The Condor's Riddle by Marcelo Antinori

Author:Marcelo Antinori [Antinori, Marcelo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

22

The Captain faces the storm. Cavafys knew the cartels, and he was aware that there would be no peace until the narcs found what they were looking for. He knew they had spies all over the place listening to what people said and deciphering their silence. No one was spared, not even him on the Ithaca, since there was no corner in the world they couldn’t reach.

He had gone through the same nightmare four years before when they sent people to scrutinize Santa Clara to find out if the Condor was really dead. Julio, the Condor, had been responsible for investing the cartels’ money. He had been the mastermind behind a complex financial system channeling the cartels’ income into a group of legal companies and turning dirty drug money into profitable and clean investments recognized by governments and making it impossible to trace the money’s origins.

And Julio was like a brother to him. It was in Gregoria’s house, Cavafys’ Garifuna girlfriend, where he had hidden Julio back in the days when Julio was still a guerilla fighter. He had been badly hurt, and Cavafys had secretly taken him to Cuba, where they pulled out a bullet from his lung. He was also the first to witness Julio’s frustrations with the revolutionary cause when Soviet money stopped pouring in and there were no resources to carry on their fight in Central America.

The Greek Captain was on his side back then when he partnered with narcs to organize cocaine production in the Latin American mountains. Cavafys was probably the only person who never questioned Julio when he discarded the idea of changing the world and plunged into the illegal drug market. He witnessed the full transformation. He saw how Julio began gaining trust among the biggest kingpins, climbing up in the organization, and laundering drug money through lavish investments.

Because of this friendship, the narcs interrogated him for days on end after Julio’s plane crash in the Dominican Republic. All of them, at that moment, had doubts. Was it a hoax? Did he fake it to run away with the cartels’ money?

Now Julio was dead again, and a lot of people were furious. Cavafys didn’t have answers, but he wanted to help Ilona. She was missing and he didn’t know where to find her. Gigi, Ibrahim, Frida, and even Doña Cecy were also under the narcs’ control, and there was no one to help him.

The only suggestion Ilona gave him by phone before vanishing was to speak with Diocles, and he did it. But even more critically, he insisted Diocles go into hiding. Cavafys knew that the narcs would force him to tell them the five names and would never believe he didn’t know which of the five Ilona chose. Diocles was a thinker, not a man of action, and before leaving he gave Cavafys a piece of not-so-useful advice. The only one who knew Julio’s thoughts was the dog. We need to make him speak.

The Greek Captain also knew that Julio’s brother was about to show up.

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