“No client,” Cazaux said. “No fee. This I do for myself.” Many of the officers around him averted their eyes, disappointed in Cazaux’s decision but fearful of showing any hesitation or protest. Lake looked stunned, and showed it; Ysidro looked immensely pleased.
“So, Drip, you might as well close the bank accounts and convert the whole enchilada into greenbacks,” Ysidro said. Townsend nodded his agreement. “We expect the cash in three days. Towney, I want to review the aircraft list with you by tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have to rig up a trainer system, get charts of the targets, recruit some more flyboys, all that shit. There may be a way to get our hands on some military hardware — imagine using a couple Harpoon missiles or laser-guided bombs on O’Hare or LAX!”
Ysidro took another swig, chuckling at Cazaux’s stem expression, noting with relief that Cazaux’s anger seemed to be all directed at Lake. Ysidro was a good friend of Henri Cazaux’s — at least, if Cazaux had a friend, it was Tomas Ysidro — but he still didn’t want to show any weakness to his boss or to the other officers, ever. If Cazaux ever failed to make it back from one of his missions, Ysidro and Townsend would battle for control of the organization and its assets, and he had to appear strong at all times. Townsend was smart and tough, but all those years as a Brit officer gave him an air of superiority that made everyone distrust him.
“Relax, Henri, everything’s gonna be fine,” Ysidro said to Cazaux. “We got enough in reserve to get started on the explosives payloads for the first couple missions. Butcher and Faker can pick over that Seneschet warehouse in Massachusetts and see what they got, but it’ll be no sweat — I think we can pick up about seven or eight thousand kilos of ammonium nitrate from the waste-storage area, and we got about a thousand kilos of TNT in storage for the primer loads. The fuzing will be tougher — we may have to go out on the market for the first few. I got a contact in a National Guard armory in North Carolina where we might get some fuzes.”
“I have information on some military ordnance,” Townsend said. “Several Air National Guard units recently returned from a European deployment, and much of their ordnance is in warehouses right over at Stewart International awaiting transportation to their home units. Their inventory counts never come out right after a big deployment. We can get gravity bombs, incendiaries, night-vision gear, the works. Drip, I’ll need some cash for earnest money.”
“The name isn’t ‘Drip,’ you asshole, and there’s no fucking cash,” Lake finally snapped. All of the other officers turned to him in horror — all but Henri Cazaux, who had been looking in Lake’s direction for most of the meeting.
Ysidro cursed. “What the fuck are you talking about? We got eleven million fucking dollars in the bank, Drip. The last meeting before the Chico mission was only eight days ago, and before that we had twenty million.”
“That was before Korhonen flew that transport plane into San Francisco International and killed several hundred people,” Lake retorted angrily. “That was before three-quarters of the air traffic to the west coast was shut down. That was before every investor in Europe told me to fuck off backwards.”
“You telling us you blew eleven million dollars in the stock market just since yesterday…?”
“I’m telling you that I lost one hundred million dollars yesterday, including this organization’s eleven million, because you”—Lake jabbed a finger at Cazaux, who was still staring at him—“decided to go on a joyride and blow up SFO. I lost everything I have, damn you, everything! I’m broke! I’m worse than broke. I’m ruined…”
Ysidro was on him like a panther, and before Lake could blink, Ysidro had him pressed up against the wall, a knife point pressed into his throat. The other staff officers had surrounded the two to watch the execution. “I think,” Ysidro said, his face pressed right up against Lake’s so he could feel his last breath as it gushed from his lungs, “we are about to need a new logistics officer.”
“No,” Cazaux said evenly. “Let him speak.”
“This fucker’s ripping us off, man.”
“Let him speak, ” Cazaux ordered.
His voice did not change, but the force behind Cazaux’s order seemed to everyone several magnitudes higher than the first. Ysidro glared at Lake, then held his head steady, gave him a cut on his neck about two inches long, licked the rivulet of blood, then spit it back in Lake’s face. “Fucking bean-counter,” he growled. “Unfortunately, you live for now.” The air in the room seemed to relax as Ysidro backed away.
Lake was shaking like a man possessed, but more from anger than fear. He wiped blood from his eyes, put a handkerchief to the cut on his neck, and said, “I’ve been laundering money for this organization for three years, finding legitimate investments and creating legitimate business fronts, and I’ve done a very good job,” Lake said. “I’ve done a good job because I have been steering each mission, preparing the businesses beforehand.”
“You haven’t done shit, Drip,” Ysidro said. “We hardly see you, and all you give us is Jew banker’s mumbo- jumbo.”
“You think you can just walk into a bank with your terrorist checkbook and write a check for three or four million dollars?” Lake asked angrily. To Townsend he continued, “You think you can take seven million pounds sterling that you just got from an IRA bomber, convert it to dollars, and drop it in the automated teller machine at the corner bank, Townsend? The money has to look clean, and that takes work. The money has to be legitimately traceable down three dozen levels in the United States alone, and a dozen layers down in twenty other countries, all at the same time. Plus, you want me to research the financial on your targets, your clients, their governments, and their relations and principals all the way to the highest levels. I do that, each and every time, so when you make the deal or make the hit, we know exactly what all the players are going to do or say all over the world.
“I can get you what you want and keep the cash in this organization flowing, but only if I call the shots,” Lake went on. “I was fully exposed when that LET hit the terminal, Henri, fully exposed. I lost everything! Now this damned psycho pulls a knife on me and tries to pin the blame on me. Well, go ahead and fucking kill me, Henri, because if you don’t do it, some Japanese or South African investor’s hit squad is going to do it.”
“He wants to die so bad, Henri, I will be glad to oblige him.” Ysidro laughed, brandishing the knife again. “No bean-counter is going to tell me what to do.”
“You broke faith with this organization, Harold,” Cazaux said in a low voice. “The Army doesn’t wait for clearance from a banker before beginning operations. You knew that. Your duty was to keep the funds safe and secure, not engage in wild investment deals.”