Against All Enemies

by Tom Clancy

  The introductions were brief, with the president making direct eye contact and giving both Rojas and Campbell firm handshakes, following up with an abrazo for Rojas and a firm pat on the shoulder. “It has been too long, my friend.”

  “I apologize for our late arrival,” said Rojas. “But after that madness in Paris, passing through customs was nearly a three-hour ordeal.”

  “I understand the delay,” said Rodriguez. “Now, I’ve set us up in the library. I won’t turn in until ten this evening, so we have plenty of time. We can also move to the observatory, if it’s not too cold. I’m sure you’ll chew my ear off with the reports on your holdings, more than I’d ever want to know about petroleum, coffee, and coal …I want to tell you that we’re doing much better than the last time we talked.”

  “Yes, we are,” said Rojas, his tone brightening.

  The president started off.

  Campbell turned to Rojas and grinned. “This is incredible.”

  “Of course,” said Rojas. Then he added in a whisper, “And when we’re finished, you’re going to have a government contract, trust me.”

  “Excellent,” Campbell said with a gasp.

  They shifted past the entrance foyer, whose walls displayed fine pieces of framed art, including several paintings of Antonio Nariño himself, along with ornate furniture dating back several hundred years. This kind of history and opulence no longer moved Rojas to an outward reaction, but he enjoyed watching Campbell’s eyes grow even wider the farther they ventured into the palace.

  His phone vibrated. He checked the text message from Fernando Castillo: I’m here now with Ballesteros.

  Rojas nodded inwardly. Ballesteros had been having a very rough time of it, and Rojas was glad they were here now in the country to help his loyal supplier. Ballesteros’s enemies were about to suffer the full wrath of the Juárez Cartel.

  FARC Base Camp

  Somewhere in the Jungle

  Near Bogotá, Colombia

  Colonel Julio Dios of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and oldest insurgent group in the Americas, settled down onto his cot inside the tent. This was his fiftieth birthday, and he’d spent the day drinking and celebrating with his men. Ah, the word men was being too generous. Most of his force was comprised of boys, really, barely eighteen, some only fourteen or fifteen, but he had trained them well, and they were fiercely loyal to him and his mission to further squeeze the cocaine producers for more money so they could expand and better equip their force. They were hardly ready for a military coup against the government of Colombia, but Dios speculated that in several years, FARC forces could rise up and attain a decided victory. They would finally bring down the corrupt president and his intolerable regime. For now, though, they would increase their funding by more heavily taxing the drug producers. The relationship he had with one producer in particular, Juan Ramón Ballesteros, had been an ad hoc alliance of convenience, with Ballesteros often trading cocaine for weapons. FARC made sure to steer itself clear of any involvement in the actual production and transportation of the drugs, and he provided Ballesteros with the added security he needed to the keep local and federal law enforcement authorities off his back.

  But while Ballesteros was expanding his business, Dios and his comrades were being aggressively hunted down, their numbers beginning to dwindle, their fate seemingly tied to the generosity of Ballesteros and other drug traffickers like him. That, Dios had decided, needed to change, and so he had been putting more than a little pressure on the drug man, whose stubbornness would soon get him killed.

  Dios cupped his head in his hands. He was ready to enjoy a long and restful night.

  He neither heard nor saw the man enter his tent, only felt the hand go over his mouth and the white-hot pain flood into his chest. When he finally looked up through the grainy darkness, he saw only a figure dressed in black, the face covered by a balaclava with only one eye cut out—or was that a patch lying beneath the other eyehole?

  “Ballesteros sends his regards. You don’t fuck with us. Ever. Your boys will know that now …Go see God …”

  The man punched him in the chest again, more white-hot pain, and suddenly Dios had no control over his arms and legs. He wanted to cough. Couldn’t. He started to take a breath. Couldn’t. And then …

  As he left the tent with blood-covered gloves, Fernando Castillo thought about the other men who were being killed at the exact same moment, six other high-ranking FARC leaders who would all be murdered with notes pinned to their chests “asking” for their renewed cooperation and “patience.” The Juárez Cartel had spoken.

  Private Mansion

  Bogotá, Colombia

  “You will lead them. You will bring the jihad back to the United States—and you must use the contacts you’ve made with the Mexicans to do that. Do you understand?”

  Those were Mullah Abdul Samad’s orders, and every decision he made was directed toward completing that mission. No matter how much he loathed what he was about to do, he would not forget Mullah Omar Rahmani’s words.

  Samad had traveled alone in the black Mercedes limousine. Niazi and Talwar were watching Spanish soap operas back at the Charleston Hotel, where Ballesteros had put them up in suites—all seventeen of them. Fourteen of Samad’s fifteen fighters had arrived in the city, and it was Allah’s will that he, Niazi, and Talwar had escaped from that jungle house after the attack by FARC paramilitary troops. Thus far there had been only one setback: the death of Ahmad Leghari in Paris. That Ballesteros could not use the submarine to get them into Mexico was an issue that could be addressed, but most crucial was the border crossing into the United States. If Samad could strike a deal now with the Juárez Cartel, then the most challenging leg of his journey would be addressed. If not, there would be other plans set into motion, and Rahmani had said that he was already in contact with at least one other cartel. He’d feared that contacting several cartels at once might alert Rojas, and so they would advance slowly, subtly.

  The limousine driver, a young man no more than twenty-one, took him up across the broad cobblestone driveway and toward the entrance of a spectacular colonial-style mansion set into the foothills and overlooking the entire city. This, Ballesteros had said, was yet another of his boss’s vacation homes, worth millions in a good real estate market, and Samad, being a man of simple means and simple resources, could not help but despise the ostentation of it all, from the dozens of dormer windows to the six different fountains set across the circular driveway to the marble statues that suggested he’d arrived at a museum rather than a private residence. They stopped before a pair of wooden doors hand-carved with leaf patterns accented in gold and finished in a deep walnut. The driver stepped out and opened the door for Samad, who slid outside. He would be unrecognizable to even his trusted lieutenants, were they to glimpse him from afar. The beard and hair had been severely trimmed, and he’d purchased a very Western business suit along with a leather attaché. He was, to any Colombian, a successful-looking foreign businessman who on the weekends enjoyed the outdoors, as suggested by his rough-and-tumble beard and lean frame.

  A slightly hunchbacked man with gray mustache and dressed in a butler’s uniform met him at the door and led him onto a back terrace, where the man Samad had come to see was alone before a wrought-iron table, reading the daily edition of La República Bogotá, a glass of orange juice waiting at his side.

  “Señor Rojas? Your guest has arrived,” said the butler in Spanish.

  The newspaper lowered to reveal a man shockingly young for his position. Samad tried to hide his surprise as the man rose, raked fingers through thick black hair with the barest touch of gray, then reached out to offer Samad a firm handshake.

  “Buenos días. Please, have a seat.”

  “Gracias,” Samad said, assuming they would speak in Spanish. “It’s a great honor to finally meet you in person. Mullah Rahmani has shared many great things about you.”

  “Well, I appreciate that. Your brea
kfast will be here shortly.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Señor Ballesteros tells me you have a rather large party accompanying you.”

  “That’s true.”

  Rojas made a face. “That troubles me. And I already expressed my concern to Mullah Rahmani.”

  “Then you understand our dilemma,” said Samad.

  “I’m afraid I don’t. He didn’t tell me the reason for your visit, only that you were coming and that it was extremely important that we talk.”

  “Well, before we discuss that, I would like to assure you that the mistakes made in Pakistan will not happen again. The CIA has put a lot of pressure on us, but we’ve recruited an operative on the inside. He’s given us a few names. With his help, shipments will resume as usual.”

  Rojas hoisted one of his brows. “I’m sure they will, otherwise I’ll be forced to find another supplier. Many warlords in the north have been knocking on my door. And as I’ve made Rahmani very much aware, we are the only cartel with whom you will do business.”

  “Of course.”

  “Mark my words. If I learn that you’re not happy with us and sell your product to perhaps the Sinaloa Cartel or another one of my competitors, there would be grave consequences.”

  While Samad could not hide his disdain over being threatened, he remained keenly aware that he would not leave these grounds alive were he to cross this man. “We understand very clearly that our arrangement is exclusive. And we’re very happy to be working with you and for you to take such care in trying to expand the reach of our product, which has, in the past, been largely ignored by the cartels. In fact, we are so grateful for your help that I’ve brought some gifts.”

  Samad caught Rojas staring at his briefcase. “Oh, no,” Samad added with a grin. “They’re not in here. They are much larger, shall we say.”

  “I think I know what you have in mind.”

  “Yes. Something for your enemies.”

  Back at Ballesteros’s jungle house were two trucks loaded down with sophisticated improvised explosive devices manufactured in Samad’s factory in Zahedan. Along with the hundreds of bombs were twenty-two crates of Belgian-made FN 5.7 pistols, which Samad knew were a favorite among the Mexican drug cartels, who used the mata policía against police wearing body armor. The pistol’s rounds often penetrated that armor, and Samad assumed a gift like this would most assuredly please Rojas and his sicarios.

  Samad removed from his briefcase an inventory sheet and showed it to Rojas, whose gaze widened. “Excellent.”

  “I’ll have them delivered this afternoon.”

  “Not here. I’ll have Fernando call you to make arrangements for that. So I’m to assume you didn’t come all this way to deliver arms or to apologize for what happened in Pakistan?”

  “No.”

  “You’re looking for a favor.”

  Samad sighed deeply. “One of our dear friends, a revered imam, has been stricken with lung cancer and needs to enter the United States for advanced medical treatment. He’s traveling with us, along with his two sons, two nephews, and a group of acolytes. I assure you he is no terrorist, only a poor dying soul who needs the best medical help we can find for him. The university in Houston has the number-one-ranked cancer center. We want to bring the imam there. But we need your help. You see, because of his religious beliefs and questionable funding from Arab states, his name is on the U.S. terrorist list and also on the international no-fly list. If you would help us get him and his party to Houston, we would be eternally grateful.”

  Another servant appeared at the table and set before Samad a tray with some toast, jam, breakfast cereal, and coffee. The interruption was awkward, as he was trying to read the reaction on Rojas’s face.

  Samad thanked the woman, then glanced up at Rojas, who was staring hard at his glass of orange juice. He leaned toward the table and said, “I can’t help you.”

  “But señor, this is a matter of life and death.”

  “Indeed, it is.”

  Rojas pushed back his chair, stood, walked away from the table, then returned, scratching his chin in thought. When he finally spoke again, his tone had grown much darker: “Can you imagine what would happen if your party were caught? Can you imagine that?”

  “But we would not be caught, because we would rely upon your expertise to get us there.”

  Rojas shook his head. “The United States is a sleeping dog. And as they say, we must let sleeping dogs lie. If we awaken that dog, then both you and I will suffer his wrath. We could be arrested, and our businesses would be ruined. I’ve made this very clear to Rahmani. You cannot use us to fight your jihad. You will never be able to use us for safe passage into the United States. I will never do anything to threaten the demand for our product, and both you and I understand that Americans are the number-one consumers of our product.”

  “The imam will surely pass away without your help.”

  “There’s too much to risk. The United States is already allocating millions more to protect its border. The drones that cause you so much trouble in Waziristan? Well, they’re flying them along the border, too. You have no idea how difficult it is for us right now, the length and breadth of our operation to evade them—and all of this while the dog is still asleep.”

  Rojas’s expression neared implacable. There would be no changing his mind. Samad knew better than to push the issue now. “I understand your concerns. I’m disappointed by your decision, and we will have to tell the imam that we must look elsewhere for treatment.”

  “That much I can help you with. I’ll have my office make some calls, and we’ll find you a cancer center that should meet all of the imam’s needs.”

  “Thank you very much, señor.”

  Rojas excused himself to take a phone call, and Samad sampled his breakfast. When the man returned to the table, he took a long pull on his orange juice, then said, “Samad, I’m still very troubled by this visit. I’m concerned that you and your group might do something rash. I’m going to call Mullah Rahmani and tell him the same thing I’m about to tell you—if you try to gain entry into the United States, our deal will be off. No one in Mexico will buy any of your opium. No one. I will shut down your business. In fact, when I’m finished, no one in the world will buy from you. I want you to think very carefully about that. What we have at this moment is something special. Ruining that to save one man is foolish. I don’t want to sound coldhearted. These are the facts.”

  “Trust must be earned,” said Samad. “And I have not earned yours yet. But I will. You’ll see. So, please, do not worry about this anymore.”

  “Good. Now, then, do you have a wife? Any children?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, because that call I just received was from my son. He’s off to a vacation with his girlfriend, and recently he’s been making me feel very old.” Rojas grinned, then took another pull on his juice.

  Back at the Charleston Hotel, Samad met with Talwar and Niazi and gave them a summary of the meeting. They wore the same expression when he was finished.

  “Ballesteros is loyal to Rojas. I don’t think he can be bought. So we’re going to cancel our plans to travel to Mexico with his help.”

  “But Mullah Rahmani has ordered us—”

  “I know,” Samad said, cutting off Talwar. “We’re still going to Mexico, but we need to get there without Ballesteros or anyone else associated with the cartel knowing what we’re doing now. I really thought we could get Rojas’s help, but I was wrong.”

  “You said he threatened to end our arrangement.”

  “He did, but I spoke to Rahmani on the way back here, and he told me he doesn’t care about Rojas or the Mexicans anymore. There will always be new buyers. If the Mexicans cannot help us with the jihad, then they, too, should be considered expendable.”

  His lieutenants nodded, and then Niazi said, “We have a friend, I think, who can fly us to Costa Rica. Do you remember him?”

  Samad grinned.
“Very good. Yes, I remember. Call him now.”

  They were going to the United States.

  And Rojas had been right: They must let the sleeping dog lie …

  So they could put a knife in its heart.

  NEW ALLIANCES

  Sacred Heart Catholic Church

  Juárez, Mexico

  MOORE SAT in the last pew on the right side, staring up at the stained-glass windows depicting images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Beams of light twinkling with dust motes shone down across the six-foot-tall brass crucifix that stood atop a marble pedestal. Sacred Heart was a modest-sized church in a run-down neighborhood on the outskirts of the city; it stood like an oasis of hope in a genuine slum of rusting cars and graffiti. The red carpet unfurling toward the candlelit altar had dark stains here and there, and Moore imagined those had come from blood and that the cleaners had been unable to remove them. There was no sacred ground, no line that could not be crossed. And it was no secret that the cartels had been blackmailing the local churches, extorting money and using priests and pastors as message bearers to their congregations: “This Sunday night all residents are urged to remain home. Do not go out on the street.” A hit was going down. Only two weeks prior, a grandmother who lived a mere three blocks from the church had thrown her sixteen-year-old grandson a birthday party. She had chosen to have the party at her house and not at the church or community center in the interest of safety. What she hadn’t known was that her grandson had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and that they had put a target on his back. Four gunmen from the Juárez Cartel had arrived at the party and begun firing. Thirteen had died, including an eight-year-old boy.