by Tom Clancy
When you attempted to house three thousand men in a facility capable of holding only fifteen hundred, tempers would flare on a daily basis. In order to address that—and the facility’s reputation for violent uprisings—Quiñones had allowed his inmates to buy a little comfort. They could rent cells with their own toilets and showers, buy small refrigerators, stoves, fans, and TVs, and even receive cable by paying a monthly charge. A few cells came equipped with air conditioners. Prisoners had conjugal visits in special cells they could rent for $10 per night. In fact, Quiñones had helped build a small prison economy in which privately owned stores participated and inmates without funds could earn money by doing odd jobs or working in the shops. He tried to stress the humanizing factors of his facility, but in the end, he knew his efforts might very well be forgotten or taken for granted. Moreover, his salary as director of the entire facility, which rose up from the concrete like an alabaster behemoth cordoned off by fence and barbed wire, was hardly enough to put his two sons through college in the United States.
And so, when Fernando Castillo had offered a particular “arrangement” and had thrown around numbers that had Quiñones’s mouth falling open, he’d jumped at the opportunity.
“Hello, Fernando. I’m sorry I missed your call.”
“That’s all right. I need six men to go over to Zúñiga’s house and kill Dante Corrales. He’s there right now.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Please do. I sent my own men to do the job, and Dante killed them all. Your boys had better have more luck.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Fernando, when Dante sees who’s coming after him now, he’s going to wet his pants.”
The six men Quiñones already had in mind for the job were members of the Aztecas gang, and within ten minutes all of them were standing in his office, their arms sleeved in tattoos, their heads shaven, their scowls growing even tighter as they suspected that something bad was going down in the prison.
“Not at all,” he told them. “I have a job for you. The pay is more than any of you would earn in a year. I will provide all the weapons and the cars. You just need to get the job done, then return to the prison.”
“You’re letting us go?” asked the shortest one, whom the others simply called Amigo.
“You’re all men serving sentences for murder. What’s one more, right?”
“What if we don’t come back?” asked Amigo.
“Then you don’t get paid. And we’ll let your friends know how you betrayed the group inside. They’ll come for you in the night. And you know what will happen. All things considered, you all have a very nice operation here, and some of the best living conditions. I’ve taken good care of you. Now it’s time for you to do something for me.”
ZONA DE GUERRA
En Route to Zúñiga Ranch House
Juárez, Mexico
THE ONE-STORY COMMERCIAL building that housed Border Plus, an electrical supply company owned by Zúñiga, had a rear loading dock and pit to accommodate tractor-trailers, and beside the dock stood a secondary entrance with a concrete ramp large enough to permit a car. One of Zúñiga’s sicarios was already waiting for Moore as he drove up the ramp. The rolling door was open, and the guy, a gaunt-faced kid with a tuft of hair under his lip and a gray hoodie over his head, waved him through. Inside, Moore parked his car, was patted down for weapons by another sicario with the requisite body art and piercings, then got into the backseat of the same Range Rover that the fat man, Luis Torres, had once driven. The car chilled Moore as he reflected on Torres’s death back in San Juan Chamula. The Rover’s windows had been newly tinted, and inside were three more men he did not recognize. The guy beside him pointed his pistol at Moore and said, “Hola.” He smiled, as though this was his first big mission and he was enjoying the hell out of holding Moore at gunpoint.
Zúñiga liked to use the facility as a transfer-and-exchange point to keep the Juárez Cartel’s spotters guessing. They’d watch the Range Rover pull inside, and they never really knew how many people would leave or how many were in the car. Sometimes the exchanges involved as many as four vehicles. It was a basic but generally effective method of concealing who was actually visiting Zúñiga’s ranch and how much product was being transferred in and out.
Moore assumed the Rover was well known by the Juárez Cartel, and it was probably still being used as the primary transfer vehicle to make the spotters believe that Zúñiga and his people were unaware of their presence. Whatever the case, Moore sat back to enjoy the ride.
They’d allowed him to keep his smartphone, which unbeknownst to the thugs permitted Towers to listen in on his every move. That, coupled with the GPS beacon embedded in his shoulder, was supposed to make him feel more secure. Sure, you could lower yourself into a pit of snakes with a bottle of antivenom in your pocket, but the bite was still going to hurt.
He glanced over at the sicario holding the gun on him. The kid was eighteen, if that, with a skull earring in his right lobe. “What’s new, bro?”
The kid began to laugh. “I like you. I hope he lets you live.”
Moore hoisted his brows. “He’s a pretty smart man.”
“He’s always sad.”
Moore snorted. “If you had your wife and sons murdered by your enemies, you’d be sad all the time, too.”
“His family was killed?”
“I can see you’re a new guy.”
“Tell me what happened,” the kid demanded.
Moore gave him a lopsided grin and left it at that.
Within fifteen minutes they reached Zúñiga’s gates and rolled up the driveway to turn into the four-car garage. Moore was led into the living room, which Zúñiga had had professionally decorated in a southwestern theme. Crosses, quivers of arrows, multicolored geckos, and pieces of sandstone art hung near an impressive gas fireplace whose flames illuminated the granite mantel. Across the broad room lay Navajo-patterned rugs, and pigskin-covered furniture was arranged around the hearth.
Dante Corrales was seated on one sofa, wearing a black silk shirt, his arm bound in a sling. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had trouble getting to his feet as Moore approached.
Zúñiga loitered behind the sofa, a beer in hand. He sighed deeply and said, “Señor Howard, I’ve just had a big dinner, and I’m already beginning to fall asleep. So let’s get down to business.”
“Who is this guy?” asked Corrales.
“He is a business associate,” Zúñiga snapped.
Corrales’s frown grew more sharp. “No, no, no. I told you why I’m here and what we’re going to do together—just the two of us, no one else.”
“Dante, if you’re as valuable as you say, then I’m selling you to him.” Zúñiga began to chuckle.
“Selling me? What the hell?”
Moore held up a palm. “Relax. We’re all here to help each other.”
Moore’s smartphone began to vibrate. He winced and decided to ignore the call.
And then, before anyone else could speak, gunfire boomed from somewhere outside, drawing their gazes toward the bay windows along the front of the house.
Dollar Tree
Sherman Way
North Hollywood, California
Samad, Talwar, and Niazi each had a basket in hand as they strolled through the aisles of the store, trying to keep their reactions in check. The other shoppers at the Dollar Tree paid little attention to them. They were dressed like Mexican migrant workers, in jeans, flannel shirts, and ball caps. They spoke Spanish to one another, and repeatedly Talwar shouldered up to Samad and expressed his disbelief over the prices: “One dollar? For everything? Just one dollar?”
He held up a container of jalapeño cheese spread, along with a bag of Burger King Onion Rings.
Niazi snorted, then eyed him emphatically. “One dollar.” He gestured with his bag of beef jerky, which included “50% Free” and said, “See? One dollar. And more free.”
Talwar lingered there in the aisle, his eyes welling with te
ars. “Everything in America is amazing. Everyone has so much. You can buy this stuff cheap. They don’t know what it’s like for us. Even water is a luxury. They have no idea. Why have they been given these gifts and we have not?”
Samad squinted through a deep breath. He’d known his men would react this way, because they had never been out of their country. What they’d seen of Mexico was not unlike the slums of the Middle East. But this part of America was radically different. During the drive through Los Angeles, they had cruised up Rodeo Drive, with its designer shops—Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, and Valentino, among the dozens of others—and they had witnessed a culture of covetousness that for his men must have been mind-boggling. They’d stared openmouthed at the mansions—palaces, really—and Samad had appreciated the irony of how those with money resided in the highlands while those less fortunate lived below in the valley. The cars, the clothes, the fast food, and the advertising were extremely attractive to them, while he found it all utterly repellent—because he’d seen it all before in Dubai during his college days and understood that beneath the veneer of wealth were people who were, more often than not, morally bankrupt.
Wealth was not something that good Muslims should love, but rather they should love Allah and manage their wealth according to the injunctions of Allah and use their wealth as a means to worship Him.
Samad hardened his voice. “Talwar, do not put your worth in material things. This is not what Allah would have for us. We are here for a purpose. We are the instruments of Allah’s will. All of this is only a distraction.”
After a moment to consider that, Talwar nodded. “I can’t help but envy them. To be born into this …to be born and not have to struggle your entire life.”
“This is what’s made them weak, what’s killed their god and poisoned their hearts and minds—and stomachs, for that matter. But for now, if you want to sample their junk food and drink their soda, then go ahead. Why not? It will not corrupt our souls. But you will not lose sight of our mission, and you will not envy these people. Their souls are black.”
His men nodded and continued down the aisles. Samad poised before some bags of plastic action figures, forty-eight-count, with brown, green, and black soldiers in various poses. He marveled over how the Americans portrayed their forces to their children, immortalizing them in plastic. One soldier held a rocket launcher on his shoulder, and Samad could only snicker over the irony. He decided to buy them. One dollar.
When their baskets were full of junk food and toiletries and whatever else struck their fancy, they got into their Hyundai Accent and drove back toward Studio City, where they had been put up in a second-story apartment on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Rahmani’s team here in Los Angeles—four men who’d been in the United States for the past five years—had welcomed them with open arms. They had laughed and eaten and discussed the group’s escape from Mexico during that first night in the city. It was Rahmani’s American friend, Gallagher, the one he had recruited from the CIA, who had orchestrated the pickup in Calexico and had arranged for the vehicles to be painted, the escape team to be dressed like local police. It was a sophisticated maneuver that had afforded them secure passage to the Calexico airport. From there, they said their good-byes to the rest of the group. And it was then that Samad had begun to inform his lieutenants about the larger plan, growing more comfortable in the fact that at this point, they might not be captured and questioned. Rahmani had been adamant about telling the teams only at the very last minute exactly what was happening—in case any of them were captured. They’d be instructed not to be taken alive …
There were supposed to be eighteen of them in all, six teams of three men each. But that fool Ahmad Leghari had not made it beyond Paris, leaving them with one team of only two members. Leghari would be replaced as soon as that pair reached their destination city of San Antonio.
Six teams. Six missile launchers.
“What are the targets?” Talwar had kept asking, since he was the one who had received extensive training in the operation and firing of MPADs (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems). He’d been taken under the Pakistani Army’s wing, along with five other men, and ushered out to the semidesert region near Muzaffargarh, where he’d spent two weeks firing practice missiles at fixed targets. Rahmani had paid the Army handsomely for that instruction.
“So are we going to shoot federal buildings? Schools?” Talwar added.
As they had climbed into their single-prop Cessna, about to fly up to Palm Springs with a pilot who was, of course, working for Rahmani, Samad had grinned and said, “Oh, Talwar, our plan is a little more ambitious than that.”
Now as they continued back toward the apartment in Studio City, Samad went over the details in his head. He’d memorized the timetable, and his pulse became erratic the more he thought about the days to come …
Zúñiga Ranch House
Juárez, Mexico
Moore rushed to the front window and drew back the blinds. Zúñiga had powerful, motion-activated floodlights mounted outside the house, and in all that glare that pushed back the twilight came two white pickup trucks barreling toward the front gates. The trucks were painted with the livery and logos of the Juárez police, but the pairs of men seated in each of the flatbeds were dressed in plainclothes, and one guy in each truck held a weapon that caused Moore to gasp: an M249 light machine gun capable of belching out 750 to 1,000 rounds per minute. Those M249s, still referred to by many as Squad Automatic Weapons, were reserved for military operations. How these “cops” had acquired such weapons was a question Moore summarily dismissed, because they were directing fire on two more black trucks giving chase, and those vehicles belonged to the Mexican Federal Police. Why the hell would the local cops be firing on the Feds?
The answer came in the next few seconds.
Moore would bet his life on the fact that those local cops weren’t cops at all, and as they crashed through the gates, he felt even more certain. They all had shaved heads and arms crawling with tattoos. They’d either stolen the vehicles or been given them by corrupt officers.
Zúñiga’s security detail, about six guys who were positioned along the perimeter of the gate, with two guys up on the roof, opened fire on all the trucks, and the popping and booming of all those weapons sent Moore’s pulse racing.
Corrales arrived at Moore’s side and cried, “The Feds are trying to protect me!”
“Why would they do that?” Moore asked sarcastically. “Because your buddy Inspector Gómez sent them?”
“What the fuck? How do you know him?”
Moore grabbed Corrales by the neck. “If you come with me, I’ll offer you full immunity. No jail time. Nothing. You want to bring down the Juárez Cartel? So do I.”
Corrales was a young man who—when faced with certain death—did not quibble over details. “Okay, whatever. Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
The truck came bouncing forward toward the bay windows, its driver showing no intention of stopping. Even as Moore and Corrales bolted away, the truck plowed through the front of the house, cinder blocks and drywall and glass exploding inward as the pickup’s engine roared and the guys on the flatbed screamed and ducked away from the falling debris.
A couple of Zúñiga’s guys who’d been inside and in another part of the house rushed toward the truck, which was now idling in the living room. Zúñiga’s fresh troops traded fire with the guys in the flatbed. Moore hazarded a look back as the driver of the truck opened his door and thrust out an AK-47. He fired haphazardly but managed to hit one of Zúñiga’s men in the shoulder.
Moore and Corrales continued on toward Zúñiga himself, who was already in the kitchen and seizing a Beretta from the countertop.
Outside and visible through the gaping hole in the wall, the second police truck cut left, heading around the side of the house, toward the garage, with the two Federal Police trucks following. “If they cut off the doors back there, we won’t get out!” shouted Moore, his phone once
more vibrating. That’d be Towers calling to warn him about the attack, a warning he was pretty sure he no longer needed.
Zúñiga’s men in the living room—one okay, the other shot but still clutching a rifle—began firing at the pickup’s driver, who was returning fire, along with the guys on the flatbed, the walls bursting apart under the fire.
And the second that machine-gunner opened up, rounds chewing into the fieldstone fireplace, Moore, Corrales, and Zúñiga burst down a hallway, heading toward the back of the house. Moore cursed. You didn’t need any more motivation than that.
Between the gunfire thundering in the living room and the shots booming outside, Moore had a flashback to Forward Operating Base Pharaoh in Afghanistan, where the gods of thunder and lightning had warred with each other all night. The news media had been calling Juárez a war zone for years, but Moore hadn’t fully appreciated that label until now.
“Give me a fucking gun!” screamed Corrales. “I want a fucking piece right now!”
Zúñiga ignored him, and they raced into the master bedroom, replete with a four-poster bed the size of a swimming pool. Here the walls were adorned with the framed silhouettes of nude women and fantastic art deco pieces depicting South American landscapes that must have cost Zúñiga a fortune. Moore had the better part of two seconds to appreciate those pieces before he spotted another pistol, this one the requisite Belgian-made police blaster, sitting atop a chest of drawers. He grabbed it, flicked off the safety, and spun back toward the sound of heavy footfalls in the hallway. One of the guys from the pickup had escaped from Zúñiga’s men and was running straight toward them, both arms raised, pistols in his fists.