Shadow War (31 page)

“They aren't going to find them, are they?” Everly asked, as the black Benz limo pushed through Saint Petersburg's early morning traffic.

“Unlikely.”

Everly pursed his lips, pushing his lackluster chin deeper into his neck. “Did you warn them?”

“I didn't have to.”

Winters had come up through army airborne, and he'd kept his military mind-set: never leave a man behind. Not an Apollo man. It was a guiding principle behind Apollo Outcomes. It was literally chiseled into a stone that someone had given him as a paperweight, which he'd passed down to the man who replaced him as the leader of the paramilitary wing of the firm. He felt wrong about what he had done, deeply wrong, but maybe, he reasoned, that was the price of success: to lay down a few of your core convictions in pursuit of the greater good. At least he had warned Locke.

“It wasn't necessary,” Winters said, with steel in his voice. “Karpenko, maybe. But my team?”

“It was currency,” Everly replied bluntly. “Gorelov needed to save face in order to pitch our deal to his superiors.”

They were quiet. Brad Winters was hardly ever quiet.

“I admit,” Everly said, with a snuffling laugh, “I enjoyed seeing Yuri so . . . incontinent. I'd like to thank you for that.”

“It was my pleasure. Sincerely.” Winters liked sticking it to a Russian, any Russian. He was Cold War that way.

“He may try to use this . . . escape as an excuse,” Everly frowned. “To back out on your part of the deal.”

“I don't think so,” Winters said. “They had their chance at the facility, they have no one to blame but themselves. And this is a smart deal for the Russians.” Winters had planned it that way. He knew the power of mutual benefit. “That's the real way Gorelov will save face. And besides—” he smiled at Everly “—I have the same protection as everyone else you negotiated for today: your bank and its backers.”

Winters had long known the game. He knew the Deep State wasn't a powerful cabal. It was a ruthless jungle of apex-predators in a zero-sum contest of conquest and annihilation, where every alliance was temporary, and everyone, even the largest players and power brokers, could be destroyed. Gorelov could fall out of favor with Putin all the way to a prison cell, or a grave. Karpenko could be sold for assassination. The London bank could fail, if it stopped being useful to the right people at the highest levels of influence. At the Deep State level, everyone was both predator and prey. That wasn't a defect in the system, but its survival mechanism; competition kept everyone's claws sharp.

What Winters hadn't realized was that East and West no longer mattered. The Deep State, as seen through the bankers, penetrated across the great divide, from London to Moscow. Its interests didn't track with normal geopolitics, or even official government positions. He had been raised a patriot, always believing that it was us versus them; that national interests trumped business; that flags were, in the end, more than cloth.

But that was twentieth-century thinking, and as he'd just learned, the modern world was much bigger than states, and much more dangerous and profitable, too. Yes, there was nego
tiation left to do, but Glenn Hartley and his partners were now looking at three times as much drillable land as he'd promised in Ukraine. The security environment was worse, sure, but Apollo would roll its Ukrainian security contracts into Azerbaijan, either with the financial backing of the U.S. government or some other partner. Within a few years, his conglomerate would be pumping millions of barrels, and Apollo would be the best military force in the hot zone between Russia, Iraq, and Iran. And then, if and when the time was right, Gorelov would learn what Winters had taken to heart: that all strategic alliances are temporary, until the next opportunity comes along.

“I hope you're not disappointed,” Everly said, misinterpreting the silence. “It was a brilliant plan, in its way. Expose the Russian military invasion. Blow up our energy network. Pressure the world into war. Jolly good as bluffs.”

If you say so.

“But the world doesn't work that way, I'm afraid,” Everly said. “It is not remade, all in one whack. History is a series of carefully applied pressures, moving things incrementally toward where you want them to go. It's managing crises, not creating them. That is our business, Mr. Winters. The steadying hand. That's how we'll push Putin into line. And you gave him a mighty big push today.”

Everly was wrong. History didn't work like that. It was a constant collision, a series of catastrophic breaks and long repairs. Bin Laden had changed the world in a moment, when his men flew airplanes into the World Trade Center. George Bush had remade the world in three weeks, when he blitzkrieged Baghdad. Bush had intended to break the Middle East so that he could build back: newer, modern, and better than before. The first part worked; the second part . . . not so much. But that was a failure of execution, not vision. It didn't mean the idea was wrong.

“Cheer up, old chap,” Everly said with a knock on the shoulder and fresh British pip. “We did a good thing today.
You
did a good thing. It was impressive indeed.”

“Thanks,” Winters said, without much conviction. They were approaching the airfield. He could see the private jet on the tarmac.

“We'd like to express our appreciation,” Everly said, turning serious. “We'd like to buy back your firm's stock and take you private, through a shell company, of course. You'll have complete managerial control, and once your firm meets our clients' needs, you'll never have to depend on another government contract again. The possibilities are greater, Mr. Winter, than even you can imagine.”

He was talking about a 10 percent stake in a $1.8 billion company at current valuations, probably more once the hedge funds got wind of the rumors and drove the stock through the roof. It was more than payment in full. And it would correct Winters's most foolish error, when he had listened to his New York banker friends and decided fifty million in his pocket was better than the anonymity of being privately held.

“Take your time. It's a big decision, I know. We don't expect an answer right away.”

“I accept,” Winters said.

Everly raised an eyebrow. “To our partnership, then.”

“To our future.”

Winters smiled, and whether the smile was false or how he truly felt, even he wasn't sure. This wasn't how he had hoped his Ukrainian gambit would turn out; but maybe, if he played this opportunity right, it was better. The London bankers thought they were buying him, but Winters knew that if you were going to climb a man to power, you had to stand close.

Everly snuffled his nasal laugh, and Winters realized that, in
his way, the man was truly enjoying himself. Today was a major victory; maybe even bigger than Winters understood.

“It was clever, you know, what you said about nobody knowing you.”

“It's the truth,” Winters said. “It's my code.”

“It's
our
code,” Everly corrected him, “but you can rest assured, my friend, Vladimir Putin is going to know you now.”

The pilots were back in the cockpit by the time Alie burst onto the scene. The helicopters had been on the ground for more than forty minutes, and the reporters were eager to leave this dry hole in a dangerous war zone. They had been up since 5:00
A.M.
; they had four-star food and expense accounts waiting for them back in Kiev; and the only people going in or out of this pipeline facility were employees.

Alie took advantage of their eagerness to slip past the thin line of spectators that news cameras always attract and grabbed one of the women by the arm, a low-level on-air personality, although Alie didn't recognize her, since she had long ago given up watching American television news. She was risking a pistol-whipping from the so-called protection, but Alie knew her looks would save her. She wasn't a desperate damsel in distress, but she knew how to play it for TV.

“Please,” she begged. “Take me with you.”

The newswoman turned, startled. She was young and beautiful, the right kind of woman for the post-Internet news, and Alie knew she'd have no sympathy for a freelancer in a bind.

“I'm an American,” Alie said, with flagrant despair. “Take me with you. Please. My husband. He's hurt.”

The woman looked at the bloody rags covering the man's face and his staggering steps. He looked like he was about to fall over.

“My name is Alie . . . Alie Jenson. I'm from Missouri, USA. My husband . . . he's a minister. We're Christian missionaries.
We've been stranded for a month. Please. My husband needs medical attention. The Russians . . . they beat him. They beat everyone at the mission . . . even the children.”

The woman eyed her, but not with compassion. With greed. Behind her, a cameraman was calling for her to get onboard.

It took her only a second to decide.

“It's against the rules,” the reporter whispered as she ushered them into the helicopter. Alie knew the woman smelled a story, but she was going to be disappointed when they got back to Kiev, because there was no story to be had.

“What's his name?” the reporter shouted over the rotors, as they rose into the air, but Alie tapped her ear, pretended she couldn't hear her. The reporter turned away. Alie leaned into her husband, settling into the flight.

“It's only Kiev,” she said into his ear, “but it will have to do.”

Karpenko smiled, although nobody could see it under the filthy bandages. “Better than Vilnius,” he said.

Eight hundred miles away, the drone eased out of the blue sky and came to rest on the deck of a rusty scupper in the middle of the Black Sea. Jacob Ehrlich sighed and began the postflight inspection. This was the last one of the night, so he went quickly, like a Hertz employee looking over a just-returned rental car at the end of a long shift. Fifteen minutes later, the drone was packed up and hidden in the hold.

Ehrlich took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The sun was up, the deck was rolling beneath his feet, and there was nothing in any direction but water, as far as the eye could see.

Just another boring nothing day in paradise,
he thought, as the engines kicked in for the long boat ride home.
But at least I'm getting paid.

British Virgin Islands

July 4, 2014

I should have known,
I thought, as I watched him take a seat at the beachside bar, like a man who owned the world. He was wearing a Panama hat and Bermuda shorts, and was puffing a nice cigar, like the ubiquitous middle-aged white man on vacation that crowded every beach north of the equator, and quite a few south of it, too.

But he wasn't on vacation; he was here for me.

After Boon, Wildman, and I had humped it out of Ukraine, we spent a few weeks on the run, watching our six for an Apollo hit team, but it never materialized. Maybe Winters had decided we weren't a threat; maybe we were just that good. By the time we reached Ankara, Turkey, my money was running low, so I saddled up and flew to the British Virgin Islands with the last of our stash. I knew the company would find me if they wanted to, since I was flying on my real passport, using my real name. So when I didn't see anyone at the airport, I thought they might let me go, and I was disappointed. Was that all I meant to them? Then I spotted a stiff loitering across from my bank. Apollo
Outcomes knew everything, apparently, including where I kept my secret emergency cash and safety deposit box.

So I pulled back and waited to see what happened. Two days later, the boss arrived and hit a bar at the beach. He wasn't hiding or planning an operation. He was here to be found. There was nothing to do but oblige.

“Wolcott,” I scoffed, as my shadow fell over his table.

Wolcott lowered his
Financial Times
and squinted. He hadn't even bothered to watch if anyone was coming. “Thomas Locke,” he said, as if I was expected, which of course I was. He gestured to the empty seat. He could tell I was angry. “I know you were hoping for someone else.”

“I thought he might want to apologize.”

Wolcott laughed. “Our friend doesn't apologize or explain. You know that.” No names. Fine.

“He burned me, Wolcott.”

“I don't think so.”

“He sabotaged the mission. He tried to have me killed.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Wolcott said, “but I assure you, Thomas, whatever happened, it wasn't personal.”

“Men died, Wolcott. My friend Miles. Your friend Greenlees . . .”

“I know. I am sorry.”

Sorry
meant nothing, especially from an empty suit. I needed to talk with the man himself.

“Why are you here?”

“To close the loop,” Wolcott said. “To make sure we're square.”

He really had a way with words. “We're not square.”

“Don't make this hard.”

My hands wanted to reach for my Berettas, holstered in the small of my back under my Tommy Bahama shirt and linen blazer, but I restrained myself. “You think this is hard? Sitting on the beach drinking . . . what? A cherry margarita?”

“It's a Singapore Sling. You should try one.” Wolcott called the waiter. I glared at the young man, which wasn't fair, he was just doing his job.

“Fine,” Wolcott huffed, turning to the waiter. “A piña colada for my friend.”

He drank. I've always had issues with multicolored drinks garnished with tiny umbrellas, but this one looked right in Wolcott's chubby hand.

“I assume you're not coming back,” he said between slurps.

“No.”

“Then take this as a severance package.” He slid the folded
Financial Times
across the table. Inside was a sealed envelope thick with cash. “Consider this your exit interview.”

There was an old joke at Apollo Outcomes: the exit interview was the funeral. I looked out at the water. It was strikingly blue. There were a few white sailboats bobbing on the swell.

“You going to the competition?”

Half of me wanted to hunt Winters down, figure this out, and deliver the kind of moral justice my job at Apollo had always promised, but rarely produced. The other half wanted to disappear.

“Tell him I'm going solo. Low-key. Starting a company with a couple of friends. Preventing genocide. Taking down tyrants. Disrupting the disrupters.” That was a Brad Winters phrase, from our time in management together. “Tell him not to worry about competition because this will only be missions worth killing and dying for.” I thought of Miles. We should have done this years ago, together. “Tell him Ukraine was the last time I work for someone I don't trust.”

Wolcott let the trust issue slide. He was a corporate jockey, a company man, but he was sympathetic, I think. “Then you're definitely going to need this,” he said, shoving the envelope of money closer.

I looked out at the harbor and thought,
I like white boats
. I used to make them out of scrap paper when I was a kid. Sometimes they'd float a few feet, before they sank.

“Did you see the article?”

He meant Alie's article about Karpenko, “The George Washington of Ukraine.” Apparently, the oligarch was holed up somewhere in London, in a town house whose windows were two-way glass. Most of the article was standard hagiography, but part five was a detailed account of his family's rescue and the “Russian aggression” in Kramatorsk, from the point of view of the client. It read like a
New York Times
puff piece on Navy SEALs, as if my team was all supermen, especially Miles. I appreciated that.

“Cut her some slack, Wolcott. Everything was true. And she didn't include names, including Apollo Outcomes, and you know she could have. Our employment records can be found.”

“We killed it, anyway. That's why it ended up on a website out of Amsterdam, with no office and no assets, instead of the
Atlantic
. We had it taken down, of course, but not before it had been copied into the ether a hundred times. It's still causing us grief.”

Not enough, considering.

“But our litigators will find her.” He switched gears, but not artfully. “Have you had any contact? I hear you two used to be close.”

He knew I hadn't. But did he know that was why my return flight was routed through Amsterdam? “No.”

“Did you hear about the CIA kid, the one that stumbled back from Kramatorsk?”

“No.”

“He got a tongue-lashing. Then he got a medal for bravery. He was promoted to Islamabad.”

My piña colada arrived, but I ignored it. Wolcott noisily
sucked up the last of his Singapore Sling. He was sunburned on his nose and the back of his neck. Why was he even bothering to wear the hat?

“Am I free?” I asked. Boon and Wildman were waiting in Bosaso, and I needed to get back. For the sake of the local Somalis, of course. You don't want Wildman haunting your bar district for long.

“We forgive you, if that's what you mean. Assuming you forgive us.”

Nothing forgiven, Wolcott. Nothing forgotten. The loop wasn't closed, and the circle wasn't squared.

“Look, Thomas,” Wolcott said, leaning forward confidentially as another Singapore Sling appeared on his cocktail napkin. The Breezy Point Inn, the napkin said. “This isn't right. I know that. But there's nothing I can do. Men like Brad Winters . . . we spend a lot of time wondering about them. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why are they doing this to me? But the fact is, guys like Winters, they never think about guys like us.”

“He asked for me, Wolcott.”

“And you think you're the only one? He asks for everyone, every now and then.”

Wolcott sat back. He looked out at the boats. He took a deep drink, like he was on a long weekend with the family at the Jersey Shore.

“You might be right, Locke,” he said finally. “You might be special. That might be why I'm here. He's never sent me, he's never sent anyone, like this before. Usually, it's just adios, and a burn notice or a body bag. Sign the confidentiality agreement and get off my lawn. But for some reason, he cares about you.”

I took the money.

“Tell him I'm . . . disappointed.”

I almost said,
Tell him I'll see him soon
. But why let him know I'm coming? Winters would understand my message, just as I understood his. He would know I wasn't going to let this lie. And now I knew he wouldn't, either. That was what made us different from men like Wolcott, I suppose, and the billion other middle managers slugging it out in an office every day.

“I have to go,” I said, standing up.

I left the bar and didn't look back. What would be the point? I had a world to save, and two friends to meet in Ankara. And before that, a small bed in a small room in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, and a single night, for now, when I knew it would be warm.