Against All Enemies mm-1

by Tom Clancy

  “I’ve done this thousands of times with many, many clients. No one has ever flown like that. Not even me. And you flew only three practice runs and then did that?”

  “I told you I was in the Navy.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You came much too close to the mountain. You waited much too long to pull your cord. I’m sorry, but I won’t take you up there again.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve already paid for two more days.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Moore. I can only work with people who want to come back. I don’t know what your problem is, but I won’t let you become mine. I’ll return your money.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Look, you are not the first one who’s come here looking for more than I can give. Get some help. Whatever is bothering you, I think you can get through it. This is not the way. I’m sorry.”

  Moore thought of bolting to his feet and letting the cocky long-haired asshole have it, but there was nothing but concern in the man’s eyes — and the guy wasn’t a kid, either, probably Moore’s age, and he probably had seen his share of emotionally damaged thrill-seekers also attempting to punish themselves.

  “How do you learn to forgive yourself?” Moore asked, realizing that he was speaking to a hillside in San Juan Chamula and not to a Norwegian daredevil.

  “When you’re ready to talk, come back to me. I want to hear your story. I’m an old man. I’m a good listener.”

  Maybe the old man Wazir, tucked tightly away in his compound in the tribal lands, did have an answer …

  The first booms from the fireworks were met by a roaring crowd, the crackling and popping like corn, as even then, at that precise moment, Moore’s cell phone rang.

  “Ready when you are, boss,” said Fitzpatrick.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on,” Moore said, shifting his rifle slightly to the right and watching as the front door opened and the older guy Moore assumed was Salou ventured out.

  “Maybe he wants to see the show,” said Fitzpatrick.

  “He needs to close that door; otherwise, we’re screwed.”

  Salou stood there, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, took a long drag, then stood there, staring off at the lights of the parade beyond.

  “Come on, come on,” Moore said, as another salvo of firecrackers exploded and echoed off the hillside. A few suppressed cracks from sniper rifles would easily be lost in the racket, but this fool was wasting the moment.

  “Oh, shit. You see him? You see Torres? What the fuck is he doing?” asked Fitzpatrick.

  Torres had rigged the two cars to explode and was supposed to detonate the explosives just after Moore and Fitzpatrick took out the guards with their sniper rifles. But now the fool was marching toward the front door of the house. A curious Salou took one last pull on his cigarette, then stepped down from the porch.

  “What the hell is he thinking?” asked Moore.

  “Wait a minute,” said Fitzpatrick, as Torres actually shook hands with Salou. “Son of a bitch. I think Torres knows this guy! Holy fucking shit. I think this might be a setup!”

  “Fuck this, then, fire, fire!” cried Moore, as Salou threw his arm over Torres’s shoulders and wheeled him around toward the house. That fat bastard had played them all, all right, and now he was going to tip off the Guatemalans. Maybe he, Zúñiga, and Salou had all struck a deal, cutting Moore’s group out of the negotiations.

  But then again, would Torres be stupid enough to act friendly when he knew Moore and Fitzpatrick were watching? Maybe he didn’t care anymore.

  Well, Moore would never find out—

  Because the fat man was the first guy he targeted, and the round took off the back of Torres’s head and sent him twisting around like an oil drum toppling off a cargo ship. He crashed to the ground and was lost in the darkness.

  Moore switched aim to his first guard, who was already on the move, rushing forward from a tree on the north side and scanning the hills. Moore had to track down, readjust his aim yet again, and finally fire, hoping the guy would literally run into his shot. Bingo. The round punched him squarely in the chest, the blood spraying as he was knocked onto his back — all within the span of a heartbeat.

  Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick’s rifle cracked despite the suppressor, and then it sounded once more. The DEA agent’s aim had better prove true, because they were not going to lose Sonia.

  They would not.

  Moore would die first. The decision had been made.

  True, he didn’t know the woman, but he could not bear what losing her represented. He reasoned, perhaps illogically, that, if he saved her, he saved part of himself. If he failed, he wasn’t sure what could be salvaged.

  Still holding his breath, he found his second guard and shot him twice as he was running alongside the house, back toward the front door.

  Just then, and without any explanation, since Torres had been the one carrying the remote detonators for the two cars, they exploded in succession, their front ends rising a meter off the ground, the fireballs mushrooming up into the night and casting the house in a flickering otherworldly glow.

  Whether Torres had remained alive long enough to blow the cars or had set them for remote timer, Moore wasn’t sure. He didn’t think the fat man was smart enough to deal with the timers and had shown him only the most rudimentary of setups, C-4 here, wire, remote here. Take your fat-ass thumb and push this button. Got it, knucklehead?

  Whatever the case, they needed those cars taken out, and the job was complete.

  “Let’s go!” Moore shouted across the hillside, drawing his pair of Glocks and breaking into a full-on sprint down the hill, with Fitzpatrick falling in beside him.

  They had changed into black utilities — pants and long-sleeved shirts — and now wore balaclavas and Kevlar vests, the latter of which Torres had balked at because he’d been unable to pull his protection over his massive man-boobs.

  As Moore hit the bottom of the hill, he saw Salou rushing back outside with a rifle in his grip. Behind him were Sonia and Miguel, whose legs had been freed but whose arms were still bound behind their backs. They were each being dragged by a pair of men, all armed with pistols. Without transportation and with the car fires raging and drawing attention away from the parade down below, Moore figured, the Guatemalan had only one avenue of escape: up the narrow road running directly east and away from the marketplace.

  Indeed, the group turned in that direction as Salou glanced back over his shoulder, spotted Moore, and shouted to his men.

  But Moore was already in the air, leaping toward a dirt mound ahead and firing with both pistols, the stench of gunpowder both familiar and welcome and making him grimace tightly. Salou had detached himself from the group, which was his final mistake. Even as the old Special Forces veteran leveled his AK-47 on Moore, he took two rounds in the chest, one in the neck, and a final one in the thigh that brought him to his knees, his rifle twisting to one side, his rounds stitching into the ground ten meters ahead of Moore.

  Whether there were any more men inside the house, Moore wasn’t sure, but they needed to know. “Take the house!” he told Fitzpatrick, as the two men holding Miguel shoved him toward Sonia, broke away, and dropped to the deck so they could return fire.

  The incoming drove Moore deeper into the mound before he could roll to his right and answer their shots. His first three rounds all missed. Shit. That’s what he got for firing with one hand, even though his first attack on Salou had been deadly accurate. He sat up a bit more, took aim, and hit the guy on the right, whose muzzle flash easily betrayed him — but he, too, got off a shot, which thumped barely six inches below Moore.

  Music from the parade wafted up from the valley, heavy drums and guitars and trumpets amid more pops and booms of fireworks, and for a few seconds, Moore wasn’t sure if the guys ahead were still firing at him.

  Either way, he launched himself up from the ground and began running toward the house, dr
opping in behind Fitzpatrick, his boots heavy on the earth, his breath uneven and raging in his ears.

  Miguel, Sonia, and the three guys left were hustling up the back road, as Moore had anticipated. He bolted around the house while Fitzpatrick rushed inside.

  Gunfire rattled and glass shattered. Damn it, Salou had left some men in the house. Fitzpatrick was on his own now. Moore came charging up the road, where the group was now darting toward another house near the top of the hill. Two old cars were parked along the street, and as Moore came rushing up along a rotting old fence, he heard Sonia begin to scream and curse at the men. The cars blocked Moore’s view.

  That was it. All he needed to hear. He couldn’t change what had happened that night on the oil platform, but maybe he could prevent the same thing from happening again. Sonia would not be left to die.

  Tensing with an anger that had been simmering since that fateful night, and with a heart swelling with rage over his inability to forgive himself, Moore charged at full tilt up the hill, toward the sound of the screaming, with the breath of a ghost on his back.

  As he rounded the cars, he saw that Sonia had broken away from one man and was being held only by a single guy, who now spotted Moore and put his pistol directly to Sonia’s head.

  The other two guys had their guns pointed at Miguel’s chest, and the young man was now crying and begging for his life.

  This wouldn’t be a standoff, a negotiation, a moment where he talked the men into surrendering because their boss was already dead and they had nothing left to gain, no. The dealmaking was over, the bets off.

  With the adrenaline pumping through his veins like molten lava, and with the years of training and experience he’d earned as both a Navy SEAL and a CIA operative — the hundreds of hours spent listening to instructors shout at him and direct him and reward him — Moore took in the entire situation in the better part of one second and reacted like the man he was: a combatant with the muscle memory for killing.

  Gritting his teeth, striking out at the guilt now personified as three members of a Guatemalan death squad, he looked at the guy holding Sonia and cried, “Hey!”

  The guy widened his eyes.

  Bang! Moore shot him in the head.

  That the other two guys would probably kill Miguel was of no concern. It was all about Sonia.

  That the Guatemalans decided to engage Moore instead of killing the kid was the kid’s good fortune.

  Moore fired his pistols, hitting each man in the chest. They staggered away from the kid, even as Moore nearly tripped back. He recovered his balance enough to lean forward, step toward the two thugs, and finish them with another round each. As his Glock went silent, police sirens clashed with the trumpeters of Carnival, and for just a few seconds, Moore paused, his head spinning, the adrenaline now making him feel as though his chest would explode.

  “Who are you?” cried Miguel.

  Moore answered him in Spanish: “I work for your father.” He reached into his hip pocket for a karambit, a hawk-billed blade whose edge curved like a slice of melon. He hurriedly cut Sonia’s bonds, then Miguel’s, then waved them over. “I have a car down below. Keys under the mat. It’s right down there. You get it. You take it. You get out of here and don’t look back. Go to the airport. Fly out. Now!”

  “Let’s go!” Sonia shouted to Miguel, then led him away.

  Moore stood there for a few seconds to regain his breath, then he holstered his pistols and raced back toward the house, leaping over Torres’s body to enter the living room, where he found Fitzpatrick lying on the floor with two gunshot wounds to his head.

  “Aw, fuck …Buddy, no way …”

  He dropped to his knees, but it was damned clear that the DEA agent was dead. He ripped off his balaclava and just remained there.

  A phone was ringing somewhere outside. Moore rose, shifted over to Torres’s body, and withdrew his cell from the fat man’s hip pocket. It was Zúñiga calling.

  “Hello?”

  “Luis, is that you?”

  “No, Señor Zúñiga, this is Señor Howard. I have very bad news. Luis and Flexxx are dead. Rojas’s son and his girl got away …”

  “What is this?” Zúñiga shouted. “You told me your group was very powerful!”

  “I’m coming back to Juárez. I need to meet with you.”

  “If you’re smart, you will not do that, Mr. Howard. You would not survive that meeting.”

  “Listen to me. We’re not done yet. I’ll call you when I get back up there.” Moore hung up, pocketed Torres’s phone, then jogged over to Salou’s body and fetched his phone as well. As he headed back into the house, he dialed Towers, told his boss what had happened.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here with Fitzpatrick’s body.”

  “Get up into the hills, due north. I’ve got an extraction team on the way.”

  He sighed. “Thank you.”

  Moore reached down and picked up Fitzpatrick’s body in a fireman’s carry. His eyes began to burn. “Hang on,” he whispered. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  He shifted outside and around the house as the damned sirens quickened his step. A car came roaring up, and two teenagers jumped out, gaping at the bodies.

  “I need help!” Moore cried, then reached into one holster and drew his Glock. “Which means I’m taking your car.”

  They lifted their palms and backed away. Moore opened the sedan’s rear door and lowered Fitzpatrick onto the seat. The boys could have jumped him then, but they were wise enough to read their futures in his expression. “Don’t worry,” he assured them. “You’ll get your car back.” He hopped in and floored it, the little engine whining and struggling to get them up the hillside road.

  28 INSOMNIO

  Villas Casa Morada

  San Cristóbal de las Casas

  Chiapas, Mexico

  The local police had thoroughly searched the hotel for Miguel and Sonia. They’d received digital pictures of the two, had printed them out, and had been questioning the hotel staff and guests. Dante Corrales had watched them from the car across the street, and he’d sent one of the four men who’d come with María into the hotel to learn more.

  “Have you seen these missing tourists?” they’d demanded.

  “No,” Corrales’s man had lied.

  Pablo was now seated to his right, María to his left, and his arm and shoulder were still throbbing as he ordered the driver to pull away.

  “Dante, if you won’t talk to Fernando, then I’m not sure what to do. They’ll hunt me down and kill me, too, along with those men.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Corrales lied. “Don’t worry. Fernando has never had contact with them, so I’ll take care of everything.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked María.

  “Just like I said. We’ll get the money from La Familia, and then we’ll call Salou. He has them. We’ll get them back, and all will be well.”

  “How will you explain it to Castillo?”

  “I’m thinking about that, but I’m sure he’s busy trying to figure out how he screwed up and let a shooter get so close to the boss.”

  Abruptly, the driver, who’d been listening to an AM news station, turned back and said, “Big shooting up in San Juan Chamula. Whole bunch of bodies up there.”

  “Do you think it’s them?” asked Pablo.

  Corrales’s heart sank. He checked his watch. “We have time to find out.” He called out to the driver, “Take us up there. Now!”

  The situation could not have become more confusing. When Corrales and his party arrived in the small town, they sent out another of the men, who returned with his report: It appeared military rebels had been killed. The police had cordoned off the area.

  “I looked for Raúl, like you said,” his man reported. “They pulled out a decapitated body, and the pants were khaki-colored, like you said. I think it was Raúl.”

  Corrales gritted his teeth and thumbed off his phone. Salou was not answering and might very w
ell be among the dead. Had Castillo’s men arrived and attacked Salou? If so, then why hadn’t he called Corrales?

  Now Corrales might need to call back La Familia, tell them he didn’t need the loan — which would piss them off even more than his original call had. He really did need to call Castillo, to at least get some closure on the situation.

  But not now. Not yet. He still hadn’t thought of what he’d say …

  “They’ll expect us to go to the airport,” he finally told the group. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t care if we drive all night. Head up north, up to Villahermosa. There’s another airport we’ve used in the past.”

  “I’m scared, Dante,” said María. “I’m very scared. I just want to go back home.”

  He wrapped his good arm around her and whispered, “I know, but I told you, this will all pass.”

  Corrales’s phone rang. Incoming call from Castillo. He should take it, find out the truth, and answer Castillo’s questions with lies: They attacked, and I don’t know why. Instead, he hid the screen from María and ignored the call.

  He closed his eyes and threw his head back on the seat. Those car fires outside the house up in Chamula had struck a chord, but now all Corrales wanted to do was sleep, sleep away all of his problems.

  The phone rang again. Castillo. He turned it off.

  So here they were, all because of a grave error: Corrales had assumed that Salou would be too intimidated to stand up to the all-powerful Juárez Cartel. Salou would allow himself to be ripped off and not retaliate for fear of a response. But Corrales was no veteran and had not accounted for the resolve of military men, a resolve he’d become excruciatingly familiar with now.

  During the drive back down from Chamula, Miguel had argued with Sonia that they should go directly to the police, but she worried about those officers being in bed with the men who’d captured them. She said they should do what his father’s soldier had told them and head to the airport. Their cell phones had been confiscated by their kidnappers, and Miguel thought the least they should do was stop so that he could call his father.