Page 25 of Jacob

He was bitter and resentful, but he had plans. Big plans. He worked tirelessly on a way to restore Russia’s preeminence in the world and its dignity.

Over the decades, he had watched world events like a chess grandmaster watches the board. He dedicated himself to understanding the new world order. He studied the strengths and weaknesses of the West, its alliances and rivalries, ever-changing. He studied threats and opportunities. He studied all aspects of nuclear power, the possibility of cyber warfare, biological warfare, commercial warfare and built a network of contacts and allies inside the FSB and other security organizations, always just under the radar. A hidden network of like-minded patriots. People who understood, the way he understood, that the world had taken a wrong turn when the Wall fell. He bided his time until the circumstances were just right.

It was time.

The West was faltering, together with the United States. Economic situations worsening for most people, political divisions and strife. Yet Russia was growing stronger, its military well-structured, well-trained. He saw a Russia the outside world did not. It was time the world perceived its strength and resolve.

The US was a paper tiger, hollowed out. One strong blow and it would fall.

Russia would rise. The Soviet spirit—strength and resolve—would return. Russia would become a global superpower to be reckoned with once more. His country had been wronged, humiliated, betrayed.

No longer.

Finally, after years of searching, he had the key.

Topolev never believed in nuclear weapons—expensive to make and to maintain, requiring a vast infrastructure, cumbersome and dangerous to handle. And even if you win, you reign over ashes. Rather, his plan would leverage tiny, minute particles, invisible unless seen through an electron microscope. That was what would bring America down.

He’d seen whole villages destroyed in Iraq and Syria, thanks to chemical weapons. No one had had the courage to use chemical or biowarfare on a mass basis for fear of blowback. Viruses and bacteria do not respect borders.

He’d been funding an expert who had found a way around the dilemma, who was creating a key for him, a kill switch. Dr. Obolensky. But then he’d gone and killed himself.

Topolev had had to put his plans on ice until there was a breakthrough.

A man working at the CDC, in his pay, Elias Field, had perhaps developed a kill switch of his own.

This wasn’t a sanctioned operation. Mother Russia had lost its nerve. The FSB had lost its operational horizon. They were busy putting out fires close by and had lost sight of who the real enemy was. The United States. America had always been the enemy and always would be.

Topolev was running a rogue operation working surreptitiously in the FSB with men who had been dreaming of victory since the Fall of the Wall. The former Soviet Union had fallen. But something strong and united would take its place.

There were too many in the FSB who were time-servers. Cowardly men and now women who just wanted a job and a paycheck. They would all be on the lookout for anything that could shatter their careers and pensions. He and his fellow planners had to be careful, keep the preparations low key. When it happened, it would happen fast and it was entirely possible that it would look like one of those geopolitical actions that came out of nowhere to change history.

This plan could be run on a relatively tight budget that would be easy to hide, with a tightly controlled group dialed in. A few corrupt scientists in the US, one secret BSL-4 lab staffed by a handful of well-paid scientists—the whole thing would cost less than the hidden funds for the mistresses of the members of the Council of Ministers. Done right, the plan could bring the United States to its knees, and with it, the West, all on a shoestring.

Further, he had oligarch friends who would guide his investments on I-Day, Infection Day. He would become rich and powerful beyond the dreams of Stalin.

Da.

It was time to start.

A few days ago, he lured the CDC doctor in his pay to a Georgia airfield outside Atlanta, where he was abducted and flown to Vostokova. It was clear Dr. Field had a taste for fast cars, high-end fashion and lavish vacations and had closed his eyes to what the information he sold meant.

Now there was a glitch.

His men told Topolev that, in custody in Zalny, the good doctor had grown a conscience.

Well, a conscience was a luxury. Topolev was slowly breaking Dr. Field down in a pharmaceutical factory in Zelenograd. Nothing too harsh, because Dr. Field would have to do the physical bioengineering work.

They had to hurry. Topolev had planned for I-day to coincide with the arrival of a Chinese trade delegation in Los Angeles and a performance of a Chinese pop group in Seattle. The Chinese were slated to arrive on the West Coast in three weeks’ time. Exactly when the epidemic would begin.

Topolev would become immensely rich, more than an oligarch, and perhaps the Viceroy of the Pacific States.

ChapterSix

Jake’s—Jacob’s—apartment was as incredible as she could have imagined. He had the entire top floor of the building and the rooms were huge. Minimally decorated, not as an aesthetic choice, but because she imagined he didn’t care. The essentials were there—places to sit, to eat, to work. Nothing superfluous, no personal touches. A place to live and work.

They went up in an elevator of stainless steel and black marble, with only two settings. The floor where his office was and his apartment. The elevator opened onto the apartment itself. She stepped out, blinking at the size of the place.

Space was a luxury. Houses were sold by square feet. Though the place was enormous, it didn’t feel like an indulgence, mainly because there were few luxuries. It was just… a space.

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