by Scott McEwen
Castañeda chortled, remarking, “Más vale malo por conocido que bueno por conocer,” which translated roughly as, You prefer the bad guy you know to the good guy you don’t.”
She smiled. “Más o menos.” More or less.
“It appears, then, I have no real choice,” he said, resting his elbows on his knees. “Your man Pope respects the truce but shows me no loyalty. Whereas you, my beautiful Mariana, you understand the value of trust.”
“We have always been honest with each other,” she said, ignoring his flattery as usual. “And I think such a rapport is worth something, yes?”
He nodded, shifting back to Crosswhite. “Suppose Pope is angry with you for killing Serrano—or the PFM comes after you?”
“That will be my problem,” Crosswhite said. “As I’ve told you already, your name will never be mentioned.”
Castañeda sat mulling the circumstances, seeing clearly that foreigners were still using the tactic of divide and conquer to manipulate the destiny of Mexico—and seeing equally that he was in no better a position to alter that paradigm than any of his predecessors. At length, he picked up his glass, finished the tequila, and set the glass back down.
“Very well. How I can help rid my country of the dog Serrano?”
32
HAMBURG, GERMANY
16:20 HOURS
Gil and Lena sat across from each other in the back of a prop-driven P-750 XSTOL aircraft, their knees almost touching, flying twenty thousand feet over Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. Each wore a composite wing suit, sometimes called a “bat suit,” which had extra fabric between the legs and under the arms, adding greater surface area to the human form for the purpose of creating lift. This allowed for a human being to glide, or “fly,” two and a half meters horizontally for every meter of vertical drop, often at speeds greater than a hundred miles an hour, before finally having to deploy a BASE-jumping parachute in order to land safely on the ground.
Gil’s suit was black with red fabric between the legs and arms; Lena’s, white with blue fabric.
“Nervous?” she said over the rush of the wind coming in through the open door.
He grinned. “You bet.”
She smiled back, liking him very much. “You look like Die Fledermaus in that suit with those colors.”
“Like who?”
“Die Fledermaus: The Bat. It’s a German opera—or an operetta, rather.”
He laughed self-consciously, having no idea of the difference between the two. “Well, a bat knows a helluva lot more about flying than I do.” He tested the zippers on his arms to make sure he would be able to free them easily when the time came to steer his parachute. “You know, doin’ this without a formal lesson is really kinda stupid.”
“But more fun!”
“For you,” he chuckled. “Not for me. I’m a trained paratrooper—not a bat.”
“Well, that’s about to change.” She leaned across and kissed him. “You’ll do fine. Just remember to fly the suit like I told you: make your body like a wing. You have to keep rigid; concentrate on strength of muscle.”
“Strength of muscle,” he muttered, feeling guilty as hell over the fact that Lena excited him much more intensely than his estranged wife, Marie, ever had. They were two entirely different types of women: Marie, loving and gentle; Lena, sexy and adventurous. He reflected briefly on the high divorce rate among Navy SEALs, now understanding it on a visceral level. He told himself that he deserved to die on the jump he was about to make—for many reasons—and with that thought, all nervousness left him.
“Have you done this with Sabastian?” he asked idly.
“With who?”
“Sabastian.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.” She got to her feet and grabbed the rail mounted along the fuselage just above the windows, offering her hand. “The light is red. Almost time.”
He took her hand and got to his feet.
She put her face very close to his, their noses millimeters apart. “Don’t ever mention that name outside of business. We’re moving forward—you and me—every second from this day on. Agreed?”
He felt the energy of her personality, their mutual attraction, in the pit of his stomach. “Yes, ma’am.”
A few seconds later, the jump light turned green, and they were out the door.
Gil spread his arms and legs, feeling immediately the strong resistance of the air. Lena streaked past him, her white-and-blue suit shimmering in the bright sunlight. He formed his body to match hers and soared after her, bringing his legs up too far behind him and falling forward into a brief tumble before regaining control and leveling off again.
With no hope of catching up to Lena after that, he decided to experiment with the suit, testing its limitations against his free-fall skills, based on his experience as an expert parachutist. The wing suit had long been employed by American Special Forces, but Gil’s own focus had been that of a sniper, so wing suit infiltrations had never been incorporated into his training.
He saw at once the potential for such a swift and accurate infiltration system, knowing that the perfection of a chuteless landing technique must still be the ultimate military goal.
Gil soared after Lena’s shimmering form, banking left and right, testing the performance capacity of the suit, and found that his extensive free-fall experience very definitely helped to cut the learning curve. As the ground drew within a thousand feet, he deployed the parachute and unzipped the wing sleeves so that he could reach up and grab the steering toggles.
He touched down lightly within a few hundred feet of Lena in a snowy field at the base of a mountain and quickly gathered the chute into his arms. Gil pulled off the helmet and stood looking around at the beauty of the countryside, which was not unlike the Montana of his youth.
She walked up to him with her chute and helmet under one arm, her blond hair blowing in the wind. “So what do you think?”
“I think I like it,” he said. “When do we do a BASE jump?” BASE stood for building, antenna, span, earth—earth typically being a cliff. “I wanna try it off a mountain—or a bridge.”
She vacillated a moment and then replied, “Whenever you like.”
He smiled. “You’ve never BASE jumped, have you?”
She shook her head. “You?”
“A couple times—but with a chute, not a wing suit.”
“Have you bungeed?”
His smile turned to a deep frown. “Bungee jumping is for drunken college kids. BASE jumping actually takes balls.”
“Good!” she answered. “Then we’ll go to Lauterbrunnen. The mountain jumps there are incredible.”
“Where’s Luaderbooken?”
She laughed. “Lauterbrunnen. It’s in Switzerland.”
He saw their ride, a black Land Rover, coming toward them through the snow. “Don’t you ever get tired of Switzerland?”
“No!” she said, not quite offended. “I’m a Swiss. Besides, what’s to get tired of?”
He chuckled. “You people are too damn tidy. It makes me nervous. You need to make a mess once in a while.”
She laughed. “We made a mess of the hotel room last night.”
“Yeah.” He gave her kiss and sauntered off toward the truck. “But that’s a German hotel room. It doesn’t count.”
33
HAMBURG, GERMANY
19:00 HOURS
The next night, Gil called Pope on his satellite phone. He had intentionally waited to respond to Midori’s message regarding the CIA director’s desire to talk, wanting Pope to realize that he was no longer at his beck and call.
Pope answered on the second ring. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Midori said low priority, and I’ve been a little busy.”
“I imagine you have.” Pope chuckled softly. “How are you?
”
“I don’t know. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. I might be finished, Bob.”
After a slight pause, Pope said, “I guess she must be something.”
There was a note to Pope’s tone that Gil didn’t care for. “She is, and nothing had better fucking happen to her.”
Pope’s response was immediate and uncharacteristically indignant: “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“Gil, you’re getting paranoid.”
“Maybe I am,” he admitted. “I’ve got Russians following me all over Germany. There are two outside in the street right now. Where the hell are they getting their intel?”
“You know damn well they’re not getting it from me.”
Gil lit a cigarette. He understood that it wasn’t fair taking out his frustrations on Pope, but he didn’t care. He was too full of guilt, anxiety—and, yes, paranoia. “You dropped the ball in Lichtenstein, Bob. I had no advance warning they were there. If it hadn’t been for Lena, they’d have fed me my balls.”
“Gil, you can’t expect me to keep tabs on every Russian mobster in Europe. You knew they were hunting you—and I do have other operators to look after these days.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gil said. “I met one of them the other night.”
Pope fell silent as a tomb.
Gil sat calmly, smoking, waiting him out.
“So it was you,” Pope said at length.
“I need Blickensderfer taken off the list, Bob.”
“To keep Lena happy?”
“To help keep my ass alive. I need him as an asset.”
Pope sighed. “I think you should come in. Bring Lena back to the US with you. Take all the time off you need, but do it here in the States, where I can look after you correctly.”
“I’m going to China.”
“China?” This obviously threw Pope for a loop. “Gil, China is crawling with Russians. What are you going to do in China?”
“Base jump the Dragon Wall.” The Dragon Wall was a mountain in China where people came from all over the world to do extreme BASE jumps. Gil intentionally did not mention the wing suit aspect.
Once again, Pope was left momentarily nonplussed, asking at last, “Is this some kind of phase you’re going through?”
“I need an entirely new Canadian passport,” Gil added. “A new name. And I need it within forty-eight hours.”
“Gil, I don’t think—”
“Just make it happen, Bob. I’m asking you for a goddamn favor. And take Blickensderfer off the list so I don’t have to kill any more of your sloppy ATRU operators.”
“You have to know you’ll never make it out of China alive, Gil. Do you have a death wish now? Is that what this is about?”
Gil ignored the question, aware that Pope was back on his heels and wanting to keep him there. “China was supposed to be a one-way trip for me the last time I was there, but here I sit. Are you still looking after Marie for me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Good. You can have the passport delivered to Lena’s place in Bern. We have a couple more jumps to make here in Hamburg before we head back to Switzerland. We leave for China in three days.”
“Gil, I don’t believe you’re going base jumping. Tell me what’s in China.”
Gil exhaled smoke through his nostrils, crushing out the cigarette in an ashtray beside him on the bed. “Normally your suspicions would be right on target, partner, but not this time. I’ve decided to jump the Dragon Wall, and that’s what I aim to do. I’ll send you the GoPro footage.”
He was off the phone a few seconds later. Lena stood against the wall with her arms folded. “We’re not really going to China, are we?”
“Yes, we are.”
“And when did you make that decision?”
“Yesterday—not long after the first jump.”
“But the Lauterbrunnen jump is almost as intense as the Dragon Wall. It’s also right here in Europe, where there’s a lot less danger to you. We can handle the Russians down in the street. They’re not going to do anything in broad daylight, and back in Switzerland they can’t touch you.”
He put out his arms, allowing her to walk into them. “Were you serious yesterday—what you said about us moving forward together?”
She gently took hold of the hair at the back of his head. “You know I was.”
“Then we have to go China. It’s the only place Pope can’t follow me.”
34
BERN, SWITZERLAND
09:00 HOURS
The next morning, Lena stepped into the bathroom where Gil was catching a shave and told him that his personal satellite phone was ringing. He ducked into the bedroom and grabbed it from his gear bag, seeing Crosswhite’s name.
“What’s up?” he answered.
“This phone still clean?”
“Yeah.”
“You been watchin’ the news?”
“I don’t watch TV. What happened?”
“Big quake here in Mexico City three days ago. Thousands dead, and the number keeps climbing. Lots of chaos.”
“Paolina and the little one okay?”
“They’re fine, yeah.”
“Good. I just talked to Pope last night. He didn’t mention any quake.”
“Yeah, well, he’s probably waiting to see if I’m alive or dead.”
“You haven’t checked in? What the hell are you up to now?”
“Me? Midori tells me you’re headed to China. What the fuck’s in China? The Russians will throw your squid ass in the Yangtze.”
“I’m counting on it,” Gil muttered.
“What?”
“Nothin’. What do you want? I’m in the middle of a shave.”
“I need you to cancel your China plans,” Crosswhite said. “I’m up to my ass in alligators, and I need you here—without Pope knowing.”
“Can’t do it.”
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘can’t do it’? This is no shit, Gil! I’m up against a goddamn Ranger sniper, and he ain’t—”
“I told Pope not to send you after him.”
“He didn’t send me after him. I went off the grid. I’m going up against the Ruvalcabas, and I need—”
“Who the hell are the Ruvalcabas? And what do you mean you’re off the grid? You got a wife and kid to worry about now. Get your ass back on the fucking grid and back under Pope’s wing, where you belong.”
“Will you shut up and listen to me, goddamnit! You’re not my fucking handler, and I’ve saved your cowboy ass twice. You owe me!”
“I broke your ass outta the brig last year, tough guy.”
“Stockade, asshole, and you still owe me. You gonna shut the fuck up and listen to what I have to say or not?”
“Goddamnit, Dan, I got too much on my plate already without you adding to it.”
Crosswhite laughed. “Hey, this is the life we chose, dude.”
Gil grabbed his cigarettes, ignoring the questioning look he was getting from Lena as he sat down on the bed and fired one up. “Go ahead, fuckface. I’m listening.”
When Crosswhite finished his story, Gil sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor between his feet, the cigarette burned down to the filter. “I understand your motivation,” he said quietly, “but you should walk away. It’s not your fight.”
“It wasn’t my fight in the Panjshir Valley, either, but I jumped in there to save your shot-up ass.”
Hating to admit it, Gil knew that Crosswhite was 100 percent justified to call in the favor. “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can—after mission complete in China.”
“Dude, is this China thing really that important?”
“Dude, I wouldn’t be going back there if it wasn’t. Give me five days.”<
br />
“Christ,” Crosswhite muttered. “Okay. Five days, then.”
“It’s the best I can do, partner. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, if it’s the best you can do, it’s the best you can do. One more thing before I let you go: watch out for a company prick named Clemson Fields. He’s Pope’s dirty-tricks guy, a real piece of shit—and he’s on to us.”
“Fields,” Gil said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard that name. I’ll take it under advisement. You keep your ass down until I get in-country. Hear me?”
“Roger that.”
Gil switched off the phone and tossed it aside, turning to Lena. “My life is a mess. Do you know that?”
She smiled. “He must be a good friend.”
“He’s a reckless asshole.” Gil lit another cigarette and flopped back on the bed. “He’s also the most loyal son of a bitch I’ve ever known.”
She got onto the bed, straddling his legs. “You’re taking me to Mexico, right?”
He nodded, knowing there was no need to argue with her. “Can Sabastian get his hands on a blank Canadian passport?”
She laid on him with a sigh, not liking to hear the name. “He can get his hands on fifty of them.”
“You were right, then,” he said, drawing from the cigarette. “He is worth more to me alive.”
35
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
17:00 HOURS
Senator Lazaro Serrano shook hands with Clemson Fields outside his office in the Mexican senate building. “Señor Fields,” he said happily in English, “how nice to see you again.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Fields said. “I’m sorry to arrive on short notice.”
“Not to worry,” Serrano said, opening the door to his office. “Please step in and make yourself comfortable. Did my people arrive on time for you at the airport?”
“They were very punctual,” Fields said, passing into the office. “Thank you.”
Serrano moved around behind his large, old wooden desk and took a seat. “As you might imagine, things are very, very crazy here in the capital because of the tragic earthquake. I wasn’t sure if my people could meet your plane on time.”
