The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  “You sonofabitch,” Yung said. “You really got me!”

  “The note read ‘Colonel C thought you would probably talk too much. Leave immediately. Go to your hotel and wait for instructions,’” Delchamps went on, pleased with himself. “My reasoning being that if Confucius had never heard of Colonel C. no harm would be done. But if I was right…and I was…”

  “You bastard,” Yung said, good-naturedly.

  “He read the note and became scrute…”

  “Became what?” Agnes asked.

  “As in ‘inscrutable,’” Delchamps explained. “Nervously licking his lips, he looked frantically around the bar, searching for counterintel types, and…”

  “He didn’t make you?” Castillo said, laughing.

  Delchamps shook his head. “I carry with me this often helpful aura of bemused innocence,” he said. “So what Dave did was hurriedly pay his bill, say good-bye to the tootsie, and head for the door. At that point, I took pity on him and bought him a drink.”

  “We had a couple,” Yung admitted.

  “I hope your mind is clear, Dave. I’ve got a bunch of stuff from NSA I need you to translate and, after that, you can tell me about the funeral.”

  Castillo was not unaware that Delchamps’s attitude had done a one-eighty from that of the previous morning.

  Maybe because he’s working?

  Or maybe because he’s working and he senses that he’s not going to be ignored now after breaking his ass trying to do a good job.

  “Good morning, Inspector Doherty,” Yung said politely as he walked into the conference room.

  “How are you, Yung?” Doherty replied.

  And ice filled the room, Castillo thought. So far as Doherty’s concerned, Yung has betrayed his beloved FBI, and there’s not much of a difference between him and Howard Kennedy.

  And Yung not only knows this, but probably—almost certainly—has to feel uncomfortable about that, maybe even a little ashamed of himself.

  Is that going to fuck things up? Is Dave going to backslide and become a good little FBI agent again?

  The answer came immediately.

  “Well, aside from this,” Yung said, raising his bandaged hand, “I’m fine, Inspector. How about you?”

  “I heard about that,” Doherty said.

  “Colonel Castillo told you?”

  Doherty nodded.

  “I thought he would probably have to have told you—Edgar Delchamps told me what you’re doing here. So I guess he also told you that you can’t go back to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and tell them, ‘Guess what? We were right all along about Yung. He can’t be trusted any more than Howard Kennedy can. Wait till I tell you what he’s been up to.’”

  “Colonel Castillo has made it clear that your activities, Yung, are protected by the security classification of the Presidential Finding.”

  “I’m almost sorry they are. I wish I could tell the bastards in Professional Ethics that I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done since I got involved in this and that I like being trusted by Castillo and the people around him. That’s more than I can say for the bureau. They found me guilty by association—‘We can’t trust him anymore; send him to Uruguay or someplace’—with no more justification than a determination to cover their own asses.”

  Doherty paled and looked as if he was about to say something.

  “Well,” Delchamps said, breaking the silence, “now that the air is cleared and we’re all pals united in a common cause, can we get back to work? I’ve got a lot of paleontological data for your blackboards, Jack.”

  “What kind of data?” Doherty asked.

  “From dinosaurs,” Delchamps said.

  “And I have fifteen pages of mysterious numbers for you to decipher for us, Dave,” Castillo said and gestured for him to sit down at the conference table.

  “What NSA has come up with, Charley,” Yung said fifteen minutes later, “is pretty good. It’s a goddamned pity we can’t use it to put some of these bastards in jail.”

  “For what?”

  “Income tax evasion, most of them. A lot of other charges. But none of this would be admissible in court.”

  “Careful, you’re starting to sound like an FBI agent again,” Castillo said without thinking, then heard what he had said and looked to see if Doherty had heard him. His face showed that he had.

  Oh, fuck you! Yung was screwed by the FBI—probably by you personally, Doherty—and you know it!

  “I don’t give a damn about the IRS,” Castillo went on. “What use is it to us?”

  “Well, we know from which account the people in Philadelphia or Easton—wherever the hell it was—got their two million.”

  “Didn’t we already know that?”

  “What we didn’t know—this is in Appendix 2—was that there was a deposit, the same exact amount, $1,950,000, into the same account at the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited from which the $1,950,000 was wired to the Merchants National Bank of Easton. I think we can reasonably surmise this was done in anticipation of sending the money to Pennsylvania.”

  “Who put that money in that account?” Castillo asked.

  “It came from another numbered account in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited. And what’s very interesting about that is—this is also in Appendix 2—is that that’s a very substantial account, with just over forty-six million dollars in it.”

  “In cash?” Castillo asked, incredulously.

  “Five million in cash, the rest in instruments something like the ones Lorimer used in Uruguay—not the same thing, exactly, but something like it. You want me to explain that?”

  “First tell me what’s ‘very interesting’ about this second account.”

  “There have been no deposits made to it since March 23, 2003. The invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003.”

  “We know that date,” Miller said. “When Castillo and I were simple, honest soldiers, we were there.”

  “Which suggests to you what?”

  “The oil-for-food scam ended with the invasion,” Yung said. “That final deposit, nine-point-five million, was probably in the pipeline, so to speak, for that three-day difference.”

  “Who owns the account with the forty-six million in it?”

  “We don’t know. NSA can’t get data like that,” Yung replied. “But Appendix 3 says that a lot of people are snooping around the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited, including the FBI. One of them should know.”

  “You hear that, Inspector?” Castillo asked.

  “I heard it,” Doherty said. “Would you be surprised if my first reaction was to say fuck you?”

  “No,” Castillo said. “But?”

  “And not just because I don’t like you and this operation of yours, but because if NSA says the bureau is interested in this Caledonian Bank that means there is a legitimate, ongoing investigation which may very well be screwed up by you nosing around.”

  “But?” Castillo asked again.

  “If I don’t do this for you, you’ll go back to Montvale, he’ll go back to Director Schmidt and he’ll either order me to get the information or tell somebody else to do it.”

  “Please give Inspector Doherty the numbers of the accounts we’re interested in, Dave.”

  Doherty hung up the phone fifteen minutes later and handed Castillo a sheet of notepaper on which was written: “Kenyon Oil Refining and Brokerage Company, Midland, Texas.”

  Castillo was momentarily surprised at hearing Midland, Texas, but then realized that it was because Munz’s family was on the Double-Bar-C ranch there, not because the oil company was in Midland.

  There’s probably three or four hundred oil companies in Midland. And it’s not surprising that I never heard of this one. Many of them are nothing more than a phone number and a post office box.

  “That’s the account with the forty-six million in it,” Doherty reported. “The information the bureau has is that they’re a small independent outfit, primarily involved in the business of buy
ing and selling crude oil. They have a small refinery in Houston, but that’s usually involved in refining other people’s oil. There is an ongoing investigation that has so far not turned up anything they’re looking for.”

  “What is the FBI looking for?” Castillo asked.

  “They didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.”

  “Get back on the horn, please, Inspector, and ask. And while you’ve got them on the phone, find out what the FBI have—anything, everything, they have—on the other numbers Yung gave you.”

  Doherty glowered at him and didn’t move.

  “Do it, Inspector,” Castillo said, unpleasantly.

  Doherty grabbed the telephone. Making no effort to hide it, Castillo listened and watched him carefully while he made the call.

  “It’ll take some time to get that information,” Doherty reported when he had finished. “They’ll call.”

  “And while we’re waiting, we’ll all going to take a quick course in how the scans worked,” Castillo said.

  “From who?” Doherty asked.

  “From my Budapest source, who is now in Argentina.”

  “I told you, Castillo, I didn’t want any data from those people until we sort out what we already have.”

  “Do you speak Hungarian, Inspector?”

  “No, I don’t speak Hungarian,” Doherty responded in exasperation.

  “Then you’ll just have to guess what I’m saying to my source,” Castillo said and picked up the Delta Force radio handset.

  “Sergeant Neidermeyer,” a voice came over the handset.

  “Are we up?” Castillo asked.

  “All green, sir.”

  “Data link, too?”

  “All up, Colonel.”

  “Wake them up, Neidermeyer,” Castillo ordered, then switched the radio to SPEAKERPHONE and hung up the handset.

  “Davidson,” a voice came over the speaker ten seconds later.

  “Got you working the radio, do they, Jack?” Castillo asked, in a strange tongue Inspector Davidson had never heard before. He had no idea what it was but it wasn’t Hungarian.

  “That’s not Hungarian!” Doherty accused.

  Castillo looked at him and softly said, in English, “Actually, Inspector, it’s Pashto, one of the two major languages spoken in Afghanistan, the other being Afghan Persian.”

  Delchamps and Miller smiled and shook their heads.

  Castillo turned to the radio and, switching back to Pashto, said, “Do you know if the old man’s up yet, Jack?”

  The reply came in Pashto: “That’s why I’m working the radios, Colonel. Kocian and Kensington are kicking the soccer ball for Max. I was, but that big sonofabitch knocked me on my ass and I quit.”

  “I need to talk to the old man right now.”

  “Hold one, Colonel.”

  “Tell him to speak Hungarian,” Castillo ordered, looking at Doherty and smiling.

  “Will do. Hold one.”

  “I wondered if I was ever going to hear from you, Karlchen,” Eric Kocian said, in Hungarian. “And I am not surprised that you called ninety seconds before Max and I are to have our breakfast.”

  “Uncle Billy, did you ever see one of those books, Windows for Dummies, Microsoft Word for Dummies?”

  “You called me on your science fiction radio and are making me late for breakfast to ask a stupid question like that?”

  Delchamps laughed and said, “I think I like this guy,” which caused Inspector Doherty to realize that Delchamps spoke Hungarian and caused him further discomfiture.

  “It’s important or I wouldn’t have interfered with Max’s breakfast,” Castillo said. “What I need is a lecture: ‘How the Oil-for-Food Scam Worked for Dummies.’” He switched to English. “And give it to me in English and slow, because we have a man here who’s going to write it down—make a chart of it—on a blackboard.”

  “I have the strangest feeling this odd request of yours is important to you,” Kocian said, in English.

  “One can sense an enormous feeling of relief on the part of our FBI coconspirator,” Delchamps said, in Hungarian.

  Castillo chuckled.

  Doherty picked up on the “FBI” and glared at Delchamps, which caused Castillo to chuckle again.

  “It’s very important to us, Uncle Billy,” Castillo said, in Hungarian. “I think we’re getting close.”

  “I thought we were going to speak English,” Kocian said, also in Hungarian. “Make up your mind, Karlchen!”

  “I really like this guy!” Delchamps said. “Make up your mind, Ace!”

  “English, please, Uncle Billy,” Castillo said, in English. “We believe that an American company in Midland, Texas, a small broker, is involved. I need to know how likely that would be, who he had to pay off, and how that was done.”

  There was a perceptible pause as Kocian gathered his thoughts.

  “Remember the first time we did this, Karl, in the bath at the Gellért? Let’s try that again. It worked for the dummies the first time.”

  “Unsheath your Magic Marker, please, Inspector,” Castillo said.

  “I’m supposed to put what this guy says on my blackboards?”

  “Yes, you are,” Castillo said. “Go ahead, Uncle Billy.”

  “Draw a rough map of Iraq on the blackboard,” Kocian ordered. “Down off the lower right corner, draw in the Persian Gulf. Put a dot on the Iraqi coast and label that Mahashar. That’s the major Iraqi oil terminal. I’ll spell that for you.”

  Doherty drew the map as ordered.

  “Done, Uncle Billy,” Castillo said.

  “Very well. Now, understand that Iraq was a virtually unlimited pool of crude oil. Outside of Iraq, that oil was worth at least fifty U.S. dollars a barrel—say, a dollar a gallon. The problem Saddam had was, the UN had forbidden him to export this oil so it was worthless to him.

  “I should mention that under his benevolent administration of Iraq, the oil all belonged to the government, which is to say him. He had absolute control of it and nobody could ask him any questions.

  “The way he got around his problem was to have the UN authorize him to sell some of his oil, the proceeds from which could be used only to purchase food and medicine for the Iraqi people.

  “Aside from saying that resulted in a good many aspirin pills being sold to Iraq at five dollars per pill—and similar outrages—do you want me to get into that?”

  “Stick with the crude oil, please, for now,” Castillo said.

  “Very well. I presumed you knew at least a little about the price scams and payoffs,” Kocian said. “About the crude oil. Do you know how much crude oil a tanker carries?”

  “No,” Castillo confessed.

  “I seem to recall that when the Exxon Valdez went down, she dumped 1.48 million barrels of crude oil into your pristine Alaskan waters,” Kocian said. “But to keep it simple for the dummies to whom you refer, let’s say just one million barrels. Doesn’t that space-age laptop of yours have a calculator? Can it handle multiplying fifty dollars a barrel times a million?”

  Castillo could do that simple arithmetic in his head but he had his laptop open in front of him so he punched the keys anyway and reported: “Fifty million dollars, give or take.”

  “Very good! Now we go back to Mahashar. The UN has authorized Saddam to sell, say, twenty-five million dollars’ worth of his oil to buy food and medicine for his people. It has also dispatched UN inspectors to Mahashar to make sure that’s all that leaves the country.

  “A tanker then arrives in Mahashar to take on the oil, which has already been sold to some fine fellow at a good price—the fellow being expected to make a small gift to Saddam, but that’s yet another story.

  “Twenty-five million dollars’ worth of oil is about half a million barrels and that’s about half of the capacity of the tanker which shows up in Mahashar to haul it away under the watchful eyes of the UN. So the tanker pumps out half of the seawater ballast it has arrived with, replaces that with crude oil, and sails away half
loaded with crude and half with seawater.

  “Now, no one has ever accused Saddam of being a rocket scientist, but it didn’t take him long to figure out that if he could only devise some way to have future tankers pump out all of their ballast and sail away with the tanks full of crude there would be money in it for him.

  “He thinks: Eureka! All I have to do is slip the UN inspectors a little gift, they look away, and off goes the tanker with an extra twenty-five million dollars’ worth of crude.

  “This poses some administrative problems. He can’t just hand the UN inspector, say, fifty thousand dollars for looking the other way. That’s a lot of money, even in one-hundred-dollar bills, and there’s a chance, however slight, that an honest UN inspector exists and might blow the whistle on a dishonest one.

  “Further, what happens to the half million barrels of oil that nobody knows about, once it’s sailing down the Persian Gulf toward the oil-hungry world? Until it’s sold, it’s worthless.

  “So they find some other government controlled by gangsters and thieves—the Russians come immediately to mind, but others were involved—who are oil producers and can legally export oil within the restrictions imposed by that other fine international body, OPEC.

  “If they buy the half million barrels of oil—since it’s otherwise worthless to him, Saddam can sell it for, say, ten dollars a barrel under the table—they can turn right around and sell it as their own. And not have to deplete their natural resources.”

  Castillo looked at Doherty, who had just about filled half of one blackboard with cryptic symbols.

  “But who to sell it to? ExxonMobil and its peers, believe it or not, are fairly honest. They won’t touch it unless they know it’s clean. Your Congress would love nothing better than to send them all to jail. So what they had to do was find small oil refiners—there are thousands of them—and offer them a real deal—say, thirty dollars a barrel.