“So,” Mohammed said. “When can we commence operations?”
This man is anxious, Ernesto noted. But he would accommodate him. Whatever he managed to accomplish would draw manpower away from America’s counter-smuggling operations, and that was good. The relatively minor cross-border losses he had learned to endure would shrink to even more trivial levels. The street price of cocaine would drop, but demand would increase somewhat, and so there would be no net loss in sales revenue. That would be the tactical profit. More to the point, America would become less interested in Colombia, and shift her focus of intelligence operations elsewhere. That would be his strategic advantage from this endeavor . . .
. . . and he always had the option of sending information to the CIA. Terrorists had appeared unexpectedly in his backyard, he could say, and their operations would be understood to be beyond the pale even for the Cartel. While that would not gain him the affection of America, it would not hurt him, either. And any of his own people who’d provided assistance to the terrorists could be dealt with internally, as it were. The Americans would actually respect that.
So, there was a real upside, and a controllable downside. On the whole, he decided, this had the makings of a valuable and profitable operation.
“Señor Miguel, I will propose this alliance to my colleagues, with my recommendation that we undertake it. You can expect a final decision by the end of this week. Will you remain in Cartagena, or will you be traveling?”
“I prefer not to remain in one place too long. I fly out tomorrow. Pablo can reach me via the Internet with your decision. For the moment, I thank you for a cordial business meeting.”
Ernesto stood and took his guest’s hand. He decided then and there to consider Miguel as a businessman in a similar but not competitive field of endeavor. Not a friend, certainly, but an ally of convenience.
“HOW THE hell did you manage this?” Jack asked.
“Ever hear of a company called INFOSEC?” Rick Bell asked in return.
“Encryption stuff, right?”
“Correct. Information Systems Security Company. The company’s domiciled outside of Seattle. They have the best information-security program there is. Headed by a former deputy head of the Z-Division over at Fort Meade. He and three colleagues set the company up about nine years ago. I’m not sure NSA can crack it, short of brute-forcing it with their new Sun Workstations. Just about every bank in the world uses it, especially the ones in Liechtenstein and the rest of Europe. But there’s a trapdoor in the program.”
“And nobody’s found it?” Buyers of computer programs had learned over the years to have outside experts go over such programs line by line, as a defense against playful software engineers, of which there were far too many.
“Those NSA guys do good code,” Bell responded. “I have no idea what’s in there, but these guys still have their old NSA school ties hanging in the closet, y’know?”
“And Fort Meade listens in, and we get what they dig up when they fax it to Langley,” Jack said. “Anybody at CIA good at tracking money?”
“Not as good as our people.”
“Takes a thief to catch a thief, eh?”
“Helps to know the mind-set of the adversary,” Bell confirmed. “It’s not a large community we’re dealing with here. Hell, we know most of them we’re in the same business, right?”
“And that makes me an additional asset?” Jack asked. He was not a prince under American law, but Europeans still thought in such terms. They’d bow and scrape just to shake his hand, regard him as a promising young man however thick his head might turn out to be, and seek his favor, first because of the possibility he might speak a kind word into the right ear. It was called corruption, of course, or at least the atmosphere for it.
“What did you learn in the White House?” Bell asked.
“A little, I suppose,” Jack responded. Mostly, he’d learned things from Mike Brennan, who’d cordially detested all the diplomatic folderol, to say nothing of the political stuff that happened there every day. Brennan had talked it over with his foreign colleagues often enough, who saw the same things in their own capitals, and who thought much the same of it, from behind the same blank faces when they stood post. It was probably a better way to learn all this stuff than his father had, Jack thought. He hadn’t been forced to learn to swim while struggling not to drown. It was something his father had never spoken about, except when angry at the whole corrupting process.
“Be careful talking to Gerry about it,” said Bell. “He likes to say how clean and upright the trading business is by comparison.”
“Dad really likes the guy. I guess maybe they’re a little alike.”
“No,” Bell corrected, “they’re a lot alike.”
“Hendley got out of politics because of the accident, right?”
Bell nodded. “That’s it. Wait until you have a wife and kids. It’s about the biggest hit a man can take. Even worse than you might think. He had to go and identify the bodies. It wasn’t pretty. Some people would eat a gun after that. But he didn’t. He’d been thinking about a run for the White House himself, thought maybe Wendy would make a good First Lady. Maybe so, but his lust for that job died along with his wife and kids.” He didn’t go further. The senior people at The Campus protected the boss, in reputation at least. They thought him a man who deserved loyalty. There was no considered line of succession at The Campus. Nobody had thought that far forward, and the subject never came up in board meetings. Those were mainly concerned with non-business matters anyway. He wondered if John Patrick Ryan, Jr., would take note of that one blank spot in the makeup of The Campus. “So,” Bell went on, “what do you think so far?”
“I read the transcripts they gave me of what the central bank heads say back and forth to each other. It’s surprising how venal some of that stuff is.” Jack paused. “Oh, yeah, shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”
“Any time you give people control of that much money or power, some corruption is bound to happen. What surprises me is the way their friendships cross national lines. A lot of these guys profit personally when their own currencies are hurt, even if it means a little inconvenience for their fellow citizens. Back in the old-old days, the nobility frequently felt more at ease with foreign nobility than with the people on their own estates who bowed down to the same king. That characteristic hasn’t died yet—at least not over there. Here the big industrialists might work together to lobby Congress, but they don’t often hand freebies to them, and they don’t trade secrets. Conspiracy at that level isn’t impossible, but concealing it for a long time is pretty tough. Too many people, and every one has a mouth. Europe’s getting the same way. There’s nothing the media likes better than a scandal, here or there, and they’d rather clobber a rich crook than a cabinet minister. The latter is often a good source, after all. The former is just a crook.”
“So, how do you keep your people honest?”
It was a good question, Bell thought, and one they worried about all the time, though it wasn’t spoken about much.
“We pay our people pretty well, and everyone here is part of a group investment plan that makes them feel comfortable. The annualized return is about nineteen percent over the last few years.”
“That’s not bad,” Junior understated. “All within the law?”
“That depends on the lawyer you talk to, but no US. Attorney is going to make a big deal about it, and we’re very careful how we manage it. We don’t like greed here. We could turn this place into the biggest thing since Ponzi, but then people would notice. So, we don’t flaunt anything. We make enough to cover our operations and to make sure the troops are well provided for.” They also kept track of the employees’ money, and the trades they made, if any. Most didn’t, though some worked accounts through the office, which, again, was profitable but not greedy. “You’ll give us account numbers and codes to all of your personal finances, and the computers will keep track of them.”
“I have a trust account through Dad, but, it’s managed through an accounting firm in New York. I get a nice allowance, but no access to the principal. What I make on my own is mine alone, however, unless I send it into the CPAs. Then they build it up and send me a statement every quarter. When I turn thirty, I’m allowed to play with it on my own.” Turning thirty was a little distant for young Jack to concern himself about at the moment, however.