“What for?”
“My orders don’t say. Temporary duty is all I know right now, although I suspect something is brewing. A SUBMISS message went out for Pittsburgh and rescue assets scrambled from San Diego a few days ago.”
Claire folded her arms across her chest, examining her husband through smoky-gray eyes, her face framed with short blond hair that curled inward just above her shoulders. Even though she didn’t say anything, after almost forty years of marriage, Wilson knew what she was thinking. They were supposed to leave in a few days to spend a week with their son, Tom, and the grandkids.
Wilson was older than most Navy captains because he was a mustang: a prior-enlisted reactor control technician rising to chief before receiving his commission.
After commanding USS Buffalo and training the Submarine Force’s new commanding and executive officers, Wilson had made a difficult decision. He’d been selected for rear admiral, lower half. But riding a desk into the twilight of his career hadn’t been appealing. After much discussion with his wife, he had turned down the star in favor of a final command at sea. Another sea tour meant more time away from his wife, but by then the kids were grown and on their own and Claire was well acclimated to Navy life. Nonetheless, he had asked for her blessing, and she had readily given it.
There were only a few available commands. Most of the Navy’s submarines were skippered by commanders, with only four guided missile submarines being assigned to officers who had completed a successful command of a fast attack or ballistic missile submarine. The Commanding Officer of USS Michigan (BLUE crew) was due for relief and Wilson made the call. A few weeks later, he reported aboard, planning to enjoy a few years in command of one of the Navy’s most formidable ships.
For the next few days, or however long his assignment to COMSUBFOR lasted, he’d leave his crew and submarine in the capable hands of his Executive Officer and his grandchildren in his wife’s loving care.
Wilson finished packing and approached Claire, leaning in for a kiss. “Give my love to Tom and the kids.”
39
GADZHIYEVO, RUSSIA
Andrei Voronin stood in the security center of Gadzhiyevo Naval Base’s ordnance complex, eyeing the camera displays across the front wall. The complex was a frenzy of activity today, as every handler and supervisor had been called in for an urgent inventory of all ordnance in the complex. Did his supervisors have any idea of how many bombs, missiles, mines, and bullets were in these bunkers?
Compounding Voronin’s irritation was that two of his most senior ordnance supervisors had stopped showing up to work a few days ago — not even providing a simple notice they were quitting — leaving him shorthanded directing the inventory.
Although the inventory was progressing slowly, it was going well. The weapon inventories completed thus far had totaled to the recorded quantities.
Two men in business suits entered the command post, and after questioning the nearest worker, headed toward Voronin. Upon reaching him, they flashed their identification: Federal Security Service.
“How are the inventories proceeding?” the older man asked.
Voronin relayed the results and answered additional questions posed by the agent. When the man asked if he had noticed any unusual behavior from any of the ordnance handlers or supervisors, Voronin saw an opportunity to make Bogdanov’s and Morozov’s lives difficult — an appointment with the FSB was one of the least pleasurable activities to have on one’s itinerary.
He explained how the two men had abruptly stopped showing up for work a few days ago, and finished with, “Why don’t you visit Bogdanov and Morozov, and invite them back to work. I could use their assistance.”
One of the agents took down their names while the other inquired further, showing an unusual amount of interest in two men who had recently quit their jobs.
40
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Jake Harrison sat beside Pat Kendall on the main floor of the National Counterterrorism Center, surrounded by five dozen other men and women focused on their computer displays. The lead on Mixell had gone cold since the trip to Syria, and Harrison had spent the last few days assisting Kendall as she reviewed the thousands of files downloaded from Issad Futtaim’s backup cloud server. Khalila, meanwhile, had been mostly absent. She had stopped by the NCTC on occasion for updates, during which Kendall took every opportunity to throw verbal barbs at her, which were mostly ignored.
Regarding Futtaim’s files, more than a dozen analysts at Langley were scrutinizing the documents, while Kendall focused on whatever caught her eye, doling some out for Harrison’s review. He was doing what he could to assist, but data mining wasn’t his strong suit; he preferred to be out in the field.
The time spent with Kendall had been useful, though, picking up on the tricks of the trade, such as how to access information the general public assumed was confidential. That topic had become relevant when the NCTC’s primary focus shifted yesterday from Mixell to Aleksandr Plecas, commanding officer of the Russian submarine Kazan, which had presumably attacked USS Pittsburgh. Plecas’s daughter was ill and being treated with an extremely expensive experimental drug.
NCTC was coordinating with Russia to determine who paid for the drug, with both countries sharing information gathered along the way. The treatment provided to the girl was manufactured by Protek, a Russian pharmaceutical company, and the FSB had obtained the payment information: $2.5M from a numbered Swiss bank account with no account holder name.
“That looks like a dead end,” Harrison had muttered upon learning the payment had been made from an unnamed Swiss account.
“Not true,” Kendall replied. “Switzerland’s Banking Act of 1934 prohibited Swiss banks from releasing information about private clients, or even to acknowledge the existence of private accounts. However, the law was amended and Swiss banks now cooperate with tax and criminal investigations. Thankfully, a lot of folks who want to keep their finances hidden aren’t aware of the change.”
NCTC’s main display on the front wall flashed with an update: Protek had been paid via a transaction from Credit Suisse, which had just released the critical information. The payment was made from an account established less than two weeks ago by a man named Irepla Kram, who had made three more disbursements in addition to Protek: two payments of twenty million each, and a third payment of fourteen million dollars, all to other, nameless Swiss accounts.
The NCTC staff commenced a worldwide search for Irepla Kram. Nothing came up, although the Kram surname, of Jewish origin, was most popular in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Kendall, meanwhile, was staring at the transactions, which listed the amount and the account the money was transferred to, and seemed to be focused on the last one.
The main display updated with additional information. Credit Suisse had released the account information for the other three transactions, in addition to the $2.5 million Protek payment. Two were transfers to unnamed personal accounts, while the third had sent money to a company named Arabian Securities, which was a Syrian investment company.
The display on the right updated next, showing information provided by Russia’s FSB. They had been investigating two Russian government workers, Anatoly Bogdanov and Vasily Morozov, who had quit their jobs as ordnance supervisors at Gadzhiyevo Naval Base the day after Kazan deployed. Their location was unknown, with no database hits on their names since the day of the financial transactions.