All The Big Ones Are Dead

by Christopher A. Gray

  “I do think about it. It’s impossible not to think about it. It’s also irrelevant. If we don’t buy, if we don’t make our own uses of the raw materials, who will it be left to? Third world ugliness and corruption?” It was a standard line that he used with these sorts of people. Dominican had originally fed him the line. Jorge had protested at the time that the justification sounded too superior, too arrogant. Dominican had laughed at him. Marc told him point blank that he’d never be able to understand the depth of arrogance possessed by men like these. Marc told him that their depravities, their arrogance and their risk taking made them blind to everything they thought was beneath them. Marc had been right.

  “Then again,” Jorge said, “it is all, technically I mean, really a renewable resource. Keep in mind that we’re not the ones who are overhunting. It’s the greed over there that does it. We only buy what they provide, no more and no less.”

  “True enough,” Keaton said. His tone was curt. “The reduction of species existed before us, and it will exist for all time. I can’t be bothered about it. Worrying about the inevitable. The poachers and their Boko Haram and Da’esh friends will eat their own young, given half a chance. Animals. All of them.”

  “I prefer to derive what beauty can come from it, before it’s gone.” McKellar, the ardent collector, was literally having visions at that moment of the gorgeous sculptures he’d be getting out of all this. “It is too bad that some of the funds end up in the wrong hands.”

  “Yet another reason to derive beauty and profit from it. It’s a balance. Go to a fast food restaurant every day and eat the salt, fat and preservatives. I guarantee that will kill you faster than any screaming fanatic. Americans are killing each other with that garbage. What the Islamists do? Those freaks? It’s trivial in comparison. The damned Muslims spend far more time killing each other anyway. Believe it.”

  “Of course they do. There are those who’d hate us for what we do though. I could wish, I do wish, that they’d all simply shut the hell up. Or just lie down and die. Every one of them. Stupidity is rampant.” General Kaminski then gestured by circling one finger over his head. It was a racist hand sign meant to indicate a shemagh or keffiyeh.

  “You can damn well say that again. It’s horses for courses,” Keaton said, a scornful expression on his face. “We can’t obtain beauty and successful careers and profitable lives and manage this country without also breaking a few eggs. Nor can we get any of this,” he beamed at the shipment, “at the local supermarket.”

  Even McKellar nodded. They were self-assured, full of the idea that they were merely doing what they were supposed to be doing.

  “I said it last month, and I’ll say it again,” McKellar stated, excitement creeping into his voice. “If this ivory was left to the poachers and the stupid locals, it’d all be turned into tourist garbage. Soup bowls and earrings. The animals are ancient and magnificent and their ivory deserves to be treated with the greatest respect by the greatest artists.” His eyes were closed as he said it, and he raised his glass in a toast.

  Some sharp noises suddenly erupted just outside the room. The three men turned quickly toward the library door. They could plainly hear angry voices and some jostling.

  “Joseph,” the host said to his bodyguard. “Find out what that is.” The bodyguard moved to the door and the other two bodyguards backed deeper into the room, flanking Joseph to the rear. He didn’t get the chance to check anything. The door came smashing inwards, the massive carved wood slab splintered off its hinges by a heavy battering ram swung by two very large tactical officers.

  The three men stood, silently staring at Interpol Inspector Diane Linders as she walked through the doorway and approached them. She stopped a couple meters away.

  “General Peter Kaminski, Senator James A. Keaton and Mr. Cormac McKellar,” Diane said, bowing very slightly to them in greeting. “How nice to see you all together in the eight-hundred block.”

  All three, wisely, remained silent.

  “You’re all under arrest. Listen carefully,” Diane said, waiting to be sure she had eye contact with them. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights?”

  The three men just stared at her.

  “Gentlemen!” she said sharply, startling them. “Speak up. Do you understand your rights?”

  Each of the men nodded and said, “yes.”

  “Thank you,” Diane went on. “Charges will be laid shortly at a secure facility in the city. No bright lights or local precinct station or even FBI headquarters for you. Not at all. You may be charged under the Patriot Act, title III specifically if you must know. That’s the Financial Anti-Terrorism section by the way, for those of you who haven’t done the reading.” Bishop walked into the room. He was looking directly at Diane and she acknowledged his arrival with a slight movement of her head.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Senator Keaton demand between clenched teeth. He’d actually shaken his head quite violently first, as if wrenching himself out of a bad dream. “Where’s your ID?”

  He shifted slightly as Linders walk over to him and flashed her Interpol credentials.

  “Interpol?” Keaton and Kaminski blurted at the same time. “Interpol? Get out of my house right now!” Keaton was almost shouting. “You have no jurisdiction in the continental U.S. You can’t make arrests. This is going to sink you, Linders, or whatever your name is. Take your people and get the fuck out of my home!”

  “Gentlemen,” she went on, motioning for Bishop to join her, “it is true that you’re on U.S. soil and that I’m Interpol. Before you utter claims of innocence or croak or protest or complain, I want you to listen very carefully.” She sniffed at the acrid odor coming from the unwrapped goods in the crate. “The first thing you should listen carefully to is that I’m not the arresting officer. I’m just declaring. We’ll get to that in a moment. What’s more important is that your rights under the statutes I just quoted are limited. You have not officially been charged yet, but remember that only the ‘anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law’ part of Miranda applies. The habeas corpus side of things is another matter. Grey area there. Especially since a financial proceeds of crime issue has arisen that connects your transaction here to terrorist funding. Ever heard of Boko Haram and Da’esh?” She then ignored the three men and spent half a minute looking at the bookshelves, the beautiful desk, and the inside of the crate as Bishop stood at her side. She turned to whisper to him.

  “Your CBP ID is front and center here. The ID is still real. Savitch and somebody on the FBI side got CBP to extend your privileges. So you’ll sign the arrest report under your cover name. Max called me a few minutes ago, just before we made entry. The Salim Abood backup is a goldmine. The analysts have never seen anything quite like it and they’re only a tiny way into it.”

  “Cooperate fully,” Linders said suddenly, without turning to look at the three men, “and you, or rather we, together, may be able to salvage a bit of what’s left of your careers. Personally, I think life as you’ve known it is over. Every touchstone, every reliable friend or associate you’ve ever known will shortly be disavowing each of you and they’ll be doing so with their lawyers present as witnesses.” She paused for a moment. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me? Is there anything you’d like to ask?”

  Bishop chose that moment to speak clearly to Diane.

  “Dominican is in custody,” he said, looking directly at Diane and ignoring the three men and the tactical team members who’d circled the group by then. “I personally told him that everybody is caught. Based on our current intel, Dominican has had control for some time. What we don’t know is whether or not he has a fail-safe plan that will release private information about these men.”

  “Gentlemen,” Linders said, acknowledging Bishop’s statement. �
��This Customs and Border Patrol agent is the arresting officer on scene.” Bishop turned to face Kaminski, Keaton and McKellar. The room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, looking at each man in turn, “I do not yet know precisely what Dominican holds over your heads. Nor do I care. I can tell you one thing for sure, though. Your power, your influence, your money, and whatever skills you possess will not protect you from him if he has previously setup an information dump about all of you in the event of his arrest and detainment. I want you to think about that while we’re en-route to a secure detention and interrogation facility.”

  Senator Keaton finally spoke up.

  “You are foolish,” he said, distress plainly evident in his voice. “I know who you are, Agent Michael Bishop. You’re not CBP. I’ve even seen your file. You’re a CIA field agent and a bloody assassin. You have nothing on me. In this secure room, in my own home, you have nothing on me. You have nothing on us.” He spit the last words out. He was about to say more, but as he looked around he noticed that Tudor was smiling faintly.

  “Tudor!” Keaton shouted, “What have you done?” Jorge remained silent, eyes fixed on Bishop.

  “I am military,” General Kaminski piped up. “I demand my right to be detained only by military personnel. You’re required, by law, to call—”

  “Shut up, Kaminski,” Diane said, cutting him off. She looked at Keaton. “Senator, the arresting officer is fully accredited by CBP. Your nonsense about the CIA is just that. The agency cannot and does not operate on U.S. soil. You’ll be traveling with CBP Agent Bishop as well, by the way. You can pretty much forget about protocols.”

  “You have nothing,” Keaton grated again. “What is this? The word of Jorge Tudor against me? Against General Kaminski? A convicted felon seeking advantage by making accusations against a five-term senator and a respected, senior military official in order to get out from underneath smuggling charges? Come on!”

  “Keaton,” Diane said, a baleful look on her face, “do you really think we all came charging in here to mess around with a five-term senator and a two-star general of the Army just to have a little sport? Really? On Jorge Tudor’s word? Because if you do, think again. You’re all caught, recorded in high-def audio and video. One of Dominican’s own people did a data dump on the FBI, through a lawyer.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Keaton said. “You’re bluffing. This is a ridiculous con!” Diane just shook her head.

  McKellar finally spoke.

  “Where is Marc Dominican right now?” He was sweating visibly and his voice was shaking. “I need to know that my family is protected.”

  “Dominican is in custody,” Bishop replied. He looked around at the three men before continuing. “I’ve got his driver and his bodyguards as well. His office staff too. Everybody. Marc Dominican is not your problem. The information he has in his files is your problem. That information will shortly be in my hands. Or an information dump about all of you will shortly hit the headlines. I guess that depends on how quickly you cooperate and whether or not Dominican is feeling vindictive. The data dump we received from Dominican’s close associate is incontrovertible, though.”

  “Nonsense,” Kaminski blurted. “Dominican’s influence runs long and deep. He doesn’t have to roll over. He’s the Devil incarnate. He’s, he’s…” Kaminski was struggling to find the precise word he needed to express his loathing of the man. “He is simply evil. He’ll lawyer up and that will be the last you ever see of him.”

  At that, Bishop looked over at Diane and then turned to face her squad leader. It was a prearranged signal.

  “Stop recording,” she ordered. “Confirm.” Everyone was silent until squad leader nodded.

  She turned and looked over at Bishop and nodded very slightly. He tapped off the remote link on his phone as well. The lead tactical squad operator nodded to confirm to Bishop as well that he too had shut down all of his team’s recording devices.

  “Let me explain reality to you,” Bishop said in a deliberately pedantic kind of classroom tone. “Mr. Marc Dominican is not going to see the light of day for a very long time. He’ll be a toothless old man, rotting somewhere in a prison in who-knows-where. There is no Miranda for him. No habeas. He’s going to be detained without charges, interrogated for as long as it takes to squeeze every last contact and illicit money transfer and every last detail of every single crime he’s ever committed in or against the homeland. Once my people are satisfied that he’s been wrung dry, Dominican will be dropped into a very deep hole and buried forever. You don’t keep his kind of rabid dog around. You get what you can out of him until you’re absolutely sure he has nothing left. Then you make him disappear. This guy could bring down half the government. It’s not going to happen. We need the country to be more stable, not less. His expensive and highly skilled lawyers will run for the hills the instant that we take care of the first order of interrogative business with Mr. Dominican. That will specifically be extracting from him the names and activities of all the lawyers who knowingly helped him break the law. I will personally draw immense pleasure from informing each of the lawyers, anonymously of course, of the evidence and awareness of their individual involvements and the need for their absolute cooperation, inaction, disassociation and information in return for the government’s silence on the matter.

  “You gentlemen do not yet seem to understand that Dominican has private files on every individual he has ever dealt with. He knows about every hooker, every shoplifting charge, every bribe, every backroom deal, every spousal assault. He has excellent video and audio recordings of every meeting he’s ever had with every lawyer, senator, janitor, auditor, predator, arbiter and facilitator he’s ever met or done business with. His relationships are based solely on highly personalized and intimately conceived coercion, blackmail and extortion. Do any of you think for a single second that he would do business with lawyers he couldn’t control? You know how he controls all of you. Why would you think he doesn’t control his lawyers in exactly the same way?” Bishop looked mildly at each man, quietly daring them to think rationally.

  “Go on,” Keaton finally said after half a minute had passed. Kaminski and McKellar shifted uncomfortably.

  Bishop looked at Diane and made a small circling motion with his hand. She immediately spoke into her comm unit. “Start recording,” she ordered and nodded to the tactical squad leader as well.

  “Dominican is a private citizen,” Bishop said, “just like Mr. McKellar here. However, Mr. McKellar, unlike Dominican, is a just puppet not a puppeteer. So I do not have the slightest qualm about doing whatever I want with Dominican. I suggest you forget about him, because as of twenty twenty-five hours this evening, Marc Dominican ceased to exist as far as all of you are concerned. We now have all of Dominican’s files. Video, audio, everything, is being cracked as we speak. With the information in those files, a lot of the people that the three of you deal with will begin to fear for their own security. Those are the ones you need to worry about right now, not Marc Dominican. Those are the ones who’ll scheme and pay seriously big money to send people to shut you all up permanently. Without me,” he went on, thinking about Alexei’s grim line to him earlier in the day, “none of you will make as far as the men’s room.”

  He stared at Kaminski a little longer than he’d intended. The uniform Kaminski wore was going to be taken away shortly, but Bishop wanted to rip it off the man’s body right then and there.

  “You’re pathetic. But you still have the option of a simple, redeeming choice. It’s the choice to cooperate. Things will never be the same again. Not for any of you. And all this,” Bishop opened his arms as though performing on a grand stage, “all of this is going away. But with your full and unreserved cooperation, at least you’ll still have your lives. You will cooperate. You will expose all of your operations and networks. My people will stop one stream of money flowing to terrorist suppliers. Some innocent people who might have been killed in a market
place bomb blast will live because you helped to staunch the financing needed to support a cell of fanatics. A bus full of mothers and kids in London won’t be blown up. Another bunch of innocent people in a deli in Paris won’t be slaughtered. A few more elephants and rhinos will survive. The world,” he paused for effect, “will keep on spinning.”

  It was clear to Diane that the three men had begun to look scared. Kaminski’s right hand had developed a tremor. McKellar was pale as a ghost. Keaton’s usually perfect posture had become a slump, and his eyes darted from side to side for a moment.

  “The world and this country do not need another scandal, lurid with details of terrible men, leaders, who were born without the ability to control their greed, avarice and arrogance.” Bishop bowed his head and when he spoke again, it was in a quieter voice. “Your children and grandchildren do not necessarily need to grow up with the knowledge that their fathers and grandfathers left them a legacy of noxious greed, barbarity and humiliation. You control all of that merely by cooperating, and it will be a courageous thing for you to do.” Bishop looked directly into each man’s eyes as he said the words. “Courage, gentlemen,” Bishop repeated the word. “That is something to think about during our ride to the detention and interrogation facility.”

  Bishop turned to leave, but Senator Keaton had one more question.

  “I have… I mean we have a concern. What about David Trask? You must know about him,” he asked, his voice faint. The other two looked at Keaton, a glimmer of genuine alarm in their eyes. “What about David Trask?”

  Bishop turn back to face the three.

  “Trask,” Bishop said in the coldest voice any of them had ever heard, “is no longer a problem.”

  The three might have pleaded fear for the safety of their families, or for their own lives. Trask had been a walking nightmare, to be unleashed at any moment against them. Dominican had only ever hinted vaguely at a direct threat to them. ‘Direct’ was not Dominican’s way. But they’d all met Trask. Keaton had almost been physically ill when he and Kaminski had found a way to dig up Trask’s records without arousing suspicion. The finality of Bishop’s words began nourishing the seeds of defeat and cooperation he’d planted in their minds.