Flanagan looked at Pacheco. “If there was another unit in the area, there should be some indicators. Have you seen any?”
The older man shook his head. “No. You’re the first. And yes, I’d hear if anyone were sniffing around, unless they were very, very stealthy. Which isn’t impossible, but it seems a little unlikely.”
Brannigan’s frown deepened, and he stroked his mustache. “Unfortunately, Vinnie’s got a point. We don’t know what’s supposed to happen after we kill Clemente. There might be a follow-on plan. Or, this might be one of those Good Idea Fairy ops, where somebody picks the figurehead whose death is supposed to end everything magically, just assuming that the rest of the bad guys will just kind of fade away after their leader goes down.” He grimaced. “We’ve only seen that a few dozen times before.”
His eyes narrowed as he thought. “H-Hour is coming up fast.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got just over a week before the hit’s supposed to go down.”
Wade looked thoughtful. He glanced at Pacheco. “How much have you found out about the Green Shirts’ leadership, aside from Clemente? Does he have mid-level cronies, or is this a one-man, cult of personality sort of thing?”
“He’s got at least two lieutenants.” Pacheco didn’t sound entirely certain. “At least, he’s been seen with Diego Galvez and Julio Ballesteros. Ballesteros is a local rancher and sometime politician. The man doesn’t have an honest bone in his body. Galvez is another matter. He’s a foreigner—some say he’s Panamanian, others Argentinian. He has a reputation, though. He’s a killer. He’s wanted from Mexico to Brazil.”
“Regular murderer kind of killer, or ‘revolutionary’ kind of killer?” Brannigan suspected he knew, but he had to ask the question.
“The man’s a terrorist and a professional revolutionary. He’s been involved with FARC and ELN in the past. As far as anyone knows, he had actually assumed a fairly high-level leadership position in the FARC just before the peace deal.” From the tone of Cruz’s voice, Brannigan suspected that Galvez had been on the AFEAU’s target deck more than once.
“Men like that don’t usually get involved in cult of personality operations.” Wade spoke with dead certainty. “Hell, he’s probably waiting in the wings to take over if Clemente gets killed. He might even have a plan to do it himself.”
Brannigan thought hard. Finally, he leaned on the table, making the entire thing creak with his weight. “Okay, as I see it, we’ve got two options. We can continue to run recon, develop the situation, and see if we can recruit a few of the locals so we can get a better grasp on the situation and get into a better position to take down the Green Shirts as a whole and secure the city. Or, we can go with the plan we were handed at the outset, set up as instructed, off Clemente, and fade, hoping that there is, in fact, a follow-on plan.” He sighed. “I can get in touch with Carlo and see if he can get Van Zandt to discreetly inquire about any such follow-on. It might not work, but it’s better than sitting here in the dark, assuming.”
“There’s a third option,” Flanagan pointed out. “We prep for both. It shouldn’t take all of us to spring an ambush on a motorcade, especially not if we can get some explosives.” He glanced at Pacheco, who nodded. He had some, or else he knew how to get them.
“That might be our best bet.” Brannigan looked around at the rest of the team. “All right. George, Vinnie, Herc, and I will prep for the ambush. In the meantime, the rest of you keep running recon and see if you can get a few of the smaller local farmers on board, with an eye on liberating the Fuentes farm as a central base for the resistance.
“In the meantime, I’ve got a call to make.”
Chapter 11
The sun was just coming up when the Green Shirts stormed the little shop. The colorful sign plastered to the white stucco advertised “Productos de Limpieza.” Flowers bloomed in the blue-painted window boxes above the street.
Galvez climbed out of his truck and stood by the hood, his Jericho still in its holster, as his gunmen smashed the door in and rushed inside. The sounds of shouts, thumps, and breaking glass resounded from the interior of the store as the Green Shirts smashed things randomly on the way toward the stairs at the back, which would lead them up to the apartment above.
Screams had already begun to resound from the upper windows as boots clattered on the stairs. More rough shouts followed, and a female voice was raised in a wail, suddenly cut off. Galvez took a long pull on his cigarette as he glanced up at the darkened windows on the second story. He hoped that they hadn’t killed anyone yet. This needed to be public.
It took several minutes for the Green Shirts to drag the storekeeper and his family out onto the street. The storekeeper stumbled between two of them, in his t-shirt and shorts, looking a little dazed. Two men dragged the wife between them, her head hanging, blood dripping from her face. She was alive, but a blow from a rifle butt had silenced her screaming, at least for the moment.
The children were crying, but they’d quieted a little after their mother had been struck down.
