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“He didn’t return to Saraqib,” Julian said, breaking him from his trance. “The call was made from Aleppo.”
Not surprising. Based on the reports they were receiving, no sane person would return to Saraqib if they were lucky enough to have escaped. Aleppo was a logical choice. It was reasonably stable, had functioning infrastructure, and was bordered by abandoned areas that someone like Rapp could disappear into.
Losa walked to an ornate sideboard to refill his Perrier. As he began slicing a fresh wedge of lime, Julian spoke up again.
“What do the Russians want?”
“People have been asking that for centuries and I don’t think anyone’s come up with a satisfactory answer.”
“Money?”
“No. The men who matter there already have it. By some measures, I imagine that President Utkin is the wealthiest man in the world.”
“Respect then? The destruction of their perceived enemies?”
“The destruction of their enemies, yes. Respect might not be the right sentiment, though. Fear.”
What he’d told Rapp about his interactions with the Russians was only half true. Many years ago, he’d done business with the Russian mob. The partnership had been less about money than expanding his contacts across the globe, but even then the cost had been greater than the benefit. The men he’d been forced to collaborate with—even the ones in the higher echelons—had been beset by substance abuse problems, mental instability, and sometimes outright death wishes. Violence for them wasn’t a means to an end, but a way of life. Fleeting entertainment for men who woke up every day expecting that it would be their last.
In many ways the Russian government was no different. Grander in scale for sure, but at its core just another dysfunctional crime family. Antiquated, inefficient, and unpredictable.
“So how do they plan on achieving those goals?” Julian asked, glancing over the top of his laptop.
“Rapp was right when he said the Russians play to make everyone else lose. Did you know that Boris Utkin wrote his master’s thesis on how his country was squandering their natural resources by using them for economic benefit? In his mind, they were much better allocated as a weapon against the West. Make the Europeans dependent on Russian energy and then use that dependence to dominate them.”
“Meaning?”
“Maybe this drug is the same. Not a business designed to provide profits—”
“But a tool to inflict damage on Europe,” Julian said, finishing his thought.
Losa nodded. “One of the few tools they have left. Their conventional military capability has proven to be third-rate and Europe is well on its way to permanently replacing Russian energy imports. Utkin has doomed his country to irrelevance, and with no way out of the hole he’s dug, his only option is to drag the West down with him.”
“So, they release a highly addictive narcotic in Europe at a financial loss to overburden their social services. And they use a Muslim distribution network to try to feed authoritarians and nationalists who tend to support the breakup of the European Union.”
“I wonder if it’s even worse than that. Now that we know that the Russians are the ones developing the new captagon formulation, I’m suspicious about the compounds we can’t identify. They’re too expensive and difficult to manufacture to not be intentional. And since the Russians’ only purpose is destruction, we have to assume they exist for that reason. Further, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t want to extend this operation to the US. While Europe might be their geographic enemy, America is their existential one.”
“And our US network would be perfect. Not only because of how extensive it is, but because it has such a strong Latino component. Like with Muslims in Europe, the xenophobia against migrants already exists in America. Russia just needs to further fan the flames.”
Losa lowered himself back onto the sofa and stared into his crystalglass for a moment. “Interesting, but at this point nothing more than speculation. If Rapp had been able to sit down with them, we’d know more.”
“More likely they’d torture him for information that they could use to get to us and our American assets.”
“Agreed. But Rapp doesn’t know anything. There’s nothing particularly useful he could give them under duress. At worst he dies. At best he learns something valuable and then does what he does best: kills everyone involved and escapes.”
“You told him you were going to contact reliable people who could help him,” Julian said, starting to look worried. “I’m not aware of us having any reliable people left. And we certainly don’t have contacts inside Russia’s Syrian command.”
“True.”
“You want to betray him.”
“What I want is for him to meet with the Russians like he agreed. If we have to facilitate that meeting, then so be it.”
“Dangerous,” Julian observed. “If he lives, he might try to retaliate against us. And if he dies, we could have Irene Kennedy to deal with.”
Losa shrugged. “He’s a lone man in a country he has limited experience operating in. The Syrians were willing to destroy Saraqib to get to him. With that kind of motivation, it’s certainly plausible that they could find him without our help. In light of that, it seems like any retaliation would be aimed at Moscow or Damascus. Not us.”
“I can turn over what we have on Rapp’s location to the Syrians,” Julian said. “But I’m not sure I agree with your strategy. The risks are clear. But the rewards are less so.”
