Burning Bridges

by Heath Stallcup

  Bridger sighed then began to pat down the bodies. He came up empty. “Not even a wallet.” He glanced to Mauk. “Who goes into a foreign country without even a cell phone?”

  “A kill squad.”

  Lisa reached past him and slammed the rear hatch. “They probably have a hotel room in town. Did you find a key card?”

  Bridger shook his head. “Nothing.”

  She marched to the front of the truck and began to rifle through the cubbies. She popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a small envelope with a key card inside. “Too bad the hotel didn’t think to print their name on this.” She gave him a sardonic smile.

  Gregg reached over her shoulder and plucked the plastic card from her grip. “Give me a few minutes. I bet I can narrow it down.”

  Bridger nodded toward the bodies. “So, we find out what hotel they’re staying at and we leave the truck in the parking lot. Once the ice thaws they’ll start to stinking soon enough.”

  “Good enough for me,” Lisa muttered as she marched toward the cabin.

  Bridger opened the driver’s door and pulled the big SUV into the drive of the closest cabin. “Once Gregg narrows down our search, we can toss their room. If we’re lucky we’ll find a cell phone with some numbers we can trace.”

  “What good will phone numbers do us?” Mauk asked.

  Bridger gave him a cold smile. “We figure out where they’re based and we take the fight to them.”

  Mauk broke into a toothy grin. “I love the way your mind works sometimes.”

  Near Chapala Mexico

  * * *

  The tall, thin and slightly balding man knocked lightly on the doorjamb before sticking his head into the open office. “Jefe?” He lowered his eyes and refused to look up. “The primary team has missed their check in.”

  El Fantasma looked up from the ledger he wrote in and gently set his pen aside. “How late are they?”

  “Over an hour, Jefe. The secondary team awaits your command.” He still refused to look up.

  “Raul, do not fear me.” El Fantasma stood slowly and approached the smaller man. He placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. “I do not believe in punishing the messenger. Only a weak man would do such a thing.” He gave the smaller man a smile that seemed to set his mind at ease. “You have been by my side since the beginning. You are closer to me than familia.” He squeezed the man’s shoulder. “You should know you are mi hermano.”

  “It is not fear, Jefe. It is respect.” Raul refused to meet his gaze. “I do not wish to appear too familiar…the others…they would talk.”

  “Let them talk, Raul.” He walked purposefully back to his desk and sat down quietly.

  “What of the second team, Jefe?”

  El Fantasma leaned back in his chair and rocked slightly side to side. “Have them observe.” He sat forward and pointed at Raul. “Cautiously observe. If these people bested my matar escuadrones then they, too, should be respected. It would appear that time has not dulled their abilities.”

  “Si, Jefe. I will pass your word to them immediately.”

  El Fantasma sat back in his chair again and swiveled to the side. “I have studied you and your people for a long time, Mister Bridger.” He smiled to himself as he pulled a file to his lap and opened it. He slid a photo of Bobby Bridger out, studying it. “If I know you as well as I think I do, then you are about to do something very stupid.” He chuckled to himself as he slid the photo back into the dossier.

  “You will bring the fight to me, Bridger.” He stood slowly and walked to his bar. He pulled a crystal decanter of brown liquor from the tray and poured himself two fingers. “And save me the trouble of chasing you across the globe.”

  8

  Southeastern Oklahoma

  * * *

  Bobby Bridger stood over Gregg’s shoulder as he scanned the information encoded on the keycard. He brought up what little information that was hidden in the ones and zeroes and bounced it off of the FBI’s internal database for correlations.

  “Looks like it was either a Super 8, or it could possibly be any number of independent hotels that run similar software.” He pushed the chair back and gave Bridger a raised brow. “The closest Super 8 is almost twenty miles from here.”

  Bridger cursed under his breath. “But it could be any place?”

  Gregg nodded. “If I were a betting man, I’d say check the biggest names first. In this case, it would be the Super 8.”

  Mauk grunted from the kitchenette. “Not exactly five star accommodations if you ask me.” He pushed off the counter and stepped toward the pair. “If I were a hit man, I’d want to stay someplace nice. Just in case it was the last place I’d rest my head before the nice, satin-lined box.”

  “Not everybody has your tastes though.” Bridger tapped the computer. “Does that keycard say what room number?”

  Gregg pointed to the screen. “208.”

  “Then I suggest we try the Super 8 first. If that isn’t it, we hit the smaller no name places on the way back.”

  Lisa pointed out the window. “It will be sunup in a few hours. Should we wait?”

  Bridger shoved his matching 10MM pistols into their shoulder holsters and pulled his jacket over them. “Nope. The sooner we track down this room, the sooner we find out where to take the fight.”

  Mauk nodded to Gregg. “Any way you can clone that card? If we split up we can find the place in half the time.”

  “I don’t have a blank to write it to, but I have a scanner that I can load the data onto.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a handheld device. He ran the keycard through the slot then plugged in the mule, creating an electronic duplicate. “You guys take the plastic, we’ll take the digital.”

  Mauk snatched the plastic keycard from his hand then nodded to Lisa. “Let’s do this.”

  DJ stepped forward and cleared his throat. “I thought the whole idea of us all coming out here was strength in numbers? Now we’re going to split up the team? I don’t like it, Top.”

  Bridger nodded toward the SUV outside the door. “I think the immediate threat is neutralized.”

  “That’s if they don’t have backup sitting out there somewhere, like, the cheap motel, maybe.”

  Bridger shot DJ a crooked smile. “If you were going to send a hit team after US…would you only send half your troops?”

  DJ pondered the question a moment then nodded. “Point taken.” He reached for his jacket. “Y’all go shopping for the right hotel room, I’ll dispose of the bodies.”

  Lisa held a hand to his chest, stopping him. “I thought we were going to leave them in the hotel parking lot?” She turned to Bridger. “To send a message to the cartel.”

  Bridger shrugged. “Let DJ dump ‘em. Maybe it’s better if the cartel doesn’t know we’re coming.”

  She lowered her hand but leaned in close and lowered her voice. “All the same, you be careful out there.”

  DJ shot her a winning smile. “No worries, little darlin’. I got this.”

  “There ain’t no gators to feed the dead to around here,” Mauk muttered.

  “That you know of.” DJ fired a wink at him as he stepped out of the door. “I’ll meet y’all back here when you’re done.”

  Bridger motioned to Gregg and the pair walked out to the Tahoe. They warmed the engine while Lisa and Mauk gathered their gear and crawled into the rear of the SUV. “My truck is parked down by the boat ramps.” Bridger gave him a confused stare in the rear view and Mauk shrugged. “It was the most secluded place I could think of that was within walking distance.”

  Mauk pulled the Tahoe around to the paved road and pointed the nose towards the docks as DJ finished peeling the blackout tape from the SUV’s lights. He slapped the side of the Tahoe as it idled by then crawled into the driver’s seat of the rented SUV. “Time for you boys to find out if bears shit in the woods or not.”

  Luis Mendoza watched the black Tahoe as it pulled out of the state park and slapped at his compadre
sitting in the passenger seat, dozing. “They’re leaving.”

  Hector Medina sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “I guess that means that Juan and his team failed.” He sniffed hard and blew warm air onto his hands. “You should turn up the heat.”

  Luis started the Mercedes and slowly pulled out onto the highway, waiting until the black truck had dipped into a low spot before turning on his lights. He let the truck pull farther away as he slowly followed.

  “It will warm up fast enough now.” He reached to the dashboard and pushed the button for the heated seats. “El jefe should allow us to do the job properly.”

  Hector gave him a questioning look. “Do you really think that if Juan and Pablo couldn’t do the job that we could?”

  Luis grunted under his breath. “It would be simple enough.” He nodded toward the black truck ahead of them. “Push them off the road and shoot them like dogs.”

  “Why not simply rig semtex to their ignition?” Hector leaned back in his chair and relished the warmth. “Or we could wait until they’re in the open and pick them off one by one?”

  Luis ground his teeth. “There are a number of ways to deal with people like this.” He shot Hector a tight lipped smile. “Personally, I prefer cutting off their hands and feet, saving the head for last.”

  “My favorite?” Hector sat up, adrenaline starting to pump as he reflected on his favorite methods of torture killing. “I like to find a tire just big enough to pin their arms and tie them to a stake. A little gasoline, a match…and poof! They run in circles and scream; the faster they run the bigger the flames,” he laughed.

  Fernando Garza leaned forward from the rear seat of the Mercedes, his face lit up by the dashboard lights. “I prefer simpler methods.”

  “Simple is too fast, amigo.” Luis stated as he slowed the big Mercedes for the upcoming stop sign. He put on his left blinker and pulled out onto the highway, slowly closing the distance between the black Tahoe. “A bullet is too good for these people.”

  “How do you know what they deserve?” Fernando asked.

  Luis clenched his teeth again, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “El jefe told me what they did.” His eyes glanced to the rear view. “They blew up a bridge many years ago. There were women and children crossing it.” He paused to maintain his composure. “One of the women was don Murillo’s sister.”

  Fernando’s eyes widened and he sat back, knowing the rest of the story. “Teresa.”

  Luis nodded slowly. “She suffered for so long.” He glanced up at the rear view again. “El jefe maintained hope the entire time. He prayed daily for her return.”

  Fernando felt the anger rising. “And these are the people who planted the bombs?”

  Luis nodded. Hector turned in the front seat and eyed Fernando. “We follow orders. No matter how badly we want to make these cabrónes suffer, we do our jobs.”

  Fernando sat back and crossed his arms. “You should have told us when we took this job who these people were.”

  Luis ground his teeth again. “El Fantasma proclaimed it ‘need to know.’”

  Fernando grunted. “Information like that? We all need to know.” He stared out the side window and saw the first licks of light on the eastern horizon. “Juan and Pablo would not have gone at them alone.”

  Langley, Virginia

  * * *

  Matt Laughlin fell into his chair and rubbed at his eyes. He hated early morning meetings and he needed to make sure that all of his T’s were dotted and his I’s crossed.

  He reached for his coffee and sifted through the mail. The inner-agency stuff always took precedent and he pushed the other stuff away. He rifled through the printed memos and notifications. He pushed more of it off to his “later” pile. He perused a few of the daily reports and an after-action report from a team in Afghanistan that seemed to hit nothing but dead ends.

  He pulled out an action report that he normally would have tossed into the File 13 until a code word caught his eye.

  “White Rock?” Matt sat forward and lifted the paper from the pile of others. He scanned the report and felt a cold chill run down his spine.

  With trembling hands he reached for the phone and dialed a number he thought he’d never need again. He waited for the phone to ring and felt his hand tremble when the woman’s voice answered.

  “Clearinghouse, how may I direct your call?”

  Matt stiffened. “Tracking and Allocation.”

  “Please hold while I transfer you to that department.”

  Matt took a deep breath and blew it out hard when a deep male voice answered, “Tracking and allocation.”

  “I’d like to track some packages.”

  “Very well.” He could hear typing through the phone. “Customer ID.”

  “Laughlin, 8739.”

  “Confirm first initial.”

  “Mike.”

  “Customer ID confirmed.” He heard more typing then the voice returned. “Date of your order?”

  “April, 1998.”

  “Very well. Parcels you’d like tracked?”

  Matt cleared his throat. “Actually, I wanted to inquire about a report that was generated from recent activity concerning these orders.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “As of this date, there have been two recent inquiries concerning certain aspects of the order. Which packages made those inquiries?”

  “Please confirm the operator you dealt with at the time of the order.”

  Matt groaned under his breath. “That would be me, Laughlin, 8739, first initial, Mike.”

  “Stand by.”

  More typing sounds came over the line and Matt wanted to reach through the phone and choke the guy on the other end.

  “Confirmed. The two packages were Vasquez, Lima and White, Delta Juliet.”

  “What of the others?”

  “Wolcott, Romeo, cancelled. Gomez, Mike, cancelled. Bridger, Romeo still in transit, tracking available. Soares, Golf, still in transit, tracking available. Mauk, Delta, still in transit, tracking available.”

  Matt swiped a heavy hand across his face and scratched at his beard. “Location of packages?”

  “Which packages, Laughlin, 8739?”

  “ALL of them!” Matt was on his feet now, his hand squeezing the phone so tight that he feared it might break.

  “Stand by.”

  Matt bent over his desk and tried to control his breathing. If this team were reforming, for whatever reason, it couldn’t be good news.

  “All packages are on the same route. Last tracking has them within the same zip code and cellular GPS indicates that they are combined.”

  Matt fell back into his chair and swallowed hard. “Request location information forwarded to my contact email.”

  “Very well, Laughlin, 8739. Tracking information transmitted to your secure email. Can I assist you with any other orders at this time?”

  “No, thank you.” Matt hung up the phone and pressed the power button on his monitor. He noted that his hand was shaking as he reached for the mouse and his eyes settled on the time stamp in the corner of the screen. He was going to be late for his meeting.

  Something told him that this was more important.

  9

  Southeastern Oklahoma

  * * *

  Bobby stood outside of the Super 8 and watched the few cars that were on the road drive by. He nodded to Gregg, who walked into the hotel as if he owned the place and made his way to the elevator.

  Bobby appeared at his side just as the doors opened and the pair rode up to the second floor. “All clear?”

  Bobby nodded. “Mauk and Lisa are standing by. If this doesn’t pan out then they’ll start on the other hotels and work their way back to the park.”

  The doors opened just as the elevator dinged and the pair made their way down the hall to room 208. “Fingers crossed.” Gregg slipped the mule card into the reader and pressed the button on the scanner. The light flashed green and the door clicked.

  “B
ingo.” Bridger pushed the door open and stepped inside, weapon drawn.

  Gregg reached for the wall and flipped the lights on then cleared the bathroom immediately on the right. “Clear.”

  “Clear in here.” Bridger holstered his weapon then began to search the drawers. “There were four shooters. Two queen sized beds. Somehow I doubt they’d be spooning.”

  Gregg waved a wand over the walls, paying particular attention to the lamps and TV. “No bugs.” He slipped the wand back into his jacket pocket. “Maybe they slept in shifts? Two stand guard while the others rest?”

  “Doubtful.” Bridger slammed the last empty drawer shut. “These guys would have little reason to be that paranoid.” He stood and planted his hands on his hips, his eyes scanning the room.

  Gregg grasped one of the mattresses and flipped it over. Under the flat wooden platform lay a black leather duffel bag. “Bingo again.”

  Bridger reached for the other mattress and flipped it. Two Pelican cases and a second black leather duffel lay hidden. “Check for booby traps.”

  Gregg carefully checked the zipper on the bag then nodded. “No boobies.” He smiled at Bridger. “As much as I’d like to find some.”

  Bridger sighed as he fished the tote out and placed it on the upended mattress. “Personal stuff.” He dumped a shaving kit and grooming items onto the floor. “Any IDs?”

  Gregg shook his head as he dumped the clothing out onto the floor. “Negative.” He poked at the items with the tip of his pen. “It’s like these guys were only planning an overnight.” He looked to Bridger. “If they’re cartel regulars, wouldn’t they at least need a passport to enter?”

  Bridger shrugged. “You’d think. Or a driver’s license in case they get pulled over.” He sighed again and checked the duffel for hidden pockets. “Nothing.”

  Gregg stepped over the mess and reached for a Pelican case. “I’m guessing this is for their hardware. Sorta tough to check this shit on a plane, don’t ya think?”