by Sean McFate
He removed the cushion from the box and chose a cigar. Nicaraguan tobacco with a Connecticut wrapper. He was a patriot, and Cubans were overrated anyway.
“What were you doing on the Hill?”
“Meeting friends, specifically the Friends of Ukraine. You saw their press statements, I presume?”
The general laughed. “I should have known you were involved.”
“That doesn’t mean they lack conviction, General. This is Russia, after all. There are plenty of important people on our side.” Important, of course, was a relative term. He was only talking about congressmen.
He worked the cigar, rolling the end in his fingers, loosening the tobacco. Then he worked his fingers down the shaft, squeezing delicately. Then he turned it around and sliced off the tip with the cutter.
The Scotch arrived, and he held up a finger. Wait. He dipped the end of the cigar in the whiskey and held it there for twenty seconds. “Bring me another, please,” he said, handing the glass back to the waiter.
“You’re a decadent bastard,” the general said admiringly, puffing dramatically on his Cuban. Below him, cars honked. The light at L Street had turned red, and someone had refused to run it.
“You are what you smoke,” Winters said as he toasted the end of the cigar with the torch lighter, turning it slowly, so that it darkened and dried evenly all the way around. He blew on the end, causing it to glow a hot red. Finally, he sucked in smoke and blew it out, satisfied.
“Let’s order,” the general commanded.
They ordered porterhouses, with a precracked lobster to share, and a bottle of 2009 Bordeaux, but not before another two rounds of Scotch while they finished their cigars. Winters asked the general about this family. He had been working with the general for a decade, and he still didn’t know his wife’s name. But he knew the general had a daughter up for promotion as a below-the-zone major, and his fatherly pride would keep the conversation going until the lobster arrived.
Eventually, the talk turned to business: Putin’s next move, the future of NATO, al Qaeda, Pakistan, and how Apollo Outcomes could solve such problems. The usual. The general had been stationed in Germany for much of the 1980s, and was the commanding officer of the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade at Darmstadt when the Wall came down. That fortuitous posting had gotten him promoted to the Eastern European section of the Pentagon, just as its importance was being torpedoed by the Butcher of Baghdad. He’d been hiring Apollo ever since. Winters had all but promised him a seat on the board of directors, whenever the general decided he’d be of more use in the civilian world. It was a typical unspoken quid pro quo. Every four-star either had one or was angling. Air Force generals go to Lockheed; Navy admirals to Raytheon; Army generals to the mercenary companies. Federal law said they had to wait two years after retirement, but everyone was willing to wait, usually at some think tank.
“How deep are you in Ukraine?” the general asked finally, pushing away the last few bites of his steak. If you finished a meal, you hadn’t ordered enough. Winters had barely touched his porterhouse.
“Training and equipping the Ukrainian army, as well as militias on the ground in the eastern oblasts and some intel collection,” Winters said casually, as if this wasn’t what he’d come here to discuss.
“Contract?”
“CIA.” He actually had four contracts, all with different agencies, but honesty was no asset here.
“For counterinsurgency?”
“For peacekeeping operations. But the Russians have three times as many.”
“Can we beat them?”
“Yes, if it was only pro-Russian militias. But it’s not.”
The general had read the top secret reports, and Winters, of course, had seen them, too. The resistance was homegrown, but the Russians had supplemented it with several brigades of professional soldiers. It was indisputable. They were even showing state funerals for fallen troops on Russian television, under the flimsy excuse that the soldiers had died in training exercises, just like in the old days of Afghanistan. The West wasn’t in denial; Putin was openly daring them to act. The West was afraid. That was why patriots like the general were so important.
“Fucking Obama,” the general said.
“Fucking Germans.”
“Merkel has more dick than Obama and the French put together,” the general snapped. Merkel was beloved for her economic austerity, but she had grown up behind the Berlin Wall, and she had a blind spot for Eastern totalitarianism.
“Too bad she’s swinging it the wrong way,” Winters replied smoothly, knowing the general would agree.
The general took a sip of his fourth Macallan. “What do you need?”
Winters shrugged. “Depends on where you want to draw the line.”
The general took another sip. “We’re willing to give them the two eastern provinces . . .” He wouldn’t on principle use the Soviet term oblast.
Winters leaned in. “I didn’t ask where our government’s line was, General. I asked where your line was.” He could tell the alcohol was working, although not enough that the general would, on reflection, find anything amiss.
“My line is where the damn line was three months ago,” Raimy said.
Winters leaned back and sipped his drink, changing conversational gears. The ice had been broken. It was time for a deep dive.
“We can drive them back from Mariupol, General. That’s Putin’s immediate objective, to secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. We can drive them all the way back to the border, if that’s what you want. But it’s a commitment. The Ukrainian army isn’t ready. Yanukovych spent seven years hollowing it out.”
“Sabotage.”
“Of course. But the core is solid. Good fighters. Disciplined. And most important, they believe in the cause.”
This was the kind of talk generals liked. The kind that implied there was something right in the West and wrong in the East. It wasn’t that American flag officers didn’t respect the Russians. They did. The Russians were fierce adversaries. If you had said, “The just will prevail,” the generals would have scoffed. History had proven that wrong a thousand times. And yet they always believed that, through some inherent defect in their belief system, the Russians were doomed.
“The problem is timing. The volunteers can’t fight a trained army, and the Ukrainian army won’t be ready for an offensive until June. The Russians are there now, looting the place. We can push them back in July, maybe, but by then, it might be too late. The eastern oblasts are historically Russian. Given a reason, or inevitability, they will revert to their old ways. And once the people are loyal, or at least not resisting . . .”
He shrugged. It was so obvious, even a general could see it. The Russians would use the popular sentiment as an excuse. They would bite off another part of the continent, and they would never let it go.
“What are you suggesting?”
“We cede Mariupol, but fight them like hell for the rest of the East. That gives Putin the land bridge that he wants and keeps the rest under the control of the West.”
Including the shale gas fields. After all, a smart deal meant everyone got what they wanted, and Winters wanted the shale.
The general shook his head. “That means giving up territory.”
“For now. But I’ve talked with Naveen at the NSC. The diplomats are working behind the scenes. Sanctions are coming, full sanctions, including freezing the SWIFT accounts for the Kremlin elite. They’re going to work.”
“As long as the Russians aren’t in Kiev.”
“If Putin had any balls, he’d be there already.”
The general nodded. Winters was right. They were lucky Putin had lost his nerve. If Russia had steamrolled Ukraine, the Europeans would have folded like 1938.
“I’m not selling you on a war, General. Or a two-month solution. We all know how those promises turn out. I’m talking long-term containment.”
“What do you need?”
“One hundred million for
the eastern oblasts. To hold the line. Not at the border, but a reasonable compromise.”
It was a concession. A new Cold War, with the line drawn west a few hundred kilometers. The general hated it. He even felt sorry for the bastards behind the line. But without a real commitment from above, it was the best he could do.
“Fifty million,” he said, even though Winters’s one hundred million was only a rounding error for the Pentagon’s budget. Apollo Outcomes had an annual IDIQ umbrella contract for a billion. They didn’t necessarily get a billion, but they were cleared for that much each fiscal year without having to get specific authorization, and it was only May. The general doubted they were at more than two hundred million this quarter.
“For one year, with two optional years,” Winters said. “Scalable to, say, two hundred and fifty million.”
“Two hundred.”
“I have to stick to my number, General,” Winters said. He knew the first number wasn’t nearly as important as the second. Once Apollo men were on the ground, he could always find a way to expand or lengthen the contract to the maximum level. “I can’t leave men behind. I have to be able to get them out.”
The general understood. He was an army man; he believed in loyalty above all. “How long to be up and running?”
“Ten days?”
The general looked shocked. Winters laughed. “Do you think I’ve been sitting around waiting for your candy ass to come around?” he said with a smile, knowing the general would appreciate his aggressive braggadocio. “All I need is your word on the contract.”
“It will have to be Title 10,” the General said.
Title 10 contracts had a few more rules than CIA Title 50 work, which didn’t appear on public records, even the ones Apollo filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Title 50 profits could be declared without any more explanation than “top clearance government work.” It was Winters’s preferred contract, by far. But his company already had four in Ukraine alone; he supposed he shouldn’t be greedy.
Besides, Title 10 offered what everyone wanted: cover. Apollo received official government sanction for almost any and all actions in the area; the Pentagon brass received “plausible deniability.” If caught, the generals would deny specific knowledge and blame a “rogue” company for breaking the law.
“I’ll have our lawyer contact you in the morning,” Winters said.
“Quietly,” the general said. “I don’t want this getting to the State Department.”
Of course, Winters thought. That was always understood. “Just give us the tools, General, and we’ll get the job done.”
The general raised his glass. So did Winters. Once Churchill was quoted, a deal was struck. Everyone in the military-industrial complex knew that.
“To the last superpower,” the General said.
“To the shield of the west.”
The general looked around: at the other men, at the suits, at the waiters. His wife was waiting at home. It was bridge night.
“How about some cordials?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Winters said, “I can’t. I have a plane to catch.”
CHAPTER 28
Miles lay prone on a rooftop, covered by canvas he had scrounged from the factory, peering through binoculars. It was 0300, almost exactly twenty-four hours before the scheduled assault, and it was quiet. Two hundred meters in front of him was the pipeline trunk station, two nondescript brick buildings and a spaghetti of yellow and blue pipes, each about a meter in diameter. Heavy machinery pumped the liquefied natural gas from Russia through the eastern oblasts of Ukraine. At this station it was compressed and consolidated before moving on to Europe, making it a strategic choke point.
It also meant one stray bullet, and the entire facility would blow. They had to be precise, which was why Apollo sent a Tier One team. And the Russians had sent real troops instead of locals.
“I count three,” Miles said. “Probably more inside the control room.”
“Roger. Three echos.”
“Carrying Vals”—an assault rifle with built-in noise suppressor, issued primarily to Russian Spetsnaz special forces units for undercover or clandestine operations. “Sexy, sexy.”
“Roger,” I replied. “Sexy arms.”
I was hunched over the makeshift desk, with Greenlees beside me. Strewn across the desk were two Toughbooks, my GIS tablet, radios, a flashlight, a half-eaten protein bar, water bottles, maps, my equipment vest, and my FN SCAR-H assault rifle, which I favored for its stopping power. Greenlees sat next to me, manning the radios. I was sketching the facility on butcher-block paper, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. The facility’s main defense was openness. It was on the edge of Kramatorsk, surrounded by open fields on three sides. The fourth side had fifty meters of standoff area between the facility wall and the closest building. An alert enemy would see us coming.
At least it will keep the civilians safe, I thought. Contrary to reputation, real mercs like to minimize collateral damage. It’s cleaner and more professional, and I hated innocent people getting hurt.
“Alpha Two, what are you seeing?”
“Open ground,” Charro said. “Too soft for wheeled vehicles. A few sniper holes.” He was scouting the field behind the facility. I marked it off as no-go. We hadn’t brought any sniper teams qualified for low-visibility operations.
“Alpha Five?”
“Quiet,” Jacobsen replied. He was walking the mixed industrial and residential area near the facility, reconnoitering possible avenues of approach. For most of the night, the streets had been vacant, a sure sign of an active war zone. Even in the early morning, there should have been taxis, teenage lovers sneaking out, men coming off the late shift. Jacobsen had even wondered if the power grid was knocked out, until he noticed a few lights in apartment windows.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Four men with guns slung over their shoulders appeared at the corner two blocks up. Local militiamen, out for a stroll. Jacobsen turned right, stopping in front of a window to watch them in the reflection. He could pass for Ukrainian, with his stubble and worker’s jacket, but a good look and locals would know he was not from around here.
Best, then, to avoid closer examination.
“Four echos, 150 meters northeast of my position,” he whispered. “Repeat four echoes, militia I think. Copy?”
“Roger that Alpha Five. Alpha Four, do you have eyes on?”
“Negative. Moving,” Wildman replied. He was driving a four-door Škoda, hotwired several hours ago.
“Boon?”
“En route,” Boon said. He was standing a few feet away from me in the warehouse, piloting one of AO’s proprietary quadcopter drones. It was small, virtually silent, and could be flown from up to a kilometer away with a remote control and electronic glasses that allowed the operator to see through its camera.
“Got them,” Boon said, as Jacobsen appeared on the second computer screen. Boon was a Buddhist, and a man of contemplation, at least until the Myanmar military junta came over the mountains and started burning monks alive, and he was still a man of few words.
But God Almighty, if he didn’t have a steady hand. I watched the live feed on the laptop as Boon took the quadcopter below the roof line, so it wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky, then hovered it in the shadow of a chimney. The copter was only a few feet wide, so an unflappable pilot like Boon could fly it almost anywhere: up walls, through windows. Boon could probably drop it on a dragonfly, I thought, as the copter’s camera zoomed in on the militia.
“Yep, that’s four local gang members,” I said to Jacobsen. “Ugly, too.”
“Moving out,” Jacobsen said, slipping out of view as Boon kept the camera on the thugs. They had probably been a small-time criminal enterprise, drugs and protection, but as soon as the shooting started, those kinds of men always found politics. And became more aggressive. These “military patrols” were the reason the street activity was dead.
Sirko s
aid something. He was watching over my shoulder.
“Pro-Russian,” Greenlees interpreted, “at least until it becomes more profitable to be pro-Ukrainian.”
Wildman’s Škoda turned into view, driving slowly to avoid suspicion. By the time Wildman passed them, one of the men was peeing on the side of a building while the others lit cigarettes.
“Confirmed, four local muscle, inebriated,” Wildman said.
“Solid copy, Alpha Two,” I said. “Charlie mike.”
Wildman turned onto the road that dead-ended at the facility’s front gate. He had already placed two surveillance cameras. The first was eight feet up a pole, hidden in a tangle of dangerous-looking wires. It watched the facility’s pedestrian door. The second was buried in debris on a ledge above a trash container, with eyes on the front gate.
The last camera needed to be high enough to see over the wall into the facility itself. The quadcopter drone could take clear footage inside the walls, but only at night, otherwise it would be detected. They needed to know the movement of men, inside and outside, at all times of day.
He slowed the car and examined the building on his right. It was an apartment tower, two stories taller than any nearby building, and only three blocks from the entrance to the facility. Perfect.
He eyed the fire escape. It was an older style: ten feet above the street and not connected to an alarm. He took a right into the alley and parked underneath it. He got out, climbed on top of the car, and pulled himself onto the ladder.
The rooftop was flat, but there were air conditioners and an old pigeon coop for cover, so he wouldn’t be highlighted against the sky. From the back, he could see the downtown square in the distance, where militants had set up tire barricades and were flying the flag of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic. The flag was blue, red, and black, with a two-headed bird holding a shield in the center, but Wildman couldn’t have identified it on a dartboard. From this distance, it looked like a rag.
He turned back to the pipeline facility. There were two small buildings, but most of the space inside the wall was open ground, pipes, or pumping equipment. He saw the three sentries smoking behind the larger building—he was close enough to see the flare of their cigarettes—and, less than ten meters away, dozens of pipes full of highly flammable natural gas.
