Whirlwind

Whirlwind By Joseph Garber

Synopsis:

When Russian spy Irena Kolodenkov stumbles upon Project Whirlwind and makes a run for it. Sam”, the National Security Advisor, calls on Charlie McKenzie. former Central Intelligence Operations director for one last job.

Hay lost his position and served time in prison after following mistaken orders from Sam. Charlie sees it as an opportunity to make a lot of money and force Sam to give him a presidential pardon. He also wants to find out what Whirlwind is all about. Sam is hiding something and Charlie is still a patriot.

Sam has also hired the ruthless mercenary Johan Schmidt to find Irena. An old adversary of Charlie’s. Schmidt has been given free reign to bring in Irena by any means necessary. And Schmidt is hoping that Charlie gets in his way… Also by Joseph R. Garber

In a Perfect State

Rascal Money

Vertical Run

Whirlwind

Joseph R. Garber

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All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright (c) 2004 by Joseph R. Garber

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by

Piatcus Books Ltd of

email: [email protected]

First published in the United States in 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

The moral right of the author has been asserted A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7499 0706 1 (Hardback edition) ISBN 0 7499 3542 1 (Trade paperback edition)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by William Clowes Ltd, Beccles, Suffolk

For my brother, Dr. John Garber

A man who tries to carry a cat home by its tail will learn a lesson that can be learned in no other way.

Mark Twain

Ah, Vengeance!

Tuesday, July 21.

Charlie McKenzie glared over the rims of his half-moon reading glasses. Shuffling his Washington Post in what he hoped was, but suspected was not, an intimidating manner, he reached for his coffee. A newspaper, a cup of coffee, a dozy cat in his lap, and a peaceful morning in which to enjoy them were they not every man’s natural-born prerogatives?

Hugging two-year-old Jason to her hip, Carly brandished a portable telephone. “Dad,” she said breathlessly. “It’s the White House! The national security advisor!”

Apparently his daughter held the rights of men, or at least males, in low esteem. Charlie had no one to blame but himself. Up until the day she died, Mary had insisted that Carly certainly did not get that sort of behavior from her side of the family.

He turned in his wicker chair, looking out beyond the screened porch, past the long green expanse of a stately lawn, down to Chesapeake Bay. It was a lovely summer morning, bright but not yet hot. Perfect weather as far as the eye could see except in the climatological zone directly above Charlie’s thundercloud brow. “Tell him to go piss up a rope.”

“Dad!” Tiss upa row,” echoed Jason. To which Molly, aged six and peeking around her mother’s skirts, added, “Mommy, Jason’s saying dirty words.”

“Tour grandfather’s influence. Again!” hissed Carly, thrusting the phone into Charlie’s lap, then dragging her children away from what doubtless would be another bad example.

Charlie raised the phone to his ear. He spoke softly, gently. “Mornin’, Sam.”

An unctuous answer, amiability’s illusion in every syllable: “Charlie! It’s good to hear you, man! Thank God I caught you at home! Listen, there’s a problem, a helluva problem, and the president personally asked that I call “

Speaking in the gentlemanly tones of a sweetly reasonable soul, Charlie interrupted. “Give him my best personal regards, and tell him I said he can screw himself.”

The portable phone chirped like a digital bird as Charlie fingered the Off button.

Eight seconds, he estimated as he glanced at his outrageously garish wristwatch, a solid gold Rolex President with numbers set in colored gem-stones. The preposterous thing was a gift from the Philippine government. That figured. No one in that part of the world had a bit of taste. . three, four, five…

As opposed, for example, to the Italians. It was one of their presidents who could remember which, they never stayed out of jail long enough to make memorizing their names worth the effort who’d given Charlie the monumentally expensive, solid silver Faema espresso maker whose ambrosia he was savoring at this very moment…. six, seven, eight… Ring!

Perfect timing. Charlie McKenzie never missed. Clicking the On button, he smiled beatifically, a man who had been waiting two long years for Sam to call, and who planned to enjoy himself mightily now that the roly-poly little weasel needed help. “Okay, Sam, if bunny brains doesn’t know how to do it, tell him first thing he needs a dildo.”

Sam’s oiliness had dissipated. “Charlie, we don’t have time for this.”

‘“Dildo’ usually is synonymous with ‘national security advisor,” but not this time.”

Now Sam was feigning sincerity. “This is an emergency. More than an emergency. The word ‘crisis’ doesn’t even begin “

“And an industrial-strength motor, the kind they use to run jackhammers.”

Goodbye sincerity, hello desperation. “Okay, okay, whatever you want. Name it. It’s yours.” He paused, then hastily added, “Short of an apology, that is.”

Charlie ran a hand down his stubbled cheek. He’d have to shave before Sam showed up on his doorstep. And that would be he eyed his watch in fifty-seven minutes. “Anything, Sam?”

“If it’s in my power, yes.”

Yup, definitely desperation. It was a step in the right direction. “Ten million dollars.” Charlie heard a barely audible Shit! “The actuarial tables tell me I’ve got another thirty-five years to live. Ten million works out to about two hundred and eighty grand a year. That’s not much in light of my decades of loyal and faithful service.”

“Put it in T-bills, and the interest is three hundred thousand.”

Charlie snorted, “Hey, Sam, if you’re so good at math, how come the White House can’t balance the budget?”

“Quit busting my chops.” He cleared his throat before predictably wheedling, “I don’t suppose I could appeal to your patriotism?”

Charlie pictured the expression on Sam’s pudgy face: slit-eyed calculation. It always was. “You did that last time. This time I’ll take cash.”

“Damnit, man, you know there’s no way I can come up with ten million-“

“The president’s discretionary fund. The unaudited and unpoliced account Congress dispenses once per annum. Everyone since Millard Fill-more has used it to pay for botched assassinations, fund quote-freedom fighters-unquote, and compensate that compliant abortionist on} Street who caters to careless interns.”

“This is a pro-life administration, and you know it.”

Rumor had it that beneath his exquisitely shellacked exterior, Sam concealed a dangerously explosive temper. Too bad Charlie liked playing with fireworks. “Same as every other administration, the only thing you’re pro is pro-reelection.”

“Jesus, what turned you into such a cynic?”

“A lifetime in government service.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the nearly inaudible drum of Sam’s fingers on his desk. Charlie smiled. Charlie waited. And, just as Charlie expected, Sam caved in: “Ten million. Okay. I can handle that. It won’t be easy, but I think-“

“Think? You’ve never thought in your life, Sam. Connived, schemed, and plotted? Sure. But thinking? Uh-uh, no.”

“All I’m saying is that it will take time.”

“That it will. Five minutes to be precise. I’m logging on to my Swiss bank then. If my account is ten million dollars plumper than it was yesterday, I’ll answer the phone when you call back. If not…” Charlie regretted Sam couldn’t see his fine and wolfish smirk “.. . then not. Bye now, Sam.”

“No! Wait! I don’t have your account number!”

“Oh, spare me! My personnel file is on your desk, and my account number is right there on the first page.”

“Err… why, so it is, but “

The phone chirped merrily, a happy little songbird soon to be fed.

Charlie polished off his coffee, set his partially read newspaper on a wicker table, and ambled back into the house. The porch led directly to his den. His Apple Power Book computer was already alive, alert, and scanning the Internet for such dubious data as people like Charlie always found beguiling.

He pecked out his Swiss bank’s computer address, entered his password, and was just in time to watch his account grow from the token thousand dollars he kept in it to ten million, one thousand dollars and no (0) cents.

Charlie reached beneath his desk and threw a toggle switch. The computer screen flickered. His modem was no longer connected to the ultra-high-bandwidth line the Agency had kindly let him keep after dispensing with his services. Charlie was now dialing into the World Wide Web via an ordinary telephone line.

Well, not entirely ordinary.

The line in question disappeared through his floor, into the basement, and from there traveled via PVC conduit a distance of one hundred and thirty yards to his neighbor’s cellar. Late one evening or, to be accurate, extremely early one morning Charlie had paid a hacker acquaintance to bridge the wire to the neighbor’s spare telephone extension, a phone line reserved solely for emergency use by babysitters.

Any number of agencies, bureaus, and departments monitored Charlie’s highspeed data link every minute of every day. They didn’t have a clue that his bootlegged hookup existed.

Charlie tapped a few keys on his computer. Ten million dollars disappeared from a Swiss bank, scampering off in multiple directions to multiple mouse holes where, in due course, various cunning software programs would tuck it into a quite select number of defiantly impregnable financial institutions.

Sam wasn’t going to get his money back. He wasn’t even going to be able to find where it had gone.

The phone rang.

“Hi, Sam.”

“Everything satisfactory?”

“So far.” Charlie emphasized the word “far.”

Sam grunted a predictable obscenity. “What else do you want?”

“My daughter’s child-support payments suck. That syphilitic rodent in human garb who divorced her as soon as my name started making headlines-“

“How much, Charlie? Cut to the chase, and just tell me how much.”

“Another ten million.”

“Why am I not surprised? I’ll call you back in five.”

And so he did, the government of the United States now being twenty million dollars poorer an insignificant amount in the overall order of things, what with run-amock waste, ludicrous congressional boondoggles, the bottomless pit of pork-barrel spending, and such alike.

Or so Charlie opined.

He answered the phone with a cheery, “Well, done, Sam.”

“Fuck you very much.” No cheer in that voice, none at all.

“And the very same to you. Now, let me give you a word of advice. Don’t even think about trying to track down those funds.”

“The NSA can find anything in the world.”

“With respect, Sam, the National Security Agency is a bunch of cross eyed computer gee ks All they’re good for is collecting raw data. That’s not the art of intelligence. The art of intelligence is understanding the data, winnowing through it, finding which pieces of the puzzle fit “