Rogue President. D.K. Wilde
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back in the luxury sofa, Dunstall crossed his legs and looked down at his hands in his lap. “This has nothing to do with MI6. This is all my own doing. And you because apparently you’re the best.”
Raising his head, he looked at everybody seated and then locked on to Wade’s eyes. Wade sat as solid as a rock.
“Mister Ross, thank you for coming and on such short notice. I know the news you have received is tough but I believe between us we can set things straight.” Paused. “Please note I already know a lot about you but I think it’s important I explain myself first.”
Wade gave the slightest of nods.
“Jacob … is my brother.”
Colonel Jacob Wine, ex British SAS and somebody Wade considered father like and a good friend. While attached to the British SAS and on a failed Kosovo deployment Wade saved the Colonel’s life and thus a strong bond had developed. It had always been the Colonel’s team. He had put it together and he was the ranking officer. For all intense and purpose everybody treated him as such. But when operational time arrived all eyes focused on Wade, the natural born leader.
“He never told me he had a brother,” said Wade determined to catch the tell tale signs of a lie. The shift of the body. The raising of the eyes or eyelids. The slightest movement as a liar dissects his response to ensure the lie continues unabated.
“Half brother actually and he doesn’t know. He is twelve years my senior. By the time I learnt I had a brother I was quite high up in British Intelligence and I decided it was better for both our careers that we should not interact so as not to jeopardize the other. I had always intended to one day explain to him what I knew but as time went by it became more and more difficult. I made a point of following his career, and his life, and thus I know about you.” He paused waiting for a response or a reaction. Silence abound. A Mexican standoff was happening with neither man moving or uttering a sound. Having been aware of Wade’s abilities Dunstall thought better than to try and outwit him. “I am a very wealthy man, Mister Ross, but I have no family other than Jacob. So when I heard what happened I contacted Agent Plant, through my counterparts at the CIA, and here we are.”
“Well and good,” said Wade still not convinced. “Back to my original question. What about the rest of the story?”
“I’ve heard that about you; blunt and direct. I like that,” said Dunstall smiling and slightly tilting his head.
Dunstall explained that at the time of General Forest’s demise (Wade’s previous foe, CIA chief and leader of a breakaway CIA unit) MI6 became increasingly cautious of dealings with the CIA. This caution resulted in them uncovering an outside party accessing CIA internal files and operating procedures. At first they believed it was the NSA keeping a close watch on the new CIA chief. This appeared unfounded and then all indications pointed to the US President or at least somebody very close to him.
“President Markham is now in his second term of office and only has one year left on his tenure. There are those of us at HQ who believe he is frantically trying to locate and connect with his illegitimate daughter before he loses power. Why, and why he is having so much difficulty, we do not know. It is believed she has spent the last eight years working as a nurse or doctor for the French founded Medecins Sans Frontieres or maybe a subsidiary of or even possibly an unknown mission style aid facility, somewhere in either Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia. We believe she made contact with her mother fourteen months ago but this can’t be substantiated without blowing our cover. So we watch, listen and wait.”
“This seems like a lot just to get a daughter back,” quizzed Wade now slouched in his chair. MI6 was renowned for having some of the best spies and counter-terrorist/counter-intelligence professionals in the world. As their leader Dunstall would be a master. Wade, still sceptical, needed to be at the top of his game if he wanted to catch him out.
“True but there’s more. We also know Markham went to great lengths to ensure it was Jacob and his team who were sent in. Possibly even to the point of blackmail.”
“Blackmail? How?”
“We don’t know but it seems to involve money.”
“Money? … This gets more stupid by the minute.”
“Please,” said Dunstall slightly raising his hand. “Hear me out. We have been able to trace the purchase of property to a large group of holdings in Argentina. A rabbit warren of cover-ups and criss crossing trails led us to companies partly owned by Markham. The significance being when all the properties are combined the purchase price is currently standing at four and a half billion US dollars.”
“Billion?” asked Wade.
“Yes, billion. And Markham, or anyone closely associated with him, does not remotely have that sort of money.”
“Surely that amount of money would buy a lot of land and I’m guessing especially so in Argentina?” quizzed Wade.
“It is a lot of land. Mostly dry cattle country. But that is only half the story. There are reports of possible huge shale oil reserves in the north at the Paraguay border. The same area that has been bought up. The landholders have been showered in gifts and promises of a better future. Shale oil has been traditionally unviable to extract when compared with crude oil but there has been a breakthrough with a discovery of a thermal process that comes in at about ten percent of the current cost. If this study is correct, and it does seem to be heading in that direction, then Argentina would become the wealthiest country on earth. It is the only known region where deep thermal wells and shale oil lie side by side. The extraction would be simple and the owners would dictate the world’s oil supply.”
“So you’re thinking this has something to do with the money that was never found after Forest?” replied Wade remembering how Mossad and the CIA were unable to locate the reputed missing millions, or billions, that Forest had apparently seconded from illegal international deals, while head of the CIA and its secret black ops division.
“Exactly,” replied Dunstall.
“When you say ‘partly’ who else is involved?”
“That’s not clear yet but our guess is somebody, or bodies, associated with the current US administration at the highest level. We have analysts on the case and we are expecting a breakthrough in days; not weeks.”
Wade turned and looked back out the window as he thought about General Forest and the manipulation the team had been put through until Forest was eventually taken out in the now defunct CIA secret facility ‘The Warehouse’. The undiscovered dollars that had been believed to have gone to Forest’s grave with him and the death of his best friend at Forest’s hands.
The anger within him was building. He closed his eyes and focused to talk with his spiritual elders and clear his mind.
He could feel his adopted Aboriginal mother as she wrapped her arms around his small eight year old body. How she told him not to think about how he could exact revenge on the boys who had beaten him and taken his school lunch money but to focus on helping them understand the ways and beliefs of the Dreamtime. Her strong arms always made him think of protection and safety. Her soothing words had encouraged him to learn and practice restraint.
He looked around the worn kitchen of the small elevated weatherboard home he shared with his mother and younger sister. Wall paint peeling and the Laminex bench top scratched from years of use. A single globe hanging as the only form of lighting. Dripping taps adding to the years of rust stains down the sink. All signs of lack of money but still kept immaculately clean. His mother’s loving dark brown eyes and constant smile had always been his guiding light.
He heard her words of encouragement and the words of the elders. Shivers ran down his back.
4.
The sun tried desperately to break through the clouds. The door of the Gulfstream G650 opened and they stepped on to the tarmac at Heathrow, London. A bitterly, howling southerly ate through their summer clothes and whistled off the puddles scattered across