Shadow War (24 page)

Winters nodded. “We're partners. He has agreed to everything.”

“And when he starts to believe his own press?”

“I have leverage.” Personal leverage. Family leverage. The best kind.

“What about the current government of Ukraine?” Sir Hyphen asked. “What if they don't want him to be the Minister of Energy?”

“Why would they refuse? It is a low profile position for a national hero. It strengthens their government, instead of threatening it.”

“And when Karpenko is in place?” It was the Indian, cutting to the crux.

Winters smiled. “Pipelines, oil fields, leases in the Black Sea, anything you want. Anything you have desired. It must be a fair price, of course, but gentlemen . . . how can you place a price on a country's freedom?”

The Brits didn't even nod. They simply looked at him, as if they'd never seen him before. Winters had heard of stiff lips, but this made concrete look like Silly Putty.

“And if Putin returns?”

“That's part of my fee, gentleman, a long-term lease on a private military base in eastern Ukraine: airstrip, training grounds, fortified installations. From that base, I will not only keep your investments in Ukraine safe, I will keep Putin on the defensive, and I will keep the peace from Belarus to the Balkans. Think of it, gentlemen, a new Eastern Europe, free from Russian tyranny.
And all of it, or at least the military portion, paid for by the United States government.”

“You have that guaranteed?”

Winters shook his head. “No, but that is the least of my concerns.” Once he had sent Putin scurrying, he'd be up to his elbows in Title 10 contracts. He would be so in demand, he could write them himself. And he would.

The Indian leaned back, as if trying to see him at a new angle. He had a regal nose, and bushy eyebrows, and a stare that told Winters this was the man he needed to impress. And that he was listening.

“You've split with your New York bankers,” the Indian remarked.

Winters swallowed his surprise. Of course they knew. “I think you know why.”

Cavendish nodded. Everyone understood this room was an upgrade over New York. “What is the other part of your fee?” he asked. Sharp. These men never missed anything.

“A partnership with you, on a gas field in Eastern Ukraine. Preferably a big one.” Winters had no intention of stealing oil leases from potential allies in Houston, but there were fields still available, especially just across the border in Russia, because why would he stop at the border, gentlemen, once he had Putin on the run?

“We secure the lease for your congolomerate—”

“—and you share the profits as silent partners.”

Cavendish sniffed. “At what percentage?”

“I need 40 percent. The rest is unimportant to me.”

“That is a remarkably poor negotiating technique.”

It wasn't about negotiating. In New York, yes. But not at this level.

“It's enough to keep our mutual friends in Houston happy
and
heavily invested in the democratic future of Ukraine. I'll make my stake on the security contracts.” With a tidy taste off the top of the shale profits, of course. “It's not just the Balkans, gentlemen,” he said, lifting his glass. “A base in Eastern Ukraine is the perfect staging area for the Middle East, Russia, the Caucuses, Iran. As I said at the top: from Ukraine, together, we can”—he almost said
control,
but caught himself—“change the world.”

He sipped his Scotch. It was strong and smoky, straight out of a peat bog. Fifteen years in a barrel, at least. In the scope of things, that wasn't long.

“You are asking for nothing up front,” Cavendish said.

“Nothing,” Winters confirmed, “until Karpenko is in Kiev. Then I will need your influence, as well as your money, to make sure Europe and the markets go along.”

“What are the chances of success?” the Indian asked.

Winters grimaced, but only to hide a smile. “It depends on
your
determination,” he said. “With your help, greater than 90 percent. And that's to secure Ukraine for a generation.”

Or plunge Europe into war. Those were the stakes. And still, the bankers didn't react. Was there anything that could make them flinch? What if he told them their wives had been murdered? Or their mistresses?

“And if the assault on the gas facility fails? That is the first step, is it not?”

Winters smiled. “The assault won't fail.”

Cavendish and the Indian glanced at each other, but Winters couldn't read their expressions. He hated not being able to read expressions.

“You said tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken,” Cavendish said.

“That's right.”

“Okay,” the Indian said slowly. “What time?”

He hadn't known how the bankers would react. They had kept him waiting, alone in the office, for an eternity, and beneath his cool nonchalance, Winters was nervous and cold. The world on a string, and he was sitting in a London office, counting the minutes until these starched-collared bankers returned. Was his plan too bold? Had he chosen the wrong partners? He didn't worry if the plan would work. He only worried that he wouldn't get the chance.

A half an hour. An hour. And then, finally, Cavendish and the Indian returned, this time without Sir Hyphen. “We need you to meet an associate of ours,” Cavendish said. “Now. Before your operation.”

Inside, Winters relaxed. He had thought, only half in jest, that they were going to have him arrested for off-the-books ballsiness. Or worse, exiled to Virginia.

“An honor,” he said.

“A car is downstairs. It will take you to Farnborough.”

Winters hid his shock. Farnborough was the corporate airport where London's superrich stowed their private jets. Maybe they were going to take him to a secret CIA prison in Poland after all.

“Who am I to meet?”

“All will be made plain soon enough,” the Indian said.

Winters bowed. “Thank you, Mr. Beckham.”

The Indian smiled. “Please. Call me Kabir.”

Alie tried not to panic. She tried to think straight. How had this happened?

She had stayed outside the shattered social club for an hour, maybe more, making notes and talking with citizens, trying to piece together what had happened. She had seen the Ukrainian, or Russian, maybe he was Russian, as she walked back to her car three blocks away. He was big, scowling, watching her. But it had only been, what? Two minutes since she'd left the site of the attack. God, they were fast.

Which meant Locke, right? Wasn't that what she wanted? To force him to grab her and get her off the street.

But the hood. Why did they need the hood?

She took a breath. She felt the cloth clogging her mouth, and she tried to slow herself down, tried to focus on her breathing. She thought of people with hoods over their heads: those being led to executions, their anonymous executioners. She thought of the ship captain all those years ago in Somalia, when she was trying to escape with the girls . . .

She jerked her shoulder, trying to chase away the memory, but her hands were tied. They hadn't tied on the hood, but her hands were tight behind her back, and she couldn't reach it. She couldn't move more than a few inches. She had known that, but feeling it was different.

Breathe, Alie,
she thought, trying not to panic.
Alie, you have to breathe.

The captain's face came to her, unwanted. The beautiful green eyes, the filthy brown teeth. She felt the warmth of his room in the Bosaso flop house. “Sorry to pull you aside, sister, we don't get many white women here,” he had said, as he shoved goat into his mouth with his fingers. “We can't let you ride with the others, of course, we aren't savages, we'll give you a room on deck, my second mate's cabin, he had an accident anyway, here, have some of this.” It was the worst liquor she had ever tasted. Why had she kept drinking it? Why had she listened to him lying, saying, “Don't worry, we'll take care of the women. We always do.”

Breathe,
she thought
. Alie, you have to breathe.

She had to focus on these men, here, now, the ones who had grabbed her off the streets of Ukraine, not the ghosts from Bosaso. There were three of them. The big Russian who met her on the street, and the two who jumped out, grabbed her, and tossed her, literally, onto the delivery truck's cold metal floor.

Forget the hood, Alie. Forget the African captain and his teeth, and your stupid relief when he laughed and said, “We'll take you to the ship now, you can see your friends, they have to hide in the hold, but they will be fine.”

She jerked again, trying to wrench her hands out of the cuffs, but a hand was on her shoulder. “Be calm,” someone barked in accented English.

She thought of the hood back in Africa, her dizziness as the sailors covered her, and the captain saying, “For secrecy, you understand.” Then the short walk to the docks in total darkness, or so she had thought, until she felt the blow to the back of her head, and the ground rushed upward to meet her, and then the captain was leaning over her, saying, “We cannot take you, we must leave you here, but don't worry, sister, I won't rape you. I am a Christian, just like you.”

She screamed, the sound muffled by the hood and the truck. She jerked wildly, an animal instinct. Something was grabbing at her. Something was holding her face down, pressed into the floor,
and you can't breathe,
her mind told her,
when your mouth is facing the floor.

“We're not going to hurt you,” the voice said.

But she was losing consciousness, losing her ability to understand.

“Your friend sent us,” the voice said, as a hand pulled her up.

Locke,
she thought, but distantly, because the darkness was rushing in, and she could feel it filling the hood like blood, and the last thing she remembered was the foul goat breath of the captain, whispering, “I'm not going to rape you, sister,”
but when you wake up tomorrow, alone, in a filthy bed in a Bosaso boardinghouse, you are going to wish that you had died
.

I hardened myself when I saw the Ukrainian carrying the unconscious body like a cord of firewood. I needed to keep cool, like Karpenko or my first commanding officer, General McChrystal, the epitome of grace under pressure. This was not the time for dissent in the ranks.

“She fell,” Maltov said, laying her down.

I pulled off the hood. It was Alie, all right, her curly hair damp with sweat and plastered to her face, blood in her mouth where she'd bitten through her lip. A bruise was forming on her forehead, distending her golden skin.

“Crazy bitch,” Maltov said.

I couldn't stop myself. I lashed the man for his cruelty, as savagely as I could. Maltov simply looked down from six inches above me, his eyes uninterested, waiting for me to finish. It was thirty seconds before I was back in control.

“Bad ju-ju, American,” Maltov said, something he must have heard in a third-rate movie. “You told us to use the hood.”

That stung, because I couldn't argue.

“Leave her to me,” I snapped, signaling for Miles. We carried her to a far corner of the warehouse, for relative privacy, and laid her gently on the ground.

“Increase the watch,” I said.

Miles nodded. He was thinking the same thing. Maltov had only been gone twenty-three minutes. He should have driven
around for at least half an hour after snatching Alie to see if he was being tailed. Instead, he must have come straight home.

I should have sent Colonel Sirko. But no, this was proper thuggery, not a military operation, and Kramatorsk was Maltov's turf. He had the local knowledge and the respect of his men, both things Sirko lacked. Besides, I could sense the colonel's distaste for kidnapping women. He would do it if ordered by Karpenko, but he wouldn't like it. I admired his honor, but it saddened me, too. His rigidity wasn't practical for this world; he was a man outside his time.

Alie groaned, and I bent a knee beside her. She started to retch, so I turned her onto her side, so that she wouldn't choke, and put a hand on her hip, hoping my touch would calm her. Her body was shaking.

Seven hours, at most, until we had to be on our way. And shit tons of work left to do.

Bad ju-ju indeed.

Alie started to come around thirty minutes later, so Greenlees and I propped her on the ammo crate against the back wall of the warehouse. Greenlees had taken care of her while I went over the final details of the operation with Miles. The older man, it turned out, was a natural nursemaid. He'd wiped the grime from her forehead, and the blood and vomit from her lips, with a surprisingly delicate touch.

Now he gave her a shoulder to lean on, as she rolled her head, trying to lift it. Her curly hair was matted from the hood, her eyes closed, and I felt strangely nervous as I watched her coming around, not daring to touch her. I had rarely seen Alie in repose. Only once, in my bed in Bujumbura, when I was alerted to the slaughter at Gatumba at 0200, and I had taken a moment to relish her before strapping on my guns and heading out . . .

Eventually, her eyes opened, and she began to look around. Greenlees gave her a sip of water, then stood back to give her space. Alie's eyes roamed the warehouse, resting on everything briefly, before finding me. For a moment, I thought she was still in a daze. Then she tried to tear her hands out from behind her, as if she expected them not to be bound, and her momentum threw her off balance. Before I could grab her, she crumpled to the floor. Greenlees started to rush to her aid. I signaled him to stand down. Let her lie there, undisturbed.

“You son of a bitch,” she muttered.

“What are you doing here, Alie?” I said coolly—professionally—as Greenlees and I lifted her onto the ammo crate.

“What are
you
doing here?” she said, as her eyes flicked to Miles and a few others who were gathering behind me.

“Work.”

She was angry. Of course. She was lost, bruised, no doubt worried, and shaking from the physical exertion of the last few hours. She'd be sore in the morning, but by then, sadly, I'd be gone.

“I need a drink,” she said.

Greenlees offered her water. She laughed and refused it.

“Does anyone know you're here?” I said.

“You can't shoot me, Tom.”

Of course I could. But she was the last person I'd shoot, and I was surprised she didn't know it. “I'm not going to shoot you, Alie, but we're leaving, and we can't take you with us. Do you have someone to pick you up?”

She looked past me, at the helicopter, the hasty defensive positions we'd made out of piles of metal scrap, the drone. She looked up at the roof of the warehouse, at the cracked windows, the rusted beams. “So this is what it's like,” she said, “on the inside.”

She checked me up and down with her fiercely direct stare. I could see Alie coming back. Not the girl I knew in Africa, but the woman I had met three days ago in Kiev.

“You look like shit,” she said.

It was true. I'd ditched my action slacks and blazer in Poltava, and my fatigues and ballistic vest were carrying three days of grit and sweat. I hadn't washed since Kiev, and I had mission stubble from my chin to the bottom of my neck. I smelled like the rest of the team: body odor and gun oil. It probably hung over the place like a fog. But I was sporting duel thigh holsters for my nine mils,
with my SCAR slung over my shoulder, and my Gerber knife strapped upside down over my left pectoral. Four grenades were rigged to my vest, so I could pull and throw with one hand. And I was jacked, like you get before a mission, when the adrenaline is pounding, even though on the surface you're calm. I looked like a motherfucking badass, come to think of it, because only backbenchers went into battle looking like a recruitment poster.

“Hello, Mr. Greenlees,” Alie said, turning to him. “I bet you're wishing you never had that drink in Kiev. I should have warned you that Locke leaves people behind.”

Greenlees looked sick, and I almost pitied him. He was wearing his same retiree-casual attire, but it was as filthy as my battle gear, and surprisingly frayed. He was coming apart seam by seam, and Alie could always sense a weakness.

“Let it go,” I said.

“Who's he?” Alie said, nodding toward Karpenko.

“None of your business.”

She smirked. “Then he must be yours.” She turned to the oligarch. “I hope he kills the right man.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I knew it was Miles. “That's enough,” he said, stepping toward Alie. “I guess you think you're a reporter now . . .”

“And you're his bodyguard?” She paused. “Even now. Ten years later.”

Miles never lost his cool. Never. But he was close. “This isn't the job, Alie. This isn't what reporters do, flashing photographs around, attracting attention. You don't endanger people. You don't compromise the mission . . .”

“And what is the mission, Miles, if that's even your real name? Secret warfare? Targeted assassination? Stealing oil rights?”

I flinched. Was that really what Alie thought I did? But the shot seemed to have missed with Miles, who looked calmer now.

“The mission is what we are sent here to do,” he said.

“And I'm endangering that mission?”

“You're endangering men's lives.
My
men's lives,” I said.

“Good. Then I'm probably saving someone on the other side.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Karpenko shift his weight and Maltov reach for his gun. Alie was lucky the other Ukrainians didn't speak English, because she had gone too far. She knew it, I could tell, but she was moving now, letting go, so she pivoted and pressed forward, too stubborn to turn back.

“I know this man,” she yelled, so everyone in the warehouse could hear her. “I knew him in Africa. In Burundi. He will not bring you peace.”

I wanted to say I stopped a genocide in Burundi. I stopped a fucking genocide. What have
you
ever done? But I breathed deep and swallowed the Apollo line. “I was never in Burundi,” I said.

“What about Darfur then? Were you ever there?”

I could see Miles out of the corner of my eye, ushering people away. It was no one's business what we did for the company, and the less people that knew anything, the better.

“I was never in Darfur,” I said, stepping closer so that no one but Alie could hear me.

“I saw you, you lying bastard,” she hissed. “Outside Garsila.” I could see the emotion in her face, and it surprised me, because it wasn't anger, it was . . . disappointment. “I know you could have stopped it. You had the men. But you watched. You watched as an entire village was slaughtered by the Janjaweed. You watched children being chopped down, men shot for sport, women stolen on horseback never to be seen again.”

“It wasn't the mission.”

“It wasn't the mission to save innocent people?”

I didn't answer. I'd already said too much, and Alie was roll
ing, maybe with stuff she'd been saving up for years, maybe from the adrenaline rush of surviving death in a black hood, maybe because she realized she had a moment, only a moment, before she was gone from my life, maybe for good.

“The mission,” she scoffed, like it was a dirty word. “Do you only save innocent people when someone pays you to do it?”

“I saved that orphanage,” I said.

“Don't you take my—”

“I gave you Gatumba, I gave you those girls, because they were in war's way, and without me they would have been dead before you even arrived, them and their nuns, too.”

She hesitated. Never hesitate. “So who have you really saved?” I pressed. “Not those orphan girls. Not those women in Darfur. Not those refugee families you wrote those articles about so many years ago.”

“You don't know anything about that.”

“I know everything about that,” I said. “I know you went with them to Bosaso. I know you bribed a UN official to find a worthy ship captain, and paid him a thousand American dollars to smuggle the girls out. And I know you wouldn't go any further, Alie. In the end, you wouldn't submit your white girl virtue to the hold. You booked passage above deck, over dinner with the captain.”

“You've been following me.”

“And you still missed the boat. You missed the fucking boat—” I was snarling now, and she knew it was coming, I could see the horror in her eyes “—because you were drunk.”

“I wasn't . . .” she tried.

And then she broke. I could see it. And it only made me more vicious. “It was your idea, wasn't it? You wanted to take them to Europe. You wanted that story, as a memorial to your own past: two women and three little girls escape lives of abuse by crossing
the ocean in a sweltering hold. But they didn't make it, did they, Alie? Did they?”

She cracked. She would never admit it, she would fight like hell to deny it, but I'd beaten her.

“Or even worse,” I said slowly, “you don't know. You don't know what happened to them. And that's why you're here. You're looking for penance. You're trying to rescue all the lost girls, in Darfur, Somalia, Ukraine. But being a reporter fixes nothing.”

“You've been spying on me.”

“I've been protecting you,” I snapped. “I'm protecting you now.” It wasn't true. Ten years, and I'd never done shit for Alie, never had the balls to be anything to her, except for tonight.

“I don't want your protection,” she said, rising out of her self-loathing, like I knew my Alie would. “I hate your fucking protection.”

I leaned even closer, I don't know why. Maybe to punch her. Maybe to comfort her. Maybe, I don't know, to kiss her. But before I could figure any of that out, Miles stepped in and slammed me in the shoulder, knocking me back. It was more of a shove than a tackle, I'm sure, but it felt like stones colliding.

“Take it easy, brother,” Miles said as he pulled me away, his arm around my shoulder, his head close to mine. “Take it easy.”

He punched my chest, hard, like he was giving me airborne bloodwings. He was reminding me who I was, reminding me to breathe, which I did, slowly.

“Mission girl,” I said, even though both of us knew it wasn't true.

He smacked me, flat hand, even harder this time. “Mission focus,” he said.

He was right. I couldn't lose control. Ever. But especially now, with men's lives on the line, and only a few hours left. “Mission focus,” I said.

I looked back at Alie. She was slumped on the ammo case, exhausted, and Karpenko was talking to her almost like Miles was talking to me. Close, with his arm over her shoulder.

“I'm going to tell her,” Karpenko said, looking up at Miles, but talking to me, “what this man has done for my family.”

His children. Poltava. Whatever. What was done was done, what was coming was coming fast.

Miles nodded his approval.

Karpenko turned to me. “I will take care of her,” he said.

Fuck her,
I thought. But I didn't mean it. I didn't know what I meant. None of this had gone like I'd expected. On this mission, nothing had.

Alie felt the Ukrainian's arm around her, soft as a habit, hard as a rosary. She thought of her time in the cloth, weeping before the statue of a virgin. She was a fraud, she thought, as the Ukrainian led her away, saying, “Let me tell you a story” quietly into her ear. She'd chickened out. Sold women and children out. Then wrote the story like that part, the dark hood in the alley in Somalia and everything after, had never happened at all.

She was a fraud, she thought, as the Ukrainian took her under his arm. But so what? Everybody was a fraud. Everybody.