Sword of Allah

Manila, Philippines

Yet another four-way videoconference was underway between Skye Reinhardt and her bureau chief, that ambitious bitch Ferallo in Australia, and the D-G himself in Langley. So far, all they’d done was confiscate her passport, but Skye knew it was just the beginning. The CIA was considering what to do with her, and it was not an organisation known for its understanding and sympathy towards employees with questionable allegiances.

‘Sir,’ she said, addressing the video image transmitted from Langley, Virginia, ‘as soon as Jeff confessed to me what he was up to, I came forward. Till then, I had nothing but suspicions.’

‘But you saw him with two known terrorists — you said you recognised them — so it was more than just suspicions,’ said Ferallo. ‘And what did you talk about for the two and a half months that you were seeing him?’

Reinhardt was getting tired of the same questions over and over, and she was especially tired of Ferallo. Maybe a frank admission would get the woman off her back. ‘Who talked? Mostly, we fucked,’ she said.

‘So what you’re saying is that you put your sex drive ahead of your country,’ Ferallo countered coolly.

‘Okay, let’s go over what he told you, Ms Reinhardt,’ said the D-G, scowling impatiently, the interplay between Ferallo and Reinhardt clearly giving him the shits. ‘I’ll just remind you that you have not been charged. Whether we do so or not depends on your cooperation.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Skye meekly.

‘Now, again please, Ms Reinhardt, tell us what you know about Jeff Kalas.’

Skye sucked in a breath and tried not to let it sound like exasperation. ‘We met at a hotel, the Manila Diamond. I recognised the two men he was sitting with. They left, and I decided to, well, get to know Jeff. Why? Because I’m CIA and I was Johnny on the spot.’

Ferallo rolled her eyes. Intelligence work was not a place for romantics looking for adventure. How the hell did the psychs let this girl through? she wondered.

‘We quickly settled into a relationship. He often flew to Manila and we’d go out. I always tried to steer the conversation round to his job, what he did to earn all the cash he was continually splashing about. All he’d say was that he was in money, as in finance,’ Reinhardt said, using her fingers to indicate that this was a quote. ‘I swear that’s all he said until last week. Then it all came out. He told me he’d left his wife, wanted to live with me, and that he worked for two men who made a lot of money in Australia. And he admitted that he thought it was probably by selling drugs. He was helping them get that money out of the country. He’d buy diamonds legally — uncut ones from Western Australia, like the one I’ve handed over to you,’ she said, raising her eyebrows to indicate her bureau chief sitting next to her. ‘Jeff told me it was a short-term operation. He hoped to export close to two hundred million dollars’ worth of these diamonds within three months and that would be the end of it. He said the job was around half done. The whole operation was possible, he said, because by the time the tax department in Australia woke up to themselves, both the money and Jeff would be offshore and gone for good.’

The Manila bureau chief, Gia Ferallo and the head of the CIA in Langley all nodded. At the fifth or six telling, Reinhardt’s story hadn’t changed one iota.

Diamonds to the value of five million dollars had been recovered from Kalas, who’d caved in to questioning even before real pressure had been applied. The scam was sweet and simple. He bought a shelf company, opened a bank account and immediately started depositing large amounts of cash and withdrawing similarly large amounts through company cheques made out to reputable diamond wholesalers. As the deposited amounts were over ten thousand dollars — well over, in fact — by law the bank would have to report these transactions to the Australian Tax Office. The ATO, in turn, would query them as a matter of protocol when Kalas’s company lodged its first quarterly Business Activity Statement. Only that statement would never be made. The penny would drop eventually at the ATO that something was seriously wrong. But by then the horse, known as Jeff Kalas, would have bolted.

In Manila, Kalas simply deposited the majority of the diamonds in a safety deposit box registered to one General Trip, golden triangle drug lord. Kalas then traded his diamonds, roughly twelve percent of the total, exchanging them for US dollars, which he deposited in a First Lucerne account. The D-G shook his head at the greed that motivated some people. The fact was, and the D-G was mindful of this, they would never have caught the criminal if it wasn’t for this Reinhardt woman. Ferallo knew that, and so did the Manila office. And because of her, they had their only hard lead to Duat. For the moment, the D-G had no idea what to do with her, except to ask her to go over her story again.