Sphere Of Influence

by Kyle Mills

  The cloud cover must have been low and dense--no moon or stars were visible and he lost sight of the plane almost immediately. It was a weather pattern that he had expected; the heavy overcast would make it even more difficult for his people to track him.

  He folded his thick arms around himself, already feeling the cold, thin air penetrating his shirt. It had been over ninety in D. C., making the idea of bringing a jacket seem absurd. He took a step forward and nearly lost his balance in the blinding darkness. What if no one came? What if they had just left him here? When the sun finally came up, would he find himself in the middle of an endless, empty wilderness--stranded in an uncharted part of Siberia or Uzbekistan? What time was it? Would it get colder? Was it possible that he had been left here to freeze?

  It was almost half an hour before the sound of an engine began to emerge from the silence. Drake turned toward it and concentrated on the low hum. His eyes were well adjusted to the darkness, and it wasn't long before he was able to discern a weak glow in the distance. Soon there was enough light to see the outline of the densely packed trees that he had known surrounded the airstrip from the heavy scent of pine. When the gray Chevy Suburban glided to a stop in front of him, its headlights illuminated the faded Cyrillic writing on a dilapidated hangar, confirming Drake's suspicions as to his general location. He climbed into the backseat unbidden and found himself separated from the front by a panel of opaque glass, leaving the driver silent and invisible.

  It was another hour of nothing but poorly maintained dirt roads lined by impenetrable forest before the car veered off onto what looked more like a wide trail than anything else. The vehicle continued forward at not much more than a walking pace for another fifteen minutes before it jerked to a stop in front of an old log cabin. Drake took a deep breath and stepped out, examining the isolated building in the vehicle's headlights. It looked abandoned. Part of the roof was missing and the walls appeared to be on the verge of collapse. The only sign of life was the smoke billowing from a crumbling chimney and the flickering light coming from inside.

  He straightened, rising to his full six foot three, trying to look more confident than he felt as he marched forward and pushed through what was left of the cabin's door.

  Fueled with fresh evergreen branches, the fire inside was raging. He averted his eyes slightly, making a quick sweep of the cabin's single room. There wasn't much to see: a broken table, the rusting frame of a bed, two chairs.

  "You wanted to see me, Jonathan?"

  Christian Volkov was sitting in one of the chairs, leaning back enough to bring the front legs off the floor, seemingly at ease. Drake approached slowly, examining the man carefully.

  Although they'd met four times during their association, Drake was always surprised by Christian Volkov's unremarkable appearance. He was of medium height, maybe five foot nine, and thin in a vaguely athletic way. His eyes and hair were a deep enough brown to give him a slightly ethnic look, but his fair skin and the gray at his temples softened the impression. There was no aura of power or charisma, no piercing intelligence or ruthlessness visible in his moderately handsome face. Overall a rather forgettable man of around forty.

  Despite the uncertainty of his situation, Drake's confidence began to return to him, as it always did when he saw the diminutive Volkov. He strode across the room and took a seat in the empty chair, his height and bulk creating a substantial presence.

  "You asked for this meeting," Volkov said, motioning around him through the firelight with a dead expression on his face. "What is it you'd like to talk about?"

  His accent was upper-class British, though Drake knew that English wasn't his native language.

  "I thought it was important for us to meet, Christian. I thought I should tell you face-to-face that everything's moving forward as planned."

  "I see," was Volkov's only response.

  Drake tried to read him--the real purpose for this inconvenient and dangerous meeting--but the combination of Volkov's slack expression and the erratic shadows from the fire made it impossible. "Obviously there are additional complications and we're going to have to take care of those--tie up some unanticipated loose ends. I want you to understand that and to be prepared for it. There's no need for you to be concerned."

  "What kind of loose ends?"

  Jonathan shrugged in an attempt to make the question seem trivial. "We're going to begin blocking any paths that could lead to us . . . or to you. That's going to mean removing some of the people who aren't necessary to the operation going forward. As I said, it's not something you need to concern yourself with. What you need to focus on is that we still expect you to deliver on your agreement." Volkov folded his hands in front of his face, gazing past them at the crackling fire. For a few moments he looked just like the literature professor that Drake's intelligence suggested he had once aspired to be.

  "What happened, Jonathan?"

  "That really isn't your concern, either. It's enough for you to know that everything is moving forward as before." Volkov slammed his hand down on the table and Jonathan scooted back involuntarily, despite his superior size and physical strength. He had never seen Volkov express anger--or any other emotion, for that matter--and it suddenly reminded him of where he was: thousands of miles from home, sitting in front of one of the most powerful organized-crime figures in the world.

  "You've made it my concern, haven't you, Jonathan? Your stupidity and ambition have involved me in the potential deaths of hundreds of people--of women and children. American women and children. You used my contacts to arm al-Qaeda with a powerful portable weapon and you allowed them to outsmart you and smuggle it into the United States--despite my repeated warnings. Why should I trust you to fix a situation that only a fool would create?"

  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 third 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.
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  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 what 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.