The Pandora Deception--A Novel

by David Bruns

  “Go on, Goodwin,” Mattias said. “I’d like to hear your thoughts.”

  Michael scrolled to the top of the list of projects. “There is a massive amount of money being poured into the region. Whoever controls this part of the world essentially controls the fate of a good portion of the Middle East and northern Africa. These are some of the poorest countries on earth being catapulted into the twenty-first century in one giant step. What took a century in Europe or the US will take place in a decade in the Nile River basin. This is an economic realignment of massive proportions.”

  “I’m listening,” Mattias prompted.

  Don tried to signal to Michael to slow down, but the young man was too wrapped up in his own ideas to notice.

  “This realignment cuts across political, cultural, and religious boundaries and deals with the very thing that defines life for the human race: water. If someone wanted to control this resource, this region, there would be no easy way to do it. No one—not even the US or Russia or the Saudis—could overthrow the governments of that many countries without someone objecting. But what if you took control from the ground up?”

  “I’m not following,” Mattias said. The man seemed fascinated by Goodwin’s analytical ponderings.

  “You have to own all of it,” Michael said, pointing to the list of investments. “You can’t just own one tree, you need to own the whole forest. If you owned enough of these companies, you could influence the region from the ground up. You harvest a tree here and there, but what you’re really doing is managing a forest of investments for your own gain.”

  Don broke in. “Wow, Michael, that’s some story. I suggest we—”

  “But it fits, Don,” Dre said. “And if he’s right, then the Mahdi is a distraction. What are the chances that a brand-new terrorist group with no known affiliations and great technical savvy just appears? The Mahdi gives us exactly what we’re conditioned to look for: terrorist attacks, the bloodier, the better. While we chase the terrorists, the real crime is being committed at the local level.”

  “There’s one problem with this entire theory,” Don snapped. “You can’t prove any of it.”

  “Yet,” Janet said.

  “Pardon?” Mattias said.

  “We can’t prove it yet,” she replied. “If Michael and Dre say it’s there, we’ll find it.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Mattias asked.

  Don wanted to scream at the three of them to shut up.

  Michael, for whom Don’s anger had still not registered, squinted at the list of Nile River basin investments as he considered Mattias’s question.

  “We set a trap,” he said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Berenice Harbor, Egypt

  Berenice occupied a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the Red Sea. In antiquity, the port’s sheltered anchorage and its location as the end point for the great Coptos Road connecting the Nile to the Red Sea made it famous. Today, Berenice was a backwater, a local port for goods coming into Egypt from the east.

  Alyan Sultan al-Qahtamni arrived by private jet, landing at the tiny airstrip on the outskirts of the sleepy town. A car waited for him on the dirt runway to take him to the dock.

  It was hard to miss Al-Buraq from shore. Anchored a mile away, the sixty-meter sea yacht was resplendent among the tired break-bulk freighters and fishing vessels dotting the harbor. Alyan stepped from a low dock into the small inflatable boat for the trip out to Saleh’s yacht.

  Alyan was determined to arrive first for this meeting—and not only to make up for the tardiness of his last visit. He wanted to see Saleh privately about the coalition’s investment in the biopharma company.

  As they drew close to the fantail, he admired his fellow Saudi’s magnificent ship. The sleek hull hugged the water, evoking speed even when still.

  Saleh waited for him on the upper deck. Alyan gave a mock salute as he stepped from the launch to the low fantail. The ship was stable under his feet as he climbed the steps to embrace his friend.

  “Salaam alaikum,” he said.

  “Alaikum salaam, my friend,” Saleh replied. “Welcome to my home.”

  Saleh led him inside, where they could wait for the others in comfort. Tonight, Saleh was planning to serve dinner before the board meeting, so the atmosphere was relaxed. Perfect for what Alyan wanted to discuss.

  Saleh indicated a side table where drinks and appetizers were available, but Alyan shook his head. He did his best to be a practicing Muslim. Although he fell off the wagon occasionally, tonight would not be one of those nights.

  Saleh freshened his own drink. “I admire a man of faith. I mostly keep the bar open for our Israeli comrades, but I don’t mind a drink every now and then.”

  “How is Zarecki’s health these days?” Alyan asked in their mother tongue.

  Saleh eyed him. “Why do you ask?”

  Just like a former intelligence officer to answer a question with a question, Alyan thought.

  “No reason.” He picked up a glass of fruit juice and walked to the window facing the shore. “The last time we met, he seemed to have declined some. At some point, we need to discuss our venture with one less partner.”

  Saleh joined him. “Our friend has accomplished much in his lifetime. But there are still things he wishes to finalize before he passes.”

  Alyan rolled his eyes. “Iran,” he said.

  Zarecki’s hatred of Iran and his funding of hard-right political groups in the Jewish state, and in America, were well documented in the press.

  It had surprised Alyan when Saleh had sponsored Zarecki into the Arab-Israeli Benevolence Coalition. The two men had been on opposite sides of the Middle East political-religious spectrum for their entire careers, so their sudden partnership seemed an odd pairing.

  As the primary investment manager, Alyan didn’t care. Politics was not part of his investment vocabulary. He was not political, and Zarecki’s money was as green as the next person’s.

  The coalition existed to turn money into lots of money. So far, it had worked out well. It would also lift millions out of poverty, which was in line with his faith.

  “You look troubled, my friend,” Saleh said. “Talk to me.”

  “I wanted to ask you about something I saw after the last meeting.”

  Saleh’s smile tightened.

  “I saw you and Zarecki taking a private meeting with the biopharma CEO,” Alyan said. “It seemed intense.”

  Alyan blushed. “Forgive me. I forgot my phone and overheard you.”

  Saleh studied Alyan’s reflection in the dark glass. “I knew Manzul many years ago, when he worked for a fellow intelligence agency. We have some mutual acquaintances.”

  “But why keep it a secret from the rest of the board?” Alyan pressed.

  Saleh shrugged. “Zarecki wished to speak with him. He’s an old man and I cannot find it in my heart to deny him small favors.” He faced Alyan. “He’s on oxygen now, you know. Still smokes, of course.” The two men shared a laugh.

  Alyan detected the buzz of an outboard approaching the yacht.

  “I think that will be our friends,” Saleh said, moving to the open door.

  In the moment of solitude, Alyan mulled over his conversation with Saleh. He was well aware how the older man had changed the subject away from Alyan’s original question, but did it matter? Why was he so stuck on this Manzul character anyway? He was one investment of hundreds, but one that kept coming up in his mind over and over again. Years of experience would not let him ignore these subconscious warning signs.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Haim Zarecki and Itzak Lehrmann. The latter moved straight for the bar. Alyan followed.

  “That old bastard complained the entire trip,” Lehrmann said in English. “Nonstop bitching. That’s the last time we travel together.” He tilted a bottle of Jameson in Alyan’s direction.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Suit yourself. I’m going to inoculate myself fr
om Zarecki’s voice right now.” He took a deep drink.

  A white-coated waiter approached them and gave a discreet bow. “Dinner is served, gentlemen,” he said in a soft voice. He led them into the dining room, where a magnificent glass table set for four waited.

  Saleh seated himself at the head of the table. “I have a new chef,” he said, settling a linen napkin on his lap. “Bertrand, from France. Let’s see if his food matches his reputation.”

  “You know it’s going to be expensive when the chef only has one name,” Lehrmann joked.

  Bertrand lived up to his single name over six courses and two hours. Alyan watched his colleagues as the dinner progressed and the alcohol flowed freely. Even Saleh seemed to be loosening up. Maybe he could satisfy this nagging question of Jean-Pierre Manzul’s connection with Zarecki after all.

  Lehrmann told a funny story about when he and his brother stole an IDF Jeep while on leave in Tel Aviv.

  Alyan laughed along with the punch line, but the reality was the four men had little in common except money. They were separated by age, religion, and life experience.

  Zarecki was an old warhorse from another era. On paper, he was a shipping magnate, but Alyan knew he’d made his real money as an arms dealer. His politics were hard right and very public. Most people Alyan knew socially would cringe at the thought of being in the same room with the man.

  Saleh was just as stalwart in his beliefs from the other side of the spectrum. He had served the Royal House of Saud as a loyal keeper of secrets and disposer of bodies for as long as Alyan had been alive. There was not a thing of note that had happened in the last thirty years in the kingdom that did not have Saleh’s tacit approval, if not his fingerprints all over it.

  The closest thing to a peer Alyan had in the coalition was Itzak Lehrmann, but even they were separated by nearly a decade and a world of ideology. Lehrmann’s extended family had deep roots in the Israeli government.

  At his core, Alyan was an idealist. A rich idealist, but no one ever said money and ideals couldn’t exist in the same space. His talent was money, making it move and making it grow. But the coalition’s investment portfolio in the Nile River basin project was an order of magnitude beyond what he’d ever attempted before—and it was working.

  A young man entered and placed a black pouch next to Zarecki’s chair. He helped the old man fit a clear plastic tube under his nose. Saleh shared a glance with Alyan.

  “The doctor has me on oxygen now,” Zarecki said with a wheeze. “I don’t have to use it all the time, but it can be helpful when I travel.”

  Saleh prodded his Jewish counterpart. “Perhaps you should stop smoking, Haim.”

  “Perhaps you should stop drinking, my good Muslim friend,” the old man shot back.

  After a dessert of fresh berries, Saleh called his head of security on his radio. “Clear the ship,” he said.

  The waiters and even Bertrand himself trooped to the back of the yacht and boarded one of the launches. The Arab-Israeli Benevolence Coalition repaired to the boardroom.

  Alyan inserted an encrypted thumb drive into the side of the table and unlocked it with his thumbprint. The familiar map of the Nile River basin appeared on the table’s surface. Alyan overlaid it with a list of projects in which they had invested.

  “I am pleased to say that as of today our investment value has grown to nearly two hundred billion dollars,” Alyan began.

  Even Zarecki looked impressed.

  Alyan highlighted the Merowe High Dam in Sudan and the GERD project in Ethiopia. “In these two projects, we have secured the majority of the bids for the accompanying infrastructure once the electrical-generation capability comes on line. Business parks, roads, bridges, apartments, we have a piece of all of them. In short, gentlemen, the people in this room own the Nile River basin.” He paused to let his pronouncement sink in.

  The complex web of shell corporations he had set up to support this investment scheme was mind-boggling. It took over an hour for him to explain how the money flowed from their personal accounts into a series of double-blind real-estate companies managed by Lehrmann, then into the hundreds of shell companies managed by Alyan that owned thousands of local companies providing services and construction for the dams.

  “Our investments are virtually untraceable,” Alyan concluded. “It would take forensic accounting on a grand scale and access to hundreds of financial institutions around the world to trace any of this back to us. And even then, that would link us to only one company. Multiply that by a hundred different investment routes and that gives you a sense of the effort needed to find us.”

  “What about the Americans?” Zarecki growled. He had ditched his oxygen and was back to smoking cigarettes.

  Alyan cleared the tabletop. “Nothing is foolproof, but the question is why would they bother? Anonymity is not illegal. We’re not funding terrorism, we’re bringing electricity and modern conveniences to millions of poor people. We get a generous piece of the profit, but the host countries win as well. Is it a monopoly? Yes, but those things don’t really matter in this part of the world.

  “That’s the good news,” Alyan said as he extracted the thumb drive. “But there are some current developments that concern me.”

  Saleh raised an eyebrow. “The Mahdi, that’s what you mean?”

  Alyan nodded. “On the one hand, it improves our investments in the security services, but the instability…”

  “It’s the filthy Iranians,” Zarecki interjected. He paused to light another cigarette. “They can’t stand to keep their mitts out of our world. They’re agitating the Egyptians who are funding the locals. It’s them. I know it.”

  “The Mahdi message is what concerns me,” Alyan said. “He speaks against foreign investment and that could have a long-term impact on us if these attacks continue.”

  “These terrorists come and go,” Saleh said. “The Mahdi is no different. Today he’s a messiah, tomorrow he’s a pariah. Stay focused on the money, Alyan. Leave the Mahdi to me.”

  Saleh stood, hoisting his empty glass. “Gentlemen, I propose we adjourn this board meeting and we move on to the next phase of the evening.” He raised his eyebrows. “I have arranged for some local talent to join us. I am told the women in this region are delectable.”

  “I’m afraid I need to beg off tonight, my friend,” Alyan said. “I have a meeting in the morning and a jet waiting for me.”

  Saleh walked him to the fantail, where he radioed for the launch. “The item we talked about earlier. It’s nothing. I’ll handle Manzul, okay?”

  “As you wish.” Alyan stepped carefully into the Zodiac, waving as the pilot pulled away from the yacht.

  The water in the harbor was like glass and the night still, broken only by the hum of the outboard. A frothy wake trailed behind the small craft.

  Alyan breathed a sigh of satisfaction. It was all coming together. The financial web he had built for the coalition was making more money than any of them—including him—had dreamed possible. There was nothing to stand in their way.

  A second Zodiac, packed with female passengers, approached them, en route to Al-Buraq.

  Alyan could hear their excited voices over the drone of the engine. The pilot of Alyan’s launch steered close to the incoming vessel, calling to the girls in the local dialect.

  Alyan froze as the oncoming Zodiac zipped by. The half dozen women were clustered together in the center of the craft. But in the rear of the boat, next to the pilot, sat a man. Alyan had assumed he was part of Saleh’s security team, but as they flashed by he got a look at the man’s face.

  It was Jean-Pierre Manzul.

  CHAPTER 18

  Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada

  Jason Winslow paused at the top of the ladder protruding from a fifteen-foot-diameter hole in the permafrost. He turned up the collar of his coat and tugged his watch cap over his ears against the chill wind roaring down from the Arctic Circle.

  A few flakes of snow
whipped past his face. They had a week, maybe ten days, before they would have to pack up the camp for the season. They’d already pushed things beyond the point of safety. No matter how good the money was, he would not risk getting snowed in up here.

  Clouds the color of lead hugged the horizon. The only relief to the endless brown-green landscape was the piles of dirt they had extracted from the hole and four tiny buildings that constituted his work camp.

  Fifteen thousand years ago, this spot had been the shore of an inland sea, a virtual supermarket for native peoples, providing fish, roots, and access to fresh water. Ground-penetrating radar had suggested that this was the site of an ancient camp, but the only sign of human existence in their dig had been a few stone points that might have been spearheads.

  Until now.

  “Jason! Are you coming down?” The voice of Lydia Guevarra, known as “Che” to her friends—which did not include Jason—blasted out of the hole in the earth, overpowering the buzz of the small gas-powered generator. Jason flinched at the shrillness of her tone.

  “I know this kid’s been here for fifteen thousand years, but could you get a move on, please? We’re freezing our asses off.”

  Jason muttered to himself as he started down the ladder, his heavy boots ringing on the aluminum rungs. Damned kids. Always complaining, always whining, always bitching about one thing or another.

  Since he’d started the dig so late in the season after receiving the cash infusion from Harold Mortimer, Jason had to settle for undergrads, and inexperienced ones at that. He reached the bottom of the ladder, his boots crunching in the frozen soil.

  It was still and cold at the bottom of the hole, surrounded by icy frozen earth. A tunnel, tall and wide enough for him to be able to walk upright with arms outstretched, extended into the permafrost. Every ten feet or so a naked lightbulb housed in a plastic shield hung from the ceiling. The walls were hewn smooth by the handheld power tools they used to cut through the ice.