Against All Enemies

13 WHERE WE BELONG

All of the high-tech devices in the world could not replace old-fashioned boots on the ground gathering Human Intelligence (HUMINT), and that, Moore often mused, had kept him gainfully employed all these years. When the engineers invented an android that could do everything he did, he might be forced to hang up his balaclava and turn in his spy card — because, in his humble opinion, the world would soon be coming to an end as the machines took over. An age-old theme in science fiction would become reality, and Moore would watch it all unfold in the grandstands, with, he prayed, a hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other.

However, he still marveled over all the highly encrypted data he could view on his smartphone. At the moment, he was watching real-time streaming satellite images of the hotel so that he could observe the comings and goings of everyone outside, even while tucked nicely into his bed, feet propped up, the TV morning news humming softly in the background. The spy satellites used to feed him that intelligence were operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (staffed by DoD and CIA personnel) and hung in low-earth orbits to optimize their resolution for several minutes before each handed off the job to the next satellite in line in a sophisticated relay of data transfer.

He was also receiving text alerts from the analysts back home who were watching the same images and could draw his attention to anything they noted. Other windows would show him the GPS locations of all other JTF members, and yet another window displayed more photographs of other targets in the city, such as cartel leader Zúñiga’s ranch house. Indeed, it was a complex and aggressive overwatch campaign by geeks sipping on lattes half a world away.

Moore had checked in to the hotel owned by Dante Corrales (noted by Towers as the most senior-ranking member of the cartel that authorities had identified thus far). Like all good drug pushers, Corrales was beginning to surround himself with legitimate businesses, but even so, mistakes would be made, money laundered, and the poor honest folks he did employ would either be implicated in his crimes or simply lose their jobs as his operations were shut down and he was arrested.

However, he would not be apprehended anytime soon. They needed him running wild in order to help identify the lord of the operation himself, and Corrales seemed like just the kind of loose cannon who could do that.

The bio they had on him was fragmentary, gleaned from street informants and personal documents they’d been able to obtain. That his parents had been killed in a hotel fire and he’d turned around and bought one was interesting. His hubris was well appreciated by the Agency and could be exploited. His penchant for showy cars and clothes made him ridiculously easy to spot around town. The guy probably had a Scarface poster hanging above his bed, and in some ways, he resembled a seventeen-year-old Moore — combative, full of bravado, with little sense of how the choices he made now would affect his future.

Moore rose, set down the phone, and pulled on a polo shirt and expensive slacks. His hair had been trimmed and pulled back into a ponytail, and his closely cropped beard was a far cry from the lobster bib he’d sported in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He’d donned a fake diamond earring to give him an edge. He picked up a leather briefcase and headed for the door. His Breitling Chronomat read 9:21 a.m.

He took the elevator down from his fourth-floor room to the first floor, and the man at the front desk whose badge read Ignacio gave him a polite nod.

Standing behind him was an absolutely stunning young woman with long, dark hair and vampire’s eyes. She wore a silver-and-brown dress, and a gold crucifix dangled down into her cleavage. Her perky boobs were enhanced, but they weren’t ridiculous porn-star water balloons, either.

Moore removed his smartphone, paused, pretended to check an e-mail, and snapped a silent if somewhat haphazard photo of the woman.

He frowned once more, thumbed to another page, then glanced up. The woman gave him a perfunctory grin, and he returned the smile and headed outside for his rental car. Once in the car, he forwarded the woman’s photo to the folks at Langley.

Fifteen minutes later, he met the real estate agent on the other side of town, but not before driving past a small tavern where several local police cars were lined up and officers were leading out several men in handcuffs. Early-morning bar bust in Juárez, go figure.

The real estate agent was an obese woman with bright blue eye shadow and whiskers. She’d barely poured herself out of a rusting and dust-covered Kia coupe and shook his hand vigorously. “I have to be honest with you, Mr. Howard, these properties have been on the market for over two years and I haven’t received one call on them.”

Moore, aka Mr. Scott Howard, stood back to take in the view of two old manufacturing plants sitting beside each other on twenty acres of barren, dusty land, the buildings themselves looking as though they’d weathered several tornadoes, their graffiti-laden walls still standing but not much else. Between the stretches of broken glass and the gray haze that had permanently settled around the lots and spilled past the broken chain-link fence, Moore couldn’t help but grimace. He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures. And then he forced a broad grin and said, “Mrs. García, I appreciate you showing them to me. Like I told you on the phone, we’re scouting properties all over Mexico to build assembly plants for our solar panels. Our assembly plants will be here, while our administrative, engineering, and warehouse activities will remain in San Diego and El Paso. I’m looking for land just like this, with excellent access to the highways.”

Moore was simply referring to an operation known as a maquiladora, named after a U.S.-Mexican program allowing low duties on goods assembled in Mexico. Literally thousands of maquiladoras operated on both sides of the border.

In fact, Moore had had dinner with an old SEAL buddy who’d gone to work for GI (General Instruments), a telecom company. His buddy had become the general manager of GI’s maquiladoras, and when it was time to move raw materials from the United States to Mexico, he’d hit a snag. All goods for manufacturing had to originate from Mexico and could not be currently owned by GI. Moore’s buddy had devised a clever solution: He sold the goods to a third-party Mexican trucking firm that drove them into Mexico, and once there, he bought them back at cost plus mordita (a bribe), as goods originating in Mexico. To quote his buddy, “Mexico runs on mordita.” The memory of that dinner had helped Moore devise his initial cover while in Juárez.

As the real estate agent smiled, Moore looked past her at the two punks parked across the street. They were shadowing him, and that was fine. He would not have expected anything less. He only wondered if they were from the Juárez or Sinaloa cartels.

Or worse…they could be Guatemalans. Avenging Vultures …

Moore raised his brows. “I think this land would work out perfectly, and I’d like to meet with the owner to discuss his price.”

The woman winced. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, why?” Moore tempered his curiosity because he already knew why: The land was owned by Zúñiga, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

“The owner is a very private man, and he travels a lot as well. All of this would be handled through his attorneys.”

Moore made a face. “That’s not the way I like to do business.”

“I understand,” she said. “But he is a very busy man. It is rare when I can get him on the phone.”

“Well, I hope you will try. And I hope he will make an exception in my case. Tell him it’ll be well worth his time and money. Now here …” Moore reached into his briefcase and withdrew a portfolio filled with marketing materials regarding his fictitious company. Embedded in the portfolio was a wafer-thin GPS beacon. Moore hoped she’d actually give the materials to Zúñiga and that he would actually follow up and check out his company, only to realize it was fake.

You didn’t just walk up to a cartel leader’s front door, ring the bell, and ask if he’d like to cut a deal. You would never get that meeting. You had to “inspire” his curiosity first, make him become so curious, in fact, that he’d demand to see you. This was a game Moore had played many times with warlords in Afghanistan.

“Here, please share this with the owner.”

“Mr. Howard, I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises. I hope that no matter what happens, you’ll seriously consider this land. Like you said, it’s perfect for your new operation.”

She’d barely finished her sales pitch when automatic-weapons fire echoed in the distance. Another volley split the morning silence, followed by a police siren.

The real estate lady smiled guiltily. “This is, uh, okay, this is, you know, maybe the rougher part of town.”

“Yes, no problem,” Moore said, dismissing the gunfire with a wave of his hand. “My new operation will require a lot of security, I know that. I will also require a lot of help and good information — that’s why I would like to talk to the owner myself. Please let him know that.”

“I will. Thank you for looking at the properties, Mr. Howard. I’ll be in touch.”

He shook her hand, then headed back to his car, careful not to look in the direction of the men watching him. He took a seat, lowered the window, and just waited there, checking the most recent photos of the hotel’s exterior and the cars parked there. The men remained. He glanced back, saw that he couldn’t get a tag number, so he started his car and drove off, heading straight for his hotel. A billboard in Spanish touted greyhound racing at a track in the city, with legal betting on the races.

Many years ago Moore and his parents had made a trip to Las Vegas that his father had been dreaming about. The ride had seemed interminable to the ten-year-old Moore, and he’d spent most of his time playing in the backseat with his G.I. Joes and baseball cards. His mother relentlessly complained about the ride being too long and costing too much, while his father retorted with arguments about how it was worth the drive and that he had a system for winning and that numbers were his business. If she would just believe in him for a change, they might have some luck.

There’d been no luck. His father had lost big-time, and there hadn’t been any money for lunch because they needed to fill up the gas tank in order to drive back home. Moore had never been hungrier in his life, and it was then, he thought, sitting for hours in that hot car whose air conditioner had broken, that he began developing a deep hatred for numbers, for gambling, for anything that his father liked. Numbers had, of course, come in handy in his mathematics courses later in life, but back then, money and accounting represented evil obsessions that made his mother cry and made Moore’s stomach ache.

And whenever the teenage Moore watched the film versions of Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol, he always pictured his father in the role of Scrooge, counting his pennies. His adolescent rebellion, he knew now, was just his way to strike back at his father for not being the superhero Moore wanted him to be. He’d been such an imposing and opinionated man before the cancer had reduced him to a frail shell, then a bloated, drug-filled victim who’d passed away on Christmas Eve, a last laugh against a family who’d ridiculed him.

Moore wished he’d had a father who’d taught him how to be a man, who’d reveled in the pleasures of hunting and fishing and sports, not a pencil-pushing middle manager with a comb-over and a sagging gut. He wanted to love his father, but first he had to respect the man, and the more he reflected on the man’s life, the harder that became.

And so Moore had found not a father figure but a sense of brotherhood in the military. He’d become part of a storied organization whose very name inspired awe and fear in all those who heard it.

“Oh, what did you do in the military?”

“I was a Navy SEAL.”

“Holy shit, really?”

After BUD/S, Moore, along with Frank Carmichael, had been selected for SEAL Team 8 and sent to Little Creek, Virginia, to begin platoon training, what operators called “the real deal,” training for war. He’d spent twenty-four months moving from the workup phase to actual deployment and then to the stand-down phase. He was promoted to E-5 petty officer second class, and by 1996 had received three Letters of Commendation, enough for his CO to recommend him for a slot in Officer Candidate School. He spent twelve long weeks in OCS and graduated as an O-1 ensign. By 1998 he’d become a lieutenant (jg) O-2 with another Letter of Commendation and a Secretary of the Navy Commendation Medal. Because of his exceptional performance, he was deep-selected for early promotion, and in March 2000 became a lieutenant O-3.

Then, in September 2001, all hell broke loose. Moore’s SEAL team was sent to Afghanistan, where they were deployed on numerous Special Reconnaissance missions and earned a Presidential Unit Citation and the Navy Unit Commendation for operations against Taliban insurgents. In March of 2002, he participated in Operation Anaconda, an ultimately successful operation to remove Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains in Afghanistan.

Even Moore himself had difficulty believing that he’d matured so much from his days as a high school punk.

There were, of course, many punks to be found here in Juárez, Moore thought. He pulled into the hotel’s parking lot and snapped off some pictures of the tags of every other car in the lot. He forwarded them to Langley, then went inside and fixed himself a cup of coffee in the lobby while Ignacio watched him. Hammers, saws, and the shouting of construction workers resounded from outside.

“Did your business go okay, señor?” the man asked in English.

Moore answered in Spanish. “Yes, excellent. I’m looking at some very nice properties here in Juárez to expand my business.”

“Señor, that is a great thing. You can bring your clients here. We will take very good care of them. Too many people are afraid to come to Juárez, but we are a new place now. No more violence.”

“Very good.” Moore headed up to his room, which Ignacio had told him would be “cheap, cheap,” because the hotel was still being renovated. Moore had not realized how loud the racket would be since he’d left before the workers had begun their hammering and sawing.

Back in his room, he received all the information the Agency could find on the dark-haired woman, Maria Puentes-Hierra, twenty-two years old, born in Mexico City and girlfriend of Dante Corrales. They didn’t have much else on her, except that she’d spent about a year stripping at Club Monarch, one of the few remaining adult bars in the city. Most of the others had been either closed down by the Federal Police or burned by the Sinaloa Cartel. Monarch was run by the Juárez Cartel and was well protected by the police, who the report indicated were frequent patrons there. Moore assumed Corrales had met the young beauty while she was clutching a tacky metal pole and swimming in disco lights. Love had blossomed among watered-down drinks and cigarette smoke.

After finishing up with that report, Moore checked on the status of his fellow task force members.

Fitzpatrick had returned to the Sinaloa ranch house after his “vacation” in the United States. He and his “boss” Luis Torres were plotting an attack on the Juárez Cartel in retaliation for the explosion at the ranch house that had killed several of Zúñiga’s men and caused more than $10,000 in damage to his main gate and electronic security and surveillance system.

Gloria Vega would begin her first day on the job as an inspector for the Federal Police in Juárez. Moore assumed she’d get an ear- and eyeful.

Ansara checked in to say he was already in Calexico, California, which bordered Mexicali in Mexico, and he was working with agents at the main checkpoints to identify mules and recruit one for their team.

ATF Agent Whittaker was back in Minnesota and on the job, already reconnoitering several storage rental facilities being used by the cartel to stash weapons.

The real estate lady was at her office and making phone calls, which analysts at Langley listened to and interpreted.

And Moore was ready to lie back down on the bed, sip some coffee, and take a little break until they came for him …

As he was grimacing over the coffee grounds on the bottom of his foam cup, he received a text message from a surprising source: Nek Wazir, the old man and informant from North Waziristan. The message unnerved Moore. It simply said: PLEASE CALL ME.

Moore had the man’s satellite phone number, and he immediately dialed, not giving a second thought to the time difference, which he estimated at more than ten hours, so Wazir was texting him at around eleven p.m. his time.

“Hello, Moore?” Wazir asked.

There weren’t many people who knew Moore’s real name, but given Wazir’s considerable skills and contacts, Moore had trusted him with that most sacred piece of information — in part as a way to seal their trust, and in part to tell the man that he wanted, truly wanted, to be his friend.

“Wazir, it’s me. I received your text. Do you have something for me?”

The old man hesitated, and Moore held his breath.

Moore spent the next hour on the phone with Slater and O’Hara, and it wasn’t until after he’d vented his anger and frustration to his bosses and took a long moment to stare out the window of his room that his eyes finally burned with tears.

The sons of bitches had killed poor Rana. He was just …just a smart boy who’d done a stupid thing: He’d agreed to work with Moore. And not for the money. The kid’s parents were already rich. He was an adventurer who’d wanted more out of life, and somehow, there was a bit of Moore in him, and now they were carrying his body down from the Bajaur tribal area, wrapped in old blankets. They’d cut and burned him for what little he knew. Wazir said he had probably lasted ten, fifteen hours at the most before he’d died. Rumors of the torturing had reached Wazir’s men, who’d gone up to the caves and had found the body. The Taliban had left Rana as a message to any other Pakistanis who chose the “wrong” path of justice.

Moore sat on the bed and let the tears flow. He cursed and cursed again. Then he rose, whirled, drew his Glock from its shoulder holster and aimed it at the window, imagining the heads of the Taliban who had captured Rana.

Then he holstered the pistol, caught his breath, and returned to the bed. Oh, hell, if it was time to feel sorry for himself, he might as well get through it now, before the guys tailing him came knocking.

He sent Leslie a text message, told her he missed her, told her to send him another picture of herself, that things weren’t going so well and he could use some cheering up. He waited a few minutes, but it was late over there, and she didn’t reply. He lay back on the bed and felt overwhelmed by that same feeling he’d had during BUD/S, that suffocating desire to surrender and accept defeat. He wished that Frank Carmichael were with him now, to convince him that Khodai’s death and the kid’s death meant something and that walking away was far worse than anything else he could do. Yet another voice inside, a voice that seemed far more reasonable, told him that he wasn’t getting any younger, that there were far less dangerous and lucrative ways to make money, as, say, a consultant for a private security firm or as a sales rep for one of the big military and police gear manufacturers, and that if he remained in his current position, he would never have a wife and a family. The job was always fun and exciting until someone you knew, someone you had fostered a deep relationship with, a relationship built on profound respect and trust, was tortured and murdered. Every time Moore let down his guard and allowed himself to truly feel for someone, that relationship would be wrenched away. Was this how he wanted to live the rest of his life?

Back in late 1994, Moore and Carmichael were in a bar in Little Creek, Virginia, celebrating the fact that they were about to become counterterrorism specialists with their new SEAL team. They were talking to another SEAL, nicknamed Captain Nemo, a gunner’s mate second class who was assigned to Task Unit BRAVO as the SEAL delivery vehicle pilot and Ordnance Engineering Department head. During a proof-of-concept full-mission rehearsal in which Nemo was piloting the SDV, one of his fellow operators had accidentally drowned. He’d refused to go into the details of the incident, but both Moore and Carmichael had heard about it before meeting the guy, who they learned was ready to leave the SEALs. He felt responsible for what had happened, even though the investigation had cleared him of any wrongdoing.

There they were, Moore and Carmichael, getting ready to embark on their careers as SEAL operators — and Nemo was putting a real damper on their celebration.

Again, good old Carmichael had stepped in with his words of wisdom: “There’s no way you can quit,” he’d told Nemo.

“Oh, yeah, why?”

“Because who else is going to do it?”

Nemo smirked. “You guys. The new guys, the ones who are too naive to realize that it’s just not worth it.”

“Listen to me, bro. That we’re here is a gift. We answered the call because deep down — and I want you to think about this — deep down we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren’t born to live ordinary lives. We knew that when we were kids. And we know it now. You can’t escape that feeling. You’ll have it for the rest of your life, whether you quit now or not. And if you quit, you’ll regret it. You’ll look around and think, I don’t belong here. I belong there.”

Moore stood up from the bed in his hotel room, whirled around, and muttered aloud, “I belong here, damn it.”

His phone beeped with a text message. He checked it. Leslie. He sighed.