Chapter 22
San Pablo del Montana, Colombia, August 1999
Carlos Borrodo slammed his fist down on the table rattling the assorted ashtrays and glasses to the point of destruction. Apart from his brother Fernando, who no one had ever seen lose his temper, none of the four other men sat around the table in the managers office would meet his eyes.
Carlos was only of medium height for a Colombian at five feet eight inches, but it was his girth that was impressive. A look at his brother showed you what the man’s true build should be, heavier than normal, but all muscle like a well developed weight lifter. In Carlos's case the muscle was there, but was supplemented by many kilos of fat. Nature had also decided to take most of his hair before he was thirty and the overall impression was of a malignant Buddha.
Carlos was excessive in all things. He ate enough for two or three people at each meal, smoked eighty a day of the black tobacco cigarettes he favoured, drank American bourbon in great quantities and kept the local whorehouse very busy at least four nights a week. He was also married with a wife and two children, but they were rarely seen outside of the large villa the two brothers shared. He glared around the table at which they were all sitting, squinting through the blue smoke that was drifting up across his face from the cigarette held clamped between his fleshy lips.
Fernando was as calm as always. It was the same calmness he had shown all through a career of terrorism and violence throughout South America. Before the Cartel had given him his chance here in Colombia the oppressive regimes of several South American republics could have identified him under a number of different names. Names he'd had when he had organised various death squads to relieve those regimes of those of their citizens who insisted that all men were born equal and deserved the same rights. He and Carlos were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people long before they entered their current occupations, but that paled before the carnage and misery they now caused as the angels of death of the Cocaine business. Not that it bothered either of them overmuch. Business was business, but at the moment someone was fucking that business about and Carlos was predictably ferocious.
"I say some bastard has talked. We have never lost a load at a pickup before, the system is foolproof." He glared around again. "Two patrol boats were waiting for them pretending to be fishing boats. They had to know something was going on. I tell you they were waiting for them and why?" His fist crashed down on the table. "Someone has shot his mouth off."
Spittle flew across the table. Fernando Borrodo's voice cut in, deceptively smooth and well modulated and without any of the overt display of temper that his brother was showing.
"Martin, you are in charge of distribution. What do you think happened?"
Although he had been waiting for the question since the meeting started, Torres felt the sweat start up in his armpits and on his forehead. From the corner of his eyes he saw the other three lieutenants relax as the spotlight left them for the moment. He deliberately waited before answering, taking his time to show he was giving a rational and considered response. It was a response he had been working on since he had sent the message through to the satellite.
"I think we should look at all aspects of this logically and unemotionally." He ignored the venomous look that Carlos shot at him and carried on speaking clearly and levelly. "There are at least three possibilities."
He held up three fingers and ticked of each item as he came to it.
"Firstly, we have to accept that the Spanish authorities keep those boats there to do exactly what they did the other night, to intercept drug runners. It is natural that they should pretend to be trawlers. If they went racing about all over the place at full speed, everyone would know that they were fast pursuit craft and they would never catch anyone."
He shrugged.
"It could be that the pick up boat got careless and itself came into the area at full speed before stopping to make the lift. That would alert any radar operator looking for something out of the ordinary, not many work boats can travel at over fifty knots!"
He tapped the second finger. He had stopped sweating now and his confidence was returning.
"Secondly, one of us may have got careless. There may well be someone working for us who is in the pay of the Americans. After all, we employ over five hundred people and they all have families. Maybe it is one of the soldiers. It is not beyond possibility that two of us have discussed the operation in front of them. You get so used to them being around that you almost forget they are there half of the time."
"That is horse shit you peon!"
Carlos was almost exploding with his anger. He hated any criticism of him or his soldiers and from the look on his face he would gladly have killed Torres there and then. He mashed his cigarette out on the table, ignoring the ashtray and turned to face his brother.
"My soldiers are fucking reliable. Why should they report to the Americans when they are so well paid? Besides, how would they know how important a set of co-ordinates are?" He turned back, pointing to Torres. "He is talking horse shit I tell you."
"Keep quiet, Carlos."
It was said mildly enough, but its effect on Carlos Borrodo was electric. It never failed to amaze Torres how great a control Fernando exercised over his twin brother. Although he allowed and even encouraged him in his violence and his grossness, he could stop him dead with just a word. He turned to Torres and addressed him in the same mild manner.
"Carry on, Martin. What is the third possibility?"
Torres paused for several seconds before he answered, staring down at his interlaced fingers before he lifted his head and said evenly.
"The third possibility is that someone around this table told them exactly what the co-ordinates were going to be."
There, it was out, the big lie, the double bluff, the cat among the pidgins, the fox in the hen house. Would it work or before the night was out would he find himself tied to a tree in the forest along with the rest of his family. He looked around the table. The other three lieutenants wore their fear visibly. Faces pale and sweating, heads shaking in voiceless denial that this could be possible. Only Carlos looked pleased. Torres could well imagine that it was a theory that would please him, as he would always prefer to believe in betrayal rather than just bad luck or planning. It was in the nature of the man and it would give him something to get his teeth into. He would enjoy investigating this idea. Only Fernando Borrodo still wore the same unchanged expression.
"Tell me, Martin, not that I say you are wrong, but tell me, why should any of us do that."
Again there was a deceptive gentleness of the question. Torres looked him straight in the eye.
"Well, Jefe, I can think of two reasons. Firstly for the money and a visa to the United State of America, many men dream of being an American millionaire and screwing all those blonde surfing girls in the back of their stretch limousines."
He continued to look squarely at Fernando.
"Secondly, revenge. This is South America where blood ties are strong and vendetta is almost a way of life. Perhaps sometime when we have punished severely we have not managed to get everyone in the family."
There was now no turning back. His betrayal would sooner or later cost him his life, of that he was sure, but when that happened he wanted to be sure they knew why. Fernando nodded.
"A good theory and something to keep Carlos busy for a few days. Lets get on with something else."
He smiled around the table where the rest of them could be seen desperately trying to remembered any relationship, however tenuous, they might have had with the Morrel's or any others who had been liquidated over the years. They shot poisonous glances at Torres who had put everyone at risk with his stupid ideas, but they did not realise that by doing so he had significantly reduced the risk to himself.
"When will the runway extension be completed, Martin?"
"In another month, Jefe. We have run short of dynamite and it has been difficult obtaining enough of it here in Colomb
ia. That means we have had to go outside for it and on your instructions when we do that it has to be purchased through a third party, and that causes delays I'm afraid."
"Why did we run out in the first place?"
"The fool of a geologist was wrong about the rock we would find once we had blasted the surface layers away. Underneath we have struck iron rock and that takes at least three times as much dynamite as even granite."
"Martin, have we paid this geologist?"
"Of course not, Jefe."
Fernando nodded, pleased. One did not pay for rubbish work. Not if one was Fernando Borrodo.
"In that case let us get on with the arrangements for a replacement cargo for the one that was lost."
Torres and the others relaxed, as the danger seemed to have subsided for the moment although all of them were aware that it could return just as quickly. They returned to the agenda also aware of the simmering angry presence Carlos Borrodo and the investigations into their activities and connections that he would be planning. Under their breaths the other lieutenants were cursing Torres for an arse-licking peon.
Cocaine Page 23
