Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [172]
The van was found Monday afternoon by a concerned citizen - there really were some in Alabama - who called the local county sheriffs office, who in turned called the Mobile force.
"The kid was right," the lieutenant in charge of the case observed. The body on the back of the van was about as distasteful to behold as any cadaver would be after two days locked inside a car, in Alabama, in June, but for all that the hole near the base of the skull, just at the hairline, was definitely a .22. It was also clear that the killer had died in the right-front seat, hemorrhaging explosively from the head wound. There was one more thing.
"I've seen this guy. He's a druggie," another detective observed.
"So what was Ernie wrapped up with?"
"Christ knows. What about his kids?" the detective asked. "They lose their mom and dad - we gonna tell the whole fucking world that their dad was a dirty cop? Do that to a couple of orphaned kids?"
It merely required a single look for both men to agree that, no, you couldn't do something like that. They'd find a way to make Ernie a hero, and damned sure somebody'd give the Sanderson kid a pat on the head.
"Do you realize what you have done?" Cortez asked. He'd steeled himself going in to restrain his temper. In an organization of Latins, his would be - had to be - the only voice of reason. They would respect that in the same sense that the Romans valued chastity: a rare and admirable commodity best found in others.
"I have taught the norteamericanos a lesson," Escobedo replied with arrogant patience that nearly defeated Félix's self-discipline.
"And what did they do in reply?"
Escobedo made a grand gesture with his hand, a gesture of power and satisfaction. "The sting of an insect."
"You also know, of course, that after all the effort I made to establish a valuable information source, you have pissed it away like -"
"What source?"
"The secretary of the FBI Director," Cortez answered with his own self-satisfied smile.
"And you cannot use her again?" Escobedo was puzzled.
Fool! "Not unless you wish me to be arrested, jefe. Were that to happen, my services would cease to be useful to you. We could have used information from this woman, carefully, over years. We could have identified attempts to infiltrate the organization. We could have discovered what new ideas the norteamericanos have, and countered them, again carefully and thoughtfully, protecting our operations while allowing them enough successes to think that they were accomplishing something." Cortez almost said that he'd just figured out why all those aircraft had disappeared, but didn't. His anger wasn't under that much control. Félix was just beginning to realize that he really could supplant the man who sat behind the desk. But first he would have to demonstrate his value to the organization and gradually prove to all of the criminals that he was more useful than this buffoon. Better to let them stew in their own juice for a while, the better to appreciate the difference between a trained intelligence professional and a pack of self-taught and over-rich smugglers.
Ryan gazed down at the ocean, forty-two thousand feet below him. The VIP treatment wasn't hard to get used to. As a directorate chief he also rated a special flight from Andrews direct to a military airfield outside of