The Rybinsk Deception (13 page)

‘I guess it was that storm,’ O’Halloran said.

‘What?’

‘The storm in the Sea of Japan – the one the
Rybinsk
sailed through while she was heading south from Vladivostok. That’s what got me started on the wrong track. I had it figured for the reason why the Koreans couldn’t pick up the crates when I thought they should’ve done – and why they had to wait until the
Rybinsk
arrived at Fauzdarhat.’

‘Good luck selling that as an excuse,’ Coburn said. ‘It might be kind of hard convincing anyone that’s why you got things wrong, don’t you think?’

‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re pushing too hard. How about backing off for a minute? Where are these photos of yours?’

‘In my car.’

‘OK.’ O’Halloran got up from his chair. ‘I’ll make a couple of calls tonight and see what I can fix up for tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I get on. Where are you staying?’

‘Never mind. You don’t need to know. I’ll call you.’

The American smiled again. ‘Let me tell you something else,’ he said. ‘Right now, you’re about as near to Washington as you can get. If someone in the US Government has guessed you didn’t get yourself blown up in Singapore, and they think you’ve ridden into town looking for trouble, they’ll find you in half a day.’ He went to the door. ‘Well? Are you going to give me the pictures?’

Outside in the street, a little girl on a pink tricycle was being watched over carefully by her father, while a smartly dressed young woman in high-heels was endeavouring to prevent her Labrador from cocking its leg on the rear wheel of Coburn’s car – a pleasant suburban scene of ordinary Americans enjoying an ordinary evening, he thought, well-meaning people who, in spite of the fiasco in Iraq, were still
willing to put their faith in their elected government, and equally willing to accept the lies they were being told about North Korea.

He handed O’Halloran the envelope containing the photographs, wishing he’d made copies and hoping this wasn’t another mistake that was going to come back and bite him.

The American didn’t bother to look inside. ‘Nice to meet you again, Mr Coburn,’ he said. ‘Phone me here at home this time tomorrow.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Until then I’d keep away from dark places if I were you.’

C
OBURN’S CONFIDENCE HAD
been short-lived. After his discussion with O’Halloran yesterday evening and having had his first reasonable night’s sleep for nearly a week, he’d spent much of the morning feeling cautiously optimistic, concerned that perhaps the offer of help had been volunteered too easily, but in general believing that his optimism was based on more than wishful thinking.

But an hour ago that had all changed when, during his pre-arranged phone call, he’d learned that he’d not only misunderstood, but got everything wrong from the very beginning.

At the time, too demoralized to persuade O’Halloran to elaborate over the telephone, he’d foolishly allowed the American to suggest where and when they should meet – a mistake he’d come to regret, and one that over the last ten minutes he’d started to believe could have placed him at a serious disadvantage.

A ploy, Coburn wondered? Had O’Halloran been smart enough to tell him his suspicions were groundless simply to make him lower his guard? And if so, could that mean he hadn’t been wrong at all?

The coffee shop the American had recommended was in downtown Bethesda, located in a narrow side street not far from the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Old Georgetown Road. The street was crowded with pedestrians – a mixture of last-minute shoppers and well-heeled black and white office workers in their twenties who were either in no hurry to go home, or whose social lives revolved around the cafés and restaurants of Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle, a congested, up-market part of town that, until this evening, Coburn had chosen to avoid.

He’d been here since 5.30, not at the coffee shop, but standing in a doorway across the street – a precaution he hoped might provide an early warning in the event of things taking an unexpected turn.

So far, except for him being momentarily distracted by a young woman with a blonde ponytail who had a figure not unlike Heather’s, he’d detected nothing out of the ordinary.

At the coffee shop, people were coming and going at regular intervals, some taking their drinks away with them, others sitting at outside tables using their mobile phones in between exchanging the day’s gossip with friends or fellow office workers. None of them looked remotely out of place, too preoccupied with themselves to display more than a casual interest in people at neighbouring tables and mostly ignoring passers-by.

O’Halloran was late. He arrived in a taxi, unaccompanied and evidently anxious to discover if Coburn was already here.

After going into the shop, he reappeared and made himself comfortable at a vacant table that afforded him a view of the street, consulting his watch and fiddling with the catches on his briefcase, but otherwise giving the impression of being at ease in his surroundings.

For a minute or two Coburn watched and waited, making his decision to go and say hello only after he was satisfied that the American was alone and not in contact with someone in a parked car or a nearby building.

O’Halloran didn’t bother to get up. ‘Thought you weren’t going to show,’ he said. ‘What kind of coffee do you like? I’ve already ordered mine.’

‘It’s OK. I’ll pass, thanks.’ Coburn sat down. ‘So you found someone to run the photos?’

O’Halloran nodded. ‘I didn’t want to say last night, but I have to tell you I didn’t expect to get a hit. From what I know about facial recognition programmes they mostly only work if you’ve got good frontal pictures, and the guy who runs the system says that half the time the computer spews out the wrong answer or nothing at all.’

‘But this time it spewed out the right answer?’

‘Not the one you wanted. You can forget about the US Government being behind your clever theory. They’re not. The White House isn’t
involved, and never has been. Congress and the Senate have nothing to do with it, nor does the Pentagon, the CIA, the National Security Agency or the Department of Homeland Security. I’ve spent all day on this, so don’t start saying you don’t believe me.’

Coburn didn’t believe him for a minute. So transparent was O’Halloran’s attempt at a whitewash that he was surprised that the American thought he could pull it off.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ O’Halloran opened his case and took out a sheet of paper. ‘Have a look at this.’

It was a one-page printout copied from what appeared to be some kind of official US Army document – a recruitment application form that included a passport-sized photo of the person who’d filled it in – someone who Coburn had seen twice before and the man he’d travelled halfway round the world to identify:

Coburn handed the document back to O’Halloran. ‘So he’s a US-born Marine with a dead father and a brother who’s living in Russia.’

‘Yegorov’s division was the first one in to Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. Do you want to see his military record?’

‘What does it say?’

‘Not much. Sounds as though he was OK at what he did until he got hurt in an accident while he was on an exercise. He stayed on in the Marines for a while, but eventually got himself invalided out. That was a couple of years ago. If he hadn’t been in the military there’d be no record of him at all.’

‘Where is he now?’

O’Halloran smiled. ‘Last I heard, he was in Singapore sticking something in your fridge.’

‘Is that all you’ve come up with?’ Coburn was still waiting to hear why he’d got everything wrong.

O’Halloran took a folder from his briefcase. ‘If that’s all I’d come up with, I wouldn’t be wasting another of my evenings talking to you,’ he said. ‘I ran the name Jüri Yegorov through half-a-dozen civilian data banks and then cross-referenced his military record with information the FBI holds on organizations that aren’t exactly on their favourite list. That’s when your story started to make a whole lot of sense.’

‘Like what?’ Coburn controlled his impatience.

‘Two things. In October last year, the State Police in Oregon are on record as issuing a speeding ticket for a Jüri Yegorov who was stopped on highway 395 near a place called Canyon City.’ O’Halloran paused. ‘Canyon City just happens to be up the road from the headquarters of the FAL. Have you heard of them?’

Coburn didn’t think he had. ‘Who or what are the FAL?’

‘The Free America League.’

He was slow to remember where he’d heard the name before, but now that he had, he was able to make the connection. ‘Shriver,’ he said. ‘Retired US Army Brigadier – that guy who’s on TV all the time?’

‘George Shriver is the original founder of the FAL. When he’s not lobbying in Washington or getting himself interviewed on TV, he’s promoting the FAL as the saviour of America and running a company that trains security guards at his ranch in Oregon. He’s a pain in the
ass, but a lot of Americans believe he has a better fix on things than half of their elected politicians do. The media love him, and the White House just wish he’d shut up and go away.’

‘The Free America League,’ Coburn said slowly. ‘Are you saying Yegorov has something to do with them?’

O’Halloran nodded. ‘Don’t get the idea that they’re a rabid, half-baked outfit with no influence. In the last eighteen months they’ve opened offices in every state except Hawaii and Rhode Island, and they operate four websites. They’re rich and they’re powerful. Five or six senators openly support them, they’re rumoured to get a slug of money from the National Rifle Association every year, and if you believe the information they put out, they’ve got something like eleven or twelve thousand paid-up members – and that’s not including manufacturers and defence contractors who don’t want to be seen funnelling funds into the FAL, but figure it’s a good long-term investment that’s going to keep them in business.’

‘Because the FAL support the war in Iraq?’

O’Halloran waited while a girl delivered his coffee to the table. ‘Nothing wrong with anyone supporting our troops in Iraq,’ he said. ‘If the FAL were just doing that they wouldn’t be short of people looking to join. But their policy’s a bit more radical. The FAL exists solely for the purpose of promoting the idea that nothing is more important than the fundamental need to keep America safe by absolutely any means and at absolutely any cost. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt in the process so long as it’s not the US. So what if we couldn’t find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? In case a couple are still lying around somewhere let’s make sure the Iraqis end up being so fucked they’ll never be able to use them. And in case Osama bin Laden is still hiding out in Afghanistan, why not just keep our troops there for another year? If you’re a right-wing redneck who believes in big sticks and America the Great and America the Strong, get yourself a gun, saddle up and join the FAL. They could probably use someone like you.’

‘Or someone like Jüri Yegorov,’ Coburn said.

‘You haven’t heard the good bit yet. Shriver’s last posting was to Kuwait in 1991 – after the Iraqi forces had set fire to all the oil wells
there. One day in June while he was visiting a place on the coast called Minā al Ahmadi, he was driving past one of the wellheads that had already been capped when it blew its top and reignited. Shriver was OK, but only because of a US Marine who managed to get him out of the way in time. Guess who that was?’

‘Yegorov.’

‘Right. Shriver’s the official face of the FAL. My guess is that Yegorov does his dirty work for him. The first time you came across good old Jüri, he was driving a truck in Bangladesh. A few weeks later there he is on board the
Pishan
waiting for you in the Strait of Malacca. When that didn’t work he arranged the attack on the village where you were staying, and took out some insurance by wiring up your fridge in Singapore.’

‘All to keep America safe,’ Coburn said. ‘In case I put two and two together and decided people might like to know how the FAL are going about it?’

‘They’re on a crusade.’ O’Halloran slid a pamphlet across the table. ‘Read that.’

The pamphlet was well presented and printed in colour on expensive paper. Coburn glanced through it before he went back to the beginning and read the introduction:

Coburn didn’t turn to page 6. He didn’t study the other pages either, most of which were illustrated with before-and-after photographs of the Twin Towers and with shots of fire-crews working outside the blackened wall of the Pentagon.