by David Graham
Larsen, which she had learned was her companion’s name at some point or other during the night, had insisted they needed to see Wallace as soon as possible. She had been so preoccupied that his explanation as to why this was necessary hardly registered. Wallace had been in Washington the previous night as it turned out and when Larsen contacted him, they had agreed to meet at a property he owned in Charleston. The location was close enough for them to drive and afforded more security than DC. When they had arrived at his estate, they were informed that he was expected presently and shown to a reception room to wait.
They both sank into deep armchairs and waited in silence.
When Wallace arrived forty minutes later, Mesi was taken aback. When she had been researching him, she had come across numerous archived photographs. The consistent impression had been of a man who still possessed an enormous amount of charisma and vitality despite his age. There had been a palpable sense of power emanating from the images and she had considered him some kind of latter-day Caesar. In the flesh, he was far thinner than even the most recent pictures and looked tired. He approached Larsen, who remained seated, then slowed and halted a few paces away, his awkwardness evident.
“Until yesterday, I’d thought you were dead.”
“Almost.”
He nodded.
“I had no way of finding you ... Brewer ...”
Wallace hesitated and looked at Mesi. Larsen had mentioned her when he had called and said they would be able to talk freely as she knew virtually everything anyway. It had occurred to him that the mercenary might have turned and needed him to incriminate himself but he had decided that if this was the case, it was nothing more than he deserved. The way he had deserted Larsen justified any subsequent betrayal.
“We need to discuss how we’re going to fix things,” Larsen said.
“In what way?” He spread his hands and Mesi could see he wasn’t sure what Larsen meant.
“We were infiltrated, I suspect from the start,” explained Larsen. “We’ll probably never be able to ask him but I’m certain it was Brewer, there aren’t really any other candidates.”
Mesi watched Wallace struggle to digest what he was being told. His lack of acknowledgement at her presence angered her. Thoughts of Tom receded for the moment. The man ultimately responsible for everything that had occupied her since Mexico was standing right in front of her.
“What are you talking about?” he asked Larsen.
“In the last few months, you’d started to worry about the knock-on effects of what we were doing. I dismissed them as the noises of someone losing their stomach for what was necessary,” Larsen replied. “But since Cartagena, I’ve gone back over it. The longer I spent, the more I saw how valid your concerns were. What looked, at first, to be merely a coincidence or two, started to seem deliberate.”
“No, you’re wrong. We tried to do too much. It simply couldn’t work. There were too many variables outside our control. There was no deliberate sabotage!”
She could see that despite his words he was experiencing the same mounting sense of apprehension she had gone through herself only the previous night.
“I’ll explain the ‘why’ in a moment,” Larsen continued, as if Wallace had not even spoken. “As far as ‘how’ goes, in hindsight, Brewer had too much influence, acting as he did as the conduit between us. I should’ve seen that.”
“You’re wrong; Brewer did precisely what he was told, no more, no less. He followed directions,” Wallace protested.
“That’s not so. He worked with you from the start, refining your original vision, and he collaborated with me on individual missions. He had a significant say in the methods we used and the schedule we followed. It’s easy now to see how he used that to maximum effect; to subvert the entire project. I underestimated him.” Larsen’s annoyance with himself was evident. “Really, when you consider it, he had the most effective position – he was so involved, interacted so much with both of us, that we never thought to suspect him.”
“How could he, the two of us were there every step of the way?”
“I was always primarily focused on the next task to hand and you were only too happy to defer to him because it gave you a comfortable distance. Think about it, how often would he suggest a small, plausible alteration which you just accepted?”
Wallace tried to interrupt but Larsen held up a hand cutting him off.
“If he had done anything drastic we’d have noticed, but he was careful. The cumulative effect of all his inputs, though, of all his minor suggestions, was to render it as much his creation as yours. Or rather that of whoever was pulling his strings.”
“You’re saying he was working for someone else?”
“Only because this goes way beyond Brewer’s capabilities. I’d say he brought your proposal to someone almost as soon as you’d finished your initial approach.”
“What do you base that on?”
“Hindsight. It was naive to believe he’d go along, considering his vested interests and allegiances in Latin America. What you were proposing would have shattered the status quo and thrown all that into jeopardy.”
“You’re sure about this?” was all Wallace could manage while he tried to keep up with what he was being told.
“I’m sure I was set up. Who else could it be? I did briefly consider the possibility that you might’ve sold me out, that you had asked for someone to help bail you out.”
Wallace stared to protest.
“It’s okay, I know that wasn’t it. Wider events consistently fell a particular way, moving towards an outcome which you’d never have condoned. Of course, the smart thing to do, once I’d seen that, would have been to walk away, instead here we are. Stupid.”
Mesi could see that Wallace was struggling with the same problems she and Larsen had. As difficult as it had been for her to get her head around the breadth of the impact of Hughes’ subversion of Wallace’s plan, it would be even more difficult for Wallace himself. As the initiator of the strategy and suspecting what she did of his motivation, the hardest part would surely have been the suffering the conflict had caused to innocents. Wallace must have expected some collateral damage but would he view these revelations as a way of trying to absolve himself of some of the responsibility?
“You know,” the Dane continued. “It only occurred to me recently that the two of us watched one unintended legacy of the initiative. We even discussed it in passing but we never thought to question it.”
Mesi could see Wallace trying to figure it out and Larsen deliberately letting the other man do the work himself. She guessed it would be easier to convince Wallace that way.
“Were we used to destabilise Plan Coca?” Wallace asked hesitatingly.
“Among other things.”
“What other things?” he asked, his fear evident.
“The combined effect of the Plan and what we did was used to reconstruct the power structure within the Colombian drug industry. The ELN and FARC have been almost wiped out.”
“That’s hardly a travesty; it was one of the Plan’s aims!” Wallace interrupted, his voice strained.
“Plan Coca’s official remit stated one of its main objectives as wresting control of the drug-producing territories from the Marxist rebels. Without these territories, the rebels would have found it impossible to survive,” the Dane replied calmly.
“Precisely,” Wallace shot back.
“But it wasn’t intended for seventy per cent of the rebels to be murdered by death squads. And it certainly wasn’t part of Plan Coca’s remit for the territories to be then handed over to these same death squads, so that they could resume production.”
“How could what we were doing have had any bearing on that?”
“We cut off the rebels’ cash-flow. We hurt the cartels so badly that they couldn’t or weren’t willing to extend the money that the rebels needed to fight back effectively.”
“So we helped replace one element with another? That’s not
something to be pleased about, but ultimately I can’t feel too much grief for the rebels. They made a living off the drug crops for years, at innocent people’s expense.”
During the exchange Mesi’s anger had been building and with Wallace’s last rationalisation it skyrocketed. His conceit was beyond belief. Some of what Larsen was saying was new to her but she believed him. It all tied in and it was clear the mercenary derived no satisfaction from any of it. He was explaining what he believed to be the hard truth and all Wallace was concerned with was mitigating his own culpability.
“The territories were only the first part of a chain,” Larsen continued. “The next objective was to seize control of the Alliance from an uncooperative leader. Everything else, from due process to straightforward assassination attempts, had failed, so, there was only one alternative left.”
“Weaken the Alliance to the point where Madrigal is undermined,” Mesi cut in, “to the point where he’s ready to be forced out. Of course, it requires that a more suitable replacement be standing by.”
“Considering everything else they’ve achieved, that’s got to be comparatively easy,” Larsen offered.
“You’re crazy. No one could have arranged all that, tied it all together,” Wallace argued.
Mesi guessed Wallace was starting to believe otherwise, despite his protestations.
“Someone could and someone did. Ask yourself why I’d lie. If I wanted something from you, there are easier ways.”
The matter-of-fact tone of Larsen’s declaration completed the process. Wallace sunk down slowly onto a couch. Mesi saw the progression from bewilderment to slow recognition and finally despair. He looked old and frail sitting there, trying to come to terms with it all.
“That’s it,” Larsen concluded. “Control of the crops, the apparatus to produce and ship the refined drugs, all combined with the elimination of any threat from further US military intervention. Get ready for a drugs boom that’s going to make what went before pale in comparison.”
“There might be one more thing,” Mesi said.
Larsen turned to her. “What’s that?”
“There are three oil pipelines in Colombia which FARC had been extorting. Lobbyists for the oil companies had complained and asked the administration for protection. Some ground forces were dispatched and it looked like they were getting the situation under control. Now they’ll probably be pulled out along with Plan Coca.”
“The pipelines. You’re right, I never even considered those and it doesn’t matter that the troops assigned aren’t there under the Plan’s aegis. US troop deployment in Colombia is too sensitive an issue right now,” Larsen agreed. “So, the odds are that the oil companies will begin to have problems again. This time, though, they’ll find themselves dealing with right-wing death squads who can operate with impunity. Quite a nice sideline, extorting multinationals.”
He stared at the subdued Wallace then looked back to her.
“The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
Wallace remained motionless on the couch, giving no indication that he was ready to continue. After a little while, Mesi stood up and said she was going outside for some air. The atmosphere in the room was suffocating. Larsen remained slumped in his armchair and, taking the container from his jacket, popped a few more pills.
Larsen was feeling the strain of the last few days. It had been over three months since the ambush in Cartagena but he was nowhere near fully recovered. How he had managed to make it back to the marina was still something of a mystery to him. Through a combination of first floating and later crawling, it had taken most of the night. One agonising yard at a time. He had almost been discovered on more than one occasion, the closest call being when a couple of police officers patrolling the tourist area of the waterfront spotted his prone figure in the distance. They had satisfied themselves with shouting a few derisive remarks, dismissing him as another partier who had overindulged. If he had not been discovered on his boat by a member of the assault team who had arrived to link up with him, he would not have survived. The team arranged medical treatment for him and in return he ensured they were paid in full despite the aborted mission. During his recuperation he had puzzled over why Brewer would have gone ahead and arranged for the team to travel to Cartagena. It didn’t make sense if he had intended for Larsen to be dead by that stage anyway. Was he covering himself in case Larsen evaded the ambush, building a plausible way to refute the accusation of betrayal? Or had someone else arranged for the ambush and been either unaware of their arrival or perhaps simply too complacent? He would probably never know.
He had been told that the physical effects of the ambush would take a long time to get over and that he must avoid stressing himself too soon. He had taken as much time as he could until, seeing where events in Colombia were headed, he had to move.
The vigil outside Wallace’s house in DC illustrated how stumped he had been in relation to where he should start. He didn’t know where Brewer was or who he was working with and he had no idea how he could go about finding out. He had hoped that somehow Wallace might provide the answers. He had only started his stakeout the previous night and luckily he was in time to see Mesi. More than once during the drive to Charleston he had considered what would have happened had he arrived even one day later. Mesi would be dead and they would have no clue of Hughes’ involvement. Coincidence could be a powerful force.
Despite Mesi’s certainty regarding Hughes’ preeminence in the affair, Larsen was not so sure. Perhaps he was the man pulling all the strings, or he might just be a cog in a larger machine, nonetheless his existence and his manipulation of Mesi meant Larsen had a hook into the enemy. His rage was the only thing keeping him going. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a year. He was done, drained physically and mentally, but rage transcended all of it. Whether Wallace’s plan would have succeeded without outside interference was impossible to say; perhaps not but that was not the issue. Once again, his actions had been taken and used to fulfil an agenda he had no knowledge of. All he had wanted was one last opportunity, something to believe in, and they, whoever ‘they’ were, had perverted that. This time, they would be disabused of any notions that they were untouchable. One way or another, he was going to face them and make them answer. He wished there had been some way to thwart their plans regarding control of Colombia’s drugs – that would have been satisfying – but it was surely too late.
He looked at the almost catatonic Wallace, sitting across from him. For a long time since their last meeting, he had been angry at Wallace for his apparent weakness. He couldn’t understand how the billionaire could have countenanced just giving up. He really had wondered, while he was recovering, if the ambush had not been Wallace’s attempt to rid himself of the irksome gun-for-hire but he saw things more clearly now. Wallace was never the man Larsen had wanted him to be and that was no one but the Dane’s fault. He had wanted some paragon leading a righteous crusade which he would be able to enlist in. Instead Wallace was just as flawed as anyone else and when he had seen his plans go terribly awry he had, understandably, faltered.
Mesi walked back into the room fifteen minutes later, more animated.
“We can still stop him!” she stated.
Larsen looked at her questioningly.
“Hughes,” she said. “We can still stop him getting what he wants.”
The remark roused Wallace. “Who is this Hughes?”
“The person behind the attempt to oust Madrigal and seize the territories.”
“We’re not sure of that,” Larsen corrected her. “He could know next to nothing. He might just be following orders.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “But whether I’m right or not, it doesn’t change what I’m saying. We can stop what’s being attempted.”
“What are you talking about?’ Wallace asked. “It’s already too late. What can any of us do to stop it?”
“We can do the one thing that’ll jeopardis
e everything they’re attempting. We can provide proof of what they’ve done to Madrigal. He may be weakened but I’d be willing to bet that he could still make a fight of it.”
Wallace rose quickly from his seat, eyes wide. “I thought he was finished.”
“Not quite. Given the right help, who knows?”
“You’re suggesting we throw him a lifeline? The culmination to all this is to attempt to save the most successful drug lord the world’s ever seen?”
“Actually, it’s probably the best option available,” Larsen interjected, clearly seeing the possibilities and warming to her proposal. “At least this way we ensure all the control doesn’t reside with the same party. Yes, we know what Madrigal is but can you suggest another way?”
“No. No, no, no.”
At first she thought briefly that Wallace was agreeing that there was no other option, but as his voice rose and he became more agitated, she saw he was objecting to her suggestion. Mesi lost her temper. She had spent weeks in the hospital, her career was in tatters and her personal life in ruins. There had been two attempts on her life and, whatever Hughes had done, it was Wallace’s vendetta that had been the root cause. “What makes you think you have the right to object?’ she spat. “I’m not an advocate for Madrigal but you’ve certainly given up any right you have to judge him.”
“That’s not fair,” Wallace protested. “Maybe what I did was misguided and I’ll have to live with my mistakes but I was trying to do right. If there hadn’t been interference it might have worked. You don’t know.”
