Sabotage. Don Pendleton
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the time had come to leave the smoking ruins of what had once been proud Mother Russia, he had done so without looking back. Russia could do nothing more for him. The post–Cold War years hadn’t been kind to the once-powerful nation and, while the crime-infested world of business in Russia held certain attractions, the market was saturated. Better to move to the West, where untapped, unexploited markets still remained. Trofimov hated the West; he hated it for what it had done to his nation, for the Cold War that had denied Russia its once-proud destiny. He hated the strutting, arrogant Americans who believed they owned the world and could tell everyone within it how to live and what to do. But he also knew that the West was his best hope for achieving his still only vaguely defined personal goals. He swallowed his pride temporarily, which was the hardest thing of all.
The teenage Trofimov had managed to immigrate successfully to the United States, illegally at first, then legally, after a fashion, many years later. He found himself, almost to his surprise, in Florida, and there he realized that his ambition alone wouldn’t be enough. He needed contacts. He needed resources. It was all fine and good to know he could influence, control, even manipulate his fellow human beings. There were few enough opportunities to do so when one was penniless and homeless on the streets of an American city.
Trofimov, growing increasingly desperate, had prowled the streets of Miami, increasingly worried that he would find himself among the city’s population of street people before much longer. Then came the break he had sought, the opportunity he needed: he saw two men bullying a third, demanding money owed them.
He had crept up the alleyway until he was close enough to hear the conversation. The two men worked for a local loan shark. The third man owed a great deal of money. He grew increasingly combative as the two enforcers threatened him. It quickly became evident to Trofimov that these men were overmatched. The third man was bigger and appeared stronger. As Trofimov watched, the big man suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, punched one of the two enforcers square in the jaw. He kneed the second, dropping him. Breaking into a run, the third man hurried past the very spot where Trofimov stood.
He tripped him.
The big man hit the pavement of the alleyway. He struck his head as he fell. He was either dead or unconscious as Trofimov stood over him, checked his pockets and took his wallet.
“Hey, kid,” one of the enforcers said. It was the one who had taken a knee to the groin. “Gimme that wallet.”
Trofimov tossed the wallet to the man without hesitation, as if this had been his intent from the start. He regarded the enforcer coolly; the enforcer stared back. Finally the other man said, “What? What the hell you want?”
“I want a job,” Trofimov said.
The enforcer seemed to think about that for a moment. He looked down at the debtor and then back to his partner, who was slowly struggling to his feet. “What do you do?” he asked.
“Name it,” Trofimov had said.
The enforcer laughed. Eventually he nodded. “Come on, then.”
That had been the humble beginning from which Yuri Trofimov built his empire. He had at first worked his way up in the hierarchy of organized crime in Miami, learning the violent ropes. His talent for persuading people, his guile, his natural, snake-oil charm served him well. He moved up within the ranks. When he had enough support, when he had co-opted enough of the organization, he took it over from within, then fought a war with those who disagreed with his palace coup. Finally he ruled uncontested. He leveraged his money and his power into several legitimate enterprises; the boom in consumer electronics and the new Internet age helped him along the way.
When he had the time, he attended college. In business school he learned the formal terms behind what he had found through hard-won and bitter experience. Then, in journalism school, he found the true means of channeling his natural abilities. Always, he branched out, expanded, reinvested. His legitimate empire, on the backs of his criminal enterprises, became truly, remarkably, breathtakingly powerful.
He expanded from electronics into heavy industry, buying shares in the few Russian businesses that showed financial promise, greasing the wheels back home and in the United States with plenty of bribes. When he couldn’t use his power or his money to get what he wanted, he knew who to hire. He learned just how much was possible if one sought the services of armed, amoral men, the types of men who fought wars for hire, the types of men who could be counted on to take their money and quietly go about their business. As his ties to such mercenaries deepened, his reach grew. Those who wouldn’t bend to the will of Yuri Trofimov often found themselves dead, victims of random street violence, presumed gang shootings or even open massacres whose perpetrators were never caught.
Always, Trofimov was careful to keep his own record, his own reputation, clean. He knew as well as anyone that the government of the United States had its suspicions, but was hamstrung by its own rules. For all its tough talk about homeland security, its posturing and its saber rattling, it didn’t have the killer instinct it needed to deal with the likes of Yuri Trofimov. Thus he would continue his work, under their very noses. They would be able to prove nothing. They would never be able to assign to Trofimov the blame for the storm that was to come.
Eventually he bought his United States citizenship. It was easy enough—a bribe here, a favor there, the gentle application of political power over there. He followed the models established by other businessmen before him, never reinvented the wheel if he didn’t have to do so. When TBT and its news network finally burst on the scene, Trofimov was more than prepared to take market share by giving his viewers what they wanted. He traded in the sensational, the outrageous, the bloody, the messy. Always, his hatred of the West came through, and it tapped the streak of self-destructive, self-loathing guilt some of his now-fellow Americans seemed to feel about themselves and their nation.
For many men, this would have been enough. Riches. Influence. Swaying the cultural pendulum and affecting the collective consciousness of the most powerful nation in the world.
Yuri Trofimov wasn’t most men.
He wouldn’t be truly satisfied until the United States, the embodiment of the hated West, suffered as his homeland had suffered. Only when the arrogant United States knew the pain of losing its military might abroad, only when the miserable United States was humiliated on the international stage as the Soviet Union and later Russia had been, only when the United States military—the truncheon with which the Americans beat all around them—was utterly disgraced would Yuri Trofimov be truly satisfied.
And thus he had, using the great wealth and power available to him, embarked on the elaborate plan that was to be his life’s crowning achievement. He was going to destroy the United States military, using the Americans themselves to help him do the work.
He had, of course, no compunctions about breaking the law. He had begun his life as a criminal; laws were for other men, not the rich and powerful like Trofimov. As long as he was smart enough not to get caught, and he had always been smart enough not to get caught, he could do as he willed, pay whom he wished to kill whom he wished. It was the way of things. Simple violence solved many problems. Complicated, crafty, deceitful violence…well, that solved so much more. And of what use was power if it wasn’t applied, used to shape the world in the way the man wielding that power saw fit? That was, after all, what had first attracted Trofimov to wielding power over others: the ability to manipulate and shape the world by affecting the will of other men and women. He let his hatred guide him. He would shape the world.
He started by infiltrating and then co-opting most of the Peace At Any Cost group. It was the largest and had the most influence on the antimilitary scene within the United States, a fact born out by the copious research his people at TBT News conducted at his direction. It was simple enough to liberate from the group those members willing to take the next step, to use actual violence in fighting the hated American military and what it represented. Trofimov himself had selected the first targets. He had made certain that these baby killers, these returning war criminals, knew that they weren’t safe in their own country, weren’t safe from the horrors they had inflicted overseas.
He hadn’t counted on