by Glen Robins
The knowledge that Collin Cook was receiving aid from the National Security Agency had far-reaching consequences and had caused Penh, Torres, and their accomplices to shift their priorities and hasten their planned attack. If someone at the NSA was bringing Cook to Mexico, it could be an indication that the US government had somehow learned of the coup that was underway and likely had plans of their own to stop it. The fear of a leak within Torres’s camp had crossed Penh’s mind before, but now seemed an undeniable conclusion. Penh had confronted him as soon as the knowledge of Cook’s arrival in Mexico had been confirmed. Torres had denied it. Then came the raid at the compound staffed by the American mercenaries, revealing the depth and breadth of the American involvement and level of their preparations. Torres had vowed to get to the root of the problem and cut the head off the snake.
Penh wanted to accelerate the timeline and cut the Americans’ prep time to zero. The faster they could launch their multipronged attack, the better. But Torres balked. He wanted the money he had been promised or, he had said, it was a no-go.
A stalemate had begun with the discovery of the Americans’ safe house in Villahermosa. Torres was spooked and Penh was irate, convinced that Torres had run a sloppy and undisciplined organization. Torres accused Penh of being rash and hasty and bent on a personal vendetta to the point of arrogantly assuming they could and would be able to operate undetected. Then, there was the issue of Penh neglecting to fulfill his financial obligations. Trust between the two men had deteriorated at a crucial point in time, just prior to the culmination of their months-long preparations.
Now, on the eve of their grand launch, Torres demanded payment for himself and his men. Penh promised to deliver if Torres could bring Cook to the airport upon his arrival. It was a classic Mexican standoff scenario. Neither person could retreat, nor could the deal proceed unless each side met the other’s demand to produce tangible results necessary to keep the plan in motion. Each person had to show his ability to keep his end of the bargain.
Fortunately, Penh’s men were still tracking Cook and his laptop. It appeared he and his computer were now moving toward Mexico City again with a group of Torres’s men. Penh would confirm this on the phone.
Penh salivated at the prospect of his men breaking in to the NSA database and finding out how much the Americans knew. The sooner Collin Cook’s laptop could be accessed, the sooner they could counteract the Americans’ strategies. That could take place while Penh and Cook were making their hasty round-trip to Panama City to retrieve Cook’s $30 million, which he would present to Torres to keep his military forces on the job and to live up to his end of the bargain.
It was a chess game on steroids. Move and countermove with the stakes being world domination. Very few people understood now the ramifications this night would bring. However, in the morning it would all be clear. The Americans were about to lose their prominence as the dominant economic and military force in the world to be replaced by those they had victimized and abused for decades. It was a thought that Penh relished as much as any other.
With the raid and killing of the four agents in Villahermosa, Penh felt confident that he had taken much of the air out of the NSA’s tactical team. And if he could strike quicker and harder than previously planned with the help of the information and gateway on Collin’s laptop, he was sure he and his team could thwart any and all offensives.
The NSA—indeed the entire world—was about to receive a massive shock.
Senator Rivera Torres picked up on the third ring, which annoyed Penh. He knew he was sending a signal, but Penh pushed past it to concentrate on more urgent matters. When asked, the senator assured Penh that the combined members of their two teams were in place. They had all the equipment they needed and were working in an isolated fire-walled office in an otherwise empty building.
“How can you be so sure the building is secure?” Penh inquired.
“It has not yet been completed, so there are high fences with razor wire. We have troops stationed around the perimeter to restrict access. No one gets in or out of that building without going through our checkpoints. There are no tenants because none of the offices are ready for occupants, except ours. Plus, all construction work has been halted thanks to a clever and conveniently timed inspection delay. Work cannot continue until those inspections take place and the inspectors are all tied up for the next several days.”
“Your bureaucrats living up to their reputation.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Senator Torres with a chortle, the first bit of levity between them in days. “On top of that, we have a dedicated fiber-optic trunk line running into a conference room on the twenty-sixth floor. It is the only fully operational suite, by my request. I know the contractor personally. It is I who made sure his company was awarded the job—a one-hundred-million-dollar job, I might add—so he has granted me certain favors without asking questions.”
“Any updates on our hostage?”
“They are traveling as we speak and will arrive in the early evening. That will give your man plenty of time to set up, as you requested.”
“Excellent. Then we are on-schedule and can commence our attack tonight.” It was more of a command than a question.
The senator responded with an edge in his voice. “Do you have the payment we agreed upon? My men cannot continue to work for free, and neither can I. You gave me your word you would have it upon arrival and I, in turn, promised my men the same.”
“I will have the money by the time I return in the evening. Rest assured of that.”
“My men will walk away from this project if your promises are not kept. It is a bad precedent that does not bode well for promises of future fortune and privilege.”
“I told you to have your men take Cook into custody and bring him to me at the airport upon my arrival. Is he not en route?”
“My men are in pursuit of him as we speak,” said the senator. “I will have an update within the hour.”
“I certainly hope so, for your sake.” Penh paused to let that sink in and to allow the tension to build. He knew Torres anticipated the next question, so he let the moment drag on. “And what about the issue of the mole within your organization?”
“There is no mole. I know every one of my top advisors. I know of their loyalty and passion. None would betray me or my vision. Besides, Mr. Penh, in less than twenty-four hours from now the world will be changed forever. There is little anyone can do at this point to stop what is about to happen. You said so yourself. Please tell me you do not doubt what you have said.”
The nerve of Torres. “I don’t need to remind you that this is our most crucial time. If there is an infiltrator within your ranks, he had better be silenced immediately. Is this clear, Senator?”
“Absolutely. It will be dealt with immediately.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hotel room in the southeastern section of Mexico City
June 18, 6:45 a.m. Local Time
Butch paced the floor of a new hotel room closer to the city and much more comfortable. It offered room service and Wi-Fi. That’s all he needed right now. He had set up an array of computer equipment that cast an eerie light across the sculpted carpeting under his feet. One computer monitored the whereabouts of his agents, as well as the nameless American’s progress over the mountain using the tracking device they had planted in the rucksack without his knowledge. On the screen was a map with blinking colored dots. Each dot represented a different person. He could see the American was moving, albeit slower than expected. He would have to pick up the pace if he was going to make it on time. Butch figured once he got to the downhill side, it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to average closer to three miles per hour.
Another laptop listened in to police radio communications. A third was hooked up to the satellite phone the American had with him and fed data into it to throw off whoever might be tracking its whereabouts.
The other dots tracked the groups of contractors converging on th
e Mexican capital, their movements and efforts being directed by the secretive team in Washington and shared with Butch.
With each turn, Butch started a new thought as he paced. His mind flipped from one aspect of the mission to another, from one person and his role to another. Sorrow filled him when he thought about the two dead agents now being hauled away by Jorge and Riptide and the four who perished in Villahermosa. Families would need to be notified and transportation would need to be arranged, but that was secondary to the mission. They could wait. Another turn brought thoughts about the injured man and his prognosis. He crossed himself and silently prayed for all six of his brave fallen comrades. They served their country faithfully, but due to the clandestine nature of their work, no one would know the particulars of their sacrifice. The government would spin a special simplified story that would find its way to the of the neglected middle pages of the middle sections of the hometown newspapers in their areas. He had seen it a hundred times. It would all sound very patriotic. There would be praise for their senses of duty and devotion to country and family. The single-column stories would be high on commendation, short on details. Regardless of what was said or how it was portrayed, those families would be no less devastated by the loss.
These mounting losses also added up to operational extremities. With six missing team members, he had had to make significant changes to each team’s assignment. They had to be brought up to speed on the details of the mission while they traveled. Their training, fitness, and operational IQ, like all in this line of work, were superior. That was all he had to rely on.
A surprise train of thought hijacked his mind during one of the laps across the room: here he was, not far from where his parents had lived prior to leaving their homeland to try to provide him and his brothers with a better life, now working for his new country while it helped protect his old country. Everything about the current mission seemed odd. The fact that he and his team were infiltrating a foreign country, preparing to engage in combat with soldiers from a friendly nation without authorization or consent from the president or Congress, put him and his team in a very difficult position should something go wrong. They were, after all, independent contractors with no traceable ties to any government agency. That gave the president and Congress complete deniability and left them stranded and alienated in the case of failure. At this point, their options were limited. Win, die trying, or walk away now. With so much on the line, losing or walking away were not options that anyone on this team would entertain. It was a tangled web, but he was proud to help two countries that he loved at the same time.
Butch knew everyone involved sought nothing less than complete success. Sure, the average American would never know about what they had done and they would never receive medals or commendations, but their reward would be as much peace as a victory over a single enemy could buy. The knowledge that the world would, for the most part, go on as it had was its own prize.
Butch knew he had to keep focused on the mission, so he pushed that thought, although encouraging, to the background for the time being.
A ringing sound shattered his concentration. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, except for the timing of it. He moved to the chair and pulled the laptop connected to the satellite phone a bit closer and turned up the volume. The voice that answered was familiar. It was the American whose name he didn’t know. He sounded hesitant as well as out of breath. “Hello.”
“Mr. Cook. Did I catch you during your morning workout?” came a silky-smooth, almost British accent that emphasized the ending consonants a bit too much.
“I try to stay in shape. What do you need?”
“I need you, Mr. Cook.”
“Why do you need me? You have all the information you need. It’s right there on the hard drive you cloned.”
“Oh, don’t treat me like some sort of fool. You are lying and you know it. Without your fingerprints and retinas, I cannot access the information I need. You were very clever to set up such stringent security measures. Or, should I say, your friend at the NSA was?”
Butch listened closely, wondering how Penh had put it together and how much he knew about what they had planned. The American hesitated long enough to let Penh know he’d struck a nerve. Butch was sure of it. “What friend are you talking about? I’m all alone out here, just trying to dodge you and Interpol.”
“I don’t think so. There is plenty of evidence to refute that.”
“You’re deluded,” the American snapped back. “There is none.”
Again, Butch wondered if Penh sensed the same level of defensiveness and evasiveness he did.
“Where shall I start? Shall I start with your escape from London? Or how you decided to leave Hamburg in the middle of the night? Or shall we discuss your prearranged flight out of Paris to Grand Cayman? Hmm? Any of these ring a bell?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m living my life free and on my own. No one tells me what to do or where to go.”
“OK. You want to play it that way? Then who saved your mum and girlfriend by killing my men in San Diego? How did a group of trained assassins just stumble into that abandoned warehouse in the desert at just the right time while you were thousands of miles away in the middle of the ocean, tied up on a sailboat?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m sure you have plenty of other enemies. A guy like you would have no problem accumulating people who dislike him. You’re not as invisible as you’d like to think.” Butch admired this American’s ability to think on his feet and bluff like a poker champion.
“I also find it suspicious that after your boat wrecked, you were magically rescued and carried off in an airplane, the same airplane that made an emergency landing in Belize after shutting down the entire municipal airport around its arrival and departure time. Curious that all of that could happen while you were working alone, living your life the way you want.”
The American held his tongue for a few ticks. Butch couldn’t imagine what he might say to all of this. It was pretty obvious that Penh had broken through the mystery that surrounded this “Mr. Cook.” If nothing else, Butch knew the man’s name now.
“Yeah, so what? The NSA approached me after you and I mysteriously met each other in the Bahamas and then again in London a few weeks later. Apparently, they’ve been tracking you. They wanted to know what I knew about you. They didn’t believe that I knew nothing, despite the fact that it was true. So they told me that if I worked with them, I would get to keep the money that is, by the way, rightfully mine. Obviously, I refused to cooperate. That’s why Interpol and the FBI are after me.”
The British-sounding guy didn’t hesitate. “So they fed you a lie and you believed it?”
“I believe that you’re a power-hungry, soulless, psychotic head case. That’s not a lie and it’s not that hard to believe.”
The guy with the accent breathed in audibly. Butch could sense the tension. “Mr. Cook, we have your friend, Mr. Howell. If you want him to remain alive and in one piece, you will stay right where you are.”
The American’s defiant voice barked back, “Why is that?”
“You are currently surrounded by federal police from the Republic of Mexico. They have a warrant out for your arrest.”
“My arrest? What for?”
“For conspiracy to assassinate the president of Mexico.”
****
Mt. Tlaloc, Mexico
June 18, 7:20 a.m. Local Time
For the past several hours, cramps, blisters, and the steep terrain slowed Collin to the point where his progress was little more than crawling speed, so he removed the pack and sat on a rock and contemplated his condition.
The conversation with Penh repeated in his head. He had had to convince Penh that he was not in possession of his laptop and hadn’t been since he landed in Villahermosa. Penh hadn’t believed him at first. But, apparently, he got some sort of confirmation and switched the subject. He did, however, continue to threaten Rob’s lif
e. Collin had managed to buy some time by agreeing to comply to Penh’s terms after Penh landed in Mexico City, but he kept his current whereabouts hidden. Penh was not happy with any amount of delay, but Collin negotiated as hard as he could, given the circumstances.
Worries about Rob and what Penh might do had kept his mind off his physical discomfort. Exertion had kept him warm enough to this point despite the chilly breeze and cool night air. But now, even with the morning sunshine, what was a chilly breeze had turned to gusty wind as he approached the high-elevation pass that marked, as nearly as he could tell, the one-quarter mark toward his destination. Temperatures hovered in the low fifties, according to the tiny thermometer attached to one of the pack’s zippers. The cool air quickly turned his sweat cold, aided by the wind, causing him to shiver. Collin opened the main compartment of his backpack and removed the camouflage clothing Freddie had packed in there. The shirt was made of polypropylene material so it would wick away moisture. He pulled off his saturated T-shirt and put on the long-sleeved camo shirt. While he was at it, he decided he would change his pants, too, replacing his cargo shorts with camouflage long pants.
When he stood, his vision began to swim. Dizzy and light-headed, Collin sat back down before he was able to put the pants on and held his head in his hands. He was breathing hard because of the thin air. That was definitely part of it. Maybe he was a bit dehydrated, too. He swigged some more water and bit off another worthy bite of the compact energy bar, knowing it was perhaps contributing to the rebellion rising in his stomach. Expecting the feeling to fade as he rested and drank, it instead worsened until he was on his knees, retching. When he finished, he realized the retching had helped the queasiness in this stomach, but sapped his strength. He sat up on the rock and pulled on the camouflage pants, waiting for his insides to normalize.