“ In fact, we still gain something,” Noah supports his head with one hands, sips the cold coffee and wet his dry lips, "One year ago, when we were about to give up, a Russian medicine oligarch came to us, hoping that we could allow him to register a company in Zurich for purchasing medicines based with high prices. In return, he offered to serve as the intermediary between us and Molotov.”
“Do Russians know about it?” asks Simon.
“Considering his request for the confidentiality, we concealed it from the Russians. The bottom line is: Never disclose the details of informants. In other words, we need to detect whether he is reliable without he knowing about it.”
“What did you find out ?”
“Initially, we highly doubted if he had offended certain important government officials in Russia, and sought for shelter from Europe. Generally, for businessmen like him, especially in the line of medical industry, if they didn’t have special connection with politicians, many people would trouble with him. But despite the risk of being charged with money laundering, he still directly contacted us......”
“So, what you mean is---”
“A reasonable assumption goes like this: His immediate superior, probably a high official, no longer protects him. Based on our contacts with him and the data of the special investigation team, this oligarch doesn’t have a clean past. He has made the current achievements through huge sums of illegal donations, and reselling medicine around the world. His name has been included in the blacklist of anti-money laundering by the World Bank. Since the outbreak of civil war, rouble has depreciated significantly, causing unrecoverable shocks to his industry. Moreover, these oligarchs have doubts about the government. The government officers, who have been bribed with large sum of money, are not even able to protect themselves. They are being impeached retired from the political arena more frequently than babies changing diapers. Most importantly, these businessmen lost their political stance. They can only witness the growth of the separatists while senators in Duma still quarrel with each other. The government can’t protect their wealth. Some people, like this man, secretly connect with some powerful separatist. Here is the background we find out: The oligarch is one of the first speculators who contacted separatist.”
“Go on,” Robert narrows his eyes, “What does it have to do with the chemical weapons?”
“It was not discovered until January of this year. At that time, Molotov and his ‘Misha’ group were only small roles, hoping to gain profits from the turbulent days. Neither the government nor separatist takes them seriously. ”
“Molotov is no small roles.” Robert retorted, “He is the bloodthirsty third generation of the Soviet army. His grandfather fought in Afghanistan. His father worked for KGB. We have had a really tough time dealing with them.”
“The problem is: He has losing his fighters in the war, and he is insufficient now.” Noah emphasizes to prevent the interruption, “Misha focuses its front on social networking, the ‘terror idol’, the young people. As for the truly wealthy people, he is a clown, seeks popularity by shocking statements. An energetic catfish stirs up turbulence in the battlefield. Molotov has no money, no fighters, can't afford a war, that's it. But now, things changed. The oligarch reported that Molotov got some cargo, and he was ready to sell. We were alarmed and assigned three agents to keep track.”
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“What were the results?”
“A little disappointed. The jars only contained toxic chloride gas, nothing rare or unique. Any factory is able to produce this gas. Molotov gained about 50,000 Euros of cash income from this transaction. So he began to constantly contact our informants. In the beginning, he acquired large quantity of cheap materials. In March of this year, the oligarch came to us, saying that Molotov got his hands on some illegal but powerful stuff. We questioned him closely. He simply kept repeating that the cargoes were quite rare and powerful enough to destroy a medium-sized city in Europe. But Molotov was afraid the cargoes might induce unnecessary hostility, so he was eager to sell them. He hoped the oligarch can prepare 5 million euros in cash.” Noah laughed, “Think about it. 5 million euros, twice as his assets. Is he going to return to Moscow?”
“Are those the Novichok warheads?” Simon asked.
“The stock that wasn’t promptly destroyed by the Soviets, an advanced model of Novichok agent. One milligram exposed in aire can cause respiratory spasm and organ failure. The victim will die in a very...very painful way.”
“God damn,”, Simon murmurs to himself, “He really has the gut?”
“If he can’t earn this money, he dares. Besides, with the 5 million euros, he will become the most notorious local villain. Even Chechnya can’t take him down. No overwhelming force is allowed in this region. Everyone here will agree with that. Under any sircumstances, we shall get rid of Molotov, just like we took down Komov"
“I really had enough of it,”. Robert yells out, “Since it was so important, why didn’t you tell us sooner? I feel as if I'm a stupid seal, playing a fucking ball in a circuit! If you've paid more attention to Intelligence Communion System, things wouldn’t have become worse. We could have got the head of Molotov!”
At this point, a middle-aged man in the corner of the conference room started talking. He's one of the several people who never spoke.
“Please, Robert, be reasonable.” he leans his back against the chair, “Operation Bloodhound should have been perfectly completed. We made all the preparations, thought of all the information and avoided all the staff unrelated to this operation, even to the Federal Council.”
Robert turned to the person who was talking.
“With all respect, Premier Grant,” he nods his head, “Do you fully investigate the background of your operators?”
“Like I just said, the council didn’t know about the operation.” Premier takes a sip of coffee, “If the U.S.S.A considered them reliable, so did I.”
“Correct.”
Everyone turns around to find the voice.
It's Nemo Wedenheim. He gets up from the seat, walks to the projector.
“Who are you?” Robert asks.
“Agent Wedenheim”, Noah introduces, "He is in the assassination squad, to kill Molotov”
“Only one squad?” Robert wides his eyes with shock, “Why didn’t you inform the Navy Seals first? One squad? Who do you think you are? Fucking Jason Bourne?”
“Only two of them were truly involved in assassination, frankly.” Nemo answers in calm, putting a photo into the projector, “But they both are the most lethal machine you can find in the world. Two years ago, they were also in the squad of killing Komov.” He put on a slide show, “Sir, I think you may hear about her.”
On the picture, a soldier dresses in Ghillie, bents her knees. Her face is pale with lachrymal mole beside her right eye.
“I know her.”
“I would be quite surprised if you didn’t know her.” Nemo pauses, “Lieutenant Helen Fox, the living Lyudmila. Each one of her bullet is worth one million Euros.”
“Navy Seals knows her better than me.” Robert nodded, “Two kilos away, during sandstorm...she shot Komov right on his head. I heard they call her 'skull collector’. A 25 year-old legend.”
He swallows in a hard way.
“And the man on the right? Why did you blur his face?”
“We had a agreement with him”, Noah explained, “When he surrendered, we promised to keep his identity a secret.....”
“For God’s sake!" Robert said in a rage, “Berlin summit will be held in three days! While outside, there is a lunatic carries a chemical weapon and ready to destroy the whole city. You actually think about keeping secret at this point! Tell me, who is the man anyway?”
“He's name is Song Yinuo.”A military officer in the front of conference turns around, talks in Chinese accent, "A killer, an apostate, but also our soldier once before. Then he vanished, and never showed up again.”