Dead fall, p.24
Dead Fall, page 24
“Blackmail is especially powerful because it plays upon a person’s shame and embarrassment. As you know, part of the reason I am here is to teach you and your colleagues how to uncover and leverage blackmail material against the Russians. Tonight, however, I’m going to show you how to put a different twist on it. This operation exploits a different, albeit adjacent emotion: humiliation. And humiliation is as corrosive as acid when it comes to morale.”
Yulia placed her own soup on the desk and pulled over a chair. “This sounds fantastic. What’s the other surprise?”
The little man smiled. “We’ll get to that. First the humiliation.”
They both paused to take a couple of bites of soup, which was quite good, before Nicholas continued. “As you know, the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, I began crafting several different digital operations. The first one we dubbed Operation Pinup.”
“ ‘We’?” she asked.
“I came up with the idea and got it rolling, but the Ukrainian Cyber Resistance deserves the credit for being so successful with it.”
“When did you team up with the Cyber Resistance?”
“Almost as soon as the war broke out,” he replied.
“So, what’s Operation Pinup?”
“We tricked a dozen Russian military wives into slowly giving away personal information about their husbands. We made them believe that they would be helping boost morale among officers by posing for a pinup calendar.
“We had them strike sexy poses while dressed in their husbands’ uniforms, which helped us uncover even more information about the men. The more biographical nuggets we were able to mine, the more targeted our hacking was able to become. We not only were able to locate where the officers lived and what they were paid, but where they had served, where they were currently serving, their cell phone numbers, operational orders, email accounts and passwords, et cetera. It is an absolute treasure trove of information, which we’ll be handing over to Ukrainian Intelligence in the coming days, and none of it would have been possible without the participation of the men’s wives.”
“And the humiliation component? Are they humiliated because they didn’t realize they were assisting our side?” she asked.
“There’s that,” Nicholas conceded. “Also, we couldn’t let those sexy pictures go to waste.”
Her eyes widened. “You actually created a calendar?”
“Absolutely. In fact, the Cyber Resistance had insisted. Some of the photos the women provided were quite revealing. And, as it turned out, multiple women had posed for even racier pictures, something the Cyber Resistance uncovered as they hacked into their phones and email accounts.”
“Did the calendar get distributed to the husbands’ fellow officers?”
“It was posted on the internet and emails were sent to everyone in each of their divisions.”
“That is humiliating,” she stated.
“And corrosive,” Nicholas added. “From the top down and the bottom up. It erodes confidence in the husbands—both from the troops they’re in charge of leading and from the leaders higher up the chain who now question whether those officers are competent and can be trusted.”
“What about the second surprise?”
The little man handed her the other piece of paper.
“ ‘Come Fly with Me,’ ” she read aloud. “Like the Frank Sinatra song?”
“Exactly. In fact, the second operation I’m going to share with you was named Operation Acapulco, after one of the lyrics in the song.”
“And is this another operation meant to humiliate the Russians?”
Nicholas smiled. “Anytime one of our operations is successful, I hope the Russians feel humiliated, but to answer your question, no. The goal here is not humiliation. Our goal is to get Russia to help in the war effort by giving their best airplanes to Ukraine.”
Yulia guffawed. “You have got to be joking.”
“I’m totally serious.”
“Why would Russia give Ukraine anything, but especially aircraft?”
“You’re right,” said the little man. “I should have said they’re going to let us buy them for a fraction of what they’re worth.”
The young woman took another spoonful of borscht and encouraged Nicholas to keep talking.
“The plan for Operation Acapulco is simple. We convince three Russian pilots to defect to three different Ukrainian air bases with their aircraft. When they land, each pilot receives Ukrainian citizenship, one million dollars cash, and assistance smuggling their family members out of Russia for resettlement anywhere in Europe they choose.”
“Wow. Has this happened? Because if it has, this is the first time I am hearing about it.”
“It’s not complete. Not yet. It’s still an ongoing operation.”
“How far along are you?” she asked.
“We’ve established contact with three pilots. All have agreed. One has offered to drug his copilot. One has offered to claim a technical malfunction that will force him to land. And the third is still working on what he thinks his best course of action will be.”
“I can’t believe it.”
Nicholas smiled. “Neither could the pilots. They thought it was a scam at first; that we were Russian Intelligence trying to test their loyalty and entrap them.”
“Of course they did. They’re not stupid. They’re pilots, after all. How did you get to them?”
“Two months after the war started, Ukraine created a law that said that any Russian who voluntarily surrendered high-end military equipment would be generously compensated. In particular, helicopters were worth five hundred thousand dollars and bombers, fighter jets, and fixed-wing attack aircraft were worth one million. We made sure that those bounties were well publicized inside Russia.
“We needed to get a database of Russian pilots and tried several different hacks. Eventually, we managed to access a server that had a list of pilots, right down to who was the flight commander and who was the navigator. This gave us names, but we had to keep digging to get contact info.
“Pilot number one, Igor Tveritin, is the oldest and most experienced on our list. He’s trained on the Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber, which is a supersonic aircraft that can be outfitted with nuclear missiles. He was actually born in Ukraine, in Melitopol, back when it was part of the Soviet Union. He has a wife, three kids, and they all live on the air base together and his kids go to school there. He’s very worried about the logistics of getting everyone out. He took a five percent down payment in crypto.
“Pilot number two, Andrei Maslov, is an Su-24 tactical bomber pilot. He’s married, has no kids, and wants his mistress, a fitness instructor, smuggled out. He insisted on cash, and we have delivered two down payments to him of four thousand dollars each. But we think he may have been compromised.”
Yulia looked up from her dinner. “Compromised how?”
“We asked him to send us a copy of the mistress’s Russian identity documents so that we could begin putting a passport together for her. It just came through two days ago. The minute we saw her photo, we were fairly certain that Maslov had been burned. She is way too hot for him. We’re still working on it, but it’s not looking good. All her friends are hookers, and she has been placing a lot of calls to a man we think is an FSB asset. We may have to cut our losses with Maslov.
“Pilot number three, Roman Nosenko, flies the Su-34 Fullback and the Su-24 Fencer bombers. Like the others, we asked him for proof and he sent back pictures of his aircraft with a piece of paper in the foreground with a three-digit number we asked him to write on it. Nosenko has been the most standoffish, the toughest pilot to recruit.
“His wife is also going to be tough to extract because she’s a military psychologist. He doesn’t know if he can convince her to defect and he doesn’t want to go without her. He’s also worried that we’re just trying to lure him into our airspace so we can shoot him down. He’s heard that Ukrainian antiaircraft teams get paid big bonuses for shoot-downs.
“Our plan, if we can, is to get all the family members to safe houses in Belarus. Once there, they can be given their new passports and cash. At which point, they can use a prearranged code, over an encrypted app, to let the pilots know they made it out safely. Then all that’s left is for the pilots to fly their planes into Ukrainian airspace, where they’ll be met by Ukrainian interceptors and guided to their respective landing strips.”
“Pretty amazing plan,” said Yulia. “It sounds like you’ve invested some money in this. Did you get anything beyond just pictures of their aircraft?”
Nicholas nodded. “We also got photos from inside their aircraft, photos of technical manuals, information about their units, their air bases, how they have been flying their routes, targeting intelligence, and what kinds of munitions they have been using. Even if the entire op had to be shut down tomorrow, it has already been quite valuable.”
“Once you were able to surmount their initial skepticism, once they were confident that it wasn’t a scam, you’ve found them to be cooperative?”
“For the most part, yes.”
“Why do you think that is?” she asked.
“It’s simple. They don’t believe in the war. They think Peshkov is a petty tyrant. They may have believed in Russia at one point, but they don’t believe in him. Not anymore.”
“I can understand that. So, what else do you have for me? Tell me about the other ops.”
Nicholas looked down as his phone chimed. It was a SITREP from Harvath. He needed to handle this in private. “I’m happy to chat some more,” he said. “But first I need to deal with something. How about if I come find you when I’m done? Would that be okay?”
“Of course,” said Yulia as she stood and picked up her bowl. “If I’m not in my office, check the conference room.”
“Will do.”
“May I say good-bye to the dogs?”
Nicholas nodded and she walked over to give each of them a pat. She then smiled and exited his office, politely closing the door behind her.
Pulling up Harvath’s situation report, he read through the whole thing as he ate his borscht. It was unbelievable what that man had been through.
He then arrived at Harvath’s request. It was relatively straightforward. He only hoped he’d be able to get his friend the answers he needed.
Picking up the landline phone on his desk, he dialed Kozar’s extension. When the Ukrainian Intelligence officer answered, Nicholas said, “I have to ask you for a favor, but I need you to keep it between us.”
“Of course,” the man replied. “What is it?”
“I’d rather not ask over the phone—even via an internal line. Can you come down to my office?”
“No problem. Give me five minutes.”
“Thank you,” Nicholas replied as he hung up the phone.
Now all he had to do was figure out how to phrase his request in such a way that Kozar would give him what he wanted, rather than putting him on the first train back to Poland.
CHAPTER 24
MOSCOW
Leonid Grechko was a man who kept his passions under control. He ruled over them and not vice versa.
As such, he felt he had earned the right to indulge himself when he was off the clock. His personal time was just that, personal. How he spent it was no one’s business but his.
The typical trappings of male adulthood—a wife, a family, a bustling household—had never appealed to him. Part of it was because of the job. Intelligence operatives, at least those working out of embassies with official cover, were forced to move every few years. It was how the game was played and not conducive to that style of life.
The other part was that he could count on one hand the people he knew who were happy in their marriages. When you threw children into the equation, he didn’t even need all five fingers to count the people he knew who were honestly happy. Perhaps it was a Russian attitude, a tilt toward the nihilism so prevalent in their culture. Regardless, he was the envy of his male friends.
In his opinion, relationships, by their very nature, were transactional. Sex was no different. When he wanted it, he paid for it, and treated the women quite well.
He didn’t buy them expensive gifts or take them on vacations, but as someone who loved good food and exceptional wines, he included them in sumptuous meals.
There was often some form of entertainment—ballet or the theater, after which they would spend the night in a luxury hotel room. He always paid for them to stay the night, though he was always gone before they awoke. He would leave a note, encouraging the young lady to enjoy breakfast from room service and thanking her for the evening.
He had only one rule. He never slept with the same woman twice. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. It didn’t matter how skilled she was. Repeat visits could lead to foolish attachments, which could make him vulnerable to his enemies. The rule made sense and had served him well. He had only broken it once, but it had been worth it.
Inessa was the closest he had ever been to falling in love. In fact, if he were to be honest with himself, he had fallen in love with her. That was why he had broken his rule and had agreed to see her a second time and then a third and a fourth. It was a white-hot, passionate affair that had lasted for weeks.
She was a woman of flawless beauty who possessed a deep appreciation for all things cultural. She was well read, well traveled, and well trained in the erotic arts. Had he not been so drawn to her, so absolutely susceptible to her spell, he might have recruited her and molded her into one of the best female agents the world had ever seen.
But he had known that was impossible. The idea of not being able to have her, fully, to himself would have driven him mad. The mere thought of her being with other men was enough to poison him with jealousy and to torment him beyond all reason. He had never, not even as a child, wanted anything as badly as he had wanted her.
She was his Helen of Troy. Hers was the face that could launch a thousand ships and send millions of men into battle. She was a drug more potent than any narcotic. His only guard against losing his mind, and himself, was to end it, to go cold turkey and cut off contact with her. And, for the most part, it had worked.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he had kept tabs on her from afar. He had watched as she became the mistress of a mining oligarch named Tsybulsky, who had relocated her to the South of France.
From that point on, he had spent many nights alone in his bed, wondering what might have been. It was a needless, self-inflicted pain that picked at a deep and very tender wound, which he never allowed to fully heal.
In retrospect, it was good that she had moved away to France. It was also good that she wasn’t on any social media platforms. Having to see photos as her life unfolded would have been too much.
It had been five years since he had last seen her. Then, this very morning, he had bumped into her coming out of a boutique on Tverskaya Street. She was even more radiant than he remembered.
Ever the fashion plate, she was dressed in designer brands from head to toe and was dripping with diamonds. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back, accentuating her high cheekbones and sleek jawline.
He felt his heart catch in his throat. He was angry with himself for being so overwhelmed by his emotions.
They made small talk. She was in town, only briefly, with her “boyfriend.” He had business to attend to and then they’d be flying off to Switzerland.
She asked him how he had been. He lied, said he was fine, and that work was keeping him busy.
She then asked if he ever thought of her. This time, he didn’t lie. He told her the truth.
She told him she thought about him quite often; that her feelings for him had not lessened since leaving Moscow. She had a good life, a comfortable life, but it wasn’t the life she dreamed of. He could feel his heart catch in his throat once more.
She asked if he was available for dinner. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? Two old friends could have a meal and catch up, couldn’t they?
When he asked about her boyfriend, she explained that he would be in meetings for most of the evening. As long as she was home early, there was no reason for it to be a problem.
Grechko didn’t even think. He said yes immediately. No matter what had been on his schedule, he would have canceled it for her.
She wanted to go back to the restaurant they’d had so many wonderful evenings together in. Could he get them a reservation at the White Rabbit on short notice? He told her not to worry and that he would see her there at seven.
They said good-bye and as they did, Inessa leaned in and kissed his cheek. She still wore the same heady perfume. She still pressed the palm of her hand against his chest the way she used to. She still drove him crazy. It was like being hit by a lightning bolt.
He walked the rest of the way home thinking about nothing but her. Back at his apartment, after he called the manager of the White Rabbit and reserved their most romantic table, he poured himself a drink, put on the music they used to listen to together—Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday—and tackled a stack of reports he had to finish from the office. It was difficult to keep his focus, but he pushed through it.
When the time came, he put together what he was going to wear—a bespoke, dark gray Henry Poole & Co. suit with an open-collared black shirt—then showered and shaved.
He no longer wore the same cologne he used to wear when they had been together—even that was too much of a reminder of her—but he had something similar that he had picked up abroad, less pepper, more tobacco.
After polishing a pair of Bruno Magli monk strap loafers, he selected his favorite wristwatch, a Patek Philippe Calatrava in white gold with a black alligator strap. He carefully folded an extra handkerchief, just in case she might need it, and placed it inside his left breast pocket.
Checking himself one last time in the full-length mirror, he was pleased with how he looked. He had maintained the same diet and exercise regimen over the years and still clocked in at the very same weight. Clothes may make the man, he thought, but it doesn’t hurt to start with a solid frame.
