Active Measures Quotes

“His primary weapon, which he used nightly, was a Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifle based on the famous M4 family. He had equipped it with a ten-inch barrel for maneuverability, an EOTech optical red dot sight with a 3x magnifier, and an AAC sound suppressor. For missions where stealth was a priority, he brought a suppressed HKMP7 submachine gun. It didn’t have the stopping power of the 416’s 5.56 round, but it could easily take out a room full of jihadis without waking their friends next door. For backup, he had the standard navy-issue SIG Sauer P226 and an HK45C. On each of his weapons, the expert armorers at DEVGRU had taken care to customize the triggers and grips to his precise specifications. Suspended to the rack by a pushpin was a photo of his wife, Sandra, and their five-year-old son, Ben. Another child was due at the end of spring, but they didn’t know if it would be a boy or a girl. Sandra was waiting for him to find out. He would be with them soon, one bite at a time.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“The US embassy in Beirut occupied an eighteen-acre tract of hillside in the predominantly Christian hamlet of Awkar, located approximately twenty minutes north of the city. It was the second site of the American diplomatic mission to Lebanon. In April of 1983, a truck bomb pancaked the central façade of the first embassy in Ibrahim al-Din’s grand entrance to the stage of international terror. And again in September of 1984, another truck bomb—sent by al-Din—inflicted massive damage to the Baaklini annex, which served as a daily reminder to Nina that he was still out there, lurking, somewhere in that warren of concrete and haze along the sea.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“The American embassy in Moscow is situated at No. 8 Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok in a towering glass and stone edifice that took some twenty-seven tortured years to complete. In 1985, during the final act of the Cold War, counterintelligence uncovered that the KGB had honeycombed the chancery building’s steel skeleton with listening devices to such a degree that it essentially rendered the half-built embassy unusable. A quarter-century of head-scratching and diplomatic gridlock later, the top two floors of the embassy were dissembled brick-by-brick and replaced with four new floors, constructed to the most stringent security standards. Although their present adversaries now operated under a different alphabet soup of three-letter acronyms, the elements of the US intelligence community in Moscow had considerably turned the tables on their host”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Because I know what you seek!” the faceless American snapped, a gentle spasm in his left hand. “You seek war…the last war, a war that will run Israel back under the sea from whence it came. I can, and will, give you that war, for a small price. You, with my assistance, will draw the United States into attacking your old masters in Iran—the same masters who abandoned you here to rot. In exchange, I will take Hezbollah from those spineless clerics, and hand it, to you.”
“And how do you intend to do that?”
“By making you and your band a nuclear power.”
Al-Din stared down his guest. “And you? What do you seek?”
The faceless American hissed, “Chaos.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Shoot him,” al-Din breathed dispassionately.
Sabbah raised his weapon.
“Guns won’t save you,” the faceless American kept his narrow gaze. “Death finds us all in the end.”
One of al-Din’s men chuckled in a distinctly mocking tone.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Yet Colonel Samir Basri was the clearest vision of a protean figure if there ever was one. Indefatigably shrewd and bursting with native wit—despite his corrupting and condemnable demons—Basri was the only indispensable ingredient in Lebanon’s hopelessly complex blend of sectarian wrangling. He had a knack for navigating the sprawl, the tangled web of factions that delineated a most complex cast of characters: Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Maronite Christians, moderates, radicals and the bundle of suicidal, homicidal maniacs—all of them respected Colonel Samir Basri’s word. That trust, a voice that all could stomach, had led Basri to become a valuable mediator between the Lebanese security services and Hezbollah. The access TOPSAIL willingly provided to CIA made his hefty fee of fifty thousand dollars per meeting a bargain”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“The first report from the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti—the Federal Security Service, or FSB—concerned domestic threats, such as the latest on counterterrorism operations in the Caucasus. The next was from the FSO and contained recent information on opposition figures that displeased him. Another from the GRU outlined the directorate’s support to separatist militias in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. Finally, a report from the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki—the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR—kept him abreast of phone conversations placed from the hotels of the Ukrainian and American diplomats currently meeting in Berlin with his foreign minister, Uri Popoff.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Ivanov’s cold indifference was unshakable. He snapped the book shut. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in that man’s shadow? Or would you like to cast a pall of you own?”
“Where you’re asking to go—I can’t follow.”
“You’re not innocent anymore,” Ivanov said.
“No.” Minin shook his head. “No.”
“Could Trubnikov’s man?”
Minin stared at the TV. “He’s done that much.”
“Andruishka, we’ve talked about this for years.”
“It’s not right.”
“Go see him. See for yourself.”
“He was still alive…”
“He’s not now.”
Minin’s eyes welled for a moment.
“Andruishka?”
“Fine,” he breathed. “I will.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“It began two years earlier when Karetnikov seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in broad daylight and dared the West to make him pay. As sanctions were levied against Karetnikov’s associates, the European Commission passed regulation after regulation to prevent South Stream from being built and leaned on the Bulgarian government, where the pipeline would come ashore, to end their involvement. Gazprom executives and Kremlin emissaries began clandestine pilgrimages to Bojan Siderov, the prime minister of Bulgaria, and showered the country with politically strategic investments. Ivanov warily helped the GRU, Russian military intelligence, funnel millions to Ataka, a far-right party opposed to European integration and the exploration of Bulgarian shale gas. After parliamentary elections, Ataka gained enough seats to bolster Siderov’s coalition and pass a bill clearing the way for the pipeline. Everything was in order, and even as of that morning, pipe-laying ships were at work in the Black Sea.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“I can’t give you an answer,” Minin sighed.
“What do I say to Eni and OMV?” Ivanov leaned in. “What do I say to the crews in Burgas?” He shrugged. “‘Mikhail’s mistress bit down a little too hard last night and, shame, it’s worth fuck-all now?’”
Minin looked down at his toes.
“I helped that bastard when no one else would.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“I was in the air not twenty minutes,” Ivanov’s eyes tightened. “From that shithole in Ashgabat. The phone rings. I expected great things. But it’s my general counsel. Guess how he found out.”
Minin didn’t answer.
“The fucking BBC!”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Down, girls,” he spat at the dogs while knotting the sash of a bespoke silk kimono around his waist. “Go!” He pointed his bony index finger and whistled and the dogs scampered out of sight. Next his finger turned on Minin.
“I’ll ask you straight, boy!” Ivanov’s voice swelled through the cabin. “Did you play me for a bloody fool?”
“I—I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re damn right you didn’t!”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“I’ve had hemorrhoids more pleasant, my dear!”
Minin’s head spun.
Two gray and white Italian Greyhounds—Artemis and Eos—pranced into the lounge and happily came for Minin with their wet noses. He knew they were gifts to their master from the grand duke of Luxembourg, and twins of the same litter.
Lord Roman Leonidovich Ivanov trailed in a moment later. He was a tall, sharp man of eighty-six with the booming voice of an auctioneer, the confident poise of a Shakespearean actor and the suffocating presence of a master politician. A wavy silver mane covered the sides of his head; wrinkles ran across his forehead like rivulets and connected his wide nose with the corners of his mouth; and pale, fleshy circles ringed his eyes where tanning goggles frequently rested.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“As Mofidi was an IRGC officer, he was not treated like the other families and sent a bill for the bullet that took his son’s life later that evening. A part of Mofidi died in that prison, but another was born. He could no longer stand by and provide lip service to a madman and his regime. Mofidi resolved then that he would make them suffer, that he would show the world their evil—even if it cost him his life—if only to see his boy again”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Any resolution, no matter how imperfect or unjust, was welcomed by a civilized world sickened with guilt that it had looked away for so long. They happily accepted that peace—tenuous as it was—and ignored a most familiar sound. It was undeniable if they listened carefully, beating softly, steadily on the blood-soaked horizon…
 War drums.”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Israel is our enemy. This is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land. Its destiny is manifested in our blood and in our motto: ‘Death to Israel!’”
And the people cried, “Al-mawt li-Israel! Al-mawt li-Israel! Al-mawt li-Israel! Al-mawt li-Israel!”
“And it is the American dogs that are behind Israel. We consider it to be an enemy because it wants to humiliate our governments, our regimes and our peoples. We consider it to be an enemy because it is the greatest plunderer of our treasures, and our oil, and our resources, while millions in our nations suffer. Our motto, as we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: ‘Death to America!’”
And the people cried, “Al-mawt li-Amreeka! Al-mawt li-Amreeka! Al-mawt li-Amreeka! Al-mawt li-Amreeka!”
“Some may wonder, is there no end to this hostility?” Yes, there is an end. When the Zionist entity has been smeared from the map, this conflict will come to an end! When the Zionist entity has been swallowed by oblivion, this conflict will come to an end! Only on that blessed day will there be peace. But this latest act of treachery from the pit of hell came only hours after a great victory by the Islamic Resistance. Without exaggeration this is a divine, historic and strategic victory! Dear brothers and sisters! After decades of struggle, after decades of resistance, the liberation of the Shebaa Farms has been realized!”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I

“Two fateful questions interpret more than eleven hundred years of Russian history: “What is to be done?” and “Who is to blame?” But there was now a third question, a corollary, which speaks to the soul of that nation since the fall and asks: “What is to be done to those who are to blame?”
― Matt Fulton, Active Measures: Part I