by Tom Clancy
Moore got off two shots, hitting the guy in the left breast and groin before rolling out of incoming fire, which must’ve gone high and thumped into the bedroom ceiling, as dust trickled down into his eyes.
“Holy shit,” cried Corrales, staring wide-eyed over Moore’s marksmanship.
“Go!” Moore ordered him.
Zúñiga was waving them on into the master bath, where a closet to his left opened into a massive wardrobe at least thirty feet wide, with a dressing table in the center. He shoved a key in the lock of a pair of tall wooden cabinet doors, swung them open, and grabbed a rifle, which he shoved into Corrales’s hands. Then he fetched another and thrust it toward Moore, who cursed in surprise.
“Where the hell did you get these?” Moore cried.
“eBay, gringo. Now come on!”
Moore could only shake his head in astonishment as he adjusted his grip on the Colt M16A2 with thirty-round magazine, standard U.S. Marine Corps issue and simply a larger, heavier version of the M4A1 carbines he’d used as a SEAL operator.
What was Zúñiga going to show them next? An M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank parked in a secret subterranean garage?
Moore thumbed the rifle’s selector lever, which included the safety and the semiautomatic options as well as a three-round burst option that saved you ammo. He chose semiautomatic, then leaned over toward Corrales. “Here, dumbass, the safety’s here.” He threw the lever and flashed a sarcastic thumbs-up.
The kid returned a middle finger.
And in that second, Moore swung his rifle up, past Corrales’s face, and shot the heavyset guy who’d just appeared in the doorway, holding his pistol with both hands.
Corrales screamed, cursed, then swung around and watched as the guy collapsed in a bloody heap.
“What the fuck?” Corrales said with a gasp. He raced over to the guy and hunkered down, examining a tattoo on the guy’s biceps: the circular image of an Aztec warrior with his pierced tongue extended. “They’re not Fernando’s regular guys,” said Corrales. “He’s Azteca. From the prison. An assassination squad.”
“Hired by your old boss?” asked Moore.
“No time!” cried Zúñiga. “Come on!”
Corrales rose and started toward Moore. “We’re fucking dead, dude. We are dead.”
“I don’t think so.”
They followed Zúñiga toward the other side of the closet, where he fumbled nervously with a key and finally opened another door. He reached in and threw a light switch.
“Where to now?” asked Corrales.
“Up,” answered Zúñiga.
“Up? Are you kidding me? What the fuck, old man! How’re we getting out!”
“Shut up!” Zúñiga faced Moore. “Now, Señor Howard? Lock the door behind us!”
Moore did so.
Zúñiga led them down a narrow hall, with their shoulders brushing the walls as they reached a metal staircase with about a dozen steps up to another door. Moore understood now. They were going to the flat roof above the garage and could find cover behind the surrounding parapet and drainage lines. Clever bastard. Zúñiga must know his Sun Tzu’s Art of War: “Never launch an upward attack on the enemy who occupies high ground; nor meet the enemy head-on when there are hills backing him; nor follow on his heels in hot pursuit when he pretends to flee.”
The door swung open, and across the rooftop was Zúñiga’s two-man security detail crouched along the parapet and exchanging fire with the men below. The second white pickup truck had parked outside the garage doors in an attempt to block at least two of them, while the two Federal Police trucks had stopped about thirty yards back, the cops there hunkered down behind their pickups and triggering off volleys of fire when they could to pin down the others. From somewhere in the distance came the rhythmic and approaching drone of a helicopter’s rotors.
Corrales rushed to the edge of the parapet, and, one-handing his M16, cut loose a volley on the truck below, where the machine-gunner had positioned himself behind the back wheel.
Moore slung his arm beneath Corrales’s chin, choking him and forcing him back from the ledge as the gunner’s response chewed into the parapet and through Corrales’s ghost. “Stay the fuck back!” Moore screamed. The stupid punk would get himself killed before he had a chance to talk. And that, Moore knew, would be just his luck.
Zúñiga shouted to his men to cover him, while he ran beside the parapet to the other side of the roof, facing the back of the house, where the drainpipe ran down the wall to the ground. “Here!” he cried. “We can climb down here!”
Moore nodded his okay, was about to turn to Corrales—
When the door leading out onto the roof swung open, and one of the Aztecas, his face cast in half-shadow, lifted an AK-47 and let loose a vicious spray that tore into Zúñiga’s chest and sent him staggering back toward the parapet.
Moore was only a half-second behind in his reaction, but he couldn’t save the man. He squeezed off at least ten rounds into the Azteca, drumming the guy back into the door, where he slumped, leaving a blood trail above him.
And by the time Moore turned his head, Zúñiga was already gone, having tripped over the parapet to vanish over the edge.
Moore rushed over and leaned out for a look. Zúñiga lay there, crucified against the dirt, his shirt still blossoming with blood.
“Have you ever lost anyone close to you, a young man like yourself? Do you know what real pain feels like?”
Zúñiga had asked Moore those questions back at the Sacred Heart Church. They both knew real pain, and now one of them had finally found relief.
Corrales joined Moore, took one look at Zúñiga, then cursed at the guys below and ran forward to the front ledge. There, he cut loose with his rifle before Moore could stop him. He’d removed his sling but was still favoring his right arm and swinging the weapon wildly.
Gritting his teeth, Moore rose and sprinted toward the idiot, who was still firing and drawing the return fire of everyone below. Moore tackled Corrales, wrenched away his rifle, then rolled him over and delivered a roundhouse squarely into the kid’s jaw. “I’ll fuck you up even more if you do that again! You hear me?”
Corrales looked odd.
And Moore realized he’d screamed in English.
“You are a fucking gringo! Who are you?”
The whomping of that approaching helicopter, along with its lights, caught their attention—and the notice of the gunmen below, who switched fire on the bird as it thundered overhead, searchlight panning across the house. The pilot wheeled around and descended toward the backyard, where he had a wide-enough and level-enough swath of land to set down. There was no mistaking the bird’s insignia: POLICÍA FEDERAL, the words lit by the ricocheting rounds sparking off the fuselage.
But were these Corrales’s allies come to pick him up? If so, Moore wasn’t sure he’d be welcome to tag along. He fished out his smartphone, checked the most recent message from Towers: I’m in the chopper. Get to it.
That’ll work, Moore thought.
“Aw fuck, look at that,” said Corrales, shifting his head to spot the helicopter. “It’s over. We’re all going to jail.”
“No, those are my guys,” Moore told him.
“You’re a gringo who works for the Federal Police?”
“We’re just borrowing their ride. Stick with me. My deal with you is much better than the one you had with him. You’ll see.”
Moore rose and shouted to the guys on the roof to cover them once more, but the guys told him to fuck himself and ran off, through the rooftop door and back into the house.
As Moore helped Corrales to his feet and over to the ledge and the drainage pipe, muffled gunfire came from inside the house. Zúñiga’s men had been met by more Aztecas, no doubt, and it was safe to assume they’d lost that debate and that the Aztecas were coming up.
“I can’t climb down that,” cried Corrales, the rotor wash whipping in their faces now, as the chopper was a few seconds from touching down.
“GET DOWN THAT PIPE!” Moore screamed, summoning up a fiery tone from the past, echoing one of his own instructors from BUD/S. He repeated the command two more times.
Shuddering, Corrales climbed over the parapet and set his shoe on the first support strap. The straps would serve as rungs of a ladder down, but admittedly, Moore wasn’t sure that Corrales, with his bad arm/shoulder, could make it.
“No, no way,” said Corrales, trying to lower himself to the next rung.
Moore screamed at him again.
The rooftop door swung open.
“GO!” Moore hollered, craning his head toward the banging door.
Two Aztecas appeared, one armed with a rifle, the other with a machine gun.
They didn’t see Moore at first, because all the rotor wash forced them to squint and Moore had dropped to his rump, shoved his back up against the parapet, and kept low, with the stock of the M16 jammed squarely into his shoulder. It really was a beautiful piece of steel and felt perfect in his hands. For just a few seconds, he was back in the SEALs, and Frank Carmichael was still alive.
Then, either out of nervousness or gut instinct, he reached back, thumbed the selector to three-round bursts, and shifted his aim to the machine-gunner.
The first triplet of fire kicked the bastard sideways, away from his buddy, who swung toward the sound of Moore’s weapon. That the Azteca had turned was his final mistake, as Moore now had a clear bead. All three rounds pierced the guy’s left breast. If he still had a heartbeat as he hit the ground, then you could chalk that up to a miracle.
As Moore turned back to see how Corrales was doing, the dumbass kid lowered himself to the next support strap, lost his grip, and plunged the remaining ten feet to the ground. His feet struck hard, then he fell back, landing across Zúñiga and letting out a cry. Then he wailed in pain.
Good. Dumbass was still alive.
Two Federal Police officers from the chopper were already rushing over in full combat regalia, letting their Heckler & Koch MP5 nine-millimeter submachine guns lead the way. Moore shouted down to Corrales, “Go with them! Go with them!”
He wasn’t sure if the kid heard him or had been knocked unconscious, but he wasn’t moving.
The two cops dropped to the dirt as gunfire came from the corner, at least two muzzles flashing. Moore rose and rushed along the parapet to the corner of the roofline, looking directly down on the two Aztecas who’d pinned down the cops. They never knew what hit them—that is, until they were lying in pools of their own blood and staring up at the sentinel, who shifted away from the roofline. The last image they’d ever see.
“You’re clear, go!” Moore shouted to the cops. Then he raced once more along the opposite edge of the roof, toward the garage doors, where he spotted three more Federal Police cars heading up the dirt road, with lights and sirens.
“Hold it right there! Don’t move!” came a voice from behind him.
He thought of turning his head slightly to identify his assailant, but then again, he already knew. The Aztecas weren’t taking prisoners, so they wouldn’t have ordered him to halt. And that voice …familiar?
“Señor, I’m Federal Police, just like you,” Moore told the guy.
The rifle was removed from Moore’s hands, as was the pistol from his waistband. Moore didn’t raise his hands. He just whirled around, surprising the guy, because no one in his right mind would make a sudden move like that, not with a weapon on him. The guy was neither Federal Police nor an Azteca.
It was the young kid from the Range Rover, the one who’d said he’d hoped Zúñiga would let him live, the kid with the skull earring in his right lobe.
“You brought this on us,” cried the kid. “I saw him down there. My boss is dead because of you!”
In one fluid movement, Moore drove the heel of his hand up into the kid’s nose. An old myth persisted that you could kill a man this way. Nonsense. Moore had wanted only to stun the kid. Besides, his face was far too pretty for his own good, anyway. As the kid shifted back, about to scream, Moore wrenched back the rifle, then drove the stock into the kid’s head, knocking him to the roof. Sicario down for the count.
Moore rushed back to the drainpipe, shouldered the rifle via the sling, then climbed over the parapet. He was about halfway down the pipe when the straps buckled under his weight and the whole damned pipe pulled away from the wall. Only a six-foot drop but enough to stun his legs as he hit the ground. No time for delays, though, as more Feds were pulling into the driveway. He rolled, rose, and with the needles still rushing up and down his thighs, he bounded for the chopper, reached the bay door, and was hauled inside by Towers. Corrales was already there, his eyes narrowed in pain. One of the officers slid shut the bay door, and the chopper’s nose pitched forward as they took off.
Towers cupped his hand around Moore’s ear and said, “All I can say is, this kid had better be loaded with secrets.”
Moore nodded. With Zúñiga dead, the Sinaloa Cartel’s operations would be disrupted—at least for a while, and they’d be vulnerable to further attacks and to a takeover by the Juárez Cartel. If that happened, then the joint task force’s mission to dismantle the Juárez Cartel would have not only failed but would’ve caused Rojas’s criminal empire to grow even stronger.
TWO DESTINIES
DEA Office of Diversion Control
San Diego, California
IT WAS NEARLY eleven p.m. by the time they made it back to the diversion control office and took Corrales into the conference room. He’d already received attention from a medic onboard the chopper, who repeatedly assured him that he hadn’t broken both of his legs and that his right ankle was only sprained. He still had full range of motion. Moore and Towers told him they would get him to a hospital if he insisted, but he needed to talk first.
Corrales had refused.
And so they had decided to simply take him back to the office for some persuading. During the ride over, Moore had told Corrales the bad news. He and Towers were gringos all right, big badass gringos from the United States government. Corrales had demanded to know what agency.
Moore had grinned darkly. “All of them.”
Now, as Corrales accepted a foam cup of coffee from Towers, he leaned forward on the table and rubbed his eyes. He uttered a string of curses, then said, “I want it in writing that I have total immunity. And I want a lawyer.”
“You don’t need a lawyer,” said Moore.
“I’m under arrest, right?”
Moore shook his head, and his tone turned grave. “You’re here because of what happened to María. We found the body back at Zúñiga’s place. What happened? Did Pablo kill her?”
“No, the other fucking bastards did. They killed my woman. They won’t survive that.”
“Who’s your boss?” asked Moore.
“Fernando Castillo.”
Towers nodded emphatically. “Rojas’s security guy. He’s got a patch. One eye.”
“They all like to pretend they are not part of the cartel. Los Caballeros. That’s bullshit!”
“So what were you giving Zúñiga?”
“I’ve got names and locations of suppliers and transporters from all around the world. People in Colombia, Pakistan …I got shit you stupid cops wouldn’t believe. I got bank account numbers, receipts, recordings of phone calls, e-mails; I got it all …”
“Well, we got it all on you, too, Corrales. We know what happened to your parents and when you joined the sicarios,” said Towers. “So it’s not only about María. It’s about revenge for them, too, huh?”
Corrales took another sip of his coffee, his breath growing shorter, then he slammed his fist on the table and cried, “They’re all going down! All of them! Every last one!”
“They killed Ignacio at the hotel, too,” said Moore. “He was a nice guy. I liked him.”
“Wait a minute. It’s you,” said Corrales, his eyes growing wider. “You’re the guy my boys lost. Your name’s Howard.”
Moore shrugged
. “Small world.”
Corrales cursed and said, “Solar panels, my ass …”
“So where’s all this information you claim to have?” asked Towers.
“It’s all on a flash drive. And I’ve got two more copies in safe-deposit boxes. I’m not an idiot—so stop talking to me like I am.”
Moore tried to hold back a chuckle. “Then we need to hit the bank, huh?”
Corrales shook his head and reached down into his black silk shirt. He withdrew a wafer-thin flash drive that hung from a thick gold chain. The drive itself was gold-plated, made by “Super Talent,” 64 GB. “It’s all right here.”
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Cell-Phone Waiting Lot
9011 Airport Boulevard
Samad and Niazi were in the Hyundai Accent and following Talwar, who was driving a DirecTV satellite van given to them by Rahmani’s men in Los Angeles. They followed the blue signs and pulled into the seventy-nine-space lot, which was located five minutes from the Central Terminal Area and accessible from the north and east via La Tijera, Sepulveda, Manchester, and Century Boulevards. They had considered using long-term parking lot C directly south and still within their launch radius, but they’d learned that at least two LAPD officers on motorcycles checked the cars daily with the intent of finding vehicles without front license plates so they could issue tickets. The only security in the cell-phone waiting lot was the “airport puppy patrol,” as one of Rahmani’s men had told them. Those guys checked only for unattended vehicles. No worries there, my friends.
There’d also been some discussion about parking in Inglewood or Huntington Park, northeast of the airport, to avoid running any further security risks, but Samad had argued for the cell lot location, which would allow the team more time to acquire their target, as the plane would lift off, head out over the Pacific in a “Loop Five” departure as part of the airport’s noise abatement procedures, then return and be vectored along V-264, passing over their heads and on toward Inglewood and Huntington Park. It was clear to Rahmani and even American authorities that it was absolutely impossible to secure the ground beneath airplane flights, so the teams had free rein to select the best possible locations.