Against All Enemies mm-1

by Tom Clancy

  “No! Never be scared.”

  But Rojas was scared, more than ever now, as he’d watched the gangsters begin shouting at his brother.

  The shortest one shoved Esteban, who returned the shove and screamed, “I’ll pay back the money!”

  And then the tallest one, the sentinel who’d remained a few steps behind and had not said a word, reached into his jacket and produced a pistol.

  Rojas gasped, tensed, reached out—

  The gunshot made him flinch and blink as Esteban’s head snapped to one side and he dropped to the ground.

  Without a word, Rojas ran into the house, into his father’s bedroom, and snatched up the shotgun. He rushed back outside. The three gangsters were already sprinting across the field, toward the moon hanging low on the horizon. Rojas banged past the gate and screamed after them. He fired the shotgun twice, the boom echoing off the house and hills. The gangsters were well out of range. He cursed, slowed to a halt, and struggled for breath.

  Then he turned back to his brother, lying motionless in the dirt. He rushed to his brother’s side, and the shotgun fell out of his hands. The gaping hole in Esteban’s head sent shudders through him. His brother stared back with a weird reflection in his eyes, and later on, in the dreams and nightmares, Rojas would see the moon in those eyes, and against that moon, cast in silhouette, stood the sentinel, raising his pistol. Rojas would struggle to see the boy’s face, but he never could.

  He put his head down on his brother’s chest and began to cry. Neighbors found him there a few minutes later, and eventually his parents arrived. The wailing of his mother carried on throughout the night.

  That was another lifetime, thought Rojas, running a finger along the burled-wood arm of his seat. The rags-to-riches story was a cliché, he’d been told, yet he defied anyone to classify his present life as a cliché. As much as he still loved and admired his brother, Rojas understood now that Esteban had made a grave and foolish mistake. Rojas had spent nearly half of his life searching for the boy who had killed Esteban, but no one had come forward to help.

  “Well, Jorge, I can’t thank you enough for this. For all of this. I mean, I’ve never actually met the president of a country before.”

  “I’ve met many of them,” Rojas said. “And you know what? They are just men. People will try to intimidate you, but no one is better than anyone else. Some have money and guns. That is the only difference.”

  “Some have private jets, too,” Campbell added with a grin.

  He nodded. “I like to travel.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before, but I’m always intrigued by people like you. What do you think contributed the most to your success? Was it discipline or just smarts? Luck? A little bit of everything? I mean, you’ve told me the story of the small town where you grew up. And now you’re literally one of the richest people on the planet. That article in Newsweek said your estimated worth is at least eight percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product. It’s just …staggering. Who would’ve thought this in college, right?”

  “You’ve done pretty well, too. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  He nodded. “But nothing like this. So, as I look around your beautiful jet, I ask you, how’d you get here?”

  “Buying businesses, making wise investments …I don’t know, really. Friends helped the most.”

  “Don’t be coy.”

  “I’m serious. The friendships I’ve made are what’s become most important, and you’ll see that when we get to Colombia.”

  Campbell considered that and finally nodded, and it seemed Rojas had successfully ducked the question. But then Campbell said, “Do you think it was school? Doing well in school?”

  “Sure, that’s it. Friends and school.”

  “But that doesn’t answer the real mystery.”

  Rojas frowned. “Oh, what’s that?”

  “How so many of your companies have been able to weather this economic downturn. If memory serves, not a single one of your companies has had to file for bankruptcy. Given this volatile market, that’s incredible.”

  Rojas allowed himself a faint grin. “I have good people working for me and an army of lawyers to protect me and my investments.”

  “The Subways you have in Mexico are making more money than those in the United States, yet the people in Mexico have less disposable income. How do you do it?”

  He began laughing. “We sell a lot of sandwiches.” And then he cast his mind back to a board of directors meeting he’d had in the previous month, where his team had presented on the year’s earnings for the chain of car dealerships he owned with locations throughout all of Mexico. Many people were unaware that the country often had the largest car production and sales in the world. The numbers, however, had been disappointing, yet Rojas had been able to assure his people that dealer incentives would not only remain but increase tenfold.

  “But how can they do that with this tremendous drop in sales?” asked his CEO. It was a fair question, and the dozen or so people seated at the long conference table focused their attention on Rojas, who stood at the head and said, “I’ve been in direct talks with the manufacturers, and I promise you that your incentives will increase.”

  They shrugged in disbelief. But Rojas made it happen. And the calls and e-mails flooded in: “Thank you! Thank you!”

  One manager even remarked that Señor Rojas “has a magical vault filled with magical money that saves lives and protects families and schools.”

  The truth was, indeed, often said in jest, and the vault contained within the mansion at Cuernavaca just outside Mexico City was, in fact, piled from floor to ceiling with dollars and pesos. Walls and walls of cash. Millions and millions — money that would be deftly laundered through the networks and the shell companies and deposited in overseas accounts in addition to bolstering Rojas’s legitimate businesses, his dealerships and restaurants and cigarette manufacturers and telecom companies.

  Because the one business that not only weathered rough economic times but even flourished was the drug trade. At times Rojas wished he could detach himself from the business that had helped build his empire. It had been a painstaking challenge to keep his identity and involvement in the cartel a secret. Neither his wife nor his son knew anything about the Juárez Cartel and how Rojas, then a senior in college, had become involved with the business.

  Rojas had met a grad student named Enrique Juárez, who his colleagues and professors said was a genius in recombinant DNA gene technology and the insulin manufacturing process. Juárez wanted to establish a pharmaceutical company in Mexico to take advantage of the cheap labor. So impressed was Rojas by the business proposal that he invested a huge portion of his life savings (nearly $20,000) for a partnership in the company. GA Lab (Genetics Acuña) was established in Ciudad Acuña (population 209,000) along the banks of the Rio Grande, south of Del Rio, Texas. Juárez had explained the process of their operation: The first contract was to produce the A chain with twenty-one amino acids and the B chain containing thirty amino acids as the precursor to the synthesis of human insulin.

  Once the A and B amino-acid chains were grown, GA would ship the material back to the United States, where it would be stitched into circular DNA strands called plasmids, using special enzymes to perform molecular surgery, the next step in the insulin manufacturing process.

  The contracts came in. The business took off, and during the next five years both Rojas and Juárez drew six-figure salaries. Rojas clearly saw the advantage of owning a pharmaceutical company with a legitimate front, and he began to hire people behind Juárez’s back to produce black-market versions of drugs such as Dilaudid, Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycontin, all of which produced more money than the insulin side of the business.

  One Friday night, over a long dinner and even more heated debate, Juárez stared at Rojas through his thick glasses and said, “Jorge, I don’t like the direction you are taking our company. There’s too much at stake now. Too much to lose. I
don’t care how much we make on the black-market drugs. If we get caught, we lose everything.”

  “I know what you’re saying. That’s why I’m prepared to buy you out of the business. You can take the money and start up a new venture. I’ll make you a very generous offer. I don’t want to see you unhappy. We started this with some great ideas and a lot of praying. Let me free you up to do something else.”

  “I created this business. It was my brainchild from the start. You know that. I’m not going to hand it over to you. We were partners, but you’ve never consulted me on any of this. You’ve gone behind my back. I can’t trust you anymore.”

  Rojas stiffened. “You’d be nothing without my money.”

  “I won’t sell you this business. I’m asking you to stop risking everything.”

  “You need to accept my offer.”

  “No, I don’t.” Juárez rose, wiped his mouth, and stormed away from the table.

  The next morning he attempted to fire all of the scientists and lab personnel Rojas had hired.

  Rojas told him to go away, take a week off, go skiing in Switzerland. He was not thinking clearly. Juárez finally resigned himself to the pressure and took the vacation. Unfortunately, while there he died in a terrible skiing “accident,” and had left all of his money and property to his elderly mother, who immediately struck a most agreeable deal with Rojas.

  The Juárez Cartel had been unofficially named after the city where the operation did most of its business, but the striking irony was that the man responsible for its birth also bore the same name. Rojas had begun with a small pharmaceutical company, which he expanded into many more businesses, which in turn helped him to create companies that could help launder money while purchasing huge swaths of real estate that cut through some of the most populated cities in Mexico.

  He recognized that the quickest way to achieve expertise in new enterprises was to bypass time-consuming learning curves and buy up successful preexisting companies in that market. His understanding of finances and how to move and sell product led to the rapid — even extreme — growth of his empire. However, his organization was not without problems. Three of the cartel’s highest-ranking members began running the drug-smuggling operations into the ground based on their egos and hubris, thus he’d been forced to “remove” them from power. The decision — like the one concerning Juárez — still haunted him, but he knew if he didn’t act swiftly, the operation would go down, and he along with it.

  In more recent years he’d purchased land in New York City and made millions by flipping such parcels. He bailed out book and magazine publishers and bought stock in them. He often flirted with the idea of simply handing over the entire cartel and its businesses to Fernando Castillo, who would provide stable and keen leadership. Rojas had been ready to make a clean break, but then the world’s economy had nose-dived, and he’d been forced to reinforce his companies and build back his earnings by remaining the clandestine leader of what now had become the most profitable and powerful drug cartel in Mexico.

  How did he do it?

  He thought of leaning toward Campbell and telling him the truth. “Jeffrey, this world is unfair. This world took my dear wife from me. And because of that, I can’t play by the rules. I have to take chances like my brother did. So I’m doing what I have to do. Doing what good I can in the world, but I know that other lives are being ruined, that good people are dying, but many more are being saved. This is the ugly truth of me. The terrible secret. At least you don’t have to live with it …Only I do.”

  J.C. arrived with their dinner — freshly made fajitas that filled the cabin with an aroma that made Rojas dizzy. He thought of Miguel, who’d soon be heading off with his young lady for a short vacation.

  What would that day be like? The day his only son learned the truth?

  18 THE SLEEPING DOG

  Casa de Nariño

  Bogotá, Colombia

  The presidential palace of Colombia had been named in honor of Antonio Nariño, born 1765, who’d been one of the political and military leaders of the independence movement in Colombia and who’d built his own home on the same site. Four pairs of round columns rose up to a stunning archway at the palace’s entrance, and as Rojas passed into the shadows of that magnificent work of art, he thought that yes, it would be nice to live in a house with as much history and tradition as this one. Jeff Campbell came up behind him, and President Tomás Rodriguez was already there, beaming at them. He had a thick shock of dark brown hair and wore a black suit, white dress shirt, and gold silk tie that gave Rojas pause. He’d never seen material as smooth and glistening, and he made a mental note to ask the president about it.

  The introductions were brief, with the president making direct eye contact and giving both Rojas and Campbell firm handshakes, following up with an abrazo for Rojas and a firm pat on the shoulder. “It has been too long, my friend.”

  “I apologize for our late arrival,” said Rojas. “But after that madness in Paris, passing through customs was nearly a three-hour ordeal.”

  “I understand the delay,” said Rodriguez. “Now, I’ve set us up in the library. I won’t turn in until ten this evening, so we have plenty of time. We can also move to the observatory, if it’s not too cold. I’m sure you’ll chew my ear off with the reports on your holdings, more than I’d ever want to know about petroleum, coffee, and coal …I want to tell you that we’re doing much better than the last time we talked.”

  “Yes, we are,” said Rojas, his tone brightening.

  The president started off.

  Campbell turned to Rojas and grinned. “This is incredible.”

  “Of course,” said Rojas. Then he added in a whisper, “And when we’re finished, you’re going to have a government contract, trust me.”

  “Excellent,” Campbell said with a gasp.

  They shifted past the entrance foyer, whose walls displayed fine pieces of framed art, including several paintings of Antonio Nariño himself, along with ornate furniture dating back several hundred years. This kind of history and opulence no longer moved Rojas to an outward reaction, but he enjoyed watching Campbell’s eyes grow even wider the farther they ventured into the palace.

  His phone vibrated. He checked the text message from Fernando Castillo: I’m here now with Ballesteros.

  Rojas nodded inwardly. Ballesteros had been having a very rough time of it, and Rojas was glad they were here now in the country to help his loyal supplier. Ballesteros’s enemies were about to suffer the full wrath of the Juárez Cartel.

  FARC Base Camp

  Somewhere in the Jungle

  Near Bogotá, Colombia

  Colonel Julio Dios of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and oldest insurgent group in the Americas, settled down onto his cot inside the tent. This was his fiftieth birthday, and he’d spent the day drinking and celebrating with his men. Ah, the word men was being too generous. Most of his force was comprised of boys, really, barely eighteen, some only fourteen or fifteen, but he had trained them well, and they were fiercely loyal to him and his mission to further squeeze the cocaine producers for more money so they could expand and better equip their force. They were hardly ready for a military coup against the government of Colombia, but Dios speculated that in several years, FARC forces could rise up and attain a decided victory. They would finally bring down the corrupt president and his intolerable regime. For now, though, they would increase their funding by more heavily taxing the drug producers. The relationship he had with one producer in particular, Juan Ramón Ballesteros, had been an ad hoc alliance of convenience, with Ballesteros often trading cocaine for weapons. FARC made sure to steer itself clear of any involvement in the actual production and transportation of the drugs, and he provided Ballesteros with the added security he needed to the keep local and federal law enforcement authorities off his back.

  But while Ballesteros was expanding his business, Dios and his comrades were being aggressively hunted down, their num
bers beginning to dwindle, their fate seemingly tied to the generosity of Ballesteros and other drug traffickers like him. That, Dios had decided, needed to change, and so he had been putting more than a little pressure on the drug man, whose stubbornness would soon get him killed.

  Dios cupped his head in his hands. He was ready to enjoy a long and restful night.

  He neither heard nor saw the man enter his tent, only felt the hand go over his mouth and the white-hot pain flood into his chest. When he finally looked up through the grainy darkness, he saw only a figure dressed in black, the face covered by a balaclava with only one eye cut out — or was that a patch lying beneath the other eyehole?

  “Ballesteros sends his regards. You don’t fuck with us. Ever. Your boys will know that now …Go see God …”

  The man punched him in the chest again, more white-hot pain, and suddenly Dios had no control over his arms and legs. He wanted to cough. Couldn’t. He started to take a breath. Couldn’t. And then …

  As he left the tent with blood-covered gloves, Fernando Castillo thought about the other men who were being killed at the exact same moment, six other high-ranking FARC leaders who would all be murdered with notes pinned to their chests “asking” for their renewed cooperation and “patience.” The Juárez Cartel had spoken.

  Private Mansion

  Bogotá, Colombia

  “You will lead them. You will bring the jihad back to the United States — and you must use the contacts you’ve made with the Mexicans to do that. Do you understand?”

  Those were Mullah Abdul Samad’s orders, and every decision he made was directed toward completing that mission. No matter how much he loathed what he was about to do, he would not forget Mullah Omar Rahmani’s words.

  Samad had traveled alone in the black Mercedes limousine. Niazi and Talwar were watching Spanish soap operas back at the Charleston Hotel, where Ballesteros had put them up in suites — all seventeen of them. Fourteen of Samad’s fifteen fighters had arrived in the city, and it was Allah’s will that he, Niazi, and Talwar had escaped from that jungle house after the attack by FARC paramilitary troops. Thus far there had been only one setback: the death of Ahmad Leghari in Paris. That Ballesteros could not use the submarine to get them into Mexico was an issue that could be addressed, but most crucial was the border crossing into the United States. If Samad could strike a deal now with the Juárez Cartel, then the most challenging leg of his journey would be addressed. If not, there would be other plans set into motion, and Rahmani had said that he was already in contact with at least one other cartel. He’d feared that contacting several cartels at once might alert Rojas, and so they would advance slowly, subtly.