by Tom Clancy
“Good work today, Rueben.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“The old man was right, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, okay, he was. I should’ve quit before you busted me, but now I’m fucked.”
“No, you did great. You got me some good pics and audio of that man. Now we can ID him and see what’s going on at that warehouse.”
Rueben closed his eyes. He wanted to cry. He could barely sleep now. He dreamed they would come for him during the night, dressed as skeletons armed with knives for carving up his heart. He watched his parents attend his funeral, and while they were leaving, a carload of sicarios raced by and unleashed machine-gun fire on the crowd, killing his parents, both shot in the head and gazing skyward to whisper, “You were such a good boy. What happened to you?”
Delicias Police Station
Juárez, Mexico
As a CIA agent, Gloria Vega had worked in more than twenty-six countries, performing missions as brief as eight hours and as long as sixteen months. She’d witnessed her share of bloodshed and corruption, and had been prepared to witness more of the same when she’d joined JTF Juárez and realized she was being sent into a city known as the murder capital of the world. However, what she hadn’t expected was that the bloodshed would occur between members of her own force.
The shouting had reached her desk only five minutes ago, and they’d all rushed to put on their armor, grab their rifles, and get outside. Inspector Alberto Gómez had pulled on a balaclava to conceal his own identity and stood beside her. Each end of the street had been cordoned off by Federal Police vehicles, and Vega estimated that a crowd of at least two hundred officers in black uniforms and balaclavas had gathered and were shouting and screaming to “Bring out the pig!”
And then, before Vega, Gómez, or anyone else could stop them, a half-dozen officers rushed inside the station, and the crowd roared once again. This time Vega heard a name: Lopez, Lopez, Lopez!
She knew that name, all right, and her blood felt as though it’d turned to ice. Lopez was one of Gómez’s colleagues, an inspector with nearly as many years on the force. Vega’s own investigation had concluded that Lopez was clean and trying to do the right thing; he was the man Alberto Gómez should have been. On the flip side, Gómez’s phones had been tapped, he’d been followed by two other spotters that JTF leader Towers had provided to Vega, and she had gathered enough evidence to present to Federal Police authorities to bring down Gómez for corruption and indisputable ties to the Juárez Drug Cartel. Towers, however, wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on that operation, because Gómez’s arrest would tip off the cartel. All the dominoes needed to be knocked over simultaneously.
And so with time to spare, Gómez had turned the situation around before Vega could react. As she whirled toward the entrance door, six men dragged Lopez out of the building, one of them gripping the old man by his shock of gray hair. Once Lopez’s clean-shaven face was spotted by the crowd, the screaming grew louder, and some hollered, “Kill the pig!” The officers surrounded Lopez, and at least two reared back and began pummeling the old man.
“They’re teaching him a lesson before they arrest him,” shouted Gómez in her ear. “He’s been taking money from the cartels and serving as an informant for them. Children have died because of him. And now he needs to pay.”
You fucking hypocrite is what Vega wanted to say. “They can’t do this. They can’t beat him up!”
The group broke into a chant: “Lopez is the devil and must go down! Lopez is the devil …”
The chant continued, and Vega flinched as another officer with biceps the size of her hips struck a hard blow to Lopez’s cheek.
That was it. Gloria Vega, former Army Intelligence officer and CIA operative, now embedded with the Mexican Federal Police, had seen enough.
She raised her gun into the air and fired off a salvo, the rat-tat-tat silencing the crowd. Before she knew what was happening, a hand wrapped around her neck, other hands had wrenched the gun from her grip, and still more hands were dragging her back into the police station. She screamed and tried to writhe out of their grip, but it was no use. They dragged her inside, and there she was immediately released as Gómez passed in front of her and tugged off his balaclava. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not right. What evidence do they have? They can’t beat up the old man like that!”
“He’s in bed with scum. So he is scum!”
She bit her tongue. Oh, God, how she bit her tongue.
“I told you I would try to keep you alive,” Gómez added. “But you make that very hard when you do something like this! Now, listen to me. Lopez isn’t the only one. The other commanders are dirty as well. Today we are going to clean up this house, and you’re either going to help or I’m going to put you in a jail cell to keep you safe.”
She wrenched off her own mask as the shouting outside seemed to reach a fever pitch. “You’d better lock me up for now. I can’t watch this anymore.”
Vega rubbed the corners of her eyes, the frustration burning so deeply that she thought she might vomit. How much more could she take? How long would they have to wait before she could slap cuffs on Gómez and be done with it? He was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing who needed to swallow a bullet. She imagined herself shooting him right there, cutting off one vein of corruption but realizing that the network was so complex that his death wouldn’t make a difference. No difference at all. Her heart began to sink.
“Gloria, come with me,” he ordered.
She followed him into his small office, where he closed the door so they were out of earshot of the other inspectors and officers. “I know how you feel,” he said.
“Really?”
“I was your age once. I wanted to save the world, but there is too much temptation all around us.”
“No kidding! They pay us nothing. That’s why we can’t do anything. It’s just a crazy game, and we’re all wasting our time here. Wasting our time. What else can we do?”
“The right thing,” he said. “Always the right thing. This is what God wants.”
“God?”
“Yes. I pray to God every day to save our country and save our Federal Police force. He will do it. We must have faith in him.”
“There has to be a better way. I need to make more money than this. And I need to work with people I can trust. Can you help me do that?”
He narrowed his gaze. “You can trust me …”
Montana Restaurant and Bar
Juárez, Mexico
Johnny Sanchez had parked his rental car on Avenida Abraham Lincoln, which was just five minutes from the Cordova Bridge, in order to take his girlfriend, Juanita, to his favorite restaurant in Ciudad Juárez. The Montana’s Southwest-style interior featured dining on two levels and rich wood accents throughout. White linen tablecloths and scented candles did not go unnoticed by his date, and Johnny made sure they got a table near the gas fireplace. El capitán de meseros (the captain of the waiters) was a young man named Billy, and Johnny had become good friends with him and tipped Billy’s team of waiters quite generously. In exchange, Billy slipped Johnny mixed drinks and oversized portions when he ordered. Johnny asked for his usual, the New York club steak, while Juanita, who’d recently dyed her hair blond and gotten a rather aggressive boob job, would have a taco salad.
As they waited for their entrées, Juanita tugged nervously on the straps of her red dress and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not here. You’re out there somewhere.” She lifted her chin toward the window and the bridge beyond.
“I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t tell her that his mother’s godson was a sicario and that he was now working for the CIA. That would probably ruin their dinner.
She frowned and blurted out, “I think we should leave Mexico.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like it here anymore.”
“You just got here.”<
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“I know …I came for you. It’s always about you and your writing. But what about me?”
“You said you were going to dance.”
“You want me to show my body to other men?”
“You paid enough for it.”
“That’s no reason.”
“No, but if it makes you happy …”
She leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Don’t you understand? I want you to say no. I want you to be jealous. What’s wrong with you?”
“I can’t think straight anymore. And you’re right. We need to leave Mexico.” His voice cracked. “But we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Señor Sanchez?”
Johnny turned at the approach of two men wearing expensive silk shirts and pants. They were both in their mid-twenties, neither more than five feet tall, and if Johnny had to guess at their nationalities, he would say Colombian or Guatemalan.
“Who are you?” Johnny asked.
One man lowered his voice and gazed unflinchingly at Johnny. “Señor, we need you to come with us. It’s a matter of life and death.” That was not a Mexican accent. These guys were definitely from South America, somewhere …
“I asked you a question,” Johnny repeated.
“Señor, please come now, and no one will be hurt. Not you. Not her. Please.”
“Johnny, what the fuck is this?” asked Juanita, lifting her voice and thrusting out her chest—which drew the attention of both men.
“Who do you work for?” asked Johnny, his pulse beginning to race.
The man looked at him. “Let’s go, señor.”
Oh, no, Johnny thought. Dante must already know I’ve been tapped by the CIA. They’ve come to kill me.
Johnny’s gun was back in the hotel room. He looked to Juanita, then leaned over and gave her a deep and passionate kiss.
She pushed him away. “What’s going on?”
“Come on, baby. We need to go with them.” He stood, trembling, as the waiter came over with his steak. “I’ll take that to go,” he said.
The two men nodded at him.
And that’s when Johnny grabbed Juanita’s hand and made a mad dash for the door.
He expected to hear some shouting and/or the sound of gunfire as the men who’d wanted to abduct them decided they would have to die instead.
But he and Juanita made it outside and into the parking lot, and when he whirled around, they were not being followed.
“Johnny!” cried Juanita. “What do they want?”
Before he could open his mouth, two small sedans roared up and cut them off. More men—at least six—got out, all similarly dressed, all about the same height and age.
Johnny lifted his palms. It was over. I’m sorry, Dante.
They took Juanita by the throat and shoved her into one car, grabbed him and threw him into the other. Johnny’s head hit the backseat as the driver screeched off, and sometime after they left the parking lot, perhaps a minute or two later, he had become so nervous that he simply fainted.
Johnny awoke some time later, his arms and legs bound against some kind of a pole that he realized was part of a car lift. He was inside an auto-body shop, surrounded by vehicles in various stages of assembly and repair. Dim light filtered in from a bank of windows to his right, with two large steel garage doors rising directly ahead.
The two men who were in the restaurant stood before him, an HD video camera clutched by the slightly leaner man. Johnny sighed. They’d just kidnapped him and were holding him for ransom. He’d make the video. Corrales would pay. Everything would be all right.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said through another sigh. “I’ll say whatever you want. Where’s Juanita? Where’s my girlfriend?”
The camera guy glanced away from the tiny screen he’d been studying and shouted across the room, “Are you finished yet?”
“Yes!” came a voice.
And then Johnny saw them: two more men wearing black protective jumpsuits, the kind used while painting cars, although they hadn’t donned the headgear. The suits were stained darkly on the arms and hips. One man carried a yellow power tool with a narrow blade extending from the front, a reciprocating saw. Johnny had been to many accident scenes as a local newspaper reporter a few years back, and he’d become familiar with the tools first responders used to extricate people trapped in their cars.
The man with the saw revved the tool’s engine, and as he stepped closer, Johnny realized that the saw was stained with …blood.
“Look, no need for threats. I’ll do what you say.”
With a snort, the guy with the saw rolled his eyes and moved forward.
“Wait!” Johnny cried. “What do you want from me? Please!”
“Señor,” said the man with the camera. “We just want you to die.”
BUITRES JUSTICIEROS
Villas Casa Morada
San Cristóbal de las Casas
Chiapas, Mexico
MIGUEL ROJAS was awakened at 6:41 a.m. by an aching desire. He rolled over and let his hand move slowly up Sonia’s leg. She stirred and whispered, “Always in the morning with you. Wasn’t last night enough?”
“It’s nature,” he said.
“No, it’s just you.”
“I can’t help it. It’s your fault, really. I can’t stop thinking about, you know …”
“Well, there’s more to life.”
“I know, I know.”
“Good. I understand how men are, and it’s okay, but I worry about you losing respect for me.”
“Never.”
“You say that now.” She draped an arm over her head. “Sometimes I wish …”
He frowned at her. “What?”
“I wish everything in my life had been different.”
“That can’t be true.”
“You might be the perfect man for me. But life is complicated, and I just worry for us. I wish everything had been different before I met you.”
“What was wrong with your life before that? You have great parents who love you very much. You’ve done very well.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, really.”
“Is it the money? Because—”
“No, it has nothing to do with that.”
He tensed. “Then what is it? Another guy back home? That’s it. You’re still in love with another guy.”
She began to laugh. “No.”
He gently grabbed her by the chin. “Do you love me?”
“Too much.”
“What does that mean?”
She closed her eyes. “It means that sometimes it hurts.”
“Well, it shouldn’t. What can I do?”
“Just kiss me.”
He did, and one thing led to another. He wondered if Corrales and the others in the next room could hear them. She groaned softly, but they tried their best to remain discreet.
They hadn’t done much during their first day in the old city, spending most of their time around the villa and getting accustomed to the area. Miguel had chosen to stay in a new place and to live like a tourist, rather than exploit his father’s connections and stay in the same old boring mansions. He’d found them a quaint, European-run boutique hotel, and their first-floor villa had a kitchen, dining table, sitting area, and bedroom with bath. Murals and Mayan textiles adorned the walls, with a wood-burning fireplace opposite their bed. While the room had no air conditioning, they didn’t need it. Outside was a veranda with chairs, so they could sit and watch people in the lushly landscaped courtyard, where a hammock lay beneath the long limbs of a shade tree. A young couple had been lying on the hammock and kissing deeply. That image had been enough to drive him and Sonia back into their bedroom for a quick round of sex only hours after they’d arrived.
As Miguel rolled off of Sonia, the cockerels began their morning announcements: Indeed, the sun was rising. It felt as though they were on a farm, but Miguel enjoyed their racket. This was semirural Mexico, and it was just he and Sonia and this bea
utiful little city to explore. The concierge had told them that many writers, artists, academics, and archaeologists stayed at the hotel and spent their days both exploring the city and driving out thirty minutes to the ancient Mayan city known as Palenque, where the ancient temples and palaces with their broad staircases and partially crumbling walls drew thousands of visitors each year. Miguel had been to the ruins only once, as a boy, so he thought he’d like to explore them again.
First, however, they’d go shopping, which he knew would make Sonia very happy. They were only a ten-minute walk down the hill to the louder central streets. Miguel rose and moved to the window, staring out past the courtyard at the highlands, draped in long shadows, the green mountains still dark and forming a moonscape along the horizon.
Farther away, the streets seemed to writhe their way along the hillsides, and the brightly colored houses—some green, purple, and yellow, and all with red tiled roofs—lay in tight clusters along those narrow paths. Beyond them, seated atop a great shoulder of rock, was an ornate cathedral painted in gold, and several mansions whose towering wrought-iron gates lifted to some four meters. Sonia had remarked that the city seemed more like a theme park than a real place because it was so brightly colored and impeccably clean. Miguel had told her that the people here were exceedingly proud of their Mayan heritage, and you could find Mayan influences throughout everything in the city: from the architecture to the food to the interior design. Miguel’s father often said that San Cristóbal reminded him more of Guatemala than of Mexico.
“When is Carnival?” asked Sonia, sitting up in the bed.
He smiled at her. “They’ll start tonight. But we have to go to the village of San Juan Chamula first. I want you to see the church there. Then tomorrow, the ruins.”
A knock came at the door.
Sonia frowned, and Miguel crossed the room and leaned toward the door before opening it. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, sir, Corrales. Is everything all right?”
He swung around, faced Sonia, and nearly burst out laughing, as did she.