The Threat

At 1000 the AWACs reported that the Falcon had turned northwest, to pass through the airspace of the Turks and Caicos. Later it altered course again, to a southwesterly heading. Then it faded from the plot.

Dan didn’t know if it had turned on the masker again, or simply dropped too close to the wavetops to pick up. By this time, though, he’d managed to get NPIC on the line, and persuaded them to redeploy satellite assets to follow it. They picked it up again a few miles off the coast of Hispaniola. Then lost it again. But Quintero had traced out a cone of courses on a chart. They looked down at it.

“Get me Colonel Desrolles,” Quintero said.

Desrolles was the Haitian liaison. Very dark, very tall, he listened courteously as they described the aircraft, the deception plan, and what seemed to be its destination.

When they were done he cleared his throat. “Absolutely,” he said. “I know your media present my country as ever so poor. But there are also very wealthy families. They do not live in the cities. They have estates in the hills.” He pointed here and there above Cap-Haitien. “They are beautiful, and well guarded. These men will fly in, have their meeting, and fly out. If you like I can call someone I know. See if he has noticed any air traffic into the north.”

Dan got on the phone again. He was using his contacts, reaching out to the people he’d met at interagency conferences and working groups. He didn’t have the authority to do some of the things he was doing. But if he could come up on the other side of this shit pond with whoever had arranged Emiliano Tejeiro’s fiery death, much would be forgiven.

If he failed, he’d be out of a job.

* * *

Two hours later the satellite images came in over the data link. They showed eight aircraft parked about a grassy strip. Trucks and groups of men formed a security perimeter. It surrounded a large gated house with gardens, pools, courts, a tiled roof, and what looked like guardhouses set around it.

By this time Bloom had pulsed the DEA’s rapid reaction team. Scrambled immediately, it could be in Haiti that afternoon, but with only three helicopters and ten agents. Counting heads on the perimeter manning and the airfield guard, and adding the personal security that was probably within the villa, they agreed the mismatch was too great to commit such a small force.

But one of the marines on Quintero’s staff remembered that the 3rd Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, had troops in country with the Multinational Interim Force. Dan’s call to the Combined Joint Task Force — Haiti brought the information that a motorized patrol was out forty miles south of the compound. He half persuaded, half ordered them to redeploy as an anvil, lay fire, and pin down anyone in the villa long enough for the Haitian National Police to mobilize.

The clock was ticking, though. They didn’t know how long the meeting would last. Not overnight, Bloom said. Don Juan never slept in a location he didn’t control. The essential thing was to block the airfield. Once their line of retreat was cut off and the compound was surrounded, negotiations for surrender could proceed.

They worked this through the late morning into afternoon, and were rewarded by reports of a more or less coordinated descent on the airstrip a little after 1500. A few cannon rounds from a Cobra dispersed the guards on the airfield. The patrol reported both roads from the villa blocked.

Then nothing. The circuits hissed mute in the cold conditioned air. Quintero looked strained. He went outside for a cigarette. Bloom, nervous as a cat, went with him. Dan sat in the leather chair, drumming his fingers.

* * *

Gelzinis called again late that afternoon. “Lenson? Mrs. C’s getting pissed-off calls from agency heads. All sorts of end-arounds. What in Christ’s name do you think you’re doing down there?”

“We’ve captured Don Juan Nuñez,” Dan told him, weary but exultant. “The Baptist himself. Along with the cartel’s host in Haiti, the biggest drug banker in Medellín, and four other kingpins and twenty-two high-ranking staff.”

He told the deputy adviser that along with the prisoners, the DEA team had seized notebook computers, forty-five kilos of documents, and six aircraft, including a Falcon Ten with infrared flares, drop tanks, and sophisticated electronic masking equipment. “Intel’s still going through everything. But you can call President Tejeiro now and tell him we didn’t shoot his son down. It was a cartel bomb.”

“You’d better be able to prove it.”

“We can,” Dan told him. “I’m sorry his son had to die. But this could cement his determination to cooperate with us. We’ve got video, too.”

“Video?”

“There was a cameraman with the DEA assault team. Good stuff, they tell me.”

“I want a personal report,” the deputy told him, but the accusatory tone was gone. “Get back no later than dawn. Be ready to brief the press secretary and Mrs. Clayton. Make absolutely sure that tape and a list of the documents are on a flight to D.C. tonight.”