Dragon's Den

“Okay, so Suun’s dead,” Brognola said with irritation evident in his voice. “What’s our alternative?”

“That’s where I’m totally stumped,” Price said. “Under normal circumstances we would have discovered who Suun’s replacement was and had our contacts keep tabs on him. But with the civil unrest that’s taken place over there the past couple of years, we’ve had to cope with distractions on a wider scale. That’s overshadowed our operations and made it much more difficult to keep our finger on the pulse of what’s actually happening in Myanmar.”

“Alternatives?” Brognola asked.

Price cleared her throat. “Well, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to bring this up, but I figure it can’t hurt to put anything and everything on the table at this point. One explanation might be that Myanmar is no longer the central point of production and distribution.”

“Explain,” Brognola replied quietly, furrowing his eyebrows.

Price reached to the printouts she’d brought and went right to a document halfway through the stack. “According to DEA statistics for just last year, America has a heroin-user population of more than two million people. That kind of demand has caused a sharp increase in opium imports. The primary crackdown area as far as the DEA is concerned has always been South American countries. Thus, most of our budget goes to operations there. That leaves the Southeast Asian heroin market wide-open. Most of drugs from the Golden Triangle come in through either maritime smuggling, mules over commercial flights or mail. The volume is simply too much for U.S. Customs agents to handle alone, and they aren’t getting much support from other agencies.”

Kurtzman shook his head. “Seems these days everyone’s way more worried about bombs and anthrax coming through the mail than dope.”

“Agreed,” Brognola replied. “So where do you think we should focus our efforts, Barb?”

“Well, a good number of those export maritime operations come out of places like Borneo, Sumatra and so forth. That accounts for almost fifteen percent of our total oil and gas, electrical appliances, textiles and rubber imports. Hardly anything comes from Myanmar. For lack of any other evidence, I think we should be looking at Indonesia, specifically Jakarta.”

“All right, start seeing what you can do about getting Striker a contact there.” He turned to Kurtzman. “Bear, touch base with Cowboy and see if he has any friends left who might be able to help us out. I’d prefer not to go through official channels if we don’t have to.”

“I’m on it,” Kurtzman said, and immediately wheeled himself out of the room.

Price and Brognola sat in silence a minute before Price said, “You want to let me in?”

“On what?” Brognola replied. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, withdrew a cigar and stuck it between his teeth.

“Don’t be coy,” Price replied. “What’s going on, Hal?”

“Nothing, just a usual earful from the President.” Brognola shrugged. “I guess he wasn’t entirely happy about all the noise Striker’s making. Apparently, he stepped on pretty big toes when he ran into that pair from Homeland Security.”

“Striker can handle himself,” Price reminded the Stony Man chief. “I don’t think he considers them much of a threat.”

“No, but the President’s a bit close to this one because Simon Lipinski’s daughter was killed. He wants results and he wants them quick, and he especially doesn’t want to have a discussion about it. The last thing I need is for him to rag on me about Striker’s thunderous, albeit effective, methods.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Hal,” Price said as she rose from her chair. “Striker’s there to get the job done and he’ll come away with results. Whether the President likes it or not is irrelevant. We go through this almost every time. I’ve never seen you quite this affected by it. Did something else happen?”

“There are…Damn.”

Price watched as something fell in Brognola’s countenance. His face went pale, the expression morose, and light playing on those gaunt features and ghostly complexion aged him a good twenty years in the blink of an eye. Price had never seen him look more drawn and defeated than just in that moment, and it caused her heart to feel as if it might leap right up to her throat and lodge there.

Price swallowed hard. “My God, Hal. What is it?”

“The President received several official recommendations from members within his staff that he cease all sensitive operations outside of those conducted by sanctioned federal agencies.”

“The President would never do that. I’m sure you can see that. I couldn’t count on my fingers and toes the people who know about the Farm. Even the blacksuits aren’t entirely aware of what goes on here. And how would these individuals even know about Stony Man anyway?”

“I don’t think they do know,” Brognola said. “Call it an educated guess, a fishing expedition. Maybe it’s just a reactionary move, a political reach for lack of any other real control on the Oval Office. My guess is they’re little more than lackeys riding on the coattails of some oversight committee member, and they’re jockeying for position by calling out any discrepancy they can find.”

Price shrugged and took her seat. “It all sounds like the standard cutthroat politics of Washington, D.C. I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about it.”

“Mainly because the Man said he’s officially giving the proposal serious consideration.”

Price caught her breath. “What?”

“It’s true,” Brognola said. “I had it checked out with my best sources.”

“You have ears inside the White House?”

“Unfortunately, espionage is a necessary evil in this business.” He lowered his voice, and added, “You of all people can probably understand that. We live in a time where you have to know where you might have enemies. While our operations remain mostly clandestine, there are occasions where Stony Man’s security has been compromised. In those cases the lives of our people can become forfeit, and I won’t allow that to happen. We’ve had our operations compromised before and it resulted in terrible, terrible losses. I won’t let it happen again if it’s at all in my power.”

“But why?” Price asked. For the first time she could remember in a very long time, she felt helpless. “We haven’t given him any reason to disband Stony Man.”

“He’s the President. He doesn’t need one.”

Price swallowed hard. “This doesn’t make any sense, Hal.”

“None of it makes sense,” Brognola replied. “For now, I want you to keep this quiet. Nobody’s to know we had this conversation, including Striker. At least not until I’ve had some time to think about it. Is that clear?”

“It’s clear.” Price stood once more. “I’d better get to work. We need to put together some additional intelligence. We should be hearing from Striker soon.”

She started to turn, then thought better of it, stopped and put her hand gently on Brognola’s forearm. “This will all turn out okay, Hal. Trust me.”

6

“This isn’t going to work,” Rhonda Amherst told the Executioner.