
[Rostov]… combined with our well-placed bribes. You have no reason to worry. The investigation will not advance.
[Ramirez] You better be right. I trust you have influential accomplices?
[Rostov] Yes, at the highest level.
********************************
Transcription of encrypted call
from Rostov to Ramirez on July 2
[Ramirez]… cancelation was unforeseen. Don’t worry, we will make good on our agreement. My brother is personally seeing to the planning and preparations.