“In the early nineties, I was told a significant quantity of crude oil was being smuggled out of Iraq in spite of the economic embargo. I was also told I could obtain access to this oil through a certain Jordanian intermediary and no objection would be raised by the Americans if I brokered this oil to a very specific list of companies. As it turned out, all of these companies were controlled by politicians in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.”
“Why would anyone in the US want to help the Iraqis sell embargoed oil?”
“Just think about it, Jack. It was really a very clever play. The Americans knew the Iraqis were going to sell the oil anyway, so if they secretly helped do it, they would at least have some measure of control over how much got sold and where it went. They would even know how the Iraqis were being paid and could keep track of what they did with the money. Best of all, they could use the sale of the oil itself to funnel money to people in Asia who they wanted to influence, a part of the world where they needed some new friends. It was a sweet deal all around.”
“For you, too, I imagine.”
“Well…yes, it was. I wasn’t doing all this for intellectual stimulation. I made money at it. That’s the way business works.”
“Did you make a lot of money?”
“Yes,” Karsarkis said, “I made a lot of money.”
His tone had an edge of challenge to it, but I didn’t argue the point. If Karsarkis was telling the truth and if his oil sales had been officjusially sanctioned, then there wasn’t very much of an argument to be made. Companies were in business to make money, weren’t they? I could hardly object to Karsarkis doing it, particularly if his deal carried the stamp of approval of the United States of America.
“That was when things started to go bad.” Karsarkis looked at me and hesitated. “I was asked to take on Cynthia Kim,” he said, “to give her cover as my assistant.”
He paused again, but I made an impatient gesture and he went on.
“I was told she was involved in tracking the money the Iraqis received from the oil sales and I assumed Cynthia was CIA. But she wasn’t CIA after all it turned out, and she had a rather more ambitious agenda than accounting for a little oil money. Eventually I found out Cynthia was sent to me straight from the White House.”
“Are you saying you were in direct contact with the president?” I asked carefully.
“That was always implied, of course, but…well, if not directly with him, then with the boys in the basement. That’s more or less the same thing.”
“The boys in the basement?”
“The National Security Council. Their operations center is in the basement of the Executive Office Building next door to the White House. The President’s staff calls them the boys in the basement. Very colorful, huh? Full of implications.”
“But the NSC is just-”
“Yeah, that’s what everybody else thinks, too. Nothing but a bunch of paper pushers and professors on leave.” Karsarkis shot me a quick look. “No offense, Jack.”
I ignored both Karsarkis’ insult and his apology. “Maybe I’m really not with you here. The NSC doesn’t handle covert operations.”
“Really?”
Karsarkis seemed amused.
“You mean covert operations like the guns for hostages deal with Iran Ollie North ran out of the Reagan White House? Or maybe you mean covert operations like the hit squads the NSC funded in Nicaragua to murder the left-wing priests and other threats to their friends there. Or maybe, if you want an example a little closer to home, you mean covert operations like using the Asian Bank of Commerce for large-scale money laundering and then murdering people to cover it up when Jack Shepherd discovered what was going on and-”
“Okay,” I interrupted, “you’ve made your point.”
“Good.”
I sighed and waved to Karsarkis to continue.
“Cynthia’s mission was focused on Indonesia,” he said. “Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world and it has the largest Muslim population on earth. Historically, Southeast Asian Muslims have been far more moderate than Arab Muslims, but that was changing, partly because of a determined effort by Arab Muslims to create instability there and partly because of the homegrown efforts of some Indonesians. The country seemed ripe to blow. If it did, Afghanistan would look like the good old days.”
“I don’t see anything odd about the NSC being interested in Indonesia. That’s what they do. They track hot spots and advise the president on how to respond before a full-blown crisis develops.”
Karsarkis leaned back and crossed his legs at the knee. He seemed to think for a moment about what I is said, but I doubted that. My guess was that he was thinking about something else altogether, something I probably could never even begin to imagine.
FORTY SIX
“Cynthia’s job was to build a close relationship with a group of presumably moderate Indonesian Muslims,” he said. “The idea was to cultivate a manageable force as buffer between the military and the worst of the Islamic radicals.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? It’s the formula you Americans always use, and it just keeps blowing up in your faces. Good God, you can see the same thing happening over and over. Americans try to make friends with some revolutionary movement that seems less dangerous than the rest of them, starts supplying resources, even weapons, then eventually these people turn the very weapons you gave them against you and the cycle starts all over again with someone new.”
Karsarkis uncrossed his legs and leaned toward me.
“Cynthia was in contact with an Indonesian known to her as Jabir. He convinced her if his group was to maintain its credibility with Indonesian Muslims, it had to show the ability and the will to engage in violence. Eventually Cynthia bought the argument-actually, it did make sense-and agreed to provide weapons as well as some explosives and detonators to Jabir. I agreed to allow her to use ships owned by Icon to do it. For his part, Jabir promised he would only engage in small operations that caused limited damage, undertaking them just for the effect of it but…” Karsarkis rolled his shoulders in a sort of shrug, “things didn’t work out quite that way.”
“What happened?”
“Some of the explosives we delivered to him were used for the Christmas Eve bombing campaign in 2000. Thirty Christian churches in Indonesia were bombed almost simultaneously, but most of the devices were so badly made they only managed to kill about a dozen people. Some more of the stuff turned up in Singapore five years later when the Singaporeans broke up a plot to bomb the American and Australian embassies there.”
“And the rest of it?” I asked. “What happened to the rest of it?”
I thought I could guess where this was going, but I hoped I was wrong.
“Yes, well…” Karsarkis looked away.
“Bali?” I asked.
Karsarkis nodded slowly. “When the bombings took place in Bali, some of the explosives and one of the detonators were traced back to the original lot Cynthia acquired for Jabir, the stuff Icon delivered to him.”
“Oh, Christ,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “And Jabir? What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He just faded away. Maybe we were manipulated from the beginning. Maybe he never even existed.” Karsarkis spoke so softly I had to strain to hear him. “Nearly two hundred people dead, most of them Australian kids, and the stuff that killed them traceable to an NSC operation gone wrong and a man who may never have existed.”
“And you, of course. Those explosives were also traceable to you.”
“Yes,” Karsarkis nodded. “With your usual quickness, Jack, you seem to have grasped the first part of my problem.”
