Age of Blood

26

After they’d made their plan of attack, J.J. went to scrounge some space for the incoming personnel and Ramon took off on his own accord. He was going to see if his contacts were still around, he said.

Holmes and Laws were the last to leave. Laws could tell that Holmes was worried about something. “What is it?”

“Couple of things,” Holmes said. “First is the SPG coming. I don’t like the fact that I’ll have a group of analysts I’ll need to take care of. That’s bad enough, but to also have—”

“Walker’s girlfriend,” Laws said, finishing the sentence. Although Walker had tried to keep it low-key, the team knew about his relationship with the young CIA gal in charge of the SPG. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. Not that there’s anything we can do about it.”

“I agree. Billings probably thought it was going to help to have them on-site, but this isn’t the other side of the world. This is Mexico. We have contacts here and could reach out in real time to get whatever support we need.”

“She meant well, I suppose.”

“The road to hell is paved with meant-wells.”

Laws wiped his face, as if he could wipe away his fatigue. “We just have to count on them to keep it professional. Do you want me to talk to them about it?”

Holmes shook his head. “If they don’t know how to be professional now, no amount of words is going to make them grow up.”

“I think we’ll be all right, boss. What was the second thing?”

Holmes glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Do you feel like we might be getting led by the nose?”

“Glad I’m not the only one.”

“So you felt the same way.”

Laws nodded. “In some ways, this is like the Myanmar mission. We could just never get ahead of it. Just as soon as we’d get more information, that would spur us on to another part of the mission. This is starting to feel the same.”

“Not at all what we’re used to. Remember the ’cabras on the border?”

“Simple mission. We knew there were chupacabras around. We used intelligence to project where they might be. We put men on target, found the ’cabras, then took the beegees down.”

“Right.” Holmes tapped the wooden table. “Where’s our projection? Where’s our intelligence? We have Ramon giving us information that we should already have.”

“Ramon is another issue.”

“He sure is. But with regards to the intelligence, if the SPG is going to be with us then we’re going to keep them busy. I want multiple projections regarding the possible plight of Senator Withers’s daughter. Enough of this reacting. I want to do some proacting. We’ll have them input all the raw data we have, then have each of them use their thirty-pound brains to figure it all out.”

Laws couldn’t agree more. If they could get ahead of the mission then maybe they could get to the girl while she was still alive. Still, there was the issue of Ramon. Neither Laws nor Holmes trusted him. Not only because he’d been a hit man, who by necessity was morally bankrupt, but also because they couldn’t be sure of his loyalty. As far as they knew, he worshipped at the Church of Ramon and anything else was secondary. That wasn’t the way the SEALs operated. They placed themselves second to the mission.

Holmes stood to go, then stopped and snapped his fingers. “One more odd thing.”

“Odd?” Laws chuckled. “What isn’t odd about anything we do?”

“Nevertheless, this is odd. I got a sitrep regarding the recovery of the ’cabra bones, which for the most part are on their way to the Salton Sea facility. Looks like it went off without a hitch. YaYa secured the items, then left with Agent Alice Surrey. Remember her?”

“Yeah, I remember. So what’s so odd about that?”

“She’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re right. That is odd. What did Jabouri say?”

“He said that she dropped him off at LAX after the mission.”

“Do we know if that’s true?” Laws asked.

“No reason to doubt YaYa, so no, I haven’t checked. But they found her SUV on Manhattan Beach… empty.”

“They found her SUV on the beach? What was she doing there?”

“Like I said, it’s odd. And it probably has nothing to do with us, either. Alice is a successful NCIS agent. I’m sure she’s made a lot of enemies.”

Laws was getting a feeling that worried him. “I’m sure that’s it. Still, I might have a word or two with Jabouri. Perhaps he can shed some light on this odd situation.”

While Holmes went to check on J.J.’s progress, Laws remained sitting, thinking about the need for better intelligence, Ramon’s loyalty, and the odd circumstance of the missing NCIS agent. He had a policy about odd circumstances and coincidences, and he was hardly ever wrong.