The Russian Crisis

by G. R. Daniels

  “I’m trying to save JPI - all of us,” Payne’s voice was full of desperation. “This crisis can ruin us, Jackson. If it gets out that a major system of ours can’t be counted on, we’re dead. None of our clients will trust us. They’ll rip out all their JPI installs. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars in defense budgets, down the… bloody drain, not to mention the company.”

  “But Maxim is the ideal CEO. I picked him. He was approved by the board. All our clients vetted the guy. He has to be on this thing full bore.”

  “He isn’t, Jackson. Believe me, he is not on this thing. ‘Forget it’ he told us. You heard him, Bill.”

  Brownley nodded glumly but added, “He may have his own agenda, Mr. Payne. You can’t know what he’s thinking.”

  “Bullshit.” Payne looked at his chief of security with irritation. “If he has an agenda, it isn’t one that is good for JPI or our clients. No one knows what the hell he’s thinking, if, in fact, he’s thinking anything except protecting his own ass.”

  Jackson leaned back into the soft leather of his chair. He considered his visitors for a moment before leaning forward again. “What went wrong,” he asked quietly and calmly.

  Payne collected his thoughts and took another sip of his drink. He leaned forward as well and looked directly into Jackson’s eyes. “What went wrong is that the man we all thought would make a superb CEO has fooled us. Including you, Jackson. We thought he was brilliant and he may be. We thought he was a real leader. He has been, up to a point; lots of people at JPI think he walks on water. We thought he was a caring human being and that’s where we went wrong. The man turns out to be one of the world’s biggest narcissists.

  “He is a misogynist, a racist and a xenophile. The only person I can think of who might be worse is Donald Trump but it would be a close contest. The thing about Maxim Blax is that he keeps all his flaws well-hidden and doesn’t blast them to the world like Trump. And, the only way I can figure it, he’s protecting his ass from a catastrophe that could show up his fallibility and his inflated ego.” Payne sat back in his chair, exhausted by his soliloquy and his rancour for his boss.

  Jackson considered for a moment before turning his gaze to Brownley. “Do you agree … about narcissism and racism and so on?”

  Payne scowled.

  Brownley was clearly reluctant but finally shook his head. “Yeah. I can see it but only if I look really hard.”

  “What’s your background?”

  Jackson’s question startled Brownley and Payne who looked up with new interest.

  “Twenty years in the military, like you,” said Brownley slowly. “But not near your rank. I left as a Sergeant Major in the Van Doos.”

  Jackson smiled at the mention of the Royal 22nd Regiment, the vaunted ‘Van Doos’, the French-Canadian unit that was one of the most famous and storied of the units in the Canadian army. Brownley’s military history spoke volumes besides revealing he would speak fluent and colourful French-Canadian.

  “Sgt. Majors are often a hell of a lot higher and more useful than generals,” said Jackson with a grin. “Go on.”

  Brownley filled in more of his background.

  "I came to JPI just after you jumped ship.” Jackson frowned at that depiction of his departure from his company. “Not that I blame you, Brownley hurried to add. “We all have to make sure we don’t stay around too long…” Jackson returned a rueful grin.

  “I’m in my 50s now so I’ve got a few years to go but I’ll go myself when I feel I’ve done all I can.”

  “I appreciate that, I think,” said Jackson with another smile. “You’ve put my mind to rest on a few things, Bill. But why are you against this meeting? I don’t like to feel I’m unwanted … or unneeded.”

  “This is an in-house matter, sir.” Brownley took another sip of his beer and met Jackson’s eyes. “I just can’t believe that an outsider…” Jackson looked offended. “I can’t believe an outsider, even a retired company man, can be trusted to keep everything confidential. He could tell his wife or a buddy or whoever and not think about it the way a real company man or woman would.”

  “My wife is dead. Payne here is my only known friend; everyone else is an acquaintance, some of them fonder than others. I don’t know any ‘whomevers’ and wouldn’t trust them if I did. And you did point to the Official Secrets Act hanging over my head if I were stupid enough or disloyal enough to talk.”

  Brownley shook his bald head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your wife, sir.”

  “You should have known. It would be in your research,” Jackson castigated the security chief who looked shamed.

  “Guilty, sir. Sorry. But it doesn’t dismiss my worry.”

  “Okay. But it might relieve you to know I have a Non-Disclosure Agreement to match any I’ve ever seen or written myself. So, let’s get on with what you want from me instead of worrying about when I’ll spill my guts to the Russians, Chinese or Yanks, god bless ‘em all.”

  Payne took the lead in telling the story and making the plea.

  “We’ve gone through the information a great deal, Bill, Barry, Jean and I, and we concluded you may be the only person who can discover what is going on with Maxim and what the hell we can do about it. The equity fund that holds us, CPE, turned six shades of blue and ran for cover.

  “You know Blax’s job intimately. You read all the vetting of the man for your job so you’re familiar with everything in his background. We hope you are one of the few people he respects and to whom he will listen. If not you, who can solve this disaster-in -the-making?”

  “Here’s all we have and it’s not much.” Payne reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a slim business envelope. “But it’s enough to keep us awake at nights. It shows someone has a lot they shouldn’t have and we have to believe it’s one of our own. No one else could get this close.”

  “Give me a day,” Jackson asked without hesitation, taking the envelope and tucking it under a hip. “I have to think about this. It certainly isn’t what I expected in my so-called retirement.” Brownley and Payne looked up with consternation. “It isn’t what I want to do either. I have to be honest with you.” He paused.

  Jackson Phillips grinned and made it obvious why everyone at JPI had once admired and often adored this man. His grin was full of good if ironic humour and his tone was gentle when he said, “So, it’s back to your yacht, back to the salt mines and I’ll call when I have made up my mind, such as it is.”

  Jackson rose quickly to his feet and waved a hand toward the front hallway. His visitors walked from the cottage, Brownley’s soggy shoes making small squishing sounds, and clambered into their motorboat for the short trip to the mainland and their parked car. After seeing them off, Jackson let out a sigh, entered his office and softly shut the door.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ryan Payne and Bill Brownley dropped the rented boat and picked up their car at a dirt-covered parking lot outside a marina on the mainland not long after leaving Phillip’s cottage on Shield Island. They drove along a gravel road, slowly to keep the stones from marking Brownley’s new Jeep Cherokee. It was a two-hour trip from so-called “Cottage Country” back to Toronto. The gravel road led them to the wide Highway 400 running north to south, the road back to home office.

  While Payne dozed, Brownley kept his eye on a black Ford Explorer that had turned onto the highway from the same sideroad only moments after Brownley’s auto.

  “Paranoid,” Brownley told himself. “You’d think this was Kabul.” Within a short time, the Explorer fell far enough behind to permit a line of traffic to separate it from the Jeep and Brownley relaxed.

  “He’s old.” Brownley surprised himself by saying out loud what he had been thinking.

  Payne opened his eyes and glanced over at the driver. “Yeah, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen Jackson but he did look older. A lot older. Maybe it’s just my memory that’s getting rusty.”

  “No, he’s an elderly guy.
But he’s sharp as a shiny nail. I wonder what he’ll decide to do.”

  “I sure as hell hope he comes down to T O,” said Payne using slang for the city. “We won’t find anyone who knows the company as well, who knows Maxim and who has the security clearances that Jackson has.”

  “Is that it?” asked Brownley. “Because he has clearances. Is that why you’re bringing him in to help us instead of getting a real pro investigator?”

  “Hell no,” said Payne, closing his eyes again. “We couldn’t find anyone more pro than Jackson Phillips. If anyone can get us out of a real mess, it’s him.”

  Brownley looked into the rear-view mirror. The Black Explorer was back. He spotted the SUV several cars back and was certain it was the one that had trailed them from the gravel road. It wouldn’t be surprising since the highway was the only route south for most vehicles leaving Cottage Country. Still, Brownley, a vet of many tours in war zones, was the suspicious type.

  He switched to the inside lane of the highway and slowed. The Explorer moved up until it was beside the Jeep. Brownley tried to get a good look at the driver and a passenger in the Explorer. The windows were heavily tinted and reflected the blue sky so that Brownley could see only shapes in the other automobile. He gave up and sped up. When he was ahead of the SUV, Brownley switched back to the middle lane with a car between the Jeep and the Explorer.

  Brownley forgot about the black vehicle behind him for a few miles. He glanced, routinely, at his rear-view mirror. The black Ford filled the view from a few feet behind the Jeep.

  “Shit. Hold on Mr. Payne.” Before he could take any action, the two men felt a heavy blow on the rear of the Jeep. The SUV began to slide into the outside lane of the highway.

  Brownley put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the Jeep picked up speed quickly. With a deft turn of the steering wheel, Brownley took the car fully into the outside lane. Two wheels ran into the verge but a light touch on the brakes and a slight turn of the steering wheel brought all four wheels back onto the pavement cancelling the slide.

  Within six seconds, he had the speed up to 140 kilometres an hour and the Explorer had fallen out of view in the mirror.

  “What’s going on,” asked Payne in a calm voice. Payne was the rare type who would raise his voice if asked to decide what to have for lunch but would remain calm during a hurricane.

  “Not sure.” Brownley hesitated. “That was a pro move. We did that in our military training. Clip the bumper and send the other guy into a skid.”

  “Road rage?”

  “Nah,” Brownley answered Payne’s question. “That Ford has been on our tail since we turned onto the highway. I noticed them up the road. There was more to that than an angry driver.”

  “Calling the police?”

  Brownley ignored the query. “There’s an OnRoute mall ahead, we’ll grab a coffee. If they want to come after us there, I’ll be happy to make their acquaintance.” Payne had no doubt Brownley meant it.

  “Not the time to have the police involved,” Payne said thoughtfully. Brownley glanced at him appreciatively.

  The Jeep entered an off-ramp and headed for the gas station and restaurant complex. They walked to the rear of the car and found a dent in the bumper. “Damn,” said Brownley. “That’s two grand. Praise be to insurance.”

  Two minutes later the two men ordered coffee from a Tim Horton’s kiosk and found a small booth well away from the other patrons.

  “You think that had something to do with the… uh … problem at JPI?”

  “Could be?” Brownley sipped his coffee and thought for a moment. “Why would some idiot follow us for close to a hundred kilometres and, then, try to put us in the ditch - or in front of a semi doing 110?”

  Payne took out his cellphone and hit a number in its phone dial screen. “Jackson… there’s something we have to tell you.” Payne told Phillips about the collision and warned him to be cautious. Brownley heard his closing words, “Yes, I know your background. … just be careful, Jackson. Sorry we might have brought this on you.”

  Brownley stared for a moment at his CFO, then turned his face toward the big parking lot beyond the restaurant window.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jackson Phillips spent his afternoon in his den (slash) office just inside the front door of his bayside cottage. Despite his occasional fits of anxiety, he wasn’t at all paranoid. His greatest enemy was himself, not legions of others looking for ways to do him in.

  Phillips supposed he had made a slew of enemies during his time in the armed forces, the security service and, particularly as founder and head of a business providing digital materiel to military units and governments around the world. These foes didn’t bother him much since he had defeated or held at bay all of them in various ways while he was ‘active’ in the field. He couldn’t see much profit for any of them in attacking now in his retirement.

  He wasn’t a fool, however. Jackson’s cottage home was as secure as he believed it should and could be because of its location. The water separating Shield Island from the mainland was less than half a kilometre wide. In the summer, it was warm enough for a swimmer in a wet suit and fins to make it across in a short time. A boat would cover the distance in minutes, even if it was rowed. But the water separation made it likely any intruder would be seen by several cameras mounted along the island shore to give Jackson a panorama of his island’s coast.

  His doors were steel-cored and alarmed as were all the windows. The glass was bullet-proof but mainly to withstand the heavy blasts of wind that sometimes drove in from the bay. It would be difficult for someone to break in even with a heavy sledge hammer. There were also a few other deterrents placed at strategic locations in and around the house, most powered by electricity produced by two powerful generators housed in safe-like enclosures outside of the cottage itself.

  There was a boathouse a few metres from the cottage; it was an unobtrusive structure largely hidden by boulders. It had large garage-style doors that opened into a small cove. There were no markers leading to the cove and it was very hard to find for a boater who hadn’t been to the island before. A set of carbon fibre rails led from the interior of the boathouse into the cove.

  Jackson could launch his 24-foot SeaRay runabout into the cove using these rails and land the same way, hauling his boat into the structure with an electric winch and strong cable linked to a bow ring on the SeaRay. Like the cottage, the boathouse was protected by cameras at all four corners and above the door and by a few other deterrents installed by a military supplier with which Jackson had worked closely for years.

  Jackson thought a great deal about the two men as he sat at his desk that afternoon. He had known Payne from the time when he was setting up JPI. Payne had worked for a venture capitalist who had invested in JPI. He had impressed Jackson so much, he hired him as soon as the incorporation papers had been signed. Payne had never let him down.

  Brownley he did not know but he was impressed by the man’s background. He was also impressed by what Payne told him about Brownley’s reactions when the Jeep was rear-ended.

  Anyone who could rise to be a sergeant major in the Van-Doos would be among the ranks of the best and brightest soldiers in the world. The man’s size was daunting - about six feet, three inches tall and an estimated 225 pounds of what looked like pure muscle. He had a fleshy look to his face but the rest of him seemed solid and his moves were fluid and efficient when he wasn’t trying to drive a motorboat. Jackson was used to judging people, physically and mentally, from his years as a successful intelligence agent and ‘spy.’ Doing so had kept him alive and relatively undamaged for decades.

  Jackson wondered about Starke. Emile Starke had been head of security at JPI before retiring and making way for Brownley to succeed him. Emile, like Payne, had been with JPI since its inception. Jackson counted him a friend and felt a twinge of guilt because he hadn’t talked with the man since moving to the island.

  Jackson picked up his smartphone - an ad
vanced model provided by Apple to a preferred customer needing ultimate security - and pressed Starke’s number. After two rings, the phone went to voicemail. “Hi; this is Emile. If I know you, leave a message with your number. If I don’t know you, I don’t want to, so hang up and don’t call again.” Jackson shrugged and left his first name and number. Hanging up, he laughed aloud at Starke’s message. Then, he regretted not trying earlier to reach out to old friends.

  By late afternoon, Jackson had refreshed his memory about all of the products of the Machine Learning and Targeting division of JPI - at least all the products developed or under development to the date of his retirement.

  In particular, Jackson looked at files he kept on his computer on Maxim Blax, the current CEO of JPI. Blax had been born in the late 1970s. He was naturalized after emigrating from Germany with his parents in the 1980s. He had a master’s degree in engineering from Queen’s University and MBA from another of the best schools in Canada. His background included management stints at Blackberry, onetime leading maker of secure cellphones and now a large array of automobile software, and in executive positions at several other giant tech companies.

  There was no neon sign indicating Maxim was a bully, narcissistic, xenophobic, misogynistic or flawed in any important way. There were no complaints against him or his work at other employers. He had been married and divorced twice but apparently it was all amicable. His double alimony payments were hefty but wouldn’t put a strain on his substantial salary and bonuses. Maxim was as clean a candidate for CEO as any Jackson had ever encountered.

  Jackson had interviewed Maxim for the position as CEO of JPI and had been a strong advocate for the man when the board met to discuss all ten candidates on the short list. His support had helped push Maxim into the post which was one of the most valued and desired in the Canadian technology scene. That had been only months ago and, now, according to Payne and the vacillating Brownley, Maxim was showing quite different colours.