Against All Enemies mm-1

by Tom Clancy

  “Really?”

  “I was your age once. I wanted to save the world, but there is too much temptation all around us.”

  “No kidding! They pay us nothing. That’s why we can’t do anything. It’s just a crazy game, and we’re all wasting our time here. Wasting our time. What else can we do?”

  “The right thing,” he said. “Always the right thing. This is what God wants.”

  “God?”

  “Yes. I pray to God every day to save our country and save our Federal Police force. He will do it. We must have faith in him.”

  “There has to be a better way. I need to make more money than this. And I need to work with people I can trust. Can you help me do that?”

  He narrowed his gaze. “You can trust me …”

  Montana Restaurant and Bar

  Juárez, Mexico

  Johnny Sanchez had parked his rental car on Avenida Abraham Lincoln, which was just five minutes from the Cordova Bridge, in order to take his girlfriend, Juanita, to his favorite restaurant in Ciudad Juárez. The Montana’s Southwest-style interior featured dining on two levels and rich wood accents throughout. White linen tablecloths and scented candles did not go unnoticed by his date, and Johnny made sure they got a table near the gas fireplace. El capitán de meseros (the captain of the waiters) was a young man named Billy, and Johnny had become good friends with him and tipped Billy’s team of waiters quite generously. In exchange, Billy slipped Johnny mixed drinks and oversized portions when he ordered. Johnny asked for his usual, the New York club steak, while Juanita, who’d recently dyed her hair blond and gotten a rather aggressive boob job, would have a taco salad.

  As they waited for their entrées, Juanita tugged nervously on the straps of her red dress and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not here. You’re out there somewhere.” She lifted her chin toward the window and the bridge beyond.

  “I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t tell her that his mother’s godson was a sicario and that he was now working for the CIA. That would probably ruin their dinner.

  She frowned and blurted out, “I think we should leave Mexico.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t like it here anymore.”

  “You just got here.”

  “I know …I came for you. It’s always about you and your writing. But what about me?”

  “You said you were going to dance.”

  “You want me to show my body to other men?”

  “You paid enough for it.”

  “That’s no reason.”

  “No, but if it makes you happy …”

  She leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you understand? I want you to say no. I want you to be jealous. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I can’t think straight anymore. And you’re right. We need to leave Mexico.” His voice cracked. “But we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Señor Sanchez?”

  Johnny turned at the approach of two men wearing expensive silk shirts and pants. They were both in their mid-twenties, neither more than five feet tall, and if Johnny had to guess at their nationalities, he would say Colombian or Guatemalan.

  “Who are you?” Johnny asked.

  One man lowered his voice and gazed unflinchingly at Johnny. “Señor, we need you to come with us. It’s a matter of life and death.” That was not a Mexican accent. These guys were definitely from South America, somewhere …

  “I asked you a question,” Johnny repeated.

  “Señor, please come now, and no one will be hurt. Not you. Not her. Please.”

  “Johnny, what the fuck is this?” asked Juanita, lifting her voice and thrusting out her chest — which drew the attention of both men.

  “Who do you work for?” asked Johnny, his pulse beginning to race.

  The man looked at him. “Let’s go, señor.”

  Oh, no, Johnny thought. Dante must already know I’ve been tapped by the CIA. They’ve come to kill me.

  Johnny’s gun was back in the hotel room. He looked to Juanita, then leaned over and gave her a deep and passionate kiss.

  She pushed him away. “What’s going on?”

  “Come on, baby. We need to go with them.” He stood, trembling, as the waiter came over with his steak. “I’ll take that to go,” he said.

  The two men nodded at him.

  And that’s when Johnny grabbed Juanita’s hand and made a mad dash for the door.

  He expected to hear some shouting and/or the sound of gunfire as the men who’d wanted to abduct them decided they would have to die instead.

  But he and Juanita made it outside and into the parking lot, and when he whirled around, they were not being followed.

  “Johnny!” cried Juanita. “What do they want?”

  Before he could open his mouth, two small sedans roared up and cut them off. More men — at least six — got out, all similarly dressed, all about the same height and age.

  Johnny lifted his palms. It was over. I’m sorry, Dante.

  They took Juanita by the throat and shoved her into one car, grabbed him and threw him into the other. Johnny’s head hit the backseat as the driver screeched off, and sometime after they left the parking lot, perhaps a minute or two later, he had become so nervous that he simply fainted.

  Johnny awoke some time later, his arms and legs bound against some kind of a pole that he realized was part of a car lift. He was inside an auto-body shop, surrounded by vehicles in various stages of assembly and repair. Dim light filtered in from a bank of windows to his right, with two large steel garage doors rising directly ahead.

  The two men who were in the restaurant stood before him, an HD video camera clutched by the slightly leaner man. Johnny sighed. They’d just kidnapped him and were holding him for ransom. He’d make the video. Corrales would pay. Everything would be all right.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he said through another sigh. “I’ll say whatever you want. Where’s Juanita? Where’s my girlfriend?”

  The camera guy glanced away from the tiny screen he’d been studying and shouted across the room, “Are you finished yet?”

  “Yes!” came a voice.

  And then Johnny saw them: two more men wearing black protective jumpsuits, the kind used while painting cars, although they hadn’t donned the headgear. The suits were stained darkly on the arms and hips. One man carried a yellow power tool with a narrow blade extending from the front, a reciprocating saw. Johnny had been to many accident scenes as a local newspaper reporter a few years back, and he’d become familiar with the tools first responders used to extricate people trapped in their cars.

  The man with the saw revved the tool’s engine, and as he stepped closer, Johnny realized that the saw was stained with …blood.

  “Look, no need for threats. I’ll do what you say.”

  With a snort, the guy with the saw rolled his eyes and moved forward.

  “Wait!” Johnny cried. “What do you want from me? Please!”

  “Señor,” said the man with the camera. “We just want you to die.”

  23 BUITRES JUSTICIEROS

  Villas Casa Morada

  San Cristóbal de las Casas

  Chiapas, Mexico

  Miguel Rojas was awakened at 6:41 a.m. by an aching desire. He rolled over and let his hand move slowly up Sonia’s leg. She stirred and whispered, “Always in the morning with you. Wasn’t last night enough?”

  “It’s nature,” he said.

  “No, it’s just you.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s your fault, really. I can’t stop thinking about, you know …”

  “Well, there’s more to life.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Good. I understand how men are, and it’s okay, but I worry about you losing respect for me.”

  “Never.”

  “You say that now.” She draped an arm over her head. “Sometimes I wish …”

  He frowned at he
r. “What?”

  “I wish everything in my life had been different.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “You might be the perfect man for me. But life is complicated, and I just worry for us. I wish everything had been different before I met you.”

  “What was wrong with your life before that? You have great parents who love you very much. You’ve done very well.”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying, really.”

  “Is it the money? Because—”

  “No, it has nothing to do with that.”

  He tensed. “Then what is it? Another guy back home? That’s it. You’re still in love with another guy.”

  She began to laugh. “No.”

  He gently grabbed her by the chin. “Do you love me?”

  “Too much.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She closed her eyes. “It means that sometimes it hurts.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t. What can I do?”

  “Just kiss me.”

  He did, and one thing led to another. He wondered if Corrales and the others in the next room could hear them. She groaned softly, but they tried their best to remain discreet.

  They hadn’t done much during their first day in the old city, spending most of their time around the villa and getting accustomed to the area. Miguel had chosen to stay in a new place and to live like a tourist, rather than exploit his father’s connections and stay in the same old boring mansions. He’d found them a quaint, European-run boutique hotel, and their first-floor villa had a kitchen, dining table, sitting area, and bedroom with bath. Murals and Mayan textiles adorned the walls, with a wood-burning fireplace opposite their bed. While the room had no air conditioning, they didn’t need it. Outside was a veranda with chairs, so they could sit and watch people in the lushly landscaped courtyard, where a hammock lay beneath the long limbs of a shade tree. A young couple had been lying on the hammock and kissing deeply. That image had been enough to drive him and Sonia back into their bedroom for a quick round of sex only hours after they’d arrived.

  As Miguel rolled off of Sonia, the cockerels began their morning announcements: Indeed, the sun was rising. It felt as though they were on a farm, but Miguel enjoyed their racket. This was semirural Mexico, and it was just he and Sonia and this beautiful little city to explore. The concierge had told them that many writers, artists, academics, and archaeologists stayed at the hotel and spent their days both exploring the city and driving out thirty minutes to the ancient Mayan city known as Palenque, where the ancient temples and palaces with their broad staircases and partially crumbling walls drew thousands of visitors each year. Miguel had been to the ruins only once, as a boy, so he thought he’d like to explore them again.

  First, however, they’d go shopping, which he knew would make Sonia very happy. They were only a ten-minute walk down the hill to the louder central streets. Miguel rose and moved to the window, staring out past the courtyard at the highlands, draped in long shadows, the green mountains still dark and forming a moonscape along the horizon.

  Farther away, the streets seemed to writhe their way along the hillsides, and the brightly colored houses — some green, purple, and yellow, and all with red tiled roofs — lay in tight clusters along those narrow paths. Beyond them, seated atop a great shoulder of rock, was an ornate cathedral painted in gold, and several mansions whose towering wrought-iron gates lifted to some four meters. Sonia had remarked that the city seemed more like a theme park than a real place because it was so brightly colored and impeccably clean. Miguel had told her that the people here were exceedingly proud of their Mayan heritage, and you could find Mayan influences throughout everything in the city: from the architecture to the food to the interior design. Miguel’s father often said that San Cristóbal reminded him more of Guatemala than of Mexico.

  “When is Carnival?” asked Sonia, sitting up in the bed.

  He smiled at her. “They’ll start tonight. But we have to go to the village of San Juan Chamula first. I want you to see the church there. Then tomorrow, the ruins.”

  A knock came at the door.

  Sonia frowned, and Miguel crossed the room and leaned toward the door before opening it. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, sir, Corrales. Is everything all right?”

  He swung around, faced Sonia, and nearly burst out laughing, as did she.

  “Yes, Corrales, we’re okay. Go back to bed. We’ll be having breakfast at eight a.m., thank you.”

  “Okay, sir. Just checking.”

  Miguel rushed back toward the bed and took a flying leap onto it, nearly knocking Sonia off the other side. She began giggling as he swung her around and kissed her deeply.

  From the balcony of a hotel room around the corner, Moore watched Rojas’s son kiss his girlfriend. The kid had pushed open the curtains and given him a clear view of their naked forms splayed across the bed.

  Moore lowered his binoculars and turned back to Fitzpatrick and Torres. The fat man was lying in his bed, fast asleep. Fitzpatrick was typing fiercely on his laptop computer, sending an e-mail to Zúñiga.

  “Must be nice to be young,” Moore said, sighing over his own lost years.

  “They’re pretty horny, huh?” said Fitzpatrick. “So what do we got in the way of security? Corrales and his two flunkies? That’s it?”

  “I don’t see anyone else. He’ll stay close and leave the other two to trail. We need to take them out first. I want Corrales alive — and there’s no negotiation there. We have to take him alive.”

  “Agreed.” Then Fitzpatrick cocked a thumb over his shoulder at Torres. “What about him?” he whispered.

  “Be cool. He’s the least of our worries right now …”

  Moore’s smartphone vibrated with a text message from Gloria Vega:

  We found Sanchez and his girlfriend outside the Monarch strip club. They were butchered. Gomez thinks the Sinaloas are responsible because of where we found the bodies. Can you follow up?

  He thumbed in a reply: I’m on it.

  Then he shared the news with Fitzpatrick, who shook his head. “No way. We would’ve known about that hit.”

  “Let me call Zúñiga.”

  Torres stirred and looked up at them. “Why are you two bastards up this early?”

  Moore chuckled. “Because, fat boy, we’re on a mission to do more than puke in a bag.”

  Torres made a face. “My stomach still hurts. But when I feel better, I’m going to sit on you.”

  “Hey, dude,” called Fitzpatrick, gaining Torres’s attention. “We need to make our move today. Let them settle in, get comfortable, get complacent, then bam. So you’d better get going.”

  “Exactly,” said Moore. “I think we’ll do it at their villa. Nice controlled environment. We track ’em throughout the day, and then when they get back home, all tired and ready to bang, we take Miguel and the girl — but we need to get Corrales and his boys first.”

  “Listen to me, gringo,” said Torres. “I’m in charge here. But I like your plan. However, once we get the boy and his girl, we will kill the girl in front of him. This way he knows we mean business.”

  Moore looked to Fitzpatrick, who said, “We might get more money if we have both of them. And we can negotiate with Rojas to open up the tunnels.”

  “We’re here to kill Rojas and everyone around him. Señor Zúñiga made this very clear to me — and I’m making it very clear to you …”

  Fitzpatrick glared at him.

  “No,” said Moore. “We keep the girl for extra leverage. Now what about the other guys? Are they coming down?”

  Torres cleared his throat. “They should be in Guadalajara by this afternoon.”

  “Good.” Moore dialed Zúñiga but was sent straight to voice mail. “Call me back, señor.”

  “Hey, let’s get cleaned up and get outside,” said Fitzpatrick. “They might be leaving soon.”

  Corrales sat at the breakfast table with Raúl, Pablo, Miguel, and Son
ia, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of the woman. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen, much more so than his Maria, and while he knew that staring would get him in trouble once again, he no longer cared. It was clear that the two of them had been loud for his benefit, and so he wouldn’t make it easy for them.

  “Thank you for checking on us this morning,” said Miguel, between bites of his cereal. “It’s good to know you’re providing such good security.”

  “Gracias. That’s our job.”

  “Is it your job to stare at my girlfriend’s tits?”

  “Miguel,” Sonia said, and gasped.

  “Well, look at him. He’s drooling like a fucking thug over there.” Miguel rose from the table, crossed around it, then came up behind Corrales and growled in his ear, “You better keep your distance today. I don’t want to see you once. Not once. You protect us; that’s fine. But I don’t want to know you are there. Do you understand me, you fucking pig?”

  Corrales tensed and shook with the desire to reach for his pistol and cap this spoiled bitch. But he sat there and took it. “Yes, señor. You won’t see us, but we’ll be there …”

  “You like your job, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do what I say and you’ll keep it.”

  Miguel moved back to his seat. “I’m so sorry, Sonia. I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “It’s okay. Corrales,” Sonia said, pursing her lips, “I know you’re trying to do your job. I am sorry about all of this.”

  He smiled at her: a wolf’s grin.

  Within an hour they were walking the streets of San Cristóbal, with Corrales ordering Raúl and Pablo to fan out and keep a half a block away. Pablo called on his cell phone to say, “This is not good. If something happens, we are too far from them.”

  “You know what, Pablo? At this point—”

  Corrales did not finish his sentence. Another call was coming in from his friend Hernando Chase, who managed the Monarch strip club. “Dante, some very bad news. Johnny was killed. They killed his girlfriend, too. They dumped the bodies outside the club. They must have tortured them, then chopped them up with a saw. They left a note, and I got it before I called the police.”