'A' for Argonaut

by Michael J. Stedman

  FORTY

  Blair House, Washington, DC

  A limo picked up Ryan-Colby outside the Wisconsin Avenue offices of Global Coast Oil International. She was escorted out of the car by a uniformed White House guard who walked her up the steps into the brick-faced Blair House just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Faced with the devastation of the financial markets, the White House had put together a financial force to reverse the global economic downturn. The two men waiting in the foyer were central as proxies for the governments of England and China. They represented a powerful block at the working pinnacle of financial and military power in those countries. This was just the first of President Valentine’s plan for a number of similar conferences to get the heavyweight players in those countries and in West Africa to sign on to her program.

  Part of President Valentine’s agenda was to support Angola’s counterterrorism efforts in the belief that it would prop diamond prices quietly without further turmoil in the markets. This group would serve as a catalyst for new economic development where the White House felt it was most needed.

  Ryan-Colby turned to a tall, dignified Englishman.

  Sir Neville Sharp-Neff represented the British Council as well as the U.K.’s primary bank consortium that financed a major part of the British economy, including KoeffieBloehm Diamond Mining. Sharp-Neff looked the part with a paisley ascot puffed at the neck of a custom-fitted Turnbull & Asser shirt. He was there to assure British interests were taken into consideration, particularly those concerning the plunging stock market and its relationship to Angola’s diamond smuggling issue.

  “Thank you,” Sharp-Neff said in the clipped tones of the British aristocracy. “General, the Council’s work is above all about people and opportunity. We are anxious to build partnerships with the U.S. for economic and scientific development.”

  His lead-in was politic.

  “This is General Li Shau Yung, Executive Director of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology,” Ryan-Colby said. “I might add for the record that General Li has a daughter in the United States, Ms. Anita Li, a noted scientist as well as an aficionado of western art.”

  “It is my honor to meet you all,” General Li greeted the men.

  “Gentlemen,” Ryan-Colby broke in, “Major General Baltimore has been kind enough to provide his wide-ranging expertise beyond his role in Special Operations. His considerable combat, weapons development, procurement and dispersal experience is being relied on by President Valentine to help screen out dual-use technologies‌—‌those with both military and commercial applications, before they are sold to any foreign nation, including China,” she said. She turned to General Li.

  “We are here to set some terms down. I can assure you that the President will streamline the approval procedures for contracts between the United States and your countries.”

  The fact was that these parties had already hammered out contracts between themselves. The final word on the relationships would come in the form of an executive order from President Valentine. It didn’t matter that the business at hand would benefit dictators hostile to democracy and to the United States. This was all about expedience. Expedience means money. Besides, they argued, Cabinda was totally in the pocket of Big Oil, itself controlled by major U.S. defense contractors.

  Since much of the groundwork and decision-making had already been done, it didn’t take them long to finalize a pact. General Stassinopoulos agreed with General Li to act as a conduit for U.S. airborne warning systems and NAR-30 Predator jet fighters to China. General Li agreed to reduce China’s dumping of cheap consumer goods to the U.S. and the U.K. at below-cost discounts and to consult with President Valentine before raising Chinese interest rates; this was a pet peeve in the U.S., since it led to a lower-valued American dollar, a phenomenon some pundits referred to as China’s ‘beggar-thy-neighbors” policy. Sharp-Neff guaranteed the loans. The three of them pledged urban economic development loans to be channeled through Reverend Johnson’s charities.

  As the meeting was about to break up, Sharp-Neff asked a question that brought Ryan-Colby up short.

  “What is your government doing to curb your rogue commando, Lt. Colonel Maran?” British intelligence was obviously on top of their game.

  It took her a moment to compose herself.

  “I’m sorry, but all I can tell you is that we are working to resolve any criminal activities that any of our military representatives are involved in.”

  “Specifics?” Sharp-Neff pressed.

  “Frankly the subject is classified. I’m not cleared to discuss it, nor do I know specifics. But I can assure you that if one of our military operatives is participating in criminal activities, in West Africa or anywhere else, we will close them down.” She put the stress on “will.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Ivy Rochelle Williams-Smythe’s call came. Maran and Amber were in their new room at the Hotel Borghese in a seedier part of town, a safe house they had fled to across town from the Florida.

  Amber was alarmed.

  “What do you mean you have to go out, Rod?” Amber asked still duped into using Maran’s cover alias, the bogus journalist.

  “It’s unexpected. I won’t be long.”

  “Who can you be meeting with that is so important that you’d leave me alone now?”

  “It’s a woman from the Diamond Exchange,” he said. “You’ll be OK. No one knows we’re here. Just don’t leave the room. I’ll be back within two hours.”

  “We have a lot to talk about. We have to get out of here first thing in the morning. I know a place. I’m counting on you.”

  “You can stake your life on me,” Maran vowed.

  “I’m staking my son’s.” She still didn’t trust him, but she had run out of choices.

  She had told him that when she left her apartment, she was heading for the Belgian seaside resort at the Hotel La Luxe in Knokke-Heist, a quick 120-mile hop from Antwerp. She was familiar with the place which lured her with nostalgia, the one spot in the world where she would feel safe while waiting for dos Sampas to prepare their plans, a haven her family had used in summers long ago to escape the tension of her father’s dual life as a Chinese spy and moonlighting diamond smuggler. “I know,” Amber said with a confident smile. “You’re probably wondering why I would hole up in a first class resort when I’m hiding from the Animal and his lizard. But they can find me just as quickly in a flophouse.”

  “Besides,” she added. “I know someone there,” she added.

  He looked at her as he went out the door. Something about her got to him, mystery, strength, hidden softness, or vulnerability. Whatever it was, he wasn’t used to it.

  MARAN, WEARING A GRAY-STRIPED tropical worsted suit and yellow tie, picked up a newspaper at the hotel gift shop and carried it under one arm as he waved down a taxi to his meeting at Chez Biarritz with Utile Nsangou. He stepped out of the taxi and entered an elaborate French door entrance. Like much he had seen in the diamond city, the room radiated success and money, power and conceit, opportunity and exploitation. Baskets of red and yellow roses hung everywhere. An attendant led him to the table where a woman sat at a table for two by a large window, under a mezzanine balcony.

  She sat cross-legged, nonchalant, smoking a cigarette. She waved as he entered. It was apparent that she had seen a photo of him. Ebony and fit, she threw off a strong aura of confidence that eliminated any question that her diminutive size might have raised. She flashed a smile. As he approached, she stubbed out her cigarette in a large ashtray, a slice of petrified wood. She stood, extended a hand, fingernails bright, the color of blood. She waved for the waiter, presented Maran with her bona fides. He examined them, handed the leather case back to her with a scowl. Skepticism was salted and cured deeply within him‌—‌part of the tradecraft and training in which he had been marinated. Counterterrorism, like his counterpart skill set, espionage, was replete with false flags, lies, and deception of
every variety. Since spy history is replete with documentation of deceptive crossovers, on occasion, he even questioned the true sex of his contacts.

  “I can get these for a thousand dollars. You’re not about to tell me how you found me, so why don’t you just tell me why you’re here.”

  “You’re messing into something you know nothing about. I’m here to help, give you a chance to back out.”

  “Back out! What does that mean?”

  “General Luster has asked me to bring you back to see him.”

  “Bull Luster should look into his own house. What happened in Cabinda?”

  The scene at the massacre flashed through his mind.

  Was Luster behind it? Some one even higher up in the Pentagon?

  He was a pawn. He had to find the chessmaster. She wet her lips, opened her pocketbook, put a pack of Parliament Light Kings in front of her. He pointed to the pack. “Some people stuff the recessed filter with cocaine,” he observed.

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “Makes it easy to insufflate.”

  “Great word. Congratulations.”

  “Joan Crawford smoked them; some say she loaded them too. Hollywood,” Maran smiled, dating himself.

  “Mind if I smoke?” he asked. His nerves didn’t show, but deep inside, they jangled. He lit up a stogie, blew several rings of smoke. They unfurled in the air above the table, sharp as burning sulfur. Maran tilted his head to watch the ring rise, enjoying the rare sense of freedom it gave him.

  “Toxic. But impressive,” she observed. “We have about forty-five minutes, so should we settle on the steak frites? That should be fast.”

  “Fine.”

  She picked up the menu, opened it, and pointed. “I’ll have a glass of Merlot, please,” she told the waiter. “Casa de Fruta, 2005,” she smiled.

  Maran ordered his usual, “Half Diet Coke and half iced coffee.”

  “Caffeine freak? As I was saying,” she said. “There are things you don’t know. Beyond your clearance level. They want you back‌—‌for your own good.”

  “What are they afraid of?”

  “There are some serious people on this. They know every move you make. If you agree to meet with them, clean your slate, they’ll clear your name. Forgive and forget. They’ll call it an incident over which you had no control. They just have to know you’re clean. This is your last chance. Make up your mind. Get out now, Maran. Come back in.”

  “Just like that? Big homecoming party?”

  The prospect that he could clear his name hung in the air.

  “You had a chance to testify, to provide evidence. Obviously, there was none.”

  The memory of Luster’s diatribe echoed in his head like bullets hitting empty oil drum targets on an Army firing range.

  Earlier, Maran might have accepted her offer. Before Amber Chu. He cared little for political hacks and felt Washington was full of them now.

  Pale-faced anemics laden with fancy ideas, degrees, and credentials but no common sense.

  He didn’t trust her any more than he trusted anyone now outside of his own team, and he was getting nervous about them.

  Her voice broke into a strange, brief reverie.

  “Colonel Maran,” she said, using his military rank to flatter him. “You have a born clandestine mentality; some are calling you paranoid. That’s a compliment compared with what some others are saying. Without our help the odds of your prevailing are impossible. This is a deal you should not refuse. Get out while you still can.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Lady, tell your pals I don’t cut deals on this. There was a time when I thought the United States soldier was on the side of right and justice. That’s why I joined the Army to begin with. But that was before Cabinda. Now I see that decisions at the top are made by random circumstance, or worse, every day, under changing moral expedience. But I still filter mine through the same set of American values to which I pledged an oath.”

  “You’re quite certain?” She paused, smiled up at him. Her lined eyebrows accentuated the reddish eye shadow.

  Maran dabbed his lips with the linen napkin, about to answer.

  She picked up the pack of cigarettes, tapped it against the table; pulled out a cigarette, put it between her lips, lit it. There was something deliberate about her action. He thought he saw her eyes glance up away from the flame.

  Oh, oh!

  Omen, signal, ESP‌—‌instinct. Maybe it was her cold black eyes as they swept the room.

  Something.

  A crazy instant recognition that masked a knife-edge threat. Maybe the sudden spark of the lighter flame triggered new awareness, caution.

  On the balcony!

  He dove off the chair to his left, pulled the table over with him as cover. His action was so abrupt she had no time to react. He heard the unmistakable slight punch of a noise-suppressed round. The bullet meant for Maran hit her in the chest, obviously a large bore rifle shot which drove her body over the chair with such force her legs flew over her head. She landed in a heap, her lifeless legs straddling the chair, feet shoeless. Maran reached into his blazer, pulled out the H&K. He fired at the balcony, emptied the eight -round clip. The assassin’s body collapsed, flipped over the balcony rail, the rifle falling into the dining room and crashing on top of a table full of shocked diners. In what seemed like slow motion, the dead man’s body followed. The restaurant broke out in chaos, patrons dove under tables and behind serving counters, ran for exits. Pandemonium, just what Maran needed. He ran to the body, reached inside the jacket for credentials.

  No! Treasury!

  He turned, ran to the woman’s sprawled body, checked her pocketbook. He found her Virginia driver’s license made out to Utile Nsangou, a name with which he was vaguely familiar.

  HE FELT LIKE HE was living a nightmare, that he had nowhere to turn. Everywhere he went, he ran into another enemy, a new attack. Where he once felt like a part of the system, a bonded brotherhood of dedicated patriots, he now felt as if his soul had been taken and ripped to shreds by those he admired the most, the keepers of the faith, the leaders of the country’s defense and government establishment.

  Where will it go? How far up the line?

  When he studied military history and its lessons, dignifying honor, discipline, and integrity, he thought he had finally found a family. That’s what enticed him. It seemed to him so rock-solidly bound in fairness, back then.

  Now it all seemed a sham.

  He had to rally his strength and fight back with all the reserves he had.

  Amber!

  He rushed through the restaurant’s kitchen, bowling over the sous-chef and a female assistant. Outside Chez Biarritz, he flagged another taxi. He got out a block from the Hotel Borghese and walked down the street to a side street that led to the back of the hotel. He shot up the back stairs reserved for the room service wait staff. Ten minutes later, he had grabbed their bags and led Amber down the emergency fire escape over an alley in the back that led into the underground garage. They hit the ground running, out to the street, turned the corner to the front of the hotel, and jumped into the rental car.

  He heard the plea in her voice. Tough as she appeared, she cried out for help.

  “Tony! They are going to kill us!” It wasn’t just to rescue her son. Maran knew. He identified. They were together now, needed one another, chained in a common cause.

  FORTY-TWO

  Washington, DC

  Alex Pajak walked out into the heat on Wisconsin Avenue, turning to see if he had a tail. Satisfied, he trade-crafted down the busy street and across the bridge over the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal‌—‌the C&O‌—‌keeping a sharp eye to his rear. Confident he was clear, he entered an alley to the back door of the 12th Note Lounge. A jazz trio was on stage. They played a soft rendition of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew.” Through the window in the entry alcove, he recognized the two men. They sat at a small table over a bottle of wine.
He moved through the crowd at the bar, which led into the dining room. The muscular men at the table both wore polo shirts with two buttons opened with heavy gold chains around their thick necks. One sported a Van Dyke beard, knife-like sideburns and big hair, pitch black, pomped in front and slicked back in a ponytail. The other was distinguished by cropped, coppery hair that looked like it had been soaked in a child’s watercolors.

  “Looks like 1999 Beaulieu ‘Georges de Latour Private Reserve,’” Pajak said, approaching them, pointing to the wine bottle.

  “Lush and velvety,” the blonde grinned.

  “Naw, more like a trooper,” Van Dyke said. He shook his craggy head. His chin jutted out like a granite precipice. “Intense, ramrod straight.”

  “Always said you should have been a wine critic,” Pajak laughed.

  “Yeah, but I like doin’ what we do.” The joke was these two men were what the intel community refers to as “knuckle-draggers,” men trained in little more than setting up and executing assassinations until they got injured and transferred to DRAMS. Now they ran the security operations for the oil fields off Cabinda. They liked things just the way they had been.

  “OK,” Pajak said. “Maran’s too close. We have to cover Boyko’s flank, get rid of Maran. These fuckin’ guys, Pentagon dweebs, their cronies. All caught up in their underwear. Have you heard the latest?”

  “I’m on the edge of my seat,” V.D. wisecracked.

  “He took out our shooters in Antwerp, including Utile Nsangou.” Neither man showed recognition. “Maran’s got to go. Right now. Goddamn! He’s a threat to the American fuckin’ way,” he continued.