Sphere Of Influence (34 page)

"Don't hang up this phone, Beamon!"
,
He recognized the voice. The man himself.

"I'm glad we could finally catch up, sir," Beamon lied. He turned in a slow circle to make sure no one was within earshot. The plane was the only thing within two hundred yards, and despite the open door, it looked deserted.

"You will not go to Laos," Caroll said, dispensing with any pleasantries. "You're an employee of the United States government and are not going to negotiate with a foreign dignitary on behalf of organized crime. We're supporting this new regime and it would be a disaster if General Yun
g
discovered that we sent an undercover FBI agent to talk to him."

Beamon really didn't have time for this. There was undoubtedly a world-class lunch getting cold in the jet. "Like I said, I'm really not in a position to turn back, sir." "Well, then, put yourself in a position to turn back, goddamn it. We're risking an international incident!"

"An international incident? With Laos?" Beamon said, feeling strangely bored by the conversation despite the fact that he knew he was about to finally, irretrievably, end his career. It felt like shooting a lame horse. "What are they going to do, sir? Spit at us from across the ocean? Besides, if you don't tell Yung, he'll never find out. And if he does, he'll get really angry and make an official statement which will be played once on the eleven o'clock news, right after a story about a yam that looks like Teddy Roosevelt."

The silence over the phone suggested that the Director was uncharacteristically speechless. Unfortunately, it didn't last.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully," Caroll said, enunciating with exaggerated clarity. "You are officially removed from this case. I expect you in my office tomorrow morning."

Beamon looked down at the phone and, before he knew what he was doing, hung it up. It felt kind of . . . liberating. No need to worry about how he was going to weasel out of this thing anymore. Every bridge was now burning brightly behind him.

"Hey, how you doing, Tegla?" Beamon said as he entered the plane. The now familiar dark face of his pilot peeked out from the cockpit.

"Mark. It's nice to see you again."

"Same here." He took a seat in a plush leather chair. It didn't look like this plane had a bed, but the chair was about as comfortable as they got.

"If you're ready, we'll get under way," Tegla said, ducking out of the cockpit and closing the door in the side of the plane.

"Sounds good."

"Francois made you some more of those shrimp ravioli
s
you like so much. I'll heat them up as soon as we're in the air."

Beamon smiled. Man, how he loved those things. Ten or twenty would almost certainly be enough to make him forget his problems.

"Oh, and Mark? You'll find some documents under your chair: Christian thought you'd like to review them en route."

Beamon retrieved them and leafed through the well-organized folder, which contained, among other things, a brief history of Laos, recent newspaper articles, an up-to-date analysis of what he was getting himself into, and everything you ever wanted to know about Lamborghini four-wheel drives. All in all, it looked at least as thorough as the data he'd received from the NSA.

What it didn't include, though, was a clear outline of exactly what it was he--Nicolai--was supposed to accomplish there. Of course, it didn't take a great deal of imagination to figure out. Laos had only one thing that would interest a man like Volkov. Heroin.

Volkov was wondering if his relationship with the prior regime was going to come back to haunt him. Would Volkov's support for Yung's sworn enemy be held against him? Even if Yung was the forgive-and-forget type, it seemed likely that his first order of business would be to wipe the slate clean--to renegotiate his predecessor's arrangements.

It seemed to Beamon that Volkov needed to know two things: First, had the region become so unstable that Yung couldn't reliably deliver product even if he wanted to? And second, was he considering hitching his wagon to someone else? Neither of these questions would be easy to answer in what would hopefully be an extremely short visit. But then, Volkov would certainly know that. So why this trip?

The landing gear hitting the ground jolted Beamon awake and caused the Laotian history book he'd been reading to slide to the floor. After God knew how man
y
shrimp raviolis and an amazing almond-encrusted salmon, keeping his eyes open had become absolutely impossible. "Are we there?"

"No, Mark. We're switching planes."

He looked out the window and into complete darkness. How she'd managed to hit the runway, he had no idea. Tegla gathered up the pieces of the file that Beamon had strewn around during the flight, and he watched her take the armload of documents to the shredder in the back of the plane.

"Christian hates paper," she explained as she finished destroying the information, then hurried back across the plane and opened the door in its side. Beamon grabbed his laptop and followed her outside into a rain so hot, it felt like a shower. He looked away from the plane as she closed the door, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. By the time she came alongside him, he could make out the large, curved shapes of the hangars in front of them.

"This way," Tegla said, flipping an umbrella open and sharing it with him as they started toward a dead-looking cargo plane.

"This part of the trip won't be quite as comfortable, but it won't be as long, either," she said as they entered the plane.

It was basically hollow and completely empty except for a large sport utility vehicle tied down with what looked like a heavy net. Beamon examined the gleaming truck in the dim light while Tegla busied herself in the cockpit. He leaned close to the windshield, careful not to put a spot on it with his nose, and studied the leather and polished wood interior. Volkov didn't disappoint.

The sound of the props started as a low rumble and turned deafening very quickly. Tegla reappeared for a moment and pointed to a jump seat, which Beamon strapped himself into.

He finally noticed a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach when the plane began to taxi. The only thing certain about his trip to Laos was that he was completely on his own. The FBI sure as hell wasn't behind him, and the fact that Volkov needed to send him on this little erran
d
suggested that his power base in Laos was pretty much nonexistent. Or maybe even worse than nonexistent: Maybe Yung was openly hostile. Was Volkov sending him into the lion's den, just to see what would happen? If Yung mailed Beamon back in numerous small boxes, Volkov would be able to safely assume that his relationship with Laos had soured.

This time a jolt of adrenaline accompanied the impact of the landing gear and Beamon found himself wide-awake as Tegla wrestled the plane across a less than smooth
runway. The
light that was bleeding around the curtain leading to the cockpit didn't look completely artificial, so Beamon assumed it was daytime, though he had no way to confirm that. He felt his back pressed into his seat as the plane decelerated, and he gripped the armrests tightly until it finally came to a full stop.

"Are you ready, Mark?" Tegla said, hurrying past him and starting to free the Lamborghini. Beamon helped her carefully drag the cargo net to the floor and then tossed his laptop in the backseat and climbed behind the wheel. The cargo doors at the back of the plane were already almost half open when he backed past Tegla.

"What's your plan?" he said, rolling down the window. "To wait here for you to return."

Beamon frowned slightly. He hated the thought of her staying there alone, but he seriously doubted she'd be any safer with him. "You gonna be okay?"

"Fine," she said confidently. "I've got work to do here." "Thanks for the ride," Beamon said, depressing the accelerator and coaxing the truck down the ramp onto what in Laos passed as a runway.

He was immediately surrounded by no less than ten young Asian men who paid him no attention as they circled and pointed at the vehicle, talking excitedly. Interestingly, not a single one of them actually dared touch it. "Any of you boys speak English?" he said through the open window.

They all looked at one another and then back at him. A
n
argument that seemed sure to last awhile ensued, so Beamon took the time to get a feel for his surroundings. There wasn't much to see: jungle, a few distant columns of smoke rising above the trees, two military jeeps that had seen better days. Brief bursts of gunfire were audible but sounded pretty far away. There was a burning chemical smell in the air that he'd never encountered before. Of course, he generally avoided wars.

"`I love the smell of napalm in the morning,-- he muttered, quoting one of his favorite movies. "`It smells like . . . victory."'

The argument seemed to have lost most of its intensity and all but two participants.

"Any time now, guys."

They looked up at him, shouted a few more obscenities--he didn't need to speak the language to translate--and finally came to an agreement. After having the dirt carefully brushed from their clothing by their compatriots, the two men climbed into the Lamborghini--one in the passenger seat and one in the back.

The kid in the passenger seat pointed to one of the jeeps and said something. Beamon threw the truck into gear and followed the dilapidated military vehicle as it started through the jungle on a narrow, muddy road.

Based on the chatter between his new friends, he guessed that they were impressed with the smooth, quiet ride. When he flipped on the stereo and Frank Sinatra's voice filled the vehicle, they squealed in delight.

The photographs and descriptions he'd seen didn't really do the small city of Luang Prabang justice. The architecture was an elegant mix of Asian and French and blended beautifully with the landscape. The man in the passenger seat pointed right and Beamon eased the truck onto an empty cobblestone street dominated by an impressive white building that he knew to be the Royal Palace Museum. Beyond a few burn marks in its white facade and some damage to the roof, the century-old building looked as if it were going to make it through yet another coup.

The jeep he was following came to a stop just as thre
e
men appeared from the museum and started across its courtyard. Beamon jumped out of the truck and jogged up to meet them. The man in the middle, wearing a neat military uniform, was easily recognizable as General Yung. Beamon decided to take the fact that the leader of the country had bothered to acknowledge his arrival personally as a good sign and not just a sign that the general was anxious to get the torture under way immediately.

"Sir," Beamon said, unsure whether to bow or extend a hand. "I'm so pleased that you've taken time from your schedule to meet with me."

Yung was a hard-looking man. It wasn't his features, though--they had the delicate aesthetic that everyone in this part of the world enjoyed. It was something else. A thousand atrocities lurking just beneath that buttery-smooth skin.

Yung extended a hand, solving at least one of Beamon's problems.

"I, too, was pleased when Mr. Volkov told me you were coming. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

His English was heavily accented but easily understandable, as the information Beamon had been provided had promised.

Yung was clearly struggling to keep his attention on Beamon as they exchanged a few diplomatic platitudes. After about thirty seconds he couldn't stand it anymore and his eyes flicked briefly to the Lamborghini parked only a few yards away. Beamon smiled and handed him the keys. "Christian wants to apologize for not coming personally. Unfortunately, it's very difficult for him to travel right now. He hopes that you'll accept this as a token of his respect." Yung stared down at the keys in his hand and then at the truck. He actually licked his lips.

"It's a wonderful vehicle," Beamon said. "You know, only three hundred were made. Christian understands that you're a busy man, but everyone needs occasional moments of leisure."

Yung gave the keys to one of the men standing next to him, who promptly descended the steps and drove the truck away.

"Mr. Volkov is most kind," Yung said with practiced coolness. "Khan will show you to your room so that you may rest. We will talk later."

Beamon smiled politely. So far, things could be going a lot worse. He would bet the whole three million he'd made over the last week that within five minutes, General Yung would be speeding through the capital in his new Lamborghini, shooting out the window at the peasants.

Chapter
43

THE room Beamon had been given was at the back of the palace and was dominated by a massive carved bed with lamps at each of its corners. The bathroom was modern, in a British sort of way, and the mattress was comfortable enough. Large windows, thrown open to provide a view of the Mekong River, let a damp breeze flow through, and with it the strangely unmistakable odor of war.

Despite the fact that he was desperately tired, he couldn't sleep and ended up just sitting there with his back against the ornate headboard, replaying the events of the last few weeks. His old job and the inspection report that by now was sitting on his desk seemed more like a television show he'd once watched than his life. Chet, the Afghans, Volkov, and now General Yung were his whole world now. Except maybe for Carrie. Where did she fit into all this?