Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Jack asked, “But he was KGB at the end of the USSR, right? How the hell did he get the dough to start this bank?”

“No one knows for sure. He claims he had foreign investment, but at the time Russia had no private property laws to speak of, so he didn’t have to prove where his money came from.”

Jack wanted to know more about Volodin’s past, but Sandy looked again at his watch. “Sorry, Jack. I’m going to get a little shut-eye so I can be fresh on landing. You should pry yourself away from those thrilling government tenders and dream of all the island girls we’ll meet tonight.”

Ryan laughed. He had dramatically different ideas of what the two of them would be doing on the ground in Antigua, but he didn’t want to tamper with any pleasant dreams Sandy might have on the flight down, so he just went back to his laptop to do some more reading, and he left Sandy to his nap.

They landed at Antigua’s V. C. Bird International Airport shortly after two p.m., and they took a short ride in a Jeep taxi across the northern tip of the tiny island into Saint John’s, the capital.

It was a warm and sunny afternoon, strikingly different from London, and a strong wind from the east blew across the island. Ryan thought Saint John’s to be no more or less developed than most of the other Caribbean capitals he had visited, which was to say it was simple and small. Passing through the business district, he didn’t see more than a handful of buildings higher than four or five stories tall.

He had read that the town’s population was only 25,000, but when cruise ships were in port the downtown streets could be thick with traffic. As they neared the port, Ryan checked the harbor and saw nothing but fishing boats, sailboats, and small cargo ships, and the ride through the narrow streets of the city was quick and easy.

They checked into two rooms in the Cocos Hotel. Sandy wanted time to freshen up and answer some work e-mails, so Ryan dropped off his luggage and returned downstairs alone.

By four p.m. Ryan was already walking along the sidewalk on Redcliffe Street in front of CCS Corporate Services, the registered office used by IFC Holdings.

He had no plans on entering, at least not yet. Instead, he found a tiny open-front fish shack a block up Redcliffe just past Market Street. He reached into a cooler and grabbed a bottle of Wadadli, a beer he’d never heard of, paid at the counter, and then sat down in a rickety wooden seat, back away from the open entrance. After a few minutes to settle in, he glanced back up the street. There, up half a block and across two lanes of light traffic, was a three-story turquoise-colored cinder-block building. A single man stood just inside a glass doorway, wearing a cheap blue blazer a few sizes too large for him. Jack pegged him as security, but just a lobby guard.

Ryan took in the entire scene. Next to the turquoise building on one side was a small meat market. Lamb shanks and beef cuts hung in the sun from ropes, and people walking by swatted at flies. On the other side of the building was a lazy-looking trinket shop set up for the cruise-ship passengers who happened to wander the five blocks up from the port.

Jack took a long swig of his beer while he continued to scan. Hard to believe, he had to admit, that this place was linked to a corporate entity involved in a multibillion-dollar natural-gas deal on the other side of the world.

The building itself had two dozen signs attached to it, but most of them told Jack nothing of what went on inside. In addition to the vaguely descriptive CCS Corporate Services, Jack saw ABV Services, Caribbean World Partners Ltd, and Saint John’s Consulting Group.

There seemed to be more than a dozen law offices in the building. Each one had one or two names and a phone number, and every third had a website or e-mail address listed as well.

Jack couldn’t read many of the signs from where he was without help, but of course, he had brought help. He pulled a small monocle from his pocket and held it up to his eye, and with this he could easily make out even the Internet addresses at forty yards.

He also noticed a spaghetti-like weave of wires into and out of the building strung along poles. He presumed the wires delivered electricity, Internet, and telephone to the building, and in addition to them, there were several satellite dishes and antennas on the roof.

While he sat sipping his beer, he used his camera phone to take pictures of every sign he saw. As he was in the middle of doing this, a text message popped up on his phone’s screen.

It was Sandy.

“Where are you? Fancy a drink?”

Jack tapped back, “Way ahead of you, boss.” And he added his location.

It took Lamont a while to arrive, so Jack spent the time taking clandestine pictures of all of the names, numbers, and e-mail addresses he could see, not only for the building that housed CCS Corporate Services, but also for another building on the northeast corner of Market and Redcliffe. It looked like it was full of the same type of services as the turquoise building, so he figured he’d pull all this data as well and throw it into his database back in the hotel room.

Finally Jack looked up and saw Lamont heading down the street toward him, perspiring heavily from his forehead as he approached.

Jack headed to the cooler, grabbed another beer, and paid for it. He passed it over to Lamont as the Englishman sat down.

Sandy cooled his brow with the bottle. “You can bloody well give me London’s fog any day.”

He looked across the street at the building and then back to Ryan. He drank from the bottle and said, “Feel like a regular double-oh doing this sort of thing. Being here with the son of the President adds another layer to the intrigue.”

Jack just chuckled. He said, “I wonder how many buildings there are like this in town.”

“Antigua makes itself available for those who need to establish shells and launder money. Other nations, like Panama, for example, have tightened their controls a little in order to gain more legitimacy. Antigua is more of the Wild West. Yeah, they pay a little lip service here and there to international regs, but if you have the money you can bring it here so that it can begin its journey through the great big laundry service of planet earth’s integrated banking system.”

“But the criminals, the drug cartels, the Russian OC people, they don’t physically have to come here, do they?”

“Might, might not. Lots of people insist on the face-to-face. Some blokes don’t trust the help, others feel like getting in front of the government officials they are bribing helps them get their point across. The lawyers down here are used to meeting with some scary people, and then doing exactly what they’re told. But before you start weeping for them, remember, they make a lot of money for their trouble.”

A large black pickup truck that seemed to Jack to be newer and cleaner than many of the other vehicles driving around on Redcliffe Street pulled into view. Ryan noticed there were two young black men in the front cab, and he saw that the driver was looking toward the fish shack where Ryan sat with Lamont. Jack turned away from them, and the pickup disappeared up the street.

Jack finished his beer. “I don’t think there could be one hundred people who work in that building. One of them, at least one of them, knows who owns IFC and where his bank is.”

“They at least know which transfer bank IFC uses. My guess is they send funds from here to Panama, but it could be any one of a dozen places.”

Jack muttered to himself, “Wish we had a crew to tail everybody who comes and goes.”

Lamont laughed. “ Tail them. You sound like a double-oh yourself.”