'A' for Argonaut (34 page)

“What are you talking about?” Luster guffawed. “Our National Intelligence Director, James Carlson himself, told the Senate Intel Committee that Egypt’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is secular, just an umbrella arm for a variety of movements.”

“Sure, and Hezbollah in Lebanon isn’t in the process of staging a slow coup there and working with Iran to develop nuclear weapons for all the Islamists in the Middle East,” Martin said.

“Have your little joke. President Valentine has inspired the country with a moral clarity that shines the way to bend the course of history to justice in the Middle East as well as in West Africa,” said Stassinopoulos.

“Bush fought for freedom for Arabs in the Middle East. But he was ridiculed for it,” Martin observed. “That is the convoluted way our great nation is now divided. If we don’t change that, it will be our downfall.”

“Come on. This is bullshit. What are we doing about Mack Maran, Cabinda?” Baltimore pressed.

“I told you already,” Luster yelled. His voice began to tremble. “You’re right. Maran took matters into his own hands. A complete disaster.”

“The Justice Department has opened a grand jury. The proceedings are secret. I know there is an indictment coming down on a Protestant minister,” Martin explained, looking from Baltimore to Stassinopoulos.

“Ishmael Malik Johnson?” Baltimore asked.

“Part of Justice’s case includes copies of a long series of Hope Valentine’s DR-2 campaign funding reports. Campaign contributions of fifteen million dollars were channeled through a series of PACs set up by Johnson and his cronies,” Martin said.

“Point, there?” Baltimore asked.

“Didn’t you introduce Stash to Johnson?” Luster followed.

“Small world. But that doesn’t absolve Maran,” Baltimore insisted. “Aren’t a lot of your old buddies from SAWC milking it, getting more money working for us at Long Bow than they ever dreamed of?” Baltimore shot back.

Luster bypassed the slur.

“FINCEN’s working the case,” Martin added.

Stash’s eyebrows shot up.

Forty-Three

Vienna, Virginia

B
ack at FINCEN’s Vienna headquarters off Chain Bridge Road, Leslie Archer, the Director, stomped into Jack Connell’s office. Puzzled, Connell pushed back from his desk. He rose to greet his superior.

The Director threw an internal report on the Chief’s desk.

“You know this guy?” Before Connell answered, he ran through the files in his mind.
Shit.
The director was one of a rare few with access to NBES’ voluminous recordings. His job required that kind of top-level need-to-know access.

“In essence, that’s an obituary, Jack,” the Director barked. “Your pal killed two U.S. agents in the process of arresting him in Antwerp. We know Maran is behind this diamond debacle. I hold you responsible if he gets away. One thing stands out. Everywhere we look in this diamond scam, we find Maran’s peckerprints. He’s messing with us. I don’t want to find out that you’re helping him!” He tossed another sheet of paper on the desk. Down the middle of the page, a list of words was hand-written.

Diamonds

Dolitz

Panama

Cartel

Antwerp

Tolkachevsky

Vangaler

Amber Chu

Cabinda

“And these,” blasted the Director. “NEBS sent this list of intercept triggers over to me. Says they were your codes, that you requisitioned the intercepts.” He glared at Connell.

“Related, Les. They’re related,” Connell said. “First of all, I can’t explain what happened to our agents in Antwerp. You’ve made a bad mistake. Maran is not our target. He’s our key asset. He delivered up the lead on Dolitz, the money laundering tie-in to the diamond scam. He developed these triggers, isolated them as keyword strings that could only be used by conspirators in this case. I requisitioned NEBS to add them to PHALANX.”

“Why didn’t you clear that through me?”

“If this thing blows up in our faces, I wanted to protect you from being caught in the loop. No need of everyone taking collateral damage,” Connell said.

“Well. I want to know everything. Tom Casey was a good man, a trusted agent, had a family, died in the line of duty. I need answers.”

“I’m sorry. I know Maran. He’s a model soldier. All-American. When we get him back in, there’ll be a reckoning.”

“Maran is a rogue. He does not work for us!” Archer exploded.

“Actually, that’s probably not completely true. He’s ours. He’s always worked in the black for us. There’s no reason to believe he’s changed his spots.”

Archer’s voice reverberated off the office walls. “Ours! In the black? Who else’ve you got out there spying for us on this case?”

“Give me till tomorrow to answer that.”

“Why?”

“I’m waiting to hear from Cole Martin. He’ll have take for us, sources we don’t have.”

“I hope you’re right! Or your career’s over.”

“We haven’t had time to merge all of the intercepts into our database. I’ll have an answer when we do.”

After Leslie Archer left his office, Connell called Cole Martin.

“No one in any of our agencies bothered to search out-of-print South African gemstone journals for a link between Tolkachevsky and Dolitz. And it was right there to be downloaded,” he told his friend.

“Unnn‌—‌believable,” Martin sighed.

Forty-Four

Antwerp

T
he sky was pink with dawn as they shot down the R10 towards Knokke-Heist.

“Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here? How did you find me?” Amber demanded.

“Why did Vangaler try to force you into his car?” Maran asked, equally insistent.

“See? You stepped in to that situation with a great deal of confidence, in fact just like a superhero trained for violence. How do you know Vangaler? How do you know about Tony? What do you know about me?” She asked, in a voice riddled with anxiety.

“I’m an investigative reporter, assignment on diamond smuggling. After doing some exhaustive research on diamond smuggling in Angola, the DRC, I found out a lot of things. Still have a lot of unanswered questions. You, Vangaler, and your mutual boss happen to be among them.”

“You didn’t find that on websites.”

“Sources. Compromised links.”

“Sources, links?” Amber sniffed. “What kind?”

“Trust me, Amber. I can help you. I’m your only chance. What can you tell me about Vangaler?”

“I still don’t believe you,” she said.

“Tell me about Vangaler,” Maran persisted.

Amber looked at this man closely, a stranger. He was tall, good looking in a well-used kind of way, rugged, not rough. He gained stature when he walked with military bearing. She reached into her catalog of human psyches to place where he might fit in the spectrum. She decided he had something she could trust.

“What do you know about him?” she asked.

“I never heard of him before I took this assignment.”

“What about you? What did you do before you became an investigative journalist?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time.”

It wasn’t the right time to tell her the truth, so he lied. Oh, he was so good at it. Maran explained that the story he was working on started out as a piece for a specialized industry publication on diamond merchandising. As a way to insure widespread trade interest, the article, he told her, was to cover the entire spectrum of the industry, from mining to quality control and consumer purchasing.

His cover story, like most, was true in part. He told her how he got an assignment on speculation, no advance fee, for a piece on diamond smuggling in Africa, conflict diamonds. How they supported terrorism and how his search led him to uncover her and her son’s story. It was an easy cover.

“You hacked into Boyko’s e-mails?” she cried.

“I want to know about Vangaler,” Maran insisted.

“General Slang Vangaler, chief of the Ninja Crocodile militia. He’s Chief of SSI’s Ninjas, an army of lunatics, crazed kids he keeps hopped up on drugs. They keep everyone in the region under control. People say he’s Ugandan. I don’t know.”

If he needed more information about Vangaler, he had come to the right place. She was ready to deal. Her face told him that she had become receptive. He felt her desperation.

She continued. “The Ninja Crocodile Devil Men are Vangaler’s cult; they believe in witches, sorcery, superstitious answers to why bad things happen. A lot of bad things happen to them.”

“What do they do?”

“Vangaler has them all convinced that he’s a supernatural spirit who can show them how to win over evil. So, they kill and maim people he says are witches and devils…never mind; it’s too disgusting. Use your imagination.”

“Where do you come in?” Maran asked.

“I led him on. Got him stoned one night. In a blackout he told me he was going to kill Boyko, take over his whole operation.”

Boyko! The Animal!

“Who’s Boyko?” Maran asked, deceptively. She told him everything.

“What about Vangaler?”

“He hates me,” Amber told him.

“Why?”

“I wouldn’t fuck him.”

She returned to her own inquiry.

“What did you do before you became an investigative reporter? Military?”

Maran sidestepped the question.

“I still want to know what you did before journalism. Were you ever in the army?”

“That was good.”

Then he told her all that he could about his military career. Everything but Cabinda.

She absorbed what he said. Hearing him gave her hope.

Maybe he can help get Tony back if all else fails.

They were safe for the time being, but they needed a break from the tension.

It was then she told him about Boyko’s gem smuggling.

“Funny thing is…” she said. “…he thinks of himself as a shrewd businessman. He’s in the right business. He’s flooding the market. There is so much air in the price of diamonds to begin with‌—‌putting aside the obvious, the murder and terror‌—‌it’s hard to fault him for that. Take the legitimate mining companies. Only costs them two or three dollars a carat to bring them out of the ground. Last year the U.S. traded more than $20 billion in diamonds of all kinds, greater than the value of all the gold and silver bought and sold. Keep the market hot with advertising, and you can’t buy retail stones without going through their system.”

She told him that if the flood of new diamonds crushed the market, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“The Russians did it in the 70s,” she said. Maran remembered it as part of their Cold War strategy to attack western economies. She was getting carried away with details, statistics. So he reminded her.

“Let’s get to Knokke.”

He didn’t tell her about his contract with the Diamond Dealers Club.

Forty-Five

Knokke-Heist, Belgium Coast

T
he Hotel La Luxe in Knokke-Heist was everything Amber promised: a five-star resort that included multiple swimming pools, massage rooms, and a world-class casino. The kind of place that government employees like her father could never afford, unless they were smuggling diamonds on the side. A stay there gave guests a pass to the ultra-exclusive Royal Zoute Golf Club, an amenity Maran had no interest in. They shared a room as a couple. She rolled to the far side. They slept together, in opposite sides of the queen-sized bed, fitfully. Neither of them had much peace of mind and she revelled in the chance to feel free from any obligation to engage in sex. He respected her boundaries.