Ballistic

FORTY-EIGHT

Court Gentry was fucking freezing. He’d spent three hours in the meat locker, wearing a warm poncho but sitting still in a corner, hiding behind huge sides of beef that hung from the ceiling. He’d slipped into the restaurant at three p.m. with the produce delivery, carrying two backpacks hidden on a hand truck of boxes of fruits and vegetables, then he’d spent a couple of hours in a dry-storage room before finally moving into the walk-in refrigerator as the evening staff went through their afternoon meeting and tasting in the main dining room.

In the walk-in he’d waited until a text came for him from a police officer outside who took money from both Los Trajes Negros and los Vaqueros.

He’d waited thirty minutes more, body shivering and teeth chattering, then he left the refrigerator, dressed in a uniform he’d pulled from a linen rack, and found a rolling cart and some tossed aside fish guts, with which he’d made his entree. Then, still chilled to the bone, he’d headed out into the dining room, looking for Daniel de la Rocha.

Gentry spoke into Daniel’s ear. “Have your men stand down.”

With a flick of his wrist DLR motioned the rest of Los Trajes Negros back a few steps across the courtyard; they all but disappeared in the dark.

But Court raised a hand. He spoke loud enough now for others to hear. “Not everyone.” He looked back to de la Rocha. “Which one of these guys is the real brains behind your operation?”

De la Rocha’s face flexed like a biceps muscle; Court watched the Mexican’s carotid artery flicker. He spoke through a mouth of clenched teeth. “I make all the decisions.”

“Sure you do, genius. But you and I need to talk business, and I bet there is a guy in this crowd that you would like to have sit in on our little discussion.” Court motioned with his free hand at the skeleton doll ringed by candles in the corner. “Unless, of course… your little Barbie doll can take transcription.” He shook his head and smiled. Displaying a relaxed and “in charge” demeanor. “Seriously. What the fuck is that?”

Somehow Daniel’s fury found a new gear. His face was red, even in the low glow of the paper lanterns hanging from the lines over the courtyard. He hesitated a few seconds, then looked into the dark crowd of men. “Nestor, sientate.” Sit down.

Nestor Calvo sat at the table next to de la Rocha. His salt-andpepper beard sparkled with the sheen of perspiration forming at the skin.

Court looked the older man over for a moment. “Cool. Adult supervision.”

The Gray Man sat at the table, the rolling food cart to his right. De la Rocha asked him, “What did you do to the guy from la CIA?”

“I killed the guy from la CIA.” Gentry shrugged like it was no big deal.

“And the gringo from the embassy? Jerry? He helped you escape, didn’t he?”

“Forget about Jerry. He is an American asshole. You have enough assholes here without importing. I think you’ve taken NAFTA just a step too far.”

“I thought you would be far, far away by now. If you had any brains, you would have run. Why are you here?”

“Let me explain what is about to happen to you, Daniel. And Nestor, pay attention, because I’m counting on you to be the reasonable one. Daniel, I am going to destroy your business. I am going to ruin you. Burn your drugs, kill your middlemen, scare off your suppliers, smash your boats and planes and cars and trucks. I will tear all the profit away from your organization, little by little, bit by bit.”

De la Rocha just smiled. “You do that, and I will kill that little Gamboa bitch.”

“No, you won’t, and I will tell you why you won’t. Because I am not going to touch your family. That is the one thing you can count on. I want Laura back, and all this blowing shit up that I’m about to do is my audition; it’s my proving to you that I can go where I want, do whatever I want, whenever I want. You need to think long and hard about where I might go and what I might do if you do something to Laura. Something to really make me mad.”

“You are doing this all for the girl? ¿En serio?” Seriously?

“Yes. If you return her to me, all the bad stuff stops. You can go on being a crystal meth — trafficking piece of shit to your heart’s content, and I will no longer be in your way.”

De la Rocha’s face was red with anger. After a long time he spoke. “You are dead, maricón. You are dead.”

Gentry shrugged. “Call ten of your top lieutenants and tell them the same thing, because within seventy-two hours it’s a good bet that a lot of them will be.”

“Do you know who we are, Gray Man? We are Los Trajes Negros. We were one of the best-trained units in the Mexican Army. Trained by your military, in fact. I am not just some carterlero from the mountains with ostrich boots and a cuerno de chivo like that cabrón Madrigal. I trained at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg.”

“When you were at Bragg, did you see all those paramilitary forces training there?”

“Yes, and I trained with them. The best commandos in the world.”

“Badasses, one and all. But remember this. Every single one of those special ops organizations has killing me right at the top of their to-do list… They’ve been after me for years, and yet here I sit. You have never been up against someone like me, Daniel. You would do well to keep that in the forefront of your consciousness.”

Nestor Calvo had not spoken. Now he shook his head, leaned slightly forward. Said in Spanish. “But señor, you are just one man.”

Court leaned closer to Nestor. Made long and severe eye contact. “With nothing to lose.”

DLR looked down at the dead man’s switch in the American’s hand. “You think I’m scared of you?”

Gentry smiled, genuinely pleased he had been asked the question. “I think you are fucking terrified. I see straight through that macho image. You are thinking of your family, and you are thinking of the men you left around Laura, and you hope to God you can call them and tell them to stay away from her before they do something that they cannot undo. Because you know what I have done, and you know what I am capable of.

“Everything just changed in your world. You’re no different than thousands of other shitheads around this planet. Your influence, your success, your power — it all comes from fear. If you can’t fill people with fear, then you are nothing. You cease to be. Well, guess what, amigo? You aren’t the scariest thing around here anymore.”

Nestor drummed his fingers on the table. He leaned forward, towards the American. “I suppose you have a plan to get away now?”

“I do.” Court reached into the pocket of his waiter’s coat, pulled out a small mobile phone.

“Four more pounds of ANFO is stashed under a table in this room. As I walk away from the restaurant, I only have to push one button”—he held up the phone—“and every one of you dies. As soon as I disappear from view, you might want to think about running out of here, because I have not decided if this is all worth the trouble. Maybe I’ll just turn you into dog meat tonight and hope your men let Laura go because there is a new law in town.”

De la Rocha looked like he was going to explode from anger. Gentry turned away from him, directed his next words to Calvo, as if the head of Los Trajes Negros was not even there. “You’ll have to keep this guy on a short leash. He’s going to want to tear up the country to find me. That’s fine; he can waste his time and his energy. But you need to keep letting him know how much my reign of terror on your organization is costing him. All I want is the girl. Handing her over to me will not cost you a dime. You can see how that is in your best interests, even if this dumb fuck cannot.” Court stood. “Hopefully, he will listen to you”—he motioned to the Santa Muerte statue in the corner—“and not to that creepy bitch.”

And with that Gentry raised the dead man’s switch high in his left hand, and the mobile phone high in his right. “Tell these assholes to let me walk out of here.”

De la Rocha only nodded slightly; his eyes remained locked on the American. Calvo rose from the table, headed past the fountain and towards the armed men in the courtyard, telling them all to let the gringo leave unmolested.

“I will see you again, Gray Man,” de la Rocha said softly.

“If you do, Daniel, you will end up like your poor friend.”

De la Rocha cocked his head, but Gentry turned away, walked out of the courtyard, past the phalanx of bodyguards. Seconds after that he left the restaurant, both his hands still high in the air.

“What did he say to you while I was gone?” Calvo asked Daniel upon returning to the table. The rest of the inner circle of the Black Suits closed on their leader.

“Something about me ending up like my friend.” De la Rocha and Calvo looked at each other without speaking for a moment. “What did he mean by that?” Daniel asked his older employee.

Together, slowly, their heads turned towards the rolling cart.

“Emilio. Check that.”

Emilio stepped to the other side of the rolling cart then used the barrel of his pistol to lift a corner of the linen tablecloth. His eyes narrowed as he squinted. “It’s a head, jefe.”

“A gringo who decapitates.” Calvo said it with his eyebrows high. “He is showing us he can play by Mexican rules.”

“Whose head is it?” asked DLR.

Emilio looked again. Knelt down lower. “I… I think it is Xavier Garza Guerro.” Garza was the highest-ranking police officer in Puerto Vallarta controlled by the Black Suits and a former army colleague of Daniel’s. DLR had known the man for sixteen years. He knew his wife, his kids, his parents.

“Get it out of here.” De la Rocha stood and stormed over to Spider, grabbing him by the lapel of his jacket. “Listen to me! I want him followed, I want him captured, and I want him tortured like nothing you have ever done to anyone!”

“Sí, jefe. I have men in the street ready to follow him until we get you out of here, then we will take him.”

“I swear to you; I want you to have nightmares about what you did to him. I want you to be sick!”

“Sí, jefe.”

“Now go! And do not show your face to me until you have the Gray Man. ¿Me entiendes?” Do you understand me?

“¡Sí! ¡Sí!” Spider Cepeda shot out of the room, his phone rising to his ear as he did so.

Then DLR looked around the room, found Emilio right on his shoulder. “The men on tonight’s advance security team?”

Emilio Lopez Lopez raised his chin. “I have already disarmed them and put them under custody. Tonight I will have this building burnt to the ground, and the manager and maître d’ shot.”

“Fine. But this is your failure.” His finger jabbed the leader of his security forces hard in the chest.

“I understand, mi jefe.” Emilio said it with his head low.

De la Rocha turned around towards Calvo now, who was already speaking on his mobile. “Call the house. Tell them to keep their hands off the Gamboa bitch.”

Calvo slid the phone back in his jacket, completing a call. “Done.”

Pent-up rage blew forth from the thirty-nine-year-old de la Rocha; he screamed and pulled dishes and glasses from his table, crashed them against the stone wall.

Calvo rushed forward. “Daniel, listen to me! Calm down! Everything the gringo said, everything he did, it was all to get this reaction from you! It was to knock you off balance! Don’t play into his plan! Think!”

“I will piss on his beating heart!”

“¡Tranquilo!” Calm down!

“I will calm down when someone around me does their fucking duty! I have had enough failure from you cabrones!” He threw bottles and knocked over tables. Around him his Black Suits stood watch. No one but Nestor dared speak to him.

And Nestor did speak. “We can end this, Daniel! We can end this right now!”

De la Rocha stopped smashing things; he turned towards his older advisor. Cocked his head. “You want to give the girl to the gringo. You want to stop hunting for Elena Gamboa.”

Nestor reached out, smoothed the lapel of Daniel de la Rocha’s black suit. “I want to put an end to this madness so that we can get back into the business of making money. Making money for everyone. Building our organization, empowering ourselves against our enemies, protecting ourselves from the government and the—”

“Stop! Stop talking now, Nestor, before I begin to lose trust in you.”

“I am at your service, patrón. But as your advisor I feel it necessary to remind you why we are here, why we take the risks that we take. Not for some gringo that la CIA cannot even kill or capture. Not for the life of the unborn child of a cop that we dealt with brilliantly weeks ago.”

DLR shook his head. “Listen to me, Nestor. You have your orders. The Gray Man must die. The Gamboa woman needs to be found.”

Without a sigh or a change of expression, Nestor Calvo Macias nodded. “As I said, I am at your service.”

“Good.” De la Rocha turned to another of his men, the leader of his kidnapping operation. “Roberto, move the Gamboa woman. Double the guard on her.”

“Sí, señor.”

“Emilio!” he shouted. His bodyguard was right behind him still. “Double the guard on me.”

“Already done, jefe.”

“Let’s go, before the Gray Man pushes that button on his phone.”

Court did not push the button on the mobile phone, as there was no explosive hidden in the courtyard of the seaside restaurant. The Black Suits lost Gentry in the crowd of the Malecon, the busy beach promenade of Puerto Vallarta. Court ditched his waiter uniform in an alley, went through the entrances and out the exits of a half dozen bars and eateries, then climbed onto a parked pickup truck, leapt to a second-floor balcony of a beachside apartment building. He would spend the night on this balcony, curled into a ball on a soft patio chair, the sea breeze blowing against his face.

Below him the Black Suits ran through the streets, drove convoys of SUVs and pickup trucks through the foot traffic, grabbed shorthaired and goateed Americans and pushed them up against walls, shone tactical flashlights in their faces, and then shoved them back on their way in frustration.

The local cops were out in force as well. They were hunting the Gray Man at the behest of the Black Suits. Gentry imagined word would have gotten to the CIA by now, any American black ops teams in the area tracking him would be racing into downtown Puerto Vallarta.

He wondered if Gregor Sidorenko had operatives in Mexico hunting him, too. If they could find him in the Amazonian jungle, it was a safe bet the Russian mob boss would have a crew here.

But none of these forces had the power to search every apartment in the entire city. He was safe here for a night. And by morning they would have given up, they would have assured themselves that he’d slipped through their net again.

Court scrolled through e-mails on his phone, all from Hector Serna, intelligence chief for the Madrigal Cartel. Each e-mail was a nugget of information. The address of a Mexico City bank; the tail number of a cargo aircraft known to run meth and black tar heroin for the Black Suits; addresses or satellite coordinates of safe houses, warehouses, parking lots of vehicles all purportedly owned by de la Rocha’s organization.

Court’s target list was an embarrassment of riches.

He sent Serna a text message, requesting some items that he would need the following day. Once Serna replied with details of the drop-off of the goods, Court put the phone in his pocket and looked up at the stars.

He heard another confrontation below, angry men shouting at confused civilians.

To a man, Spider’s sicarios were scared of Spider. And Spider was surely afraid of Daniel.

Court was a single operator, which freed him of suspicion of others within his organization, simply because he had no organization. He was a lone man with neither friends nor close associates.

He had to be suspicious of everyone, trusting of no one, and he preferred this to working for a group that could turn on him in an instant. This had happened to him in the past. And he preferred this to working for a handler who had double-crossed him. This had happened to him in the past — twice.

Court lay on the softly padded teak chaise lounge, looked at the beautiful night above him, ignored the honking horns and the killers below him, and he knew that this would be his last true rest for many nights to come.

He thought of Laura.