The Furniture Man: The War on Drugs Meets Political Intrigue When It Crosses Directly with a U.S. Presidential Election Campaign.

By James Meikle

This novel explores the relentless struggle to combat the massive problem of illegal drugs flowing out of South America into the US and across the world. It focuses around the great variety of methodologies used by both the perpetrators and those trying to arrest the flow. That goes through phases, some grand scale and sophisticated, others small and simple. A curve ball arrives in the form of a potential breakthrough elixir. Some would see that as fantastic news, others as very bad for business. One thing is for sure - everyone will want control of it.

All this becomes even more colorful against the back-drop of an extremely polarized US Presidential election cycle, especially with some potential overlapping connections between key election participants and the illegal drugs supply chain.

Hiding in plain sight was a long-time staple of the world of crime and espionage during the Cold War but considered somewhat outdated by the end of the century. Perhaps it is making a comeback of sorts?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728349398

James Meikle

Raised in Pilton and Drylaw, two of Edinburh’s toughest public housing schemes but spending summers with grandparents in Wick, a small fishing town on Scotland’s North East coast, Meikle tasted contrasting environments. His own kids were raised in relatively affluent Arlington, Virginia, where he is Facilities Director for public schools.

Book preview

PRELUDE

T he war on drugs had become an extremely high-tech version of the game of cat and mouse. Resources for drug prevention and interception increasing by billions of dollars through the 1990’s and into the twenty first century. America and Britain in particular have poured thousands of additional subject trained experts at the problem. The US Drug Enforcement Agency has more than doubled in size and the UK FCO have ‘borrowed’ a slew of former cops and Customs & Excise officers and seconded them as Drug Liaison Officers (DLO’s) across all the main production areas and subsequent transit routes in the Americas and across the world. As electronic surveillance methods have been enhanced to where you could, with assistance of the right folks, peek and listen directly into just about any living room anywhere on the planet there is a move back towards older, more traditional avoidance methods. One example becomes affectionately known as the ‘old shell game’ although by the time it is busted, thousands of Kilos of destructive but extremely valuable powder has found its way to markets in the USA. The individual batches are relatively small - the routes are convoluted but the success rate is extremely high and an occasional interception is a fender bender rather than a significant write off.

For a decade or two, small low flying aircraft had been island hopping under the radar and that was the original simple and effective core courier mechanism for drugs headed north from Bolivia, Columbia and Peru. That was followed by shipping containers packed with innocent bulk cargo such as stuffed Teddy Bears except instead of sawdust or foam these toys would be stuffed with ‘white gold’ powder. But as technology improved these routes were less and less successful. Human couriers on incoming flights with stomachs full of small packs of powder had a brief run of success before enhanced technology all but eliminated that method. So, it’s back to the future, a reversal to simple, manual, courier and communications strategies often involving the method of hiding in plain sight. No cell phones or computers to be tracked by.

1

THE OLD SHELL GAME

A t 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning a twenty-six-foot crabbing boat chugs into the small, crowded Caribbean harbor at San Pedro de Macoris on the south coast of eastern Hispaniola, the Dominican side of the island. It’s noisy for its size and exuding small rhythmic bursts of dirty grey diesel fumes. It has come from the tiny port of Mayaguez on the south west coast of Puerto Rico. Both sky and water are black as a Squid’s ink. The boat carefully backs into the middle of a triple berth between two docked, unoccupied boats of similar style and size. On a cliff nearby the tipped-off DEA and DLO agents working out of a merchant shipping office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, observe the whole thing through high powered night vision binoculars. Three men start to unload a respectable catch of several boxes of medium to large crabs on to the dock and in turn on to the back of a rusty old stake back truck which looks like it’s paid its dues several times over. The boxes are still alive with crunching movement, moonlight flickering off shiny, red speckled shells as the creatures shuffle around in futile efforts to escape the boiling pot. But their destiny is set. The tip suggests one of these boxes contains several kilos of pure coca under a raised panel with several crabs scrambling around on top as a disguise.

As one of the crew drives the truck inland, two boats head back to sea. One man takes the boat which just landed and the other the boat to the right. As they exit the harbor one heads back east towards San Juan and the other west towards Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Three transports on the move, one by land and two by sea. And this is indeed the old shell game. Even if they are being observed, and they’re pretty sure they are, will the opposition have enough resources in place to intercept all three shells simultaneously to look under them? As it transpires the DEA have one crew on a US coastguard vessel sat about a mile offshore ready to intercept. It is fast and efficient enough to first grab the eastbound boat and turn it over to find nothing of interest. It then speeds back west to catch shell number two but again, there is nothing in it either besides a share of the catch.

The two anti-drug agents and a local police support team intercept the stake back a few hundred yards inland on the only connecting road which is more a dirt track. There is indeed one box with a false compartment but what they find in it is a collection of protected species of sea urchins which will mean a slap on the wrist and a small fine but nothing which rises to drug trafficking levels. So, it’s not quite the old shell game as at least with that the pea would ultimately show up underneath one of the three shells. In the meantime a single snorkel-less island diver who initially transferred a special magnetized container from the incoming boat hull to the one which remains innocently docked has returned to grab the container which really matters and already has it safely tucked away in a net-mending shed a few hundred yards up the shore before the land crew shows up back at the harbor.

And so, by an assortment of good old fashioned, sleight of hand and bluff as well as significant payoffs to the odd dissenting ‘insider’ the Barons who were steadily losing ground to the establishment’s technological superiority are taking back the upper hand in the constant battle of wits.

Another old clichéd saying is reverberating in the minds of the DEA agents, you need to fight fire with fire. And for the incumbent Democratic Commander-in-Chief, stemming this tide in a clearly demonstrable way is even more important with an election looming and whichever of the GOP candidates survives ready to press hard on this issue.

2

BRAINSTORMING

S hortly thereafter under a carved and corniced high ceiling on the top floor of the State Department on Washington DC’s twenty-first Street, American stakeholders are brainstorming in an elegant conference room overlooking the Mall and the Potomac river. Arlington Cemetery is the backdrop, thousands of small white rectangles dotted in never ending rows like a giant domino tipping trick about to start. The Secretary of State has even chosen to attend in person for a direct update. They have invited a few retired CIA veterans who operated mostly pre-computer technology for suggestions on strategies to combat the more traditional, non-technology dependent methods now being used by the drug lords. This includes Fraser Campbell-Jones a still very lucid ninety-year old from Cold War days who hates all the modern technology and is delighted to be making a comeback to reprove that there is nothing like boots on the ground and old-fashioned coding systems. He’s even recommending that all of the ‘youngsters’ are made to reread very old books like Dusko Popov’s Spy Counter-Spy and J.C. Masterman’s The Double-Cross System to get their brains on the right wavelength for this back to the future approach. He draws heavily on his pipe despite all the No Smoking signs and no one seems willing to challenge him.

State, CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI and a multitude of specialist subsidiaries have grown so big and there are always a few moles that can be bought by cash or blackmail or some combination thereof. Once-in-a-while there’s even a conscientious objector who is part of the ‘big brother’ machine but suddenly decides it’s gone too far and crossed the often stretched watching and listening line justified by brutal terrorist attacks which will culminate in 9/11. These ‘leaks’ can be devastating as they typically involve gifting the mainstream press slews of classified documents and many such documents read out of the larger context can be very damning to US, UK and many other collaborating governments. The subsequent press feeding frenzy is typically worst in America where many of the major newspapers and talking head political shows are deep in the liberal tank. Besides Fox Television, Talk Radio is about the only place where the conservatives have a media stronghold. The conclusion is that they need to first assemble a team outside all the normal parameters of the existing structures both overt and covert. Not necessarily to fight drug traffic directly but to help collect and funnel vital information back and forth by means which are non-traceable electronically and were tried and tested before technology put Campbell-Jones and his trench-coated legions out of business.

Information obtained from moles, traitors and dissenters by whatever means isn’t always directly revealing but coupled with sharp human observers around the world’s major cities the covert portions of operations in embassies, consulates and other missions as well as some national corporate companies are not so difficult to work out. Deep cover NARCS are still realizing a lot of success but the risk for them is extreme and failures generally prove fatal for those involved.

In the basement of the FCO Headquarters in King Charles Street, London a UK/US stakeholders’ meeting draws the same conclusion that they might need something outside the norm to deal with this particular phase of the drug wars. After all, the ‘London Watcher’ service and public signaling systems, based on similar basic principles to those now being used by drug lords and terrorists, was one of the most effective systems in the history of espionage in its day. As the main contacts either side of the pond discuss these transatlantic developments, they agree that it’s time for a collaborative meeting to specifically address this matter.

3

A SIMPLE PLAN

A n extra-large, dark blue SUV with tinted windows makes the short trip from the British Embassy, Washington D.C. up Massachusetts Avenue, left through the middle of Ward Circle, past American University and within minutes is crossing Chain Bridge into Virginia, welcomed by the state cardinal and dogwood sign, sadly soiled by red spray-painted graffiti. The driver hangs an immediate right along Route 123 towards McLean and more specifically, Langley, passing the original site of the Kennedy dynasty’s Washington area stronghold perched above the Potomac River cliffs. It soon makes another right off 123, pulling into the George Bush Center for Intelligence. It’s much more commonly known as the CIA or sometimes just ‘the family’ by its own members. At the initial checkpoint a guard runs through ID’s and offers instructions on visitor protocol and a little map of the parking lot showing exactly which spot to use, not like this is needed. All of these folks, including the very loyal and discrete ex-UK military driver, have been here a time or two before. Besides the driver, the car contains the current DLO, Secret Services Head of Station, a commercial counselor who sometimes dabbles outside the realm of business development and a BBC foreign correspondent who also does some ‘side’ work.

They wait patiently in the large bright black and white tiled foyer made famous by its appearance in a dozen spy movies. Hollywood producers mostly have it down pretty well, including the wall of stars for fallen heroes who must remain anonymous even after death to protect the integrity of the broader family. Two stars stand out. Just a little cleaner and brighter than the rest. Recent additions which are thought to be for agents who were engaged in some aspect of the war on drugs in the Central Americas region. Only their families and close colleagues know who they were.

The group are escorted to an elevator and loaded in. The armed escort reaches around the door from outside and swipes a grey plastic fob across a sensor. A red light goes green and the door closes. As the door reopens a few floors up another armed escort meets the group and politely requests that they deposit all of their electronic devices in a series of small lockers. The escort smiles as this reminds him of the old cowboy movies where they all had to hang up their guns at the saloon door. A variety of very early and relatively clunky Blackberries are deposited. He then guides them through a small metallic archway and hands them their respective locker keys as they reach the other side. He then leads them into a plain, windowless conference room. The only furniture is a grey laminate top conference table made up of four sections on castors which are locked to prevent movement. There is a pitcher of water and some clear plastic cups in the center. No ice. The configuration is surrounded by eighteen simple heavy plastic laminate shell chairs, also in grey. There is no whiteboard or blackboard or smart board or projector. No flat screen TV or wall art. No cameras or microphones evident. The floor is white VCT and the walls are off-white eggshell. Sterile is indeed the appropriate description. It’s much more like an operating theater than a high-level government meeting room. And these are the allies who trust each other most in the whole world.

The group concurs that they should establish a relatively small team of mostly low and mid-level support staffers to operate by hiding in plain sight of the enemy, deploying mainly manual communications and courier systems at least between what would be considered overt but totally secure UK and US government locations. They are specifically seeking players who already have established reasons for being frequent travelers to numerous locations across the Americas as well as others in key locations who have mundane assignments but who have shown some talent and flair beyond their current roles and more importantly, clearly displayed their loyalty and respect for the Stars and Stripes and the Official Secrets Act. Even a single breach of security, registered within their entire careers, would be an immediate disqualifier for consideration for this venture. Viable reasons for frequenting most sections of an embassy or consulate on routine business would also be a mandated qualification. Study of visit patterns were such a crucial part of the homework of all participants in the game of drugs and espionage. Any player who could convincingly appear outside the parameters of the game, yet remain right in the middle of it, could have considerable value.

4

THE CANDIDATES

P olitical season is full on. As they prepare for the fifth debate in Iowa, the big one in Des Moines, the field for the Republican primary is back up to four. A rather unusual development as this is when candidates are typically getting ready to drop out rather than checking back into the race. Just last week Byron Kean, the promising self-made pizza magnate, the only African American candidate left in the race, bowed out after a string of alleged mistresses appeared from nowhere to completely derail his previously swelling poll numbers.

After a dreadful, hesitant and slurring performance at the Waterloo town hall style debate ten days earlier, Senator Allen Collier of Virginia was withdrawn from the Cedar Rapids forum