Hooker declined. “Félix Cortez.” The CIA officer handed over a Xerox of the telex. Portions of it had been blacked out, of course. Burke didn’t take offense at this. As a member of the Intelligence Division, charged with catching spies, he was accustomed to “need-to-know.”
“You’re assuming that it’s Cortez,” the FBI agent pointed out. Then he smiled. “But I wouldn’t bet against you. If we had a picture of this clown, we’d stand a fair chance of bagging him. As it is…” A sigh. “I’ll put people at Dulles, National, and BWI. We’ll try, but you can guess what the odds are.” If the Agency had gotten a photo of this mutt while he was in the field – or while he was at the KGB Academy – it would make our job a hell of a lot easier… “I’ll assume that he’s coming in over the next four days. We’ll check all flights directly in from down there, and all connecting flights.”
The problem was more one of mathematics than anything. The number of direct flights from Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and other nearby countries directly into the D.C. area was quite modest and easy to cover. But if the subject made a connecting flight through Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Mexico, or any number of other cities, including American ones, the number of possible connections increased by a factor of ten. If he made one more intermediary stop in the United States, the number of possible flights for the FBI to monitor took a sudden jump into the hundreds. Cortez was a KGB-trained pro, and he knew that fact as well as these two men did. The task wasn’t a hopeless one. Police play for breaks all the time, because even the most skilled adversaries get careless or unlucky. But that was the game here. Their only real hope was a lucky break.
Which they would not get. Cortez caught an Avianca flight to Mexico City, then an American Airlines flight to Dallas-Fort Worth, where he cleared customs and made yet another American connection to New York City. He checked into the St. Moritz Hotel on Central Park South. By this time it was three in the morning, and he needed some rest. He left a wakeup call for ten and asked the concierge to have him a first-class ticket for the eleven o’clock Metroliner into Union Station, Washington, D.C. The Metroliners, he knew, had their own phones. He’d be able to call ahead if something went wrong. Or maybe… no, he decided, he didn’t want to call her at work; surely the FBI tapped its own phones. The last thing Cortez did before collapsing onto the bed was to shred his plane-ticket receipts and the baggage tags on his luggage.
The phone awoke him at 9:56. Almost seven hours’ sleep, he thought. It seemed like only a few seconds, but there was no time to dawdle. Half an hour later he appeared at the desk, tossed in his express check-out form, and collected his train ticket. The usual Manhattan midtown traffic nearly caused him to miss the train, but he made it, taking a seat in the last row of the three-across club-car smoking section. A smiling, red-vested attendant started him off with decaffeinated coffee and a copy of USA Today, followed by a breakfast that was no different – though a little warmer – from what he’d have gotten on an airliner. By the time the train stopped in Philadelphia, he was back asleep. Cortez figured that he’d need his rest. The attendant noted the smile on his sleeping face as he collected the breakfast tray and wondered what dreams passed through the passenger’s head.
At one o’clock, while Metroliner 111 approached Baltimore, the TV lights were switched on in the White House Press Room. The reporters had already been prepped with a “deep background, not for attribution” briefing that there would be a major announcement from the Attorney General, and that it would have something to do with drugs. The major networks did not interrupt their afternoon soap operas – it was no small thing to cut away from “The Young and the Restless” – but CNN, as usual, put up their “Special Report” graphic. This was noticed at once by the intelligence watch officers in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, each of whom had a TV on his desk tuned into CNN. That was perhaps the most eloquent comment possible on the ability of America’s intelligence agencies to keep its government informed, but one on which the major networks, for obvious reasons, had never commented.
The Attorney General strode haltingly toward the lectern. For all his experience as a lawyer, he was not an effective public speaker. You didn’t need to be if your practice was corporate law and political campaigning. He was, however, photogenic and a sharp dresser, and always good for a leak on a slow news day, which explained his popularity with the media.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, fumbling with his notes. “You will soon be getting handouts concerning Operation TARPON. This represents the most effective operation to date against the international drug cartel.” He looked up, trying to see the reporters’ faces past the glare of the lights.
“Investigation by the Department of Justice, led by the FBI, has identified a number of bank accounts both in the United States and elsewhere which were being used for money-laundering on an unprecedented scale. These accounts range over twenty-nine banks from Liechtenstein to California, and their deposits exceed, at our current estimates, over six hundred fifty million dollars.” He looked up again as he heard a Goddamn! from the assembled multitude. That elicited a smile. It was never easy to impress the White House press corps. The autowind cameras were really churning away now.
“In cooperation with six foreign governments, we have initiated the necessary steps to seize all of those funds, and also to seize eight real-estate joint-venture investments here in the United States which were the primary agency in the actual laundering operation. This is being done under the RICO – the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization – statute. I should emphasize on that point that the real-estate ventures involve the holdings of many innocent investors; their holdings will not – I repeat not – be affected in any way by the government’s action. They were used as dupes by the Cartel, and they will not be harmed by these seizures.”
“Excuse me,” Associated Press interrupted. “You did say six hundred fifty million dollars?”
“That is correct, more than half a billion dollars.” The AG described generally how the information had been found, but not the way in which the first lead had been obtained, nor the precise mechanisms used to track the money. “As you know, we have treaties with several foreign governments to cover cases such as this. Those funds identified as drug-related and deposited in foreign banks will be confiscated by the governments in question. In Swiss accounts, for example, are approximately…” He checked his notes again. “It looks like two hundred thirty-seven million dollars, all of which now belongs to the Swiss government.”
“What’s our take?” The Washington Post asked.
“We don’t know yet. It’s difficult to describe the complexity of this operation – just the accounting is going to keep us busy for weeks.”
“What about cooperation from the foreign governments?” another reporter wanted to know.
You gotta be kidding, the journalist next to him thought.
“The cooperation we’ve received on this case is simply outstanding.” The Attorney General beamed. “Our friends overseas have moved with dispatch and professionalism.”
Not every day you can steal this much money and call it something for the Public Good, the quiet journalist told herself.
CNN is a worldwide service. The broadcast was monitored in Colombia by two men whose job it was to keep track of the American news media. They were journalists themselves, in fact, who worked for the Colombian TV network, Inravision. One of them excused himself from the control room and made a telephone call before returning.
Tony and his partner had just come back on duty in the van, and there was a telex clipped to the wall, telling them to expect some activity on the cellular-phone circuits at about 1800 Zulu time. They weren’t disappointed.
“Can we talk to Director Jacobs about this?” a reporter asked. “Director Jacobs is taking a personal interest in the case, but is not available for comment,” the AG answered. “You’ll be able to talk to him next week, but at the moment he and his team are all pretty busy.” That didn’t break any rules. It gave the impression that Emil was in town, and the reporters, recognizing exactly what the Attorney General had said and how he had said it, collectively decided to let it slide. It fact, Emil had taken off from Andrews Air Force Base twenty-five minutes earlier.
“Madre de Dios!” Escobedo observed. The meeting had barely gotten past the usual social pleasantries so necessary for a conference of cutthroats. All the members of the Cartel were in the same room, which happened rarely enough. Even though the building was surrounded with a literal wall of security people, they were nervous about their safety. The building had a satellite dish on the roof, and this was immediately tuned in to CNN. What was supposed to have been a discussion of unexpected happenings in their smuggling operations was suddenly sidetracked onto something far more troubling. It was especially troubling for Escobedo, moreover, since he’d been one of the three Cartel members who had urged this money-laundering scheme on his colleagues. Though all had complimented him on the efficiency of the arrangement over the last two years, the looks he was getting now were somewhat less supportive. “There is nothing we can do?” one asked.