by Andrew Watts
15
When Max returned to the cottage, Renee was still out back, sitting by the pool, her computer in her lap. She looked relieved when she saw it was him.
“Worried?” Max said.
“A little.”
“Good. That’s healthy. You were right about Bear Security Group. Pavel Morozov is involved.” Max filled Renee in on who he’d met and what he had learned.
“Do you trust this woman? The MI-6 agent?”
“They freed me from the clutches of the FBI.”
“You don’t think a good lawyer could have done that?”
“Depends what the FBI has on me.”
“But you’re innocent.”
Max waved off the comment. “If what Charlotte said is right, the CIA is intentionally allowing Morozov’s cronies to hack into my father’s network. Someone in our government has an agenda.”
Renee looked up from her computer. “Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know. It sounds reckless. There must be another side to the story.”
“I wonder if there’s a way we could find out who at Fend Aerospace might be working for Morozov.”
Max looked up. “That would be a big help. Do you think you could do that?”
Renee was looking at her computer again. She whistled.
“What is it?”
“I’m taking another look at Morozov’s boat. It’s really something.” She turned the computer so he could see.
“That’s Morozov’s?”
It wasn’t a normal yacht. The ship was a massive gray vessel that looked like a futuristic version of a sailboat. Giant metal masts rose up two hundred feet above the deck. Narrow tinted portholes lined the sleek hull. There was a helipad. Multiple spots for small motorboats to pull up. Wooden sundecks. Indoor and outdoor pools.
“It’s incredible.”
“It says here that it’s one of the most expensive ever built.”
“How much?”
“Nearly half a billion dollars.”
Max looked up at the sky. “Hmm. I’ll think about it.”
“About what?”
“Getting one. I’m sure that would help with my playboy reputation.”
“Right,” Renee said. “It arrived in Key West just two days ago.” She looked up. “So they were here at the same time that hackers from this region located us in Georgia.”
“You think that they did it from the yacht?”
“I don’t know. This yachting website says Morozov is taking it around the Caribbean and Florida for the next month.”
“Why?”
Renee typed some more. “Because when you’re rich,” she said, “you can do whatever the hell you want. You know that.” She smiled at him.
“Easy, now.”
“It appears as though he’s throwing a party on the yacht tomorrow night.”
“Oh, really?” Max was interested. “I wonder why I wasn’t invited.”
“A lot of big investors are showing up. You know, Max, if I can access the computer network on that yacht, that might be an opportunity to—”
“No,” Max interrupted, a stern look on his face. “That would be a terrible idea.”
“You wouldn’t have to go, of course. They would recognize you. But they don’t know me.”
“That’s an even worse idea.”
Renee looked hurt. “I may not be an expert at fieldwork like you, but I was a trained member of the CSE.”
“What did they train you in, how to avoid paper cuts before you sat down in front of your computer terminal?”
She frowned. “We didn’t use paper. Security protocol.”
“Renee, dear, now I haven’t been to a good yacht party for the ungodly rich in months—and that is a long time for me—but if I walk onto that yacht, I would get shot in about ten seconds. And you…”
She crossed her arms.
“Renee, the truth is, I feel guilty for dragging you into this in the first place. You could have been killed in Georgia. I won’t place you in harm’s way like that again.”
She saw the look on his face and knew she wasn’t going to convince him right now. “Well, I’d at least like to get a better look at this thing. Maybe we can just go check out the yacht from a distance?”
“That’s a more reasonable idea.” Max took off his sandals and pulled up the pant legs of his khaki, placing his bare feet in the cool pool water. “You know, Renee, I think it’s time I treated you to a nice trip on the water.”
Two Days Before the Fend 100 Flight
Max and Renee snapped the buckles of their life vests. The sound of seagulls overhead mixed with the clangs of the sailboats floating in their slips. Deep-sea fishing boats motoring out into the Caribbean. The smell of salt in the air. Max loved the sea.
“You guys want to rent one or two?” said the freckle-faced kid working the counter of the Jet Ski rental shop.
“One should be fine,” Max said.
Renee said, “Two.”
The kid looked back and forth between them.
Renee whispered, “I’m not going to be one of your pretty girls, hugging you and hanging on.”
“Don’t say that. You look great in your bikini.”
She frowned.
Max turned to the boy behind the counter. “Two Jet Skis will be fine, my friend.”
A few minutes later, they were headed out of the small harbor, their engines barely above idle. Renee was the first to pass the buoy, which signaled the end of the no-wake zone. She immediately gunned the throttle, and a spray of white seawater shot up from behind her. She looked back at Max, smiling as she left him behind. A second later, he accelerated and felt his body sliding back as he neared fifty miles per hour.
The wind and seas were calm. Uninhibited by a rough ocean, the Jet Skis skimmed above the water at a very high speed. Riding them was pure fun.
Max reminded himself to do this again soon. They zoomed in between Sunset Key and Wisteria Island, turning right, towards Fleming Key. From there, they headed towards a group of tiny islands about two miles to the north, a large sandbar interwoven between them.
They arrived at Cayo Agua. The small island was barely more than a few hundred yards around, carved apart by multiple turquoise seawater streams. Both Renee and Max slowed their Jet Skis and headed into one of the inlets. The water below was crystal clear, and Max saw flashes of color darting underneath him. Tropical fish, not used to being disturbed here. As they slowly motored along the stream, they were surrounded closely on either side by tropical plants and trees. Banana trees. Mahogany trees. Coconut palms. A scattering of bright pink orchids. It was at once quiet and beautiful.
Renee turned her Jet Ski towards a sandy bank. About fifty feet further ahead, the stream opened back up into the ocean on the other side of the island. They didn’t want to come out that far.
Max and Renee pushed their Jet Skis up onto the bank, beaching them. They removed their vests, hanging them on the handlebars, and waded the rest of the way through the stream, soft sand under their feet.
Max couldn’t help but noticing that he was right about Renee in her bikini. She kept in good shape, and the years had been kind.
“There it is,” Renee said.
She had lowered herself into the deep middle section of the stream and peeked out around the corner where it emptied into the ocean. About half a mile to the north, just past the sandbar, Max could see Pavel Morozov’s yacht.
“Wow. That is an incredible piece of work.”
He took the pair of waterproof binoculars from around his neck and scanned the vessel. It was even more impressive in person. Sleek and aerodynamic, it looked more like a modern warship than a private yacht—although the three tall metallic masts made it more like a work of art than a warship.
On the upper aft deck, he could see private security. Big, thick men wearing black vests over white tee shirts. Each wore wraparound sunglasses. Each looked to have a holstered weapon at his waist. Max counted five of
them that he could see. Probably three less than there were a few days ago.
On the two decks below that, there were sets of scantily clad women. Some were rubbing oil on each other’s backs, bathing in the sun. Others carried tall glasses of champagne. And there in the middle of it all was the man of the hour.
Pavel Morozov.
He was speaking with someone. A woman. Her back was to Max. She wore a long, flowing skirt and a bathing suit top. Max wished he had a long-range microphone, because he knew who it was.
“That’s her,” Max said.
“Who? The MI-6 agent?”
“Yes. Wish we knew what they were discussing. Hmm.”
“What is it?”
“I see something that wasn’t in the picture of the yacht,” Max said. “There are antennae on the fore and aft of the ship. They look like big orbs. Do you see them?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Those look very similar to the datalink antennae on a Navy warship.”
“How do you know that?”
“DIA, remember?”
“So why is that significant? The antennae.”
“Because Charlotte told me that the Fend 100 was vulnerable through its encrypted datalink. I wonder if those antennae are how they’ll hack in to the Fend network this time.”
“But it’s encrypted. They’d need some type of passcode to get in.”
“If Morozov has someone working for Fend Aerospace, they could help them with that.”
“If we could get aboard that boat, I might be able to answer some of these questions, Max.”
“Renee. No. You see the security guards. They missed us in Georgia. It would be stupid to hand ourselves over to them now.”
“But they’re throwing a party tonight.”
“So?”
“So it’ll be somewhat public, right?”
“No. A private party. The opposite of public.”
“You know what I mean. What if I placed myself on the guest list and snuck on? I would only need a half hour. I could go as a maid.”
Max shook his head. “This isn’t the movies, Renee. Don’t put yourself in a position of weakness. If they get their hands on you—”
“I can handle it, Max.”
“I saw you handle it in Georgia.”
She reddened. “I said I was sorry about that.”
Max sighed. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that I don’t want to risk you.”
“Max, if I can gain access to the computer network on that boat—”
“I said no. It’s not worth it. We’ll leave tomorrow and fly to Jacksonville. Then I’ll get in touch with my father and use Charlotte’s thumb drive to disarm Morozov’s virus.”
Renee scrunched her lips together. She didn’t like it.
“Come on. Let’s go back to the Jet Skis and head back. I’ll give you cash and let you go shopping. Girls like shopping, right? We need food and clothes. I’ll give you a grocery list and then I’ll cook you up the most delicious French cuisine you’ve ever had.”
“I’m not sure whether to respond to the good or the bad part of that.”
“Always look on the bright side of things, Renee.”
She rolled her eyes.
Pavel Morozov had two qualities that had helped him to attain his level of wealth: cunning and ruthlessness. These qualities had served him well prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. His rise through the ranks of the KGB had been swift. But one could only go so far in the Soviet Union. The idiocy of the Communist bureaucracy meant that natural talent had its limits. Politics and ideology always got in the way.
But not anymore. The fall of the USSR had been a godsend to men like him. Men who didn’t have any scruples about getting their hands dirty. Men who projected strength. Once the politicians were no longer in charge, there was a huge power vacuum. Former KGB members were only too happy to fill the void.
Pavel found that he was quite a talented businessman. There were so many similarities to his work in the KGB. You always had to be one step ahead of the competition. Deception and innovation ruled the day. To Pavel, business was just a new way of playing the same old game.
After the collapse of the USSR, the Red Army had an enormous inventory of weaponry, and very little need for it. The Cold War was over. Where there was confusion, there was great opportunity, Pavel knew.
The first time he walked into a former Soviet weapons cache and demanded to see the commanding officer, he expected to get pushback. But Pavel was surprised to find out that the same methods of influence and persuasion he had used in the KGB worked just as effectively in his new field.
Arms dealer. The bottom rung of the long ladder he would climb.
There were national armies around the world that would pay top dollar for Russia’s unused weapons. The Russian military men who oversaw the weapons didn’t care where they went. Those men just didn’t want to get in trouble. Don’t rock the boat. That way of thinking had served them well in the Soviet era. But in the post-Soviet world, there were so many possibilities. The Russian military men were happy to accept cash and black market items in exchange for misplacing crates of weapons.
The first man to question Morozov got shot on the spot. The second man suddenly had no questions.
The money started rolling in after that. Pavel Morozov sold Russian weapons to whoever wanted them, all around the world. If you were looking for an AK-47, go somewhere else. But if you were looking for ten thousand of them—Pavel was your man. Need a tank? How about twenty? The first pallet of shells would be free.
But others were in on the game as well. The mid-90s—that was when the Russian and Ukrainian mob had gotten their legs under them. They were also staffed with former KGB, GRU, and Red Army veterans. The imbalance of supply and demand quickly sorted itself out. Competition got stiff.
Pavel Morozov had made his first pile of cash. It was time for him to think bigger. He began investing. Putting money into companies and nation-states that couldn’t get loans from anywhere else. Iran. Iraq. North Korea. African militias. Some of his best customers.
As oil money pumped up Russia’s economy, it breathed life back into the sleepy bear. Russian leadership wanted to flex its military muscle once again. But some of the objectives would be seen as questionable on the world stage.
Morozov saw an opportunity.
Why arm militaries around the world when you could get paid more by fighting their battles? The Russian soldier was still one of the best in the world. So he founded Bear Security Group. Soon, ex-Spetsnaz commandos were training troops and even doing some fighting in hot spots around the world. Places no one else wanted to go. Places others couldn’t go, because the political will wasn’t there. When Russia wanted to invade Crimea, they first sent in teams from Bear Security Group. When Russia wanted to help anti-American forces in Syria, Morozov’s mercenaries were flown in.
Eventually, Pavel’s men would fight right alongside Russian special forces soldiers. It often became hard to distinguish between them. Such was the beauty of the private sector. For the right price, one could get the best quality.
Morozov didn’t stop with creating a private military. Anyone could do that, although surely not as well as he. But what very few other firms could do to his level was espionage. A private security contractor was nothing without a good intelligence network.
Private spies. Perhaps his greatest idea.
Morozov supplied critical intelligence field agents and information to the highest bidder, around the world. Often times he had opposing national intelligence organizations bidding against each other to gain access to his information. They had to, lest it fall into their competitor’s hands. Even the CIA had paid to access some of his dossiers. Although they would never admit to it in a million years.
Now, having conquered the world one bullet at a time, Pavel Morozov sat on his yacht, basking in the glorious sunlight off the coast of a nation that had once considered him an enemy. He was too ric
h and powerful for that now. As long as he kept himself separated enough from the many private wars his companies fought, he was untouchable. Besides, as a master spy, he knew how to keep clean.
Life was good. Especially when it gave him gifts. Like it had last year, when his men had stumbled onto Max Fend in the South of France.
“Mr. Morozov, we will be lifting anchor and heading back into Key West.”
He looked up at Charlotte. “Very well. Thank you, dear.”
“Is there anything else I can get you?”
“You still haven’t told me about last night. You went out into town—how did it go?”
“It was fine,” Charlotte said.
“Any details you need to tell me about?”
“No.”
Pavel looked at the topless girls next to him. Oiling each other up so they would tan better. Drunk off expensive champagne.
One of them said, “Mr. Morozov, what happened to that other girl who was always with you? The blonde?”
“Her? I think she went for a swim.” He laughed to himself.
They looked at each other and didn’t ask any more questions.
He turned back to Charlotte and quietly asked, “Are we all set for next week?”
“We’re all set to head up the Florida coast tomorrow morning, sir. We’ll be in St. Augustine by Wednesday, just as you requested.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“Anything else?”
He shook his head and waved her away. She left without saying another word. He looked at one of the girls next to him and snapped his fingers. “Hey. Go get me a champagne. Make sure it is cold.”
The girl hurried off, not wanting to take a swim.
Jake Flynn knew that his investigation was high-priority now. The FBI had sent one of their Gulfstreams down to Brunswick to get him. That was a first. He’d briefed the director and deputy director via conference call on the way back up to D.C. While the Bureau leadership was interested, Flynn still got the impression that there was more to Max Fend than they were letting on.