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“You will doubtless be delighted to tell me.”
“It is a Presidential Executive Order. Are you going to disobey it?”
“Unlike you, Mr. Silver, I have served several commanders in chief and never disobeyed one yet.”
The snub caused the chief of staff to turn a mottled red.
“Well, good. That is very good. Because this PEO orders you to stand down. Project Cobra is over. Terminated. Discontinued. Effective this hour. You will return to your headquarters and dismantle it. Is that plain?”
“As rock crystal.”
Paul Devereaux, the Cobra, folded the paper and slipped it into his jacket pocket, turned on his heel and left. He ordered his driver to take him to the drab warehouse in Anacostia, where, on the top floor, he showed the PEO to a stunned Cal Dexter.
“But we were so close.”
“Not close enough. And you were right. Our great nation can kill up to a million abroad, but not one percent of that figure of its own gangsters without sustaining a fainting fit.
“I have to leave the details, as ever, to you. Call in the two Q-ships. Donate the Balmoral to the British Navy and the Chesapeake to our own SEALs. Maybe they can use it for training. Call back the two Global Hawks; return them to the USAF. With my thanks. I have no doubt their amazing technology is the way of the future. But not ours. We are paid off. Can I leave all this in your hands? Even down to the cast-off clothes on the lower floors that can now go to the homeless?”
“And you? Can I reach you at home?”
The Cobra thought for a while.
“For a week, maybe. Then I may have to travel. Just loose ends. Nothing important.”
IT WAS a personal conceit of Don Diego Esteban’s that, although he had a private chapel on this estate in the ranch country of the Cordillera, he enjoyed receiving communion at the church in the nearest small town.
It enabled him to acknowledge with grave courtesy the deferential salutations of the peons and their shawl-shrouded wives. It enabled him to beam at the awestruck, barefoot children. It allowed him to drop a donation into the collection plate that would keep the parish priest for months.
When he agreed to talk with the man from America who wished to see him, he chose the church but arrived massively protected. It was the suggestion of the American that they meet in the house of the God whom they both worshipped and under the Catholic Rite to which they both subscribed. It was the strangest request he had ever received, but its simple ingenuity intrigued him.
The Colombian hidalgo was there first. The building had been swept by his security team, and the priest sent packing. Diego Esteban dipped two fingers in the font, crossed himself and approached the altar. He chose the front row of pews, knelt, bowed his head and prayed.
When he straightened, he heard the old sun-bleached door behind him creak, felt a gust of
hot air from outside, then noted the thud of the closing. He knew he had men in the shadows, guns drawn. It was a sacrilege, but he could confess and be forgiven. A dead man cannot confess.
The visitor approached from behind and took a place also in the front pew, six feet away. He also crossed himself. The Don glanced sideways. An American, lean, of similar age, calm-faced, ascetic in an impeccable cream suit.
“Señor?”
“Don Diego Esteban?”
“It is I.”
“Paul Devereaux, of Washington. Thank you for receiving me.”
“I have heard rumors. Vague talk, nothing more. But insistent. Rumors of a man they call the ‘Cobra.’ ”
“A foolish nickname. But I must own to it.”
“Your Spanish is excellent. Permit me a question.”
“Of course.”
“Why should I not have you killed? I have a hundred men outside.”
“Ah, and I only my helicopter pilot. But I believe I have something that was once yours and which I may be able to return. If we can reach a concordat. Which I cannot do if I am dead.”