by Ross Sidor
At 7:47PM, Avery and Castillo linked up outside, after finding no indicators of surveillance or anything else to raise alarm. They strode through the wide entrance of the Trump tower, receiving no attention from the doormen and valets, who were preoccupied with hotel guests.
The hotel’s interior was as ornately and prestigiously furnished as one would expect from the opulent exterior, with impressive and elegant visual aesthetics, enhanced by carefully crafted lighting, and adorned with high end chairs and sofas. Soft music played in the main concourse. Scents of freshly brewed coffee, along with perfume and a subtle, pleasant vanilla aroma that was perpetually pumped into the public spaces, wafted in the cool, climate controlled air.
In addition to the lines of guests waiting to check in or out, there were shoppers pouring in and out of the assorted shops, plus diners packing the restaurants. Everyone was here; businessmen, travelers, tourists, and families.
As Avery and Castillo walked across the lobby to the elevators, neither man looked at or acknowledged Aguilar, who was seated in a plush armchair with a coffee on the table in front of him, pretending to read a newspaper.
Aguilar was to remain stationary until he received word that Avery and Castillo were coming down, at which point he’d head outside and get in the car parked outside. Then, they’d run an SDR and switch vehicles twenty blocks away at Objective November. Despite the time efficiency of the exit plan, if something went wrong inside the hotel, it could take Aguilar up to ten minutes to reach his teammates on the thirty-third floor.
Avery and Castillo shared the elevator in silence with a Western couple who looked like they’d just come from doing laps around the bay in their yacht. The man even wore a captain’s hat, which Avery thought didn’t match the bulging fanny pack and flip-flops with socks rolled up to his knees, but the woman, a third his age and with inflated breasts pressed up through the low neck of her tank top, was all over him. They got off on the fourteenth floor.
As the doors slid shut, Castillo observed. “It must be nice to be a rich asshole.”
Avery recalled his mud-soaked hide in Venezuela, and didn’t disagree.
“I didn’t tell you, but Cynthia walked out on me a few years back.”
Annoyed, Avery frowned slightly at Castillo’s abrupt recollection.
“Five months later, she’s married to an American lawyer in Miami. She left me with the kids. They stay with my sister while I’m deployed.”
“Save it for later. Keep your mind in the game,” Avery warned. “If they’re going to make a move against us, it’ll be on the streets. They won’t hit us inside; too risky.”
“Right.”
Once they grabbed Canastilla/Muňoz, they’d split up, taking different elevators down. Avery would exit the hotel with Canastilla through a service door, where Aguilar would be waiting to pick them up in the team’s rented Ford Explorer, while Castillo went out through the main entrance in the front, sweeping the lobby and exterior once more for opposition. Castillo would then make his way to his own vehicle—a Toyota Hilux—and then link up with the others at Objective November.
Avery got off on the thirtieth-second floor. Castillo stayed behind to ride the elevator the rest of the way up.
Avery walked swiftly down the long, quiet hallway, turned a bend, passed two European businessmen, and pushed open the door leading into the stairwell, where he reached a hand beneath his jacket and withdrew the Glock. He craned his neck out over the railing to check the landing below and then glanced up to scope out the one above. Then he started working his way up the stairs.
If there was a hit team waiting to ambush them, the stairwell was a perfect place to hide and from which to deploy.
At the thirty-third floor, Avery slid his hand with the Glock into his jacket pocket, and entered the hallway, where he re-joined Castillo, who now filled a lounge chair at the end of the hallway. Castillo’s right hand rested on his lap, over his left thigh, with the mini-Uzi quickly accessible cross-draw style beneath his jacket. From here, Castillo could see down the length of the hallway to where it connected to the adjoining tower structure, and he had eyes on the elevators, too.
“Stairwell’s clear,” Avery reported to Castillo, looking straight ahead as he strode past. “I’ll get our friend.”
“Roger. I’ll be right here.”
Avery slowed his pace and stepped aside to allow a young couple with two small children to pass him. He stopped outside suite 3314. The “do not disturb” sign was inserted into the slot for the card key.
Avery withdrew his Glock and held it along the outside of his leg, with his finger indexed over the trigger guard. He gave three hard knocks against the side of the door. He heard movement on the other side, and envisioned someone coming up to the door and gazing at him through the peephole. Then he heard the deadbolt disengaging and the undoing of the latch.
The instant the door began to swing inward on its hinges Avery stepped in, planted his weight firmly on his left foot, raised his right, and kicked the door in, knocking over the man on the other side.
Avery snapped up the Glock two handed and followed it through the threshold into the one thousand square foot suite. His eyes swept the room left-to-right, right-to-left. He stood in the combined kitchen-dining room space, beyond which was the living room and, on the far end, sliding glass balcony doors through which starlight and the building’s reflective exterior lights shimmered. Immediately to his left were a small, open laundry room and the bathroom.
A short, lean, compact, and fit Latino man stood before Avery, visibly on edge and tense, his eyes locked on the gun pointed at him.
Avery examined the face.
Pablo Muňoz had noticeably aged since the time of the photo Daniel had showed Avery. His face carried a vacant, weary look, with a faraway emptiness to his eyes, and he looked almost gaunt, like he hadn’t eaten in days, like there was little life left in him.
With shortly cut black hair and a beard of equal length, Agent Canastilla wore blue jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and open collar with the top three buttons undone. He sweated rivulets and radiated fear, and Avery knew it wasn’t just because the man now faced the business end of a Glock. No, something else was the source of Muňoz’s unease, which in turn gave Avery cause for concern.
Avery kicked the door shut behind him and kept the Glock level with the Colombian agent while maintaining a five foot gap from him.
“Get down on your knees and cross your ankles and put your hands behind your head!” Avery shouted, needing to gain dominance.
The Colombian did as instructed.
Keeping his eyes locked on Muňoz’s hands, Avery came in closer and patted him down with one hand, checking for weapons or wires and finding none.
“Stay right there. Don’t fucking move!”
“I have to tell you something. We’re running out of time.”
“Save it.”
Holding the Glock in front of him with both hands, Avery threaded a path along the perimeter of the suite, going through the living room, coming around and making a right into the large bedroom, where he checked the closet and under the queen size bed. The bed looked untouched. The covers were spread taught over the mattress, without a single wrinkle, but Avery saw the tracks in the carpet from where Muňoz must have spent a good chunk of time pacing. At the desk, there was a half empty bottle of rum sitting in a bucket of melting ice next to a single glass, as well as a tiny, square-shaped plastic bag, the kind used to package a hit of cocaine.
Stepping back into the living room, Avery’s eyes lingered for a second over the terrace, looking through his partial reflection on the glass. Any intelligence professional worth his salt would have kept the drapes closed, he thought. The view through the sliding glass doors, past the terrace, was of the twin sail-shaped tower across the way.
Avery came back over to Muňoz, who remained on his knees with his hands behind his head.
“Are you Carnivore?”
>
“I’ll take you to him, if I decide you’re not fucking with me. In the meantime, let’s get out of here. Get up. Grab your stuff. If you’re taking anything, I’ll have to check it first.”
Muňoz stood up in a hurry and lowered his hands as Avery started for the door.
“Wait!”
The Colombian stopped, reached out and started to grab for Avery, but Avery spun and re-acquired him from behind the Glock. Muňoz realized his mistake and he put his hands up, palms out.
“No! Wait,” Muňoz pleaded. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Tell me later. We’re leaving now.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m already a dead man, but if I go with you, and disobey their instructions, they’ll kill my family, too. They’re watching us. They’re already on their way here.”
Avery’s eyes narrowed as his mind processed a half dozen things at once.
He threw all of the locks on the door, and hit the push-to-talk clipped beneath his jacket and said into the throat mike, “Carnivore to all units, I have the package, but we’re held up at Objective Charlie. We’re going to have company. Blueshift hold your position. Stalker, you got my six? Acknowledge.”
Avery heard Aguilar’s voice in his earpiece. “Blueshift for Carnivore, copy that, holding position.”
“Stalker, do you copy?” Avery said.
“You have to listen to me!” Muňoz shouted. Without looking at him, Avery held up a hand to silence him, but the Colombian kept yelling. “This information needs to reach Daniel.”
“I said, shut up.” Avery tilted his chin toward the throat mike. “Stalker, are you there!”
No response from Castillo.
Avery swore and stepped back, away from the door, weighing his options. He wanted to grab the package and split, but if the opposition already hit Castillo, that meant they were real close and getting closer by the second.
He tapped the push-to-talk again. “Carnivore for Blueshift, belay last message. Get your ass up here now and watch your back!”
“Hold tight. I’m my on my way, Carnivore.”
Avery holstered the Glock. He grabbed onto the medium-sized refrigerator and tugged on it, dragged it inch by inch across the floor, scratching floor tiles and rattling its contents. He left the fridge in front of the door. Then he took four steps back and moved behind the thick granite island in the center of the kitchen.
Avery drew the Glock once more and held the weapon firmly in the isosceles stance over the top of the island, aiming toward the entry way to the suite.
Christ, he thought. This could be a fucking massacre.
___
As he voiced his response to Avery’s last transmission, Aguilar was already in the process of jumping up from his seat and taking wide strides across the foyer. Seeing his urgency and the expression on his face, people hurried out of his way, and a doorman yelled after him. At first Aguilar maneuvered around people, but as his patience wore out, he simply pushed them aside, ignoring their protests. There were at least two dozen people, many with luggage, waiting for the elevators. As one elevator opened, Aguilar pushed ahead through the line, shouldering people out of the way. He shoved over a tanned blonde, prompting an outraged man in a Hawaiian shirt with sunglasses and gelled hair to yell something out and start after Aguilar in an effort to play hero. As Aguilar reached the elevator, he felt a hand grab onto his shoulder from behind. Aguilar, sighed, turned, and delivered a right hook to the man’s jaw and shoved the slack body back out of the elevator as the doors shut.
___
From her observation post, the Viper heard every word spoken in Muňoz’s suite, which was wired for sound. She swore out loud. Then she grabbed her cell phone and hit a number programmed into the speed dial. It rang twice before a male voice answered in Spanish. She cut him off and ordered, “Move in now. I want the American alive if possible. If not, make him suffer.” She ended the call and rolled her chair across the carpet to the bi-pod-mounted VSS sniper rifle positioned on the table near the sliding glass doors, the tip of the suppressor pointing through the drawn shades. She leaned into the scope. She had partial line of sight right into Muňoz’s suite from here. Her own suite was on the thirty-fifth floor of the twin parallel tower, and allowed her to see a little less than halfway into the target area. Carnivore and Muňoz were presently out of sight, but she had caught a brief glimpse of the American’s back earlier when he searched the suite. She grew anxious, eager to match a face with the voice.
___
“How many are coming?”Avery thought it couldn’t be more than three or four shooters—not that that was by any means a small number—but Muňoz didn’t provide an answer. “How many, goddamn it?”
“I don’t know! I am not a part of this, I swear! They trapped me. This was the only I could save my family.”
“How did you know to ask for Carnivore?”
“I never heard that name before. She prepared the message.”
“Who?”
“Please, listen to me. I have to tell you something important.”
“I’m all ears in the ten seconds we’ve got left before someone knocks that door down, so start fucking talking, and you better make it interesting.”
“If you make it out of this, tell Daniel that the Viper has hijacked Plan Estragos. I have access to General Flores’ files. I saw it for myself. They caught me, interrogated me, and threatened my family. I had to do this. I am so sorry.”
“Made you do what?”
“She made me bring Carnivore here,” Muňoz said. “Tell Daniel the Viper is taking Plan Estragos to the United States.”
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Avery shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Either we make it out of here or we’re both dead. We’re in this together.”
There were voices on the other side of the door speaking Spanish.
“They’re here,” Avery said quietly.
Someone tried pushing on the door and worked the handle.
“I was supposed to leave the door ajar,” Muňoz said. “They will know that something is wrong.”
Avery’s finger tightened around the trigger. He focused on his breathing, in and out, keeping a steady flow of oxygen to his blood. “You got a weapon?”
“It’s in the bedroom.”
“Get it!”
Muňoz scrambled across the floor.
A second later, Avery heard glass crack behind him, followed by a grunt from Muňoz and then something heavy hitting the floor. He started to turn his head to look, but then a new sound demanded his attention.
“Are you in there, Avery?”
Avery relaxed and eased up on the trigger at the sound of Castillo’s voice coming from the hallway on the other side of the door.
But the relief lasted only a second.
Fuck. This was worse than he’d thought.
“Who else do you have out there, Jon?”
In response, a double burst of automatic fire blasted the lock and drilled through the door, pelting the fridge directly on the other side. Avery recognized the sharp clattering sound of an Uzi. This was followed by a shout in Spanish and then the sound of the door being kicked in, but the door stopped short after barely a foot, banging against the back of the fridge, which was six feet in front of Avery.
Going in from the hallway, the door opened to the left side, so the assaulters would have to squeeze through on their right, Avery’s left. They’d have to either push the fridge over or squeeze through the narrow gap in the doorway one at a time. Either way, it slowed them down, and presented Avery a small advantage.
A shadow spilled into the room and splayed over the floor off the left side of the fridge.
Avery held his aim to what he thought would be about chest level. He saw the barrel of an FMK-3, a small, Argentinean-made submachine gun, poke around from behind the fridge. The FMK-3 was quickly followed by a man with Latin complexion, compact, muscular build, and gang tattoos adorning
his arms and neck.
Avery sighted on him center mass and tapped the trigger twice.
The intruder grunted in surprise when the first bullet struck his sternum and tunneled through his chest. The second bullet laid him out on the floor with blood pooling beneath his body. As he moaned and squirmed on the carpet, bleeding out, Avery lowered his aim several degrees and put the kill shot through the back of the man’s skull.
Avery raised his aim, waiting for the next target to appear.
He saw another shadow come across the floor, heard the heavy breathing, but the intruder, stopping in the doorway before the corpse of his partner, became cautious and didn’t advance into the suite beyond the cover of the fridge. Instead the shadow lingered in place and lifted an arm up, seemed to reach for something.
Then Avery caught a glimpse of the hand making an overhand pitch past the fridge, launching a grenade into the kitchen.
The Arges HG86 mini-grenade, the size of a tennis ball, bounced against the wall and hit the floor where it rolled further into the suite. It was followed by a second and—Avery’s eyes widened—a third grenade.
The second grenade landed past the island, rendering the sturdy slab of granite useless as possible cover. Avery pivoted on the balls of his feet and took off. He sprinted out of the kitchen, into the living room, his eyes scanning for cover. He aimed for the square-shaped wooden table. Its surface was about an inch thick and solid, and it was the sturdiest object in sight.
Just beyond the table, Pablo Munoz was sprawled on the floor, face down in a pool of blood, with the back of his head opened up. There was a single hole through the glass of the terrace doors, with spider web cracks around it.