The Odessa File 1
Frederick Forsyth - The Odessa File
1972
FOREWORD
THE ODESSA of the title is neither the city in southern Russia nor the smaller city in Texas. It is a word composed of six initial letters, which in German stand for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angeh4drigen. In English this means "Organization of Former Members of the SS."
The Odessa File 2
PETER MILLER took the brown 2paper parcel home and arrived there just after three. He threw the package onto the living-room table and went to make a large pot of coffee before sitting down to read it.
The Odessa File 3
WHILE PETER MILLER and Sigi were asleep in each other's arms in Hamburg, a giant Argentine Coronado airliner swung over the darkened hills of Castile and entered final approach for a landing at Barajas Airport, Madrid.
Sitting in a window seat in the third row of the firstclass passenger section was a man in his early sixties with iron-gray hair and a trim mustache.
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PART ONE
COIL
CHAPTER 1
THE TEENAGE BOY WAS DYING ALONE. NO ONE KNEW and only one would have cared. He lay, skeletal from a life ruined by drugs, on a stinking palliasse in the corner of a filthy room in an abandoned block. The slum was in one of the failed housing schemes called a “project” in Anacostia, a part of Washington, D.C., of which the city is not proud and which tourists never visit.
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CHAPTER 2
THE MAN THE PRESIDENT SOUGHT WAS NAMED PAUL Devereaux, and when he was finally traced, he was at prayer. He regarded prayer as profoundly important.
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PART TWO
HISS
CHAPTER 3
FOR SECURITY REASONS IT WAS INFREQUENT THAT THE Hermandad, the controlling super-cartel of the whole cocaine industry, met in plenary session. Years earlier, it had been easier. the controlling super-cartel of the whole cocaine industry, met in plenary session. Years earlier, it had been easier.
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CHAPTER 4
IN THE PLAZA DE BOLÍVAR, NAMED AFTER THE GREAT Liberator, stand some of the oldest buildings not only in Bogotá but in all South America. It is the center of Old Town.
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CHAPTER 5
GUY DAWSON LINED UP, BRAKED GENTLY, STUDIED THE flickering array of instruments once again, glanced at the tarmac glittering under the sun, made his request to the tower and waited for the “Clear for takeoff.”
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CHAPTER 6
IT WAS A NICE LITTLE HOUSE, NEAT AND SPRUCE, THE sort that makes the statement that people who live there are proud of having risen from the working class to the level of skilled craftsman.
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CHAPTER 7
IT WAS FORTUNATE FOR CAL DEXTER THAT JEREMY Bishop’s social life was as busy as a bomb site. He had spent Easter feigning jollity in a country hotel, so when Dexter apologetically mentioned he had urgent work that would need the computer genius at his data banks, it was like a ray of sunshine.
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CHAPTER 8
JULIO LUZ, THE ADVOCATE FROM THE CITY OF BOGOTÁ, flew into New York clothed in outward calm, but internally a thoroughly frightened man. Since the arrest of Letizia Arenal at Kennedy three days earlier, he had had two long and terrifying interviews with one of the most violent men he had ever met.
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CHAPTER 9
THE U.S. NAVY SEALS BOARDED THEIR Q-SHIP ONE hundred miles north of Puerto Rico, where the supply vessel had herself been loaded at Roosevelt Roads, the U.S. base on that island.
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PART THREE
STRIKE
CHAPTER 10
BY CHANCE IT WAS THE BRITISH SPECIAL BOAT SERVICE that secured the first prey; a question of the right place at the right time.
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CHAPTER 11
THERE WERE 117 NAMES ON THE RAT LIST. THEY COVERED officials on the public payroll in eighteen countries.
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CHAPTER 12
PACO VALDEZ, THE ENFORCER, AND HIS TWO COMPANIONS flew into Guinea-Bissau. The Don was not prepared to risk any more high-seas disappearances. Nor was he going to indulge the American DEA by having his creatures travel by scheduled commercial airline.
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CHAPTER 13
THROUGHOUT NOVEMBER, THE COBRA’S ASSAULT ON DON Diego’s cocaine empire continued remorselessly, and finally the fault lines began to show. The standing of the cartel with its numerous and ultra-violent customers across both continents became serious and deteriorating, if not yet fatal.
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CHAPTER 14
IT FELL TO THE BRITISH SERIOUS AND ORGANISED CRIME Agency and London’s Metropolitan Police to carry out the raid. Both had been laying the groundwork for some time. The target was going to be a drug-smuggling gang called the “Essex Mob.”
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PART FOUR
VENOM
CHAPTER 15
DON DIEGO ESTEBAN BELIEVED IN THREE THINGS. HIS God, his right to extreme wealth and dire retribution for anyone who impugned the first two.
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CHAPTER 16
JONATHAN SILVER HAD THE REPUTATION OF POSSESSING the most abrasive temper in the West Wing. He made it plain as Paul Devereaux entered his office that he did not intend to restrain it.
