Nathan nodded and agreed. “Fine, but his girlfriend, she is unstable.”
“So am I. His girlfriend is just going to have to deal.” Evan chuckled.
“OK.” Nathan did not sound convinced.
“Uh-huh. Talk to me about Andre Pena.” Evan changed the subject again.
Nathan nodded. “You are in no danger of being spotted by him. We believe the cartels bought his freedom. Americans, of course, found out after the fact. He is here, and we believe he is working with the Scorpions at one of their training facilities.”
“Training facilities?”
“Hundreds of them. All of the cartels now have paramilitary assault groups. Soldiers defect from the Mexican army at about a hundred a month. Anyway, they train new recruits in explosives, hand-to-hand, and close-quarter battle. Used to be just Mexican special operators—now it’s trained killers from all over South America. The Scorpions have a few European and Israeli guys. I will get into that later.”
Evan nodded. “Pablo hired former SAS commandos and Israeli commandos to take out FARC guerillas. Paid professional soldiers.”
“Some of the cartels have an army of about ten thousand. Evan, the words criminal insurgency are being whispered around the Pentagon, but it isn’t politically correct.”
“Of course not. Don’t want to lose the Hispanic vote, especially if we ever had to help Mexico. No, this country is pretty much overrun.”
“Some think it’s heading our way, up north,” Nathan said flatly.
“We can just give them back California and call it a day.” Evan laughed.
“I can give you all the info on Andre when we do our brief.”
“So, kinda weird that me, you, and Andre Pena are all in the same country again. Freaking coincidence,” Evan said.
“Or Providence,” Nathan snapped.
“That’s what I am afraid of,” Evan mused.
“We gonna stop for a little coffee in Puebla, talk, and then make it to the Zoo.”
“You’re the boss.”
Nathan drove fast and aggressively, like a drug runner or a cop trying to get out of a bad neighborhood.
Traffic slowed as they approached Puebla. Neither man spoke during the twenty-minute drive into the city.
Evan stared out the window and let his mind once again drift into a tangent. Nothing has changed. He figured that the extreme poverty in some places was how class warfare, resentment, and the romantic idea of Marxism was used to attract people to the notion that they were being screwed and cheated and that some cosmic fairness could be achieved if they would just let some different dude run their life.
Evan thought about the irony. In the end, nothing changes. Whether you call someone a king, president, dictator, furor, emperor, or boss, the willful are going to rule over the will-less.
Evan watched the city around him. People were going about their lives just like anywhere else. He watched a pregnant teenager talking on a cell phone while pushing a baby stroller. A cop coming out of a store smiled. A line was forming at a corner taco stand, and Evan felt hungry.
“Ah, here it is.” Nathan pulled right off the street into a parking space facing a Starbucks.
Evan shook his head. “Really? Starbucks? All the local culture around here, and you want a freaking Starbucks?”
Nathan laughed. “Intel pickup, my friend.”
“Oh.”
“Stay in the car. Watch my back.”
“You got ten, and then I am coming in and getting my latte.”
Nathan replied with exasperation, “Fine, Evan.”
Evan sat in the passenger seat while the truck idled. He tuned in a Mexican weather station and looked around the strip mall. He spotted a Papa Johns, a Burger King, and a few other stores that he recognized.
“Amazing. Our contribution to the world. Lots of junk to buy. Or, hell, we’ll give you Walmart and pizza; you sell us meth!”
Evan watched Nathan go to the bar and order a coffee. A very attractive woman in her thirties who had been reading a newspaper at a tiny round table approached Nathan and gave him a hug.
Evan smiled. “How sweet. Now hand off—oh, sloppy—just like a cop!” Evan watched her press a thumb drive attached to a key into Nathan’s hand. “Mmm, is that a key to your apartment?” Evan strained to get a better look at her.
She wore a knee-length business skirt and a sleeveless, white blouse. Her arms were muscular and her calves firm.
“Fake boobs, aerobics queen, and, oh, married. Ha!” Evan shook his head. He noticed her wedding band as she rubbed Nathan’s back with a slow methodic stroke that ended with an inappropriate squeeze. “Nathan, you are still a dog!” he accused.
Evan watched them talk for about five minutes while Nathan waited for his fancy drink to be made. Once Nathan got his drink, the two made their way outside and sat at a table, knee to knee, holding hands and chatting like two schoolgirls.
“That’s my cue.” Evan turned off the truck, tucked his weapon in his waistband, and pulled his sweatshirt over the grip. He put on his sunglasses and opened the door and held it for a group of young people. They smiled, and he smiled back.
What are you up to, Nathan? Evan mused as he got his tall latte with an extra shot. He placed a Splenda in it and watched the two lovers talk. Nathan was either really into her or he was pretending very well. They held hands and kissed, and then she got up, and they parted ways.
Both Nathan and Evan watched with great respect from two different vantage points as she made her way into the parking lot, got into an unmarked police car, and drove off.
The drive through Puebla out into the country was uneventful. Once they were clear of the city and on Mexico Highway 150D heading toward the distant, dormant volcano La Malinche, Nathan spoke.
Evan was so busy thinking about a plethora of things, from Mexican women to what kind of snow blower he should buy, that he did not realize Nathan was talking. “Sorry, Nathan, zoned out. What did you say?”
“I said she just gave me a two-gig thumb drive full of tasty information. She works for Mexico’s elite drug task force. Most all of her colleagues work for various cartels.”
“And?”
Nathan smiled. “I guess we will see.”
“See?”
“Just more information on Mario and his hangouts.”
Evan watched scrubland and flatness give way to hills and pine trees as they approached the mountain. “That your girlfriend?”
“No, no, just a friend,” Nathan said.
“She looks friendly,” Evan said.
“Her husband and two kids were tortured, drenched in gasoline, and burned alive because of her job. Happened five years ago.”
“Shit!”
“She still wears her ring.”
“That is horrible. Wow!”
“The guy you threw in the Dumpster, Gerard, he raped her first.”
“Wow, I feel like crap now. I should have snapped his neck!” Evan said.
“You will have your chance at redemption. That’s why my team is so pissed at you. They have history with that evil bastard. Tracking him for a while.”
“Where is Mario?”
Nathan shrugged. “She says she has something big. Will have to see.”
“I want to look. If I am going to be in on this, I need transparency.”
“Fine, that’s fair,” Nathan conceded.
“Where are we?” Evan asked.
“This is the only town near the Zoo. It’s San Francisco in the state of Tetlanohcan. We travel down the equivalent of a farm road, until it dead ends. The gravel road stretches to the right and left for miles and almost circles the whole volcano.”
“Why did you name it the Zoo?” Evan asked.
“The owner used to have a mission outreach and petting zoo. He is old now and lives in Australia,” Nathan answered.
“How fitting.” Evan rolled down the window and hung his arm out.
“You know, Evan, the Tlaxcaltecas Indians were the only group to resi
st the Aztecs. They are a fierce, independent people.”
Evan nodded in agreement. “Yes, and they originally aided Cortez. Didn’t work out too well for ’em in the end.”
“Oh, your negativity. Sometimes you sound like—”
“Someone who sees only the miserable side to people?” Evan finished.
“Yes!”
“There is a reason.”
They were driving down the lonely farm road to where it branched into crushed gravel in either direction. The two divergent roads stretched and curved till they disappeared out of sight among the pine trees. Evan smiled at the majestic mountain in the distance.
“Nice, huh?” Nathan seemed proud of himself.
“Yeah.”
Evan and Nathan drove off-road for about thirty meters into the woods. They drove on a trail covered with compacted bushes and grass. The trail began to turn into a narrow gravel road.
“See? This entrance is completely hidden from the road!”
They drove up to a tall, black iron gate that was framed by two large stone walls. A new chain link fence connected with the walls and stretched out into the woods, encompassing the estate. Evan was impressed by several pairs of deer antlers over the entrance.
Nathan rolled down his window and typed in a code on the keypad. “Security still has to clear us.”
The two men waited in silence until three men in jeans and cowboy hats approached from within the compound. All three men were scruffy with large tattoos decorating their arms and necks. One of the gate guards had a shotgun, and the other two had AK-47s. Safer to look like a narco ranch than a bunch of clean-shaven military contractors.
The gate swung open, and the men waved politely.
“Hey, boss.”
“Hola. The others arrive?”
“Sí, all is set.”
“This is the newest member of our team: Ivan.” Nathan pointed at Evan.
Evan returned the obligatory head nod.
Once they were cleared, Nathan drove through the gate.
“Welcome to the Zoo, your home for the next six weeks.”
Part 2
CHAPTER 13
The Love Boat
Gulf of Mexico, Five Days Later
Ten miles off the coast of Veracruz, Mexico, sat a 198-foot yacht known simply as the Happy Mermaid. The megayacht had high sharp lines, dark windows, multiple decks, and a crane arm that hung off its stern like a massive lobster claw. From a distance, the yacht resembled a floating, futuristic resort. Brilliant ecofriendly glass, solar panels, and polished, shiny rails encircled the yacht. The massive yacht boasted its presence with a subtle message to other vessels: I am bigger and more expensive than you—now move along!
When this megayacht was released in 2008, it caused such jealously among the world’s elite that a Russian billionaire commissioned a German company to make one even bigger. Mario promptly threatened to blow the Russian’s yacht out of the water if it ever got to close to Mexico. This caused the Russian to install an antimissile defense system.
Mario leaned against the polished stainless-steel rail of the top deck and swirled his glass of Macallan fifty-year-old Scotch. At $10,000 a bottle, Mario savored every drop: the color, the aroma, and the smooth burn that oozed down his throat.
Ocean spray, sunlight, and the smell of oil caused him to close his eyes and breathe deeply. “Liquid art,” Mario said, slurring his words.
The billionaire opened his eyes and looked at his guest, like a sleepy cat. A short, nervous bald man in an Italian suit sipped his Scotch and tried not to cough. He was not a drinker, and it was still morning.
“Sir, I…I—”
“Please, please, call me Mario.”
“Yes, sir, um, Mario, I plead with you and hope that my question or request does not offend you.”
Mario smiled and held up his hand.
The man finished his Scotch and gulped in fear. Mario’s guest was an executive with Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos, or PEMEX, a $415-billion-a-year business. PEMEX is the second-largest state-owned oil company in the world.
“Yes, I know what you want to ask, and the answer is yes.”
“Oh, sir, thank you!”
Mario snapped his fingers and waited for Jorge Valdez, the head of his elite paramilitary group known as the Scorpions, to approach. Jorge was never far and leaned against the rail. He looked amused at the oil executive and then frowned with some pity.
“Jorge, put the word out. No one touches the pipelines in the gulf!”
“Yes, boss.”
Mario continued. “One hundred million last year was lost to pirates, who illegally tapped and stole oil from your pipelines. No doubt gangs who are losing revenue, primarily because they are poor at smuggling.”
“Anything else?” Jorge asked Mario, clearly bored.
Jorge never took his eyes off the oilman. Jorge did not need to disclose to Mario how he would handle it; this was his realm. Typically, he would just grab some rival cartel members or street people, take them to a warehouse, video a confession, and then have their heads cut off. It was effective and worked. Jorge loved YouTube.
“Take him home. Use my helicopter. He can send my payment in the next few days.”
“Boss, I have to take another passenger ashore, so that works fine.”
Mario nodded. “Yes! The computer girl. I want to speak with her before she leaves. Get this prick out of my site, and send her in!”
The computer girl had a real name, and it was Tanya Mendes. She was cagey, grumpy, and made no attempt to be social or nice. Tanya was an agent with Dark Cloud and had effectively hacked the ship’s computers under the guise of repairing them and creating a secure mainframe and network for Mario’s organization. Tanya Mendes, whose real name had changed so many times that it was no longer of any consequence, was born to a Japanese father, who had been a computer-software designer, and Brazilian mother, who had been a linguistics professor. Tanya had inherited both the shrewd brains of her father and the distractingly good looks and language ability of her mother.
By age twenty-eight, Tanya was working for the Brazilian intelligence service Agência Brasileira de Inteligência, or ABIN.
Her ability to troubleshoot and manage computer systems had made her quite valuable in the technical division. Nothing had ever been ideal or great in Tanya’s life, but she had managed to struggle through and carve out a niche for herself.
When her father was murdered quite randomly one day while crossing the street, she came completely unglued. A few short weeks after his death, her mother went into seclusion and committed suicide. Tanya had nothing left. Her life spiraled out of control. She had always lived with her parents, and although not superclose, they had been the foundation that had held her predictable world together.
The story of her father’s death went as follows: He was crossing the street on his way home when he crossed in front of a large SUV belonging to a Brazilian drug kingpin, whose name was now irrelevant in her mind. Tanya always forgot their names after she killed them. The kingpin’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend, who had just finished snorting a few lines of cocaine and performing a sex act, asked quite whimsically, “Honey, if you want me to do that again, kill that man right there.”
“That one?”
Tanya’s father was shot in the head and then run over by a fifty-three-year-old man on a dare from a teenager.
Tanya cupped her hands over her head and breathed deeply. She shut out the years following her revenge and the new career that she had stumbled into. She had changed her name and country about ten times. She was now Tanya Mendes and was on a mission to cripple organized crime where it hurt most—not by killing the members; no, that was like killing roaches. They just came back. She destroyed them from within, financially.
Tanya was not playing a loaner; she was one. She preferred computers to people. Ones and zeros to conversation. She had designed and downloaded perhaps the most sophisticated virus she had ever made to
date. The only ingredient left in her scheme was to hook up the ship’s computers to the Eastern Cartel’s network. A stolen satellite dish from a warehouse in Veracruz had halted her plan.
Tanya sat with her backpack in her lap and sipped coffee. It was midmorning, and she knew Mario was having his breakfast Scotch with an oil executive. She looked out at the sea and thought about her computer virus that she dubbed Centipede. The virus, if infiltrated, would grow over the next few weeks and provide her with piles of data, passwords, account numbers, and virtually any piece of transmitted information, to include tapped cell phone conversations. Tanya had modeled her virus after the Flame virus, which was written by the CIA and Israel to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program.
Tanya still had fears that the program would be discovered.
“Computer girl!”
She was dozing when a gravelly voice barked her name.
“What?” She stood up and tried not to sound scared. “Time to go?”
“In a minute. Boss man wants to speak with you first.”
“Um, OK. We taking the helicopter or boat?”
“Bird.”
Tanya felt flushed, and her stomach tightened. She hated to fly, and she hated the water. Flying over water was the worst of both worlds.
“Shit!” Tanya stared defiantly at Jorge.
She disliked most people. In her mind, she would assign people an animal identity. Only a select few were privy to this information. Tanya had chosen a great white to describe Jorge. He had pointy, sharp teeth, a pinched face, and beady, brown eyes. His grin was never happy and was almost cannibalistic. He terrified her, and she loathed him. A tall man stood next to the solid, short Jorge and regarded her as a crow might look at a bread crumb. She bit her lip. This man’s face looked badly beaten; his arm was in a sling, and by the wire holding his sneering grin together, she could tell his jaw was broken.
“Get the number of the garbage truck that ran over you?” Tanya blurted before she could stop her self. She had a nasty habit of speaking words as they popped into her head, which had cast her as rude and blunt.
The man sneered and tried to say something.
“This man is Gerard. He is my assistant.”
Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1) Page 13