Divide & Conquer

by McDonald, Murray

  “Luis!” said El Jefe noting his nephew’s appearance.

  “Going out?” asked Luis watching the men pile into the SUVs, with some bewilderment.

  “Doing as you suggested nephew!” he replied with a smile, opening the passenger door of the third Lexus.

  “What’s that?” asked Luis perplexed, having no recollection of suggesting his uncle go out that night.

  “Using some of my ten thousand men to stop the meeting!” El Jefe climbed into the Lexus and turned to his even more confused looking nephew. “After tonight, no one will be on the streets of Nuevo Laredo and no Americans will be visiting any time soon.”

  In answer to Luis’ unasked question, El Jefe picked up the FN Minimi machine gun that sat at his feet and secured to it a one hundred cartridge drum feed. Luis stopped himself from asking anything further. Wherever El Jefe was going, many people were going to die. Nuevo Laredo was about to become a war zone again.

  Luis signaled to his two guards to wait and rushed back inside. Takings would be hammered in the next few days and their cash-flow needed to be protected. A number of purchases would have to be put on hold, otherwise Los Zetas may experience a very embarrassing cash-flow issue. As Luis logged into their bank accounts and stopped the payments, he wished his uncle would understand that they had to discuss his actions because whether he agreed with them or not, there were always consequences.

  Safe in the knowledge that they’d have enough cash on hand for a few weeks but would not be taking ownership of two new aircraft anytime soon, Luis headed back to his waiting truck. He checked his watch; it had been another thirty minutes since his last call. He powered up another unused pre-paid cell and tried the emergency contact number – it was still off.

  “Let’s go!” he said, the concern growing. He really had expected the cell to have rung.

  “Where to?” asked the driver, having no idea what was in Luis’ thoughts.

  “Laredo!”

  ***

  Sean looked at his watch over Katie’s shoulder. He really needed to get a move on. She had been stuck to him for over ten minutes, her body heaving against his, rising and falling with each and every deep, long and sad breath. As much as Sean felt for her situation, he didn’t have the time or the inclination to be the shoulder to cry on. He had a boy to rescue.

  Time was moving on and whoever had rung the cell phone would be wondering why their man hadn’t answered or returned whatever pre-arranged system they had in place. Sean was beginning to wish he hadn’t killed them both. First things first though, he had to extract himself from Katie.

  Sean slowly began to disengage from Katie, removing one arm at a time until she sat before him unaided, her eyes bloodshot and wet as tears flowed freely.

  “Please get our boy back!” she pleaded as much with her eyes as her words.

  Sean thought better of pointing out it wasn’t his boy, given Katie’s current state of inertia. Patting her knee tenderly, he got up and made his way back to the hallway, retrieving the Mexican’s phone. At least he knew why it hadn’t rung subsequently. The hard tile floors were no place to drop a phone you hoped to use again. He dismantled and reassembled it quickly but the result was the same; the phone was dead. He really wished he hadn’t killed them both but then it was pretty much a rule for Sean. If somebody shot at him, he would shoot back better, which pretty much meant if you shot at him you died. It was a rule he’d never broken and was living proof it wasn’t a bad rule to live by.

  However, it wasn’t going to help save the boy. For that, he needed some help but that came at a cost he wasn’t sure he was willing to pay.

  “Sean?” Katie joined him in the hallway, having pulled herself together. She walked across and leant into him, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest. She ignored his flinching. “Our baby, Sean, what about James?”

  Sean struggled to control his emotions. “James, your son is called James?”

  “After his grandfather.” Katie reacted calmly to Sean’s disowning of his child, coping with Sean’s post traumatic stress. “Your father!” she confirmed.

  “Jesus,” replied Sean shaking his head, a photo on the staircase caught his eye and he pulled himself away from Katie and realized the wall that lined the staircase was a home gallery. He followed them up the stairs, recognizing many of the photos and remembering exactly when they were taken. They were his photos, his graduation photo, his passing out photo, his mom, his dad, his photo in full dress uniform, his photo with the President. His history, his life. The wedding photo ended the history and the lie. The baby photos of James with his real father and mother took precedence as Sean reached the top landing and looked at the last photo in the collection. Vincent Black with the young James Fox on his lap.

  “Just what in the fuck is going on here?!” Sean asked himself, as another twist was added to the already bizarre set of circumstances.

  Chapter 20

  Borodin had made it back to GRU headquarters by the time the call from Pyotr Travkin had ruined his day for a second time. The news that Sean Fox was alive and in the house was anything but good. He extracted the file that had sat in his top drawer for pretty much all of his service and had never had the misfortune to have to open until earlier that day. The fact that he was having to open it for a second time that same day did not help his already foul mood.

  The word 'GREBNEVO’ was written in fading ink, a brief description was written below in German and Russian but had faded so badly neither was legible. However the word CEKPETHO stamped in red were as visible then as they had been over fifty years earlier. Obviously his predecessors had chosen the red ink on their top-secret stamps far more carefully than their pen ink.

  He opened the file and scanned through the yellowing pages, finally finding the page he wanted and was rewarded with a photo of a smiling young couple staring up at him, James and Myriam Fox.

  The top of the page offered a file reference, the sub file was stored down in the vaults and would have to be brought up to him.

  “Vasiliy!” he shouted at the door. An intercom sat on his desk but Borodin found his voice carried well enough on its own.

  The door opened momentarily and Borodin’s ever-present assistant entered the office.

  Borodin scribbled down the reference number and passed it to the only man he truly trusted on the planet. After nearly sixty years together, there was nothing they didn’t know about each other. They joked that their memoirs would make an amazing story but it would have to go in the fiction section as nobody would believe it was true.

  “Can you get this file for me.”

  Vasiliy took the reference and noticed the number referred to the most secure area of the records department.

  “I’m sorry, General, but I cannot,” offered Vasiliy apologetically.

  Borodin rubbed his temples; the stress of the day was getting to him. He didn’t need any more grief.

  “Are you too busy?” he asked, struggling to hide his irritation.

  “No General, I’d like nothing better,” replied Vasiliy quickly. “It’s just the number you have given me refers to an area of records that only yourself, the Prime Minister and President can gain access to.”

  “Vasiliy, Vasiliy, I trust you with my life and my sons’, and grandsons’ lives. I will call down and let them know you are getting them for me. Off you go.”

  Vasiliy was about to protest but seeing the look on the General’s face thought better of it and began his wasted trip to the basement record department.

  Borodin called the Head of Records and was informed he was indisposed and would return his call as a matter of urgency. Borodin had to laugh. The first time in fifteen years he had called to speak to the man, he had been on the shitter. Borodin could just imagine how crest fallen the man would be at having missed his call when it came in.

  As he waited for the call, he picked up the file. The smiling couple stared back at him, he could feel the warmth and hope in their sm
iles. He guessed they were probably late twenties maybe early thirties when the shot had been taken. He could see from the summary that James Fox was already a rising star in the American Military - three tours in Vietnam and Congressional Medal of Honor winner, the American military’s highest honor. A full Colonel, one of the youngest ever, he was singled out as a future military chief and thanks to his aristocratic background, a potential political career beyond that. James Fox was a man going places and had been identified by the Washington GRU station chief at that time as a man of interest.

  As he turned the page, his phone rang. Borodin grabbed at it.

  “I’m very sorry General…” started the records chief.

  “We all need to take a shit!” boomed Borodin, laughing. “I’ve sent Vasiliy down to get a file for me, make sure he gets it.”

  “Of course, General,” replied the records chief. “I wasn’t on the toilet,” he tried to explain but the General had already gone.

  Borodin read on. It seemed that James Fox’s career had gone exactly as the GRU had anticipated right up until the accident that claimed him and his wife. Not even fifty thought, Borodin, what a waste.

  Borodin got up and poured himself a vodka from his drinks cabinet. It had been a long morning and was going to be an even longer day. He wondered where Vasiliy had got to, just as the phone rang.

  “Yes!” he barked.

  “General, I’m very sorry.” It was the records chief, his mousey voice more pathetic than normal. “The records you requested cannot be brought to you, Sir.”

  “Rubbish! Send them up with Vasiliy!” he barked before replacing the handset firmly enough to ensure the records chief knew he had been hung up on.

  Borodin’s phone rang again. “I’m sorry…” started the records chief.

  “Now!” demanded Borodin, losing his patience and slamming the phone into its cradle.

  The phone rang again. Borodin looked at it with fury. He lifted it and was relieved to hear Vasiliy’s voice. Had the records chief spoken, Borodin could not have controlled his actions.

  “General, I’m sorry,” began Vasiliy.

  “Do not tell me you can’t get the file!” warned Borodin sternly.

  “General, you don’t understand, it’s not that we won’t, we physically can’t.” explained Vasiliy.

  “Sorry?” replied Borodin beginning to understand this was not about defiance or his lack of authority.

  “If you could just come down please, General. You will understand.”

  Borodin got up from his desk and stomped along the corridor to his own private elevator. His was only one of two elevators that offered the option to every floor within the massive and ultra modern GRU headquarters. This was no relic of the Soviet empire. This was a symbol of modern Russia’s power and ambition. Borodin hit B6 and waited as the elevator rushed him down to the very bowels of the structure, available to only a handful of staff members.

  Vasiliy met him at the elevator’s door, the records chief standing a good ten yards further away. Borodin noted he looked exactly as he had envisaged, small and somewhat mole like, perfect for his underground environment.

  “Well, show me what all this fuss is about.”

  The records chief led the way, quickly followed by Vasiliy and then Borodin. A number of blast proof doors separated the vast rooms of paperwork they passed through. It was only after the third door that Borodin actually realized they were walking in a slight curve and ever so slightly downhill.

  “How far is it?” he asked as doors led off into the distance.

  “Not much further,” promised Vasiliy.

  After a couple of minutes, they reached another elevator. Borodin looked at Vasiliy and the records chief.

  “Where does this go?” he asked with some consternation, stopping himself from asking why doesn’t mine go there?

  “All three got into what turned out to be a very small space and rode another thirty feet towards the earth’s core. As the door opened, Borodin began to understand. A small corridor ended at a large vault door. A finger and eye scanner stood ready to reward only those who matched its system memory.

  “Only yourself, the Prime Minister and President may gain access General,” offered the records chief with a little more conviction, signaling for the General to go ahead.

  General Borodin, the first and only head of Russia’s GRU since the end of Communism, bent forward and rested his chin on the eye scanner and placed his right index finger on the pad to his right. The system went to work and quickly confirmed that both the retina and fingerprint did indeed match. A final check by the system was that a pulse flowed through both, holding a severed finger and plucked eye would not fool the vault door.

  The door opened without a sound, its oiled hinges as good as the day they had been installed and never before used.

  Borodin entered the chamber and found an even greater surprise, no records existed. One desk sat in the middle of the room with one chair before a screen. No printers, nowhere to plug any drives, DVDs or USB devices, just a screen and a keyboard. The reason Vasiliy couldn’t bring him the files was simply because there were none. As he stepped into the vault, a steel gate snapped closed behind him. Obviously he was not allowed any visitors. Whatever was in the system was for his eyes only and only while in that room.

  Borodin made his way to the desk and noted the flashing cursor on the screen. He typed in the reference and after a second was rewarded with an index page. The index alone blew his mind, the list of names read like a who’s who. The first name on the list caught his eye. There had been no reference to it in his paper file but it explained why the front cover contained a description in German. The more he read, the more he wondered at what had been conceived all those years ago. His file had only hinted at the scale of the project, as had his predecessor.

  He wished he could print the screen but that was obviously not an option and he could see why. The information before him was dynamite and could spark a whole new cold war. He clicked back to the main index and selected Sean Fox’s name from the list. He read page after page of information, pretty much the whole of Sean Fox’s life was detailed before him, pages upon pages, details of every single event that marked the young man’s life. His parents’ death, his college and courses, his girlfriends, his army career, his entry to the CIA, after which details became less detailed and spaces began to appear, until finally leaving the CIA and his death three months earlier.

  It was only as he realized what he had just read that the importance of it hit home. His death three months earlier. Three months ago. The project had been shut down over twenty years ago.

  Borodin closed down the system and rushed back to the vault door. Vasiliy stood patiently waiting for the General and matched his pace as they almost ran back to the elevator.

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Of course, General.”

  “Good, get me Pyotr Travkin on the phone!”

  Vasiliy dialed the number and as the cell began to ring handed the handset to the General.

  “Travkin?” asked Borodin as confirmation. Receiving an affirmative, he continued. “You’re off the hook, head back to Washington. GRU will take it from here.”

  Borodin heard the sigh of relief from Travkin as he hit the end button.

  “I hope you’ve not got any plans this evening?” Borodin asked Vasiliy. The message was clear enough. Whatever they were, they had just been cancelled. “Because we are going on a little trip.”

  “Of course, General. Will I get the plane prepped?”

  “That won’t be necessary, it’s not that far. Have you ever heard of a place called Grebnevo?”

  Chapter 21

  “You’ve lost so much weight!” exclaimed Katie as she brushed past Sean at the top of the stairs. “He’s a lovely man!” she added seeing the photo Sean was looking at.

  “You know him well?” asked Sean.

  “Just met him the once, just after news of your…” She ca
ught herself. “ Just after you went missing.”

  “He loved James, he said he reminded him of you when you were a boy.”

  “Did he,” thought Sean. Vincent had failed to mention his visit when they talked earlier.

  “He brought your life assurance payout and details of my widow’s pension.”

  Sean’s eyes left the photo and moved directly to Katie’s. “He what?” he asked angrily.

  Katie stepped back, realizing she had said something wrong, she was still under the impression Sean was just suffering post traumatic stress. Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned 'life’ or 'widow’. She’d have to be more careful she thought. There were probably lots of words that were danger words. She’d have to look into it more.

  What in the hell was Vincent up to, thought Sean. He hadn’t been an employee for over a year when the other Sean had died. No payouts should have been made from the CIA. Unless… “Son of a Bitch!” shouted Sean aloud.

  Katie stepped back further, fear in her eyes.

  Sean saw her move and couldn’t help but throw out his arm and pull Katie towards him. She was so petite and vulnerable with the largest, pleading brown eyes he had ever seen. “Not you, Vincent Black!” he comforted. “Son of a bitch has been playing me for eighteen months!” he added, looking at Vincent’s photo.

  That information changed Sean’s outlook on many things and most importantly, picking up the phone to get some much needed help.

  Sean reached for his cell. “Just out of interest, did he go to the funeral?”

  “Who’s?” asked Katie, not wanting to talk about Sean’s own funeral.

  “Sean’s,” replied Sean without any hint of anguish.

  “No, I wanted a very private affair, just very close family,” she replied nervously, unable to look him in the eye and ignoring his use of the third person for his own name.

  That basically meant her and James. Sean’s close family was Vincent but he wasn’t there and beyond that, his ex-military colleagues. Brothers for life or so they promised each re-union they had. Every one of them a hypocritical bastard. Not one of them had gone to his funeral. Not one. Sean was genuinely upset. Technically, of course, it wasn’t his funeral but nevertheless. What if he had become a drug pedaling scumbag, he was still their brother and pseudo son and as far as they were concerned, it was him.