Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (31 page)

Chapter
35

Just
minutes after President Roberto Rivera approved Nick’s plans, the men of S3
crept down the farm’s driveway and slithered into the night.

The
squads had been packing and making final mission prep for hours, even while the
plans were being finalized by Nick and Dwayne Marcus. Now, with Rivera on board
with the strategy, and completely willing to do his part, the deadly warriors
of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were leaving to sow some hate and discontent.

And it
was a good night to do it. It was black out -- darker than normal.

“Good
night for hunting,” Nick said into his radio.

“Oh,
yeah,” Marcus answered. “We’re going to bag some people tonight.” He rode in a
vehicle further back in the convoy.

In many
respects, this was the most dangerous part of the operation. The entire unit of
S3 was moving toward Mexico City. All forty-four of them, minus their Mexican
contact and CIA liaison, who they had left back at the farm. But otherwise the
entire unit had grabbed as much ammo as they could carry and loaded all of
their vehicles.

Now the
convoy of various vehicles -- SUVs, compacts, trucks; all bought with the
purpose of not sticking out -- was dispersed over a two-mile distance. They had
waited a couple minutes between each vehicle departing to avoid moving as a
large pack. Had they been bunched up together with that many headlights
traveling as a group at night, they would have likely been pulled over by some
police officer worried they were a cartel group rolling out in force. (Of
course the officer would know he couldn't stop that many, so he’d probably call
it in, which was even more dangerous.)

Nick
couldn’t afford a shootout with a bunch of cops, or a delay if they were stopped
and arrested, given how many weapons they carried. President Rivera would have
gotten it sorted out eventually, but the delay might still last an hour or two.
And their element of surprise would be totally gone once the police department
started talking about the large formation of men that had been pulled over and
then released following a call from the President.

Nick
swallowed down an uneasy feeling as they drove north. Just another hour or so
and they’d be at the pick-up point, and then the mission would really get
interesting.

President
Roberto Rivera stood in front of his bullet-proof window and stared out over
the massive city. As part of the emergency renovation to restore national pride,
the Presidential Palace had been mostly repaired from the attacks it had
sustained. Still, Rivera felt unsettled. After such a ferocious and brazen
attack on the Palace, he would never feel safe and secure again.

He
sighed. The lack of even a basic feeling of safety was just another frustration
of trying to rule Mexico. How could you be a strong leader when your own
sanctuary felt like a combat outpost in some Third World country? How could he
achieve anything when his orders were leaked as fast as he issued them?

Foreign
leaders had no idea of how many unique challenges he faced. He suppressed the
nagging thought that maybe Mexico was closer to being a Third World country
than he cared to admit.

No. Not
even close, he thought. He’d fix Mexico or die trying. And with luck, his
country’s fortunes would change in a big way tonight. Rivera no longer cared if
he survived his second term. And this was a bigger deal than he could ever
explain. He had spent his whole life getting to this point, and yet he had come
to grips with the fact that he’d gladly sacrifice that. His legacy meant
nothing compared to the necessity of saving his country.

He stared
at the cell phone in his hand -- it was one he had taken from one of the lowest
aides in the building. He had asked the steward if he had a cell phone on him,
and once the young man had said yes, he had handed him five hundred dollars and
said to go buy a new one -- that he needed to make some calls with it and he
needed a phone that wasn’t monitored.

And as
Rivera looked over the city, he knew that now was the moment of truth. With the
first of several calls he was about to make, he would break so many laws that
he shuddered to consider how long he would serve in prison if it failed and
Nick and his team wasn’t successful.

But Nick
had laid out the facts as only a non-national could do. Nick didn’t care that
he was speaking to the President of Mexico. He frankly and directly told Rivera
that he was being told by CIA intelligence that Rivera probably had two days,
which meant Nick and S3 had only that much time as well.

Rivera
hated to agree, but the wolves were closing in. Congressional hearings were
already scheduled and his close aides were jockeying for their own political careers
in case Rivera’s nose-dived.

Nick
explained that he and his team had devised some possible plans that just might
crush the Godesto Cartel and put the Butcher in the ground, if Rivera was game
for helping them.

Nick’s
ideas were off-the-wall good, and Rivera had slightly improved them, at least
in his mind. Nick agreed the additions were sound and once he was sure that
Rivera was on board, he asked the man -- the President! -- to take out a memo
pad and write down some detailed instructions, as well as what time they needed
to happen.

Rivera
had complied and now he was seconds from completing step one.

He looked
up from the steward’s cell phone and shifted his eyes north toward America. If
Nick and his men failed to pull this off, he and his wife, as well as the
remainder of Juan Soto’s family, would be flying to America to seek asylum in
just a couple of days, if not sooner. Possibly even tomorrow. And once that
occurred, someone else could worry about Mexico’s problems.

Maybe one
of the bastards in Congress ripping him on 24-hour news channels at this very
moment could find out what it felt like to be looking out this window into the
dark night, wondering if an RPG would come flying toward you from the apartment
complex across the way. He wished they could see what it was like. To go to
work wondering if your family or the families of your supporters would survive
the day. To have to decide whether to stand up to the cartels or get in bed
with them.

He
glanced at his watch. It was time for the first task Nick had assigned him.

He typed
in the numbers he had looked up earlier. He had written Nick’s plans on a
yellow memo pad, adding in necessary details in the margins. No way would
Rivera let any assistant help him on this, though it had felt weird having to
look up a phone number for the first time in nearly five years.

The phone
rang three times and then someone picked up.

“Police
Department,” a man answered. “Is this an emergency?”

“No,”
Rivera said. “I need to speak to--” he looked down at his memo pad to find the
name of the duty officer, “Captain Millan. Immediately.”

“Who is
this? What is it regarding?”

“This is
a Class 5 Emergency. Password J587IWM.”

A pause
ensued, doubtlessly as the person fumbled and looked up the numbers.

“One
moment, sir. I’ll get him.”

So far,
so good.

Thirty
seconds later, a captain picked up the phone. He sounded like he had been
running and Rivera figured the man had been down the hall watching a movie.

“Captain
Millan, you don’t need to know my name, but I am a high-ranking official who
works at the Presidential Palace and is in the know, you might say. I wanted to
warn you that you will soon be getting a call -- approximately thirty minutes
from now -- that will come as part of an emergency set of orders from the Presidential
Palace. And I wanted to warn you that you might want to get twelve of your
standard, green police trucks fueled up and ready to go. The ones with rails in
the beds for troops. Trust me on this. Gas tanks, fully fueled, as they should
be, but often aren’t because officers are too tired at the end of their
shifts.”

“Why are
you telling me this?” the captain asked.

“My
father was a police officer,” Rivera said, telling a lie, but for a good cause.
“Now, I must go before I’m busted for alerting you, but make sure you fuel
those twelve trucks up. You’re going to thank me, believe me.”

Rivera
hung up, then picked up his own cell phone -- government issued and probably
tracked, but necessary. So be it, he thought. He had to use it for these calls,
or things would seem too odd to those who picked the phone up this late at
night. And ultimately, either he and Nick would succeed and that would give him
a shot at retaining his Presidency and saving the country, or they wouldn’t,
and if they failed, then none of it mattered anyway. He’d be on that plane to
America.

His first
call was to the head of his Secret Service.

“Herrera,
this is President Rivera. I apologize for calling you so late, but I need you
to call up two hundred of your men. Full battle gear, in the Presidential
Palace as fast as they can get here. And I need your shift leader in my office
in the next five minutes. Please, no questions. I must go now and will fill you
in later. Just do it.”

Rivera
hung up and called his Chief of Staff.

“Mateo,
this is President Rivera. I apologize for calling you so late, but I need to
call an emergency Cabinet meeting. Get everyone here immediately. And then get
with the stewards and have them call some people in. We’re going to need food
and drinks since everyone will be here for a while.”

Within
thirty minutes, the last Cabinet member had arrived. A police escort had
accompanied each of them, so their arrival was unimpeded. And since there had
been an earlier Cabinet meeting that afternoon, all of them were in Mexico City
instead of out touring their departments across the country.

Rivera
kept his distance as they arrived. He stayed in his office and ignored them
while they muttered and waited anxiously. Many of them texted him, hoping
friendship would trump his plans, but he dismissed their queries without an
answer.

He also
knew a few would try to meet privately with him to find out what was going on,
so he had stationed twelve Secret Service officers in full battle gear,
including M4 assault rifles, to stand at his door and admit no one. (And given
that he had told the shift leader that a possible coup was under way, these men
would listen to no one but Rivera himself, no matter how high ranking a Cabinet
member might be.)

Once his
Chief of Staff texted to inform him that the last member had arrived and all
were seated and ready, Rivera took a deep breath and charged into the
conference room. If the door flying open uncharacteristically didn’t get their
attention, then the eight men entering behind him in full combat gear did.

All
chatter ceased around the conference table and Rivera stopped behind his seat
at the head of the table, his hands on his hips. He didn’t plan on sitting
down. He stared down at them and said, “Tonight, I’ll be issuing a number of
orders. I expect them to be executed immediately and without comment.”

He pulled
a folded yellow sheet from his pocket. It provided both his instructions and
the only proof that existed of his conversation with Nick Woods from earlier.
It would certainly be burned soon, but for now, it supplied the blueprints for
his and Nick’s war plans.

He turned
to his head of Federal Police -- Mexico’s equivalent of America’s FBI.

“Luis,
call the Mexico City Police Department. A Captain Millan is the duty officer.
Instruct him to immediately deliver twelve police trucks to this address.”

Rivera
popped one of his business cards face down on the table and slid it toward the
head of federal police.

“The
address,” Rivera said, pointing to the back of the card on which he had scribbled
down the address, “is an abandoned warehouse. There will be a number of men
there, and these men are American. The police officers are to say nothing to
these men, but simply leave the keys in the ignitions and confirm there’s a
full tank of gas in them before they drop them off.”

Luis
shook his head in confusion.

“I don’t
understand,” he said.

“You
don’t have to,” Rivera shot back. “Tell Captain Millan to have his men drive a
couple of vans down with them so they have a way back to the police station
once they’ve dropped the vehicles off. Oh, and if he hears or an officer
reports of twelve trucks running throughout the city with their lights on, tell
him to leave them alone and ignore the call.”

The
Secretary of Interior, Marcos Sanchez, jumped to his feet. He was in charge of
Mexico’s internal security.

“This is
absurd,” he roared. “Why don’t I know of these Americans? Are these the men of
your S3 or some other group?”

“Sit
down,” Rivera said.

“I will
not sit down. This is how blue-on-blue situations occur. I command all security
operations inside this country and I will not allow something to be done
without my knowledge.”

“Fine,”
Rivera said. “Step out of the room and type up your resignation letter. These
two officers will take your cell phone from you and then escort you to one of
my offices. By the way, don’t plan on going anywhere. You won’t be allowed to
leave the premises for at least the next thirty-six hours. Probably
forty-eight.”