himself, Slater, O’Hara, and Towers.
Once everyone was online, he abandoned all pleasantries and hit them immediately with the news. “I’ve got a credible lead on Samad. It comes from Wazir, and I trust it. I’m flying out tonight.”
“You know where Samad is?” asked O’Hara.
“I might.”
“Then let’s get a team together,” said Slater. “How many guys you need? Ten? Twelve?”
Moore shook his head. “Look, if he’s on the run, he’s traveling with his two lieutenants. That’s it. Maybe Gallagher’s helping them, I don’t know. Point is, Towers and I got this.”
“You’re pitching a two-man show? Are you kidding me?” asked O’Hara, raising his voice.
“No, sir. I’m not.”
O’Hara leaned toward the camera. “We need to capture this guy alive — because we’re hearing he’ll take over for Rahmani, and that means he’s already got significant operational intelligence. We also assume he knows where the rest of the missile teams are, and not a one of those guys has been captured. Make no mistake: Samad is the Highest-Value Target in the world right now.”
“Sir, with all due respect, the importance of the target does not necessarily dictate the size and scope of the operation. If my lead is solid, our target is already out of the U.S., and if you saddle me with a team to go down there, we’re harder to move, harder to hide, and we make a lot more noise. If the operation goes south, you’ve got an increased likelihood of witnesses, bodies, and yes, you’ve been there, done that. Towers and I will barely make a ripple. You go in there with big guns, and our guy will be long gone.”
O’Hara sighed. “So you want to go down there. Exactly where is that?”
“I’ve got an address in Mexico — and given what you’ve just said, it’s not only imperative that we take Samad alive but that we’re able to question him without political interference.”
Slater cleared his throat and weighed in. “Moore, if you and Towers get this bastard, I don’t want any other agencies involved. I don’t want the administration involved — no one, that is, until we’ve had our time with him.”
“We’re on the same page. So we’re talking about rendition.”
“Gentlemen, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down,” said O’Hara. “I can neither confirm nor deny I’ve heard any of this, and I’ll need to step out at this time.” He rose, giving them a hard look and a thumbs-up.
“We understand,” said Slater.
After 9/11, approximately three thousand suspected terrorist prisoners were captured and imprisoned by the CIA, an act known as “extraordinary rendition.” These prisoners were transferred around the world to top-secret detention centers known as “black sites,” many of them in Europe. The Council of Europe and a majority of the European Union parliament claimed that these prisoners were tortured and that both the United States and British governments were well aware of the entire operation. A more recent Executive Order signed by the President of the United States opposed rendition torture.
Consequently, O’Hara was excusing himself because he needed deniability. He would not knowingly order Moore to capture Samad then have him transferred to a black site for torture. The United States government did not engage in acts of torture, did not transfer people to places where officials knew they’d be tortured, and black sites no longer existed.
On the other hand, Slater was thankfully still living in the past. He lifted his voice: “You capture that bastard, and I’ll work with you all the way.”
“Then here’s the deal,” said Moore. “No teams, no other U.S. forces involved. We keep the administration clean. Just Towers and I. No witnesses. You let us hunt Samad down our way — and then you’ll get your rendition, and we’ll get what we need out of that miserable fuck, no matter what it takes. Otherwise, Washington gets involved, he’s moved into military jurisdiction …and even if Samad never sees the inside of a courtroom and rots away at Gitmo, he’ll never be put in a position to tell us what we want. We get him, we get what we need, then we stage some fake capture and turn him over to the administration and let them play with him — after we’ve already bled him dry. My point is, if we don’t have this all planned first, then capturing him is a waste of time. His intel is worth more than his life.”
“Wow,” said Towers with a gasp. “Wow.”
“Mr. Towers, you sure you want in?” asked Slater. “This could get ugly, as in career-ending ugly.”
Towers snorted and checked his watch. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t have time to talk. I need to catch a plane.”
“Call me on your way to the airport,” said Moore. Towers broke his connection, leaving Moore and Slater alone.
“I asked him, and I’ll ask you,” began Slater. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah. Just work with me and don’t change your mind. Don’t bow to the pressure. And don’t forget about all the blood, sweat, and tears we’ve shed trying to flush out these bastards. If Samad can help us disrupt their operations, then it’s worth it.” Moore’s gaze went distant. “I used to sit out here on this balcony, talking to Rana about doing just that. So let’s finish what we started.”
The gated and security-patrolled beachfront community of Las Conchas was on mainland Mexico’s west coast, overlooking the Gulf of California, and was about four hundred miles west of Ciudad Juarez. The address Wazir had given his great-grandson was for an estate comprising three separate living areas, with three kitchens, eleven bedrooms, and twelve baths. The home was on the market for $2.7 million, and, according to the real estate site that Moore had accessed, it offered 180-degree oceanfront vistas. The home belonged to Mr. David Almonte Borja.
And with just a little more research, Moore learned that Borja was, in fact, Ernesto Zuniga’s brother-in-law and, according to Dante Corrales, the most likely heir to the Sinaloa Cartel.
But here was the kicker: Just forty-eight hours prior, Borja had been taken into custody by Federal Police inspectors and was being held in Mexico City on murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and drug-smuggling charges. The timing of his arrest was not entirely coincidental; Federal Police Inspector Alberto Gomez had named two colleagues who had, in turn, given up many more details regarding Borja and his relationship to the cartel.
That Las Conchas had its own security force made accessing the community even easier. Moore and Towers met with the security company’s owner, who understood the English alphabet very well: CIA.
The owner said that according to his guards, no one had been in the house since Borja had been arrested. Had the real estate agent shown the home to anyone? They didn’t think so. Multimillion-dollar homes seldom drew a lot of traffic, and were shown by appointment only after the potential buyer had been prequalified.
“Give your guards the night off with pay,” Moore told the man. “We’ll cover it.”
“Okay.”
They left him and went to see the real estate agent, an elegant woman in her late fifties who bore a striking resemblance to the movie star Sophia Loren. She was equally cooperative and somewhat depressed because she’d learned of Borja’s arrest and would lose a major commission. She gave them the code to the lockbox on the front door and the code to disarm the security system. Moore would not have minded picking the lock; there were few companies on the planet who could machine their parts to near flawless tolerances and still make money, which of course kept locksmiths, thieves, and spies in business.
With the Agency’s satellites focused on the home, Moore and Towers, wearing security guard uniforms, drove their golf cart into the driveway at five p.m. local time. Towers went around the side of the house to check on the power: Still on.
Moore plugged in the code on the lockbox, removed the key, and worked the lock. The main building had three security keypads: one in the entrance foyer, one in the garage, and another in the master bedroom. The door opened. No warning tone to indicate the alarm was about to go off or beeping to indicate the door had simply been opened. There was no sound at all, as though the alarm had not only been turned off but dismantled. Moore was right. The keypad’s status light was unlit. Wires had been cut.
They moved quietly inside, across mosaic tile that formed a zodiac wheel in the center of the grand foyer. This main house was still fully furnished in a fusion of contemporary and Southwest designs, which was to say that everything looked damned expensive to Moore. From somewhere within came the faint sound of a television.
Moore gave Towers a hand signal. Towers nodded and held back. He was recovering well from his shoulder
