The Threat by David Poyer

approved. This headquarters would be a prime target for a bomb or raid.
    The duty officers, analysts, operations specialists, sat absorbed at their consoles. The air was icy. Quintero was stretched out in one of the big elevated chairs. He pointed to the one beside him. Dan looked around for Bloom, and located him heads-down with another agent over some printouts. He checked his watch against the wall clock—2115—and tried to relax.
    The big flat-panel display showed the whole transit zone, with air routes and boundaries of national seas and airspace. Dozens of aircraft flowed down the airways, each tagged by a data readout. The western boundary was the coast of Yucatán; the eastern, the scattered arch of the Lesser Antilles, Grenada, Barbados, the Grenadines, Martinique, on up to the U.S. Virgins. Colombia and Venezuela pushed up from the south, the tip of Florida down from the north. It was a godlike view of two million square miles of continent, island, and sea.
    Quintero probed as to the administration’s plans for the aerostats and the Customs boat fleet, since seizures were declining. “It’s easy to quantify seizures. Impossible to quantify deterrence.”
    â€œWe can put numbers on it,” Dan said. “That’s what I’ll try to do.”
    â€œBut it doesn’t give you the public support. You can’t take pictures of cargos of cocaine not being seized because they’re going overland.”
    â€œThe classic dilemma of deterrence. But if we can take down Nuñez, that’ll give Tejeiro a chance. What about control? Any hard spots there?”
    â€œTactical control here works pretty well. We’ve got the joint bugs worked out and we’re smoothing things out with the Brits and the Dutch. But nobody coordinates activity between me and JIATF West or South.”
    â€œHow much attention do you need? Hourly? Daily? Weekly?”
    Quintero said he didn’t need hourly coordination. Handoff procedures were established for tracks and intel that crossed the JIATF boundaries. But there were issues it would be nice to pass to a higher level, rather than trying to negotiate with his opposite number.
    â€œWe’re going to start running those out of my office,” Dan told him. “I don’t want to set up another command center. We’ve got enough command centers. But somebody’s got to have the big picture.”
    Quintero seemed about to say something, but didn’t. Instead he started describing the data, secret Internet protocol, and covered voice circuits they were guarding. He was saying the primary coordination voice net would be UHF satellite voice link 409, when Bloom came over and cleared his throat. “He’s off the ground.”
    â€œNuñez?”
    â€œNone other. They don’t know we’re listening to their airport communications. Over-the-horizon radar should report them any minute now.”
    They sat watching the display. “Flight profile match,” one of the console operators called.
    Quintero said, “This is terrific intel. Usually all we get is rumors, vague locations. This was spang on the money.”
    An aircraft symbol popped up on the screen, west of Bucaramanga. Simultaneously they got confirmation from a Customs Service–modified P-3 patrolling off the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. Dan was impressed. Dozens of icons winked and crept over Colombia. Somehow they’d plucked Nuñez’s out of that welter and mountain return, and locked on it as it headed north.
    â€œSubject TOI’s gone black,” a grille at his elbow reported.
    â€œNo transponder return,” Bloom explained. “He’s turned it off. Hoping if we’re tracking him, that’ll shake us off.”
    â€œWill it work?”
    â€œNot a chance,” Quintero said.
    *   *   *
    An hour later Gallery reported in. She held a small business-type jet, transponder off, no radars or