Incitement (2 page)

Down the other end of the building, the remaining guards’ state of readiness was no better. With the exception of one man at the sink, everyone had been lounging on easy-chairs drinking
coffee, smoking cigarettes or playing cards when the explosions erupted. Their powerful assault rifles lay beyond reach and only the standing guard managed to get a shot off before they were cut
down. When Larsen had confirmed his partner had not been hit they proceeded to the main refinery. The others were waiting there, standing over the bodies of the three workers responsible for
purifying the morphine base.

“Surprises?” asked Larsen.

They shook their head and he instructed them to take up their positions.

They left the room without so much as a second glance at its incredibly valuable contents. From raw gum through all its intermediate stages up to the final white powder, there was enough of the
drug here to ensure several lifetimes of riches. Larsen removed his backpack and placed the explosives throughout the room.

Thirty minutes later, they were back at their base camp, loading their gear into the two waiting 4x4s. They had changed from their dark fatigues into T-shirts, jeans and trainers. None of them
looked particularly remarkable. Larsen’s Mediterranean skin tone had darkened after a few weeks’ exposure to the sun and that, combined with his lean frame, meant he would be able to
blend easily while he was in the country. Opening the door of one of the jeeps, he paused.

The rumble of the explosion from the distant compound washed over the hills. The other three turned back to look, able to make out the faint glow of fire, visible over the ridge of hills. When
they managed to drag their gaze from the afterglow of the explosion Larsen was behind the wheel, the engine running.

“Good work. Follow the extraction route as planned. The contact channel will be operational for twenty-four hours, but only use it if absolutely necessary. The balance of your payment has
just been lodged.”

With that, he closed the door and swung the jeep out toward the highway.

She walked through the compound, not quite believing the scale of the devastation. Behind the tall red-haired woman, Campas was wrapping up the formalities of ejecting the
local police, who were plainly out of their depth, from the bombsite. It had been more than twelve hours since the incident had been reported and yet some isolated clumps of wreckage continued to
smoulder. The wind occasionally swirled and changed direction, causing the investigators to splutter as the thick black fumes assailed them.

Diane Mesi looked out beyond the perimeter fence at the arid landscape, still slightly bemused to find herself at the remote location. She had just about finished the second of her visits when
news of the attack had crossed Campas’s desk. When he had filled her in and invited her to accompany his team to the refinery, she had jumped at the chance. It was not the first time
Campas’s generosity had surprised her in the short time they had known each other. Her expectation had been that she would receive little cooperation or genuine sharing of information in
Mexico but nothing could have been further from the truth. If things worked out, they could be working together on a regular basis, so this was a good sign.

Mesi had been appointed as head of a newly formed Drug Enforcement Agency department only seven weeks earlier. Christened the Trend and Alliance Intelligence Taskforce, or TAIT for short, their
remit was to collate and process intelligence from a wide range of sources with a view to identifying possible current and future strategic initiatives by the major cartels. When news of the
intention to form the taskforce had first been circulated throughout the administration it had been widely welcomed. The general feeling up to that point had been that the DEA had become too
reactionary in its operations. New approaches were needed. This taskforce was seen as a first step in that process. The provisional budget was relatively modest but her seniors in the Agency
stressed that they had to start somewhere. Mesi had been one of a large number of candidates who had applied for a variety of senior positions on the taskforce. She had been stunned when at the end
of the second round of interviews she had been offered the team lead. Of course, some resentment had resulted when her appointment was announced. She had beaten a number of more senior candidates,
something they found hard to accept given her lack of field experience.

Most of the seven years she had been with the DEA had been spent on financial analysis and predictive modelling, areas in which she excelled. She felt some of the criticism regarding fieldwork
had been a bit unfair. She had joined the DEA after two unfulfilling years as an analyst with an investment bank following completion of her economics Ph.D. On completion of standard basic
training, she had regularly requested assignments to active investigations but she had been turned down most of the time. Best to be assigned where you can do the most good was how it was put.

She was still waiting to be told when the remaining positions on the team would be filled and when office space was going to be allocated for the new team. Arthur Marshall, the DEA director, had
advised her that there were only one or two remaining glitches in finalising the funding and that these should be addressed any day now. In the meantime she had more than enough to occupy herself.
Her first task had been to draw up a schedule for visiting the various other agencies, foreign and domestic, that she envisaged TAIT would be working with most closely. Mexico’s Fuerza
Antidrogas del Ministerio del Interior had been one of these. Her visit should only have been for three days but it had proven so productive, primarily due to Salvador Campas’s accessibility,
that she had extended it and then returned for another seven-day stay.

The two short visits had been invaluable. Not only because of what she had learnt concerning the Mexican and Central American drug scene but also because she heard about the obstacles the
Mexican team had to overcome to get this far. In a way she learnt more from their mistakes than their many noteworthy successes.

She only hoped she could replicate Campas’s achievements in her position. A twenty-year veteran of drug enforcement, he had been commissioned by Mexico’s minister of the interior to
set up their taskforce three years earlier. The move had been seen as an appeasement to the US State Department, which maintained that Mexico was not contributing sufficiently to the War on Drugs.
They had specifically questioned the integrity of the previous minister, accusing him of collaborating with the cartels. These allegations had never been substantiated following the
politician’s assassination in a car bomb explosion, but a shadow had been cast. His successor had been determined not to leave himself open to similar accusations and he provided the impetus
for the new taskforce. It had taken Campas months to recruit his team and build up their own secure network. He had thrown up a veil of secrecy around them, sharing nothing with outsiders. Campas
had confided to her how, after almost a year with no arrests, the minister had come close to disbanding the taskforce.

From then the team’s impact had been dramatic. They had moved quickly to secure evidence and testimony on a scale previously thought impossible. Within a year of their first prosecutions,
two of the largest heroin rings operating near the US border had been smashed and the ringleaders handed multiple life sentences. After this everyone, even the various US agencies with whom they
liaised, realised the new force were the genuine article.

But it had not all been good news. Campas quickly became a marked man. He was now under twenty-four-hour protection. What probably rankled more was the fact that he and his team had become
effectively exiled from all other branches of Mexican law-enforcement. Rather than taking pride in the arrests, the rank and file saw them as glory-hunting elitists.

If TAIT achieved its goals, it would not only provide invaluable assistance to their colleagues within the DEA but also enable foreign agencies like Campas’s to achieve even greater
degrees of success. Despite the months of anticipated backbreaking logistical and administrative work which lay ahead, Mesi could not wait to get started. With luck, she thought, looking around the
wreckage, this would be a first step.

The Gulfstream V-SP taxied to a complete stop. Viewed from the terminals normally allotted for private charters, the plane looked like nothing more than another arrival on a
routinely busy day.

The William M. Bridgeshaw Airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts and Nevis was no stranger to flights like this and it facilitated their need for privacy. There was a bustle of activity
as the door of the plane lowered to the tarmac. Four heavily built men armed with sub-machine guns moved quickly down the stairs, not encumbered in the slightest by the heavy flak jackets they
wore. Two of the men took up positions twenty metres from the plane, scanning 360 degrees for anything out of the ordinary. The other two stood close to the foot of the stairs.

Everything appearing as it should, the remaining three passengers disembarked the aircraft. The owner of the plane stayed between two more bodyguards, the men who, if everything fell apart,
would willingly take a bullet intended for him. Luis Madrigal and the close-quarter bodyguards walked swiftly to the middle of the three customised Mercedes S550s waiting beside the runway. Once
the principal was safely in his car, the remaining guards moved to the others. Each of the vehicles was capable of withstanding a Magnum .44 shell at point-blank range and although nothing short of
a well-placed antitank round constituted a threat, the convoy did not linger, speeding through the open gate.

It was always an inconvenience when Madrigal had to travel to these meetings but circumstances dictated the level of the precautions. The cars drove towards the hills, sweeping quickly along the
dirt roads, the comfort of the ride compromised by the innumerable potholes. The further they drove, the more the heavy vegetation encroached on the trails, until soon only a thin strip of dirt
marked the route. As they made their way, Madrigal reviewed his notes for the precursor to the forthcoming summit meeting.

He had arrived a couple of days early for the conference with the cartel heads. This was so he could be given a number of detailed presentations of the investment activities undertaken on behalf
of the Alliance during the last quarter. Managing the fruits of their labour was a task that kept a horde of advisors and accountants fully employed. The financier he was meeting with today was
typical of the professionals Madrigal selected. Educated at Stanford, he was on the fast track to a position as senior partner with a prestigious investment house before the Colombian had recruited
him.

The cars arrived at a large estate, situated well away from the island’s tourist areas. The main building was a squat structure built into the hillside, lacking in any aesthetic quality.
No attempt had been made to conceal the building’s function, which was essentially to act as a well-furnished bunker. The Alliance needed somewhere that could offer the best combination of
protection and privacy for when they had to meet in person. Anti-surveillance devices were deployed throughout the house and it was scanned twice a day. The few windows were long, narrow affairs
with specially designed glass capable of withstanding direct mortar fire. Lastly, if these defences and the well-stocked armoury were not enough, there were a dozen concealed exit routes which
emerged at different locations around the hill.

Madrigal walked the long route through the central hallway of the fortress to the conference room. When he entered, the financier, a small dapper man named Wharton, practically bounded across
the room towards him.

“Luis, how was the flight, not too tiresome I hope?”

Madrigal didn’t bother to reply. Wharton had that most annoying of habit of asking a question and then not waiting for the answer.

Sure enough the hyperactive financier continued after only the briefest of pauses. “I’m sure regardless of how it was, you’ll have forgotten it once we finish our review.
It’s been an outstanding Q2. You know about the investment bank in Slovenia and property deals in the UK already but there’s so much more to cover.”