“You want him embroiled in a scandal? No problem. I can make it happen. But it needs to be big enough for people to notice. And care.”
“I get what you’re saying. The good people of the DRC expect their leaders to be corrupt,” Westcott said. “A small scandal wouldn’t do the trick. People would just assume it’s business as usual.” Now thinking out loud, he continued, “We need diverted aid funds, preferably to an offshore account and laundered through a shell foundation linked to the Congo River Alliance.”
Mpassi was all smiles now. “Exactly.”
The Congo River Alliance, which among its members included the brutal, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, was quickly gaining territory in the eastern part of the DRC and had recently captured Goma, a city of two million people and the capital of the North Kivu province. Since the Alliance had taken over, hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced, with several hundred—held on accusations of supporting the Congolese army during the fighting—being sent to overcrowded, unhygienic cells. Westcott had read reports about prisoners being tortured with electric cables and engine belts.
If he could somehow manufacture a direct link between Prime Minister Bongonda and the Alliance, it would shatter the National Assembly’s trust in the man.
“What would ‘big enough’ look like to you, Charles?” Westcott asked.
“Twenty million dollars,” Mpassi replied.
“And you could do this with no blowback?” Westcott asked.
“I guarantee it. In fact, we’d be the one to tip off the ANR,” Mpassi said. “I still have plenty of contacts within the agency.”
The ANR, or Agence Nationale de Renseignements, was the intelligence agency of the DRC.
Westcott nodded once. “Do it.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Defense Intelligence Headquarters
Washington, DC
Seventy-Two Hours Later
Caspian Anderson sat in a leather chair facing Samantha Ranger’s desk. A look through the window showed him a low sky, as if the dark gray clouds were holding their breath.
Two days earlier, Caspian had spent three tense hours with a DIA sketch artist, working to capture the face of the woman who had fired at him and killed Verena Kaine back in Valencia. The resulting image was surprisingly accurate, but so far, it hadn’t turned up a single lead. They still didn’t know her name.
Another thing that troubled him was that he hadn’t heard from Liesel in three days. He had messaged her repeatedly and tried to call her. He’d asked her questions, anything to get a response from her beyond the cold, detached confirmation that she was fine.
I’m safe, Casp. Stop worrying about me.
He hadn’t gotten any other explanation from Liesel. Just distance.
Only this morning he had learned from Ranger that Liesel was in Germany with Nicklas Drescher. That hadn’t sat well with him. Not because she was with Drescher—the man was, after all, her superior. No, what troubled Caspian was that she was keeping him at arm’s length. After everything they’d been through together, he had expectedmore than radio silence. But right now, there wasn’t much he could do about it. She was thousands of miles away, and she wasn’t responding to his texts or to his calls.
Ranger handed him a cup of coffee, which broke his train of thought. He thanked her and noticed her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept much either; that much was clear. Ranger moved behind her desk, popped a few Advils in her mouth, and washed them down with a sip of coffee.
“Is she still in Berlin?” he asked.
Ranger nodded.
“She’s working directly with Drescher on the same operation we are. The BND has given them some maneuvering room, so they’re running their own angle. In fact, it was Liesel who flagged most of the discrepancies in there,” she said, tapping a finger on a yellow file folder in front of her.
Ranger opened the file and flipped to a stapled packet midway through.
“She’s been digging into the financials surrounding Hearts United’s medical operations. She picked up anomalies our people missed. She cross-checked patient-intake reports, pharmaceutical shipments, and donor supply chains. What she found led us to ask for NSA’s support in accessing satellite imageries and transactional records.”
Ranger handed him a summary page, clearly printed with DIA and NSA joint headers at the top.
“You asked me to take a deep look into Blackstone Security,” she said. “So I did.”
“And?”
