Considering what he had seen, Wilson was still skeptical — and worried about the implications for his friend and his country.
“Where do I start?” Wilson asked him.
“Why don’t you let me begin? Do you know how much the cartels make each year on the cocaine trade? Total?”
“A gazillion dollars.”
Chuckling, Weed said, “You know, that’s about right. It’s eighty-six billion a year. Do you know how much of that is overhead?”
“No.”
“One billion. The cartels are making 98.8 % profit, numbers that would make Amazon and Apple blush. And they are using old, beat-up, twin turboprops; cigarette boats; nondescript fishing boats; and, yes, as you saw today, submarines. They have fucking submarines, Flip, not low radar cross-section submersibles. Submersibles are so last century. Their subs can carry 10 tons of product that they take to Mexico where it walks across the border, or they can take it to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, or even right up to our gulf coast and transfer it to a waiting cabin cruiser offshore. And they ditch the vessels or aircraft, no need to reuse them, and if two out of four shipments are intercepted by law enforcement, they are still making a mint. And that’s just cocaine, not pot, not meth, not heroin. The stuff then gets into the distribution network in the states or Europe, wherever, and it’s no longer the cartels’ problem. They’ve long been paid. That’s all this is, Flip, one big and very well oiled production and distribution machine. You gotta hand it to these guys.”
“They can abandon all that?”
“Hell, Flip, they’ve flown damn airliner packed to the gills into a dirt strip, unloaded it within minutes, and abandoned it to the desert. They don’t need it again. They’ve made their billion off it.”
“So what is this? You guys are going out there, with tipper info from someplace, to find a go-fast and blow it away just like that? And it’s all covert, even as you hide with your bogus cover story in plain sight aboard the ship. Do I have it right?”
Weed’s eyes held no expression as he mulled his answer. “In so many words, yes.”
“Lying to me and everyone else?”
“A bodyguard of lies, Flip. We need to keep this black to deny the enemy any intel for as long as possible as we attrit as many of their on hand transportation assets as possible.”
“Come upon them with no warning? Shoot with live ammo? Shoot survivors? Is this what we’ve come to, Weed? Is this how far we’ve devolved?”
Weed’s face turned dark as he leaned forward in his seat and growled. “Don’t give me your Marquess of Queensberry bullshit!