“So what more are we supposed to do?” he said. “We silenced Hunt because we had to. All the alarm bells were ringing. Now you want to silence the other two also, just to make sure. Though you have absolutely no evidence that they’re up to anything?”
“No, sir. I just can’t believe they backed off that easily.”
He’d made his point, but she still sat there, her eyes filled with defiance. And goddamn it, he was still incredibly aroused by her, by that scar, by the disfigured beauty of her face. He rose from his chair and began pacing the office.
“What were the other officers who were close to Penn supposed to do?” He asked as he walked behind her. “They lost. Their so-called investigation into Russian hacking was crap. Hunt is dead. Penn committed suicide and the others are off on their own making money.” He changed to a gentler tone. “You know, Jean, there are a lot of other things you could be helping me with,” he leaned forward, placing his hands on her shoulders.
He felt her immediately stiffen. He knew he was on the verge of a fatal move.
“Captain, stop,” she said.
But the heat from her skin under her thin blouse turned him on even further “I need a personal assistant. It would mean more pay, higher rank.”
“I said stop!”
Despite himself, he ran his left hand down the front of her blouse towards her breast.
“You sonofabitch,” she exploded. She reached back and seized his hand with hers, pinning the back of his hand with her thumb into a wrist lock. Then she twisted his wrist violently clockwise, flipping him over and sending him crashing to the floor. Stunned, he lay looking up at her as pain throbbed through his shoulder and arm. He was unable to move as she kept an iron grip on his hand.
She was livid. “Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” she hissed. The next time you try it you’ll wind up without any balls. She was breathing hard, fury radiating from her eyes. “When I was a teenager I was gang-raped by a bunch of assholes like you. No one ever took me again. Now get the fuck up and start playing macho leader again. “
Staring wide-eyed at her, he slowly rose to his feet. His shoulder felt like it had been dislocated. He circled warily back behind the desk. She sat stiffly back in her chair, facing him.
“Let’s get things straight,” she said. “I still want this job. If you fire me now, you can be goddamned sure everyone will know why. I’m here to defend President Stokes. He’s out to save our country. And no limp dick like you is going to fuck things up. Now let’s get back to our roles.”
He couldn’t believe the scene he was playing. They glared at each other until his breathing became more normal, his adrenalin slowed. Then, he shook himself and leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “Captain, I take note of your report today, but until you come up with something that proves me wrong, I’m telling the president the threat is over. But, OK, go ahead and keep an eye on Penn’s friends. Meanwhile I’m also putting you on another investigation.”
“Yes, sir,” she made no effort to hide her scowl. “He’s out there. I know it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Moscow
Two men in jogging suits were walking in a birch and willow forest twenty-two kilometers west of Moscow. On the left was General Artyom Borovik, fifty-eight years old and commander of all Russian ground forces. It was a warm spring day, the trees budding, the woods filled with birdsong. It was General Borovik’s favorite time of year, heralding renewal, rebirth, new possibilities.
With him was his former superior, long-time friend, and mentor, General Sergei Petrov, sixty-eight, who’d retired from the army three years ago. There was no question Petrov was ailing. He was panting rather than breathing and his pale skin was like parchment stretched over his narrow, heavily lined face.
The two generals were neighbors, their dachas within two miles of each other. Borovik’s two-story wooden vacation home had been in his family for three generations. It was his sanctuary; a haven to escape from the endless intrigues and pervasive terrors of Moscow. It was a place to enjoy snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing in the winter and long hikes and swims in the lake during the hot summer months. It was also a sanctuary for his family. His daughter would be visiting this weekend with her two children. Normally the expectation of their boisterous presence put him in good spirits, but for the past few months he’d been unable to shake his foul mood.
“Cheer up, for God’s sake, Artyom,” said Sergei. “It is April. You are going to be seeing your grandkids. You are healthy, your wife is healthy.
“I know what season it is,” Borovik snapped, then felt further annoyed that he’d replied so sharply.
Petrov had been diagnosed with colon cancer last January. He was undergoing radiation but had been told he probably had less than a year to live. But Sergei Petrov had never been one to surrender. He’d survived the ruthless ins and outs of politics in this country for decades. He was walking slower than usual, stopping every now and then to catch his breath, but he kept up a steady stream of chatter.
“Look, Artyom, what is done is done. You cannot let it get under your skin. You will destroy yourself and your family.”
“For God’s sake,” said Borovik despite himself, “please stop telling me what I already know.”
What was incessantly gnawing at Borovik was what he viewed as the reckless decision by Russian President Vasily Vasilovich Kozlov to order his military hackers to attempt to influence the American elections. “I told Vasily Vasilovich he was playing with fire,” said Borovik. “It is asinine.”
“I know that is how you feel,” said Petrov, raising his arms. “Everyone knows. But Vasily Vasilovich did not heed your great wisdom. And it looks like he was right; Stokes won.”
In fact, both the generals knew that, at first, Kozlov never expected Stokes would actually win. The Russian president’s idea was to disrupt America’s so-called democratic system and undermine the leading candidate, whom Kozlov detested. He wanted to make Americans lose faith in their political parties and institutions. Then, when it looked like Stokes might really have a chance, Kozlov ordered his military hackers and propagandists to go all out. His goal now was to get the next America president to end the economic sanctions the U.S. had convinced its allies to impose on Russia. Those Draconian measures and travel restrictions were strangling Russia’s economy. More to the point, they were threatening Kozlov’s own huge wealth. Now, with Stokes’s victory, it looked like Kozlov was about to clean up.
“Vasily Vasilovich is still crowing like a rooster,” said Borovik, “to anyone who will listen. He does not care if the Americans know what his hackers did. He is proud of it. He wants everyone to know what he and Russia can do. Vasily Vasilovich and Stokes deserve each other.”
What infuriated General Borovik even further was that the man who’d convinced Kozlov to hack the U.S. was Borovik’s rival, General Alexei Abramovich, the brilliant, fast-talking head of Russia’s cyberwar division. Under Abramovich’s leadership, the division’s staff and budget had skyrocketed over the past few years. They now had the effrontery to run recruiting ads on television showing a smiling Russian soldier laying down his rifle to pick up a laptop computer. They’d also recruited hundreds of programmers and hackers from private industry and even criminal gangs to come and work for the military.
General Abramovich argued there was no way Russia, with its tattered economy, could keep pace with the extremely sophisticated new weapons America was developing. Cyber war was a much cheaper but extremely effective method of wreaking great damage on the enemy. And Kozlov had agreed. In one heated session, he ridiculed General Borovik as an “old woman” for his tiresome warnings about the threat of U.S. reprisals. “The U.S. president,” said Kozlov, “has no balls.”