A Raging Storm

Jones threw up his hands in exasperation. “I wish I knew. Petrov wouldn’t tell us, but he claimed that he could take us to where the rest of the gold bullion was hidden.”

“All of the gold bars?”

“Actually, Petrov claimed the treasure consisted of one million kilogram bars hidden by the KGB, plus other precious metals. The total worth is about sixty billion dollars.”

“Sixty billion!” Storm repeated. “As in B?”

“Yes,” Jones said. “Now that’s a treasure worth finding, wouldn’t you say?”

CHAPTER SIX

ones collected the four photographs from Storm and placed them back into the thick file, which he inserted back into his wall safe.

“Why did he ask you for help?” Storm said. “Petrov’s a billionaire. Why not hire a private army of mercenaries? For sixty billion, he could buy a country.”

“If only it were that easy,” Jones answered. “Who would you trust to help you recover sixty billion in gold bars and precious metals? Guns for hire? Mercenaries?”

“Good point,” Storm said. “I remember a PI case I had. A couple murdered their parents for five grand in life insurance. Imagine what people would do when sixty billion is at stake.”

“Petrov hinted that the gold is in a remote, difficult-to-reach location. He needs the kind of manpower and machinery that we can get him. And there’s another problem: Petrov is not as wealthy as everyone has been led to believe. Barkovsky froze the oligarch’s assets in Russia after they had a falling out and he fled from Moscow. Our analysts believe he only has access to seven to ten million.”

“Only seven or ten million,” Storm grunted. “Boo hoo. Makes me want to cry.”

“It doesn’t last long if you have a palatial estate in England, an Embassy Row mansion here in Washington, D.C., and a billion-dollar yacht sitting idle in the Mediterranean.”

“So what’s in it for you?” Storm asked.

“If we help him get the sixty billion, Petrov will use it to launch an insurgency against President Barkovsky.”

“A war?”

“No, but he’d finance protest rallies, bribe officials, plant news stories, and make Barkovsky’s life and presidency a living hell.”

“Is getting rid of Barkovsky worth going to bed with Petrov?” Storm asked. “Why not just have him killed if you want to get rid of him?”

“We don’t really do that anymore.”

“Sure you don’t,” Storm said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Does that mean you turned down Petrov?”

“Absolutely, we turned him down,” Jones replied. “We can’t kill foreign leaders anymore and we can’t topple foreign governments either. Congress has passed laws that specifically forbid us from doing that sort of thing. This isn’t the 1950s and 1960s when you could put poison in one of Fidel Castro’s cigars.”

“Yeah, but if I recall, that cigar stunt didn’t work.”

“It could have,” Jones said. “Creative thinking on our part. That’s something I’ve always admired. But back to the gold. There are other reasons why we can’t get involved in searching for the gold. One reason is that it still belongs to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, the Communist Party in Russia still does. It’s the second largest political party in that nation. All those little Commie bastards didn’t just disappear overnight. By international law, that money still belongs to them.

“Here’s another reason,” Jones said. “President Barkovsky has made it clear to the White House that any cooperation our government extends to Petrov will be seen as a hostile act against him and his nation. The guy might be nuts, but he still has his finger on a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and most of them are pointed at us. We don’t want to encourage his paranoid hatred of the U.S.”

“And finally,” Jones continued, “we’ve got an internal problem. The day after that photograph of the kilobar was taken inside my office, the Russian ambassador paid an unannounced visit on the secretary of state and specifically stated that any attempt by the U.S. to recover the missing gold would be considered an act of international piracy.”

“You got a leak. Someone tipped off the Russians.”

“Exactly,” Jones said. “Barkovsky knew about our private meeting in my office — this office — within twenty-four hours.”

“A mole?”

“Yes, but I don’t think the mole is on our side. I think it’s in Petrov’s camp. Only I can’t be sure.”