The Omega Sanction

by Tomas Black

  “In that case, can I suggest you talk to this chap.” He handed Drum a card.

  “Sir Rupert Mayhew?” More knights than the roundtable, thought Drum.

  “Who,” echoed Phyllis.

  “He’s an old school chum. Now works at the Treasury. Specialises in the buying and selling of gold and other precious metals for the Bank of England. He’ll be able to brief you.” He opened the door. “Well, I look forward to your report.” He leaned closer to Drum. “Every ounce.”

  ~~~

  Drum slumped back into the couch still holding the business card Sir Henry had thrust upon him. He felt dog tired. He rolled his neck to ease the tension.

  “You look like shit,” Phyllis told him, moving out from the safety of her desk.

  “People keep telling me that.”

  “And what’s with the hair? You look like some sixties hippy.”

  “Thanks, mum.”

  “Anyway,” she sighed. “It’s good to have you back.”

  “Look, Phyllis. I said some harsh things –”

  Phyllis raised her hand before Drum could continue. “Listen. We all said things we shouldn’t have said. And goodness knows I made mistakes with that last assignment. It sticks in my craw, really it does. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Penny came carrying a tray of cups and a large pot of coffee. “Alex Fern is waiting outside.” She glanced over at Drum. “You alright?”

  “Skipped breakfast.”

  “Penny, be a dear and get some of those awful cookies the Brits like to eat – you know the ones,” said Phyllis.

  “Ginger nuts?”

  “Whatever. Send in Commander Fern.”

  Drum smiled. “Thanks, Penny.”

  Phyllis poured the coffee and handed him a cup. “Might wake you up.”

  “Sir Henry. What was that all about?” said Drum, gratefully accepting the coffee.

  Phyllis smiled. “Pompous prick, don’t you think?”

  Someone once described Phyllis Delaney as a shark, endlessly swimming in a sea of corporate corruption, seeking out her prey. That, someone, was probably up to no good. Roderick, Olivier and Delaney – or ROD, as it had become to be known – was formed in the wake of a number of high profile, corporate scandals. It specialised in investigating corporate malfeasance of the major kind. And Delaney had made it her mission to route it out.

  Fern strode in dressed in her corporate best. She looked very New York, very ROD. She glanced at Drum and pointedly took a seat on the opposite couch.

  “Ah, Commander –” said Phyllis.

  “Call me Fern.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Thanks. That would be great.”

  Phyllis poured coffee for Fern and perched on the corner of her desk.

  “Sorry you missed Sir Henry,” said Phyllis.

  Fern gave Drum a hard look. He shrugged. “It was a surprise to me too.”

  “Sir Henry is the chairman of RBI,” continued Phyllis. He’s been in meetings with the DOJ these past few days. They’re building a case against the bank and he knows it.”

  “We heard it was for money laundering,” said Fern.

  “Among other things. But that’s the nub of it. He knows the bank is probably facing a heavy fine, and he’s preparing the board. It’s this missing gold that worries him.”

  Fern turned to Drum with a look of surprise.

  “Apparently, Sir Henry has asked us to perform an audit of physical inventory at the bank,” added Drum.

  “Blimey.”

  Phyllis looked from him to Fern. “Ok, what are you two not telling me?”

  Drum recounted the events of the raid and his subsequent encounters with the Russians.

  “You have been busy,” said Phyllis, returning to her seat behind her desk. “That partly explains why the FBI caught you hanging out with a Mafia hitman. Tom Hammond was – how can I put it –”

  “Pissed,” volunteered Drum.

  “In our defence,” added Fern, hastily, “we had no idea he was following us.”

  “And why was he following you?” asked Phyllis.

  Drum and Fern both looked to each for inspiration.

  “I have no idea,” said Drum. “He has an agenda that is not part of Abramov’s –”

  “That would be Vladimir Abramov,” interrupted Phyllis. “And the NCA has intelligence on this criminal?”

  “Runs to several volumes,” added Fern.

  “Will you be able to take care of him if he causes trouble?” asked Phyllis.

  “That’s what the NCA is there for,” said Fern, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

  Phyllis ignored Fern’s change of tone and turned her attention to Drum.

  “And you think the Auditor at RBI could be Harry?”

  “I’m certain of it. That was last Monday. According to Victor, she was taken on as a contractor then terminated after the incident at the vault.”

  “And the Custody Officer has been conveniently reassigned back to Hong Kong,” continued Phyllis. “And no sign of the Vault Manager – Harvey Pinkman?”

  “Nope,” replied Drum.

  “I can understand why Sir Henry is worried,” said Phyllis.

  “Surely, he’ll be more worried about the DOJ?” asked Fern.

  “Not really,” explained Phyllis. “They’ll get a fine – millions of dollars, for sure – but that’s par for the course. RBI will have made contingencies, and they’ll continue on their merry way. No, if even an ounce of gold is missing, then confidence in the bank will evaporate. Investors will pull their accounts, and the board will be finished. Worse, Sir Henry’s reputation and family name will be forever tarnished.”

  Phyllis sat in silence for a while. Drum knew she was weighing up all her options, making a tally of resources she could bring to bear. The grand chess master, moving her pieces.

  “So what’s the plan,” said Drum. He was anxious to make a start.

  Phyllis said, “The DOJ has a fairly long shopping list, but basically it boils down to proving the case against RBI for money laundering. I suspect the answer has something to do with the missing gold – if it is indeed missing.”

  “But?”

  “I want Harry back, of course,” replied Phyllis. “The Russian connection worries me. I don’t want a repeat of the Mexico debacle.” She gave Fern a sideways glance. “You still have … resources at your disposal?”

  Drum nodded.

  “What was your investigator doing at the bank,” asked Fern. “Jones. Is that her name?”

  “Seymour-Jones, Harry,” corrected Drum. He looked at Phyllis.

  Phyllis said nothing. Instead, she studied her manicured nails, flexing and straightening her fingers before resting her hands in her lap.

  “Harry was supposed to be on assignment in Zurich – a routine background check on a new CEO for one of our clients. A company called Hoschstrasser & Buhrer. A law firm. Standard stuff, really. She’d requested the job. Not been herself since Mexico City – goodness knows, no one has – I thought it would keep her busy. Anyway, after a week, Harry requested more resources. She wanted a cybersecurity specialist assigned to the case – a hacker if we're honest about it. We thought she must have unearthed something, so we assigned her a young German called Mueller. That was three weeks ago. Not heard from her since.”

  “What was she looking for,” asked Fern.

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure it had something to do with Mexico City – Harry couldn’t let it go. I think she was moonlighting the case – following up on leads. I believe she’d traced the Mexican gold to Zurich and was using Mueller to obtain information.”

  “And this Mueller found something?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Phyllis, matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure he found something. He was discovered dead in his hotel room.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  From Russia with Love

  The meeting continued for another hour. Phyllis had prepared a detailed assignment brief and walked th
em both through it. Drum was starving: he didn’t get his ginger nuts.

  Penny handed him a note as they were leaving the office. “From Tom Hammond. Said it was urgent.”

  “And?”

  “Someone ate your ginger nuts.”

  “What does Hammond want,” asked Fern, closing the door behind her.

  “Misha. He’ll only talk to us. Tom wants us down at Federal Plaza.”

  “Great. That’s all we need.”

  It was a bright crisp morning when they exited the building. It was good to get out into the open air, and Drum suggested they walk a block to 5th Avenue where they jumped a cab downtown. Fern was lost in thought, and neither of them spoke until they had passed the Flat Iron Building.

  “What happened in Mexico City? Phyllis mentioned it in the meeting.”

  He didn’t answer immediately but looked out of the window as 5th Avenue rolled by. They turned down 8th Street and then onto Broadway.

  His thoughts took him to a deserted airstrip outside of Mexico City. Brock hammering an M16 while he drove; Harry and Jimmy Miller cowering in the back of the SUV as shattered glass cascaded down around them.

  “I’d left the army and set up the consultancy. I kept in touch with Brock and some of the SAS troop I served with. You have to remember that these guys have some very specialist skills – they don’t really take to stacking shelves. So I started a close protection unit.”

  “Bodyguards,” said Fern.

  “That sort of thing. We also specialised in K&R.”

  “Sorry …”

  “Kidnap and Ransom,” said Drum. “We would make exchanges or in special cases, extractions.”

  “And that’s what you were doing in Mexico City?”

  “Yes. But Phyllis got it very wrong. A case of bad intelligence,” said Drum.

  McKay sprung to mind. It seemed that lousy intelligence followed him around; or was it just him?

  “What happened?” asked Fern.

  “Phyllis sent in a relatively young team to what she thought was a routine investigation of a small company. A local bank had flagged up some irregular transactions, and the DOJ was cracking down on possible money laundering. Harry was the lead with a guy called Jimmy Miller and a computer tech called Rachel Mansfield. They should have been in and out in a few weeks …”

  “But?”

  “Miller stumbles upon a massive gold smuggling operation run by one of the drug cartels. Harry should have known better – should have let it go and returned to New York and reported in. Instead, she gets Rachel to hack their main server to obtain further evidence. Unfortunately, she ended up dead.”

  “What! How?”

  “It was unclear. A tragic accident they said. Next thing I know, my team is scrambled to extract Harry and Miller. We barely made it out.”

  “And you blamed Phyllis?”

  He thought about what McKay had said back in London. In war, shit happens. Afghanistan and Mexico City; the war had never stopped. He’d always been fighting someone whether they be insurgents or the drug cartels. He hadn’t really spoken about either incident. He’d bolted down his feelings. He’d blamed others. But he must share some of the blame.

  “I guess I did. She made a call. It didn’t go as planned.”

  “Shit happens.”

  He looked at her. “I guess so.”

  His phone rang. It was Alice.

  “Hi Alice, everything alright?”

  “Ben. Listen, I have bad news. It’s Raj.”

  “What about Raj?”

  “The security services,” she said. “They’ve arrested him.”

  ~~~

  Drum briefed Fern on the latest developments back home. McKay had been true to his word and returned with a warrant. All the evidence from the raid had been seized, but he never suspected they would arrest Raj. Someone had just made it very personal.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Fern, as the cab slowed and came to a stop.

  “I don’t know. Try to sort things out when I get back. Alice is phoning some of her contacts in the Foreign Office. I can’t stand the thought of Raj being holed up in a detention centre somewhere.”

  They got out on the corner of Broadway and Worth Street and walked the short way over to the tall building that was home to the FBI on 27 Federal Plaza. Solomon was waiting for them. He had lost the hat and was dressed more formally than the last time they had met.

  “Drummond.”

  “Solomon. This is Commander Alex Fern.”

  Solomon nodded and handed them both a security pass. “Keep this visible at all times.”

  They dropped their phones and wallets into a grey plastic tray and walked through a security scanner. Once they had been deemed clear of any firearms, they moved on through to the elevator bank.

  “Where are you keeping our man,” asked Drum, as they waited for the elevator.

  “Our man?” said Solomon, raising an eyebrow.

  Fern shot Drum a sideways glance.

  “Our drinking buddy.”

  Solomon cracked a smile. “Yeah well, Hammond wasn’t too happy about that.”

  “Look on the bright side. At least he wasn’t shooting at us.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. We’re holding him in interrogation, though he ain’t saying much.”

  The elevator announced its arrival with a loud chime and Solomon escorted them inside. They rode up in silence to the twentieth floor where they were greeted with the general din of a busy FBI office.

  Solomon said, “We’re holding him in a secure interview room up here. Hammond would like to talk to you first.”

  They walked down a busy corridor, passing agents hurrying about their investigations. They eventually came to a door marked Interview Room One. Two suited FBI agents stood guard outside. They nodded to Solomon and glanced at Drum and Fern’s security passes.

  The room was sparsely furnished with two metal chairs on either side of a small metal desk. A yellow legal pad and pencil sat neatly on the desk beside a modern IP telephone and an old desk lamp that had probably belonged to J.Edgar. Tom Hammond was waiting patiently. He faced a window and stared fixedly at the unmoving mountain of a man they knew as Misha.

  “Drummond. Commander.”

  Drum realised that the window was a two-way mirror; another door led to the room beyond where Misha was shackled to another metal table.

  “He looks comfortable,” said Drum. “What has he told you?”

  “Diddly-squat. Wants to talk to you.” He turned to face Drum. “Why is that?”

  Drum shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”

  “Commander?”

  “Same here. The NCA has him on a watch list. He’s known under several aliases, but there’s nothing concrete to link him to a crime in the UK we could deport him for. How did he enter the US?”

  “Using a passport under the name Mikhail Fedorov. Unlike you, Drummond, he walked straight through immigration without being flagged. If Solomon hadn’t been following you, we would’ve missed him.”

  “What will happen to him?” asked Drum, ignoring the slight at his immigration status.

  “His passport looks bona fide. The only thing we have on him is the concealed weapon. We’ll revoke his visa and deport him back to Russia.”

  “Let me talk to him,” said Drum. He looked at Fern.

  “Go right ahead,” she said. “It’s you he wants to talk to.”

  “We can listen in,” said Hammond.

  Hammond retrieved a card key from his pocket and swiped it through a reader attached to the door connecting the two rooms. The door buzzed open, and Drum walked in.

  The big Russian looked up. “Benjamin. It is good that you are here.”

  The room was brightly lit, white and sterile; the two metal chairs and desk were the only furniture. Drum sat on the metal chair facing Misha. His once crisp, white shirt was now tieless and looking a little crumpled. Other than that, he looked in good shape. A half-empty plastic bottle of water stood besid
e another yellow legal pad and pencil.

  “Writing your memoirs?”

  Misha gave him a slight smile. “Still a smart ass.”

  Drum glanced around the room. The security consultant in him liked to spot the hidden cameras. He only found two. They were also being recorded as a matter of course.

  “What can I do for you, Misha?”

  The Russian sat up and flexed his shoulders in a slow circular motion and rolled his thick neck, trying to ease the stiffness of his confinement. Drum understood why the FBI would want to restrain him.

  Misha asked, “Is Alex with you?”

  “She’s outside and sends her love.”

  Misha broke into a broad grin and tilted his head to one side to glimpse the mirror where he knew Alex would be watching. He pouted and blew her a kiss. Hammond was probably having to restrain her from coming in and beating the crap out of the Russian. He’d blown any future nights of gin and tonics with Commander Fern.

  “I cannot be sent back to Russia,” said Misha, his face taking on a look of seriousness that Drum had not seen before. “Bad things will happen.”

  Drum was a little taken aback. “That kinda goes with being a gangster, don’t you think.”

  “Not gangster, soldier. We are both soldiers, Benjamin.”

  Drum remembered the time in the market; this was about the only thing they had in common. But it seemed important to the Russian.

  “We were both soldiers once, Misha. Our war is over.”

  Misha looked amused. “We will always be soldiers. It’s what we do. And the war … it is never over.”

  Drum thought back to the cold of an Afghan desert. The smell of cardamon brewing in thick black tea. The raw firepower that had rained down upon them. Misha was right: he’d never really stopped fighting. But who was he fighting now?

  “Why is going home a problem?” asked Drum.

  “I have a son.”

  Drum frowned. He hadn’t imagined Misha as a father.

  “And?”

  “There are certain … people that would see me dead. If I return home, I would be arrested. They would use the boy – make an example of him.”

  “How old is this boy?” asked Drum