1
Major Ronald Jackson had spent months on deployment in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a brief peacekeeping stint in Kuwait after an invasion of Islamic State fighters. It was that time in combat and the fact that he was one of the few officers from his original unit still in the Marine Corps that made him feel like he had earned his right to a cushy embassy detail here in Germany. In point of fact, which was the only thing the marines dealt in, he was responsible for several diplomatic buildings, from the missions in Frankfurt and Bonn to the U.S. embassy here in Berlin.
He’d dropped in on the new lieutenant in charge of the security and the twenty-six marines at 0 dark thirty. At thirty-one, Major Jackson no longer partied all night and found rising before the sun and driving from the base outside Stuttgart a simple task. He smiled as he recalled how much he hated a CO who did shit like that to him when he was new to a post. Security for the embassy building off Pariser Platz looked pretty sharp, and the marines were alert.
He took his time walking alone after he’d gotten the lieutenant out from under foot. It was a brilliant, sunny day with the temperature in the midfifties. He liked wearing his overcoat because it hid the shrapnel scar on his right arm he’d received his last tour in Afghanistan. A lucky grenade pitch by a dark-haired youth had left him in the hospital for three weeks. Now he noticed the cooler weather in his elbow. He’d always thought that kind of thing was just bullshit the old vets talked about. Old war wounds really did change with the weather.
Major Jackson wondered what his best friends from the unit were doing now. One of them, Derek Walsh, worked on Wall Street but didn’t seem all that happy when they talked. Another, Mike Rosenberg, was settling into his new job with the CIA. He’d been the G-2 in their unit and done an exceptional job. The fourth member of their clique was still, like Jackson, in the Corps. Bill Shepherd was in a combat brigade at the same base as Jackson in Böblingen near Stuttgart.
Their relationship was like being in a family with four brothers who were all competitive. They each made the others better. He liked it. They were the four horsemen, and each had skills that complemented the others’.
A young corporal snapped to attention near the front gate. Jackson returned a salute as he glanced over his shoulder to ensure there was a rifleman on the roof as required when the threat alert was raised like this. Someone had picked up some extra chatter, and the goddamned Islamic State was beheading people all over the place now. YouTube had videos from as far away as Perth and Chicago showing the masked executioners at work. The videos had all gone viral, with the media replaying them endlessly.
Major Jackson wished the cowards would face real military men head-on. No marine worth his salt would consider terrorists anything but cowards. It didn’t matter what loudmouth TV hosts said about their abilities. No one could stand against a well-trained marine unit. He wished the marines would be unleashed on them one day soon. That would end this shit quickly. Those limp dicks in Washington never acted, they only reacted, and the assholes from the so-called Islamic State had them reacting all over the place. It felt like the United States had stripped NATO of soldiers in an effort to refocus on the Middle East.
The rapid deployment force they’d been setting up to respond if the Baltics or other NATO members were attacked by Russia was a year behind schedule. Jackson wondered if the current administration was just pushing it off until a new administration took office. That would be the easiest thing to do, but maybe not the smartest. He had hoped the Russian annexation of Crimea would’ve woken people up to the real threats in the world.
He stood and took in the activity on the street in front of him. Typical tourist and light vehicle traffic moved casually down the street, reminding him of his hometown of Sacramento. The Germans had proven to be a friendly people who seemed to appreciate the U.S. military presence, at least where Major Jackson had been.
He noticed a Mercedes step van ease toward the main gate, the driver obviously listening to someone sitting behind him. The major wasn’t one for profiling—he’d seen it by the California Highway Patrol back home and been a victim of it—but the young man with dark hair driving the van caught his attention. He turned and stepped toward the gate, calling out to the corporal on duty and the PFC sitting inside the monitoring booth directly behind the gate.
Then it happened. Just like he’d seen in training. He’d even witnessed it live once in Afghanistan. The driver popped out of the van with an AK-47 in his hand. Major Jackson did not hesitate. He sprang forward as the corporal brought up his M-4 carbine. The major was reaching under his coat to grip his M-9 pistol.
The passenger door opened, and men started pouring out as if they were a SWAT team.
Major Jackson screamed at the corporal, “Fire that weapon, marine,” as he brought his pistol’s sights on target. He noted that the first man had a small machine pistol that looked like a TEC-9, and another carried a German assault rifle. They also moved like men who knew their objective and had trained for it.
Major Jackson heard a shot and saw the corporal stumble back and collapse onto the ground, his neck spurting bright red blood. He squeezed off two quick shots and dropped the man who had fired the assault rifle. He acquired the next target and fired twice more. The man flopped onto the wide sidewalk.
Now the four remaining men rushed the gate. Gunfire came from the booth as the PFC joined the fight.
A huge flash came from the rear of the van, and the major immediately recognized it as a rocket-propelled grenade. He’d seen enough of them in the mountains of Afghanistan. He dove away from the security booth and rolled toward a heavy potted plant designed to keep a vehicle from coming through the gate toward the building.
He felt the bone-rattling explosion an instant before the rubble of the booth filled the air around him. Shards of glass struck his exposed leg. He ignored the pain and popped up over the metal reinforced planter and fired at the man closest to the gate. The short man had slapped a plastic explosive on the lock. The explosive detonated early, causing the man to disintegrate into a red mist as the gate was blown off its tracks, allowing the last three terrorists inside the compound.
Major Jackson rolled and took aim, killing another attacker and then scanning the area to see if the PFC from the booth was dead. The bloody uniform twenty feet away indicated that he was.
The rifleman on the roof was now firing, but without much effect.
Another group of three men piled out of the back of the van and charged the gate. It was lost, but Major Jackson knew it was his job to hold as long as possible. He reloaded with his extra magazine of 9 mm because he had lost count of his shots.
He raised the pistol from a prone position and managed to hit the two men inside the gate, then turned his attention to the next group.
The rooftop rifleman dropped one man. The second man stumbled, and the major put three rounds into him on the ground. The last man standing, a big guy in his forties with thick hair and a graying beard, rushed the major, firing his own pistol.
They ended up on the ground together, the man so close the major could smell sardines on his breath. The rifleman kept up fire, and dirt spouted near Major Jackson’s head.
The large, smelly man was badly wounded and had dropped his pistol. Major Jackson wanted him alive so someone could figure out what this was all about and who was responsible.
The man reached into his pocket and in a heartbeat retrieved some kind of remote detonator.
Major Jackson froze and looked the man in the eye.
The man spoke in accented English. “You put up good fight. It won’t matter. This is just the start.” He mashed the button.
Major Ronald Jackson, graduate of the University of California, nine-year veteran of the marines, son to a city planner and a speech pathologist, felt the heat as he heard the blast and knew that the entire step van held some kind of high explosive and was their plan B.
After the initial flash, everything went dark.
* * *
Vladimir Putin was just finishing his breakfast in his office inside the palace at Novo-Ogaryovo. The fresh produce he ate most mornings came from the personal farmland estate of the patriarch.
He didn’t like to rush his breakfast, but he knew people were waiting to meet with him. He conducted most of his business at the palace about twenty-four kilometers west of Moscow. It was quiet and comfortable here, and Putin felt this was where he belonged. It was quite different from his childhood apartment he had shared with two other families and rats in St. Petersburg, which was known at the time as Leningrad. This was the kind of living that he had grown accustomed to and why he had made sure that no matter what happened, he would be one of the wealthiest men in the world.
He was already a little on edge for having missed his usual morning swim. His judo practice was still scheduled for the afternoon, but this meeting was important, more important than anything they had planned in quite some time. After finishing his second quail egg, a delicacy he had come to enjoy, he stood from the table and checked himself in a mirror. Even in simple slacks and shirt with no tie, he liked what he saw.
Putin stepped through the door into his private office, then used an intercom to have the secretary send in his guests. An older, obese man with virtually no hair on his head waddled in, followed by a man whose build was very similar to Putin’s own. He greeted them warmly. They were old friends—two of a handful of men he trusted implicitly.
He motioned the large man, Andre Maysak, who was in his midseventies, to a wide, comfortable chair, which Putin himself usually occupied. “Sit here, Andre. We have much to talk about.”
The older man, who was a member of the Politburo and a dominating force in the Foreign Ministry, straightened his tailored Joseph Abboud suit and plopped down with great effort.
Putin would need Andre if the General Assembly rebelled, and, if necessary, to suppress any dissent. Among other things, Andre knew where all the bodies were buried.
The man about Putin’s age, Yuri Simplov, was a deputy director of the SVR, the foreign intelligence service for the Russian Federation and successor agency to the KGB. Because of his background in intelligence, Putin had come to rely on the SVR to handle a number of problems whether it had legal authority or not. If Andre knew where all the bodies were buried, Simplov knew how to blame Putin’s enemies for those brutal crimes.
Simplov always dressed in simple, off-the-rack suits, mostly so no one would suspect that he had amassed a fortune through his association with Putin and his sensitive position in the government service. They had worked together since their days in the KGB and had always had a private rivalry to see who was tougher. If one man ate nails, the other ate nails with rust on them. In this case, it was just who could sit more awkwardly in a hard chair.
Andre looked between the two men and said, “Somehow I don’t think I’m about to hear good news.”
Putin gave him a rare smile and said, “On the contrary, my friend, this is nothing but good news. It’s also something I hope you know nothing about. Operational security has been extraordinarily strict, and I thought we would start to brief key members of the Politburo.”
“I’m fascinated and worried at the same time,” Andre said.
Putin said, “First, I have to give credit to Yuri for finding ways to accomplish the impossible without having a financial trail that leads back to Russia in any way.”
Andre folded his arms, looking at the arrogant younger man who rarely bothered to greet others when they met in the halls of power. He said, “And what are the impossible feats our SVR friend has managed to accomplish?”
Putin said, “It’s really two things that are connected. First, he has a way to steal two hundred million dollars from a U.S. bank without anyone suspecting us. And we will use that money to fund a new ally that will help distract the U.S. while we plan our first major military operation in decades.”
“And who is this new ally?”
“A group of jihadists associated with ISIS.”
That got Andre’s attention. He leaned forward and said, “How do we become allies with someone we are constantly at war with? They hate us.”
“But they hate the West more,” Putin said. “We do not rub our affluence in their face. We do not produce movies that ridicule them. We didn’t invade Iraq, and we do not bankroll Israel.”
“But how did you even approach them?” Andre asked.
“They approached us,” Putin said. “They wanted us to teach them how to hack into a computer system of the world’s biggest banks.”
Andre cut his eyes from one man to the other and finally said, “And what would be the target of this new military operation?”
Putin couldn’t hide his smile, and he finally said, “Estonia.”
2
Putin kept his eyes on his old friend from the Politburo, trying to get a feel for what the man was thinking. That was the key to everything accomplished in Russia: knowing what people were thinking.
Finally Andre said, “Excuse me, but my head is spinning slightly. Do you really think an ISIS affiliate will do as we direct?”
He and Yuri Simplov had debated the question for months. Different intelligence people had game-planned all of the possible scenarios. Some were, of course, failures, but the upside far outweighed the downside. Putin said, “That’s the beauty of it, Andre. We don’t have to direct them at all. Once they start their attacks, they promised to focus them in Europe and the U.S. for a solid week. We have no say in their targets or what operatives are used, and we just let it run its course. Even if it’s only a few days, I believe it will leave the Americans reeling. It will be like a virus. Once the operation has used up all of its power, it will simply disappear.”
Simplov jumped in. “We will let our two great enemies, the West and the radical Muslims, fight it out and deplete their own forces.”
“No one will know how to respond,” Putin said. “Look at France after the Paris attacks. Their law enforcement was busy for months, but they still only caught a dozen terrorists total. Magnify that by five separate attacks, ten, fifty. The attacks will be physical, psychological, and cyber. No one will know how to respond. As a bonus, the jihadists will not be bothering Russia. At least for a while.”
Putin waited while Andre absorbed all this. The older man was cautious, but he was also intelligent and experienced. Only a fool would ignore his advice. He understood the Americans, and especially the American diplomats, better than just about anyone.
“It could work,” Andre said. “At least temporarily. But once you start any sort of incursion into Estonia, NATO will respond. Estonia is a member of NATO, and they will have no option but to respond to a military attack.”
Now Putin said, “Will it? Would you? Is Estonia worth it?”
“I’m telling you NATO will have to respond.”
Putin stood and waved his finger like a professor addressing his class. “I think that’s where you’re wrong, Andre. They have to act. That’s different than responding. They could act by pushing resolutions through the UN. Maybe they even launch a few airstrikes. But if the past is our guide, NATO will follow the U.S. lead, and the U.S. has not taken action against us in years.”
“And the European Union,” Andre said, “cannot survive without our natural gas.”
Putin clapped his hands together and said, “Exactly my point. Now is the time to act. If we wait, we could end up with another Texan in the White House, or worse, a Floridian. Who knows what the next president will do, but I doubt we’ll ever be as lucky as we are right now.”
Putin liked the grin that was spreading across Andre’s face as he seemed to consider all the possible outcomes.
* * *
Derek Walsh sucked in a breath so he had an easier time sliding behind the computer monitor. He took a quick look around to make sure no one had noticed, but it was already too late. From three cubicles down he heard, “Hey, Derek, I thought once you were a marine you always stayed in shape.” He knew the jibe came from Cheryl Kravitz, the team leader of his group that specialized in currency transactions for Thomas Brothers Financial. Since the crash, Thomas Brothers had shot up to become one of the leading financial houses along with Morgan Stanley and Chase. The growth had been stunning even in the two years Walsh had been working there. Too bad it didn’t show in his pay. The company had hired him as part of a “hire a vet” campaign, but it was only lip service. He was still just a financial grunt.
He looked down at his belly and knew that he’d let his fitness slide since his discharge. But it wasn’t exactly like he was doing push-ups every day in the service, either. He’d been a captain in charge of logistics and finances, with his only real combat experience coming when he forced his way onto a Black Hawk for patrol in the Korengal Valley during the war in Afghanistan and a couple of attacks on the base. He counted the nine shots he got off in a brief firefight as combat experience, but he’d trade it now to lose thirty pounds.
Walsh just smiled and nodded at Cheryl. Slender and standing almost six feet tall in her heels, she rarely missed anything that went on in the office.
He’d thought about his overall physical shape more in the last three weeks since he’d attended the funeral of his friend and fellow marine Ron Jackson. The major had died in a terror attack in Berlin, of all places. But there had been more attacks on U.S. interests by jihadists, mainly from the Islamic State—or, as the marines called the movement, Daesh, which could be confused with an Arabic word for stepping on something and was considered by some as a slight. New York had seen two attacks: a bomb in the subway that killed a Dutch tourist and shut down the green line for two days, and a modified anthrax attack in the air-conditioning system of a sporting goods store. There were still three people in the hospital over that.
Walsh had seen his other two close friends in Arlington at the funeral. Bill Shepherd was tall and lanky and still in the Corps. Mike Rosenberg was working at the CIA but looked like he’d pass any fitness test for any branch of the service. It made Walsh resent his nickname, “Tubby,” for the first time since he’d earned it.
The fact that he had rented a tiny SoHo apartment and didn’t have far to walk most nights proved he made too little money and spent too little energy. It was a tiny hovel that he sublet from sublettors who had it under rent control. He didn’t even have his name on any official documents for the apartment and got all his mail at the office.
He missed his old team from the 2nd Marines. They were like brothers, and he had lost one to a conflict most Americans only knew from the nightly news. His new employment had teams as well, but they were nothing like a Marine unit. Thomas Brothers team members were a different breed. He was considered fit and tough on these teams. It was embarrassing. A twenty-three-year-old Princeton grad had yelled at him the other day.
Each of the six members of this team was involved in staggering transactions every day, but it never got to Cheryl. She stuck to a schedule of getting up at 5:00 A.M. and checking the exchanges, going to the gym, then staying in the office until after sunset every day except Friday. Then she did the unthinkable and sometimes left the office by six o’clock, whether it was summer or winter, sunny or gray.
All this occurred under the benevolent and watchful eye of Ted Marshall, the supervisor for his section and ultimate leader of three full teams. That made him similar to a major in the marines, but Ted worked hard to be liked. He was the guy who asked about your family. Cheryl was the one who told you that you didn’t have time to see them.
At his desk, Walsh inserted his plastic-encased USB security plug into a secure terminal on the side of the lightning-fast computer. The plug was slightly larger than a USB thumb drive and had three lights on the side that flashed when it completed different tasks. It was safer than just a password and allowed the company to see exactly who was involved in the transaction. He still needed to enter an eight-digit password, and if he lost the security plug, virtually no one would have any idea what the damn thing was; besides, it could only work on a Thomas Brothers network. He always needed it on overseas transfers but not on routine work within their own trading house. Sometimes he’d have to use the plug three times in a week, or he could go three weeks without using it. Such was the life of a scrub at Thomas Brothers Financial. Lots of paperwork and trading within the company for clients he never got to meet.
Today he was just checking an account, not making any trades or transactions. He glanced at his watch and realized it was approaching six o’clock, or after midnight in Sarajevo, where he was checking on $4 million in Canadian currency that was in escrow. Some poor schlub like him was working overnight to prepare the final transaction in Europe. He felt for the guy. He needed this to be done quickly because his girlfriend, Alena, expected to meet him before six thirty. There were a lot of things Walsh was willing to do, but disappointing his girlfriend of two years was not one of them. He had known her two years, anyway, and felt confident he could call her his girlfriend of eleven months. If he could only work up the nerve, he’d present her with the engagement ring he’d bought nearly three weeks earlier and had stashed in the top drawer of his desk. He’d used the last of his savings from the marines and now worried about paying his day-to-day bills. For now he was content to make Alena happy by being on time and buying her a nice sushi dinner. He was still a little sheepish from his experience in Germany when he was the paymaster at Camp Panzer Kaserne. His mixup with a local girl who stole his company credit cards and charged a fortune could’ve gotten him a few years in Leavenworth. She claimed Walsh was part of the scheme. Thank God for good JAG lawyers and a judge who recognized the truth. It was just a petty crime, but it had scarred him, or at least greatly embarrassed him.
As soon as he had checked the escrow, he scurried to his own cubicle and made sure nothing had come up in the last twenty minutes while he was away from his desk. This was the tricky part: sliding out of the office without anyone noticing. It was never good to be the first one done for the day. No one ever noticed if you arrived at seven o’clock every morning, but everyone picked up on someone creeping out of the office first. This was high finance. Medical emergencies were put on hold to transfer money. Children’s activities were the stuff of legend, and anniversaries past the third year were virtually unheard of.
He checked his watch—6:17. He felt a brief surge of panic and pictured Alena being hit on by some lawyer, or worse, some photographer who wanted her to be a model in his creepy midtown studio. He shuddered at the thought. The Columbia international affairs grad student from Greece was too sweet to recognize a come-on like that. Life in Larissa or Athens was a little simpler than in New York.
Just as he glanced in the tiny mirror on his desk to flatten out the cowlick in his short brown hair and make sure he didn’t have any food crusted around his mouth, Ted Marshall stopped at his desk and said, “You’re moving a lot of transactions lately, Derek. Glad we took advantage of that program to grab guys like you coming out of the service. I always pictured marines climbing up hills and shooting little Asian dudes. It never occurred to me the Corps needed financial managers, too. Keep up the good work.”
Walsh just gave him a quick nod and mumbled, “Thanks, Ted.” It’d taken him a while to get away from adding a “sir” or “ma’am” to virtually every remark. He’d called Ted “Mr. Marshall” for the first week he was here until the portly manager told him to knock it off. He tried to keep his manners intact no matter how difficult it was in this odd social maze of money wonks, computer nerds, and financial sharks. Each of them needed the others to survive, but no one wanted to mix with the others.
He screwed up the courage to casually stand and slowly walk toward the men’s room. No one seemed to notice as they each focused on their own work and the room buzzed with a certain energy he’d never felt anywhere else. Once he was past the men’s room, it was an easy few steps to the stairwell. He went down two floors by foot, then imagined the bloom of perspiration building under his arms and slipped off at the twenty-ninth floor just in time to catch an express elevator to the lobby. God was with him.
He couldn’t help but look at his watch as the elevator door opened in the lobby and saw that he somehow had to make it seven blocks in about four minutes to be on time. He carried a simple zippered notebook instead of a briefcase, and his security plug was secure at the bottom of his inside coat pocket. The marines had taught him the importance of habit and keeping your uniform, no matter what it happened to be, clean and neat at all times.
He slipped out the glass door to cut across the courtyard and onto Nassau Street. He still wasn’t certain which would be faster, a cab or an all-out sprint. At the bottom of the stairs two figures stepped in front of him and blocked his way. Walsh mumbled, “Excuse me,” and started to spin to his left, but one of the men held out his arm to stop him.
All it took was one good breath to know exactly who these two were. They were part of the new Stand Up to Wall Street movement. Some of his coworkers called them the “aggravate movement,” since they were a little more on the aggressive side than the Occupy people from a few years earlier.
One of the men, in his midtwenties and a little shorter than Walsh’s six feet one, said, “What’s the hurry, big guy? You need to rush home to your Park Avenue penthouse?”
The other man, a few years older, got right in his face and said, “How do you sleep at night doing the things you do?”
Walsh ignored them and tried to step past. One of the men grabbed him by the arm, and Walsh realized this was about to turn ugly.
* * *
Major Anton Severov used his Zeiss-Jena knock-off Russian binoculars to scan the low rise of the hills surrounding the town of Kingisepp, about eight miles from the border of Estonia and the city of Narva. His units were slowly maneuvering into place, with the main objective of not being noticed. For the past year they had been conducting war games in the area in and around Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the Kremlin had planned, but so far no one seemed to really care. Severov had been a tanker his entire career, but he fought against the stereotype of the slow-witted brute. Sure, the MiG pilots and the intelligence people had time to dress in the most stylish of uniforms and were the envy of every man at a party, but in every war the Soviet Union and then Russia had been involved in, it was tankers who really led the way. His command vehicle was a T-90 tank with a 125 mm smoothbore main gun. Aside from a brief skirmish in Georgia, he hadn’t had the chance to see what the tank could do. Afghanistan was long over by the time he joined the service. Now it was the Americans’ problem.
There was renewed optimism as Vladimir Putin had proven to the world Russia was not a dying superpower. Ukraine had found that out the hard way. Now they were poised to make a bold move into Estonia. A NATO partner. That might not have been the exact orders, but Severov was no idiot. He spoke English almost as well as Russian and subscribed online to The New York Times. He’d visited the U.S. three separate times, all of them on official passports back when relations between the two countries were much warmer. He knew their soldiers were tough and well trained, but he also knew there weren’t enough of them in Eastern Europe. There had barely been enough in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, but now, being preoccupied in the Middle East trying to act as a policeman, the U.S. had virtually forgotten about commitments to the countries of Europe.
The plans for a rapid deployment force had foundered, and the best the U.S. could do was base a dozen F-16s in Estonia, as a warning not to cross the border, and park a few outdated tanks on bases scattered across the country. Severov doubted that would be enough to influence Russian policy. The Russian hierarchy had calculated that no one would go to war over Estonia. Just like Crimea. There would be an outcry and a few useless sanctions, but the U.S. president did not have the spine to stand up to Vladimir Putin and everyone knew it. Especially Putin.
A smile spread across Severov’s face as he saw that all the tanks had settled in under trees and spread camouflage netting so that satellites would have a difficult time picking up the movement. He wasn’t even worried about flights overhead. No one from NATO had bothered to fly a jet through Estonia or Latvia in the past three weeks. They were still bitching about Ukraine.
He knew the orders would come soon. He’d been told to settle down and keep his men fed, rested, and engaged. If that wasn’t a precursor to war, nothing was.
* * *
Walsh felt the man’s hand on his bicep and resisted the urge to turn toward him; instead he locked his arm to his body and turned away quickly, tossing the man into his partner. Now they turned on him with fire in their eyes. These didn’t seem like the peaceful Stand Up to Wall Street people he’d gotten used to seeing urinating in the flowerpots and dozing under the trees and in the green spaces. He didn’t want to crouch and give away his intentions, as he kept his eyes on both men, who were now separating slowly, making it difficult for him to face both of them at once.
He felt a third hand on his right shoulder. This one was gentle and barely startled him. Then the soft voice acted like a tranquilizer as he heard his girlfriend, Alena, say, “Let these men go. They’re just confused.”
That seemed to catch the younger man’s attention. He looked at her and said, “Why are we confused?”
“Because you don’t even know what you’re protesting. Everyone is against unlawful financial transactions, but none of you are qualified to know who’s an honest banker and who is not. None of you even have jobs.” Her light accent added flair to the comment.
The other man leveled his gaze at her and said, “How do you know we don’t have jobs?”
Now Walsh ended the conversation and stepped toward the man, saying, “Because you guys hang out here all day.” He let the frustration bleed into his voice. Even if it was a reasonable cause, who could take it seriously? These guys weren’t even homeless. They just chose to not work and live off their parents.
Walsh allowed Alena to turn him as she said, “I knew you’d be running late, so I thought I’d surprise you. But I desperately have to use your restroom, and they won’t let me in the building without you.” She carried an overcoat draped over the wide portfolio she always had nearby.
He couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder at the two men one last time as he heard a rally at the far end of the plaza begin. Walsh used the security keypad to get back into the building. He made sure no one but Alena was watching when he punched in his password of 73673734—which spelled Semper Fi on a phone—and walked Alena to the ladies’ room. Alena charmed the guard at the security desk into letting her leave her portfolio and coat behind the desk until they were done with dinner. The flustered guard only asked if she would be back by ten, when his shift ended. She threw him a glittering smile and flipped her blond hair as she nodded yes. They were both happy with the transaction.
Alena turned to Walsh as they neared the restroom and surprised him with a full hug and kiss on the lips. Then she whispered in his ear, “You’re so cute.”
A smile spread across his face as he decided she was the prettiest girl who had ever whispered in his ear.
* * *
Joseph Katazin, born Joseph Ladov, had spent most of his adult life in the United States, the majority of that in Brooklyn or Queens. His father had been a mathematician at the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University, and his mother a music teacher from Kiev. All Joseph had ever wanted to do was be a soldier. Just like little boys all over the world. It had been difficult to go against his father’s wishes, but he was accepted into the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and, at the tender age of twenty-one, virtually tumbled out of school and into combat in Afghanistan. That was a treacherous stretch of three years, fighting insurgents who were heavily backed by the United States. That fact didn’t hit home until the Hind helicopter he was riding in was struck by an American-made Stinger and went down in the Eshpi Valley in the Southern Hindu Kush. He’d survived on his wits and an AK-47 with four magazines of ammo. The crash had injured his back and given him a gash from his hairline to his chin on the left side of his face, which now, at fifty-one, had faded to a thin white line that crossed his lips and gave them a slight indentation. He noticed it every time he smiled, and that made him remember why he hated the United States so much.
The time was drawing near for him to feel some level of satisfaction. After the service, when he returned home from Afghanistan, his father let him in on a family secret: His mathematics degree had helped him work with the KGB on cracking codes. As a result of his work, he knew several high-ranking KGB officials who took the young Joseph under their wing. They appreciated his service, and a scar on his face tended to remind people that the KGB wasn’t a group of accountants or technical people trying to eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Occasionally they did serious work and needed serious people.
Ladov’s ability to speak English at his mother’s insistence, starting at a very early age, as well as his ability to play the piano, also due to his mother’s iron will, made the Russian spy agency realize he could be used for a number of things other than terrorizing prisoners to get information. Eventually he traveled to the United States using the name Joseph Katazin and never used the name Ladov again. For more than a year he attempted gainful employment as a pianist, but even the KGB gave up on that and instead helped him establish the European Trading Company, a somewhat successful import and export business.
Eventually Katazin married a plump but pretty girl who had just graduated from Stony Brook, a Long Island branch of the State University of New York system. As an elementary school teacher, she was an excellent cover. Over the years, however, Katazin had to admit he had developed feelings for her, and now, sixteen years later, with a twelve-year-old daughter, he was quite comfortable in his life and essentially happy.
His wife, of course, had no idea about his background or main occupation. He told her a dog had bitten him when he was a child and left a scar on his face. The bullet hole in his leg was explained as a hunting accident and the reason he shied away from guns now. She was occasionally loving and attentive and more frequently a suspicious shrew. That was partially his fault—he enjoyed the occasional tryst and had been careless in some of his liaisons. His wife had accepted the fact that her husband worked extraordinary hours; after all, he had provided her with a very comfortable house in an upscale area of Brooklyn.
On this evening he was sitting on a bench in the Wall Street district waiting to see confirmation that the start of Russia’s biggest operation in years had been successful. He was looking at the rear of the building that housed Thomas Brothers Financial and could barely contain his smile when he saw the beautiful young blonde walking out of the building arm in arm with the tall young man in a suit, one side of his shirt untucked from his pants. Katazin knew the man was a former marine, and although he had apparently gained a little weight, he looked like he could handle himself in a fight.
On one hand, Katazin felt guilty ruining a fellow soldier’s life. On the other hand, this was the enemy and a necessary casualty on the new Russia’s march toward glory. There was a saying that soldiers were the same the world over and shared a certain brotherhood. This one was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Katazin was too good at his job to let the opportunity pass.
3
Derek Walsh had enjoyed the short walk from the sushi restaurant back to his office with Alena on his arm. He loved just spending time with her. She had earned his trust by little things, like not questioning his travel when he visited his mom in Philly, or his buddies from the marines. And although he was keenly aware that she was a prize that a low-earning former marine probably didn’t deserve, she had never given him reason to question her fidelity. Little by little she had become an important part of his life, a trusted confidant he could share his insecurities about his job with and never worry about her blabbing his secrets.
The stroll was far superior to the minuscule meal he’d just eaten and paid a fortune for. There was something about his time in the marines and living on a captain’s salary that made him flinch at paying more than seventy dollars for a couple of pieces of bait slapped on top of rice. It didn’t matter that he now made a little more money; no one was paying for his living quarters or food, and he lived in Manhattan. These dates were killing him. The three sixteen-ounce Ichiban beers he’d thrown down helped ease his annoyance at not taking in enough calories.
As they approached the building his cell phone rang, and he looked at his girlfriend as a matter of manners to see if she minded him answering the call.
Alena smiled and nodded as she pointed to the front door, saying she was going to retrieve her coat and portfolio. He nodded back and was hustling toward the security pad to enter his code when he saw the guard rushing to the door to let her in. So much for security if you had blond hair and a great smile.
As soon as Walsh had the receiver to his ear, he heard the clear and unmistakable voice of his former classmate from the Naval Academy, Michael Rosenberg.
“Tubby! I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Walsh couldn’t hide his smile at hearing the nickname he’d earned in Germany. It was true that after his stint in Afghanistan, the German food and beer seemed to slap on weight. “Hey, Mike. I’m still at the office.”
“I know that’s got to be bullshit. You probably just finished eating dinner at some fancy restaurant in the area.”
“And that’s why you managed to land such a good government job.” Walsh was happy his friend had been recruited by the CIA. It fit perfectly with his assignment as G-2 in their unit in Afghanistan and Germany. As an intelligence officer with the marines, Rosenberg could mix in virtually any circle and had an analytical mind that could rival the best computer Apple could spit out. Walsh patted his belly and realized it was in stark contrast to the wiry Rosenberg, who would use a ten-mile run as a warm-up. “So what’s up?”
Rosenberg said, “Just thinking about Ron and the funeral. Then Bill Shepherd called. He’s training with some of the local NATO defense forces in case Russia acts up again.”
“What would a small marine unit do against tanks?”
“Fight, baby, fight. What else? Besides, they’ve already trained with a bunch of local soldiers. They would lead an interesting force if it came to that.”
“Is there intel Russia will move?”
“There are always rumors that Putin has something up his sleeve. They’re in bad shape economically, and that makes them dangerous. But there’s no specific intel right now. Shep is just being a good marine officer and getting prepared. I also think he’s trying to keep his mind occupied.”
“Were you able to talk to Bill for a while? He was closer to Ron. He still saw him all the time in Germany.”
“Just for a few minutes. He says it’s not the same with us gone. The G-4 who took your place is useless. Doesn’t keep their supplies up to date and is hard to talk to about issues. Not what you want in a unit like that.”
Walsh appreciated the vote of confidence. Ron Jackson, Bill Shepherd, and Mike Rosenberg had stood by him during the entire ordeal over the finances of the company. After a moment of silence Walsh said, “Anything going on at work you can talk about?”
“Only in person. You know this is my personal phone. I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
“That’s just you adjusting to the natural paranoia of a government employee.” He saw Alena leaving the building and waving to the security guard inside and said to his friend, “Mike, I gotta go. I’m on a date.”
“Are you still dating the hot Greek chick?”
“I am.” Saying it made him smile from ear to ear.
“Roger that, Tubby. I just called to say hello. Maybe I’ll come up this weekend and we can do something crazy.”
“I figured a guy with a job like yours wouldn’t set foot in a place like Times Square unless he was on duty.”
“From everything I can tell, Wall Street is as dangerous as any place in New York.”
Alena gave him another hug as he closed the phone. He didn’t bother to explain who was calling because she never seemed interested anyway. His heart rate increased as he felt Alena’s lovely body next to him, and he wondered if he’d get to see more of it. But that dream ended quickly.
Alena said, “I have an early class tomorrow morning. I think I’ll take a cab home.”
“I shouldn’t let you go by yourself.”
She let out a cute giggle, touched him on the nose, and said, “You and your sweet manners. I appreciate it, but I don’t know that I could keep you from coming upstairs. And I need to study a little more tonight.”
He flagged down a cab and kissed her good night, hoping she’d be free tomorrow.
* * *
Fannie Legat’s mother had been born in Algeria but raised in France. Her father was a banker, whose parents survived World War II but didn’t survive him marrying, as her grandfather said, a beur—a “melon,” the rudest of French terms for Arabs living in the country. Fannie barely remembered her father, who left them for a plump, blond Norwegian when she was just a little girl. They had languished in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve, about a ten-minute train ride outside the city, known as one of the largest slums for people of all nationalities the government had failed to integrate into the general population. It had been the scene of riots as well as devastating poverty. One of the street poets said, “The sun never shines in La Courneuve.”
By the time she was twelve, she was reconnecting with her Islamic roots. Her mother worked so many hours she barely noticed her daughter’s transformation, even when she donned a hijab after she reached puberty as a show of propriety. The headdress also concealed her growing anger toward the treatment of Muslims by all of the Western nations.
But someone in the French government had noticed her exceedingly good grades and by Allah’s grace she was admitted to EMLYON, a college of economics and finance in the eastern city of Lyon. It was in a class on international trade and economics that the seventeen-year-old Fannie met a twenty-two-year-old immigrant from Egypt named Naadir Al-Latif. He was the first to encourage her to embrace her heritage completely and led her to her new name of Yasmine Akram because he said it meant “most generous.” They both laughed at the idea of her gaining an expertise in money and also adopting that name.
It was through a small group of Muslim students that the new Yasmine Akram started to follow the teachings of what some Western governments would refer to as “radical clerics.” Their teachings turned on a light in her soul, and she realized it was her duty to contribute to the struggle Islam faced every day to convert others and dissuade nonbelievers from interfering in its activities.
A boring year of working in the financial district of Paris after graduation led her to jump at the chance to travel to Syria and support their version of the “Arab Spring.” But learning about fundamental Islam is not quite the same as living it day in and day out. The other fighters did not want a woman on the front lines, and she was relegated to helping the wounded and working in logistics. Her ability to speak French, German, and English made her invaluable in dealing with the outside contributors to their cause. She was shocked how many French firms willingly did business with anyone who had the money. They supplied arms to the Assad regime while also sending weapons to the rebels. It was one of the greatest capitalist schemes of all time. It made her both proud and ashamed of her home country.
Yasmine herself had other ideas about how she could contribute to the struggle. At five foot seven and athletically built, calling herself Abdul, she was able to reenter the rebel’s camp as a man and was given an AK-47 almost without question. She still embraced the first time she had a Syrian soldier in her gun sights: Watching him drop to the ground, lifeless, after a short burst from her assault rifle was a life-changing experience.
Her prowess on the battlefield soon came to the attention of some of the local commanders. One of the sharper young men recognized her for what she was and quietly pulled her off the line, introducing her to an entirely new set of soldiers for Islam. Some people called them the Islamic State or ISIS. Either way, they had big plans for spreading the conflict beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq. It would be a waste to have a young woman like her killed by artillery. With her lighter hair and the ability to speak several languages without accent, she could pass for French or German with very little effort. Besides, funding was becoming a major issue for their cause, and her background in economics made her that much more appealing a recruit. The successes of ISIS had been covered by world media with flair. Recapturing neglected cities from ill-trained Iraqi conscripts had made their efforts look heroic and the organization appear ready to take over the whole country, but the truth was much more complex. The group was constantly evolving, with splinter groups squabbling endlessly about everything from tactics to proper religious etiquette. The Islamic State had become less of a state and more of a movement. This would change with the upcoming operation. Fannie believed they were on the brink of a new era. After they were established, with a country and permanent funding, she could tackle the other issues that affected her, like the group’s view on women. “One battle at a time” was her private motto.
All that had led her to the Café Schilling on Charlottenstrasse in Böblingen, Germany, just outside Stuttgart. Now she only used the name Fannie Legat. Her main job while she was in the area was to plan attacks against U.S. military personnel and other targets if she were ordered to. But funding had been an issue for many months now. It seemed the Zionists and the Americans controlled most of the money in the world, at least to hear her superiors tell it. But it was true that attempting a large-scale attack required money. She had several confederates living comfortably in an apartment near the center of Stuttgart who had been running up tabs at local restaurants and other businesses. But the men were true believers and would gladly give their lives to help in the ongoing struggle.
As she sipped some coffee in the middle of the night at an outdoor table next to a palm tree—the café was trying to have a Mediterranean look—she noticed an athletic-looking U.S. Marine major with short brown hair, reading a report while picking at a piece of toast.
Maybe this could be an opportunity while she waited for funding to come through.
Copyright © 2017 by Lou Dobbs and James O. Born
