by David Wood
“Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” said Sievers. “Patton said he was afraid someone might stumble across it while looking for another treasure. People are always looking for lost gold out there.”
“The scout,” Avery said. “He said the scout was still looking for treasure. I think he was talking about Emil Holmdahl. He was a cavalry scout who accompanied Patton on his hunt for Pancho Villa. The guy was a real character, but tough as nails. After World War I, he spent the rest of his life running guns and looking for Pancho Villa’s lost treasure. At one point, the Mexican government accused him of digging up Villa’s body and cutting off the head, which he then sold to the Skull and Bones society at Yale University.”
“Skull and Bones.” Stone wondered how, or even if, that piece fit into the puzzle. With three United States presidents and many other influential politicians and businessmen among their alumni, there were always rumors that the secret group had a much darker agenda. Those rumors notwithstanding, it was true that among their macabre eccentricities was a penchant for collecting the skeletal remains of famous historical figures. The collection, housed in their exclusive hall known as The Tomb, did contain human skulls, though probably not actually the skulls of Martin Van Buren, Geronimo, or Pancho Villa as was claimed.
“Do you think there could be a connection between them and the Dominion? Maybe Holmdahl found something about this gift and passed it on to the society along with Villa’s skull. That could be how the Dominion found out about it.”
It felt to Stone like a tangent, too many steps removed from the central issue. “We should go to Mexico. Start looking at those coordinates.”
“Hang on a sec,” Kasey said. “The numbers aren’t a code after all? Then why did the Dominion steal the Spear?”
Avery was ready with an answer. “Patton said ‘the Spear will point the way.’ We assumed it meant that the Spear was needed to crack a code, but it could mean that once we get to that spot, the Spear will somehow show us where to go.”
Kasey threw up her hands. “Then we’re back where we started. We have to get the Spear back.”
Stone shook his head. “I don’t think the Dominion has figured this out yet. They think the numbers are a code and that the key is somewhere on the Spear. That’s why they were so desperate to get it. The diary, too, for that matter. Right now, we know more than they do. When they finally do figure it out, we’ll be waiting for them.”
CHAPTER 19
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
There were eight men if Lavelle was included, but since he did not appear to have a weapon, Greg figured he didn’t count. Seven men then. Okay, that’s manageable.
He took a slow but purposeful step forward, positioning himself at Tam’s left elbow. She would understand the unspoken message. I’ll take the guys on the left; you take the guys on the right.
That the gunmen were not professionals was blisteringly apparent. That did not make them less dangerous. Quite the opposite, it would make them unpredictable. Nevertheless, the inexperience of their captors did give the two CIA officers a significant advantage. Amateurs trusted in their guns like they were a magical totem, believing that the mere possession of a firearm made them invincible. But having a gun, and knowing what to do with it in a highly-charged situation, were two very different things.
Lavelle frowned then took his phone out to silence the insistent ringing. He turned away, but Greg could still hear his part of the ensuing conversation.
“Yes, Guillermo... No, I hadn’t heard that… I don’t know what it means. Look, I’ve just arrived. I’m walking in as we speak... We can talk about it on the flight… I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything.” He mumbled a few more words in closing, then ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket.
“So you are using him,” Tam said. Greg knew that she had been privy to both sides of the call. “I thought as much. What’s the plan? Setting Esperanza up to be the next president is… what’s the opposite of ambitious? It’s a minor-league goal. Is that what you guys are? The Dominion farm team?”
She glanced at Greg, her satisfied nod masking a subtle eye movement that said, Wait for it.
Lavelle did not respond to the jibe, nor did he even look in Tam’s direction. Instead, he turned to one of the gunmen. “I have to get up there. Put them somewhere out of the way until the end of the shift. Then make them disappear.”
The man answered with a nod and Lavelle stepped past them to board the elevator.
Greg was expecting the next move from their captors to be a quick pat down, which would uncover the weapons he and Tam carried. That would be the best chance to turn the tables on the gunmen. When one of them approached to begin the search, Greg would strike, overpowering the man in order to use him as a human shield. Tam would be ready to do the same. Despite having their guns at the ready, the other men would hesitate, just for a moment, out of fear of hitting their comrades, but he and Tam would not. It would take all of three seconds.
Except the gunmen did not search them. Either the men had assumed that they could not be armed because of being foreigners, or they had simply forgotten. The latter was more likely, a further sign of their inexperience. The man in charge simply waved his pistol toward a door at one end of the elevator lobby. “Move.”
Greg exchanged another meaningful look with Tam. Not yet.
Lavelle had not exactly been forthcoming with information. His responses to Tam’s questions suggested they were on the right track, but there was still a lot they didn’t know. Maybe one of the goon squad would let something more slip inadvertently, so for now the best course of action was to play along, meekly submit to captivity.
If and when the men remembered to frisk them, that would be the signal to act.
The gunmen however continued to keep a safe distance, taking a position behind them, with the exception of the leader who walked beside Tam, his pistol at the ready. Greg was starting to rethink his estimation of their skills. The men evidently knew enough not to surround their prisoners and inadvertently put themselves in a potential crossfire.
The leader opened the door, stepped through, and waved for the others to follow. The door led to a long nondescript hallway, lined with similarly ambiguous doors. They were ushered through the first of these, into a room that was empty, save for a pair of folded-up rectangular tables, and a row of stackable plastic chairs.
“Against the wall,” barked the leader. “Sit on the floor and shut up.”
Greg, still following Tam’s lead, complied without comment, placing his back against the wall and sliding down into a seated position beside her.
The rest of the gunmen filed into the room, taking turns helping themselves to chairs which they lined up against the wall with the door. Tam waited until they were done to speak. “How long until the shift ends?”
Greg expected the question to be met with a fierce demand for silence, but instead the leader simply glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes.”
Tam nodded like a Buddhist monk contemplating the mysteries of life. She waited almost a full minute before speaking again. “Quite a plan you’ve got.”
The leader frowned but said nothing.
Tam tried again. “So is this all Lavelle’s idea, or did the Russians come up with it?”
That elicited a response, but not the one that Tam probably hoped for. “No talking,” the man growled.
Tam looked over at Greg. “Forty-five minutes seems like an awful long time to just sit here.”
Greg signaled his agreement.
The leader of the gunmen stood up, bristling with aggression, but before he could repeat himself, Tam cut him off with a saucy shake of her shoulders. “You forgot something, sugar.”
He gaped at her for several uncomprehending seconds.
Tam looked at Greg again. “I don’t believe these guys.”
“Maybe we should quit screwing around and just shoot them,” Greg replied.
The comment finally provoked the response
they had been waiting for. The gunmen, all of them, almost in perfect unison, jumped to their feet and trained their weapons on the captives.
“If you’ve got guns,” the leader barked, “take them out. Very slowly.”
“We don’t have guns,” Tam replied, innocently.
“Nope,” Greg added. “We were just messing with you.”
The man was dumbfounded, but one of his fellow goons tried to pick up the slack. “Face down, both of you. Hands behind your head.”
Greg made a clucking noise. “Kneeling is better, you know. Easier to maintain control of your subject.”
The second man thrust his rifle forward. “Move it!”
Greg did as instructed, but despite the appearance of levity, his mind had gone into full-tactical mode. Their captors had ceased to be men, ceased to be human, and were now merely targets in a three-dimensional physical battlespace. He assigned them each a threat status. The men with handguns rated ‘orange.’ Those with rifles and the shotgun wielder were red, since the likelihood of being hit by an inadvertent discharge was higher, as was the potential for catastrophic injury. He marked the location and orientation of their weapons, calculating the amount of time it would take for each man to actually aim and pull the trigger, and what he would have to do in order to avoid catching a bullet. He knew that Tam was doing the same.
Two of the gunmen—the ones in uniforms—advanced, holstering their weapons. Greg immediately downgraded their threat status to yellow. A moment later, the men ceased to be threats at all, and instead became assets.
As soon as one of the pair knelt down beside him, Greg went into motion. From the corner of his eye, he could see the line of gunmen reacting. Their movements were reflexive. Sloppy and uncoordinated. This was the moment of greatest risk, where a hasty trigger pull might end both the escape attempt and his life, but the odds were still better than doing nothing and waiting to be taken out into the sticks and executed.
Greg’s first course of action was to make sure that, if someone did fire, the bullet would not have a direct path to him. He sprang off the floor in what looked like a dynamic push-up, and settled back into a crouch just behind where the would-be searcher was kneeling. A half-turn put him directly behind the man, and out of the direct line of fire. He wrapped his left arm around the man’s neck, pulling him off balance, and with his right, unholstered the man’s pistol and thrust it toward the others. Beside him, Tam had accomplished more or less the same with the man who had come to search her.
They were now faced with a choice, one that had to be made almost without conscious thought. If they fired, they would have no choice but to kill everyone in the room. With the element of surprise on their side, Greg knew he might be able to take out two of them before the return fire started. If Tam matched him, that would leave just one active shooter. As a mathematical problem, the odds would clearly favor them over that one remaining foe, but there was a lot of uncertainty in the calculation. What if the noise of the shooting brought reinforcements? What if he and Tam were too slow, or not quite accurate enough with their initial barrage? What if the unfamiliar pistols malfunctioned? A delay of less than a second might prove fatal. And even if everything went perfectly according to plan, the odds allowed that one of them might be injured or killed. Equations like that were easy to balance if no allowances for humanity were made, but Greg’s preference was an outcome where both he and Tam walked away without a scratch.
He figured the odds were good that one of the men would try to get a shot off, and if that happened, there would be only one course of action, but he held his fire. Tam did as well. So did the five men across the room.
Greg got the sense that it was a different sort of uncertainty that made them hesitate. They had probably never faced a situation like this before. If they were Dominion foot soldiers, as he suspected they were, then they would almost certainly conform to a certain personality type: legends in their own mind. Wanna-be soldiers who lived in an alternate reality where they were tough alpha-personalities, equating their manliness with the size of their guns. A few might be ex-military, but even those would have largely failed to develop the necessary instincts that would equip them for a situation like this. Staring down the barrel of a gun, facing an enemy who has the advantage, their reptile-brains could only muster one response. They froze, like deer transfixed by the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.
“Drop ‘em or get dropped,” Tam said, coolly.
The gunmen did not lower their weapons, but instead glanced at one another, looking for someone to take the initiative.
“Count of three,” Tam warned. “One.”
Three counts were good. There was the pressure of a deadline, just enough time to think it through, but not enough to make a careful examination of all the variables.
“Two.”
The only problem with the three count, whether in a hostage crisis or disciplining a wayward child, was in the follow-through. Greg knew that Tam was not bluffing, so he tensed his body and curled his finger around the trigger.
“Wait!” shouted the lead gunman. “Let’s talk this out.”
“Talking beats dying,” Tam said, her tone almost unnaturally calm. Greg knew it was an act, but she was a damned good actor. “But the only way I’m listening is if those guns are on the ground. Otherwise…” She shrugged. “Where was I? Two? Or thr—”
“Okay! We’re putting them down.” The man stooped over and laid his gun on the floor, then rose, hands held high. He nodded for his companions to do the same. Not all of them appeared to be as eager to surrender their weapons, but they all grudgingly complied.
“So far, so good,” Tam said. “Now, move over there.”
She gestured with the gun, herding them toward a corner of the room that was several steps removed from the discarded weapons. When they were all a safe distance away, Tam released her hostage and gave him a shove in the direction of his comrades. Greg similarly dispensed with his human shield, then quickly moved over to the guns. There was no way he was going to be able to take them all along with him, so instead he quickly field stripped the automatics and semi-autos, removing small but critical components to render the weapons completely useless. The shotgun he kept.
The process took less than a minute, and while he was occupied with that, Tam collected the men’s phones. When they were finished with their respective tasks, Tam addressed the group. “Good news and bad news, gents. The bad news, obviously, is that you screwed up. You should probably find a different line of work. You’d really be better off. The good news, of course, is that you’re going to get to live long enough to make that decision. Provided, that is, you stay right here and don’t try to come after us. I cannot emphasize that latter point too strongly. Stay here, stay alive. Got it?”
There were grumbles, but the men nodded. Greg pulled open the door. Using the butt of the shotgun like a club, he struck the interior doorknob, breaking it off at the stem. As soon as they were both through, he pulled the door shut behind him. “That’ll hold ‘em, but not for long.”
“Lavelle is with Esperanza in the office. If we can catch him there, we’ll be able to end this now.”
For the first time since their arrival, Greg found himself disagreeing with his boss. “We should get out of here now while we still can.”
“We can flip Esperanza. Once he’s on our side, we won’t need to run.”
Greg’s concerns were not allayed, but Tam was the boss. He told her so.
As they entered the elevator foyer, Tam suddenly sprinted forward. “Crap! They just left.”
She stabbed a finger at the call button but was either a fraction of a second too late or the elevator was in manual mode. The car kept going, all the way to the ground floor.
Greg glimpsed motion behind them and whirled around, bringing the shotgun up. He fired without hesitation, but not before the man framed in the doorway—one of their former captors—pulled the trigger of the small pistol he carried, evid
ently a backup weapon which the man had withheld during the surrender.
The single round from the handgun creased the air between Tam and Greg, while the blast from the shotgun obliterated their attacker. As the shredded body fell back, Greg saw several more figures in the hallway behind the ill-fated point man.
The twin reports, particularly the thunderous roar of the shotgun, were deafening in the close confines of the elevator lobby. Any hope of a stealthy exit from the building was now dashed. Greg pumped the weapon to eject the spent shell casing and load another cartridge of double-ought buck from the magazine, and then pointed the muzzle in the direction of the doorway.
“Stair!” Tam shouted. “This way.”
Greg backed toward the sound of her voice. When no one else ventured out of the hallway, he ducked through the stairwell door before it could close completely. Tam was bounding down the concrete stairs, already halfway to the first floor. She stopped at the foot of the steps and waited for him to catch up before easing the door open a sliver.
Something banged loudly against the door, the force of the impact tearing the doorknob out of Tam’s hand. Tendrils of smoke curling away from the pencil-sized hole in the door, along with a cloud of dust and grit from something striking the wall behind them, left little doubt that someone outside the stairwell was shooting at them. Lavelle had evidently brought along additional manpower.
“There're at least three shooters out there,” Tam said, still amazingly calm. She had her Makarov out and held at the ready. She edged out for another peek then drew back faster than the blink of an eye, but this time without any shots fired. “They’re bugging out. Covering Lavelle’s exit.”
Greg kept his attention and his weapon aimed at the top of the stairs. There was no sign of their former captors, but that was not surprising since their weapons were mostly useless, and Greg had already shown them how lethal any attempt to rush them would be.
