by David Graham
“Professor Nelson, if I can come to you first, the Plan once drew rave reviews, with only a few dissenting voices but today it ends its life mired in criticism and acrimony. What went wrong?”
Nelson, a balding chubby figure with a jovial demeanour, greeted the question enthusiastically. “I don’t know if anything went wrong as such. Plan Coca was a military operation funded by the United States. No protracted military operation can precisely follow a script or operate in a vacuum. I don’t believe proponents of the Plan understood this.”
“Are you referring to the negative coverage given to the death of US personnel in Colombia or what was seen as the external effect of the Plan, the widespread armed conflict which ensued and social disturbance attributed to drug shortages?”
“Both. The death of the US contractors was a public relations nightmare, exacerbated by the State Department’s bad handling. The external developments provided ammunition for critics of the Plan and, despite some questionable assumptions, no effective counter-arguments were ever aired.”
“What kind of assumptions?”
“The two most popular theories put forward painted the Plan in the most negative light. The first was that the Plan was so successful it prompted the other cartels to move in on the South Americans’ markets. The other was that advocates of the Plan were cheap opportunists who tried to take credit for shortages the conflict had in fact caused.”
“Effectively a no-win situation?”
“Without a doubt. The Plan came to be viewed either as a cause of social strife or an expensive sham. The pro-Plan spin doctors failed miserably. Politics is all about perception, so today’s announcement was inevitable.”
“Do you think the criticism was justified?”
“To an extent but not to the degree we saw. Yes, the Plan probably caused some unforeseen problems in the consumer countries –”
“Such as the closures we’ve seen of numerous drug treatment centres. Staff quitting, complaining of unworkable conditions?” Whittaker cut across.
“Yes, problems like these,” Nelson agreed. “Military solutions are blunt instruments, there’s always going to be some unforeseen consequences. As to whether the Plan received undue credit for being the sole reason behind the fall-off in drug availability, that’s a little like arguing which came first, the chicken or the egg.”
“You do agree, though, with the consensus view that the war between the drug powers ultimately did more damage to the supply lines?”
“Yes but you have to ask whether the conflict would have occurred if not for the Plan?”
Whittaker turned her attention to her other guest.
“Caroline, from the outset humanitarian aid organisations maintained that unless the Plan placed more emphasis on social programmes rather than military initiatives it was doomed to fail. Do you think a different focus could have been successful?”
“Yes, I think a long-term approach which addressed underlying social issues would have had more chance. Certainly, there would have been less potential for criticism. That said, people wanted a quick fix and saw only a military effort providing it.”
“From the perspective of someone who followed the Plan on the ground as you did Caroline, do you think it’s fair to attribute the trouble related to drug shortages in the US and Western Europe to Plan Coca’s efforts in Colombia?”
“I’d have to say no. Initially, especially during the early fumigation missions, the official line was upbeat about what was being accomplished and reports from US cities seemed to agree.”
“But that was subsequently proven to be a false impression?”
“Yes, over time we developed sources close to the crop growers and rebels. We found it wasn’t the official manoeuvres that were causing them most problems.”
“So, what was?”
“Well the right-wing paramilitaries for a start, they inflicted far more damage than any of the official troop movements or fumigation runs. Even when the Colombian army did achieve something notable, it was usually because the paramilitaries were helping them.”
“And the lower prices their harvest commanded also caused them difficulties, didn’t they?”
“That’s true, their ability to obtain arms was compromised due to the fall in revenue, which in turn undermined their efforts to hold territory. The lower prices were, of course, because of the pressure the cartels came under from the conflict.”
“Professor Nelson, regarding the feud between the dominant producers and traffickers of narcotics, is it over? It’s been more than a month since the last major incident.”
“I would guess that an uneasy truce has been reached, if for no other reason than the feud was hurting both parties equally.”
“Finally a question for both of you. Is there any aspect in which you think the Plan could be termed a success?”
“I think in absolute empirical terms the Plan was successful,” Nelson responded. “The amount of drugs being trafficked into countries diminished severely, albeit perhaps temporarily. Whether the Plan was directly responsible or acted as a catalyst is immaterial.”
“Even within that narrow definition of success, I think the Plan has been over-estimated,” Williams said. “With the benefit of hindsight, I’d say the Plan failed in all the ways that mattered.”
“Caroline, Professor Nelson, thank you.”
ten
Wallace bent down, cleared the dead leaves from the gravestone and positioned the flowers carefully.
Following his usual routine, he walked the short distance down the path to sit on a bench under the branches of an aged oak tree. He could still see the grave from here and liked to think they could hear his thoughts. Recently, he had not been coming as often as he ought and he pledged to get back to regular visits.
He had felt as if a huge load had been lifted from him in the last few weeks. The violence appeared to have completely ceased after two to three months of steady decline. At the height of the troubles, he could not turn on the news without hearing of a new episode or being presented with a disturbing feature on the social meltdown. Who would have thought he would ever welcome the day when the news consisted solely of gloomy economic forecasts and mounting Middle-Eastern tension. Closing his eyes, he rested back on the bench and let the tension seep out.
A slight smile appeared when he thought of the latest status report from the rehabilitation clinics he had founded in Elizabeth’s memory. He had talked to the head of administration three days earlier and the news could not have been better. The demand for new admissions to their treatment programmes had subsided and they were steadily working their way through the backlog. Circumstances were still tough but they could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Surprisingly, despite the gruelling ordeal they had gone through, they had not lost too many permanent staff from the six clinics.
But he could not control where his train of thought took him and yet again he began wishing the clinics could have represented the limit of his ambition. Instead he had been tempted to look for other ways to create a legacy. There had been no word from Brewer for three months; all attempts to contact him had failed. Regardless of how much he tried to convince himself that there could be any number of explanations, he knew the truth. Brewer had paid the price for becoming involved with his crusade. They had put a contingency plan in place if the normal channels of communication broke down. There was an e-mail address to which he could send an SOS and, within two or three days, the message should have been picked up by Brewer. He had lost count of the messages he had sent.
Worried by this development, he had tried to activate the protocol to arrange an impromptu meeting with Larsen. It had not taken long for it to sink in that he would not be hearing from the mercenary either and with this awareness came a number of unpleasant insights. Larsen had been planning one last operation, for which Wallace, against his better judgement, had given him the go-ahead. If Larsen had somehow perished in its execution then Wallace’s culpability was
all the greater. If he had possessed the necessary courage at their last meeting, the mercenary might still be alive. He had seen how driven Larsen was, how difficult it would be to pull the plug there and then, so he had convinced himself one more mission could not make a huge difference. Due to his cowardice, Larsen had died for a cause that no one believed in any longer.
The worst part of these discoveries was what they had taught him about himself. Rather than concern for the men he had placed in harm’s way, his first reaction had been one of fear. What if the trail led the parties responsible for their disappearance to his door? Time passed and his fear receded. It looked like the professionals he had employed had shown a loyalty he was lacking. How else could he explain his failure to try to find more concrete evidence of what had happened to them and his willingness to leave events to run their course? His relief at being able to walk away disgusted him. If he was honest, he suspected that, had he been told he could choose this outcome a number of months before, he would have happily settled for it. His appetite, for what he had once felt had almost divine sanction, had waned to the point of extinction.
This is how it ends, he thought. He had sparked a wave of violence leading, one way or another, to the death of hundreds and the misery of countless more. He had caused men who had trusted him to go to their deaths while he had remained in the background, safe from harm. He had accomplished nothing of permanence. And he was grateful to have survived. He still had wealth, reputation and his involvement in the foundation. The latter would help him in the long run to ease whatever recriminations cropped up from time to time. On reflection, he had come out of it remarkably well.
A couple of visitors to the cemetery saw the silver-haired man sitting alone on the bench, cradling his head in his hands as he wept, and hurried along, not wishing to intrude on his grief.
First day back at the office. It had been twelve weeks since the shooting and Mesi’s shoulder still caused her a lot of discomfort. She had been given a repeat prescription by the doctors when discharged but had thrown it out when she had noticed how much she was starting to rely on the painkillers. Without them, she had to get used to pain as a constant until she healed fully. Her movement was still restricted and she berated herself for not being as dutiful as she might have been in doing her rehab exercises. Going back to sitting at a desk wasn’t going to help but she couldn’t face another day at home with nothing to do.
She had watched in frustration as the investigation first failed to build on her discovery of Kates’ involvement, and then ground to a complete stop. It had started only days into her hospital stay when they had been unable to locate Brewer. They had spent days just watching and waiting, not wanting to alert anyone to their interest, only to discover that Brewer’s secretary had contacted the police about his absence, leading to a missing persons report being filed. Samuels’ response had been to have a team of investigators enter Spartan’s offices with questions for senior personnel. Her impression of Samuels’ decision was that it had merely been an exercise in ass-covering. It would leave him free to say later that he had done everything that could be expected based on such limited evidence.
As things stood now, there hadn’t been any attacks on drug-related targets for over a month and the prevalent view was that the conflict had run its course. Nice, neat and a result with which everyone could be happy. With the decline in violence, locating Brewer or explaining his disappearance had dropped down the list of priorities.
One of her DEA colleagues, known for his cynicism, had confided in her that there was another reason why their superiors were eager to move on and forget the whole affair. The feud had brought about a radical shift in the balance of power in Colombia’s drug scene. Not so much on the cartel side, although Madrigal’s position was known to be shaky, but in who controlled the territories where the drugs were produced. Army forces and the right-wing paramilitaries had succeeded in driving both FARC and the ELN out of their historic strongholds. The cartel’s difficulties had crippled the supply of funds and arms to the left-wing rebels. Without this support, their ideological rivals, unintentionally aided by Plan Coca, had been able to gain a decisive advantage. Continuing to focus on what may have caused the feud when it was clearly dissipating might turn the media’s focus to areas best left untouched. Only a few years earlier, an ex-informer of the DEA in Colombia had publicly made claims that he had acted as a go-between for the Administration and a high-profile death squad leader. He had alleged that the DEA was willing to provide funding and arms to this individual if he helped them eliminate specific drug traffickers. Strong denials had been issued and a State Department investigation cleared the agents in question but sceptics remained. Was it possible, she wondered, that the DEA was being influenced by the new ascendants in Colombia, blackmailed into letting this particular dog sleep?
Despite her frustration at their eagerness to move on at any cost, she was not as angry as she might have expected a few months before. For the first time in a long while, she was gaining some perspective on the place her job should occupy in her life. While still undoubtedly very important, it was no longer an all-consuming obsession. It was strange that the competition for her attention had come about because of the job itself.
Tom had become a regular visitor during her convalescence. When others’ support for her determination to pursue her investigation had first wavered and then completely disappeared, he had remained constant. Despite his other responsibilities, he had compiled a comprehensive dossier for her, listing as much of Brewer’s career as he could disclose. It had been interesting reading and although neither Samuels nor Marshall seemed impressed by its contents, there were a number of lines of enquiry she intended following up now that she had returned to work.
The first sign of a relationship developing between her and Tom had been a gradual change in their conversations. From where the only topic had been the investigation, they started to wander into other areas. Initially, it would be the odd remark or observation, and then, without her noticing, Tom could visit for a couple of hours and the conflict would barely be mentioned. They discussed anything and everything, surprised to find how similarly they saw things. With an increasing level of comfort, the discussions moved naturally to their personal lives. They spoke frankly of their past and where they saw themselves going. Like her, he had found fulfilment elusive and believed now he might have been looking in the wrong place. She understood better now what her ex-husband Alan had meant when he had referred to there being an impression of Tom being ill-suited to his profession. He had real issues with some of the things expected of him and told her how frequently he had thought about quitting. She told him about switching careers to the DEA, the aspirations she had had and how a combination of circumstances, agendas and, she guessed, her own inability to compromise, had left her in limbo. She could see a situation developing where each might provide the other with the courage to make the change they were both hinting at.
The more they had revealed to one another, the more obvious the attraction became. What others saw as shortcomings, she saw as a quiet strength and deep-rooted morality. She had been less prone recently to get things out of perspective, which she put down to his calm spilling over into her life.
It had been so long since her last serious relationship. Between her career, friends and interests, she had considered her life set if not complete, but the change the last couple of months had brought, from the low-point immediately after the shooting to how she felt now, was too obvious to ignore. So far, they had both concentrated primarily on friendship, avoiding mention of the developing romance, but she was ready to take the next step, no longer fearing it would jeopardise what they already had. With that in mind, she had invited Tom over for dinner later that evening.
She looked at her watch and decided she had better stop daydreaming if she wanted to get anything out of her first day.
Diane pushed herself back gently from the table to get the coffee and suggested he g
o through to the living room. She returned from the kitchen carrying the tray as the opening strains from La Boheme’s fourth act began playing softly in the background. The wall light’s soft illumination combined with the music gave the room a soothing atmosphere. Ignoring the armchair, Diane took the seat next to him on the small sofa. They sat so close to one another that their knees brushed when she faced him and poured the coffee. The slight touch sent a thrill of anticipation through her, and the beginnings of excitement brought on by their physical proximity was palpable.
“Thank you,” she said softly, looking into his eyes.
“I should thank you,” he replied. “I’ve had a lovely evening, the meal was beautiful.”
“I wasn’t talking about just tonight; I meant everything. I haven’t been this happy in ages.”
He reached out and held her hand. “Me too.”
They sat like that together, for a while, neither speaking but both totally comfortable with the silence. She released her hand from his grip and put it to his face then leant in to kiss him. She held the kiss for a few seconds, feeling her passion mounting.
When they broke, he started to speak. “I’ve wanted to do that – have the guts to make the first move.”