by Scott McEwen
Serrano looked up from his breakfast with a measure of surprise. “So soon? What did those fools do with it?”
Oscar rubbed his hands together before reaching to put a spoonful of sugar into the coffee. “Well, it seems they did not do anything with it. The body was found in the same building where you last saw him, along with the bodies of six of Ruvalcaba’s people.” Hector Ruvalcaba was a powerful narcotics trafficker—a narcotraficante, also referred to as a narco. The year before, with Serrano’s help, Ruvalcaba had escaped from a maximum security prison via a three-quarter-mile-long tunnel dug from beyond the facility’s walls to directly beneath his cell. Serrano had since helped him take over the southern narcotics trade, leaving Antonio Castañeda as his only competitor. Castañeda controlled the North. “They were all killed by a grenade blast. It seems to have been accidental.”
Serrano went back to eating. “One of those idiots must have dropped it and blown them all up.” He shook his head in disgust. “Why am I surrounded by fools, Oscar? Tell me that.”
Oscar smiled and sipped his coffee. “I do not know.”
“You’re sure the American is dead?”
The younger man set the cup down on the saucer, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. “Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “His name was Chance Vaught, a US Army veteran.”
“Are you sure it’s the same man? The agent I saw on the floor was Hispanic.”
Oscar nodded confidently. “Yes, it’s him. His father is a gringo, but his mother is Mexican. They’re shipping the remains back to the United States this week.”
“Good,” Serrano said, taking a sip of freshly made orange-carrot juice. “We don’t need him stinking up Mexican soil.” He sat back with a smile and wiped his mouth. “Be sure to send my condolences to the Vaught family through the American Embassy. It’s important to maintain good relations with our neighbors.”
“I will,” Oscar said. “I’ve already sent them to the embassy itself. Should we expect problems concerning the three federal policemen that Vaught killed?” He tapped the edition of El Universal. “They’re on the front page today.”
Serrano shrugged, picking up his knife and fork. “That’s Captain Espinosa’s problem.” Espinosa was the Federale captain who had turned Vaught over to the detectives working for Ruvalcaba. “He’s got people inside the city police. He’s a true professional, that one, a man I can count on—like you.”
A thin smile spread across Oscar’s lips, and he wondered for perhaps the thousandth time what would happen if Serrano ever found out he was gay. I’d probably disappear too, he told himself, making a mental note to increase his vigilance.
“Will the project in Toluca still be going forward?” he asked. Serrano and Ruvalcaba had been trying to turn the town, located southwest of Mexico City, into a trafficking hub for the past six months.
“Yes, of course,” Serrano said, cutting off a piece of steak. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Well, I thought you might want to postpone it because of all that’s happened here.”
Serrano stabbed his fork into the piece of meat and pointed at Oscar with it. “I’ll tell you this, Oscar. That chief of police in Toluca is a brave man; a true Mexican with very large huevos, but he is another fool. Why can’t he see which way things are going in this country and go with them? Because I tell you this, my friend, sooner or later, those stupid gringos in the North are going to see there is no way to win this useless war. Then marijuana will become legal, and all of this” —he waved his free hand at the estancia—“all of this money, it goes away. This kind of business cannot last forever. So why doesn’t this policeman in Toluca accept Ruvalcaba’s offer now to secure himself a future? Why does he throw his life away so uselessly? I will tell you why: it is because he is a fool. A brave fool, but a fool.”
He poked the meat into his mouth and chewed as he spoke. “We all want a stronger Mexico. Me more than anyone. I am a true patriot; a man of my country. But this strength cannot come without money. And am I not generous with my money? Do I not give back to the people? This idiot policeman could do the same”—Serrano stabbed a finger against the side of his head in frustration—“but he is too stubborn to listen! No, this brave man, he is going to rebuild the country all by himself, like Pancho Villa reborn. Well, Pancho Villa was gunned down in the dirt like a dog, my friend, and this Toluca man is no better than him.”
“Lazaro!” the young woman called from the pool. “When are you coming to swim, my love?”
He smiled and held out his hands. “Later, mi amor!” He turned to look at Oscar. “Do you see? I am not even finished eating, and she wants me to go in swimming already. Like I have no other responsibilities besides swimming with a dog that pisses in my pool.” He shook his head and went back to cutting his steak. “Fools, Oscar. I am surrounded by fools.”
10
MALBUN SKI LODGE, LIECHTENSTEIN
13:00 HOURS
Gil was still asleep in bed when he heard a knock at the door. He sat up and took a Parkerized subcompact Springfield .45 pistol from the nightstand drawer, glancing at the clock. Lena hadn’t left until well after six in the morning.
He slipped naked from the bed and went to have a look through the peephole. Seeing Lena, he unlocked the door. She came into the room with an orange backpack slung over one shoulder. The gun in his hand didn’t seem to frighten her at all.
“Did you get some sleep?” she asked, kissing his cheek and crossing the room to toss the backpack onto a love seat.
“Yeah, look,” he said, scratching his head. “I’m not exactly who you think—”
“Of course you’re not,” she interrupted. “If you were, I wouldn’t have just canceled a wedding that was supposed to take place ten days from now.”
He set the pistol down on the table. “Lena, I’m not sure—”
“You don’t need to be. I’m sure.”
“But I’m not lookin’ to—”
“Neither am I,” she said with a laugh. “You still love your wife. That’s obvious. What I want is adventure. I’d almost forgotten what that was, being with Sabastian. You reminded me last night. I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I agreed to marry him.”
He grabbed his pants and stepped into them. “First of all, I can’t give you the kind of adventure you’re looking for. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“I’ve got my own money, Conner.”
“Conner’s not my even my name,” he said with a sigh.
She took his pack of cigarettes from the nightstand. “Then what is it?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t tell you. I can’t even tell you what I’m doing in Liechtenstein.”
She lit the cigarette with a chuckle, dropping the lighter onto the nightstand. “And you say you can’t give me adventure.”
“Look, this isn’t a game.”
“All life is a game.”
He shook his head, regretting his weakness the night before. “People get killed in the games I play.”
She sat down on the bed. “People get killed jumping out of airplanes—yet that’s my favorite sport.” She gestured at the gun. “And I assume that’s yours?”
He picked up his shirt from the floor. “Where’s Sabastian?”
“Headed for the airport.”
“He’s pissed? Heartbroken?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’d say he’s offended. Men like Sabastian don’t get their hearts broken. He’ll have another woman like me by the end of the week—maybe not one as wealthy.”
“Last night you said I’d make an enemy.”
“And you have—but I gave you fair warning in that regard. Do you want to spend more time with me or not? Because now I’m beginning to get offended.”
He grinned. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”
They agreed to me
et in the lounge after Gil had showered and made some calls. In the meantime, Lena would schedule a flight for the two of them to Switzerland.
Gil got Pope on the phone and told him the truth about what had happened between him and Lena
“All right,” Pope said. “These things happen. You can finish the job in Switzerland. I’ll figure out a way for it to look like a Mossad hit. Blickensderfer is on their list, too.” The Mossad was Israel’s version of the CIA.
“Bob, no. I’ve blown this op. I can’t sleep with a guy’s girl and then kill him.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone.
“You there?”
“Yeah,” Pope replied. “I’m trying to understand what you just said. You’re telling me you can’t kill a man if you’ve slept with his woman. What does one have to do with the other?”
“I guess it’s personal now.” Gil didn’t know how else to explain it.
“I’ve got news for you,” Pope replied somewhat coldly. “If Blickensderfer ever finds out who you are, this will become a great deal more personal.”
“I’ve blown this one, Bob. I’m sorry. It won’t ever happen again, but I can’t move on Blickensderfer now. I’ve crossed a line. I’ve told you before I wasn’t trained for this James Bond shit.”
“Well, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it,” Pope said, warmer suddenly. “You’re entitled to a mistake. You’re also entitled to a vacation. You’ve been operational for almost two years without a break. We’ll discuss things after you’ve had a couple months off. How’s that?”
“Okay,” Gil said. He’d known Pope long enough to understand that the director likely wasn’t happy with this outcome, but hopefully he wouldn’t hold it over his head for too long.
“Sounds good. Have you checked on Crosswhite and Paolina?”
Pope was silent again.
“Did I lose you?”
“No, I’m here,” Pope said. “They’re both fine, but Crosswhite’s operational. A US diplomatic convoy was just ambushed in Mexico City. It was a cartel hit, and all of our diplomats were wiped out—most of the DSS team as well.”
“You know Paolina’s pregnant.”
“I do, but I need him—and he owes me.”
Gil didn’t entirely agree with that, but this was not the time to argue the point. “How deep does he have to get involved?”
“That remains to be seen,” Pope said. “There’s an ex–US Army sniper doing hits for the cartels, and it looks like he’s the one who pulled the trigger on our people. He used a fifty cal.”
Gil was immediately pissed that one of his own had turned bad. “Do you have a name?”
“Not yet.”
“Get me a name and a face to go with it. Then get me in-country so I can punch the fucker’s ticket.”
“We’ll have to see how things develop,” Pope said quietly. “I’m not sure Mexico is the place for you. You don’t speak the language, and Crosswhite’s a big boy.”
“He’s got vulnerabilities, Bob: a pregnant woman and a little girl to worry about.”
“What did you expect, Gil? That I would pay him and not use him?”
Gil let out an impatient sigh. “All I’m asking is that you consider his circumstance.”
“I have,” Pope said. “It’s the circumstance he’s put himself into. Crosswhite doesn’t use his head when it comes to women. He never has. Be careful you don’t start falling prey to the same lack of judgment.”
Gil was annoyed when they got off the phone, but he reminded himself that so far Pope had always played him straight and that he owed the man a lot.
He was coming from the shower when the door to his room burst open, and three burly men covered in tattoos bum-rushed him, tackling him onto the bed and raining down punches. The blows landed like sledgehammers against the side of his head, and he went unconscious.
When Gil came around, he was duct taped naked to a chair, and his mouth was taped shut. Four ugly men sat around the room staring at him with vacant expressions. Blood was leaking into his left eye, and his head throbbed. At first he thought they were Blickensderfer’s people—which would have been bad enough—but then he took a closer look at their tattoos.
They were Bratva—the Brotherhood. Russian Mafia.
This is it, he told himself. And it’s gonna be ugly. He closed his eyes for a moment, just long enough to say good-bye to Marie and to promise himself that he’d go out with as much dignity as possible—but he didn’t have much in the way of confidence. These men were professionals at taking away a man’s humanity.
11
ACAPULCO, MEXICO
13:00 HOURS
The gringo sniper’s name was Rhett Hancock, and he was no longer the innocent, towheaded little boy his mother had taken to church on Sundays. He was now afflicted with a sickness—a brutal sickness that went well beyond the post-traumatic stress of war. Something inside of him had long snapped, and he knew it. He was addicted to riding the meteor of pure adrenaline, and he simply could not get enough of it.
Today he was in a cantina on the outskirts of Acapulco, a once-thriving vacation destination that had recently been all but eliminated from the world’s tourism brochures due to ever-increasing drug violence in the region. Hancock was thirty-five, a former US Ranger and a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghan wars, with twenty enemy kills to his credit. Diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress shortly after the end of his fifth tour, he was honorably discharged from the US Army against his wishes and offered a meager disability pension on his way out the door. With his army career in ruins and no other marketable skills, Hancock had immediately jetted off to Latin America in search of mercenary work.
First he had sought to offer his skills to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia through a Colombian national he had met in the army. The AUC, or, in English, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, was a paramilitary organization formed in 1997 to fight left-wing insurgents seeking to take political control of various regions within the cocaine-producing country. By 2008, however, the AUC had been labeled a terrorist organization and was broken up by the Colombian government with the help of the US military. So Hancock had turned to the Mexican cartels.
An intermediary had introduced him to Hector Ruvalcaba, and the meeting had gone well. Hancock was impressed with the paramilitary infrastructure of the Ruvalcaba cartel, and Ruvalcaba offered him a lucrative one-year contract that same day. It wasn’t until after he’d assassinated two different competing cartel bosses, however, that he finally learned of Lazaro Serrano’s existence. And once he’d met with Serrano himself, Hancock understood that this was the man who actually pulled the strings of the Ruvalcaba cartel.
Hancock sat in the far back corner of the dimly lit cantina with a half empty bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila and a shot glass resting before him on the roughly hewn tabletop. He was dressed in jeans and combat boots, a black Under Armour compression T-shirt, and a black cowboy hat. Billy Jessup walked up to the table and sat down with a bottle of Estrella beer. Jessup was not a Latino, but his mother was 100 percent Lakota Sioux, so his features were similar to those of many Mexican people, and he did not stick out among them, being generally regarded as Mexican himself until he opened his mouth to demonstrate his terrible Spanish. He was Hancock’s spotter and intelligence collator, keeping in contact with Serrano’s number two man, Oscar Martinez. He and Hancock had met in the army during the war.
“I’ve got some troubling intel,” he said, tossing a manila envelope onto the table and rocking back in his chair, with the beer resting on his Texas longhorn belt buckle.
The gringo sniper stared at him with his lifeless blue eyes, downing another shot of tequila. “Troubling how?”
Jessup took a drink. “Have a look.”
Hancock opened the envelope and removed a photo of another gringo with dark hair. The man
was standing on a street corner with one arm around a pretty little Latina with long black hair, and a small child under his other arm. Hancock put down the photo. “So who the fuck is he?”
“His name’s Daniel Crosswhite, a Green Beret who served in Afghanistan. Oscar’s contact inside CISEN says the PFM went to visit the dude three days ago in Mexico City. The contact doesn’t know why they went to see him, but it was the day after your hit on Alice Downly.” CISEN was Mexico’s version of the CIA.
The half-drunk Hancock sat nodding his head. “I got an idea. Why don’t you ask that faggot Oscar why Serrano doesn’t have a guy inside the PFM? If he did, then maybe we’d know why they went to visit this motherfucker. Isn’t a spy inside the Mexican CIA pretty much fucking useless unless you’re fighting the fucking Russians or something?”
Jessup took another pull from his beer. “Serrano’s been trying to get a guy inside the PFM for two years, but that agency’s locked up tight. Hell, most PFM agents use false names, so there’s no way anybody can even get at their families.”
Hancock lifted the tequila bottle by the neck, thumping the bottom of it against the photo. “So why bring me this?” He poured himself another shot and set the bottle aside. “Who gives a fuck about some gringo and his Mexi-whore?”
“You don’t think it’s a heavy coincidence for the PFM to visit an ex–Green Beret living in Mexico City the day after you assassinate an American official?”
Hancock chuckled. “Maybe he’s a suspect.”
Jessup sat forward to put the legs of the chair back on the floor. “Would you still think it was funny if this Crosswhite was ex–Delta Force and a Medal of Honor winner?”
The gringo sniper sobered up very quickly. “How the fuck could the PFM know a gringo did the hit on Downly?”
Jessup shrugged. “Rumors about a gringo sniper are all over the place down here. Maybe somebody’s finally started taking them seriously. Maybe this guy is some kind of a hunter. Who knows?” He tapped the photo with his index finger. “But I’m telling you: this shit right here ain’t no goddamn coincidence. It’s got something to do with you.”
