Clear and Present Danger

'Cocaine, according to the reports I see.'

'Poor quality, not good enough for the criminals to send to the norteamericanos , and mixed with chemicals that poison the brain. It is becoming the curse of my homeland.'

'It's pretty bad here,' Moira said. She could see that it was something that really worried her lover. Just like it was with the Director, she thought.

'I have spoken to the police at home. How can my workers do their jobs if their minds are poisoned by this thing? And what do the police do? They shrug and mumble excuses - and people die. They die from the basuco . They die from the guns of the dealers. And no one does anything to stop it.' Cortez made a frustrated gesture. 'You know, Moira, I am not merely a capitalist. My factories, they give jobs, they bring money into my country, money for the people to build houses and educate their children. I am rich, yes, but I help to build my country - with these hands, I do it. My workers, they come to me and tell me that their children - ah! I can do nothing. Someday, the dealers, they will come to me and try to take my factory,' he went on. 'I will go to the police, and the police will do nothing. I will go to the army, and the army will do nothing. You work for your federales , yes? Is there nothing anyone can do?' Cortez nearly held his breath, wondering what the answer would be.

'You should see the reports I have to type for the Director.'

'Reports,' he snorted. 'Anyone can write reports. At home, the police write many reports, and the judges do their investigations - and nothing happens. If I ran my factory in this way, soon I would be living in a hillside shack and begging for money in the street! Do your federales do anything?'

'More than you might think. There are things going on right now that I cannot speak about. What they're saying around the office is that the rules are changing. But I don't know what that means. The Director is flying down to Colombia soon to meet with the Attorney General, and - oh! I'm not supposed to tell anybody that. It's supposed to be a secret.'

'I will tell no one,' Cortez assured her.

'I really don't know that much anyway,' she went on carefully. 'Something new is about to start. I don't know what. The Director doesn't like it very much, whatever it is.'

'If it hurts the criminals, why should he not like it?' Cortez asked in a puzzled voice. 'You could shoot them all dead in the street, and I would buy your federales dinner afterwards!'

Moira just smiled. 'I'll pass that along. That's what all the letters say - we get letters from all sorts of people.'

'Your director should listen to them.'

'So does the President.'

'Perhaps he will listen,' Cortez suggested. This is an election year ...

'Maybe he already is. Whatever just changed, it started there.'

'But your director doesn't like it?' He shook his head. 'I do not understand the government in my country. I should not try to understand yours.'

'It is funny, though. This is the first time that I don't know - well, I couldn't tell you anyway.' Moira finished her salad. She looked at her empty wineglass. F lix/Juan filled it for her.

'Can you tell me one thing?'

'What?'

'Call me when your director leaves for Colombia,' he said.

'Why?' She was too taken aback to say no.

'For state visits one spends several days, no?'

'Yes, I suppose. I don't really know.'

'And if your director is away, and you are his secretary, you will have little work to do, no?'

'No, not much.'

'Then I will fly to Washington, of course.' Cortez rose from his chair and took three steps around the table. Moira's bathrobe hung loosely around her. He took advantage of that. 'I must fly home early tomorrow morning. One day with you is no longer enough, my love. Hmm, you are ready, I think.'

'Are you?'

'We will see. There is one thing I will never understand,' he said as he helped her from the chair.

'What is that?'

'Why would any fool use powder for pleasure when he can have a woman?' It was, in fact, something that Cortez never would understand. But it wasn't his job to understand it.

'Any woman?' she said, heading for the door.

Cortez pulled the robe from her. 'No, not any woman.'

'My God,' Moira said, half an hour later. Her chest glistened with perspiration, hers and his.

'I was mistaken,' he gasped facedown at her side.

'What?'

'When your director of federales flies to Colombia, do not call me!' He laughed to show that he was kidding. 'Moira, I do not know that I can do this for more than one day a month.'

A giggle. 'Perhaps you should not work so hard, Juan.'

'How can I not?' He turned to look at her. 'I have not felt like this since I was a boy. But I am no longer a boy. How can women stay young when men cannot?' She smiled with amusement at the obvious lie. He had pleased her greatly.

'I cannot call you.'

'What?'

'I do not have your number.' She laughed. Cortez leaped from the bed and pulled the wallet from his coat pocket, then muttered something that sounded profane.

'I have no cards - ah!' He took the pad from the night table and wrote the number. 'This is for my office. Usually I am not there - I spend my days on the shop floor.' A grunt. 'I spend my nights in the factory. I spend weekends in the factory. Sometimes I sleep in the factory. But Consuela will reach me, wherever I might be.'

'And I must leave,' Moira said.

'Tell your director that he must make it a weekend trip. We will spend two days in the country. I know of a small, quiet place in the mountains, just a few hours from here.'

'Do you think you can survive it?' she asked with a hug.

'I will eat sensibly and exercise,' he promised her. A final kiss, and she left.

Cortez closed the door and walked into the bathroom. He hadn't learned all that much, but what he had found out might be crucial. 'The rules are changing.' Whatever they were changing to, Director Jacobs didn't like it, but was evidently going along. He was going to Colombia to discuss it with the Attorney General. Jacobs, he remembered, knew the Attorney General quite well. They had been classmates together in college, over thirty years before. The Attorney General had flown to America for the funeral of Mrs. Jacobs. Something with a presidential seal on it, also. Well. Two of Cortez's associates were in New Orleans to meet with the attorney for the two fools who'd botched the killing on the yacht. The FBI had certainly played a part in that, and whatever had happened there would give him a clue.

Cortez looked up from washing his hands to see the man who had obtained those intelligence tidbits and decided that he didn't like the man who had done it. He shrugged off the feeling. It wasn't the first time. Certainly it wouldn't be the last.

The shot went off at 23:41 hours. The Titan-IIID's two massive solid-rocket boosters ignited at the appointed time, over a million pounds of thrust was generated, and the entire assembly leapt off the pad amid a glow that would be seen from Savannah to Miami. The solid boosters burned for 120 seconds before being discarded. At this point the liquid-fuel engines on the booster's center section ignited, hurling the remaining package higher, faster, and farther downrange. All the while onboard instruments relayed data from the booster to ground station at the Cape. In fact, they were also radioing their data to a Soviet listening post located on the northern tip of Cuba, and to a 'fishing trawler' which kept station off Cape Canaveral, and also flew a red flag. The Titan-IIID was a bird used exclusively for military launches, and Soviet interest in this launch resulted from an unconfirmed GRU report that the satellite atop the launcher had been specially modified to intercept very weak electronic signals - exactly what kind the report didn't specify.

Faster and higher. Half of the remaining rocket dropped off now, the second-stage fuel expended, and the third