Greed: A Detective John Lynch Thriller

by Dan O'Shea

  At least he was in Saigon, thought Munroe. That was the good news. Or Ho Chi Minh City, whatever the locals were calling it these days.

  Munroe took a pull on his drink, looked out the window into the wee small hours of the Asian morning. He liked Saigon. The whole Vietnam thing was supposed to be this big black mark, America’s lost war, but for a young kid just learning his way around the sharp end of things, there wasn’t a better place to be, not back in the late-Sixties. The food, the Eurasian girls, the French panache, road trips to the bush to pick up a few VC scalps, back to the Caravelle by dark for drinks with the journalists and the guys from all the other embassies who were supposed to be aid officers or attachés, but who were all doing the same bad shit Munroe was doing under cover of whatever flag flew over their compounds. Happiest days of his life.

  Thrill pretty much wore off by 1975 when he rode the second-to-last chopper off the roof of the embassy, but by then he had enough scalps on his lodge pole, VC and otherwise, to write his own ticket. Which worked out great, because it was right around then that the Church Committee went public with how the Agency had been very naughty and hogtied Langley with a mess of Marquess of Queensberry rules. Hogtied them just about the same time that the Cold War balance of terror started breaking down into a multilateral, asymmetrical clusterfuck where any yahoo with a little scratch in his pocket could stick it up Uncle Sam’s ass with anything from a WMD to an airliner full of Koran thumpers.

  Just when playing outside the lines got more necessary, it got more complicated. Munroe’d gone one way, a lone wolf Langley could sic on problems that required his brand of discretion.

  Sometimes, though, the masters needed a blunt instrument. For that, they had Tech Weaver. He’d taken his group private, set up InterGov.

  Munroe and Weaver had both still been on Uncle’s payroll, of course, but they were off the grid, untraceable line items bouncing around the federal budget with only one mandate – make sure the bad guys understood that Uncle Sam still had teeth.

  Weaver’d been ex-military though. Problem with those guys, they got that chain of command thing in their blood; always need an org chart. When you screwed the pooch, org charts left a place for people to start digging. Weaver’d screwed the pooch big time in Chicago a year or so back. Screwed the pooch so bad, the president ended up putting a bullet through his own head. People started digging.

  Now Weaver was dead and InterGov was history – well in that form, anyway. Which meant Munroe was busy.

  Another sip at his drink. Better than four decades since his salad days, but Munroe still liked the Caravelle. Conversation at the bar was a little different – it was all thirty-something entrepreneurs talking labor costs and transfer pricing. Little smile at that. Anybody still saying America lost the war? The whole point of the exercise was to keep Vietnam out of the Commie column. You wanted to find a Commie around here anymore, you had to chopper up to the I Drang valley and start digging for bones. Get a couple Vietnamese talking nowadays, and they made your average Iowa Rotary Club member sound like Leon Trotsky. These guys took to capitalism the way their fathers took to black pajamas and AK-47s.

  Other than hardly anybody spoke French anymore, Saigon was pretty much the same. Still liked the food, and if you knew how much to slip to which concierge, you could still get hot-and-cold running Eurasian girls sent up to the room with all the fixings.

  So Munroe was in Saigon. That was the good news.

  The bad news was he’d only sent the girls home about two hours ago, it was three in the morning and his phone was ringing. He looked at the screen. Station chief out of from Lagos. That meant the chatter they’d picked up out of Freetown about a mess of diamonds going missing had checked out. Diamonds with an unsavory pedigree – Al Qaeda by way of Hezbollah. And that meant his Saigon sojourn was over. Munroe hit the talk button.

  “This diamond bullshit’s not a fire drill?” Munroe asked.

  “No. The situation is fluid and some of the information is conflicting, but the best estimate is at least fifteen ounces.”

  Munroe paused a moment. Fifteen ounces meant at least nine figures retail. That meant the ragheads were up to something big.

  “We sure it’s not Mossad?”

  “They’re pissed. Had to talk them down. They thought it was our operation.”

  Be a lot easier if it was Mossad, thought Munroe.

  “I assume you have heard about Stein?” the man on the phone asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “There is something off a video feed from Chicago you should see. I am sending it to your phone.”

  Munroe’s phone dinged and he opened the message. Screen capture of an olive-skinned guy in a topcoat.

  “Al Din,” Munroe said. “He did Stein?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But the noise on your end is that the diamonds are still in the air?”

  “Yes. And al Din is still in Chicago.”

  Munroe thought on that a second. Al Din was freelance, so theoretically he could tie to anybody, but for the last few years at least he’d been running almost exclusively out of Tehran.

  Islam might be one big happy bowl of ragheads to your average Tea Party dipshit, but Munroe knew better. Iran was Shi’a, and with Iraq castrated, Iran was looking to consolidate its position as the top dog through the whole Shi’a crescent – Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Lebanon, some real pull in Pakistan. Now you had Hezbollah throwing in with Assad in Syria, and it was hard to pick a dog in that fight. Sure, you had the sane people in the Syrian opposition, secular types you could do business with. But you also had a pile of fundamentalists of the Sunni stripe, and it was starting to look like the yahoos had the numbers. Which meant Syria could well go from the dictator column to the Sunni whacko column – that was the side of the balance sheet that Al Qaeda called home. Munroe was more comfortable with a dictator personally, except now Assad owed his ass to Hezbollah, and that meant he owed his ass to Tehran. Whatever piece of it he hadn’t already whored out to Putin.

  So, the diamonds. Lebanese immigrants in Sierra Leone had pretty much run the West African diamond trade since the first deposits were discovered back in the Thirties. These were old school Lebanese guys who, on the Palestinian question, were a lot friendlier with Amal than Hezbollah. But Hezbollah was pretty much the only game in Lebanon these days. When you’re holding a gun to some guy’s family’s heads, muscling in on the diamond trade gets pretty simple. Which would seem to put the West African diamond pipeline in the Shi’a column.

  Still, even among the true believers, sometimes money trumps all. When Al Qaeda started looking for ways to move money around after 9/11, after the West slammed the door on all their bank accounts, Hezbollah was happy to play ball. Diamonds became one of Al Qaeda’s favorite financing mechanisms, even if it meant that some Sunnis and some Shi’as had to make nice.

  Whether you were Sunni or Shi’a, though, you could still hate the Jews, and when you got to the commercial end of the diamond market, the part in Antwerp and New York, the Jews still ran the market. So Israel was wired into it pretty good. Munroe knew Stein had been working with Mossad to fuck up Al Qaeda’s diamond play, sucking their runners into false buys, whacking them and taking the stones.

  So al Din? Could be he was on Al Qaeda’s dime this time, whacking Stein, trying to clear Mossad out of their pipeline. Except al Din was still hanging around Chicago. Not a smart play unless the man had another reason to stay in town. Munroe had played footsie with al Din before, couple of times, and he knew one thing for sure. Al Din had a reason. The guy didn’t do stupid.

  And that meant the Stein murder was the opening gambit on a bigger play, one that had something to do with better than $100 million in stones on the move. That was a butt-ton of operating capital. Hell, the ragheads had pulled off 9/11 for box tops and bottle caps by comparison. Something was up. Something big. And there were too many teams on the field.

  “OK,” Munroe said to the Lagos stat
ion chief. “Three things. First, wake up the Google jockeys at Langley and have them start running scenarios – what kind of mischief could our Islamic friends get up to with nine figures to play with? Could be Al Qaeda boys, could be Tehran. So big-ticket items – loose nukes, whatever. Get ears up in all the weapons markets. Find out who’s flush all of a sudden and we’ll have a chat with them. Second, whoever has the diamonds has to move them, and these stones aren’t papered up. That’s gonna take an inside player somewhere, and that means Johannesburg, Antwerp, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, New York, maybe the Russians – there has to be money on the move, and a lot of it. Let’s find it. Third, Stein was Chicago, al Din’s in Chicago, so I’ll be in Chicago soonest. Get me an asset roster. Anybody we got in the Windy City, on or off the books. And anybody we can lean on. I know that Mayor Hurley and his thugs have that place wired up – I want real time access to every camera and microphone in town before I hit the ground. And let’s see if we can find out who has the goddamn diamonds, shall we?”

  “I’m on it,” the man said.

  Munroe killed the connection, went to the window, opened it, leaned on the sill and looked out over the city. Three in the fucking morning, but plenty of traffic. New York thinks it doesn’t sleep? Nobody’s stealing a march on these little yellow bastards. Warm breeze, always that scent of nước mắmon the air. An elegiac feeling he had too often these days. Munroe never knew when it was going to be his last time someplace anymore. If this was it for Saigon, he hated to say goodbye.

  CHAPTER 9

  Liz Johnson sat across the table from Lynch in the booth at McGinty’s. Over her shoulder, he could see her on TV above the bar. Not unusual – he saw more of her on TV these days than he did in person.

  “You’re on the tube,” he said. Her and one of the talking heads at CNN. Sound was down, he couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but then Hastings Clarke’s picture popped up, the former President of the United States who resigned his office by eating a gun after Lynch had dug up his past. He and Johnson had just been starting out then; she’d gotten the story from the inside. Her book on the whole mess was coming out in a couple of weeks. She was A-list talent now. She’d gone from a local reporter at the Trib to one of the faces every cable news outlet wanted in their stable. Spent as much time in New York and Washington as she did in Chicago these days.

  Johnson turned, took a peek. “PR. Publisher’s got me booked solid the next couple weeks. Keep having the same conversation over and over again.”

  “You’ve got it down, what I’ve seen. Things looking good?”

  She shrugged. “Going to a third printing, just on the pre-orders. Not Sarah Palin numbers, but good.”

  Lynch smiled at her and nodded.

  “None of that would have happened without you,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Lynch. “Don’t forget the little people.”

  She frowned a little, not sure how to take that. “That a problem?”

  He shook his head. “Weird, is all. Got my wake-up from the clock radio the other day, you talking with somebody over at WBBM. I’m half out of it, reach over to the other side of the bed before I realize you’re not there.”

  She gave him a sly smile. “I’ve got better ways to wake you up, Lynch. You know that.”

  “That I do,” he said. “That I do.” She was only in town for the night, back to New York in the morning. But he was glad they were at McGinty’s. Not the kind of place where he’d spend dinner watching her sign napkins and pose for pictures.

  “This Stein thing going to be another hairball?” Johnson asked. Lynch and Johnson had a deal. Anything they said was strictly off the record unless they both agreed otherwise, and she’d kept her end of the bargain right down the line. Nice to have somebody to talk to, somebody outside the department.

  “Don’t know what to make of it yet. Second killing just up the street the same night, looks like the same shooter. Some African refugee. Bernstein’s pulling Stein’s business shit apart. The whole thing’s got a funny smell to it already.”

  Waitress dropped off their burgers, and Johnson took a huge bite, closed her eyes for a moment, smiled. “Jesus, real food.”

  “They aren’t feeding you out east?”

  “Oh, sure, all the arugula and overpriced fish I can eat. You go to Komi with Stephanopoulos, you don’t get any bacon cheeseburgers.”

  Lynch laughed. “And how is George?”

  “Short. Nice hair, though.”

  Later, upstairs in Lynch’s apartment, she lay on top of him on the bed. They hadn’t been together in three weeks, so the first time had been urgent, but now they were rocking gently. Her Blackberry buzzed, vibrating on the table next to the bed. She didn’t reach for it, he had to give her that, but he felt her stiffen for a second, and she never seemed to come all the way back to him. He couldn’t blame her exactly, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. They finished.

  “I’m going to wash up a bit,” she said, rolling off him. “Have to catch a plane in a couple hours.”

  “Still back tomorrow though?” Lynch asked.

  She nodded, already had the Blackberry up, scrolling through her messages. She took the phone into the bathroom with her.

  Lynch lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She was the best thing in his life, and she was in the bathroom with her Blackberry. He was in his bed alone.

  CHAPTER 10

  Nick Hardin was working on plan B.

  With Stein dead, he could go to Mossad direct. But he didn’t have a personal contact and Mossad tended to play dirty. If he walked into the consulate, he might get his $10 million, or he might get ten cents of lead through the brainpan. More likely, they’d use this as leverage, and ship him back to Africa as their personal indentured asset until his luck ran out. Hardin was looking for an exit strategy, not an unpaid second career as Tel Aviv’s sub-Saharan lackey.

  No, he wasn’t going to Mossad, not without Stein running interference.

  What he needed was somebody with the contacts and ethics of a French arms dealer. So he picked up a throwaway cell at a Loop Radio Shack and called one.

  Pierre Fouche was living the good life in the south of France, but Hardin had known him when he was Ivan Sidorov, just another Spetsnaz refugee looking to make his way in the Legion after the wheels came off the big Red machine and Moscow stopped paying their shooters. Hardin had saved Sidorov’s life, twice.

  “Pierre, how’s life in Marseilles?”

  “Hardin, you bastard. Where have you gone?” said Fouche. “I have been trying to reach you for days. I had a sweet deal cooking in Accra, just needed a body on the ground, and nobody could find you. Then I start hearing stories – a couple of dead Hezbollah couriers, lots of angry camel jockeys looking for you. You’re in beaucoup de merde, my friend.”

  “Why do you think I’m calling you? You wanna make a few euros?”

  “Dollars, Hardin,” Fouche said. “Haven’t you been paying attention to the news? We got Greece and Spain circling the drain over here, Italy’s being run like a Fellini film, and the Germans are using euros as asswipes trying to clean up the mess. I want to make a few dollars.”

  “Whatever,” Hardin said. “Look, I’m sitting on a shitload of raw stones. I had a deal with Stein. You hear about Stein?”

  “Of course, and after I heard about this Hezbollah business, I figured they’d be fishing your body out of the lake up there any day now. Thought for sure it was a two-fer, and they’d just taken you somewhere to ask politely about the diamonds.”

  “Guess Stein stepped in some other shit,” Hardin said. “Anyway, I gotta unload these rocks and get out of Dodge. You got any ideas?”

  “Russians like diamonds – mostly they like to keep them locked up and off the market, prop the prices up. I still got some contacts there, could probably find you a middleman. I’ll be taking a million off the top, just so you know.”

  “Wouldn’t trust you if you didn’t.”

  “Don’t sup
pose you want to leave me your number?” said Fouche.

  “No. I’ll be playing musical phones for the duration. How much time you need?”

  “It will take two days. Call me then.”

  Hardin hung up. Two days. So stay put or switch locations? Stay put, and if somebody’s got a line on you, then you’re toast. Move around and you increase your exposure. Hardin figured if the Arabs had a line on him, they would have made their play last night. So for now, stay put.

  Marco “Beans” Garbanzo and Ricky “Snakes” DeGetano sat in a stolen Grand Marquis at the north end of the Grant Park garage, eyeballing Hardin’s car. They had Hardin’s picture and a cell number. Soon as they see him heading for the car, they make the call and this guy shuts the camera down for a couple minutes, that’s what Corsco told them.

  Snakes was in charge; Beans was the muscle. Beans was huge, closing in on 350 pounds.

  “Been down here half the fucking day,” said Beans. “I’m starving.”

  “Guy rents a car, eventually he’ll come down to his car. So just shut up and keep your eyes open,” said Snakes.

  Snakes heard a low, liquidy rumble. Then the smell hit him.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Beans,” said Snake, buzzing down his window.

  “Hey, I got a condition.”

  “What you got is you’re hauling like a whole extra person around on account of how you’re always shoveling food in your face. You do that again and I’m leaving your body in the trunk.”

  Garbanzo farted again, on purpose.

  CHAPTER 11

  Lynch picked up Bernstein at the station and they headed downtown to talk to Telling, the attorney Kate Magnus had pointed him at.

  “You say Doug Telling?” Bernstein asked.

  “Yeah, know him?”

  “If it’s the same guy, yeah. He ran in my parents’ circles. Used to be a big shot down at MacMillian & Lowe, place Governor Timpson went for his payday after he got done on the public tit.”