Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [144]
"In cooperation with six foreign governments, we have initiated the necessary steps to seize all of those funds, and also to seize eight real-estate joint-venture investments here in the United States which were the primary agency in the actual laundering operation. This is being done under the RICO - the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization - statute. I should emphasize on that point that the real-estate ventures involve the holdings of many innocent investors; their holdings will not - I repeat not - be affected in any way by the government's action. They were used as dupes by the Cartel, and they will not be harmed by these seizures."
"Excuse me," Associated Press interrupted. "You did say six hundred fifty million dollars?"
"That is correct, more than half a billion dollars." The AG described generally how the information had been found, but not the way in which the first lead had been obtained, nor the precise mechanisms used to track the money. "As you know, we have treaties with several foreign governments to cover cases such as this. Those funds identified as drug-related and deposited in foreign banks will be confiscated by the governments in question. In Swiss accounts, for example, are approximately…" He checked his notes again. "It looks like two hundred thirty-seven million dollars, all of which now belongs to the Swiss government."
"What's our take?" The Washington Post asked.
"We don't know yet. It's difficult to describe the complexity of this operation - just the accounting is going to keep us busy for weeks."
"What about cooperation from the foreign governments?" another reporter wanted to know.
You gotta be kidding, the journalist next to him thought.
"The cooperation we've received on this case is simply outstanding." The Attorney General beamed. "Our friends overseas have moved with dispatch and professionalism."
Not every day you can steal this much money and call it something for the Public Good, the quiet journalist told herself.
CNN is a worldwide service. The broadcast was monitored in Colombia by two men whose job it was to keep track of the American news media. They were journalists themselves, in fact, who worked for the Colombian TV network, Inravision. One of them excused himself from the control room and made a telephone call before returning.
Tony and his partner had just come back on duty in the van, and there was a telex clipped to the wall, telling them to expect some activity on the cellular-phone circuits at about 1800 Zulu time. They weren't disappointed.
"Can we talk to Director Jacobs about this?" a reporter asked. "Director Jacobs is taking a personal interest in the case, but is not available for comment," the AG answered. "You'll be able to talk to him next week, but at the moment he and his team are all pretty busy." That didn't break any rules. It gave the impression that Emil was in town, and the reporters, recognizing exactly what the Attorney General had said and how he had said it, collectively decided to let it slide. It fact, Emil had taken off from Andrews Air Force Base twenty-five minutes earlier.
"Madre de Dios!" Escobedo observed. The meeting had barely gotten past the usual social pleasantries so necessary for a conference of cutthroats. All the members of the Cartel were in the same room, which happened rarely enough. Even though the building was surrounded with a literal wall of security people, they were nervous about their safety. The building had a satellite dish on the roof, and this was immediately tuned in to CNN. What was supposed to have been a discussion of