Incitement (39 page)

He despised the speaker but was incapable for the moment of any action against him. “That’s it then.”

“A final word of advice. If I were you, I’d ditch any unwanted surveillance and start making relocation plans. It seems to me that you’ve been let roam free for a reason. It
would be much easier for everyone if you just disappeared. You get to choose whether it’s on your terms or someone else’s. No doubt you’ve salted enough away in some grubby
account to maintain a reasonable lifestyle in a far-flung locale. Goodbye Thomas.”

Hughes could not believe it. All the time, effort and risk he had put in, only for it to finish like this. For a fleeting moment, the desolation he felt almost convinced him to throw himself off
a bridge or in front of the traffic. Then he snapped out of it. The way he saw it there were only a few choices open to him. He could give up like a coward, he could waste valuable time trying to
figure out what had gone wrong or he could choose to survive.

He decided he was going to get out of this nightmare, get to somewhere safe and from there he was going to marshal his forces. This was not the time to dwell on how he had been abandoned, how
the years of selfless service, sacrifices, had been discounted without a second thought. There would be a reckoning down the line. Anyone who thought he would meekly slip away, happy to survive
with his skin, was mistaken.

He returned to the Metrorail and caught the Red Line to Bethesda. From the station he flagged a cab and headed for a one-bedroom townhouse he maintained there under an assumed identity. He had
three properties like this in Maryland and fifteen nationwide. They were particularly useful for storing sensitive information or to provide short-term accommodation for select people. He paid the
driver, added a ten-dollar tip and asked him to wait. He went upstairs to the bedroom, pulled back a rug and removed a section of floorboard. He took out a small metal box, opened it and spread the
contents on the floor. There were four sets of similar documentation each bundled with an elastic band. He chose one of the bundles and placed it in his coat. He then took out his wallet, removed
all existing cards and identification and placed these with the three remaining bundles into the metal box, which he then replaced under the floor. He returned to the driver and asked him to head
back to the Metrorail.

– 320 –

Incitement

An hour and a half later the girl at the desk smiled at the handsome customer as she handed him his tickets. “There you go Mr McDermott, your ticket to New York. While you’re waiting
for your flight to depart you’re welcome to use the executive lounge. Have a nice trip.”

He smiled and thanked her.

Forty-four hours later he eased back in his chair, trying to get some sleep on the transatlantic flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. Since leaving Washington he had been moving non-stop and was
exhausted. He had done his best to make it difficult for anyone who might be looking for him, regardless of how extensive their operation. He had activated a number of agents still under his
control to initiate domestic and international travel with aliases he was known to have used in the past. Additionally, he had used contacts not affiliated to the Agency in any way to create yet
another new identity for him. Combined with the subtle changes he had made to his appearance, it should be enough to avoid detection. In his hand luggage, he had six more new sets of
identification, which he would use on the subsequent legs of his journey.

Finding that sleep eluded him, he considered what the longer term held. In a few months he would start rebuilding. There were resources, known only to him, which had no connection whatsoever to
the Colombian operation. They functioned in isolation and only required the correct protocol to be activated. There were also a number of offshore accounts which, even individually, held
substantial sums. When he had regrouped, priority would be given to figuring out what had gone wrong.

Despite the frantic running of the past two days there had been time to reflect. While he still had so much to figure out, one thing was clear; underestimating Mesi had been a grave mistake. She
had been the one variable unaccounted for and must have been responsible for the dramatic turn in events. Somehow, she had managed to first unearth his strategy and then prevent it. But he
couldn’t figure out how, considering how little she had. She would have had to recruit support to bring about what she clearly had, but he had made sure she was marginalised so that the
necessary support should have been impossible to rally. More practically, he was mystified as to how she could have set it all up so soon on the heels of the attempted ambush. None of these or the
countless other questions which sprang to mind could be answered but he was confident that all he needed was time. Everyone who had contributed, either directly or by simply deserting him, would
pay for everything he was suffering.

That he could never return to the US under his true identity was what hurt most. Twenty-odd years ago he had left college as an idealistic young man, eager to serve his country. And serve it he
had. He had shown promise and advanced rapidly. From very early on, he had gained an appreciation for how fragile his nation and its way of life was. He understood what it took to protect them.
Stability was paramount and, to achieve it, people like him needed to exert control. He had not always liked what he was called to do; some of it had tested his resolve to the limit. But he had
persevered, taken the hard path because that was what duty dictated.

Colombia was the latest of a long line. It had not been an easy decision to authorise some of the strategies; the collateral damage was considerable but there had been no choice. They had needed
to regain control of the situation there before it was too late. The drug economy was too powerful to eradicate, something the well-meaning optimists who had backed Plan Coca could just not
understand. No matter how much they expended in terms of manpower or firepower, the resilient cartels would always bounce back. And while the distracting sideshow was being played out on that
continent, escalations in production from other regions were being left virtually unchecked. The only viable choice was for them to seize control of the entire Latin American apparatus while it,
crucially, still enjoyed market dominance. That would have enabled them to influence the global drug economy. Once they had achieved their objective, they would have ramped up production but
maintained greater control over where the output went. They could have kept it out of decent neighbourhoods and schools, channelled it towards those destabilising elements within their own country.
They could have put the vast revenues it brought to good use as well; his thoughts lately had been turning toward using Wallace’s template to sow division amongst the extremist groups who had
become prominent in recent years.

Wallace had come along at exactly the right time. Hughes had been refining other strategies, aimed at toppling Madrigal and taking over the territories, but none had looked especially promising.
The Colombian had been too well positioned, too powerful, but what Wallace had proposed, if managed correctly, provided the solution. The most difficult part had been ensuring, with Brewer’s
help and his own network throughout the Alliance, that Wallace was not too successful. On more than one occasion he had almost failed and the feud had looked like it would consume the protagonists
whole. The anarchy which would have resulted if that had happened did not bear thinking about. Despite the obstacles, everything had come together perfectly and only the formalities had
remained.

Catching himself, he refused to wallow in self-pity; instead, after ordering a whisky from one of the stewardesses, he turned his thoughts to how he would engineer his revenge.

The concept was simple. Once a year the senior management selected people from all ranks of the organisation to accompany them on an excursion. The people could come from any
of the disparate subsidiaries owned by the parent company but all of them had one thing in common: they had each excelled in their jobs during the previous twelve months. This was the
company’s way of recognising their contribution and thanking them. The activity changed each year. Last year it had been hot-air ballooning, another it had been a two-day trek in the
mountains of British Colombia. This year, the company had chartered five Beneteau 40.7 sailboats out of Boston. After some practical yacht instruction they spent three days, under the watchful eye
of instructors, crewing the individual boats, often racing against each other. On the fourth day they returned to shore, exhilarated and exhausted.

He was glad now that he had relented and agreed to come along. It had been one of the most enjoyable experiences he could remember having in a long time. At first he had refused when Philip
Sims, the newly-appointed CEO of Diversified Holdings, had asked if he would attend the corporate function. Sims had been harder to dissuade than his predecessor and had insisted that Wallace at
least go away and think about it. He had argued that it would be a great boost for the employees to spend time with the man who had founded the company, and the strong internal culture, of which
everyone was so proud. Not just the employees lucky enough to have been chosen for the trip either. Everyone who worked for the organisation got a mail-shot updating them on that year’s
activities. Imagine the feeling of connectivity they would feel, the CEO had argued, when they saw that the man who had started the whole deal had attended. Wallace was not sure if he agreed with
modern corporate theory, the psychology surrounding people’s affiliation and motivational needs. In his day, you worked to put food on the table and a roof over your head, but he had come to
the conclusion that he really ought to give the company some time. Returning Sims’ call, he said that, while he was not sure how significant his presence would be, he was happy to attend.

It turned out that the change in focus had been exactly what he had needed. He found mucking in on the boat to be great fun. In addition to the professional crew there were eight people from the
organisation on each boat. His companions included the manager of an electrical goods retail outlet, a fork-lift operator and a programmer. Once the initial shock of being paired with him wore off,
they began to treat him like just another crew member. On one occasion, the retail manager, wanting them to be the first crew to reach that day’s finishing point, had torn into him with a
number of suggestions regarding his head and his ass when he had been slow to react to an order. He had surprised himself with how quickly he had replied in equally colourful terms. That evening
they had laughed uproariously about it over dinner.

Now, after reaching the final destination and having had a chance to rest for a few hours, the forty of them were spending their last evening together. The atmosphere was wonderful at the
outdoor buffet laid on by the yacht club. With the three days of sun and sea, people positively glowed, not only from the sailing but also from the sense of camaraderie which had formed. He was
surprised to realise that he had not thought about his recent troubles for even a fleeting moment over the past three days.

Things had worked out as well as he could have hoped. The thought of saving Madrigal had been abhorrent. They had effectively strengthened the drug lord’s position immeasurably. In
eliminating Rodriguez and uncovering the conspiracy against them, his reputation amongst the other cartel members had taken on legendary proportions. Whatever obstacles the Colombian would face in
the future, internal challenges were not likely to be among them. The friction between him and the people who controlled the drug-producing territories was still there, but mutual greed was
overcoming any philosophical differences.

Most of the intelligence people behind the plot to discredit Plan Coca and misuse his own campaign had been dealt with. Expulsions and demotions at the lower levels, for those who were unaware
of the final objective, and, he had been informed, executions for others. Unfortunately, a few had escaped with nothing more than a reprimand. These were the people who knew too much, the ones who
had to be handled carefully. He could not complain too much; he had also used the same threat of blowing the whistle on the whole sordid affair to ensure he went unpunished. The hope was that these
figures in the upper echelons of the intelligence world would have learnt their lesson as well as he had. Somehow, he doubted it. According to Larsen, Hughes had escaped through the ineptitude of
his former employers. Warned that the net was closing, he had been given too much time. Despite the manpower supposedly committed to locating him, nothing had turned up. Wallace was cynical enough
to appreciate how content many people were for it to remain that way.

He had not heard from Larsen in the four weeks since that last call and doubted he ever would again. He had no idea where the Dane had gone or what his plans were. It was uncomfortable for him
to think too long about the mercenary, because inevitably that stirred memories of how disappointed Larsen had been in him at the end. Not that anything had ever been said, but Wallace knew.

He had, however, finally stopped torturing himself over the harm they had done. It would do no good for him to spend the rest of his life fretting over what had happened. It had never been his
intention to hurt innocents and he had done his best to make up for any damage he might have caused. That had to count for something. Besides, a large part of him still believed that, without
outside interference, they might have succeeded in crippling the drug trade and kept innocent casualties to a minimum. At least the clinics were recovering. Now that the crisis was well and truly
past, he had been told they would be back on track within six months.

“Larry. Hey, Larry!”

His thoughts were disturbed by Sharon Murray, the programmer from his crew.

“Sorry, what?”

“Rob’s going inside to get another beer; do you want one?”