Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (10 page)

 
          
“Zakroy yibala!
Shut your fucking mouth
and stop blabbering on this line!” the voice shouted back. “This may be a
secure channel, but if the Americans are indeed running an operation on you,
they may have figured out how to crack the encryption codes. After all, they
built the system we are using.”

 
          
“Did
you hear what I said,
tovarischl
”
Zuwayy retorted. “I am under attack! Thousands of square kilometers of my
desert have been contaminated! Hundreds of my soldiers are dead! And the
Americans certainly know all about those missiles and where I got them!”

 
          
“They
know nothing of the sort,” Pavel Gregorevich Kazakov responded. Kazakov was
sitting at a desk in a small, private apartment in Akranes, Iceland, a few
kilometers north of the capital Reykjavik, sipping a cup of tea that an
assistant had just fixed for him. His aide, a beautiful young Russian former
army officer named Ivana Vasilyeva, deputy chief of staff to the former chief
of staff of the army of the Russian Federation—who was just as talented on the
pistol range and in a judo
do jo
as
she was in bed—set a tray of sweet rolls and honey on the desk, gave Pavel an
enticing smile, then departed. “If they knew anything at all, they would have
destroyed the entire base. Just a few commandos—they could have come from
anywhere—Israel, Algeria, even your so-called allies Sudan and Syria. Now, shut
up and calm yourself.”

 
          
Kazakov
took a sip of tea as Zuwayy started blathering something in half Russian, half
Arabic. A phone call an hour before dawn? Kazakov thought bitterly as he
sampled one of the pastries. Outrageous. Being in the witness protection
program was hell indeed.

 
          
One
of the world’s richest and certainly one of the world’s most dangerous men,
thirty-nine-year-old Pavel Kazakov, the son of one of the Russian Federation’s
most highly decorated and most respected army generals, was under house arrest
in Iceland, charged with hundreds of counts of murder, conspiracy, fraud,
extortion, grand larceny, drug trafficking, and a laundry list of other crimes
against several nations from Kazakhstan to the United States. He had been
captured by some as yet unidentified commandos, probably Americans, and sent to
a Turkish prison. But since so many other countries had lodged charges against
him, the World Court ordered that he stand trial in the International Crimes
Against Humanity Tribunal in The Hague. With some good lawyers—backed up by
generous bribes—Kazakov got some valuable concessions. Turkey usually does not
allow extradition of its capital prisoners, but Kazakov agreed to waive his
extradition rights in exchange for no death penalty, and he was transferred to
a maximum-security facility in the Netherlands.

 
          
Then
Kazakov started to talk. Within days, Interpol had made dozens of major arrests
around the world of suspected narco-traffickers, money launderers, con artists,
and gem and art thieves. The authorities had confiscated millions of dollars of
stolen weapons, valuables, property, stocks and bonds—even nuclear weapons—in a
very short period of time. Pavel Kazakov, still considered the world’s most
dangerous criminal mastermind, was quickly turning into the biggest and most
important informant ever in the history of law enforcement. Some of the world’s
most feared terrorists, notorious drug smugglers, and slipperiest criminals—men
that had been on the run for years, some for decades—had been captured. As much
as Pavel Kazakov had cost the world in loss of life and destruction of
property, the value of the property alone that his information caused to be
recovered or captured topped it by a factor of one hundred.

 
          
But,
of course, Pavel saw it differently. To him, it was a way to save his own skin,
get out of prison—and eliminate the competition. Besides, what did the World Court
care about ethnic fighting in Albania or Macedonia, or military men in Turkey,
or polluted waters in Kazakhstan? They gladly traded information on drug
dealers in Europe and North America for reducing, and then eventually
eliminating, Kazakov’s prison sentence.

 
          
Details
of his plea bargain with the World Court were kept top secret. As far as anyone
knew, Kazakov was in complete isolation in a prison in Rijssen, the
Netherlands
, awaiting trial. No one ever suspected that
any court would even consider releasing him. and the World Court did not have a
witness protection program. But in short order, one was created for him—and
Pavel Kazakov was free.

 
          
Yes,
he was nearly broke—but “nearly broke” for him still meant more wealth than
some Third World countries. It still offered him an opportunity to do what he
did best— build his wealth back up again any way he could, whether it meant
dealing drugs, weapons, humans, or oil. Plus, he could do it all from an
untraceable apartment and telephone, with a new fully documented identity—all
bought and paid for by the World Court in exchange for having the World Court
eliminate his enemies for him.

 
          
“It
is you who is responsible for this!” Zuwayy shouted, finally switching back to
full Russian. “My troops could have executed this entire operation without your
damned missiles! Now the Americans are breathing down my neck! You must pay for
the loss of my base and compensate me for the loss of my soldiers! You must—!”

 
          
“Shut
your scum-sucking mouth, Zuwayy,” Kazakov interrupted hotly. “I spent ten
million dollars of my own money to put those missiles in place—but not in
Samah! I ordered that the missiles be placed in Al-Jawf, not Samah! ”

 
          
“I
put missiles in Al-Jawf—and there they sit, useless, while my men roast in the
damned Sahara Desert!” Zuwayy retorted. “You make me pay fifty million dollars
for missiles pointed at nothing but wasteland! I say no! Egypt is our true
enemy! We need to threaten much more than just the Salimah oil fields.”

 
          
“You
moved some of those missiles to Samah, against my orders,” Kazakov said.

 
          
“The
missiles at Al-Jawf are useless, worthless!” Zuwayy repeated. “From Samah,
those missiles can reach Cairo, Alexandria, Israel, even Italy. Moving some of
the missiles
that I purchased
does
not affect your plan against the Salimah oil fields.”

 
          
“I’m
not interested in attacking
Israel
, and I’m sure as hell not interested in
attacking
Italy
with shitty first-generation rockets with chemical warheads!” Kazakov
shouted. “Are you out of your mind? If we attack Israel, it will bring the
Americans into the region with a vengeance. My oil terminals on the Adriatic
Sea are directly downwind of any bases we would attack in Italy—besides, some
of my best customers are in Italy! I did not pay you to put those missiles in
Libya so you can threaten your neighbors or satisfy your thirst for global
conquest.

 
          
“I’m
glad those missiles in Samah were destroyed, Zuwayy—perhaps now you’ll stop
going off on your own and listen to what I tell you to do. I will pay you to
replace those missiles and warheads—but only if you dismantle any other bases
that you put missiles other than Al-Jawf, and only if you stop being a jackass
and do as I tell you to do from now on.”

 
          
“You
may not talk to me this way,” Zuwayy said haughtily. “I am the king of Libya. I
am the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the lord of the Muslims. I am—”

 
          
“You
are nothing but a back-stabbing opportunistic traitor who would sell his wife,
mistresses, children, and even your own mother on the streets of Benghazi for
money,” Kazakov interjected. “You can use that cockamamie I-am-royalty story to
impress your people and baffle the rest of the world, but to me you’re nothing
but a two-bit thug.

 
          
“Now
shut up and listen. Your primary objective is the Salimah oil fields in Egypt,
not to obliterate Cairo or Tel Aviv. Your job is to keep on moving your troops
to Sudan, keep their readiness high, and keep on putting pressure on the
Egyptian forces opposing yours without starting a shooting conflict yourself.
If they are stupid enough to attack, you can simply walk in and wipe them up.
Until then, I will continue to push the Central African Petroleum Partners to
accept Libya and Metyorgaz as a partner, help develop some of your oil
resources, and break the embargo on oil exports from Libya to Europe.”

 
          
“I
do not understand,” Zuwayy said, hopelessly confused. “Why don’t we just go in,
invade Egypt, and take the oil fields ourselves? No one will oppose us.”

           
“You idiot,
everyone
will oppose us,” Kazakov said. “No one will intervene, but
we will be drowning in oil because no one will buy what we are pumping, not
even on the black market. Besides, if you invade, Central African Petroleum
Partners will pull out, and neither you nor I have the money right now to build
a thousand-kilometer-long pipeline across the Sahara Desert. We want the
pipeline in place and operating before we take over.”

 
          
“In
the meantime, you sit safe and sound in hiding while American commandos destroy
my military base,” Zuwayy cried. “What am I supposed to do—hold my breath until
the poison gas dissipates?”

 
          
Kazakov
thought for a moment while he watched the former Russian army major Vasilyeva
move as she straightened up his desk. She was like a tiger stepping soundlessly
through the jungle hunting its prey, every movement graceful and with complete
economy. She sensed him looking at her, turned her head to him, smiled, then
turned her body so he could see her breasts, squeezing them together with her
arms the way he liked to do.

 
          
He
suddenly realized he had spent too much time with this Libyan popinjay.

 
          
“I
don’t give a shit what you do,” Kazakov said. “Someone just invaded your
country—it seems like the perfect time to do just about anything you wish to
do. Use your armed forces, track those commandos down—you know they’re not
going to walk out of the damned desert, so track their aircraft down—and then
destroy whatever base they came from with everything you’ve got. You’ll be
totally justified in whatever action you take—and you might even earn a bit of
respect from your enemies. Now, stop bothering me—and you place those missiles
where I tell you to place them, or the next biochem warhead you hear about will
be falling on
your
head.” He slammed
the phone down so hard, his teacup rattled in its saucer.

 
          
Zuwayy
was dangerous, even unstable, Kazakov thought. He was a warmonger, ready to
lash out at anyone, for any reason or no reason at all. He hoped Zuwayy would keep
it together long enough, until the delicate negotiations with the Central
African Petroleum Partners were concluded. Libyan forces were just a subtle
threat to Egypt, and vice versa—neither country had any semblance of a real
fighting force. But if anyone tried to attack Libya, the rockets were in place
and ready to completely wipe out any opposition and guarantee that no outside
forces were going to interfere.

 
          
In
any case, Kazakov was going to get enough of a foothold in the African oil
market to force out the other companies and eventually take over. He didn’t
have the power he had just a few short months ago—but it was just a matter of
time. Once firmly in place in Africa, with the money pouring in, he could move
back into the vast untapped oil resources in the Caspian Sea region again.

 
          
He
was so engrossed in his own heated thoughts that he did not notice Ivan a
Vasilyeva standing beside his desk, staring at him. Her full red lips were
parted as if she were panting heavily, and her eyes were wide and glassy. He
smiled at her.

 
          
“You
speak to other men, even this king of Libya, as if he were a street sweeper who
had just soiled your shoes,” Vasilyeva breathed. Her left hand drifted up to
her breast, and her fingers teased a nipple underneath her sweater. “You are an
extraordinary man. I am pleased that you have chosen me to be by your side.”

 
          
He
stood, walked over to her, reached behind her head with his left hand, and
yanked her chin upward by pulling her hair. Her left hand did not move from her
breast, so he fondled her right breast until her nipple sprang to fife. “I keep
you here with me because of your contacts in the Russian government and army,”
Kazakov said. He looked into her eyes as they grew wider, as if in fear, but
her breathing was becoming heavier, more excited. “I also keep you here because
you can kill faster and more efficiently and in more ways than I.”