The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

Los Angeles, USA

Jeff was on the living room couch nursing a scotch when Jennifer returned.

“How was your day? How come you’re sitting in the dark?” she pecked him on the cheek.

“Letting my eyes rest a bit. Long day with Robert, plus we did four virtual townhalls.”

“Well, these townhalls are really working. We’ve been averaging seven thousand logins for each one in the past two weeks,” Jennifer stumbled around in the semi-darkness and poured herself a drink.

“At this rate, by the election time we’ll reach three million more people, about one percent of the population,” shrugged Jeff.

“Or about two percent of prospective voters,” Jennifer positioned herself in a recliner opposite of her husband. “And our research shows that each attendee potentially influences four others. Now we are looking at ten percent of prospective voters being influenced. That’s where elections are won and lost.”

“Oh, Jen, your glass is always half-full,” smiled Jeff.

“Figuratively and literally,” she smiled back, lifting her glass. “My goodness, you are doing so great! If someone told you a year ago that you’ll have a realistic chance of winning the presidential elections, would you have believed that person?”

“No, I would have told him to have his head examined. And you know, it’s all thanks to you. I just wouldn’t have had the wherewithal on my own.”

“Honey, you wrote the books, you gave the speeches, you fought for the California initiatives, you went on a hunger strike...”

“Jen, you went on that strike with me. You took charge of the social media outreach. You know that’s how everything started and took off like a brushfire.”

“All right, we did it. Together. But honey, after seventeen years I know a few things about you. Something’s bugging you. What is it?”

“You know me too well,” laughed Jeff. He bit his lip, chewed on it. “People ask me why I’m running and I give them my stock answer, the one we practiced with Robert for days. But I keep asking myself, why do I really run? What is driving me? I never planned to run, I just put one foot in front of the other and the stakes kept going up and up and now they can’t go any higher.”

“So, why do you run, honey?” using a term of endearment but sounding dead serious.

“You see, Jen, it’s like peeling the layers of onion. Every time you think you have the answer, there is something underneath. I had to go back to what put me on this warpath back in 2006, when I was released.”

Jennifer sipped her drink, not certain she wanted to hear the answer.

“What was it, Jeff?”

“Revenge. It was revenge. Not for me, for my father. You know, back in 2003, when I went to John Brockton’s house, I had a gun in my pocket.”

“I know. You’ve never used it.”

“No, I haven’t. I always maintained that I brought it to scare Brockton, that I just wanted to confront him.”

“And?”

“It was a lie. I wanted to kill him. Yes, I wanted to kill that man. For driving my father to suicide. For – I am sure – driving others into despair or worse.”

Jennifer leaned forward, put her hand on her chest to keep her heart from jumping out:

“But, Jeff, you didn’t kill him!”

“No. He was dead by the time I got there. But in my mind, in my heart, I did. I am innocent in the eyes of the law, but I am not innocent before God.”

He paused but Jennifer remained silent.

“So I set out with the revenge on my mind. And I could no longer take revenge on John Brockton. But what I came to realize that there were many John Brocktons. People that took advantage of the system. People that manipulated it to take advantage of others. And the system had become so infested that you couldn’t distinguish them from the system anymore.”

“They are the system,” said Jennifer flatly.

“Yes, they are the system. It’s not even greed but predatory use of others. Society can’t survive under an absolute individualism.”

“Honey, you need something strong to feed your fire to survive this. If revenge is the fire, so be it.”

“Thank you, love. But what I am trying to understand is whether this passion of revenge has turned me into Don Quixote, charging the windmills instead of real dragons.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep trying to explain myself to people but I feel like I am failing. I don’t know if people want this change I am calling for or if they like the system as it is. Do you remember how some years ago we were discussing George Orwell’s
1984
vs. Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World
?”

“Yes, I remember that discussion,” smiled Jennifer. “The grand debate: will the Big Brother be watching you or will you be watching the Big Brother?”

“Well, we know the answer now. We may have the
1984
-style surveillance, but overall Huxley was right – we are being entertained into submission to the system. Remember the old movie
Matrix
, where the hero was offered the red pill for the painful truth of reality or the blue pill for the blissful ignorance of illusion? I think we have collectively taken the blue pill: we are glued to our immersion TV experiences and we don’t care to look for a wizard behind the curtain. And that’s why it’s so difficult to get traction: people don’t want to hear, they don’t want to know. They want to get home, turn on their 3-D immersion TV and forget the reality. They don’t care who rules them.”

Jennifer put down her glass, got up and moved to the couch next to her husband.

“Hon, I know it’s hard to get people to pay attention. So many turned inwards, disengaged from the larger society, stopped voting. Hard to blame them when we cart off to jail someone stealing a slice of pizza but people that engineer financial disasters get away free. But more and more are taking interest. You now have at least a quarter of the country behind you. We’ve always spoken about building a coalition; you’re doing it. Many aren’t tuning out, they want real change. They come from different walks of life. They believe in you. You have to keep fighting, for them and for your father. If it’s the revenge that feeds your fire, so be it!”

Jeff put his arm around his wife:

“OK, sweetheart. I have to be reminded from time to time. We’ll keep going!”

Upstate New York, USA

A woman was kneeling by the gravestone lost in her thoughts when Jeff and Jennifer approached.

“Sarah!” gently called out Jennifer.

The woman turned around, smile spreading:

“Jennifer! Jeff!”

She got up, brushed the dirt off her knees and hugged the couple. Sarah looked to be well in her 50s, but her figure was that of a much younger woman, with only lines on the face and lots of white in her black hair, betraying the real age.

“Your mother couldn’t come?” Sarah asked of Jennifer.

“No. Grandpa isn’t well and it’s not an easy trip for her these days.”

“Of course. Flying all the way across the country... I’m surprised you made it,” Sarah looked at Jeff. “You must be very busy with the elections.”

“This is important to me,” Jeff shook his head. “If not for Pavel, I wouldn’t have been here. I would have been waiting to be released from jail right about now. And we have a TV interview in New York soon, so it all fit.”

“Pavel would have been so proud of you,” Sarah turned to the grave and started to cry. “You know, in his father’s diary, the one I gave to Jennifer, there was one folded page with Pavel’s handwriting. It said ‘
One who saves a life, saves an entire world
.’”

Sarah crumbled to her knees, sobbing.

“I saw it,” whispered Jennifer. “He changed so many lives: Jeff’s, mine, my mother’s, yours...”

Sarah turned violently and, still on her knees, grabbed Jeff’s hand:

“There must be a reason! God, fate, destiny, karma... Call me a crazy woman but I don’t believe it’s all random, just a bunch of unconnected accidents. Whatever we do begets something else and carries on. They took Pavel away from me so you could have a chance at greatness.”

Jeff lowered himself to the ground, hugged Sarah:

“No, no... I never planned any of this, just one thing led to another.”

“Of course you didn’t plan. But you lived your life as something to be earned, to make a difference!”

“He gave me a gift,” nodded Jeff, “a gift I can never fully repay, only strive towards. If not for him, Jeff Kron the presidential candidate would have never happened.”

“Yes. One starts a chain of events, pays it forward. We never know where it’s going to lead, which small act will change everything.”

Los Angeles, CA

“Last year I held a neighborhood July 4
th
barbeque; probably two hundred people showed up. So we had to spread a rumor that I’m out of town,” laughed Alejandro. “That’s why we’re sitting here with the blinds closed.”

“I’m sorry,” said Maggie. “Didn’t mean to ruin the neighborhood party.”

“Oh, I kind of enjoy the peace and quiet; last year was a bit over-the-top. Plus these takeout baby back ribs are much better than anything I ever managed to grill,” Alejandro’s pupils seemed to dilate when he looked at Maggie.

Then he grew serious:

“Look, it’s been four days since you spoke with Jim Brobak.”

“I know,” said David glumly. “I think we’ll just have to take our chances and go to Jennifer Kron with what we’ve got.”

“That’s not the point I’m trying to make,” Alejandro glanced aside and then looked David directly in the eye. “You told Brobak that you are back in the country.”

“So?”

“From what I figure, a few months after helping you Brobak ends up in a lower position in a smaller city. Do you think it’s a coincidence? Brobak himself told you that he lost his job and his family because of that. So maybe, just maybe, Brobak would want to gain some favors and perhaps get back his old position in the FBI by informing on you?”

“John Platt was his friend!” exclaimed David. Upon seeing long faces of others in the room, he covered his face: “Oh my god, I should have never told him I came back.”

“But Brobak doesn’t know where in the country we are,” said Maggie hopefully.

“Los Angeles is the first place they’ll look,” Alejandro said harshly. “I can move Maggie and Oleg but David will have to leave.”

“Where?”

“Probably back to Mexico.”

“It’s been only four days, let’s give it more time,” protested David.

“We are jeopardizing Alejandro,” Oleg shook his head. “We must go.”

“Can we give it more time? Just a couple more days? You probably need this time to prepare anyway,” Maggie pleaded, looking straight at Alejandro. “Then we’ll decide.”

He slowly nodded his head:

“Yes, of course.”

David still sat with his face in his hands, murmuring, “Why did I tell him I came back? Why?”

Alejandro raised his eyebrows and stared at David, his face hard and unreadable.

Moscow, Russia

Three people were finishing dinner in a richly adorned room, colored in amber hue from the setting sun.

“I enjoy visiting Kremlin on summer evenings,” commented one of the diners. “St. Basil’s Cathedral rising like a flame... such a beautiful sight.”

“Thank you, Ambassador,” replied a pale-eyed man. “I love the view as well.”

The man he referred to as ‘Ambassador’ carefully touched his lips with a napkin.

“President Mosin, thank you for a delicious dinner. If you don’t mind, I would like to raise a few questions... affairs of the state, you know.”

“Of course, Ambassador Sheng. I did not expect that you asked to meet with me and the Foreign Minister Karpov just for the view.”

Ambassador Sheng laughed politely.

“Yes, as much as one would like to just enjoy the dinner, we are all prisoners of our responsibilities. Mr. President, our government would like to know if, in an emergency, it would be possible to increase the flow on the four Trans-Siberian pipelines to their full capacity.”

Mosin rubbed his chin, looked at the third man in the room:

“Volodya, what do you think? You started as a petro-chemical engineer, after all.”

“Well, I have not practiced my engineering training in many years,” carefully replied Vladimir Karpov. “Theoretically, it’s possible. These pipelines have been designed to handle at least twice the rated load. But where we would get oil and gas to do this? We are still sending forty percent of our production to Europe and we’ll have to basically shut that down in order to direct the full capacity flow to China.”

“Yes, this would seem to be a problem, Ambassador,” Mosin turned to Sheng. “May I enquire why are you asking?”

“As I said, Mr. President, this is just an emergency-type question. For example, let’s say the Strait of Malacca gets cut off due to a pirate action. Almost half of our oil comes through there. We will need to have an alternate supplier.”

“Mr. Ambassador,” Karpov opened his hands in wonderment. “You have a strategic oil reserve that’s officially equivalent to fifty days of consumption. Unofficially, we know it’s at least twice that. You can easily compensate for the loss of Malacca Strait for three to four months. What kind of a pirate would be able to keep it closed that long?”

“One never knows what eventuality may arise,” a hint of irritation in Sheng’s voice. “My government would like to know that in case of a prolonged closure of the strait you will be able to provide us with extra supplies.”

“But Mr. Ambassador, we have contractual obligations to European governments,” protested Mosin. “We can’t just cut them off. They need our supplies. Imagine what would happen if it were winter and their people were not getting gas to heat their homes. Thousands would die.”

“Mr. President, we essentially paid for these Trans-Siberian pipelines and we take more than half of your country’s oil and gas production. If we were to start looking elsewhere, that would have a profound negative effect on your economy.”

“Are you threatening us?” Mosin’s tone brought the room’s temperature down a few degrees.

“No, not at all, Mr. President. Just pointing out that we’ve spent at least twenty years building a mutually beneficial alliance between our countries and we hope that you’ll remain our friends in the time of need.”

“Of course, Mr. Ambassador. We greatly appreciate friendship with your country. Was that the only topic you wanted to discuss?” Mosin’s voice remained chilly.

“There was one more point, Mr. President,” replied Sheng. He waited to be prodded, then offered: “The last time we met, we spoke about holding joint exercises in the Pacific. Our government thinks that the current exercises are going exceedingly well and would like to discuss increased global coordination of peaceful military activities.”

“And why is that, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Mr. President, over the past two years there has been increasingly loud rhetoric from the American side about ‘payback’ for the 2019 crisis. And now the loudest voice there is leading the presidential race. We have to be jointly prepared for the worst.”

“We are still four months from the American elections; John Dimon is not guaranteed to win. Even if he does, this is probably just electoral rhetoric.”

“Mr. President, my government thinks it’s prudent to prepare for all eventualities starting now.”

“If I knew that you were going to bring up this question, I would have invited Shelkov, our new Minister of Defense. We are not qualified to discuss this question in any practical detail here.”

“I understand. I would like to ask that we arrange another meeting then, and soon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” replied Mosin dismissively.

“Can you believe this son of a bitch?” Mosin slammed his hand on the table after Sheng left.

“We are a junior partner in this alliance. He reminded us of that today,” sadly commented Karpov.

“Yes, reminded us that we are their bitches. Volodya, have we made a mistake getting into bed with them? Ten years ago we wanted to keep them at arm’s length.”

“Borya, we did not have much of a choice then. The Americans kept pushing us from the West, bringing the NATO bases closer and closer to our borders. Then the Ukrainian situation blew up and the Americans tried to bankrupt us like in the 1980s, by crashing the price of oil and the ruble. You wouldn’t have survived if not for China’s support.”

“Yes, we needed their help, we needed new markets for our oil and gas, and we needed investments. And we had to attack the U.S. dollar’s hegemony, otherwise we did not stand a chance in the economic warfare being waged,” nodded Mosin. “So now we find ourselves in this mess. You know, Volodya, our wealth of natural resources might have been more of a curse than a blessing. After years of trying to build up our manufacturing and knowledge-based economy, despite having a great education system and some of the best engineers in the world, half of our exports is still energy. For all our posturing, we are a poor country. Why is that? Where are we failing?”

“Borya, we are still corrupt as hell. A bunch of well-connected oligarchs run everything. We’ve been together long enough, I’ll just say it as I see it: let’s face the truth, many of them are your cronies that are robbing this country.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Mosin closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his left hand. “I need them in order to stay in power. I thought I could move to a new leadership over time, but there was always that challenge to stay in power, always one step away from slipping. How do you move a giant bureaucracy? People think that presidents have this magic want. Alright, enough about that; let’s talk about the Chinese and the Americans.”

“I think the Chinese are in a bit of a pickle,” Karpov shook his head. “They may have miscalculated back in 2019. The stronger renminbi brought down their costs of external resources but made them less competitive internationally and their internal market could not quite pick up the slack. The manufacturing automation revolution had hit them hard. They are facing stubbornly high unemployment. Their corruption exceeds even ours. The shadow banking system they evolved a dozen years ago remains a big problem – it was helped for a while by the foreign inflows thanks to strong currency, but without reform it keeps misallocating capital. And the pro-democracy movement keeps growing. Back in 1989, they crushed the Tiananmen protests with tanks without any real consequences. They thought they could get away with it in 2022 ...”

“Damn butchers!” interrupted Mosin. “They literally ran tanks over the protesters!”

“Yes, this time the massacre was caught on cameras, was on the internet in a few minutes, and is still reverberating. People are less afraid of speaking out; they feel that the safety is in numbers. Not a week goes by without massive protests in one of the cities.”

“So they might be looking for a way to deflect this anger outwards, right?” asked Mosin.

“Yes. This whole thing that Sheng span about the Malacca Strait pirates is nonsense. The only way that the strait gets closed for any meaningful period of time is a war with India or the U.S.”

“Do you think it can be India?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Karpov shook his palm. “The Chinese have tensions with the Indians, but their main problems and objectives lie to the east, with Taiwan and Japan. The U.S. is standing in the way.”

“And what about the Americans?”

“The internal situation there is complicated. They recovered from some of the blows suffered in 2019; their manufacturing is growing again, although not providing employment – robots are replacing people. The post-crisis strife did not break the country apart but became directed against the
status quo
. The country remains divided. However, the main fault line now is between the small minority that has the wealth and the political power, and the majority that is poor and powerless. The diminished middle class is caught in-between.”

“Kind of like us,” commented Mosin with a note of sadness.

“Yes, kind of like us. We could not rise to their level, so they came down to ours,” agreed Karpov and continued. “The mainstream parties’ candidates are trailing in the polls, with two unexpected and very different frontrunners: John Dimon and Jeff Kron. We are still trying to figure out Jeff Kron; he is a strange, almost reluctant candidate, being pushed to the front by people looking for alternatives, perhaps as a protest vote. But he seems to be a
peacenick
, I don’t see why the Chinese would worry about him.”

“Have you seen the latest John Dimon’s speech, the one he made today in Gettysburg?”

“No, I am afraid not,” admitted Karpov.

“I was watching it right before Sheng showed up,” Mosin made a hand movement in the direction of a hidden projector and a menu of videos appeared. Mosin pointed at the one with the Dimon’s name and an image came up on the projection screen.

It was staged on a green lawn with trees, a white obelisk, and rows of small memorial stones in the background. A photogenic, clean-cut man in his early forties, dressed formally, was speaking and gesticulating from a make-shift podium:
For years now, we’ve been under attack from abroad. They have succeeded in inflicting pain, but they have not defeated us. With the current administration, they mistake our patience and good will for weakness and cowardice. Well, let there be no mistake: when I represent you in the White House, they will not make such mistakes anymore!

The crowd roared and applauded in approval. Dimon waited until the applause subsided and continued:

We will not suffer such humiliations any longer! We will not tolerate more financial attacks like the one they cowardly unleashed on us in 2019, nor will we accept more unfair economic practices! We will not let them steal American jobs!

He paused and the crowd roared again.

Thousands of brave soldiers died here in order to protect this great nation. On this sacred ground, I promise you that I will bring forward fair proposals that will be designed to relieve this intolerable position. They will be peaceful proposals! But let there be no mistake: the whole might of this nation and its armed forces will stand behind them!

Dimon threw his arms in the air and the crowd went wild.

I have faith in our nation. I have faith in our people. We shall prevail!

Mosin waived his hand and the screen disappeared.

“Well, Volodya, what do you think?”

“He puts on a good spectacle,” mused Karpov. “I still tend to think that he is an opportunist seizing on a populist message to get the votes and once he gets into the office – if he gets into the office – he’ll become much more reasonable. But I can see why the Chinese would be worried. Dimon is a demagogue and a masterful orator. He can be dangerous.”

“Are they worried or using this as an internal pretext?” Mosin thought out loud. “He might be the excuse they need to justify a pre-emptive strike. The world is getting as unsafe as I remember, and I’ve been around for a while.”

Mosin got up:

“Look, Volodya, I don’t like the Americans. They’ve been the number one enemy as long as I’ve been in power. We’ve been waging economic warfare, we fought small proxy wars. But a direct conflict between the great powers, that’s an entirely different ballgame. The reality is, we can’t be a global power on our own. I’d rather play a regional role than risk a major confrontation. We can’t prevent others from doing crazy things, but let’s not encourage them. This “global coordination of peaceful military activities” that Sheng brought up sounds like a potential multiple front war to me. I don’t want any of these activities and I want this new Defense Minister Shelkov to compile a military report on how the Chinese may view a war with the U.S. unfolding.”