better. We are no longer looking to strike the far enemy in his homeland. We have found a catastrophic weapon that will wipe the Zionists into the sea at the same time it causes the far enemy to destroy the Persians. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, we will rejoice in the destruction of all infidels, leaving the Caliphate assured. Please respond with a blessing for this new mission, or tell us the path to take.
The message went out to a Yahoo! address, where it would sit for a day, then be forwarded to another address, then another, before being transferred to a thumb drive and driven across a border to another Internet cafe, sent again to another account, transferred via cell phone verbatim, then copied to a CD, and eventually find its way into the hands of Al Qaeda leadership. Just as Al Qaeda feared, along this path it would be intercepted by U.S. intelligence, and end up in a massive pile of “chatter” to be sorted through for relevance, where it would sit at the bottom, waiting to be viewed by some low-level analyst in the depths of a windowless building.
31
After hanging up the phone with Pike, Miguel said, “They’re bringing the package down here. They’ve agreed to meet us to deliver it, but I don’t trust that. Get in touch with our people at the department of immigration. Have them be on the lookout for Jennifer Cahill from the United States.”
“There’s no visa requirement to get here from America if they come as tourists,” Jake said. “We won’t get any warning before they land.”
“I know. We’ll only have a small window to control the situation, but luckily all flights from the U.S. fly straight here into Guatemala City. We should be able to blanket every flight coming from America for the next three days.”
Jake agreed, then added, “Should we build a net inside the local hotels as well? There’s a small chance that they could get through customs without us being alerted.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. Have it done. Stick to the tourist hotels.”
“What do you want me to do when I find them?”
“Whatever it takes to bring them in to me. I want to get them in our hands before they have a chance to make any sort of plans or change their minds and talk to the authorities. Let’s not inadvertently kill anyone else before we have our information.”
Jake grinned. “I’ll do my best.”
The humidity hit me like a wet rag as soon as we exited the airplane, causing immediate sweat to pop out. It did little to add to any misery. I had tried to get as much sleep on the plane as I could, but thirteen hours of flying or waiting around airports for connecting flights did nothing but make you feel tired. My mouth felt like someone had polished my teeth with dryer lint, my hair had a greasy feel, and I was dehydrated from the in-flight dry air. Jennifer didn’t look that much better.
The man on the phone had given us directions to his house, telling us which roads to use to get out of Guatemala City. Once in the hills to the east of the city, we were supposed to simply stop and ask the first person we saw for the house of El Machete.
There wasn’t any way I was going to make it that easy.
We had landed at the Santa Elena airport in the north of Guatemala after connecting through Cancun. I didn’t want to land in Guatemala City, since I was pretty sure that Machete would have that covered, so we had purchased two sets of tickets. It would be a seven-hour trip down south, but at least we would make it through whatever initial net he had established without getting caught right off the bat. We picked up our Jeep CJ-5 we had rented over the Internet and wasted no time heading to Guatemala City on Highway 5.
I had never been to Guatemala before, and after talking to Jennifer, I learned she hadn’t either. The sum total of her knowledge was wild-ass stories told by her uncle. None were of any help. My knowledge was limited to the fact that Guatemala had the distinction of being one of two countries — Iran being the other one — that the CIA had managed to overthrow in the 1950s. I wouldn’t even have known that, except the story was a damn clown-fest and pretty funny to read about, with CIA agents mistakenly attacking British ships and revolutionaries attempting to ride into battle in beat-up station wagons. Funny except the fallout was a thirty-six-year civil war that left thousands of innocent people dead. I suppose it kept Guatemala out of Commie hands, so it was worth it. As long as you weren’t Guatemalan.
Jake was in the process of building his net inside the tourist hotels when his phone rang with the special tone reserved for his boss.
“Have you heard anything from our friends downtown?”
Jake told him no, but that he hadn’t been checking in with them. He’d been too busy with the hotels.
“I’m wondering if they slipped through customs.”
Jake swore under his breath. Miguel was as ruthless as anyone he had ever seen, but sometimes he had the patience of a four-year-old. “It’s only been about twenty hours. Give it some time. They’ll be here.”
“I don’t trust the people we’ve paid. I want our own people on every flight coming in. Make that happen.”
“Sir, doing that now risks missing them both ways. I haven’t finished with the hotels. We need to stick with the plan.”
“Jake, hear what I’m saying. Do as I ask. Now.”
Jake acknowledged the task, then hung up, cursing. Why come up with a plan if you’re going to change it because you’re impatient? Give the plan a chance to work.
Pulling out now meant a risk he didn’t want to take, as it would split the detection efforts before either one was complete. Nothing he could do about it. When Miguel made up his mind, it was done. In other assignments Jake would try to convince his boss of the correct path to take, but Miguel was different. Jake had seen Miguel do things to other humans that would have shocked Stephen King. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but Miguel had the ability to scare him. Jake would do as he was told. He would just have to make sure he covered both the hotels and the airport as well as he could.
He looked at his list of hotels and called both team leaders, telling one to continue with the mission of the hotels and giving the other the redirection to the airport. The second team leader acknowledged the task and began calling his men.
Two of the members of the second team were pulling into the parking lot of a midrange hotel just outside of Zona 10 called Casa Bonito Clara when the driver’s cell phone rang. The pair was preparing to go inside and spread around some cash when they were stopped by the team leader’s call. The driver told the team leader where he was and the other hotels they had already visited. The team leader made a note of the hotels, then gave the driver his next instructions. The driver motioned to his friend to get back in, started the car up, and pulled into traffic, headed for the airport. As they left, they failed to notice the old CJ-5 being driven by two gringos pulling into the parking lot.
32
Pike had told her to stay away from the chain hotels and to find a small discreet hotel somewhere in the tourist areas. It looked like she had succeeded and she hoped Pike would be happy with the choice. She was still unsure about him. He seemed constantly on edge, like he would lose his temper if the traffic light didn’t turn green soon enough. And he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. He refused to talk about anything involving his past. When she had asked him how he was able to kill two men with his bare hands, he had gone into asshole mode, telling her not to look a gift horse in the mouth. In fact, the only time he had opened up was when they were preparing to leave, showing a small window into his inner self.
While she bought the airline tickets online, he had gone back to his boat to pack. She had to wait until he
