Against All Enemies

by Tom Clancy

“What if the right thing is to look the other way?” he’d asked her. “What if you realize that nothing we do will change anything and that sometimes we must fight fire with fire?”

  She’d just stared at him.

  He’d grabbed her hands. “You’ve seen what I’ve seen. And now you know what I know.” And then he did something that shocked her. He released her hands and gave her a deep hug. When he was through, he pulled back with tears in his eyes. “I am sorry that you’ve come to see the truth of this. It is a bitter truth, but we must accept it.”

  She put the key in her apartment door, but something wasn’t right. The key did not slide into the lock as smoothly as it usually did. This was something that the average person might dismiss as an annoying inconvenience, but Vega was keenly aware of her surroundings, especially now, in Juárez, and missing even the slightest detail could result in death. She took a deep breath and wondered if someone had tried to pick the lock.

  Drawing her weapon, she opened the door and stepped inside.

  A shuffle of feet, and then—

  He came at her from behind, a male voice coming in a deep groan as he tried to get the wire around her throat, but her hand was already there, coming up reflexively before the wire could touch her throat. It sliced into her palm as she swung around, dragging him with her.

  The foyer was still dark, and she couldn’t turn back to see him, could only bring her arm around her side and fire once, twice, until the wire went slack and she screamed and rushed forward to whirl back and fire again.

  A shaft of light came in from the living room window, and she saw him, barely her height, dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, a balaclava over his face. He lay there with gunshot wounds in his chest.

  Despite her heavy breathing, the stench of gunpowder, and the saliva filling her mouth, she still detected movement from the bedroom. A second one? There it was: a window latch thrown, something trying to get out.

  “Don’t move!” she screamed, and rushed into the bedroom, in time to see another man dressed similarly to the first trying to slip away through the window. He’d been the backup man but had chickened out, and Vega was so pumped with adrenaline and so fearful that he’d turn back with a weapon that she emptied the rest of her magazine into the punk, who fell back into the bedroom. Reflexively, she ejected the magazine, jammed in a fresh one, then chambered a round, all in a matter of seconds.

  She rushed to the light switch, threw it on, then swept the rest of the apartment, the walk-in closet, the bathroom. Clear. They’d sent two punks, thinking it’d be an easy job to off one lady cop. She stood there, just breathing.

  And then she cursed. Because in that moment as she tried to regain her breath, she began to cry.

  She reached for her cell phone, dialed Towers. “I want off this fucking case. I want out of here. Right now.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Talk to me.”

  She hung up on him, waited another moment, then dialed the police. I’m not a quitter, she told herself. No matter what comes out of my mouth.

  She made the report as a knock came at her front door, probably the landlord or a concerned neighbor.

  Her phone rang: Towers calling back. She answered, “Two punks just jumped me in my apartment. I killed them both.”

  “Then we’ll pull you out of there.”

  “No.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said. I’m going to finish this. I’ll arrest Gómez myself.”

  “All right, just hang in there. I’ll have some sensors put in place in the apartment. This won’t happen again.”

  “I don’t know about that. Gómez sent these bastards to kill me. He knows …”

  “You need to hang tight for now, because when we bring him down, the rest will follow. Big bust, just like in Puerto Rico, but we can’t rush into it, not yet …”

  “Just hope I live long enough,” she spat. “Now, I have to go. They’re banging on my door, and a couple of units are on the way …”

  San Cristóbal de las Casas

  Chiapas, Mexico

  The image of his father, backlit by the burning hotel, still haunted Dante Corrales as he lay there in the bed, his shoulder heavily bandaged, his left arm in a sling. He dialed the number and listened to the unanswered ring. There was no voice mail, only the endless buzzing.

  “He still doesn’t pick up?” Pablo asked, sitting on a chair near the doors leading out to the veranda.

  “What if they’re trying to call Miguel? What if they already know something’s wrong?”

  “If you call Castillo and you tell him the truth, you know what he’s going to say …”

  “He’ll expect me to run. They’ll hunt me down and kill me. I can’t do that.”

  “Dante, why are you so scared? I’ve never seen you this way. Come on. We can beat this.”

  “Why am I scared? Do you have any fucking idea what’ll happen now?”

  “No.”

  He swore in his head, then aloud. “Shit. I should’ve just paid that scumbag Salou, but he’s a sloppy bastard, and he’s lucky he got the down payment at all.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  Corrales shook his head. “Long gone.”

  “You didn’t think they’d come after you for the rest?”

  Corrales almost smiled. “I knew they would, but I figured by then I’d have a few extra bucks from the shipments. But we got screwed there, too …”

  Corrales’s phone rang—a number he didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “Corrales, my friend, I noticed you’ve been trying to call me. I’m so happy we finally have your attention.”

  He stiffened. It was Salou, and the bastard was practically singing with bravado. “Be careful what you say,” Corrales told him. “A word to the wise.”

  “I’m disappointed.”

  “I know. Let me make it up to you.”

  “Three times my original estimate.”

  “Done. And you know what I want.”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Oh, Corrales, you know that’s impossible. Tell me where you are, and I’ll send a car.”

  “This will take time. Twenty-four hours, at least.”

  “I’m sorry, Corrales, but I am supposed to trust you now, after what you did? So no, I don’t have twenty-four hours. I have until midnight. Okay?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure, you can. We can take care of this electronically. I have all the information you need.”

  But that was not how Corrales wanted to pay off the man. He wanted to get cash so he could bury the money, hide it from Castillo. That kind of money would require him to draw from one of the cartel’s operations accounts, and Castillo would be tipped off by such a withdrawal.

  “I will come with the cash,” Corrales said. “By midnight.”

  “No, like I said, we’ll send a man for you when you’re ready. No more games, Corrales.”

  “I understand.”

  “I hope you do. This is your last chance. I know that you are very sorry for your mistake, and I am willing to help you one last time, because I will profit from it. Otherwise, God help you …God help you …”

  Corrales hung up and looked to Pablo. “We need a lot of cash here as fast as you can. Contact Héctor and tell La Familia that we need a loan.”

  “Now we’re borrowing money from another cartel?” asked Pablo.

  “Don’t question me! Just do it!” Corrales winced as the throbbing in his shoulder became a knifing pain.

  Jorge Rojas Medical Institute

  Mexico City

  A crowd of about two hundred people had gathered in the parking lot of a brand-new five-story office complex. Jorge Rojas straightened his shoulders at the lectern and smiled once more at the board of directors, the senior-level administrators, and at the dozens and dozens of office workers who’d been hired to help spearhead this ambitious endeavor. A handful of local med
ia had also arrived to cover the historic ribbon-cutting ceremony.

  Rojas had made a surprise visit to the ceremony (he’d originally bowed out of an appearance because of travel plans), but he’d returned early from Colombia and had decided at the last moment to accept the security risk and speak at the event.

  He’d arrived in a convoy of six bulletproof SUVs, and his team of twenty men, dressed discreetly in Somoza’s suits and well armed, had secured the perimeter. He was just finishing up his remarks: “And as I’ve said, the current medical model is flawed. It’s our hope to focus on preventative medicine through promotion and greater access to services. This is a patient-centered approach rather than a health-care-system-centered approach. We hope to encourage all citizens of Mexico—and everyone in Latin America, for that matter—to take a more proactive role in their health care. We’ll do this by helping other nonprofit organizations and by providing grants for students, professors, researchers, and other health-care professionals. I founded this institute with one purpose in mind: to help people live better and longer. Now, then, can we cut this ribbon? Because over there, I think they have churros and coffee for us all!”

  The audience laughed as Rojas stepped off the podium, accepted the oversized pair of scissors, and did the honors, to great applause. He wished he could have turned to stare into the glistening eyes of his wife, but instead there was Alexsi, always stunning in her designer dresses and jewelry but a mannequin and hardly the conversationalist his wife had been. Beside her stood Castillo, putting a hand to his Bluetooth receiver and speaking softly to the rest of their security team.

  Before Rojas could turn away so that they could hear a few words from the new institute’s director, a reporter from XEWTV, Inés Ortega, a middle-aged woman who had interviewed Rojas several times before and whose questions repeatedly annoyed him, pushed herself to the front of the group and thrust a microphone in his face.

  “Señor Rojas, you are one of the richest men in the world, and your influence is seen everywhere. I can talk over my Rojas-operated cell phone while shopping at a supermarket you own with money I keep in one of your banks. When I’m finished, I can go buy a cup of coffee at a restaurant you own. You’re hard to escape.”

  “I’m happy to help people,” he said, waving his hand at her. “If you don’t have any questions—”

  “Actually, I do. How do you respond to people who call you greedy? Much of the nation starves, and you become richer because your businesses never seem to fail …”

  “I respond like this,” he said, gesturing back to the medical complex. “We’re doing everything we can to give back to the community. There will always be critics, but the facts speak for themselves. If you want to talk about wealth, then I believe it must be protected to benefit future generations—that’s why it’s important for my businesses to do well. I’m not here to make myself rich anymore. I’m here to help our people and our president address this country’s needs—and if people want to call that greedy, then that is a misinterpretation of what’s in my heart.”

  A crack—not much louder than a firecracker—resounded from the back of the group, and almost immediately a thud like a punch struck Rojas’s chest and knocked him off balance. He reached out toward the staircase railing behind him, missed, and collapsed onto the steps, his elbow crashing hard onto the concrete.

  Pandemonium swept through the crowd, the screams coming in waves as some fled toward the parked cars while others simply hit the ground, all of them seeking cover except Fernando Castillo, who spotted the lone gunman at the back of the crowd and gave chase as the rest of the security team began to swarm around their prey.

  From the corner of his eye, Rojas watched as Castillo ran but twenty steps before opening fire and hitting the man, who dropped before he could reach a pickup truck parked at the back of the lot, beneath two large oak trees. Castillo sprinted to the fallen shooter and put two more bullets in the man’s head, much to Rojas’s chagrin. It might’ve been useful to question the man, but then again, a public figure as prominent as himself had many enemies. This could have been a troubled citizen who just snapped one day and decided to kill someone he’d read about or seen on TV.

  Both Alexsi and the reporter, Inés, were at Rojas’s side as he dug into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and wriggled out the round that had lodged in the flexible plate. He lifted it up and showed it to the two women. “Thank God for protection,” he said.

  “You will have to call Felipe in Colombia and tell him,” said Alexsi.

  They helped him back to his feet as more people, including his board of directors, approached and asked if he was all right.

  He returned to the lectern as the sirens grew in the distance. “I’m not dead,” he cried. “And neither is the dream we’ve built here!”

  With that, the crowd began to cheer.

  Afterward, in the backseat of his armored Mercedes, Rojas watched the TV footage captured by the news crew. The story was being picked up by all the major news networks and newswires: the Associated Press, BBC News World, Reuters, and United Press International. Every major network in Mexico and the United States was either covering the story or about to cover the story, Rojas knew.

  He tried once more to call Miguel. No answer. Voice mail.

  “Nothing from my son. Nothing from Sonia,” he told Castillo.

  “Nothing from Dante, either, but give them some time,” said Castillo. “Maybe there’s trouble with the towers—that would explain why none of them are answering us.”

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t be worried, but if Miguel sees the news of what happened, he’ll be worried, I know.”

  “He’ll call you,” Castillo assured him. “Now, sir, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

  “Just take us home.”

  Alexsi put her hand on his and said, “Everything is fine, my love. Thank God you are so careful. I won’t complain about you going to Colombia again.”

  He grinned faintly and tried to calm himself.

  She frowned. “Why do you think that madman wanted to kill you? Just jealousy? After all you do for the country? I just can’t believe there is so much hate in the world.”

  “Believe it,” he said, turning his attention to the darkly tinted window. They were merging back onto the highway, heading toward Cuernavaca and his mansion in the suburbs. He suddenly yelled, “I want to know who that guy was!”

  “Of course,” said Castillo. “I’m already working on that. The detectives will call me as soon as they know.”

  “Okay, excellent,” he said, catching his breath. And then a deep sigh of relief: a text message from Miguel.

  He thumbed on the message, which had no text, only a video attached. He double-tapped the video icon, turned his phone horizontally, and watched in widescreen as the camera panned, revealing Sonia …and then Miguel …

  Rojas began to lose his breath. “Fernando! Pull over! Pull over!”

  A man came into view carrying an ax.

  “Don’t look,” Sonia said. “Just don’t look.”

  And Rojas’s hands began to tremble. “No!”

  Private Airstrip

  Approx. 1,000 Miles South of Mexicali, Mexico

  It was nearly dusk by the time they finished transferring their gear and all of their personnel onto the trucks, both of which were step vans, one belonging to a plumber whose logo was emblazoned across the side of the vehicle. The other was a seafood-delivery vehicle whose bay reeked of fish and crabs. Samad and his men could only grimace and climb aboard. These trucks were all they had, and he was, despite their confines, grateful to Allah for them.

  Samad estimated it would take them about eighteen hours of drive time, averaging fifty-five miles per hour, and so he’d warned his men that the next two days on the road would be long and arduous. Talwar and Niazi, who were in the other van, said they would do their best to keep the men calm and remind them that refueling points were their only chance to use the bathroom fac
ilities. With a group as large as theirs, that would become a serious consideration.

  They were but twenty miles into their journey when the other truck pulled to the side of the road with a flat tire, and this made Samad throw his hands up in frustration. Yes, they had a spare; yes, they could fix it; but many, many others already in the United States were waiting for them, and the delay caused his stomach to knot and his hands to ball into fists. The drivers, both Mexicans, were yelling at each other in Spanish as they fixed the flat, and Samad was beginning to realize that the driver of his truck might be having second thoughts. He shifted up to the man, hunkered down, and said in Spanish, “We trust you to deliver us to our destination. That’s all you need to do. To get paid. To stay alive. Do you understand me?”

  The man swallowed and nodded.

  A commercial airliner cut across the sky in the distance. Samad turned up toward the plane and watched it vanish into a raft of pink clouds.

  AL RESCATE

  San Juan Chamula

  Chiapas, Mexico

  DEEP SHADOWS HAD FALLEN across the graveyard, and the rows of crosses now stood in silhouette against the moldy walls of the abandoned church. Down below, past the church and the marketplace, Moore, who was lying on his belly, scanned the large crowds of locals and tourists gathering around and lining the streets of the main road, where the parade and fireworks show of Carnival would soon commence. Troupes of dancers were already shifting and whirling across beds of burning embers whose sparks rose around them.

  Moore panned to the right with his night-vision scope and back to the house where the small blue car and van were still parked. Torres had fetched their rental car and had moved it up behind the pair of smaller houses at the bottom of the road. He’d left the car there with the keys under the mat.

  After another long breath, Moore adjusted his grip on the weapon in his hands, one of the Mark 11 Model 0’s, which had earned the nickname “Pirate Killer,” based on their use by Navy SEALs to rescue captured sailors from Somali pirates. Fitzpatrick had feigned surprise over Moore toting them, and Torres had grilled Moore about how he’d acquired such powerful military-issue weapons. “Like I told you,” Moore had said, “the people I work for are very well connected.”