Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy

by Nicolas Kublicki

  Pink marshaled his thoughts. “The new garrison must be different in some way.”

  “Its individual members are all different,” Forbes said, reloading his pipe.

  “Do you think maybe...” Pink’s voice trailed off. The idea was on the outer edge of his mind, just beyond its reach.

  “Different loyalties than the members of the old garrison, perhaps? Their commanding officer is new. Marshal Aleksakov.”

  “That would make sense. But loyalty to whom? Waterboer?”

  Forbes shook his head slightly. “Waterboer couldn’t be paying off over a hundred soldiers. Anything so obvious would fly against the rule of secrecy.” He referred to the axiom that a secret propagates to the cube of the number of people who know about it. If only one person knows, he can keep a secret. If two people know, then at some point eight people will know, and so forth. Which was why popular ideas of secret conspiracies were not only farfetched, but virtually impossible.

  “What if Waterboer isn’t paying off the entire garrison, only the new commanding officer?” Pink asked.

  Forbes considered it for a moment. “There is only one fly in the ointment, or rather one inclusion in the diamond, if you’ll pardon the expression.” He stoked his pipe, lit it carefully. “Motive, Pink. What motive could Waterboer have to pay off the CO of a garrison protecting Mirny, if Mirny is still producing diamonds? The garrison has no role in the diamond production, only its protection.”

  Pink’s theory imploded. He was crestfallen. “Right. If Waterboer had engineered the explosion, they would have made certain the center stopped producing diamonds.” He looked through the window past Forbes’ desk. His thoughts wandered, refocused. “But that doesn’t kill the conclusion. If it’s not Waterboer, it must be someone else. Someone did this.”

  “But who?”

  Pink grinned. He was so used to looking for hidden information that the obvious had never entered his mind. “Russia. The only group involved in Russian diamond production other than Waterboer is Russia. And today, Russia has many faces, many powers.”

  “Russia is paying off the CO?”

  “Communists, nationalists, the mafia.” Pink interrupted. “Whoever controls the Mirny diamonds can sell them. Waterboer, the secondary market. You name it. The question is: who controls Mirny?”

  “It certainly fits. Orlov is pushing for a higher price for Russian diamonds. Whoever controls Mirny can sell diamonds to Waterboer at an artificially low price and still make a huge profit. Waterboer would jump at the opportunity. They already had Pyashinev on payroll. He fudged the numbers for Waterboer so Orlov’s people wouldn’t suspect a thing. And whoever controls the Mirny diamonds could conceivably fudge the payment balances as having been received by the Russian government.”

  Forbes paused and smiled for the first time during their meeting. “An excellent analysis, Pink. I would say correct, too, in light of information we received yesterday morning. Which is why I asked Gold to analyze this in the first place. Otherwise I would have left it up to our friends across the river at Justice.”

  Pink thought of the telephone call and postcard from Carlton.

  With a quick flick of his wrist, Forbes managed to throw a folder on Pink’s lap, facing straight. Pink opened it, stared at the rows and columns of black figures set against bright white paper. They faded in and out of focus in his blurry vision. They seemed to be a chronological list of assets and debits for hundreds of items.

  “An internal Waterboer balance sheet for the purchase of Russian diamonds during the past month,” Forbes said. “None of it made any sense until your analysis. It’s the last entry I’m interested in.”

  Pink looked at the last entry on the sheet, paused. “I’m not an accountant, but it looks like a purchase of 250 carats at $100 a carat.” Pink looked up from the folder. “The present contract is for $150 a carat, and we know from our sources in Orlov’s office that the new contract is for $300 a carat.”

  “If 250,000 carats is roughly the amount processed at Mirny each month, and if Waterboer paid $100 a carat instead of $150 or $300, Waterboer must have purchased these diamonds from a source other than the Russian government.”

  “Maybe it’s not the production from Mirny that’s being sold. Maybe it’s the missing diamond stockpile.”

  “The numbers are too close. 250,000 carats in a month. After what happened at Mirny? Too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.”

  Pink bit his lip before asking the question he had wanted to ask since Debbie Gold had given him this assignment. “Please forgive me for asking, sir, but I don’t understand why the Agency is involved. Diamond contract or not, this seems to be a domestic Russian problem. Why is the—”

  “Why, indeed. There are many reasons. I’ll give you three. First, there is almost never a thing as simple as a purely major domestic Russian problem. Generally, extrapolated to its logical conclusion, a major domestic Russian problem becomes an international problem. Second, the Company operative who supplied the information in your hand was murdered by Waterboer no less than twenty-four hours ago.”

  Pink stared at the document, the numbers having suddenly taken on grave importance. An agent had given his life for them.

  $5,000,000 L. Pyashinev

  $25,000,000 (250Kcts.) Bank of Vanuatu/ 117837622

  A word that preceded the name of the bank seemed to have been whited out.

  “The third reason is because the South Pacific bank account on the sheet of paper in your hand was accessed two days ago to purchase ten stolen AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow units on the black market for $55 million. Are you familiar with the Rainbow?”

  Pink shook his head.

  “The Rainbow is an air or ground-launched defense suppression missile with a forty-pound fragmentation warhead. It looks just like a cruise missile. Unlike the cruise, the Rainbow can linger in a target area for long periods of time. It’s extremely accurate, and its prelaunch programming is virtually unjammable.”

  “Who—”

  “The name on the account is a front for an organization you know well.” He paused. “Russkost.”

  “Russkost? The Russian nationalists? Molotok? Those crazies are the ones behind this?” He paused. ”If they’re behind this, then—”

  “Then someone is about to start a Russian civil war that’ll make Chechnya look like a county fair.”

  Pink sat in stunned silence.

  “That’s why the Agency is involved.”

  “Then Russkost controls Mirny as a source of funding?”

  “It appears that way from your analysis.”

  “But if they control Mirny through the new garrison commander and sell the diamonds to Waterboer through who-knows-what channels, they can buy weapons from anyone they want.” He stood. “My God. They can bankroll—”

  Forbes motioned him back into his seat. “No they can’t. Don’t you see? Mirny is their weak point. Their Achilles heel. The 250,000 carats a month coming out of Mirny aren’t enough. Like the Chechens. They’re armed, but not well enough—$25 million monthly, if the production from Mirny continues. It’s enough for a real good shootout, but not enough to reach critical mass. The key isn’t Mirny. The key is what you confirmed—that ten million carats are missing from the stockpile the Russian government sold to Waterboer.

  “We have to assume Russkost doesn’t control that yet, or they would already have sold it to Waterboer. If they do get their hands on the stockpile, Waterboer will pay Russkost whatever it demands to keep them from tanking diamond prices.” He puffed on his pipe.

  “So you see? The familiar dance continues, and the dance cards are full. Us against them. Except them isn’t the Kremlin anymore. We’re on Orlov’s and Russia’s side in this one. Them is Russkost and Waterboer.” Forbes wheeled himself behind his desk, indicating that their meeting was over.

  Pink continued looking at the document on his lap. An entry caught his attention.

  $20,000,000 Cleveland Metals, Inc./Bank of Vanuatu/11
3567854

  There it was, black on white. The company Carlton told him about. And the Bank of Vanuatu. Was it the same account number? He tried to memorize it so he could verify.

  Pink was about to tell Forbes about Carlton, but an inner voice stopped him. If Carlton was right and Fress was involved, there was no telling who else in the government could be involved. Carlton said they had already killed the Senate aide and a farmer. It sounded almost like a covert operation. Could the Agency be involved?

  Pink walked out of Forbes’ office calmly, then bolted to his office and tore Carlton’s postcard from the wall.

  113567854

  The same account number.

  “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!”

  He rifled through the papers on his desk for Carlton’s work and home numbers, called the work number first.

  “Hi. This is Pat Carlton with the Department of Justice. You’ve reached my voicemail. To bypass this message hit pou—”

  Pound. “Carlton, it’s Pink. I checked your figures. Please call me. And you’ve got to disappear. Fast.” He left his number, called Carlton’s home.

  “Hi it’s Pat. I’m not home right now, so please—”

  Pound. “Pat. It’s Pink. I got all your stuff and you’re right. Get the hell out. As fast as you can.”

  32 PATRIA

  Private Hangar 32

  Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

  Los Angeles, California

  7:51 P.M.

  The Gulfstream V’s twin BMW—Rolls Royce BR710 fanjets hissed while Todd Kerry ran through his preflight checklist in the all-glass Honeywell cockpit. A former Navy fighter pilot, Kerry now wore the white uniform of the Patria, the largest and fastest jet in the MacLean fleet. Thick clouds had cast a cold gloom over Los Angeles when Kerry received MacLean’s urgent telephone call. Now those same clouds pelted rain mercilessly against the white hull and thirty-foot wings of the $40 million aircraft. Not that the weather conditions bothered him much. The Patria was certified for IFR, which allowed the aircraft to take off and land without visibility. The tardiness of his passenger bothered him far more than the weather.

  Kerry busied himself with the instruments. He input wind speed, weight, and other information into the performance management computer, waited a few seconds for the program to synthesize the data into optimal rates of takeoff and climb. He began requesting preliminary taxiing instructions from the tower as soon as he saw MacLean’s British Racing Green Bentley Arnage rush toward the jet, illuminated by the aircraft’s wingtip projectors. The massive sedan slowed to a halt, disgorged two passengers, and sped away into the stormy night.

  A large man dressed in black walked up the slick metal staircase to the door hatch. He was one of the Sicilian watchers MacLean had appointed to protect Dan Wenzel. The bodyguard gazed right and left in smooth movements, unaffected by the beating rain and buffeting gusts of wind. Wenzel followed him up the staircase, far more eager to get out of the rain. An attractive, strawberry blonde flight attendant dressed in a white Patria uniform helped them inside and sealed the oval door hatch behind them.

  “Thanks, Nastassja.” Wenzel caught a glimpse of pilot Kerry through the open cockpit door and waved.

  The Patria began to taxi through the pools of rain on the concrete tarmac as Wenzel and the silent Sicilian made their way to the sumptuous main cabin. They strapped themselves into soft black leather seats. Wenzel removed the handset of a satellite telephone attached to the large armrest and dialed MacLean’s private line.

  “MacLean.”

  “It’s Dan. I’m on my way.”

  “Good. Saunders will arrange your landing. Call me when you get there.”

  It seemed as though his client wanted to say more but stopped himself, careful not to disclose any unnecessary information over telephone and fax lines he was certain were bugged.

  MacLean was fed up with the bullshit Washington hurled at him. The man was reasonable, but he would brook no further threats from the alphabet soup of federal agencies, culminating with Wenzel’s near frame and the DOJ condemnation of his Arkansas property. He despised threats from parties unknown. A bottom-line man, he wanted bottom-line answers.

  All he heard so far were threats from cowards afraid to show themselves. MacLean never turned away from a fight. He was used to them. And to the son of Giancarlo Innocenti, a fight with the federal government was just another fight.

  It was no surprise to Wenzel when MacLean announced his intention to confront the powers-that-be directly. In person. But Wenzel’s advice was as sound as ever. He convinced MacLean to let him go in his place. MacLean’s absence would make any negotiations less dangerous, Wenzel argued. If the real powers behind this remained hidden, so should he. At first, MacLean categorically refused. Gradually, however, he came to realize the value of Wenzel’s argument.

  Wenzel would fly to Washington, unannounced. Unlike in Macon Grove, however, he was not taking any unnecessary risks. He would fly MacLean’s jet instead of a commercial airline. He would be shadowed by the Sicilian. He would make contact with Colonel Saunders, a MacLean friend at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, who would give him a measure of local protection.

  For his part, MacLean also took no chances. On Wenzel’s counsel, he had not stepped foot outside Castel MacLean in two weeks and had replaced his hired security guards with soldiers supplied by the trusted family of Don Forza in Sicily, who Giancarlo Innocenti had mentored long ago. Direct from Sicily, the ten soldiers, including the one accompanying Wenzel to D.C., preferred the knife and garrotte to firearms, despite the Steyr sharpshooting rifles that hung from their shoulders. Silent and dressed in black from head to toe, they were devoted adherents to the Sicilian code of omerta. On the order of their don, each would die protecting the only son of Don Giancarlo Innocenti, each would remain mute if interrogated.

  Kerry opened the throttles wide. The unmuzzled fanjets screamed to life. Their 29,500 pounds of thrust pinned Wenzel and the Sicilian into their seats, rocketed the G-V down the runway. Seconds later, the Patria pushed through the thick layer of rain clouds shrouding L.A. below. Stars blinked on one by one in the black sky through the oval portholes. The ‘No Smoking’ sign winked off. Wenzel placed a cigarette between his lips. Nastassja lit it with a Zippo lighter held in white gloved fingers. Wenzel watched a billow of smoke rise to the ceiling, where it was sucked into the filtration system.

  “Thank you.” He exhaled.

  “My pleasure, sir. Would you care for a cocktail before dinner?”

  “Sure would. Scotch and soda. On the rocks, please.”

  “Yes, sir. If you would care to take a look at the menu.” She handed him and the Sicilian silk-lined menus embossed with the navy blue insignia of the Patria.

  He smiled. Knockout flight attendant, white gloves, cocktail, dinner menu. MacLean was incorrigible. Even in the midst of crisis, the man retained his devotion to the esthetic.

  Kerry banked to port over Santa Monica Bay, executed a 180-degree turn east toward Maryland before accelerating to the G-V’s maximum speed of Mach 0.9. He switched on the PA system as the Patria continued its ascent to a rarefied altitude high above the congested airways of its commercial brethren.

  “Good evening, Mr. Wenzel. Our ETA at Andrews is three hours and forty minutes. We’ll be flying at fifty-one thousand feet, well above turbulence. Have a pleasant flight, sir.”

  Kerry clicked off and checked the altitude reading on the eight-inch Head Up Display (HUD). The HUD flashed essential information directly onto the windshield, eliminating the need to look back and forth at the gauges. Had he glanced at the multicolored radar screen instead, he would have noticed a tiny dot that approached the Patria at vertiginous speed. Not that he could have done anything about it. As a fighter pilot, his instinct would have told him to evade, to launch countermeasures, and, as a last resort, to eject. But the Patria was not his old Navy Tomcat. It was unable to evade a missile, carried no chaff to confuse it, and had no ej
ector seat to deliver him from its impact.

  When the proximity alarm wailed, there was nothing for Kerry to do but stare at the radar screen helplessly. And pray. Pray until the massive decompression from the surface-to-air missile’s impact rendered him unconscious.

  Unlike Wenzel, the Sicilian, and Nastassja in the main cabin, Kerry felt nothing when the Patria’s fuselage crashed, nose first, in the stormy swells of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica Bay.

  33 ESCAPE

  Westover

  Northern Virginia

  5:32 P.M.

  Carlton pulled into the parking area outside his apartment building. He was beyond exhaustion. Beyond confusion. He was operating on adrenaline and instinct.

  Five minutes to collect his uniform and the bare essentials, maximum. After that, he would melt away into the scenery. Fade away into the cold gloom of winter. He walked from the Shark to the rear door of his squat brick apartment building through the half foot of snow accumulated during the evening’s gentle yet steady snowfall. A storm of ideas, emotions, and instincts roiled in his mind.

  He selected the key from his DOJ keychain. About to insert it into the lock, he stopped. Something was wrong. He turned around, braced himself, expecting someone—or something—to lunge out at him from the shadows of the parking area.

  Nothing. Only the soundless fall of snowflakes from a black sky. He took a deep breath. His mind was screwing with him. It reminded him of his early childhood, when he would turn on his bedroom light and look under the bed to see the monsters that lurked beneath, only to find the space empty. Except now the monsters were real.

  He remained still for some time, listening, gazing at the parking lot. If the past few days had taught him anything, it was to trust his instincts. Something was causing his fear.

  He decided to ditch the rear door and enter the building from the front. He walked back to the Shark and opened the trunk. As an officer in the Navy Reserves, he could be called to duty at any time. For that reason, he kept certain items packed in the trunk of his car. He moved the cement blocks used to weigh down the car’s rear on the icy winter roads, reached under the carpet partition. He pulled out a plastic case, unzipped it, and removed a black Glock 20 automatic handgun. The Austrian-made, polymer-frame, double-action weapon was considered by many experts as the pinnacle of handgun manufacture. Carlton placed a spare box magazine in his pocket, tossed the case back into the trunk, and slammed it shut. With rapid movements, second nature after six years of Navy training, he released the detachable box magazine from the butt, verified it contained a full load of fifteen 10mm Parabellum rounds, slammed the box back into place, and chambered a bullet. He held the weapon with his right hand on the grip, his left under the butt. He walked to the front of the building cautiously, hugging the cold brick wall to remain in its shadow, careful not to make any noise.