The Last Line (53 page)

Mendoza managed a terrified smile. “Look … we can work this out, yes?” He spread his hands. “I can … I can talk to people who will make you,
all
of you, incredibly wealthy!”

The gunshot cracked across the desert. Mendoza's back arched sharply, and then he crumpled to the ground. Behind him, momentarily forgotten, the young Mexican woman, naked and filthy, clutched Mendoza's pistol in two tiny hands.

“Cabrón,”
she spat, an epithet that meant both “billy goat” and “bastard.”

“Son of a bitch,” Spangler said, looking down at the body. “Looks to me like the bastard got shot trying to escape.”

HAMMER ONE

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

1820 HOURS, LOCAL TIME

Gunnery Sergeant Antonio Sanchez stared into the electronic eyepiece of his Barrett .50, unmoving, relaxed … and bored. Were those two
never
going to stop?

Beside him, James Edward Clarke was restless. “Can't you take the shot?”

“No,” Sanchez replied. “I can't. Not without risking hitting the girl.”

“Collateral damage is only to be expected—”

“
Negative.
Not on my watch.
Sir.
”

Sanchez was a Recon Marine sniper, and a very good one. He took pride in his work, and he was not going to blow both of those people away with one round just because a stuffed suit out of Langley was getting impatient.

Besides, it was kind of nice that the target was getting to have one last fling before the hammer fell.

The technology was amazing, and Sanchez wished he'd had it in Iraq. More than once, during his three deployments to that unhappy hellhole, he'd nailed insurgents from a mile away
through
a solid concrete wall, but he'd had to take a guess as to their positions. The backscatter device hooked up to his sniper scope and to Clarke's computer monitor was peeking right through the wall of the apartment across Emiliano Zapata Street and into the bedroom.

Those two had been at it for a couple of hours now.

“Who s this guy, anyway?” Sanchez asked.

“You don't need to know.”

“Fair enough.” Sanchez was a CIA contract employee, hired for certain operations requiring his deadly and precise skills. He rarely knew the names or identities of the people he was brought in to terminate.

Clarke seemed to think about it, then relented slightly. “His name is Nicholas,” he said.

“One of ours?”

“He … used to work for us.”

“I see.” Sanchez had been watching the rot spreading through this country. Drug money was everywhere, and anyone, it seemed, could be bought.

Perhaps the rot had spread to Langley as well.
That
was an unsettling thought.

“We're sending a message this evening, Sanchez,” Clarke said. “The Company is not for sale.”

In his scope, the plastic-looking man finally rolled off of the woman and sat up at the edge of a ghost-hazy bed. The woman sat up behind him, her hand caressing his back and shoulder. “Target is moving,” Sanchez said.

“Yeah,” Clarke said. “Yeah!
Nail
the bastard!”

“Wait one.” He followed the man as he stood up, walked past the bed, and headed toward the apartment's bathroom. Sanchez wanted to be absolutely sure that the woman was out of the line of fire.

He drew a breath … let it out partway … and gently squeezed the trigger.

TELLER CONDO

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

1910 HOURS, EDT

Teller's condo was a classic bachelor's pad. Located in the Manchester Lakes of the upscale Kingstowne area, it was just three miles from Fort Belvoir. It had been a long and grueling day talking with the INSCOM investigation team. At least he wasn't going to prison; in fact, they were going to make him a freakin' major.

They'd stopped asking him about his motivations in going after the cartel thugs at the Perez house and shifted to the details of that contract he and the ISA team had found in the jungle at Cerros.

The Russian submarine, he'd learned, had been thoroughly searched, then finally released.
Another
international incident, that—but one that the State Department appeared to be smoothing over.

Barrón and Maria Perez had been transferred to different secret locations. Barrón was headed for Supermax; Perez would probably end up in a witness protection program, given a new name and a new identity in exchange for her testimony against Escalante.

A brave woman. He sincerely hoped she survived this. It was terrifying to know just how completely the Mexican cartels had penetrated the United States—its government, its police forces, the hearts and souls of over 170 different cities across the country, at last count.

America's last lines of defense were crumbling with horrific speed.

The Aztlán threat, at least, was fading away, at least for now. The riots had all but sputtered out as the National Guard took control of barrios and city centers from San Diego to Chicago. The president of Mexico, under pressure from the U.S. secretary of state, had publicly backed away from endorsing the Aztlán Libre movement.

Congress had promised to look again into the issue of illegal immigration on the border and the influence of Mexican drug cartels in American cities. Teller wondered if that would amount to anything worthwhile at all.

Secrecy. Washington, D.C., was awash in secrets, some well kept, others not so much. It was anyone's guess how the Shah Mat affair was going to shake out. The idea that a cartel-linked conspiracy had reached so high up into the city's halls of power …

Teller's thoughts went back to that wooden statue by the pond at the Bohemian Grove. He'd had to look it up later in his laptop: the figure was the patron saint of the Bohemian Club, John of Nepomuk, a priest who, it was said, had died rather than tell a Bohemian ruler, the “good King Wenceslaus” of song and fable, the confessional secrets of the queen.

There were
some
secrets that must be protected at all costs.

Most secrets, he thought, were simply people in power keeping their own screwups hidden from the people, keeping themselves from looking like idiots—CYA on steroids.

Sometimes, however, the people entrusted with power
had
to be exposed, or that secrecy became the means of destroying a nation.

Maybe that was Fletcher's legacy here. A man betrayed, an old-school man of honor who'd discovered that both those under him and above him in the chain of command were corrupt, that the corruption had gone higher and deeper than anyone had suspected. He'd found himself cut off, unable to trust anyone, unable to
tell
anyone what he knew or suspected.

His suicide, though, had highlighted Nicholas's treason, and that, in turn, had led to Preston.

Thanks, Galen,
Teller thought.

Teller didn't like the fact of Preston's ambiguous death—if death it had been. Still, he would do what he'd done again.
The next right thing …

His arm hurt, a heavy throbbing pulse. The problem, he thought, was that it was no longer possible to draw clear lines between the good guys and the bad. The Mexican cartels—those were pure evil, no question … but Teller was beginning to question issues of right and wrong he'd not questioned before.
The next right thing
 …

Was it
ever
right to sacrifice the sacred Constitution of the United States when it became … inconvenient?

Some questions were just too big—or too painful—to face all at once. Galen Fletcher had run into that.

He needed to think.

It was early yet. He could still drive up to Fourteenth Street … have a few drinks, maybe see if Sandra Doherty was on tonight.

Then again …

He hadn't had a chance to spend time with Jackie since he'd gotten back from California.

What was the next right thing?

He pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed her number.

Maybe the Filamena, up in Georgetown, for dinner.

 

 

ALSO BY LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER

Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan—and the Path to Victory

 

About the Authors

LT. COL. ANTHONY SHAFFER (Ret.) is a Bronze Star Medal recipient and a CIA-trained senior intelligence operations officer with more than twenty-five years of experience in the intelligence community. He is a Senior Fellow and Special Lecturer at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, D.C., and author of the
New York Times
bestselling memoir
Operation Dark Heart
.

WILLIAM H. KEITH is the author of more than one hundred and fifty titles, including short stories, nonfiction, and ninety-one novels. His work includes geopolitical technothrillers, historical military fiction, alternative military history, and military science fiction. A former navy hospital corpsman, he lives in western Pennsylvania.

 

Note:
The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK.

An imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group.

THE LAST LINE.
Copyright © 2013 by Anthony Shaffer. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by James Iocabelli

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Shaffer, Anthony, 1962–

      The last line / Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and William H. Keith.—First edition.

           p. cm

      ISBN 978-1-250-00775-9 (hardcover)

      ISBN 978-1-250-01368-2 (e-book)

      1.  Intelligence officers—Fiction.   2.  International relations—Fiction.   3.  Suspense fiction.   4.  Spy stories.   I.  Keith, William H.   II.  Title.

    PS3619.H3355L37 2013

    813'.6—dc23

2013003729

e-ISBN 9781250013682

First Edition: June 2013