One Rough Man

by Brad Taylor

  14

  The professor grew tired of the back-and-forth discussion among the men in the local Mayan dialect.

  He addressed the shaman, who acted as the villager’s spiritual leader. “Speak in Spanish. What’s the problem?”

  “There is no problem. We simply will not go any farther. The area you’re leading us into is full of blackness and death.”

  This was the third time the shaman had made such a statement, without any elucidation of what he meant. The professor was about to explode into a tirade when it struck him that this could be proof of the temple’s existence. He wished he had asked thirteen years ago where they didn’t want to go.

  He had always been fascinated by the Mayan civilization, and was convinced that all theories of their demise were incorrect. The Maya had reached their height at about 900 A.D., and had a civilization that rivaled any in Europe, the Middle or Far East. For reasons known only to Maya ghosts, they had simply ceased to exist. It was one of the enduring mysteries of human existence, and many theories attempted to explain their downfall, ranging from outlandish alien invasions to the more mundane. The professor thought that everyone was looking at the problem backward. In his mind, it wasn’t outside influences that had caused the people to disappear, but something in the cities themselves that caused them to leave.

  The professor’s theory revolved around his interpretation of a fairly new Maya codex called the Grolier Codex. The last of four known Maya codices, it was found under suspicious circumstances in 1965 and was considered by many to be a fake. Others had determined it to be authentic and maintained that it detailed the Maya calendar as it related to the planet Venus.

  The professor had reached an altogether different conclusion. At the time of the Mayan decline there were two ruling elites in competition with each other: the political royalty and the religious shamans. Both continually fought for control of the population of the Mayan city-states, and both were equally bloodthirsty. He believed the shamans had developed a weapon, mystical in the eyes of the average Mayan, which was used to seize power. He extrapolated that this weapon had somehow gotten out of control and had caused one or two dramatic wipeouts of various cities, which in turn led to an evacuation of other cities in a superstitious panic, and a wholesale destruction of the civilization.

  He was convinced that the Grolier Codex detailed the location of a temple, restricted to shamans alone, that housed this weapon. He had no idea what the weapon could have been, and cared only about finding the temple. He dealt in a world of history, of dangers long since dead. It never entered Professor Cahill’s mind that, if his theory were true, he was trying to find a weapon that the world was ill prepared to deal with.

  EDUARDO REACHED THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE in time to see Olmec pick up the sack. A fine cloud, not unlike flour, puffed out, encircling Olmec.

  “This isn’t worth anything,” Olmec said. “It’s a bag of dirt.”

  Eduardo began to dig through some scattered pottery, looking for something else of value, when he heard Olmec trip and fall. He was about to ask if Olmec was all right when what he saw caused him to stumble back and fall himself. Olmec had dropped the sack and was thrashing around as if hooked to an electrical generator. His head was growing lumpy and distorted and his breathing sounded as if he were drawing air through a swizzle stick. As his metamorphosis continued, he began to froth at the mouth, gasping for air. All of his exposed skin appeared to be rippling, as if a band of cockroaches were running through his veins. Before Eduardo could recover from his initial shock, Olmec’s eyes bulged obscenely, his mouth cranked open farther than any human’s should, and he ceased to move. Eduardo screamed, finding that deep in his soul he was still a Mayan, and ran out of the temple.

  He sprinted about fifty feet and stopped, torn between helping his friend and getting the hell out of there. He decided that his friend was beyond help.

  THE PROFESSOR ASKED THE SHAMAN if he could speak to the men as a group, intent on overcoming their superstition with gold, like an age-old explorer from Spain. As the men gathered around they heard an awful shriek to the north of their position, then a desperate thrashing sound. They began to rumble, looking at each other as if their neighbor could explain the noise.

  The racket grew in strength until it appeared to be just outside the camp itself. The men began backing up, moving away from the sound, like a herd of antelope one step removed from full-scale panic, tenuously waiting to see who would be the first to start the stampede.

  Exasperated, the professor advanced to the edge of the camp, convinced the noise was man-made.

  He saw the boy and shouted, “It’s Eduardo! Someone get the first aid kit!”

  Eduardo broke into the clearing of the camp, torn and bleeding from his pell-mell run through the jungle gloom. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. The men gathered around him, all shouting questions at once. The professor noticed that Eduardo was clutching his GPS in a bloody hand.

  He snatched it away, shouting above the cacophony, “Where’d you get this, you little thief! Where’d you go?”

  Eduardo looked up at the panic-stricken faces around him, eyes wild, showing more white than iris, and blurted out in Mayan, “The curse is real! It has consumed Olmec! He’s been taken!”

  That was enough to penetrate the thin veneer of modern logical thought, the words lancing the ancient suspicions hidden deep within each man. The tripwire broke. The men began to flee in all directions like a pile of leaves caught in a hurricane gale.

  Within seconds the professor was alone. He slowly moved in a circle, dumbfounded by the turn of events. Listening to the stampede grow fainter and fainter, he mumbled, “What did Eduardo say?”

  The question was swallowed by the vast expanse of jungle.

  15

  Eighteen hundred miles away, inside Taskforce Headquarters, Knuckles zipped up his kit bag in preparation for his upcoming deployment. Unlike his last deployment, this trip was going according to plan, with no mad rush or changes in the mission. Now a team leader, his team had finished their culmination exercise this morning and was due to leave the next day.

  He looked at the empty locker to his right, the dusty space bringing back memories of the last time he had done this, with Pike packing next to him. Knuckles couldn’t help but smile. That mission had been pure Pike. Talk about pulling success out of your ass. Knuckles shook his head, thinking of the actual assault, remembering the final few seconds of absolute chaos. “I’m not going to be able to cross. The target’s all yours. . . . Looking back, Knuckles knew that Pike had just been coaching and mentoring, making sure he was ready to take over the team. Only Pike would do that on a live mission. The trust Pike had placed in him made him feel proud, but the circumstances made him chuckle. What an asshole. Blaine would have ripped his head off at that decision if it had gone bad. Knuckles wished he could talk to Pike before he deployed, let him know who they were chasing and get a little verbal encouragement. That last mission had been almost a year ago. Since then, Pike had dropped off the face of the earth. Knuckles loved being a team leader but would have gladly given that up—and more—to have his friend back.

  Pike had taken the loss of his family harder than anyone Knuckles had ever seen. He seemed to blame himself from the moment he found out. Knuckles had hoped that he would go through the grieving process and rebound, and had even told Kurt Hale that he would remain a 2IC in order to let Pike keep the team, hoping that would help him recover. Kurt had agreed, but it hadn’t worked. Pike had just grown increasingly bitter, with anger being his primary emotion. His judgment as team leader had begun to falter, with him lashing out at any small mistake and constantly fighting with his superiors. It had come to a head when Pike irrationally took the initiative on a simple exercise and subdued a Rabbit through force, shattering his face in full view of a group of tourists at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

  Knuckles felt like kicking himself every time he thought about it. He had known P
ike was acting strangely. The final radio calls had been a clear warning that Pike was on the edge. He should have seen it. Should have stopped it.

  The consequences of Pike’s actions could have been severe. Besides the simple fact that he had harmed someone who had been recruited to help them train, the incident put the cover of the Taskforce in jeopardy. The Taskforce managed to prevent that, but Kurt pulled Pike from the team. Knuckles fought the decision, purely on loyalty grounds. The transfer only caused Pike to sink lower. Three months later he had demanded to be cut free from the military, and Kurt had granted his request.

  After Pike left, Knuckles had called him twice a month just to check up, but two months ago the cell phone number had come back disconnected. Knuckles now had no idea where Pike had gone or how to contact him.

  He finished packing and left the locker room, going down to the Ops Center on the second floor. He saw Kurt Hale and George Wolffe across the room gathering up data and talking with analysts. He knew they were leaving shortly to give the quarterly update to the Oversight Council. He was glad someone did it, or he wouldn’t have a job, but he didn’t think he could put up with the bullshit. Kurt waved him over.

  “You guys ready? Any issues?” Kurt said.

  “Nope. We’re good to go. Hopefully we can get to Omega on this go-around. Don’t worry about us. You should be worrying about the Oversight Council.”

  “No problems there,” Kurt said. “They know we’re doing the right thing. All I need to do is keep them up to speed. You do the work and I’ll get the Omega authority. Lord knows we’ve chased this guy enough.”

  “I know. I can’t wait to take this fucker out. This should be Pike’s target. He’s the one that found him years ago. I’m thinking of tattooing Pike’s name on his ass before I turn him over to the support team.”

  Kurt laughed. “I was thinking that exact thing this morning. Not the tattooing, the fact that Pike’s the one that got us here. You still talk to him? How’s he doing?”

  “I have no idea. His cell phone’s disconnected and I don’t know what he’s doing now. I keep hoping he’ll give me a call. I’m afraid that one day I’m going to see him on the news, peeking out the window of a house surrounded by SWAT guys.”

  “Come on. That shit won’t happen. Pike’s still Pike. Don’t worry about him. He’ll turn up. He just needs some time. Focus on the mission.”

  “I know, I know. I’m on the mission. One hundred percent.”

  “Good to hear. Look, I’ve got to go. The Oversight Council won’t wait. I probably won’t see you before you deploy.” He stuck out his hand. “Good luck.”

  KURT HALE AND GEORGE WOLFFE crossed the Potomac River, entering into the District of Columbia. George was driving, giving Kurt time to reflect on what Knuckles had said. He had put on a brave face and told Knuckles not to worry, but the truth was that Kurt was very concerned. He wished there were something he could do to bring Pike back into the fold, but he had tried everything at his disposal, from simple downtime to in-depth therapy. Nothing had worked. Kurt knew Pike’s days as an operator were over but didn’t think there was any way he would end up like Knuckles had said. Pike just wasn’t made that way, no matter how bad it got.

  The shame of the whole thing was that he knew the Taskforce wouldn’t have been where it was without Pike. It had been a long, hard fight to get the unit established, and Pike’s initial successes had guaranteed its survival.

  George broke him out of his thoughts, asking, “What are you brooding over? You look like someone just shit on your birthday cake.”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking about how far we’ve come. If Knuckles gets to Omega, it will be like closing a circle. Missing that terrorist four times is what caused me to quit the first attempt at the Taskforce and build what we have now. Dumb bastard doesn’t even know he’s the reason so many of his friends are now dead or captured.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’d like to be there to see him go down. That ain’t it, though. I know you better. What’s up?”

  Kurt paused, then said, “Pike. Once we turned him loose we started taking out terrorists like they were delivered to our door. I don’t know . . . I guess I feel like I used him, then threw him away.”

  “Cut that talk out. Pike was good, but even you said he was a handful. He was always going off on his own. He never asked for permission to do anything. Just did what he thought was right. In my mind, we’re lucky he didn’t cause an incident while he was here. Shit, we did have an incident. We’re just lucky it was during training.”

  Kurt knew that was bullshit. The Taskforce had existed for only three short years but in that time had executed over twelve Omega operations, all perfectly. A third of those successful operations were done by Pike’s team, a number twice as big as the next most successful team’s. Other team leaders said it was simply luck—being at the right place at the right time—but Kurt had worked with Pike long enough to know it was something else. Most of the success was due to hard skills, but a crucial part was simply an ill-defined talent that couldn’t be explained. Pike just made things happen. Yeah, he was a handful, but you couldn’t argue with success.

  George saw him bristle and backed off. “I’m not saying he wasn’t good. I’m just saying that this effort is greater than one man. You can’t let an individual—any individual—supersede what we’re doing.”

  “Yeah, I know. I get it. I don’t need my own speeches thrown at me.”

  Kurt had used the “greater good” argument to convince President Warren to begin with. He wasn’t sure anymore it was right. The greater good had been used to defend a lot of actions in the past, including Pol Pot and Hitler. In contrast, the constitution of the United States itself was based on the individual—every individual. When does the greater good become evil? When was it okay to kill one innocent to protect many? When the many said so? Or when the one has a vote? It wasn’t a trivial question, because Kurt and President Warren had managed to create an organization that, in the wrong hands, could be very evil indeed. He was walking a slippery slope, trying to keep his perspective on what was truly in the greater good against men, like that asshole Standish from the council, who didn’t understand the meaning of the term.

  His thoughts were broken by their sedan pulling up to the security gate for the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House. The imposing granite structure housed some of the most important offices in the U.S. government, including the office of the vice president and the National Security Council. It was also where the Taskforce Oversight Council convened.

  George parked the car. “Hey, I know how you feel about Pike. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  Kurt smiled, letting him off the hook. “Don’t worry about it. I know what you meant. Let’s go get this brief over with.”

  16

  Within his palatial estate a few miles outside of Guatemala City, Miguel Portilla addressed the two Arabs in English. “To ensure I understand, you’re offering me a retainer to move items across the border into the United States for a period of three years. These items can range from human beings to boxes no larger than three feet by three feet and weighing no more than two hundred pounds. Is this correct?”

  “Yes. We’re willing to pay you a handsome fee regardless of whether we bring you something to ship or not,” stated the taller of the Arabs in heavily accented English. He appeared to be the spokesman, with the other Arab simply looking on and listening.

  Miguel was a smuggler, although applying that term to him was like saying Bill Gates was a computer salesman. He was the undisputed leader of high-end smuggling into the United States. First earning his reputation with the Cali cartel in Colombia, he now worked exclusively with Los Zetas, a ferocious drug cartel made up of former Mexican Special Forces currently at war with the Mexican government.

  “If I agree to do this, it’ll cost much more than you’ve offered, as I believe the implications will have a traumatic impact on my business. In addition,
I’ll get your items into the United States, but I won’t travel more than forty miles across the border. I have no interest in being associated with your enterprise.”

  Miguel was no fool. He knew that he was being asked to smuggle people and equipment that would be used solely to inflict death and destruction on the United States. In so doing, he also knew that the United States would react in a frenzy of fear, turning its porous borders into an airtight Tupperware container that an ant would have trouble infiltrating. He cared not a whit about the damage and destruction, but was concerned a great deal about the future of his industry. He also knew that in this day and age, the one thing that could destroy him was being named as an associate of a terrorist group. He could bribe his way out of any smuggling charge or connection to Los Zetas, but he couldn’t stand up to the pressure the United States would bring to bear if he was seen as helping terrorists who murdered innocent American civilians. Drugs and death in Juarez were one thing. Death on American soil was something else entirely.

  Before the Arab could answer, one of Miguel’s ever-present personal security detail came in and whispered in his ear.

  “Show him in,” said Miguel.

  The door opened, and Eduardo was led into the room. He appeared healthy enough but still bore the scars of his jungle panic. He looked timidly at Miguel, then at the two Arabian men. Miguel made a big show of friendship toward the young Mayan, seeking to put him at ease. “Eduardo! How’re you doing? I thought you’d still be on the professor’s expedition. Don’t worry. You can speak freely. These ignorant foreigners don’t speak Spanish.”

  Eduardo was afraid to say the wrong thing to this powerful man. He had worked for Miguel in the past as a high-end coyote, smuggling migrant workers into the United States. Miguel was one of the few coyotes who could get you into the U.S. in style, not packed like cattle in the back of a non-air-conditioned U-Haul, destined to die of heatstroke in the middle of the desert. Of course, this service cost much more than the migrants could afford, so the first few years of their wages, instead of being sent back to the family, were mailed to Miguel. Failure to mail the wages guaranteed that there wouldn’t be a family in need of funds in the future. Miguel had earned the moniker of “The Machete” by his methods of ensuring compliance.