Command Authority

22

With all the badges, business cards, equipment, and swagger of a group of independent journalists, Clark, Chavez, Driscoll, Caruso, and Biery landed at Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport just after nine in the morning. They were met by a man Clark had hired to use as a fixer for the duration of their operation.

Igor Kryvov was a former member of Ukraine’s Security Service’s Alpha group, a paramilitary Spetsnaz force used for hostage and counterterror scenarios, and he’d also served as an assaulter on Domingo Chavez’s team in Rainbow. He was now retired from that life, having picked up a disability during a training accident when his main parachute failed to open and his reserve chute caught high winds that sent him slamming awkwardly into the ground. He’d broken both legs and shattered his pelvis, and he’d nearly bled to death from the compound fractures.

When he learned his injuries would prevent him from returning to active duty with Rainbow, he took a job as a beat cop with the Kiev municipal police, and while doing so, he earned a master’s degree in criminal intelligence. For a short time he was an investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but he had no interest in the corruption rife within the organization. His insistence on playing by the book soured his relationship with his employers, so now he was in the private sector, freelancing in security work and taking jobs as a fixer — essentially, a glorified tour guide for foreigners doing business in the city of 2.8 million.

As a result of his injuries, Kryvov walked with a slight stoop and a pronounced limp, but despite his surgeries and his long history of professional violence, he always wore a smile on his face.

“Colonel Clark!” he said as he shook John’s hand on the tarmac. “Good to see you again.”

“Hi, Igor. I really appreciate you agreeing to work with us.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been so bored driving CNN reporters around from one protest march to the next. Getting to be with you guys for a few days sounds like fun.”

When Chavez came down the steps of the Hendley Associates Gulfstream, Kryvov grabbed the smaller Mexican American and yanked him into a bear hug.

“Good to see you, Igor.”

“You as well.”

The forty-five-year-old was introduced to the others, and within minutes he had all their equipment packed up in the van. Igor knew the men weren’t journalists, but Clark had told him only that he was coming over to do some “poking around.” The Ukrainian quite reasonably assumed the men were CIA, but operating under nonofficial cover.

Kryvov was known around the city as a man who worked with foreign press, so Clark knew the ex — Rainbow man could help them establish their journalistic covers. This, along with his knowledge of the local criminal element, made him a perfect fit for the Campus team, since they needed to be dialed in to some of the darker sides of the city in order to learn what was going on over here with the Seven Strong Men.

The entourage left the airport and drove to a rented third-floor flat in an old building on the right bank of the Dnieper River. Though the Americans were tired from the flight, they wasted no time before beginning the lengthy process of preparing their safe house. They swept for bugs using tiny devices hidden in their camera equipment, and they chose routes in the building and in the neighborhood so they could escape quickly if necessary.

Gavin Biery set up his operation in the living room. From the very beginning, Clark had stressed to the team the importance of maintaining their cover. Biery set up his workstation with that in mind. Not only were the computers encrypted and password-protected, but the Campus-related applications were hidden on the machines, while digital editing software and several news-related websites ran openly. This way, even if someone got past the security, they would still think they were looking at the work of an editor or cameraman for a traveling news team.

Gavin fired up his two laptops, and from here he gained access to the CIA’s SIPRNet and the Ukrainian SSU network. He also set up a computer that functioned as a digital radio receiver, and this he attached to a speaker system. The radio was able to pick up and decrypt transmissions from local police, although only Kryvov spoke Ukrainian fluently.

They got around this limitation to some degree with the use of translation software, so that the data Gavin pulled up from the Ukrainian police network would be instantly and automatically converted to English. It sounded great in theory, but in practice the software was hit-and-miss. Gavin had to read every sentence multiple times to figure out what was being conveyed, and much of it was just gibberish.

While everyone else was getting settled into their new digs, Ding Chavez took Igor Kryvov aside. “Look, Igor, you and I have known each other for a long time, so you know me to be a straight shooter, right?”

“Sure, Ding.”

“I’ve got something to ask you, so I’m just going to ask you. I know you are Ukrainian, but you come from a Russian family. What do you think about all the rumors going on about Russia these days?”

“You mean the rumors that Russia is going to invade?”

“Exactly.”

Kryvov said, “I am Ukrainian of Russian origin, true. But that doesn’t mean I want to be ruled by Moscow. Volodin won’t stop until he destroys the last vestiges of liberty in this hemisphere, so he and his cronies can control everything.

“You have to understand, Ding, there are three types of people in this country. The Ukrainian nationalists are mostly in the west. The Russian nationalists are mostly in the east. And then there are the Ukrainians of Russian descent who want nothing to do with the Kremlin at all. I belong to that category, and we are everywhere. I have seen enough war to know that I don’t want to see any more, especially on my doorstep.”

“That’s good to know,” said Ding. The men shook hands. “I’m sure we could all use a primer on the local organized-crime scene as well.”

“I’ll tell you guys everything I know.”

While everyone prepared the apartment for their stay, Kryvov relayed story after story about the security situation here in the city. According to Kryvov, in the past months Kiev had turned into nothing less than a haven for Russian spies and Russian organized crime. Other crime groups — Chechens, Georgians, and Ukrainian Tatars — were also active in the city, but the word on the street was everyone was now working for the Russians.

Organized crime at the street level, a phenomenon that had declined in Russia, seemed to be on the rise here. Many saw the upswing in criminal activity, violent extortions, and assassinations as just an inevitable result of the political strife the nation was experiencing, but to an old hand like Kryvov, it seemed like something much less organic was going on.

“These new Russian guys in town are bribing local officials to vote in ways that benefit Russia. They are paying off other crime organizations to increase their activity, which causes the local police to be overburdened. They have beaten up, threatened, and kidnapped some journalists who were reporting negative stories about the Kremlin as well. What we are seeing, as near as I can tell, is Russian organized crime here in Kiev doing the work of the FSB.”

Kryvov told the men of The Campus he had never heard the name Gleb the Scar, but he knew some locals who could provide them with more information.

Clark listened to everything Kryvov said about the situation on the ground here in Kiev, then he said, “When I was with Rainbow, the Russians were some of our best partners in NATO. They worked with us on terrorism issues, nuclear proliferation, regional security matters.”

Kryvov said, “There are still good Russian soldiers, needless to say. Good diplomats as well, believe it or not, but that’s just because there aren’t enough siloviki to staff all the embassies with diplomats as well as spies. But Volodin leads everyone by the nose, pays off his supporters by allowing the level of corruption that exists.”

Driscoll asked, “Mr. C, what is our first step?”

Clark said, “Tomorrow I am going to reach out to the local chief of station, Keith Bixby.”

Chavez was surprised by this. “Reach out to him? Isn’t that a little risky? How do you know he won’t just make some calls and get you picked up by the local cops for wandering around on his turf?”

“An educated guess. I’ll tell him I’ve come to help, and I’ll impress upon him that I am a private citizen and I know I’m a private citizen. He seemed like a pragmatic guy. I think he’ll be glad to get another set of eyes in this town.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Biery asked.

Clark shrugged. “If I’m wrong, this could end up being a short trip.”