The Target

by Saul Herzog

  The train brought them back a few miles to the Lithuanian village of Saločiai, and everyone disembarked.

  “How far is it to Riga from here?” Lance asked the conductor as they descended the steps.

  “Fifty kilometers,” the conductor said.

  At the train station, the passengers mulled around, waiting for the buses the train company had arranged.

  “Let’s get you two inside,” Lance said, helping Tatyana walk.

  They waited for him on a bench while he went to the car rental desk. By some miracle, he was able to get a five-series BMW. When he got back to the women, they were drinking sweetened tea from plastic cups that a Romany woman had sold them.

  Lance showed them the keys. “Come on,” he said. “We’re out of here.”

  They were able to cover most of the distance to Riga on a highway that was relatively unscathed by the cyberattack that had brought down all of Latvia’s traffic systems.

  Once they got closer to Riga, however, that changed.

  Riga was not an enormous city by any standards, it was roughly comparable, population-wise, to Portland, Oregon, but even from the highway, Lance could tell that the traffic was going to be a battle to get through.

  It wasn’t just the traffic lights, which had all defaulted to a flashing red, but things like gas station pumps, toll booths, and camera activated signals were down too.

  Without connectivity, nothing worked.

  Some of the city’s radio stations were still broadcasting, but they were using backup, analog systems that hadn’t been used in years, and the content being transmitted was a pre-recorded emergency message recorded by the government.

  “This is an emergency signal,” the message said in a robotic female voice. “Remain calm and obey all orders from the authorities.”

  Bank machines, credit card processors, cell phones, and the Internet were completely offline.

  Riga was ordinarily a peaceful city, orderly, with well-maintained parks surrounding the city center, but Lance knew how quickly that could change. In an atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, even the most peaceful city could become as dangerous as a warzone.

  “I think I just saw someone break the window of an electronics store,” Laurel said.

  She was sitting next to Lance in the passenger seat.

  Tatyana was in the back with her leg up.

  “It doesn’t take long for things to descend into chaos in an atmosphere like this,” Tatyana said. “The GRU has entire attack plans for breaking down public order in a city like this.”

  “Why is it,” Laurel said, looking over her shoulder at Tatyana, “that Moscow is so much better at using chaos to achieve its objectives than we are?”

  “Well,” Tatyana said, “the Kremlin never stopped thinking of itself as a superpower.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lance said.

  “But they lack the economic power, the military power, the technological power, to match those ambitions, so they have to be creative,” Tatyana said.

  “I heard Molotov was into judo in a big way,” Lance said.

  “Exactly,” Tatyana said. “It’s all about using the opponent’s own size against him.”

  “But we do that too,” Laurel said.

  “It’s not the same,” Tatyana said. “The US is always looking for solutions. Everything about your country, everything about your education system, everything about your corporations and government institutions and universities, trains people to look for solutions. If something is broken…”.

  “We try to fix it,” Laurel said.

  “Exactly.”

  “And you don’t do that in Russia?” Lance said.

  Tatyana laughed. “Our approach is more like, if ours is broken, and yours isn’t, then we have to break yours too. We learn how to break things, not fix them.”

  Laurel shook her head. “Always creating trouble,” she said.

  Tatyana nodded. “Chaos is the Kremlin’s best weapon, and they know it. We know our country is weak. We know we can’t make it as strong as the West.”

  “So you seek the make the West as weak as you,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana nodded.

  “But how do they hope to prevail in the end,” Laurel said. “Eventually, at the end of the day, someone needs to be strong. Problems need to be fixed.

  Tatyana smiled. “Tatyana, that’s the thing. There is no end. There’s no solution. International politics, competition, human history, it never ends. As far as the Kremlin is concerned, it doesn’t even change over time.”

  “Of course it changes,” Laurel said.

  “That’s the difference between you and a Kremlin strategist, Laurel,” Lance said. “You still think there’s a happy ending to all of this. Some solution that will make things right.”

  “So what am I missing?” Laurel said. “Explain it to me like I’m a five-year-old.”

  “There are so many ways the West is vulnerable,” Tatyana said. “Look at this cyber attack. How much effort did it take for the West to invent the Internet, to invent mobile phones, to invent satellite communications, and an electronically powered international payments system?”

  “A lot,” Laurel said.

  “Exactly. And what do you think it cost Russia to tear it all down?”

  “Probably a bunch of teenagers in a basement in Saint Petersburg,” Lance said.

  “That’s right,” Laurel said. “And the more advanced Latvia’s communications system becomes, the more damage those teenagers can do from their basement.”

  “Right,” Laurel said, nodding.

  “You can’t even buy gasoline in this city right now,” Tatyana said. “And the Kremlin didn’t have to lay a finger on a single fuel depot to make that happen.”

  “Okay,” Laurel said.

  “And look at the US military. How much have they invested in to advanced technology? Global positioning? Defense systems that can shoot missiles out of the sky? Guidance systems that can tell a soldier what’s over the next hill? Unmanned drones and guided missiles that can fly to any spot on the planet? How difficult was it to get all of that up and running?”

  “Very difficult,” Laurel said.

  “Trillions of dollars developing the most advanced military the world has ever known,” Tatyana said. “A military that is technically capable of almost anything you can imagine.”

  “But there’s a vulnerability,” Laurel said.

  “You bet there’s a vulnerability. Compared to all that technology, satellites guiding bullets, guiding soldiers, guiding missiles, guiding ships and planes and drones and tanks and turning basically the entire planet into a three-dimensional model, compared to all that, what do you think it costs the Kremlin to interfere with those systems?”

  “It’s not like our systems aren’t defended,” Laurel said.

  “American systems are like a Porsche,” Tatyana said. “The Kremlin knows that, and their entire strategy is to make sure they’re never in a race against that Porsche.”

  “How can they beat it then?”

  “How do you beat a Porsche when all you have is a piece of shit Lada?” Tatyana said. “Ask yourself this, if you were in an argument in a parking lot, who would you rather be? The guy with the hundred-thousand-dollar Porsche, or the guy with the one-dollar brick?”

  “That’s what all this chaos is,” Lance said, looking out at a scene of increasing disorder in the street in front of him.

  “That’s what all this chaos is,” Tatyana said, “and it was achieved by a bunch of hackers in a basement.”

  “And the only reason it works,” Laurel said.

  “The only reason it works is because Latvia invested heavily in modernizing its society and its economy, and now everything is connected to the internet.”

  “We’re all fucked then?” Laurel said.

  “It goes deeper than you could ever realize,” Tatyana said. “It’s not just technological. It’s about social cohesion too. Human nature. Chaos is at the roo
t of every aspect of the Kremlin’s strategy.”

  “What do you mean?” Laurel said.

  “Well, the West says that freedom is a source of power, right? Democracy, free speech, the right to live your life how you want and pursue happiness and all that?”

  “Right,” Laurel said.

  “Well, the Kremlin is trying to turn American freedom into a weakness. Look at the way they abuse freedom of speech norms to distort political debates. Their internet trolls can say anything on social media, and everyone in the US gives them a hearing because of their right to free speech.”

  “Same with the press,” Lance said.

  “Right. In the Kremlin, they always say that if the West didn’t have a free press, they would have had to invent one for them.”

  “Very funny,” Laurel said.

  “It’s not funny when the Kremlin can influence media outlets and get them to effect Western public perceptions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like anything. Like immigration. Immigration can be a flashpoint in any nation’s politics. Do you know what proportion of the US population was born in a foreign country?”

  “One in six,” Laurel said.

  “That right,” Tatyana said. “The US, with its economy and political freedoms, is the ultimate destination for people around the world who are looking for a better life. All that freedom. All that economic prosperity. It’s a good thing, right? It’s a strength. Open borders. Freedom to travel. Freedom of religion. All of it. It’s the reason more technology comes out of the US in a single year than has come out of Russia in the past five decades.”

  “But it creates a vulnerability,” Laurel said.

  “Of course it creates a vulnerability. It creates tensions. It creates opportunities to drive wedges between groups. To drive people against each other. People who are supposed to be neighbors.”

  “It was Abraham Lincoln who said it,” Laurel said.

  “Right,” Tatyana said. “What did he say? A house…”.

  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

  “That’s the Bible,” Lance said.

  “I think it was Lincoln,” Tatyana said.

  “Lincoln might have said it,” Lance said. “But he got it from the Bible.”

  “I didn’t peg you as a Sunday schoolboy,” Laurel said.

  “There’s a lot of things about me you might not have pegged,” Lance said.

  “Well,” Tatyana said, “look at it this way. The US brings in immigration, it benefits economically, people want to come. They bring their talents. They bring their scientists. All of that is supposed to be the benefit for democracy.”

  “Whereas in Russia?” Laurel said.

  “In Russia, almost everyone is an ethnic Russian. Almost everyone was born in Russia. Almost everyone will die in Russia. They don’t get to vote in free and fair elections. They don’t get to travel freely to other parts of the world. They don’t get to listen to a million different media outlets, telling them a million different ways to see the world.”

  “And that makes them stronger?” Laurel said.

  “No,” Tatyana said. “The Russian people are oppressed. They are deliberately kept in the dark. They are kept poor. They are kept shut off from the global economy and global information flows.”

  “But somehow, the Kremlin turns that into a strength,” Laurel said.

  “Well, if no one ever leaves. If no new people ever arrive. If every newspaper and news channel says the same thing, and if there are no political disagreements between politicians…”.

  “Then the house can never be divided,” Lance said.

  “That’s the crux of it,” Tatyana said. “That’s the Russian way. Look at what everyone else is doing…”.

  “And do the opposite,” Laurel said.

  “And pick at weaknesses,” Tatyana said.

  63

  By the time Lance, Laurel and Tatyana made it to the center of Riga, it was getting dark. It took them two hours to cover a distance of less than five miles, and with every passing hour, the mood on the streets got less stable and more dangerous.

  “This is it,” Tatyana said as they approached the hotel.

  It was a grand, nineteenth century buidling in the center of the old town and Lance pulled up in front of the entrance.

  “Wait here,” he said to the women. “I’ll go get us a room.”

  He entered the lobby with a swagger in his step, speaking loudly, trying to look and sound like an American tourist. He stepped up to the fromt desk and slapped his wallet on the counter.

  “It’s really chaos out there,” he said in English.

  “Yes, sir,” a snooty looking guy in a tight suit and black tie said, looking at Lance over the top of wire rimmed glasses.

  “I need a room,” Lance said. “All the flights have been grounded.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” the man began, but Lance reached into the wallet and put a wad of US twenty-dollar bills on the desk.

  “I know your system’s down,” Lance said. “Everything’s down. I’m as upset about it as anyone. But I’ve got cash, and I don’t need wifi, and I don’t need to book online. I just need a room, a suite if you have one.”

  “Without our system, sir.”

  “As far as I’m aware,” Lance said, “the internet has no effect on beds, and bedrooms, am I right?”

  The man looked around, checked behind him, and moved the cash off the desk and into his pocket.

  “You’re absolutely correct, sir. I do happen to have a very nicely appointed suite.”

  A few minutes later, Lance was in the room with Laurel and Tatyana, and directly across the square from them was the headquarters of the Latvian State Police.

  “So that’s where she worked?” Lance said

  Tatyana nodded.

  Laurel went to the minibar and took out a bottle of champagne.

  There were two flutes on the counter above the bar and she filled them.

  “You didn’t want any, did you?” she said to Lance. “There were only two glasses.”

  “I guess not,” Lance said.

  He was looking across the square at the police building and wondering if Agata’s boss was still in there. He was the only person they knew for certain had spoken to Agata before her disappearance.

  Lance was willing to bet he was mixed up with the Russians.

  If anyone knew what was coming, it was him.

  With the Latvian phone system completely down, there was no way for them to call Roth.

  “We need a location for Zarina’s boss,” Lance said.

  “Do you think Roth knows where he is?”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t know how we’d contact him to ask,” Tatyana said.

  “There’s a satellite communications capability at the US embassy,” Lance said, “but if we go there, every Russian agent in the country knows we’re here.”

  “You’re going to have to find him the old fashioned way,” Laurel said.

  Lance looked at her. She’d kicked off her shoes and was sipping champagne. Tatyana looked equally comfortable on the bed, her injured leg stretched out in front of her.

  “I’m sorry,” Lance said, “I didn’t realize we’d come her for a vacation.”

  “Tracking down a Latvian police officer,” Laurel said. “I’d say that’s your job, Lance.” She turned to Tatyana, “What do you think?”

  “Definitely,” Tatyana said. “What’s the use in having you here if you can’t do that much?”

  Lance shook his head. “We’ve got an address for him, right?”

  “Sure we do,” Laurel said.

  “I don’t suppose we have a photo?”

  Laurel shook her head. “Not without Internet, we don’t.”

  Lance went to the minibar and took out a packet of nuts.

  He turned on the television.

  All of the channels had been taken over by the same emergency broadcast signal they’d heard
on the radio.

  “I’m not surprised the police captain’s in the Kremlin’s pocket,” he said. “How can a country like this defend itself against a neighbor like Russia?”

  Tatyana said, “The only reason the Kremlin’s not already here is the threat of US retaliation.”

  “And if that threat goes away?” Laurel said.

  “If that threat goes away?” Tatyana said, “if it goes away completely, well, I’ve seen the list.”

  “What list?” Lance said.

  “A shopping list,” Tatyana said, “of territory Russia will gobble up the moment it’s powerful enough to do so.”

  “What’s on that list?”

  “Over sixty million people,” Tatyana said. “Most of them in Europe and Central Asia.”

  “What countries?”

  “All the ones you’d expect,” Tatyana said. “The Baltics, the Caucasus, the Central Asian republics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova.”

  “They’re in most of them already,” Lance said.

  “Yes they are,” Tatyana said, “and the official strategy says that the moment the West is too weak to oppose them, they’ll invade and annex all of them.”

  “That’s a lot of territory,” Lance said.

  “It’s the former USSR. The Russian military knows the terrain. They know the people. They have their claws in the national leaderships. They supply the natural resources.”

  “They’re ready to go.”

  “People talk a lot about China these days,” Tatyana said.

  “China’s a rising tsunami,” Lance said.

  “Sure,” Tatyana said, “but what are it’s current territorial ambitions?”

  Laurel shrugged. “A few enclaves in Bhutan,” she said. “Same in Nepal. Some shoals and atolls in the South China Sea. The Paracel Islands. Scarborough Shoal. Some of its border regions with India. The Spratly Islands.”

  “Taiwan,” Lance said.

  “Add it all up,” Tatyana said. “What have you got?”

  “In terms of square miles.”

  “In any terms you like,” Tatyana said.

  “It’s not a lot,” Laurel said. “Really, it’s not much more than any other country their size.”

  “What about the Uighurs?” Lance said.

  “Compare it all to what Russia has its sights on,” Tatyana said.