Oceans of Fire Read online

  Hawkins shoved his Rurikid file away in disgust. “Well, that’s awfully damn convenient.”

  “No, it’s good.” James raised a finger. “Last night they tried to hit the doctor. At the same time they hit the Rurikid family and cut its head off. They’re cleaning up loose ends.”

  “And?” Hawkins inquired.

  “Well, we’ve been trying to figure out which Russian general might have been involved in stealing the nukes.”

  “And?” Hawkins prompted again.

  “And my bet is a Russian army general with access or oversight over tactical nuclear weapons is going to be found dead or AWOL within the next forty-eight hours.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Computer Room, Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “So.” Aaron Kurtzman sat at the head of the conference table. “You’re saying we have no missing Russian generals?”

  Carmen Delahunt blew a lock of blazing red hair from her brow. It had been a very long day of searching databases and calling in markers. “We’ve been in contact with the CIA, the NSA, M-I6, French Action Direct, as well as every Russian contact we’ve got. Every Russian general, active and retired is accounted for.”

  Kurtzman steepled his fingers. He didn’t look forward to telling David McCarter that they’d come up goose eggs. “How about someone lower level, a major-general or a colonel?”

  Delahunt had already considered that. “From everything I’ve been able to gather, it would take a general’s clout to steal the devices and then cover it up.”

  Hal Brognola had flown from D.C. to take in this meeting and the big Fed didn’t like what he was hearing. “Maybe our boy has big brass balls and he’s sitting tight.”

  “That’s one possibility,” Delahunt conceded. “But Phoenix Force seems fairly certain that these alleged German bad guys are doing a full clean-up. That means they can’t let the guy who stole the nuke be captured and compromised. David believes whoever the military contact is, that man is either at the bottom of the Black Sea or in bed in Berlin. Frankly I agree with him.”

  “I would, too,” Kurtzman concurred. “But your intelligence sweep says no Russian general is AWOL. So who’s got the juice?”

  Akira Tokaido had one earbud of his MP3 player screwed into one ear while he listened to the conversation with the other. “What if he’s not a Russian army general?”

  Hal Brognola’s brow furrowed. The man from Justice had never quite understood how the young man could blast his brains into jelly with heavy-metal music 24/7 while at the same time be one of the greatest living cybernetic hackers on the planet. The words “idiot savant” had crossed his mind more than once. “What do you mean?”

  Tokaido shrugged. “What if he’s an Air Marshal? They have nukes.”

  Delahunt shook her head. “I’ll check. The bomber force of course will have nuclear weapons, but I don’t believe nuclear demolition charges fall under their purview. It’s the Russian Army Engineers that digs holes and blow things sky-high on the ground.”

  Tokaido wasn’t fazed. “Okay, how about an admiral?”

  “Hmm.” Kurtzman considered it. “Their submarine force has nuclear missiles. Some of their ships carry nuclear armed cruise missiles, as well, but again, we’re talking about missing nuclear demolition charges. That’s a very odd and mission-specific piece of ordnance.”

  “Yeah, but they have frogmen, don’t they?” Tokaido leaned forward as he warmed to the subject. “I have a game on my computer where in the year 2015 the Soviet Union and the Nazis rule Earth. One of your attacks is to send your combat swimmers with backpack nukes to blow damns and bridges across Europe. The graphics are incredible. Last night I nuked the Danube and they have a new, optional 3-D effects card where you can actually see the flesh melting off the victims’ bones during the detonations and their shadows being flash-photographed into the concrete. Then the coolest thing is that—”

  “That’s an excellent idea.” Kurtzman interrupted. Once Tokaido got on the topic of music or computer games it almost took a bullet in the cerebellum to stop him.

  “Carmen, get me a list of every living Russian admiral, active or retired, and cross-reference it with every contact we have.” Kurtzman smiled. Tokaido was on to something. “Find me an admiral with access to nukes who’s gone missing.”

  Berlin, Germany

  “ADMIRAL.” Laurentius Deyn extended his hand as Admiral Sergei Beniaminov and his bodyguard stepped off the helicopter. “It is good to finally meet you.”

  “Indeed.” The admiral shook Deyn’s hand. “I am glad to be out of Russia. It seems things are getting hot.”

  “Yes, we have had some setbacks.” Deyn ushered them in to the penthouse suite of the soaring high-rise. The sun was setting over the vast metropolis of Berlin and they were standing at the highest peak of the city. The admiral was clearly impressed. Clayborne Forbes rose from the couch. Admiral Beniaminov gestured at his guard. “Allow me to introduce you to my best man, Alexsandr Zabyshny. He has been instrumental in many of our projects.”

  Deyn knew Zabyshny’s history. The man was six foot three, dark and rangy, and constantly wore a long black coat underneath which he was festooned with weapons. He had been a combat swimmer in the Russian navy and gone on to join Spetsnaz, Russia’s combat elite.

  Forbes grinned. “Hey, Alex.”

  The Russian operative grinned back. “Clay.”

  “Alexsandr?” The admiral looked back and forth between the two men. “You two know each other?”

  “We’ve taken some meetings,” Forbes admitted. He kept his eyes on the Russian operative. “You thought about what we discussed, Alex?”

  “Yes.” Zabyshny nodded once. “I accept your proposition.”

  “Good.” Forbes nodded toward some plastic sheeting in the corner. “But not on the carpet.”

  The admiral blinked in confusion. “What is—”

  Zabyshny grabbed the admiral by his necktie and spun him, slamming him into the wall and standing him on the plastic tarp.

  “Al-!” The admiral’s words choked off as Zabyshny pinned him to the wall by the throat with one hand and drew a Pernach machine pistol from beneath his coat. He rammed the muzzle into the admiral’s paunch and squeezed the trigger. The pistol cycled like a buzz saw in his hand, ripping eighteen 9 mm Makarov rounds into the admiral’s vitals in two seconds.

  Zabyshny released the dead naval officer and let him fall to the tarp. The wall behind him was a modern art masterpiece of murder in scarlet arterial sprays and gobbets of masticated human meat. Deyn was almost tempted to have it lacquered in place and leave it, but the eighteen bullet holes left little doubt of its origin.

  Forbes clicked open his phone and spoke in German. “Security, we need cleaning and disposal in the penthouse.”

  The reply was instant. “Yes, Herr Forbes, at once.”

  Deyn shook Zabyshny’s hand. “Congratulations, Alex. You are now head of Russian Operations.”

  Computer Room, Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  BARBARA PRICE WAS SMILING. “What do we have?”

  Carmen Delahunt clicked keys on her laptop and a photo appeared on the six-foot wall screen. A middle-aged man in full Russian navy dress uniform dominated the monitor. He was wearing enough ribbons and medals to sink a battleship. “Admiral Sergei Beniaminov.”

  “Is he missing?”

  “The CIA really came through for us on this one. Beniaminov was scheduled to deliver a paper at the Naval Academy on Friday, but he called in sick with the flu forty-eight hours ago and canceled. The CIA sent a team by his town house in Moscow and to his dacha outside the city. No one is home and it doesn’t look as though anyone has been for over a week. We know he has a summer home on the Black Sea and we have local assets on their way to check it out now, but I’m thinking he’s not there, either. I’m going with David. Our boy the admiral is either drinking beer in a safehouse in Berlin or he’s been buried.”

  Price nodded. “Bear?”

  “I
think David is right. These guys are very tidy, very anal.” Kurtzman grunted to himself. “Very…German. Let’s assume Sergei’s dead, but let’s assume they paid the admiral big money for his help. So, where is the money now, and maybe they want to recover those assets. Akira, do you think you can break into the admiral’s financial records from here?”

  “Yeah, we have some good encryption guys in Moscow. They should be able to set up a link and I should be able to find the money trail from there no problemo.”

  Things were rolling. Price checked her notes. “Carmen, how about the satellite situation over Moscow? Was the NSA able to give us a list?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a big one. Even eliminating our own birds, we’re talking eighty satellites with known high-definition, ground-imaging capability. NSA is estimating a possible thirty more that may have the ability but are disguised as communication satellites. We’re talking Russian, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, you name it. It’s a regular UN mile-high club over Moscow 24/7.”

  “How many German satellites are known to be high-imaging or possibly disguised?”

  Delahunt already had that answer circled. “Seven of known German origin. Four known to be high-imaging, three are big enough to be disguised as something else.”

  “How many are military?”

  “Three, and those are out of the known imaging satellites. Four are civilian owned.”

  “I want a full dossier on the owners of all four civilian jobs, as well as who has had access to them in the past seventy-two hours.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Tell Phoenix to be ready to move. And I want to be able to give Phoenix something on the satellite and the money trail ASAP.”

  Delahunt expertly slid her notes together. It was going to be a long night. “Anything else?”

  “Tell Hal I want Able Team assembled here at the Farm, armed and ready to be anyplace on the planet within twelve hours.”

  Berlin, Germany

  LAURENTIUS DEYN LOOKED down over the city. His balcony office hung out from the skyscraper in an arc overlooking the Spree River. His desk was a matching arc of lustrous teak. Deyn thought of his sons. He often did. He looked at the picture of them on his desk. The two young men stood on a boat in the blue waters of Hawaii, bronzed and as fit as gladiators. They stood arm-in-arm, smiling into the camera with scuba gear all around them. It had been a long time since Deyn had wept or felt the sting of tears, but a very old, cold, bitter wind blew through his bones. His sons, Steffan and Karl, lost to him all these years.

  Not lost.

  Taken.

  They had followed in his footsteps, been destined for greatness, and their lives had been taken. Taken by cowardice, stupidity and incompetence. Deyn’s bitterness kindled to anger. Deyn’s still powerful hands clenched into white-knuckled rage.

  The earth would tremble when they were avenged.

  Deyn’s personal secretary buzzed him on the intercom. “Mr. Deyn. Miss Marx is here with her report.”

  “Send her in.”

  The door to Deyn’s private office slid open silently and Franka Marx entered. She was a beautiful woman, but she dressed as if she were ashamed of it, keeping the lush curves of her body covered in stark and functional business suits and keeping her red hair severely restrained. Her eyebrows were almost permanently drawn down with intensity and her sensuous lips kept in a hard line. She had been an ugly duckling who had never quite recovered even after she had blossomed. She immersed herself in her work and had almost no social life to speak of. Deyn encouraged the situation with subtle manipulations. Marx lived to serve, and shuddered like a puppy at a single word of praise from him.

  Deyn shoved his rage down into a very deep, dark part of his soul where it had been growing for years and favored Marx with a smile. “Ah, Franka, you have a report?”

  “Yes, sir.” Marx blushed despite herself. “The computer systems you requested for the Atlantic and Pacific stations are in place and uplinked to the satellite. All is in readiness.”

  Deyn could read the woman like a book. “But you have questions.”

  Marx stumbled over her words. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean…”

  “Franka, you are one of my most valued employees.”

  Franka Marx blushed furiously and looked at her feet.

  “You do not understand why such systems are needed, much less in such locations.”

  Marx nodded, ashamed at her temerity in questioning him.

  Deyn chose his words very carefully. “Very soon, I am going to move, aggressively, against some of my enemies. Once I set things in motion, you will be my right hand, but for the moment, what you do not know cannot hurt you. Do you understand?”

  Deyn watched Marx’s reaction. She was aware that not all of his business dealings were strictly legal, but by the time she’d learned of this, she had already worked for Deyn for years, seen rapid promotion and her talents appreciated. Her loyalty to him and his designs had become as utter as one of his hounds, and she had willingly become an accomplice in numerous acts of industrial and economic warfare. Of course, she had absolutely no idea how far some of his plans had gone, but moral compromise was best taken one step at a time.

  Marx squared her shoulders. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Excellent, leave your report. I have some things to attend to now, perhaps you and I can discuss it over a cup of coffee later.”

  “Yes, sir.” Marx had to restrain herself from skipping as she left the office.

  Laurentius Deyn smiled like a shark. He had many weapons at his disposal, financial, military and political, but the brain of Franka Marx was one of his best and most lethal. Somewhere in the United States there might be cybernetic intelligence operative who could challenge Franka, but Deyn doubted it and he would pay good money to see him match his brain against Franka’s.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Computer Room, Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “Got it!” Akira Tokaido leaned back in his computer chair, elated.

  Carmen Delahunt peered up from her workstation. “You got the money?”

  “Oh, I got the money, all right.”

  Kurtzman spun his chair away from his bank of terminals and rolled Tokaido’s way. He peered over the young genius’s shoulder and perked an eyebrow. “Well, now, Sergei was a socially secure Russian admiral, wasn’t he?”

  Sergei Beniaminov was ten million euros richer than the average Russian admiral approaching his pension. “Whom is he banking with?”

  Tokaido scrolled upward. “An outfit called Infinite Financial Antilles.”

  “Offshore in the Caribbean.” Kurtzman nodded. “Should have guessed.”

  “You know Russians,” Carmen chimed in. “They love to put their money someplace warm.”

  Kurtzman peered at a map of the Caribbean inset in Tokaido’s screen. “What island?”

  The young hacker punched a key and the Caribbean Sea zoomed into focus. He clicked a few more and a small dot near the northern coast of Venezuela zoomed up into a geopolitical map of a small island. “The island of Bonaire, its part of the Netherlands Antilles chain. It’s a Dutch dependency.”

  “So what can you tell me about the admiral’s financial transactions?”

  Tokaido frowned. “Not much.”

  Kurtzman scowled. “What do you mean, not much?”

  “Admiral Beniaminov made some major mistakes on his end. I was able to access a lot of his records.” He tapped his finger on the screen. “But Infinite Finances Antilles is an offshore banking facility. Discretion and secrecy are their middle names. They get paid the huge bucks not to get hacked.”

  Kurtzman folded his arms unbelievingly. “You’re saying you can’t hack it?”

  “Oh, I can hack it. But I can’t guarantee we won’t be discovered.”

  Kurtzman preferred to do it sneaky. “We have Able Team in residence and on one hour standby. What if they can put someone in place?”

  “You mean, actually onsite?” Tokaido
shrugged. “Yeah, if you can actually get someone good inside the Infinite Financial building and give them physical access to the company’s mainframe, that would simplify things. They could probably break in without being detected.”

  A plan began forming in Kurtzman’s mind. “All right, I’ll go have a talk with Carl and we’ll brainstorm this thing. Meanwhile, get me a list of people from NSA and the FBI who you think could pull it off.” Kurtzman rolled up out of the War Room to go find Carl Lyons.

  “THE FIELD!” Kurtzman was outraged. “You want to take Akira out in the field!”

  Carl “Ironman” Lyons raised an eyebrow. It was unusual to see the Bear turn purple.

  “You remember what happened the last time one of you Einsteins took Akira out into the field!”

  Lyons cocked his head slightly. To his knowledge, he couldn’t remember the Bear calling anyone, much less himself, Einstein.

  “What the hell are you thinking, Carl!”

  Lyons stood like the blue-eyed blond embodiment of his nickname, unphased by Kurtzman’s outburst. “We have to get into the bank records and leave no trace. That means we have to break into the bank and put the hacker on-site. Breaking into the bank and then breaking into the database is asking a lot. I think we should cover one with the other. Able and I are going to rob the bank. Meanwhile Akira sneaks in during the diversion and hacks the database. It’s a small island in the Caribbean. It shouldn’t be that tough.”

  “You remember what happened the last time I let Akira out in the field, Carl?”

  “Yeah, he got stomped. As a matter of fact he gets stomped every time he leaves the nest.” Lyons shrugged. “So? There’s no one better for the job, and you know it. Akira is here with us already and doesn’t need briefing. We can be there in four hours and do the job in eight.”

  “Well, I don’t like it!”

  The Ironman stood impassive as stone. “You don’t have to like it, Bear, but you have to okay it. I won’t take Akira out without your blessing. If I don’t have it, then we’ll have to find someone else to take into the bank. No one’s better than the kid.” Lyons checked his watch. “We got nukes loose, and the clock is ticking. Decide.”