Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller by Richard Castle Read Free Book Online Page B

a prison shackled next to a bunch of Tibetan dissidents.”
    “Affirmative.” Jones smiled.
    “Charming,” Storm said. “So what’s my next move?”
    “The Chinese finance minister is set to give an important speech to the European Union in Paris,” Jones said.
    “Yeah? So?”
    “So one of our people tells us that the Chinese Ministry of State Security”—the Chinese equivalent of the CIA and the FBI, rolled into one—“has a joint covert operation of some kind going on with the Chinese Finance Ministry. A Ministry of State Security agent is now traveling undercover with the Finance Ministry. It makes sense that if this plot involving bankers has the kind of complexity we think it does, it would need to have Finance Ministry expertise—and State Security Ministry cunning. Our working theory—and, again, it’s just a theory at this point—is that this State Security Ministry agent is the one who hired Volkov.”
    “What do we know about the guy?”
    “Absolutely nothing. We’re getting this from one of our doubleagents, who is getting it from a source he is only starting to cultivate, so it’s all still a little shady at this point. The only thing we know for sure about this State Security agent is that she’s not a guy.”
    “A female agent?” Storm said, his face involuntarily lifting.
    “I knew you’d like that part,” Jones said, sharing conspiratorial glances with Bryan and Rodriguez. “Our person on the inside told us she made a trip to Switzerland a few days ago.”
    “Switzerland. As in, where Wilhelm Sorenson was found murdered. Think that’s a coincidence?”
    “That’s why you’re going to Paris,” Jones said. “Find her. Get close to her. Figure out what she’s up to.”

CHAPTER 6
JOWZJAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan
    F rom the outside, it looked like there was no inside. That’s what made it such a good hiding place.
    Gregor Volkov had come across the cave complex during the early nineties, back when he was a young operative with the secret Soviet police force known as the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, back when there was still such a thing as the KGB.
    This was only a few years after the USSR had publicly given up on the folly of trying to tame Afghanistan—and a decade or so before the United States took up the same fool’s errand. The Soviets still had secret operations in the country, even though it was clear they could not conquer it. In the vacuum created by the Soviet departure, many groups competed for power. It was a wild time in a wild place, which made it perfect for Volkov, the wolf. The Taliban were slowly taking hold in some of the cities, but out in the mountains, it was the same as it had always been. The notion that there even was such thing as a nation state called Afghanistan—or that the locals owed it some sense of fealty—was not commonly accepted. Political power was wielded behind the muzzle of a gun by whoever had the fortitude to assert it.
    This kind of might-makes-right ruling structure appealed toVolkov. When he found the cave, he knew the USSR was not long for this planet. In some ways, he was ambivalent about its demise. Mother Russia had weakened herself by taking on so many dependent children. It was better for Russia to cut the apron strings and pursue an empire without them. In the meantime, Volkov was also envisioning his own independence, one that involved a future as a freelancer. As the USSR entered its final spasms of dissolution—and order began to break down in the KGB—Volkov returned to this small crevice in the side of a mountain and made it his base of operations.
    Through the years, he had turned it into an effective launching pad and a comfortable home. The entrance was only a few meters wide and well covered with trees. But inside, nature had burrowed out a generous labyrinth that led deep into the mountainside. Volkov had hired local laborers to help broaden parts of it, smooth out other parts, generally civilize it.