Liquid Gold Read online

  Babich picked up his desk phone and asked for a connection via his encrypted line, to be transmitted via his own satellite network, the principal function of which was to transmit data for his telecommunications and cable-television network that delivered content to television screens around the globe. Now it would carry a very different message, a final address regarding Lachlan Fox of New York City, and any other loose ends.

  3

  NEW YORK CITY

  Fox executed a flip turn at the end of the lap and kicked hard off the wall, swimming underwater for ten metres before breaking the surface with a steady, practised freestyle.

  This wasn’t a political thing, like the Bush-bashing of old that got reporters into hot water. Then, it was speaking and writing the truth in an age of disdain for evidence—Americans will believe in angels, ghosts and the Immaculate Conception, but tell them their President lied about the Iraq war and that’s just way too much for many of them. Fox had expected trouble last week when he appeared on The O’Reilly Factor—he knew it when the host introduced the ‘Personal Story’ segment with: “My next guest used to kill people for a living. Now he writes news stories that get people killed.”

  He gritted as the pain in his shoulder flared, but didn’t ease off the pace.

  Much of the commentary had been the same: looking past the Pakistan–Umbra story to probe him personally, dig into his past, create issues from nothing. The death of a soldier under his command, his service in Iraq and Afghanistan, his discharge from the Australian Navy—all old news rehashed. That he had been the central reporter of stories covering a bloody coup d’état in France, the death of a Kremlin-friendly head of Chechnya, the recent upheaval in Nigeria and terrorist attacks in America—they had likened him to the grim reaper, even cartooned it thus in USA Today with the tag-line: “Can the world afford another two more years of this man’s reporting?”

  Did he draw death into his world? Was he so conditioned to war and conflict that he somehow attracted it? Could he be making his situation worse by seeking out stories no other reporters would touch?

  He swam over the black tiles that marked the end of the lane, did another flip turn, and pushed off from the wall.

  The truth at what cost? War over water? All those lives lost through armed conflict rather than thirst and starvation? Harry Truman once said that when Kansas and Colorado have a quarrel over water in the Arkansas River they don’t call out the National Guard in each state and go to war over it. They bring a case before the Supreme Court of the United States and abide by the decision. There isn’t a reason in the world why it can’t be done internationally. And the key to access is control—who has their hand on the tap. Much of the media were trying to control him, offering opinions, not suggesting solutions. What was it The Post had said of him?—he was a ‘diligently lazy writer.’ Fuck The Post.

  He neared the end of his last lap, rolled onto his back and drifted toward the deep end, floating, looking up at the ceiling. There was only one other swimmer at this late hour.

  The lighting was dark in the boutique hotel’s pool; just a few minutes’ walk from his apartment, it was a nice, quiet place to chill. Fox listened to the rhythmic sounds of the other swimmer, floating there until the person finished and left.

  Silence. Looking up at the dark ceiling, he could be floating anywhere: Christmas Island, the Caribbean, a nice warm lake or river. Being in water was the only time he ever really felt free, but tonight the chaos ringing in his ears had followed him in here, intruding into this sanctuary. He let it wash over him, finally drifting underwater where he held his breath and waited for the noise to quieten.

  4

  NORTHERN AREAS, PAKISTAN

  He drove alone, which was not something he would normally do through this lawless area, especially after dark. Pakistani militants and radical militia groups frequently attacked by night, ambushing convoys and what little infrastructure was here—and when things were fixed and new supplies arrived they came back to loot again.

  The town was empty. He approached the small shack that he rented from its owner for a mere five hundred rupees per month—about ten dollars US—and used to store the sacks of spices and rice that he regularly delivered to this area. These made up half of what was stored in the twenty-metre square building; the other half was made up of basic, bulky medical supplies, general tools and drums of fuel. Nothing was of much value; the only security was the local Pakistani Army patrol, but he paid them well and he hadn’t had any problems in the eight years he had been coming through here.

  There were no lights, no electricity at all in this remote, high-altitude town.

  By the light of a thin torch beam he lifted the rock under the potted mulberry tree and retrieved the key he had hidden there last week. He entered the storehouse and flashed the light around the dark interior, unsure of what he would find in the shadows.

  Everything was as he had left it. Almost.

  On top of a sack of rice three down, in a corner, he saw what he’d come for—a brown paper-wrapped package the size of a house brick. He felt sweat tracing a line down his stomach as he let the torch beam settle on it for a few long minutes. He stooped, looking at the package from different vantage points.

  If they had no use for him, if this was the end of his work … but it wasn’t, was it? They needed him until everything was settled, they’d told him that. But could he take the risk of trusting these people? He set the torch down on a drum of diesel so the light shone on the package, and reached for a broom—he held it out, his arm extended to push the broom handle as far as it could go. He involuntarily held his breath.

  He knocked the package onto the hard floor. It landed with a light thud and bounced slightly. Nothing happened. It wasn’t a bomb. He tried to breathe normally as he picked it up—it felt right. He tore the corner off in a hurry.

  Cash; enough to make a real difference. So they did still need him, after all. He tucked it under his arm, took his torch, shut and locked the door, got into his Land Rover and headed back home towards India, the pitch black of winter in Kashmir only pierced by his vehicle’s headlights.

  5

  NEW YORK CITY

  It was summer in Fox’s dream, the bright summer just past, a lifetime ago. The best, the worst. It had everything and left him with nothing more than scars and memories and a set-up for worse times ahead.

  He watched himself from a distance. He was different then, a little heavier, a little younger, perhaps a little naïve.

  A medley of scenes intercut in the way of dreams and bad memories, and try as he might he was stuck there, a spectator to things he mostly regretted. There was a woman, his age. She was an idealised version of a lover, if he could create such a thing. Kate Matthews. She pervaded every scene: a blur in a palatial room; a central figure of desire in a train cabin; a naked body on top of him. It played over and over in his vision. A fight. A train ride. Making love. Dead bodies. She’d been betrayed, used. Blood. Her tears fell into his eyes.

  Fox knew it wasn’t the right chronology but he was powerless to shape how it played. A funeral—that look from her parents that told him he had failed to keep her safe, to get her back. A close-up of her face as she gazed down on him, her sweaty body, her dark hair and those fathomless brown eyes—there was no telling how deep they went and how far they peered into him. Her smile. Kate.

  Through these flashbacks and memories of things said and moments shared, he knew he’d failed. The chase, the boats, the rain that night, the crash, the fight with the French agent that almost killed him, should have killed him … but she saved him and, instead, she died. She died.

  But she was there in his dream, not gone, there to talk to and there to listen. He wanted to stay and talk with her forever.

  I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, he said to her. He knew he would not remember what he said, how this dream played out. It would be like hitting reset until he saw her next, in
another dream, or in death. All those moments lost in time like tears in the rain—

  Fox woke in a sweat, his heart beating wildly. That much was always the same.

  He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. The room was dark but for the faintest glow of street lamps through the curtains. He could hear the occasional street noise outside. He turned to his bedside clock: it was just after 5 a.m. It was cold and his chest felt heavy as he got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

  In the dim pre-dawn light he could just see his reflection in the mirror as he washed his face with warm water. His blue eyes seemed black and the scars on his body looked translucent in this light. It was quiet in here, just the trickle of water down the basin. His body shook. It was still too early to run.

  In a city full of life and distraction, there was nothing that kept Kate from his mind’s eye. No matter how quickly he moved or how far he travelled or how hard he worked, she was there. And the face that looked back at him wore the many faces of the departed.

  6

  PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

  As Vladimir Kolesnik danced to Jay Z the blonde licked sweat off his stomach and the redhead ran her hands down his back and removed his T-shirt. Everyone in the club was under thirty except for a few older guys lingering around the edges of the dance floor, watching the young and beautiful shake their thing.

  None had his physique. There was plenty of female flesh on show, all that youthful skin and sexual hunger for fame and fortune. The feeling took him back ten years to his university days when he was a future leader with pedigree to burn, when he was a ranking member of the Kremlin-backed Nashi youth organisation. Sex parties then—and now—were common practice, part of a deliberately targeted state program to lift Russia’s flagging birth rate. He had done his bit in the organisation but he had never bought into that side of it—he had learned a lot in those three years, at school and in Nashi, and he applied the best of it now, away from home, in ways he felt would best serve him.

  Everything he did here in Prague was for himself, not for anyone else, although there were still favours to be called in. Occasionally called in, and usually outsourced for a small fee. He respected those he owed, and was respected in kind for it—being good for a favour, that was important in his world. It was vital for survival.

  Kolesnik picked up the blonde and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He pulled her in and kissed her and she passed a pill into his mouth. He swallowed it and tasted her wet mouth before turning his head as the curvy little thing with the short, bright red bobbed wig pressed a Heineken to his lips and tucked his T-shirt into his trouser pocket. He drank, then pulled her in and they kissed as the blonde clung tightly and ground herself against him, licking his neck.

  In his line of vision between the two women, over the heads of the thronging crowd, his bodyguard held a cell phone up, its screen and keys illuminated with an incoming call. Kolesnik acknowledged and moved the blonde off him to the floor where she danced as she had been classically trained since a child, before someone with money had taken a fancy to her and taught her things that only the richest men could afford to appreciate. What she gave up to achieve material wealth was her choice; he understood this simple belief system and respected it for what it was.

  As he walked across the dance floor he felt the drugs kick in, his second trip in a few hours: the tingling down the spine, the lucid rush and feeling of indestructibility before the sweat came, that cold prickling across his shoulders and down his back and arms. He felt lighter as he moved towards his bodyguard and took the phone, such a tactile, shiny thing in his hand, a featherweight in his fingertips.

  He checked the incoming number as he took his black North Face jacket from his bodyguard and slid it on, the material hugging his sweaty body, his muscles pumped from the past few hours of dancing and drinking. He aimed for the lean, ripped body of a surfer, not thick in the shoulders and neck like his security guys, or like he had been at twenty. His physique allowed him to blend in. He could be any millionaire’s son, but he wasn’t—he was the owner of this club, and two others like it, one in St Petersburg, and one in Baku.

  There was a lot to love about this club. It was so cheap to fit out—an old warehouse, boarded-up windows, painted black, a couple of bars and bathrooms. The only significant cost was the Bose sound system and crystal chandeliers over the bar. Through the alcohol income—twice the price for the men than for the women—and the commission from the drug sales, a fat profit rolled in every night of the week. With a little capital and the right staff to oversee things, there was serious money to be made, and it couldn’t be easier or more enjoyable: the leased private jet, the Ferretti yacht in production in Italy. He was considering a Greek island—a friend of his had just bought a half-acre rock for two million euros; pocket change for such an extravagance.

  The phone continued to ring as he walked out the front doors into the breaking dawn, the noise and power of the club now shut behind him. Women loitered outside, either coming or going; a few Benzes and Beemers lined up in wait to take some of them off for jobs. The music rang in his ears, the deep vibrations loud enough to be felt out here. Street sweepers and snowploughs worked a few blocks down, so he rounded a corner for privacy as he answered his cell.

  “Da?”

  “I want you to go ahead with the plan.”

  Kolesnik’s eyes scanned the street as he walked, still moving to the beats he had absorbed over the past few hours. He pulled his jacket collar up against the cold and zipped it up to his throat. “Okay,” he said, turning a corner and heading towards home, now with more purpose. “Which targets?”

  “All of them.”

  He smiled. This was a serious favour being called in—taken off his tab. He still owed so much, but this would go a long way …

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “That will—”

  “Yest’ chelóvek, yest’ probléma. Net chelovéka, net problémy.”

  End of conversation.

  Kolesnik checked over his shoulder and waved to his man-mountain of a security guy, some fifty paces behind; he was part of the club’s security staff, there to keep the more entrepreneurial of the aspiring young women from him and the Brits out entirely, as well as to keep him out of trouble. Kolesnik’s first couple of months here had been rocky: two young women and their boyfriends had disappeared after they’d tried to outsmart him, tried to take advantage and blackmail him. More of an inconvenience than a worry, but he had a new life here to protect. A life like this was easy in Russia too, as long as you had the start-up capital, but it was dangerous, no matter who your father was. Trust, even among family, was a luxury in a power structure that valued wealth and power above all else—it was like living with a wild beast. Russia was a bear with claws, more so now than at any time in Kolesnik’s life. But here, in this town, he was the bear.

  Yes, there were others more entrenched, better connected, wealthier and showier by far, but he didn’t make waves and for that he was respected here. A respect for success was one of the few things he admired about the Western world: you kept what you made, and there was a killing to be made if you were smart enough. This was one of the many contradictions of his Russia, one of the reasons he found it so easy to walk away, to fit in here like it was the home he had always known. But he never forgot where he came from, or how he came to be in this fortunate position.

  Kolesnik walked down the cobblestone street, wishing now that he hadn’t taken the extra pill, but moved with it and looked forward to a cool shower. Perhaps he would get a girl to come by for a few hours to help work it off.

  But before anything else, he needed to get some people working for him immediately. He would call in status reports, confirm target locations, give directives, and the ball would be rolling. He walked faster. His head was spinning. This was the good life. He threw his hands up to the sky. Welcome to the good life.

  7
r />   NEW YORK CITY

  The early morning was quiet enough for him to hear an aircraft suck low through the sky somewhere overhead. Snow crunched underfoot as Lachlan Fox ran through the cold winter of Manhattan, monochromatic in the pre-dawn street-lamp lighting, all white and grey and black in the frozen shadows. Steam rose from the subway vents, road crews cleared the streets and rats scampered from men in boots hauling black and green bags for mid-week garbage day.

  Dressed in a hoodie and training pants, Fox dodged early risers and shift workers and garbage bags piled on the sidewalk, heading down Bowery towards Broome Street. He had felt at home in this area of SoHo and Nolita more quickly than anywhere he had lived outside of Melbourne. Wedged between apartments, businesses, cafés and shops, this area was, for Fox, the real essence of New York: a vast melting pot of the best and worst, past and present and a glimpse of what the future might be. Whatever it was around here, it was moneyed, although like the nearby areas of Little Italy and the East Village, it had its share of struggling artists and services employees sharing the worst apartments on the cheaper streets, and aspirational types living big, hoping for a Park view someday but never moving beyond that dream.

  In less than a year in this neighbourhood Fox had noticed things shifting, as they had done for many years, only the tenants came and went faster than ever before: what was once a baker became a butcher, then a tanner, then derelict, then a storehouse and then a café or bar or restaurant selling bottled water for $10 and organic, carbon-neutral meals. Like the property prices, nothing sold here seemed rooted in real-world economics.