CHAPTER SIX

Jones collected the four photographs from Storm and placed them back into the thick file, which he inserted back into his wall safe.

“Why did he ask you for help?” Storm said. “Petrov’s a billionaire. Why not hire a private army of mercenaries? For sixty billion, he could buy a country.”

“If only it were that easy,” Jones answered. “Who would you trust to help you recover sixty billion in gold bars and precious metals? Guns for hire? Mercenaries?”

“Good point,” Storm said. “I remember a PI case I had. A couple murdered their parents for five grand in life insurance. Imagine what people would do when sixty billion is at stake.”

“Petrov hinted that the gold is in a remote, difficult-to-reach location. He needs the kind of manpower and machinery that we can get him. And there’s another problem: Petrov is not as wealthy as everyone has been led to believe. Barkovsky froze the oligarch’s assets in Russia after they had a falling out and he fled from Moscow. Our analysts believe he only has access to seven to ten million.”

“Only seven or ten million,” Storm grunted. “Boo hoo. Makes me want to cry.”

“It doesn’t last long if you have a palatial estate in England, an Embassy Row mansion here in Washington, D.C., and a billion-dollar yacht sitting idle in the Mediterranean.”

“So what’s in it for you?” Storm asked.

“If we help him get the sixty billion, Petrov will use it to launch an insurgency against President Barkovsky.”

“A war?”

“No, but he’d finance protest rallies, bribe officials, plant news stories, and make Barkovsky’s life and presidency a living hell.”

“Is getting rid of Barkovsky worth going to bed with Petrov?” Storm asked. “Why not just have him killed if you want to get rid of him?”

“We don’t really do that anymore.”

“Sure you don’t,” Storm said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Does that mean you turned down Petrov?”

“Absolutely, we turned him down,” Jones replied. “We can’t kill foreign leaders anymore and we can’t topple foreign governments either. Congress has passed laws that specifically forbid us from doing that sort of thing. This isn’t the 1950s and 1960s when you could put poison in one of Fidel Castro’s cigars.”

“Yeah, but if I recall, that cigar stunt didn’t work.”

“It could have,” Jones said. “Creative thinking on our part. That’s something I’ve always admired. But back to the gold. There are other reasons why we can’t get involved in searching for the gold. One reason is that it still belongs to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, the Communist Party in Russia still does. It’s the second largest political party in that nation. All those little Commie bastards didn’t just disappear overnight. By international law, that money still belongs to them.

“Here’s another reason,” Jones said. “President Barkovsky has made it clear to the White House that any cooperation our government extends to Petrov will be seen as a hostile act against him and his nation. The guy might be nuts, but he still has his finger on a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and most of them are pointed at us. We don’t want to encourage his paranoid hatred of the U.S.”

“And finally,” Jones continued, “we’ve got an internal problem. The day after that photograph of the kilobar was taken inside my office, the Russian ambassador paid an unannounced visit on the secretary of state and specifically stated that any attempt by the U.S. to recover the missing gold would be considered an act of international piracy.”

“You got a leak. Someone tipped off the Russians.”

“Exactly,” Jones said. “Barkovsky knew about our private meeting in my office — this office — within twenty-four hours.”

“A mole?”

“Yes, but I don’t think the mole is on our side. I think it’s in Petrov’s camp. Only I can’t be sure.”

Despite Jones’s litany of reasons, Storm could read between the lines. Clearly, Jones wanted to help Petrov, because Barkovsky was a dangerous loony tune. What better way to get rid of him than to have one of his former friends bring him down? Et tu, Brutus? Using the Communist Party’s own wealth to destroy a pro-Communist president only made the entire scheme sweeter.

“If you aren’t going to help Petrov,” Storm said, “then why tell me about the gold?”

“Because you’re dead, remember? No one can be held responsible for the actions of a dead man, can they?”

“But I’m only one man.”

Jones gave him a sly look and asked, “Are you sure? Do you really believe you’re the only man who has gone off the grid? Do you think you’re the only man who has disappeared?”

“Project Midas,” Storm said, putting two and two together. “That thick file locked in your safe — it has the names of other ‘dead’ operatives just like me, doesn’t it? You want me and the other ‘dead’ operatives to help Petrov because our country can’t afford to leave any fingerprints behind.”

“No fingerprints, no footprints,” Jones said. “No prints at all.”

Jones pulled a large envelope from a desk drawer and said, “I need you to go to London and talk to Petrov. First, try to find out who killed Windslow and why. Second, tell him that I’ve assembled a team to help him. All we need to learn is where the gold is hidden.”

He emptied the envelope’s contents onto his desktop. “Here’s a passport, cash, credit cards, a cell phone, and airline tickets. Agent Showers is booked on a six o’clock flight to London. She’s being sent to question Petrov. She’ll be your ticket in to meet him. You’ll tag along. I’ve already arranged it.”

Storm’s mind was swirling. “What about the mole?”

“If the mole is in Petrov’s camp, there’s nothing we can do. Just be careful.”

“And what if it is on our side — someone inside this agency?”

“I know who you are, but you always worked in the field. No one else here in headquarters knows you or that you’re still alive. I’ve also compartmentalized Project Midas.”

“Meaning?” Storm asked.

“Meaning that only you and I know that you are involved in it. That’s it. To everyone else, Derrick Storm is still a ghost.”

The last time that Jones had been so confident about a covert operation, he’d sent Storm to Tangiers. Look how that had turned out.

Jones continued, “Be careful when you meet Petrov. Just because he showed me the gold doesn’t mean we can trust him. I want you to find out what you can about the gold, but I also need for you to help Agent Showers solve the kidnapping and murders. Maybe Agent Showers is correct and Petrov killed Dull and Windslow because the senator had gotten cold feet about Project Midas. Maybe Barkovsky is behind the killings because he wanted to stop Windslow from pushing Project Midas. Or maybe Windslow was trying to extort a bigger share of that sixty-billion pie than what Petrov wanted to give him. Trust no one.”

“Just like old times,” Storm said.

“I’m still running covert operations,” Jones said, “because I trust only a handful of people.”

“Does Agent Showers know about the gold?” Storm asked.

“No. Only one handful of people know about it, and she isn’t one of those fingers.”

“She won’t like having me tag along with her to London.”

“She doesn’t get a vote. Everything has been arranged — although your role will be strictly advisory.”

Storm imagined Showers’s reaction. This was not a minor case. A U.S. senator and his stepson had been killed. She wouldn’t want him interfering. She was shrewd enough to know that Storm would be Jedidiah Jones’s eyes and ears. She’d be suspicious of him.

“Weapons?” Storm asked.

“None for you. You’ll be traveling on a diplomatic passport as Steve Mason. You’ll be posing as a liaison officer from the State Department.”

“Some paper pusher in the State Department told you that I couldn’t be armed?”

“It wasn’t a paper pusher. It came directly from the secretary of state. Tangiers. Remember? Ever since that fiasco, other agencies have been reluctant to let any of our people pose as one of their own, especially if they are armed.”

Tangiers. Even in death, it continued to haunt him.

“How about Agent Showers?”

“No one objected to her having a sidearm,” he said. “I’m also going to give you a personal letter to take to Petrov. He’ll know it’s from me.”

Jones gave Storm a piercing look. “You were the last piece that I needed for Project Midas.”

“Why me?”

“I just told you that I trust very few people. You happen to be one of them. I am trusting you to find sixty billion in gold and not let it corrupt you.”

“That’s a lot of gold,” Storm said.

“Yes it is, and if I am wrong in trusting you, then I will see to it that you really do end up dead.”

Another layer had been peeled. Jones was sending him down a dangerous path. And yet Storm still wasn’t sure that Jones had told him everything. Knowing Jones, he doubted that he had. There were going to be more layers, more surprises, more twists, more turns, and with sixty billion dollars at stake, there were going to be more murders.

Of that, he was certain.

Загрузка...