Frederic Forsyth - The Cobra

The exteriors of both grain ships were to remain, he had been instructed. Only the interiors of the five enormous holds were to be converted. The farthest forward was to be a brig for prisoners, though he did not know that. It would have bunks, latrines, a galley for cooking, showers, and a wardroom with air-conditioning and even TV.

Next was another living area with the same but better. One day, either British Special Boat Service commandos or American Navy SEALs would live here.

The third hold needed to be smaller so that its neighbor could be large. The steel bulkhead between holds 3 and 4 had to be cut out and moved. This was being fitted out as an all-purpose workshop. The second-to-last hold, up against the sterncastle, was left bare. It would contain very fast inflatable RIB raiding craft powered by huge motors. This hold would have the only derrick above it.

The largest hold was taking the most work. On its floor, a steel plate was being made, which would be hoisted vertically by four hydraulic winches, one at each corner, until it was level with the deck above. Whatever would be strapped to that rising floor would then be out in the fresh air. In fact, it would be the unit's attack helicopter.

All through the winter under the still-blazing Karnatakan sun, the torches hissed, drills bored, metal clanged, hammers smashed and two harmless grain ships were turned into floating death traps. And far away, the names were changed as ownership passed to an invisible company managed by Thame of Singapore. Just before completion, those names would go on each stern, the crews would be flown back to take them over and they would steam away to whatever work awaited them on the other side of the world. CAL DEXTER spent a week acclimatizing before he took the boat into the heart of the Bijagos. He plastered the SUV with decals he had brought with him, advertising BirdLife International and the American Audubon Society. Lying prominently on the backseat for any passing observer to see were copies of the latest reports from the Ghana Wildlife Society and the can't-do-without Birds of Western Africa by Borrow and Demey.

In fact, after the brush with the Wrangler at the intersection, two swarthy men were indeed sent to the bungalow to snoop. They returned to tell their masters the bird-watchers were harmless idiots. In the heart of enemy territory, "idiot" is the best cover there is.

Dexter's first chore was to find a place for his boat. He took his team west of Bissau city deep into the bush toward Quinhamel, the capital of the Papel tribe. Beyond Quinhamel, he found the Mansoa River leading down to the sea, and, on its bank, the hotel and restaurant Mar Azul. Here he slipped the cabin cruiser into the river and billeted Jerry in the hotel to look after it. Before he and Bill left, they had a sumptuous lobster lunch with Portuguese wine.

"Beats Colchester in winter," agreed the two paras. The spying on the offshore islands began the next day.

There are fourteen main Bijagos, but the entire archipelago comprises eighty-eight small blobs of land between twenty and thirty miles off the Guinea-Bissau coast. Anti-cocaine agencies had photographed them from space, but no one had ever penetrated them in a small boat.

Dexter discovered they were all swampy, hot, mangrove filled and feverish, but four or five, facing farthest out to sea, had been graced with luxurious snow-white villas on gleaming beaches, each with large dish aerials, state-of-the-art technology and radio masts to pick up signals from the faraway MTN service provider for mobile phones. Each villa had a dock and a speedboat. These were the exile residences of the Colombians.

For the rest, he counted twenty-three hamlets of fishermen, pigs and goats, leading a subsistence existence. But there were also fishing camps where foreigners came to rape the country's teeming fish reserves. There were twenty-meter canoes from Guinea-Conakry, Sierra Leone and Senegal with ice, food and fuel for fifteen days away from base.

These served South Korean and Chinese mother ships whose refrigerators could freeze the catch all the way back to the East. He watched up to forty canoes serving a single mother ship. But the cargo he really wanted to watch came on the sixth night.

He had berthed the cruiser up a narrow creek, crossed an island on foot and hidden himself in the mangroves by the shore. The American and the two British paras lay covered in camouflage scrim with powerful binoculars as the sun went down ahead of them in the west. Out of the last red rays came a freighter that was most definitely not a fishing mother ship. She slipped between two islands, and the chain clattered as her anchor went down. Then the canoes appeared.

They were local, not foreign, and not rigged for fishing. Five of them, each with a crew of four natives, and an Hispanic in the stern of two of them.

On the side rail of the freighter, men appeared lugging bales bound with stout cord. The bales were heavy enough that it needed four men to lift just one over the side and lower it to a waiting canoe, which rocked and sagged as it took the weight.

There was no need for secrecy. The crew laughed and shouted in the high piping tones of the East. One of the Hispanics clambered aboard to converse with the captain. A suitcase of money changed hands, the fee for the Atlantic crossing, but a mere fraction of the eventual yield in Europe.

Guessing the weight of the bales and counting the number, Cal Dexter calculated two tons of Colombian pure had been unloaded as he watched through his binoculars. The darkness deepened. The freighter put on some of her lights. Lanterns appeared on the canoes. Finally, the transaction done, the canoes gunned up their outboards and chugged away. The freighter hauled up her anchor and swung on the ebb tide before turning for sea.

Dexter caught sight of the red/blue flag of South Korea and her name. The Hae Shin. He gave them all an hour to get clear, then motored back upriver to the Mar Azul.

"Ever seen a hundred million sterling, guys?"

"No, boss," said Bill, using the paratroop vernacular of a corporal to an officer.

"Well, you have now. That was the value of two tons of coke." They looked glum.

"Lobster supper. Our last night."

That cheered them up. Twenty-four hours later, they had returned the cottage, boat and SUV and flown out, via Lisbon for London. The night they left, men in black balaclavas raided their villa, ransacked and then torched it. One of the Bijagos natives had seen a white man among the mangroves. THE REPORT of Inspector Ortega was succinct and confined to the facts. It was therefore excellent. He referred to the Colombian lawyer Julio Luz only as "the target" throughout.

"The target arrived on the daily scheduled Iberia flight landing at 10:00. He was identified in the jetway from the first-class cabin door to the underground shuttle train running from Terminal 4 to the main concourse. One of my men in Iberia cabin-crew uniform tailed him all the way. Target took no notice of him nor took any precautions at being followed. He carried one attache case and one grip. No main baggage.

"He checked through passport control and the Green Channel in customs and was not stopped. A limousine was waiting for him; a driver outside the customs hall with a notice saying 'Villa Real.' This is a major Madrid hotel. It sends limousines to the airport for privileged guests.

"A plainclothes colleague of mine was with him all the way and in the car that tailed the hotel limo. He met no one and spoke to no one until arrival at the Villa Real, Plaza de las Cortes 10.

"He checked in to a warm welcome and was heard to ask for his 'usual room,' which he was assured was ready for him. He retired to it, ordered a light salad lunch from room service at midday and appeared to sleep off the effects of the overnight flight. He took tea in the guests' cafe called East 47 and at one point was greeted by the hotel director Senor Felix Garcia.