Sphere Of Influence (47 page)

The knock on the door startled her and she leaned out of the bathroom, feeling her mood darken even further. Another damned reporter. It was the third time they'd tracked her down, despite her efforts to steer clear of them. Maybe they should be looking for the launcher.

"Who is it?" she said, padding barefoot toward the door. She was only a few feet away when she heard the lock click. A moment later the door was thrown open and two men in dark suits rushed in. She turned and ran for the nightstand and her gun but wasn't fast enough. One of the men grabbed her from behind and clamped a hand over her mouth while the other quietly shut the door.

Laura surprised herself by half remembering her Quantico self-defense training and executed a sloppy countermove that was obviously anticipated. Her instructor would have been completely disgusted. She tried again, this time going for the man's groin, but whoever he was, he was strong as hell and good at this kind of thing. There was no way to get free.

She was lifted off her feet and swung around to face the other man, who was now standing calmly in the middle of the room.

"Ms. Vilechi," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about the melodrama." He pulled an identification card from his pocket and held it up in front of her. "We're from the CIA. We just need to talk to you."

She felt her feet hit the ground and the arms holding her withdraw. When she glanced behind her, though, she sa
w
that the man had only retreated a few inches and was ready to grab her again if necessary.

"Have you been watching too many movies or something?" she said, trying to use anger to hide her fear. "What the hell do you think you're doing? If you'd have shown up ten minutes later, I'd have been wearing my gun and I might have shot one of you."

"Calm down, Ms. Vilechi. Like I said, we're sorry about the entrance--we just needed to talk to you."

"Then talk and get the hell out of here," she said, forcing herself to follow the man's advice to calm down. If Mark's suspicions about the CIA were right, she might actually be in danger here. How desperate were they at this point? "Maybe we could find a more suitable place," the man said. "We'd appreciate it if you could come with us for a little while."

It obviously wasn't a request, but Laura knew she had to treat it as one. If she looked scared, they'd think she knew something. And the truth was, she really didn't. She made a show of glancing at her watch.

"I've got two hours before I have to get on a plane back to D
. C
. You can have one of those hours if you drop me at the airport afterward. Let me call my office and tell them I'm not going to need a car."

"That won't be necessary, ma'am. This won't take long." She started chewing her lip before she realized she was doing it. Despite his politeness, he obviously wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"I don't suppose you mind if I put some clothes on." The man motioned to his partner, who examined the bathroom. "It's fine."

"Please do. Leave the door open just a crack, though, please."

They watched silently as she gathered her things from the closet. Her gun was next to her phone on the night-stand, but there was no way to get either.

She went into the bathroom and pushed the door almost closed, concentrating on steadying her breathing. She was now officially scared. The CIA didn't screw around with high-ranking FBI agents and then just let them go back t
o
work the next day to tell the tale. Was Mark right? Had they killed Chet? Were they going to do the same thing to her?

She pulled on her slacks and buttoned up her blouse, trying to think. She could scream, but the hotel was pretty soundproof and they'd be through the door in about two seconds. Maybe on the way out? No, they would have planned for that somehow.

"Are you ready, Ms. Vilechi?"

She took a few deep breaths and stepped out of the bathroom. One of the men led the way to the door and the other stayed behind her as they exited into the hall.

They'd made it about ten feet down the corridor when two men appeared from a small alcove that housed the floor's ice machine. Less than three seconds later they had both CIA agents lying on their stomachs, each with a nearly invisible strand of wire looped tightly around their necks.

Laura retreated a few feet but then stopped, not sure what to do. Distinguishing friends from enemies wasn't as simple as it had once been. The men holding the garrotes were both thin, with short, dark hair and nice but nondescript suits. She was fairly certain that she'd never seen either of them before in her life.

"Mark Beamon sends his compliments, ma'am," one of the men said through a thick accent that sounded German. He looked up at her and smiled politely. "Would you mind very much opening the door to your room?"

She knew she should be running for the stairs but instead found herself pulling her key card from her pocket and holding the door open while they pulled the two suddenly very cooperative CIA agents inside.

"Mark asks that you perhaps make yourself difficult to find for a few days," the German man said, still with that relaxed smile. He didn't seem particularly concerned by the fact that he was on the verge of strangling an agent of the U
. S
. government.

"What . . . what about them?"

"We'll take care of them."

"You're not going to kill them, are you?" she said. "You can't kill them."

"Mark was very specific that they not be harmed."

She looked down at the blood starting to flow from the shallow cuts opening around the neck of the man who had grabbed her earlier. The German followed her gaze.

"Not to be harmed in any permanent way," he corrected.

Chapter
59

"I HEAR you met Wolfgang," Beamon said into the satellite phone Joseph had finally managed to teach him to use. "Mark! What the hell's going on?"

"Alan Holsten is pretty interested in finding me. It stood to reason that he'd try to go through you."

"Alan Holsten? You mean Deputy Director of Operations Alan Holsten?"

Beamon walked across the wide terrace and examined an enormous pot full of blooming flowers. "You know him?"

"The DDO," she said quietly. "That's great, Mark. That's just great."

"Can you make yourself scarce while I get all this straightened out?"

"No, I can't make myself scarce--I'm in the middle of one of the biggest investigations in the history of the FBI. I may not be doing a very good job, but I can't just disappear."

"You're doing a great job, Laura. You don't know it but you're getting closer and closer. Can you get some protection, then? If not, you're welcome to keep Wolfgang."

"I don't need European mercenaries watching my back," she said, the anger and frustration audible in her voice. "I'll get some people from the FBI."

"Find people you've got some history with, Laura. Holsten's got a lot of influence, and you're his best bet to get to me."

"How far would he go to accomplish that?"

Beamon didn't answer. The truth was he didn't know. "Mark, we need to talk to somebody at the Bureau about all this. It's getting too big for us to handle alone. . . ."

"Give me and Christian a couple of days, Laura. I don't need a leak here, okay?"

"You and Christian. . . . Getting to be good friends, are you?"

"I'm not sure what we're getting to be."

"It was supposed to be a joke, Mark. The correct response is that you're setting him up and about to get him." Beamon laughed. "I'm not going to get him, Laura. Even if I wanted to, I doubt I could. Christian's a reasonable guy with what's starting to look like a pretty clear agenda."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"What side are you on, Mark? Do you know anymore?" "America's side," he said, then laughed again. "Damn, that sounded patriotic. Somebody get me a flag."

"What about Jonathan, Mark? Should I be worried about him too?"

"Jonathan's dead."

There was a short silence over the line. "Did you . . . did you kill him?"

"No, Laura, I didn't kill him. But he's still dead, and that takes care of about half our problem. This thing with alQaeda is too lunatic-fringe for a lot of people to be involved. I'm guessing that Drake and Holsten dreamed this one up on their own. So now we've just got to steer clear of Holsten for a little while."

"Just Holsten. Great."

"What's going on with the launcher?"

"Nothing," she said miserably. "It could be anywhere. I'm working with DEA, local narcotics people, and Immigration, but I'm not hopeful. At this point, pathetic as it sounds, we're waiting for a launch and hoping to get something from that."

Beamon turned away from the flowers and wandered back to the house. "I'm working on it, Laura. I expect t
o
have something for you soon. I don't know what, but something."

"I hope you're right."

He pushed through a set of glass doors and found Christian Volkov sitting with his feet on his desk, speaking an unidentifiable language into a telephone headset. He waved toward a chair.

"Look, I've gotta go, Laura. I'm checking my messages, so if you need me, leave one."

"Mark?"

"Yeah."

"I know what you've given up to help me. I just wanted to say . . . well, thanks."

He hung up the phone just as Volkov tossed his headset onto his desk.

"I'm sorry, Mark. I've tried, but I think it's hopeless." "What's hopeless?"

"Finding your rocket launcher. The Afghans are still blaming me for the deaths of their people in L
. A
., and the fact that I had Carlo Gasta arrested hasn't really helped. At a minimum they wanted him dead."

"You're telling me that you can't get a single thing out of them that could help me?" Beamon asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism. Volkov hadn't failed at anything since they'd met.

"I can't just come out and ask where they're keeping their launcher and the rockets, Mark. They're already suspicious and wouldn't tell me even if they weren't. Besides, the Arabs just aren't phone negotiators. They're technophobes by nature--they only trust face-to-face meetings."

"Meaning?" Beamon said.

"Meaning that I can set up a meeting if you want me to. You can go and physically sit down with Mustafa Yasin. Personally, I'd recommend against it. I think it's unlikely that you'd get anything useful--much more likely that they'll just kill you as payment for their men who died in L
. A
. An eye for an eye and all that. . . . It wouldn't be a pleasant death, Mark."

"You paint such a rosy picture."

"An accurate picture, I think."

Beamon pulled a lighter from the fancy ashtray that had appeared next to the chair he favored and lit a cigarette. But you want me to go, don't you, Christian? I mean, it works for you. I convince Yasin to trust you again or they kill me and get their eye for an eye. Either way, your relationship with al-Qaeda is improved. And the more they trust you, the easier it's going to be for you to screw them." "For God's sake," Volkov said, letting his feet fall from his desk loudly. "I just told you not to go. In the long run, your death would cost me more than it would gain me. Listen to me very carefully, Mark. You didn't cause any of this--it was the CIA's doing. Leave it to the American authorities to straighten out. It's their job."

Of course, Volkov was right. He wasn't an FBI agent anymore. In fact, it was hard to imagine how he could get much further from his former life at the bureau.

"I can't just let this go, Christian."

"No, of course you can't. And I won't insult your intelligence--if you get killed doing something that I believe is pointless and extremely dangerous, I'm going to do everything I can to use your death to my advantage. I won't be happy about it, though."

"I feel so much better, knowing that you'll feel a brief moment of remorse before you use my mutilated corpse to help you hook America's children on Asian heroin."

"I do what I can," Volkov said, leaning to his right and looking around Beamon. "Elizabeth. Come in."

Beamon twisted around in his chair and watched her approach. She was dressed head to toe in a flowing black gown that revealed nothing of her. Even her eyes were partially obscured by black mesh.

"That's a new look," Beamon said suspiciously.

"You're going to need a translator, and I speak Arabic." Beamon frowned. He hated being predictable. "That doesn't seem like such a good idea. I think I'll just go this one alone."

"I'm afraid that's impossible," Volkov said. "Many of Yasin's people don't speak English, and he refuses to. You have to have a translator."

"Look, I think--" Beamon began.

Elizabeth cut him off "We're just about ready to go, Mark. I've gathered some information for you--you can read over it on the plane."

"But--"

She pulled off her headdress and looked at her watch. "Forty-five
minutes?" Then
she spun on her heels and hurried out of the office.