The timing was fortuitous. Yeltsin’s health had been failing for years, and before long he passed away.
Putin’s older daughter, Maria, who had been called Masha since birth, lived in the Netherlands part of the year. His younger daughter, Katerina, or Katya, lived right here in Moscow. Both girls’ private lives had been kept out of the media completely. Incredibly, they had managed to attend the University of St. Petersburg under assumed names without anyone ever knowing, even their classmates. They were true daughters of an intelligence agent.
But now he was entering the parlor where Yuri Simplov waited.
Putin found Simplov studying two pieces of art that were technically on loan from a museum in Amsterdam.
The way his friend quickly turned and the look on his face told Putin things were in motion.
A smile spread across Simplov’s rugged face as he stepped forward and said, “The trades have been made successfully, and the distraction attacks will now start in full force.”
Putin kept his face blank as he said, “And all of our connections are secure?”
“Completely. Our U.S. agent is a bit of an odd duck, but absolutely reliable.”
“Odd duck?”
Simplov gave him a smile and said, “He’s been stationed in New York for a long time and handled many situations for us. He tends to take things a little personally. That’s one of the ways we manage him. He hates to lose. He’ll stay on an assignment after he’s been told to move on. He’ll do anything to finish an assignment totally and completely. That’s just the kind of man we need at this time.”
Putin nodded his head. That was exactly who they needed. “But if there’s a problem he’s insulated from us, correct?”
“He’s well insulated. He has been in the U.S. for decades, running a small import/export business in New York for most of that time, and hasn’t traveled to Russia or any of our satellites. He’s married to an American woman and has a daughter.”
Putin chuckled. “Does he make any money?” That was the question he always had for any operation that used a business as a cover.
Simplov shrugged and said, “He does okay. We haven’t had to send him much money over the years.”
Now Putin looked his old friend in the eye and said, “And the Muslims? No one can know anything about our temporary alliance with them. If they shoot down our planes and kill our soldiers in Syria, we must not be seen to be allied with them.”
He wanted Simplov to see just how serious he was about this aspect of the operation. This was exactly the sort of op he liked working on as a KGB agent years earlier, but as the president of Russia it was a wild gamble that could cost him everything.
Simplov took a breath as he gathered his thoughts and said, “We have had very limited contact with them. No one knows anything of our actual intentions in Estonia. I have not risked activating any cells there, and we will draw our scouts directly from the military units already on the border. There is a tentative plan to use a Muslim woman from France who has excellent language skills to assist our military scout. I believed there was less chance of someone watching an unknown French woman than one of our agents already in Estonia.”
Putin patted him on the shoulder and said, “As long as the French woman can be eliminated if necessary. Good, good. Well done.”
“The money transfers have been discovered, and it is my understanding that the U.S. authorities in the form of the FBI are involved in the case. Our man in New York will do everything he can to slow down the investigation.”
Simplov said, “I told you that some of our tech people had developed an algorithm that would cause computers on the New York and London stock exchanges to start a sell-off catastrophic enough to trip the built-in circuit breakers. It is a relatively simple algorithm that works on the same principle as the computer program that manages trades. It will cause two major trading houses to sell, which will trigger the other houses’ computers to start to sell. It will be a cascading effect, gaining momentum quickly until the trading is stopped.”
“And the money transfers?”
“Introducing the algorithm was the challenge. It was introduced at almost exactly the best time, so that now the news should break just as the public learns of the out-of-control stock panic.”
Putin understood the world of finance. The sell-off would be temporary; its primary impact would be psychological. The Americans were already nervous about the markets after their long recession. This was precisely the kind of distraction he appreciated.
“Won’t the Americans be able to trace the source of the algorithm?” Putin asked.
“It will come back to a Swiss bank,” Simplov said, “where I’ve been assured they will find a dead end, at least in the near term. This entire operation is simply about delaying the discovery of our efforts until after we have control of Estonia.”
Putin was pleasantly surprised at how effective the plan had been so far. He embraced his old friend and patted him on the back.
It was a Monday morning, and Derek Walsh was thinking about Alena on his way to work. He’d had real trouble committing to women since his days in Germany. His girlfriend when he was stationed there had done a real number on him. He truly believed she had feelings for him, but all she really needed was access to his company credit cards. After stealing the cards and racking up thousands of dollars in iPads and other electronics, she’d been arrested, and he’d been disgraced. It didn’t escape him that she looked quite a bit like Alena. The fall weather and cool breeze only made him think of Germany and his bitter encounter all the more clearly.
Alena had done a lot to help restore his faith in women. Although she had some expensive tastes and he figured she thought he made more money than he really did—no one really understood how many grunts there were in the financial world—she had bought him expensive gifts as well. The Tag Heuer Aquaracer watch on his wrist was one of them. He also had an extra debit card she’d insisted on giving him so he could access her bank account in case of emergency. He’d only used it once, when they were on a date and he was short of cash. But he did notice she had over $4,500 sitting in her checking account. At least she wasn’t after his money. That meant something to him after being burned.
He’d be late getting to work but had played it off to the bosses as a breakfast meeting. In truth, the meeting was just a cup of coffee with a local Deutsche Bank analyst, and they discussed the sad state of the New York Jets—something Walsh had learned New Yorkers did a lot of over the years and had gotten very good at.
When he came up this way toward Wall Street, Walsh always gave the same three homeless people a five-dollar bill each. They were all veterans and down on their luck. Two had been in the navy, and one was an old Ranger who had served in Vietnam. Walsh sat with him one evening and listened to his stories of combat just before the withdrawal of U.S. forces. These poor guys had been virtually forgotten and almost completely ignored since the start of the First Gulf War. But they had done what was asked of them in a much more difficult time with no public support.
He stopped for a few moments to talk with the Vietnam vet, who, ironically, was named Charlie. The man once told Walsh his last name was Williams and on another occasion told him it was Wilson. Walsh knew not to pry but just do what he could to make the man’s life a little easier. Charlie occasionally stayed at a shelter near Walsh’s tiny apartment in SoHo and would walk with him all the way to work on nice days.