The Cobra Paperback – June 7, 2011

The novel begins with a seizing event.Death of child occurs due to cocaine somewhere in USA.The President of United States takes notice of it,and calls for a fact finding report.After studying the report,the president approves a counter intelligence program named,The Cobra,to combat cocaine smuggling under the leadership of Paul Devereaux,an ex-army officer and a religious fundamentalist,who believed that he was endowed with a religious duty to serve his God and his county.To embark upon the project,The Cobra,Devereaux lays down five conditions before the President"'s Chief of Staff.These demands included:(1)total independence and secrecy;(2)presidential authority giving Devereaux powers to ask for co-operation from any other agency including military units;(3)to recruit staff of his own choice;(4)budget of two billion dollars without audit;(5)to re-categorize cocaine smuggling as an act of terrorism.All his demands were accepted and he was given a go ahead signal.Devereaux begins working on his project by dividing it into four stages namely,Coil,Hiss,Strike and Venom,the known characteristics of a Cobra.His first recruit was an unknown attorney Dexter,who was known for his devotion to duty and sincerity.The Law Enforcement Agencies know it very well how cocaine is smuggled into USA.The prohibited cocaine is brought from Colombia in small steamers,fish boats and the same is delivered at the beaches of Oregon,Mexico and California.By following this method three hundred tons of cocaine is brought to USA each year.In this chain every one involved is paid character and the money is paid into their specified accounts .The goods before landing on the soil belonged to supplying cartel,but after delivery it belongs to the local importer and its price immediately becomes payable to the cartel.The deliveries for Europe too are made in small quantities by dropping small bales of cocaine in open sea which are picked up by fishing boats and the goods are brought into Spain,Portugal and Italy.In 2010,Colombian cartel was taken over by Don Diego Esteban and he became the unchallenged leader of the mafia.A notable characteristic of the Don is that he is very careful in his dealings,and prefers to send his messages by hand picked couriers.Cocaine cartel"s income is enormous.Their main problem however hinges how to launder the cash received from the sale of cocaine.Don handed over this function to a well educated attorney namely,Julio Luz.Another confronting issue before the cartel was how to ship their consignments?That is,either to ship cocaine in tiny quantities through thousands of single couriers or to send through huge consignments?Don did appoint Suarez as head of transportation Suarez favored sending of cocaine through huge consignments,his point of view was approved by the Don.On the other hand for cobra operations,Dexter hire the services of Bishop,who is known communication expert,and he sets up a communication center to monitor cartel"s activities.Cartel is busy in dispatching huge quantities of drugs around the globe.Surez,the head of transportation of cartel was equipping their vessels with secret cavities to cheat law enforcers and to get the consignments in safely at their destination'Somehow Devereaux comes to know about these secrets,and he finds out that the creator of these secret cavities was a welder by the name of Juan Cartez,he also knew the details about all those ships in which special caveties were made out.In a sudden move,Devereaux abducts Juan Cartez and the whole episode is so maneuvered that people including Cartez"s family believes that he died in car accident due to fire which engulfed his vehicle.Juan Cartez finds himself confined in a safe house somewhere in United States,where is told that for his community and family he is dead,he is shown a video of his funeral and by seeing all that he understands that for him there was no way out except to cooperate with the cobra team in order to bargain immigration of his family.He accordingly tells all the details about the ships having special cavities meant for cocaine smuggling.After getting access to the information cobra teams operations to check and seize cocaine at the entry points were successful,the seized cocaine was also being dumped at secret places in order to keep the enemy in the dark.For cobra team,there were still two riddles to be solved,first the insiders who were cooperating at the entry points with the cartel and second being the methods and details about the money laundering .In order to get the information about insiders cobra team cleverly plans a scheme to entangle the daughter of Roberto Cardenas(a board member of the cartel)in a false love affair which entices her to travel to United States where upon her arrival drugs are re-covered from her baggage and she is arrested at the air port.For her release Luz,the attorney is sent to New York but the lawyers present a bleak picture of the trial and the events force Cardenas to cooperate with the cobra team to release the names of insiders,once the insiders are taken to task,cocaine smuggling becomes more and more difficult making the life of the cartel more difficult.In a next move Luz is arrested in Madrid while doing money laundering,cartel is successful to get his release but he refuses to come out of police custody and bargains his safety of life by exchanging the information regarding money laundering.The actions of the cobra team suggested that they were acting on the advise of Chinese thinker Sun Tazu ,by studying the enemy very carefully and making him believe to under estimate the cobra team.The cartel had no idea that how adverse things were happening and who was behind them.These events created a shortage of cocaine in the market which brought many unforeseen events like selling of alternates,gang wars,emergence of new forces in the marketing opposing the cartel,at this moment the cobra team also brought more pressure on the cartel and they started making mistakes,the operation of cobra started all out war against cartel,but its fall out was not controllable by the politicians and they asked the operation to be stopped.Devereaux ,heart broken by the weakness shown by the political bosses enters into a sale deal of 300 tons cocaine in his possession,however the same is burnt by Dexter when he finds that he is being cheated,the cartel failing to get the delivery of cocaine kill Devereaux for his double cross.This is a story narrated by the master story teller Fredric Forsyth about Colombian mafia,about state corruption,about drug trade,about money laundering,about counter intelligence and about the will of an individual who has shown that how impossible can be made possible.The author believes that crime is taking place either with the connivance of state or its with the help of components.He believes that there is shortage of leaders who have the courage and moral strength to check serious crimes like drugs.The author tells us that how organized crime including smuggling,money laundering ,corruption,takes place with the help of state actors .This is a story of greed,violence,inhumanity and immorality.

OK BUt not one of Forsyth's best. The story is choppy and at times hard to follow. But an OK read.

A masterful author

I called this a thinking person's thriller because Forsyth did an INCREDIBLE amount of research and analysis about how the war on drugs COULD really perhaps be won before he wrote a word of this (he said so himself)... and then he created the first 200 pages explaining what the Cobra's plan involved ... all of it seemingly do-able -- to me, anyway, before the plan gets underway. Be patient while reading through the first half of this book!And there's a legal and moralistic attitude here that the Cobra - and one would imagine the author as well -- takes, namely: either decide to win this war doing whatever it takes to win, or forget about it and stop being hypocritical and maybe even legalize this destructive chemical. Orwell warned us in an era when we were fighting unmitigated evil that liberals too easily forget that the bad guys are really as bad as they are ... and few are as bad as the drug cartels!So Forsyth asks the blunt question: why grant human rights, civil rights, or any other rights to people who themselves deliberately live so far outside the law.... and wrote this novel to answer it.Everything that the Cobra and Dexter and their troops and allies do is "outside the box" - much of it quite ingenious, because that is what's required to defeat a $200 billion (or more?) corporate enterprise.I also do not want to add spoilers or reveal what happens, except to say that you may want to not schedule much in your life once you're past page 225 or 250...if you get that far, you'll want to see what happens in one sitting.Some people have written here quite negatively about Forsyth's spare style in this book - I think that's just what it is, simple, spare, often quite unemotional, and that's just fine since the context in which this story happens is already SO emotionally charged with human destruction, power-hunger, corruption, and greed beyond belief.Buy the book, take it on its own terms - most importantly, do not expect a formulaic thriller with a conventional hero -- and ask yourself the BIG question: "So, why couldn't this work, if we had the political will, the moral guts, the legal wherewithal to just do it?"Not a fun book, 'cause this is not a fun subject ... but it's about a bunch of people acting responsibly as they take a very adult approach to a very awful problem.

O livro é muito bom, prende a atenção e aparece bastante realista. Trata-se de uma tentativa de terminar com o comércio de cocaína de grandes traficantes e envolve a logística do seu transporte.

Lots of interesting facts or strong possibilities help hold this tale together making it all the more plausible. I will read more Forsyth

Very detailed and logical plot with many twists .... an exciting read from this master storyteller

Gripping. Running around Countries n Containers. Aircrafts, sky, vessels, sea, tottal thrill.

Right from page one, this is a book I could not put down. The subject matter, the cocaine production and distribution, and the action to combat it, was a thrilling adventure but quite plausible.