Chapter 2

Leroy Allen Marks was a large and imposing man. He rose when Trent was ushered into his office and stepped forward too offer his hand.

"Mr. Lyons. I can't tell you what a privilege it is to finally meet you. Your exploits are legendary."

Mr. Marks was a wealthy and powerful man, a legend himself. Trent thought his greeting was over-effusive.

Marks waved Trent to the large, richly upholstered leather sofa that sat along one wall.

"Please, have a seat. Would you like coffee? Maybe something stronger?"

Trent declined, and Mr. Marks joined him at the other end of the sofa.

The months since Trent's return from Chechnya had been a difficult time emotionally and the pain that Trent kept bottled up inside left little room for patience or social graces. Mr. Marks was a powerful man, and he deserved respect. A little polite conversation would have been appropriate but Trent went right to the subject.

"Mr. Marks, I'm puzzled. What is it that I can do for you? It's common knowledge in my line of work that you have your own security branch. Your people are way more capable and sophisticated than my little group."

Marks laughed.

"You don't waste any time do you? But don't be so modest. You have special talents and experience that I'm not sure I can find elsewhere. May I tell you a little story?"

Trent nodded and Mr. Marks began.

"It's not very well known, but it is a fact that twenty years ago, I was in a business quite like yours, the difference being that Uncle Sam paid me. It was a time when there was a lot of unrest in the Caucasus, as there still is today. Although the Soviets had some control over the region, things were disintegrating rapidly and drug trafficking was becoming a big problem.

Back then, the U.S. had two goals in the region: first, to make things difficult for the Soviets and second, to try to stop the drug traffic. I was sent into Georgia in an attempt to facilitate these goals. Part of my mission was to establish trust and good relations with local clans who ran most of the drug operations. I fear that in one respect I overdid myself."

"Overdid?" Trent queried.

"Let me explain. I'm afraid I became a little too close to a young woman. She was a great beauty, and back then I was a lot more romantic than I am now. To make a long story short, we met, fell in love, and had a child. It was a very happy and then a very tragic time in my life. I was a bit of a wild man, young and sure I could change the world, but I didn't pay attention to the important things, and I wasn't where I should have been when my child was born. The child's mother died giving birth and I've never forgiven myself. The child was taken in by and aunt and uncle and I was forced to leave the area shortly afterward. Until recently, I've been unable to locate the child or her adoptive parents."

"Recently?"

"Yes, as you probably know, I have many unofficial connections. I was able to read your after-action report. You had quite an adventure, but that's not what I found most interesting. What grabbed me immediately were a striking number of coincidences that seemed to link your recent adventure to mine twenty years ago. You see, my daughter's name is Isidora. She would be seventeen this year. She had three adoptive brothers."

Trent turned pale. Isidora was a subject that he was not yet ready to face.

"Mr. Marks, with all due respect, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of young women named Isidora in the Caucasus. I'm sure most of them have brothers."

"Yes Trent. Can I call you Trent? Yes, you're right about the numbers, but there aren't that many young women who were born into Christian families in North Ossetia. The odds are that your Isidora is my Isidora too."

"OK, maybe. But what's your point? What is it you want from me?" Trent was lashing out in pain and anger. Marks had opened a very painful wound.

"I'm sorry." Marks replied. "I can see this is a sore subject for you, but bear with me a little longer. I think that I have a plan that might help ease your pain and mine as well."

"Plan?"

"Yes. I want you to bring Isidora to me."

Trent recoiled. His heart leaped at the thought of seeing Isidora again, but his mind told him that a meeting would only bring more pain to her.

"Mr. Marks, I don't think that's such a good plan. You read the report. You know what happened. I may not have come right out and written it down, but I still love Isidora. I can't hurt her any more."

Marks had a ready answer.

"Don't you think that if you were the one who offered her a replacement for Soslan, someone else who would love her and care for her, someone like me, her real father, that it might ease her pain? Don't you think it might even cause her to see you in a different and better light?"

Trent hadn't considered this angle. He sat back and thought for a few seconds.

"Why don't you have your own people go in and bring her to you? Why involve me?"

Once again, Marks had a ready answer.

"True, I have a lot of good people, but the fact is that most of my security needs are right here in the U.S. I have no one with your language skills, your knowledge of the region, and, most importantly, your connection to Isidora. In addition, your record demonstrates that you're an exceptionally brave and resourceful young man. You're the perfect candidate for the job."

Trent was teetering and Marks sensed it. He pressed on.

"Trent, I'm getting old. I've been around a lot longer than you, and I've learned a few things about people, mostly the hard way. Let me share a little of my hard-won knowledge. Isidora's anger will fade. I guarantee it. Deep down, she knows that what happened between you and Soslan was not something you could have avoided. Sooner or later she'll work through all this, and then she'll be ready to forgive you. If she loves you, that part never died, it just got buried by the hurt. Once the hurt is gone, the love will surface again."

When Marks mentioned the part about love never dieing, Trent could swear that he saw a little tear in the corner of the older man's eye. Trent was hesitant, but his need for Isidora blinded him to any little inconsistencies there might be in the proposal. Marks was dangling a carrot that Trent could not resist.

"OK. I'm on board. How do we go about this?"

Marks smiled and offered Trent his hand.

"You've made an old man happy. For now, that's enough. Today, or tomorrow, as soon as you can clear yourself of your other obligations, come back here, and I'll introduce you to some special people on my staff I'll leave it to you to plan the details. My people will help in any way they can and make sure you have all the resources you need."

Marks stood, offered his hand once more, and the meeting was over. On the elevator ride down from Marks' penthouse offices Trent's head was spinning with ideas and from the anticipation of seeing Isidora again.

Shortly after Trent left, Marks pressed a button on his desk. In a few seconds, there was a rap on the door to his private entrance. Marks pressed another button releasing the lock. A short, stout balding man wearing a very expensive suit entered. Marks questioned him.

"Did you watch the whole thing?"

The balding man snickered.

"Yeah. You were mahavalous, simply mahvalous."

Marks had another question.

"Do you think he bought it?"

There was another snicker.

--"Yeah, hook, line and sinker."

It was spring and fate had delivered me a chance to reclaim Isadora's affections. I should be happy, but something was sticking in my craw. I tossed and turned most of the night trying to sort through things; things, which for some reason, just didn't seem to add up. As I lay in bed that night, I formulated my plan. I wouldn't be sharing much of it with Mr. Marks. I would need money for bribes and travel once I got into Chechnya and found Isidora. Marks could provide that financing, but that was all I'd ask of him. I calculated what I would need, and then added 20%. Then I doubled the amount.

I laughed when I recalled Mr. Marks comment about clearing myself of my obligations. What obligations? I'd collected my pay and my bonus four months ago, and with the exception of turning down assignments every week when my office called, I'd done nothing except for drinking myself into oblivion the first week. Then, after the drinking and the hangovers failed to provide any relief, I just exercised myself into exhaustion every day. I was in the best shape of my life, yet I still felt like shit.

When I arrived at Mr. Marks' suite of offices the next day, Marks himself was nowhere to be found. It figured. He'd gotten what he wanted, and now he left it to his underlings to see that I had what I needed to do the job. To the credit of Mr. Marks' underlings, they didn't bat an eye when I told them how much I wanted. The next afternoon, a messenger rang the bell to my apartment and delivered a package containing $35,000 in U.S. $100 bills, and a little over $42,000 in Russian 5000 ruble notes. This money would be used for bribes and for transactions no one wanted to see on a credit card statement. It was about as much as I could carry comfortably in a large money belt. I was also provided with a Marks & Associates LLC corporate American Express credit card. The card would cover more mundane expenses.

I didn't mention it to the Marks people, but getting back in to Chechnya would be easier than they thought. Normally it would be difficult to get all the visas and travel documents the Russian Federation required, but I only needed to accept one of the assignments my company was continuously offering. As Marks himself had noted, I had a good resume for security work in the Caucasus. I was much in demand.

I took the first workable assignment that came. I was contracted to be rotated into the security detail for a politically well-placed oil executive. Big oil companies are in a frenzy to nail down deals in the region, and the demand for qualified security people is brisk. The oil executive's company arranged all my visas, tickets, and travel documents for Georgia and the Russian Federation including Chechnya. They were very helpful and even booked my air travel into Tbilisi, Georgia. Once in Tbilisi, I would just fail to report for duty and disappear. It would be a while before anyone missed me, and hopefully a lot longer before anyone got excited enough about it to alert the authorities.

The Republic of Georgia shares a border with Chechnya. Fortunately for the Georgians the carnage and political upheaval that have left most of Chechnya in smoldering ruins stops at that border. While life in Georgia isn't the same as life in Middle America, it's still not bad. Hotel rooms and rental cars can be found, and the chance of being robbed or shot down on the street in the middle of the day is minimal. When I stepped off my British Airways flight into the new air terminal in Tbilisi, it wasn't much different from most other airports I'd been through. I had no baggage to claim, nothing to declare and my papers were in order, so I was shopping the airport rental car counters in about fifteen minutes. I wanted a vehicle that would be unobtrusive, but that would be capable on the goat paths that served as roads in the more remote areas near the Chechen border. I finally found a company that would rent me an older Nissan diesel 4X4. It would attract little attention, it was nimble, rugged, and had tremendous range. Hopefully it could get me into Chechnya without problems.

Since I had the visas for Chechnya, and documents showing I had a legitimate reason to go there, I tried the most straightforward approach first. I threw my gear into the back of the 4X4 and drove the hundred or so kilometers to the border. Leaving Georgia was easy. The Georgians were more concerned about Chechens coming in, and in fact were a little amused that a stupid American would be going the other way. The Russians on the other side of the border were a different story. I silently handed my papers to the heavily armed border guard; he scanned them, then smiled to himself and shouted to his only other visible comrade.

"Yuri, come look. Here's an American!" He was obviously excited.

Yuri sauntered over with a smirk on his face. I could read his mind, and I was prepared.

He spoke to the first Russian. "I'll bet he's another one of those capitalist oil people. They're all idiots." Then he placed a hand on my door and leaned into my window to give me a closer inspection.

I smiled to him and spoke in perfect Russian. "We may all be idiots, but we're very generous idiots." As I spoke I palmed a folded 5000-ruble bill into his hand. It was the equivalent of about a month of his pay ¹.

Yuri stepped back with a startled look, but then glanced to the note I'd handed him. He smiled and turned to his companion.

"If he's crazy enough to want to come here, who are we to delay him?" He gave me a little salute and waved me on.

Just like that I was back in Chechnya.

Grozny ² is the Russian name for the capital of Chechnya. Grozny means terrible in Russian, and terrible pretty much covers it. At one time, it was an oil town, but today, it's a wreck of a city that's had major battles fought over it at least three times in the past ten years. The last battle is still ongoing at a low level of intensity. In the winter of 1999/2000, Russian artillery rained down on the city continuously for over two months. Since then, Chechen bombers have destroyed what little the Russians missed. There's not much left standing. Grozny is a smoking, stinking hell. It's crawling with Russian soldiers inured to violence and they're deadly suspicious of the local populace, particularly males of military age. It's a dangerous place to be, and doubly dangerous without the right credentials.

I didn't like the idea of going to Grozny, but it would be the best place to start. I needed some specialized equipment and it's a place where a few well placed bribes can get a man just about anything he wants. I also wanted a guide. Although I spoke good Russian and passable Chechen, I would stick out like a sore thumb on my own. I needed someone who could mingle with the local population and get answers to my questions without generating questions in return.

The situation in Grozny and in most Russian controlled areas is unique in that men are almost never seen on the street. Russians checkpoints and arrests have caused that. Women do what little public work is to be done, and they are generally free to move about without too many questions being asked. For that reason, I wanted to find a woman to be my guide and go-between. A man and woman together would also draw a lot less suspicion than two men.

I started looking among the group of women ³ I found piling stone upon stone trying to rebuild the local train station. They were working without pay and they were a sad lot. Most had lost their husbands, many their sons and fathers as well. At first they were suspicious of me, but when they discovered I was an American, they warmed. I chatted with them for a while, subtly interviewing each one to find the kind of personality and intellect I would need. The most likely candidate was a woman of about forty. She had been pretty once, but war and living on edge for years had taken their toll. She had lost both a husband and a son. Her name was Badra. Her hands were rough and worn from hard manual labor and when I asked her if she would like to work for me she gave me a harsh laugh.

"I don't do that kind of work." She had thought I was looking for a prostitute.

"No, you misunderstand. This is a serious job. I'll need someone who can travel and who knows the country. I'm searching for a young woman, and if you work for me, you'll help me find her."

When I mentioned that I was searching for a young woman, she got more interested.

"You're looking for a woman? Why? For sex?" Badra seemed to have a hard time thinking that any man would have a motive beyond sex.

"No, not sex, but this woman is very dear to me. I work for her father who wants her to come to America. I want her to come too."

"You will take a Chechen woman to America?" She was flabbergasted.

"Yes, if I can find her, and if she'll agree to come. Will you help me?"

Badra snorted. "She would be a fool to stay here. I'd help you for free if it would save one soul from this hell." She waved her arms in the general direction of the flattened rubble that surrounded the station.

"It will be hard work, and possibly dangerous. Would an advance on your pay help?" I handed Badra a 5000-ruble note to seal the deal. Her eyes got large and she hid it in her bosom immediately.

I joked with her. "Don't spend it all in one place." But she looked at me in confusion. There probably wasn't any one place in Grozny where she could spend it all.

"Your first job will be to find somewhere safe for me stay while we gather the information and equipment we need. Can you do that?"

She laughed. "There is no safe place in Grozny. I can find you a place to stay, but I can not say you will be safe."

"Do the best you can. Can you leave now?"

Again she laughed. "Leave all this?" She motioned to the pile of stones. "It will be hard, but I think I can manage."

Badra guided me through a maze of bombed out apartment buildings. We took back alleys and actually drove through the shell of some partially destroyed structures. Badra wanted to avoid Russian checkpoints. I had the documents, but neither of us saw any reason to tempt fate. Finally she pointed me to one building that appeared relatively undamaged.

"There." She said. "Drive behind."

When I got to the back of the building, I saw that I had been mistaken about it being undamaged. The whole backside was blown away up to about the fifth floor.

"Why are the higher floors undamaged?" I asked Badra.

She answered with a bitter laugh. "The Russian tanks. Their guns won't point any higher." Then she laughed again. "It's lucky for you. Makes a good place to park."

She waved me on and I carefully maneuvered the 4X4 into what used to be someone's living room. As we climbed out, I turned to lock the doors and Badra laughed again.

"The Russians probably won't look here, but if they do they will blow up your truck before they try to open it. If Chechens wanted something, locks wouldn't stop them. Don't worry. They won't touch anything. This is my place."