“Are you insane?” His normally calm voice betrayed the stress he was under. “They’re blaming you for the apocalypse.”
“It’s literally just a big mistake, and I think I can prove it. I could use some help.” He kept his voice calm and words bland so as not to alert the woman sitting next to him.
The long pause and silence that followed unnerved him. Finally Rosenberg said, “Let me see if I can find anything on it. Get a cheap throwaway phone and call me later. Only call this number. And wait until after five. I don’t want to be on government property when you call.”
Walsh heard the stress in his friend’s voice and simply replied, “Roger that.”
The line went dead, and Walsh was left wondering if he’d made a mistake. Mike had sworn an oath to the country. That might include turning in a friend.
He needed a safe haven, and the only place he could think of was Alena’s apartment. He needed to feel her arms wrapped around him for a few minutes and to hear her soothing voice. At least she’d believe him.
Anton Severov sat in the backseat of the shabby little car Fannie was driving. He realized quickly he didn’t want her associate, Amir, to be sitting behind him at any point. With a fair command of English, the Iranian student made it clear that he had little use for Russia, either. But since they could help each other, Amir would put up with Severov and his mission. He didn’t get to be a major in the Red Army by ignoring threats that were right in front him. Severov kept Amir to the side and in front of him.
Fannie, on the other hand, had proven to be charming and had an excellent command of English. That was their only common language, and he enjoyed hearing her Gaelic lilt. She concentrated as she handled the beat-up Skoda Fabia hatchback that had seen better days. It had that curious chug that many of the Eastern European cars possessed. It was still a step up from most Russian vehicles, but nowhere near the luxurious Japanese or American cars that cost a fortune anywhere east of the Rhine.
Despite the distraction of a beautiful escort, Severov managed to make notes and take some photographs as they turned south toward Tartu on the Tartu Maantee. He made notes of the width of the road and buildings that might hinder the travel of their heavy tanks and supply vehicles. In several of the small villages along the beautiful Lake Peipus with its dark water and narrow beaches, the roads had patches of cobblestones, which had been there since the Middle Ages. The citizens wouldn’t be happy with the effects of tank tracks across their decorative streets.
After a while Fannie turned to him and said, “Have you traveled in the West much?”
“I’ve been to Germany and France a number of times and spent an entire year working at our embassy in London. That is where I was able to really polish my English. I had several trips to America as a military liaison, but most of my time in the army has been further east.” He stopped short of saying he had been in Georgia and Turkmenistan, where he had fought in Muslim rebellions.
“How did you find the United States? I’ve never been there.”
“Much of it lives up to everything we hear. It is a land of plenty, and there is ungodly waste. But I found the people to be pleasant and open, and the cuisine to be stolen from virtually every other country.” He was starting to chuckle at his little joke when he saw the look on Fannie’s face.
“They have stolen everything from others. Stolen Arab oil, Native American land, English determination, and some of the best and brightest people from every country. That is why we can work together now. It’s time someone taught them a lesson.”
Severov stared at the young woman and realized why it was so hard to defeat the Muslims in some of the Russian republics. This was not someone he wanted as an enemy. But he was still a little uneasy working with these two.
Joseph Katazin was quite pleased with himself. He wished his father were still alive to see how well he’d done. At this moment, in this place, no one was doing more for the well-being of Russia than he was. He swelled with pride as he thought about the plan he had developed with others and was now responsible for by himself. At least, he was responsible for large parts of the operation.
It was still early in the morning, but he didn’t want his wife and daughter disturbing him. He’d driven down to his office near the docks where he could see the new so-called Freedom Tower. These Americans and their ability to forget struggle and tragedy amazed him. A month after the attack on the World Trade Center, everything was back to normal in the sprawling country of plenty.
His business consisted of a loading dock, generally stacked with product to be shipped out as part of his import/export business, and a set of five offices. His was the nicest, with two wide windows, carpet, and several nice touches of decoration his wife had insisted on. The business had been in the same location for thirteen years. He never had to worry about making rent; if he fell behind on the import/export business he just asked for a supplement from his superiors, although it was rare he needed extra money.
The business employed five people legitimately, a secretary, a bookkeeper, and the men who worked on the loading dock. He had two additional employees, or at least men the company paid, but they rarely showed their face around the office. These two men thought he was part of the Russian mob and occasionally did things for him in his capacity of working for the Russian government. All they could tell the cops if they were captured was that they worked for a surly mob member who ran an import/export business. Let them prove that in court.
The man he had sent to watch Derek Walsh’s apartment, Serge Blattkoff, had proven to be unreliable. He had allowed the former marine to get the drop on him and take his weapon. Serge had a black eye and a broken nose to prove it. This wasn’t Hollywood. Katazin wouldn’t have the man killed. But he certainly wouldn’t trust him with more important missions on his own. However, he recognized that Serge’s embarrassment and anger over this incident would be useful, and the young thug would stop at nothing to get back at Walsh.
He had underestimated Derek Walsh, and now the man was a thorn in his side who must be plucked out. He was clearly not in custody. One of the sources said that he fled from FBI custody when rioters got out of control. It was a smart move, and frankly not one Katazin would have expected from the chunky Wall Street banker. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Aside from Walsh’s disappearance, the operation seemed to be advancing well. It rested on several key elements. The first one was to use Walsh as the dupe to transfer monies from legitimate accounts to accounts in Switzerland where they could be immediately withdrawn. He was relying on a contact with one of the Islamic extremist groups to complete that task. She seemed to have done a pretty good job so far. A news report early this morning documented a “terror attack” on a major bank in Bern, Switzerland. Katazin realized that was the same bank he used to make the transfer, and the bombing was clearly covering someone’s tracks. He liked that.
The same associate had paid a fortune to a bank employee to somehow hack both the London and New York stock exchanges with a Russian-made computer algorithm that greatly affected the computer-generated trading. The algorithm exaggerated the appearance of the big funds’ selling positions. That caused everyone to actually sell in an effort to beat a tumbling market. That resulted in the massive sell-off and fueled the panic in the general public. The master work of programming had been done at Steklov Mathematical Institute and refined at the Kiev Computer Algebra School. Katazin understood some of it from his father’s work in mathematics. He knew that only the brightest had developed it and that it had cost a fortune to introduce into the computer systems.