Sphere Of Influence (16 page)

It took another five minutes before the first one became visible, striped by the sunlight filtering through the canopy. Wolfgang watched him and the others as they appeared, moving only his eyes. They closed efficiently on the boulders near him, training their weapons on an obvious indentation between them, which is why he had avoided that more strategic position.

It was a pleasure to watch them work. The grace, th
e
near total silence, the almost telepathic integration of the unit. Obviously a group of men who had honed considerable natural talent with years of sacrifice and training. Men to be respected and, if one was wise, feared.

He continued to watch as they moved past, taking in every detail. He calculated their speed and adjusted for the terrain he knew was ahead, letting them go what he estimated was a quarter mile before daring to move his fingers to his throat mike.

"This is Wolfgang," he said in English. "Five men have passed my position and are now approximately four hundred meters north of me, moving toward the house. Estimated arrival in half an hour. Stand by."

When all of his men had acknowledged the transmission, Wolfgang moved his green-painted hand silently to his pocket and punched a button on the satellite phone secured there. It was picked up immediately. The voice on the other end was surprisingly clear through his earpiece. "Yes?"

He'd never laid eyes on his employer and this was only the second time he'd spoken to the man directly. In the end, though, it didn't matter. The wire transfers he received for his services were very real and substantial enough to ensure a comfortable retirement for him and his family.

He switched to German, which he was more comfortable with, knowing that his employer had no real preference as to language. "We've made contact. They're moving toward the house."

The house he was referring to was one of the only things on the small island in the Seychelle chain--a structure perched on the edge of a smooth granite cliff. His orders had been to rig it with explosives and to make it look as though it were still occupied. He and his men had set enough Plastique to more or less disintegrate it.

"Any idea who they are, Wolfgang?"

"Definitely not Laotian and probably not American," he said quietly, continuing to scan the jungle for movement. "Based on their equipment and appearance, I would guess mercenaries of various nationalities."

"How easily could they be captured?"

"It would be extremely difficult, even with surprise on our side. I've seen five but there are probably more: There are other obvious insertion points and lines of attack. As I told your people years ago, this house is impossible to properly secure."

"It has a wonderful view, though."

Wolfgang wasn't sure how to respond to that comment, so he ignored it. "If you are intent on capturing some of them, sir, the best way would be to wait for them to get close to the house and then blow it. Their point men will be killed and we can use the confusion to try to take the men at the rear. What would you like us to do?"

Christian Volkov pressed the phone to his ear a little harder, trying to block out the hum of the small jet as it descended through the clouds and revealed a landscape of endless snowcapped mountains.

There was no real point in trying to capture one of these men, he knew. It was unlikely that they would know the identity of their employer, and the potential loss of Wolfgang or the members of his team would be devastating. Especially now.

"Destroy the house."

"Now? They are probably still more than two kilometers out."

There was also no point to killing them. Violence was best used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. Had they been Laotian or American, perhaps acquiring one alive would have been helpful in ascertaining whether General Yung or Jonathan Drake was involved. But mercenaries .. .

"Destroy it now and get your men out of there safely. Payment will be in your account by tomorrow."

"I understand."

Volkov shut off the phone and pressed his forehead against the cold window next to him. When he'd lost contact with Pascal, he'd immediately abandoned the Seychelles house and sent Wolfgang to look after it. Now, only a few hours later, there were already men closing in. Whoever had masterminded the attack moved quickly.

The obvious answer, of course, was General Yung. He certainly had known the time of Pascal's arrival and could have had a group of mercenaries on standby while he retrieved the information on Volkov's whereabouts. That was far from certain, though. It could have been any one of a hundred enemies whom he had collected over the years. The disintegration of his power base in Laos would not go unnoticed, and it was not unreasonable to expect someone to take advantage of his temporary weakness there and attempt to move in on his business interests.

If the situation were reversed, it was exactly how he would have done it: pay off the men driving Pascal and get rid of the plane. Then, if the attack was unsuccessful, the general would be the obvious suspect. And either way, Yung would be suspicious of Pascal's sudden disappearance and would assume that he had just been there as a spy.

Of course, there was also Jonathan Drake and the CIA, an organization with a significant presence in Laos. Despite his protests to the contrary, was Drake trying to end their relationship?

The truth was, there was no way to know. It wasn't the first time he'd been attacked like this, and it probably wouldn't be the last. The problem in this case was that his business with General Yung, one way or another, had been left unfinished. Despite the uncertainty of his situation, he would have to reach out to Yung again. Soon.

"Christian? Are you all right?"

Volkov looked up at the man sitting in a deep leather chair across from him. He was thirty-three but looked younger, with dark, smooth skin and closely cropped, curly black hair. While certainly not ready to take Pascal's place in the organization, he was nevertheless a very talented young man.

"I'm fine, Joseph. A bit tired from my visit with Charles Russell. It was a long flight." Volkov pointed to the laptop in the younger man's lap. "Where do we stand?"

"The procedures were very clear and detailed. It's all going smoothly."

Everything was temporarily in flux. They were flyin
g
toward a house that no one, not even Pascal, had known about. New corporations were being formed, bank accounts were being closed and new ones opened, houses were being burned and new ones purchased. Volkov estimated that the loss of Pascal would cost over fifty million U
. S
. dollars. Legal fees alone would rise into the millions. Volkov leaned his head back on the seat, feeling the darkness that he was so familiar with trying to descend on him, to leave him helpless and broken as it had so many times before. He couldn't allow it, though. Not now "Pascal has a sister in France," he said quietly. "You'll need to tell her that he is ... he is dead. Tell her it was an auto crash or some other accident. He had a five-million-dollar life-insurance policy through one of our European corporations. See that there are no delays in her receiving the money." He paused for a moment, finding it suddenly difficult to speak. "And tell her that . . . tell her that he was a good friend to me."

Chapter
19

DESPITE the seriousness of his situation, Beamon had to struggle not to smile.

He was in the backseat of a black Cadillac with way too many gold accents, sandwiched between two enormous mounds of Italian-American flesh. The mound to his right, inevitably named Tony, had a nose that looked like it had been broken at least a hundred times and dark, beady eyes that were beginning to disappear into his fleshy face. Mikey, an equally stereotypical specimen, had a slightly straighter nose but made up for it with a seventies-looking clip-on tie.

"So tell me, Mikey," Beamon said, prying himself free and leaning forward a bit to stretch his back. "How many tracksuits do you own?"

The man just stared straight forward with a military intensity. Obviously he didn't have much of a sense of humor and thought that Beamon--Nicolai--was trying to pry important information out of him.

"I don't know. Why?"

"Never mind," Beamon said, looking over the front seat at the winding road in front of them. He'd thought the meeting was to be held at Carlo Gasta's downtown office, but when he'd arrived, he'd been ushered into this car. He wasn't crazy about this type of thing not going as expected, but so far there seemed to be nothing to get worked up about.

"Where are we going?"

Silence.

Every attempt he'd made to pry something useful out of these overweight bookends had gone nowhere, so Beamon decided to use the time to review the countless facts he'd shoehorned into his mind over the past forty-eight hours. The files that combined to create the fictional persona Nicolai encompassed fifteen years of complex crimes and scams. He thought he had a grasp on most of it but sincerely hoped there wouldn't be a quiz.

Finally exhausting his limited capacity for concentrating on detail, Beamon focused on the bigger picture. What did the individual acts contained in those files say about Nicolai? What kind of a man was he?

Beamon had always thought that undercover work and acting were the same thing. In this case you read the file--basically a script--then you created a person in your head who would do those sorts of things. It was a form of applied schizophrenia--something he should be pretty good at, according to Carrie.

They turned off the road and into the driveway of a smallish house built into the side of a hill and Beamon followed Tony--or was it Mikey?--out of the car and took in the rolling quilt of city lights spread out below.

"This way."

He was marched to the porch and one of his new friends knocked gingerly on the front door. It took probably a minute before Beamon heard footsteps approaching from inside.

"So this is the famous Nicolai," Carlo Gasta said, pulling the door open and stepping out of the way as his men ushered Beamon inside. "I thought you'd be taller."

Beamon was going to offer his hand but it felt strangely unnatural. Nicolai, as it turned out, wasn't a handshaker. And neither was Gasta, apparently. He turned and led them through the gaudily decorated entry, trailing the distinct scent of alcohol and aftershave.

When they entered the living room, Chet rose from a sofa to greet him. Beamon decided that Nicolai would make an exception and shake hands with his old assistant. "It's good to see you again," Chet said respectfully. "We appreciate you meeting with us."

Beamon just nodded and sat down on the sofa uninvited.

Gasta was standing with his back to them at a bar, mixing himself a drink. Beamon saw that he was swaying a little from the ones he'd had already and that worried him a little, though he wasn't exactly sure why.

"What do you drink, Nicolai?"

"Nothing."

"I don't trust a man who won't drink with me."

Beamon surveyed the room casually. The men who had brought him there were standing against the wall with their eyes locked on him.

"I don't care."

Gasta looked a little angry when he turned around. It was likely that he was accustomed to being firmly in command--particularly in his own home.

"You know what made me think of you on this deal," Gasta said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and smacking them against the palm of his hand. "It was that job you did in Detroit."

Beamon called up the details of a multimillion-dollar diamond heist he'd read about in one of the files Laura had given him. Gasta's glassy eyes suddenly became just a little bit probing.

"I understand you have something that might interest me," Beamon said, ignoring the inference.

"That was a hell of an operation," Gasta said, obviously not willing to let the subject go. "The one in Detroit, I mean."

Was it possible that he could be any more obvious? He undoubtedly had some kind of information on that job that would suggest Nicolai wasn't involved.

"The FBI and Interpol blame me when it rains, Carlo. I had nothing to do with that. As I recall, two security guards were killed--but not before they'd managed to get a few shots off." He shook his head in disgust. "I don't make a practice out of getting into gunfights with eight-dollar-an-hour rent-a-cops."

Gasta looked disappointed. "Well, then you haven't really done much in the U
. S
., have you?"

"I haven't. You have a better class of law enforcement here. I prefer to avoid the FBI."

That got a laugh out of Gasta. "Bunch of flicking idiots." He spread his arms wide, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "They've been busting their asses for years and they can't touch me."

It was odd but true. Beamon had never been able to figure out how someone like Carlo Gasta had stayed out of prison for so long. Perhaps it had something to do with the mysterious banker Chet had met.

"Hats off to you. You've done well for yourself."

Gasta took a seat in a chair across from Beamon, and his people took that as the signal that they, too, could sit. A moment later Beamon found himself between his sweaty new friends Tony and Mikey again. Chet, wisely, took the chair next to Gasta.