The Russian Crisis

by G. R. Daniels

  Petrenko frowned. He knew Phillips would be a problem. “How?” he asked.

  “JPI will be developing new software. The code we have will lose its importance and that means its value.”

  Now Petrenko was confused. The Voice kept referring to ‘we’. What did The Voice mean. What would it mean to Petrenko? Suddenly, the word value lodged in his brain. “You mean we will not get money?”

  “Yes, we will,” The Voice was reassuring. “But we have to move quickly. You must tell your friends that I need twenty million dollars - that’s US dollars - for the code. Half immediately, half when we deliver the code.” Petrenko noted the ‘we’ again, “If I don’t get it, I’ll go to the Chinese.” Desperation was creeping back into the disguised voice. “I swear I’ll take it to the Chinese.”

  Petrenko cut in. “I want half.”

  Even disguised, the incredulity in The Voice was clear. “You bastard… for what?”

  “For dealing with … with the Russians.”

  After a short silence, The Voice said, “Ten percent. That’s it.” The Voice went on to provide Petrenko with an account number at a bank in Lichtenstein into which the money could be deposited by wire transfer. “But ASAP or you won’t get anything, Petrenko. Got it?”

  His stomach was heaving and his head hurt. Petrenko understood now that his dream opportunity was slipping away. “Tell me what Phillips is doing. Tell me what I can do.”

  The call went on for several minutes as The Voice told Petrenko the latest news. Suddenly, it was disconnected as the caller reached some magic limit beyond which the call might be traced. Petrenko wasn’t even trying but The Voice couldn’t be sure.

  After half an hour of deep thought - or what passed as thought by Petrenko - he called his handler at the consulate. He did not mention JPI’s response to the theft of the source code. He could claim ignorance if the handler had knowledge of the development scheme. He restricted his report to the demand of The Voice for ten million U.S. dollars up front ‘immediately’ with another ten on delivery. Petrenko was astounded when the handler agreed.

  “We expected more,” Sokolov, the handler said, surprising Petrenko even more. The handler never discussed anything with Petrenko, he just ordered the Ukrainian to do various tasks. Petrenko provided the bank account number and Sokolov said the half-payment would be transferred before end of day. Petrenko would have to depend on The Voice for his share; another detail he didn’t reveal.

  Disconnecting, Petrenko marveled at the reaction of the consulate, congratulated himself for his brilliance in negotiating the deal and said to himself. “Not enough?” Petrenko smiled to himself. His two-million-dollar piece of the pie sounded like plenty to him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  In his condo, at about the same time, Jackson Phillips switched on his tv and turned to the all-day CBC news channel. But he killed the volume as his phone rang.

  It was Gamil Abboud, an Egyptian Canadian man with whom Jackson had worked when the two were member of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Jackson had asked Gamil to follow him at a distance so Gamil could identify the men following Jackson more closely.

  “I tailed you yesterday and today, Jackson,” Gamil said. “Indeed, it didn’t take long to spot your tail. What twits.” Jackson wasn’t surprised. Gamil was one of the best surveillance men in CSIS and, in retirement, he still took on PI jobs for wealthy clients.

  In a burst of short sentences, Gamil reported on the activities of the two Arabic-looking men doing such a lousy job of surveilling Jackson. They had followed Jackson the previous day and, then, today from his condo building to JPI and then to another office building. “A board meeting,” Jackson explained.

  Gamil had tailed the hapless pair to an apartment building near the Distillery District in east-end Toronto. They went to a unit rented by a man named Roman Petrenko. “I have him as a part timer for the GRU,” said Gamil, naming the Russian military intelligence service. Low to mid-level. Recruits - or tries to - in the Ukrainian community. Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

  Unlike Jackson and Gamil who had kept secure smartphones when they left public service, Petrenko’s phone could be tapped and Gamil had done so using tricks he had learned at CSIS.

  “I got him talking to his crew. A seedy bunch of characters including your two tails.” Gamil then chuckled. “But, the clown has more than one cell and I can’t get into the others. Doncha love mysteries, Jackson?”

  “Not much,” was Jackson laconic reply.

  “I’m emailing you, as we speak,” Gamil added. “Names, addresses, stuff like that. Light bedtime reading. See you soon.”

  The email arrived with more information than Gamil had imparted in the phone call and more information than Jackson really wanted. The bottom lines were that Roman Petrenko worked as a part time agent for the GRU. His handler was housed at the Russian consulate rather than the Ottawa embassy. Petrenko was low level and Toronto-focused.

  Petrenko’s crew members were certainly not GRU pros and would not be allowed to work on any missions assigned by Moscow to the military intelligence group.

  Three of the crew were Arab-Canadians. One other was a black Canadian who worked at a Jamaican restaurant. Two were born-in-Russia car thieves with long records including convictions for assault. There used to be a seventh member of the crew but he was nowhere to be seen by Gamil and his colleagues.

  ‘Crew members are unimpressive,’ the email report read. ‘All have records but Arabs have no convictions.’ The email ended with the line: ‘Can exert pressure on Arabs if desired.’ Jackson decided he ‘desired.’ He returned a cryptic email.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Problem.” Mariah’s first words made Jackson groan. It was after ten o’clock in the evening and he had been at it most of the day. He had conducted extensive phone calls from the temporary office in JPI’s boardroom and from his condo.

  A great deal of planning was needed just to set in motion development of Version 3.0 of JPI’s software. Human Resources was tasked with finding, vetting and hiring more than two hundred programmers not to mention other techies. Payne’s staff was drawing up a new, large budget for the work. Marketing was working with Public Relations and Sales to co-ordinate promotion, peddling and shipping of the final product. Fred Nbodo, the technology chief had already assembled a team to manage the tremendous amount of work required to create a whole new set of software from source code to compiled machine code in the end solutions. He also was shepherding setup of training for people who would install and configure the new software a year from now.

  “Problem?” Jackson repeated.

  “As you know,” said Mariah in a voice hinting of exhaustion even over the telephone. “… we have to get out there with an announcement that JPI is developing Version 3.0 to make the code for 2.0 undesirable to any of our thief’s potential customers.”

  Jackson wondered if Mariah thought he needed the primer because age made him forgetful or if she was just thinking her way through the spiel.

  He heard her take a breath. “I have two of my writers working on news releases for the military media and the general media. We can be more specific with military...”

  “The problem, Mariah,” Jackson asked impatiently.

  “Sorry. Okay, the problem comes when the writers put in the quotes. We have no one to attribute the quotes to. It doesn’t look like Mr. Blax will want his name used as the source of any quotes. Worse, what happens if reporters call for more and he refuses to be a spokesperson? We’ll look like idiots. And that’s apart from me being fired in the first place.”

  “That’s a confusing sentence, Mariah. Why don’t you knock it off for the night?”

  “I just sent the rest home,” she responded. “But I have to get this ironed out or I won’t be able to sleep. Who is going to be our spokesperson for the 3.0 kickoff?”

  “I’ll make you a promise, if you’ll go home and get some rest. I’ll deal with this first
thing in the morning and I’ll get you a spokesperson before noon. Now, get out of there!” Without giving the PR head time for a comeback, Jackson pushed the red button on his screen. A minute later, he took his own advice and made ready for bed.

  Jackson rose at 7 a.m. feeling much better. He ate a slice of toast, drank a cup of coffee and, by 8:30 a.m., he was barrelling past the receptionist to push open the door to Blax’s office at JPI.

  “Max,” he said to the surprised CEO who was in the middle of a gigantic yawn. Blax’s mouth snapped shut and he began to rise from the chair behind his desk. “Sit.” Jackson commanded as he dropped into a chair on the visitor’s side of the desk.

  “You wouldn’t take my calls yesterday, Max. If you had, I would have told you the board has approved development of Version 3.0 of all JPI software, beginning with MLD&T. That part will be finished and launched in a year. I would also have told you that you get on board with everything or get the hell out of this company.”

  Blax stared at Jackson. The man seemed disoriented. His eyes moved rapidly from side to side until they finally settled on Jackson. His voice trembled as he spoke. “I talked with Lorraine this morning,” he said. “She told me the same thing. I don’t know why you hate me so much, Jackson. You have turned the board against me. You have turned the other executives against me. I have done great work here but you don’t accept that. I don’t understand, Jackson…”

  “Spare me, Max.” Jackson was fed up with the self-absorbed CEO. His voice was even but the disgust was evident. “From what I’ve been told by most of the staff I’ve talked with, you were a very capable person in the beginning. But that was a disguise, wasn’t it, Maxim. You couldn’t keep it up. You turned into the pompous ass you always were, didn’t you?” Jackson leaned toward Blax.

  “The only reason why I didn’t ask the board to remove you for cause immediately is because we can’t afford a firing right now. But, if you keep acting like Nero fiddling on your violin while JPI burns, I will make sure you’re out of here before the end of week. Have you got that, Max.” Jackson’s voice rose and his fist rested on the top of the desk. Blax was cringing now.

  “I have that, Mr. Phillips.” Blax was full of rancour. “Somehow you have seized power again. You can’t stand being retired…”

  “Give it up, you fool,” Jackson shouted but immediately forced himself to calm down. “One more sentence out of you and you are gone.”

  Jackson waited for Blax’s next move. It startled him.

  Blax dropped his chin to his chest. “I can’t do this. It is too hard.” His voice dropped to a murmur and Jackson had to crane forward to hear him. “My head hurts.”

  Jackson looked around, saw a carafe and rose to pour a cup of what turned out to be plain water. He delivered it to Blax who looked up briefly and took the cup in shaking hands. He sipped the liquid and put the cup gently on his desktop.

  “Better?” asked Jackson. “Do you need an aspirin?”

  Blax looked up and tried to smile but his attempt was grim and his eyes were moist with tears. Jackson felt a twinge of sympathy that quickly hardened.

  “Man up, Max. You have a lot to do so get over the self-pity and the grandiose B.S. and help us out here. Help JPI or get the hell out of our way.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Max’s question had a note of defeat and despair.

  Jackson’s emotions again swung radically. He felt some guilt for the way he was browbeating the sad man in front of him. More than empathy, he felt confusion. ‘Was there something seriously wrong with Blax or was he just a warped personality. Could he be trusted at all to carry out a task without retreating into a petty tyrant or sorry sight as he was at this minute?’

  Jackson shook his head to clear it. He began to instruct Blax, almost the way he would a child, as he prepared the CEO to be the face of JPI, at least for the coming days.

  A half hour after the discussion began, Jackson placed a call from Blax’s office to Mariah in PR. “The CEO is on board,” Jackson told her, his eyes still focused on Blax behind his desk. “You can use his name on your quotes for the news releases. And he’s agreed to speak at the news conferences you’re setting up.” Blax nodded slowly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  This time, The Voice was less harsh or at least it sounded that way to Petrenko. It was still robotic but at least not as loud and demanding. “We have received confirmation of the deposit,” it said.

  Petrenko realized he had been holding his breath since this one of his assorted phones had sounded its distinctive ring tone… a tolling bell. He breathed out. There was a kind of chuckle from The Voice. “Surprised, Petrenko?”

  He took a moment to recover. “My percentage. I want it.”

  “I have deposited it in the account you provided, Petrenko. One million U.S. I assume your employers…” The Voice paused for effect, “… they know you are getting a little bonus?”

  Petrenko felt raw fear. “You cannot say to them...”

  “Oh, we may do just that unless you do what we tell you.” There was a touch of levity.

  “What do you want?” Petrenko was angry now. He did not like to be made fun of.

  “Listen closely,” The Voice said. And Petrenko did.

  As Petrenko had his ear glued to the phone, a small group was gathered in JPI’s executive boardroom for the launch meeting. Max Blax was seated at the head of the table with Jackson Phillips to his right, back to the windows. Arranged around that end of the table were Payne, Brownley, Flores, Nbodo and Mariah Belo. A young man from PR was seated near the far end of the table with a control panel in front of him. It managed the projection system and the raising and lowering of the large screen that now covered the back of the boardroom.

  “First slide,” said Mariah, as she rose to stand in her place at the table. Jackson waved her to sit; it would be a long presentation.

  “Mr. Blax, Mr. Phillips and colleagues,” she began formally. For the next forty-five minutes, Mariah provided details of the public relations plan that would launch and constantly update the total rewrite of code for the defence and targeting division of JPI.

  The campaign would begin that afternoon with the distribution of news releases to major wire services, all military-focused media, major press outlets in cities across Canada, and other carefully selected news media including business television and websites. Mariah’s staff would call a large number of these outlets to alert them to the release and to offer one or more spokespersons.

  Mariah also said she would crank her social media staffers to full throttle and that Barry was already preparing a number of blogs for his large list of followers.

  The technologies involved would be explained by Fred Nbodo along with tech geniuses Barry and Jean who would brief technology reporters and commentators. Payne would talk to the business media about finances but JPI was not a public company so that was a blessing. Payne could limit information to whatever would be good for JPI.

  Maxim Blax would take part in high level interviews and the two major news conferences scheduled for Monday, five days away.

  Carmen Flores, the COO, would speak to employees of the company at several open houses to be held in division boardrooms and the company cafeteria over the next week. She would calm fears and reflect the confidence the executive ranks had in the development plan.

  Bill Brownley, head of security, would continue to direct the team seeking the software thief inside JPI. So far, that team had no doubt the thief was a highly-placed insider. The theft had been conducted by someone accessing the company’s server racks and copying source code through a maintenance computer. The details were highly technical but the theft could be traced by monitors throughout the whole process. The only thing not monitored was who did it. Brownley also would keep tabs on security at the news conferences and open houses just in case anyone wanted to cause even more trouble for the beleaguered company.

  When Mariah concluded her presentation, the group talked among it
s members for a few minutes before deciding everything that could be done had been done. They congratulated Mariah. Then Carmen Flores asked the question each of them wanted to ask. “And Jackson, what part will you play in this great drama?”

  “Sit on my butt,” Jackson answered. Then he laughed along with Payne.

  “Fat chance,” said Payne. “I can answer for Jackson because he’s so modest. He is our backup. Jackson is one of the most respected business leaders in the military supply sector. Everyone knows he retired but, if Jackson is needed, he’s available to step in to add his credibility where needed. Since we don’t know where our weak spots will be, if any…” Payne smiled at Mariah. “… the plan is to keep Jackson in reserve for now.”

  “Mr. Blax will be our leader in this exercise,” Jackson added, rising to his feet and gesturing toward the CEO who remained in his chair.

  Blax looked up and his eyes widened. “Yes, of course, of course,” the CEO said in a firm voice. “I am the leader here. I will be speaking to the press. It will be a very good day for all of us.”

  With that confusing pronouncement from Blax, the meeting adjourned and each member moved off to their assigned tasks, except for Payne who moved to Jackson’s side.

  “So,” said Payne, “one of those people could be our thief.”

  “Yes. But don’t ask me which one.”

  “But, if so, isn’t it dangerous to let Mariah trot out the whole PR plan and begin tomorrow. If the value of our source code is going to drop, won’t the thief make the sale as fast as possible, if he … or she … hasn’t sold the code already?”

  “Yes,” Jackson said with conviction, “But if the thief is pushed to act faster, it’s possible he or she will make mistakes. As well, any potential buyer isn’t going to want to pay full price for code that will be obsolete within a year. It would take that long to take full advantage of the source code. We move some problems from our shoulders to the thief’s and buyers like China or Russia or some terrorist group. That can’t be bad.”