Brasília
It was Iglesia’s habit, since the debacle of Los Cardales, to keep the newspaper that had reported the massacre on the drinks table. It had the appearance of being put there casually, discarded moments before as he rose to meet whichever guest had arrived, but in fact it was carefully positioned so that his visitor could see the disgusting photographs of the carnage; and particularly the deformed mass of flesh that had been Angel Corrales. It was common knowledge that Iglesias and his European advisor had been the only survivors of the gun battle, and that several of the combatants had perished from Cocaine poisoning. There was no explanation for the state of Corrales however, injuries hardly did justice to the gruesome process that had removed most of his bones without piercing the skin, but a myth had developed that Iglesias had powers to destroy his enemies that he had inherited from some native ancestor. The gangster did nothing to dispel the myth, and even placed the occasional voodoo artefact around his rooms in the massive suite he now occupied in the capital city. It was the cement, steel and glass representation of his utter dominance of organised crime in Brazil. He knew he owed that dominance to Frank, but he had no idea how the Norwegian had engineered the defeat of an overwhelming number of heavily armed men, and as for Corrales... Sometimes, when alone he would ponder the remains in the newspaper images and feel dread like an echo of a distant, future calamity, brush the hairs on the back of his neck.
He put aside such thoughts, stepped to the window and surveyed the grid of city streets, the arteries of traffic and million pulsing neurons of pedestrians far below, excreting carbon, noise and aspirations into the smog-hazed blue sky. He closed the vertical steel window-blinds and prepared for the meeting. He did not read Spanish or English, so he passed over the profiles of the delegation and concentrated on studying their photographs, looking for signs of weakness with the practised eye of the criminal predator. He saw little but the dark suits, white shirts and broad jaws with which Americans in the higher reaches of business and politics armour themselves. In the flesh he would be able to read them; through the flesh he would get whatever he wished from them. In the eighteen months since Los Cardales he had reined himself in, at least in his manners when conducting business. His leisure pursuits were another thing altogether. He felt Frank’s influence on his fortunes here also.
The intercom bleeped. “Los Americanos ya han llegado.” He glanced at his heavy Rolex: perfect timing even in the appalling congestion of Brasília. “Vale.” The three suits entered his vast office. Their monochrome uniformity out of place in the Latin atmosphere, the orange tequila bottles, mahogany furniture, Iglesias’s striped shirt and glinting gold jewellery. “Sit down, Gentlemen,” he said, indicating a group of formal colonial chairs rather than the large sofas and recliners which filled a third of the room. They didn’t look recliner types. “Coffee? Marcela will bring it shortly. The best, of course. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of such an important, such a powerful group as yourselves, wishing to meet me, a mere importer of goods and services?”
The youngest man smiled. “De Graaf, Central Intelligence Agency, Señor Iglesias. Your definition of goods and services must be extremely broad. We know what you are, sir.”
“Of course. In that you have me at a disadvantage. Perhaps you would tell me a little about your interests in coming to Brazil?”
De Graaf turned to the man at his left. This is Major Heath Warrington: he is senior advisor to the president on Central and South America. I believe he is familiar with the protocols we are observing here.” Warrington looked up, his movements military. Iglesias looked at his grey eyes and felt that they had seen more men die than his own. The idea unnerved him a little: that would be an enormous number of corpses. If the Major had the same thought about Alejandro he did not show it. He spoke as if reading from an autocue positioned behind the gangster’s head and slightly to the right.
“As you know, Señor Iglesias, the United States is a country founded on enterprise and commerce. It is a country whose citizens are free to create, buy and sell to each other, and we hope to the rest of the world. We don’t think profit is a dirty word, for what enriches one, enriches the nation. It is that wealth and that enterprise that has kept our nation free in the face of the Communist threat. However we know that we need to buy from other countries, because although God has blessed our great country with many natural resources, there are some products that we must import. You are an importer/exporter are you not, Señor?”
“I feel we are not talking about coffee here,” Alejandro relaxed. He could smell the Yankee dollars already.
“Not coffee. Señor Iglesias, we are pragmatists. Our country may not officially import much more than coffee from Central America, but our population requires billions of dollars worth of... of raw materials and manufactured goods from you each year. At this moment that trade is unregulated and officially illegal, and up to now I can tell you that we have publicly fought this necessary trade largely because the people providing the goods on your side were unreliable, greedy, and in many cases linked to communist interests. I mean look at Colombia; it’s a goddamn mess.”
“It is an unstable and poor country, but that is always the legacy of colonialism.” Alejandro allowed himself the slight joke. He needed tequila and several women soon. This was turning into an excellent day.
“I mean we deal with one major supplier for a while and the next thing is he’s dead in a gutter and we have to re-negotiate. Re-negotiate at every level with people who don’t know the protocols and invent any price they like. There’s no stability, and it is the mission of the United States to bring stability to the world. That is why we are here Mr Iglesias. Stability.” His speech over, Major Warrington snapped his eyes from the invisible autocue and relaxed into the hard mahogany at his back.
“The United States wants to bring stability to Brazil? You can hardly invade a country this size, and look at our inflation problem!”
De Graaf stood up an walked behind the Major and put his hands down on the carved wood behind the shoulders of the third member of the delegation. He was in his late fifties, with a ruddy complexion goatee and slightly longer hair than the standard businessman. “You misunderstand us. Señor Iglesias, it is you who are the stability we seek. We have been watching your progress for some time now. Since a rather unfortunate incident in a suburb of Buenos Aires a year or so ago...”
“Los Cardales, and it was eighteen months ago,” interrupted Alejandro.
“Exactly. Since that time you have brought order to your dealings not just in Brazil and Argentina, but also in many neighbouring states. We like that, and we like something else. Your product has been improved, enhanced not chemically but in some novel organic way. We like innovation and wish to see it rewarded, but that is the area of my colleague here. I would like to introduce you to Michael Driscoll; he’s a bio-chemist.
