One Child

by Jeff Buick

  He glanced out the window at the traffic, all the lanes moving in unison. A woman was a passenger in the car in the adjacent lane. She was overweight and her face was a mix of bland features. The visor was angled down and she was applying eye makeup. Fleming watched as she carefully traced around her eyelid with a pencil then blinked a few times and checked her look in the mirror. The traffic flow in his lane slowed slightly and the other car pulled ahead. He shook his head.

  "Why bother," he muttered.

  The limo took the exit for La Guardia and he relaxed in his seat, knowing a fifty million dollar aircraft was waiting for him. And that he was going to make more money in the next five hours than most people would make in a lifetime. Simple thoughts, but ones that made him feel good.

  Really good.

  * * *

  Midtown Manhattan, New York City

  Carson phoned ahead to Fleming's office and let his secretary know he was coming. Fleming had already called her and she was expecting him. He considered slipping on his suit jacket, decided against it, then took the elevator from forty-seven to forty-eight - the doors from the stairwell were locked on the upper floor. You either belonged there and used the elevator or you didn't. Simple. That was one of the things that Carson liked about his boss. William Fleming was a simple man in some respects. He let the people around him know what he expected and gave them the leeway to get it done, or to fail. Your salary and bonuses were commensurate. It didn't get much clearer than that.

  The elevator door opened and he strode across the tile to the reception desk. He addressed Fleming's private receptionist by name. "Hi, Betty."

  "Mr. Grant." She smiled and waved at the door to Fleming's office. "I'll buzz you in from here. The file is on his desk."

  "Thanks."

  Carson entered Fleming's inner sanctum and walked slowly across the ebony hardwood to the desk. It was only one floor above his and the view was essentially the same, but there was a difference between his office and this one that couldn't be measured on any scale. His was nice, opulent even, but it was a working space for a man who made an enviable salary. This was the mother lode. The big dog's lair. Even without the billionaire in the room, there was an energy coating every object. It was in the air, like static electricity, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Carson reached the desk and touched a finger to the polished wood. Another surge of energy coursed through him. He lifted his finger and it stopped.

  The file was sitting on the desk next to the mouse pad. He reached down and picked it up. The pad moved slightly and the screen flashed to life. Carson thumbed through the papers in the file and turned to go. He hesitated, wanting to look at the screen, but knowing it was improper. Curiosity won the battle and he glanced at the screen. Microsoft Outlook was running and e-mails were popping up now that the server thought the owner was back at the computer. Fleming had his private e-mails set up so the communiques opened as they arrived and displayed on the right side of the monitor. The final one beeped and opened. Carson couldn't help looking.

  It was from TM and the message was brief.

  Received your fee. Team in place. Time frames are tight but should be okay. Crash inevitable.

  The final line froze Carson on the spot. Crash inevitable. What the hell did that mean? The bottom was going to drop out of the market? And if it was, who was TM and why was he telling Fleming that a market crash was coming? Why was there a team involved?

  Carson was sweating. His underarms were already damp and getting worse. It would be no time before the stains showed on his shirt. He cursed himself for not putting on his jacket. He was out of time. He took one quick look at the screen and read the e-mail address where the message had originated.

  tm5397@gmail.com

  He tucked the file under his arm and headed for the door. It opened when he was halfway across the floor. Betty poked her head in.

  "Oh, good, you found it," she said.

  "Yes," Carson smiled. He kept moving. The room seemed even more expansive than when he entered. "I had to take a minute and check out the view. See if it was better than mine."

  "Is it?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "Nope. The very same. Makes me feel kind of special."

  It was her turn to smile. "Well, you are. He's given you the vote of confidence." She scanned the room, hesitating briefly as her gaze passed over the desk.

  "I'll e-mail Mr. Fleming my thoughts on these candidates," Carson said, holding up the file.

  Betty shook her head. "Don't bother. He refuses to check his e-mail when he's in Cabo."

  "Okay, I'll wait until he's back."

  Carson reached the door and continued on into the anteroom. Betty followed him and Fleming's outer door swung shut behind her. He caught a glimpse of her glancing back into the room a split second before the door closed completely. Had she seen the computer screen? Did she know he had spied on Fleming's personal e-mail? Would she go back into the room and check things out after he left? He had no idea what the answers were and he couldn't wait around to find out. His underarms were drenched from the stress and his hands were shaking. He punched the button for the elevator.

  "Are you alright, Mr. Grant?" Betty asked.

  "Yes," Carson said, wiping his brow. The elevator dinged and the down light illuminated. "I feel a bit flushed. Maybe I'll go out for some air."

  He slipped into the cage and pushed the button for forty-six. Get to his office and change shirts. Relax. Then process what he had just seen. The doors closed and he slumped against the wall. Christ, what was going on? What was William Fleming up to?

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  Chapter

  19

  Day 11 - 8.06.10 - Morning News

  Outside Spin Buldak, Afghanistan

  They were ready to roll.

  A line of Strykers wound out of the Forward Operating Base onto the road leading from Spin Buldak to Kandahar. Each eight-wheeled light armored vehicle was topped with either a .50 Caliber machine gun or a 40mm grenade launcher. The two-man crew, driver and commander, was augmented by six infantry troops in each vehicle. Light for a vehicle that could comfortably fit nine. Two Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets were strapped to the sides. Inside the Strykers, the men were serious.

  The target was the Taliban force in the medium-size village of Dabarey, about sixteen kilometers northwest. Dabarey was positioned mid-way between the main highway linking Spin Buldak and Kandahar and a secondary road to the south. The Taliban were using the secondary road as a fast and safe way of moving men and supplies for their attacks on the ISAF forces. 5th Stryker Brigade was in charge of changing all that.

  Andrew was in the sixth Stryker from the front. Seven more of the fast-response vehicles were lined up behind his. He was settled in against the armored plating, his M-4 resting comfortably on his chest. Five other soldiers mirrored his image. Russell Matthews sat next to Andrew, near the back, dressed in cargo pants, a tan shirt and a flack jacket, his camera case on his lap. The Strykers rolled out of the FOB and onto the main road. They reached forty miles an hour and kept a tight formation.

  "I knew they were using these in Iraq," Russell said above the road noise. "I didn't know they had Strykers in Afghanistan."

  "We brought this Brigade in last July. Great vehicle, but not as good here as it was in Iraq," Andrew replied.

  "I heard about that," Russell said. "Something to do with having a better road system over there."

  "Exactly. Here, if there's one road that's better than a goat path, we use it, so the bad guys know our route. It's not hard for them to sneak in at night and plant an IED or two."

  "Big problems, IEDs," Russell said.

  The Stryker hit a larger-th
an-average pothole and the men inside the vehicle bounced high enough to bang their heads on the ceiling. They picked themselves up and retook their seats. The interior was heating up and the air conditioning unit was straining to keep the temperature in check. Each soldier had a water bottle in hand and drank often to keep hydrated.

  Andrew pushed his helmet back off his forehead. "No kidding. They're getting better at it. Some of the charges they're burying are large enough to flip one of these things or take a track off a tank. You try to go around a disabled piece of equipment and there's another IED in the rocks and crap beside the road. While you're sitting and waiting for a recovery vehicle, they pepper you with small arms fire and lob in a few mortars."

  "How often does that happen?" Russell asked.

  Andrew smiled. "Pretty much every time we go outside the wire."

  "You expecting it to happen today?"

  "Chances are about nine on a scale of ten. We're not just driving around waiting for them to fire at us, we're going after them. But we're not expecting big numbers today, or the CO would have put nine or ten guys in each Stryker."

  "You think they know we're coming?"

  Another smile. "They always know we're coming."

  The Stryker slowed and the road surface changed. They were on the unpaved secondary road running south of the main highway. IED heaven. The ride inside the Stryker was rough and the noise levels somewhere close to pandemonium. Rocks banged off the undercarriage, a constant barrage of loud, sharp pings. Russell focused on the soldiers. They didn't seem to notice the small bumps and showed little reaction to the bone-jarring reverberations when they hit large holes in the road. Their faces remained impassive - unconcerned by the unimportant stuff. No sense getting upset by a few potholes when no one was shooting at you.

  Russell had seen it before. Somalia was the worst. The troops were outnumbered and outgunned by the locals to the point where each day held the promise of being overrun and slaughtered. At least in Iraq and Afghanistan the logistics were better. Or so he'd been told. He'd find out soon enough if it were true.

  "What sort of resistance do you think we'll hit today?" he asked.

  "Sixty to eighty tier three, maybe a handful of tier two. We're not expecting any tier one bad guys on this run."

  "Tiers? What's that?" Russell asked.

  "Tier three are basically farmers with rifles. They get recruited because they need the money. They're dressed the worst, so sometimes you can tell who they are. It doesn't stop us from shooting them. But if you kill one, it gets all the relatives pissed off and the next day there's more of them with guns." Andrew took a sip of water and continued. "Tier two are the Afghan religious nutcases. They think they're fighting a jihad of some sort. They're still getting paid way more than they could earn doing anything else, but they have a bit of ideology left in them. If I was low on ammo and had the option of taking out a tier three or a tier two, I'd take the tier two every time."

  "What about the tier one guys?"

  Andrew's face steeled and his eyes grew cold. "Mercenaries," he said. "Former professional soldiers from Chechnya or Iran, sometimes Bosnia. These guys know what they're doing and they're dangerous. They're all about the money. And they like to kill us. Nasty fuckers. You get one of those guys in your sights, you take him out."

  "Do they ever come after you?"

  "Nah, not often." Andrew shook his head. "We always have reinforcements reasonably close and the chances of the Taliban putting together a well organized attack are slim. It's not their MO. Sneaking about planting IEDs and taking pot shots from the hills are what they're good at. They're pests. Very dangerous pests." He grinned and his eyes shifted from cold to mischievous. "They tried attacking the FOB one night but that didn't work out very well for them."

  "Makes sense. The FOBs are well protected," Russell said.

  "Yeah. The COPs, on the other hand, get overrun all the time."

  "Combat Outposts?" Russell asked and when Andrew nodded he said, "I haven't heard any reports of us taking casualties from that."

  Andrew shook his head. "It's mostly Afghan National Army guys manning those posts. If the bad guys know we're there they tend to leave them alone. They wait until the ANA are alone, then they take it out. If they kill a handful of US or Canadian soldiers, it's like stepping on an anthill. We're all over them. They don't like getting us too mad."

  Russell looked dubious. "Are you saying that you don't care if the ANA guys get killed?"

  Andrew shook his head. "No, not saying that at all. OMLT works really hard to get the ANA self-sufficient, so it's a bad day when they get overrun. But not quite the same as having US or Canadian troops on site when it happens."

  "What's omelet?" Russell asked, pronouncing the acronym like the word, as Andrew had.

  "O-M-L-T." He spelled out the letters. "Operational Mentor and Liaison Force. It's a Canadian program and we picked up on it. OMLT mentors the Afghan National Army and trains them to take over once we're gone."

  "So it's our exit strategy."

  "Yeah. We're kinda hoping it works."

  "Contact. Out."

  The voice came over their headsets on the frequency reserved for the Tactical Operations Center in Kandahar. Contact meant someone in the line of Strykers was taking fire from the enemy. Out signaled the TOC that the Stryker commander who had called in did not expect, or want, a response. A Contact Report would be coming over the radio in a minute, detailing what sort of fire they were taking and estimated enemy strength. The line of Strykers kept moving and the report followed thirty seconds later.

  "Small arms fire coming from the ridge at seven o'clock. Four to six shooters. Keep rolling to Dabarey, about three clicks."

  Andrew leaned in toward Russell. "We've got a handful of bad guys with rifles firing at us from a ridge. Not worth stopping for. We're heading into the town."

  "Okay," Russell said. He adjusted the camera bag, even though it didn't need it.

  The Strykers were moving slower now, almost at a crawl, and Andrew noticed concern spreading across Russell's face. He said, "The secondary road we traveled on to get here was cleared this morning before we left the FOB. They checked the culverts for IEDs, so we could move a bit faster. This short stretch from the road to the village hasn't been cleared, so we have to go a bit slower. The first vehicle is at the greatest risk and he sets the pace. The drivers coming up behind all follow in exactly the same track, so in a way, the road has been cleared for them."

  "How do you get to be the lucky guy in the front?" Russell asked.

  "Piss someone off," Andrew said, then grinned. "Just kidding. Sort of."

  Russell wasn't sure whether Andrew James was kidding or not. He was two days into his assignment, on his first trip outside the wire, and he was already feeling the incredible stress that the soldiers manning the FOB felt every day. It was the same as Somalia and Iraq, and he wondered how they managed. How they distanced themselves from everything they'd known as teenagers and young men and women in their twenties, living in John Mellancamp's America. The lyrics floated through his mind as the Stryker commander came over the radio and told them to be ready. They were rolling into Dabarey.

  Little Pink Houses. Ain't that America.

  Man, America had changed.

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  Chapter

  20

  Moscow, Russia

  Friday afternoon and Moscow was teeming with life. Traffic was impossible and the heat was stifling. It almost made Trey Miller wish that U2 had booked their concert during the winter. Almost. Until he remembered Russia in the dead of winter - bone-chilling cold and everything frozen. It shocked him back to reality. August was just fine.

  Alexi Androv had secured mod
erately accurate drawings of the stadium, showing some of the conduits that housed the electrical wiring and most of the water mains entering the structure and the sewers leaving. His contact inside the local office at MosEnergo had promised him more detailed drawings of the electrical system by the following Wednesday. That was five days away - too long to sit and wait. They needed to make significant progress in the next week if they hoped to be successful. Which meant they had to start with what was at hand.

  Androv laid the plans on the table in Miller's suite in the Korston Hotel. All four members of the team were comfortably seated with a clear view of the schematics. Laid alongside the new plans were the ones Trey had brought with him from Paris that showed the structural components of the stadium.

  "Luzhniki was built in 1956, so its basic infrastructure is getting old," Androv said. "There have been six major upgrades to the services over the last fifty-four years. Four of these were to bring the electrical systems up to date with the latest advancements in technology. The events in the stadium these days draw more power than they use to, so they've upped the voltage coming in and have used numerous incoming lines to ensure the power can't fail simultaneously across the stadium."

  Trey leaned back in his chair. "Does that make it easier or harder for us?"

  Androv shrugged. "A bit of both, I think. I don't know if we can knock out everything at the same time. A lot of that depends on Petr. He's the one who has to identify where we cut into the system." Androv lit a foul-smelling cigarette and continued. "We can trip the relay networks or breakers or whatever you want to call them, and shut everything down, but that doesn't work if you want to have the blame passed on to Volstov. He'll simply deflect it and say some terrorist group targeted the concert. The problem we have is making this look like incompetence, not sabotage."