'A' for Argonaut (30 page)

She looked at him, hope in her eyes.

“We’re going to make this right,” he promised.

“I want to believe you,” she said, sighing, paranoia clashing with hope. She sensed his depth. Cocky self-confidence radiated from his emerald eyes. She went along.

He already felt a
commitment to this woman who he sensed harbored a touching innocence beneath the tough facade. It brought him back to his childhood vow to make things right for his emotionally injured mother. This was a new obligation, one that he savored. He would use Amber, and, in the process, he would rescue her son.

Get the Animal
.

The taxi took them to the Hotel Florida to pick up his suitcase and grab the waiting rental. On the way, he told her why she could not go back to her apartment. They got out of the cab. He took her up to his room, not wanting to chance if she would be safe alone, or if she would wait for him. He grabbed his suitcase and they took the elevator to the lobby. The fact that the car was out of his sight around a corner, parked at the curb just up the De Keyserlei five-hundred yards up the street made him uncomfortable. It was 6 P.M., and darkness had just settled in. The evening was damp and cool. The street lamps cast liquid variations of light over the stylized Victorian-style buildings that lined the way.

They walked down the steps to the street, a couple. She turned to him. He noticed her full lips, stretched in a strained smile, and her bright, inky eyes, bottomless, unreadable. Behind him, he could hear the laughter of some conventioneers inside, spilling down the lobby stairs from an upstairs ballroom. He held her arm as they walked down the street and turned the corner.

What?

Maran’s internal radar went on high alert. He looked up. Further up the street one car had pulled over to the curb. A tall man got out. The car moved on. It took the next turn, out of sight. The tall man was too far away for Maran to see his face. He wore a long coat with both hands thrust into its side pockets. He was walking towards them.

Maran’s muscles tightened, his stomach knotted. He dropped their suitcases onto the sidewalk; his hand reached under his jacket and gripped the H&K tightly.

“Eyes up,” he said to Amber, holding their luggage with both hands. The man was fifty yards away now. He began running towards them, his hand pulling out a gun from an inside coat pocket. The silenced pistol jumped in his hand as it spit-fired. Once. Twice. Shoppers all around him fled, shrieking, panicky. By the third shot, Maran had lunged on Amber, forced her to the pavement and covered her from the shots. Lying on his stomach, he twisted to face the assailant‌—‌
Vangaler.
He yanked the H&K from its holster. Screams from terrified passersby rent the air. Someone was crying at the top of their lungs that they had been hit. Maran lifted the automatic. Flying in the face of all his training that if you have to shoot, shoot to kill; he fired over Vangaler’s head, nervous that he would otherwise hit an innocent bystander, hopeful that the shot would turn Vangaler around. The assassin’s coat streamed behind him as he headed off full speed to turn the same corner his ride had turned on. He was gone before Maran could get up.

People rushed in every direction, some coming to help the couple. Maran thanked them, waving them away. He put out his hand and pulled Amber up off the sidewalk.

“Go after that fucking fiend,” she shouted. “He’s going to kill us!”

“He’s gone. We have to get out of here. Immediately,” he said, hearing the angst in the timber of his own voice. He yanked her forward.

“Run!” he ordered, pulling her along.

They hurried away from the scene to the rental car and drove away as fast as traffic would permit, zigzagging where they could, barreling through de Keyserlei, slamming through the packed pedestrian mall, horn blaring, driving dozens of shoppers to the sides of the bricked pavement. Coming out the other side, they rammed past the eagle-topped entrance to the Zoo van Antwerpen and its sister, Planckendael Park.

“I’m supposed to meet someone at a reception tonight at the Diamond Center’s Annual Convention. The cover reason for my trip, if the authorities are watching,” she said. Her voice slightly trembled. “You never know to what lengths they’ll go. They know I’m a dealer, but they don’t know I deal with Tolkachevsky, and I don’t want them to.”

“Isn’t that the place where the ring of Italian thieves made off with all the jewels around five-six years ago?”

“The guy I’m supposed to meet got hit for a hundred million, loose diamonds, gold, jewelry. They said the vault was impenetrable, protected by ten layers of security, heat detectors, radar, magnetic fields, a seismic sensor, and a lock with one-hundred million possible combinations. Never recovered the loot. If they want to get something, they get it.”

“Not always.” Maran shook his head.

“This guy will be suspicious when I don’t show up.”

“So what? We’ve got more weighty things to think about than social protocol.”

“Because, coincidentally, he does business with Boyko. He’ll call him. Boyko will get early warning that something’s gone wrong.”

“Do you have his cell phone number?”

“I’ll call him. Tell him I’m sick. Make a plan to meet tomorrow.”

“That’ll give us a day to get our act together.”

“We’ve got to find a place we can be safe until our next step,” Maran stressed. “And we’ve got to get out of Antwerp.”

“How am I going to get Tony back? They’re going to kill us,” Amber exclaimed. “They knew you were at the Florida. Who are you?” she demanded.

“Tony will be all right,” he promised. “Boyko obviously doesn’t know what’s going on. Vangaler and the Asian woman are double-crossing him. He’s going to want those stones back.”

“How can you be so sure? You act like you know everything.”

“I know Boyko wouldn’t want Tolkachevsky dead until all his stones were shipped and paid for. Would you if you were him?”

It was clear to him that they needed time to regroup, get a plan together with help from the tiger team. The enemy was multiplying, the odds against him growing: Boyko, Vangaler, the woman, KoeffieBloehm, and someone in his own government.

He decided to turn the cards.

The prey had to become the stalker.

Amber’s lips were pursed.

Tony will be all right. Boyko obviously doesn’t know what’s going on.

Thirty-Seven

McLean, Virginia

M
aran had paid in cash at the Hotel Florida, careful not to use a credit card and leave an electronic trail. The clerk, nevertheless, recorded the transaction manually into the hotel’s automated booking system. Immediately, it was transferred to the International Hotel Central Registration Bureau, which passed it on to the National Homeland Transportation Security System, where it was further forwarded to the Pentagon’s Office of Plans and Operations, which immediately copied the CIA at their McLean center in that posh town’s tiny village of Langley, Virginia.

The alarms went out.

He’s off the reservation. Get Maran.

Utile Nsangou took a
call on her cell phone from one of her primary government clients. Convinced that Maran was behind the diamond scam, a rogue agent, a renegade gone wild, he had a “Peak Priority” job for her.

It was in Antwerp.

“There’s a chartered plane for you at Dulles Airport. Are you ready to leave?”

“I have a dinner date; I’ll cancel and take a taxi to the airport.”

Things were moving fast. In spite of the last minute nature of the request, as an independent agent under Non-Official Cover status, she wasn’t about to turn it down. At the top of her the game, she had just left the government where her most recent job description had been a cover assignment with the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal. Her true job, however, was assassination for the CIA. She had been trained as an op who could snipe a ping-pong ball a mile away, or easily kill with her small hands in any one of multiple and simple ways. She knew what a spear-thumb thrust to the trachea will do. At twenty-seven, she worked out with weights and martial arts training five days a week at the Post gym, maintaining the physique of a college senior. After four years as a CIA sniper with its J-Zero counter-terrorist strike squad, this phone call solidified her private contractor assignment with the United States government.

Utile was on her way.

In the meantime
, Bull Luster was conducting the meeting he had earlier planned. This was the meeting Luster wanted with Baltimore who now insisted on having Stassinopoulos join them. Luster agreed. He invited Cole Martin and the CIA liaison to the Intelligence Community Management Council, Jim Newpher, who reported directly to the Director of National Intelligence. They met behind a purple painted door to an office that only those with the highest level security clearance could enter. It was located in the basement floor of the CIA’s McLean headquarters.

“Let’s face it,” Luster growled angrily. “We’ve got to win the war on Islamist terrorism before we convince the world to help, considering the flabby stance of our current foreign policy, national security under this Congress, this president. If we don’t change course quickly, the Islamists
will
win.”

Baltimore nodded. He glanced at Stassinopoulos. “Well that doesn’t mean we let wild cowboys like Maran loose, and let them fuck things up.”

“We do that on our own,” Luster rumbled.

“Cabinda? What the fuck is that all about,” Baltimore questioned.

Stassinopoulos glared at him. Baltimore had been his protégé before they moved him through Special Ops and up to the Pentagon’s Office of Plans and Operations.

Luster scowled. He didn’t know the explanation for Stassinopoulos’ glare at Baltimore, but he knew it had something to do with Global Coast.

“Wonderful myth,” Stassinopoulos said, looking at the wall behind him. A painting hung there, a dreamlike, Daliesque scene of Jason with his hero warriors of Greek mythology,
the Argonauts,
slaying the multi-headed dragon in his quest for the Golden Fleece to claim his right to the throne as king of ancient Thessaly.

“Are you familiar with the story?” he asked Luster, who shook his head.

“You ought to familiarize yourself.”

Turning to Baltimore, Stassinopoulos said, “Your sentiment regarding Maran and Cabinda is on point, however. I don’t have to tell you; it’s private military firms that carry the water today. There are 100,000 private contractors still in Iraq and Afghanistan. They supply everything military from mess halls to hired guns. Long Bow is just one.”

“And Cabinda?” Luster asked.

“We have to stop Maran,” Stassinopoulos said, shooting laser darts at his associate. “He’s single-handedly responsible for the continuing conflict in West Africa and the shit-slide of the world’s banks.” For weeks, the suspicion had been catching fire in the quiet enclaves of the intel community that Mack Maran was a rogue, out there behind the plot that was raising so much havoc.

“My primary interest is to make sure our military is good to go. I want to know what Mack Maran is up to,” Luster added.

“Noble goal,” Cole Martin intoned. “Maybe you could tell us.”

Bull Luster changed the subject. “What have you got from Congress, the Speaker?” he asked.

“Just got his copy. U.S. Security Review Commission report, foreign arms sales. Angola wants more. It’s still under review, but that would help,” Baltimore answered.

“Beijing’s still on the table.”

“Lot of guys say Chins’ve already stolen enough of our classified, dual-use technology to pose a real threat, supercomputers, advanced chip-making machines.”

“We cut this deal, it would cut DOD costs across the board, facilitate the sale of Lockheed Martin’s commercial passenger jetliners to China, ten thousand new, high-paying jobs for Americans; cut the cost of the new ‘Predator’ fighter-bombers in half for the next ten years.”

“Resourceful people, these Chins. People’s Liberation Army generals, waltzing around our tech-trade restraints. They’re already simulating warhead detonations and long-range missile launches. They can make parasite satellites attach to and kill our orbiting surveillance sats,” Baltimore drawled.

“We need this trade package. We won’t get anything from Congress if we don’t deliver on this and cut our costs.” It was the point Luster had been determined to make at this meeting.

“And it’s only passenger aircraft,” Baltimore agreed. “Funny how everything always connects.”

“How so?”

“Maran’s diamond scam could fuck this up for us too.”

Baltimore snapped. “Let’s get back to our purpose. Keep it simple. Where is this diamond scam taking us? How does it relate to what’s going on in Chicago futures, Wall Street? Does this go back to Cabinda? General Luster, are you sure you don’t know what’s happening to Mack Maran and what he is up to?”

Newpher cut in. In his mid-fifties, he wore horn-rimmed glasses, a Harris Herringbone Tweed sports jacket over rumpled flannel pants; except for his tightly clipped, still blond hair, he looked like the Hollywood image of an aging preppie.