“Yeah,” Osborne said absently. He was staring into Makarov’s eyes. He remembered the man, but only vaguely as an officer who apparently had no friends, not even his sergeant. A loner, aloof, sometimes almost disdainful as if he knew a secret he wasn’t willing to share.
“The fucking Russians got their asses scragged and left with their tails between their legs, and now they’re back telling us how to get it right,” one of Osborne’s troops had observed.
And it was true. But if the man in the photograph was the same one who’d engineered the death of the lineman and shot Kas and the couple to death, there’d be more to come. Makarov may have been disdainful and aloof, but he’d never given the impression of being a quitter.
PART TWO
BLACKMAIL
Eighteen Hours Later
28
JOGEL WIDMER, SPECIAL counsel to the Swiss ambassador, presented himself to the White House west gate at precisely one o’clock, where his credentials were checked before his limousine was passed through.
He was met at the west entrance by a marine sentry and by Albert Zimmerman, who identified himself as an aide to the president’s chief of staff Mark Young.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Zimmerman said. “May we check your attaché case?”
“Of course,” Widmer said. He opened it on the table to reveal only an unaddressed plain white number ten envelope. “I was instructed to deliver this to President Thompson but I was not told of its contents.”
“Unfortunately the president is away this afternoon, but Mr. Young will see you.”
It was a lie, of course. Diplomatic deliveries, by protocol, should have been made at the State Department, and not directly to the president. That the president’s chief of staff had agreed to meet with him was a mark of the favor the Swiss had with the U.S.
“Would you care to leave your attaché case here?”
“As you wish,” the Swiss special counsel said. He took the envelope and followed Zimmerman down the corridor to the West Wing’s first-floor reception area immediately next to Young’s corner office.
Widmer had never been to the White House before, and he’d been told to keep his eyes and ears open, but to be discreet about it. He was to ask no questions, and only answer those he thought would not compromise his position. If he thought that was the case he was to say he could not respond without further instruction from the ambassador. He suspected that he was somehow bringing bad news, though he had no earthly idea what it might be.
“Consider this a diplomatic training mission, and you won’t go far wrong,” Ambassador Dreher had told him.
Young was seated at his desk. He looked up but did not rise. His expression was one of friendly neutrality.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Young,” Widmer said.
After Zimmerman withdrew, closing the door, Young motioned for Widmer to have a seat.
“We were told that you had a letter for the president, sender and contents unknown,” Young said. “Unfortunately the president is not available at the moment, but I personally informed him that someone would be delivering it. The president is as curious as I am.”
Widmer couldn’t think of a thing to say in response, so he merely handed the envelope across the desk and started to rise, but Young motioned him back.
“Please, give me a moment.”
“I was told that the contents were for the president’s eyes only.”
“Yes,” Young said, but he opened the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper. He read the message once, looked up, then read it again, slower this time.
Widmer thought that what he was witnessing was nothing short of extraordinary. In his training, diplomats did not act in this fashion. A for-your-eyes-only message was supposed to mean just that. But if the news was bad it was not reflected on Young’s face.
At length Young folded the letter and laid it on his desk. He didn’t speak for several beats, and his expression of friendly neutrality did not change, though Widmer was pretty sure that whatever was contained in the letter was not good news.
“I will see that the president is given this at the soonest possible moment,” Young said. “Good day, sir. My compliments to Ambassador Dreher.”
In four minutes Widmer was back in his limo passing through the west gate with absolutely no idea what he had just learned, if anything. Except that he felt slightly disturbed, as if he had handled something dirty.
* * *
YOUNG RE-READ the very short letter for a third time. They’d thought it was possible that something would be sent to them through the U.S. interests section in the Caracas Swiss embassy concerning the latest attack in North Dakota. But that it was under President Chavez’s own signature was nothing short of extraordinary.
Pocketing the letter he walked down the corridor to the Oval Office, where Thompson, seated behind his desk, was talking with Jim Winston, his special assistant and aide, and Bob Towers, his press secretary.
“Pardon the interruption, Mr. President, but I wonder if you have a couple of minutes to spare?” Young said.
Thompson looked up, started to say something, but then nodded. “Hold my calls,” he said.
Winston and Towers left, closing the door behind them.
Young handed the letter to Thompson and sat down. “This was just delivered from the Swiss embassy.”
“Who’s it from?”
“I think you’d better read it.”
The president did, and when he looked up his expression was a mixture of anger and mirth. “The man has balls, you have to give him that much.”
“It’s a blackmail demand, that much is clear, but there’s a lot more between the lines than demanding a public apology on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly for Balboa, and reparations, and demanding that you appear before the international court at The Hague. What’s left out is the or else.”
“Also what’s not mentioned is the latest incident in North Dakota.”
“It’s no coincidence,” Young said.
“Of course not,” Thompson said, glancing at the letter. “Assuming the Bureau’s Cyber Crimes unit is correct and the system was hacked from someone or some group in Amsterdam, we have to face the possibility that they’re working either with the Russians or the Chinese. A lot worse could happen to us.”
“Yes, sir. But I can’t believe it would be someone close to either Putin or Xi. Especially not the Chinese because of our trade and the U.S. debt they hold. An all out cyber attack on our grid would bankrupt us, something they simply cannot afford to let happen.”
“Even bankrupt we still would have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them,” the president said.
Young lost his breath for just a beat.
“An all-out attack on our grid would be tantamount to a declaration of war. I placed my hand on the Bible twice and promised to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and that’s exactly what I intend on doing no matter the cost.”
Thompson was fierce, and Young had read about these horrifying presidential moments in the history books, but had never believed he would be an actual witness to one.
“First we need to know where to place the blame, because Chavez could never do this on his own. No one in Venezuela has the technical expertise.”
Thompson raised the letter. “The son of a bitch acts as if he does.”
“He has to have help.”
“Ahmadinejad.”
“The Iranians don’t have the technical expertise to create the virus, either,” Young said.
“Then he had help, from the Russians.”
“Possibly, but not from the government.”
“The hacker in Amsterdam.”
“The CIA has people on the ground over there trying to find him,” Young said. “He’s a problem, but very likely not our only problem. We have about two hundred thousand miles of high-power transmission lines crisscrossing the country. Impossible to guard them all, as we found out from the North Dak
ota incident. But worse than that are the big transformers which manage the system. When electricity is generated its voltage is stepped up into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of volts for transmission over long distances. More efficient that way, less heat and less loss. At the user end another set of very large, very expensive transformers step down the voltage to levels that can be used in factories, malls, and houses. The problem is that those transformers are not manufactured in the U.S. And the waiting list can be up to three or four years.”
“Are these devices at least guarded better than the transmission lines?”
“For the most part, no. If a dozen or more were to be destroyed it would put us practically in the Stone Age.”
“And you’re saying that there is little or nothing we can do about it?” the president demanded angrily. He held the letter up. “This son of a bitch gets away with it?”
“No, sir. We’ll find the computer hacker in Amsterdam, and it’s very possible that the man responsible for the North Dakota attack, who has been identified as a former Spetsnaz officer, will be back for the second round, and we’ll be waiting for him.”
“That’s what you’re recommending?”
“For now, yes, Mr. President. Anything else, such as mobilizing the National Guard to physically patrol the transmission lines, or at least as many miles of them as humanly possible, and to mount guards on all the transformer yards would send Chavez a very clear message that we’re taking him seriously.”
“We are.”
“But we cannot let him know that,” Young said. “If we can capture either the hacker or the Russian shooter, we can find out who directed the attacks and why.”
“Not Russia or China.”
“It would not be in their best interest, sir.”
“Leaves us with Venezuela and Iran as the best possibilities.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have Walt Page come over. It’s time for a full court press,” President Thompson said.
Chavez had given them forty-eight hours, but Young didn’t think it was enough time for what the president wanted to do—send more spies into Venezuela and Iran to gather the proof of their complicity.
29
THE FIRST HINTS of spring had finally come to Stockholm, and as Makarov stepped out of the three-story white brick building that housed his business, Trade Group International, TGI, a couple of minutes past noon, he took a deep breath of the sea-ladened air and felt truly at peace for the first time in months.
The assignment had been as complicated as he’d thought it might be, mostly because of happenstance: the storage unit manager in Minneapolis trying to shake him down, the county sheriff showing up, and the young couple stumbling into the scene. But the job was done, he’d gotten away free, and he’d been paid the balance Colonel Delgado had promised.
He headed along Regeringsgatan, just around the corner from the Royal Opera House, traffic busy, but without horns. The Swedes were, for the most part, a polite people, unlike Russians. And whenever he was at home he automatically took on their behavior. He smiled pleasantly and his pace became much slower than in Paris or Berlin or London.
But his attention to detail never changed; he noticed things, like the man in the dark trousers and tan car coat, no hat, who’d been studying something in a shop window across the street from his office, and who’d suddenly turned and walked away.
Probably nothing, Makarov told himself, but he was bothered. That someone should be here looking down his track so soon after an operation was in itself disturbing. But the why of it and the who made for some interesting speculation.
He’d planned on stopping by a small jewelry shop he’d used regularly to pick up the simple gold chain and diamond pendant he’d ordered for Ilke before he’d left for the U.S. It was something he’d been doing for a number of years now; coming home after a business trip, he brought her a small trinket, something to make up for his absence.
Afterward he’d planned on meeting her for lunch at the Operäkallaren, which was one of Stockholm’s upscale restaurants located in the opera house building. It was her favorite in part because of its superb food and elegant surroundings, but also because it had become a tradition for them on his homecomings. He’d insisted in the beginning that he would pick up the regular routines of his life immediately after each assignment. No week or ten days’ vacation to recover—no matter how difficult the task had been—but to the office first thing in the morning, to Petersen’s for Ilke’s gift on his lunch break, and then the Operäkallaren.
He turned and headed in the same direction as the tan car coat, though the man had disappeared in the group of people waiting to cross at the corner. When the light changed the man was there fifty meters ahead, crossing the street, and Makarov hesitated for just a second. Nothing else indicated that someone had tracked him to Stockholm, other than the fact that the tan car coat had been waiting across the street.
Coincidence? Makarov didn’t believe in coincidences.
He made it to the corner just as the light turned against him, and he crossed with the green to the other side of Regeringsgatan, then across the avenue so that he was behind the man but on the opposite side of the street.
Within a few minutes he had reached a point where he had caught up with the tan car coat, and for half a block matched speeds, keeping a meter or so back. The man was tall, two meters, maybe a little less, and built like a wrestler, with broad shoulders and a thick neck, yet his walk was light, on the balls of his feet, ready for the starter’s gun, for anything.
At the next corner the man turned and glanced across the street but then crossed with the light.
Makarov could think of no reason to suspect that anyone had traced him to Stockholm. All of his meetings had been arranged for elsewhere, usually Paris or London. His payment accounts were blind, as well as were his e-mail addresses. Nothing physically connected him here. And yet the son of a bitch had shown up in front of a shop window across the street from TGI’s offices.
It was worth finding out who he was and what he wanted.
Picking up the pace, Makarov reached the next corner, the tan car coat twenty meters or so back, paid for a transportation ticket at the newsstand, and boarded a bus that had just pulled up. He didn’t bother looking back as he took his seat.
For a long time, since he’d set up his business here and his home with Ilke, he’d contemplated a day such as this one, and what it might ultimately mean for his continued survival. If the tan car coat was someone who’d traced him here, he was almost certainly not from any law enforcement agency. Certainly not Interpol nor the CIA, who would have sent teams—several people on foot, more in cars or taxis. But he’d detected none of that, only the lone man in the tan coat.
His first guess would have been SEBIN, but the man didn’t have the look of a Venezuelan. Beyond that he could only guess it was someone from his Spetsnaz past, except that the timing so soon after an assignment wasn’t right.
Eight stops later he got off in front of the imposing National Library building in the Humlegarden, and took one of the walkways to what was the Swedish equivalent of the U.S. Library of Congress, as he phoned Ilke.
“I hope I caught you before you left the apartment,” he said. A taxi had pulled up behind the bus, but he hadn’t bothered looking to see if the tan car coat had gotten out.
“Just at the door now,” she said brightly. The lunches were her tradition, too, and she never tired of the little presents he brought her.
“I might be a little late.”
“Business?” she asked, her disappointment evident.
“An old, seriously fat man, who wants to make a very large investment.”
Ilke laughed, her voice musical. “I always knew that I could be replaced. But by a fat man?”
Makarov laughed despite himself. “I’ll call when I’m finished. Maybe we’ll have dinner instead.”
Their Swedish was passable, but they’d always spoken to each other in E
nglish, because Danish was difficult for him and she thought Russian was ugly.
“Erick’s?” she asked. It was a first-class restaurant aboard a barge moored in the harbor. The cuisine was French and except in the summer when there were too many tourists it was another of their favorite spots.
“If I’m not home by then I’ll meet you at seven.”
“Take care,” she said.
Pocketing his phone, Makarov continued up to the library, and inside bypassed the circular information desk and ambled to the new annex, which held the microfilm reading room where all of Sweden’s newspapers plus those from a great many other countries could be viewed. Several dozen reading stations were stacked in rows, some of them in alcoves near windows. Only a few were occupied this morning.
He went to the rear of the large room and sat down at one of the readers next to the exit. A minute later the tall man in the tan car coat sat down at the reading station next to his.
Makarov looked at him. “I’m not armed, but believe me, I will kill you here and now unless you tell me who you are, how you found me, and what you want,” he said, not raising his voice.
“My name is Pejiman Dabir. I am a colonel in VEVAK, and President Ahmadinejad personally sent me to speak to you about a matter of some concern to us and to our friends in SEBIN. As to how I found out where you work, we’ve known about it since before you were hired.”
“How did you come by that information?”
“We’re very good at what we do.”
“Not that good,” Makarov said.
“A mutual friend, in Amsterdam, traced you through your OMX trades, and from there to your offices on Regeringsgatan.”
Makarov tried to think what mistakes he could have made, but he could see none. “How?”
“You left a pattern, Mr. Makarov. Each time that you made a profit from one of your secret arms trade deals the money always showed up within ten days as an investment on the OMX.”
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