Hidden Agendas

things on his mind.

Toni came into his office. He looked up. Her face, while not grim, was certainly serious. 'More good news?' he asked.

'Maybe we can't wait on White's chartered jet to deliver Mr. Thomas Hughes to us after all.'

Michaels put the food box down. 'Never rains but it pours. What?'

'It seems that about an hour ago, FBI field agents who went to Chicago's O'Hare airport to set up a surveillance on the gate where Platt was supposed to catch a plane to England goofed up.'

'Goofed up. There's a nice phrase. What does ‘goofed up' mean? And how did they know where he would be?'

'Once we knew who we were looking for, we found a couple of hidden accounts that Hughes had set up, small stuff, less than twenty or thirty thousand in each. Hughes tried to hide his connection to them, but not very hard. Platt used money from one of the accounts to book his ticket — and under a phony name.'

'How do you know it was Platt?'

'Who else would be tapping into a slush account to buy a plane ticket overseas right now? We tipped off the field guys. The agents got there several hours ahead of the scheduled departure time, but Platt was already there. He spotted them.'

'And he got away, didn't he?'

'The field agents aren't willing to concede that yet. But he did escape from the terminal building by assaulting a ticket agent and a freight handler. Stole a freight truck and disappeared. The FBI is looking, but it's a big airport.'

'Yeah, that might be called a goof-up. Best-and-worst-case scenarios?'

Toni leaned against the wall. 'Best case, they find him hiding behind a shipment of lawn furniture five minutes from now and take him into custody, whereupon he spills his guts and gives the federal prosecutors enough useful data to overload and sink an aircraft carrier. Hughes comes home, we grab him, he gets fifty years, and dies in jail when he's a hundred.'

Michaels smiled at her. 'I like that one.'

'Worst-case scenario, Platt gets away, calls — or manages to get to — Africa, where he informs Hughes the game is over and we're on to him. Hughes hunkers down behind his money and lives happily ever after in the guest room at the Presidential Palace, then dies at a hundred from eating too much caviar.'

'I don't much like that story. Why is it I think it is more likely?'

'They could still catch him.'

Michaels shook his head. 'Somehow, my faith in the FBI's field ops is not as strong as it once was.' He paused, staring at the congealing noodles and tofu. 'Where is Colonel Howard?'

'In the air, on an Air Force jet. He should be here within the next couple of hours. What are we going to do?'

'Right now, if Platt wants to pick up a phone and call Hughes, can we stop him?'

'Jay says we can. If the virgil number Platt called before is the only one Hughes is using, we can jam it so it won't accept incoming calls. But there are other phones in Bissau, some of which probably even work. We can't block them all.'

'Did you lay out what's going on for the colonel?'

'Not yet.'

'Call him, tell him. Tell him to lay out his incursion scenarios. Find out what our chances are of going in and grabbing Hughes.'

'Are we ready to take that road yet, Alex?'

'This guy terrorized the country, caused people to die, nearly gave a big chunk of a nuclear bomb to a bunch of nuts, and stole a shitload of money. I want to see him behind bars. If we do it right, we're in and out before anybody figures out what's going on, and Mr. Thomas Hughes belongs to us. I'm ready.'

'I'll call the colonel.'

The intercom buzzed. 'Yes?'

'Sir, your wife's lawyer is on the phone.'

Great. 'Get his number. Then have my lawyer call him.'

Toni looked at him.

'It's a long story. I'll tell you about it when we get caught up.'

Sunday, January 16th, 5 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

Hughes stood on the terraced balcony outside his room, looking over the pink buildings of the compound at the surrounding grounds. It wasn't so bad here, when you had this kind of accommodation. You could build yourself a decent house in this country for twenty thousand dollars, a mansion for less than a hundred thousand. And he had forty million. He'd manage.

He leaned against the balcony railing, watching a shirtless native gardener with a hoe dig weeds from a flower bed. You could hire a guy like that for twenty bucks a month.

Yes. He'd do all right here.

The deal with Domingos had gone as smoothly as it could have gone. A hundred million dollars had gone into El Presidente's private Swiss account, and the mineral rights for the country of Guinea-Bissau now belonged almost entirely to Thomas Hughes. All the mineral rights were his, for the next ninety-nine years. The oil, bauxite, and phosphates alone were potentially worth billions — at least that was what Hughes's geologists and petroleum engineers had told him. Not to mention any gold, silver, copper, or whatever else might lay under the completely unexploited ground here. The problem was, the country had never had enough money in the till to do any serious digging, and not enough trust from the big international corporations for them to take the risks. You didn't want to spend a couple hundred million dollars to set up an operation in a place like this if you were worried about the locals putting your managers to the spear and taking over.

But with Hughes owning the rights, it would be different. He was an educated American, somebody that the big oil and mine companies could deal with. He had plenty of experience in high-level negotiations, courtesy of his work for White. He'd tell his potential partners he had resigned to come here and make his fortune. Hell, even if they knew he'd ripped off the banks, it wouldn't matter. If a man thought you were going to make him billions on a business deal, he'd likely be willing to overlook a few shady things in your past. There were folks wanted for crimes in the States who had gone on to lucrative careers in other countries. Who was that movie director who had run off to France or somewhere and stayed there because the locals admired his work and refused to extradite him?

Money was money. And in the billion-dollar range, ethics got real rubbery.

Hughes had scanned fully legal electronic copies of the freshly signed hardcopy agreements already stored where there was no chance of them getting lost.

He also had half-a-dozen major corporations falling all over themselves ready to drop planeloads of money on him for exploration leases.

Of course, Domingos would get a piece of that too, to go along with the 'advance' he'd just collected. But when you were talking about billions, there was enough to go around. Besides, Domingos would probably have a heart attack or a stroke in the not-too-distant future, given his excesses. And if not naturally, something could be… arranged.

If ever a man had been in the driver's seat and in control of the bus, it was Thomas Hughes. Things were almost perfect.

When Platt showed up, he'd be getting a little surprise too. Domingos would be happy to furnish a well- trained shooter who would just as soon blast Platt as look at him. And even if Domingos hadn't been eager to help, as poor as most of the people in this country were, you could hire a small army of locals who'd be willing to put a knife into somebody — and for less than the cost of dinner for two in a good Washington restaurant.

Platt was going to become past tense within hours of his arrival. He was expecting to come and collect twenty million dollars, then vanish.

He was half right anyway.

Hughes straightened, and turned to head back into his room. Monique would be arriving soon for a little afternoon delight.