'A' for Argonaut (47 page)

Sixty

The Hague, the Netherlands

T
he trial was held at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, the Netherlands. Maran sat in the courtroom while Boyko expressed contrition. Apparently, that didn’t merit the attention of the press other than a brief mention at the bottom of the stories they filed. What did capture their attention were the Interpol wiretap transcripts. They were intimate, detailed. But what most bothered the diplomats on the tribunal was that two of them were politically explosive.

The first one, read aloud by Interpol’s chief investigator was a conversation between MAGIC’s Ishmael Malik Johnson and the White House’s Margaret-Anne Ryan-Colby. It took place six months before the presidential election:

IMJ: So our guys…

MRC: Boyko?

IMJ: Right. Delivered up exactly one hundred fifty million dollars through our Multi-Ethnic Affiliated Green International Coalition, MAGIC.

MRC: To the Islamic charities in the U.S.

IMJ: The Islamic Foundation for Relief and Development‌—‌The Middle East Call for Help Council‌—‌Middle East Benevolent Democracy Foundation‌—‌others.

MRC: All under the umbrella of the Society for Islam in America? Through Boyko? Because he originally got his support from the Islamic Russians in the Caucasus: Georgia, Azerbaijan.

IMJ: He started what has to be considered the progenitor of the modern private military company. Thing is, he has more than 30 companies now and they are involved in everything from terrorism and smuggling to computer software, adult education, and humanitarian causes. Started operations way back in the late ‘90s. He raises the funds. We channel that money to them as charitable donations. They disburse it to Hope Valentine’s war chest and the Democratic congressional candidates. Totally discreet. No one’s the wiser. And it’s legal.
‘A’ for Argonaut!

MRC: For how long? Before they find out that a war criminal is behind it.

IMJ: No one ever has to know. It’s the mission that counts.

MRC: The mission. We can’t win this presidential election without you.

IMJ: That close?

MRC: Closest ever.

The other transcript detailed a conversation between President Hope Valentine and Alexander Stassinopoulos dated shortly after Maran’s betrayal in Cabinda:

AS: It was a shame what happened to Colonel Maran in Cabinda.

HV: It was unforeseen. He was out of control and had to be stopped. There was too much at stake.

AS: You’re right. National security. Had to be protected.

HV: The best way to do that was and is through engagement, dialogue and negotiation. We may still get the Angolan government to sit down with PFLEC to resolve their dispute.

AS: That would never happen if Colonel Maran had busted in on the PFLEC rebels and caused an international outrage.

HV: It might well have turned out like Sabra and Shatilla for the Israelis. Accused of a massacre when they hadn’t pulled a trigger.

The irony of Hope Valentine’s words never dawned on her. It didn’t escape Maran.

Sixty-One

Crystal City, Virginia

S
pring came late to the Washington area on the heels of an unseasonal frost. The cherry blossoms hung persistently in the groves around Crystal City, Virginia, hard by the Pentagon. Daffodils and hyacinths, in full bloom, cast the area in brilliance. The profusion of bright pastels and sharp rococo colors fit the occasion.

Sergei drove the Sebring rental car with Maran sitting shotgun in recognition that this was his day, the shining glory of all his trials and tribulations, and he reveled in the scenery painted by spring flowers as they tooled off 3rd Street NW onto I-395 S and turned into the ramp to Richmond and took a right on exit 8C to merge into US 1 and into Crystal City, a complex of government buildings, hotels, office high-rises, underground shops, and huge apartment buildings. After getting a tetanus shot, an antibiotic, and stitches in the hospital, Maran had a bandage over the wound in his neck where Vangaler had bit him.

Marriott’s Courtyard Crystal City stands a mile from Reagan Washington National Airport on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, a model of shining modern hospitality. Major General “Bull” Luster presided over a private celebration ceremony in a reception room at the hotel located in the cluster of them off Jeff Davis Highway. U.S. military law allows for clemency and an Honorable Discharge to a former service member whose prior service was deemed less than honorable for “exemplary post-service conduct” so Maran’s honor had been restored quietly by the White House. General Luster knew there’d be no official ceremony celebrating that fact.

Smiling at Maran from the podium, Luster paid tribute to the reinstated operator.

“
Victoriae
!” he started. “A slogan that Mack Maran has upheld to its letter. In so doing, he has reminded us that it can only live up to its promise if it is balanced with integrity, honor, and judgment.” The crowd in the conference room applauded. Mack sat on stage with Tracha, who sat in a wheelchair still recovering from his fractured skull and chest injuries. The doctors predicted he’d recover ninety percent of his motor skills.

“I am proud to be here tonight to celebrate the reinstatement of the full privileges accorded to an honorably discharged member of the United States Armed Forces and to pay respect to a man who has extended an olive branch to the world.”

The crowd applauded.

“Bad things happen, as the current world situation proves. Colonel Maran and his team captured, arrested, and rid the world of one of the most obscene gangs of transnational terrorists in history. He has closed down the shop of criminals at the Special Operations Group Command. Crushing this double threat has surely saved us from a depression and the terrorism that would have again reached our shores.”

The crowd applauded.

“While it may not be publicly recognized by this administration, he put an American face to the virtue of honor in those places where it counts. Tonight, his reputation precedes our own armed forces fighting terrorism in dark, secret places around the world. Terrorist leaders who spurred their lackies into forfeiting their lives are now running for their own. Colonel Maran has single-handedly brought the Sleeping American tiger to its feet.”

The crowd applauded.

“As a result of his investigation, the United States government has closed a relationship with CryptoCop, the Zurich-based spyware company, that never should have been opened in the first place. I feel confident in saying we will never again leave ourselves open to risk by relying on foreign providers for such critical components to our national protection system.

“Mack Maran’s persistence and dedication is a tribute to the spirit of the American people and to the training and resolve of its military. Today, the men and women of our Armed Forces are sending out a message that is being heard by our enemies. No matter how far you run, how hard you hide, or how deep you burrow your rat holes‌—‌you will not escape the justice of this nation. God bless America.”

The crowd applauded yet again, uproariously.

Left unspoken was the story of SAWC’s raid on Boyko’s mine to rescue Maran and Amber and the obliteration of al-Ebrahyim’s ricin weapons factory in Mali.

Sixty-Two

New Brunswick

E
arly fall. The Canadian maples were going red as Maran and Sergei relaxed at the fishing cabin BANG! had rented at the Blackville Inn on the Miramichi River in Doaktown, New Brunswick, one of Maran’s favorite places from the early days. The Atlantic salmon fishing season had begun. Maran looked out the kitchen window over the front porch. It still smelled of fresh paint. He saw the big, silvery fish breaking the surface of the river and arcing in the air. The cabin was still furnished the same. He sat in a big, beat-up, old leather easy chair in the living room, looking through a wide entryway into the kitchen, sparsely furnished with a handmade wooden pine table and ladder-back chairs with wicker seats. A wood stove for cooking and heating bath water leaked smoke as it boiled a cast iron pot of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to the richness he demanded for his preferred Coke and Dunkin’ blends. The one improvement was the one Maran had brought with him, an Iridium 9555 satellite telephone that sat on an old mahogany side table next to the recliner. Anyone could reach him now. Sergei reminded him that he could have used the phone in the African jungle and he had earned the luxury of the easy chair.

Next to him sat a copy of a book that had come in the mail. Maran had started reading it: David Kennedy’s “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War.” The diamond debacle and its effect on the stock market piqued his interest in Kennedy’s theory that markets are driven by psychology and that there was little linkage between the 1929 Crash and the Depression and that FDR’s New Deal failed to reverse the catastrophe‌—‌that it took WWII to do that.

Sergei sat in front of the wood stove. He looked at Maran, reading.

“Switching from Ludlum to thumb-suckers?” he laughed, shaking his head.

“Hard to believe it’s all over, isn’t it, Mack?” He was moving to Boston to join Maran at BANG! Inc. They were getting a lot of new inquiries. Business looked more than just promising.

“I’d love to believe it,” Maran said. “This just came from the tribunal.”

He handed Sergei a sheaf of documents.

The International Criminal Court tribunal in The Hague had completed its trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity levied on Grigol Rakhmonov Boyko.

Sergei read:

Since the most powerful nations, with the exception of the United States, have lacked the political grit to use force to end war crimes, the U.N. has developed as a deterrent a system of policing, indictment and trial of those suspected of violating humanitarian law.

Our goal is to uncover the deeper truths behind the atrocities of which Grigol Rakhmonov Boyko, a/k/a, the Animal of Angola, stands accused of the verified deaths of 10,000 people, dead or missing and presumed dead.

Among those truths are Mr. Boyko’s background, one that, like many of the principals in this case, reflects the exploitation of human beings by dictatorships and their evil supporters.

The defendant has entered a guilty plea and has conceded that he was responsible for crimes including murder and rape, forced labor, unlawful detention, cruel and inhumane treatment, illegal poaching of protected wildlife species, and the mass destruction of cultural and sacred objects.

However, the tribunal finds that the defendant’s past misfortune in his life has contributed to an unstable mental state. The circumstances behind his background are remarkable and filled with acts of cruelty against him, which clouded his sense of humanity. He responded by superseding those acts as a way of escaping his own unrelenting pain.

What Mr. Boyko never could have expected was the incredible human impact that would be visited on him in caring for a young boy, Amber Chu’s kidnapped son.

We also take into account Ms. Amber Chu’s written affidavit: