Target Deck - 02 (12 page)

Deckard began looking at the Falcon View navigator program running on the tough book computer mounted in his truck.

“Christians In Action,” he answered. “They broke into our net.”

“I WARNED YOU-”

“We'll take care of that later,” Deckard cut the computer technician off. “Hit Internacional Road and then turn right on Eduardo Vasconcelos,” he then told the driver. “We're taking a detour.”

The streets were dead. Not a soul dared to show their face after dark. Up until recently Oaxaca City had been spared the extreme violence that had plagued much of Mexico. It was only as the Mexican military truly began cracking down on the cartels to the north, under the aegis of an American foreign aid and military program, that the drug barons began getting displaced to the south. Squeezed up against one another, cartel bosses like Ortega and Jimenez arrived in Oaxaca and began warring with each other. Just a few months prior the entire province had been considered an oasis for tourists. Even the US President's daughter vacationed there.

The aging colonial buildings and churches clashed with the pastel colored homes and commercial warehouses as the Samruk convoy sped through the night. Deckard sat back in his seat, watching the vehicle icons move across the map on the computer screen as they were updated by the GPS hockey puck stuck to the side of the truck with a magnet.

His dance card was filling up fast. The fact that the CIA wanted to talk made him more nervous than if they had been trying to kill him. What did they want?

Turning onto the main throughway, Deckard told the driver to continue straight as they headed into the outskirts of the city.

Turning onto another road they went up hill and the houses began to spread out until they found a lone bungalow style home sitting by itself on the incline. The lights were on inside and two sedans were parked out front. It looked a lot like a trap.

The mercenaries silently glided off their vehicles and surrounded the house in an L-shaped formation. They were prepared to open fire if they were being baited into an ambush. Two of the assault trucks trained their PKM machine guns on the house while the others faced outward, scanning to exterior threats in the surrounding hills. Cicadas could be heard humming above the sound of idling truck engines.

Deckard walked right up to the front steps and looked through the screen door.

“Come on in,” a voice said from inside. “It's just us.”

Deckard pulled open the door and stepped into the living room.

“No bullshit, olive branch and all? I never thought I'd see the day,” the mercenary quipped.

The living conditions in the house were austere. A few pieces of furniture, an ancient television set, some empty beer cans sitting on the coffee table. Just enough to make the CIA safe house look as if it were lived in.

“You're the one with the strike team outside,” said the older guy sitting on the couch. “We're pretty passive here in Oaxaca. We might have a guy or two working out of the consulate for protection but we save the contractors for Somalia and Yemen. Until now at least.”

“We should be so lucky. Based on my observations you might want to increase your security around here.”

“No need,” said the second CIA case officer. He was a younger agent of Hispanic origins. “We are flying out tonight. We're done here.”

“But that hasn't stopped you from shadowing my moves.”

“Relax Deckard, it's our job,” he replied. “Remember?”

“I didn't feel the love.”

“I'm Grant,” the older CIA veteran said smoothing out his collared shirt with one hand and motioning to an empty chair with the other. “My associate is Felix. Why don't you take a seat.”

Deckard's eyes flicked across the room one last time before he sat down, laying his AK-103 across his lap.

“You embarrassed us by rolling into Oaxaca like this. We had no forewarning that some merc outfit was going to just fly in and start a shooting war.”

“You'll have to offer my apologies to the Director.”

“Well, we started tracking your movements electronically and once we realized it was you we pinged Langley and requested permission to have a sit down. To our surprise they immediately approved this meeting.”

“I suppose they've got a lot questions that they would like to ask me.”

“That they do but this isn't an ultimatum. Not anymore. Listen, Deckard, I realize that we didn't know each other when you were with the Agency but all those knuckle draggers down in Ground Branch had good things to say about you even if you pissed off the mafia working on the 7th floor. We know that we got caught asleep at the wheel.”

“Again.”

“Yeah,” Grant said breaking eye contract. “Yeah.”

“You would think that the Agency owes me one.”

“Listen, things have changed. We're still trying to piece together how it all happened. The investigation is unofficial of course but we watched the entire national security apparatus stand up and get pushed to the brink without any discernible reason. We know it was an attempted coup on US soil. A couple people were forced into retirement, some others moved around, you know the deal.”

“That accountability that the CIA is oh-so-famous for,” Deckard replied, growing bored with the conversation. “What do you want from me?”

“The real question is what you want,” Felix piped in. “You brought down Ortega and are gunning for Jimenez. We want to know what your next play is, we want to know what your intent in this region is. Everyone in the Pentagon and at Langley is nervous as fuck about you stomping around in combat boots in our own back yard.”

“I'll be damned if I'm going to show you my playbook.”

“It's a poor choice of words,” Grant said looking at his partner. “Besides, we know already know how you do things. Fire and maneuver. You're a soldier not a spy, I get that. We have no allegiance to Ortega or Jimenez and your goals might coincide with ours on this issue. But we need assurances.”

“We want to disable to the cartel and weaken them enough that there is an opportunity for law and order to prevail in Oaxaca. I put a bullet in Jimenez's dome and I'm out of here.”

“That's all we needed to hear.”

“But?”

“But the Mexican Marines and other Infantry battalions are already receiving re-deployment orders. Jimenez has some kind of in with the Mexican intelligence services, we don't know the details but they have an arrangement.”

“Kickbacks.”

“No doubt about it but Jimenez is putting pressure on those contacts to help him solve his mercenary problem and those intelligence contacts are pressuring the administration in Mexico City. They've got the Mexican President by the balls on something. The Army and Marines are beating up the cartels pretty hard up north. We're happy with the progress they are making but now the President is ordering two battalions worth of troops to mobilize and redeploy to Oaxaca to take you out.”

“Good luck.”

“Look Deckard, what do you have here? A hundred guys? You won't last long. To tell you the truth we don't want these troops pulled off the target deck that our office has them working up north. Several of the meanest cartels in Mexico are at their end game thanks to our efforts and we don't want to see this opportunity squandered at the very last moment. As it stands, those Mexican troops should arrive by ground transport in Oaxaca within 48 hours.”

“You've got some pull with the administration yourself. Cancel the orders. Give me some breathing room down here and I'll be out of the picture. Give me five days, maybe a week.”

“The Agency is prepared to do just that but right now we don't have the ammunition we need against the Mexican President. He's getting uppity with Washington. It's election season down here and he's busy demonizing the United States to shore up voters. He has to blame the corruption and failure of governmental services on someone. Certainly it isn't a homegrown issue, so it's gotta be the gringos.”

“That's quite a dilemma.”

“We need the leverage ourselves and so do you if you don't want the military coming down here and pushing your shit in,” Felix explained. “So this puts you in a position to help yourself and the Agency at the same time.”

“I'm all aflutter,” Deckard wisecracked. “Do tell.”

Grant flopped a stack of stapled papers on the table.

“We're cleaning out Mexico of the most troublesome cartels. Like you, State's unofficial policy is to reduce the cartels' power down to a manageable level. Manage them like we managed the Italian mafia back home. A level of corruption that we can all live with, we know they are not going away anytime soon. The problem is this fucking Lebanese faction running the financial side of things for the cartels out of Cancun.”

Deckard picked up the dossier and began scanning the photos. “I'm listening.”

“Bashir Safadi is the primary money washer for drug cartels throughout the southern cone. Not just in Mexico either. He's Lebanese by descent, hit Mexico in the 1980's and dug in as a financier. His money laundering organization controls Cancun where they are constantly building hotels that sit there empty so that narco-dollars can be reported as profits from tourism. Bashir also controls the airfield at Cancun which pilots from Venezuela and Colombia use as a trampoline. They stop at the halfway point between their home countries and the US to refuel at Cancun.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Like I said, the Agency is doing some house cleaning down here in Mexico. We're hoping for a less unruly drug trade and a more business oriented government. This Bashir guy has got to go. He's making our job very difficult by acting as the cartel's banker and hiding their slush funds.”

“You want me to take him out?”

“Not just take him out, we also want you to capture his secret stash of video recordings that he keeps in his penthouse there on the main strip of Cancun.”

“Blackmail.”

“Right, that's how we'll keep the Mexican military off your ass and how we'll keep the Mexican government looking towards the United States for foreign trade rather than those fuckers over in China.”

“How long do I have? I can probably fly a team in within the next day and get eyes on the target.”

“We have a private jet waiting for you at the airport here in Oaxaca City right now. If you need additional personnel we can ferry them to Cancun as well.”

Grant reached into a gym bag next to his chair.

“We've got an identification package done up for you. Give us the word and we'll set up a meeting with Bashir to get your foot in the door. You'll be an investment banker flying in from New York.”

“I don't know anything about investment banking.”

Felix laughed.

“Neither do they.”

Deckard stood and walked towards the door.

“One more thing Deckard,” Grant stopped him. “I need to know.”

“Know what?”

“What really happened out there on that ship in the Pacific? I need to know the real story.”

“Some other time,” Deckard said and let the door slam shut on his way out.