The Threat

by David Poyer

  “It may be a long shot,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do, though.”

  “So tell him that,” Sandy said, as if she were sucking something bad. “Your wop boss. The Firefighting Cowboy.”

  But her husband was taking her arm, presenting Dan with what might pass for a smile but looked more like a territorial display, a monitory baring of teeth. Sandy was turning away. “Stay in touch, Dan,” she trilled. A whiff of Guerlaine, and she was gone.

  * * *

  He went over to Admiral Contardi, who was still standing alone, and introduced himself. Reminded him of the Arroyo Gold operation, when he’d briefed him on a then-untested missile. Contardi’s eye lingered on the blue-and-white ribbon. He said he remembered Dan and was glad to see him again. Then started talking about something he called a smarter, nimbler military. It involved “networks” and “nodes” and communications and satellite surveillance. It sounded very high-tech, but after a few minutes Dan wasn’t sure he was following. Maybe that showed, because after a quizzical pause where they stared at each other Contardi said gently, “Well, I’m still sort of bouncing these ideas around. We can talk about it some other time if you want.”

  Dan took the hint and excused himself for the buffet. Held a plate and nibbled, looking around for Blair but not finding her. Then he saw her talking to the actress, her face flaming, her eyes sparkling. He smiled again at how excited she looked.

  “Commander Lenson, I presume?”

  He turned from the table to a swarthy, smiling man whose silver hair gleamed in the candlelight. He was in a tux, with some sort of foreign order in his buttonhole. Dan took his extended palm.

  “You are Lenson?”

  “That’s right. Have we met before, sir?”

  “No, sir; you don’t know me. And there’s no reason you should. I happen to be in the service of the state of Israel.”

  Dan said he was glad to meet him. “Perhaps it’s best that way,” the man said, keeping his voice so low amid the hubbub Dan had to bend to catch it. Still holding his hand—he’d not released it after shaking it. “A certain distance must be maintained. Especially with this administration, it seems. But we know you. Yes, we do. And I have something for you.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “When you were in command of USS Thomas W. Horn. I don’t believe you have ever been officially thanked for your service. For what you risked, and what you suffered.”

  Dan cleared his throat. “Oh. Uh, that wouldn’t be necessary, I was actually—”

  He was interrupted in midsentence. “Good, because we do not intend to do so officially. Lo hayu ha’dvarim miolam. We are not supposed to know what took place off our shore. But rest assured we appreciate your—acts.” He squeezed again, the hand he hadn’t let go, and with the other slipped a slim case of dark wood from inside his jacket. “If you would do me the honor?”

  Dan clicked it open, and blinked, dumbfounded at what lay within.

  The silk ribbon was red as fresh blood. The heavy, dull silver medal, nestled in dark blue velvet, resembled no American decoration he’d ever seen. Swords, entwined by an olive branch.

  “What’s this?” he muttered.

  “It’s the Tzalash. The Medal of Courage. I do not think it has ever been awarded to a foreigner before.”

  “Well, it’s very handsome. But I, uh, I can’t accept this. We can’t accept foreign decorations—”

  The Israeli raised both hands. “Unfortunately, I cannot take it back. We are in your debt, and always will be. If ever we can return the favor, please—just ask.”

  The little man bowed, smiling faintly, and moved off.

  Dan frowned after him, trying to sort out what had just happened, as Sebold hove into view, smiling like a benevolent lord. He closed the case quickly, a small snap in the party noise, and slipped it inside his shirt. The director’s arm was around the shoulders of the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, a Carter-era retread Blair said made a copperhead look like a model of forthright goodwill.

  He looked around for his wife again, but this time saw neither Blair nor the actress. A door was open, letting cool air into the overheated atmosphere. He headed for it, taking his glass along, hoping for a moment alone.

  Outside the air was almost frosty. Lights glared on a beautifully manicured putting green. Guests moved slowly across it, talking in low voices. A heavy man mimed a putt for two companions; Dan caught the words “Dan Quayle” and “pool house.” He saw the pool house and strolled toward it.

  “Dan? Dan Lenson?”

  A man his age, in a dark suit, with a boyish, winning grin. A cowlick behind a haircut so short the guy had to be a marine or Special Forces. When he lifted his glass Dan recognized him. Thirty-fourth Company; they’d played lacrosse together. But he couldn’t recall a name.

  “Good to see you, classmate.”

  “You too, uh—”

  “I left a message for you. You must not have gotten it.”

  “It’s been busy as shit. All kinds of incoming.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Dan tried hard, but nothing was coming. Jake? Jack? Skip? Chip? “What are you doing these days, man? You got out, right?”

  “Yeah, decided to make some money instead. Outfit here in D.C. We represent issues over on the Hill.”

  “Lobbying?”

  “Just trying to get the right message across. How about you? Getting any face time with the poster boy for the gay generation?”

  “I’ve seen him exactly twice.”

  “Never a day in uniform. Too fucking two-faced to wear one.”

  He seemed to assume they shared the same contempt for De Bari that Dan had heard on the talk radio programs that played nonstop in most Pentagon offices. “Did you read the Times article on how his wife got her winery land exempted from taxes? The land-easement scam? And then how convenient, the attorney who actually had the records died in the same fire that destroyed them. Her whole family’s Family. They don’t leave witnesses.”

  There’d been a lot of rehashing of the De Baris’ reputed Mob connections and state-lottery manipulations during the campaign. Dan didn’t know how true they were. Like single men in barracks, few politicians seemed to be plaster saints. Truman and the KKK. Kennedy’s bootlegger father. Nixon, in a class of his own. But the shrill chorus of Daily Hate left a bad taste. He said, “He’s probably as slippery as the rest of them. But at least he’s trying to get something done. Considering the zero cooperation he’s getting.”

  “Heard this one? Jimmy Carter, Dick Nixon, and Bob De Bari are on the Titanic. They hit the iceberg. Carter yells, ‘Women and children first,’ and gives away his life jacket. Nixon snarls, ‘Fuck the women and children,’ and shoves his way into the lifeboat. De Bari looks at his watch and says, ‘You think we have time?’”

  “Funny.”

  “He’s driving this country down the highway to hell at eighty miles an hour,” the man told him. “And I love this country. Do you love it, Dan?”

  “This some kind of joke?”

  “It’s no joke, classmate. Remember a piece of shit named Martin Tallinger?”

  Dan stiffened. He’d spat in the journalist’s face when the law gave him no hold on him. Tallinger hadn’t pulled a trigger. But he was still a murderer. “What about him? How do you know him?”

  “Keep your eyes open where you work.”

  “I haven’t seen Tallinger where I work. Just what the hell do you mean?”

  In return he got a contemptuous, pitying grin. Dan was stepping closer when a thrill brushed his skin. His pager. As he reached for his pocket he noticed the same abstracted pursing of lips elsewhere in the crowd.

  When he lifted it to the light it was the Sit Room again. Bracketing its number in the little display were the asterisks that meant urgent.

  7

  KEY WEST, FLORIDA

  He peered down on islands green as corroded brass set within infinite turquoise s
hadings. They reminded him of the reefs and jazirats of the Red Sea, and the memory was tinted dark with remembered danger. He was being jerked from one crisis to another, too fast to really get a solid fix on anything in the murk around him.

  Well, Sebold had said it would feel this way. Would he see the big picture someday? He rubbed his mouth, then checked his seat belt as the order to prepare for landing came over the cabin announcing system. Right now, it didn’t seem likely.

  He’d boarded at Andrews before first light. It was the first time he’d flown in one of the executive jets high-ranking officers traveled on. Miles Bloom sat beside him, the DEA agent deep in an Alan Furst novel.

  It was a week after the canceled strike on Sudan. Since then Kerkerbit had fallen. The enemy forces, which were coming into focus as the same brand of fundamentalist killers as the Afghan Taliban, were still advancing. The other party had called for hearings in Congress. The crisis with North Korea had escalated again, with the Pyongyang government now offering ballistic missiles for sale to all comers unless guaranteed oil aid and free food. The Chinese seemed unable to bring their unruly client to heel.

  Tony Holt had received Dan and Bloom in his corner office on the second floor of the West Wing. One window observed the cabana and pool on the South Lawn. The other looked out over Executive Drive. Three years before, Holt had been a state lottery director. Now the president’s chief of staff was in shirtsleeves and a green plaid bow tie. He seemed to know every detail of what was going on in the counterdrug office. Including business Bloom had told Dan about only days before, with the warning that this was the kind of operational top secret that could get agents killed. Now Bloom was updating him, information Holt took in with head cocked back, brushing his lips lightly with the tip of a finger.

  “It’s a guy we had deep in the cartel. Unfortunately he lost his cover and got whacked. In Bogotá, having a double vodka in the airport bar. Five nine-mils in the chest and one in the head.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah. He was a good guy,” Bloom said, without the least trace of actual regret. “Four kids and an ex-wife. But he managed to make a phone call before he went to the bar. They’re setting up a top-level meet.”

  “All right, go on.” Holt swiveled his chair as if bored. “This is Cali, right? The new heavies?”

  “Sounds that way. They’re scrambling their cell chatter, but this new circle-of-contacts software is giving us an idea who’s invited. Also, the guy who got shot in the airport, he wasn’t our only guy inside. The Bureau’s got a mechanic on Juan Nuñez’s aircraft team.”

  “Nuñez. This is the one they call Don Juan? The one who picked up all Pablo Escobar’s trade?”

  “Yeah. They call this guy ‘the Baptist’—everybody who gets on his bad side ends up underwater. FBI says he’s getting his plane prepped for a long flight with a full cabin. Including Francisco Zuluaga, the biggest money mover in Colombia, and other names you’ll recognize. They’re also installing some kind of hot-shit electronic gear our mechanic’s never seen before. It’s French, he says.”

  “What’s the destination?” Holt wanted to know.

  Bloom looked at the closed door. “This is a secure location,” the chief of staff said.

  “Miami,” Bloom told him.

  “Inside the United States?” Dan said.

  “No, in Miami,” Bloom told him straight-faced. “The perfect place, if you think about it. Not one we’d suspect. Latin types to blend in with. Good restaurants. A stone’s throw from Customs headquarters, and not that far from JIATF East.”

  “So. We going to Appalachin ’em?” Referring, Dan realized, to the raid on a Mob conference in New York State back in the fifties.

  “Absolutely not,” Bloom said. “That’d be terrible PR. Bullets flying around, dead bystanders … Some of the secondary figures we’ll vacuum up there. But we’ll take the principals en route. That’s the no-mess picker-upper. Without a pack of bodyguards and collateral damage.”

  “Specifically, who? Lehder? Nuñez?”

  “We’ll take Don Juan Sebastiano Nuñez’s plane in the air. AWACs will follow him from takeoff to intercept. At the appropriate point in his flight path, our fighters join up. They force him down on a military-controlled airstrip, and the arrest team moves in.”

  Dan couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He sat forward in his chair. “Uh, Miles. I know Mr. Holt holds the highest possible clearance … but does he really need to know all the plans, the times? Even who our informants are?”

  Holt looked as if he’d just been slapped. Bloom coughed apologetically. “The commander hasn’t been playing in the majors long,” he told the chief of staff. To Dan he added, “Tony here’s kept the lid on a lot of stuff. If you can’t trust Tony, you can’t trust me either, okay?”

  “I didn’t mean I didn’t trust you, sir. Just that—”

  “Not a problem,” said Holt, waving it away. “Who’s going to be lead for the bust?”

  “DEA. But it’d be good press to include the Dade County cops. Only at the last minute,” Bloom added. “No advance word. These narcotraficantes are sharp. The only way this’ll work is if we surprise them. And I think we’ve got a chance to.”

  “It sounds good. Decapitate the cartel. Do you need the president’s go-ahead?”

  “No, sir. This is within our charter.”

  “It’ll be international news. We’ll need a robust staff presence.”

  Bloom cocked his head. “Meaning … what, Tony?”

  “Both of you on scene, and General Sevinson does a press conference in Washington.” Sevinson was a retired two-star, acting head of DEA. “We can’t let Dade County take the credit when we’ve done the work.”

  Dan had figured what the chief of staff meant was he wanted the administration to get credit for the bust. Well, he wasn’t averse to letting them hog the limelight. Or even to standing in for them if they wanted him on scene.

  And now the runway of Key West International stretched ahead, streaked with the black crayon of hundreds of landings. With a thump and a shriek, they were down.

  * * *

  The sea breeze was warm. An Air Force colonel was waiting with an official car. Dan was wearing what he was starting to think of as his NSC uniform: gray suit, white shirt, subdued tie. Bloom had changed into boots, jeans, and a black windbreaker with “DEA” on the breast. He was also toting a holstered Glock now. But the suit and tie seemed to work better. The colonel called him “Mr. Lenson” with great respect, and opened the car door for him. While they listened to Rude Girl on the WAIL morning show Dan reflected on the advantages of being from Washington.

  Tourists in bright shirts and funny hats were taking pictures of each other next to a concrete buoy. A sign marked it as the southernmost point in the United States. Just past it was the JIATF fence, barbed wire, palm trees, then the Coast Guard piers. The operations center was low, gray brick, isolated on a spit of land. The colonel introduced him to the director, a recently arrived Coast Guard two-star named Quintero. Then it was up a flight of stairs, and through a steel door with card-controlled entry.

  In the joint operations command center four leather command chairs faced computer-driven back-projection displays. The command duty officer and the watch team, mostly uniformed but with intelligence analysts from Customs and DEA, sat around a four-armed table crowded with computers. The beeps and murmurs of voice circuits kept on as the briefing began. Fifty-one brain-numbing PowerPoint slides, narrated by a nervous young lieutenant commander. Dan sat beside Quintero, only partially tuned in.

  “JIATF East, originally Joint Task Force 4, was established when DoD became the lead agency for providing detection and monitoring throughout the transit zone. Our mission is to integrate the military’s C3I capabilities to assist law enforcement agencies. We now include representatives from DEA, DIA, NSA, FBI, and the British and Dutch Royal Navies. Our area of responsibility encompasses a region comparable in size to the triangle bounded by the cities
of Miami, Seattle, and New York, and includes the airspace of eighteen nations. We detect and monitor air and maritime trafficking activity in the transit zone, hand off this information to appropriate law enforcement agencies, and deconflict non-D&M counterdrug activities occurring in the transit zone.”

  “D&M?” Dan muttered to Quintero. The admiral whispered back, “Detect and monitor.”

  Dan was saying “Thanks” when the next slide came up.

  Labeled “National Counterdrug Organization,” it showed the operational line running from the president, through the NSC, down to the cabinet secretaries: Defense, Treasury, Transportation, State. From there it went through the secretary of defense to the Joint Chiefs, where it split three ways: to JIATF East via the Atlantic Command, JIATF West via the Pacific Command, and JIATF South via the Southern Command.

  Of course it didn’t mean Dan Lenson was about to give any direction to the secretary of defense. But it was a beautifully clear wiring diagram, and he contemplated its elegance before leaning again. “I’ve got to have that slide.”

  “Hey, I’ll send you electrons on the whole brief.”

  The rest was boilerplate—interdiction assets, baseline force laydown—but he paid attention when the ground-based-radar information came up. The main coverage was from ionospheric backscatter arrays. They could detect air targets two thousand miles away. Smaller radars on aerostats—tethered balloons—passed their pictures to the Caribbean Regional Operations Center, the room they were in. The rest of the brief was on a classified data link and the tactical analysis teams and local coordination centers that fed intel into the system.

  “If there are no questions, we’ll take a break,” the lieutenant commander said, obviously glad it was over. “After which we’ll describe Operation Hot Handoff.”

  * * *

  Hot Handoff was the code name for the interception of the major players en route to the meeting in Miami. DoD was the lead agency, and assets would be coordinated from Key West. Cold Handoff was the stateside piece of the operation, run by the DEA Miami Field Division with assistance from Dade County, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, the FBI, and Customs. Admiral Quintero briefed from his chair as the slides came up.