Leon was waiting in the reception when Ernie arrived. Hellos were short and they went directly to Ernie’s office. He went right to the point.
“I know Ian Carlo talked to you and you are more or less up to date on what happened in the last couple of days. Marco wants you to take over most of the responsibilities that have been his until now. He has new ones and has to dedicate some time to understand them and make decisions that will be required. This flash drive has all you need to know and the way to access whatever else you want to know. My office is preparing directives and the corresponding powers of attorney that will allow you to take your place in the boards of a number of corporations here in the US and abroad. You will need help. Promote from within or hire outside people that you trust. The operational profit and loss statements of each venture should be sufficient of a guideline for salary structures. In other words, at Marco’s specific instructions you have a free hand with this. Go through everything and when you have questions, which you will, we can have all the time you need and if Marco is available at that time, he will join us.”
“Not much I can say at this moment,” said Leon, “I have to trust Marco’s judgment. I have since we were in school and I don’t see a reason to change.”
“Even after what Ian Carlo told you?”
“Yes, even after that. But I suspect that a lot of my questions are going to end up right there.”
“Fair enough, I did not totally agree with your involvement but Marco was adamant about it and Ian Carlo agreed so, that’s that”
“Then until I have my questions. Do you have a copy of this drive?”
“Yes, so does Marco and there are another two copies at safety deposit boxes. Just guard yours.”
Marco was at the villa in Tortola and while the wound was not life threatening it was extremely painful because the carbon steel blade had scraped a long way down the bone. A top trauma and orthopedic specialist had been flown in from Miami to complement the excellent job that a British Navy MD had originally done and now it was only time and physiotherapy that would bring what was expected to be a total recovery. Jeremy Allen was also at the villa with a group of 24 security people. The villa and all its access points were sealed off and guarded 24/7. There was not going to be another attack on his watch. A complex communications system with a private satellite access had been deployed and the return of all of The Board member’s to their bases was being monitored. Francisco, Ernie, and Marco believed that The Board’s members had been collateral damage and not the objective of the attack.
During the following weeks, Marco spent his time reading all the documents that had come to him from Sal in the envelopes and the flash drives. He had spoken several times with Ernie, Ian Carlo, and Leon Goddard and was beginning to feel comfortable in his new role. Patricia and he had also had several conversations with Francisco and some changes were being implemented into the fundamentals of the investments.
Marco believed that instead of confronting and competing with the other groups head on, he could do a MacArthur on them. He would go to the source of their money rather than confront them on grounds where they were strong. He was also sending hundreds of emails giving instructions to all the banks, brokers and funds creating a much more agile financial structure. He had also “bought” several of the Carducci operations from overseas and had capitalized them with over two billion dollars, and gave Leon Goddard the management of those assets through extensive powers of attorney. They leveraged the holdings to the hilt and at the end of the day they held over seven billion dollars in multimodal transportation assets that were key to his plans. The initial moves were in place and he and Patricia decided that it was pertinent to disappear for a time in order to avoid another attack and plan counter-measures rather than retribution. After all it was only business.
The Lear and the Toscana were lost but they understood that those were the assets by which the opposition had located them. Now they were planning to move using NetJet and other similar facilities but discarded commercial flight for the moment.
M&M saw that Joseph Delany was still handicapped by the loss of his father on whose influence he had so relied. The kid needed a kick in the ass and he knew exactly what to do. He sent him another note.
Dear Special Agent Delany, on the island of Tortola there is a gentleman by the name of Marcus MacKenzie who can give you precise details as to the whereabouts of Mr. Carducci. Act promptly because he may not be there for long. By the way, he’s a British citizen so don’t try to play the heavy.
Enrico Testa was in a hospital in Dominican Republic. He had undergone surgery for a torn ligament in his knee and would require several weeks of therapy and rest. He had no alternative. The son of a bitch had really winged him. He also had two ribs detached from the sternum. A little more and the woman would have killed him. His stay at Casa de Campo was pleasant and he used the time to pray and read. Then he would find them both and finish the job. This time it was personal.
Major Allen returned to Sarasota and left a highly qualified lieutenant in charge of the security of the villa. There had been no threats and he had to be at the helm of his operations. Most of them were for The Board, even though he didn’t know it.
Ian Carlo was in high gear consolidating his turf. He could not allow that any distraction take him away from his business for too long. Not in his line of work. There was always somebody sniffing around for the opportunity to move in on something. Wind of the FBI intentions of investigating his operation in depth had reached him as did the good work that “friends” in the New York Attorney General’s Office and other branches of the judiciary had done to frustrate this. Big bonuses were sent out to the key players and the armor of bureaucracy tightened around him.
Ernie was hard at work with the management of Wall Street. While it was Marco and Leon who actually managed the money, it was Ernie that located and used the loopholes that were so necessary to keep the banks happy. His relationship with these and with some key people in the Securities Exchange Commission guaranteed that nobody was doing anything “illegal” while they laundered hundreds of millions of dollars every month. Good politicians always leave a back door open so that they can clean the graft.
Francisco was in Bogotá dealing with a particularly interesting situation – Colombia was no longer the major coca producer in the world. That honor had shifted to Peru. While the Colombian coca plantations had been reduced by 25% the better quality Peruvian and Bolivian plantations had grown proportionately, but the processing labs continued to be nomads in no-man-land. They drifted between Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru. Now there were some in Paraguay and Bolivia. Net cocaine demand was up because of the avid consumption in emerging countries; but the US, believe it or not, had managed to reduce consumption and tightened the Mexican border to the point that the price of cocaine in the street was increasing. Europe was the opposite. Lack of cash in the 18 to 25 age group, because of rampant unemployment, had reduced the demand so the price tanked. This presented a problem of cash flow among the distributors and could precipitate even more brutal gang wars battling for territory on both sides of the Atlantic. This violence was bad for business so Francisco and now Ian Carlo had to do a review of all procedures and an evaluation of means. Assets were not a problem. So, they decided to meet in Miami.
The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables is a throwback to the ‘20s except that it has been remodeled at great expense and with exquisite taste. It was designed by Schultz and Weaver and was built in 1926 by John MacEntee Bowman and George Merrick (the creator of Coral Gables) as part of a hotel chain. It served as a hospital during WW2 and as a Veterans Hospital and then a campus of the University of Miami Medical School until 1968. It became a hotel again in 1987. There is a story that claims Al Capone killed Thomas Walsh by bashing his brains in and then throwing him off the Biltmore tower. Some think the ghost of the man still haunts the place. Also, it boasts a pool that for many years was the largest in the world and had lumin
aries like Johnny Weissmuller and Esther Williams spend time there.
It was at the Biltmore that Francisco Lujan and Ian Carlo de la Rosa had their meeting. Each had a suite on different floors and their meetings looked casual and public. Guests and tourists crowded the public areas and attendees to the always-present events and conventions occupied salons, restaurants and recreational facilities. On Sundays, brunch at La Fontana Restaurant was by reservation only and you still had to wait for your table. So Francisco and Ian Carlo chose to sit in the small café that services the golf course. Their ubiquitous security people mixed in well with golfers and their golf bags.
Having ordered the club sandwich and a Shark beer each, they waited for a foursome to go by noisily discussing, bragging, and bitching. Then Francisco gave Ian Carlo a detailed and rather graphic account of the attack on the Toscana and the days of interrogation, declarations, and explanations that the Coast Guard extracted.
“So how bad was his wound really?” Ian Carlo asked.
“Bad enough to put him out of commission for a week or ten days more and a few months of therapy and exercise to be at a hundred percent, but very fortunately no permanent damage is expected. He’s learning to do everything with his left hand and arm, even though he still signs with his right which apparently hurts a lot. He’s got a full time nurse and Patricia is there with him.”
“Oh,” said Ian Carlo without further comment, but his thoughts were on point.
“How is Goddard doing?” asked Francisco, changing the subject.
“Much better than I expected. The guy is the most incisive de-constructor of complex management organizations that I have ever met. He can see how the whole operation works as if he was looking at a clock in a glass casing. I can say that in just a couple of weeks he has improved some of the overseas corporations to become far more efficient with fewer resources, which has liberated both human and monetary capital. Or so Marco tells me because I don’t know shit about it,” said Ian Carlo.
“Well, our conversations now are more in our field of expertise and between the two of us, we can come up with solutions to some problems that are beginning to develop that I’d like to head off before they bite our collective asses.”
“What’s on your mind, still the border crossing problems?
“Yes, but more than that. Let’s accept that the market is changing and we have to change with it. I think several factors are making marijuana a much more attractive recreational drug than before. If you pay attention you see that the people have decriminalized marijuana in their minds. The whole social attitude has changed in the media, the entertainment business, and even in law enforcement. On the other hand I don’t see open marijuana crops adorning the countryside quite yet. The Federal Government still has a bug up their ass about it.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Francisco. The problem is more than ever the border crossing of Mexican and South American weed into the US. Far more so than C or H and they are becoming more difficult every day. Between the gangs snitching on each other and the increase of border patrol agents, the Mexican border is not the sift it used to be. Also the Federales or at least some of them have become efficient and far less corruptible than before.”
“True and things will get tighter as the US efforts to improve Mexican economy show results. There has been an increase in middle class population in Mexico while in the United States it has taken a beating. This creation of employment in Mexico will drain the human resources of the cartels and the turf wars will increase. That makes life difficult for us; so Sal and I came up with a plan a few years ago and now it’s about to take place.”
“You mean the pipeline, I’m guessing.”
“Yes, I see you have done your homework; but it’s a lot more than just a pipeline. It’s a virtual highway. In 2009 we bid and won three contracts to increase the natural gas pipelines between three points in the US and five points in Mexico. These contracts allowed us to dig and lay pipe crossing the US/Mexican border under the watchful but blind eye of the law on both sides. Any pipeline is really a bunch of pipelines. The transport line itself requires power lines, pump stations, maintenance lines, etc. We added one unobtrusive line to this complex. It has the advantage that it produces no detectable underground signature like a tunnel does and can transport a ton of C in a few minutes over several hundred miles. The vacuum and pressure pumps are off sight from the gas facilities and are disguised in legitimate industrial sights. A fifty-kilo package in a capsule can travel at a thousand miles per hour. That means that if there is only one capsule in the tube at a time and the stations are 200 miles apart you could send five capsules an hour which would be two hundred and fifty kilos in an hour, or six tons a day. Multiply that by three and you have eighteen tons a day. Cut that in half for delays, maintenance, and other factors and you are still passing nearly ten tons a day, practically undetectable.
In the near future we can make the stations a thousand miles or more from each other and then the speed goes up to four thousand miles per hour and the logistics become simple for us and practically impossible for the law to catch on. Evacuated tube transport systems are the future in all types of transportation. They are extremely energy efficient as the impulse to the pod is given by the attraction and rejection of magnets but only at the point where the pod is, so it’s only for a fraction of a second at each point. Those same magnets levitate the pod so that there is no friction and thus the high speeds are obtained. Exclusion valves at each end maintain the integrity of the vacuum and allow for the loading and unloading of the pods.”
“I thought all this stuff was just theoretical. That it was, excuse the pun, a pipe dream.”
“Yes, it still is for human transport, but small object vacuum transportation has existed for quite some time. Now with the new magnetic-impulse systems and perfected energy recuperation this is, for us at least, a very economic transport system. And, it is not labor intensive like the handling of these goods has been in the past. There is less chance of snitches, plants, rip-offs, and all the bribes that plague our business.”
“So the point is? Apart from the obvious I mean…”
“We go back into the marijuana business because it’s going to bloom!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Agent Delany was still dressed in his standard FBI attire of dark suit, white shirt, and reasonable tie as he walked down the stairs of the American Airlines plane that brought him to Tortola from Miami. He looked like a fish out of water and a fly in the milk all rolled in one. He was wasp white with a buzz haircut and a look of disconcert that would tempt the most honest taxi driver to rip him off. He went through customs and to a HM Coast Guard Range Rover whose driver was leaning against it holding a card that said only DELANY. As it turned out it was Chief Inspector Buchwald, his local contact, who was there to receive him. They shook hands and went into Road Town to a small but very nice hotel that the inspector had reserved for Joseph Delany.
“I reserved it for two days if that suits you.”
“That will be fine,” said Delany, and went straight to the point. “You said that the MacKenzie are still here, is that right?”
“Yes, they are up at their villa, a real posh and well-guarded place. You can’t get in there unless you have an appointment and from what I hear nobody gets an appointment. The vicar from the local Anglican Church went up there to offer his support and was flatly turned down by the guard. Shopping is done by the housekeeper with two nasty looking bodyguards keeping her company and so far I’m the only official that has gone up there because the pirate attack on the yacht is my case. Major Wills, the Navy MD, goes up every day but he keeps his mouth shut about his patients.
“Patients…more than one?” asked Delany
“Oh yes, several of the crew of the Toscana, that was the name of the yacht, were wounded and they are being cared for at the villa. Very decent of the missus, if I might say; she does the rounds with the doctor and keeps them all in high style.”
“Can you get me in to see Mr. MacKenzie? I have information about the attack that may be of interest to him.”
“First you ought to tell me, as I’m the bloke in charge of the investigation, aren’t I?”
“Well, the survivor of the assailants is now in our custody. She is an independent contractor hired by an Internet security firm. What we found interesting was that her fingerprints rang a loud bell in an Interpol search that says she is a Spaniard by the name of Dionisia Iragorri of ETA fame. I would like to know if Mr. MacKenzie has any connection with that group.”
The Carducci Convergence Page 15