Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (95 page)

 
          
Keep
all your men out of sight until he leaves. He will be carrying a gun. Make no
moves against him.” Then to Salazar: “I would be interested to learn how you
managed to get those knives past my guards, Colonel.”

 
          
Salazar
reached down to his right boot, extracted another knife, and hurled it into the
leather chair behind the desk, inches from Gachez’s left hip. Gachez yanked it
out of the leather and inspected it. “A gift for you, Senor Gachez. My knives
are made of ceramic composites, lighter and stronger than steel and
undetectable by conventional metal detectors. You should update your security.”
He left then and made his way to the boarding ladder to his waiting motor
launch.

 
          
Gachez’s
smile vanished as Salazar left the salon. He hit the intercom button. “Jose,
send two men in here.” He stood at his desk examining the knife as guards came
in and helped the two stricken guards out. Chief of security named Jose followed
the guards in, a submachine gun drawn. Maxwell Van Nuys came after.

 
          
“What
the hell happened?” Van Nuys asked. “Where’s Salazar?”

 
          
“Something
you gringos would not understand,” Gachez said. “We were playing a game for
men.”

 
          
“A
game for men? He cuts two of your men and uses you for target practice. That’s
real manly. Where is he? Is he going to take the job?”

 
          
“He
asks for thirty thousand a kilo, with half up front.”

 
          
“So
you said no and he threw a knife.”

 
          
The
chief cartel leader walked quickly to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a
glass of vodka.

 
          
“So
much for your macho negotiation technique. We can continue to make shipments
overland through
Mexico
, but it takes weeks to get a shipment across the border, and then we
have to get it into the hands of the distributors in
Florida
and
California
—”

 
          
“Your
job is not to worry about where or how the shipments are sent. Your job is to
take care of foreign Customs and the money in your banks ...”

 
          
Van
Nuys shook his head. “It might end up costing you a lot more if you don’t go
with Salazar and his Cuchillos. He gets the job done. It’ll cost you ten
thousand a kilo to get it into the
United States
overland, but then you have to see that it
gets from
New
Mexico
and
Texas
all the way to
Florida
or
Los Angeles
. Each shipment spends weeks on the road and
you risk interception every day it’s out of your hands. Even if a few shipments
are lost or intercepted, you get more product delivered in less time with air
deliveries, and you don’t mess with Customs.”

 
          
“You
are saying you can’t handle your end of our bargain?”

 
          
“I
can handle it but it’s dangerous,” Van Nuys said. “We can pay off these
officials all we want, but one day someone’s going to come with more money,
more booze, a better-looking woman,
or
a bigger gun—and then these Customs agents belong to someone else . . . Read
the newspapers. The Border Security Force is going down the drain. The
government may make a big deal about having the military take over drug
interdiction duties, but it’s a lot more expensive to run an F-16 than a Sea
Lion aircraft or a drone. If you ask me, you have no choice but to go with
Salazar. They want people to think the smugglers are laying low, when the Air
Force or the Navy can’t find their butts with both hands. Salazar might be
greedy, but he did the job. The borders are wide open.”

 
          
Gachez
slowly turned Salazar's throwing knife over in his hand, then returned to his
desk with his glass of vodka.
“Bueno.
Then you will handle Colonel Salazar. You will accompany him to his base,
inspect his facilities and report to me that he has the resources to do the
job. I will decide whether to trust him enough for a major shipment.”

 
          
“Me?
Why should I—?”

 
          
“You
are an experienced pilot, able to judge the value of his planes and the
capabilities of his new facilities. You can chart his base’s location and
report on his organization. He will not tolerate one of my people to go along
with him. You are less threatening, a compromise he can accept.”

 
          
“It’s
because of the leaks in your organization and your own handling of Salazar I
was almost busted by the Hammerheads. I’m working with you until I can recoup
my losses and then I’m retired,” “You work for me now, Mr. Van Nuys. I could
have had you killed or turned you over to the authorities when I discovered
your little smuggling operation. I did neither. You traded your life for a
longterm employment contract with me. If you really hope to live until this
fanciful retirement you speak of, you will do as I say. What I need from you is
to verify that Salazar wall not soak us, and will handle our business. The
Cartel wishes the main shipment on its way as soon as possible, but not before
I have Salazar checked out.”

 
          
Van
Nuys hesitated.
“How
^t
big
is
this main shipment?”

 
          
“I
want to know if Salazar can handle fifty thousand kilos.” Gachez said casually.

 
          
“Fifty
. . . thousand . . . kilos? Of cocaine?”

 
          
“Maybe
more. The Cartel has been shipping only one-tenth its normal volume for the
past twelve months, but
production
has not slowed. We are backlogged with product. At a wholesale price of sixty
thousand a kilo we can make a very great profit ...”

 
          
“That’s
three billion dollars
worth you w
^T
ant
shipped? All at once?” “Of course, all at once. The Americans are starving for
cocaine. This is a major relief effort, like airlifting food to
Ethiopia
, or gas masks to Bhoupal, or lead undenvear
to
Chernobyl
.” Gachez smiled at his own wit. “Even
paying Salazar his exorbitant fee, the Cartel will net over a billion dollars
from wholesale and our portion of the retail sales—and all in a few days’ work.
As the leading producer for the Cartel, we will get the largest cut—over four
hundred million dollars.”

 
          
Van
Nuys considered the enormous figures. On the street the stuff was worth twice
its wholesale value—over six billion dollars. Once cut and prepared it was
enough cocaine to give every man, woman and child in the United States two
“lines.” And if it was processed into crack cocaine . . .

 
          
“And
the shipment is ready to go immediately,” Gachez was saying. “I want you on the
plane with Salazar tonight, back to whatever hole he has dug for himself.”

 
          
The
profit potential was huge, Van Nuys told himself. Three billion dollars . . .

 
          
“All
right, all right. Just this once. But remember, I’m a lawyer, not one of your
damned bean-counters—”

 
          
“You
are a greedy bastard like everyone else,” Gachez said, downing the last of his
vodka. “You complain, but
you
came to
me.
No one cares who you were or what
you did before this. Do as you’re told and you get your money. And that makes
you no different from the old woman who cleans my toilets every day. Follow
Salazar every minute of every day, be ready to report in detail about where
he’s hiding and what equipment he has. That’s it.”

 
          
After
Van Nuys left, escorted by two soldiers, Gachez turned to Luiz Canseco, the
youngster who had volunteered to test the Hammerheads’ defenses and who was now
a top lieutenant in Gachez’s most trusted cadre. “Luiz, you go with Van Nuys.
Keep a close eye on him. Follow him—charter a plane, buy a boat, bribe local
officials, do whatever you must, but follow him everywhere and report back to
me. If he is even seen with an American agent or police, an official of any
kind, execute him.”

 
          
Ciudad del Carmen
,
Mexico

 
          
The Next Morning

 
          
“This
is your new operation?” Van Nuys
said. They had touched down on a beautiful sun-drenched airport surrounded by a
narrow inlet and a broad green-blue bay in southeastern
Mexico
. As they taxied back down the runway, Van
Nuys saw palm trees, city buses plying the airport grounds, immaculately
painted and maintained hangars and a modern, multi-story glass passenger
terminal. The Lear jet carrying Salazar, Van Nuys, Canseco, and several
soldiers and assistants taxied past the passenger terminal to a row of private
hangars and maintenance buildings. They parked on a concrete ramp, complete
with a red painted “welcome” runner leading from the scrupulously clean ramp
into the private offices nearby.

 
          
“A
bit different from Verrettes, but every bit as functional, I assure you,”
Salazar said as he parked the Lear and shut down the engines— Van Nuys quickly
memorized the latitude and longitude coordinates on the LORAN navigation set
before Salazar shut it off. “In
Haiti
I was set up as a district military
commander and given full use of a base and facilities, but that was when Gachez
and the
Medellin
cartel financed my entire operation. They
were content to have me live like a common soldier, no better than a peasant.
But, I invested much of my own funds into this operation, and now, as you can
see . . .” A Mexican customs official met them, copied down the plane’s tail
number, made a few more scratches on a form on a clipboard, saluted Salazar and
departed—he made no effort to check the cargo compartments, where he would have
found over one hundred million dollars in American, Mexican, West German and
Colombian currency. “They are very thorough and tough in the tourist passenger
terminal,” Salazar commented, “but out here they all belong to me. We can bring
anything we wish into Ciudad del Carmen at any time as long as the local
officials and the militia get their considerations.” “Do you keep tabs on who
comes and goes in this city?”

 
          
“Of
course,” Salazar said. “The Customs officials report all Americans coming into
the area, especially any American government officials—they can be DEA or
Border Security, although their passport says State Department. The militia
reports any suspicious newcomers into the city, and we act accordingly.”

 
          
“Why
this city?” Van Nuys asked. “Ciudad del Carmen looks like a resort town. Your
base of operations is on a major tourist airport, not two hundred meters from
the main passenger terminal.” “Ciudad del Carmen
is
a major resort city. Not as big or as fancy as
Veracruz
or
Cancun
but very popular with Europeans and Asians.
The American tourists stopped coming here after the city was badly damaged by a
hurricane. And why shouldn’t we be located on the main airport? Carmen del Sol
Airlines is the major tourist airline of the state of
Campeche
, with regular flights as far away as
Boston
and
San Francisco
. The tourists like flying here because it
is much less expensive than Cancun, but then they drive, bike or sail around
the Yucatan Peninsula to Cancun or down the coast to Veracruz. In a sense my
pilots and I are also tourists ...”

 
          
They
exited the jet and began down the taxiway, inspecting whitewashed buildings
with colorful murals and welcome signs on the hangars. Everyone working at
Carmen del Sol Airlines wore white short-sleeved coveralls with the company
logo on the breast pocket—but Van Nuys also recognized the military-style
haircuts and detected the bulges of concealed weapons on a few of the so-
called mechanics.