State of Emergency

CHAPTER 23


December 28 Guinea-Bissau

West Africa

“Your employer is very persuasive,” General Bundu of the Bissau-Guinean Army said. He stood with his arms folded over his belly, which had grown considerably since his ascendance to top military leader. Legs spread wide apart like an oil derrick, he peered up at a cloudless West African sky.

“You have no idea,” Matt Pollard mumbled from his spot in the dry grass beside the general. Above them, well out over the Atlantic, a slender Boeing 727 came out of a long downwind to bank slowly for a final approach. The runway was little more than five thousand feet of relatively obstacle-free hardpan with the trees and shrubs cleared from the parched salt grass on either side to give wing clearance to large aircraft. The ocean lapped at a breakwater of large black stones at the far end of the strip.

Behind Pollard and the general, two dozen riflemen, dressed in the woodland camouflage uniforms of the Bissau-Guinean Army, stood guard over five palletized stacks of assorted boxes. The box Pollard was the most concerned with was packed in the center of the second pallet in line, hiding in plain sight. As far as he knew, no one at the airstrip but him was aware of the true contents of that particular case.

Off to the side, two rusted fuel trucks idled under the sparse shade of three lonely palms beside a tethered goat. Each truck contained about nine thousand gallons of jet fuel, more than enough to get the thirsty 727 refilled for her return flight as long as she was fitted with extra tanks.

Though Zamora hadn’t explained the details of his operation, it hadn’t been too difficult for Pollard to put it together. The U.S. war on drugs made it increasingly difficult to smuggle large quantities of product across the Mexican border. South American cartels had branched out to lucrative European markets. Large oceangoing trawlers were still a favorite method of transport, but with the glut of retired commuter aircraft on the market, cartels were able to purchase planes for pennies on the dollar. Large quantities of cocaine now moved via these DC-9s, 727s, and older Gulfstreams, primarily from Venezuela to West Africa. Sometimes it was cheaper to pay the pilots two or three hundred grand to fly over a load of dope, then once the delivery was made, torch the plane and fly home commercially.

But Zamora dealt in weapons, many of them coming from former Soviet Bloc countries. The return drug flights offered the perfect way of getting his guns and explosive ordnance back to South America.

Zamora had been clear on one thing. Pollard’s job was to escort the bomb back to Venezuela, where he could work on it away from prying eyes, perform what maintenance it needed, and get past the Permissive Action Link. In simple terms, the PAL was the arming code for the bomb, the encrypted signal that permitted someone to blow it up. The U.S. had been using them since the 1960s in one form or another to safeguard against the very scenario Pollard now faced. Later PALs were impossible to bypass. As nuclear physicist Peter Zimmerman put it—“Bypassing a PAL should be about as complex as performing a tonsillectomy while entering the patient from the wrong end.”

Pollard wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to pull it off. He was, however, certain that if he didn’t, Zamora and his insane girlfriend would murder Marie and Simon without a second’s thought.

It was the perfect conundrum for his ethics class. Who is more important? The two people in the world you love the most, or fifteen thousand strangers? Should sheer numbers matter, or was the worth of one soul comparable to that of a thousand others? Pollard’s skull ached from rehearsing the arguments over and over, then sobbing himself into an exhausted sleep.

Zamora was obviously sure enough Pollard would choose his family that he didn’t even bother to put a guard with him. Perhaps Zamora knew him better than he knew himself.

General Bundu raised his hand and twirled it in a tight circle as the big jet made a breaking turn at the end of the runway amid a cloud of red dust and lumbered back toward them. His men sprang into action, jumping onto a gang of three ancient forklifts to be ready to unload as soon as the plane came to a stop. More time on the ground meant more chance of interception.

“The goal is to exchange cargo by the time they have finished fueling,” Bundu said, taking a square tin of snuff from the breast pocket of his uniform. “The pilots don’t like to stay on the ground too long.” His men moved with antlike precision, but the general’s eyes flicked this way and that with each order he gave as if the entire operation was his first time.

One of the forklift operators rolled up to the front of the aircraft and raised an empty pallet up as the front door swung open. A slender man who was obviously the pilot stepped onto the pallet and grabbed the attached handrail. He wore sturdy boots, jeans, and a well-worn leather jacket. Silver-gray hair was mussed from wearing a headset for hours on end.

The forklift driver backed up a few feet and lowered the pallet smoothly to the ground. The pilot stepped off and strode over to where Pollard and Bundu stood.

Pollard started to shake hands, but realized maybe that wasn’t the thing to do with these drug-running types.

“Change of plans,” the pilot said, peering between bushy gray eyebrows and the top of his Ray-Bans.

Bundu tensed and Pollard held his breath.

“How so?” the general asked.

“We’re offloading here as usual,” the pilot said. “But the boss says we are not to take this cargo back to Caracas.”

“The boss?” Pollard asked. “Zamora said not to take the load back?”

“That’s right,” the pilot said. “But we still need to get airborne again right away.” He began to look longingly at the dilapidated hangar. “I gotta take a serious dump and I’d just as soon not cram myself in the head on board that box of bolts.”

“I don’t understand,” Pollard said. “What am I supposed to do with the . . . items we have on hand?”

“I don’t give a shit,” the pilot said, turning for the hangar. “And neither does Rafael Zamora.”

Pollard grabbed him by the shoulder.

“You mean Valentine Zamora,” he said.

The pilot tore off his sunglasses and glared at Pollard. “Son,” he hissed. “You’ll want to let go of me now.”

Pollard nodded and stepped back.

“Sorry,” he said. “Rafael?”

The pilot turned to go. “Rafael is Valentine’s daddy. Those are his drugs being off-loaded from his airplane.”

“But we have to get this load back,” Pollard said, his voice sounding more desperate than he would have liked. He left out the part about his wife and son being killed if he failed.





Pollard borrowed Bundu’s phone and called the emergency number Zamora had given him.

The Venezuelan sputtered with anger at the news. “He said what? Never mind what he said.... The device must get to . . . Tell the pilot I will pay him double. . . . No, tell him I’ll have him shot.... Wait, put him on and let me tell him myself. . . .”

Pollard took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, wracking his brain. It killed him to think up viable solutions for this man.

Before he could speak, Zamora began ranting again. “I’ll call my father and find out what this is all about. Tell General Bundu to shoot the pilots if they try to leave before I call back.”

The line went dead and Pollard relayed the message to a stunned Bundu.

“This job proves much more difficult than I imagined,” the deflated general whispered. His round face drooped like a despondent schoolboy’s. “If I shoot Rafael Zamora’s pilots he will send men to murder me. If I don’t shoot Rafael Zamora’s pilots, Valentine Zamora will come to Africa and murder me himself.”

Luckily for everyone involved, the pilot’s business inside the hangar took long enough that Valentine was able to call back and ask to speak to him. The pilot stood chatting for a full minute. His head swiveled this way and that as if he expected a raid at any moment. At length he shrugged and said, “Okay, I’ll keep our deal going. But if your father finds out, we’re all dead.”

He passed the phone back to Pollard.

“It seems my father believes our shipments bring unnecessary scrutiny on his high office,” Zamora said. “The bastard has barred me from doing business in my own country, Matthew. Can you believe that? He said he’d have me arrested if I landed in Venezuela with a load of weapons.”

Pollard swallowed. He didn’t know what to say. He only wanted to see his wife and son again.

“In any case,” Zamora went on. “Your priorities have not changed. Do as the pilot tells you. I will see you soon—and when I do, I hope for your family’s sake everything is in working order.” His voice grew giddy as if they were old friends. “Okay then, bye now. . . .”

Pollard switched off the phone and let his hand fall to his side. He looked at the pilot for directions.

“Load your shit,” the pilot said. “Looks like I’m taking you to Bolivia—if the bastards don’t shoot us out of the air.”