Infinite Exposure

by Roland Hughes

  ***

  Heidi was back at her place for the first time in five days. The second camp was operating beyond its capacity. She had trained six different people how to operate the machine and extract the blood. She had helped interview over 100 people as team members. Almost all of them washed out during the first half hour. Still, they had managed to bring in two more surgeons for organ harvesting. Getting the stem cell professionals was proving a bit more difficult. Too many Germans remembered the story of Dr. Mengele and they did not wish to have history remember them in such a way. They had even started searching on the Web to bring people in from foreign countries. It looked like one Russian doctor was going to be a good fit, but it was still too early to tell.

  Thankfully there were laundry facilities at the second camp. Heidi had managed to carry far fewer clothes with her than she would have liked. When she left five days ago she thought it was just going to be a 48 hour stint, then the other trucks arrived.

  It seemed like the interrogators were giving up early on people. Perhaps they were just as overwhelmed. Nikolaus had told her the interrogation camp was beyond its capacity. Round ups were occurring in every country it seemed and nobody was asking too many questions about where the people went, they were only asking what information had been gained. She knew they had set up a Web site to post much of the information and issued accounts to people in the intelligence service for each participating country. Everyone was keeping quiet about how the information was obtained. Some times an email would go out from the interrogation camp when the technicians found an email address, phone number, or IP address in a specific country which was used repeatedly.

  Heidi had heard they had identified thousands of cell members and hundreds of new cells around the world. The one thing she heard was that they hadn't identified any new communications centers. That part was troubling Nikolaus a bit. She knew something of the team which was pursuing such things. A lot of hand wringing and head scratching was going on as to whether they took down the ones they knew about or let them continue choosing to track those using them. The tracking strategy hadn't worked so well for the people of Lutton. That reality was causing the urgency of cell roundups and thus causing Heidi to put in 90-hour weeks.

  One thing was certain in Heidi's mind. She was glad she had sent the letter telling her contacts to keep their ears open. By her count over 1,000 patients had passed through the second camp and more were coming every day. Quite simply they couldn't keep pushing this volume through without causing a leak. It was too soon in the operation for other countries to be sufficiently implicated in the operation. If they could just make it a year, all would be well.

  ***

  Nikolaus sat at his desk doing what he mostly did at his desk, wading through paper. He now had a team of people marketing the available organs and the cash flow was alarming. Nearly every organ had its own black market and there seemed to be plenty of buyers. The party had set up its own Web site in some location Nikolaus knew nothing about. One of the sites they had been using was about to be shut down, so they transferred all of their business to the new site and went into hiding. Eventually that site would pop up, hosted in another country. Hopefully it would pop up prior to the party site being compromised so they could transfer business to it before arrests came.

  Some of the Russian mafia groups had even come poking around looking to obtain some of the business. Given the help they had been in the past and with the current operations in the field, Nikolaus authorized the marketing of some organs through them as well. It turned out Russian mafia leaders were good customers. All of that vodka and other drug use trashed their livers like car windshields splattered bugs in the summer time. They had the cash and the surgeons.

  Cash was becoming a problem for Nikolaus. There was simply too much of it. This corporation wasn't set up for retail sales and didn't own any banks. The few banks the party owned or at least controlled couldn't launder the kind of cash coming in. Nikolaus needed this money to look like it came from legitimate corporations. He had asked the people who had dealt with the current Russian mafia families on the organs to help with laundering the cash. They were of little help. They simply didn't launder any money. Their response had been “buy and sell diamonds.”

  While it was true that you could purchase diamonds for cash, then sell them to jewelers and receive a check, there simply wasn't enough of them and this company wasn't in that business. At least the stem-cell sales were all to institutions which cut checks. The Russian mafia clients who had purchased organs had also opted to pay with a check when asked. In desperation Nikolaus had sent an email to Hans asking for help. Hans had sent him back an email address for someone named Vladimir who was doing work for the team and had quite a few Russia mafia contacts of his own.

  Nikolaus had already been the Russian mafia route, but was desperate enough to email Vladimir. He received an email response asking him to call a specific cell phone number at a specific time on the following day. He was advised to also use a disposable cell phone when he made the call. Nikolaus made the call the next day.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, are you Nikolaus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who introduced us?”

  “We've never met, but we were put in contact with each other by a person named Hans.”

  “Good. I'm sitting here with some friends that run some investment and loan operations. We won't use their names for now. How much cash are you looking to run through such an operation?”

  “Right now there is roughly $180 million in various currencies. We need this money to come back to us in the form of a check to our special pharmaceuticals unit or one of our other business units. We can make up some bogus inventory items and conduct the transactions in that manner, but we need the money to come in the form of checks.”

  “How much are you willing to pay for this service?” asked another voice on the phone.

  “Depends on the level of service. Will you be picking up the cash and sending us an order for the items that will never be shipped?”

  There was some talking in the room which Nikolaus couldn't quite make out, then the response, “That would depend on where the pick up would occur.”

  “We have a secured facility not far from Nuremberg if you have your own planes to fly the cargo out. We can even pack some legitimate medical supplies in the containers to throw off the casual inspector if that makes life easier. “

  Again there was some more talking in the room.

  “Are you able to ship legitimate medical supplies to stores and pharmacies in Russia?”

  “We are a manufacturer of quite a few things, but not a distributor. Traditionally we set up credit accounts with wholesalers and distributors then sell and ship to them.”

  “That could work. Are you able to set up item numbers which are available only to certain distributors?”

  “Yes, we do that all of the time, especially for privately developed drugs or drugs of national importance. Why do you ask?”

  “Can you set up some form of Web page which would let a customer look at your current inventory products that a customer is authorized to purchase?”

  “We already have that system.”

  Again more talking in the room. This was beginning to infuriate Nikolaus. He wasn't used to being treated like a beggar.

  “Is the email address Vladimir has for you secure?”

  “No email is secure.”

  “Some can be, but most aren't, this is true. Is there a fax number used only by you?”

  “Yes,” he responded and gave them the number.

  “We need you to set up a list of item numbers and descriptions. We also need you to add a distributor to your system which is the only distributor authorized to look at those items. This distributor should be able to look at any of your general items as well. Vladimir will fax you all of the information and the descriptions for the items. You will fax back the list of item numbers and the description in your sy
stem.”

  “There will be one item number for each type of currency we can handle. You will tell us how much you have to launder by manually entering one unit for each denomination. One dollar, one rubble, one peso, etc. The price in your system will be .75 of the currency's value. You will pack the currency into medical shipping containers with these item numbers printed on the outside. You will inform by fax the method of entering an order on this system. We will check it at least once per week. We will also be ordering some legitimate supplies for sale to pharmacies in Russia. This will keep everything looking legitimate. You can send product literature and pricing information to the address we give you for the distributor. It is a small drug distributor in Russia that we own part of and has never done business with you. If there are any sales territory issues to work out you need to handle them.”

  “I can take care of that,” Nikolaus said.

  “Do you agree to the transaction?”

  “You want 25% to make it all look legitimate. You also want to become a distributor for our products. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a significant word of caution for you. Once you are added to the system, you will be called on by the marketing department here. There is nothing I can do about that and they have no knowledge of this business. I can try to get you put under someone I can trust, but I've never really dealt much with that side of the business.”

  “As I said, it is a legitimate distribution company. We will ensure they always speak with someone who knows what is going on and what is at risk.”

  “Good. I can have things set up in about two days once I get the paperwork from Vladimir.”

  “This should be a profitable arrangement for both of us. In fact, I know the person who will be handling your line on our end quite well. Your marketing types will only call on him a few times because he will badger them incessantly to make knock-off versions of drugs with expiring patents. That is a business your firm doesn't openly get into.”

  “Traditionally we don't. We do own another company that does however. I can see what it takes to get your distributor access to those products as well.”

  “That would be most beneficial. This distributor has three locations in formerly communist countries. The people there don't have much to spend. Products from China and Africa have been of questionable quality leading to problems.”

  “I've heard. That is why we quietly bought into the business. I thought there were Russian mafia families in the business though.”

  “They only make high-end drugs. Viagra and some others. Things they can make for a few cents per tablet and sell for over $6 per tablet on the Internet. This distributor is looking for low-cost antibiotics, cold and flu formulas, pain killers, diabetic testers, etc. Very low-end low margin stuff the Russian families won't touch, at least not yet. If they could get you to supply them these things there will be many full tractor trailers coming to us each week. It will be much easier to hide the other packages in such shipments.”

  “Agreed. The best place to hide a tree is in the forest.”

  “I look forward to doing business with you Nikolaus. By the way, my name is Dimitri. The others in the room are my assistants, but you don't need their names.”

  “I must confess I like the way you think things through. I have a much better feeling about this than I did when I made the call.”

  “While I came up with some of it, Vladimir came up with most critical piece of it. I had forgotten about the distributor we owned a large part of. Once that was put before me it was easy to see how to make money from this arrangement.”

  “Vladimir does come highly recommended.”

  “One thing which would make life easier for all of us: If you could find a way to get your customers to pay you in either euros or American dollars it would be better. We have methods of burning through that. The other currencies we are going to take a loss on.”

  “Understood. We have been trying to enforce that.”

  “While I've got you on the phone, you wouldn't have a method of selling diamonds would you?”

  “How many and of what quality?”

  “Unknown. Three small metal tubes full. Don't ask. We had no choice. It was a bait and switch at the last minute.”

  “That is the problem of dealing with African warlords,” laughed Dimitri. “Send them along in one of the packages. I will have some friends look at them and make an offer. We will come up with some method of paying you for them if they sell. Sometimes you get lucky and get a great stone. Usually you get Wal-Mart jewelry quality.”

  “So I've heard.”

  “After this has been set up and we have had transactions running for a few months I would like for us to meet and share a meal. That actually might be a good time to exchange cash for the diamonds so you could send it through for laundry or simply use it yourself.”

  “Normally I don't meet people who haven't been vetted, but I have a good feeling about doing business with you. We will let Vladimir set it up when the time is right. I am a bit surprised you didn't ask where the money is coming from.”

  “As long as you aren't selling weapons to al-Qaeda, I don't care. I know a bit about your operation. No, Vladimir wasn't the source. In truth, I was part of the chain of people who brought Vladimir to you.”

  “Well, I certainly can't thank you enough for that!” responded Nikolaus.

  That last little nugget of information rocked Nikolaus to the core. He hoped his voice didn't waiver during the response. He had believed this operation as more covert than a nuclear weapons program. This guy knew about it and Nikolaus had no idea who he was. Then again, this guy had brought them Vladimir. Until this day, he had not understood why Hans wanted Vladimir on the team so badly. There were rumors upon rumors about this guy. Some said he didn't exist, yet Hans had managed to obtain him. Had it not been for Vladimir, the entire communications center surveillance project would be toast.

  “Thank you for your assistance in this matter, Vladimir,” Nikolaus offered.

  “Think nothing of it. I like helping out my team. Hans is on my team and he trusts you with his life. By extension, I am trusting you with my life.”

  “Hans is a good soldier. You can trust him to always come through if there is any way possible.”

  “I have noticed that about him. You will have your fax in less than two hours. I need to return to my office and write it all up.”

  “Good. As soon as I get it I will start things going on this end. I will get people started on bundling up the various currencies and putting them into shipping containers. Once we have item numbers we can print up the bar codes and enter the inventory.”

  Nikolaus was left there at his desk pondering how the problem had moved on him. At first he had a problem of trying to get the cash into checks so he could record it in the corporate books. Now he had a slightly bigger problem. The board of directors were a rather loose-lipped bunch and the accountants were outside of Nikolaus' direct control. If he created item numbers under this corporation, they would want any item booking more than $10 million in sales for a quarter to be a line item on the quarterly report. It had basically taken a visit from government officials to get the black ops items all put under a non-descriptive heading.

  With the low cost of these bogus items, they could easily hide in the generic drug division though. That division was a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporation. As such it appeared as a single line item on the quarterly and annual report. Adding $50 million per quarter to its sales would spread around a little cheer to the people in that division. They had to sell millions of units to equal the profit from hundreds of units this company sold. Some of the lowest-margin products in the business came off those lines and you would find them in nearly every country under many different labels.

  It was surprising that the Russian mafia hadn't gotten into that business, then he remembered Dimitri's comment “yet.” Nikolaus's current corporation hadn't started out there either. Once you start making buckets of mo
ney, every government on the planet wants you to do charity work. The generic lines was this corporation's answer to “charity work.” Low-margin basic medical supplies for all.

  Somewhere in China there was actually a factory owned by that subsidiary which made every kind of gauze imaginable. Nikolaus had no idea where the cotton balls came from or the generic Q-Tips. There was a factory somewhere in Germany which made aspirin, cold formula and the other over-the-counter generic drugs consumers bought by the truckload. It would be interesting to see just how much of their product actually moved through this distributorship. Nikolaus made a mental note to have himself copied on the monthly, quarterly and annual sales reports for this customer.

  Nikolaus pondered a little longer while leafing through the pages on his desk. He came to the page which listed countries Germany didn't have active or good extradition treaties with. One name leaped out at Nikolaus: China. Nikolaus sent an email to a loyal party member in the generic drug division asking him for more information on the factory in China and asking him for a meeting tomorrow to discuss some additions to that business.

  ***

  Jeremy had touched down at SETAC about an hour before Stacie's flight arrived. They had both agreed he should get to the airport first so he could pick up the rental car and be waiting for her at arrivals. The drive to the lodge was only 45 minutes, but seemed to take forever. Thankfully Jeremy had gotten some sleep on the plane.

  As they drove to the lodge he chatted with Stacie about the events of the morning. When he got to the part about Lenny wanting him to spend a year or two in Kyyiv Stacie started to realize just how big this thing they were involved in was. For some reason the half-billion-dollar transfer didn't phase her, but the Kyyiv option made it seem like they were all putting together escape plans.

  “You are going to go aren't you?”

  “I hadn't seriously considered it, but I did do some research on it. I guess it would depend on how well Lenny set me up over there and how much he paid me to run the place.”