by Tom Clancy
Damn, he needed to get to a hospital.
Miguel clutched the pistol and shook his head in disbelief at Sonia. Her arm was covered in blood, but she was unfazed by that. Their would-be kidnapper lay on the ground with a geyser still erupting from his neck.
She wrenched open the door, but the sound of men running up the stairs sent them back inside, down the hallway.
“This way!” she cried.
They hung a sharp left and found another stairwell. This time he tugged open the door.
Others were charging upward.
“How many are there?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“Too many,” she answered.
“They’re going to trap us,” he said.
She bit her lip, turned back, then went running toward the nearest hotel-room door and gave it a sharp kick with the bottom of her bare foot. She cursed in pain. The door did not give.
“Get back,” he cried, then fired two rounds into the doorjamb, shattering some of the wood. He wrenched the door back and kicked it open. They hustled inside.
The tiny room reeked of cleaning products, the bed perfectly made. No suitcase. Empty room. Good.
“They’ll see the door,” she said, rushing to the window.
“Sonia, you’re amazing. You’re not hysterical.”
“I am. I’m just hiding it,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Come on, we have to get out.”
“You killed a guy back there,” he said.
“Oh my God, I know.” She tugged back the long curtains, threw open the window’s latch, then slit open the screen with her knife. They looked down into the alley below, about a five-meter drop.
“Tie the sheets!” she shouted. “Come on! Tie the sheets.”
“We’re not going out that way,” he said. “I have a gun, come on.”
“Forget it. There’s too many of them. We have to keep moving,” she said.
He shook his head.
And just as she rushed toward the bed to tug away the bedspread, the door burst open.
Miguel fired at the first guy who entered, striking him in the stomach, but the second guy moved in very fast and held his pistol on Sonia. “Shoot again, señor. And she dies.”
The gunfire coming from within the hotel, and the police sirens from not one, not two, but at least three units, drove Moore farther back from the hotel and toward the corner, where he huddled behind an old Volkswagen Beetle and returned the cell-phone call to Towers.
After Moore had given the man a ten-second capsule summary of what was happening, Towers swore under his breath and said, “I’ve got bad news for you, buddy. Very bad news …”
That was exactly how Moore’s Navy SEAL buddy Carmichael had put it only seconds after the platform’s lights had gone dark. He’d shouted, “We’ve been spotted!” Then had added, “Very bad news! We’ve been spotted!”
Carmichael had taken his three other SEALs up and onto the platform to try to defuse the explosives that the Revolutionary Guard troops had rigged there. Moore’s men were hanging beneath the pilings, and Moore knew that he needed to send off those guys already in the water. He ordered them to take the SDV and get out, which they reluctantly did. Then he called to his task-unit commander to get an RHIB (rigid-hull inflatable boat) sent from the Iraqi patrol boat that was in truth being operated by the SEALs. The Zodiac would carry them out of there much faster than the SDV. Only problem was, they’d need a diversion to keep the troops on the platform busy while they took off.
“Mako Two, get your team in the water! Drop!”
“Roger that!” hollered Carmichael, the sound of gunfire cracking between his words.
Moore watched and waited as one man hit the waves, then a second.
Where were the others? “Mako Two, only see two guys?”
“I know! I know! Six has been hit. I gotta get him out!”
Many voices broke over the radio, and more gunfire crackled through, like static punctuating the fear voiced by his men, and then, for a moment that seemed like all the years he spent grieving, there was only the sound of Moore’s breathing. And then …
Towers was still talking to him. “Moore, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Listen to me, and listen good. Seems your agency has always had a keen interest in Mr. Jorge Rojas — so much so that they’ve had an agent working deep cover for over a year now. It’s a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.”
“Wait a minute. What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s the kid’s girlfriend, bro. She’s CIA. Recruited in Europe a long time ago. She’s a blue badger like you. And now you’re telling me you’ve just lost her to some other guys?”
Moore gritted his teeth. “Holy shit. But no, no, no. We haven’t lost them yet. I’ll get back to you.”
Surprised? Moore wasn’t. Annoyed? Frustrated beyond belief? Ready to kill someone who sat behind a desk and had failed to tip off his bosses? Of course. Task Force Juárez’s mission file had been either ignored or not delivered to the right desk to allow for a coordinated and concerted effort on behalf of all agents working on the case. This wasn’t the first time late or fragmented information resulted in a communication breakdown in one of Moore’s operations, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Breakdowns between agencies such as the FBI and the CIA were far more common, which made this revelation all the more aggravating.
He hung up as Fitzpatrick and Torres turned the corner in their little white rental car. He climbed onto the backseat. “See the blue car up there. Hold back. If they’re not dead, they’ll be coming out the door right there.”
Lo and behold, they did, both Miguel and Sonia, escorted by a pair of men holding them at gunpoint. They climbed into the sedan, and the car sped off.
“I’ll wait a few seconds, then follow,” said Fitzpatrick.
“Keep your distance,” Moore warned him.
“Corrales has a lot of enemies,” Torres said. “His enemies need to be our friends, but they’re not. They’ve stolen our cash cow!”
“Yeah, ain’t that our bad luck,” said Moore.
“We’ve got nothing,” Torres spat. “What the hell will I tell the boss?”
“Easy does it, big boy. I told you the group I work for is very powerful, much more powerful than a bunch of fucking punks with guns.”
Moore looked at Fitzpatrick, who almost cracked a smile.
“If we lose them, someone will have to pay for this,” Torres warned. “And it won’t be me.”
Moore snorted. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kick your fat ass out of this car and make you walk …tough guy.”
Torres smirked and leaned forward. “Just don’t lose them,” he told Fitzpatrick.
Look, I demand to know where you’re taking us,” said Miguel. “If this is just a simple kidnapping, my father will pay the money and we’ll be done with this by the end of the day, all right?”
The driver, whose dark complexion was hard to read as they passed into the shadows of the taller buildings, glanced back and smiled. “Okay, boss, whatever you say.”
“Who are you guys, and where are we going?”
“If you keep talking, we will put a gag in your mouth,” said the driver.
Sonia put a hand on Miguel’s, while the guy in the passenger’s seat kept his pistol aimed at her. Another carful of men had joined them, and they were following.
“Miguel, it’s okay,” Sonia said. “They won’t tell us anything, so don’t waste your energy. Let’s focus on staying calm. Everything will be all right.”
“How do you know?” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “They’re going to torture us and kill us. Fuck this shit! Fuck it. We need to get out!”
“No,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll be okay. They just want money. This is just what your father was afraid of. I just wish Corrales had done a better job.”
“I’m going to kil
l him when I see him.”
She shrugged. “He might be dead already.”
Corrales had managed to call the hotel and got Ignacio on the phone. Ignacio, in turn, had run off from the front desk and had found María. Corrales babbled somewhat incoherently to her, told her he needed her and some guys to come down and pick him up. Said he was going to find a hospital, that he’d been shot.
He staggered out of the building, walked about a block, then didn’t remember anything else.
“There you go, Dante. There you go,” said Pablo.
He flickered open his eyes, realized he was back in his hotel room, and there was a man he didn’t recognize standing at Pablo’s side. This man had long gray hair, a thin beard, and thick glasses.
“This is going to be very expensive,” said the man.
“Dante, he’s a doctor, and he’s going to get the bullet out of your shoulder — no questions asked.”
“How did you get away?”
Pablo breathed deeply. “I got one of them. I don’t know what happened to Raúl. Then I found you on the street, just in time, too — but don’t worry about that now. He’s going to give you some drugs to put you out. Then you’ll feel better. I talked to María and some of the boys. They’re flying down to get us like you asked.”
“We can’t leave. We lost the boss’s son!”
“Easy, easy. We’ll find them.”
“No, we won’t. The fucking Guatemalans have them!”
Pablo recoiled. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t pay them, and now I have to tell Castillo what’s happened. He’ll have me killed.”
“No, don’t tell him anything. I’ll take care of it. Rest easy now, my friend. Everything will be okay.”
But it wouldn’t, and as the old man put a mask across Corrales’s face, Corrales saw the fires of his youth rage once more, and his parents, their faces burning, the skin melting off, walked out of their old hotel, and his father raised a finger at him and said, “I told you never to join the cartel. They killed us. And now they will kill you.”
25 IF I RETREAT, KILL ME
San Juan Chamula
Chiapas, Mexico
Moore, Fitzpatrick, and Torres followed the blue car and a green-and-white van that seemed to be leading the car, out of San Cristóbal de las Casas and into the foothills, toward the small town of San Juan Chamula, about ten kilometers away. It was there, Moore had read, that the indigenous Tzotzil Mayan people were preparing for an early-summer carnival that attracted tourists. Dancing, singing, live music, fireworks, and a long parade through the village would not only entertain visitors but bring much-needed revenue into the otherwise poor town.
Torres repeatedly ordered Fitzpatrick to get closer, and Moore struck down those commands, saying that if they were spotted, the hostages could be killed — and there’d be no cash cow for Señor Zúñiga, nor any negotiations to open up border tunnels for use by the Sinaloas.
What neither Torres nor Fitzpatrick knew was that Miguel’s girlfriend, one Sonia Batista (whose real name was Olivia Montello), had a chip embedded in her shoulder that would allow the Agency to track her position. Moore needed to find a moment away from Torres when he could fill in Fitzpatrick on what was happening; for now all these two guys needed to know was that they should keep their distance. In the meantime, Towers and the rest of the Agency were doing everything they could to positively identify these men, yet Moore and Towers agreed that they were more than likely Avenging Vultures, the Guatemalan death squad that had, for some reason, double-crossed the Juárez Cartel. Moore and the others were, after all, just a few hundred kilometers from the Guatemalan border, and the relationship between the Guatemalans and the Juárez Cartel was well documented. What had soured between the groups Moore did not know, but these guys weren’t your young, dumb, off-the-shelf thugs. Back at the first briefing, Towers had said these guys made the sicarios look tame. Many of them were ex-military and/or had been members of a Guatemalan Special Forces group known as the Kaibiles, whose motto was: If I advance, follow me. If I stop, urge me on. If I retreat, kill me.
Even more notable was their ability to exercise great reserve. They dressed like civilians, carried only pistols, and had kept their operation simple thus far. But that wouldn’t last, Moore assumed. Not now, when they were ready to negotiate and expected retaliation. That thought chilled Moore as he considered Sonia being touched, abused, and tortured by them. He shuddered.
Moore tugged out his smartphone, and within a minute he was studying a satellite image of the town with Sonia’s GPS beacon marked as a slowly shifting blue dot superimposed over the road.
“You looking at maps now?” asked Torres, leaning over Moore’s shoulder.
“No, porn.”
“Why do you have to be such a wiseass?”
Moore snorted. “Don’t make me answer that.” The fat man was already taxing his patience.
Another data screen on the town indicated that Chamula had its own police force and that no outside military or law enforcement were allowed inside; moreover, tourists were, for the most part, forbidden to take pictures while visiting. Very strict rules indeed, but what if the Vultures had a deal with the local police? What if they’d planned this capture all along and now had a perfect safe house from which to conduct their kidnapping negotiations? That they were not driving back toward Guatemala made that even more probable.
Fitzpatrick guided them along a poorly paved road that snaked its way up near the church of San Juan, a modest structure of dusty white walls, green parapets, and an ornate tile archway. Moore told Fitzpatrick to park along a row of tourist cars and taxis opposite fifty or more booths shaded by colorful umbrellas. Overhead flapped long lines of pennons that swooped down from the church’s steeples. This was the marketplace, and several hundred people were weaving their way through the maze of tables. Here much of the fruit was stacked on blankets spread across the grassy field, with piles of citrus lined up like bowling pins.
“We can’t park now,” barked Torres, pointing at the fleeing cars. “We’ll lose them!”
“I’m tracking the car, asshole,” said Moore, showing him the smartphone. “GPS beacon. I planted it on them.”
“When did you do that?”
“Before you got to me,” Moore lied. “Now shut up. Let’s get out. Behind the church is a graveyard. We’re going into the hills out back.” Moore used his thumb and index finger to zoom in on the touch screen. The kidnappers came to a stop outside a small cluster of houses just west of the graveyard. The hills would make for a perfect observation post.
“Hey, why you go along with him so easy?” Torres asked Fitzpatrick.
“Because he’s good. He tracked them. Did you? Without him, we would’ve lost them already.”
Torres muttered a string of epithets, then heaved himself out of the car. He lifted his camera, thinking he’d pretend to do the tourist thing, when Moore slapped down his hands.
“What the hell?”
“No pictures here — I told you. They don’t like it. Let’s move.”
From the trunk they retrieved three heavy backpacks bulging with gear that included three sniper rifles disassembled and stowed in their cases.
They hiked up a narrow rocky trail with deep cuts from the summer rains. Torres tripped twice over these cuts as they began to take in the graveyard with its white, blue, and black wooden crosses flanked by lanky pines and the T-shaped power and phone lines. Below lay the ruins of San Sebastián Church, whose steeples were long gone and whose yellowed and crumbling walls were spanned by deep cracks like veins. The upper edges near the rooftops were draped in moss and mold.
Once they reached the summit of the tallest hill, Moore led them to a cluster of pines, where they crouched down. He activated his smartphone’s camera and thumbed on the ARS (augmented reality system) app that would turn the phone into a computer-enhanced imaging device by superimposing wire frames over the images and displaying data boxes that indicated the
size and range of various structures and targets within his field of view. Additionally, the system tapped into real-time streaming data on the house where they’d taken Sonia and Miguel. Moore knew the geeks back home were all focusing on that house as well, and within thirty seconds he’d have that imagery. He clipped a Bluetooth receiver into his ear, then switched it on.
“Torres, you see that blue house down there, the one right next to the taller beige one?” Moore asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s where they have Miguel and Sonia. Looks like they’re trying to do the same thing we planned, so we don’t have much time. They might be on the phone with Rojas right now.”
“Then it’s over. How can we say we’ve taken his son hostage when these guys have already done it?”
Moore grinned crookedly. “I guess we shouldn’t worry about that until we rescue the hostages — so we can kidnap them ourselves.”
“Why don’t we just wait for Rojas to show up?” asked Fitzpatrick.
“There’s no guarantee he will. Our negotiations are contingent upon him making a personal appearance, but who knows what these guys want,” Moore pointed out. “Could just want the money and don’t care who brings it.” He looked to Torres. “You got the binoculars in your pack? Just keep an eye on that house for now. Flexxx?”
Fitzpatrick hoisted his brows at the sound of his nickname.
“I want to set you up on the east side over there so you can keep an eye on their little police station. I’ll show you a good spot.”
Moore waved over the man, and they hiked between the trees for a minute until they were out of Torres’s earshot.
In a rapid-fire report, Moore told the DEA agent everything.
