by Tom Clancy
“How much longer till we’re at the park?”
“Maybe ten minutes or so. I know a few places nearby where we can haul in the car and wait.”
Ricci looked thoughtful. “Let’s squawk our moving surveillance cars again. See about that Prius.”
* * *
The Cherokee was now several car lengths ahead of Enrique Quiros’s trio in the center lane of 1–5. The Saab wagon had dropped back behind them. This tactic of periodically changing lead and follow spots was a textbook example of leapfrog surveillance, calculated to minimize the risk of detection.
The Saab’s driver was wearing an earphone mike/ lapel transmitter assembly that he’d set to voice-activation mode.
“Roger, the Prius is still keeping pace with us,” he said in answer to Ricci’s inquiry. His eyes had flicked to his sideview mirror. “It’s in the right lane, almost directly abreast of my vehicle.”
“You get a look at who’s inside?”
“A single male, thirtyish, clean shaven,” the driver said. “His windows are tinted too dark for me to give you more than that.”
“The way it’s switching lanes, staying out of Quiros’s line of sight, it doesn’t seem like one of his cars,” Ricci said over the VHF communications channel.
The driver nodded to himself. “Yeah,” he replied. “If I didn’t know better, I’d damn well figure it for one of ours.”
The snipers had assumed a four-pointed pattern of deployment around the grassy area between the rear of the Natural History Museum and the Spanish Village Art Center to its north, giving them a wide open field of fire. One of them was prone on the roof of the long, three-story museum, his Walther rifle nosed over its baroque ornamental edging. A second was concealed in the 120-foot spread of the exotic Moreton Bay fig tree that had stood behind the museum for almost a century. Opposite the museum, at the northeast corner of the green, a third sharpshooter was atop one of the low stucco-and-tile art galleries of the village. The fourth was posted at the northwest corner, on the roof of another Old Spanish-style cottage.
Each of their high-magnitude night-vision scopes was equipped with an infrared camera head/optical beam splitter attachment. Designed to bend light at a ninety-degree angle as it struck the eyepiece, it would simultaneously relay the shooter’s sight image to the rifle-mounted scope and to the control van over a wireless video feed.
Inside the Town and Country, the team commander would have a real-time picture of what his firers saw through their scopes from their separate angles of view. Maintaining radio contact via their tactical headsets, he could coordinate their actions from the moment Enrique Quiros made a move on Salazar until the moment Quiros — and whoever he might have positioned in ambush — fell dead to the ground.
Now the little man waited at his monitoring station and remembered how Lucio Salazar had balked at the cost of his team’s services. Their clients often did at first. But quality was never cheap, and Salazar had gotten the best that money could buy, as he was bound to realize with gratitude before tonight’s events ran their ultimate course.
* * *
Sitting in his parked Cadillac sedan along with four hand-picked bodyguards, Lucio Salazar shrugged his jacket sleeve back from his wristwatch and read the time.
It was almost half past ten, and he was feeling impatient. Lucio had arrived early to make sure the contract hitters were where they were supposed to be, and once his men had gone out and confirmed their presence, he’d had nothing to do except wait for Quiros to show. Little as he’d wished for this appointment, he was anxious to push the start button and get it under way. He wasn’t truly afraid; in his fifty-eight years of living, Lucio had been in far too many tight situations for that. Nor had he acquired any scruples about killing in his late middle age. But for all his preparation, it was his hovering uncertainty, his not knowing what was to come, that was hardest to abide. If he were only convinced of Quiros’s intentions, things would be clear to him, and he would know beyond a doubt what to do. He was a man who put a high value on forethought. His operation had thrived as a result of deliberation, planning, and a willingness to compromise — even concede losses, within margins — rather than let himself in for more trouble than seemed worthwhile. When circumstances changed, you had to look at them carefully and know when to make accommodations. Yet here he’d been thrust into a situation where everything hung on split-second decisions and hair triggers. And it didn’t feel right to him in the least.
He sighed and glanced out his window, watching for the headlights of Enrique’s car to appear in the parking lot entrance.
Feel right or not, what was about to happen would happen anyway.
He just wanted to be finished with it and get back to business as usual.
* * *
As Enrique Quiros approached Balboa from the northwest, the third automobile in his entourage separated from the others and took the turnoff to the Cabrillo Bridge. Remaining on the San Diego Freeway, Quiros and his lead car continued to head toward the Pershing Drive exit that provided the easiest and most direct access to the Spanish Village area.
Inside the tail vehicles that had kept pace with Quiros since he’d left the ranch, the members of each surveillance team noted this unexpected development and promptly advised their respective superiors.
* * *
“What do you make of it?” Ricci said.
“The bridge hooks up with Laurel Street, and that’ll take you over to Balboa,” Glenn said. He had pulled the LeSabre into a dark, empty employee lot behind a municipal building on C Street, within view of the park. “It’s kind of a long way around. The scenic route, I guess you’d call it. Runs between these two wooded slopes.”
“I don’t think our guys are interested in admiring the foliage,” Ricci said.
“Not that anybody could in the dark,” Glenn said and sat thinking quietly. After a moment or two, he turned to Ricci. “What’s that E-mail we got again? The exact words?”
Ricci frowned, took his cell phone out of his pocket, and touched a button to illuminate the LCD. Then he pressed a second button on the keypad, retrieved the stored message Nimec had forwarded from San Jose, and opened it. “Here,” he said and handed the phone across the seat to Glenn. “Read the damn thing yourself.”
Glenn did. It said:
QUIROS. ELEVEN P.M. BALBOA PARK. FINAL CLOSEOUT, EVERYTHING UP FOR GRABS. GET WHAT YOU WANT BEFORE HE’S GONE. FROM ONE WHO KNOWS.
“Coded messages. Anonymous tips that don’t mean anything.” Ricci studied the government office building’s flat, concrete backside through the windshield. “I’m sick and tired of being jerked.”
“If you ask me, we’re lucky just to be in the game,” Glenn said, still looking at the LCD.
“I guess.” Ricci glanced at the dash clock and saw that it was exactly 10:30. “Be nice if we could figure some of it out before we need to make our move.”
Silence. Glenn pursed his lips, gave the phone back to Ricci. “You know, Laurel connects with a long strip of the park called El Prado,” he said. “That’s the main pedestrian mall. It has lots of recognizable buildings, a big reflecting pond, other stuff.”
Ricci looked at him. “You guessing it’s where the action might be?”
“I don’t know,” Glenn said, “but there has to be a reason the last car in Enrique’s cavalcade of stars broke away to head in that direction.”
Ricci tugged at the flesh below his chin. “You’re looking to set something up, it’s always a good idea to pick a spot where there are landmarks.”
“Agreed. And tell me this isn’t the definition of a setup.”
“Do we have people sitting on the area?”
“Some,” he said. “And we can shuffle more over.”
Ricci nodded. “How close are we?”
“A hop and a skip,” Glenn said.
Ricci grabbed for the door handle. “Come on, I think we’ve got ourselves a destination,” he said.
* * *
“Lucio,” Quiros said.
“Enrique,” Salazar said.
They shook hands.
It was a few minutes shy of eleven o’clock, and they were standing in the darkened parking lot behind the Spanish Village. Salazar’s Caddy on one side of them, Quiros’s Fiat Coupé and Lincoln on the opposite side, their bodyguards grouped loosely near the cars from which they’d emerged.
“So,” Salazar said. “What now?”
Quiros looked at him in silence a moment, the cool night breeze riffling his lightweight sport jacket around his body. “Now we talk,” he said. “See if we can find a way to straighten out our problems.”
Salazar tilted his head toward their guards. “We need to give ourselves some room,” he said. “Take a walk, air things in privacy.”
Quiros nodded. “I propose we each bring one man to follow behind as a precaution,” he said. “Leave the rest here with the cars.”
Salazar had to grin. “Sure, a precaution,” he said. “Got to make sure we don’t kill each other on the garden path.”
Enrique looked at him. “I’m glad you’re smiling, Lucio,” he said.
* * *
The balance that Sword’s foot surveillance teams generally had to strike was the same balance struck by cops doing undercover work in every major population center in America or for that matter the developed world. On the one hand, there was an appreciable chance that someone would see them — regardless of their skills at camouflage, concealment, and clandestine movement, and also regardless of how derelict, deserted, or remote their area of operation might be. On the other hand, they understood that being seen and being noticed were two very different things, and that being exposed was yet a third thing altogether.
Here and now in Balboa Park, this meant they faced specific limitations in their use of apparel, weapons, and accessories. They could not, for example, wear form-hugging stealth suits, equipment vests, night-vision goggles, and ballistic helmets in environments where there was even the scant likelihood of a late-night stroller mistaking them for terrorist invaders out to lay siege to his home and neighborhood or, worse, of their targets nailing them for the covert personnel they happened to be.
With regard to arms, they were a bit less hamstrung. Full-sized VVRS rifles with their twenty-inch barrels were of course virtually unconcealable and consequently out. The diminutive upgrades most recently trialed by Ricci’s rapid deployment team were in, but because they were still designated as prototypical, they had been issued only to the complement of A-Team Sword ops who accompanied Ricci from San Jose that afternoon. Nevertheless, a fair range of offensive and defensive gear was available to the entire task force, from incapacitant sprays and grenades and less-than-lethal stingball guns to very lethal revolvers, automatic pistols, and compact submachine guns.
Their tactical guidelines were basically low profile: Street clothes were to be donned over mandatory Zylon bullet-resistant vests, weapons had to be easily stowable, and deadly fire restricted to an option of absolute last resort.
The civvies worn by the three-person foot team in the shadows outside the botanical building were sufficiently camouflaging to make the odds of their drawing a first glance quite slim, and sufficiently inconspicuous to make a second glance even less probable, should anyone’s eye chance upon them. One of the men had on a black rugby shirt, navy chinos, and black canvas loafers. The second wore a slate-gray sweatshirt, baggy crew pants, and black running sneakers. The female member of the team was dressed in a dark green rigger ensemble and matching jogging shoes. Their Sword identification patches were concealed beneath pull-down velcro flaps.
All three had been plainclothes law enforcement agents prior to hiring up with Sword, and were thoroughly versed in the ins and outs of surveillance.
As they passed under lushly crowned trees and wound through flourishing gardens, they strode casually side by side, one sipping bottled spring water, one unwrapping a stick of chewing gum, another pausing briefly to tie a shoelace. While attempting to remain quiet and keep out of direct light, they avoided letting it become an elaborate production. They did not walk on their tiptoes, dart between lampposts, peek around corners, or freeze in place like window mannequins whenever a head turned in their direction. The idea was to do their damnedest to stay out of view but act as natural as possible if they were sighted.
On tonight’s job, their experience yielded valuable dividends. The four Quiros soldiers they had been hastily assigned to follow had exited the breakaway Lincoln behind the Marston House at the far western end of El Prado, advanced across the gardens and meadows to the thoroughfare’s north, and then finally taken positions of hiding on either side of a thickly hedged walkway without displaying the slightest awareness that they were being tailed.
Although they couldn’t have known they were watching a trap being set for Lucio Salazar, the Sword ops did realize they had stumbled onto something important and quickly radioed Ricci and Glenn with word of their observations and position.
What would soon throw their situation into confusion, however, was the fact that they weren’t the only ones doing the watching.
* * *
In the Town and Country, the small man at the monitoring station saw Quiros’s men slip into the hedges through his optical relay with the shooter on the museum’s rooftop, who had noticed their movement while surveying the area through his long-range scope… a stroke of good fortune for Lucio Salazar.
Had it not been for that observation, he might well be walking to his death.
Little was said between Quiros and Salazar as they left the parking area, walking south past the Spanish Village toward the green dominated by the Moreton Bay fig tree, their bodyguards following like unspeaking golems, near enough for their presence to be felt, far enough away for it to be unobtrusive. The few words they did exchange were inconsequential: Beautiful night, air’s nice and fresh, been too long, don’t see each other much these days, business, you know. Even without the duplicitous secrets they concealed, their planned or contemplated treacheries, they would have been disinclined to hurry their conversation toward matters of substance. There was a timing, a restraint, an almost formalized ritual of overtures and preambles to which they were both accustomed and that for men such as themselves was essential to the politics of survival. Talk too soon, and one could look weak or anxious. Too late, and deception or indecision was assumed.
Timing.
At the eastern border of the green, Quiros paused a beat, glanced around as if to gain his bearings, then started briskly onto a path that would take them past the side of the Natural History Museum and into the Plaza de Balboa at the east end of El Prado.
Salazar touched his shoulder, noting his quickened pace.
“Lawn’s shorter,” he said and waved a hand to indicate the area behind the museum between the big Aussie tree and the village. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to cut across it instead.”
Quiros appraised him quietly. He’d heard the mistrust in his tone, seen his reluctance to take the path. “Why not?” he said, inserting a note of hesitancy into his own voice as he moved off the path. “I picked the spot, you pick the route.”
Salazar gave him a thin smile. “I hadn’t looked at it that way, but it sounds good to me,” he said and turned right toward the green.
That was exactly where Quiros had meant to steer him all along, knowing his men were in position at its western side, hidden there in the shrubs that bordered on the walkway leading toward the reflecting pond, lying in wait, ready to spring their ambush.
* * *
The squawks came almost back to back, one from the surveillance team that had stayed on Quiros and his walking pal since they’d appeared from behind the Spanish Village, a second from the spotters who’d watched Quiros’s soldiers move into hiding in the garden near the reflecting pond. Ricci and Glenn were jogging briskly toward the latter from the park entrance over by the Marston House at Balboa’s western extremity, not far from where Q
uiros’s breakaway car had been left.
“What’s your take on those sluggers that crawled into the bushes?” Glenn said.
“Same as yours,” Ricci said. “Looks like Quiros has something rotten cooking for whoever met him here…. What’s his name again?”
“Salazar,” Glenn said. “Lucio Salazar. At least that’s who my people think it is. He and his brothers in Mexico are old-time, all-purpose smugglers and racketeers. Got into dealing dope, hit the mother lode. He’s Quiros’s chief local competition.”
“Maybe not for much longer,” Ricci said.
Glenn nodded and ran on in silence a moment.
“At this pace, it’ll be a quick shot to that garden.”
“You positive we have a vehicle at every car exit?” Ricci said.
“Yeah.”
Ricci grunted, hustling along. “Be good to make the action,” he said. “Main thing for us, though, is that Quiros doesn’t slip away. Because that E-mail we got is looking righter and righter. And I’ve got a feeling that if we lose him now, we’re done.”
* * *
As soon as they got halfway across the green, Salazar slowed to halt and stood gazing at the Moreton Bay fig. “All those twists and turns, one grows out of the other, you never know which way they’re gonna go,” he said and indicated the outspread branches and root system intricately silhouetted in the partial moonlight. “I figure it’s what life’s about.”
Quiros made a meaningless sound and waited, concealing his impatience.
Salazar kept staring at the tree. “We should talk about Felix,” he said.
Quiros looked at him. This was not how it was supposed to happen. He wanted to get to the damned garden walkway.
“Let’s hold off,” he said. “The pond is a better place. We can sit there and—”
Salazar raised a hand abortively and faced him. “Now, Enrique,” he said. “I want to talk about him right now.”
Quiros studied his expression. It left no room for argument. So be it.
“You had a problem with my nephew, you should have come to me,” he said after a minute.