“You said he threatened to end our arrangement.”
“He did, but I spoke to Rahmani on the way back here, and he told me he doesn’t care about Rojas or the Mexicans anymore. There will always be new buyers. If the Mexicans cannot help us with the jihad, then they, too, should be considered expendable.”
His lieutenants nodded, and then Niazi said, “We have a friend, I think, who can fly us to Costa Rica. Do you remember him?”
Samad grinned. “Very good. Yes, I remember. Call him now.”
They were going to the United States.
And Rojas had been right: They must let the sleeping dog lie …
So they could put a knife in its heart.
19 NEW ALLIANCES
Moore sat in the last pew on the right side, staring up at the stained-glass windows depicting images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Beams of light twinkling with dust motes shone down across the six-foot-tall brass crucifix that stood atop a marble pedestal. Sacred Heart was a modest-sized church in a run-down neighborhood on the outskirts of the city; it stood like an oasis of hope in a genuine slum of rusting cars and graffiti. The red carpet unfurling toward the candlelit altar had dark stains here and there, and Moore imagined those had come from blood and that the cleaners had been unable to remove them. There was no sacred ground, no line that could not be crossed. And it was no secret that the cartels had been blackmailing the local churches, extorting money and using priests and pastors as message bearers to their congregations: “This Sunday night all residents are urged to remain home. Do not go out on the street.” A hit was going down. Only two weeks prior, a grandmother who lived a mere three blocks from the church had thrown her sixteen-year-old grandson a birthday party. She had chosen to have the party at her house and not at the church or community center in the interest of safety. What she hadn’t known was that her grandson had ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, and that they had put a target on his back. Four gunmen from the Juárez Cartel had arrived at the party and begun firing. Thirteen had died, including an eight-year-old boy.
As Moore’s uneasiness grew, the icons that adorned the church’s back wall began to morph into images of demons, and now he imagined two men standing at the altar: a bearded man with a black turban, clutching an AK-47, and a shorter Mexican getting ready to pull the pin on a grenade. He closed his eyes, told himself to calm down, that the Agency knew exactly where he was, that Fitzpatrick had his back, and that these Sinaloa thugs were still as wary of him as he was of them. A knot began to twist in his stomach.
Earlier in the day, fat man Luis Torres had accompanied him to the bank, where he’d withdrawn another $50,000 in cash and had delivered it to him on the spot. The thug had been quite impressed, and it was amazing how his attitude changed in the face of bundled cash. The meeting with Sinaloa Cartel leader Zúñiga had been arranged, and Moore had been driven out to the church and told to wait for the man inside.
How many meetings like this had Moore attended? There was that night in Saudi Arabia when he’d spent thirteen hours waiting for an informant. He’d lived in a ditch in the Helmand Province for over a week in order to spend five minutes talking to an Afghan warlord. He’d spent nine days in the Somali jungle waiting for an Islamic militant to return to his jungle hideout. Too much waiting. Too much to ponder. He began thinking about God and the afterlife and Colonel Khodai and his young operative recruit, Rana, and all the other friends he’d lost. He thought of praying for their forgiveness. The mottled carpet in his mind’s eye turned to tile, and the candlelight dissolved into the harsh glare of the old briefing room aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson. American flags and seals of the U.S. Navy rose behind their commander.
“We will engage in a hydrographic recon of the Al Basrah Oil Terminal. The information we gather will be vital in the planning of tomorrow’s attack.”
Moore had become the Officer in Charge (OIC) of a SEAL platoon, with Carmichael as his assistant OIC, despite Carmichael’s identical rank of O-3, superior knowledge, and tenacity. The advantage Moore had in physical ability Carmichael made up for in tactical skills. He could memorize maps, mission plans, anything he viewed or read. He could get you in and out swiftly, safely, without ever consulting a GPS. They’d become a formidable pair, with reputations that preceded them.
“No glory in this one,” Carmichael said. “We go in and take pictures of an Iraqi oil platform. Whoop-dee-do.”
“Frank, I’m counting on you for the usual.”
He frowned. “Dude, you have to ask? I’ve had your back since BUD/S. What’s wrong?”
The knot twisted tighter in Moore’s stomach. “Nothing.”
“Mr. Howard?”
Moore snapped open his eyes and turned toward the church’s center aisle.
Ernesto Zúñiga was much shorter and slighter than his photographs led one to believe. His thinning hair was gelled straight back, and his sideburns were white at the roots. He had an unfortunate complexion, scarred heavily by acne, and the deep line from an old wound ran down from his left cheek and across his jaw. He was missing one earlobe. The file had said he was fifty-two, but Moore would have put him closer to sixty. He’d either dressed down so that he wouldn’t be noticed or simply wore polo shirts and jeans as a course of habit, but Moore grinned inwardly over how he stood in sharp juxtaposition to a narcissist like Dante Corrales from the Juárez Cartel. You could mistake Zúñiga for a guy selling bagged oranges on the street corner — and that might be how he preferred it.
“Señor Zúñiga, I appreciate you coming.”
“Don’t get up.” Zúñiga blessed himself, genuflected, and slid into the pew next to Moore. “The people pray every Sunday for an end to all the violence.”
Moore nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You can answer their prayers?”
“We both can.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Some say I’m the cause of the problem.”
“Not you alone.”
He shrugged. “It’s my understanding that you want to work out a deal.”
“We have the same goal.”
“You paid a lot of money for this meeting, so I suppose I will listen to you …for a few minutes.”
Moore nodded. “The Juárez Cartel is crushing your business. I know what they’ve done to you.”
“You know nothing.”
“They murdered your wife and sons. I know you’ve never gotten revenge for that.”
He grabbed Moore’s wrist and squeezed. “Do not talk about revenge in the house of God.”
“Then I’ll talk about justice.”
“What do you know? Have you ever lost anyone close to you, a young man like yourself? Do you know what real pain feels like?”
Moore braced himself, then finally said, “I’m not that young. And you have to believe when I say I know how you feel.”
Zúñiga made a face, then snorted. “You come here with your bullshit story about buying my property for your solar-panel company, and then you tell Luis you are an assassin, but you are just another scumbag DEA man from California or Texas trying to flip me. I have been doing this my entire life, and you try to play me for a fool? We will mail them your head, and then we’ll be done with this.”
“You’re wrong about me. If we work together, I promise you that neither you nor anyone in your operation will be touched. My group is much more powerful than any of your enemies.”