Rick Jones
Shepherd One
CHAPTER ONE
When it comes to selling nuclear weapons on the black market, Yorgi Perchenko holds an exclusive franchise.
Once a KGB operative who transitioned to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service at the end of the Cold War, he quickly became the assistant director of Directorate S which included thirteen departments responsible for preparing and planting illegal agents abroad, conducting terror operations and sabotage in foreign countries, and promoting biological espionage.
Now at the age of seventy-four and with his best years behind him, Yorgi Perchenko found his forced retirement less than stimulating. The one thing that made his life tolerable was the chilled bottle of Cristall Vodka.
On a farm located on the outskirts of Volgograd, Russia, about 600 meters east of the ice-cold flow of the Volga River, Perchenko sat in a barn that had grown infirm with age. The walls canted slightly but not dangerously so, and the roof held the grand openings that allowed shafts of light to filter down onto a floor carpeted with hay. Outside, a Peregrine falcon circled high over the pines keening while Perchenko sat in an old wooden chair beneath the old junctions of the barn-house beams. On the floor beside him sat a bottle of vodka, the bottle more than half full, the glass in his hand more than half empty.
In his day he was revered and equally feared by a constituency who regarded him as an angel by some, a demon by others. It all depended upon how well an operative was able to maintain their integrity in the field. To fail him earned his wrath. Those who disappointed him were sent to a Gulag as an example to others within his ranks that failure was not an option. The action proved to be a motivator that continued to sustain the communistic principals of Mother Russia, until the moment of its collapse.
At seventy-four, the man who was once a giant among his peers had become a black marketer who lived with the fading memories of times when Russia held its chin brazenly outward in defiance against capitalistic nations. It was a time that gave him unimaginable pride that what he did validated a sense of self-worth — not the current sensation he was currently feeling as a whore plying his wares for profit and becoming the very thing he fought against: the product of capitalism.
Raising his glass high, Yorgi Perchenko prepared himself for a disheartening toast. “To Old Mother Russia,” he said. “And may she someday return to a great power.” In fluid motion he brought the glass to his lips, and downed the vodka in a single shot. Immediately he reached beside him, grabbed the bottle by its neck, and poured himself another. After pouring two fingers, he raised the glass once again in salutation. But this time to a man of Arab persuasion who sat across the table.
“And to my new friend,” he added, proposing a toast for which he was the only imbiber. “Let us pray that this transaction will be as rewarding for you as it will be for me, yes?”
The Arab said nothing, the rites of closing a deal a wasted and unnecessary ritual, at least by his principles.
“Once an enemy of the state,” added Perchenko, “you are now my comrade in arms, yes?” Perchenko drank from the glass — a quick tip that knocked back the alcohol.
The Arab sat idle without providing a gracious rejoinder. And his ongoing detachment and unmitigated calm was beginning to weigh on Perchenko, as the men calmly measured each other. Even in Russia’s cold climate, Perchenko could not see the man’s vapored breath, which conveyed to the former official that this man possessed a remarkable sense of self-control. The Arab, however, was not without his own caution, as his eyes constantly darted about and took in the number of Perchenko’s armed forces, and committed their positions to memory.
For twenty minutes neither spoke, their resolve as steely as their unflinching gazes as the air of mistrust between them became as thick as a lingering pall. Each man remained a mystery to the other, knowing only what they must in order to sustain a business arrangement between them. In this case the common thread was the tie to a middle man, an al-Qaeda operative who brokered the deal.
As seasoned as the old man was, there was something about this particular operative that unsettled him. Although small and petite, and if granted a more effeminate description due to his smooth skin and full lips, he appeared to be on the cusp of manhood. His eyes — as black and polished as onyx and seemingly without pupils — held incalculable intelligence. The only thing adult about him was the minute loops of curly hair of an unkempt beard.
When the Arab first entered the barn he said nothing, the course of the transaction already spelled out between the liaisons. As instructed, the Arab was to proffer a suitcase filled with three million dollars in American tender, then wait until the remaining balance of twenty-seven million dollars was wired to existing accounts across Europe, the Cayman Islands, the United States, and to dummy corporate accounts across Russia before transferring the items purchased.
As Perchenko studied his client, the man from al-Qaeda remained unequivocally patient to the point where Perchenko thought the man’s inaction was forced. But after gazing into his black eyes, the Russian considered the Arab’s aloofness was not borne as a tool to position himself against Perchenko’s tactics as a hardened negotiator, but that he was inwardly lost. It was something Perchenko had seen many times before on the faces of those he sent off to the Gulags. Appearances he relished just before they were ushered away from his presence.
It was the look of a man who knew he had no future.
Ten minutes later an armed contingent of men carrying three aluminum cases, each the size of a hope chest, placed them on the table that separated Perchenko from the Arab. Slung across each man’s back was an AN-94 assault weapon.
After spacing the cases apart, Perchenko’s men fell back and brandished their weapons as a show of Perchenko’s authority, which fazed the Arab little.
When Perchenko barked something in Russian, a member of his team leaned over and whispered something into the old man’s ear. The sum of three million dollars in non-counterfeit American currency had been paid in full; not a dollar more, not a dollar less, with an additional twenty-seven million dollars wired to numerous accounts throughout Europe, the United States, the Cayman Islands, and Russia.
Perchenko was pleased.
“Well,” the old man began as he labored to his feet. “Shall we see what thirty million American dollars buys on the market these days?” Perchenko approached the table. From the opposite side the Arab did the same, until client and seller fell within a cast of light provided by a single gaping hole in the rooftop.
The Russian Perchenko was an assuming six foot four and densely packed. Even at seventy-four, his body was well maintained. The Arab, at best, stood five six, but appeared to carry the size and weight of somebody more formidable than someone of his unremarkable stature. It was something Perchenko couldn’t put his finger on as to why this man possessed such great presence and command.
Reaching for the case closest to him, Perchenko undid the clasps and lifted the cover, exposing a network of boards, chips, switches and relays beneath a flat Plexiglas shield. Packed in the center supported by steel rods sat three burnished metallic spheres polished to a mirror finish.
If the Arab was enamored, he certainly didn’t show it.
Perchenko passed his hand gracefully over the display to showcase it, as he spoke. “Each case holds a three-megaton yield,” he said, “which is three times greater than the Cold War versions. Separately they would do untold damage since the three cases together yield a destructive force almost three-quarters of the Hiroshima bomb. And here’s the thing.” From the inner pocket of his jacket Perchenko produced a BlackBerry, a top-of-the-line model, brand new, and held it up for the Arab. “Each case possesses a built-in GPS receiver which is triggered by this.” He shook the device like shaking a snow globe. “Once you insert your code and press ‘enter,’ then all three cases run as a single unit. If one case triggers off, so do the others — they’re completely in sync with one another. But for this to work properly, the cases cannot be separated for more than five hundred meters. Beyond that distance, they work independent of each other.”