list of warrants and
indictments waiting for him if he should be identified in the wrong
country. He would be arrested on the spot and held for extradition
hearings. He was wanted by the U.S., the British, and the Germans
on a long series of money-laundering, espionage and arms deals. In
the last couple of years, he’d only been outside of his present
situation a couple of times. These were rather hairy expeditions,
to places like Switzerland and Liberia, attempting to negotiate
some kind of immunity in exchange for something—anything really.
U.S. officials did not come here and there were times when he had
to go to them.
This was
especially true now that Mossad had openly called for his
assassination in some influential U.S. diplomatic and intelligence
circles. The Russians, the Chinese, weren’t too happy with him
either. On balance, he was always welcome in Chile—if he could get
there, and was something of a national hero (going by the medals
and orders bestowed upon him by a grateful Supreme Commander, the
late Mister Abdullah Jones) in Togoland, on Africa’s equatorial
southwestern coast.
The trouble with taking refuge in South America was how to
get there from here. If he showed his face in London, Paris,
Lisbon, South Africa, it really didn’t matter where, in order to
get a connecting flight, they would grab him for sure. He had very
few illusions on that score. As for more indirect methods of
travel, he had a luxury car, a gift from his protector. It didn’t
have a hope in hell of crossing the thousands of miles of desert to
the south. There were unfriendly or tightly controlled borders to
east and west. Going by sea was an option. The only trouble there was getting a big
enough boat…enough fuel, a captain. There was the problem of
evading detection during escape and even afterwards. On the high
seas he was fair game for anyone.
His
present protector had been very good to him, by his own lights at
least. At first it had been a God-send. It tended to pall over
time. You couldn’t get any decent wine, you couldn’t get a decent
cheeseburger, and pizza was unheard-of. He was damned sick of
Sigrid by this time. She was becoming a screaming harridan, soused
with gin by noon most days, and wracked with her own fairly
rational fears. He couldn’t even send her out of the country—she
was as hot as he was, and the Mahdi would take a keen interest in
their reasons for going.
There
were no really good excuses any more.
Speck was on the line. Aubrey had a long list of cut-outs,
shell companies registered in a number of handy tax and investment
havens. Speck was listed as the director or CEO of more than one
such entity. There were holding companies within holding companies.
If he could nab EMERALD, it was a bargaining chip in more than one
sense. He could sell it elsewhere, being already persona non grata in all
the nice countries where he had once lived. Or, he could ransom it
back for his own freedom and the right to go home. He didn’t give a
shit who ended up with it, all he wanted was immunity—in writing,
from the federal prosecutor and the Department of
Justice.
He had
offered his testimony in any number of cases—one of the reasons why
requests for meetings on neutral territory with certain officials
in the State and Justice departments had been granted.
At this
point in time, he would be prepared to testify to all sorts of
things. He was an embarrassment to all of his former friends. He
was a gift to his enemies. His former colleagues were all retired
and writing their sanitized memoirs.
He was
the scapegoat in more than one book.
It was
him they wanted more than anything.
He could
never go home. That was the reality. Not as things presently
stood—and so the urgent need for EMERALD. The trouble was the
change in administration. The new president was a liberal and a
cost-cutter when it came to military expenditures. This included
the intelligence community. A new broom swept clean, and
indictments waiting for him if he should be identified in the wrong
country. He would be arrested on the spot and held for extradition
hearings. He was wanted by the U.S., the British, and the Germans
on a long series of money-laundering, espionage and arms deals. In
the last couple of years, he’d only been outside of his present
situation a couple of times. These were rather hairy expeditions,
to places like Switzerland and Liberia, attempting to negotiate
some kind of immunity in exchange for something—anything really.
U.S. officials did not come here and there were times when he had
to go to them.
This was
especially true now that Mossad had openly called for his
assassination in some influential U.S. diplomatic and intelligence
circles. The Russians, the Chinese, weren’t too happy with him
either. On balance, he was always welcome in Chile—if he could get
there, and was something of a national hero (going by the medals
and orders bestowed upon him by a grateful Supreme Commander, the
late Mister Abdullah Jones) in Togoland, on Africa’s equatorial
southwestern coast.
The trouble with taking refuge in South America was how to
get there from here. If he showed his face in London, Paris,
Lisbon, South Africa, it really didn’t matter where, in order to
get a connecting flight, they would grab him for sure. He had very
few illusions on that score. As for more indirect methods of
travel, he had a luxury car, a gift from his protector. It didn’t
have a hope in hell of crossing the thousands of miles of desert to
the south. There were unfriendly or tightly controlled borders to
east and west. Going by sea was an option. The only trouble there was getting a big
enough boat…enough fuel, a captain. There was the problem of
evading detection during escape and even afterwards. On the high
seas he was fair game for anyone.
His
present protector had been very good to him, by his own lights at
least. At first it had been a God-send. It tended to pall over
time. You couldn’t get any decent wine, you couldn’t get a decent
cheeseburger, and pizza was unheard-of. He was damned sick of
Sigrid by this time. She was becoming a screaming harridan, soused
with gin by noon most days, and wracked with her own fairly
rational fears. He couldn’t even send her out of the country—she
was as hot as he was, and the Mahdi would take a keen interest in
their reasons for going.
There
were no really good excuses any more.
Speck was on the line. Aubrey had a long list of cut-outs,
shell companies registered in a number of handy tax and investment
havens. Speck was listed as the director or CEO of more than one
such entity. There were holding companies within holding companies.
If he could nab EMERALD, it was a bargaining chip in more than one
sense. He could sell it elsewhere, being already persona non grata in all
the nice countries where he had once lived. Or, he could ransom it
back for his own freedom and the right to go home. He didn’t give a
shit who ended up with it, all he wanted was immunity—in writing,
from the federal prosecutor and the Department of
Justice.
He had
offered his testimony in any number of cases—one of the reasons why
requests for meetings on neutral territory with certain officials
in the State and Justice departments had been granted.
At this
point in time, he would be prepared to testify to all sorts of
things. He was an embarrassment to all of his former friends. He
was a gift to his enemies. His former colleagues were all retired
and writing their sanitized memoirs.
He was
the scapegoat in more than one book.
It was
him they wanted more than anything.
He could
never go home. That was the reality. Not as things presently
stood—and so the urgent need for EMERALD. The trouble was the
change in administration. The new president was a liberal and a
cost-cutter when it came to military expenditures. This included
the intelligence community. A new broom swept clean, and
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