The Backup Asset (9 page)

Myatlev had to admit Abramovich moved fast when he really wanted something. Only a day after he had suggested to Abramovich that they bring Dimitrov back as defense minister, Myatlev had already been set up in a new office in the Ministry of Defense, on the top floor, right next to Dimitrov’s old quarters.

The Ministry of Defense was only minutes away from the Kremlin, at the center of Moscow. It was housed in a massive building as only communists could build; a gray, dull palace housing thousands of offices, a monument to communist bureaucracy.

Yet his new office was decorated to his modern, cosmopolitan taste, down to his favorite art pieces, cigar brands, and perfectly chilled bottle of Stolichnaya. His new assistant was young, very pretty, probably SVR, and judging by her smile, instructed to go to any length to fulfill his wishes. Yes, when he wanted, President Abramovich had class.

Dimitrov was already on his way in from the Caspian. He had boarded a flight immediately after accepting the reinstatement with enthusiasm. Abramovich wanted both of them to join him for a late lunch, to catch up and discuss new plans. New plans for his war . . . that was all he cared about.

Myatlev didn’t want to waste time waiting around for Dimitrov’s arrival. He had requested the files for all the top resources who Division Seven had enrolled, planning to interview them personally, one by one.

He looked at the first file, the most recent addition to Division Seven, a highly decorated intelligence officer by the name of Evgheni Aleksandrovich Smolin. He had built a reputation that he’d do anything to get the mission done, employing a variety of unusual methods in his tradecraft. Interesting.

A few minutes later, Smolin entered Myatlev’s office, saluting by the book, with a hint of almost imperceptible hesitation as he recognized Myatlev.

“You asked to see me, sir?”

“Take a seat, Smolin.”

“Sir.”

“Have you recruited foreign assets before, Smolin?”

“Yes, sir, for years.”

“What do you like most about it?”

“Sir?” Smolin frowned, trying to understand the meaning of the question.

“A man with your results must like what he does,” Myatlev clarified, tapping his fingers on Smolin’s personnel file. “So, again, what do you like the most about what you do?”

“Umm . . . The sense of power it gives me,” Smolin said after hesitating a little.

“Excellent,” Myatlev answered, reaching for a cigar and offering one to Smolin. “Almost like playing God, right?”

“Yes, sir.” Smolin ventured a faint smile.

He accepted the cigar with a nod and both men focused on lighting up for a while, savoring the thick smoke.

“How do you recruit, Smolin?” Myatlev resumed the interview.

“I offer the assets something they need. Money, solutions to their problems, umm . . . sex,” he said, unable to refrain a quick smile.

“Yes, I’ve heard that about you,” Myatlev laughed. “If it works, that’s fine by me.”

“Good to know, sir.”

“All right, Smolin, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to open your mind from working a localized asset into thinking wide nets, redundancies, and backups for every single source.”

“Sir?”

“Everyone is gettable, Smolin, everyone. If they don’t have a problem that we can fix in return for their intelligence, then let’s create one for them! It’s cheaper than paying for the intel anyway. I want you to organize the largest network of assets anyone has ever had, and extract every bit of intel you can get.”

“Intel on what, sir?”

“On everything,” Myatlev answered with a wicked smile. “We don’t know what we don’t know. Who knows what’s out there? Let’s put our ears to the ground and get everything we can.”

“How are we going to go through so much information?”

“I’ll organize a center for information processing; I’ll set it up on this end. You just get me the information; we’ll filter and analyze here, in Moscow. Then we’ll figure out what we need to pursue.”

“Sir, that’s highly unusual for an intelligence operation, I mean that with all due respect.”

“I know it is . . . but soon you’ll see the value of my plan,” Myatlev said, amused that Smolin challenged him. That meant he had a brain
and
a spine, both very useful assets for a foreign intelligence leader.

“Sir, if we’re not after a certain target in our intelligence efforts, then are we targeting a specific geographical area?”

“Yes,” Myatlev answered, “of course. The United States.”

“I am to build a network of assets in the entire United States, sir?”

“Precisely. Is this too large an operation for you to handle, Smolin?”

“No, sir, just making sure I understand the task correctly. There are almost a million Russian immigrants in the US. I have a good place to start.”

“Excellent. Anything else?”

“Umm . . . If I may, I was surprised to see you, a famously wealthy businessman, having an office here, and being involved in intelligence work, sir.”

“So you think that if I’m rich, my duties to Mother Russia suddenly cease to exist? I have taken an oath,” Myatlev said. “That oath goes with me to my grave.”

“Yes, sir, thank you. That is inspiring.”

“I started in intelligence, just like you, and I never stopped using the skills I have acquired. I used them in business just as much as I did in the early days of my intelligence career. And you’re right, Smolin, it’s all about the power, and what we can do with it for our country. So go out there, cast a wide net for us. Find ways in; establish an asset array. Grab that power for Mother Russia,” Myatlev ended his speech closing his fist in the air.

Judging by the inspired, almost fanatical look in Smolin’s eyes, Myatlev knew he’d chosen well. Smolin was going to do a great job. And yes, he was still good at this; he could still motivate people to go to their death if needed. He still had it in him.

Quentin let his briefcase drop to the floor as soon as he stepped inside his home. Closing the door behind him, he kicked off his shoes and started taking off his work clothes, in a hurry to separate himself from the awful day he’d had in the office.

He lived alone. He had gone through life without feeling the need for a family, and without being tempted to commit to one. There had been relationships in his life, but he managed to keep them at arm’s length somehow, breaking a few hearts in the process. That was why no one waited for him to come home from work, but he didn’t miss that.

He skipped his traditional routine involving a shower followed by a TV dinner, and poured himself a large bourbon instead. He went straight to his home office and powered up his laptop.

He took a big gulp of the distilled spirits, enjoying the sensation it left behind as it went down. It burned his throat, then warmed his stomach, and from there, seeped relaxation in his weary muscles. He massaged his high, prominent forehead, trying to dissipate the early signs of a headache, then opened his Web browser and clicked on one of his favorite links stored among the navigation bar favorites.

The browser immediately opened a site aptly named Rat Olympics, bearing the tag line, “A Cyber Café for the White-Collar Working Wounded.” He logged in and immediately received a welcome message accompanied by a familiar chime.

Welcome, DespeRatt—the system acknowledged him.

Several other users were logged in the chat room, and Quentin typed his first message without having someone specific in mind. Most users there were regulars, familiar with one another.

DespeRatt:
I’m having a terrible few days . . . hope it ends soon.

Another user quickly responded.

LostGirl:
What’s going on?

DespeRatt:
My free spirit is dying under the pressures of idiocy. Can’t stand it anymore
. . . I caught myself trying to figure out what he wants instead of doing what’s right.

LostGirl:
It can happen . . . it’s normal to cave under pressure at some point, we all do. Cut yourself some slack.

DespeRatt:
I’m turning conflict-adverse . . . a fucking coward! I can’t stand it anymore! WTF am I gonna do?

JustAnnonymous:
Move on, man, don’t cling to hell, or hell’ll cling to ya’.

LostGirl:
Yup, that’s right. Leaving your hell will seem like the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

DespeRatt:
What—and start over from scratch? Having to prove myself every day, not knowing whose ass to kiss? How’s that better?

JustAnnonymous:
How many years have you been there?

DespeRatt:
Almost thirteen.

JustAnnonymous:
That’s your problem. You’ve become codependent, forgotten how to fight, how to get out there and hunt. Wake up!

DespeRatt:
Fuck . . .

JustAnnonymous:
I’m willing to bet you don’t even have an updated résumé.

DespeRatt:
Okay, I’ll give you that, you win. I can update the damn résumé, but starting over and not being sure who’s who at the new place, etc.?

LostGirl:
Stop lying to yourself . . . don’t you have to prove yourself every day now, to an adverse manager no less? Do you know whose ass to kiss now? I seriously doubt it, ’cause if you did, you wouldn’t be in this bind.

DespeRatt:
Point taken. Arghhh . . . LostGirl, you have no mercy.

LostGirl:
Oh, but I do . . . I’m trying to set you free, dear Ratt.

DespeRatt:
True. Thank you for your brutal yet kind help.

LostGirl:
Repeat after me: fuck these bastards!

DespeRatt:
Yeah, fuck these bastards.

He raised his glass toward an invisible LostGirl and drank down the remnants of his bourbon.

JustAnnonymous:
Hear, hear!

DespeRatt:
Gotta go now, guys, got a résumé to write. SYT

LostGirl:
See you tomorrow, Ratt, and may your résumé writing be inspired.

Quentin closed the Rat Olympics browser window and opened a Google search page instead. He approached his task with the seriousness he engaged when working on a weapons systems project. Thorough, well documented, well researched, all calculations verified twice, and all steps written down for future reference.

He retrieved several sample defense engineer résumés off the Internet and looked through them. Things had changed dramatically in the past twelve years or so. His current résumé was well below expectations; it was a complete write-off.

He right-clicked on his desktop, created a new Word document, and renamed it QuentinHaddenResume.docx. Then he started typing.

She’d had a moment of inspiration while in the client’s office, working with Brian on his new case, and couldn’t wait to see if it made sense in front of her crazy wall. When she arrived home, she went straight to the blue bedroom, not even bothering to get rid of her high-heeled shoes, and pulled open the curtain hiding the corkboard timeline.

She’d been stuck in this long, boring planning session at the client’s firm, where her role was to observe who might have had a different agenda. While sitting and observing, her mind started speculating on how people gain access to positions of power. What makes them get it, what makes them seek it? What makes others want to be their followers?
We all want the same things,
she responded to her own thoughts.
We want achievement, financial stability, security for our families, and a sense of purpose.

So, then, what the hell could the mysterious Mr. X promised his followers? His followers had been some of the wealthiest men on Earth, natural born leaders, not followers. So how does one enroll the support of such moguls? What would they still want to achieve that they hadn’t already?

The answer was simple: a sense of purpose. The men who had it all had followed Mr. X, or V—if that piece of intel about his name would ever prove to be accurate—to gain or satisfy a sense of purpose.

Her initial thinking might have been wrong. She’d always assumed the common denominator had been the Islamic connection of all conspirators, which canned them as typical Islamist militant terrorists. But that didn’t tie into Russia’s beliefs, interests, or agendas at all. And V was definitely Russian; several sources had confirmed it. That’s why she couldn’t find V. He wasn’t about Islamism, or typical Muslim terrorism. He was about something else, something they all had in common, Muslims or not. Something she hadn’t thought of yet.

She stood in front of her crazy wall, eyes fixated on the Post-it note marked X. Her cell phone rang, startling her. Still thinking of Mr. X, she accepted the encrypted call.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Hey, Alex, it’s Brian. Did you send it?”

“Umm . . . send what?” she asked without thinking.

“Oh . . . you forgot,” Brian responded, his disappointment discernible in his voice. “You were going to send me the email activity logs for the product and R&D teams.”

Oh, shit
, she mouthed quietly as she heard Brian’s explanation.

“Oh, that,” she said, trying to fix it. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m on it as we speak. I thought you meant something else. You’ll have it in just a few, Brian.”

She ended the call with an irritated hand gesture and rushed to her laptop, swearing colorfully as she trotted in a hurry to make up some of the lost time. She hated to disappoint her team; yet lately it seemed that was all she was capable of doing.

Her old case was killing her, driving her crazy. She needed to close that chapter once and for all. She needed to catch the bastard.