you.â
âHowâs it going, JJ?â Teller asked, shaking the manâs hand.
âTo hell,â Wentworth replied. âIn the proverbial gold-plated handbasket. Chris Teller? Frank Procario? This is Ed Chavez and David Larson. Ed, Dave, these are the DoD people I was telling you about.â
Hands were shaken. âPleased to meet you,â Chavez said. He had Latino features and a friendly smile. Larson seemed more reserved, possibly suspicious. That was fine, so far as Teller was concerned. He didnât trust them either. The Klingons always worked to remind the DoD clan that they werenât Company, and that the Company was just a bit better than everyone else in the game.
âIâve reserved a conference room down the hall,â Chavez told them. âI really want you guys to take a look at this and tell us what you think.â
The conference room was dominated by an interactive touch-table. âYouâve heard about Galen Fletcher?â Chavez asked.
âYesterday,â Procario said, âbut JJ didnât say what the problem was.â
âThe problem,â Wentworth told them, âis that weâre blind in Mexicoâand at the very worst possible moment.â
Why am I not surprised? Teller thought, but he said nothing.
Wentworth tapped on the tabletop, bringing up a series of images. Pictures glowed on the tableâs surface, repeated large on the screen built into the wall behind him. âBoth of you gentlemen,â Wentworth went on, stressing the words to give them special weight, ânow have Blue Star clearance.â
âGee, thanks,â Teller quipped.
He didnât add that his DIA security clearance was two levels above Blue Star. Even in this age of computers and databases, the various agencies and departments in both the government and the military often didnât talk to one another.
Make that especially in this age of computers. An individualâs electronic personnel records could be written on more than one level, and how deeply you were able to read them depended on the readerâs security classificationâand on how open the targeted records might be to the accessing agency in the first place.
Wentworth gave Teller a sharp look but continued. âWhat you see and hear in this room does not leave it. Understood?â
Procario crossed his arms, his face deadpan. âOf course.â
âWeâll be good, Mommy,â Teller added.
Wentworth flashed Teller an annoyed glare. A photograph of Galen Fletcher appeared on the wall, much larger than life. He was smiling, a pipe in his right hand. Teller felt a fresh pang at the image; Fletcher had been more than a friend, more than a sponsor. In many ways heâd been Tellerâs mentor, the man responsible for Teller being who and what he now was.
âWeâre putting it out that Fletcher had personal problems, problems that caused him to take his own life. In a sense thatâs true.â
âIn a sense?â
A second face appeared on the wall next to Fletcherâs, a much younger man, in his forties perhaps, lean, sharp edged, a bit grim.
âRichard Nicholas,â Chavez said. âOur deputy chief of station in Mexicoâand a traitor.â
âFletcher brought word to Langley personally four days ago,â Larson said. âNicholas sold us out, possibly starting a year ago.â
âHe sold our Mexican network to Los Zetas, and probably to the Sinaloans as well. To date weâve lost three case officers and twenty-five agents. DEA is losing theirs, too. And we now have reason to believe that our pictures of the cartel hierarchies are false fronts.â As he spoke, Chavez tapped commands into the table, bringing up a wall-sized map of Mexico, the southwestern rim of the United States, and the northern half of Central America, all of it divided into a scattered rainbow of colorsâbut predominantly in yellow and