The Threat

It was a week after the canceled strike on Sudan. Since then Kerkerbit had fallen. The enemy forces, which were coming into focus as the same brand of fundamentalist killers as the Afghan Taliban, were still advancing. The other party had called for hearings in Congress. The crisis with North Korea had escalated again, with the Pyongyang government now offering ballistic missiles for sale to all comers unless guaranteed oil aid and free food. The Chinese seemed unable to bring their unruly client to heel.

Tony Holt had received Dan and Bloom in his corner office on the second floor of the West Wing. One window observed the cabana and pool on the South Lawn. The other looked out over Executive Drive. Three years before, Holt had been a state lottery director. Now the president’s chief of staff was in shirtsleeves and a green plaid bow tie. He seemed to know every detail of what was going on in the counterdrug office. Including business Bloom had told Dan about only days before, with the warning that this was the kind of operational top secret that could get agents killed. Now Bloom was updating him, information Holt took in with head cocked back, brushing his lips lightly with the tip of a finger.

“It’s a guy we had deep in the cartel. Unfortunately he lost his cover and got whacked. In Bogotá, having a double vodka in the airport bar. Five nine-mils in the chest and one in the head.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah. He was a good guy,” Bloom said, without the least trace of actual regret. “Four kids and an ex-wife. But he managed to make a phone call before he went to the bar. They’re setting up a top-level meet.”

“All right, go on.” Holt swiveled his chair as if bored. “This is Cali, right? The new heavies?”

“Sounds that way. They’re scrambling their cell chatter, but this new circle-of-contacts software is giving us an idea who’s invited. Also, the guy who got shot in the airport, he wasn’t our only guy inside. The Bureau’s got a mechanic on Juan Nuñez’s aircraft team.”

“Nuñez. This is the one they call Don Juan? The one who picked up all Pablo Escobar’s trade?”

“Yeah. They call this guy ‘the Baptist’—everybody who gets on his bad side ends up underwater. FBI says he’s getting his plane prepped for a long flight with a full cabin. Including Francisco Zuluaga, the biggest money mover in Colombia, and other names you’ll recognize. They’re also installing some kind of hot-shit electronic gear our mechanic’s never seen before. It’s French, he says.”

“What’s the destination?” Holt wanted to know.

Bloom looked at the closed door. “This is a secure location,” the chief of staff said.

“Miami,” Bloom told him.

“Inside the United States?” Dan said.

“No, in Miami,” Bloom told him straight-faced. “The perfect place, if you think about it. Not one we’d suspect. Latin types to blend in with. Good restaurants. A stone’s throw from Customs headquarters, and not that far from JIATF East.”

“So. We going to Appalachin ’em?” Referring, Dan realized, to the raid on a Mob conference in New York State back in the fifties.

“Absolutely not,” Bloom said. “That’d be terrible PR. Bullets flying around, dead bystanders … Some of the secondary figures we’ll vacuum up there. But we’ll take the principals en route. That’s the no-mess picker-upper. Without a pack of bodyguards and collateral damage.”

“Specifically, who? Lehder? Nuñez?”

“We’ll take Don Juan Sebastiano Nuñez’s plane in the air. AWACs will follow him from takeoff to intercept. At the appropriate point in his flight path, our fighters join up. They force him down on a military-controlled airstrip, and the arrest team moves in.”

Dan couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He sat forward in his chair. “Uh, Miles. I know Mr. Holt holds the highest possible clearance … but does he really need to know all the plans, the times? Even who our informants are?”

Holt looked as if he’d just been slapped. Bloom coughed apologetically. “The commander hasn’t been playing in the majors long,” he told the chief of staff. To Dan he added, “Tony here’s kept the lid on a lot of stuff. If you can’t trust Tony, you can’t trust me either, okay?”

“I didn’t mean I didn’t trust you, sir. Just that—”

“Not a problem,” said Holt, waving it away. “Who’s going to be lead for the bust?”

“DEA. But it’d be good press to include the Dade County cops. Only at the last minute,” Bloom added. “No advance word. These narcotraficantes are sharp. The only way this’ll work is if we surprise them. And I think we’ve got a chance to.”

“It sounds good. Decapitate the cartel. Do you need the president’s go-ahead?”

“No, sir. This is within our charter.”

“It’ll be international news. We’ll need a robust staff presence.”

Bloom cocked his head. “Meaning … what, Tony?”

“Both of you on scene, and General Sevinson does a press conference in Washington.” Sevinson was a retired two-star, acting head of DEA. “We can’t let Dade County take the credit when we’ve done the work.”