Covert Kill: A David Rivers Thriller

Not much.

To be fair, Ian’s search effort was valiant, to say the least. If the team’s goal was to create a psychological dossier on the banker based on his physical possessions, he’d have a hell of a lot to work with.

But as for intelligence? Well, Cancer thought, let’s see. The man’s ChapStick—which Ian had taken on the assumption that it could have been a clandestine USB stick, instead turned out to be, well, fucking ChapStick. Not that it did anyone on the team a lot of good at present, because after a brief analysis of his cell phone contacts and seeing how many mistresses the man juggled outside of his marriage, no one particularly wanted to risk skin contact with an item that had come anywhere near his mouth.

Cancer’s eyes fell upon the only useful item from the pile, which he snatched up as Ian protested, “Hey! I haven’t searched that yet.”

“Keep your pants on,” Cancer replied, cracking the lid with a cursory glance to confirm there was no concealed microchip. Lo and behold, there wasn’t. The container of breath mints was, predictably, filled with breath mints.

At least the night wasn’t a total wash, he thought, tossing a mint into his mouth and nodding with approval.

Extending the container to David, he said, “Mint?”

“Screw it,” David muttered, “why not.”

Cancer shook out a second mint and tossed it to his team leader, then offered the package to Ian. After a moment of hesitation, he declined, and Cancer set the pack down among the table’s yet-unsearched contents.

Well, that was that, Cancer thought. Five Agency contractors and one host nation driver asset had targeted a known scumbag, taken everything he had, and the final mission outcome was that two people now had fairly fresh breath. Wonderful.





25





Duchess tapped a finger against her lips, mulling over the contents of her OPCEN computer screen.

Beside her, reading over the same report, Jo Ann said, “Other caller on the line seems a little well-educated to be Boko Haram.”

“To say the least,” Duchess muttered.

“So who do you think it is?”

“I have no idea,” she allowed, “but the real problem is that no one else does, either.”

Half the reason they’d shaken down the banker, she thought, was to collect intelligence. But the other half was to see what he did afterward—and with Bailey’s ISA team monitoring his communications ahead of the robbery, everyone in the Project Longwing OPCEN was expecting some particularly juicy information to surface immediately afterward.

And to an extent, it had: one phone call, a quick and suggestive exchange, and then total silence from Keyamo. No attempts to contact anyone else, least of all the police, to report the theft.

And despite the best efforts of her own people as well as the ISA team over the past thirty-five minutes, no one had yet been able to run down exactly where the other phone number led to. She’d expected to find some immediate link to Boko Haram, but whoever Keyamo had spoken to didn’t seem concerned with systematic violence—instead, he seemed concerned with money.

She scanned over the transcript of that phone call again, searching for any connection and finding none.



[call begins]

KEYAMO: Sir, I was robbed tonight. Outside my home.

UNKNOWN: The payment?

KEYAMO: Gone. Along with my phone, wallet, and computer. It is no longer safe—

UNKNOWN: I will assign bodyguards to you, and cover the lost payment as a sign of good faith. But you will continue the arrangement, Mr. Keyamo. Nothing stops the transfers.

KEYAMO: Sir, I believe the thieves were white. And one...one spoke Russian.

UNKNOWN: [inaudible] not confuse yourself. I do not know who robbed you, but I know exactly who did not. [end call]



She looked up to see Andolin Lucios ascending the tiered levels of OPCEN seating, carrying a tablet at his side.

“Tell me you found something,” she said as he approached.

His face was expressionless, but that told her nothing. Whether delivering groundbreaking news or notifying her of some catastrophic setback, the intelligence officer’s face and voice rarely betrayed any semblance of emotion.

Stopping beside her desk, he said, “We couldn’t find the number in the public directory because it wasn’t there—it was in the government directory.”

There it was, Duchess thought, feeling the tingling sensation that always followed some new twist in intelligence. She asked, “You have an ID?”

Lucios consulted his tablet.

“Chukwuma Ndatsu Malu. Permanent Secretary for Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, which makes him God as far as joint venture oil and gas contracts go.”

“Is the ISA tracking that?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re keeping them looped in as per your guidance. Now an initial scan of Malu’s financials reveals that he’s been receiving regular deposits from Gradsek in varying amounts, usually on a monthly basis.”

“Outside of government channels?” she asked.

Lucios gave a curt nod.

“That’s right, the money goes directly to a personal account. Now that’s not very surprising, to be honest. Political corruption is systematic in Nigeria—their elected officials have siphoned hundreds of billions from the national bank in the past few decades alone. Based on the amounts we’re seeing from Gradsek, it looks like they’re just keeping the wheels greased for political approval on their expansions, based on some kind of a fixed percentage for each new contract. Any oil company worth its salt is probably doing this at every level in the chain of approval.”

Duchess felt her shoulders sag. “So this is nothing to get worked up about.”

“Sadly, not at all. Actually pretty conservative for what we’d expect from a man in Malu’s position, but the forensic accountants are just getting warmed up and this guy has more accounts than an offshore bank. The money is hidden between business holdings, shell companies, charitable foundations, and family assets...that’s just considering his official portfolio. There could be any number of additional accounts under proxy names.”

“Keep digging, and let me know what else you find out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucios said, turning to depart.

Waiting until he was out of earshot, Jo Ann asked, “What do you make of that?”

“Nothing yet,” Duchess replied. “But the China mission linked us to international terrorist financing through the Central Bank of Nigeria, and that just led us to Keyamo. Now there’s a high-ranking politician in the mix, so our next play is to see how Malu reacts to the theft.”

She lifted her phone from the receiver as Jo Ann asked, “Who are you calling?”

“Your friend at the ISA.”

Jo Ann shook her head. “Bailey will call as soon as he has something.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’ve worked with him before. I’m sure.”

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