Rising Phoenix Read online

  He quickly changed into fatigues and military boots and stuffed the bag under a dense bush. He rose, walking quickly to the car, and let the air out of the driver’s side front tire. Anyone noticing it would assume that the driver was out looking for help. A necessary trade-off. The flat would slow his getaway if things got hairy.

  Hobart stuffed the .22 into the thigh pocket of his pants, took one last reading on the GPS, and started out at a slow pace. The foliage was dense, impassable in places, and he made poor time. He used the GPS sparingly, stopping every fifteen minutes or so to correct his direction. The unit was having some difficulty tracking satellite through the trees and mountainous terrain, but in the end he was able to get the fixes he needed.

  Hobart had been in the jungle for a little over two hours when he checked his position for the last time. He was sweating profusely despite the cool temperatures—every step had been an adventure of bogs, tangled vines, and jagged rocks.

  He was pushing the GPS back into his pocket when he heard the unmistakable sound of a human voice—startlingly out of place amidst the white noise of rustling trees and a billion insects. The jungle seemed to change instantly with the presence of another human being. Hobart slowed his pace to a crawl, working his way toward the voice. In less than a minute, the sensitive photo cells of his goggles began to pick up a green glow through the trees. In another minute, the world began to look like an overexposed photograph, and he pulled the goggles off. Dropping to his belly, he crawled toward the light and activity. His progress was slow, every motion setting off a chain reaction of rustling foliage. He was forced to match his speed to that of the weak breeze. Another one hundred yards and he could see his objective. Corey hadn’t let him down.

  It was less impressive than he had expected—just an old shack. Constructed out of native trees and woven with large leaves, it could easily be mistaken for the residence of a poor farmer. The tip-off was the four dirty-looking men with rifles, sitting with their backs pressed against the hut, warming their hands around a small fire.

  Next to the structure was a grouping of metal barrels, each about three feet high and two feet across—he counted six. While he could see them clearly from his position in the dirt, they would be completely invisible from the air. The tops had been covered with a thin layer of leaves and vines. The barrels were what he was looking for. The only chemical needed in quantity to process coke was kerosene.

  He watched the four men pass a bottle between them, laughing loudly. He was close enough to see the rotting teeth of the one on the right before the man hid them with the bottle.

  Hobart lay there quietly watching for nearly two hours. Two things struck him. The first was the incompetence of the guards leaning against the hut. He guessed that not one of them could hit the broad side of a barn with their rifles dead sober—which they certainly were not. He also doubted that they had a combined IQ over ninety. Their conversation seemed limited to the sizes of women’s breasts and the sizes of their respective penises. Their laughter came on cue just before the punch line, suggesting that the dialogue was the same every night.

  Hobart calculated fair odds that he could walk up, kill all four with a knife while singing the “Ave Maria” at the top of his lungs. Not that he faulted Luis Colombar’s choice in manpower. The Colombian police weren’t any kind of real threat to the most powerful organizations—cops were too easily dissuaded. And at the moment, the different local factions seemed to be enjoying an uneasy peace. The guards were more for show than anything else.

  The only thing that made the “Ave Maria” plan unworkable was the second thing that struck him. Since he had arrived, at least twenty people had come out of the hut for a smoke or a quick stroll around the clearing. He seriously doubted that the ten-by-ten structure could hold such a crowd, so the actual refining must be going on underground. It was impossible to estimate how many people were beneath him. Fifty? A hundred?

  Hobart didn’t hear the rumble of the Toyota Land Cruiser’s engine until after its headlights had washed over the dense foliage that he had hidden himself in. He buried his face in the soft earth, presenting his newly dyed black hair to the light. He lay perfectly still, straining to hear what he could no longer see. The vehicle skidded to a stop with a deep gravelly sound. He heard the engine die and two doors open. When the lights blinked off, he slowly raised his head.

  He was safe. The guards crowded respectfully around a heavyset Hispanic man as an impeccably dressed Japanese man in his mid-fifties walked around the back of the truck.

  “Quit hovering around me,” Luis Colombar shouted, giving the man closest to him a hard shove. He was in a particularly dark mood. Since he had broken the back of the Cali Cartel and become the most powerful narcotics manufacturer in Bogotá, he had gotten used to doing whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it. And what he didn’t want was to be touring one of his refineries in the middle of the night when he should be at home in bed with his beautiful young wife.

  It was his assistant’s doing. Perez had been insisting for years that Japan’s youth were getting restless. The thought of working eighteen-hour days and living in a one-bedroom apartment in a smog-filled city wasn’t as satisfying as it had been to their parents. And where there was discontent, there was business opportunity.

  Colombar turned, acknowledging his guest’s presence for the first time in an hour. He hated the Japanese. All business and no fun. He’d personally picked up the little yellow bastard from the airport not two hours ago. He had a big evening planned. Some of the finest women, food, and liquor in Colombia were waiting for his guest at Colombar’s estate.

  Despite his protests, his guest—reportedly the most powerful organized crime boss in Japan—had insisted on coming straight to one of Colombar’s refineries. He wanted to see how it was all done. Fucking nips.

  “This way, Yakashiro,” Colombar said in English. The Japanese man walked past him, eyes focused on the door of the small hut in the center of the clearing. Colombar followed him through the door and opened a trapdoor under the mats on the floor. They descended a ladder to a dirt floor twenty feet below.

  The room at the base of the ladder was the exact same size as the hut and gave the impression of an Old West mine. The crumbling dirt walls were held at bay with rotting timbers, and light was provided by a single rusty oil lamp. At one end of the room was a metal door. It too was covered in dust and mud, making it look less out of place than would be expected. It opened, as if by magic, when Colombar approached.

  The underground structure took on a much different look as they passed through the door. Timbers were replaced by cinderblocks painted a uniform white. Light was provided by overhead fluorescent fixtures. This room was only slightly larger than the first and was lined with wooden benches. Four serious-looking men sat on them, eyeing the Japanese visitor suspiciously.

  Colombar pulled two respirators off a hook at the door and handed one to Yakashiro. They silently affixed them to their faces. One of the guards pulled another heavy door open and the two men entered, still adjusting the straps on the sides of their masks. Colombar paused halfway through the door. “You don’t have a lighter or anything that could produce sparks on you—do you?” The Japanese shook his head gravely. Colombar wondered if his guest really understood anything he was saying.

  The room was long and narrow. Large open vats were lined up along the walls, three to a side. Two men paced up and down the length of the room trailing thick black air hoses attached to elaborate masks similar to those worn by firemen. Colombar began to explain the scene as his potential associate pulled up alongside of him.

  “The first stage of the refining process takes place in this area.” He spoke slowly. Yakashiro’s English was poor, and he was obviously having trouble understanding Colombar’s accent. The masks didn’t help, either.

  “The vats are full of coca leaves. First we cover the leaves with potash and let them sit for a while.” Colombar walked to the first vat and m
otioned Yakashiro over. The Japanese man looked into the vat with a look of mild interest.

  “The ash begins to separate the alkaloids from the leaf. At that time the mix is doused with kerosene—explaining why we have to wear these masks.”

  He pointed to the men at the far end of the room and the hoses trailing behind them. “Actually, we found that these masks are only safe for temporary exposure to this room. We had to install those hoses that vent to the outside for the people that work here regularly.” The truth was that he had resisted the expense of installing that particular amenity as long as he had been able to. After the death of the sixth worker, though, it had become difficult to find replacements.

  They walked to the next vat, which was filled with kerosene almost to the rim. Colombar grabbed a large stick leaning against the wall and gave the leaves a quick stir. “As the leaves soak, the alkaloids begin to float in the kerosene. We squeeze the kerosene from the leaves and put it into drums—they’re stored in the next room.”

  They passed quickly through the door at the other end of the room. Colombar hung his respirator on a nail and motioned for his guest to do the same.

  He pointed to a group of metal drums neatly lined up against the wall. “Sulfuric acid and water are then mixed with the kerosene-alkaloid solution. The acid helps to transfer the alkaloids to the water, which sinks to the bottom. The kerosene is then removed, leaving a mixture of water and cocaine, which is then dried into a paste.”

  They walked past the drums to a bank of tables guarded by no less than five dim-looking men. They stood as Colombar approached. He ignored them and broke off a baseball-sized chunk of what looked like off-white Play-Doh. He handed it to Yakashiro. “We call this pasta. It is cocaine in its most raw form.”

  Yakashiro squeezed and rolled the cocaine paste through his fingers, remaining silent.

  “The process to transform the pasta into cocaine’s final form is even more complicated. Let me show you. Right through here.”

  Hobart slid his body straight back, putting fifteen feet or so between him and the clearing. Rotating to the right, he began a slow crawl around the perimeter. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the hut from a different angle through the trees. It took him almost two hours to make a three-quarter turn, but he finally found what he was looking for. A rusting flatbed truck sat idle in a narrow slot cut into the trees. The canopy of the forest hung low over it, shielding it from flying eyes. Poor farmers didn’t keep trucks any more than they did barrels of kerosene.

  He crawled closer, the faint smell of kerosene reaching his nose when he was less than four feet from the rear of the truck. The license plate was barely readable at this distance, and he committed it to memory.

  Peter Manion had devised a simple, yet elegant, plan for the actual poisoning. Hobart had envisioned a risky commando-style operation in which Corey—now he—would have to actually infiltrate the factory and dump poison into the product before it was packaged. The final plan was a hell of a lot simpler.

  As it turned out, orellanin had properties not entirely unlike cocaine. In essence they were both biological toxins, only with very different effects. All he had to do was poison the kerosene. As the alkaloids melted from the coca leaves and were transferred to the kerosene and water, the orellanin would combine with the cocaine molecules and transfer smoothly and evenly into the final product.

  It looked like the act of actually poisoning the kerosene was going to be even more simple than he had imagined, as well. The open flatbed would allow him to hit the shipment as it went from the supplier to the refinery. He had originally planned to infiltrate the warehouse in Colombia—adding the local police and security guards as a complicating factor. Not to mention the problem of deciding which barrels to hit.

  Having found all he had come for, Hobart crawled directly away from the clearing until the light from the guard’s kerosene lamp faded to a faint glow. Switching on his night vision goggles, he stood and walked briskly back to the car, the coordinates of which he had programmed into the GPS before leaving the road. He stuffed his fatigues and gear into the bag and changed back into the dirty jeans and T-shirt that he’d been wearing for a week. Pulling a can of Fix a Flat out of the bag, he filled up the tire and began the slow journey back into town.

  Hobart couldn’t remember feeling this good in years. He adjusted the air vent above him and took a sip of ice cold Jim Beam from the plastic cup in his hand. His hatred of flying was overcome by the joy of being freshly showered and in clean clothes. He’d spent just under four weeks in Bogotá. With no intervening baths, his disguise had improved dramatically. Something he’d have to remember.

  It had been an exhausting trip. He’d spent nearly every night on his belly near the clearing that housed Colombar’s refinery and every day tossing and turning on the uncomfortable mattress in his filthy hotel room.

  The refinery seemed to be a very professional operation, and that worked to his advantage. They had a production schedule, and they stuck to it. He imagined that the penalties for falling behind were more severe than a light Christmas bonus.

  They used two barrels of kerosene a night, without fail. Two of the guards took the old truck up to the chemical plant specified in Corey’s note and purchased fourteen barrels every Wednesday. Production went on around the clock, seven days a week.

  Hobart took the pillow offered by the stewardess and propped it against the window. He fell asleep with his drink still in his hand.

  9

  Baltimore, Maryland,

  December 26

  “John! How’d it go?”

  Hobart fell onto the sofa in the reception area of the office. It wasn’t as comfortable as it was stylish. “Good and bad, I guess. Reed’s … unreliable.”

  Swenson frowned and sat down on the sofa across from him. “So what did you do?”

  “I paid him for the information I needed and reconned the refinery myself.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “That’s the good part. They run on a tighter schedule than Du Pont. Unless something weird happens in the next couple of weeks, getting to the kerosene shouldn’t be a problem.”

  The frown on Swenson’s face melted into a relaxed smile. He stood and disappeared into the next room, reappearing a moment later with two beers in his hand. He gave one to Hobart. “Things have been shaping up around here, too.”

  “I saw the new addition.” Hobart pointed through the door behind him to a large TV suspended near the ceiling.

  “Yeah, I figured that when things start popping, CNN’ll probably have some interesting programming.”

  Hobart nodded his agreement and rubbed his eyes. He’d put off the subject long enough. “Did the mushrooms arrive?”

  “Yup. Two days early in fact. I picked ’em up in Norfolk last week. You wanna see ’em?”

  Hobart sighed with relief. The shipping arrangements that he’d been forced into had been gnawing at him since Poland. He stood and waited for his partner to lead the way.

  They walked back through a narrow hall leading to a heavy metal door. Next to the door, two respirators and two pairs of goggles hung on a long nail. Swenson took one of each for himself and handed Hobart the others. “Potent stuff,” he explained.

  Hobart took him at his word. When they had secured the goggles and masks to their faces, Swenson pushed the heavy door open and walked through.

  The warehouse had changed dramatically since Hobart had last seen it. Cheap antiques and dirty wooden crates were stacked everywhere. Old metal signs advertising long-defunct household products hung thick on the walls. Rolled-up rugs were stacked between the legs of overturned chairs.

  “Follow me.”

  They began what seemed like a random route through the stacks of furniture that had looked completely impassable a moment before. The haphazard mess had obviously been created by careful design. Someone coming into the warehouse through the office wouldn’t even consider trying to cross to the opposite side. But fol
lowing Swenson, a well-hidden path appeared as if by magic.

  About fifteen feet from the back of the warehouse, a wall of furniture that rose almost halfway to the ceiling stood in front of them.

  “How much did all this shit cost?” Hobart asked, jabbing a tattered armchair with his finger. His voice sounded artificial through the respirator.

  “About ten thousand. It’s all junk—I just needed volume. I’d say we look like antique dealers now, though.”

  “I’d say,” Hobart agreed.

  Swenson pushed aside an Oriental rug and ducked under a large dining room table. Hobart followed him, noting that some of the pieces in the furniture wall had actually been nailed together.

  As they emerged from under the table, a fifteen-by-forty-foot space opened up in front of them. It was dominated by five large wooden crates stacked against the wall and a long folding table that would have looked at home in a grade school cafeteria. Three empty crates sat in the far corner next to their splintered tops.

  A thin figure in a white coat, thick rubber gloves, and an apron was stooped over an iron bathtub throwing in handfuls of mushrooms. The smell of alcohol was strong, even through the respirators.

  “Peter! Look who’s here,” Swenson called.

  Peter Manion glanced back and, seeing Hobart, snapped upright. He was wearing the same goggles and respirator.

  “Quite a setup you’ve put together here, Peter,” Hobart said, walking the length of the table. It was piled with glass beakers and a mystifying array of other equipment. Hobart wondered how much of it was really necessary and how much was for Manion’s personal enjoyment. No point in dwelling on it, he barely knew a test tube from a Bunsen burner.

  “So, what are you up to?”

  “Uh, I’m converting the active agent in the mushrooms to a concentrated powder form. You see …”

  Hobart cut him off. Despite his nap on the plane, his eyes were burning from lack of sleep. The last thing he needed was a two-hour blow-by-blow on the chemical processes involved in distilling poison. “How much have you gotten done?”