Against All Enemies

27 AL RESCATE

Deep shadows had fallen across the graveyard, and the rows of crosses now stood in silhouette against the moldy walls of the abandoned church. Down below, past the church and the marketplace, Moore, who was lying on his belly, scanned the large crowds of locals and tourists gathering around and lining the streets of the main road, where the parade and fireworks show of Carnival would soon commence. Troupes of dancers were already shifting and whirling across beds of burning embers whose sparks rose around them.

Moore panned to the right with his night-vision scope and back to the house where the small blue car and van were still parked. Torres had fetched their rental car and had moved it up behind the pair of smaller houses at the bottom of the road. He’d left the car there with the keys under the mat.

After another long breath, Moore adjusted his grip on the weapon in his hands, one of the Mark 11 Model 0’s, which had earned the nickname “Pirate Killer,” based on their use by Navy SEALs to rescue captured sailors from Somali pirates. Fitzpatrick had feigned surprise over Moore toting them, and Torres had grilled Moore about how he’d acquired such powerful military-issue weapons. “Like I told you,” Moore had said, “the people I work for are very well connected.”

Indeed.

The Mark 11 was a twenty-round semiautomatic rifle equipped with a biped. The rifle’s magazine held twenty 7.62x5-millimeter NATO rounds, and Moore liked to joke that if you needed twenty bullets to hit your target, then you’d best get into politics and out of soldiering. When Moore fired the Mark 11, the round would streak off faster than the speed of sound, creating a small sonic boom that would dissipate as the round slowed to subsonic speeds. At about six hundred meters out in places such as the mountains of Afghanistan, a sniper could shoot and remain silent to his target; however, in more urban environments such as San Juan Chamula, Moore and Fitzpatrick, who also lay on his belly on the other side of the hill, needed the KAC suppressors that would help conceal and confuse the source of their ordnance. If Moore were to take his shot beyond eight hundred meters, he could fire at will without the enemy ever detecting his location. Of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, the math was not in their favor.

Range to the house and the four guards positioned there was only 527 meters. Current wind was NNE at nine miles per hour. Elevation was 7,410 feet, and they were approximately 29 feet higher than their target with a grade of nine percent heading up into the hills. Between the wind, the calculations for bullet drop, and their current positions, the shots would be difficult but not impossible. They would certainly be heard, and the only thing to help mask them would be the fireworks echoing from town. As Moore had earlier remarked, that was their only stroke of luck, and they’d need a lot more than luck, because the real test would occur after they brought down the guards …

Moore called Towers, who was monitoring the Avenging Vultures’ radio channel. “Anything?”

“Still running through the cell-phone calls. That’ll take a while. Just the usual small talk on the radio. They’re calling one guy Captain Salou, and I pulled up what we have on him: Guatemalan Special Forces, twenty-year veteran before he retired and turned mercenary. In technical terms, he’s a mean-ass motherfucker.”

“And handy with an ax,” Moore added darkly.

“Something else is going on, though, down in Cristóbal. Local police are on high alert, and from what we can tell, they’re searching for missing persons.”

“No surprise. Maybe Daddy found out that his little boy’s been kidnapped and put in some calls.”

“Well, if he did, then you need to extract them and get the hell out of there before Rojas’s team arrives.”

“I hear that. I’m just waiting for the party to begin …”

Moore closed his eyes, trying to purge all the extraneous thoughts and simply focus on the shots, on the moment. But his conscience wasn’t cooperating because of how similar this moment was to the past. He unwillingly took himself back to the beach at Coronado and stood there, watching the tide roll in, watching as out there in the dark sea, a hand rose above the waves …and a voice that was really his own came in a bellow, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”

“We have to go back!”

“He’s taking off! We can’t!”

“Don’t do this, Max! Don’t do it!”

“No choice! Shut the fuck up! We’re leaving!”

Moore shuddered violently over those voices.

And then another one: “You are class 198. You are the warriors who’ve survived because of your teamwork.”

Not anymore. He’d tricked the Navy into thinking he was worth it, but he should have never become a SEAL. He had broken the most basic rule, and should have been punished for his actions, and because he wasn’t, he thought he should take on that job himself. He didn’t deserve a real life after what he’d done. No, he didn’t.

During a time when he was feeling most depressed, he’d tried to lift his spirits by literally launching himself into the air, but not parachuting, no. He’d talked to a few buddies and found something much more exotic in the Romsdal Valley of Norway. Within two days of his arrival, he was wearing a wingsuit and jetting through the air at 150 miles per hour. He dove down into the valley, taking advantage of the favorable winds during the summer solstice. The wingsuit allowed him to soar like a bird, with the fabric fanning out beneath his arms and legs like webbing. This was not free fall but a very fast, very dangerous form of gliding. All Moore had to do was lean to the left or to the right to steer himself within a meter of the cliff walls beside which he raced.

He came whipping around one corner, close enough to reach out and grab the rock face, then he rolled to the left and plummeted at a forty-five-degree angle, the wind now roaring across him. Death was very close, whispering in his ear, and he began to find peace with himself, with the wind, the valley, and for a few seconds, he just closed his eyes, knowing he should pull his rip cord but waiting to see how long he would wait, how long, just a few more seconds, the euphoria mounting as he imagined the mottled rock face below.

He pulled the cord. Boom. The chute blossomed; the cords tugged. It was over.

The group roared from somewhere behind him.

Of the fifteen people in his extreme-sports posse who’d come from all over the world to do this, Moore’s flight had been the fastest, the longest, without question the most dangerous of all, like something out of an action film and not a tourist’s joyride. He hadn’t realized what he’d done until the others gazed on him in awe, as though his temples had gone gray and he’d seen the maker.

Afterward, their Norwegian guide, Bjoernolf, took them all out for lunch, and over smørrebrød topped with smoked salmon and cups of dark-roast coffee, he pulled Moore aside and, in his heavily accented English, simply asked, “Why do you want to die?”

“Excuse me?” Moore replied, lowering his mug.

“I’ve done this thousands of times with many, many clients. No one has ever flown like that. Not even me. And you flew only three practice runs and then did that?”

“I told you I was in the Navy.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You came much too close to the mountain. You waited much too long to pull your cord. I’m sorry, but I won’t take you up there again.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve already paid for two more days.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Moore. I can only work with people who want to come back. I don’t know what your problem is, but I won’t let you become mine. I’ll return your money.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Look, you are not the first one who’s come here looking for more than I can give. Get some help. Whatever is bothering you, I think you can get through it. This is not the way. I’m sorry.”

Moore thought of bolting to his feet and letting the cocky long-haired asshole have it, but there was nothing but concern in the man’s eyes — and the guy wasn’t a kid, either, probably Moore’s age, and he probably had seen his share of emotionally damaged thrill-seekers also attempting to punish themselves.

“How do you learn to forgive yourself?” Moore asked, realizing that he was speaking to a hillside in San Juan Chamula and not to a Norwegian daredevil.

“When you’re ready to talk, come back to me. I want to hear your story. I’m an old man. I’m a good listener.”

Maybe the old man Wazir, tucked tightly away in his compound in the tribal lands, did have an answer …

The first booms from the fireworks were met by a roaring crowd, the crackling and popping like corn, as even then, at that precise moment, Moore’s cell phone rang.

“Ready when you are, boss,” said Fitzpatrick.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on,” Moore said, shifting his rifle slightly to the right and watching as the front door opened and the older guy Moore assumed was Salou ventured out.

“Maybe he wants to see the show,” said Fitzpatrick.

“He needs to close that door; otherwise, we’re screwed.”

Salou stood there, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, took a long drag, then stood there, staring off at the lights of the parade beyond.

“Come on, come on,” Moore said, as another salvo of firecrackers exploded and echoed off the hillside. A few suppressed cracks from sniper rifles would easily be lost in the racket, but this fool was wasting the moment.

“Oh, shit. You see him? You see Torres? What the fuck is he doing?” asked Fitzpatrick.

Torres had rigged the two cars to explode and was supposed to detonate the explosives just after Moore and Fitzpatrick took out the guards with their sniper rifles. But now the fool was marching toward the front door of the house. A curious Salou took one last pull on his cigarette, then stepped down from the porch.

“What the hell is he thinking?” asked Moore.

“Wait a minute,” said Fitzpatrick, as Torres actually shook hands with Salou. “Son of a bitch. I think Torres knows this guy! Holy fucking shit. I think this might be a setup!”

“Fuck this, then, fire, fire!” cried Moore, as Salou threw his arm over Torres’s shoulders and wheeled him around toward the house. That fat bastard had played them all, all right, and now he was going to tip off the Guatemalans. Maybe he, Zúñiga, and Salou had all struck a deal, cutting Moore’s group out of the negotiations.

But then again, would Torres be stupid enough to act friendly when he knew Moore and Fitzpatrick were watching? Maybe he didn’t care anymore.

Well, Moore would never find out—

Because the fat man was the first guy he targeted, and the round took off the back of Torres’s head and sent him twisting around like an oil drum toppling off a cargo ship. He crashed to the ground and was lost in the darkness.

Moore switched aim to his first guard, who was already on the move, rushing forward from a tree on the north side and scanning the hills. Moore had to track down, readjust his aim yet again, and finally fire, hoping the guy would literally run into his shot. Bingo. The round punched him squarely in the chest, the blood spraying as he was knocked onto his back — all within the span of a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Fitzpatrick’s rifle cracked despite the suppressor, and then it sounded once more. The DEA agent’s aim had better prove true, because they were not going to lose Sonia.

They would not.

Moore would die first. The decision had been made.

True, he didn’t know the woman, but he could not bear what losing her represented. He reasoned, perhaps illogically, that, if he saved her, he saved part of himself. If he failed, he wasn’t sure what could be salvaged.

Still holding his breath, he found his second guard and shot him twice as he was running alongside the house, back toward the front door.

Just then, and without any explanation, since Torres had been the one carrying the remote detonators for the two cars, they exploded in succession, their front ends rising a meter off the ground, the fireballs mushrooming up into the night and casting the house in a flickering otherworldly glow.

Whether Torres had remained alive long enough to blow the cars or had set them for remote timer, Moore wasn’t sure. He didn’t think the fat man was smart enough to deal with the timers and had shown him only the most rudimentary of setups, C-4 here, wire, remote here. Take your fat-ass thumb and push this button. Got it, knucklehead?

Whatever the case, they needed those cars taken out, and the job was complete.

“Let’s go!” Moore shouted across the hillside, drawing his pair of Glocks and breaking into a full-on sprint down the hill, with Fitzpatrick falling in beside him.

They had changed into black utilities — pants and long-sleeved shirts — and now wore balaclavas and Kevlar vests, the latter of which Torres had balked at because he’d been unable to pull his protection over his massive man-boobs.

As Moore hit the bottom of the hill, he saw Salou rushing back outside with a rifle in his grip. Behind him were Sonia and Miguel, whose legs had been freed but whose arms were still bound behind their backs. They were each being dragged by a pair of men, all armed with pistols. Without transportation and with the car fires raging and drawing attention away from the parade down below, Moore figured, the Guatemalan had only one avenue of escape: up the narrow road running directly east and away from the marketplace.

Indeed, the group turned in that direction as Salou glanced back over his shoulder, spotted Moore, and shouted to his men.

But Moore was already in the air, leaping toward a dirt mound ahead and firing with both pistols, the stench of gunpowder both familiar and welcome and making him grimace tightly. Salou had detached himself from the group, which was his final mistake. Even as the old Special Forces veteran leveled his AK-47 on Moore, he took two rounds in the chest, one in the neck, and a final one in the thigh that brought him to his knees, his rifle twisting to one side, his rounds stitching into the ground ten meters ahead of Moore.

Whether there were any more men inside the house, Moore wasn’t sure, but they needed to know. “Take the house!” he told Fitzpatrick, as the two men holding Miguel shoved him toward Sonia, broke away, and dropped to the deck so they could return fire.

The incoming drove Moore deeper into the mound before he could roll to his right and answer their shots. His first three rounds all missed. Shit. That’s what he got for firing with one hand, even though his first attack on Salou had been deadly accurate. He sat up a bit more, took aim, and hit the guy on the right, whose muzzle flash easily betrayed him — but he, too, got off a shot, which thumped barely six inches below Moore.

Music from the parade wafted up from the valley, heavy drums and guitars and trumpets amid more pops and booms of fireworks, and for a few seconds, Moore wasn’t sure if the guys ahead were still firing at him.

Either way, he launched himself up from the ground and began running toward the house, dropping in behind Fitzpatrick, his boots heavy on the earth, his breath uneven and raging in his ears.

Miguel, Sonia, and the three guys left were hustling up the back road, as Moore had anticipated. He bolted around the house while Fitzpatrick rushed inside.

Gunfire rattled and glass shattered. Damn it, Salou had left some men in the house. Fitzpatrick was on his own now. Moore came charging up the road, where the group was now darting toward another house near the top of the hill. Two old cars were parked along the street, and as Moore came rushing up along a rotting old fence, he heard Sonia begin to scream and curse at the men. The cars blocked Moore’s view.

That was it. All he needed to hear. He couldn’t change what had happened that night on the oil platform, but maybe he could prevent the same thing from happening again. Sonia would not be left to die.

Tensing with an anger that had been simmering since that fateful night, and with a heart swelling with rage over his inability to forgive himself, Moore charged at full tilt up the hill, toward the sound of the screaming, with the breath of a ghost on his back.

As he rounded the cars, he saw that Sonia had broken away from one man and was being held only by a single guy, who now spotted Moore and put his pistol directly to Sonia’s head.

The other two guys had their guns pointed at Miguel’s chest, and the young man was now crying and begging for his life.

This wouldn’t be a standoff, a negotiation, a moment where he talked the men into surrendering because their boss was already dead and they had nothing left to gain, no. The dealmaking was over, the bets off.

With the adrenaline pumping through his veins like molten lava, and with the years of training and experience he’d earned as both a Navy SEAL and a CIA operative — the hundreds of hours spent listening to instructors shout at him and direct him and reward him — Moore took in the entire situation in the better part of one second and reacted like the man he was: a combatant with the muscle memory for killing.

Gritting his teeth, striking out at the guilt now personified as three members of a Guatemalan death squad, he looked at the guy holding Sonia and cried, “Hey!”

The guy widened his eyes.

Bang! Moore shot him in the head.

That the other two guys would probably kill Miguel was of no concern. It was all about Sonia.

That the Guatemalans decided to engage Moore instead of killing the kid was the kid’s good fortune.

Moore fired his pistols, hitting each man in the chest. They staggered away from the kid, even as Moore nearly tripped back. He recovered his balance enough to lean forward, step toward the two thugs, and finish them with another round each. As his Glock went silent, police sirens clashed with the trumpeters of Carnival, and for just a few seconds, Moore paused, his head spinning, the adrenaline now making him feel as though his chest would explode.

“Who are you?” cried Miguel.

Moore answered him in Spanish: “I work for your father.” He reached into his hip pocket for a karambit, a hawk-billed blade whose edge curved like a slice of melon. He hurriedly cut Sonia’s bonds, then Miguel’s, then waved them over. “I have a car down below. Keys under the mat. It’s right down there. You get it. You take it. You get out of here and don’t look back. Go to the airport. Fly out. Now!”

“Let’s go!” Sonia shouted to Miguel, then led him away.

Moore stood there for a few seconds to regain his breath, then he holstered his pistols and raced back toward the house, leaping over Torres’s body to enter the living room, where he found Fitzpatrick lying on the floor with two gunshot wounds to his head.

“Aw, fuck …Buddy, no way …”

He dropped to his knees, but it was damned clear that the DEA agent was dead. He ripped off his balaclava and just remained there.

A phone was ringing somewhere outside. Moore rose, shifted over to Torres’s body, and withdrew his cell from the fat man’s hip pocket. It was Zúñiga calling.

“Hello?”

“Luis, is that you?”

“No, Señor Zúñiga, this is Señor Howard. I have very bad news. Luis and Flexxx are dead. Rojas’s son and his girl got away …”

“What is this?” Zúñiga shouted. “You told me your group was very powerful!”

“I’m coming back to Juárez. I need to meet with you.”

“If you’re smart, you will not do that, Mr. Howard. You would not survive that meeting.”

“Listen to me. We’re not done yet. I’ll call you when I get back up there.” Moore hung up, pocketed Torres’s phone, then jogged over to Salou’s body and fetched his phone as well. As he headed back into the house, he dialed Towers, told his boss what had happened.

“I need to get the fuck out of here with Fitzpatrick’s body.”

“Get up into the hills, due north. I’ve got an extraction team on the way.”

He sighed. “Thank you.”

Moore reached down and picked up Fitzpatrick’s body in a fireman’s carry. His eyes began to burn. “Hang on,” he whispered. “I’ll get you out of here.”

He shifted outside and around the house as the damned sirens quickened his step. A car came roaring up, and two teenagers jumped out, gaping at the bodies.

“I need help!” Moore cried, then reached into one holster and drew his Glock. “Which means I’m taking your car.”

They lifted their palms and backed away. Moore opened the sedan’s rear door and lowered Fitzpatrick onto the seat. The boys could have jumped him then, but they were wise enough to read their futures in his expression. “Don’t worry,” he assured them. “You’ll get your car back.” He hopped in and floored it, the little engine whining and struggling to get them up the hillside road.