by Lou Dobbs
Despite what U.S. officials kept saying, the world was a much more dangerous place. Perhaps not as many people were dying at the moment from military conflict, but the potential for a showdown between major powers was growing exponentially.
After talking with Mike Rosenberg, he wondered if his other friend from the unit who had left, Derek Walsh, missed the marines more than he let on. He was a big shot on Wall Street now but still managed to drop Shepherd a line either through e-mail or on Skype at least once a week. Maybe he’d try Walsh early tomorrow afternoon when it was midmorning on the East Coast. He’d seen both Mike and Derek at Ron Jackson’s funeral, and they all had been disturbed by his death. It made Shepherd want to focus on the assholes in the Islamic State, but he’d settle for Russians.
Just thinking of “settling” for the Russians reminded Shepherd of a training class he took at Quantico with Rosenberg, Walsh, and Jackson. They were all newly minted second lieutenants and just getting to know each other. Already they were falling into certain roles, with Jackson seeming wiser and more even-tempered than the others even though he was the same age. Rosenberg was already assessing situations and providing them with intelligence like any good G-2. Walsh could figure out their resources and tell them exactly where they could and couldn’t go based on their meager money and available transportation. And Shepherd was always the one who listened to everyone else, then acted, or sometimes acted, then listened to everyone else. They were the perfect team, and he missed them terribly.
During this training class, they had gone out for a beer in the little town called Woodbridge in northern Virginia. The place was packed; it was some kind of trivia night, and between the four of them they knew the answers to almost everything that came up. Soon girls were flirting with them, and as was his way, Shepherd was gathering phone numbers as fast as he could. He always found it easy to chat with women, and that made it possible to set up his friends as well. But that night he had chatted with one woman too many, and her remarkably fit and tall boyfriend and his three friends took exception.
None of them were in uniform, but most people in the area could tell a marine officer by the haircut and bearing. That didn’t deter these local rednecks in the least. Shepherd wanted to kick everyone’s ass, but he “settled” for just the one guy. Even then Shepherd knew he could trust his friends to have his back and never worried about the other men. He could focus all his attention on the loudmouth up in his face. As it turned out, Walsh, Rosenberg, and Jackson handled the other men with little problem. But the big man confronting Shepherd had a wicked right cross and knocked him off his feet almost immediately. That’s the way things worked out in bar fights, and he had to accept the sore nose if he was dumb enough to get into a fight in the first place.
Before he knew it, Shepherd’s friends were easing him out of the bar with a bloody nose and what turned out to be a really good black eye, but nothing more serious. Those were the three guys he could trust as long as he lived. Or, as it had sadly turned out, as long as they lived. Now he only had Walsh and Rosenberg to depend on, but he was glad he had them.
Shepherd’s mind dialed back to the present as he flipped a page to see just how many portable antitank weapons he would be able to scrounge up if the time came. From the corner of his eye he caught an attractive young woman sipping coffee at the edge of the café. She had dark brown, flowing hair and high cheekbones that set off deep green eyes. He couldn’t tell her nationality, but she wasn’t the typical fair German girl. She had a grace and style that pointed toward France or one of the United Kingdom countries.
Maybe it was time for a break from his work.
*
Neither of the men confronting Derek Walsh expected him to be so aggressive. And clearly the younger man didn’t know how to handle 220 pounds barreling into him. He bounced off Walsh, grazed the wall, and ended up on the sidewalk.
Walsh saw movement out of the corner of his left eye and instinctively raised his left hand to block a blow by the other man. At least he appeared to be unarmed. Walsh pivoted and threw his elbow into the man’s face, knocking him into the street. As he turned around, the man on the ground had his pistol up. Walsh didn’t hesitate to fall on him, holding the arm with the pistol in it. They struggled, and Walsh felt the strain in his respiratory system. His breathing became labored, and his heart pounded in his chest. What the hell did these guys want? He rolled on the ground, tossing the smaller man to one side while still holding the arm with the pistol.
The second man, the older one with a scar, somehow got back in the fight and took the gun from the man Walsh had in his grasp. The older man had the gun almost to Walsh’s temple when Walsh was able to raise his left hand violently and knock it away just as the man pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafening. It caused a dog to bark in the distance and made everyone at the scene freeze. The man brought the gun around again, but this time Walsh swept his leg and knocked him to the ground. A car came around the corner, the headlights raking the building and all three of them.
The younger man shouted something in another language. It sounded Russian. He started to run. Walsh made a fist and struck the older man several times in the side, feeling his ribs crack.
The older man struggled to his feet and managed to kick the gun away from both of them. As he stood, he staggered, then leaned down and scooped up the gun and set off running.
Walsh sat up and leaned against the building panting, watching both men disappear around the corner as the car that had scared them off came to a stop. He heard a woman’s voice say, “I just called 911.”
Walsh nodded and raised his hand in thanks. But he couldn’t help wondering why the men attacked him, and why, after he had the gun in his hand again, the older man chose to run instead of shoot.
In the distance he could hear a siren.
5
After Vladimir Putin had showered and changed into comfortable evening clothes, Yuri Simplov showed up. Putin was in an good mood because he had seen both of his daughters in the afternoon and then was able to spend more than an hour and a half in judo practice. He worked on all forms of martial arts, but judo was his first love and the first martial art that really focused him as a child. He practiced it for hours on end. It was his form of meditation, and he now had two sergeants from the perimeter security patrol who were perfect to practice with. They were built like Putin, athletic but not too bulky, and they were aggressive opponents. They were both approaching their midforties, but Putin could still get the best of them in most circumstances. His early sixties had hit him harder than he expected, and he worked longer than ever to keep his edge and stayed in shape. And throwing around two army sergeants did wonders for his confidence.
Judo also taught Putin how to size up an opponent, in life as well as on the mat. He had been doing that to the Western leaders for years and finally found that he had a decisive advantage over the current crop of politicians. Maybe not all of them, but certainly the ones running the U.S. and France. That was why the timing of this operation was so important. He had to start thinking of his legacy. How would he be remembered? He wanted to lead Russia to the forefront of world affairs once again.
The dinner with his daughters and their respective boyfriends had been light and easy. Both the girls had been adults when he and their mother divorced, and neither seemed to hold it against him. His divorce settlement had been generous enough to ensure that Lyudmila didn’t make waves.
The girls had filled him in on all their activities. He couldn’t have been more proud of them. For much of their upbringing he was a lower-level functionary, and they lived very modest lives. In their early teens he started to get better positions such as the head of the FSB or the domestic security agency. Then Yeltsin’s inner circle took notice of him. When the Russian general prosecutor started an investigation into money laundering by Yeltsin and his associates, Putin fired the man. Sensing they could control Putin, Yeltsin and his men promoted him to prime minis
ter.
The timing was fortuitous. Yeltsin’s health had been failing for years, and before long he passed away.
Putin’s older daughter, Maria, who had been called Masha since birth, lived in the Netherlands part of the year. His younger daughter, Katerina, or Katya, lived right here in Moscow. Both girls’ private lives had been kept out of the media completely. Incredibly, they had managed to attend the University of St. Petersburg under assumed names without anyone ever knowing, even their classmates. They were true daughters of an intelligence agent.
But now he was entering the parlor where Yuri Simplov waited.
Putin found Simplov studying two pieces of art that were technically on loan from a museum in Amsterdam.
The way his friend quickly turned and the look on his face told Putin things were in motion.
A smile spread across Simplov’s rugged face as he stepped forward and said, “The trades have been made successfully, and the distraction attacks will now start in full force.”
Putin kept his face blank as he said, “And all of our connections are secure?”
“Completely. Our U.S. agent is a bit of an odd duck, but absolutely reliable.”
“Odd duck?”
Simplov gave him a smile and said, “He’s been stationed in New York for a long time and handled many situations for us. He tends to take things a little personally. That’s one of the ways we manage him. He hates to lose. He’ll stay on an assignment after he’s been told to move on. He’ll do anything to finish an assignment totally and completely. That’s just the kind of man we need at this time.”
Putin nodded his head. That was exactly who they needed. “But if there’s a problem he’s insulated from us, correct?”
“He’s well insulated. He has been in the U.S. for decades, running a small import/export business in New York for most of that time, and hasn’t traveled to Russia or any of our satellites. He’s married to an American woman and has a daughter.”
Putin chuckled. “Does he make any money?” That was the question he always had for any operation that used a business as a cover.
Simplov shrugged and said, “He does okay. We haven’t had to send him much money over the years.”
Now Putin looked his old friend in the eye and said, “And the Muslims? No one can know anything about our temporary alliance with them. If they shoot down our planes and kill our soldiers in Syria, we must not be seen to be allied with them.”
He wanted Simplov to see just how serious he was about this aspect of the operation. This was exactly the sort of op he liked working on as a KGB agent years earlier, but as the president of Russia it was a wild gamble that could cost him everything.
Simplov took a breath as he gathered his thoughts and said, “We have had very limited contact with them. No one knows anything of our actual intentions in Estonia. I have not risked activating any cells there, and we will draw our scouts directly from the military units already on the border. There is a tentative plan to use a Muslim woman from France who has excellent language skills to assist our military scout. I believed there was less chance of someone watching an unknown French woman than one of our agents already in Estonia.”
Putin patted him on the shoulder and said, “As long as the French woman can be eliminated if necessary. Good, good. Well done.”
“The money transfers have been discovered, and it is my understanding that the U.S. authorities in the form of the FBI are involved in the case. Our man in New York will do everything he can to slow down the investigation.”
Simplov said, “I told you that some of our tech people had developed an algorithm that would cause computers on the New York and London stock exchanges to start a sell-off catastrophic enough to trip the built-in circuit breakers. It is a relatively simple algorithm that works on the same principle as the computer program that manages trades. It will cause two major trading houses to sell, which will trigger the other houses’ computers to start to sell. It will be a cascading effect, gaining momentum quickly until the trading is stopped.”
“And the money transfers?”
“Introducing the algorithm was the challenge. It was introduced at almost exactly the best time, so that now the news should break just as the public learns of the out-of-control stock panic.”
Putin understood the world of finance. The sell-off would be temporary; its primary impact would be psychological. The Americans were already nervous about the markets after their long recession. This was precisely the kind of distraction he appreciated.
“Won’t the Americans be able to trace the source of the algorithm?” Putin asked.
“It will come back to a Swiss bank,” Simplov said, “where I’ve been assured they will find a dead end, at least in the near term. This entire operation is simply about delaying the discovery of our efforts until after we have control of Estonia.”
Putin was pleasantly surprised at how effective the plan had been so far. He embraced his old friend and patted him on the back.
*
It was a Monday morning, and Derek Walsh was thinking about Alena on his way to work. He’d had real trouble committing to women since his days in Germany. His girlfriend when he was stationed there had done a real number on him. He truly believed she had feelings for him, but all she really needed was access to his company credit cards. After stealing the cards and racking up thousands of dollars in iPads and other electronics, she’d been arrested, and he’d been disgraced. It didn’t escape him that she looked quite a bit like Alena. The fall weather and cool breeze only made him think of Germany and his bitter encounter all the more clearly.
Alena had done a lot to help restore his faith in women. Although she had some expensive tastes and he figured she thought he made more money than he really did—no one really understood how many grunts there were in the financial world—she had bought him expensive gifts as well. The Tag Heuer Aquaracer watch on his wrist was one of them. He also had an extra debit card she’d insisted on giving him so he could access her bank account in case of emergency. He’d only used it once, when they were on a date and he was short of cash. But he did notice she had over $4,500 sitting in her checking account. At least she wasn’t after his money. That meant something to him after being burned.
He’d be late getting to work but had played it off to the bosses as a breakfast meeting. In truth, the meeting was just a cup of coffee with a local Deutsche Bank analyst, and they discussed the sad state of the New York Jets—something Walsh had learned New Yorkers did a lot of over the years and had gotten very good at.
When he came up this way toward Wall Street, Walsh always gave the same three homeless people a five-dollar bill each. They were all veterans and down on their luck. Two had been in the navy, and one was an old Ranger who had served in Vietnam. Walsh sat with him one evening and listened to his stories of combat just before the withdrawal of U.S. forces. These poor guys had been virtually forgotten and almost completely ignored since the start of the First Gulf War. But they had done what was asked of them in a much more difficult time with no public support.
He stopped for a few moments to talk with the Vietnam vet, who, ironically, was named Charlie. The man once told Walsh his last name was Williams and on another occasion told him it was Wilson. Walsh knew not to pry but just do what he could to make the man’s life a little easier. Charlie occasionally stayed at a shelter near Walsh’s tiny apartment in SoHo and would walk with him all the way to work on nice days.
Charlie gave him a jack-o’-lantern grin with three teeth missing as Walsh approached. The older man said, “I haven’t seen you in a few days, Captain. Everything all right?”
Walsh smiled back and nodded. “Been busy at work.”
“Good for you. I like to see any former military man succeed. Even if he was a marine.”
As Charlie walked along with him, Walsh stopped at a bakery with a window onto the sidewalk and bought the man two doughnuts and coffee. He knew how Charlie took his coffee and didn’t say
anything, just handed him the food.
The older man accepted it with a smile. After a minute of walking and throwing down the doughnuts like pieces of candy, Charlie said, “The cops find out anything more about the two thugs that tried to rob you?”
“They told me it was just a robbery and that I should feel lucky I wasn’t hurt.”
“Typical cops, just explain things away without trying to solve anything.”
Walsh normally would have defended the police, but in this case Charlie was right. It just didn’t feel like a robbery to him. It was more calculated. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had been much more alert in the past week.
As he reached the courtyard that led to the entrance to his building, Walsh stopped and stared at the animated crowd of Stand Up to Wall Street people. Two dozen cops were trying to keep them from destroying a cruiser they’d flipped onto its side and move them off the property.
Walsh looked at Charlie and said, “I haven’t seen these guys this active since they started protesting.”
Charlie said, “It’s not just them, there’s problems all over the city. I don’t catch much news, but someone said there had been more terror attacks and people are getting scared.”
Just then Walsh’s phone let off an alert tone he had set for breaking news on the financial markets. He fished the phone out of his pocket and swiped the screen. The markets had been open less than thirty minutes and were already down hundreds of points. Computer trading had been stopped, and the London Stock Exchange had halted trading altogether.
What the hell was going on?
*
Joseph Katazin sat in the home office of his comfortable Brooklyn residence. The converted bedroom held three TVs mounted in different corners, a pressboard computer desk, and two black leather rolling chairs. On a separate oak desk, paperwork related to his business was piled in a seemingly random order.