Barry Eisler - Rain Storm aka Choke Point

So Hilger must have survived. Maybe he’d finally managed to put a round in the last Arab. No wonder Kanezaki hadn’t been uptight about the abandoned binoculars and parabolic microphone. Apparently their presence hadn’t been inconsistent with the new cover story.

The next morning I checked the appropriate offshore account. The two hundred thousand was in there, as Kanezaki had promised-fifty thousand that had been paid up front, one hundred fifty moved in the day before.

Dox had given me the number of his own account. I transferred him all two hundred. My way of saying thank you.

I called Kanezaki from a pay phone.

“I saw the news,” I said. “Another heroic success for the defenders of the free world.”

He chuckled. “Be happy. The cleanup suits everyone-you, especially. No one here is disputing the official story. They’re all scrambling to try to make themselves part of it, in fact. So no one’s arguing about the definition of ‘natural.’ ”

“What are those missiles?” I asked.

“They’re called Alazans. They’re surface-to-surface rockets with a ten-mile range. They were originally designed by Soviet scientists for weather experiments, but seemed to work better as a terror weapon. Conventional versions were employed by Azerbaijan forces in the war with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and by separatists in South Ossetia in clashes with Georgian troops.”

“The news said the ones recovered were radiologically tipped.”

“Yeah, two years ago, we uncovered documents showing that at one time one of the Alazan batteries had been fitted with radiological warheads-turning the rockets into ‘dirty bombs.’ The radiological battery was stored in Transdniester, a separatist enclave that broke away from Moldova twelve years ago. Transdniester is currently recognized by no government but its own, and, with its huge stockpiles of Soviet-era arms, it’s become a clearinghouse for black arms weapons.”

“Those two guys,” I said, thinking aloud. “The Russians. They were from Transdniester?”

“Yeah, the military junta that’s running Transdniester now is pro-Russian. The rest of the enclave speaks Moldovan, which is really just Romanian. It’s complicated.”

“Sounds it.”

“Anyway, what you’ve got now is a small clique that runs the ‘country’ of Transdniester by its own rules. Much of the enclave’s trade is controlled by a single company, Sheriff, which is owned by the son of Transdniester’s president. The son also heads the Transdniester Customs Service, which oversees all the goods flowing in and out of the country. The shipments move through the Tiraspol airport; overland by truck to Ukraine or Moldova; and on a rail-to-ship line that connects the capital to Odessa.”

“Or through Hong Kong.”

“Not a likely route, if you look at a map, but brilliant if you had the local connections that Belghazi was using. He was snowing his handlers in NE Division. They thought he was a ‘good’ arms dealer who was informing on the ‘bad’ arms dealers. In fact, he was informing on his competitors, and meanwhile dealing in whatever would make him the most money. The Alazans were probably just one example. Who knows what he was moving right under the Agency’s nose.”

“Not anymore.”

“That’s right. I meant it when I said you should be proud. The people who he would have sold those missiles to would have used them anywhere they could. If they had been smuggled into the U.S., it would have been catastrophic.”

“The two who died at Kwai Chung,” I said. “What was their connection to Transdniester’s president? And his son?”

“Why?”

“I just like to keep tabs on people who might want to take me off their Christmas card list.”

There was a pause. “Nephews of the president. Cousins of the son.”

I thought about that for a moment. “The family is probably unhappy about losing them,” I said. “Just guessing.”

“They have no way of connecting you with what happened at Kwai Chung.”

“What about Hilger?”

“Hilger?”

Kanezaki might have been playing dumb. Or the “Hilger” moniker might have been a pseudo, used operationally, that Kanezaki didn’t know. It didn’t really matter.

“The NOC,” I said.

There was a pause, during which he digested the fact that I had learned the NOC’s identity, or at least an operational pseudo. “Without confirming any names,” he said, “I can say that everyone involved has an incentive to stick to the official story. This was a joint CIA/Hong Kong law enforcement operation.”

“It sounds like Dox and I ought to get a bonus,” I said. “You got a lot more than you bargained for.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, “but you can charge me more for the next job. I don’t think anyone would argue.”

“Where’d the money go?”

“The money for the missiles?”

“Yeah.”

“It was recovered at the scene.”

“How much was recovered?”

“About three million.”

I laughed. “ ‘About three million’? Anyone wonder why such an odd amount?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your man Hilger scooped out about two million after executing the remaining people at the scene. It was dark and he was in a hurry, though, so he couldn’t very well count it all out bill by hundred-dollar bill.”

“No. Why wouldn’t he have taken all of it?”

“This was a sale. It would have looked suspicious if there had been no funds at the point of purchase. Hilger is smarter than he is greedy.”

There was a long pause. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “Do you think he knew what was in those shipping crates?”

I considered for a moment. “I don’t think he knew beforehand, no. He seemed surprised when he heard the word ‘missiles,’ and Belghazi said something to him about not asking questions he didn’t want answered.”

“Yeah, but still, to just stand by for something like this…”

“For what it’s worth, I think he might have decided to try to prevent the deal from going down, once he figured out what it was all about. But should he have known beforehand? Could he have, if he’d cared? Hell, yes. Until circumstances made rationalization and denial impossible, he was probably happy to look the other way because he was getting such good ‘intel’ from Belghazi.”

There was another long pause while he took it in. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, there’s not much I can do about the money he took. Not this time.”

That’s all right , I thought. I know who he is now. I’ve seen his face, up close through those Zeiss binoculars. And I know he uses the name Hilger, at least operationally. Dox and I might want to have a chat with him, tell him it isn’t nice not to share .

“You ought to think about the arrangement NE had with Belghazi,” I said. “I doubt that it’s unique.”

“It isn’t.”

“Then you’re getting jerked around by other ‘good’ guys?”

“Look, the people who have the dirt are dirty. Belghazi was poor execution, but that doesn’t mean the concept itself is flawed.”

“You spend all this time with people who are dirty, what does that make you?”

“You don’t want to get dirty, better stay out of the sandbox.”

I laughed. “He was playing you.”

“Of course he was. Opposing sides always play each other. It doesn’t mean a deal doesn’t get done. As long as there’s something in it for everyone, it all gets worked out.”

“Incredible.”

“Not really. It’s just the way of the world. Look at America. All the interest groups donate to both political parties, knowing that, whoever wins, the winner will be in their debt.”