“All that, and he can kill people on his own hook,” Hendley agreed.
“That’s why I like his looks, Gerry. He can make decisions in the saddle, like a guy ten years older.”
“Brother act. Interesting,” Hendley observed, eyes on the folders again.
“Maybe breeding tells. Grandfather was a homicide cop, after all.”
“And before that in the 101st Airborne. I see your point, Tom. Okay. Sound them both out soon. We’re going to be busy soon.”
“Think so?”
“It’s not getting any better out there.” Hendley waved at the window.
THEY WERE at a sidewalk café in Vienna. The nights were turning less cold, and the patrons of the establishment were enduring the chill to enjoy a meal on the wide sidewalk.
“So, what is your interest with us?” Pablo asked.
“There is a confluence of interests between us,” Mohammed answered, then clarified: “We share enemies.”
He gazed off. The women passing by were dressed in the formal, almost severe local fashion, and the traffic noise, especially the electric trams, made it impossible for anyone to listen in on their conversation. To the casual, or even the professional, observer, these were simply two men from other countries—and there were a lot of them in this imperial city talking business in a quiet and amiable fashion. They were speaking in English, which was also not unusual.
“Yes, that is the truth,” Pablo had to agree. “The enemies part, that is. What of the interests?”
“You have assets for which we have use. We have assets for which you have use,” the Muslim explained patiently.
“I see.” Pablo added cream to his coffee and stirred. To his surprise, the coffee here was as good as in his own country.
He’d be slow to reach an agreement, Mohammed expected. His guest was not as senior as he would have preferred. But the enemy they shared had enjoyed greater success against Pablo’s organization than his own. It continued to surprise him. They had ample reason to employ effective security measures, but as with all monetarily motivated people they lacked the purity of purpose that his own colleagues exercised. And from that fact came their higher vulnerability. But Mohammed was not so foolish as to assume that made them his inferiors. Killing one Israeli spy didn’t make him Superman, after all. Clearly they had ample expertise. It just had limits. As his own people had limits. As everyone but Allah Himself had limits. In that knowledge came more realistic expectations, and gentler disappointments when things went badly. One could not allow emotions to get in the way of “business,” as his guest would have misidentified his Holy Cause. But he was dealing with an unbeliever, and allowances had to be made.
“What can you offer us?” Pablo asked, displaying his greed, much as Mohammed had expected.
“You need to establish a reliable network in Europe, correct?”
“Yes, we do.” They’d had a little trouble of late. European police agencies were not as restrained as the American sort.
“We have such a network.” And since Muslims were not thought to be active in the drug trade—drug dealers often lost their heads in Saudi Arabia, for example—so much the better.
“In return for what?”
“You have a highly successful network in America, and you have reason to dislike America, do you not?”
“That is so,” Pablo agreed. Colombia was starting to make progress with the Cartel’s uneasy ideological allies in the mountains of Pablo’s home country. Sooner or later, the FARC would cave in to the pressure and then, doubtless, turn on their “friends”—really “associates” was a loose enough word—as their price of admission to the democratic process. At that time, the security of the Cartel might be seriously threatened. Political instability was their best friend in South America, but that might not last forever. The same was true of his host, Pablo considered, and that did make them allies of convenience. “Precisely what services would you require of us?”
Mohammed told him. He didn’t add that no money would be exchanged for the Cartel’s service. The first shipment that Mohammed’s people shepherded into—Greece? Yes, that would probably be the easiest—would be sufficient to seal the venture, wouldn’t it?
“That is all?”
“My friend, more than anything else we trade in ideas, not physical objects. The few material items we need are quite compact, and can be obtained locally if necessary. And I have no doubt that you can help with travel documents.”
Pablo nearly choked on his coffee. “Yes, that is easily done.”
“So, is there any reason why this alliance cannot be struck?”
“I must discuss it with my superiors,” Pablo cautioned, “but on the surface I see no reason why our interests should be in conflict.”
“Excellent. How may we communicate further?”
“My boss prefers to meet those with whom he does business.” Mohammed thought that over. Travel made him and his associates nervous, but there was no avoiding it. And he did have enough passports to see him through the airports of the world. And he also had the necessary language skills. His education at Cambridge had not been wasted. He could thank his parents for that. And he blessed his English mother for her gift of complexion and blue eyes. Truly he could pass for a native of any country outside of China and Africa. The remains of a Cambridge accent didn’t hurt, either.
“You need merely tell me the time and the place,” Mohammed replied. He handed over his business card. It had his e-mail address, the most useful tool for covert communications ever invented. And with the miracle of modern air travel, he could be anywhere on the globe in forty-eight hours.
CHAPTER 2
JOINING UP
HE CAME in at a quarter to five. Anyone who passed him on the street would not have given him a second look, though he might have caught the eye of the odd unattached female. At six-one, a hundred eighty or so pounds—he worked out regularly—black hair and blue eyes, he wasn’t exactly movie star material, but neither was he the sort of man that a pretty young female professional would have summarily kicked out of bed.
He also dressed well, Gerry Hendley saw. Blue suit with a red pinstripe—it looked English-made—vest, red-and-yellow-striped tie, nice gold tie bar. Fashionable shirt. Decent haircut. The confident look that came from having both money and a good education to go with a youth that would not be misspent. His car was parked in the visitors’ lot in front of the building. A yellow Hummer 2 SUV, the sort of vehicle favored by people who herded cattle in Wyoming, or money in New York. And, probably, that was why . . .
“So, what brings you here?” Gerry asked, waving his guest to a comfortable seat on the other side of his mahogany desk.
“I haven’t decided what I want to do yet, just sort of bumping around, looking for a niche I might fit into.”
Hendley smiled. “Yeah, I’m not so old that I can’t remember how confusing it is when you get out of school. Which one did you go to?”
“Georgetown. Family tradition.” The boy smiled gently. That was one good thing about him that Hendley saw and appreciated—he wasn’t trying to impress anyone with his name and family background. He might even be a little uneasy with it, wanting to make his own way and his own name, as a lot of young men did. The smart ones, anyway. It was a pity that there was no place for him on The Campus.
“Your dad really likes Jesuit schools.”
“Even Mom converted. Sally didn’t go to Bennington. She got through her premed up at Fordham in New York. Hopkins Med now, of course. Wants to be a doc, like Mom. What the hell, it’s an honorable profession.”
“Unlike law?” Gerry asked.
“You know how Dad is about that,” the boy pointed out with a grin. “What was your undergraduate degree in?” he asked Hendley, knowing the answer already, of course.
“Economics and mathematics. I took a double major.” It had been very useful indeed for modeling trading patterns in commodities markets. “So, how’s your family doing?”
“Oh, fine. Dad’s back writing again—his memoirs. Mostly he bitches that he isn’t old enough to do that sort of book, but he’s working pretty hard to get it done right. He’s not real keen on the new President.”
“Yeah, Kealty has a real talent for bouncing back. When they finally bury the guy, they’d better park a truck on top of his headstone.” That joke had even made the Washington Post.
“I’ve heard that one. Dad says it can only take one idiot to unmake the work of ten geniuses.” That adage had not made the Washington Post. But it was the reason the young man’s father had set up The Campus, though the young man himself didn’t know it.
“That’s overstating things. This new guy only happened by accident.”