Commander-in-Chief

41

Terry Walker missed his home country the way many of his fellow countrymen do when they become expatriates, because Australia is a beautiful place, but he had to admit that his temporary digs weren’t half bad. As he looked around his massive bedroom, his eyes slowly adjusting to the early-morning light, he knew he was in the midst of pure luxury, and he wondered why this didn’t make him happier.

As he lay there in bed, the dawn approaching through the curtains to the balcony, he thought about his life for a moment. It wasn’t lost on him that he had most everything he ever wanted; those who knew him thought he was living a dream. But it also wasn’t lost on him that the dream he’d assembled for himself had come at a great cost.

He did his best to push all his worries from his mind, and he climbed out of bed quietly. He dressed in workout gear in the dressing room adjacent to his bedroom, then he kissed the mop of chestnut hair sticking out from between a clump of overstuffed pillows. The hair belonged to his wife, Kate, who would sleep for another hour, and when he tiptoed down the hall and looked in on his seven-year-old son, he saw that Noah was sound asleep as well, with a stack of comic books next to him in the bed.

A minute later Terry was out in the early-morning air, walking through the lush tropical property toward the five-thousand-square-foot gymnasium down at the bottom of a hill lined with jacaranda and coconut palms.

Tarpon Island was no regular resort hotel; it was an exclusive resort on an even more exclusive private island, owned by a British billionaire and a celebrated bon vivant. The man had purchased the island in the 1980s to use as his own private refuge, but he’d taken to inviting so many of his well-heeled guests to the place in the past three decades his entrepreneurial spirit told him he could simply open a corner of the island up as a resort for the rich and famous.

Perhaps rich or famous was a better way to frame it.

Rock stars, movie stars, and fashion icons all stayed here, but these were just the famous guests. More common were men and women like the Walkers, fabulously wealthy but unknown to anyone but a very few within their industry.

The Walkers were unique in one respect, however. Where most other guests at the Tarpon Island resort stayed a week or two at most, the Walkers had been living here for the past six months, and they planned on being here for six months more.

Terry worked out in the gym for nearly an hour, his mind appreciating the focus exercise gave him, and then he headed home, past the smallest units on the island, cottages that could sleep six, and back up the hill to his place, the four-bedroom mansion with floor-to-ceiling views of the Caribbean Sea from almost every single room.

At eight a.m. a showered, shaved, and fed Terry Walker walked around the breakfast table, kissing his wife and child as he went. He waved good-bye to the cook, then headed down the steep hillside pathway to the beach, just fifty yards from his back door. He wore a suit and tie today because he had a meeting, but on most days he just wore board shorts and a polo. Even with the suit, Terry carried a backpack over his shoulder, a particular affectation of his because his large collection of electronic gadgetry wouldn’t fit into a regular briefcase or messenger bag.

A candy-apple-red Robinson helicopter landed on a beachside road promptly at 8:05, as it did every day, and Walker climbed aboard as the aircraft’s only passenger. He chartered the helo every day to cut his commute time down from what it would have been if he had taken a launch, and this gave him a little more precious time in the mornings and evenings with his family.

As he did virtually every morning, Walker sat in the back of the helo and looked out at the villa as he lifted into the air. Then, when he could see it no longer he regarded the resort below, and the rest of the hilly island. And then, when the island twisted out of view, he gazed across the blue-green water that shot below him.

Terry was blowing nearly ten grand a day on the house, the office, the helo, the food, and the rest of this operation, so it was a good thing he was averaging about $75,000 a day in profit from his work. He was making too much money to shut this temporary gig down yet, but, he told himself, the day was coming.

This bit of paradise would not be theirs forever. He’d promised Kate they’d spend no more than one year here in the BVIs. After that they would return to Sydney and then they would do… well, Terry wasn’t sure yet.

He was only certain of one thing: They wouldn’t do this anymore.

Kate didn’t understand exactly why Terry had to work here, and he’d done his best not to burden her with the details. It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart enough to understand her husband’s work. No, Terry Walker did not want his wife to know the ins and outs of it all, the reason he really had to stay here in the BVIs to do his job, because the truth was that in virtually any other place, what he was doing would get him thrown in prison.

Twenty minutes after lifting off, the Robinson dropped him at a helipad just a block from his office in Road Town, on the island of Tortola, and he walked the rest of the way to work. Unlike his rented home, his rented office was utterly nondescript. It was a suite of rooms on the second floor of a two-story glass box building on Lower Estate Road. It might have been the nicest and most modern non-hotel structure in Road Town, but that wasn’t saying a hell of a lot.

Terry’s operation only used a couple local assistants to serve as file clerks and, when clients came in, something of a fake secretary to sit at the desk in the lobby and pretend to do real work. It wasn’t that Terry didn’t have work that needed doing. It was just that Terry didn’t trust anyone else to do it, so he did it all himself.

Walker found it necessary to work here in the BVIs to get around money-laundering laws that he didn’t feel rightfully applied to him. BlackHole was a Bitcoin exchange, and in most every other country his company was considered a financial institution. With this designation came all sorts of regulations, the most important of which was that if he had doubts about the source of income of a client, he had to report it to local financial regulators.

In the BVIs, however, he was able to skirt this restriction, as well as a number of others. He merely had to establish his business here, pay his taxes — plus a few bribes — and then he and his young business were left in peace.

It wasn’t that Terry wanted to dodge the laws of other lands, he simply did not agree with them. He felt the British Virgin Islands was one of the few countries that understood his business, understood that he wasn’t trading, he was merely purchasing something on the Internet for a client, and then selling that something on the Internet to another person.

Of course he was trading, of course BlackHole was a financial institution, and of course Terry Walker knew this, but his moral compass had been knocked out of alignment by the fact he was making half a million dollars a week managing his company, and handling trades for large investors.

He was in a different boat from most people who had to concern themselves with the financial reportings of their clients, because Walker’s clients were temporary. He’d work with a person who wanted to buy a few hundred thousand, or a few million — in some cases tens of millions had been traded — and he’d manage the transaction for them, putting their purchase in his computerized hopper, where it was rendered invisible to anyone who might have the ability to track Bitcoin transactions.

And for a premium, Terry offered another service, one that was not advertised on the BlackHole website or promotional material. For a few well-heeled clients he had arranged their travel here to Road Town, and then he’d structured their transaction in a way that made the movement one hundred ten percent invisible. Even Terry had no way of knowing where the proceeds of these special sales went after the trade was made, since BlackHole automatically wired the money received for the sale of the hopper-hidden Bitcoin into an account entered on the physical computer at Terry Walker’s office. He simply executed the buy of Bitcoin, threw it into the hopper, sold it, then left his office for a moment. His client sat at his desk and entered routing information for the new money, sending it anywhere in the world he wanted it to go with a few keystrokes. The record immediately erased itself from the hard drive.

The perfect move for a money launderer.

This necessitated face-to-face meetings, of course, but normally the person showing up at his office was a cutout a dozen times removed from the beneficiary of the money, so Terry never knew who was profiting from his services.

Obviously Terry Walker was no fool, he understood these special transactions were likely being conducted by criminals, corrupt government officials, or other ne’er-do-wells, but again, Terry Walker was making seventy-five grand a day.

Walker was not concerned about the occupations, habits, or predilections of his clients, but he was obsessed with not getting hacked. It was the terror of everyone in the cryptocurrency market, but for a man like Walker, who dealt with powerful clients with regularity, he knew that losing either money or information that belonged to someone else just might mean a death sentence.

To keep his data ultra-secure, he had something called a cold wallet, a completely offline file kept on a computer in a room with no Internet access of any kind, and he moved his Bitcoin information to it with handwritten sheets of paper from another room in his office, this with computer access. Once he received a new wallet of valuable coins on his computer, he would register the information on his pad, check it three times, then rip out the page from the pad and walk it into his “cold room.” Here he would input it in the file, then immediately slip the paper in a crosscut shredder next to the desk.

When he needed to transfer the Bitcoin from the cold wallet to the network to make a transaction — depositing funds into an account owned by a private trust set up on Mauritius or Dubai, for example — he would merely reverse the process, taking the information off the cold wallet and walking it into his room with Internet access. Here, again, he had a fingerprint scanner, a retinal scanner, and a voice scanner, all of which had to be satisfied that he was, in fact, Terry Walker. He then entered his twenty-digit alphanumeric code, which he had memorized, combined with double-factor authentication.

To Walker it seemed he had the perfect system, with one obvious flaw. It wasn’t scalable. Walker himself had to work, day in and day out. He had to input the “special trades” into his system, and he had to be here on those occasions when his “special clients” came to input their account information into the system.

It was this lack of scalability that was burning him out. He told himself that in a year’s time he would sell BlackHole to some other wealthy tech-minded cryptocurrency maverick. He’d make tens of millions more for the sale on top of what he was banking now, and he would then explain to the new owner about the special transactions he had been conducting in person. While the new owner weighed this information, Terry Walker would take his family home, and when he got home he would park his money in offshores and work in something else; he didn’t know what just yet, but one thing he told himself he would not do was deal with any more dangerous people. He had a wife and a son, and while he was providing for them in a way most people could never dream of, he was very aware they were, ultimately, in as much danger as he was.

This job was great for making money in the short term, but it was terrible as a long-term plan.

Terry told himself he’d keep at it for a while, but he’d pick and choose his clients now. He wanted no more dealings with dangerous individuals, so he planned to keep an eye out for business opportunities that seemed too good to be true.

Today Terry worked away the morning, and then into the afternoon, pausing for only a few minutes to exchange texts with his wife and a few minutes more to eat a rice-and-sausage dish brought in by one of his local employees.

At three p.m. his secretary came over the intercom in his office, even though she was sitting just a dozen feet away in the front room. “Mr. Walker? Mr. Ivanov and… and a colleague are here for you.”

Terry had forgotten about this afternoon’s meeting, but with the call he immediately brushed the last of the rice off his face and took a long swig of bottled water to do what he could to hide the garlic from his breath. He tightened his tie and headed for the little lobby of the office.

Most offices in this building belonged to local attorneys, and Terry doubted many of them had ever had a client visit them in person. That wasn’t what the BVIs and several other Caribbean offshore financial havens were all about. But Terry found himself face-to-face with one of his special clients or potential clients every week or so.

Walker shook hands with the two men and introduced himself.

One of the men spoke in a heavy Russian accent. “My name is Ivanov, and this is my associate, Mr. Popov.”

Walker knew that Popov and Ivanov were two of the most common surnames in Russia. Virtually a third of the mysterious Russians he’d ever had dealings with had called themselves Ivanov, and probably one in six had gone by Popov. Walker assumed they were not the men’s real names; the Ivanovs and Popovs he’d met in the past had not really been named that either, any more than a couple Americans introducing themselves as Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones would really be named that.

Walker found himself completely unfazed to learn he was probably being lied to. It went with the job.

When they sat down, Ivanov said, “I appreciate your time.”

“It’s my pleasure. Either of you care for a cup of tea?”

Ivanov shook his head, as did Popov, and they both sat down in simple chairs across from Walker. Ivanov said, “I represent a client who wants to convert a large amount of his assets, an extremely large amount, into cryptocurrency. He then would like the currency traded on BlackHole for U.S. dollars and he would like me to enter his new account numbers for disbursal of the funds.”

Walker stifled a yawn and told himself he should have had a second Red Bull after lunch. He said, “Mr. Frieden contacted me yesterday and said you’d be coming right over. I don’t normally work this quickly, but he assured me this would be something I wouldn’t want to pass up.”

“I should think not,” Ivanov said.

Walker just nodded. He reached for a pen. “How much?” He knew better than to ask who the client was.

“There will be future transactions. But for now, let’s say eight billion.”

With wide eyes Walker reached for his calculator. “Good Lord. That is… that is a lot of money, indeed. I’ll just need to check the exchange rate and convert that from rubles to U.S. to get an idea of—”

Ivanov said, “Eight billion U.S. dollars.”

Walker stared at Ivanov, then put his pen down with a little sigh. “Eight billion dollars. Is this a fucking joke, mate? Because I’ve no time for jokes.”

“No joke.”

“Mr. Ivanov, the entire market capitalization of Bitcoin is barely six billion dollars.”

“I understand that. That’s why this must be done piecemeal, but it still must be done quickly. You could transfer two hundred sixty-six million dollars a day into the market, in which case you would have the transfers completed in thirty days. This is five percent of the market capitalization.”

“That’s ridiculous! All the activity on BlackHole combined is less than five hundred million a day.”

“So our transactions would be less than three-fifths your normal daily trades.” Ivanov added, “People watching the cryptomarkets will immediately recognize there are new big players involved, it will push the value of the currency up, and it will increase the total market value, and the total trading volume. That happens, and we will increase our daily transactions. Our thirty-day plan will become a twenty-day plan, or even a fifteen-day plan. It all depends on how others in the markets react.”

Walker sighed again. “You aren’t thinking this through, mate. As this money is introduced into the markets so quickly, so dramatically, the increase of the price of one Bitcoin will be dramatic. Others in the market will react by freaking out.”

Andrei Limonov had taken his cover identity from his father’s name, Ivan — he went by Ivanov. He had no idea why Kozlov called himself Popov, but he hadn’t asked.

He had expected Walker to say exactly what he had said. Limonov replied, “My client requires the conversion. He is willing to pay you a premium in addition to your normal rate. He is offering an additional ten million dollars U.S. to you when this is completed.”

Walker hesitated for nearly a minute. Finally, he said, “Often it benefits me to beat around the bush a little. To avoid being too direct. It’s good business. And it’s good for my relationships. But right now I feel the need to be quite direct.”

Limonov said, “I welcome that, Mr. Walker.”

“Good.” He leaned closer. “You are out of your fucking mind, mate. Whoever your client is, it is obvious he is doing this for the sole purpose of laundering money. And that amount of money, it’s safe to say, is bad news.” Walker pointed an accusatory finger out. “That’s bad bloody business for me. If eight B U.S. enters into the market and then disappears out of the market in a bloody month, Bitcoin will be known as nothing more than a money-laundering transfer vehicle. It will bring in more regulators, it will push away nervous clients, and it will attract more nefarious blokes like you who cause trouble. We don’t fuckin’ need any of that, mate, and we will be better off without your eight billion than we would be with your eight billion popping in and out of the market.”

Andrei Limonov was surprised by the words of the man in front of him, and the ethics they implied. Of course cryptocurrency was a money-laundering tool.

He said, “This client of mine is not laundering money. He is using this vehicle to liquidate assets abroad so that the Russian government cannot confiscate them. The money was legally acquired, but it cannot be protected where it is.”

There was irony in the fact that Limonov was fingering the Russian government as the villains, but he wasn’t thinking about that now.

Walker said, “Look. I understand. I really do. If you would like, I can, perhaps, take a portion of these assets and buy Bitcoin with them. Maybe three, four hundred million U.S. I’m just not ready to draw the attention to myself by dealing with the amount of money you’re talking about.”

“You won’t be drawing attention, Mr. Walker. BlackHole’s daily trades are averaging more than we need to trade. If you simply do not make the purchases for your other large clients for the next few weeks, you can take this money and not draw the attention to yourself that you fear. You will purchase our Bitcoin, in lieu of making purchases for your other clients. Only for a short time. I doubt your clients would know, or even much care, if you waited a week or two to make their trades.”

“Are you mad? I can assure you they will both know and care.”

Limonov leaned closer. “A year ago you had a two-week-long break in trading. A technical glitch, you called it in the media. What was that?”

Walker looked blankly back at the man. Finally, he said, “It was a technical glitch.”

“I think not. I think you were making trades for Vadim Rochenkov, a Ukrainian billionaire. I think the amount he had you trading made you worry you would remove liquidity from the Bitcoin market and reveal what you were doing, so you faked a technical issue. Your other clients were annoyed, but you were the only game in town, as it were, so you continued on. I merely ask you to repeat the system that you yourself invented and utilized.”

Walker stood up from his desk. “I don’t know how else to tell you this. No. Not interested. You need to find some other avenue, Mr. Ivanov. Surely the world is full of schemes that will work for you.”

He stepped toward the door. “Now, if you will excuse me.”

The Russians climbed back into their SUV outside. Around them sat four other men, all called up by Vlad Kozlov as protection after the incident with Jack Ryan, Jr., in Luxembourg the day before. They were private contractors from Steel Securitas LLC. They were as tight with the Russian government as any Spetsnaz unit, although their allegiance was financial, not ideological or patriotic.

Steel Securitas was one of the largest private security contractors in the world. Based in Dubai, it was big in executive protection, site security, tactical training, and even direct-action operations, and it was used by small governments and large corporations all over the planet.

Its vetting process was robust, but with 40,000 employees around the world, a few bad apples were to be expected.

The Kremlin Security Council, run by Mikhail Grankin, had actively sought out these bad apples and their managers, paid them dearly for no-questions-asked work, and ensured their trust with the not-so-veiled threats that these men were now working for the FSB, and the FSB could fucking ruin them if they didn’t take their money and keep their mouths shut about the work and their clients.

Another Land Cruiser with four more Steel Securitas men idled in the street behind them.

As they rolled off down the street, Kozlov pulled out his phone and held it up toward Limonov. He said, “I see no alternative.”

Limonov looked like he was going to be sick. He said, “Perhaps if we wait a day and call on Walker again. Maybe I can—”

Kozlov shook his head, turned away from Andrei Limonov, and dialed a number on the mobile. After a moment he heard someone answer. A male voice spoke English. “Yes?”

Kozlov spoke English as well. “Pick them up. Carefully. We need them alive.”

Limonov thought he heard a sniff, like that of laughter, on the other end.

“Of course,” said the man, and the phone went dead.