“I’ll tell them.”
“You won’t get through the front door,” he said.
“I’m not going through the front door.”
* * *
Night parachute jumps have always been among my favorite ops. What’s not to like about hurtling into a screaming black void, unsure where the ground is and shaky on which way is up?
Ouuu-rah!
Mongoose and I stepped out of Chet Arthur’s rented Cessna at somewhere around ten thousand feet. Stepped out may be a slightly optimistic way of putting it: the aircraft was not designed for skydiving, and squeezing through the door and onto the wing spar with a full pack of gear and a parachute was a pain in the butt, or in my case the pinkie, which got smashed as the door flew back because of the slipstream. It wouldn’t have hurt so bad, but it was one of the fingers I mangled last year when I was chopping wood and accidentally got too friendly with the rail splitter.
I was still trying to stifle my curses when Mongoose squeezed out behind me. We gave each other a thumbs-up and plunged away, heads up, bodies into the wind.
There’s a point during skydiving—and this occurs whether it’s daytime or night—when you feel free as a bird. You let go and the world is just insanely beautiful, where everything is just perfect and you feel very much like you are a master of the universe.
I’ve never felt any of that myself. What I feel is a sharp tug in the area of my family jewels as the parachute deploys.
And I thank God for it. It hurts like hell, but it’s much better than the alternative.
When we train, we usually steer down to a box target on a large field. For some reason, I never have any trouble doing that—push here, lean there, and nine times out of ten I hit the mark precisely.
Put me on an actual mission, though, and I have a hell of a time. Murphy is always doing something to my chute.
I started having problems almost as soon as I pulled the ripcord. The wind was negligible, but I couldn’t seem to get myself pointed in the right direction toward the roof where I was supposed to land. Then I lost sight of the roof, and for a few moments I had no idea where the hell I was even going. Finally my eyes focused—maybe Murphy took his hand away—and I realized I had to angle just a tiny bit to my right to get on my target.
The problem was, I had twisted around completely in the other direction. And Mongoose, below me, assumed I was following him as planned.
Did I spell that right? Ass-u-me?
He looked up and saw me at the last minute. He tried to avoid coming directly below me, which would steal my air and make me fall. He was only partly successful—my chute half deflated, and by the time I yanked back and started to recover I hit the roof.
At least it made me forget about the pain in my finger.
“Sorry, Dick,” said Mongoose, helping me after he’d secured his chute.
I gave him an appropriately profane response, and secured my chute. We’d hit above the basketball court—empty—for this very contingency; any sound we made was lost below.
We stowed the chutes together near one of the ventilation shafts. I radioed Junior, who was monitoring the video security system.
“No reaction from the guards,” he told me. “You’re looking good.”
Pulling off our jumpsuits, we worked a few of the wrinkles out of our evening wear. We’d managed to do a little more research on the evening soiree, determining that it was one of de Sarcena’s regular get-togethers and would feature a wide swath of local government officials, drug dealers, and other mass murderers.
The life of a cartel grandee is not an easy one. A man in de Sarcena’s position has to constantly entertain his minions, handing out trinkets and favors to the rabble or risk losing their approbation. When that happens, of course, he has to shoot them, which can get very expensive, given the rising price of lead.
De Sarcena held regular parties to keep his various lords and ladies happy. Judges on the take, elected officials on the payroll, corrupt businessmen—all were invited each month to mix with high-ranking members of his organization and the occasional vendor.
I was coming as myself. If anyone asked, I’d say I was there to autograph my books.
Us auteurs, you know—doors open for us.
Skylights as well. Mongoose and I undid one of the frames over the hoop court, threw down a line, and zipped onto the hard wood. Now that we were inside their security system via our tap, we no longer had to worry too much about being spotted on video—Shunt had rigged a handy little override that re-looped sixty-four seconds of video feed from any selected camera on demand. (Why sixty-four seconds? Damned if I know. It either had something to do with how much memory he could use in the system, or was his lucky lottery number for the day.)
We did a quick makeup check—that would be the makeup of our ammo and other gear—and then headed for the hallway.
* * *
We’ll pause the action here for a moment to mention that my dinner companion and I were wearing very lightweight body armor constructed especially for us by Tactical Protection Solutions, a company owned by some former SEALs. This isn’t a commercial, so I’ll leave you to find the brochure yourself, but the vest was extremely lightweight and fit under my clothes without making me look like I was wearing armor.
Man does not protect himself with armor alone, and naturally we were armed. My PK was tucked into a holster halfway under my arm beneath my sport coat—there’s nothing worse than unsightly VHLs (visible holster lines) when you’re bellying up to the chocolate fountain. In my rucksack was an MP5 and twelve magazines of ammo—if things turned sour and we had to leave in a hurry, I figured I’d have to leave a lot of bodies behind.
I had the money with me as well, inside a number five manila envelope that was taped beneath my sport coat. There was a slight bulge at my pelvis, but I’ve always thought a money bump somewhat cute.
Mongoose has been studying Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defense martial art. Probably because of that, he’d taken a recent interest in Israeli weapons. Thus, he sported a pair of Jericho B’s outfitted to fire .45 ACP rounds, nice big slugs that could stop a bull in its tracks. He had an MP5 in his backpack (making it possible for us to share ammo in a pinch), along with a few other goodies we could use if we needed to make a quick escape.
* * *
“How are we looking?” I asked Junior once we were ready.
“Hall’s clear. Same with the stairs.”
“Ready to re-loop the video?”
“On my mark.”
I glanced at Mongoose. He was very downtown: like me, he wore a black sports coat with a black shirt and pants, but it was the wraparound sunglasses that made the outfit. Like my identical pair, they had tiny speakers and mikes built in.
Junior gave us the signal and we moved out. Having studied the layout of the mansion with the help of the video security system and an old guide to Versailles, we had worked out a pair of routes that would take us down to the Hall of Mirrors with a minimal chance of running into anyone. He had also spotted a place where we could stash the backpacks just inside the room.
We were halfway down one of the servant staircases when Junior squawked a warning—a pair of de Sarcena’s people had just shot down the hall and were on their way up in our direction.
Inconvenient.
We backed up the steps and turned the corner, waiting along the wall. The video coverage on the upper floors of the mansion was fairly sparse, but there was only a few square feet to hide where we were. We needed to stay inside them and save the replay trick for when it was truly needed.
As I leaned against the wall, I reached into my back pocket and took out my trusty sap or slapjack. The sap is a handy, underrated weapon. The leather, socklike exterior holds a fair amount of lead; properly applied to the back of the head or neck, it never fails to induce a sleeplike trance in the subject.
The trick, of course, is to properly apply it. This is most easily done when the subject is unaware of you—whe
n say, you’re behind him, and he’s presently involved in something that requires a large amount of attention, such as kissing the girl he’s snuck away from the party with.
Slapppp. Kerplunk.
Slapppppppppp. Ouuuffff.
Mongoose and I hit our targets at roughly the same time, felling them together in the middle of the landing. It was romantic, like a scene out of Romeo and Juliet, or maybe the uncut version of Caligula. Unfortunately, my partner either misjudged the amount of space we had to work with or doesn’t know his own strength. The girl flew out of the man’s arms, rebounded against the wall, and then tumbled into the middle of the passage, unfortunately right in the camera’s view.
Junior hit replay. We pulled her limp body back into the blind spot. But she’d made a lot of noise, apparently enough to be heard; Junior spotted a pair of guards being sent up to investigate.
We posed the bodies together to make them look as if they were necking, then made our way to the floor below the Hall of Mirrors via an alternate route. We worked through one of the offices and out to the hall where I’d had my close encounter with the safe.
There were a dozen guards, but they were all watching the main staircase, which guests were using to go up to the Hall of Mirrors.
Outside, a row of black Hummers and Mercedes S600 sedans were lined up all the way to the gate and the road with arriving guests.
I don’t mean to criticize Mongoose, but he didn’t have quite the savoir faire that Trace, my usual dinner partner on these sorts of occasions, would have. For one thing, Trace would never have worn combat boots with a black jacket—the eyelets definitely clashed. In fact, Trace would never have worn boots at all. She’s more a stiletto girl—as in the knife as well as the heel.
Mongoose, by contrast, is more combat KA-BAR, which is what he slipped from his boot when a guard met us in the back hallway.
The guard pointed his finger at me and started asking annoying questions like “Why are you here?” and “Why do you look familiar?” and “Where is your invitation?”
The last one sounded more like “Wheregurgurgur … ugh?” Mongoose had slipped behind him while he confronted me and slit his throat with the knife.
The blood spurting from his severed artery made quite a mess on the floor. Being considerate guests—and concerned that the puddle would attract attention before we wanted it—Mongoose grabbed the man’s black sports coat and used it as a mop while I pulled his still quivering body into the room where he’d been sitting.
But they say that no good deed goes unpunished, and that was certainly true in this case. My decision to tidy up the place brought me face-to-face with two other cartel thugs, sitting in the room watching a Mexican telenovela or soap opera. The thugs were sitting on a couch opposite a large screen TV, tongues hanging out of their mouths as the show’s star did a little shimmy with her bootie.
I must take the blame for what happened next. Because surely if I had been a more highly evolved creature, I would have been able to handle the situation in a more civilized manner. I might have struck up a meaningful conversation with them, perhaps on the shameful decline in broadcast standards.
But being a rogue, I did what rogues do best in such situations: I dropped the dead man’s legs, reached under my jacket, and grabbed my pistol. I shot both men in the forehead as they reached for their guns.
Actually I missed the forehead on the second, drilling him in the nose. Next time I’ll wear my reading glasses.
Mongoose met me at the door.
“What happened?” he asked, tossing the blood-soaked jacket inside.
“FUBAR,”16 I told him. “Let’s get upstairs quick.”
FUBAR was a bit of an exaggeration. Because really, the outlines of the mission were clearly recognizable, and our goal was well within reach. In fact, it was only a short staircase away. We double-timed up the stairs, huffing and puffing our way to top.
Junior, meanwhile, was asking what was going on. “What the hell?”
“What the hell yourself. Why didn’t you tell me about that guard?”
“You turned into the wrong hall. That one’s not covered.”
“What about the room?”
“Same. I can’t see you right now. I told you—the back hall isn’t covered.”
“When did you tell me that?”
“Twelve times during the brief.”
“You should have told me thirteen.”
“They’re scrambling people,” he warned. “They must have heard your gun.”
“No shit.” We paused at the top of the steps. “Just keep watching.”
There were large panels between a few of the mirrors at either side of the room. Two panels on each side were actually hidden doors to the stairs, designed so that servants could make their entrances and exits without using the main stairway. We were behind the panel closest to the Salon of Peace, the room I had stolen the money from earlier in the day. Mongoose tapped me on the shoulder, indicating he was ready. I turned the little knob that worked the latch and pushed the door open slowly. The panel was semihidden by large vases with frondy fake flowers and a pair of pretend lemon trees. We stepped in quickly, as nonchalantly as we could. The backpacks fit nicely behind one of the large vases, hidden there from the cameras and the view of most of the people in the room.
The room was immense, but the crowd de Sarcena had invited filled it nicely. There had to be close to five hundred guests. About a quarter were wearing uniforms, either of the army or the police. Chicago during Prohibition had nothing on this corner of Mexico. Money didn’t just talk here, it sang and sashayed, seducing everything and everyone in sight.
“There,” said Mongoose, pointing across the room toward the Salon of Peace. “De Sarcena’s gotta be in the middle of that knot.”
Mongoose pointed toward a pack of women in brightly colored dresses, all giggling and laughing. We headed in that direction, fighting through a thick cloud of perfume.
Junior gave us a blow-by-blow of the security team’s response to my gunshots. They had closed the front door and started a sector by sector search, methodically moving from bottom to top in the mansion. Junior had no audio, so he could only guess that they were in the process of calling each man on his radio unit and having him check in. If that was the case, he figured they would discover the dead men within the next two minutes; if not, then it might take another thirty seconds or so.
Plenty of time to party.
A waiter with a tray of champagne flutes passed nearby as I headed toward de Sarcena. I reached over and grabbed a pair of glasses—one doesn’t want to greet a despicable scumbag empty-handed.
I’m sure you’ve all formed a mental image of the cartel leader. No doubt you see him as a blond-haired, blue-eyed Nordic semi-cowboy, a handsome stand-in for the Marlboro Man.
Not quite the image you conjured?
How about your typical bean-eater then, with gross oily hair, a wispy mustache, and a belly protruding over his belt?
For shame, imagining a stereotype. His mustache was hardly wispy at all.
His goatee—now that was wispy.
As we’d guessed, de Sarcena stood in the middle of the bevy of women, basking in their glow and cologne. He was wearing a diamond-stud earring in his right ear; the diamond was a stud all by itself, big enough to choke a horse. His suit was tailored well enough to hide most of his paunch, though not quite so generous that it obscured the gun in his shoulder holster—intentional, I’d guess, from the way the rest of his clothes draped. He was wearing one of those pretentious string ties, which set off the four or five gold chains he had around his neck. The women around him swayed and nodded as he spoke, as if they were a doo-wop chorus.
I paused for a moment, admiring the scene. The grand staircase up from the downstairs was directly behind him, and the light from below provided a perverse halo around the criminal leader.
And that’s when I saw her:
Melissa Reynolds, sweeping up the main staircase
like a debutante at a ball.
X
Doc had sent Ms. Reynolds to her room some hours before, then checked on her shortly thereafter, cracking the motel-room door open and peeking in. She appeared to be sleeping. Being a gentleman, he didn’t disturb her any further, instead retreating across the hall to his own room, where he cracked open a cold one and began flipping through the television channels.
With Junior’s help, he had set up a video camera for surveillance in the hallway; every few seconds he glanced at the monitor, which was positioned strategically so he could see it from anywhere in the room. While his primary concern was to make sure no one was coming to resnatch Melissa, he was also watching in case she tried to leave as well. Frankly, Doc didn’t think that was a possibility, and so he didn’t bother to guard her window, which is how she got out.
The killer dress?
Well, after striking out at the airport, Doc had taken her into town to get some clothes. The dress she chose, a little silky number with a plunging neckline and a strategic slit, was hardly suitable for travel, but Doc did what most guys do when they accompany a woman clothes shopping—he sat in the most comfortable chair in the store and tried not to fall asleep.
So why had our darling Melissa decided to attend de Sarcena’s castle?
A good question. One I intended to ask immediately—after administering a good spanking.
“Dick, Doc needs to talk to you,” said Junior over the radio. “We have a problem.”
“I’m looking at her,” I mumbled, changing course.
I met her a few steps from the stairs. She smiled so sweetly I almost forgot that I was mad.
Not.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I took hold of her elbow and tugged her toward the wall.
“That hurts,” she complained.
“It’s supposed to.”
“I’ll scream if you don’t let go.”
“I wish you would scream,” I told her.
Blood Lies - 15 Page 10