Moles

Hotel Conference Room In Barcelona, Spain

I must give Nikolai Agapov the credit he deserves. 

He was the first to turn scams concocted and run by random thugs in hotspots worldwide into unified, effective businesses. 

His genius turned stealing from individual accounts into "stripping" individuals to their bare financial bones.

Agapov's organization took everything from checking, savings, and investment accounts to mortgages. The remaining carcass of an individual stripped of a lifetime of planning and saving is sad, but it was not to the departed Nikolai Agapov. He considered the stripping process his own personal Stalingrad against an invader in his country, which changed the landscape and lives of his people in Russia. 

It's too bad the country's President didn't take some time to get to know Agapov before he had him killed on his yacht. They are unified in their thinking. They both hate the West. 

As I look around on day one of a meeting of Agapov's executives, I see a business now run by fear.

I learned that Agapov liked and knew his Lieutenants. He was a manager who offered direction, reward, and praise for good work. He guided each person's future. The new system consisted of monthly reckonings, during which the carrots and sticks used to beat the managers were then turned on the lower levels. Recall that a mid-level manager in my unit in Tijuana was found dead in an alley.

Fear can cause an organization to run a certain way, and Javier's demise in an alley outside of a strip club was the norm for almost every arm of the company. Each unit had a version of "Dead Javier in The Alley." This was how the new management inserted themselves into an existing organization.

Everyone was now afraid to speak up, innovate, stick their necks out, or be themselves. It was a large living version of the game "Whack a Mole."So, I'm figuring out that I am the only person sticking my neck out, innovating, and being myself. The whole group thinks that Troy Manolo will be a mole that gets whacked for popping his head out of the hole too many times. The group sees me as a "Dead man walking."

This is the American way of thinking versus an almost medieval way of life that has been ingrained for generations. The Russians were still learning the Capitalist game, and I was the one who had been greasing the skids for them to survive another month under the new regime. We were starting to make serious money again.

I will be speaking now with an interpreter, and I'm kind of longing for the good old days of last week when I got to hear a Russian imitating a Mexican when Anatoly said "Meester Manolo we go to streeeeep club and have a margggggareeta?" 

As I walked from the back to the podium, the crowd parted in awed silence like I had typhoid.

Hotel Conference Room In Barcelona, Spain

Belyakov sat mid-room to the left and watched pockets of individuals talking with each other. He could catch pieces of conversations, but the most he heard was football and hockey talk and a joke or two about the current situation in Ukraine.

Had he been in a political mood today, he could have at least four people dragged to Lefortovo when they got home for even questioning the motives of the surge into Ukraine.

Belyakov had hoped to see a motivated group talking about improving business.

He watched the three-person group from Tijuana, which produced more than any other unit. They were laughing and joking with each other, imitating phone calls and the respondents, and laughing. It was clear that they liked each other, and better yet, they liked what they did for a job.

Belyakov had an insider in Tijuana. 

A caller reported that the room was fun even while working, and everyone tried to outdo each other. She stated that the American would imitate the duped callers and then hand out small rewards and coupons for margaritas at the club next door, where everyone met to laugh, talk shop, and, at times, romance. 

She reported it was a fun group, and nobody wanted to miss anything.

Belyakov pondered about group chemistry and how it could achieve fission success.

Was the American a unique charismatic?

Belyakov looked at him. He was very self-assured even in a crowd of foreigners. Belyakov had heard that Mr. Manolo had been in an American prison and was working in Mexico for having that stain. Management reported that he was grateful for the opportunity.

Belyakov ordered that his house on the American side of the border be searched, and it was determined that work was his life and he was who he said he was. 

There was a photograph of a woman in a book near his bed, so he was not pedik or strannyy, which prison can sometimes do to a man. 

Belyakov had the FSB Barcelona division put a camera in his hotel room, but so far, nothing leaned one way or the other.

The man is fit, like a military adherent or someone who used his time in prison well. Belyakov wondered whether American prisons had "Courage Corners" with kettlebells.

Can something that worked in Tijuana work in other places?

Belyakov looked around the room again, and the Tijuana boys seemed happy and in unison about the job.

Did he make a management mistake by leaving message corpses near each unit when all he needed to oil the organization was fun and purpose?

Belyakov put a note in his phone to watch the American show "The Office" on IVI when he got back to Moscow.

The Boston Side Of The Charles River, The Esplanade

Lisa Tanaka had not changed her lifestyle at this point in her pregnancy. She ran hard around the Charles River every other day. Her ability to run hard set her apart in Boot and Quantico, and she found the runs mind-clearing. She was focused on her upcoming wedding, which would be in New York City. She and Ben chose that area due to the large concentration of friends and family they each had in that area.

Ben had friends from academia and television, and Lisa had many Quantico friends stationed in the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C.. It made a lot of sense.

Lisa knew someone with great taste and style and wondered if she would be insulted if she asked her to be a wedding planner.

What she did with her coffee shop bakery is pleasing to the eye.

She will talk with Eve later today.