Sphere Of Influence (9 page)

"Okay, Jonathan, now we're getting somewhere. I can get my mind around this. What I'd like is for you to give us everything you've got on this subject, including inquiries you've made that came to nothing. Why don't you have it couriered over to Dave Iverson in two hours. And copy Tom Sherman at the White House. I'll let him know when to expect it."

Beamon stood, not bothering to wait for Drake's response. "I guess that's about it." He nodded toward Laura. "Unless you have something else."

"No, I think that'll do it." She moved around the table and shook hands with an unhappy Jonathan Drake. "It's been a pleasure," she lied. "I appreciate all your hard work."

As they walked out into the hall and joined their less than bubbly escort again, Laura looked over at him and carefully mouthed the words thank you.

"I told you to be careful!" Alan Holsten shouted, slamming the door to the conference room behind him. "They came in here with vague suspicions and left certain that we're hiding something. You read the files on Vilechi and Beamon and you still underestimated them."

Holsten, the CIA's deputy director of operations, had been listening to the entire meeting through a microphone hidden beneath the table.

"What did you want me to do, Alan? Tell them the truth--that we're involved in supplying Mustafa Yasin with weapons and that one of those weapons made its way to the United States? Or did you want me to tell them absolutely nothing, even when it was obvious that they knew we had something?"

"You are involved in supplying Yasin," Holsten said forcefully. "Not we--you. This is your operation and it has been since the beginning. You made guarantees, Jonathan. And now . . ." His voice trailed off, leaving a silent threat hanging in the air.

Drake was careful not to let the anger and suspicion he felt show on his face. While it was true that this particular off-the-books operation had been his concept, it was just as true that Alan Holsten had enthusiastically approved it. But that didn't matter now. Holsten was getting scared, and a man in his position could be very dangerous when cornered.

"Our exposure on this is insignificant," Drake said calmly.

"Insignificant? Are you kidding me? I just listened to you stutter through an interrogation by the FBI's two top investigators. How are you planning on withholding the information they asked for now?"

"I'm not. I have to give it to them. I have no choice." Mark Beamon's insistence that he send everything they had--even avenues that had come to nothing--was designed to keep the CIA from omitting information. If there was an obvious thread that hadn't been pulled or a line of inquiry that hadn't been pursued, it would be glaring.

"You're just going to hand over our files on al-Qaeda's operations?" Holsten said through clenched teeth.

"Like you said, Alan, I read the file on Beamon. It seems that it was accurate: He's not as dumb as he looks. But he's still five steps behind us. I anticipated his request and had a clean set of files prepared that will lead them exactly where we want them to go."

Holsten didn't sit, choosing to remain standing by the door. "Very clever, Jonathan. But you're still giving them something to sink their teeth into. And the truth is, we don't know where that's going to lead them."

"It won't lead them to us."

Despite Drake's effort, his boss continued to look skeptical.

"What will Mark Beamon's involvement be going forward?"

"Limited. He's having problems at home with his inspection, something that we can amplify and use to distract him. Also, he and Dave Iverson can't even be in the same room together. That's why Iverson wasn't here today." "We don't want him involved in this, Jonathan. He's smart, experienced, and lucky. That's a very bad combination."

Drake shrugged. "This is Laura Vilechi's investigation. Beyond her using his contacts at the White House, Beamon has nothing to do with it. The only reason he was here today was a clumsy attempt to intimidate me."

"What do we know about her?"

"She's tailor-made for us. Certainly an exceptional investigator, but unlike Beamon, she's chained to procedure. That makes her predictable. Also, we can count on her to file regular detailed reports that we'll have access to. We'll always know exactly where she is and where she's going." Holsten nodded slowly. Drake was relieved to see that his boss was calming down a bit. "You say the files you're sending won't lead to us. Will they lead to Volkov?" "Not in any obvious way. The FBI isn't even aware he exists right now. It's strange, but J. Edgar Hoover's early refusal to admit that organized crime existed seems to have held on in their culture: They don't seem ready to admit to the existence of people like Christian Volkov. Eventually, though, they'll come to him. That's the way we set it up. All roads eventually lead to Volkov."

"But we counted on him being a corpse at that point." "He will be."

"And Carlo Gasta?"

"I'm taking care of it. Don't worry, Alan. All the FBI has is the photograph and the audio that came with it. We know everything. Within a few weeks we'll have destroyed the weapon and the people involved. Then there will be nothing for the FBI to get ahold of--nothing at all left to link us to any of this."

Holsten turned and grabbed the doorknob but stopped before opening the door. He didn't look back when h
e
spoke. "You've created a very dangerous situation here, Jonathan. There's no more room for errors."

Drake let out a long breath when he was alone again. "You've created . . ." he repeated quietly. You've created . . .

Drake had been the head of the highly secretive Organized Crime Division since its inception five years ago. It was his job to deal with the growing number of international criminal organizations that were beginning to influence world politics and economies. Despite the fact that some had annual incomes greater than the gross national products of many second-tier nations, the State Department did not solicit or recognize these organizations. And despite the fact that they controlled the markets in such things as narcotics and illegal arms, they were ignored by U
. S
. law enforcement because of the impenetrable jurisdictional mazes they operated in.

It had taken a great deal of time and effort, but Drake had finally been able to contact and form a relationship with Christian Volkov, the head of what he estimated was the most powerful criminal organization in the world. Initially the relationship had been somewhat guarded and tentative. Volkov had been suspicious and Drake hadn't been sure what his mission was exactly. Slowly, though, the potential of his small unit had become obvious. Instead of just intelligence gathering and relationship building, why not go operational? If these enormously powerful and efficient criminal organizations could be used--manipulated--there was almost no limit to what could be accomplished. Unaffected by law, politics, or morality, they could be an incredibly deadly weapon if wielded correctly.

After the destruction of the World Trade Center and the demise of Osama bin Laden, it had become obvious to the intelligence community that by winning individual battles, America was dooming itself to losing the war on terrorism. Bin Laden had been replaced with the infinitely more dangerous Mustafa Yasin, and the victory in Afghanistan ha
d
left no terrorist target on which to unleash America's impressive military--only a loosely connected, highly trained group of fanatics scattered across the globe. It was this situation that had created an opportunity for Drake to use Christian Volkov to America's advantage.

Mustafa Yasin saw the world through an odd filter of Allah and economics, making him the obvious choice to carry out Osama bin Laden's economic fatwa against the United States. What had been less obvious, though, was Yasin's obsession with funding. He'd cut al-Qaeda's ranks by at least ninety percent so that he could focus what was left of his resources on the elite ten percent remaining. But those resources turned out to be hopelessly inadequate. Just as Yasin understood that money was the key to America's power, he knew that he would have to repair alQaeda's shattered financial network in order to effectively wage his jihad.

It had been a little over a year ago that Drake's division had begun to hear whisperings of al-Qaeda operatives methodically reclaiming and expanding their presence in the Middle Eastern heroin trade. Yasin had apparently decided to defer an immediate attack against America in favor of rebuilding his infrastructure. And if he succeeded, al-Qaeda would have billions of dollars to fund its religious war.

Would it be possible to play on Yasin's obsession with funding? Volkov had a great deal of credibility in the narcotics trade. If he were to supply al-Qaeda with the necessary intelligence and weaponry to step up their campaign to take over the heroin production and distribution lines in the Middle East, Yasin would have to concentrate his forces in one area, and would create a brief but inevitable disruption in narcotics exports from that region during the worst of the fighting.

Of course, Drake wasn't naive enough to think that he could actually bring about a long-term reduction in the availability of narcotics in the U
. S
.; in fact, he was counting on not being able to. If a sufficient disruption in the flow of Middle Eastern heroin could be created, the market would react to fill the void: With the help of the CIA,Volkov's contacts in Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos--the Golden Triangle--could move in and replace the Middle East as America's heroin dealer of choice.

The potential of the plan had been almost limitless. The Asian crime lords would cut off al-Qaeda's primary source of funding, but more importantly they would cut off one of the Middle East's most important exports. It wouldn't take long for the region's smugglers, warlords, and governments to turn on the men Yasin had sent to the Middle East and, with the help of the CIA, destroy them.

Of course, as limitless as the benefits of the plan were, the risks were just as limitless. And now the worst had happened.

Drake looked up at the map still glowing from the screen on the wall. It was all over now. He had been so close, but this operation died the moment al-Qaeda had managed to smuggle a rocket launcher across the border. All that mattered now was that none of this be traced back to the CIA. All that was important was that he and Holsten were not implicated.

Chapter
10

THE house itself was almost identical to the one in Cuba: large windows overlooking a rugged tropical landscape that finally gave way to the endlessness of the sea. Except for the slightly different shade of the water and the smooth gray of granite replacing red limestone, it was as if he hadn't moved at all.

"Is it on?" Pascal said in French as he strode into the office. Volkov just pointed to a television bolted to the wall. "With everything that is happening, Charles Russell is making the announcements himself?" Pascal remarked. "Interesting."

Russell had just come on-screen and was shuffling papers across a broad lectern. The American news agencies' round-the-clock coverage of the rocket launcher issue had relegated this particular news conference to C-SPAN, and it probably wouldn't have rated even that had Russell not made a personal appearance. America's ridiculous narcotics certification program had become one of his pet programs and he obviously felt obligated to support it no matter how trivial it now seemed.

Russell cleared his throat and Volkov used a remote to increase the volume.

"Before I talk about this year's decision, I'd like to give everyone a bit of background on the process. Under U
. S
. law, the President certifies the antinarcotics efforts of the major drug-producing and drug-transporting countries. If a government is not certified, it is ineligible for most forms of U
. S
. assistance. The law also provides for waivers fo
r
those countries which, because of their strategic importance to the U
. S
., should be exempted from sanctions. While some governments resent this process and some members of Congress would like to see it repealed, I believe it is an extremely effective way to keep this important issue at the forefront and to create cooperation between the U
. S
. and countries with heavy narcotics-producing capability. In the past few months we've seen significant initiatives in the target countries and no less than five extraditions of major drug traffickers. The timing is obviously not a coincidence--these countries know that their action or inaction will play in the President's decision." A hand must have gone up somewhere in the crowd, because Russell waved his own dismissively. "I'll take a few questions at the end--relating to this topic only--but first let me go through this year's list. . . ."

Volkov pressed the mute and turned to Pascal. "Haiti and Cambodia will remain decertified but get national interest waivers. Myanmar will remain decertified with no waiver." He paused dramatically. "Mexico will be decertified with a national interest waiver."

Pascal shook his head. "This is going to be the year you're finally wrong, Christian. Myanmar has done almost nothing to curb heroin trafficking, but it's more than Nigeria is doing. The Americans certainly wouldn't be swayed by Nigeria extraditing two insignificant drug traffickers last month. And they wouldn't dare decertify Mexico, no matter how corrupt the new government is."

Volkov put his finger to his lips and turned the television's sound back on.