Ghost Sniper (11 page)

23

BERN, SWITZERLAND

02:00 HOURS

Gil stood in the dark, staring down at the snowy street beneath the window of Lena's bedroom. He was thinking of his wife back in Montana and how much he missed her, but something within him was changing. Or had it changed already? All he knew for sure was that he no longer wanted to go home; no longer wanted the calm ranch life he had once loved. He felt like a shark now—a shark that would drown if it ever dared to stop swimming.

“Come back to bed,” Lena said, naked beneath the blanket. “No one is going to come after you here. You're safe with me.”

He turned to look at her, his heart breaking, eyes welling with tears. “I can never go back, Lena. The life I had with Marie, it—it slipped through my fingers somehow.”

“I'm sorry, Gil, but whatever else the past is . . . it's gone.”

He sank into the chair, putting his head into his hands, and began to weep for the first time in many years.

Lena slid from the bed and went to his side, caressing him as she stared out the window, knowing the cry would be good for him; that he would be stronger for it. She understood that men who killed for a living carried demons, and that the only way to exorcise such demons was to let them out. Too many men were not strong enough to let them go, but Gil seemed to possess that strength, and this gave her a certain hope that he might survive.

After a short time, he went into the bathroom and took a shower, returning to lie beside her on the bed, touching her soft blond hair, kissing the nape of her neck. “Sorry about that.”

She turned into him. “There's nothing to be sorry for. How do you feel?”

“Better,” he said quietly.

“Good.”

They hadn't been asleep long when the phone rang. Lena answered. “Hello?”

“You need to let him go, Lena.” It was Blickensderfer, and she could tell that he was very drunk. “I understand that he's a fun new toy for you, but you need to let him go.”

“Sabastian, it's very late. We can talk tomorrow when you're sober.”

“The Russians are going to kill him,” Blickensderfer went on, his words slurring slightly. “You know that I can't protect you. You have to let the man go.”

“I don't have to do anything. Don't call me late at night anymore, and don't call if you've been drinking.” She hung up the phone and laid back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

Gil raised up, seeing her clearly by the light of the window. “What did he say?”

“He said I need to let you go—that he can't protect me.”

He leapt out of bed. “Get dressed!”

She sat up. “Gil, it's okay. He's just drunk.”

He stood looking at her. “We have go—now!”

“No, Gil. We don't have to go. We're not in Baghdad. Come back to bed. No one will attack my house. This is Switzerland, not Iraq.”

He stood on uncertain footing, knowing they should leave but at the same knowing how silly he must have appeared. He glanced warily out the window, his ears tuned for danger—hearing nothing.

“Gil,” she said softly. “No one is coming. You're safe.”

“I need a gun,” he said.

“Tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll find a gun. Tonight come to bed.”

He got into bed and pulled up the blanket. “I'm not used to living in the city.”

She wrapped herself around him. “What you're not used to is no one trying to kill you.”

24

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

23:40 HOURS

With the moon on the rise, Vaught and Paolina were still stranded on the streets of Mexico City, where they found themselves unable to abandon the dozens of motorists injured in the smashup. The tunnel fire had burned itself out, but only the very worst of the injured had been taken away in a pair of ambulances. The rest were still on the scene, with no professional medical personnel to look after them. The city's emergency services were stretched beyond capacity, and it was easy to imagine that it might be days before the ambulances returned.

Initially, Vaught had insisted that they get back on the move for Toluca, knowing Crosswhite would be worried about his family, but Paolina refused, contending that their help was badly needed there and that Toluca was too far to walk anyway. Very few civilians had remained on the scene after the ambulances had first
arrived, most of them fleeing homeward to check on their own families.

Cellular service was knocked out along with electrical power to that part of the city, so without the moonlight, it would have been dangerously dark. Sirens wailed far in the distance where damage to the city had been worse, and flashlights bobbed in the darkness along the street. Many of the burn victims were moaning, and a few children were crying. The cab driver was in great pain, but he was so thankful to have been saved from the burning taxi that he barely complained at all.

Local shopkeepers had donated a limited supply of food and bottled water early on, so there had at least been something to eat before it got dark.

Valencia had found a Rottweiler puppy to play with, so she was content for the moment, but Vaught had no idea where the animal had come from.

He was well aware that this would be a good time to make a break for the US Embassy, confident that none of Serrano's people would be watching now that the city had been ripped asunder, but the idea was a nonstarter. He couldn't abandon a pregnant woman in the midst of such chaos any more than he could abandon the crash victims, now that he'd taken responsibility for them.

“This is bullshit,” he muttered in English, and felt a little better about it.

“Do you have a signal yet?” Paolina asked, standing beside him with a bottle of water.

He checked his phone and shook his head. “It could be weeks before they get service restored.”

“I need to find a blanket for Valencia. It's getting cold.”

“Stay here with the others,” he told her. “I don't want you wandering off in the dark.”

He set off across the street, where he saw a light on in one of the local shops. As he drew closer, he could hear the hum of a generator.

“Hello,” he said through the locked gate.

A man in his twenties appeared from the back clutching a pistol. “What do you want?”

“Do you have a blanket I can buy?”

The man went into the back and returned a minute later with a beat-up brown blanket. “Two hundred pesos.” Approximately thirteen dollars.

Vaught could see the blanket wasn't worth five bucks, but he was dealing with profiteering now, and he knew it, so he didn't complain. He took the bill from his wallet and handed it over. The second he took possession of the blanket, he could smell that it had been taken from a dog's bed.

He returned to the crash scene and gave it to Paolina. “It's not the best, but it will keep her warm.”

“It stinks!” she said.

“Paolina, there's not exactly a lot I can do about it. We have to make do. Give the Red Cross time to show up.”

She made a
pffft
sound and knelt to wrap the blanket around Valencia's shoulders.

Valencia said the puppy was hungry and asked if there was any food for him.

“He'll be okay,” Vaught said compassionately. “We'll get him some food in the morning.”

“Can you go back over there and buy us something to eat?” Paolina said. “I don't think those other people are going to bring us any more.”

“I'd rather not go back over there,” he said.

“But it's the only shop with a light on.”

“I know, but the guy has a gun, and he's not very friendly. Besides, he's gonna charge five times what the food is worth, and we—”

“You're worried about money?”

“No. I'm worried about the gun. It's not a gun he got legally, so he's probably a professional criminal, and we don't need trouble.”

She let out a frustrated sigh and sat down beside her daughter.

“Hey, you know what, Paolina? The earthquake isn't my fault.”

“No,” she said, looking up at him. “It's your fault we're not at home now with my husband where we belong.”

“Yeah? How do you know your house didn't cave in? You might have been killed, for all you know.”

She pulled Valencia close. “Leave me in peace, Chance.”

“Mommy, this blanket smells bad.”

“I know, baby, but it's the only one Chance could find. We'll get a clean one tomorrow.”

Vaught picked up a jug of water and went to check on the burn victims. One of the women was burned badly on her arms and hands, but there had been no more room in either of the ambulances. She was sitting against a tree in the median, and though she was in a good deal of pain, she was bearing it like a stoic.

“Do you have any aspirin?” she asked. “Anything for pain?”

Vaught remembered seeing boxes of aspirin in the glass case in the shop across the street. “I'll see if I can get some.”

He gave the others some water and then went back to Paolina. “I'm going to buy these people some aspirin.”

“What about the guy with the gun?”

He dropped the water jug beside her. “I thought you didn't care about him.”

“Just be careful,” she said quietly.

“How sweet,” he muttered, walking off.

Vaught stepped up to the gate again and called inside. This time an older, meaner-looking guy came out of the back.

“What do you need?”

“Two boxes of aspirin,” Vaught said. “We've got a lot of injured people across the street there. A lot of them are burned. And three loaves of bread.”

The man set the stuff on the shelf attached to the cage door. “Five hundred pesos.” This was a little over thirty dollars.

Vaught was tired and annoyed, so he wasn't as accepting of the situation as he should have been. “Do you have to take advantage like that? I told you there's a lot of people hurt over there. The other shopkeepers were very generous.”

The guy crossed his arms and stared at Vaught. When he did this, his shirt rode up, exposing another pistol tucked into his belly.

Vaught put the bill on the shelf. The guy took it and shoved the stuff through the opening in the cage.

25

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

08:00 HOURS

The next morning, Vaught was helping a burn victim to drink water from a bottle, when he looked up to see the mean-looking fellow from the night before coming across the street. It was obvious the guy still had the pistol tucked into the front of his pants and that his mood had not improved. He stalked over to Valencia and said something to her in a harsh tone. The little girl stood staring up at him with the puppy in her arms, and Paolina got between them, telling the man to leave her daughter alone.

Vaught stepped over quickly. “What's the problem, amigo?”

“That's my dog!” the man said, pointing at the Rottweiler pup.

“Well, it showed up here last night,” Vaught said. “We didn't know whose it was.”

“It's mine!”

“Okay. No problem.” Vaught turned to Valencia. “Sweetheart, we have to give the puppy to this man so he can take him to his mama.”

Valencia began to cry, and Vaught knelt down. “It's okay, sweetheart. The puppy needs his mama.”

Valencia clutched the puppy to her and began to sob into its fur.

Her sadness affecting him, Vaught looked up at the guy. “Can I buy the dog?”

The guy scowled at him. “Six thousand pesos.” This was almost five hundred dollars.

“I know that's a fair price, amigo, but I don't have that much cash on me. Can you take three thousand?”

“No.”

Vaught turned back to Valencia. “We'll let him take the puppy home, but we'll come back tomorrow to buy him. How's that sound?”

Valencia was not stupid. She knew that to relinquish the dog meant never seeing it again. She continued to weep as Vaught began to gently manipulate the dog from her arms.

At the last second, Valencia redoubled her hold on the animal. Her intention was only to give the puppy a kiss good-bye, but the dog's owner saw this as an attempt to take back the dog, and he lost his patience.

He grabbed Valencia by the arm. “Give me the damn dog!”

Paolina instantly grabbed the collar of the guy's shirt. “Don't touch my daughter!”

The guy shoved Paolina away. She stumbled backward over a tree root and fell to the ground. Valencia screamed.

Vaught stood up, a wild look in his eyes.

The owner of the dog panicked and went for his gun, but before he could get his hand beneath his shirt, Vaught had him by the throat. The two were of equal size and strength, but Vaught knew a lot more about balance and leverage. He took the man down easily, planting him solidly on his back in the median and knocking the air from his lungs.

He snatched the 9 mm Beretta from the guy's pants and quickly hid the pistol in the small of his back, turning to help Paolina to her feet.

The guy lay on his back, gasping for air, struggling to get up.

Vaught knelt beside Valencia and gently took the dog away from her. “We have to give the dog back right now, honey, before someone gets hurt.”

He stood up with the dog in one hand and was reaching to help the owner to his feet, when he saw the younger shopkeeper running across the street with his pistol thrust before him.

“Aw, shit!” Vaught hissed, dropping the puppy and grabbing the pistol. “Paolina, get down!”

Paolina leapt on Valencia, covering her with her body as Vaught opened fire on the young man coming at them. He fired twice, aiming low to hit the boy in the legs, and the kid went down, his pistol skidding across the pavement.

Vaught ran into the street and kicked the pistol away before the boy could get his hands on it.

“Fuck you!” the young man sneered as Vaught grabbed him by the shirt to drag him out of the street.

“Shut up!” Vaught said, giving him a kick to the face. “Don't open your mouth again!” He spun around to aim the pistol at the older guy, who was finally getting his feet beneath him. “Sit back down—
now
!”

The man did as he was told, and Vaught gave the kid a kick in the ass to send him crawling. “If you either one of you tries anything stupid, I'll shoot you both!”

A small crowd was gathering, and Vaught was in the process of assessing how much danger he was in, when a pair of Mexican army J8 model Jeeps rolled up, each vehicle loaded with four soldiers and equipped with a turret-mounted .30 caliber machine gun. Both machine guns were aimed directly at Vaught.

He dropped the pistol and put up his hands. “Where the fuck were you guys last night? The tunnel's burned out, and we have a lot of injured people here!”

A lieutenant climbed out of one of the J8s and walked over, picking up the pistols from the ground. The name tag on his uniform said
“Lieutenant R. Felix.” He looked over the injured motorists and then gestured with the pistols. “What's happening here?”

Vaught nodded toward the men sitting on the ground.
“Estan abusando de la necesidad de la gente.”
These guys are profiteering.

Recognizing Vaught's accented Spanish as coming from the United States, Felix glanced down at the kid bleeding from his knees and stood tapping the pistols against his legs. “For that you shoot them?”

“I shot him because he was going to shoot me”—he nodded at the Rottweiler puppy—“over a dog.”

“Whose pistols?” Felix asked.

“Theirs.”

“Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”

Fuck it
, Vaught thought to himself. “My name is Chance Vaught. I'm a foreign agent working with the Policia Federal Ministerial. Agent Mendoza is my commander here in the city.”

The lieutenant glanced around again at the injured people staring back at him. He pointed at the dog's owners with one of the pistols. “Did these men start the trouble?”

Everyone confirmed that Vaught was telling the truth and that he had cared for them during the night. Felix then ordered both dog men taken into custody and walked Vaught out into the street, questioning him vigorously about his connection to the PFM. Eventually he forced the American to come completely clean in order to avoid being arrested himself.

At length, Felix seemed satisfied that Vaught was telling the truth. “Where are you going?”

“Toluca.”

“For what?”

“To meet with Chief Juan Guerrero.”

“Why?”

“I honestly don't know,” Vaught said, deciding to make something up. “That's who my commander in the PFM said to go see.”

“I have friends in the Toluca department,” Felix said. “Sergeant Cuevas and I grew up together.”

Vaught shrugged. “I've never heard of him.”

Felix grinned. “You'll be very lucky to survive your mission. Lazaro Serrano is going to be the next president of Mexico.”

Vaught smiled back. “Not if the PFM has anything to say about it.”

The lieutenant chortled, turning for the J8.
“El león cree que todos son de su condición.”
The lion thinks everyone is like him.

“You don't trust the PFM?”

Felix looked back, his eyes shining. “This is Mexico, my friend. All I can tell you for sure is that you are a long way from home. I will call for army ambulances to evacuate these people. Good luck to you.”