Hired to Kill

by Andrew Peterson

  “How’s our mirage look? The smoke column seems about the same. Any change mid-range?”

  “Everything looks . . . good,” Quattro said. “No change.”

  El Lobo moved the crosshairs onto the cardboard box and began a gradual increase of pull on the trigger. Anticipating the outcome, he nearly jerked the trigger.

  The second report hammered his hearing again.

  This time the result was spectacular.

  “Oh, hell yeah!” Quattro yelled.

  Even at this distance, they felt the blast’s compression thump.

  Looking like a fireworks accident, smoke trails arced through the air at a low angle to the ground. The TNT explosion essentially created an oversized claymore mine of burning tires. Covering their heads, the beeps crouched as smoking chunks pelted the area all around them. Sadly, none of the molten rubber found them. El Lobo smiled as they scrambled back to their SUV. Killing the responding beeps wasn’t in his master plan, but that would change soon enough.

  Tomorrow’s action would prove far more enjoyable, albeit more challenging.

  CHAPTER 15

  Rebecca Cantrell’s direct line came to life. A true direct line, it rang through without being vetted. The tiny screen on her telephone console showed a person she spoke with daily: Director of National Intelligence Scott Benson.

  “Start another pot of coffee, Rebecca. Ethan’s on the line with us. My staff is calling the other IC directors, but I wanted to talk to both of you in person.”

  Her longtime friend Ethan Lansing sat in the FBI director’s chair. Lansing was a good man, and she felt comfortable sharing the call with him. She turned toward her bank of TVs. Since all the cable news networks were still covering the UTC mall shooting in San Diego, she wondered what else had happened. Whatever it was, it had to be big. Benson’s office wouldn’t call all the intelligence community directors otherwise.

  Benson continued. “There’s been another mass shooting, and this one’s in our backyard. Multiple gunmen just shot up Mabel’s Diner.”

  Just as Benson finished his sentence, the Fox News broadcast of the UTC shooting was interrupted to announce more breaking news. One by one, the other networks followed suit.

  With the sound muted, she watched coverage of the shooting in San Diego switch over to the shooting in Washington, DC. The scrolling ticker tape on CNN rolled with: BREAKING NEWS: WASHINGTON, DC, DINER TARGETED BY MULTIPLE GUNMEN.

  “You seeing it?” Benson asked.

  “Yes,” she said, focusing on the subtitles scrolling across the TVs. She had an uncanny ability to follow multiple TVs at the same time without missing anything.

  Rebecca knew of Mabel’s Diner, but she hadn’t been in there in over a year. Mabel’s was famous for being frequented by senators, members of Congress, cabinet personnel, and yes, IC directors.

  “Was anyone there?” Realizing how that sounded, she asked, “I mean, lawmakers?”

  “Yes,” Benson answered. “Stone McBride was shot and killed.”

  Stone McBride? Dead? She ought to be prepared for any kind of news imaginable, but she suddenly felt flushed. Her voice cracked. “Is that one hundred percent confirmed?”

  “Yes,” Benson said. “The owner witnessed everything and gave a detailed report to MPD. The chief then called my direct line. I just got off the phone with him. There’s more: Stone’s daughter and granddaughter were with him.”

  “Please don’t tell me they were killed,” she said.

  “They weren’t, but his granddaughter was shot twice. She’s being transported for surgery as we speak. She’s expected to live. Stone’s daughter is MIA after single-handedly taking down three gunmen before leaving through the rear door. Mabel reported hearing more gunfire in the alley. MPD found a seriously wounded man near the rear door to Mabel’s, presumably one of the assailants, but he’s unconscious and may not live. There was no sign of Stone’s daughter. Her trail goes cold from there. Except for essential meetings, I want both of you to clear your calendars. Job one is to ID the DC and San Diego gunmen and find out if the two shootings are connected.”

  “What are the odds that two mass shooting attacks take place within the same hour?” Rebecca asked, somewhat rhetorically.

  “Exactly. We should assume they’re related until we learn otherwise and make sure every other metropolitan police department is on full alert. We’ve already updated the National Terrorism Advisory System to include the new attack in DC.”

  “I’m not seeing anything about Senator McBride on the networks,” Lansing said.

  “That hasn’t leaked yet, but we can expect it to within the next fifteen minutes or so. When it does, things are going to heat up, especially for a certain San Diego resident. I want you to call him directly, Rebecca. He needs to hear this from us, not see it on TV.”

  “Actually,” said Lansing, “my chief of staff, Holly Simpson, is dating Nathan McBride. I think the call should come from her. I’m walking over to her office as we speak. Here, she’s coming my way.”

  “Did Stone have a Secret Service agent with him?” Rebecca asked.

  “Yes,” said Benson. “He took several rounds to the chest. Fatal. It seems he tried to return fire on the gunmen, making himself a target. According to Mabel, Stone’s daughter fought back with the slain agent’s weapon. It could’ve been much worse otherwise.”

  “Rebecca, Scott, please hang on a sec while I talk to Holly . . .”

  She and Benson waited a moment until Ethan returned to the call. “Sorry, I’m back. Holly’s going to call Nathan right away.”

  “Rebecca, could Stone’s daughter have been the target?”

  “It’s definitely possible,” she said, “but I’m giving that extremely low odds.”

  “Why?”

  “She and her daughter are in WITSEC.”

  “That makes it unlikely, all right, but for now, nothing’s off the table. We’re going to work the two investigations and get answers.”

  “Rebecca, I’m going to need everything you’ve got on Stone’s daughter,” Lansing said. “I’m assuming you’ve got a file?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll make sure you get a copy ASAP.”

  Benson jumped back in. “Rebecca, what have you got on her? The short version, please.”

  Anticipating the question, she already had Jin’s file on her computer screen.

  “Her name’s Jin Marchand and she has a colorful history as a DPRK spook. Remember the Exocet missile scandal? Well, that was her doing. To make a long story short, the French finally caught up with her and forced her into becoming a double agent. Once DPRK found out she’d been working for the French, they put a price on her head, and a mercenary assassination squad nearly killed her in a Paris hotel. Eight people were killed.”

  “How did she end up here?” Scott asked.

  “I’m scanning for that right now . . . As I recall, it was around fifteen years ago.”

  “It can wait,” Benson said. “We don’t need to know right this second. Only take absolutely essential meetings. I want both of you immediately available. The president’s going to want answers and want them quickly. If these two shootings are linked, we need to know how and why.”

  “If it’s an assassination of Stone, there will be a long list of suspects,” Ethan said. “As the former chair of the Committee on Domestic Terrorism, Stone made many enemies from many different groups.”

  “Ethan, make sure Nathan McBride knows we’re going to keep him in the loop, but he’s to do nothing and take no action until he hears back from us.”

  “Holly’s calling him right now; I’ll let her know.”

  “Will he be on board?” Benson asked.

  Rebecca said, “He’s a Marine; he’ll follow orders.”

  “He just became your responsibility. We’ll talk again in half an hour, sooner if anything comes up.”

  Scott Benson ended the call and shook his head. The news networks were going to have a field day. He just hoped the mass s
hootings stopped with these two incidents. The longer his IC agencies went without answers, the more ineffective they’d look.

  He called Rebecca back, not conferencing in Lansing this time.

  “That was quick,” she said. “Do you have something new?”

  “No. It’s just the two of us now. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot with Stone’s daughter.”

  “Not at all. I’m still looking at her file.”

  “I thought you might be.”

  “It’s a long story, but she’s from a relationship Stone had in Korea near the end of the war. He’d planned to marry Marchand’s mother, but they were separated and never saw each other again. Rather than dive into her entire background, I’ll send you the file. In a nutshell, she was a covert operations officer for DPRK’s Ministry of State Security. Several years after the Exocet missile leak, which was Marchand’s op, the Chinese rolled out an upgraded antiship missile system. It doesn’t take a lot of math skill to put two and two together. DPRK either sold or gave the specs to their neighbor.”

  “I remember it,” Benson said. “I was at the Pentagon at the time. As I recall, we worked closely with the French to help track Marchand down.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Rebecca said. “After the French caught up with her a few years later, they gave her two options. Spend the rest of her life in a French prison or go to work for their DGSE.”

  “So what’s she doing in the United States?”

  “The simplest answer is we wanted her.”

  “Because of her working knowledge of North Korea?”

  “Yes, specifically because she had familiarity about a prison where several high-profile South Koreans were being held. The information she provided helped with the planning of a raid by ROK special forces to break them out. We supported the op with a force recon unit. DPRK denied it ever happened, but ROK had the hostages back as proof. A month later, the prison was shut down, and all the prisoners were transferred farther inland. We were able to pull it off because the prison was less than a mile from the Sea of Japan. FORECON got in and out quickly.”

  “Why didn’t the French keep her?”

  “She’d outlived her usefulness. The final straw was her surprise pregnancy. Rather than continue shelling out money to either protect or imprison her, the French released her from her obligation. She’d cooperated fully and given up extremely useful information. The French authorities have never admitted it, but we suspect she told them she was Stone McBride’s daughter, which could’ve easily been proven through a DNA test.”

  “And being the biological daughter of a high-profile politician, her US citizenship was put on the fast track,” Benson said.

  “Only after we discovered who she was. She didn’t tell anyone for a long time. Stone McBride didn’t know she existed until fairly recently.”

  “Why would she keep that a secret?”

  “She never said.”

  “Speculate.”

  “She could’ve been planning to use it as leverage at some future point.”

  “To what end?”

  “To remain in the United States with her daughter.”

  “I see your point. It wouldn’t look good on Stone’s résumé having a long-lost, illegitimate daughter who’d been a North Korean spook. That’s pretty solid leverage.”

  “To put it mildly.”

  “So how can we get her to make contact, assuming she’s still alive?”

  “We can’t,” said Cantrell.

  “Shit, it’s already breaking about Stone being killed in the diner. Look at CNN.”

  “I see it.”

  “Let’s hope Holly’s on the phone with his son by now.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Six Days Ago

  There’s nothing out here but rattlesnakes and two-legged vermin. US Border Patrol Agent Hank Grangeland knew his dark mood was moored in frustration. This desert teemed with life; you just had to know where to look. He’d spent twenty of his fifty years on Earth guarding the border.

  Driving toward the column of black smoke, he marveled at how beautiful it looked out here. Most people didn’t have a clue. The Chihuahuan Desert encompassed Big Bend National Park and hosted some of the most pristine landscape in North America—in the world, for that matter. He admired all its diverse areas but favored the sinuous path of the Rio Grande the best. In many places, the contrast of its greenbelt set against the beige and brown looked like a tree viper on sand. Ever since childhood, he’d loved the desert, the summer heat, the winter frosts, the smell of spring rain, and the vibrant colors of blooming cactus and flowers. Everything.

  Watching the murky water snaking its way toward the Caribbean, Grangeland wondered whether his new partner could handle the job. Two decades ago, he supposed his first partner might’ve wondered the same thing. Rookies were notoriously hard to read. Some had what it took, and some didn’t, but only time would tell. He gave the man sitting next to him fifty-fifty odds.

  “You ever get tired of this, G-Man?” asked his partner.

  Grangeland’s full name was Horatio Cecil Grangeland. Horatio Cecil? Seriously? His parents were kidding, right? Apparently not. During his formative years, he’d become quite the brawler. Kids could be so cruel to each other. He’d adopted the nickname Hank long ago, although most of his fellow agents called him G-Man. The only person who still called him Horatio was his sister, Mary. She had always thought Horatio was a cool name, but she hadn’t borne the brunt of relentless teasing all through childhood, high school, the Navy, and then the Border Patrol academy. If he hadn’t shared the name with the famous English sailor, he would’ve been spared all manners of jokes and pranks. During his Border Patrol academy days, his locker had become the sole focal point of mischievous activity. But despite all the teasing, everyone at the academy liked him.

  “Tired of what?” asked Grangeland. “You mean being out here?”

  “I guess. It just seems so pointless at times.”

  “It’s a lot easier if you don’t second-guess the decision-makers. We don’t make policy. We just enforce it.”

  Tucker nodded and stayed silent for a moment. “You ever meet Agent Jackson?”

  “I think I met her a few years back. Can’t remember.”

  “What those assholes did to her . . . it’s hard to imagine.”

  Three months ago, Agent Jackson and her partner had been bushwhacked just north of the Rio Grande near the eastern border of Big Bend by two notorious and violent coyotes named El Lobo and Quattro. They’d killed her partner outright, but they’d had different plans for Jackson. Her torment lasted two days before they shot her in the gut and left her for dead. It was a miracle she’d survived.

  If he ever crossed paths with those two, he’d make an exception to the “nobody’s watching” rule and have no regrets.

  He didn’t like thinking about it. El Lobo hadn’t simply wanted to kill Jackson; he’d wanted his men to humiliate and demean her. Violating her hadn’t been enough. She’d been beaten, branded, shot in the stomach, then left for dead. An off-road motorcyclist, who’d been illegally riding on private ranchland, found her. Amazingly, Agent Jackson had been conscious. Sunburned. Dehydrated. Lacerated. Bug bitten. You name it, she’d endured it. Fortunately, the off-roader had a backpack and offered her water and food. She might not have lasted another hour.

  Grangeland found himself gritting his teeth.

  “You thinking about her?”

  “Huh? Yeah . . . I hate the idea of those animals getting away with it.”

  “I heard about the scorpion brand he uses. What a sick asshole.”

  “Yeah, we think he heats it up with a cigar torch when he doesn’t have a campfire going. I’d love to get my hands on El Lobo and personally teach him the error of his ways.”

  “What about your ‘nobody’s watching’ rule?”

  “Let’s just say there are some rules I’ll bend, others not.”

  “So if we come across El Lobo, he’ll definitely r
esist arrest?”

  “Absolutely.” Grangeland’s partner was a rookie Border Patrol agent, but not inexperienced. Before joining the Border Patrol, Tucker served ten years with the Plano Police Department.

  “I heard your sister’s in law enforcement too,” said Tucker.

  He nodded. “She’s an ATF special agent. Before that, she was FBI.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Yep. She’s tougher than I am, but I hate the thought of her being brutalized like Jackson. It could’ve been her . . . She almost joined the Border Patrol.”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  “She had her heart set on the FBI.”

  “Then why’d she move to the ATF?”

  He couldn’t reveal the real reason, so he said, “I think she just wanted a change. She loved the FBI, but the ATF turned out to be a better fit.”

  If Tucker pursued this line of questioning further, he’d have to change the subject. Fortunately, they ended up talking about Tucker’s brother, who currently served in the Coast Guard. Most people had no clue how big a role the Coast Guard played in preventing illegal immigration.

  When they crested a small hill and started down toward the river, the source of the smoke became visible right away—definitely coming from the Mexican side of the river. The question became, why? Lately, he’d seen this kind of thing a lot, chalked it up to vandalism. But not all bonfires were harmless pranks. Over the years, he’d come across charred bodies, some of them belonging to children. He hadn’t been kidding when—on their first day together—he’d told Tucker that monsters lurked in this desert.

  “Go ahead and call in another bonfire, Tuck.” All incidents along the border were categorized, plotted with GPS coordinates, and logged. They wouldn’t have the exact lat and long numbers until they reached the spot.

  Dispatch said a park ranger was on scene. Moments later, they spotted the SUV on the shoulder a quarter mile ahead. When they got close, the ranger climbed out and approached his window.

  “Hey, G-Man, sorry you guys got dragged down here.”

  “Hey, TR. We’ve got the best assignment in the agency. Big Bend National Park and beautiful rangers.” He could say that without worrying about being labeled a sexist or accused of harassment. They’d known each other for many years.