Richard Castle: A Raging Storm

“When was the photograph taken?” Storm asked. “Was it while the gold was still in Moscow or after it disappeared?”

“Ah, you’ve just asked the key question,” Jones replied.

He passed the fourth photograph, the one he had held back, across his desk to Storm. It showed three men standing together. They were Jedidiah Jones, Senator Thurston Windslow, and oligarch Oleg Petrov. They were holding the gold bar that Storm had just seen.

“Somehow,” Jones explained, “Petrov found out where the Party’s missing fortune is hidden. He brought a gold bar with him to the U.S. as proof and showed it to Senator Windslow because he was head of the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence. Windslow brought Petrov to me.”

“How’d he find it?”

Jones threw up his hands in exasperation. “I wish I knew. Petrov wouldn’t tell us, but he claimed that he could take us to where the rest of the gold bullion was hidden.”

“All of the gold bars?”

“Actually, Petrov claimed the treasure consisted of one million kilogram bars hidden by the KGB, plus other precious metals. The total worth is about sixty billion dollars.”

“Sixty billion!” Storm repeated. “As in B?”

“Yes,” Jones said. “Now that’s a treasure worth finding, wouldn’t you say?”

Jones collected the four photographs from Storm and placed them back into the thick file, which he inserted back into his wall safe.

“Why did he ask you for help?” Storm said. “Petrov’s a billionaire. Why not hire a private army of mercenaries? For sixty billion, he could buy a country.”

“If only it were that easy,” Jones answered. “Who would you trust to help you recover sixty billion in gold bars and precious metals? Guns for hire? Mercenaries?”

“Good point,” Storm said. “I remember a PI case I had. A couple murdered their parents for five grand in life insurance. Imagine what people would do when sixty billion is at stake.”

“Petrov hinted that the gold is in a remote, difficult-to-reach location. He needs the kind of manpower and machinery that we can get him. And there’s another problem: Petrov is not as wealthy as everyone has been led to believe. Barkovsky froze the oligarch’s assets in Russia after they had a falling out and he fled from Moscow. Our analysts believe he only has access to seven to ten million.”

“Only seven or ten million,” Storm grunted. “Boo hoo. Makes me want to cry.”

“It doesn’t last long if you have a palatial estate in England, an Embassy Row mansion here in Washington, D.C., and a billion-dollar yacht sitting idle in the Mediterranean.”

“So what’s in it for you?” Storm asked.

“If we help him get the sixty billion, Petrov will use it to launch an insurgency against President Barkovsky.”

“A war?”

“No, but he’d finance protest rallies, bribe officials, plant news stories, and make Barkovsky’s life and presidency a living hell.”

“Is getting rid of Barkovsky worth going to bed with Petrov?” Storm asked. “Why not just have him killed if you want to get rid of him?”

“We don’t really do that anymore.”

“Sure you don’t,” Storm said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Does that mean you turned down Petrov?”

“Absolutely, we turned him down,” Jones replied. “We can’t kill foreign leaders anymore and we can’t topple foreign governments either. Congress has passed laws that specifically forbid us from doing that sort of thing. This isn’t the 1950s and 1960s when you could put poison in one of Fidel Castro’s cigars.”

“Yeah, but if I recall, that cigar stunt didn’t work.”

“It could have,” Jones said. “Creative thinking on our part. That’s something I’ve always admired. But back to the gold. There are other reasons why we can’t get involved in searching for the gold. One reason is that it still belongs to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, the Communist Party in Russia still does. It’s the second largest political party in that nation. All those little Commie bastards didn’t just disappear overnight. By international law, that money still belongs to them.

“Here’s another reason,” Jones said. “President Barkovsky has made it clear to the White House that any cooperation our government extends to Petrov will be seen as a hostile act against him and his nation. The guy might be nuts, but he still has his finger on a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and most of them are pointed at us. We don’t want to encourage his paranoid hatred of the U.S.”

“And finally,” Jones continued, “we’ve got an internal problem. The day after that photograph of the kilobar was taken inside my office, the Russian ambassador paid an unannounced visit on the secretary of state and specifically stated that any attempt by the U.S. to recover the missing gold would be considered an act of international piracy.”

“You got a leak. Someone tipped off the Russians.”

“Exactly,” Jones said. “Barkovsky knew about our private meeting in my office — this office — within twenty-four hours.”

“A mole?”

“Yes, but I don’t think the mole is on our side. I think it’s in Petrov’s camp. Only I can’t be sure.”

Despite Jones’s litany of reasons, Storm could read between the lines. Clearly, Jones wanted to help Petrov, because Barkovsky was a dangerous loony tune. What better way to get rid of him than to have one of his former friends bring him down? Et tu, Brutus? Using the Communist Party’s own wealth to destroy a pro-Communist president only made the entire scheme sweeter .

“If you aren’t going to help Petrov,” Storm said, “then why tell me about the gold?”

“Because you’re dead, remember? No one can be held responsible for the actions of a dead man, can they?”

“But I’m only one man.”

Jones gave him a sly look and asked, “Are you sure? Do you really believe you’re the only man who has gone off the grid? Do you think you’re the only man who has disappeared?”

“Project Midas ,” Storm said, putting two and two together. “That thick file locked in your safe — it has the names of other ‘dead’ operatives just like me, doesn’t it? You want me and the other ‘dead’ operatives to help Petrov because our country can’t afford to leave any fingerprints behind.”

“No fingerprints, no footprints,” Jones said. “No prints at all.”

Jones pulled a large envelope from a desk drawer and said, “I need you to go to London and talk to Petrov. First, try to find out who killed Windslow and why. Second, tell him that I’ve assembled a team to help him. All we need to learn is where the gold is hidden.”

He emptied the envelope’s contents onto his desktop. “Here’s a passport, cash, credit cards, a cell phone, and airline tickets. Agent Showers is booked on a six o’clock flight to London. She’s being sent to question Petrov. She’ll be your ticket in to meet him. You’ll tag along. I’ve already arranged it.”

Storm’s mind was swirling. “What about the mole?”

“If the mole is in Petrov’s camp, there’s nothing we can do. Just be careful.”

“And what if it is on our side — someone inside this agency?”

“I know who you are, but you always worked in the field. No one else here in headquarters knows you or that you’re still alive. I’ve also compartmentalized Project Midas .”

“Meaning?” Storm asked.

“Meaning that only you and I know that you are involved in it. That’s it. To everyone else, Derrick Storm is still a ghost.”

The last time that Jones had been so confident about a covert operation, he’d sent Storm to Tangiers. Look how that had turned out .