Chapter 32

Sunday

I missed the dogs in the morning, watching them tear around the yard, carefree. Now that all the handlers had their own places, it was lonely first thing in the morning. I was stuck scratching just King’s ears when he came over to see me. Even he looked around as if he wondered where all of his friends had gone.

Nicole was my morning tryst today. We’d barely finished when Dad showed up, ready to get an early start on the day. Laughing, I warned him that it wasn’t safe to use the study before breakfast. “You need to get one of those ‘do not disturb’ signs for the doorknob,” he teased. I thought it was actually a good idea.

I was surprised when Will called at 7:00. “What are you doing up so early on a Sunday?” I asked.

“No rest for the wicked,” he retorted. “What I called for was to get your feel for Zhora’s bodyguard Dmitri. We’ve been leaning on him, and he’s willing to cooperate to a degree, but won’t be a liaison for us with Zhora’s former contacts and suppliers. He says he’s a dead man if he works for the CIA. He offered to work for you doing a lot of what we want him to do, but refuses to go near Russia. Evidently, now that Zhora’s dead, they’ll execute him on sight because of his association with Zhora.”

“I can talk to him and see if I get any bad feelings,” I offered. “I need to be clear that nobody who works for me is to be actively involved in espionage. I know that some of our deals and purchases skirt the issue, but I don’t want to be actively involved in espionage against foreign governments,” I warned.

“You won’t be asked to,” he assured me. “While George and Adam, and now Dmitri have been trained for it, you would lose the credibility to continue what you do for us, and that’s even more important. You’ve reopened back doors that have been closed to us for years and even decades. Those back doors frequently make espionage and covert actions unnecessary.”

“Let me come up and talk to him face to face; maybe I can get a feeling that lets me know if releasing him will be dangerous,” I suggested. He said that I’d be cleared into Andrews, and reminded me that the Army wanted to start selling their tanks soon. He was surprised when I said that I’d make some of the stops. Evidently, there were thirteen countries to visit.

Four hours later, George, Adam, and I were at Langley. Will and I descended into the bowels of the complex to see Dmitri while Adam and George talked with our Army liaison who was there to go over the details of the sales of the tanks.

Dmitri looked relieved to see me, and surprised when I shook his hand and handed him a cup of coffee the way he liked it. I should probably explain that he likes his coffee with as much sugar as he can physically dissolve in the hot coffee, and then as much real cream as coffee. I actually brought cream from home to make his coffee.

“You remembered,” he said, surprised after a moan of appreciation when he tasted the coffee.

“I understand that you have a proposal for me,” I said, getting right to the point.

“Anything that you have to tell me you can say in front of Will. I don’t hide anything from him, not that it would do me any good. He could probably tell you what I had for breakfast this morning,” I warned when he looked nervously at Will.

“The CIA wants me to work for them using Zhora’s contacts. There are enough KGB moles still in the CIA that they would know I agreed even before Will learned what you had for lunch. I would be dead in weeks.

“I also do not wish to spend the rest of my life in prison. Zhora chose me as a bodyguard when he still worked for the KGB. When he was forced out of the KGB, he forced me to stay with him by threatening my extended family. You were probably too busy to notice at the time, but I did not mourn his demise.

“I propose that I work for you, and keep in touch with Zhora’s old contacts. It will take them a while to realize that you aren’t interested in the expensive stolen goods Zhora was. Instead, I can redirect them to bring us information about drug smuggling rings and terror cells. His contacts are connected to the criminal world all over the globe and can provide information that no other law enforcement agency will be able to get.

“I will need to avoid Russia and any former Soviet states and allies. Because of my association with Zhora, I would be recognized and arrested or simply killed on the spot,” he warned.

I was surprised that I was getting a good feeling about having him work for me. Originally, I’d suspected that this was a ploy on his part to escape. “I’m in,” I told a surprised Will.

“Are you sure?” he asked cautiously, his tone of voice warning me that he thought it was a bad idea.

“Quite sure; I think this will work out well for everyone,” I replied. “You may want to assign him a contact to check with when he has offers for goods or information to see if anyone is interested.” I suggested.

“I think we’ll let Dieter handle it. That way, it’s under the same umbrella as Adam, George, and you,” he replied thoughtfully.

“Well, I’ve got good news for Dieter,” I said. “I made my dad manager of the Lucky J, and assigned responsibility for day-to-day operations to my foremen. I still don’t want to work at it full-time, but I’ll take on a few more cases than I have been. I still need to get my hands dirty working on the farm once a week or so,” I explained.

“That will make several people happy,” he replied, obviously happy himself.

Dmitri followed us as we went to find Adam and George. “I take it that you’ll need a plane to get around in,” I said to Dmitri.

“I’ll need a pilot capable of flying a Gulfstream 550. Zhora had three of them, and I’m licensed to fly them and can act as the second pilot. One is in Cancun, one is in Caracas, and one is in Algiers. I assume that you’ll want them brought here,” he said.

“Three?” I squeaked in surprise.

Will just laughed at me and slapped me on the back. “Offing Zhora, the gift that keeps on giving,” he laughed. Even Dmitri laughed.

I called Connor Phelps and asked if he felt up to building four hangars for me. He jumped at the opportunity since all the men would be back to work Monday. I also told him about my idea to build more housing for temporary workers, suggesting that he talk it over with Carlos and Ramón to see what they thought of the idea. They would be in a better position to ask the temporary workers their opinion. Despite the fact that I worked in the fields alongside them, the temporary workers were nervous around me because I was “El Jefe,” the big boss. They saw Carlos and Ramón as regular workers who had some responsibility. If only they knew.

George and Adam broke the assignment to sell the tanks up into three groups. One of us would visit Taiwan, the Philippines, and Thailand, overseeing the sales there. Evidently, the Army had prepared for this for some time as all the tanks were already there, but still in storage, usually at a U.S. military base.

Another route covered Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. The final route covered Israel, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. I took the last route, adding Turkey since I’d be in the general area anyway. I could tell that George and Adam liked that. George had always enjoyed visiting the Orient when he had a little time to sightsee, and Adam had always wanted to spend some free time in Rio.

Will had someone spend an hour with me explaining cultural differences between us and the Arab world so that I didn’t unintentionally offend anyone. He had someone else bring me three pieces of luggage that looked like luggage, but were big enough to carry my rifle cases. The luggage locked securely, and each had tags and paperwork identifying it as a diplomatic pouch.

“I doubt that you’ll need your weapons, but you never know. Leave them on the plane unless you feel that you’ll need them. Your planes will also be given a diplomatic designation for this trip,” he said. All three of us would leave Monday morning, although I’d need to stop in Washington right before leaving to pick up my U.S. Department of State credentials. I gave Will three of the gift sets: one for him, one for Dieter, and one for him to give to someone.

I called the Russian ambassador, asking if he could meet me today or tomorrow so we could discuss Dmitri Novikov, and asked if it was safe for me to bring Dmitri with me. He suggested lunch at an expensive restaurant, and I agreed. Poor Dmitri was sweating bullets by the time we got to the restaurant. I didn’t know that former Spetsnaz troops could sweat.

The reason the Ambassador chose this restaurant was that it had a private room where we could eat and talk without being overheard. “Dmitri just spent several uncomfortable days as a guest of the CIA,” I began my explanation. “They were rather frustrated when he didn’t tell them anything. He also refused to work for them, explaining that he would be dead within a month if he agreed.

“Instead, he suggested that they allow him to work for me. After talking to him, I agreed. His job will be to stay in contact with Zhora’s extensive group of contacts. I made it perfectly clear to Dmitri and to my employer that he was not going to engage in espionage for them. He will gather information about drug and weapons smuggling, as well as any available information about terrorist groups.

“Nobody who works for me will ever be actively involved in espionage. I’m sure that some of the purchases we facilitate might be classified as such, but all we do is complete transactions that have already been arranged.

“In addition, like the crew aboard Zhora’s yacht, Dmitri claims that Zhora threatened his extended family if he didn’t take the job. Of course, if he has no extended family, that means he’s lying. I’m sure the Russian government can quickly check to see if he’s telling the truth.

“I’m hoping that your government will overlook Dmitri’s association with his former employer. I’m sure he’d like to be able to visit his extended family without worrying about surviving the visit. I don’t know where Zhora’s former contacts are located, but I have to believe that some of them are in Russia and former Soviet states. I’d like Dmitri to be able to stay in contact with them, too. Since there are even terrorist groups in some of those former Soviet states, we will pass along any information about them, as well as about any smuggling he uncovers that may affect Russia,” I offered.

The ambassador was watching me intently the entire time, occasionally glancing at Dmitri.

“I will need to speak with my superiors about this,” he said. “If they agree, they may have a list of items that have disappeared that they would appreciate having returned, or at least learning the whereabouts of,” he warned.

“Actually, I may have already found one of them,” I replied, explaining about the lead containment vessel I had found with Cyrillic writing on it, and that I heard later that it had enriched uranium in it.

Writing something on a napkin, he asked if that was what I had seen. Closing my eyes and mentally picturing what I saw, I told him it wasn’t. I wrote what I could remember of the characters. “That would be one of the missing items. I assume that it is someplace safe?” he asked.

“The military came and got it,” I assured him.

“Perhaps you can also assist us with something,” he suggested. “I will need to speak with your superiors to get their approval, but we might ask you to perform a transaction for us, too,” he said mysteriously.

“As long as my superiors approve, no problem,” I assured him. When we left the restaurant, I gave him the bag in the trunk of the car waiting for us.

“One is for you, one is for your president, and one is for someone you want to score points with,” I explained as he saw the three gift sets.

“Oh, good,” he exclaimed. I was about to call and see if I could come visit you to get another one,” he laughed.

“You don’t need permission, just come on down. I can even send a plane for you if need be. I guess you should call to make sure I’m going to be there if you need to see me, but my dad can get you one of the gift sets, too.”

“Once we get the yacht back, you even have a standing invitation to visit it,” I assured him. He even shook Dmitri’s hand when we parted, something that stunned Dmitri.

“You seem to be rather influential for someone who claims to be a farmer,” Dmitri commented cautiously.

“George, Adam, and I do a lot of work for the CIA and other government agencies, completing transactions for them, such as the one that brought us to the yacht. The ambassador said that a lot of influential people in Russia breathed easier when they learned of Zhora’s demise. That I was involved in it earned me a lot of goodwill. When I returned the four stolen Fabergé eggs I found aboard the yacht to them, it earned me even more goodwill.” I explained.

“I suppose that the gift packs I hand out help, too,” I laughed. Then I explained what was in the gift packs.

“Seventy years old?” he gasped. I nodded.

Dmitri was stunned when he saw the Lucky J from the air. “You really are a farmer,” he said. “I thought it was just a cover.” He was also surprised that we had our own airfield.

I introduced him to everyone, especially Dad, explaining that Dmitri was going to be working for me by keeping in touch with Zhora’s former contacts. I also explained to Dad about the gift packs, and using them to create goodwill with senior government officials here and abroad, and that Keegan had hundreds of the gift packs already bottled and stored in the tunnels. I kept a hundred or so sets in the cabinet behind my desk in the study so I could grab some if I had to leave in a hurry. I even told him about the Russian ambassador, and that he might show up unannounced.

I learned that I had four pilots rated for the Gulfstream 550. I called my military contact that sent me qualified pilots and mechanics. He knew I preferred Wounded Warriors if they were available, but I would employ any veteran if there weren’t qualified Wounded Warriors available. He promised to find the eight pilots and four mechanics I wanted. I warned that I would probably be out of the country for a week to ten days.

Monday

Monday morning, Dmitri and three pilots left for Cancun in the Citation X. Before he left, I gave him a debit card for one of the extra accounts I had set up in the Caymans, explaining that it was for travel expenses. Then I gave him the information he needed to transfer money from the account I opened last night in case he needed to buy information or goods. It had $25 million in it. “If something costs more than that, call me or my dad and we’ll transfer the money,” I told him. While I trusted him, I still wanted to watch him for a while before turning him loose with more than $25 million. I laughed inwardly when I realized that I thought of it as just $25 million, and hoped that I wasn’t becoming jaded by so much wealth.

Knowing that I’d be gone for more than a week, the ladies kept me up late. I didn’t even protest when Charlotte showed up. Gratefully, Ashley doesn’t seem interested, although she stays close to me outside the bedroom.

Tuesday

There was a large, new-to-me jet in one of the hangars this morning when I went outside. I laughed when I saw that someone had applied the Lucky J logo to the tail sometime after the jet arrived last night. The mechanics would go over the jet today, and Dmitri would take it and two extra pilots to Caracas to get the second jet tomorrow.

Dieter met me at Andrews with last minute instructions and my new U.S. Department of State credentials. He also had a note for me from the Russian ambassador. His government was willing to overlook Dmitri’s previous employment. I faxed the letter and the accompanying letter written in Cyrillic to the farm, and to the fax machine aboard the jet Dmitri was using today.

Once we refueled the plane, we were headed east across the Atlantic. I spent time reviewing the information on the transactions and the differences in customs. I even napped for two hours before we began our descent into Ponte Delgada in the Azores to refuel.

While the pilots checked and refueled the Citation X, I called Dieter to let him know where we were, and then called home where everyone was just gathering for lunch. Jan told me that they picked even more tomatoes this morning than yesterday morning. Evidently, the setup we had settled on for the tomato greenhouses was a good one.

After extensive research on existing greenhouses, we had decided to keep the overnight temperature between sixty-six- and sixty-eight-degrees Fahrenheit. We kept the daytime temperature between seventy-six and seventy-eight degrees. My research had surprised me with the low temperature most conducive to tomatoes setting fruit. I’d always thought it would be in the mid-80s.

We keep the humidity around 80% during the day, and drop it to 60% overnight to reduce the risk of fungal infections in the plants. We even run air through underground tubing from the livestock stables at night to raise the amount of carbon dioxide in one of the greenhouses, although I doubt that it makes any significant difference. If the day length is short enough that it doesn’t provide optimal sunlight for the plants, or if it is overcast, we keep the special indoor lights on, so the plants get the equivalent of three hours of indirect sunlight in the morning, six hours of direct sunlight during the day, and three hours of indirect sunlight in the evening, all computer controlled.

We tested our well water and found that the mineral salt concentrations were low enough that it was safe to use. Having learned that we would be able to keep these plants growing for up to eleven months, we installed drip irrigation to deliver the water right to the roots without having to soak the ground or spray water on the plants. We watered a lot because a fruiting tomato plant uses a lot of water. If they don’t receive enough water, the tomatoes won’t grow to full size, and some blossoms won’t set, reducing the quantity and quality of tomatoes produced per plant.

Seeing how well the tomatoes were doing, I emailed Dad, telling him that we should cover the third tomato field, too. The fields in North Carolina never produced this heavily or this soon. An outdoor field would only produce for three to four months. The greenhouse would produce heavily for at least eight months, more than twice as long as an open field. Given the labor and expense necessary to set up and plant each field, producing for twice as long cut our overhead.

Once I finished my calls, I bought lunch for the three of us and hurried back to the plane. The pilots were just finishing their pre-flight checklist and we were quickly airborne again. I was surprised that such a small island would have such a large, modern airport, but learned that it was a common refueling stop for trans-Atlantic flights.

Wednesday early morning

It was nearly 2:30 a.m. local time, but only 6:30 p.m. Mississippi time, when we received clearance to land at Izmir Air Base in western Turkey. I made a quick call to let Dieter know we had arrived, and a quick call home to let everyone know that we had reached our first destination.

Carlos told me that he put my brother Mike in charge of the tomatoes. Tim was in charge of the strawberries, and Juwanna’s son Wekesa was in charge of the summer squash greenhouse and the greenhouse where the women grew our food. Fred was in charge of the mushrooms and wasted no time, hiring five more people today from the seasonal workers. He said that Ramón put my brother Sam in charge of the hogs. Jason was in charge of poultry, and Juwanna’s other son Kibwe was in charge of the dairy, horses, and the Angus cattle at the Hanley place. They had hired twenty-three of the seasonal workers full-time.

Wednesday morning

I had one eye open when the clocked flipped over from 5:59 to 6:00. I had to laugh when “Reveille” was played a minute later. “Much more melodic than a rooster,” I laughed inwardly as I swung my feet out of the bed. I was looking for the mess hall when a messenger found me and told me that the NATO base commander had invited me to eat breakfast with him. He was interested in the work I did that had me selling M-60 tanks for the U.S. Army. While we ate breakfast, I explained that the deal had already been arranged, and I was just the intermediary, the face of the deal.

At 9 a.m., a familiar face arrived, the same one that bought the ten tanks and flew them out of NAS Meridian. An hour later, Turkey owned fifty more of the upgraded M-60A3 tanks and I had $37.5 million added to the mixed account.

I thanked the base commander for his hospitality and paid for the fuel my pilots used to refuel before meeting my pilots at the jet. Shortly after noon, we landed in Haifa, where Mr. Jones met me. The tanks there were stored outside the city, and their mechanics had already inspected them. Half an hour later, they owned fifty of the unimproved M-60 tanks, and the combined account had an additional twenty-five million dollars in it. I learned that the Israelis preferred to do their own upgrades to the tanks.

I paid Mr. Jones for fuel for my jet. He wondered if he could buy one of the gift packs to give his father. I explained that I was having too much fun giving them away as gifts and had decided not to sell them. “You know where I live if you need more,” I said, “and I even have a runway for jets now,” I added. I wished I’d brought some with me, but didn’t want to take alcohol into Muslim countries, even aboard a jet with diplomatic immunity.

It was late afternoon when we landed at a military base outside of Baghdad. The base commander introduced me to my contact, who was all business. Once again, the tanks had been there long enough that their mechanics had already checked all seventy-five of them, and the money had soon been deposited into the account. After the pilots refueled the jet, I made the decision to fly on to Kuwait to spend the night. I wasn’t getting any feelings of danger, but just the thought of being in Iraq was unsettling.

Just over an hour later, we landed at Patton Army Airfield, part of Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City. I was surprised to find American fast-food restaurants here and treated my two pilots to dinner. Both knew their way around the base, having been stationed here for part of a tour of duty.

It was late morning in Mississippi, so I called home. Dad told me everything was going well and was surprised that I’d already been to Israel and Iraq today, and was now in Kuwait. He told me to call Jan on her cell phone. Jan told me that they were all fine, and that they had a big surprise for me when I got home. She wouldn’t tell me what the surprise was, but promised that I’d like it.