Patrick Coonan is sent to Barranquilla, Colombia, on the trail of a missing U.S. Navy submarine that his chief has promised Admiral Peter S. Seltzer will be located and brought back. But the Colonel is heavily relying on his man Delta to do the job... A fast-paced adventure in which Pat is deprived of the company of his female partner Jessica, to be paired instead with a fiery freelance operative of Mexican ancestry with more dangerous curves than a wet highway and a character as volatile as the bombs she prepares.
Patrick Coonan is sent to Barranquilla, Colombia, on the trail of a missing U.S. Navy submarine that his chief has promised Admiral Peter S. Seltzer will be located and brought back. But the Colonel is heavily relying on his man Delta to do the job... A fast-paced adventure in which Pat is deprived of the company of his female partner Jessica, to be paired instead with a fiery freelance operative of Mexican ancestry with more dangerous curves than a wet highway and a character as volatile as the bombs she prepares.
I said, “With all due respect, sir, it’s bullshit,” and I said this in harsh conviction. “I’ve never believed that theory, not even during my youth, when the topic was in vogue during the 1970s."
My disdainful comment won me a sour grin. Marlon Berkowitz was not a man given to tolerate vulgarity among his minions, but in this circumstance, he had no choice but to put up with what some at headquarters call an “irritating personality” ─ mine, that is. Col. Marlon Berkowitz, still supreme commander and Chief Director of Operations at CI5 (that’s Counterintelligence No. 5, to you) had sent for me to ask a favor.
“So, you don’t believe in the myth of the Bermuda Triangle?”
“Absolutely not, sir. It was proven to be just that, a myth. The disappearances of all the crafts involved, both aerial and maritime, were more the product of modern pirates, drug traffickers and kidnappers than of imaginary extraterrestrial beings and mysterious magnetic fields...”
“Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it?” He pointed out, without letting me carry the sentence to completion. “That’s the angle I wish to explore.”
“The angle you wish to explore... I see.” I repeated after him before taking a long breath and shrugging my shoulders. “Very good, sir. I’m all ears.”
That was when he started the briefing. In recent months, the U.S. Navy had lost three nuclear sub-marines with more than enough power on board to devastate the world, not once, but ten times over. A very serious matter, I must add. We had become the laughingstock of the planet, having spent years criticizing the Russians for being so “careless and irresponsible” with their nuclear arsenal... And now it seemed we were the ones endangering all of humanity if one of these formidable weapons created and manufactured by us fell into the wrong hands. Fortunately, two of the three missing subs had already been located by Naval Intelligence, but the third ─ the largest and most dangerous of the trio ─ had not yet been placed in safekeeping. Let us take into consideration that, at the time all this went down, we were entering the third millennium, with a New World Order where (unfortunately) terrorists ruled the roost... Therefore, I wondered, what angle was Col. Berkowitz referring to.
“I’m sorry, Pat,” my chief said, “I have no right to drag you into this mess, but it fell right into my lap for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s usually the way shit happens, sir,” I mumbled, and he heard me. He just pretended he hadn’t.
The fact that he’d called me by my first name, while we were both sitting in his office at CI5 headquarters in Midtown Miami, could not be overlooked; it was significant. Both in that office, and in all the others he’d had in different places throughout our work association, I’d always been Delta to him, a code name he himself had assigned to me for almost two decades now.
“Perhaps if you would deign to tell me everything there is about the matter, just for once in your life,” I dropped with a hint of sarcasm, “it would be easier for me to accept what you’re asking of me... How the hell did you let yourself get mixed up in this, sir? As far as I know, CI5 is not a spook shop, quite the opposite, and the Navy has a vast Intelligence Department; a very competent one, I should add. You even mentioned that they have already located two...”
“I know, I know,” he admitted sternly. “Anyway, here goes the story. The week I spent in Washington, I was invited to a dinner at the Pentagon, given in honor of one of the Joint Chiefs.”
“Wow… Let me guess, sir: the Chief of Naval Operations,” I ventured.
He grinned sourly at my voluntary observation, as if to say “obviously” and then he continued with his story.
“Admiral Peter M. Seltzer and I served together in the Navy SEALs during the Vietnam War, when I was a captain in the U.S. Special Forces, and we are good friends of long standing. After the ceremony, he invited me over for a couple of drinks at his house in a quiet Maryland suburb, and he told me a story as fascinating as it is incredible… Have you heard of the Akula?"
“Yes, I have. A Russian attack submarine,” I hastened to answer his question. “That’s all I know, sir."
“Very well. The Akula class was built in the 1980s with a single purpose: to hunt down American nuclear subs. I understand that it is a technological marvel, with a navigation system that is undetectable under the sea. ‘Undetectable’ is the key word in this story.”
“I’m not impressed by Soviet technology, sir. They were masters at mass production of scrap metal when they were a world superpower, but now..."
“They have improved significantly,” he said. “We’re facing the proof of that today, three American sub-marines missing without a chance to fight back.”
“And the Joint Chiefs think that an Akula is responsible, isn’t that it?
“Or more than one; the Russian Navy has almost twenty of the darned things operating in international waters.”
“I refuse to believe it, Colonel,” I said, emphatically shaking my head. “We were always the king of the oceans, for many years our fleet of Polaris was the detente that prevented Soviet Russia from attacking us.
“Certainly, this is where Vladimir Putin’s obsession with surpassing us comes from. You know that, aside from being Prime Minister of Russia since ’99, the man is a former KGB operative.”
“A minor one, I’m told.” I spoke.
“Don’t underestimate him, Delta. He didn’t have the chance back then to work his way up to threat-to-the-West level, but that’s because the Empire collapsed on him. Putin is a man to watch out for, trust me.”
“Even after the fall of the Soviet regime and the end of the Cold War? Mm... Come on, Colonel!”
He didn’t respond to my disdainful skepticism, he just nodded his head, as if approving, and remained silent for a few more seconds. But I, somewhat uncomfortable with his silence, urged him to continue with his story.
“I’m not ruling out the possibility that the Russians have returned to their old evil ways,” he said, “but I don’t share the idea that they have achieved technological supremacy on the seas, yet. I think that someone, somewhere, is being very clever and tricky. That’s what I told Admiral Seltzer.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed in mild reproach. “That’s what one gets for handing out opinions….”
“Yes, I know, that was my mistake. The Admiral was impressed with my theory, and, given the desperation and embarrassment caused by the loss of his nuclear subs, he asked me to explore that angle.”
“Which one?” I asked to prod him, “The one about magnetic fields?”
“I never said that, Pat; I am inclined towards the theory that they want to convince us of their invincibility to put fear in our souls and force us to waste resources on unbridled defensive measures.”
“Like old Reagan did with the Soviets when he threatened them with the Star Wars project, isn’t it?
“You mean the Space Defense Initiative, but yes, that’s it. More or less.”
“Then you think it’s a farce.”
“Negative, the threat is tangible, but I do not think it is conceived as the Joint Chiefs imagine it.”
“Let’s see, sir, why don’t you explain it to me?”
In response, he pushed the talk-button on the Intercom and ordered: “Mrs. Aledo, is Agent Phi in the building?”
“Yes, sir, she is in her office,” was the rigid response from his chief of staff.
“Send her right up, will you? Immediately. We are waiting for her.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Naturally, things started to get complicated after my partner Jessica arrived very willing to lecture us on the subject. In the beginning of her Excel presentation, I could hardly focus on what she had to say, it was all naval gibberish that I don’t understand, and all I did was stare at her with the repressed desire of the many weeks we had been apart; months without even sharing a mission with her. After Operation Parasol, the Colonel had put up a wall between us; but Phi wasn’t showing any signs of having missed my company, so, if she were feeling the same as me, she hid it very well. In fact, she looked relaxed, professional, and excited about this new project. So, I thought fuck it and did my best to focus on the matter at hand.
As expected, being the team’s analyst and all, she came well-prepared to give one of her detailed lectures on the latest naval maneuvers of the Russians and Chinese in waters near the American continent. She spoke in depth about the various types of submarines that the Russian Federation has, and the progress made by their scientists in silencing their ships for underwater warfare. I thought about everything she said, you know... Firstly, because I don’t understand a damn thing about those topics and, secondly, because I never swallowed the pill that the former Soviets have gotten so far ahead of us. I’m not as dumb as some at headquarters think, I read the Department of Defense statistics from time to time and the last time I did (just two or three months ago) the United States of America was still ahead in the defense spending budget. We invested a lot more on war toys and tech gadgets than the Chinese and the Russians did.
It is quite true that in the 1970s they came up with a very dangerous missile, a submarine-killer rocket christened Sea Serpent, which, in fact, kept the Pentagon hawks in check, overwhelmed as they were by so many cuts in the national defense budget imposed by the administration of former President Jimmy Carter. But with the coming to power of the old Reagan the tables were turned and very soon their Sea Serpent became obsolete when the U.S. Navy put into production an anti-rocket missile baptized with the no less suggestive name of Mongoose. And that was it; our Mongoose ate up the Russian Sea Serpent and the United States regained its status as ‘king of the deeps’ in underwater warfare.
Jessica emphasized the mysterious appearances of a Russian vessel in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico whose discovery had caused the head of the Southern Command, relocated to Key West after the Panama Canal ceased to be a possession of ours, to react, prompting a maneuver in which our three missing subs had participated.
So, when the Colonel brought the case to me, there was already a definite pattern, the submarines dis-appeared in sets of three. One vanished in the Pacific; one in the North Atlantic; one in the Caribbean... But there were other relevant details that were not brought to the table by Jessica, but by my boss.
“I have pondered the matter, and I am almost convinced that there is a catch here. I insist that someone is trying hard to make us believe that the Akulas are invincible.”
I said nothing so as not to spoil his party, but his observation was more than obvious to me.
“There are more common denominators in all the disappearances,” interjected Jessica.
“Let me guess,” I said, unable to hold back this time, “the link lies with the ships’ commanders.”
The Colonel looked me in the eye, and I thought I noticed the outcropping of a fleeting mischievous smile on those thin, cruel-looking lips.
Jessica was shocked to realize that I had just batted the ball out of the field.
“What did you say?!”
“If they weren’t bought,” I continued undaunted, “they have been extorting them in some way to have their ships wrecked or delivered to God knows what remote wastelands of the globe to be dismantled and thus disappear.”
“Are you aware of what you are implying, Delta?” sparked Jessica. “Traitorous admirals in the U.S. Navy?”
“For Christ’s sake, why not, Phi? Didn’t the Rosen-bergs sell the secret of the atomic bomb to the Reds? And that son-of-a-bitch Aldrich Ames our most precious secrets to the Russians? Traitors have always existed everywhere! In our capitalist society the main motivation has always been profit.”
“But not the only one,” pointed out the Colonel taking up the lead. “There is another powerful motive, and you know it as well as I do because it has touched us closely. Resentment.”
He was now making a direct allusion to Alfred Tilson’s case. The man who’d been his second in command in the Quadrille during the Cold War and all the years after being disbanded in 1992. Old Al had been our Master instructor, and one of the finest government assassins I ever met, but he had tired of being Marlon Berkowitz’s right-hand man in the organization…
I could not help but experience a painful flashback, suddenly triggered by the Colonel’s allusion to that sad incident, back in Aruba during Operation Parasol, in which Tilson’s treachery forced me to prepare the conditions for his execution. Normally, when I’m ordered to eliminate someone, I do it without remorse. It’s my job, I’m a trained eliminator and I’m good at it. But Tilson and I had been close ─ well, as close as one can get in this racket of ours. He’d been my initial trainer and also my executive director in the field in one of the most dangerous missions I undertook with the Quadrille, the first time I was ordered by the Colonel to remove someone outside the country, behind the Iron Curtain.
The memories were very vivid and coming in now, my mind flying back to Aruba. Tilson and I facing each other in the office he was using as a front in Oranjestad, the place from where he managed a team of twelve OCF operatives under his command, now that he was no longer working directly with us but had become a liaison officer between our CI5 subsection and the general director of the OCF, Mr. Arnold fuckin’ Feldman. I remember him leaving the chair behind his desk growl-ing through clenched teeth while taking steps in the direction of the wooden cabinet, where he kept his liquor. At no time did he turn his back on me, not even once, as he reached for another bottle of whiskey. The semi-auto SW22 pistol firmly clutched in his right hand.
“Where the hell are Karina and her crew?”
I remember thinking that frightening moment when my life depended on the efficiency and punctuality of the Triple K operatives my boss had hired to carry out the hit. He suspected that, regardless of my acceptable track record and long experience, I would not be the best suited for this job and, of course, he was right. He always was. But Tilson had taken the lead and had come for me when I least expected it and now, I was helpless, and in no position to counterattack. It seemed as if I was entirely dependent on the accuracy of whoever was out there with a powerful long-range rifle.
Well, it was becoming obvious that I’d better come up with other plans rather than waiting for my “saving angels” to shoot the target. Instinct forced me to jump on the desk and try to seize the Ruger he’d taken away from me, or reach out for the pocketknife, which now rested on his desk surface. But an inner voice warned me that I would never make it, not with Tilson as an adversary, who was a true master in the killing arts. The shotgun was out of my reach, that much I knew, he’d left it leaning against the far wall.
Then I’d seen the beam coming out of nowhere like an unexpected miracle. A thin dot of red light landed like a silent wasp on old Al’s back, sliding down it until it stopped right between his shoulder blades.
“What you’ve told to me,” I said to keep him distracted, “is quite shocking. Peculiar, isn’t it?
“Did you say peculiar, lad?” He snapped. What is peculiar?”
“The message you just passed on to me: That is peculiar. The reason I find this odd is because someone else also gave me a message for you.”
This made him pause in his hunt for alcohol and tune up his ears. I prayed to God that he would not turn to face the window now. So, I struggled to keep all his attention focused on me.
“You are a funny guy, you know?” he said with a twisted grin. “What message are you talking about, Patrick?”
“The one sent to you by a gentleman named… Well, let’s just call him Mr. B.”
“Mr. B? Oh, I get it, you mean your boss, the Colonel?” He said and the grin evolved into a grimace. “Well, he can go rot in hell!”
“Do you want to hear what he has to say, or not?” I persisted in keeping him busy.
“Sure, why not, spit it out... Now, where the fuck is that bottle, dammit!”
The red dot oscillated slightly, and I realized I’d better hurry, or soon he wouldn’t be in condition to hear me out. Whoever was behind the scope out there was calculating the distance of the shot against the wind speed, the angle of the gun’s position and the force of the rifle’s recoil. I had no idea what gun they were using, and I really didn’t care if they could hit the mark.
“Come on, sport, spit out your little message. What did the old fox order you to tell me, huh?”
“Here you go, buddy,” I said, mimicking his odious
New England accent to perfection, “you must learn not to monkey with the axe...”
My timing was perfect. The window cracked at first but then it exploded into a myriad shard. Next came the noise of the glass shattering, making me jump.
One shot was all it took, just one. It really was a spectacular performance. One moment Tilson was standing in front of the cabinet, and the next instant he was lying sprawled on the floor. I’m sure the man never knew what hit him. The sniper’s bullet pierced his spine, ripping his soul away from his body in a flash.
For a few moments I felt sorry for the man who, although he’d become a traitor, was one of the most solid pillars on which my formation in the Quadrille was based. I recalled him standing tall, his back erect and a self-assured grin brightening his features next to Col. Berkowitz in front of the entire class, that night when he addressed all recruits for the first time to tell us about his unconventional specialty.
“Delta, are you listening?” The Colonel’s dry voice cracked like whiplash.
I shook my head and said: “Sorry, sir. Of course I’m listening. I was just turning something in my head. You were saying?"
“Maybe you haven’t noticed it, but the life of a sub commander is no life... If they are married, they lose the marriage sooner or later. Their children grow up away from their father. They miss all, or almost all, the important events in the family calendar. They are condemned to live a parsimonious, lonely and harsh existence; always waiting for the order to destroy the world at any moment. I started investigating in that vein and I’ve managed to gather some details that strengthen my hypothesis of foul play in the disappearances.”
“Don’t tell me, sir, there is a conspiracy of resentful officers within the Navy!”
More than a statement, it was a shot in the dark, on my part; deep down I never intended my saying seriously, for one thing is an isolated traitor in any of the three branches of our armed forces and another, very different, by the way, is a plot. That only happens in Third World countries and some of the former Soviet republics. To even suggest it could also happen in America was pure nonsense and it came as a great surprise to me that my attempt to lighten up the meeting with a tasteless joke wrung a blunt affirmation out of him.
“You hit the nail right on the head,” he laughed. “The three admirals are plotting.”
Sure, Col. Berkowitz recognizes that the most indispensable member of the Quadrille is agent Patrick Coonan, and now that the whereabouts of the missing US Navy Submarine has been established, who’s better equipped to handle the operation than Patrick Coonan himself, aka agent Delta? Except this time Berkowitz opts to replace Jessica with Karina, an independent operator of Mexican ancestry, perhaps his decision is largely influenced by Pat and Jess’s previous work relationship. As Pat and Karina kick off the mission, Yuri Pavenko and his protégé, Nina, don’t miss the party, though their agenda is very unclear.
First, let me start by admitting that I have often considered Pat and Jess as inseparable and haven't yet foreseen a future in which they don’t neutralize the enemy together. Yet, The Magdalena Gambit changes that perception since Karina, like Jess, is both intelligent and capable. She keeps Pat in check all the time; therefore, whereas Pat and Jess’s fans will miss seeing Jess putting boots on the ground, Karina is still as badass as they come and mission-focused, thus earning her place alongside Pat.
In this installment, Ortiz zooms in on Col. Berkowitz’s interest in the mission. Yes, readers have known this guy as a man full of contradictions—one who wouldn’t let Pat in on the mission entirely but would instead prefer him to grope in the dark to find his way through— this time he’s a bit hands-on. First, he’s the taxi driver waving for Pat at the airport, and after they’d reached the hotel, he’s the one to answer the knock at the door for he’d planned out everything else.
To write an immersive espionage thriller such as The Magdalena Gambit, extensive research and knowledge on the relevant field (s) is highly required, alongside a certain kind of writing, and as a reader who’s gotten hooked on Patrick Coonan’s story, it would be remiss of me to not say Oscar Ortiz has it all. The opening scene alone— rather the dialogue between Pat and Berkowitz delivers, plunging the readers into the plot. Ortiz always provides backstories here and there, to enliven the plot, and though the story is told from a first-person point of view, the protagonist is always omnipresent, witty, and in possession of the narrator’s best voice. Further, to put it simply, Ortiz’s firm grip on the Cold War, Russian and American history, international threats, and Security agencies have often made me come for more, as do fans of spy thrillers.