Incitement

by David Graham

  “I agree but I don’t think Tuur’s reaction to questions about Lorcy is because he’s unintelligent or unaware of the implications of helping us. I’ve spent a lot of time with him, and listened to his story again and again, and my impression is that Lorcy said or did something that put the fear of God into him.”

  “Any progress on anything he’s given you besides the bank transfers?” she asked.

  “No. We haven’t been able to locate the man who recommended Tuur to Lorcy. If we find him, we might learn more.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’d advise you to send out an up-to-date account of what he’s told us to all relevant agencies, asking for assistance and restating the invitation to question him. I don’t think a lot of people you contacted would have realised how relevant he is, based on what was issued previously.”

  She made a mental note to call Campas later as she was sure he would want to question Tuur himself.

  “Okay, we’ll organise that. Shall we go back inside and see if we can wring any more out of Richard while he’s in such an effusive mood?” Girard said with a smile.

  The noise that drifted up to them from the streets into the second-floor apartment would normally be associated with fun and celebration. But their already-frayed nerves were not helped by the loud music and intermittent setting off of fireworks, each small explosion increasing the stress just a little bit more. Once a year, the little town of Quibdo came alive with La Fiesta de la Ascensión. It was a signal for people to forget their everyday troubles and to experience happiness, however briefly. The highlight of the evening was the judging of the floats everyone from small businesses to schools worked for weeks to prepare, in the hope that theirs would be judged best. The judging committee was comprised of the parish priest, the town mayor, some prominent local businessmen and one guest. It was this final member of the committee that kept the temporary occupants of the apartment from enjoying the festival. They meant to perform the dangerous task of killing him and then, just as importantly, escape with their lives. A few weeks earlier it had been arranged for the residents of the apartment to be absent for the week of the festival.

  The two gunmen had arrived late the previous night and, once they had set up, their only task was to pass the remaining time without drawing attention. To achieve this necessitated crawling around on their hands and knees while in either of the two rooms whose windows looked down on the street. When the target reached the judging platform, the gunmen would open fire with Russian-made SVD Designated Marksman Rifles. These guns were more than accurate enough for the distance involved, and their capability to be fully automatic meant they could achieve a far higher rate of fire than pure sniper rifles. The intention was that the resulting confusion and panic would aid their escape.

  Luis Madrigal had attended the festival for the last fifteen years without fail. His mother had been born here and this was his way of paying respect to her memory. She had died before her son attained any appreciable success. As soon as he could, he had established a festival fund for the town, enabling a much grander celebration. Anybody who wished to enter the float competition, but found themselves short of funds, could apply for a donation. The meal at the town square, which followed the competition, was now provided with as much free food and drink as could be consumed. The only price for all this had been for the Masses in the week before the festival to be offered to the memory of Laura Madrigal.

  During the festival, more than at any other time, Madrigal’s schedule taxed his security detail to their limit. He made it clear to them that he did not want to be surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards every second he was there. He insisted on only two close protection bodyguards. He wanted to be able to take this unique opportunity to mix and share in the enjoyment of these people. The inhabitants of Quibdo lived a hard life but they refused to let their spirit be ground down and the festival was a joyous occasion. Occasionally one of them would approach him asking for help with a particular situation. He had never refused a case he felt was genuine and, over the years, word had spread of his generosity. Every year he received a warm reception. He spent months looking forward to the brief time he would spend here.

  Looking out over the windowsill, one of the gunmen could see the people already assembled on the judging podium. They were all looking down the street. A small group was making its way through the throng from an intersection about a hundred paces away. He was certain that this must be their target approaching and turned to his companion, signalling they should get ready. The crowds made it difficult for him to single out the drug lord and he could only catch brief glimpses of the top of someone’s head when the tall man at the head of the group momentarily moved to one side or another. He was reassured the obscured figure was Madrigal from the behaviour of people in the crowd as the group passed them. People would forget whatever had been occupying them and approach the concealed man for a quick word or greeting.

  The gunman couldn’t risk firing until Madrigal was in clear view on the podium and the hit was guaranteed. There would be only one chance and it had been made clear that failure would not be tolerated. Despite the gunman’s years of experience, he found the pressure was getting to him. Was Madrigal going to stop and speak at length to every single person who greeted him? After what seemed an eternity, the tall bodyguard leading the group reached the stairs to the podium. The escort held back some people to allow room for two men to ascend the stairs. From his vantage point, the gunman could not see either man’s face but it was obvious that the second man was too stout to be their target. He nodded to his companion and they took up their positions. This was their most vulnerable time and he could feel a trickle of sweat wind down his back under his soaked shirt. Leaning forward, he placed the gun barrel between the slit in the window and waited for Madrigal to turn so that he could see his face. Frustratingly the target was moving along the podium, shaking hands with each of the other judges, but at no point did he face the building. Sweat dripped into the gunman’s eyes, stinging them, but he dared not wipe it away; he had to stay ready. The man on the podium was now engaged in a deep and animated conversation with the parish priest, the last dignitary to greet. Any second now. The conversation dragged on and he cursed them inwardly. What did they find to talk about? Why couldn’t they just shut up? Out of the corner of his eye he saw his companion fidgeting in discomfort. You just better do your job properly, he thought. Again, the priest and the target shook hands. This must be it; their babbling was over. The man’s face came into view at last. Was he looking directly up at the window? Clean shaven, bespectacled, pleasant features arranged in a smile. It was not Madrigal.

  The door to the apartment suddenly crashed inward behind them. The other gunman spun round but before he could open fire he was cut down by a hail of bullets. The lead gunman was still trying to decide whether he should shoot at the podium when a burst of automatic fire ended his deliberations for good.

  Three men quickly worked their way through the remainder of the apartment to confirm that there were no more assassins. A fourth man walked to the window and looked down on the podium to ensure no one had been alerted by the gunfire. Once they were satisfied everything was as it should be, he took out a cell phone and dialled a number to make his report. A few moments later, Luis Madrigal entered the apartment to examine the scene first-hand. After a cursory look around the main room he examined each of the assassins. Grabbing a handful of hair, he pulled their heads back to get a good look at them.

  “Know them?” he asked one of the men.

  “No but we’ve taken photos, it won’t take long to identify them.”

  “Okay, clean this up and I’ll see you back at the house tomorrow morning.” He headed for the door. “I’d better get down there before the floats start arriving. And tell Marco he’ll have to wait at least another year to judge the competition.”

  “Watch our later bulletins to hear more on that story. Now, during its initial stages, Plan Coca received unqualified pra
ise, mostly due to what was perceived as its positive impact on drug consumption within the US,” began Sandra Whittaker. “Recently, however, in addition to the difficulties the Plan faces in Colombia, negative aspects are beginning to surface at home. We’re going to go to New York now, for a report on some disturbing developments there.”

  The piece began outside an unexceptional-looking, three-storey building and then moved through its main entrance. As it passed down a dingy, leaky hallway covered in peeling paint, the reporter’s voice explained that this was one of a number of community centres servicing the residents of the deprived Brownsville area of the city. Coming to a stop outside a door with a glass window, the camera peered through to show a room full of people listening to a thin Indian man. Every available seat had been taken and more people stood along the walls, with a few even sitting on the floor in front of the first row of chairs.

  “This is Dilip Patel, a local shopkeeper,” explained the reporter. “Five weeks ago he and a number of other local residents approached the centre’s director and asked if they could hold these meetings.”

  The camera scanned the faces of the attendees. Most were middle-aged and elderly but there were some younger people, too.

  “Dilip and the others,” the report continued, “recognised the challenges facing the locality because of the extreme shortages in the drug supply. They felt it was imperative that there be some venue where members of the community could meet to speak about their concerns and suggest possible solutions.”

  The report switched to footage from an interview with the shopkeeper. First, he was asked who generally attended the meetings.

  “All kinds of people; anyone worried about what we’re living with. There are social workers, local businessmen, off-duty policemen. Mostly, though, it’s just people who live here, who see what’s happening to themselves, their families and friends.”

  He was asked which issues were of most importance to the local residents.

  “The increase in violence. Brownsville’s always been rough but over the last couple of months, it’s gotten so much worse. Hold-ups, break-ins and muggings. No one goes outside unless it’s absolutely necessary. We can’t continue to live like this.”

  The reporter asked him if he had suffered directly himself.

  “I run an electrical store and I’ve been held up four times and broken into five times in the last two months,” came the anguished reply.

  The footage changed briefly, showing various scenes from the area. Some images were mundane – people heading to work or walking their children to school – while others hinted at the economic reality of the area – homeless people pushing shopping carts, groups congregating on stoops sharing a bottle, abandoned buildings guarded by sullen-faced youths. While these were being shown, the reporter explained that besides the incidence of violent crime, the fragile social fabric of neighbourhoods like this was being torn asunder by the drug-related crisis.

  The report switched to a black man in his early twenties who explained what had caused the social strife. The man, a local youth worker, spoke calmly, which only amplified the power of what he was saying.

  “April, the price for half a gram of rock cocaine was ten dollars. A user could get that anywhere and if they tried hard enough they could probably get it cheaper. November, it’s impossible to get the same amount for less than fifty.”

  The reporter asked him to explain how addicts had handled this increase.

  “Well, they would have been totally unprepared. In order to cope they’re being forced to resort to violence to get the cash they need.”

  He was asked whether the majority of these people have a history of violent crime and were simply having to increase their activity level.

  “No, not at all. Of course some have always been violent but most would have survived without going beyond petty crime. Now the number of violent assaults and robberies grows on a daily basis.”

  The reporter asked whether this was an isolated problem, restricted solely to a small area of Brownsville.

  “Isolated?” The young man smiled sardonically. “You think people here don’t got the intelligence to jump on a train if they thought it could solve their problem? You can go to Bed-Stuy or the Bronx or any one of a number of places and you’ll find exactly the same situation.”

  He was asked what the future held.

  “It’s only going to get worse.”

  Once again, there was a new interviewee. This time it was an older man with a kindly face framed in a greying beard and curly hair. The viewer was told that this was Marvin Wilson, the community centre director.

  “We face an impossible situation,” Wilson stated. “All the city’s methadone programmes are oversubscribed, they can’t take no more patients. Addicts gonna be forced into detox as their drugs disappear.”

  Wilson went on to explain that detox was difficult enough when people were mentally prepared and properly supported.

  The reporter came in at this point and asked whether, regrettable as the short-term suffering was, it would not all be for the best in the long run.

  “And in the meantime?” Wilson asked indignantly. “For every one person able to handle cold-turkey, how many can’t? What happens to them, what happens to those around them; family, friends, their children?”

  Wilson had started calmly but his agitation was becoming more visible, his voice less controlled. “And what happens to neighbourhoods like ours?”

  The reporter asked if Wilson thought the authorities had let them down.

  “I don’t blame the police. They’re swamped and they doing their best. But all these reports I see, editorials I read, politicians talking about how the problem is being contained within the drug community, how we’ve just got to ride it out. Well, the problem isn’t contained. Most of the people attending these meetings have never taken drugs in their life.”

  What would it take for those in power to recognise the crisis, he was asked.

  “Do you think poor people the only users? Give it a little longer and you’ll see more price rises and the problems we facing hit the middle class. Then, maybe the politicians will do a little more than tell us to tough it out.”

  The interview with Wilson ended and the reporter wrapped up the report. The newscast then returned to the studio and the immaculately groomed newscaster.

  “Plan Coca, it seems, is facing a difficult two-fronted battle, a battle we’ll be following closely.” Her tone went from grave to cheerful in an instant as she continued, “When we return, Ken will have all the latest sport.”

  seven

  “The operation Tuur described involved experienced people with access to serious finance,” Mesi explained. “Convoluted fund movements, manpower, training facilities, documentation and first-class intelligence. So ... ”

  “These characteristics, combined with the location involved, naturally brought you here,” agreed Tom Hughes helpfully.

  She had not been looking forward to approaching the Central Intelligence Agency. She had envisaged an uphill battle with a faceless bureaucrat who was not remotely interested in her investigation. Stories of Langley’s uncooperativeness were legendary. And who could blame them? Between one scandal and another, it was understandable that they had developed a siege mentality. But Hughes had been a pleasant surprise.

  She had been waiting for less than five minutes outside his office when he had come jogging down the corridor, apologising for the delay. His appearance – mid-forties, average height and reasonably good looking in a weather-beaten outdoors type of way – was totally at odds with her preconceptions. His tousled blond hair and open-necked shirt reminded her of some of the younger, hipper, lecturers who had taught her in college rather than a senior Agency specialist on Central and Southern American affairs. It had taken about an hour for her to take him from the first suspected engagement of the drug war through to her visit to France and Tuur’s statement. Hughes had listened attentively, interrupting her narrative o
nly occasionally, to clarify a particular point or make an observation.

  “I’ve identified eighteen attacks on major Alliance resources throughout Latin America which are being treated as the work of the Kosovars.”

  “And you need to compile a list of people who conform to a very specific profile?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I was thinking people who’ve served in Latin America in either military or intelligence roles. People who could now be working on a contract basis or may even have a vested interest in the final objective.”

  “I’m assuming you’ll leave those copies with me?” he asked, indicating the heavy folder he had on his lap that she had occasionally referred to over the hour. “We’ll compile a list of all known personnel who have worked in one or more of these countries; sort it so that those with most hits are at the top of the list,” he said, flicking through the folder. “Once that’s done, we can try to ascertain as many of their movements as possible from the past couple of years. Another thing we can do is get somebody to go back to all the relevant station reports for the regions for, say, a month before a particular attack to a month after it. See if anything which might be related was mentioned.”

  “That’s great,” she said and then felt compelled to add, “Look, I have to be honest. I’m pretty much on my own at the moment in thinking this idea of third-party orchestration is a real possibility. Everyone else still thinks it’s a straight war between the Kosovars and Madrigal’s Alliance. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  He shook his head dismissively.

  “I think it’s sensible to look at this.” He patted the file. “At the very least we need to be able to eliminate it as a possibility. Besides, even if the Kosovars are wholly responsible, they would still need someone with the kind of background you described.”