by Carr, Jack
Standing, Reece took another look at the grave, emblazing the words etched there into his memory before turning to make his way back through the warriors of battles past.
Written on the headstone, under “Martin F. Hackathorn, April 4th 1975–June 14th 2017, U.S. Navy, Afghanistan,” was one simple word: PATRIOT.
Reece was coming.
Death was coming for them all.
PART THREE
THE RECKONING
CHAPTER 46
Tijuana, Mexico
MARCO HAD GOTTEN REECE across the border without much trouble. The Range Rover that carried them south through Imperial Beach and Otay Mesa and into the San Ysidro border-crossing checkpoint was a version called the Sentinel. Built by Land Rover’s Special Vehicle Operations unit in Great Britain, it could withstand armor-piercing incendiary bullets and shrapnel from hand grenades. With a 510-horsepower engine and a retooled suspension, it was a serious piece of machinery. Reece shuddered to think what it had cost. Up-armored Suburbans led and trailed the Range Rover, looking a bit like a presidential motorcade with a British twist. It seemed a bit high-profile to Reece, but this was Marco’s department, and he seemed more than confident that he could get his friend back and forth across the border.
Reece couldn’t help but tense up when they passed through the checkpoint into Mexico, but they drove through without so much as a pause. At midnight there was not the usual backup of cross-border daily labor, causing hours of delay at peak travel times that happened to coincide with San Diego’s steadily growing number of commuters also going to and from work. Marco smiled watching Reece visibly relax as they sped south. Reece wondered how many Mexican and American laws he had just broken, knowing the contents of his load-out bag behind the seats.
Darkness enveloped the motorcade as it made its way into the heart of Tijuana. Things had gotten so bad there in recent years that the Navy had issued a directive forbidding sailors from partaking in liberty south of the border. The bars that used to bustle with U.S. military personnel from the second-largest naval port in the country were now just hosts to college students from San Diego and Los Angeles too young to get into the bars and nightclubs of Southern California.
Taking a sharp left down what appeared to be a dead-end alley, the vehicles abruptly turned into what looked to Reece like a garage chop shop. They pulled into spots obviously reserved for the boss as corrugated sliding doors came down behind them.
“We’re here,” Marco said, smiling.
“We’re where?” Reece inquired, leaning forward to get a better look at his surroundings.
“My Tijuana offices.”
Marco laughed as he saw a puzzled look cross Reece’s face. “You expected better, sí ?”
“Well, it’s a bit different from your usual digs.”
“Ah, yes, it reminds me of my humble beginnings. Plus, I can concentrate here without the unwelcome distractions brought on by success. Come,” Marco continued, tilting his head in the direction of his door. “We have much to discuss.”
Reece grabbed his load-out bag from the back of the Range Rover as Marco’s security detail spread out into what looked to be their customary posts to keep an eye on surveillance camera footage of the surrounding area. A group of six nondescript cars were parked neatly in one corner of the garage. They looked like they would fit in nicely with Tijuana traffic and not arouse any suspicion if Marco needed to move around the city with anonymity. A small gym was set up in one corner of the garage along with an impressive array of wrestling mats.
“Is this how you’ve been beating me all these years? Sneaking into Mexico to train while I’m overseas?”
“Ha! One must do what one can. I know you read your Sun Tzu. Luckily tonight’s foe has not,” Marco called out as he bounded up a set of stairs to what Reece assumed would be his office overlooking the garage. Reece followed as hastily as he could, encumbered by the weight of his large bag.
Marco’s office was neat and orderly, even minimalist. A row of security monitors lined one wall on the far side, allowing Marco to overlook the garage floor through large windows positioned to face the enormous doors.
“What business do you run from here?” Reece asked.
Marco looked his companion in the eye. “I have many businesses, my friend. I can run most of them from anywhere, but certain meetings and ventures require a place such as this.” He paused. “Did you ever wonder how I got my American citizenship so quickly?”
“I assumed it was because your U.S. business interests would generate good tax dollars.”
“Ah, yes, this is true. But I have other dealings that are of interest to certain agencies of your government.”
“It’s your government now, too,” Reece reminded Marco with a nod.
“Very true, amigo, very true. I know it is hard to understand, but what we will do tonight will help both my business interests and our countries. I will explain more later. For now, you just have to trust me.”
“I trust you, Marco. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“I know. Let’s review those pictures again.”
They had gone over the target package made up of the intelligence that Ben Edwards had delivered before crossing the border, but both men wanted to review it one last time. Reece knew Marco was the one person who could get him to his target. Marco had said yes without even knowing exactly what Reece had in mind. After hearing Reece out, Marco offered his security detail as an assault force but Reece decided against it; they could get him to and from his target and set up as a blocking element, but that was all. This was his war.
“Okay,” Marco said when they had gone over it again. “When do we leave?”
“You said it was about twenty minutes to the target house,” Reece said, looking at his watch. “Let’s leave in thirty minutes, giving us a time on target of 0300.”
“Bien. Treinta minutos. I will ready the men and cars. They will be, how do you say it? Our ‘mobility package’?” Marco said, clearly pleased with his use of military lingo.
“Thanks, Marco. I won’t forget this.”
Marco nodded and left Reece alone to ready his gear.
• • •
The new Tijuana motorcade was a bit different than the one that had brought them into Mexico. Gone were the plush Range Rover and armored escort vehicles, replaced by unarmored, unremarkable everyday cars covered in dust and dents. Perfect for the night’s mission. Reece just hoped they would start but was soon pleasantly surprised when he heard the engines crank up. It was apparent that the engines under the hoods were anything but ordinary. Marco smiled again, visibly enjoying surprising his friend.
“Sun Tzu,” he said again, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Deception.”
Reece’s current mobility package consisted of two cars that would be derelict vehicles almost anywhere in the United States but were an ideal fit for the streets of Tijuana. Marco and Reece were in the back of the lead vehicle. A driver and one of Marco’s bodyguards sat in the front.
“Diez minutos, Señor Toro,” said the big man in the front passenger seat.
Marco nodded. He started to say something when his phone chirped. “Perdon,” he said, answering, “Sí,” followed by a long pause. “Sí. Gracias.” Hanging up, Marco turned to Reece. “My source inside has left the building. Fourteen men. Six women. No children. The women are hookers from Mexicali. They have to import them for security reasons. They have one scout on the roof with an AK and one in the front room with a shotgun.”
Reece nodded. His face was eerily calm. Marco had never seen his friend in work mode before, and even though he was not one to scare easily, inside he suddenly felt chilled. Reece was all business. Tonight that business was death.
“Aquí,” said the man in the front passenger seat about ten minutes later, the car slowing to a crawl.
“Okay,” Marco said. “This is it.” He pointed to a dilapidated building at the end of the block.
“Reece, when you kill
these men, will your journey be over?”
Reece paused. “I’m just getting started. Thanks, buddy. I’ll be back in a few.”
CHAPTER 47
REECE MOVED QUICKLY AND quietly from the sidewalk into the abandoned building Marco had identified on Google Earth across and adjacent from the target building. It was a construction project that looked like it had not been worked on in years. Reece felt good. He was dressed in his field cammies with full battle kit. It had taken more than fifteen years of warfare to dial his gear in to where it was today, and with tonight’s op Reece would add yet another country to the list of places where he had applied his trade. The only difference between the gear from his last deployment to Afghanistan and tonight was that the helmet he wore was his nonballistic issued “bump” helmet, his Kevlar one having been lost to the ambush in the graveyard of empires. He was also not burdened with the two radios he usually carried; that gave him added mobility on this mission. His NODs gave him a distinct edge over his enemy, and tonight Reece planned on using them to his full advantage.
Though he was fairly certain the building was deserted, he cleared it methodically and smoothly. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. As he moved to the roof he was transported back to another place and time, patrolling through the streets of Ramadi with his sniper team, setting up in the dark of night to await their unsuspecting prey from an advantageous position. Tonight was similar, except that he was alone, and these were the men who had killed his family.
Reece scanned the roof and moved to where he had a clear vantage point of the target house. It looked quiet. At first he thought Marco’s informant had given them bad intel, since he didn’t see the sentry on the roof. Another, more careful examination revealed the man sleeping in a chair, head back, an AK clearly visible propped against the railing next to him. Reece never would have used the roof during the day, but at night, with the technical advantage of his NODs, it offered a logical location from which to engage his first target.
Reece knelt down and rested his rifle on the railing. He settled the IR laser from the ATPIAL, invisible to anyone without a night-vision device, attached to the top rail of his M4 on the bridge of the sentry’s nose. Pressing the trigger, Reece sent a 77-grain Black Hills 5.56 bullet directly into the man’s face. Reece settled the laser onto the man’s chest and put two more into his center mass just for good measure, his suppressor muffling the sound of the shots. Then he stood and made his way back to the street.
He passed Marco’s vehicles as if in a blur, his movement smooth and steady, weapon up and trained at the front door of the target building. Locked. Shit. The informant was supposed to leave it open. If he had been with his assault team, Reece would have breached the door and begun clearing the house, as he had so many times throughout the war, but he was not with his assault team. Tonight he was the team.
Reece immediately switched to his secondary method of entry and moved to the side of the structure. So similar to Ramadi. Finding the outside pipe he had identified through Ben’s imagery, he quickly slung his rifle and began to carefully work his way up the side of the building. Not as easy as when I was an E4, Reece thought.
Cresting the top of the building, Reece drew his pistol to cover the rooftop. Seeing only the dead sentry, he swung himself over the railing, holstering his pistol and bringing his M4 back around and into his shoulder in one fluid motion, before moving to the stairs leading down into the lion’s den. Without knowing the exact layout of the interior, Reece was going to have to clear the entire building. Using angles much like a police officer with a flashlight and a handgun, Reece could instead use his NODs and M4 IR light/laser combo to clear each room. If he lost the element of surprise or the advantage afforded him by his night vision, things could go south in a hurry.
The building smelled of burnt cannabis, urine, and sweat, a disgusting combination. Working his way into the first hallway of the third floor, Reece identified a partially open door to his left and closed doors to the other three rooms in the hallway. Pulling his M4 back at an angle into the crook of his elbow and body, Reece slowly pushed the door open. A lone figure could be seen lying facedown on the bed, wearing shorts and a tank top, sheets covering one leg. It looked like he was dead already. Continuing his scan of the room, Reece took everything in, his mind working to identify targets. Clear, well, almost clear. Reece leveled his laser at the back of the sleeping man’s head and depressed the trigger, sending one round into his brain, which exploded onto the pillow and bed frame. One down. Reece held his breath. From the looks of it, these guys had been up partying most of the night, but it was never wise to underestimate your opponent.
Back into the hallway and on to the next room. Nothing to suggest Reece’s suppressed shot had been heard. This door was unlocked and Reece opened it as quietly as possible. Two people were visible sleeping in bed. A grotesquely obese gang member lay naked, facing up, one leg draped over the side and resting on the floor. A petite young woman lay naked next to him on her back. Reece hoped that she partied hard enough to keep her from waking up. He didn’t want to kill her, but if her waking up would compromise his mission he had no qualms about putting her down. Reece shifted his M4 to his left hand, gently releasing a small bungee cord that held a centuries-old tool that he and his men had learned still reigned supreme as one of the quietest ways to end a man’s life. Reece raised the Winkler/Sayoc tomahawk, taking careful aim at the side of the sleeping man’s head in the center of the temple, and drove it powerfully downward, through his brain, killing him instantly. Quickly Reece shifted to the woman and prepared to deliver her kill strike. She stretched and stirred, settling back into a comfortable sleeping position, unaware that the angel of death had passed her over this night.
Smoothly securing his ’hawk back into the sheath, he transitioned the M4 to his primary hand and moved back into the hallway. Two more doors on this floor. Eleven more men and five more females to contend with if the intel was correct. Next door. Locked. Fuck. Reece reached for his lockpicking set. No sense in kicking in a door and alerting a numerically superior force to his presence. Clicking on a small green LED light on the side of his helmet attached to a flexible neck allowed Reece to direct it appropriately. He slightly tilted his helmet up to allow him to see under his NODs to work the lock. As he inserted the first pick, the door began to move.
Reece’s right hand moved back to his M4, bringing it up while at the same time he identified his threat. Standing in front of him was a young woman wearing only panties, and behind her, sitting awake on the bed, was a fighting-age male clearly just getting out of bed and unsure of what was happening. Reece’s left hand clamped around the throat of the girl in front of him as he made entry into the room. Sensing commotion at the door, her male companion stood up to make sense of what was happening, only to catch two rounds in the stomach from Reece’s M4, fired from a position of retention. Reece drove the young woman into the floor, firing three more rounds into the target before him. Letting out a loud grunt, the barely awake man absorbed the next three rounds in the upper chest and neck, grabbing helplessly at his throat as blood sprayed from the deadly wound, sinking to the floor in a gurgle of death throes.
Reece quickly scanned the rest of the room to ensure it was clear and then yanked the young prostitute to her feet by the throat and onto the bed. “Por favor, no,” she managed to cough out, “por favor, no.” Reece had no reservations about sending her to the afterlife but wouldn’t do so unless it were absolutely necessary. Pulling her up again by the throat, he moved her across the room back to the doorway, pinning her against the wall so he could look out into the hallway with his NODs. Still quiet. Frogman luck, Reece thought.
“Por favor, no,” she whispered again, her eyes wide with fright.
“Silencio,” Reece hissed, pushing her down to her knees and then forcing her to prone out on the floor. With an efficiency based on years of practice and execution, Reece pulled plastic zip ties from his plate carrier, quickly binding th
e young woman’s hands and feet. Looking around the room, Reece settled on a sock near the dead man’s shoes and stuffed it into her mouth, securing it with another zip tie. He then ushered her to her feet and back onto the bed, using a third tie to secure her to the metal bed frame.
“Silencio,” he ordered again in a hushed tone. Her terrified eyes acknowledged understanding.
Reece moved back to the side of the door and ejected his partially used magazine, replacing it with a fresh one. Stowing the other away in case he needed it later, he examined the hallway yet again. Still quiet.
If he had had his troop with him, the building would have been secure by now. As this was a solo mission, Reece still had a ways to go.
Last door of the top floor. Unlocked. Reece pushed it open. His first thought was how in the hell could these people not have heard the commotion next door. His next was, how in the hell could I not have heard them through the wall. Two naked and heavily tattooed gang members were pounding away at one of the prostitutes. She was on her hands and knees, taking one man from behind while taking the other in her mouth. Even with a small candle burning on the ground in the corner, none of them noticed the door inch open or the muzzle of Reece’s rifle rise to chest height and fire two rounds into the upper back of the man working away at her from behind. If the other man noticed the reason for his friend’s demise, he didn’t show it. As the first dead man fell forward and collapsed onto the back of the woman in front of him, his partner in crime looked down in amazement to see his chest suddenly erupt into an unnatural violent mess of blood and tissue. His mind was just starting to realize what had happened when Reece’s next round found its way through his left eye socket, tearing through the rational-thinking hemisphere of his brain and sending him down in the most unnatural of positions against the bloodstained headboard. Reece moved his IR laser back to the first man and put a security round in his head before swiftly committing to the room and kicking the first man off the female. She stayed facedown, not moving. For a second, Reece thought he had accidentally shot her, but then he realized the blood and tissue that covered her body were not her own; she was merely in shock from the two men she was just having sex with suddenly die on top of her, showering her in a bloody mist.
