Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1)

by James Garmisch

  “My ticket home?” he said to himself.

  The naval officer in civilian clothes continued on with his brief. Evan packed another dip, listened, and realized he no longer felt sleepy.

  “Without you men securing the boats and sub and, most importantly, neutralizing antiair defenses, our birds can’t fly. The Happy Mermaid does have two such assets. The bow of the yacht does have the twenty-five-millimeter Mark 38 chain-gun system. It is hidden quite well below deck and can be raised via elevator. The operator is exposed. The stern has a slightly less sophisticated twenty-five-millimeter chain gun on a swivel electronic mount. It was installed incorrectly, and it would be difficult to hit any aircraft with it. Its main purpose would be protection of the rear of the ship from other boats.”

  Evan thought, A well-trained operator could take out a few helicopters before getting blown into pieces.

  “Where the hell do these guys get these weapons?” someone joked. “America?”

  “You can get anything on eBay these days,” someone said.

  Laughter went around the room for a second.

  The naval officer refocused everyone and finished his brief.

  “Anyway, the mission outline is as follows: One, capture, identify, and take out Mario. Two, secure the submarine and immediate docks. Three, secure the Happy Mermaid and take out its defenses. Four, secure this area previously identified as LZ one. The first birds will be fast rope teams here”—the officer paused to use a laser pointer—“and here.”

  Evan noticed that eyes were getting heavy, and a few heads were nodding. He looked at the flying boat again up on the screen. It was a tiny, grainy speck. Awesome escape vehicle if crap goes wrong, Evan thought.

  “As I stated earlier, phase one concludes when Dark Cloud confirms Mario’s death, neutralizes the air defenses, and secures the landing zone in front of the house. Phase two begins when the assault force arrives approximately five minutes after the smoke is popped. The front of the house will be assaulted by four Black Hawks. The teams will fast rope to the deck and take their positions. One team will fast rope onto the roof if clear. The second wave of birds should arrive three minutes after, along with the boat teams, who will reinforce and secure. The raid of the house will be the call of the commander on the ground. The whole operation will be a navy operation at that point. Hostages, securing the house, keeping the LZ clear will all fall under their command. Dark Cloud stands fast and prepares to evacuate. We expect to see some resistance, but as we have seen in the past, they usually throw down their weapons and then claim innocence.”

  A few short chuckles went through the audience.

  “Civilians will be herded into the house and later segregated. Hopefully, Dark Cloud can accomplish this. There are about seventy civilians.”

  Evan looked around the room and spat in his cup.

  The rear of the house would be secured by four UH 46s that would off-load the first initial wave of one hundred marines.

  Evan shook his head and wondered, Lots of confusion. Cornered bad guys with no hope are likely to fight to the death, or hide behind the politicians and guests.

  “Phase three begins when the boat teams land and surround the island. The total number of troops on the ground will reach close to three hundred, which maintains our desired three-to-one ratio.”

  Again, grumbles and head nods. Evan watched bottles of water being passed around and suddenly felt thirsty.

  “I know it’s getting late, but bear with me,” the naval officer continued. “Once the house is secure and everyone is isolated and segregated, we move into phase four. All guests are identified, arrested, and transported separately from any surviving cartel members.”

  Evan went above deck where he could breathe and think clearly. The sky was lit by a full moon and brilliant stars that seemed to shimmer if you stared too long. The boat swayed gently as it rubbed against the rubber tires and pier where it was moored with heavy ropes.

  He was not concerned with the navy’s plan; he knew it. He was much more concerned with what could go wrong and what was going to happen after that. Could the navy get enough troops on the ground quickly enough? Who would be killed in the confusion? Who was going to leak the operation?

  Evan thought again about Colombia, explosions, and how Andre Pena tied into this whole mess. Andre had been involved with an estimated thirty-five political bombings of candidates and government officials across Mexico. Intelligence reports had even placed him at four different training camps belonging to different cartels. Evan paused for a second and muttered to himself, “Is it possible that something bigger is going on here?”

  Evan felt a migraine coming on. Something about the last few days really began to irritate him. This whole mission had too many moving parts, too many players, too many angles, and too much possibility of just plain not working.

  “Can I join you?” Tanya asked shyly. She approached him from the left and leaned against the rail next to him. She appeared stressed and tired, just like everyone else. The tension was contagious.

  “Sure. How are you feeling?”

  Tanya shrugged. “Not great. Took some more Valium and a few shots of tequila. Thing is, I don’t even drink. Feeling, um, mellow, but—”

  Evan nodded and patted her shoulder. “The pain is real. Death is not a game.”

  “True. Why do we get affected by it so much? And yet the evil bastards who rape, steal, murder, and torture keep doing it with no remorse? No effect at all on them, but us, those with a conscience, we are tortured in here”—Tanya tapped her head—“forever.”

  Evan spat over the rail and nodded.

  “They are effected—don’t be fooled. The human capacity to justify evil, drown out the consequences, and even change the language so that good people are bad and bad people are good, it’s all a crock. They just don’t care, or they are too far gone. Are you going to be able to do this?” Evan asked bluntly.

  Tanya looked out at the water for a second and did not answer right away.

  “I don’t want to, but at this point, I need to. I worked for six months to break into Mario’s system, hack it, destroy it, and, yes, steal his money. Granted, I did plan on setting a good portion aside to give to the operators.” She gestured to the men downstairs, who were now listening to Roger and EL Coyote present the last part of the brief. “I justified in my head that ripping off Nathan and Mario was justified, repaying their evil.”

  “Doesn’t usually work that way,” Evan said.

  “I know.”

  “So you lost all of it?”

  Tanya nodded. “Close to a billion US dollars. It’s a huge sum to move and hide. All numbers on a screen, not real. No way I could have got to it anyway. Can’t exactly withdraw it from an ATM or stop by the Swiss bank with a dump truck. No, I just wanted to ruin Nathan and get the money for the troops. I screwed it all up.”

  Evan shook his head. “No. Your instinct was correct. Nathan used you and your team to destroy his computer operations and isolate his assets. You just underestimated Nathan. You had a suspicion that he would rip everyone off. Well, he did!”

  “But he tricked me at my own game,” Tanya muttered. “I trusted my team, yet they spied on me.”

  “Tanya, look, Nathan has been at this game for twenty years. Don’t sweat it.”

  Tanya laughed and seemed to sway a little. The drugs loosened her lips and spirit, and she was actually pleasant for a change.

  Evan felt a little concerned for a second that she might start crying or throw herself into the sea, and then she relaxed.

  “Tanya, everything will turn out OK. You did fine. Did what you had to.”

  Tanya’s eyes began to grow heavy, and she wobbled a little. She was not going to remember much of their conversion later, but she had an easy clarity right now. “Evan, are you over revenge? Can you forgive? I can’t.”

  Evan shrugged and watched her sway.

  She lost all sense of personal space and got way too close, and he
let her.

  He changed the subject and decided to plant a seed in her thoughts, one that she would probably forget.

  “Tanya if things go real bad I am going to have an escape plan. I need you to be with me.”

  Tanya laughed out loud for a second and then put her arm around Evan.

  “OK, what is it?” she asked.

  “I might snatch one of these guys…Mario or Jorge and take them back to the States. I can get a plane and protection from my brother. I still need to work some details out.”

  She had to stand on her tippy-toes to encircle his shoulders and pull him down to her level, where she whispered in his ear. “You, Evan, or Ivan, or whatever your name is, are so full of shit! You just make up stuff as you go along, don’t you?”

  “Pretty much. You can come with me if you want. Roger’s in.”

  “Sure, let’s kidnap someone who everyone wants dead. Why not the Mexican president? Let’s grab him!”

  Evan nodded as if thinking. “Is he supposed to be there tomorrow? Naw, I am more a target-of-opportunity type. I better get you to bed. You’re about to lose it.”

  Tanya leaned against him. Her eyes began to grow heavy as if she were in that twilight stage of awake and sleep. “Thanks, I can’t even remember where my room is right now. Help me get to bed. No kidnapping drug dealers, no bounty-hunter shit! Promise?”

  Evan shrugged and picked her up like a child. “Promise. Won’t kidnap anyone,” he lied.

  “Don’t drop me.”

  “I won’t; I need you.”

  Evan looked down at her. She was snoring.

  Roger let El Coyote give most of the brief, primarily for two reasons: Roger’s Spanish sucked, and even though all the members of Dark Cloud could understand English, they could not understand his Scottish accent. Most of the men had worked with El Coyote at one time in the special forces and had that bond. The mission, as all missions go, was simple on paper. Roger knew it would most likely go to hell once they hit the deck.

  Green Team One, the Chupacabras, consisted of three cells of fifteen operators who would hide on the fishing trawler. Roger, El Coyote, Joaquin, and Daniel made up the leadership. Their mission was twofold: first, secure the dock from the Happy Mermaid to the submarine, and second, destroy the antiaircraft weapons on the Happy Mermaid as well as sink the yacht.

  Green Team Two, Caballo Verde, also consisted of three fifteen-man squads named Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. One squad would stow away on the sub. Its mission was to kill and isolate Mario’s security detail and to allow the snatch team to kidnap Mario. The snatch team had three criteria in which they would evaluate Mario. First was through Tanya’s face-to-face, second was through dental records, and third would be fingerprints. A positive identification would be reported to Roger, who would notify the navy. A false identification would mean that both teams would have to secure their respective areas and wait for the navy. The conventional wisdom was that if the real Mario did not go onto the sub, then he would be on the Happy Mermaid, in which case he would become Green Team One’s problem. The other two cells from Green Team Two would not be on the sub; they would split up into smaller groups and hide along the beaches and other empty boats that they could consolidate when the shooting started and help secure the dock near the submarine. The terrain offered many rocky beaches, trees, caves, and even some abandoned fishing cabins.

  A secure landing zone was the overall strategic goal. Even if finding Mario never happened, they would still have to make sure that the raid was able to take place. No one suspected that Dark Cloud could survive for more than an hour, worst-case scenario. They would be too outnumbered and outgunned, not to mention that there was no real cover once the shooting started. The guests would need to be herded into the house, and this again was Green Team One’s job. The heavy guns and antiaircraft platforms had to be eliminated.

  Roger waited for the brief to be over and then sat down.

  “You looked worried, my friend. It will all be OK!” Joaquin smiled and sat down next to Roger. His English was fluent, like a native speaker. He offered Roger an opened Tecate and smiled. “Been years since you have done this sort of thing, huh?”

  “Aye. I am a freaking cook now, a chef. Did not come to Mexico to get caught up in this shit.” Roger drank his beer and cursed under his breath.

  “Yes, yes. I was educated in Austin, came back here to fight for my country. You see, norteamericanos think we are all lawn-mower operators and clean-up crews! You know I can cook, but I am not going to be a manager at Taco Cabana just because I am Mexican!”

  “OK.” Roger nodded.

  “Another thing that pisses me off is all the Mexicans that live in America and run around waving the Mexican flag—they’re posers. Stay and fight! If you love your country so much, why did you run away? Stay in it. Fight for it!”

  Roger watched him become animated and just nodded. “A man who knows what he wants. I’ll drink to that.”

  Joaquin drank too and smiled. “I got a girlfriend in Texas—hot white girl. She and I, we get married after this.” He laughed.

  Joaquin gave Roger his beer and finished his story.

  “Aye, lad, you got it together. I gotta get some sleep. Night.”

  “Good night, Roger. I need a few more, and then I sleep too!”

  Roger winked, shook hands, and moved on. He could hear Joaquin switch over to Spanish and strike up another conversation with anyone who would listen.

  Roger found Evan standing by the ship’s rail, talking with Luis, who was a member of Green Team One, and Oscar, who was the leader of Green Team Two. The three men stopped talking sports and nodded at Roger when he approached.

  Luis and Oscar said good night and left.

  “How you feel?” Evan asked.

  “Ah feel like you look!” Roger chuckled.

  Evan agreed and went down the laundry list of minor injuries that he and Roger had accumulated before the actual battle had even begun.

  Roger changed the subject. He reported to Evan what he had heard from one of their team leaders. “I have some reports from the island. My guys have made it to their objectives. There is apparently a huge party going on right now. They think Mario has arrived. Place is an armed camp. Helicopter landed not but an hour ago.”

  Evan nodded and looked pleased. “The yacht and mooring areas?”

  “Looks like the sub has a parking space ready. My guys reported that they can swoop in from their hiding sites pretty quickly and even have good sniper positions. Most of the guests are staying in the house or at the pool. The rock star, Mario, has landed, I bet.”

  “Any word on the sub?” Evan asked.

  Roger nodded and pointed out to the dark, oily water. “About a mile out there somewhere. Full moon will help us and hurt us.”

  The two men discussed the logistics of their actions later that night.

  At 0330 hours, Evan, Tommy, Tanya, and the four other members of the snatch team would leave via a Zodiac and meet with the sub. They would get another few hours of sleep while the sub made the four-mile journey to the island, encircled it once to drop off the remainder of Green Team Two via the torpedo tubes, and then waited and eased into its new home at 0700.

  Evan did not even want to think about the lives of the men; it was inevitable, yet not something you dwelt on.

  “Any little slipup tomorrow, and we all die. The navy may abort landing if the situation on the ground is too crazy,” Roger said.

  Evan nodded in agreement. He checked his watch and stopped Roger from leaving right away. “Hey, on a serious note. Thanks for going on my half-baked plan today.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Green-Colored Glasses

  Jorge Valdez cursed out loud. He handed a fairly hefty night-vision scope back to Gerard and then started speaking quietly into an encrypted satellite phone. “He has arrived. The real Mario is finally here along with two of his cousins.”

  Cousins was the slang term used to describe Mario’s look
alikes. Some of them were more convincing than others. One of his best and most entertaining cousins had been killed in Madrid two years ago, while on vacation, in a jealous love triangle between a female police officer and a popular teenage singer. Jorge had to chuckle when he recalled the details. Mario was furious that he had to make the rounds in the underworld and explain that he was not dead. It seemed that this cousin had become more infamous and popular than he had. Flowers still piled up on his gravesite at a narcofosa, or cemetery for drug traffickers. Some to this day still refuse to believe that Mario is still alive.

  Jorge listened to the voice of the leader of another cartel and frowned. “Yes, I can tell them all apart. It’s difficult, but you kill them all. Look, no matter how this goes down, I need to know I have support. I will have to hide for a while before I can reemerge. I want you to make sure that your supporters are ready to act!”

  Jorge accepted a glass of mescal from Gerard. The satellite link was very good despite their distance.

  “I can do my part,” the voice said. “Tomorrow, after this little show, there will be about fifty attacks around Mexico. I suspect that at least half of those will be mayors, police chiefs, and media personnel who are targeted to be killed. The rest will run. You control the media. I will cleanse. The Union of Cartels is looking forward to victory and complete cooperation from the government.”

  Jorge listened for a long moment and nodded.

  “Before any rebuilding there must be destruction.”