“Mafia?” Cat asked.
“No, not in the conventional sense, at least. These people may be dealing with Mafia figures at some level, but it seems to be something separate and apart, something newer. It’s said that they put their early profits into corrupting officials, and that’s the reason we know so little about it. It has been operating, virtually unmolested, for an undetermined length of time, but probably not more than four years. What is so threatening about the group is that it is being run with very advanced business techniques. Most of its members are said not to have criminal backgrounds, which makes it very hard to get a handle on them. Someone has apparently recruited otherwise legitimate business people around the United States and has used them to establish a distribution network. Officials of reputable banks have been corrupted and are laundering money; well-placed executives of major international companies are employing their import facilities to smuggle drugs; small retailers are being recruited as a sales force — shopkeepers, hairdressers, salesmen — people who used to be straight are now dealing.”
“All this in four years?” Cat asked.
“Our guess is that if this were a legitimate business, it would be in the top fifty of the Fortune 500. In a couple of years, if it continues to expand, it could be in the top ten, and it’s their expansion that may give us a shot at them. We’ve heard that they’re about to go multinational, that they’re about to open up distribution in Europe and Asia, while doubling their volume in the United States. All at once, within a single year.”
“Jesus,” Cat said. “I know something about manufacturing and distribution, and that sounds impossible. Nobody could do it, not IBM, even.”
“Suppose IBM could pay distributors a million dollars a month for the first six months and a million dollars a week after that,” Bergman said. “Think that might speed up the process?”
“I suppose so,” Cat admitted. “Is there really that kind of money available?”
“You better believe it,” Bergman replied, “and when an organization is being run as ingeniously as this one, it can be put to very effective use.”
“What about product? Can they get enough raw material and increase their production enough to keep up with all this new demand?”
“We hear there’s a gigantic new factory in the Trapezoid that’s already in production. At the moment, they’re said to be producing an extremely pure product and stockpiling it.”
“Do you know who runs the organization?” Cat asked.
“No,” Bergman said. “We don’t. We’ve heard all sorts of things — a Colombian, an Englishman, a consortium of Frenchmen. We just don’t know. But he wouldn’t have any trouble affording a Gulfstream jet for his personal use.”
“By the way,” Hedger interrupted, “we got a report. The jet landed at Leticia, then took off again last night; filed for Bogotá.”
“Then it’s here now?” Gomez asked.
Hedger shook his head. “No. It never arrived. It simply vanished. From Leticia, it has the range to fly anywhere in South America. We checked the tail number; it’s bogus.”
“Shit,” Bergman said.
There was a long silence; Cat finally broke it. “Gentlemen, I can tell you that the jet is registered to the Empire Corporation of Los Angeles. The number on its tail doesn’t match the one on its registration certificate.”
“How the hell did you know that?” Hedger demanded.
“Something else,” Cat said. “I don’t know who the head of this outfit is, but I think I can give you his description. He’s American, about five feet seven or eight, a hundred and fifty pounds, fair complexion, light brown hair worn long, in a ponytail. He dresses in fine London tailoring and keeps a suite in the Caribé Hotel in Cartagena; he has a house up in the hills above Cali, and he has something to do with an agricultural conglomerate called the Anaconda Company.”
The others stared at Cat. Bergman spoke up.
“I’ve heard of Anaconda; they’re in fruit, or something. They’re reputable.”
Cat looked at Bergman. “I can introduce you to a drug dealer in Riohacha, a hotel manager in Cartagena, and a cab driver in Cali who will disabuse you of that notion.”
23
Cat’s information set off a flurry of activity, but as soon as he had told them what he knew, they had dismissed him like a child, told him to go back to his hotel and wait for them to call. Cat did as they asked, but he didn’t like it.
He ordered dinner from room service and ate it while absently watching a soccer match on television. When that was over, the Cosby Show came on, but in Spanish.
He cursed himself for telling them what he knew before he had extracted more in return. In bed, he thought about Meg and wondered where she was, what had happened to her. There had still been no word whatever from her. He thought about Jinx, too. The story of what had happened to Drummond’s daughter tore at him. He felt he had gotten close to Jinx, but now she might be in Leticia, or she might have disappeared with the jet and would now be in some other country, even farther from his reach. He phoned Meg’s house. No answer. He did not sleep much that night.
The next morning he dressed and waited for Bergman to call. By noon he had read all the English-language newspapers available in the hotel, and he was beginning to pace. At two o’clock he started to telephone Bergman but decided the hell with it. He caught a cab to the embassy.
He got through the gates with his passport, but the receptionist insisted on calling Bergman to confirm his appointment. Then, frowning, she passed the telephone to Cat.
Bergman was on the line. “What are you doing here? I said I’d call you.”
“I can’t just sit in a hotel room and wait,” Cat said, not without heat. “What’s going on?”
“Look, all hell has broken loose around here. I just can’t talk to you right now.”
“I want to know what’s happening,” Cat demanded. “Now send somebody down here to get me, or I’ll call the Ambassador.”
Bergman put his hand over the phone for a moment, and Cat could hear a muffled exchange with someone else. He came back on the line. “All right, I’ll send someone down.”
Cat waited impatiently, and ten minutes later Candis Leigh appeared, smiling. In the elevator, she said, “I like the way you don’t take any crap from these people.”
“What’s going on?” Cat asked.
“There isn’t time to tell you,” she said as the elevator doors opened. “Just keep it up, and you’ll be all right. Don’t let them push you around.”
She led the way to Bergman’s office. There were a half dozen people in the room, most of them on telephones. Bergman of NAU, Gomez of DEA, and Barry Hedger were sitting on the sofa, huddled over what seemed to be several departmental telephone books.
Bergman waved him to a chair, then ignored him. “What about Marv Hindelman?” Bergman was saying to Hedger. “Assistant Attorney General.”
“It would never work,” Gomez replied. “He’s too far down the totem pole, and anyway, I hardly know him.”
“Why don’t we see the Ambassador?” Hedger asked. “Get him to call the Secretary of State.”
Bergman shook his head. “He wouldn’t do it, not on a funding request. Even if he did, not even the Secretary could get it moving in time.”
“It looks like we’re fucked,” Gomez said. “I’ve got my guy stashed at the Hilton, but I can’t let him walk into that meet empty-handed.”
The three men fell silent. There was only the low hum of other men speaking Spanish into telephones.
“What’s going on?” Cat asked.
Bergman sighed. “We checked out Empire Holdings, the company you told us the Gulfstream is registered to, and ran the description you gave us against the board of directors.” He shuffled through the papers on the coffee table and came up with a photograph.