Betrayal

Chapter 30

“That’s not good enough,” the voice on the phone raged. “I want to see you. Twenty minutes.”

The line went dead, and Arthur stared at the scrambled cell phone with dread.

He had spent years climbing to a point of dominance in the hierarchy of the group that controlled so much of the international drug trade, but he still had to answer to one man. A man who represented powerful interests — interests that were anonymous to all but the most senior in the group — Arthur being the second highest ranking of the CIA group members, and the most active in the day-to-day operations.

He remembered the early days, when he’d been recruited into the scheme by the then number-two man in the agency, who had explained to him why it was necessary for global peace and America’s interests to control the worldwide supply of narcotics, and had invited him to become part of the elite within the elite. Arthur had gladly joined and had pursued his new duties with a vengeance, becoming a trusted confidant to the top brass, and then when they had gotten out of the game or moved on to even more elevated offices, to their replacements.

He’d become a wealthy man in the process, capable of any life he chose. But his physical attributes had made him reclusive, and other than a twice-monthly visit with a five-thousand-dollar-a-night escort, he limited his enjoyment of the finer things to rare wine, wristwatches and antiques, season tickets to the ballet and opera, and his palatial townhome in Georgetown.

But some of his responsibility outside of the official duties he performed for the CIA was to ensure that the business he’d inherited and later built into a powerhouse remained viable, and that any complications were resolved in a timely manner. He’d been sorely tested in the mid-Eighties by the Iran-Contra nightmare but had emerged as a star, the group’s participation in the arms-for-cocaine scheme covered up with a baffling barrage of complex explanations. He recalled the director of the CIA, his superior not only in the agency but also in the group, joking with him one day that even he couldn’t tell what the hell the whole ruckus was about after the press and Congress got done mangling the facts.

That was part of the art that Arthur brought to the table — an ability to hide in plain sight and make even the most obvious indiscretions seem unfathomably convoluted. He’d long ago discovered that the public had no patience for details or complexity, preferring simple sound-bites of easily-digestible spin, so whenever they had a crisis, he engaged what he thought of as his complexity engine, and soon something as simple to grasp as a ton of cocaine stopped in Miami with a CIA asset handling the distribution became a labyrinth of detail and unknowable tangents. Eventually, everyone moved on to something that was easier to grasp, and nobody asked the painful questions he didn’t want answered. He’d watched many a hearing where a simple inquiry from a Congressman was answered in a ten-minute rambling dissertation that would put even a speed freak to sleep. It was a skill. One he’d mastered.

He was also chartered with handling the messier aspects of the trade, including coordinating wet jobs disguised as CIA missions, money laundering, and managing the group’s supply chain. The trading of weapons for diamonds had been a masterstroke. Every wild-eyed despot in Africa wanted bigger and better weapons, and Arthur could supply whatever they wanted, through middlemen, in exchange for blood diamonds. The drug trade profits went to the middlemen who laundered them through Panama and Miami, then bought weapons from U.S. companies with the newly sanitized money, which then went to Africa in return for diamonds that Arthur exchanged for heroin.

In Afghanistan, the laundering and payment mechanisms were different, but in Asia, diamonds were a drug lord’s best friend, and the scheme had worked flawlessly until Hawker had figured it out. If there was a fault in any of it, it was Arthur’s failure to have him killed the second he’d started nosing around, rather than trying to brand the trade as a legitimate op. He’d hoped that he could rely on Hawker’s strong sense of duty to continue as before, but he’d misjudged the lengths to which he would go to discover the truth — a rare quality, fortunately, in his field staff members, who typically followed orders without question.

Arthur punched the intercom and told his secretary to have his car waiting, and then trudged down the long halls to the main parking lot, where his driver sat ready for his instructions. Arthur slid into the rear seat and told him to head to the mall a few miles away, where he would be taking an early lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant.

Once inside the sprawl of the mall complex, he ducked into a franchise coffee chain and ordered a frozen blended concoction — one of the guilty pleasures that he could manage with a straw. The place was nearly empty at eleven a.m., so he had the lounge area to himself, Billie Holiday crooning over the loudspeakers as truculent youths with multiple facial piercings and flamboyantly dyed hair wiped down the display cases while sneering at passing shoppers.

Arthur watched a heavyset man in a long overcoat move to the register and gruffly order a cup of drip coffee, then flip a bill at the cashier before dropping his change into the tip box and moving to where Arthur sat.

“Explain to me why we haven’t recovered the lost merchandise and put an end to the problem yet,” Briggs said by way of greeting, sitting in an overstuffed chair facing Arthur.

“We’re waiting for more detail.”

“What the hell does that mean? Don’t give me doubletalk. Let’s start with the tracking device that was supposed to lead your secret weapon straight to him. Where is it?” Briggs demanded.

“It’s approximately fifty miles inside Myanmar, in one of the most remote stretches of jungle hills on that continent. Hasn’t moved for four days.”

“So doesn’t that tell you that’s where the bastard is?”

“Not necessarily. I repositioned a satellite over the area and have studied every inch, but all I can make out is the overgrown roof of an abandoned temple.”

“So he’s hiding in the temple. Send in a full team and get it over with.”

“It’s not that simple. We don’t want to just mow him down. We want the merchandise back. It’s more delicate than that.”

“Bullshit. Go in, kill ’em all, then hang him upside down and work him over with a blowtorch. Do I have to break this down into fine detail for you?”

“Well, there are a number of assumptions in your statement. First, it assumes that he’s there. The tracker was on his Bangkok partner’s wrist. Just because the partner’s there, doesn’t mean our boy is. Second, it assumes that the partner didn’t figure out somehow that he was being tracked, or alternatively, that he didn’t get killed by any of the dozens of factions in the region. Third, it assumes that I could quickly get a heavily armed team fifty miles into Myanmar without being detected. And fourth, it assumes that our boy would be anywhere near the site when they got there.” Arthur slurped noisily at his beverage then blotted his mouth with finality.

Briggs sipped his black coffee and frowned.

“You’re paid to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. And if it does, you clean up the mess. Now we’re facing the KGB’s grunions negotiating for our heroin, and they’re willing to pay twenty percent more than we are. Worse yet, they’ll sell it for half the price on the street to turn it over.”

“I understand. I’m working on putting together another shipment of rockets and ordnance to our friends in Africa. But it will take time for them to come up with enough rocks to trade. In the meantime, I’d suggest we just figure out how to get a quarter billion in cash into Myanmar.” Arthur held up his hand as Briggs began to protest. “I know, it’s messy, but we may never see the diamonds back. I’m hoping that we do, and I’m confident that our woman will get them if it’s possible, but there are a hundred things that could go wrong. Hawker could get wounded and die before she gets the merchandise. They could have already been transferred elsewhere and converted into cash. She could get killed.”

“I thought you were confident.”

“I am. She’s the best. But it’s impossible to guarantee anything with hundred percent certainty. So, I’d say we write this one off while we wait. As far as the money goes, I know it’s painful for all concerned. But realistically, it’s a drop in the bucket, long term.”

“Perhaps, but it’s a large drop.”

“Quarter billion is nothing. It’s barely a few decent tanks. Aren’t hammers now about a quarter billion over in your shop?”

“Fair points, but it’s caused a lot of headaches, and now we have a much larger problem.” Briggs frowned. “Arthur, we’ve been around the block a few times, and we’re not kids anymore. This is a shitstorm we don’t need. Have you heard anything from her?”

“Negative. She’s gone dark. Which doesn’t mean much. She’s secretive. And it could easily take three days each direction to get in and out. Could be that she’s waiting for the target to appear. Could be that she’s planning. I don’t know. I’m already thinking about a contingency, but as with all things, it could take a while. What I’m suggesting is that whether or not she’s successful, we should prepare for failure on this one, and then if we win, it’s a bonus.”

“This is the largest loss we’ve ever sustained. It’s not going to be popular.”

Arthur swallowed the last of his beverage. “I understand. It affects my cut, too. Look at the bright side. The dollar is only worth ten percent of what it was when we started forty-plus years ago.”

“Very funny. I’m sure the others will be equally amused.”

“Briggs. Don’t bust my chops. I’m on this, doing everything I can. But I think it would be best to go in, seal the deal with the suppliers while we can, and ship them a container of C-notes or whatever else they want. Gold. Swiss Francs. Whatever.”

Briggs rose, tossing back his coffee. “I’ll pass this on. But I think it’s safe to say if you don’t fix this, you won’t be seeing any Christmas bonus this year. Not that I think you care.”

“I always care.”

Briggs dropped his cup into the trash and walked out without saying another word. Arthur waited for a few minutes and then stood, his joints painful from his old injuries, and walked towards the mall entrance.

Had he misjudged this Jet woman so badly? He didn’t think so, but it had to be considered. Perhaps she hadn’t been up to the task. Perhaps this was her unlucky mission. Everyone had one eventually.

His driver spotted him and pulled to the curb. Arthur adjusted his coat against the chill and waited as the man rounded the car and opened his door for him.

He took a last glance at the sky and shivered.

Looked like it might snow again.