Altered State

“Makes sense,” Bolan said.

He couldn’t quote chapter and verse from the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, approved by the UN’s General Assembly in 1989, but he understood the gist of it. The declaration defined mercs as private soldiers recruited expressly for profit and condemned their employment either in general warfare or for specific projects, such as toppling governments. Companies like Vanguard and its handful of competitors skirted the rules by posing as “security consultants,” or simply ignored the UN’s declaration in full knowledge that it was a toothless order, virtually unenforceable.

How could the UN stop America, Britain, or any other country from hiring private troops to guard facilities abroad? And if those “guards” should run amok, committing acts that qualified as war crimes if performed by soldiers of a sovereign state, what was the legal remedy?

In Vanguard’s case, apparently, there wasn’t one.

“We wouldn’t normally concern ourselves with anything like this,” Brognola said. “Hell, Stony Man was founded to reach out and touch the bad guys when the law can’t do it. And the gun-running, that falls to State or Treasury, if either one of them decides it’s worth their time.”

“So, what, then?” Bolan asked his oldest living friend.

“So, heroin,” Brognola said.

“Explain.”

“You know we keep track of the traffic, right?”

Bolan nodded, waiting for the rest.

“Well, what you may not know is that Afghanistan surpassed Turkey in heroin production during the nineties. In 1999, the Afghanis had 350 square miles of opium poppies under cultivation, with smack refineries running around the clock. A year later, the Taliban moves in and takes control of the country, declaring the drug trade ‘un-Islamic.’ Whatever else we think of them, hiding Osama, treating their women like slaves and the rest, they reduced Afghan poppy cultivation by ninety-odd percent in one year, down to thirty square miles in 2001.”

“What’s the bad news?” Bolan asked.

“That would be 9/11,” Brognola replied. “Down come the towers in New York, and we invade Afghanistan. Boot out the Taliban and supervise elections. Never mind missing Bin Laden. Anyone can have a bad day, right? Or eight bad years? The trouble is, that with the Taliban deposed, the drug trade started up again, big-time.”

“So I heard. But, what’s the most recent data?”

“Right now, opium cultivation is back up to three hundred square miles and climbing. The UN’s International Narcotics Control Board says Afghanistan produced 3,500 tons of heroin last year, up from 185 tons in 2001. That’s an increase of nearly two thousand percent. Scotland Yard says nearly all the heroin in Britain comes from Afghanistan now. They’ve frozen out the China white and Turkish product, underselling their competitors because they deal in bulk. It isn’t quite that bad, stateside, but I can promise you, we’re getting there.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Bolan said. “But where does Vanguard come into the picture?”

“It’s looking more and more like they may be the picture,” Brognola replied. “Or, anyway, the transport side of it.”

“I’m listening.”

“They aren’t just in Iraq, okay? That little blow-up got the company its first global publicity, but they’ve got outposts everywhere you go. Saudi Arabia. Bangkok. Jakarta. Take your pick.”

“Afghanistan,” Bolan said.

“Almost from the start, back in 2001,” Brognola said. “They weren’t front-line, but they moved in behind the coalition troops, guarding oil pipelines, corporate HQs and CEOs, the usual. And somewhere in the middle of all that, we think they hooked up with the poppy growers and refiners.”

“When you say we think , that means…?”

“We know,” Brognola said. “We have surveillance tapes of Vanguard personnel guarding the opium plantations, running convoys on drug shipments, piloting some of the planes.”

“So, lock them up and shut it down,” Bolan replied.

“Ah, that’s the rub,” Brognola said. “So far, nobody’s caught them with a shipment anywhere in U.S. jurisdiction, or in Britain. They’ve been able to evade surveillance for the hand-offs, and they let the buyers run with it from there—wherever there is, for a given load.”

“We must have pull inside Afghanistan,” Bolan said. “With the Army, FBI and CIA in place? A president we basically appointed to replace the Taliban? You’re telling me nobody can arrest drug dealers operating in plain sight?”

“It’s all about ‘democracy,’ these days. Democracy and appearances , okay? Afghanistan was on the economic ropes when we moved in, back in 2001. The government, such as it was, was drowning in red ink and weird religious proclamations from the Taliban. Now they’re on track again—or seem to be—but tossing out the zealots left a vacuum. And who fills it? The same characters who were in charge before the Taliban started its holy war. Oil men and heroin producers. The DEA calls it a ‘heroin economy.’ I won’t say that drug smugglers own the president, but draw your own conclusions.”

“So the job is what, exactly?” Bolan asked.

“We can’t wipe out the poppy farms or the refineries,” Brognola answered. “No one can, unless the Afghans managed to elect a government that’s more concerned with law and common decency than profit.”

Bolan smiled ruefully and said, “Good luck with that.”

“Meanwhile, we need to shut down our part of the pipeline. Vanguard’s crossed the line, but we can’t touch them legally. Between the jurisdiction thing and their connections from Kabul to Washington, arrests aren’t happening.”

“Connections,” Bolan said. “Whose toes will I be stepping on?”

“Vanguard has friends in Congress and around the Pentagon,” Brognola replied. “They serve huge corporations, which means lobbyists are at their beck and call. As far as opposition on the ground, watch out for people from the Company.”

Bolan suppressed a grimace. Elements within the CIA had dealt with organized criminals from the Agency’s inception in 1947. Espionage was a dirty business, but some of the CIA’s allies were filthy beyond redemption: French heroin smugglers in the late 1940s and early ’50s, Asian traffickers during the Vietnam War, and South American cocaine cartels throughout the Contra mess in Nicaragua. Each time they were caught, the spooks cried “national security” and vowed that they would never touch another load of contraband.

In each and every case, they lied.

“I see a problem going in,” Bolan remarked.

“Which is?”

“I’ll need a guide, interpreter, whatever,” he replied. “We usually use a native who’s been working for the Company. But if they’re on the other side, this time…”

“You’re covered,” Brognola replied. “The DEA’s been working overtime on this. In fact, most of the information I’ve just given you came straight from them. One of their agents will provide a native contractor to meet your needs.”

“We’re in the middle of a bureaucratic civil war, then,” Bolan said.

“No one in Washington will ever call it that,” Brognola stated. “Vanguard’s the target. Do it right, there’ll be some backroom grumbling, but no politician’s going public to defend drug smugglers who’ve already been accused of killing innocent civilians. They can spin the killings seven ways from Sunday, but there’s no way to explain shipments of heroin.”

“And if the Company steps in?”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Brognola said. “Do what you have to do. They bury their mistakes. It’s one thing they know how to do.”

“I’ll need more background on the targets,” Bolan said.

Brognola took a CD in a plastic jewel case from an inside pocket of his windbreaker and handed it to Bolan on the down-low.

“Everything’s on there,” he said. “Including info on your DEA contact. Just wipe it when you’re done, as usual.”

“I’ll check it out tonight,” Bolan replied, and made the CD disappear into a pocket of his own. “When do I leave?”

“Sooner the better,” Hal replied. “You’ll have to fly commercial, I’m afraid. A charter where you’re going raises too damn many eyebrows, but the CD has some addresses in Kabul where you can pick up tools of the trade. In fact, from what I hear, guns are the one thing in Afghanistan that’s easier to find than heroin. Come one, come all.”

“So, it’s Dodge City in the middle of a bureaucratic civil war.”

Brognola smiled. “Picture Colombia, devoid of any self-restraint.”