“Here we go then,” Jonathan said.
“Hey boss, there’s a tree line to your right, about twenty yards. Try to stay to the left of that. I’ll have a full view.”
“Roger.”
There’s something inherently creepy about a graveyard, even in the daytime. It’s filled with people who don’t want to be there, many of whom arrived by violent means. Jonathan didn’t believe in the woo-woo shit of the afterlife, but there was no denying the raised hairs on the back of his neck as he walked north at a measured pace, neither slow nor fast. The intent was to appear perfectly normal. It was the most awkward feeling in the world.
“Break, break,” Venice’s voice said. “Scorpion, Mother Hen. Emergency traffic.”
Jonathan stopped in his tracks. “Go.”
“I just did a thermal scan,” she said. “There appears to be a man hiding behind a tree downrange to your right.”
“How far?’
“I don’t know. The image refreshed forty-five seconds ago.”
So, how far had he walked in forty-five seconds? Answer: a long friggin’ way.
Boxers said, “Give me something, Mother Hen. A map grid, maybe? Third tree to the left of the fourth gravestone?”
The airwaves went silent as Venice tried to work the problem. Meanwhile, Jonathan didn’t move. Instead, he pretended to be interested in the gravestone to his left. Pedro Carraba, aged eighty-four years when he died in 1928, felled by tuberculosis. Those hairs on his neck that were thinking about standing up were on their feet now, cheering for attention. He felt ridiculously exposed, and he fought the urge to draw his weapon.
Ten feet ahead and to his right, a familiar figure stepped out from the cover of the trees into the open. Jonathan jumped a foot, and while his hand went to his weapon, he didn’t draw. That was good, because Dylan Nasbe had him dead to rights with his Beretta M9.
“Hi, Dig,” Dylan said. “Your team’s pretty good. How did they find me?”
“Do me a favor and holster up,” Jonathan said.
“So Big Guy doesn’t separate my head from my shoulders?”
“Something like that.”
Dylan laughed and waved at the horizon. “Am I in the general direction?” he asked.
“He’ll see you. The holstering part is really important, though.”
Dylan performed a dramatic bit of theater where he held both hands far out to the side, the M9 in his right and his left hand empty. He held that pose for a couple of seconds, and then he reached with his left hand to lift the tail of his shirt on the right-hand side so he could insert the weapon into a holster inside his belt. When it was all tucked away, he said, “A little bird told me that you wanted to have a discussion.” On his left side, opposite his gun hand, a worn leather messenger’s bag hung from a cross-shoulder strap.
Jonathan regarded his old friend. There were several ways to go with this conversation. He could be oblique and poke around the obvious, or he could go right for the jugular. “What kind of game are you playing, Boomer?”
“A damned dangerous one, if I read the tea leaves correctly,” Dylan said. He’d gotten soft of middle since Jonathan had last seen him. He wasn’t fat—not by a long shot—but he’d lost a lot the muscle tone that came with being part of the Unit. He’d trimmed his beard, too, to look less like the untamed growth that Afghanis expected and more like a civilized Central American. There was no denying the red, though. Or maybe it was orange. Certainly, it was the opposite of Latin. “And I don’t go by Boomer anymore. Dylan will do. My Unit days are behind me.”
“Talk to me,” Jonathan said. “What’s in the bag?”
“Are you here to arrest me?” Dylan asked. “Because if you are—”
“No,” Jonathan said. “I’m not sure why I’m here. I don’t have a good idea of what success looks like for this mission. But I know for sure that I’m not here to—”
“You’ve got trouble, Boss,” Boxers said in his ear.
“Get down!” Jonathan snapped at Dylan, making a wide waving motion with his left hand as he drew his. 45. “Arm yourself.”
Dylan dropped to a knee, his M9 ready. “What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The sharp crack of a rifle pulsed through the cemetery.
“The groundskeeper was armed,” Boxers said. “He’s not a threat anymore. This would be a great time for you guys to scoot.”
Jonathan locked his gaze on Dylan. “Either you were followed or we were,” he said. “We’re made. Time to dee-dee mow.” As he said the words, he wondered if the younger man would have close enough ties to Vietnam to recognize the vernacular for “get the hell out of here.”
“What’s happening?” Dylan asked, not moving. “Who just got shot?”
Jonathan scanned one hundred eighty degrees to his six o’clock, looking for threats. “Apparently a groundskeeper was more than he pretended to be,” he said. “Where there’s one shooter, there’s always more.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I don’t shit people.” Jonathan ignored the absurdity of the phrase.
“You’ve never been a dull guy, Dig,” Dylan said. “I’ll give you that. What’s the plan?”
“Big Guy, what’s the plan? Do we have a clear lane out of here?”
“Tell me there’s someone in your ear,” Dylan said.
Jonathan gave him a thumbs-up, and then pressed a finger to his lips. He recognized that Dylan was trying to keep things light, but he had a job to do right now, and there was a time and a place for everything, including shutting the hell up.
“Sorry, Boss, I’ve got nothing for you,” Boxers said. “The priest and the mourner are just gone. I didn’t see where they went.” His voice was leaden with sadness and anger. “I think your best bet is to head south—directly toward the exfil vehicle. I’ll keep an eye out for threats.”
“You need to start heading down to the street, too,” Jonathan said. “If this goes hot, it’s going to be tough waiting for you.”
“Don’t wait then,” Boxers said. “I can find my way back to the wings. I’m not leaving you without an observer.”
Jonathan considered arguing, but knew it would be wasted breath. “Copy that,” he said. Then, to Dylan, “Do you mind walking backward? We’re going to head due south, but we don’t know where the threats went. I’ve got a car waiting, but there’s a fair amount of real estate between us and it.”
Dylan moved at a high squat to join up with Jonathan. “Like the old days,” he said. “What are we shooting at?”
“Anybody or anything that looks like it’s thinking of shooting at us.”
“Who are they? Whose side?”
“All I know is that a priest and a mourner used to be visible but aren’t anymore,” Jonathan said. “Besides, I thought you were the one to ask about who the enemies are.”
“Frankly, I’ve lost track,” Dylan said. “I’ve got way more enemies than friends these days.”
Jonathan pivoted to look his old acquaintance in the eye. “One favor,” he said. “Promise me that I’m not on the wrong side of the good-and-evil continuum.”
Dylan crossed his heart. “We’ve got a long conversation ahead if we don’t get killed by a priest and a mourner.”
“Just so I can sleep tonight, let’s stipulate that if the priest has a gun, he’s not really a priest.”
“All the cool kids are in Hell,” Dylan said.
Jesus, this guy is another Boxers, Jonathan thought. The world doesn’t need another Boxers.
“If you’re set, we’re moving,” Jonathan said. As he stepped forward, his pistol at low-ready, he sensed Dylan walking with him in unison. The vista to his right was all tombstones and the occasional tree, while the area to his left was crowded with trees, presumably providing shade to the deceased. As he advanced, Jonathan tucked his weapon steadily closer to his body in order to look less concerning to any casual observers.
“Scorpion, Mother Hen,” Venice’s voice said.
“My view just refreshed and I count five—no, seven heat signatures of people among the trees. I show the closest maybe fifty feet ahead of you, and twenty feet to your left.
“Stop,” Jonathan said, and they both halted.
“Got something?”
Jonathan repeated the update to Dylan.
Dylan pivoted to be aiming parallel to Jonathan. “How do you want to play it?”
“I think they’re waiting for us to wander into view and ambush us,” Jonathan said. “I think there’s a good chance that they’re hiding from the sniper who sheared their buddy’s head from his shoulders.” That very mangled corpse lay between two tombstones just twenty feet ahead of them. Blood had pooled into a small stream that flowed ever so slowly in the direction they were traveling.
Jonathan grabbed a fistful of Dylan’s shirt and pulled him closer. At a whisper that he knew the rest of his team could hear—but the bad guys couldn’t—he said, “We’ll move into the tree line and then hook to the right. If we engage, we’ll engage with the benefit of cover.”
“Who are we engaging?”
“Anyone who tries to shoot us.”
“You mean me,” Dylan said.
Jonathan scowled.
“I just wanted to be clear. They won’t be shooting at us, they’ll be shooting at me. Not you.”
“Then they miscalculated,” Jonathan said with a wink. “I signed on to the mission, I signed on to the getting-shot-at part. Ready?”
Dylan confirmed with a single dip of his chin. It was time.
“We’re moving, Big Guy,” Jonathan said to the ether. “Did you hear the plan?”
“All I heard was that you’re wandering exactly into the spot where I can’t help you,” Boxers grumbled.
“Take that as a sign,” Jonathan said. “Abandon your spot and move to the exfil vehicle. I’m thinking if we get that far, we’re going to want to move in a hurry.”
“I’ll think about it,” Big Guy said.
It was more commitment than Jonathan could hope for, under the circumstances. If this turned into a real shooting war, having a marksman high and away could be a lifesaver, but if it turned into a ground slog, those four wheels parked in El Chorrillo would turn out to be more valuable than gold. Jonathan saw both sides, so he deliberately chose not to issue an order. In the end, this would evolve into the incident it was meant to be.
Jonathan led as they sidestepped their way into the trees, which were spaced far more widely than they appeared from outside the grove, which meant that there was significantly less cover than he’d been hoping for.
Jonathan pressed a finger to his lips, and then motioned for Dylan to move forward with him. They advanced in a shooter’s stance, strong side elbows locked—right elbows in both their cases—and weak hand providing support to the grip. Jonathan scanned one hundred eighty degrees of horizon as he advanced, his focus wavering between the front sight of his 1911 and what lay beyond it. He fought the urge to look down at his feet, trusting them to find a path through the undergrowth that would not cause him to fall, or, perhaps more important, not make too much noise. Dylan stayed with him, step for step.
Ahead and to the right, maybe twenty feet away, movement caught Jonathan’s eye. He froze, and on his command Dylan did the same. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, exactly, but it registered as something out of the ordinary, and in these conditions, that meant everything. Jonathan pointed to the tree where he’d seen the anomaly. Maybe a branch had moved.
Or maybe someone had exposed the barrel of a rifle. Between the two, only one of those assumptions would keep you from being dead.
Without moving his eyes from the presumed target, Jonathan waved his left hand to get Dylan’s attention, then tapped his own chest to indicate that he would be the one to move, and then pointed to the tree with a wide arc that indicated his intention to flank his target to the left.
Dylan confirmed the plan with two taps on his shoulder.
His 1911 still up and at the ready, his finger hovering over the trigger, Jonathan began his advance. In the distance, he heard the sound of sirens, and assumed that it was a response to Boxers’ shooting of the guy among the tombstones. He hoped it wasn’t the case. Jonathan had a long-standing rule that he would not engage in lethal combat with public servants like local cops, but in a cesspool of a country like this, he’d suspend the rule if it made a difference. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to.
Jonathan fanned out to his left, crouched and ready as he continually scanned. His progress made noise, but he didn’t think it was audible above the blowing breeze. And, of course, he could be totally, tragically, wrong.
More movement.
In his imagination, a man was hiding behind that tree, a rifle poised vertically in front of his body. It was the posture of an assassin waiting to roll out and snap-shoot the idiot who was approaching so stealthily through the woods. Jonathan pointed again. Certainly, if the hiding target—
The attack came from the left.
Jonathan recorded it again as motion, but this time deliberate and big as the form of a man revealed himself from behind his cover and leveled a rifle.
Jonathan’s pistol bucked twice in his hand, and the shooter dropped dead into his own shadow. Even as his brass was twirling to the ground, the target he’d originally been hunting revealed itself. Herself. Tall for a woman, she had an M16 variant pressed to her shoulder, and Dylan took her out before she could touch her trigger.
“We’re under fire,” Jonathan said. “Two down, good guys okay.”
“I don’t see any targets,” Boxers said.
“Get to the goddamn car!” Jonathan shouted. Once triggers had been pulled, stealth didn’t matter anymore. To Dylan, he said, “We’re out of here.”
“I’d lead if I knew where we were going,” Dylan said.
“Then follow.”
Venice had said that seven people lurked here in the trees. Assuming they were all bad guys, that left five, and if they were hired assassins, they were five talented shooters who no doubt had figured out that three of their buddies had already been off’d. That would give them pause, but it would also make them think. Surely, they had comms, and that meant they could coordinate.
“I need more gun than I have,” Jonathan said to Dylan. “Cover me, will you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He advanced on the body of the man he’d shot. It hadn’t been practical to wander through the streets of Panama City with a rifle in his hands, and if he had, chances were that Dylan would never have had the little girl approach him. Now he was stuck with his pistol and a total of fifteen rounds—thirteen, now—split between two magazines, and that wasn’t nearly enough firepower.
The dead assassin carried a battle-slung FN P90, which he’d dropped to his side as he fell. Jonathan was both impressed and bothered. A favorite of elite US government agencies—most notably the Secret Service and the CIA—the P90 was an ugly third cousin to his beloved MP7, firing a wicked 5.7 millimeter round at twenty-three hundred feet per second, and the weapon’s popularity had a lot to do with its ultra-diminutive size. Only twenty inches long and weighing just a little over five and a half pounds, in automatic mode the weapon fired at a rate of 900 rounds per minute. This was not a thug’s gun.
Jonathan examined the clear plastic 50-round box magazine and was pleased to see that it was fully loaded. He holstered his .45, threaded his arm through the P90’s sling, and thumbed the selector just be sure that it was set to full-auto. “How are we doing, Boomer?”
“It’s spooky,” he said. “I don’t see anybody. I mean, nobody. I want to move.”
“A few more seconds,” Jonathan said. He searched the dead man’s pockets for some form of identification, but found none. He did find an extra fifty-round mag, though, which he stuffed into a pouch pocket on his thigh. That done, he pulled out his smart phone, brought up his fingerprint app, and photographed the thumb and forefinger on the dead man’s right hand. It was far from perfect, but it w
as a pretty effective way to identify people.
He returned the phone to his pocket, brought the P90 to his shoulder, and then looked back to Dylan. “Your turn,” he said. “Get the lady’s gun and check for ID. I’ll cover you.”
With the tiny rifle pressed to his shoulder, his finger poised over the trigger, Jonathan crouched to one knee and pressed his back to a tree to cover his six o’clock. He scanned the woods in front of him for anything that looked like a target. Nothing.
Dylan was right. The degree of calm was downright creepy. He’d seen this happen in war zones as a prelude to some of his most intense firefights. Locals disappeared to stay away from the shooting they knew was on the way.
“I’m done,” Dylan said. “Let’s go.”
Jonathan handed him his phone, the fingerprint app already up. “Do me a favor and press the thumb and forefinger of her right hand onto the little square. Hit save after each one.”
“Jesus Christ, Scorpion, we’re wasting time.”
“I want to know who’s trying to kill me,” Jonathan said, never looking away from his scan of the trees. “I’m funny that way. That being the given, you’re the one who’s wasting time.”
Fifteen seconds later, Dylan proclaimed, “Okay, I’m done.”
Jonathan held out his hand for the phone, and then slid it back into his pocket. “Be careful when you move,” he said. “I haven’t looked behind us in a while.”
Again, he didn’t bother to watch the other man. He was either good at his job or he wasn’t. They would come out of this healthy, or they wouldn’t. Dylan had always been good at his job.
“Still clear,” Dylan said. “And silent.”
“This feel like a trap to you?” Jonathan asked.
“Yup.”
“Scorpion, Mother Hen,” said the familiar voice in his ear.
“Go ahead, Mother Hen,” Jonathan whispered. The acknowledgment wasn’t necessary, but he wanted Dylan to know that he was talking to someone back home. He motioned for them to drop back down to a deep crouch.
Against All Enemies Page 15
