Putin's Gambit

22

Vladimir Putin sat at his official desk in his office at the palace at Novo-Ogaryovo. He told his personal assistant he needed some quiet time to concentrate on several issues. His assistant, a former army captain, always did an excellent job understanding exactly what his boss was asking for. He was not easily bullied, either. If Putin asked for time alone, he got it. It didn’t matter who came to his door or called demanding immediate access.

Right now he had difficulty concentrating on the daily, mundane demands of his job even if he was undistracted by visitors. All he wanted was information about the Estonian operation. He had always found it hard not to look ahead.

He was very pleased with the planning and work that had gone into this operation. It would cost almost nothing. Barely more than a military exercise. The distractions, financial and terrorist-wise, had not cost anything at all. And, from his perspective, had little risk.

He didn’t care about the GDP of Estonia. It was strategically important for its location. It was one less border he would have to cross when Russia decided it wanted to regain even more territory.

As soon as they had control of the country, they would start to use the ports as a means to increase trade.

Putin blustered about NATO, and he did worry about them some. That was why they had gone to the trouble of causing the distractions to the West. There was no doubt the United States had a strong military; the question was the leadership’s willingness to use it. Putin believed that by bringing terrorism to U.S. shores he would scare them into limiting their foreign commitments. Either way, he did not believe they were prepared to go to war over something as inconsequential as Estonia.

This was a political decision, and Putin knew his politics.

It was noon when Derek Walsh walked into the quiet courtyard of the three Wall Street buildings that included Thomas Brothers Financial, the tallest building to the east. Wearing a Buffalo Bills ball cap he’d found in the lobby of his hotel to cover his new hair. He sat on the first bench he came to and looked up at the building, almost forgetting what it felt like to work inside. Had he taken all of this for granted? He reached into the left front pocket of his pants and pulled out the Thomas Brothers security plug and started to think of ways he might slip into the building. After a moment, his stomach growled, and he reached for one of the pieces of classic pink bubble gum he’d grabbed from a dish at the hotel, knowing it would stem hunger in a pinch.

He looked around the courtyard and was amazed there was no one close to him. At the far end, closer to his old building, a man in a Giants windbreaker with his back to Walsh was having a serious conversation with a younger couple. To his left was the lone film crew from a local TV station, with no one manning the camera. CNN had gotten tired of the story with no real violence or connection to a missing plane.

The man talking to the young couple looked agitated, and it caught Walsh’s attention. He seemed familiar from behind, and Walsh waited a moment to see if he could get a look at the man’s face. It distracted him from all of the problems he knew he’d face if he tried to enter the building, access Thomas Brothers’ network, and retrieve the photographs on his security plug.

Someone plopped down next to him with a bag from a local sub shop. Walsh almost didn’t turn away from the man talking to the young couple. Then he nodded to his new companion on the bench, and it took a moment for him to realize who it was. Holy shit.

At least Walsh had the satisfaction of seeing how shocked Ted Marshall was, too.

It was lunchtime at the CIA, and the cafeteria, which had several mainstream chain restaurants, was starting to fill up. Mike Rosenberg did not feel guilty in the least for having ignored his boss’s order to get a handle on the protests that might start up across the country today. It had only taken a few minutes watching CNN and their moving story about the people killed from terror attacks to know that the country was in mourning and soon would switch to the next phase of grief, which would be anger. Only this time the anger would be focused not on Wall Street but on the people who launched the attacks. The streets were quiet in all of the major cities. It took him a while to find a newsfeed from a local New York station to see that the few people protesting in the same area as the last few days had no energy or enthusiasm.

He’d written a quick report on the matter but hadn’t submitted it. It never paid to let someone know you could do your job much more efficiently and quickly than they thought. Jesus Christ, he was becoming a government employee. He had spent the remainder of the morning talking to several of the financial analysts who had uncovered all the information they could on the money transfer from Thomas Brothers Financial to the accounts in Bern, Switzerland.

Now, at his desk, he had a stack of records laid out in front of him. Other analysts were looking at similar records, but everyone took a different path to find information. That was why it was rare that only one analyst examined something important. The bank had been very thorough in handing over information, obviously because it was a victim of a terror attack and everyone wanted to catch the people responsible. There were notes and phone numbers scribbled on the edges of photocopied sheets, and twice he needed the analyst in the next office to interpret scrawled notes written in German and French.

From what he could tell, a woman had opened all of the accounts that received money. All of the accounts were opened in the same branch of the bank in Bern. The woman used a name that had already led analysts to a dead end. As long as you provided something with your name on it, banks didn’t really care how accurate your information was when they were doing business. It was only at times like this that they regretted not being more diligent.

Rosenberg felt there had to be another avenue. He looked through the records and jotted down a few notes of his own on a legal pad. He was missing something obvious. Then he noticed a phone number scribbled on the side of an application. It was in sloppy block handwriting that looked like a male’s, but he needed to find out more.

He just wished he wasn’t so worried about his friend Derek Walsh. There was no telling what Derek might do if he was pushed into a corner.

Rosenberg went to find an analyst to trace the phone number.

Joseph Katazin had slowly moved away from the protest area and into the courtyard with Lenny Tallett and his creepy-looking girlfriend walking along with him. The young man, who claimed to be an anarchist, had made it plain: He had moved on to extortionist. This was a headache Katazin did not need.

As they slowly walked, the younger man said, “You have no idea how hard it is to organize things like this. No one ever does what they’re supposed to.”

“Tell me about it.”

“And then the trick is to get the crowds stirred up and fade from the front line so you don’t get arrested. We used that trick at a couple of the presidential debates. The one in Miami worked especially well. Grabbed some of the hard-core anarchists out of Lake Worth and bussed them down to Miami and shit got real.”

“But you can’t do the same thing here for me today?”

“I can try, but it will cost you. So far I haven’t seen any hint that you’re willing to pay.”

Katazin looked up and saw they were getting closer to the end of the courtyard. There were now two men sitting on a bench, and the TV camera was not far from them. He desperately wanted to teach this dog a lesson right here and now. Instead he tried to get hold of his emotions.

Derek Walsh looked up to make sure no one was close enough to hear anything he said to his former boss, Ted Marshall. The only people coming his way were the guy in the Giants windbreaker and the young couple he was talking to. But they were still too far away to hear anything. Walsh appreciated the stunned silence and the look of amazement on Marshall’s face. Finally the older man stuttered, “Derek, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I guess I’m a little like a zombie in a movie. You come back to the place you know best.”

“You need to get outta here before the cops grab you. There are FBI agents still in our office going through things. They’ve asked a lot of questions about you.”

“Did anyone tell them where I live? Or who my girlfriend is?”

“I don’t think anyone knew where you live. But every guy in the office knew you had a hot girlfriend. They just had no information about her. Barely anyone could even remember her name.”

Walsh absorbed that information but still didn’t know how the Russian figured out where she lived. He also felt encouraged at how open Marshall was talking to him and telling him about the FBI.

His former boss said, “You need to turn yourself in before something bad happens.”

“What could be worse than what I’m going through now?”

Marshall was silent.

Walsh took a chance and said, “Listen, Ted, is there any way you could get me back into the office for five minutes?”

“What are you talking about? I’d end up in the cell next to you.”

“Look, I have my security plug, and I activated an extra security protocol so that whoever made the trade would’ve had their photograph taken and stored on the plug. In order to get the photograph, I have to log back on to the network.”

Now Marshall looked truly stunned.

Walsh had the plug in his left hand and thought about showing it to Marshall, maybe even asking him to access the network. That would solve the hassle of getting back inside, but something told him never to give the plug away. It was his only leverage. He was taking action. He was being a marine. And a marine wouldn’t let something like the security plug out of his sight. Unless it was out of everyone’s sight. It gave him an idea.

Just as he was about to say something else, Walsh looked up and realized that the man who was walking toward them with the young couple was the Russian guy who had already caused him so much heartache. Was he after the plug? How did he keep finding Walsh?

Without thinking, Walsh coughed, covering his mouth with his left hand. He spat his gum into his palm, then jammed the plug under the bench until it was stuck between the gum and a support. The security plug was firmly in place as Walsh turned his head in hopes that the Russian wouldn’t notice him. His heart started to race, and his hand slipped toward the pistol in his belt. This was not the time to get into a gunfight. Nor would it help his status as a fugitive. He doubted it would convince Ted Marshall to help him, either. He stole a glance and saw that the man was on the pathway that turned past the bench.

He found himself holding his breath.

Joseph Katazin just needed one empty street to stick a bullet into the side of the head of this moron. He wasn’t crazy about having to kill the girl, too, but this was war, and the stakes were too high. He kept walking, drawing them along, hoping to find the right spot.

He also felt that Lenny Tallett was getting frustrated himself. The weaselly younger man said, “So are you going to pay, or what?”

Katazin looked forward for a moment to make sure no one was walking their way. He decided he was too close to the two men on the park bench and held up one finger, telling Tallett to wait. He was about to turn and look again at the two men on the bench when Tallett’s girlfriend spoke up for the first time.

“I’m hungry. Can we talk about this over lunch? There’s a pizza place on the next street.” She had a Jersey accent.

Katazin turned and looked at the girl as they walked past the bench and toward the street. His car was parked two blocks over, and he kept praying for a quiet space to finish this business.

Katazin said, “I think we have an agreement. Follow me for just a couple blocks and I can come up with the cash.” He could tell by the wide smile on Tallett’s face that he had no idea what was about to happen.