The Clayton Account by Bill Vidal

From now on the sun wouldn’t stop shining. That single fact, a five-million-dollar payment, on Tom’s instructions and from his own account, crystallized in his mind the irrefutable reality that he was indeed a wealthy man. He decided to take the rest of the day off. He left the bank at 2 p.m., London time, forty minutes before the reversal of the transfer showed on screen. Had he moved the money into the Taurus account, the reversal would not have been possible. But he did not. He wished to keep it at arm’s length: let some clerk make the payment in due course.
    At that point it would also have been sensible for Tom to telephone Langland and put him out of his misery. But Clayton was too immersed in his affairs to make the call. That was a mistake, for at that very moment Jeff was close to the end of his tether, trying desperately to rationalize what had happened and somehow to divorce himself from the consequences. By the time his working day was over, Langland had succumbed to wishful thinking. He had only been an unwitting pawn in Clayton’s game, he felt, and as he made his way home he resolved to come clean with the bank. They would have to believe he had no part of the second deal, the one that needed settling, and he would at least be able to keep his job. He was sure of that. In fact, his superiors might even thank him.
    Jeremiah ‘Red’ Harper pulled the top off a Labatts Ice and drank from the bottle. From his south-facing twenty-third-floor window he had a magnificent view of Biscayne Bay, but his eyes habitually focused on the horizon. Somewhere out there, he knew, was Cuba. And beyond it, Colombia. Along the 900 or so miles between the two subcontinents lay myriad staging points, constantly altered to minimize the chances of detection, as the enemy moved their produce. Sometimes it followed tortuous routes. Four thousand miles south to Buenos Aires, six thousand miles north-east to Madrid, then transported back across the Atlantic by a fresh set of mules. All to get a kilo here, ten kilos there, past US Customs. Other times it went through Mexico, then across to Texas or California. The Caribbean islands were the worst, like a sieve letting all the cocaine through. They would sail it out of Cartagena on small boats, take it up to the Bahamas, Virgins, Turks & Caicos, wherever . Then on to another boat, and another at sea, linking up with fishing boats out of US waters for the day, until eventually it made it to Florida.
    The Coast Guard scored its successes.
    They monitored air and ocean movements, their aircraft swooping down to snoop on any suspect deep-sea rendezvous. But it was no more than a war of attrition, a hassling action. Complete victory was not possible over a million square miles of immediate ocean, dotted with thousands of islands and scores of jurisdictions.
    Harper knew.
    He had been out there, posted to the islands a few months at a time. Kissing up to local officials who assured him of all the help he should ever want and who then covered their eyes and ears. Wise monkeys to a man. Back home he could put the IRS on them, get them to account for their lifestyle. Abroad, they knew he knew, and vice versa. And nothing ever happened. When he intercepted a load, they congratulated him, then asked Uncle Sam for more aid. And when the shipments got through, they sympathized and got richer.
    Big money bought acquiescence.
    The only real strides were made elsewhere, when Harper’s people were able to intercept the money trail, confiscate a few million dollars in one go, or put the middlemen in situations where they could not pay their bills. Then the system took care of them: one link removed as rough justice did its job. And yet, each time the sword came down, the hydra grew another head. Sometimes Harper felt the only way out was to legalize narcotics. At least the crime would stop. And at all levels. From the big drug lords in South America to the downtown mugger in LA.
    In Washington,