The Queen of the South

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  "The Moroccans have played straight as arrows," remarked Dr. Ramos, his hands in his pockets. They were walking toward the car, with Pote Galvez at the wheel. The SUV's headlights illuminated the stretch of beach and rocks, with startled seagulls fluttering and twitching in the light.

  "Yes, but the credit goes to you, Doctor."

  "Not the idea."

  "You made it possible."

  Dr. Ramos sucked at his pipe wordlessly. It was hard for Transer Naga's tactician to complain, or for that matter to show pleasure at a word of praise, but Teresa sensed his satisfaction with the operation. Because while the idea of the big plane—the air bridge, they called it—was Teresa's, the mapping of the route and the operational details were the doctor's. The innovation had consisted of using low-level flights and secret runways for a larger and more profitable operation. Because recently, there had been problems. Two Galician runs, financed by the Corbeira clan, had been intercepted by Customs, one in the Caribbean and the other off the coast of Portugal; a third operation, run entirely by the Italians—a Turkish merchantman with half a ton on board, en route from Buenaventura, in Colombia, to Genoa via Cadiz—had been a complete failure, the cargo seized by the Guardia Civil, eight men in prison. This was a difficult moment, all in all, and only after thinking long and hard did Teresa decide to take the risk—but she used methods that had worked years before, back in Mexico, for Amado Carrillo, the Lord of the Skies. Orale, she concluded. Why be creative, when there are masters to follow.

  She had put Farid Lataquia and Dr. Ramos to work on it. Lataquia had protested, of course. Too little time, too little money, too little profit. People think they can order up miracles, and so on. Meanwhile, Dr. Ramos shut himself up with his maps and his diagrams, smoking pipe after pipe, speaking only the absolute minimum necessary, calculating routes, fuel, sites. Holes in the radar that allowed a plane to reach a certain spot between Melilla and Al Hoceima; the distance it would be flying, mere feet over the water toward the north-northeast; areas without surveillance where the Spanish coast could be penetrated; landmarks for sight navigation without instruments; fuel consumption at low and high altitudes; zones where a medium-size plane couldn't be detected as it flew over the ocean. He even felt out a couple of air controllers that would be on duty on the right nights and in the right places, to be sure that nobody sounded the alarm if some suspicious blip showed up on the screen. He had flown over the Almeria desert looking for a good place to land, and gone to the Rif mountains to see the condition of the local airstrips for himself.

  Lataquia found the plane in Africa: an old Aviocar C-212 that had been used to carry passengers between Malabo and Bata—part of a Spanish aid package to Equatorial Guinea. Built in 1978, but it still flew. A two-engine craft, with a cargo capacity of two tons. It could land at sixty knots on two hundred fifty yards of runway if the pilot backwashed the props and pushed the flaps to forty degrees. The purchase was made without any problems, through a contact at Equatorial Guinea's embassy in Madrid—the trade attache's commission aside, the over-invoicing served to cover a couple of engines for the semi-rigids—and the Aviocar flew to Bangui, where the two Garret TPE engines were reworked and checked out by French mechanics. Then it was parked on a four-hundred-yard airstrip in the Rif mountains, waiting to take on the cocaine. Finding a crew hadn't been hard: $100,000 for the pilot—Jan Karasek, Polish, former crop sprayer, veteran of night flights running hashish for Transer Naga in his own Skymaster—and S75,000 for the copilot—Fernando de la Cueva, a former Spanish air force officer who had flown Aviocars when he was on active duty, before going over to civil aviation and then being laid off in a "job restructuring" by Iberia.

  The Cherokee's headlights briefly swept the first few houses in Carbo-neras as Teresa consulted the clock on the dashboard. By now the two pilots, orienting themselves by the lights of the Almeria-Murcia highway and then crossing it near Nijar, would have flown the plane up into the Sierra de Al-hamilla. There, they'd turn slowly to the west, staying low but avoiding the network of high-tension electrical lines carefully drawn by Dr. Ramos on their flight maps. They'd soon be lowering the flaps for their landing on the clandestine runway illuminated only by the moon, one car's headlights at the beginning of the landing strip, and another's three hundred yards farther down: two quick flashes to signal the beginning and end of the strip.

  In the plane's cargo hatch was merchandise valued at S45 million, of which Transer Naga would earn ten percent.

  Before they got on the N-340, the three of them—Teresa, Dr. Ramos, and Pote Galvez—stopped to eat something at a truck stop: truckers at tables in the back, hams and sausages hanging from the ceiling, wineskins, photographs of bullfighters on the walls, revolving racks with porno videos, and tapes and CDs of Los Chinguitos, El Fary, La Nina de los Peines. They stood at the bar for tapas: ham, fresh tuna with pimientos and tomato, sausage. Dr. Ramos ordered a brandy and Pote Galvez, who was driving, coffee—a double. Teresa was looking for her cigarettes in her jacket pockets when a green and white Guardia Civil Nissan pulled up outside. Its occupants walked in, and Pote Galvez got very tense; he took his hands off the bar and with professional distrust half turned toward the newcomers, stepping out a bit to cover his employer's body with his own.

  Easy, Pinto, she told him with her eyes. It's not today that we get fucked. Rural patrol. Routine. Two young agents in olive-drab uniforms, pistols in black holsters at their waists. They courteously said Buenos noches to all, put their caps down on a stool, and sat at the end of the bar. They seemed relaxed, and one of them looked at Teresa and her companions briefly, absent-mindedly, while he poured sugar in his coffee with one hand and stirred it with the other. Dr. Ramos' eyes flashed as he and Teresa exchanged glances. If these rookies only knew, he wordlessly said, carefully stuffing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. Oh, my. Then, as the officers were getting ready to leave, the doctor told the barman not to charge them, to put their coffee on his tab. One of them protested very politely, while the other gave them a smile. Gracias. No, the doctor said, thank you, for your service. Gracias, they said again.

  "Good boys," the doctor said as the door closed behind them.

  He'd said the same thing about the pilots, Teresa remembered, when the Aviocar's engines roared overhead on the beach. And that, among other things, was what she liked about the doctor. His perfect, unflappable equanimity. Anybody, seen from the right perspective, could be a good boy. Or girl. The world was a difficult place, with complicated rules, where each person played the role assigned by destiny. Everybody I know, she had heard the doctor remark, has reasons for doing what they do. Accepting that in the people around you, she concluded, made it easier to get along with them. The trick was to always look for the positive side. And smoking a pipe helped a lot. It gave you time—to think, to reflect, to wait. It gave you the chance to move slowly, and look into yourself, and look at others.

  The doctor ordered a second brandy, and Teresa—there was no tequila here—a Galician aguardiente that brought tears to her eyes. The presence of the two guardsmen recalled to her a recent conversation, and old worries. Three weeks earlier, at Transer Naga's official headquarters, now in a five-story building on Avenida del Mar, in the center of Marbella, across the street from the park, she'd received a visit. An unannounced visit, which at first she'd refused to grant, until Eva, her secretary, showed her a court order that recommended that Teresa Mendoza Chavez, resident of blah blah blah, grant that interview, or be subject to certain subsequent unpleasantnesses. "Preliminary survey," the order said, though it didn't say preliminary to what. "And there are two of them," Eva added, with Pote Galvez behind her at the door of Teresa's office, like a Doberman. "A man and a woman. Guardia Civil."

  After thinking it over for a few seconds, Teresa had Eva call Teo Aljarafe, so that he would be ready should his services be required. She reassured Pote Galvez with a gesture and told Eva to show the visitors into the conference room. They didn't shake hands. After a rudimen
tary greeting the three took seats at the large round table, from which all papers and files had first been removed. The man was thin, serious, not bad-looking, with prematurely gray hair in a brush cut, and a luxuriant moustache. He had a deep, pleasant voice, Teresa thought, as cultured as his manners. He was in street clothes, a worn corduroy jacket and khaki pants—civilian, but military at the same time.

  "My name's Castro," he said, not mentioning his given name, although he seemed to have had second thoughts, and added, "Captain Castro. And this is Sergeant Moncada." While he made their brief introductions, the woman—redheaded, in a skirt and polo shirt, gold earrings, and with small, intelligent eyes—pulled a tape recorder out of the canvas bag on her lap and put it on the table.

  "I hope you don't mind," she said. Then she blew her nose on a Kleenex—she looked like she had a cold, or an allergy—and left the tissue wadded up in the ashtray.

  "Not at all," answered Teresa. "But in that case you'll have to wait while I call my attorney. And the same goes for taking notes."

  After a look at her boss, Sergeant Moncada frowned, put the tape recorder back into her bag, and used another Kleenex. Captain Castro succinctly explained what had brought them there. In the course of a recent investigation, some reports had pointed toward businesses related to Tran-ser Naga.

  "There is proof of that, of course," said Teresa.

  "Well, no. I'm sorry to say there's not."

  "In that case, I don't understand why you're here."

  "It's routine."

  "Oh."

  "We'd like you to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice." "Oh."

  Captain Castro told Teresa that an action by the Guardia Civil—the confiscation of inflatable boats presumably meant for use in drug trafficking— had been aborted because of an information leak and the unexpected intervention of the National Police. Agents from the Estepona division stepped in early, raiding a warehouse building in the industrial park, where, instead of the material the Guardia Civil was tracking, they found only two old motorboats, no longer being used. They found no proof, arrested nobody.

  "I'm so sorry to hear that," Teresa said. "But I still don't understand what any of that has to do with me."

  "Nothing, for the time being. The police blew it. Our investigation was ruined because somebody passed false information to the Estepona police. No judge would go forward with what we have now."

  "Hijole.... And you've come to tell me this?" Her tone of voice made the officers exchange glances.

  "In a way," Captain Castro said. "We thought your opinion might be helpful. At the moment we're working on half a dozen things related to that same area."

  Sergeant Moncada leaned forward in her chair. No lipstick, no makeup. Her small eyes looked tired. The cold. The allergy. Maybe a long night last night—working, of course, Teresa ventured. Days without washing her hair. The gold earrings were incongruous.

  "The captain means your area—in fact, you."

  Teresa decided to ignore the hostility. She looked at the woman's wrinkled shirt.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." She turned to the man again. "My affairs are all in public view."

  "Not these affairs," Captain Castro said. "Have you ever heard of Chemical STM?"

  "Never."

  "Or of Konstantin Garofi, Limited?"

  "Yes. I have shares in that company. A minority holding."

  "How strange. According to our information, the Konstantin Garofi import-export company, with headquarters in Gibraltar, is owned entirely by you."

  Maybe I should have waited for Teo, thought Teresa. But now was not the time to turn back. She raised an eyebrow.

  "I imagine that if you claim that, you have proof of it."

  Captain Castro stroked his moustache. He slowly, doubtfully shook his head, as though calculating exactly how much proof he had, or didn't have.

  "Well, no," he said at last. "Unfortunately we don't, although in this case it doesn't matter much. Because we've received a report. A request for cooperation from the U.S. DEA and the Colombian government, regarding a shipment of fifteen tons of potassium permanganate seized in Cartagena."

  "I didn't realize that shipping potassium permanganate was illegal."

  She had leaned back and was looking at the officer with a surprise that to all appearances was authentic.

  "In Europe it's not," was the reply. "But in Colombia it's a controlled substance. It's used in the processing of cocaine. And in the United States buying and selling more than a certain amount of potassium permanganate is restricted. It's one of the twelve precursors and thirty-three chemical substances on the list of controlled substances. As you may or may not know, potassium permanganate is one of those twelve products essential for making cocaine paste and cocaine hydrochloride. Combined with other chemicals, ten tons would be enough to refine eighty tons of cocaine. Which, if you'll forgive a well-used phrase, is nothing to sneeze at."

  When he finished his speech, Captain Castro continued to look at Teresa inexpressively, as though that was all he had to say. She mentally counted to three. Chale. Her head was starting to hurt, but she couldn't allow herself to take out an aspirin in front of these two. She shrugged.

  "And?"

  "Well, the shipment went by sea from Algeciras. It had been bought by Konstantin Garofi from the Belgian company Chemical STM."

  "I think it's odd that a company in Gibraltar would export directly to Colombia."

  "We think it's odd, too." If there was sarcasm in his remark, it didn't show. "Actually, what happened is that the stuff was bought in Belgium, brought to Algeciras, and then signed over to another company registered on the island of Jersey, which put it in a container and shipped it first to Puerto Cabello, in Venezuela, and then to Cartagena.... And along the way it was repackaged—into barrels labeled magnesium dioxide."

  It wasn't the Gallegos—Teresa knew that. This time it hadn't been them that had blown the whistle. The problem was in Colombia. Local problems, with the DEA behind them, probably. Nothing that would even remotely affect her.

  "Where?"

  "At sea. Because it left Algeciras labeled as what it was."

  So that's the end of the line, sweetheart. Everybody off. Look at my hands on the table, taking a legal cigarette out of a legal package and lighting it with all the calm in the world. Hands as white and innocent as snow. So forget it. What's all this to me?

  "Then you should ask that company headquartered in Jersey for an explanation," she said.

  The sergeant made a gesture of impatience, but said nothing. Captain Castro bowed his head, as though grateful for a good piece of advice.

  "It dissolved after the operation," he said. "It was just a name on Saint Helier Street."

  "Hijole. And there's proof of all that?"

  "Of that, yes indeed."

  "Then the people at Konstantin Garofi got taken, eh?"

  The sergeant opened her mouth to say something, but this time, too, she evidently thought better of it. She looked at her boss and then removed a notebook from her bag. You take out a pencil, thought Teresa, and you're on your ass on the street. Or maybe whether you take out a pencil or not.

  "So," she went on, "if I understand this right, you're talking about the transportation of a legal chemical within the Schengen area. I don't see what's strange about that. I'm sure all the documents were in order, with bills of lading and destination documents and everything. I can't say I know all the details of Konstantin Garofi's operations, but as far as I know they're very careful to obey all the applicable laws.... And I'd never have stock in them if they weren't."

  "Not to worry," said Captain Castro amiably.

  "Do I seem worried?"

  He looked at her without immediately answering.

  "As far as you and Konstantin Garofi are concerned," he said at last, "everything seems legal."

  "Unfortunately," added the sergeant. She licked her thumb to turn a page in the notebook.

  Bullshit, thought
Teresa. You want to make me think you've got the number of kilos of my last run written down in there?

  "Would there be anything else?" she asked.

  "There'll always be something else," replied the captain.

  So let's move to second base, cabron, thought Teresa as she stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. She did it with calculated violence, with a hard thumb. Just enough irritation, plus an ounce or two for good measure, despite the fact that her headache was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable. In Sinaloa, these two would already be bought off or dead. She had contempt for the way they showed up there, taking her for something she wasn't. So primitive. But she also knew that contempt led to arrogance, and that's where the mistakes started. Overconfidence kills more people than bullets.