Seek and Destroy

by Alan McDermott

  The room smelled of polish and disinfectant, and there was a smelly mop and bucket in one corner. She’d spread the blanket on the cold wood floor and wrapped herself inside it, but it had taken a while to get to sleep.

  Hunger had been the main reason.

  For some reason the woman had offered her a ham sandwich again. Melissa couldn’t understand why. She’d already told her that she hated ham.

  So she’d gone without.

  Now, she would have given anything for a lump of green ham and some moldy bread.

  Melissa snuggled into the blanket, sniffing back more tears. She wanted her father, but Linda had said she would never see him again. She closed her eyes and wished him there, but when she opened them, she saw only the blurred outline of the vacuum cleaner in the darkness.

  She had no idea how long she’d been there. It could have been hours or days. Melissa didn’t really care. She just wanted her daddy to come and take her home.

  The door to the cupboard opened, and Melissa squinted as the light hurt her eyes. Standing in the doorway was Linda.

  “Where’s my daddy?” Melissa asked.

  “Dead,” Linda said, a wicked smile on her face. “Eat your dinner.”

  Linda put a plate on the floor. Melissa ignored it, despite the growling in her tummy. “He’s not dead! He’s gonna come and get me!” She tried to project an air of defiance, but it came out as a frightened squeak.

  Linda shook her head sadly. “Actually, there’s not a chance in hell he’s gonna find you.” She pulled out a knife. It had a long, jagged blade, and it glistened in the light from the hallway. “The only thing that’s coming to get you is this,” she grinned, running her finger up the blade.

  Melissa’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the blanket and pulled herself into the fetal position, covering her head and crying for her father.

  “He’s not coming! And you’ve got two more days before I slit your miserable little throat!”

  The door slammed and Melissa cried herself to sleep, the ham sandwich on the plate untouched and forgotten.

  CHAPTER 31

  Eva pulled up outside the sports-fishing outlet and looked at the clock on the dashboard. After the mad dash south, averaging over 110 kilometers an hour, they’d managed to shave almost four hours off the journey, but now they’d be losing more time.

  There was no sign of the owner.

  She waited for the other two cars to join her, then suggested a late dinner while they waited to collect the goods Farooq had purchased online. Colback volunteered to wait outside the shop in case the owner turned up.

  “Thanks. Text me when he gets here.”

  The five of them walked to a cantina and ordered local fare, washed down with plenty of coffee. When the waitress wasn’t hovering, Gray asked about the layout of the airport.

  “It’s a small place,” Eva told him. “One barrier just off the road, then another at the parking lot. Although it’s an international airport, it’s mostly smaller domestic flights. Charters, that kind of thing.”

  “What about security and immigration?”

  “Minimal. Plus, the average wage in the region is about seven hundred dollars a month. If we have to slip someone a few extra bucks, so be it.”

  “I was thinking more about X-ray machines and the like. How are we going to get the weapons through?”

  “I don’t know about X-ray, but I thought we could buy a spare bag for the Zodiac and put them in there, along with the DPVs.”

  “And if someone wants to inspect it?” Sonny asked.

  “We’ll turn up fifteen minutes before the flight is due to leave, explain that we’re in a hurry and bribe them to let us through. I’ll explain that we’ve got a connecting flight to catch and can’t be delayed. A few hundred dollars should smooth the way.”

  “I hope so,” Gray said.

  They finished their meal and walked back to the shop. It was ten after six when the owner showed up and let them in.

  “I have the things out the back.”

  They followed the man through to a storeroom. The Zodiac was stowed away in a thick, black nylon bag. Gray unzipped it and checked the rubber hull. It was unused. The aluminum floor was rolled up inside, also brand new.

  Sonny inspected the DPVs and was happy with their condition. The outboard motor was used, but in very good shape. The scuba gear they’d ordered was fresh out of the box.

  “We’d like a spare bag for the Zodiac,” Eva told the store owner.

  He apologized and said he didn’t have any new in stock, but offered them one that was encrusted in white salt crystals and had clearly seen better days.

  “That’ll do.”

  She paid cash for the old bag, the rest having been covered by credit card online.

  With their new toys loaded into the cars, they drove to a remote area and parked. Eva rolled the weapons and ammunition inside the wetsuits, then, with a little help, stuffed the lot into the old bag.

  “That’ll have to do,” she said. It would pass a cursory inspection, but if anyone removed the contents, the mission would be lost.

  “How long until the plane’s due to leave?” Len asked.

  “Forty minutes. We’d better get a move on.”

  They piled back into the vehicles and prepared for the last ten miles on Mexican soil.

  In the lead car, Eva set a sedate pace. She reached the turnoff to the airport with twenty minutes to go and stopped at the barrier ten yards from the main road.

  The guard asked for her papers, and she handed him the passport she’d purchased from DeBron months earlier. He checked against a printed list, then raised the wooden barrier to let her through. She waited up the road for the other two cars to clear, then drove around a couple of bends and into a nightmare.

  Lieutenant Juan Fonseca threw the butt of his cigarette to the floor as the three cars came into view. The colored plates told him they were rentals, which aroused his suspicions. It wasn’t a commercial airport with a rental drop-off point, so he wondered whether they were here for legitimate business, or to make his day.

  A six-year veteran of the Federal Police, or Federales as the locals called them, Fonseca was always on the lookout for the bust that would catapult his career to the next level. The small airport on the south coast was as good a place as any to find it. There were flights to and from El Salvador and Nicaragua twenty-four hours a day, and anyone leaving or arriving in the next twelve hours would get a taste of his diligence.

  He saw the people get out of the cars, and immediately sensed trouble. They were all gringos, and the bags they carried between them didn’t look like typical luggage.

  Fonseca let them walk into the small terminal building, then gestured for four of his men to follow him inside.

  “Good evening,” he said to the woman, a real beauty even by American standards. She was standing next to a table that held their collection of bags.

  He was surprised when she greeted him in flawless Spanish.

  “And what is the purpose of your trip?” he asked.

  “Fishing. We’ve got a connecting flight in ten hours, so we’re in a hurry to get on board. If we miss it, we’ll be stuck on the island for two wasted days.”

  “Then I shall be as brief as possible,” Fonseca told her.

  He nodded to his men, then the baggage on the table. They walked over, motioned for the gringos to move aside, and started opening the bags. Fonseca had his eye on the woman all the time. Not to admire her beauty, but because she suddenly seemed nervous.

  His hand crept to the pistol in his hip holster, and he unclipped the stud that held the strap in place. The moment one of his men shouted that he’d discovered something, Fonseca whipped out the pistol and leveled it at the woman’s chest.

  The two officers next to him raised their rifles, and he barked in English for the passengers to raise their hands and drop to their knees. Fonseca kept his gun trained on the woman as he inched closer to the table. One of his men held u
p an assault rifle and told him there were more inside, plus a ton of ammunition.

  “Cuff them,” Fonseca said.

  One officer had to go to the vehicles to get more handcuffs, but the travelers were soon all secured. Fonseca called his catch in to his superiors while his men performed body searches. He was told to bring the passengers in for questioning, something he was looking forward to.

  A pile of cell phones grew on the table, along with wallets, loose cash, passports, and a pistol.

  Fonseca picked up a passport and flicked through it. “What was the plan?” he asked the woman. “Swap these for drugs down in El Salvador?”

  She said nothing, but it didn’t matter. He would have plenty of time with her over the coming days.

  “Get them in the cars,” Fonseca barked.

  His men marched the prisoners out to the two armored vehicles and put three in each. Fonseca sat in front, smiling at the prospect of another promotion.

  Emilio Hernández drove past the turn to the airport as the three cars disappeared around a corner. He pulled over at the side of the road and took out his binoculars. Through a gap between two trees he saw them pull up at the terminal building.

  Hernández took out his phone and called Gómez.

  “They’re at Puerto Escondido Airport. I’m guessing they’re catching a flight. Do you want me to follow them?”

  “No. We’ll be in touch.”

  It looked like the job was over. It had been a long day, and he yawned as he thought about the drive home. The prospect of another ten to twelve hours on the road didn’t appeal, so he used his phone to look up hotels in the area. He’d earned enough in the last eighteen hours to afford a decent one.

  After finding a place to stay, Hernández took one last look at the airport, then did a double take. He picked up the binoculars and gazed at the terminal.

  The woman was being led outside by a large group of Federales. In custody with her were the other five men in her posse.

  He called Gómez and told him what was happening.

  “Wait there and keep me updated.”

  “They’re moving,” Hernández said. “Should I follow?”

  “No, stay right where you are. Let me know when they come back.”

  Hernández was about to ask why they would possibly be returning, but the phone went dead. So much for crashing in a cushy hotel bed . . .

  He dug into a bag of chips, broke the seal on a fresh bottle of water, and settled in to wait.

  Eva had never seen such a look of anger in a man’s eyes.

  Gray was looking at her with pure malevolence. If his hands weren’t shackled to the seat, she knew he’d be at her throat by now.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and earned a baton in the ribs for her efforts.

  “Silencio!”

  Gray averted his gaze, not even trying to hide his disgust.

  She couldn’t blame him. He’d lost any chance of rescuing his daughter, and now faced the prospect of a lifetime in a Mexican prison.

  They all did.

  She tried to think what she could have done differently, but with time at such a premium there was little more she could have done. It wasn’t as if she could call ahead and promise bribes when they turned up. The plan had been hastily put together, and some things simply had to be left to chance.

  Their luck had run out.

  Eva thought about what to tell the police. They’d try to paint her and the men as gun runners. At best. The worst-case scenario was being charged with attempting to exchange the weapons for drugs, which would mean a longer sentence.

  The police were unlikely to believe that they were heading to a fictitious island to kill a man who’d been dead for six months.

  Above the roar of the tires and the armored vehicle’s big diesel engine, Eva heard a phone ring in the front of the vehicle. The man who’d arrested them answered it, and she learned that his name was Fonseca.

  The conversation was one-sided, and it ended with a string of expletives. Fonseca barked an order, and the vehicle screeched to a halt. There was a conversation between Fonseca and the driver, then Eva felt the car begin to move again. It turned around, and they started heading back in the direction they’d come from.

  She didn’t think much of it. Perhaps Fonseca had been ordered to take them to an alternative police station, or had been told to drive them all the way back to Mexico City.

  Either way, it was delaying the inevitable.

  The armored car bounced along for about ten minutes before it came to a stop. She heard the front doors open and slam shut again, then the rear door was opened and the last rays of sunlight spilled into the gloomy interior.

  “Out!”

  Eva was glad to be out of the vehicle, which smelled of sweat and gun oil. She expected to see a police station, but instead was shocked to be standing outside the terminal of the airport.

  “I’m sorry to have disrupted your mission, captain,” Fonseca said. His voice told her that he wasn’t sorry at all, only pissed off.

  “You had no way of knowing,” Eva said, keeping up whatever pretense was in play.

  Fonseca had clearly been given orders to let them go—and indeed, to help them on their way. His men were lugging the heavy bags to the waiting Cessna Citation Sovereign, stowing some in the hold and taking the rest into the cabin.

  The handcuffs were removed, and their personal possessions returned to them. Eva walked on to the plane without another word, and as soon as the last member of the team was on board, the doors closed and the Cessna began to taxi.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Gray asked her. “Why did they let us go?”

  Eva looked out a window, still having a hard time believing it herself.

  “I have no idea.”

  Hernández was surprised to see the Federales return so soon. He watched them drive straight through the checkpoint, then pull up outside the terminal building. The prisoners were helped out of the vehicles, and their restraints removed.

  He called Gómez. “They’re back. It looks like the Federales are letting them go. Yes, they’re helping them carry their luggage to the plane.”

  “Okay, call me when they’re in the air,” Gómez replied.

  Ten minutes later, he saw the aircraft climb into the sky, and he informed his client.

  “Thank you. Your mission is complete. Payment will be wired to your account in one hour.”

  As he put the phone away, Hernández wondered what the woman had done to deserve his scrutiny and the intervention of persons unknown. Someone wanted her on that plane. Someone with enough power to overrule the Federales.

  He drank the last of his water and started the car.

  Sometimes it was best not to know.

  CHAPTER 32

  “You must have some idea,” Gray insisted.

  “It has to be the ESO,” Eva said. “They must have had someone tailing us to make sure we got to the island. Maybe they want Langton dead just as much as we do.”

  “Then why not kill him themselves?”

  It was a good question. They had a lot more firepower available to them, and it wouldn’t take much for them to hit the island with a few fighter-bombers and send a few hundred people in to mop up afterwards.

  “Sanders told me that the ESO isn’t interested in me, but maybe they thought I was still after them. This could be their way of ensuring I get closure. I get to take out Langton, and that’s the end of it. If they killed him themselves and told me that he’d been the one that had tried to flush me out they would have had a hard time convincing me. I guess they want me to see for myself.”

  “That makes sense,” Sonny said. “Shame they couldn’t help us a little more, though. A private jet from Heathrow all the way to Hiva Oa would have been nice.”

  “Yeah,” Len agreed. “It would have spared us that brown-trouser moment, too.”

  The tension was broken as everyone laughed.

  Everyone except Gray.

  He
was still brooding over the fact that the whole operation could have been blown by Eva’s arrogance. He tried to temper his emotions by thinking about what he would have done differently, but he couldn’t find an obvious answer. Fighting their way into the airport and on to the plane would have been futile. The Mexican Air Force would have intercepted them in minutes and shot them down. Scouting the area first would also have been of little benefit. They would have seen the police and had to proceed anyway, or lose the window of opportunity.

  Gray got up and found a bottle of whiskey in the galley. He poured himself a couple of fingers, then took the bottle back in case anyone else was interested. Len and Sonny both had a shot, but the others were settling in for some sleep.

  Gray polished off the glass, then got his head down, too.

  It seemed like seconds later that the copilot walked into the cabin and announced that they would be landing in half an hour. A favorable tailwind and Eva’s insistence that the pilot redline the engines all the way had reduced the flight time by ninety minutes.

  Gray drank some water, then went into the bathroom and freshened up. When he returned to his seat, he saw nothing out his window except blue above and below. It was a magnificent spectacle. If it weren’t for the fact that he would soon have to swim ten miles under that freezing water, he might have enjoyed the view.

  “How do you plan to get past immigration and security here?” Gray asked Eva. “The same Hail Mary?”

  “We don’t have much choice, though I have a feeling it’ll be a lot easier this time.”

  Her guess was well founded.

  The plane landed smoothly and taxied to the front of the terminal. When they took their bags inside, they were asked the reason for their visit. Eva told them it was fishing, and that seemed to suffice. The security staff didn’t even make a cursory inspection of the baggage.

  Gray asked about hiring a couple of taxis and was told that two would arrive from Atuona in about twenty minutes. They decided to wait outside the airport building, just in case anyone started taking an interest in their bags.

  Twenty minutes turned out to be nearly forty, but the vehicles that arrived were in good condition and big enough to carry the six of them and their equipment.