Incitement Read online

  During the days while he waited for Brewer to secure the contact in the harbour master’s office, Larsen revisited his original reasons for agreeing to participate in Wallace’s crusade. Even before Africa disillusionment with where his life had brought him had set in, but that assignment had proved a revelation. He had met people there, some of whom he had formerly worked with, who had travelled much the same road as him and should have been just as burnt-out and disillusioned. But there they were, in large numbers, fighting for a seemingly lost cause. And the strange thing was how happy they were. They must have known how steep the odds were stacked against them but it had not mattered. They had found something they believed in and perhaps just as importantly for many of them, someone they wanted to follow. Not the exiled president, as impressive as he had been, but the charismatic English mercenary who had decided to take up that fight. The more time Larsen had spent in his company, the more the idealism had worked on him. The Dane had hated what he had become but believed it was too late to do anything about it, resigning himself to simply waiting until events inevitably caught up with him. But during that time he had started to believe there might be another way. It had of course been impossible for him to reveal why he had really gone to Africa; even if the mercenary had forgiven him, his men would not. He had chosen instead to quit the country, leaving behind him a warning regarding the forces that were marshalling against the exiled president.

  The episode had left him convinced that he too needed to find something he could give himself over to. Time had passed and it had begun to look less and less likely that an opportunity would present itself. When Wallace’s approach came, he had convinced himself that the billionaire’s proposal could be his personal grail.

  It turned out he had been wrong. About the crusade and about Wallace. His patron did not have the resolve necessary, and if the main architect had lost faith what did that say about the overall strategy? Really, Larsen had only himself to blame. He had been too desperate. Yes, he may have taken a couple of weeks to accept Wallace’s offer but inside he knew that he had committed the moment he sat across the table from Wallace in Chicago. The only choice left for him now was to try to keep everything going until their prime targets were at least consumed by the conflict.

  The days passed with no word from Brewer and no response to his attempted communication. He was worried, wondering what was going on, and had resolved to leave Cartagena when, on the fifth day, Brewer’s encrypted communiqué finally arrived. It stated that while he had still not secured a contact in the harbour master’s it was no longer necessary. Through alternative sources, he had managed to learn the exact location from which the cartel would be making a major shipment in six days’ time. If Larsen could perform a proper reconnaissance of the area in the interim, he and the team would have the perfect opportunity to strike. Unhappy with the sloppiness which had crept into Brewer’s work, he was tempted to abandon the mission. The problem was that he was here now and if he didn’t go through with it, Wallace might not give him another opportunity.

  He contrasted Wallace’s change of heart with the billionaire’s impatience for him to initiate their first major operation and his satisfaction when they finally did.

  TWO YEARS EARLIER.

  The Guttierez family controlled more than twenty per cent of Chicago’s drug supply. Working as distributors and retailers for the Madrigal cartel, they provided the perfect conduit from large shipments to more manageable lots that local drug figures could handle. They hailed from the Dominican Republic and dealt with groups from every ethnic background, Jamaican Yardies to homegrown gangstas. Within three short years they had established their position in the city and demanded everyone’s respect. Early run-ins with the established powers had convinced people that it was easier to live with the Guttierezes than to try to push them out.

  Leti Guttierez, the youngest member of the family, had carved out a reputation for herself beyond the illicit world the family laid claim to. She had bought the run-down Silver Salsa nightclub and transformed it into one of the city’s most exclusive nightspots. The venue was a beacon for the Latin community. It grew in popularity and soon became the in-place to be seen. One of her coups involved convincing a multi-platinum-selling diva from their home country to give an impromptu performance at the club. She had then purchased one of the major local radio stations and changed its programming to cater to the increasingly important Latin American demographic. Leti’s good looks and connections in the record industry ensured that her regular public appearances garnered a great deal of positive attention.

  Manuel, the head of the family, was not as outgoing but vicariously enjoyed the celebrity his younger sibling attracted. He had ambitious plans for all of them over the next few years. Payments to the right quarters ensured that they were never exposed to serious scrutiny. The local authorities were firmly in the family’s pocket and federal agencies’ investigations were continually hampered by breaches in security. Occasionally, they would deliberately sacrifice a lower level figure or a relatively small shipment just to ensure no undue pressure was exerted on their co-opted police contacts.

  One Thursday night, all three family members were partying at the club. Leti and the middle brother Ricardo were holding court in different areas of the nightclub, while Manuel stood by the bar enjoying the music. Later, the finals of the salsa dancing competition, which the club had been running for three months and which had received citywide coverage, were due to be staged. Despite the fact that it was a Thursday, more high-profile guests than usual were attending. The irony of a number of city councilmen and senior detectives getting sweaty on the dancefloor while over $20 million of various kinds of drugs sat upstairs in a secure vault amused Manuel. The barman tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a phone. One of his senior men, Freddie, was upstairs, having returned that evening on a flight from Mexico. He was ready to make his report. Manuel had been eager to hear from Freddie about proposals they had put to Esteban Zaragosa regarding the possibility of a substantial increase in the amount of throughput they could handle. He went to the two groups and extracted his siblings, pleading with their disappointed hangers-on that he would be stealing them for only a few minutes. He told them that Freddie had returned and that the confirmation of a new phase in their endeavours was imminent. The three made their way up the stairs, but when Manuel entered the large office area behind his brother and sister, he thought it strange that Freddie was seated behind his desk. Two more of their men were seated on the leather couch and no one stood to greet them. Aware that something was amiss, Manuel tried to step back out but was pushed roughly from behind into the office and heard the door slammed shut behind him. Looking around, he saw a man standing there levelling a silencer-equipped pistol at his head. Two other men emerged, one from behind a filing cabinet and the other from behind the desk. Like the first, they were dressed in black trousers and bomber jackets. Each trained a pistol on one family member. His brother and sister were forced to the ground and the first gunman tripped Manuel so that he fell and landed beside them.

  Larsen nodded and his two companions shot the men seated on the couch, the impact of the bullets causing bloody stains on the wall behind them. He drew a large knife from under his jacket and walked around the desk to stand behind the trembling Freddie.

  “We want you to open your vault. If you do, we’ll walk out of here with no more fuss; if you don’t, we’ll kill you. Decide quickly before someone comes looking for you.”

  “You don’t know who you’re fucking with ... ” began Ricardo.

  He stopped in mid-sentence as Larsen grabbed Freddie’s hair and, pulling his head back, dragged the blade slowly across his neck. Blood sprayed out across the desk, some of it hitting Leti, prompting her to launch into hysterics. The loud thumping beat from the music downstairs dismissed from Manuel’s mind any hopes that his sister’s anguished cries might summon help.

  “No more delays, Manuel, either open the vault or lose
a family member.”

  Manuel looked from Larsen to his family members who were seated on the floor, a gunman standing over each. He thought about the contents of the vault. Could they absorb the loss? Yes. How long for them to recoup the lost revenue? No more than six months. Would the gunmen spare them? Perhaps not but what choice did he have? Maybe their position and the implications of their murder might dissuade the gunmen.

  Larsen’s voice interrupted his considerations.

  “Too slow.”

  A nod to one of the gunmen and a pistol was placed to the back of Ricardo’s head. Manuel watched in horror as the bullet exploded through Ricardo’s face and his lifeless body fell across the prone figure of the sobbing Leti.

  “Your sister’s next. Three seconds. One, two ...”

  “Okay, okay,” he shouted. “I’ll open it! Let me up!”

  Larsen indicated for Manuel to move to the door of the specially constructed vault at the back of the office. Manuel entered the manual combination, punched in the six-digit pin code and pulled the heavy door open. Taking a quick inventory of the room, Larsen confirmed the intelligence had been correct and that the anticipated hoard of traditional and synthetic drugs were present. Walking Manuel back to the middle of the office, he signalled for the other two men to begin packing the drugs into a number of holdalls. Ten minutes later, after a series of trips down the fire escape, they had removed the entire contents of the vault. After the last trip Larsen told them to wait downstairs for him.

  Manuel watched in horror as Larsen walked over to the weeping figure of Leti and yanked her off the ground. The knife-stroke was mercifully quicker than the one that had killed Freddie but gruesome nonetheless. He screamed in rage and launched himself across the room at this monster. Reaching out savagely for Larsen’s neck, he was easily fended off. Larsen stepped in close to him and Manuel caught the scent of mint on the killer’s breath. Everything slowed as the smile spread across Larsen’s face. Manuel’s head was yanked back and an indescribable pain exploded in his lower abdomen when the knife was thrust in. Before he lost consciousness, he felt the blade being dragged upwards.

  The modern port, with its rows and rows of stacked cargo containers waiting to be loaded or transported inland, was nothing more than an enormous metal warren, betraying no trace of its rich history. A light rain had begun to fall, which obstructed visibility and helped him to evade the security personnel patrolling the port. Once he had gotten inside the perimeter, he took some time to get his bearings. Although he had a map, he knew it would still be easy to become lost. He was making a mental log of specific structures when he thought he saw a flicker in the darkness. He waited, motionless, for ten minutes, before deciding he must have imagined it. The next thirty minutes were spent making his way circuitously towards his destination. As he moved in and out from the portside, he tried to get a sense of the place. If something was to go wrong during the actual mission, they would need to know as much as possible. Unlike previous operations, they would be going in relatively blind. Given the calibre of the men they had lined up, that would not be too great a problem provided he did his job properly tonight.

  He was about five minutes from his destination when something caused him to look back.

  There.

  This time there was no doubt. Movement, something too big for a four-legged inhabitant. Someone was following him. He quickly discounted the notion that it was security; why waste time stalking him when they could just approach openly? That left only one obvious candidate. In the millisecond he spent deciding what he should do, he understood what had happened. Too late, things fell into place: his nagging feelings over minor incidents throughout the course of their campaign, Brewer’s uncharacteristic delay in identifying the contact, the inexplicable difficulties in getting events to conform to their projections. The Washington contractor had set him up. When the betrayal had begun was impossible to know, as was the motive behind it. Was Brewer engaged in some gambit of his own? Or perhaps he had acted at Wallace’s behest, after the billionaire’s appetite for his crusade had waned.

  On enemy territory, totally vulnerable, he cursed his stupidity.

  Picking up the pace quickly, he ran along one of the docks. With no further need for concealment, he concentrated on speed. Depending on how many there were, he hoped he might be able to get far enough ahead to circle around and escape the port somehow. From the corner of his eye he saw, between the gaps in the rows of containers, figures racing along parallel to him, trying to cut him off. He was not distancing himself from them sufficiently and knew he would soon run out of quayside at this rate. He needed to change tactics. Drawing his Glock, he looked around frantically. His pursuers also stopped and he could see some of them making their way towards him down one of the passageways between the containers. The remaining pursuers were, no doubt, spreading out so that they could surround him. The only option he could see was to turn and run in the opposite direction towards some storage buildings at the other end of the quay. If he could reach them, it might make it difficult for his pursuers to track him. As he set off, arms and legs pumping trying to cover the expanse, the absurdity of the image struck him. Sprinting, first one way then the other, his lungs burning while they gave chase. It was like some demented version of a child’s game but he knew there would be nothing childish about the consequences if they were to catch him. Ten metres ahead of him, one of them, who had obviously not tried to keep up with his initial dash, stepped out and raised a hand for him to stop. He dived head first through a large puddle and fired four shots as he slid at breakneck pace towards the man. Whether it was a desire to take him alive or disbelief at his crazy manoeuvre, his adversary had not been prepared to exchange fire and this gave Larsen enough of an edge. Three bullets had struck the man before he was able to retaliate. The returning burst went harmlessly over Larsen’s head and, back on his feet, he resumed his dash, ignoring the large gashes in both elbows and one of his hips. Seeing their companion gunned down released the others from any restraint they had shown up to now. A fusillade of machine-gun fire was unleashed. Most of the heavy torrent flew harmlessly by him but there were so many that one grazed his shoulder and another lodged in his thigh. He was just metres from the open warehouse and hobbling along desperately when a shot rang out from between two rows of containers. The bullet entered him from the side, shattering his ribs on entry. The impact spun him from his feet and only the momentum from the sprint carried him forward. He was tantalisingly close now to refuge. He struggled to make it back to his feet, the pain threatening to overtake him, and limped toward the building. The air around him was lit up by gunfire and he realised he had no chance of making it. Left with no choice, he turned to face them and opened fire. He was hopelessly outgunned and knew that it would be over in seconds. He had to concentrate to keep the Glock from slipping from his fingers, rain and blood hampering his grip. His return fire was ineffectual as he failed to hit any of his pursuers. Another shot hit him in the chest and he staggered back, then one more before everything was enveloped in a blinding light.

  “He couldn’t be taken alive?” Madrigal asked, barely controlling his fury.

  “No, I’m sorry. It was impossible.”

  “You knew where he was likely to be and had the opportunity to have as many men as you wanted waiting but still he was impossible to capture?”

  “I’m sorry, sometimes these things are difficult to control. Dangerous situations –”

  “Are you telling me about danger?”

  “No, no. I’m just saying ... he opened fire, despite the futility. I believe he would have done anything to avoid being taken, even suicide, which is what I think this was.”

  Madrigal rubbed his temples. “You say there’s no sign of a body?” he queried into the speakerphone.

  “No and I don’t think there will be either. The explosion would have obliterated it.”

  “There’s absolutely no chance he got out?”

  “No. No way ...
he was hit repeatedly before the welding equipment exploded. There’s no chance anyone could have survived.”

  Madrigal ended the call without a further word. One slight chance and now it was gone. There was no victory in killing Larsen despite the likely averting of a planned attack. A few days before, there had been a faint glimmer of hope ...

  It had seemed promising; they had caught sight of Larsen after only a day of searching. The intention had been to pick him up the next time he ventured out, which turned out to be the botched episode at the port.

  He had hoped that, by capturing the Dane, he might gain some insight into what lay behind all this. From the start nothing had made sense – the Kosovars never had any reason to declare war on them. He felt as if they were all being moved around the board for someone else’s amusement and, now, an opportunity to get the answers he desperately needed had slipped away. Even if he managed to defeat the enemy or somehow fashion a truce, it was too late to matter for him. His leadership had been weakened irreparably and he knew the vultures were circling.

  The broadcast switched from the financial report back to Sandra Whittaker, the main anchor.

  “Today the State Department made the announcement a lot of people have been predicting for some time. Plan Coca has been suspended indefinitely, pending a detailed review. No date was given for when this review would begin. Longtime critics of the Plan have claimed today’s announcement as an unqualified victory. To discuss this development and share their views on how history will record the Plan, we’re joined by Caroline Williams and Professor Thomas Nelson. Caroline will be no stranger to our viewers having spent the past two years as our correspondent in Colombia. In that time she has received numerous awards for her coverage, most recently the prestigious Walter R. Randall award for best coverage of a foreign story. Professor Nelson is a lecturer at the Georgia Center for Economics and author of a number of books on the international drug phenomena, including the best seller, Harvest of Tears.”