Frederic Forsyth - The Cobra

The family lived near the water, one of the last houses in the village that overlooked the creek. And indeed the old man was truly dying. Fr. Eusebio gave the last rites and sat with him until he drifted away into a sleep from which he would probably not wake. Before he slipped away, he asked for a cigarette. The parish priest shrugged, and the daughter gave him one. There was nothing more the priest could do. In a few days, he would bury his parishioner. For the moment, he needed to complete his night's rest.

As he left, he glanced toward the sea. On the water between the jetty and the moored cruiser was a large open boat chugging out to sea. There were three men on board and a small amount of bales in the thwarts. The luxury yacht was showing lights at her stern, where several crewmen waited to receive cargo. Fr. Eusebio watched and spat in the dust. He thought of the family he had buried ten days earlier.

Back in his room, he prepared to resume his interrupted sleep. But he paused, went to the drawer and pulled out the gizmo. He did not know about texting and did not own a cell phone. He never had. But he had a small piece of paper on which he had written the list of buttons he had to press if he wanted to use the little machine. He pressed them one by one. The gizmo spoke. A woman's voice said "?Oiga?" He addressed the cell phone.

"Se habla espanol?" he asked.

"Claro, Padre," said the woman. "?Que quiere?"

He did not know quite how to phrase it.

"In my village is moored a very large boat. I think it takes on board a great quantity of the white powder."

"Does it have a name, Father?"

"Yes, I have seen it on the back. In gold letters. It is called the Orion Lady."

Then he lost his nerve and put the phone down so nobody could trace him. The computerized database took five seconds to identify the cell phone, the user and his exact location. In another ten, it had identified the Orion Lady.

She was owned by Nelson Bianco of Nicaragua, a multimillionaire playboy, polo player and party giver. She was not listed as one worked on by Juan Cortez, the welder. But her deck plan was obtained from her builders and fed into the memory of Global Hawk Michelle, who found the boat before dawn as she slipped out of the creek and headed for the open sea.

Further investigations during the morning, including consultation with the social diaries, revealed Senor Bianco was due in Fort Lauderdale for a polo tournament.

As the Orion Lady cruised north northwest to round Cuba by the Yucatan Channel, the Q-ship Chesapeake moved to cut her off.

THERE WERE 117 NAMES ON THE RAT LIST. THEY COVERED officials on the public payroll in eighteen countries. Two of those were the U.S. and Canada, the other sixteen in Europe. Before he would countenance the release of Ms. Letizia Arenal from her detention in New York, the Cobra insisted on one acid test at least, chosen at random. He picked Herr Eberhardt Milch, a senior customs inspector in the Port of Hamburg. Cal Dexter flew to the Hanseatic port to break the bad news.

It was a somewhat puzzled meeting that convened at the American's request at the headquarters of Hamburg's Customs Direction on the Rodingsmarkt.

Dexter was flanked by the senior DEA representative in Germany, who was already known to the German delegation. He in turn was rather mystified by the status of the man from Washington whom he had never heard of. But the instructions out of Army Navy Drive, the HQ of the DEA, were short and succinct. He has mojo; just cooperate.

Two had flown in from Berlin, one from the ZKA, the German federal customs, the other from the organized crime division of the Federal Criminal Police, the BKA. The fifth and sixth were local men, Hamburgers from the state customs and state police. The former of these two was their host; they met in his office. But it was Joachim Ziegler of the customs criminal division who carried the rank and faced Dexter.

Dexter kept it short. There was no need for explanations, they were all professionals, and the four Germans knew they would not have been asked to host the two Americans unless there was something wrong. Nor was there any need for interpreters.

All Dexter could say, and this was perfectly understood, was that the DEA in Colombia had acquired certain information. The word "mole" hung in the air unspoken. There was coffee, but no one drank.

Dexter slid several sheets of paper across to Herr Ziegler, who studied them carefully and passed them to his colleagues. The Hamburg ZKA man whistled softly.

"I know him," he muttered.

"And?" asked Ziegler. He was profoundly embarrassed. Germany is immensely proud of its vast, ultra-modern Hamburg. That the Americans should bring him this was appalling.

The Hamburg man shrugged.

"Personnel will have the full details, of course. So far as I can recall, an entire career in the service, a few years to retirement. Not a blemish."

Ziegler tapped the papers in front of him.

"And if you have been misinformed? Even dis-informed?"

Dexter's reply was to slide a few more papers across the table. The clincher. Joachim Ziegler studied them. Bank records. From a small private bank in Grand Cayman. About as secret as you can get. If they, too, were genuine… Anyone can run up bank records so long as they can never be checked out. Dexter spoke:

"Gentlemen, we all understand the rules of 'need to know.' We are not beginners at our strange trade. You will have understood that there is a source. At all costs, we have to protect that source. More, you will not wish to jump into an arrest and find you have a case based on un-confirmable allegations that not a court in Germany would accept. May I suggest a stratagem?"

What he proposed was a covert operation. Milch would be covertly and invisibly tailed until he intervened very personally to assist a specific arriving container or cargo through the formalities. Then there would be a spot check, seeming haphazard, a random selection by a junior officer.

If the information from Cobra was accurate, Milch would have to intervene to overrule his junior. Their altercation would be interrupted, also coincidentally, by a passing ZKA officer. The word of the criminal division would prevail. The consignment would be opened. If there was nothing, the Americans were wrong. Profuse apologies all around. No harm done. But Milch's home phone and mobile would still be tapped for weeks.

It took a week to set up and another before the sting could be used. The sea container in question was one of hundreds disgorged by a huge freighter from Venezuela. Only one man noticed the two small circles, one inside the other, and the Maltese cross inside the inner one. Chief Inspector Milch cleared it personally for loading onto the flatbed truck waiting for it before departure into the hinterland.

The driver, who turned out to be an Albanian, was at the very last barrier when, having lifted, it came down again. A young, pink-cheeked customs man gestured the truck into a lay-by.

"Spot check," he said. "Papiere, bitte."

The Albanian looked bewildered. He had his clearance papers, signed and stamped. He obeyed and made a rapid cell phone call. Inaudible inside his high cab, he uttered a few sentences in Albanian.

Hamburg customs normally has two levels of spot check for trucks and their cargoes. The cursory one is X-ray only; the other is "Open up." The young officer was really a ZKA operative, which was why he looked like a newcomer on the job. He beckoned the flatbed toward the zone reserved for major checking. He was interrupted by a much more senior officer hurrying from the control house.

A very new, very young, very inexperienced Inspektor does not argue with a veteran Oberinspektor. This one did. He stuck to his decision. The older man remonstrated. He had cleared this truck on the basis of his own spot check. There was no need to double-task. They were wasting their time. He did not see the small sedan slide up behind him. Two plainclothes ZKA men emerged and flashed badges.