Counterfeit (The Jim Slater series Book 2) Read online

  “No idea what country even?”

  “The Russian Union crops up quite a bit. China, too. But there are others. Sorry, Jim, looks like a dead end.”

  “Maybe not. Look, can you do one more thing for me…?”

  *

  “A sting?” Abby Moore said.

  “Yes. My contacts recovered a lot of data from the hard drive. We’re pretty sure the guy ordered his drugs from a company called Salvarsan International Shipments. They’re on line but we’ve got no way of locating them. So here’s the plan. We order a bunch of drugs from them ourselves – ones like you’ve got in your strong room. They want payment up front. I’ve arranged with someone to do that via a bank in Medellín – that’ll make it look like a local order. Also we have to say where we want to have the consignment delivered. Any ideas?”

  “There’s a small airfield near to where that supplier operated. We had a look at it when we were there. The warehouse was empty but we think it’s where he took delivery.”

  “Right. We’ll make it there. And when our consignment arrives we’ll have a little reception committee waiting. With a bit of luck, whoever’s making the delivery will lead us back to Salvarsan.”

  She regarded me thoughtfully. “You’d better be careful. You’re dealing with a criminal organisation.”

  “We’ll be ready for them.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “I thought I’d get some of my chaps down here.”

  “No way. Look, Colonel, what we do here has to strike a delicate balance. We’ve been very careful to get the cooperation of the local authorities, the police especially. What you’re suggesting would ride roughshod all over them and destroy our chances of operating here ever again.”

  “But the States and Colombia work together on stuff like this.”

  “That may be true at a high level. I’m talking about grass roots. I know these people. They will not like it one little bit.”

  I grinned. “We won’t tell them, then.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “Colonel? I said no.”

  I thought for a moment. “All right. How about we enlist the help of the police instead? They’ll have armed response units.”

  “Yes, if they’re willing to help we could do it that way.”

  “Do you know who to talk to?”

  “I do, but it requires tact, and my Spanish isn’t quite up to it. Eduardo’s a native speaker; he’s the best one for something like that. He negotiated with them when we conducted the raid on that supplier.”

  “Would you mind putting him on it?”

  “No, not at all. Are you planning on joining in yourself?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “Well, you may want to take Eduardo with you as interpreter. He’s a good man. And he’d probably sell the operation even harder if he knew he had a stake in it.“

  “I’m fine with that. Is it okay if I talk to him now?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  I went to the door at the back of her office, then paused and turned. “Can I just ask you something?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are mosquitoes a problem in that area?”

  “The airfield’s on a plateau; mosquitoes aren’t generally a problem at that altitude.”

  I tried not to let my relief show.

  11

  Eduardo and I waited for the shipment to come in.

  We’d flown here early from Medellín with the Captain of police and his team. It was a light aircraft, an unmarked Piper Flavius XI. On the approach I’d asked our pilot to bank in a circle so I could assess the terrain. A dusty, single-track road descended from the plateau through a series of hairpin bends until it disappeared beneath the canopy of the forest below. The airfield itself consisted of a short runway terminating in a clearing on which I could see what from this height looked like a couple of sheds.

  After landing we entered the smaller of the two buildings. It was a windowless warehouse with a corrugated iron roof. One corner served as an office area and there, lounging in a wooden chair tilted back at a dangerous angle, skinny legs crossed on the desk, we found an elderly Afro Colombian. He was almost certainly a local man who just turned up to handle the paperwork when a flight was coming in. The rest of the warehouse was empty apart from drifts of wrapping paper and newspaper, some shards of wood, and bits of plastic string. It could have done with a good cleaning out, starting with a broom.

  The old guy at the desk was absorbed in a newspaper and showed little interest in us. Then the Captain paraded in with four helmeted men carrying assault rifles and at that point he became quite animated.

  While the police tried to calm things down I followed Eduardo to the other building, which was a hangar, larger than the warehouse but similar in construction. I looked around for an electric cart but there wasn’t one, presumably because most aircraft came and went on the same day. Fortunately our ten-seater wasn’t that heavy and between us and the pilot we managed to push it inside, concealing it from view. Having done that we closed the doors and joined the Captain and his men outside.

  We weren’t expecting a large plane – not for a short-haul freight run like this – so it probably wouldn’t have more than two flight crew. They could be armed, and there might even be an armed escort, but the Captain had been confident he could handle the whole thing with the help of four men. I’d have preferred a few more, particularly as I didn’t know the capabilities of his people, but we did have the element of surprise in our favour. I took a last opportunity to give them a pep talk.

  “Eduardo, please remind them: everyone stays under cover until the flight crew have switched off the engines and got out.”

  Eduardo relayed the order. At that point the Captain got a bit testy, coming out with a stream of Spanish which Eduardo translated briefly as:

  “Yes, yes, tell your friend we know what to do here.”

  Up to now the Captain had done his best to ignore me. He certainly didn’t like the idea of me giving orders to his men, and I was relying heavily on Eduardo to convey these tactfully. To make matters worse he was a full head shorter than I was, although with the three golden bars on his shoulders and the semi-automatic holstered in his belt he certainly didn’t lack self-confidence. I needed his cooperation so I just had to bite my tongue.

  Eduardo had brought a portable comms outfit so he could listen to any traffic between the aircraft and its base once they were within range. Again this might give us a hint as to where they were operating from. It was his own idea. It reinforced Abby’s good opinion of him – and mine. He walked with me onto to the airfield. The sun was well up now, although on the plateau the air was just pleasantly warm. Below us in every direction the forest had virtually disappeared under thin, rising tendrils of mist, but visibility at this height remained good. We got into a ditch which ran around the perimeter of the airfield. It was presumably there to take the runoff from heavy rainstorms but at the moment it was bone dry. He laid out the equipment and we settled down to wait. From time to time I’d stiffen as an insect buzzed nearby, then I’d relax again as I realised it wasn’t the sinister whine of a hungry mosquito.

  We'd been in place for an hour and I glanced again at my watch. The delivery was late. Had they smelled a rat?

  Then something began to insinuate itself into my senses: the drone of twin engines. At almost the same time we saw the approaching aircraft. Eduardo switched on his equipment and donned the headset. Two of the armed police ducked back behind the warehouse building, followed by the Captain; the other two took cover in the ditch. I lifted my head just enough to see along the runway. My heartbeat quickened.

  The plane, a twin-propeller, twin tail-fin type I didn’t recognise, landed with a small puff of smoke and dust and taxied up to the apron in front of the buildings. Until this very moment I’d still wondered whether it would work. I’d tried to cover every base. We’d placed funds in the Medellín branch of a Colombian bank, we’d set up an account with Salvarsan Int
ernational Shipments, and we’d ordered drugs that would almost certainly be delivered in counterfeit form. Even so it was hard to believe they’d fall for it. Now here they were! All we had to do was sit tight until the flight crew got out and then we’d make our move.

  I glanced at Eduardo, who was listening intently and fiddling with his comms set. Then I turned my attention back to the apron – and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  The Captain of police had emerged from cover and he was marching towards the aircraft, unbuttoning his holster as he went. His men were half in and half out, rifles sloped, clearly unsure about what was going on. I heard an exclamation from Eduardo and snapped round to see him wincing and snatching the headset off. And then there was a colossal explosion.

  What I saw, and what remained on my retina for minutes afterwards, was a brief image of the Captain, a black silhouette, the edges dissolving in the blinding white of the flash, in the instant before he was blown off his feet. The shock wave expanded past him and rattled the buildings, and we had to turn away to shield our faces from the wall of dust that spread out over the entire airfield. Eduardo and I were both coughing and so, by the sound of it, were the police who’d deployed further along the drainage ditch and between the warehouse and the hangar. I turned back to see, through the thinning dust, a plume of smoke mushrooming upwards. Where an aircraft had been moments earlier all that was left were scattered pieces of burning wreckage.

  Eduardo stood next to me, waggling a little finger in each ear in turn.“Chingado!” he said, between coughs. “Who did that?”

  The policemen emerged from cover, then hurried over to the Captain. No one was carrying a grenade launcher. Even an incendiary bullet would have to be mighty well placed to make a plane go up like that.

  We joined the group around the Captain. He was dazed, coughing, and his face was streaked with thin trails of blood from tiny black fragments embedded in his cheeks, but it didn’t look too serious. Two of his men helped him to his feet and half-walked, half-carried him to the warehouse building. Eduardo and I followed. The centre of my vision was bleached and my ears were still ringing from the blast.

  Inside, we found the warehouseman standing slack-jawed and wide-eyed. He was grey with dust dislodged from the structure of the building by the blast, and a similar coating had descended onto the papers on his desk and everything else. He found his voice and began to wave his hands around but the policemen ignored him, being more concerned about the Captain. Eduardo and I stayed out of it.

  When I’d recovered my hearing sufficiently I asked Eduardo what he’d heard on the headset.

  “After it finished taxiing, there was a short twittering – the kind of thing you get with packet transmission.”

  “Routine message to base to say they’d landed?”

  “Must have been. There’s nothing equivalent to a control tower around so it wasn’t from here. Then that idiot of a Captain walked out and there was another twittering. Almost immediately this really strong signal came in, broadband I think. Nearly took my ears off. And then the damned thing blew up. What does it mean, Jim?”

  I took a deep breath. “First they let base know they’d arrived. Then they spotted the Captain breaking cover and signalled they’d run into trouble. And base sent out a signal that detonated an on-board charge. Those poor guys probably had no idea they were sitting on a bomb. When they transmitted that second signal they were committing suicide.”

  Eduardo shook his head, then cocked it in the direction of the Captain, who was sitting motionless in a chair.

  “Good thing it didn’t kill him as well.”

  My voice was flat. “Yeah, what a lucky escape he had.”

  “Brought it on himself, stupid bastard.”

  But I wasn’t really thinking about the Captain.

  I was wondering what kind of organisation would do something like that to its own people.

  *

  “Well, at least you two were unharmed,” Abby said.

  It had taken us a while to get here. We’d gone to the hospital first and waited while they attended to the Captain in Accident and Emergency. It had seemed like the decent thing to do.

  Now I was back in the office, looking at Abby across her desk. Eduardo was next door, no doubt telling his colleagues what happened.

  “Pity about the operation," she added. "The Colombian police won’t be in a hurry to help you again.”

  “Wouldn’t be any point in trying again; a sting like that only works once. Whoever these people are, they’re on their guard now.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. You get full marks for trying. I guess you’ll go home now.”

  “Hang on a moment. I haven’t given up, you know.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I tried it my way and it didn’t work. It calls for a different strategy, that’s all – something more subtle. I’ve thought this over carefully. What it amounts to is this." I met her eyes. "I’d like you to throw in your lot with me.”

  “Cooperate, you mean? I thought I was doing that.”

  “No, not just cooperate. Work together, side by side. To achieve anything now I’m going to need your help.”

  She drew back in her chair. “What on earth for?”

  “You really have to ask? I’m a soldier. I have a good knowledge of military hardware, logistics, strategy, stuff like that. What I don’t have is the knowledge or the experience to tackle this. You, on the other hand, have first-hand experience of the problem and a medical background. We need to combine our skills.”

  Her mouth opened, then shut. She shook her head. “Sorry, this is crazy. I already have a job. A useful job.”

  “You said yourself you’d got as far as you could down here. And everything you and your colleagues have done, all your hard work, is going to be so much wasted effort unless it leads to the source. I’m giving you the chance to see the task through.”

  She managed a short laugh. It expressed confusion and embarrassment rather than amusement.

  “What you’re asking is impossible.”

  “Do you want a little time to think it over?”

  “Time?” she repeated. “No, I don’t need time. It’s out of the question. Sorry. The answer’s ‘no’.”

  “All right.”

  She looked at me through slightly narrowed eyes.

  I got to my feet and inclined my head politely.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, I’m sure.”

  She saw me to the door, eyes still questing into me.

  “Good luck, Colonel,” she said.

  “You too, Lieutenant.”

  *

  I flew back to Fort Piper the following morning. There was nothing more I could do in Colombia. I’d arranged the military transport that would take the guys back. Of those who’d caught malaria, Justin, Eddie, and Prakash had recovered to a point where we could transfer them to a military hospital in the North for convalescence. Right now they were in a pitiful state, and I wondered if they’d ever be well enough to see active service again.

  Two more had died.

  One was Gordy.

  The other was Captain David van Loos.

  12

  What happened?

  George and Sandra van der Loos were looking at me expectantly. I set down the cup and saucer.

  “Look, I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I can’t go into detail. Essentially David took a group of men into a hazardous situation. He put their lives before his own, and he died trying to protect them.”

  It was near enough. There was an ominous silence. I looked across at Sandra. Her face had gone strangely blank. Then she made a strangled noise, got to her feet, and left the room quickly. The veneer was thinner than I thought.

  George glanced at the door and back to me, lips tightly compressed.

  I started to apologise.

  “No, no. You’ll have to forgive my wife. She’s taken it quite badly. David was our only child, you
see.”

  “Ah. Of course. I understand.”

  He got up, walked over to the window, and stood there, looking out onto the garden. Then, without turning round, he said:

  “Ever thought of going into politics, Colonel?”

  I was taken aback. I had faced that question before, although President Harriet Nagel had put it more indirectly. It was at the White House reception that followed the medal ceremony, two years ago. I hadn’t given it a lot of thought since. It was the last question I'd expected George van der Loos to put to me now.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He turned. “Because you have a way with words.”

  I shook my head. “I like to speak my mind and do what I say I’m going to do. It seems to me that politicians don’t always enjoy that kind of freedom.”

  He gave a snort. “You see? That’s exactly what I mean.” He came back to the coffee table and sat down, fixing his gaze on me. “What I’m saying is, you don’t have to tread so delicately. For my own peace of mind, I’d like to know how David died. I have my sources. I could find out what he was up to. But that would just prolong the agony. You could make it a good deal easier for me.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t like to be pressured like this but I could understand his feelings and the request wasn’t unreasonable. I was about to respond when he tried to prompt me.

  “Were the enemy forces larger than you anticipated?”

  I felt a flash of irritation. “No, a lot smaller, actually. About this big.”

  I held my thumb and forefinger a short distance apart.

  His brow furrowed.

  “Look,” I said. “David and most of his team were bitten by mosquitoes carrying malaria organisms of a particularly virulent type. What I said before was the truth. He was already ill himself but he would still have gone through with the mission if I hadn’t called the whole thing off. He made sure his people were safely evac’d and they ended up in hospital in Medellín. It was a good hospital and they had the best of care. Sadly, he didn’t pull through.”