Roberto Ramirez, better known as "The Shark," ranted and raved and screamed. His closest advisers stoically weathered the storm. After fifteen minutes, he subsided and grew silent. For five minutes, he stared straight ahead out of the bay windows of his mansion overlooking the ocean. Then he turned and faced his men.
"I want whoever was behind this. I want a name today!" He turned to his right. "Miquel. I want you to take the plane to Bogota. Go to the Ministry of Defense. Find out if they were behind this.
"Jaime. You check our contacts in Suarez's outfit. See if his people were involved.
"Carlos. Check out that pig who calls himself Ring Man. I wouldn't put it past that scum to try a stunt like this."
The Ramirez patriarch worked his neck to relieve the tension. "It had to be one of those. Whoever it was will pay."
Miquel Ramirez shook his head. It was dangerous to interfere with his father when he was like this, but it was up to him as the second-eldest son to point out some things that might prevent disaster. "Padre. We must worry about our shipments. We have the load down at the docks that will go out this week, but after that we have nothing. We lost our next three months' inventory in the destruction.
"We cannot afford a war. We must restock, or our customers will turn elsewhere."
Roberto glared at his son. "We cannot afford not to have a war! If we do nothing about this attack, we will be seen as being weak. Then our competitors will be over us like jackals. Also, we add the shipment on the docks with the cache in Miami, and our man there will be able to cover for us up there until we can make up our losses. Your brother Julio was right about us putting that cache in. If I had him here now, he wouldn't be arguing with me. He'd be coming up with solutions." The mention of the eldest son, presently awaiting trial in the United States, quieted the other members of the family for a few seconds.
The youngest son, Carlos, the Harvard MBA, raised his arm. "What bothers me the most, father, is that we received no warning of the attack. That is very ominous. If it was the military, how did they do it without one of the people on our payroll letting us know? Besides, I don't think Alegre would be that stupid. If it was one of the others, Suarez or Ring Man, then why didn't our informants warn us? Such an attack cannot be mounted without preparation, yet we heard nothing."
The Shark stood up, indicating the talking was over and it was time for action. "Whoever failed to warn us will pay the same price as those who did the attack. Get going! I want a name today!"
Riley had just finished a long-overdue breakfast when Westland walked into the operations room with two analysts. "I'm sorry I'm late, but let's get started."
Riley shook his head as they began. He'd approach her after the meeting and find out what was going on. The members of Eyes One settled in around the table with the map of the target.
Starting from the moment the C-130 took off from Fort Belvoir, the two analysts barraged the team with questions, tracking the progress of the mission up through their return to the same airfield.
It was an exhausting but necessary process. Riley had often sat on the other side of the table as debriefer during training exercises and he knew that some seemingly unimportant fact could turn out to be extremely important. Although, he had to admit to himself, there wasn't much to report about this mission. It had gone almost like clockwork.
Riley hoped Eyes Two's went as well.
Alegre allowed himself the luxury of feeling good for a few minutes. The raid the previous night had apparently been a success. At least he hadn't received any negative feedback, nor had his door been busted down and he been shot. In Colombia that was a good sign.
Alegre had had his doubts about the information relayed by the Ring Man, but it seemed that the data had been excellent. His chief aide, Montez, had just informed him that the word on the streets was that the Ramirezes had suffered a major setback. Alegre fervently hoped that the next targeting information Montez had relayed to the CIA contact was also valid.
The vote in the United Nations had also gone well. By one vote, the UN General Council had approved Colombia's claim for the mineral and oil rights on a third of the floor of the Gulf of Venezuela. The Venezuelans, naturally, were protesting the decision, but Alegre felt that the claim had a good chance of standing up to the appeal, especially since the Venezuelans had initiated the UN process in the first place. With those rights, he felt Colombia finally had a chance to get rid of the drug cartel.
Alegre knew that there were still many uncertainties, but at least things had started well.
The debriefing took over two hours. By the time it was done, Pike had received the message from Stevens on the scheduled contact. In summary, it indicated that there had been no apparent reaction in Bogota yet. The key part of the message was that the word from DEA informants on the street was that the lab attacked had been a major one, under the control of the Ramirez family.
"It will be coming," Riley warned. "Remember, Stevens told us the guy who ran the lab we hit last night operates out of Cartagena.
It's probably going to take him a while to react to the situation and also to track down all his contacts to see if he can find out who's behind this."
Pike nodded. "I know. But that's not for us to worry about. The only problem it may cause us is that there may be additional security on the next target."
Riley leaned back in his chair. He was beat. Between last night and today, it had been a long twenty-four hours. The members of Eyes Two were upstairs trying to catch a last-minute nap before departing on their mission later this evening.
Riley had sent the rest of his team to bed. He had been holding off himself until Stevens's message came in to confirm whether or not the target had been legitimate and high level. He was ready to catch some z's himself now. But first, there was one more thing he needed to do. He walked over to Westland, who was reviewing the notes from the debriefing. "Could I have a word with you privately?"
She nodded and followed him into the hallway. Riley turned and faced her. "Why weren't you ready for the debrief when we got back today?"
Westland looked uneasy. "I apologize for that. I got caught up at Langley and didn't leave early enough to get here in time."
Riley knew she was reporting everything that happened back to her boss at Langley. That was the way the game was played. He didn't like playing for the CIA or trusting their intelligence. He still didn't feel comfortable with the whole framework of this operation. The fact that someone down in Colombia with detailed knowledge of the drug cartel was passing information on lab locations didn't sit too well with him. That someone must have a pretty extensive net of intelligence to be able to get information on different branches of the cartel. That someone's motives were also open to speculation.
Riley could have understood a single turncoat in one gang, but they were getting countrywide information. Something big was going on down there, and he just hoped that when the storm hit, his people would weather it safely.
He had to admit that Westland had played straight with them as much as she could. They could have been saddled with a real asshole in a three-piece suit. Besides, he had developed a respect and liking for Westland over the last several days. He wondered about it, since he was normally someone who warmed to people very slowly. He hadn't had the time to think about it and he was too damn tired to do that now. He decided to let the whole thing slide and move on. "Do you have our next targets?"