Frederic Forsyth - The Cobra

Dexter took a DVD from his jacket pocket, switched on the big plasma screen, inserted the disc and pressed Play on the remote. The film had clearly been made by a cameraman on a high-rise roof half a kilometer from the cemetery, but the definition was excellent. And enlarged.

Juan Cortez watched his own funeral. The editors of the movie zeroed in on Irina weeping, supported by a neighbor. On his son Pedro. On Fr. Isidro. On the man at the back in black suit and tie and wraparound black glasses, he of the grim face, the watcher sent on the orders of the Don. The film cut.

"You see?" said the American, tossing the remote on the bed. "You cannot go back. But they will not come after you either. Not now, not ever. Juan Cortez died in that blazing car crash. Fact. Now you have to stay with us, here in the U.S. And we will look after you. We will not harm you. You have my word, and I do not break it. There will be a change of name, of course, and maybe some small changes in features. We have a thing called the 'Witness Protection Program.' You will be inside it.

"You will be a new man, Juan Cortez, with a new life in a new place; a new job, a new home, new friends. New everything."

"But I do not want new everything!" shouted Cortez in despair. "I want my old life back!"

"You cannot go back, Juan. The old life is over."

"And my wife and son?"

"Why should you not have them with you in the new life? There are many places in this country where the sun shines, just like in Cartagena. There are hundreds of thousands of Colombians here, legal immigrants, now settled and happy."

"But how could they…?"

"We would bring them. You could raise Pedro here. In Cartagena, what would he be? A welder like you? Going every day to sweat in the dockyards? Here he could be anything in twenty years. Doctor, lawyer, even a senator?"

The Colombian welder stared at him openmouthed.

"Pedro, my son, a senator?"

"Why not? Any boy can grow up to become anything here. We call it the American dream. But for this favor, we would need your help."

"But I have nothing to offer."

"Oh yes you do, Juan my friend. Here in my country, that white powder is destroying the lives of young people just like your Pedro. And it comes in ships, hidden in places we can never find it. But remember those ships, Juan, the ones you worked on…

"Look, I have to go." Cal Dexter stood and patted Cortez on the shoulder. "Think things over. Play the tape. Irina grieves for you. Pedro cries for his dead papa. It could all be so good for you if we bring them out to join you. Just for a few names. I'll be back in twenty-four hours.

"I'm afraid you cannot leave. For your own sake. In case anyone saw you. Unlikely but possible. So stay here and think. My people will look after you." THE TRAMP STEAMER Sidi Abbas was never going to win any beauty prizes, and her entire value as a small merchantman was a pittance compared to the eight bales in her hold.

She came out of the Gulf of Sidra, on the coast of Libya, and she was heading for the Italian province of Calabria. Contrary to the hopes of tourists, the Mediterranean can be a wild sea. The huge waves of a storm lashed the rusty tramp as she plodded and wheezed her way east of Malta toward the toe of the Italian peninsula.

The eight bales were a cargo that had been unloaded a month earlier with the complete agreement of the port authorities at Conakry, capital of the other Guinea, out of a bigger freighter from Venezuela. From tropical Africa the cargo had been trucked north, out of the rain forest, across the savannah and over the blazing sands of the Sahara. It was a journey to daunt any driver, but the hard men who drove the land trains were accustomed to the rigors.

They drove the huge rigs and trailers hour after hour and day after day over pitted roads and tracks of sand. At each border and customs post, there were palms to be greased and barriers to be lifted, as the purchased officials turned away with fat rolls of high-denomination euros in their back pockets.

It took a month, but with every yard nearer to Europe the value of each kilo in the eight bales increased toward the astronomical European price. At last the land-trains ground to a halt at a dusty shack stop just outside the major city that was the true destination.

Smaller trucks, or more likely rugged pickups, took the bales from the roadside around the city to some noisome fishing village, a huddle of adobe huts, by an almost-fishless sea where a tramp like the Sidi Abbas would be waiting at a crumbling dock.

That April, the tramp was heading on the last stage of the journey, to the Calabrian port of Gioia, which was wholly under the control of the Ndrangheta mafia. At that point, ownership would change. Alfredo Suarez in faraway Bogota would have done his job; the self-styled "Honorable Society" would take over. The fifty percent debt would be settled, the enormous fortune laundered through the Italian version of Banco Guzman.

From Gioia, a few miles from the office of the state prosecutor in the capital of Reggio di Calabria, the eight bales in much smaller packets would be driven north to Italy's cocaine capital, Milan.

But the master of the Sidi Abbas neither knew nor cared. He was just glad when the harbor mole at Gioia slid past and the wild water was behind him. Four more tons of cocaine had reached Europe, and many miles away the Don would be pleased. IN HIS comfortable but lonely jail, Juan Cortez had played the DVD of the funeral many times, and each time he saw the devastated faces of his wife and son he was brought to tears. He longed to see them again, to hold his son, to sleep with Irina. But he knew the Yanqui was right; he could never go back. Even to refuse to cooperate and send a message would be to sentence them to death or worse.

When Cal Dexter came back, the welder nodded his agreement.

"But I also have my terms," he said. "When I hold my son, when I kiss my wife, then I will remember the ships. Until then, not one word."

Dexter smiled.

"I asked for nothing else," he said. "But now we have work to do."

A recording engineer came and a tape was made. Though the technology was not new, neither was Cal Dexter, as he occasionally joked. He preferred the old Pearlcorder, small, reliable and with a tap so tiny it could be hidden in many places. And pictures were taken. Of Cortez facing the camera, holding a copy of that day's Miami Herald with the date clearly visible, and of the welder's strawberry birthmark, like a bright pink lizard, on the right thigh. When he had his evidence, Dexter left. JONATHAN SILVER was becoming impatient. He had demanded progress reports, but Devereaux was infuriatingly noncommittal. The White House chief of staff bombarded him constantly.

Elsewhere, the official forces of law and order continued as before. Huge sums from the public purse were allocated, and still the problem seemed to worsen.

Captures were made and loudly acclaimed; interceptions happened, the tonnages and prices-always the street price, rather than the at-sea price, because it was higher.

But in the Third World, confiscated ships miraculously slipped their moorings and vanished out to sea; accused crews were bailed and disappeared; worse, impounded shipments of cocaine simply went missing while in custody, and the trade went on. It seemed to the frustrated myrmidons of the DEA that everyone was on the payroll. This was the burden of Silver's complaint.

The man taking the call in his Alexandria town house as the nation packed up for the Easter break remained icily courteous but refused any concession.

"I was given the task last October," he said. "I said I needed nine months to prepare. At the right moment, things will change. Have a happy Easter." And he put the phone down. Silver was enraged. No one did that to him. Except, it seemed, the Cobra. CAL DEXTER flew back into Colombia via the Malambo air base again. This time, with Devereaux's assistance, he had borrowed the CIA Grumman executive jet. It was not for his comfort but for a fast getaway. He rented a car in the nearby town and drove to Cartagena. He had brought no backup. There are times and places where stealth and speed alone bring success. If he heeded muscle and firepower, he would have failed anyway.