by Will Jordan
Gomez was no stranger to guiding people through the arid mountains across the US border, using the remote passes and trails in which he’d played as a boy, but usually his clients came from the south. Refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, or families from Mexico hoping to find a better life. But this group had been gringos; two white women and a man, at least one of whom was American.
It didn’t take much imagination to surmise why they wanted to avoid the law. But then, who cared? Gomez certainly didn’t. They were out of his hands, his country was safer for it, and he was a good deal richer.
With that thought fresh in his mind, he stepped out into the warm evening air and strode towards his house, lighting up a cigarette. He might head out later, have a few drinks to celebrate. What the hell, maybe find a woman to fuck. It wasn’t hard when you had money in your pocket.
Preoccupied as he was with these promising thoughts, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary as he unlocked his door and stepped inside. But just as it swung closed behind him, he sensed movement coming from his left and instinctively turned towards it.
Too late. Something swung down against him, crashing against the side of his head. There was a flash of white light, and a vague sensation of falling as the world blurred and darkened around him.
* * *
When Gomez woke up, he was bound to a chair in the centre of his kitchen, his hands and feet secured with thick loops of duct tape. His mouth had been covered in similar fashion. The electric light overhead hurt his eyes, exacerbating a throbbing headache.
Vaguely he became aware of a splashing noise, then a harsh chemical smell – one as familiar as it was terrifying. The smell of gasoline.
As his assailant casually emptied a jerrycan of petrol over the floor, panic seized him and he began to strain and twist against his bonds. It was a wasted effort.
Hearing his struggles, his attacker turned to look at him. Another gringo, tall and powerfully built, with dark hair and a malicious smile that seemed accentuated by the faint scar running down one side of his face.
‘Ah, good. You’re awake,’ he said. He spoke fluent Spanish, though his accent was American. ‘I’ve been looking forward to talking.’
Gomez let out a muffled scream as the man turned the jerrycan towards him and emptied the contents across his lap. The cold sting of gasoline immediately soaked into his clothes and skin.
Having finished his work, the American set the can aside, moved to the far end of the kitchen and fished a lighter out of his pocket. Gomez’s pathetic screaming intensified as he ignited it, smiling with malicious glee.
The bastard was going to burn him alive. He was about to die in agony.
Then, to his surprise, the American reached for a packet of cigarettes on the kitchen counter – his cigarettes, he noticed – and lit one up.
‘That’s better,’ he said, exhaling a cloud of grey tobacco smoke. ‘There’s nothing like a good smoke at the end of a long day. And it’s been a very long day for me. I had to talk to a lot of your fellow guides to find you, Antonio.’
Gomez felt a chill run through him. The man knew his name.
‘I’m going to take off your gag now, my friend,’ the American informed him. ‘I know you won’t be dumb enough to scream, because I don’t want to have to burn you alive. You know what human flesh smells like when it’s burning?’
Gomez stared at him, shaking and sweating in terror.
‘Bacon,’ the American explained. ‘Can you believe that? Every time I go to a goddamn diner and smell bacon cooking, all I can think of is stupid fucks like you screaming.’
Clamping the cigarette between his lips, he moved towards Gomez, grasped the duct tape secured across his mouth and ripped it away. Gomez let out a gasp as it took some facial hair and a layer of skin with it.
‘Please,’ he gasped, forcing his stinging lips to move. ‘I have money. Take it. Take it all.’
‘Ah, come on, man,’ the American replied, sounding disappointed. ‘Do you really think I came all this way, killed half a dozen other guys like you, just to hold you up for a few hundred bucks?’
Gomez said nothing.
‘No, my friend. You have something more valuable. Information. See, I know you guided some people across the border earlier today. Gringos. A man and two women.’
Gomez’s eyes grew wide with recognition – an expression the American was quick to pick up on.
‘Ah, you do remember.’ Taking another draw, he exhaled another cloud of smoke into Gomez’s face. ‘Tell me everything you know about them.’
‘I… I…’ he stammered, trying to get his thoughts in order.
‘Antonio, I need you to work with me, buddy,’ the American warned. ‘Patience is not one of my virtues.’
‘There were three of them, just like you said. A man and two women.’
‘Did one of the women look like him? Like a sibling?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the other?’
‘She was… short, small. With dark hair.’
A smile spread across the American’s face. ‘Where were they going?’
‘I don’t know.’
The smile quickly faded. ‘Come on, Antonio. Don’t let me down now.’
‘I told you, I don’t know! I had a man pick them up on the other side. His job was to take them where they wanted to go.’
‘What was his name?’
‘A truck driver. H-his name is Ruiz.’
The American must have taken Gomez’s cell phone while he was unconscious, because he produced it and flicked through the contacts list until he found the right entry.
‘Is this his cell number?’ he asked, holding the device up.
‘Yes. He can tell you where they went.’
Satisfied, the American slipped the phone into his pocket. ‘That’s good, Antonio. You’ve been real helpful.’
Drawing a silenced weapon from behind his back, the American brought it to bear in one swift, efficient motion and pulled the trigger, putting a round straight through Gomez’s forehead. The man barely even saw it coming.
A short while later, Hawkins exited through the back door and quietly slipped into an alleyway, the gathering gloom of dusk illuminated by the glow of the flames consuming Gomez’s house. By the time firefighters arrived from two towns away, there would be little left of the building and its owner but smouldering ash.
Leaving the scene at a brisk walk, Hawkins put through a call on his own phone. ‘I need you to trace a cell number.’
Chapter 37
Sheffield, Texas
Dusk had fallen on southern Texas, the first stars already glimmering in the eastern sky as the last light of sun illuminated a few high, trailing clouds far above. It was a quiet, peaceful sort of evening in a sleepy town far from anywhere.
With a long and tiring day behind them, and an even longer day ahead tomorrow, Drake knew he ought to turn in soon. Instead he found himself on a low, rocky hillock not far from their motel, looking out across the sprawling desert.
Tomorrow night at around this time, he would meet with his contact in DC. And despite his reassuring words earlier, he had no way of knowing what might happen. He was risking his life on the word of a dead woman he’d barely known, but desperately wanted to believe in now.
And yet, despite the challenges that lay ahead tomorrow, his thoughts kept drifting back to a different woman. A woman who was out there at this very moment, pursuing a mission of her own. A woman who might hate him for the rest of her life.
Would he see her again, he wondered? Would they encounter each other one more time before this was all over? And what would happen if they did?
He heard the crunch of footsteps approaching.
‘Doing your Luke Skywalker thing again?’ Jessica asked.
Drake raised an eyebrow. ‘Luke Skywalker?’
‘You know, the binary sunset, poignant music, soul searching…?’ Sensing she was getting nowhere, she shook her head. ‘Forg
et it, never thought I’d be a bigger nerd than my brother.’
Drake smiled as she lowered herself to the ground beside him.
‘It is beautiful here, though,’ she said quietly.
‘Pretty different from Wales in springtime, eh?’
‘Just a little. Can’t say I miss the rain.’
She was quiet for a time, content to share his company in silence and think her own thoughts. But before too long, she decided to voice them.
‘Listen, about tomorrow…’
‘I have to do it,’ he said firmly.
‘I know.’ She paused. ‘I want to go to the meeting with you.’
Drake turned to look at her then. ‘Jess…’
‘I know I’m not… trained like the others. I’m not a soldier. But this is as much my fight as it is yours. I lost just as much as you did. I need to look him in the eye and ask him why she died.’
‘Even if you get those answers, it won’t bring her back.’
‘Neither will killing Cain,’ she reminded him. ‘But you’re doing it anyway.’
‘Because I have to. There’s nothing else left. Nothing except you,’ Drake said quietly. ‘I could never forgive myself if something happened to you.’
‘And you think I’d feel any different if I lost you?’ she asked. ‘You think it’s all right to put your life at risk, but not mine?’
‘Of course not,’ he conceded. ‘But we do what we have to. We risk what we have to. No more than that.’ He laid a hand on her arm. ‘You’ll get your answers, Jess. I promise you that. But this is something I have to do alone.’
His sister glanced away, her hair stirred by the breeze. Reluctantly she nodded.
‘Come on,’ Drake said, standing up. ‘Let’s get some rest.’
* * *
The convoy of three blacked-out SUVs rocketed down the empty desert road, bouncing over hidden bumps and rumbling through potholes, headlights jumping up and down with the movement. Their normally gleaming paintwork was dulled by the dust and sand kicked up by their wheels.
They were closing in on their destination fast. A tiny speck of a town out in the middle of nowhere, 50 miles north of the Mexican border. Well away from Federal law enforcement, and an ideal spot to rest up before moving on.
‘Heads up,’ the driver called out. ‘We’re two minutes out.’
Hawkins nodded. ‘Gear up. Let’s get this done!’
After tracing the cell phone belonging to Gomez’s associate Ruiz, Hawkins had dropped in on the man and made sure he told him everything he knew. It was amazing how persuasive a can of gasoline could be, particularly with your girlfriend bound up next to you. Her death had been collateral damage, but Hawkins could live with it.
As the convoy approached the small town up ahead, weapons and body armour were checked, and radios tested. Hawkins savoured the atmosphere of focussed, controlled tension as the moment of deployment drew near. It was like a drug, powerful and intoxicating.
‘Thirty seconds,’ the driver warned. A couple of hundred yards ahead, the neon lights of a motel advertising vacancies stood at the edge of the main road, flickering garish red and green in the darkness.
They had called ahead to follow up on the tip, and sure enough the hotel clerk had confirmed that three people had checked in that afternoon – a man and two women. Two of the group were British.
‘Slow it down,’ Hawkins instructed. ‘We don’t want to tip them off.’
* * *
Lying atop the sheets in his cheap, uncomfortably warm motel room, Drake stirred and rolled over, awoken from his troubled sleep. His eyes opened slowly, taking in the dimly lit room, the faint glow of streetlights peeking through gaps in the blinds.
For a moment he watched and listened, allowing his senses to tune into his surroundings. All was quiet and still, save for the low rhythmic hum of the air conditioner. Outside, he could hear nothing at all. No cars, no movement. The town slept.
But his intuition told him otherwise. Something wasn’t right.
Sitting up, Drake reached beneath the pillow and removed the Browning 9mm he’d stashed there, quietly pulling back the slide half an inch or so. There was just enough light to make out the glint of brass in the chamber.
Thus armed, he slipped out of bed and crept across the room, heading for the window. Even as he drew near, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck bristling, and gripped the weapon tighter in response.
* * *
This was it. All three SUVs pulled into the motel parking lot, killing their lights to avoid disturbing anyone in the rooms facing onto it. Braking sharply, the assault teams piled out, one circling around to the rear of the building to cover possible escape routes, while the other two converged on the accommodation block from two directions, covering each other as they advanced.
‘Talk to me, Team Three. Any movement?’ Hawkins hissed as he crossed the tarmac lot, approaching rooms three and four, where Drake’s group were staying.
‘Nothing out back,’ the leader of Team Three reported. ‘No contacts.’
‘Copy that.’
Mounting the covered walkway that provided access to the rooms, Hawkins and his team advanced from one side while the second fireteam came from the other.
Each of the rooms was accessed by a single point of entry, with no connecting doorways between them. One way in, one way out.
Reaching out with his thumb, Hawkins gently switched the fire selector on his MP5 submachine gun to full automatic.
He took a breath, then issued a single command. ‘Go.’
The door flew open, the lock blasted apart by a breaching shotgun. Hawkins was moving before the shattered fragments of wood had even hit the ground, forcing his way through the doorway, his laser-sighted weapon sweeping the room before homing in on the bed, where a huddled figure lay beneath the sheets.
Without hesitation, Hawkins brought the submachine gun around and opened fire. The MP5 spat a long burst of silenced rounds, the mattress thudding with the impacts, clumps of foam padding and feathers flying into the air.
But there was no scream of shock and pain, no sudden splash of red from torn flesh. No indication that he’d just ended a life.
Moving forward, Hawkins grasped the edge of the bedsheets and yanked them aside, exposing a small pile of torn and singed pillows, placed there to look just like a body.
‘Son of a bitch,’ he said, turning away in disgust. ‘Nice move, Ryan.’
* * *
Unlatching the door, Drake eased it open and stepped outside, sliding the gun down the back of his trousers. He remained motionless for the next few seconds, watching and listening.
Beyond the motel parking lot and a couple of residential houses, the ground sloped upwards to a low, brush-covered hill overlooking the town. The weak glow of nearby streetlights illuminated the road and parking lot, but not much else.
Overhead, tiny flies lazily circled one of the motel’s exterior lights. Further off, he heard the distant clicks and chirrups of cicadas and crickets.
He inhaled, seeking any unusual odours, but found only the faint scent of garbage in the dumpsters out back, waiting to be emptied.
Wary of the man hired to pick them up, Drake had made a point of being taken to a different town named Juno about thirty miles away, even booking a couple of rooms in the motel there to maintain the illusion, before hitchhiking to Sheffield. It was unlikely anyone could have tracked them here, but that didn’t rule it out.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, that somewhere beyond the pools of dirty sodium light, a pair of eyes were following his every move. But to whom did they belong? Friend, or enemy?
He remained there for a good ten minutes, watching and wrestling against his better judgement, questioning whether fatigue and paranoia were playing tricks on his mind.
As time passed and nothing happened, the feeling began to wane. Drake shook his head and reluctantly returned to his room. Sleep, however, remained elusive.<
br />
A dark figure stirred from its vantage point on the hill overlooking the motel, rising silently from the ground like a ghost and moving off into the night.
Leaving Drake alone. For now.
Chapter 38
Washington DC – April 30th
Don’s Auto Salvage, situated on the south side of DC, had once been a thriving garage and repair shop. But the financial crisis and subsequent recession had left the owner with mounting debts, forcing him to close his business and sell off his assets.
The building was now little more than an empty shell, damp and rusting, its roof leaking in places. The kind of building that people walked right by without interest. Just another failed business venture in a country filled with them.
All in all, it wasn’t much of a base from which to stage the most dangerous mission of their lives, but it was big enough to fit a couple of vehicles inside, and the walled yard out back offered a degree of privacy. And more importantly, the owner was an old friend of Frost’s who used to do repair work on her bike. A quick phone call had been enough to convince him to part with the keys.
It was here, in this most inauspicious of settings, that Drake and his small team were now working to create a makeshift comms centre, armoury and motor pool. His meeting was now less than an hour away, and there was much to be done.
‘Okay, listen up,’ Frost said, finishing up with the tracking device she’d secured inside the lining of his jacket. ‘This is a Mode 7 satellite tracker operating on an encrypted frequency, designed to go passive in the event of a security scan.’
She held her laptop up to demonstrate. And sure enough, a pulsing green dot indicated the location of the tracking unit, projected onto a street map of DC.
‘Great. What does any of that mean?’ Jessica asked.