After talking with Mike Rosenberg, he wondered if his other friend from the unit who had left, Derek Walsh, missed the marines more than he let on. He was a big shot on Wall Street now but still managed to drop Shepherd a line either through e-mail or on Skype at least once a week. Maybe he’d try Walsh early tomorrow afternoon when it was midmorning on the East Coast. He’d seen both Mike and Derek at Ron Jackson’s funeral, and they all had been disturbed by his death. It made Shepherd want to focus on the assholes in the Islamic State, but he’d settle for Russians.
Just thinking of “settling” for the Russians reminded Shepherd of a training class he took at Quantico with Rosenberg, Walsh, and Jackson. They were all newly minted second lieutenants and just getting to know each other. Already they were falling into certain roles, with Jackson seeming wiser and more even-tempered than the others even though he was the same age. Rosenberg was already assessing situations and providing them with intelligence like any good G-2. Walsh could figure out their resources and tell them exactly where they could and couldn’t go based on their meager money and available transportation. And Shepherd was always the one who listened to everyone else, then acted, or sometimes acted, then listened to everyone else. They were the perfect team, and he missed them terribly.
During this training class, they had gone out for a beer in the little town called Woodbridge in northern Virginia. The place was packed; it was some kind of trivia night, and between the four of them they knew the answers to almost everything that came up. Soon girls were flirting with them, and as was his way, Shepherd was gathering phone numbers as fast as he could. He always found it easy to chat with women, and that made it possible to set up his friends as well. But that night he had chatted with one woman too many, and her remarkably fit and tall boyfriend and his three friends took exception.
None of them were in uniform, but most people in the area could tell a marine officer by the haircut and bearing. That didn’t deter these local rednecks in the least. Shepherd wanted to kick everyone’s ass, but he “settled” for just the one guy. Even then Shepherd knew he could trust his friends to have his back and never worried about the other men. He could focus all his attention on the loudmouth up in his face. As it turned out, Walsh, Rosenberg, and Jackson handled the other men with little problem. But the big man confronting Shepherd had a wicked right cross and knocked him off his feet almost immediately. That’s the way things worked out in bar fights, and he had to accept the sore nose if he was dumb enough to get into a fight in the first place.
Before he knew it, Shepherd’s friends were easing him out of the bar with a bloody nose and what turned out to be a really good black eye, but nothing more serious. Those were the three guys he could trust as long as he lived. Or, as it had sadly turned out, as long as they lived. Now he only had Walsh and Rosenberg to depend on, but he was glad he had them.
Shepherd’s mind dialed back to the present as he flipped a page to see just how many portable antitank weapons he would be able to scrounge up if the time came. From the corner of his eye he caught an attractive young woman sipping coffee at the edge of the café. She had dark brown, flowing hair and high cheekbones that set off deep green eyes. He couldn’t tell her nationality, but she wasn’t the typical fair German girl. She had a grace and style that pointed toward France or one of the United Kingdom countries.
Maybe it was time for a break from his work.
Neither of the men confronting Derek Walsh expected him to be so aggressive. And clearly the younger man didn’t know how to handle 220 pounds barreling into him. He bounced off Walsh, grazed the wall, and ended up on the sidewalk.
Walsh saw movement out of the corner of his left eye and instinctively raised his left hand to block a blow by the other man. At least he appeared to be unarmed. Walsh pivoted and threw his elbow into the man’s face, knocking him into the street. As he turned around, the man on the ground had his pistol up. Walsh didn’t hesitate to fall on him, holding the arm with the pistol in it. They struggled, and Walsh felt the strain in his respiratory system. His breathing became labored, and his heart pounded in his chest. What the hell did these guys want? He rolled on the ground, tossing the smaller man to one side while still holding the arm with the pistol.
The second man, the older one with a scar, somehow got back in the fight and took the gun from the man Walsh had in his grasp. The older man had the gun almost to Walsh’s temple when Walsh was able to raise his left hand violently and knock it away just as the man pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafening. It caused a dog to bark in the distance and made everyone at the scene freeze. The man brought the gun around again, but this time Walsh swept his leg and knocked him to the ground. A car came around the corner, the headlights raking the building and all three of them.
The younger man shouted something in another language. It sounded Russian. He started to run. Walsh made a fist and struck the older man several times in the side, feeling his ribs crack.
The older man struggled to his feet and managed to kick the gun away from both of them. As he stood, he staggered, then leaned down and scooped up the gun and set off running.
Walsh sat up and leaned against the building panting, watching both men disappear around the corner as the car that had scared them off came to a stop. He heard a woman’s voice say, “I just called 911.”
Walsh nodded and raised his hand in thanks. But he couldn’t help wondering why the men attacked him, and why, after he had the gun in his hand again, the older man chose to run instead of shoot.
In the distance he could hear a siren.
5
After Vladimir Putin had showered and changed into comfortable evening clothes, Yuri Simplov showed up. Putin was in an good mood because he had seen both of his daughters in the afternoon and then was able to spend more than an hour and a half in judo practice. He worked on all forms of martial arts, but judo was his first love and the first martial art that really focused him as a child. He practiced it for hours on end. It was his form of meditation, and he now had two sergeants from the perimeter security patrol who were perfect to practice with. They were built like Putin, athletic but not too bulky, and they were aggressive opponents. They were both approaching their midforties, but Putin could still get the best of them in most circumstances. His early sixties had hit him harder than he expected, and he worked longer than ever to keep his edge and stayed in shape. And throwing around two army sergeants did wonders for his confidence.
Judo also taught Putin how to size up an opponent, in life as well as on the mat. He had been doing that to the Western leaders for years and finally found that he had a decisive advantage over the current crop of politicians. Maybe not all of them, but certainly the ones running the U.S. and France. That was why the timing of this operation was so important. He had to start thinking of his legacy. How would he be remembered? He wanted to lead Russia to the forefront of world affairs once again.
The dinner with his daughters and their respective boyfriends had been light and easy. Both the girls had been adults when he and their mother divorced, and neither seemed to hold it against him. His divorce settlement had been generous enough to ensure that Lyudmila didn’t make waves.
The girls had filled him in on all their activities. He couldn’t have been more proud of them. For much of their upbringing he was a lower-level functionary, and they lived very modest lives. In their early teens he started to get better positions such as the head of the FSB or the domestic security agency. Then Yeltsin’s inner circle took notice of him. When the Russian general prosecutor started an investigation into money laundering by Yeltsin and his associates, Putin fired the man. Sensing they could control Putin, Yeltsin and his men promoted him to prime minister.