One Child

by Jeff Buick

  Day 16 - 8.11.10 - Morning News

  Outside Spin Buldak, Afghanistan

  Andrew showered, dressed in his combat fatigues and went searching for Russell. He found the reporter near the south wire staring at the distant mountains that divided Pakistan and Afghanistan. A border drawn by one generation of men and ignored by all others. To the Pashtun tribes living on either side of the imaginary line, it didn't exist. They traveled back and forth between the two countries as they had for thousands of years, without the slightest hesitation. Their cultures, their families, their heritage trumped any divisions. Bottom line was, they didn't care it was there. It was life as normal.

  It fascinated the journalist. It always had.

  Russell turned at the sound of crunching gravel. He nodded to Andrew. "Good morning."

  "And to you," the army specialist said. He sat on a crate and lit a cigarette. "Are you ready for an adventure?"

  "Where to?" Russell asked. His pulse quickened at the thought of leaving the safety afforded by a handful of HESCO bastions and a few rolls of razor wire.

  "Oh, you're going to love this. We're actually being shipped out on Friday for the next two weeks or so. We'll be staying at another FOB. Ma'sum ghar. It's on the west side of Kandahar. It's pretty crazy over there. Captain told me to let you know that you don't have to go with us. You can stay here if you want. It's totally up to you."

  Russell set his empty coffee cup on the small table next to his chair. "Sell me on why I should go with you. I'm rather enjoying the security of this place after what happened in Dabarey."

  Andrew sucked in some smoke and blew out smoke rings that dissipated in the slight breeze. "We'll be working almost hand-in-hand with the Canadians. A very polite group. Always say please and thank you. They even have a Tim Horton's coffee shop at KAF."

  "You don't have me yet. What else?"

  "The area is totally nuts. Like the Wild West. The road running out of Kandahar down to Mushan is the most heavily mined road in the world. IEDs everywhere. It's in a valley and the Taliban wait in the hills for us. They target the convoys that keep our Combat Outposts supplied. If we're lucky enough to make it to Mushan, we have to drive through the center of town to get to the final COP. It's the most insane place in the entire country. Dudes with snakes and little flutes, birdcages filled with exotic birds everywhere, and everyone has a gun. I'm not shitting you. That's deadly accurate."

  "And this is your way of talking me into going?" Russell asked.

  Andrew shrugged. He dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his heel. "I thought you were looking for a story."

  "I am."

  "If you want to see what's happening outside the wire, Ma'sum ghar is the place. And we'll be closer to Kandahar. If something goes down in the city, you can cover that as well."

  "Okay, now you're talking."

  A convoy of six trucks and four Strykers came into view over a rise to the north. Supplies coming from KAF. They rolled up to the gates and entered the compound. A group of local Afghans, hired to work inside the base, congregated at the trucks and began to unload them. Numerous long, narrow crates were placed on pallets then shuffled toward a heavily-fortified underground bunker.

  Andrew grinned. "Javelins," he said. "Man, I love those things."

  "I've seen them before. They're high-tech rockets, aren't they?" Russell asked.

  "Yeah. They're great for clearing out the snipers. Not at all subtle. You press the trigger and the side of the building is gone. The problem is, they're expensive and we get read the riot act for using them." He counted the number of crates and mentally did the math. "There are somewhere between two and three hundred of them in that shipment. Somebody, somewhere, likes us."

  They both watched two larger crates being moved by forklift to a central location in the base.

  "They look like 81mm Mortars," Andrew mused. "But I can't imagine them giving us that sort of artillery here."

  A few smaller crates were unloaded and stacked in the shade. Some small, very heavy wood boxes were the last to be unloaded, and the trucks returned to the front gate. They cleared the wire and headed back toward Kandahar.

  "M-4s and ammo," Andrew said. "Strange that they'd ship those."

  "You don't need ammo?" Russell asked.

  "No, not the ammo, the guns. We bring our weapons with us and keep them for the duration of our tour." He turned back to face the reporter. "Well, what do you think? Want to come with us to Ma'sum ghar or stay here with the pussies."

  "Well, put that way..."

  "Thought so," Andrew said. He gave the journalist a loose salute and headed back into the center of the FOB.

  Russell watched the specialist walk away. Andrew intrigued him. He was different from a lot of the other soldiers - more of a big picture guy. He really understood the issues that were at the root of the conflict. Chances were that James would make a good story. Maybe. He just didn't know how.

  Not yet at least.

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  Chapter

  30

  Moscow, Russia

  Five days had passed since Trey Miller and his team had set the wheels in motion to take down the U2 concert in Luzhniki Stadium. They had already made a substantial dent in the list of tasks Trey had prepared. But as they moved ahead, new obstacles were emerging.

  The lease for the retail space on Usaceva was signed and they had taken possession of the unit. Dark paper covered the windows and it was impossible to see in from the street. The traffic on Hamovniceskij Val, a main artery to the north of the stadium, masked the noise and vibrations the team made cutting through the floor and the cast-cement pipes of the storm sewer system. The entire team had spent a few hours in the complex maze of pipes running under the street, and they all had a healthy respect for the complexity of what they had undertaken.

  It was a horrible mixture of hundred-year-old, decrepit tunnels that felt like they were going to collapse, thirty-year-old sections covered in slime and new ones that hadn't been added to the latest drawings. The electrical conduits were helter-skelter and not properly noted on the schematics, making it difficult for Petr Besovich to locate the optimum places to splice into the system. If he only had to cut into the grid in one place, it would have been tough. But the electrical feed to the stadium came in on a handful of separate lines. It was simple to determine that there were six main conduits. Finding the right places to access a junction box on each of the six was a nightmare. Every time he found a place that looked good on paper, it wasn't the same when he was underground actually looking at it.

  They met in the lobby of the Korston Hotel on Wednesday at two in the afternoon. Each of them wore a grim expression.

  "This is a clusterfuck," Besovich said. "It's impossible."

  "Nothing is impossible," Trey remarked. "Simply more difficult than we thought."

  "I can't find one place to cut into the grid," Besovich snapped. "Not one. And I need six to take down the power. It's not working."

  "You still have two weeks," Trey said.

  "I need better plans."

  "Alexi is working on it," Trey said calmly. He needed the team together on this, not pushing at each other.

  "Work harder," Petr said, challenging Androv with a snide look.

  Androv's eyes darkened. The dangerous side of the man cracked through the veneer for a moment, then disappeared as he smiled. "Yes, Petr, I'll do that."

  Trey watched both men. He knew Androv's response had been solely for his benefit. Under the surface, the dapper Russian was seething. Trey could think of few things more dangerous than angering Alexi Androv. The man was borderline psychopathic. They needed to work together for the next fourteen days without ki
lling each other. Literally.

  "Maelle, where are you with getting into the computer systems for the stadium and the city?"

  She shook her head. "It's not going well. I need a line to get in without being seen. A back door of sorts. I'm waiting on Petr to find me one."

  Trey looked back to Petr.

  "Plans. I can't function without an accurate set of working drawings." Besovich kept his eyes focused on Trey and didn't let them wander to Androv. No sense inciting the wolverine any more than he already had.

  "Do you know what kind of equipment you'll need to splice into the grid?" Trey asked Petr. "If you do, we can pick it up now so we have it on hand."

  "Sort of. I'll give Alexi a list of things I need so he can start building the contactors. We've agreed on the basics of how it should work, so we have a good idea of what to buy and how to put it together."

  "Alexi, any problems building the units?"

  "None that I can see."

  "Good." Trey pushed his chair back and said, "Alexi will have the plans soon. Then we'll be moving ahead on all fronts. Until then, make sure you familiarize yourselves with the tunnel system between our shop and the stadium." He paused for a second then added, "I have the travel route for the backup generator and I'll handle it. It looks like I'll be in Belarus in ten or eleven days. Only for a day, though."

  Trey's phone rang as the meeting broke up and he took the call while standing at the window, looking out over the river and Luzhniki Stadium. The person on the other end of the line took him by surprise.

  "Trey, it's Anne Sommer."

  It took him a moment to process the fact that someone from Langley was calling him. "Anne, this is a surprise," he said. He checked the room as he spoke, ensuring the rest of the team members were out of earshot. "What's up?"

  "Sorry to bother you. This will only take a minute."

  "Take your time. It's been quite a while and it's nice to hear your voice."

  "A few years," Anne said. "Listen, we have a bit of a situation here."

  "What's going on?"

  "A hacker managed to get into our system Monday night. They went directly to your file."

  "My file?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. Once they were in, they made a beeline for your information. Spent about two minutes searching through sixteen pages, then downloaded four megs of data and left."

  "Any idea who it was?"

  "Not really. That's why I'm calling. We spent all day yesterday trying to track them, but they bounced their IP address off so many servers and proxies that we can't find them. We think they might be in New York, but that's the best we can do. We thought you might be able to help."

  Trey's mind raced at warp speed. Bill Fleming was headquartered in New York and had hired him for the job. But Fleming already knew some of what was in his CIA dossier. There was no reason for the billionaire to risk hacking into the database to acquire knowledge he already had. It wasn't Fleming. So who?

  Did Dimitri Volstov know there was a team in place and was he digging for information? He ran that through a few scenarios and discarded them. Volstov had no reason to suspect anything to do with the concert. And the man was too busy to be looking for proverbial needles in a haystack. Plus, the hacker had most likely been in New York when he or she cracked the security. If Anne was telling him they thought the hacker was likely in New York, then that's where they were.

  It all came back to Fleming. Someone had connected him to the billionaire.

  "I might have an idea who was behind the intrusion," he said slowly. "I don't want to give you a name right now. I promise you that as soon as I find out, you'll find out."

  "Fair enough," she said. "I'll give you my direct line."

  Trey jotted down the number, thanked her and hung up the phone. He left the hotel and found a stretch of road on Leninskij Prospekt busy with coffee shops and boutiques. He browsed until he found what he wanted. A single, affluent-looking woman working on her laptop. Surrounding her on the small table were a pen, an electronic daytimer and a cell phone. He ordered a latte and sat at a table next to her. Inside ten minutes she left the table to use the bathroom. Trey stood up, pocketed her phone and returned to the street. He dialed a number with a New York area code. Fleming answered.

  "Why are you calling on this number?" Fleming asked. The phone was registered to a non-existent person in New Jersey. Fleming kept it for times like this - when calls should be untraceable from both ends.

  "Something is going on that I don't understand." He explained the call from his former co-worker at the CIA. "There's no reason for anyone to be looking at my file, unless it's related to what we're doing over here."

  "Maybe it was a random hack into the system," Fleming said.

  "Not a chance. Whoever managed to breach the firewalls is a damn good hacker. And they went directly to my file. This was a purpose-driven exercise. They were looking at me."

  Trey waited while Fleming digested the new information. A minute passed, then the billionaire said, "Leave this with me. I'll dig into things on this end. You'd be wise to do the same over there."

  "Of course."

  "How are things going?" Fleming asked.

  "Not bad. We're running into some snags, but that's to be expected. Nothing ever goes exactly as it should."

  "Are you on schedule?"

  "I think so, yes. We should be fine."

  "Good." A moment of silence, then, "Call me if you need anything else." The line clicked over to a dial tone.

  Trey wiped his fingerprints off the phone and dropped it in a garbage bin. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure. The intrusion into the CIA mainframe had to do with Fleming. Someone suspected something. And that left a few unanswered questions.

  Trey hated unanswered questions. They were dangerous.

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  Chapter

  31

  Soho, New York

  Carson stared at the information on the sheet in front of him on the kitchen table. It was like something out of a spy novel.

  Trey Miller was ex-CIA, but lots of people had worked at the Central Intelligence Agency at one point in their lives. They typed memos. They collected information. They wrote software. Most of the jobs inside the agency were fairly mundane. But not Miller's. Not in the least.

  Miller had been with the agency over twenty-one years - stationed in the Baltics for three years and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for another five. During his stint, nine foreign agents had died and three more went missing. While the data inside the file never specifically linked Miller to the killings, the inferences were obvious. He was trained in hand-to-hand combat, knife-fighting, handguns, explosives and held numerous records for sharpshooting. He spoke six languages flawlessly.

  And Trey Miller was somehow tied in with William Fleming.

  Carson rubbed his hands over his eyes. He didn't need to look in the mirror to know they were bloodshot. His head hurt from pressure behind his left eye - something that happened when he succumbed to stress. The Advil he had swallowed an hour ago was kicking in, but the pain was still there, lurking, ready to spread. A floorboard creaked behind him and he instinctively slid a blank piece of paper over the page with Miller's photo.

  "What are you doing?" Nicki asked. She sat across from him at the table. The dinner dishes had been cleared and low voices from the television drifted into the kitchen.

  "Looking at a potential new hire," he lied. The last thing Nicki needed right now was stress of any sort. Telling her he suspected Fleming was embroiled in something shady wasn't going to help her already fragile health. "How are you feeling?"

  "Better," she said. "My breathing is easier and I have m
ore energy."

  "Eating well, too." He stood and hugged her. Nicki's body was warm through her robe and there was a hint of strawberry fragrance on her skin from her bath oils. He held her for a minute, then said, "I have to go in to the office for a while. Do you think you can amuse yourself for a bit?"

  She didn't pull away. "I think so." Her breathing was rhythmic and slow. "What's so pressing?"

  "We're running a series of tests on the new algo. I want to see the results as they come in."

  "Okay. How long will you be?"

  "It's eight o'clock now, and I should be at the office about an hour. With travel time I should be home by ten."

  "I'll wait up."

  "Good. I'd like that."

  He collected his briefcase, kissed her, then locked the door behind him and hailed a cab. He gave the cabbie the address on Avenue of the Americas and dialed Alicia's number on his cell phone.

  "Can you come in for a few minutes?" he asked when she picked up.

  "Carson, it's almost 8:30 on Wednesday night. I only got home an hour ago."

  "You live five minutes from the office. What took you so long to get home?"

  "I went for drinks in Bryant Park with friends," she said.

  "Come back in, please. I need a favor."

  A moment's silence, then she said, "All right. See you in ten minutes."

  Carson hung up and closed his eyes. He always processed thoughts better when there were no other distractions. Fleming was tied in with Trey Miller. Miller had spent time working as a spy for the CIA. Fleming was in Cabo San Lucas and wouldn't be back until Friday. That gave him a window of opportunity that might not reappear for some length of time. A chance to find out what Fleming was up to.

  Carson was worried about where he might stand legally if Fleming was gearing up to manipulate the markets. His latest promotion put him in a lead role inside the company. But along with the remuneration and the rest of the perks came a certain degree of risk. If the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated his division and found wrongdoing, he could be hung out to dry. How well did he know William Fleming? It was a simple question and an equally simple answer. Not all that well. He'd worked for Platinus for years but it was only in the last couple of weeks that he had interacted with Fleming with any degree of regularity. Maybe it was a coincidence that Fleming had received that particular e-mail from Miller at precisely this time. Maybe.