The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3)

by Bell, D. R.

“I see you have some fixed-wing drones too,” David’s eyes sparkled with interest.

  “Oh yes, we use those for tracking and for imaging. We also configured some of them to drop explosives. But this is primarily research,” Nick hastened to add. “We use drones for observation and self-defense.”

  “Who are ‘we’?” wondered Oleg.

  “The neighborhood. We provide a service. People here have a ‘neighborhood watch’ that we are tied into. Local-on-local crime practically disappeared. Sometimes, we supply information to the police. Sometimes, it’s against the police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People don’t always trust the police. This way, we can provide them with our record of what happened when they were stopped, how fast they were going, and more. The government has the power of technology, we give the same power to the people.”

  “Are you launching them from here?”

  “Oh no,” laughed Nick. “This is where we tinker with them. We have two launch facilities that we control remotely. This is the backup control center. Come, let me show you.”

  Nick led them inside the house to a large windowless room. Rows of monitors lined two of the walls, with four work desks in front. Another bearded young man with a shaved head was looking at the monitors along one wall, with black-and-white images. The man looked at the intruders, annoyed, and turned back.

  “These are night vision images,” commented Nick. “If we see something suspicious, we send one of our mini-drones to illuminate and focus on the scene. As you can see, we use older monitors – they do the job and are much cheaper.”

  Oleg and David looked bewitched, their eyes glowing with interest. But the noise of a new arrival forced them to almost reluctantly end the tour.

  David Weinstein was brimming with enthusiasm:

  “It’s so great to meet you, David and Maggie! May I call you by first names?”

  Maggie nodded, smiling.

  “And you, Oleg! Jennifer told me that you met her father in St. Petersburg in June of 2006. You know, I met him in Moscow just a few days earlier. I was only nine, but I remember him well. He stayed in our apartment. You see, my grandfather was his professor in college and my mother was his friend.”

  “It is great to meet you, David,” grinned Oleg. “But as it’s past nine o’clock, I think we should make sure to take care of business.”

  “Yes, of course,” agreed Weinstein. “Jennifer trusted me to have this meeting.”

  After the four of them sat around a small kitchen table, Ferguson pushed to Weinstein a folder.

  “You will find here the summary of our findings related to John Dimon, plus the drive with the detailed data. In analyzing the Schulmann’s research, I came across a number of companies that did very well in 2019 and that were indirectly linked to Dimon.”

  “Indirectly?”

  “Yes. But the sheer numbers defied a realistic possibility of this just being a statistically random occurrence.”

  “Even so, this is not likely to do anything. I mean, the two of you,” Weinstein pointed at Maggie and David, “made this incredible disclosure two years ago and yet most people you identified, sometimes even directly, got off scot free.”

  “In Dimon’s case, there’s another problem: many transactions ended up at the SOFI.”

  “So it’s possible that Dimon was working with someone abroad,” Weinstein thought out loud.

  “We didn’t have enough to go on,” explained David. “Schulmann’s data only went to early 2020. Fortunately, a very courageous person with proper security access was able to get us more data. You will see in the file we’ve given you that the connection continued to be strong. Moreover, when the data is limited to the transactions that terminated at the SOFI’s gateways through the current year, there are only two results that are statistically significant. One is John Dimon. The other is FreedomShield.”

  “You mean this is not limited to the 2019 crisis?”

  “No, not at all. If anything, the correlation over the past eighteen months has only grown stronger. And over 99% of the executions were deposits, coming from the SOFI and going into accounts here.”

  Weinstein stared at Ferguson:

  “Do you understand what you are implying? Especially if none of these accounts bear Dimon’s name?”

  “David, you now have the numbers. Analyze them. At some point, even indirect connections become too strong to ignore.”

  “Have you been able to see the transactions within the SOFI?” asked Weinstein in a hoarse voice.

  “No, we don’t have the access. Can you?”

  “No, I can’t either. Very few people do,” Weinstein shook his head.

  Oleg got up:

  “Is there anything else that we can do right now?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll go over the file,” replied Weinstein. “What do I do if I have questions?”

  “We’ll run another Craigslist ad for a beige sofa. Reply asking if we have one in green.”

  Beijing, China

  Jia Kecheng woke up with a start. The same nightmare.

  June 4, 1989. He was a 19-year old soldier from the provinces. Their unit had been sent to Tiananmen Square to fight vicious rioters that occupied the area and killed one of the soldiers. At least, that’s what they were told. They gathered inside the Great Hall of the People and waited for their orders. The doors swung open and Jia found himself outside, gripping his gun with sweating hands. “We have permission to shoot,” a voice came from his right.

  Jia’s unit started advancing towards the center of the square, to the Monument to the People’s Heroes. A brick flew through the air and hit the soldier next to him... then another brick... and another one... To this day, Jia does not know who started shooting. But once the first shot rang out, it was like a dam broke – everyone around him started to fire. Jia was not aiming, but he pressed the trigger and a young man twenty meters away, probably no more than seventeen, grabbed his chest and crumbled, a red spot spreading on a white shirt. Jia stopped in horror. One of his unit’s leaders shouted in Jia’s ear: Keep moving! Jia walked forward as if in his sleep.

  He did not fire his gun again that day. He just watched in a trance how the square turned into a war zone. Smoke rose from burned out vehicles and from the burning possessions left behind by the protesters, black, acrid smoke. Jia kept looking for the man he thought he shot, but could not see him in the smoke of the pyres that engulfed the square.

  But he has seen the man many times since, a recurrent nightmare. In his dream, Jia tries to not squeeze the trigger but his fingers are controlled by someone else, the gun spits fire, the red flower blooms again... and again... and again.

  Jia was not in Tiananmen thirty three years later, in 2022. But he did see the clips of the massacre. No matter how much the government tried to stop the information, block the websites, filter out offending clips using their fingerprint signature, the videos kept escaping censorship. Jia looked in horror because this was even worse than 1989: in 2022, the government did not rely on inexperienced soldiers from provinces. They sent well-trained, loyal killers. The protesters had been mercilessly mowed down. And now the government was expertly turning the anger outwards, towards the Americans. And he knew why. Jia, after all, worked in the People’s Liberation Army General Staff. They were about to unleash the Tiananmen’s madness on the rest of the world.

  Moscow, Russia

  The six-story building on Bolshoy Kislovsky Lane housed mostly high-placed government officials and well-connected Muskovites. Being only a ten minute walk from the Kremlin, it met the basic requirement of getting to the seat of power quickly. It became even more desirable since Colonel Ivan Mershov moved into a flat on the fourth floor of the building. The Colonel himself was a quiet, unassuming polite man that did not ask for – nor offer – any favors to his neighbors. But the Colonel headed the SOBR, the Special Rapid Response Unit of the Russian Interior Ministry. That made the building and its surroundings one of th
e safest areas in Moscow. Round the clock, a UAZ Patriot – a form of a Russian Jeep – was parked in front, with two spetsnaz men inside. The building’s inhabitants felt very safe.

  This evening, Colonel Mershov had a visitor. In Russian tradition, they were sitting in the kitchen even after dinner.

  “Now that your mother went to bed, Vitaly – what brings you here? You didn’t take a week off to come to Moscow without reason,” asked senior Mershov.

  “You don’t think I’d just come visit you and mom?”

  “Not for a week. Being young and single, you should be going to a resort, not your parents. What’s going on?”

  “I have a sense something is going on but I am not sure what. It started with the assassination of the Defense Minister Nedinsky...”

  “You are not supposed to be investigating this, it’s in the FSB’s and military police’s hands now!”

  “I am not investigating, Dad. It just so happened that two of my militzia colleagues were in the area and came to the scene before the FSB showed up. They told me things didn’t look right. Slava Prudkov was a sniper in the army before and he did not think the story of Nedinsky being killed with a high-powered rifle through a bullet-resistant glass matched what he saw.”

  “Well, I doubt he is an expert to evaluate such things,” Ivan waived off the argument.

  “Well, there were a few other questions. Like the minister’s car taking an unusual route. Like the observation drone that conveniently broke down a few minutes before the attack. Like the fact that the FSB was on the scene very quickly, as if they expected something to happen.”

  Ivan Mershov chewed his lip.

  “Vitaly, I know you are a good investigator and you must have an instinct telling you something’s not right. But what you told me, is simply not enough. This is a dangerous area; the Minister of Internal Affairs was specific in this being the FSB’s territory. Do you think we can quietly talk to those two militziamen of yours?”

  “No. A few days after I spoke with them they got caught in a shootout with the mobsters. Both are dead.”

  The older Mershov removed his glasses, pressed his right palm against his face, breathed out and with his eyes still closed asked quietly:

  “Did they give you any other information?”

  “Only that the surviving bodyguard’s name was Fyodor Bezdorukov and the FSB colonel’s name was Bogdan Zaychikov. I tried to look them up but their files are classified, militzia access level is not sufficient.”

  “Did you try to look them up using your login?” asked Ivan in a hoarse voice.

  “No, one of the killed militziamen.”

  Ivan exhaled.

  “After they were killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “So ‘they’ know someone is looking, but they don’t know who it is. I’ll see if my access is sufficient. Anything else?”

  “Yes, but it’s different.”

  Senior Mershov got up, fetched a half-empty bottle of vodka from the fridge and two small glasses.

  “I am not much of a drinker, but tonight I need one.”

  After both Mershovs downed a shot, Vitaly asked:

  “Do you remember Oleg Khmelco, my third cousin?”

  “Of course I do. He used to spend a lot of time with us. When he started hanging out with bad company, I put him into spetsnaz. I think he moved to America some years ago, I have not heard from him since.”

  “Well, I have. I heard from him.”

  “How is he?”

  “Oleg is involved in something. He made sure we talked over encrypted connection. Do you remember the Nemzhov affair two years ago?”

  “Yes, of course. The head of the GRU was forced to disappear because a couple of amateur Americans fooled him and published the information about those that profited from the 2019 financial crisis. I wasn’t sure at the time whether the Chinese or the American government would survive the revelations. What does it have to do with Oleg?”

  “He’s friends with those two Americans. And they have more information now. Dangerous information. He sent me some that has to do with using the SOFI financial network.”

  “Why did Oleg contact you?”

  “Actually, he wanted to get to you but was afraid to do it directly so he went through me. They want to warn the US President Maxwell that Dimon is dangerous, that he may have been blackmailed by Nemzhov.”

  “Why wouldn’t they warn the President themselves? Just publish the data!”

  “They are fugitives. They’ve been discredited. Nobody would believe them.”

  “And you do?”

  “I believe Oleg.”

  Ivan Mershov stared into space, then looked at his son:

  “I think you should phone your work and tell them your mother is not well and you need to take another week of vacation. I want you here, where I can protect you. Now, let’s go to bed. The morning is wiser than the night.”

  Washington, D.C., USA

  President Maxwell walked into the room with an apology:

  “Sorry, I was delayed on a conference call. General Carter, please start the meeting.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” replied Hugh Carter, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Our main agenda item for this meeting of the National Security Council is the potential conflict with China.”

  “Besides anti-American demonstrations in Beijing and Shanghai, what are your reasons for expecting a conflict?” asked Cora Jones, National Security Advisor. “After all, such demonstrations appear to be a popular method for steering up nationalistic feelings in China, letting out some steam so to speak.”

  “True enough, Ms. Jones,” agreed Carter. “But this time we are witnessing a number of military activities that concern us: naval exercises, some involving the Russian Pacific Fleet, others including amphibious landing operations indicating preparations for a possible invasion, movement of additional missile batteries and aircraft to coastal areas from Ningbo to Xiamen, and trials of semi-autonomous operations of unmanned aerial vehicles over the East China Sea.”

  “What is so bothersome about the trials of their drones?” challenged Defense Secretary Tom Blayn. “Everybody’s trialing those now.”

  “The formations and types of drones being used indicate that they are trying to operate them without space-based assets, relying on local guidance using relays between drones. In any confrontation, both sides would try to go after space systems, trying to ‘blind’ the other side. That would point to them preparing fallback solutions.”

  “We’re doing the same,” shrugged Tom Blayn, “but we’re not planning to attack them.”

  “We are also observing increased deliveries of containers to oil and gas platforms in the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea, particularly in their Senkaku Islands installations,” Carter pointed to the projected map.

  “Oil platforms? What does that have to do with anything?” inquired White House Counsel Craig Lowe.

  “We’ve been tracking these platforms for almost two years now, since our intelligence alerted us that these are actually primarily military installations. We have confirmed that these platforms’ main function is to launch missiles and drones. It’s a top secret project within the Peoples Liberation Army. We believe that they intend to attack our 7th Fleet when it starts sailing towards Taiwan and comes within their range.”

  “Interesting. And the Chinese don’t know that we know this?” asked Maxwell.

  “Presumably not.”

  “General Carter, you have mentioned landing operations and Taiwan. Does this mean you expect they’ll try to occupy the island?”

  “That has been their long-standing goal since 1949.”

  “If a war starts, what are you planning to do about these platforms?” asked Defense Secretary Blayn.

  “They’re stationary targets, we’ll destroy them immediately.”

  “OK, what’s the bottom line here?” said Maxwell. “If they go after Taiwan, what are our odds of deferring them?”
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br />   “I’d say better than fifty-fifty. Even though we have weakened our 7th Fleet due to cutbacks, our naval assets greatly exceed what China has and their advantage in missiles is only relevant near their shores where their guidance is precise. As long as the Taiwanese are able to hold out for about ten days, which we believe they can do, we should be able to defeat the invasion.”

  “And if their secret platform were to launch their missiles and drones?” asked Maxwell. “I’d like to understand what their estimate of the odds might be.”

  “If they are able to prevent or sufficiently slow down our 7th Fleet from getting into the East China Sea, then their invasion of Taiwan will likely succeed. But even then, Beijing will be facing a punishing ocean blockade that will likely destroy their economy before long.”

  “And what if Russia joins the conflict on their side?” asked Cora Jones.

  “That would certainly make things more difficult for us,” admitted Carter. “We still have larger naval resources in the Pacific than both China and Russia, but it would lower our odds of defending Taiwan. Plus the blockade will likely become much less effective.”

  “Can we add resources to the 7th Fleet?” wondered Maxwell.

  “We have the 3rd Fleet in the eastern Pacific, the 5th Fleet in the Middle East, and the 6th Fleet in Europe. The 3rd Fleet at this time has only three strike groups, we can move one under the command of the 7th Fleet within two weeks. The 6th Fleet has two strike groups, we can move one of them within a month. The 5th is probably too dangerous to touch given continued turmoil in the Middle East.”

  “All right, let’s give the 7th one strike group each from both the 3rd and the 6th fleets,” decided Maxwell.

  “But Mr. President,” protested Cora Jones, “we can’t weaken our European forces, we are stretched very thin there as is.”

  “I understand, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take,” disagreed Maxwell. “The danger of war in Europe is much lower and we want to signal to Beijing that we plan to defend Taiwan.”