Gordian strove to come up with a response. In me end he could only echo his own previous comments.
“It’s behind you now, Julia. You can move on. Let’s be glad for that”
Another significant pause. Gordian heard car boms squalling at the other end of the line. He wished she hadn’t insisted on going to court alone, wished she weren’t driving unaccompanied-not being as distressed as she sounded.
“Better go, traffic’s a mess,” she said. “I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
But it was barely nine o’clock in the rooming, Gordian thought,
“There are quite a few hours between now and then,” he said. “How are you planning to fill diem?”
There was no answer.
He waited, wondering whether she’d beard him.
Then, her tone suddenly brittle: “Did you want a complete schedule?”
Gordian raised his eyebrows, puzzled. His fingers tightened around the receiver.
1 only meant-”
. “Because I can pull over at the nearest Kinko’s and fax something over for your approval.”
Gordian made a gesture of frustration into the empty
18
BIO-STRIKE
pBOom. His stomach went from bad to worse. P>'”J”lia-”
?f “I’m a grown woman,” she interrupted. “I don’t think : you need a full rundown of my comings and goings in J Sawmce.” I |f;.fJulia, hang on-”
|*.-**See you later,” she said.
Ifhe connection broke.
‘ffjKew it, Gordian scolded himself Somehow, you blew it again. ~ .
And try as he did to see where he had gone wrong, he could not. | We simply could not.
iitMany stories below on Rosita Avenue, a street shot past the building as Gordian’s employees to arrive for die commencing workday, but the of its equipment would not have impinged upon |rs thoughts even had it reached the heavy floor-to”Hliog windows of his office. From where he was sit- Iteg, done at his desk, the dead, silent telephone still | Inched in his hand…
|:f||i;From where he was sitting right rtow, die rest of die World seemed immeasurably far away.
19
TWO
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA OCTOBER 15, 2001
IN THE CENTER OF LA PAZ, ON THE MAIN THORoughfare
that descended from the heights to the modern business district, one could look up beyond the rows of exhausted little shacks on the canyon wall to where three of Illimani’s five snow-capped peaks took a great bite out of the Andean sky. It was a sight that none who visited the city could forget, and that even indigenous Aymara Indians, with their blood memories of the Incas as encroaching newcomers, viewed with awe and respect.
The National Police Corps vehicle and its motorcycle escort headed southeast on Avenida Villazon to its wide fork less than a mile past the Universidad Mayor San Andres, then bore left onto Avenida Anicento Arce toward the Zona Sur. Nuzzled deep within the canyon in Calocoto and other suburban neighborhoods, sheltered from the cold sting of high-altitude winds, the city’s affluent lived behind high gates in exaggerated chalets and sprawling, tile-roofed adobe mansions constructed in deliberate imitation of Hollywood cinematic style.
BIO-STRIKE
In the police car’s backseat, the lean, ascetic man in first officer’s dress had ridden most of the way with his eyes downturned, a bony hand on the satchel beside him, his lips moving in a nearly constant whisper. He had looked out the window only twice-the first time, by simple chance, when they had passed Calle Sagarnaga, crammed as always with customers of the Witches’ Market. There at the outdoor vendors’ stalls were charms, potions, powders, and fetuses carved from the wombs of llamas for their alleged luck-bringing properties, their dessicated skin pulled tight over unformed bones, forcing them into contortions that resembled, or perhaps preserved, a state of final agony. There, indigent chola mothers, wearing traditional bowler hats and shawls, walked beside women of means in Parisian and Milanese vogue, a rare mixing of classes in this city, fear or reverence for pre-Christian deities being perhaps all they had in common. There, yatiri witch doctors eyed the crowd for potential clients, estimating their worth in bolivianos or U.S. dollars, cannily deciding how much might be charged to read their fortunes or work fraudulent magic on their behalf.
The car’s single passenger had frowned disapprovingly. He spent much of his time among the poorest of society and knew they reached out to the ancient superstitions in ignorance and desperation. But the moneyed, well-educated elite, what was their reason? Did they think to apportion their faith like cash in separate bank accounts, placing small deposits in each, giving their full trust to no god while hoping to prejudice the will of all?
As his escort had left Calle Sagainaga behind, remaining on the boulevard that traced the subterranean flow of the Choqueyapu River to the city’s outskirts,
21
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
he’d briefly looked out his window again, his eyes going to the slum housing on the face of the mountain. At first glance it seemed an insult to the divine scheme, heaven and hell inverted, those in the bowl of the earth living without need, those on the heights needing for everything. But that was to ignore the more sublime visual message of Illimani in the background: its sharp white peaks at once reminders of God’s soaring majesty and a warning that He had teeth.
Bowing his head again, the passenger addressed his inner preparations for the next thirty minutes, fingers spread atop the satchel, quietly reciting the prescribed lines of verse from memory.
Now his car swung over to the right side of the road, slowed, and turned gently into a circular drive. Ahead and behind, the flanking carabineers throttled down their motorbikes. At the end of the drive he could see the large gray hospital building rising above a handsome lawn with tiled walks, shaded benches, and a glistening multitiered fountain that drizzled off wavery rainbows of sunlight.
The Hospital de Gracia was the newest and best- equipped medical facility in Bolivia. The physicians recruited for its staff held model credentials. Like the luxurious homes in its surrounding neighborhood, it had been built and financed with money from the illicit cocaine trade and was affordable only to those of high status and privilege.
How ironic, then, that the patient admitted under absolute secrecy ten days ago had vowed before the nation to eradicate the cartels and to apprehend and prosecute the mysterious foreigner called El Tio, who had unified
them in his recent ascendancy.
” 22
BIO-STRIKE
The man in the officiates uniform plunged deeper into his recitation, his lips fitting comfortably around the Latin.
“Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis, et omnes ini- qultates meaas dele …”
Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities…
“Cor mundum crea in me, Deus, et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis…”
Create a clean heart in me, oh God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels …
“Ne proicias me a facie tua, et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a mei.”
Cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy spirit from me.
The motorcade pulled into a wide space that had been left vacant in front of the hospital’s main entrance, the carabineers lowering their kickstands to dismount. One of the lead riders came around back and opened the door for the passenger. Lifting his satchel off the seat by its strap, he let himself be helped from the car. He could almost feel the eyes watching from other vehicles around the parking area, peering at him through tinted windows.
It was to be expected, he thought. There would be a great many secret police.
He climbed the stairs to the hospital entrance with his head still slightly bent and the carabineers on either side of him, sensing their unease as he continued giving whispered utterance to Psalm 50, the Miserere, one of the preliminary invocations for the dying.
“Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus.”
Deliver me from blood, oh God.
A somber delegation of hospital officials and white23
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
coated doctors met the visitors in the lobby and guided them toward the elevator bank with a minimum of formalities. A pair of soldiers in gray green fatigues were posted at the head of the corridor. They held submachine guns and wore the insignia of the Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotrafico, the military’s elite antinarcotics task force.
The soldiers hastily checked the small group’s identification papers and motioned them into an elevator. A third FELCN guard stood at the control panel. He pressed a lighted button, and they hurtled up three floors.
Moments later, the elevator doors reopened, and they started toward the intensive care ward.
Humberto Marquez, the vice-president-elect, was waiting in an anteroom. He stepped toward the man in the officer’s uniform and gave him a firm handshake.
“I thank you for your swift response to our summons,” he said. “And for your tolerance of the rather unusual security measures we’ve had to adopt in bringing you here.”