Right To Kill - Right to Kill Part 13
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Right to Kill Part 13

"It seems they've been reactivated. We think they're responsible for the recent string of assassinations I mentioned."

"How did you break your guest so quickly?" Harv asked.

"We didn't get too rough, if that's what you're asking. We gave him a sample of what he could expect over an extended period of time if he didn't cooperate. When he asked for other options, we gave him two choices: he could either spend the rest of his life in Guantnamo Bay surrounded by radical jihadists intent on killing every infidel they could get their hands on, or retire to Belize as a rich man with a new identity."

"Good call."

"It works in most cases when fanatical ideology isn't a factor. People don't like the concept of disappearing forever."

Nathan wanted to ask if the guy would end up at Gitmo anyway, but decided it was a foregone conclusion. Cold-blooded murderers deserved a needle, or worse. "You feel pretty good about the information he gave up?"

"The algorithm makes this kind of intel much easier to corroborate. Plus we got facial-recognition IDs on several of the dead gunmen. Two are Venezuelans here on work visas. Three are Venezuelan Americans with dual citizenship who've been in the US for a long time, but as far as our records show, they've never pulled anything like this. All are positively linked to the Bustamonte twins."

Nathan looked at Harv. "I'm impressed with how quickly your people moved."

"We're highly motivated. Once our guest started talking, we were able to run IDs and verify the info he gave us."

"Obviously the work-visa guys didn't bring duffle bags full of guns and tactical gear with them."

"No, they didn't. The twins have ties to organized crime here in the US. Here's where it gets interesting. Do you recall your Venezuelan rescue mission?"

Nathan did. Another instance of Harv and him being brought out of retirement for a CIA op. They'd rescued Linda's husband-to-be, Glen. She hadn't known Glen at the time-only that he was a US citizen being held against his will in Caracas by the Bustamontes. During the operation, Ursula Bustamonte had nearly killed Nathan; her bullet missed his heart by less than an inch.

Harv must've sensed his thoughts because his friend said, "I'm sure there's a point to all of this."

"We're 99 percent sure the twins are in Daniel Cornejo's employ again."

"And that's important because?" Nathan asked.

Harv jumped in. "Because Cornejo's the front-runner in Venezuela's special presidential election."

"I see you guys are up to speed on Latin American politics."

"That's Harv's thing, not mine."

"Harvey's correct. Short of a miracle, Cornejo's expected to defeat acting president Cadenas, who was President Garmendia's VP."

"I'm remembering something in the news," Nathan said. "Didn't Garmendia have a stroke or heart attack?"

"Stroke," Cantrell said. "The situation's quite controversial. The Venezuelan Constitution calls for a special election within thirty days upon the death or incapacitation of the president, but Garmendia's partially coherent. He can answer yes-and-no questions with hand gestures, but he can't talk and the doctors can't say with certainty he ever will again. It's a political mess. To make a long story short, the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled that a special election is warranted and it's going to take place in ten days."

"And I'm assuming we don't want Cornejo to succeed," said Nathan.

"You assume correctly. Since Hugo Chavez's death, Venezuelan-US relations have remained strained, but they've warmed a little. Cadenas is considerably more pro-capitalist than Garmendia and he's promised to bring Venezuela back to economic health by repealing some of Garmendia's failed social-spending programs. It's more complicated than this, but in a nutshell, rationing, price-fixing, and over-taxation have decimated Venezuela's economy. To make matters worse, crude oil is near a fifteen-year low and it accounts for 96 percent of Venezuela's export income."

"How much of that 96 percent do we buy?" Nathan asked.

"Depending on who you talk to, about 40 percent."

He exchanged an incredulous glance with Harv. "That has to be tens of billions of dollars."

"It is. Again, depending on who you talk to, Venezuela's Orinoco Belt contains around three hundred to five hundred billion barrels of recoverable heavy crude. That means Venezuela has the largest reserves on the planet. Cornejo, on the other hand, is purely self-interested, a robber-baron type. He's perfectly positioned to see a huge windfall if he gets control of Venezuela's national petroleum company. He already owns the biggest oil-drilling company in South America. Nearly all of his competitors are dormant or out of business."

"His doing?" Nathan asked.

"Harv?" Cantrell obviously believed his friend knew the answer.

"More like natural selection. There's been too much supply versus demand for some time now, and the Russians and Saudis have no intention of curtailing their production. It's a giant squeeze play. It wouldn't break their hearts to see Venezuela removed from the competition."

"So much for OPEC unity," Nathan said dryly.

Harv continued, "The Venezuelans have no choice. They have to keep lowering their crude prices to compete. It makes a bad situation worse."

"That's exactly right," Cantrell said. "If the economic situation isn't remedied, Venezuela could find itself following in Greece's footsteps."

"How bad are things down there?" Nathan asked.

"If the murder rate per capita is any indicator," said Cantrell, "they're in a full-blown crisis. Percentage wise, it's ten times higher than ours. A murder is committed every twenty minutes."

"Incredible," Harv said. "I knew it was high, but that's crazy."

"Acting president Cadenas wants reform, but Cornejo's one of the richest men on the continent who can quite literally buy his presidency. Venezuela doesn't really have a pro-capitalism party. The socialists are just too well entrenched. We aren't going to interfere with Venezuela's internal politics, but we are going to find out why Cornejo hired the twins to carry out this recent string of assassinations and abductions."

"The simplest answer," Harv said, "is that Cornejo's tying up loose ends that could torpedo his bid for the presidency."

"That's our conclusion as well. We're working overtime to find links from other victims back to Cornejo. It's still unclear why his people attacked Genneken. The guy we interrogated wasn't leading the operation and didn't know. He said he was planning to meet Tomas at a rest stop along the I-5 corridor near Camp Pendleton."

"So they were heading toward Los Angeles after the attack?"

"It appears that way. Our prisoner was supposed to check in by 12:30 a.m."

"And since we drugged him . . ."

"That's right, he couldn't make the call. Things were fluid and I didn't consider it. A mistake on my part."

"Don't beat yourself up, Rebecca. We didn't think of it either. I think we can safely assume Tomas is long gone from the rest stop. At least we know he's in the area. And if he's in the area, it's a good bet his sister is too."

"I wonder what their next step would have been," said Harv. "Chances are they have a private jet waiting somewhere, especially if Cornejo's as rich as you say."

"We're checking the ATC logs of all the chartered and private jet flights over the last seven days. But we're also looking at Cornejo's US business ownership and real-estate holdings. It's possible the twins didn't plan to leave the country right away. Without knowing why Cornejo wanted to get his hands on Genneken, we can only speculate on his motive."

"I'm still not clear on something," said Nathan. "Why do we, the US, care if Cornejo becomes Venezuela's next president? I get that we don't want a crook running Venezuela who'd make the economic situation worse, but it sounds like something much bigger's going on."

"There is something bigger going on," she said.

Harv shifted in his chair; Nathan suspected his friend knew the answer.

"In two words," Cantrell said, "nuclear weapons. I can't say more than that, it's on a need-to-know basis."

"Okay, we won't ask."

"Presidential terms are six years and the First Amendment to their most recent constitution abolished term limits. If Cornejo wins, we're looking at an unpredictable situation for an indeterminate amount of time. He hates the US more than Chavez did."

"I didn't think that was possible," Nathan said.

"It definitely is."

Nathan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "So what are we supposed to do? Keep hanging tight here with Linda?"

"No, actually, you're going to pay a visit to an exotic car dealership in Santa Monica."

"Okay . . . ," said Nathan. "And we're doing this because Cornejo owns the dealership and you think it's a viable location to pick up Bustamonte's trail?"

"Yes. Cornejo did a good job hiding his title under a multi-tiered shell company, but my personal aide is quite resourceful. Cornejo's involved with many legitimate businesses in the US and Canada. Restaurants, nightclubs, car dealerships, real-estate groups, banks, you name it. Several are in the greater Los Angeles area. Most of them he owns outright; with others he has partners in the US. Almost all of his businesses are likely being used as fronts for his money-laundering operations to one degree or another. Santa Monica Exotics seems to be his flagship operation in North America. He spared no expense constructing it-you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it. He gutted an older building and built the dealership from scratch. The ground floor is the dealership and he rents office space on the second and third floors. We've found that those tenant businesses fall under the same umbrella of shell companies as the dealership."

"So he's paying rent to himself," Harv said.

"At highly inflated rates. I wouldn't be surprised if these nebulous businesses received loans from the umbrella company that will never be paid back. It's classic laundering. The rent is seen as income, but the bogus loans are recorded as losses, hence no income is recognized and little or no tax is paid."

"How much money are we talking about?" Nathan asked.

"All told, hundreds of millions."

Nathan and Harv raised their eyebrows at one another.

"I want to know why Cornejo views Genneken as a threat. If she has dirt on him, find out what it is. And it's entirely possible she doesn't know what she knows, so to speak."

"And if she has dirt on him?" Harv asked.

"We make an anonymous call to the Venezuelan media. Needless to say, we're prohibited by law from domestic intelligence-gathering operations against US citizens, and we don't have any direct law-enforcement powers. But since Cornejo isn't a US citizen and it's clear he's behind the murder of Genneken's husband and her attempted kidnapping, he and the Bustamonte twins are fair game. The DNI's on board with that assessment and he wants regular updates on your progress."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just bring us out of retirement again?" Harv asked, somewhat humorously.

"What would be the point? You guys won't take any money."

"You're right, we wouldn't," Nathan said.

"Let's be clear. You two inserted yourselves by responding to Genneken's home invasion, and I'm glad you did. Nathan, based on your initial report after you arrived at her house, there were still gunmen around and Genneken wouldn't have been able to defend herself because of the Ketamine. You kept her from falling into the twins' hands."

"It was the right thing to do."

"That's what I love about you guys, and why you have personal access to me. You put yourselves at risk without any expectation of getting anything in return."

"What can we say? It's a character flaw."

"Hardly."

Cantrell never greased them; she didn't need to and it wasn't her style. They both appreciated the compliment for what it was.

"We're at your service, as always, but what do you want us to do with Linda while we're gone?"

"You'll be taking her with you. Keep her close at all times. I'm getting some assets on line in the LA area so be ready to move out on a moment's notice. After the Ketamine's fully out of her system, ask her about Cornejo. If she knows why he came after her, let me know right away. Once she's 100 percent, you three are going to wreak havoc on Cornejo's North American world, starting in Santa Monica. At the same time, we'll begin a series of hit-and-run actions against Cornejo's other business interests in LA, with the goal of flushing the Bustamonte twins into the open. We're tracking all their known aliases, but I figure we have zero chance of finding them unless we force them to fight back."

"So we're bait?"

"Bait is such a crude word. I'd prefer to think of you guys as the trap. Keep in mind we need the twins alive. Needless to say the clock is ticking toward the special election. In NFL lingo, we're running a hurry-up offense, not allowing the defense time to rest or change its personnel. We're hitting back, and hitting back hard. Cornejo sent a squad of mercenaries to capture Linda Genneken alive and render her. He's also responsible for one of the stars on our wall, and Ursula came within an eyelash of adding yours. Behind his 'man-of-the-people' veneer, he's the absolute worst a human being can be. Child trafficking is one of the many crimes he's associated with. His cartel buddies buy them from impoverished parents and sell them with no questions asked of the buyers."

Nathan shook his head and looked to Harv.

"Is Cornejo officially part of a Venezuelan cartel?" Harv asked.

"Not directly. He calls himself a successful businessman. We call him an organized crime boss. But he's too smart to get his hands dirty. Think of him like an underwriter. He hires others to do his dirty work for him. Look, if you guys want a pass on this, I'll understand with no questions asked, and no hard feelings. Flushing out the twins will be a difficult and risky assignment."

"We've done worse."

"Yes, you have."

"So why us? Why not use an FBI SWAT team or a joint terrorism task force?"

"Quite frankly, because they have to play by the rules."

Neither of them said anything.

"I'll share a personal belief with you," she said. "The more power a person has, the more accountable that person has to be. I trust you and Harv with the power you're being given, more so than my other teams."

"That's flattering, Rebecca, and we're honored, but again you really don't need us for this kind of thing."

"Who else can hear what I'm saying right now?"

"Just Harv. LG's awake, but she's still pretty groggy. She's in the other room."

"She's the main reason I chose you for the job. I'm sure you'll agree that given everything we know about the woman, there will be no stopping her after tonight. She'll go after the Bustamontes with or without our help. That's why I'm sending her with you. I don't want her doing it alone, and quite frankly, we need the twins alive."

Nathan looked at Harv. "That's our assessment as well. Changing the subject, we'll do our best to avoid crossing paths with law enforcement, but it's possible we could end up in custody. I trust that situation will be . . . appropriately handled?"

"Yes. If it happens, ask for a lawyer, and get word to me."

"Understood," Nathan said. "Regarding what to expect in Santa Monica . . ."

"The car dealership's pretty straightforward, but the second and third floors aren't. There could be cash, drugs, and guns. You name it. All the lifeblood of a crime family's operation. Don't worry about friendlies. Everyone inside the structure should be considered fair game."

"So there are no undercovers?" Harv asked.

"Correct. I'm working on getting eyes on the building, but we won't be able to give you any direct support. DNI Benson said no boots on the ground except yours. Officially, we don't conduct 'domestic' ops like this."

"Understood."

"So, to review: Your job has three elements. Capture the Bustamonte twins so we can get dirt on Cornejo, determine why Cornejo wants Genneken, and find out how her personal information leaked. You may have to conduct field interrogations."