The Evil That Men Do

by Robert Gleason

  And yet he was President of the United States.

  To elect a man like that president, America had to indeed be a land of … lunatics.

  PART III

  “The fossil fuel energy and financial sectors gobble up over $6 trillion a year in global government subsidies. That corporate graft saps up over 8 percent of the planet’s total GDP—so much that the World Bank has asked specifically to outlaw all energy subsidies everywhere.”

  —Jules Meredith

  1

  There are roads you do not go down.

  There are rivers you do not cross.

  There is ground you do not contest.

  There are cities you do not strike.

  There are orders from your ruler you do not obey.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  President Tower sat on the leather couch in his private New York penthouse and stared out over Lower Manhattan. He gazed on the skyline’s grandeur with the same cerebral detachment that he might have felt staring at a rock pile or a garbage dump. Half-reclined on the long dark couch, he kicked his elaborately hand-tooled boots up onto the large oval walnut coffee table, looked at Brenda sitting across from him on an overstuffed leather armchair, and sighed deeply.

  “Brenda,” Tower said, “this UN expropriation movement—barring divine intervention—is likely to happen. The EU, the UK, Japan, even China and the U.S. Senate are on board. Our only hope of divine intervention is Putilov.”

  “So if he doesn’t come through, we’re fucked?” Brenda asked.

  “Big-time,” Tower said. “It’s the perfect election platform for the Democrats. My only question is why did the country take so long to get behind it?”

  “Because the country is packed to the rafters with mindless morons,” Brenda said.

  “True,” Tower said, “but the morons are after us now.”

  “It’s so surreal,” Brenda said.

  “Oh, it’s real all right,” Tower said. “Look what Europe is doing to Apple. They figured out how. The EU is raiding Apple’s foreign accounts.”

  “Twice, even threatened to do it to Putilov’s elites,” Brenda said.

  “At least twice,” Tower said, “and the electorates everywhere are screaming for it.”

  “It’s Revolt of the Masses the way Ortega y Gasset never imagined it,” Brenda said.

  Tower stared at her, nonplussed, unsure who the inestimable Ortega y Gassett was.

  “Putilov’s got a lot of incentive to fight this,” Brenda said. “The UN’s resolution would destroy him and his Russian partners.”

  “If it passes, even Putilov won’t be able to stand up to it,” Tower said. “Look what the Great Powers did to Iran when they tried to develop nuclear weapons.”

  “The U.S., the EU, Japan, Russia and Iran froze Iran out of the world banking system,” Brenda recited as if by rote.

  “Exactly,” Tower said. “Iran could sell goods to foreign countries, specifically oil and gas, they just couldn’t get paid. No bank would transfer funds into an Iranian bank.”

  “If the UN Anti-Poverty Resolution and that Senate bill pass,” Brenda said, “and if we and our companies don’t pay the fines and surtaxes on our revenues and on our offshore accounts, we could find ourselves kicked out of the world’s most financially desirable markets.”

  “No foreign bank on the planet would be open to us,” Tower said.

  “And now there’s going to be that big ugly meeting at the UN. Over five hundred of the world’s richest billionaires will argue their case—with the whole planet howling for their hides.”

  “I know,” Tower said. “We’re putting them up in one of our Tower Hotels.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Brenda asked. “Lose gracefully?”

  Her brother gave her a truly terrifying sneer. Brenda Tower knew that sneer. She did not like it. In fact, she feared it.

  “Jim,” Brenda said, “it’s just money. You and I together, we possess one of the single largest fortunes on earth.”

  “Next to Putilov,” her brother pointed out.

  “Yes, and we don’t need all this shit. We can walk away. Let’s do it. Tell the world to go fuck itself.”

  “You know people always say I’m a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy, that all I live for is kicking ass and taking names.”

  “That’s the only Jim Tower I ever knew, and I’ve known you since you were born.”

  “But it’s not true. If negotiating serves my interests better than coercion, I’ll negotiate.”

  “Depends how vindictive you feel,” Brenda said.

  “I always feel vindictive,” Tower said, “but I’ve negotiated through crises lots of times—as long as the other side leaves me room to maneuver. If the other guy paints me into a corner though and tries to force me into submission, he’ll get something back he hadn’t expected.”

  “You’ll fry his balls like KFC and feed them to him for late-night snacks,” Brenda concurred.

  “But now Congress is trying to railroad me. You know what that means?”

  “Yes,” Brenda said, “and I also know that you and I can’t fight the entire planet. Remember those lines from Sun Tzu I used to quote to you when I wanted to calm you down?”

  “Not really,” Tower said.

  Brenda recited:

  There are roads you do not go down.

  There are rivers you do not cross.

  There is ground you do not contest.

  There are cities you do not strike.

  There are orders from your ruler you do not obey.

  Tower looked at his sister and shrugged. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Maybe this is one war you cannot win,” Brenda said.

  “But I can make winning so painful for the other side,” Tower said, “that the price will be unacceptable. I can make them forget about global expropriation and gladly give up.”

  “So the cure will be worse than the disease?” Brenda asked.

  “If I have my way, the American public will never get its dirty hands on one cent of our money.”

  “Which is saturated with some of the most toxic petrochemical pollutants known to man.”

  “And worth every carcinogen of it,” Tower said.

  Brenda took a long pull on her balloon snifter, draining the cognac. She then freshened her drink, snubbed out her cigarette and lit another Gauloises Blue.

  “Tomorrow night we’re going to meet with the Saudi ambassador and Prince Waheed,” Brenda said. “His CIA director, Billy Burke, is supposed to be there too.”

  “I wish you hadn’t reminded me.”

  “They’re two of the only allies we have in D.C.”

  “They’re faithless friends and craven enemies,” Tower said.

  “So Big Jim is going to have to do it all himself,” Brenda said.

  “Hopefully with a little help from Putilov,” Tower said.

  “Does that mean we’re going to the mattresses?” Brenda asked.

  “War to the knife.”

  “All bets are off?

  “Anything goes when the whistle blows.”

  “Sounds like it’s going to be a pretty loud whistle,” Brenda said.

  “It’s a screeching, shrieking blast of apocalyptic proportions,” Tower said.

  “Sounds like you’ve heard it before.”

  “Of course. I’ve even blown it myself. Hell, I own it.”

  2

  Perhaps Nemerov should not have waved his bodyguards away …

  Boris Nemerov and his fiancée casually strolled Red Square. They had just attended the Bolshoi Ballet, where they watched Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. The entire performance had been exhilarating, beginning to end, and afterward, Nemerov and Tatiana had a superb four-course meal at Café Pushkin. Since Russia’s elites regarded it as one of the finest restaurants in the city, getting a table, even for Nemerov—who was one of Putilov’s top presidential opponents—had almost taken an ac
t of God. He’d had to book the reservation six weeks in advance, but it had been worth the effort.

  Decorated in the style of a 19th-century aristocratic mansion, Café Pushkin’s main room was graced with elaborately carved columns, and its wall shelves were filled with large leather-bound first editions of the great Russian classics. The tables and chairs were solid country furniture constructed of smooth curved oak. The atmosphere was intimate and old worldly. The staff’s manners were impeccable and the cuisine exquisite—smoked salmon with caviar and sour cream piled on top of pieces of thinly sliced Russian blini; marinated lamb shashlik skewered with pork and onions had come next, followed by pelmeni meat dumplings with butter and sour cream along with crispy fried syrniki cheese patties with Nutella. Afterward came wedges of apple sharlotka. And, of course, no such repast would be complete without shots of freezing-cold Stolichnaya Elit and a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal champagne chilling in an ice bucket.

  When they finally left the restaurant, they were both happy, laughing and more than a little tipsy.

  From Nemerov’s point of view there was nothing like Moscow on a warm summer evening, and while as a presidential candidate, he was supposed to be continually surrounded by at least six bodyguards, tonight he had asked them to give him and Tatania some privacy. He understood he was putting himself in harm’s way by keeping them at a distance. He was running for the presidency against Mikhail Putilov as a reform candidate and had been highly critical of his opponent’s corruption—his plundering of the Russian economy and squirreling away of all that black money in offshore Western banks. He knew that Putilov had had people killed before for saying far milder things about him. He also knew the Russian people were hearing his message and were becoming increasingly inflamed. Nemerov was now a force to be reckoned with, and while he could not get his message out over the Putilov-controlled news media, Russia’s “Dark Net” and had been on fire with his speeches, clandestine podcasts and exposés.

  Nemerov was not alone in challenging the Russian strongman. The third presidential opponent, the great chess world champion and world-class political campaigner Borya Kazankov, had also been electrifying people on the internet and at large gatherings. He and Kazankov were giving Putilov his first serious challenge in twenty years, and Kremlin insiders hinted to him Putilov was in a blind rage. At the very least, he and Kazankov’s incendiary campaign speeches were a constant source of aggravation to Putilov. Both of them blasted him nonstop for his criminal pillaging of the Russian Federation.

  Perhaps Nemerov should not have waved his bodyguards away. Putilov was notorious for killing political opponents and muckraking reporters—anyone who embarrassed or menaced him—and Nemerov had done plenty of both. Still if he wasn’t safe here, he couldn’t be safe anywhere, and anyway at a moment like this, he needed to be alone with the woman he loved. Standing in the shadow of St. Basil’s, he was about to ask Tatania—the most beautiful, most decent, smartest young woman he’d ever known—for her hand in marriage. This close to the Kremlin, Nemerov believed no one—not even that mass-murdering psychopathic bastard Putilov—would have the temerity to order a hit on him. Even Putilov would not desecrate the sacred ground in front of St. Basil’s.

  Stopping Tatania by a small park garden flower bed—overflowing with roses, gardenias and marigolds—Nemerov took both her hands and dropped to one knee. Taking the ring out of his vest pocket, he looked up at her. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Her beauty had struck him dumb on any number of occasions, and tonight was no exception. Her thick waist-length mane of hair, blond as summer wheat, her high angular cheekbones, her azure eyes, which, as usual, were carefree and smiling, once again took his breath away. She was so beautiful it sometimes made his soul ache.

  “Tatania,” he asked, holding up the 22-carat gold ring, surrounded by a cluster of three 3-carat diamonds, “will you accept this ring—and my hand in marriage?”

  “Oh Boris,” she said, her bright eyes suddenly moist, “I’ve wanted you since the first time I’d saw you—you and no one else. I’ll marry you, live in sin with you, be your mate, partner, your friend, your mistress, anything, anytime, anyplace, for as long as you are foolish enough to have me.”

  Now Tatania’s eyes were also tearing.

  He put the ring on her wedding finger, then rose. Taking her in his arms, he kissed her in the view of the Great Kremlin Cathedral.

  Suddenly, his bodyguards were screaming. A black SUV was pulling up next to them less than twenty feet away, and he knew that for anyone to be near him was to court death. Fearing for Tatania’s safety, he pushed her away from him, sending her sprawling across the sidewalk. The man next to the driver was out of the car. He was holding what looked like a squat fat knockoff of an AK-47, and it was leveled at him. Nemerov suddenly realized he was staring into the muzzle, not of an AK-47, but of a semi-automatic 12-gauge military shotgun.

  “Good move, Nemerov,” the man with the shotgun said. “No reason for the girl to die.”

  Nemerov glanced at his bodyguards, who were already drawing their pistols, but they were not quick enough. Three other black-suited men, who had already rounded the SUV, were ripping his men to pieces with AK-47s. At the same time, the man with the shotgun was blasting a pair of 12-gauge magnum shells, each filled with double-0 steel buck, into Nemerov’s midsection. Over sixty ball bearings, each the size of a .22 caliber bullet, shredded his Kevlar vest, turning it to bloody coleslaw. Then the man pumped a third shell into Nemerov’s face—all three blasts hammering the politician as fast as the man could squeeze the trigger, detonating him head to thigh in less than three seconds.

  Nemerov heard Tatania wailing, then he vaguely intuited her bending over him. But his vision was now so luridly crimson and badly blurred he couldn’t honestly tell what was happening.

  His mind was going too. His last fading thought, however, was not of the beautiful Tatania—whom he loved more than life itself—but of the stony-faced killer, the man with the shotgun. He’d looked to be an Arab and was remarkably handsome. He had Hollywood looks when you got right down to it.

  In fact, Nemerov’s last coherent thought was that his killer bore a striking resemblance to that Egyptian actor, the guy who’d co-starred in Lawrence of Arabia.

  3

  “We sold Pakistan its first nuclear reactors—i.e., their nuclear weapons’ training wheels. We educated and prepped their nuclear scientists. We gave them enough money to make millions of bombs. We’re responsible for Pakistan’s nukes. We brought it on ourselves.”

  —Elena Moreno

  The bartender issued last call. They had been drinking for eight straight hours, yet neither woman, to the bartender’s amazement, seemed noticeably drunk.

  “I honestly thought you’d died in Pakistan,” Elena said, ordering a final round.

  “For a while I thought I had too.” Reaching across the table, she handed Elena a flash drive. “Sometimes I wish I had.”

  “That’s a little extreme, Adara, even for you.”

  “Maybe, but you don’t know what we’re up against. It’s going to get ugly.”

  “So?” Elena said. “You and I have seen lots of ugly, but we’re still here.”

  “Nothing like this,” Adara said. “Look at the stuff on this flash drive. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to give it to you. This has to be strictly on the down low. It could get both of us killed, but it has everything you need to know.”

  Elena placed the memory stick on the table in front of Adara.

  “Keep it, Adara. You and Rashid chose to go back to Pakistan. You wanted to be world-beaters and global heroes. I told you at the time you were nuts, and you didn’t listen. Now you want me to bail Rashid out. Sorry. I’ve passed the torch. My days in the Special Ops salt mines are over.”

  “You still know Pakistan and their terrorist groups,” Adara said, “better than any agent I ever knew.”

  “But I’m not into reckless risk anymore. Those days are over.”

 
“Suppose I told you we had a chance to do some good—to make things better over there.”

  “What’s life without a dream?”

  Adara leaned toward Elena, placed the flash drive in her hand, and curled her fingers over it.

  “I only got out,” Adara said, “because Rashid covered my escape from that Pashtun hellhole. That’s why I’m alive. He held the New United Islamist Front off with an M60 machine gun.

  “That flash drive, did you try taking it to the Company? Or the FBI?”

  “Why not just give it to Raza and Kamal?”

  “You don’t trust the Agency or the Bureau?” Elena said.

  “Waheed, Putilov and Tower own them.

  “How?” Elena asked.

  “They’re all in Putilov’s trick bag, the Saudis included.”

  “So what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “You can help me get Rashid out of Pakistan,” Adara said. “He knows everything. He was in the middle of it, on the inside. You, Jules, Rashid and I can blow the whistle on the whole dirty mess. We can put them all away.”

  “Not possible. Tower, Putilov, Waheed—they’re invulnerable to people like us. I know from experience.”

  “Rashid’s got them nailed—dead–bang.”

  “Naw, they’re wired too tight.”

  “Please. I’m begging you, Elena.”

  Adara’s voice was starting to crack. Elena had never heard her voice break before. She was impressed. She also wondered if it was an act. She didn’t think so. She took Adara’s hand and held it.

  “Nothing good comes out of the Mideast,” Elena said. “It’s the gift that never stops giving.”

  “Like the Hotel California.”

  “‘You can check out any time you like,’” Elena said, quoting the old lyric, “‘but you can never leave.’”

  “Suppose I said there are people there ready to turn NYC into a nuclear necropolis?”