CHAPTER 15

Basel, Switzerland

December

VASILI ANDRENOV STOOD BEFORE the photo on a credenza in his office having just received confirmation of the terrorist attack targeting the NATO commander. The faded black-and-white picture captured a man in a military uniform standing by his young son in a matching uniform sewn for him by his grandmother from surplus fabric. The young boy was Vasili, and the man in uniform was his father. Andrenov’s father had been a high-ranking military official in the Soviet Union; men did not become officers in the GRU on merit alone. His father’s service as a commissar at the Battle of Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War had brought distinction to the entire family, and his subsequent political rise provided them with a lifestyle far above that of the average Soviet citizen. His life changed when his father disappeared while in Southeast Asia in 1971. His father’s remains were eventually returned, but he and his mother were never given any information on the nature of his passing. As much as Andrenov missed his father’s presence and guidance, he was glad that the old warrior hadn’t lived to see the fall of his beloved socialist republic. A devout communist, his father probably wouldn’t have approved of Andrenov’s capitalistic tendencies.

Andrenov had been quietly profiting from overseas investments more than a decade before the Iron Curtain fell. When Russia became a Wild West of free markets, his experience put him far ahead of the game. Within a few years, he had turned $2 million in seed money into hundreds of millions of dollars. Andrenov could have used this considerable wealth to retire in anonymity anywhere he desired. Instead, he used significant sums of money to invest in the future of his cause.

In 1997, Andrenov founded the ARO Foundation, a global charity focused on providing critical infrastructure to the most underdeveloped communities on the planet. His foundation showered dollars on high-profile causes and entertained some of the most influential leaders in the first world at lavish and exclusive fund-raisers in Moscow, New York, Paris, and London. He even supported the pet causes of members of the United States Congress, particularly those with committee assignments that aligned with his needs. With all the goodwill being spread by the foundation, no one seemed to notice that the overwhelming majority of the organization’s staff were former intelligence officers from Eastern Bloc countries.

Had anyone paid close attention, they may have also noticed that the “most underdeveloped communities on the planet” were nearly all either in key strategic locations or were rich in some desirable natural resource. “Need” seemed to overlap perfectly with gold, oil, natural gas, lithium, and copper deposits. While performing token charity work such as providing vaccinations or digging wells, Andrenov’s teams were bribing local officials for extraction rights or key information. When base metal prices skyrocketed, his mining contracts made tens of millions of dollars. When the demand for lithium exploded to feed the mobile-device battery market, the former GRU agent’s wealth increased exponentially.

As that wealth grew, so did his global profile and influence. The foundation’s political dealings didn’t just grease the skids in places like Africa or Southeast Asia, it bought influence from Whitehall to Washington. This influence, and the lobbyists who wielded it, meant no heat, no investigations, no prying eyes; it meant insurance against the West.

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