Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (30 page)

“No,”
Nick said, “there’s one left. But he’s higher up and I haven’t figured out who
he is yet. I’ve narrowed it down to one of three men.”

“The man must
be very high up to have stayed out of your reach?” Rivera noted. “Possibly even
the CIA Director or a Senator?”

Nick felt
a deep hatred flare up in his chest and quickly swallowed it down, trying to
regain control of himself. He cleared his throat and said, “I promise you, once
I figure out who he is, he’ll get his due. You mark my words on that.”

Rivera
leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head, looking at Nick strangely. It
seemed to Nick like he was being sized up and measured, as if Rivera saw him as
some strange animal. And now that Rivera had confirmed his past, the man needed
to take it all in and think a moment before going on. Nick felt like a lion
trapped in a cage at a zoo. Some strange creature that fascinated some member
of a different species. But with Rivera’s grief and unpredictability, Nick
didn’t want to say anything. So, he decided to wait and say nothing, and he
knew how to wait.

“I didn’t
call you in to talk about your past, but I needed to get a better measure of
you,” Rivera finally said. “They’ve got me in a hell of a jam now.”

“I can
help with part of that jam,” Nick said.

The
President continued, as if he hadn’t even heard Nick. “The bastards in Congress
are launching multiple investigations. They say I hastily ordered a response
from the SWAT team to save Juan Soto, and that a lack of planning led to their
deaths. And hell, it’s true.”

He took
another drink. Placed the glass too hard on the desk. Nick waited.

“They say
I ignored intelligence reports that said the Godesto Cartel was planning
something. That’s a complete lie, but a good one, I must say.”

Rivera
looked at the glass again, but it was mostly empty.

“They say
I shouldn’t have arrested Hernan Flores. That he was innocent. Or that he
wasn’t innocent, but was a decent human being, who gave to charity and all.”

Rivera
had waved his right hand when he said “and all,” and now looked off again. Nick
realized the man was completely, absolutely, drop-dead drunk. Drunk from both
shock and liquor, and the lack of sleep wasn’t helping. Rivera was struggling
to stay focused.

“I’m
going to get that little bastard.”

Nick
nodded.

Rivera
looked off yet again.

Probably
a full minute passed and Nick worried that Rivera might actually fall asleep on
him, but suddenly Rivera turned back toward him.

“The
bastard used a sword,” he slurred, “and Juan’s wife saw the footage. His
daughter, too.”

Nick had
seen the video, too, along with the rest of Mexico. The Butcher had taped the
whole thing, the complete bastard that he was. It looked like one of his men
had followed behind him with the video recorder when they had blown the door
off Juan Soto’s safe room. The video showed a Godesto man in front of the
Butcher fire a long burst from an AK toward the ground on the right, presumably
at a bodyguard. The man on the ground hadn’t returned fire in the footage, so
it wasn’t clear whether he was concussed or already dead. Regardless, he
certainly died from the long burst.

And there
stood Juan Soto, the camera jerky as it moved away from the man who had fired
toward the corner and now held Mexico’s richest man, who stood with his hands
up in the international signal of surrender. He looked shocked. Dust covered
his face and crisp, white shirt. Blood dripped from his ears.

The
Butcher asked him if he had any last words, but Soto merely shrugged in
confusion, presumably deaf from the blast. And then with two men locked in on
him with their weapons, the Butcher turned to the camera.

“This
man,” the Butcher said with a sneer pointing back at Soto, “is responsible for
hundreds of crimes against the people of Mexico. For years, he has believed
that money, the President, and this safe room could protect him from the
repercussions of these crimes. But no more.

“This man
is guilty of stealing billions from the backs of the Mexican people. He has
practically forced people into slavery, paying them pitiful wages, all the
while propping up a corrupt President after buying him the election. This man
deserves no trial. His wealth alone proves his guilt.”

And with
that, the Butcher turned, letting his Uzi hang from the sling, and withdrew his
sword ceremoniously. Soto either didn’t believe what was about to happen, or
more than likely hadn’t heard what the Butcher had said, since his eardrums had
just been ruptured.

The
Butcher pulled back the blade and chambered it far behind him, stepped into the
stroke, and swung the blade toward Juan Soto’s neck. He drove the sword through
swiftly and beheaded Juan Soto as cleanly as was probably possible. The stroke
looked crisp and perfect. Well-practiced, for sure.

The news
channels had blurred out Juan Soto’s head falling -- at least partially; they
still wanted their ratings, and thus it was just obvious from what they blurred
out that the man’s head had fallen and his body had crumpled, headless and
helpless.

The CIA
had studied the footage that had been released to news organizations across
Mexico. Several computer programs verified what the human analysts suspected:
The culprit with the sword was most definitely the man known as the Butcher.
The CIA had immediately compiled a file on the man and sent it to Nick by
encrypted document. Nick had begun studying a frustratingly short file on him
since he woke this morning at 5:30 a.m.

“Mr.
President,” Nick said, “that sword isn’t going to do him any good when I get
him in my sights.”

“I want
him dead,” Rivera said.

“We can
get him,” Nick said. “No problem.”

“No,”
Rivera said, slapping the desk with both hands, as hard as he could. “I know
you can capture him, but I want him dead. I do not want him taken prisoner
under any circumstances. He will not rule from prison. He will not be shanked
in prison. I want him killed in the take-down.”

Nick
nodded.

“And, don’t
worry,” Rivera said, “I’ll deal with the coroner and after-action report. But
this man beheaded one of the greatest men in Mexico. He murdered my friend. And
he will die for doing so. Even if it’s my last act in office.”

And with
that, Rivera stood, refilled his glass, and went back to his window. Nick
waited a full five minutes, but Rivera never looked back at him. Nick wasn’t
sure if the President had forgotten he was there or if that was all he had to
say on the matter. That Rivera simply wanted his final request done.

In the
end, Nick finally stood and walked out of the room.

Chapter
34

Nick
Woods received a more-detailed briefing on the situation the day after his
meeting with President Rivera, and the situation was not good. In fact, it was worse
than either Nick or Rivera could have imagined.

But even
without knowing that, Nick had decided to do what all warriors do in dead time:
Sharpen the sword.

Once Nick
returned from his meeting with Rivera, he had ordered the men of Shield,
Safeguard, and Shelter to gather their gear for some much-needed training. The
men of S3 had rehearsed immediate reaction drills, fired tons of ammo at a
remote mountain range, and exercised with moderation -- about three-fourth’s of
their capacity, since Nick didn’t want the men sore the next day. Just ready
and relaxed for whatever was coming down the pike. And it would definitely be
coming, Nick knew.

The
entire team had trained hard, shot well, and completed their PT (a mountain run
with full gear and weapons) with lots of motivation. Nick and Marcus were ready
to move, and that turned out to be a good thing. Mr. Smith called later that
evening, after the team had cleaned up and scrubbed down their weapons.

Mr. Smith
shared that both the CIA and the Mexican Ambassador were afraid that Rivera
might only have another day or two remaining in office.

“His poll
numbers are in the teens,” Mr. Smith said. “The public has bought into the fact
that he treated Juan Soto special when he directly, and personally, ordered
that SWAT response. And the cartels are really playing the poor-versus-the-rich
card, dropping in some talking points about high unemployment and government
corruption.”

“And his
opponents smell blood,” Nick added.

“Correct,”
Mr. Smith said. “They see an opening, and the first of several hearings starts
tomorrow. Plus, Rivera hasn’t done a very good job staying away from the
bottle. But that’s changing. He realizes he’s in serious trouble. The NSA is
intercepting the emails and phone calls of his opponents, and our Ambassador
will have him prepped as much as possible for the hearings, but we’ve
role-played these hearings many times, and Rivera is totally screwed. He has
days left in office. Not weeks. And certainly not months or years.”

“Where
does that leave us?” Nick asked.

“Nowhere
good. The head of the Congress, who will likely be sworn in after Rivera is
gone, is already talking about a truce with the Godesto Cartel, and a return to
how things were. Less war. Fewer military ops. More peace and stability.”

“So,
turning a blind eye to it all?” Nick asked.

“Precisely.
The public is weary. It’s what they want to hear.”

“What
does that mean for us?” Nick asked.

“It means
you probably have two days to take down the Butcher and the Godesto Cartel.”

“Impossible,”
Nick said.

“Probably,”
Mr. Smith said, “but it’s reality. Get with your team and figure out how you
can pull this off in two days. The Butcher dead. The Godesto Cartel broken in
half.”

Nick
didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“Look,”
Mr. Smith said. “You’ve got the talent and brains around you to pull this off.
But know that if you haven’t succeeded within two days, we will have to extract
you, for both your safety and our country’s relationship with the new
President. There’s no way President Rivera’s replacement will sanction S3 being
in the country. And we don’t want that interim President leaking your info or,
worse, using the Mexican military to arrest you all. You have two days.
Period.”

And with
that, Nick had been left hearing a dead dial tone in his heavy, encrypted
phone. It was a new experience being the one hung up on. Nick glanced down at
his watch and saw that it was 5:50 p.m. They needed to move fast. Like,
immediately.

Nick and
Dwayne Marcus mustered the entire S3 team, placing the need of garnering input
from every single man over the need for security at the farm. Nick and Marcus
wanted to hear every possible sound idea that might be out there among the
forty-four team members.

The men
formed up behind the house at 6:15 p.m., in a platoon-sized formation of five
squads. All of the members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter wore uniforms and
web gear, and carried their M4s that they had been issued before leaving
America.

The S3
members had ditched their undercover civilian clothes and looked uniform and
sharp, dressed in olive drab trousers, S3 T-shirts with the logo on the left
chest, black jungle boots, and OD green boonie covers. Despite their uniform
appearance, Nick could name them all.

They had
grown close, though their time together had been short. With no one allowed to
leave the farm, they’d practically lived on top of each other in the
moderately-sized farm house built for a family of four. Given that each squad
had to squeeze all eight of its members into a single bedroom, they practically
slept on top of each other on green, Army surplus cots placed just inches
apart. Gear was stored mostly in sea bags and footlockers under their cots.

But Nick
believed strongly in unit cohesion and the farmhouse had provided more than
seclusion and anonymity. It had taken a bunch of superbly trained and
experienced warriors and forged them into a tight unit. The men -- and one
woman -- of S3 would take a bullet for each other, and they had created this
tight fraternity in mere weeks together. And now they faced a completely unfair
deadline that would doubtlessly cost several -- or many -- of them their lives.

“All
right, men, listen up,” Nick said, walking up with Dwayne Marcus to the
assembled formation. His voice halted any light chatting going on in the loose
formation.

Nick
looked across the formation. They were a good unit. Some of the best men he’d
ever seen assembled.

In the
front row were the six members of the Primary Strike Team, not counting himself
or Marcus, which made eight. Behind them were the three squads of eight. All
good men, veterans from the Marine Corps and Army.

In the
fifth row stood the six Marine Scout Sniper teams he had requested. Quiet men,
tall and lean, and their service records showed that each of them had confirmed
kills.

Not in
the formation, but inside the house was his CIA contact, who he had still
failed to name. Nick had asked the CIA contact to keep watch on their Mexican
liaison, so that the man wouldn’t hear what was said and thus couldn’t possibly
sell them out.

Nick took
a deep breath and put his hands on his hips, standing tall and pushing his
chest out.

He knew
he had earned the men’s respect, but he needed to nail this set of orders and
squeeze every ounce of love and respect he could from them. They’d be knee-deep
in shit in just a matter of hours and the lives of his team depended on each of
them trusting him enough to die for him. He didn’t usually sweat how he looked,
but today he and Dwayne Marcus had coordinated their attire.

Nick wore
a tight black T-shirt with a Marine sniper rifle logo on the left chest. Each
of the men knew the story of Nick working with Allen Green to take down an
out-of-control CIA unit, since Allen had published the entire story as part of
a blockbuster,
New York Times
bestselling work. And the book delved into
more of Nick’s work in Afghanistan against the Soviets than the mere article
had that had been published originally in
The New Yorker
. (Though technically,
it had been published, retracted by The New Yorker, and then re-published,
though Allen had told them to jump in a creek when they had offered him his old
job and a double-pay contract for an expanded story of his original work. Allen
had refused to expand it and saved those details for his book.)

Nick
hoped the sniper logo on his shirt would remind the S3 members of the dozens of
crazy, all-out scraps he had survived. Even as experienced as many of the
combat vets were, no one had put as many men down as Nick had.

Nick’s
black T-shirt was tucked into a pair of jungle camo trousers, bloused into a
spit-polished pair of boots. Marcus stood behind him at parade rest, dressed
the same except that his black T-shirt bore a Combat Hand-to-Hand Instructor
logo from his days as a drill instructor at Parris Island. Both Nick and Marcus
wore OD green boonie covers, just like the rest of the S3 unit.

Nick
paced a bit in front of the platoon-sized element as he composed his words,
just as he had seen countless leaders do. Then he stopped and faced them.

“Men,
there’s no need beating around the bush. We’re in a hell of a situation.
Again.”

A few men
laughed, remembering how they had been forced to deploy early before their
training was complete and then nearly had the entire mission yanked from them
just a couple days earlier.

“Good
point,” Nick said, acknowledging the laughter and thinking about what a
disaster this whole gig had been to date. “Well, the good news is we don’t have
to leave immediately as we nearly did earlier this week. We
do
, however,
get a chance to complete the mission. There is one catch though, and it’s a big
one. The bad news is we have a very short timeline to complete the mission.”

No one
said anything or complained, so Nick continued.

“We, no
shit, have two days to wrap this up.” Nick let that sink in as he looked them
over. “Two days to claim that bastard who calls himself the Butcher. Two days
to rip the balls off the Godesto Cartel and turn them from the most powerful
cartel in North or South America to nothing but a bunch of crying Boy Scouts.

“The CIA
believes President Rivera only has two more days left in office, and that means
we also only have two more days. His likely replacement would love nothing more
than to arrest a bunch of gringos operating in Mexico to score some easy
political points with the public. But the main point of me yapping here in
front of you is we need all hands on deck on this one. Marcus and I need every
idea and brain cell that we have in this unit.

“And we
need whatever solution we can come up with fast. You guys will break into
squads, brainstorm how best we can take the Butcher out as well as wreck the
Godesto Cartel in only two days. Then, your squad leaders will report to Marcus
and me in forty-five minutes. Time is of the essence men. No screwing around in
these brainstorming sessions. We’ll probably be locked and loaded and hunting
in just a few hours, so get your game faces on.”

Nick
looked back. “Marcus, you have anything to add?”

Marcus
shook his head and Nick said, “Squad leaders, take your men and make it happen.
Dismissed.”

It took
more than three intense hours, but Nick and Marcus crafted together a plan that
they thought just might work. It was their best chance, and there was no way of
guaranteeing a successful plan given the two-day deadline, with the clock
already ticking as they raced to plan the op and get everything into position.

With the
plan as complete as they could make it, Nick stepped away to call President
Rivera. Nick had assumed Mr. Smith with the CIA would want a briefing, but the
man had said he didn’t want to know the details when Nick had called him first.
Nick could sense the “plausible deniability” and feeling of being sold out if
this didn’t work, but he had been sold out before so it was nothing new for
cowards who led from behind desks. 

Nick
looked down at his watch and saw it was 9:13 p.m.

Late or
not, Rivera had asked to be kept personally in the loop, since Nick didn’t
trust reporting his info to any other Mexican official. Well, maybe Juan Soto,
but he was no longer an option.

Rivera
had persuaded Nick to call him personally in part because the President had
felt confident that Nick would need his help. The President could move men and
material, or gather last-minute intel through his generals without explaining
what it might be used for. Nick felt comfortable with this arrangement and
promised to call once his team had devised some plans.

With it
now nearly 9:15, Nick would soon find out whether President Rivera truly wanted
to be called no matter the time of day. He pulled out a throw-away cell phone
and called Rivera on the man’s personal cell phone. If Nick and Marcus’s plans
were going to work, then they would need some big favors from Rivera. Yet as
the phone rang in Nick’s ears, he remembered the vengeful mood he had seen the
man in… Rivera would come through.