Branson says it's time to throw in the towel: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9031855/Its-time-to-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs.html. My humble take (from Trade):
An Arabian Tale
Peters looked dapper, a yellow scarf poking out of his blazer pocket. “Pat’s told you about today’s jaunt, has she?” he said. “Understand what’s on the menu, do you?”
“Sure,” lied Marcone.
“Aces.”
They took a HUMVEE to the apron and got on a C-130, which right away threw Marcone. The poppy region and the warlords who held sway over it just weren’t that far away. Helicopter or even convoy distance at most.
They strapped in. Peters yelled, “I’ve got us booked into the Marriot. Decent facilities.” Marcone put his head back and shut his eyes. He’d bluffed his way through worse before.
A Range Rover and two SUVs full of minders met them on arrival. ‘Welcome to Islamabad,’ read the sign just past the chain link.
In the hotel suite, there was a fruit basket and two bottles of Dom.
“Shampoo do you?” Peters said.
“What?”
“Champagne.”
“Do me fine,” said Marcone.
“Magic. Let’s freshen up and circle back by the ice bucket.”
Marcone went into the bathroom and threw some water on his face. Might as well make it a shower, he hadn’t had one barefoot in a while. After, he put his clothes back on but left the Tidy-Whities in the trash.
Back in the living room, Peters was sipping on a flute, his feet up on the glass table. Marcone saw the whiskey and went with that.
“It’s probably Red you know,” Peters said.
“What is?” Marcone said.
“The Whisky. The Pakis switch labels.”
“Red’s fine.”
“Look here, some of what’s on today’s menu may shock, so best keep quiet and observe. This will make a great story some day, if only they’d let us tell it.” Peters all ivory.
Marcone said, “I’ve been busting doors since before you were itching in your father’s dick. I doubt there’s much left that can shock me.”
“Charming. So tell me all about it, then. Tell me all about the evil ways of men.”
Right then and there, Marcone promised himself to slap the man before shipping out. “OK, Peters,” he said, then took the opposite couch. “I walked the beat in the seventies, then worked Manhattan for the DEA in the eighties.” Marcone not ruining the story with three-lettered specifics.
“Sounds a lovely tale. Refill, shall we?”
“You go ahead. New York was dicey back then, even Manhattan. You could walk out of a restaurant, pick the wrong cross street, and get stabbed on the way back to your five star hotel. When crack took hold, entire sections of the city started to rot. You could actually see the weeds taking root week to week.”
“Tom, Dick, and Harry jumping on the bandwagon, eh?”
“Stomped around the projects for a good two years, don’t think I ever ran into a Tom, Dick, or Harry. But every fourteen-year old with two friends and a cousin was cooking."
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” said Peters.
“Our guys had to be rotated out before they started executing the little ****ers or getting on their payroll. R&R-type thing. They sent me to Izmir with some tips and tricks for the locals. Our Consul made the introductions.”
“And Izmir’s where you first got acquainted with the ways of the world?”
And it was. “There was this harbor the government had modest plans for. They found a kid with a college degree to run it.”
“And the Harbormaster decided to make an honest go of it with the traffickers, did he?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Marcone said, then proceeded to tell Peters all about the other way. “So the Harbormaster gets got a month after I arrive. Locals let me run the interrogation. He starts talking about this tall fellow paid him a visit. Says the man looked like one of those stars in the dubbed American soaps they like to run over there.”
Marcone could conjure up the pivotal moments in his life down to how many cigarettes were left in the soft pack. He leaned back, half closed his eyes, and heard the Harbormaster tell it.
‘I was eating my sardines, sir. I remember, because I offered my forearm in greeting to spare the fine gentleman the grease. Without so much as a glass of tea, the man produced a small card with my name, typed, and some numbers beneath it, handwritten. I was surprised he even knew my name, sir, but I was stupefied he knew how to spell it. And as fantastical as it seems, that man told me that those numbers identified a bank account in Zurich with a balance, as of the day before, of two million United States dollars, both legal and tender. What’s more, I was welcome to fly to Zurich, expenses paid, family included, to see the money for myself. Can you imagine, sir?
‘Next, this genie that had materialized in my office slid a black briefcase very much like your own across the table. Fifty thousand now and for every year I remained Harbormaster, such payments to be deducted from the principal in Zurich. Provided I remained Harbormaster for not less than five years, the balance of funds would be mine. The American even produced a picture of the money, one of those magic ones you shake the image out of. Bricks of it, sir, stacked waist high. Only on top of one of the stacks, a long bullet like the ones my uncle uses to hunt deer. My uncle is an asshole, sir.
‘I knew of course that this two million was merely a tale told on the thousand and second of those lurid Arabian nights. But fifty thousand a year to a man making three hundred a month? And weighed against that one golden bullet? Hardly a choice, sir.’
The Harbormaster told Marcone he’d seen the movies, told him he knew he’d have to turn a blind eye to some increased harbor traffic, he could not deny that. And he knew he would have to explain the nighttime lorries to the mayor and maybe even some of the nosier townsfolk. And how had he done that, Marcone wanted to know? Why he’d extended his hand of course, and the gentleman had helped.
Peters started flicking dust off the ensemble. Marcone wrapped it up. “The judges hand down a seven year sentence for improper use of office, the drug stuff gets thrown out. One afternoon at a barbecue in Falls Church, I get a tap on the shoulder. It’s the Consul, happy-drunk. Tells me the Harbormaster was released in four and retired to a villa just outside Torremolinos, taking the entire clan with him.”
“Tacky,” Peters said.
“This keeps gnawing at me, so I get the gophers to run the guy down and give him a call. Greets me like a long lost cousin. ‘Yes jail had been hard, sir, but this beautiful house helps me forget, does it not? Yes, my uncle has the extension all to himself, but he helps me manage the accounts, does he not? And, would sir believe, that two million hadn’t been some fantastical story told to keep a murderous Arab at bay. It had all been waiting for me, stacked just as it had been in that magical illustration from that wonderful tale which had lulled me to sleep on all those terrible nights, as all good fairy tales must. But this fairy tale, sir, had came true.’”
Peters said, “A bit more than they needed to spend, but there you are. Two million gets recouped ten times over on the first shipment alone. Peanut shavings for a mainline into Europe. No other business like it.”
“I guess there isn’t. Ran across a Mexican trafficker who figured on losing a 727 per deal. He’d tell the pilot to leave the plane on the tarmac and tell the accountant to note it as incidental in the ledger.”
“Between you and me, your management needs to evolve. After all, one fellow wants to buy, another wants to sell. Leave ‘em to it, I say, just don’t forget to tax.”
“Peters, you remind me of an old-timer used to man the desk in the Bronx. Closed out every briefing by reminding us to take it easy. Said he didn’t want us filling the cages with johns, hookers, and dealers, not when the real animals were still out there. Can’t police consent, he’d say."
“Ah, the seventies. Very exciting.”
“We chased the muggers on foot and took the pay-offs by hand.”
Peters said, “Well, your days walking the beat and your little jaunt through Turkey—”
“Has prepared me well for what I’m about to see?” said Marcone.
“Has **** all to do with it.”
Of course, had Marcone tied his tale to Pat’s gift of a file, he would have realized that he’d just outlined the sum and total of Anderson’s strategy for opening up the continent on the Agency’s behalf.
