The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3) (22 page)

Washington, D.C., USA

President Maxwell walked into the room with an apology:

“Sorry, I was delayed on a conference call. General Carter, please start the meeting.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” replied Hugh Carter, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Our main agenda item for this meeting of the National Security Council is the potential conflict with China.”

“Besides anti-American demonstrations in Beijing and Shanghai, what are your reasons for expecting a conflict?” asked Cora Jones, National Security Advisor. “After all, such demonstrations appear to be a popular method for steering up nationalistic feelings in China, letting out some steam so to speak.”

“True enough, Ms. Jones,” agreed Carter. “But this time we are witnessing a number of military activities that concern us: naval exercises, some involving the Russian Pacific Fleet, others including amphibious landing operations indicating preparations for a possible invasion, movement of additional missile batteries and aircraft to coastal areas from Ningbo to Xiamen, and trials of semi-autonomous operations of unmanned aerial vehicles over the East China Sea.”

“What is so bothersome about the trials of their drones?” challenged Defense Secretary Tom Blayn. “Everybody’s trialing those now.”

“The formations and types of drones being used indicate that they are trying to operate them without space-based assets, relying on local guidance using relays between drones. In any confrontation, both sides would try to go after space systems, trying to ‘blind’ the other side. That would point to them preparing fallback solutions.”

“We’re doing the same,” shrugged Tom Blayn, “but we’re not planning to attack them.”

“We are also observing increased deliveries of containers to oil and gas platforms in the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea, particularly in their Senkaku Islands installations,” Carter pointed to the projected map.

“Oil platforms? What does that have to do with anything?” inquired White House Counsel Craig Lowe.

“We’ve been tracking these platforms for almost two years now, since our intelligence alerted us that these are actually primarily military installations. We have confirmed that these platforms’ main function is to launch missiles and drones. It’s a top secret project within the Peoples Liberation Army. We believe that they intend to attack our 7
th
Fleet when it starts sailing towards Taiwan and comes within their range.”

“Interesting. And the Chinese don’t know that we know this?” asked Maxwell.

“Presumably not.”

“General Carter, you have mentioned landing operations and Taiwan. Does this mean you expect they’ll try to occupy the island?”

“That has been their long-standing goal since 1949.”

“If a war starts, what are you planning to do about these platforms?” asked Defense Secretary Blayn.

“They’re stationary targets, we’ll destroy them immediately.”

“OK, what’s the bottom line here?” said Maxwell. “If they go after Taiwan, what are our odds of deferring them?”

“I’d say better than fifty-fifty. Even though we have weakened our 7
th
Fleet due to cutbacks, our naval assets greatly exceed what China has and their advantage in missiles is only relevant near their shores where their guidance is precise. As long as the Taiwanese are able to hold out for about ten days, which we believe they can do, we should be able to defeat the invasion.”

“And if their secret platform were to launch their missiles and drones?” asked Maxwell. “I’d like to understand what their estimate of the odds might be.”

“If they are able to prevent or sufficiently slow down our 7
th
Fleet from getting into the East China Sea, then their invasion of Taiwan will likely succeed. But even then, Beijing will be facing a punishing ocean blockade that will likely destroy their economy before long.”

“And what if Russia joins the conflict on their side?” asked Cora Jones.

“That would certainly make things more difficult for us,” admitted Carter. “We still have larger naval resources in the Pacific than both China and Russia, but it would lower our odds of defending Taiwan. Plus the blockade will likely become much less effective.”

“Can we add resources to the 7
th
Fleet?” wondered Maxwell.

“We have the 3
rd
Fleet in the eastern Pacific, the 5
th
Fleet in the Middle East, and the 6
th
Fleet in Europe. The 3
rd
Fleet at this time has only three strike groups, we can move one under the command of the 7
th
Fleet within two weeks. The 6
th
Fleet has two strike groups, we can move one of them within a month. The 5
th
is probably too dangerous to touch given continued turmoil in the Middle East.”

“All right, let’s give the 7
th
one strike group each from both the 3
rd
and the 6
th
fleets,” decided Maxwell.

“But Mr. President,” protested Cora Jones, “we can’t weaken our European forces, we are stretched very thin there as is.”

“I understand, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take,” disagreed Maxwell. “The danger of war in Europe is much lower and we want to signal to Beijing that we plan to defend Taiwan.”

He got up, signaling that the decision had been made and the meeting was over.

Moscow, Russia

Ivan Mershov stood by the window of his office, looking out on busy Petrovka Street. Earlier, warm summer rain had cleaned the air and washed the pavement. Muskovites were hurrying back and forth on their business.

The information that his son brought was dangerous. Not enough to do anything with, but enough to trigger a gut feel that something was very wrong. Last week two
militziamen
had indeed been killed in St. Petersburg after being called to investigate a routine disturbance. Supposedly, they walked in on a mob dispute. He wanted to check the names that Vitaly gave him: the bodyguard Fyodor Bezdorukov and the FSB colonel Bogdan Zaychikov. He knew he should be able to do this with his access level, but he didn’t want to leave any evidence of looking.

Mershov went to his desk and called his secretary:

“Valya, can you get me Stepan Ryzhkov? Yes, right away please.”

Ryzhkov was OMON’s IT expert. Two years ago Mershov used his influence to get one of the Moscow’s best surgeons operate on Ryzhkov’s child. It was time to call in the debt. Besides, he had to trust someone.

Ryzhkov appeared in five minutes with a careful knock on the door. As usual, he looked unkempt and disheveled, as if he just woke up:

“Colonel?”

“Come in, Stepa. Sit down. How’s your son?”

An oblique reminder of the debt.

“He is fine, Colonel. Running around like new. What can I do for you?” Acknowledging the debt.

“Suppose I want to look up some restricted information... at my access level, of course. But I don’t want others to know that I’ve been looking. Is it possible?”

“All access data is logged in. So there will be a record of your login. If someone set up an alert to indicate when there is an attempt to access a particular data record, they will trace it to you.”

Mershov drummed his fingers on the table.

“Stepa, any suggestions? This is important.”

“Yes.” Ryzhkov looked very uncomfortable. “I can’t turn off the logging function unless it’s a system that I control. The only other solution I can offer is to pretend to be someone else.”

“I believe this information may require a very high level of access.”

“Colonel, remember how I always insist that people don’t put their login and password on little pieces of paper that they leave by their computer?”

“Yes, you are forever fighting the human nature,” smiled Mershov.

“Last month, there was an FSB colonel working with us for a few days.”

“I remember him.”

“We set him up with access to one of our computers. When I went to check on him, making sure everything is working, he had a sticker with a login and two passwords on the table.”

“And you took it and told him not to do again?”

“No, but I copied them when he was out of the room. He was kind of a jerk, ordering me around like I was his serf. I wanted to get him in trouble by letting their security know that he is careless, but then thought better of it.”

Ryzhkov pulled a wallet out of his back pocket and removed a small piece of paper.

“Chances are it’s still good, although they are required to change passwords every three months. Are you going to use it here?” he nodded at Mershov’s computer on the desk.

“Yes, why?”

“Let me set up a connection with the TorPlus browser so your IP address won’t be logged.”

For security reasons, Mershov’s work computer was set up with an old-fashioned 3-D monitor and a keyboard. Someone thought that voice input and projection images were more vulnerable. Mershov smirked, thinking that the vulnerability was in people, not computer peripherals. After Ryzhkov left, Mershov used the careless colonel’s credentials to log into the FSB database. He typed in ‘Bogdan Zaychikov.’ The system requested a “special access” password, somewhat unusual for a simple personnel record. Mershov typed the
second password from the little piece of paper that Ryzhkov left him.

47 years old, Zaychikov started his career as a young officer in the Second Chechen War. He joined the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MVD, in 2002 while still in Chechnya and ran an Internal Troops paramilitary detachment. This was before he joined the FSB and moved to St. Petersburg in 2004. Mershov wondered if he ran into Zaychikov during that time. Zaychikov moved to Moscow in 2008 with a promotion to a captain. He had asked to be transferred back to St. Petersburg only five months ago, for “family reasons.” Most of his work was in the Economic Security Service division, but on his last transfer he shifted to the Defense of Constitution and Fight Against Terrorism group.

Mershov moved to Fyodor Bezdorukov. At 43, he was a bit old for the bodyguard. He was also in the Second Chechen War, as a solider. Undertaking Spetsnaz training, he stayed in the army until 2011. Afterwards, he joined the security detail for one of the banking oligarchs, working his way into a head of security position. In 2013, Bezdorukov suddenly left that job to join the Federal Security Service of the FSB.
That doesn’t make much sense
, thought Mershov.
Why would he leave such an obviously better private position? Perhaps he ran into some trouble there.
Four months ago, Bezdorukov transferred to the regiment of the Russian Military Police tasked with guarding the Minister of Defense.

Mershov gave computer a command: “Graph connections!” and waited a few seconds until he remembered that this unit only accepted typed instructions. It was a bit unnerving to work with a device that would neither listen nor respond. He entered the command, then had to type Bezdorukov’s and Zaychikov’s names again. The computer displayed a timeline graph, showing a thick line of strong connections from late 1999 to 2004. Bezdorukov served under Zaychikov in the regular army. When Zaychikov joined the MVD in 2002, Bezdorukov went with him to the same Internal Troops regiment.

Mershov stared at the screen, rubbed his chin, and typed in “Nikolai Nemzhov.” He only thought of this because of Oleg’s message; Nemzhov’s name was in his head. Mershov expected to see a connection in St. Petersburg. Instead, multiple contact lines appeared, starting in 2002 in Chechnya. According to the computer, Nemzhov was there for eighteen months, coordinating FSB field operations in the same district where Bezdorukov’s and Zaychikov’s Internal Troops regiment operated. Effectively, he was their boss. The Nemzhov – Zaychikov connection picked up again in 2004 when Zaychikov worked for Nemzhov in St. Petersburg and continued through the move to Moscow until 2011, when Nemzhov left the FSB for a promotion in the GRU.

The MVD – Chechnya connection bothered him. He could not quite put his finger on why, until he remembered that his boss, Dmitry Kolotov, the Minister of Internal Affairs, was in Chechnya when the MVD ran the operations there in 2003. At official dinners, Kolotov regaled them with his “Chechnya stories.” It was rumored he came back with a nice profit from that lawless land and time. Mershov took a deep breath, typed in “Dmitry Kolotov” and the connection appeared – they all overlapped in the same place in 2003.

Mershov shut down the computer.
Too many coincidences. Who can I trust?
Nobody high enough in the MVD, the GRU or the FSB. He thought of his friend Fyodor Bakunin, the Deputy Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. The SVR was the GRU’s poor sister. They were supposed to work cooperatively but, as usual in such situations, the relationship was strained and mistrustful.

Mershov picked up his phone:

“Valya, can you get me Fyodor Bakunin from the SVR? Yes, right away please.”