Red Deception

by Gary Grossman

  “Worried enough to make plans.”

  “Spoken like an experienced officer as well. U.S. Army?”

  “Retired.”

  Volosin looked at his fare again in the rearview mirror. He watched him evaluate the roadblocks and the infantry.

  “Ah, you’re surveying. And planning.” Reilly said nothing. The Ukrainian smiled.

  They passed shops that should have been busy with tourists but were deserted, street vendors whose wares were covered in canvas, not just for the night, but perhaps for a long time. And the famed National Museum of Science, typically filled with children, boarded up. Reilly spotted school buses certain to remain locked in an adjacent parking lot until after whatever was going to happen happened.

  “Can’t get you much closer,” Volosin said.

  Firetrucks blocked Independence Square. Hoses were hooked up and manned, not for fighting fire, though that might be necessary if Russia bombed the square. For now, they were being used as water cannons.

  “Get out and walk like you know what you’re doing. Be prepared to show your passport ahead. Don’t look so interested in what’s going on, my friend. Turn right, your hotel is two blocks down.”

  Reilly thanked the former commando and paid him as agreed.

  “One more thing,” Volosin said. He wrote his cell phone number on a scrap of paper and handed it back over the seat. “You’re going to want to call me.”

  Reilly took the paper.

  “I just may.”

  The ground was wet from the spray of hoses and the blood of rioters. Guards stood every hundred feet, checking IDs and questioning protestors stupid enough to invite trouble and pedestrians brave enough to venture out of their hotels. Armored personnel carriers slowly maneuvered across the cobblestones, breaking up groups larger than ten but getting pummeled with rocks and bottles from demonstrators.

  Dan Reilly worked his way through the mayhem. It took twelve minutes to get to the hotel, now more of a five-star sanctuary. He was met by security officers at the door.

  “No entry,” said one of the biggest rent-a-cops Reilly had ever seen. He held the palm of his hand up. Reilly pulled his suitcase close and produced his identification. The guard radioed a supervisor inside. Five minutes later, a well-dressed man emerged from the lobby.

  “Mr. Reilly! Thank you for coming.”

  “Stephan,” Reilly said gratefully. General Manager Stephan Lazlo gave the guard a signal. Reilly could pass.

  The lobby was as much a war zone as the exterior; it was filled with guests and people off the street seeking shelter. Someone was attending to a young woman’s head injury. Others, already bandaged, were resting on the couches, chairs, and floor.

  Reilly stood in the center of the lobby and did a slow one-eighty turn. The cacophony of outside sounds was drowned by wailing inside.

  “It was relatively calm until the pro-Russian protesters moved in. I watched from the ballroom. Seemed very coordinated. They marched in, ramped up the rhetoric, starting fighting leftists, and then there was gunfire.”

  “Where did your guards come from?” Reilly asked.

  “Mostly local bar bouncers. I had their phone numbers in case of an emergency.”

  By this time they’d worked their way to Lazlo’s office. Reilly parked his suitcase and the general manager offered him a scotch, which he gladly took.

  “How much cash do you have on hand?” Lazlo was thrown by the question.

  “Cash? Well, about the equivalent of $15,000 U.S. Maybe more.”

  “I’ll need more.” He knew where he could get it, but didn’t say. “Stephan, take me through the security measures. Don’t skip a thing.”

  “We have five hotel vans.”

  “Vans, not buses?”

  “Buses are a problem. Drivers are a problem. Anyway, we can’t get them into the square. The closest access is three blocks down Borysa Hrinchenka Street. And that’s still dependent on traffic and the time of day. Early morning would be best. 0500.”

  Reilly settled into a chair. He didn’t see what he wanted.

  “You don’t look happy,” Lazlo noted. He wasn’t.

  “How many people to exfil?” Military talk—he corrected himself. “To evacuate?”

  “Two-seventy, two-eighty. We’re getting a count. But the situation escalated faster than we anticipated. People didn’t want to leave, then flights began getting cancelled. And then dealing with all the luggage. I told everyone one bag each,” Lazlo said, thinking he had made a good decision.

  “No suitcases,” Reilly insisted, “except what they can carry. Maybe not even that.”

  “People aren’t going to be happy.”

  “Start preparing them.” Then he asked for a whiteboard, something large to write on.

  “Catering has them. I’ll have one brought up.”

  “As big as possible. And markers.” As Lazlo opened his top desk drawer and pulled out several thick markers, Reilly looked at the wall.

  “Nevermind catering.”

  Reilly took the markers, walked to the wall, cleared a credenza and removed a painting.

  “What are you doing?” Lazlo asked.

  “Giving myself writing space.”

  He wrote in block letters, IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES. Under it three columns: Buses; potential routes out, labeled Evac Corridors A, B, C, and D; and a large dollar sign. Next, Reilly removed his cell phone from his suit jacket pocket and dialed the newest number he’d entered. It rang three times.

  “Pryvit,” a man answered. Hello.

  Reilly decided to give the man respect.

  “Major Volosin, this is Dan Reilly, you drove me….”

  “Ah, hotel man. Good. You got in safely.”

  “Yes, and now I want to make a deal with you about leaving,” Reilly said. “With about 300 of my closest friends.”

  50

  KIEV

  The buses weren’t the problem. Nor the men. Ilya Volosin had both. But getting everyone to safety would be the real challenge. Through roadblocks, past protesters—and there was another unknown: what if the Russians moved in?

  Volosin quoted Reilly a price. It was high. But it was a seller’s market.

  There are two kinds of phones to use in many crises: a traditional landline or a charged satellite phone. Digital phone less so, because digital towers can be shut down or blown up.

  Lazlo handed Reilly the sat phone.

  “You can use my office,” the general manager said.

  “No. The roof. I need line of sight with the Globalstar Net.”

  Lazlo showed him to the roof and left, partly to give Reilly privacy, partly because he didn’t want to know more than he already did.

  Reilly checked for a signal. Green. His first call was to Alan Cannon. He found his head of security in Riga. Cannon listened to the plan that Reilly presented.

  “Complicated.”

  “Complicated times.”

  “And you want my approval before going higher?”

  “You got that right.”

  “OK. You’ve got it.”

  One.

  Reilly’s next call was to Chicago and Chief Operating Officer Lou Tiano.

  “How much?”

  Reilly gave him the number.

  “God almighty, Dan. Does anything come easy to you?”

  “You want an international business, you get international problems.”

  Two down. The third call would be the hardest.

  “EJ,” Reilly began when the KR chief came on the line. “Got a few things for you to greenlight.”

  There was nothing in Reilly’s voice that indicated he’d take anything but a yes.

  “Why do I think this is going to be an expensive call?” Edward Jefferson Shaw wondered out loud. Reilly permitted himself a chuckle.

  “Because you know me.”

  As always, Reilly took a room on the fourth floor, hook and ladder accessible. Near a stairway exit, but not directly next to it. He ordered a club sandwich with
fries, coffee, and a glass of local red wine. While waiting for his food he showered. Over the past week, he’d had far too little sleep—both travel and Marnie Babbitt were to blame, as well as friends and enemies tracking him. And now he was in Kiev, possibly at ground zero in a matter of days. Maybe hours.

  But there was more on his mind. What am I missing? he thought. Things that you miss will kill you. What is it?

  It was a question he couldn’t answer today. Not for the next thirty-six hours. Not for the next week. But it was a question he had to answer and it was about Marnie. Why can’t I commit to Marnie? What’s holding me back?

  Reilly finished his sandwich, transferred his coffee to a cardboard to-go cup, and returned to the roof. He had two more calls to make. The first to Jordan. If that went well, then he had a second to make to Dubai.

  A man answered. He said, “Speak,” with a cultured English accent. Reilly knew him to be a former SAS commander who grew richer outside the service as a mercenary operating in Amman.

  “Reilly.”

  “I know a bloody thousand Reillys. I hate the name Reilly. Too many different spellings. That’s why I never write their names down. I’d rather do business with someone named McCarthy or Sullivan, or O’Rourke. Actually, forget O’Rourke. Too many spellings, too. Which Reilly is this?”

  The irascible attitude assured Reilly he was talking to the right person: Reginald Thompson. Hating both Reginald and Reggie, he always went by Thompson.

  Reilly gave him a one-word clue.

  “Thompson, remember Yogyakarta?”

  “Oh, that fucking Reilly.”

  Reilly had referred to an operation in Indonesia that utilized the services of the mercenary and his men.

  “Yes, that one.”

  “Two els, correct?”

  “Hasn’t changed, Thompson.”

  “Same company?”

  “Same.”

  “What can I do for you, Reilly two els?”

  “More of the same. Details to be worked out. Closer to your neighborhood this time. Transportation. Protection. Exfil.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Two-eighty-five, maybe a few more.”

  “Doesn’t sound good,” Thompson said. “Location?”

  “From Whiskey5.” It was the pre-established code for Kiev set by Thompson. “To Alpha.” Alpha meaning London.

  “Pass,” the mercenary declared.

  “Cash,” Reilly replied. There was a pause on the line.

  “Keep talking,” Thompson instructed.

  “I have a local to do the heavy lifting. Credentialed. You fly in, pick us up and take off.”

  “Primary airport is negative.”

  “Agreed,” Reilly said. “My local is looking into an alternate.”

  “How soon?”

  “Your soonest, with a window to back in to your arrival.”

  “I’ll need cash.” He quoted an amount. It was actually under what Reilly had asked Chicago for. Reilly quickly agreed.

  “Deal,” said Thompson. “Depending….”

  “Yes?”

  “Speed. It’s going to go to shit there any time. Wheels up and out of Whiskey5 in forty-eight hours.”

  “We can be ready faster.”

  “Are you in Whisky5 now, Reilly?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Okay. 36 hours. Terms are cash, two hundred fifty thousand in my hands before the plane leaves here. One hundred on delivery at Alpha.”

  “Deal,” Reilly said.

  “Call me in three hours,” the British ex-special forces officer said. “By the way—”

  “Yes,” Reilly replied.

  “Bring enough Nalysnsky for my team. They’ll be hungry.”

  Without the next phone call to Dubai there wouldn’t be the thin fried pancakes stuffed with cottage cheese, raisins and berries, let alone a safe way out of Kiev. Reilly dialed. It rang three times, then a man answered in Arabic.

  “Marhabaan.”

  Reilly responded in Arabic.

  “Marhabaan. Al-salam ‘alaykum. Hdha Reilly.” Hello. Peace be upon you. This is Reilly.

  “Some syntax issues, but good enough,” Hadem Nami replied with a chuckle. “Wa Alaikum-Salam. And unto you peace. But English will do. It’s good to speak with you again, my friend.”

  “Likewise, Hadem.”

  Dan Reilly had done business with the Dubai banker twice. Not for corporate building transactions—it was always fast cash that wouldn’t transit into or out of the United States. American dollars were preferred, but Nami could provide required funds in euros, Russian rubles, English pound sterling, Saudi riyal, Mexican pesos, Jordanian dinars, anything. He was the president of a bank without a street-front entrance, only a phone number which often changed, and the means—never openly discussed—to fund special operations at an interest rate, never to be negotiated. Tiano and Shaw approved the amount and the terms: four hundred fifty thousand in U.S. dollars.

  “How shall we handle this transaction?” the banker asked.

  “An associate will meet you in two hours. You may set the location thirty minutes prior by texting me. I will respond within one minute confirming the site.”

  Reilly gave his regular cell phone number for the text communications and the sat phone as a backup.

  “Two hours. Rather sudden, my friend.”

  “Time is not on my side. Besides, you’re used to putting shit together quickly.”

  Nami laughed again. “Normal terms?”

  “Normal terms,” Reilly said. Nami’s money would return 30 percent profit, paid in full within thirty days. Expensive, as Shaw noted. Necessary, as Reilly explained.

  “I’ll send you the location. It will not be difficult for your courier to find.”

  “Thank you, Hadem.”

  “One more thing, Reilly,” the banker said.

  “Yes.”

  “Advice.” Nami’s voice flattened.

  “With a price?” Reilly asked.

  “This comes free. An old Arabic saying: ‘Be wary of your enemy once and of your friend a thousand times, for a double-crossing friend knows more about what harms you.’”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Nami.”

  “Things I hear. Whispers.”

  Hadem Nami conducted business with governments and crime syndicates, oligarchs and mercenaries, banks and corporations. Reilly wouldn’t learn more no matter how much he pressed. It was a warning. A very specific warning.

  “You will receive my text in ninety minutes. I hope we can do business together again.” He ended the call with the Arabic “Ma al-salamah.”

  It wasn’t the “Goodbye” that stayed with Reilly. It was the previous comment. I hope we can do business together again. It underscored his warning.

  Precisely ninety minutes later, Reilly received his text and replied as planned. He immediately texted his courier in Dubai, ready and waiting thanks to Alan Cannon’s long-distance work. The courier confirmed receipt of the location and the precise time. He responded with a simple “K.”

  At 1900 hrs. Kiev time, four Russian Sukhoi Su-57s from the 6950th Airbase in Saratov Oblast overflew Ukraine’s eastern border, approaching Kharkiv. Ukrainian Armed Forces responded, firing S-300PS ground-to-air missiles. They missed. The invading stealth jets, the latest and most deadly in the Russian Air Force, deployed defensive measures. Then they targeted the launch sites with Kh-38M air-to-ground missiles. Seconds later, they took out the six launch sites and instantly killed 34 men and women.

  Twenty-two minutes later, Ukraine’s president, Dmytro Brutka, put his nation on war footing. He notified his United Nations representative in New York to convene an immediate session of the Security Council. But Russia had already lodged its own complaint against Ukraine’s provocative missile launch against its fighter jets, which the Kremlin insisted had not crossed the border.

  Brutka phoned the President of the United States, who listened attentively. As America’s problems were growing worse, so were
Crowe’s. But he promised to call President Gorshkov and put the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, on alert. It was not enough for Brutka, who ended the conversation angrily.

  By 2240 hrs., Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council asked Parliament to declare a state of martial law. That very act forbade strikes, protests, rallies, and mass congregations. Forbade, but didn’t prevent, especially those organized by pro-Russian sympathizers and sleeper spies. They began to form and, according to plan, converged again on Independence Square outside Dan Reilly’s hotel.

  Reilly woke to the commotion. The escape window suddenly looked tighter. He hoped to God nothing else would happen, but he wouldn’t have bet the house on it.

  51

  THE KREMLIN

  As most Gorshkov press conferences went, this one was unfolding as pure theater. The Russian premier acted shocked at the suggestion that Russia was invading a country.

  “Invading? Invading a nation whose people have cried for recognition? Invading a country that denies rights for our brothers and sisters, historically and ethnically Russian nationals, yet living under the yoke of oppressive, despotic Ukrainian rule? We hear their calls for freedom!”

  He played the wounded party when a woman reporter from the state-owned daily, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, asked about the Russian buildup on the Latvian border.

  “Sofia, I really don’t understand how you can ask that.”

  But, of course, he did. He’d written the question himself and hand-picked the reporter, a woman whose sexual charms impressed him more than her writing.

  “Year after year, NATO threatens us at our Baltic borders. Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvia—what are we to do, Sofia? Let them in without so much as an alarm bell going off? At the same time, half the population in Latvia considers themselves Russian!”

  His figure was on the high side by a large measure, but neither Sofia nor any of the other reporters noted the discrepancy.

  “I get thousands of letters each week from desperate cousins in Latvia.” Another lie. “Help us, President Gorshkov. Protect us, President Gorshkov. President Gorshkov, please come for us. My heart goes out to them. But the heart is a muscle and it works in partnership with other muscles that must be flexed to be recognized,” he said. “Through diplomatic channels we’ve sought that Russian nationals, long living as second-class citizens, be able to vote; to be counted as equals after decades of political servitude; to have their birthright recognized. We’ve asked. We’ve petitioned. We’ve been denied as NATO grows stronger.”