Читать книгу The Aegis Conspiracy: A Novel - Galen Winter - Страница 13

Chapter 8

Every year, huge quantities of illegal narcotics are smuggled into the United States. They come from Southeast Asia, from the Middle East and from Latin America. It’s a profitable business for the suppliers. There are human costs associated with the business. Violence is its constant companion.

Warfare between cartels and the murder of competing suppliers are only the tip of the iceberg. The robberies and prostitutions committed by those who have no other ways to support their addictions destroy an even larger number of lives. The bill society pays for the illegal drug business is enormous.

The arrests and incarcerations of dealers and drug lords are complemented with programs for the education and treatment of victims. The effect of these activities can be debated. Certainly, the drug associated violent deaths do not seem to diminish. Neither does the volume of illegal drugs imported into the country.

The identification and destruction of drug production and distribution, wherever they are located, is an objective of our government. The phrase “wherever they are located” includes many of the Republics in Latin America. In those Republics, as in other countries of the world, destruction of the drug production is difficult.

Newspaper editors who have the courage to speak out and judges who sentence offenders are threatened and often murdered. Those who remain silent are rewarded. Army officers and policemen and Senators and judges and Mayors and corrupt government officials all become wealthy by looking the other way while cocaine is produced and shipped from and through their countries. As long as there are people who will offer bribes, there will be politicians who will take them.

Any attempt to stop coca leaf production and harvest is nearly impossible. It is an important cash crop for the peons and small farmers who plant it. Funding the programs of Latin American governments to replace the peon producers’ income by cash payment fails when confronted by reality. Government intermediaries steal most of the monies and the small amount that goes to the farmers is welcomed as an addition to the coca leaf income - not a substitute for it.

Rather than try to pay peon farmers to plant other cash crops, it had been argued, a more effective approach would be to terminate such funding and direct more assets to demolishing local production factories and destroying sophisticated international distribution networks. The pervasive corruption of local officials too often stymies those efforts. Cooperation from local army, police and drug enforcement personnel is far from adequate.

Some men believe there is a better way to fight the narcotics wars. They point to the drug lords’ nearly universal practice of murdering their competition. When the surviving drug lords have established their monopolies, these men argue, the deaths of the men who then direct the drug production and distribution networks will be the more effective way to fight the drug war.

Joselito Montoya came from humble origins. He was now a Bolivian millionaire often described as the continent’s most elusive drug lord. His cocaine empire rivaled that of Colombia’s Cali and Medellin cartels. United States Drug Enforcement Agency personnel, working in Bolivia with their local counterparts, were unable to damage his operations.

Urban and rural locations were often raided and buildings were searched. They were always too late. Traps were laid, but no one came close to capturing their quarry. Joselito Montoya had provided himself with the most effective of early warning systems. The Bolivian hounds made a great show of chasing the drug lord fox, but the fox controlled the hounds. Joselito Montoya, through massive bribery, knew the plans of the Drug Enforcement Units as soon as they came off the drawing board.

In Argentina’s northwest Province of Jujuy, a few days after deplaning in Buenos Aires, Den Clark entered the Republic of Bolivia. His false passport would carry no Bolivian “entrada” stamp. There would be no record of his entry into the country. Late at night, alone and unburdened by any sort of official approval, he hiked into the country, avoiding Bolivian Custom and Immigration checkpoints. The USA’s local DEA people, their Bolivian counterparts and Joselito Montoya never knew Den Clark was there.

Den was sent to Bolivia to quietly and secretly locate the places where coca leaves were harvested and processed. His assignment also included the identification of Bolivian politicos, police and army officials who accepted drug lord bribes in exchange for protecting Montoya.

Den had another unofficial assignment. It had been planned in Langley by men in the Aegis organization. They were the only few who were aware of it. Den Clark’s undisclosed mission was the assassination of Joselito Montoya.

For months, Den studied Montoya and his organization. From the cities of Trinidad in the Province of El Beni, to San Ignacio in the Province of Santa Cruz and into the country’s more populated cities, Den Clark watched and learned. The outlines of Montoya’s operations were not difficult to discover. They were well-known.

In towns and villages, a handful of Bolivianos spent in a cantina identified places and names, including the names of local officials growing wealthy by cultivating impaired vision. More detailed information required more substantial amounts of Bolivianos. Care and caution had to be exercised because the man who would sell him information about Montoya would also sell Montoya information about Den Clark.

Joselito Montoya was bothered. Not frightened. Not worried. Just bothered. For months he had heard reports of someone asking questions about him. He had been unable to identify the man who was asking the questions and that bothered him.

It wasn’t a gringo. The questioner spoke Spanish without an accent. I wasn’t anyone in the local Bolivian or American drug control units. Montoya knew them all and many of them were on his payroll. If some new program was to be undertaken, Montoya would know its details before it began.

Montoya believed the unknown questioner may have been in the employ of someone who wanted to replace him as head of his cartel. Montoya killed two of his own men who were acting suspiciously, but the reports of the presence of the stranger continued after their death. The stranger had an educated accent. Someone with an educated accent was trying to take over. Could it be someone from Cali or Medellin?

The police in the various Provinces and Montoya’s own men were on the lookout for the man. Montoya was sure they would find him. They would deliver him to Montoya. The usual vigorous method of questioning would be sure to give Joselito the information he most desired: Who sent the man to Bolivia? Then he would be killed.

In the meantime, Joselito added two automatic weapons to the arsenal he carried in his especially armored automobile. He carefully avoided any routine of movement that might endanger him. The only exceptions were his visits to his mistress. His chauffeur and one bodyguard were sufficient protection for those trysts.

Joselito Montoya left an apartment building in an exclusive Sucre neighborhood. It was the place where he kept his mistress. His bodyguard, a well-armed man who seldom left his side, was waiting for him in the hallway. The bodyguard was a large and powerful man. He shielded Montoya as he left the apartment and told him he had neither heard nor seen anything to disturb him while he kept watch at the hallway door.

Together the men took the elevator to the ground floor of the building. They unlocked and walked through the ornate wrought-iron gate that protected the interior of the building from thieves. According to the report of the Sucre police, the man presumed to be Montoya’s chauffeur, his face obscured by a black felt hat, hurried around the automobile and opened the door to the back seat.

When Montoya and his bodyguard approached to enter the car, the chauffeur pulled a weapon from beneath his jacket and killed both of them. Then he calmly walked into the gathering crowd and disappeared. Montoya’s real chauffeur lay dead on the floor of the front seat. No one was able to give a description of the man who killed them.

Shortly after the death of the Montoya, Nathaniel Peabody stepped from the Aerolineas Argentina flight and entered that part of the Miami International Airport where United States Customs officials check passports and occasionally review the contents of luggage being brought into the country. Minutes later, Den Clark, his baggage transferred to the Delta flight to Washington, emerged from Customs.

A few days later, a courier from Washington delivered a thick envelope to the American DEA Office at La Paz. The envelope contained a comprehensive report. It described the operation of the Bolivian drug trade from the collection of coca leaves grown in Northern provinces, through laboratory processing and on to warehousing and shipment out of the country. The report identified national and local politicians as well as Bolivian army Drug Enforcement officials who were in Montoya’s pay.