'A' for Argonaut (31 page)

“Intercepts from the National Reconnaissance Office show a lot of chatter between Maran and people in Cabinda and Kinshasa. We have a suspect link between him and a major criminal cartel in the region,” Newpher said. “They’re working a massive diamond scam. The worst part is the analysts at the Treasury say there’s a ripple effect between sliding diamond prices and loan defaults at some of the world’s biggest banks. If it keeps up, they expect that ripple to turn into a tsunami they say will demolish Wall Street. We think Maran has joined the cartel to team with an Abner Dolitz, major New York diamond wholesale merchant.”

“Who’s running this cartel?” Stassinopoulos asked.

“Good question. Best we can tell is that he’s a Georgian, former Russian intelligence officer. That’s it. No name.”

The meeting broke up. Baltimore was the last to leave. At the door, Stassinopoulos spoke to him.

“I’ll see you at my office in an hour.”

Thirty-Eight

Antwerp

T
he private Citation jet landed on the tarmac at Antwerp’s Deurne Airport. Utile Nsangou touched up a light dusting of magenta eye shadow and patted a few sprinkles of stardust on her cheeks. When she checked herself in her compact mirror, she was pleased.

Where is the man who would pass on that? Do I look like an assassin?

She replaced the compact and checked the pocketbook. Her diplomatic passport sat under the gold cigarette lighter, a lipstick and package of Kleenex tissues. It identified her as Ivy Rochelle Williams-Smythe. A rider showed her as a security officer from the Treasury visiting the U.S. consulate in Antwerp. A quick data mining search would verify that her e-mail ISP was registered to the U.S. Treasury Department.

She knew her mission was “Peak Priority” after being briefed by her handler at the Pentagon. Diamonds were flowing out of the DRC through Cabinda to the diamond cutters in Antwerp. It was currency in play for a massive arms broker ring. He told her that it took the Treasury time to figure out the source, but now they were certain. A former member of the top-secret SAWC unit had turned traitor. No one knew how he was doing it, but evidence indicated that he was working with his old special ops buddies to deliver advanced U.S. arms to Grigol Rakhmonov Boyko, a former East German STASI officer in West Africa. The scam included flooding the markets with blood diamonds. She would be joined by another shooter, a Treasury agent.

Mack Maran had to be turned‌—‌or terminated.

Some time earlier, Maran
had received two messages.

The first, an e-mail looking very official, originated by Pajak posing as a State Department security official and routed through Utile’s computer notifying Maran that a Treasury official identified as Ivy Rochelle Williams-Smythe was on the way to discuss the situation with him at his hotel. The second message was a cell phone call from her.

“Call me,” her voice said.

Maran punched the REPLY button on his cell. Before he had a chance to ask a question, she cut in: “Forgive this sudden intrusion. I’m on my way in to see you, booking a room at your hotel‌—‌the Florida?”

Maran was stunned.

The hotel clerk!

“This investigation’s high priority for the Treasury Department. The diamond industry has been listed as a Class One national security priority,” Williams-Smythe said.

“What’s that got to do with me?” Maran demanded.

“I hope you’ll tell me. You’re on your own, a singleton. Hope you’ll share what you’ve found with your government. Your hotel has its own restaurant. Supposed to be pretty good. We can kick it around over steak frites, glass of wine‌—‌Uncle Sam’s dime, shall we?”

“Fine, but not there. The Chez Biarritz on Rue Royale,” he said, having noted it safely distant from the Hotel Florida

Thirty-Nine

Georgetown, Washington, DC

F
ollowing their meeting in McLean, Baltimore dropped Luster off at the Pentagon. He drove into Georgetown to park in the garage of an office building on a corner of Wisconsin Avenue. He walked up the steps and through the large glass turnstile entrance doors into the marble terrace on the ground floor and entered the elevator and pressed the button to the seventh floor office of Global Coast Oil International Company, Inc. As he left the elevator and turned right, he could see below the name over its doors, a subtitle that read
The World’s Source for its Energy Needs.
A trim secretary greeted him in a straight black skirt and short heels. She led him into a conference room where three people in business attire sat waiting for him at the table, on which sat a chrome pitcher of water and a coffee pot accompanied by clean glasses and heavy mugs.

Stassinopoulos greeted him and introduced White House Chief of Staff Margaret-Anne Ryan-Colby, a pasty redhead about forty years old. The wear of her career showed. Her complexion, chalky white with a faint strawberry blush, fanned her high, bony cheekbones. Like her boss she saw support of Bombe’s Angolan government as key to her own success.

“First of all,” she started. “I speak for President Valentine who wants to thank all of you for your enthusiastic support. Minister Johnson, without your organization’s network of black churches and the millions in small campaign donations you directed to our campaign, it would be difficult to be in the leadership position we are in today. The Executive Office is effectively cementing relationships in Western Africa, the Middle East, the Arab and other Islamic nations.”

The Reverend Ishmael Malik Johnson made a courteous bow. As minister of Detroit’s largest Baptist church, he wielded immense influence over a huge spring of political campaign contributions. As founder and Executive Director of the Multi-Ethnic Affiliated Green International Coalition, known as MAGIC, he could deliver the combined 43 presidential electoral votes from Michigan and Illinois. He also had a direct link to one of Africa’s largest, though least-known public charities, Hum-Assist International‌—‌Boyko’s public relations front.

President Hope Valentine had no idea of who ran that charity. Nor that she owed him. But, in exchange for his commitment to the Valentine presidency, Johnson had been appointed the U.S. State Department’s Civilian Liaison for Human Rights in West Africa.

He looked at Stassinopoulos and Baltimore.

“We plan to get the facts out. America needs to hear them. We’re in the process of arranging interviews‌—‌Bill Maher, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow‌—‌we’re even including Chris Matthews‌—‌when Luis Gomes comes for his White House visit,” Ryan-Colby laughed. “Maybe we’ll shoot a tingle up his leg,” she added, in reference to a quote he had made about his reaction in Matthews’ earlier interview with the president.

James Ingersoll, the new U.S. Ambassador to Angola wasn’t present. It was clear to all that this was strictly a political meeting.

“We have recently celebrated U.S.-Angola Day at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars,’ Ryan-Colby continued, ‘we have always had a close relationship in energy and natural resources, including diamonds. American business has been a major investor in Angola; that’s why President Valentine has posted an advisor from our Department of Treasury to our embassy in Angola. We recognize what a shock it was to the economy with the recent collapse of diamond prices and that factor’s negative impact on KoeffieBloehm and the entire minerals mining industries and their dependent money center banks around the world. Our main goal is to help President Valentine promote more business cooperation between the U.S. and African government and private sectors. Oil production is dependent on economic and financial stability and access to that oil is still paramount and will be until we large consumers in the west put adequate sources of alternative energy on line.”

Baltimore spoke. “Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, may lead us into much larger global conflict and not simply an economic one. China has current population one-point-three billion and she can’t afford to let them go without energy, transportation or electricity.”

“We at the White House, you know, want to awaken the American people to the disease and hardships faced by the peoples of West Africa, as well as in the impoverished Middle East. We are working to promote a permanent peace there and to begin to promote a new prosperity throughout Africa,” Ryan-Colby said.

“How can we help?” Stassinopoulos asked. Baltimore grinned.

“Well, as you know we have planned this plenary in two parts. We at the White House want to extend our appreciation for your efforts on behalf of our nation’s national security. Without your help in assuring stability in far-off places, our initiative to work with our trade partners, like those in China and West Africa, would be for naught. Following our meeting here, we will go to the Blair House for the second half of our conference concentrating on economic cooperation in support of our efforts to provide economic assistance in West Africa. We are honored to have Sir Neville Sharp-Neff, from England, and General Li Shau Yung, from China, to introduce to you.

“Perhaps I don’t have to tell you, gentlemen. There is a deep relationship between oil and diamonds in some of the Middle East economies, including in Iran,” she said. “In fact this relationship is deeper and more fragile than anyone realized until now.”

“Oil and prosperity go hand-in-hand,” Baltimore said.

“Oil’s at the heart of the economy, as well as national defense,” Stassinopoulos added.

“Oil wars, demand pressure from China and India, the Gulf War, the 9/11 attack, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. Now diamonds,” Baltimore exclaimed, shaking his head in apparent distaste.

Ryan-Colby explained that the downturn in diamond pricing wasn’t only triggering a dive in global stock markets; it was causing big political problems for the president.

“This makes Hope Valentine’s foreign policy doctrine hard to sell to Congress. If we hope to guarantee peace in the Middle East and bring prosperity and health to Africa, we need the resources to implement our ‘constructive engagement’ diplomatic measures. In other words, we have to get to the bottom of the market crash,” Ryan-Colby said.

“Everyone wants to end the violence,” Johnson added. “America’s black community and the rest of the disadvantaged around the world have been hit hard. All my contacts here in the U.S., in West Africa, the Middle East, want to know that the White House is on board with us‌—‌finally.”

Johnson removed a white hankie from the breast pocket of his double-breasted, linen navy blazer. He grandly wiped the perspiration from his face.

To channel the power he had mustered, Johnson had registered a political action committee, M-PAC, with the U.S. Federal Election Commission and filed a report that showed that his group had been careful to give no more then the legally-allowed $5,000 to any single candidate in the recent elections. The loophole he took advantage of, like so many other PACs and SuperPACs, was the fact that there was no limit to the total money they could spend on ads to support candidates or to promote their agendas. Total PAC contributions in the U.S. this year alone came to more than one billion dollars.