“Second, you appear to be putting all your affairs in order. You’ve transferred all your assets to the Trident Trust, which belongs to your family, and to the Trident Foundation, which is a charity. On the operational side, you make biweekly jaunts to Iraq, even though your presence isn’t required.
“Bottom line, Pat, the Langley shrinks believe there’s a distinct possibility that you’re looking for ways to punch your ticket, which is why I was sent here to talk to you.”
Pat was speechless. They both spent the next minute nursing their drinks until Mike broke the silence.
“You’re a friend, Pat. I know your Army career, marriage, and business didn’t turn out the way you planned. We have a specialist who’ll be coming out next week to talk to you about things. I’m here in person because I want to make sure you agree to meet with her.”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You guys should stick to what you know and stay away from psychology.”
“It’s a serious subject, and I need you to play along even if you think it’s unnecessary.”
“I knew you guys kept tabs on me, but I had no idea of the extent. Since you know so much, you must be aware that I made a killing on that speculative long position in oil futures.
“As to your second accusation of getting my affairs in order, my motivation for distributing my assets is just responsible financial planning. Managing money is a full-time job, and it’s not something that I have any interest or expertise in doing. Both the Trident Trust and the Trident Foundation portfolios are handled by bankers in Manhattan, so I can run Falcon and Trident Corp. That’s a division of labor, not a suicide note.
“As far as the operational stuff goes, I need to set the example for the crews, and sometimes I like to take a break from the office work at Falcon.”
“You make some good points. Unfortunately, it was the deputy director who ordered the psych review, and I don’t have the authority to call it off. You’re an important asset, and you’ve been in play a long time. You need to respect that periodically, we need to look under the hood and check the fluid levels on our investment. Dr. Schneeberger is going to arrive in Abu Dhabi early next week. I want you to meet with her as much and as long as she needs.”
Pat threw his hands up in defeat and changed the subject. “Are you sure you don’t want to stick around, Mike? After a few drinks, Mia can be very provocative. Who knows? You two may hit it off.”
“What’s with you and Jenny Lyn anyway? The deputy director ordered you to be shrinked because of the UAV footage, but I was going to order it anyway based on your breaking the rule of the three Fs.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the rule of the three Fs?” Pat asked.
“If it floats, flies, or fornicates, you rent. You never buy. I’m looking at you with a yacht, a fleet of cargo planes, and now a harem. It’s worrisome. Rules exist for a reason.” At that, they both laughed.
Pat woke the next morning at six after his usual four hours of sleep. He turned on the TV and caught the last three innings of the Red Sox game, something only made possible by the time-zone difference. He walked across the parking lot to the Intercontinental Hotel gym. He loved his morning routine at the gym. Today was a chest and shoulder day. He liked to start on the bench. The weights in UAE were metric. He warmed up with sixty kilos and increase the weight twenty kilos each set until he reached a hundred and twenty, and then he dropped down the staircase before moving on to the other exercises. He always finished with thirty minutes of cardio, either running on the treadmill or the rowing machine. After his sixty-minute workout, it was off to his hotel room for a shower.
Pat selected a navy-blue Brioni suit and a white oxford shirt, gold cuff links, a solid red Kiton cashmere-silk tie and a stupidly expensive watch. He hated wearing suits, but sometimes he had to play a role. UAE was the land of the superficial. A man’s suit, watch and car meant far more than they should. At precisely eight o’clock, Pat stepped out of the main entrance of the Intercontinental and into the back of a black Mercedes 550 sedan and began the seventy-five-minute trip to Dubai.
Pat had a breakfast meeting with Andre and Nizie. Most of the ammunition and small arms he supplied was from stocks in Eastern Europe. Despite the huge quality advantage held by NATO weapons, the AK-47 rifle and PKM were staples in the Middle East and Africa. Over the past year, Trident had delivered tens of thousands of rifles and machine guns and millions of rounds of various caliber small-arms ammunition. Ammunition consumption was huge, mostly because the preferred rifle marksmanship technique employed by their customers was spray and pray. Sometimes Pat thought it was a waste to even mount sights onto the weapons.
Andre and Nizie were Pat’s primary Eastern European arms connection. Andre Yuripov was a Russian Ukrainian who represented the Ukrainian export company that had the authority to distribute all Ukrainian defense products.
When the Soviet Union had broken up, portions of their defense industry had been unevenly distributed across the former Warsaw Pact countries. Many of the major aviation companies, like Anatov and Sukhoi, and several of the lesser known weapons factories were in Ukraine, which made them an excellent source. Pat was usually hesitant to buy from the Russians or Belarussians because with Trident’s activities in Syria and Iraq, he didn’t like to give the Putin government a veto over every sale. The remainder of the Eastern European manufacturers were under the European Union, which prohibited the sale of defense goods heading to the war zone. The Ukrainian government was in chaos, and the lack of a controlling central government allowed the factories and export agencies the power to sell to anyone they wished.
Nizie was a Palestinian. He had a home in Jordan and another in Gibraltar. Nizie was what Pat liked to refer to as an IMM, an international man of mystery. Pat guessed Nizie’s age to be in the early seventies. He was of medium height and build, with a white hair and mustache. He was always smiling, and he had alert eyes and a glad-handing demeanor. He liked to dress in Savile Row suits and lots of gold. Nizie was a professional middleman who specialized in connecting buyers with sellers. He worked off a commission paid by the seller, typically below five percent, although he wasn’t above getting a cut from the buyer when he could.
While he was rumored to be on the US no-fly list for getting caught selling weapons to Hamas, he was infamous for being the guy who’d brokered the sale of the Tetra IED jamming device to Saudi Arabia. The Tetra deal was a frequently told story in the industry. Although true, it had become something of a fable, with a lesson for newcomers to the region. In 2005, the Saudis had purchased twenty-five hundred Tetra vehicle IED jammers for the Saudi national guard. IED jammers were often mounted on vehicles and used to block the radio signal the enemy used to detonate roadside improvised explosive devices. Months after the delivery and final payment had been made, an employee from the US defense firm that had the contract to mount and install the devices on the Saudi vehicles had become curious and had taken apart one of the units and bench-tested it. What the contractor had discovered was that the Saudi government had been swindled and had spent $155 million on vehicle-mounted battery chargers. Everyone involved within the Saudi government immediately went into cover-up mode, and the US contractor who’d discovered the problem had been fired. The devices had been buried in the desert, and every official record of the sale had been destroyed. The lesson of the story is that, in the Middle East, mistakes are never fixed. They are erased, along with every person connected to them. If you have a contract to install devices onto trucks, then install them; don’t test them. And whatever you do, don’t ever tell a senior person in government that he’s made a mistake.
Pat liked to schedule meetings with Andre and Nizie in the morning. Both were heavy drinkers, and he thought meeting in the morning gave him an advantage. Nizie was a natural storyteller. He’d had encounters with many of the most famous people in the region, and his tales were wildly entertaining. Andre, on the other hand, was a typical former Russian mili
tary officer. Zero personality, zero sense of humor, and the social graces of a silverback gorilla. What Pat liked about Andre was that he was a straight arrow. In a business filled with cheats and con men like Nizie, Andre was the rare straight shooter. Although a knuckle-dragging thug, Andre was loyal and reliable. Nizie, who by all appearances was a genteel, sophisticated man of culture and good breeding, had the morals of an alley cat.
Pat exited the Mercedes and entered the lobby of the Grosvenor Hotel in the marina area of Dubai. The Grosvenor was a forty-four-story five-star hotel that catered to the Russian population. Pat went to the thirty-seventh floor and knocked on the door to Andre’s suite. After the perfunctory greetings, they sat down to breakfast in the living room of the two-bedroom suite.
After they finished eating, Pat started the business end of the conversation.
“Do you have any updates on when the Mi-17s will be available for inspection?” For the past three months, Andre had been working on the procurement of eight Mi-17V-5 helicopters. The HIP was a Russian twin-engine medium-transport aircraft that was very versatile. It has a maximum speed of 250 kilometers per hour and could range 540 kilometers. The aircraft had a crew of three and could carry up to thirty troops. The Mi-17V-5 could also be converted into a gunship. Pat had been given instructions to purchase eight aircraft, with three to be fitted as gun ships and five as transports. The seventeen-million-dollar aircraft were to be the start of the Peshmerga Air Force.
“The aircraft are in Bulgaria, and they’re ready now for inspection. I’ve already had one of my guys look at them. I’m sure you’ll be happy,” said Andre.
“Who’s the seller?” Pat asked.
“The aircraft belong to the Bulgarian government,” replied Andre.
“What about the guarantees?”
“There’s no warranty. This is a cash-and-carry deal. You’ll conduct an on-sight acceptance test in Bulgaria and pay one hundred percent. We’ll then ship the aircraft and spare parts in two loads on an Anatov 124 that we’ve leased to a location of your choosing, which I assume will be in the UAE.”
“Does the hundred-and-thirty-six-million-dollar price tag include shipping?” Pat asked.
“Yes, it does.”
“Okay, the inspection team will be in Sofia on Tuesday. They’re going to need two weeks to complete the inspection. Please coordinate the local transportation and access to the aircraft. I’ll have a contract sent from the Falcon main office to you next week. It will be a conditional contract, based on passing the inspection, but it should be enough for you to take care of the export licensing and shipping,” Pat said.
After the business was finished, they returned to small talk. While gazing out at the magnificent view of the Palm Jumeirah, Pat said, “There’s one more matter we need to discuss. Last week, one of our competitors submitted a proposal to GHQ DGP a proposal for eight Mi-17s. I don’t mind telling you that I’m confused by this action. This requirement was given only to Falcon by the UAE government. This sale is not going through GHQ. It’s part of a sensitive foreign aid package that’s being routed through a different part of the government.
“I want to know who leaked it. Because there’s no one from GHQ who could have given the requirement to our competition. Outside of the UAE national leadership, only three people know about this requirement: me, you, and Nizie. I didn’t even tell anyone else in Falcon about this project.”
Pat waited for a minute to let the facts sink in before going on. “In the past year, I’ve given you almost two hundred million dollars in business. This deal is another hundred and thirty-five million. I don’t understand why you would do this. Why would you try to go around Falcon on this sale?”
Before Andre could respond, Nizie chimed in with the expected obfuscation of how others could have found out about the deal. Pat completely tuned Nizie out and focused instead on the spectacular view. Tomorrow, he was planning to take the boat out and go fishing. As he looked out at the Palm Jumeirah, he could see some watercraft, which reminded him of how much he enjoyed being on the water, away from the sordid complications of this business.
Pat stood to leave, and Andre and Nizie joined him. As they walked to the door, Andre grabbed Pat by the shoulder. “I’ll take care of this,” he said.
Pat looked over at Nizie, and behind the fake smile, he could see the tension in his eyes and the sweat forming on his upper lip. Pat looked to Andre and said, “I wouldn’t have finalized the sale if I had any doubt that you were going to plug the leak.” Andre was former Spetsnaz; nobody would ever accuse him of being a great thinker. Like Pat, he was a fighter. Andre was a solid guy, both physically and in terms of character. He was in his early forties, with classic Slavic features and arms as thick as Pat’s legs. When Pat looked at him, he could see the steely resolve of a man betrayed.
Nizie, of course, thought he could talk his way out of anything, so he kept talking. He kept up the charade, but as they neared the door, there was little doubt in Pat’s mind that Andre was going to interrogate and possibly kill Nizie. He could see it in Andre’s body language that he was distancing himself from his partner. It was sad. Nizie was an affable fellow, but his greed and propensity to talk were serious problems, and while this was a manageable situation, the next time might not be. There were no second chances in this business. Nizie had to go.
Pat said his goodbyes to both Andre and Nizie and left the hotel room. He called his driver on the elevator down, and he was waiting for Pat as he exited the lobby. Pat’s next stop was the Shangri-La Hotel on Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai’s financial district. The meeting with Andre and Nizie had gone as well as expected. Nizie was a gifted liar, and if for some reason he could convince Andre to remain partners with him, Pat would cancel the helicopter deal and never again work with either of them again. The most likely scenario was that Andre would force Nizie to retire and disappear; the worst-case scenario was that Andre would bury Nizie in the desert. Pat hoped that wouldn’t happen, but he would have no way of knowing if it did. The proposal submitted by Falcon’s competitor to DGP was a concern. Several of the junior staff members within DGP were on the payroll of Falcon’s competitors. If any of their competitors were to see the proposal, then before long, there would be several local UAE companies asking questions of the UAE armed forces senior leadership, attempting to gain permission to compete for a nonexistent UAE project. Those same companies would also attempt to obtain price quotes from middlemen and distributors for a secret US project that nobody was supposed to know existed. Neither Andre nor Nizie knew that the sales they thought they were making to Falcon were immediately resold to Trident and delivered to the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
Pat arrived at the Shangri-La and made his way through the lobby to the elevators in the back. The Shangri-La was a five-star hotel on Sheik Zayed Road in the Financial District. In any other city in the world, the Shangri-La would stand out, but among the many luxury hotels in Dubai, it was fairly average. He took the elevator to the club lounge on the forty-sixth floor. It was late morning and the breakfast buffet was still set up. In the far corner, Pat spotted his next appointment. Shu Xue Wong was the Middle East vice president of business development for CASIC.
China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) was the largest Chinese aerospace firm. Like many Chinese defense firms, it was owned by the military, and most of the senior employees were military officers. Susu, as she liked to be called, was an extraordinary woman. She was a sales executive for CASIC, a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, and—Pat was pretty sure—an agent with Chinese Intelligence. She spoke English and Arabic fluently, along with many other languages. Susu’s looks were a distraction. She had the face of an angel and a black mane of hair that went down to her waist. Well into middle age, Susu could still make the best of men betray their country. Pat had first been introduced to Susu through the chairman of Falcon. A former deputy chief of staff of the UAE armed forces, like most men, their chairman was putty in Susu’s han
ds.
Susu stood as Pat entered the club lounge, and he made a beeline toward her. She met him halfway and gave him a warm hug, then took his arm and walked him to her table next to the window overlooking the city and the Arabian Gulf. The waitress poured him a cup of hot ginger tea.
“So, tell me, Pat—what have you been up to lately? You are so busy. I never see you anymore.”
“Global domination is a very demanding job. I have so little time to report my activities directly.”
The amount of intelligence collection on his activities was rapidly becoming a sore spot. Pat’s recent conversation with Mike had been his first hint of the extent to which the Americans were surveilling him. Pat was also being collected on by the Emiratis, Russians, Chinese, and periodically even the Israelis. It was beginning to make him paranoid. Most frustrating were the hacks. Pat had hired a service that could sometimes trace them, and they often led back to either China or Russia. The United States was undoubtedly doing the same, but his contracted tech firm of former MI6 hadn’t caught them yet.
Pat had pretty good habits, but unless you lived in a SCIF and operate off the secure Internet, it was impossible to keep the various governments from reading your e-mail and other electronic messages. Pat’s biggest problem with cybersecurity was his boat crew. The Filipinas were constantly on their smartphones, downloading apps, videos, and coupon offers. All the hackers had to do was send a phishing message offering a free lunch, and the next thing you knew, their phones had been turned into a microphone and a camera.
Pat was always cautious about doing business around the girls’ phones. Let the poor government intel stiffs spend hours reviewing video of Jenny Lyn and Mia chasing Pokémon characters around the marina with their iPhones; it served them right. The paranoia caused by the constant intel collection had Pat buying bug finders and stashing weapons. It wasn’t healthy.
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