They had just purchased their one-way ticket.
CHAPTER 24
El Gato’s Estate
Friday Night
Six miles west of where the team was setting up a security perimeter in a dark, mosquito-infested swamp, Apo, now “Alex,” was sleeping in a king-sized featherbed in the mansion of one of the world’s most notorious drug kingpins. El Gato had offered his guest whichever women he wanted for the evening, but Apo explained that he was tired and drunk, and would prefer to just sleep. The ugly host didn’t understand such an answer, and took two of the women to his own room, as he stumbled along the hallway, drunk on tequila and champagne.
As soon as Apo was alone, he locked his door and stripped down to his underwear, then climbed into the large featherbed. He assumed, for safety’s sake, that he was under surveillance, and was very careful about using his specially encrypted phone to send a secure text to the team.
Under the covers, he simply typed:
Inside villa. Will try and remain for Sunday AM.
After he hit “send,” he placed the phone under his pillow and slept, feeling slightly guilty about just how wonderful the featherbed felt. He was asleep in minutes.
***
Moose’s wrist vibrated and he tapped the small screen of his watch. Apo’s message scrolled across the tiny screen.
“He’s in,” he whispered to the team. His men had found a dry location deep in the woods, a kilometer west of the swampland at the lagoon’s border. It was an area of cypress trees, and the men piled up pine needles to make a dry, comfortable floor beneath their ponchos.
Ray took first watch, and the rest of the men crashed for the night. The sun was up two hours later, but the men continued to sleep, taking shifts every two hours. Saturday would be a long, boring day of trying to remain invisible as they waited for night to come again. They ate cold MREs and tried their best to sleep.
A rustling in the canopy above him roused Jon. He opened his eyes and looked up into the trees. He spoke very slowly and quietly. “What the actual fuck is that?”
“Flying German shepherd?” joked Pete.
“Damn. I’ve never seen bats that big. Not even in the Amazon or Africa. That’s insane,” whispered Jon. “Maybe they’ll eat some of these damn mosquitos.”
“Not those. Vampire bats, baby. Spectral bats are meat eaters,” whispered Eric.
“And why the fuck would you even know that?” asked Jon.
Eric shrugged. “When I get bored I Google shit. Ugliest things on the planet.”
“I think this dude El Gato may have them beat,” said Jon.
They remained on their backs, staring up at the bats. Eric broke the silence with his random whisper. “You up?”
“Yeah,” said Jon, his eyes closed.
“Before we left, I’m talking to Apo about how he’d been watching me shoot. Sneaky little fucker. And out of nowhere, he asks me, ‘You got a laptop?’ Just totally random, you know?”
“So?”
“So he asks me if I got a video camera on mine so I can Skype and shit. And I said no, and he says, ‘Good,’ just like that.”
There was silence for a moment.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” asked Jon, his eyes now open.
“I don’t know. I think these spies do some shit with our computers that people don’t think about.”
“Yeah, no shit,” said Jon.
“Okay, ladies, keep it down to a roar,” whispered Ripper. “Get some sleep. We have a long hump when it gets dark again, followed by World War III. You’ll need your beauty sleep when the shit hits the fan.” He slid his boonie hat down over his eyes and attempted to go back to sleep, trying very hard to erase the image of the giant bat’s face.
The plop noise of bat excrement landing near Ripper’s foot made him raise his boonie hat and shake his head. Moose opened his eyes and grinned at his friend.
“We do get to visit some interesting parts of the world, don’t we?”
Ripper scowled and spoke so quietly Moose could barely hear him. “Man, I just keep wondering what the fuck we’re doing nowadays. Couple of years ago, you and me were kicking Taliban ass and fighting a war. Now we’re fucking rent-a-cops walking through Mexico to arrest a drug pusher. It ain’t what we signed up for, man. This is bullshit, bro.”
Moose leaned up on his elbows and scanned around to make sure no one could hear them. “Vinny,” he began—that got Ripper’s attention. Moose only called Ripper “Vinny” a few times a year. “Not only is this not a bullshit assignment, it might be the most important thing we ever do.”
“Arresting a drug lord is more important than capturing Saddam, killing bin Laden, or wasting Afghans who want to turn the clocks back a thousand years? How you figure?”
“Remember Rear Admiral Puckett?”
“Sure. He was a righteous officer.”
“Know why he retired?”
Ripper scowled. “Nope.”
“He retired because his sixteen-year-old son ODed on heroin and his wife lost her fucking mind. Navy lost a great officer and that whole family is fucked. And it happens every day, bro. Every day, in every city. Rich kids, poor kids, every color kid, smart kids, dumb kids. All doing heroin and dropping dead. Al-Qaeda doesn’t have to invade the US, they can just keep supplying cheap smack to little kids who are too stupid to say no. Last time I was home I heard no less than five stories about local kids all either in rehab or dead from that shit. These ain’t hard-core hoodlums who’ve been doing drugs for years; these are regular old schoolkids trying heroin the way you’d try a beer in high school. And they end up dead.
“The shit we did in Iraq and Afghanistan and Africa and all over the fucking world, I’m not saying it wasn’t important—but this? This is every bit as important as anything we’ve ever done. Next time you feel like you’re wasting your time because we ain’t standing toe to toe with the hajis or some Russian tank division, just think about Admiral Puckett watching his son lowered into the ground because some Taliban fuck in Afghanistan managed to get his shit into the US. Every mission we’ve ever been on has been personal in one way or another. But this one? This one’s way closer to home than you think it is. We ain’t going to stop drugs coming into the US, but maybe, just maybe, we help Mexico get its shit together and save a couple of little kids.”
Moose lowered his hat and closed his eyes. Ripper sat with his hands folded across his chest for a full minute before finally quietly saying, “Okay. Thanks.”
CHAPTER 25
Puerto Arista, Pacific Coast
Saturday
The convoy crossed into Sinaloa territory near Buenavista and removed the yellow flags from their side mirrors. They arrived at their next scheduled “toll,” where several Sinaloa enforcers waited by their pickup trucks. They wore ratty jeans and were shirtless to show off their gang tats, scars, and muscles. Most of them wore multiple heavy gold or silver chains, most with giant crosses—the irony of “religion” lost on them. A few of them carried assault rifles.
One of them approached the lead car and recognized Felix from the previous trip. Felix handed him a thick envelope. The man took it and shoved it in his waistband, then leaned close and sneered at Felix.
“Jefe says to take your money and let you pass, so I let you pass. And I’ll let you pass through again to go home. But if I ever see you drive through here again, I’m going to cut your throat and pull out your tongue like a necktie.” He spit on the ground and walked away, his eyes never leaving Felix.
The vehicles moved forward again and headed to the coast. An hour later they were in Arista on the Pacific Ocean. The three vehicles drove to a nondescript warehousing district near a small pier. Arista wasn’t a major shipping center, by any means—just a tiny town with nice beaches. They were simply to wait for the arrival of the ship that would transfer their cargo. A commercial fishing trawler, El Pescador Feliz, was still a day away. With its large stern deck, the trawler would be large enough
to ship the EMP and small enough to go unnoticed as it traveled north to the California coast.
Felix spoke with his contacts at the warehouse, and they opened the rusty garage doors so the truck could be backed in for the overnight wait. Watching the four Arabs screaming at each other as they tried to back up the tractor-trailer was a cross between comedic entertainment and outrage.
Marco was getting antsy watching them jockey the tractor-trailer back and forth in an attempt to line up the vehicle with the doors. “These idiots are going to wipe out the whole building. Should I go drive it for them?”
Felix shook his head. “No, let them figure it out. Whatever they’re shipping, it’s their problem. El Gato told me to stay out of it.” He took out a cigarette and handed the pack to Marco, who took one and then held the Zippo for his boss. They smoked and watched in silence as the four Arabs eventually backed the truck into the garage. When they finished, they got out and continued to argue with each other.
The one in charge, Hamid, walked to Felix and pulled out a ratty piece of paper. The paper contained phonetic pronunciations from Arabic to Spanish. He held it up to Felix, who pulled out his own piece of paper.
Marco watched and listened as the two men butchered each other’s languages. “Mañana” sounded nothing like “tomorrow” to the Arab, and they went round and round, each showing his frustration with the other’s lack of communicative skills. Finally, Marco walked over and pointed to his watch, then made a gesture of the hands going round and round to signify twenty-four hours. The Arabs all began talking at once, clearly upset that the boat wasn’t ready yet. Marco told them to go fuck themselves in Spanish, and watched with great enjoyment as the men checked their sheet for a translation that didn’t appear.
Felix called over a couple of young boys and told them to bring cold beers and food, and asked about a nearby hotel. It was late on Friday and they were hungry for dinner. The boys were more than happy to help for a few pesos. Hamid and his men had to wait with the trucks in the dirty warehouse, and when food and beer arrived, the four men made a great show about not drinking alcohol. Felix had the boy go fetch a few bottles of water, which ended the drama. Hamid and his men then began ranting about the food, which Felix didn’t understand, but he ended the conversation by leaning in close and saying in Spanish, “Eat it or starve. I don’t give a shit.”
Felix and his men walked to the small hotel the boy had recommended and checked in. They would eat, drink, and stay in comfortable beds. Guarding the truck was not his responsibility. His only remaining task was to see the cargo moved to the ship, and then to return to El Gato with news of their departure—mission completed. The six Zetas sat in a back corner of the hotel’s restaurant and ate and drank late into the night.
The four Arabs sat in the dirty, hot warehouse, arguing about whether the food was halal. One of the men tasted a tiny piece of the meat in one of the wraps and made a questioning face. It was very spicy, but he wasn’t sure what it was. What if it was pork? Their argument continued for a few minutes until Hamid, who was starving, announced that all the food was halal and they could eat it. The men exchanged worried glances, but were also starving. They ate in total silence, praying as they ate from wrappers that announced “Mejor Barbacoa de Cerdo”—Arista’s best pork barbeque.
CHAPTER 26
CIA HQ
Saturday
Darren Davis walked into Dex’s office with coffee. “How’s it going?”
Dex took the coffee with two hands, like he’d been presented with a precious artifact. “Thanks, boss. Team’s ashore.”
“Everything going okay?”
“Fine. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow when it’s closer to zero hour. They made it up river into the lagoon without incident, and humped it into the woods. Pretty swampy terrain.”
“They check in?”
“Yeah. ‘Bats, rats, and gnats’ was the last sit-rep. Sounds like they’re having fun.”
“You’d be surprised what these guys think of as fun. Frogmen probably love being up to their ass in swamp water. I think they’re amphibian.”
“Apo definitely got the better of the deal.”
Darren nodded. “He check in?”
“Yes. Just a quick burst to let me know he was inside.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“If he’s smart? Eating, drinking, and sleeping. Go on. I’m watching. Anything important happens, I’ll wake you up.”
Darren walked over to Dex’s couch. “Tell you what—I’ll close my eyes for a couple and you won’t have to pick up the phone to call me.” He laid down across the couch, wrinkling his Brooks Brothers suit, and was asleep in under a few minutes. Like the rest of the folks who worked in CIA and the military, Darren was trained to grab sleep when it was available, because sometimes it just wasn’t.
Dex leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee, his eyes constantly on the little dots that were west of Gato’s mansion.
***
The team had made their daytime camp in the driest area they could find among the cypress trees. Using pine needles for a camp floor, they set up a perimeter and took turns on scout patrol while the others tried to sleep or at least relax and grab some chow. The shade of the trees helped with the heat, but it was still humid and steamy in the woods.
Pete McCoy, their best “cook,” went from SEAL to SEAL to collect the ingredients for his recipe. “Ripper, you got a number four?” Ripper tossed him his “meal four,” which consisted of cheese tortellini as the main course. He collected two fives, the beef ravioli in meat sauce, and a number seven, the meatballs in marinara. Mixing everything together, he added some premixed spices he kept in his combat pack. The guys watched nonchalantly until he started mixing in mushrooms he had been collecting from the forest.
“Yo, man! You gonna kill us? That shit’s probably poisonous, dude,” said Jon quietly.
“Relax, bro, they’re morel mushrooms.”
“Looks nasty, man.”
“Are you doubting my culinary wizardry?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
Jon shook his head. “Okay, I yield to the great chef. You’re the only guy I know that can mix up a bunch of Meals Rejected by Ethiopians and turn them into something edible. But if we all start hallucinating, it’s gonna be bad.”
Moose rolled over and looked at the concoction Pete was mixing in a small pan. “Hey. You sure you ain’t going to kill us or get us high?”
“Hundred percent, skipper. Morels. Look nasty, taste great. And this shit needs the flavor.”
Moose rolled back over and closed his eyes, and Pete lit his small Sterno to heat the MRE banquet he was working on. Ripper spoke quietly. “Pete eats it first. If he dies, then we only eat a small portion.”
The men ate and spent the day being invisible. They hunkered down, kept watch, and listened for any intruders. In the distance, occasional farmers could be seen in the fields, but no one ever got anywhere close to their location. The men were restless, waiting for nightfall and the beginning of the real operation.
CHAPTER 27
Arista
Rafael sat outside the small hotel where the Zetas were holed up keeping watch from the tailgate of an old pickup truck. He smoked a cigarette and drank a cold Bohemia beer, his Uzi across his lap, right out in the open. The gang tats on his face screamed Sinaloa, and no local cop was going to say a word to him.
He’d been sitting there all morning, and it was hot and boring. While he did expect to be relieved, he was surprised when not one, but five cars and trucks pulled up next to his old pickup truck. Doors began opening all at once and the gangbangers piled out of the vehicles brandishing a wide assortment of weapons.
Rafael flicked his cigarette and put down his beer, then hopped down and walked hastily to Diego, one of the local bosses. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Got a call from the big boss.” The “big boss” meant Joaquin Salazar, who was now in charge after the capture of El Chapo.
&nbs
p; “Yeah? Jefe called you himself?” Rafael meant no disrespect by the question, but he was shocked that Salazar would call directly to the sleepy little town of Arista.
“Yeah. No shit, huh? Some shit’s going down, bro. Fucking Marines heading to Occidente.”
Rafael had to process that for a minute. “Occidente? In Tabasco? They going after El Gato?”
“Yeah, man. And those fuckers inside just lost their passport.”
Rafael smiled, showing a few cheap silver caps. “No shit, eh? We just going to take them out?”
“That’s it. They in their rooms?”
“I’m not sure if they’re in their rooms or downstairs, but they haven’t been outside all day. Been sitting here. It’s been quiet.”
Diego nodded and started walking toward the hotel, followed by the entourage of eighteen very dangerous-looking individuals.
“Not gonna be quiet much longer.”
***
“Felix! Come take a look! We got a problem!”
Felix and Marco got up from the small table of the downstairs cantina and walked to the window. The instant they saw the heavily armed crew walking toward them, they dropped their beers and sprinted upstairs to their second-floor room and began pulling out their weapons.
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