PLAZA

by Shane M Brown

  If Claire had looked ahead a moment later, the woman would have gone under the wheels. And what's more, Claire wasn't sure she would have stopped.

  She shouldn't be stopped now.

  'Get in!' yelled Claire, suddenly recognizing the young woman. She was with the balloon crew that launched three days ago. Libby or Lizzy or something.

  'I heard the shooting,' the woman panted, racing around and climbing in the passenger seat. 'There's something chasing me! I need help!'

  Claire revved the engine and sent up two fountains of dirt as she powered forward in the jeep.

  'Join the club, lady.'

  #

  Kline watched them approach with rising alarm.

  Six heavily-armed men were striding into the Plaza.

  They looked of varying ages. The oldest mid-forties, the youngest mid-twenties.

  Their plane landed on the silt lake eight minutes ago. He'd hoped they were another one of Rourke's 'special deliveries', but if that were the case, they would have pushed out their cargo in waterproof containers and taken off again already. And Rourke would have warned Kline to be expecting them.

  Police then? Investigating Joanne's death?

  Too early for that. They weren't armed like any police force Kline knew. And you didn't send men armed like this to investigate an accidental death.

  These weren't Police. This was something else. This was trouble painted bright red.

  Kline spoke into his radio, 'Rourke, I've got six official-looking bodies still heading my way.'

  Rourke's reply came right back. 'Their plane registration doesn't check out as a local. What are they wearing? Any insignia?'

  'Not that I can read from here. All wearing green camouflage pants and blue collared shirts. Black belts and boots. All carrying bags.'

  'I don't know that uniform,’ said Rourke. ‘Body armor?'

  ‘All of them. The two in the back are carrying bigger bags. Four up front have rifles ready for mischief.'

  Rourke said, 'The local police carry AK-47s.'

  'Nup. These guys all have carbines. Looks like M4s. Maybe they were having engine troubles and needed to set the plane down. This could be nothing.'

  'They can't come on site,' said Rourke. 'Tell them there's been a death and we’re closed to visitors until the police arrive. No exceptions.'

  'What if they insist?'

  'Then you insist harder.'

  Kline did a quick headcount of the guards he’d scattered in the path of the incoming force. ‘You better send everyone over. This could go badly.'

  'Alright, but don't let it get out of hand, Kline. Find out who they are. If you have to take them down, do it quickly before they penetrate too far.'

  Christ, anything else? Maybe you'd like me to juggle and tap-dance while I'm at it. Kline checked his men were in position.

  'OK,’ he radioed. ‘Let's show these guys some local hospitality. I want everyone to close in once I make contact.'

  The new arrivals were approaching fast across the top tier. Kline needed to halt them before they penetrated much further. He took a deep breath and walked out to meet them, timing his steps so partial cover would work in his team's favor.

  'Morning,' called Kline, raising one hand but letting curiosity show in his greeting. 'I'm going to have to ask you to stop right there.'

  The six men stopped in a loose cluster. Only the man in front looked at Kline. The rest scanned the ruins alertly.

  That's a bad sign. They're expecting trouble. Or planning to start some.

  The front man smiled like they were old buddies and spoke with an American accent. 'Sure. It's Kline, right?'

  He had black curly hair and what Kline would describe as ‘Greek-looking’ features. To Kline, he resembled one of those marble busts of Greek scholars you saw in museums. They all had big noses, round faces and puffy school-boy cheeks. Right now those smooth olive cheeks were pulled back into a toothy smile. His smile embodied a casual, understated authority.

  When he spoke, he sounded genuinely concerned. 'Nobody came to the plane, so we decided to come in. We thought you might be in trouble.'

  Kline didn't give anything away. 'Who exactly are you?'

  'Captain Michael Spader. Special Unit on deployment to the Federal Agency of Investigation. We were supposed to be conducting joint exercises with the Mexican police force, but we were diverted here because you had an American scientist killed on site. Isn’t that right? Apparently the local police are having some transport problems, so they asked us to set down here and start the ball rolling.'

  Kline nodded, pretending to appear a little mollified by the explanation. His mind raced though. These men weren't police. Barely-checked violence radiated off them like a heat haze.

  Kline needed to stall them until his remaining security guards arrived. It wasn't looking good. The rising tension could boil water.

  Casually, he ran his palm down his weapon's shoulder strap. His MP5 submachine gun was trigger-ready. A slight hand movement would send death racing towards this smiling prick called Spader. At this range, Kline would practically cut him in half.

  It only took one bullet to get the job done. A sobering thought, because bullets would undoubtedly be flying in both directions.

  Kline asked, 'Why didn't you radio ahead?'

  Spader hooked his thumb back towards the plane. 'We did. No one answered.'

  That could be true. Rourke had ordered all Plaza transmissions be shutdown.

  Kline held out his left hand. 'Can I see your ID?’

  'I can do better than that.' Spader produced a folded paper from his shirt pocket. 'They faxed us a barcode. You should have already received the matching barcode to verify.'

  Kline couldn't remember seeing knew orders on the fax machine back in the security tent. He'd been handling the legitimate face of the security operation as Rourke spent more and more time in his precious Gallery. 'You have a satellite-assisted fax machine on your plane then?’

  Spader nodded to the paperwork in Kline's hand. 'Yes. I just printed that off.'

  Kline made a show of scanning the orders, but he never took his eyes off Spader's hands.

  'I appreciate the offer of help, but we can handle it. We've been running security here for the last three years.'

  Spader nodded, had a listening look on his face for a second, and then tilted his head as though confused about something. 'I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Kline, but I can't help but notice you have men closing in on us from at least four different directions. It's making my team here very jumpy.'

  Two of Spader's party, the two at the back, set down their bags, freeing up their hands. They put the bags down very carefully, making Kline wonder what they contained.

  Kline nodded and looked up from the orders. 'Here's my problem, Captain Spader. What are the chances of a team of American police on deployment to Mexico being close enough to be diverted, in a seaplane no less, to this site less than two hours after the accident?'

  Spader shrugged. 'Pretty good, apparently, because here we are.'

  Kline calmly handed Spader back the orders. 'You're not police, and this document is a fake.'

  Spader took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. 'You're making a very big mistake here.'

  Kline smirked. 'No. You almost had me. The uniforms are a nice touch, but your men's postures are all wrong. Also, you've changed the registration on your plane, so you probably stole it. And for future reference, the Federal Agency of Investigation deals with drugs and corruption, not accidental deaths. Still, all that aside, you might have pulled this off ten days ago, but we stopped using these barcodes last Friday. Nice forgery though. It must have been expensive. You have huge balls to just walk in here like this. Now, I don't know who you really are, but you've picked a bad time to do whatever it is you're doing. I need you to put your - '

  Kline wasn't sure who fired the first bullet. But he knew where it was aimed.

  The first round of the skirmish hit Kline square
in the chest.

  Chapter 6

  Spader's team opened fire.

  The roar of six M4 carbine rifles shattered through the Plaza.

  Spader ducked and spun to the right, bringing up his rifle and spraying fire through the ruins where he knew at least two of the security guards had taken station. Even as Kline tumbled backwards, Spader's entire party was firing and moving.

  Unlike the security guards, Spader's team had been training for a bitch-nasty firefight exactly like this.

  Every member of Spader's team could freehand draw the entire Plaza from memory. On a whiteboard mock-up, every man could label the Plaza’s major and minor features in less than twenty seconds. His team had invented names for everything. Names that lodged in their memory. Names for every area of the ruins. Every facility. Every group of tents.

  Spader drilled them until they knew the Plaza better than the people who worked here.

  He’d planned their incursion route just as carefully. His model showed three locations where they’d likely first encounter Kline. His team's travelling speed across the top tier was a known value, so the only variable was how soon Kline could rally forces to confront them. Odds were good that Kline would confront them before they reached the steps leading to the middle tier.

  As it happened, Kline had chosen Spader's preferred option, halfway across the top tier. Spader's team christened this location the ‘Dragon's Teeth' because the ruins stood in ordered man-high columns with regular gaps in between. The Dragon's Teeth position offered areas of hard cover on all four sides. When his team encountered Kline, they’d stopped right in the dragon's mouth.

  Spader knew his calculations proved correct when he spotted all his team in hard cover, all apparently uninjured, and all returning heavy fire on the now out-numbered security guards. Every man had a tooth. When the first bullet sounded, every man knew exactly where he needed to be in order to survive the next five seconds and turn the skirmish to their advantage. They had done that superbly.

  The guards, however, suddenly found themselves with no cohesion, leaderless, with six wild-cards unloading mercilessly on their positions.

  During the skirmish scenarios, Spader had chosen a location that offered the security guards a retreat path. It was time to give the guards a chance to do the math and take stock of their situation.

  Spader signaled his team to cease fire.

  After a moment, the return fire from the guards broke off. Spader counted in his head. After ten seconds, he signaled to Dale. Their three-monthly physicals showed that twenty-three year old Dale had the best hearing of the group.

  Dale replaced his protective earplugs with the earpiece for a small hand-held audio-scope. The receiver fit snugly into the palm of his hand.

  Dale turned the device three-hundred and sixty degrees, listening carefully, and then gave Spader the OK signal. 'They're pulling back quickly. Guess you were right about the location. Sounds like Kline's still alive.'

  Spader scanned the ruins to their immediate west and caught a glimpse of Kline zigzagging away.

  'Run, rabbit, run,' said Spader. 'He must have been wearing a vest. Good for him. Anyone catch anything?'

  They all shook their heads. No one had been injured in the skirmish.

  'OK. That's the worst of it. We just have to make sure they pull back and have somewhere safe to hide until we pull out.'

  Mercerelli had retrieved the two bags and was squatting to check them for bullet holes. 'Why would tin-badges be wearing vests in this heat? Is it just me, or were those rent-a-cops more overzealous than usual?'

  Spader asked, 'Who fired first? Us or them?'

  Everyone looked at Fontana.

  'That guy Kline was going to drill you, Spader,' Fontana explained. 'He was about three seconds from unloading into your chest. I had to put him down. His hand was inching closer and closer to his trigger.'

  'That's true,' agreed Mercerelli.

  Spader squatted to retrieve the forged police orders.

  'Told you we should have just steamed in,' continued Fontana. 'Pieces of paper just don't carry the same weight as an M4 Carbine now, do they?'

  Spader didn't answer. He'd had this debate with Fontana a dozen times, on at least three different jobs, and neither man was going to change their opinion anytime soon.

  No matter what Fontana said, the idea of using the forged orders had merit. That barcode had been the costly bit. The piece of paper had the potential to spare bloodshed and turn this operation into a cake-walk.

  Well, no cake-walking today by the sound of it.

  Spader pocketed the fake orders. 'OK. We’re going to have to do this the hard way. Dale and Merc - you two go and balance the books. Randerson and Fontana - you two take down the blue pin.'

  Fontana unzipped one of the big black bags and carefully withdrew an M72A6 Short Range Anti-Armor Weapon. The sixty-six millimeter diameter extendable tube fired a single point detonated warhead. Fontana stroked the LAW rocket affectionately. 'Hello, sweetheart.'

  He winked at Randerson. 'You can carry the bag, Randy.'

  Randerson raised his eyebrow at Spader. 'I want to swap teams. I'll take Dale, and Merc can go with Fontana. Seriously, I don't think I can handle Fontana today.'

  Spader shook his head. 'You're with Fontana. Go.'

  Fontana tossed the bag at Randerson. 'You better be careful, Randy, or you're gunna hurt my feelings.'

  Spader and Gordon covered the men dashing away from the Dragon's Teeth. Dale and Merc went west. Randerson and Fontana went north.

  As the four men disappeared, Spader turned to his own operational partner, Gordon. ‘You ready for this?’

  Gordon nodded and asked, 'Are you sure putting Dale and Merc together was a good idea? They're worlds apart. They've been at each other for weeks now. You know they had a fist fight in Milan.'

  Spader rolled his eyes. 'It wasn't a real fight. Merc would have torn Dale apart. Just the pecking order working itself out. I recruited Dale, and now Merc has to adapt. Same for Dale. The way I see it, they have two options. They can either find a way to make it work, or they can kill each other. Would you rather I sent Dale with Fontana?'

  'There's a point,' conceded Gordon. 'I don't know why you keep that mad dog around period. At least Merc is loyal. I have no idea what Fontana's game is. You know when he put that bullet into Kline, he had to have barely missed your shoulder by two inches.'

  Spader nodded, unconcerned. 'I told him to. His job was too put down Kline if anything kicked off.'

  'And you didn't think to share that detail with the rest of us?'

  Spader smiled and looked Gordon up and down. 'No offence, Gordon, but I didn't want it to show up in your body language. None of you can lie like Fontana. That man lies with every fiber in his body.'

  'Fontana was right about those orders,' added Gordon. 'Waste of money.'

  'The barcode was fine,' said Spader. 'Who knew they'd stop using them. Who pays for a year’s subscription and then stops using the service?'

  'Doesn't really matter,' said Gordon. 'It's probably better this way. They might hole up and try to sit it out.'

  'Hope so,' said Spader. 'No gunshots yet. They'll be disorganized until Kline or Rourke pull them back into order. They have a standing force of twelve. Rourke, Kline and ten other guards. Hopefully they just want to live through the day and collect a paycheck.'

  Spader nodded in the direction Kline had fled. 'You ready?'

  By answer, Gordon cut off through the ruins ahead of Spader. Spader followed close behind, wary, but knowing they had to move fast through this stony labyrinth. The two men checked off landmarks in their head as they wove around pillars, ducked under leaning arches, jumped over half-collapsed walls. Before they knew it, the top tier's edge was right under their boots. It must have been the adrenaline working.

  Their goal lay at the bottom.

  The Gallery.

  To Spader, the structure seemed to pin the entire Plaza to the earth.


  'You were right. It's beautiful,' breathed Gordon, staring in open adulation. 'I can't believe we're here. I can't believe this is really it.'

  Spader smiled at his best friend. 'I knew you'd say that.'

  #

  Claire and Libby dashed towards the Plaza outskirts.

  They'd left the jeep in the jungle.

  Libby kept searching over her shoulder, scanning the tree line. Claire knew she was looking for whatever had killed the three security guards.

  So far, so good.

  The women were making a very exposed run over the silt barrier. They’d decided the jungle was more dangerous than the Plaza. They couldn't risk drawing attention to themselves driving the jeep, so they agreed to reach the Plaza on foot.

  Claire heard Libby's entire story during the bumpy ride back to the dig. They swapped stories in choppy snippets. Claire made her own story brief: the security guards had flipped out, killed Nina, taken Ethan hostage and sent Claire into the forest with three men to be executed. She had gotten away when something ate her captors.

  Libby was setting up camp when her party came under attack by the same things.

  Reaching the ruins flanking the top tier’s western outskirts, Claire scanned their path ahead through the site. As much as she wanted to flee the forest, she was having second thoughts about their safety in the Plaza.

  Libby said, 'I was only coming back here because I knew you guys had security guards, and now you're telling me they're killing people?'

  Squatting with Libby behind an L-shaped angle of jutting wall, Claire caught her breath and nodded. 'I saw how Rourke killed Nina, but we won’t survive back there in the jungle. We have to call for help. We have to find Ethan.'

  Libby glanced back towards the tree line. 'I'm hoping those things, whatever they are, will stay in the forest. Did you get a good look at one?'

  'I got a good look at one,' admitted Claire, 'but I didn't see anything.'