Ray pulled a claymore out of his pack and pointed to the vault door. “What do you think, Moose?”
“Outstanding. Close the door and make sure if anyone follows us they get a proper greeting.”
Ray quickly rigged the door, then caught up to the team as they moved cautiously down the tunnel to escape the ruined hilltop mansion.
CHAPTER 46
Unlikely Heroes
The team eventually came to another door, this one rusty and unimpressive. It was hard to push open, as the outside was overgrown with vines and thorny plants. When they managed to get the door open, vines and leaves came down on them, and hot, humid air filtered into the cool tunnel.
The men took a knee and scanned the area, allowing their eyes to adjust to the bright sunshine. They were all sweating in seconds in heat that was already over eighty degrees and so humid it looked hazy outside.
Ripper pushed through the thick vegetation and stopped where the overgrowth ended and cleared farmland began. He pulled binoculars and scanned in all directions, then pushed back to the group at the tunnel entrance.
“Mostly open farmland. A few farm houses maybe half a klick ahead. Looks like maybe a vehicle. Not much cover other than the hedgerows along the fields.”
Moose pondered it a moment. They’d be spotted, if there were Zetas looking for them out that way. Or Marines. Or who knows who else.
Apo spoke up. “Let’s see if we can get a signal.”
He pulled out the sat-phone and opened the small umbrella-shaped antenna. “Ghost to base, you copy?”
Dex answered instantly. “Good copy. Sit-rep?”
“Package secure and we’re on the move. Need extraction for the package. Current position is wide open. Any chance of air extraction?”
“Negative at this time. Highest levels are arguing over your current situation. If push comes to shove, we may violate their airspace and come in, but POTUS is seeking a diplomatic solution. The firefight with the Marines has totally complicated the whole situation. Your men okay? Any injuries?”
“We’re good to go, but ammo will become an issue. The package is in Arista. We can go after it, but getting there is going to be tough overland. Any other assets you can use?”
“Negative. You’re it. We’re working as fast as we can. I know it’s a clusterfuck. Did you confirm the contents of the package?”
“Negative. Cat Face says he doesn’t know what was in it. He was just supposed to get it to Arista to be placed on a boat. Now the Sinaloa have the package and it looks like the colonel was working some deal with all sides.”
“Understood. General Ortega still doesn’t believe his best man was dirty. We’re trying to find proof for him, but he’s demanding your surrender, which of course, we will not agree to.”
“So how about sending in a few Warthogs and taking this whole area apart so we can get our asses home in one piece?”
Dex actually cracked a smile. “World War III in Mexico wasn’t on the president’s agenda today. For now, keep moving towards Arista. We can supply drone surveillance to assist and I’m trying to work out some support on the west coast when you get to Arista. Our foreign intel still insists the package is an EMP from Iran. You can’t allow that thing to get anywhere close to the US coastline.”
“Boss, if you’ve got intel that it’s an EMP, and you know it’s in Arista, why the fuck doesn’t the president just drop in a few thousand airborne and secure the whole area? At least send in a naval blockade to the area. What am I missing?”
“Election season, my friend. The US sending in an invasion force to a friendly neighbor against the wishes of that government is not going to play well with the Latino voters. Not to mention that the peace deal with Iran is still being worked out, and if that package is in fact one of theirs, that’s a whole other can of worms. By the way, the Iranians just test-fired three missiles this morning in violation of the treaty proposals. Isn’t this fun?”
Apo’s face was turning red. “Your feeble attempt at humor is a little flat this morning. I might just be cranky from being shot at and ignored by my boss.”
“Not your boss. Your boss’s boss’s boss. Listen—one thing at a time. Get safely to Arista. Find the package. Avoid the Mexican Marines and police, but the Sinaloa and Mazatlecos are fair game. You keep your people safe, you keep El Gato alive, and you find that package. You get the package and prove its source, then you get to say ‘I told you so’ to the CIC. I’m going to start working with anyone we have in your AO who might be friendly. Tough place to find reliable assets. Watch your six. I’m sorry I can’t offer you more help right now. Check in in two hours and I’ll see what we have for you. Out.”
Apo put away the phone and antenna and faced his men. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to Arista to find the package. The Company’s source still insists it’s an EMP, which the CIC refuses to believe because it’s going to wreck his nuke deal. We need to verify the origin of that weapon. We also need to get there fast before it disappears onto some ship somewhere and heads to the US coast.”
Eric was looking through his powerful spotting scope toward a small farmhouse less than a kilometer from where they were currently hiding. “Moose, I see one little old lady and a couple of kids down at that house. Everyone else must be out working, but I can’t see anyone else in any direction. Don’t see power lines, so unless she’s packing a cell phone, we can get there, grab whatever transportation they have, and try to unass this drug lord Hilton.”
Moose moved up to Eric and took a peek. There was a very old pickup truck, a few tractors, and several very skinny horses. “Not sure what has a better chance of travelling more than a mile, those half-dead horses or that truck.”
“I’m thinking the grandma can probably carry us faster than the horses. She looks tough.”
Moose wiped the sweat off his face and scanned the area. “All right, Frogmen. We have very few options, which all suck. Any minute, the rest of the Mexican Marines are going to come hauling ass through here and we’re not supposed to engage with them unless we have to. Poor fuckers have no clue whose side they’re on at the moment. We’re going to have to get across this field following that hedgerow and see if we can steal a truck until we get a better option.”
Ryan looked around at his friends, made a quick cross over his chest, and quickly paraphrased. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
“And I got your six, brother,” said Ray. “And we’re the meanest motherfuckers in the valley. Now let’s unass and steal us a taxi.”
Ripper took point and moved quickly and silently through the brush, working his way to the left flank where the old farmer’s tree line and hedgerow would offer some concealment along the farm field. El Gato slowed them down a little, but they took turns holding him under his armpits, half dragging and lifting him as they raced toward the farmhouse.
When they made it across the field, they stopped at the tree line to observe the small homestead. It was obviously the farmhouse of the family who worked the area, and the house looked to be at least a hundred years old, although in truth it was probably no more than twenty or thirty years old with multiple additions and “improvements” added over the years. What was probably a one-room home had expanded into several extra “wings” for extra bedrooms as the family grew over the years. The home was mostly wood, with some corrugated metal and even a few tree limbs.
Jon closed his eyes and inhaled slowly and deeply. “Damn, that smells good,” he said to himself. The other men could feel their own stomachs grumble. Whatever was cooking inside the house was permeating out through the chimney in a white smoke, and it was heavenly.
The sounds of children’s laughter made the team go prone into the grass and weeds. Two tiny boys and a girl, maybe between five and eight years old, ran out of the front door, chased by a small dog. They were laughing and playing as they headed over to the pu
mp, where they helped each other fill two large pails with water.
The dog sniffed the air and began barking, then began walking toward the team.
“Shit. He’s downwind,” said Moose.
Apo grabbed Moose’s arm. “Let me give this a try. I’m in street clothes. You guys will scare the shit out of these people. Just babysit the asshole.”
Apo stood up and very slowly walked out of the woods, his hands up, with a big smile on his face. “Hola!” he said cheerfully to the children, who froze and stared at the stranger. Their expression was more curiosity than fear. The man wasn’t local. In a farm community of a few hundred people who were all dirt poor, a stranger in nice slacks and a new T-shirt was fairly big news. The little girl ran back to the house, and the two boys just stood and smiled as the man approached them.
Apo was almost to the boys when the front door opened and an ancient woman walked out. She was one of the few people on the planet shorter than Apo, and her brown skin was lined from decades of sun, impossibly hard work, and countless warm, grandmotherly smiles.
Apo greeted her in perfect Spanish, but the Spanish of a highly educated man, not some local thug. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. Please excuse the intrusion. I mean you no harm, but I have a problem.”
The woman cocked her head and looked at him. Her light brown eyes were still crystal clear, beneath drooping lids. “If your problem is breakfast, I have the solution,” she said with a smile. “Fresh tortillas.”
Apo closed his eyes and inhaled. “You must be the most popular woman in Mexico,” he said. He extended his hand. “Alejandro.”
“Maria,” she replied, shaking his hand with a grip that surprised him, but shouldn’t have. A life of hard work had forged the small woman into a piece of iron.
Apo eyed her and chose his words carefully. “Señora Maria, do you know who lives up on that hill?”
Her face darkened, and her cheerful expression disappeared in an instant. “We all know who lives there,” she replied coldly.
“He’s not a friend of yours, I assume.”
She stared through him, her face now hard. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you with one hundred percent honesty. I want to talk to a woman that wants a better country for her grandchildren. I need to talk to the brave woman I see in front of me, but it’s dangerous.”
“I think you should go,” she said softly. “If you’re hungry, I’ll give you food to take with you.”
“Maria, I am with some men. Good men. From America. We’re here for that man on the hill. We’re going to take him away from here and put him in jail forever.”
“You’ll never get him. Go now before you get yourself killed.”
Apo smiled. “We already have him. But there’s a little problem of transportation. I can pay you a lot of money, but I need your truck.”
She stared at him with disbelief. “You have him? You have El Gato?” Saying the words gave her goose bumps and she rubbed her arms, now chilled in the extreme heat.
“We do. And we’re going to take him away from here. But I need your help. Please. Let your grandchildren grow up without all this violence.”
“You have El Gato,” she repeated in a whisper, this time to herself without even realizing it. “Those children, my grandchildren . . .” her voice broke, and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “Their father was a police officer in Puerto Ceiba. He was a good man. A good man! He went to work there because it paid better than farming here. And Las Zetas killed everyone. They massacred my son. Made my grandchildren fatherless. You have El Gato?”
“We do. And I want him in jail for the rest of his life. But I need your help.”
She nodded and called loudly to her grandchildren, who all came running, followed by their skinny puppy. She leaned down and spoke calmly to the children, who could see the seriousness in their grandma’s eyes. “You boys fill the truck with gasoline from the barn. Use all of it. Be very careful not to spill it. Lola, finish the tortillas.”
She stared hard at Apo. “I want to see him.”
Apo pulled his throat mic up from under his shirt and slipped it around his ear. “We’re good. Bring up the team. Friendlies.”
Maria watched in shock as seven American commandos emerged from the woods in full battle gear, dragging along one of the most feared men in Mexico. The men moved across the yard quickly to the porch of the house where she stood with Apo. El Gato did his best to stare the woman down and intimidate her with his cold eyes. The woman walked closer to him, stared back just as hard, and then smacked his face so hard his skin turned pink. She cursed him to eternity in hell and walked into the house.
Jon, who was holding El Gato by one arm, whispered, “You got beat up by a girl. And if I untie you and let you fight her, she’ll fucking kill you, dude.”
CHAPTER 47
Langley
Kim Elton ran into Dex’s office so fast she almost crashed into Darren Davis, who was on his way out. “We got a break!”
It was the first good news in a long time and Dex stood up without even realizing it. “What’ve you got?” asked Darren.
She looked back and forth at the two of them, obviously uncomfortable. “Look, this is a little tricky.”
“What exactly does that mean?” asked Dex.
“Source issue,” she replied.
Darren’s face turned pink. “Kim. Is this your Israeli guy again?”
“He’s not my guy. Apo introduced me to him a few weeks ago, that’s all. It’s a possible break . . .”
Darren snapped at her. “Did you miss the part about us getting our asses chewed off at the White House? The Israelis have their own agenda with the Iran deal. The president doesn’t want some Israeli conspiracy theory screwing up his nuke treaty. Unless you have something ironclad, it’s useless.”
“The Israelis cracked an e-mail account in Syria, chief. E-mails from Syria to Mexico, today. Mossad has been trying to find the same ISIS tables of organization we have for the past year, and we’re stepping all over each other. Listen, they have an e-mail account that they say they’re sure is a high-level ISIS commander in Syria. They want to talk to us about it.”
“So they want to trade something . . .” said Dex suspiciously.
Kim shrugged. “I’m not sure what they want. So far, just a face-to-face meeting with senior staff, meaning you, Darren. The president refuses to meet with the prime minister because the PM is being ‘inflammatory.’ This Mossad source has been reliable in the past, according to Apo. But this is real-time intelligence. We need to move now, and he’ll only agree to talk to you or Director Holstrum himself.”
“The president has already instructed Holstrum to cut the Israelis out of the loop. If I meet with this guy, it’s unofficial.”
“No good. He says it’s solid, and he wants the president to know it comes from them. It’s their intel, it’s good, and they want to shove it up the president’s ass. Sir.”
Darren began pacing around the office. “That’s great. Just great.”
Dex stared at the satellite monitor. “Chief, with all due respect, we’ve got a team on the ground with zero support—zero! And they’re supposed to track down a possible weapon of mass destruction that’s a hundred and sixty miles away from their current location with two drug cartels and the Mexican Marine Corps after them. Do you think that maybe we could offer them just a little information that might make their fucking job a little easier? Jesus Christ! I don’t give a shit about the nuke treaty. These Iranian fucks just got a few hundred billion dollars out of this bullshit treaty! They’re going to keep us busy for the next hundred years! How about we just try and find this one package? Meet with this Mossad agent, see what he knows, and go from there. We’re running out of time!”
Darren Davis wasn’t used to being reprimanded by his second in command, but he knew Dex was right. They were all tired and stressed, and being pulled in two directions.
Darren looked at Kim. “Set
it up. We keep it out of this building, though. Have him pick a place.”
Kim made a few calls and fifteen minutes later Darren Davis and Kim Elton were in a car speeding to a brownstone apartment building in Washington, DC. It was a quiet neighborhood with tree-lined streets and plenty of small coffee shops for yuppies, college students, high-powered white-collar types, and international spies. Kim parked in a small lot, paid the attendant, and walked across the street to the brownstone, where a doorman greeted them. Darren and Kim made quick eye contact. The doorman was no accident—the Israelis probably owned the whole building and ran security for their people.
Darren and Kim walked to the second floor and knocked on a paneled wooden door. The building was old DC money, with masterpieces hanging in the public hallways like a museum. Theft was obviously not an issue in this building.
The door opened and a surprisingly young man opened it, greeting his guests with a big smile and bright blue eyes. He wore old jeans and a Warren Zevon concert T-shirt that was probably older than him. His hair was cropped so short he was almost bald. “Come in, come in!” he said, holding the door wide open. “Shimon!” he called to the back of the apartment.
A tall, slim man walked out from the back of the apartment, perhaps sixty years old. He was wearing orange reading glasses that matched his orange sneakers. Yellow jeans and a black T-shirt rounded out his rock star/secret agent outfit. His black hair, hinting at threads of white, was gelled and spiked—the man definitely rocked his own style.
“Thanks for coming,” Shimon said. He extended his hand and shook hands warmly with Kim and Darren, then ushered them into the small kitchen. “Come, sit,” he offered, pulling barstools out from the high-top kitchen table. “Do you know who I am?”
“I’m guessing Shimon?” said Kim.
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