Julius looked up to find Marc looking right at him. Waiting patiently. Julius nodded curtly.
“Do I need to repeat the instructions? Do I need to emphasize that you follow the instructions precisely?
“No,” Julius replied firmly. “I get it. I’ll do it.”
“Great.”
“Is this really happening?” Julius asked after a moment.
“Yes it is, and it will be over before you know it.”
“What if I don’t do it?” Julius blurted out.
Marc Dominican laughed long and deep. Nearly half a minute later he was still chuckling and wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.
“Jules,” he said between chuckles, “you kill me. Really. If you don’t do this, in very short order your debts will be insurmountable, the university will find out, no one will be around, me least of all, to bail you out of what will probably be more than double or triple what you owe now. Jules, you’re on the brink. You’re sinking in the quicksand of your addiction. You’re a degenerate gambler and you can’t control it. Nobody can control their addiction. That’s why they’re called addictions, man! I won’t have to lift a finger or say a word. You’ve fucked yourself. All I’m doing is offering you what should be a permanent way out. Cold turkey, with an angel on your shoulder. Dave will see you tomorrow.”
There was nothing more to be said.
After the elevator whisked Julius away, Dominican waited a few moments before leaving the table. The steaks from Delmonico had been exceptionally good, so he picked a few more bits off the porterhouse bone before getting up and opening the wide rosewood door to his working office.
A young man was sitting at an assistant’s desk.
Salim Abood looked up from an enormous laptop screen as Marc entered the office.
“Did you catch all that, Salim?”
“Yes,” the twenty-three year old said, slightly distracted by something on his screen.
“Salim,” Marc said, sharply, “pay attention. If I’m boring you, that’s fine. I can always dump the visa sponsorship and deport your ass back to Dodoma, although I hear it’s starting to get real hot again. It’s summer down there now. I’m sure your father, sitting in his jail cell, would love to have a visit from his brilliant son.”
Salim snapped to attention. After a series of French and English preparatory schools in London and Paris, he’d been admitted to Columbia less because of his grades than because of his father’s money. But Salim had applied himself. He’d become a respected grad student and an excellent mathematician in his own right. John Logan had grabbed Salim as soon as he noticed the Tanzanian student’s work. Logan’s projects were valuable to the university, and that gave him the pick of the litter most of the time. It was Salim who had then done all the heavy lifting on a secure telecommunication encryption protocol project. A large corporate contributor to the university had made an enormous endowment in return for a method of encoding several models of cell phone in a way that made the traffic coming from them look like complete hash to anyone who tried to snoop the calls. Even Salim had been surprised at the effectiveness of the firmware. He had pocketed a copy of all the code before he was summarily shipped home.
John had been upset to lose Salim, but when the student’s father had been arrested on corruption charges back home, the tuition and living expense money had stopped instantly. For Salim, it was either starve and hide from Immigration when his student visa ran out and eventually get deported for his troubles anyway, or simply go back home to Dar es Salaam immediately with a bit of dignity still intact. No matter what, he was done at Columbia and he was done in the U.S. But he’d pocketed that code.
Marc Dominican had sought him out when the information came up the line that sat phone and cell phone communications were being snooped. There’d been interdictions by government forces in Cameroon, and one of mid-level militia contacts developed by Mkutshulwa had informed the gang leader about the surveillance. Marc knew immediately that he had to fully secure his comms if he was going to continue doing business in the region. He needed someone smart and willing to do something for him in return for a substantial consideration. That consideration was leverage over someone who could do the sort of comms security he had to have if the poaching gangs in west Africa were to continue uninterrupted. Another person meant an increase in operational risk. But the enormous profits were addictive, and the buyers in the U.S. in particular had to be kept well fed.
Dominican had done business with Salim’s father a few years earlier, although Salim had no idea what sort of business it had been. Marc knew of Salim’s programming and software engineering skills because Salim’s father had proudly boasted about his son. Salim was the obvious choice when Marc started the search for a top-flight programmer he could fully control. When Salim was contacted at home in Tanzania three months earlier, it had been like a call from heaven itself. Now he was back in the U.S., legally, working on a lucrative project and being well-paid. Dominican had promised to sort out the resumption of Salim’s studies as soon as he finished the project.
“This is your one shot at the good life, Salim,” Dominican said, sharply. “So tell me again. Exactly how much time will you need once the code is delivered to you?”
“The project I was working on was nearly done before my father screwed up. I’ve got that part of the code, like I explained to you about a dozen times already. It’s the code I’ve been using to reprogram your distributed phones for the past six months. Get me the project folder in exactly the way I specified and I can do another version that will be bulletproof. Nobody else on planet will have the encryption we do. Better than that, nobody will know how to crack it either. Keep restricting your people to the phones I encode, and only those phones, and nobody will ever know what the users are talking about unless they’re standing right next to them and overhear what they’re saying.”
“And what about tracks?” Dominican asked. It was the same question he already asked Salim a number of times before.
“What’s on that USB stick will clean things up perfectly. No trace of file copying left on the server. No trace of anything on the server or in any of the associated logs,” Abood replied tiredly. “For the hundredth time, bro, no tracks. Coppola will do what his brain is programmed to do. My little surprise package will work. You and only you will have what you want.”
“That’ll do just fine,” Dominican said, quietly. “Just fine. Now go home, Salim. I have work to do.
The young man stretched as he got up, closed his laptop and dumped it into a shapeless messenger bag that he slung over one shoulder.
As soon as Salim had entered the elevator and left, another door into the office opened. A small man in his thirties stepped out. Maybe he was in his forties. It was hard to tell. He was dressed in casual clothing. Sturdy looking walking shoes, brown slacks, an earth toned knitted pullover, windbreaker and a driving cap. He seemed to most people, at first glance, to be plain and inconsequential. But anyone who happened to examine the man a bit more thoroughly invariably noticed his hands. They were rough, sinewy, calloused, and they were very strong. A closer look at his face revealed faint scarring over his right eyebrow, three small v-shaped scars on the left side of his neck right at the collar line, and startling hazel eyes that seemed to always be observing every detail.
“Any change in orders?” David Trask asked, in a casual tone.
“No. I’ll verify that I’ve got what I need, then you’ll deal with Mr. Julius Coppola. No loose ends. Once I’ve got what I need from young Mr. Abood, you’ll deal with him too. His phones work well. We’ve been using them in the field for long enough. Once I’m in sole possession of the source code, Mr. Abood can be dismissed. I’ll provide you with twenty-four hours notice. No loose ends.”
“Understood.”
“And how is your mother, Dave?”
“Her treatments went well, but you already know that.”
“I do, Dave, I do,” Marc said affably, completely
ignoring the direct comment. “Such a great woman. Such wealth in the day, now all lost to a deteriorating mental state and an inexorable cancer. I worry about her all alone in that enormous apartment. Your father left her that much at least."
Trask just nodded. The subject of his father was at least one of the reasons for his deeply rooted resentment of and anger toward anyone he suspected might be disloyal or unfaithful. His father had been dead for twenty years, having left to his wife the incredibly expensive apartment on Park Avenue. It was about the only significant thing his father had owned outright and unencumbered before dying miserably of lung cancer.
“I saw the bill for chemo,” Dominican as still talking. “Yikes, Dave! S’all paid now, though. She's a great lady, your mother. She’s now got some healthy years ahead of her. We’ll do our best to make that happen.” He was still thinking about the delicious steak, smiling to himself. “Money makes the world go around, Dave. That is so. You know, I always liked your mother.”
Marc waited until Trask had left the room before he dialled his contact.
***
“Hello?” the call was answered sleepily.
“We are set. Our communications are secure and steps have been taken to ensure they remain that way,” Marc stated simply.
“Except this communication?”
“This communication is secure. At least, my landline is secure,” Marc said, “and I assume you have the influence to ensure that your incoming calls to this number are secure as well.”
“They are,” the man replied. “DC may be a swamp of suspicion—DC is most definitely a swamp of suspicion—but some things can still be done securely.”
“I must ask if you are certain about your involvement,” Marc asked. “You are walking a fine line between patriotism and criminality.”
“You are asking me this? You of all people?” the man replied, his voice rising with incredulity. “You’re the worst kind of criminal there is. You have no need of money, yet you risk it all for the thrill of, of, of, what? Illegal trade in highly restricted goods? Money siphoned off by known terrorists? Who are you to be moralizing at me?”
“Morality and ethics and legalities don’t interest me,” Marc replied coldly. “I just can’t begin to care. I believe absolutely in my own abilities. But you? You do not believe absolutely in anything except being a hero to the American people. I think you are far more dangerous than me.”
“You’ve brought this up before. I suggest you stop doing that. I have one and only one purpose for my actions. I intend to free the people of this country. It’s our country, Mr. Dominican—yours and mine—from the latest iteration of terrorism on our soil. I remind you that you came to me with this information, not the other way around. I am acting in the best interests of the United States of America and its people, god love them all. What I do to facilitate my hobbies and passions has nothing to do with it.”
That was what Marc wanted to hear. Thinking he had his hooks into someone and thinking he was in control, was very different from knowing those things.
“I understand,” Marc said. “I advise you to make absolutely sure that none of the agencies tasked with looking at these sorts of activities is also looking at your associates or your buyers. You’re neither invincible nor untouchable. The fallout for me would be legal headaches for a few years, for which I have lawyers and money. The fallout for you would be the untimely, abrupt and humiliating end to an illustrious public career.”
“I know what I’m doing,” the man growled, “and I don’t need career advice from the likes of you.”
“I’ll be in touch then.”
“Damn right you will,” the man said as he hung up.
Marc smiled to himself, alone in his office. ‘My two favorite sins,’ he said aloud. ‘Pride and greed. Figure those out in someone and you can convince him to do damn near anything, including ignoring or rationalizing away the most horrific potential consequences.’ Whatever the public recognition being sought by his influential contact in Washington, DC, if anything blew up in Marc’s face he could always point to the conversation he’d just recorded and declare that he had done his duty as a citizen by sternly reminding the man about his own duties.
Chapter Four
Richard DeCourcey, sat at his desk and rubbed his temples. It was rare for him to get such a massive headache. He cursed his current situation for its lack of reliable intelligence. He cursed Senator James Abraham Keaton for his ego and constant need for reassurance. And he cursed himself for his newly acquired dependence on amphetamines.
DeCourcey had made the mistake of mentioning to his friend, a former naval aviator, that he was having trouble staying awake, thanks to his heavy workload. He didn’t like coffee, so his long-time USN contact had recommended amphetamines, assuring him that they were a low dose that many pilots took regularly. DeCourcey already regretted his decision to accept the supply and the recommendation. Then William Ling was murdered and Richard started having trouble sleeping, tossing and turning in bed for hours several nights a week, full of anxiety that just wouldn’t relent. So he sought out a doctor in Geneva who regularly saw senior Interpol case officers and convinced him to prescribe Clonazepam. He couldn’t get to sleep without one of the little white pills.
Working over multiple time zones wasn’t helping matters, but dealing with the fallout from Agent Bishop’s predations in Cameroon was the cherry on top of the bloody awful layer cake. Nobody but DeCourcey and Linders knew about Bishop’s follow-up surveillance intel from Marseille, 72 hours after what case staff had started calling the “rumble in the jungle.”
Bishop had been effective, but he had also overstepped orders. The man had been clearly told to track the Powderhorn gang and gather field intelligence. Track and gather. The Cameroon BBR and the government had made themselves clear about the matter. Bishop should not even have been there, but unfortunately, the allied organizations that were trying to fight the poaching menace had suddenly been forced to revert to old fashioned boots-on-the-ground intelligence gathering because all their usual electronic telecom and Internet sniffing and snooping had dried up. Powderhorn had apparently started using communications hardware that was effectively masking itself on the networks. On the rare occasion that the surveillance and information gathering networks had actually been able to find a connection point to a suspect mobile device, the traffic packets had turned out to be opaque.
For over a year, every surveillance body that attempted to track West African poaching gangs with known or suspected ties to terrorist cell financing had been running into a hard wall. The route of the financial resources being fed to al-Qaeda and more recently to Boko Haram and Da’esh had become completely invisible. Elephants and rhinos were being taken, but it was as if they were disappearing behind an invisible curtain. The major agencies were suddenly unable to sniff communications. Large amounts of rhino horn and ivory were being shipped out and sold, but only the occasional lucky guess about smuggling contacts and shipping channels had produced any seizures. Everybody involved knew that tens of millions of dollars’ worth of illegal goods were getting through. The armchair-surveillance-and-computer-server crowd that seemed to rule every aspect of global intelligence gathering was scrambling around trying to figure out what new scheme was being used to mask communications. They couldn’t launch high altitude drones because they suddenly had no locations to which they could direct the drones. The telecommunications encryption was baffling. The NSA with all its resources, among other agencies, was stumped. It was prowling the ranks of genius-level specialists who could be contracted to help understand and crack the problem.
So Interpol had borrowed Bishop from his European CIA field operations group. Old fashioned boots on the ground. Real tradecraft by a seasoned, highly skilled field agent. He’d proposed to track the horn and tusk from an observed poaching kill, whatever it took to do so. Bishop also had the leeway to take action that might limit the particular poaching operation, including sabotage of
their vehicles and equipment. He had not been authorized to fire on them, unless he was fired on first.
Now there were four or maybe five bodies to explain. Officially, poachers were to be shot on sight by members of the Cameroon government’s anti-poaching forces, park rangers and the BBR, but an American taking out half the shooters in a poaching party could at least be called by the Cameroon government a serious breach of protocol if not outright murder. The Cameroon officials making the most noise were doing so for all the wrong reasons, though. The loudest of them were on Powderhorn’s lengthy payroll. They were angry with DeCourcey, officially because an American agent was killing their citizens, but unofficially because they wouldn’t be getting their usual kickbacks from Powderhorn this month and perhaps for many more. Bishop had seen to that when he blew Mkutshulwa’s head off, DeCourcey muttered tightly to himself. No harm done, anyway. Linders managed to get the Douala police to cooperate even if her connection in the President’s political office had been less than perfectly agreeable about bringing some pressure to bear. She tracked down the fixer quickly, which is the reason that Bishop had been directed to Marseille to pick up the trail.
DeCourcey knew that relying on certain African countries and their so-called anti-poaching policies was a losing proposition. The government ministries that weren’t corrupt had good intentions, but they were hopelessly outclassed by the poachers in both firepower and technology when it came to intelligence gathering and enforcement. And some very nasty new players were entering the game. Bishop’s ‘interrogation’ of Fabrice Masiki had given them the lead they needed, Linders had made it count in Douala and Bishop would made it count in Marseille. But despite that limited success, they were no closer to figuring out what organization and what individuals were running the show. A shipment with a destination only exists when someone pays for the cartage, pays for the goods, has customers for the goods, and has the means to distribute the goods to the paying customers. If we can’t snoop their comms, we know nothing. Less than nothing. Hence the need for Bishop. I hope the phones he took from Masiki turn out to be something useful. DeCourcey suddenly shivered sitting at his desk. He was tired, and with an investigation that was only one dead end away from coming to an abrupt halt he was also anxious and barely in control of his temper.
All The Big Ones Are Dead Page 7