Suicide Mission (7 page)

 

He used the burner to call Clark before they got there and found out the address of the place where he needed to go. When he reached 1604, the big outer loop around San Antonio, he took it north to Interstate 10, then cut back toward town and exited on Fredericksburg Road.

As he drove past a Hooters, he glanced over at Catalina, who was still sleeping, and thought about how she would look in one of those little outfits the gals who worked there wore. It made for an intriguing mental image, and he didn't feel guilty for thinking about it. She was a full-grown woman, after all.

But despite her protests, there
was
a certain innocence about her. Sure, she had lived a rough life and probably had done a lot of things nobody would be proud of. Her sins were small ones, though, compared to the sort of things that went on in the world Bill had once inhabited.

And now, evidently, did again.

They hadn't run into any more trouble on the way to San Antonio. Catalina had slept the whole way, the drugged sleep of exhaustion. Bill knew the feeling; he had been there himself from time to time.

He remembered once in South America, in the Mato Grosso, with government troops chasing him from one direction and headhunters from another . . .

He shoved those thoughts away. That was the past. It was all right for a man to dwell on what had been when he didn't have anything in his future to look forward to. Bill wasn't at that point in his life yet.

He drove around northwest San Antonio until night had fallen. He expected Catalina to wake up every time they stopped at a red light, but she continued to sleep. Finally it was dark enough to head for the safe house. When he turned into the right block, he said, “Hey, you still alive over there? Catalina?”

She didn't respond. He took his right hand off the wheel and reached over to nudge her shoulder.

She came awake like a wild animal, instantly alert and ready to fight. Bill hadn't noticed that she'd slipped her hand into her purse before she went to sleep. Now it came out of the bag clutching something as she lunged at him.

His own reactions were still pretty good. His hand flashed up and his fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her movement when the tip of the dagger she held was still a few inches from his throat.

Another split second and the blade would have been in his jugular.

“Whoa there,” Bill said, trying to sound cooler and calmer than he really felt. “Take it easy, Catalina, it's just me, Bill Elliott.”

He didn't let go of her wrist until she said, “Oh, my God, I'm sorry, Bill. I should have warned you . . . Marty knew to always be careful when he woke me up.”

“Are you sayin' you're like this every time somebody interrupts your nap?”

She sat back in the corner of the seat and put the dagger back in her bag. As she used her other hand to rub the wrist he had grabbed, she said, “You get used to people trying to hurt you, you know? And even though you know you're not in danger, when you're asleep you sort of go back to that . . .”

He nodded.

“I understand. And I reckon you
are
in danger, just not from me.”

“I don't have the flash drive anymore. I can't hurt the cartel.”

“They don't know that. And there's a good chance they don't know how much Marty told you. They want to get their hands on you so they can make you talk.”

“And they wouldn't believe me if I told them I don't really know anything except that one phrase.”

“Probably not,” Bill agreed.

“They would torture me, and when they finally decided I was harmless, they would kill me.”

“Yep.”

She drew in a deep breath and blew it out in a sigh. “I thought I had known bad men in the past. But these hombres, they are more than that. They are monsters.”

“You're right about that,” Bill said. He turned in at a driveway that ran beside a sprawling, Spanish-style house that looked like all the other houses in this affluent residential neighborhood. The driveway led to a two-car garage that was connected to the house by an enclosed breezeway. The house was probably sixty or seventy years old. It had the look of the postwar housing boom to it.

The garage door rose as the pickup approached it. Bill knew the truck had triggered a sensor of some sort. He drove into the darkened garage. The door rumbled down automatically behind them.

A light went on over the door leading to the breezeway. Bill drew the Browning and held it on the seat beside him as a man walked through the breezeway and stepped into the garage.

He was a medium-sized, balding man, with lean, alert features. The hair he had left was a nondescript brown. He wore khaki trousers and a polo shirt and looked like an insurance salesman who ought to be on a suburban golf course somewhere, playing eighteen holes with his friends.

With a smile on his face, he said, “All clear, Bill.”

Bill opened the pickup door and slid out.

“Clark,” he said. “You didn't tell me you were gonna be here to meet me.”

“I figured you'd find out soon enough.” Clark looked past Bill into the front seat of the pickup. “I take it that's Miss Ramos?”

“Señorita Ramos, if you want to be accurate about it,” Bill drawled. He put his gun away. He trusted Clark as much as he trusted most men, and more than any of the other spooks he had worked with. They had been in some tight spots together, and Clark had never let him down.

Clark stepped over to the open driver's door of the pickup and said, “Señorita Ramos, let me welcome you to San Antonio. Don't worry, you'll be safe here. We have our agents blanketing the whole neighborhood. This house belongs to an agency of the United States government, and we've used it to shelter people like you before.”

“People like me,” Catalina repeated. “You mean Mexican strippers and whores?”

“People with whom we have common enemies,” Clark said, as unflappable as ever. “People who are in danger. People we want to help.”

“People who have something you want,” Catalina said.

Clark shrugged.

“Sometimes.”

Catalina pointed at Bill and said, “He has it. I already gave it to him. Do you still want to help me?”

Before Clark could answer, Bill said, “Could we go inside to have this discussion? It's been a long day. When I got up this morning, I was still retired, and now I'm not anymore.”

“That's up to you,” Clark said. “You've done your job. You're free to go anytime you want, Bill.”

“I'm a mite curious. I'd sort of like to know what this is all about and what makes El Nuevo Sol important enough to be worth killin' over.”

“Well, then, let's go on inside, sit down, and have a talk,” Clark suggested.

Bill looked at Catalina, who was still sitting in the pickup. He nodded to let her know it was all right to get out. Once again he waited to see whether or not she was going to trust him.

After a moment she opened the door and stepped out of the truck.

Clark led the way into the house, where several men wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns waited in the living room that had been turned into a command center. Another man monitored feeds from cameras concealed around the neighborhood. A man and two women worked at computer stations. All the activity looked a little out of place in the comfortably furnished house, which, although there was no visible evidence of it, was armored and secure enough to withstand anything short of a direct bomb hit.

“Would you like something to eat?” Clark asked. He gestured through an arched entrance into a genteel dining room where thick drapes were drawn over the windows.

“All I've had today is a bottle of water and a candy bar,” Catalina said. “I'd love something to eat.”

“We'll take care of that right away. Why don't you go ahead and sit down?”

“First, where's the ladies' room?”

Clark pointed out a door. Catalina vanished through it.

“She can't get out of there, can she?” Bill asked.

“What, after everything you've gone through, you think she might cut and run?”

“It's not likely,” Bill said, “but I've already been around her enough to know she can do some unexpected things.”

“Well, you don't have to worry. Unless she's got an industrial strength laser in her pocket, she's not going anywhere. And as tight as those jeans are, I don't think that's likely.”

“Noticed that, did you? About the jeans, I mean?”

“I'm married,” Clark said as he held up his left hand and wiggled the ring finger. “But I wasn't struck blind at the ceremony.”

“I'm hungry, too. Reckon you can rustle up enough grub for me?”

“Why, sure, cowboy. But first . . .” Clark held out his hand. “The young lady said you have something for us?”

Bill took the flash drive from his shirt pocket and dropped it into Clark's palm.

“You can get those tech wizards of yours to work on it.”

“You have any idea what they'll be looking for?”

“Not a damn clue, except that the phrase
El Nuevo Sol
seems to be important to everybody.”

“That means ‘the New Sun,' doesn't it?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that makes no sense. There's only one sun. I mean, there are lots of suns in the universe, but you know what I'm talking about. Only one that means anything to us.”

“Somebody else will have to figure it out,” Bill said. “I'm just a hired gun hand.”

“And a damn good one.” Clark frowned. “I hear you shot up half of Del Rio. Seven men are dead back there. It's lucky for you they all had ties to the cartel and weren't innocent bystanders.”

“I tried to be careful. Of course, with that much lead flyin' around, there's only so much you can do . . .”

Catalina came back from the bathroom. She said, “I hope you can get me some clean clothes. I'd love to take a shower, but I don't want to put these things back on.”

“We have everything you need,” Clark assured her. “Now let's get you something to eat.”

They sat down in the dining room to thick sandwiches and salads and big glasses of iced tea. There was nothing dainty about the way Catalina ate, which didn't surprise Bill. She was a big, athletic girl, so it made sense she would have a good appetite, especially after being on the run for so long and not being able to eat much.

Clark disappeared, and Bill figured he was supervising the effort to extract the intel from the flash drive. There was no telling how long that would take. It would all depend on how heavily encrypted the data was and how long it took to break through that encryption. Luckily, Clark had some of the best computer people in the world at his disposal, not just here on the ground in San Antonio but back in Virginia and in other places around the globe. This day and age, the way everything was connected, distances didn't mean much anymore.

“How long will I have to stay here?” Catalina asked while they were eating.

“Don't know,” Bill said. “I guess that'll depend on what they find out.”

“Will I be put in the, what do you call it, witness protection program?”

“That's not my call. Might be some diplomatic problems if they did that. You're a Mexican national, right?”

“Yes.”

“If your government finds out that we've got you, they're liable to demand that we give you back. You could be the cause of an international incident.”

Catalina grimaced and said, “If you turn me over to the Mexican government, you might as well be turning me over to the cartel. There's not much difference in the two anymore.”

“Well, that'll all get worked out,” Bill said, knowing that in the end it might not work out to Catalina's satisfaction . . . or to anyone else's, including his. But like he had told her, he didn't make the decisions.

They had finished the meal but were still sitting at the dining room table when Clark came back into the room. Bill knew instantly that something was up. Clark never lost his calm demeanor, but he looked like he was about to now.

Bill got to his feet. So did Catalina. Bill said, “You found out something from that flash drive?”

“We did,” Clark said. “There were a lot of emails on there, all in code, of course, but our people broke it. The cartel has teamed up with a Middle Eastern terror organization, Bill. They've set up a training camp in Mexico. Basic training for terrorists that the cartel will smuggle across the border posing as Mexican illegals.”

“They've been doin' that for awhile, haven't they?”

“Yeah, but from the sound of the emails, they're expanding the operation.” Wearily, Clark scrubbed a hand over his face. “That's not the worst of it, though, at least not in the short run.”

Almost wishing he didn't want to know, Bill asked, “What's the worst of it?”

“They've got a suitcase nuke, and they're planning to set it off in downtown San Antonio, right in front of the Alamo.”

 

The motel sat alongside the interstate, part of a long string of similar motels, car dealerships, and shopping centers. It was owned and operated by one of Tariq's countrymen who had immigrated to the United States more than twenty years earlier.

The man might have had a suspicion that Tariq was more than he seemed, but nothing of the sort was spoken. Tariq knew that the proprietor still had relatives back home and would have threatened them if he had to, but it wasn't necessary. The man did everything he could to be helpful. He had two rooms ready, one for Tariq . . .

The other for Alfredo Sanchez.

Tariq wasn't happy about the man coming along, but Sanchez had insisted. He wanted to make sure everything went according to plan, or so he said.

Of course, when the time came for the New Sun to rise, Sanchez would be far away, well out of the blast radius. Tariq knew and accepted that. He didn't expect Sanchez to sacrifice his own life. The man was a mercenary, not a true believer. Sanchez's only true allegiance was to his own profit and power.

And as such, not even his assistance in furthering the cause of Islam would keep him from going straight to hell when his time came.

The two rooms were next to each other, adjoining, in fact. Tariq parked the car in front of the door to his room. The device was in the trunk, and it would stay there, perfectly harmless with the detonator deactivated, until Tariq activated it and set it off at high noon the next day. He would park as close to the Alamo as he could, then walk to the plaza in front of the old building, stand for a moment watching the ebb and flow of the godless Americans around him, then take out his cell phone and punch in the fateful numbers.

That was all it would take to wipe downtown San Antonio off the map and resume the sacred task of punishing the Americans for their unholy ways.

Tariq knew about the Alamo. He had forced himself to watch the movie starring the imperialist infidel warmonger John Wayne. He knew the old building was a shrine of sorts . . . a shrine to evil and corruption. Tariq would go to his death gladly, knowing that it would be blasted to atoms, knowing as well that he would be striking a blow into the heart of the weak, crippled giant America had allowed itself to become.

“You're sure no one will bother the car?” Sanchez asked as they got out.

“Why would they?” Tariq said. “No one has any reason to suspect us.”

“I'm worried about that damned whore,” Sanchez said.

Tariq shrugged and said, “It is troubling that she got away, but how much could Chavez have told her? Even if he knew anything vital about our plan, why would he trust the information to an immoral woman like that?”

Sanchez snorted, which made a surge of anger go through Tariq.

“When it comes to women, not everyone is as concerned about their morals as you are, my friend. There's no way of knowing what Chavez might have let slip to her. I wish we could have gotten hold of her before we left. Estancia's men could have made her talk.”

“And the man helping her,” Tariq said with a frown, “he must be an American agent of some sort, considering the ease with which he dealt with the men you sent after them.”

“He was lucky,” Sanchez snapped. “They both were.”

Tariq didn't say anything. He didn't believe luck had had much to do with Catalina Ramos's escape. The American intelligence community was involved, more than likely, and that did cause worry to nag at the back of his mind.

But before the Americans could figure out what was going on, it would be too late. Downtown San Antonio would be a glowing, smoking pit, obliterated by a new sun that rose at midday.

And Tariq would be in paradise, basking in his reward.

 

 

“A lot of this is reading between the lines and educated guesses made by our analysts,” Clark said as he sat at the dining room table with Bill and Catalina. “We've known for quite some time that there are ties between terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartels. Drug money gets siphoned to the Middle East, and in return the cartels get weapons and other assistance they'd have a hard time getting their hands on otherwise.”

“Like suitcase nukes,” Bill said.

“Exactly. As far as we've been able to determine, the device came from Russia on the black market, brokered through a
Mafiya
with ties to the old KGB and Soviet army. The guy seems to have dropped off the face of the earth a while back, and my hunch is that once the terrorists had what they wanted, they disposed of him to cover their trail.”

“Not very efficiently, if you've already figured that out,” Bill commented.

Clark shrugged and said, “Our people are good at what they do. It doesn't take much for them to spot a pattern. A word here, another there . . . Anyway, one of the terrorists brought the device to Mexico on a ship that docked at Veracruz, then he drove it up to Ciudad Acuña and came across the border there. We have a possible vehicle identified and a partial plate number, and a car we think is the right one came across earlier today. Satellite footage shows it heading for San Antonio.” He clasped his hands together on the table in front of him and sighed. “It's probably already in the city.”

Catalina said, “Wait a minute. Are you saying there's a nuclear bomb here in San Antonio ready to go off?”

“You shouldn't even know about this, Señorita Ramos, but since you're already in the middle of it, I suppose we'll have to trust in your discretion—”

“And in the armed guards all over the place,” she interrupted.

“That, too,” Clark said. “And in answer to your question . . . yes, that appears to be the situation.”

“Then why in God's name aren't you warning everybody and evacuating the city?”

Bill said, “That'd be the worst thing we could do. Chances are, the fella who brought the bomb here plans to trigger it while he's close enough that it'll get him, too. He figures he'll go out in a blaze of glory that'll send him straight to his version of heaven.”

“So if he's already here,” Clark said, “and he realizes that we're aware of the plan, he'll just go ahead and detonate the bomb wherever he is, whether it's downtown or not, rather than take a chance on us finding him and stopping him before he can make his grand gesture.”

Catalina looked back and forth between Bill and Clark and then shook her head.

“That just sounds crazy to me.
Loco
.”

“That's because we're dealin' with a crazy man,” Bill said. “He'd have to be loco to want to murder more than a million innocent people.”

Clark said, “Except to his way of thinking, they're not innocent. They're guilty of being Americans. That's enough of a reason for somebody like that.”

“So if you can't evacuate the city, what can you do?” Catalina asked.

“Find him. Stop him before he gets a chance to set off the bomb.”

“How will you do that?”

Bill said, “You mentioned something about the Alamo . . .”

“We think that's ground zero, according to the plan,” Clark confirmed. “There was a mention of it in the emails, and nothing else makes sense. It's an important symbol, it's right in the middle of downtown, and there'll be a lot of people around it. That makes it a good target.”

“Could be the Mexicans had something to do with that, too,” Bill said. “They tried to take the Alamo back a few years ago, and that didn't work out too well for 'em.”

Clark grimaced and said, “Don't remind me. That whole mess gave the country a black eye. And what did the administration do? Groveled and apologized for a bunch of things that weren't even our fault!”

“Better watch what you say,” Bill warned. “With just one political party runnin' practically the whole shebang now in Washington, you got to toe the line.”

“You know I've always tried to stay apart from politics, Bill. My job is to protect the country, period, no matter who's running it. I'll grant you, it's getting harder and harder to do that with the presidents we keep getting, but I suppose it's what the voters want . . .”

“Yeah, and they'll get what they asked for, one of these days, when everything comes crashin' down. But you're right, we've got a bigger problem right here and now, stoppin' that bomb.”

Catalina said, “I still don't understand what the cartel has to gain from this.”

“If the bomb goes off, it weakens and destabilizes the American government that much more. The economy's on life support already, and it might collapse completely from a terrorist attack of this magnitude. When the economy goes down, the government goes down. Then in the chaos that follows, Mexico can grab Texas and the rest of the southwest and a big chunk of California. Even if the country recovered, it would never be the same.”

A solemn silence hung over the table following Clark's words. Finally, Bill cleared his throat and asked, “What about that terrorist training camp you mentioned?”

“Barranca de la Serpiente. Canyon of the Serpent, or Snake Canyon, to be informal about it. The name is really all we know at this point. We don't have a location on it yet. It's almost like a military base, a joint venture between the terrorists, the cartel, and corrupt elements of the Mexican army. They're putting together a paramilitary force the likes of which we haven't run into before. You were mixed up in something like that a while back, weren't you, Bill?”

“That was mostly the cartel's doin',” Bill said, remembering the bus full of teenagers that had been hijacked and taken across the border, where the prisoners were held for ransom. “There may have been some Middle Eastern advisors, but they weren't runnin' the show.”

“Well, we'll have to do something about that camp pretty soon . . . assuming that we all live through the next twenty-four hours.”

“How can you find the man with the bomb?” Catalina asked.

“Remember, we have a tentative identification of the car that's involved,” Clark said. “Right now we have agents checking the footage from every traffic camera in the city, looking for it.”

“How long will that take?” Bill wanted to know.

“A while,” Clark admitted. “We're also running checks on every hotel and motel. The guy's got to have a place to stay.”

“He could have a safe house like this one,” Bill said.

“He could. But I think it's more likely he's staying at a motel owned by one of his countrymen. There are an awful lot of them in the hospitality business.”

Bill chuckled and said, “Better be careful. You're gettin' into ethnic profilin' there.”

Clark snorted in disgust.

“Well, pardon me for not thinking that some ninety-year-old grandma from Des Moines is really the one who wants to blow us to kingdom come, instead of the thirty-year-old Pakistani guy. I guess I'm gonna just have to be politically incorrect until we find that damn bomb.”

“You're preachin' to the choir, old son. I've got just one more question.”

“What's that?”

Bill nodded at Catalina and said, “What are we gonna do about Señorita Ramos?”

“I was wondering about that myself,” Catalina said. “I mean . . . there's a bomb.”

Clark nodded and said, “We'll get you out of town, of course. First thing in the morning, Bill and some other agents will take you to Dallas. You'll be well away from here before anything happens.”

“Scratch that,” Bill said. “I don't plan on leavin'. Might be something here I can do to help.”

“Not your job,” Clark said curtly. “I needed you to deliver Señorita Ramos and the intel she had to us, and you did that. You can go back to being retired again.”

“I don't think so. Everything's changed now. We're all soldiers in this war, Clark . . . and I plan on bein' right here in the front lines.”