Divide & Conquer (20 page)

“It’s probably best you get some sleep,” suggested Luis rising from the sofa.

An exhausted Katie could do little more than nod in agreement and force herself up from the sofa.

“What about you?” she asked half heartedly as she made her way towards the staircase.

“I have my orders, I have to clean this place up!”

“Your uncle wants my house cleaned up?” she asked somewhat startled that the madman would care if bodies and blood littered her house.

“No, Sean wants me to clean it up!”

Katie could not think of anything to say. The nephew of the leader of the world’s most feared drug cartel was now following the orders of her, she caught herself, the man who looked exactly like her dead husband. If the day could have got any stranger, she didn’t know how. However, the knowledge that James and the other Sean were OK helped her fall into a fitful sleep.

Chapter 37

Governor Rick Brown stared in dismay at the screen before him and listened as the commentators ridiculed his performance as they reviewed the footage of events unfolding. One commentator touched on the potential of his announcing his run for president, the rest broke into laughter at the mere suggestion. In the two hours since Colonel Masters had been killed, he himself had considered it the same, a joke. His presidency was dead before it was even announced. The revelation that only eight guards had manned the troop carriers hadn’t even come out. When it did, it wouldn’t just be his presidency that was over. Texans would be clamoring for a new Governor.

He changed to a more favorable news station but the comments were just as scathing and it seemed that their love affair with Governor Rick Brown was over. He switched the TV off. His wife had tried to prompt him to bed but he had wanted to be available for the press. None were calling, at least none that wanted anything more than to publicly humiliate him. He doused the light and headed towards the staircase. He’d see the lay of the land in a few hours. Resignation. He wasn’t going to wait for the calls. There really was nothing else to do. He’d announce it first thing in the morning before they even had a chance to ask him if he would be resigning. Rick Brown didn’t play catch up. He led from the front and the end of his political career would be no different.

He turned back to his office and didn’t even bother switching the light on. It seemed more appropriate in the dark. He hit the speed dial for his press officer. Even though it was after three, Rick knew he’d be awake. This was one of the biggest disasters of Rick Brown’s political career and his press officer had her heart set on riding the wave to D.C.. She would not be sleeping as long as there was a glimmer of hope of the big job. As the phone began to ring, Rick realized the sound was actually louder in his free ear. The answer appeared as his office door burst open and a smiling press officer rushed in, ignoring his ringing phone.

“What the hell?” exclaimed the Governor, startled by the explosive entrance.

“You won’t believe it!” replied an excited press officer, rushing past the Governor and hitting the power button on the TV control. The wall mounted TV burst into life, with a banner displaying 'BREAKING NEWS: GOVERNOR BROWN GETS HIS MAN’.

As the Governor struggled to comprehend what was happening, his press officer began preparing the Governor for the cameras. Straightening his tie and brushing at his hair.

“Come on, everybody wants a piece of you.”

“Whoa, can you please explain what’s happening?” asked the Governor, as the snippets of TV failed to explain exactly what the excitement was about.

“You’ve done in two hours what it took the federal government, ten years, thousands of lives and countless trillions of dollars to do.”

Still flummoxed, he looked at his press officer for more.

“You got your number one most wanted man. For the US it was Obama, for you the gunman who shot Colonel Masters and the guardsmen!”

'They’ve got the shooter?” The governor was stunned. Like anybody who knew Mexico, he knew his threat was empty. The chances of catching the shooter in Mexico was pretty much nil and even that was optimistic.

“You got the shooter!”

“Why do you keep saying me?”

“It was your guy that got him!”

“My guy?”

“One of the undercover operatives you have working in Nuevo Laredo to ensure the Mexican problem stays Mexican!”

The governor was tired but not so tired he had forgotten about a team of undercover operatives he had working in Mexico. There was no such team.

“Slow down and tell me exactly what has happened,” he demanded, removing the smile from his press officer’s face.

“I got a call. One of your men has just swum across the Rio Grande with the shooter. He caught him in the act and killed him at the scene. He has brought the shooter’s corpse and the rifle used by the shooter as evidence.”

On hearing the 'motherfucker’ responsible was dead, he couldn’t help but smile, although briefly as the words 'your men’ hit home again.

“You keep saying 'my men’?”

“He has reported that he’s part of an operation requested by you of the CIA and followed orders issued by the Governor to protect the great state of Texas from the dangers of the drug cartels.”

The Governor suddenly realized the presidency was back on, very much thanks to the CIA. A gift from them that would require some payback, should he be elected. And as his press officer had so succinctly stated, he had done in two hours what two presidents had spent ten years doing. He was a shoe in! The smile returned, the game was back on.

“Get my man on the phone!” he demanded, beaming his best election smile.

***

It had taken just ten minutes to float the body down into position. The hard part was yet to come, avoiding the lights and making it look like he had just entered the waters on the opposite side of the river, before swimming across to the US and not being shot by the trigger-happy and exceedingly nervous border guards. Of course, all of this was to be undertaken while having a 200-pound corpse and sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. Fortunately, he managed pretty much perfectly and was rewarded with excited shouts as he was caught in the act of pulling a corpse from the water by the ever vigilant border patrols.

Sean quickly explained he was a CIA agent and the corpse was the shooter and the sniper rifle the one used to commit the crimes. Within minutes, he was being quizzed by pretty much any official who thought he was somebody in Laredo. The story leaked just as per Vincent’s request. Sean was an undercover CIA operative working on behalf of the Governor to protect Texas and the US from the cartels. Sean would be the unsung hero of the hour, while the Governor would reap all the reward. Sean couldn’t have been happier. Vincent’s goons would be sent back to Virginia and he could go about getting James back to his mother. Of course, he needed a little help from Vincent to get the US’s major drug dealers phone numbers but it was the least Vincent could do for him, particularly after gifting the Governor the presidency on behalf of the CIA.

“Interesting choice of hand gun you have their son?” offered Laredo’s chief policeman. At over 6 feet six and weighing in at over 270 pounds, he was an imposing figure with a voice that boomed even more imposingly.

Sean looked at the somewhat embarrassing mini cannon, à la Dirty Harry.

“Playing the part!” offered Sean half-heartedly.

“Hmmm,” replied the chief lifting the Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol from the table. It looked like a normal pistol in the chief’s massive hands. He eyed Sean suspiciously. “Never met a professional that would have one of these anywhere near him!”

“Exactly why I carry one undercover,” replied Sean, quick as a flash. A phone ringing stopped any more probing by the less than convinced Chief.

“The Governor is on his way,” came a shout from where the phone had been answered.

Sean slipped from the table he had been perched on and made to leave. A clasp of a firm hand on his shoulder put paid to any such idea. The Chief wanted Sean to meet the Governor.

“Not so fast, I’m sure the Governor would like to congratulate his man personally,” he scoffed, not buying any of what Sean had said. It wasn’t often Sean was over imposed but the chief was talented at using his size and presence to maximum effect. Of course, had they been in a battle environment, things would have been very different. Sean had noted a number of weaknesses and areas to exploit, should the need arise and would have the chief debilitated or dead within a second. However, the chief calling him for the bullshit artist he was, was hardly grounds to kill the man.

“Of course, I just need to change out of these clothes!” offered Sean as an excuse for an exit, not something the chief could easily argue with. The Rio Grande was not what you would construe as a fresh water river. The water had been likened many times to an open sewer such was the stench as its waters flowed through the various shantytowns and villages that lined its banks.

“Vazquez!” shouted the chief.

“Yes chief?” A young officer rushed to the chief’s side.

“Get our savior here some clean clothes.” The word 'savior’ was heavy with sarcasm. “And best get the doc to arrange a few shots, God alone knows what he could have caught in there!”

With that reassuring endorsement, it was clear Sean was not going anywhere until the Governor had been.

“How long until he arrives?” asked Sean checking his watch, 3.15 a.m.. He had pretty much been on the go since leaving Afghanistan some 30 hours earlier.

Vazquez checked his watch before answering. “It’s over two hours by chopper from Austin, so at the very earliest, six a.m. But I would say nearer 6.30 a.m.”

“Do you have a shower here?” asked Sean looking around the border guards’ complex.

Ten minutes and a refreshing shower later, Sean was dressed and asleep, awaiting the arrival of Governor Rick Brown. It would be one of the most defining moments of Sean’s life and were he ever given the chance to relive it, he would vote categorically no!

Chapter 38

Katarina Guiterez was a rare Latino mix, thanks to the stationing of her Russian mother in Cuba. An intelligence officer with the GRU, she had met and fallen for Katarina’s father while working with Castro’s close advisors. Katarina, as a result, had inherited her mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes while her bronze skin struggled to hide her father’s Latin heritage. She was in any language stunning. She had the body build of an Olympic athlete and the grace of a princess and these, added to her beauty, ensured that pretty much anybody exposed to her was instantly captivated by her, male or female.

Her mother and father had fled to the US as a result of their union being frowned upon by their superiors. Their defection went unnoticed as neither held any real position of importance, power or information. New names were assigned and after a brief period of interrogation which uncovered exactly zero intelligence of any use for the US government, they were allowed to integrate into US society. A few years after the defection, the Berlin wall came down and as far as the US government was concerned, the history of the two defectors all but vanished. With a couple more name changes and the addition of Katerina, it would be almost impossible for the family to be traced back to their very un-American roots.

Katerina had long since changed her name to an American one. In fact, she herself had never once been called Katerina but deep down that was her name. Raised as an all-American girl, she had done it all and been accepted by everyone. Of course in a country where beauty was everything, this was no great issue for Katerina. Her mother had trained her well and before long, Katerina was using her womanly wiles to ensure she achieved what she wanted or needed. To her, sex was merely a means to an end. Her mother had been trained as a honey trap and it was only on meeting Katerina’s father that her role changed. Although in reality, meeting Katerina’s father and defecting were exactly the assignment she had been given. The love had come later, not that Katerina’s father ever knew that he had been used as a pawn in the GRU’s grand plan. His untimely death avoided him knowing about the plans in place for his daughter. Plans which, were he alive, he would never have approved or allowed. The untimely death itself was somewhat timely in Katerina’s mother’s eyes, or somewhat precisely timed to be more accurate.

Katerina had quite literally screwed her way to where she was. Men, women, straight, lesbian, it didn’t matter, whatever she required to do for her mother country she would do. Her mother had taught her the intricacies of pleasing her lovers, whether they be male or female, taping her exploits and analyzing them with her, pointing out areas to improve on her next conquest. Of which there were many.

Her beauty and overt sexuality ensured that whatever she wanted she got, whether it be information, jobs, promotions. Whatever Katerina wanted, Katerina could have. Her education matched her sexual ability, top of the class. She could have been a model on the front cover of every magazine in the land, a corporate executive earning millions, the world was her oyster. In fact, such was the training her mother had given her, she could even be the first lady.

Katerina re-read the message again on the cellphone that had been fedexed to her over a month ago. The instructions for delivery had been clear, only the addressee could sign for the package. Katerina had produced her American ID and ignoring the English language instruction manual that looked like any other new phone’s instructions, decoded the German. The message had arrived that morning; a rather innocuous text message inviting her to apply for a bank loan. On entering a special code, the true message came to life. Surkov had commenced the final stages of his plan. A generation in the making and Katerina had a major part to play.

Chapter 39

Major Andre Pushkin hit the dial button on an exact replica to the cellphone that Katerina had and was instantly connected to General Borodin. The state of the art handset piggybacked onto the Russian Glonass Satellite Navigation system and as such bypassed all American technology in favor of Russia’s own.