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 expected more 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?”
“Well . . . here’s what we can confirm. Someone’s doing a hell of a job removing every trace that Blackstone ever existed. I mean, they disconnected domains, erased registry data, and the analysts are telling me that the effort is still ongoing.”
“But you found something,” Caspian said.
“The NSA did, yes,” Ranger said. “They were able to trace the revenue stream. It seems that every field operation Blackstone mounted over the last five years was funded by Hearts United or one of its known entities. Blackstone Security had no other clients.”
Caspian scanned the document quickly. The pattern Blackstone and Hearts United had established was clear. It was a closed loop. A single command structure behind the facade of two separate organizations.
He looked up from the document and asked, “Do you think it’s time to bring in the FBI?”
“I talked about it with Director Maples, and he doesn’t think we’re there yet,” Ranger replied. “In fact, he fears the FBI and the attorney general wouldn’t even get past a grand jury.”
“So, the only thing we’d accomplish by working with the FBI is to tip our hand,” Caspian said.
“Seems like it. And it gets more interesting,” she added, handing him a second document.
“SSU analysts retrieved this,” she continued. “Hearts United partnered with Doctors Without Borders in Kenya. The public narrative focused on mobile clinics, vaccination drives, and basic surgical access. To be fair, all of that happened.”
“I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Caspian said, reading through the single sheet of paper.
“But around those medical operations, something else occurred.”
Ranger unfolded a satellite-overlay map across her desk. Several swaths of countryside were circled in red.
“What am I looking at?” he asked, very much aware that his brother, as the medical director of Doctors Without Borders in Kenya, was actively involved in some of these regions.
“Entire villages were relocated. At first, we thought it was driven by health concerns, you know? To get people closer to the care they need. But when we cross-referenced the GPS coordinates of the vacated sites, we found this.”
She tapped the red zones.
“These areas sit directly on top of rare earth minerals deposits. Niobium, nickel, lithium, you name it.”
Caspian nodded slowly. “These are the kinds of strategic metals that help to power everything from smartphones to missiles,” he said.
“Correct. And we estimate that the value of the minerals in the ground in the zones colored in red at over twenty-five billion dollars.”
“Right,” Caspian said. “But this isn’t news. The public and the Kenyan government knew these deposits were there.”
“They did,” Ranger admitted. “But what the public didn’t know was that two months after the relocations, mining licenses were quietly issued to firms with financial ties to Hearts United.”
Caspian sank deeper into his chair. The weight of what Ranger had just shared with him settled over him like concrete. “They used aid to clear the land,” he said. “And somehow, Nelson’s involved.”
“They used trust, humanitarian trust, Caspian,” Ranger said. “Hearts United and Doctors Without Borders presented the relocations as a health initiative, not as a resource grab. But the outcome is the same. Mining companies are now in full operation, and with the full blessing of the government.”
“Shit,” Caspian muttered. “Nelson is right in the middle of this.”
“He is,” Ranger said. “But we don’t think he did any of this in a malicious way. He supported the relocation efforts, and he played an important role in coordinating the whole thing with tribal leaders, but from everything we’ve seen, he acted in good faith.”
Caspian sighed. He stared at the sheet of paper in his hand. A photo in the top right corner showed Nelson in a field vest, smiling, flanked by several Kenyan health workers.
“Knowing my brother, he was focused on the medical metrics. Saving lives, you know?”
“To be clear,” Ranger said, “I think your brother was misled. At this stage, he’s not under investigation.”
“So, what’s the next step?” he asked.
“We keep going,” Ranger said. “We peel this back, layer by layer, but we need to hurry.”
“Why’s that? This seems to me like the kind of op we need to be very careful about how we move forward, no? You said so yourself, Samantha. Everett Westcott is a powerful figure who wields a lot of influence. Poking too hard might blow up in our faces.”
Ranger reached for the Advil bottle again but seemed to change her mind. Instead, she took a long sip of her coffee.
“You’re right. I did say that,” she conceded, setting her cup down. “But I believe Westcott is about to make a similar move in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
“How come?” he asked.
“An hour ago, Prime Minister Bongonda was arrested in Kinshasa on embezzlement charges,” Ranger said.
“Twenty million dollars were seized from one of his offshore accounts. The account in question is linked to the Congo River Alliance. The scandal has already splashed across four major media outlets. You see where this is going, right?”
“I’m assuming the National Assembly is in chaos,” he said.
“You got that right,” Ranger said. “President Mutombo is calling for unity, saying the arrest proves his administration’s commitment to transparency.”
“Of course he’d say that,” Caspian said. “You think Westcott did this?”
“He’s made it clear that his focus is now on the DRC with his Congo River initiative. Westcott used humanitarian aid to justify displacing populations in Kenya. And now, he’s using a political scandal to destabilize the National Assembly, the last serious obstacle to his vision.”
“And you believe that if we don’t act soon, we’ll be watching another land grab,” Caspian said.
“I do. One with the full weight of the United States government behind it.”
“What do you mean?”
“While I’m not privy to what was said behind closed doors, three days ago Everett Westcott met with the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss the possible financial participation of the United States government in Hearts United’s venture in the DRC.”
Caspian thought about this for a few seconds, then said, “You think the members of the committee know it’s a land grab?”
Ranger sighed loudly. “Honestly, I don’t know. But if they do, and this ever comes out, it will erase all the progress we’ve made in Africa in the last decade.”
“The US government would be portrayed as an invader who doesn’t give a shit about the local population,” Caspian said, thinking out loud. “And that would open the door even wider for Chinese and Russian involvement on the continent.”
They remained silent for a moment, then Caspian asked, “You want me to find out what was said between Westcott and the chair of the committee?”
“No,” Ranger said. “I’ll take care of that.”
“Okay. What then?”
“When was the last time you spoke to your brother?” Ranger asked.
“Liesel and I had a half-hour-long FaceTime with him last month. Why?”
“Could you reach out to him again?” Ranger asked. “See if he can make his way here?”
“Here? Like DC?” Caspian asked.
Ranger nodded.
“I don’t think that’s gonna be possible, but if you want to go to Boston tomorrow, you can see him there.”
“Boston?”
“Logan is the closest international airport to Portland, where our parents live,” Caspian explained. “It’s our mom’s birthday next week, and Nelson’s supposed to spend the next week or so with our folks.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go to Boston.”