[Katerina Carter 01.0] Exit Strategy Read online

  “I’ve got faith in you, Kat.”

  Faith. A loaded word.

  Harry had faith in her abilities. Liberty shareholders had faith in the value of their investment. What if it all came tumbling down, like a house of cards?

  8

  “Luis—get me Rodriguez,” Ortega barked into the speakerphone.

  The boy held out his hand, his dead brown eyes boring into Ortega’s. “Give me my money.” He wore a frayed short-sleeved T-shirt, Nike shorts, and black plastic sandals, the uniform of street boys.

  Ortega waved him off. He wanted this dirty urchin out of his office.

  “Of course, Antonio. Señor Rodriguez will give it to you.” He motioned to Rodriguez as the eight-foot doors to the outer office opened. Rodriguez stood just inside one of the hand carved panels.

  The boy scowled back at Ortega and turned to face Rodriguez, hand outstretched.

  “Where’s my money?”

  “Follow me.”

  Ortega fondled his diamond and gold cufflink as Rodriguez led the boy away. Two hundred pesos was more than the boy would earn in a month of stealing or begging. More than he was worth. Too bad he’d never get to spend it. Within hours Antonio would join the others, encased in concrete footings or buried under roadways. Buenos Aires contained many monuments, not all of them public.

  No one would miss him, except maybe a few street kids at the Retiro train station, where Ortega found most of his conquests. In a few days, preoccupied with smoking paco or getting enough to eat, they would forget what Antonio looked like.

  Ortega was late for his meeting.

  “Luis!” he barked as he marched past him. “Boardroom!”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “And bring the map.”

  Headquartered in an upscale, but nondescript office tower in the Recoleta district, Ortega’s organization was bigger than Microsoft and many other multinationals, though not located on a Fortune 500 listing. Privately held, the company was known to few and accountable to even fewer. Ortega controlled governments, impacted more than a few sectors of world trade, and even influenced war and peace.

  Ortega rolled up his shirtsleeves as he entered the boardroom. Already it was stifling, the air conditioning unable to cope with the heat wave enveloping Buenos Aires for the last ten days.

  Ortega’s men occupied ten of the twelve seats around the boardroom table. Only Ortega’s and one other were vacant. Vicente Sastre’s seat had sat vacant ever since he vanished two years ago. Ortega kept the chair empty on purpose, a reminder to the other men. They in turn pretended not to notice Sastre’s absence, and no one dared ask.

  Ortega sat down and waited for Luis to tack up the map.

  Then he addressed the room.

  “Business is down and our volumes are dropping. We’ve got to do something to maintain profitability. Especially Africa,” he said as he pointed to the map. “In the past it’s given us half of our profits. We’ve got to build it back up.”

  Silence.

  Even with annual revenues larger than the GDP of many countries, Ortega was worried.

  “We need growth. Not just tanks and equipment, but small arms like explosives and Kalishnikovs.”

  Kalishnikovs were the bread and butter of the arms trade—high volume, low margin. To Ortega they were a loss leader. Establishing new business was the key. Every self-respecting warlord kept Kalnishnikovs by the dozen. In good times, they would fetch six hundred dollars, or six cows, depending on the country. Or in some countries, diamonds.

  Ortega had cornered the blood diamond market in central Africa. The Kimberly Certification scheme prevented the rebels from selling their mine production on the open market, especially in the large quantities they needed to finance their wars. He bought all their diamonds in exchange for weapons and cash, at a fraction of their value. He could circumvent the anti-diamond laundering controls, but he needed a steady supply of diamonds to make it work.

  “But no one’s fighting anymore,” Luis said. “There’s no demand.”

  The rest of the men nodded in unison, but remained quiet. Luis was the only one who ever dared to interject.

  Ortega rose and strode to the full-length window overlooking the water. Outside the afternoon sun reflected off the Rio de la Plata. A gentle breeze blew in off the water, as ordinary law abiding porteños went about their business in the streets below.

  “Then we’ll create demand.” His sharp brown eyes scanned the room, looking for any sign of hesitation.

  “How?” Luis asked. “Start a war?”

  “Exactly,” Ortega said.

  9

  “They throw guys out of helicopters for less.” Ken Takahashi emerged from the side of the house, carrying a load of firewood, which he promptly dumped outside the garage. Unshaven and clad in jeans and a fleece jacket, he did not have the corporate persona Kat had expected in Liberty’s former chief geologist.

  Takahashi had left Liberty two years ago, just after the new diamond find at Mystic Lake. From what little she knew from Susan and others, Takahashi and Bryant were close. She had decided to pay a visit to Takahashi to get some further background on the CFO.

  “Less than what?” Was Takahashi implying that a scandal had forced him out of Liberty?

  Takahashi didn’t answer, but instead motioned for Kat to follow.

  “C’mon, I’ll explain inside. Let’s go get some coffee.”

  Kat trailed after Takahashi, a grizzled old black Lab close to her thigh. The dog’s arthritic gait as he carefully ascended the stairs revealed its age. It had been easy to find the place, a nondescript two storey with fading yellow paint. The house, surrounded by a small acreage fronting the river, had apparently been cared for by someone in the distant past. The bones of the garden, once good but faintly remaining, were now overgrown, clematis vying with morning glory in a race to the top of the house. Remnants of raised vegetable beds, carefully angled to catch the best sun, were now overrun with grass and dandelions. It was slowly returning to the wild.

  Like most of the other houses along River Road, items long past their useful life were scattered about the yard. Ken Takahashi’s house might be missing the rusted out cars with no license plates, but instead on display were a jumble of crab traps, fishnets, and a decrepit old boat beside the driveway. The boat appeared anything but seaworthy, and its peeling paint suggested it probably hadn’t been used in decades. The property’s one redeeming factor was the unobstructed view of the Fraser River across the road.

  Takahashi had insisted that Kat meet him here. As the former chief geologist, Takahashi was reluctant to meet Kat near his former office downtown, or anywhere in public for that matter. He had no need to worry. There were no corporate types hanging out near River Road this afternoon, just a few cyclists out on training rides and the odd dump truck hauling fill.

  What little she knew out about Takahashi had come from Jace. Takahashi had left Liberty under a cloud of controversy after questioning the feasibility of new kimberlite pipes at Mystic Lake. He was forced to leave when proven wrong about the find.

  They sat at a round oak table in the kitchen under a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The kitchen was clean and functional, it’s dated seventies décor looking like a before picture in a designer makeover show. Takahashi poured coffee into a couple of mismatched cups and motioned to a cereal bowl filled with takeout sugar packets and creamers. Kat chose a mug with a picture of a helicopter and the caption Hover Lover on it. The other one read Global Warming is for the Birds. The elderly Lab settled on the floor at Takahashi’s feet and eyed Kat with an expression alternating between curiosity and drowsiness.

  “So, you ever get tossed from a helicopter?” she asked.

  “Not so far. I guess I should consider myself lucky it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Are you saying Liberty is another Bre-X?” Kat wasn’t sure how the Indonesian gold mining fraud from the 1990s fit with Bryant’s disappearance, but she had nothing else to go on.


  “I’m not saying anything more. I’d really rather not talk to you. Now, don’t take offence—it’s nothing personal. The last time I opened my mouth I lost everything—my job, my reputation and most of my friends. The one guy who wasn’t part of the scheme is gone, and I’ve done all—”

  “You’re talking about Bryant?” Kat was incredulous. Not only was the money proving difficult to trace, but this would put her back to square one. “You don’t think Bryant was corrupt?”

  Takahashi dumped a packet of sugar into his mug and stirred with a dirty spoon. Kat decided to take hers black.

  “Damn right, I don’t. He’s been set up. Racine and the rest of the board, they’re out for themselves. Any bad news, they want it silenced. No good news for a while, they figure they’ll make some up. I guess if I knew what was good for me, I would’ve gone along with it. But it’s wrong, and only a matter of time before people find that out.”

  “But you were the chief geologist. Why didn’t you say they were wrong? You still can, you know. If you really think Bryant is innocent, it might even help him.”

  Takahashi’s silence was tantamount to agreement in Kat’s eyes. If he held the key to Bryant’s destiny, and the missing money, why didn’t he just say so?

  “I’ve already lost my job, a position I held for twenty years. Racine and the others can easily arrange it so I never work again. Matter of fact, so far I haven’t. Diamond mining is a small industry. Everyone knows everyone else, and I need a paycheck. Right now I don’t have a very good track record. I missed the biggest find in the Canadian north in the last ten years. Nobody wants to take a chance on me.

  “Most mining companies have a best-before date too. Investors pump tons of money in at the beginning, when the future is bright and anything seems possible. But, after a few years and a few more rounds of capital raising, investors get a little jaded. They want to see results before throwing more cash in the money pit. A geologist that gets results is the key, and I didn’t fit the bill.”

  “But they did find more diamonds at Mystic Lake. How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t know how they did it, but it’s not real.”

  Kat wasn’t sure what to read into that.

  “Are you saying they fabricated the results? To make the execs and investors happy?”

  “You can decide that for yourself. I’m not ruining my chances of ever working again. But, I’d be careful if I were you. There’s a lot at stake.”

  “You mean, like an unplanned helicopter dive?” Was Braithwaite’s murder somehow related? The timing sure was interesting.

  Takahashi ignored Kat’s comment this time and launched into a new topic.

  “How much do you know about diamond mining?”

  “Honestly? Not a lot. I know a diamond comes out of the ground somehow, and ends up surrounded by gold inside a Tiffany’s box. How it gets there I have no idea.” Kat couldn’t help being a bit facetious; she was getting frustrated as her quest was turning into more of a wild goose chase with every passing hour. Besides, sometimes playing dumb made people talk more—never a bad thing when trying to glean more information.

  “Well, I can see I’ve got a lot of educating to do. Diamonds are basically just carbon that has crystallized. They are formed deep within the earth, and carried to the surface of the earth by strong volcanic activity. The magma, host rock, and the diamonds form into pipes called kimberlites as they reach the surface. A kimberlite has three parts: the roots, the diatreme, and the crater. It’s shaped like a carrot, with the crater being the top of the carrot.

  “The diatreme is the midpoint of the kimberlite and that’s where you will find most of the diamonds. This part is usually one to two kilometers deep. The roots are underneath, with a depth of about half a kilometer. Finally, the crater forms the top of the pipe. Certain geographical characteristics indicate places where kimberlites are likely to be found.”

  Ken was obviously in his element. Kat could picture him equally at home delivering a university lecture or out in the field.

  “And Mystic Lake is one of those places, I assume?”

  “That’s right. Kimberlites are found at the core of continents. The pipes are concentrated in these cores known as archean cratons, which are formed from rocks greater than two and a half billion years old. Mystic Lake is located in one of these areas.” Ken sipped from his cracked mug. “Actually, the continental landmass of Canada covers one of the largest archean cratons on earth.”

  “So Canada’s the next big thing in diamond mining?”

  “Well, yes and no. Even though Canada has huge potential, access in the north is limited due to inhospitable terrain, extreme weather, and lack of roads and other infrastructure. Exploring for new pipes, let alone extracting diamonds, is prohibitively expensive.”

  “I guess that explains why Liberty concentrated exploration around that area and found another pipe?” This was beginning to get interesting, Kat thought as she sipped her coffee.

  “Highly unlikely. That’s what I find surprising. We’ve been over that area with a fine tooth comb for the last decade. Believe me, if there was anything left, we would’ve found it. I doubt anything substantial was missed. Mystic Lake is pretty much at the end of its life cycle.” Ken paused to retrieve the Mr. Coffee carafe from the counter.

  “Pipes are typically found in clusters, usually at most tens of kilometers apart. The whole area was exhaustively studied with aerial mapping, core studies, you name it—we did it.”

  “Where else could the diamonds have come from?”

  Ken Takahashi refilled their mugs, then chose his words carefully. “That rock is not from Mystic Lake. I worked in that area myself for five years. It was a good mine, but not the kind of production Liberty’s claiming. No way.”

  Kats mind raced with possibilities. “Are you saying they might have falsified the results?”

  “I’m not saying anything. You draw your own conclusions. But I do know that for the last five years, it was break even at best.”

  Takahashi’s brown eyes studied Kat intently. “Look, Kat. The only reason I’m talking to you is because of Paul. Good guy. He wouldn’t steal from the company.” Takahashi eyes stayed on Kat, appraising her. “I think he’s the fall guy for someone else. Lots of people wanted him out of the way.”

  “Like who?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You can’t—or you won’t?” Kat wasn’t letting Takahashi off that easy.

  “It’s none of my business. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “But Bryant’s your friend. He needs your help.” Kat wasn’t exactly sure how she had come to defend the very man she was hired to investigate.

  “Sorry. No can do. But I would get some samples checked out by a lab if I were you. I’ll pretty much guarantee you they are not from Mystic Lake.”

  10

  Kat splurged on a coffee and a double chocolate chip cookie at Café Marseilles, deciding on a temporary break from her vow of poverty. She needed caffeine and carbs to fuel her marathon forensic-accounting paper trail. She munched on her cookie as she walked along the cobblestones to her office.

  Water Street, at the foot of Coal Harbor, occupied the oldest part of Vancouver. Gastown’s summer charm had been replaced with a rougher edge since the cruise ships and tourists had departed for winter. Only the year-long residents remained. Some occupied low-rent artist lofts and walk-ups, while the less fortunate lived on the streets. Kat stepped around a homeless man as he emerged from his makeshift shelter of cardboard and blankets. Not the best neighborhood, but her office view of the water and mountains was unparalleled, and the rent was dirt cheap.

  A coal discovery in 1862 had started the original Vancouver settlement, and some of the old buildings were still around, including Hudson House—the original trading post on Water Street whose brick walls housed Carter & Associates.

  Kat unlocked the front door of the building and walked upstairs. The smell of burnt coffee greeted h
er as she opened the door and passed by the empty reception area.

  She turned off the coffee maker in the tiny kitchen and followed the typing noises to the spare office. What Uncle Harry was typing was a mystery to Kat as he had no assigned duties, no job description, and no real reason for being here. Judging by his hunt and peck method, no typing ability either. A Mavis Beacon disciple he was not.

  “Uncle Harry? Don’t you have a bridge game today?” Kat hoped he hadn’t stumbled upon her sleeping bag and foam mattress pad in the storage room beside the kitchen. It was getting harder to hide the fact she was now living at the office since giving up her apartment last week.

  “Cancelled. Did you find our money yet?”

  “Our money?”

  “You know—Liberty and that Bryant guy.”

  “Not yet. I’m working on it. What are you doing?”

  She eyed the bare desktop and instantly regretted her trip to the house to let the contractor in. It had taken most of yesterday to re-pull the files Harry had put away, and now they were gone again. Harry must have re-filed them, not in alphabetic order, but in some arcane sequence Kat couldn’t make sense of.

  “Organizing your files—again!” Harry motioned to the filing cabinets behind him. “How many files do you need at once? I just spent another three hours putting everything away again!”

  Kat pressed her palm against her forehead and groaned. “Why can’t you just tell me what your system is? Numbers? Dates? Astrological signs? It’s taking me forever to find things!”

  “Don’t worry about details, Kat. Just tell me which files you need when you need them, and I’ll pull them for you.”

  “Uncle Harry, we’ve been through this before. I already have a system in place.” He was quickly turning into a problem employee.

  “Kat, your system is more like a fire hazard. You’ve got files all over the place. If they ever caught on fire, you’d lose everything you’ve got.”

  Harry pecked at the keyboard, head down, averting Kat’s gaze. No use in arguing with him; it wouldn’t change a thing.