It was his custom to name, by personal emissary only, the hacienda, one of fifteen he owned, where the conclave would take place, and he expected his colleagues to arrive un-followed. The days of Pablo Escobar, when half the police were in the cartel’spocket, were long gone. Colonel Dos Santos was an unbribable attack dog, and the Don both respected and loathed him for it.
His summer meeting he always held at the end of June. He convened his six colleagues, omitting only the Enforcer, Paco Valdez, El Animal, who was summoned only when there were matters of internal discipline to be attended to. That time, there were none.
The Don listened with approval to reports on increased production from the peasants but without any rise in price. The production chief, Emilio Sánchez, assured him enough pasta base could be grown and bought in to meet any needs from other branches of the cartel.
Rodrigo Pérez was able to assure him that internal thievery of the product prior to export was down to a reduced percentage, thanks to several hideous examples that had been made of those who thought they could cheat the cartel. The private army, mainly recruited from the jungle-living former terrorist groups known as FARC, was in good order.
Don Diego, playing the benign host, personally refilled Pérez’s wineglass, a signal honor.
Julio Luz, the lawyer/banker who had been completely unable to make eye contact with Roberto Cárdenas, 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.
José-María 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 Cárdenas, 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 Suárez, the maestro of transportation from Colombian source to northern buyer. Suárez 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 Cárdenas, 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.”
Suárez swallowed. He recalled what had happened to his predecessor who had back
ed 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 Suárez 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.