Ballistic

It took a moment with the trim hair and beard, with the darker skin and the black-framed glasses, but he recognized him.

It was the Gray Man.

The American opened his coat and exposed a crude roped vest with two large bricks of yellow material coated in plastic hanging from it. They looked like bags of sand. He said, softly, “If my thumb leaves this trigger, for even one-tenth of one second, then this ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb will detonate, and everyone here will die. Including you.”

Emilio had been standing against the wall; he could only see the back of the waiter’s coat. He’d checked to make sure it wasn’t the same insolent bastard who had coughed while his jefe was praying a few minutes earlier. Satisfied that this was a new, and hopefully more professional, server, he’d not bothered to pay close attention to the presentation of the food. But now Emilio noticed the two men were in conversation with each other. It was not often that his patron spoke to a waiter for so long.

Emilio stepped around the side of the man in the white coat, and when he did, he saw Daniel’s wide eyes. Immediately, he reached into his suit coat and rushed the table, recognizing the Gray Man at the same moment. He drew his Venezuelan Zamorano 9 mm pistol and knocked a chair out of the way to press it against the gringo’s head.

De la Rocha raised his hands into the air, panicked now that his bodyguard would shoot the American without hesitation. “?No! ?Tranquilo! Tranquilo!” Relax! Relax!

Guns appeared in the hands of everyone in the courtyard. Handguns, sub guns, a pair of pistol-grip shotguns. Some men approached the table while others stepped back and aimed carefully. No one knew what to do, but they all followed their leader’s wishes, and they held their positions.

“Everyone just take a few steps back. Emilio, lower your pistol and step away, but be ready. Spider, keep an eye on this pinche gringo and kill him if anything happens to me.”

Spider Cepeda held his Mac-10 with one hand. He stood ten feet away; the muzzle pointed at the face of the American assassin.

“You aren’t leaving here with your life, pendejo.” He said it slowly and confidently.

FORTY-EIGHT

Court Gentry was fucking freezing. He’d spent three hours in the meat locker, wearing a warm poncho but sitting still in a corner, hiding behind huge sides of beef that hung from the ceiling. He’d slipped into the restaurant at three p.m. with the produce delivery, carrying two backpacks hidden on a hand truck of boxes of fruits and vegetables, then he’d spent a couple of hours in a dry-storage room before finally moving into the walk-in refrigerator as the evening staff went through their afternoon meeting and tasting in the main dining room.

In the walk-in he’d waited until a text came for him from a police officer outside who took money from both Los Trajes Negros and los Vaqueros.

He’d waited thirty minutes more, body shivering and teeth chattering, then he left the refrigerator, dressed in a uniform he’d pulled from a linen rack, and found a rolling cart and some tossed aside fish guts, with which he’d made his entree. Then, still chilled to the bone, he’d headed out into the dining room, looking for Daniel de la Rocha.

Gentry spoke into Daniel’s ear. “Have your men stand down.”

With a flick of his wrist DLR motioned the rest of Los Trajes Negros back a few steps across the courtyard; they all but disappeared in the dark.

But Court raised a hand. He spoke loud enough now for others to hear. “Not everyone.” He looked back to de la Rocha. “Which one of these guys is the real brains behind your operation?”

De la Rocha’s face flexed like a biceps muscle; Court watched the Mexican’s carotid artery flicker. He spoke through a mouth of clenched teeth. “I make all the decisions.”

“Sure you do, genius. But you and I need to talk business, and I bet there is a guy in this crowd that you would like to have sit in on our little discussion.” Court motioned with his free hand at the skeleton doll ringed by candles in the corner. “Unless, of course . . . your little Barbie doll can take transcription.” He shook his head and smiled. Displaying a relaxed and “in charge” demeanor. “Seriously. What the fuck is that?”

Somehow Daniel’s fury found a new gear. His face was red, even in the low glow of the paper lanterns hanging from the lines over the courtyard. He hesitated a few seconds, then looked into the dark crowd of men. “Nestor, sientate.” Sit down.

Nestor Calvo sat at the table next to de la Rocha. His salt-andpepper beard sparkled with the sheen of perspiration forming at the skin.

Court looked the older man over for a moment. “Cool. Adult supervision.”

The Gray Man sat at the table, the rolling food cart to his right. De la Rocha asked him, “What did you do to the guy from la CIA?”

“I killed the guy from la CIA.” Gentry shrugged like it was no big deal.

“And the gringo from the embassy? Jerry? He helped you escape, didn’t he?”

“Forget about Jerry. He is an American asshole. You have enough assholes here without importing. I think you’ve taken NAFTA just a step too far.”

“I thought you would be far, far away by now. If you had any brains, you would have run. Why are you here?”

“Let me explain what is about to happen to you, Daniel. And Nestor, pay attention, because I’m counting on you to be the reasonable one. Daniel, I am going to destroy your business. I am going to ruin you. Burn your drugs, kill your middlemen, scare off your suppliers, smash your boats and planes and cars and trucks. I will tear all the profit away from your organization, little by little, bit by bit.”

De la Rocha just smiled. “You do that, and I will kill that little Gamboa bitch.”

“No, you won’t, and I will tell you why you won’t. Because I am not going to touch your family. That is the one thing you can count on. I want Laura back, and all this blowing shit up that I’m about to do is my audition; it’s my proving to you that I can go where I want, do whatever I want, whenever I want. You need to think long and hard about where I might go and what I might do if you do something to Laura. Something to really make me mad.”

“You are doing this all for the girl? ?En serio?” Seriously?

“Yes. If you return her to me, all the bad stuff stops. You can go on being a crystal meth–trafficking piece of shit to your heart’s content, and I will no longer be in your way.”

De la Rocha’s face was red with anger. After a long time he spoke. “You are dead, maricon. You are dead.”

Gentry shrugged. “Call ten of your top lieutenants and tell them the same thing, because within seventy-two hours it’s a good bet that a lot of them will be.”

“Do you know who we are, Gray Man? We are Los Trajes Negros. We were one of the best-trained units in the Mexican Army. Trained by your military, in fact. I am not just some carterlero from the mountains with ostrich boots and a cuerno de chivo like that cabron Madrigal. I trained at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg.”

“When you were at Bragg, did you see all those paramilitary forces training there?”

“Yes, and I trained with them. The best commandos in the world.”

“Badasses, one and all. But remember this. Every single one of those special ops organizations has killing me