Frederick Forsyth · 2010 · global
Frederick Forsyth's 2010 thriller. Given a blank cheque and no rules, a retired intelligence officer sets out to destroy the cocaine trade at source. Ships begin vanishing between Colombia and the transit ports of West Africa, and as the cartel's losses mount, its bosses start turning on each other - which was always the point of the operation.
- 1Cartagena
On the Colombian coast at Cartagena, the cartel loads the cocaine that supplies two continents onto fishing boats, freighters and semi-submersibles - a trade so vast and so well protected that nobody believes it can be touched.
- 2Guinea-Bissau
The West African transit states are the weak hinge of the whole business, where cargoes are landed on airstrips and beaches in countries with no means to stop them, and moved north into Europe by a dozen routes.
- 3The Atlantic
Between the two, in mid-ocean, the Cobra's ships and aircraft begin quietly taking the cargoes - vessels that simply never arrive, crews that vanish, and no wreckage and no explanation for the men waiting at either end.
- 4Washington
In Washington the operation is run from a bare office by a man with a blank cheque and no rules, watching the cartel tear itself apart over shipments it cannot account for - and counting the cost of what he has started.