Rising Phoenix (26 page)

It had been a difficult call. On one hand, these were all businessmen—the most powerful drug lords in Colombia—and should be able to be trusted not to start a gunfight in his living room. On the other hand, the bad blood between many of his guests was old and strong. In the end, he had personally guaranteed everyone’s safety, and politely insisted that no firearms be brought into his home. A few of them had offered
token resistance, but deep down they had been relieved by the directive. Colombar was a killer, drug dealer, and thief, but he was a man of his word.

“You are the last guest to arrive, Roberto,” Colombar said, scanning his front yard as he slowly closed the door. The one hundred yards between the front of his house and the formidable white stucco perimeter wall was thick with carefully laid out native plants. Secreted in this foliage were no fewer than twenty men with meaningful bulges under their arms. Their dark suits looked out of place next to the explosions of color supplied by the flowering plants.

Colombar followed Ortega closely as they wound through the wide halls of his home. Light was provided solely by the endless skylights dotting the terracotta roof.

Colombar had hired the finest architect in Colombia to design his home, and had brought in an interior designer from New York to furnish it. It was obvious to anyone who knew him that the house didn’t reflect the man. The sophistication and class that he had hoped would spring from the art-encrusted walls had only served to highlight his poor upbringing and crass sense of humor

The hall eventually opened to an expansive room with a high, clear-glass roof supported by imported Canadian logs. Each log was draped with a large antique tapestry, their well-worn ends dangling down into space.

No less than fifteen men stood in small clusters, sat on well-coordinated leather sofas, and huddled around various tables covered with sterling silver chafing
dishes. Occasionally a burst of laughter would come from one of the groups. It sounded strained.

Colombar stopped at the top of the steps leading to the sunken floor of the room, and watched Ortega stride bull-like through the men, straight to the table covered with dripping beer bottles.

He looked down over the crowd. “Gentlemen! I believe that with Mr. Ortega’s arrival, we are all here. Shall we begin?” His accent had improved significantly over the last year, thanks to a voice coach who had a talent for transforming wealthy South Americans into sophisticated Europeans. All eyes turned to him as he strolled across the room, trying to look calm and in control. The men followed him to a conversation pit that had been set up specifically for this meeting. At the focal point of the grouping of furniture was a large-screen TV.

Colombar sat on a sofa directly across from the television. The other drug lords followed his example, looking less collected as they jockeyed at the last minute to sit next to an ally and not a dreaded enemy.

Unbeckoned, a young man walked quickly from a door at the side of the room and slipped a tape into the VCR under the TV. At thirty-three, he was ten years Colombar’s junior, and seemed to exude the sophistication that the drug lord would never achieve. His gray Armani suit fit as if he’d been born in it. He flashed a practiced smile at the group. His teeth were white and straight.

“I think some of you know my attorney, Alejandro Perez,” Colombar said. “I’ve asked him to give us a little
presentation on this situation.” With a wave of his hand he gave the floor to Perez.

“Gracias, Luis.”

Perez scanned the crowd as he spoke, using all of the public-speaking skills that he had learned at Georgetown Law. “As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have prepared this videotape. It includes what I feel are significant media reports relating to this, uh, situation. It will only take a few moments to view, and I think you will find it interesting. My understanding is that all of you speak English. If not, please let me know now and I will translate as the tape runs.” Perez made a show of looking from face to face. No one spoke, though he knew that at least three of the men would have a hard time ordering a hamburger in English.

“Okay, then.” He pushed a button and the television came to life.

His tape began with Beamon’s press conference and then ran smoothly into various CNN reports from hospitals across the country. It ended with an interview of a cocaine addict. His face was in shadows and his voice disguised, but he was clearly an educated man—probably around Perez’s age.

The addict told the reporter between sobs that he had taken a leave of absence from work to put himself in a rehab clinic. He also related that he had last snorted coke five days earlier and was waiting to see if he had been poisoned. He had sworn to himself that if he survived he would never do another line.

The television faded artistically to black, and Perez punched the stop button on the VCR.

“If I can take up just a few more moments of your time, I’d like to make a few comments about what you have just seen.” He paused. No objections were raised.

“Mark Beamon, the gentleman speaking at the press conference, my sources say is probably the FBI’s top investigator. I have also heard that he and the Director are mortal enemies and that he had recently been demoted and sent to a field office in Texas. I think that Mr. Calahan’s willingness to bring him back to head this investigation shows the American government’s commitment to putting a stop to the CDFS’s actions.”

Perez pushed one hand in his pocket, adjusting the hang of his suit into yet another well-thought-out configuration. “Having said this, my sources, whom I consider very reliable, tell me that the FBI has no significant leads in the case. The narcotics manufacturers’ and dealers’ unwillingness to cooperate with the authorities is working against them. In addition, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the individuals involved in this drug poisoning operation are quite sophisticated and probably have some knowledge of investigative procedures.” Perez pulled a folder from the top of the television next to him.

“Current estimates put deaths at twenty-eight hundred, with an additional seventeen hundred showing symptoms that would suggest that death is inevitable within the week.” He tossed the folder back where he’d found it. “I think that the last segment on the tape really drives home what we’re seeing on the demand front. Only five days from the first death, we are already experiencing a substantial downward trend in cocaine purchases by casual users, who, as I’m sure you
know, consume the lion’s share of the cocaine supplied annually to the U.S.”

There was a general grumbling from his audience. Perez knew that many of them wouldn’t have known that. The demand for their product had always been a given—it was manufacture and transport that demanded the concentration of the men in this room.

Perez started pacing back and forth as he spoke, and all eyes in the room followed him closely. “It’s impossible to tell at this early a date exactly what kind of a demand reduction we’re going to see, but I performed an informal poll of some of our associates in the States this morning, and I think the problem is even more serious than we had thought. Apparently, street-level dealers’ phones are silent. Some have been put in the unusual position of calling their customers and cutting prices to cost. Reports suggest that their calls have been mostly unsuccessful and that purchasers are insisting that the dealers use some of the product at the sale as an act of good faith. Many of them are unwilling to do this, unless they have a supply that was purchased well before the ads came out.”

An impossibly fat man sitting next to Colombar interrupted him. “So what does that translate into in numbers.”

“It’s difficult to say at this point, but my survey suggests that we can expect around a sixty-five percent reduction in the casual use of cocaine in the next couple of weeks, if this threat continues. That translates into, say, a fifty-percent reduction in overall demand.”

With that statistic hanging in the air like a noose, the room broke into loud conversation. The men
turned back and forth to one another, pointing and gesturing wildly, voices fighting to be heard.

Colombar stood.

“Gentlemen … Gentlemen!” The din faltered and went silent.

“I believe that Alejandro is almost finished. We have the rest of the day for discussion.” He motioned to Perez and took his seat.

“Thank you. In the habitual users, I think it is safe to surmise that we will see a less significant drop in use. I have no estimate of what that will be.”

“Maybe it is a government plot.” The fat, loud one again.

“I don’t think so. The U.S. government has never shown any real commitment to stopping the demand for drugs in their country. No, the U.S. has always concentrated on stemming supply—despite the fact that this approach has proven to be woefully ineffective.”

The room was silent. Colombar looked around to see if any more questions were forthcoming, but the men seemed deep in thought.

“Thank you, Alejandro.”

Perez pulled the tape from the VCR and walked briskly out of the room, nodding to the group as he went. The sound of Italian shoe leather against stone seemed very loud in the silence following his speech.

“Any comments?” Colombar asked, to get the conversation rolling. Roberto Ortega was the first to speak.

“Your assistant is very smart, Luis, but as with others of his kind, he told us our problems but didn’t offer any
solution.” He fairly spat out the words. Ortega hated the new generation of criminal—slick and well educated. Despite this well-known bias, his comments got a few nods from the group.

“Alejandro is here to provide information, Roberto, not to run our business for us,” Colombar chided. “It is our job to find a solution.”

The fat man to Colombar’s left spoke again. Sweat glistened on his upper lip despite the air-conditioning. “And what do you suggest, Luis?”

Colombar felt the attention of the room focus on him. It was a position that he was finding more and more comfortable.

“As we speak, my men are tracing the tainted coke back to its source, looking for the moment that it was poisoned—information that will be very difficult for the authorities to obtain. We’ll catch these people ourselves and cut their fucking heads off.” Colombar stood and walked through the conversation pit, aiming himself at the elaborate wet bar in the corner of the room. He regretted the profanity at the end of his last sentence. It didn’t fit with his new image.

He dropped an olive in the martini he was preparing. Grimacing slightly, he took a sip. Tequila was his drink, but it lacked a certain sophistication. He turned back to face the group.

“I would appreciate you gentlemen using your resources to do the same. If we can pinpoint exactly where the poison was put into our product, we will be quite a bit closer to finding our quarry.” He returned to his seat.

“And what if Pedro is right, and this is the work of
the U.S. authorities?” a thin man sitting on the edge of the sofa asked.

Colombar smiled. “Then we simply find proof of that and leak it to the press. I’m sure that they would be very interested in a story like that. I must agree with Alejandro, though. I don’t believe that the U.S. government would ever take such drastic action within their own borders. They are much more decisive in other people’s countries.” There was a general grumble of agreement.

Colombar spotted his butler standing motionless at the entrance to the living room.

“Gentlemen,” Colombar said, standing in a single quick jerk and startling a few of the guests with whom he was not on the best terms. “I believe our luncheon is ready.” He weaved through the group, hoping that none of them noticed that he had left his nearly untouched drink on the table. He decided that his image could survive a couple of beers at lunch. They were imported from England, after all.

Scott Dresden carefully placed the white cuff links in the mahogany and glass display case across from his desk. The pounding in his head was beginning to subside, succumbing to the three extra-strength Tylenols he’d chewed up fifteen minutes ago. The cuff links were a gift from the secretary general of Interpol, and took a place of honor next to various other items commemorating police forces from across Europe and Asia.

It had been almost a year since Dresden had given
up his post as the ASAC in the FBI’s Portland, Oregon, office, and had accepted a transfer to Germany. He had spent the last twelve months in Bonn as the assistant legal attaché. The title called forth images of bureaucratic attorneys reviewing endless documents. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 1940, J. Edgar Hoover had decided that crime, along with the rest of the world’s big business, was going international. Shortly after coming to that realization, agents known as Legats began cropping up in major embassies across the world. The plan met with some success and the program had gone through a number of expansions, adding offices to more far-flung countries across the globe.

Dresden’s gift for languages and interest in European cultures made him perfect for the position. It had been a difficult call—conventional wisdom was that becoming a Legat significantly reduced one’s visibility and, therefore, promotability. In the end, he’d decided that it was worth it to spend a few years in Europe and to give his children an opportunity to see the world.

He carefully closed the glass door to the case and walked back to his desk, plopping down in the tall leather chair and leaning as far back as possible. He had removed a spring from the base of the chair, making it possible to go almost horizontal. Running his fingers through his thick, dark hair, he closed his eyes and concentrated on relaxing. His headache’s grip on the back of his head loosened a little more.

The morning had started as a typical one. He had been running late, practically pulling his pants on as he
ran out the door. A few New York driving tricks had put him at the office one minute before eight o’clock. At eight-fifteen he was quietly reviewing the leather Franklin Day Planner at the top of his desk.

At eight-twenty Mark Beamon had called from Washington.