Van Zandt was sitting in the corner booth, all the way in the back, nursing a cup of coffee. He’d dressed down a bit since the first time he’d come to the Rocking K, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. The first time, he’d been in slacks and a corporate polo shirt.
Brannigan and Van Zandt had a history. Not a particularly pleasant one at all points, either. It had been Brigadier General Van Zandt who had supervised the unwilling retirement of Colonel John Brannigan from the Marine Corps, because Brannigan had ignored politics while deployed in East Africa, and had done what he’d thought was right. He’d rescued the people he’d set out to rescue, but killing local soldiers to do it had stepped on some toes, and so he’d been sacrificed. And Van Zandt had been the one to wield the knife.
But that was all behind them. Because they were both in the private sector now. And that was why they were meeting in a diner in the middle of nowhere.
Brannigan slid into the booth across from Van Zandt. “Hello, Mark.”
“John.” Van Zandt nodded to him as he glanced toward the door. He seemed almost nervous, which was odd for him. He’d always been a bit of a stuffed shirt, but he’d been a Marine. Flighty wasn’t in his nature.
He held his peace as Ginger came by and slid another cup of coffee in front of Brannigan. “Anything else I can get you?”
“No, thanks, Ginger.” Brannigan cradled the cup in his hands. “It’s still too early in the day.”
She dimpled and patted him on the shoulder. The Tafts had developed a sort of familial attachment to him, since he’d started coming down the mountain to eat, especially since he often brought some venison with him during hunting season. “You have a good meeting, then.”
Van Zandt raised an eyebrow. “She knows this is a meeting?”
Brannigan gave him a long-suffering stare. “You’re not from around here, and Hector’s come to meet me here before you became a part of this operation, Mark. Of course she knows it’s a meeting.”
Van Zandt sighed and looked down at the table. “I guess you’re right.”
Brannigan took a sip. The coffee was good, and scalding hot. “You’re not usually this jumpy. What’s up?”
“I’ve got another job for you.” Van Zandt still wasn’t looking him in the eye. Brannigan’s frown deepened. Something was off. “But it’s… not exactly standard.”
“We’re mercenaries specializing in deniable operations, Mark. Everything we do is ‘non-standard.’”
But Van Zandt was still frowning. “Not like this. This is… weird.”
Brannigan leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Okay, lay it out for me.”
“Have you ever heard of a city called San Tabal?” Van Zandt brought a thin folder out and put it on the table.
Brannigan’s eyes narrowed as he saw just how thin that folder was. Their target packages were usually much more substantial. “Can’t say as I have.”
“It’s a small city in northeastern Colombia, awfully close to the Venezuelan border. Most of its economy is entirely dependent on farming and ranching in the mountains nearby.” Van Zandt pulled a map out of the folder. It didn’t look like there was much else in there. He slid it across to Brannigan, who studied it.
Awfully close to the Venezuelan border is right. It looked like the city was less than ten miles from the line. And there wasn’t much more than mountains and jungle covering that ten miles.
“Two weeks ago, a disgraced Colombian general named Ramon Clemente seized control of the city with a small army. They don’t have a name, but they are generally referred to as the Green Shirts, because that’s the closest they’ve got to a uniform.” Van Zandt ran a hand over his face. “There’s close to zero information on these people aside from a handful of pictures that have gotten out. Pictures of a mass execution in the town square and the mayor getting lynched shortly thereafter.”
“That’s pretty close to FARC territory.” Brannigan looked up at Van Zandt, who was still looking down at the map, his hands folded in front of his face. “Are they FARC? ELN? Or somebody new?”
Van Zandt shrugged. “We don’t know for sure. The one statement that’s made it out sounds really Communist, but like I said, there’s not much information readily available.”
Brannigan turned his eyes back down to the map. It wasn’t much more than a topographic map of the Colombia-Venezuela border region. San Tabal, nestled between two taller mountain ranges, had been circled, but that was about it. The map was about as informative as the rest of Van Zandt’s brief so far.
“So, what’s the mission? I’d suspect something like Khadarkh, where we had to go in and rescue some hostages, but you make it sound like it’s something different.” His expression turned thunderous. “If it’s some half-baked takeover attempt, count us out. I want no part of any Silvercorp nonsense.”
Van Zandt’s mouth thinned. “Yeah.” He pulled a single sheet of paper out of the folder and slid it across the table. “Someone with all the right clearances wants Clemente dead. And he’s already got everything planned out.”
Brannigan didn’t even look at the sheet of paper. “No way in hell.”
Van Zandt sighed. “I know. That’s why I said it’s non-standard. It’s sketchy as hell.” He ran both hands over his face and dropped them to the tabletop, looking around helplessly. “Unfortunately, we’re in a crack.”
“How so?” Brannigan was starting to get that distinct sinking feeling in his gut. His voice took on a dangerous edge. “What have you gotten us into, Mark?”
“It wasn’t my doing.” The protestation of innocence might have sounded petulant
