by Peter Nealen
Rangel nodded with a bit more self-assurance this time. “Everyone in Mexico knows not to get caught taking pictures of El Narco.” He gave Hank and Torres a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it.” He dashed out past Torres, who half-turned to watch him go.
“Young kid.” He turned back toward Hank.
“Too damn young, but that’s the world we live in.” Hank didn’t really want to talk about it. Sure, that’s a nice, glib line. Sounds great when you put it next to Arturo’s mangled corpse, don’t it?
“I’m not talking shit.” Torres shrugged as he pulled his helmet off. He and his section had gone a bit more high-profile and were still in their full gear with their weapons slung. Hank wasn’t sure that was a good idea; he’d have to have words with Torres about that. The whole point of this op was not to make it look like the gringos had come south of the border to go after the cartels. “I grew up down here. Had to grow up fast, too.” He nodded toward the door. “That kid’s a lot older where it counts than most of the little pinche pendejos rioting up north.”
“Well, let’s hope he’s smart enough to keep his head down.”
***
“Damn. That’s a lot of Soldados.”
Rangel had delivered. Hank, Torres, Spencer, West, and Torres’s assistant section leader, a greyhound-lean former LA cop named Dallas, were gathered around the kid’s phone as Hank scrolled through the photos. West was kind of there by default; he’d fallen in as a regular squad member lately, but he was senior enough that he kept coming to the leadership powwows.
It turned out that Rangel’s gut feeling had been right. He might not have been able to articulate it in his description, but the men hanging around the Cybertrucks—a couple of them still on the mounted heavy guns—were all wearing the red-and-black armbands.
“And in a fucking hotel, no less.” Torres didn’t sound optimistic. And Hank couldn’t say he especially disagreed.
The Soldados appeared to have taken over the Hotel Santa Fe, right on the 45, only about five hundred yards from the industrial park.
It was a significantly less than ideal target.
“Do we even want to try this?” Spencer was looking down at the photos pensively. “We’ve got a pretty decent strike force with sixty of us, but clearing a hotel, before a QRF could get there from five hundred yards away, and getting off target before we can be identified as somebody besides the Vengadores… That’s a hell of a tall order.”
Hank was thinking the same thing. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but try to figure it out. Because whoever was in there, the Soldados considered them important. And if they hit the Hotel Santa Fe while an Aztlanista bigshot was in there, and got out without being identified, it might serve as the spark they’d hoped for all by itself.
But none of it would work if they got caught in the act. The key was to make each faction think that the other was going after them. And he had a suspicion that even if the Vengadores knew that they weren’t the ones killing Soldados, they’d be more than willing to take advantage.
He realized he was banking on the predictability of professional psychopaths, but the truth was, few of these thugs really were as chaotic as they pretended to be. They had their own patterns of thought, and they weren’t all that difficult to figure out.
“Misdirection.” Dallas was a soft-spoken man, which struck Hank as odd for LAPD. “What if we staged a few diversionary attacks, maybe in different parts of town?”
“Timing would be a bitch.” Torres was thinking about it, but clearly wasn’t convinced. “We’d need all hands on deck for that clusterfuck, and that means all the teams out working the diversion would need to make their hits and run like hell to get into position to hit the hotel.” He shook his head. “I mean, it might be doable, but fuck, it’s going to be tight. All it’d take would be one element out of position, one wrong target…”
Spencer was shaking his head even more emphatically, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “No, diversionary attacks won’t work. Not the way we’re hoping.” He pointed to the map on the floor next to the phone. “The hits we ran last night were on small groups who’d spread out of their core secure areas. And nobody came running to help them after we killed Ochoa and Menendez.” He sighed. “The cartels don’t own this city, not the way we thought when we rolled in. They’re using it as a base of operations, but I think there’s a reason why they roll heavy every time they leave that industrial park.” He stabbed an ebony finger at the park on the map. “That’s their secure area. The rest of town is debatable, at best. Which means there aren’t enough of them out in the rest of town to create a sufficient diversion if we hit ‘em. Not far enough out. And look what happened when word got around about the convoy we ‘ambushed.’ Nobody did a damned thing except beef up their security.”
“Cole’s right.” Hank stared at the map, his mind going a hundred miles an hour. He thought he’d seen it, now. “Diversionary attacks aren’t an option. Especially since we’d be hard pressed to make it look like a Vengadore hit instead of a popular uprising. We’re trying to insulate the locals from the fallout here. It’s not like the SASO ops we’ve been running back home, where we’ve actually got a corps of trained local militia that we’re working with to protect their home turf. We haven’t had time to do that, and I don’t think we’re going to get the time.
“But that’s barking up the wrong tree, anyway.”
The others all looked up at him. Torres and Dallas were both frowning. Spencer was just studying him thoughtfully, trying to figure out what he was getting at. West, however, was starting to nod.
“What do you mean?” Torres’s frown only deepened the more he thought about it. “It’s the juiciest target the SdA has in town, except for the objective itself! Why wouldn’t we hit it? The Vengadores would.”
“Oh, I know they would. The question I’m asking isn’t, ‘Should we hit it?’” Hank raised an eyebrow. “The question is, ‘Why the hell are we talking about clearing an entire fucking hotel like this is downtown Pristina right after the Hasani Uprising?’” He looked around at each man in turn. “What’s the goal here? To turn the screws until whatever the Chinese are doing to keep the hostilities between the Vengadores and the Soldados dampened down doesn’t work anymore, and they start tearing each other’s guts out. With their escorts suddenly too busy killing each other, the Chinese op goes kaput.
“But trying to take that hotel is just going to get some of us killed, and almost guaranteed to expose our little game. And that just might be enough to really get them to put their differences aside and play nice. Might make it damned near impossible to shut this down without a major punitive expedition out of Texas—and I think we all know how likely that is at the moment. Europe’s everything to DC right now. The closer and more serious threats they don’t want to hear about.”
“And they don’t even really want to hear about Europe, either,” Dallas muttered.
“So, let’s think sneakier. I know, most of us are former cops or grunts. I was a leg infantryman for twenty years. We like up front fights. But really, when was the last time we actually found ourselves in an actual stand-up infantry fight?” He raised his eyebrows. “’Cause I sure as hell can’t remember one. Maybe some of the boys in Poland have seen ‘em, but we’ve been fighting unconventional wars for my entire career.”
“What have you got in mind?” Torres was looking at the photos again, the wheels obviously turning in his head.
“Well, it just has to look like it was a Vengadores hit…”
Chapter 28
The first phase was going to be tricky—their best vantage point was on the sizeable plot of fenced-off Pemex property across the highway from the Hotel Santa Fe. And Pemex had security. But that security couldn’t be everywhere, and from what Hank had seen already, most of them were just trying to keep their heads down.
That didn’t mean they wouldn’t respond if they caught the Triarii sneaking onto Pemex property. Pemex was a state-r
un oil company, after all, and they’d already taken serious losses from cartel theft. But Rangel, of all people, had come up with the solution.
Fernandez had handled it. He’d said that he looked the part, and nobody else was going to sell it as well as he could. So, dressed in civilian clothes, with a pistol carefully concealed in the small of his back, he’d walked into the Pemex office, sat down in front of the security manager, put most of their remaining op funds on the table, and explained that if the oil company security looked the other way when a RAM 2500 with a canopy rolled through, in and out, and asked no questions, there would be no trouble.
It had been a gamble, but the man had taken the money without a word. And when Hank, Bishop, Lovell, and Moffit had pulled up, just after dark, they’d been waved through without a second look.
Sometimes it paid to work in one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.
Hank parked the truck in the low ground off the dirt road that ran through the vast open space, and they waited for full darkness to descend.
Hank had noticed the Military Police recruiting center—fully fenced and gated, of course—right off the 45 on their way in. He found the presence of the Policia Militar in Camargo interesting, given the fact that they apparently hadn’t lifted a finger to oppose the Chinese or their narco proxies. But then, given the amount of Mexican Army hardware the Soldados appeared to be using, he suspected there was a simple, financial reason for their inactivity.
So, once he shut off the engine and got out, pulling his helmet on and dropping his NVGs down, he scanned all the way around them, not only toward their target, but also the Policia Militar station.
They waited in silence as the night deepened. Finally, Hank pointed toward the highway and the Hotel Santa Fe beyond it. Spreading out, moving slowly and quietly, they moved in.
A sizeable portion of the open ground inside the fence had been surrounded by a berm that stood about six feet high at its tallest. Hank had no idea what it was for; the inside was as empty, grassy, and choked with brush and scrub as the rest of the area. But it would do.
They didn’t set in right across from the hotel. That would have been far too close, not only to their target, but to the crossroads right in front of it.
Hank got up on the berm, using a thick patch of grass and brush to conceal himself as much as possible. It still wasn’t an ideal position—a dirt road ran just below him, only about three yards away from the foot of the berm. But it was about as good as they were going to get. The grain elevator near the bridge would have been ideal, but he wasn’t sure he trusted any of their rifles with a twelve-hundred-yard shot.
This was more like four. Hank was much more confident in a precise shot with a battle rifle at this range.
Lovell was doing a good job of being an assistant team leader; he was already getting Moffit and Bishop set in to cover their backs as Hank made sure they had a good shot at the hotel. He also had them finding vegetation to camouflage their position. They’d have to do some serious work before the sun came up; they were way too close to the highway—not to mention the unimproved road that looped around the Pemex compound—to take chances. Hank and Lovell held security while Moffit and Bishop started building their camouflage.
They didn’t have ghillie suits; they hadn’t exactly had access to them before they’d embarked on this little deep penetration mission, and Hank had to admit that he hadn’t thought about their possible necessity even once they’d crossed the border. So, they had to stick with some older methods.
Each man had come with a good-sized daisy-chain of paracord, or “550 cord.” Cut into short sections, that cord was now put to good use. Loops were tied around arms, legs, and gear straps. Those were then used to tie in grass and branches taken off the brush. Further rearranging of the sagebrush and bunchgrass provided something of a hide, especially as they scraped shallow holes in the side of the berm.
Building the hide took several hours, and traffic on the highway was starting to pick up by the time they settled in, as covered by grass and brush as they could get. As the sun came up, they’d have to stay as low and as still as possible.
It was going to be a long day.
***
By a couple hours after sunrise, Hank had remembered vividly why he’d never wanted to do surveillance.
The boredom was crushing as he watched the hotel through his scope, occasionally lifting his head just enough to watch the traffic on the highway. Most of it was simply normal, everyday people in normal, everyday vehicles, going about their normal, everyday business. A criminal insurgency—any insurgency, for that matter—didn’t tend to bring the regular rhythm of life to a screeching halt most of the time. People might be more cautious, more afraid, but they couldn’t afford to stay home just because there were violent bad guys with guns in their city. They’d alter their routes to and from work—when they could—but they still had to put food on the table.
So, the vast majority of what he saw was just farmers and regular Mexican businessmen and women going about their daily lives. Trucks carried cargo. Vans and sedans took people and their kids from place to place.
It was mind-numbing. And the problem with that was that it gave him time to think. Especially as it felt like time was slowing to a near standstill.
Despite the nightmares and the visions tattooed on the backs of his eyelids, he hadn’t had the opportunity to really deal with what had happened to Arturo. And now, with nothing to do but watch and wait, those thoughts were starting to intrude again. And he couldn’t afford to let them in.
He blinked, trying to focus more tightly on the hotel, forcing away the images of Arturo’s broken, bloody body, along with the recriminations that had come along with them. Focus. You’re trying to hide, way too close to the road, and watching for any opportunity to spark an open war between the Vengadores and the SdA. Don’t fuck it up by getting sentimental now.
Movement caught his eye, and he returned to the scope. Two more Cybertrucks had just pulled into the Hotel Santa Fe parking lot. Jackpot. The SdA honchos in Lajitas were riding Cybertrucks. Maybe that means they’ve gotten more organized and better-funded than the cells we fought up north. Which ain’t good news. He watched as four men and a woman, all wearing the red-and-black armbands, got out and went inside, his finger hovering near the trigger. No good. We need a smoking gun. Need a Vengador convoy on the highway. Fuck. This could take entirely too long. Didn’t think enough about how tricky the timing was going to be.
He heard whispered muttering beside him, and spared a glance down. Moffit was watching their six o’clock, muttering something to himself, apparently to help stay awake. Hank couldn’t deny that he was feeling the Sleep Monster creeping up on him, too. Discipline only goes so far when you’ve been on the go for days and now you’re lying motionless on the ground for hours at a time. And the old, time-honored Marine Corps method of slapping oneself on the back of the head wasn’t a good idea where they were.
Should have brought some chew. He wasn’t big on tobacco, but it would keep him awake. He settled in, watching the road over the top of his scope. Only nine more hours until sunset.
***
He was biting the inside of his cheek to keep his eyes open when the two black SUVs with gold rims appeared in his peripheral vision, slow-rolling down the highway toward the hotel. The lead vehicle had the windows rolled down, and the music thumping out through the openings was weird and dark, heavy on the drums and oddly distorted flutes, with guttural vocals that didn’t sound like Spanish. There was something oddly disquieting about the sound.
Turning his head slowly and slightly, he caught a glimpse of one of the passengers through a rolled-down window, and he felt a jolt as the sight registered.
The young man in the passenger seat wasn’t watching the right side of the road; his attention was fixed toward the hotel. But Hank could see enough to notice that he’d tattooed his face to resemble a stylized skull. Except it was one with fangs added in addit
ion to the tattooed teeth on his lips. Large, pendulous earrings hung from his ear lobes.
Something about that skull face reminded him of the figure he’d only gotten a glimpse of in Potrero de Llano. His eyes narrowed as he watched the vehicles drive past.
They slowed still more as they came even with the hotel. He tensed, half expecting a drive-by shooting to commence at any moment. But the two SUVs just cruised slowly past the Hotel Santa Fe.
Shifting his position slightly, he put his eye to the scope and watched the SdA security outside. They were watching the black SUVs, all right. And unless he missed his guess, they were nervous about them. Hands rested openly on weapons, and their heads tracked the black vehicles as they went past.
Well, now. That’s interesting. Who are these weirdos? The horror-movie aesthetic wasn’t all that uncommon among the narco culture, of that he was pretty certain. More of them went in for skulls and the occult than the professional soldier archetype that the CJNG and the Vengadores seemed to. How much of that was a result of a couple of generations of ever-escalating carnage and how much was embedded in the pre-Hispanic, Mesoamerican heritage that still lingered in the countryside, he didn’t know. Wouldn’t even attempt to guess.
It was probably a little of both.
But the two vehicles passed without incident, though one of the Soldados was on a radio, talking fast, as they accelerated away from the hotel. They had to have realized that they’d just been probed. But by who? He suspected that the Soldados knew, but he had long since given up trying to keep up with all the various splinter groups and factions in Mexico, concentrating on the ones he’d have to potentially deal with near the border.
That might have been a mistake. The Soldados were clearly nervous about the appearance of the men in the black SUVs. And whoever could make those belligerent murderers playing at being revolucionarios afraid—more afraid than they’d ever appeared to be of the Vengadores—should be noted.
The nagging suspicion that he’d just seen something important, without understanding why it was important, bugged him as the black SUVs disappeared to the north and he went back to watching the hotel and the rest of the traffic. Still no incident. Still no opportunity to spark the internecine war he was hoping for.
