Cartel (27 page)

"An anonymous bomb threat."

"It was the only way I could think of to buy us some time."

They had climbed one train car back to the flatbed and were huddled under a tarp, next to a piece of equipment that looked like a gigantic steel valve, probably something to do with oil or natural gas wells. The train had just crossed the river into Mexico.

"You didn't tell them which bridge," Benny said.

"The first Monday of every month, I have to go to a meeting with representatives from every law enforcement agency in Laredo to be briefed by Homeland Security on the latest threats and contingency plans," Scott said. "I've al-ways thought of it as a huge waste of time, but I have learned a few things, like the protocol for a bomb threat to one of the bridges."

"What's the protocol?"

"Customs and Border Protection shuts the bridge down and conducts a complete search, and if the threat doesn't mention a specific bridge, they shut them all down."

"So you just shut down all four bridges?"

He nodded. "For at least two hours."

Benny closed her eyes and said a short prayer in Span-ish. Then made the sign of the cross.

"What did you pray for?" Scott asked.

"For God to help me save my daughter."

Scott nodded, but he wasn't going to count on divine intervention.

"And that he would not use her to punish me," Benny said.

"Why would he do that?"

"Because I'm a bad person."

"You're not a bad person," Scott said. "You're a good person caught in a bad situation."

Benny looked away.

Scott reached out and took her hand. She turned to him and looked up into his eyes. Then she smiled at him.

* * * *

An unmarked government sedan was stopped in the OFFICIAL USE ONLY lane at the World Trade Bridge in front of Gavin and Jones's Suburban, and the jackass driving it was jawing with the uniformed CBP officer in the security booth and wouldn't get out of the goddamned way.

"Blow the horn," Jones said.

Gavin gave him a look. "You really think that's going to work?"

"Try it and see."

"He's probably asking for directions to the donkey show."

Jones's only response was a grunt.

Then the CBP cop got a call on his radio.

Gavin's window was down. He could hear the squawk from the radio but couldn't make out the words. Whatever the words were they were pretty serious because the CBP cop turned all business and dropped the gate closed in front of the sedan.

"What the shit is he doing?" Jones said. Then he jumped out of the Suburban and strode toward the booth, chin jutting out like a drill sergeant. Gavin unassed the Suburban and jogged to catch up. Jones was wound pretty damned tight. Somebody had to keep an eye on him. Besides, these CBP dicks had guns and they were sticklers for the rules.

When Gavin reached the booth, Jones was waving a set of credentials in the officer's face and trying to talk over him. Still, Gavin heard the CBP officer saying something about a bomb threat.

"That's bullshit," Jones said, his voice rising with each word. "There's no goddamned bomb. There never is. Terror-ists don't warn you before they blow things up. Not since Gerry Adams sucked Bill Clinton's cock and cut the balls off the IRA." He pointed to the gate. "Now open that gate and let us through."

The CBP cop was in his mid-thirties. Not exactly an old salt, but experienced enough to know that his union contract didn't require him to take this kind of shit from another fed-eral bureaucrat. "Sir, someone called the central office and said one of the bridges was going to be blown up. Protocol demands that we-"

"One of the bridges?" Jones shouted. "You mean you don't even know which bridge was threatened?" When the man didn't answer, Jones berated him some more. "So for all you know it could be one of the other three bridges. Or none of the bridges. Is that right?"

The officer reached for the microphone clipped to his shirt. "Sir, if you want, I can call my supervisor here and you can discuss bomb threat protocols with her."

Gavin dragged Jones back to the Suburban before he got them both arrested. "What the fuck are you doing?" he said once they were both back in their seats with the doors closed and the windows up.

"Trying to get us across that bridge."

"You do realize those credentials you're so fond of flashing around are fake, right?"

"And that idiot knows the difference?"

"He's just doing his job."

"And I'm trying to do mine."

"I understood this was supposed to be a covert mis-sion," Gavin said.

"What's your point?"

"That throwing down with Border Protection isn't very smart."

"You think it's a coincidence the bridges are closed?" Jones snapped. "Right now, after Greene hopped a train back across the border?"

Gavin pointed at the gate. "You think he did this?"

"Of course, he did," Jones said. "Every time we turn around the son of a bitch is one step ahead of us."

"If you're right," Gavin said, "he's a lot more than one step ahead this time."

Jones took a deep breath and seemed to get control of himself. Like a switch had flipped inside his head. "What's the status on the helicopter?"

"Spinning up right now with my best man onboard to quarterback."

"Ground support?"

"Two four-man teams." Gavin pointed to Jones's iPad. "With you on the tracker and me handling comms, this time we're going to nail his ass to the wall."

Jones nodded. "And while all this action is going on across the river, what are we supposed to do?"

Gavin smiled. "Wait for the bridge to open."

Scott bailed off the flatcar first. They were on the north side of Nuevo Laredo, and the train was lumbering through a curve at about twenty-five miles an hour. Scott jumped to-ward the outside of the turn so the engineer wouldn't see him. Despite what Benny had said, he still had trouble be-lieving that the engineer didn't care at all who got on and off his train.

Scott tucked and rolled as best he could, clinched his teeth, and wrapped his arms around his head, but the ground was hard-packed dirt and rocks and it hurt. When he finished rolling, Scott looked up just in time to see Benny leap off the train. She hit hard and for a minute he was afraid she'd broken her neck. Then he saw her moving.

Scott stood up and his knee almost gave out. He'd wrenched it when he hit the ground. He tried to walk it off, but it still hurt. When Benny stood up, she had grass and dirt stuck to her face and in her hair. Scott laughed.

She glared at him. "What?"

"I like your camouflage."

She brushed off her face and ran her fingers through her thick black hair. Then she said something in Spanish and aimed her middle finger at him. He didn't need a translation.

Scott watched the train rumble and clank its way down the tracks. "I still can't believe no one stopped us at the bor-der."

"Your government doesn't care what goes into Mexico," she said. "Only what comes out."

"What about your government?"

"They don't care either way. As long as they get paid."

Scott glanced around. "Which way?"

She pointed south and they started walking. Scott's knee still hurt. "How far to the market?" he asked.

"Two or three miles."

"Any taxis out here?"

"No," she said.

They kept walking.

* * * *

It turned out they only had to walk a mile before Scott was able to flag down a taxi. They rode the rest of the way in a hot, dusty Toyota with no AC and Mariachi music blar-ing from an old portable cassette player wedged between the dashboard and the windshield.

The Zaragoza Mercado was a sprawling open-air market: a hodgepodge of tents, stalls, and trailers, jammed together to form a crosshatch of narrow, twisting aisles, all teeming with shoppers. At the edge of the market, Scott saw an old man with skin like dried leather unloading crates of vegeta-bles from a donkey cart.

Benny smiled when she saw the market. It was clear she had fond memories of this place. Scott hated to interrupt them. But duty called. "Where are you supposed to meet them?" he asked.

"There was a stall." She pointed a hesitant finger. "That way. I think. Where tío used to buy me cookies."

"You think it's still there?"

"That was a long time ago," Benny said. "But even if it's not there anymore, tío and Rosalita will be close by."

They entered the mercado and walked past dozens of vendors hawking leather goods, clothes, hats, dishes, tools, furniture, meat and fish, fresh produce, natural remedies to a variety of ailments, including impotence and infertility, beer, and tequila. Lots of tequila. Somewhere in the middle of the market, Benny hesitated at the intersection of a pair of me-andering aisles. She glanced back and forth.

"What's wrong?" Scott asked.

"I'm not sure which..."

A steady throb, like a distant drumbeat, reached Scott's ears, but the market pressed in so close on all sides that he couldn't tell from which direction the sound came. He stepped into the middle of the intersection and scanned what he could see of the sky. Then he saw it. Half a mile out to his right, a Black Hawk helicopter at a thousand feet and flying straight toward them.

Benny saw it too. "How did they find us?"

Scott took Benny's hand and turned down the aisle that ran perpendicular to the direction of the helicopter. And froze. Ahead of them, he caught a glimpse of a black Chev-rolet Suburban cruising the outer edge of the market. They had already been boxed in. There was nowhere they could run and not be seen by either the men in the helicopter or in the Suburban. But if they couldn't run, maybe they could walk. Maybe they could get lost in the crowd.

They strolled down another aisle, careful not to outpace the other shoppers. Soon they passed an old man with a table full of hats for sale. Scott dropped an American twenty on the table and picked up a traditional Mexican straw sombre-ro, with a conical crown and a wide brim that curved upward at the edge. He put the hat on while they walked.

The helicopter was behind them, getting louder and closer. They reached a wide aisle that ran through the center of the market. It was more of a service lane and wide enough for a car or a small truck. They turned right and kept moving, still maintaining a leisurely pace. Fifty yards later, an identical service lane crossed the one they were on. The intersection formed a small circular plaza in the center of the market. Food vendors ringed the plaza.

Straight ahead, at the far end of the service lane, Scott saw another black Suburban turn into the market, heading toward them and accelerating. The lane was barely wide enough for the big American SUV, and people jumped out of its way. Several women screamed and some of the bolder men threw things at the Suburban.

Scott angled Benny toward a nearby bench.

"You want to sit down?" Benny said, surprised. "Now?"

He took a seat and pulled her close beside him, close enough so that her face was under the brim of his sombrero.

* * * *

Marcus stood in the open side doorway of the Black Hawk, hanging onto a nylon strap with one hand and press-ing a pair of Canon 12x36 image-stabilization binoculars against his eyes with the other, scanning the Zaragoza Mer-cado for his targets. He could see the two Chevy Suburbans prowling the market, each leaving a throng of angry people in its wake.

"Have you found them yet," Jones barked into Marcus's headset.

"Still looking," Marcus said.

"For fuck's sake," Jones said, "how hard can it be to find one goddamned American in a market full of Mexi-cans?"

"Harder than you might think, especially from a thou-sand feet," Marcus said. "If you can do better, you're wel-come to come up here and take over." He knew he was go-ing to catch hell from Gavin for the crack, but he didn't care. He was sick of that CIA pogue.

"At ease with that," Gavin cut in. "Stick to the mis-sion."

"What is the mission?" Marcus asked. "Are we here for a pickup or a cancellation?"

Gavin looked at Jones. They were still sitting at the World Trade Bridge, in the OFFICIAL USE ONLY lane. Waiting. ATF agents with bomb-sniffing dogs were searching the bridge. "You heard him," Gavin said. "What's the mission?"

"I heard him," Jones said. "And I'm surprised a man with your resume tolerates such insubordination."

"It wasn't aimed at me."

"But he is your subordinate."

"He's a good man," Gavin said. "He's just frustrated. A feeling I share."

Jones didn't say anything. Just stared at Gavin, not even blinking. Like some kind of reptile. He was starting to creep Gavin out. "I need an answer," Gavin said.

"Recovering the video at this point is not as important as removing Greene from the equation," Jones said. "Even if the video gets out, without him to push the story, we can control it."

"Control it how?"

"We leak that the meeting was part of an undercover operation targeting the Sinaloa cartel. That way we're con-trolling the narrative by providing context."

Gavin nodded. "That's not bad."

"What I love about the American public," Jones said, "and one of the things that makes my job a little easier, is they are so easy to manipulate. Your average American will believe anything he or she sees on television or on the Inter-net, no matter how absurd and no matter how much it con-tradicts what that person already believes."

Speaking of manipulation, Gavin thought. Who uses phrases like remove from the equation? Typical CIA double-speak is what it was, purposely vague, intentionally as clear as mud. Even now, the man who was calling himself Jones and whom Gavin was sure he would never see again, espe-cially if this op went sideways, simply could not bring him-self to issue clear, concise instructions. He wanted Greene dead, but he wouldn't say it. Fuck that. Gavin was going to make him say it. "So the mission is what...exactly?"

"Remove Greene-"

"From the equation," Gavin interrupted. "You said that, but I want to know right here, right now, are you ordering us to kill Greene and not bother trying to recover the video?"