Shadow War

by Sean McFate

  At the end of the bar, a small group of international journalists was gathered over gimlets and rye. They were all drunks, so it was too early for sloppiness, but I knew they were already telling the same endless war stories they’d been exaggerating for years.

  The young reporters were buzzing, chatting each other up or eavesdropping on conversations. There were fewer of the old guys every year, with their set sources and set ideas and focus on the economics of delivering glass to mouth, and more of the youngsters, although young was a relative term. The right word was underemployed. Most of these reporters were freelancers, either locals or here on their own dimes—the lucky ones were on a daily allowance—hungry for any story they could sell.

  That was why they gravitated toward the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, the swarm that followed modern war like the slatterns followed General Hooker’s army. The two groups had a symbiotic relationship: the reporters gave these humanitarian organizations press, and the NGOs showed them suitable horror stories for the websites back home.

  Even in the reflection of the bar back, I could smell their self-righteousness: their stylishly unkempt hair; their imperious manner, as if they were here to correct the wrongs men like me inflicted on the world; the colorful shawls they’d picked up in the last conflict. Humanitarian workers had an addiction to third world garb, as if pieces of cloth could make them locals, instead of a “warmonger” like me. Humanitarians liked to wear their internationalism on their sleeve.

  Just like being home, I thought as I picked up my drink. A job is a job, and even though Ukraine wasn’t my area of expertise, all I really needed to feel comfortable was a quiet corner where I didn’t have to worry about eavesdroppers and ten quiet minutes with my bourbon.

  And then I saw her, sitting with a group of twenty-somethings, their bags sprawled around them on two lobby sofas. Her curly hair was darker and pulled back; her elegant nose just visible in profile. But I knew it was her. I could feel the heat in the pit of my stomach, just from looking at the curve of her neck. Last I had heard she was in Bulgaria working on one of her sex trafficking stories. But that was a year ago. Now here she was, in Kiev, leaning into one of those good-looking, classically unkempt video-journalists, while staring into the viewfinder of his handheld camera.

  Instinctively, I paused, the bourbon coming down to the bar without reaching my lips. I looked down at the glass, collected myself, and looked up. There I was in the backsplash, staring back at myself. The metal was golden, and it gave my face a wavy look, like I was viewing myself through the top of a tanning machine. Even so, I could tell I looked tired.

  I grabbed my drink and tipped it back, unsurprised to see her reflection getting larger as she approached, until the only thing I could do was turn around.

  “Alie,” I said.

  “Tom,” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder and swinging into the seat next to me. “I hope you weren’t planning to ignore me.”

  “I just got here.”

  “I know. I saw you come in.”

  She had lost her roundness and looked harder than the last time I saw her. More sure of herself, maybe, and more fit. I missed her softness, the half inch of give when I caressed her arm, but that didn’t mean she didn’t look good.

  “You look great, Allison. What’s it been, eight years?”

  “At least,” she said, although we both knew exactly how long it had been. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be in Africa.”

  “I thought the same about you.”

  She was sizing me up, and I couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of my face, ten years later. What had she expected? Oh right. The way I left, she probably hadn’t expected to see me at all.

  “Are you still with that little company,” she said. “I can’t remember the name. Umm . . . Harvard University?” She was digging at me. That had been my cover story, but she knew my real work.

  “Are you still with Catholic Relief Services?”

  She smiled. “No. I burned that bridge a long time ago.”

  I wondered if I was part of that.

  “You look good,” I said, then realized I’d said the same thing thirty seconds before.

  She checked me up and down with her legendarily direct stare, but didn’t say anything. I hated myself for glancing, but she wasn’t wearing a ring.

  “Still trying to save the world?”

  “You know me,” she said, but I didn’t. I’d only known her when she was twenty-four, with the life experience of an eighteen-year-old, and nobody is themselves at twenty-four.

  “Double vodka,” she said to the bartender. “On my friend.”

  I nodded, to tell him I’d cover the charge.

  “So really,” she said, glancing around the room, probably to ward off the blonde, who was lingering, no doubt sensing the waft of valuable intel coming off my bourbon and rocks, “what are you doing here, Tom? I’m sure there are plenty of problems in Africa for you to meddle in.”

  There was an edge in her voice, one I hadn’t quite anticipated, and it struck me like a hammer that Alie resented me. Maybe because I left her behind. But maybe because it had been ten years, and while I’d been blowing up oil facilities and killing terrorists, she’d been . . . what? Trying to rescue young girls.

  No, that wasn’t right. She had gotten famous for those blog entries on Magdelana, a Burundian refugee trying to make it to Europe, but that was six or seven years ago. She’d bumped up to the Guardian after that, and she’d made a reputation for herself as a champion of the underclass, especially women. For a while there, she was humming. Sex trafficking. Human slavery. Almost won a Pulitzer, or so I’d heard. But then what? A slowing down, a falling away, followed by a quiet pink slip, or maybe she’d just faded back to the deep Internet and the unsourced pages, the things that would never get past the fact-checkers and lawyers because they were too unspeakable and, therefore, mostly, too true. That was why good-looking college dropouts asked her to look at their unedited documentary film footage—and that was why she did it, even though it was something no sane person would ever do. Out here, with this crowd, Alie was still a groundbreaking reporter.

  And I wasn’t an ex-lover. I was an exclusive.

  “It’s not a good time,” I said, feeling resentful, as if she was disrespected our past, even though I knew that wasn’t fair. She wasn’t playing me, not necessarily. She was just leaning on the bar, wearing her confidence like a shawl. I wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder, and tell her I was sorry.

  But instead I glanced over her shoulder, ostentatiously checking to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “Let’s meet later,” I said, knowing she would understand that this conversation, in this bar, wasn’t a good idea. The last thing either of us wanted was for someone else to know I was a merc.

  “Dinner.”

  “You choose the place.” I handed her my business card, which included one of my real phone numbers. She smirked when she saw it.

  “Green Lighthouse Group. Nice.” She grabbed a small notebook from her jacket pocket. “Meet me at my room,” she said, tearing off a sheet and handing it to me. Number 12, 8:00 P.M.

  “First floor? I thought that was all conference rooms.”

  She laughed. “I’m not staying here. I’m at the Ibis with the rest of the do-gooders. Isn’t that what you always called us?”

  I thought about inviting her to my suite, with its world-class view, but I’d learned through painful experience never to let an unknown variable into my room. That was why I was meeting Greenlees in the lobby in . . . I glanced at my watch . . . two minutes.

  “I have to run,” I said.

  “It’s what you do,” she replied.

  She downed the double vodka and walked away without looking back, and I couldn’t help but watch her go, the roll of her hips just like I remembered it, the heat turning the ice in my bourbon to water.

  Then I turned and walked to the farthest corner of the lobby, where it was hardest for
others to eavesdrop, and took a seat facing the door. I opened the Financial Times, knowing its unique salmon color and English-language format would be a beacon to Greenlees, and let my eyes wander aimlessly over the pages, trying to focus as my mind faded out to the sunset over Lake Tanganyika in Africa, and the French restaurant at the top of the hill, and Alie MacFarlane stepping out of her dress in my little room beneath the palm trees, the freshest girl I’d ever seen, so clean and bright, like they’d taken her out of the package just for me.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two minutes later, exactly on time, an older gentleman walked through the rotating door of the Hyatt Kiev. He was wearing tan slacks, a golf shirt, a blue blazer, and well-worn loafers, his thin gray hair impeccably combed. He looked like a retiree on a junket, but he was clearly Greenlees. He had an ease most Americans can never pull off when they traveled, especially abroad.

  He glanced around, then walked directly toward me. This was a public meeting in a busy hotel. Caution would only draw attention.

  “Dr. Locke, I presume.”

  “That’s right.”

  “John Greenlees,” the man said, extending his hand.

  “Pleased to meet you sir,” I said, folding the Financial Times and giving him my Green Lighthouse Group business card, more for show than anything else.

  “Call me John,” Greenlees said, taking the other seat. “How was the flight?”

  “Not bad. I slept.”

  “And the cab ride? The drivers can be maddening, I know.”

  He had a vaguely British accent and aristocratic manner, as if channeling a John le Carré double agent from 1963. Even his teeth had gone British. I had seen it before in Americans who built careers abroad, a subconscious separation from their old lives. It was the CIA’s version of wearing an Indonesian shawl.

  “Traffic was light,” I said.

  Greenlees flagged a waiter and ordered in Ukrainian. Turning to me, he said, “I’m having a vodka with lemon. And you?”

  I raised my bourbon to show I had a finger to go. A high alcohol tolerance was mandatory in this business.

  “To eat?” the waiter asked in English.

  Greenlees looked at me, and I shook my head. “No thank you,” he said. Then, as the waiter walked away, “How long have you known Dave Wolcott?”

  “Five years,” I said. “And I’ve never seen him smile.”

  “That’s him,” Greenlees said with a grin. “Droll. But a good man. I served with him in Nicaragua in 1986, before your time, I’m sure.”

  “I wasn’t aware.”

  “Oh, it’s hush-hush, as they say,” Greenlees said with a shrug, although no one ever said that. “I was under diplomatic cover. He was military intelligence. Just a title, of course. Nobody ever referred to Dave Wolcott as intelligent.”

  I laughed. It was true. “You were supporting the Contras?”

  “And covertly mining the Nicaraguan harbors.” His smile was genuine. It was a fond memory.

  “I was in Panama,” I said.

  “A paratrooper, I hear, then later in a special mission unit in the Balkans.” Special mission units, or SMUs, were elite forces trained for the nation’s most secret and dangerous work. SEALs. Delta. They were the pinnacle of the military pyramid. Or at least they used to be. Now they served as the Apollo Outcome’s favorite recruiting pool.

  “82nd Airborne Division,” I said with pride.

  “What regiment?”

  “504th, under Abizaid, McChrystal, and Petreaus, before they made general.”

  “I remember Abizaid in Grenada,” Greenlees mused, referring to the U.S. invasion in 1983. “He ordered his Rangers to drive a bulldozer into a line of Cuban soldiers.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “You must know Bernie McCabe from your time in the Balkans.” I recognized the tradecraft. It was a question to qualify me. There were no code words or secret signals between colleagues, that was fiction; common points of reference authenticated contacts.

  “I know him, but Colonel McCabe wasn’t in the Balkans. He commanded Delta Force when I was at Fort Bragg, then went private sector. He ran Sandline International with Tim Spicer, and put down the RUF in Sierra Leone.”

  “I hear they hired a Hind helicopter for that one,” Greenlees said, shaking his head. Hinds were Soviet flying tanks. “Good God, what a mess.”

  “They got the job done.”

  “A good man,” Greenlees said, perhaps too wistfully. “They were all good men.”

  I leaned forward, glancing over my shoulder. Alie was across the lobby with a group of charity workers, openly staring at us. So was the blonde. And a couple squared-off local goons. “Do you have somewhere else we can talk?”

  Greenlees caught my eye, but didn’t turn. An old mission girl, I almost said, meaning a temporary sex partner you pick up in some remote location. But there was no reason to share this information, and besides, I couldn’t use that phrase for Alie. Mission girls are women you forget; but with Alie, it had been the opposite. Our time together had grown more important to me, the farther I’d drifted away.

  “I have a car,” Greenlees said, downing his vodka and rising elegantly from his seat. “Let me show you around.”

  CHAPTER 6

  We bypassed the hotel’s parking valets and went straight to the street, where Greenlees had a car waiting. It was a late-model BMW, with tinted windows and evidence of a Berlin green zone sticker scraped off the inside windshield. It was probably stolen in Germany and sold in Eastern Europe, a common fate for luxury cars. Either Greenlees liked to shop the gray market, or someone had given him an expensive gift. A shady-looking local was behind the wheel.

  “My wife’s brother,” Greenlees assured me, sliding into the front seat. Free agents like Greenlees often made their trade a family business to deter enemy infiltration.

  “Saint Sophia’s Cathedral,” he went on, pointing across the plaza. We turned north and passed a pastel-blue palace with golden roofs, straight out of a little girl’s fairy princess set. “The Golden Dome, a monastery in a former life. Now, sadly, the oldest building in town.”

  We passed several nondescript blocks of apartments with the sagging façades of neglected city neighborhoods, then merged onto a major road lined with hotels and businesses. Before long, the Dnieper River was crawling on our left, the hills steep on the far bank. Somewhere over those hills, Putin’s hired goons were tearing Eastern Ukraine apart, but from here, Kiev seemed like any other post-Soviet city.

  “What do you know about Karpenko?” Greenlees asked, breaking the silence. This was the real conversation, and there was no safer place for it than his personal car.

  “Only the name, I’m afraid.”

  “He’s an oligarch,” Greenlees said, “but you probably guessed that, or you wouldn’t be here. There are perhaps twenty of them in Ukraine, and together they control over 90 percent of the wealth. Factories, natural resources, even chocolate.”

  The concrete apartment blocks gave way to a large, leafy park, an archlike Soviet-era monument hanging desolately in the background.

  “They’re all gangsters, born from the ruins of the USSR. Often, they just showed up at a factory with a private army and claimed it.”

  Our line of work, I thought.

  “Who was going to stop them? The locals? They were terrified. The old party officials? They were bought. Or shot.”

  It was the story of the world. The strong do what they want; the weak suffer what they must. Two decades in the field, and I’d never known a country any different.

  “It was a capitalist’s dream, Locke. For twenty years, the oligarchs were off-loading duffel bags of cash from private jets into Cypriot banks, until the European Union shut that down. They buy mansions all over the world to keep their money abroad. That’s why London’s so bloody expensive.” He emphasized the British slang, and talked like it was a personal affront.

  “Power makes them daft,” he continued. “Igor Kolomoisky keeps a shark tank
in his office. When he doesn’t like what’s being said, he presses a button that drops crayfish meat to his pets.”

  “Subtle,” I replied. It reminded me of Africa. Or James Bond. That was the kind of idea that starts in a movie, then spreads around the world.

  “You heard about Yanukovych?” Viktor Yanukovych was the recently deposed president of Ukraine, and was now under Russian protection in Crimea.

  “I heard he had a kitchen shaped like a pirate ship.”

  “Not a kitchen, Locke. A restaurant. At his private compound. With pirate-themed waiters.” While half the country starved, I figured he’d say next, but Greenlees surprised me. “While the price of bribes for medicine went through the roof,” he said.

  That’s the difference between Africa and Europe. Here, a fight between billionaires doesn’t mean ten thousand starving children.

  “What about Karpenko?”

  “He’s the youngest oligarch at forty-two, the son of a miner in the central city of Poltava. He was a finance student in Kiev when the Soviets collapsed. Two months later, he owned the mine where his father worked. Sasha Belenko, an old-school oligarch, brought him into the upper tier: factories, energy infrastructure, banking. Karpenko is worth $2 billion on the books, probably triple that in reality.”

  Probably ten times that, if he was like other strongmen I’d known.

  “He’s second wave, so he’s more refined. He’s not above aggressive litigation, debt enforcement, hostile takeovers, but he tries to stay clean. The older oligarchs, the ones who spent most of their adult lives under Soviet Russia, wanted to be Robin Hood. Lovable outlaws. Karpenko wants to be Rockefeller. The Karpenko Group, you probably haven’t heard of it, but it was the first Ukrainian conglomerate on the London stock exchange. The traders loved him. Until Crimea. Two billion is the new valuation.”