One of the girls laughed and toyed with her bikini top.
Go ahead, he thought. Take it off, baby.
Her nipples were practically visible through the thin, wet fabric anyway.
It would keep his two problematic idiots occupied and unsuspicious for the short term.
The group of Vipers, Reynolds, Kunish, Harper, and Wells, by contrast, were all business. They sat at a near-by table checking and cleaning their rifles, and Nasim was cleaning his Glock 19, as well. They all were wearing latex gloves. Eagan and each of the Vipers had sidearms, which were also Glock 19’s. Weapons standardization was the first step on a well-run mission, as were the two Glocks he had for the bounty hunters. Eagan had opted to go with AK-47s—the cheap SKS Chinese versions, for the rifles. Easy to come by and easier to leave behind. They could just drop them and run when the time came. Weapons of that sort were virtually untraceable. Plus, the loose-fitting design and ruggedness made them functional in virtually any climate or terrain. Eagan figured it would be dusty in Mexico. Good old Kalashnikov had known what he was doing when he came up the design for that one. It was the most copied rifle in the world.
Eagan scanned the rest of Von Dien’s plush Belize mansion looking for Webber, the helicopter pilot. He worked exclusively for Victor Delta’s corporation, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. More than likely it was just a front for the billionaire’s riches. Eagan couldn’t imagine that the wrinkled-up Buddha had he skills or business acumen to have made that much money all by himself. Probably inherited it from his family.
But none of that mattered, so long as the right amount of cash was deposited in the Viper’s Cayman account once the job was done. And hopefully it would include an accompanying large bonus for tidying up all those loose ends. It was going to be a very comfortable vacation for him that would most likely extend into an early retirement of drinking rum and Cokes on some Caribbean beach and chasing the girls.
A tinkle of laughter sounded from the pool. The big black guy was flexing his biceps and one of the girls, now topless, was seeing how the cup of her bikini fit over his bulging arm. The other guy, Reno, had another one of the girls sitting on his shoulders.
If they only knew what was coming, Eagan thought.
But he also knew he had to keep his eye on the ball. It was one thing to let those two jokers play around, but a good leader crosses all the T’s and dots all the I’s so the mission runs smoothly and without any hitches. No surprises, not like that goat-fuck in Iraq. He’d depended on that idiot, Cummins too much for that one. That was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. If he didn’t need the fat asshole to facilitate the contact and the final money transfer with Victor Delta, Eagan would have jettisoned him a long time ago.
He smiled.
Victor Delta, Eagan thought. I wonder what the old man would say if he found out about Cummins’s nickname for him.
“Okay, that’s great,” Cummins said as he talked on the phone. “Keep me posted.”
He terminated the call and turned to Eagan with a smile.
“It’s all set. They’re gonna move on Accondras in about five hours. By nineteen-forty or so they’ll be at the landing zone, and we’ll have him in our custody.”
And probably after about twenty minutes more, Eagan thought, I’ll have pried the location of the artifact out of him.
His thoughts turned to the best technique to use. It had to be expedient and painful, but not potentially disfiguring or immediately lethal. It all depended on where the son of a bitch had hidden the damn thing. Judging from the size of the other half, which they’d gotten in Iraq, it could easily fit inside a safety deposit box. When the two halves of the artifact were placed together it wasn’t much bigger than a good-sized cantaloupe.
A safety deposit box was a good bet. Even though the son of a bitch was living in that gated community, with armed guards patrolling, it seemed doubtful to Eagan that he’d chance leaving the artifact there with an adversarial stepfather watching his every move. But then again, a safety deposit box would limit accessibility for Accondras, should he need to get the artifact quickly and unobtrusively. So it was equally possibly he’d be secreting it someplace else, maybe even on his person. Either way Eagan would find out and find out quickly. And maybe, since he’d be dealing with a pussy child molester, just the implication of force might be all the persuasion that would be needed, but where was the fun in that? No, he’d want to put a little oomph into the initial venture to ensure truthfulness and cooperation.
If they had to hold him until banking business hours the next day to get into some vault, it meant that any persuasive measures would have to spare the hand he used to sign his name. It probably would be better if the asshole could walk, too, and have no facial disfigurements. But that still left plenty of other body parts to work on. And after they had it, the son of a bitch would be expendable. His body could be dropped with the rest of them for the scene setup. That would entail keeping everyone alive until the artifact was verified so the times of death would all roughly coincide. Not that the Mexicans would do much investigation, but there was always a danger that the U.S. authorities might stick their noses in. The FBI maybe. So things had to look explainable: a dispute between some American bounty hunters over a wanted subject that resulted in everybody getting shot.
All the little loose ends tied up in a pretty bow, Eagan thought. That ought to be good for a nice bonus from Victor Delta.
Death in the desert, he thought.
But all this was unnecessary speculation. He wouldn’t know anything for sure about where the artifact was until it was just him, Accondras, and the special equipment.
More feminine laughter tinkled from the pool, accompanied by splashing. Another of the girls had removed her top. Cummins pushed up his thick glasses on his nose and leered at her bare breasts.
“Hey, keep your eye on the ball,” Eagan said. “Has he got everything else set up?”
Cummins pursed his lips and then said, “He says he does. Two unobtrusive looking vans all gassed up and ready to go. He’s got the LZ prepared, too.”
“Where’s Webber?” Eagan asked. “I want to make sure that helicopter’s gassed up and ready to go.”
Cummins pointed toward the far end of the huge house.
“The helipad’s over there. But don’t you want to hear what Zerbe’s got set up?”
“I don’t care what he’s got set up as long as he gets Accondras, Wolf, and his buddy to the LZ on time. You said he’s estimating nineteen hundred for that?”
Cummins bumped his glasses up onto his nose again and nodded. “That’s what he said.”
“All right. We ship out in two hours. I’m going to go check with Webber and get the rest of my gear.”
“The rest of your gear?”
“Yeah,” Eagan said. “A pair of pliers and a ball peen hammer.”
He could hardly wait.
Chapter Seventeen
Cancun, Mexico
A nest of vipers.
The words kept running through Wolf’s mind as the van sped through the early evening traffic. José was stationed outside the gate of the Palacios del Oros on a motorcycle waiting for Accondras and his bodyguard to depart. A quick phone call to Zerbe would confirm that the game was on. For his part, Zerbe reiterated that he would be there but staying in the background.
“Like I said, I don’t do the rough stuff,” he said.
Wolf noticed that the man still wore the same soiled and sweat stained white sport jacket, light blue shirt, Panama hat, and sunglasses. Not that there would be much ambient lighting, but the PI stood out like a painted fence post on a country road. But that was all right. Wolf hated that he and Mac were depending on this character as much as they were. Wolf trusted Zerbe about as far as he could throw him, and his two Mexican sidekicks even less.
The bodyguard was another wild card in the game. According to Zerbe, it wasn’t a question of if the guard would be armed, but rather what kind of gun or g
uns he’d be carrying. That upped the stakes quite a bit. Wolf didn’t like the idea of going up against an armed man in a situation like this, especially some guy who was just doing his job, even if that job was guarding a scumbag. Taking out some innocent bodyguard didn’t sit right with him, and he couldn’t imagine it sat any better with Mac. Still, how innocent could the guy be if he was escorting a child molester to what they assumed would be the rape of a minor? The sympathy factor lessened, but the danger didn’t. They were in the deep water now. Indian Country. And they had to figure out a way of dealing with every contingency.
The van slammed over another tope, and McNamara swore.
“Your boy sure loves to hit those damn things, don’t he?” he said.
Zerbe didn’t answer. He had an unlit cigarette between his lips. Wolf wondered how long it would be before he made a move to light it.
“What kind of weapons did you get us?” McNamara asked.
Zerbe shook his head and pointed to Paco, and then to the black plastic garbage bag down by his feet.
Mac glanced at Wolf, who frowned. This wasn’t looking real good.
The van slowed for another turn, then accelerated again as the sound of gravel beneath the tires became evident.
Paco made a left turn so rapidly that the car bottomed out, jarring the occupants and stirring up a huge dust cloud.
“You trying to send some smoke signals?” McNamara looked at Wolf and winked. “No offense.”
Wolf managed a grin. “Well, we are in Indian Country.”
Mac smiled and clucked his tongue.
“We’re almost there.” Zerbe pointed to a cluster of small houses butting up against a patchy mixture of whitish sand and spots of green. “You wanted to approach it from the other side, right?”
“Right,” McNamara said.
Paco hit the brakes hard, skidding to a halt and stirring up another cloud of dust on the macadamized roadway. Zerbe lit up his smoke and got out as Wolf and McNamara exited. As usual, Paco remained with the van. The neighborhood looked pretty much the same as it had a few hours earlier, except far less crowded. Perhaps a hundred yards or so in the distance, beyond the cluster of small houses, Wolf could see two triangular monuments of gray stone extending out of a sea of greenery. Each had a square, flat top at its peak. The angular sides contained large rows of centered steps. He momentarily thought about the Mayans and their vanished empire.
Cancun, he thought, and wondered how many vipers they would meet tonight.
Despite the sight of three gringos walking, people seemed to pay them little mind as they faded into the local landscape.
This didn’t surprise Wolf.
Mac’s wearing his big cowboy hat, he thought. I could almost pass for a Latino, and Zerbe looks like your typical shady Anglo reprobate prowling the sleazy back alleys.
“Not so many people right now,” McNamara said. “Must be getting close to siesta time.”
Zerbe was right on their heels, carrying a black plastic garbage bag and struggling to keep up as they wound through the alleyways taking the same circuitous route they’d painstakingly plotted on their first trip there. He was still wearing the dark sunglasses and Wolf wondered how the hell the man could see well enough to avoid tripping. The spaces between the houses were a maze of dirt pathways covered with fine gravel. It made a slight crunching sound as they walked. The ubiquitous smell of cooking meat and hot peppers hung in the air along with the occasional sound conversation, laughter, and Mexican music. As they continued the sounds and smells became less and less distinct and the houses more and more dilapidated.
“Anybody live around here?” Wolf asked.
“This area’s mostly uninhabited,” Zerbe said. “Lucky for us.”
Wolf caught a glimpse of Mac’s face. It looked grim and intense.
“I’ll feel better about this when he shows us those weapons,” Wolf said.
“Yeah, me too.” McNamara said. “And I wish we knew what kind of firepower we might be going up against.”
“I’ve got the stuff for you,” Zerbe said. “In the bag here.”
As they approached the last house in the row Wolf stopped and held up his fist. McNamara halted and Zerbe managed to slow his gait by skipping a bit and doing a little dance.
“That’s it over there, right?” Wolf said.
Zerbe grunted in agreement.
Wolf flattened against the ridge of a low wall and did a quick peek. The structure was unlighted and perhaps fifty feet away from them. The squat stucco structure had a roof made of half-circular red tiles descending in an oblique slant. Several rows showed interruptions of broken or missing tiles and there was a film of dust and dirt over the window next to the front door. Wolf could make out a dingy shade hanging on the other side of the filthy glass.
“Where’s this Salvador character at?” McNamara asked.
“He should be along shortly,” Zerbe said. “He’s going to call me as soon as Accondras calls him.”
“You mentioned you had something for us?” Wolf said.
Zerbe nodded and reached inside the side pocket of his sport jacket. He withdrew a black and yellow pistol-shaped Taser with a square barrel.
“The cartridge is good up to fifteen feet,” he said. “You snap it off the end and you can use it like a stun gun, as long as you’re touching the target.”
McNamara gestured for Wolf to take the Taser. He unsnapped the cartridge from the end of the barrel and pressed the trigger. A snap of electrical current sparkled in the darkening twilight.
“It’s fully charged,” Zerbe said. “Put new batteries in this afternoon.”
Wolf replaced the cartridge and stuck the Taser into the right-side pocket of his BDU.
“What else you got for us?” McNamara asked.
The end of Zerbe’s cigarette glowed bright red and ashes dropped from it as he nodded and held up the bag. Whatever was inside made a knocking sound. After glancing around, Zerbe opened the top and dumped the contents on the dirt pathway. It was a roll of duct tape, two pair of cheap looking handcuffs, two butterfly knives with four-inch blades enclosed in thin, wooden handles, and a set of round nunchucks, also made of wood.
“That’s it?” McNamara said. “Where’s our guns?”
Zerbe took a few steps back. “Like I told you, they’re real hard to get down here. Plus, if you get caught with them, they toss you in jail until you can buy your way out. You’re better off without them.”
“And you say this bodyguard’s gonna be armed.” McNamara frowned. “Nothing like bringing a couple of knives and a Taser to a gun-fight.”
Wolf picked up the nunchucks and tested the chain, which seemed sturdy enough. It’d been a long time since he’d practiced with them, but he knew they could be a formidable and silent weapon.
“Which knife do you want?” asked McNamara.
“Does it matter?”
McNamara checked each pair of the handcuffs, making sure they were operational, and that the ratcheted bottom half moved smoothly through the top portion. Seemingly satisfied, he handed one to Wolf and picked up the two blades and tested their weight.
“Bali-song knives. These things look like they came straight from the Philippines.”
McNamara flipped the first one open with practiced ease, bouncing the rotating half of the thin wooden handle and the top side of the blade against the back of his hand, and then caught the other half of the handle locking the extended knife blade. He gripped the side of the blade and tried to wiggle it. It moved substantially. McNamara flipped the knife closed with another flick of his wrist, handed it to Wolf, and said, “That one’s loose as a goose.”
He then repeated the movement with the second knife. This one had virtually no play in the blade housing.
“You take that one,” Wolf said, slipping the handcuffs into his left side BDU pocket. “It looks a little more solid.”
McNamara looked at him, his eyebrows lifting momentarily in a doubting gesture.
&n
bsp; “You sure?”
Wolf nodded. “I’ve got these.” He stepped away and whirled the nunchucks in continuous rotating arcs, looping the front portion back and forth on either side of his forearm before spinning it alongside his body and then slapping it to a stop under his armpit.
“Hot damn,” McNamara said. “Just like old Bruce Lee.” His grin quickly faded as he added, “But this ain’t Hollywood, and it ain’t gonna do much good against a bullet. We need some better firepower. Where’s our guns?”
Zerbe shook his head. “I told you. No can do.”
“Then maybe we should just call this whole damn thing off,” McNamara said.
Wolf could see the concern in Mac’s face, and felt the same way, but he also knew how much his friend wanted this one.
“You got keys for the handcuffs?” Wolf asked.
Zerbe nodded and reached into his pants pocket withdrawing two small keys. Wolf took them and stuck one into his boot and gave the other one to McNamara. He tested the locks on the cuffs.They seemed operational. He then jammed a portion of cuffs into their beltlines.
“This guy might be easier to control if we had leg cuffs,” McNamara said. “You got any more?”
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