The Russian Crisis

by G. R. Daniels

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Serge Sokolov, Petrenko’s handler, met the men from Ottawa as they left a terminal at Pearson Airport on the northwestern outskirts of Toronto. Sokolov had to circle the terminal several times before finding a place to stop at the Arrivals outdoor curb. The delay angered the slim man at the head of the little group.

  “You are late,” the leader told Serge as he scrambled out of the black SUV and around to the tailgate. “You were told 9:15 p.m. It is 9:45 p.m.”

  It was also Friday evening, a very busy time at the airport and a day before the GRU cadre was scheduled to arrive in Toronto.

  “I did not expect you so soon. I’m sorry to be late but…” Sokolov lifted the suitcases into the cargo area. While the other three men climbed into the vehicle’s rear seat. The handler heard grumbling as the men squeezed themselves into the two and a half seats in the rear.

  “Enough excuses,” the slim man ordered. “Let us go,”

  With the leader next to him in the passenger seat, Sokolov drove the consulate car out of the airport on onto Highway 427 heading into the city. As he drove, he grew more curious about this gang. Two of the men in the rear seat were white; they were still complaining and spoke in Russian. The third man, the one compressed into the middle seat, was black. Sokolov assumed the man was speaking Spanish and didn’t understand a word. Sokolov hadn’t known there were any black people at the Ottawa embassy or, for that matter, in the ranks of the GRU.

  The slim man in the front seat rounded out the quartet. He sat erect in his seat and stared straight ahead through the windshield. He hadn’t spoken a word since entering the SUV.

  “Good trip?” asked Sokolov with his eyes glued to the fast-moving traffic ahead. A speeder shot by on one side, too close for comfort.

  “Just drive,” the slim man commanded in a sharp, high voice.

  The bitching from the rear seats died away and the rest of the 30-minute trip was spent in silence.

  The slim man told the handler to drive to The Four Season’s Hotel in Toronto’s Yorkville district. The hotel was several miles from the consulate and Sokolov knew rooms in the hotel went for more than $600 a night. But his was not to reason why; his was to do whatever he could to keep from dying. He pulled the SUV into the laneway and into a parking space for cars to be unloaded.

  After the bags had been taken out of the vehicle and placed on the sidewalk by a uniformed doorman, the group’s leader told Sokolov, “Get the valet to park the car and come to the lobby.”

  Sokolov found the four men seated on a long couch in the lobby. Their suitcases were gone, supposedly taken to their rooms. “Gentlemen,” Sokolov told them. “I hope everything is okay.” The slim man said nothing but pointed to a bar that made up part of the lobby. “Order. Just coffee.” Minutes later, the five men were seated around a table set by a large window with a view of the sidewalk on Yorkville Avenue. A steady stream of people passed by the window but they were ignored. Coffee cups sat on the table but no one was drinking.

  “So,” the slim man began in Russian. “You have screwed up, haven’t you?”

  Sokolov felt an icy touch on the back of his neck.

  Over the next half hour, the slim man carried out a review of everything he knew about what he called “the JPI file.” His knowledge surprised and shocked Sokolov; it was far more extensive than even he had known as Petrenko’s handler. Sokolov realized he was a minor cog in a large and complex machine.

  The leader summed up. Petrenko, he said, had been contacted by a person who must be a high-level executive or key manager at Jackson Phillips Inc. That person or several persons working together had stolen source code of all the platforms and solutions developed by a division of JPI. Sokolov had ‘vouched’ for Petrenko and, therefore, for the software thief or thieves. The GRU at the highest level had approved a down payment of ten million dollars to keep the thief from going to the Chinese, North Koreans or Iranians. The GRU also approved a further ten million once the source code was actually delivered into its hands.

  “But,” the leader went on. The theft had become known very quickly by JPI which, of course, has leading edge software constantly monitoring all its data including all access to its dedicated servers. Only a key employee at JPI could get to and copy the code.

  It probably didn’t matter that the theft was known to JPI, said the slim man, since there was no way JPI could change the machine code derived from the source code. No way it could protect JPI clients who had the software embedded in their military equipment. No way could JPI make a huge amount of its product immune to those who had the source code.

  “No way that JPI could make the stolen software worthless to us.” The slim man slammed his fist on the table causing the cups to jump and coffee to spill onto the tabletop. Several people at the other end of the bar area looked over but quickly looked away. “No way except that they found a way,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “So JPI is developing all new software to replace the current version. We planned to produce code within a year or less. Now, by the time we are ready to take control of all existing systems, JPI will be delivering brand new solutions. They will be well in advance of us instead of only a little. He glared at Sokolov who had shrunk into his padded seat at the table.

  “Your thief has made things worse. Was this your plan against Mother Russia, Serge Sokolov?”

  “My plan? God, no,” blurted Sokolov, instantly regretting calling on the deity.

  “So, Sokolov? Who is this thief?”

  “I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know…” Sokolov was close to tears. He glanced at the other men hoping for sympathy but their faces were made of stone.

  “You look at our black friend,” the slim man observed. “He’s Cuban, you know. And you also know what the Cubans can do to you, don’t you?”

  Sokolov was totally confused as well as petrified with fear. “I don’t know…”

  “He can find out what you know even faster than the rest of us.” He waved at his white companions across the table and flanking Sokolov. “Shall I tell you the details?”

  “No,” gasped the handler. “Please, I can find out where the money went. I will ask Petrenko…”

  The slim man laughed suddenly. The two other white men smiled broadly. The black Cuban remained expressionless. “We don’t give a shit about the money,” the GRU man made a dismissal motion with one hand. “Who is the thief?”

  “And,” he referred to Sokolov’s comment, “Petrenko won’t know. Our thief is very smart and Petrenko is very stupid. Even more stupid than you, Sokolov. No matter, we are smarter than even our thief. We’ll find him or them ourselves and the code - for what it might be worth now.”

  Sokolov was allowed to go and the four men retired to their rooms. Once back at the wheel of the SUV, heading north to his condo, the handler wondered why these clever GRU men had talked so freely in the bar of a hotel. That bar could have been bugged. Any place could be bugged, he reflected. The consulate was wired for sound and video. Moscow was full of bugs. God, not Moscow, the handler thought. Please, not Moscow. He didn’t want to be sent there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jackson, Mariah Belo, Bill Brownley and Payne got together on Saturday morning. Jackson wanted to go over the plans for the Monday news conference and any follow-up. They met at Payne’s home, an expansive house in Oakville, about 30 miles west of Toronto. The group sat around a large table on the deck overlooking Lake Ontario.

  Brownley, the security chief at JPI, took the floor. The others picked at plates of appetizers and sipped from glasses of fruit juice or sparkling water. He told the rest he had his 15 staffers on call and on overtime. The conference would take place in the huge lobby at JPI headquarters. All of them would attend the news conference or stand guard on the perimeter.

  “There’s no great reason to expect a problem but the news has created quite a stir. We could get protestors opposed to any military equipment or AI or both. As well, t
here may be some intruders trying to get all the information they can about our plans. This could include competitors but it might even be clients wanting to get a jump on ordering Version 3.0. This is a conference restricted to news media and Mariah expects a lot of them, a full house, in fact.”

  Brownley sketched some of the preparations before turning to appetizers and turning the floor back to Jackson.

  “Bill knows what I’m going to tell the rest of you.” He looked, in order, at Mariah and Payne. “Some friends of mine have done some good surveillance work. They tracked down three guys who were keeping tabs on me and maybe some of you.” Mariah and Payne raised their eyebrows at this. “The three are Arab Canadians but that doesn’t mean anything. They are just thugs.”

  Jackson took a sip of sparkling water. “These three worked for a Ukrainian named Roman Petrenko. I say ‘worked’ because my friends persuaded the hoods to take a hike. So, Petrenko is now down to a crew of three, a Jamaican and two Russians.”

  “Sounds pretty low level, Jackson. How does this connect with JPI and why were these bad guys following you?” Mariah looked puzzled.

  “According to my friends and a few contacts at CSIS, Petrenko works part time for the Russians, the GRU. Military intelligence and I use the expression advisedly since Petrenko is about as intelligent as a brick.” Mariah opened her mouth to speak.

  “Hold it,” Jackson said, plunging ahead. “We figure that our thief - or thieves - is using Petrenko as a go-between trying to sell the source code to the Russians.”

  “But,” interrupted Maria, “would the Russians want the code now? It’s not worth much because it will be obsolete before the Russians could do anything with it.”

  “Good question.” Jackson poured some more water into his glass. “We think, from what the Arabs said before they hit the road, Petrenko has been talking about him getting quite a bit of money recently. Maybe a commission on the sale. It’s possible the Russians made the buy before we announced 3.0 - when the Russians still believed the source code was valuable.”

  “Now they know,” mused Payne, “what are the Russians going to do if they’ve already bought the code?”

  “Put it this way. I wouldn’t want to be in Petrenko’s shoes,” said Brownley. “Or the shoes of the thief if the Russians know who that is. Jackson’s plan to develop 3.0 may have put these people in a great deal of trouble.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Jackson’s voice was full of irony.

  Mariah was next up. She went through the details of the upcoming news conference and reported on the success of the news releases she had released two days before. It was picked up by several major wire services including Canadian Press, Reuters and Associated Press. Many newspapers had published articles. It was read by anchors on various television business shows and reprinted on a number of websites. Millions of people, including all JPI clients, would have access to the news.

  She gave the group more insight into her philosophy and why reporters hadn’t worked harder on the reasons behind a complete and expensive replacement of JPI’s current software version.

  “We took the initiative, before anyone leaked information. Media see this as JPI’s launch and promotion. It’s a good story because of our niche and size. How could there be a problem if we’re blowing our own horn and doing it first? If, however, the dirt ever comes to the surface, some media will jump on it - and we’ll have to deal with it. By then, I hope, we’ll have 3.0 up and running and 2.0 will be, as they say, ‘old news.’

  She turned to the actual coverage. “There’s no doubt the Russians will see it,” she told the group. “If they bought the source code before our announcement, they would be some pissed off now.” Payne led the laughter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  That morning, Petrenko had his own meeting. Present were his two Russian gangster types and Clarence, the Jamaican cook who doubled as a Petrenko accomplice. Absent were the three Arab Canadians who had been frightened off by the threat of being kidnapped and sent to Egypt. Since one of the three had been the security guard at Petrenko’s favorite parking garage and his access to the place, today’s meeting was in a Tim Horton’s coffee shop.

  Petrenko had just begun to talk when four men entered the shop and strode to Petrenko’s table. The four were casually dressed - jeans, Ts and light jackets in the types worn by runners. Each wore black training shoes. They walked purposefully and had the look of former soldiers down to their short haircuts and alert eyes.

  The slim man heading the new group addressed Petrenko in Russian. “We have to talk.”

  “Says who?” Petrenko remained seated and peered insolently at the newcomer.

  The slim man pulled back his jacket front to disclose the butt of a gun tucked into his waistband. “We are GRU,” he growled.

  Petrenko grew pale. He looked, desperately, at his men around the table. They were confused and unmoving. Petrenko nodded slowly. He stood. His men stayed seated. “Hey assholes,” Petrenko told his men in a forced tone. “Move it, will ya.” His voice squeaked.

  The seven men were led down the street by the slim man until they reached a small park. He turned into the area, found a bench and sat on it. The others trailed him. The GRU team sat on the long bench. Petrenko’s Russians pushed a large waste bin on its side and sat on it. The Jamaican sat on the ground and crossed his legs in front of him. Petrenko shoved his way onto one end of the waste bin. The slim man leaned forward.

  “We want the thief.” He was curt.

  Petrenko gaped at the GRU men. “I don’t know this thief. It is a voice, a disguised voice on the phone.”

  “We have your bank account details. You got one million from this voice.” It wasn’t a question.

  The three members of Petrenko’s crew glared at their boss. “What the hell, mon,” said the Jamaican. “You get a million and you don’t give us nothing. Hey Mon. Whatcha do dat for?”

  “Who is the thief who gave you one million dollars?”

  Petrenko’s eyes opened wide. “That is my money. And I don’t know who the thief is. It is The Voice.”

  The GRU team rose as one. The Jamaican looked at Petrenko, then at his two fellow crew members. There was alarm in his wide eyes. Petrenko was staring at the GRU leader but the other two were as startled as the Jamaican.

  The crew stood as one and faced the four GRU men. “Hey, mon. This is on Petrenko,” the Jamaican protested, pointing at his boss. “We are walking away…”

  The Cuban peeled off from his team and took two steps to the Jamaican, forcing the other black man to step back. The Jamaican put up a hand to push back but, with incredible speed, the Cuban’s hands shot out to grab the extended arm. There was a sharp crack and the Jamaican screamed in pain. His arm dropped to his side with the palm of his hand facing outward. The ulnar had been twisted and snapped.

  The Jamaican looked at his arm in disbelief before the incredible shock and pain drove him to his knees where he grabbed his broken arm with the other hand and crooned in agony.

  The two Russian hoods were frozen, transfixed in horror. “Shit,” one breathed. The other opened his mouth but no sound came out.

  The leader of the GRU team smirked as he took in the two bandaged Russians. “Heroes,” he said in derision. “You are Russians so we will not hurt you. Unless you are foolish enough to fight us.”

  Both Russians shook their heads vigorously. One held up a hand and said in Russian, “We are not with him, any more. We won’t fight…” He quickly dropped his arm to his side, remembering what the Cuban had done when a hand had been offered.

  “Good,” said the slim man. He motioned to his team and each paired with a hood to march them out of the park toward a white van parked by the curb. Their leader nodded his head at Petrenko and, when Petrenko finally stood, the GRU man walked out of the park, expecting Petrenko to tag along behind him. In a minute or two, the van was loaded with the eight men and, with the Cuban at the wheel, it pulled away from the curb.


  During the drive, the slim man used a secure cell phone to call a number assigned to the Russian consulate. Sokolov answered within two rings. “Da,” said Petrenko’s handler after his GRU commander had spoken briefly. “I know where…” he confirmed in Russian but there was no one to hear him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Half an hour later, Serge Sokolov parked his consulate SUV outside the abandoned plant off Commissioner’s Street in the Port Lands area of Toronto. The Port Lands were being transformed from an unused section of Toronto’s lakefront into a futuristic community This abandoned building, however, wasn’t much more than a pile of filthy bricks waiting final demolition.

  One of the GRU Russians was standing outside the plant. He waved Sokolov to the building and the two entered it through an old wooden door that sported a shiny new padlock and hasp.

  Sokolov was met by a strange sight. The three other GRU men were seated on upturned crates in one corner of the huge, empty space that was lit with sunlight filtered through dirt-covered windows high on the concrete walls. Against the wall, Petrenko and his three remaining thugs were sitting on the concrete floor, their backs against the wall. Their hands and legs were bound.

  The black man Sokolov knew as the Jamaican member of Petrenko’s little gang sagged against the wall and something seemed to be wrong with his side or his arm. Sokolov also noted how the man’s face had changed from coffee-coloured to greyish brown.

  The slim man, the GRU leader, pointed Sokolov to a fifth crate and the handler moved to take the offered seat.

  “We have asked them who the thief is but it seems they do not know,” said the slim man. “I thought you might want to add your … what’s the expression in English … your two cents.” The leader then glared at Sokolov. “About what our source code is worth. Two cents.”