The Cobra

"May we cut to the chase?"

"Please do."

"Almost two years ago, our mutual commander in chief asked me, quite specifically, whether it would be possible to destroy the cocaine industry and trade, both of which were clearly out of control and had become a nationwide scourge. I replied, after intensive study, that it would be possible if certain conditions were fulfilled and at certain cost-hopefully short-term."

"But you never mentioned the streets of three hundred cities ru

"Which was the financial cost only."

"You never mentioned the civil-outrage cost."

"Because you never asked. Look, this country spends fourteen billion dollars a year via a dozen official agencies and gets nowhere. Why? Because the cocaine industry in the U.S. alone, never mind Europe, is worth four times that. Did you really think the creators of cocaine would switch to jelly beans if we asked them? Did you really think the American gangs, among the most vicious in the world, would move into candy bars without a fight?"

"That is no reason for our country being turned into a war zone."

"Yes, it is. Ninety percent of those dying are psychos to the point of being almost clinically insane. The few tragic casualties caught in the cross fire are less than the traffic dead during the Fourth of July weekend."

"But look what the hell you've done. We always kept our psychos and sickos down in the sewers, down in the gutters. You have put them on Main Street. That is where John Q. Citizen lives, and John has a vote. This is an election year. In eight months the man down this hall is going to ask the people to trust him with their country for another four years. And I do not intend, Mr. Goddamn Devereaux, that they will refuse him that request because they dare not leave their homes."

As usual, his voice had risen to a shout. Beyond the door, more-junior ears strained to hear. Inside the room, only one of the two men retained an icy and contemptuous calm.

"They won't," he said. "We are within one month of witnessing the virtual self-destruction of American gangland, or, at any rate, its shattering for a generation. When that becomes clear, I believe the people will recognize what a burden has been lifted from them."

Paul Devereaux was not a politician. Jonathan Silver was. He knew that, in politics, what is real is not important. The important is what appears to be real to the gullible. And what appears to be real is purveyed by the media and purchased by the gullible. He shook his head and jabbed at the front page.

"This ca

He took a single sheet of paper that had been facedown on his desk and thrust it at the retired spy.

"Do you know what this is?"

"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 stu

"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 ca

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.

"Senor?"

"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 ca

"I know what you have done to me, Senor Cobra. You have done me extreme damage. But I have done nothing to harm you. Why did you do what you did?"

"Because my country asked me."

"And now?"

"All my life, I have served two masters. My God and my country. My God has never betrayed me."

"But your country has?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it is no longer the country to which I swore loyalty as a young man. It has become corrupt and venal, weak and yet arrogant, dedicated to the obese and the stupid. It is not my country anymore. The bond is broken, the fealty gone."

"I never gave such loyalty to any country, even this one. Because countries are governed by men, and often the least deserving of them. I also have two masters. My God and my wealth."

"And for the second, Don Diego, you have killed many times."

Devereaux had no doubt that the man a few feet away from him, beneath the veneer and the grace, was a psychopath and supremely dangerous.

"And you, Senor Cobra, you have killed for your country? Many times?"

"Of course. So perhaps we are similar after all."