Sohlberg and the White Death (49 page)

Sohlberg felt like throwing up. He visualized the horrible deaths of so many of his friends and colleagues in the United States. He blanched at the thought of Eastern Europe’s last experience with Russia’s Stalinist terror and concentration camps.

Never!

He took a deep breath.

Think! . . . Think of a way to change the incoming direction of catastrophic apocalypse . . . Think of a way to stop a mass murder in the making.

An hour later he was calm enough to have dinner with Emma. He picked at his food and pretended all was well.

“You’re preoccupied. Is it work? . . .”

“As usual.”

“Would you like some dessert?”

“Not now. Let me help you with the dishes and then I’ll go to the library to finish some stuff from work. Do you mind? . . . We’ll go to the movies tomorrow Saturday. I promise.”

“I don’t mind. You go finish your work. I’ll finish cleaning up here and then go read.”

~ ~ ~

At three in the morning Sohlberg took one last look at the icon of the melancholy Russian saint. Adrian of Nicomedia had a strange look. So did his wife Natalia.

Clear day . . . clear day. What does that mean?

He mulled over the phrase one last time when the solution hit him.

Sohlberg whispered:

“On a clear day you can
see
forever.”

He immediately realized that the saints’ eyes looked strange because the pupils slightly bulged out from the paper. Sohlberg ran his finger gently over Adrian’s sad eyes and he felt two little bumps on the surface. Natalia’s eyes also had the little bumps. So did several other locations along the folds of their clothing and within the decorative scrolls that framed the saints.

Microdots!

Sohlberg called Laprade.

The groggy commissaire moaned. “What is it?”

“Wake up. We need to meet now.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No. I need you now. . . . I’m done with your disappearing act like on the night that Azra died.”

~ ~ ~

A day later the two detectives met at noon with Charles Gabolde at Laprade’s bookstore safe house in Old Town Lyon. The skinny 21-year-old computer whiz fit the part with his sneakers, t-shirt, sweat pants, and a hoodie with the
Dr. Who
“TIME LORD” logo. Gabolde was also a wealthy “IT consultant” and a dropout from the computer science programs of INSA—
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon
.

Laprade pointed at Sohlberg and said:

“Tell my friend what’s the deal with these microdots.”

“They’re not the traditional Stone Age microdot from the Cold War. These are actually the equivalent of a miniaturized compact disc. Here . . . take a look.”

The computer whiz picked up what appeared to be a large plastic pen which was attached to a laptop by a cable. The college dropout placed the tip of the pencil over one of the microdots.

A video of Ivan Navalny appeared on the laptop’s monitor. His voice came loud and clear over the computer’s speakers.

Charles Gabolde moved the pen over another microdot. A computer folder icon appeared on the screen. He pressed the pencil into the dot and the folder opened to reveal thousands of computer files.

The computer whiz smiled broadly. “All told there are more than two hundred thousand computer files in the ten microdots that I found on the religious poster. Seems that your guy downloaded major chunks of his department’s files on G.U.V.D. servers.”

How,” said a suspicious Sohlberg, “is it that you know about those initials? . . . Do you know what they mean?”

“Of course. They’re the initials for the Moscow Police in Russia . . . the Main Department of Internal Affairs of Moscow.”

Laprade lifted his hand. “Sohlberg . . . stop your interrogation and let’s just say that my friend here knows a lot about the world. He’s been rather helpful to me over the years.”

Charles Gabolde stood up and took out a plastic sandwich bag from his backpack. The bag was filled with ten thumb drives. He dropped the bag in the middle of the table. He tossed another plastic sandwich bag on top of the little pile of USB flash drives. “Here are the ten microdots that I lifted off the poster and copied into the drives.”

“Thank you,” said Laprade.

The whiz kid shrugged. He grabbed his skateboard and backpack and left the room.

“How,” said Sohlberg, “did you make sure that your kid didn’t make a copy of the microdots for himself?”

“We met at his office. He worked in front of me all the time and I made sure that he only used my computer. I kept track of the microdots. I kept an eye on them while he was examining them. He already had an idea of what the microdots were . . . so he gave me the pen that reads the dots. He used my computer and the pen to copy the material in the microdots into the flash drives and another set of microdots.”

“Good.”

“He also knows that he would suffer an ugly end if he tried any funny business with me.”

~ ~ ~

Sohlberg and Laprade watched the videotaped session. Ivan Navalny catalogued a long list of crimes that he had witnessed among high-level officials of the Russian government. He left no doubt as to which crime was the greatest.

“The top people at the F.S.B. have decided to do nothing to prevent an American Hiroshima. Quite the opposite . . . they allowed the arms dealer Leonid Minin to buy dozens of Russian nuclear suitcase bombs from corrupt army officers. The crooks in the Kremlin can hide their dirty deals . . .
and
wash their hands of the bloody consequences . . . behind a wall of companies and bagmen that Minin controls in Switzerland and all over the world.

“Minin is very powerful and well-connected. A few years ago the Americans blacklisted Minin. They even had him on the F.B.I.’s
Ten Most Wanted
along with Victor Bout. But Minin was taken off the lists after he paid a thirty million dollar bribe to someone in the White House . . . and twenty million dollars to a senior deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department.

“Leonid Minin is Russia’s preferred middleman. He sold three nuke backpacks to al-Qaeda. . . .

“It’s just a matter of time before North Korea or Pakistan or someone else makes the triggers for those three bombs. It’s ironic . . . but the corrupt leadership in the Kremlin had no idea that equally corrupt agents like Zubkov were out selling F.S.B. secrets and prisoners to Columbian drug dealers and others who wanted to get into the good graces of the Americans. Unlimited evil and greed are the seeds of destruction.”

~ ~ ~

The two men strolled in silence to the plaza in front of the 900-year-old Gothic masterpiece known as Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon.

“What are we going to do?” said Sohlberg.

Laprade swore. “I guess we’ll have to think about it. I also want to have a talk with Pierre.”

“Should we involve the D.G.S.E. in this matter?”

“Why not? . . . It’s right up their alley. Let’s see what Pierre says. I don’t think we have too many options. After all . . . we’re just a couple of cops. Two nobodies trying to do the impossible.”

“The impossible?” said Sohlberg. “What’s the impossible?”

“Making a difference.”

“We,” said Sohlberg, “haven’t really made a difference. More than anything I wanted to find out how the 'Ndrangheta launder their money. And now . . . we will never find out who are their bankers . . . the ultimate accessories to the drug cartels. The banks are the cartels’ weakest point. The 'Ndrangheta and other gangsters would be out of business if the bankers refused to take their billions.”

“That will never happen. Banks will always be around to enable organized crime. Banks are too big to fail . . . and
too big
means that big banks need billions of cold hard cash that the cartels deposit with them.”

Sohlberg groaned. “The 'Ndrangheta is regrouping. Operation Locust hasn’t been a big success.”

“I disagree. You need to think of all the lives that have been saved and will be saved thanks to our intervention. My friend . . . you have unrealistic expectations. What did you think? . . . That Locust would destroy the drug cartels? . . . Nothing will wipe them out. They’re like rats and cockroaches. One dies . . . another one takes its place. They will always be around.”

“I wanted a decisive victory over them.”

“No way. We’re more like exterminators . . . we only control. We can’t eradicate. This so-called war on drugs is going to last as long as someone wants to medicate themselves because they’re bored or depressed. We can’t outright win this kind of war. We can only put a dent on their operations . . . we slowed them down a little . . . that’s the most we can do unless we live in a dictatorship . . . or get nuked into the stone age.”

Sohlberg sighed.

“We have made a difference,” said Laprade. “I think Domenico Pelle would agree on that point. He definitely did
not
win.”

Sohlberg scoffed. “What about Two Kings Zappia? . . . What about Giancarlo Imerti? . . . They’re still somewhere out there.”

“We’ll find them. But we have to prioritize. First things first. We have three nukes in the U.S.A. that are waiting for their triggers. . . . Let’s see what Pierre thinks about the mushroom clouds on the horizon. Again . . . you need to think of all the lives that have been saved and will be saved thanks to our intervention.”

Chapter 30/Tretti

LYON, FRANCE; AND SPRUCE PINE,

NORTH CAROLINA: OCTOBER 13 AND

25, OR SIX MONTHS AND 1 AND 13 DAYS

AFTER THE DAY

After work Sohlberg met Laprade at the southeast corner of the main lake in
Parc de la Tête d'Or
. The men breathed in the crisp autumn air. The trees seemed bereaved over the loss of the warm summer sun. The inconsolable branches wept their leaves away.

“It’s the best solution,” said Laprade with firm insistence. “We wire him the money in our accounts and he takes care of business for us.”

“Wait a minute. It’s not my money. You or Domenico Pelle or both of you added my name to those Swiss bank accounts without my knowledge or permission.”

“Sohlberg . . . who is going to believe that?”

“I don’t care who believes what. Stop dragging me into the mess you made with Pelle.”

“I’ve told you many times . . . I had to take the six million U.S. dollars to gain his trust. Otherwise he would
never
have met with us and disclosed his true identity. Then
your
precious Operation Locust would have been Operation Nothing.”

“I don’t like this.” Sohlberg’s face reddened from anger and not from the cold breeze that whipped over the lake.

“It has to be done. I spoke with Pierre and he says that we have a small window of opportunity. The rat will be within easy reach for seven days. We will never get another chance. It’s now or never.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

“Good,” said Laprade. “I’ll wire him the money tomorrow. I’ll take a day off and leave tonight for Switzerland.”

“How do I know that all of the money is going into your project? . . . How do I know that you’re not siphoning off all or most of the six million?”

“You don’t. But this kind of
operation
isn’t cheap or easy to do.”

“What would you have done if I refused to authorize this?”

“I’d probably have to kill you.”

Sohlberg laughed off the threat. “What I’m surprised about . . .
really
surprised about . . . is that you the war hero thinks that this crazy plan is going to work. . . .”

“This is how things work in the world. It’s the mid-level grunts and peons like you and me who do the dirty work in government. Ditto for the mid-level grunts and peons who keep big corporations afloat despite the idiot mistakes of their moron executives.

“It’s rarely the very top people who order or do anything in government. They just hint and wink if they want something of this magnitude done on their watch. Politicians must have Plausible Deniability. That’s their religion. If things go well they look good and take the credit. If things go badly they shake their heads and say, ‘Not me. I know nothing. I only know what I read about it in today’s newspaper.’”

“Enough. Just do it.”

~ ~ ~

Col. Touvier’s telephone call came out of the blue. Billy Buchanan wondered how the man had found him in North Carolina. The man’s voice and words triggered memories that pestered Billy all day long—like flies over an open garbage can. He finished his chores in Spruce Pine and drove back to his log home which was hidden away near the North Toe River in the lush forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains.