Putin's Gambit

by Lou Dobbs

  Suddenly Walsh realized it was Tonya Stratford’s partner, Frank Martin, from the FBI. He hadn’t escaped after all.

  15

  Derek Walsh kept calm as the FBI agent’s grip on his arm tightened. It was the definition of an “iron grip.” Frank Martin wasn’t pudgy, he was solid, and age hadn’t diminished his strength in the least.

  Martin said, “You’ve got a lot to answer for, smart guy. I don’t care if you’re a veteran or not, you’re about to have the most unpleasant experience of your life.” He pulled Walsh around, slamming him into the side of the building.

  Walsh realized he was about to be searched. He had to think quickly and knew he couldn’t take this guy out with a single punch or elbow. Then he saw how close the protesters were and shouted, “This guy is one of the Thomas Brothers stooges. He’s trying to keep me quiet. He’s trying to keep all of us quiet.”

  The group of ten protesters, who had been chanting about Thomas Brothers raping the country, turned, almost as one, and stared at Martin holding Walsh against the wall. Two men on the end of the group were tall and clearly in a hostile mood.

  The FBI agent looked up to see who Walsh was yelling to. Before he could even say anything, the protesters had surged forward, and one of the tall men shoved the FBI agent hard, knocking him away from Walsh.

  The young man was dressed like a lumberjack with a red plaid shirt. The other tall protester, who looked like a derelict in ripped jeans and a dirty T-shirt, stepped forward for his own shove.

  Then the whole group swarmed toward Martin.

  Walsh didn’t wait to see what else happened; he merely turned and started to run across the street and away from danger. He could hear the FBI man saying, “Get back, this is a police matter.” That slowed the crowd but still didn’t open a corridor for the FBI man to give chase.

  As Walsh disappeared around the next corner, he looked over his shoulder and saw Martin pushing through the crowd and getting hopelessly tangled with the protesters.

  Walsh ran hard for a few blocks, taking turns blindly. He thought that might make it harder for him to be followed. After ten minutes he found himself near the water in Battery Park. It was alive with small groups of protesters getting ready to march on the city.

  He caught his breath and realized it was getting late and he was tired of this bullshit. He was going to lie low, then head over to Alena’s to get all of this straightened out. He’d approach carefully and watch for traps, but he figured no one knew enough about his girlfriend to provide any information to the authorities. The guys at work knew her first name and had met her at a happy hour once, months ago. Her place could be a safe harbor.

  *

  Major Anton Severov sat at a cramped desk inside his equally cramped room at a bed and breakfast south of Tartu. Fannie had made arrangements and paid for the three rooms, but he had been careful not to let Amir see what room number he was staying in. The little Iranian had a crazy streak that scared Severov. Fannie, on the other hand, seemed to have no business working with a terror group. That also scared him. Until now he had always thought of groups like ISIS or al Qaeda as being nothing but a bunch of nuts you could identify a mile away by their thick beards or their headgear. Now he was viewing them more like their own little country that could use spies and tactics other countries couldn’t consider. They were organized, funded, and dangerous.

  This operation was a perfect example. He was being escorted, albeit by this bickering couple, and shown the best way for a military operation to take place. When Russian tanks rolled down these streets, they would be doing it faster because they had gotten help from Islamic extremists. He also had a suspicion, although no one told him and he was smart enough not to ask, that the current financial turmoil had somehow been instigated as part of this operation. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the rash of lone wolf terror attacks had been coordinated through a terror network.

  If he looked at it all in perspective, al Qaeda and ISIS were much more formidable than he would ever have considered. The Islamists he had fought in Georgia were really nothing more than a militia and, aside from inflicting some casualties and blowing up a few buildings, barely slowed the Russian army as it rolled in to restore order. This was something else, and he would have to consider it carefully. He was sure someone in the army had reports that detailed the same concerns, but he would add to his own just to be safe.

  The other thing that troubled him was the number of friendly Estonians he had met on his first day of this assignment. It’s one thing to look at a military plan and execute it by driving your tank across the countryside; it’s another to see the faces of children who might be left homeless when the plan became reality. One older woman in particular reminded him of his mother, who lived with his stepfather and two sisters in a suburb of Moscow. He couldn’t imagine someone driving his mother out of her house or threatening his sisters, but that’s exactly what was going to happen with these poor people once Russian tanks rolled across the border.

  A gentle tap on his door brought him back to reality and made him wish he had a pistol with him. There was no need to protect himself around the Estonians, but his escorts were another story. He slid the tiny wooden chair back and stood up carefully, then waited to the side of the door and listened. A moment later there was another soft tap that echoed in the tiny room.

  He said in English, “Yes?”

  A woman’s voice said, “May I come in?” It was Fannie.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Of course.” She threw in a girlish giggle to convince him.

  He wasn’t taking any chances and opened the door a crack, ready to throw his weight into anyone other than Fannie. He might not have had a gun, but he was confident he could outfight one of these jihadists if he used the element of surprise.

  But the surprise was on him when he opened the door and Fannie slipped into the room wearing a heavy bathrobe and slippers. She flopped onto his bed and gave him a dazzling smile.

  Fannie said, “I thought you might be lonely.”

  Severov was careful to lean back on the desk and not show his desire as he gazed upon the lovely young woman. Since he had heard her phone call with an American marine officer earlier in the evening, he realized how adept she was at manipulating men. He wasn’t sure he wanted any part of that. They could end up being on the opposite sides of the conflict at any moment. She even told him the alliance between her group and his country was temporary because, as she put it, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  It seemed that Fannie finally realized he was not about to jump onto the bed with her. She stood up and leaned against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a long, passionate kiss.

  It had been some time since he’d felt a woman like this in his arms. Who cared if she manipulated him? As long as he was aware of what was happening, he’d be safe. And so would his secrets.

  *

  Joseph Katazin was waiting in the only place he was certain Derek Walsh would eventually come to. He had eyes all over the city and people reporting back to him every twenty minutes, and so far the only place the former marine had been seen was near his office. Katazin’s associate said he thought some cops were chasing him, but Walsh got away. That all made sense to Joseph Katazin. He would probably do the same thing. He would get back to his office to see what intelligence he could gather, but then he would head here. What sane man wouldn’t?

  Katazin had only brought one man with him: Serge, who still had a black eye and swollen face from the homeless guy punching him outside of Walsh’s apartment. He’d decided to use Serge so he could channel his anger as a motivator in case something went wrong.

  He had to question Walsh to make sure he hadn’t learned anything, then dispose of him as quickly and quietly as possible. It would be to the operation’s benefit if Walsh’s body was never found. The police would just assume it was a suicide because that was the easiest thing to do. If he’d only been successful that first
night and put a bullet in the banker’s temple, then left the gun at Walsh’s side, it would’ve looked like the man had killed himself over his guilt for stealing so much money and sending it to Switzerland. Instead Walsh had reported it as a robbery attempt.

  Katazin was confident he could correct that mistake in the next few hours.

  *

  Derek Walsh had carefully made his way toward the Upper West Side, closer to Columbia University and his girlfriend Alena’s apartment. The farther he got from the financial district, the less disruption there was on the street. He had noticed that by the time he reached the theater district, life appeared pretty much normal except that the usual crowds of tourists weren’t there. He could understand that no one wanted to risk being out in a major city with all of the lone wolf terror attacks occurring, but it was a little spooky as he cut across Times Square and never had to change his course or pace. About a third of the touristy stores were closed, and many of the people walking across the square were glued to the giant screen broadcasting news.

  There had been two attempted suicide bombings in the subway, one by an inept bomber whose remote didn’t work. The other was thwarted when someone noticed a suspicious-looking man wearing a long coat and told the cop on the platform. The cop did a masterful job of coming up behind the man and didn’t hesitate as he grabbed him and wrestled him to the dirty subway floor. Once the man was handcuffed, the cop discovered a nasty nail bomb wrapped around his midsection.

  The mayor had declared that the city wouldn’t be intimidated and the subways would still run. It was brash but a gamble. Sooner or later one of the bombers would be successful.

  As Walsh continued through Times Square there was not a cop in sight, so he stopped and read the ticker running under a silent newscast showing some sort of demonstration in Europe. As the screen flashed different images, his eyes kept drifting to the one-line feed under the footage. There had now been over fifty terror attacks across Europe and the United States. All the financial markets had stopped trading and were not planning on using computers once they started up again.

  Then, as he was staring up at the screen, a photo of his driver’s license picture flashed. He was stunned for a moment as he looked up, seeing his face on the giant screen. Now they were getting serious about finding him. He nervously glanced around and realized no one was paying attention to anyone else. His photo quickly disappeared from the screen only to be replaced by film footage of the outside of Thomas Brothers Financial. It showed the increasingly rowdy protesters clashing with the police, who were doing everything they could to keep this from becoming a deadly incident.

  Walsh decided not to risk the subway and instead caught an uptown bus to Alena’s neighborhood. Looking for a place to hang out until Alena got home, he came across a deli called Doaba off Columbus Avenue. There were no TVs, and the place wasn’t crowded, so he quietly ate a sandwich while he waited. Walsh used the Boost phone he had bought at Mike Rosenberg’s suggestion to call her cell phone and left a message. He didn’t bother to leave a message on her home phone. He knew she was rarely in the apartment before five o’clock, and he’d head there then.

  Right now he was happy to be in a comfortable place figuring out what his next move would be.

  *

  Mike Rosenberg couldn’t remember moving so frantically within the offices of the CIA. There was no way he could get a call from his friend Derek Walsh while he was at work. He locked his cell phone in the car before he came through security, where he was searched thoroughly for anything that might transmit information outside the building. He had a lead as his focus right now, and that was finding out all he could about the bank account where the money from Thomas Brothers was transferred.

  It was easy to speak to the analysts helping the FBI, and it didn’t take long to confirm that the account was opened in the bank that was blown up in an apparent terror attack in Bern, Switzerland. Immediately Rosenberg recognized this was quite a coincidence. He was sure someone else had figured it out as well, so he kept moving.

  The account had been opened by a female using the name Francine Talmont who was listed as white and twenty-seven years of age. That didn’t tell him much. Some more digging determined that several FBI agents had been dispatched to interview anyone who might have worked at the bank and wasn’t there at the time of the explosion. Sixty-six people were dead and the few survivors appeared to be people working in offices on the top floor. Part of it had remained standing long enough for them to be evacuated.

  Rosenberg didn’t like the way everything seemed to be going wrong at once. Money was transferred to terrorists, the financial markets were in an absolute freefall, rioting had broken out across Europe and the United States, and there were so many small terror attacks that not all of them were being reported. It felt like too much to happen at once without there being a larger goal.

  He was relieved to see that the U.S. military had been put on alert, but that didn’t change his unease at the idea of a giant distraction, which he thought all of this was. Since Russia had annexed Crimea and threatened Ukraine, Rosenberg had been much more careful when he studied world maps, trying to figure out where the next hot point might be.

  He still had a lot of work to do, but he didn’t want to miss a call from Derek Walsh. He would head out the door sometime after five and hit this all again hard in the morning. By then he’d have more information to act on.

  16

  Derek Walsh felt out of place on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were no protests going on and no real need for a heavy police presence. The population was better dressed, and he felt shabby in his untucked shirt and now-uncombed hair. He’d tried to call Mike Rosenberg on his new throwaway phone, but Mike didn’t answer, and he left no message. It was his hope that Mike would see the New York number and realize he should call it back as soon as he was able.

  He made the short walk from the deli he’d been sitting in to Alena’s apartment building in just a few minutes. Walsh looked at his watch and realized it was almost exactly six o’clock in the evening and she should be home by now. He paused outside the front door of her five-story walk-up and glanced down the street to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Was he becoming paranoid? If he was, he’d earned the right. There were very few people on the street and no police officers. It was time to find some respite at the one place he’d feel safe.

  There was no doorman even though the building looked like it should have one. As he walked up the four flights of stairs, he did consider the irony of a foreign student living so much better than a would-be Wall Street banker. The place was clean, and her apartment was more than twice the size of Walsh’s SoHo flat.

  He stepped out of the stairwell onto the new plush carpet in the hallway, then took a moment to straighten his shirt. He wondered how he’d explain the pistol on his belt to Alena. He’d just tell her the truth and let the chips fall. It didn’t matter; all he needed now was to see her beautiful face and feel her arms around him. He knew she must be sick with worry over not hearing from him.

  He paused again just outside her door, ran his fingers through his short brown hair, and gave the door his special rap, four quick knocks with a slight pause before two more. It was Morse code for “Hi.” Alena didn’t care much for secret knocks or nicknames. Maybe it was cultural. Walsh hoped to see for himself one day and planned a visit to Greece when he had saved enough money. At this rate it would be years, unless he had to flee because of extradition.

  From inside he heard Alena’s voice say, “It’s open.”

  Walsh loved her slight accent. He opened the door and felt a wave of relief when he saw her sitting up straight in the antique chair by her wide bay window that looked out onto another building.

  Alena stayed seated as she said, “Derek, I was worried I’d never see you again.”

  As Walsh stepped into the room a male’s voice behind him said, “Me, too.”

  Walsh spun quickly to see a man holding a Beretta
pistol, just like his. It took a moment for him to realize it was the same man who tried to rob him. The man with a scar on his face. And he realized for the first time the man had a Russian accent.

  *

  Joseph Katazin felt very confident holding the pistol in one hand pointed at the former marine a few feet in front of him. He stepped out from behind the door, and Walsh was smart enough to turn his body so they remained face-to-face. That also gave Walsh a chance to see Serge pop up from behind the tall back of the chair that Walsh’s girlfriend was sitting in.

  Katazin said, “Recognize him?”

  “What do you want?”

  Katazin liked the fact that the former marine didn’t want to waste any time. “A few answers. Not much more.” He paused, then said, “I like what you’ve done with your hair. Interesting choice, and probably enough to throw off most people.”

  Walsh let his eyes roam around the room, then focused his attention back on Katazin. “What sort of questions?”

  “Who have you talked to? What have you told them? Who is the old guy who hit Serge? You know, the usual.” He watched Walsh as the marine turned and looked at Serge, assessing his black eye and bruised face. Walsh’s expression gave away the fact that his true concern was for the young lady, and Katazin might be able to use that later.

  Walsh stared straight ahead at Katazin and said, “And if I don’t feel like answering any of your questions?”

  Katazin looked over to Serge and made a motion with his left hand around his neck. He was surprised the dimwitted Serge picked up on exactly what he wanted done. The lean young man with a badly bruised face didn’t hesitate to grasp the cord holding the blinds and drape it around Alena’s throat.

  Before Walsh could say anything else, Katazin jerked his left hand, and Serge followed the order by tightening the cord like a noose around the young woman’s throat. She gasped and rose in the seat slightly as Serge pulled the cord tighter across her windpipe. Her face almost immediately went red.

  Walsh called out, “No, stop.”