Begin with Chapter 1: The Beginning
Mia knew that LJ’s assessment of the situation was correct. She had no choice but to trust him until she could evaluate whether he told the truth or not. If knowledge of the conspiracy to groom a U.S. citizen to become president of the United States remained within a small group as LJ claimed, then Mia knew that she wouldn’t be able to corroborate much of what he said. But after years of interrogating criminals in both formal and informal surroundings, Mia had developed a knack for deciphering truth from fiction. If she talked to LJ long enough, he’d reveal whether he told the truth or lied. The truth is easy to tell. A lie takes work. Even the best liars can only maintain the fiction for a period of time. And if Mia remained consistent in her threats to LJ she knew that he’d break down sooner or later and reveal the truth.
“You’re younger than me,” Mia said. “How do you know this has been going on my entire life?”
“History doesn’t begin when we’re born, Mia. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Of course not. But I also know that if such an operation exists, they’d have no reason to reveal its history to some low-level computer geek. I can’t believe they’d think that you needed to know the entire history of a sensitive intelligence operation in order to create some targeted Facebook ads. If so few people know the history of this thing, why are you one of them?”
“Our most recent mission isn’t the only mission we’ve undertaken as part of this operation. It’s the one for which we’ve become best known, and it’s the biggest mission we’ve completed, but we’ve been working on this for years. I haven’t been here since the beginning, but I’ve worked with people who have been here since the beginning, and those people talk. And I don’t mean gossip. If the mission were just manipulating the American people, then you’re right, we could do that without knowing the past. But until this campaign for president began, we were manipulating this particular man, and we all needed to know the history to do our jobs effectively.”
“Then tell me everything,” Mia said. “And act like your life depends on it, because it does.”
“So does yours,” LJ said. “Your way of life, if not your actual life. Regardless of how bad you think it could get with this man in office, rest assured, it will be even worse. You’re only seeing the beginning. If all parties follow through with the plan, then what you’re experiencing today is nothing less than the beginning of the end.”
“Enough with the frightening platitudes. I want specifics, starting at the beginning.”
“Montreal, 1976. That’s when it began. At the Summer Olympics. The Soviets were set to host the 1980 Olympics, and in preparation they sent a contingent of spies to Montreal. Hundreds of them. Some gleaned information about how the Games were planned, some attached themselves to athletes to monitor anti-Soviet sentiment, some monitored Soviet athletes to make sure none of them considered defecting. And one contingent cozied up to the hedonistic businessmen who appear at any large event. Olympics, World Cups, political conventions, even religious conferences. All events like that attract wealthy men interested in meeting women from around the world. Your president was one of those men at the 1976 Olympics. And one of the spies that worked for the Soviets came from Bulgaria, which, as you know, fell under Soviet influence in those days. She’d been sent to Montreal two years before to improve her English for the sole purpose of interacting with a wealthy American without needing a translator.”
Mia interrupted LJ. “Why send someone who didn’t know English? The Soviets were well known for having spies with incredible language abilities. I doubt she cleaned up her English to the extent of other spies in just two years studying in Montreal, a place that speaks primarily French.”
“You’re talking about spies who tried to pass as Americans. In order to pass as American they had to speak with no accent. That wasn’t the goal for the women sent to Montreal. Their accent would be part of the appeal to American businessmen. Their accents made them exotic. So they didn’t have to speak without an accent, but they did have to hold their own in a conversation, and obtain and relay a variety of information about the men they met.”
“What kind of information?” Mia asked. “What was the point?”
“They had no specific plan at the time. The Soviet economy grew at a fast pace up until 1973, when stagnation began. In the early 1970s, Poland had advocated for loans from the United States in order to ramp up industrial production. Their economy grew for the first few years of the decade, and the Soviets hoped that attracting American investment would help them grow their industrial sector, also. But while most American businessmen could get away with investing in Poland, since Americans would view such a move as countering Soviet influence, any good American who dared to send money to the Soviet Union would immediately come under scrutiny, and be viewed as untrustworthy. The Soviets hoped that if they could find non-economic ways to appeal to these businessmen, they could secure the investment they wanted.”
“They were pimps,” Mia said. “It’s that simple?”
“How so?”
“They wanted money, so they offered these women in the hopes they would separate the johns from their money.”
“I think it was a bit more complicated than that,” LJ said. “They’d never get enough investment just by giving these men sex. The women just gave them a foot in the door. The Soviets knew they were at a disadvantage simply because of the Cold War propaganda battle between the two countries. They planned to use spies—in both sexual and non-sexual ways—to even the playing field.”
“And this guy fell for it?”
“Hook, line, and sinker, as you say.”
“How do we know this isn’t just revisionist history?” Mia asked. “Your country isn’t well known for telling the truth.”
“Either is your president.” Mia chuckled and nodded, but said nothing. “I’ve seen the file from back then. His is just one of hundreds from that time. Nothing special, but mixed up in everything from day one.”
“What does that mean? ‘Mixed up in everything.’”
“He bought into it right away.”
“He invested?”
“No, he didn’t literally buy into it right away. He just reveled in the attention. After eight days in Montreal with him, the spy reported back to Moscow that she could probably marry him by the end of the year. She wasn’t far off. They married the next year. By that time, he had invested real money. Not in the Soviet Union, but in Bulgaria. The Soviets would provide a healthy, false return in order to gain a larger investment. That return is how he got started in New York real estate. He bought a stake in an old hotel, remodeled it, and then sold it for a profit. So over a number of years he made good money from that first false return, but ended up investing more money, and then started losing, so he pulled out. That’s one thing that impressed us. He recognized that investing in Bulgaria didn’t make sense and he pulled his money out as soon as he started losing. Most investors just threw good money after bad.”
“What happened when he pulled his money out? Did you lose him?”
“No. The only thing guys like him respond to more than money is power. That’s really what they’re after. The money, the women, the attention. It’s all toward the same goal: power. Feeling important. They’re making up for some part of their soul that was damaged during childhood. He refused to invest additional funds, but his father-in-law served as chairman of the local party in Bulgaria. He started meeting the men who ran Bulgarian politics, most of whom had close ties to Moscow. By 1980 he’d already met with half-a-dozen officials from Moscow in various cities across Europe.”
“Did he know he was being groomed?”
“I don’t think they knew he was being groomed at that point. I suppose they knew they’d use him for something, but his profile wasn’t large enough to think about the White House yet. They saw him as someone who could provide a backchannel to Washington. Although there are a series of memos in his file that express concern over his grasp on reality. Even back then he had so much trouble with the truth that our people didn’t know if he intentionally mislead us, or if he perpetually mislead himself. He seems to live in a reality entirely of his own making. He’s the only inhabitant, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about what’s going on. He can ignore everything else and convince himself that he’s the only one who sees the truth. Some of our most experienced agents had never seen anything like it.”
“His personality was in place back then,” Mia observed.
“Very much so,” LJ said. “Personality disorders of such magnitude don’t develop overnight, and they don’t manifest later in life. They’re implanted and exhibited during adolescence and young adulthood. Many people afflicted with such shortcomings are held back by them, and never progress from dominating the conversation at a local saloon, or impressing the other meatheads they work with. But this guy had a leg up. His grandmother was tough and smart, and built a business. Her son managed to avoid screwing it up completely, which left some resources for the third generation – your president – to combine his flawed personality and questionable ethics to transform the company. But don’t misunderstand me. No matter his level of success, he remains the same damaged, emotionally defective intellectual lightweight that his upbringing created.”
“Which is why he’s so dangerous,” Mia said.
Check back Monday, April 8 for the next chapter of Kompromised.
Brett Baker is the author of The Death Market, and the first two books in the Mia Mathis series, Must Come Down and For the Trees. You can purchase all three here.