Sphere Of Influence (7 page)

Drake tensed at the personal insult. Volkov's arrogance had infuriated him from the beginning. The man was nothing but a drug dealer--a petty criminal who had grown fat on easy business opportunities. He hoped he could be there when Volkov died. He wanted to see that icy veneer stripped away. He wanted to see Volkov beg. "I have my people working on it," Drake replied in a calm, practiced voice. "We expect to resolve the situation within a week. If there are problems, of course we'll contact you. But we don't anticipate any."

"I wonder if your FBI will have something to say about that. They're under a great deal of pressure to find these terrorists and their weapon. They tend not to give up easily."

"You understand that I can't give you details, Christian, but you can believe me when I say we have this under control. The FBI will learn only what we want them to learn." "And what will that be?"

Drake didn't answer; instead he just stared back at Volkov, who seemed to shrink and fade into the wall behind him.

"I will do what I said I would," Volkov said finally. Drake simply nodded.

"But you, Jonathan . . . you make sure you do the same."

"It's cold, Christian."

Volkov threw a log that had once been part of the structure around him into the dying flames. He could feel the heat on his face almost immediately.

"Come closer to the fire," Volkov said in French.

The man did as Volkov instructed, bending at the waist and holding his hands out to warm them.

Jonathan Drake had gone more than an hour ago and would soon be boarding one of Volkov's planes for his return to America. The question was, what would he do when he arrived there?

"The car is waiting," Pascal prompted for the thir
d
time, but Volkov ignored him. His friend was unaccustomed to being outside the well-protected and luxurious compounds that they had scattered across the globe. Volkov, on the other hand, never missed an opportunity to enjoy a brief parole from those opulent prisons. For the second time in a week, he found himself with an opportunity to enjoy a few moments of silence and distance. A rare treat.

He watched as Pascal leaned in closer to the fire, finally sitting down in the dirt and folding his tall, thin body into the space between the hearth and the table.

Volkov allowed very few people to get close to him--a sometimes depressing philosophy that had nonetheless kept him alive longer than he'd had a right to expect. Of those people, Pascal had been with him the longest--almost fifteen years now. And while the Frenchman lacked anything that could be described as imagination or humor or passion, he more than compensated with his loyalty and genius for the maze of offshore accounts, corporations, houses, and passports that had become so indispensable. Pascal was responsible for a great deal of Volkov's success, prosperity, and . . . and what? Happiness?

"Do you believe him, Christian?"

"I honestly don't know."

"It seems impossible that he would try to end his support of al-Qaeda now. It would almost certainly have a devastating effect."

Volkov smiled absently. Pascal's mind worked only in logic; he had little understanding of human nature. "The Americans can always be counted on to do what is in their own best interest, with little regard to anyone else. The problem is that they often don't know what their interests are." He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the fire. It had always been certain that getting involved with Jonathan Drake would be a mistake. But what choice had he been left with?

"Then, what do we do, Christian?"

Volkov shrugged. "We move forward. Commitments have been made."

Pascal nodded silently.

"Is there any news from Laos?" Volkov asked, moving to a different and equally difficult subject.

"We're still trying to set up a meeting. General Yung is agreeable in principle but vague with details."

Yung had just orchestrated a brutal and apparently effective coup in Laos that had taken even Volkov by surprise. While it was unlikely that the changeover in governments would weaken his position on the Pacific Rim in the long term, the temporary disruption of his power base there couldn't have come at a worse time. "Do we have any reliable reports as to the general's strength at this point?"

"He is still in the process of consolidating his power. Support for the former president still exists, though it is scattered and appears weak. Yung seems to be quite intelligent and understands that this is his opportunity to deal a crushing blow to the opposition before they are able to reorganize. He'll move decisively."

Volkov sighed quietly. "Another psychotic general . . ." "In the end, though, a positive change, don't you think, Christian? The prior regime was certainly friendly to us but rather communistic and bureaucratic."

"Better in the long run, perhaps. But exhausting. Sometimes I think I prefer the communists." He looked down at Pascal. "Unless your meeting with Yung looks completely safe, I don't want you to go. Do you understand?"

"He has Luang Prabang locked down. I don't anticipate any problems."

"All I'm asking is that you err on the side of caution."

Chapter
8

ACCORDING to the clock on the wall, this particular tirade had been going on for an hour and twenty minutes. To be entirely accurate, though, Carlo Gasta had been spewing an almost constant stream of empty threats and epithets for two days--ever since they'd returned from their aborted heroin buy. Chet ran a hand through his curly red hair, careful not to sigh audibly, and took another delicate sip of the vodka in his glass.

"Cocksucker!" Gasta screamed, continuing to pace violently back and forth across the living room for the benefit of his captive audience.

"This is fucking America! If those sand niggers want to come to this country and do business, they better learn to run their fucking organizations! If not, they're gonna find themselves dead."

There was yet another murmured assent that Chet made sure he joined in on.

"Cocksucker!"

Chet let himself sink a little further into the oversized leather sofa and continued to watch his boss march from wall to wall. The scene was almost laughably stereotypical. The decorator, no doubt specializing in Mob clients, had missed no opportunity to load the house with glass, chrome, and animal prints--except when a Roman bust or pillar got in the way. When Gasta suddenly stopped and spun to face Chet, the jewelry around his neck swayed hypnotically. His overstyled hair, though, didn't budge. "You shouldn't have held me back," he said for wha
t
must have been the hundredth time. And for the hundredth time, Chet answered, "Shit, Carlo, if I'd let you beat him to death, we'd have ended up in a war with those assholes. We'd have spent the next five years shooting Afghans. And that'd attract a hell of a lot of attention. Particularly now, with this fucking rocket launcher thing." The statement didn't necessarily make a hell of a lot of sense, but it seemed to please his boss, who started to pace again.

Chet was just glad to be alive. Their meeting with Mohammed could have easily gone the other way. It had been the first time he'd ever pulled his gun for real, and he'd be perfectly happy if it was the last time.

Gasta stopped again, this time in front of an elaborate stereo, and turned up the volume, filling the room with retro dance music. "The question is, what are we gonna do about these towelheads?" he shouted.

Chet didn't say anything, but he was pretty sure towel-heads were Indians.

When no one in the room dared answer, Gasta made a frustrated gesture with his free hand and stumbled to the bar to make another drink. He looked like he was having a hard time lining the ice cubes up with the glass.

Chet wondered how long he'd have to work for Gasta before he finally figured the man out. Carlo was the only son of the highly respected and now dead Carlo Gasta senior, an extremely powerful organized-crime figure from New York. As nearly as Chet could tell, though, the younger Gasta had little in common with his father. While Carlo senior had shunned the spotlight, his son had never met a camera he didn't like. He seemed to think he was a movie star and could often be found having drinks with semifamous actors and actresses at the most exclusive restaurants in town. The public had always been fascinated with the Mob, and Carlo junior was about as Mob as you could get.

So far, the best the L
. A
. cops had been able to do was to pick him up for a few bar fights and for kicking a dent in the car door of a woman who had cut him off in traffic. Nothing had stuck, though. As soon as the witnesses and victims found out who he was, they tended to become very forgetful. So he continued to operate right beneath the noses of federal and local law enforcement, taking great pleasure in driving both absolutely nuts.

Chet couldn't bring himself to be too critical of people who were drawn to Carlo's persona, though. It was partly that persona that had attracted him to the man. That and the rumor that Gasta was trying to make a splash in the heroin trade. At first the idea of hitching his wagon to Gasta had seemed like a hell of a good one. Now he wasn't so sure.

The more time he spent around the mobster, the more evident it became that Gasta was nothing more than an insecure little boy. Even worse, he was stupid--a real card-carrying moron. He didn't do what he did for money or even for power, really. He did what he did to get attention. And that was a dangerous addiction for a career criminal. "Chet! What the fuck are you doing sitting there, staring at your feet! Are you even listening?"

Chet straightened up abruptly and lied. "Yeah, I'm listening, Carlo. But I'm thinking there isn't a whole lot we can do right now. Mohammed said he'd have the stuff in a week. I figure we give him a week. If he doesn't deliver, then we start making a plan."

"Bullshit! If we just sit here and take this kind of shit, we look weak. We end up with those dune coons laughing at us."

If nothing else, Gasta was an encyclopedia of ethnic slurs.

"The people I'm dealing with expect things to get done--you understand that, Chet? I don't like having to explain delays. When I have to start explaining delays, I start flicking killing people."

And there, in a nutshell, was what made Carlo so intriguing. Who were these people he was "dealing with"? As near as Chet could tell, most of Gasta's schemes were no more profitable or successful than last night's drug deal, but there always seemed to be money lying around. Everybody got paid; there were cars, houses, women. And when a few million was needed to buy a vanload of heroin, well, that just suddenly appeared too.

Where it all came from continued to be a mystery to Chet, despite having been recently promoted to a position that allowed him to keep a watchful eye on the organization's accounts. Despite his press, Gasta was really just another small-time dumb-ass wiseguy, but the people supplying him with his cash might not be. And those were the kinds of people that Chet was very anxious to meet.

Chapter
9

THE corridor had no windows or inhabitants and was starting to look as if it had no end. Beamon stayed alongside Laura Vilechi as she closely followed the young woman ushering them through the CIA's Langley headquarters.

"The place looks different than last time I was here . . ." Beamon said, in yet another attempt to strike up a conversation with their guide. He had tried the weather, local attractions, current events, and now decor--all to no avail. Other than the stern look he'd received when he'd started to hum, she didn't seem to want to acknowledge that they were there.

The woman's momentum began to falter and she finally stopped, pointing to the only door in a dead-end hallway to their right. "If you could have a seat in there, someone will be with you as soon as possible."

"Is there a Coke machine or something around here?", Beamon asked.

"No."

"Thank you," Laura said, pushing him forward. "We'll be fine."

The door closed behind them and they found themselves alone in a little box of a room furnished only with a long table and ten chairs. Another damned conference room. Beamon resisted the urge to test the doorknob to see if they were trapped.

"So where's Dave?" Beamon said, referring to Laura's boss.

"He has a lot going on."

Beamon fell into a chair and put his feet up on the one next to it. "Still can't stand to be in the same room with me?"

"It was part of the deal," she admitted. "If you came, he didn't. He's still pretty angry with you, Mark. But he appreciates you helping us."

Beamon nodded silently. His friend at the White House had called the CIA director at home and parroted Laura's concern that his organization was withholding information that might be useful in the FBI's investigation. Not surprisingly, this meeting got scheduled in a hurry.

"So how are things going?" Beamon said through a yawn. The simple act of sleeping through the night was getting harder and harder for him.

"Well, I wouldn't want to bore you any more than you already are," she snapped.

Beamon stared at her for a moment. The stress was already starting to show. He knew it was impossible, but it seemed that new lines were etching themselves into her face almost hourly.