by Tom Clancy
The limousine driver, a young man no more than twenty-one, took him up across the broad cobblestone driveway and toward the entrance of a spectacular colonial-style mansion set into the foothills and overlooking the entire city. This, Ballesteros had said, was yet another of his boss’s vacation homes, worth millions in a good real estate market, and Samad, being a man of simple means and simple resources, could not help but despise the ostentation of it all, from the dozens of dormer windows to the six different fountains set across the circular driveway to the marble statues that suggested he’d arrived at a museum rather than a private residence. They stopped before a pair of wooden doors hand-carved with leaf patterns accented in gold and finished in a deep walnut. The driver stepped out and opened the door for Samad, who slid outside. He would be unrecognizable to even his trusted lieutenants, were they to glimpse him from afar. The beard and hair had been severely trimmed, and he’d purchased a very Western business suit along with a leather attaché. He was, to any Colombian, a successful-looking foreign businessman who on the weekends enjoyed the outdoors, as suggested by his rough-and-tumble beard and lean frame.
A slightly hunchbacked man with gray mustache and dressed in a butler’s uniform met him at the door and led him onto a back terrace, where the man Samad had come to see was alone before a wrought-iron table, reading the daily edition of La República Bogotá, a glass of orange juice waiting at his side.
“Señor Rojas? Your guest has arrived,” said the butler in Spanish.
The newspaper lowered to reveal a man shockingly young for his position. Samad tried to hide his surprise as the man rose, raked fingers through thick black hair with the barest touch of gray, then reached out to offer Samad a firm handshake.
“Buenos días. Please, have a seat.”
“Gracias,” Samad said, assuming they would speak in Spanish. “It’s a great honor to finally meet you in person. Mullah Rahmani has shared many great things about you.”
“Well, I appreciate that. Your breakfast will be here shortly.”
“Excellent.”
“Señor Ballesteros tells me you have a rather large party accompanying you.”
“That’s true.”
Rojas made a face. “That troubles me. And I already expressed my concern to Mullah Rahmani.”
“Then you understand our dilemma,” said Samad.
“I’m afraid I don’t. He didn’t tell me the reason for your visit, only that you were coming and that it was extremely important that we talk.”
“Well, before we discuss that, I would like to assure you that the mistakes made in Pakistan will not happen again. The CIA has put a lot of pressure on us, but we’ve recruited an operative on the inside. He’s given us a few names. With his help, shipments will resume as usual.”
Rojas hoisted one of his brows. “I’m sure they will, otherwise I’ll be forced to find another supplier. Many warlords in the north have been knocking on my door. And as I’ve made Rahmani very much aware, we are the only cartel with whom you will do business.”
“Of course.”
“Mark my words. If I learn that you’re not happy with us and sell your product to perhaps the Sinaloa Cartel or another one of my competitors, there would be grave consequences.”
While Samad could not hide his disdain over being threatened, he remained keenly aware that he would not leave these grounds alive were he to cross this man. “We understand very clearly that our arrangement is exclusive. And we’re very happy to be working with you and for you to take such care in trying to expand the reach of our product, which has, in the past, been largely ignored by the cartels. In fact, we are so grateful for your help that I’ve brought some gifts.”
Samad caught Rojas staring at his briefcase. “Oh, no,” Samad added with a grin. “They’re not in here. They are much larger, shall we say.”
“I think I know what you have in mind.”
“Yes. Something for your enemies.”
Back at Ballesteros’s jungle house were two trucks loaded down with sophisticated improvised explosive devices manufactured in Samad’s factory in Zahedan. Along with the hundreds of bombs were twenty-two crates of Belgian-made FN 5.7 pistols, which Samad knew were a favorite among the Mexican drug cartels, who used the mata policía against police wearing body armor. The pistol’s rounds often penetrated that armor, and Samad assumed a gift like this would most assuredly please Rojas and his sicarios.
Samad removed from his briefcase an inventory sheet and showed it to Rojas, whose gaze widened. “Excellent.”
“I’ll have them delivered this afternoon.”
“Not here. I’ll have Fernando call you to make arrangements for that. So I’m to assume you didn’t come all this way to deliver arms or to apologize for what happened in Pakistan?”
“No.”
“You’re looking for a favor.”
Samad sighed deeply. “One of our dear friends, a revered imam, has been stricken with lung cancer and needs to enter the United States for advanced medical treatment. He’s traveling with us, along with his two sons, two nephews, and a group of acolytes. I assure you he is no terrorist, only a poor dying soul who needs the best medical help we can find for him. The university in Houston has the number-one-ranked cancer center. We want to bring the imam there. But we need your help. You see, because of his religious beliefs and questionable funding from Arab states, his name is on the U.S. terrorist list and also on the international no-fly list. If you would help us get him and his party to Houston, we would be eternally grateful.”
Another servant appeared at the table and set before Samad a tray with some toast, jam, breakfast cereal, and coffee. The interruption was awkward, as he was trying to read the reaction on Rojas’s face.
Samad thanked the woman, then glanced up at Rojas, who was staring hard at his glass of orange juice. He leaned toward the table and said, “I can’t help you.”
“But señor, this is a matter of life and death.”
“Indeed, it is.”
Rojas pushed back his chair, stood, walked away from the table, then returned, scratching his chin in thought. When he finally spoke again, his tone had grown much darker: “Can you imagine what would happen if your party were caught? Can you imagine that?”
“But we would not be caught, because we would rely upon your expertise to get us there.”
Rojas shook his head. “The United States is a sleeping dog. And as they say, we must let sleeping dogs lie. If we awaken that dog, then both you and I will suffer his wrath. We could be arrested, and our businesses would be ruined. I’ve made this very clear to Rahmani. You cannot use us to fight your jihad. You will never be able to use us for safe passage into the United States. I will never do anything to threaten the demand for our product, and both you and I understand that Americans are the number-one consumers of our product.”
“The imam will surely pass away without your help.”
“There’s too much to risk. The United States is already allocating millions more to protect its border. The drones that cause you so much trouble in Waziristan? Well, they’re flying them along the border, too. You have no idea how difficult it is for us right now, the length and breadth of our operation to evade them — and all of this while the dog is still asleep.”
Rojas’s expression neared implacable. There would be no changing his mind. Samad knew better than to push the issue now. “I understand your concerns. I’m disappointed by your decision, and we will have to tell the imam that we must look elsewhere for treatment.”
“That much I can help you with. I’ll have my office make some calls, and we’ll find you a cancer center that should meet all of the imam’s needs.”
“Thank you very much, señor.”
Rojas excused himself to take a phone call, and Samad sampled his breakfast. When the man returned to the table, he took a long pull on his orange juice, then said, “Samad, I’m still very troubled by this visit. I’m concerned that you and your group might do someth
ing rash. I’m going to call Mullah Rahmani and tell him the same thing I’m about to tell you — if you try to gain entry into the United States, our deal will be off. No one in Mexico will buy any of your opium. No one. I will shut down your business. In fact, when I’m finished, no one in the world will buy from you. I want you to think very carefully about that. What we have at this moment is something special. Ruining that to save one man is foolish. I don’t want to sound coldhearted. These are the facts.”
“Trust must be earned,” said Samad. “And I have not earned yours yet. But I will. You’ll see. So, please, do not worry about this anymore.”
“Good. Now, then, do you have a wife? Any children?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, because that call I just received was from my son. He’s off to a vacation with his girlfriend, and recently he’s been making me feel very old.” Rojas grinned, then took another pull on his juice.
Back at the Charleston Hotel, Samad met with Talwar and Niazi and gave them a summary of the meeting. They wore the same expression when he was finished.
“Ballesteros is loyal to Rojas. I don’t think he can be bought. So we’re going to cancel our plans to travel to Mexico with his help.”
“But Mullah Rahmani has ordered us—”
“I know,” Samad said, cutting off Talwar. “We’re still going to Mexico, but we need to get there without Ballesteros or anyone else associated with the cartel knowing what we’re doing now. I really thought we could get Rojas’s help, but I was wrong.”
“You said he threatened to end our arrangement.”
“He did, but I spoke to Rahmani on the way back here, and he told me he doesn’t care about Rojas or the Mexicans anymore. There will always be new buyers. If the Mexicans cannot help us with the jihad, then they, too, should be considered expendable.”
His lieutenants nodded, and then Niazi said, “We have a friend, I think, who can fly us to Costa Rica. Do you remember him?”
Samad grinned. “Very good. Yes, I remember. Call him now.”
They were going to the United States.
And Rojas had been right: They must let the sleeping dog lie …
So they could put a knife in its heart.
19 NEW ALLIANCES
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
Juárez, Mexico
Moore sat in the last pew on the right side, staring up at the stained-glass windows depicting images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Beams of light twinkling with dust motes shone down across the six-foot-tall brass crucifix that stood atop a marble pedestal. Sacred Heart was a modest-sized church in a run-down neighborhood on the outskirts of the city; it stood like an oasis of hope in a genuine slum of rusting cars and graffiti. The red carpet unfurling toward the candlelit altar had dark stains here and there, and Moore imagined those had come from blood and that the cleaners had been unable to remove them. There was no sacred ground, no line that could not be crossed. And it was no secret that the cartels had been blackmailing the local churches, extorting money and using priests and pastors as message bearers to their congregations: “This Sunday night all residents are urged to remain home. Do not go out on the street.” A hit was going down. Only two weeks prior, a grandmother who lived a mere three blocks from the church had thrown her sixteen-year-old grandson a birthday party. She had chosen to have the party at her house and not at the church or community center in the interest of safety. What she hadn’t known was that her grandson had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and that they had put a target on his back. Four gunmen from the Juárez Cartel had arrived at the party and begun firing. Thirteen had died, including an eight-year-old boy.
As Moore’s uneasiness grew, the icons that adorned the church’s back wall began to morph into images of demons, and now he imagined two men standing at the altar: a bearded man with a black turban, clutching an AK-47, and a shorter Mexican getting ready to pull the pin on a grenade. He closed his eyes, told himself to calm down, that the Agency knew exactly where he was, that Fitzpatrick had his back, and that these Sinaloa thugs were still as wary of him as he was of them. A knot began to twist in his stomach.
Earlier in the day, fat man Luis Torres had accompanied him to the bank, where he’d withdrawn another $50,000 in cash and had delivered it to him on the spot. The thug had been quite impressed, and it was amazing how his attitude changed in the face of bundled cash. The meeting with Sinaloa Cartel leader Zúñiga had been arranged, and Moore had been driven out to the church and told to wait for the man inside.
How many meetings like this had Moore attended? There was that night in Saudi Arabia when he’d spent thirteen hours waiting for an informant. He’d lived in a ditch in the Helmand Province for over a week in order to spend five minutes talking to an Afghan warlord. He’d spent nine days in the Somali jungle waiting for an Islamic militant to return to his jungle hideout. Too much waiting. Too much to ponder. He began thinking about God and the afterlife and Colonel Khodai and his young operative recruit, Rana, and all the other friends he’d lost. He thought of praying for their forgiveness. The mottled carpet in his mind’s eye turned to tile, and the candlelight dissolved into the harsh glare of the old briefing room aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson. American flags and seals of the U.S. Navy rose behind their commander.
“We will engage in a hydrographic recon of the Al Basrah Oil Terminal. The information we gather will be vital in the planning of tomorrow’s attack.”
Moore had become the Officer in Charge (OIC) of a SEAL platoon, with Carmichael as his assistant OIC, despite Carmichael’s identical rank of O-3, superior knowledge, and tenacity. The advantage Moore had in physical ability Carmichael made up for in tactical skills. He could memorize maps, mission plans, anything he viewed or read. He could get you in and out swiftly, safely, without ever consulting a GPS. They’d become a formidable pair, with reputations that preceded them.
“No glory in this one,” Carmichael said. “We go in and take pictures of an Iraqi oil platform. Whoop-dee-do.”
“Frank, I’m counting on you for the usual.”
He frowned. “Dude, you have to ask? I’ve had your back since BUD/S. What’s wrong?”
The knot twisted tighter in Moore’s stomach. “Nothing.”
“Mr. Howard?”
Moore snapped open his eyes and turned toward the church’s center aisle.
Ernesto Zúñiga was much shorter and slighter than his photographs led one to believe. His thinning hair was gelled straight back, and his sideburns were white at the roots. He had an unfortunate complexion, scarred heavily by acne, and the deep line from an old wound ran down from his left cheek and across his jaw. He was missing one earlobe. The file had said he was fifty-two, but Moore would have put him closer to sixty. He’d either dressed down so that he wouldn’t be noticed or simply wore polo shirts and jeans as a course of habit, but Moore grinned inwardly over how he stood in sharp juxtaposition to a narcissist like Dante Corrales from the Juárez Cartel. You could mistake Zúñiga for a guy selling bagged oranges on the street corner — and that might be how he preferred it.
“Señor Zúñiga, I appreciate you coming.”
“Don’t get up.” Zúñiga blessed himself, genuflected, and slid into the pew next to Moore. “The people pray every Sunday for an end to all the violence.”
Moore nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You can answer their prayers?”
“We both can.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Some say I’m the cause of the problem.”
“Not you alone.”
He shrugged. “It’s my understanding that you want to work out a deal.”
“We have the same goal.”
“You paid a lot of money for this meeting, so I suppose I will listen to you …for a few minutes.”
Moore nodded. “The Juárez Cartel is crushing your business. I know what they’ve done to you.”
“You know nothing.”
“They murdered yo
ur wife and sons. I know you’ve never gotten revenge for that.”
He grabbed Moore’s wrist and squeezed. “Do not talk about revenge in the house of God.”
“Then I’ll talk about justice.”
“What do you know? Have you ever lost anyone close to you, a young man like yourself? Do you know what real pain feels like?”
Moore braced himself, then finally said, “I’m not that young. And you have to believe when I say I know how you feel.”
Zúñiga made a face, then snorted. “You come here with your bullshit story about buying my property for your solar-panel company, and then you tell Luis you are an assassin, but you are just another scumbag DEA man from California or Texas trying to flip me. I have been doing this my entire life, and you try to play me for a fool? We will mail them your head, and then we’ll be done with this.”
“You’re wrong about me. If we work together, I promise you that neither you nor anyone in your operation will be touched. My group is much more powerful than any of your enemies.”
“There is nothing you can say, Mr. DEA Man, that will get me to help you. And leaving this church alive is going to cost you yet another fifty thousand.”
Moore smiled. “I don’t work for the DEA, but you’re right. I’m not interested in your properties, only your enemies, and I can promise you that the group I work for will not only pay you well, but we can establish a new joint venture for opium transport — just like the Juárez Cartel is doing now. Let’s be honest. People are not lining up in this church, reaching out a hand to help you — and it’s clear to us that you need help.”
