Arctic Gold (11 page)

Rubens used his mouse to bring up an overlay of straight lines, resolving and clarifying the tattoos. Within

the Russian Mafiya, Rubens said, tattoos comprise a rather complex symbolic language, a code, if you will. This image isn’t clear enough for a complete translation, but computer enhancement allows at least a partial reading.

Here A pointer darted across the screen, indicating a large tattoo over Braslov solar plexus. A crucifix. It signifies a prince of thieves,’ someone with a high ranking within the organization. Above the crucifix a crown. That means the wearer is a pakhan,

the leader of a thieves family. Think of a Sicilian Mafia don, the head of one of the Five Families.

And above the crown The pointer shifted to a blurred mark beneath Braslov throat. An eight- pointed star, sometimes called a chaos star

. Another rank insignia. It means Braslov is a member of the very highest levels of Russian organized crime.

From this, we can infer that Braslov is a member of the Russian Mafiya, most likely one of the Moscow families. If he socializing with Kotenko at a Black Sea dacha, it possible that we’re seeing evidence of some sort of alliance. Braslov direct involvement with Greenworld suggests some sort of disinformation campaign, but we’re not sure of that yet. Braslov may be there in his official capacity as an officer of Russian Internal Security or he may be there as a key player with the Mafiya or he may be there for both

.

You, Mr. Dean, are going to make contact with Braslov in London. You’ll have Mr. Karr already there, as backup. L’ Section will provide you with a small bugging device and remote transmitter that will allow us to eavesdrop on Braslov conversations. We’re particularly interested in what he is doing as an agent inside of Greenworld.

I can’t stress this strongly enough, Mr. Dean. The Russian Mafiya is an extraordinary threat in today world. It has already demonstrated its potential for destabilizing

nations and economies worldwide, and might well do so on a global scale. We need to know what going on over thereif there is an alliance between the St. Petersburg and Moscow gangs, if the Russian government is in on such an alliance, and just what it is that they’re up to.

Dean slouched back in his chair, then nodded. Yes, sir.

He was worried, frankly, about Lia. From the little he’d heard so far, Lia and Akulinin had come up against the St. Petersburg mob and bounced. It hardly seemed credible. Desk Three routinely took on national governmentsChina, North Korea, Syria, Russiaand emerged victorious. It didn’t seem possible that a gang of common criminals could best the Agency field operators.

And that thought, Dean decided, highlighted the problem. Members of the Russian Mafiya, whatever else they might be, were not

common criminals. They were smart, they were wealthy, they were powerful, they were as well armed and as well equipped as some small countries, and they were well connected with members of their own government and with powerful people in the governments of other countries.

Underestimating these people, Dean decided, could have decidedly lethal consequences.

Deep Black 7 - Arctic Gold

7

London Living Room

GLA Building, London

1420 hours GMT

TOMMY KARR WALKED OUT onto the broad observation platform that encircled the uppermost floor of London City Hall.

The Thames lay spread beneath him, gray- green and dotted with pleasure craft and barges. An ancient light cruiser, the HMS Belfast,

now a museum, lay tied up to the City Pier to the left, on the near bank almost at his feet. Beyond her, the clean, modern lines of the new London Bridge spanned the river, in front of the thrust and bustle of London business district and the far- off blue dome of St. Paul. To his right, downstream, rose the Tower Bridge, older and more conventional beneath its twin supporting caissons and towers that looked like the squared- off steeples of Anglican churches.

The bridge architecture fitted in perfectly with the sprawl of medieval castle walls, turrets, towers, and cupolas directly across the Thames from City Hall, the infamous Tower of London.

Closer at hand, the demonstration had spilled into the park and waterfront pier directly below City Hall, filling

it as far as the near end of the Tower Bridge, perhaps 150 yards away. Karr was looking down on a sea of people and brightly colored banners. Occasionally megaphone- directed chants rose the ten stories to the observation promenade, but mostly the noise was little more than a distant, subdued rumble.

Anything new on the telly? he asked aloud.

Nothing on CNN or the networks, Jeff Rockman voice said in his ear. BBC Two is carrying a lot of footage, though. It big news in Europe, at least. We’ve spotted you three or four times, now, when the cameras zoomed in on Spencer.

Karr grinned as he turned from the sprawling city panorama. Hi, Mom, he said. He could see a couple of media types nearby, a sharply dressed woman with a microphone and a shirt- sleeved partner with a minicam, filming the delegates.

The meetings had broken for an afternoon recess. A number of delegates had spilled out onto the promenade outside or wandered off to the building restaurant. The symposium had been going for more than four hours now and already generated several spirited, even acrimonious debates between various of the attendees. A Nigerian delegate had been ejected, loudly shouting that caps on emissions were tantamount to racism, a means of strangling the economies of third- world nations. Supposedly, the Kyoto Accords exempted developing countries from the stringencies of limiting their industrial emissions, in effect requiring industrial nations to pay a tax on their behalf. There still seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding on that point, however, generating a widespread sense that the developed countries were either patronizing the third world or strangling ittake your pick.

The entire issue was now so bound up with politics, money, and shrill invective that it was nearly impossible for mere facts

to make themselves heard.

Dr. Spencer, standing just outside the broad glass doors, appeared to be engaged in an ugly confrontation with a distinguished- looking Brit, a member of the Royal Society, if Karr remembered correctly.

Nonsense! the silver- haired delegate sputtered. Your data, sir, are contrived and inaccurate! Nothing can be clearer from the record than that the increased temperatures of the past century and a half are due to increased industrial emissions. Human

emissions!

Bullshit! Spencer snapped back. The total effect of the sun on Earth climate is overwhelmingly

greater than anything we can do to add or detract!

Sheer moonshine, sir! You have no proof

I have all the proof necessary, Sir James, if

you’re willing to pull your head out of your ass and listen to a dissenting view for a change!

Doctor

Spencer! I resent

Well, I must say they’re getting on famously, someone said at Karr side.

If they don’t kill each other first, Karr replied. He looked the other man over a nondescript, older man with white hair and the air of a banker, perhaps. Karr had seen him earlier that morning in the conference hall, standing off to one side, and assumed he was a delegate to the symposium.

Randolph Evans, Rockman voice whispered in Karr ear. GCHQ. He one of us.

Karr extended a hand. You’re Randolph Evans, aren’t you? GCHQ?

Evans took his hand. And you’re Kjartan Magnor- Karr. Tommy.’ NSA.

Karr grinned. Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, was Great Britain equivalent of the NSA.

An agreement dating back to 1947 called the United KingdomUSA Communications Intelligence Agreement, usually shortened to UKUSA, had forged an unusually close and highly covert alliance aimed at intercepting and decoding electronic intelligence all over the world. If GCHQ wasn’t a branch of the NSA by now, it was the next best thing a full partner in global espionage and SIGINT.

He didn’t bother asking Evans what he was doing here. If the operative was here on an op, he wouldn’t discuss the fact any more than Karr would. Karr could guess what GCHQ was interested in this afternoon, though.

A lot of very noisy people down there, he commented.

Indeed. Greenpeace. Greenworld. Several other environmentalist groups. They seem to think the world governments aren’t moving fast enough.

All in all a good thing, Karr said, nodding. When governments move quickly, that

when ordinary people need to start worrying.

As when they make the trains run on time?

Exactly. Or promise peace in our time.’

Ouch. TouchI(c).

Karr nodded toward the confrontation near the doors. Who the silver- haired gentleman threatening to throw Dr. Spencer off the roof?

Ah. Sir James Millvale. Distinguished member of Parliament. Highly respected Senior of the Royal Society. Environmental scientist. And thoroughly peeved that people like your Dr. Spencer may be about to turn the tide of official opinion against the idea that people are to blame for global warming after he and his party rammed through some rather expensive and deucedly inconvenient emissions standards here in this country. Millvale and his allies will look like fools, lose professional standing,

power, prestige. They have everything to lose, so they have stopped listening.

That supposed to be our fault?

Well, you Yanks do have the reputation for kicking over the apple cart. Boston Harbor, 1773?

You’re still carrying a grudge? You people have such

long memories.

Evans chuckled.

Before he could reply, however, Rockman interrupted over Karr communications system. Hey, Tommy? Looks like some trouble is developing downstairs.

Excuse me, Karr told Evans. I have a call.

He didn’t know if Evans was cleared to know about the highly secret communications implants used by Desk Three operatorsfor all Karr knew, GCHQ agents used the things as wellbut pulling out a satellite phone and holding it to his ear gave him plausible cover with the surrounding crowd of guests and delegates as he spoke with Rockman.

Jeff? What up?

We’re monitoring the situation through BBC Two and the security cameras inside the building, Rockman said. The NSA, it was said, could tap into any

security camera system worldwide, especially if the system was part of a computer- monitored network. The crowd outside just exploded. About fifty of them muscled past the security guards at the main entrance. That seems to have been a distraction, though, because when the guards started struggling with them, about fifty more vaulted a set of barrier fences and entered the building through a side door.

Are they armed?

Not that we can see, Rockman replied. But you may be about to have company.

Frowning, Karr said, Excuse me, to Evans and pushed

through the wide glass double doors into the building tenth- floor lobby. Leaning over a railing, Karr could look straight down the center of the staircase spiraling up the inside of the building, all the way to the entrance floor. Shouts and wild yells echoed up the staircase, along with the magnified thunder of running feet coming up the steps. It looked like the mob was up to the third floor already no, the fourth.

Returning to the promenade outside, he signaled Delgado and Payne, who were flanking Spencer as the American continued arguing with Sir James. With things apparently peaceful enough, other than Spencer disagreement with the locals, Rogers had wandered off to find the cafeteria and get something to eat.

Some of the protestors just jumped the security barriers, Karr told the two FBI agents. They’re on their way up. We need to get Sunny here someplace safe.

Inside, Delgado suggested. In the speakers’ area. There a green room.

The green room was a place for delegates to rest and hang out without being pestered by the news media or other noisy types. Karr nodded. The room had one entrance, which could be easily defended.

Still, he didn’t want to overreact. When Greenpeace activists protesting the Star Wars initiative had broken through the security perimeter at Menwith Hill a few years ago, they’d used similar tactics. A few, designated hares, had cut through the fence and run across the compound, drawing off the security guards. Then the main body, designated rabbits, had swarmed over the fence, climbed communications towers, and raised banners. They’d stayed long enough to pose for the media cameras, some of them wearing outlandish costumes representing ballistic missiles, before being evicted or, in some cases, arrested and carried off to waiting police vans for trespass.

Most likely, the activists downstairs were going to try to crash the symposium party, shout some slogans, maybe hang up some banners, and grab some high- quality airtime on the evening news.

But they couldn’t afford to take chances, not with the death threats against him. They closed in on Spencer.

Excuse me, sir, Payne told him, interrupting a diatribe by Sir James. We have a situation. If you would come with us

I beg

your pardon, young man, Sir James said. He was furious, his face bright red. We are having a private discussion!

You can discuss things with the mob, sir, Karr told him. They’re on their way up!

Eh? Sir James stopped, listened, then scowled. My word. What is

that ungodly racket?

We have them on the eighth floor, Rockman said. They just pushed past a couple of security guards like they weren’t even there. More of them are coming in through the main doors now, too. Looks like this thing was planned.

We may not have time to reach the green room, Karr told the FBI agents. Come on. Over here.

Delgado was holding his earphone in place, talking rapidly to Rogers over a needle mike beside his mouth. Karr heard him say, Get the hell back here!

Karr led them back from the glass doors, putting a number of confusedly milling delegates between them and the oncoming mob. Moments later, the doors swung open and a large number of activists spilled out onto the sightseeing platform.

Most, Karr saw, were young peopleteenagers or twenty- somethings. They had the somewhat trendy- shabby look of protestors everywhere, wearing jeans, sandals, T- shirts, and, among the males, at any rate, lots of facial hair. Many were chanting: USA! CO2 USA! CO2

! Karr saw signs and waving banners, clenched fists and raw emotion.

Security guards and London bobbies burst through the door after them, but there were too many protestors scattering across and around the encircling promenade. Five protestors emerged from the tenth- floor lobby of the GLA carrying a cumbersome sixty- foot- long bundle, bright green and tightly rolled up. They hauled it to the safety railing at the edge of the promenade, which canted sharply inward over the walkway, and began muscling their burden over the side. Others formed a barrier between the five and the police, who in short order were surrounded by a mob of chanting, shouting protestors.

Delegates to the symposium were scattering everywhere, running protestors among them. The situation was completely chaotic, completely out of control. Tightly wedged in around Dr. Spencer, Karr and the two FBI agents backed their charge away from the confrontation.

The five protestors had everyone attention now. They’d anchored their heavy bundle to the top railing of the safety fence around the promenade, locking it in place with chains and padlocks sewn into the heavy material. When they released the bundle, it tumbled out over the slanted railing, then down the side of the building with a sharp crack, an enormous green banner hanging from the building top floor.

From this angle, Karr couldn’t see what was on the banner, but he could guess something about a green world and no global warming, perhaps. The protestors now were ganging up on the police and security guards. People were screaming and running.