Frederic Forsyth - The Cobra

Don Diego, playing the benign host, personally refilled Perez's wineglass, a signal honor.

Julio Luz, the lawyer/banker who had been completely unable to make eye contact with Roberto Cardenas, reported that the ten banks around the world who helped him launder billions of euros and dollars were content to continue and had not been penetrated or even suspected by the forces of banking regulation.

Jose-Maria Largo had even better news on the merchandising front. Appetite in the two target zones, the USA and Europe, was now climbing to unprecedented levels. The forty gangs and sub-mafias who were the clients of the cartel had placed even larger orders.

Two big gangs, in Spain and Britain, had been rounded up en masse, tried, sentenced and were out of the field. They had been smoothly replaced by eager newcomers. Demand would be at record levels for the coming year. Heads leaned forward as he produced his figures. He would need a minimum of three hundred tons of pure delivered intact to the handover points on each continent.

That put the focus on the two men whose job it was to guarantee those arrivals. It was probably a mistake to snub Roberto Cardenas, whose international network of on-the-payroll officials in airports, docks and customs sheds across both continents was crucial. The Don simply did not like the man. He gave the star role to Alfredo Suarez, the maestro of transportation from Colombian source to northern buyer. Suarez preened like a peacock, and made his servility to the Don plain.

"Given what we have all heard, I have no doubt that the six-hundred-ton delivery figure can be met. If our friend Emilio can produce eight hundred tons, we have a twenty-five percent margin for loss by interception, confiscation, theft or loss at sea. I have never lost anything like that percentage.

"We have over one hundred ships served by more than a thousand small boats. Some of our dedicated ships are big freighters, taking on our cargoes at sea and being relieved of them before arrival. Others take the cargo from dockside to dockside, assisted at both ends by officials on the payroll of our friend here, Roberto.

"Some of these carry sea containers, now used worldwide for freight of every kind and description, including ours. Others in the same group use secret compartments created by the clever little welder of Cartagena who died a few months ago. His name escapes me."

"Cortez," growled Cardenas, who came from that city. "His name was Cortez."

"Precisely. Well, whatever. Then there are the smaller craft, tramp steamers, fishing boats, private yachts. Between them, they carry and land almost a hundred tons a year. And finally we have our fifty-plus freelance pilots who fly and land or fly and drop.

"Some fly into Mexico to hand over to our Mexican friends, who bring the cargoes over the U.S. border in the north. Others go direct to one of the million creeks and bays along the southern coast of the U.S. The third category flies across to West Africa."

"Are there any innovations since last year?" asked Don Diego. "We were not amused by the fate of our fleet of submarines. A massive expenditure, all lost."

Suarez swallowed. He recalled what had happened to his predecessor who had backed a policy of submersibles and an army of one-journey mules. The Colombian Navy had traced and destroyed the subs; the new X-ray machines being deployed across both target continents were reducing successful in-stomach shipments to under fifty percent.

"Don Diego, those tactics are virtually extinct. As you know, one submersible that was at sea at the time of the naval strike was later intercepted, forced to surface and arrested in the Pacific off Guatemala. We lost twelve tons. For the rest, I am downgrading the use of mules with a single kilo each.

"I am concentrating on one hundred shipments per target continent at an average of three tons per cargo. I guarantee, my Don, I can deliver safely three hundred tons per continent after notional losses of ten percent to interception and confiscation and five percent to loss at sea. That is nothing like the twenty-five percent margin that Emilio suggests between his eight hundred tons of product and six hundred tons of safe delivery."

"You can guarantee that?" asked the Don.

"Yes, Don Diego. I believe I can…"

"Then let us hold you to that," murmured the Don. The room chilled. Through his own bombast, the cringing Alfredo Suarez was on life support. The Don did not tolerate failure. He rose and beamed.

"Please, my friends, lunch awaits us." THE TINY padded envelope did not look like much. It arrived by recorded delivery at the one-use safe house on the card Cal Dexter had dropped on the hotel-room floor. It contained a memory stick. He took it to Jeremy Bishop.

"What's on it?" asked the computer wizard.

"I wouldn't have brought it to you if I knew."

Bishop's brow furrowed.

"You mean you can't insert it into your own laptop?"

Dexter was slightly embarrassed. He could do many things that would leave Bishop in intensive care, but his grasp of cybertechnology was lower than basic. He watched as Bishop performed, for him, a kindergarten task.

"Names," he said. "Columns of names, mostly foreign. And cities-airports, harbors, docks. And titles-they look like officials of some kind or another. And bank accounts. Account numbers and lodgments. Who are these people?"

"Just print them out for me. Yes, black-and-white. On paper. Indulge an old man."

He went to a phone that he knew to be ultra-secure and called a number in Alexandria's Old Town. The Cobra answered.

"I have the Rat List," he said. JONATHAN SILVER called Paul Devereaux that evening. The chief of staff was not in his best humor, but he was not known for it anyway.

"You've had your nine months," he snapped. "When can we expect some action?"

"So kind of you to call," said the voice from Alexandria, cultured, with a hint of Boston drawl. "And so fortuitous. Starting next Monday, actually."

"And what will we see happening?"

"At first, nothing at all," said the Cobra.

"And later?"

"My dear colleague, I wouldn't dream of spoiling your surprise." And he replaced the receiver.

In the West Wing, the chief of staff found himself staring at a buzzing handset.

"He's hung up on me," he said in disbelief. "Again."

BY CHANCE IT WAS THE BRITISH SPECIAL BOAT SERVICE that secured the first prey; a question of the right place at the right time.

Shortly after the Cobra issued his "open season" edict, Global Hawk Sam picked up a mystery vessel on the ocean far below, which was tagged "Rogue One." Sam's wide-spectrum television scanner was narrowed as she dropped to 20,000 feet, still completely out of sound and sight. The images concentrated.

Rogue One was clearly not big enough to be a liner or Lloyd'slisted freighter. She might be a very small merchantman or coaster, but she was miles away from any coast. Or she might be a private yacht or fisherman. Whatever she was, Rogue One had passed longitude 55° heading east for Africa. And she behaved oddly.

She cruised through the night and then disappeared. That could only mean that at sunrise she closed down, her crew spread a sea blue tarpaulin and bobbed the day away on the water almost impossible to spot from above. That maneuver could only mean one thing. Then at sundown she rolled up the tarp and began to cruise east again. Unfortunately for Rogue One, Sam could see in the dark.

Three hundred miles off Dakar, the MV Balmoral turned south and went to flank speed to intercept. One of the two American comms men stood beside the captain on the bridge to read out the compass headings.

Sam, drifting high above the rogue, passed her progress details to Nevada, and AFB Creech told Washington. At dawn the rogue closed down and went under her drape. Sam returned to Fernando de Noronha Island to refuel and was back before dawn. The Balmoral steamed through the night. The rogue was caught at dawn of the third day, well south of the Cape Verdes, and still five hundred miles from Guinea-Bissau.