and arm wounds, but it’d be another year before he entered his next Ironman competition. Moore clutched his suppressed Glock with both hands and took point.
A hallway ahead. A mirror on the wall, television images flashing in that mirror. He took two more steps. The bedroom door to the left was open. He smelled food …Meat? Chicken? He wasn’t sure. He glanced to his right, back into the mirror, and froze. He looked back at Towers, emphatic:
He finished plotting his advance, rehearsed it in his mind’s eye, and knew that if he thought about it anymore, he’d get the shakes.
A toilet flushed. The master bathroom lay just inside the suite, and a woman’s voice came from within: “I’m so drunk now!”
Moore flicked a look back at Towers, pointed, and mouthed the command:
And then Moore bolted into the bedroom, where on the other side of the broad room sat a most familiar man in his boxer shorts and with a bag of tortilla chips balanced in his lap.
Bashir Wassouf — aka Bobby Gallagher — arguably one of the most ruthless traitors in the history of the United States of America, gaped at the man standing in his bedroom.
Gallagher had a Beretta sitting on the table beside his recliner. Moore had already seen it and had anticipated which hand the traitor might use to grab it. Gallagher’s mere presence suggested that he didn’t know Borja had been arrested — a grave error on his part.
He was already reaching for his pistol as Moore shouted, “Hold it!”
At nearly the same time, the girl screamed and cursed behind them. Towers hollered at her to freeze.
In the next heartbeat, Gallagher ignored Moore’s command and snatched up his gun.
Expecting to be shot, Moore fired first, hitting Gallagher in the shoulder, then putting a second round in his leg, but it was already too late.
Gallagher had the Beretta in his mouth.
“No, no, no, no!” Moore screamed, lunging toward the man as the shot rang out.
Within the next hour, the local police arrived, the woman (a prostitute) was taken into custody, and Moore and Towers tore apart the entire estate.
Sitting atop a nightstand in one of the back bedrooms were eleven Hershey’s Kisses wrappers rolled into eleven silver balls.
Six hours later, Moore and Towers were sitting in their rental car in the parking lot, about to go inside to question Borja. They had nothing to lose. Gallagher had taken Samad’s location to his grave. The only other living witnesses were three of the six terrorists who’d boarded the planes, and they’d all repeated the same story: They knew only their mission, nothing else, and Moore tended to believe that, because the Taliban most often used compartmentalized cells. One terrorist was pulled from the wreckage of the San Antonio flight and had been so badly burned on his face and neck that he couldn’t have talked even if he had wanted to.
But Borja …He had to know something. He was involved with Gallagher. Samad had left those Hershey’s Kisses wrappers at his house. The connection was there. He couldn’t deny that anymore.
Moore spoke to Slater, who agreed. A deal must be brokered.
Borja was much younger than expected — mid-thirties, perhaps — with a shaved head and enough tattoos to earn him the admiration of most
The interrogation room smelled like bleach. Apparently, the last guy who’d been questioned there had been, according to the police, “sloppy.”
Moore narrowed his gaze on Borja and began abruptly: “Gallagher’s dead. He killed himself at your house in Las Conchas.”
Borja folded his arms over his chest. “Who?”
“All right, let me explain this very carefully. You’re going to jail for the rest of your life. I’m willing to help broker a deal between our two governments. If you know anything about where Samad is, you tell me. And if you’re telling the truth, I get you full amnesty. Clean fucking slate. You walk away. Let me say that again very slowly … You …
“Who’s Samad?”
Towers interrupted Moore by sliding over his laptop so that Moore could glimpse the screen. Their colleagues at Fort Meade had come through once again: cell-phone calls between Borja and Rahmani picked up by the NSA’s satellites, the evidence finally collected and confirmed only hours ago.
“You were talking to Rahmani, too, huh?” Moore asked. “There’s no point in lying now. We know.”
Borja rolled his eyes.
“Were you helping Samad escape?”
Borja leaned forward on his chair. “If you’re going to get me full amnesty, I want it in writing from the government. I want my lawyers to go over it to make sure it’s legitimate.”
“Okay, but that’ll take time. And I’m sure our buddy is on the move. I promise you, you give me what I want and I get Samad, you’re free.”
“I’m not going to believe one fucking gringo.”
Moore rose. “Your choice.” He turned to Towers. “Let’s go …Start extradition papers. We’ll deal with this asshole in the States.” They headed for the door.
Borja slid back his chair and stood, his hands still cuffed behind his back. “Wait!”
Borja, like any good heir to a Mexican drug cartel, feared extradition to the United States more than the wrath of his own government, and so his shoulders had slumped and his mouth had worked to spin the yarn of how he’d been commissioned by Rahmani to form a new smuggling alliance and how he’d been charged with helping Samad and two of his lieutenants to reach a safe house in San Jose, Costa Rica. Samad and his men had been hidden in Borja’s vacation home, where they’d remained until just the previous night. They’d been flown in one of Borja’s private planes to Goldson International, then driven out into the jungle to a safe house on the New River Lagoon in Belize. Borja said the house was used by mules moving Colombian cocaine into the vacation areas of Cozumel and Cancun, where the coke was sold primarily to American college students. Lovely. Borja had hired a Guatemalan pilot with an R44 Raven single-engine helicopter to pick them up and fly them down to Costa Rica, with one refueling stop in Nicaragua.
Moore questioned the man about every detail, including the type of helicopter being used, the name of the pilot, the pilot’s phone number, everything and anything.
For once, their timing might be favorable. Samad and his men were scheduled to be picked up at midnight, local time, and the chopper was going to set down in one of the clearings near the ruins of Lamanai (a word that meant submerged crocodile in the Mayan language). The Mask Temple, High Temple, and Temple of the Jaguar Masks were frequented by tourists during the day but closed in the evenings. The safe house was about nine miles south down the river, and Samad and his men were supposed to take one of several Zodiacs up to the rendezvous point. Borja had given Samad two bodyguards, so Moore and Towers were expecting a party of five.
They would move in on the safe house as a team of two, but Slater was already working on some creative backup forces for them, should the need arise. He’d already arranged for weapons and transport.
Moore’s watch read 9:12 p.m. local time when they landed at Goldson International Airport, just north of Belize City. The plane was met by two vehicles: a four-wheel-drive Jeep Wrangler and another vehicle, a local taxi.
“Welcome to the armpit of the Caribbean,” Towers said, lifting his shirt against the stifling humidity.
Moore snorted. “You’ve been here before.”
