Commander-In-Chief

by Mark Greaney

  Clark said, “I agree with you there. How much longer till you are finished moving the money?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on what the markets do. If trading volume goes up, we’ll increase daily transactions.”

  “What’s your best estimate?”

  “We’ll probably be finished in two weeks.”

  Clark regarded this information. “Can you stall them while we look for your family?”

  “That’s impossible. Ivanov . . . you called him Limonov . . . he doesn’t know Bitcoin that well, but he is a bloody expert on finance. He really knows his shit. He’s watching me all the time, he sees everything I do. Asks me about anything he doesn’t understand. There is nothing I can do to change this process that he won’t see.”

  Clark said, “Okay. Don’t try anything. We’ll get your family back, and then you can help us catch these guys.”

  Instead of gratitude, Terry Walker said, “You guys better be fucking certain of your plan. You get my family killed and I’ll give the Russians whatever the fuck they want. You understand me?”

  Clark just said, “Go.”

  Walker flushed his toilet, then stepped out to the sink and turned on the water. While looking at himself in the mirror he said, “I can’t fucking handle this.”

  Clark opened the door to the stall he had been in. “You can, Terry. You have to. Kate and Noah are depending on you.” And then, “You’ve got to get back out there.”

  Walker nodded distractedly. “I really did need to go to the toilet.” And he stepped out through the door.

  • • •

  Terry Walker returned to his office suite moments later, followed by the Canadian security man. Limonov barely looked up as he entered the office, but Kozlov followed him from the reception area.

  Standing in the doorway, Kozlov barked, “What took you so long?”

  “I was in the loo. You figure it out.”

  The Russian stepped forward quickly and grabbed the small Australian by the back of his neck. He squeezed tightly. “What were you doing?”

  “Do I have to fucking spell it out for you?”

  Kozlov turned to the Canadian. “Were you with him in the toilet?”

  “No, but I searched it, and I stayed just outside.”

  Kozlov pointed to their prisoner. “Search him. Search every inch of his body.” He turned away, stormed out into the hall toward the bathroom. As he moved he drew his gun and held it down by his leg.

  The security men pushed Terry Walker against the wall roughly, unsure what the problem was, but unquestioning in their compliance to their client. As men lifted Walker’s shirt and yanked down his pants, he looked toward the door to the hallway, terrified Kozlov would find the American in the bathroom. His stomach clenched and he wondered if he would pass out from the terror.

  Walker turned to Limonov. The Russian was typing an e-mail on his notebook computer, barely paying attention. The Australian said, “Your friend is completely mental, you must know that.”

  Limonov did not look up from his work. “He’s not my friend, but otherwise you are correct.”

  Kozlov opened the door to the office again, looked to the two men who were finishing stripping Walker down. He had holstered his weapon. “Anything?”

  “He’s clean, boss.”

  As Walker put his clothes back on, Kozlov pointed to the security officer who’d escorted Walker to the bathroom. “From now on you stand with him in the bathroom at all times. Is that clear?”

  The Canadian contractor said, “Whatever you say, sir.”

  Kozlov went back into the little lobby of the office and sat down on the sofa.

  Limonov called out to Walker, “Time for another trade, Terry.”

  • • •

  It had taken Clark almost an hour to defeat security cameras and pick locks in the building early this morning, and he wouldn’t have been able to manage it without Gavin Biery’s help from Alexandria. And now that he was finished with his meeting, he would have to wait hours more, till the end of the business day, before he could get out of here.

  He knelt in the back of a janitor’s closet, just twenty-five feet from the bathroom and deeper in the building. He’d brought with him two bottles of water and a Snickers bar, not really expecting to spend the entire day inside the building, but wanting to be lightly equipped if he had to. But Gavin had texted him not long after he arrived, letting him know that two security guards had shown up in the front lobby, and he could find no escape route visible on the hacked CCTV that looked clear.

  Even this wouldn’t have been a problem if this office building received clients like most every other office building in the world. But Gavin had been reporting throughout the day that this was the deadest commercial space he’d ever watched during its hours of operation. Other than the people who worked there, virtually no one had come or gone.

  Clark settled in for the long wait, and then he sent a text to Gavin and another to Jack, telling them both what he had just learned. He might have to sit here for another three hours before he could return to his boat, but that didn’t mean his two colleagues couldn’t work remotely to start looking into the kidnapping.

  He didn’t really know what they would be able to accomplish up there, but Clark liked his chances, whenever he did get out of here. If the Walkers were on a boat and the boat was still here in the BVIs, Clark knew exactly where he needed to start his hunt to find them.

  47

  Chavez, Caruso, and Herkus Zarkus stood on the roof of a high school assembly hall in the town of Pabradė, looking out to the east at the Belarusan border in the distance. They took pictures of the farmland between their position and the border from three different points of the roof, pleasing the men greatly because they got to check three more objectives off their list without having to load up the vehicle and drive to a new location each time.

  The two Americans were now more convinced than ever that the work they were doing was in support of a military defense of Lithuania. It seemed odd to them that the director of national intelligence would be the one sending them here, or that they would go at all, as the Defense Department had its own intelligence service that normally did these sorts of things.

  Still, Dom Caruso and Ding Chavez weren’t complaining about the technical collection work. It gave them the opportunity to get a feel for the area.

  Dom had joked dryly earlier, when he was certain Herkus was out of earshot, that the work they did now might help CIA operations behind the “New Iron Curtain” in the future. Both men knew the ground they walked on could easily be Russian territory in a matter of days, just as the ground they walked on in the Crimea a year earlier was now as much a part of Russia as was Red Square.

  They finished their precision imagery, climbed down off the roof of the high school, and waved thanks to a really confused but compliant building supervisor.

  As they were packing up the van to go to the next location, the phone in Chavez’s pocket chirped.

  “Chavez.”

  “This is Greg Donlin, Branyon’s PPA.”

  Chavez remembered meeting CoS Pete Branyon’s personal protection agent the week before when the chief of station dropped in on their safe house. “Hey, Greg. You doing okay?”

  “I remember you guys offered to help us out in your downtime. I’m hoping that offer still stands.”

  “Of course it does. We don’t normally knock off till the light gets too bad to work, usually around seven or so. But if you’re in a jam we can make an exception.”

  “This would be at five p.m. Branyon needs to go east this evening, to meet with an agent in a village called Tabariškės. It’s about a half-mile, tops, from the Belarusan border.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah. I have tried to dissuade him from his decision, but he says it’s vital. His network in that area i
s reporting more Little Green Men sightings. He wants to meet with them in person to see what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Might be, but we had a NOC in Tabariškės last night, and he reported it was all clear. We’re not too worried about the town, but the drive down has us a little concerned. Lithuanian police and military presence is light on the road there, it’s just too far off the main highway, and the cops and soldiers around here are stretched thin enough as it is.”

  Chavez said, “We’d be happy to escort you guys down, but, as you know, we don’t have any weapons.”

  “I’ll fix that. If you come along I’ll hook you up with some bang sticks. One thing, though. Branyon doesn’t want you in Tabariškės village. He is worried about compromising people in his network with strangers showing up. He asks that you guys just follow us down, find a place to park to the west of town, and then wait for us to call and let you know we’re en route back toward Vilnius.”

  Chavez asked, “Do you feel safe being Branyon’s only security man while he walks around in this town by the border?”

  “Hell, no, I don’t. I’d roll in with an Abrams tank if I was calling the shots, but I’m not.”

  “I hear you,” said Chavez. “We’ll watch over you guys on the road down and back. Stay in comms with us in case you need us in the village.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s meet up at seventeen hundred hours so I can give you guys some weapons and we can discuss the movement.”

  • • •

  Branyon and Donlin pulled into the parking lot of an IKI chain grocery store in Nemėžis, a southeastern suburb of Vilnius. It was five p.m., there was still a lot of light out, but storm clouds were rolling over the area, with heavy rains predicted by sunset. As they came to a stop in a space well to the side of the entrance, a black Toyota Land Cruiser pulled into the spot next to them. Chavez and Caruso climbed out of the Toyota, and then got into the back of the CIA men’s vehicle.

  Branyon was in the passenger seat. Everyone shook hands quickly, then the station chief said, “Appreciate the company, guys.”

  Dom replied, “Our pleasure. You guys are cutting it close on the light, though. Not sure how long you plan on being at your meet, but it looks like we’ll be coming home in a pitch-black storm.”

  Donlin said nothing. Both Campus men had the impression he didn’t like this scenario at all, which meant they weren’t too crazy about this movement, either.

  Branyon saw the expressions on the men’s faces. “Look, I’m not doing this because I want to. There are a lot of people down there by the border that are relying on the U.S. to protect them. They work for me, and they are skittish as hell, but I still need them to do their jobs. I can’t just call them from the safety of the U.S. embassy and tell them I’ve got their backs. I need to go down and convince them I’m still looking out for them, so they’ll continue providing intel to me.” He shrugged. “For whatever that’s worth. Fucking Volodin going on TV and saying he basically owns their homes is creating more anxiety than I can dispel with my handsome face.”

  Chavez and Caruso smiled.

  Greg Donlin said, “At your feet you’ll each find an AK and a pistol, along with some extra mags. The guns are a little old, but they function, and they’ll put holes in people if it comes down to it. Stay on our ass on the way down, but peel off before we get to the village. I’ll let you know when we’re about to leave the meet.”

  “Roger that,” said Chavez. The two men in the backseat collected their new weapons. Each was folded into a blue gym bag so they didn’t have to climb out in the grocery store parking lot waving guns around. Instead, they just hefted the bags and returned to their vehicle.

  Back in the Land Cruiser they took a moment to check the rifles and the pistols. The AKs had folding wire stocks and simple iron sights. The pistols, big Glock 17s, looked just like the AKs: well used but also well maintained. They shoved the pistols in their waistbands under their jackets, then placed the rifles on the floorboard of the backseat, where each man also had a Maxpedition sling bag filled with surveillance equipment, medical supplies, and other odds and ends they knew they might need on an escort mission like this.

  As they began following the CIA men’s white Mercedes SUV, Dom began looking at a map of the area near the border on his phone, trying to find a place for them to wait for Branyon and Donlin while they conducted their meeting in Tabariškės. As he looked over the map, he said, “Ding, does any of this feel right to you?”

  “From a personal-security perspective?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not at all,” said Chavez. “I respect Branyon for not riding a desk, but like he said, I don’t know that there is much he can do by coming down here. If the Russians start shelling the area, those mortar rounds aren’t going to know or care the CIA is in that village.”

  Dom said, “From the map it looks like there are some low hills on a farm about five hundred yards to the southwest of the village. How would you feel about us finding a layup position that gives us a little overwatch on Branyon’s poz?”

  Chavez said, “I like it. Not much we can do to affect things from five hundred yards, but I guess we can call in to Donlin if we see anything in the area we don’t like.”

  “Like Russian T-90 tanks or incoming rockets?”

  Chavez laughed. “Yeah, for example. In the meantime, let’s keep our eyes peeled on this road. We’ve been driving five minutes and we’ve already passed a half-dozen perfect places to get bushwhacked.”

  Light rain began to fall on the SUV as they headed for the border.

  48

  Pete Branyon and Greg Donlin rolled into the village of Tabariškės, just a half-mile from the Belarusan border. Branyon was behind the wheel, and he drove his white 1998 Mercedes M-Class SUV through the rain, along the narrow, flat streets, passing only a few other vehicles on the road. After a few minutes he turned off the road, and crunched up the gravel driveway in front of a mustard-colored wooden church. A small, bleak cemetery sat in front of the building, with tombstones on both sides of a path from the entry of the church to the parking lot out front.

  Branyon put the vehicle in park, then just sat there, peering out through the rain in all directions.

  There was only one other car in the church driveway, and Branyon did not recognize it.

  He’d come out to the church this evening to meet the agent who ran his cell here along the border. Albertas Varnas was a parish priest living in the village, and he had been reporting to Branyon about the situation in the area, as well as organizing others in his parish. Branyon had recruited him just a month earlier, and the only thing Varnas and his people had been used for so far was setting up a few remote Internet-based cameras that beamed images of the road to the border back to the CIA shop at the U.S. embassy, and calling in tips about border activity.

  Branyon decided to come out here this evening because he wanted to ask Varnas personally about his claims that villagers were reporting sightings of foreigners in the area.

  Branyon had been advised by Langley to get Varnas on the phone and question him a little deeper, but Branyon felt he’d be better able to gauge the veracity of the reports in person. Plus, if there were any Little Green Men out here in Tabariškės, he wanted to see them firsthand. He knew if the chief of station told Langley the Russians had breached the border, it would carry more weight with Langley than if some untrained parish priest just called in the sighting secondhand.

  Greg Donlin sat in the passenger seat with his eyes fixed on the east. The border was beyond a wood line that began on the other side of a field, right outside the village, and it also jutted out to the west just south of the village, meaning it was also a mile and a half behind them. He said, “Closer than we need to be, boss. We’ve got Belarus on two compass points of this poz.”

  “I know, Greg,�
�� Branyon said, still looking at the unfamiliar car in the lot. He checked his phone for any missed messages, then he dialed Varnas. After twenty seconds with his phone to his ear he said, “No signal. Perfect.”

  Donlin checked his own phone. “Same here. Wonder if the Russians are jamming this area from over the border.”

  Branyon chuckled a little. “Now you are getting paranoid. I talked to Varnas an hour ago, phones were fine then. I’ve had this happen before. No sweat.”

  He grabbed his umbrella, opened his car door, and climbed out.

  Donlin climbed out as well. “That’s a Honda Civic. Varnas has an old Škoda. He isn’t here, Pete. Why don’t we wait a bit?”

  Branyon answered back, “Why don’t we go light a candle and make an offering? Can’t fuckin’ hurt.”

  “I don’t like it. Whose car is that?”

  Branyon was already moving, but he turned back to his personal protection agent. “Let me ask you this, Greg. If the Sixth Army does invade Lithuania, do you imagine they’ll all pile into the back of a Honda Civic to do it?”

  As usual, Greg Donlin did not share his superior’s cavalier attitude. He caught up with his boss on the pathway up to the church. Both men stood in the rain. “Pete, I’ll go in first, see if he’s here. You get behind the wheel and wait, just in case.”

  Branyon sighed. “Really, Greg? Are you going to ride my ass on this?”

  Donlin said, “Just make me feel better. Okay, boss?”

  Branyon turned and headed back to the Mercedes, but he didn’t get behind the wheel. Instead, he leaned against the hood, pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his jacket with his free hand, and poured a cigarette into his mouth. He dropped the pack back in his jacket and pulled a lighter from his pants pocket.

  Donlin gave him a slightly annoyed look, then turned and headed up to the church.

  Branyon took a long drag on his cigarette and fumbled with his umbrella to check his watch. It was almost seven, the clouds made it look like dusk, and he knew it would be pitch-black by the time they left, even if Varnas was here now.