Ghost Sniper (12 page)

26

ACAPULCO, MEXICO

12:05 HOURS

Rhett Hancock and Billy Jessup sat on the balcony of their luxury twentieth-floor hotel room overlooking Tlacopanocha Beach. A Mexican woman in her early forties sat in Jessup's lap, finishing a cigarette while he fondled her breasts through her open blouse. She was a hotel employee and had come to the room earlier in the day to change the bedding and replace the towels. She'd no more begun to strip the sheets before Jessup offered her money to have sex with them.

She took immediate offense and was turning for the door when Jessup flashed four thousand dollars' worth of Ben Franklins. This was more money than the single mother of two earned in a year working for the hotel. So, to her shame, she had returned to the room on her lunch break and allowed the two American men to have their way with her.

She crushed out the cigarette and stood up from Jessup's lap, buttoning her blouse. “My money?” she asked in English.

Jessup led her back into the room and gave her the wad of folded cash from his bag.

She put the money into her pocket and left without another word.

Jessup returned to the balcony chuckling, “It ain't every day you can turn a woman into a whore.”

Hancock glanced at him briefly and then back over at the next hotel three hundred yards up the beach. “You mean it ain't every day you can take advantage of a woman with hungry mouths to feed.”

Jessup lit a cigarette. “How do you know she's got hungry mouths to feed?”

“She didn't get those stretch marks on her belly making beds, dumb-ass.” Hancock smirked and shook his head. “You just paid four grand for a piece of housekeeper pussy. Jesus Christ, you'd fuck anything.”

“I didn't see you pass it up.”

“Hell, no. You were payin'.” Hancock looked back across at the hotel. “Go get the scope. It looks like the party's starting.”

Jessup disappeared for a minute and then returned with an M151 spotting scope, setting it up on the table and taking a seat behind it. He glassed the rooftop of the far hotel as people were emerging from a glass-enclosed suite, mingling around a pool with drinks in hand. “I don't see the guest of honor.”

“He'll be there.” Hancock got up and went inside to the minibar, unscrewing the top from a small bottle of tequila and drinking it down.

“Don't overdo it in there!” Jessup called from the balcony.

Hancock dropped the empty bottle into the trash bin beside the bar. “Just takin' the edge off.”

He went to the closet and took out a guitar case, setting it on the bed and opening it to remove the dissembled Barrett XM500 sniper rifle. He assembled it and set up the bipod, resting the sniper system on the bed, aimed toward the balcony. Then Hancock stepped into the bathroom to take a leak.

When he came back out, Jessup was coming in from the balcony.

“Turn on the movie,” Hancock said. “Loud.”

Jessup slipped the disc of an old war movie into the DVD player and ran up the volume all the way: machine guns firing, artillery blasting away. Then he returned to the balcony to check the scope a second time, scanning the growing crowd for the mayor of Acapulco. He spotted the dark Mayor Guillermo Cruz dressed obligingly in all white, standing by the glass parapet on the nearside of the pool with two other men, looking out over the ocean. “Target acquired.”

Hancock went back into the room, put on his ear protection, and got behind the rifle, finding the mayor in his own scope.

Jessup stood up and closed the curtains and the sliding glass doors to an aperture of twelve inches, to keep the sound of the shot inside the hotel room. Then he sat back down and put his eye back to the scope.

Mayor Cruz was standing broad chested before them at three hundred yards. The shot could not have been more pristine. “Rhett, what the fuck are you waiting for?” Jessup whispered to himself. “Shoot him, goddamnit!”

Hancock studied the mayor's face, the dark eyes beneath thick black eyebrows, and was reminded briefly of an actor from some Mexican beer commercial he'd seen in the US.

Cruz had been the mayor of Acapulco for just six months, but already he was causing the Ruvalcabas a lot of aggravation. The city's tourist industry had fallen off dramatically over the past ten years due to ever-escalating drug violence, and Cruz had based his election campaign on promises to restore the city to its former greatness as an international tourist destination. So far he was working very hard to keep that promise, and not only was he hurting the narcotics trade but also setting the wrong example for other mayors across the country.

So, as they had with Police Chief Juan Guerrero of Toluca, Lazaro Serrano and Hector Ruvalcaba had sent Hancock to make an example of
him
.

The gringo sniper held Cruz dead to rights in the crosshairs. The mayor was doomed no matter what, so Hancock decided to get creative; to wait for the moment to ripen. After fifty long seconds, it appeared that the target was turning to step out of the sight picture, which would have forced Hancock to shoot him before he was ready, but the moment suddenly blossomed as a woman in a yellow dress—along with a man wearing a soccer jersey—stopped to chat directly in line behind the mayor.

Hancock squeezed the trigger. The .50 caliber armor-piercing round blasted from the muzzle of the Barrett with a muffled
boom
, covering the 300 yards to target in just under three seconds to strike Cruz dead-center in the chest at 2,900 feet per second. The mayor virtually exploded from hydrostatic shock, as did the woman directly behind him and the soccer player standing just in front of her. To the naked eyes of the other partygoers, it appeared that all three bodies exploded at the same time.

The party fell into instant pandemonium. People were knocked into the pool as others scrambled to get back inside the suite. Others stood in horrified shock, splattered with blood and viscera. The mayor's three bodyguards took up cover positions, pistols drawn, but there was no way to discern where the shot had come from.

Hancock got to his feet as Jessup came into the room and closed the curtains. “See that shit?” he said with a laugh. “Three in one!”

“I saw it.” Jessup set the spotting scope down on the table and switched off the movie, secure in the knowledge that the rooms on either side of them were reserved by Ruvalcaba's people. “Look, I think this is my last op.”

“Oh, come on,” Hancock said. “What the fuck does it matter? The other two were rich assholes like everyone else on that roof.”

Jessup shook his head. “It's not that, man. You enjoy this shit too much. You're gonna push it too far one of these days, and I don't wanna be there. I know you don't give a shit about dyin', but I do.”

Hancock grabbed a handful of little tequila bottles from the minibar and sat down on the bed. “You gotta do what you gotta do, Billy.”

Jessup disassembled the rifle, and a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. He gave the guitar case to a young man, and the man disappeared.

Jessup closed the door and locked it, turning to Hancock. “What are you gonna do now?” They were beginning to hear sirens down on the street.

Hancock grinned. “First, I'm gonna get fucked up. Then I'm goin' down to the beach and have a swim.”

27

TOLUCA, MEXICO

13:00 HOURS

There was still no official body count, but thousands were already known dead in Mexico City. The public transportation system had been devastated by the quake. Key bridges, along with the elevated highway that ran through the center of the city, had collapsed, crippling the public transportation system. This left stranded citizens to the mercy of profiteering cab drivers, and Crosswhite knew it would take time for Paolina and Vaught to make their way to Toluca.

His Jeep had enabled him to drive a more direct route out of the city than most cars were able to manage, and he now stood facing a group of sixteen Toluca police officers in the empty parking lot behind the police station. There was still no cellular service out of Mexico City, so he was worried about Paolina and Valencia, but he reminded himself that Vaught was with them and tried to put the dilemma out of his mind. There was nothing he could do for the moment anyhow. If he left Toluca to go look for them, his chances of
finding them would be almost nil. It was best to stick with the plan and wait for them to show up.

Each Toluca police officer had an M4 carbine slung over his shoulder, but their dark-blue fatigue-type uniforms, like those of many Mexican police forces, were not exactly
uniform
. No four cops were dressed the same, and a few of them wore uniforms a size too big.

“Doesn't matter,” Crosswhite muttered in English—but he knew that it did.

He walked up to the youngest cop, a man of about twenty-one years, and offered his hand, introducing himself. He did this with all sixteen men and then stepped back in front of them.

Acting Chief Diego Guerrero came out the back of the station and stood watching.

Crosswhite faced the men. “I can see in your eyes that most of you don't trust me, and I don't blame you. I'm a gringo, so why should you? I could say that Chief Guerrero trusted me, and that should be good enough for you, but Juan is dead, killed by another gringo.

“So instead, I'll tell you a secret: I'm the great-great-grandson of Captain John Cavanaugh. That name doesn't mean anything to any of you, but it should. He was a member of the Saint Patrick's Battalion of the US Army during the Mexican-American War. The San Patricios were two hundred Irish Catholic soldiers who refused to kill Mexican Catholics, and so they deserted to fight for Mexico. They fought with great distinction against the Americans—­especially at the Battle of Churubusco—and when Mexico eventually lost that war, every surviving San Patricio was hanged as a traitor by the American army.

“That means one member of my family has already died for this country. That's part of why I'm here, gentlemen. The other reason is that this is what I was trained for: teaching you men how to fight like American soldiers. If you listen to me, if you follow my instructions—and if you trust me—I can train you to outfight the Ruvalcabas on equal terms.”

The cops looked at one another, one of them asking, “What about the
francotirador
? It doesn't matter how a good solider you are if a man can shoot you from so far away. We are not an army. There are less than one hundred men in the department now.”

“That's plenty,” said a voice from Crosswhite's left.

He turned to see Vaught standing there with Paolina and Valencia. Paolina had a bruise on the side of her forehead, and Valencia was holding a Rottweiler puppy.

He grinned at Vaught, weak in the legs with relief. “You came through, champ.”

Vaught grabbed briefly at his crotch. “Right here's your
champ
. So what's this bullshit about Irish traitors?”

“Don't blaspheme,” Crosswhite said, walking over to Paolina. “That's my heritage you're talkin' about.” He put his arms around Paolina and held her tight for a long time, whispering how glad he was to see her and how much he loved her.

The mood among the cops began to change, seeing that Vaught was Mexican American and obviously had respect for Crosswhite. Both men were soldierly and confident, and this became contagious over the next several minutes as Vaught mingled among them, explaining that he'd been up against the gringo sniper in Mexico City, and assuring them at the same time that the man could be outflanked and killed.

“Understand something,” he told them. “Any one of you is as good as either of us. All you need is training.
Believe that
.”

But when he spoke to Crosswhite in private a few minutes later, his attitude wasn't quite so optimistic. “Dude, are you serious about training these people? The Ruvalcabas are gonna roll into this town and mop the floor with these guys.”

Crosswhite was watching as Paolina took Valencia into the police station with Chief Diego. “Where'd the dog come from?” he asked.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I've trained lots worse,” Crosswhite said. “They'll do fine.”

“I thought we were working for the PFM.”

“We were, but the quake changes things, so now we're working for ourselves. I'll make up a story and square it with Pope down the line, but for now, we stay off the grid. We lure the sniper into our kill zone, and we take his ass out. That sound good to you?”

Taking a moment to consider his options, Vaught pulled the can of Copenhagen from his back pocket and tucked a pinch of tobacco into his lip. “Isn't this a little bit above our skill level? I'm not exactly sniper trained, and something tells me you're not, either.”

“Yeah, well,” Crosswhite said with a yawn, “I know a guy, and it so happens he owes me a favor exactly like the one we're gonna need.”

28

AUSTIN, TEXAS

12:00 HOURS

Mariana Mederos was more than a bit disturbed to answer the door and find Clemson Fields standing in the hallway outside her apartment.

“What are you doing here?”

Fields had always made her nervous, even before she'd learned that he was a black bag guy for Bob Pope.

“Crosswhite has gone off the grid. What do you know about it?”

“Off the grid? Have you seen the news? Mexico City just had a major quake. The whole city's off the grid.”

“He has a satellite phone. Protocol dictates that he use it to check in, and he hasn't done that. So he's either dead or he's broken with protocol.”

The news was unsettling, but she somehow doubted that Crosswhite would be killed by an earthquake. “Protocol or not, I don't think—”

“What did you meet with him about in Guadalajara?”

She darkened, not liking that Fields knew her personal comings and goings. “It was nothing to do with him going off the grid.”

“Are you refusing to tell me what was discussed? Am I hearing you correctly?”

“Listen, Clemson, I don't work for you. I answer directly to Pope. If Pope wanted to know what was discussed, he'd call me. He wouldn't send his little gestapo agent. So what the fuck are you doing here?”

My God
, she thought to herself.
I'm starting to talk like Dan
.

There was shadow beneath his smile. “Did he mention the gold he and Shannon hid from Pope?”

She rested her hand on her hip. “Oh, for God's sake. Missing gold now? Really?”

“Crosswhite's a thief. That much is documented. There's no way he'd pass up—”

“Yeah, well, Pope obviously trusts him. So—”

“Pope doesn't trust Crosswhite. He trusts Shannon.”

Mariana had never met Gil face-to-face, but she had seen his picture and heard plenty about him from Crosswhite. “And you
don't
trust Shannon?”

“I think Pope might be a little nearsighted where the guy's concerned.”

She crossed her arms. “So what do you have on
me—
or rather, what do you
think
you have on me?”

He could see she was no longer quite the naive operative she'd been the year before.

“Have on you?”

“You know I'll report this little visit to Pope, so you must think you have something on me to prevent that.”

“I don't have anything on you,” he admitted. “But I know that you have a soft spot for Crosswhite. And I know that Pope considers him expendable.”

“So what?” she said, feigning indifference. “Pope considers
me
ex
pendable. Probably you too, for that matter—everyone but ­Shannon. So get to the point.”

“Lazaro Serrano is going to be the next president of Mexico.”

“Yeah?” She laughed that off as insignificant. “Not if the PFM has anything to say about it. They're building a solid case against him from what I hear, and Pope has assigned Dan to help them.”

Fields offered a devilish grin of his own. “Tell me: If Pope is keen to bring down Serrano, why has he been feeding him intelligence for the past six months?”

Mariana saw instantly the myriad dangers in this for Crosswhite, realizing he might be nothing more than a pawn in one of Pope's intricate political chess matches. “What kind of intelligence?”

He cleared his throat. “Let it suffice to say that Serrano is well enough insulated that he has little to fear from the PFM—and least of all from Daniel Crosswhite.”

She saw she was being manipulated, but to what end? “You still haven't told me what makes you think I won't report this to Pope.”

Fields removed his glasses, cleaning them with a handkerchief. “Pope has plans for restoring the CIA to its former greatness, as you know. I'm one of the men he's chosen to help him make that happen, so if he's forced to choose between you and me—well, you're smart enough to crunch the numbers yourself. You're too new, too young, too inexperienced—and, quite frankly, too female.”

“You're a bastard.”

Fields was unfazed. “We're members of a very select group, you and I, and all members have to read from the same page. Crosswhite has gone off that page. I think he's been planning to do so for some time now, and I think this quake has given him the perfect opportunity. Now, tell me what was discussed between the two of you.”

She smirked. “He wanted to tell me about the earthquake he was planning.”

He stared at her. “Is that supposed to be humorous?”

“Do you see me laughing?” She stepped back into the apartment and closed the door.

Fields smiled on his way back to the car, taking a satellite phone from his jacket and calling Pope. “It's done. If she knows anything, this should set her in motion.”

Mariana stood watching him through the drapes of her third-floor apartment, seeing him put away the phone before getting into his car. She realized she would be expected to do something stupid now; something to expose herself or Crosswhite. “Maybe I'll do something different,” she muttered to herself. “Maybe I'll do something you'd never expect, just to see the looks on your faces.”

She went to the safe in her closet, removing her passport, a satellite phone, and $5,000 in cash. Then she went down to the laundry room—where she was sure there would be no electronic listening devices—and called Crosswhite on the non-CIA-issue satellite phone.

He answered almost immediately. “Okay. How much do they know?”

“Only that you've gone off the reservation,” she answered. “Fields was just here. I have intel that I can't share over the phone.”

“Then we'd better meet again soon. The clock is running.”

Mariana told him where to meet her in Mexico.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “There's no turning back if we take that road.”

She drew a breath, asking herself if she was sure. “Yes. If what I think is happening is happening, it might be the only road open to us.”

“Okay then. I'll meet you there in twenty-four hours. In the meantime, you watch your butt. Hear me?”

“I'll be off the grid within the hour.” She switched off the phone and ran back upstairs to her apartment.