by Mark Aitken
By the time he was twenty-five, he owned a flotilla of fishing boats and a fleet of planes that flew the catch directly into Moscow. Taking advantage of Moscow’s indifference to its Inuit citizens—known as Nenets in Siberia—and its desire to ‘autonomise’ them out of sight and out of mind, Reggie Kransk established the Gruppa, a collection of Nenets families around the Barents Sea who had long attempted to keep their fishing grounds free of Soviet control and commercial intrusion, and now had a focal point with Reggie’s money and his influence in Moscow. With the Gruppa, Reggie controlled a million square miles of Arctic fishing grounds by the mid-1980s.
Gallen speed-read the details. He chuckled as the writer of the report noted that Reggie had skilfully cultivated the West’s adoration of ethnic minorities by getting the Gruppa included in various United Nations and World Bank development programs. Greenpeace had made them immune from protests about whales and seals, because they were an oppressed ethnic minority; the Soviet Union had honoured their claim on ‘traditional’ fishing grounds, largely under pressure from the UN; the British television network ITV had made a documentary on the Nenets, and Reggie’s cohorts had flown in from their villas in Monaco and Sardinia to dress up for the cameras.
At one point Gallen laughed out loud.
‘What is it?’ said Winter.
‘This writer has it in for poor old Reggie,’ said Gallen.
He skipped to the part headlined Perestroika. In 1988, said the report, as the Soviet Union was collapsing from within, the Gruppa’s identity changed from a simple business box at the Naryan-Mar Post Office to a corporate address in Zurich, with Swiss lawyers, accountants and bankers. On the same date as the corporate shift, the Gruppa was renamed the Transarctic Tribal Council and was registered with the United Nations Development Programme.
‘Holy shit,’ said Gallen.
‘What?’
‘That Transarctic Tribal Council? It’s owned by Reggie Kransk.’
‘You can own something like that?’ said Winter.
The report’s author concluded with a mix of facts and speculation. From Gallen’s perspective, it looked as though Reggie’s move to Zurich had thrown a veil over his and the TTC’s affairs.
There was a final paragraph which surmised that the TTC had started as a group of Nenets fishing families, defending their ethnic rights from an oppressive regime, but had morphed into a powerful front for the Bashoff crime family. The Bashoffs were a Moscow-based operation that throughout the 1970s and 1980s had run the unlicensed restaurants, nightclubs, casinos and brothels frequented by the Soviet elite. They had formed a company called ProProm, taken over a small Siberian state-owned oil and gas company in 1990, renamed it Thor Oil, and promptly secured the sea-bed drilling rights in the fishing grounds once controlled by the Gruppa. As the Arctic Ocean opened up with the melting ice caps and the increased viability of the North-West Passage and Northern Sea Route, the Bashoffs used the Inuit territorial claims via the UN not simply to secure drilling rights across the Arctic Ocean, but to shut out the companies that comprised Big Oil: Shell, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Total.
Effectively, Reggie Kransk’s connections with the gangster-owned nightclubs and restaurants under Soviet rule had turned into a force to rival the world’s largest oil companies. Most of this extraordinary expansion had been hidden behind the Inuit claims of the TTC, claims willingly taken up by the West.
The final line of the main report said it all: It is the view of this firm that Oasis Energy—by entering into heads of agreement with the TTC—is not securing cooperation from the true tribal inhabitants of the Arctic Ocean, but is an unwitting participant in the true aim of this agreement: Russian domination of oil-drilling rights in the Arctic Ocean.
An appended report at the back was called Risk Assessment; Gallen skimmed it. It was only three pages and was filled with small sub-heads entitled Personnel Risk, Finance Risk and Political Risk. It was Newport summarising the obvious: partnering with people like Reggie Kransk and the Bashoff family delivered a lot of power to the partners who controlled a flawed or corrupt political process. Just as such connections could aid Oasis Energy, so too could they scuttle their plans without legal recourse.
Gallen flipped to the final page and was about to close the report when he saw a hand-scrawled notation in the margin, just below the sub-head Technology Risk. Turning the page on its side, he saw the words Star Okay and a line drawn from those words to underline a phrase in the risk assessment. The underlined words were strategic power source and negative potential.
Gallen dropped the report on the bed. He was too exhausted even to feel outraged by what he’d just read. Outrage would have to take a back seat while he let the fear sink in.
‘This isn’t the kind of thing we can speak about,’ he said, almost in a whisper.
Winter nodded. ‘I know. We go to all this trouble to grab something, and it’s no better than a death warrant.’
‘This goes straight to Florita and Aaron. It’s now their headache.’
‘No arguments here,’ said Winter.
‘By the way—thanks, Kenny,’ said Gallen. ‘For, you know, back there and all.’
‘Gave me a scare, boss,’ said Winter, sipping on his beer. ‘When I found you in that cave, you were like dead but still standing.’
‘I think I was hallucinating,’ said Gallen, his own voice sounding far away.
‘I know you were.’
‘How?’ said Gallen.
‘You were talking to your mom,’ said Winter, avoiding Gallen’s eyes.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 51
Gallen watched a replay of the Bruins and Maple Leafs on the hotel TV while sipping herbal tea to stay warm. Winter got off the phone to Calgary and shook his head. ‘Can’t get the Challenger up here till seven tonight at the earliest. Larry’s saying it’ll be more like nine.’
The alternative was a ten-hour milk-run flight that hopped to either Edmonton or Winnipeg before catching a jet into Calgary. In Canada’s north, cold wasn’t the only problem; distance was equally daunting.
‘Well, maybe that gives us a chance to look into something,’ said Gallen.
‘Like that Jackie?’
‘I think we can assume Jackie didn’t own that house, and that Jackie isn’t a tribal elder in the National Geographic sense.’
‘Okay,’ said Winter, grinning. ‘So what?’
‘You might want to call up the Sikorsky.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to get back to basics, see what’s what.’
‘Like?’
‘Like the soldiers from the Little Bird helo,’ said Gallen. ‘One we found dying in the snow and we ratted him.’
‘He had that accent, you didn’t think it was Russian. But we found nothing on him.’
‘And I shot another out of the helo, up behind the lookout.’ ‘Yeah, you did,’ said Winter, keeping one eye on the Bruins. ‘So?’
‘We didn’t rat him,’ said Gallen. ‘Judging by the newspaper reports, the Mounties never retrieved his body.’
‘Why are we going to do this?’ said Winter. ‘You’re supposed to be resting, boss.’
‘Because now we’ve seen this report, it’s time to assess our watchers. Who’s to say this other guy was working clean?’
‘Long shot,’ said Winter.
‘We’re up here anyway. What’s the harm?’
Winter wasn’t convinced. ‘So you think Mulligan is trying to retrieve the Newport report?’
‘Someone is; why not Mulligan?’
‘And Bren and Simon Smith may have been another group?’
‘Sure.’ Gallen nodded. ‘But if you can have two crows on the road kill, why not three?’
‘So, Reggie’s men bombed the jet?’
‘Well, I keep thinking about that soldier’s language and his accent,’ said Gallen. ‘And I don’t believe it was Russian.’
‘No?’
‘No, Kenny. I think
there’s another crew in this.’
‘I promised that doctor you’d rest, Gerry.’
‘And you promised Jesus you wouldn’t swear,’ said Gallen. ‘How’s that goin’ for ya?’
~ * ~
The skies were clear and there was no wind as they poked the snow banks with avalanche probes: long, thin poles that rescuers used to find bodies under the snow.
The weather being fine, Gallen had asked the pilots to leave and give them two hours alone. Now, after the first hour, Gallen sat panting beside Winter as they ate sandwiches from the hotel kitchen.
‘Coulda sworn it was around here,’ said Gallen, still feeling weak.
In front of them, halfway into the large snow bowl that Florita had slid down for her life, was the chopped-up area they’d just covered in a grid about thirty yards wide. Gallen had been certain the shooter had fallen into this part of the bowl.
‘I shot from this rock, and the helo was right there,’ he said, happy at least for the sun on his head. The northern tundra played tricks on the eyes, making everything look the same. They’d tried to trig it back by sight-lines, but the area wasn’t yielding a body.
Looking across the snow bowl to the other side, Gallen focused on the overhang at the top of the opposite rise. The thick ice and snow cascaded off the lip of the overhang but there seemed to be a space under the cascade and a small trail in the snow leading away from it.
‘What would that trail be?’ Gallen pointed across the bowl.
‘That’d be a fox,’ said Winter.
Gallen looked at the Canadian. ‘Would a fox show interest in our shooter?’
‘Sure,’ said Winter. ‘They’d save the carcass, bury it somewhere.’
Gallen looked up the slope. ‘It’d be too heavy to drag up to the den.’
‘So they’d drag it downhill,’ said Winter, pointing. At the bottom of the bowl was a small ravine that led into the neighbouring bowl. ‘They’d want it where the sun don’t shine, down there in the shadows.’
Finishing their lunch, they waded down the side of the bowl to the ravine and walked through it, shoulder to shoulder, probing the snow with their poles at every step. They worked their way into the next bowl then came back through the ravine, probing again. Nothing.
‘Shit,’ said Gallen, gasping for air. ‘I can’t do too much more.’
‘Let’s think like the fox,’ said Winter, looking around. ‘I want to keep the meat preserved, so I drag it downhill to a ravine and bury it . . .’ He pointed his probe at the ravine. ‘There. Under the overhang.’
‘The fox could drag the body that high?’ said Gallen.
‘No, the fox would dig straight back from the floor of the bowl.’
Probing along the flat face under the overhang, they still found nothing, until Winter put his hand up. ‘That’s hollow.’
Pulling fold-up shovels from their backpacks, they scooped away the snow under the ravine’s overhang until there was a small cavern in front of them. Hands on knees, catching his breath, Gallen looked up and into the darkness. At the base of the hollow was a body in black arctic fatigues. The shooter from the helo.
‘Shit,’ smiled Gallen, stepping towards their prize.
‘No,’ said Winter, hand slapping across Gallen’s chest.
Pulling up, Gallen looked at Winter, who was pointing at the overhang. ‘You don’t wanna be under that when it comes down, boss.’ Pulling a climbing rope from his backpack, Winter made a loop in it and beckoned Gallen forward. ‘Use your pole to push up his ankle.’
Leaning forward, Gallen got the twelve-foot avalanche pole under the soldier’s booted left foot and levered the ankle up so Winter could get a rope under the heel. The Canadian got the loop over the ankle at the fourth try and they dragged the body out into the open. The man’s face had been eaten off and most of his entrails pulled out.
‘Is the fox going to take exception to this?’ said Gallen, looking around, trying not to focus on the partly eaten soldier.
‘Fox will stay away, but we could always get a visit from Mr Grizzly, wanting to know what we’re doing in his meat-locker.’
Winter kneeled beside the soldier and started with the pockets in his parka and insulated fatigue pants. There was a packet of PK gum in a chest pocket of the parka, and two full rifle magazines in the other. They were twenty-five-round clips from the Checkmate company and had rubberised pull-grips on the bottom of them, a sign that the shooter had experience.
‘Pro,’ mumbled Winter, checking the other pockets and opening the parka. Against the man’s left armpit, where there were still military thermals, was a small military two-way radio which was slung across the chest, a mic attached to the man’s throat.
On his belt was a 9mm SIG Sauer handgun, which Winter checked for load and action and pushed into his own parka pocket. There was a G-Shock on his right wrist.
‘Much the same as the other dude,’ said Winter, standing. ‘Hi-Tec boots, generic arctic fatigues and thermals, standard mags and ammo for an M14 DMR—MIA, if you’re getting fancy. Even the watches are straight out of the PX. Nothing to ID these boys. They’re working clean.’
Gallen thought about it, his breath having returned. You could often get a feel for an enemy by ratting him—small elements usually provided clues. Elements on this shooter suggested Western forces, probably North American. The clothing and weapons could have come straight out of Chase Lang’s warehouse in Longbeach. The watches were a favourite of US soldiers and even the gum was standard North American. Yet the swarthiness was not right and neither was the accent of the other soldier they’d found.
It was almost as if this crew had dressed themselves deliberately to deceive people like Winter and Gallen.
‘PK?’ said Gallen, accepting a smoke from Winter. ‘Don’t the boys all chew Extra these days?’
‘Yep,’ said Winter, dragging on his smoke. ‘And there’s this.’
Looking down, Gallen watched Winter’s boot hit the shooter’s hip, where the thermal leggings met the shredded thermal top.
‘What?’ said Gallen.
‘If you’re from Wyoming or Saskatchewan, would you wear your cotton underwear underneath your thermals?’
Gallen laughed. Once cotton was wet, it made life uncomfortable, so North Americans went naked under their thermals. This shooter’s white cotton underwear was sticking out above the thermal leggings.
Winter kneeled, put his smoke between his teeth and pushed the thermals down. ‘The dude’s not used to snow, is my guess.’ Pulling out the back of the underwear, he tore the elastic band off and gave it to Gallen.
Reading the label of the underwear, Gallen laughed. It said, Delta Galil Industries. Made in Israel.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 52
Gallen woke to a beeping sound as the cellular network kicked in again. As he opened his eyes the Challenger’s engines depowered slightly and he felt the aircraft tipping for an approach into Calgary.
‘Coffee, boss?’ came Winter’s voice from behind.
Turning, Gallen croaked a ‘yes’ at the Canadian, who was poised at the kitchenette. Above his head, on the bulkhead, the middle nautical clock labelled Calgary said it was 2.19.
Shaking out the fatigue, Gallen accepted the mug of coffee as Winter took the facing leather-bound seat and offered him a smoke.
Lighting up, they looked out the window where the darkness was touched only by the intermittent red flash of the Challenger’s lights.
‘What if they’re Israeli, but working private?’ said Gallen, picking up the conversation they’d been having before he’d fallen asleep. ‘I mean, have we really picked a fight with the Mossad?’
‘I’ve been thinking about the private angle,’ said Winter. ‘But even the ex-IDF, ex-Mossad dudes, they only work private ‘cos Tel Aviv is getting something out of it.’
Gallen sipped coffee. ‘In that case, we’re back to what I was saying before.’
‘What’s a bunch of Israelites doing i
n the snow, taking shots at us?’
‘Yep,’ said Gallen. ‘That.’
‘You gonna take that?’ Winter nodded at Gallen’s cell on the wide armrest. ‘Got a message, didn’t you?’
Picking it up, Gallen cleared the text message and dialled into voicemail: Rob Stansfield, calling from his law offices in Wyoming, five hours earlier.