Putin's Gambit

27

Walsh felt like it had been a lifetime since he walked across this courtyard and into the Thomas Brothers Financial building. It was hard for him to believe it was only three days ago he had a normal life with a schedule. He was starting to understand how empty that life was and that it lacked a purpose. He decided he’d tackle one problem at a time.

He scanned the courtyard and thought it really didn’t look much different than it had at lunchtime. The same uninterested news crew sat on one side with no one working the camera, and a few lackadaisical protesters halfheartedly marched on the other side. It was nothing at all like the day the shit hit the fan. No one was calling for the end of life as he knew it or protesting the very idea that some businesses dealt with money.

Some of the activity had decreased because of fear. A few bombs set off across the country, especially at Disneyland, had sent a shock wave not seen since the September 11 attacks. Now Walsh was hearing about the bombing at the Whitehall subway station not far from Wall Street. Just a few sketchy reports and an increase in foot traffic coming from the Battery, but it didn’t sound promising.

The situation developing around the country reminded Walsh of an experience in Afghanistan, one that had defined and troubled him for the past five years. Walsh had been trying to figure out how they were losing so many supplies during such a prolonged period of no combat operations. He knew that some of the local workers who came on the base would snatch what they could and sell it on the black market. He understood they were starving and that was what they needed to do to survive, but it was his duty to account for all of the supplies. More than once he had just handed money to would-be thieves and told them not to steal anything from the base. He knew it wouldn’t have much impact, but his conscience had a hard time allowing desperate men and their families to starve.

One evening, he had been working outside the supply tent and had just realized he’d already missed dinner with his friends when he heard a commotion and some gunfire. He didn’t immediately know if it was just a marine blowing off steam or trying to prove a point about what a good shot he was, or if it was something more serious. But as soon as he came around the corner of the tent he saw an Afghani man running with a U.S. military pack on his back. His first thought was that the shots were some kind of distraction so this man could steal from the supply tent. Shepherd wasn’t going to allow that to happen on his watch.

The man was almost within arm’s reach and didn’t even notice Walsh. He acted on instinct and reached out quickly to grab the pack with his right hand and pull it as hard as he could. He twisted the thin man around, and the pack slipped off his back. Walsh was shocked by the weight of it. He wondered how such a slightly built man could’ve even stood up with it on his back. The pack pulled him to the ground as he raised his own rifle in case the man had any ideas about retrieving the pack and running away.

Then Walsh heard gunfire and the man fell. It was only then that he realized there were two other Afghans off to the side. They were both knocked down by gunfire as well.

Walsh saw his three friends, Mike Rosenberg, Ron Jackson, and Bill Shepherd, running toward him just as he realized the pack didn’t contain supplies pilfered from his supply depot but held a bomb intended for the command bunker not far away. His next thought was whether the bomb was set on a timer or needed to be manually detonated. There was a white cord with a handle coming from inside the pack that lay limp on the ground. He realized at that moment that his stupid action had surprised the suicide bomber so completely he had yet to grab the detonation cord.

As his friends skidded to a halt on the dusty, dry ground, Walsh realized how foolish he’d been and started to back away from the bomb.

Jackson was already thinking ahead and looked up to make sure someone from EOD was coming toward them. Shepherd said, “Let’s all back away from this right now.”

All the marines on the base had been in combat, and none of them were stupid. A minute later there was a huge perimeter around the lone pack sitting in the middle of the base with three Afghan bodies lying nearby.

By the time everyone was done congratulating Walsh on his heroics, he couldn’t bring himself to tell his friends the truth. He was so shaken he just kept quiet and nodded his appreciation.

One of the reasons he’d joined the marines was that he thought he could keep events like this from happening in his own country and terrorizing civilians who had no reason to ever see violence like that. Somewhere along the line his plan hadn’t worked.

Sirens brought him back to the present, and he watched emergency vehicles race toward the lower end of Manhattan and felt like he should be doing something to help. That was why he missed the marines. Their mission was always designed to help someone, either help the army gain a foothold or help a population escape from oppression. He felt like he contributed when he was in the marines.

Now he felt almost useless as he considered only his own interests. He wanted to get inside the building, access the security plug through the Thomas Brothers network, and find out who the hell had wrecked his life. Then he could put this all behind him.

He was still dressed in the white shirt and dark slacks, and he had the pistol tucked in his belt. If Ted Marshall could be trusted, he would meet Walsh just inside the door and escort him up the elevators without having to go through any security checkpoint. With the subways closed it could be a little trickier reaching Times Square to meet Tonya Stratford by six o’clock, but he was confident he could make it if he had to.

He took a deep breath as he attempted to maintain a casual stride through the cement courtyard. No one appeared to pay any particular attention to him as he approached the cement stairs that led up to the wide glass doors. He could recall standing on the landing and leaning on the pillar during a break so he could call Alena while the other brokers and bankers furiously puffed on cigarettes. Now the landing was empty as he climbed the low stairs.

Just as he reached the landing he saw movement to his left behind the pillar. He turned, but all he saw was the barrel of a pistol pointed directly at his face. A man’s voice with a slight Russian accent said, “Please don’t do anything stupid, Mr. Walsh.”

Mike Rosenberg had as many records as he could find regarding his friend Derek Walsh and the money transfer that had landed him in hot water spread over his desk. The original bank records had been destroyed in the explosion at the bank in Bern. Luckily someone had thought to scan most of the documents and upload them to the cloud, but it was slowing down the investigation. That was probably one of the intents of the bombing. People assumed in this high-tech world that everything was immediately digitized, but the fact was that businesses still generally wrote information on pieces of paper, then entered it into a computer. This appeared to be what the bank had done, and as a result, Rosenberg was left gaining information from poor scans.

Rosenberg also had the records from the cell phone number that was scribbled in the margin of one of the bank applications. There was an amazing number of calls, pages and pages of them, and the identify of the subscriber still had to be determined. Rosenberg didn’t want to pull in other analysts on this project if he could avoid it. He checked his watch and saw that it was getting close to five. Since he had acquired this through unofficial means, he felt comfortable working on it from home. Nothing was stamped sensitive or secret, and he could easily take it out past the guards without raising any alarms.

He took one last look up at a television in the corner of his office as CNN aired another report from Disneyland, with the title underneath saying, “Loss of innocence.” He had the volume down but assumed they had already created a theme song as well. All of this seemed tied together and linked to Derek Walsh somehow.

He didn’t intend to get much sleep tonight.

It was the middle of the night, and Anton Severov had been unable to sleep. After getting Amir settled in a tent with several Chechen recruits, he’d tried to grab some sleep. The little Iranian was still furious and said to him as he left, “You are not the enemy of my enemy. You are just my enemy, and you will pay for this.”

Severov gave him a hard look and said, “I could have just killed you.”

“You’ll wish you did.”

“I already do. But make no mistake, my friend. This is not the U.S. Army. I can shoot you and no one will ever ask why. You are not even a Russian citizen. So I would watch my mouth and keep my attitude in check until we find the right time and place to let you go.”

Amir just stared at him. His dark eyes hid any of the calculations he was making. At least Severov felt like he had taken Amir’s attention away from Fannie, and she would be safe for the time being. He doubted that anyone would care about her personal habits once the military aspect of this operation was under way.

Again it was Amir’s calm demeanor that made the threat so much scarier. But Severov had other things to worry about.

Derek Walsh sat quietly in the front seat of the white BMW he’d seen earlier. His hands rested in his lap as the Russian focused on the road but kept his right hand on the grip of a Beretta pistol very similar to Walsh’s. His own pistol was now in the Russian’s waistband.

The Russian had somehow managed to slip over the Brooklyn Bridge even with the increased traffic due to the subway bombing. He raced south through Brooklyn toward Brighton Beach, but he pulled off Ocean Parkway in the Midwood area and stopped in front of a six-story apartment complex that look like it was straight out of the seventies, with kids playing on the sidewalk and elderly people lounging around the front steps that led to a wide landing with several beat-up patio tables and chairs missing straps.

The Russian slipped the BMW into a spot across the street from the building and waited for Walsh to step out of the car, then walk around the hood and wait to be escorted inside. The Russian man said, “I assume you realize by now that I’ll shoot you if you try anything funny.” He let that sink in and then said, “You may not care about yourself, but think of the innocent bystanders and others that might be in the building.”

The man nudged Walsh so that he would look up at the front door of the building. Then his heart stopped. The skinny Russian who had been outside his apartment, Serge Blattkoff, stood at the front door with Alena directly in front of him. He flashed the pistol in his right hand, then briefly put it to Alena’s temple.

She stifled a scream and motioned for Walsh to come toward them into the building.

Things were not working out the way he’d planned.