by Seeley James
That was also a problem. Some of his men made a lot of money before he caught them. When bringing them in, Yuri offered each man a choice: be extradited to the US and go to jail, or give up his illegal profits and work quietly in Yuri’s banda under the protection of the Russian Federation.
Alexi had been one of the best. Smart and quick, he had moved his money offshore. Yuri had frozen the man’s accounts. Alexi came to terms with Yuri’s rule quickly. But the boy kept an attitude of moral superiority. They both knew he could slip away one night and rebuild his small fortune from Panama or Singapore or anywhere he chose.
“Payékhalee!” Alexi said. Let’s get started. He raised his shot glass and sipped half.
Yuri had no choice but to follow suit.
As Yuri drank, Alexi asked another question. “Exactly how will our courage be tested?”
“We will follow orders.” Yuri stared hard over the top of his glass. “We will change some coordinates in a few systems. A few people might be harmed. Americans only.”
“Innocent Americans?”
And there it was—Alexi’s moral superiority unleashed before the group. For Yuri’s career to go higher, he would heed Strangelove’s warning: it takes only one man to destroy an important mission. Insurrections were best put down quietly, without fuss.
“When is an American innocent?” Roman asked with a smirk.
“The day before he is born!” the others answered the old joke in unison.
Yuri said, “Davayte vyp’yem za uspekh nashego biznesa.” Let’s drink to the success of our business.
Alexi raised his glass and gulped. The others raised their glasses and sipped. Yuri raised his glass slowly, watching Alexi carefully, and sipped.
Someone told another joke. They settled in and drank and told stories and ate and drank and told more stories. The evening went on in the ancient Russian tradition: a lot of vodka and a lot of talking and laughing. Roman and his group discussed the global hacker community and the growing sentiment that governments were unnecessary. Yuri laughed and left them to it.
When the manager announced it was closing time, Yuri offered one last toast. “Na pososhok!” One for the road, but literally meaning, for your walking stick.
They put on their coats and staggered to the door, laughing and pushing each other. On the street, they said goodnight and went separately into the dark.
Yuri stayed behind. He paid the bill and inquired about the pretty waitress, who turned out to be the manager’s daughter. Yuri complimented the man on his fine genes and left.
On the street, he pulled his phone and turned on the tracker. Alexi had staggered near the fish market by the dock. He pulled on his gloves and hurried there.
The docks were desolate except for a pair of drugged-up folk singers who hadn’t noticed the tourists were gone. Thirty yards away, Alexi stood by the water’s edge, weaving in place. Perhaps he was trying to regain his bearings. The young man drank as young men will: too much and too fast.
Yuri strolled to the singers, at the corner of a nearby building. He watched their drug-glazed eyes and listened to their off-key strains. They couldn’t see Alexi from where they stood, but Yuri could. Taking a hundred krone note from his wallet, he bent down, put it in the guitar case, and snatched a spare guitar string. He looked both ways as he crossed the cobblestone wharf and approached Alexi from behind.
They were alone on a moonless night, in those few fleeting hours of darkness so close to the Arctic Circle. Alexi heard his footsteps and swung around to face him.
“Contemplating the whale in the harbor?” Yuri asked.
Alexi’s brow creased in alcohol-fueled confusion. He turned to face the water. “What whale—”
Yuri slipped the guitar string around the boy’s neck and pulled tight. Too drunk to fight, Alexi vainly reached for the garrote in strangled silence.
It had to be done, Yuri reasoned as the brilliant young man flailed ineffectively. Yuri’s promotion was too close to let an idealistic young man poison his banda with moral questions. Eliminate the weak before they infect the others.
Yuri held the man for several minutes to let life slip away. While he waited, he pulled Alexi’s wallet from his pocket. When it was time, Yuri kicked the body over the edge where it slipped quietly into the sea. Alexi’s heavy boots and coat would take him to the bottom.
Yuri pushed his earbuds in and listened to John Scofield playing Past Present. As he strode past the addicts, he dropped the guitar string and Alexi’s wallet in the open case.
CHAPTER 6
Pia stepped off the elevator and into Terrat, the rooftop restaurant on the Mandarin Oriental, Barcelona. Handing her bundle of roses to the maître’ d along with a hundred-euro note, she pulled a ragged, second-hand skirt and blouse out of her shoulder bag and slipped them over her running shorts and racerback top. She added a dirty-hair wig and pulled a scarf around it to obscure the side of her face. After giving the shocked man a wink and trading her bag for the roses, she hunched over and stepped outside. She did her best to diminish her tall stature by shuffling in her scruffy shoes on the terrace.
The stunning afternoon view across Barcelona’s rooftops almost threw her out of character. She managed to sell a rose to a table of confused Kuwaitis. Gypsy peddlers were never allowed in the nice hotels.
She shuffled closer to her target, the table of four near the pool where her dad sipped a beer. Big, loud, and brash, Alan Sabel exuded confidence that infected everyone around him. Entering a room with him felt like being the guest of honor at a surprise party. Usually.
Alan leaned forward, listening intently to the two smartly dressed men across from him. Jonelle “the Major” Jackson, his Chief Operating Officer, sat next to him.
Pia scuffled to the table behind them and listened with one ear while an indignant local couple shooed her away in Catalan. Their rejection sent her beyond eavesdropping distance.
She didn’t know the men. They had Slavic accents. Possibly Russian. Their tone was conceited. They made demands. From appearances, her father found them disturbing. Alan countered in some way. The men scoffed, batting away his words with their hands.
Two more tables waved her off while a handsome young man called her over. He held a twenty euro note out and rattled something in Spanish. With her head down, she approached him. As soon as she was within reach, he grabbed her bundle of roses and replaced it with a five euro note. He gave her a shove and laughed.
Pia’s blood rose quickly. Rudeness to gypsies was commonplace throughout Europe, but it pissed her off. She grabbed his wrist. His gaze rose. He saw her rage and shrank back. He called for the waiter in a cracked voice. She stuffed his money in his mouth and snatched back the flowers.
For the first time, she glanced at his companion, a lovely young woman. Still gripping the man’s wrist in her vice-like fist, Pia bowed and offered the bouquet to the lady. “May you find a better man.”
The incident reminded her of her own boyfriend, Stefan. He was off traveling the world to find himself. In his case, for good reason. But, would he abuse a gypsy to impress Pia? The old Stefan would have. But, the new, improved Stefan? Had he really changed? She wanted to think so.
In the corner of her peripheral vision, the two men left her father’s table with their chins tipped high.
She rose to her natural height, and let go of the man’s wrist. The woman gasped. Pia glanced down at her and realized her height didn’t fit her disguise. She pulled off her wig, tossed it on an empty chair, and shook her ponytail free. The blouse and skirt came next, revealing her toned, lanky form in athletic wear. Across the terrace, the Kuwaiti couple applauded. She took a bow.
Her father looked over at the Kuwaitis, then followed their gaze to his daughter. He swallowed hard.
She crossed to him and took one of the recently vacated chairs. “Hi, Dad.”
“How nice to run into you so far from home.” He picked up his beer and sipped.
“Hello, Major.” Pi
a smiled.
“You’ve been working with our DAO?” the Major asked Pia.
“Our what?” Alan asked.
“Denied Area Operations,” Pia said. “Disguises and gadgets that get us in without knocking.”
“When did we open that?” he asked.
Pia said, “My idea.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” Pia leaned in. “What brings you to Barcelona?”
“We’re looking to expand Sabel Satellite in Catalonia. Spain feels left out of the Thales Alenia deal. They help finance it, but all the jobs and production go to France and Italy.”
The Major snapped a glance his way.
“You left town the day Pozdeeva showed up and haven’t answered my calls since,” Pia said. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t build a twenty-billion-dollar company sitting on my couch.”
“Dad.” She leaned toward him, her elbows on her knees. “You’re hiding something.”
He clenched his jaw and stared into her gray-green eyes.
“Who is Pozdeeva?” she asked. “Why did he die bringing me encrypted data that’s old news in the intelligence community?”
Alan looked across the skyline at red tile roofs. “Has Bianca decoded them yet?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in them?” he asked.
“What are you afraid might be in them?”
“Are you accusing me of something?” Alan met her gaze and huffed. “I thought we put your parent’s murder behind us. I did the best I could raising you. I went to nearly all your games. I built a global conglomerate for you. You should be grateful. Not condemning me for being ‘afraid’ of what’s in some random USB drive. Show some respect.”
The Major leaned closer to him, her eyes watching him carefully, and laid her fingertips on his forearm. A calming touch.
“I forgave you for your role,” Pia said, “innocent as it was. But why would you keep any secrets going forward?”
He shifted his weight in his seat.
“Who were those men?” Pia asked.
Alan took another sip of beer. He set the glass down and brushed a drop of condensation off his trousers. He glanced at Pia and squinted into the distance.
“Why aren’t they mentioned on your calendar?” she asked.
“They represent an old business partner.” He crossed one leg over his knee and kept his gaze on the horizon. “They want to renegotiate an outdated agreement.”
Pia leaned back in her seat. A waiter approached. She smiled at him and shook her head before he asked. He took the hint and left.
“In the data, there’s one picture of Pozdeeva in the lobby of Sabel Industries. Who was he?”
Her dad looked skyward and took a moment to compose his answer.
“Polonium-210 is the signature poison of a Russian assassination.” He sighed and sipped. “The most famous case was Alexander Litvinenko, the FSB agent who accused Vladimir Medevtin of terrorism and corruption. Litvinenko claimed Medevtin ordered him to kill oligarchs who disagreed with Medevtin’s tactics. He also accused Medevtin of bombing two Moscow apartment buildings and killing 293 innocent civilians just to start a war. Medevtin expected that war with Chechnya to launch him into the Russian Presidency, according to Litvinenko. It worked. Medevtin became president.
“Litvinenko came forward to accuse Medevtin in public. Several Russian military officers and dissidents confirmed his accusations. It didn’t go well. Litvinenko fled to London and worked with MI6. He wrote two books making credible accusations linking the FSB and Medevtin to the bombings. He named people, places, and events that were verified. Someone in Russia didn’t like his dissent. In 2006, Russian FSB agents slipped a dose of polonium no bigger than a grain of sand into his tea. It killed him.”
Alan faced her. “Pozdeeva was one of the men who confirmed Litvinenko’s accusations. He disappeared for several years.” He made air quotes with his fingers around the word disappeared. “When he resurfaced, he recanted the indictments.”
“Pozdeeva went against Medevtin?” she asked.
“Yes and no. When he backed Litvinenko, he was high up in Russia’s military intelligence. When he came back from the gulags, he was reassigned closer to Moscow where they could keep an eye on him.”
“How did you know Pozdeeva? Did you meet him when we used to go to St. Petersburg?”
“You were so young.” Alan gave her a tight smile and softened his tone. “You still remember those trips?”
Pia nodded cautiously. “Pozdeeva’s drive has thousands of documents. Most of them are random. Three of them are twenty-year-old visas for you, me—and Chuck Roche—to visit a bank in St. Petersburg. It dredged up memories.”
“Chuck Roche.” The Major rolled her eyes. “What a nutcase. Did you hear his campaign speech? Hunter’s administration is wrecking the FAA. Airliners will fall from the sky. Ridiculous.”
“If you believe the polls,” Pia said, “he’s already pulled ahead of the Democrat, William Charles.”
“Don’t worry.” Alan glanced her way. “I’m going to ruin that guy before the election. It’s my number one goal.”
“Let me help you,” Pia said. “We could work together.”
Alan thought about it. Then looked to the sky.
“After Roche was caught bragging about sexual assault, I thought he’d drop out,” the Major said. “So why’s he ahead?”
“What makes him worse than Veronica Hunter?” Pia asked.
“Did you hear his campaign platform?” Alan shot a stern look her way. “He promised everything: jobs, health insurance, ending terrorism, lower taxes, no more deficits. He has no idea how to accomplish any of that.”
“True.” Pia shook her head. “But America always falls for hucksters like P.T. Barnum, Charles Ponzi, and Bernie Madoff.”
“Enron, Lehman Brothers.” Alan nodded. “But it’s worse than that. He’s not qualified for the office. He has no morals. He’s nothing more than a narcissist surrounded by sycophants.”
“That doesn’t make him dangerous,” Pia said, “it makes him foolish.”
“How dangerous is a narcissistic fool with nuclear weapons?” Alan raised his voice. “He refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in Europe. He boasted he’d launch Trident missiles at ISIS-held cities, ignoring the millions of enslaved civilians. He thinks we have a trade deficit with Germany. That’s like saying Canada has a deficit with Tennessee. He doesn’t understand they’re part of the European Union. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Pia looked away after his tirade. She came to Barcelona hoping to connect with him in a new way, to work with him on the Pozdeeva project. Instead, they sat in silence for a minute. She considered telling him about the recording of Roche and Hunter. How they casually discussed her murder if she didn’t join the campaign. But Dad was in the wrong mood to hear that news.
“What do you know about Pozdeeva?” Pia leaned forward and held out her phone with pictures loaded. “Why is he in these?”
She swiped through the four shots of Pozdeeva from the files: at the Hirshhorn, at the CIA, at Sabel Industries, and in an office with an older woman.
“Twenty years ago, he worked for a man codenamed Strangelove. I can’t prove it, but I believe Strangelove was responsible for Litvinenko’s death and Pozdeeva’s time in prison. Strangelove also bailed out Roche Refineries many years ago. Maybe Pozdeeva was trying to tell you something about Roche.”
“We didn’t find anything like that in Pozdeeva’s data.” Pia pursed her lips in thought. “We have hundreds of random documents that don’t make sense. So why was he willing to die to give them to me?”
Alan rocked back and forth as if he were indecisive about saying something. He sank back, looked around, and found the waiter. He rubbed his fingers together for the check. “Pozdeeva didn’t die just to drop old vacation photos in your lap. There’s something more in there. If it’s about Roche, we need to know it
. Roche is the Siberian Candidate.”
“I have a meeting with bankers from Rossiya Bank.” Pia watched his quick reaction. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“How did that come about?” His voice sounded rushed and agitated.
“I inquired about this bank statement.” She showed him a photo on her phone. “They wanted to talk in person. They sent me an offer for a billion dollars of expansion capital with no interest.”
“Dollars, US? That’s twenty percent of their capital.” He picked up the napkin under his beer glass and wiped his brow. “I’ll take the meeting. Where is it?”
“St. Petersburg.”
He pounded the arm of his chair with his clenched fist and looked skyward.
After a moment, he brought his hot glare back to Pia. “A year ago, the leader of the Russian opposition party, Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down in the streets of Moscow. It was the day before he was to lead a protest rally. All the surveillance cameras on the street were turned off just before the shooting. Nearly two hundred Russian journalists have been murdered since Medevtin first came to power. There’s even a Wikipedia page called ‘List of journalists killed in Russia’. In Russian-friendly countries, a GRU operator simply shoots Russian critics in the street. They reserve polonium-210 for high-profile murders in western countries. The GRU is the only organization with access to polonium. They’re the people who murdered Pozdeeva—and they’re the people who invited you to St. Petersburg.”
CHAPTER 7
The wipers squeaked an irritating rhythm that matched my exhausted mood. I was driving home from Sabel Gardens on a dark night in late September after a long shift. It started when I tried to keep up with Ms. Sabel’s exercise routine at four in the morning. She’s a world-class athlete. I’m a former bullet-chewer. I’m also the only employee capable of running close to her speed and distance.
