The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  “I should be thanking you for posting my bail, especially since I was in jail for your murder.”

  “Bail?” Trelana queried. “Oh, there was no bail to post. I had to use other means to get you out. Again, necessary. You’ll understand why in good time.” He gestured toward the canopied table they had reached. “Please, sit down. We’ll have a cold drink. You must be famished. I’ll send for something right away.”

  “Yes,” Drew said thankfully. “Please.”

  Trelana joined him under the canopy at the wrought iron table and waved the two bodyguards away with a simple flap of his hand. They took up a silent vigil in the shade near the series of cabanas off to the side of the pool.

  Drew, meanwhile, tried to form a fresh impression of Trelana. He looked considerably younger than his sixty-plus years, at least on the outside. His skin was bronzed and creased little by wrinkles. His eyes were a piercing shade of brown, almost black, missing nothing. But it was his eyes that gave away the fear that lurked within, the rapid shifting that indicates a man taken to looking constantly over his shoulder. The lines of his neck muscles were stretched and taut, his throat seeming to remain forever dry and uncomfortable despite the swallowing of ice water from a huge glass he drained and swiftly refilled.

  A man dressed as a waiter approached the table and Trelana spoke briefly to him in Spanish.

  “I find it best that the help know only their native language,” he explained after the waiter had nodded and left. “I’ve just ordered you a substantial meal. But I’m sure you’re hungering for more than merely food.” His expression turned almost warm. “I suppose I’m partly responsible for the hell you have experienced. I’ll explain it all as best I can, starting with what got you involved in the first place: your grandmother.”

  Drew flinched.

  “She did work for me,” Trelana continued after swallowing more ice water. “Her reasons, as I understand them, were based on her concern for you. Near the end of your college career, the money was drained that had formed your support. She sought a vehicle for earning more and I provided her with a lucrative one.”

  “You make it sound like a … business arrangement.”

  “Because that’s what it was.” Trelana sighed and stroked his glass. “I make no apologies for what I am and I refuse to engage in curt denials. There is a need for the services I oversee, a need for a central organization to coordinate certain facilities that people would find elsewhere anyway. Does that make sense?”

  “I suppose it does to you, but I can’t accept your business, no matter how you put it.”

  “Neither could your grandmother after a time, but I’m getting to that. The key to any successful smuggling chain is to use it sparingly, only when the need arises. That is how men like myself stay ahead of those in law enforcement, who formed our primary antagonists until recently. When was the last time your grandmother ventured down to Nassau?”

  “About two weeks ago. She’d been back only three days when …” Drew let the statement tail off.

  “I hadn’t sent her down there in nearly a year. It was generally only once a year—sometimes less, but never more.”

  Drew stared at the drug lord, dumbfounded.

  “Someone penetrated my organization, utilized the chain I created to bring in their own powder.” Trelana’s eyes sharpened. “You told the Miami police about your friend Mace. What were his last words to you?”

  “That something different was going on. Something … worse.”

  “Indeed. I had come to the same realization myself but only recently. I am what is commonly referred to in my business as an overlord. And like any lord, I do not hold complete control over all my subjects, which explains how the truth of the penetration escaped me for so long. My suspicions began with the murder of a courier of mine named Lantos.”

  “By Selinas—Mace. Yes, he told me!”

  “Lantos’s role was to deliver money and instructions to the next link in the chain, a rather unsavory but efficient pair named the Rivero brothers.”

  “Rivero!” Drew almost shouted. “Mace told me their name, but I couldn’t remember it.”

  “He was hired to eliminate the brothers, too, no doubt. The Riveros, keep in mind, were the ones responsible for distribution of the cocaine as per Lantos’s instructions. You see where this is leading, Drew. You must.”

  Drew nodded uncertainly. “The instructions that the Riveros received for distribution weren’t yours and neither was the cocaine they received through the grandmothers. Yes, I see what you mean by penetration. But then Mace, as Selinas, comes in.”

  “To wipe out the whole channel from the bottom up,” Trelana elaborated. “Anyone who had anything to do with this particular powder chain was killed. Control—I had lost it. I realized this in time to arrange for the double to take my place. It had been necessary for me to use him several times in the past, but never with so much certainty of what his fate would be. In fact, not only did I expect it, I hoped for it.”

  “You wanted them to go after you, I mean, him?”

  Trelana nodded. “His death was the only way I could be assured of enough freedom to learn what was actually going on. When word reached me of the attack in Too-Jay’s, all of my worst suspicions had been confirmed.”

  “But why would the force behind Selinas wipe out a chain that was working so well for them?”

  Trelana eyed Drew warmly before responding. “We’re about to come to the most painful part of the tale. It was your grandmother, Drew. She really did go to the DEA.”

  “My God, the letter …”

  “All the facts in it were true, but she didn’t write it. Perhaps she could have lived with the yearly trips I sent her on. But three, sometimes even four times a year became too much for her conscience. From what I gather, she went to the DEA before the last shipment. Selinas was hired to wipe out the chain so there would be no trace. The grandmothers had to be eliminated as well, along with four DEA agents and a supervisor who had no conception of the gravity of what they had stumbled upon.”

  “The real Masterson,” Drew muttered. “But what had they stumbled upon?”

  Trelana ignored his question. “I need you, Drew, and no matter what you might think of my profession I’m afraid you need me now, too.” The drug lord’s piercing eyes regarded him closely. “You were to be killed this morning. The breakfast eventually served in your cell would have been poisoned and if you failed to eat, several other contingencies had been made ready.”

  Drew shivered. “How could you know?”

  “I have people in the police station. When word of their suspicions reached me, I arranged your release.”

  Drew was suddenly awe-struck by how far Trelana’s power extended. “Then I owe you for saving my life, too—really something since I thought I almost took yours.”

  “It was that act that plunged us together,” Trelana told him, “plunged us together to a point where we needed each other’s help to survive.”

  “You seem to be doing pretty well on your own.”

  Trelana started to raise his water glass, then changed his mind. “I’m as much a prisoner here as you were in that jail. I can never leave, never show my face off this island … until the matter currently before us is resolved.”

  “When did you learn I was, well, that I was involved?”

  “First came a report of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the hit itself. Then your name was conveniently plastered across television screens and newspapers. It was obvious to me even then that you had been set up by the same people behind the deaths of Lantos, the Riveros, and, yes, the grandmothers. All I lacked was the why and how, which later came into focus when tapes of your interrogation were played for me.”

  “But why did they use me in the first place? I still don’t see how that fits since they had another gunman in Too-Jay’s anyway.”

  Trelana hesitated. “You asked me before what it was that the DEA people had stumbled upon thanks to your grandmother
, and I avoided it. The answer to that question has much to do with the answer to this one. Things tend to get complicated from here on. I’ll explain as best I can.”

  At that moment the servant returned with a tray laid out like room service in the finest hotel. Drew watched eagerly as a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast were set down before him along with a huge glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a pot of coffee. He began to eat immediately, gobbling up the huge portion of eggs in rapid mouthfuls.

  “I’ll continue as you eat,” Trelana told him.

  “Excuse my manners.”

  “As understandable as your actions in Florida. Let’s talk now about the drug world. Last year it was roughly—and conservatively—estimated as having annual revenues exceeding half a trillion dollars. More money is spent annually on drugs than food worldwide. But I do not wish to discuss figures here so much as effects. No sphere of American life is untouched by the drug world and, despite claims to the contrary, it is growing in unheard of, immeasurable fashion. Any ideas as to why?”

  “Supply and demand,” Drew muttered between mouthfuls. “Just like you said before.”

  “The answer is a bit more complicated than that. The drug industry is not one that has sprouted from the bottom up, but from the top down. From governments, Drew, and that includes the government of the United States. Countries all over the world depend on their drug crops to assure an influx of dollars, that accounts for their very existence. Concurrently, the only hope powerful American banks have of recouping their vast loans to these countries in question rests in the continuance of the drug trade. During prohibition, a man named Kennedy is said to have made his fortune smuggling a drug of a different kind. There are many in America now, I fear, with sights on achieving that same kind of power with narcotics as the impetus instead of alcohol.”

  “Are you telling me that all this is about getting someone elected president?”

  “Not yet, but someday it might well come to that as it already has in several other countries. The narcotics industry has become an expansionist brotherhood that courts vastly divergent interests from the public and private sectors. It represents an empire that holds resources any nation would be proud to boast. Its appetite for growth is insatiable and satisfied in any number of ways from the toppling of governments to the more subtle takeovers of major banks. All this may sound bad enough as is, but there is an even harsher scenario in which one unified force would control all the maneuverings. At this point, competing forces within the world of narcotics form its own worst enemy. Eliminate such factionalization and all checks and balances would be lifted, no telling how far such a force could go.”

  Drew looked up from his eggs. “But if you’re a part of all this, why would they go after you?”

  “Because I am a part,” Trelana said, “but not a part of them. The reasons behind my so-called execution were simple. They want to create chaos among the overlords, the worst feature of all because it breaks down control. They don’t want to wipe us out. They want to take us over. A multibillion-dollar industry and the immeasurable power that goes with it in the hands of one centralized and currently unknown dark force. Banks, industries, governments—this dark force is after them all.”

  “Through you?”

  “And others like me. I can’t be sure, but the indications are present. If I’m right about this, the ramifications are too terrible to contemplate. One force controlling the whole of worldwide drug supply and distribution is a thousand times more horrible than the system currently in place. You must believe that.”

  Drew pushed the last of his eggs onto a stray piece of toast. “Even if I did, that still doesn’t explain what it has to do with your bringing me down here.”

  Trelana leaned back and sipped his water. “Stick a pin into a bag of white powder, Drew, and the powder will gradually, almost unnoticeably slip out, but in the end the bag will be empty. Such is the case with the cocaine channel that originated with the grandmothers in Nassau. Somewhere along the line is a leak in my own organization, which allowed the dark force to penetrate it. It’s our only link to them, I’m afraid, our only means to uncover their identity.”

  “I asked you about me.”

  Trelana sighed. “I was too substantial a figure for them to erase through an ordinary hired gun. They needed a means that would freeze my organization, not mobilize it.” Trelana paused. “You came complete with motive, one they cleverly arranged for you, but a motive nonetheless. You kill me for vengeance and die in the process. The story ends there. No one pursues it further because there is nothing to pursue. Only you crossed them up by surviving, and I crossed them up by taking you out of circulation. I don’t exist anymore and neither do you—the perfect advantage for both of us.”

  “Advantage?”

  “There is no one in my own organization I can send out to find the place in the bag where the pinprick made its mark,” Trelana explained. “There’s no telling how deep I’ve been penetrated, how many of my soldiers and couriers are known to them. The dark force used you because you were an outsider with no links to anyone and I want to use you for the same reason.” Trelana held Drew’s eyes as warmly as he could. “I want you to follow the trail of powder from its origins in Nassau, and then along the same line the grandmothers started.”

  “But it’s been wiped out. You said so yourself.”

  “Not entirely. Bits and pieces are still in place and will respond if the proper cues are given. Within one of them must lie the point of penetration and we will follow it to its source. Don’t you see? A man, an unknown, shows up to continue a channel that by all rights should have been cut off. Confusion will become our ally. Their purpose in using you was to avoid a mobilization on the part of my forces. My purpose in using you is to force their forces to mobilize. We must get them in the open where we can fight them on our terms. You will accomplish this by becoming a narcotrafficanté.”

  “Narcowhat?“

  “Trafficanté. It means many things, but mostly it means drug lord.”

  “And if I refuse, I go straight back to the jail you sprung me from. Is that it?”

  Trelana looked offended, hurt. “I find myself liking you, Drew, and I could never knowingly send a man I liked to his death, which is what a return to the States without protection would mean for you. I will get you out of this either way and do my best to protect both you and your girlfriend. But if you don’t cooperate, you will only be running. Help us uncover the truth behind the dark force, though, and you will be living.”

  Drew hesitated, seeming to accept the drug lord’s words because they made perfect sense, with one key exception. “Like you said, Mr. Trelana, I’m an outsider and even if I get lucky in Nassau I won’t be able to get very far on my own.”

  “You will be furnished with a Miami contact number. Call it to make any arrangements you desire, request any help you need. I will be made aware of everything in minutes and will make sure whatever you request is provided.”

  Drew found himself almost smiling at the absurdity of it all. “So, first I’m set up to kill somebody and now I’m recruited to help the person I was originally set up to kill… .”

  Trelana regarded him with a fatherly stare. “And in that madness lies your greatest reason for cooperating. You were willing to kill me partly because you were led to believe I killed your grandmother. I didn’t. But somewhere along the trail you’ll be following are the people who did. I ask you to remember that.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” said Drew.

  Chapter 16

  ELLIANA STOOD IN THE shadows, waiting for the moment she was expecting to come. The air outside Lefleur’s processing plant smelled of fish and oils even three hours past closing time. She kept her breaths to a minimum.

  Ellie had arrived in the fishing village of Getaria along the Basque coast of Spain after a long and unsettling trip, employing many means of transportation to ensure she wasn’t being followed. Such precautions seemed necessary after P
rague. Events there had frightened as much as they had confused her. If the Council of Ten could penetrate the Mossad, they could penetrate anything. At no time could she allow herself to feel safe.

  Getaria was a small, picturesque town perched right on the water, which relied on fishing for its day-to-day survival. Annatoly’s last words had brought her here late Monday afternoon, at which point she followed a narrow breakwater road across to San Anton Island and an isolated rooming house she had learned of in town. The proprietor was a boisterous, flabby woman who loved to talk and Ellie was only too happy to listen, especially when she was able to turn the discussion toward Lefleur.

  The woman made a spitting motion and went on to explain that the Frenchman operated the town’s only fish cleaning, packing, and freezing plant. It was located right on the main pier and fishermen in for the day would drop their catch with him and be paid as poorly as the market allowed. Most of the fishermen knew no better and simply accepted. The few who rebelled were not long for Getaria.

  Lefleur’s setup was perfect, Ellie reckoned. He had set himself up in this isolated fishing village as a sort of godfather. The sea gave him easy routes for shipping without the bother of major ports, so he was able to move whatever products he desired without undue scrutiny. Annatoly’s description of him led Ellie to believe that Lefleur was a black market smuggler, the transport planes being one of several projects underway at this time.

  But one that might ultimately lead her to the Council of Ten.

  She spent the early part of Tuesday out on the docks in the damp mist, playing the part of an interested tourist over for a brief stop. Lefleur showed himself on the waterfront promptly at ten, wearing a yellow rain slicker to guard his bulky frame. He was a heavy-boned man with strangely sallow cheeks and a face caught in a perpetual grimace. There was something dirty and repelling about him. Ellie knew he lived directly over his processing plant and wondered how he could stand the constant smell of fish.