Red Ice

by James Phelan

  “So you started an affair then?” Zoe asked, shifting in close to him, her voice comforting. Fox saw something in Zoe he hadn’t noticed earlier: she was an artist at gaining trust, at being persuasive, at coaxing out information. As someone who’d interviewed hundreds of people over the years, Fox was impressed.

  Durand nodded, shot a look across the room to his wife on the deck. She had her back to them, laughing with friends.

  “Had she read the diary?”

  “Some of it, yes,” he replied.

  He held Zoe’s gaze for a moment. Sipped his drink, knew they were expecting more of an explanation. “It referenced some kind of document hidden in Paris … That was its main importance, it seems—the rest was personal entries of the diplomat.”

  “What document?” Fox asked.

  “Does it matter now?” Durand replied, anger in his wet eyes.

  “Katya’s husband was convinced that, if used properly, it would bring billions of dollars to Russia, hundreds of billions or more.”

  Fox and Zoe looked at one another.

  “I know; sounds crazy, right?” Durand went on, finishing his drink. “But that is what her husband said and he was a man who went by the book, you understand? He would not … He would not have lied about a benefit to Russia. He was convinced. Made plans.”

  “What was he going to do with it?” asked Fox.

  “He was going to sell it.”

  “Who to?”

  “Some wealthy Russian guy, I don’t know … Badovich?” Durand looked strained, trying to remember. “That tycoon, oligarch or whatever.”

  “Babich?” Fox prompted. “Roman Babich?”

  “Yeah, that guy who was arrested. Katya didn’t know him, but her husband did, and he was sure it would be worth millions to the guy,” Durand looked outside, searching for his thoughts. “But when he was arrested, Katya said her husband had organised secret meetings with the Russian government.”

  “To hand it over?”

  “I guess. If he couldn’t share in its worth he at least wanted to be a hero or something, but he was wary of who he trusted in there—he thought they’d not see the—the potential, I guess…”

  “When was he going to hand it over?”

  Durand checked his watch. “About now.”

  “What?”

  “He was meeting Putin’s guys in Shanghai—at the G20 Summit.” Durand looked thoughtful. “We were going to leave before then. Katya … She had this idea that we could sell it all to the Americans, the diary and the document.”

  “And this document,” Fox began, “did you learn anything about what this document said?”

  Durand looked into his empty glass at the melting ice and nodded.

  Fox and Zoe shared a look, stood straighter, moved closer.

  “Not much,” Durand said, “but it was deeds or something—a treaty? No, a protocol, it was called a protocol. This Russian diplomat had it signed and hidden, some kind of personal insurance. It was about Russian America—”

  49

  WASHINGTON, DC

  “So you’re really convinced that Babich is headed to China?” Bowden asked. “But you’ve still got no proof?”

  “Yep,” McCorkell said. Bowden looked from him to his task-force personnel. “None of these guys have come to that conclusion, you know that? But hey, that’s why you’re the man, right? So I can take all my guys here off their search, tell them to call off their assets in the field…”

  “We need to get some assets in China, just in case,” McCorkell said, not about to engage in a pissing contest. “Hedge this bet.”

  “I don’t gamble.”

  “It’s the G20.”

  “You know how many security services are in Shanghai for that? Babich showing his face? Sorry, I don’t buy it.”

  McCorkell didn’t know what else to tell him.

  “Know this, Bill: we will find him, and soon,” Bowden said.

  “Damned if this is gonna turn into a Bin Laden, where he’s hiding in the fucking hills because he slipped through a torn net. If we can’t take Babich in easy and quick, we’re taking the shot.”

  “Whaddya mean?” McCorkell asked.

  “He’s a terrorist. He’s attacked American soil—directed those guys who tried to storm the White House a year back—”

  “I was there.”

  “Course you were, you’re the man,” Bowden said. “Just saying, is all. This fucker’s a Tier One Personality and the protocols on how we deal with them are clear.”

  “We’re doing this through the courts, that’s always been the object—”

  “We get the shot, we’re taking him down.” Bowden had that ‘no bullshit’ look, couldn’t be swayed. “Got a few Navy and FBI widows from this morning who would fucking pull the trigger themselves, given the chance. So, even if he is headed to China, where we can’t extradite or operate with overt forces, it won’t matter any way. Wherever, whenever, he’s gone. You know that.”

  McCorkell knew that. He’d suspected it was Bowden’s intent and now it had been confirmed. The G20 Summit being underway meant all the heads of state were there already—and so it was possible that some political manoeuvres could be brought to the table that would force China to hand Babich over, should he enter the country … But that was a long shot at best. Fact was, Umbra’s corporations did plenty of business in China, equivalent to a mid-sized country, and particularly in the vital energy and resource sector that drove the behemoth economy.

  Still … Taking a shot …

  “Can you get word along to your guys in Shanghai?” McCorkell asked.

  Bowden looked at him, his eyes weighing up the request. He knew that McCorkell guessed he had a direct line not only to the Director of the CIA, but also to the president.

  “I’ll look into it,” Bowden said, going back to his work.

  McCorkell headed back towards his own desk. He was well aware of the CIA’s High Value Target protocols, which specified the names of terrorist leaders the agency was authorised to assassinate if capture was impractical and civilian casualties could be kept to an acceptable number. He also knew about the Agency’s SOG units which executed clandestine missions in countries that denied access to US military special operations forces, like Pakistan and Iran. Just recently, McCorkell had learned of a new initiative that consisted of teams of Special Activities Division paramilitary officers, organised to execute targeted assassinations against al-Qaeda operatives around the world in any country. For senior intelligence officers, it was an attempt to avoid the civilian casualties that could occur during Predator and Reaper drone strikes using Hellfire missiles. What would be Bowden’s directive if he found his man in Shanghai—an air strike from the seventh fleet? A team of door-kickers shooting it out with Babich’s security? Either way would be messy, and China was a country they couldn’t afford to mess with right now.

  McCorkell sat at his desk amid the FBI team. Their demeanour had changed; they were invigorated, less tense, more chatty.

  Bowden’s voice provided a constant thrum of orders and requests for updates from across the room, and his legacy and mission were constantly at the back of McCorkell’s mind. The intel officer had been brave enough to point out some flaws or deficiencies in his own agency. From a 2010 career high, when he had been appointed to head a task force that uncovered failings in the CIA by asking some painful questions about its own performance: How could a would-be suicide bomber have flown to Detroit despite a strong warning to a CIA station that he might be a terrorist? How could a Jordanian double agent have penetrated a CIA base in Afghanistan and killed seven agency employees? Talking to veteran counter-terrorism officers, Bowden reported a common theme that united those two disastrous lapses: the CIA had adopted bureaucratic procedures that, while intended to avoid mistakes, actually heightened the risks. The two cases were very different, yet both illustrated what can happen when intelligence managers are eager for result
s to take to their political superiors and not worried enough about risks. The consequence was a breakdown in tradecraft that proved to have fatal consequences. The post-9/11 intelligence reorganisation that was supposed to improve efficiency had made the bureaucracy problem worse. Bowden’s conclusion: the Americans have a system that is overwhelmed. He was feted for this reasoning. He’d become a specialist intelligence star who was in the fold and tough enough to criticise it. He was a man of action in an army of men equipped with explanations.

  McCorkell was worried. The danger here? An action man at the helm of a very delicate operation with a lot of unknowns.

  He knew Bowden had talked with the CIA Director, who was almost certainly now speaking with the other agency and department heads about exactly who was holding the reins of power in the Umbra Task Force. Doubtlessly, Bowden would be confirmed as king, and he’d be given the green light to do whatever it took to extract a proportional response against Babich and Umbra. Whatever it took to make the problem go away, so they could get back to the real war of fighting al-Qaeda.

  “Valerie,” he said, and she swivelled her chair around to face him. “We gotta talk to Andy.”

  50

  PARIS

  “Russian America?”

  “Alaska,” Durand said. He signalled for another drink. “The diary belonged to the diplomat who sold Alaska to the United States.”

  “I don’t understand … Sold it?” Zoe said, looking to Fox.

  “Russia used to own what’s now called Alaska,” Fox said. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Zoe in the ambassador’s residence.

  “Who’s this Stoeckl guy?”

  “A Russian diplomat. Posted for some time to the US. He died in Paris in 1892.”

  “Sold it to the US in the late 1860s. Known as Seward’s Folly…” He turned to Durand. “So Stoeckl was the diplomat who handled the sale on Russia’s behalf?”

  Durand shrugged.

  Fox asked him, “What did this protocol say?”

  “I have no idea,” Durand said. “But the ambassador was going to sell it for a lot of money … Well, not now…”

  His eyes welled with tears.

  “Katya was leaving him. I had booked tickets to London … She’d given me her passport to hold onto—” he pulled it out of his inside jacket pocket and put it on the bar, useless now. “Please, my wife doesn’t know anything, I want to leave it that way. It’s over now.”

  “Did Katya ever speak of being in danger?”

  “No, not like what happened, but she knew that she was followed sometimes, by her husband’s embassy guys or maybe French or American agents.” His eyes grew a little more alert, as if he’d made some sort of connection. “Last week, a man approached me; he spoke fluent French, but perhaps he was Russian. I pushed him away but he knew everything. About me, about her, my family, even the diary. I thought he must have worked for her husband, but then he said if we got the diary for him, he’d pay us a hundred thousand euros and put us in touch with someone else to help us move and set up new identities—he gave us an option, an out; it was perfect.”

  “Too perfect,” Zoe said. It all came together. That guy, or someone connected to him, had killed Katya. He’d pushed him away. Maybe he could have saved her. Zoe quickly sent a text.

  “We need to know everything you can remember about this man,” she said. The plain-clothed cop from the lift hovered close by. “When we go you will tell my colleague everything.”

  Durand nodded. His hand was tight around his fresh drink.

  “And then what—Katya found out the diary was worth something?” Fox probed.

  “Katya … Recently she mentioned that we should take the diary from her husband and use it as insurance,” Durand said. He looked angry. “She sent it to me in the mail. She added a note to give it to Renard, should anything happen to her. She was scared. She didn’t tell me that, but by sending it to me, she knew…”

  “Did she say why the diary was so valuable?” Fox asked. Durand looked around. He drained his double shot on the rocks, set the tumbler down hard. He looked up at Fox, and it was a look Fox had seen plenty of times before: he wanted revenge.

  “What about this treaty?” Zoe prodded further. Durand looked to her. “Was Katya afraid that they’d kill to mask the existence of it?”

  “No, no you don’t understand,” he said. “The diary? It points to the place where this treaty amendment—this secret protocol—is hidden.”

  Zoe turned to Fox, “We need to meet Renard—now.”

  51

  NAPLES, ITALY

  Hutchinson pulled on a T-shirt and pants as quickly as he could. He’d just got off the phone with Fox. First McCorkell and Valerie had told him Babich was going to China, and when he heard that the dead Russian ambassador was due to go to Shanghai—tonight—he was sold. He answered his new BlackBerry as he was helped into a pair of Nikes by the Naples FBI Legat, a genial man from Denver who was nearing retirement and seeing out his days in this posting from the Bureau.

  “Yep?”

  “Andrew, it’s Bowden. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to Shanghai.”

  “No, you’re not.” Bowden’s voice was somewhere between authoritative and condescending. “I’m shutting this down. It’s no longer a legal issue, it’s a covert action.”

  “You’re not doing shit!” Hutchinson stood, but had to sit back down again. He still felt a little shaky. “I’ve got this—”

  “Not even a couple of hours ago Babich’s guys killed a French cop in broad daylight, tore up a whole goddamned highway—”

  “So what?” Hutchinson responded, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’re going to throw away a couple of years’ damn hard work built on over a decade of multi-agency tracking of this son of a bitch?”

  “He killed DoD guys on that Gulfstream too.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “We don’t have the luxury of time,” Bowden said. “We lose him now he goes to the mattresses and we miss our chance; he’s another ghost for our country to hunt by sending tens of thousands of boots on the ground into some speck of shit country no one can find on a map.”

  “Your point?”

  Bowden was silent long enough to hear him exhale loudly.

  “There’s a French cop in on this,” he said. “With your buddy Lachlan Fox.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “This shit is getting far too complicated,” Bowden’s voice was resolute. “It ain’t about prosecution in court anymore, it ain’t about containment or corralling Babich into a legal net somewhere.”

  “You can’t call this off—”

  “I’m issuing extraordinary rendition protocols.”

  “It’s not yours—you don’t have the authority!”

  “This became my show when you dropped the ball,” Bowden said. “And you know what? I was right: it never should have been an FBI operation.”

  “It’s a multi-agency operation.”

  “Bullshit,” Bowden said. “There are no multi-agency operations. Everything has a command. I’m it. It’s my operation.”

  The phone connection ended.

  The Legat remained silent by the open doorway.

  Hutchinson was shaking … Rage coursing through his veins. Bowden was a calculating guy—he wouldn’t have made the move without clearance from up high. Hutchinson was out of the game. His BlackBerry chimed, a text message from McCorkell:

  We’re here, buddy, we’ll keep you in the loop and ahead of the curve.

  The base Air Wing Commander stepped through the doorway—he’d been listening. He was tall, a newly minted Commander, a ‘mustang’—a guy who’d entered through the enlisted ranks and gone on to become an officer—with aviator’s wings, about ten years older than Hutchinson and in much better shape. He, like the rest of those here, were treating Hutchinson like one of their own. Many had shaken
his hand, wishing him the luck he’d need to bring the guy in who’d just killed a couple of their mates.

  “Reminds me of my old CO,” the commander said. Smiled to the Legat, who nodded. “He was a real son of a bitch, too.”

  “Yeah,” Hutchinson said, looking down at his leg, knowing that even if he was near Babich, he was too slow to really be in the fight.

  The Navy commander had a glint in his eyes as he stepped forward and extended his hand. “Call me Jinks,” he said. “And anywhere you need to go, son, anywhere, I’ll make sure you get there. Fast.”

  Hutchinson grinned.

  “Thanks.”

  52

  PARIS

  Malevich watched as the scene unfolded, fast. The four plainclothed police moved in: they stopped Renard on the Pont de la Concorde. The reporter was startled, as if he was being robbed, and didn’t seem to relax much when they showed him their ID. One of them passed him a mobile phone and he put it to his ear.

  Time was running out. He had to make a move, and make it in minutes. If Lavrov couldn’t get these cops off the scene … It would get messy.

  Fox listened as Zoe spoke rapid-fire into her phone for thirty seconds, while navigating the Peugeot through the Parisian streets with a heavy foot. She disconnected, holstered her BlackBerry and blared the car’s horn to speed through an intersection.

  “Renard is near the Louvre,” she said. “We will meet him there in five minutes.”

  “Yeah, I caught that,” Fox said from the passenger seat, holding on to the dashboard.

  “Can we backtrack a sec?” Gammaldi asked from the back. “You were saying Russia owned Alaska?”

  “Yep,” Fox replied.

  “Bullshit.”

  The car jumped as they mounted a kerb to get around a traffic jam.