Sphere Of Influence

by Kyle Mills

  ". . . educate the villagers, teach them what it means to be free and economically secure . . ."

  The general had been talking nonstop through the archaic headphones squeezing Beamon's ears. For the most part he'd tuned his host out, instead concentrating on not vomiting in his lap.

  The sound of the engine deepened slightly and they began losing altitude. Beamon leaned over and saw the emerald-green rows of what he assumed was rice as they descended. The helicopter landed hard, despite the soft earth, and Yung pointed to a small village a few hundred yards away. Beamon didn't catch what he said but gratefully followed him out of the whirring death trap and onto semisolid ground.

  "This is a rebel village," Yung shouted, putting a hand against Beamon's back and propelling him toward the small grouping of huts. "Loyal to the Communists. I sent men here last night to secure it."

  Beamon could see that the show had been carefully staged. The occupants of the entire village--probably twenty people--were lined up in front of their huts, guarded by no less than five men in grubby fatigues. They were obviously terrified, and Yung's appearance with an unidentified white man didn't seem to be helping any. Beamon moved his eyes along their frightened faces, trying not to focus too long on the women and the children clinging to them.

  "How do you know that this is a rebel village, General?" "Intelligence," he said vaguely.

  Beamon didn't know what to do. This was all being orchestrated for him--for Volkov. He'd be willing to bet anything that Yung had no idea of these people's political leanings--assuming they had any beyond getting the rice crop in so they didn't starve.

  Yung nodded to one of his soldiers.

  "Wait!" Beamon shouted, but it was too late. His weakened voice was completely lost in a burst of machine-gun fire. In less than twenty seconds the villagers had gone from living, breathing people to shredded pieces of dead flesh. Beamon staggered back a few steps before his eye picked up movement where there shouldn't have been any. A child--a young boy of about four--jumped up and began to run, screaming. Yung made a bored hand gesture and one of his men chased the child down. Apparently wanting to seem frugal with his boss's ammunition, he used his machete instead of his gun to finish the job. "As you can see, Mark, I am in control. And I will only get stronger."

  Beamon's peripheral vision was starting to go blank and he tried to bring it back by biting down on the inside of his cheek and concentrating on the pain. You will not pass out, he told himself, just before everything went black.

  Chapter 44

  HE'D had the dream before.

  It always started out as impenetrable smoke slowly twisting itself into human form. For a moment it clung to the soldiers like clouds on mountains, and then it was gone. There were five of them--all with impeccable uniforms, Asian features, and skin burned almost black by the sun. They were all laughing.

  Beamon walked forward, as he always did, toward one of the soldiers, who seemed to be trying to comfort a crying infant. There was something wrong, but what it was got trapped between conscious thought and the pull of his dream.

  He made it to within ten feet of the armed men when the one holding the child tossed it toward his companions. They all moved toward the baby as it arced through the air, but only the quickest was rewarded. He caught it on the tip of his bayonet.

  Beamon came awake but he didn't open his eyes. The first few times he'd suffered through that nightmare, he'd bolted upright, covered in sweat. Now he just drifted out of it with a brief but powerful sense of despair.

  He knew where it came from but had no idea why. It was a World War Two class he'd taken in college that had included vivid descriptions of certain Japanese military practices that had been lost in their new status as Friend of America. Why that image out of so many?

  The pounding in his head quickly began to disperse the memory of the dream, and he tried to focus on where he was and what had happened to him.

  The village.

  "Mark?" f Beamon heard the voice but didn't react.

  "Mark?"

  He finally opened his eyes and looked into a worried Asian face that he didn't recognize.

  "How are you feeling?" the man said in heavily accented English.

  It took some effort for Beamon to lift his head from the pillow, but when he did he saw that he was back in his room at the palace. General Yung himself was standing at the foot of the bed, looking anxious.

  "I think I'm okay," Beamon croaked.

  "Your temperature is coming down," the man said. "You're going to be fine."

  The general seemed genuinely relieved. "Mark, why didn't you tell me you were ill?"

  Beamon struggled into a sitting position, noticing for the first time the IV running into his still bruised arm. It seemed unproductive to point out that he had been feeling fine until Yung had poisoned him with his Laotian moonshine. "I've been fighting the flu for a few days now, General. I thought I was getting over it."

  "Doctor Ki will take good care of you," Yung said. "If you need anything at all, please have someone contact me immediately."

  "Thank you."

  "You rest now," the doctor said, and they left him alone. Beamon closed his eyes again. He couldn't think of anything else to do.

  Thousands of miles from his White House connections, the infamous Mark Beamon didn't look like much. Just another soft, weak, middle-aged bureaucrat. But he was a lucky son of a bitch--there was no denying it. And having lucky enemies could be dangerous.

  Jonathan Drake spun a chair around backward and sat, leaning his thick forearms on the back. It was after midnight in Laos, and the only light in the room was the sick glow of Luang Prabang coming through the open window.

  In the semidarkness the FBI agent could have been dead--lying motionless under damp blankets far too heavy for the climate. Helpless.

  Drake had heard whisperings of Beamon's unauthorized visit to Laos through his and Alan Holsten's contacts at the Bureau. In light of the continued deterioration of his position, it had seemed prudent to make a quiet appearance.

  Although it was hard to tell from Alan Holsten's growing panic, the situation seemed to have temporarily stabilized. While it was true that Carlo Gasta was in custody, it was also apparent that he wasn't talking. And even if he did, Drake was just "John" to Gasta--a man who supplied him with cash and intelligence but who had no other identity. The FBI had al-Qaeda's L. A. cell and a rocket, but their investigation was once again stalled. Mustafa Yasin was obsessive about keeping his individual terrorist cells separate, and the Russians were stonewalling.

  In the end, though, the situation was certain to begin to deteriorate again, and Drake wasn't confident that he could stop the slide. What he did know, though, was that Christian Volkov was behind all of it. As long as Volkov was allowed to anonymously manipulate this situation, there would be no end to it.

  Beamon stirred and Drake watched him, trying to detect signs of consciousness.

  Honestly, he wanted to just kill the FBI agent now. There would never be a better opportunity. But where would that leave him? Holsten was still quietly working to distance himself from this operation, and Drake knew that if he didn't regain control soon, he would find himself dangerously alone. No, Beamon was his best chance of finding Volkov quickly. The FBI agent wouldn't be difficult to control--he had been all but abandoned by his organization and was in dire need of a friend.

  "You look like shit," Drake said aloud.

  Beamon's body tensed visibly beneath the blanket, and he turned his head in Drake's direction. "Who . . . who's there?"

  Drake leaned forward and allowed his face to be illuminated by the glow coming through the window. It took a few seconds for Beamon to recognize him.

  "Drake?", "You're a long way from home, aren't you, Mark?"

  "I should have known you assholes were behind General Yung."

  "Oh, we weren't behind the coup--that just happened. But now that it has, we might as well try to use it to our advantage." Drake shrugged,
disinterestedly. "I'm not really involved in any of this. It's not my area."

  That was almost true. In fact, he had gone to great pains to keep his relationship with General Yung from the CIA operatives who worked this part of the world.

  "Uh-huh," Beamon said, feeling around on the night-stand next to him. A moment later, a flame flared and the scent of tobacco began to obscure the stench of sickness in the room. "Just looking out for me, Jonathan? I'm touched. I didn't know you guys cared. . . ."

  "What are you doing here?" Drake said, ignoring the sarcasm. "I hear that you're representing Christian Volkov." Beamon didn't say anything, instead just lay there, working on his cigarette.

  "The Bureau is being pretty tight-lipped about you, Mark. But I've got friends over there. It seems that you were undercover on an investigation into Carlo Gasta's organization. A friend of yours got killed. I'm sorry to hear about that."

  A well-formed smoke ring floated toward Drake but dispersed before reaching him.

  "That's where the story gets all confused," he continued. "As near as I can tell, you have no authority here at all." "You're right there," Beamon said.

  "That you have no authority?"

  "That it's all confused."

  Drake laughed with calculated ease and motioned around him in the dark. "No kidnappers or bank robbers here, Mark. Welcome to my world."

  "What are you doing here?" Beamon said.

  Drake didn't answer immediately, creating the illusion that he was trying to decide how much he should say.

  "I think the same thing you are. But I'm not doing as good a job."

  "Would you care to be more specific?"

  "I'm after Volkov. I have been for years."

  "Really?"

  Drake nodded. "Volkov represents a whole new kind of organized crime, Mark. People like him are wielding economic and political power that in some ways is greater than the largest international corporations--but they pay no taxes and answer to no authority. The U. S. can't afford to keep ignoring them."

  "Sounds serious," Beamon said. Drake couldn't tell if the comment was meant to be sarcastic.

  "I think you'd agree that we'd live in a better world if people like Christian Volkov didn't exist. But I've never been able to get close to him. You have. What I want to know is how you got from Carlo Gasta to Christian Volkov in the span of a week."

  Another smoke ring. This time Drake had to dodge it.

  "He was involved with Gasta," Beamon said finally. "I guess it has to do with heroin. Gasta was buying and I gotta figure that Volkov is selling--or, more precisely, brokering. My getting involved was an accident, really. Volkov was impressed with my resume."

  Even in his weakened condition, Beamon was guarded. It was obvious to Drake that the FBI agent wasn't going to volunteer information easily.

  "Why are you here, Mark?"

  "I'm starting to wonder that myself."

  "Well, let me tell you my theory," Drake said when it became obvious that Beamon was finished talking for the moment. "You want Volkov because you think he ordered Gasta to kill your friend. And I think you're right. But I'll tell you what else I think--I think that you're all alone on this and that you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting Volkov working by yourself. Shit, even if the FBI was behind you, you wouldn't get him. He never sets foot in the U. S. and if he did, he'd probably be having dinner at the White House."

  "Do you have a point?" Beamon said.

  "Ever consider working for the CIA?"

  Beamon didn't answer.

  "Look, Mark, let's call a truce here, okay? I'll tell you what I know and you tell me what you know. Then we can talk about what we can do to help each other."

  "And if I don't want to?"

  "Then I'll just walk out of here and let you go back to working all alone on an undercover operation that doesn't exist. Maybe one of these days you'll meet Volkov and then you can just flash your creds and tell him he's under arrest."

  Beamon lit another cigarette from the embers of his first one. He was obviously unsure what to do. But it was just a matter of time. He really had no choice.

  "What happened to the first guy Volkov sent here to negotiate with Yung--the one who disappeared? Did you have this same conversation with him?"

  Mark Beamon once again proved not to be as stupid as he looked.

  "I didn't know Volkov had sent anyone else," Drake lied. Actually, he'd left Pascal and his pilot to rot in the jungle. "I don't have ears in Volkov's organization. I only know about you through the FBI."

  Beamon nodded at the perfectly credible story, but it took another few minutes for him to arrive at a decision. "Chet Michaels was inside Gasta's organization," he said. "There was a lot of money coming in from offshore accounts--I'm guessing that Volkov was the source. He's laying the groundwork for a new drug cartel in Afghanistan." "A new cartel in Afghanistan?" Drake said. Just how much had Beamon figured out?

  "Al-Qaeda's skirmishes correspond to the poppy-growing and heroin-refining areas in that region. Put that together with Volkov, Gasta, and the dead Afghans in L. A., and the implication is obvious: Volkov is helping Mustafa Yasin take over the Middle Eastern heroin trade. But then, you already knew that."

  There was nothing to gain at this point with a denial that Beamon wouldn't believe. "Yeah, I knew that." "Somehow, Chet's cover was blown," Beamon continued. "At that point I believe Volkov ordered Gasta to kill him. He probably also ordered Gasta to kill that group of Afghans. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe to try to stop any further terrorist acts. He strikes me as a man who doesn't like that kind of publicity."

  Beamon leaned his head back onto his pillow, obviously finished. Drake knew that it was his turn now, but took a few seconds to run through what Beamon had told him. He was damn close. His only significant lapse was assuming that Volkov was the only player in this and that he had ordered Michaels's death. And of course he was unaware that the support for al-Qaeda was actually a now-abandoned effort on the CIA's part to crush them.

  Drake started slowly, careful to offer only information that Beamon probably already had or that wouldn't be particularly useful. It was a balancing act. He had to build trust without giving him anything substantial.

  "Volkov is not directly involved in terrorism--he's only interested in money and power. If increased terrorism is a by-product of him getting what he wants, though, then I don't think he really cares."

  "Why now? The opium trade has been around for a thousand years."

  "But it changed significantly when the Taliban gained control of most of Afghanistan. The supply of cheap high-quality heroin coming out of Afghanistan went through the roof, and that cut into the Asians' market share." Drake motioned around him. "Obviously, Volkov is heavily involved with the Asians."

  "So he's looking to hitch his wagon to the Afghans." "Exactly--he sees them as the future. But the production and refining system was really fragmented and unsophisticated, particularly after all our bombing runs. In the end it is easier for Volkov to support a consolidation under Yasin than to try to deal with literally hundreds of small players. He's been supplying al-Qaeda with arms and intelligence through his Russian connections for over a year."

  "And if all goes well, Yasin ends up with a billion-dollar income, connections to Russian organized crime, and near-foolproof smuggling lines into the U. S."

  "That's about the size of it. The FBI is doing everything it can to find the launcher, but they're missing the big picture. It's just the tip of the iceberg if Yasin is able to consolidate his position in the Golden Crescent."

  "Do you know who Volkov is? I mean, who he is really?" Beamon said.

  "We're honestly not sure. We think he was born Mihai Florescu in Romania sometime around 1958. His parents were killed in one of the government's purges and he ended up in an orphanage. He has no formal education to speak of--he's completely self-taught. Ironically, we hear that he always wanted to be a college professor--literature, I think it was. Kind of funny. Anyway, he e
nded up on the street, like a lot of kids did during Ceaulescu's regime, and got into dealing in black-market goods. He had a knack for it but still ended up in jail when he was about fourteen. Apparently, somebody there saw potential in him, because when he got out, he went to work for a criminal organization of some sort. And he moved up. It starts getting fuzzy after that. As he got older and wiser he got harder to track. He became at least ten different people and a hundred different offshore corporations."

  "Why didn't you say anything about this when we met with you in Langley?"

  "Volkov has powerful friends, Mark. I wasn't going to take any chances. The more people that know about this, the better the chance Volkov will find out that I'm after him. And if that happens, I'm a dead man."

  "Why tell me, then?"

  Drake grinned. "As I see it, you don't have any friends at the FBI willing to listen to you." He let the smile fade. "Look, Mark. I'm putting my life in your hands by talking to you about this Some of my own people don't know this much." "Likewise," Beamon said.

  "So we're outcasts. The question is: Should we be outcasts together?"

  There was a long pause before Beamon spoke. "I guess maybe we should."

  "Great. Do you have any ideas?"

  "No good ones. When--if--I leave here, I'm guessing I'll be going to see him."

  "Face-to-face?" Drake said, genuinely surprised. "You're going to meet him face-to-face?"

  "I reckon. Maybe you can use some of that fancy equipment you guys spend so much money on to track my plane."

  "Maybe. We'll give it a shot. But in case we lose you for some reason, look for clues as to where you are and pay attention to what his plans are--particularly if they relate to where he's going and where we might have an opportunity to intercept him."

  "Yeah," Beamon said quietly.

  Drake had to struggle not to smile. The great Mark Beamon was going to lead him straight to Volkov, and the CIA would be able to get rid of them both in one fell swoop. Then all he'd have to do was figure out how to get to Gasta and the immediate danger would be over.