Against All Enemies mm-1

by Tom Clancy

  “Thank you, Fernando. I didn’t realize you were the house butler, too.”

  “No, sir. I actually came for something else — two things, in fact …” He took a deep breath and his gaze found the rug.

  “What?”

  “There was an explosion down in San Martín Texmelucan.”

  “The pipeline?”

  He nodded. “About fifty people killed. The Zetas ignored our warnings again, and they’re still at it.”

  The Gulf Cartel’s gang of sicarios, Los Zetas, had been engaged in tapping into and stealing oil from Pemex, the state-owned and state-run petroleum company. The president of Mexico had come to Rojas for advice and assistance, and while Rojas denied having any direct contact with the cartel, he’d donated money to help bolster local law enforcement and Pemex security in the most vulnerable areas. Meanwhile, Rojas had Castillo contact the Zetas and warn them about further taps. In the current year alone they’d stolen more than nine thousand barrels, enough to fill more than forty tanker trucks. They sold the fuel through their own gas stations and trucking firms, which they’d already established to launder money, as well as selling it on the international black market. Much of that fuel ended up in the United States. Sometimes they mixed stolen fuel with legitimately purchased product to make extra profit. Castillo had often spoken about taking over the Zetas’ operation and enjoying some significant cash flow. While it was true that Rojas gave to the government with one hand and stole from it with the other, jeopardizing the financial stability of the country’s main oil supplier was shortsighted and reckless. Moreover, the operation was much too risky and sloppily run. The current explosion only underscored his reservations.

  Rojas swore and glanced away in thought. “Call your friend. Tell him if the Zetas don’t stop their taps, then we’re coming to secure the pipeline on behalf of the government.”

  “I will,” said Castillo.

  “Now, what about the tunnel we lost?”

  “We’ll fill in the hole from our side, deny any knowledge of it being in the warehouse, and set up one of the subcontractors to take the fall. I’m already searching for a new engineer and a new tunnel site, but we lost a lot of money there. I hope you understand that destroying it was the right thing to do.”

  “Of course, Fernando. You’ve never let me down.”

  Castillo grinned mildly, then walked over to Rojas’s desk and slipped a small digital voice recorder from behind one of the many framed photos there. “I received an alert about an unauthorized device in your office. This is the other reason why I’m here.”

  “Miguel?”

  Castillo nodded.

  Rojas mulled over what to do, then blurted out, “Just erase it. And leave it there …”

  With a hollow feeling in his stomach, Rojas left the office and padded in his robe toward the kitchen, where at least one thing brought happiness: the sweet aroma of huevos rancheros.

  Sonia was staring through the bedroom window, out across the stones of the mansion’s driveway and toward the street below. Miguel came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. “You smell good,” he said.

  “So do you. Are we going to the waterfall today?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You promised. And I was thinking about that resort and spa you told me about — Misión del Sol. We could get massages, and I want to get a pedicure. Then we could stay overnight, do something really romantic. I think we need that.”

  Miguel felt the tension pass into his shoulders, as though someone were fastening heavy leather belts around him and tightening them slowly, one hole at a time. “I’m not feeling so good.”

  She pulled out of his grip to face him. She studied his eyes, placed her palm on his forehead, and stared at him with pouty lips, a sad little girl. “No fever.”

  “It’s not that. Look at this.” He pulled the device from his hip pocket.

  “A new phone?”

  “It’s a digital voice recorder. I put it in my father’s office last night and I just went in there and got it out. He always makes a lot of calls in the mornings. You know, I’ve thought about doing it for years. He lied to me when we were down in the vault. He lied. I know it. And he doesn’t want me to know, because he’s afraid of what I’ll think of him.”

  “Have you listened to it yet?”

  “No. I’m afraid.”

  She crossed over to the bedroom door and shut it. “It’s okay. You want me to be with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat on the bed, and he took a deep breath. He hit the play button. Nothing.

  “Is it broken?”

  “No. And it worked. I know it did.”

  “Maybe he found it.”

  “Yeah, and if there was anything on there, he erased it, because he doesn’t want to confront me on this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Miguel’s breath quickened. “He has to be hiding something.”

  Sonia made a face. “Your father’s not a drug dealer. You keep forgetting all he’s done for Mexico. If he has to deal with the drug cartels — you know, manipulate them, navigate around them — then you should understand that.”

  “I don’t think he’s manipulating the drug cartels. I think he is them.”

  “You’re not listening to me. My father has to do very similar things in his business. There are dealers and manufacturers that are always giving him trouble. Cyclists who take drugs and get busted for that, sponsorships that my father has to cancel. This is the world of business, and you should accept that sometimes things need to be done — because one day you’ll inherit much more than the money. You’ll inherit the commitment, and that, I’m sure, is what your father wants. Maybe he’s trying to protect you from the dirty side of things, but business nowadays is not clean. It’s not.”

  “You talk a lot today.”

  “Only because I care.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “So what if you’re right? What if your father is the cartel? And then they arrest him. What will you do?”

  “Kill myself.”

  “That’s not the answer, you know that. You’d go on because you’re a much stronger man than you know.”

  Miguel took the digital recorder, opened a dresser drawer, and tossed it inside. “I don’t know what I am.”

  She rolled her eyes at his gloomy tone and remark, glanced away, then faced him once more. “So next week you’ll start your summer job at Banorte. That’ll get your mind off all this.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Oh, just do it. We’ll move together to California in the fall, and everything will be perfect.”

  “Now you sound almost sad about that.”

  Her lips tightened. “I’ll just miss my family.”

  He pulled her into his chest. “We’ll visit them as much as we can …” Miguel’s phone vibrated. “That’s a text from the kitchen. J.C. says the eggs are getting cold. Are you hungry?”

  “Not really.”

  “Neither am I. Let’s leave now. We’ll get some coffee on the road. I don’t feel like looking at my father right now.”

  Gulfstream III

  En Route to Mexico City

  Moore and Towers sat aboard the twin-engine jet, going over the PDF file that contained the floor plans of Rojas’s mansion in Cuernavaca. The home was nearly eight thousand square feet, comprising two stories with a multilevel garage, a full basement, and stonework to make it resemble a sixteenth-century storybook castle built on a hillside overlooking the town. The residence had been featured in a magazine article in which Rojas’s late wife, Sofia (whose name was uncannily similar to that of Sonia, their agent), had taken the editors on a grand tour of the home and accompanying gardens. She had dubbed the place La Casa de la Eterna Primavera.

  The Agency had been surveying the house with human spotters since the perimeter was equipped with bug detection, and, in fact, Towers and Moore had a detailed report on the nu
mber of Rojas’s security personnel, their positions, and further analysis of the home’s electronic surveillance and security equipment. Rojas owned several security companies in Mexico and in the United States, so it was safe to assume he protected his home with the best that money could buy: hidden cameras that operated on backup power and whose software could be “trained” to set off alarms based on electronic analysis of “interesting” objects, such as the silhouettes of people, animals, or anything else you taught the system to detect. He also had motion and sound sensors, lasers, interior and exterior bug sweepers, all part of a virtual catalog of detection equipment monitored by a guard seated in a well-protected basement bunker. The article included photos of Rojas’s antique furniture and book collections, which the author stated were carefully protected within home vaults. Moore concluded that those vaults were located in the basement.

  Towers had already picked out a rear sundeck on the second story in the southwest corner of the house. Perfect entry onto the second floor. He double-tapped on that spot on his iPad’s screen and placed a blue pushpin icon there.

  “He’s got an exit here from the main driveway,” Moore said, pointing at the screen. “And if he gets desperate, he can come out through that ramp in the garage and try to crash through the brick wall here …and here …There’s this secondary garage here. He could have a vehicle waiting there.”

  Towers looked at Moore. “If he gets outside, then we should both retire.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Don’t say. That won’t happen on my watch.”

  Moore smiled. “So, you never told me …How’d you get permission to come?”

  “I didn’t. They think I’m back in San Diego.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  He grinned. “I am. I’ve got a good boss. And he respects what I do. I’ve never lost so many people on one operation. I’m going to see this through to the end. Slater backed me up, too. He didn’t want you going in alone. Apparently, they like you.”

  “I’m shocked.”

  Towers cocked a brow. “I was, too. And by the way, the list Gómez gave us checked out. He’s named ten key players within the Federales, plus the assistant attorney general, and the minute we’re through with this operation, I’m pulling the trigger on that one. I don’t care if we have to arrest the entire force in Juárez. They’re all going down.”

  “I’m with you, boss. At least now we’ll get to work with some real hard-core operators. These FES guys are awesome, and they throw a great party. I’m pretty happy we got an invitation.”

  Moore was being coy, of course. Slater had relied on his own contacts and Moore’s experience as a Navy SEAL to hire the Fuerzas Especiales (FES), a special-operations unit of the Mexican Navy that was established in late 2001. Moore thought of them as Mexico’s version of Navy SEALs, and he had indeed spent four weeks training with them at Coronado not long after the group was formed. Their motto was simple: “Fuerza, espíritu, sabiduría”—force, spirit, wisdom. The group of nearly five hundred men grew out of the Marine Airborne Battalion of the 1990s. While their primary task was to carry out amphibious special operations, they were well trained to independently conduct nonconventional warfare in the air, sea, and land using all means available. They were experienced divers and parachutists, and were well versed in vertical descent, urban combat, and sniping. Like any good naval commandos, they also had a healthy interest in things that went boom. The group was divided into Pacific and Gulf units and participated in a fifty-three-week-long training program that left only the strong men standing. They’d already made significant contributions to the Mexican government’s war on drug traffickers through their well-planned and highly aggressive tactics, techniques, and procedures — the good old TTPs, as Moore knew them.

  One of the FES’s more notable operations came on July 16, 2008, when they were operating off the southwest coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. FES teams rappelled from a helicopter onto the deck of a thirty-three-foot-long narco-submarine. They arrested four men and seized 5.8 tons of Colombian cocaine.

  In a somewhat notorious cable leaked by U.S. diplomats, the Mexican Army was described as closed-minded, risk-averse, and much too territorial after agencies like the DEA and CIA attempted to work with them to combat drug runners; in contrast, Mexican Navy officers had been working with their U.S. counterparts for years and had already earned their trust. The level of cooperation between the Navy and the American agencies was unmatched. Understandably, the DEA had always been squeamish about working in conjunction with any Mexican force after the now famous kidnapping of one of their most successful agents, Enrique Camarena, who back in 1985 was abducted by corrupt police, tortured, then brutally murdered.

  Captain Omar Luis Soto was Moore’s contact with the FES, and that was no accident, because they knew each other from Coronado. Soto was in his late thirties by now, with an easy grin, broad shoulders, and a nose that he referred to as “Mayan architecture.” While his stature was less than intimidating, his marksmanship made him the most memorable guy in the Mexican group. When asked how he was able to make so many kill shots with so many different weapons, he only smiled and said, “I want to live.” Moore had later learned that Soto’s passion was target shooting and he’d been honing his skills since childhood.

  Moore thought it would be great to see the man again, though he wished it was under different circumstances. And to be clear, as Slater had put it, the United States had nothing to do with the raid on Jorge Rojas’s mansion. For its part, the FES was being paid very well to keep the entire operation under wraps so that the Mexican government was none the wiser.

  As Slater had learned and Moore had suspected, Soto’s team was trembling with the desire for a raid and were thrilled to be working alongside two Americans with good intelligence.

  Campo Militar 1

  Mexico City

  Moore and Towers landed in Mexico City by mid-afternoon, rented a car, and drove out to a military installation between Conscripto and Zapadores Avenues and the Belt Freeway. It was the only military base Moore had ever seen with pink walls and black wrought-iron fencing. They showed their IDs to the guard at the main gate, who made a call and checked their names off a list, and then they were waved on through. They reached a single-story administration building where they’d been told they would meet up with Soto and the rest of his team. The conference room was being loaned to the Navy by the camp’s administrators, and Soto had apologized in advance for traffic and less-than-stellar accommodations.

  A few seconds after Moore guided them into a parking space, the twin doors opened, and Soto appeared, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. He grinned and shook Moore’s hand vigorously. “Good to see you again, Max!”

  “You, too.” Moore introduced Towers, and they quickly followed Soto into the building. They reached a conference room after navigating three hallways that had not seen a janitor’s mop in some time. They stepped inside, where about twelve men all dressed in civilian clothes like Soto had clustered around a long table. Much to Moore’s surprise there was a projection unit at the back of the room where they could plug in their computers and iPads to display images. They had requested the equipment but weren’t sure the FES would come through.

  Soto took his time introducing them to each and every operator, all seasoned Navy personnel turned Special Forces operators. Two of the men were pilots. Once the introductions were finished, Towers switched into briefing mode, cleared his throat, and in Spanish said, “All right, gentlemen, what we’re about to do will make headlines. Jorge Rojas isn’t just one of the richest men in the world. He’s one of the most significant drug cartel leaders in history, and tonight we’re going to take him down and dismantle his cartel.”

  “Señor Towers, our group is used to making history,” said Soto, eyeing his team with a healthy dose of admiration. “So you can count on us.”

  Moore glanced around the room. The men were beaming with anticipation, and seeing that, Moore
’s pulse began to race.

  He thought once more of Khodai, Rana, Fitzpatrick, Vega, and Ansara, and how tonight he would ensure that none of them had died in vain.

  Towers raised his voice. “Gentlemen, we have the blueprints to Rojas’s mansion, and we’re going to go over them very carefully, but we have to assume that not everything is on here. After that we’re going to analyze the entire neighborhood and fine-tune our attack plan. Once again, I need to emphasize that this entire operation is highly classified. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow the government to know this operation is taking place.”

  Soto nodded. “We understand, Señor Towers. All the arrangements have been made …”

  39 THE FIRE IN THEIR HANDS

  Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

  Cell-Phone Waiting Lot

  9011 Airport Boulevard

  In times of war, preparations must be made.

  Men must be sacrificed.

  And Allah’s wisdom must not be questioned.

  When Samad was a boy growing up in Sangsar, a small village on the outskirts of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, he’d stare up at the snow-covered peaks and watch as planes cut across them. He would imagine the pilots making sharp turns and landing their aircraft directly on top of the peaks so that passengers could come outside and take pictures. Samad and his friends would meet them up there and sell them souvenir postcards and jewelry to commemorate their extraordinary trip. Samad had never figured out exactly how he and his friends were supposed to climb the mountains, but that wasn’t important. Sometimes he imagined himself flying aboard one of those planes to some place where they had candy — chocolate, to be more precise. He dreamed of chocolate …every day …for years. White, milk, sweet, semisweet, and dark were all his favorites. He’d come to learn a few names of the manufacturers, too: Hershey’s, Cadbury, Godiva, and he had even watched a black-market videotape copy of the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on TV in the back of a rug salesman’s booth at his local bazaar.