Shadow of Death

by David M. Salkin

  Mustafa breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t care who received the heroin; he only wanted to deliver the final blow to the Great Satan and return home as a hero. “This is it,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Q. This is the contact at home.”

  Joaquin stared at the man for a moment, trying to read him. He nodded. “Okay. You breathe another day. We’ll wait and see what your friends have to say. Give him food and water and let him get dressed. I’ll send a message to these people myself.” Joaquin took the phone from Mustafa and began typing his e-mail.

  CHAPTER 43

  Blurred Lines

  It was a moment frozen in time. Two opposing forces with guns drawn, staring at each other from across one large room. Apo and El Gato were still down the hallway off the main room, inching backwards toward the doorway from which they had just emerged. Twenty-four Mexican Marines, two full squads, were inside the house across the room from the team, while the other squad of twelve Marines secured the outside of the house.

  Moose’s earpiece crackled. Eric Hodges’ voice was very calm and quiet. “Say the word and I have that officer.”

  “Hold.” Moose’s gun was still aimed at Colonel Lozano. “Colonel, we don’t want to start World War III right here in this house, but that man is our prisoner, and we’re authorized by your government to take him. I’m asking you very respectfully to put your weapons down immediately before someone gets hurt.”

  The colonel’s eyes flashed back and forth between Moose and El Gato. “I have three squads of Marines here, soldier. Don’t be an idiot.”

  “I’m a sailor, not a soldier. Now I’m giving you five seconds to holster your weapon.” Moose knew Hodges had the colonel in the sights of his M40A5, and that the Recon Marine never missed. Ever.

  “Or what? You’re going to declare war on Mexico? Lieutenant! Take that man’s weapon!”

  The young officer in combat gear was wearing a balaclava to cover his face, as was common practice in Mexico in its war on drugs. No one wanted to be recognized in a photo for fear of reprisals against family members, but even with the mask covering his face, Moose could read the fear in the man’s eyes.

  “Don’t do it, LT,” Moose said quietly. He tightened his grip on his weapon, the red laser dot now on the colonel’s face.

  Jon spoke in Spanish as best he could to the officer who had taken a step toward Moose. “Stop. Put down your weapon before someone gets killed. We’re all on the same side here. Just be calm, okay?”

  El Gato screamed from down the hall. “Rafael! Maybe you should tell them about the bank accounts in the Caymans! Or the beach house in Casitas! Or your new Mercedes!”

  “Lies! Lies from a drug dealer!” The colonel turned his gun toward Apo and El Gato.

  Eric Hodges held the colonel’s eyeball in his scope. Ray, his spotter, watched through his spotter scope as the colonel’s hand tensed around his Beretta. His arm came up and the elbow straightened, one eye narrowing as he took aim at El Gato.

  “He’s gonna fire,” whispered Ray.

  Hodges took up the slack on his trigger. “Moose?”

  “Take him,” said Moose quietly.

  The next few seconds happened in slow motion. A 7.62x51mm round left Hodges’ rifle barrel and traveled through the air, where it entered Colonel Rafael Lozano’s left eye and exited out the back of his head, taking most of his skull with it. As soon as the sniper rifle fired, Moose double-tapped the lieutenant in front of him, also in the face, as the man was wearing body armor.

  There was a brief pause, perhaps only a second, when the Mexican Marines watched in shock as their two officers were almost decapitated before their eyes. They were all supposed to be on the same side, attacking Las Zetas, not each other—but as soon as the first shots were fired and the Mexican Marines saw their leaders shot dead, they all opened fire.

  In a tremendous roar of gunfire, the room filled with smoke, and tracer rounds lit up the gunpowder smog. Jon fired his M203 at the Marines closest to Moose, and the shotgun pellets blew three men off their feet as Moose and the others hit the deck. Ripper began screaming at the top of his lungs, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” but it was too late, the battle was on, and no one was going to stop shooting as long as the other side was still firing.

  At such close range, the furniture didn’t provide much cover, and bullets went straight through chairs and sofas. The Marines were well trained, but they were no match for the training and weapons of the SEALs. With adrenaline pumping and frantic fear overtaking the surprised Marines, most of them just sprayed their weapons blindly in the general direction across the room. The SEALs were moving quickly, taking controlled shots two at a time, moving, reassessing, firing, moving, and remaining under impossible calm. Eric continued his sniper fire from the rear of the house, dropping one Marine after the other until the amount of gunfire slowed down.

  “Cease fire!” yelled Moose at the Mexicans. “Stop shooting! We’re on the same side!” Jon joined him, in Spanish, trying to get the Mexicans to stop shooting, but it was pointless. The noise was deafening, and the Marines had fallen into complete panic.

  As the house filled with smoke, Apo grabbed El Gato and pulled him into the hallway, slamming the door behind him. “Go!” he screamed at his prisoner, and the two of them sprinted back down the long hall from which they’d just emerged. There was a tunnel and an escape route. Apo would bring in El Gato, even if he had to do it by himself.

  “Cut me loose!” screamed El Gato as he ran. “You cut me loose and I’ll let you live. If my men don’t get you, the Mexican Marines will. Don’t you get it, gringo? You’re not in the US! You’ll never get out of here alive unless you cut me loose.”

  Apo grabbed him by his upper arm and squeezed. “Shut the fuck up and keep moving before I shoot you right here.”

  “If you wanted to shoot me, I’d be dead already. You’re in Las Zetas country. My people are everywhere. You won’t get off this hill without my help.”

  Apo shoved him against the wall and got in his face. “I told you to shut up. Now keep moving!” He pulled El Gato along, the two men running awkwardly down the stone corridor toward El Gato’s escape tunnel.

  Ripper yelled at Moose over the roar of gunfire. “Package went out the door!”

  Moose let go a string of profanity that would have made his mother reach for the soap dish to wash out his mouth. He pulled a grenade from his belt and yelled at his men: “End this right now! We need Gato! Frag out!”

  Jon pumped another grenade into his M203, also cursing. He was going to be killing men who were supposed to be on the same side, but with rounds impacting over his head every second, it didn’t seem like the right time to try and reason things out.

  “Take cover!” he warned, and then rapidly fired three grenades inside the once exquisite room. The explosions were deafening and lethal, and as soon as the walls and ceiling tiles stopped raining down, the room went silent except for the groans of wounded men.

  “Ripper!” screamed Moose.

  “I’m on it!” he replied. “McCoy! Cohen! On me!” The three of them sprinted across the smoke-filled room and raced after Apo and El Gato. Moose and Ryan moved toward the dead and wounded Marines. Eric shouldered his sniper rifle and moved forward with Ray, coming up behind Moose.

  A Mexican Marine was on his back, bleeding from a wound in his thigh and trying to pull his sidearm. Ryan leapt over another body and grabbed the man’s arms. “Stop! Stop! It’s over!” he screamed. He pulled the weapon from its holster and threw it across the room, then pulled a pressure bandage from his own thigh pocket.

  “Be cool, okay? Be cool,” he said to the confused Marine. Ryan pulled off the man’s face mask and felt his heart sink. He was a lousy judge of age, but this kid looked sixteen. “Shit—just stay cool. You’re going to be okay.”

  A few feet away, a Las Zetas soldier crawled to an MP5 and tried to pick it up. Moose double-tapped him and made everyone jump. “Stay alert! Stay alive!”

&nb
sp; Ryan pulled the bandage tight around the kid’s thigh and began loosening his Kevlar vest and collar. “You speak any English, kid?”

  The kid’s eyes were filling with tears as adrenaline was slowly replaced with real pain. “A little,” he replied.

  “You get on your radio and tell your people that your colonel was in on this with the Zetas. We’re not your enemy, you comprende? Same side, okay? Tell your guys outside to stand down. Stop shooting!”

  The kid began looking around the room at so many dead bodies and started going into shock. Tears flowed freely down his face. “No comprendo,” he whispered, and closed his eyes. Ryan popped a morphine syringe into the kid’s good thigh and patted his hand. Across the room, Moose, Eric, and Ray were moving from man to man trying to help the wounded and making sure no one had access to a weapon.

  Moose spoke into his bone mic. “Apo you read?” Nothing. “Apo? Ripper? Anyone? Come in, over.” The descending stone escape tunnel didn’t allow for radio signals, and Moose was getting stressed. He pulled the sat-phone and called Dex in Langley, who picked up right away.

  “Dex here, go!”

  “Situation FUBARed. We’ve got multiple dead and wounded friendlies who weren’t so friendly. I need to get after the package, but have zero comms. We may be out of comms for a while, but we’re making a move. Try and get the Mexis to stand down. They ain’t too happy with us right now. We need to beat feet. Out.”

  “Time to unass this house! Let’s move!” Moose was up and reloading, with his men close behind. Ryan had moved two other wounded Marines next to the first one he had assisted so they could look after each other until more help arrived. The sounds of shouting, occasional shooting, and screaming from outside the house hinted it wouldn’t be long. The four of them sprinted through the haze and began their descent down the stone escape tunnel into the unknown.

  CHAPTER 44

  Langley

  “What the hell’s going on down there?” snapped Darren, his eyes glued to a satellite monitor on the wall.

  Dex was punching computer keys and trying to get better images of the compound. Kim was on the phone with General Ortega, trying to calm down an impossible situation. She was mostly just listening to screaming, while trying to get a word in.

  “Get him on speaker phone!” shouted Darren. As soon as the general’s screaming went audible for the room, Darren tried to interrupt. It was useless.

  “. . . verified! You understand? Verified! Your men murdered Colonel Rafael Lozano and several of my officers! You’ve killed Mexican Marines! Call your men and tell them to put down their weapons!”

  “General! This is Chief Davis! My men were attacked by your Marines and that colonel of yours was on the take from El Gato! Tell your men to cease fire!”

  “Colonel Lozano is my best officer! You tell your men to put down their weapons or I’ll have my entire Marine force assault that house! This is Mexico, not Afghanistan! You can’t just come into my country and start killing my men! You tell your men to surrender before they end up dead!”

  “Negative! With all due respect, General, my men are taking El Gato back to the United States as agreed upon by your president. Now I suggest that you get on the phone with your president and straighten this mess out. There’s still a container down there we need to find and we need your help finding it! You’re either going to help my men, or you’re going to get more of your own people hurt!” Darren hit the mute button and screamed over at Kim. “Get the president on the horn. We’re going to need this sorted out from the very top.”

  Kim grabbed another phone and dialed. When the inside line was picked up, she spoke quickly to the executive secretary. “This is a code red message from the office of Darren Davis. I need the president immediately.”

  CHAPTER 45

  SERE School Revisited

  Apo and El Gato made it to the vault door, which was closed but still unlocked. They waited a moment and caught their breath, both of them leaning against the stone wall, heads back as they tried to breathe.

  El Gato stared at his captor for a moment, his dark brown eyes filling with rage. “You just let me go through that door. That simple. Then you go find your friends and go home. Otherwise, you’re a dead man. You think that piece of shit colonel is the only one I own? I own them all. Generals, judges, entire police departments. You won’t get one kilometer. Cut me loose and I’ll let you and your friends live.”

  Apo smiled. “Where’s the package from Syria?”

  El Gato’s facial expression gave him away.

  “Yeah. You know where it is. You think anyone really cares about you and your drugs? You made a deal with the devil, you dumbass. And now you’ve brought the weight of the entire United States armed forces down on your little kingdom. Where is it?”

  El Gato’s mind was racing. Maybe there was still a deal to be made. “I don’t know what was in it.”

  “I didn’t ask you that. Where is it?”

  El Gato licked his lips. “I tell you where it went—you let me go.”

  Apo smiled, but not the kind of smile that would make anyone feel cheerful. El Gato’s skin crawled. Apo reached over and pinched El Gato at the end of his triceps muscle in such a way that pain shot from his shoulder to his elbow in mind-numbing agony. “Let’s understand each other real clear. There is zero negotiation. There’s just you telling me where that package is the easy way or the hard way, and the hard way is going to make you pray for death.” He twisted the bottom of the muscle harder and snapped his fingers as he released, and El Gato cried out in pain.

  The snap of Apo’s knife blade locking made El Gato’s eyes open again, and Apo held the blade under the man’s nose. “It’ll be real easy to breathe with just one hole in your face. Noses are overrated, and yours is ugly as fuck anyway. Where’s the package?”

  The edge of the blade touched El Gato’s nostrils and the pressure made the man move to his toes to get taller. “Okay . . . wait.”

  Apo lowered the knife.

  “It was a deal with those Arabs. The heroin supply was being interrupted. We gave them cash and ammunition, they gave us the horse and a package to deliver.”

  “Right—now where’s the package?”

  “We made a deal with the Mazatlecos and the Sinaloa. Paid them to allow the shipment to Arista. That’s it. It wasn’t my problem after that.”

  “Who delivered the package? How big was it?”

  “Four Arabs came with a truck. They drove it to Arista. Supposed to put it on a boat.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s all I know. Except the Sinaloas double-crossed us because of Lozano. That colonel’s been on my payroll since he was a lieutenant. I told you—I own Mexico.”

  “Yeah—how’s that working out for you?”

  The sound of boots on stone approaching made Apo push El Gato to the floor and shoulder his weapon.

  “Friendlies!” came a familiar voice from the long hallway, and Apo breathed a long sigh of relief.

  “Down here!” yelled Apo. He looked at El Gato and leaned closer. “You own Mexico, huh? We’ll see who owns what real soon.”

  A few minutes later, the entire team had reassembled at the vault door. McCoy wrapped Ripper’s upper arm, which had taken a ricochet off his bicep muscle, but with all the adrenaline, he hadn’t even noticed. Most of the men were bleeding from multiple small scrapes and were covered in bruises, but somehow had managed to escape serious injury. Moose unceremoniously used his KA-Bar knife to pull a slug out of his Kevlar vest. The vest had most certainly saved his life.

  He dropped the slug on the stone floor and looked at his men. “We all good to go?”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper,” came the response in unison.

  “We’re going back to SERE school, boys. Survive, evade, resist, and escape,” said Moose. He pulled the hose from his Monkey Pak and drank. “Hydrate.”

  Apo spoke up. “El Gato says the package went south to Arista. Sinaloas double-crossed him, but that�
�s where the package was headed.”

  “What’s in it?” asked Moose.

  El Gato shrugged. “Not my business. Just helping make a delivery.”

  Moose leaned in close. “Well if it’s a weapon to be used against the United States, it’s my business. And that just made it your business.”

  “You won’t get one kilometer,” sneered El Gato.

  Moose took a deep breath. “You’re a lucky man, El Gato. You just saved another one of your lives. A few years ago, I wasn’t as calm as I am now, and I would have beaten the living shit out of you. But you’re cuffed and it wouldn’t be very fair, would it?”

  “Uncuff me,” he said, and spit at Moose, catching the front of his Kevlar.

  Moose open-hand ear-smacked El Gato so hard the man dropped to his knees with his head ringing. He was temporarily deaf in his left ear, which was excruciatingly painful. Moose pulled him back up and shoved him against the wall.

  “Okay, people. We need to keep this piece of shit alive. Ripper and Jon on point. Stay frosty. I don’t think we have any friends in this whole damn country. We need to get to Arista, due south, straight through two cartels, the Mexican Marines, and whatever the hell else comes up. Until we hear otherwise, we’re on our own.”

  “I think Cancun is only like a couple of hours away. Beach sounds pretty nice right now,” said Jon quietly as he pushed a shotgun pellet grenade into his M203. He looked at Moose. “Getting low on buckshot rounds.”

  “Then don’t miss. What’s on the other side of this door, Gato?” asked Moose.

  “Thousands of Las Zetas who are going to skin you alive.”

  “Before this is all over, you and me and are gonna go round and round. All right—move out.”

  Ripper and Jon readied their weapons and McCoy slowly pulled open the huge vault door. They expected to see the outside, but it was just more tunnel, descending even further. With Jon and Ripper on point, the team slowly began moving along the tunnel. Moose pulled out a bandana, tied a knot in the center of it, and gagged El Gato with it to keep him quiet as they moved. Low-voltage bulbs hung from a primitive wire, and the team cast menacing shadows in the yellowish-orange light.