by Tom Clancy
Kryvov said, “Or else they’ve got connections in the local police. Maybe both.”
Clark added, “It’s nothing to worry about. It doesn’t mean we are in any way compromised. Our cover is solid.” He chuckled. “They just don’t particularly like our cover.”
Sam said, “These knuckleheads would really blow a gasket if they knew what we were really doing.”
Caruso said, “I don’t like this shit. Mr. C, how about you let Igor find us some guns?”
Clark shook his head. “As long as we’re in cover we can’t be carrying weapons, not even covertly. Remember, we can get challenged by the local cops at any time. They pull a piece out of one of our jackets, and our story about who we are and what we are doing will go tits up in a hurry. That happens, and we’re off to the local jail, and there I can guaran-damn-tee we will be up to our eyeballs with mob goons we don’t want to deal with.”
“Roger that,” said Dom. He wasn’t happy rolling unarmed with Russian thugs literally bumping up against them, but Clark had been doing this sort of thing since before Dom was born, so he knew better than to argue.
* * *
They made it back to their building around eleven, and climbed the stairs to the third-floor flat. As they arrived at the door to the apartment, Ding slid his key into the lock, started to turn the latch, but he stopped himself before he opened the door.
“Down!” he shouted.
The other five men had no idea what was wrong, but they hit the deck quickly. Biery did not do so on his own power—rather, Driscoll took the IT director down like a linebacker making a tackle in the open field.
There was no explosion. After a few seconds, Clark looked up to find Chavez still standing at the door, his hand on the key in the lock. He said, “The lock has been tampered with… It feels gritty. Maybe it was just picked, but it might have a pressure switch attached. If it does, and I let go, then we go boom.”
The men climbed up slowly from the floor in the hallway. There was some nervous laughter between some of them, but not from Clark. He moved to the door and took out a penlight. He knelt down, had Chavez move his hand a little so he could see the latch and the key in the lock.
“It could be wired on the other side. No way to know.”
While Chavez stood motionless, unsure if moving the door might trigger an explosion, Caruso headed into the stairwell, climbed out a window there, and shimmied along a narrow ledge to the balcony. In moments the men in the hallway could hear him inside the flat, and in seconds more, he was on the far side of the door.
“It’s clear,” he said.
Chavez breathed a long sigh and let go.
Caruso opened the door from the inside.
The rest of the men entered the flat and, if the evidence of a picked lock did not already tell them, they now knew for certain they had had visitors while they were out.
The room had been oddly rearranged. A sofa was now in the middle of the room, a chair had been stacked on another chair, and the kitchen table was now upside down. The centerpiece that had been on it now sat at the center of the inverted table.
All of Gavin’s laptops were encrypted and password-protected, so no one had been able to search them. But that did not stop the FSB—Clark was certain they were the culprits of this—from unplugging them from their power strips and tying the cords together. The laptops were closed and stacked on one another.
At the same moment, both Clark and Chavez each brought a finger to his lips, telling the rest to keep quiet, as they might now be under audio surveillance. They could still talk, but only in character.
Gavin Biery was shaken. “Somebody has been screwing with my computers.”
Chavez patted him on the back as he passed, heading down the hallway to check the three bedrooms.
The bedrooms looked much the same as the front room: random items had been moved around, suitcases stood stacked one upon the other, and clothes lay in piles on the floor.
He shook his head in confusion, then shook it again when he saw a small stuffed teddy bear had been left on one of the beds. It had not been in the flat before. Ding checked it for bugs, and saw that it was clean. Instead, it was just some sort of perverse message.
As he checked the last of the three bedrooms, finding the same random signs of activity, Chavez noticed the bathroom light was on. He leaned in to shut it off but stopped when he noticed a foul odor.
He checked. There were feces in the toilet.
“Classy,” Ding said to himself.
Dom came rushing into the room. “Some jackass dumped out all my clothes.”
He looked over Chavez’s shoulder. “That’s just nasty. What is it they are trying to prove? I mean, did a bunch of fucking kids break in here?”
The two men returned to the living room, and here Clark turned on the television and a radio full blast; then he opened all the faucets in the attached kitchen so that the sound of water flowing through the pipes added to the noise.
He brought his men into the middle of the large room. Under all the background noise, he said, “Guys, this is just a little psychological intimidation. They want us to leave, but they are using soft measures at this point. They are showing us we can expect really close and really annoying company at all times.”
Clark looked around the room and realized the FSB’s tactic was having the desired effect. Gavin and Dom looked at once confused and defeated, as if their operation here had been undermined even before it began. Driscoll just looked angry, as if his personal space had been violated.
Clark said, “These assholes are making it known they can and will do what they want, but we’re not going to let it get to us. We can still operate here, we just have to be on our toes. We’ll find ways to slip around them while staying in cover.”
Gavin shook his head, doing his best to put the worry out of his mind. After a moment, he said, “Whatever. I call first in the bathroom.”
Chavez and Caruso looked at each other. Dom said, “It’s all yours, Gav.”
29
The conference room of the White House Situation Room was chosen as the venue for today’s presidential briefing on the situation in Ukraine for one key reason. There were more multimedia options in the Situation Room than there were in the Oval Office, and the President’s briefers in the FBI, CIA, DIA, DNI, and the Department of State planned on using a number of different means to paint the picture for the President.
As the meeting was getting under way, Mary Pat Foley asked if she could make a quick announcement. “We have learned some distressing news this morning. It was discovered today in Ukraine that the number-two man in the SBU, Ukrainian’s security service, has been spying for the Russians. He has fled Kiev, and there is a manhunt across Ukraine for him, although we assume he will turn up in Russia.”
“Christ,” Ryan said.
Jay Canfield already knew this. He said, “We are in the process of conducting a security review to see just how exposed our local operations are, but it doesn’t look good. Our local people will be ratcheting back their operations accordingly.”
President Ryan said, “There go another set of eyes and ears in the region.”
“I agree,” said Mary Pat. “This one hurts.”
“Who do we have as COS Kiev?”
Jay Canfield said, “Keith Bixby. He’s a good man. A field spook, not a desk guy.”
“Watch it, Jay. I was a desk guy,” Ryan quipped.
Canfield said, “No, Mr. President. I was a desk guy. You were a desk guy that didn’t stay at his desk.” Jay said it with a smile. “You know what I mean.”
“I hear you.”
Mary Pat said, “I know Bixby quite well, and we couldn’t have a better COS in place.”
“Will we need to pull him out?”
“Bixby himself will be best positioned to determine what CIA’s exposure will be on this. He will make the call on what operations to shutter, what people to send home, what foreign agents we need to either break ties
with or pull out of the country for their own safety. Needless to say, this is a disastrous time for this to happen. We’ll rotate in some new blood, but the Russians will see who is suddenly moving into our embassy in Kiev, and that will tell them who the new spooks are.”
Ryan groaned, thinking about how much harder this would make things.
He said, “Okay. Let’s move to the next topic. Volodin’s statement announcing expanding ties with China. Leaving out the economics of it for a moment, what does the China–Russia agreement mean in practical terms, geopolitically?”
Foley said, “The two nations have been taking a lot of similar stances recently. On Syria, on North Korea, on Iran. China and Russia are burying the hatchet on international issues, so this agreement will only strengthen that.
“Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have become what some have called an iron triangle.”
“And economically? What’s the end result of this?”
Ryan turned to an economic briefer for the State Department. Her name was Helen Glass; she was a Wharton grad and well known at the White House as an expert on Russia.
“It’s a win-win. China lacks Russia’s scientific know-how and raw materials. Russia lacks China’s market and manufacturing prowess. If they can implement the agreement, both nations will benefit.”
“How bad is Russia’s economy now?” Ryan asked.
Glass said, “Several years ago, Russia thought it had it made. A huge find of both gold ore and oil, both in Siberia, seemed to portend great things for Russia. But the gold find was not as large as early estimates, and the oil has been difficult to extract, especially when Volodin and his predecessor squeezed out Western companies in an attempt to give Gazprom full control of the fields.
“Energy commodities are roughly seventy percent of all Russia’s exports. But there is a downside to this. Huge natural resources have a negative effect on a nation’s manufacturing sector. They call the phenomenon the Russian disease.”
Ryan nodded. He understood the phenomenon. “The money is in the dirt, it just has to be dug up or pumped up. The money isn’t in innovation or intellectual property or in manufacturing. After a while, a nation loses its ability to innovate and to think and to build things.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President. Russia had great potential when the Soviet Union dissolved, but in the nineties it all went bad for them when the economy collapsed. It was the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world without a war being fought.”
Ryan said, “As much of a disaster as it was, you’ve got to give the Russian people some credit for just surviving it.”
“They did survive it, yes. But they have not flourished. Volodin is taking credit for things because no one has come out to show Russians what wealth they should be enjoying. Russia’s economy is big, but it’s not modern or dynamic. Industry is focused on the extraction of raw materials. The only manufactured goods people want on the world market are Kalashnikovs, caviar, and vodka.”
“You are describing a banana republic with a quarter of a billion people and hundreds of ICBMs,” Jack said.
“I try not to exaggerate, Mr. President. But… insofar as their economy is limited by what they can dig up and sell… yes. And that is not their only problem. Russia’s main export is fossil fuels. But coming in at a close second is corruption.”
“That’s harsh.”
Helen Glass did not waver. “But true. There has been a heinous redistribution of property to those in power and the expansion of a police state to protect them. The bureaucracy is a protection racket.
“Russia is governed not by formal institutions, it is run by the will of the siloviki. The Duma is nothing more than the Ministry of Implementation. It does what it is told to do by the siloviki.”
Ryan said, “The cronies who run business and the country.”
“Yes, and nowhere is the connection between business and government more direct than in the case of Gazprom,” she said. “Gazprom is officially privatized, but the Kremlin retains forty percent of the shares, and effectively one hundred percent of the decision-making ability. Woe be to the Gazprom private shareholder who goes against the wishes of Volodin. He says his tougher version of capitalism is what has allowed Russia to prosper, but what he is doing is not capitalism, and Russia has not prospered.”
Ryan asked, “Is there any economist in the world who correlates Russia’s increased authoritarianism with their increased economic growth?”
Helen Glass thought for a moment. “Sure, you can find some who will say just that, but remember, there were economists predicting the fall of capitalism and the rise of world communism, even in the eighties.”
Jack laughed. “Good point. You can always find an expert to confirm your belief, no matter how ridiculous.”
“Since 2008, over half a trillion dollars has fled Russia. Most of it is pure capital flight. This is billionaire money, squirreled away in offshore financial centers. The top-five foreign investment locations in and out of Russia are tax havens.”
Ryan said, “Meaning it’s not investment at all.”
Glass responded, “Correct. It is money-laundering and tax-avoidance schemes.”
“Right,” said Ryan. “As long as energy prices are high enough, the Kremlin can gloss over the fact that a third of its economy is sucked up by corruption.”
“Correct again, Mr. President. Foreign investors are fleeing. The Russian stock exchange has lost nearly a trillion in value in the past year. Capital investment has fallen fifty percent.
“Russia has everything it could possibly need to be one of the great economies of the world. Well-educated people, natural resources, access to markets and transportation infrastructure, land. If not for the pervasive corruption, they would be at the top of the list of world nations.
“Russians are worse off today than they were a decade ago. Public safety, health, law, property-rights security. Alcohol consumption has grown, health spending has shrunk, life expectancy has dropped in the past years.
“They have enacted laws barring dual citizens from appearing on state television. They are removing foreign words from the Russian language.”
Ryan said, “It feels like they’ve regressed thirty years over there, doesn’t it?”
“It is very much like that, indeed, Mr. President.”
Jack Ryan turned away from the economic adviser and toward Mary Pat Foley and Jay Canfield. “And with all this we have the knowledge that Russia wants to invade its sovereign neighbor, and now our intelligence capability in the nation has been crippled.”
“It’s a mess, Mr. President,” Canfield admitted.
30
John Clark walked through the Obolon underground station on the Kiev metro’s blue line. It was four-thirty p.m., not quite rush hour, but the tunnels, escalators, and trains were quickly filling up with commuters.
The American made his way through the crowd, keeping his head down and walking purposefully to fit in with everyone around him. He headed toward the trains, but he wasn’t sure what he would do when he got there, as his instructions were only to go to the Obolon station to meet with Keith Bixby.
Bixby had called Clark two hours earlier, asking for an urgent meeting and giving the time and location, which immediately sent Clark out the door of the rented flat to begin a series of twists and turns, a random sequence of cabs, buses, metros, and hikes through malls, department stores, and even a gypsy market, where he bought a knockoff Nike winter coat after tossing his own three-hundred-dollar one to a homeless man on the street so Clark could change his appearance on the fly.
Now he was here at the designated meeting place, hoping like hell that whatever burning issue Bixby wanted to talk to him about didn’t involve a team of State Department security guys and a coach ticket back to the USA.
As he neared the end of the station hall, he heard a soft voice close behind him. “Get on the train, direction Ipodrom, last car.”
The words were English, but it was
not Bixby’s voice, Clark was certain. Without acknowledging the instructions, he merged across the crowd moving toward him and walked to the opposite side of the station hall, and then he climbed aboard the Ipodrom train that had just stopped at the platform.
The car was almost empty when he boarded, because Obolon was only the third metro station on the line, but Bixby was there, sitting in the last seat in the back. Clark stepped into the car, turning toward Bixby, while all around him the car filled with commuters. Clark moved back into the corner and sat down next to the Kiev station chief.
Bixby did not look at Clark, but he said, “Nice jacket.”
There were people standing and sitting ten feet away, but the racket of the train shooting through the tunnel would make it impossible for anyone to hear the conversation.
Clark put his elbows on his knees and leaned over, pretended to look at a paperback he’d pulled from his pocket. His head was less than a foot away from COS Bixby. “What’s up?”
“When we talked the other day I thought having you here on my turf was going to be a pain in the ass. Now, I’ve got to say, I’m seriously reconsidering your value.”
“Go on.”
He blew out a long sigh. “This morning we discovered that the number-two man in the Ukrainian intelligence service has been spying for the FSB.”
Clark showed no reaction. He just said, “You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure. A security investigation by the Ukrainians turned up an e-mail account he was using to set up meetings and dead drops.” Bixby growled. “I mean, really. Who still uses dead drops in this day and age?”
“Did they arrest him?”
“Nope. He got tipped off somehow, and he disappeared. He’s probably in Moscow by now.”
“Does he know enough about you to compromise your operation?”
“You might say that,” Bixby mumbled. “He was my main liaison with SBU. He didn’t know everything, of course. He didn’t know about our NOCs, didn’t know the majority of our sources, methods, or resources.” Bixby sighed. “But still… we worked together on some things, so he knew a hell of a lot. I have to operate under the assumption that FSB is aware of the identity of all my case officers at the embassy and many of our safe houses across the country.”
