Gone (Michael Bennett 6)

I let out a breath as Perrine appeared on the screen. He was wearing an impeccably tailored tuxedo, standing at a podium in what looked to be some kind of ballroom.

The last time I had laid eyes on him, he was in a prison jumpsuit, escaping from a Lower Manhattan courthouse in a construction-crane basket. It made my blood boil to see him back in his stylish finery, dressed to the nines again.

I also noticed that he had gotten his nose fixed. Which sucked. I was the one who had broken it for him in a scuffle we’d had before I placed him under arrest. I had the funny feeling we would have another scuffle before this thing was done. But is that a good thing? I wondered.

I watched as the psychopathic murderer smiled pleasantly, adjusted the mike, and cleared his throat.

“I see myself as a historical figure,” Perrine said from the dais without the slightest hint of irony. “Like Pancho Villa or Che Guevara or the great Simón Bolívar, I am here to continue the Southern Hemisphere’s great tradition of rebellion. Only, I am more honest, more defiant, because I refuse to hide my ambitions behind the bullshit con game that is socialism.

“I do not need to justify my actions. Especially to the Americans. Borders and laws, they cry. Supply and demand is my reply. They disrupt my business while it is their decadent sons and daughters who are my very best customers.

“It is time,” Perrine said. “Time to stop fucking around. That is what I learned during my stay in the great United States. My brief stay.”

The audience broke into applause and uproarious laughter at that one.

I wanted to put my fist through the screen.

“I see the US finally for what it is,” Perrine continued. “Just another rival, just another meddlesome obstacle to our ambitions. Where the Americans are weak, we will show our strength. We will not stop until the border itself is meaningless. We will spur on chaos until it is manifest everywhere, until even the American authorities are as cowed as the Mexican ones. Then and only then will we have free rein.

“And by we, be sure that I do not mean old Mexico. I do not mean the sorry downtrodden, the blessed poor. Fuck the forever-useless, sniveling, ever-present poor once and for all, I say.

“By we, I mean you and me—all the people ruthless and lucky enough to be in this room at this present moment. Tout le monde is ours for the taking, my friends! The world is turning, readying itself for new borders, new laws. I say we write them with the blood of our American enemies. What do you say? Who is with me? Who wants to be a billionaire?”

CHAPTER 34

THE SCREEN FADED TO black, and Parker closed the laptop, cutting off the sound of more applause.

“Wow, I’m impressed,” I said. “That has to be the Gettysburg Address of maniacal narco-terrorists.”

Emily nodded. “One of our informants who was at the dinner said that after his speech, Perrine expertly directed a PowerPoint presentation in which a precise military-insurgency plan of attack on the southwest US was laid out,” she said.

“What?” I said, laughing.

Parker nodded somberly.

“I’m not kidding. Like a general, he referred to the cartel’s current troop strengths and provisions, its recruiting efforts. Ho Chi Minh was mentioned often and fondly.”

“Ho Chi Minh? Now, please. I know he’s a threat, Emily, but Perrine’s out of his cocaine-smuggling mind. Or he’s just trying to get his guys going. There’s no way he can operate in the US the way he’s been doing it in Mexico. He knows that would be suicide.

“Believe me, Emily. This guy is smart. You saw him there with his manicure and his silk bespoke attire. His tastes are pure French. He’s a gourmet, a real bon vivant with joie de vivre. He likes being alive.”

“What you say is true, Mike, but he’s making some pretty audacious moves nonetheless,” Emily said. “Those two cops in El Monte were blown to pieces by highly trained paramilitaries—mercenaries, probably. Which is troublesome when you consider that some of our analysts are saying the cartels employ upward of fifty or sixty thousand people.

“Plus, you heard the speech. Drugs seem to be almost beside the point. He’s high on his own power. He seems like he’s drifted from egotistical drug smuggler into megalomaniac world conqueror. He’s French, all right. It seems he thinks he’s Napoleon.”

“You have a point there,” I said.

“Well, the good news is, this really isn’t the first rodeo for the US military against these narco nuts,” Emily said, twirling a pen in her fingers. “In Colombia in the eighties, Pablo Escobar actually went to full-blown war with the Colombian government. He blew up government buildings and an airliner before the Colombians asked for our help. The first George Bush sent in Delta Force, which tracked down the maniac for the Colombian army, who ultimately took him out.”

“You’

re right. That’s true,” I said, brightening. “I forgot all about that. You’ve been around awhile, Parker. Were you involved in the Pablo Escobar takedown?”

She turned and stabbed me in the arm with the pen.

“Ow!”

“Screw you, Bennett,” she said, affronted. “I’m younger than you are. In the nineties, I was in high school, dancing to Depeche Mode.”