by Bell, D. R.
All five jumped out of the car and ran to the door, as the noise of a propeller engine rose in the enclosed space. They were only a few steps inside when an explosion blew the door down.
Everyone caught their breath as Mike spoke on his phone.
“Pablo is in the parking structure on the other side of the mall. The mall isn’t open to the public yet, so we’ll have to run through.”
Alejandro kept his presence of mind enough to bring the sports bag, which was useful when they came to a closed door. Mike got a small electronic device out of the bag and held it next to the code entry lock. The device whirred, clicked, and displayed four numbers which Mike punched and pushed the door open.
“So much more elegant than using a crowbar or a gun,” commented Alejandro.
As they were walking through a largely empty mall, with only workers preparing for the day, nobody tried to stop them. At one point, a display started talking to them:
“Grayson Martinez, we have a sale on men’s suits in your size. It’s been two years since you last purchased a suit, isn’t it time to update your wardrobe?”
“Grayson Martinez?” wondered Maggie.
“I use a few different names,” said Alejandro matter-of-factly.
Mike was busy dialing again:
“Nick, we’re in the mall. What’s going on outside?”
“Thank God, you are OK! There are reports coming in of multiple explosions on the south-east side of the mall. Police are on the way, you better get out of there!”
“Are there any birdies waiting for us?”
“I’m going to have to bring my observation platform down just about now. There are a couple of tracking birdies coming in from the east, they should be here in a minute.”
“But no attack drones?”
“No. I saw one following you into the parking structure, he didn’t come out. Probably brought down by his own explosion.”
“Tell Nick he’s earned his pay today,” quipped Alejandro.
Mike led the group to the service entrance section of the parking lot. He carefully opened the door, looked around. Police sirens sounded in the distance, but this area seemed calmed. A bakery truck idled nearby, with one man in a white uniform in the driver’s seat and the other looking like he was about to unload something from the open rear gate.
Following Mike’s lead, everyone ran to the back of the truck and climbed in past rows of bakery products. There were two small benches in the back. The uniformed guy closed the bakery shelves behind them. In a few seconds, the truck started rolling and Alejandro exhaled.
“The insides of the truck are covered with a Mylar material to attenuate the body heat,” proudly explained Mike. “It takes about twenty minutes before your heat signatures become strong enough to be detectable by drones with infrared tracking.”
“Twenty minutes?” asked David. “What happens then?”
“In twenty minutes, we’ll be in a different car,” shrugged Alejandro. “We’ll change cars a couple of more times to make it more difficult to cross-correlate the data and track us. It’s the initial run, when they know exactly which car you are in, that’s the most dangerous one. We got out... barely. Somebody really wants you dead.”
“They got to us through Brobak?” half-asked, half-stated Maggie.
“Yes, it looks that way. You should assume Brobak is dead.”
David hung his head. Another man dead because of us.
“Jim chose to help,” Maggie read his thoughts. “Like others did two years ago. People have the right to know.”
Los Angeles, USA
Jennifer Rostin-Kron was numb. Numb from speeches, condolences, hugs, handshakes. Numb from the sense of loss that chilled her insides. Numb from guilt – she was supposed to be at home with him that night. Instead, Robert Marosyan was in the house with Jeff, sleeping in the spare bedroom as he often did. Now, both of them were gone.
Her mother recognized the torment:
“Jenny, don’t torture yourself. There was nothing you could do against a drone with a missile. You would have died as well, without saving Jeff.”
“A drone with a missile...” repeated Sam Baker, leaning on his cane even more than just two days ago when Jennifer saw him. “How the hell does someone get away with this? Didn’t we sign laws to prevent such things?”
“The drone self-destructed over the ocean. Nobody knows where it came from,” grimly explained David Weinstein. “We were told that it flew in the dark and had no radar signature. Nobody knows what model it was and where it came from. But the missile was of Chinese manufacture.”
“How convenient!” exclaimed Roger Moonson, a retired professor that Jeff chose as his VP running mate. “The Chinese had no reason to go after Jeff, but now politicians will cry crocodile tears and claim that the Chinese killed him.”
“Huh, Dimon already said that!” spitted out Weinstein. “He’s using Jeff’s death to support his platform.”
Jennifer abruptly turned and walked away. For the past two nights she had the nightmare of seeing a missile streaking towards their house, screaming at the top of her lungs for Jeff to get out but no sound would come.
“Jenny,” Sam Baker’s hand gently squeezed her shoulder. “Can I please have that paper you showed me in Laguna Beach? I will go to Washington and meet with Maxwell.”
“Dad, are you sure you’re up for it?” Karen was now by her father’s side. “Perhaps you should try to get an appointment with the President first?”
“No, Karen, that’s not the way to do it,” Sam Baker shook his head. “I am a ‘has-been,’ a respected one but a ‘has-been’ nevertheless. If I try to arrange for an appointment from here, it’ll be months before I get on his schedule. But if I show up there and people see me, an elderly congressman trying to get a few minutes with the president... he’ll see me quickly.”
“Very well, Dad. I’m coming with you,” stated Karen, leaving no room for objections.
Moscow, Russia
The briefing having been concluded, everyone left except for Maxim Fedorov, the head of the Kremlin Regiment.
“Tell me again, Maxim, how many have you arrested so far?”
“Twenty seven. Five we have under observation but we’re not touching yet. Eight more are being searched for.”
“Do you think there are more than that?”
“Perhaps a few,” allowed Fedorov, “but probably not many. We captured Arkady Primak, Nemzhov’s chief assistant. He is singing like a canary, trying to save his skin. And he had a big chunk of Nemzhov’s electronic archive in his possession. Our computer experts are poring over it now. We’re trying to find his financial network and his remaining associates, here and abroad. We’ll pull his claws out.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to grab Nemzhov? I want him captured. Should I bring in the FSB to help?” Mosin’s tone left no doubt that not capturing the man would be considered a major failure.
“Mr. President, we just missed him by a few hours. All internal surveillance networks, all transportation systems, his remaining associates and people that he may go to for help – everything’s being watched. With his prior ties to the FSB, however, I’m reluctant to engage them.”
“It’s unbelievable what extensive damage one man can do when he has the ability to collect so much information on everyone,” Mosin shook his head ruefully. “A few years ago he was sitting right here, explaining to me how his surveillance networks will eradicate terrorism, increase the collection of taxes, make everyone safer.”
“Every sword has two edges,” nodded Fedorov philosophically.
“Get him, Maxim.”
After Fedorov left, Mosin remained in the office, looking at the presentation on his desk, lost in thought. He drummed his fingers on the table, made up his mind, and reached for the “red phone” as it had been known since the days of the previous Cold War.
“President Maxwell?”
“Hi, Boris. Call me Joe for old times’ sake.”
“How are you, Joe?”
“OK. As you know, we had a presidential candidate assassinated. Second time in four years.”
“I’m sorry, Joe.”
“Some people say the Chinese did it, some people say the Russians...”
“We had nothing to do with this, Joe. I doubt that the Chinese did either.”
“Well, four years ago you had quite a bit to do with the Williams’ assassination.”
“Joe, I’m not saying we had anything to do with that one, but even if we did, it would have been a certain head of the GRU acting on his own...”
“Oh, please, spare me the official version!”
“Look, Joe, I’m sorry about Jeff Kron, but that’s not why I am calling.”
“Why are you calling then?”
“Joe, this will never make the news but there was a putsch attempt here, in Moscow.”
“What?” Maxwell sounded genuinely surprised. Mosin didn’t think that the Americans had any involvement in the attempted coup, but it was still nice to have the indirect confirmation.
“Yes. Our old nemesis, Nikolai Nemzhov, blackmailed some high-level people into supporting him. You see, for years he’s been using the state’s surveillance apparatus to collect the data he can use to pressure people. Everyone has something to hide.”
“Did they come close?”
“Very close. We were lucky. And so were you.”
“Why were we lucky?”
“Well, Joe, we are not friends. We’ve been enemies for years. But at least we never crossed the line from ‘cold’ to ‘hot’ war.”
“I’d say you guys came pretty close to crossing that line five years ago when you tried to destroy us with your attack on the dollar.”
“Joe, you did the same to us ten years ago. My point is, we’ve never reached for the missile codes; we’ve never gone ‘all in’, so to speak. If Nemzhov were to come to power here, it could have been different. But there is something else.”
“What?”
“It looks like Nemzhov’s game was not limited to Russia. I just sat through a forensic accounting presentation that was anything but boring. Some accounts established over twenty years ago have been used to funnel money to certain parties in your country.”
“Like what?”
“Like John Dimon. Like FreedomShield. I am sure that Nemzhov was using your inability to see into the SOFI financial network to fund them.”
Maxwell breathed heavily on the other end.
“Boris, why are you telling me this? Why should I trust you?”
Mosin hesitated.
“Frankly, Joe, I was wondering whether I should keep this to myself; I could control Dimon when he came to power. But I’m not sure I would be able to manage him. That’s one thing I have learned in my many years in the office: don’t assume you can control everything. People are unpredictable, the world is complex. I’m getting old, I want to retire next year. I’ve been watching Dimon. I am afraid to leave the world to people like him.”
Maxwell remained silent.
“OK, Joe, I will send you what I have. You decide what to do with it.”
Santa Ana, California, USA
It was another non-descript house in a working-class neighborhood. They arrived here in an old car under the cover of darkness. The old Mexican couple greeted them warmly and gave them two rooms in the back. David and Maggie took one room, Oleg, Alejandro and Mike crowded into the other. They hadn’t left the place in two days.
“Our faces are probably in all the surveillance systems by now,” said Alejandro glumly. “We won’t be able to go to a supermarket without raising an alarm somewhere.”
“How are we going to get out of this?” asked Oleg.
“Let things die down a bit. With Jeff Kron’s assassination, everyone’s on a lookout. Then we’ll leave at night, go across the border.”
“Do you know anything about Jennifer?” wondered Maggie. “I can’t help but think that we brought this on her.”
“You don’t know that,” replied David, his voice lacking conviction.
“We bring death wherever we go,” Maggie started crying.
Everyone else sat quietly for a few minutes.
“Look, I don’t think we can contact Jennifer now,” finally spoke Alejandro. “We know that she survived; according to the news reports she was in Laguna Beach with her grandfather. She probably talked to him about us – that was the plan. I’ll get a word to him, with a way to contact us.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“They probably use gardeners. Everyone in Orange County does.”
“And in the meantime, we just sit here?” said David.
“Yes, we have to remain patient.”
Washington, D.C., USA
President Maxwell saw Sam Baker to the door, then came back and looked again at the thin folder that the retired congressman left behind.
“Joe, do you think it’s true?” asked Brian Tice.
Maxwell looked at his VP and the underdog presidential candidate. The man is so transparent, fear and greed imprinted on his face. Jeff Kron’s assassination scrambled the presidential race. If Dimon can be discredited, this puts Tice into the driver’s seat. But if the accusation is false, it’s the presidential office – and, by extension, Tice – that gets discredited. And in any case, this will bring up some unwanted scrutiny to the issue they’ve been trying to bury. And Brian’s nose might not be clean.
“Possibly. I received a call from the Russian President Mosin last night.”
“Why?”
“In Moscow, there was a plot to overthrow him and install a new government. It went pretty far, but thankfully they were able to break it up.”
“Why ‘thankfully’? Mosin has been our enemy for a long time.”
“Mosin and I don’t like each other. He is not our friend by any means. But there can be things much worse than a trustworthy enemy.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone who is ready to take the conflict to the next level. From cold war to hot war. No, Mosin is no gift to humanity. But someone worse was waiting in the wings.”
“Who?”
“Nemzhov, former head of the GRU. The same one that Sam Baker brought up. Turns out that Nemzhov had an extensive dossier on a great many people. I’m sure you and I are there as well. The dossier has disappeared with Nemzhov. We don’t know who will be the next person that Nemzhov will blackmail... or is already blackmailing. And FreedomShield’s involvement is disturbing, to say the least.”
Maxwell watched as Tice shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He doesn’t like the mentioning of FreedomShield. He lobbied for them to get the FBI contract. I actually enjoy seeing him squirm, the president thought.
“Well, aren’t Russians going to get Nemzhov?”
“They’re trying. Mosin thinks Nemzhov is in the country. But even if they do, the information won’t disappear.”
“OK, what does this have to do with Dimon?”
“Mosin told me the same thing as Sam Baker – they believe that Dimon is ‘dirty.’ He just wanted to warn me.”
“Why?”
“Because just like me, Mosin is afraid that someone worse than Joe Maxwell will come to power.”
“What are you going to do?” demanded Tice.
“I’ll have to think about it.”
Tice hesitated.
“There is something else.” Maxwell did not react, so Tice continued. “The FBI intercepted phone conversations where Dimon was instructing FreedomShield to attack Kron’s supporters.”
“And how do you, Brian, know about this?”
“Director Miller told me.”
“And who told Director Miller to illegally wiretap Dimon? Come on, Brian, I can just pick up the phone and call him.”
Tice exhaled.
“I did. These people come out of nowhere. We have the right to know more about them.”
“You have no right to break the law,” Maxwell repli
ed curtly.
Tice grunted and left.
Maxwell opened the sheet of paper with the names, numbers, and dates. I must try to stop Dimon. And FreedomShield. What will be the implications?
Richmond, USA
Tension hung heavily in the air.
“Can they tie the Los Angeles events to us?” Erik King habitually paced the floor of his office.
“Not directly. At least, not yet. The drones used in the Torrance attack were not purchased by us, they came through third parties,” replied Blair White.
“How much time does this buy us?”
“A few days, weeks at the most.”
“OK, that’s good. We have access to the databases, we can modify some of the purchasing orders, create false trails...”
“No, we can’t!” protested Nancy Westlake.
“Why? Don’t you realize what’s at stake here?” screamed King.
“I think I finally do,” spitted out Nancy. “But in any case, as of twenty minutes ago all FreedomShield employees lost their access privileges to the government databases. I verified this myself – my login no longer works. Also, I’m getting notices that our people are being taken in for questioning as they show up for work.”
“By whose authority??”
“I’ve been told the orders came directly from the White House,” shrugged Nancy.
The intercom buzzed. King punched it irritably:
“I told you to hold my calls!”
“Mr. King, I’m sorry, but there are some gentlemen here and they say they have a warrant.”