by English, Ben
The two of them stepped up into the gangway as the major said “Where did you learn that? If not in the CIA.” Her tone was curious, but not accusatory.
“Oh, the elbow-grip thing? Red Cross Senior Lifesaving Certificate. Releases the grip of a drowning man, but I’ve never had to use it.” Jack shook the rain from his hair, shifting the basket to his other hand. “I was a lifeguard in high school, Major. Lucky thing I remembered it, yeah?”
She stared at his back as he turned to enter the cabin. “Hey guys. Want some bread?”
London
“Really my child, you can have anything you want to eat.” Raines said, smiling broadly at the young blond girl sitting inside a miniature toy castle. She hesitated, tapping one patent-leather black shoe on the floor.
“I want my mum,” she said again, resolutely.
“And you’ll see her tomorrow morning, right after breakfast. Just as we planned.” Raines intoned assuringly. “But tonight you really must eat. Really, all this screaming. What do you think your mother will say if she finds out you’ve been blubbering all afternoon?” He waited, watching her eyes grow larger at the thought. “Now, what does she always tell you to do when she talks to you on the phone every night?”
The little girl responded instantly. “She tells me to be good and eat my greens.”
Raines’ smile grew even broader. “That’s right! And aren’t you a good girl who does just what her mother tells her? Of course you are!” He turned to go.
“And then I’m allowed to help feed the pony Jack gave to me! He’s coming to get me so we can go riding next week.” Raines looked back at her, catching the eye of the guard on the other side of the toy-strewn room. The other man shrugged.
Leaving the room, Raines paused long enough to speak to the guard in the hall. “See that she’s dressed in her special new clothes by eleven o’clock.”
“Sir, what was that about someone coming to ride with her?” His grip on the submachine gun never relaxed.
Raines waved his hand in dismissal. “Nothing of importance. The man she refers to is in no position to help anyone. The patron saint of the unlikely.
“Give all our little guests a shot of ketamine with their meals. Only a half-dose. We want them docile, but still breathing.” He smiled once again, that sly, eerily compelling grin, and strode off down the hall.
*
The Eurorail shot through the falling darkness like a steel comet. Rising pastures, liquid green oceans in the twilight, slid by on either side as the train neared Calais and the tunnel. Dinner was being served inside. Seven of its passengers, however, were too busy to even consider the gourmet meal.
Jack turned to the heavyset man behind the computer. “All right, Steve, what have you got?”
The chubby man was completely in his element. “Most of the files on Aleks Stefanovich are public domain. Got the rest from a buried file. Some spook analyst back in the States wrote it up and it got sent to the info vault as worthless intelligence. Stefanovich. Name means ‘son of the crown.’ U.S. emigration shows him and his parents getting out of Eastern Europe in late 1980, right when the Cold War was turning crispy. Official record shows his father as a high school janitor, but this guy never banged any erasers. According to the CIA central net at Langley,” He ignored the raised eyebrows, “his parents Stefan and Tereza were Tesla scientists before they jumped the Wall.”
“How’s that again?” Brad said.
“Tesla,” said Ian “A genius in the field of electromagnetism, lived around 1900. I read where he once caused a controlled earthquake in an abandoned section of New York City. Leveled nine square blocks.”
Steve cleared his throat. “Stefan and Tereza were pioneering the field of medium- and high- energy weapons. Directed radiation. You know, focused microwave beams that can knock out a satellite, ultra low- and high-frequency explosions that can burst internal organs at extreme distance. Armageddon stuff. It looks like CIA got the family out just in time. Their Soviet sponsors had decided that the couple’s research had achieved its end, and the project was to be terminated.” He paused long enough for everyone to understand the implication. “They got out with most of their research, but hell, what the Soviets slapped together afterward managed to keep them in Afghanistan for another seven years or so.
“They built a little capitalist empire before the turn of the century, mostly servicing the U.S. government and military. Both Stefan and Tereza passed away a few years ago from natural causes, this report says. Get this: Their son, Aleks, changed his name before studying at Stanford, and has made himself quite well known on this side of the Atlantic as a philanthropist and entrepreneur. In the field of electronics alone--”
“Wait a minute.” Jack broke in. “You’re not going to say that Alex Raines, the 21st century’s version of Donald Trump, is the son of Cold War defectors?” He sank back into his chair. “I met the guy at the opening of the Planet Hollywood London a few years ago. He had maybe a half-dozen bodyguards with him, all Eastern European muscleheads. If I remember right, Raines was pretty good at showing off his money, but something about the guy—like a part of him wasn’t there. Lots of teeth but never really smiled, know what I mean?”
“According to the CIA report, he hires bodyguards heavily from the old KGB network. Even names his closest men after angels–you know, Raphael, Gabriel, that sort of thing. His personal bodyguard-trainer-secretary is a big Chinese he calls ‘Michael.’”
“What could a stuffed shirt like that have to do with the Princess’ kidnapping?” asked Brad. “Wasn’t he in Newsweek a little while ago?”
“That’s right,” said Solomon. “He’s building a chain of mini-malls in the Ukraine and Bulgaria, or something like that, employing thousands. The article had a picture taken when he attended the public trial of Miklos Nasim, the Albanian terrorist who escaped last week.”
Now Ian spoke up. “Here’s something else that doesn’t figure: what would he have to do with a kidnapping? Ransom? Nobody does that anymore. In the States, at least, there hasn’t been a successful abduction for ransom in over twenty years, despite what the movies say.”
“So you think Raines is in the clear?” Alonzo asked.
“That’s the funny part. The Bureau has a file on Raines as thick as any. I checked with my supervisor, and he says we’ve got three separate investigations underway right now. I guess somebody thinks he’s laundering money for the drug cartel; Armand Lopez in particular.”
“How does he go about that?” Solomon asked.
“Raines donates heavily to several political action committees in the States.” For the benefit of Major Griffin and Brad, both non-American citizens, he added, “these committees lobby heavily, trying to influence our government. They also provide funds to certain candidates they think will support their agendas.”
The major was curious. “Isn’t that simply a method of buying out your government?”
Ian shrugged. “In reality, it’s much more complicated than what I told you, but that possibility exists. Anyway, one theory is that Raines shuffles the money around within his various PACs, then passes it through a few charitable organizations he chairs. Charitable organizations can interact with political action committees, but they have to walk a fine line. In the end, the money is funneled by Congress right back to projects Raines has going in South America and other places. He’s smooth. No one can even guess how much money went into his new digs in London.”
Brad crunched some ice between his teeth. “Are you close to nailing him?”
“No,” the FBI man seemed reluctant to admit. “We’re not. Every time we start building a warm case, the Bureau gets pressured to divert our resources somewhere else.”
Jack nodded at Ian. “Did any of the PACs he supports donate to the campaign fund of the President who had so much trouble a few years ago?”
Everyone knew who he meant. “Raines donates heavily to both Republicans and Democrats; liberals, conservatives, moderates--thoug
h just a little more to the side that wins, it seems. Why?”
“I just keep thinking about the plot that King William told Alonzo about,” Jack said. “It doesn’t seem so far-fetched now, to think that someone would go to such elaborate lengths to ‘undermine national trust,’ especially if they could gain influence for themselves by setting up and then ridiculing the President of the Unites States. More chaos, more distrust. Makes a country unsure of itself, easier to manipulate.”
Brad pushed his cowboy hat back off his forehead. “Raines’ company might be getting into stranger things than that, Jack.” To Steve he said, “We’d better show them what we found in Czech.”
The others made various expressions of disbelief when the blueprints came up on the screen. Bit by bit, Brad and Steve explained the items they’d come across in Czech, the next-generation nanotransistors, the fiber optics fabricated from synthetic diamond filament that made the microscopic transistors look archaic by comparison. Steve then related everything his former teacher at MIT had said about electromagnetic radiation. “I sent a copy of the file to Dr. Gale, and he told me he’d contact a man in California who could tell us what it is.” He looked sheepish. “All I really wanted to know was who I could sell it to, to tell the truth.”
Ian frowned, twisting his goatee into an angry knot. “This is dangerous, Fisbeck; you’re in violation of national security. And you were worried about making a buck?”
The major leaned forward, on the edge of her seat. “Raines may not be involved at all,” she began in a low voice. “He might just be a pawn in this, or rather, something he owns might be taken advantage of. Have any of you actually seen his corporate headquarters?”
“Major,” said Alonzo, “What are you trying to say?”
Steve spoke up again. “The Illuminatus Tower. Raines’ newest masterpiece. European headquarters of Raines Dynamic in London.” He pulled the laptop close again and began to type.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been to London in a few years,” said Solomon. “What is this ‘tower?’”
Alonzo turned toward him. “Ever been to any of those wild shops just north of Hyde Park? Raines built a commercial complex at the Park’s northeast corner. Its about 40 stories high, easy the biggest thing in the whole West Side. Like someone wanted an office building to look like a castle, only smooth on the outside. Ugly as sin, if you ask me. He’s got glass and stone together, with statues all around the outside of the thing. Yuck.”
Steve turned the screen to face the others. “O.K., here’s what we’ve got.” An image spun into view of a massive, three-tiered building. “Raines says in a press release I’ve got here that he was trying to ‘combine ancient and future Britain in one edifice, showing the past as well as the glorious destiny, blah, blah, blah.’ I’m with you, Al; this thing stinks. Can’t imagine the Londoners think much of it, eh Major?”
“If I remember correctly, there were demonstrators all up and down Oxford street when construction began. Bloody thing won’t be done for another year.”
“What’s the layout, Steve?” Jack asked.
The portly man’s fingers did their staccato dance once again over the keyboard. “Like all the new commercial buildings in London, the blueprints are registered—There we go. Okay, we’ve got the new Harrods on the first ten floors or so, then some corporate offices, a theater, and restaurants on the second tier, and the third main part is scheduled to be all apartments, maybe a few offices. About a third are already tenanted.” A smaller section of the screen expanded into a list. “By the names, it looks like mostly women renters.
“This looks like a miniature television studio, with a soundstage.” A floorplan began scrolling by on the screen. “Still in the final stages of construction, like the major said. The new BBC transmitter was put up about three months ago.” Steve sat back and rubbed his eyes.
Alonzo started. “Did you say a theater complex?” He held up the blue ticket. “The Illuminatus Cineplex?”
“That’s the one.”
“Son of a—”
“Is there a show at 10:45 tonight?” Jack snatched the ticket.
“Well, according to today’s schedule, that’s when the main cinema on the twelfth floor lets out.” Steve blinked at the screen. “They’re showing one of your movies, Jack. The MacArthur flick. It just opened this week.”
Ian snapped his fingers. “That means there’ll be a crowd. Betcha that’s how they’re going to move the little girl.”
Brad grinned, nodding. “And then we snatch her back.”
Jack looked at the little team. He could already feel the momentum. Enthusiasm glimmered across the back of each man’s eyes. Even the major looked excited, which was a stretch. “At least we’ve got a place to start. One more thing. Steve, can you superimpose the blueprints you got in Czech–the Hradek file–with Raines’ complex in London?”
The stout man complied, intent on the screen. He paled, gave a low whistle. The others crowded around the little screen, except Major Griffin and Solomon, who merely looked at Jack and nodded. “Exact match, eh, my friend?”
Ian cleaned his glasses on his shirt. “Fits like a glove. All the blank spaces in the government copy of the blueprints are taken up in the Czech plans by electronics work, mostly those fiber optic cables. The stone work, all the statues–they match exactly.”
Steve swung the laptop so it faced Jack. “And it goes a hell of a lot further underground than the government specs say it does, too, Jack.”
Silence fell over the little group. The wind was suddenly preternaturally evident, gusting against the smooth steel shell of the train. “Well. Well, we can figure that out as we go. Al, what is the full situation on Cuba right now? Anyone in place who could get in and talk to President Espinosa?”
“Funny you should ask. The Tanner brothers have been working with their anti-drug corps and specwar team since February. The whole outfit was in England up until last week, training with the SAS at Hereford. We just missed them. Espinosa isn’t an idiot: Cuba is hosting the Goodwill Games next week, and he wanted his security trained up.”
Jack considered. Vernon Tanner and his brother Mack had been DEA officers longer than they had been part of his collection of friends, and had been working against the cartel nearly all their professional lives. Both men could be doubly trusted. So they’d gone ahead and helped Espinosa organize a training operation, like many governments had, between Cuban military and the British Special Air Service? He grinned tightly. Smart move. The SAS were the best in the world. Espinosa’s men would be well trained. Still . . . “When you’ve got a minute, contact Miguel directly and ask him if he’d like us to be around for security during the Games. Like always, we don’t want an official role.”
“Sure. I went ahead and called London. We’ll have transportation ready at Waterloo station.”
“Then let’s break out the equipment. Only a few hours left.”
London
The man was livid, nearly raging, as he spoke to the camera. “And we, the true representatives of the combined peoples of Eastern Europe, further demand the immediate withdrawal of British and American military forces from Sarajevo and Budapest.” He was nearly frothing, Raines observed from his vantage point next to Miklos, behind the spotlights.
“We will no longer stand by like sheep at the slaughter! The United Nations will no longer make our homeland a laboratory for the fashionable social theory of the day, or play at games with our region’s governments.” The actor stepped closer to the camera, the hate in his voice nearly boiling over. “You have not asked us to enter our land, for you to walk in our streets. You have not asked us for permission to rape our natural resources with your capitalist knives.”
A bit obscure, thought Raines, but the scriptwriter did know how to convey an image.
“You have not asked yourselves if we could defend ourselves. Now, we give you our answer! Your cherished Princess Christine will be deposited in exactly one minute at the gates of Bucking
ham Palace. This is a warning to you, you who can hide no longer! And we will rain fire on all who oppose us. On your children and your children’s children. Fire.” He glowered into the camera lens.
The diminutive director clapped his hands and slid off his chair. “That’s a cut! All right people, let’s have this wrapped and ready to edit within the hour. Craft Services! Get Mr. Miklos and Mr. Raines something to drink, some Evian! Let’s move, move! I want this set taken down and everybody done with lunch by two o’clock.” He raised his sunglasses above the single line of his eyebrows. “Nice job, eh Mr. Raines? Really positive work here! I can feel the karma.” The director slapped Miklos on the back and jaunted off, bellowing for an assistant to bring him a cigarette, yesterday.
Miklos turned to Raines. “I absolutely hate that little man.”
“A necessary evil.” Raines smiled and nodded approvingly at the actor, a man he’d recently hired off a Cairo soap opera. “With an exorbitant fee. Let’s hope he’s staying within the blast shadow tonight, eh? Now, Miklos, we have much to prepare.” Raines turned, gesturing toward the door.
Miklos waved off the young man offering him a water bottle. “There is still much to be done before the morning. We must keep all of this as simple as possible.”
The northwestern edge of France
“All right, Jack, you wanted the basics so here’s what we’ve got.” Ian, the group’s weapons master, began arranging items on the low table between Jack and Major Griffin.
“First, for your Glock,” here Jack set the pistol on the table, “Three fifteen-round clips of subsonic hollowpoint. One clip of Magsafe.” Here he smiled. “I hand-loaded those myself. Here’s a silencer, should be good for twenty or so shots.
“When we were in Rome you had that idea about body armor that wasn’t so intrusive, so here you go.” Ian laid a sleek black jacket on the table. “Looks like leather, doesn’t it? This is a new slant to the military fragmentation vest–should stop anything lower than .45 caliber. And you can wear it in the rain.” Next he pointed to a cardboard box. “Those are all the grenades you get for this trip, unless we open the caches in London. You know what to do with these.” He removed one of the smallish black disks. “Same as last year. Basic polymer adhesive on this side; should stick to anything but human flesh. Three flash-bang and three incendiary.
