The Pressure of Darkness (41 page)

"Okay, so it is kind of a hacienda in the middle of a military compound."

"That's about right, Scotty. It is a pretty fancy hacienda with fountains and horses and all the accoutrements you'd expect, but it's fenced off in a seriously organized way. Buey is one of the only guys I've seen who plays house a couple hundred yards from his drug lab."

"Maybe he gets high on his own supply?"

"Could be." Burke sketched some more. "Now, let's take a look at the land around the hacienda."

Bowden lowered the weapon, rose and moved a few steps closer. "Okay, shoot."

"This rock ridge is about twenty feet higher than the compound. It's on the east side, maybe one hundred yards out. Then you have one wall with a guard tower, a gate, and the side of the barracks. To the north, a long electrified fence, another guard tower joins the west wall and sits above a second gate. That long building, kind of a reverse 'L,' is what we believe to be Buey's private residence. At the ass-end of the 'L' is another gate and an extension of the electric fence."

Bowden pointed. "And that's where the satellite photos show a shitload of dead bodies."

"Unusual pockets of gas and other materials that indicate decomposition, yeah. So knowing what we know now, it's a mass grave under the ground."

Bowden nodded. "But why are they letting them rot underground, Red? Why not burn them up, especially if they are fucking around with some kind of new biohazard as a WMD?"

"We don't know."

The door slid open with a clang. Bowden looked up and past Burke's shoulder, then smiled broadly. "Well, fuck me."

Cary Ryan entered the room briskly, carrying a large stack of computer discs and file folders filled with photographs. "We're going to have to rush this up, gentlemen. I'm getting waved off big time."

"It's been a long time, Major." Bowden shook his hand. They locked eyes a moment longer than necessary, an acknowledgement of shared history and mutual respect.

Cary dropped his cargo, moved to the blackboard. He tapped the drawing to indicate a drab, square two-story building that squatted near in the middle of the drug lord's compound. "We think that's the lab where he makes his drugs and probably this spooky designer virus."

Burke studied Ryan's face. "Cary, who's fucking with you?"

"Everybody."

"You look pissed. Where is the pressure coming from?"

"I don't know," Ryan replied. "Someone doesn't want this mission to happen, and ordering me not to stage it was only the beginning. Now some of my own people are trying to hack me, follow me, and track my whereabouts. I had to call in every favor in the book just to get here safely."

"The agency has been penetrated."

"At least to some degree."

Father Benny had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room, ashen-faced and almost forgotten. "So let me get this straight," he said. "We are going into a situation that is so dangerous that two other groups of men have already died. The naughty boys probably know we are coming. If they do not manage to kill us on the spot, they will have a deadly new virus on the premises that may poison us later. Have I left anything out?"

"Well," Bowden offered, deadpan, "we'll be outnumbered."

His timing was perfect and the laugh provided a much needed release of tension. Cary Ryan gathered them around the metal desk and a flat computer screen. He tapped keys. "Here is some footage directly from the Predator drone." Actual photographs of the target area rolled by, now artificially colorized and digitally enhanced. "You can run this as many times as you want, but trash the disc when you're done, okay? And now watch this, carefully."

Cary adjusted the angle. The computer slanted down and to the side of the buildings, penetrated and explored hallways and individual rooms. "This is our best guess at what's waiting for you inside. We don't know for sure because the other teams were stopped too early."

"When?" Burke and Scotty asked in unison.

"The first team got torn up right outside the north gate. The second inserted safely but ran into a meat grinder near the porch of Buey's home, before they managed to get inside the laboratory."

Bowden and Burke exchanged glances. "And now you think somebody who works with you might be affiliated with Buey's gang?"

"More likely this new cult being run by Mohandas Pal." Ryan sighed. "And if I had an inkling of that I would never have sent the first team in, much less the second."

"So Buey knew they were coming, how and when. Most likely down to the minute," Bowden said. "That's just terrific."

"Yeah, but he won't know this time."

Burke lifted his eyes from the computer screen. "No offense, Major, but how can you be sure?"

"I'm sure."

"You mind explaining?"

Cary Ryan perched on the edge of the desk. He slapped two folders together. "Let me put it this way, I got an urgent phone call about forty minutes ago reminding me that my orders were to stand down. I told them I had done so. They accused me of lying and demanded I call off this highly illegal mission."

"Shit," Burke growled. "Then they already know."

"I argued with the fellow for a long time, even threatened to resign. Then I struck a compromise." Ryan grinned, broadly. "The materials we're borrowing ostensibly belong to the Department of Homeland Security. The Director is in Athens for an international conference on terrorism and won't be back in the States for another six days."

"So?"

"I demanded some face time with him to discuss my concerns about the compound in Mexico, and why I thought another attempt at incursion was warranted. Finally, he agreed to that meeting."

"So what?" Bowden was glowering.

"So I also agreed that we will postpone any mission until after that meeting has taken place and the Director has approved the appropriation of these weapons for this specific purpose. This op has now been rescheduled. It will take place Friday night of next week."

"Fuck that," Burke said. "We don't have six days. Indira will be dead by then, and whatever Pal has in mind will already have begun."

"I know," Cary Ryan replied. "That's why we're going ahead tonight anyway, but completely off the record. No one else is going to know about it, as long as you don't get caught."

"All right!" Even Bowden was pleased. "I always liked that 'don't get caught' part. It keeps things interesting. Just like the old days."

Ryan went to the chalk board. He looked it over carefully. "Looks good. The only thing I would add to what Red has sketched here is that the guards in the two towers to the east are probably going to be wearing night vision goggles."

"Just them?"

"Yeah. The reason is that the only roads in the area are located on the west side of the compound. Buey probably figures that if the cops or another gang comes after him, it will be from that side because they'd need access for heavy vehicles. The guards there have lighting that spreads out into the gulley and down the roadway. The acoustics are probably terrific, so those guys would see or hear someone coming from a long way off."

Ryan tapped his pen against the sketch of the rock face that lay on the east side of the compound. "This ridge is a natural barrier to any sizeable force. Nobody smart would try to move a unit down this rock face, for starters. It can't be done without making noise, and the poor bastards that try it would be spotted crossing the flat because of those guards wearing NVG."

Burke nailed the underlying issue. "So how did you try to come in the last two times?"

"The first time we came from the north, where any decent military planner would logically have attempted it. We dropped the squad in the dunes about a mile out. Boom. The second time we came from the south, intending to cross the basin near the edge of the gaseous area. That seemed to work out better."

"And this time?"

Ryan began to pace. "I wish I knew. Like I said, the south worked the best. The boys made it into the compound."

"How did you handle the insertion by air?"

"People got paid off like they do when it's a small plane carrying drugs. Radar gets shut down for a few minutes then turned back on again. A particular flight pattern gets ignored, that sort of thing."

"That's how you got the guys over the border." Bowden grinned. "You pretended it was a drug run. Pretty damned clever."

"And it should work again this time."

"Here's what I want to shoot for." Burke ran two fingers through the chalk on the blackboard, illustrating his point. "Let's say Scotty and I get dropped by chopper maybe two miles to the east, jog across the flats to the top of this rock ridge. We climb by hand, then rappel and drop down the other side. We cross the open area."

Bowden pondered. "Not bad. And the two guards?"

"We take them out before we cross the open ground. It's a tough assignment from there, but not impossible. Maybe a hundred fifty yards from higher ground. All we need is one head-shot each." Burke thumbed through his notes. "Cary, you picked up radio transmissions that indicate the guards check in to the central command every fifteen minutes, right?"

"Right."

Bowden got it immediately. "We fire seconds after they check in, leave the sniper rifles there. We drop down the face, cross the open ground, get into the compound and do our thing. That will give us, what—maybe eight to ten minutes inside before they start to realize something is wrong."

"I hate to be a wet blanket," Father Benny sputtered from the corner, "but what about the noise? I mean, from the shots?"

"There won't be any to speak of, Benny. Silencers." Burke looked at Bowden. "We could also create a distraction. Some barely noticeable noise from the west that sounds like something might be coming down the road."

"That would help," Scotty agreed. "But we'd need at least one more man to pull that off. I say we keep it simple."

Ryan pondered the idea of a third member of the team and the security issues involved. He shook his head. "No, you're probably right. Less to go wrong." He touched the sketch of the square, two-story medical building that was located at the center of the compound. "Seven hours ago a van came down the road from the highway. It entered Buey's compound and parked next to this building. An older couple went into the residence. Moments later another gentleman and a man with a shaved head, who is presumed to be Mohandas Pal, got out and went inside the laboratory. Then someone on a stretcher was also taken inside the lab and the van left."

"Indira," Burke said.

"That seems likely. But we don't know who the other people are. We estimate there are already maybe thirty to thirty-five other people currently occupying the compound, most of them armed."

"Only thirty or so against the two of us," Bowden observed, wryly. "Aw, don't seem fair to them poor fuckers, does it?"

Cary Ryan laughed. "Strange world, isn't it? We have equipment that can peer down a man's throat and tell you what he ate for lunch, but just over the border one drug lord and a religious fanatic with connections can keep us paralyzed for months."

"Okay," Bowden continued, "let's say everything goes smooth as a papaya shit and Red and I get inside without drawing fire. I know we're out to bring the girlfriend back, and if she's unconscious that's problem enough. What else do you want us to do?"

Cary blinked. "I would have thought it was obvious."

"Let's just say I'd rather have it on the record."

"There won't be any record. You know that."

A strange moment of tension flickered between Ryan and Bowden. Then Ryan looked away and shrugged, as if to say
what the hell
. "Those fuckers erased a bunch of my guys. One of them deals drugs and the other may be planning on blackmailing the world . . . or something even worse."

"Yeah," Bowden cracked, "I get that they're the bad guys."

Ryan continued as if he hadn't heard. "So we are going to take them out, Scotty."

"Take them out. How, one by one?"

"I don't give a damn, as long as it happens. And afterwards, I want you guys to plant enough C4 in that lab to incinerate everything within two miles of the area. We're about to show you how to get that part of it done."

"I'm no scientist," Bowden said, "but how do we make sure this virus doesn't get spread around in the process?"

Ryan pointed to the blackboard. "Our guys believe the only two places we need to worry about are in the basement of that laboratory and perhaps underground where we believe all the bodies are buried. The first two rounds of explosives will bring the two upper levels down, first the top and then the bottom. That will bury the concrete area, seal it off."

"Okay."

"The last explosion will be from a thermobaric device I want you to plant in the lab before you leave. The blast will be trapped in concrete, under tons of rubble. It will generate enough heat to fry every bug in there to cinders."

Burke frowned. "What about the burial mound? There might be some live virus there that could get disturbed at some point."

"It's forty feet down, Red. My scientists say that's good enough for the time being. Besides, do you have a better idea?"

"Maybe." Burke touched the area indicated as the body dump. "We plant one charge here on the way out, right on top of the dump. Raw stuff, ready to ignite. We set a timer." He traced the route back to the rock ridge. "If it doesn't go off, then from up here, on the way home, we fire one thermobaric rocket directly at that mass. The explosion should be hot enough to kill anything likely to leak, and if the dump has any open areas, the explosion should collapse and seal them, too."

"It could work." Bowden was running the plan through his mind. "We might even get out again, guys." He tapped his teeth with a finger. "Problem is we need another couple of men to carry all this gear and a few more days to pull it off."

"We don't have either."

"How about we come in really low, maybe fifty yards behind the ridge, and shove the extra rifles and explosives out? We could maybe drop them wrapped in a reserve chute. That way it would be there after we jog across the flats."