Incitement (11 page)

He nodded his head and two of the guards drew their guns and fired. The bullets shattered Cervantes’ shinbones and he collapsed. The pain was unbelievable and he struggled to retain
consciousness as wave after wave of agony assailed him. Uka walked around the desk and looked down at the writhing Colombian.

“Please, this wasn’t us. You must see that?”

Uka was not listening. “I’m saddened but not totally surprised. Madrigal obviously believes himself beyond our reach, unaccountable for his actions. Well, we’ll see.”

A second nod from Uka was accompanied by another explosion of pain as both of his knees disintegrated under the impact of the soft-nosed rounds. This time he did lose consciousness.

When he was revived, his suffering lingered for what seemed an eternity, before the next, final, release.

Mesi was looking forward to the evening that lay ahead. The bath had just been drawn and she had rented two classic movies,
The Awful Truth
and
Arsenic and Old
Lace
, for later. She lit three scented candles, placed them around the bathroom and turned on the CD player, smiling as the first strains of
Rusalka
permeated the apartment. Now, all
she needed to do was get the stack of magazines and newspaper supplements from the living room and everything was set. At last, a work-free evening. It had been flat out since the meeting in
Arlington nine weeks earlier. Sleep and leisure time had both been sacrificed. She knew, though, that she could only work so hard before a break was required and tonight, she had decided, was going
to be just that.

She had placed a lot of the pressure on herself to either substantiate or dismiss the link between the attacks and the Kosovars. As she found herself unwilling to trust her subordinates to make
decisions on whether data was pertinent or not that left her to sift through innumerable reports alone. The vast majority of it ended up being discounted but to even establish its lack of
significance took time.

She had decided to err on the side of caution and focus on a reasonably long time period, starting from six months before the first suspected incident right up to the present. Besides searching
for signs of incidents that may not have been spotted up to that point, she was also interested in trends that could constitute secondary effects of a campaign against the Madrigal-Zaragosa
Alliance. All of these she entered in a specifically designed database. If there had been any reported change in street prices for various drugs, it might tie in to an underlying shortage. If a
geographic analysis of a drugs seizure had thrown up unexpected results, it was entered as a possible indication of alternative sources moving in to fill gaps in the normal supply. If there had
been a rise in figures for particular types of crime that had proven correlations to drug dependency, these too were logged.

In parallel with the data analysis, she had also contacted overseas colleagues. Some were law enforcement, others academics, some were just people with whom the DEA had developed a relationship
at some point, such as a tour guide in Thailand who smuggled funds and medicine over the border into Burma. The theory was that if a fundamental shift was occurring in the global drug economy,
someone might have started to see some localised manifestations. And no matter what she was working on or whom she was talking to, she always had to factor in Plan Coca. Regardless of whether it
had been unjustly lauded up to now, the irony was that it could still have a major impact, if applied to a market already weakened by something else.

The result of all of this analysis?

Nothing. At least nothing definitive.

Oh, she could make what seemed like a plausible case for a secret war being waged but she could just as easily discredit the theory.

Lately, as the sum of her findings proved more and more ambiguous, she found herself straying in a different direction. She could not remember precisely why she had started – it might have
been frustration or just some tangential thought. She had made a copy of the original database and begun modelling projections based on the worst-case scenario she could envisage, socially and
financially. She wanted to know what the end result might be if there was a full-on, no-holds-barred war between the drug superpowers. As a backdrop to the model, she had created as many
interdependencies as possible between the drugs trade and mainstream society, some of which were admittedly arguable. The model had grown to become a kind of doomsday scenario. It had predicted a
complete breakdown in social order; spiralling crime, looting, high absenteeism, companies going bust, rehabilitation facilities overwhelmed by demand, disintegration of family units, financial
markets tumbling and even declarations of martial law. She had gotten so caught up in it at one point, so frightened by the results, that she almost forgot it was just a hypothetical exercise. When
she had caught what she was doing, she admonished herself for being like a child who deliberately asks for a horror story in the sure knowledge that they will be scared witless.

As a result of her failure to develop anything solid, she knew that she would be told to abandon the investigation soon and TAIT would have lost an opportunity. Since the meeting there had been
just one incident that seemed consistent with a drug war. An attack on a haulage depot in Ankara resulting in five men being killed and 150 kilos of heroin being seized by authorities. Despite the
investigation by the Turkish police, nothing more had materialised. Her last outstanding task involved flying up to New York tomorrow to meet the director of a methadone programme, to discuss a
recent surge in the demand for places.

Clutching at straws.

She was testing the bath water when the phone rang. On the verge of letting it go to the machine, she changed her mind at the last minute and ran into the living room to pick up.

“Diane, sorry to disturb you so late,” Arthur Marshall began. “There’s been a significant development. I think you’d better come into the office.”

The tone of his voice was worrying.

“What’s happened?”

“I’ve just received reports of two incidents, which I think confirm our fears. The first happened in downtown Vienna. A prominent local figure with documented ties to the Fifteen
Families was attacked in one of the city’s upmarket restaurants. At least five men entered the building and opened up with automatic weapons. Some of those at the table managed to return
fire. Busiest time of the evening and the place was turned into a shooting gallery. It was all over very quickly and reports are that all the attackers got away.”

“Casualties?”

“In addition to the presumed target and his party of ten, at least nine bystanders are dead; more injured, some critically.”

“Christ! You said two incidents?”

“Madrid, an unconfirmed number of hit squads systematically moved through an area well known for street dealing. They appeared to be targeting pushers and their customers but weren’t
too choosy about who they hit. Any congregation of two or three was fair game. Most of the victims were just residents of the area going about their normal business.”

“How many dead there?”

“Not sure yet. What we have so far is less clear than Vienna. The authorities are just getting to grips with it. I’ve got to go; there’s a call waiting. We’ll talk when
you get here.”

She returned the phone to its cradle and went into the bathroom to blow out the candles.

Mesi and Will Samuels sat across the desk from Marshall waiting for him to finish the latest call. She had read what reports they had but everything was still very sketchy. The
footage of the news report from Vienna on the muted TV in Marshall’s office was terrible. She felt guilty for all the times she had wished an opportunity would arise to prove her
suspicions.

Marshall put the phone down and looked over at them, the anger clearly visible on his face. “Typical! Most of these calls are from people who didn’t want to know when we called the
initial meeting. That jerk Allenby is a prime example,” he growled. “All I’ve heard for the past two months is how he’s been bitching about us trying to undermine the State
Department’s initiative. Now he’s burning up the telephone line trying to find out what all this means. Do you know what they’re most worried about?”

“Similar incidents on our soil?” Marshall guessed.

“No, surprisingly enough. They’re afraid of the media fallout when someone figures out what’s behind this. It’s bound to happen, sooner rather than later. I guess we
should be worried too; we’ll be crucified.”

“You mean if we knew incidents like this might be likely, why didn’t we do something? If we didn’t know, why not?”

“Exactly. The only silver lining is that we never aligned ourselves as strongly with Plan Coca as some others. All it’s going to take is some reporter asking how long the
dispute’s been going on.”

“Maybe they won’t,” offered Samuels.

Marshall shook his head. “If no one thinks of it themselves, there are plenty of critics of the Plan who’ll be happy to help them. The Plan will either be painted as responsible for
the dispute because it was such a destabilising factor or ...” He looked at Mesi.

“Or some commentators might come to the conclusion that the success attributed to Plan Coca was really a by-product of this dispute,” she said. “Either way, all those people
who couldn’t wait to jump on the Plan Coca bandwagon and take a little of the credit are screwed.”

“Fuck it, we need to focus on what’s within our control,” Marshall declared. “Here’s what’s going to happen with the investigation. Will, I want you to draft
a preliminary plan on what role the different departments need to play in tackling this situation. Also, assign a dedicated liaison to the various European agencies.” He looked at her.
“Diane, you and your guys will be under Will’s direction for the duration. Make sure that he’s up to speed with everything you’ve found so far, then continue with the
analysis, giving updates as appropriate. So, based on the escalation we’ve seen tonight, what do you think is next?” he asked her.

“Well, first order of business for the Kosovars is to retaliate against whoever carried out the attacks.”

“What do you mean?” Samuels asked. “It was obviously the Madrigal-Zaragosa Alliance?”

“Only indirectly. I’m assuming twenty Latin Americans didn’t fly over to Spain and Austria, smuggle an arsenal with them and carry out the attacks personally. They would have
gotten others to act for them,” she replied. “The logical candidate is one of the Kosovars’ local rivals. The Fifteen Families probably won’t be too particular about finding
out which one it was; they’ll target everyone indiscriminately. We might see a lot of people getting sucked in. Over time, new disputes, totally independent of the current one, will
develop.” She realised she had just recited portions of the doomsday scenario she had worked on.

“Then there’s the issue of what offensive action the Kosovars will take against the Alliance here and in Latin America,” Samuels added.

“Can the Fifteen Families match the Alliance head-to-head?” Marshall asked him.

“If not, they can go damn close. Diane’s right, of course: Madrigal employed subcontractors for tonight’s attacks and the Kosovars will probably follow the same tactic. They
could either contract in firepower or offer a partnership, a share of what they take from the Alliance for any of the other major players willing to throw in with them.”

“They might also try to have the Alliance crumble from within,” Mesi added. “There are lots of internal rivalries and there’s nothing to say one of the affiliates
wouldn’t defect, if the enticement is great enough. Factions like the Dominicans, who operate almost exclusively as distributors, are prime candidates.”

Marshall’s phone started ringing again. He sighed heavily and picked up the receiver.