Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (42 page)

 
          
“Dolphin’s
ready to head on back to shore,” Becker said. “They’re waiting for you.”

 
          
Some
people think they’ve got time, he kept thinking. When the smugglers start
coming in force . . . damn it, we’ve got to make sure they don’t succeed when
they begin to make their move . . . “I’ll catch the morning chopper, Mike.”

 
          
“You’ve
been hitting it pretty hard.”

 
          
“I’ll
catch the next one out.” he said, clicked off the intercom and went back to
watching the interview.

 
          
“What’s
happening out there tonight?” the interviewer was asking.

 
          
The
camera slowly swung out over the railing and down toward the freighter as
GefiFar said: “We’re helping the Customs Service on a special vessel search. In
this case, apparently intelligence was received that this freighter might be
carrying a large amount of contraband, so the ship’s crew was directed to stop
at our Border Security Force platform for a search before entering
U.S.
waters. The Customs Service comes on board
the platform, we take the crew off the freighter and Customs conducts a
compartment-by-compartment search. They use fiber optic probes, dogs,
electronic sniffers, ultrasound detectors and thermal-neutron analysis to
search each cargo container.”

 
          
“Isn’t
it rather unusual to conduct a search such as this?”

 
          
“No,
the Coast Guard conducts dozens all over the world. Here on this Hammerhead
platform we have
better
facilities
and can keep better control of a situation than conducting a search on the high
seas. It adds a new dimension to controlling our borders. We have the
facilities out here, we use them.”

 
          
“Has
anything been found on this freighter?”

 
          
“Nothing
yet . . .”

 
          
“Does
that mean your intelligence is faulty?”

 
          
“Intelligence
isn’t an exact science. If the smugglers found out that
we
knew, they may have arranged to pay off or procure another
vessel, or cancel the shipment altogether. Maybe they threw it overboard when
we ordered them to stop at the platform. Either way, just by
having
this facility here we’ve stopped
another suspected shipment of drugs from entering the country. And every time
we force them to change their plans, it's one in the plus column.”

           
“Explain, please.”

 
          
“Let’s
say there was a thousand-kilo shipment of drugs coming in—over a ton of
cocaine. They take that ton of cocaine and, say, pack it in creosote or stuff
it into vegetables or sink it in barrels of tomato sauce. That one ton of coke
packed in three tons of stuff. Now they get word that we found out which vessel
they’re going to try to smuggle the stuff in. The smugglers have to unload it
or dump it, unravel the mess they made and then repack it to send it out some
other way. It costs them time and money. And if they try to ship it anyway,
we’ll be waiting for it.”

 
          
“So
instead of shipping it through the
Caribbean
they truck it overland through
Mexico
or
Texas
or
Arizona
?”

 
          
“Maybe,
but what we’ve done is force them to spend time and energy in their operation.
And by increasing our vigilance, establishing tight control in the
Caribbean
and south
Florida
frees up more agents in the south and
southwest. Soon the Border Security Force will establish control over the south
and eventually move into the southwest itself—”

 
          
“Are
you saying that one of your major objectives was to force the smugglers to go
somewhere else?”

 
          
“No,
that’s putting it in the worst light and oversimplifying.” She tried to swallow
the anger rising in her throat. “The FBI reports that the street price of
cocaine is up nearly fifty percent since the Border Security Force was
activated only six months ago. And since over half of the cocaine that comes
into this country comes through the southeast, I’d say we are making a
real
impact.”

 
          
“You
see that reported price increase as a victory?”

 
          
“I
do.
A fifty-percent increase begins
to make cocaine too expensive for a lot of users. Someone who six months ago
may have been able to find a hundred-dollar vial of coke easily now finds his
or her supply drying up, or finds he can’t afford it anymore—”

 
          
“So
he robs another liquor store or snatches another purse or embezzles more money
from the till to get the extra money—”

           
“Or,
sir, he does without. Or he finds a treatment program because use is too
expensive. Or he does something stupid, something he’s not accustomed to, and
gets caught. Or he does drugs less often, or shares less of it, or dilutes it
more. The fact that our new operation here is chasing a lot of the rats out of
their holes and into the open where we can better get at them is in itself an
accomplishment. We
are
making a
difference. And we’ve only just begun to fight ...”

 
          
Valdivia
,
Colombia

 
          
Gonzales
Gachez picked a slice of lime from a cup on the bar and hurled it at the
wide-screen television set.

 
          
He
had been sitting at his bar in his oak-paneled office at his ranch in central
Colombia
watching the interview program via a hacked
satellite descrambler—any announcement of an interview with any American
official involved with drug interdiction or drug policy got his close attention
these days. With him were officers and foremen in charge of various aspects of
his drug trade.

 
          
The
TV program cut to a commercial, but because Gachez was receiving the satellite
broadcast live as it was being transmitted from the Hammerhead One platform
they still saw Geffar standing in front of the camera, taking a message on a
walkie-talkie.

 
          
“Does
she really believe she can have such an effect on our operation?” Gachez said
aloud. “We ship a thousand kilos a day right under their nose, all their fancy
helicopters and drones can’t stop—”

 
          
“She’s
gotta say that on TV,” Luis Cerredo, Gachez’s chief of staff, said.

 
          
Instead
of calming Gachez, as they should have if believed, Cer- redo’s words had the
opposite effect. “Just for TV, Luis? Then why are we not getting paid? Why are
our buyers saying we are not delivering as promised? We distribute drugs all
over the
Bahamas
, all over
Mexico
, and we get only
half
our
money and no product in return. Why?”

 
          
“The
cowards on the receiving end see helicopters coming and they run. They say that
the Cuchillos’ planes attract too much attention, that they draw th
e federates
to the drop point and they
cannot pick up the product—”

 
          
“And
are they attracting attention?” Gachez asked. “Are the Cuchillos becoming
sloppy?”

 
          
“Not
in my opinion, sir,” Cerredo told him. “They take precautions. They have
analyzed the weaknesses of this Border Security Force and have managed to take
advantage of their deficiencies—” “How have they done
that?
Making drops in the middle of the mountains in
Mexico
? Making fifty-kilo shipments?
That
is their idea of taking advantage
of weaknesses?”

 
          
“We
agreed it would not be wise to send the Cuchillos up against these Border
Security Force troops right away,” Cerredo said. “The only way to bypass them
was to stay away from the usual drop points near
Florida
. We shifted more to overland transport and
our distribution routes in southern
California
—”

 
          
“Yet
we send the same amount of product but have more of it confiscated by the
authorities. We need much more reliable means of getting our product into the
United States
. Every shipment we successfully make is
worth its weight in gold—we can command nearly twice the price as before.”

 
          
“I
still think we should continue to improve our other import methods, rather than
trying to reopen our usual routes,” one of the brasher lieutenants said. “My
men have made several test runs into south Florida, and one of those Border
Security Force planes always seem nearby. We constantly hear their warnings on
the radio—” “But have you actually tried to penetrate their defenses?” Gachez
asked. “Have you ever continued, to see what would happen?” The lieutenant
looked uneasy. “Why ... no, we stay outside American waters—”

 
          
“Why?
We have heard warnings on the radio before ...” “Because, sir, we can see their
... whatever those small helicopter- planes are. The buzz around like flies.
They fly one way, then suddenly stop and hover in place like a helicopter. It
stays for a while, then flies off. Soon a larger plane appears and does the
same, and soon one of their high-speed patrol boats comes.”

 
          
Gachez
was silent, pacing in front of the long bar, tapping on its polished surface.
“We need to reestablish our intelligence base with this Border Security Force.
I want to know exactly how these . . . these Hammerheads operate, who they are,
what are their weaknesses. These drones, their special new aircraft—I want to
know what their range is, their performance, how many they have operating in
the area.”

 
          
“We
can do that immediately,” one of the officers said. “We can send several boats
and planes in to test their surveillance. So far they have not fired on us if
we have turned away from shore or are farther than twelve miles from shore—”

 
          
“Wait,”
Gachez said, raising a hand, straining to listen to the television interview
again: “I think it’s interesting,” the interviewer was saying, “that one of
your biggest supporters is a man that you arrested not too long ago—Maxwell Van
Nuys ...”

 
          
“Mr.
Van Nuys flew into south
Florida
without a properly filed flight plan. He was fined twenty thousand
dollars, his aircraft was confiscated, his pilot’s license was suspended for
thirty days. There were mitigating circumstances—including serious equipment
malfunctions at the time and his useful cooperation with the Border Security
Force.”

 
          
“You
of course know that an important vote on the Department of Border Security Act
is coming up shortly. Any thoughts on that?”

 
          
“No.
The Hammerheads is an
operational
entity with or without a new box on the White House organizational chart. Our
work will continue and grow . . .”
“Find
him,
” Gachez said. He turned to his men in the room. “I want to know
everything about this Van Nuys. Perhaps we can get to her by getting to him.”

 
          
“Van
Nuys is a jet-setter, a playboy,” Cerredo said. “Why don’t we deal with her
directly?”

 
          
“Because
she is government. If we put pressure on this friend of hers, whatever he is,
we may create an opening to her. Do it.

 
          
“And
I want to find the weaknesses in this Border Security Force. I am not convinced
they can control access to the whole southeast coast of the
United States
. Find me a weakness I can exploit. I want
to know exactly how and when this Border Security Force goes into action, I
want to find a sure way to beat them . . .”