The reason, his ADC had sought to explain to him on the flight down, was that the U.S., out of its habitual generosity to the Third World, was going to help the Republic of Cape Verde. The islands have absolutely no natural resources save one: the seas around them are teeming with fish. The republic has a one-cutter Navy but no Air Force worth the name.
With the worldwide growth of fishing piracy and the East’s insatiable appetite for fresh fish, the Verdean seas, well inside the two-hundred-mile limit that was rightfully hers, were being gutted by poachers.
The U.S. was going to take over the airport on the remote island of Fogo, whose runway had just been extended by a donation from the European Union. There the U.S. Navy was going to build a pilot training facility, as a donation.
When it was done, a team of Brazilian (because of the Portuguese common language) Air Force instructors would move in with a dozen Tucano aircraft and create a Fisheries Air Guard, who were by training suitably selected, up-to-standard Verdean cadet pilots. With long-range-version Tucanos, they could then patrol the oceans, spot the malefactors and guide the Coast Guard cutter on to them.
So far, so marvelous, agreed the admiral, though it defeated him why he’d had to be dragged away from his golf just when he was getting on top of his putting problem.
Leaving the embassy in a flurry of handshakes, the admiral offered the man from State a lift back to the airport in the embassy limo.
“Can I offer you a ride back to Naples, Mr. Dexter?” he asked.
“Very kind, Admiral, but I am shipping back to Lisbon, London and Washington.”
They parted at Santiago Airport. The admiral’s Navy jet took off for Italy. Cal Dexter waited for the TAP schedule for Lisbon.
A month later, the first huge fleet auxiliary brought the U.S. Navy engineers to the conical extinct volcano that is ninety percent of the island of Fogo, so called because that is the Portuguese for “fire.” The auxiliary moored offshore where she would stay as a floating base for the engineers, a small piece of the U.S. with all the comforts of home.
The Navy Seabees pride themselves that they can build anything anywhere, but it is unwise to part them from their marbled Kansas steaks, potato fries and gallon jars of ketchup. Everything works better on the right fuel.
It would take them six months, but the existing airport could handle C-130 Hercules transports, so resupply and furlough was not a problem. That apart, smaller supply ships would bring girders, beams, cement and anything needed for the buildings, plus food, juices, sodas and even water.
The few Creole who lived on Fogo gathered, much impressed, to watch the ant army swarm ashore and take over their small airport. Once a day, the shuttle from Santiago came and went when the runway was clear of building kit.
When it was finished, the flight training facility would have, quite separate from the small cluster of civil-passenger sheds, an expanse of prefabricated dormitories for the cadets, cottages for the instructors, repair and maintenance workshops, aviation gas tanks for the turboprop Tucanos and a communications shack.
If anyone among the engineers noticed something odd, no mention was made of it. Also constructed to the approval of a civilian from the Pentagon named Dexter, who came and went by civil airliner, were a few other items. Gouged out of the rock face of the volcano was a cavernous extra hangar with steel doors. Plus a large reserve tank for JP-5 fuel, which Tucanos do not use, and an armory.
“Anyone would think,” murmured Chief Petty Officer O’Connor after testing the steel doors of the secret hangar in the rock, “that someone was going to war.”
CHAPTER 4
IN THE PLAZA DE BOLÍVAR, NAMED AFTER THE GREAT Liberator, stand some of the oldest buildings not only in Bogotá but in all South America. It is the center of Old Town.
The conquistadors were here, bringing with them, in their raging lust for God and gold, the first Catholic missionaries. Some of these, Jesuits all, founded in 1604 in one corner the school of San Bartolomé, and not far away the Church of St. Ignatius, in honor of their founder, Loyola. In another corner stood the original national Provincialate of the Society of Jesus.
It had been some years since the Provincialate officially moved to a modern building in the newer part of the city. But in the blazing heat, despite the favors of new air-conditioning technology, the Father Provincial, Carlos Ruiz, still preferred the cool stones and paving flags of the old buildings.
It was here, on a humid December morning that year, that he had chosen to meet the American visitor. As he sat at his oak desk, brought many years ago from Spain and almost black with age, Fr. Carlos toyed again with the letter of introduction requesting this meeting. It came from his Brother in Christ, the dean of Boston College; it was impossible to refuse, but curiosity is not a sin. What could the man want?
Paul Devereaux was shown in by a young novice. The provincial rose and crossed the room to greet him. The visitor was close to his own age, the biblical three score and ten: lean, fastidious in silk shirt, club tie and cream tropical suit. No jeans, or hair at the throat. Fr. Ruiz thought he had never met a Yankee spy before, but the Boston letter had been very frank.
“Father, I hesitate to ask at the outset but I must. May we regard everything said in this room as coming under the seal of the confessional?”
Fr. Ruiz inclined his head and gestured his guest to a Castilian chair, seated and backed in rawhide. He resumed his place behind his desk.
“How can I help you, my son?”
“I have been asked by my President, no less, to try to destroy the cocaine industry that is causing grievous damage to my country.”
There was no further need to explain why he was in Colombia. The word “cocaine” explained it all.
“That has been tried many times before,” said Fr. Ruiz. “Many times. But the appetite in your country is enormous. If there were not such a grievous appetite for the white powder, there would be no production.”
“True,” admitted the American, “a demand will always produce a supply. But the reverse is also true. A supply will always create a demand. Eventually. If the supply dies, the appetite will wither away.”
“It did not work with Prohibition.”