Sphere Of Influence

by Kyle Mills

  "Jonathan created quite a file on you, Christian. And I gave Castaneda a copy of it. Do you know what your other weakness is?"

  Volkov shook his head.

  "You're what we Americans call a control freak. You don't delegate. I told Castaneda that Pascal was dead and that there's no one left in your organization with any kind of real power or ability. If you were to disappear, what would happen? You'd have a bunch of kids in their early thirties running around, trying to figure out what to do while your enemies divide up your empire."

  "With the help of America's CIA, of course," Volkov said. "I'm sure there would be something we could do to facilitate the disintegration of everything you've built." Holsten gave a nearly imperceptible nod, and Volkov's hands were wrenched behind him and handcuffed. Instead of the cold he'd expected, the metal was painfully hot. "Jonathan tells me you measure everything in risk and return, Christian. If that's the case, you should appreciate the attorney general's position. Because there will be no one left in your organization to be afraid of, there isn't much risk attached to killing you. And in return he gets the undying gratitude of the Central Intelligence Agency. Not a bad deal, huh?"

  Volkov remained silent.

  "Nothing to say, Christian? I'd heard you always had something to say."

  It seemed certain that he and Holsten would have a chance to speak soon--and under much more unfavorable circumstances. The CIA would undoubtedly want to know everything.

  Volkov allowed himself to be led to one of the open jeeps and didn't resist when a length of chain was run through his handcuffs and secured to a metal loop in the backseat. This had always been a possibility, he knew, but he'd miscalculated it as a small one. It seemed that he had overestimated Castaneda. The attorney general had made a grave error in choosing Holsten over him. The CIA could never be trusted.

  The jeep jerked forward and Volkov pressed his nose and mouth into the fabric of his shirt against the dust. He could feel a strange sensation of excitement that wasn't entirely unpleasant. His normally unshakable control over the events of his life was completely gone now. What would the next day bring?

  Chapter 62

  "MARK!"

  Beamon had barely stepped from the plane when he spotted Joseph running across the tarmac toward him. Surprisingly, he found himself back in the same place he'd left from--wherever that was. Was Volkov finally running low on stylishly appointed holes-in-the-wall?

  Beamon lit a cigarette, having refrained from smoking during the private jet portion of his flight there. That was one thing Russian cargo helicopters had going for them: NO SMOKING signs were scarce.

  "Evening," Beamon said, letting a gust of wind extinguish his match. The black sky was completely starless, and the air was filled with a fine mist.

  "I'm so glad you made it back," Joseph said, his breath coming a little hard.

  "Really?"

  Joseph nodded sincerely. "We've lost contact with Christian. I've put three calls in to Salvador Castaneda but he won't speak to me."

  Beamon took a long drag on his cigarette, not sure how he felt about Volkov's disappearance. "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "Christian said that if he disappeared, you were in charge." Beamon looked over at Elizabeth, who had just jogged up alongside him. "Excuse me?"

  She put a hand on his shoulder. "Christian said that you were to be put in complete control of everything should we lose contact with him."

  "What do you mean, 'complete control of everything'?" She shrugged. "His businesses, his holdings. Everything." Beamon tossed the cigarette down onto the tarmac and ground it out with his shoe, still not quite sure what he was hearing. "You don't mean complete control--he just wants me to do something for him, right? What is it now?"

  Elizabeth and Joseph looked at each other, obviously not sure what to make of his confusion.

  "I don't know how else to explain it to you," she said. "Christian didn't leave any instructions for you. . . . He just said you'd take over."

  Beamon let out a short laugh but stifled it when he saw how serious Elizabeth and Joseph were. What was the joke? With Volkov there was always a catch. Some hidden agenda.

  "Okay. Great. I'm in charge, right? Fine. Joseph, transfer a hundred million dollars into my account."

  "The 413 account? The same one we've been using?" That wasn't the response Beamon had expected. "Uh, yeah."

  "Do you have a preference as to what accounts we pull from? There might be some tax--"

  Beamon held up his hand, silencing the young man, and started walking toward the car parked at the edge of the runway. The little bastard was going to do it--he was going to transfer a hundred million dollars into his account. Volkov really had put him in charge of the organization. Why?

  He stopped suddenly when it occurred to him that he'd managed to transform himself from the SAC--Phoenix to one of the world's wealthiest and most powerful organized criminals in less than a month. Carrie was right. He did have what it took to make it in the private sector.

  He started walking again, shaking his head.

  "Mark--" Elizabeth started.

  He put a finger to his lips. "Shhhh."

  Another few seconds of thought and his situation seemed much clearer. Christian Volkov had once again covered all the angles. What options did Beamon realistically have? He could try to get his job with the FBI back and dismantle Volkov's organization from the inside. But what would be the point? Even in the unlikely event he stayed out of jail and the Director could be convinced to take him back, he knew that every time he shut something down, one of Volkov's competitors would immediately act to fill the void. He'd end up with fifty different nutcases running fifty different illegal enterprises and al-Qaeda solidified as one of the richest drug-trafficking organizations in the world. There would be terrorists using Rolls-Royces as car bombs all over the globe.

  Joseph and Elizabeth slid into the front of the car and Beamon stretched out in back. He watched through the window as the rain started in earnest, turning the dirt road to Christian's--now his--house to mud.

  To the dismay of his companions, Beamon started laughing.

  Christian Volkov. You just had to love the guy. He'd managed to turn his organization over to the only person in the world who he knew aspired not to be the most powerful criminal in the world. The only person who would actually want him back.

  "What?" Joseph said. Both he and Elizabeth twisted around in the seat to look at him.

  "Watch the road," Beamon said. "What are we hearing from . . ." He had a hard time saying it. ". . . Our people?" Elizabeth smiled and let out a long breath as she faced forward in her seat again.

  "The military appears to have taken him into custody just after he was dropped off in Mexico. There was an American with them who seemed to be in charge."

  "Do we have a physical description?"

  "About five feet nine inches. Fairly thin and a bit pale. Dark hair cut short. Tan slacks and a white shirt."

  It had to be that preppy asshole Alan Holsten. The bad news was that Holsten had proven smart enough to get ahold of Christian Volkov. The good news was that if he'd made a personal appearance, it meant he was hanging out there all by himself. Beamon would bet money that the CIA's director didn't know anything about this dumb-ass operation.

  "Do we know where they took him?"

  "No. I've been on the phone twice to Charles Russell's office, hoping to get him to intercede on our behalf, but I have no idea what name Christian was using to deal with him. Without that we have no access. It's sort of like a code word."

  Beamon leaned forward and poked his head over the seats. "Charles Russell, the politician?"

  "Yes."

  "Goddamn," he said, flopping back in the leather seat. There it was. The piece of the puzzle that he hadn't been able to fit. How Volkov intended to pull this off What had he said when they were having dinner in L. A.? "You wouldn't believe how much money I give law-and-order politicians.. ."

  "The Mexicans
seem to know that Pascal is dead . . ." Joseph continued.

  "Christian's old number two?"

  "Yeah. He'd been with Christian for years. He knew everything and would have been able to hold the organization together. Now Castaneda thinks there's no one capable of standing in for Christian. They think that if they kill him, there won't be a reprisal."

  The car slid to a stop in front of the house and Beamon jumped out, heading directly toward Volkov's--his--office with Joseph and Elizabeth right behind. He dropped into the chair behind the desk and looked down at the phone, trying to decide what he was going to do.

  "Mark?" Elizabeth said, pulling him from his daze. "Should Joseph get Attorney General Castaneda on the line for you?"

  Beamon looked up at her. He'd come this far. "What the hell. Why not?"

  Joseph dialed the phone for him and gave him the headset. Interestingly, it fit perfectly.

  "This will go through to his executive assistant. She speaks English."

  Beamon listened to it ring for a few seconds before a woman answered.

  "Buenas tardes . . ."

  "Hi. You speak English, don't you?"

  "I do."

  "Great. This is Mark Beamon calling on behalf of Christian Volkov."

  "I'm afraid the attorney general is unavailable." "May I leave a message?"

  "Of course."

  "I am the former special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix office. In Mr. Volkov's absence I'm overseeing his business interest& If Mr. Castaneda needs confirmation of this, I suggest he use any contacts he has at the FBI."

  If his contacts were good enough--and Beamon guessed they were--Castaneda would find someone at the FBI who would tell him that Special Agent Mark Beamon had resigned and disappeared and was now being actively sought in connection with the deaths of four Afghan heroin dealers.

  "Do you have all that?"

  "Yes, sir. I have it."

  "And one more thing," Beamon said, deciding to take the power of Volkov's office for a quick spin. "I expect to be on the phone with Christian within the hour. If I'm not, I'll have to"--he paused meaningfully--"make other arrangements to contact him. Thank you."

  He hung up and started dialing again, looking up into the anxious faces of Joseph and Elizabeth as the phone on the other end of the line rang. He couldn't tell if his identity had been a revelation to them or if they'd already known. It didn't really matter.

  "Hello?"

  Beamon pulled a drawer open and put his feet on it. "Laura. How are things going? Have you heard from the Afghans yet?"

  "Are you kidding? The FBI is now the proud owner of enough heroin to get half the country high."

  "Already? You've outdone yourself."

  "It didn't have anything to do with me--those guys were on fire to do the deal. When they called they gave me two hours. I barely made it."

  "Were you able to track them?"

  "Yeah. They're holed up in a house outside of Vegas. We've very quietly surrounded it but won't move until you give the go-ahead."

  "What about the launcher?"

  "I don't know. We can't get close enough to get a good look without tipping them off. We're gathering what information we can without making contact."

  "Have you found anything interesting?"

  "Nothing so far. Look, Mark, everyone here is pretty nervous about just sitting here. If they don't have the launcher, we might be able to get something out of them that will help us find it. Every minute we don't do anything . . ." She drew short of speculating how many innocent lives were in the balance.

  "But you're staying put, right? No one's cracking." "We're solid. We don't move until we get the okay from you."

  "You're a good man," Beamon said.

  "What? I lost you there for a second. Where are you? It's kind of hard to hear."

  He suddenly realized he had no idea where he was. He'd gotten so used to being perpetually lost, he hadn't thought to ask.

  "I'll call you soon, Laura. Hold tight, okay?"

  Chapter 63

  "I have to say that I don't understand you, Christian. I'd heard how smart you were, how brilliant. But now here you are, playing a stupid game." Alan Holsten spread his arms wide, as if presenting the room they were in for the first time.

  It was fairly stereotypical, almost a cliche in Volkov's mind. The closeness of it, the blue paint peeling from the walls, the bare wooden floor. The heat. No doubt every army interrogation room in Mexico looked almost identical.

  He adjusted himself into a more comfortable position in the old wooden chair as Holsten began to circle. Volkov wasn't bound, but neither was he armed. Holsten, on the other hand, had a loaded pistol on his khaki hip, and there were a number of armed men just outside the door.

  "I know all about you," Holsten said. Oddly, he had the same aura as many of the third-world maniacs Volkov had dealt with: soft but with a simmering desperation and an infinite capacity for cowardice and cruelty.

  "I know about the Romanian orphanage, the time you spent in prison, the people you've killed. . . . You're apparently a very disciplined man and I admire that. But I have no constraints here. We both know that you'll eventually tell me what I want to know."

  That was undoubtedly true, but "eventually" could be a long time. A lot could happen in "eventually."

  Probably nothing would, though. It seemed likely that Mustafa Yasin had killed both Mark and Elizabeth. And Joseph was loyal, but in the end would find himself powerless.

  Volkov couldn't help letting his mind wander to Elizabeth and the day he'd taken her from her father. He shouldn't have let her go to Afghanistan. He should have found another way.

  "Answer my question," Holsten said.

  "I think I already have. 'Nice."'

  "I want the goddamn truth: Where is Jonathan Drake?" Volkov took a deep breath and let it out, burning a good five seconds. It wasn't much, but every little bit would help. "As I told you, I gave him the ten million dollars he asked for and he's disappeared."

  "And you don't know where."

  "Why would I care, Alan? He provided me with all the information he had and certainly would never again be in a position at the CIA that would be useful to me. If I had to guess, I would say Brazil. It seems a popular country with Americans who need to get lost."

  "And al-Qaeda?"

  "On that front you've won. Without my involvement, Yasin will eventually solidify his ties with the Mexicans, making him one of the wealthiest drug lords in the world. And he'll use that position to kill thousands of Americans" For the first time Volkov looked directly into Holsten's eyes "Congratulations. When I'm dead, your part in all this will be completely obscured. You'll be able to use al-Qaeda's newfound strength to increase the CIA's budget and inflate your own importance."

  Holsten raised his moisturized, manicured hand and struck Volkov across the face. The blow was laughably weak, though the satisfied smile spreading across Holsten's face suggested that he'd enjoyed the small taste of the violence to come.

  "You're right, Christian. It's an unfortunate situation, but there is no reason for me not to use it to my advantage. And to do that, I need quick and decisive victories in the war against al-Qaeda. I need to know exactly what areas they control, their strength, access to weapons, where Yasin and his council can be found. And I need information on your organization--your contacts, financial resources, business transactions in process . . ." His smile broadened. "I'll get all those things--I guarantee it. We have plenty of time."

  Volkov opened his mouth to speak but fell silent when the metal door at the back of the room opened and a fat Mexican soldier entered carrying a cell phone. Holsten held his hand out but the man just walked past him and offered the phone to Volkov.

  "What the hell's going on?" Holsten shouted.

  The soldier, who almost certainly spoke no English, ignored him.

  "What the fuck is going on?" Holsten screamed, pulling his gun and aiming it at Volkov. The Mexican stepped between them and moved f
orward until the barrel of the pistol was pressed to his chest.

  Holsten froze. What else could he do? Shoot? Undoubtedly he realized that the Mexican's well-armed friends sitting in the hallway would take exception to that.

  Volkov crossed his legs casually and pressed the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

  "I hear things aren't going so well down there." Volkov smiled at Mark Beamon's lazy American accent.

  "It didn't work out exactly as planned. So often this is the case. I take it your trip went more smoothly."

  "It could have been worse, but we'll see what comes of it. . . . Charles Russell, huh."

  Volkov smiled again. "Of course. Who else?"

  "I should have known. You delivered Carlo Gasta to the cops and now he's rolling over on half of New York. As the terrorism and law enforcement oversight czar, Russell's getting a hell of a lot of good publicity from all that."

  Volkov looked up to see that Holsten had holstered his gun. The Mexican was standing in the doorway now, making sure that everything stayed under control.

  "And I'm not finished yet. With a little luck, I might be able to put him in the White House."

  "Oh, I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

  There was a brief silence over the phone that Volkov couldn't read.

  "What are you going to do, Mark?"

  "You haven't left me with a lot of choices, have you? I got you a meeting with Castaneda. Holsten will be there, too, though--I couldn't get you a one-on-one. I hope what you have to sell is as good as I think it is. Your chair hurts my back."

  The line suddenly went dead. Beamon had hung up.

  Chapter 64

  "WHO the hell do you think you're dealing with? We had an agreement!" Alan Holsten shouted, pacing back and forth across the thick carpet, jabbing his finger in the air. Their surroundings had improved significantly: Peeling paint had given way to cherry paneling and the unbearable heat had been extinguished by the central air conditioning of the attorney general's office.

  "Can I offer anyone tea?" Salvador Castaneda said, carefully rearranging three cups on a silver service in an obvious effort to mask his nervousness.

  Castaneda had sided with Holsten and now was being put in the awkward position of having to reconsider that alliance. He would be reluctant to reverse himself at this late date, though, and would be strongly biased toward continuing his support for America's Central Intelligence Agency. Despite his boorish behavior, Alan Holsten had the edge.