Ghost Sniper: A Sniper Elite Novel (27 page)

71

TIJUANA

12:30 HOURS

Mariana stood outside the door to her motel room, watching as the twins’ sheet-covered bodies were loaded into an ambulance. She didn’t know who had discovered them, and she didn’t ask, but she knew from overhearing the police that they believed the girls to be prostitutes, robbed and murdered by a client wielding a hammer. The forensics people had taken the sisters’ fingerprints, expecting them to match up with those from another grisly murder scene a few miles away.

Mariana doubted there would be a match, as the twins had never mentioned killing Villalobos.

The police questioned her briefly, and she denied knowing anything, but she knew it had to have been Fields.

Her cab ride to meet Jessup for lunch was not a pleasant one. She glanced out the back window to see Fields following in his blue sedan. There were two Mexican men in the car with him, and now
that he’d taken both of her phones, she had no way of calling Crosswhite or Midori or even Castañeda for support. She decided to keep a hard-copy list of every phone number in the future, but now that Fields had let slip the name Hancock, she didn’t think he had any intention of allowing her to live.

Her urge to run to the US Consulate was strong, but there would be no real protection for her there. Consulates were not embassies. They were not in place to serve US citizens abroad. Their primary function was to provide visa services to foreign nationals. Any services they provided to American nationals were treated as courtesies rather than as any sort of US citizens’ rights. And once Mariana was finally admitted into the secure facility—which would probably take at least a couple of hours due to her lack of identification—there would be no leaving again until and unless they allowed her to leave. Pope would know within an hour of her arrival at the facility, and there was no way to predict how he might react. She now believed he had ordered Downly’s assassination, and for all she knew, he would advise the consulate general of Tijuana to treat her as a fugitive—or, worse, a potential terrorist.

Realizing that the US Consulate building could all too easily become a prison, she decided she was safer on the street, where she could at least move around.

She arrived at the restaurant to find Billy Jessup waiting for her at the bar.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “You look worried.”

Survival instinct kicked in. “I’m in trouble.” After all, Jessup was a man and, in a bizarre way, the closest thing to a friend she had at the moment.

“What kind of trouble?”

“I’m being followed. I think they’re looking to kill us both.”

He glanced at the entrance. “Out front?”

“Yeah. Blue car.”

He took her hand. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

Jessup led her into the back through the kitchen.

“Hey, you can’t pass through here!” said a kitchen worker, attempting to block their way.

“Go fuck yourself,” Jessup muttered, shoving him aside and leading Mariana out the back door. Ducking into the alley, they didn’t make it three steps before they were caught in a cross fire: Fito and Memo firing Taser guns from behind adjacent dumpsters.

Mariana was hit in the neck with close to 40,000 volts at 25 watts; Jessup, in the shoulder. They went down convulsing as Fields pulled up in the car. They were both zapped again and dumped into the trunk.

Twenty minutes later, they were unloaded at gunpoint behind a dilapidated office building in a deserted section of town. Fields shot Mariana in the leg with a freshly loaded Taser, and she went down again, convulsing on the concrete.

“That’s an attention getter,” he said with a twisted smile.

Jessup stood watching with his hands behind his head, wanting to help, but Fito and Memo were covering him front and back with pistols.

When she recovered well enough to speak, Fields stood over her. “What did Crosswhite and Shannon do with the gold they found in Paris?”

She glared up at him, now sure that he intended to kill her. “I don’t know anything about any gold, you fuck!”

He zapped her again, and she screamed, her bladder finally letting go.

“That’s enough!” Jessup shouted.

Fields glanced at him. “If he says another word, shoot him in the head.”

Fito aimed Villalobos’s silenced pistol at Jessup’s face, and Fields returned his attention to Mariana.

“Crosswhite would not have gone so far off the reservation unless he had money and a plan—not with a wife and a baby on the way. So you’d better tell me what he’s up to, or it’s going to be a very long afternoon for you.”

Mariana was too badly convulsed in that moment to speak, so he stood waiting patiently.

Jessup began to wonder if he was caught up in something to do with the CIA.

Fields knelt down beside her, looking into her wild eyes. “Just breathe,” he said calmly. “We’ve got all day.” He stood back up, taking her satellite phone from the pocket of his overcoat. “I tell you what we’ll try. We’ll give your boyfriend a call and see what he has to say about your little predicament.”

She drew a deep breath, forcing out the words. “He won’t tell you anything. He’ll know it won’t do any good.”

“I think you’re right. I think he’ll let you die. But this way, he’ll know it’s his fault.” Fields stepped on her throat with his shoe to prevent her calling out before he was ready, and she began to strangle.

Crosswhite answered. “Where the hell have you been? Are you okay?”

“I’m a little annoyed at the moment, actually,” Fields said. “How are you?” There was a pregnant pause at Crosswhite’s end. “What, no smartass remark? I’m disappointed in you, Daniel.”

“Where is she?”

“I literally have my foot on her throat. Would you like me to send you a photo?”

“What do you want?”

“First, I want Chance Vaught eliminated. Then you can do me the service of eliminating Rhett Hancock. By now, I’m guessing Ortega has given you that name, so you can go ahead and eliminate Ortega as well.”

The second that Jessup heard Hancock’s name, his mind caught on fire with the flames of betrayal, and he knew that Mariana had set him up.
Bitch!
he thought to himself.

“I’ll take care of Hancock soon enough,” Crosswhite said. “Mariana’s got nothing to do with any of this, so—”

“Lie!” Fields said. “I know all about your arrangements with Castañeda. She’s every bit as involved in this as you are. So dispense
with the bullshit. Is Vaught there with you? Kill him now, or I’ll kill your little sweetheart here.”

“Vaught’s not with me,” Crosswhite said. “The Ruvalcabas have declared war on Toluca PD. They’re moving to take over the city, and Hancock is with them. Before it’s over, I’ll kill him, or he’ll kill me. That’s all I can guarantee. Now, let Mariana go.”

Fields covered the receiver with his hand, saying to Fito, “Kill him.”

Jessup made a break for it, but Fito shot him down before he’d gone ten feet.

Field’s put the phone back to his ear. “Tell me what happened to the gold you and Shannon hid in Paris?”

There came a tired sigh from Crosswhite’s end of the line. “Fields, I know it won’t do any good to tell you this, but every ounce of that gold went to Pope. Now he’s using it to fund the ATRU. By the way: I do have Ortega. If you hurt Marina, I promise you he’ll testify before the Senate subcommittee.”

Fields chortled, grinding his foot against Mariana’s throat to the point that her eyes began to bulge. “You’ll have to bluff harder than that, Daniel. Ortega will never testify truthfully. He’s got way too much to lose, and it would be his word against Pope’s. Who do you think the Senate will believe?”

“Let her go,” Crosswhite said. “That’s the only way we can make a deal.”

Fields put the phone down close to Mariana’s mouth and released the pressure. “Say hello.”

“Dan!” she rasped. “Don’t—!”

He crushed her throat shut again, choking off her warning. “Now, tell me: Does it sound to you like you’re in a position to give me ultimatums?”

“Fields, I’m only gonna warn you once.”

“Warn me what?”

A green 1971 Dodge pickup came skidding around the corner of the building and slid to stop in the gravel. A gringo wearing a tan ball cap jumped out with a 1911 pistol and began firing at the run.

“It’s him!” Fito shouted, returning fire as he dove for cover behind Fields’s car, but Memo was already down and bleeding out.

Fields hauled Mariana to her feet by the hair, using her as a shield as he backed quickly into the building through a broken-out window. She kicked to get free, but she was too weak from electrical shock and strangulation.

The gringo ran low along the wall while Fito’s bullets ricocheted off the concrete above his head. When he heard Fito’s empty magazine clatter to the cement, he charged at the car and dove across the hood, grabbing Fito’s gun and landing on top of him. He jammed the muzzle of the .45 into Fito’s belly and squeezed the trigger.

Fito squealed like a child, instantly relinquishing his grip on the weapon.

The gringo got to his feet and threw the pistol over a fence, walking around the car and into the building. With the broken glass crunching beneath the heels of his worn cowboy boots, he found Fields hiding in an empty office, holding one of the twin’s straight razors to Mariana’s throat.

The moment Fields saw him, his eyebrows soared in disbelief. “You’re dead!”

Gil Shannon pointed the 1911 into his face, his chiseled visage set. “Not hardly. Drop the razor and let go of her.”

Fields did as he said, and Mariana stumbled away, sliding down the wall, rasping for air.

Gil shot Fields in both knees.

Fields collapsed, wrapping his arms around his legs and gnashing his teeth in pain.

Gil reloaded the weapon and crouched beside him, saying in a calm voice: “Operation One-Way Trip. China Mission, September 2005. You ordered three Vietnamese agents murdered after my extraction. Why?”

“Go fuck yourself!” Fields grunted, in more pain than he’d ever known.

Gil shot him in the foot, and Fields writhed around in even more
agony, calling him filthy names. After giving him a minute to shout himself calm, Gil repeated the question.

“Just kill me!” Fields sneered. “Kill me, you fucking bastard!”

“I will when I’m ready,” Gil said quietly, aiming at the other foot. “Tell me why.”

“It was a closed operation, you motherfucker! You know what that means:
no fucking witnesses
!
”

“Who gave the order?”

“It was Pope’s operation! He gave the orders, and I saw to it they were carried out! Now
fuck
you
!
”

“You slipped up,” Gil said. “One of the agents survived, and he gave me your fucking name.” He stood up and shot Fields dead. “Now reap the whirlwind.”

He went to Mariana, who lay against the wall, crouching down to help her sit up and using a finger to gently push the hair from her face. “You okay?”

She nodded, gripping her shoulders against the ache left over from the violent muscle contractions. “How are you alive?” she asked. “Even Pope thinks you’re dead.”

“I learned to fly recently.” He lifted her from the floor. “Still workin’ on my landings, though.”

She slid an arm around his neck, resting her head against his shoulder as he carried her out to the truck. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Midori hijacked one of Pope’s surveillance drones last night when Crosswhite couldn’t reach you. She’s been watching you ever since. I was arriving at the airport when she saw you being stuffed into a trunk. She vectored me in by phone.”

She looked at him. “Does Dan know you’re alive?”

“Only you and Midori. And that’s how it has to stay.”

“For how long?”

He opened the squeaky door of the truck and set her down on the passenger side. “Forever.”

“My passport,” she said, pointing at Fields’s car. “He has my phones and my passport.”

Gil retrieved her belongings and then ducked through a hole in the fence, finding the silenced pistol and wiping off his fingerprints before tossing it into a pile of garbage.

A couple of miles into their trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mariana felt well enough to carry on a conversation. “Can I ask you something?”

He glanced at her, one hand dipped over the wheel as they rattled along. “Shoot.”

“How much gold did you two hide from Pope?”

“Is that what Dan told you—We took gold?”

“No, he denies it, but nothing else explains the way you two are acting.”

Gil seemed to give it some thought before deciding how to answer. “Can you see me and Crosswhite fencing gold bullion on the black market without Pope catching us?”

“I guess not,” she admitted. “Not if you put it that way. But tell me what’s going on. Why was Fields so convinced?”

“Hold the wheel a minute.” She held the wheel while he lit a cigarette with a match. “Lost my lighter in China.” He tossed the match, still smoking, onto the dust-covered dashboard. “We found six million in Swedish bearer bonds in the same storage container and walked out with them under our jackets.”

A smile spread across her face. “The perfect crime; totally untraceable.”

He exhaled smoke. “Pope was so busy brokering the gold over next few weeks, he never even noticed our trip to the Caymans.”

“When did you first start to lose faith?”

“Crosswhite lost his after Earnest Endeavor. I didn’t lose mine until Pope left me hanging in Lichtenstein. The Russian mob moved right into the same hotel I was staying at. He missed it, and I damn near bought it. That’s when I realized his mind was on much bigger things than me. The old Pope would never have made that mistake.”

“So what now?”

“Now . . .” He took a drag from the cigarette. “Now we get Pope to appoint you Mexico chief of station.”

She gaped at him. “Are you high?”

“What’s wrong? You don’t want the job?”

She sat up in the seat. “Want the job? How are we going to get him to give it to me?”

“We won’t leave him any choice.”

“What about Dan?”

Gil shrugged. “What about him?”

“He was counting on your help with the sniper.”