Mike Maden - River of Gods

“I am a stranger in a strange land, but I believe there are many such committees and subcommittees in your Congress.”

“Okay, I’ll make it easy on you. The Ways and Means Committees in both the House and Senate are responsible for the tax laws. They also happen to be the most powerful and coveted of all committee appointments. Those are the two biggest fish to catch as far as lobbyists are concerned. Finance, Banking, Commerce, Energy, and Defense would be the other big ones—all of their subcommittees, too. Those committee votes are all legal documents that are in the public domain and easily pulled down. In the case of legal decisions, limit the pool to federal appellate and Supreme Court decisions. And let’s limit our search to just the last three years.”

“Just?” Ian laughed.

“The second way to attack this is to define ‘outrageous decisions’ as those that have resonated strongly with the attentive public. So we’ll conduct high-frequency word searches limited to a distinct vocabulary—words like ‘inexplicable,’ ‘indefensible,’ et cetera—and look for those on the top twenty political, financial, and military blogs, Twitter feeds, and what have you, to see what decisions have most outraged the attentive public that uses those sites.”

“We are still dealing with tens of thousands of decisions.”

“Not really. Remember, we’re only looking for the most outrageous. The real outliers. I think we’re talking hundreds, or maybe just dozens, of such extremely controversial votes. Of course, if we don’t come up with anything, we can widen the search. Unfortunately, federal bureaucracies write thousands of administrative laws every year that are every bit as binding as any piece of congressional legislation. But let’s not go there yet.”

“Thank heavens.”

“So the idea is this. If we can find the most outrageous political decisions and then find out which person or persons most benefitted from most of those decisions, I think we’ll have a pretty good pool of suspects to look into.”

“Most benefitted?”

“Let’s quantify that, and let’s just focus on money for now. Let’s set a figure of ten million dollars. If someone didn’t profit at least ten million, don’t keep them in our pool. The kind of hostile surveillance and research operations we’re theorizing about would cost a lot of money. Anything less than ten million is chump change in Washington.”

“I should think that any politician that suddenly increased their net worth by ten million dollars in a few years would make headlines.”

“You’d be surprised. There are more millionaires in Congress than nonmillionaires these days. And some of them are worth far, far more. But I take your point. We’re probably talking about corporations, private trusts, hedge funds. But just in case a political person is behind this, we should target those financial institutions with C-level managers married to the members of committees or courts we talked about.”

“Good thing I don’t have a private life,” Ian said.

“I’m terribly sorry. I know I’m asking a lot, but whoever drove Tanner to kill himself is now out for me. And if they can take out a Supreme Court justice and possibly a former U.S. president, I have to believe they are a threat to other members of the government, and maybe not just this government.”

“Quite right. It is an honor and a privilege to work with you on this. I really wasn’t whinging, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

They worked out the specifics in the arcane and mysterious language of computer programmers, then divided up the responsibilities. Myers would work from the safety of Pearce’s cabin and Ian would do his part from Pearce Systems headquarters, so long as Troy didn’t require his services. Myers agreed, secretly hoping that Pearce wouldn’t need Ian’s assistance, because if he did, that meant Troy was in trouble and she was in no position to do anything about it, and that infuriated her.

The village of Anou

Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali

7 May

Idon’t understand. Why didn’t you just haul out of here?”

“We’re out of fuel. We wouldn’t get twenty kilometers,” Mossa said.

“You should’ve thought about that before you—”

“You arrogant bastard. What do you know about our situation?” Cella’s eyes were blue coals.

“We planned on refueling here, but the Ganda Koy drained the tanks into the sand,” Mike said. “So we’re stuck.”

“With the army on the way?” Pearce said. “You guys aren’t stuck. You’re fucked.”

“Save my daughter. Please,” Cella said.

Pearce ran his fingers through his long hair, thinking. He hated being lied to. Hated being in the middle of another war on a piece of ground that wasn’t worth pissing on. Hated the whole situation. But it is what it is, he finally concluded.

“All right, fine. We’ll take the girl,” Pearce said.

Mossa nodded his thanks.

“We can crowd a dozen of your men on the plane,” he added.

“No. Our fight is here. And even if we came with you, the minute we landed in Niger we would be arrested. Better to die as free men than live as slaves in a Nigerien salt mine.”

“Then let’s quit jawboning and roll,” Pearce said.

“Thank you,” Cella said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’ll get her now.”

Pearce tapped his comms. “Judy, we’re on the way. ETA in ten. Fire up the engines.”

Pearce drove and Mike stood in the pickup bed, manning the Russian PK machine gun. Early wore his shemagh around his face, Tuareg style, and a pair of Ray-Bans against the choking sand billowing up around him. His personal weapon was an FN SCAR-H CQC, the short-barreled version of the 7.62mm Special Forces Automatic Rifle. Early loved it because it was short, light, deadly accurate, easy to strip and clean, and fired the same big-caliber ammo handy as the ubiquitous AK-47, so common in Africa.

Cella wedged into the passenger seat with her daughter on her lap, still groggy. The child was long but thin, with a mop of thick black hair. Cella folded her up in her arms as best as she could.

“You can keep the ransom,” Pearce said. Thirty-thousand euros was a lot of money, but it wasn’t his.

“It’s not ransom. It’s my trust fund money. My father sends it to me when there is a need among the people.”

“How is your father these days?”

She ignored the question. “Did you bring the medical supplies as well?”

“It’s all there.”

The girl moaned.

“She okay?”

Cella brushed the girl’s hair away from her face. Pearce glanced at her. She was a pretty young girl on the verge of a ferocious beauty. In a few years she’d be her mother’s twin.

“She’s waking up a little, which is good. But I don’t want her to be completely awake, at least not until you’re in the air.”

“Why not?”

“She is… ostinato . Like a mule.” Cella grinned. “Like you.”

“Me? More like you.”

The Toyota bounced along. Pearce checked the fuel gauge. Nearly empty. The Aviocar filled the windshield.

“What’s her name?”

“Dorotea, after my mother.”

“How old is she?”

Pearce thought she looked six years old, maybe seven. He wasn’t sure.

He tapped the brakes and brought the Hilux to an easy stop next to the open cargo door. The motors were loud even though the props were barely spinning. Early jumped off the back and opened Cella’s door as Pearce climbed up into the Aviocar.