"Just about what you'd expect. Florida is Drug Central to the whole country right now. There's so much going on that it's almost impossible to keep up with even a fraction of it. Good lord, did you know that the Coast Guard has only about twenty boats to patrol the entire coastline of the whole Southeast and the Gulf of Mexico? Or that Customs has about eight planes in Florida to keep up with a whole smugglers' air force out there?"
"I've heard about it. What does that mean to us?"
"It means that we're looking for a very small needle in a very large haystack."
Stone thought about the men he had located in Vietnam, a whole country filled with hostile adversaries. "We've done it before."
Carol looked at him. "Sure you have. But you were looking for men that the enemy was holding with at least some intention to keep them alive. What are you looking for now?"
Hog joined them. "A guy that's gonna be whacked in about a day if we don't find him, that's what."
Carol nodded. "If he's not dead already."
"We'll find him," Stone snapped. "Something's going on, something hot. We wouldn't have been met at the airport otherwise."
"Airport?" Carol said.
"Some gentlemen from the D.E.A.," Loughlin said. "They greeted us."
"You knew they didn't want you here," Carol told Stone.
"True. But the locals didn't seem too bad. There was one named Bass, who must be the one
Kathi
talked to earlier. He seemed all right, and so did his men. It was the Washington guy who was so upset."
Carol raised an eyebrow. "Which means?"
"Which means that we've stepped into something bigger than we thought. This is more than just a routine M.I.A., or the locals would be in charge."
"I see." Carol turned to the computers, as if they might speak. "I think I know what the big deal might be."
She sat at one of the terminals and logged in. Stone watched her fingers as they sped over the keys. Data began to appear on the amber-colored monitor. Carol tapped the monitor with her finger, and Stone looked at a name that had appeared there.
Enrique
Feliz
.
"Cuban," Carol said. "Young, tough, smart. And mean, very mean. He seems to control most of the cocaine traffic in Miami now."
"What about the Mob?" Stone asked.
"That's how tough
Feliz
is. He and his gang managed to get control of the drugs back in the early eighties after a real gang war. There was blood in the gutters, and the fish in Biscayne Bay were eating real well."
"And the Mafia let it happen?"
"There wasn't much they could do about it.
Feliz
had the guns, the men, and the smarts. The Mob guys didn't want to get their entire organization wiped out down here, so they called it off."
Hog was rubbing his beard. "That sure don't sound like the same old Mob I know."
"You're right, in a way," Carol told him, looking up from the screen. "They just went into a holding pattern, waiting for the right time to strike back and regain control of a dirty business that they thought they had the rights to."
"Besides," Loughlin drawled, "the Mafia has any number of other quite profitable enterprises to keep the troops occupied. Gambling, prostitution, even legal businesses."
"Right again," Carol said. "But lately, the Cubans have been making so much money that some of the Mob guys, particularly some of the younger ones, have been getting jealous."
She tapped the screen once more, her nail striking another name.
Charles
Lucci
.
"They call him Crazy Charlie," she said. "With good reason. I understand that he keeps alligators for pets and feeds them animals he buys from the pound."
No one said anything.
"Anyone who gets out of line is likely to take a visit to Crazy Charlie and not come back. The rumor is that Charlie doesn't have to visit the pound very often."
"A real sweet guy," Loughlin breathed.
"Right. He's the son of old Don Vito
Lucci
." Carol's nail tapped the screen again. "Old, maybe even beginning to slip into senility, but still in charge of the family here. Mainly thanks to Crazy Charlie. As long as he's around, no one's going to cross the old man."
"How about the old man and the drug picture?" Stone cut in.
"He doesn't care much. He's got his fortune made a hundred times. But Charlie is itchy. He wants in, and he also wants to show the Cubans who the real bosses are."
"Sounds explosive, all right," Stone admitted. "No wonder the D.E.A. isn't happy with our being here. This thing could blow up any minute."
"I got a question," Hog said, glaring at the monitor screen as if the answer might miraculously appear there. "How come the drug trade got so profitable all of a sudden?"
"The Cubans have worked some kind of deal with the Colombians," Carol said. "The Colombians are bringing in thousands of kilos of raw coca paste and converting it to cocaine at a secret site somewhere in the Everglades."
"Paste?"
"Much easier to transport than the leaves of the coca plant," Carol said. "You dissolve the plants in kerosene. What's left is the paste. It comes into the country in planes, ships, fishing boats, suitcases, you name it. In the lab, it's cooked, strained, treated with hydrochloric acid and acetone. After that, it's whitened, dried, and sold."
"Now I have a question," Stone said. "Where does Jack
Wofford
fit into this picture?"
Carol gave him a steady look. "I don't know," she said. "But I'd be surprised if he's still alive."
W
offord
felt nothing but pain. Flies buzzed around his face, lice crawled in his hair, mosquitoes feasted on his chest and arms.
He didn't notice.
They had beaten him with clubs that day, and then made him watch while they disemboweled a man named Creel, a man who, like
Wofford
, had dared to strike back at his captors.
Creel had been tied to the bars of his cage in the form of a rough "X" and made to watch while the Cong sharpened their knives. As the first man had sunk his blade into Creel's abdomen, Creel had spit in his face. The man ripped sharply upward and Creel's bowels fell out steaming, but the spit had done its job. The VC had killed him much more quickly than they had intended.
The major had come to
Wofford
after it was over.
Wofford
had never learned his name. "So how do you like your friend now, Yankee piece of shit?" the major inquired, slashing
Wofford
across the face with a leather strap. "Will you try to escape with him again? I think not!"
They left Creel tied to the outside of the cage, his stomach carved open, his entrails stinking, and threw
Wofford
inside.
"You and your friend try to escape together. Now you can live together," the major said.
"Fuck you,"
Wofford
snarled. It came out more like "
Ffuuuhh
uhhhh
" because his jaw was broken and his lips smashed. He knew he would try to escape again.
Soon.
As soon as he could walk.
He had told them nothing, he would never tell them anything, and they could continue to torture him and beat him.
Unless . . .
W
offord
jerked awake.
He was no longer in the jungle, could no longer feel the pain.
At least, not as much pain. He hurt in a few places, but his body was not one gigantic ache as it had been in the dream.
There were no flies, no lice, no stench of shit and vomit.
He was in a dark, cool room, lying on a bed.
He tried to move his arms. They were immobile, tied to the bedposts. So were his legs. He was spread-eagled, just like Creel had been in the dream.
Wofford
could see a rectangle of faint light. A window?
There was furniture in the room, and he could make out the dark outlines. The events of the previous night began to clarify in his mind.
Then he heard voices, from somewhere outside the room.
He strained to make out the words.
". . . Don Vito's idea."
"Yeah, but Charlie don't like it."
". . . Charlie . . ."
The voices began to fade.
"Charlie."
Charley.
The VC.
The Cong.
The major's face appeared above Jack, his mouth twisted in a cruel smile. "Ah, you are awake, Yankee turd. Then you are able to enjoy this."
The leather slashed across Jack's already swollen and bleeding mouth. A boot crashed into his side. . . .
"N
o sign of
Wofford
?" Stone said. "Then why all the big buildup on the Cubans and the Mafia?"
"That's the hot news," Carol said. "That's what the D.E.A. is afraid will blow sky-high if anything stirs the pot down here. They're trying to get a handle on it, but they have nothing so far, nothing more than I've told you."
"And how does it tie in to Jack?"
"It doesn't, as far as I can tell. All I can find out is that he must have been working on some routine job, something small. He was a buyer, not an undercover investigator on the scale that this mess calls for."
There was a note of uncertainty in her voice. Stone seized on it. "But?"
"You can always read me." Carol grinned. "Yes, there is a 'but.'"
"A connection?"
"It's tenuous. I don't know if it's solid enough to put any faith in. But it's all I can come up with."
"A kick in the butt is better than no kicks at all," Hog said. "At least that's what we used to say in East Texas. So what's the connection?"
Carol hit some more buttons and the print on the screen scrolled up. More names appeared.
"These two men are just middle-level street dealers," Carol explained. "
Tomás
Castillo and Jos
é
Rodriguez. Lately they seem to have more money than you'd think they should have brought in from dope. And there was a report just this morning that they were swaggering around last night, bragging about how they were really in solid with Don
Lucci
."
"Street-level guys with big bucks, throwing around the name of the don," Stone gritted. "And that's the connection?"
"That's it." Carol ran a hand through her blonde hair. "I told you it was tenuous. But think about it. What kind of people would Jack
Wofford
be dealing with?"
"About the level of Castillo and Rodriguez," Stone admitted.
"Right. And suppose, just suppose, these two were setting him up. Suppose that the don was financing them. That would explain the money they've been showing."
"And if they had done the dirty deed," Loughlin put in, "that would explain why they thought they were in so solid with the big man himself."
"It makes sense if you look at it that way," Stone admitted grudgingly, "but you could explain the same events in ten other ways."
"Sure you could." Carol's eyes were hard. "But this is the only thing we have. The only possible link."
Hog snorted. "And I was thinking we had to find him
quick
. If that's our best lead, he's as good as cooked."
Stone wheeled on the big East Texan. "Don't talk like that."
Hog looked abashed, and he might even have been blushing beneath the thick beard. "Sorry,
Sarge
. You're right. If that's the best lead we've got, then by damn we'll follow it and hope for the fucking best."
"Right," Stone said, more calmly. He turned back to Carol. "I hope you have a pretty good idea of just exactly where these guys were heard bragging about their good buddy the don."