by Scott McEwen
“He won’t do that. He has everything he could possibly want now. He understands that the DEA will continue to interdict his shipments north of the border whenever they can. And he’s even agreed to tip them off from time to time to keep them looking good in the news.”
Pope sipped his water. “Things change.”
“True. Nothing is forever, but if he decides to break the truce, I have someone in place to remove him: someone very close, whose loyalty is more with Mexico than with Castañeda.”
“Interesting.” Pope spread the napkin in his lap, secretly satisfied with the way the situation had developed. “You’ve been very hard at work.”
“I’ve had a lot of help.”
“And I’d like to know who from. Not even Crosswhite can be in multiple places at the same time.”
She smiled. “Like you said, I’ve been very hard at work.”
“And in exchange for this hard work, you expect to be appointed chief of station?”
Mariana hardened her gaze, conveying a confidence she’d actually begun to feel over the past few days. “Your Mexico network is smashed. I’ve already sent Mike Ortega and his family home with orders never to return. You no longer have any contacts in-country, you don’t speak the language, and you have no one to replace me with—not with my qualifications.”
Pope opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed her assault. “I’ve presented you with a stable border that you can present to the president—taking full credit, of course. I’m the only agent who can guarantee that stability for any foreseeable length of time. Castañeda knows you plotted to have him killed. He respects the power of the CIA, but he no longer has any respect for you. Fortunately, he does respect me, and he knows that he and I can help each other.
“In short, my network is already in place. It’s stable, well connected, and growing more influential by the day. For all intents and purposes, I am chief of station. Now, you can fire me, strip me of my affiliation with the agency—even have me killed—but you’d be stupid to consider it, and we both know it.”
“Would I?” he asked, realizing she had the sight now.
“You always have a plan B. I admit it took me awhile to realize that it was me, but once I saw it, the rest was easy.”
Befuddled by the rapid expansion of her acumen, he toiled to perceive its breadth. “Crosswhite’s not sharp enough to have discerned that. Who’s been counseling you?”
She ignored the question. “Are you going to make my appointment official? Or am I to be recalled?”
“Did Fields try to kill you?”
A dark shadow creased her. “The son of a bitch is dead, isn’t he?”
He rested back in the chair. “Then he acted against my instructions. I want that clear between us.”
“Are you going to make my appointment official?”
He nodded. “Yes. Congratulations, Mariana. You’re chief of station.”
She breathed a hidden sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
Their salads arrived, and the wine was poured by a waiter with a linen napkin draped over one arm. When he was gone, she took a sip and set down the glass.
“Crosswhite has asked to be retired from service, and I’ve granted his request. He’s no longer available to you.”
This didn’t surprise Pope at all. “Should I take it he remains available to you?”
“A trust like ours is rare.”
He sucked his teeth. “Does he know you’re in love with him?”
“I don’t know that I’m in love with him—nor does it matter. He’s married with a baby on the way, and I’m not his type. You shouldn’t expect to disarm me with these adolescent jibes, Bob. I’m not the same person I was the last time we spoke.”
“It’s a damn good thing,” he murmured, half to himself. “What about Chance Vaught?”
“I’m glad you bring him up. His career with DSS is over. That much is clear. And the agency needs to cauterize the Downly bleed as soon as possible”—she locked eyes—“for the good of all.
“Not only does Chance know Mexico, he looks the part, has family in-country, and speaks the language like a Mexican; not to mention he’s a damn good operator. I’ve offered to make him my principal operative in-country, and he’s accepted. I assume you can handle the paperwork to start getting him paid—retroactive to last week?”
Pope chuckled, liking what he was hearing. “What makes you so sure this wasn’t my plan A?”
In no humor for playful banter, she didn’t so much as blink before replying, “Too much has happened down here you know absolutely nothing about.” His smile disappeared. “Mexico is mine. If you want things to run smoothly, you’ll stay out of it. What’s more, if I catch any of your ATRU people—men or women—operating in my province without my knowledge, I’ll send them back to wherever they came from in rubber body bags marked ‘Return to Sender.’ ”
Pope’s smile returned, satisfied fully that Mexico station was in the right hands. He reached for the glass and took a sip of wine. “It’s too bad you had to lose your innocence. Personally, I liked you better the other way, but you were too soft; too trusting. That’s obviously changed.”
Seeing an opening, she decided to take it. “From what Crosswhite tells me, Gil Shannon trusted you with his life—and apparently that’s exactly what it cost him.”
Believing that Mariana had never met Gil in person, Pope took the barb as it was intended, unable to mitigate the offputting effect of it. “No one from the ATRU will set foot in Mexico without advance notice from me and close coordination between you and Midori. You have my guarantee. If I should happen to change my mind on this point, I’ll let you know. Fair enough?”
Having just gotten everything she’d hoped for—as Gil had assured her she would—Mariana lifted her glass. “To Mexico?”
He touched the rim of his glass to hers. “To a stable border. I don’t care a tinker’s damn about Mexico.”
88
BERN, SWITZERLAND
16:00 HOURS
Lena Deiss looked resplendent in her wedding gown. Her heart thudded in her chest as she walked up the aisle toward a smiling Sabastian Blickensderfer, a bouquet of white roses clutched to her breast. Both sides of the towering cathedral were filled to capacity with admiring friends and adoring family. There was a genuine buzz in the atmosphere—a buzz akin to that of a royal occasion—and Lena was content with her decision to marry.
Sabastian had matured since their reconciliation, and he had begun to pay her more attention. Lena had matured as well in the short term, forcing herself to admit that chasing a life of adventure was childish and fanciful. Not even the men who lived that life lived it for very long. They died young, and they died tragically, and they left heartbreak in their wake.
Now she was focused on being a wife and eventually a mother. There would always be plenty of money, and Sabastian had promised to build her the house she had dreamed of. Well, to be honest, it would be more of a modern castle than a house, but wasn’t that a rich husband’s job, to treat his wife like a queen? Besides, if she would be expected to tolerate his occasional indiscretions, a castle wasn’t too much to ask.
Halfway up the aisle, however, all of her contentment and focus went out the window.
At the far end of a pew on Sabastian’s side of the aisle, she glanced at the set and chiseled visage of a man she had believed dead, his piercing gray eyes staring back at her.
Certain that her own eyes were playing tricks, she blinked and shook her head. In that space of time, the ghost had disappeared.
My God! she thought to herself, stealing a backward glance down the wall to make sure she hadn’t seen whom she thought she’d seen, flashing a smile to some friends to cover her awkward lapse.
Her friends smiled back excitedly, giving her a collective thumbs-up of encouragement. The rest of her trip up the
aisle was spent in the panicked realization that she could never be content as a wife and mother. She suddenly saw herself taking lovers behind Sabastian’s back, as he would take lovers behind hers, both of them living the same mutual lie their respective parents had lived, raising a son or a daughter who would in turn grow up to perpetuate that same lie.
She took her first step at the base of the altar and, for an alarming moment, thought she was going to be sick. Sabastian saw it on her face and stepped down to offer his hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stepping up to his side and taking his arm.
“Are you okay?” the priest asked for their ears alone.
She nodded, her breath coming in shallow drafts.
“Very well,” he said, switching on his tiny microphone and lifting his gaze to the congregation.
“Dearly beloved,” he began in a gentle voice, “we are gathered here today in the presence of witnesses to join Lena and Sabastian in the bonds of holy matrimony. Commended to be honorable among all, this is not a union to be entered into lightly, but reverently, passionately, and lovingly. These two persons—”
Lena cleared her throat, and for a fraction of a second, the priest’s attention faltered.
“—present now to be joined—”
She cleared her throat again, and this time he looked directly at her, switching off the microphone. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, breaking out in a sweat and pulling Sabastian’s arm to bring him closer. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this!”
Sabastian closed his hand over hers, looking into her eyes and smiling. “You might have said something a little sooner, my love.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry . . . I truly thought I could, but I can’t.”
The cathedral could not have been quieter in that moment had it been completely empty.
He kissed her lips and caressed her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she croaked, the tears flowing.
“For what?” he asked softly, brushing away the tears. “For being the smarter of us?”
She put her arms around him, and they held each tightly for a long moment. Finally, he whispered into her ear, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of everything.”
They separated, and he asked the priest for the microphone. The perplexed young priest took the slender wire from around his neck and handed it to him.
Sabastian switched on the microphone, put his arm around Lena’s waist, and turned to face the congregation, confident and composed.
“Dear friends,” he said, seeking out faces on both sides of the aisle that he knew he could count on. “Dear family.” He kissed Lena’s hair. “Lena and I thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for the love you have shown us both by coming here today. We apologize for this last-minute change in plans, and we beg your forgiveness. We are all imperfect human beings—I more imperfect than most—and we have all made mistakes in our lives.” He paused to smile compassionately over the crowd. “Lena and I have decided against making a mistake here today . . . but will you please—if you love us—will you please join us at the reception hall? There is a fine meal and some very expensive champagne awaiting us all, with an orchestra and dancing that will last the entire night. So please, please honor us by joining us in a celebration of this life which we are all so privileged to live.”
With that, he handed the microphone back to the priest, and to Lena’s astonishment, the congregation began to applaud as Sabastian took her by the hand and led her down the aisle. They arrived at the entrance, and he turned them both to face back toward the altar, waving airily as everyone began standing.
“How was that for poise?” he said into her ear.
Her eyes flooded again. “You’ll be a legend.”
“No,” he said, laughing, “but nor will I look the fool.”
89
BERN, SWITZERLAND
06:40 HOURS
Lena arrived home by limousine the next morning, a little drunk, utterly exhausted, and entirely relieved not to be married. The reception had been a truly gala affair, with many friends congratulating her and Sabastian for having had the courage and the wisdom to change their minds even at the risk of disappointing so many people. A number of opportunistic men had even had the bad taste to invite themselves into her life now that she had chosen not to wed, and she was sure that more than one or two women had made similar overtures to Sabastian, who was once again one of the most eligible bachelors in Bern.
She slipped off her heels in the foyer and mounted the staircase in her bare feet, holding the train of her wedding gown in one hand and leaning on the railing as she ascended the stairs. Her brother Joaquin, who now lived in Germany, was in town for the wedding, and she heard him showering in the master bath as she entered her bedroom, crossing to the walk-in closet.
She put her heels on the shelf and stepped back into the bedroom to see Gil standing in the bathroom doorway with a white towel wrapped around his waist.
She was immediately overcome. At first her shock was so complete that she couldn’t cry or even breathe. Then her face contorted, and she sank to her knees, weeping into her hands.
Gil was nearly as stunned to see her as she was to see him, having expected her to be long gone on her honeymoon. He went to her, and she smacked him away, but then she grabbed onto him, erupting in a torrent of heavy sobs.
She eventually fell asleep in his arms.
He lifted her from the floor and was laying her down on the bed when her brother appeared in the bedroom doorway, his tie undone, hair a mess, and a half empty bottle of champagne gripped in his right hand.
Joaquin remembered Gil from when Lena had brought him to Germany ten days before, and knowing his sister as well as he knew her, he was no more surprised to find Gil in her bedroom than he’d been when she’d changed her mind at the altar.
He grinned, pulling the door closed as he left.
Gil stretched out beside Lena on the bed and watched her sleep. She slept for two hours, and when she awoke, she was still unable to speak to him, still not entirely convinced he was real. She opened her arms, and he lay down against her.
He awoke with her running her long fingers through his hair.
“I still had the key,” he said quietly. “I needed a shower, and I thought you’d be in Paris by now.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Isn’t that where the honeymoon was supposed to be?”
She gripped his hair. “Why, Gil?”
“Oh.” He caressed her belly over the tight-fitting gown. “You said you wanted us to move forward—and there was no other way.”
“You could have told me.”
“No. You had to believe I was dead. Everyone had to believe it. Otherwise Pope would have known I wasn’t.”
“Is he that smart?”
“Yeah, he is. He might figure it out yet.”
“You were at the wedding—you saw me see you?”
“I got there too late. If I’d shown myself . . .”
“You disappeared so fast,” she said with a sigh. “I thought it was my imagination.”
“Are you married?”
She pulled his head back to look into his eyes. “What do you think?”
He raised up onto an elbow. “Jesus Christ, you were beautiful. It was almost more than I could take.” He held his fingers a millimeter apart. “I was this close to exposing myself.”
She knew there must be some other reason he’d faked his death. If he had truly gone to all that trouble just for the two of them, he would have done whatever was necessary to stop the wedding.
“Do you love me?”
He kissed her. “I love you.”
“Is the real reason you faked your death anything I have to worry about
?”
He smiled, loving that she was so intuitive. “Nothing at all.”
“Will you tell me why someday? When you’re ready?”
“Yes.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “I told you we were destined to be together, Gil. Not even death could stop it.”
He chuckled, burying his face in her hair. “That’s not at all wildly exaggerated.”
She laughed, twisting free and rolling to her belly. “Undo me. This fucking thing fits me like a suit of armor, and I want to consummate our relationship.”
He flipped her onto her back again, gathering up the train of the gown to expose her thighs. “Suit of armor or not, it stays on you—at least for the first run.”
Her laughter filled the room. She’d never been so happy.
EPILOGUE
PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO
19:30 HOURS
Five months after the Battle of Toluca, Rhett Hancock was fully recovered from his wounds. He now owned a fishing charter called the Beetle, and he was giving serious thought to taking it down the coast to Panama or Colombia, where he could go into business for himself without drawing attention. He didn’t need the money, but he was bored most of the time now, and he thought it would be good to have people to talk to once in a while.
He still drank tequila, though not as much, and he was less haunted by the car accident that had taken his girlfriend’s life years before. One problem remained, however: the nagging urge to shoot people. Not just anybody, but somebody.
With a casual wave to another fishing charter anchored a hundred yards away, he stretched out on the deck and pulled the stock of a suppressed M40A5 sniper rifle into his shoulder. He put his eye to the scope and scanned the shore where a naked Antonio Castañeda was partying on a private beach with seven equally naked young women. There was a bonfire and five bodyguards standing around. One of the guards had some kind of sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Amateur hour,” Hancock muttered. “I’ll pop your boss and put one between your eyes before you can scratch your nuts.”