by Tom Clancy
The Attorney General strode haltingly toward the lectern. For all his experience as a lawyer, he was not an effective public speaker. You didn’t need to be if your practice was corporate law and political campaigning. He was, however, photogenic and a sharp dresser, and always good for a leak on a slow news day, which explained his popularity with the media.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, fumbling with his notes. “You will soon be getting handouts concerning Operation TARPON. This represents the most effective operation to date against the international drug cartel.” He looked up, trying to see the reporters’ faces past the glare of the lights.
“Investigation by the Department of Justice, led by the FBI, has identified a number of bank accounts both in the United States and elsewhere which were being used for money-laundering on an unprecedented scale. These accounts range over twenty-nine banks from Liechtenstein to California, and their deposits exceed, at our current estimates, over six hundred fifty million dollars.” He looked up again as he heard a Goddamn! from the assembled multitude. That elicited a smile. It was never easy to impress the White House press corps. The autowind cameras were really churning away now.
“In cooperation with six foreign governments, we have initiated the necessary steps to seize all of those funds, and also to seize eight real-estate joint-venture investments here in the United States which were the primary agency in the actual laundering operation. This is being done under the RICO—the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization—statute. I should emphasize on that point that the real-estate ventures involve the holdings of many innocent investors; their holdings will not—I repeat not—be affected in any way by the government’s action. They were used as dupes by the Cartel, and they will not be harmed by these seizures.”
“Excuse me,” Associated Press interrupted. “You did say six hundred fifty million dollars?”
“That is correct, more than half a billion dollars.” The AG described generally how the information had been found, but not the way in which the first lead had been obtained, nor the precise mechanisms used to track the money. “As you know, we have treaties with several foreign governments to cover cases such as this. Those funds identified as drug-related and deposited in foreign banks will be confiscated by the governments in question. In Swiss accounts, for example, are approximately ... ” He checked his notes again. “It looks like two hundred thirty-seven million dollars, all of which now belongs to the Swiss government.”
“What’s our take?” The Washington Post asked.
“We don’t know yet. It’s difficult to describe the complexity of this operation—just the accounting is going to keep us busy for weeks.”
“What about cooperation from the foreign governments?” another reporter wanted to know.
You gotta be kidding, the journalist next to him thought.
“The cooperation we’ve received on this case is simply outstanding.” The Attorney General beamed. “Our friends overseas have moved with dispatch and professionalism.”
Not every day you can steal this much money and call it something for the Public Good, the quiet journalist told herself.
CNN is a worldwide service. The broadcast was monitored in Colombia by two men whose job it was to keep track of the American news media. They were journalists themselves, in fact, who worked for the Colombian TV network, Inravision. One of them excused himself from the control room and made a telephone call before returning.
Tony and his partner had just come back on duty in the van, and there was a telex clipped to the wall, telling them to expect some activity on the cellular-phone circuits at about 1800 Zulu time. They weren’t disappointed.
“Can we talk to Director Jacobs about this?” a reporter asked.
“Director Jacobs is taking a personal interest in the case, but is not available for comment,” the AG answered. “You’ll be able to talk to him next week, but at the moment he and his team are all pretty busy.” That didn’t break any rules. It gave the impression that Emil was in town, and the reporters, recognizing exactly what the Attorney General had said and how he had said it, collectively decided to let it slide. It fact, Emil had taken off from Andrews Air Force Base twenty-five minutes earlier.
“Madre de Dios!” Escobedo observed. The meeting had barely gotten past the usual social pleasantries so necessary for a conference of cutthroats. All the members of the Cartel were in the same room, which happened rarely enough. Even though the building was surrounded with a literal wall of security people, they were nervous about their safety. The building had a satellite dish on the roof, and this was immediately tuned in to CNN. What was supposed to have been a discussion of unexpected happenings in their smuggling operations was suddenly side-tracked onto something far more troubling. It was especially troubling for Escobedo, moreover, since he’d been one of the three Cartel members who had urged this money-laundering scheme on his colleagues. Though all had complimented him on the efficiency of the arrangement over the last two years, the looks he was getting now were somewhat less supportive.
“There is nothing we can do?” one asked.
“It is too early to tell,” replied the Cartel’s equivalent of a chief financial officer. “I remind you that the money we have already taken completely through the arrangements nearly equals what our normal returns would be. So you can say that we have lost very little other than the gain we expected to reap from our investments.” That sounded lame even to him.
“I think we have tolerated enough interference,” Escobedo said forcefully. “The Director of the American federales will be here in Bogotá later today.”
“Oh? And how did you discover this?”
“Cortez. I told you that hiring him would be to our benefit. I called this meeting to give you the information that he has gotten for us.”
“This is too much to accept,” another member agreed. “We should take action. It must be forceful.”
There was general agreement. The Cartel had not yet learned that important decisions ought never to be taken in anger, but there was no one to counsel moderation. These men were not known for that quality in any case.
Train 111, Metroliner Service from New York, arrived a minute early at 1:48 P.M. Cortez walked off, carrying his two bags, and walked at once to the taxi stand at the front of the station. The cabdriver was delighted to have a fare to Dulles. The trip took just over thirty minutes, earning the cabbie what for Cortez was a decent tip: $2.00. He entered the upper level, walked to his left, took the escalator down, where he found the Hertz counter. Here he rented another large Chevy and took the spare time to load his bags. By the time he returned inside, it was nearly three. Moira was right on time. They hugged. She wasn’t one to kiss in so public a place.
“Where did you park?”
“In the long-term lot. I left my bags in the car.”
“Then we will go and get them.”
“Where are we going?”
“There is a place on Skyline Drive where General Motors occasionally holds important conferences. There are no phones in the rooms, no televisions, no newspapers.”
“I know it! How did you ever get a reservation at this late notice?”
“I’ve been reserving a suite for every weekend since we were last together,” Cortez explained truthfully. He stopped dead in his tracks. “That sounds ... that sounds improper?” He had the halting embarrassment down pat by this time.
Moira grabbed his arm. “Not to me.”
“I can tell that this will be a long weekend.” Within minutes they were on Interstate 66, heading west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Four embassy security officers dressed in airline coveralls gave the area a final look, then one of them pulled out a sophisticated satellite-radio phone and gave the final clearance.
The VC-20A, the military version of the G-III executive jet, flew in with a commercial setting on its radar transponder, landing at 5:39 in the afternoon at El Dorado International Airport, about eig
ht miles outside of Bogotá. Unlike most of the VC- 20As belonging to the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, this one was specially modified to fly into high-threat areas and carried jamming gear originally invented by the Israelis to counter surface-to-air missiles in the hands of terrorists ... or businessmen. The aircraft flared out and made a perfect landing into gentle westerly winds, then taxied to a distant corner of the cargo terminal, the one the cars and jeeps were heading for. The aircraft’s identity was no longer a secret to anyone who’d bothered to look, of course. It had barely stopped when the first jeeps formed up on its left side. Armed soldiers dismounted and spread out, their automatic weapons pointed at threats that might have been imaginary, or might not. The aircraft’s door dropped down. There were stairs built into it, but the first man off the plane didn’t bother with them. He jumped, with one hand hidden in the right side of a topcoat. He was soon joined by another security guard. Each man was a special agent of the FBI, and the job of each was the physical safety of their boss, Director Emil Jacobs. They stood within the ring of Colombian soldiers, each of whom was a member of an elite counterinsurgency unit. Every man there was nervous. There was nothing routine about security in this country. Too many had died proving otherwise.
Jacobs came out next, accompanied by his own special assistant, and Harry Jefferson, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The last of the three stepped down just as the ambassador’s limousine pulled up. It didn’t stop for long. The ambassador did step out to greet his guests, but all of them were inside the car a minute later. Then the soldiers remounted their jeeps, which moved off to escort the ambassador. The aircraft’s crew chief closed the Gulfstream’s door, and the VC- 20A, whose engines had never stopped turning, immediately taxied to take off again. Its destination was the airfield at Grenada, thoughtfully built for the Americans by the Cubans only a few years before. It would be easier to guard it there.
“How was the flight, Emil?” the ambassador asked.
“Just over five hours. Not bad,” the Director allowed. He leaned back on the velvet seat of the stretch limo, which was filled to capacity. In front were the ambassador’s driver and bodyguard. That made a total of four machine guns in the car, and he was sure Harry Jefferson carried his service automatic. Jacobs had never carried a gun in his life, didn’t wish to bother with the things. And besides, if his two bodyguards and his assistant—another crack shot—didn’t suffice to protect him, what would? It wasn’t that Jacobs was an especially courageous man, just that after nearly forty years of dealing with criminals of all sorts—the Chicago mob had once threatened him quite seriously—he was tired of it all. He’d grown as comfortable as any man can be with such a thing: it was part of the scenery now, and like a pattern in the wallpaper or the color of a room’s paint, he no longer noticed it.
He did notice the altitude. The city of Bogotá sits at an elevation of nearly 8,700 feet, on a plain among towering mountains. There was no air to breathe here and he wondered how the ambassador tolerated it. Jacobs was more comfortable with the biting winter winds off Lake Michigan. Even the humid pall that visited Washington every summer was better than this, he thought.
“Tomorrow at nine, right?” Jacobs asked.
“Yep.” The ambassador nodded. “I think they’ll go along with nearly anything we want.” The ambassador, of course, didn’t know what the meeting was about, which did not please him. He’d worked as charge d’affaires at Moscow, and the security there wasn’t as tight as it was here.
“That’s not the problem,” Jefferson observed. “I know they mean well—they’ve lost enough cops and judges proving that. Question is, will they play ball?”
“Would we, under similar circumstances?” Jacobs mused, then steered the conversation in a safer direction. “You know, we’ve never been especially good neighbors, have we?”
“How do you mean?” the ambassador asked.
“I mean, when it suited us to have these countries run by thugs, we let it happen. When democracy finally started to take root, we often as not stood at the sidelines and bitched if their ideas didn’t agree fully with ours. And now that the druggies threaten their governments because of what our own citizens want to buy—we blame them.”
“Democracy comes hard down here,” the ambassador pointed out. “The Spanish weren’t real big on—”
“If we’d done our job a hundred years ago—or even fifty years ago—we wouldn’t have half the problems we have now. Well, we didn’t do it then. We sure as hell have to do it now.”
“If you have any suggestions, Emil—”
Jacobs laughed. “Hell, Andy, I’m a cop—well, a lawyer—not a diplomat. That’s your problem. How’s Kay?”
“Just fine.” Ambassador Andy Westerfield didn’t have to ask about Mrs. Jacobs. He knew Emil had buried his wife nine months earlier after a courageous fight with cancer. He’d taken it hard, of course, but there were so many good things to remember about Ruth. And he had a job to keep him busy. Everyone needed that, and Jacobs more than most.
In the terminal, a man with a 35mm Nikon and a long lens had been snapping pictures for the past two hours. When the limousine and its escorts started moving off the airport grounds, he removed the lens from the body, set both in his camera case, and walked off to a bank of telephones.
The limousine moved quickly, with one jeep in front and another behind. Expensive cars with armed escorts were not terribly unusual in Colombia, and they moved out from the airport at a brisk clip. You had to spot the license plate to know that the car was American. The four men in each jeep had not known of their escort job until five minutes before they left, and the route, though predictable, wasn’t a long one. There shouldn’t have been time for anyone to set up an ambush—assuming that anyone would be crazy enough to consider such a thing.
After all, killing an American ambassador was crazy; it had only happened recently in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan.... And no one had ever made a serious attempt on an FBI Director.
The car they drove in was a Cadillac Fleetwood chassis. Its special equipment included thick windows that could stop a machine-gun bullet, and Kevlar armor all around the passenger compartment. The tires were foam-filled against flattening, and the gas tank of a design similar to that used on military aircraft as protection against explosion. Not surprisingly, the car was known in the embassy motor pool as the Tank.
The driver knew how to handle it as skillfully as a NASCAR professional. He had engine power to race at over a hundred miles per hour; he could throw the three-ton vehicle into a boot-legger turn and reverse directions like a movie stunt driver. His eyes flickered between the road ahead and the rearview mirror. There had been one car following them, for two or three miles, but it turned off. Probably nothing, he judged. Somebody else coming home from the airport.... The car also had sophisticated radio gear to call for help. They were heading to the embassy. Though the ambassador had a separate residence, a pretty two-story house set on six sculpted acres of garden and woodland, it wasn’t secure enough for his visitors. Like most contemporary American embassies, this one looked to be a cross between a low-rise office block and part of the Siegfried Line.
VOX IDENT, his computer screen read, two thousand miles away: VOICE 34 INIT CALL TO UNKNOWN RECIP FRQ 889.980MHZ CALL INIT 2258z INTERCEPT IDENT 381.
Tony donned the headphones and listened in on the tape-delay system.
“Nothing,” he said a moment later. “Somebody’s taking a drive.”
At the embassy, the legal attaché paced nervously in the lobby. Special Agent Pete Morales of the FBI should have been at the airport. It was his director coming in, but the security pukes said only one car because it was a surprise visit—and surprise, everyone knew, was better than a massive show of force. The every-bodies who knew did not include Morales, who believed in showing force. It was bad enough having to live down here. Morales was from California; though his surname was Hispanic, his family had b
een in the San Francisco area when Major Frémont had arrived, and he’d had to brush up on his somewhat removed mother tongue to take his current job, which job also meant leaving his wife and kids behind in the States. As his most recent report had told headquarters, it was dangerous down here. Dangerous for the local citizens, dangerous for Americans, and very dangerous indeed for American cops.
Morales checked his watch. About two more minutes. He started moving to the door.
“Right on time,” a man noted three blocks from the embassy. He spoke into a hand-held radio.
Until recently, the RPG-7D had been the standard-issue Soviet light antitank weapon. It traces its ancestry to the German Panzerfaust, and was only recently replaced by the RPG-18, a close copy of the American M-72 LAW rocket. The adoption of the new weapon allowed millions of the old ones to be disposed of, adding to the already abundant supply in arms bazaars all over the world. Designed to punch holes in battle tanks, it is not an especially easy weapon to use. Which was why there were four of them aimed at the ambassador’s limousine.
The car proceeded south, down Carrera 13 in the district known as Palermo, slowing now because of the traffic. Had the Director’s bodyguards known the name of the district and designation of the street, they might have objected merely on grounds of superstition. The slow speed of the traffic here in the city itself made everyone nervous, especially the soldiers in the escort jeeps who craned their necks looking up into the windows of various buildings. It is a fact so obvious as to be misunderstood that one cannot ordinarily look into a window from outside. Even an open window is merely a rectangle darker than the exterior wall, and the eye adjusts to ambient light, not to light in a specific place. There was no warning.