First Strike (3 page)

The prayer beads rotated slowly in his fingers. Habib pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his sweaty brow.

“What about your own people? Anybody come to mind? It’s your bucks after all.”

Tirofijo shook his head.

“Nobody of the right calibre. We’re used to fighting in the mountains. We’re not ready yet for urban combat. We’re working on it, but we need more time. Bombing cities requires a whole new set of skills… But leave it with me, Jamal. There’s an Irishman I know could do the job.”

***

4

Declan O’Brien lived quietly with his mother and younger brother Liam in a comfortable terraced house just off Dublin’s Parnell Square, though Declan himself was hardly ever there. He moved frequently from one safe house to another, just one step ahead of the murderous Brits. The house was provided rent-free by a wealthy supporter of the Irish Republican movement.

Declan was a hero to those who knew him, and his younger brother, Liam, a victim of one of the worst atrocities of the war. That such a family should receive the financial support it needed was routine. It wasn’t charity. It was recognition. Declan’s mother slept upstairs at the back of the house while the front room on the ground floor had been converted to a bed-sitting-room for Liam, so he wouldn’t need to negotiate the stairs.

Declan O’Brien was a small man in his middle forties, just over five feet tall with straight fair hair, expressionless blue eyes and thin passionless lips. If his facial features were unremarkable his hands were large and strong. They seemed somehow unrelated to the rest of his frame and clearly had a function all their own.

Declan rose at dawn and hurriedly packed his bag. He planned to be in the tropics no more than a week if he could help it. Conditions in the rain forest were primitive and he didn’t need much kit. A tube of insect repellent, a jar of water purification tablets, a spare pair of jeans, some tee shirts, a good pair of boots and a couple of bottles of Bushmills. Declan had not slept well, he wasn’t looking forward to the trip and his arm was still sore from the top-up jabs. Brother Liam wouldn’t wake for hours, the drugs that helped him through the night were very effective, but Declan’s mother was already up and made him breakfast in the kitchen, a grand fry-up, just the way he liked it.

“Look after yerself, ma.” He kissed her on the cheek. “And look after Liam for me.”

“He’ll miss yer, son.”

“And I’ll miss the both of yer.” Another kiss. “I’ll be back in time for Paddy’s Day.”

“Remember to phone him on his birthday. He’ll be mortified if you forget.”

“Did I ever miss?”

“No, son, you never did. You’re a good boy, Declan.”

She gave him one last hug. She had no idea where he was going or what he was up to. If she had, she wouldn’t have let him go. But there were things it was better for a mother not to know and it had been that way with Declan since a Brit bullet had shattered his brother’s spine on that fateful Bloody Sunday.

There are no direct flights from Dublin to Bogotá. If there had been Declan O’Brien would not have taken one. He also knew better than to make reservations on-line or travel under his own name. Because of his unusual line of work he had a number of identities, some British, some Irish, and a complete set of papers for each; birth certificates, passports, driving licenses, credit cards, national insurance numbers, down to golf club memberships and dry-cleaning receipts. He bought a fly-drive package from a High Street travel agent, paid cash and took the mid-day flight into Miami International Airport. He picked up a convertible at the car rental office, made one local phone call and drove the fifty miles north to Palm Beach where a fully fuelled, twin-engine Learjet 45 was waiting with its engines running. O’Brien had never flown in an executive jet before. He was impressed and he was flattered that someone would think he was that important. But O’Brien knew he’d earned it. Declan O’Brien deserved respect. What he resented most was that in spite of his successes practically nobody knew him, knew what he had done. Within the leadership of the Irish Republican movement his name was widely respected but not outside it, though he was well known to the British Secret Intelligence Service, more popularly known as MI6. But Declan O’Brien could still walk down any street in Dublin and fail to turn a single head. Declan O’Brien yearned to be recognised. To see his name in lights.

The Learjet had a crew of two, pilot and co-pilot, but no other passengers. The aircraft surged forward on the runway, climbed steeply over the blue ocean and up into the clear blue Florida sky, banked to starboard and soon reached cruising height at twenty-eight thousand feet. The captain switched to autopilot, lit a cigarette and opened a pornographic magazine. The co-pilot opted for a nap. O’Brien helped himself to a scotch and soda from the mini-bar. Four and a half hours later they broke cloud cover at fifteen thousand feet, thirty miles north east of Medellin in the foothills of the Colombian Andes. O’Brien gazed out of the window. It looked like any other modern city with its glistening towers of steel and glass, the ribbons of newly constructed highway. Only the vegetation indicated this was not a European city. Tropical rain forest encroached on the outskirts and held the sprawling suburbs in a lush green stranglehold.

Medellin and its surrounding province of Antioquia had always been prosperous, there were steel and textile mills in the outlying suburbs, plantations of coffee and banana on the distant hills. But since the explosion of the cocaine trade in the early 1970s there were now more millionaires in this one small city than anywhere else on the planet.

When O’Brien climbed down the aircraft steps and alighted onto the private airstrip it was nearly dark. A blast of hot, humid air rose up from the tarmac like the backdraught from a steam oven and hit him in the face. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie and watched an open-topped jeep speed across from the small terminal building. It seemed to levitate in the wavering heat. The driver was an attractive, dark complexioned woman in her late twenties in a white loose-fitting cotton blouse and tight crimson linen skirt. O’Brien threw his holdall onto the back seat and climbed in beside her. He smiled but he didn’t speak.

The woman put the jeep in gear, accelerated across the runway and out through the security gate, waving at the guards. There was no customs and no passport check. Twenty minutes later the jeep pulled up at the gates of a large private compound. The woman parked in the full glare of the halogen lights and stepped down onto the road. The guard unhitched his Uzi SMG, checked her photo-ID and the vehicle registration on a list and took a good look at O’Brien, comparing his features to the photograph on the clipboard. The guard motioned the Irishman to step down from the vehicle and frisked him thoroughly. He was clean. Next he checked O’Brien’s bag. It contained only clothing, an open litre of Bushmills and a sheathed Bowie knife. The guard impounded the nine-inch blade with the curved tip that was sharpened on both edges. O’Brien shrugged. The guard saluted and Declan and the woman climbed back into the jeep as the huge wrought iron gate swung open. As they drove into the compound O’Brien noted the electrified fence that stretched away on either side, the watchtowers, the armed guards patrolling the grounds with dogs. Minutes later the jeep pulled up outside one of the many guest cottages. O’Brien got out, retrieved his holdall from the back seat and smiled at the woman.

“Thanks.” It was the first word he had spoken.

“De nada.” She smiled. “You want I come inside?” She was playing with the buttons of her blouse.

“I’ll just wait for Mr Ortega to call. Thanks anyway.”

O’Brien was grateful for the offer. Pablo Ortega’s hospitality was legendary. But after fifteen hours on the move Declan just wanted to sleep and anyway the woman wasn’t his type. Too wholesome. He needed something a little more…special. Tonight he would content himself with the Bushmills.

“My name’s Fernanda,” she turned to go. “If you change your mind just pick up the phone.” 

***

5

The most dangerous man in the most treacherous country in the world was not a politician. But he did control an army. He wasn’t an industrialist. But he did control hundreds of processing plants, a fleet of planes, even a couple of submarines. He wasn’t a landowner. But he did control vast tracts of the landmass of Colombia, impenetrable forest and rough mountain terrain. He built roads, bridges, airstrips, hospitals. He gave shelter to the poor.

Pablo Ortega was forty-two years old, a little over five feet tall, solidly built but not fat. His thick black hair fell forward in unruly boyish curls. His hooded eyes masked a fierce animal intelligence. Pablo Ortega had earned his reputation on the streets of Medellin as a boy, starting out with hubcaps and car stereos, working his way up through extortion to kidnapping and murder. He wasn’t smarter or more intelligent than his peers, but he was more ruthless, more brutal. He re-read the report for a third time. He was displeased but he wasn’t angry. At most the incident had cost him maybe seven million dollars in lost market share. Seven million dollars was an important sum, but it wasn’t a fortune. But most of all, Pablo Ortega was intrigued. The idea cocaine could be grown outside of South America, right on Europe’s doorstep, had never occurred to him. He would put a team of specialists on the case immediately; botanists, agronomists, logistics people. If cocaine really could be grown in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco it could be a valuable opportunity, not a huge opportunity, but an interesting one.

Ortega’s office was on the fifth floor of an ultra-modern, steel and glass climate-controlled building at the hub of the ring fenced compound. The furnishings were ornate gilded French Imperial. The antiques, paintings and ornaments were priceless originals. Aside from the view of the tropical landscaped gardens it might have been the corporate HQ of some vast international conglomerate on Wall Street.

Pablo Ortega looked up from the papers he was reading and addressed Frank Willowby in almost perfect English. Courtesy was one of Ortega’s most exaggerated traits. Willowby was the DEA’s top man in Europe and worked out of the American Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square. Frank Willowby, grey eyes, grey hair, grey business suit, looked every inch the bureaucrat he was. He seemed nervous. So far he hadn’t been maltreated but he had no idea what to expect. He was in the presence of a man the whole world feared. A man richer than Rockefeller. More powerful and more ruthless than Capone and Dillinger combined.

“I’ve been reading your report, Frank. Most interesting. I shall have the matter looked into right away. See what’s possible and what’s not. Meantime, let’s see if you can flesh things out for me a little. Give me some of the flavour. Who’s this guy Ambrose? How do you rate him?”

“Ben   Ambrose?”

Willowby felt a dryness in his throat. He had expected hostility, threats, but somehow Ortega’s civility was more menacing than these.

“He’s a good operative. Bit of a maverick. Doesn’t respond well to discipline.”

“Ambrose claims he was working alone. You believe that?”

“No, sir, I know for a fact he wasn’t. I’ve had access to the Scotland Yard files. Ambrose was working with a Brit called Bowman.  Alex Bowman.”

“And how do you rate this Mr Bowman?”

“Don’t know much about him, sir. Except he served some time. Claims they were trumped-up charges, but that’s what everybody says.”

“So who else knew about the coca farm?”

“A journalist called Melanie Drake somehow got involved. She had a very rough ride. Bowman was very protective.”

“You have a touching faith in human nature, Frank.”

Willowby noted Ortega’s smile. He didn’t like it. Faith in human nature was not known to be one of Ortega’s favoured characteristics.

“Look, Frank, I have some other stuff to deal with concerning my operations in the States. We’ll talk again tomorrow. Maybe make some decisions.”

As Willowby moved towards the door Ortega touched him on the elbow.

“Nice necktie, by the way. Suits you.”

As they walked back to the cells Willowby turned to his guard. “What was that about a necktie?”

“It’s Señor Ortega’s trademark,” the guard smiled. If Willowby had been Colombian, he wouldn’t have needed to ask. “When Señor Ortega was making his way up he invented the necktie, la corbata. If you didn’t tell him what he wanted to know, or he thought you were lying, he’d slit your throat from bottom to top, right up under the chin. Then he’d insert his fist in the open wound and drag your tongue out through the gap, so it looked like you were wearing a tie. But he wouldn’t kill you. He’d just watch you to die.”

***

It wasn’t till the following afternoon that Ortega had time to spend on the Moroccan project, there were other more pressing matters demanding his attention. But his investment in Willowby was too great to abandon lightly. The American had been recruited years earlier when Frank was a rooky agent working his way up the DEA ladder in Miami. Ortega had fed him a series of minor coups, two or three thousand dollars’ worth of coke at a time. Willowby’s ascent was swift. Now, at the age of only forty-seven, he was the DEA’s top man in Europe. The intelligence he was able to provide was beyond price.

Ortega had Willowby brought to his office and invited O’Brien to join them. He took the Irishman quickly through Willowby’s story, pausing briefly here and there to check a fact or confirm an assumption with Willowby.

“So somewhere up in the High Atlas Mountains,” Ortega concluded, “this guy was growing coca. Sounds like a really good idea to me. I might want to try it myself. We lose a lot of merchandise crossing the Atlantic. But first I need to eliminate anybody who knows it can be done. The only lead we have right now is a DEA agent named Ambrose. Willowby here will give you his details before you leave. Fortunately we know where to find him. We also know Ambrose was working with a Brit called Alex Bowman. Ex-cop with an interesting background. Effective sonofabitch. There was a girl who also got involved. She could be dangerous. She’s a reporter. There’s been nothing in the press so far and I want to keep it that way. This thing leaks out there’ll be FBI all over the goddamn place. Point is, we can’t just blow Ambrose away. We need him alive so we can take care of Bowman and the girl.”