Liquid Gold

by James Phelan

  25

  NEBRASKA AVENUE COMPLEX, WASHINGTON DC

  “This is coded like a witness protection file,” Kavanaugh said.

  Hutchinson shrugged.

  “It is,” Riley said.

  “Who?”

  “No one.”

  “We need to know.”

  “You really don’t.”

  “Andy, this is my op,” Kavanaugh said. “I’ve got reach on this, direct from the Director of National Intelligence. You want me to go there? Maybe get you off this?”

  “Sure, tell him to go suck a bag of dicks while you’re at it.” Hutchinson was resolute. “Your team has a leak—we’ve had too many coincidences over the years.”

  “It could have been someone in Justice, anyone with high clearance.”

  “It could be your team,” Riley added.

  “Yeah, it could be,” Hutchinson said. “It could be me, could be you. All the more reason to use Fox.”

  “I don’t like it. You’d trust him over some of our guys?”

  “It’s my case. And yeah, I trust him as much as anyone. He’s the real deal. Old school.” Kavanaugh looked at the files on the table in front of him.

  “Fox was in the military for how long?”

  “Seven years, give or take. Australian Navy. Served in Special Forces alongside our guys in ’Stan and Iraq. He can take care of himself.”

  “Look, Andy, we’ve got to produce some results. CIA wants blood as much as everyone else. I’ve got to go back to the Director with something—”

  “I’ll give you something. Buy me a week, we’ll close the net on these guys. I just need you to keep the rest of the Agency out of the loop until we do, just in case.”

  “You’re that close?”

  “With Lachlan Fox onside, yeah, we’re that close.”

  “And what makes you so sure he’ll want to help you out?” Kavanaugh closed the file. “He bugged out of the Navy and has moved around a fair bit these past two years. Doesn’t seem like a stayer to me.”

  “He was discharged from the Navy after following his gut on a good op that went bad. The guy’s got good instincts, good morals. Like I said—”

  “Yeah, I heard you before,” Kavanaugh said. “I just don’t think it’ll be that easy getting him onside. He’s got nothing to gain from this.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Hutchinson said. Kavanaugh watched him drain his coffee and toss the paper cup in the trash can.

  “You seem pretty sure.”

  “Just you work on getting your assets off this, or at least keep them in the dark long enough for me to make a play,” Hutchinson said.

  “All right,” Kavanaugh conceded. “I’ll work my stuff. But I want to know how you’re so sure about Fox—how you’re going to get him to go point for us on this.”

  “Because for him, this has been building. They’ve pushed him and he won’t be forced into hiding—I mean, killing his contacts, then coming after him? For him, this is personal.”

  “And you think you can pin this hit on Babich?”

  “If I can, that’d be great,” Hutchinson said. “Read the file on him. NSA has picked up enough chatter of him and his subordinates to know what he’s up to.”

  “Good luck using NSA transcripts in an international court.”

  “Any court. Good luck with that.”

  “If we get him linked directly to this,” Hutchinson said, “we can take him down for this and everything else out there. Bribery, money laundering, evading taxes, illegal arms deals, the actions of his private security contractors…”

  The agents shared a look. “Look, Andy … We don’t want him taken down. Not like that,” said Kavanaugh.

  Hutchinson half expected this. His face was unreadable. “What’s he to you?”

  “Important.”

  “I need more.”

  “That’s what you got.”

  Hutchinson waited.

  “He’s not an asset, we’re not in any contact with him, if that’s what you want to know,” said Riley. “Babich is at the head of something that is bigger than one man. While he’s there at the helm, we can watch him, track him, predict him.”

  “So it’s better the devil you know.” Hutchinson was disgusted.

  “We know his armaments company sells twenty thousand firearms in this country every year,” said Kavanaugh.

  “And we know his water company supplies fifteen per cent of Western Europe’s water. A quarter of their natural gas,” said Riley.

  “And if we find that he’s linked to these murders?” Hutchinson asked, well sick of the two-hander going on. “If we find that he’s got a bigger motive in the water project in Pakistan than making a dime?”

  “Andrew, what else do you want from us?” Kavanaugh said. “Hmm?”

  “I’ve got Lachlan Fox out there chasing this. Just making it clear I don’t want you to get in our way.”

  “Using reporters to do your pointy-end work,” Riley said. “Softer over at the Bureau than we thought.”

  “If things go sour, we’ll have a team on standby to quick evac and exfil if necessary.” Hutchinson left it at that; Kavanaugh didn’t need to know he had Duhamel training; he’d assume DoD or State Department, maybe both.

  “Okay,” Kavanaugh said.

  “If we hear anything, we’ll give you a heads-up.”

  “Same goes.”

  Hutchinson stood to leave. “James, you ever wanna try some real work, send me your resumé,” Hutchinson said. “Get a job where you actually catch the bad guys.”

  “I trust too many people to be a Fed.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. You boys are like Robert Redford from Three Days of the Condor, reading spy thrillers and entering the plots into your computers to look for threats. Like I said: you should come over and do some real work.”

  “Yeah? Why don’t you send us your resumé?” Riley countered. “I’ll read it while I’m taking a shit.”

  “You ever taken a shit and it felt like you’d had a good night’s rest?” Hutchinson said. “That’s what your resumé would do.”

  “Fuck you.” Handshake.

  “Always a pleasure.” Meeting over.

  The Agency men took the lift down to the basement car park while Hutchinson headed for the helipad on the roof. Hutchinson signalled to the pilot to get the rotors started up, then placed a call.

  “Lach, Hutchinson. Go ahead and debrief Hasif, then get back in the air. By the time I arrive we’ll be ready to take him in—my team’s getting ready to be with you on the ground in India.”

  26

  SEVILLE, SPAIN

  Gammaldi touched down smartly on San Pablo Airport, putting the engines into reverse thrusters, barely a hum inside the cockpit of the luxury corporate jet as it taxied towards the cluster of small private aircraft.

  “Nice landing,” Fox said. “How’s she compare to the G5?”

  “Electric dynamite, my man. Fly-by-wire works well, and the fully trimmable horizontal stabilisers are a nice touch.”

  Fox rolled his eyes, sorry he asked.

  “Mind you, that was the first time I’ve flown the 650 without a copilot,” Gammaldi said. “And my first landing outside the sim.”

  “Now you tell me,” Fox said. “Anyway, I took the controls for a bit.”

  “Yeah, and your fifteen minutes of flying fame was the easy bit,” Gammaldi said. “And as for you, you’re what we in the avionics business call dead shit—oh no, wait, dead weight. That’s it, dead weight.”

  “Yeah, landing’s the bitch, I got that,” Fox said, taking his backpack from behind the seat and heading out. “If I’m dead weight, what are you, heavy weight?”

  “Oh, Lach, you slay me,” Gammaldi said. “And for the record, the heaviest thing I’ve ever lifted is your unconscious ass.”

  “I don’t know if I want you near my unconscious ass,” Fox said. He tried to think o
f a time in the field when Gammaldi had needed to carry him out of trouble. “Hey, when was that?”

  “My twenty-first?” Gammaldi said. “One minute you were holding up one end of the bar, the next you were talking to a plant.”

  “Must have been my hippie phase.” Fox vaguely remembered a pub crawl that culminated at their cricket club.

  “It’s bloody hot here; it’s meant to be winter,” was the first thing that came out of Gammaldi’s mouth as they walked out of the air-conditioned cabin and down the stairs of the GSR Gulfstream 650.

  “It’s about twenty degrees Celsius, Al,” Fox said. “It’s just your extra layer of insulation that’s keeping you warm.”

  “The dead weight’s saying I’m fat?” Gammaldi said to no one in particular as he went to talk to the ground crew about refuelling.

  Geiger showed the four passports to a customs official while Goldsmith unloaded the bags. Spain was one of many places where the GSR security team was licensed to carry concealed firearms and Goldsmith unlocked the hard case and locked and loaded a couple of H&K .45 pistols and a Kriss MK9 submachine gun.

  He also took out a duffle bag containing four bullet-proof vests. The Dragon Skin body armour was the most advanced personal ballistics protection system in the world, made from ceramic and titanium composite disks that overlapped and interlinked, meaning a bullet hit would be dispersed over a large area rather than wanting to punch straight through like it would with other body armours; this reduced the serious injuries or death associated with high-powered shots hitting body armour—and was something Fox tried not to think about.

  A hire-car driver arrived with a black Lexus LX570, the luxury version of the Toyota Land Cruiser, all paperwork already handled from New York. He handed the keys to Goldsmith.

  “No, you can’t hang on to them!” Fox heard Geiger say to the customs guy, waving his permits in his face, loud and forceful enough to put the guy off.

  In a quiet corner Fox watched his team doing their thing and checked in with Faith Williams at GSR.

  “Yeah, we’re fine here,” Fox said into his iPhone. “Customs is getting sorted and the hire car just pulled up.”

  “Good,” Faith said. “Omar Hasif and his family have just touched down at the air base, which is—”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Fox said. “About fifty clicks southeast from here.”

  “State Department are doing the processing work there, and the Hasifs are getting a proper medical check-up from the base hospital. They might even stay there overnight,” Faith said. “His son has some ear issues, which they are attending to before the transatlantic flight.”

  “Yeah, I hope the little guy’s all right,” Fox said, watching the others load into the Lexus.

  “And I’m sorry there’s still no welcoming party there, no Feds on hand yet,” Faith continued. “I’m told they should be ready to field by the time you get to India; worst case, you may have some local guys the State Department occasionally outsources to.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Fox said, walking over to the car. “I’m surprised McCorkell couldn’t get us clearance to land at the Air Force base here, though.”

  “Yeah, his message to us didn’t go into it,” Faith said, “but the Spanish parliament have been fussing about unmarked aircraft that are registered in the US—they want to try to stop covert rendition flights passing through their territory.”

  “Fair enough,” Fox said. “Anyway, I’ll check in with you when we get back.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Just … watch out, okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine, thanks, Faith,” Fox replied and ended the call. He took the offered Kevlar from Gammaldi and strapped it on over his T-shirt; all men were now wearing the bulletproof vests. He tossed his sports jacket into the back seat of the Lexus and climbed in next to Gammaldi. The two security men up front gave the thumbs-up and they roared off.

  “What was with the customs guy?” Fox asked Geiger.

  “He wanted to hang on to the firearms,” Geiger said. “Fortunately my dad taught me never to let people just take things from me.”

  “It’s your Israeli blood,” Goldsmith said.

  “You know it,” replied Geiger, punching fists.

  “Drive as fast as you can, Roberto,” Fox said. “I wanna get in and out of this place ASAP.”

  27

  MOSCOW, RUSSIA

  Babich sat a table in Sudar Restaurant with his colleagues from Gazprom and Itera; it was the kind of hard-drinking, self-congratulatory lunch he wanted to get away from as soon as possible. Located near the center of Moscow, by the Triumphal Arch and Poklonnoya Mountain, Sudar was decorated in the style of an antiquated Russian mansion: dark wooden furniture, snow-white tablecloths, silk lampshades and walls adorned with ancient portraits and paintings. His party had the VIP room to themselves, and a small army of aides and assistants remained outside the doors manning cell phones.

  The fish soup with sturgeon, pike perch and salmon, with ravioli, pirozhki and vareniki was followed by a shared sturgeon stuffed with mushrooms and baked with truffle and wild berry sauce. The wine cart comprised of French, Italian and Spanish wines and various cognacs, liqueurs and nastoykas. Babich nursed a first-class beer made in the restaurant’s brewery and browsed the cigar menu, tuning out to the boasting of the Gazprom chairman.

  “This business in Ossetia isn’t good for me,” one of the men said.

  Babich smiled. He thought of Sirko. The boy never made mistakes—what he had done for him in Gori was perfect. He’d left no trace, even used American-made C4 and detonators. Babich checked his watch—it would be tight, but Sirko would manage to take care of Fox in Spain. If there was anyone in the world who could do such a job at a moment’s notice, it was dear little Sirko. He had always been like that.

  Kolesnik would be busy enough too. Babich took a cigar from the silver tray, sniffed it and nodded to the waiter, who cut it for him. Young Kolesnik was quick, but he was not as methodical as Sirko. There was room for both kinds of men in life, and he used each to their full advantage. Neither was a suitable successor for his role though, which was a pity.

  Babich’s PR woman entered as he lit his cigar, and whispered in his ear: “Press are outside. You need to wear this tie when you speak to them.” She handed him a necktie. He had learned not to argue such points; he took it, pulled off his current one, tied off the knot. The other men didn’t even notice.

  “Remember,” she said, “three questions only, and I will pick out the reporters I have screened…”

  He tightened his tie and tuned out again, watching the men at the table without hearing their words. He had known them for most of his life; they represented true power. He was proud of his place in the new Russia, proud to be a part of the leadership, proud of what he had done for his people, despite the sameness of it all, the predictable nature of his compatriots.

  “They will follow us out to the technical school that you’re opening…” his PR woman interrupted his thoughts.

  He nodded. She answered her BlackBerry—it seemed either on constant vibrate on her hip or sandwiched between her hand and her ear—and signalled that it was time to go.

  Babich said his goodbyes and left the room, smiling at the unease he left behind; the men still talked about the trouble in the caucus oblasts. There was a time, before they each had so much money on the line, when they’d talk about women and sport and the problems with the West. How life changes.

  Outside it was overcast but bright: cameras flashed, accompanied by the sound of a multitude of shutter clicks.

  28

  OUTSKIRTS OF SEVILLE, SPAIN

  The Lexus was quiet and smooth as it weaved through the traffic. Geiger navigated from the front passenger seat while Goldsmith drove. Fox’s iPhone rang: Andrew Hutchinson.

  “Lach, where are you at?”

  “Just passed through Alcalá de-something,” Fox said, “about forty clicks northwe
st of the US air base—”

  “Wait—are you in a car?”

  “Yeah,” Fox said, looking out the window as the outskirts of the small Seville satellite town flashed by. “Couldn’t get clearance to land—”

  “The hell you couldn’t!” Hutchinson said. His tone made Fox’s heart beat a little faster. “Who told you that?”

  Fox looked to Gammaldi, who returned a look that said what’s up?

  “We had a message come through from McCorkell,” Fox said. “Are you—”

  “Lachlan, wherever you are right now, get off the road and head for safety. What car are you in?”

  “Hire car—”

  “Get out!” Hutchinson ordered. “Get out of that car!”

  “Andy—it’s forty clicks, we’ll be at the air base in twenty minutes, tops,” Fox said. “What’s—”

  “Lach—I was there in the room!” Hutchinson said, and Fox felt heat rise up the back of his neck and flush his face, and then sweat. “I was in the room when McCorkell got the message that you were cleared for landing at Morón—and he sent you the message at that moment! Get out of the car and stay off the road!”

  Fox’s mind was racing. He leaned forward and put a hand on Goldsmith’s shoulder: “Pull over now!”

  The SUV shuddered under the ABS and the tyres came to a screeching halt on the shoulder of the road.

  “Stay on this line,” Hutchinson shouted as Fox shoved Gammaldi’s backpack at him and grabbed his own, almost dropping the iPhone. “I’ll get someone to come to your location.”

  “Out of the car!” Fox yelled to the three men, who did it without hesitation, clambering out of the car and following his lead as he ran down the road towards an off-ramp.

  They were barely fifty metres away when the Lexus exploded into a huge fireball. A bright orange flash blinded Fox’s eyes and the concussion seemed to suck the air out of his lungs as he was blown hard against the crash barrier.