The drug-related death of one of the White
House staff prompts the President to ask the question – can the cocaine
industry be destroyed?
The report that comes back says maybe; but
only if a certain Paul Devereaux is given free reign (and a budget of $2
billion) to plan and implement a strategy. It’s agreed and “The Cobra” builds
his team of experts and armoury of ships, planes and weaponry.
When he is ready the Cobra strikes, and
shipments of Columbian pure are intercepted with stealth, secrecy and scant
regard for former niceties of international law – neatly sidestepped by
re-defining cocaine trafficking as terrorism enabling the rules of warfare to
apply instead.
The final stage of the plan, as supplies get
scarce, injects the venom of misinformation into the paranoid underworld of the
drugs barons, fomenting civil war and bloodletting.
The violation and violence gets increasingly
difficult for the political masters in Washington and London to stomach; can
they see it through or will they pull the plug on Devereaux? Can they trust the
Cobra to deliver to their agenda, and are they powerless to prevent him achieving
his own?
It is typical Forsyth; all high tech gadgets
and high powered facts and figures that convince (rightly or wrongly) that he’s
found stuff out and he’s letting you into the know. The narrative moves quickly
and smoothly to a tense finale, but I find it difficult to identify with the
protagonists, whose every plan runs smooth and whose tricks and cons play out to
perfection.
My reality is somewhat different with
cock-up and confusion reigning supreme, but some may be comforted by the
fiction of masterful organisation portrayed here.
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