Ghost Force am-9

by Patrick Robinson

  "The British government has never been anything less than dogmatic, unreasonable, and forever obdurate," he raged. "Perhaps now is the time for Argentina once more to consider the military option."

  "Christ," repeated Jimmy. And then, slowly, "I'm telling you, that oil business causes more bloody trouble on this planet than any other issue in the entire history of mankind. Except religion."

  He pulled up a map on his big computer and punched in the buttons that would reveal the coast of southern Patagonia and its proximity to the Falkland Islands.

  "I'll say one thing," he muttered, "it is a bloody straight line, and no error."

  He pondered the story, trying to work out whether it had anything to do with the United States and its national security. And the answer was clearly no. If the ole gauchos wanna fight the Brits over those rat-hole islands again, well, let 'em. It really is not our business.

  Nonetheless, he logged all the data in his special computer file, the one designed purely as a reminder to him, any time he wanted to check a global issue.

  But the impending row over the Falklands stayed on his mind, and at the end of the afternoon he made a copy of the articles in the Buenos Aires Herald. Then he posted them off, regular mail, to Admiral Morgan. He just scrawled "FYI" at the head of the first sheet and left it at that.

  Seven days later, however, on Monday, November 9, there were two developments that caught his interest. The first was a memorandum from Ryan Holland, the veteran career diplomat from Mississippi, who was now the United States Ambassador to Argentina. His communiqué had been sent directly to the State Department, but was then forwarded to the CIA and the NSA.

  It read:

  Continued Friday and Saturday night disturbances in the Plaza de Mayo. That's the huge square in front of the Presidential Palace in the center of Buenos Aires. The crowd appears to grow in size every night. On Saturday the police estimate there were 12,000 people, all chanting Viva las Malvinas!!

  I mention this because there have been no such demonstrations here for many years. I cannot understand this sudden rise in public indignation over those damned islands. Though I did notice a hot editorial in the Herald the other day, claiming the oil recently discovered on the Falkland Islands was in fact the property of Argentina.

  The Herald's editor, a nice enough guy with a plainly hysterical streak, was actually recommending the use of military force again. I expect it will all blow over, but those crowds were very substantial, and loud, getting louder. At no time did the President appear on the balcony of the Palace, and there was no indication of any official action being contemplated. Ryan Holland, Ambassador to Argentina.

  One hour after Lt. Commander Ramshawe read the communiqué, his direct telephone line rang. Admiral Morgan on the line.

  "Hey, Jimmy, thank you for the cuttings from Buenos Aires. Very interesting. Just remember it's easy to dismiss stuff, easy to say it's not our business. But remember last time, we ended up standing up to our armpits in that mess. The Brits and the Argentinians were really slugging it out, fighter-bombers hitting the Atlantic by the dozen, warships hitting the bottom of the Atlantic. It was a very nasty, bitterly fought war…and the USA was right in the middle of it, helping Ronnie Reagan's best friend Margaret Thatcher to win it…"

  "Sir, I was only about four years old at the time."

  "Well, you should have been paying attention."

  "Yessir. But I'm definitely paying attention now. I just read a communiqué from our Ambassador in Buenos Aires…"

  "Ryan Holland, right? Cunning old guy. Doesn't make many mistakes, and more important, doesn't waste a lot of time on rubbish."

  "Nossir. Want me to tell you what he says?"

  "Sure. Always listen to Ryan Holland, my boy. He usually knows what he's saying."

  Jimmy read. And at the end of it, Arnold Morgan was very thoughtful. "Kinda fits with what the Herald was saying, right? Growing indignation about the Brits' claim, not only on the islands, but also on the oil."

  "Well, presumably we supported that claim in 1982, so we're kinda stuck with it now, huh?"

  "Yes. We are. That's why these observations in Buenos Aires may well be important."

  "Well, Ryan says he is not seeing anything official."

  "It doesn't need to be official, does it?" said Arnold Morgan. "Argentina has spent a lot of time being ruled by a military junta. And officers from all three services have enormous influence in that country.

  "In 1982, a couple of Admirals were almost entirely responsible for that war. And if there was anything similar going on right now, it would be very difficult to run the plotters to ground. Doesn't mean it isn't happening though, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't. Just as the United Nations search team couldn't find Saddam's nuclear program in Iraq, didn't mean he didn't have one, did it?"

  "No, Jimmy. It did not." The Admiral spoke thoughtfully. "It meant the UN guys could not find it. That's all. Can't find and doesn't exist are not the same. And only a left-wing politician could think they were."

  "Do you think we ought to do anything?"

  "Well, not in a big hurry. But I would not be surprised if something was brewing. And it might not hurt to have the CIA check out the military bases along that southern coast of Argentina. Just in case. Just in case they pick anything up."

  "Okay, sir. I'll get right on it, and anything shakes loose I'll keep you informed."

  "Right, and get some reading done on the 1982 war in the South Atlantic. You never know, you might be glad of the knowledge someday. Read Admiral Sandy Woodward's book. It's the most accurate and interesting account."

  "Okay, sir. See you soon."

  For the following few days, Jimmy Ramshawe tried to understand the causes and results of the Argentine decision to make a military landing on the Falkland Islands twenty-eight years ago. It was, he decided, pretty damned obvious they decided to go for it after a slashing British government defense review in 1981 that saw both Royal Navy aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible sold to India and Australia, respectively.

  It was also, he considered, a blinding error of judgment on Argentina's behalf: to misjudge both the dates upon which the carriers would actually leave England and the fact that Margaret Thatcher was a very determined Prime Minister — a lady of whom President Reagan once said, "She's the best man they've got."

  Anyway, so far as Jimmy could see, it was a total screwup, bound for failure from way back, and a lesson for those determined to pick a fight with someone much tougher than they look.

  It was a quiet time, globally and politically, coming up to Christmas, and no one was getting wildly excited about anything, not even the Palestinians. Jimmy's studies were seriously interrupted only twice, both times by Lenny Suchov over at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

  The first time was to reveal the Russians never did issue another formal press release about the Siberians who had died in the plane crash in the tundra. At least they did not issue one that named the dead. They only announced the wreckage had not been found, and there were elements of doubt about who was and who was not on board. The military authorities therefore considered it "inappropriate" to make any formal statement about the disaster.

  As Lenny had predicted, no one in the media felt much like braving the arctic weather and conducting their own search in northern Siberia. Especially as the government had cordoned the entire area off, banned private aircraft, and banned private investigations.

  "All that," said Lenny wryly, "to prevent a search for an aircraft that was not there in the first place. Clever, hah? No one could get caught doing one single wrong thing."

  This left, of course, only the missing, and their distraught families. And three days after his first call, Lenny was back on the line with a report, meticulously put together by the CIA's men in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. It contained the names of nine people who had just vanished.

  But the list was distinguished by one fact: none of their families knew of any flight t
hat would have taken their husbands, sons, fathers, or brothers away to the far north. No one knew anything about any conference in Murmansk. And it was most unusual for any of them, apparently, to travel by Russian Air Force jet.

  These were extremely distinguished men, all of them occupying positions of the highest order, both corporate and governmental. It was only provincial government, but this particular province was bigger than the USA. These were very important men.

  There was Sergei Pobozhiy. Vanished. Went to his office that day, never seen again. There was Jaan Valuev, the OJSC boss. Gone. A billionaire, Chairman of Barcelona FC, and no one knows where he is, or where he had gone that day. There was Boris Nuriyev, the Senior Financial Vice President of LUKOIL, the biggest corporation in Russia. "Where the hell was he?" demanded Lenny, adding, "People of that importance cannot just vanish, trust me. Not even in Russia."

  And where was Roman Rekuts, a bigger-than-life guy, who stepped into the snow boots of the murdered Mikhallo Masorin, and was the uncrowned ruler of Western Siberia. "Where's he gone?" grated Lenny. "And what about his Chief of oil operations, Anton Katsuba? He's a really tough ex-drillmaster on the rigs. Was he really killed in a goddamned plane crash that no one can find? His wife does not think so. He never mentioned anything about a journey by air, and neither did the rest of them. They all were just going to Yekaterinburg.

  And that included, apparently, the First Minister of the Central Siberian Federal District, and the new Chief Executive of the Russian Far East, plus his renowned Energy Minister, Mikhail Pavlov, the man who literally masterminded the Trans-Siberian pipeline. All of them vanished.

  "Nine of them," yelled the excitable Lenny. "How you say? Vamoosed. And no one seems to know anything. The Air Force claims to have lost its plane, won't even name the missing aircrew. And the government wishes it could help. Yeah, right. I've known these bastards for too long."

  Jimmy sat pensively listening to the irate Lenny, predictably furious at behavior from the modern Russian government that mirrored that of the old Soviet Union.

  At length he said, "Lenny, are all of the families agreed the missing guys were going to Yekaterinburg?"

  The CIA spymaster checked his file. "Yes, they're agreed on that."

  "Okay, then whatever happened may very well have happened in Yekaterinburg, right?"

  "Correct, Jimmy. And I can tell you are about to wander down the investigation path I went down, and then steal my best lines. Selfish Australian bastard, hah?"

  Jimmy laughed. "Yeah, well, I was only going to mention that when the government announced the plane crash, just one day after it apparently happened, they must have been damn certain right then the guys were never going to be seen again."

  "Precisely," said Lenny. "So the guys were either transported away from the city and executed, or murdered right there in the city…right?"

  "Any report of anything unusual happening in the downtown area…?"

  "Keep quiet, Australian bastard…I'm coming to that! Now, I have one report from our agent, and we only got the report because I asked him if he noticed anything. He did not think it important enough to mention by himself…"

  "And did he?"

  "He did. He remembers from his diary he was downtown in Yekaterinburg on Monday morning, September twenty-seventh because he was having his hair cut. God knows why, he's damn near bald. Anyway, usually he parks his car and walks down Central Avenue and then cuts through one of the side streets to the barbershop.

  "But on this day he remembers one side street was cordoned off…"

  "Did he remember which one…?"

  "Silence, Australian bastard," said Lenny, routinely. "No, he didn't. But when I asked him he said he couldn't remember the name, but it was the street down the side of the big SIBNEFT office building…"

  "Get outta here!" said Jimmy incredulously. "Ole Sergei Pobozhiy's place, one of the missing guys, right?"

  "How the hell do you remember that?"

  "Mostly because I'm an Australian bastard, I suppose."

  "I wonder if you also remember my man in Noyabrsk, the one who tracked Roman Rekuts into town from the airport the week before, tracked him to another SIBNEFT office, where Sergei was also in residence…"

  "Jesus. And did he know why the street in Yekaterinburg was blocked off?"

  "No. But he remembered there were several big military transporters in there, and the guys guarding the barriers on Central Avenue were Army, not police. Trouble was, he might have gone down that street, but he did not need to. So he just kept going — but he noticed it was closed, right down the side of the SIBNEFT building."

  "You don't think they massacred those guys right there in the building in cold blood?"

  "Don't I?" said Lenny. "I am afraid you don't know them like I do."

  "What time did the Russian Air Force issue that press release, the one about the plane crash?"

  "Midnight, Jimmy. Same day. And you know that was deliberate, getting the story played down in Russia. I'm sure they had it ready many hours before that. I mean, Christ! The President, or at least the Prime Minister, must have been involved. And I checked both their timetables that day. The PM was watching an ice hockey game, and the President was ensconced in the royal box in Theater Square."

  "Where the hell's Theater Square?"

  "Moscow, James," replied Lenny, haughtily. "It's the address of the Bolshoi Theater, home of the greatest ballet company in the world. Christ, there's a few gaps in your world knowledge…"

  "Well, Lenny, old mate," said Jimmy, reverting to his best Crocodile Dundee accent, "we don't get a lot of par day durr in the outback. Upsets the koalas."

  "Fuck me," said Lenny, with mock exasperation. "Anyway, listen…what I'm trying to say is, that press release must have been agreed to sometime in the afternoon. By which time the highest level of government in Russia knew, beyond doubt, the guys were all dead, and they were not coming back. Ever."

  "Guess so. By the way, is anyone kicking up a major fuss about the guys…I mean, a wife or a son?"

  "I don't think anyone dares. But Mrs. Anton Katsuba is about ready to make a few demands. She says her husband never went on any journey without telling her exactly where he was going. And since she's about twenty years younger than him, a very beautiful ex-actress, you can't blame him for that.

  "She's called Svetlana, and they live in Yekaterinburg. He told her there was a meeting downtown at SIBNEFT that he thought would be over late afternoon. Said he'd meet her at seven p.m. at the cinema. But he never turned up. Never called. Was never heard from again. Going to Murmansk? She told our man that was the biggest lie she'd ever heard."

  "Beginning to sound like the biggest lie I've ever heard," said Jimmy.

  "Anyway, my boy," said Lenny, "to return to the big picture, we plainly have a very disturbing situation between the Russian government and Siberian oil. There must have been a threat of some kind by the Siberians. A threat that apparently could not be tolerated."

  "I guess that's it for now…oh, by the way, I just heard they've released Masorin's body to return to Russia."

  "Have they? That's a pretty old corpse by now, Jimmy."

  "Yeah, but it's frozen. Poor old Mikhallo's preserved, cold."

  "I bet he's not as cold as the other nine guys, buried somewhere in northern Siberia," replied Lenny, darkly. "Stay in touch."

  The young Lt. Commander replaced the phone and returned to his studies about Argentina and the Falklands War. He did not, of course, connect the two subjects, centered at opposite ends of the globe, which had thus far dominated this Monday morning in early November.

  Instead he decided to familiarize himself with the Falkland Islands…just in case the bloody gauchos make another grab for 'em.

  Three hundred and forty islands altogether. Two big ones, East and West Falkland, divided by the wide seaway of Falkland Sound. Only 320 miles from the nearest point on the Argentinian mainland. Less than 5,000 square miles, about the size of Connect
icut, or Ireland. The computerized facts popped out at him.

  Jimmy scanned down the screen, muttering to himself snippets of key information, in his normal, quaint Aussie phraseology…"Been British since Captain John Strong fell over 'em in 1690. Home to a coupla thousand sheep-shaggers (country farmers). Nearly all of 'em Poms (British). A Pom colony with Her Maj Head of State. Same as Australia. Christ, Queen Elizabeth of the Falklands. When you think…her Great-Great-Granny Victoria was Empress of India. That's what I call a significant decline.

  "Still, it says here the Falklands are home to the rare and bloody fragile rockhopper penguins, not to mention the ole black-browed albatross. Wouldn't want to lose either of 'em, myself."

  He came to the section on oil exploration, staring for a long while at the numbering systems used for the quadrants and blocks contained in the massive 400,000-square-kilometer Designated Zone. This is almost as big an area as Texas, and surrounds the islands completely, ending sharply to the west, where Argentinian waters begin, over the Malvinas basin.

  Many licenses had been awarded, and indeed Occidental Argentina had been busy drilling in these waters, under licensing agreements with the UK and Argentine governments. To the north, fourteen companies were awarded Production Licenses, directly from London.

  And to the south, in the Special Cooperation area, the governments of both Great Britain and Argentina were involved in granting drilling licenses. Although everyone knew London really controlled the whole operation, no one really cared until the big on-land oil strike in late 2009.

  At that point it became very serious business, because oil located on land is about ten times easier to get at than deep-sea crude in offshore locations. It is thus considerably cheaper, and the Argentinian oil consortiums never got a look in.

  Suddenly, there was no further bidding. ExxonMobil was in there, partnered by British Petroleum. Whatever oil there was immediately came under the control of the American colossus and the British giant.