Infinite Exposure (22 page)

One thing the world didn't need right now was an outright war with one or more factions of the Russian mafia. Every government
needed them to ensure al-Qaeda never got any of the stockpiled Russian nuclear or chemical weapons. They had already taken
it upon themselves to handle one such situation and every government involved in this operation knew it. Piss them off now,
and al-Qaeda would be able to purchase the entire Cold War stockpile for next to nothing.

“We need to put some kind of long distance surveillance on him somehow,” the man in the suit finally said. “I can let the
Brit work remotely from here for a while since he is already on his way, but we need to find an excuse.”

“An excuse?” Hans asked.

“We need someone high enough up in al-Qaeda visiting this location to warrant an air strike taking him and his hub out. Something
which can be on the news and my government can use to state publicly they are helping in the war on terrorism. Any one of
the major cell coordinators or attack planners will do. We cannot just strike him now as that would tip our hand and the others
will go to ground on us.”

“Agreed,” said Hans. “Since anyone monitoring from a hillside will need to look native ...”

“I will make the calls and get the people,” replied the man in the suit.

“There is another option available to us since you are ready to burn this lead. The tribes run a lot of drugs through that
pass. He is close enough to the Afghanistan border that we could send the GPS coordinates to the Americans if we had a contact
we could trust. Even someone in the Afghan military could send some troops across the border to clean this up. They just need
a good excuse.”

“That is a risky play. There has already been a lot of saber rattling about prior incursions. If a drug caravan stops there
for the night, we would be better off having the Russian mafia come in, take the drugs, and kill everyone in their usual fashion.”

“Long way for them to fly choppers, especially across a war zone.”

“True, but it would remove all suspicion. Everyone can recognize the work of the Russian mafia. They specialize in brutal
theatrical killings. The warlord who lost his drugs would be looking for them. At any rate, we need to get someone watching
him. Stay at the hotel a few more days. I will send someone to contact you.”

The man in the suit hated to admit it, but Hans was correct. Given all of the radar and air patrols over Afghanistan today,
there was no way the Russian mafia would be able to fly a squad of choppers across undetected. If they flew low, some al-Qaeda
soldier would probably shoot them down. If they encountered fighter jets they wouldn't be lucky enough to encounter pilots
who understood what was going on.

He also knew that his government was paying little more than lip service to the hunting down of al-Qaeda within its borders.
This operation was almost completely shut down thanks to the news reports about Nedim. There were only a few in the intelligence
service who knew anything about this operation. One of them would no longer communicate with anyone involved. So far there
was no evidence that he had turned, just that he knew he had been compromised and was keeping his distance.

Many of the clerics in this country were supportive of al-Qaeda trying to kill infidels and, in particular, Americans. Quite
a few distanced themselves from the methods after 9/11. A plane hitting the Pentagon would not have brought nearly every nation
into Afghanistan. If a nation didn't have boots on the ground they had money or equipment there. Even countries that didn't
like America were standing in line to get in on the action. China bought an unprecedented amount of U.S. Treasury notes shortly
after 9/11 so the Americans would be able to fully fund any response they deemed necessary.

Indeed, the man in the suit wondered why China hadn't simply poured troops through that narrow little slit of a border they
shared with Afghanistan. He assumed it was due to the Chinese culture having this deep sense of honor when dealing with officials
and matters of state. They had lost citizens in that attack and were looking to dish out some retribution. The Afghan people
may never realize this, but they should be thankful for that sense of honor. When the Americans said they wanted to build
a coalition and lead the attack, the Chinese stepped aside and let them. The Russians had even offered to mix it up in Afghanistan
once again. Had the Chinese poured in from their border and and the Russians from theirs, the current population of Afghanistan
would be about one third of what it is today.

Then again, Pakistan would have lost a lot of people as well. It was no secret that a lot of al-Qaeda members had slipped
across the Pakistani border during the war. Because they had a coalition and were bound by United Nations treaties, coalition
forces didn't invade Pakistan to get them. True, there had been some border incursions, but it was doubtful his government
would have known about them had they not watched CNN. Sad to admit, but true.

The Afghan border had never been monitored in more than a few places. The lawlessness of the Northern Areas made that impossible.
Those warlords owed their lives to the Americans as well, though they didn't know it. China wouldn't have thought twice about
crushing that region on their way in. They would have occupied Pakistan all the way up to the Khyber Pass and given the size
of their military, Pakistan would have had to submit to the occupation.

Yes, his government had nuclear weapons for quite some time, but that wouldn't have helped. China had more of them and Russia
more still. As soon as Pakistan lobbed one at either army everything between the Indian and Russian borders would cease to
exist. If anything was left, India would be certain to come in and finish off the job.

The man in the suit wanted all al-Qaeda members executed. He made a mental note to have Nedim killed as soon as this operation
got to a more normal pace. He had no special love for the Americans or any other country targeted by them. No matter how you
did the analysis, al-Qaeda was going to be the reason his country got exterminated. How he wished more members of his government
could see that!

***

Nikolaus had been out of the office for three days this week. He was arranging for the quiet marketing and distribution of
new embryonic stem-cell lines. Thankfully the party had some scientific members who understood these things. Nikolaus was
simply there to discuss the business side of the arrangement. The first lines were less than a month away. Team members at
the secured location had already done the extraction and were culturing the cells. They had taken over one of the small pilot
labs that had been equipped for just such an operation.

In the back of his mind, Nikolaus was already thinking of a plan to build a second secured location in a country without a
ban on the creation of such cell lines. Getting these cells into the American markets was a bit tricky. You could only approach
private institutions that weren't receiving any government money. Thankfully, there were some and they had deep pockets. They
were banned from creating any new lines, but could purchase any lines in existence, even if they were new. Selling to locations
that received government funding was a much tougher needle to thread and Nikolaus wanted no part of it for now.

There were several countries where this corporation had operations that didn't have bans on creating new stem-cell lines.
He was kind of shocked that some enterprising companies hadn't started doing just what he was doing, but there was always
that religion issue to deal with and most of them had some leaders who were religious or highly religious influential stockholders.

Getting a second site constructed on a smaller scale should be an easy sell for the board. True, the party controlled many
of them, but he still needed to come up with a story they could sell to the media and shareholders. Now that the first site
was turning a profit from the storage contracts, it would be easy to pitch the need for a second location to spread out the
risk.

After the Lutton bombing everyone was a bit on edge about an al-Qaeda attack. The recent public roundups of al-Qaeda cell
members in Germany had many people on a heightened state of alert. The Lutton bombing was larger and more coordinated than
anyone had expected. Several bombs of the size used in that attack, detonated at the correct locations, could damage, if not
take out the freezer storage. They wouldn't need to make it into the compound, but if they did, replacing all of those doses
would be a major financial loss.

When Nikolaus got back to his desk, he asked one of the lawyers working for the corporation who was a loyal party member to
identify countries that did not have extradition treaties with either Germany or the United States. Once he had that list
he would compare it to the list of locations the company already had operations. From there he should be able to easily identify
a site and a plan.

The second selling point for this entire plan would be the reduced air time to some of the subscribing locations. Any country
which didn't have extradition treaties would not be in Europe. It would make sense for Nikolaus to set up a residence near
this site as well. Nothing too extravagant, just large enough for himself and several party elders in case they had to hide
out for a while. There would need to be a secured room containing lots of cash in different currencies, passports and other
identity-making equipment ̶ your standard safe house fare for war criminals and other high-profile political refugees. They
should also stock some of those language learning tapes. Anyone running from this operation was going to need to hide for
a very long time.

With that thought done Nikolaus turned his attention to the reports from operations. The team must be staying at the camp
these days. Black market organ sales had brought in a cool $20 million. The nice thing about having a company this size was
it was easy to hide revenue sources below $100 million. Having some black ops contracts for government work made it even easier.
Nobody questioned unnamed revenue sources when they closed the books on a quarter. The only problem was handling the cash.

Wall Street seemed to already be pleased with the results. Even some of the “ethical conscience” funds had been investing
in the company because some of the board members appeared so religious to them. Nikolaus had to laugh at that. If they only
knew! Then again, all of the really hideous crimes against humanity had been done in the name of one religion or another,
so why shouldn't they be investing in this?

Briefly, Nikolaus wondered how short the careers would be of those Wall Street analysts who were going on business talk shows
pushing their strong buy rating of his company once the truth came out. Eventually it would come out. How soon Nikolaus did
not know. When the body count started approaching tens of thousands he was sure something would start to leak. It would take
years for the team he had in place to reach that kind of count, but Nikolaus was a forward thinker.

They were already assembling a second team. Heidi had been helping him in selecting members from the loyal party roster. There
were hundreds to choose from and only the surgeons needed real skills. Heidi said she could teach any dock worker to use the
machine she was using for blood extraction as long as they weren't squeamish. It may seem ghoulish, but they tended to conduct
the interviews in a room where people were either donating blood or a table with pouches of blood being sorted for shipment.
Some candidates didn't make it five minutes.

***

Vladimir was quite shocked when he opened up the Web page for his personal email account and found a message from his cousin
Lenny. It wasn't his birthday or a major holiday and those were usually the only two times he heard from the man. It wasn't
like Vladimir made it easy to keep in touch. He set up this email address for family members and checked it a few times per
month. The life he had led made cutting most family ties a requirement. You never knew when someone would try to use your
family to get to you. As a result this was a nondescript email address paid for via a false identity he never used during
an operation.

Vlad,

Long time no chat. Call me on this cell phone number when you are free to talk. Have a favor to ask of you. Need to hear from
you before Friday.

Lenny

At the bottom of the email was a cell phone number Nikolaus didn't recognize. He assumed something bad had happened. Vladimir
knew a little about his cousin's operation. He had even done some analysis for him many years ago. Lenny probably needed a
place to hide from the law or someone to launder some money for him. Still he was family and one of the few Vladimir had any
contact with.

He reached over and opened up a brand new disposable cell phone. Vladimir bought these a box at a time. Always the same model
so he had lots of interchangeable chargers and batteries. He put a fresh battery in the phone and made the call. It would
be the wee hours of the morning in the United States, but Lenny didn't specify a time.

After the third ring Vladimir heard a very sleepy “Hello.”

“Hello Lenny, been quite a while.”

“Vlad?”

Vladimir could tell the cobwebs were starting to clear.

“Let me go downstairs and get some caffeine. Call me back if I lose you.”

“What is the nature of the favor you need?” Vladimir could hear the sound of doors closing and feet padding down some steps.

“I was wondering if you still had an electronic trading account?”

“I have several and access to others. Why do you ask?”

“There is a series of stock plays we are doing which is simply going to be too big for us to do here and hide. I need to transfer
some cash to one or more of your accounts and tell you what to do. Need the trading accounts to be completely off-shore and
personal so the SEC can't really inquire on them if they try.”