Roberto considered this. "Maybe. But that still leaves us with unanswered questions. How are the Americans getting their information? How did they manage to get Suarez at his lab? Our informants are telling us nothing. And how is the Ring Man involved? His moves on the distributors in the United States are too quick not to have been preplanned."
Roberto rubbed his chin. "We need to find out if the Americans are indeed behind all this. See what you can do about that. Also, contact our people in Medellin and see what we can salvage out of Suarez's operation. We cannot allow the Ring Man to get too strong."
The Ring Man was satisfied with the way things were going. Suarez's organization was crumbling. Already the man's former lieutenants were fighting like jackals over the carcass of the organization left in Medellin.
Ring Man would let them fight each other. He was going to cut them out at both ends. His people were prepared to outbid them on the supply end for the coca paste, and at the distribution end he was already gathering in the major East and West Coast American buyers. He expected more of Suarez's and Ramirez's American buyers and distributors to come around when they realized those sources were no longer able to keep up with the demand.
Ring Man lit a large cigar and leaned back in his chair. All in all a very profitable week. With a few bold strokes he had become the strongest man in Colombia. Now it was time to consolidate his winnings.
Hanks walked with Strom through the executive dining room. "What have you got?"
Strom laid it out in one sentence. "Alegre insists that we terminate the Ring Man for him."
Hanks paused on the way to his table and looked at his subordinate. "You're joking."
"No, sir. Montez contacted Jameson and passed the word. Alegre is threatening to expose the Hammer strikes unless we do it."
"How the hell is he going to do that? Alegre would be cutting his own throat."
Strom wasn't the type to disagree with his boss, but he had to point out the obvious. "We have no proof that Alegre sanctioned the missions and passed us the targeting information. Alegre could probably make it look like we did do this unilaterally, without permission."
Hanks pondered this as he sat at his reserved table in the corner of the room and ordered his meal. He waited until the waiter drifted out of earshot. "Have you contacted anyone over at State or the White House on this?"
"No, sir. I thought I'd better brief you first."
Hanks sighed. He always got the dirty deals. He thought out loud. "State will shit nails if we tell them about this, and I don't want to hit the president up with it either."
Hanks shook his head. That bastard Alegre had sure put them on the hot spot. Hanks had considered the possibility that they could use the raids as leverage against Alegre, but he hadn't considered the opposite. He hadn't taken the time to think this whole thing through completely and had trusted Strom to handle it. He was a little upset with Strom for not having considered this possibility and getting some hard evidence on Alegre, implicating him in the whole thing. "Did Jameson get any tapes of his exchanges with Montez? Any video or audio?"
"No, sir. Montez always set up the meets and that wasn't possible."
"Jesus Christ!" Hanks exploded. "Who the hell is running this op, Strom? Us or the Colombians?" He focused his glare on his subordinate. "You didn't do a very good job on this. Always get leverage material on the other guy."
Hanks paused until after the waiter had put his lunch on the table. "Did Montez give any indication of when they'd like this done?"
Strom was a much different man from the image he presented to Westland. His accent was gone and his confident air with it. "He wants the job done early this week. He's concerned about what will happen when the target finds out he's getting fingered, too."
Hanks considered that. "This is going to be a problem. We could just leave Alegre to take the heat, but the cartel would probably have him for lunch, and our friends across the river wouldn't like that too much." Making his decision, he shifted gears. "We can't have this traced back to us. Do we have any locals we can use down there?"
Strom shook his head. "I'd strongly advise against that, sir. Anyone we use from down there will talk. You know the kind of headlines we'll get out of that. 'CIA Pays Local Assassin.' Plus, you can't trust those beaners."
"Those beaners," Hanks flared, "outsmarted you pretty damn good on this, Strom." Hanks forced himself to calm down and pondered the situation. "We've got the same problem of being implicated, even worse, if we use one of our people. How about contracting a foreign free lance through a cutout?"
Strom shook his head again. "I've considered that, sir. Not enough time. No free lance worth his weight would take a job like this on such short notice."
Hanks was irritated. "You need to get someone. We can't afford to lose Alegre and we also can't afford to have him go public with the Hammer strikes."
Strom tried to throw some water on the fire. "You really think Alegre would do that? It could raise a lot of nasty questions for him."
Hanks snorted a laugh. "If we don't get the Ring Man off his ass, he isn't going to be alive. Alegre would rather be scorned and alive than noble and dead. That man is going to get desperate soon, once the Ring Man starts figuring out what's going on. Which will probably happen tomorrow night, if things go as planned."
Hanks considered another angle. "You know, if our target in Colombia was behind the Santia killing, we might be able to take him out without too much hassle, even if the cover gets blown. The media wouldn't crucify us then."
Hanks looked up. "Find somebody for the job. I don't want to use one of ours or anybody who can be traced back to the agency. We're going to keep this from the people across the river, so it's got to be kept tight."
The phone woke Davidson out of the tail end of his recovery sleep. It had been a hell of a night, partying at the officers' club into the morning hours.
Davidson searched for the intruding device under the pile of clothes that littered the floor. Recovering it, he lay back down and put the phone on his chest before answering. "Captain Davidson."
"Captain, this is Colonel Moore."
Shit, thought Davidson. It can't be good news. His battalion commander had never before called him at home just to say hello. "Yes, sir."
"I've got a mission for you to fly today. Are you fit to fly?"
Davidson cracked an eye and looked at the clock. The reg was that a pilot was supposed to have twelve hours after his last alcohol before flying. "What time would I be lifting, sir?"
"Approximately 1800."
Enough time, thought Davidson. "Yes, sir. I'm good to go."
"All right. Here's the deal. I know it sounds kind of strange, but this comes straight from SOUTHCOM headquarters. You're to take either tail number 546 or 907. Make sure you have the external tanks topped off, because the requirement is to be able to fly at least a thousand kilometers."
Christ, thought Davidson. Where the hell was he going to fly? The U.S. mainland? This sure screwed up what remained of his weekend. "Yes, sir."
"There will be a C-130 landing at 1700 at your location. Your cargo will be on that aircraft. You're to do whatever the man in charge says."
That's a bunch of bullshit if I ever heard it, Davidson thought. "What do you mean, do whatever this guy says, sir? Who is this person and what's the cargo?" And where's the destination, while we're at it.