congressional stomachs churn. Narcom, Inc., provided the political antacid of deniability.
It was a marriage made perhaps not in heaven, but strong nonetheless.
In less than a minute she hung up and came around the desk. Jason stood to receive a hug that might have crushed the lungs of a man less fit.
'Jason! Good to see you again; always good to see one of Mama's boys!'
Mama's boys, the name she gave all her operatives, although Jason had met very few. By its nature, Narcom's business was strictly compartmentalized.
She relaxed her embrace, allowing Jason to draw a breath before he sat down. She returned to her chair behind the desk before speaking.
'How you doin' on that island of yours?'
'I'm not there anymore. I had some visitors.'
As he related what had happened, she nodded. 'Uh-huh. You stirred a stick in a bees' nest when you did Alazar down there in St. Bart's.'
'You know that wasn't my fault. Whoever mixed the tranquilizing solution overdid it.'
'I know, but somebody doesn't. Not that it matters. One less of those animals. I would have liked to ask him a few questions, though.'
Alazar was fortunate, Jason thought, to be dead.
Mama continued. 'Sounds like six bad guys won't be a problem anymore.'
'At the cost of a damn nice house,' Jason grumbled.
'With what you get paid, you can afford it,' she said amicably. 'But that's not why I invited you here.'
She reached into a desk drawer and handed him a sheet of paper. On it was a series of lines in what Jason recognized as Russian. 'This came off the computer you sent me, the one you took from Alazar.'
Jason stared at the paper, unable to even guess what it was. 'I speak a little Russian, but I don't read it.'
Mama took the paper back. 'Appears to be some sort of shopping list, an order for something that he supplied that was successfully used by the customer; refers to a type of new weapon. From the context, military intelligence thinks it's some sort of biochemical warfare, since it refers to 'containers.'' She wrinkled a brow. 'Also talks about 'keeping it healthy,' like some sort of microbe.'
The most oxymoronic of all government bureaucracy: military intelligence.
Right up there with legal ethics.
Jason leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. 'And?'
The woman on the other side of the desk shook her head reproachfully, sending gold chandelier earrings flashing with reflected light. 'I'll get there, Jason; just show me the courtesy of listening. Thing that got the attention over to Langley was the date this new whatever-it- is was used, last June.'
Jason swallowed the urge to ask a number of questions, knowing Mama would answer most of them in her own way and in her own time.
'Last June, one of our coast guard boats in the Bering Sea found a Russian trawler, one of those supersize fishing boats. The whole crew had had their throats cut.'
Jason hunched forward in his chair, impatient to get to the point. 'So? We're not in the business of protecting foreign fishing boats, particularly those poaching in our waters like I'd bet that one was.'
Mama nodded, multiple chins shaking. 'Jason, you just won't wait, will you? Whatever happened to manners? Anyway, this Russian trawler was just the beginning. Since then, there've been loggers in Georgia, a team of geologists looking for possible oil off Florida's west coast, an Indian chemical plant executive and his whole family, a Polish coal mine owner and…' She stopped and took a deep breath. 'You get the idea. All found with their throats cut, no sign of any resistance.'
Jason leaned back, letting the chair's softness envelop him. 'Overfishing, timber cutting, petroleum exploration… All ecological hot buttons. We've seen people chain themselves to trees, lie down in front of earth movers, even blow up some labs where animal experimentation is going on. But murder?'
'Not the first time. There've been occasional acts of violence by the lunatic fringe. This time, though, it looks like a well-organized, concerted effort.'
'And why does the client want to dump this in our lap?'
'I don't ask questions, Jason. I just take the money and perform the service. That's part of the company's success. If I had to guess, though, I'd say the present administration doesn't want to get involved with anything looks like opposition to environmental causes, even violent ones. This is, after all, right before an election year, and the president isn't the tree kissers' hero. On the other hand, the Feds can't just sit by while people get killed.'
Jason thought that over. Made sense. 'And none of them seemed to put up a fight? I mean, someone was trying to give me that close a shave, I'd at least try.'
'That's part of the problem.'
'Or a clue.' Jason uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. 'Any idea why they didn't put up a fight? Drugs, poison?'
Mama placed the report on her desk, sausagelike fingers squaring the edges. 'Not a glimmer. Autopsies on the Russian crew and the loggers were no help. Only thing unusual was that each person had a slight amount of sul- fates in the lungs and bloodstream, probably less than they would have inhaled from auto exhausts in any large city. And ethylene gas in the lung tissues.'
'There aren't any cities in the Bering Sea. And what, exactly, is ethylene?'
'Dunno. Part of your job's gonna be to find out.' She slipped the report across the desk. 'Take this with you. It's classified, of course.'
'Of course.' Jason would not have been surprised if the people at Langley classified their grocery lists.
'That's jus' a summary. They got a complete one they'll deliver to you, a report on 'the Breath of the Earth.''
'The Breath of…?'
'Breath of the Earth. At least, that's how the note on Alazar's computer refers to whatever it is.'
Jason recrossed his legs, this time at the knee. 'Breath of the Earth, sulfur, ethylene… sounds more like halitosis to me. But then, halitosis is better than no breath at all.'
Mama leaned forward, the desk groaning under her bulk. 'Make all the jokes you like; our client takes this very, very seriously.'
'So, you want me to do what?'
Mama shrugged. 'First, we need to ascertain exactly what happened to those men on the fishing boat, the loggers, the others, see if there's any threat in this Breath of the Earth, whatever it might be. Then destroy it and whoever is using it.'
'I don't suppose we have a name, an idea of who's behind this?'
Mama leaned farther forward, her elbows on the desk. 'Matter of fact, we have an idea.'
'Want to share it, or you'd rather I find out myself?'
She slowly shook her head in disapproval. 'Sarcasm doesn't become you, Jason. There's an organization-if you can call it that-called Eco. Maybe you didn't know it, but the various conservationist groups around the world raise more money than the economy of a lot of third-world countries. Eco has gotten rich from unwitting but well- meaning green groups. Every concert in Japan to cease whaling operations, every T-shirt sold in Germany bearing the Grun logo, every contribution to a conservationist cause, even the sale of some ecology-friendly devices such as recycling bins and biodegradable trash bags, Eco gets a cut, either by contract or just plain, oldfashioned extortion. You know, 'We'll 'guarantee' your rally for the three-toed tree frog will be peaceful' et cetera.
'Eco's agenda, so far as we can tell, certainly includes the industries where people have been killed, and they have the money. We don't have anything more concrete than that.'
'So, why not infiltrate and see what they're up to?'
'Easier said. They don't have members in the conventional sense. The only reason they came to our client's attention was a large transfer of cash to Alazar's Swiss account from a number of banks around the world, all within twenty-four hours.'
Although the Swiss still prided themselves on bank secrecy, they could do nothing to prevent a record of any wire transfer of funds by SWIFT, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, the Brussels- based clearing center for all electronic transfers. Most of the world, including international criminals, were ignorant
