Another Man's Freedom Fighter Read online

  But then, at least, they were not kleptocrats shoveling billions of state revenue into their own pockets. All in all, I’m a lucky guy, he decided.

  ✽✽✽

  Generał Bonifacy Pułaski was the Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, the Wojsko Polskie. Together with the Head of Military Intelligence and the defense minister he entered the Polish president’s state-room.

  The minister got straight to the point. “Panie Prezydencie, we have two important pieces of information to share with you. I will let Generał Brygady Bilinski give it to you direct.”

  The brigadier general unfolded a tablet computer in a leather pouch. “We just arrived back from Belgium where we supervised operation Eagle Eye in SHAPE’s op-center. As you can see here, our GROM team could gather video evidence that large quantities of anthracite are in fact extracted from mines that the separatists claim to be caved in, flooded, or otherwise impossible to operate. Our civilian counterparts at the Agencja Wywiadu are currently preparing the estimated output of the mines, the exact grading of the coal, estimates of income earned by the sales, et cetera.”

  “I knew it,” President Berka blurted out.

  “There’s more,” Bilinski continued his report. “The videos clearly show convicts from a prison in the area to work in the mine under hazardous conditions. They hardly have any of the usual precautions in place that, for example, our miners in Silesia have. Our team took a risk in actually interviewing one of these convicts behind the latrine. We have his name, date of birth, prisoner number, as well as his conviction and sentence on record. That particular man was supposed to have been released from prison eight months ago.”

  After the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 more unrest started in the eastern oblasts Luhansk and Donetsk. In these two provinces, supposed separatists had gained control of the regional institutions and proclaimed independent People’s Republics that sought Russia’s protection. Even though there had been clear evidence of direct involvement of Russian troops and Russian intelligence operators, the Russian government to this day denied any involvement in the conflict. Their narrative claims that ethnic Russians home to the region rightfully fight for independence from a neo-fascist regime in Kiev.

  International human rights groups had to this day reported multiple human rights violations by the self-proclaimed leaders of the two Ukrainian provinces.

  The Polish president smiled proudly. “That is all great news. So, Operation Eagle Eye was a complete success. Congratulations, Generals. Finally, we can prove what our analysts at AW have suspected for a long time. These separatists are stealing coal from the Ukrainian people, and the Russians are dumping it on the world market through their distribution channels. Once we expose this scandal, we might be able to convince the European Union and the U.S. to impose import restrictions on Russian coal. Our mines will be profitable again once the sanctions push up market prices.”

  “Panie Prezydencie, I am sorry if I have to curb your enthusiasm,” Defense Minister Kempski interrupted, “that was only the first piece of information. The good news, if you will.”

  President Berka looked at Bilinski.

  Bilinski’s voice betrayed his feeling of anger as he reported that the whole GROM team had been killed in action. “Just ten minutes ago, we learned that RUS-TV will present the bodies of our soldiers and their gear in tonight’s news. Their narrative will be that armed NATO troops have been caught in a covert operation near the Russian naval base in Crimea.”

  Two

  “But, but, that is a blatant lie!” President Sebastian Berka fumed with rage.

  Kempski nodded. “Of course, but as usual they think, they can get away with it. They have the bodies. They have the initiative, and this narrative resonates with the majority of their population. It resonates with some people in the West, too. Unfortunately.”

  “Yes, yes,” the president said. He sat down in his chair and dropped into a slouch. “And we can actually expect our allies in Berlin, Brussels, and Washington to let them get away with it again. They are all too afraid of confronting the Russian bear.” The four men stood in silence for a moment, each contemplating the situation for himself.

  “We need to get ahead of this,” Berka straightened up in his chair. “We need to issue a statement right away. What are your recommendations?”

  The military intelligence officer took the initiative. “The chemical analyses of coal samples from Amsterdam, the videos, and the testimony of this man, who should be free since eight months, is more than enough to stifle any threat of retaliation.”

  “It might even be enough to get the European public to see the truth about the operation. The evidence will definitely resonate well with our own voter base,” the defense minister concurred.

  The president got up and pushed a button to summon his personal aide. “Yes, that will work. At the very least, it will shed light on why our coal mines in Silesia are unprofitable. If we are lucky, we might even be able to work the angle long and hard enough to get some sanctions imposed. We need those mines profitable. Elections for both houses of parliament are coming up. We simply cannot have unemployed coal miners protesting in the streets.”

  “The presidential elections are not too far away either.” General Pułaski’s first contribution to the conversation was met with a grunt by his president.

  General Pułaski felt that the president was deeply irritated by his remark and explained himself. “Panie Prezydencie, while the Polish Armed Forces are happy to show off our special reconnaissance capabilities, I have to protest the use of our best men for clearly politically motivated purposes. A soldier lives to protect the lives of his compatriots, not the purses of investors.”

  “Noted,” the still bad-tempered head of state replied. President Berka made a gesture of dismissal to his generals while lifting the receiver of his desk phone.

  ✽✽✽

  Mark Sanders felt the strong forearm of the bald, tall man against his Adam’s apple as he wrapped his arm around Mark’s neck for a choke hold. Mark tried to reach the man’s head with his hands, but he could not get hold of it. He groaned desperately. Then he tried to land a downward blow on the man’s thighs. Again, to no avail. He tried again to go for the head. Flinging his arms up and down like that, he looked as if he were doing the Batman dance. Finally, he tapped the muscular forearm two times. The man released his hold. Mark gasped for air and dropped on his butt.

  “See? This is what would’ve happened,” the bald man said. “You never turn your back toward a threat!” Jan Szimpla bowed down and held his right index finger in front of Mark’s face.

  Mark looked at his personal trainer’s finger, his elbows on the gym mat, and enjoying the uninterrupted flow of oxygen into his body for one more moment. He nodded. “Got it.”

  In the corner of the private gym, Xandi watched his father’s playdate with wide open eyes. He was strapped into his stroller. His hands went out toward his father, and he wiggled in his seat. “Dada,” came out of his mouth.

  You want to play with us, buddy? Mark thought with a chuckle. He summoned all his energies to continue. After all, he did this to protect his son better, and he paid good money for the lessons.

  Jan would not let go and continued the lecture. “You got lucky when you hit that guy with the bottle in exactly the right spot. Half a second too early, you would have missed, probably spun too far. Half a second too late, he would have grabbed you while reaching for that bottle. In most scenarios, he would have had you in a choke hold, and his five buddies would have had their way with your wife.”

  “Four buddies, and we were only dating at the time,” Mark corrected the slightly taller and more muscular man.

  “Yeah, big difference. Okay, let’s teach some sense into your big head. We will continue with choke holds for the rest of the hour. Another thing, you seem awfully slow today. Did you drink before training? Want my advice? Don’t.”

  Mark nodded and submi
tted himself to another half hour of training.

  Mark had started taking private lessons in Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Force’s system of hand-to-hand combat, after a street fight a few years ago. Ofelia and Mark had just started dating exclusively and had spent the evening with friends in a Kreuzberg restaurant.

  When the two had come out of the subway on Alexanderplatz with beers in their hands, five dark-skinned types had shown up. They had commented on Ofelia’s dress in a very inappropriate way. Mark made clear, the teenagers should better go to bed. Get rest for school the next day. This was when they started to threaten the much taller man.

  They demanded respect. For what remained unclear.

  Mark had exchanged beer bottles with Ofelia, taking the fuller and heavier bottle from her. He spun around, smashed the bottle on bully number one’s right temple. Glass shards fell on the pavement. So did the guy. He was out.

  One of his buddies rushed forward. Mark slashed the air with the broken bottle to distract him, then took a sudden step forward, kicked number two in the nuts. The guy sunk to his knees in pain. To decisively finish the unhealthy exercise, Mark shoved the broken bottle into the immigrant’s left cheek.

  That splatter experience made the other three run for it.

  ✽✽✽

  President Berka’s hand was slightly sweaty as he put down the Cisco phone’s receiver. A dewy imprint of his hand slowly shriveled to nothing on the grayish-black polymer. He had just ordered his aide to free his schedule for the rest of the day. This would give him time to deal with the aftermath of this partially successful recon mission. It was a fiasco really, but only because the opposition was so brazenly lying about the incident.

  The first thing to do would be phone calls to Washington, Berlin, and Brussels. In that order. Then the president and his advisors would work the rest of the day and most of the night to draft statements. Their press office would issue those to the accredited journalists and press agencies. Afterward, the president and defense minister would have to answer questions in a short-notice press conference.

  The task was to bring highly complex information into a digestible format. Coal sampled from the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp market, ARA for short, that was supposedly coming out of Russian mines was chemically identical to Luhansk anthracite. This especially energy-rich coal is used for a wide range of applications, from fuel to filtration media.

  The separatists had complained for years that the mines were flooded, caved in, or otherwise not exploitable. With the primary source of revenue of the local economy gone, they had pleaded for financial help to pay pensions and salaries. The Russian government had graciously started to finance the livelihoods of the mostly ethnic Russian pensioners and state employees in the rogue provinces. Of course, the Russian media had not missed the opportunity to slander the Ukrainian government for ‘abandoning their citizens’ and not paying out pensions and salaries.

  If you took out all the political complications and propaganda, the story was pretty simple. The separatists were stealing coal from the Ukrainian state who legally owned the mining companies.

  The Russian-owned coal trading companies were fencing the goods and effectively not paying anything for them. A nice business with one hundred percent profit margin.

  The Russian government would be paying pennies to the dollar in the form of pensions and salaries. Those pennies, again, were effectively stolen from the Russian people as they did not get the new roads or the new schools that this money was actually supposed to finance.

  Probably, the Russian state also paid a nice bonus to the ex-KGB and ex-Spetsnaz now posing as the unelected presidents and prime ministers of the People’s Republics. This and the use of slave labor added up to a humongous scandal. Anybody with an education would get it.

  The competing Russian story, however, was even simpler. They had killed four armed Polish special forces soldiers wearing NATO insignia inside the borders of their country near one of their most sensitive military installations. They were in the right to defend their military installation, the NATO operatives were engaging in something aggressive and illegal by merely being there. Everybody, even a kindergarten dropout, got it.

  Three

  The Beluga is one of Moscow’s finest restaurants. Looking out its wide windows on the second floor of the National Hotel, one can see Marshal Zhukov’s monument, the Corner Arsenal Tower of the Kremlin Palace, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

  The midday sun shone into the magnificent room and reflected from the massive chandeliers, crystal glasses, and the heavy silverware laid out on thick, stiff, bright-white tablecloths.

  General Roman Konstantinovich Kuvayev pulled the silver cufflinks out of his jacket sleeves. They held together white French cuffs and slightly touched the smooth fabric of his tailor-made Savile Row suit. He enjoyed a glass of Crimean sparkling wine as an aperitif while waiting for the defense minister. Since he had been given the post of Director of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, four months earlier, he had not had the chance to thank his mentor and friend in person.

  “So good to see you, Gleb Yevgenievich,” he said, walked around the table, and extended his hand to the senior cabinet member.

  “Roma, it’s been a while.” The minister took Kuvayev’s hand and pulled the younger man to his chest. “Ah, champagne. An old Bollinger, as one would expect from a spy like you?” Defense Minister Startsev asked jovially.

  “I am no James Bond, my friend. You know that. In fact, as a good patriot should, I am having a glass of Crimean sparkling wine.”

  Startsev sat down. Kuvayev ordered a young man in a gray uniform to bring two more glasses. The waiter returned with a bottle and filled two flutes. A second waiter put two plates with lightly toasted bread in front of the two guests and a crystal bowl filled with ice on top of which sat a smaller glass bowl with caviar.

  Startsev looked at Kuvayev, the wine, and the food. He smiled with content. “Very well. I’ve heard, you’ve made a good start into your new position. Streamlining the active measures outside and inside the country under the roof of your agency was a forward-looking move. Bold, to start such an initiative so early in your tenure.”

  Startsev put some caviar on the tip of one of the toasted triangles. “I supported it in the cabinet, of course. In fact, the president and I are happy that you took it away from that moron, Bortsov. He is intellectually lazy. Such an important weapon of the state cannot be left in the hands of such an incompetent man.”

  The term ‘active measures’ was a harmless-sounding expression to summarize disinformation, propaganda, counterfeiting of official documents, assassinations of political enemies, and repression of political parties or social groups. As a retired KGB major general once put it, “Active measures are the heart and soul of Soviet intelligence, they are used to drive wedges in the Western alliances, particularly NATO, and to weaken the United States in the eyes of the people of the world and thus prepare ground in case a war really occurs.” What was true for the Soviet-day KGB, continued to be true for its modern-day incarnations, the state security agency FSB and the foreign intelligence agency SVR.

  “I am glad you supported my initiative. I felt exactly the same when I prepared for my new post,” Kuvayev said while he held his glass raised to the elder. The crystal champagne flutes met with an elegant clink.

  ✽✽✽

  Roman Konstantinovich Kuvayev was born in the town of Yekaterinburg, east of the Ural Mountains. His father had been a mid-level civil servant and a loyal party member until the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was banned in 1991. His mother had worked as a secretary to a local party leader.

  When he had been conscripted into the army after high-school, his intelligence and resourcefulness had helped him to keep away from dangerous postings. He could avoid duty in Tajikistan or Chechnya by becoming the ordinarets, a personal servant and driver, to an elderly army general.

  That posting had taken him to Moscow. There
, while waiting by the car for his master to return from a state dinner, he had first seen Lyudmila. That very second he had fallen in love, that was the truth. She had accompanied her father, also a general, to the dinner given by then-President Yeltsin in honor of the fighting men in the Chechen Campaign. There were even a few of those fighting men present to accept the Medal of Zhukov as an award for bravery.

  Roman had found Lyudmila a few days later, again by utilizing his intelligence and resourcefulness. The young, slender student of Russian Literature had hesitatingly agreed to go for a stroll in Gorky Park on a Sunday afternoon. She had, again hesitatingly, agreed to go out to the movies on Friday nights.

  Soon after, her hesitation had fallen off. The smart and chivalrous private in the always impeccably clean uniform had impressed the general’s daughter so much that she had even dared to introduce him to her parents after a few weeks.

  General of the Army Aleksandr Yevgenievich Startsev had been less than thrilled that his daughter had brought home some conscript from beyond the Ural as a boyfriend. He had been hoping for a student of medicine or at least physics. The only worse outcome would have been a student of Russian Literature.

  Out of love for his only daughter and knowing her thick head, he had decided to tolerate the relationship for the time being. Tolerate, not endorse, and not without thoroughly ensuring his daughter’s safety first. Through his brother Gleb Yevgenievich’s intelligence contacts he had the young fellow’s family checked and found nothing unusual.

  The boy’s background was not good, but not really bad either. His parents had been obedient servants of the state while that was a good thing and provided relative status and comfort. In the new Russian state, they had lost their work and rather quickly descended into poverty. This had been a typical story in these early 1990s.