A Raging Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

could only find the truth by working from the inside out .
    Jones interrupted his thoughts. “You really don’t have any idea what motive Petrov or Barkovsky might have for wanting Senator Windslow dead?”
    “The senator’s final words were Jedidiah knows and Midas .”
    Storm let his answer hang in the air, begging for an explanation.
    But Jones didn’t immediately bite. Instead, he sat in his squeaky chair and stared blankly at his young protégé. And then, after several awkward seconds, he said: “OK, I agree. It’s time for me to tell you a bit more. Only a handful of government officials here in Washington are familiar with what I am about to say. Senator Windslow was one of them and it cost him his life. It can cost your life, too. Before I go any further, I need to ask: Do you want to take that risk?”
    “You seem to forget,” Storm said. “I’m already dead.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Jedidiah Jones walked to a wall safe with a magnetic strip that had the word “LOCKED” on it slapped across its reinforced steel door. Jones flipped over the strip so that the word “OPEN” was visible in bright red letters and punched a combination into an electronic screen that simultaneously verified his fingerprint. From the safe, he withdrew a thick red envelope marked “PROJECT MIDAS .” He shut the safe’s door, flipped the magnetic strip to “CLOSED” and double-checked to make certain the door was locked.
    Returning to his chair, he wrote the name “STEVE MASON” in quotations on a log attached to the top secret file’s front. He wrote the date, the time, his own name, and then noted that he had authorized Mason to view four photographs from the file. The photos were numbered MIDAS 001, 002, 003, and 004. He asked Storm to sign the log with his pseudonym. After he did, Jones handed Storm three photographs but held one back.
    “Tell me what you see in the pictures,” Jones said.
    He’d played this game before. After Storm had been recruited by Clara Strike, Jones had sent him through a training course at the CIA’s legendary facility called the Farm, outside Williamsburg, Virginia. There he’d been shown a photograph, asked to return it, and then asked about it. What did you see? Why was that important? What did you miss? What does it mean? His private eye experience had made him an expert at it .
    “The three photographs show a kilobar of gold,” he said. “That’s a thousand grams of gold or the equivalent of 2.21 pounds. The markings on the bar show that it is 99.9 percent pure, which means it’s high quality. But the reason why this bar is so unique is because of where it was minted and for whom.”
    Jones nodded approvingly. “And who owned it?”
    “The impression in the lower center of the bar shows a hammer and sickle, which is the seal used by the former Soviet Union. Cyrillic letters under the seal form an acronym, КПСС, which, when translated to English, stands for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The bar in the photo was minted specifically for the Party and belonged in its treasury.”
    “It’s odd really,” Jones said, “how little knowledge most Americans have about the Soviet Union even though they grew up being told that it was an evil empire and its leaders planned on burying them. Just last week, I had to explain to a Senate committee that only a limited number of Russians were permitted to join the Communist Party during the Soviet era and that the Party had its own treasury that was completely separate from the Soviet Union’s governmental holdings.”
    Storm didn’t interrupt. Jones had a reason for this history lesson .
    Jones said, “I couldn’t believe U.S. senators didn’t know that the Communist Party charged its members dues—just like labor unions do here. The Party deducted a portion of each member’s monthly salary for its coffers.”
    Jones stopped talking and began tapping his finger on his desk as if he were marking time.
    Storm knew the drill.