while the dog is still asleep.”
Rojas’s expression neared implacable. There would be no changing his mind. Samad knew better than to push the issue now. “I understand your concerns. I’m disappointed by your decision, and we will have to tell the imam that we must look elsewhere for treatment.”
“That much I can help you with. I’ll have my office make some calls, and we’ll find you a cancer center that should meet all of the imam’s needs.”
“Thank you very much, senor.”
Rojas excused himself to take a phone call, and Samad sampled his breakfast. When the man returned to the table, he took a long pull on his orange juice, then said, “Samad, I’m still very troubled by this visit. I’m concerned that you and your group might do something rash. I’m going to call Mullah Rahmani and tell him the same thing I’m about to tell you — if you try to gain entry into the United States, our deal will be off. No one in Mexico will buy any of your opium. No one. I will shut down your business. In fact, when I’m finished, no one in the world will buy from you. I want you to think very carefully about that. What we have at this moment is something special. Ruining that to save one man is foolish. I don’t want to sound coldhearted. These are the facts.”
“Trust must be earned,” said Samad. “And I have not earned yours yet. But I will. You’ll see. So, please, do not worry about this anymore.”
“Good. Now, then, do you have a wife? Any children?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, because that call I just received was from my son. He’s off to a vacation with his girlfriend, and recently he’s been making me feel very old.” Rojas grinned, then took another pull on his juice.
Back at the Charleston Hotel, Samad met with Talwar and Niazi and gave them a summary of the meeting. They wore the same expression when he was finished.
“Ballesteros is loyal to Rojas. I don’t think he can be bought. So we’re going to cancel our plans to travel to Mexico with his help.”
“But Mullah Rahmani has ordered us—”
“I know,” Samad said, cutting off Talwar. “We’re still going to Mexico, but we need to get there without Ballesteros or anyone else associated with the cartel knowing what we’re doing now. I really thought we could get Rojas’s help, but I was wrong.”
“You said he threatened to end our arrangement.”
“He did, but I spoke to Rahmani on the way back here, and he told me he doesn’t care about Rojas or the Mexicans anymore. There will always be new buyers. If the Mexicans cannot help us with the jihad, then they, too, should be considered expendable.”
His lieutenants nodded, and then Niazi said, “We have a friend, I think, who can fly us to Costa Rica. Do you remember him?”
Samad grinned. “Very good. Yes, I remember. Call him now.”
They were going to the United States.
And Rojas had been right: They must let the sleeping dog lie …
So they could put a knife in its heart.
19 NEW ALLIANCES
Moore sat in the last pew on the right side, staring up at the stained-glass windows depicting images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Beams of light twinkling with dust motes shone down across the six-foot-tall brass crucifix that stood atop a marble pedestal. Sacred Heart was a modest-sized church in a run-down neighborhood on the outskirts of the city; it stood like an oasis of hope in a genuine slum of rusting cars and graffiti. The red carpet unfurling toward the candlelit altar had dark stains here and there, and Moore imagined those had come from blood and that the cleaners had been unable to remove them. There was no sacred ground, no line that could not be crossed. And it was no secret that the cartels had been blackmailing the local churches, extorting money and using priests and pastors as message bearers to their congregations: “This Sunday night all residents are urged to remain home. Do not go out on the street.” A hit was going down. Only two weeks prior, a grandmother who lived a mere three blocks from the church had thrown her sixteen-year-old grandson a birthday party. She had chosen to have the party at her house and not at the church or community center in the interest of safety. What she hadn’t known was that her grandson had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and that they had put a target on his back. Four gunmen from the Juarez Cartel had arrived at the party and begun firing. Thirteen had died, including an eight-year-old boy.
As Moore’s uneasiness grew, the icons that adorned the church’s back wall began to morph into images of demons, and now he imagined two men standing at the altar: a bearded man with a black turban, clutching an AK- 47, and a shorter Mexican getting ready to pull the pin on a grenade. He closed his eyes, told himself to calm down, that the Agency knew exactly where he was, that Fitzpatrick had his back, and that these Sinaloa thugs were still as wary of him as he was of them. A knot began to twist in his stomach.
Earlier in the day, fat man Luis Torres had accompanied him to the bank, where he’d withdrawn another $50,000 in cash and had delivered it to him on the spot. The thug had been quite impressed, and it was amazing how his attitude changed in the face of bundled cash. The meeting with Sinaloa Cartel leader Zuniga had been arranged, and Moore had been driven out to the church and told to wait for the man inside.
How many meetings like this had Moore attended? There was that night in Saudi Arabia when he’d spent thirteen hours waiting for an informant. He’d lived in a ditch in the Helmand Province for over a week in order to spend five minutes talking to an Afghan warlord. He’d spent nine days in the Somali jungle waiting for an Islamic militant to return to his jungle hideout. Too much waiting. Too much to ponder. He began thinking about God and the afterlife and Colonel Khodai and his young operative recruit, Rana, and all the other friends he’d lost. He thought of praying for their forgiveness. The mottled carpet in his mind’s eye turned to tile, and the candlelight dissolved into the harsh glare of the old briefing room aboard the aircraft carrier
“We will engage in a hydrographic recon of the Al Basrah Oil Terminal. The information we gather will be vital in the planning of tomorrow’s attack.”
Moore had become the Officer in Charge (OIC) of a SEAL platoon, with Carmichael as his assistant OIC, despite Carmichael’s identical rank of O-3, superior knowledge, and tenacity. The advantage Moore had in physical ability Carmichael made up for in tactical skills. He could memorize maps, mission plans, anything he viewed or read. He could get you in and out swiftly, safely, without ever consulting a GPS. They’d become a formidable pair, with reputations that preceded them.
“No glory in this one,” Carmichael said. “We go in and take pictures of an Iraqi oil platform. Whoop-dee- do.”
“Frank, I’m counting on you for the usual.”
He frowned. “Dude, you have to ask? I’ve had your back since BUD/S. What’s wrong?”
The knot twisted tighter in Moore’s stomach. “Nothing.”
“Mr. Howard?”
Moore snapped open his eyes and turned toward the church’s center aisle.
Ernesto Zuniga was much shorter and slighter than his photographs led one to believe. His thinning hair was gelled straight back, and his sideburns were white at the roots. He had an unfortunate complexion, scarred heavily by acne, and the deep line from an old wound ran down from his left cheek and across his jaw. He was missing one earlobe. The file had said he was fifty-two, but Moore would have put him closer to sixty. He’d either dressed down so that he wouldn’t be noticed or simply wore polo shirts and jeans as a course of habit, but Moore grinned inwardly over how he stood in sharp juxtaposition to a narcissist like Dante Corrales from the Juarez Cartel. You could mistake Zuniga for a guy selling bagged oranges on the street corner — and that might be how he preferred it.
“Senor Zuniga, I appreciate you coming.”
“Don’t get up.” Zuniga blessed himself, genuflected, and slid into the pew next to Moore. “The people pray
