"Exactly," said Devereaux, still unruffled despite Silver's rising irritation. "I believe the federal government alone spends fourteen billion dollars a year on the narcotics war. That does not even begin to touch the holes in the budgets of the states, all fifty of them. That is why suppression onshore will not work either."

"So where is the key?"

"The Achilles' heel is water."

"Water? You want to put water in the coke?"

"No, water under the coke. Seawater. Apart from one single land route up from Colombia to Mexico via the narrow spine of Central America, which is so easily controllable that the cartels do not use it, every gram of cocaine heading for the USA or Europe…"

"Forget Europe, they're not in," snapped Silver.

"… has got to travel over, across or under the sea. Even from Colombia to Mexico, it goes by sea. That is the cartel's carotid artery. Cut that, the patient dies."

Silver grunted and stared across his desk at the retired spy. The man stared calmly back, seeming not to care a damn if his findings were accepted or not.

"So, I can tell the President his project is 'go' and you are prepared to take it on?"

"Not entirely. There are conditions. I fear they are not negotiable."

"That sounds like a threat. No one threatens the Oval Office. Back off, mister."

"It is not a threat, it is a warning. If the conditions are not met, the project would simply fail, expensively and embarrassingly. These are they."

Devereaux pushed his slim file across the desk. The chief of staff opened it. Just two sheets that looked as if they had been typed. Five paragraphs. Numbered. He read the first.

"'1. I will need total independence of action within the ambit of absolute secrecy. None but the tiniest group around the commander in chief need know what is happening or why, no matter how many feathers are ruffled or noses put out of joint. Everyone below the Oval Office need know only what they need to know; and that shall be the least to accomplish the task required of them.'

"The federal and military structure does not leak," snapped Silver.

"Yes, it does," said the imperturbable Devereaux. "I have spent half my life trying to prevent them or repairing the damage later."

"'2. I will require presidential authority giving me powers plenipotentiary to require and receive without demur complete cooperation from any other agency or military unit whose cooperation is vital. That must begin with automatic patch through of every scrap of information reaching any other agency in the anti-narcotics campaign to the HQ of what I wish to call "Project Cobra."'

"They'll go crazy," growled Silver. He knew information was power, and no one willingly ceded even one smidgen of their power. That included the CIA, DEA, FBI, NSA or the Armed Forces.

"They all now come under Homeland Security and the Patriot Act," said Devereaux. "They will obey the President."

"Homeland Security is about the terrorism threat," snapped Silver. "Narc smuggling is crime."

"Read on," murmured the CIA veteran.

"'3. I will need to recruit my own staff. Not many, but the ones I need must be seconded to the project without query or refusal.' "

The chief of staff raised no objection until he came to number four.

"'4. I will need a budget of two billion dollars, to be disbursed without check or examination. I will then need nine month to prepare for the onslaught and a further nine months to destroy the cocaine industry."

There had been covert projects before and secret budgets, but this was huge. The chief of staff could see red lights flashing. Whose budget would be raided? FBI? CIA? DEA? Or would the Treasury be asked for fresh funds?

"There has to be supervision of expenditure," he said. "The money men won't bear the departure into a clear blue sky of two billion dollars because you want to go shopping."

"Then it won't work," Devereaux replied calmly. "The whole point is that when action is taken against the cocaine cartel and industry, they must not see it coming. Forewarned is still fore-armed. The nature of the acquired equipment and personnel would betray the game plan, and that will assuredly leak to some investigative reporter or blogger the moment accountants or book-keepers take over."

"They don't have to take over, just monitor."

"Same difference, Mr. Silver. Once they get involved, cover is blown. And once your cover is blown, you're dead. Trust me. I know."

It was an area the Illinois ex-congressman knew he could not dispute. He passed to condition five.

"'5. It will be necessary to recategorize cocaine from a Class A drug whose importation is a crime in law to a national threat whose importation or intended importation is an act of terrorism.' "

Jonathan Silver came out of his chair.

"Are you crazy? This changes the law."

"No, that would need an act of Congress. This simply alters the category of a chemical substance. That needs only an Executive instrument."

"What chemical?"

"Cocaine hydrochloride is only a chemical. It happens to be a banned chemical, whose importation contravenes U.S. criminal law. Anthrax is also a chemical, as is VX nerve gas. But the first is classed as a 'bacteriological weapon of mass destruction' and VX as a 'chemical weapon.' We invaded Iraq because what passes for our intelligence service since I left was persuaded that it possessed them."

"That was different."

"No, it was exactly the same. Reclassify cocaine hydrochloride as a threat to the nation, and all the dominoes topple in sequence. Throwing a thousand tons a year at us isn't a crime anymore: it's a terror threat. Then, we can lawfully respond in kind. All the law is already in place."

"Everything we have in the locker?"

"The lot. But deployed outside our territorial waters and airspace. And invisibly."

"Treat the cartel as we would Al Qaeda?"

"Crudely but effectively put," said Devereaux.

"So what I have to do…"

The silver-haired Bostonian rose.

"What you have to do, Mr. Chief of Staff, is decide how squeamish you are, and, more important, how squeamish the man down the hall is. When you have decided that, there is not much more to say. I believe the job can be done, but these are the conditions without whose fulfillment it cannot be done. At least not by me."

Without being bidden to leave, he paused in the doorway.

"Please let me know the response of the commander in chief in due course. I shall be at home."

Jonathan Silver was not accustomed to being left gazing at a closed door. IN THE USA, the highest administrative decree that can be issued is the Presidential Executive Order. They are habitually made public, for they can hardly be obeyed if they are not, but a PEO can be completely secret, known simply as a "finding."

Although the old mandarin from Alexandria could not know it, he had convinced the abrasive chief of staff who in turn convinced the President. After consultation with a much surprised professor of constitutional law, cocaine was quietly recategorized as a toxin and a national threat. As such, it came within the ambit of the war against threats to the safety of the nation. WELL WEST of the Portuguese coast and almost abreast of the Spanish frontier, the MV Balthazar ploughed her way north with a declared general cargo for the Euro port of Rotterdam. She was not large, a mere 6,000 tons, with a captain and a crew of eight, and they were all smugglers. So lucrative was the criminal side of their labors that the captain was going to retire a wealthy man to his Venezuelan homeland within two years.

He listened to the weather forecast for Cape Finisterre, which lay only fifty nautical miles ahead. It was for a wind at strength four and a choppy sea, but he knew the Spanish fishermen with whom he had a sea rendezvous were hardy mariners and could work in a lot more than a brisk chop.