Chapter 5

When I gave my report and updated my Masters, I took care to note that my suspicions of Ray Ford seemed correct, he had run off. It was his wife, Laura who had supplied him with some poison. He was CIA and his request to her was not unusual since 'The Snake River Complex' had recently been closed and the use of the lethal 'Satan Bug' had been limited now. It had been a shock to her what her husband had been doing. Our friendship running since we were kids took hold again, and she had freely confessed to me her 'innocent' role.

A sanction against him was readily issued. Finding Ray Ford became the primary assignment now for several 'enforcers'. My suggestion that Admiral Jones and Gregor Andropov, even the girls might know where their 'safe sites' were was met with great enthusiasm, especially when Bob Golden stated that it might be good information as more 'loose ends' were rolled up.

One may wonder why we were aligned with factions, Rebels and localized 'terror groups' like in Georgia. That reasoning is simple. We limited our direct efforts, got and maintained local support and worked to a plan that maximized the resources and geography we were interested in. In the case of the USSR, that meant Poland, Germany, The Ukraine and a few of the oil and mineral rich 'stans. Gdansk, Bremen and the Black Sea fleets would be more than enough access points for what we had planned. The old adage about how to 'Eat an Elephant' was not lost on us. Once under our control, money and jobs would ensure any locals would continue to operate the rest of the country we had no interest in. It was a very workable and realistic plan.

Africa set the model up for us. Diamonds, minerals, oil, and much more flowed into our coffers through the Chinese and Korean associates. Ten or fifteen percent of nine billion dollars a month seemed a small price for them to pay us. Over ten or twenty years though it had become a tidy sum, enough to finance even more rewarding deals. By now our coffers were seeing more than a Trillion dollars a year coming in. Not bad for any organization. Sure our 'partners' were making a lot more than us, but they now did everything. What we took was not enough for then to no longer want us as friends, they were making new enemies every day.

To keep that in mind, an 'example' would be made of any 'partner' which appeared reluctant to continue with the plan. It was very easy to garner a new 'partner' often with a higher payout to us for the simple act of selecting them and watching the takeover happen. Even if it failed, our 'old' partner wanted to have us back, would sweeten the deal and leaving the fold became known as a form of 'suicide', which none of them wanted to do.

This new threat though was well funded and supported across the world. That we saw as a major weakness. On paper they were larger and covered a greater area than we did. Reality set in when you consider we only had a few places we needed to protect and there we were the 'Big Fish' in a small pond, while we could pick and chose where we might gain the advantage, they tried to eat the whole Elephant in one bite.

An response to this became a 'no brainer' for us when a friend or friends were made in a region merely to disrupt their operations there. Iran and Peru were some like that. We had no intention of any reward for our support. The goodwill we got though seemed to make our involvement requested now in other places. We were not political, took no direct side nor support outside our area of interest. In some cases a few dollars here and there over many years effected a relationship that became important years later. Cuba was one example, Haiti another. Soon we became like a charity, funding both sides in a conflict. It was a situation we could hardly lose with. Lebanon, Syria, Greece and Malaysia all ended up with financial and economic gains for us with little if any downside. It was no wonder we now were being targeted, we had been too successful, now others wanted what we had.

Back to our current problems. I wanted revenge, first on Ray since he seemed to make this personal, then on Gregor and the girls and by association the Admiral and his whores. The first order of business was to find Ray. Bob Golden suggested, (How quaint I thought, and original) that Gregor, the Admiral or the girls might know where he was hiding. Plus we knew where they were at. It was a small house in the Ozarks where they all were taken to by Bob and a couple of dozen guards.(Read assassins) It was not going to be a pleasant day for any of them. For some reason. Laura wanted to tag along. I tried to explain to her that our methods of persuasion were often 'extreme' and caused a lot of pain and blood to the captive. This seemed to just make her more insistent to come along. She had changed, I remember now her comment about Sasha and wondered exactly how much pressure had been used on her by them. She obviously wanted a payback of sorts.