Sphere Of Influence

by Kyle Mills

  And that was something that bothered Beamon too. Volkov didn't seem the type.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, considering the problem. Finally, Laura spoke.

  "The Director wants Gasta. He's responsible for the death of an FBI agent and the deaths of those Afghans. Not to mention the drugs. What are you going to do?"

  "I'm not going to do anything. I don't even know where he is."

  "You think Volkov will find him and phone in another tip to the cops? That he wasn't just screwing with you?" "That's what I think."

  "If you're confident, we can probably use that." "Use it?"

  "Are you confident?"

  "I think so. Yeah."

  Laura pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed. "Director Caroll? Mark Beamon just called me."

  The shouting on the other side of the phone was audible from across the table.

  "He's in pretty deep, sir, and hasn't been able to get to a phone. He doesn't know where Gasta is right now, but he's doing everything he can to locate him. He thinks it will take another day, maybe two. Yes, sir. He's going to contact us but he says it won't come directly from him--it's too dangerous. It will be another anonymous tip. Yes, sir. I don't know--that's what he told me. I only talked to him briefly. Thank you, sir."

  She shut off the phone and looked up at him. "See where that gets us."

  "You're being stupid, Laura. I'm beyond saving--we both know it. It's time for you to start distancing yourself from me, okay? This situation is only going to get worse." She started playing with her glass again, seeming to not hear him.

  "What is it now?" he said.

  She didn't answer.

  He grabbed the glass. "Laura?"

  "Remember when we talked a few days ago? When I told you that finding the guy behind Gasta wasn't going to be a priority for the Bureau?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, that was true, you know." "I know."

  "Spit it out, Laura."

  "I didn't need to say that. I . . . I did it on purpose. I wanted--I needed--you to pull one of your crazy stunts. I was desperate."

  Beamon was caught off guard by the statement and wasn't immediately sure what to say. In the end he just laughed. "I always knew you were an evil bitch."

  "Mark, I'm serious."

  "Me too."

  "If you lose your job . . ." her voice trailed off.

  "No great catastrophe. It's not that good a job."

  She finally found the resolve to look him in the eye. "Do you want to see where your crazy stunt got us?"

  "What do you mean? I thought you said you were getting nowhere."

  "I did. I said I was getting nowhere. So far, though, your record's not bad."

  Chapter 38

  "DIAL the phone, Mark."

  "No."

  "Dial it."

  "Look, I don't want to, okay? What am I going to say?" Laura accelerated the car slightly and flipped down her visor, blocking the glare off the empty desert highway in front of them.

  "It doesn't matter what you say. You just need to say something. She's worried about you or she wouldn't be leaving messages at my house."

  "Tell me where you're taking me."

  Laura pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed a number into it. "Carrie? Hey, it's Laura. Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Yeah. . . . You can't even imagine." Beamon grimaced, knowing what was coming.

  "Hey, guess who's sitting right here next to me? None other. . . . Want to talk to him? Hang on."

  Beamon made a halfhearted attempt to look pissed off but was just too tired. He took the phone and pressed it to his ear. "Carrie? Hi. How are you?"

  "I'm okay, Mark. Where have you been? The people at your office just say you're out. It's all been very secret agent. . . ."

  He had to admit, as out of control as his life had gotten over the last week, it was great to hear her voice. Even better live than on the machine.

  "It's probably not as interesting as it sounds," he lied. "I got conned into doing an undercover job for a friend."

  "Aren't you a little old for that kind of thing?" "Thanks, Carrie. Always nice to talk to you."

  "That's not what I mean. I mean that you're the SAC--Phoenix. Is it common for people in your position to do undercover work?"

  "Like I said, just a quick favor for a friend."

  "Anybody I know?"

  In fact, it was. Chet Michaels had been a first-office agent in Flagstaff, where Carrie lived and Beamon used to work. In fact, Chet had been at Beamon's apartment when Carrie had asked him to the wedding that was technically their first date.

  "No. No one you know."

  "Well, I bet you're really good at playing the desperate criminal type."

  "I've already made over three million dollars."

  She laughed. "If it was anybody else, I'd think that was a joke."

  "Tax-free. I'm thinking about switching careers."

  "So you're doing okay? You're not going to get yourself shot at."

  "Nah. I'm good. A little tired. Maybe I am getting too old for this."

  "I'd like to get together and talk, Mark. How much longer is this job going to last?"

  Beamon stared out the window, squinting against the sun. It was a good question. The rest of his life? "limns out it could be a little longer than I thought."

  "Really? What about the inspection? Is that done? How did it go?"

  The inspection. He'd almost forgotten about that.

  "No, it's not quite finished," he said, not knowing if it was true or not. "I think it's going to turn out better than I thought." Definitely a lie. "What do you want to talk about?"

  "Maybe it would be better to wait until we can get together."

  He glanced over at Laura, who was pretending not to be listening. "Are you finally dumping me?"

  "Mark! No. It's nothing like that. Kind of the opposite, actually."

  "Well, you've got me now, and I can't guarantee when we're going to get to talk again. Maybe you should just say what you want to say."

  There was a brief silence over the phone. "Okay. I will. It's about what we talked about at dinner . . . about your job."

  "Yeah?"

  "I told you that I thought you could do really well at it if you tried."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  "I've been thinking about that. Maybe it's all about doing what you love. Someone once said to me that life is not a rehearsal. Counting on getting your reward after you die is kind of a leap. So maybe what it's really about is making yourself happy."

  "What happened to striving for mental health, balance, and self-improvement?"

  "As much as I hate to admit it, I'm starting to feel the irresistible pull of your philosophy. . ."

  "My philosophy?"

  "Psychotic, self-destructive, hedonistic wacko-ism."

  "So you're giving up obsessive soul-searching, self-doubt, and Amish-like discipline?"

  "Touche. What I'm saying is that if a little denial and a couple of beers helps get you through the day, it's not such a bad thing. And if you hate that job, why not just take a demotion or whatever you have to do to get back to the one you loved? When you're lying on your deathbed, you won't be thinking, Damn, I wish I'd have gotten a higher SES rating. . . . Mark? Are you still there?"

  Was it possible that she had finally convinced herself to take him back full-time, just when it was too late? The gods continued their mean streak where he was concerned. "Yeah, I'm still here. I'm just surprised."

  "Me too."

  Another long silence.

  "Emory's been asking about you."

  Laura had pulled off the main road and was heading toward an old prefab house sitting in what looked like the middle of nowhere.

  "You tell her I'll see her--see you both--soon. Look, Carrie, I've got to go. But don't worry, okay? Laura's watching out for me."

  "That makes me feel a little better," she said, sounding genuinely relieved. "Hurry up and finish what you're doing. I'd like to talk some m
ore."

  "Me too."

  He hung up and handed the phone back to Laura as she eased the car around the dilapidated house to a more discreet parking space in the back.

  "Thanks a lot, Laura. Now I'm really depressed."

  She set the brake and jumped out, leaning back through the open door. "I think I have something that's going to cheer you up."

  The house was simplistic in design, nothing more than a slightly crooked box surrounded by a yard devoid of anything but sand, and open expanses in every direction. It was as if the building had fallen from the sky and landed there by chance.

  "Is this where the FBI's putting you up, Laura? I've got a four-thousand-dollar-a-night suite. Maybe I could put in a good word for you with Christian."

  She ignored him and pushed the front door open. After his eyes adjusted, he saw that the interior was about what he'd expected: furniture with the stuffing hanging out, a dirty shag carpet, water-stained walls. The windows had been covered with thick black cloth, creating a depressing gloom.

  "Where are we?" Beamon said.

  "This is it, Mark. We traced the van those Afghans were driving. It wasn't easy, but it led us here."

  Beamon looked around him again. "Is the FBI watching the house? You just told the Director you couldn't find me." "A friend of mine is in charge of surveillance. He agreed to take a coffee break for an hour."

  Beamon shook his head. "Stupid, Laura. But since we're here, did you find anything? Is there a connection to your terrorists?"

  She shrugged enigmatically.

  "Did you check phone records?"

  "Yeah, but we didn't find anything interesting. There was somebody here holding down the fort, though." Beamon spun around to face her. "There was somebody here? You've got somebody alive?"

  She nodded, a real smile spreading across her face for the first time that day. "He's not talking yet, but we've got him." "Have you been able to figure out who he is?"

  "We haven't been able to identify any of them yet. We're running their prints and photos through every law enforcement agency we can think of. Somebody will claim them. Eventually."

  "But you don't have anything concrete to link them to the terrorists. I mean, they're probably just drug dealers, right? Just because you come from Afghanistan doesn't mean you're a terrorist."

  "I've got one more thing to show you."

  He followed her into the kitchen and then down a rickety staircase to the dirt floor of the basement. The light wasn't very good--provided by a single bare bulb--but he could see that there wasn't much down there: A plywood table with a long, wooden box on it was about all. Laura strode over and pulled the top off the crate.

  "Jesus . . ." was all Beamon could get out. It was just like in the picture: about ten feet long and pitch black, with small fins at the base and a conical nose cone. What hadn't been visible in the photo, though, was the elegant Arabic script etched on it in gold.

  "What does it say?"

  "'Death to the great Satan,' jihad this, jihad that. Typical Muslim terrorist stuff"

  He ran his hand along its cold surface, feeling the individual letters. "Jesus," he said again.

  "What do you think?" Laura said. "Not bad, huh?" "Your long shot seems to have come in. My hat's off to you."

  "Remember what I said about your sins being forgiven if we turned up something," she said. "I think this qualifies as something."

  "Where did it come from?" Beamon said, strangely mesmerized by the deep black of its surface.

  "Like I said, probably the former Soviet Union. Built mostly out of spare parts from old multiple launch ammunition, with a few parts specifically, if crudely, manufactured for it. Our people say it's not particularly sophisticated, but it'll get the job done."

  Beamon nodded.

  "Apparently--and you're not going to believe this--there's at least one organized-crime outfit throwing these things together and selling them. The beautiful paint job wasn't done by the terrorists: They're sold this way. It's all about marketing. This unit's called ... I think it translates into something like Fire of God. They package them to appeal to their buyers. If they sold one to the IRA it would probably have a picture of the pope on it."

  "We live in a very strange world," Beamon said. "Does this mean you've tracked it back to the group that sold it?" "It's not that simple. These outfits are like smoke, Mark. More than likely a bunch of former KGB agents feathering a retirement nest. You wouldn't believe the maze. You can't tell where crime ends and politics starts over there." "So you don't know how many more of these are out there?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then you're assuming that the launcher is on the road," Beamon began, "that this is just one of a number of cells holding a rocket."

  "Right. Somewhere we've got a truck with the launcher in it and he's waiting for word to go to a cell with a rocket. Maybe this is the only one, but I doubt we're that lucky." "Well, you can be sure he won't come here. The thing with Gasta's been all over the TV. Whoever's running this operation knows that this cell is blown."

  "Hopefully, the rocket and the launcher aren't together yet. We've been leaking information to the press to keep the panic fairly high. It's killing the economy, but I'm guessing that's al-Qaeda's plan. They won't crawl out of their holes until things start going back to normal." Laura looked down at the rocket. "If we're right and Yasin is trying to set himself up in the heroin business, we've got real problems. He's going to have a whole lot of money and connections to the Russian crime machine. There's no telling how many of these toys he'll be able to buy."

  Beamon nodded. "I wouldn't even worry about that. What I'd worry about is that his relationship with the Mexican smugglers is going to mean he can get anything he wants into this country anytime he wants."

  The sound of a cell phone ringing startled them both and set them to patting their pockets.

  "Mine," Laura said, putting it to her ear. She hung up after a moment and began towing Beamon toward the stairs. "Your friend works fast, Mark."

  Chapter 39

  LAURA steered the car through the small industrial park, finally gliding to a stop in front of a utility truck parked sideways across the narrow road. A man in coveralls immediately climbed out of it and began walking in their direction. Laura rolled down the window.

  "Ma'am," he said, touching his hard hat politely, "we've got a busted gas main in here and we've had to close down the entire area. It shouldn't take long. Hopefully we'll be done with the repairs in a few hours."

  Laura flipped open her FBI credentials and held them up so that the man could see them. He crouched down and leaned into the window a bit. "Our guys are almost in position and we've got the area locked down. We'll be breaching in probably five minutes." He pointed to the warehouse behind him. "Go around there and I'll have someone meet you."

  "Thank you," Laura said, rolling up the window and pulling away. In the side mirror Beamon watched the "workman" talking into a walkie-talkie.

  "I admit it's not ideal, but it could be worse," Laura said, picking up the conversation they'd been having before they were stopped.

  Beamon laughed. "Your optimism is actually starting to cheer me up. Keep it coming. Seriously."

  The situation she was talking about was the anonymous tip that had been received regarding Carlo Gasta's location. While the enigmatic Christian Volkov had been right on time, he'd called the cops and not the FBI. Based on what Laura had told the Director, he would assume that the tip had originated with Beamon and see it as Beamon giving him the finger.

  "We can just play it off as a mistake," Laura said. "Tell him that--"

  "Give it up, Laura," Beamon said as she parked the car and they got out. "The cops are about to catch Gasta and he's going to tell them all about Nicolai."

  "Are you sure? Gasta's afraid of you, right? And he's an insecure ass. Are you sure he wouldn't just forget about Nicolai and take credit for the heist himself? He's screwed either way."

  "Laura . .
."

  "And even if he does implicate you, he's not going to do it right away--he's going to wheel and deal. We still have some time."

  "Not as much as you think."

  A shadowy figure standing in the door of the warehouse in front of them motioned them over. "Agent Vilechi?" he said when they got within whispering distance.

  She nodded. "And this is my associate." She didn't give a name.

  "Could you follow me please?"

  The LAPD had taken over the second floor of a vacant warehouse, which was now filled with ten or so men moving urgently back and forth, talking quietly into phones and radios, gazing into video monitors, making notes on clipboards. The windows at the far end of the expansive space had been covered in a similar way to the ones in the old house he and Laura had just left. Beamon was about to peek out of one when a rather unhappy-looking man started hurrying across the floor toward them.

  "Agent Vilechi. I'm Lieutenant Troy Marsten. I'm in charge of this operation."

  "Call me Laura," she said smoothly. "We appreciate you letting us watch. We won't get in your way."

  He glanced up at Beamon but that was the extent of his acknowledgment.

  "We've got real-time video of all sides of the target building and we just got fiber optics in through the skylights." He pointed to a line of monitors on the floor, and Beamon crouched down to examine the different views of the warehouse across the street.

  The exterior wasn't all that interesting, but there seemed to be a fair amount of activity inside. The building was one huge room with ceilings that were high enough to make the entire space visible to the overhead cameras. He could make out five men inside, but the angle and quality of the image made them impossible to recognize. The van parked in the middle of the concrete floor wasn't quite so hard to identify, though. He remembered that vividly.

  A voice came over Marsten's walkie-talkie and he held it up to his ear. "They're ready to go. Is everyone up here ready?"

  There was an affirmative murmur from the group as they crowded around the monitors. Marsten put the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Go! I repeat: Go!"

  Black-clad men carrying battering rams suddenly materialized on-screen and made quick work of the warehouse's doors. A moment later they were inside and Beamon redirected his attention to the interior video. The five out-of-focus figures inside froze for a moment and then began to scatter, but it was too late. A cascade of glass fell past the camera as the skylight was smashed and a sniper shoved his gun through.