Those were startling words to read: Executive Action. For me, they are a legal euphemism for a license to assassinate. I’d read those words before, in similar documents. For some reason, though, the phrase had never hit me so hard. Was it because I was now a different man? Or was it because I hoped I was now different?
The last paragraph was written in ink, the penmanship rushed, the wording far less formal. Harrington had added: Doc, My Colombian pals tell me that there are two main camps where they warehouse kidnap victims. They keep them until they’re ransomed or sold, then fly them out. One camp is near Cali on the Pacific Coast, outside a little village called Guapi, pronounced WAUP-ee. The other is in the state of Amazonia, way south in the jungle, a camp called Remanso, pronunced Ra-MEN-so, which I’ve been told is an Indian word that means “still waters.” Lots of Indios still in that area. Good luck. I’ve notified a few of our friends that you’ll be in the area, so you’ll have some help. Also, keep in mind that your enemy, the late Edgar Cordero, still has his organization in place, and they get pretty good intel. So do the Islamic extremists, and they’re all tied in together. Stay on your toes, watch your 6.
There was a final p.s.: “Lindsey is back on the drugs again. Dating a worthless beach bum. I love her so much, what can I do? H2”
20
We passed through the customs gates of Cartagena’s modern airport and exited out into the equatorial heat and glare of a December afternoon. There was a line of rusted yellow Toyota cabs, men selling lottery tickets, women in bright dresses hawking fresh pineapple, mangoes, bananas.
Amelia stopped, bags in hand, and said, “You’re kidding. You have a limo waiting on us? I’m impressed.”
Yes, there was a limo. She was impressed, and I was surprised. Among the taxis was a black BMW sedan and a man in a black suit standing beside it, holding a sign that read Dr. Marion Ford.
I was surprised because I hadn’t ordered a car.
I told her, “Wait here for a second,” then walked to the driver, and said to him in Spanish, “I’m confused. Who sent you?”
He was a stocky man, too wide for his jacket, with a weightlifter’s constrained mobility. “The embassy sent me,” he answered.
I said, “Which embassy?”
“Why, the U.S. Embassy, of course. Your embassy. I have papers if you wish to see.”
He handed me a sealed envelope. Inside was a note with Harrington’s familiar signature. It read, “Doc, welcome back into the business. One of my staff has arranged for you to use my personal driver, Carlos Quasada. You can trust him with anything, including your travel companion. He’ll keep an eye on you while you’re in the city. Carlos was one of the country’s best heavyweight fighters for many years. Match the enclosed photo ID with the ID he is required to carry before you get into the car.”
After I’d checked his papers, the man grinned at me and said in less formal Spanish, “Mr. Harrington has asked that I give you special care, Dr. Ford. I am here to serve as your driver, your bodyguard, your guide. The only exception is that I cannot go with you if you decide to leave our little state of Magdalena. The FARC rebels and their associates know me too well. I would be shot on sight, as would anyone unlucky enough to be with me.”
The man had a grip like a hydraulic clamp, and I liked his easygoing, confident manner. “You must have given them good reason to hate you, Carlos.”
His grin became even wider. “Oh, I have given them many reasons over the years, Dr. Ford. Sometimes, one of them decides to come looking for me to take revenge, and I give them yet another reason to hate Carlos!” Realizing that Amelia was walking toward us, he lowered his voice and said, “Does she understand Spanish?”
“No. A few words, that’s all.”
“Does she know that you are here in your government’s service?”
“Of course not.”
Quasada told me, “In that case, I must speak quickly. Mr. Harrington has supplied you with a special briefcase. It is in the trunk. You must not allow her to see the contents.”
I said, “When we get to the hotel, walk her to the front desk and leave the car keys with me. I’ll find a way to sneak it into our room. Later, I can tell her I bought it here.”
He nodded, fixed the smile on his face again, and began to speak more loudly in a slow and careful English, “I am at your service, Dr. Ford. Anything you require, day or night. I will give you the number of my cell phone. Dial my number and I will appear!”
Sitting in the backseat of the BMW as Carlos sped us through the taxi and donkey-cart traffic of Cartagena, Amelia leaned her shoulder briefly against me and said in a low voice, “Why the special treatment? This guy’s acting like you’re a foreign dignitary and he’s known you for years.”
I cleared my throat before I answered, “I’ve been here a couple of times for conferences, research-things like that.”
She seemed unconvinced. “As a biologist?”
“Yeah. In Latin America marine biologists are highly respected. Seafood. It’s a very important industry here.”
When I opened the briefcase that Harrington had left for me, I stood back and whistled softly, surprised and not a little apprehensive. Mostly surprised.
Did he really think I’d have a use for this kind of firepower?
I left the briefcase open and walked to the window of our third-floor suite. We were staying at the Hotel Santa Clara inside Cartagena’s old walled city. Most of Colombia’s dangers were known to me long before receiving Hal Harrington’s briefing paper. I have tried to lock away a number of bad memories associated with the place. Even so, it is still one of the more interesting countries in the Americas, and Cartagena is my favorite city by far.
Cartagena is a Conquistador village built within a stone fortress six miles in diameter, and that fortress, in turn, is built within a perimeter of forts. The city was founded in the early 1500s. Gold and silver plundered from the Indians were stockpiled here prior to being loaded and shipped back to Madrid.
A city filled with gold attracted the attention of the world’s pirates. French pirates kidnapped the governor and held him for ransom. English pirates such as Hawkens and Drake infiltrated the city under cover of darkness, burned the houses, sacked cathedrals, and sailed away with shiploads of treasure. Spain continued to build the walls around the city higher and thicker, but the pirates still came-just as pirates still continue to come to Colombia today.
In those years, some say that what is now the Hotel Santa Clara was a convent-a treasure trove of a different sort. So it too has walls as thick as those of a fort, four stories high, raspberry-colored, and impenetrable from the outside. But step through the hotel’s double doors, and you enter a Castilian world that vanished three hundred years ago.
The ceilings are twenty feet high with rafters of black mahogany. There are gardens with palms, rare flowers, toucans, parrots, and fountains. The courtyards are tiled with bricks made by Indian slaves long dead. Today, the hybrid progeny of those dead, a hundred generations removed, wait and serve the descendants of the Castilians who enslaved their relatives. The hotel is built around a great plaza, and now there is a modern swimming pool in the middle of that plaza.