Permanent Interests (25 page)

No Secretary of State could escape having to lug work home. Dennison was no exception. Each evening a black attaché case bulging with a treasure trove of narcotics intelligence accompanied the Secretary home. The same attaché returned with Dennison to the State Department every morning -- empty.

Al's problems were compounding, despite his best efforts to set things straight. He phoned Dennison's office for the eighth time in two days.

"The Secretary's office," answered the "personal assistant" -- the glorified term for secretary -- a woman in late middle age with an accent straight out of National Public Radio.

"Yeah. Look. This is Mr. Goodnough again," Al answered, using the pseudonym he and Dennison had concocted for their phone conversations.

"Yes. I remember, Mr. Goodnough. The Secretary has been very, very…"

"Yeah, I know. 'Busy.'" Al countered impatiently.

"I assure you that Mr. Dennison will get back to you--"

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"'…when he gets a free moment.' But you got to understand, this is an urgent private business matter--"

"'…which requires his immediate attention,'" she retaliated.

"Like, right now," he snapped.

"The Secretary is aware. Good day!" The personal assistant abruptly ended the call.

Al slammed down the receiver. He sat, arms folded on his desk, glowering at the phone. Erin McNamara, Al's own "personal assistant," was afraid to breathe. It usually took twenty minutes to a half-hour for his temper to cool.

Until then, everybody at Al-Mac steered clear of their boss.

The phone rang. Erin picked up the receiver. With trepidation, she squeaked, "Al, it's for you."

Snapping out of his hypnotic state, Al asked quickly,

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Leventhal at Coralsco Supplies--"

Al jumped from his chair and exploded, "Tell him to go to hell!! I'm not talkin' to nobody today! Got it? Hold all calls. Tell 'em I've gone fishin' in Calabria. And if that goddamn Dennison phones, tell him I said he's a worthless windbag. And screw him and the ugly whore who gave birth to him! Tell him he's fulla shit and…"

Erin ran from her desk fed up, leaving Al screaming at the walls. The employees at Al-Mac Construction had an instinctual urge to take a collective coffee break. They streamed from the building like a herd of gazelles sensing an approaching lion.

The only human being on the planet daring enough to approach Al during such outbursts, Ricky, calmly entered his uncle's office with his hands in his pockets.

"Uncle Al." He shrugged his shoulders. "What is it?"

Al paused and focused on Ricky. His breathing eased.

"That fuckin' Dennison. Won't even return my calls."

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"Why

not?"

"How the hell do I know? Maybe he's playing in a polo tournament with his no-good-for-nothing, blue-blood friends. Maybe he's decided he doesn't like Italians after all. How'm I supposed to know what motivates the prick?"

"So, screw him. What's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal?! The big deal is this! The inside information that
strons'
gets us equals money. Get it?" Al threw a stack of correspondence toward a corner of the office, creating a small devil-wind of paper. Ricky didn't move.

"Mr. American Flag and Apple Pie ain't deliverin' any more. That rotten hypocrite cut off the pipeline. Now we got no more low-down on what the Feds are up to. They planning on a bust somewheres? We don't know squat about it. The other families'll think we're chumps. All that coordination the government's always doing with the Colombians? Now we got nothing to feed to our buddies in Cali. They find we got nothing, they won't waste another minute on us. They'll drop us like a hot
gnocchi
.

Our supplies dry up. Our customers go away. My credibility goes zip! That means we're outta business.

We're back to juke boxes and numbers. Get it?"

"So, let's pull the plug on the prick. Let the world know what he's been into. Let him sink," Ricky said.

"Humph! You gotta lot of learning to do,
nipote
. Don't you see? We got him and he's got us. We go down together. He had the
cozzi
once to tell me that what we got is 'mutual assured destruction.' Just like in nuclear war."

Ricky pondered a moment. "Why do you think he's stopped?" he asked.

Al slumped into the overstuffed, dark leather sofa opposite his desk and twirled a toothpick between his teeth.

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221

His gaze was distant. "Somebody, or something, got to the son of a bitch," he said calmly.

"Who?"

"I don't know. It sure ain't his conscience. It's something else. I don't know."

222 JAMES

BRUNO

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Mr. Ambassador, it's the Secretary! On line one." H.

Carter Wells liked a lot of things about his veteran secretary. But her excitability wasn't one of them.

Obviously, if the Secretary of State called, you dropped everything and paid close attention. But, short of a nuclear war, the cool-headed Kentucky colonel just wouldn't get flustered. His granddaddy used to say that Wells men honed the trait from being under fire at Antietam. Brothers of the Wells family had fought on both sides. It could be your own kin throwing all that lead at you. Best to be cool.

"Mr. Secretary, the Thai are on board. Foreign Minister Wichit assured me last evening that he will attend the conference. The Thai government is giving one-hundred percent cooperation."

"Great job, Carter," Dennison replied. "I don't have to remind you that a lot is riding on this conference. I've got a commitment from the President that he'll give the keynote speech. This has got to come off without a hitch and make the administration look good in the process."

Wells promised that he would do his part.

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"Now Carter, there's one other thing. To pull this thing off, we don't want to be airing dirty laundry. It'll give the wrong impression, if you know what I mean."

The American ambassador to Thailand knew exactly what he meant. Dennison had given him an earful in Washington the week before. Only in the house of mirrors of American politics would your superiors urge you to violate your conscience for the sake of image. Wells wanted to clean house in his DEA shop in the embassy before the corruption and incompetence got out of hand.

"Mr. Secretary, I feel strongly that the DEA chief here should be sent back. He hasn't been sober since he got here. As a result, that whole shop is out of control. Half are banging in doors, acting like this was the South Bronx instead of a sovereign nation. The other half are either sleeping at their desks or, I fear, are on the take. We just have too much incontrovertible evidence."

"I empathize," Dennison lied. "Just contain it for now.

Give it some more time to resolve itself. Stay in touch with my staff. In the meantime, we've all got to concentrate on getting this conference off the ground. The President's credibility is at stake. We can't have a key player like Thailand suddenly losing faith in us. Are we on the same wavelength here, Carter?"

Wells bit his lip till it bled. "I understand, Mr.

Secretary. I'll keep working at it. But something's got to be done."

Dennison's attitude irked Wells. Could the man be that stupid? And why would the Secretary of State take an interest in the nitty-gritty of how he ran his embassy? He shook his head. Micromanagement and lack of vision had marked this as one of the least competent administrations in history. It was exceedingly frustrating to a seasoned professional like Wells. If there was any truth to the old 224 JAMES

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saw that a diplomat is paid to lie for his country, it was certainly the case now. Wells felt hypocritical defending this fumbling crew.

Across town in the deteriorating Russian embassy, Oleg Konstantin Vladimirov nervously waited by the phone.

The SVR
Rezident
chain-smoked Marlboros and just stared at the phone. Silence.

The intercom buzzed. The Thai Minister of Trade wanted "Commercial Counselor" Vladimirov to attend a briefing the next day on a trade fair the Thai were planning to give later in the year.

"No!" Vladimirov yelled at the young SVR aide.

"No? Sir?" the aide asked timidly as he held one hand over the mouthpiece. "It's Minister Khamhaeng himself on the phone, sir."

"Uh. Uh. Tell him I'm talking to our Foreign Minister right now. I'll get back to him shortly," Vladimirov said distractedly.

He looked around his office. The cheap, flowered wall paper was fraying, the furniture upholstery was threadbare.

A lamp was broken and the vintage air conditioner made a loud, grinding sound. He hadn't been paid in four months.

His staff was dispirited. Some of the embassy wives, his included, had become Baptist zealots in the post-communist freedom.

He loathed cover work. He didn't know squat about commercial work and couldn't care less. The real embassy commercial officer was an embittered, drunken Kazakh assigned to Bangkok to interact with his "fellow Asians."

Half the time, he was getting laid in Patpong, Bangkok's no-holds-barred sex district. Indeed, half the embassy's PERMANENT INTERESTS

225

male staff hung out there now. No more controls. No more cause. The women found religion and the men turned to sex.

Vladimirov glanced at the official photo portrait of Putin high on the opposite wall. "Shithead," he muttered.

Number One Shithead of a government of shitheads.

The phone rang.

"Mr. Vladimirov? This is Arthur Klausen, of Westerbury Electronics, Inc. I am interested in export opportunities to Russia. Could I make an appointment?"

"Certainly. How about Wednesday at three o'clock?"

"Fine. See you then."

Vladimirov put down the receiver gently. He sported a broad smile. "Arthur Klausen" was the cover name for George Dexter, DEA special agent at the U.S. embassy.

"Wednesday," fourth day in the week, meant the fourth pre-designated rendezvous point -- a grubby little cafe in the eastern part of the city whose specialty was Lao food.

"Three o'clock" signified the third day of the week, Tuesday. They had earlier agreed to schedule such meetings at 12:30 pm, lunchtime, a normal time to leave the office. The SVR insisted on such circuitous communications in the interest of "operations security."

Anyone listening in on the conversation would merely hear a businessman making an appointment with the Russian commercial counselor.

Vladimirov liked working with Americans, despite more than a decade of scheming against them in Germany, Tokyo and New York, among other places, during the late cold war years. Now Russia and America were friends.

But Russia was broke and America was not. Socialism was dead. Capitalism was the victor. Time to cash in.

"Sir," Kurtaev, the young aide, said. "Any outgoing transmissions today?"

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Poor Kurtaev. So bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Thinks
he actually has a future in this business. I haven't the
stomach to shake him and tell him that there is no longer a
cause, that what we do now here is meaningless; that we
serve a government of assholes, in perpetual lock horns
with a Duma of fools, all competing for power in a
truncated, bankrupt country, an orphan of a hollow former
empire. Kurtaev, youth is wasted on this. A young Russian
with any brains should live for love and truth, not a
sharashka --
a sham operation -- such as this.

"No, Kurtaev. Thank you. Go home early. Spend more time with your wife."

It would be only this one deal, Vladimirov told himself.

A cool half a million dollars from Thai narcotics producers, through their middle man, Dexter. Another half-million from those on the receiving end, Semion Mogilevich, the number one
Vory v Zakone
-- literally "thief-in-law" -- the top made man in the Russian mob. Possessing a degree in economics, he is also known as the "Brainy Don."

Commercial Counselor Vladimirov would arrange the delivery via cargo ship. He had put the whole thing together. He'd build a sprawling dacha on the Black Sea.

The kids would go to foreign universities. He and his family could live comfortably and without worries.
Just
this one time.

The phone rang again. "Call from New York, sir. Mr.

Yakov," Vladimirov's secretary said through the intercom.

Vladimirov hesitated, then picked up the receiver.

"Oleg Konstantinovich, long time no hear, eh?"

"Ah, yes, I've been meaning to get hold of you. You know that I have this aversion to phones." The connection was crystal clear. Yakov ignored his barely veiled message not to conduct business via the open phone line.

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"We have a business agreement, my dear Oleg. I have made all the necessary arrangements with my partners at this end," Yakov said, referring to his deal with Malandrino to ensure passage of the heroin and marijuana shipments through a western U.S. port.

"I see." Vladimirov was beginning to hyperventilate.

"Uh, you see. I wasn't certain that you could help us in marketing the, uh, caviar. In the meantime, another broker has come along who has firmed up all the arrangements, including, uh, customs formalities."

The silence that ensued from the New York end didn't mask Yakov's wrath toward the SVR
Rezident
. After what seemed like an eternity, Yakov responded.

"We don't tolerate double-crossers, Oleg. When you make a pact with the devil, it's a contract for life. And if the rumors that I hear are true, I will make sure that you are worse than useless to Mogilevich. Do you understand me?"

Vladimirov quickly hung up. He pulled a bottle of Johnny Walker Black from his desk and poured a large glass, spilling some with his trembling hands. He gulped it down and poured another.