Gates of Hades (10 page)

Jason leaned back, letting the chair's softness envelop him. “Overfishing, timber cutting, petroleum exploration . . . All ecological hot buttons. We've seen people chain themselves to trees, lie down in front of earth movers, even blow up some labs where animal experimentation is going on. But murder?”

“Not the first time. There've been occasional acts of violence by the lunatic fringe. This time, though, it looks like a well-organized, concerted effort.”

“And why does the client want to dump this in our lap?”

“I don't ask questions, Jason. I just take the money and perform the service. That's part of the company's success. If I had to guess, though, I'd say the present administration doesn't want to get involved with anything looks like opposition to environmental causes, even violent ones. This is, after all, right before an election year, and the president isn't the tree kissers' hero. On the other hand, the Feds can't just sit by while people get killed.”

Jason thought that over. Made sense. “And none of them seemed to put up a fight? I mean, someone was trying to give me that close a shave, I'd at least try.”

“That's part of the problem.”

“Or a clue.” Jason uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. “Any idea why they didn't put up a fight? Drugs, poison?”

Mama placed the report on her desk, sausagelike fingers squaring the edges. “Not a glimmer. Autopsies on the Russian crew and the loggers were no help. Only thing unusual was that each person had a slight amount of sulfates
in the lungs and bloodstream, probably less than they would have inhaled from auto exhausts in any large city. And ethylene gas in the lung tissues.”

“There aren't any cities in the Bering Sea. And what, exactly, is ethylene?”

“Dunno. Part of your job's gonna be to find out.” She slipped the report across the desk. “Take this with you. It's classified, of course.”

“Of course.” Jason would not have been surprised if the people at Langley classified their grocery lists.

“That's jus' a summary. They got a complete one they'll deliver to you, a report on ‘the Breath of the Earth.' ”

“The Breath of . . . ?”

“Breath of the Earth. At least, that's how the note on Alazar's computer refers to whatever it is.”

Jason recrossed his legs, this time at the knee. “Breath of the Earth, sulfur, ethylene . . . sounds more like halitosis to me. But then, halitosis is better than no breath at all.”

Mama leaned forward, the desk groaning under her bulk. “Make all the jokes you like; our client takes this very, very seriously.”

“So, you want me to do what?”

Mama shrugged. “First, we need to ascertain exactly what happened to those men on the fishing boat, the loggers, the others, see if there's any threat in this Breath of the Earth, whatever it might be. Then destroy it and whoever is using it.”

“I don't suppose we have a name, an idea of who's behind this?”

Mama leaned farther forward, her elbows on the desk. “Matter of fact, we have an idea.”

“Want to share it, or you'd rather I find out myself?”

She slowly shook her head in disapproval. “Sarcasm doesn't become you, Jason. There's an organization—if you can call it that—called Eco. Maybe you didn't know it, but the various conservationist groups around the world raise more money than the economy of a lot of
third-world countries. Eco has gotten rich from unwitting but well-meaning green groups. Every concert in Japan to cease whaling operations, every T-shirt sold in Germany bearing the
Grün
logo, every contribution to a conservationist cause, even the sale of some ecology-friendly devices such as recycling bins and biodegradable trash bags, Eco gets a cut, either by contract or just plain, old-fashioned extortion. You know, ‘We'll “guarantee” your rally for the three-toed tree frog will be peaceful' et cetera.

“Eco's agenda, so far as we can tell, certainly includes the industries where people have been killed, and they have the money. We don't have anything more concrete than that.”

“So, why not infiltrate and see what they're up to?”

“Easier said. They don't have members in the conventional sense. The only reason they came to our client's attention was a large transfer of cash to Alazar's Swiss account from a number of banks around the world, all within twenty-four hours.”

Although the Swiss still prided themselves on bank secrecy, they could do nothing to prevent a record of any wire transfer of funds by SWIFT, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, the Brussels-based clearing center for all electronic transfers. Most of the world, including international criminals, were ignorant of SWIFT's existence or its post-9/11 cooperation with the CIA, FBI, Interpol, and other agencies. Fortunately, so were American politicians, whose rush to expose the arrangement in televised displays of righteous indignation would have compounded the country's security problems.

“And the CIA traced those accounts.”

Mama treated him to another gleaming grin. “Anytime that much money changes hands, they know about it.”

And the American people still thought privacy existed.

“Anything else?”

“Running some cross-checks, our customer believes
Eco is run by a man name of Boris Eglov and some buddies from the Russian Mafia. They have the money to finance something like this but haven't been heard from since the Russian police were hot on their trail a few years back. Not likely they all became honest businessmen.”

“They don't get involved in causes other than their own pocketbooks. What's in it for them besides skimming and extorting toad lovers?”

“Most of the ecology-friendly groups are honest and nonviolent, but the word gets around when Eco strikes a real blow—something other than chaining little old ladies to bulldozers. You'd be surprised how many activists secretly cheer them on. After the murders on that fishing boat, contributions jumped forty percent to worldwide causes—and Eco gets a cut, remember. They want that sort of cash. Also, when Eglov was running black-market fencing and extortion schemes in Moscow, he was fanatic on the subject of the ecology. May have something to do with the fact that his parents and younger sister died from radiation at Chernobyl when the nuclear plant blew. He's suspected of personally strangling two of the surviving plant managers with his own hands.”

Jason was impressed. “You've done your homework.”

She reached into the same drawer and slid two sheets of paper across the desk. “I try. Here's what our friends in the Moscow police tell us.”

Jason studied the picture stapled to the top right-hand corner of the first page. Though the image was grainy, he saw a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head. The eyes were hooded, slightly Oriental, while the rest of the face had a Slavic flatness. Below was a list of attributed crimes. Murder in one form or another was the most frequent offense, with strong-arm extortion or robbery a close second.

“I'm surprised they let a guy like this stay on the streets,” Jason observed, still reading.

“You'll notice he wasn't convicted of any of those charges.”

“I also notice a high mortality rate of witnesses.”

“Some people are just lucky.”

“Not if the police want you to testify against this guy.”

Jason finished the list. “Professional criminal, vegetarian, and passionate friend of the environment. Somehow it doesn't seem to add up.”

Mama retrieved the papers and returned them to the drawer. “What? You saying a criminal can't be a nature lover? Seems to me the man has set up a worldwide scam of conservation organizations to fund his own agenda.”

Jason groaned. “You're saying we're dealing with an idealist here, someone who kills in pursuit of his own utopian ideals. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, a nutcase.”

“Perhaps, but a deadly one.”

Jason stood, circling his chair. “The customer didn't hire us to do a job unless they need to be able to deny any involvement. What is it you're not telling me?”

The woman's eyes widened with mock surprise. “Are you suggesting I wouldn't tell you everything?”

“Not suggesting—clearly stating. Come clean; what's the hitch?”

Mama put her hands on the desk, fingers interlocked. “If we are talking about a chemical agent here, chances are Alazar's buddies didn't manufacture it—at least, not in his part of the world. Not much chance of setting up a laboratory when you're on the run.”

“So, our clients figure whatever it was, it was concocted somewhere else, maybe some sovereign nation that might just resent foreigners conducting an operation on their soil.”

Mama nodded. “You're smart, Jason. Looks like mebbe Langley finally figured out the sovereignty thing.”

Both remembered the international outcry raised when an undetermined number of CIA operatives had snatched
a terrorist suspect right off the streets of Milan. The Italian authorities had indicted six names on credit card receipts that indicated the kidnappers were American. Luck, rather than tradecraft, had stymied the prosecution when no real people could be matched with the credit cards. The only clue to surface so far was the fact that the cards involved were all Diners Club, a less than helpful discovery, even if the CitiCorp card did constitute less than three percent of the world's credit card charges.

Jason walked over to study one of the Renoirs, a woman lounging in the bow of a boat being rowed by a man in shirtsleeves and a straw hat. He was forever fascinated by the works of the earlier impressionists, pictures more likely created with palette knife than brush. At a few feet, the subject was clear. At close range, the whole thing dissolved into meaningless globs of paint. Only one of many things that didn't withstand minute inspection at Narcom.

He managed to forget late-nineteenth-century France and turned to face the desk behind him. “So, what now?”

Mama shrugged. “You're the one makes the big bucks. You know what facilities we have. They're all available.”

Few third-world countries had the intelligence and military resources of Narcom, Inc.

He paced over and stood directly in front of the desk. “For a starting point, I'd like to see whatever reports were made, see if they took specimens, fluids, any of that really gross stuff. Run 'em by that spectroanalyst we use . . .”

Mama stood, handing him a plain white envelope. “Here's your contact.”

Jason opened it, annoyed but not surprised to see what he took to be a single name and a phone number.

“Password is
fife
,” Mama added.

“Fife, as in Barney?”

“As in fife and drum.
Drum's
the countersign.”

“Don't these guys know we're on their side? Or at least
they're paying us a hell of a lot of money to be.” Jason held up the envelope. “Tell me this isn't going to burn a hole in my new suit when it self-destructs.”

Mama grinned, one gold incisor sporting a diamond. “This isn't
Mission Impossible,
you know.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah, I know. Question is, does the CIA? I wouldn't be surprised which bathroom is the men's and which is the women's is classified over there.”

Mamma chuckled, her massive bosom quivering enough to shake the desk. “That might lead to interesting results.” She swallowed, serious again. “You need anything, call.”

Jason had been dismissed.

He was reaching for the door when she said, “Jason, I almost forgot.”

He turned to see her holding out what looked like an ordinary BlackBerry, the combination cell phone and computer that had become the badge of anyone who wanted to be considered important.

“Thanks, but I have one.”

She motioned him back with the hand holding the BlackBerry. “Not like this you don't. It's straight from the Third Directorate.”

The CIA was divided into four compartmentalized divisions: Operations, or Ops, included the actual spycraft, cloak-and-dagger activities. Intelligence consisted of the satellite-picture-searching, communications-monitoring computer nerds. Supply, the Third Directorate, functioned somewhat like Q of James Bond fame. They had actually developed a gas-spraying fountain pen, a belt-buckle camera, and a poison-laden hyperdermic needle concealed in an umbrella. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the need for these “toys” had diminished to the point that Jason had had to search his memory to recall exactly what Supply did. The Fourth Directorate, Administration, included the bean counters, the cost analysts, procurers of equipment and the like.

Jason looked at the BlackBerry with renewed interest. “And it does what?”

“Functions just like an ordinary BlackBerry.” Mama opened her other hand, revealing what appeared to be a newly minted quarter. “When you squeeze this, though, it goes bump in the night.”

Jason took both, examining them closely. “How much ‘bump'?”

“Enough that you don't want to be holding it.”

Jason slid them both into a pocket. “I'll try to remember that.”

“And keep the two in seperate pockets or you'll be singing soprano the rest of your life.”

“I'll definitely remember that.”

As he passed through the lobby, he waved to Kim. She ignored him.

In the garage he sat in the car a moment, planning his course of action.

He remembered his first job for Narcom, Inc.

After 9/11, after Laurin had . . . disappeared, the days and weeks had blended into a haze of equal grief and impotent fury. He was part of the most elite small-engagement organization in the world, Delta Force. He had dropped into inky darkness to places so deserted, so void of life that even the appearance of a scorpion had provided relief. He had slipped across borders into jungles that stank of decay, where boots rotted away in a week and both animals and plants were equally likely to be poisonous.