Luis started the Mercedes and slowly pulled out onto the highway, waiting until the black truck had dipped into a low spot before turning on his lights. He let the truck pull farther away as he slowly followed.
“It will warm up fast enough now.” He reached to the dashboard and pushed the button for the heated seats. “El jefe should allow us to do the job properly.”
Hector gave him a questioning look. “Do you really think that if Juan and Pablo couldn’t do the job that we could?”
Luis grunted under his breath. “It would be simple enough.” He nodded toward the black truck ahead of them. “Push them off the road and shoot them like dogs.”
“Why not simply rig semtex to their ignition?” Hector leaned back in his chair and relished the warmth. “Or we could wait until they’re in the open and pick them off one by one?”
Luis ground his teeth. “There are a number of ways to deal with people like this.” He shot Hector a tight lipped smile. “Personally, I prefer cutting off their hands and feet, saving the head for last.”
“My favorite?” Hector sat up, adrenaline starting to pump as he reflected on his favorite methods of torture killing. “I like to find a tire just big enough to pin their arms and tie them to a stake. A little gasoline, a match…and poof! They run in circles and scream; the faster they run the bigger the flames,” he laughed.
Fernando Garza leaned forward from the rear seat of the Mercedes, his face lit up by the dashboard lights. “I prefer simpler methods.”
“Simple is too fast, amigo.” Luis stated as he slowed the big Mercedes for the upcoming stop sign. He put on his left blinker and pulled out onto the highway, slowly closing the distance between the black Tahoe. “A bullet is too good for these people.”
“How do you know what they deserve?” Fernando asked.
Luis clenched his teeth again, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “El jefe told me what they did.” His eyes glanced to the rear view. “They blew up a bridge many years ago. There were women and children crossing it.” He paused to maintain his composure. “One of the women was don Murillo’s sister.”
Fernando’s eyes widened and he sat back, knowing the rest of the story. “Teresa.”
Luis nodded slowly. “She suffered for so long.” He glanced up at the rear view again. “El jefe maintained hope the entire time. He prayed daily for her return.”
Fernando felt the anger rising. “And these are the people who planted the bombs?”
Luis nodded. Hector turned in the front seat and eyed Fernando. “We follow orders. No matter how badly we want to make these cabrónes suffer, we do our jobs.”
Fernando sat back and crossed his arms. “You should have told us when we took this job who these people were.”
Luis ground his teeth again. “El Fantasma proclaimed it ‘need to know.’”
Fernando grunted. “Information like that? We all need to know.” He stared out the side window and saw the first licks of light on the eastern horizon. “Juan and Pablo would not have gone at them alone.”
Langley, Virginia
Matt Laughlin fell into his chair and rubbed at his eyes. He hated early morning meetings and he needed to make sure that all of his T’s were dotted and his I’s crossed.
He reached for his coffee and sifted through the mail. The inner-agency stuff always took precedent and he pushed the other stuff away. He rifled through the printed memos and notifications. He pushed more of it off to his “later” pile. He perused a few of the daily reports and an after-action report from a team in Afghanistan that seemed to hit nothing but dead ends.
He pulled out an action report that he normally would have tossed into the File 13 until a code word caught his eye.
“White Rock?” Matt sat forward and lifted the paper from the pile of others. He scanned the report and felt a cold chill run down his spine.
With trembling hands he reached for the phone and dialed a number he thought he’d never need again. He waited for the phone to ring and felt his hand tremble when the woman’s voice answered.
“Clearinghouse, how may I direct your call?”
Matt stiffened. “Tracking and Allocation.”
“Please hold while I transfer you to that department.”
Matt took a deep breath and blew it out hard when a deep male voice answered, “Tracking and allocation.”
“I’d like to track some packages.”
“Very well.” He could hear typing through the phone. “Customer ID.”
“Laughlin, 8739.”
“Confirm first initial.”
“Mike.”
“Customer ID confirmed.” He heard more typing then the voice returned. “Date of your order?”
“April, 1998.”
“Very well. Parcels you’d like tracked?”
Matt cleared his throat. “Actually, I wanted to inquire about a report that was generated from recent activity concerning these orders.”
“Go ahead.”
“As of this date, there have been two recent inquiries concerning certain aspects of the order. Which packages made those inquiries?”
“Please confirm the operator you dealt with at the time of the order.”
Matt groaned under his breath. “That would be me, Laughlin, 8739, first initial, Mike.”
“Stand by.”
More typing sounds came over the line and Matt wanted to reach through the phone and choke the guy on the other end.
“Confirmed. The two packages were Vasquez, Lima and White, Delta Juliet.”
“What of the others?”
“Wolcott, Romeo, cancelled. Gomez, Mike, cancelled. Bridger, Romeo still in transit, tracking available. Soares, Golf, still in transit, tracking available. Mauk, Delta, still in transit, tracking available.”
Matt swiped a heavy hand across his face and scratched at his beard. “Location of packages?”
“Which packages, Laughlin, 8739?”
“ALL of them!” Matt was on his feet now, his hand squeezing the phone so tight that he feared it might break.
“Stand by.”
Matt bent over his desk and tried to control his breathing. If this team were reforming, for whatever reason, it couldn’t be good news.
“All packages are on the same route. Last tracking has
