Midnight Trust

by M. L. Buchman

  The team’s own safe house lay at the top of a thirty-story outdoor escalator that was rapidly changing Comuna 13—one of the two most dangerous places in the entire city. The other was on the far side of the city. La Sierra sat at the end of a long run of cable cars and was the gateway to the region’s coca fields.

  “I own that now,” Daniela had told them in her chilly la Capitana mode. “No one from the Clan would ever think to go there if they want to live.”

  Tanya could see the solidification of the rest of the team’s certainty that the day after el Clan del Golfo went down, la Capitana would be going down hard. She had wanted to spend some more time with Daniela, but preparations simply hadn’t allowed it.

  But she did have an idea.

  26

  Chad was still scratching his head over this one, but Tanya had made it clear that he had no choice.

  La Frio Purga was going ahead full bore.

  Everyone was mobilizing.

  Not just the Delta team. Not just la Capitana’s team either. Somehow Tanya had roused the restaurateurs as well, without telling them exactly what was coming. She’d started it with Estela and Ramiro, but it seemed to flow across Comuna 13 like an underground wildfire. Chad was used to undercover infiltrations—small teams slipping undetected deep into unfriendly territory—but Tanya had mobilized an entire section of the city.

  Last night, both of them too tired for sex, she had still curled up in his arms as if they’d always been that way.

  “There is one man you must meet. We need to be able to contact him at a moment’s notice and have him act.”

  “That sounds like your dance, sweetheart. You just wiggle a finger and any man in his right mind is gonna come running.”

  “Not this time. We need him to trust you.”

  She’d refused to explain why. Just said that she couldn’t do it for reasons she wasn’t willing to explain. Arguing with the woman had gotten him nowhere. So here he sat at the crack of dawn, cooling his ass in the dude’s outer office instead of getting some pre-battle wake-up sex. Wrong in about eight different ways.

  Teniente Coronel Sánchez of the National Police of Colombia.

  Chad really needed to shut his brain off. Tanya had been right about his drug-runner babe “Renata” actually being la Capitana. Hell, way back when, three years ago, she’d been right about Estevan and his narco-submarine empire too. Woman knew what she was doing. Who knew when she’d made this contact or what the hell they needed him for. But if Tanya said they needed him, Chad didn’t need to know more.

  But why couldn’t Tanya do this errand?

  Shit! Because she’d slept with the man! She’d sent him to call on one of her ex-lovers. Trying to figure out why just made his head hurt. Tanya had been very clear that he was to befriend the man, not kill him. He wished to hell she’d explained what game she was playing…but since when did women ever do that? Next time he saw her, he’d—

  “Major Jenkins?”

  “Uh… yo!” It took him a moment to respond to his fake ID’s name. He’d chosen Duane’s last name just to mess with him.

  “I’m Lieutenant Colonel Sánchez. May I see your ID?”

  Chad tossed it over. The guy’s eyes didn’t quite bug out, but he handed it back very respectfully. He was five-seven, compact and solid—though getting heavy at the belt line—and wore a sharply pressed uniform. Late thirties with medium skin and a dark mustache. He was clearly a man who spent some money on his appearance.

  “Come into my office. What can I do for the United States 75th Rangers?” Duane’s old unit. Suck eggs, dude. He’d thought about dragging Duane into this, but it was more fun besmirching his old unit’s name first and telling him about it later. The office was big enough and clean enough to reveal that this guy had some serious pull. Definitely one of the Colombia anti-drug agency’s rising stars.

  “This is strictly between us, Colonel, if that’s okay with you.” Chad dropped the full name of the subordinate rank because lieutenant colonels always wanted to act like the real deal even though so few of them achieved the next rank up. Though this guy appeared politically savvy enough that he’d probably make the jump.

  “Of course!” Foreign military always ate up the US secrecy thing, wanting to be the one in the know.

  “My government has sent me down. We want to give Colombia a little more help in the drug war. We gave you fifty billion in aid and you guys only cleared fifty thousand hectares of coca fields last year. Only seventeen the year before that. I’ve been instructed to help you get back over the hundred thousand mark, preferably up to a quarter million.”

  “Well,” the man rocked his chair onto its two back legs. “Perhaps you don’t understand the difficulties and dangers we face down here.”

  Chad could just see the guy looking for the grease. How dirty was this guy? He’d apparently slept with Tanya, which was going to severely shorten his lifespan—might have already if Tanya hadn’t insisted that they needed him. He obviously took his share of the aid money and probably a fair slice from the drug cartels to look the other way. A lieutenant colonel was no longer paid by individual runners—he’d have enough power to deal directly with the cartels.

  “I’m laying the groundwork to jump in here with three companies. Maybe four.”

  The guy’s chair legs clanked back down on the cement floor.

  “Four?” He barely managed to gasp.

  So sweet! A Ranger platoon of thirty guys could clean up most normal messes on their own. A company of a hundred guys would be nearly unstoppable, even if they were just Rangers. Four companies? Four could own this country in a week’s time. One of the secrets to a good lie was to make it so outrageous that your target would assume that you’d never be dumb enough to try and pass off such a fake—unless it was for real.

  “Fully supported, of course. Command is talking about pulling an MEU into Urabá just for backup.” An entire Marine Expeditionary Unit of two thousand jarheads launching off a helicopter carrier into the Gulf of Urabá didn’t actually sound like such a bad idea.

  This time the guy’s jaw actually dropped. Right where Chad wanted him.

  “Now I’m just the liaison, but our President doesn’t want to tangle up a whole bunch of generals and politicians in this. We’re talking about taking some serious action and explaining ourselves later. Friend gave me your name. Can you work with me on this? Gonna be a hell of a show and I need someone willing to climb right to the top with me.”

  And the arrogant little prick smiled hugely and held out his hand. “I’m exactly the man you’re looking for. You can count on me.”

  Best bribe in the world—dude suddenly had his sights on a leap straight to Major General with three suns on his collar. He’d definitely do anything Chad said.

  Chad really had to talk to Tanya about her taste in men. Though maybe—what with him being her current taste (thank you very much)—asking for that look in the mirror wasn’t the best idea.

  “How much are you setting me up?”

  Tanya looked up into the mirror to see Daniela leaning against the door jamb. Someday Tanya was going to settle down. When she did, she would design her own bathroom—and give it a bank vault for a door. Not even Chad would get the combination. She spit out her toothpaste, then rinsed the brush and her mouth before answering.

  At least Daniela had waited until after she was dressed.

  “Honestly?”

  Tanya thought it best to ignore the contact she’d sent Chad to make. Other than that…

  “Less than you’d think.”

  “I think it’s a lot.”

  “Try thinking it is just a little.”

  Daniela’s dark eyes studied her closely, until Tanya had to struggle not to squirm.

  “As long as you want to focus your ire on del Golfo, not a soul here will complain.”

  “And when I want to focus on something more?”

  Tanya could only shrug. It wasn’t a threat, not quite. It was more
of a suggestion of what might be possible if Daniela decided they had betrayed her.

  “For today, you have no concerns,” Tanya offered. And that was true. This was the day of La Frio Purga. If everything went according to plan, a third of Colombia’s cumulative drug cartels would be removed in a single day. The second third was held by a myriad of smaller and marginalized gangs—that could be hunted down and picked off one by one.

  The final third was bothering Tanya—it was represented by the woman standing in in her bathroom. And according to Fred Smith, he saw no signs of an organization. Daniela had set herself up as the sole kingpin with all of the reins in her hands alone. Even Silva barely registered on Smith’s data landscape. La Capitana’s operation was all Daniela according to him—a fact that practically made Smith swoon each time he mentioned it.

  “Knock her out of the picture and the whole structure might well fold up and disappear. It’s a magnificent concentration of power and information. Just tell me who I have to kill to get all of that intel.” So he wasn’t just swooning after Daniela’s exceptional body. She was an intelligence officer’s wet dream: brilliant, focused, and powerful. What Fred Smith didn’t know was the core of pure anger that drove Daniela.

  It was a core that Tanya knew very well herself.

  For now, if la Capitana had the information to take down the entire Clan del Golfo, she was going to get nothing but the best help the team could offer.

  “Where is Chad?” Daniela showed no signs of moving from the door jamb, so Tanya began brushing her hair.

  “Running a couple of final errands. Everything is as ready as we can make it.”

  Daniela appeared ready to say something, then changed her mind.

  Tanya had long since learned that these were the moments to keep her mouth shut—living her life alone might have taught her that too well, but for now it might prove useful. She tossed aside the hairbrush and scooted up onto the counter to show that she was in no hurry, despite the hundred details she wanted to check.

  It was exactly where Carla had sat to confront her so few days ago. Every time Tanya touched this team, time compressed in strange and impossible ways.

  Ten days ago, she and Chad had fallen out of a helicopter together after not seeing each other for three years.

  A week ago, Carla had intruded on her shower to sit in exactly this spot.

  And now Tanya couldn’t figure out what to say to Daniela or how she was going to live without Chad.

  Ten days, and yet her life would never be the same. There had always been a pattern, a shape. Simply take down every single bastard who could have possibly created the drugs that her sister had used to kill herself. Shred them one by one if she had to, until—

  “I recognize you.” Daniela’s face revealed nothing of her thoughts.

  Tanya felt the hard chill and cursed herself for leaving her weapons on the bed after she’d dressed. Daniela wore a large fisherman’s knife—perhaps Gerald the Boatman’s—and her Cordova [.38 sidearm could punch a giant hole in Tanya’s chest. Being recognized as the Kidon operative who had been wreaking havoc throughout the South American cartels for the last five years was as good as a death sentence. She prepped herself for one all-out attempt at survival, but Daniela didn’t move.

  “I know that anger. I see it in my mirror. I’ve learned to never look closely. How do you live with what you see?”

  Tanya blinked in confusion. Unable to stop herself, she turned away from Daniela to glance in the mirror. When she noticed her glance skitter aside, she forced herself to look. Her face in the foreground, Daniela watching curiously over her shoulder. Tanya barely recognized herself.

  The blonde fighter’s hair was straight and her face was clean—typically the end of Tanya’s interest in her own appearence.

  The person seeking the death of others and not caring if that eventually included her own—crystal clear. Apparently that was the woman Daniela saw.

  But there was a new overlay whom Tanya barely recognized. Hadn’t been aware of until Daniela forced her to look. The beauty whom Chad was so captivated by was a woman she didn’t know, as if she was peeking wide-eyed out at the world for the first time in her life. She shifted her focus to Daniela.

  Long hair brushed, face clean.

  And an anger and hurt so deep that Tanya could feel every bit of it etched on her own soul.

  “I…don’t know. I think I live with it by never looking.” Tanya turned back to face Daniela and leaned against the mirror in the right spot to block Daniela’s view of herself.

  “Until it becomes all of who you are.”

  “Until it does that,” Tanya echoed.

  But she could feel that new woman, the one Chad saw, trying to look out of the mirror over her shoulder.

  “Until it becomes something more.”

  “Death,” Daniela declared.

  “Hope.” Tanya was as surprised by her own answer as Daniela looked.

  27

  Chad arrived back at the safe house in Comuna 13 with Sánchez’s cell phone number and his promise to never be away from it for the next forty-eight hours.

  He checked in with Fred for his final assignments.

  Daniela’s people would already be in place throughout the neighborhood—and another, thinner layer in the adjacent neighborhoods. Her enforcers were crossing the great divide of the Medellín River as it ran through the center of the city and the Aburrá Valley. La Capitana controlled the eastern flanks and el Clan del Golfo the west. An uneasy and—according to Daniela—unspoken truce had the troops rarely crossing the central dividing line. Today they had crossed it in force. Unfamiliar with the territory of the city’s west flank, they were given very specific stations.

  The only truly mobile element was going to be the Delta Force team. Their cover was simple: tourists—very heavily- and covertly-armed tourists.

  When he turned, Daniela and Tanya came out of the bedroom into the living room looking as close as sisters.

  Tanya raised an eyebrow in an infinitesimal question.

  He offered an equally tiny nod of confirmation. Yes, he’d dealt with Sánchez.

  Daniela looked at him as if he was a complete and utter mystery.

  Great! What stories had Tanya been telling? What stories did he wish she’d been telling?

  Now there was an old thought. He’d seen the dynamic before. Present girl telling friend how good a lover Chad was. So when Relationship One fell apart, the skids were already greased for slipping into Relationship Two. Would he be interested in Daniela if things fell apart with Tanya? No. He’d be chasing after Tanya trying to figure out how to get her back. That would be a first for Chad Hawkins for damn sure.

  He made a point of walking up to Tanya and pulling her into his arms. “Hey, lover.” Then he kissed her. He’d barely caught the words and shifted them. Hey, my love had almost slipped out instead. But if it did, it would be some casual line with as much meaning as honey or sweetheart, which was how he’d always used it in the past.

  Calling Tanya “my love” would have all kinds of weird ramifications he wasn’t ready to deal with.

  So, instead, he briefly cupped her butt as he kissed her, then let her go.

  Still Daniela was watching him like an alien, but Tanya’s smile and the tingling memory of her hand on his butt left him feeling fine.

  “Let’s go.”

  And just that fast, the whole team was in motion.

  Tanya sat in Estela’s restaurant and pretended to linger over a breakfast that she couldn’t taste.

  Chad’s unthinking greeting, as if she was the most important thing in the room, was still sending waves of smiles through her. Daniela’s gaze had agreed with Tanya that maybe, just maybe, there actually was such a thing as hope.

  Hope for a future. Hope for not just a better lover, but a better life.

  And in that moment, seeing the flicker of possibility on Daniela’s features, she was able to embrace her own feelings more completely.
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br />   She didn’t just love Chad. She was Melissa-level completely gone on him. Her pulse rate had soared so high when he entered the room, she’d have been hard-pressed to make a sniper shot at a hundred meters, never mind a thousand.

  Now she sat, eating by herself, pretending to read One Hundred Years of Solitude in Gabriel García Márquez’s original Spanish. It was hard to resist the tale’s opening of the gypsy who traveled the world without anchor and the peasant farmer who had a place in land and family but never seemed to see it. But she had to keep an eye on the patrons.

  One after another, people came, ate, paid Estela, and left.

  A lone diner, a nondescript man in his mid-thirties, stepped to the cash register to pay Estela.

  Tanya’s interest sharpened when Estela hesitated.

  She, like most proprietors did in the region, often used counterfeit detection pens on any larger denomination American bills—the unofficial second currency of Colombia. They weren’t flawless by a long stretch, but they exposed the lesser quality forgeries.

  For today, almost every restaurant in western Medellín was using one of the test pens Chad and Tanya had picked up from the aircraft carrier—specially flown down from the mint in Washington, DC, by the supersonic F-35 Lightning jet that had delivered the two briefcases of money as well.

  The team had told the restaurateurs to only use the special pen on American fifties. A single stroke across President Ulysses S. Grant’s forehead.

  Estela did just that.

  Then she gave the signal by flipping the bill quickly facedown on her counter.

  A second man rose from where he’d been casually reading a newspaper close by the counter. Tanya watched Daniela’s enforcer set aside his paper, then, stepping up to the man at the counter, quietly press a handgun hard against the customer’s kidney.

  Daniela’s enforcer escorted the man past the end of the counter and back into Estela’s kitchen.