by Jack Murphy
“Sounds good,” Aghassi yawned.
“Nikita, you've been racked out for a while now. You take first watch.”
Deckard unbuttoned his shirt and balled it up to use as a pillow. Later, he wouldn't even remember laying down.
His sleep was deep and dreamless.
Aghassi drove through the outskirts of Puebla, making a lazy circle around the AMIZ compound as not to arouse suspicion. Located at the edge of the city, the compound was off site from the main AMIZ headquarters. The facility was surrounded by twenty five foot reinforced concrete walls with guard towers spaced at even intervals. It looked like many of the Forward Operating Bases that US forces operated out of in the Middle East.
Deckard knew that this was no accident. Mexico had been more violent and even bloodier than Iraq and Afghanistan for a number of years. These days the only other splatter fest that could compete with Mexico was Syria. The FOB had been built with American money and assistance so it was no wonder that it looked like a stronghold to wage a counter-insurgency from.
The area reconnaissance made clear to the mercenaries that the direct approach was out of the question. Going over the walls would be difficult and they would almost certainly he sprayed with machine gun fire. Nikita could easily take out a few guards in the towers with his suppressed sniper rifle but at this point they were not sure who was involved with the weapons trafficking and who wasn't. Who was corrupt and who was just a soldier serving their country was one of the questions they would attempt to answer.
“Check this out,” Aghassi said, pointing towards a Mexican police convoy on the street up ahead. A half dozen pickup trucks were loaded with Federal Police carrying rifles and wearing assault vests packed with spare magazines. The convoy was heading towards the AMIZ compound.
Aghassi reached up and snatched the Zeta-Ferrari decal off the windshield and handed it to Deckard.
“Get up here and change seats with Nikita. It will do the talking but it will be good for them to see a white face.”
“Shit,” Deckard said, realizing what the former ISA operator was planning. “That is a hell of a risk.”
“It's just crazy enough to work.”
Accelerating, Aghassi brought the van up behind the convoy, getting close, but not so close that the Mexican police felt threatened.
“Wave this at them,” Pat said handing him his ball cap. It had an American flag Velcro'ed to the front.
As the convoy snaked towards the front gate of the AMIZ compound, the mercenaries trailed close behind in their commandeered panel van. The gate guards slung their weapons and pushed the road blocks out of the way, another signaling the tower guard to press a button a retract the heavy metal gate. A giant bicycle chain began to rotate and drag the gate across the entrance on one wheel.
The convoy of Federal Police was then allowed to pass into the compound. The five mercenaries held their breath as they approached the gate. Rolling down the window, Aghassi waved Pat's American flag baseball cap at the gate guards and began speaking in rapid fire Spanish. It was hard for Deckard to pick out the words but he was telling the gate guards that they were American Special Forces advisers detailed out to the Mexican Federal Police and were coming back from an operation with them.
The gate guard nodded his head and waved them through.
Gassing the van through the entrance, the gate began to swing back into place behind them.
“I can't believe that worked,” Kurt said.
“I've been on enough military bases overseas to not be surprised by this anymore,” Pat replied. “I couldn't tell you how many times I rolled up to an American FOB in Iraq driving a civilian vehicle, dressed up like a local, and told the gate guards that I was an American and to let me in.”
“And they just let you in.”
“Just about every time,” Pat answered. “The Delta Force special.”
“The gift that keeps on giving,” Deckard laughed. “Sort of like the clap.”
Aghassi pulled off from the convoy and slipped down a side street. The complex even looked like a FOB from the inside with small trailers or Compartmentalized Housing Units that had been shipped in and in some cases joined together to form larger work areas. There were also trailers converted into offices and classrooms with a few larger permanent structures here and there. The van pulled into a parking space in front of a loading bay and stopped.
“So what's the plan?” Aghassi asked.
“Hold what you got. We're US military advisers here to conduct Foreign Internal Defense operations. If you run into the Federal Police tell them you are working with the military. If you run into the military tell them you work with the police, whatever you have to say to get out of a jamb. We'll split up, one Spanish speaker per group. Pat you come with me since you are worthless.”
“I speak Thai.”
“Like I said, worthless. Kurt, you go with Aghassi and take Nikita with you.”
“Da,” the Kazakh answered.
Switching to Russian, Deckard quickly explained the situation and added that he should probably just keep his mouth shut during this operation. Explaining Nikita would be a little more difficult if people heard his native language.
“Kurt, you look for the headquarters building and see if you can locate where the base commander and his staff are working out of. It's late but they just had men back from an operation so someone will be in there. This loading dock looks like the logistics hub so my group will go look for the logistics office and break in. Remember, we want to know about any other gun shipments, where they are, and who is behind them. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Aghassi said. “Should be a cake walk.”
“Hey, remember you recruited me for this mission, not the other way around. Let's go.”
The men wore their camouflage uniforms and retained their weapons and plate carriers to complete the picture of being American military advisers. Aghassi's group broke off and Deckard went in another direction with Pat, walking around the loading bay.
Avoiding the golden glow of the overhead lights, the two mercenaries stayed in the shadows as they walked around the building, trying each door until they found one that was unlocked. Looking inside, the lights were on but nobody was home. Large I-beams held up the ceiling and the concrete floor looked like it had been swept recently. There was a forklift and a few empty wooden pallets on the floor but not much else.
“I hope this isn't a wild goose chase,” Deckard said.
“All those American military weapons, the ones you turned over to Zapatista rebels in good faith I might add, were not a figment of our imagination,” Pat answered back. “They came from somewhere.”
“But did they come from here?”
Walking between the Compartmentalized Housing Units, everything was quiet. Bugs buzzed around the yellow bulbs hanging from bare fixtures outside each door. The two former soldiers crunched across the gravel, looking at the placards on the wall of each unit and deciphering the Spanish language words. So far they were coming up empty.
Hearing the crunch of footsteps approaching, both men looked on hesitantly. They could be in a world of shit depending on who they ran into. They might be able to fool some guards but if the base's operations or intelligence officer found them, their cover story would not hold up for long.
Out of the shadows appeared four figures, two women and two men. The men wore desert digital camouflage uniforms with built in knee pads, high end stuff made by Crye Precision. The women were in Mexican Army uniforms.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Deckard groaned.
“Isn't that Dusty and Flakjacket Fred,” Pat said while squinting in the darkness.
“I'm afraid it is.”
Dusty cracked a joke in Spanish and all four of the partiers broke out laughing. Flakjacket was holding a bottle of tequila in one hand with his arm around one of the girls. The Special Operations community was a relatively small one and if you worked in it long enough, you would run into the sam
e people over and over again. Still, the two mercenaries didn't expect this. While they were running around pretending to be Special Forces advisers they had just run into two genuine military advisers from SEAL Team Six.
“Dusty!” Deckard yelled down the gravel walkway as they were about to disappear into their bunk room. “Did the commandante of the base forget to lock the liquor cabinet again?”
Dusty jerked his head around.
“Motherfu-” he paused. “Deckard? Are you kidding me man? What are you doing here?”
Deckard smiled as he walked up and shook the SEAL's hand.
“I'm on a contract with Wexler,” Deckard said, making up a new modified cover story on the fly. He was in the dark and needed to feel the situation out. “Asymmetrical Warfare Group sent us down here to study cartel tactics and make recommendations to guys like you.”
“Study cartel tactics? Then what's with those fire sticks and blammo you guys are carrying?”
“New kit they have us testing out for the Force Modification office. If we recommend it, they will push this stuff over to Dev and Delta for further evaluation.”
“I like it,” Dusty said curling his upper lip. “That is one gangster looking AK you've got there.”
“What's up?” Pat said stepping forward to shake hands with Dusty.
“Holy shit, you too!”
Flakjacket still had his girl hanging off his arm but reached out to shake hands with them both.
“Haven't seen you two since that job in the PI a few years back,” the SEAL Team Six operator recalled. “They always pick brown skinned guys like us for that type of shit but who knows why they keep sending crackers like you.”
“Because I'm the color of the boss man?” Deckard countered.
“Oh, shit.” Dusty laughed. “Not for long, we're breeding you fuckers out of the gene pool!”
“How are things going for you guys down here?” Pat said, steering the conversation.
“Not bad, not bad, but we still wish we were back with our Squadron in The Horn. They get to shoot pirates all day and we're here doing a FID mission that they should have given to Green Berets.”
Flakjacket popped open the bottle of tequila and passed it around. The two female Mexican military officers each took a long swig before handing it off to Deckard who downed a gulp. Painkillers, he told himself. Pat took a slug and handed the bottle off to Dusty.
“I was going to say,” Deckard said. “You guys are SEALs and I don't see a lot of water in Central Mexico.”
“Nope, me neither,” Flakjacket said rolling his eyes. “But the SOCOM commander is one of ours and our own commander doesn't know how to say no to him so we get pimped out for every jive ass mission. I mean, the Mexican police and military are making some progress down here but it's an uphill battle.”
“Corruption?”
“That's a big part of it. The Agency and the DEA have been compartmentalizing and hiding operations to the point that our missions are not getting compromised as much as they used to. As I'm sure you know, they've been rotating Spanish speakers in Dev down here for years now but it is still mostly advise and assist.”
“Even if we get to slip the leash every now and then,” Dusty said, looking as his lady friend. She didn't appear to speak English but giggled none the less. “So we have rolled up some High Value Targets here and there, mostly Zetas while we ride along with FES, the Mexican version of the SEALs, but also with the Marines and Federal Police like we did tonight.”
“We have really just been jumping from base to base the last week and interviewing soldiers and cops about what tactics that the cartels have been employing,” Deckard lied. “I've been hearing some things about large shipments of military grade weapons ending up in the hands of the cartels.”
“Oh, yeah.” Dusty confirmed. “No doubt. The cartels buy military grade shit from corrupt Central American military officers. Sometimes it is even stuff that the United States government is shipping to the Mexican military to help them fight this war. It is counter-productive of course because the cartels rip it off or buy it off from corrupt officials.”
“What kinds of quantities are we talking about here?” Deckard asked.
“You know, a dozen AT4 rockets here, a dozen M203 grenade launchers there.”
“What about really large shipments, as in hundreds of rifles and machine guns, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition?”
“You've been hearing those rumors too?” Flakjacket said.
“Yeah, enough times that it is starting to concern us,” Pat added.
“Sounds like you guys haven't been read in either,” Dusty spat. “They are keeping all of us in the dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” Dusty repeated. “I mean there is some major league hero stuff going on down here. Some real Serpico shit.”
“OBI has their hands in just about everything going on in Mexico,” Flakjacket said. “The Agency's Case Officer working out of there had a hit put out on him by one of the cartels but was ordered to stay. They must be keeping him in place for a reason.”
“Yeah, his PSD is shitting bricks over there in Mexico City. They are convinced they are going to get rolled up any day now.”
“You think the CIA is up to something?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Dusty interjected. “I'm just saying that the orders coming out of OBI are pretty strange. They are deliberately interfering with and stalling military and police operations down here.”
Deckard wasn't about to let on that he wasn't sure what OBI was at first but it hit him with the reference to Mexico City. The Office of Bi-national Intelligence was in a building next to the US Embassy in the Mexican capitol city. It housed liaisons from the CISEN, the Mexican intelligence agency, along with the FBI, CIA, DEA, and Homeland Security.
“What kind of orders?”
“Like arbitrarily freezing our operational areas so that we can't conduct raids. Just shutting down large swaths of certain cities for specific times and letting the cartels run amuck. Then we have to go in and clean up the mess afterwards.”
“So you think OBI is intentionally sowing chaos and making the drug war worse than it has to be?”
“Well that is why I say, maybe not. I know some of the contractors working the CIA Case Officer's Personal Security Detail, some of them are former teammates. You guys probably know some of the former Army dudes working the detail. Anyway, when I give them a call they tell me that this Case Officer is as confused by these orders as we are. He doesn't get it but is being told to toe the line. He did, and that is probably why they are not yanking him out of country even though he has a bounty on his head. He is someone's lapdog now and they like him right where he is.”
“Where is he getting his orders from?”
“Not sure, but OBI answers to NORTHCOM.”
“What the hell is going on down here?” Pat asked.
“You got me brother,” Flakjacket said. “We just got another month working this joke of a mission and then we pop back over to Somalia to do some real work.”
“I hear you,” Deckard said. “I don't have a phone with me but why don't you hit me up with your number and I will let you know if I hear anything.”
“Right on,” Flakjacket went inside and came out a moment later with a piece of paper that he handed to Deckard.
“Thanks, I'll let you guys get back to business.”
“Take care Casper,” Dusty joked. “You two better get under overhead cover because I think the sun is coming out. You could burst into flames if caught in direct sunlight.”
Turning, Dusty slapped one of the girls on the ass on her way into the room and slammed the door behind him.
Dusty was right, it was almost dawn and none of them wanted to get caught skulking around AMIZ during the day when the base would be much more active.
Opening the sliding door on the van, Deckard and Pat climbed inside.
“Can you believe that shit?” Pat as
ked.
“Not really. It sounds like OBI is freezing down certain corridors at certain times.”
“Long enough for the drugs to head north and for the guns to head south?”
“Yeah, that and maybe something more.”
The door swung back open, causing them to start as Kurt Jager pushed someone into the van before getting inside. Nikita came in behind him and shut the door while Aghassi got in on the driver's side and took the wheel.
“Who is this?” Deckard demanded.
“Assistant S2 Officer,” Kurt replied, keeping his AK pointed at the prisoner. They had captured the assistant to the AMIZ intelligence officer. “He confirmed that the guns are coming through AMIZ and being handed over to the cartels. Not just the Zetas, but to all of them.”
“Were you compromised?”
“No, we convinced some of the police we ran into that we were American military advisers like you said but after we found this guy and interrogated him we figured we had to bring him with us.”
“We're running out of darkness,” Aghassi reminded them.
“Get us out of here.”
Aghassi fired up the engine and headed back towards the gate. When he got there, Kurt held his hand over the prisoner's mouth and held his Glock 19 to his temple to inspire him to keep quiet. Aghassi explained to the guards that he had a couple prostitutes in the back that he had to drive back home. After bullshitting for a minute about prices and services rendered, the gate guards laughed and let them pass.
Hitting the main road, Aghassi took a right.
“Which way are we going?” he asked.
“Our prisoner knows,” Kurt insisted.
“Where are the guns coming from,” Deckard asked him in Spanish.
“Militar No. 3,” the intelligence Officer said sheepishly. “Torreon.”
Deckard leaned back against the side of the van.
“North,” Deckard told Aghassi. “We're heading north.”
44
The ceiling fan slowly spun round and round, cooling nothing and no one in the sweltering heat. Flies buzzed around the corners of his eyes until he swatted them away. Outside, someone was honking their car's horn. Further away, someone else was popping off some shots, the sharp cracks distinct over the other background noise.