They ended up on the ground together, the man so close the major could smell sardines on his breath. The rifleman kept up fire, and dirt spouted near Major Jackson’s head.
The large, smelly man was badly wounded and had dropped his pistol. Major Jackson wanted him alive so someone could figure out what this was all about and who was responsible.
The man reached into his pocket and in a heartbeat retrieved some kind of remote detonator.
Major Jackson froze and looked the man in the eye.
The man spoke in accented English. “You put up good fight. It won’t matter. This is just the start.” He mashed the button.
Major Ronald Jackson, graduate of the University of California, nine-year veteran of the marines, son to a city planner and a speech pathologist, felt the heat as he heard the blast and knew that the entire step van held some kind of high explosive and was their plan B.
After the initial flash, everything went dark.
Vladimir Putin was just finishing his breakfast in his office inside the palace at Novo-Ogaryovo. The fresh produce he ate most mornings came from the personal farmland estate of the patriarch.
He didn’t like to rush his breakfast, but he knew people were waiting to meet with him. He conducted most of his business at the palace about twenty-four kilometers west of Moscow. It was quiet and comfortable here, and Putin felt this was where he belonged. It was quite different from his childhood apartment he had shared with two other families and rats in St. Petersburg, which was known at the time as Leningrad. This was the kind of living that he had grown accustomed to and why he had made sure that no matter what happened, he would be one of the wealthiest men in the world.
He was already a little on edge for having missed his usual morning swim. His judo practice was still scheduled for the afternoon, but this meeting was important, more important than anything they had planned in quite some time. After finishing his second quail egg, a delicacy he had come to enjoy, he stood from the table and checked himself in a mirror. Even in simple slacks and shirt with no tie, he liked what he saw.
Putin stepped through the door into his private office, then used an intercom to have the secretary send in his guests. An older, obese man with virtually no hair on his head waddled in, followed by a man whose build was very similar to Putin’s own. He greeted them warmly. They were old friends—two of a handful of men he trusted implicitly.
He motioned the large man, Andre Maysak, who was in his midseventies, to a wide, comfortable chair, which Putin himself usually occupied. “Sit here, Andre. We have much to talk about.”
The older man, who was a member of the Politburo and a dominating force in the Foreign Ministry, straightened his tailored Joseph Abboud suit and plopped down with great effort.
Putin would need Andre if the General Assembly rebelled, and, if necessary, to suppress any dissent. Among other things, Andre knew where all the bodies were buried.
The man about Putin’s age, Yuri Simplov, was a deputy director of the SVR, the foreign intelligence service for the Russian Federation and successor agency to the KGB. Because of his background in intelligence, Putin had come to rely on the SVR to handle a number of problems whether it had legal authority or not. If Andre knew where all the bodies were buried, Simplov knew how to blame Putin’s enemies for those brutal crimes.
Simplov always dressed in simple, off-the-rack suits, mostly so no one would suspect that he had amassed a fortune through his association with Putin and his sensitive position in the government service. They had worked together since their days in the KGB and had always had a private rivalry to see who was tougher. If one man ate nails, the other ate nails with rust on them. In this case, it was just who could sit more awkwardly in a hard chair.
Andre looked between the two men and said, “Somehow I don’t think I’m about to hear good news.”
Putin gave him a rare smile and said, “On the contrary, my friend, this is nothing but good news. It’s also something I hope you know nothing about. Operational security has been extraordinarily strict, and I thought we would start to brief key members of the Politburo.”
“I’m fascinated and worried at the same time,” Andre said.
Putin said, “First, I have to give credit to Yuri for finding ways to accomplish the impossible without having a financial trail that leads back to Russia in any way.”
Andre folded his arms, looking at the arrogant younger man who rarely bothered to greet others when they met in the halls of power. He said, “And what are the impossible feats our SVR friend has managed to accomplish?”
Putin said, “It’s really two things that are connected. First, he has a way to steal two hundred million dollars from a U.S. bank without anyone suspecting us. And we will use that money to fund a new ally that will help distract the U.S. while we plan our first major military operation in decades.”
“And who is this new ally?”
“A group of jihadists associated with ISIS.”
That got Andre’s attention. He leaned forward and said, “How do we become allies with someone we are constantly at war with? They hate us.”
“But they hate the West more,” Putin said. “We do not rub our affluence in their face. We do not produce movies that ridicule them. We didn’t invade Iraq, and we do not bankroll Israel.”
“But how did you even approach them?” Andre asked.
“They approached us,” Putin said. “They wanted us to teach them how to hack into a computer system of the world’s biggest banks.”
Andre cut his eyes from one man to the other and finally said, “And what would be the target of this new military operation?”
Putin couldn’t hide his smile, and he finally said, “Estonia.”
2
Putin kept his eyes on his old friend from the Politburo, trying to get a feel for what the man was thinking. That was the key to everything accomplished in Russia: knowing what people were thinking.
Finally Andre said, “Excuse me, but my head is spinning slightly. Do you really think an ISIS affiliate will do as we direct?”
He and Yuri Simplov had debated the question for months. Different intelligence people had game-planned all of the possible scenarios. Some were, of course, failures, but the upside far outweighed the downside. Putin said, “That’s the beauty of it, Andre. We don’t have to direct them at all. Once they start their attacks, they promised to focus them in Europe and the U.S. for a solid week. We have no say in their targets or what operatives are used, and we just let it run its course. Even if it’s only a few days, I believe it will leave the Americans reeling. It will be like a virus. Once the operation has used up all of its power, it will simply disappear.”
Simplov jumped in. “We will let our two great enemies, the West and the radical Muslims, fight it out and deplete their own forces.”
“No one will know how to respond,” Putin said. “Look at France after the Paris attacks. Their law enforcement was busy for months, but they still only caught a dozen terrorists total. Magnify that by five separate attacks, ten, fifty. The attacks will be physical, psychological, and cyber. No one will know how to respond. As a bonus, the jihadists will not be bothering Russia. At least for a while.”
Putin waited while Andre absorbed all this. The older man was cautious, but he was also intelligent and experienced. Only a fool would ignore his advice. He understood the Americans, and especially the American diplomats, better than just about anyone.
“It could work,” Andre said. “At least temporarily. But once you start any sort of incursion into Estonia, NATO will respond. Estonia is a member of NATO, and they will have no option but to respond to a military attack.”