Sphere Of Influence

by Kyle Mills

  The jungle seemed to get denser as they continued, the songs of invisible birds growing in volume and coming from every direction. What he wouldn't give to be standing on Carrie's back deck, eating one of her horrible low-fat appetizers and looking forward to a fibrous, organic, salt-and sugar-free entree.

  A colorful bird finally came out of hiding and Beamon heard his new video biographer stop to get a shot of it. A moment later the entire jungle erupted in the sound of automatic gunfire. A thick tree branch was cut in half only about a foot away, and Beamon felt a sudden, searing pain in his shoulder.

  He dove toward the frozen cameraman and managed to take his legs out from under him. Tim landed hard, trying to protect his camera, and Beamon dragged him behind the trunk of a tree.

  "You all right?" Beamon said.

  At first he thought the kid was terror-struck from the bullets singing through the air, but it turned out that the little bastard was just calculating a better camera angle. He shoved Beamon out of the way and eased his lens around the tree--apparently to make sure he got an artistically composed photo of the person who was about to kill them. Beamon just shrugged and stayed close to the tree. His shoulder was killing him and he ripped the sleeve off his shirt to take a look. It wasn't pretty, but the large area and relative shallowness of the wound suggested that he hadn't been shot. More likely, it was just wood splinters from a bullet impacting one of the surrounding trees.

  He was starting to seriously consider trying to get a look at who was shooting, but then it occurred to him that the less-than-cautious cameraman was already taking care of that.

  "See anything?" Beamon shouted over the noise.

  "Just our guys!" Tim said, panning the camera. "They're moving toward the edge of a clearing. I can't see into it, though. I think whoever's shooting at us is probably there. Should we move up?"

  Beamon pulled a slightly bent cigarette from his pocket and lit it. A bullet smacked into the edge of the tree he was behind and he ducked involuntarily. This time the wood shrapnel missed him.

  "Come on, let's go up!" Tim said excitedly. "I've got everything I can from here."

  "I don't know if you've been paying attention, son, but there are people shooting at us up there."

  "You're just going to hide back here and let your guys do the fighting for you?"

  "They're not my guys," Beamon said, not elaborating on the fact that he figured at least one, maybe all, had been slipped a few bucks to make sure he caught one in the back.

  "We can't just sit here forever," Tim observed. Unfortunately, that was probably true. So what were their options? Make a run for it, get lost, and die of Montezuma's revenge somewhere in this godforsaken jungle? Or . . .

  He suddenly remembered that this was what he'd been telling himself he'd wanted for years--to go out in a blaze of glory. Film at eleven. He'd quit the FBI, he was guilty of planning the murder of four Afghan drug dealers, he'd gotten Chet killed. Was there any real point to hiding behind this tree like a coward? Even if he managed to get out of here alive, Christian Volkov and Alan Holsten would almost surely come after him to make sure he never talked about what he knew. Well, fuck them. Fuck all of them. He took a final drag and flicked the cigarette into the jungle. "You want some good footage? Let's go get you some."

  Despite the fact that whoever was shooting didn't seem to be specifically shooting at him, there were a hell of a lot of bullets flying overhead as he slithered out from behind the tree. He stayed on his belly, inching his way toward the nearest of the soldiers they'd hiked in with.

  It turned out that he was dead--hung up on a branch with bullet holes everywhere but mostly concentrated within the loop of a heavy gold chain he'd been wearing. A twenty-four-karat bull's-eye.

  Beamon pulled the body down and used it for a shield as Tim crawled up beside him and gleefully propped his camera on the dead man's bleeding chest.

  A quick look around suggested that the force they had come in with was nearly gone. There were broken bodies everywhere and the few men still alive were hiding, not shooting. Beamon wasn't in a position that allowed him to look into the clearing, but the sound coming from it was enough to be sure that he wasn't up against an M16 or AK-47. He was willing to bet that whatever was being used to pin them down came off the top of a tank or something. A bullet impacting a tree behind him confirmed that suspicion when it created a deep crater eight inches in diameter.

  When he looked over at Tim, the camera was pointed directly at him again.

  "What are you going to do now, Mark?"

  Beamon laughed. For some reason the question sounded like a TV commercial he'd once seen. If he remembered right, the appropriate answer was something about a trip to Disneyland.

  The constant stream of bullets ripping through the forest seemed to have redirected itself about twenty feet to his right, so Beamon rolled over and crawled to a large tree at the edge of the clearing. Peering around it, he saw that they were at the edge of a narrow landing strip. It was about forty feet away and covered with an enormous camouflage net that would make it impossible to spot from the air. A medium-sized metal building splashed with earth-tone paint was another fifty yards beyond. The gunfire, though, was coming from two fixed machine guns surrounded by sandbags. Both were manned but the rate of fire was slowing a bit. They seemed to be aware that they had made their point.

  Beamon pulled back and scanned the jungle behind him. As near as he could tell, there were only three men left alive and uninjured from the group he'd come in with. Volkov had done a hell of a job setting this up--no one was going to walk away.

  He looked over at Tim and saw that he was still filming, no doubt pretending that there was some kind of bullshit war-correspondent heroism in all this. Beamon knew better.

  He leaned out around the tree and aimed his shotgun at the closest of the machine-gun nests. The person manning the gun wasn't even visible behind the huge metal plate at the back of the barrel, so Beamon just fired at the narrow slit used for sighting.

  A direct and utterly pointless hit. He threw himself to the ground as the guns revved up again and focused on his position. The destruction around him was filling the air with enough dust and vaporized wood to make it hard to breathe. If they couldn't shoot him, they were going to suffocate him.

  Beamon covered his ears and remained motionless, waiting for some body part he'd become fond of over the years to get blown off. It seemed like an hour, though it was probably only a few seconds, when the bullet impacts suddenly stopped. The guns were still firing, but no longer at him. A moment later a deafening mechanical whine combined with a deep, rhythmic thudding became clearly audible over the machine guns.

  He inched forward and peeked out from behind the tree, holding a hand up to protect his eyes from the sudden wind that had kicked up. It took him a moment to compute that it wasn't wind at all but the downdraft from a helicopter hovering over the clearing. He squinted and looked up at it, seeing that it wasn't anything like the one he'd flown in on. This one was black, angular, and bristling with dangerous-looking weapons.

  The Gatling gun hanging beneath its fuselage had already completed its work on the first machine-gun nest, and Beamon watched the line of small explosions in the dirt as the helicopter redirected its firepower to the other nest. The sandbags blew apart and the gun itself was shredded in a matter of seconds.

  The airship turned gracefully and brought its gun to bear on the small building across the airstrip, causing it to completely collapse in less than a minute. Then the helicopter just turned and disappeared into the bright blue sky.

  "Enough with the camera already!" Beamon said, turning on the young man who had been following him around for the last hour. "I swear to God I'm going to shoot you!" Tim didn't look particularly intimidated by Beamon's tirade. It probably seemed kind of mild after the day they'd had. When Beamon began reaching for his gun, though, he took a step back.

  "I guess I've got some background stuff I could do."

&
nbsp; "I thought you might," Beamon said as he watched the cameraman stroll off toward a neat line of bodies baking in the setting sun.

  Only five of the Mexicans he'd come in with had survived--three without a scratch and two with relatively minor injuries. The men who had manned the machine-gun nests hadn't fared quite so well and had been left where they'd died. Removing their bodies would have involved a shovel and a sponge.

  A survey of the collapsed building revealed that it had been stacked with individual bags of what he assumed was heroin. Most had been penetrated by- bullets, and no one seemed anxious to get too close without a respirator. If anyone had been inside when the Gatling gun had turned on the building, they were dead. Nothing could have survived.

  What all this had to do with him remained an unanswered question. The surviving Mexicans seemed to have no interest in shooting him and had been genuinely impressed by his futile shot at the machine gunners. They also suspected that he was the one who had called in the chopper. Of course, that had to have been Volkov. But why?

  The satellite phone that he'd turned back on about half an hour earlier started to ring and he picked it up. "Hello."

  "Mark! It's Laura."

  "What happened?" he asked, sitting down on the edge of an old stone well.

  "You aren't going to believe it."

  "Tell."

  "We got it."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said we got it."

  His breath leaked from his mouth and he felt some of the tension in his body ease.

  "You're sure. You got the launcher?"

  "And another rocket! There isn't much left of the launcher itself--the truck caught on fire. But this is definitely it. The FBI is now the proud owner of one slightly melted Russian rocket launcher!"

  Beamon started to lean back but caught himself when he remembered he was sitting above a well. "Congratulations, Laura. You did it. Any of our guys get hurt?" "Nothing worth mentioning."

  "What's the Director saying?"

  "What can he say? I've got the launcher."

  Chapter 68

  "JESUS! What are you using? A spoon?"

  Christian Volkov watched silently as the doctor continued digging around in Beamon's shoulder.

  "You had a great number of wood splinters, Mark. That was the deepest--and the last." He irrigated the wound and taped a large bandage over it before gathering up his torture devices and walking silently from the room.

  Beamon motioned toward the elaborate bank of unmanned computer terminals against the wall. "So, were you able to get the space shuttle down safely?"

  Volkov smiled. "If I understand your question, the answer is yes. Everything went as smoothly as could be expected. No significant resistance."

  Beamon had actually considered just pretending that none of this had happened, but the see-no-evil, hear--no-evil defense seemed a little strained at this point.

  "And the Afghans?"

  "In Mexico? Almost all dead. A few escaped, but I expect them to be found within the next twenty-four hours." Beamon eased his shirt back on and began buttoning it. "Is something wrong, Mark? It's not just the shoulder. . . . You look unhappy."

  "I guess I'm just trying to figure out where 'flooded America with Asian heroin and exterminated every Afghan south of El Paso' is going to fit on my resume." Volkov shrugged. "Yasin is cut off from his income stream, and the support he enjoyed from me and the Central Intelligence Agency is gone. In addition to that, you found your rocket launcher. It seems to me that you have very little to complain about. Everything went beautifully, no?"

  "For you, maybe. And for Laura. She found the launcher and you're on your way to being the wealthiest man in the world--if you're not already. As for me, I'm still wanted by the FBI for helping Carlo Gasta kill those men in L. A. among other things."

  "You're turning into a real glass-is-half-empty person, Mark. It doesn't suit you."

  Beamon stood and stuck his hand out. "It's been interesting knowing you, Christian."

  Volkov didn't move from behind his desk. "Are you going somewhere?"

  "By my reckoning, we're even. I was kind of hoping you'd just let me walk out of here. Was I being naive?" "I'm not sure I agree that all our accounts have been settled."

  "No?"

  "As I see it, I still owe you for taking my message to Carlo Gasta. Ten million, wasn't it? Plus expenses?"

  "If you just have one of your planes take me home, we'll call it good."

  "Home? Do you mean back to your apartment in Phoenix? My understanding is that the FBI has two men waiting for you there. As you say, your activities over the past month haven't been . . . um, within the normal parameters set out by your government. You've been in a similar position in the past, haven't you? You don't seem to learn from your mistakes."

  "There's a difference this time."

  "What's that?"

  "I'm actually guilty. Sort of fundamental, don't you think? I'm going to have to go back and face the music sometime."

  "Face the music for what? For finding a rocket launcher that would have killed hundreds if not thousands of people before it was located? For stopping Mustafa Yasin from gaining enormous wealth and power? Perhaps Alan Holsten and Charles Russell will be kind enough to leave their beautiful homes and families to visit you in prison."

  Beamon frowned. Admittedly, his return to the U. S. wasn't something he was looking forward to.

  "As I see it, you have two options," Volkov said. "I can pay you the money I owe you and provide you with a new identity that will allow you to live out a luxurious retirement abroad . . ."

  Beamon tried to picture that--skipping from one place where he didn't speak the language to another place where he didn't speak the language, wandering through the rest of his life with nothing to do. He'd die of boredom.

  "You said I had two options. That's only one."

  "Stay and work for me."

  Beamon laughed.

  "Why do you think that's funny? It's a serious offer." "I'm an FBI agent, Christian."

  "No you're not. You're an unemployed man wanted in his own country."

  "I don't see myself as some kind of international crime lord."

  Volkov smiled mischievously. "A bit too late to avoid that designation, isn't it? You've just helped orchestrate the largest drug deal in history. The best you can do is take the first option and be a retired international crime lord. Try to think outside the box for a moment, Mark. In the greater context, what do I do that's so horrible?"

  "Well, you peddle drugs that destroy people's lives and cause incredible misery and suffering."

  "Nonsense. People don't subject themselves to misery and suffering voluntarily. I'm surprised that you would be so unsympathetic."

  "Unsympathetic?"

  "How would you react if some teetotaler made the observation that bourbon had caused you nothing but misery and then presumed to take it away from you?"

  It was a good point.

  "You supply weapons that are used to butcher innocent people."

  Volkov opened his mouth to speak but Beamon held up his hand and silenced him. "I know what you're going to say: that my own government has done the same thing in Guatemala, Cuba, Libya, Afghanistan, and God knows how many other countries for reasons no better than yours. The difference is, I don't work for that branch of the government."

  "I was going to say no such thing, Mark."

  Volkov reached into one of his drawers and pulled out a pistol. For a moment Beamon thought he'd argued too well, but Volkov just put it down on his desk and dug what looked like a set of car keys from his pocket, which he placed on the desk next to the gun.

  "Once again, Mark, I'd argue that people pursue things that give them pleasure. I've put two things in front of me. One I will give to you. Do you want the gun so you can use it to kill someone of a different race or creed or political philosophy than yours? Or would you prefer the car--a Ford Excursion, I believe. Low miles. Leather . . ."

 
Beamon could see where this was going but responded anyway. "I guess I'd have to take the car."

  "Of course you would--you're an American and Americans are obsessed with the acquisition of wealth. The pleasure you might get from killing, say, a black man would pale in comparison to the pleasure you'd get from owning a nicer vehicle than your neighbor's." Volkov pushed the keys and gun a little farther across the desk toward Beamon. "Now, imagine you're Northern Irish. Or Congolese. Or Croatian. Which do you choose, Mark?"

  Beamon frowned but didn't speak. The really absurd thing about Volkov's argument was that it was about ninety-eight percent true.

  "So it's agreed," Volkov said, leaning back in his chair. "You'll stay and work with me. Not because you want to, but because you have no other choice."

  "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think so."

  Volkov shook his head sadly but his eyes seemed to smile. "Poor Mark Beamon. So confused, yet so predictable." He leaned to his right a bit, looking past Beamon through the open door of his office. "Elizabeth! Do you have those tapes ready?"

  She appeared a moment later, hurrying across the room in a yellow skirt and black blouse that were probably very stylish but made her look a little like a bee. Beamon watched her put a video into one of the televisions bolted to the wall.

  "How's the shoulder?" she asked, walking over and gently tracing her finger around the bandage beneath his shirt. "Does it hurt a lot?"

  "I'll survive."

  She blinked her big brown eyes and then disappeared out the door.

  "Another reason to come work for me. Elizabeth seems quite taken with you. . . ."

  "A girl that age would kill me."

  "Somehow I knew you'd say that." Volkov jabbed at the remote on his desk and the television on the wall came to life.

  The camera work was jerky, adding an interesting sense of claustrophobia and desperation to the footage of him and a column of Mexican soldiers marching through the jungle. It turned even more dramatic when the bullets started flying and he pressed his back against a tree, his inadequate-looking shotgun at the ready. Some strategic editing had removed the part where he'd sat around smoking and considering making a break for it.