“And we won the lottery?” Patsy asked with a big grin.
Jimmy looked at her and frowned, not quite sure if it was a compliment or more teasing. “I guess,” he answered.
“Why did you turn them down?” Bob asked. “Did Charlie overpay, or did they have too many MIT guys?”
“He definitely did not overpay us, Mister B., and oddly enough, their Princeton office has quite a few Berkeley guys. That’s what I’m getting at! One of our classmates took a job with them there. He’s a cray cray Russian ex-pat named Sasha Kandarski, a really obnoxious knuckle dragger. He always needed deodorant, but he’s a top gun on security systems, codes, and back doors. Almost nobody over here wants to go into that kind of ‘drudge’ work these days, but you can make a real bundle if you’re good at it, and Sasha was very good at it. We always kidded him about how he left his KGB background off his resume. He’d laugh along with the joke but it was a strained laugh, and then he’d quickly change the subject. But those firewalls we ran into were Sasha’s work, I knew it the first time I saw it. As soon as Ronald comes back, if you say DACI, he’ll say Sasha Kandarski, you just watch.”
“You really can tell who did the programming?” Koz asked.
“More often than not. It has to do with where they got their early training, the basic structure they use, how they sequence things, and how they handle problems. It’s kind of like fingerprints; and yes, you can usually tell.”
“My grandfather worked in military intelligence in London with the OSS, MI-6, MI-8, and MI-9 in the listening posts in St. James, Claxton Street, and the old Saint Ermin’s Hotel,” Bulldog spoke up. “He said the same thing about the Morse Code operators back in World War II. They knew the ‘key stroke signatures’ of all their agents in France. When they suddenly changed, they knew the Germans had caught them. I guess it’s like a fingerprint.”
“Exactly,” Jimmy went on. “As I got into their systems the past few days, I felt little alarm bells going off in the back of my head. Ronald did too. Something looked familiar. At first, we both wrote it off to a lot of cutting, pasting, and boilerplating. Not knowing the company name, we never put it together, but it’s Sasha Kandarski. I know it.”
“Makes sense,” Koz agreed. “The Russians don’t care who they work for.”
“Okay,” Bob said. “But where’s this taking us?”
“Where?” Jimmy asked. “To Princeton. Let’s go up there and lean on the toad.”
“Lean on the toad?” Ace choked on his beer and laughed. “Jeez, Ghost, we’ve created a monster.”
“Yeah, and I think I know just how to make him talk,” Jimmy beamed.
Five minutes later, Bob walked up the stairs to the flying bridge, where Ernie was on guard duty. Bob began opening the cabinet drawers, picking up the seat cushions, and looking in the side lockers. Ernie sat in the captain’s chair watching him.
Bob finally stood in frustration and looked around. Hands on hips, he mumbled, “What the hell! I know I left it here somewhere.”
Ernie’s curiosity was sufficiently aroused that he finally asked, “All right, I give. What are you looking for?”
“That pickpocket you flew down here from Chicago. I know he has to be here somewhere.”
Ernie tipped his head back and began to laugh. “Good one. You got me.”
“But I haven’t got Dimi. Do you?”
“Not exactly… The official answer is that he seems to have abandoned ship earlier tonight, and I didn’t notice he was gone until tomorrow morning.”
“And the unofficial answer?”
“He’s a nice old guy. He was a big help and he put himself at risk for us so I really couldn’t see sending him back to Cook County jail. Could you?”
“You gonna get any blow back over this?”
“Not really. What are they gonna do? Demote me to lieutenant and dump me out at O’Hare? Besides, Dimi was officially nonviolent, and he’d probably be eligible for an early release in a few weeks anyway. So I decided to expedite the process a little. I guess any blow back depends on where he dumps your rent-a-car.”
“He has your car, too?”
“Well, technically it’s your car, but how else was he going to get away. Walk?”
Princeton, New Jersey is an hour and a half northwest of Atlantic City, halfway between Philadelphia and New York City. The huge military complex of Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base is about two-thirds of the way there. Very convenient, Bob thought.
Sasha Kandarski was a fat, overweight Russian ex-pat who did not seem to understand the western concepts of personal hygiene, changing bedding, housekeeping, taking out the trash, or getting up before noon. When he was suddenly awoken at 6:00 a.m. that morning, he found four large men dressed in black from their black rubber-soled shoes to their black ski masks standing around his bed, pointing guns at him.
“Why take him?” one of them asked. “Why not just do him here?”
“Shto?” What? Kandarski asked, only half-awake as he pulled his blanket up to his chin and tried to hide. “Do? Do what here?”
“He’s just another damned terrorist,” another one grunted. “We can say he pulled a gun. Who’s going to care, anyway?”
“Terrorist? Nyet! Nyet! I am not…” Kandarski screamed as one of them slapped a strip of duct tape across his mouth.
“It don’t make no never mind to me what you do, but they said they wanted to talk to him first,” another man said as he wrapped more duct tape around Sasha’s wrists and ankles, and pulled a hood over his head. They then picked him up, and dropped him inside a thick, black-rubber body bag.
Being manhandled, carried down a flight of stairs, and tossed in the truck’s rear cargo area was no way to start a day, Kandarski probably thought. The bag stunk like the inside of an old car tire, but that was nothing compared to the stark terror of a thirty-minute ride in the dark, while being bounced around inside the back of the big truck. Finally, it stopped. He heard the truck’s doors open and slam shut and men laughing. Someone grabbed the body bag by its handles, pulled it out of the truck, and dropped it on the hard concrete. More hands pulled down the body bag’s big zipper, reached inside, and stood him upright.
“Ah, man, he pissed himself!” he heard.
As the duct tape was ripped off his ankles, he looked around and saw he was standing in the bright sunshine outside an airplane hangar between two big, black, unmarked Chevy Suburbans with US Government license plates. Behind him, less than a hundred feet away, sat a gray executive jet with US Air Force markings. Its rear passenger door was open and the staircase was down. A short distance away from the jet sat a matte-black, US Army stealth Blackhawk helicopter. As Kandarski looked at them, his eyes went wide.
The men still wore their black ski masks, and they were none too gentle as they grabbed his arms and dragged him through the open door into the aircraft hangar. If the fat Russian hadn’t already pissed himself inside the black rubber bag, he would have done it then. They shoved him down on a rickety card table chair and suddenly ripped the duct tape off his mouth.
“Ah, Ah!” he screamed as half of his scraggly face hair came off with it. As he rubbed his cheeks and cursed under his breath in Russian, he looked up and saw he was seated six feet in front of a long folding table. Other than the table, an empty chair on the other side of it, and the four men in the ski masks, the big hangar was empty.
Long, silent minutes passed, until he finally asked, his voice croaking, “What? What you want with me?”
“Shut up!” one of the men answered.
After several more long minutes, another side door opened and an older, smaller man with short gray hair strode briskly in wearing a US Army dress green uniform. Behind him came a second man, who closed the door and stood in front of it with his arms folded across his chest. The first man walked up to the table, pulled out the other chair, sat down opposite Kandarski, and glared at him for a moment, as if the Russian were a bug under a microscope. Kandarski knew little about m
ilitary uniforms, Russian or American. However, he knew if the man had a chest full of ribbons and medals, as the man in front of him had, that meant he had been in combat and killed many people. Second, the three stars on his shoulder meant he was a general. In Russia, a general, especially a general in the FSB where Sasha worked, literally held a man’s life in his hands, and was someone to be truly feared. Third, there was no name tag above his pocket, as American soldiers usually wore, which meant something really bad was about to happen to him.
The general pulled a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table. “Mr. Kandarski, this is a Rendition Order. Do you see that airplane sitting out there?”
The Russian turned his head and looked out the window at the gray passenger jet sitting on the tarmac. He already knew it was there, but he needed time to think. “Yes, yes, I see it, I see it. But what do you want of me? Please, I do nothing…”
Stansky shook his head. “We both know that’s a lie, which is why that airplane is waiting to fly you down to Guantánamo Bay. You’ve heard of Guantánamo Bay, haven’t you?” Kandarski nodded faster than a bobble-head doll in a San Francisco earthquake. He began to say something in protest but the general cut him off. “Once I sign this order, the CIA will fly you out of here and keep you there as long as they want, for aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.”
“Terrorists! But I swear, I do nothing…”
Stansky simply ignored him. “And after they’ve squeezed out every little dark secret that’s inside that ugly little head of yours, they’ll toss you to their friends in the Russian FSB for whatever else they care to do with you. You do know what the FSB is, don’t you?” the general asked, “the old KGB?”
Kandarski turned white and he nodded even faster. “Yes, yes, I know FSB, but I did not…”
“Yes you did,” Stansky cut him off and raised the sheet of paper. “Remember that work you did for an outfit down in Atlantic City called…” He looked at the paper again. “Boardwalk Investments?”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Kandarski quickly admitted. “They own casino. I develop software systems, but…”
“Then you admit it?
“Yes!… Uh, no, no! No, I…” He paused, trying to think his way out of this. “Boardwalk people are not terrorists. They are…”
“They are what?” Stansky leaned forward, his eyes drilling into Kandarski.
“They are… Mafia, sir.”
The general looked across at Kandarski, as one might look at a very slow third grader. “Sasha, how can someone as smart as you be so stupid? The Mafia? Really? Two years ago, the Gambinos and Luccheses worked out an arrangement with Al Qaeda to launder money through their casinos in return for weapons, bootleg oil, cocaine, stolen Middle Eastern art, women, you name it. It all gets run through the Crimea, Turkey, and Sicily. That security and financial software you wrote for them is at the heart of their terrorist cell.”
Kandarski’s mouth fell open. He stared across at the general, speechless.
“But today is your lucky day, Sasha,” Stansky told him. “I was about to sign this Rendition Order, when a young analyst who works for us came to me and told me that he knows you and that you might not be a spy or a terrorist.”
“No, sir, I am not!” Kandarski pleaded. “I swear. But who iz this fellow, I will…” That was when the side door opened again and Jimmy Barker walked in. “Jimmy? Jimmy! Oh, thank God, Jimmy…” Sasha jumped out of his chair in joy, until two of the black-hooded men shoved him back down on it, hard.
“Is that the man you told me about, Jimmy?” Stansky asked.
“Yes, sir. It’s been a few years. He’s gotten fatter and uglier, but…”
“I can see that, but you think we can trust him, that he’ll work with us?”
Jimmy stared at Sasha for a long, painful moment or two. “I think so, sir,” he finally told him, not sounding completely confident in his answer.
“All right, Sasha, here’s the deal,” the general told him. “My men are going to drive you back to your apartment and give you one minute to grab your things. Then they’ll take you to your office, where you’ll copy all your programs and files, and get every single document that you have related to Boardwalk Investments. You are not to say anything to anyone about what you are doing. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, oh yes, I…”
“Good. If anyone asks, you can say you are sick. You’ve come down with the flu and may not be back for a few days, maybe a week. Then, you’ll bring all the Boardwalk material outside, where my men will be waiting for you, understand?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, sir, anything!” Sasha babbled.
“My men will then take you to a location where you will meet with Jimmy and another of our analysts, Ronald Talmadge. I understand you know Ronald, too?”
“Oh yes, yes, Ronald! He iz good friend too, they…”
“You are to work with them and give them your full cooperation to crack into those data systems. If you don’t, the jet will be sitting here waiting for you. All that Jimmy or Ronald need to do is give me the word, and you are off to Guantánamo. Clear?”
“Yes, sir. Clear, very, very clear,” Sasha told him as the enormity of his situation finally weighed in on him.
“And just so you know,” Stansky leaned forward and gave him his sternest expression. “We inserted a tiny GPS tracker and audio device under the skin in the center of your back, where you cannot reach it.” Kandarski immediately leaned forward and tried to reach his hand up his back, but one of the masked men slapped it aside. “Do not even try, Sasha! Our people at Langley will be listening to every word you say, and know exactly where you are every minute of the day. That device in your back contains two grams of plastic explosive. If you run, or try to take it out, it will explode and cut your spine in half. Is that clear?”
Sasha’s mouth dropped open again, but he quickly nodded his agreement.
“Good, because the clock’s running, Sasha. Understand?” the general said as he motioned to the masked men. “Get this man out of here.”
General Stansky watched two of his masked men escort Sasha Kandarski back to the black Suburban, with Jimmy close behind. They quickly got inside, slammed the doors shut, and sped away. That was when Bob Burke and Ace Randall finally pulled off their ski masks, and they, General Stansky, and Command Sergeant Major O’Connor roared with laughter.
“Goddamn, Bobby,” Stansky told them, almost in tears. “I swear, that was the most fun I’ve had in years. When I told him I’d turn him over to the FSB, I thought that fat moron was going to crap his pants.”
“From the smell of him, I’m not sure he didn’t,” Ace said.
“Lord, you got that right!” Stansky laughed even harder. “Your guys better run that Suburban through a carwash before they take it back to the Corrections Center.”
“With the windows down?” Bob asked.
“No doubt about it,” Stansky agreed.
“An exploding chip in his back?” Ace laughed. “Did I miss some new tech?”
“I think I saw that in a James Bond movie,” Stansky admitted. “I’ll call General Browning at McGuire and thank him for the use of the hangar and the jet, and fly you gentlemen back to Atlantic City. But do you think that Russian will be of any use to us?”
“Jimmy thinks so,” Bob told him.
“That kid’s pretty smart, isn’t he?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“When he said the Russian had gotten fatter and uglier, I almost lost it. How come we can’t get them like that?”
“They’re pretty high maintenance, sir. I’m not sure you can afford all the laptops.”
“Or the cute girls,” Ace added.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By 8:00 a.m., Bob, Ace, Koz, and Ernie had returned from their early morning trip to Princeton and were huddled around the dining room table drinking coffee. Linda was putting away dishes and could never tell whether they were strategizing or
telling jokes. The Batman and Bulldog had brought Ronald back from the hospital around 4:00 a.m., just after Bob and the others left, and were now sitting on the flying bridge, keeping watch on the casino. It was hard to keep things quiet on a boat, even a large one, and Linda had heard the commotion when they came in. When she saw Ronald limping, she insisted on hearing the whole story.
“A couple of the small bones in his foot are broken. Nothing critical,” Bulldog told her.
“Because it’s not your foot,” Linda corrected him.
“I can’t argue with that, but they gave him Percocet, and some other stuff.”
“Percocet?” Linda said. “You guys eat that stuff like candy.”
“Yes, we do, but he’ll have to see a hoof surgeon after the swelling goes down, and the doc said Dancing with the Stars is out.”
Linda turned and looked at the aft deck. The morning sun was warm, and the two Geeks were already sprawled in the sun. They were bent over their laptops, head-to-head with a very strange new creature that Koz and Ernie had dragged aboard. He was short and very overweight, with wild, unkempt curly hair, a scraggly beard, and round black eyes, which never seemed to stop moving. Before they allowed him to set foot on board, they escorted him to the Port-a-John at the end of the pier, made him change into a pair of Ernie’s old swim trunks, and threw his clothes in a nearby dumpster.
“But I took shower,” the Russian complained.
“Take another one,” Ace told him as he tossed him a bar of soap and made him scrub from head to foot, before he hosed him down on the pier.
Watching the show, Linda thought he was the hairiest man she had ever seen. Ace must have thought so too, because he made him scrub a second time, with the threat that he’d use one of the stiff brushes they used to clean the decks if he didn’t get it right this time. Now, he lay in the sun on the aft deck with the other two, looking like a big sheep dog after an unwanted bath. Chester sat in a deck chair at the top of the gangplank, obviously keeping watch on them. Odder still, Jimmy was allowing the new guy to use his prized new laptop, which Linda never thought Jimmy would allow anyone else to touch.
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