Against All Enemies

mission. No matter how much he loathed what he was about to do, he would not forget Mullah Omar Rahmani’s words.

Samad had traveled alone in the black Mercedes limousine. Niazi and Talwar were watching Spanish soap operas back at the Charleston Hotel, where Ballesteros had put them up in suites — all seventeen of them. Fourteen of Samad’s fifteen fighters had arrived in the city, and it was Allah’s will that he, Niazi, and Talwar had escaped from that jungle house after the attack by FARC paramilitary troops. Thus far there had been only one setback: the death of Ahmad Leghari in Paris. That Ballesteros could not use the submarine to get them into Mexico was an issue that could be addressed, but most crucial was the border crossing into the United States. If Samad could strike a deal now with the Juarez Cartel, then the most challenging leg of his journey would be addressed. If not, there would be other plans set into motion, and Rahmani had said that he was already in contact with at least one other cartel. He’d feared that contacting several cartels at once might alert Rojas, and so they would advance slowly, subtly.

The limousine driver, a young man no more than twenty-one, took him up across the broad cobblestone driveway and toward the entrance of a spectacular colonial-style mansion set into the foothills and overlooking the entire city. This, Ballesteros had said, was yet another of his boss’s vacation homes, worth millions in a good real estate market, and Samad, being a man of simple means and simple resources, could not help but despise the ostentation of it all, from the dozens of dormer windows to the six different fountains set across the circular driveway to the marble statues that suggested he’d arrived at a museum rather than a private residence. They stopped before a pair of wooden doors hand-carved with leaf patterns accented in gold and finished in a deep walnut. The driver stepped out and opened the door for Samad, who slid outside. He would be unrecognizable to even his trusted lieutenants, were they to glimpse him from afar. The beard and hair had been severely trimmed, and he’d purchased a very Western business suit along with a leather attache. He was, to any Colombian, a successful-looking foreign businessman who on the weekends enjoyed the outdoors, as suggested by his rough- and-tumble beard and lean frame.

A slightly hunchbacked man with gray mustache and dressed in a butler’s uniform met him at the door and led him onto a back terrace, where the man Samad had come to see was alone before a wrought-iron table, reading the daily edition of La Republica Bogota, a glass of orange juice waiting at his side.

“Senor Rojas? Your guest has arrived,” said the butler in Spanish.

The newspaper lowered to reveal a man shockingly young for his position. Samad tried to hide his surprise as the man rose, raked fingers through thick black hair with the barest touch of gray, then reached out to offer Samad a firm handshake.

“Buenos dias. Please, have a seat.”

“Gracias,” Samad said, assuming they would speak in Spanish. “It’s a great honor to finally meet you in person. Mullah Rahmani has shared many great things about you.”

“Well, I appreciate that. Your breakfast will be here shortly.”

“Excellent.”

“Senor Ballesteros tells me you have a rather large party accompanying you.”

“That’s true.”

Rojas made a face. “That troubles me. And I already expressed my concern to Mullah Rahmani.”

“Then you understand our dilemma,” said Samad.

“I’m afraid I don’t. He didn’t tell me the reason for your visit, only that you were coming and that it was extremely important that we talk.”

“Well, before we discuss that, I would like to assure you that the mistakes made in Pakistan will not happen again. The CIA has put a lot of pressure on us, but we’ve recruited an operative on the inside. He’s given us a few names. With his help, shipments will resume as usual.”

Rojas hoisted one of his brows. “I’m sure they will, otherwise I’ll be forced to find another supplier. Many warlords in the north have been knocking on my door. And as I’ve made Rahmani very much aware, we are the only cartel with whom you will do business.”

“Of course.”

“Mark my words. If I learn that you’re not happy with us and sell your product to perhaps the Sinaloa Cartel or another one of my competitors, there would be grave consequences.”

While Samad could not hide his disdain over being threatened, he remained keenly aware that he would not leave these grounds alive were he to cross this man. “We understand very clearly that our arrangement is exclusive. And we’re very happy to be working with you and for you to take such care in trying to expand the reach of our product, which has, in the past, been largely ignored by the cartels. In fact, we are so grateful for your help that I’ve brought some gifts.”

Samad caught Rojas staring at his briefcase. “Oh, no,” Samad added with a grin. “They’re not in here. They are much larger, shall we say.”

“I think I know what you have in mind.”

“Yes. Something for your enemies.”

Back at Ballesteros’s jungle house were two trucks loaded down with sophisticated improvised explosive devices manufactured in Samad’s factory in Zahedan. Along with the hundreds of bombs were twenty-two crates of Belgian-made FN 5.7 pistols, which Samad knew were a favorite among the Mexican drug cartels, who used the mata policia against police wearing body armor. The pistol’s rounds often penetrated that armor, and Samad assumed a gift like this would most assuredly please Rojas and his sicarios.

Samad removed from his briefcase an inventory sheet and showed it to Rojas, whose gaze widened. “Excellent.”

“I’ll have them delivered this afternoon.”

“Not here. I’ll have Fernando call you to make arrangements for that. So I’m to assume you didn’t come all this way to deliver arms or to apologize for what happened in Pakistan?”

“No.”

“You’re looking for a favor.”

Samad sighed deeply. “One of our dear friends, a revered imam, has been stricken with lung cancer and needs to enter the United States for advanced medical treatment. He’s traveling with us, along with his two sons, two nephews, and a group of acolytes. I assure you he is no terrorist, only a poor dying soul who needs the best medical help we can find for him. The university in Houston has the number-one-ranked cancer center. We want to bring the imam there. But we need your help. You see, because of his religious beliefs and questionable funding from Arab states, his name is on the U.S. terrorist list and also on the international no-fly list. If you would help us get him and his party to Houston, we would be eternally grateful.”

Another servant appeared at the table and set before Samad a tray with some toast, jam, breakfast cereal, and coffee. The interruption was awkward, as he was trying to read the reaction on Rojas’s face.

Samad thanked the woman, then glanced up at Rojas, who was staring hard at his glass of orange juice. He leaned toward the table and said, “I can’t help you.”

“But senor, this is a matter of life and death.”

“Indeed, it is.”

Rojas pushed back his chair, stood, walked away from the table, then returned, scratching his chin in thought. When he finally spoke again, his tone had grown much darker: “Can you imagine what would happen if your party were caught? Can you imagine that?”

“But we would not be caught, because we would rely upon your expertise to get us there.”

Rojas shook his head. “The United States is a sleeping dog. And as they say, we must let sleeping dogs lie. If we awaken that dog, then both you and I will suffer his wrath. We could be arrested, and our businesses would be ruined. I’ve made this very clear to Rahmani. You cannot use us to fight your jihad. You will never be able to use us for safe passage into the United States. I will never do anything to threaten the demand for our product, and both you and I understand that Americans are the number-one consumers of our product.”

“The imam will surely pass away without your help.”

“There’s too much to risk. The United States is already allocating millions more to protect its border. The drones that cause you so much trouble in Waziristan? Well, they’re flying them along the border, too. You have no idea how difficult it is for us right now, the length and breadth of our operation to evade them — and all of this