Endangered Species: PART 1 Page 10

  “Ah, yes,” Vasilyev said and favored Federov with a cold smile. “The AGU, that group of undeservedly wealthy Americans and their sycophantic political lackeys. They are to be our saviors?”

  The president pulled his hand away from his chin and said, “They have been a valuable tool for us for the past century. Have you forgotten, Gennady”

  Vasilyev’s response was quick. “Indeed they have, Mr. President. I am aware of their value to us in the achievement of our ultimate goal. Their own goal, that of a one-world government and society is very similar to ours. The difference, of course, is their reason for such a system. As industrialists and investment bankers, they would become even wealthier and more powerful if they controlled the global money supply and banking system. It is their insatiable greed that blinds them to so much and enables us to manipulate them for our purposes.”

  The president nodded his head slowly. “It is written in the Bhagavad Gita that there are three gates to self-destructive hell: lust, anger, and greed. The avarice of these people, the AGU, will be the means of their eventual destruction…after we have used their connections and contributions to achieve our ends.” His gaze moved back to Federov. It wasn’t just the eyes that moved. His head turned slowly, almost indolently. It was a long, narrow skull connected to a somewhat squat body by a thin neck. Federov had always regarded the president as an odd looking man.

  “Tell us more of your thoughts for using the AGU in place of Laski,” the president said to Federov.

  “As we know, our purpose always has been to destroy the United States as a bastion of capitalism and as a threat to Russian power and ambition. This has not been realistic from a military perspective. Instead, we have been engaged in subverting its political, economic, and social structures from within. Funding this has required an enormous investment of the State’s resources, and Laski was the one who distributed those resources. To the requisite entities and individuals.” Federov paused and looked first at the president then at Vasilyev.

  The president said nothing. He simply continued to stare unblinkingly at Federov. Vasilyev, however, made a gesture of impatience and said, “I trust you are going to tell us something we don’t already know?”

  Federov nodded. “The goal of the AGU, a one-world government, also requires the destruction of the United State’s economic, political and military power. That is why they have been so eager to work with us toward that end. Now, if we look at the situation in that respect, it seems logical to assume that its members, many of whom are very highly placed in American business, politics, and society, are in an ideal position to distribute the funds that nurture our efforts and ensure our success.”

  Still without any display of emotion, the Russian president said, “Tell us, Colonel Federov, do you think us so incompetent that we would not already have thought of this?”

  Federov didn’t know quite how to react to the question. Ultimately, he gave a nervous shrug and said, “Of course not, Mr. President. I’m sure you have thought well beyond this point.”

  “Yes, we have,” Vasilyev said. “You have spent much time in America, Kirill, and have met with some of the more highly placed members of the AGU or their agents. I would like to hear your observations regarding their intentions once our destruction of the United States is complete. You have heard the president wisely quoting Vedic scriptures regarding the greed of these people. Do they view us as the stooges in this relationship?”

  “Yes, I am certain they do. As you said, General, they are blinded by their greed and assume us to be simple Slavic peasants playing in a game way beyond our comprehension.”

  At last, the president’s face expressed some emotion. A smirk of satisfaction. “Good. There is none so easy to destroy as a blind fool. In the chaos that will engulf America at the end, its leadership will be easy to pick off.”

  “When the head of the snake has been severed,” Vasilyev said, “the body will soon die.”

  Federov was an intelligent and physically powerful man. In almost any environment, he was the alpha male. He was the one who was large and in charge. But not here in this room with the diminutive president and the aging Vasilyev. He knew his place. What he didn’t know, at the moment, was what his future held. He bowed his head respectfully and said, “Mr. President, General Vasilyev, may I inquire after the role I am to play going forward?”

  The room was quiet for several moments. The only sounds were those emanating from other suites in this part of the building. Dull noises; hard to identify. Probably clerks and administrators going about their tasks, Vasilyev kept his gaze fixed on the president. At last the man nodded slightly and Vasilyev turned back to Federov.

  “I mentioned earlier, Kirill, that you must bear some responsibility for what happened regarding Laski and his operation.” He looked quickly at the president then said, “You have been replaced as far as your former role in the United States is concerned.” He paused and assessed Federov’s reaction.

  Federov sat back slowly in his chair, but succeeded in keeping any emotion from showing on his face. “I understand. Is there perhaps another role for me, one where I can atone for my …failure?” It was the worst kind of F-word to him. He almost couldn’t get it out.

  “Ah, well, you are a good man, Kirill; a man of many talents and abilities. I would be surprised if there was not some worthy service you could perform for the glory of our cause.” Vasilyev held a finger up and said, “But we are going to have to give some thought to what that role might be. In the meantime, we have a task for you in Kiev. You will be meeting with a colleague of yours from your experience with Chaim Laski. Let’s hope, for both your sakes, it goes better this time. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Federov said. He tried to sound respectful, yet unintimidated or disappointed. But it was very nearly impossible.

  Chapter 12—JFK Airport, New York City

  The JetBlue flight left Albuquerque on time. It was a crowded flight, which mystified Mitch Christie at first. Why were so many people flying from a Podunk town like Albuquerque to the Big Apple on a midnight flight on a Tuesday night in mid-April? Then he remembered. It was Economics 101. The Law of Supply and Demand. Basic Adam Smith stuff. The airlines had stemmed their flow of blood by cutting back on the number of flights. The same number of flyers, but fewer available seats. This enabled the airlines to cram their passenger holds with warm bodies. It also allowed them to raise ticket prices and tack on charges for everything from checked baggage to carry-ons to pillows to Cokes. The rash of mergers had eliminated much of the competition in the industry and led to further price hikes. I should have bought airline stock, Christie thought glumly. For that matter, he mused, I should have done a lot of things differently; yet here I am on my way to a foreign country to kill some sonofabitch I don’t really know. Hell of a way to end a distinguished career in law enforcement.

  The flight left Albuquerque at midnight and arrived in New York’s JFK airport about 6 a.m. It sounded longer, but it was only four hours of flying time, distorted by time zones. The plane was packed. Christie didn’t like being confined in a close space with other humans. He thought longingly of his previous travels in First Class. The seats were large and almost comfortable, separated by wide armrests. There was more legroom. And you didn’t have to pay for pillows, blankets, food or drink. In First Class there wasn’t a long line of passengers queued up to use the lavatory. And that tiny closet-like space didn’t reek of human excrement before the flight was even halfway to its destination. He sighed and thought, but that was then. When he’d flown on Bureau business, the taxpayers had treated him to First or Business Class. Now, he was flying on his own dime, and he no longer had many of those, thanks to the divorce.

  To his increasing discomfort, he found himself stuck in a middle seat. An obesely fat woman had the aisle seat. Parts of her spilled over into his space repulsing him. Worse, she was blocking his freedom of passage to the lavatory. For whatever reason, maybe her girth, she refused
to get up when he tried to get to the aisle. He either had to sit in extreme discomfort and try to ignore his bladder’s growing complaints, or climb over the woman’s mountainous body. Eventually, he chose the latter, nearly falling into the aisle in the process. Returning to his seat was even more difficult. He wished she had been snarky about it; it would have been easier to give her a long, dirty look. Unfortunately, it was the opposite. She clearly was embarrassed and apologized profusely. To his surprise, he found himself trying to make her feel better about it.

  The passenger in the window seat was no prize either. He was a man in his early twenties with a face full of scraggily hair and long, oily looking locks that hung below his shoulders. He wore flip-flops, dirty jeans and a wrinkled and torn flannel shirt that looked like it had missed several washings. Christie suspected the man hadn’t bathed in quite awhile either. An aura of body odor spread into Christie’s area. He couldn’t lean the other way because the enormous woman in the aisle seat also was occupying part of his seat. To compound his discomfort, the young man was asleep. His head kept sliding over and coming to rest on Christie’s shoulder. The infuriated FBI agent would lunge sideways, throwing the man to the other side of the seat and against the fuselage. The man would wake up briefly, look at Christie, and whine something like, “Hey, man”. Within minutes, he would be asleep again and trespassing on Christie’s space once more. Christie’s cop’s eyes sized the young man up as a hippy and drug user. He thought long and hard about flashing his Bureau credentials, dragging the offensive man to the lavatory and performing a strip search. He was sure he’d find some reason to bust him and turn him over to local authorities in New York. He just couldn’t figure out how to get himself and the prospective perp over the mountainous mass in the aisle seat.

  By the time the flight arrived at JFK, Christie couldn’t wait to deplane. But he wasn’t having any luck there either. It seemed an eternity before the door opened and passengers began to inch forward. In this day of pricier flying, it seemed like everyone brought carry-ons. One-by-one each passenger squeezed into the aisle, wrestled their luggage from the overhead bins, and slowly made room for the person behind them.

  Christie’s row was near the rear of the plane. He was almost claustrophobic by the time the person in front of him began to move. To compound his phobic attack, it was the obese woman. She was not only fat, but also a rule breaker. Instead of the clearly limited two carry-on items per passenger, she had a huge purse, a large cloth bag crammed to capacity with foodstuffs she’d nibbled on throughout the flight, and an oversized carry-on suitcase. Unencumbered, her sheer girth would have made it difficult for her to navigate the narrow aisle. But with the extra baggage, it was almost impossible. Christie caught himself thinking that if he had access to a can of Crisco, he could grease her up and slide her more easily out of the plane. He realized instantly how ignoble the thought was and felt ashamed of himself for thinking it.

  Eventually, he was able to exit the plane, but still couldn’t get around the woman and her burdens on the gangway. Worse, the woman’s size made it difficult for her to walk. It was a very slow proceeding. Finally, he realized how he could speed it up. He volunteered to carry some of her items. That made it marginally faster.

  Christie wasn’t sure why he was in a hurry. He had almost twelve hours to kill in the airport before his connecting flight to Ireland departed. He had his Lee Child novel. He had his Wall Street Journal. He hadn’t been able to read either one on the flight from Albuquerque because of the actions of his seating partners. The Journal now was a day old. He’d pick up today’s edition in one of the airport shops. With almost twelve hours to kill, he suspected he’d see a lot of those airport shops. And food and beverage outlets too. The only bright spot so far in the journey was the airport terminal.

  Both JetBlue, his arriving carrier, and Aer Lingus, his connecting flight, used Terminal 5. The terminal itself was fairly new, having been completed a few years earlier. He had read that the gull winged building not only offered free Wi-Fi, but also boasted twenty-seven retail shops and twenty-four food and beverage outlets. One of them was a Dunkin’ Donuts. He zeroed in on it for his breakfast. Coffee and glazed crullers. His stomach would object violently, but he had stocked up on Rolaids. Given the nature of his mission, he probably didn’t have many days left. He doubted he would have to endure his stomach’s belligerence much longer. He wasn’t sure what kind of situation he would encounter when he killed Whelan. Irish authorities or Whelan’s kin might, in turn, kill him. It wasn’t going to be like the US, where everything possible was done to accommodate the perps. No wonder there were so many criminals in America, he thought. Jail time was like boarding at a country club. He paused at that thought, realizing for the first time consciously, that Whelan and his renegade handlers at the Society of Adam Smith probably were more patriotic than the bastards he worked for in the government. It was a disturbing thought.

  * * *

  Christie drank the last sip of his coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts shop in Terminal 5, ate the remainder of his second cruller, and read the Journal cover to cover. Being a fiscal conservative and a strong believer in the free enterprise system, he enjoyed most of the paper’s editorials. Occasionally, some leftwing lunatic from academia or politics ranted on the Journal’s editorial pages. He assumed it was the paper’s effort to be fair and balanced. But he considered it the kind of screed that belonged in the New York Times, a paper he wouldn’t even use to start a fire. It was Wednesday, the day the Journal’s Personal section featured a column or two on technology. Christie had always looked forward to reading it when Walter Mossberg was writing on personal technology. He had explained all things technological in laymen’s terms. He knew he never would have a Gen Y member’s grasp of such things, but Mossberg’s column always had made him feel less benighted.

  He glanced at his watch. It was barely eight o’clock in the morning. He still had almost ten hours to kill before his scheduled flight left for Ireland. He needed to make a call to California, but it was just going on 5 a.m. out there. Too early yet, he thought. Ten hours sounded like forever. He found a shoeshine stand just past the point where the passengers clearing security entered the terminal. His shoes already had a pretty good shine, but he had time to kill so he climbed into the chair. The shoeshine man was small, black, and old. Christie tipped him twenty dollars. Given the mission he was on, a little charity might be a good thing. He paused and looked down at his gleaming shoes. The well-groomed killer, he thought.

  He found a quiet area with mostly empty seats near the Aer Lingus gates and sat down with his paperback. He was several chapters into the book and it still was only ten o’clock. He got up and walked around the terminal, wandering through most of the retail shops. In one of them, a card shop, he made a purchase. It was from the rack of cards labeled “SORRY”. This one had a forlorn looking cartoon dog on the cover. It was holding a wilted rose and had a sorrowful, downcast look on its face. Inside the card read, “Doggone it. Could we try again?” He addressed it to Ramirez, stamped it and dropped it in a mailbox. I must be like most real estate investors, he thought; wildly optimistic in the face of certain disaster. If he was successful in his mission, managed to escape Ireland, and still had a job to come home to, it would be nice to have someone in his life for a change.

  He still had some time to kill before attempting the call to California. He took a couple of Rolaids to combat the ever-present pain in his stomach. The gull-winged roof of Terminal 5 was supported by a number of pillars. He set his briefcase down next to one, leaned back against it, and began watching the people wandering by. Once a cop, always a cop, he thought as he viewed the passengers parading past his vantage point. It was almost as if he was doing it on autopilot, scanning for the telltale signs. Mostly, everyone looked normal. Scruffier, in his mind, than air travelers should look, but normal. And then he spotted the couple. They were young and casually dressed, but a few steps up from the styles and grade of clothin
g worn by most of the others in the terminal. What caught his attention was the fact that they were standing facing each other, but neither one was looking at the other. Instead, their eyes were wandering around the terminal, looking at everyone else, but only occasionally and very briefly glancing at each other.

  Christie picked up his briefcase and began to edge closer to the couple. As he continued to watch them, he ran through the bullet-point list of characteristics commonly associated with terrorists. They seemed comfortable in the uniform seventy-four degree temperature in the terminal; no signs of sweating. Their facial expressions were bland, perhaps even bored-looking; no nervous tics. Their hands were calm; no shaking or nervous twisting of the sweaters each was carrying. Their clothes were fitted tightly enough that it was virtually impossible for explosives to have been concealed beneath them, even if they had been able to get through TSA with them.

  As he ran through the list, Christie realized it was only their eye movements that might match it. The more he studied them, the more he determined they were just two attractive, totally self-absorbed individuals, constantly scanning the horizon to see if there was something better out there than what they currently had. It’s no wonder, he concluded, that members of Gen Y waited longer to get married than members of prior generations did. Commitment was difficult when you expected the grass always would be greener around the next bend.

  * * *

  Satisfied that the couple didn’t pose a threat to anyone but each other, he glanced at his watch again and was relieved to see that it was now eight o’clock on the West Coast. Christie found a relatively quiet place in the now-bustling terminal and pulled his throwaway cellphone from a trouser pocket. He looked up the number on a small note pad he carried in an inside jacket pocket and dialed it. After three rings, he heard a voice on the other end.