Against All Enemies

4 °CHANGE OF PLANS

Towers had been shot in the right biceps and had taken a round in the shoulder that had pierced his Kevlar vest.

The shot in the arm had grazed him, but the round to his shoulder had left a nasty exit wound.

“If he gets away now, we’ll lose him forever,” said Towers. “Get moving!”

“Not before I get you a medic.” Moore reached down and tapped the remote on his belt. “Marina-Two, this is J-Two, over?”

Moore’s earpiece crackled with static, then a voice came through, “J-One, J-Two? This is Marina-Two. Lost contact with Marina-One. Are you there, over?”

It was Soto’s lieutenant on the ground, a guy named Morales.

“Marina-Two, this is Moore. I need a medic in the living room for Towers. We lost Soto in the crash, over.”

“Roger, J-Two. Medic on the way.”

Moore sighed in relief as from the corner of his eye he spotted movement near a pair of doors on the other side of the living room. One door was wide open, revealing a broad stairwell beyond. A figure wearing a gas mask and trench coat raced into the stairwell, setting Moore’s feet in motion. He wasn’t sure, but the height, hair, and build were similar to Rojas’s.

Somewhere on the second floor, Soto’s men traded fire with at least two more of Rojas’s guards as Moore hit the stairwell and charged down across thick carpet, his M4 at the ready.

The lights clicked on as Rojas sprinted across the tile and not two seconds later an explosion from behind sent drywall, beams, and concrete dropping into the subterranean garage where he stored his antique cars. It took him but a single glance to assess what was happening: His attackers had blown a hole in the ceiling and a rope appeared. They were coming down.

Rojas hustled over to the vault on the left side of the basement and got to work on the access panel, struggling for breath. He typed in the code, did the fingerprint scan, then realized he had to remove his mask for the retinal scan. He took a deep breath, held it, then tugged up the mask and placed his eye in the correct spot. The laser flashed. Then he inserted his finger in the tube for the blood sample.

As the first soldier appeared on the rope, Rojas withdrew a pistol from his trench coat pocket and fired, causing the soldier to drop to the floor and seek cover behind Rojas’s vintage Ferrari 166 Inter.

A second soldier started down, and Rojas shifted away from the panel and waited as the vault door thumped and hissed open. He hustled into the vault, then took a breath, figuring the air inside might be clean. It was. But he couldn’t close the door — a fail-safe prevented him from being locked inside.

He rushed on through the hundreds of pieces of art, rows of furniture, cases of books, and boxes and display cases of firearms, along with a vinyl record collection numbering 10,000 that had each album stored in its own plastic case. Sofia had loved that collection and sometimes spent hours leafing through it. He reached the back wall, where stood two large racks from which hung more of his Turkish rugs, along with a Persian silk piece from the sixteenth century that he’d bought from Christie’s for 4.45 million U.S. dollars, making it one of the most expensive rugs in the world.

He shifted the racks aside to reveal a metal door set into the wall with a rotary combination lock. He rolled the dial. The combination was set to the date of his wedding anniversary. The lock thumped, and he lifted the small handle, tugging the door toward him.

He was beginning to panic now, to envision himself being caught and having to explain it all to Miguel. He’d never told Miguel how his brother Esteban had been killed, how that shotgun had felt in his hands, and how desperately he’d wanted revenge; he had never told him how hard he’d struggled to build his businesses, how many risks he’d taken, never told him about how many sleepless nights he’d endured so that he could give the boy anything he dreamed of, anything. But it wouldn’t matter. All the time in the world, all the explaining, and all the apologies wouldn’t change the fact that the lie was death.

And a piece of Jorge Rojas would die this evening.

Gunfire from just outside the vault chilled him back to the moment.

Then it struck him: Where was Alexsi? Had they already captured her?

The lights switched on as Rojas pushed into the rectangular room, no wider than three meters and about fifteen meters long. On both sides stood boltless steel shelving racks buckling under the weight of cash, American dollars, millions and millions of American dollars, perhaps five hundred million or more — Rojas wasn’t even sure himself.

Glimpsing that much money in one place was enough to strike anyone inert, the cash bundled and stacked faceup to form brick-and-mortar walls of mottled green. Rojas had once mused that the bills were the pages of some spectacularly long narrative chronicling his life and that no, they were not tainted by blood. At the far end of the vault were more racks loaded with crates of firearms and more ammunition — not antiques or collectibles like those found in the outer vaults, but police killers and the IEDs given to him by Samad’s people, which had been smuggled up from Colombia. A concrete archway lay at the very end, and beyond it, the tunnel leading out toward the garage on the hillside. The tunnel’s walls had been reinforced with pressure-treated wood, then filled in with cinder blocks, rebar, and concrete. It was the kind of passageway Rojas wished he could build between Juárez and the United States, even more sophisticated than the one Castillo had been forced to destroy.

He started for the archway and the tunnel beyond.

But at the far end of the room behind him, a soldier appeared, leveling his rifle.

Samad was sitting up in bed, the soft glow of his cell phone casting long shadows across the ceiling. Talwar, Niazi, and the rest of the Los Angeles team were sleeping in the other rooms. Rahmani was supposed to call him at any moment so he could report on their practice run, and Samad wished the old man would make that call because he felt entirely drained, his eyes already narrowed to slits. What they were about to do — the complexity and audacity of it all, the sheer will it took — was a lot to bear. He would never admit openly to feeling any guilt, but the nearer they got to that fateful moment, the sharper, the deeper, his reservations became.

His father was the problem. That old picture spoke to him, told him that this was not what Allah wanted, that killing innocent civilians was not Allah’s will, and that the infidels should be taught the error of their ways, not murdered because of them. That old picture reminded Samad of the day his father had given him a bag filled with chocolate. “Where did you get it?” Samad had asked. “From an American missionary. The Americans want to help us.”

Samad squeezed shut his eyes and balled his hands into fists, digging his nails deeply into his skin, as though he could purge the guilt from his body, sweat it out like a fever. He needed to meditate, to pray more deeply to Allah and ask for his peace. He glanced over to his Qur’an:

The phone vibrated, startling him. “Yes, Mullah Rahmani, I am here.”

“And all is well?”

“God is great. Our run went perfectly, and I heard back from the other teams. No problems.”

“Excellent. I have another bit of news I thought I’d share. I made a deal with the Sinaloa Cartel. Even though Zúñiga was killed, his successor, who is also his brother-in-law, has promised me the same arrangement we had with Rojas — but even better, because he’s put us in contact with the Gulf Cartel in order to double our shipments. We don’t need the Juárez Cartel anymore. I never liked Señor Rojas’s attitude.”

“He was not very agreeable when I spoke to him.”

“No matter now. I will talk to you tomorrow, Samad. Rest easy, rest well. Allahu Akbar.”

Moore had chased the figure down the stairs, through the basement, and toward the pair of vaults. But then he’d taken fire from someone behind him, and that had left him pinned down, just behind the open vault door, with no clear way to swing around and get inside the vault.

He chanced a look out, spied the guy across the basement, hunkered down near one of the cars. As the guy lifted his head, revealing the black eye patch beneath his gas mask, Moore opened up on him, a solid three-round burst that drove him scrambling for better cover.

With a chance to move, Moore rose up from his haunches, about to sprint into the vault. Three more of Soto’s men were in the basement with him, as evidenced by the shots they now traded with the one-eyed Castillo, and Moore called to Marina-Two to have those men focus all their attention on that man. “Make sure they know I’m in the vault,” he added.

As Soto’s men sent a barrage of fire in Castillo’s direction, Moore swung around and rushed forward, sweeping the corners, the crevices, every spot near or around a piece of furniture or behind a rug where one of them could be hidden. It was a vault. How far could he go? But then there it was, just ahead, past the racks of carpets, another door with a combination lock, slightly ajar.

His heart raced. To hell with it. He ripped off his gas mask, needing all of his senses now. The air was good, or at least it seemed so for now. He’d trained extensively with various forms of gases, beginning way back in boot camp inside the Confidence Chamber and continuing on through SEAL training. He’d been exposed both with a mask and without. Red eyes and vomiting were often the results of a successful evolution. At least his increased lung capacity gave him an advantage. He took a deep breath, held it, and—

Pulled open and rolled around the door. He swung himself inside, his gaze probing.

It all hit him at once: the racks, the stacks of money, the guns and boxes of ammo at the far end, and the concrete entrance to a tunnel …

Then another image struck like an electrical current that made him gasp — it was Rojas brandishing an AK-47.

Reacting much faster than Moore had anticipated, Rojas threw himself to the floor beside one of the gun racks and got off a full automatic salvo.

Two rounds hammered into Moore’s left breast, knocking him back toward one of the money racks, his breath gone, his return fire going wide and hammering into the wall of cash until he could cease fire.

Rojas hit the ground, one elbow crashing hard, and he lost his grip on the rifle.

Moore caught his balance and hunkered down to squint ahead, where Rojas was about to lift his AK-47, but he stopped, realizing that Moore had him — no time, no chance. He raised one palm, then the other.

“Get up!” Moore ordered.

Rojas rose, leaving his rifle on the floor. With hands still raised, he padded in bare feet toward Moore.

So this was the richest man in all of Mexico, surrounded by the spoils of the war he had waged on Mexico, on the United States, and on the rest of the world. He built hospitals and schools, even as the cancer of his empire spread through those same schoolyards. He was a saint, all right, his white robes now bloody, his pockets lined with the sorrows of millions. And, of course, he was so self-absorbed that he had no idea how many people had died because of him.

But Moore knew at least a few of them, their ghosts at his shoulders, their deaths in vain were it not for this moment, this night.

Rojas began shaking his head and glaring. “Your pathetic little raid? All of this? Do you think it means anything? You’ll arrest me, and I’ll walk away.”

“I know,” said Moore, releasing his rifle and drawing one of his Glocks, a round already chambered. He lifted the gun to Rojas’s head. “I’m not here to arrest you.”

Castillo was lying against one of Rojas’s antique cars, the 1963 Corvette to be precise, dying from a gunshot wound to the neck when he heard a shot go off from inside the vault. He removed his mask and his eye patch and began to pray for God to take his soul. It had been a good life, and he’d suspected that the end would be like this. If you lived by the bullet then you should die by the bullet. He only wished he knew if Señor Rojas had escaped. If he could die knowing that much was true, then he would leave this earth with a grin after he took in his last breath. He owed Jorge Rojas everything.

During the raid, Soto’s men had successfully captured the chef, several other servants, and a woman identified as Alexsi, Rojas’s girlfriend. Once the house had been secured, Towers, who was wearing a sling, joined Moore as they climbed into one of the civilian cars left parked around the corner for their escape. “It’s too bad you had to shoot him …”

Towers lifted his brow, prying for details.

Moore glanced away and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Let’s go before the circus arrives. We need to pick up Sonia and get to the airport.”

Miguel heard the knock on their door, and when he looked up, Sonia, wearing her robe, was already answering it. She allowed two men dressed in slacks and dark jackets to enter, then she flicked on a light. He squinted into the glare.

“Sonia, what the hell? Who’re these guys?”

She came over to the bed and raised her palms. “Just relax. These guys are part of my team.”

“Your team?”

She took a deep breath, her gaze wandering as though she was groping for words. In fact, she was. “Look, it’s all about your father. It’s always been about him.”

He bolted from the bed, started toward her, but one of the men approached and glowered at him.

“Sonia, what is this?”

“This is me saying good-bye. And that I’m sorry. You’re still a young man with a great future, despite everything your father has done. You should know that.”

He began to tremble, to lose his breath. “Who are you?”

Her voice turned cool, steely, strangely professional. “Obviously I’m not who you think I am. And neither is your father. You were right about him.”

“I was?”

“I have to go. You won’t see me ever again.” She tossed him his cell phone. “Take care, Miguel.”

“Sonia?”

She started toward the door with the two men.

“Sonia, what the fuck is this?”

She didn’t look back.

“SONIA, DON’T LEAVE! YOU CAN’T LEAVE!”

One of the men turned back and pointed a finger. “You stay here,” he warned. “Until after we’ve left.”

He shut the door after himself, leaving Miguel standing there, in shock, as his mind rewound through everything Sonia had ever said to him, through the millions of lies.