The Backup Asset (22 page)

“Yes,” she said, absorbing everything and putting it into the perspective of her mission. “Thank you, Captain Meecham, I think I’m good from here,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Please let me know if you have any other questions. You haven’t worked on Navy ships before, have you?”

“N–no, just got the assignment, but thank you for the tour, it was very informative,” she replied without skipping a beat. You have a fantastic ship, captain.”

He smiled and then quickly disappeared.

She turned her attention toward the Walcott team and started approaching Sylvia and Bob, who were still engulfed in their dispute. She decided to spend a little more time watching them from a distance, and stopped near the hangar door. In the meantime, Vern had made his appearance and was working intently on his laptop, installed on a makeshift table.

She heard a faint noise to her left and caught a glimpse of a young sailor sneaking carefully through a bulkhead. He looked left, then right, carefully making sure no one saw him.

“Hi,” she said, surprising him.

He looked down, averting her eyes. He was young, maybe not even twenty years old, and had tousled red hair and the freckled complexion that typically accompanies that hair color. He looked scared, almost as if someone was chasing him, or was about to.

“It’s OK,” she said, “I’m a civilian consultant. Out to smoke?”

He nodded sheepishly, blushing copiously, and throwing guilty glances left and right.

“I don’t really care, you know,” she continued, “go ahead and smoke if you want. It’ll be our little secret.”

The sailor nodded and mumbled something that sounded like “thanks,” then disappeared through the same bulkhead he’d appeared from.

Huh . . . she thought. He’s quite stressed out for someone who just wanted to smoke. I wonder what the deal is with him.

“Sir, with all due respect, she’s a civilian!” Jeremy’s voice escalated to the point where SAC Taylor frowned and felt the need to stand up, to assert his position.

“Weber, this is an order, not a debate. If SecNav and the director think she’s good enough to work this case, she’s in. Need I remind you no one here wants to work with you? I have no other partner to give you, and sure as hell you’re not working this case alone, in your typical cowboy style.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeremy replied.

“Let’s see how you make it work with Hoffmann. I better not hear from the director on this issue, do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir, perfectly,” he said, and turned to leave.

“And Weber.” Taylor called.

“Sir?”

“Don’t fuck this up.”

The modified Kalashnikov rifle made for an interesting choice of tabletop lamp, fitted with a black lampshade. It was unexpected and attention grabbing to see such a weapon displayed so casually. The unusual décor features gave the restaurant its unique personality: sassy, vibrant, screaming high-end cuisine and ridiculous prices. A hangout place for Moscow’s socialites and top politicians, Bon’s black walls, curtains, and accessories contrasted strongly with the white, starched Damascus tablecloths.

The typical lunch hour buzzed with guests, whose reservations had been made at least two days in advance to get a table. That Monday was different though; the restaurant was eerily quiet, and only two men occupied a table. Vitaliy Myatlev and his friend and lunch guest, Mikhail Dimitrov, minister of defense of the Russian Federation.

There were four other men in the restaurant, all standing guard at the doors, carrying automatic weapons. They were Myatlev’s personal guards, all ex-Spetsnaz. As for the servers, they moved almost unseen and unheard, catering to their guests’ connoisseur tastes and healthy appetites as discreetly as they could.

A waiter brought hors d’oeuvres on a set of black plates combined with tiny white bowls, all placed on a sterling silver serving tray. Then he opened a chilled bottle of Stolichnaya, filled their glasses, and withdrew quietly, leaving the two men to talk business.

“Ura!” Myatlev raised his glass, holding it up until Dimitrov clinked his own against it.

“Ura!”

They drank and set down the glasses noisily, a signal for the waiter to approach and refill them.

“It’s good to be out of the office, Vitya, great idea you had to take us out for lunch,” Dimitrov said, taking a piece of fried calamari and savoring it. “I have so many questions for you, after we talked last time. This plan of yours, the mass intelligence gathering, that made me think . . .”

“Yes, Mishka?”

“And the more I think, the more questions I have.” Dimitrov paused a little, delved into a miniature shrimp salad, and chewed with his mouth open.

“What do you want to know?”

“Look, between the two of us we can build a strong plan to rebuild the power of Russia to what it used to be. No doubt about that. Petya believes in us; I believe in us even more. But something I still don’t get, and that is how will you know what intelligence to gather? How are you thinking you can manage and process all that information?”

“If we apply enough pressure on our sources, they will tell us what we need to be looking for, even if we don’t know it yet,” Vitya said, starting to work on his appetizer, a tiny stack of blini, small crepes layered with smoked salmon and doused in a light, savory mayonnaise.

“You told me that last time we spoke, but still I don’t get it. What exactly are you planning to do? We need to get ready to go to war, Vitya. We can’t continue to sit on our asses and look impotent.”

“We are going to war, Mishka. We are at war as we speak. I call it our total war and it started already. There are no innocent bystanders in my strategy, and no one is safe from it. Our handlers will apply the necessary coercion on a variety of sources. Some will deliver; some will fail, or get caught, and will be the casualties of this first stage of total war. But they will be an acceptable loss, Mishka, even if these losses will hit the Russian diaspora living in the United States.”

“You’re targeting the diaspora?” Dimitrov’s eyebrows ruffled, brought together by a deep frown.

“No, but they are the keystones in my plan. They will be the first level of field assets, resources we can use in our deployment of Division Seven agents in the field. You see, given what we’re trying to do and how fast we need to compensate for twenty years of nonexistent military progress, I need to go big, Mishka. I need to go big and fast.”

“I understand, but how will it all come together?”

“Our handlers will recruit assets without a clear agenda in the first phase, leaving it to the assets to fight to prove their value. We cannot do that with incentives without spending billions; we talked about that. That’s why we need to bring more stick than carrot. We can achieve this level of engagement only if we use fear as our currency, and we coerce them into fighting on our side. Then we harness all the bits and pieces of information they will bring, and we will see clusters appear, signaling what we should target.”

“What clusters?” Dimitrov asked, while his eyebrows still furrowed.

“In the massive amount of data we are going to harvest, multiple sources of information will bring pieces of intel around certain items of interest. I’ve assigned a few of my brightest people to study big data analysis models and come back with plan scenarios. If we cast a wide enough net, we will start seeing clusters of value in certain areas, especially if the assets feel pressured or highly motivated to prove their own value.”

“But the diaspora might not necessarily have access to such valuable intel,” Dimitrov objected.

“Agreed. The diaspora is just the entry point and the support layer for our handlers. We will use the American big data banks and their own patterns of behavior to identify who are the most easy to turn individuals. The Americans have huge databases, but not very secure; nothing that our cyber assets can’t get into.”

“And then?” Dimitrov asked, still unconvinced, while the waiter discreetly removed the appetizer tray and served them hot borscht in small, black bowls.

“Then, when we have clusters formed and identified, we will know what to hunt for, and we’ll send in assets dedicated to certain targets. Let me give you an example of what I mean,” Myatlev said, seeing the unconvinced look linger on Dimitrov’s face. “The laser cannon, did we even know it existed until a week ago?”

“N–no,” Dimitrov replied, visibly uncertain of where Myatlev was going with that.

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “We didn’t know it existed before we sent in our best handler, Smolin, to enroll some assets and see what he could get. He enrolled an asset who brought the laser cannon news to us. Now we know exactly what we need, what to ask for. Smolin has a clear direction on what information he needs to target. He knows we need the plans for the cannon, the list of scheduled installations, everything there is to know about the cannon, about the same laser cannon we didn’t know existed last week.”

“Bozhe moi, I get it, Vitya, you are a genius!”

“Now you see? We’ll continue doing this on a large scale, unofficially declaring our total war, and more such nuggets of information will come our way. Anyone can be an asset for us.”

“Why do you call this a total war? We’re not firing a single bullet.”

“There will be losses of all kinds, even from the ranks of the diaspora. We will apply pressure on many people, and not everyone will survive without being caught, killed, tortured, and so on. But we can’t afford to care, Mishka, we just can’t. Not when we have twenty years of stagnation and obsolescence to make up for . . . not when we have to go to war and win!”

“Na zdorovie!” Dimitrov raised his glass and cheered, then gulped down another shot.

“Na zdorovie!” Myatlev followed suit happily.

“How many handlers do you have? How many can you send in the field?”

“I’ve sent our best so far, Smolin. I have others that I’m preparing to send. I found another gem, a captain by the name of Anatoly Karp. That one can turn Jesus Christ into a spy, Mishka. Given enough time, that one can turn you!”

Both men burst into laughter.

“But you only have a few, Vitya, how are you going big with just a few handlers? Abramovich doesn’t have the patience to wait for you to build your ranks.” Dimitrov’s cheerfulness was gone, replaced by a look of worry brought by the thought of the irascible and bellicose Russian president, eager to start his vengeance war as soon as possible.

“I am building an intelligence infrastructure, Mishka, just like we had in the old days. The handlers are leading the deployment, then the diaspora operates as a second level. Some of them are still willing to fight and give their lives for Russia, even if they’re now American citizens. And for those who won’t, well, the handlers can find ways to be persuasive. I’ve chosen handlers who don’t take no for an answer, and who won’t stop until they get the job done.”

“You’re the businessman, Vitya, this is right up your alley. Just be careful, because that’s what you said last time, that your plan can’t fail, and it did.”

Vitya ran his hand over his forehead and against his buzz-cut graying hair.

“I still don’t know what went wrong with that one,” he said quietly, after a few seconds of silence. “It should have never happened. I thought of everything. It was almost like I had an enemy out there, someone so decided to foil my plan that it almost felt personal. Someone who could see through the complexities of what I’d laid out to perfection on a global scale. Did you know they’re all dead? All the players? Apparently unrelated accidents of all sorts, but I’m no idiot, Mishka, they all died within less than a week,” he said, unaware he was wringing his hands almost convulsively, in a rare display of frustration and resentment. “If someone’s cleaning up, why am I still here?”

“I didn’t know they’re all dead,” Dimitrov replied quietly. “No one told me.”

“You were sick, Mishka, fighting for your life. I didn’t need to burden you with my nightmares. You have no idea how many nights I’ve spent awake in bed thinking of what could have gone wrong, and I can’t think of anything.” He rubbed his head again, then continued, suddenly refreshed and in control of his emotions, “But I promise you, this time we’ll get the job done.”

“Good,” a thoughtful, almost gloomy Dimitrov replied. “You focus on getting us the intel, while I work on getting the military ready for our war. They’re unprepared, untrained, sloppy. The commanders have grown lazy and fat, while their livers are giving up on them, dying of cirrhosis. Just like you found your handlers, I have to find my future generals.” He stopped talking for a while, sipping a few spoons of borscht. “We’re thinking a nuclear strike might be possible, preemptive, or defensive, but these men aren’t ready for any of that. Not yet, anyway.”

“Can you talk to Abramovich?” Myatlev asked, halfheartedly. The Russian president wasn’t open to such suggestions, nor was he willing to listen to the voices of reason.

“You know there’s no way I can get Abramovich to give us some more time. Any day now he could wake up one morning and decide he wants to push the button, and we better be fucking ready when he does, otherwise we’re finished . . . screwed to the bone.”

They both reflected quietly on that perspective for a while, eating absently, engulfed in their own troublesome thoughts. Then Myatlev changed direction.

“I love the idea of rebuilding Russia, Mishka, but I don’t like the idea of war that much. War can be bad for business, you know.”

Both men savored their food for a minute, then Dimitrov answered, “It doesn’t have to be. War creates a lot of need, and maybe you can help your country with that.”

Myatlev’s face lit up a little.

“Maybe it’s time to diversify my business portfolio. What do you anticipate the military will need?”

“Many things; I’ll make a list. Guns. Helicopters. Ammunition. New tanks, new ships, new weapons technology. Manufacturing the technology you’re going to steal for us with your new network of spies. Not to say that in the event of a nuclear strike, we have almost nothing, no protective equipment, limited countermeasures, and nearly no contingencies. The same goes for biological and chemical warfare; we might even go that route. Who knows what Abramovich decides to do . . .”

“Just send me your list and quantities, and let me know if you have a preference as to where these items should be manufactured. Whatever you need done, you’ll have done. You can count on me.”

“I am. And I hope you won’t forget your friends, when war brings its windfall your way.”

Myatlev filled their glasses with vodka to the brim.

“To a war that’s good for business, ura!” he cheered and downed his glass.

“To old friends and a new Russia, ura!” Dimitrov replied cheerfully.

The waiter gave them a few seconds to finish their round of drinks, then cleaned away the empty borscht bowls and brought in their steaks.