The Cobra

by Frederick Forsyth

  After that, the message surging up from the populace to the rulers changed. It became less confused. It said: Sort this out or resign.

  Crises may occur in societies at various levels, but there is no level more catastrophic than that politicians may have to forgo their plump employments. At the beginning of March, the phone in an elegant antebellum town house in Alexandria rang.

  “Don’t hang up,” shouted the chief of staff at the White House.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Silver,” said Paul Devereaux.

  Each man had retained the habit of using the formal “Mr.” address toward the other, almost unheard of in modern Washington. Neither had any talent for bonhomie, so why pretend?

  “Would you please get your”—to any other subordinate Jonathan Silver would said “sad ass,” but he changed it to—“presence up to the White House at six this evening? I speak on behalf of you know who.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Silver,” said the Cobra. And hung up. It would not be a pleasure. He knew that. But he also supposed it had always been inevitable.

  CHAPTER 16

  JONATHAN SILVER HAD THE REPUTATION OF POSSESSING the most abrasive temper in the West Wing. He made it plain as Paul Devereaux entered his office that he did not intend to restrain it.

  He held a copy of the Los Angeles Times and waved it in the face of the older man.

  “Are you responsible for this?”

  Devereaux examined the broadsheet with the detachment of an entomologist surveying a mildly interesting larva. The front page was largely occupied by a picture and the banner headline “Hell on Rodeo.” The photo was of a restaurant that had been reduced to carnage by streams of bullets from two machine pistols.

  Among the seven dead, said the text, were four now identified as major underworld figures, one passerby who had been leaving as the gunmen entered and two waiters.

  “Personally, no,” said Devereaux.

  “Well, there are a lot of people in this town who think otherwise.”

  “Your point, Mr. Silver?”

  “My point, Mr. Devereaux, is that your goddamn Project Cobra seems to have achieved a form of underworld civil war that is turning this country into the kind of charnel house that we have seen in northern Mexico for the past decade. And it has got to stop.”

  “May we cut to the chase?”

  “Please do.”

  “Almost two years ago, our mutual commander in chief asked me, quite specifically, whether it would be possible to destroy the cocaine industry and trade, both of which were clearly out of control and had become a nationwide scourge. I replied, after intensive study, that it would be possible if certain conditions were fulfilled and at certain cost—hopefully short-term.”

  “But you never mentioned the streets of three hundred cities running with blood. You asked for two billion dollars and you got that.”

  “Which was the financial cost only.”

  “You never mentioned the civil-outrage cost.”

  “Because you never asked. Look, this country spends fourteen billion dollars a year via a dozen official agencies and gets nowhere. Why? Because the cocaine industry in the U.S. alone, never mind Europe, is worth four times that. Did you really think the creators of cocaine would switch to jelly beans if we asked them? Did you really think the American gangs, among the most vicious in the world, would move into candy bars without a fight?”

  “That is no reason for our country being turned into a war zone.”

  “Yes, it is. Ninety percent of those dying are psychos to the point of being almost clinically insane. The few tragic casualties caught in the cross fire are less than the traffic dead during the Fourth of July weekend.”

  “But look what the hell you’ve done. We always kept our psychos and sickos down in the sewers, down in the gutters. You have put them on Main Street. That is where John Q. Citizen lives, and John has a vote. This is an election year. In eight months the man down this hall is going to ask the people to trust him with their country for another four years. And I do not intend, Mr. Goddamn Devereaux, that they will refuse him that request because they dare not leave their homes.”

  As usual, his voice had risen to a shout. Beyond the door, more-junior ears strained to hear. Inside the room, only one of the two men retained an icy and contemptuous calm.

  “They won’t,” he said. “We are within one month of witnessing the virtual self-destruction of American gangland, or, at any rate, its shattering for a generation. When that becomes clear, I believe the people will recognize what a burden has been lifted from them.”

  Paul Devereaux was not a politician. Jonathan Silver was. He knew that, in politics, what is real is not important. The important is what appears to be real to the gullible. And what appears to be real is purveyed by the media and purchased by the gullible. He shook his head and jabbed at the front page.

  “This cannot go on. No matter what may be the eventual benefits. This has to stop, no matter what the price.”

  He took a single sheet of paper that had been facedown on his desk and thrust it at the retired spy.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “You will doubtless be delighted to tell me.”

  “It is a Presidential Executive Order. Are you going to disobey it?”

  “Unlike you, Mr. Silver, I have served several commanders in chief and never disobeyed one yet.”

  The snub caused the chief of staff to turn a mottled red.

  “Well, good. That is very good. Because this PEO orders you to stand down. Project Cobra is over. Terminated. Discontinued. Effective this hour. You will return to your headquarters and dismantle it. Is that plain?”

  “As rock crystal.”

  Paul Devereaux, the Cobra, folded the paper and slipped it into his jacket pocket, turned on his heel and left. He ordered his driver to take him to the drab warehouse in Anacostia, where, on the top floor, he showed the PEO to a stunned Cal Dexter.

  “But we were so close.”

  “Not close enough. And you were right. Our great nation can kill up to a million abroad, but not one percent of that figure of its own gangsters without sustaining a fainting fit.

  “I have to leave the details, as ever, to you. Call in the two Q-ships. Donate the Balmoral to the British Navy and the Chesapeake to our own SEALs. Maybe they can use it for training. Call back the two Global Hawks; return them to the USAF. With my thanks. I have no doubt their amazing technology is the way of the future. But not ours. We are paid off. Can I leave all this in your hands? Even down to the cast-off clothes on the lower floors that can now go to the homeless?”

  “And you? Can I reach you at home?”

  The Cobra thought for a while.

  “For a week, maybe. Then I may have to travel. Just loose ends. Nothing important.”

  IT WAS a personal conceit of Don Diego Esteban’s that, although he had a private chapel on this estate in the ranch country of the Cordillera, he enjoyed receiving communion at the church in the nearest small town.

  It enabled him to acknowledge with grave courtesy the deferential salutations of the peons and their shawl-shrouded wives. It enabled him to beam at the awestruck, barefoot children. It allowed him to drop a donation into the collection plate that would keep the parish priest for months.

  When he agreed to talk with the man from America who wished to see him, he chose the church but arrived massively protected. It was the suggestion of the American that they meet in the house of the God whom they both worshipped and under the Catholic Rite to which they both subscribed. It was the strangest request he had ever received, but its simple ingenuity intrigued him.

  The Colombian hidalgo was there first. The building had been swept by his security team, and the priest sent packing. Diego Esteban dipped two fingers in the font, crossed himself and approached the altar. He chose the front row of pews, knelt, bowed his head and prayed.

  When he straightened, he heard the old sun-bleached door behind him creak, felt a gust of
hot air from outside, then noted the thud of the closing. He knew he had men in the shadows, guns drawn. It was a sacrilege, but he could confess and be forgiven. A dead man cannot confess.

  The visitor approached from behind and took a place also in the front pew, six feet away. He also crossed himself. The Don glanced sideways. An American, lean, of similar age, calm-faced, ascetic in an impeccable cream suit.

  “Señor?”

  “Don Diego Esteban?”

  “It is I.”

  “Paul Devereaux, of Washington. Thank you for receiving me.”

  “I have heard rumors. Vague talk, nothing more. But insistent. Rumors of a man they call the ‘Cobra.’ ”

  “A foolish nickname. But I must own to it.”

  “Your Spanish is excellent. Permit me a question.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why should I not have you killed? I have a hundred men outside.”

  “Ah, and I only my helicopter pilot. But I believe I have something that was once yours and which I may be able to return. If we can reach a concordat. Which I cannot do if I am dead.”

  “I know what you have done to me, Señor Cobra. You have done me extreme damage. But I have done nothing to harm you. Why did you do what you did?”

  “Because my country asked me.”

  “And now?”

  “All my life, I have served two masters. My God and my country. My God has never betrayed me.”

  “But your country has?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is no longer the country to which I swore loyalty as a young man. It has become corrupt and venal, weak and yet arrogant, dedicated to the obese and the stupid. It is not my country anymore. The bond is broken, the fealty gone.”

  “I never gave such loyalty to any country, even this one. Because countries are governed by men, and often the least deserving of them. I also have two masters. My God and my wealth.”

  “And for the second, Don Diego, you have killed many times.”

  Devereaux had no doubt that the man a few feet away from him, beneath the veneer and the grace, was a psychopath and supremely dangerous.

  “And you, Señor Cobra, you have killed for your country? Many times?”

  “Of course. So perhaps we are similar after all.”

  Psychopaths must be flattered. Devereaux knew the comparison would flatter the cocaine lord. Comparing greed for money with patriotism would not offend.

  “Perhaps we are, señor. How much of my property do you retain?”

  “One hundred fifty tons.”

  “The amount missing is three times that.”

  “Most is taken by either customs, coast guards or navies and now incinerated. Some is at the bottom of the sea. The last quarter is with me.”

  “In safekeeping?”

  “Very safe. And the war against you is over.”

  “Ah. That was the betrayal.”

  “You are very perceptive, Don Diego.”

  The Don considered the tonnage. With jungle production at full flow, maritime interceptions cut back to a trickle, air shipments able to resume, he could start again. He would need an immediate tonnage to bridge the gap, to appease the wolves, to end the war. One hundred and fifty tons would be just enough.

  “And your price, señor?”

  “I shall have to retire at last. But far away. A villa by the sea. In the sun. With my books. And officially dead. That does not come cheaply. One billion U.S. dollars, if you please.”

  “My property is in a ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can give me the numbers of the bank accounts?”

  “Yes. Can you give me the port of destination?”

  “Of course.”

  “And your response, Don Diego?”

  “I think, señor, we have our concordat. You will leave here safely. Exchange the details with my secretary outside. And now I wish to pray alone. ¡Vaya con Dios, señor!”

  Paul Devereaux rose, crossed himself and left the church. An hour later, he was back at the Malambo air base, where his Grumman returned him to Washington. In a walled compound a hundred yards from where the executive jet turned onto the runway for takeoff, the operating crew of the Global Hawk code-named Michelle had been told they would be stood down in a week and be returned in a pair of C-5 heavy-lift freighters to Nevada.

  CAL DEXTER did not know where his chief had gone nor did he ask. He got on with the assigned job, dismantling the Cobra structure stone by stone.

  The two Q-ships began to steam for home, the British-manned Balmoral to Lyme Bay, Dorset, the Chesapeake for Newport News. The British expressed their gratitude for the gift of the Balmoral, which they thought might be useful against Somali pirates.

  The two UAV-operating bases recalled their Global Hawks for transfer back to the States but kept the enormous amount of data they had acquired on Broad Area Marine Surveillance, which would certainly play a role in the future, replacing far more expensive and manpower-intensive spy planes.

  The prisoners, all 117 of them, were brought back from Eagle Island, Chagos Archipelago, in a long-range C-130 of the USAF. Each was allowed to send a brief message to his ecstatic family who thought he was lost at sea.

  The bank accounts, almost exhausted, were reduced to a single one to cover any last-minute payments, and the communications network run out of the Anacostia warehouse was scaled down and brought in-house to be operated along with his computers by Jeremy Bishop. Then Paul Devereaux reappeared. He expressed himself well satisfied, and drew Cal Dexter to one side.

  “Have you ever heard of Spindrift Cay?” he asked. “Well, it is a tiny island, barely more than a coral atoll, in the Bahamas. One of the so-called out islands. Uninhabited except for a small detachment of U.S. Marines ostensibly camping there on some form of survival exercise.

  “The center of the cay has a small forest of palm trees under which there are rows and rows of bales. You can guess what they contain. It has to be destroyed, all one hundred fifty tons of it. I am entrusting the job to you. Have you any idea of the value of those bales?”

  “I think I can guess. Several billion dollars.”

  “You’re right. I need someone I can trust absolutely to do it. The cans of gasoline have been on-site for many weeks. Your best way in is by floatplane out of Nassau. Please go and do what has to be done.”

  Cal Dexter had seen many things but never a billion-dollar hill, let alone destroyed it. Even one single bale, stashed in a large suitcase, meant rich for life. He flew commercial, Washington to Nassau, and checked into the Paradise Island Hotel. An inquiry at reception and a quick phone call secured him a floatplane for the dawn of the next day.

  It was over a hundred miles, and the flight took an hour. In March the weather was warm, and the sea its usual impossible aquamarine between the islands, limpid pale over the sandbars. The destination was so remote, his pilot had to check the GPS system twice to confirm he had the right atoll.

  An hour after dawn, he banked and pointed.

  “That’s it, mister,” he shouted. Dexter looked down. It ought to have been in a tourist postcard rather than what it was. Less than one square kilometer inside, with a reef that enclosed a lagoon accessed by a single cut in the coral. A dark clump of palms at the center gave no hint of the deadly treasure stored beneath the fronds.

  Jutting out of one shining white beach was a ramshackle jetty where presumably the supply boat docked. As he watched, two figures emerged from a camouflage-tented camp beneath the palms along the shore and stared upward. The floatplane wheeled, lost power and drifted down to the water.

  “Drop me off at the jetty,” said Dexter.

  “Not even going to get your feet wet?” grinned the pilot.

  “Maybe later.”

  Dexter got out, stepped onto the float and thence to the jetty. He ducked under the wing and found himself facing a ramrod-straight master sergeant. The guardian of the island had a Marine behind him, and both
men wore sidearms.

  “Your business here, sir?”

  The courtesy was impeccable, the meaning unmistakable. You had better have a good reason for being here or go not one foot farther down this dock. For reply, Dexter took a folded letter from his jacket’s inside pocket.

  “Please read this very carefully, Master Sergeant, and note the signature.”

  The veteran Marine stiffened as he read, and only years of self-discipline kept him from expressing his amazement. He had seen the portrait of his commander in chief many times, but never thought to see the handwritten signature of the President of the United States. Dexter held out his hand for the letter.

  “So, Master Sergeant, we both serve the same c in c. My name is Dexter, I am from the Pentagon. No matter. That letter trumps me, you, even the Secretary of Defense. And it requires your cooperation. Do I have it, mister?”

  The Marine was at attention, staring over Dexter’s head at the horizon.

  “Yes, sir,” he barked.

  The pilot had been chartered for the day. He found a shady place under the wing over the jetty and settled down to wait. Dexter and the Marine walked back down the jetty to the beach. There were twelve tough, sun-darkened young men who for weeks had fished, swum, listened to radios, read paperbacks and kept themselves in shape with ferocious daily exercise.

  Dexter noted the jerrycans of gasoline stored in the shade and headed toward the trees. The clump covered no more than two acres, and there was a walkway cut through the center. On either side were the bales, shaded by palms. They were stacked in low, cube-shaped blocks, about one hundred of them, about one and half tons each, the yield of nine months at sea by two covert raiders.

  “Do you know what these are?” asked Dexter.

  “No, sir,” said the master sergeant. Don’t ask, don’t tell; though in a slightly different context.