The Devil You Don't Know (American Praetorians Book 4) Page 15

That was good news; Mike and I had become partners of a sort ever since Basra. Our teams tended to work together well, and we'd both been sent home to recuperate after the showdown in Iraq the year before. Mike was a long-faced, slow-talking Texan, who had naturally gotten the nickname Speedy from the fact that it always seemed to take him a bit longer to say anything than it did the rest of us. He was going to grumble about getting the support team role again, but the luck of the draw had my team on point again this time.

  “Unless you've got any more details I have to have,” Tom said, “I need to go start kicking people out of bed.”

  “That's it for now,” I said. “I'll keep you in the loop if anything more develops. Has Renton contacted you?”

  “Negative; he's been pretty silent since this little op kicked off,” he replied, sounding a little tight-lipped. Tom didn't trust Renton. Neither did I, not entirely. But he hadn't really steered us wrong so far, and we'd generally been able to confirm independently that he was genuinely sending us after bad guys. As nasty an aftertaste as dealing with The Project had left, there was no doubt that Collins and his goons had been bad guys.

  But if there was one thing we'd all learned since East Africa it was to never trust the people who send you to do the jobs. They have their own priorities and their own agendas, and they'll fuck you over or leave you to the wolves if it fits their goals or if their plans change.

  On that happy note, we signed off. The eastern horizon was definitely lightening. While trading off to maintain security, we pulled out what camouflage we had in our gear bags. We were going to hold our position for the day.

  It was going to be a long day.

  As soon as it was fully dark again, we were moving. I hurt worse than ever; the full day of inactivity had let my body stiffen up, so it was slow going back to the Suburbans. That kind of worked in our favor, though. By the time we got there, shed the helmets and full assault kits, and stuffed Ernesto, still flex-cuffed and gagged, into the back of the middle vehicle, it was completely dark. Back in the weeds where we'd stashed the vehicles, we were all but invisible.

  I'll admit, I'd half expected the Suburbans to be gone by the time we got back to them. We hadn't been able to spare the manpower to leave a guard on them, and stolen vehicles are big business for the cartels. But they were there, and in a relatively short period of time we were back on the road, skirting around Zacatecas and Guadalupe as best we could, heading for San Luis Potosi and its airfield.

  Chapter 11

  The wheels hit the tarmac with a screech of rubber, and we were down. Sam's voice crackled over the rudimentary address system. “Gentlemen and detainee, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to sunny Veracruz. It's presently seventy-five degrees with a wind of nine knots out of the north, and a local time of 1643. Please keep your seatbelts fastened until we have come to a complete stop at the hangar, and kindly keep all weapons, explosives, and military equipment out of sight until after the airport security has cleared us, if they are in fact coming aboard.” Sam delighted in making these twisted little announcements, usually in a stereotypical cheery airline pilot voice. Knowing some of the places he'd freelanced after his days as an Air Guard Warrant Officer just made the affectation that much funnier. It was lost on most people who didn't know him, which at the moment included Raoul and Ernesto. Ernesto just stared at the floor, while Raoul looked up with a slightly puzzled look on his face as if to say, What the fuck is with this guy?

  We'd had the DC-3 for quite a few years now; while Sam was ultimately responsible for all of the company's air assets, this bird was his baby. He liked to claim that it had dropped paratroopers over Normandy, but it had in fact started its life as an airliner, and hadn't even been built until 1949. Sam never let that fact discourage him. He was a great pilot, but you had to take anything he said outside of a professional context with a huge grain of salt.

  The plane had only one row of seats, and that row didn't go all the way back to the tail. There was plenty of cargo space for what we needed, and we could even jump the bird if we needed to. I hoped we never did; I still qualified once a year, but I've never liked jumping. A lot of guys do. I've just known too many guys who have wound up under the ground from jumping accidents to ever find it fun.

  The pitch of the engine roar changed as we taxied toward the edge of the runway. Ernesto didn't move, still staring at the floor. Raoul just kept an eye on him. I watched him just long enough to be reasonably sure he wasn't going to get froggy—for about the eighth time—then went back to looking out the window, trying to get a feel for where we were.

  If Zacatecas had reminded me of Sulaymaniyah, then the Veracruz airport reminded me of the Erbil airport, albeit smaller. Everything was painted white, from the single-story terminal to the tower to the blocky hangars. As Sam turned the bird off the runway, it looked like we were heading for one of those hangars.

  We were. We didn't stop until we were in front of a hangar big enough for two aircraft about the same size as the DC-3. The doors were partway open, just wide enough for the bird to pass inside, and Mike and Eddie were standing there waiting, both wearing jeans and polo shirts. There were lots of gringo tourists around Veracruz, so that was the look they were going for. It was going to be the best form of camouflage. I'd have to say it was slightly questionable how well it worked—they still looked like meat-eaters to me. We'd have to work on that; I knew it was going to be just as hard for me as it was for them.

  Sam taxied the plane to the edge of the hangar, then killed the engines. It would get towed in the rest of the way. There was a little mechanical mule waiting nearby just for that purpose.

  Before getting the bird towed inside, though, the crew chief, Misha, opened the side door and let it down. Leaving our gear in the kitbags in back, we started to file down the steps. Raoul clipped the zip-ties holding Ernesto to his seat, and began to escort him off. I held him up and asked quietly, “You staying here, or going back north?”

  He looked at me, still holding Ernesto by his upper arm. “I'm staying here. The bird needs to stay here anyway, and you need a designated spook-type. That's me.”

  “If you're working,” I pointed out, “somebody's going to have to watch this turd, and I can't spare the team members for it.”

  “Sam and his boys can watch him,” he pointed out. “None of them are helpless, and they've got to stay here with the bird, anyway.”

  Mike overheard that as we walked down the steps that were built into the door. “We're all staying here with the bird, actually,” he said, “unless we're out in town on ops. We've got the whole hangar, so we're setting up our little base here.”

  I looked around. Mike and his boys had been busy; they hadn't beaten us to Veracruz by much, but they already had cots unloaded and set up along one wall. “We'll still have to keep things low-profile, even in here,” he explained. “The cops do come through every now and then.” He pointed toward an office along the far wall. “We should keep all the gear, weapons, and ops planning stuff in there. Most of the time they're not looking too closely, and we've managed to be friendly and 'open-handed' enough that they like us and don't seem too inclined to fuck around.” He'd used his fingers to make sneer quotes around “open-handed.” He meant they had reached an appropriate bribery arrangement with the cops on the airport beat.

  The hangar was easily big enough for two aircraft the size of the DC-3. We'd have plenty of room if it was just us. “How long do we have the hangar for?”

  “As long as we need it,” Mike said. “We brought almost a pallet of cash, courtesy of our friend Renton.” The way he'd said “friend” suggested that he was still wary of our employer-slash-benefactor. I think if you'd asked around, you'd find that that was a pretty universal frame of mind across the company.

  “Did he send anything else in the way of support?” I asked, suspecting I knew the answer. The way The Network appeared to work, we were deniable assets who were expected to do the job if we could, but who shouldn't point bac
k to the employer any more than absolutely necessary. I was sure that every peso of that money had been carefully scrubbed so it didn't lead back to anybody in The Network, at least not anybody important.

  Mike looked a little pained. “Well,” he said, more slowly than usual, “he did send her.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Her?”

  He tipped his head toward the office space just as its door opened.

  The woman who stepped through the door wasn't beautiful, not quite. Slim and dark haired, she was certainly attractive, don't get me wrong, but there was a businesslike hardness to her that was slightly off-putting. I'm sure it was necessary, in her position, surrounded by a bunch of meat-eater dudes in a hangar. “Oh, hell,” I muttered, while simultaneously thinking she might just be the answer to a prayer in a way. If we were going to get eyes on Reyes inside the Hotel Fiesta, it would be easier to do it as a couple of some sort instead of a bunch of dudes looking around. “Please tell me no one's pulled their dick out yet.”

  “Not literally,” he said. “Everybody's been pretty much on their best behavior, actually. Of course, we were at home until yesterday, too.” I nodded. The pressures of being around a woman were going to get stronger as time went on.

  She walked up to me and offered her hand. “You must be Jefferson,” she said. “I'm Mia. Our mutual acquaintance asked me to meet you to provide some intel support.”

  I shook her hand. “Jeff,” I corrected her. “Not even my mother calls me Jefferson.” She smiled slightly at that. “What kind of intel support?”

  “Well, I was a case officer for a number of years before going private-sector,” she said, “so I have a certain expertise at developing sources and gathering information in ways you gentlemen might not—no offense. Also,” she added, arching an eyebrow, “I understand that you're looking to set up surveillance on a target in possibly the fanciest, most expensive hotel in Veracruz. I can help with that.”

  “Please,” I said, gesturing toward the office space, acutely conscious at the moment that I was still filthy and salt-encrusted from capturing Ernesto. I shook my head a little. I have nothing against women; I like women. What I don't like is the effect they have on men when trying to work with them. It hadn't really started yet, but with this much testosterone crammed into a confined space with a woman, especially an attractive woman, there would be some stupid shit happening soon. It doesn't matter how intelligent and professional the guys are; put them in close proximity with an attractive woman and they'll turn into a bunch of prairie chickens, strutting around to impress her. Half the time they don't even realize they're doing it, and they'll tell you to fuck off if you call 'em on it, but it's fucking universal. I've caught myself doing it.

  I ushered Mia inside, and closed the door. “So, please elaborate,” I said. “Obviously you have ideas about how to approach this particular reconnaissance.”

  She folded her arms and eyed me, leaning against one of the desks, that was already littered with computer equipment. “Let me guess, you don't think I can offer much of anything?”

  Great. Defensiveness and figurative dick-measuring right off the bat. This was going to go so well. I took a deep breath. “Not what I meant at all. If you were a case officer, that means that you have different experience and training than we do. None of us came from the spooky side of the house; we're trigger pullers. Most of our collective reconnaissance experience, and definitely mine, involves hiding in bushes or abandoned buildings, or sitting in blacked-out Trojan Horse vehicles watching target buildings. I understand that a luxury hotel is going to be different, and I have some ideas on how to address that, but since you obviously do as well, I'd like to hear them. It pays to listen to the team's input before making a decision.”

  She smiled. “And Renton warned me that you were an abrasive, dour sort of knuckle-dragger.” If she was looking for a reaction, I disappointed her. “All right. You need to get inside. The only way you're really going to manage that is as a guest. You guys don't fit the profile of most guests at that hotel. One of you might be able to check in as a singleton without too many questions, but if you descend on it en masse, you're going to attract attention. Even if a pair of you tried to pass as a gay couple, I'm not sure you'd pull it off. You've all got enough of an edge that you'd set off some alarms with any security goons who are on the ball.” She glanced out the window at the teams, who were unpacking the plane and watching us without making it too obvious. “I don't suppose any of you actually are gay?”

  I shook my head, somewhat annoyed. “Not to my knowledge. Probably a couple of contenders for world champion Gay Chicken players, but otherwise, no.”

  She shrugged. “And like I said, even if they were, you guys would still probably be picked out as either Russian razboiniki or DEA. Neither one of which would be a good thing. On the other hand, if, say, you and I checked in, you'd have camouflage; namely, me. I can be your wife, your girlfriend, your 'secretary,' your VP's wife, or the very expensive hooker you've engaged for a couple of weeks. It would look more natural, garner less suspicion, and I could work on keeping you relaxed and looking like you're there to have a good time, spend a lot of money, and screw my brains out instead of casing the place for a hit.” She smiled again, and this time, I've got to admit, it was dazzling. “I clean up really nice.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense. I'll admit, I was a little concerned about that when we got out here; most of us are used to working in the Middle East.”

  “And in the Arab world, a group of men walking around by themselves isn't remarkable,” she agreed. “But here, you've either got a woman on your arm, or you're on the hunt for one. It's going to help if the woman on your arm also knows what to look for.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “We'll finish getting set in here, then we'll get down to more detailed planning.”

  She pointed toward the back of the hangar. “There's actually a shower back there,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “No offense, but you could really use one.”

  I snorted. “No shit,” I said, as I turned and left the office. No doubt about it; this chick was going to be trouble.

  Mia hadn't been kidding when she had said she cleaned up nice. When I came out of the office, wearing khaki slacks so light they were almost white and a dark blue polo shirt, she was coming out of the bathrooms in the back, wearing a light blue sundress and sandals, her dark hair down around her shoulders, and gold hoop earrings in her ears. She walked—no, swayed—over to me, and held up a set of car keys. I took them, keeping my facial expression carefully under control. She smiled at me, and said, “I'm glad you like it,” before moving off toward the door where the car was parked.

  Larry was cleaning his FAL, sitting on one of the equipment boxes that Mike's team had brought. I could see the smirk under that bristle of beard. “Not a word, you big ox,” I growled, annoyed. I knew what she was doing, and it pissed me off.

  “I was just going to say, 'good luck,'” he said. “You're going to need it. And I'm not talking about the sicarios and gangbangers, either.”

  I checked to make sure she was out of earshot. “You think she's a honey-pot?”

  He squinted after her. “Too early to say. I do think Renton sicked her on us for a reason. Probably part of it really was so that she could support us. The other part? I'd be willing to bet she's Renton's eyes and ears, with the sex appeal intended to get under our skin so she can find out more about what we're doing. Call me paranoid...”

  “But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you,” I finished for him with a sigh. “Fucking great. As if we didn't already have enough bullshit to deal with.”

  He smirked again as he pulled a bore snake through his rifle barrel. “Hey, you're a grown man. You can handle it. Just keep your head in the game and enjoy yourself. Look at it this way, you get to hang out for a couple of days in a five-star hotel with a hot chick in a sundress. How bad can it be?”

  “That doesn't sound nearly as relaxing as
it should,” I said, as I followed Mia toward the car outside. “If I could at least carry a pistol...”

  The drive to the Hotel Fiesta Americana was refreshingly professional, as we used the time to talk through our emergency procedures, legend, and what we each knew about the target and the overall situation. She'd gotten a bit more up-to-speed about the ground-level events and atmospherics in Veracruz than I'd had a chance to, so she filled me in as we went. I concentrated on the road and the surroundings, so I didn't look at her that much, which helped. The way that sundress fit her was rather...distracting.

  While there had been some regional variations, most places I'd been in the Middle East looked pretty similar. There was a commonality of architecture across the Arab world and the Horn of Africa that lent itself to a sense of familiarity wherever I found myself over there. Mexico, on the other hand, had way more regional differences. Sonora had looked like southern Arizona. The Sierra Madre had looked a lot like Northern California, with mountains cloaked in fir and pine. If not for the Spanish-style Catholic churches, I could have mistaken Zacatecas and Guadalupe for Kurdish cities. Veracruz was a mix of clean, modern affluence and older, grimier places that looked like greener versions of Zacatecas.

  I did notice less graffiti. The place didn't have the look of a battleground between gangs that Zacatecas had. When I commented on it, Mia said, “The Zetas and The Gulf Cartel negotiated a bit of a cease-fire last month, so they could gang up on the Nueva Generacion guys. They all think the CJNG is getting too big, pushing too much of their influence north of Michoacan. They're also all trying to muscle in on Sinaloa's old empire, as that cartel continues to fragment. Veracruz has been relatively peaceful for a good six months now. There is definitely still the odd murder, but there hasn't been one in the really rich part of town in over a year. There's not a huge, obvious security presence, but enough money has changed hands, and there's enough discreet security, that the cartels keep their bloodier business out of the resort area. There's plenty of the other kind, though; a lot of our fellow guests are going to be extremely 'chemically enhanced.'”