by Blake Banner
“Yuh, we can.” He glanced at Jim, who ignored him. “But then we gotta go with a pick up truck and collect the guns and explosives and take them into the forest without being seen and without arousing suspicion. Getting them from the plane to the shore is the easy bit. Getting them to our camp ain’t so easy.”
I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “You get your contact to collect the weapons and deposit them wherever he figures is safe. We rent a truck in Mexico City. We pick up the weapons in Sinaloa. We drop the truck in the woods near Cosalá and carry the weapons the last few miles. We’re talking about two kit bags. It’s down to us not to arouse suspicion or get caught. If we do, we shoot our way out or we bribe our way out. That’s the best we can do.”
Njal shrugged his agreement. “Jim, you talk to Sole this afternoon.”
“Sure, Njal.”
“Good. As to the hit on the Vampiro’s place and the lab, we can rough out a general idea for a plan using satellite images, but any kind of detailed plan of action will have to wait till we’re there.”
Jim sighed heavily. “Good, now, what will you need?”
I sipped my whiskey and thought for a moment. “Two Heckler & Koch 416 assault rifles fitted with the AG-HK416 grenade launchers and infrared telescopic sights. And we’ll need plenty of ammunition with that.” I looked at Njal. “You happy with the choice or you have some other preference?”
He shook his head. “It’s fine.”
I went on, “Obviously we won’t be able to take our handguns on the plane, so you better add a couple of Sig Sauer p226 for me and whatever Njal uses.”
“Glock 17.”
“With the extended magazines, two per gun, same for the Glock. Also, two Fairbairn & Sykes fighting knives, one for me and one for Njal. I want a take down bow, hickory or orange osage, sixty-five pound draw weight and a dozen aluminum arrows, broadheads. You want a bow?”
Njal shook his head again. “But you better get us a couple of Maxim 9s. If I have to be silent, I prefer to be silent with a gun.”
“Yeah, good. I’d like to take a heavy machine gun, but it’s going to slow us down too much, so we make do with the 416s and the grenades. But we are going to need explosives, so you better add in eight cakes of C4 each.”
Jim laughed. “That’s twenty pounds of C4! You planning to level the place?”
I smiled. “Yes. I’ve had prior experience of Omega labs, Jim, and if past experience is anything to go by, I plan to level the place to the ground.”
“OK, no argument from me. Anything else?”
“Detonators, remote and mechanical. Night-vision goggles for both of us, binoculars. I think that’s it. The plan is simple, go in, kill everybody, destroy everything and leave. The strategy is to use surprise, attack from a distance with extreme violence and move in gradually, so they never know who or what they are up against, until we have them boxed in. Then we unleash unholy hell on them. The precise details will have to wait till we are on the ground.” I looked at Njal. “You have anything to add?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.” Then as an afterthought, he asked, “You planning to torture anybody for information?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Jim pursed his lips at his glass of whiskey. “You had concerns about their computer network and their bank accounts…”
“I still have, but I need your support for this operation and you won’t give it if I torture Omicron, Xi or Nu. That’s a decision you will eventually regret, but as it stands, what choice have I got?”
He sighed. “If you turn rogue on us once you’re in the field, Lacklan, the consequences could be catastrophic, you understand that?”
I studied his face a moment without expression. “Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s not a threat. For God’s sake, man! We are not your enemies, we are your friends. All I am saying to you is that we need to work together.”
I shrugged. “OK, so work with me to get the passwords to access whatever computer networks Omega has left, and the passwords to their bank accounts. As long as they have those resources intact, Omega will not die. You know that as well as I do.”
“We plan to, Lacklan. We just plan not to use torture.”
I nodded. “Sure. So I have no choice but to toe the line. We’ll do it your way.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Just talk to me or Njal before you do anything that might jeopardize the operation, Lacklan. I’m trusting your professionalism here.”
“You can trust my professionalism. Relax.”
“OK, so I am going to arrange the delivery and collection of your shopping list. Then I’m going to head back to L.A. and leave you to work on the fine details of the plans. Meantime, anything you need, let me know.”
He rose and went up to his room. Fifteen minutes later, he came back down again and told us it was sorted. We walked him out to the porch, watched him climb into his Moab and drive out of the gate and away, across the desert, trailing a lazy plume of dust behind him. Njal stared up at the near white sky as the gate rolled closed. “I’m gonna talk to Sole about collecting the weapons.”
I nodded. “Good. I’ll call Cyndi.”
He slapped me on the shoulder. “Catch you later by the pool, we can start putting details on the plan. You cool?”
“Yeah, Njal, I’m cool. Stop worrying.”
He nodded. “Good. Catch you later.”
He went upstairs, but I stayed a while, staring out at the scorched desolation of the desert, thinking. It was time to start planning in earnest.
NINE
I touched down at the Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Buenos Aires at just after nine o’clock on the morning of the 27th of June. I picked up a nondescript Toyota Corolla from the Hertz office and headed out on the General Pablo Ricchieri Highway under a mild blue sky, across pleasant green fields, toward the city. The road changed its name a couple of times, but it was pretty much one long, gently curving arc over the rooftops of Buenos Aires, with a brief descent through Chacabuco Park, until it came, as the 25 Mayo, to the river. There it frayed like an old paintbrush, sending twisted tendrils in all directions. I took the one that led to Ing Huergo Avenue, turned right over the bridge and followed the canal for five hundred yards till I came to the Hilton.
There I let a kid with spots and big, brown eyes park my rental car while another with red hair and freckles carried my bags into reception. I checked in at the bank of brown and beige desks, where pretty receptionists with standardized smiles welcomed me to the mass-produced luxury that only the Hilton knows how to provide. Everything was shiny and nothing was too much trouble. My personal receptionist handed me the key to my executive suite with a tilt of her blonde head and a big, happy smile.
I rode the elevator to the tenth floor with Red Freckles. After he had opened the curtains and shown me where everything was, I gave him ten bucks and closed the door on his retreating, grinning form. Then I pulled my cell from my pocket. Cyndi had contacted Narciso Terry and told him I was interested in meeting him. She must have made it convincing because it seemed he was keen to meet me too. He’d asked her to give me his private cell number and call him as soon as I arrived. That was what I did. I checked my watch as the phone rang. It was ten thirty, local time.
A voice that was surprisingly agreeable answered. There was an accent, but not much. “Hello, Mr. Eddington?”
I took a second to think of my mother, her friends, and my commanding officers at the SAS, then spoke in perfect, cut glass English from England. “Good morning, Minister.”
There was a small, indulgent laugh. “There is no need for formalities. Please call me Narciso, and if you will allow me, I will call you Nicholas. I hope you had a comfortable flight.”
“Perfect. I slept all the way.”
“You are comfortable in your hotel? Is there anything you need?”
“A shower and a large whiskey, but it’s a little early for that.” I laughed. “But I was hoping you wou
ld allow me to invite you to lunch, Narciso.”
“Absolutely not. I insist you are my guest. You are at the Hilton?”
“Indeed.”
“I will have a car collect you at twelve o’clock and lunch will be my treat.”
“That is extremely kind of you. I look forward to it very much.”
“It is my pleasure. Any friend of Cyndi’s is a friend of mine, and she speaks very highly of you. Until lunch, then.”
I told him again I was looking forward to it, hung up and switched on the burner I had brought with me to receive messages from Njal, if an emergency cropped up. We had arranged to switch them on three times a day for not more than five minutes. The precaution was probably excessive, but excessive caution can save lives.
Either way, there were no messages, so I switched it off, stripped, had a long shower and changed my traveling clothes for a business suit and tie. By that time it was eleven o’clock, so I went downstairs for an early cocktail of black coffee laced generously with Jameson’s.
At twelve on the button, a man in a black suit with black knee-boots and a black cap came into the bar and approached me.
“You are Mr. Eddington?”
I told him I was and he said he had the car waiting out front. I followed him out into the gentle sunshine. It was a pleasant sixty degrees, more like seventy in the sun. The car he had waiting turned out to be a dark blue Bentley Mulsanne, with the extended wheelbase. That was three hundred and fifty thousand bucks right there, without any extras. He opened the door and, as I went to climb in, I saw there was a man already in there. He was what you would call groomed. Even his pencil moustache was groomed. He spread his groomed hands and smiled, so I could see his teeth were groomed too.
“Nicholas, forgive me for not getting out,” he said. “One has to be discreet in Argentina. Please, come in, make yourself comfortable.” I did, wondering how showing up in a Bentley Mulsanne qualified as discreet, and the door closed behind me with an expensive clunk. “A drink? It is not far to the restaurant, but you certainly have time for a drink.”
I smiled. “Thank you. Scotch, on the rocks.”
“Macallan?”
“Who could say no to the Macallan?”
The glasses were leaded crystal and the Macallan eighteen years old. He handed me a glass, we toasted and he sat back and sighed with pleasure. I looked around the car and raised an eyebrow. “What does the president drive?”
He snorted in a way you could describe as derisive. “A Mercedes.” He gave a small, self-deprecating shrug. “Money and office, Nicholas, they are the trappings of power. They are not power itself. The president is a good man, we are good friends, but his preeminence will wane and a new president will come along. Why? Because his power is not his, it comes from the people. They give it and they take it away; and with it the trappings and much of the money.”
I sipped and studied his face, wondering absently how well he had known Ben and my father. “You say that as though it didn’t apply to you. You are also an elected member of Congress.”
He glanced out the window as we turned onto Tucumán. The street was narrow and the buildings modern, with brick and marble facades. It could have been Paris or Madrid, or any of a dozen Mediterranean cities.
“When Caesar made his comment about bread and circus, the circus he was referring to was the one where the lions ate the Christians.” He turned his gaze back to me and smiled. “Currently we are not allowed to do that kind of thing, so instead we use the television and the democratic process.” He gave a laugh, like he was sharing a private joke with himself. “Neither one is enough on its own, but used together, they are a very powerful intellectual anesthetic. The people are lulled into a dream where they believe they are somehow involved in the process of government.”
I offered him my best debonair, English smile. “That is pretty ambiguous, but I don’t want to pry. As far as I am concerned, the function of government should be to facilitate business and trade. So according to that criterion, you are doing a first class job.”
He raised his glass. “Here’s to that.”
We crossed the massive central esplanade, crisscrossed by the Avenida 9 de Julio, Cerrito and Carlos Pellegrini running north to south, and just about every other avenue in Buenos Aires running east to west, forming a grid pattern of small parks stretching north and south from the Plaza de la Republica. At the opera house we turned right down Libertad, and I was struck again by the feeling that this was a European city somehow transposed to another continent.
Narciso had been quiet for a while, watching the crowds on the narrow sidewalks as we cruised past. “It is not ambiguous, Nicholas. I have perhaps been vague, but not ambiguous.” He turned to face me and smiled. “Most architects have only the most rudimentary understanding of physics, most physicists have only the most rudimentary understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics…” He shook his head and shrugged. “Most doctors have only the most basic understanding of what is health. It is the same with politicians. Most politicians do not understand the fundamentals of power. Do you know what power is, Nicholas?”
I frowned at the ice in my glass. “A wise man once told me that the source of all temporal power was the ability to deploy violence.”
He gave a small laugh that sounded indulgent. “He was right, of course. But power and the source of power are two different things. True power is the ability to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. Temporal power is the ability to make people do what we want them to do—usually to provide us with pleasure and avoid pain!—and of course, as your wise friend pointed out, the way to motivate people is to deploy violence, or the threat of violence.” We had been traveling up Avenida Santa Fe, and now turned in to Pueyredon. He gestured with his hand and said, “We are here. I hope you like Spanish food. As an Argentinian, I sometimes grow tired of steak! We did have a superb French restaurant here for a long time. Sadly, it closed. But the Oviedo is very good too.”
Another turn into Antonio Beruti and we came to a halt outside a restaurant with a long, blue awning and big, broad windows. The chauffeur opened the door and let us out, and as he climbed back into the Bentley and drove away, the head waiter of the Oviedo opened the door to the restaurant to let us in. I began to wonder if, after all, the nature of power wasn’t having people everywhere opening doors for you.
The place was quiet and elegant, with a lot of dark wood and very white linen, and waiters in white jackets with bowties. The head waiter led us, in a walk that was half-bow, to ‘el Señor Ministro’s usual table in a quiet corner where we were given a couple of leather bound menus the size of small encyclopedias, and Narciso ordered two more single malts on the rocks. Then he gripped the waiter’s arm and said to me, “Will you allow me, Nicholas? I can recommend for you the king prawns in garlic, and for the main plate, Patagonian lamb with Sardinian gnocchi, it is superb here.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, he spoke to the waiter in Spanish and I heard him say the words ‘Vega Sicilia noventa y nueve’, a wine from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain that was going to set him back over four hundred U.S. dollars.
The head waiter went away with his instructions, delegating to his subordinates as he went, and Narciso smiled at me. “I am fortunate,” he said, “to have the power to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I am fortunate that I like prawns in garlic and lamb.”
“Even if you didn’t, you would like this. It is food fit for gods.” The waiter brought our drinks. Narciso sipped and seemed to study my face a moment. “So, how can I help a friend of Cyndi’s?”
“It’s more a case of how I can help you.”
“Indeed?”
I nodded and sipped my own drink. “You recall the recent crash of the stock markets in Europe and the U.S.A.”
“Naturally. The repercussions were felt worldwide.”
“It was caused by the collapse of a series of linked computer networks that spread
across government and administrative bodies, through a series of banks and billion dollar corporations.”
I paused and watched him. He had gone very still. I waited for him to say something. He didn’t. He just waited, so I went on.
“It was a miracle the collapse wasn’t more widespread. It had the potential to bring down world banking and international trade. The consequences could have been truly catastrophic, on a global level. Fortunately, our company was able to establish that the networks that did go down were…” I hesitated, searching for the word, “Hermetically sealed, isolated from other networks.”
His voice was wooden: “What else did your company discover?”
“That the crash was triggered by a virus. We suspect it was Islamic cyber terrorism.” I delivered the statements with a show of perfect innocence, holding his eye throughout. Before he could answer, I went on, “We think that, because the point of introduction seems to have been within the government computer systems of the European Union. It was a very rare virus that had been considered almost mythical up to that point. It is known as the neutron bomb, a wildfire virus that spreads from computer to computer, from network to network, but is virtually undetectable until it stops spreading. Once it stops spreading, then it self-activates and within minutes, takes down every computer in the networks it has infected.”
He kept his eyes on his glass, turning it slowly around on the table cloth, and for a moment I wondered if I had been too smart and overplayed my hand. After a moment, he said, “That is very interesting, but how does it affect Argentina? Islamic terrorists have little interest in us.”
I sipped, nodded vigorously and set down my glass, smacking my lips. “Oh, sure, that is true—for now at least—and in a sense, that is why our proposal could be of mutual benefit.”
He frowned, then laughed. “Which of these statements do we pursue first? For now? You think we will soon become of interest to Islamic terrorists? Why? And what is this proposal of yours?”
I held up a hand. “Let me answer the first point first, because it is, for now, of least interest. Our analysts tell us that though the Trump administration is coming down hard on Mexico, this is just the Trump style of negotiation. The end game is to build much stronger ties with Latin America with a view to commercial and political integration in the long term. That could, conceivably, lead to Mexico and Argentina eventually becoming targets for enemies of the U.S.A. But that is very much long term. In the shorter term, Argentina being off the radar and a little isolated from the major Western economies affords us, my company, opportunities for research and development that we cannot pursue in Europe or the States.”