The Solomon Effect

by C. S. Graham

  “She’s a Naval officer. And an Iraq War vet.”

  Jax gathered up his cover-story documents. “She went to Baghdad as an interpreter, Matt; not a SEAL. And she still managed to almost get herself killed—and earn a psycho discharge.”

  “She didn’t deserve that and you know it.”

  “She can’t shoot for shit—”

  “True. But she does have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do—”

  “And she can’t run.”

  “She’s got a bad knee!”

  “My point exactly.” Jax reached under his desk for the bag he kept packed and ready to go. “Tell her to forget it. I work alone.”

  “It isn’t just Tobie pushing for this, Jax. The Vice President thinks it’s a good idea, too.”

  “So?”

  “So, you want me to tell the Vice President to forget it?”

  “Yes.”

  Matt laughed and turned away. “You tell him. In the meantime, you’d better hurry. You’ve got a flight to catch.”

  9

  United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM),

  MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida:

  Saturday 24 October 7:20 P.M. local time

  Lieutenant General Gerald T. Boyd was the kind of general American newscasters loved. Well-educated and articulate, tall and broad-shouldered, he had the steely-eyed, hard-jawed good looks of a born hero. Graduating first in his class at West Point, he’d served his country with distinction in theaters from Ethiopia to Iraq and half a dozen other conflicts in between.

  True, his frank, forthright speech could at times veer into territory some considered racist, but in today’s climate not everyone considered that a liability. With his big, photogenic family, his unabashedly devout Christian sentiments, and his unstinting devotion to the men under his command, Gerry Boyd could have had his party’s nomination for president in the upcoming election if he’d wanted it. He didn’t.

  Standing now on the stage of the freshly refurbished auditorium at MacDill Air Force Base, home of the Special Operations Command, Boyd clasped his hands loosely behind his back and felt his heart swell with pride for the five brave young men who stood at attention beside him, their gazes fixed straight ahead as the Secretary of Defense pinned a bronze star to each man’s chest.

  This is what makes America great, thought Boyd as he stared out over the smiling, proud faces in the audience: parents, wives, children, sweethearts, all gathered to support the men being honored. This, and the grace and favor of Our Lord Savior.

  Boyd himself had been just twenty-three years old when he earned his first bronze star. He’d been posted to Palawan province in the Philippines as an advisor when word came that a band of Communist guerrillas down in Basilan had kidnapped four American tourists from a resort on the coast.

  Boyd was supposed to be in Palawan to train Philippine troops, not to lead them into action. In clear defiance of standing orders, he led his Philippine soldiers in a forced march through the jungles, tracked the guerrillas to their camp, and attacked at dawn. Not only were they successful in rescuing all four American hostages, they also killed every last one of those Commie sons of bitches. And then they cut off their private parts as a warning to all the other natives in the area: Don’t fuck with the US of A.

  His commanding officer, General Levenger, had wanted to court marshal Boyd for disregarding a direct order to stand down. But then the press got ahold of the story and started calling Boyd a hero, and the Defense Department was forced to backpedal. Rather than being cashiered, Boyd had earned a bronze star. He could still recall every detail of that award ceremony, how he’d been so flush with pride when the Secretary of the Army pinned the star on his chest that his ears stayed red for hours afterward.

  That had been back in 1977, on the parade ground at Sco-field Barracks in Hawaii. Not in a red-carpeted, oak-paneled auditorium like this one. In some ways, things were different today, Boyd thought as he studied the hard-chiseled faces of the five Navy SEALS standing at attention before him, heroes of the Global War on Terrorism. A different kind of ceremony, a different kind of war, but the enemy was still the same: a guy named Satan.

  The fine young men being honored today were receiving their bronze stars from the Secretary of Defense. As Deputy Commander of SOCOM—the United States Special Operations Command—General Boyd could have awarded the medals himself. But the Secretary was in the area and only too happy to be of service. This kind of thing was good for the esprit de corps, and it was good for the politicians, too. The Secretary was getting great mileage out of it, meeting families and posing for lots of grip-and-grin shots, now that the ceremony was over.

  “You’ve got a bunch of good people here, General,” said the Secretary, clasping Boyd’s hand. “Keep up the great work.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”

  The Secretary’s minder was already whispering in his ear, whisking him off toward Washington. Boyd worked his way down the line of proud young SEALS, shaking hands, pressing shoulders, saying, “We’re proud of you. You did a great job.” But all the while, his gaze was scanning the excited crowd for his own aide, Captain Syd Phillips. Boyd had a flight to Washington planned tonight himself, with a brief stop first in Miami.

  For more than thirty years Gerald Boyd had played by the Government’s rules. Time after time he’d had to watch while the girly men in Washington, D.C., let down the country and let down its troops because they didn’t have the stomach to do what needed to be done to protect America. But Boyd was about to change all that. If he’d learned one thing from a lifetime of leading black operations, it was that a few dedicated men, working in the shadows, could literally alter the future of the world.

  He was turning away from having his picture taken with the pretty, fair-haired wife of one of the SEALS when his aide, Captain Phillips, appeared and leaned in close to say, “Your plane is ready whenever you are, General.”

  “Good. I think at this point we can safely leave things to the unit commander.”

  “Yes, sir.” Captain Phillips gave a quick glance around and cleared his throat. “Our friend at Langley just called.”

  “And?”

  “Your activity in the Baltic has attracted attention. They’re sending a man to Kaliningrad. He leaves tonight, traveling through Berlin.”

  Boyd pressed his lips into a thin, flat line. “Get the details to Rodriguez. I want someone in Berlin to stop this individual. And tell Rodriguez to have someone at the airport in Kaliningrad, too, just in case.”

  “Both?”

  Boyd kept his voice low. “This thing is too close to going down. We can’t afford any more mistakes. If we miss this guy in Germany, we nail him in Russia. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  10

  New Orleans: Saturday 24 October 7:30 P.M. local time

  Tobie was at home, curled up on the sofa with her laptop and an orange alley cat named Beauregard when the call came through from McClintock.

  “It’s a go, Tobie. The DCI was dead set against it, but you’ve got Beckham solidly behind you.”

  “Yes!” She leaped up, unsettling the disgruntled cat and nearly sending her Apple flying.

  At the other end of the line, the Colonel sighed. “I just hope I’m not making a mistake on this.”

  She sank back down on the sofa, her hand tightening around the phone. “I won’t let you down, sir.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about, Tobie. How much do you know about Kaliningrad?”

  “Not much. I was just Googling it.”

  McClintock huffed a soft laugh. “The province—Kaliningrad Oblast—used to be part of Germany. East Prussia. The Russians took it over at the end of World War II and split it with Poland. Just to confuse things, they renamed the main city Kaliningrad, too.”

  “What did it used to be called?”

  “Königsberg.”

  “Königsberg? As in, Immanuel Kant?”

  “That’s right. Although there�
��s not much of the old German city left anymore. Back in the days of the Cold War, the province was considered very important, militarily. But it’s been hit pretty hard by the breakup of the Soviet Union.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because now that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are independent, Kaliningrad is an exclave, cut off from the rest of Russia. The economy is worse than dead. This place doesn’t have much in common with the rest of the New Russia. Life there basically hasn’t changed in the last fifty years.”

  It was a description that fit in well with what she’d seen in her viewing. She said, “When do I leave, sir?”

  “First thing in the morning, flying through Copenhagen. We’d like to have gotten you out of here tonight, but you know what connections are like out of New Orleans since Katrina. You won’t actually be landing in Russia until Monday morning.”

  “When’s the CIA guy getting there?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s not good. Any idea yet who they’re sending?”

  “Yeah. Jax Alexander.”

  “Jax? But…Jax doesn’t believe in remote viewing.”

  “He saw it work last summer, right here in New Orleans.”

  “And he still thinks it’s a bunch of New Age nonsense.”

  “Everyone at the CIA thinks it’s a bunch of New Age nonsense. You knew when you asked for this that it wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “You won’t be sorry, Colonel.”

  McClintock made an incoherent noise. “Just…be careful, Tobie.”

  Later that evening, after she’d packed a bag and talked to Ambrose next door about taking care of Beauregard, she stood in her darkened living room and gazed out at the ancient live oaks casting their gnarled shadows across the narrow moonlit street.

  She could feel the tendrils of anxiety coiling tightly within her. She believed in remote viewing, and she knew what she’d seen. But she also knew that her viewings weren’t always accurate. What if this was one of those misses? Or what if the viewing was accurate, but they’d misinterpreted what she’d seen? Looking at the full moon riding above the branches of the old oaks, she imagined she could already hear the clock ticking toward Halloween.

  She felt Beauregard rub against her leg. Reaching down, she scooped the cat up into her arms. “Wish me luck, Beau,” she whispered, and held him close.

  11

  Kaliningrad, Russia: Sunday 25 October

  3:45 A.M. local time

  The Major pulled into the darkened driveway in the leafy suburb of Mendeleevo and cut the engine. Once, this large stuccoed house with its expansive lawn and carefully tended garden had been the home of a German banker, or maybe an industrialist. Now it belonged to some Russian mafioso who rented it to those seeking a quiet, out-of-the-way property in a district where neighbors were hidden behind high walls and no one asked any questions.

  A dog barked somewhere in the distance and was quickly hushed. The Major let his gaze rove over the building and its perimeter. Satisfied, he opened the door and stepped out into the chill of the Baltic night.

  His name was Carlos Rodriguez. At forty-two, he was a leanly muscled professional soldier with olive skin and short-cropped dark hair. He wore the simple cotton trousers and closely knit sweater of a local, but he was not a local. The house served as headquarters for the team he’d assembled: two Americans, a Brit, four Russians, and the Chechen, Borz Zakaev. He needed the locals because they knew the geography and the people. But Rodriguez didn’t like Russians, and he didn’t trust them. He was glad to have Borz and the Americans there to watch his back.

  It was the damned Russians who’d assured him the salvage ship captain, Baklanov, was reliable. Not honest—no honest man would have done business with them. But reliable. Instead, the man turned out to be an idiot. Only an idiot would try to cheat Carlos Rodriguez.

  “What’s the status on the U-boat?” he asked, letting himself in the house’s side door.

  The door opened into an enormous kitchen recently renovated with rich cherry cabinets and marble countertops and stainless steel industrial appliances. They’d set up their communications equipment in what was meant to be a nearby maid’s room, a simple chamber with a single bed, a chair, and a low dresser.

  The house was quiet, the rest of the men asleep. But Ben Salinger, the towheaded kid from Nebraska who served as Rodriguez’s communications expert, looked up from his laptop, his eyes glazed with amphetamine-revved exhaustion. “We just got a report from Kirkpatrick. The sub still hasn’t blown.”

  Rodriguez pulled the sweater off over his head and threw it on the maid’s bed. “What the fuck?” After taking care of the Yalena’s crew, they’d rigged the U-boat’s torpedo room with explosives. The first half-drunken Russian shipyard worker scrounging around for something to steal should have blown himself—and the sub—to perdition hours ago.

  “The shipyard owner sealed off the U-boat and called the militia right away. They’re keeping everyone out of it.” Salinger stood up and stretched, his shirt hiking up to show the Special Forces tattoo on his side. In his late twenties, he’d done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan before leaving the Army for a higher-paying job in the private sector.

  Rodriguez had modeled his operation on a scaled-down Special Forces team, just the way he’d been taught. Salinger was their communications expert; Ian Kirkpatrick, a former SAS man from Liverpool, was their demolition specialist; an ex-SEAL from Arkansas named Clay Dixon was their weapons specialist. Borz was their linguist. Rodriguez had been doing this sort of thing for more than half his life, and he was very good at it.

  He’d grown up in the nurturing warmth of a big, loving family of Cuban exiles. Back in the days before the revolution, his grandfather had been one of Baptiste’s jefes. Rodriguez had seen pictures of the family’s house overlooking the Plaza Vieja, the graceful arched windows shaded by louvered shutters, the cavernous high-ceilinged rooms filled with tables graced with crystal and silver, all kept gleaming by a legion of soft-footed, respectful servants.

  All that had ended with Castro and his band of hooligans, with their big talk of providing free medical care for all, of getting rid of the Mob and the giant American companies they claimed oppressed the people. Because of Castro, Carlos was born in the charity ward of a Miami hospital, and his grandfather died in the surf at the Bay of Pigs.

  Carlos had grown up on the streets of Little Havana, watching his dad and his friends train with the CIA. His dad had run scores of attacks against Cuba from their Florida bases, blowing up oil installations and movie theaters, shopping malls and tourist hotels. Carlos had even gone with them one glorious night, when they’d roared in close to shore on a motorboat and sprayed the crowds on the beach with machine-gun fire. He’d been just sixteen at the time. A year later, at the age of seventeen, Carlos joined the U.S. Army.

  He’d breezed through Airborne, then moved into the Rangers. It was his ambition to become the biggest badass in the Army. But in the Rangers, Rodriguez discovered it wasn’t enough to be tough; it was also important to be smart. And Rodriguez was smart. Smart and ruthless. By the time he put in his twenty years and took to selling his skills on the private market, he’d managed to acquire a college degree and become an officer.

  He watched Salinger twist the top off a bottle of water and drain it in one long pull. “We shoulda just blown the damn thing when we had the chance,” said Salinger, wiping the back of one hand across his mouth.

  Rodriguez shook his head. “No. We’ve already attracted enough attention with the hit on the Yalena. When that submarine blows, it needs to look like some idiot accidentally triggered one of the old torpedoes.” He shoved a stick of gum in his mouth and went to stand at the rear window overlooking the darkened gardens below. “The militia are some of the worst thieves in the country. Eventually someone’s going to go poking around in there. We just need to be patient. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

  The sharp ring of the satellite ph
one brought his head around.

  “It’s Phillips,” said Salinger, holding out the phone.

  Rodriguez frowned and took the receiver. Captain Syd Phillips was the General’s aide de camp. “Rodriguez here.”

  Phillips came straight to the point. “I assume you have someone you trust in Berlin?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “The General has another assignment for you.”

  12

  South Beach, Miami: Saturday 24 October

  9:10 P.M. local time

  The night was hot, the air thick with the scent of salt and the sea and a peculiar, pungent odor like old brass. Hurricane weather, the old-timers back home in Texas used to call it. General Gerald T. Boyd gazed at the twinkling lights of Miami spread out around the dark waters of the bay before them, and found himself wondering what would happen to this city of pastel-colored Italianate villas and glass-walled high-rises and extravagantly flaunted wealth the day a Cat Five plowed into it.

  “Smells like a storm,” he said, leaning his outstretched arms against the ornate stone balustrade that separated the flagged terrace from the sweeping floodlit lawns, the Olympic-sized pool, the private dock of James Nelson Walker’s waterfront South Beach estate.

  Walker shrugged. “I hear there’s something out in the Atlantic. But it’s too late in the year to worry about.”

  Boyd gave a sharp laugh. “Too close to Halloween.”

  Walker didn’t crack a smile. He was a serious son of a bitch, all New England prep-school starch and boardroom business. While Boyd filled his leisure hours with fishing and hunting and all the rough-and-tumble of a boisterous family of six ranging in age from a twelve-year-old Little League dynamo to a daughter in her second year at Harvard Law School, Walker had only one daughter, whom he seldom saw and, apparently, never missed. As far as Boyd could tell, the man spent his days playing racquetball, running, and making money.