But that was bullshit, and he’d fucked up — because he’d let his guard down and forgotten that in this business there were people who wanted to kill you every day.
So these light-footed bastards had managed to drag him into the shop, which had turned out to be an old clothing store under heavy renovation, with construction materials all around them.
While they’d managed to disarm Corrales, they hadn’t been able to get a firm grip on him, and he slithered like a snake out of the first guy’s grip, turned, and took a round point-blank in his shoulder before ripping his gun back from the guy who’d seized it.
Before either of the guys could react, Corrales put a bullet in each of their hearts.
And then he fell onto the floor, gasping, the blood pouring from his shoulder. He cursed and cursed again. He’d been shot before, but only minor flesh wounds, nothing like this.
He fumbled for his cell phone, dialed Miguel, waited. No answer. He called Pablo. Nothing. He sat there, bleeding. He called Raul. Voice mail. Police sirens rose in the distance, and out behind the dust-caked windows of the shop, the tourists turned their heads as a police car rumbled past them.
Those bastards would no doubt capture Miguel and Sonia. How would he explain this to his boss, Castillo? That one-eyed fool would be outraged, and Corrales’s failure would result in his execution unless he was able to link back up with the boss’s son and the girl.
Castillo would ask, “Why did the Guatemalans attack you? I told you to hire them and have them make some hits on the Sinaloas.”
But Corrales would be unable to answer. He could not tell Castillo that the money he’d been given to pay off the Guatemalans and use them as assassins had actually been used to help finance Corrales’s hotel restoration and that he’d lied to the Guatemalans about payment. He’d given them twenty percent down, they had completed a half-dozen killings, but then Corrales had screwed them out of their money. They were, to put it delicately, fucking pissed. They’d killed Johnny and had followed Corrales here. He hadn’t realized how relentless the little fuckers were, and now everything was falling apart.
Damn, he needed to get to a hospital.
Miguel clutched the pistol and shook his head in disbelief at Sonia. Her arm was covered in blood, but she was unfazed by that. Their would-be kidnapper lay on the ground with a geyser still erupting from his neck.
She wrenched open the door, but the sound of men running up the stairs sent them back inside, down the hallway.
“This way!” she cried.
They hung a sharp left and found another stairwell. This time he tugged open the door.
Others were charging upward.
“How many are there?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“Too many,” she answered.
“They’re going to trap us,” he said.
She bit her lip, turned back, then went running toward the nearest hotel-room door and gave it a sharp kick with the bottom of her bare foot. She cursed in pain. The door did not give.
“Get back,” he cried, then fired two rounds into the doorjamb, shattering some of the wood. He wrenched the door back and kicked it open. They hustled inside.
The tiny room reeked of cleaning products, the bed perfectly made. No suitcase.
“They’ll see the door,” she said, rushing to the window.
“Sonia, you’re amazing. You’re not hysterical.”
“I am. I’m just hiding it,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Come on, we have to get out.”
“You killed a guy back there,” he said.
“Oh my God, I know.” She tugged back the long curtains, threw open the window’s latch, then slit open the screen with her knife. They looked down into the alley below, about a five-meter drop.
“Tie the sheets!” she shouted. “Come on! Tie the sheets.”
“We’re not going out that way,” he said. “I have a gun, come on.”
“Forget it. There’s too many of them. We have to keep moving,” she said.
He shook his head.
And just as she rushed toward the bed to tug away the bedspread, the door burst open.
Miguel fired at the first guy who entered, striking him in the stomach, but the second guy moved in very fast and held his pistol on Sonia. “Shoot again, senor. And she dies.”
The gunfire coming from within the hotel, and the police sirens from not one, not two, but at least three units, drove Moore farther back from the hotel and toward the corner, where he huddled behind an old Volkswagen Beetle and returned the cell-phone call to Towers.
After Moore had given the man a ten-second capsule summary of what was happening, Towers swore under his breath and said, “I’ve got bad news for you, buddy. Very bad news …”
That was exactly how Moore’s Navy SEAL buddy Carmichael had put it only seconds after the platform’s lights had gone dark. He’d shouted, “We’ve been spotted!” Then had added, “Very bad news! We’ve been spotted!”
Carmichael had taken his three other SEALs up and onto the platform to try to defuse the explosives that the Revolutionary Guard troops had rigged there. Moore’s men were hanging beneath the pilings, and Moore knew that he needed to send off those guys already in the water. He ordered them to take the SDV and get out, which they reluctantly did. Then he called to his task-unit commander to get an RHIB (rigid-hull inflatable boat) sent from the Iraqi patrol boat that was in truth being operated by the SEALs. The Zodiac would carry them out of there much faster than the SDV. Only problem was, they’d need a diversion to keep the troops on the platform busy while they took off.
“Mako Two, get your team in the water! Drop!”
“Roger that!” hollered Carmichael, the sound of gunfire cracking between his words.
Moore watched and waited as one man hit the waves, then a second.
Where were the others? “Mako Two, only see two guys?”
“I know! I know! Six has been hit. I gotta get him out!”
Many voices broke over the radio, and more gunfire crackled through, like static punctuating the fear voiced by his men, and then, for a moment that seemed like all the years he spent grieving, there was only the sound of Moore’s breathing. And then …
Towers was still talking to him. “Moore, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Listen to me, and listen good. Seems your agency has always had a keen interest in Mr. Jorge Rojas — so much so that they’ve had an agent working deep cover for over a year now. It’s a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.”
“Wait a minute. What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s the kid’s girlfriend, bro. She’s CIA. Recruited in Europe a long time ago. She’s a blue badger like you. And now you’re telling me you’ve just lost her to some other guys?”
Moore gritted his teeth. “Holy shit. But no, no, no. We haven’t lost them yet. I’ll get back to you.”
Surprised? Moore wasn’t. Annoyed? Frustrated beyond belief? Ready to kill someone who sat behind a desk and had failed to tip off his bosses? Of course. Task Force Juarez’s mission file had been either ignored or not delivered to the right desk to allow for a coordinated and concerted effort on behalf of all agents working on the case. This wasn’t the first time late or fragmented information resulted in a communication breakdown in one of Moore’s operations, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Breakdowns between agencies such as the FBI and the CIA were far more common, which made this revelation all the more aggravating.
He hung up as Fitzpatrick and Torres turned the corner in their little white rental car. He climbed onto the backseat. “See the blue car up there. Hold back. If they’re not dead, they’ll be coming out the door right there.”
Lo and behold, they did, both Miguel and Sonia, escorted by a pair of men holding them at gunpoint. They climbed into the sedan, and the car sped off.
“I’ll wait a few seconds, then follow,” said Fitzpatrick.
