“ ‘Ph.D.’?” Byrth repeated. “Of course. And the order Marsupialia? Aren’t those the pouched mammals. Right? Kangaroos, bandicoots-”
“Yes, they are,” Hargrove interrupted, clearly pleased someone recognized his chosen field of work.
“-opossums?” Byrth finished. “We have opossums in Texas.”
“Yes,” he replied, a bit bewildered. “And opossums.”
There were muffled chuckles in the crowd.
This pompous ass wants to be called “doctor.”
He doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to be a real doctor, one like Mitchell.
I’m damn sure not going to give him the satisfaction.
“Thank you, sir, for clarifying that for me,” Byrth said. “And your question?”
“It is this: As horrible as these acts today were, how do they possibly affect someone, hypothetically speaking, of course, enjoying, oh, shall we call it some recreational marijuana?”
As he sat back down, Byrth immediately said, “Well, for beginners, it’s an unlawful act-”
“I’ll take that one,” Denny Coughlin interrupted, his hand extended for the microphone.
Byrth passed him the microphone, and Coughlin went on: “As Sergeant Byrth was I think about to say, possession or consumption of an illicit drug is illegal in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and will find your hypothetical example duly arrested and quite possibly incarcerated.”
He paused for a sip of water.
“But there is a bigger point to your query that I want to make. While I am not able to give further details, I can tell you that the two injured in the explosion at that motel this morning come from two very fine families. Were it not for illegal drugs, those two young people from the Main Line would not have been at the back of some seedy motel at two o’clock in the morning. And they would not have jeopardized what otherwise would have been wonderful, productive futures.”
He started to hand back the microphone to Byrth, then stopped.
“I might add one other thing,” Coughlin said, “and Sergeant Byrth here can put it in better perspective than I. There are those who devoutly believe, and I count myself among them, that those who take so-called recreational drugs are funding not only these criminal gangs and their street wars, but also funding terrorism around the world.”
He then handed the microphone to Byrth.
Byrth saw that Professor Hargrove-the bearded one now had a name-called from his seat, “You can’t be serious!”
Coughlin’s Irish face looked to be reddening. But he simply nodded his answer, taking the high road by choosing not to get into a verbal battle.
“Count me in with Commissioner Coughlin’s crowd, too,” Byrth said into the microphone. “It’s unequivocally a fact that terrorists are funded by drug money. And it’s easy to understand why: The amount of money is beyond belief.”
He started pacing in front of the lectern.
“Anyone have an idea how much money from illegal drugs leaves the United States each year for Mexico and Colombia?”
“Tens of millions!” a young man in a tan blazer called.
Byrth smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps that much in a week,” he said. “Our friends in the federal government estimate that just those two DTOs-the Mexican and Colombian drug-trafficking organizations-take out of the U.S., either physically or by laundering it, somewhere between nine billion and twenty-five billion dollars. That’s billion-with-a-‘b.’ Every year. And that’s a lot of available cash floating around.”
The room fell silent.
Byrth added, “And that’s just from the wholesale distribution of marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin from Mexico, and cocaine and heroin from Colombia. Doesn’t begin to count the other Central and South American countries, nor, say, heroin from Afghanistan, which basically supplies the bulk to the world markets.”
“That’s staggering,” a male voice said.
“Anyone want to take a guess at how much was budgeted in a recent year for the Merida Initiative, the U.S.’s antidrug program?”
No one took a guess.
“About three hundred million to Mexico,” Byrth said, “and another hundred million to Central America. Million-with-an-‘m.’ Meanwhile, not long ago, in a single raid in Mexico City, agents seized more than two hundred million in U.S. currency. Just from a single supplier of chemicals for making meth. That’s only one-fifth of one billion bucks. Imagine the logistics of keeping safe the multiple billions in cash of a wholesaler of final product.”
“Absolutely mind-boggling,” another man’s voice declared from the middle of the room.
“Small wonder there’s so much corruption south of the border,” the young man in the tan blazer added.
Byrth was silent a moment, clearly considering his words. “Not just south of the Rio Grande…”
Someone grunted.
Byrth paced again, then went on: “So, for just two countries, something between nine and twenty-five billion dollars in illicit money. And it’s a cash business. None of those annoying things we honest folk have to deal with, like taxes.” He paused. “But they do, however, have to deal with death. And sometimes that comes to them a little sooner than they expected.”
Byrth smiled. “Here’s a bit of trivia. There are a hundred one-hundred-dollar notes in a banded packet. That’s a stack worth ten grand, and it’s not quite a half-inch high. A hundred of those banded ten-grand packets equals one million bucks. And call it-what’s fifty inches?-call it four feet high. Or two stacks of two feet high.”
A very distinguished-looking silver-haired lady in a navy blue linen outfit raised her hand. She looked perhaps fifty-five or sixty years old.
“You could carry around a million dollars in a briefcase. No one would be the wiser,” she said in a very soft feminine voice.
“Yes, ma’am. Or in a UPS or FedEx box. A million bucks delivered overnight.”
Some of the faces looked incredulous. Most appeared shocked.
Byrth then said, “But a billion is…?”
“A thousand million,” a young man’s voice offered. “Using your ballpark figure, that’d be a pair of stacks two hundred feet high.”
“Right,” Byrth said. “And multiply that by more than twenty-five billion a year. Every year. And it’s not all in hundred-dollar notes. Twenties are common.”
The faces continued to look incredulous and shocked.
“The logistics of moving the money push the bad guys to the point of desperation,” Byrth said. “With so much cash, they smuggle it by truck, car, Greyhound bus. They will even ship it like a Christmas fruitcake via UPS, FedEx, or even the U.S. Postal Service. The drug traffickers drive out to suburbia and find a house with its yard littered with newspapers, indicating the homeowner’s out of town. Then they phone down to their stash house along the border and give them the address. Next day, a box gets delivered, no signature required. The courier just rings the doorbell and drives off. Soon as it’s dark, the traffickers drive back out and collect their package. If they lose a few in the process, it’s just the cost of doing business. Cash gets shipped back the same way.”
“So how is this cash laundered?” the distinguished woman asked.
“With U.S. law requiring that any cash transaction in excess of ten thousand dollars be reported to the U.S. Treasury, it’s a real challenge to move nine billion, let alone twenty-five billion. Year after year.”
“Then how-” she repeated.
Byrth put his right hand to the side of his head, the pinky at the corner of his mouth and the thumb to his ear. “Hello, Western Union?”
He put down his hand. “Not only that, of course. Lots of money moves through electronic transfers and other types of wire remittances. Prepaid Visa gift cards are popular. There’s also the Black Market Peso Exchange; you can guess how that works-the dirty dollars buying clean pesos at a steep premium.”
Matt Payne was writing down “Black Market Peso Exchange” and “FedEx” on a piece of paper. He saw Tony Harris move suddenly.
Harris had felt his cell phone vibrate.
He pulled it from its belt clip and tried to discreetly check its screen.
