“We might be able to share some staff. We have two part-time secretarial people there and one wants to go full time now that she is married and thinking of having a family. It would be good if the other was working part time for you so we could call her in when the other goes on maternity leave.”
“That might work out. I haven't approached any of my staff about running another location yet, so might have a hard sell in front of me. Depends on what trappings could be had. The one I have in mind is rather young. He would want a nice place, clubs to hang out in, fancy car, the usual trappings of wealthy youth.”
Dimitri thought for a while then said, “I like that you are up front about this. I do my investing much like you do. Getting information ahead of everyone else allows one to make a killing as long as they don't get too greedy. We have recently had a few bouts with greed in my company so have been using the off-shore company to handle a lot of our transactions. It has been a long time since I had inside information this far in advance. We can even structure this deal legally.”
“Please continue.”
“Write up a letter of intent to enter a business relationship. For a 10% establishment fee we will establish an off-shore company meeting your requirements. You will invest your half a billion in that company. In that letter also state that we are contracting your firm to provide investment analysis services to us on a per transaction basis not to exceed 10% of profit. Once that letter is filed and posted on the Internet in a PR-type place, it will allow just cause for funds to flow freely between our two companies.”
“That does sound rather clean. Do you have that all down Vlad?”
Vladimir had started taking notes as soon as Dimitri stated the content for the letter. “Yes. I can go down to the business center with your letterhead and have four copies up for signature in under half an hour.”
“Do you want to be included in this deal Vladimir?” asked Dimitri.
“No. Lenny is my cousin. You do have one of my trading accounts in your possession. Simply invest according to the play Lenny has laid out. At some point I may have a new identity when I hit Lenny up for a job at his new off-shore company. Make sure the office building has wheelchair accessibility.”
Everyone laughed.
“Not a problem Vlad!” said Lenny. “I honestly hadn't thought about retiring until today. If I had you running the off-shore place and the guy I'm grooming back home running that company, I could even afford the divorce my wife would serve me with if I decided to move to Russia.”
Now everyone really laughed.
“Only if we set it up so her lawyer cannot get to it,” put in Dimitri.
All the men roared at that one.
***
It was the wee hours of the morning when the disposable cell phone Lenny had given him rang. Jeremy fumbled around groggily for it. Lenny had instructed him to keep the phone by his bed along with a pad and a pen.
“Hello.”
“Hello Jeremy. You need to get into the office as quickly as possible.”
Jeremy looked at the clock. “We don't open for another five hours,” he replied.
“There are a pair of faxes on the fax machine which are for your eyes only. The first is our signed letter of intent with Dimitri's company to enter a business relationship. I'm bringing the originals with me in my briefcase. The second is the instructions for where to send the wire transfer. You can enter the wire transfer information long before the bank opens. It will happen once they can call to verify. We need them to get on this as soon as they open.”
“OK. Is there anything I need to write down?”
“No, I put it all in the second fax. I didn't know if I would be able to fax to the United States from here. There is something you need to think about though.”
“What is that?”
“How would you feel about spending a couple of years in Kyyiv?”
“Doing what?”
“Running our new location, at least until we can bring someone in and get them up to your level.”
“I'll have to think about it.”
“Fine. Just remember that Russian women are beautiful, willing, and few people here make much money. A man with a car, even a Ford Taurus, could get lucky nearly every night.”
“It's not a matter of luck,” laughed Jeremy. A little more awake now, he said, “Apparently you forgot about the weekend you are funding for me. I fly out this afternoon.”
“I haven't forgotten. Already got your receipt for the jewelry. I was impressed with your restraint. You only hit me for $5K.”
“Wasn't like I was buying a wedding ring, just enough to flatten all her girlfriends when they see it.”
“You do know how to play the game son. Cruise on into the office and deal with the faxes. Be sure to put your real cell phone number in for the confirm phone number. Put my cell phone in as the second confirm in case they cannot get you. Leave your cell phone number with the receptionist so she can try contacting you if the bank fails. Take the rest of the day off, you've earned it.”
“I planned on it,” laughed Jeremy.
After hanging up Jeremy wondered what it would be like in Kyyiv. He put on some jeans and drove to the office. He retrieved both faxes and logged into the bank's secure system and keyed in the information for the wire transfer listing both his cell phone and Lenny's as numbers to call for voice confirm. He then left a note for the receptionist stating the bank may call if they couldn't reach either himself or Lenny on their cell phones. At the bottom he put his cell phone number.
With his work duties done, he grabbed a soda and started doing a few Web searches. Just to keep Lenny honest his first search was “Ukraine women.” Just like in this country more porn sites popped up than a person could visit in a lifetime. One thing he noticed is that most of the Ukraine women posing for porn didn't have a bunch of discarded credit cards pumped into their breasts like American women. They pretty much seemed to be natural beauties. He had run into some Russian women at college, so he knew something about them.
His next search was “Ukraine Income” which turned up a report from the CIA. Using 1995 U.S. dollars as the constant, in 2001 the per capita Gross Domestic Product was $4,200. The World Bank put household consumption at $558 and 29% of the people had incomes below the poverty line. “If you wanted to retire as a dirty old man this would be a place to do it,” he laughed.
Why he was still interested he had no idea. Perhaps it was just the analyst lifestyle. His next search was “Kyyiv historical weather.” That turned up a page stating the climate was much like the Midwest U.S.; cold in winter, hot in summer. Average winter temperature was around 19 degrees F and average summer temperature was around 67 degrees F. Not out of range he thought.
Might as well round out the search, he thought. He did one more search for “Kyyiv real estate housing.” This brought up quite a bit of information, but only one site was close to what he expected to find for real estate. It had other information such as in Kyyiv they drive on the right side of the road. Always good to know something like that. A new high-end apartment complex was being built. For around U.S. $320K you could buy a “3 room plus kitchen” apartment. It wasn't until he looked at the floor plan that he realized they count each room in Kyyiv. It wasn't a three bedroom unit like he thought. “What a scam!” he said out loud. Of course when he changed the search to “Kiev Real Estate” that brought up sites more like he was expecting. You could purchase a one bedroom condo (apartment) for around $30K U.S. and the higher end ones seemed to top out around $250K. Then again, he had come across a few apartments that were charging $14,000 per month in rent. He wondered how many fresh women they came with? An ex-wife wouldn't cost you that.
How long does it take a couple to pay off a $30K note at $500 per year, Jeremy pondered. Lenny was correct. There were high-end condos at reasonable prices and a severe poverty level. No wonder so many European women seemed to be on those mail order bride Web sites. It is simple desperation. There mus
t be quite a few of the mafia types living in Kyyiv or other highly crooked individuals. There could be little other justification for $3.4 million condos being within a mile of $30K condos.
Still, Lenny was correct. A young guy could go there for a couple years, be a drunken womanizing pig, and live on $20,000. If your retirement account had barely a million dollars in it, you could buy a nice condo and live better than most of your neighbors for the rest of your life. Hell, if you only had half a million, you could eke it out buying that condo that was under $40K. How the hell do they even eat spending an average of $558 per year? That wouldn't buy most people in the U.S. five week's groceries, not counting the fast food stops, etc.
Jeremy logged out and locked up the office. He couldn't believe he was even entertaining the idea. Oh well, he had a weekend of incredible sex and food far too good to be described. There was nothing quite like relaxing after a great meal and fantastic sex in a jacuzzi which happened to be near the fire place in your room. Nothing quite like that at all. Add to that the fact his date could give a blind man whiplash and he would be walking her around the place to show her off.
Speaking of showing off, Jeremy made a mental note to put both the jewelry and receipt in his carry-on bag. Only a fool would let a $5K diamond necklace with matching earrings go through baggage claim now that they hand-inspected luggage. Jeremy had heard so many horror stories he was planning to pack two incredible suits to wear. He figured if he packed two, they might only take one. Yes, he had heard some tales of people losing expensive suits. They wouldn't bother to pilfer a Wal-Mart suit, but a $1,200 imported Italian stood less than a 50/50 chance of making it through the flight unless it had an equally good looking $1,000+ suit in the garment bag with it.
What Hill?
If the man in the suit thought the Brit was well and truly corked off with his last tirade, it was nothing compared to this one. He had spent three pointless weeks here doing what Vladimir could have and probably was. Good thing the Brit doesn't know about Vladimir, thought the man in the suit, otherwise he would kill me and toss my body out in a street somewhere with a note allegedly from al-Qaeda on it.
What had the Brit on a tear today was the local news. The Pakistani government was up in arms about a U.S. incursion onto sovereign soil. In truth it had been Afghan troops with Brits and a few other nations, but around here, everything was blamed on the Americans.
The incursion itself was small and wouldn't have happened had the Pakistani government sent troops to occupy the Khyber Pass. That request came almost weekly and had been coming for a year. It came from every government involved in the operation and lately even from governments not involved. Support for al-Qaeda went too high in the government for that to happen though. As a result, this incursion happened.
A force of Afghan troops along with several other countries had pursued a band of al-Qaeda troops into the pass. Everyone assumed they were al-Qaeda troops because they didn't stop to answer questions, simply started shooting. As a result, air support had been called in. When the fighters got to the pass their instruments picked up the transmissions from the hut the email hub was using. The rest was pretty much predetermined after that. Rather than strafe the troops in the pass, the fighters locked onto the hut and there now was a 15-foot-wide crater where it used to be. After that they went back and helped mop up the force desperately trying to get away.
Some of the al-Qaeda force had even been taken prisoner according to the news reports. Now the government was raising hell over both an incursion and an abduction on their soil. The man in the suit had done hundreds of abductions on their soil, but thankfully he never had a reporter embedded in his unit. Yes, once again “film at 11” had buggered up what would have otherwise been a nice clean operation.
There was only one other person in the room. That other man was pure muscle, no brain. He could do what you told him if you didn't use too many syllables or talk too long. By the time that man realized the Brit was trying to kill me I would be dead and he would be fetching a tarp and the car, thought the man in the suit. No, for this one I need to keep my distance and let him burn out, the man in the suit decided.
There was no doubt the email hub was off-line. Vladimir had sent a note saying the site stopped transmitting to his server about an hour ago. Shortly after that the news report came. For a brief hour there had been the hope the hub was moving to a more accessible location. That hope was pretty much gone now. They didn't even know who the person was. Pakistani intelligence had sent a squad up to investigate the damage and potentially return the bodies, but even if they found a body this team could not be certain their guy had died.
It was at this point the man in the suit's train of thought was interrupted. Not by a knife or other attempt on his life, but by the silence. He realized the Brit had wound down and was staring at him. Apparently there had been some question he was supposed to answer.
“You will need to excuse me, I was trying to determine how we would tell if our hub operator had been killed. We don't know his name or have any real information on him. What was your question?”
“Can I go back to nabbing these guys now?”
“No. I need you to go to India and help Hans. They have the trainer and the new email hub under surveillance now and are short-staffed. Two of their team have taken jobs working at the same companies the men work at, which leaves them little time for email analysis. We need to know what they are up to there. It sounds like it will be the next big strike.”
“Are we going to just watch that one happen, too?”
“Our hands aren't tied there. The Indian government doesn't know what we are doing or even that we are there.”
“So, if anything goes wrong we are on our own.”
“To some extent, yes. We have taken over a farm about 20 miles outside of town and have some troops there with a pair of helicopters. It is unknown how long they can remain undetected.”
The Brit was a bit calmer now. He had heard that British Secret Service had been the ones demanding more intelligence before making arrests. They didn't know, at least openly, that this team wasn't bothering with arrests. Had they known they might have authorized it, but it was still dicey. After the bombings they were a lot more willing to look the other way when it came to abductions and planes making unscheduled flights to Germany.
In his current state of mind, the Brit mused out loud, “We could take them both now and really blind al-Qaeda.”
“The powers that be think al-Qaeda will write this one off as collateral damage. We hope they will send a new trainee to the trainer. If that happens, then taking these two down has merit. If that doesn't happen, then they are correct. We should know in about two weeks.”
“Correct about what?”
“That the email network is comprised of dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals. They believe we have only uncovered a small portion of the network and found it by luck.”
“Two weeks isn't so long to wait. What makes them think the network managed to get so large, or am I not authorized to know that?”
“Do you know how many new email hubs have been discovered when going through the machines of those you grabbed?”
“No.”
“None. Weeks with the best technicians going through them and none have been found. Even those working in Germany were using Nedim or the trainer as their hub.”
“That would make one believe there aren't more hubs.”
“Nedim is the only hub that was handling American operations and those of the African continent. We have not found email from any cells in France, Spain, China, or Russia. Do you think al-Qaeda isn't operating in those countries?”
“We know they are.”
“Hence, the decision from above. We would only blind them in a few countries for a while. Roundups have been occurring in those countries so blinding them would be of questionable good as far as stopping operations. It is possible that few cells in the other countries are using the Internet email comm
unications method, we know the 9/11 hijackers were. So, we need to find the other hubs.”
“There has been little, if any, cross talk between hubs. At least there was some after Nedim was outed in the press. Perhaps another outing would force another scramble?”
“In two weeks time I will approach the powers that be. In three-weeks time we should have our final answer. There is still the possibility we will stumble into the new hub via the cell phones used by those you rounded up. It is the hard way, but we managed to find and turn Nedim. Turning the next one will be more difficult, but not as difficult as finding them.”
“The Americans could give that hub to us.”
“How so?”
“They have been scanning the images in every international email message since 9/11. They could at least give us the messages complete with headers so we could begin tracking.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have killed for many different countries. People whose lives depended on me keep in touch from time to time. They tell me things that may keep me alive or are simply as a warning telling me to stay frosty because a call may soon be coming.”
“Do you think they would contact you with respect to taking someone out?”
“They have before. Never an al-Qaeda member, but drug dealers by the score. Just what do you think I was doing when you found me?”
The man in the suit had forgotten that. He had met the Brit in Pakistan after being instructed on where to find him. The Brit had been sent into the lawless Northern Areas in Afghanistan to take out a drug lord who was shipping too much poppy product to drug buyers in the States. They could have easily sent him to that hut with a team he chose and he would have made it look like one of the warlords had offed the guy. Had Hans known of the Brit's background he surely would have suggested it. This operation was starting to have too many rings of complexity. Something bad was going to happen. The man in the suit could feel it. Just wasn't like him to overlook a solution that obvious.
Infinite Exposure Page 24
