“And your forecast?” Gordian asked. “I’m talking about Russia and elsewhere.”
Scull shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever, I guess, but I don’t see any major blips on my screen, bumps on the road, pick your favorite metaphor. Name a spot on the map that hosts an UpLink bureau or is linked to our satcom net, and you’ll see people with a better quality of life. And not even the most balls-on tyrant wants to be known as the Grinch who’d mess with prosperity. Goes to show free market democratization works, folks.”
“And that the fear of political backlash is a viable substitute for conscience with most heads of state,” Megan said. She glanced at Scull. “You’ll notice, Vince, I made my point without a single mention of the lower anatomy.”
Gordian smiled thinly.
“I’m pleased in either case,” he said, sipping from a glass of Coke.
More discussion had followed across a range of subjects. How was the Sword hiring drive in India going? In South Africa? Where were they in terms of testing that new firearm developed by the nonlethal weapons division? The implementation of intranet software upgrades? What about those negotiations with Poland? And the possible ramifications of the sudden death of Bolivian president-elect Alberto Colon? The tragedy of it went beyond his youth. His humanitarian values and aggressive challenge to the minicartels had promised to spark a regional trend and led to preliminary talks with UpLink about joint commercial initiatives with his country. What were the prospects for those efforts without Colón at the young administration’s helm?
And so on and so forth. At noon they broke for a lunch of cold poached salmon with hollandaise, and capers and cucumber salad, freshly prepared in the Pomona ’s galley, brought in with decorum by a pair of adept servers, and eaten with corresponding appreciation.
It was not by chance that they had waited until after their meal to bring up the previous spring’s sabotage of a NASA space shuttle carrying UpLink orbital technology, and Sword’s presumably connected encounters with paid terrorists in southern Brazil and Kazakhstan — the “nasty affair” to which Scull had alluded. A number of solved, and Gordian had wanted everything else on the agenda out of the way so they could devote the latter half of the meeting to them without digression.
The empty dishes carried off, he’d turned his penetrating blue eyes toward Rollie Thibodeau.
“Okay,” he said. “Any progress to report?”
Thibodeau pursed his lips.
“Some,” he said. “Got to do with Le Chaut Sauvage.”
Nimec would later recall seeing Ricci tense with something between edginess and anger at Thibodeau’s mention of the tag he’d given the terrorists’ otherwise nameless field commander, Cajun French for “The Wildcat.” A man who had twice eluded their efforts to capture him, the second time after tearing away from Ricci during a fierce hand-to-hand struggle at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
“Up till a few days ago, we didn’t have anythin’ would give us a firm lead on him,” Thibodeau had continued. “Was plenty for guesswork, though, startin’ with what we knew about that American botanist in Peru got kidnapped and ransomed for seven million back in ‘97. He say the guy callin’ the shots with the narco-guerrillas who did the snatch was tall, blond, an’ light-skinned, body like a weight lifter. Ordered him returned to his family minus both eyes.”
Gordian shook his head in horror. “Making a positive ID by the victim close to impossible, if any of his abductors were ever captured,” he said. “The cold-blooded logic certainly fits our man.”
Thibodeau nodded. “Ain’t the worst of it, either. Word out of the Sudan was that someone with the same looks headed up mercenary extermination squads in the south, part of the country they call the triangle of death. This’d be two years ago, when the civil war heated up. Wiped out entire villages hostile to the radicals in Khartoum. Men, women, children, the old an’ sick, wasn’t no difference to him.” He scowled. “Son of a bitch ain’t just cold-blooded. Be a monster.”
“And he gets around,” Nimec said. “Remember the Air Paris flight that was hijacked in Morocco last year? Another hostage situation, another large payoff. The Algerians who took responsibility threatened to start killing the children first and convinced the authorities it wasn’t a bluff. They were provided with a private jet as a condition of the hostage release, flew off to an unknown location, and got away clean with twenty million francs. Or mostly clean.” He leaned forward. “This one has a silver lining, Gord.”
Gordian had waited.
“The hijacker giving the orders never removed his stocking mask on the tarmac outside the plane. But inside with the air-conditioning down, no ventilation, it was another story,” Nimec said. “Take one guess how he was described by the passengers who saw his face when the mask came off.”
Gordian looked at him. “Blond, light-complected.”
“And a heavy lifter,” Nimec said, nodding. “Definitely wasn’t Algerian, spoke with an accent that might’ve been either Swiss or German.” He paused. “I prepared a brief on the incident when it happened, but because we didn’t have any involvement, it had kind of escaped my mind. Then I came across my thumbnail on the computer while reviewing data for our own investigation, and got to thinking the blond guy responsible might be the same guy we’re after. So I went back into the files and out popped the most crucial detail as far as we’re concerned. Namely, a French ambassador being held on board managed to get a photo of him when he wasn’t paying attention. He was so traumatized, it was months before he remembered the film and had it developed.”
Gordian had raised his eyebrows.
“Did you actually see a copy of the photo?”
“Not then, I didn’t,” Nimec said. “But thanks to Rollie, I have.”
Thibodeau minimized this accomplishment with a wave of his hand.
“Couldn’t beat Pete’s source for the info, a unit commander in the Gendarmerie National crisis intervention team at the airport,” he said. “Only trouble was that he gave it off the record and uncorroborated. No GIGN official would admit there was a snapshot for a couple reasons. One, they’re supposed to be the best, and it embarrassed ‘em that the hijackers escaped. They wanted to save face, make it harder for competin’ agencies to run ’em down before they did. Two, the ambassador got scared, pulled strings to make the picture disappear. Figured the terrorists might take revenge on him or his family if it was ever used as evidence in court and they found out who took it. I was in his spot, maybe I’d feel that way, too.”
“Tell me how you got hold of it,” Gordian said.
Thibodeau shrugged. “The ambassador ain’t the only one has contacts. I called in an IOU with somebody in Europol, who did the same with somebody else. Like that, soit. Took a while for anything to shake. Then one morning last week, I turn on my computer, and there’s the photo attached to an encrypted E-mail. Right away I recognize our man from that airstrip in the Pantanal, but I punch up the satellite image the Hawkeye-I got of him just to be a hundred percent sure. Forwarded the pair of ‘em to Ricci, since he actually seen him up close.”