Том Клэнси - The Teeth of the Tiger

“Such as?” Davis asked. The company’s chief recruiter, he was also a skilled analyst.

“This.” Hendley handed the folder across. Davis opened it and scanned down the page.

“Hmm,” was all he said.

“Could be scary, if it turns into anything,” Hendley thought aloud.

“True. But we need more.” That was not earthshaking. They always needed more.

“Who do we have down there right now?” He ought to have known, but Hendley suffered from the usual bureaucratic disease: He had trouble keeping all the information current in his head.

“Right now? Ed Castilanno is in Bogotá, looking into the Cartel, but he’s in deep cover. Real deep,” Davis reminded his boss.

“You know, Tom, this intelligence business sometimes sucks the big one.”

“Cheer up, Gerry. The pay’s a hell of a lot better – at least for us underlings,” he added with a tiny grin. His bronze skin contrasted starkly with the ivory teeth.

“Yeah, must be terrible to be a peasant.”

“At least da massa let me get educated, learn my letters and such. Could have been worse, don’ have to chop cotton no more, Mas Gerry.” Hendley rolled his eyes. Davis had, in fact, gotten his degree from Dartmouth, where he took a lot less grief for his dark skin than for his home state. His father grew corn in Nebraska, and voted Republican.

“What’s one of those harvesters cost now?” the boss asked.

“You kidding? Far side of two hundred thousand. Dad got a new one last year and he’s still bitching about it. ’Course, this one’ll last until his grandchildren die rich. Cuts through an acre of corn like a battalion of Rangers going through some bad guys.” Davis had made a good career in CIA as a field spook, becoming a specialist in tracking money across international borders. At Hendley Associates he’d discovered that his talents were also quite useful in a business sense, but, of course, he’d never lost his nose for the real action. “You know, this FBI guy, Dominic, he did some interesting work in financial crimes in his first field assignment in Newark. One of his cases is developing into a major investigation into an international banking house. He knows how to sniff things out pretty well for a rookie.”

“All that, and he can kill people on his own hook,” Hendley agreed.

“That’s why I like his looks, Gerry. He can make decisions in the saddle, like a guy ten years older.”

“Brother act. Interesting,” Hendley observed, eyes on the folders again.

“Maybe breeding tells. Grandfather was a homicide cop, after all.”

“And before that in the 101st Airborne. I see your point, Tom. Okay. Sound them both out soon. We’re going to be busy soon.”

“Think so?”

“It’s not getting any better out there.” Hendley waved at the window.

THEY WEREat a sidewalk café in Vienna. The nights were turning less cold, and the patrons of the establishment were enduring the chill to enjoy a meal on the wide sidewalk.

“So, what is your interest with us?” Pablo asked.

“There is a confluence of interests between us,” Mohammed answered, then clarified: “We share enemies.”

He gazed off. The women passing by were dressed in the formal, almost severe local fashion, and the traffic noise, especially the electric trams, made it impossible for anyone to listen in on their conversation. To the casual, or even the professional, observer, these were simply two men from other countries – and there were a lot of them in this imperial city – talking business in a quiet and amiable fashion. They were speaking in English, which was also not unusual.

“Yes, that is the truth,” Pablo had to agree. “The enemies part, that is. What of the interests?”

“You have assets for which we have use. We have assets for which you have use,” the Muslim explained patiently.

“I see.” Pablo added cream to his coffee and stirred. To his surprise, the coffee here was as good as in his own country.

He’d be slow to reach an agreement, Mohammed expected. His guest was not as senior as he would have preferred. But the enemy they shared had enjoyed greater success against Pablo’s organization than his own. It continued to surprise him. They had ample reason to employ effective security measures, but as with all monetarily motivated people they lacked the purity of purpose that his own colleagues exercised. And from that fact came their higher vulnerability. But Mohammed was not so foolish as to assume that made them his inferiors. Killing one Israeli spy didn’t make him Superman, after all. Clearly they had ample expertise. It just had limits. As his own people had limits. As everyone but Allah Himself had limits. In that knowledge came more realistic expectations, and gentler disappointments when things went badly. One could not allow emotions to get in the way of “business,” as his guest would have misidentified his Holy Cause. But he was dealing with an unbeliever, and allowances had to be made.

“What can you offer us?” Pablo asked, displaying his greed, much as Mohammed had expected.

“You need to establish a reliable network in Europe, correct?”

“Yes, we do.” They’d had a little trouble of late. European police agencies were not as restrained as the American sort.

“We have such a network.” And since Muslims were not thought to be active in the drug trade – drug dealers often lost their heads in Saudi Arabia, for example – so much the better.

“In return for what?”

“You have a highly successful network in America, and you have reason to dislike America, do you not?”

“That is so,” Pablo agreed. Colombia was starting to make progress with the Cartel’s uneasy ideological allies in the mountains of Pablo’s home country. Sooner or later, the FARC would cave in to the pressure and then, doubtless, turn on their “friends” – really “associates” was a loose enough word – as their price of admission to the democratic process. At that time, the security of the Cartel might be seriously threatened. Political instability was their best friend in South America, but that might not last forever. The same was true of his host, Pablo considered, and that did make them allies of convenience. “Precisely what services would you require of us?”

Mohammed told him. He didn’t add that no money would be exchanged for the Cartel’s service. The first shipment that Mohammed’s people shepherded into – Greece? Yes, that would probably be the easiest – would be sufficient to seal the venture, wouldn’t it?

“That is all?”

“My friend, more than anything else we trade in ideas, not physical objects. The few material items we need are quite compact, and can be obtained locally if necessary. And I have no doubt that you can help with travel documents.”

Pablo nearly choked on his coffee. “Yes, that is easily done.”

“So, is there any reason why this alliance cannot be struck?”

“I must discuss it with my superiors,” Pablo cautioned, “but on the surface I see no reason why our interests should be in conflict.”

“Excellent. How may we communicate further?”

“My boss prefers to meet those with whom he does business.”

Mohammed thought that over. Travel made him and his associates nervous, but there was no avoiding it. And he did have enough passports to see him through the airports of the world. And he also had the necessary language skills. His education at Cambridge had not been wasted. He could thank his parents for that. And he blessed his English mother for her gift of complexion and blue eyes. Truly he could pass for a native of any country outside of China and Africa. The remains of a Cambridge accent didn’t hurt, either.