Deadly Straits (A Tom Dugan Novel) (29 page)

“The plan is to kill Rodriguez, no? Who has more right to shoot the bastard than myself?”

“Shit,” Garza said as he sat on the porch step. “I suspected as much. You only know part of the plan. Sit yourself down, Lieutenant. No one is going to shoot Rodriguez.”

***

Rodriguez gazed down as the King Air circled, glad the FARC men were waiting in formation. A quick tirade against the
yanquis
while his people checked the warehouses and he’d be off. His men did the checking, of course, so he could honestly say he saw nothing. Honesty was important.

He sighed. Not everyone was so honest. His deal with FARC called for payment of 10 percent of the value of the cocaine transiting. Amazing how revenue increased after he began these impromptu visits to the camps.

Even without the drug money, the camps were assets, placed to terrorize his opposition. Initially FARC had traded muscle for havens to rest and rearm, but as US aid allowed Colombia greater resources to disrupt drug traffic, FARC moved distribution under Rodriguez’s protection. For a fee, of course. Free muscle and cash to boot.

His mood was transformed in the anxious weeks since Panama, with the media diverted by the Bosphorus attack and news of Braun’s death bringing the welcome realization that the lone thread linking him to the attacks was severed. Confident now, he was on the offensive, his speeches condemning the attacks as an American plot, a pretext to exert control of global choke points with the ultimate aim of reclaiming the Panama Canal. He ended his speeches with a pledge of “the honor and treasure of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to resisting to the death American hegemony.”

Rodriguez scowled, his mood dampened by the close confines of the King Air. Runway length precluded the use of his jet and reduced his security detail to six. But they were his best, and, he thought, smiling back at the last row, there was the sacrificial lamb.

“Navarro,” he taunted, “are you ready to take a bullet for your
presidente
?”

The sullen face staring back was a copy of his own, down to the smallest scar. The men were dressed identically in chinos and bright-red open-collared shirts.

“Really, Navarro,” Rodriguez said, “so morose. You have a handsome face that required little surgery; I provide a fine life and ask only that you smile and wave. Yet you sulk. Perhaps your daughter would be better company. She is what? Fifteen now?”

“Forgive me, Excellency. I would be honored to fall in your service.”

“Much better, Navarro,” Rodriguez said, then grinned at the bodyguard next to him.

The man grinned back. “As usual,
Señor Presidente
, Navarro goes first. When we’re sure all is secure, he’ll reboard and you deplane in his place.”

Rodriguez sighed. “If the fool could speak, I wouldn’t take these tedious trips at all.”

***

Reyes stood at attention as the door opened and six men deplaned, forming a circle into which a red-shirted man emerged. The bogus guerrillas stood at present arms, safeties off their weapons. A shot inside the plane drew the bodyguards’ attention as the man in their midst dove to the tarmac. The Americans’ guns came up as one, and the six bodyguards were dead before they hit the ground.

Garza and his men circled the plane as Red Shirt’s twin stumbled down the steps, followed by the copilot with a pistol.

“The pilot?” Garza asked the copilot.

“Dead,” the man replied. “He was loyal to Rodriguez.”

“I am not Rodriguez,” said the man beside the copilot. “I am Victor Navarro.
He
is Rodriguez,” he pointed to his approaching double.

“Really?” Garza asked. “What is the countersign?” The man looked panicked as Garza continued. “The rain in Spain—” Garza stopped. “Complete the phrase.”

Rodriguez smiled. “Falls mainly on the plain.”

“Actually, I made that up.” Garza turned to the second Red Shirt. “Pass phrase,
Señor
?”

Navarro smiled. “Rodriguez is an asshole.”

“
Mucho gusto, Señor Navarro
,” Garza said, nodding for his men to bind Rodriguez.

“Now,” Garza said to the copilot, “I suggest you and”—he smiled at Navarro—”
Señor Presidente
here coordinate your stories. We’ll add authenticity with bullet holes in noncritical areas of the plane.”

“
Un momento, Sargento
,” said Navarro before Garza turned away, “perhaps you should also shoot me in some ‘noncritical’ area.”

“Hardly necessary,
Señor Navarro
.”

“To the contrary. I can blame a difference in my voice or gestures on the stress of being shot. In this case, I am only too happy to ‘take a bullet’ for the president.”

Garza shrugged. “OK, then. A grazing wound to the arm. Just before you leave.” Navarro nodded, and Garza moved to Rodriguez, kneeling on the tarmac, encircled by two Americans, Reyes, and Perez as the rest of the force staged the bodies.

“What now?” Reyes asked Garza.

“Presidente Rodriguez/Navarro returns, plane shot up. He is enraged, so everyone keeps their heads down. Suspicion will fall on the vice president, who will be allowed to resign and be replaced by an obscure member of Rodriguez’s clique, a secret member of the opposition.

“Then,” Garza went on, “Navarro will undo the worst abuses: restore term limits, ease press controls, et cetera. In a few months, he’ll have a fatal heart attack, and the vice president will take over. Navarro and his family will be smuggled to the US for plastic surgery and new identities. And Rodriguez here”—Garza looked down—”will have a state funeral.”

Muffled protests came from Rodriguez’s taped mouth as he struggled.

“Good,” Reyes nodded. “No assassination. No conspiracy theories.”

“An embalming table and cold storage await in Colombia,” Garza said.

Rodriguez struggled harder as a soldier produced a syringe. Garza nodded to Reyes.

“You want to do the honors, Lieutenant?”

Reyes hesitated. “For days, I’ve dreamed of little else but putting a bullet between his eyes, but this… this pathetic piece of shit sickens me. I had not envisioned putting him down like a rabid dog.”

“Just remember Miraflores,” Perez said softly, “and the many more has he killed just with the filth in these warehouses. He is worse than a rabid dog, Manny, for the dog has no choice in the matter.”

Maria’s agony filled Reyes’s mind, and in seconds, he was over Rodriguez, the needle deep in the man’s neck. Long after the body stopped twitching, Perez pried his fingers away.

Tehran, Iran
25 July

Motaki smiled as he read. The Russian fuel was flowing, with the state press trumpeting the news, and there was optimism in the streets for the first time in recent memory. He put down the report and pressed the intercom.

“Ahmad,” he said, “please have the car brought around.”

“At once, Mr. President. May I know your destination to alert security?”

“No place in particular, Ahmad. I just want to go among the people. And no security detail. They intimidate people.”

“Are you… are you sure that is altogether… wise, Mr. President?”

Motaki stifled a rebuke. “I’ll be fine, my young friend. Like the early days, when I roamed freely. The driver is all I need.”

“Very well, Mr. President,” Ahmad said.

***

Boron carbide was the perfect contaminant—virtually indestructible, inert, the third-hardest material known to man, and available commercially as a fine powder. Mixed into the paint used on the interiors of the tank trucks and railcars, the hard, tiny crystals were initially harmless and fuel quality hardly compromised during inspection and custody transfer at the border. After all, no one was testing for boron carbide.

As Russian fuel surged through the Iranian distribution system, the impact was cumulative, felt first in smaller towns near the border. Here and there, ancient cars coughed to a halt, and country mechanics scratched their heads, the scattered failures prompting no concern.

The cancer spread to the population centers, reaching critical mass in Tehran in the wee hours of morning as cars coughed and died in increasing numbers. Their drivers shrugged off this latest hardship and pushed their cars to the nearest garage. By dawn, every shop had a line; the drivers clustered in groups, smoking and musing on the cause of the serial breakdowns.

Fuel was the obvious culprit, and admiration of Motaki’s Russian coup changed to anger as motorists waited for the bill for his stupidity. The verdict came midmorning as mechanics removed cylinder heads to peer at seized and blackened pistons. Like doctors pronouncing a terminal illness, they folded greasy hands and gave the news: engine replacement required, a diagnosis that doomed most of the stricken cars to the scrap yard.

News spread as waiting drivers crowded round and thumbs flew, sending texts to warn family and friends against refueling. Warnings already too late, as across the city vehicles bucked to a stop, an unmoving mass of blaring horns and angry voices. The battered cars were mobility, one of few remaining freedoms, and a loss not easily endured.

Voices gained purpose and coherence as they coalesced into a chant.

“Death, Death, Death to Motaki!”

***

Motaki stared out the car window, bemused. Cheap fuel meant crushing traffic, but he was enjoying the ride as people did double takes. He wanted to be among people to bask in their approval. He might get out and walk, he thought, since they weren’t moving.

The driver stood outside, craning his neck. He got in, shaking his head.

“What is it, Rahim?”

“Bonnets raised everywhere, sir. And distant chanting. ‘Death to America,’ I think.”

Motaki smiled. “Praise Allah for providing our people a target for frustration, though I am not sure the Great Satan creates traffic jams.”

Rahim chuckled as Motaki watched a motorist peer under his hood. The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and stared at the display, scrolling through a text. He grimaced and raised his eyes, recognizing Motaki, then pointing at him as he shouted. A mob surged around the car, tugging at locked doors and pressing angry faces to the windows, picking up the faraway chant: “Death, Death, Death to Motaki!”

The car rocked with the chant as Motaki fumbled for his phone, and was lifted off the ground, crashing back to throw its occupants about like rag dolls. On the next heave, the car rolled over. Motaki dropped the phone, and Rahim was knocked unconscious, a blessing he’d never appreciate. Motaki lay on the ceiling, gazing out at feet and taunting, upside-down faces. He heard glass break and smelled gasoline as the remains of a bottle hit the pavement and clear liquid ran down the outside of the bulletproof window.

“Here’s your Russian petrol, Excrement of Satan,” a voice screamed. “Drink it. It will not run our cars!”

More gasoline splashed over the car from nearby stations overrun by the mob. They descended with anything that would hold liquid, hurling the tainted fuel and screaming abuse. The fuel pooled around the car, finally igniting from a stray spark and setting a dozen rioters alight with it to run screaming through the mob like human torches.

A warning was transmitted by text message as motorcycle police wound their way through unmoving cars, and the mob scattered. The police rushed to the charred limo, the more foolhardy burning their hands on locked doors or trying to force bulletproof windows. Pointless efforts—the driver was dead from head trauma, and Motaki was curled in the fetal position on the smoldering headliner, baked to a turn.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Anna Walsh’s Apartment
London
25 July

Dugan lay in bed, arm around Anna as she dozed, her head on his chest. She stirred and lifted her head to smile at him sleepily, then put her head back down.

“Penny?” she said against his chest.

“Just thinking about the Russians and Iran,” he said.

“Hmmm. Just what a girl wants to hear after fantastic sex.”

“Sorry,” Dugan said, to which Anna mumbled something inaudible, patted his chest, and rolled on her side.

“I’m just really surprised the Russians accepted our plan so readily,” Dugan said a few minutes later.

“Hmmm…” Anna muttered. “…Braun’s smirking face on video must have… done the trick…” Her voice trailed off into the steady breathing of sleep.

***

Dugan sat alone in the dark living room, a half-finished beer on the coffee table in a puddle of condensation. He looked up at a sound from the bedroom door.

“Tom?” Anna said.

He heard her move through the dark and shut his eyes against the glare as she turned on a lamp. He opened them again as she wrapped the thin silk robe around herself and sat down across from him.

“What’s the matter, Tom?”

“How many people do you know that smirk on their deathbed? And if there was a video of Braun, why didn’t I see it?”

“Tom… I…”

“The bastard’s alive, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.

“Tom… please… you don’t under—”

“Don’t what? Don’t understand? Oh, I understand all right. It’s all professional spook ‘need to know’ bullshit. Some sort of ‘the end justifies the means’ deal with the Devil. What could possibly motivate you and Jesse to cut any sort of deal with this murdering bastard?”

Anna was calm now, her voice ice. “Your bloody freedom, for one thing, and Alex’s as well. Has it occurred to you that, despite everything that happened, we had not a scintilla of hard evidence against Braun? Alex had confessed and implicated you, and at the time we made the deal, we didn’t even know if he would survive to recant. And even if he did, it was essentially his word against Braun’s.”

She continued before Dugan could interrupt.

“Just how do you think we got the name of the ship out of Braun?” Anna asked. “Did you think Jesse water boarded him in the recovery room? Despite your disdain for ‘professional spooks,’ on occasion we do have a better appreciation for the realities. We did what we had to do, and you and Alex are free men because of it.”

“OK,” Dugan said, somewhat mollified, “but why not tell me?”

“Because we concluded you were incapable of keeping the truth from Alex,” she said. “Given what he and his family endured, we feel it better if he never knows Braun is free.”

“Free? What do you mean free?” Dugan said. “I assumed you promised the bastard some sort of sentence reduction, but this is… this is…”

Anna sighed and reached for her phone. “I’m calling Ward over,” she said. “I don’t want to go over this with you more than once.”

***

“Full immunity,” Ward repeated two hours later. “All jurisdictions—UK, US, Turkey, Singapore, Panama, Indonesia, and Malaysia—and upon recovery, a private jet with a five thousand-mile range to take him anywhere he wants to go.”

“Where is he now?” Dugan asked.

“In an apartment in Kensington,” Anna said, “set up as a private hospital. The doctors specified a three-week convalescence. He’ll be released day after tomorrow.”

“So that’s it then,” Dugan said, “you just kiss him bye-bye at the airport, and you’re done. Karl Braun no longer exists. You don’t keep track of him?”

“He didn’t even bother to put that in the agreement,” Ward said, “because he knows we’ll try to track him. But he’s a slippery bastard, and somewhere there’ll be another plane waiting, or maybe a whole series of planes. When he hits the ground the first time, chances are we’ve lost him. If there’s a third cutout plane, or maybe two waiting at the same airport that go in different directions, we’re toast. I think losing him is a near certainty.”

“If he’s officially dead anyway,” Dugan asked, “why not just grease the bastard now?”

Ward looked at Anna, then back to Dugan. “Because it doesn’t work that way, Tom. The heads of state of seven countries have signed off on this. If it somehow leaked that either the US or UK reneged on a deal we ourselves brokered, it could have severe adverse consequences on future diplomatic efforts, even if the deal in question is with a murdering thug.”

Dugan sighed and picked up the written agreement from the coffee table.

“Tom,” Ward said, “you’re wasting your time with that. The State Department and Anna’s folks have had a dozen lawyers going over that agreement with a fine-tooth comb. Braun’s no fool. The agreement is very specific and airtight.”

Dugan ignored Ward and kept reading. After a while, he looked up, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Now let me get this straight,” Dugan said to Ward. “You and Anna put him on the plane, and you’re done, right?”

“Essentially. But Tom,” Ward warned, “whatever you’re thinking won’t work. Our orders are to follow this agreement to the letter.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, pal,” Dugan said.

Heathrow Airport
London
28 July

“Off,” Braun said, extending cuffed wrists to Lou and Harry.

“Not yet,” Lou said as they rolled through security. Harry just glared.

“Idiotic,” Braun said, “but have your petty victory.”

Braun brightened as the limo rolled across the tarmac toward the plane, and he spied familiar figures. “Agent Ward. Agent Walsh. How nice of you to see me off,” he gushed as he was dragged from the car.

“Cut the crap, Braun,” Ward said.

“I suggest you lot cut the crap as well,” Braun said, holding up cuffed wrists. “You can start by telling these baboons to uncuff me.”

Anna nodded, and Lou uncuffed the German, none too gently.

“Much better,” Braun said, rubbing his wrists. “But now, if there’s nothing further, I’ll just be on my way.”

“Bon voyage,” Ward said.

Braun laughed and bounded up the short steps into the plane. As soon as he entered the plane, two large black men grabbed him by the arms, forced him into a seat, and cuffed his wrists to the armrests.

“What the bloody hell—”

A much-smaller, well-tailored black man stood looking down at him and spoke.

“Karl Enrique Braun,” he intoned. “You are under arrest for terrorist acts committed against the Liberian flag vessels M/T
China Star
and M/T
Asian Trader
on 4 July of this year. Under Liberian law, statements you make or have made can and will be used against you.”

“What is this nonsense?” Braun said. “I have immunity, you idiot. Now remo—”

“Actually, you don’t,” said a voice behind him, and Braun twisted his head to see Dugan walking up the aisle, rolled papers in his right hand tapping the open palm of his left.

“Meet Mr. Ernest Dolo Macabee,” Dugan said, nodding at the smaller black man, “Foreign minister of the Republic of Liberia.”

“I don’t give a damn who he is,” Braun said. “I have full immunity. Now—”

Dugan held up the papers. “Turns out you aren’t quite as bulletproof as you thought, Braun. There’s no mention of Liberia in this agreement.”

Braun sneered. “Your games don’t fool me, Dugan. The intent of the agreement was global immunity. I don’t believe for a moment your government will allow you to turn me over to these monkeys.”

Macabee stiffened. Smooth move, Karl, thought Dugan as he smiled down at Braun.

“The governments involved
are
following the agreement, Braun. To the letter, in fact. What’s happening isn’t covered by the agreement.”

“I HAVE FULL IMMUNITY!” Braun shouted.

“Alas, Mr. Braun, not in Liberia,” Macabee said as if lecturing a dull student. “But it’s not surprising we were overlooked. We have many ships under our flag and limited administrative resources. We invariably cede jurisdiction to the country where crimes occur or, if at sea, authorities in the next port. But we always retain the right to prosecute, if necessary. Justice must be served, Mr. Braun.” He paused. “Even ‘monkeys’ know that.”

“This is preposterous,” Braun said. “This will never hold up, Dugan. I was promised freedom and a plane to take me anywhere I wanted to go.”

“And you walked aboard this plane a free man,” Dugan said, “whereupon you were arrested by different authorities. And as far as the plane goes,” he continued, tapping the paper in his palm, “it says absolutely nothing about the ownership of the plane. It merely specifies range capability and that you will be transported to a destination of your choice.”

Dugan turned to Macabee.

“Mr. Minister,” he asked, “are you prepared to transport Mr. Braun from here to the destination of his choice before you return with him to Liberia?”

Macabee nodded. “Most assuredly, Mr. Dugan, though I regret he will be unable to deplane at his chosen destination.”

Dugan made a show of studying the agreement, enjoying himself.

“Hmm… nothing in here about deplaning,” he said.

Braun strained at the cuffs and screamed abuse. Macabee nodded to one of his men, who stifled the tirade with a piece of duct tape over Braun’s mouth.

“I will discuss Mr. Braun’s desired itinerary with him once we become airborne,” said Macabee. “May I have a word with you on the tarmac, Mr. Dugan?”

Dugan nodded and followed the dapper African down the short steps. As agreed, Ward and the Brits were long gone, having fulfilled their part of the agreement and left. On the tarmac, Macabee turned to face Dugan.

“Well, justice delayed is justice denied, so I’ll get Mr. Braun home,” he said, extending his hand. “However, I did not want to leave before thanking you and your government for the generous gift.”

Dugan gripped the man’s hand. “My pleasure, Mr. Minister, though please be discreet regarding the plane. Agent Ward had to call in a few favors from friends in the Drug Enforcement Agency. The transfer wasn’t completely according to Hoyle, but I’m sure you’ll make much better use of it than the drug smugglers from whom it was confiscated.”

Macabee smiled. “I understand,” he said and bounded up the short steps into the plane.

Ten minutes later, Dugan watched the jet roar skyward, at ease for the first time since he’d met Ward and Gardner in Singapore two months and a lifetime ago.