Liquid Gold

by James Phelan

  And it was medicine that was hard for Nix to swallow. He would probably be stuck here another few weeks searching for unexploded ordinance from the war, after a UN observation team found a cache of unexploded phosphorous rockets in a local potato field.

  The war had changed everything. The press room at the Blue Zone headquarters was filled with photos of the terrified townspeople as they’d begun to shut up their houses and bury their valuables, and the next phase that showed the refugees who flooded through the streets with hastily wrapped bundles of possessions on their backs. Nothing could equate to the terror of war, no act of witness or truth-telling. A severed head. The blackened stump of a tree. Charred fields. A crow, picking at the body of a child.

  Top was in the base morgue, wrapped in a body bag. Blue helmets were everywhere. The people of Gori were moving back to their shattered homes, rebuilding, cleaning up, replanting crops, mending broken lives. They were resilient, formed by an idea of who they were rather than the sum of what had happened to them. There was much beauty to this place, and war could not tarnish that—it was in the faces of the Georgian children, and their eyes spoke a truth that the world needed to hear. American guns were lying low—no one wanted to escalate the situation.

  The images on the memory card showed the man who set off that bomb, and Nix was sure it would get out there; something would be done, so this place could heal. The Anna’s of this place would be heard and a calmer generation would prevail. When he got home, it would be time to hang up his uniform at the back of his closet. He had learned so much the hard way, from an innocent young woman and a hardened soldier he’d known as family.

  All wars are crimes.

  87

  ROME, ITALY

  “Iran?” Fox said, watching Gammaldi’s fingers dart over the keyboard of his BlackBerry as he emailed an update through to Hutchinson, McCorkell and Wallace. “Indian–Pakistani water is going into Iran?”

  “That’s where one of the main pipelines goes; it piggybacks on the Iran–Pakistan–India gas pipeline,” Kneeshaw replied. “There are a few splits along the way, to supply the Pakistani cities to the south.”

  “Iran is taking India’s water…”

  “Depends on how you look at it,” Kneeshaw said. “The water goes from the shared Indian–Pakistani region, flows through Pakistan, and some goes to Iran. As to ownership, that’s for someone else to decide.”

  “Was this what you started decades ago?”

  “Partly—it wasn’t a new concept, that’s for sure,” Kneeshaw said. “The Iranians asked me about the possibility of it thirty-odd years ago when I was in the country drilling wells—it was all very hush-hush top-secret at the time, which I found amusing … Then they told me they wanted a way of getting Iranian oil out to Pakistan after the revolution in seventy-nine, which I found out much later was to be in exchange for weapons and munitions—and maybe even more. I attended some meetings then, nothing more.”

  Maybe even more? Fox’s head was spinning. That much water … for a country with gas and oil to burn on desalination plants. Why did they need all that extra water? “What do you mean by exchanging for weapons and more—heavy water?”

  Kneeshaw shrugged.

  “Nuclear weapons?” Gammaldi said, his thumbs paused on the keys of his BlackBerry.

  “That, I don’t know,” Kneeshaw replied. “But I have no doubt about nuclear technology changing hands between the two countries, especially after it came out about Abdul Khan.”

  Fox tried to compute everything he was hearing. Abdul Khan was the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Caught out recently, Khan confessed to having been involved in a clandestine international network of nuclear-weapons technology proliferation from Pakistan to Libya, Iran and North Korea. All, Khan said, for the national interest of his country—a nation that promised him complete freedom, which he still enjoyed today.

  “Khan did his best to extend the reach of nuclear weapons across the globe, and I’m the hunted one?” continued Kneeshaw.

  “I feel for you, Mr Kneeshaw,” Gammaldi said through a mouthful of chocolate cannoli. “And if it makes you feel any better, we’re on the list as well.”

  “It’s just so unbelievable—I mean, I was proud to be part of the project in Kashmir,” he said. “It was so many years in the making; abandoned, disputed … I don’t think it will be nearly as damaging to the Indian water supply as some make out in the media. This water will provide so much…”

  “Where does that water go in Iran?” asked Fox.

  “Show me the map again,” Kneeshaw said, putting his reading glasses on. He looked at Fox with a smile. “You know, water never disappears. It’s transferred, goes from one spot to another, is used and converted to something else, evaporates and falls and is used over and over again. As I said, Mr Fox, water is life.”

  The old man stood, tapped a spot on the map on the table. Just inside Iran. Not far from where his pen line crossed with the gas pipeline.

  “This town,” he said, “Look there. Zahedan, formerly known as Dozz-app. It comes from the Persian Dozd-aab, which means … water thief.”

  “I don’t even know if that’s ironic or not,” Fox said.

  “They’d probably say it was destiny.”

  So this had started in Iran so long ago—they’d gone in search of water and finally found it in the willing grace of Umbra Corp. That water belonged where it was. The water went west … Nothing ever really ended.

  88

  GREENBRIER RESORT, WEST VIRGINIA

  McCorkell rode in a golf cart driven by a resort staff member. He thought he could still hear his Bell chopper on the helipad to the other side of the resort’s main building, then realised it was the noise of his back-up guys, a team from the FBI’s active Hostage Rescue Team. They had just landed on the seventh hole, their chopper black and ominous.

  The day was cold but sunny and clear, the frost on the grass slippery under his leather-soled shoes. He sure wasn’t going to go chasing this guy if he ran, but then, he had six heavily armed Special Agents for that. Spring wasn’t far off, as heralded by some early tulips blooming; it was the type of weather that only the truly committed or insane players braved. Through the Cold War until 1992 this expansive estate had been the location of the bunker that would house the legislative branch of government in the advent of nuclear war. The Washington Post had broken the story, and as the secrecy was lifted and the location became a target—even with the changing geopolitical climate, it was still to this day a target—it had closed its secret function. It was now, as it had been for a hundred and fifty years, an elegant resort.

  The cart stopped on his signal, and he tipped the driver, who took off back to base.

  McCorkell stood watching the two CIA agents. Ryan Kavanaugh teed off, a big three-hundred metre thing that sounded good off the club. All three men watched its flight. James Riley moved to set up his shot, saw McCorkell, recognised him.

  Riley stood back from his ball, leaned on his club. McCorkell walked towards them, stopping a few metres short.

  He stared intently at Kavanaugh.

  McCorkell wasn’t a tall man—someone had once told him he was closer in looks and stature to Napoleon Bonaparte than Arnold Schwarzenegger—but over twenty years of government service, much of it in top jobs in the Executive Branch, had given him the learned swagger and presence, imposing in a Lyndon-Johnson-visits-Congress sort of way.

  Kavanaugh looked at Riley—his face said it all.

  There were other players about but all out of earshot, many of them intel workers on a three-day conference.

  McCorkell tossed onto their golf cart a transcript of the WoW mail contents, a list of their guild players, and avatar names—two of which had actual names written beside them. Kavanaugh glanced down at the papers as they flapped in the breeze, and then up at McCorkell.

  “What’s this?” Kavanaugh asked.

  “We really don�
��t mind that you log onto game websites in work hours,” McCorkell said. “We just mind what you do while you’re on there.”

  Kavanaugh took half a beat to catch himself, looked down the golf range: “Bill, what are you talking about?”

  McCorkell looked around, could just make out two of the HRT members in their olive drab coveralls and black tactical gear, watching, action-ready.

  “Ryan,” McCorkell said. “We got a confession from your guy. We’ve got evidence up to here. All on tape—it makes good viewing.”

  Silence. Kavanaugh looked at both men, then picked up the thick printout, flicked though a couple of pages, set it down. “Drink?”

  McCorkell shook his head.

  “Okay…” He reached into the cooler at the back of the cart, took out a beer, leaned on the seat and popped the can.

  “Ryan,” Riley said. “What’s this about?”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded.

  Kavanaugh casually looked around, scanning the area after something caught his eye, then leaned forward on his seat, his hands behind the cooler, and looked up at the two men. A moment of truth in his heavy eyes.

  “I was part of the downsizing, you know,” he said. “After the Cold War. I’d worked hard in Europe, specialised in Russian intel—all those contacts I’d worked so damn hard to cultivate, then the Company downsized, the Cold War ended…”

  Riley and McCorkell looked at each other, then back to Kavanaugh, who was staring out over the fairway.

  “I made a name for myself in private contracting, was brought back in after 9/11—”

  “Yeah, I know, Ryan,” McCorkell said.

  “Do you?” He shook his head. “DC cops make more than we do. I came back because I believed, I mean truly believed, that what we were doing was right. I was part of the winning team!”

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Riley asked.

  “What fucking acknowledgment do we ever get?” Kavanaugh snapped. “We get told when we fuck up, and that’s it!”

  “Gratitude is the prerogative of the people,” McCorkell said. “Not part of what we do. This is over now, Ryan.”

  “Your ignorance is encyclopaedic,” Kavanaugh said, leaning a little further towards the cooler, then showed them a compact automatic pistol resting in his hand.

  McCorkell didn’t flinch. Shook his head at the man.

  “Check your chest,” McCorkell said. His eyes went from the cooler and the pistol to Kavanaugh’s sternum—a red dot appeared.

  The CIA Section Chief looked down, saw the laser pointer aimed over his heart.

  “They’re listening in and will take the shot if they need to,” McCorkell said. “Don’t go out like this. Tell us what’s going on.”

  Kavanaugh’s shoulders dropped a little, his eyes transfixed on the dot.

  “Undo some of this before it gets any worse.”

  He shook his head slowly, might even have shed a tear as his arms went slack and he stared at the gun in his hands.

  “It was all about money,” he confessed, without looking up. “We know.”

  “I—people have died so that I could get money…”

  “Help us end this,” McCorkell said. He walked around the cart, careful to steer clear of the shot that could pass through the condemned man. He took the pistol and cleared the rounds into his palm. The laser designator remained, the two FBI sniper teams in place at hair-trigger. Two agents in the tree-line of the rough approached, heavy hitters who still had their sights on their target.

  Riley looked at his mentor with what could be sadness, or maybe just disappointment.

  Kavanaugh looked at him—then away. He almost seemed pleased as the HRT men forced him to the ground and flexicuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Leave James out of this, he knew nothing.” Kavanaugh’s eyes showed admiration for the man he had groomed over the years, working day and night side-by-side in a small office, sleeves rolled up trying to shape the part of the world in their sphere of influence.

  “Did you know what they were doing?” Riley asked him. “Killing people so you could make money?”

  Kavanaugh was silent, rested his head on the grass as he was patted down.

  “Jesus, Ryan, there might be an Iranian bomb out of this,” McCorkell said.

  His eyes didn’t seem to register. He was gone. McCorkell watched as the FBI hauled him away, knew too that Riley’s world as he’d known it had just crashed down around him.

  McCorkell picked up Kavanaugh’s BlackBerry from behind the cooler.

  “Son of a bitch wouldn’t even—” Riley said. “I mean, after everything—”

  “James,” he said, looking at the younger agent, who was still too shell-shocked to be angry at his former mentor. “Know this: we remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

  89

  ATHENS, GREECE

  Text flashed on the screen of Sirko’s phone.

  It was the message he had been waiting on for years … It was go time. Resolution. Retribution. This was it.

  His dog—the stray he had taken in a couple of years ago—was still with his neighbours, and he left them a note in an envelope with a few hundred euros. They would take care of him.

  He had been taken care of, once. The Hypatian Monastery; he was there in his mind as he walked out of his apartment complex and hailed a cab in the street. As he rode to the airport he remembered playing with the other kids, behaving most of the time. It was a cold place to live, and he had disliked the cold ever since. His best and worst memories were of that place and time.

  He remembered Roman Babich visiting him, taking him on holidays, treating him like a son over summer holidays—and then sending him off to boarding school at thirteen. While Kolesnik, his true son, lived in luxury. No corrupt men in dark shadows loomed over his childhood. The vast halls of monastery buildings dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: towering ceilings and bleak rooms inhabited by hungry boys. The Trinity Cathedral had an incredibly elaborate painted interior, his place of solace, and he could see it in his mind as clear as day.

  Sirko had done his time in the Army; a few years in Chechnya, and then in the breakaway States training government and militia soldiers. He didn’t care that he might die. He had been decorated as a hero on several occasions, but he wasn’t heroic—he wasn’t there to fight for his country or cause, he simply didn’t care about the consequences. Death was constantly around him, death became his family, death was where he belonged.

  But now, here was his moment: first he would take out Babich, then he would take care of his little brother. Little Nashi bitch.

  Sirko had met the CIA man during the first Chechen war. They had become friends—then enemies when, one night drinking, this guy, posing as a reporter, presented him with information that he couldn’t accept as true; information on Babich, a man he had once looked to as a father.

  He killed your father. That’s what the American had said as he handed over the file and walked out of the makeshift bar. Sirko had tracked him down four days later, after he had expelled most of his hatred, after he had checked and checked again with every source he could to verify what he had been told and given. Turned out it was true.

  He wanted revenge and wanted help doing it—he knew then that the American was not a reporter, and he had been good enough to admit it. He was part of a new taskforce set up to bring down Babich and men like him … But it was not what Sirko lusted after; it would be a slow burn, a methodical documentation of the Umbra network of ex-KGB and FSB men, infiltrating their organisation through men like Sirko had been the aim at the time. He had been convinced by his American friend there that night, and so many times since, that this was the right way to go about retribution. A slow death of a thousand cuts.

  One day, he would get the chance to exact the revenge he craved. He would be told in a simple message, a message he had memorised all
those years ago—the message that had just come in. It was destiny—he was here, so close, and he was ready. He had the gear he needed stashed in a hotel there; it had been there for years, waiting for this moment. He looked at the text on the screen, knew what it meant, and hoped his American friend, Ryan Kavanaugh, would be okay.

  90

  BELLAGIO, LAKE COMO, ITALY

  Babich hung up the phone; he would meet young Sirko in Guzzi’s Café in the morning. He hadn’t seen him in so long—perhaps Babich would bring Kolesnik too; they could start patching things up now that this affair was almost behind them. He sat by an open window of his Villa La Cassinella and thought about his boys and how they had become men.

  He looked out across the lake towards Bellagio. He loved it here this time of year. The heavy clouds parted and the water sparkled like diamonds. Grand villas were strung out along the shores, the old ghosts of European aristocrats, haunting with their legacy of creating beauty in a place already so naturally beautiful. He had been one of the first of his countrymen to buy here, and now its days were numbered. Back then, the only sounds heard here on weekends were sails flapping on the lake, champagne corks popping, tennis balls on clay courts, and evening laughter. Now it was speedboats and super-cars; new Hollywood was here, new European money—the flashy kind, the kind Babich detested.

  His press secretary came in, pointed to the phone with the light blinking on his desk: “I have him on the line.”

  Babich took the handset, waited for her to leave and shut the door.

  “Finally, we speak.”

  “Finally,” Lachlan Fox replied. “You got my message?”