CHAPTER EIGHT

The day after his trip to New Canterbury, Dr. Lawrence Haines strode out to the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter based in the backyard of his estate on the outskirts of Raleigh. His mechanic, Alfredo, was waiting by the bird under a clear, balmy early morning sky.

“Morning, Dr. Haines,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag and patting the tail boom. “She’s topped up and ready.”

Haines strapped in, donned his headset, and started the turbine. After entering the coordinates for Mikhail Potemkin’s ship into his GPS, he lifted off, heading southeast toward the ocean, aided by a quartering tailwind. He wouldn’t be filing a flight plan, and he’d be avoiding populated areas. Maintaining an altitude of five hundred feet, he soared over the scrub pine flats and sandy fields of eastern North Carolina. Half an hour later, a barrier island with its stilted houses and lapping breakers slid beneath him, and he was over the Atlantic. There would be nothing but waves below him now for the next twenty-five miles, until he reached Potemkin’s ship anchored out in international waters, just outside of his home state.

The ship came into view fifteen minutes later. At 515 feet long with a displacement of 475 tons, it resembled something between a luxury yacht and a battleship. But it was more than either. Potemkin’s nautical fiefdom was registered with the UN as an independent nation called Wiegatesland. Similar to a few other of the world’s handful of sovereign microstates like Tuvalu, Nauru, San Marino, or Kiribati, Wiegatesland lacked extradition treaties with other nations. On board his boat, Potemkin was immune from being hauled away to face justice.

Haines made radio contact.

“Ranger zero-five-one alpha,” the controller replied in a British accent. “Roger that. You’re cleared to land. Winds out of one-eight-seven degrees at fourteen knots. Standby to clear customs after landing.”

Haines circled the massive ship, set up his approach, and brought the Jet Ranger down between two other helicopters, an Alouette and a Robinson, both painted in tan and green camouflage. A squad of five Wiegatesland marines in white shorts and shirts with blue caps marched up and saluted, AK-47s slung from their shoulders. Above the bridge, a huge purple and gold flag snapped in the breeze. One of the marines produced a trumpet and began playing the Wiegatesland national anthem, clearly a mash-up of “Mack the Knife” and “Hello, Dolly!” Potemkin had an odd sense of humor. As it died away, an officer with a razor thin gray mustache appeared at Haines’s window.

“Hello, Colonel Spavin,” Haines said.

“Greetings, Dr. Haines. The prime minister is waiting. Anything to declare today?”

“Do you really have to do this, Colonel?”

“No firearms, alcohol, tobacco, or produce?”

“Negative.”

Spavin led him to the stern and then into a covered atrium-like area at the rearmost section of the superstructure, where the shaded air smelled of vegetation. The reason for the vegetation smell was the giant terrarium they now passed, which contained soil from Potemkin’s birthplace near Murmansk. Within the glass walls, a small copse of birch and fir trees grew in mossy ground among scattered rocks and ferns, all bathed in the glow of pink and blue grow lamps, drops of condensation beading the interior surface of the glass. A placard said: Welcome to Wiegatesland, Home to Those Who Roam, with translations in a dozen languages. Spavin halted at a metal detector guarding the entrance, which led deeper into the superstructure.

“When did you install this?” Haines asked, nodding at the metal detector.

“Last month, Doctor,” Spavin said, handing him a plastic basket. “Can’t be too careful these days. Please empty your pockets and remove your belt. Sorry, that’s the protocol. You can leave your shoes on.” Spavin handed him back the basket and they proceeded down a mahogany paneled hallway, the left side of which was lined by doors bearing gilded labels: Ministry of National Security and Intelligence; Ministry of Engineering and Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Commerce and the High Seas; Ministry of the Interior, Taxation, and Recruitment; Ministry of Social Welfare, Culture, Health, and Entertainment.

There was only one door, however, on the corridor’s right wall, labeled Cyber Affairs. As they approached it, the door swung open and a young man in a black T-shirt emerged along with the sound of many voices. The man smiled and saluted Spavin. As they passed, Haines saw rows and rows of computer terminals swarming with people. This was Potemkin’s operational nerve center. At the end of the hallway was a double door labeled Prime Minister. Spavin flung it open and stood aside. Ahead rose a wide staircase of teak treads and brass railings.

Haines ascended into a vast, high-ceiled room that spanned the width of the superstructure and was sparsely furnished with pieces done in chrome, glass, and white leather. Tinted floor-to-ceiling windows gave expansive views of the open sea on either side. The floor was covered in deep pile, cream-colored carpeting. At the far end of the room lay a raised platform upon which sat a desk laden with two huge monitors. In the mirrored wall behind the desk, he could see the back of Potemkin’s head, with its small bald spot at the crown. He was bent over, typing. Potemkin’s Russian-accented voice boomed out: “Be right with you, Lawrence! Make yourself comfortable.”

“Take your time, Mikhail.”

A moment later Potemkin emerged from behind the monitors. Trim and in his early fifties, Potemkin had a large head and prominent cheekbones, and he would have been handsome were it not for a tarantula-shaped mole on his right cheek. When Haines had first met him back in Boston twenty years ago, he’d offered to refer him to a plastic surgeon, but Potemkin laughed away the suggestion. On the contrary—it was a badge of honor. His ancestor, a general in the army that helped defeat Napoleon, had possessed one similar.

Today he was wearing a white Icelandic fisherman’s sweater, orange Bermuda shorts, and a pair of flip-flops. His long, graying black hair was in disarray, as usual. “Lawrence, please forgive that I was not outside to greet you when you alighted.”

“I know you’re busy.”

“Always too much,” the oligarch said, flashing a smile that revealed large white teeth. “But I watched you land through my security feed. As always, my friend, you fly as gentle as a dove. Before business, I’ve got something you must see!” He dashed back to his desk and returned to hand Haines a small glass box, inside of which lay a coin on a velvet cushion. “Now, tell me what this is.”

This was a common routine between the two of them, showing off coins they’d acquired. They’d first met at the Boston Numismatics Society, one of the oldest coin collecting clubs in the nation, back when Haines was an internal medicine resident and Potemkin was studying computer science at MIT. Haines held it up to the light. It was obviously Greek, and its pale-yellow glow suggested electrum, an amalgam of gold and silver. Looking closer, he recognized the head of Arethusa, a nymph. On the obverse was a chariot pulled by four horses. The details were remarkably intact, the chariot reins still visible.

Haines shook his head in wonder and more than a little envy. “This looks like a decadrachm stamped from a die engraved by either Kimon of Syracuse or Euanitos, circa 400 BC. It’s in sublime condition, Mikhail. Where’d you find it? A shipwreck?”

Potemkin squinted at him with a somber expression first, then brayed with laughter. “Ah, Lawrence. Ha, ha! This is fake! The real one, I have locked down in the Treasury Department. Good, no? We have passed a number already on eBay. Want to know what I’m getting for them?”

Haines grimaced. “Not really, no.”

“You keep it. A souvenir of Wiegatesland. Now, come and tell me about your visit to the hospital yesterday. You said there was a complication. I’m curious.” He followed Potemkin over to a semicircle of white leather chairs around a glass coffee table. The Russian opened a cigar humidor. “Join me? They’re the ones Fidel liked best, made in a factory where naked women read Tolstoy to entertain the rollers. And they give other things too, I hear.” Haines declined. Potemkin sniffed the cigar but did not light up. “My wife asked me to say hello to you, by the way. She is in Capri for a few weeks.”

“Sorry to have missed her,” Haines responded. “Please give her my regards.”

Potemkin ran the cigar beneath his nose again. “So, tell me about this complication. I handed you that hospital on a silver platter. It couldn’t have been easier. A big green light. Why is it not done?”

Haines filled his chest. “It turns out the current dean has a potential plan to raise enough capital—enough capital that they might not need my help.”

“You’re saying they might not sell to you?”

“I seriously doubt he can pull it off, but that’s not what I came here to discuss.”

“Hmmm,” said Potemkin, tapping his temple with the unlit cigar. “The dean you’re referring to—would that be a doctor named Jack Forester, the same individual that our friend Bryson Witner had his trouble with?”

“Yes.”

Potemkin laughed. “This is too good, Lawrence. Do you not find this funny?”

“Ironic, but not particularly humorous.”

The Russian arched with laughter again. “Very ironic, yes,” he said, putting a handkerchief to his eyes. “You do not overstate. The same man that Bryson Witner hates for getting him locked up, the same human spur who pricked Bryson into starting this whole thing in the first place, and who now may ruin everything, this Forester. We won’t let him succeed, of course, but what is this little plan of his to stop the takeover?”

“I have no idea, Mikhail. I was merely told that Forester proposed something, and they decided to give him two weeks to see if it will work. I don’t see how he could succeed, but there’s a finite chance, I suppose.”

“However, my tall friend, if there is any shred of possibility he might prevail, we need to prevent it.”

“Which brings up why I wanted to see you. We need to talk.”

The laughter bled from Potemkin’s eyes. “Oh? About what?”

Haines filled his chest again and leaned back in the plush chair. “I’m going to put my foot down, Mikhail. I want no further interference.”

“Is that what you call my work? Interference?”

“Our original plan was for you to monitor the finances there from the inside. Monitor and help me decide when to move. But given the scale of their losses and the fact that you were able to tell me exactly when to be prepared, I believe you moved beyond monitoring to manipulating. And I know you can do it.” Haines nodded in the direction of the cyber affairs room.

Potemkin released a long sigh and smiled. “Lawrence, you receive what you asked for, and yet you express surprise.”

Haines felt his temper rising. “Our agreement was that you would simply observe and keep me informed.”

“Our agreement was that I would help you. Which I did. Why are you surprised? You know what I do for a living.”

Haines glanced at the mirrored wall behind the desk, where the oligarch’s snowy mountain screen savers reflected from his monitors. “How did you do it, Mikhail? I want the truth.”

“Well, it was a big challenge, but I love a challenge. I experimented. Once we got past the firewall with Bryson’s help, we did a little of this and a little of that, and soon we had integrated ourselves into every aspect of their cyber infrastructure. I know all their business—their books, their communications, when the toilets flush, when the cash registers open and close, their cameras, their medical monitoring equipment, everything. Ha, ha!”

“Where did the money go, Mikhail?”

Potemkin licked the tip of his cigar and shrugged. “Here and there. Some of it they spent thinking they had more than they really did. Some of it they failed to collect. Some of it went to feed my own operating expenses, naturally.” He pointed the cigar around. “All this is not for peanuts. Countries are costly.” He sniffed the cigar again. “But don’t let this disturb you. They will never find out. Trust me, they will never find out.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because I’m good at keeping my worms under the ground. Remember, I’m a man who helped design the Stuxnet virus. And because when you take over that crippled place, you will promptly install a new network with brand new state-of-the-art hardware and software, and we will have all the old things destroyed. Goodbye to any evidence, not that it’s likely they’d be able to find it anyway. And no one will ever know of my investments in your business because of my shell companies. They will never find out because there will be nothing left of those computers. Unless, of course, Dr. Forester beats you out.”

Haines was breathing heavily, his shoulders feeling rigid. Someone was climbing up the steps into the stateroom. It was an attractive young woman with dark blond hair, which she brushed as she walked. Seeing him, she stopped. She was wearing a terry cloth robe over a light blue bathing suit.

“Very sorry, Mikhail,” she said. “I didn’t know you had a guest.”

Potemkin grunted. “No problem. Come let me introduce. Lawrence, allow me to present Gina Larsen—she was married to my nephew before he passed. Gina, this is Dr. Lawrence Haines, my old friend from Boston days I’ve told you so much about. He is building the greatest hospital system in the world, with our help.”

“Hello, Dr. Haines,” she said, setting the hairbrush on the coffee table and shaking his hand. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Lawrence, let me tell you about Gina. She is one of my intelligence operatives, you see. A person of many talents. She was a registered nurse in her previous life, as well as a trained actress. She’s worked for me ever since my nephew, her husband, died. Now, Gina, please wait outside and you can escort him back to his chariot of the sky when we conclude.”

When the doors shut behind her, Potemkin smiled. “Gina’s very competent,” he continued, picking up her hairbrush and waving it. “Even if she leaves things lying around sometimes, like many women do. It’s a shame my nephew was killed before he could really enjoy life with her. They had one child, a little girl, you see, that I take care of in the UK while she works for me. You owe her many thanks. She has been helping me with the New Canterbury operation. Gina is the conduit of information between me and our insane comrade, Bryson.”

“I would just as soon not know anything about this.”

“Why not? She visits him once a quarter posing as his long-lost cousin. But, forget about her for now. Back to where we were with this crisis of conscience of yours. I understand that along with making money, you want to help mankind with your hospitals. I get that. And you know that I want my investments in you to return money and grow. We are in this together. My friend, if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound. Do you follow me? I don’t interfere with your work; you shouldn’t interfere with mine. You need to trust me.”

Haines sighed and allowed the anger building inside to seep away. Expressing it would get him nowhere. He rubbed his chin, realizing he hadn’t shaved very closely this morning. “Mikhail, what’s done is done. But for the greater good of HWA, I want no more manipulation. If the project fails now, it wasn’t meant to succeed. No more.”

His eyes narrowing, Potemkin lifted his niece’s hairbrush and tapped it on his knee. “So, if this Jack Forester cuts you out, we should just let him win the prize? Is that what you mean?”

“Things have gone way beyond my comfort zone. I want the process to play out naturally from here on out. Do I make myself clear?”

Potemkin shrugged and smiled. “Well, my old friend, if you feel that strongly . . .”

“I do.”

“Then so be it.” Potemkin gave Haines his hand. “You and I must not argue, my big friend. I honor your Christlike feelings. They are more important than my investments. Everything will henceforth be above the board. I wash my hands. If my reward comes, I will take it. If not, I will at least have tried.”

Haines nodded. “Thank you. I will hold you to your word.”

Potemkin lit the cigar, the flame pulsating as he drew. “Adieu for now, Lawrence. Gina will walk you to your bird.”