by Jack Slater
The video feed, however, was clear. It was an aerial shot, taken from at least ten thousand feet up, from a plane circling high over Mexico City. The precise details of latitude and longitude, range and elevation were all detailed in a small grayscale panel in the bottom left of the screen.
“This was shot about three hours ago,” Burke explained. “At the location Jason pulled out of César. There’s something there all right. He wasn’t lying.”
“About that, anyway,” Trapp remarked.
But he didn’t really believe that César was playing them. Not about this, at least. There was probably a sting in the tail somewhere, but he knew his read of the Mexican hitman was correct. The man had a pathological hunger for chaos, the way others did for bread, or comfort, or power. It was an addiction, and in its own way every bit as compelling as that to the white powder trafficked so freely in this part of the world.
“Hold up,” Burke said, fast-forwarding through the video. “It’s the raw feed. I didn’t get a chance to have it processed, and besides – I figured that it was probably best to keep this one close to the vest. Loose lips sink ships, you know?”
Judging by the intense expression on Hector’s face – and the matching pallor of his men – they had enough experience of that to last them a lifetime.
“Okay, here we go.”
The aircraft the camera was attached to performed a banking turn, as dozens of streets disappeared under the bottom bezel of the screen. Then it steadied, settling on a new heading. The camera began to zoom into an industrial section of the northwest suburbs of the city, just above a lake shaped like a jagged, broken throwing star.
“Looks like Grover and his boys are moving out. Maybe thirty of them, give or take half a dozen in either direction.”
The video feed went blurry, perhaps as a result of the Cessna hitting a small patch of turbulence before its operator stabilized it. It resolved on an isolated concrete warehouse at the center of a large area of dark asphalt. The whole area was fenced in – tall, opaque walls that looked like they were topped with either barbed or razor wire. They cast long, dark shadows at this angle, spindly fingers that jutted out almost to the warehouse itself.
“Looks like an industrial park, maybe?” Ikeda murmured, leaning forward. “An old one. Abandoned.”
“That’s right.” Burke nodded, fast forwarding a few minutes on the slider at the bottom of the screen. “Keep watching. We got lucky. Another ten minutes either way, we’d probably have missed them.”
The aircraft banked again, and the target site disappeared from view for about twenty seconds before the feed zeroed in once more. When it did, something had changed.
“SUV. No, two of them,” Ikeda said. “Three.”
“Keep counting…” Burke laughed.
By the time the warehouse was done disgorging them, nine vehicles had emerged from inside. It was impossible to see from this angle – over the other side of the building – but Trapp assumed they were emerging from a service entrance. The small convoy was composed of about five SUVs and four long pickup trucks. Trapp guessed Ford F-250s, or something similar. The cargo beds were stacked high with supplies, though it was impossible to make out exactly what.
And even as they watched, the small dark figures of men surrounded them, checking that everything was stowed away correctly before tying light blue tarpaulins over the top.
“They are really loading up for bear,” Trapp muttered.
“You can say that again.”
“Any idea where they’re headed?”
Burke shook his head. “Right now your guess is as good as mine. The Citation followed them as they got on to the highway, headed northwest, but where they’ll end up, that’s anybody’s bet. The plane had to head back to the airfield to refuel and get a fresh pilot.”
“You’re not telling me you’ve lost them?” Trapp growled. “After all that?”
“Chill out,” Burke said in a mollifying tone. “I’ve got an agent – someone I trust – following one of the trucks on the ground. He doesn’t know why, just that I need a favor. Right now they’re about…”
He pulled out a map and set it on the table, tracing a line from Mexico City up a highway before his finger stopped. “Here. Place called Poligoma. Never heard of it. Doesn’t matter anyway; the SUV hasn’t stopped once.”
“What about air cover?”
Burke checked his watch. “Pilot problems. But it’ll be back up in about an hour. Factor in another forty-five minutes or so flight time to follow the route, it won’t be long. My guy on the ground doesn’t need to get too close. And the further north they go, the better for us. The Cessna’s got about six hours on station if they push us that far. But we can get air assets in the air up and down the West Coast if we need them.”
“Good work, Ray,” Trapp muttered, standing. Around him, Hector’s men started to do the same.
“Where are you guys going?” Burke asked, frowning.
Trapp shrugged. “No idea yet. But all those guys have got somewhere to be. I figure in a few hours, so will we. And we’re already running late.”
42
The location was nowhere, and that was the whole point. It was a dried-up lakebed called Laguna de Mancha in the eastern part of the state of Durango. Of Mexico’s 31 states, it had the second lowest population density.
And in this particular part, thirty miles from the nearest minor settlement, and farther to the nearest town, there wasn’t a policeman within an hour’s drive.
The greater lakebed measured just under five miles across, and the outline was visible from space, though this part hadn’t seen more than a few drops of rainfall in ten thousand years. The Laguna de Mancha was by contrast positively well-irrigated, though it too had been dry for the best part of the last decade, and was only filled on the few occasions when a storm broke over the nearby hillsides, causing water to scurry and trickle through hundreds of tiny streams and dried-out riverbeds.
The lakebed was made up of a soft, blindingly white sand, bleached by centuries of scorching sunshine. It went down only a few inches, meaning that an SUV could drive across it with comparative ease.
Presently, it was entirely empty, though it would not stay that way too much longer. The meeting was to take place at the northern end of the lakebed, in the shadow of a bare ridgeline, dotted by only a few desiccated shrubs, and large brown boulders that were too numerous to count. A two-lane road topped with incongruously black asphalt and fresh white road markings bracketed the top of the lake, carved into the foothills of the ridge. Two pickup trucks had been left to cut off traffic about five miles southeast of the lake, although few travelers were expected.
The better part of Carreon’s force of about a hundred sicarios was situated in a large truck stop about a mile shy of the lake, checking their weapons, smoking, and generally sharing the smiles, jokes and silences of men about to enter the crucible of battle. Iker was there, facing away from him, about ten yards up ahead.
Fernando Carreon himself was nervous. But that was not the whole truth. He was also ecstatic. He could barely contain his energy, bouncing from foot to foot as he checked on his fighters, trailed with only a couple of feet of separation by four of Grover’s men. They were like his shadows. He couldn’t so much as take a shit without them checking the bathroom both before and after, in case he was attempting to leave a message in a bottle.
Or something like that, he thought, lips curling at his own crude humor. He’d stopped flushing, reasoning that they deserved to pay the price of their bad manners.
“You stick with me, you understand?” he growled at Iker, keeping his voice low. “And your men. Where I go, you go. What I do, you do.”
His squat, preternaturally unruffled new lieutenant glanced up from a rifle that he was cleaning on the hood of his truck. Carreon had watched him disassemble, oil, clean, and reassemble the same weapon at least half a dozen times, but Iker was nothing if not meticulous.
Iker set the we
apon down, frowning before glancing meaningfully up at the masked men barely a step behind him. “Of course, jefe. But aren’t you protected already?”
Carreon beamed, leaning forward and gripping the man’s shoulder with a fierce intensity. He squeezed tight and said, “Of course. These men are paid well, and they are the best at what they do. But they are not Mexicans. They are not our people. You understand?”
“Yes, boss. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“I know you will,” Carreon said gruffly, pausing before he continued.
This was the moment – he had to make his move now, or he would never get another chance. He was already pushing it, he knew. He had suggested this place in the middle of nowhere because its inaccessibility would force Grover and his lapdogs onto the back foot.
Of course, the problem was shared, but that was a risk that he was willing to take.
Leaning forward, he growled, “Whatever I do, I need you to be there for me. Tell your men, you understand?”
“Boss, I—”
“Promise me,” Carreon hissed, feeling the heat of his guards’ eyes on the back of his neck. “You will know.”
Iker nodded, though a blankness in his eyes suggested that he did not yet understand what was being asked of him. That was fine, Carreon thought, drunk on the taste of danger as he held his gaze for a couple of seconds longer.
“I’ll do what you ask,” his man said, matching his low tone.
“Good.”
“And sir, what about the girl – Jennifer Reyes? I don’t see her.”
“She’ll be here shortly,” Carreon replied, giving an approving nod. “Don’t you worry.”
He wheeled away, leaving his subordinate with a confused expression. Carreon himself concealed a self-satisfied warmth from his shadows, molding his face into a blank mask as he had done for so many days.
But no longer.
“Sir – a word?” one of his guards said coldly from behind as Carreon strode forward, walking to another gaggle of parked trucks and waiting men. It was a question that was more of a statement.
“There’s no time, fool,” Carreon spat without turning. “What do you think this is – a picnic? Reyes will be here in under an hour. If you’re not ready, then why don’t you fuck off before you put the rest of us in danger?”
He kept walking, picking up the pace and daring Grover’s man to challenge him. He could sense that the masked guard wanted to do just that. Sensed that he suspected something was wrong. But what could the man do about it in the here and now? He was in an impossible situation. There was nowhere private, not here in the middle of the desert, not for tens of miles.
The only way to remonstrate with his supposed boss would be to do so in public, in front of all these men. And that would blow the whole operation before it ever got started. So all he could do was hope and wait that his charge didn’t choose this moment to slip his restraints.
And that was precisely what Fernando Carreon intended to do.
The fact that Grover most likely had a sniper’s scope trained on him from the ridgeline at this very moment meant nothing. The American couldn’t pull the trigger, either, not without blowing his only shot at getting out of this alive and with his future intact.
So although Carreon was risking everything also – perhaps more than any of them – he was satisfied with the prospect of losing it all.
He turned his head and watched as a single dark SUV drove quickly toward the makeshift parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust and sand behind it. It contained Jennifer Reyes, he knew. And his ticket out of this mess.
“You think he’s with them?” Trapp grunted, dragging his palm across a mess of stubble that hadn’t been hacked back in almost a week. It was reaching that point where it started to itch, and the heat wasn’t making things any better.
They had been tracking Warren Grover’s men – at least, that’s who they presumed they were – for the best part of 24 hours. The target convoy had stopped for a few hours in the middle of the night in the middle of the desert, in all likelihood to get some rest.
Burke grunted something noncommittal. “The satellite shots don’t have the same resolution as the support,” he said. “Can’t make out the faces. He might be. But then again, maybe not.”
Trapp grinned, clapping the DEA man on his shoulder. “Great. Incisive analysis like that is why we keep you around.”
“Buzz off,” came the good-natured reply.
If Grover’s men had gotten some rest, then Trapp and the ragtag crew around him hadn’t gotten so lucky. They were always several hours behind their quarry, scrambling to acquire sufficient weapons, gear, equipment, and vehicles to cover all bases without falling too far behind.
Only time would tell whether they had managed to strike the right balance. He desperately hoped they had.
Burke was sitting in the back of a General Motors SUV, with both the rear doors wide open in the hope of coaxing a little breeze, though there was precious little of that. He had his laptop balanced on his knees and was glued to a live satellite feed. He pointed at the screen.
“That’s them,” he said. “Looks like about half of them are on foot up on the ridgeline. The rest are still in their vehicles.”
“What the hell are they doing?” Trapp muttered. He had a creeping suspicion that Grover had somehow learned that he was being watched and that all this was a setup. Why else would the man have come here?
Could be a thousand reasons, he chided himself, wishing his body would one day learn to resist just this type of pre-battle nerves. It was always the same, no matter how much experience he gained.
“Beats me.” Burke shrugged. He squinted at the screen, then tapped it. “Hey, look at this.”
Trapp leaned over, his sweaty frame squeaking against the leather seats. “What are you showing me?”
“Not exactly sure. This is them, right?” he said, tapping a collection of about five parked SUVs in a line along a road that cut through a hillside leading to a ridge.
“Yeah…”
“Well, look at this vehicle. It broke away from this group a couple of minutes ago. Driving pretty quick, too.”
“Going where?”
“Dunno. And remember – the satellite feed’s five minutes delayed, for image processing or whatever. So everything we see now happened, oh, about seven and a half minutes ago.”
“Zoom out.”
Burke did as he was instructed, and a much larger section of the satellite feed came into view on the small computer screen. At the bottom left, an iridescent circular shape reflected the dying rays of the afternoon sun. The map overlay indicated that it was a lake, though Trapp couldn’t see any water.
“Hold up,” Trapp said, tapping the screen urgently. “What’s that?”
The cursor moved rapidly across the screen as Burke rotated the map before zeroing in on the section that Trapp had just pointed out. Almost thirty vehicles came into view, parked at all angles across the road that led to the dried-up lake, about a mile to the north.
“I’m guessing that’s the party,” Burke said grimly. “Damn, but that’s a lot of bad guys.”
“You’re telling me,” Trapp said.
He jumped out of the back of the SUV, put his fingers between his lips, and let out a sharp whistle. Once he’d attracted Hector’s attention, as well as the uncomprehending stares of a couple more of the Marines who didn’t speak English so well, he yelled: “Listen up, guys – we’ve got something. Get your shit together. We might have to move out fast.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Burke asked once he climbed back inside.
“Hell no.” Trapp grinned. “But unless you got something better, I don’t see we have any other option. Besides, I’m not suggesting we go toe to toe with these guys, if that’s what’s happening. Just to get close enough to watch. Maybe we get lucky.”
“Better you than me,” Burke muttered.
They watched as the breakaway truck closed
the distance to the larger collection of vehicles before stopping. All four doors opened, and five distinct figures stepped out. They were just dots on the screen at first before Burke increased the resolution.
“Four men. And maybe a woman. But don’t put money on that,” he reported.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“What do you think’s going on here?” Burke asked as Trapp looked over the satellite feed one last time.
Trapp scratched his chin, analyzing the situation as best he could. Grover’s men had the high ground, though they were far fewer in number than whoever these new guys were. That was interesting and something he couldn’t explain. Tactics and training were important, but in his experience, lead had a weight that couldn’t be ignored. There had to be at least a hundred shooters in the big group, and only a couple dozen with Grover. If their situations were reversed, Trapp wouldn’t like those odds.
“I’m guessing an ambush, but I might be wrong. If I’m right, then who’s about to get a nasty surprise?”
43
Warren Grover had his belly on the dirt, like the grunt infantryman he’d never truly been. He held a pair of high-power binoculars and studied the still-empty lakebed below.
“Where are they?” he hissed.
The waiting was getting to him. The stress, ever-present since this whole mess started careering off the rails, stalked him every waking moment of every living day, and nightmares haunted his dreams.
Even now, at the culmination of it all, he couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring scenarios of how it all might slip away from him.
“Not long, boss,” one of the team leaders replied. He didn’t know the man’s name. In total, he had twenty-nine shooters with him, dug in at the top of the ridgeline, weapons trained on the meeting place a couple of hundred yards below. They wore camouflaged desert-pattern fatigues that blended perfectly into the tan scrubland they lay on and sported a variety of deadly weaponry.