by Tom Clancy
After finishing up with that report, Moore checked on the status of his fellow task force members.
Fitzpatrick had returned to the Sinaloa ranch house after his “vacation” in the United States. He and his “boss” Luis Torres were plotting an attack on the Juárez Cartel in retaliation for the explosion at the ranch house that had killed several of Zúñiga’s men and caused more than $10,000 in damage to his main gate and electronic security and surveillance system.
Gloria Vega would begin her first day on the job as an inspector for the Federal Police in Juárez. Moore assumed she’d get an ear- and eyeful.
Ansara checked in to say he was already in Calexico, California, which bordered Mexicali in Mexico, and he was working with agents at the main checkpoints to identify mules and recruit one for their team.
ATF Agent Whittaker was back in Minnesota and on the job, already reconnoitering several storage rental facilities being used by the cartel to stash weapons.
The real estate lady was at her office and making phone calls, which analysts at Langley listened to and interpreted.
And Moore was ready to lie back down on the bed, sip some coffee, and take a little break until they came for him …
As he was grimacing over the coffee grounds on the bottom of his foam cup, he received a text message from a surprising source: Nek Wazir, the old man and informant from North Waziristan. The message unnerved Moore. It simply said: PLEASE CALL ME.
Moore had the man’s satellite phone number, and he immediately dialed, not giving a second thought to the time difference, which he estimated at more than ten hours, so Wazir was texting him at around eleven p.m. his time.
“Hello, Moore?” Wazir asked.
There weren’t many people who knew Moore’s real name, but given Wazir’s considerable skills and contacts, Moore had trusted him with that most sacred piece of information — in part as a way to seal their trust, and in part to tell the man that he wanted, truly wanted, to be his friend.
“Wazir, it’s me. I received your text. Do you have something for me?”
The old man hesitated, and Moore held his breath.
Moore spent the next hour on the phone with Slater and O’Hara, and it wasn’t until after he’d vented his anger and frustration to his bosses and took a long moment to stare out the window of his room that his eyes finally burned with tears.
The sons of bitches had killed poor Rana. He was just …just a smart boy who’d done a stupid thing: He’d agreed to work with Moore. And not for the money. The kid’s parents were already rich. He was an adventurer who’d wanted more out of life, and somehow, there was a bit of Moore in him, and now they were carrying his body down from the Bajaur tribal area, wrapped in old blankets. They’d cut and burned him for what little he knew. Wazir said he had probably lasted ten, fifteen hours at the most before he’d died. Rumors of the torturing had reached Wazir’s men, who’d gone up to the caves and had found the body. The Taliban had left Rana as a message to any other Pakistanis who chose the “wrong” path of justice.
Moore sat on the bed and let the tears flow. He cursed and cursed again. Then he rose, whirled, drew his Glock from its shoulder holster and aimed it at the window, imagining the heads of the Taliban who had captured Rana.
Then he holstered the pistol, caught his breath, and returned to the bed. Oh, hell, if it was time to feel sorry for himself, he might as well get through it now, before the guys tailing him came knocking.
He sent Leslie a text message, told her he missed her, told her to send him another picture of herself, that things weren’t going so well and he could use some cheering up. He waited a few minutes, but it was late over there, and she didn’t reply. He lay back on the bed and felt overwhelmed by that same feeling he’d had during BUD/S, that suffocating desire to surrender and accept defeat. He wished that Frank Carmichael were with him now, to convince him that Khodai’s death and the kid’s death meant something and that walking away was far worse than anything else he could do. Yet another voice inside, a voice that seemed far more reasonable, told him that he wasn’t getting any younger, that there were far less dangerous and lucrative ways to make money, as, say, a consultant for a private security firm or as a sales rep for one of the big military and police gear manufacturers, and that if he remained in his current position, he would never have a wife and a family. The job was always fun and exciting until someone you knew, someone you had fostered a deep relationship with, a relationship built on profound respect and trust, was tortured and murdered. Every time Moore let down his guard and allowed himself to truly feel for someone, that relationship would be wrenched away. Was this how he wanted to live the rest of his life?
Back in late 1994, Moore and Carmichael were in a bar in Little Creek, Virginia, celebrating the fact that they were about to become counterterrorism specialists with their new SEAL team. They were talking to another SEAL, nicknamed Captain Nemo, a gunner’s mate second class who was assigned to Task Unit BRAVO as the SEAL delivery vehicle pilot and Ordnance Engineering Department head. During a proof-of-concept full-mission rehearsal in which Nemo was piloting the SDV, one of his fellow operators had accidentally drowned. He’d refused to go into the details of the incident, but both Moore and Carmichael had heard about it before meeting the guy, who they learned was ready to leave the SEALs. He felt responsible for what had happened, even though the investigation had cleared him of any wrongdoing.
There they were, Moore and Carmichael, getting ready to embark on their careers as SEAL operators — and Nemo was putting a real damper on their celebration.
Again, good old Carmichael had stepped in with his words of wisdom: “There’s no way you can quit,” he’d told Nemo.
“Oh, yeah, why?”
“Because who else is going to do it?”
Nemo smirked. “You guys. The new guys, the ones who are too naive to realize that it’s just not worth it.”
“Listen to me, bro. That we’re here is a gift. We answered the call because deep down — and I want you to think about this — deep down we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren’t born to live ordinary lives. We knew that when we were kids. And we know it now. You can’t escape that feeling. You’ll have it for the rest of your life, whether you quit now or not. And if you quit, you’ll regret it. You’ll look around and think, I don’t belong here. I belong there.”
Moore stood up from the bed in his hotel room, whirled around, and muttered aloud, “I belong here, damn it.”
His phone beeped with a text message. He checked it. Leslie. He sighed.
14 A SANGRE FRÍA
Delicias Police Station
Juárez, Mexico
Gloria Vega hopped into the passenger’s side of an F-150 4x4 with the words Policía Federal emblazoned across the doors. She wore full tactical gear, including a Kevlar vest, a balaclava pulled over her face, and a helmet secured tightly by its chinstrap. She carried two Glocks holstered at her hips and a Heckler & Koch MP5 nine-millimeter submachine gun whose barrel she held up near her shoulder. That a police inspector had to don this kind of gear and arm herself for bear would be a real eye-opener for some of the detectives back home, she thought. Those slackers could arrive at a crime scene in plainclothes with just a single sidearm, no vests, and doughnut powder staining their lips.
The graying man at the wheel, Alberto Gómez, was dressed similarly to Vega and had warned her that visiting the crime scenes “after the fact” could be as dangerous as the initial incidents themselves. Bodies were all too often used as bait to lure in police so the sicarios could blow them up, taking police with them. Sometimes, if the bodies weren’t booby-trapped, snipers would be posted along the rooftops, and again, the police would be set up for a mass killing.
And so the days of operating in plainclothes were over for the inspectors, Gómez had told her with a shrug. He’d scrutinized her with eyes so weary that she wondered why he hadn’t retired already.
Well, then again, she knew why. She h
adn’t been paired with him by accident. While the Federal Police had no definitive proof, Gómez was at the top of their list of inspectors with ties to the cartels. Sadly, he’d had so many years on the job and so many “successful” busts that no one wanted to implicate the old man. There was an implicit understanding that he would finish out his few years and retire, and that no one should interfere with that. He was a real family man, with four kids and eleven grandchildren, and he volunteered at the local schools to teach the kids about crime and safety. He was an usher at his local Catholic church and a well-known member of the Knights of Columbus who had risen up to the role of district deputy. He volunteered at the local hospital, and if he could, he would spend weekends helping old ladies cross the street.
All of which Vega suspected was an elaborate cover, a false life that made him feel better about being on the cartel’s payroll.
Senior-ranking members of the Federal Police, particularly the newer administrators and hires, had a much more aggressive and zero-tolerance policy for corruption, while the local districts too often looked the other way — out of respect, seniority, and, most of all, fear. And so it was that Vega was seated beside a man who could be one of the dirtiest in all of Juárez.
“We have three bodies. When we get there, say nothing,” Gómez told her.
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t need to know anything from you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t care how many years you spent in Mexico City. I don’t care about your long and impressive record. I don’t care about your promotion or about all the kind words your colleagues have said about you in your file. All I care about now is helping you to stay alive. Do you understand me, young lady?”
“I understand you. But I don’t understand why I’m not permitted to talk. I’m not sure if you realize this, but women in Mexico are allowed to vote and run for public office. Maybe you haven’t picked up a newspaper in a while.”
“You see? That is your problem. That attitude. I suggest you put that into your purse and never take it out, so long as you are here, in Ciudad Juárez.”
“Oh, let me see if I can find my purse. Oh, all I have are these big guns and extra magazines.”
He smirked.
She shook her head and gritted her teeth. Eight years in Army Intelligence and four years as a seasoned CIA field officer had led her to this: sitting in a car and taking machismo crap from a broken-down and corrupt Federal Police inspector. The miscarriage, the divorce, the alienation of her brothers and sisters …and for what? This? She turned to Gómez and burned him with her glare.
They listened to the other units over the radio, and within ten minutes rolled down a street lined with pink, white, and purple apartment buildings, the alley between them festooned with laundry. A few lanky boys of ten or twelve stood in the doorways, watching them and making calls on their cell phones. They were the cartel’s spotters, and Gómez marked them, too.
At the end of the street, near the next intersection, three bodies blocked the road. Vega yanked a pair of binoculars from the center console and dialed to focus.
They were all young males, two lying prone amid blood pools, the third facing up with a hand clutching his heart. They were dressed in dark jeans and T-shirts, and if they’d been wearing any jewelry, it’d already been stolen. Two police cruisers were parked about twenty meters away, the officers crouching down behind their doors. Gómez parked behind one cruiser and widened his eyes. “Say nothing.”
They got out, and Vega’s gaze swept across the rooftops, where at least a half-dozen men were just sitting up there, watching, a few talking on more cell phones. She clutched her rifle a bit tighter, and her mouth went dry.
A van rolled up behind them, and out came two more officers with a pair of bomb-sniffing dogs. As they shifted by, Gómez’s cell phone rang, and he drifted to the back of the truck to take the call. What Vega noted, though, was that the old man carried two phones; this was not the phone he’d used to call her cell, thereby giving her his number. This was a second phone. Interesting.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying over the shouting from the officers ahead. The canine team moved in slowly, and once they swept the area and the bodies, one man gave a wave and a shout. All clear.
He took a sniper’s round from the rooftop to their left, and most of his head came off.
Just like that. Without warning. Broad daylight. Civilians watching from the balconies of the apartments.
And as the others screamed to get down, the second canine officer was shot in the neck, the round hammering him from the back and exploding from beneath his chin.
A new wave of automatic-weapons fire came in from AK-47s that ripped through the bodies in the street and cut into the dogs, both of which fell while Vega crawled forward on her chest, keeping tight to the truck’s front wheel. She lifted her rifle and returned fire at the rooftops, her bead spraying along the ledge and chiseling away at the stucco.
“Hold your fire!” cried Gómez. “Hold your fire!”
And then …nothing. A few shouts, the stench of gunpowder everywhere now, and the heat of the asphalt rising in waves up into Vega’s face.
Brakes squealed, stealing her attention. At the next cross street sat a white pickup truck missing its tailgate, and from one of the back alleys came three men armed with rifles — AR-15s and one AK-47. They ran toward the truck and leapt onto the flatbed. Several of the officers ahead opened fire, but the truck was already hightailing it away. As a matter of fact, the rounds from those officers seemed perfunctory at best — not a single one struck the truck.
Vega bolted to her feet and ran around to the passenger’s side, where Gómez was hunkered down and shaking his head.
“Come on!” she urged him. “Come on!”
“I’ll call for the backup. Other units will pursue them.”
“We go now!” she cried.
His eyes widened, and his voice lifted sharply: “What did I tell you?”
She inhaled, bit back a curse, then rose and spun toward one of the rooftops, where the sniper who’d killed the two canine cops had her dead in his sights.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, a second before the killer disappeared behind the rooftop parapet.
She blinked. Breathed.
And was back in the moment.
“He’s right there,” she shouted. “Up there!”
The other officers remained behind their car doors, shaking their heads and gesturing for her to get down, take cover.
She went back to Gómez and crouched down beside him. “We’re letting him get away.”
“The other units will find him. Just wait. We didn’t come here to fight them. We came here to investigate the crime scene. Now shut up.”
Vega closed her eyes, and it hit her — right there and then. She was going about this all wrong. She needed to get close to this guy, gain his trust, not turn him into the enemy she already presumed he was. She needed to be his daughter, allow him to teach her about the city, and as he grew to like her, perhaps even respect her, he’d lower his guard enough for her to strike.
But her ego had gotten in the way, her exacting nature, and she’d admittedly screwed up.
They remained there for another two, maybe three, minutes, and then, finally, the officers up front began to slowly move toward the bodies, even as residents in the apartments came back out onto their balconies to watch the show.
“Is she your new partner?” one of the officers asked Gómez.
“Yes,” he answered curtly.
“She’ll be dead by the end of the week.”
Gómez looked at Vega. “Let’s hope not.”
She gulped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would be like this …”
Gómez cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe you should pick up a newspaper.”
Club Monarch
Juárez, Mexico
Dante Corrales was in the mood to kill someon
e. Three of his sicarios had been gunned down in Delicias, and Inspector Gómez had called to say that he was worried. The Federal Police were watching him more closely now and had assigned to him a female inspector who was probably working with the president’s office. She couldn’t be trusted, and he had to be much more careful now that he was being watched.
Moreover, an American had checked into the hotel, a Mr. Scott Howard, and Ignacio had learned that the guy was scouting properties for his businesses. Corrales didn’t quite believe that and was having the man followed, but thus far his story had checked out.
While Raúl and Pablo were making a large cash delivery to a contact they simply referred to as “the banker,” Corrales was headed over to the Monarch for lunch and cervezas. En route, his phone rang: Ballesteros calling from Bogotá. What the hell did that fat bastard want now?
“Dante, you know the FARC guys hit me again? I’m going to need some more help.”
“Okay, okay. You can talk to them when they get there.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Have you heard about Puerto Rico?”
“What now?”
“Haven’t you been watching the news?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“The FBI pulled off another inside operation. Over one hundred police arrested. Do you know what that’s going to do to me? We counted on them. That’s a whole shipping route I’ve lost in a single day. Do you know what this means?”
“Shut the fuck up and stop crying, you fat old fuck! The boss will be there soon. Stop fucking crying!”