“Then, what’s next?” Nick asked from his hotel room. He wore PT shorts and was covered in sweat from an intense hour of calisthenics and hand-to-hand -- the thought of action had rebirthed his obsessive drive and determination.
“You pick your team,” the agent said. “We assumed you’d never stand for us selecting your players, so you get to pick your entire team from top to bottom. Someone will knock on your door in a few minutes and they’ll have three boxes full of candidates. We assumed you’d prefer paper copies to review in your room rather than sitting in a cubicle and looking at a computer screen.”
“You know me well,” Nick said.
“You have no clue how well we know you,” the agent thought, but he kept it to himself to avoid setting off the paranoid Marine. Instead, the agent said, “Don’t shoot our man when he knocks on the door.”
The knock came just seconds after Nick hung up. Nick grabbed his pistol and walked over to the door, keeping his .45 down by his leg. A man in a suit, accompanied by two other men in suits, stood in the hall. Nick could see through the peephole that all three were carrying concealed weapons under their jackets, and the one in the middle balanced an overloaded dolly stacked to the top with legal boxes full of files.
Nick opened the door and the middle man wheeled the files into the room and then left with a nod. Nick noticed a look of respect from all three men and wondered if they had been told of Nick’s new leadership position with the organization, or if these men only knew of his reputation. Either way, it didn’t matter. He bolted the door shut behind them and slid the chain in place.
With the door secure, Nick placed his pistol on the bed and walked to the fridge. He grabbed a can of Mountain Dew and popped it open. He swallowed some down and unstacked the boxes off the dolly. He pulled the cover off a random one and pulled out the first file he came to. He glanced inside it and noticed a photo and probably twenty pages of information. He grabbed another one, and it was the same, as were the next couple.
With that, he grabbed his phone and called the agent back.
“Yes?” the man said.
“Tell me about these files,” Nick said.
“What about them?”
“I need to know how this will go down. I don’t want to spend hours picking a team and end up with a dozen men who either aren’t interested or haven’t pulled any real duty for years.”
“You’ll be pleased to know,” the agent said, “that every man and woman in those files has not only indicated a willingness to go on a top secret mission -- the details of which were never shared with them -- but they also agreed to fly to a training base and perform an assessment. And in the two days since we talked, while we waited on folks up in headquarters to sign off on you leading this mission, every person attached to a file in those boxes conducted a PT test and re-qualified on the range, with both pistol and rifle. All fitness and weapons scores listed in those files are from literally yesterday. The folks in those files folders are the best men and women available.”
Nick looked at the file boxes and imagined how much it must have cost to contact and then fly that many people to a location to be tested. He guessed there must be three hundred files in the boxes.
“That must have cost a lot,” Nick said.
“The cost matters little. We’re talking about an entire country in duress, and who knows what kind of long-term effect it might create on our country if President Rivera falls. Old fitness or shooting scores would have been worthless, either to you or some other leader, had headquarters not signed off on you to lead this mission. Regardless of who was picked to head this up, all active operatives would have needed to be assembled and tested anyway. It doesn’t matter how good you were a year ago. It’s all about what you can do now.”
Nick considered what he’d just heard. It was still a little overwhelming. Being picked as a mission commander. Seeing the three men at the door, who were probably at this very moment helping guard him from some vehicle or corner outside. And now deciding who would be a part of the team. It was a lot to take in. And certainly too good to be true for an old warhorse who’d been bored out of his mind a few days ago, just driving the country.
“I’ll call you the moment I’ve finalized my selections,” Nick said. “Speaking of which, can you get me some pizza and more Mountain Dew up in here? Looks like I’m in for a long night.”
Nick finalized his system for picking his team just minutes after cramming down the majority of his new pizza, which was once again delivered by pistol-toting guys in suits. Nick had gone over in his head a dozen times or more how he would want this to go down if he earned the chance to lead the effort, but now that he had it, he wanted to make sure.
It was like running an op. You could never be too sure.
Nick scrutinized his plan from every angle, looking for a weakness, and still fell short of seeing any. So, with a full stomach and renewed confidence, along with some country music playing in the background off a cheap, ten-dollar alarm clock, Nick got down to work.
He sorted the files into two different stacks. One stack was made up of possible leadership material -- men who were older and had served at least ten years. The other stack, which was a much larger pile and probably three-quarters of the files, involved younger, less-experienced men.
Nick ignored the big pile of straight shooters and focused on the leadership stack. He read and reviewed the files for hours, breaking up the monotony with sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and shooting drills. He narrowed the stack of sixty-seven leadership files down to twenty, but no matter how many times he reviewed them, he could screen them down no lower.
He could find no weaknesses, no hints of buried problems, nothing wrong with these individuals. These men appeared solid, but Nick needed to whittle them down to just four men. He finally gave up. He rubbed his forehead, stacked the files, and looked at the clock. It was 3:18 a.m., so Nick stood and decided to call it a night.
He’d call his contact in the morning and interview the twenty men by phone -- or preferably in person if he could. He texted his contact asking if it was possible to do so and was surprised to get an immediate answer. Maybe the guy didn’t sleep. Or maybe they had a duty officer who monitored the phone. Either way, Nick was told that he could interview the men, and that he was to be ready to leave the hotel at seven.
Nick awoke at six, swallowed down some, cold leftover pizza, and showered. He put on a tight T-shirt, a clean pair of Wranglers, and his work boots. He followed that by stuffing his trusty Kimber .45 into a holster, strapping his back-up revolver on his ankle, and pulling a loose, button-up, long-sleeve shirt on to cover the pistol tucked in his hip holster. By eight, he was packed up and carrying his duffel bag out the door.
Two men in suits were waiting in the hallway.
“We’ll take that, sir,” one of them said, reaching for the duffel bag.
“The hell you will,” Nick said, yanking it back.
“Sir?” the man said.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me either,” Nick said. It was time to stop this “sir” bullshit, as he should have earlier. “You ‘sir’ me again and I’ll knock your teeth down your damn throat.”
Nick’s contact came around the corner, hurrying toward them, suited up, as well. Nick wondered if any of the men owned anything other than suits.
“Nick,” his contact said, “please let the men carry your duffel bag. You have an image to project. You’re a task force commander now, not just some knuckle-dragging sergeant in the Corps.”
“If you want a man who’s willing to let someone else carry his gear, you folks done picked the wrong man. Now, which is it? You need to go back to the drawing board and find you another man to lead these boys?”
Nick had a stubborn, unmoving look on his face, and his contact relented and turned to walk down the hall, motioning for Nick to join him.
Nick did, easily catching up with his long stride. The two armed men flanked him. Nick felt uncomfortable, like he was suddenly
the President or something, but he knew he’d adjust to it eventually.
“Where we going?” Nick asked.
“They’re going to drive you to the airport. We’re flying you to Camp Lejeune. It’s where the entire group is assembled.”
“Good, but no need to drive me. I can drive myself, just like I can carry my own gear.”
“I’m afraid it’s not an option,” the contact said. “Besides maintaining your image as task force commander, you also will be getting a police escort to the airport. I don’t expect your driver to drop below eighty or ninety on the whole trip. And the plane is already warmed up and ready to go.”
“What’s the rush?” Nick asked. “This sounds ominous.”
“It is,” the contact said. “Your timetable has been moved up. Actually, make that moved way up.”
“What gives?”
“President Roberto Rivera is begging our Ambassador for support, and our intel says billionaire and good guy Juan Soto will rest easier when the Americans begin arriving. Even if it’s only in small numbers, it will help reassure them. Don’t forget how much unrest continues down there after the attack on the Presidential Palace. We’ve been dicking around up here for weeks while promising Rivera all kinds of support. Needless to say, Rivera’s patience is wearing thin and our words are starting to ring hollow.”
“He needs to put his big-boy britches on,” Nick said.
“Too late for that, and respectfully, if you had lost as many men as he had, you’d be shaken, too. Remember, they went after him and his family while he was in his own protected compound. Not to mention how many of his forces they killed, plus wiping out that SEAL Team Platoon.”
“Go ahead and get to whatever point you’re trying to make,” Nick said.
“The point is that our government has assured him that our first elements will arrive in three days. So again, the timetable has been pushed way up.”
Nick stopped, realization dawning on him.
“Wait. What the hell did you just say?” he asked.
“Our timetable has been moved up. We need to get our advance element on the ground in three days.”
“What happened to me picking my men? What happened to the whole ‘this mission being a national priority’ thing? You’re setting us up to fail before we even start.”
“You know how the government works, Nick. And you’re good enough to make this happen. We just need a few men to arrive in three days. They can just begin scoping things out, and in doing so, they’ll get President Rivera and Juan Soto to calm down.”
“Unbelievable,” Nick said.
Chapter 11
Nick Woods’s contact dropped another surprise on him once he arrived at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
As promised, the CIA had driven him at breathtaking speeds behind the state-trooper escort, who drove ahead of them with siren blaring and lights blazing. The GMC Yukon felt like a bullet train at such high speeds -- big, bulky, and impossible to stop -- but the ride was comfortable and Nick used his time in the back seat to further review the files of the men he’d soon be interviewing. His two armed goons were up front, while his contact sat next to him.
None of them said a word.
At a small, non-commercial airport, the Yukon pulled alongside a white corporate jet. It had two engines on the tail and Nick guessed it would hold ten people. He didn’t know planes, and frankly didn’t care to know more. And since he was used to bone-jarring military flights on C-130s, the leather seats and much-improved snack and drink selection proved a pleasant surprise. The flight took very little time, and upon landing Nick and his goons loaded up into yet another Yukon that sat waiting on them. (Nick figured someone in the government must have had a good friend at GMC, since they had apparently won a hell of a large contract with the CIA.)
A few more suits were waiting on him by the SUV, but they said nothing and didn’t follow when Nick and his traveling companions loaded up and roared off the airstrip. Yet again they had a police escort, through this one was a local sheriff’s department cruiser.
The two vehicles raced into Jacksonville and finally made it to the front gate of Camp Lejeune. The cruiser pulled off and headed back toward town, while the MP checked some paperwork produced by Nick’s driver. He waved them through, and they proceeded at a normal pace to their destination.
“Why no rush in here?” Nick asked.
“The base commander,” his contact said, shaking his head from side to side. “The base commander is very uptight and has set ‘safety’ as his number one priority this year while on base. Even the MPs struggle to get permission to speed on base, even if they’re responding to a call. Unless it’s a Code 9, response to violence, it’s not allowed. It’s gotten ridiculous around here.”
“Good thing we’re not in the middle of a couple major wars,” Nick said. “Always nice to know the general has his priorities straight.”
The contact didn’t react to Nick’s joke and kept his gaze out the window. Trees lined the road into the base, but Nick knew the man wasn’t just watching the woods.
“Go ahead and say it,” Nick said. “I can tell something’s bothering you.”
“There’s one more thing,” the contact said. Without meeting Nick’s eyes, his head still turned away. Nick had learned the man was a nice guy and that he respected Nick, so things had gotten complicated for him playing middle man between the CIA and Nick.
None of this was new to Nick. He knew it was the job of the idiots in charge to constantly interfere, throw curve balls your way, and basically do all they could to keep you from succeeding. Not that they meant to, it’s just how it always goes down.
“Go ahead and say it,” Nick said.
“The unit is no longer going as a task force from our government,” the contact said. “The unit is going as a private company.”
“What do you mean? Like some kind of security corporation?”
“Yes. Precisely.”
“Which means we’re completely fucked if anything bad happens. Any of us taken hostage or if say a rogue element of the Mexican Army comes after us.”
“We said in the beginning,” the contact said with a sigh, “that the President wanted complete plausible deniability. This will assure it.”
“This charade wouldn’t pass the smell test of even a local cop checking into it. Just where exactly did the ‘great’ Nick Woods get millions of dollars to form a company and hire dozens of people for this contract?”
The contact looked over at him and said, “You’ve been awarded a twenty million dollar loan as part of your veteran benefits package. You presented a business plan that we typed up for you, it’s been submitted, and I’m happy to say you were approved today.”
“So, on top of putting my ass on the line, I’m now twenty million dollars in debt? That puts that annual salary of two-hundred and fifty thousand per year in perspective, doesn’t it?”
“No, effective today, you’ve been awarded a twenty-two million dollar contract from the Mexican government for consulting and security services. If you want to get technical about it, you’ve earned a two million dollar bonus over what we promised you a few days ago.”
“And I’ll bet the American government just approved an emergency loan to the Mexican President?”
“Yes. It’s a contingency, anti-drug grant signed by the President this morning.”
Nick shook his head in disgust.
“All this bullshit loophole crap just to keep the President’s ass out of a sling?”
“It’s an approaching election year, Nick. And all the personnel, as well as yourself, will receive the same salary and benefit packages as you were promised. Basically, nothing changes.”
“Yeah, basically nothing changes except if something bad happens, there won’t be anyone to come and get us. The media will barely notice since they don’t give two shits about private security companies operating in foreign countries. And I’m suddenly an officer of a corporation and can be ind
ividually sued.”
“We’d cover any legal fees.”
“Sure you would, hoss. You all won’t take credit for us if we do something good or something bad, but you’ll ante up and help us defend ourselves in court, when the opposition would have deposition powers and would see straight through this little charade you’re creating.”
“I’m sorry, Nick, but this is the deal on the table.”
Nick looked off and sighed. Then a thought crossed his mind.
“I’ve been watching you. You haven't talked with anyone or taken any phone calls since we left Columbia. Why are you just now telling me this?”
The man broke off eye contact and stammered, finally saying with complete embarrassment, “We felt if we waited to tell you this when you were just minutes away and already on base, that you’d be more likely to still accept the new reality.”
The Yukon had been taking a number of turns while Nick and the contact debated and now it had pulled up to an isolated barracks, where more than three hundred people were milling about.
“Those are my candidates, aren’t they?” Nick asked, completely disgusted now.
“Yes.”
“So, if I say ‘no’ now, I’m going to look like a bitch to every one of them? A quitter and a drama queen.”
“You still have both the option and right to turn this down. We’re hoping you’ll still accept the offer. Really, not much has changed. We’ll even have an aide do all the corporate reports, put up a small company website, and help make this all look legit. We even have a name for it: Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter. Or S3, for short.”
Nick threw his door open as hard as he could and looked at his contact, whose name he still didn’t know, and said with a scowl, “Is there any other fucking thing you need to tell me? I’ve tolerated about as many surprises today as I plan to.”
“There are none,” the contact said. “I promise.”
“Yeah, and your promises carry a lot of weight.”
Nick grabbed his duffel bag and slammed the door shut as hard as he could. The Yukon rocked, despite its weight and armor.
Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Page 7