by Mark Greaney
The entire conversation was in English.
“Who is this?”
“It’s me.”
“Why did you call that number? Where did you get it?”
“The number you gave me is compromised by the Black Suits. Calvo told me himself. I got this number from Jerry Pfleger the other day. I knew whoever answered could get in touch with you eventually.”
“You have Calvo?”
“Yes.”
“Incredible. Still, this line cannot be trusted.”
“It’s clean.”
“How do you know?”
“Calvo doesn’t know about it.”
“What if he’s lying?”
“He is too scared to lie.”
A pause. “Very well. When will you deliver him to us?”
“Calvo says the Black Suits know about the safe house in Tepic. We need to change the location.”
A long pause. “All right.”
“I can take him to the safe house where he was going today.”
“No. They obviously know the location of—”
“It’s the only other place I know of. They won’t be expecting us to hand him over. There is no reason to suspect they will be there.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Do you want him back or not?”
“Of course we want him back.” A short delay. “What time?”
“Midnight.”
“Why not earlier?”
“I think there are others looking for me. CIA. Russians. It will take some time to cover my tracks and get there.”
“We will come to you. Tell me where you—”
“Midnight. The ranch in Concordia. I’ll be there. Bring a lot of men and a lot of guns.” The call ended.
FIFTY-FOUR
At five p.m. the leadership of the Black Suits met in the huge main sala of the Casa de las Olas, an eleven-thousand-square-foot modernistic mansion overlooking the beach fifteen minutes south of downtown Puerto Vallarta on Federal Highway 200.
The men present in the meeting were protected by two dozen more sicarios patrolling the lush ten-acre estate, and they, in turn, were surrounded by Puerto Vallarta municipal police on the payroll of DLR. The cops patrolled the neighborhood in squad cars and sat in a pair of small, armed speedboats out on the water, just past the breakers.
Spider ran the main portion of the meeting while DLR stood next to him.
“Four teams will hit the Concordia ranch at 12:05 a.m., four separate vans will attack from each point on the compass. A fifth team will come in behind the main attack with the objective of receiving Nestor and then taking him out of the area. We will all meet back here by dawn.”
De la Rocha sipped bottled water and looked through the fifteenfoot-high windows off his left towards Bandaras Bay. He was distracted for many reasons, not the least of which was that he would not be going on the rescue mission to recover his consigliere. It was determined to be too dangerous for the organization itself to expose DLR to what was certain to be one hell of a firefight.
Spider, the leader of the armed wing, would also be staying behind. Daniel had ordered this, and Spider was not happy about it, but since the execution of Emilio Lopez Lopez, Spider had been in charge of DLR’s safety, so it only made since he would stay at the house by DLR’s side.
Both men had led forces into battle, and neither man wanted to stay behind at this palace on the beach while their soldiers fought and bled and died and killed one hundred miles north of here. But logic prevailed.
And DLR had a feeling that staying here tonight, with a relatively small contingent of twenty armed men or so, would not be without action of its own.
As the discussions of the coming operation petered out and the men who would soon head off to battle began strapping weapons and gear to their bodies, DLR stepped out of the sala and onto a raised dining room open to the great room. As soon as they’d arrived at the rented villa, he’d ordered the long table removed and his largest Santa Muerte idol erected in its place. The skeleton sat on its throne in the center of the room, behind it white curtains hung from the high ceiling down to the wood floor of the dining room, candle sconces ringed the throne and the room itself. Daniel knelt down in front of his patron saint, said a prayer for his family, and said a prayer for the death of the Gray Man.
At the end of his last prayer he looked up slowly into the face of la Santa Muerte, then called out to Spider. Cepeda shot out of the scrum of his men down in the sala and up the three steps to the raised dining hall.
“Sí, Don Daniel?”
“Do you think the gringo really got the phone number he called today from Jerry Pfleger?”
“No. Calvo gave him that number because he knew his agents were monitoring it. The old bastard is as cunning as they come.”
DLR nodded. “Yes. He is very cunning.”
Spider stood dutifully over his master.
DLR turned and looked up to him. “I want everyone staying behind ready for action tonight.”
Spider nodded. Confused. “Of course.”
Daniel stood and left the dining room through the curtains, heading for his master suite in the back of the mansion.
* * *
A cluster of small, uninhabited islands sit in Bandaras Bay, just a few hundred yards off of Mismaloya. Collectively called Los Arcos, they are named for the archlike formations carved out of the rock by centuries of pounding surf. During the day the protected marine reserve around Los Arcos was full of scuba divers, snorkelers, and pleasure boats, but one hour before midnight the only creatures in the waters around the tiny islands were fish, lobster, sleeping blue-footed boobies and other sea birds.
Fifty yards closer to shore a pair of private boats bobbed in the water. In each boat four men sat with M16 rifles in their laps. Two men in each boat had an M203 grenade launcher mounted on their M16s.
Each boat also had a radio and a two-million-candlepower flashlight to scan the calm water in all directions.
They were hardly battleships, but the two converted gunboats would certainly present an obstacle for anyone trying to make it to the back of Casa de las Olas from the water.
Court Gentry knelt waist-deep in water that was surging back and forth in the black recesses of a small grotto in one of the rocks of Los Arcos. His eyes looked past the two small boats and towards the white sand beach beyond them. A pair of men with flashlights strolled back and forth on the sand, rifles hanging on their backs. A wall of white boulders and brown shale ran up to the right of the small beach.
Past the men, past the beach, up the hill, he scanned the palatial estate. It looked a bit like a space station. It was a modern glass-andsteel structure, all hard metal edges and glass walls. The focal point of the back of the house was a balcony than ran along a gargantuan window. On the other side of the glass Court could just make out dim lighting, perhaps from candles. Much of the grounds of the property were well lit and, Court assumed, well protected. But from here the building itself seemed buttoned up and quiet.
On the highest point of the southern wing of the huge mansion, a black Eurocopter EC135 sat in complete darkness. Only the few streetlights and glowing buildings higher on distant hills framed its silhouette.
Court took a few minutes to deflate his small rubber boat and to tuck it into a dry nook in the grotto out of sight of the coast. Then he turned to his equipment arrayed on a rocky shelf just above the water line. He donned his scuba gear and his fins, slung a long coiled rope to his tank, connected his Glock to his Buoyancy Control Device, and attached his bag of clothing, extra magazines, and other items to his utility belt.
He pulled a mobile phone out of a protected case, powered it up, and made a phone call. Court said what he had to say and then hung up as the man on the other end screamed and cussed.
The phone went back in the case; the case went back in the bag.
At twenty minutes past eleven p.m. Court sank slowly below the water in the grotto, pushed off with his gloved han
ds, kicked his legs, and began swimming away from Los Arcos and towards the shore.
* * *
He passed the two boats twenty minutes later, traveling sixty feet below them and breathing as slowly and as shallowly as he could to minimize bubbles above. Twenty minutes after that he was below the surf, the ocean floor crept up towards the beach, each wave that surged him forward was followed by an undertow that pulled him back, but he kicked to maximize his progress and, after ten minutes of heavy exercise, he worked his way ashore. He’d let the current push him south of the lights of the building, south of the beach and into the rocks.
He took off his scuba gear, turned off his tank, and stowed it between boulders at the water’s edge. He pulled off his fins and his clammy wetsuit. Underneath his neoprene he was dressed head-totoe in black cotton. He slipped into soft-soled shoes, pulled a black ski mask over his face, put his extra magazines in the cargo pockets of his pants and a black Glock into the holster on his belt.
At midnight he began climbing up the rock, careful to stay out of view of the sentries on the beach, the spotlights from the boats, or any guards in the windows of the house.
His progress was slow and arduous, but he made it to the south side of the villa and then proceeded silently to the front, careful to move in shadow and concealment.
* * *
Daniel de la Rocha knelt before his throned idol in the candlelit dining room, the huge high-ceilinged main sala of the villa was open and empty behind him; both rooms were illuminated by the light of over one hundred white candles as well as a little ambient light that filtered through the sala’s window overlooking the bay. On the floor, on tables, on wall sconces, and on tall narrow stands, the burning candles emanated not just light but pungent aromatic wax as well.
DLR was bare chested, his lean and muscular body adorned with tattoos. The large Santa Muerte on his chest in red and black and blue, the names of his six children in ornate script across his back. Guns on his biceps, army unit patches across his midsection, the names of dead Black Suit colleagues wherever a clean space of physique had been found to inscribe them.
He remained kneeling in supplication, all alone in the candlelit room, until slowly his head rose.
He did not turn around as he said, in English, “She told me you would come.”
No one responded to this comment. DLR then said, “You knew that we were monitoring that telephone line. You had us send our sicarios to Concordia to get them away from here.”
The reply came now, the voice firm and authoritative. “You move a fucking muscle, and I’ll blow your head all over your girlfriend’s dress.”
* * *
The Gray Man moved silently closer across the white tile of the large sala, his Glock pointed at the back of Daniel de la Rocha’s head. As soon as he realized there was a second-story balcony overlooking the sala, he spun on the balls of his feet, swung his weapon along the sight line, and scanned quickly for threats above. But it was black and quiet on the balcony, just as it was here in the sala, and ahead in what Court could only imagine had been an open dining room before DLR converted it into a throne room for a silly skeleton statue.
“May I stand?”
“Slowly, first thread your fingers behind your head.”
DLR complied, Court closed to within twenty feet or so, but he kept his eyes darting around, confused by the lack of protection for the narco boss in front of him.
“May I turn around?” DLR asked. He seemed calm.
Court jacked his head and his weapon back to his six o’clock position, then up again to the balcony on his left and behind him.
Empty. Dark, quiet, and empty.
“Slowly.”
DLR turned, faced the Gray Man below him. “She told me you would come.”
“You said that. Where is Laura?”
“You did not give Nestor to Madrigal.”
“No, I did not.”
DLR smiled a little. “The Cowboy is going to be mad at you.”
Court was all business. “Where is the girl?” He spun around again, kept his weapon’s muzzle moving in a blur as he scanned all around.
“You would like to exchange my Nestor for your Laura, correct?”
“That’s correct. You can have him back, and then Laura and I will leave together. Everyone wins.”
De la Rocha just shrugged; Court began stepping backwards, hoping to make his way to a wall so his back would not be exposed to the balcony behind him.
As Gentry backed into a sofa in the middle of the floor, de la Rocha said, “Nestor told you his men were monitoring the phone line. And that is why you called it.”
Court did not respond.
“Nestor gave you this address as well. He has let me down by conspiring with you. He let me down more by working with Madrigal in the first place. Going behind my back to make a deal for you. I found out all about it this afternoon, and as a result of this knowledge, your bargaining chip has lost all its value.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… if you had brought Calvo with you tonight, I would have killed him myself.”
Court started moving sideways along the long couch.
“So you see, amigo, you come here with nothing to trade for the girl.”
Court’s brain worked through the problem. He said, “There is something.”
“What’s that?”
“In exchange for her life, you can have me. She walks out right now, we stand around and look at each other until I know that she’s safe, and then I lower my gun. Me for her. Okay?”
“One problem with your offer.”
“What’s that?”
“I already have you.”
Court heard the footsteps above and behind him. A dozen men stepped onto the balcony. Six filed over to his left, and six stayed behind. He assumed they’d been watching the conversation on a closed-circuit television.
They all carried M4 rifles.
Fuck.
FIFTY-FIVE
“I did not send all my sicarios to Concordia. In fact, this is not all of them. I actually retained the leader of my enforcement arm, just in case I needed his help this evening.” DLR looked to his left. “Spider?”
The curtain to the left of the throne opened. Behind it, Spider stood in his black suit. His arms were high in the air, and they held a long, shining machete.
Below him, on her knees, handcuffed and gagged, knelt Laura Gamboa. She looked to Court down in the sala, and then she strained against her bindings.
Court’s weapon turned to Cepeda’s forehead.
“You move that blade and I drop you.” His voice quivered and cracked as he spoke.
DLR laughed at him. “Think about it, amigo! You shoot Spider and then all the men around here fill you with machine-gun bullets. And then, as you lay dead or dying, I step over and chop her head off myself.” Daniel unlaced his fingers and dropped them down to his sides. “I know what the most difficult thing for you right now is, gringo. It is not saving her, not killing me, not getting away with your life. No, Gray Man, the most difficult thing at this moment is trying to not think of the phrase, ‘Mexican standoff.’ ” He laughed at his joke.
“We can work this out, Daniel. In just a few minutes this—”
“Quiet!” DLR shouted, then turned behind him, opened the curtain, and slid out a small trunk. He opened it and lifted an item out.
It was a black plastic bag, and Court immediately suspected it contained a human head. He was right. Daniel pulled it out and held it high above him. Court focused on the disgusting sight, stared at the face.
Elena?
No. It was a man.
Ramses?
No… the hair was lighter.
The flickering candlelight from one hundred sources could not bring life to the open, vacant eyes. Court’s jaw clenched. He said, aloud, “Jerry.”
“Spider’s sicarios caught your American friend yesterday trying to board a cruise ship in Cancun. Under torture we found o
ut the Gamboas crossed the border in Nogales and made it to Tucson. You were smart to not tell him more of their plans. Pfleger was weak. Still, they worked on him all night before they determined he didn’t know where you were.
“So, Jerry didn’t know where Elena went. He was, ultimately, useless.” DLR tossed the American embassy man’s head across the room, towards the huge windows off to Court’s right. It rolled into a dark corner and disappeared.
“I need Elena Gamboa. I offered the life of little Laura here to la virgen, but she only laughed. I offered her your life, but she told me your death would serve me, not her, and therefore, it is no gift at all.”
Court’s eyes scanned the room again while DLR said this. Other than the doorway he’d passed through to enter the sala there was one more entrance visible, an archway on his left that, no doubt, led to the front of the house. He suspected there was another archway behind the curtains in the dining room. That would lead towards the south wing of the huge building.
He wasn’t sure why any of this mattered, as the dozen dudes who had him in their sights would cut him in half if he made for any of the exits.
DLR said, “So, I will make you this one offer. You tell me where Elena is hiding; I will send my men there, and as soon as we get her, I will let Laura leave.”
“Keep me. I will tell you.”
DLR shook his head; he seemed almost weary with the discussion. “No deal.” He turned to Spider. “Are your arms getting tired?”
Spider kept them high over his head. “Sí, jefe.”
“It won’t be long now, my friend.” He looked at Court. “Your decision. Does she live or die?”
Laura’s big brown eyes looked up at Court. She was gagged with black cloth, but she chewed at it and tried to stand up. Spider held her down with one hand, kept the machete over her, ready to slice through the back of her sinewy neck.
Outside, in the distance, there was the unmistakable sound of a Kalashnikov rifle firing fully automatic. All bodies in the room stiffened at the noise. Another weapon kicked in a second later. They were a couple hundred yards away, but the volume of fire increased.
