Mexican Heat

(Nick Woods, No. 2)

By Stan R. Mitchell

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

Copyright © 2014

Third Edition

Edited by A.S. and Emily Akin

Cover by Danah Mitchell

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law. For information, see website below.

Learn more about Stan R. Mitchell and his

other works at http://stanrmitchell.com.

Foreword

To Danah, my perfect wife. Thanks for believing in me.

To James and Sheila Michel. Two wonderful friends who helped me through one of the darkest periods of my life.

And to Capt. Eaton, United States Marine Corps, and Sgt. Major Hill, United States Marine Corps; two men who epitomized leadership and strength, and who made an unforgettable impression on me.

Prologue

Nick Woods pulled off the interstate tired, uncomfortable, and hungry.

He stopped at a large gas station that sat just off the exit. He was making good time, working his way through the backwoods of South Carolina, but he was due a stop.

Nick needed gas, he needed to piss, and he needed a Mountain Dew and a Snickers.

He parked his ’97 Jeep Grand Cherokee by a pump and closed the door gently. The SUV had nearly 200,000 miles on the odometer, but it still ran well and he treated it like a queen. Frequent maintenance and plenty of love had kept it in top shape, just like the old Colt 1911 .45 automatic pistol stashed under his seat.

The Colt .45 had been hidden in a cave and carried under some tough conditions when a lot of bad men were hunting him just a few years earlier. It had killed many of those men (and one woman, though she was armed just like the men). Following such excellent and trusty service, Nick had decided to keep it for sentimental value.

But unlike the old 1911 under the seat, the newer pistol on his hip, a Kimber 1911 .45, carried no sentimental value. It was kept for use. Instant use.

The Kimber was also customized and upgraded in almost every way: green Tritium 3-dot night sight, adjusted trigger pull, and higher quality springs to reduce recoil. Of course, like any good gunman, Nick had loaded a round in the chamber prior to loading the seven-round mag into the pistol, so he toted eight rounds of .45 caliber ammo instead of seven.

Under his blue jean jacket, he also had two more magazines of seven rounds for the gun. Twenty-two rounds total, plus an emergency .38 pistol strapped to the inside of his left ankle, and a one-hand opening knife clipped to the right pocket of his jeans.

Nick had been accused of being paranoid, and he knew it to be true. It was also true that he had needed every weapon on him -- and more -- several times, so he didn’t mind being labeled paranoid. He understood that to mean “prepared.”

Nick stood by the door of his red Grand Cherokee, pausing a moment before walking away. The vehicle provided cover and held a number of better weapons than what he could carry with him concealed. Like his M14. And his 12 gauge pump loaded with double-ought buck. And of course his trusty, scoped M40 bolt gun in .308/7.62.

Besides the weapons, the Jeep was his best chance of getting away if things suddenly got hairy. And Nick never walked away from escape possibilities lightly. He shuddered at the memory of hundreds of Soviet troops hunting him in the mountains of Afghanistan a decade earlier.

Nick shook his head to erase the terrifying thoughts, and, breathing deeply, set to burying the pains of so many old war wounds. He looked about and refocused on the present. He scanned the gas pumps nearest him, looking quickly in a 360 around him as unobtrusively as possible. He gave the thick woods opposite the gas station a once over and finally took a long look at the customers in the gas station.

Some of them waited in line. Others picked junk food off the aisles. No one looked frightened or frozen in fear, as if a hold-up was underway. So far, so good.

Taking another deep breath, Nick adjusted the Kimber .45 on his hip and walked toward the door. He dreaded the people he’d have to interact with, having spent the better part of two years in solitude up in the mountains of Montana.

There, he had expected the government to double-cross him again. The deal they made was very similar to one they made many years ago, and that one certainly didn’t end up sticking. Nick Woods had been sold out -- twice, actually -- and he fully expected the government to come after him in Montana.

But a damn strange thing happened: they never came. He’d been prepared, waiting for them with an almost eager, expectant intensity, but the dawns and dusks passed with him hidden behind his guns, no one in sight.

He’d grown tired of waiting and realized he probably needed to be around people again. He was mentally losing it, becoming crazier and lonelier by the day, and thus a big reason for this cross-country trip was to tear down his paranoia and get him comfortable being around people again.

Anne would be proud, Nick thought, to see him making such progress.

I’m trying, baby. I’m trying.

He smiled at her memory and wished she hadn’t been taken so soon. Or, “shot in self-defense” if you wanted to believe the bullshit police report from the FBI.

He didn’t believe it, and in the end what the report said didn’t really matter: Nick had gunned down the pencil pusher who’d killed her that night.

Nick pushed this bloodshed -- that brutal, ugly rifle shot against the FBI agent -- from his mind, just as he’d pushed the screams from Afghanistan out of his mind moments earlier.

As Nick headed toward the double doors of the gas station, motion brought him fully to the present. A gray, unmarked police cruiser pulled into the gas station, slow and unthreatening. But Nick still paused, unsure. And suddenly he was aware that he had stopped mid-stride and stood transfixed on the cruiser.

The driver seemed to be watching him from behind the tinted window. Nick stood frozen, watching the car. Unmoving. He looked guilty as hell, and he knew it.

No question, he was guilty as hell. He had no concealed carry permit and he had two loaded weapons on him, not to mention the locked and loaded long guns in the Jeep. And once they found his rucksack with the thousands of rounds, the grenades, and the Claymore mines -- all stuff he’d bought off a man he strongly suspected typically armed drug cartels and militias in the Midwest -- he’d be completely toast.

Not that they’d ever get him in cuffs. Nope. No siree.

Nick considered drawing and rushing forward and blowing the man’s head off as he watched the officer through the tinted driver side window. Nick couldn’t let him get on his radio, so if the man made one move toward the radio in the console, Nick would have to act. He was only twelve feet away and Nick couldn’t let him call in the cavalry.

But then the man did the damndest thing. He eased the car into a parking space and motioned Nick over. It was the damndest thing ever, and Nick kept his eye on the man with his peripheral vision and scanned the woods beyond the cruiser.

He saw nothing out there, and though the hair on his neck hadn’t stood up, Nick wasn’t the type to take chances. He yanked the pistol from his hip so fast that it was a blur. A motion practiced so many thousand times that it would take a slow-motion video to pinpoint each individual movement.

But now the man’s head was centered in Nick’s sights and a woman was screaming. Folks scurried and hid and frantically dialed cell phones. Nick saw this movement around him, but kept his focus on the man in the cruiser. He could feel all the eyes on him and his mind raced, wondering how fast the 911 calls happening all around him would get the local boys on the scene.

He’d want his M14 and pack before they arrived, and he’d take his chances in the woods. Otherwise, they’d just pit-maneuver him on the interstate with their powerful pursuit cars.

As Nick considered his moves, he noticed the man was saying something behind the tinted window. He strained to hear and picked up the man saying his name.

“Nick Woods, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

Nick leaned forward a bit and saw fear and pleading in the guy’s face, and he heard the words again, clearer this time, “Nick Woods, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

Nick advanced toward the car -- fast and agile for a man who looked too country to be a runner. But a runner Nick was. And he was damn near a ninja, as well. A martial arts addict, he could jump and roll and strike and kick with the best of them.

And now he stood at the window, his pistol six inches from the glass and the man’s head. The man looked beyond frantic now.

“Don’t shoot,” he screamed. “Don’t shoot. I need to talk to you. Just talk.”

Nick grabbed the door handle with his left hand while keeping the pistol in the man’s face. He ripped the door open, moving his pistol out of its arc, before stepping in closer and placing the pistol against the man’s forehead hard enough to drive him on his back. Nick was now leaning in the car, the pistol pressed with all his might against the man’s cranium.

“Motherfucker, you squirm one inch and I’ll blow a hole out the back of your head. Now, you have ten seconds before I drag you from this car and throw your ass in my Jeep. What do you want? Why were you looking at me? How did you know my name?”

“Nick,” the man said, struggling against the console in his back and the pistol being pressed hard into bone. “I’ve just come to talk with you.”

“Talk,” Nick said, not letting up.

“My name doesn’t matter, but I volunteered to make contact with you. Nick, we need your help.”

“Last time you all needed my help, you sold me and my partner out five hundred miles inside Afghanistan. Forgive me if I’m a little hesitant to sign up again.”

“That was a rogue operation run by a dishonorable man. You have to trust us on that.”

“I’ll decide who I trust,” Nick said, remembering the shredded body of his spotter. And then flashing to the sight of his wife lying dead in the grass, her white gown ruined by blood and mud.

“Nick, let me up and I’ll call the police off before they get here. Whether you accept our offer or not, you don’t need to be on the run again. You don’t need any more dead cops to your name.”

Nick considered the idea, and realized he either needed to blow the man’s brains out or take him hostage. Either way, the clock was ticking, and the cops were certainly racing on their way to the gas station.

“Get up and don’t try anything stupid,” Nick said, grabbing the man by his throat and jerking him up. They exited the police cruiser awkwardly, both men aware of the loaded gun and the danger each posed to the other.

They stood now -- the man with his hands up; Nick with his pistol covering him.

“Everyone, calm down,” the man said, looking toward those around him. “This is simply a training exercise. An anti-terrorism drill. There is no need to panic. My friend here is playing the part of a quote terrorist.”

He looked back at Nick and said, “Let me get my phone out of my jacket pocket and I’ll get the cops called off.”

“Do it slowly,” Nick growled.

The man, who wore a black suit and looked about thirty, reached inside the jacket and slowly pulled out a cell phone. He dialed three numbers, which Nick assumed was 911.

“Yes, ma’am. I am a member of Federal Task Force Apache. Code Number 894673-736492.”

He paused, then said, “Yes, ma’am. Please call Gen. Compton to confirm, and then please call off the responding units before we have any blue-on-blue accidents.”

The suited man closed his phone, pointed to his inside coat pocket, and said, “May I?”

Nick, .45 pointed at his center mass, said, “Slowly. Damn slowly.”

The man replaced the phone and said, “If you’ll let me lock the car, we’ll take a ride in your Jeep and talk.”

“Car doesn’t need to be locked. It’s a police cruiser. Nobody’s going to touch it.”

Nick waved the pistol toward his Jeep.

“Let’s go, hoss. And you better pray I don’t decide to shoot you between here and there.”

They walked to Nick’s Jeep Grand Cherokee and the man opened the passenger door, slowly climbing in and sitting down. Nick followed and stayed behind him, about four feet away. Just enough distance to make sure the man didn’t get cute and try something stupid.

“You got any weapons on you?” Nick asked.

“Hell, no,” the guy said. “We were afraid that would set you off.”

Nick could tell he was telling the truth.

“Any cuffs?” Nick asked once he was seated and buckled in.

“I’m not a cop. I work for the government.”

Nick never hesitated, expecting that very answer. With no give away, Nick swung the pistol and cracked the man in the head with its barrel. The strike knocked him out, his head falling forward and body slumping. The seat belt kept him in place, mostly, and Nick pushed his right arm in and closed the door.

Nick holstered his pistol and smiled to those watching, none of whom were sure whether this was a prank, the real thing, or just a realistic training exercise.

Nick smiled. “Nothing to see folks. He’s just a good actor and playing along. I love these rubber guns, they look so real. Y’all have a good day.”

By the time the agent woke up, Nick had driven a short distance to the next decent-sized town, rented a room at a rundown hotel, and carried the agent inside, binding his arms and legs to a chair.

“About time,” Nick said when the agent came to.

While the man had been knocked out, Nick had made preparations for an assault, though he didn’t anticipate one. No police or government personnel had followed him or tried to stop him once he hurried out of the gas station, so it looked like the agent was telling the truth.

Nick had already learned the hard way a couple years ago that when the government really wants you, there’s not a hell of a lot you can do. In that instance, they had brought out the drones, teams of special operators in Blackhawks, and who knew what else.

Still, serious preparation had saved Nick’s neck on more than one occasion, so he had placed a C-shaped Claymore mine four feet from the door, dragging a dresser behind it to help protect him from the backblast in such an enclosed space. The wire from the Claymore ran back to a bedpost, which he’d knotted it around so no one would trip on it and knock the Claymore down. Or worse, twist it around so that it aimed away from the door and toward Nick and the agent.

The clacker for the Claymore lay on the bed, along with Nick’s M14, shotgun, and pack. The pack itself was crammed with magazines, shotgun shells, and other necessary gear.

Nick sat on the bed next to the gear, sipping on a Mountain Dew he’d bought at a vending machine from the hotel, near where they kept the ice. Besides getting the Dew, he’d also taken his much-needed piss that he’d missed out on at the gas station, which was the number one reason he’d stopped there in the first place. He still didn’t have his Snickers bar yet, but he always kept stowed away in his pack a good dozen or so packs of peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers. He was nearly finished scarfing down a pack of them when the agent awoke.

The man had a hell of a wound on his head, and blood had coagulated in his hair and run down and ruined his suit. But that was the least of the agent’s problems, Nick hoped the man knew.

“You wanted to talk, let’s talk,” Nick said. He downed the final cracker and then hoisted the M14 and aimed it toward the agent.

The man shook his head in a feeble attempt to fully wake up, and he pulled his arms against the ropes with a strain. Nick knew his arms had to hurt like hell. Nick had tied them behind the agent so tight that he’d need to loosen them in ten minutes or so to get the circulation flowing.

Right now, the ropes were almost as tight as a tourniquet.

The man swallowed hard and gave up on straining against the ropes. He seemed too shocked to say anything and Nick wondered if he honestly thought this meeting was supposed to have gone down across a table at a Waffle House. Maybe share some coffee and buttered toast and just be the best of friends.

Fat chance.

Nick rose from the bed, spun the weapon, and butt-stroked the man in the head. About half-power. He wanted to get his attention, not fracture any facial bones.

“Listen up, hoss. This isn’t a fucking game. I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them. If you delay answering them, or if I sense you’re lying, you’re not going to like it. How’d you know my name?”

The man, a baby-faced guy who looked fit and squared away in his suit, said, “I’ve read and memorized your file. I was the only one who would volunteer to approach you.”

“Why were the others afraid?”

The man looked incredulous. He looked as if he was trying to find a way to soften his answer. Nick didn’t want softened answers.

“Just say it,” Nick said.

“Everyone thinks you’re crazy.”

“And you don’t?”

“No. I think you’ve reacted exactly as I would have, given everything you’ve been through.”

“And you still believe that?”

The man -- two nasty wounds to his head, an M14 aimed at him, and his arms probably numb and tingling -- clearly had some doubts now. He looked off and swallowed.

“I may have been wrong,” he gulped. He looked and sounded scared shitless.

Nick knew the feeling. He’d felt it the first time he and his spotter had crossed over into Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Soviets had thousands of troops there and neither Nick nor his spotter could speak the language. They only marginally trusted the mujahideen they were to link up with.

Nick stood and walked to the windows. He pulled a curtain back and scanned the parking lot. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. He slid it closed and sighed. Wow. What a mess he had on his hands. The loneliness of Montana didn’t seem so bad now compared to this.

Nick returned to the bed and sat back down.

“Earlier, you said ‘approach’ me,” Nick continued. “Let’s get to the bottom line so I can decide what to do with you. Why were you to approach me?”

“We need your help.”

“Who’s we?”

“The CIA, of course.”

“Spit it out. I’m tired of asking questions,” Nick said angrily. “Why do you need my help? Want to send me overseas? Get me to do some dirty work? Then sell my ass out again?”

“No, sir. We need your skill set in Mexico.”

Chapter 1

Present Day Mexico

A two-ton iron gate swung open from the presidential compound and an armada of vehicles roared out into the early morning dawn. Six armored Humvees -- the first three bearing 7.62 mm machine guns followed by three more hauling massive .50 caliber heavy machine guns -- led a convoy that included an additional twelve more SUVs crammed with Mexican troops in full battle gear. Behind all this firepower came the Mexican President’s armored limo, and then an additional twelve more SUVs packed full of troops.

At the rear of the convoy, a tail element of six additional Humvees -- again three with medium machine guns and three with heavy machine guns -- protected the line of vehicles. Besides the twelve armored Humvees, twenty-four SUVs, and a hundred-plus hand-picked soldiers, six helicopters bearing snipers zoomed around the convoy, buzzing in toward threats and flying forward to confirm the route lay clear.

In addition to these precautions, more than two hundred police officers were blocking off roads and screeching around Mexico City in front of the convoy with sirens ablaze, looking for the smallest hint of trouble.

This was the state of affairs in Mexico these days. A country and government so threatened by a single drug cartel that moving the President around looked more like an act of war than a simple escort.

But while the convoy may have looked the same today as it did any other day, this was no normal day in Mexico.

President Roberto Rivera rode in the single limo, heading to a meeting that towered above being the most important event of his political career. After consulting with his advisers and several economists this morning, he knew the meeting could be the most important of Mexico’s history.

President Rivera had unfortunately confirmed through several sources that his friend and strongest supporter had finally had enough. Juan Soto, despite being Mexico’s richest businessman, had decided that he could no longer live or operate his businesses within the confines of the war-ravaged country.

Though Juan Soto loved his battered and wrecked homeland of Mexico, he apparently felt he could no longer risk everything by staying. That the country was lost and on the verge of complete anarchy.

President Rivera rubbed his temples and shuddered at the thought that the billionaire might leave the country. Soto’s exit would mean he would sell off his numerous companies, and Rivera knew who the buyer would be. Hernan Flores, a fellow billionaire. But Flores and Soto were two completely different people.

Juan Soto was a businessman: honest, ethical, and legit.

Hernan Flores was a cartel leader: dishonest, evil, and dirty.

Yet, President Roberto Rivera, even though he knew these things about Hernan Flores, could not say them. People who spoke the truth about Flores always ended up dead. And, there just wasn’t enough evidence to support the whispers amongst the people -- that Flores was dirty and working to topple the government and Rivera along with it.

Not that Flores would want to be President. No, he would most likely install one of his cronies. Someone to overlook all the activities and allow Flores to sleep easier at night.

Rivera’s resolve still reeled from the news. He couldn’t shake the growing anxiety that if Soto left the country, both he and his already shaking administration would be left standing completely alone. And would soon either topple or be pushed from power by the rampant intimidation and relentless pressure from Hernan Flores’s drug ring, the Godesto Cartel.

Thirty minutes after departing the Presidential Palace, President Roberto Rivera’s convoy arrived at the headquarters of Juan Soto, an eight-story building in the heart of the city. The presidential convoy stopped at the front of the building and dozens of armed men leapt from the numerous vehicles and secured the area. A phalanx of hyper-alert men circled around the limo and when one finally opened the limo door, Rivera exited and moved quickly toward the front doors, thankful for the ring of submachine gun-toting men clustered tightly around him. Rumors of another serious assassination attempt had been growing, and Rivera didn’t want to relive another near miss.

Juan Soto met President Rivera at the front doors, and the two said little as they walked to the elevators and ascended to the top floor. Rivera shook some hands and nodded to some employees and senior executives as they worked their way to Soto’s inner sanctum. Once there, Rivera excused his closest security personnel and finally entered a conference room. It was just him and Soto now.

With the door closed, blinds shut, and total privacy finally ensured, the two men smiled -- this time deeply -- and hugged. Rivera thought that Juan Soto looked as thin and sharp as ever. The man took discipline and ambition to levels that even Rivera could not reach.

“My good friend,” Juan said. “Why did you not call? I would have gladly come to you to prevent you having to be out in the city any more than necessary.”

“I wanted to honor and respect you by coming to your office,” President Rivera said sincerely.

“We only received word ten minutes ago. Otherwise, we would have prepared a better welcome.”

“We’ve increased my security measures with the latest threats of assassination,” Rivera said. “Even our top police did not know my destination.”

“But how did you know I’d be here?”

Rivera smiled. “I believe you had a hastily scheduled meeting with our finance minister in twenty minutes?”

Juan Soto grinned as he realized his old friend had shown his sense of cunning once again -- something Juan had been following since the man began his political career.

“Your conference room has been updated,” Rivera said, looking around at the modern interior.

“Twice, maybe three times since you were here.”

Rivera looked down. He had been too busy and away too long.

“I haven’t been here since I was governor,” he said, with real regret in his voice. “But, we must skip the small talk, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, of course. And I think I know why you’re here.”

“Then, is it true? You’re leaving?”

Juan Soto looked away. He could not stand to disappoint his friend.

“It is, isn’t it?” Rivera asked.

“Yes, my friend. I’m very sorry, but I decided yesterday and my staff and I are planning the steps involved.”

Rivera grabbed Juan’s forearm.

“You can’t, Juan. I need you! Your country needs you.”

Juan yanked his arm away. “My country has failed me,” he said, angrier than he meant.

Rivera looked away. Said nothing. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of brandy. He savored the taste, felt the warmth, and, taking a deep breath, turned back to Juan.

“Juan, I am so sorry about what happened to Gabriella,” Rivera said, referring to a recent kidnapping attempt of Juan’s daughter that killed three of her bodyguards.

“It’s not just about Gabby,” Soto said. “Did you hear about my shift supervisor yesterday? Or my chief financial officer a month ago? Or any of the other twenty-plus employees who have been killed in the past two months?”

Rivera looked down at his brandy. “I did not, my friend. I am truly sorry.”

Juan walked to a seat at the head of the conference table and sat. Heavily. He no longer looked angry, but Rivera saw that the normally energetic and unstoppable entrepreneur now looked tired. And defeated.

Rivera walked toward him and sat in a chair next to him. He swiveled his drink in his hand as he thought of honest friends he knew who had gambled their lives by joining his government and trying to take back their country from the cartels. And now with the looming threat of the ruthless Godesto Cartel, Rivera thought of all the newly appointed police captains across cities and towns far and wide who would certainly be hunted down or executed if he failed.

He looked up at Juan, who sat looking at him.

“Juan, could you give me six months? Just six months to fix it?”

“I’m sorry, Roberto, but not even you, with all your energy and intellect could fix the country in six months. You haven’t been able to in five years. What makes you think you can in six months?”

“We’ve done much in those five years,” Rivera said. “Made important police appointments and purged many dirty officials. And.” Rivera paused, and swallowed. “I’ll finally get help from the Americans. I’ll tell them we’re in desperate need.” Rivera was talking fast now. “We’ll get special troops down here and we’ll go after that bastard Hernan Flores. I know he’s behind it all.”

Juan Soto smiled.

“Now, Roberto,” he said, “are you forgetting that even your appointed Attorney General admitted in a news conference that there is no real evidence against Flores?”

“Then we’ll make some!” Rivera blurted out. “That bastard keeps killing and silencing people, so to hell with the law. If you’re on the verge of leaving, then we’ll have to fight fire with fire. This is for Mexico’s own sake.”

Juan reached across the table and laid his hand on the top of Rivera’s forearm. “My friend. Do not soil your soul. It is your integrity that sets you apart. It is your integrity and faith that inspires millions of Mexicans. Do not become like Flores.”

Rivera realized the horror of what he’d considered and sat there ashamed at what he had spoken.

“You are right, Juan. Forget I said that,” Rivera said, now looking him in the eyes.

“We all have our moments of weakness, my friend, but you have your strength and you still believe. I, however, no longer do.”

Rivera grabbed Juan’s hand and enclosed it in both of his. “Please don’t say that, Juan. Please, give me just six months. I beg of you. If not for your country, for me. And for my family. You know we will not survive without your support.”

Juan looked at Rivera and felt the man’s desperate grip. He knew he could say “no” to him in the darkness of night and with a greater distance between them, but he simply could not abandon the man when he had to look him in the eyes. Not without giving him one more chance. He stood and pulled Rivera to him.

“I’ll give you six months, my friend, though I must tell you that I doubt you will be successful. Privately, I will continue planning my departure and liquidation of my assets. However, I will appear optimistic in all public appearances to my employees and friends, and I say in all honesty that if it can be done, it is you who will achieve it.”

Rivera let go of Juan’s hand and grabbed him in a hard hug.

“Thank you, my dear friend. Thank you. I will not let you down.”

Juan held Rivera a moment and then stepped back. He straightened Rivera’s jacket and said, “Now compose yourself, my friend. Our country is depending on your strength and nerve.”

Rivera stood straighter and pulled his jacket down.

“Don’t go looking at properties elsewhere,” Rivera said. “It will be a waste of time and energy.”

“Now that’s the President I’m used to seeing,” Juan Soto said. “Call me if I can be of assistance.”

Chapter 2

President Roberto Rivera wasted no time following his meeting with billionaire Juan Soto. Rivera used his cell phone to call the American Ambassador and informed him he needed to meet. Immediately.

President Rivera’s senior executive assistant passed along the change of plans and the new destination to the head of Rivera’s security, and after some griping from the head of police about unplanned schedules and complications, the massive convoy circled around and headed for the American Embassy. Traffic snarled around Mexico City and drivers cursed as the police cordon maneuvered the twelve armored Humvees and twenty-four SUVs through red lights and intersections of the downtown district. Rivera ignored the screaming sirens and ear-shattering helicopters around him as he rehearsed what he would say to the American Ambassador.

Inside his own protected fortress, the Ambassador hastily cleared his schedule and canceled several meetings. He also called Washington, D.C., and alerted the Secretary of State about the emergency meeting.

In his three years as Ambassador to Mexico, he had never been called to an emergency meeting with President Rivera.

The Secretary of State ended the call and immediately called the CIA. Most of the internal communication inside Mexico’s government was monitored by the National Security Agency, who sent weekly -- and at times, daily -- reports to the CIA. The CIA compiled that info, and the head CIA man who oversaw the Mexican Bureau confirmed to the Secretary of State that neither the NSA nor the CIA had a clue as to what the emergency meeting was about.

The Secretary of State ordered the man to double-check with his staff, and to find out if there were any recent communications in the past hour. The Secretary of State hung up the phone and sighed, a sense of fear growing. He decided he’d better alert the Department of Defense just in case. It seemed there was a chance a coup d'état was about to take place in Mexico. And, he decided he’d better alert the President of the United States, as well. Or, at least the President’s Chief of Staff.

Inside the walled compound of the American Embassy, President Rivera’s hundred-plus hand-picked soldiers deployed and escorted the President and his aides out into the brutal heat that was rocking Mexico. As Juan Soto had done at his own building earlier that day, the American Ambassador met Rivera at the door. And as the American aides greeted their Mexican counterparts, the two walked off in haste toward the inner sanctum.

Minutes later, inside the Ambassador’s bug-proof room, guarded outside by two hulking Marines, Rivera laid out the situation.

“Mr. Ambassador, if Juan Soto sells his assets, we’re talking dozens of major companies, thousands of employees, and miles and miles of property and real estate that will be sold at probably half of its value under duress to cartel leaders such as Hernan Flores. And these companies and properties will almost certainly stop paying even half of the taxes they owe. Not to mention how they’ll be used to hide and traffic more drugs to your country.”

Rivera noticed a flash of panic cross the Ambassador’s face.

“Is it possible,” the Ambassador asked, “that Soto was exaggerating? Six months is very little time. Would he seriously consider abandoning his empire at a loss?”

“Juan is not bluffing,” Rivera said. “He did not even inform me of this situation. I learned of it from rumors as his top executives began looking for buyers for his companies and properties.”

“I believe Mr. Soto was one of your closest supporters? A major donor and advisor. Even a family friend.”

“He is all of those things,” Rivera said with a sigh. “I’m assuming he did not tell me because he feared disappointing me. Or he was ashamed.”

“Do you think he still wants to leave?” the Ambassador asked.

“I do,” Rivera said. “His daughter was nearly kidnapped in an attempt that killed three of her bodyguards. And just today Juan told me a shift supervisor was killed. And this follows his chief financial officer for all of his companies getting killed a month ago.”

Rivera looked away, feeling overwhelmed and helpless. He wondered what the Ambassador thought of him in this moment. Did he see a broken man? A defeated man? A weak man?

Rivera sat up straighter and composed himself. He lifted his head and spoke deeper and surer.

“Juan Soto told me that he has lost twenty-plus employees in the past two months, but let’s ignore the negative facts for a moment. He gave me six months and I take him at his word. Now, what can America do to help me save this country and prevent its collapse? I presume you really don’t want a toppled government controlled by the Godesto Cartel just across from your border?”

The Ambassador smiled and said, “No, I imagine that would be quite unpleasant. The President has made it clear that he will offer whatever assistance he can in your efforts against the Godesto.”

President Rivera stood and stepped closer to the Ambassador, who had stood, as well. He gripped the man’s hand as hard as he could and said, “We will need more than words, weapons, and communication intercepts. We need your best troops here immediately.”

“Mr. President,” the Ambassador said, “I will see if I can get some support for you in a week or so.”

“Not good enough,” Rivera said. “Not even close to being good enough. We need either your Special Forces or Navy SEALs here within the next few days. Period. Non-negotiable.”

The Ambassador laughed.

“Come now, Mr. President. That’s nearly impossible. We have our active units all over the world, and the ones that aren’t active are on leave or in training.”

President Rivera stepped closer and the Ambassador shifted uncomfortably.

“Soon. Here within a few days or my family and I will be on a plane with Juan Soto and we will be seeking asylum either in your country or the UK.”

The Ambassador looked floored, and Rivera continued.

“I am not bluffing. We have six months and we need a team down here operating in just a few days if we’re going to start making a dent in Flores’s operations. If you think you have problems now, wait until our government collapses and Flores puts in one of his puppets as President. Now, call your Secretary of State and President immediately and tell them to get some of your finest men down here. I don’t care if you have to redeploy them from elsewhere, and I don’t want to hear any excuses on this one. They’re here in the next few days or we’re packing up and I’ll hand you the keys to the place before we leave.”

The Ambassador had collected himself by now and said with stunned, but practiced, formality, “Mr. President, I will relay your words to my government and we will move as quickly as we can.”

“Within just a few days,” Rivera said. “And I can see myself out.”

And with that, Rivera walked out of the room and toward his convoy waiting in the walled Embassy compound.

Chapter 3

The United States deployed one of its elite counter-terror teams from SEAL Team Six to Mexico, and they arrived prior to President Rivera’s deadline. The SEAL Team and its support staff quickly set up on a military compound in Mexico City and prepared for operations.

Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel learned of the SEAL Team deployment before the troops even loaded planes in the United States. His millions in payouts to officials throughout both governments proved their worth. And while it was surprising at how fast he learned it, both Mexico and the United States knew he would learn of it quickly.

You didn’t run the most powerful drug cartel in North America without having an intelligence network good enough to make the CIA blush.

In this case, a Mexican Army Major called in to the Godesto Cartel that his base had been instructed to prepare a barracks for an American commando team. Similarly, a Mexican Air Force officer reported that space around an airfield had been cleared with enough room for a half-dozen helicopters. And several government contacts in President Rivera’s administration stated that a troop coordination was in the works between the two governments.

Hernan Flores laughed at President Rivera.

Flores had learned the full situation by this point -- both the threat by Juan Soto to sell his companies and leave the country, and Rivera’s desperate pleas for help from America.

He laughed harder at the thought that Rivera had threatened to seek asylum. That fool thinks he can flee and spare his family, Flores thought.

Flores spewed out half-chewed Funyuns, nearly choking with laughter. He leaned back further at his desk, and his chair groaned beneath his weight. His feet lay propped across the top of his twenty-thousand-dollar mahogany desk, and he held in his lap a big bag of Funyuns chips.

After wolfing down three more Funyuns, Flores flicked the spewed crumbs from his sprawling stomach. Since he no longer wore suits, he didn’t worry about getting grease on his clothes. He looked down at the front of his button-down, short-sleeve shirt and saw the dark shirt showed no greasy stains.

He shook his head in wonder that he used to wear suits -- even three-piece suits complete with vests at one time. He used to dress to impress, with confining custom-fitted suits. Now, he preferred the comfort of a Hawaiian shirt. Untucked, of course.

Short-sleeve shirts were all he ever wore these days -- he liked not having to tuck the shirts in -- and the short sleeves helped keep him from sweating too badly. That was one of the downsides to being big, or really big, if he were honest: You sweat like a whore working overtime, and you smelled like one, too.

Hernan Flores wiped his hairy forearm across his sweaty forehead and grabbed some more chips. Christ, he was hot, and he had his office thermostat set to sixty-six degrees. I’ve got to start exercising at some point, he thought.

He was a big man and he knew these chips wouldn’t help the cause, but he dug deep in the bag and grabbed two more. After all, he was celebrating. Juan Soto was on the verge of leaving. President Roberto Rivera had messed his drawers and called in actual combat troops from the Americans, not just advisers.

The proud Mexican people would be outraged at Rivera’s decision to bring in American troops. Flores laughed as he stuffed more Funyuns down and imagined his plan coming to completion. Now, he just hoped the SEAL Team took the bait.

Chapter 4

The Navy SEAL Team struck its first blow against the Godesto Cartel at 3 a.m.

Four helicopters tore across the city toward an old, decrepit warehouse. Two guards -- caught by surprise on the roof -- scrambled for cover and brought their AK-74s to bear toward the helicopters.

Two shots, unheard over the roar of the helicopters, dropped both guards. Two SEAL Sniper teams already on station reported the confirmed hits to their commander. They had moved into their positions a full day prior to the mission.

The helicopters flared above the warehouse, dropping their speed from sixty to zero almost instantly. Crew chiefs kicked out lines and SEALs fast-roped onto the roof.

They assembled quickly and sprinted to a steel door, where they stacked, blew it, and rushed down the stairwell into a dark warehouse.

Outside the building, a convoy of Mexican Special Forces troops raced toward the target in Humvees. They encircled the target and covered both the warehouse and the routes leading up to it.

Inside, the SEALs cleared the warehouse and easily killed seven barely trained men, who attempted to stop them with light weapons ranging from AKs to pistols.

Mexican Police soon arrived and the forces collected and tallied the loot.

“A good first operation,” the SEAL Team Leader said.

“Yes,” the Mexican military officer said. Acting as the SEAL Team’s liaison, he was impressed with how the SEALs had somehow gathered such great intel. Before him lay crates of assault rifles and sea bags crammed full of heroin.

They wouldn’t know the full tally for hours, but he figured the total seizure would top several million dollars.

“Your men moved quickly,” he said to the SEAL Team Leader.

Tapping his boot against the prone body beside him, the Mexican military officer replied, “They never stood a chance.”

The SEAL Team Leader smiled and said, “That’s how we like it.”

Moments after getting briefed on the operation the next morning, President Roberto Rivera called Juan Soto.

“It has begun,” Rivera said with satisfaction.

“It began many years ago,” Juan said, “when you were elected with lofty promises.”

Rivera ignored the snide remark and quickly briefed Juan on the dead guards and seized weapons and heroin.

“Not bad, but that’s barely a dent in Hernan Flores’s empire,” Juan said.

“You promised to be optimistic until the six months ended.”

“No, I promised to be publicly optimistic. That does not mean I’m buying into this plan of yours. I’m sorry, Roberto.”

“You didn’t see the Navy SEALs in action. I watched them on a drone video. They’re really something else.”

Juan sighed.

“No, what’s something is Hernan Flores and the Godesto. They have an army of thousands. Foot soldiers, informers, corrupt police officers. Do not think your sales spiel from a single night’s operation will change my mind.”

Rivera kept his spirits up. “You’ll see, my friend. Tonight was just the beginning.”

It was a full day and a half later before the raid info came back to the Godesto Cartel.

Hernan Flores was doing one of the things he did best: entertaining others. He stood among several distinguished guests at a fundraiser gala, laughing and smiling. One of his best skills was his ability to charm anyone, whether it’s the man picking up the garbage or an Ivy League-educated candidate running for governor.

Hernan Flores lacked the education and college degree, but he made up for it with his salesman-like skills and his street-hardened cunning. And he was generous to a fault, donating to various causes with mind-boggling ferocity. Some thought him a saint. Those who didn’t still happily accepted his checks.

Flores excused himself from the crowd when one of his bodyguards stepped forward and reached out his phone.

“Boss, we got problems,” the caller said.

“I’ll be right there,” Flores said. And with that, he bade farewell to his guests and exited the event. He wondered which site the SEALs had raided -- he had left intel on various locations to several government informers, and, of course, not warned any of his men or moved any of his goods.

To have moved any guns or drugs would have caused suspicion among his ranks, and might have tipped off the authorities that he had baited them. Flores hated to lose the men and the resources, but he knew there was a long-term benefit to that, as well.

The men would take their training more seriously and stay more alert in the future. And if they didn’t, then he would replace them with men who would. A new stage in this war against Rivera had arrived, and Flores would do whatever was necessary to win it.

Chapter 5

Hernan Flores used decades of hard-earned intelligence-gathering skills to lay his grand trap for the SEALs and government forces. He sought the advice of his top lieutenants for the best location to stage an ambush, while using his single source to give up still more valuable intel.

The SEALs and government forces continued to make serious headway against the Godesto Cartel, but Flores accepted the necessary losses. He needed his enemies to implicitly trust the tips coming to them, and the best way to make that happen was for the tips to be accurate and noteworthy. And noteworthy they were, as the millions in losses stacked higher and higher.

Hernan Flores never flinched. He’d battled many competing cartels for years. In his younger days, as a nobody seller, he’d fought men for the control of a single street corner. But the delay was also necessary because Flores had special supplies to buy and he needed time for his lieutenant to gather all he could on his opponent.

Within two months, his rare weaponry had arrived and his lieutenant had perfectly uncovered the SEAL tactics through after-action reports from witnesses. Everything was in place, and Flores saw this as much more than a happy opportunity to embarrass the Americans and take out their Special Forces. No, this was a chance to shake the very confidence of the Mexican people. After tonight, the people would know their government could not stand up against his Godesto Cartel.

It was just after 3 a.m. and the SEAL Commandos were getting used to the night-raid schedule. Their four Blackhawk helicopters raced toward their target, their engines screaming as the pilots pushed the machines to their limit.

At the target, a group of guards stood ready and alert tonight without having been warned of any impending dangers by their leadership. Rather, word had gotten out that the Americans struck at roughly 3 a.m. and the guards had adjusted on their own, coming to full attention at all of Flores’s facilities in the early morning hours.

The men guarded rows of stacked drugs intended to be moved across the border into Arizona the following day, as well as something else -- the contents of which they weren’t aware. A special delivery had been brought in the day prior, and laborers had hauled in crate after crate and positioned them throughout the warehouse. The guards thought the placement random and strange, but were ordered not to move the items.

“Each of the locked crates must not be confused with their identical counterpart,” said one laborer to the head of the facility. “And they are marked by where they’re placed, not by any outside numbers or codes, so make sure they are not moved under any circumstance. That is a direct order from Hernan Flores himself.”

“Will do,” said the warehouse manager. Flores’s precautions, though often strange, were legendary, so one learned to not ask questions or wonder why. And marking the crates would, after all, allow clues to anyone who confiscated them, so the warehouse manager figured it made sense in that context. So neither he nor any of his men gave the crates a second glance.

Outside the warehouse, two teams of Hernan Flores’s men waited, in addition to the guards inside. These outside teams held shoulder-launched anti-air missiles, alert and ready. Flores knew how complicated the missiles were and after attempting to train some of his own men to use them, had abandoned that idea and brought in Russian mercenaries who were already trained by the Soviet Army.

Meanwhile, near the Mexican Presidential Palace, more of Flores’s men were making preparations. In a five-story apartment complex that overlooked the Palace, four men knocked on the door of a fifth-floor residence. When the door was answered, the male occupant -- a man in his thirties -- was shoved into the room and promptly executed with a 9mm pistol. Then the four men walked back into the hallway to gather and carry in four heavy duffle bags. Outside the apartment complex -- seven blocks away in a small but busy park -- trucks stalled with their tailgates covered with tarps, and vans idled nearby. All waiting the command from their leader and anticipating their role in the coordinated assault set to take place at any minute.

All awaited the command from their leader.

Back at the target warehouse, Flores had positioned additional forces besides the two teams with the shoulder-launched, anti-air missiles. Lookouts dressed as civilians were posted miles away from the warehouse, watching likely routes into the target.

These lookouts, ranging from teenagers to older business owners, watched the major roads that lead into the night’s target. Once the lookouts discovered the entry route in for the Mexican ground forces, Hernan Flores would position more than two dozen of his men to ambush them. These men carried assault weapons, RPGs, medium machine guns, and Claymore directional mines, which were difficult and dangerous to get. But for tonight’s move, Flores was sparing no expense.

The Godesto needed to land a decisive blow against President Roberto Rivera. With luck, they’d rid the country of both the American intervention and Rivera’s too-honest government, which had been making far more progress than either Rivera or his major supporter Juan Soto knew.

After tonight, Rivera would either be powerless, or forced to resign. And Juan Soto? He’d race out of the country. And if he didn’t, then Flores would make him wish he had.

The Blackhawks were getting close. The crew chiefs signaled the SEALs on board to make ready and the men slid across the metal floor of the choppers to the doors.

The SEAL Leader signaled the sniper surveillance teams watching the building. The snipers fired, dropping the guards on the roof. The helicopters closed within hearing range and raced the final distance, flaring up and coming to an instant, bone-jarring stop. Crew chiefs shoved ropes out and the SEALs descended as black shadows in the pitch-black night.

They fast-roped down, rushed by the dead guards, and secured the roof. Ten seconds later, the breacher had secured the charges on the steel door and they blew it inward, running behind the explosion into the bowels of the building. A gunfight erupted with the guards below, who were ready for an attack. Two SEALs took nasty hits, but the SEAL Team Platoon overpowered the men with rehearsed drills, precision shots, and speedy movements.

Just five minutes behind them, a convoy of Mexican Army Humvees ripped through the city to back up the SEALs. Their radios reported wounded men and a force ready to defend this warehouse to the last man. The Mexican commander worried more cartel reinforcements might be on their way -- the target warehouse was in a very dangerous neighborhood -- and he urged his drivers to speed up.

A call in from a bored drug pusher nicknamed “Too High” tipped Hernan Flores of the route the Mexican forces were using. Flores alerted his men -- who happened to be nearby as it was the most obvious and anticipated route. Godesto men ran out onto the sidewalks trailing wires behind them. They aimed the crescent-shaped Claymore mines up and down the road where they could. The Humvees would enter an L-shaped ambush that would be full of thousands of flying ball bearings. Charges set, the men ran back to their positions.

The Mexican convoy rounded the corner and its commander -- a good man and an even stronger leader -- yelled at his driver to go faster.

“Men are dying,” he yelled, hearing gunfire over his radio from the SEALs who were calling in updates. “Let’s go. Floor it.”

The Mexican commander of the Quick Reaction Force wasn’t supposed to be in the lead vehicle, but he led from the front regardless of the situation. As he reached for his handset to relay their position to the SEALs, who were taking serious fire, he saw four men pushing a car out into the road ahead of them. And across from those men, more guys shoved another car toward it. Oh shit, he thought.

“Stop!” he screamed to his driver, who had seen the threat, as well, and was already on the brakes.

The road was tight through this stretch, both sides enclosed by small shops and diners, and now that the two junk cars had been shoved into each other -- nose to nose -- the road was completely blocked. The Mexican Commander instantly recognized the tight streets and the obstacle to their front for what it was. An ambush.

“Back up!” he yelled into the handset to his other vehicles, which had been following too close. Above him, his turret gunner began firing his M240 medium machine gun at the men who had shoved the vehicle into the street from the right.

It wasn’t any conscious decision or training that took over; the gunner was simply right-handed and had seen them first. His machine gun spewed out 7.62 mm rounds and caught one man in the lower leg, shattering the bones that supported his weight and dropping him as his leg broke outward at nearly ninety degrees. Another round from the gunner’s weapon caught the man’s buddy through the gut. The bullet sounded like a hand clapping down on wet ham when it found its target.

Below the gunner, the Mexican commander continued to scream, “Back up! It’s an ambush” into his radio. The entire convoy had stopped, but hadn’t begun reversing yet. He then switched frequencies to call the SEAL Team commander and alert him to the ambush and likely delay in arrival since they would need to re-route. “Blackbird Six. Blackbird Six,” he said, waiting for a response. They were the last words he ever spoke.

One of the Godesto leaders saw the convoy had halted and would advance no further into the killzone. As the convoy’s lead machine gunner fired at the men who had pushed the cars into the street, the ambush leader screamed into his radio for his men to stay down. None of the men in their hidden positions believed the Claymores would wound any of them with their backblast, but it was better safe than sorry. And there were a lot of Claymores out there.

The leader ducked his head below the window, checked to confirm his ear plugs were in, and squeezed the clacker, from which all the Claymores were daisy-chained.

On the third squeeze, a monstrous explosion erupted in the street. Windows up and down the road imploded and shattered from the concussion alone, while down in the tight street thousands of ball bearings flew out and decimated everything in their path. The mines had been aimed well, and the Mexican troops, riding in unarmored Humvees (American hand-me-downs from years before), took heavy casualties from the Claymores. Nearly the entire front half of the convoy was killed or wounded.

The dead looked as if they had been been blown to pieces by heavy buckshot fired from a shotgun. Their skin had been more than just chopped up by the ball bearings; it had been ripped and torn and shredded. Mangled flesh hung from their bones like strips of rotted cloth.

The living at the front of the column sat wounded and stunned, their eardrums shattered and skin shredded. And though they knew (intuitively and through their training) that they must move in order to survive, their brains refused to move, racked instead with shock and indecision: the classic initial effects of bad concussions.

Even the men in the rear of the convoy were rocked by the shockwave and had to open and close their mouths to relieve the pressure in their heads and shake the cobwebs out. Unfortunately for them, they wouldn’t get enough time.

Godesto men emerged from behind windows along one side of the ambush line and at the very end, rushing up behind the stalled vehicles that blocked the path forward. It was a textbook “L-shaped ambush” and the men were as well-trained and compensated as any army that had ever taken the field.

These veterans who had fought for years on street corners and dark alleys opened up with AK-74s along the smoky, black-scarred street. Bullets snapped and whipped into the convoy. Unaffected Humvees further back in the column tried to get unjammed. Their gunners returned fire, but were quickly felled from hidden gunman. Medium machine guns, resting on bipods, had been carried out into the street behind the two junk cars. The machine gunners began firing across the killing zone, while above them, designated marksmen and snipers assisted others who fired AK-74s to help suppress the enemy, taking out those men in the turrets who were still alive.

Two more Godesto men launched RPGs at vehicles still moving. Explosions flipped and smashed Humvees as if they were toys. As the return fire from the Mexican Quick Reaction Force died down, Hernan Flores’s men rallied and rose up behind the cars. They formed a line and moved down the street, weapons at the ready. To their left, their comrades in the windows continued to provide covering fire, suppressing those who were still alive.

Methodically, the men on line moved through the killzone. They executed survivors and fired rounds into those who lay still, just to be sure.

Three Godesto pickup trucks rolled into the now silent area. Through the burning vehicles and bleeding bodies, the new arrivals salvaged weapons, flak jackets, and radios.

Three of the Godesto had been wounded by the Mexican Quick Reaction Force, and they were rushed to waiting doctors, who were paid handsomely for working from their homes and not reporting the wounded. With the casualties removed and the dead picked clean, the Godesto men spread gasoline on the vehicles that weren’t already burning and lit them up.

Back at the warehouse, the SEALs moved toward the last part of the building -- a lone office, likely where the manager worked. They had no idea about the ambush on their Quick Reaction Force, since its commander had died before he could get his warning out by radio.

Resistance had been stiffer than expected in the warehouse, but the end was in sight. They’d be back at base drinking beers and cleaning their weapons in no time.

Six SEALs moved along the bay of the warehouse, covering stacks of boxes and crates as they advanced the final feet toward the remaining office. Other SEAL Team members covered entrances and exits throughout the building, ensuring more of the enemy didn’t enter the warehouse. In one office, two wounded SEALs waited for medevac.

A cartel thug edged his AK out the door of the manager’s office and blasted a long burst toward the approaching SEALs. The SEALs had been moving toward the office in a smooth, toe-to-heel fashion favored by special operators. Like silent ninjas. But these ninjas had MP-5s and M4s trained on their destination, and as the rounds flew toward them from the gunman, they did not panic like raw recruits. Instead they returned fire -- accurately, of course -- to suppress the man, and kept moving forward.

Their rounds forced the man back inside the room and before he could regain his nerve to engage the men again, the SEALs stacked on the door and threw a flashbang into the room.

The explosion blinded and rocked the thug, as well as his partner, allowing the SEALs to easily enter the room. They covered their sectors, recognized the disoriented workers, and noticed their weapons. This took a fraction more than half a second, and the SEALs’ weapons tore into the men. The time for surrendering had long passed, and knowing that two of their brothers were down and bleeding didn’t exactly put the SEALs in the mood for mercy.

The men jerked and shook as the rounds ripped through them and then fell hard, twitching and bleeding grotesquely. The SEALs checked the ceiling and cleared the final dead space behind a desk.

“All clear,” one of them said into his mic.

The SEAL Team Leader radioed back to base.

“Base, this is Blackbird Six. Objective secure.”

Now, where the hell were those Mexican ground forces, the SEAL Team Leader wondered. He’d been trying to reach them after getting a call from their commander, but had lost all contact.

Well, sometimes radios went down, and urban environments always proved challenging for radio communication. Buildings often blocked the signals on the encrypted radios.

A single man watched the factory from a block away. The helicopters had zoomed off, but he could hear them circling just a short distance away. He dialed his prepaid cellphone and said, “Stage Two commencing.”

With that, he pocketed the phone, turned his back to the target, and put on a pair of hearing protection earmuffs. He cringed as he pressed the button.

Inside the warehouse, explosions rocked the building. SEALs were thrown against walls and blown into the air. The survivors stumbled to their feet and immediately began assessing the damage. As they tried to determine what had happened, they started patching up the wounded and rallying their strength. At first glance, it looked like they might just make it out, but then the cracked pillars and roof began to crumble.

Upon seeing the flash in the night sky, the Blackhawk pilots knew something terrible had happened. They rushed back to the scene and pulled up in horror as the building collapsed in on itself.

“No!” screamed one of the pilots, who knew three of the men in the building. Then he heard the beeping warning in his ears and knew a bad night for the SEALs on the ground had just turned worse for him.

He yanked the Blackhawk left, but a missile screeching toward him adjusted with his move and exploded into the tail of the helicopter, throwing it into a tailspin. It landed hard and the tail flames ignited the spewing gas -- all two hundred gallons of it. All of the occupants died in the wreckage, trapped in the inferno.

The SEAL Team snipers who had witnessed the scene managed to choke down their horror. But only barely. No way did any of the SEALs survive the building falling in on them, and even if they did, rescue personnel would need to arrive immediately. And given that they were deep in Hernan Flores’s territory, that wouldn’t be happening.

The snipers knew they were in deep shit and it would take all of their collective wits to get out of this one alive, so despite feeling enraged and helpless, they knew there was nothing they could do.

So, they slipped off into the night, livid that they couldn’t spill more blood and horrified at leaving so many of their comrades behind. But four men against possibly hundreds just wasn’t good odds, even when you were four badass SEALs.

At the Mexican Presidential Palace, Stage Three of Hernan Flores’s operation commenced. The men, who were spread about in positions all around the Palace, received the same text. A single word sent to each recipient: “Go.”

At the five-story apartment complex overlooking the Presidential Palace, the four men on the fifth floor began their role in the attack. The men had unpacked the duffel bags they carried and pulled out three RPGs, as well as prepositioned additional rounds.

The room was dark with no lights on anywhere, and the men used their familiarity with the weapons to load and arm them. Three waited with shouldered RPGs, listening for welcome sounds in the distance. A fourth covered the door in the prone, an AK aimed at it should anyone try to breach the door.

Seven blocks away from the RPG team, more Godesto men sprang into action upon getting the text that read “Go.” Men leaped out of trucks and vans, brandishing AK’s and M-16’s in a small public park area that was lit by a few scattered streetlights. A quick perimeter was established in the forested area of the park while men yanked tarps off the trucks, carried equipment toward an open area typically used by picnickers, and set up a pair of 81 mm mortars. Police had been paid off to avoid the area, but the men on the perimeter would not hesitate to drop anyone stupid enough to show up.

The mortars were leveled and aimed while other men cracked open ammo crates and prepared for an all-out barrage against the Presidential Palace. A woman walking home from a long night bartending saw the men setting up with their weapons, screamed, and fled. The few people who were up at the late hour either ignored the shriek or shut their windows in fear.

No one would call the authorities. Ratting out cartel gunmen in the middle of the night was a fast way to die in Mexico.

The distance was so short that missing would be difficult, but a spotter watched the Presidential Palace ready to call in adjustments for the mortars. And while it might seem improbable to most that Hernan Flores’s men could get their hands on mortars and ammo, this was simply not the case.

The mortars were borrowed from a Mexican Army captain who was being paid $30,000 for their use. The captain had also stockpiled the ammunition for the attack by underfiring the allotted rounds for numerous training exercises the past three months. And since the troops under the captain had no idea how many live rounds they were allotted for each session, no one was the wiser.

Bottom line: The rounds wouldn’t be missed and if the police intercepted Flores’s men after the attack and managed to get their hands on the mortars, the serial numbers would show them reported as stolen. The captain would still be in the clear as he’d been told to report them as stolen if he didn’t have them back in his possession within two hours to the minute after they had been picked up. And the captain was so nervous that he waited in his vehicle a mile from the front gate, desperate to get the mortars back into the armory as quickly as possible. Thirty thousand dollars was nice, but the stress it was causing him was about to kill him. He really hoped they were only being used against another cartel’s outpost, as he’d been told, but the thought they could be used otherwise only brought more sweat to his forehead and more pain to his stomach. He was covered in sweat and on the verge of puking, but his family had been threatened and the money was, well, good for a night’s work...

Back at the mortar firing site, a man who was obviously in charge called out a final grid point and the first rounds were dropped into the mortar tubes. The rounds fired -- thump, thump -- from the two 81 mm mortars. They arced high into the sky, over the buildings in front of them and thousands of feet into the air.

And after what seemed like a minute but was more like thirty seconds, they slammed into the compound of the Presidential Palace. Both landed long -- one shot struck near a Humvee on the perimeter, another outside the compound and into the side of a popular coffee shop, where it blasted out glass and flipped tables and chairs.

The spotter saw the impacts and said into a phone, on which the mortar commander waited, “Drop fifty. Fire for effect.”

Inside the Presidential Palace, guards rushed into the sleeping quarters of President Roberto Rivera and practically dragged him out of the bed before he was even awake.

“We must get your family down into the basement for safety,” one screamed.

Rivera, half-awake, grabbed his wife by the arm and the two rushed out of the room. They had started down the hall when Rivera stopped and ripped his forearm from the guard’s hand.

“What about my kids?”

“We’re getting them,” the guard said. “Let’s go! We don’t have much time.”

The mortar team commander heard the adjustment from the spotter, closed the phone, and dropped it in the pocket of his jeans. He instructed his men to drop fifty on their mortars, and he spoke these words without haste or worry. After all, the police had been bribed, and the perimeter was dotted with gunmen who could deal with any cops who had unhealthy ideas about honor and duty. He felt certain no authorities would enter their area until well after they had fired their massive volley and departed.

Besides, his men fed off of his confidence and it was important they get this right. Hernan Flores and his Godesto Cartel had spent a fortune on this operation. Paying former Army soldiers to fire into the country’s Presidential compound was not cheap, but threats on family members helped secure their loyalty.

The men shifted the angle of the mortars to move the impact back fifty yards. With a slight final adjustment and double-check of the sights, the ammo men began dropping the mortar rounds in as fast as possible. They nudged the tubes to the left or right with each shot -- they didn’t want each round landing in the same impact zone, and they wanted to cover the entire area.

It was an immediate suppression drill -- a simple one they all knew -- and each tube had ten rounds. The men fired all the rounds in twenty-five seconds.

The delay needed to call in the adjustment and more accurately aim the mortars gave the Palace security detail time to get the Rivera family in the Presidential Palace’s basement, which doubled as a bunker. Guards slammed shut a safe-like steel door, and looked up with obvious relief to now be under a reinforced roof.

Rivera’s assistant head of security -- the actual head of security was at home asleep -- double-checked his headcount for the people in the room. After confirming that the President and his entire family were safe, he motioned to two men.

“Draw your weapons and cover the door” he said.

It was a bold request and the two men hesitated. Behind them, a bit of anger crossed President’s Rivera’s face, but the assistant head of security ignored it, as well as the questioning looks from his men. This wasn’t the time to worry about feelings -- either his or theirs.

“Do it,” he said.

He turned away from the guards and the President and saw the look of alarm on the face of the First Lady, who held her kids tightly. He shrugged off the looks. He’d take his ass-chewing tomorrow if they made it through the night. And with that thought, he lifted his radio.

“The President is secure,” he announced. “Get the react force on the line and alert the reserve force and have them scramble to our position.”

Four platoons of men, all soldiers wearing flak jackets and helmets, and carrying long rifles, rushed from two large rooms in the inner sanctum of the Presidential Palace. They spilled out onto the grounds and reinforced the perimeter and the guard stations. Their numbers swelled the sixty already in place by an extra hundred men.

The reserve force waited on a base twenty minutes from the Presidential Palace. A full battalion of additional soldiers -- a thousand men -- comprised the reserve force and upon getting the call, they began forming up and grabbing their gear, piling into tarp-covered heavy trucks and roaring toward the area.

Back in the bunker, the assistant head of security then used his radio to request a status report from each position on the perimeter. He still didn’t know yet what had happened -- whether it was a car bomb, a rocket attack, or a grenade.

Death approached slowly, as only a mortar barrage can. In a world of super-sonic weapons, the high-flying and slow-falling mortars were hardly the sexiest of weapons. But it was their high arc and nearly vertical descent that allowed them to clear walls and buildings between them and the target; these things that blocked direct fire weapons like machine guns and missiles proved no obstacle for their indirect fire. And it was this nearly vertical arc that caused such destruction.

Buildings have strong walls. Tanks, thick armor. Yet neither has reinforced ceilings or roofs. Hit them from the top and they crater and implode like an icing-covered cake. And on this night, the buildings and vehicles in the Presidential Palace proved no different.

Flores’s men only had basic ammunition -- High Explosive M374s, which had been given to the Mexican Army by the United States -- but it didn’t matter. The nine-pound shells exploded with such force that none of the structures stood a chance.

They came in an almost continuous wave just seconds apart, each round landing in a different area as the gunners moved their sights incrementally after each round left the tube.

Ten rounds per tube. Twenty rounds total. A crescendo of explosions that seemed to never end. Buildings blew apart. Windows shattered. The Presidential Palace ate three rounds that tore through its roof and exploded inside it like a pressure cooker blowing its lid. Even the Presidential limo -- the real one, not the two decoys -- took a hit to its trunk. Despite the thick armor along the sides, it blew the back end completely off.

But the mortars claimed more than just buildings and vehicles. Guards in bunkers and those who had responded to investigate the first two shots were caught in the open by the explosions. Many caught shrapnel in chunks varying from the size of a pocket knife to smaller bits the size of a dime, all of which cut through them like shotgun slugs.

Each round had a bursting area of thirty by twenty yards and there was little left untouched in the ten-acre compound. And while men in the perimeter lay curled up with their fingers in their ears, praying they might survive the next impact, the RPG team watching from the apartment raised their rockets.

The three men targeted the Presidential Palace -- not so much for the men they might kill, but more for the permanent scarring their rockets would cause. Each man aimed at the walls between windows -- what good would a round fired through a window cause in a Presidential Palace that was mostly deserted at this time of night? They fired with alarming accuracy. At this distance, and with such wide walls to hit between windows, none of them missed.

They blasted gaping holes into the walls with delight, and in the fury of the mortar barrage, it wasn’t until their final round that they were noticed. A guard on the line saw the flash of their firing and yelled out the position to a man near him before swinging his M240 medium machine gun at the spot.

He loosed a burst -- more than ten feet off the mark -- and reoriented more accurately. Inside the room, the men had pulled back from the window and were packing up when the next set of bullets came flying into the room. Two of them took nasty hits before diving to the ground and crawling out.

On the line, with the mortars no longer falling, other guards heard the friendly machine gun roaring in the night. And though they didn’t know the target, they could see the tracer rounds tearing into the apartment building across from them. First one, then others joined in to help suppress what must have been a serious threat. After all, they had just sustained the most potent attack any of them had seen. And while none of them could see targets, it was better to be safe than sorry, and so they began spraying wider and wider into rooms throughout the building.

The four men who had started the carnage by firing the RPGs assisted each other as they carried themselves out of the building, exiting the far side with their duffle bags and weapons.

Chapter 6

It took hours to determine the full extent of the damage.

President Roberto Rivera waited inside a conference room. He’d changed out of his pajamas and now three hours after the attack, he wore khakis and a polo. He’d shaved because if ever the country needed to see a solid, capable man, it was today.

Yeah, right, he thought. He was standing in a conference room and he had two suit-wearing Secret Service members standing to each side of him. They carried submachine guns slung across their chests and wore thick assault vests outside of their suits.

Hell, why stop there? Rivera wondered. Why didn’t they just put on helmets and hook a couple of grenades to their gear?

Outside the room, twelve more men waited; these men didn’t bother with the decency associated with wearing suits. Instead, they wore camouflage full battle gear including helmets and full-size assault rifles. Rivera wanted to dismiss them, but it would do no good. The entire Presidential Palace Compound was covered with men: armed soldiers, firemen, and EMTs.

It was just impossible to look in control when the place had been bombed out to the level of Sarajevo. Fires had burned for nearly a half hour before security allowed the firemen to fight them, and now Rivera was learning that the attack on the Palace was just a small portion of the disaster.

A tired-looking advisor stood wobbly before him, unshaven and too shaken for Rivera’s dwindling optimism.

“Sir, we lost them all,” he said.

“Grab some coffee and explain,” Rivera said.

“Sir, we’ve sent police out that way. The entire convoy was wiped out! All the men dead!”

Rivera took a step toward the advisor and wrapped his hand around the back of his neck. He shook him lightly a couple of times.

“Control yourself and pull it together.”

Suddenly, another suited man barged into the conference room. “Sir, we must issue a statement. News agencies from across the world are demanding a statement. They’re calling it a coup attempt. They’re saying you were killed.”

Rivera looked over at a high-ranking American from their Embassy, who sat in the corner of the cramped room. Shaking his head in disbelief.

“Of course I’m alive. Look at me,” he said holding his arms out. “Do I look dead? Or injured? Or like I’m fleeing the country?”

Rivera sighed, his anger on the verge of exploding.

“Forget a statement from me. Just stall them. Tell them we’ve suffered a setback. We’re evaluating what happened. We don’t know how many casualties we have. We’ll bring the killers to justice. You know the deal. Get the hell out of here and make it happen. I have too much to do to be worrying about issuing a statement.”

The man turned and left looking embarrassed. Another took his place.

“Mr. President,” the man said. “The Mexico City Police Chief wants to meet and discuss their findings.”

“Not now,” Rivera said. “Get out. Everyone out. I want everyone out now.”

The room -- filled with aides, advisors, and military officers, far too many for Rivera’s comfort -- quickly emptied.

Mexican President Roberto Rivera wasn’t the only elected leader trapped in a room filled with too many government types. Twenty-five hundred miles to his northeast, the president of the United States sat in a remarkably similar situation, but with far less sense of panic.

“What the hell happened?”

It was 9 a.m. and he had his CIA Director, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Advisor in a room, along with their deputy directors, aides, intel analysts, and who knew who else; nearly two dozen folks in all.

It was more than the President preferred to have in a room for a top-secret meeting, but the Directors would all share the information with aides anyway -- usually as soon as they left the room -- so what did it matter? And besides, half the department heads didn’t know the information they were supposed to be on top of, so the President had learned to just get the info straight from an analyst or aide who did -- completely unfiltered, and immediately, instead of waiting. Plus, he could ask questions of them this way and get a more honest look at what was really going on.

Apparently in answer to his question of “What the hell happened?,” an Army major stood and clicked a handheld pointer that lit up a projector.

“Mr. President, the Defense Department worked with the CIA and the State Department to pull together this update for you. It’s our combined analysis as of now, but I must warn you that information is still pretty sketchy. It’s coming together, but we’re not there yet. Here’s the gist of what we know, though.”

The President nodded impatiently and the major clicked a screen that showed a smoking, battle-scarred Mexican Presidential Palace.

“Sir, at approximately 3 a.m. this morning, the Mexican Presidential Palace came under a devastating attack. It began with a mortar barrage that included a significant RPG rocket attack, as well.”

The major clicked to an aerial view that showed impact craters dotting the landscape. The aerial view also offered a better perspective of the damage from the widespread mortar attack. Vehicles were wrecked, buildings still smoldered, emergency crews blanketed the area.

“Jesus!” the President said. “How many rounds were fired?”

“We’re not sure, Mr. President. But it was enough to suppress the entire defending force and we’re estimating as many as fifty rounds right now.”

“How does that happen?” the President asked, looking over at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The four-star general cleared his throat and said, “We’re not sure of their firing location yet, sir, but we’ll know soon enough. We’re measuring the impacts and trying to determine the caliber, which would give us the range of the mortars. At this point, we think the assault force used 81 mm mortars. Once we’ve confirmed that, we’ll find where the mortars were fired. That should lead to some intel and hopefully some witnesses. But the short answer to your question is this: All you would need is men to secure a perimeter, and then about six or eight guys to fire the mortars. And obviously you’d need the mortars, but those wouldn’t be too hard to get.”

The general saw the President raise his eyebrows with alarm, so the general added, “At least not in Mexico.”

“Mr. President,” the major said, trying to get the briefing back on track. “The news gets a bit worse unfortunately. The man in charge of protecting the President managed to get him and his family to safety. That’s the good news. But, eight guards were killed and at least forty were wounded in the barrage.”

The President shook his head but felt relief that the news wasn’t worse.

The Major saw this reaction and wondered how to bring up the next part. He didn’t earn enough money to deal with this kind of stress when it should have been the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing the President.

“Sir,” the major said. “That wasn’t the bad news. The bad news is the guards on the line spotted the RPG firing position and those guards engaged.”

The major paused, uncertain, and the President leaned forward, waiting.

“Well, sir, other guards along the line joined in. They’d been getting pounded pretty bad by the mortars and had seen a lot of men go down or get cut in half. And, well, they fired a hell of a lot of rounds before they finally got under control. I figure they must have really been shaken. And we’re talking thousands of rounds here.”

The President seemed exasperated. “Just tell me, damn it.”

“Sir, the RPG position was in a five-story apartment complex that overlooks the Presidential Palace. And Mexican forces killed at least fifty civilians in their return fire. Maybe as many as eighty. And at least a hundred more were wounded. These people were piled in pretty tight in this apartment complex, and the emergency services and hospitals were completely caught off guard by so many casualties. So, a lot of people died who shouldn’t have. In fact, we’re still not sure how many actually did die. They’ve enacted triage operations and have yet to even get identities or a firm number on how many patients they’re even treating.”

“Did they get the men who fired these RPGs or mortars?” the President bellowed, slamming his fist on the table.

The major didn’t have it in him to answer and looked to his boss, the four-star general. The Joint Chief looked to the President and nodded “No, sir, they didn’t.”

“They found some blood trails,” the general said, “but the blood was mixed with those of the civilians, so we don’t think the Mexican forces killed any of their targets.”

“Ho-ly hell,” the President said. “I thought we were training these men. Spending billions each year and sending them weapons. We’re doing this year after year and apparently they can’t even defend their Presidential Palace or hit what they’re aiming at.”

The Joint Chief shrugged, and a couple of people reached for coffee mugs in complete embarrassment.

“What are we going do?” the President asked.

“Sir?” The major was speaking again. The President looked at him, clearly annoyed. The Major would have rather been back in the mountains of Afghanistan dodging rounds than meet the President’s stare, or say what he was about to say.

“Sir, there’s more,” he said, but paused to wait for permission.

“Go on, son. Spit it out! We don’t have all day.”

“Sir, at approximately the same time, Mexican forces were accompanying an American SEAL Team on a mission to take down a drug cartel warehouse. We’re still not sure what happened, but we lost contact with the SEAL Team and we’re pretty sure we lost them.”

“Lost who?” the President asked, still annoyed. He wasn’t overly concerned with how many more Mexicans were killed. He had a more pressing thought on his mind.

“The SEAL Team Platoon,” the major said.

“What do you mean we lost them? Don’t they have GPS’s and weapons? I seriously doubt they took down a SEAL Team. Now you’re just being pessimistic.”

The President looked over to the Joint Chief, a man he considered too old and pessimistic anyway. But the man looked sick to his stomach and the President knew it was true.

“How do we lose a god-damn SEAL Team?” he said leaping to his feet and slamming both of his fists into the conference table. “These are the best men we have!”

“Sir,” the major said, “we’re still not sure yet, as the snipers we had on the target site have not been found yet. They’ll know for sure, but aerial reports from helicopters we had in the air show that the entire building that the SEALs were assaulting exploded and collapsed on the SEAL Team once they were all inside.”

“Are we digging them out? How many survivors are there?”

“Sir,” the major said, his eyes on the ground, unable to meet the President’s. “Sir, we’re not even on the location yet. A quick reaction force of Mexican troops sent to reinforce the SEAL Team raid was ambushed and completely wiped out. And these men were in Humvees with heavy weapons. We’re not sure how many were killed in that ambush, but it was probably another fifty. And we also lost a helicopter, sir, to a ground-to-air missile. We’re afraid to send more aircraft to the area at this time, so we’re not sure how many SEALs may be alive, whether the aircrew may be alive, or whether our snipers were able to escape the area.”

The President returned to his seat and leaned back, stunned. And his pressing thought returned. His re-election effort was just kicking off, and he knew that more than likely, his campaign was over before it had even started. He sat there in complete shock. A SEAL Team Platoon? An entire SEAL Team Platoon? Dead? It just didn’t seem possible, and yet it had happened. And with their deaths, his re-election bid was almost certain to fail.

Chapter 7

If Hernan Flores thought the largest anti-government attack in Mexican history might push Juan Soto from the country, he calculated wrong. Within two hours of catching the news of the assault, Hernan Flores’s fellow billionaire Juan Soto was touring the devastation at the Presidential Palace.

Rubble and debris littered the ground and Juan stood by his friend President Roberto Rivera. More than fifty armed soldiers stood around them, alert and dangerous, while military helicopters buzzed overhead. News cameras watched Soto and Rivera closely -- they were, after all, Mexico’s two most powerful, non-cartel men -- and both stood tall and determined, like confident leaders. Men who were unshaken and full of resolve.

Hernan Flores saw the footage live, as did nearly everyone else in Mexico who had access to a TV. This was a national tragedy reminiscent of America’s 9/11 and all work had stopped as the country sat paralyzed in complete shock, wondering if more was to come -- their country would break down into complete chaos.

Flores watched the two men on a massive TV, and he assumed Soto was there only because the President had begged him to be. Surely in the shock and ruin of the morning light, Rivera had needed his strongest supporter to come forward and reassure him.

But President Rivera hadn’t even asked. Instead, Juan Soto had heard of the attack from an assistant, turned on the news, and texted his friend to tell him he was on his way. Now they stood, on full display, while millions of shocked and worried Mexicans watched their every move.

“You coming here means more than I could possibly say,” Rivera said, his hand on Juan’s arm.

“It is nothing,” Juan said. “I saw the chaos and destruction and I felt my grandfather’s eyes on me, God rest his soul.”

“I think,” Soto said, then paused. He looked at a still-smoldering, wrecked Humvee near them and he gritted his teeth. Some blood on the side of it had darkened from the heat of the fire, but hadn’t burned off. It added a sweet, sick smell to the chalky grittiness that came with the smell of cordite, dust, and blasted concrete.

Juan Soto looked away from the blood, swallowed hard, and continued. “I think my grandfather, with his single fishing boat that he borrowed to the hilt to buy, would have stood up to the kind of men who would do this.”

He turned to look at the wrecked Presidential Palace -- once a source of pride for all Mexicans. Juan swung around and faced the President, his friend for nearly ten years, and he said, “Roberto, my friend I am pledging to you now, on my soul, and on the soul of my grandfather, that I will not leave this land. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Rivera saw a fire in Soto’s eyes and wondered what it meant. Ten minutes later, when the two arrived in a private conference room inside the Presidential Palace, he asked about the look of anger, but all Soto would say was that he was planning some additional assistance to the government of Mexico.

Rivera got the feeling this wasn’t financial aid. Or anything that was even remotely legal. But whatever it was, he enjoyed seeing the old fire in his friend again. The second-to-none businessman who never showed his cards. The man who never gave up, regardless of the odds. The man who had faced bankruptcy and never blinked or panicked.

Roberto Rivera, and certainly the government of Mexico, needed more men like Juan Soto to stand up and say “enough.” And with the knowledge that Soto wouldn’t be leaving Mexico -- taking away his money and support -- Rivera felt renewed strength, despite the unprecedented setback his government had just suffered.

While Juan Soto was squaring his shoulders for a fight, the government of the United States was doing the exact opposite. Even before the news had leaked that nearly an entire Navy SEAL Platoon had been lost, the President of the United States had decided to abandon his shaky neighbor to the south. No more troops. Reduced aid. And nothing that could stick to him with his re-election campaign around the corner.

Public opinion polls showed Americans staunchly opposed to intervening in Mexico, and the President already faced the calls for congressional hearings on why a Navy SEAL Platoon had been there in the first place when the War on Terror was still in full swing. With the election approaching, he knew his opponents would work this angle as hard and for as long as they could. So, following the grueling meeting with his staff, he wanted it very clear: No more involvement that could be traced back to the U.S. government. Period.

Without troops from the Defense Department or more financial resources from the State Department, only one tool remained to help buttress President Roberto Rivera’s besieged government: The CIA.

But the CIA was stretched to the max. Operatives from the Agency stalked and hunted terrorists and extremist groups literally across the globe. From the cities of Pakistan to the mountains of Afghanistan, from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the prayer mats of mosques in Syria, from the shanties in Yemen to the very edges of north, south, and west Africa, the CIA was fighting an all-out, win-at-all-costs war of both offense and defense.

All that activity, however, meant the Agency was over-extended, exhausted, and under-manned. It lacked enough quality operatives, spies, and analysts to fully pursue the War on Terror, as it was still called. So, regardless of what the President wanted, or what the CIA Director wanted, or what Mexican President Roberto Rivera needed, shifting forces to take on a uber-powerful drug lord in Mexico -- one who had nearly taken down the entire government in a single strike, while also batting down a full platoon of SEALs as if it had been no challenge -- was not something the CIA was looking forward to adding to their list of priorities.

Inside the CIA, an endless parade of meetings was held, from low-level strategists all the way up to the Director. They all knew the President wanted something to happen -- off the radar, of course -- but none of them knew how to make it happen without undermining more important efforts elsewhere. (Unsaid was that if a terrorist attack happened in America, or even against America but in a foreign land, they’d be blamed for that, as well.)

The overall opinion at the CIA was that little could be done in Mexico. And frankly bigger battles needed to be fought. Battles against radicalism and terrorism around the globe, not localized border drama to America’s south.

Plus, Mexico was corrupt through and through. Anyone sent there would be dimed out by ten different Mexican officials before they even arrived, so why bother? Wasn’t that what almost certainly happened to the Navy SEAL Team? Besides, the drug cartels mostly left America alone so why go after them? And even if you toppled the latest cartel and its leader, in this case the Godesto Cartel and Hernan Flores, they would be replaced by a successor before the predecessor was even buried in the ground.

Yet still, the folks at the CIA knew they had to do something. The President insisted that Mexican President Roberto Rivera be supported, yet only in a way that was off the books and couldn’t be placed back on the United States, which really meant him and his re-election effort.

So, the Director continued to press for more meetings until they had solutions -- any solutions.

And in the palpable desperation of one of these follow-up meetings, a name was sarcastically spat out. It was a joke that under the circumstances was funnier than hell. Without question, jokes and laughs were what the meetings had all turned to -- after all, they couldn’t justify the displacement of operatives that had spent years infiltrating terrorist groups to now up and go gallivanting around in Mexico.

The only solution they had was literally a joke.

But that name that started out as a funny and cruel joke began circulating. And every time it was brought up in a different meeting, the same pattern emerged: rip-roaring, hard laughs followed by slow consideration as the idea was chewed on. And sometimes one of the braver people in the room -- or one with the least to lose -- would say something along the lines of, “He actually might be the perfect person.” Or “solution.” Or as one analyst said, “the only son of a bitch crazy -- and paranoid -- enough to pull it off.”

And as meeting notes were shared, a consensus emerged. Nearly everyone agreed there was no other person better suited.

If it could be done, Nick Woods was the man. And if something needed to be done, who better to send than the man who had wrecked more Soviet Spetsnaz and CIA operatives than any other living man.

And on the flip side, if the mission were to fail as most felt it would, Nick Woods was no big loss. The CIA Director could legitimately tell the President they were sending their best man, the situation would remain in the background, and the President would either be re-elected or not. But most importantly, the CIA would be maintaining its most important priority around the globe.

No way would the CIA endanger American lives at the whims of a President worried about his re-election effort. And so the decision was made: Nick Woods would be found. And he would be convinced to pick up his rifle again in service of his country.

All that was left was to decide who among them was ballsy enough to actually recommend Nick and in the process put their own career in the hands of a madman.

Chapter 8

The man crazy enough to finally approach Nick was having the worst day of his life. He was still tied to a chair with a Claymore mine aimed toward the only exit. Blood ran down his face from a nasty head wound and his arms throbbed from a rope tied far too tightly around them.

Nick Woods sized up the man and repeated what his hostage had just said.

“Mexico?” Nick asked. “You need my help in Mexico? I thought our wars were in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a half-dozen countries in Africa and the Middle East. What the hell are we doing in Mexico? The drug cartels mostly leave us alone.”

“Our focus is on most of those places, and that’s where our resources are. But, recent events tell us that Mexico is about to completely destabilize. A drug cartel leader named Hernan Flores has nearly toppled the government. President Roberto Rivera has almost been pushed from power by Flores and this Godesto Cartel. And the country’s largest businessman -- or at least largest lawful businessman -- is about to exit the country, removing his family and all his assets. Our analysts and strategists do not believe the country can survive his departure, so we’re offering serious aid.”

Nick nodded. “And this aid involves that major dust-up with the Navy SEALs down there, and the attack on the Mexican Presidential Palace?”

“Yes. Hernan Flores hurt us bad. Wiped out much of an entire SEAL Team Platoon. He also simultaneously embarrassed and devastated President Roberto Rivera.”

“Why not just kill this Flores fellow? How hard can that be?”

“We can’t. He’s beloved by most Mexicans and he owns several legitimate businesses including numerous newspapers and TV stations. He’s wiped his trail so clean that Rivera’s government can’t even get a warrant against him, and even if they did, most of the Mexican people would think it was because the President feels threatened by the possibility of Flores running against him.”

“Are you sure he’s not clean?”

The man looked exasperated. “Of course we’re sure. He runs his operations through several henchmen, who he claims are merely friends. But we’re sure that Flores has an extensive network and is behind it all.”

Nick looked down at his M14. “I still don’t see what the problem is. Why not send some military task force down and handle the problem?”

“We already did, remember?” the agent said. “And Flores wiped out nearly an entire SEAL Team Platoon and we barely left a mark on him. And the CIA literally lacks the resources to send our own task force down there. Our military units and intelligence assets are deployed all over the place, obviously very heavily concentrated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention Iraq. Plus nearly a dozen African countries. We lack the manpower, and even if we had it, the same thing would happen. We’d send a team, the details of their deployment would get leaked, and they’d be dead in no time.”

“And you think it’d be different if I went?” Nick asked. “There’s barely an honest cop or merchant in Mexico right now. I’d be dead in no time, as well.”

“We don’t think so,” the agent said. “You’ve led a hunter-killer team against the Soviet Spetsnaz in a country where you could trust no one. A few years ago, you evaded some of our best CIA strike teams for weeks and weeks with almost no external support. You have a nose for danger unlike anyone we’ve ever seen. We think you’re the best man we have available to go into Mexico.”

“You want me to go alone?” Nick asked, nearly incredulous.

“No, of course not. Develop a plan and come pitch it to us. You’ll lead the effort. We have the money to make whatever you want happen, as long as we keep it off the books, and as long as we’re not pulling men from our current ranks. The President wants this kept quiet.”

“How do I know this isn’t some scam?” Nick asked. “Just some trick to get me filleted, and outside the country, at that?”

“If we wanted you dead, even as good as you are, we could have snuffed you out a hundred times by now since our agreement a couple of years ago. Drones. Snipers. Car accidents. Our opportunities have been endless and we haven’t done a thing. No one wants you dead, believe me, but I understand after being betrayed so many times that you’ll be fighting those demons for years to come.”

“Why would I want to do this? You’ve read my file. I’ve got a lot of money stored away. I’ve got my guns. Why do this?”

The agent smiled, as if he already knew he’d accomplished his mission.

“Two reasons. First, you’re bored. You know this. We know this. Second, you’re a sucker for duty. Our country desperately needs your services and we intend to pay very well. But, it’s duty that will eventually win you over. Our country can’t allow Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel to win and completely destabilize Mexico. We don’t need a Third World country directly on our border, and you’re the best man for the job.”

Nick turned, thinking about what he had been told.

“One other thing,” the agent said. “We know what you went through a couple of years ago and we know you still have some unfinished business with the man behind it all. It just so happens we want to deal with him, too. His corruption and abuse of power has grown too much, so we’re prepared to tell you his identity and help you eliminate him if you’ll help us in Mexico first.”

Nick turned and knew they had him. The agent knew, too, and smiled. “Now, can you cut these ropes before I lose a limb?”

Chapter 9

Nick Woods was sitting off to the side of a conference table crowded with men and just a few women. He stood, knowing full well that he looked as out of place as a janitor carrying a dripping mop through the final moments of a wedding ceremony in a marvelously decorated sanctuary. These folks wore expensive suits and ties. He wore jeans, work boots, and a Carhartt duck jacket.

He’d been asked to remove his pistol from under the jacket, but there were some things Nick didn’t believe in. Going for even one second without a piece of steel on his side was one of them. Two nervous agents had acceded to his objections, but only because someone in charge had walked up and cooled down the situation after they asked him to take his gun (or guns, if they had searched him and found his back-up pistol on his ankle).

Nick didn’t know any of the names of the folks around the table, and he didn’t care about them either. They probably didn’t give two shits about the country bumpkin standing before them, whom they’d all flown down to hear. He was a tool for them. A piece of meat that would solve a problem, or not. Probably barely mattered to any of them, except to keep the heat from on high off their back.

Nick looked at them and knew he’d never again make the mistake of thinking that those above him gave two shits about whether he lived or died on some mission. But the missions still needed to be done, and someone had to do them. Nick knew where he stood, and he knew their attitudes wouldn’t change the fact that he wanted to help solve this problem.

Three days had passed since he’d been approached by the brave federal agent and he’d fallen for the offer just as these assholes had probably expected.

Duty truly was a bitch, and if you were born and raised in the South, you ingested that shit morning, noon, and night. Nick had spent less than thirty minutes making up his mind after he’d untied that agent.

Nick had no Anne. He had no life. And he missed command. And truth be known, he knew deep down that he was one of the best. One of the most battle-hardened veterans that America had ever produced. If he said “no,” they’d send someone else. And that someone else wouldn’t be as good, which could lead to more men dying than necessary in yet another godforsaken land far from American shores.

Nick Woods was a cinch for the mission, and he’d spent the next three days after the CIA’s invitation either brainstorming in a hotel room or conducting research at a library in nearby Columbia, South Carolina. He’d worked nearly around the clock, limiting himself to three hours sleep per night and surviving on Mountain Dews, Snickers bars, and pizza.

Now he felt weak from the marathon, around-the-clock effort, but he felt as alive and content as he’d felt in years. Certainly since he’d been back at home with Anne, working construction during the day and sharing dinner each night with her. He’d been so into Anne -- despite their arguments over his paranoia -- that he’d literally had no other friends. A few acquaintances, but life for him back then had been completely about Anne and his guns.

He tried to clear his head of his last sight of Anne -- her body lying dead in the grass -- as he realized some analyst had ended a long point and was introducing him.

“This mission is critical,” the analyst continued, “but we’ve got to keep it off the books. We think our best option is the plan Nick will present to you today. And we think he’s the right man to lead this effort. He has shown himself to have great gut instincts when he operated against the Spetsnaz in Afghanistan. He nearly single-handedly took down Whitaker and his hunter-killer teams, which had grown out of control in their off-the-books operation. And he’s a master at killing those who need to be killed while avoiding the best-laid traps. With that, let me introduce you to Nick Woods.”

Nick nodded to the man who had introduced him. He stood, looking around the table at the CIA bigwigs and analysts who had flown down and rented a conference room to hear what he had to say. They ranged in age from mid-twenties to high sixties. All looked soft and only one looked like he’d ever carried a weapon before.

“Let’s get to it,” Nick said. “Hope you weren’t expecting some kind of PowerPoint presentation. Didn’t make one of those.”

He shrugged, then continued, “Now, you all described to me the problem of this man named Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel, and I’ve spent the past few days figuring on how we’re going to take him down. Out of curiosity, who here knows how we took down the Colombian drug lord who used to be public enemy number one, Mr. Pablo Escobar?”

After ten seconds of silence, one of the men cleared his throat and said, “We used triangulation of his phone and radio signals, which he didn’t realize we could track. We used everything from fixed sites to a plane to make it happen, since the area was mountainous or super urban and packed. Wasn’t easy, but that’s how we finally got him. Triangulation, sir.”

A few of the suits at the table smiled and nodded, impressed someone had remembered.

“Partly, you’re right,” Nick said. “But if you remember correctly, it was hardly needed after the Colombian people got sick of him. Do you remember the death squads they created? A vigilante group known as Los Pepes, short for Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar. For you non-Spanish speaking folks -- myself included -- that means,” Nick looked down at his notecards he’d brought with him and continued, “the people persecuted by Pablo Escobar.”

A few people laughed and Nick said, “Yeah, pretty simple name. But the point is the same. This group went after him, his family, his associates, and they went all out. They used propaganda, threats to his associates, and broke numerous laws. Hell, they even used car bombs, just like terrorists, which also killed some civilians. But they basically are the reason why Pablo Escobar had to flee and go into hiding in shitty shanties and apartments, instead of his well-guarded compounds. And once he was on the run, it was only a matter of time before he ended up dead with a bunch of bullet holes in his body.”

Nick flipped to his next notecard. “And it’s the plan of Los Pepes that I’d like to see executed in Mexico.”

After detailing the plan and answering some questions, Nick was given a cell phone since he didn’t have one and was told they’d be in touch.

Chapter 10

Nick Woods’s contact called two days later. It was the same poor bastard from the gas station that Nick had promptly abducted and tied to a chair for some of the scariest minutes of his life.

The agent reported the mission as a go after Nick’s plan had been passed up the chain of command. He also confirmed that Nick would head up the entire op.

“Then, what’s next?” Nick asked from his hotel room. He wore PT shorts and was covered in sweat from an intense hour of calisthenics and hand-to-hand -- the thought of action had rebirthed his obsessive drive and determination.

“You pick your team,” the agent said. “We assumed you’d never stand for us selecting your players, so you get to pick your entire team from top to bottom. Someone will knock on your door in a few minutes and they’ll have three boxes full of candidates. We assumed you’d prefer paper copies to review in your room rather than sitting in a cubicle and looking at a computer screen.”

“You know me well,” Nick said.

“You have no clue how well we know you,” the agent thought, but he kept it to himself to avoid setting off the paranoid Marine. Instead, the agent said, “Don’t shoot our man when he knocks on the door.”

The knock came just seconds after Nick hung up. Nick grabbed his pistol and walked over to the door, keeping his .45 down by his leg. A man in a suit, accompanied by two other men in suits, stood in the hall. Nick could see through the peephole that all three were carrying concealed weapons under their jackets, and the one in the middle balanced an overloaded dolly stacked to the top with legal boxes full of files.

Nick opened the door and the middle man wheeled the files into the room and then left with a nod. Nick noticed a look of respect from all three men and wondered if they had been told of Nick’s new leadership position with the organization, or if these men only knew of his reputation. Either way, it didn’t matter. He bolted the door shut behind them and slid the chain in place.

With the door secure, Nick placed his pistol on the bed and walked to the fridge. He grabbed a can of Mountain Dew and popped it open. He swallowed some down and unstacked the boxes off the dolly. He pulled the cover off a random one and pulled out the first file he came to. He glanced inside it and noticed a photo and probably twenty pages of information. He grabbed another one, and it was the same, as were the next couple.

With that, he grabbed his phone and called the agent back.

“Yes?” the man said.

“Tell me about these files,” Nick said.

“What about them?”

“I need to know how this will go down. I don’t want to spend hours picking a team and end up with a dozen men who either aren’t interested or haven’t pulled any real duty for years.”

“You’ll be pleased to know,” the agent said, “that every man and woman in those files has not only indicated a willingness to go on a top secret mission -- the details of which were never shared with them -- but they also agreed to fly to a training base and perform an assessment. And in the two days since we talked, while we waited on folks up in headquarters to sign off on you leading this mission, every person attached to a file in those boxes conducted a PT test and re-qualified on the range, with both pistol and rifle. All fitness and weapons scores listed in those files are from literally yesterday. The folks in those files folders are the best men and women available.”

Nick looked at the file boxes and imagined how much it must have cost to contact and then fly that many people to a location to be tested. He guessed there must be three hundred files in the boxes.

“That must have cost a lot,” Nick said.

“The cost matters little. We’re talking about an entire country in duress, and who knows what kind of long-term effect it might create on our country if President Rivera falls. Old fitness or shooting scores would have been worthless, either to you or some other leader, had headquarters not signed off on you to lead this mission. Regardless of who was picked to head this up, all active operatives would have needed to be assembled and tested anyway. It doesn’t matter how good you were a year ago. It’s all about what you can do now.”

Nick considered what he’d just heard. It was still a little overwhelming. Being picked as a mission commander. Seeing the three men at the door, who were probably at this very moment helping guard him from some vehicle or corner outside. And now deciding who would be a part of the team. It was a lot to take in. And certainly too good to be true for an old warhorse who’d been bored out of his mind a few days ago, just driving the country.

“I’ll call you the moment I’ve finalized my selections,” Nick said. “Speaking of which, can you get me some pizza and more Mountain Dew up in here? Looks like I’m in for a long night.”

Nick finalized his system for picking his team just minutes after cramming down the majority of his new pizza, which was once again delivered by pistol-toting guys in suits. Nick had gone over in his head a dozen times or more how he would want this to go down if he earned the chance to lead the effort, but now that he had it, he wanted to make sure.

It was like running an op. You could never be too sure.

Nick scrutinized his plan from every angle, looking for a weakness, and still fell short of seeing any. So, with a full stomach and renewed confidence, along with some country music playing in the background off a cheap, ten-dollar alarm clock, Nick got down to work.

He sorted the files into two different stacks. One stack was made up of possible leadership material -- men who were older and had served at least ten years. The other stack, which was a much larger pile and probably three-quarters of the files, involved younger, less-experienced men.

Nick ignored the big pile of straight shooters and focused on the leadership stack. He read and reviewed the files for hours, breaking up the monotony with sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and shooting drills. He narrowed the stack of sixty-seven leadership files down to twenty, but no matter how many times he reviewed them, he could screen them down no lower.

He could find no weaknesses, no hints of buried problems, nothing wrong with these individuals. These men appeared solid, but Nick needed to whittle them down to just four men. He finally gave up. He rubbed his forehead, stacked the files, and looked at the clock. It was 3:18 a.m., so Nick stood and decided to call it a night.

He’d call his contact in the morning and interview the twenty men by phone -- or preferably in person if he could. He texted his contact asking if it was possible to do so and was surprised to get an immediate answer. Maybe the guy didn’t sleep. Or maybe they had a duty officer who monitored the phone. Either way, Nick was told that he could interview the men, and that he was to be ready to leave the hotel at seven.

Nick awoke at six, swallowed down some, cold leftover pizza, and showered. He put on a tight T-shirt, a clean pair of Wranglers, and his work boots. He followed that by stuffing his trusty Kimber .45 into a holster, strapping his back-up revolver on his ankle, and pulling a loose, button-up, long-sleeve shirt on to cover the pistol tucked in his hip holster. By eight, he was packed up and carrying his duffel bag out the door.

Two men in suits were waiting in the hallway.

“We’ll take that, sir,” one of them said, reaching for the duffel bag.

“The hell you will,” Nick said, yanking it back.

“Sir?” the man said.

“Don’t ‘sir’ me either,” Nick said. It was time to stop this “sir” bullshit, as he should have earlier. “You ‘sir’ me again and I’ll knock your teeth down your damn throat.”

Nick’s contact came around the corner, hurrying toward them, suited up, as well. Nick wondered if any of the men owned anything other than suits.

“Nick,” his contact said, “please let the men carry your duffel bag. You have an image to project. You’re a task force commander now, not just some knuckle-dragging sergeant in the Corps.”

“If you want a man who’s willing to let someone else carry his gear, you folks done picked the wrong man. Now, which is it? You need to go back to the drawing board and find you another man to lead these boys?”

Nick had a stubborn, unmoving look on his face, and his contact relented and turned to walk down the hall, motioning for Nick to join him.

Nick did, easily catching up with his long stride. The two armed men flanked him. Nick felt uncomfortable, like he was suddenly the President or something, but he knew he’d adjust to it eventually.

“Where we going?” Nick asked.

“They’re going to drive you to the airport. We’re flying you to Camp Lejeune. It’s where the entire group is assembled.”

“Good, but no need to drive me. I can drive myself, just like I can carry my own gear.”

“I’m afraid it’s not an option,” the contact said. “Besides maintaining your image as task force commander, you also will be getting a police escort to the airport. I don’t expect your driver to drop below eighty or ninety on the whole trip. And the plane is already warmed up and ready to go.”

“What’s the rush?” Nick asked. “This sounds ominous.”

“It is,” the contact said. “Your timetable has been moved up. Actually, make that moved way up.”

“What gives?”

“President Roberto Rivera is begging our Ambassador for support, and our intel says billionaire and good guy Juan Soto will rest easier when the Americans begin arriving. Even if it’s only in small numbers, it will help reassure them. Don’t forget how much unrest continues down there after the attack on the Presidential Palace. We’ve been dicking around up here for weeks while promising Rivera all kinds of support. Needless to say, Rivera’s patience is wearing thin and our words are starting to ring hollow.”

“He needs to put his big-boy britches on,” Nick said.

“Too late for that, and respectfully, if you had lost as many men as he had, you’d be shaken, too. Remember, they went after him and his family while he was in his own protected compound. Not to mention how many of his forces they killed, plus wiping out that SEAL Team Platoon.”

“Go ahead and get to whatever point you’re trying to make,” Nick said.

“The point is that our government has assured him that our first elements will arrive in three days. So again, the timetable has been pushed way up.”

Nick stopped, realization dawning on him.

“Wait. What the hell did you just say?” he asked.

“Our timetable has been moved up. We need to get our advance element on the ground in three days.”

“What happened to me picking my men? What happened to the whole ‘this mission being a national priority’ thing? You’re setting us up to fail before we even start.”

“You know how the government works, Nick. And you’re good enough to make this happen. We just need a few men to arrive in three days. They can just begin scoping things out, and in doing so, they’ll get President Rivera and Juan Soto to calm down.”

“Unbelievable,” Nick said.

Chapter 11

Nick Woods’s contact dropped another surprise on him once he arrived at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

As promised, the CIA had driven him at breathtaking speeds behind the state-trooper escort, who drove ahead of them with siren blaring and lights blazing. The GMC Yukon felt like a bullet train at such high speeds -- big, bulky, and impossible to stop -- but the ride was comfortable and Nick used his time in the back seat to further review the files of the men he’d soon be interviewing. His two armed goons were up front, while his contact sat next to him.

None of them said a word.

At a small, non-commercial airport, the Yukon pulled alongside a white corporate jet. It had two engines on the tail and Nick guessed it would hold ten people. He didn’t know planes, and frankly didn’t care to know more. And since he was used to bone-jarring military flights on C-130s, the leather seats and much-improved snack and drink selection proved a pleasant surprise. The flight took very little time, and upon landing Nick and his goons loaded up into yet another Yukon that sat waiting on them. (Nick figured someone in the government must have had a good friend at GMC, since they had apparently won a hell of a large contract with the CIA.)

A few more suits were waiting on him by the SUV, but they said nothing and didn’t follow when Nick and his traveling companions loaded up and roared off the airstrip. Yet again they had a police escort, through this one was a local sheriff’s department cruiser.

The two vehicles raced into Jacksonville and finally made it to the front gate of Camp Lejeune. The cruiser pulled off and headed back toward town, while the MP checked some paperwork produced by Nick’s driver. He waved them through, and they proceeded at a normal pace to their destination.

“Why no rush in here?” Nick asked.

“The base commander,” his contact said, shaking his head from side to side. “The base commander is very uptight and has set ‘safety’ as his number one priority this year while on base. Even the MPs struggle to get permission to speed on base, even if they’re responding to a call. Unless it’s a Code 9, response to violence, it’s not allowed. It’s gotten ridiculous around here.”

“Good thing we’re not in the middle of a couple major wars,” Nick said. “Always nice to know the general has his priorities straight.”

The contact didn’t react to Nick’s joke and kept his gaze out the window. Trees lined the road into the base, but Nick knew the man wasn’t just watching the woods.

“Go ahead and say it,” Nick said. “I can tell something’s bothering you.”

“There’s one more thing,” the contact said. Without meeting Nick’s eyes, his head still turned away. Nick had learned the man was a nice guy and that he respected Nick, so things had gotten complicated for him playing middle man between the CIA and Nick.

None of this was new to Nick. He knew it was the job of the idiots in charge to constantly interfere, throw curve balls your way, and basically do all they could to keep you from succeeding. Not that they meant to, it’s just how it always goes down.

“Go ahead and say it,” Nick said.

“The unit is no longer going as a task force from our government,” the contact said. “The unit is going as a private company.”

“What do you mean? Like some kind of security corporation?”

“Yes. Precisely.”

“Which means we’re completely fucked if anything bad happens. Any of us taken hostage or if say a rogue element of the Mexican Army comes after us.”

“We said in the beginning,” the contact said with a sigh, “that the President wanted complete plausible deniability. This will assure it.”

“This charade wouldn’t pass the smell test of even a local cop checking into it. Just where exactly did the ‘great’ Nick Woods get millions of dollars to form a company and hire dozens of people for this contract?”

The contact looked over at him and said, “You’ve been awarded a twenty million dollar loan as part of your veteran benefits package. You presented a business plan that we typed up for you, it’s been submitted, and I’m happy to say you were approved today.”

“So, on top of putting my ass on the line, I’m now twenty million dollars in debt? That puts that annual salary of two-hundred and fifty thousand per year in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“No, effective today, you’ve been awarded a twenty-two million dollar contract from the Mexican government for consulting and security services. If you want to get technical about it, you’ve earned a two million dollar bonus over what we promised you a few days ago.”

“And I’ll bet the American government just approved an emergency loan to the Mexican President?”

“Yes. It’s a contingency, anti-drug grant signed by the President this morning.”

Nick shook his head in disgust.

“All this bullshit loophole crap just to keep the President’s ass out of a sling?”

“It’s an approaching election year, Nick. And all the personnel, as well as yourself, will receive the same salary and benefit packages as you were promised. Basically, nothing changes.”

“Yeah, basically nothing changes except if something bad happens, there won’t be anyone to come and get us. The media will barely notice since they don’t give two shits about private security companies operating in foreign countries. And I’m suddenly an officer of a corporation and can be individually sued.”

“We’d cover any legal fees.”

“Sure you would, hoss. You all won’t take credit for us if we do something good or something bad, but you’ll ante up and help us defend ourselves in court, when the opposition would have deposition powers and would see straight through this little charade you’re creating.”

“I’m sorry, Nick, but this is the deal on the table.”

Nick looked off and sighed. Then a thought crossed his mind.

“I’ve been watching you. You haven't talked with anyone or taken any phone calls since we left Columbia. Why are you just now telling me this?”

The man broke off eye contact and stammered, finally saying with complete embarrassment, “We felt if we waited to tell you this when you were just minutes away and already on base, that you’d be more likely to still accept the new reality.”

The Yukon had been taking a number of turns while Nick and the contact debated and now it had pulled up to an isolated barracks, where more than three hundred people were milling about.

“Those are my candidates, aren’t they?” Nick asked, completely disgusted now.

“Yes.”

“So, if I say ‘no’ now, I’m going to look like a bitch to every one of them? A quitter and a drama queen.”

“You still have both the option and right to turn this down. We’re hoping you’ll still accept the offer. Really, not much has changed. We’ll even have an aide do all the corporate reports, put up a small company website, and help make this all look legit. We even have a name for it: Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter. Or S3, for short.”

Nick threw his door open as hard as he could and looked at his contact, whose name he still didn’t know, and said with a scowl, “Is there any other fucking thing you need to tell me? I’ve tolerated about as many surprises today as I plan to.”

“There are none,” the contact said. “I promise.”

“Yeah, and your promises carry a lot of weight.”

Nick grabbed his duffel bag and slammed the door shut as hard as he could. The Yukon rocked, despite its weight and armor.

All of the candidates were now looking at him, and conversations across the barracks courtyard stopped. A few pointed. The vehicle, and the grand entrance, had grabbed their attention. Probably also the fact that they had been there for two days doing all kinds of testing while his late arrival clearly implied he wasn’t in the same boat as them.

This man wasn’t another candidate. He was their leader, they quickly guessed.

Nick walked six feet away from the Yukon and stood straight, head held high, chest pushed out, eyes measuring and challenging every one of the people in the square.

He threw his duffle bag to the ground looking disgusted, and then with a scoff and a look of derision, yelled out, “Listen up, and listen good. Name’s Nick Woods. I’m the man in charge here and some of you are going to be lucky enough to go on a nice little hunting trip with me. Rest of you will be changing diapers and cleaning gutters, or whatever the hell you do when you’re back home.”

Nick’s voice echoed across the square, but many of those listening pulled in and closed ranks to hear him better. Nick could tell he was making an impression and embraced the moment. There was an intoxicating high that came from being in command again. From having men watch your every move, looking for weakness. Or inspiration. It all depended on the leader and Nick hadn’t felt this thrill for far too long.

“Now,” Nick continued, “I can’t say where we’re going until the final team members are selected, and it’s obviously classified until then, but I can tell you they speak Spanish, it’s to our south, and it involves drug cartels.”

Nick paused.

“Of course, that could be just about any country to our south.”

Several people laughed and Nick saw one guy nudge another man with an elbow and a smile. Nick made a note of his face and tried to memorize it.

“I’m telling you now.” He paused for effect. “The folks we’re going to tangle with? They’re meaner than hell. They’re poor and don’t have a lot to live for. And they’re really well equipped. We’ll be out-numbered, we’ll be on their turf, and they’ll know our every move -- damn near every person down there will be sharing our location and activity to the cartel. Some out of fear. Some for money.”

Nick paused to stare down a few of the people around him, then continued, “I’m here to tell you. There are going to be a bunch of us who don’t come home, so leave now if you have much to live for. Me? I don’t have a damn thing to live for, so I’ll be leading from the front. You can bet your ass on that.

“But I ain't got time for babysitting, and if I catch anyone in the corner crying and feeling sorry for themselves in the middle of a nasty firefight, I’ll shoot you myself. I’m not kidding on that point, and I’m not kidding about how dangerous it’s going to be.

“My number one priority will be accomplishing this mission. I will achieve this or I’ll die trying. My number two priority is bringing home as many men as possible, so if you’re hunkered down in the middle of a firefight, then you’re not helping us achieve either priority number one or priority number two. And for that, they used to shoot men. Call it cowardice. Dereliction of duty. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. You hunker down like a coward while we’re in the middle of the shit, I will shoot your ass.

“We’ve gotten soft the past hundred years or so, but I’m old school, and it’s pulled me out of some places I wasn’t supposed to make it out of. And where we’re going, there won’t be any outside observers. I’ll write up that your ass died from enemy fire and no one will ever know the difference.”

Nick looked the crowd over with the icy eyes of a man who’d killed dozens of men. The men he saw were a bunch of hard-asses. He could tell. And yet still many of them broke away from his gaze. Nick knew he was tougher than rawhide leather and he didn’t intend to back down from a single man in the square, and he for damn sure didn’t intend to have to use rank to keep the men in line.

Having made his point with his steely, cold look, he finished by booming, “When I walk away from here in a few seconds, if you’re having any second thoughts, just head on home. Nobody will hold it against you. Hell, it’s the smart move. There’s going to be a lot of us die, and you guys have been around long enough to know that there isn’t hardly anyone in America who’s going to give a shit when we do. Whoever decides to stay, I’ll be interviewing some of you in a bit.”

Nick took a look at the men who had pushed furthest forward.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

No one said anything.

“I said,” Nick continued, raising his voice louder, “who’s in charge here?”

Some of those crowded about looked down, while five or six looked toward a big, black man standing near Nick. Nick, who stood a very lean 5’11,” guessed this man to be 6’2.” And besides the height, he carried loads of thick muscle. A definite body builder, but not the biggest man in the plaza, Nick had already seen.

“Are you Marcus?” Nick asked.

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

It hadn’t been that hard to guess Marcus correctly. The man named Marcus had stood out in Nick’s mind as he reviewed the leadership files. None of his files had the actual names of the operators -- just their nicknames.

Nick figured Marcus would be the natural leader of the entire group, having reached the rank of gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps, while also having done a three-year stint as a drill instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina: that bastion of discipline and hell which consistently forged some of America’s greatest warriors.

Marcus had been a football standout at the University of Florida -- a ferocious middle linebacker and team captain, who most analysts pegged as a guaranteed first-round pick in the NFL should he leave at the end of his junior year. And he’d have certainly been a first-round pick if he waited until after his senior year and remained injury-free.

Instead, the massive event that would come to be known as September 11 intervened, and Marcus dropped out of college and walked straight into the Marine Corps recruiting station. His dad had been a Marine, so it was the natural thing to do.

Marcus had done several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as a rifleman, then squad leader, and then platoon sergeant before heading to the drill field to become a drill instructor.

Marcus had the size, charisma, and intelligence to be an officer, but his records indicated he turned down offer after offer from his superiors to go to Officer Candidate School. His file quoted him as saying he’d rather be behind a rifle on the line than in the rear behind a map.

Nick pointed toward the men who had looked at Marcus when Nick had asked who was in charge.

“Those men say you’re in charge,” Nick said.

“They didn’t put anyone in charge when we arrived,” Marcus said. “I led some exercises, a couple of runs, and settled some disputes. I’m happy to lead, but I’m betting you’re not looking for leaders, but trigger pullers instead. So,” Marcus said, stepping forward and coming across as intimidating as anything Nick had seen in awhile, “mark me down as nothing but a rifleman and pick me to go. You won’t regret it.”

Nick instantly liked Marcus. While Marcus held the rank of gunny in the Marine Corps, his file stated that the man had grown tired of the politics of the upper-echelon ranks, which had led him to apply to the CIA. Now, even at the age of thirty-three, Marcus had the build and tough look of a hard-nosed sergeant, not some older gunny beaten down by hard deployments.

Marcus hadn’t allowed the higher rank and increased benefits to soften him, like so many others had.

“You made the team,” Nick said. “Now step over here and talk to me.”

Nick walked with Marcus a good thirty feet from the men. Nick stopped and angled around so that he could see the crowd, but Marcus’s back was to them -- the angle would help prevent the men from hearing what Marcus would say.

“I need your help,” Nick said. “We don’t have much time. In fact, we need to have some men land in Mexico in just a few days -- our timetable got pushed forward that much -- so I’m not going to be able to interview and test the men the way I’d want. Hell, we’re barely going to have time to even train together.”

“I understand,” Marcus said, “but I’m still in. How can I help?”

“I need to know who you’d pick if you were in my shoes,” Nick said. “You’ve been with the men for two days or more, and while I’ve studied their files, you’ve been around them more so I’d like to lean heavily on your recommendations.”

“They’re all a solid group, but I’ve noticed some standouts,” Marcus said.

And with that, Marcus began discussing some of the superstars he’d seen.

Chapter 12

Hernan Flores paced behind his desk. Things were going well and he knew he shouldn’t be pacing, but it was hard not to be a bit antsy when you had a meeting set up with the Butcher.

Flores had been working with the Butcher for nearly five years now, and the crazy bastard made him uneasy. Flores had brought him on board once he was already a force worth fearing. Legend had it that the Butcher -- no one knew his name, or at least spoke of it -- started like most Mexican youth: broke, discouraged, and underfed.

A small boy, he was bullied from the beginning and soon fell into the wrong crowd. He got arrested and sent to prison for theft and grand larceny of a vehicle, and it was in prison that the Butcher learned there were far worse things than being bullied by gang members.

Such a small man, and lacking any cartel connections or protections behind bars, he was beaten and regularly sexually assaulted. Even as he took to weights and tried to defend himself, he discovered he was too small to add enough muscle to win any fights with force, and none of the boxing or punches he tried to teach himself proved effective.

Discharged six years later, and knowing that with his career path he would eventually end up in prison again, he dove headlong into martial arts; something that wouldn’t discriminate against his small size. Fueled by the painful memories, he threw himself into karate. He studied it. Practiced it. Mastered it.

When he wasn’t stealing or selling drugs, he was obsessively pursuing the skills of the fighting arts, and not just karate -- he branched off into dozens of styles. And while he developed skill, he never achieved the peace and enlightenment so many usually gained from it. He had been bullied, beaten, and raped too many times for that.

With his new martial arts skills, the Butcher went on to track down many of his attackers -- from both his days as a youth and his days as an inmate, once the men were released. In every case, he had used his martial arts skills and his affinity for a blade -- sometimes a full-sized sword, other times a short tanto blade -- to beat or slash a man to death.

Not that he was opposed to gun work; he knew they were necessary, and he certainly was practiced with them, as well, but he simply preferred blades and the fear they put into someone. Also, he loved how long it took for a man hacked and sliced sixty or eighty times to die, while they progressed from resistance to sheer terror to submission and begging for mercy. Not that mercy was ever given. He was the Butcher, after all, and his heart and desire for mercy had been crushed under the weight of several three-hundred-pound men.

No one messed with the Butcher. He was unstable, easily provoked, and completely sick in the head. He enjoyed hurting people and lived to practice new fighting techniques on people. Kicks to the knee, watching the effects of a hyper-extended leg. Swordhand strikes to the neck, hearing an opponent gasp desperately for air. Hand strikes to the eyes, feeling the soft tissue tear under the steel-like pressure of his hardened fingers.

Hernan Flores hated even thinking about the Butcher. He continued his pacing and took a swig of Jack Daniel’s. He knew he should kill the Butcher, and soon, but the man was so valuable that it was hard to do. Under Flores’s tutelage, he had gone from a psycho who lived on minor drug sales and stolen valuables to a hired hitman, good with gun and blade.

Flores had asked for four of his best bodyguards to be at this meeting instead of the typical two, but it wouldn’t matter. The Butcher would be armed, and Flores sure as hell wasn’t going to try to disarm him again. He had tried that once inadvertently and the results had been disastrous.

It happened the first time Flores and the Butcher were to meet. As was standard procedure, Flores’s guard at the front door had tried to take the man’s weapons from him -- no one entered the building to see the cartel leader without being checked and disarmed.

The bodyguard -- a huge man -- carried a pistol and had an AK stacked in a closet, but he hadn’t seen any threat worth taking seriously with the small man before them. He hadn’t been warned who was arriving, which turned out to be a big oversight by Flores.

The guard noticed the duffle bag the little man carried, and while the man looked unarmed with his tight black T-shirt and loose-fitting, black karate pants, complete with thin-soled martial arts shoes, the guard knew a weapon could be concealed in the bag (if not even a small weapon on the small man). And so the guard had walked around the desk to check out the mysterious man after confirming the man had an appointment with Flores.

The small man -- built like a gymnast and not a bodybuilder -- had stepped back and said, “I’m not going upstairs or even another foot inside this building without this bag and the weapons it contains. This is Flores’s headquarters and I have no idea why he has summoned me, so I’m not going without this duffle bag, but I’m just one man, and I’m coming at Flores’s request, so I hardly think I’m a threat.”

“It’s standard policy,” the guard said, bored, but with attitude creeping into his voice. He moved forward toward the little man.

The Butcher took another step back to keep his distance and said, “I’m sure it is, but I’m not comfortable with it and I decline to be disarmed. And again, I am here at Flores’s request.”

“Listen here you little shit,” the guard said, stepping forward again. “If you think your karate and your fancy karate shoes can help here, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Last warning,” the Butcher said, his back now against a wall.

The guard had fought plenty of guys this man’s size. Sure, most knew martial arts, but the guard knew a fair amount as well. And he knew as long as he avoided several joint locks and arm breaks, while also protecting his groin, throat, and his eyes, he’d be fine. He’d manhandle this little shit and not only get rid of some pent-up stress, but also break up a job that had increasingly become too boring for him. The guard missed his days of being out on the street and messing people up for Flores.

The guard reached for him with both arms, cautious to avoid any arm-break attempts. But the wannabe karate kid simply dropped the duffle bag, seemingly surprised. The guard gripped the man by the shoulders and was in the process of slinging him across the room into the other wall when he heard the sound of metal scraping against plastic.

The guard recognized the distinctive sound of a blade being unsheathed from a scabbard. And then the guard felt the sharp pain of a slice between his legs. He looked down to see a full-sized katana blade rip up in a sweeping arc from between his legs, just as the pain of having his entire manhood slit open hit him with a sickening shock.

He screamed in pain and grabbed himself, witnessing more blood than he’d ever seen explode out of his gashed-open suit pants. And bent over, trying to stop the bleeding -- and going into complete shock as he imagined the damage to his manhood -- he never saw the Butcher step to the side, swing the blood-covered katana in a full circular arc, and come down on the back of his neck with an immense amount of speed and power. The blade severed the guard’s head right off at the base of the neck, and the Butcher watched it fall and roll.

The guard’s body fell hard onto the ground and the Butcher ran both sides of his bloody sword along the back of the guard’s suit to get the long blade mostly clean. Then, he sheathed it and replaced it in the bag, yanking out an Uzi and looking behind him to see if more guards were entering the lobby, rushing in as backup.

Seeing it was clear, he placed the Uzi back in the duffle bag and exited the building, hailing a cab as if nothing had occurred. Flores smiled as he recalled the taped footage of the slaughter. He had watched the entire event go down dozens of times, pausing the silent video as the Butcher reached into a hidden sleeve of the duffel bag, where the sword scabbard was apparently stored in some kind of special pouch in the bag.

In the video, the guard had barely flinched before the surprise upward swing struck the man’s groin. And then Flores recalled the splendid side-step and downward arc of the blade into the back of the guard’s neck.

It had been sheer artistry and Flores had been captivated by it for weeks. Even better, the Butcher had made Flores wait a full three months before agreeing to meet again. He’d ignored the calls of Flores’s aides. He’d ignored the personal calls Flores made himself. He’d even turned down a number of gifts that Flores’s men had delivered to his home, including a gold, 24-karat AK-74.

Flores had been top dog for so long that he had been intrigued by this man who ignored his power. Flores’s aides begged Flores to have the man killed -- either blown to bits in a drive-by massacre or taken alive and slowly tortured.

But Flores wanted this man on his team. Anyone could kill with a gun, but this man had panache. He had guts. He lacked fear.

Flores reached for his glass of Jack Daniel’s. He took a large swallow -- far more than he meant -- and slammed his glass down. My, what a difference five years had made.

The Butcher had gone from his golden boy, a superb hitman who acted as some kind of ninja-like assassin, to a right-hand man who now consistently undermined Flores behind his back. Flores had heard that the Butcher thought Mexico’s most powerful cartel leader was weak. That the Butcher thought Flores was too concerned with his public image and the women and the money and food. Food, damn it!

Flores swallowed the rest of his drink and slammed the glass down so hard that this time it cracked. Flores had conceived, planned, and executed one of the most horrific attacks in Mexican history, and still this short little shit saw him as fat and soft. Nothing but a drunkard and sex addict, as he had heard his informers pass along to him.

Flores slid his cracked glass across the table and walked to grab another. He filled it half and half with Jack and Coke and took another swallow. How could the Butcher not give him credit for what he’d done?

His men had ambushed and decimated a Navy SEAL team that had been hunting down and harassing his organization. Hernan Flores had been planning this ambush for weeks, and once again, perfect intel, evil cunning, and brutal force had won the day.

You didn’t build the most powerful cartel in Mexico or take down a SEAL team or strike brutally at the President while he’s inside his own compound if you were soft. Flores couldn’t deny the sex addiction or the fat remarks, but damn it, he was a great cartel leader.

Flores walked over to a desk drawer and pulled out a bag of Funyuns. He grabbed several out and threw them into his mouth. He washed the chips down with a big swallow of Jack and Coke, nearly finishing off the glass, which would be his third of the day, and it wasn’t even two o’clock yet.

Flores ignored this thought; he knew he wasn’t an alcoholic. He was just under a lot of stress. Stress that a mere hitman like the Butcher couldn’t possibly imagine.

Flores grabbed three more Funyuns before throwing the nearly empty bag in the drawer. Christ, I have to stop drinking and eating so much, he thought. He burped, leaned forward, and moved his big frame toward his bar to pour himself a new Jack and Coke.

Flores took a long drink and smiled. Damn, it felt good. Up in his eight-story building, he wondered what Rivera and Soto were thinking right now. Stupid idealists, Flores thought. How they possibly thought they could stand up to the cartels, most of which operated under Flores’s command, was beyond him.

But, President Rivera and Mr. Goody-Good billionaire Juan Soto were not immediate concerns. For now, Flores needed to focus on the Butcher, who’d be arriving at any moment.

The Butcher made his way up to Flores’s office. He had four of Flores’s guards around him in the elevator, but he wasn’t scared. He knew he intimidated the shit out of them. He had enough martial arts skills to disarm and kill each of these men even if he were unarmed, but under his straining arm, he had his duffle bag with all his weapons in it. These men were barely a threat to him. He knew it. They knew it.

The elevator arrived at the top floor and they moved toward Flores’s corner office. The Butcher smiled at Flores’s busty secretary and walked with the four guards past two more armed sentries, who opened the doors for them. The Butcher noticed the heavier-than-usual security and smiled. The old man was letting his fear really show.

Hernan Flores waited behind his desk, and the Butcher knew the man had been pacing. The old Flores used to make a habit of forcing him to wait outside his office. Sometimes for fifteen or twenty minutes, appointment or not.

Yes, the Butcher thought, looking at the fat man before him. Indeed, this man had fallen far. Even in near victory, at what should have been the height of his power, Flores proved soft and weak, both physically and mentally.

The Butcher remembered a quote from Alexander the Great, which he completely accepted as truth. The quote was, “An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”

The Butcher inspected the man who’d gone from a suave middle-aged man to a fat, dumpy grandpa. The Butcher noticed crumbs on the shirt of Flores’s protruding stomach and he knew that Flores had been eating his favorite food prior to his arrival.

He’d probably just eaten an entire bag of Funyuns, he thought. And by the look of his flushed, red face, he’d probably drunk enough to get three men wasted.

The Butcher put aside his repulsive feelings toward Flores and got down to the point of the meeting.

“Have you made up your mind about the attack?” the Butcher asked. “I’ve had two additional sources confirm that the President will be there.”

Flores smiled and sat down in his chair. The Butcher never changed. He always acted how he fought -- straightforward, economical, and aggressive.

“Would you like something to drink,” Flores asked, “before we get started?”

“No, we need to move quickly if we’re going to pull off this attack,” the Butcher said.

“Ah, yes, the attack,” Flores said, turning and looking out over the capital city of Mexico as he swallowed down more Jack and Coke. He wondered how to explain it to this man.

Yes, it was true that an opportunity lay before them. Multiple sources reported that President Roberto Rivera would be meeting with the mayor of Mexico City in an outdoor ribbon cutting in just a few hours. Rivera had confirmed it himself through his most trusted source, just to be sure. But how did you explain to this simpleton that one had to balance the use of force, and that though an incredible opportunity stood before them, now was not the right time?

Attack and appear too heavy-handed, and pride might persuade the people to fall in behind the country’s colors. Nationalism was a powerful force, and no one -- even a poor Mexican peasant -- wanted to live in a weak country. Flores had spent years pushing propaganda that made Rivera and his predecessors appear corrupt, uncaring, and ineffective in providing services to the people. And so the people had come to care little about their government.

But if they made the government look too weak, and if the cartel suddenly appeared as a heartless bully, then they might lose the people. It was a delicate balancing act, and a mighty hard thing to explain to a man who never left home without a duffle bag full of weapons.

Flores turned and looked at the small man, who stood surrounded by the cartel leader’s four body guards. He had to admit that the Butcher had come far, trading in his ridiculous ninja-like attire from a few years ago for sharp suits that he wore with an open collar. But his aggressive nature was as present as ever, so Flores finally opted for the direct answer.

“No,” he said. “We’re not moving against the President today.”

“Why not?” asked the Butcher. “We know he’s going to be there and even if we fail to kill him, we will further show the people that their government is powerless.”

“You’re right, and that’s why we’re not going to do it. What if the people rally behind the government after this attack? Have you not seen the footage of the thousands who have gone downtown to view the damage on the Presidential Palace? They’ve placed flowers along the outer walls and some have even cried for those we killed. This isn’t the government raiding people’s homes or taxing them too much. This is us attacking a government that, in case you've forgotten, is necessary.”

The Butcher wanted to scream at the weak man before him. They were so close to complete victory. He decided to make one final pitch.

“But we could have so much more power without any central government,” the Butcher said. “What does it actually do? They can’t stop crime, they can’t take care of the poor, they are too corrupt to even enforce their own laws. All of these things the cartels do better. We don’t need any government at all.”

Flores sighed.

“Don’t you see?” Flores asked. “If we topple the entire government, there would be consequences. Probably America would invade or send forces here to support pro-democracy forces. It would be better to have a government as it is, but with one of our men in power. Then we would have a truce with the government and our profits would be maximized. We could live without fear with our families.”

“I have no family,” the Butcher said.

Flores turned away from him, exacerbated.

The Butcher threw his bag down, lowered his voice, and growled, “We’re missing a huge opportunity here. It’s a big mistake. A huge one.”

He looked at Flores with disgust, then reached down, grabbed the handles of his duffle bag, and growled, “Call me if you change your mind.”

And with that, he turned, shouldered the nearest bodyguard out of the way, and exited the office.

Chapter 13

Two weeks had passed since Nick Woods had been introduced to Marcus and the other candidates. In that time, a lot had happened.

Nick had selected his team, outfitted them, and deployed an advance party of four men to scout their operating area.

The men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were the real deal. Bad-ass trigger pullers who wanted to get into the shit regardless of the odds. For some men, action beat boredom, as long as the action was for a good cause and not some irrelevant bullshit ordered by some harebrained politician.

Nick was reminded of a World War II story he’d read about. An officer had stood in front of a group of Gurkha Special Forces -- men from Nepal who served as an elite division for Britain. The officer had asked the Gurkha men for volunteers to parachute in behind Japanese enemy lines. Only a few of the men stepped forward and the British officer was stunned that so few of these legendary fighters would volunteer for a mission.

It defied everything the British officer had heard about the Special Forces soldiers. Then, one of the men who hadn’t volunteered sheepishly raised his hand and asked if he could have a parachute. That if he could have a parachute, he would go on the mission, as well, with the others who had volunteered. Instantly the rest of the men raised their hands with smiles and volunteered to go as long with the rest if they were issued parachutes.

That’s the way Nick felt about the men of S3. They would have volunteered to go on the mission even if they’d been told they would have to walk there, and even if it required arriving in Mexico without weapons. They still would have gone, and they would have stolen, borrowed, or bought weapons as they could.

These men were fearless, tenacious, and hungry for revenge after being briefed on the exact details of the SEAL team ambush. They wanted payback. And blood. Lots of it.

But even if they hadn’t known about the ambush, they’d be raring to go. Not because they were bloodthirsty killers, but because they possessed a combined hatred of bullies and thugs. The mere thought of so many Mexicans having their lives destroyed by the cartel was enough to motivate these men.

They’d already risked their lives in places like Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq to help protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, and they were more than willing to do so again.

Now, the men of S3 were pulling up to the Texas-Mexico border. Nick’s CIA contact had suggested that Nick’s company “lease” armored Yukons from the federal government. He’d even had ten of them delivered to Camp Lejuene, convinced that Nick would agree.

“They’re ‘surplus,’” the contact said, raising his fingers and putting quote marks around the word surplus. And he even smiled with a big shit-eating grin. “And the lease paperwork has already been filled out and approved. We just need your signature.”

Nick stared at the man.

“You’re getting them at a great deal, too,” the man said, smiling, and throwing in a wink for good measure.

He apparently had misread Nick’s look, but Nick wasn’t amused.

“We going to put American flags on them?” Nick asked.

Immediately, the contact sensed trouble.

“No, why?”

“Well, we might as well,” Nick said. “Thanks for the offer, but we’ll pass. We’ll purchase vehicles ourselves, and if I need anything else from you, I’ll let you know.”

And with that Nick walked off. He then delegated the task of acquiring vehicles to a few of his men. He wanted various styles -- SUVs, compacts, even a couple of trucks. And he wanted them in different colors and in various exterior conditions. The overarching idea was that they not stick out in any way, shape, or form.

No fancy wheels. No dark tint. Nothing sporty or aggressive.

Nick knew the contact thought the Yukons would be a welcome gift -- they were armored, after all -- but Nick didn’t plan on rolling to his destination in a formation of matching vehicles, impressive though that might have been.

Instead, Nick wanted his men to infiltrate Mexico without Hernan Flores ever learning of the team’s existence or entry. Not that this was easy to do. The contact had “suggested” that the entire convoy show up at 2 p.m. and he and a foreign diplomat from Mexico’s government could get them through the checkpoint with all their weapons and gear. The contact had promised quick entry through a checkpoint manned by special Mexican troops whose loyalty to President Rivera was beyond question.

Nick thought the idea bordered on sheer lunacy.

“If we want Flores to know we’re coming so badly, why don’t we just issue a press release?” Nick asked.

Nick fought with the contact for the next two days and finally convinced headquarters to obtain vehicle passes that could be handed out to the men. The passes were dated with a three-day window from the Mexican government and would allow entry of a vehicle through any Mexican checkpoint without it being searched. The passes operated like diplomatic pouches, except they were for the entire vehicle and its occupants.

In Nick’s mind, his plan was KISS simple, though he couldn’t imagine how much hand-wringing had gone on while the deal was negotiated, since no such pass existed. But that was a problem for the bureaucrats. It was their job to negotiate. Not his.

His goal was to get the team in safe, and under the radar. He knew there was no way the Godesto Cartel would have enough men to watch every border crossing for twenty-four hours a day for three days straight, especially since his men would be entering in unmarked, impossible-to-profile vehicles.

And even if the Godesto could watch that many crossings -- Nick figured there were probably hundreds of them across the border -- Flores’s men would be too spread out to strike any of the vehicles. Flores would have too few men to go toe-to-toe with the well-trained, well-armed men of S3.

Even if he did, that was no sweat. Nick was bringing thirty-two men to this fight. He could afford to lose a vehicle or even two or four of them as they crossed over.

But saying he was bringing thirty-two men to the fight wasn’t exactly accurate. Besides the thirty-two men, he was stuck with three others, all of whom he had argued against.

Problem number one was his contact, who was the original CIA agent that had volunteered to approach Nick. The CIA had insisted that Nick had to keep the man as a part of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter, and take him with them to Mexico.

Nick had bitched to no end, but lost that battle. Nick was instructed to “hire” the man. No exceptions. He could reportedly shoot and fight, but Nick still considered him dead weight.

Problem number two was even worse. Nick had blown a gasket when he was informed that besides his CIA contact, he’d also have to bring along a cultural expert.

“We’re there to hunt down Hernan Flores and destroy his organization,” Nick said. “Why the hell do we need a damn ‘cultural expert?’”

“We’ve reviewed your plan,” the contact, who was now unfortunately a full part of S3, said. “And the strategists at the CIA believe you’re going to need a cultural expert to prevent saying or doing something offensive. Public opinion is crucial in this operation. You’ve said so yourself.”

“He better be able to shoot and take care of himself,” Nick said. “I’m not babysitting any damn paper-pushers. And I’m definitely not assigning men to protect his ass.”

“Actually, he is a she,” the contact said.

“What did you say?” Nick said, advancing toward the man.

“I said he is a she. It’s a woman. Not a man.”

“No way,” Nick said. “No way in hell are we taking a woman on the front line. Are you out of your mind? The last thing these men need is the distraction of some hot little filly.”

“She’s the best cultural expert we have,” the contact said.

“Then we don’t need the best. Give me the second best, or third best. As long as it’s a man.”

“There are no second or third bests,” the CIA contact said. “There may be a thirtieth best, but all our other experts are working with the State Department or ATF or DEA. There’s no way we can get our hands on any of them. She’s the best option we have. She was raised in Mexico and spent most of her life there.”

“I’m not taking on some native,” Nick said. “How do we know she’ll be loyal?”

“Her father was killed by a cartel, and her brother died in a nasty street fight,” the contact said. “He was jumped by a gang and stabbed to death. Just thirteen at the time.”

“What’s her occupation? Just a housewife or mom who sought asylum in America?”

“No, you’ll like the sound of this,” the contact said. “She’s educated and began her career as a lawyer, but after seeing some corruption in the judicial field that allowed some drug dealers to go free, she dropped the legal profession and became a cop. Worked her ass off and made a name for herself and was later promoted to detective.”

“Why’d she stop being a detective?” Nick asked.

“The truth is pretty gray, but our DEA folks believe she came to think some police higher-ups were getting paid off. Some weird things started happening. Some cases taken away from her. Some witnesses killed when they were supposed to be protected. Some last-minute getaways from folks they were on the way to collar.”

“She turn them in and then they turned on her?”

“No, even better. A couple of the police higher-ups died in suspicious circumstances. Drug deaths, they were listed as, but most in the police department believed she did it.”

“How’d she end up with us?”

“The cartels put a price on her head. She had to run to America or end up on the front page of the paper.”

“Not bad,” Nick said, “but she has to qualify in front of me and I get final say on whether she’s a go or not.”

“Fair enough.”

“What’s the final thing?” Nick asked. “You said there were three problems.”

“The final thing is we have to put a Mexican liaison on the team. A man who can coordinate with Mexican authorities so there’s no blue-on-blue action. I know you already have men who can speak Spanish, but this man is to help keep the Mexican authorities informed of the unit’s activities.”

Nick started to protest, but decided he knew how he’d handle this man. Besides, he was ready to get in theater and start hunting. There’d already been way too much talking, so he agreed with little arguing.

Chapter 14

Nick Woods and the men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter arrived safely in Mexico City. The special border passes demanded by Nick worked perfectly and the thirty-two shooters of S3, plus the CIA contact and Mexican liaison made it to the team headquarters without trading rounds with the Godesto Cartel.

Nick felt grateful that his first hurdle of sneaking across the border had been achieved. As part of their entry plans, he had made his Mexican liaison fly to Texas so they wouldn’t have to link up with him in Mexico, where they could be followed or ambushed.

The cultural expert was already with S3, having had to qualify and train with the team before Nick would accept her. Now all thirty-four had rendezvoused at a large farm, roughly an hour south of Mexico City, after drifting in from every possible ingress route over a three-day period.

Nick’s advance team of four men had finalized the lease for the farm prior to leaving America. Upon arriving, they confirmed the site was secure and began getting familiar with the area.

By the time Nick and the rest of his team arrived, the advance party had found the best defensive positions on the farm where security should be set up. Nick reviewed the security plans with the team leader once he arrived, and with a couple small adjustments, they were now fully implemented.

A small dirt road led to the farm, and a locked farm gate stopped curious people at the end of the road. Behind it, four men waited in an ambush position. Any intrepid salesman or thief too stupid to ignore the locked gate and “no trespassing” sign would most certainly never bother anyone again.

The men stationed in the ambush position had shoot-to-kill orders and anyone they shot would be buried on the property. Nick and the men of S3 wouldn’t be calling the police for anything. Hell, none of them trusted anyone down here.

Nick had even stripped the Mexican liaison upon his arrival in Texas and put his cell phone and all his clothing in storage, before having one of his men accompany him to a store to buy new clothes. Nick didn’t want to take a chance on any kind of tracking or listening devices. And once they came within two hours of Mexico City, Nick had the men traveling with the Mexican liaison blindfold him until he was inside the farmhouse. That would leave about a three-hundred-mile radius that the farm could be located in, just in case he ever slipped away to an open computer with internet access.

Better safe than sorry, Nick figured.

Nick had set the security as tight as he could. Besides the ambush team on the road, he had observation posts on each corner of the large farm, as well as two roving patrols of four men. There was a reason Nick had brought thirty-two men with him. He wanted to have constant security around him, and enough men to fight their way out of just about anything.

The thirty-two men were organized into four squads of eight. One of the squads, with the most experienced and best shooters, was the Primary Strike Team. The other three regular squads handled the security rotation since Nick and Dwayne Marcus agreed the Primary Strike Team should always be rested and ready to move at a moment’s notice.

But with everyone here and security set, that left one thing: it was time to start focusing on that bastard Hernan Flores and his Godesto Cartel.

The day after the last men arrived and preparations were completed, Nick walked from the kitchen to one of the bedrooms that he’d asked his men to set up for the first move against the Godesto.

“How close are we to being ready?” he asked.

Marcus stood just inside the door, his hands on his hips, an M4 slung across his chest. Once a drill instructor, always a drill instructor, Nick thought.

“Should be ready in five minutes,” Marcus said.

Men were sliding furniture to one side of the room. The bed, the dresser, the night stand, everything, had been shoved to one side. And against the wall, men stood on chairs and hammered nails into a plain white sheet spread across the wall.

“We’re going with a plain white backdrop,” Marcus said.

A folding table stood in front of the sheet, and two M249 SAWs lay on the table, the light machineguns resting on their bipod legs. One of the men of S3, whose name Nick couldn’t remember, adjusted a video camera that stood on an extended tripod.

“Get it right,” Nick said to the man.

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

“I don’t want anything in that frame except for the sheet. We don’t want to risk Flores or his men recognizing the wall or anything that might give away the type of building we’re in. We give these guys the smallest clue and they’ll figure out where these types of buildings were constructed, and then they’ll descend with so many informants on every county that has those types of buildings that we won’t be able to go buy milk without being discovered.”

“They won’t see anything but the sheet and table,” the man said. He looked back down and adjusted the camera one final time.

“Not even the floor,” Nick said.

“Not even the floor,” the man repeated.

Nick left the room and strode down the hall, his boots pounding the hardwood floor. It felt good to be in charge again, something he hadn’t felt since he was a foreman working construction. And before that, back when he was in the Corps and a squad leader and scout sniper team leader.

“Isabella,” Nick yelled as he walked into the kitchen.

Isabella, the cultural expert and only female in S3, looked up from a stack of papers spread across a wide dining table. Despite the skills she had shown qualifying and in training, Nick still wasn’t happy about having her on the team. Two Latino men, both Americans whose parents had emigrated from Mexico, flanked her.

Isabella had been asking them their opinion on the message she’d spent days preparing, and with their collective Mexican heritage, they had helped her polish the message so that it was as perfect as possible.

“Camera is set up,” Nick said to Isabella. “You ready?”

She grabbed the stack of papers and stood.

“Yes, sir,” Isabella said.

“You sure?” Nick said walking up to her and putting his hands on his hips.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“You better be,” Nick said.

“We’re ready,” she said.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Nick said. “This is on you. There is no ‘we’re ready’ bullshit. This statement is on you, not those two guys or anyone else. It’s either you’re ready or you’re not. And if you’re not, then you’ve got about three minutes to get ready. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Isabella said.

Nick’s eyes bore into her. He expected her to turn away, but she held his look.

Nick said, “What are you waiting on? Get the script in there. Now.”

Isabella walked down the hall and Nick watched her.

Marcus walked up beside Nick and said in a low voice, “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?”

“I need to know if she’s going to crack or not,” Nick said.

“She shoots as good as half of the men, and the woman may not have made the SEAL team, or been in the Marine Corps, but she’s been a trigger puller in one of the most dangerous countries in the world,” Marcus said. “I think she’s earned some respect.”

Nick turned from watching Isabella and looked at his second in command.

“We may be in the twenty-first century, but I don’t believe women should be in a unit like this. They can do intelligence, but you know as well as I do the issues with having women behind enemy lines.”

“I do, sir, but we need her,” Marcus said. “Are you an expert on Mexican matters?”

Nick turned from Marcus and saw several men stop and watch Isabella. She was definitely a beautiful woman with an ass that, well, it turned heads.

“I’d rather have a male expert who was average,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Not one who looks like that,” he said, pointing. “And capable or not, that woman looks too good to be isolated with us. She’s going to cause serious problems.”

“The woman lost her father and her brother,” Marcus said. “She wants this as bad as you or me. And the men are professionals. They’ll be fine. And any who aren’t can deal with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Nick considered Marcus’s words as he watched the 6’1’, 240-pound beast walk down the hall. Why the man needed an M4, Nick didn’t know.

Ten minutes later, Nick supervised the first major strike against Hernan Flores and the Godesto. With arms crossed, Nick watched his men as they executed the performance they’d been rehearsing since they left America. Except now they had the finalized words from Isabella.

Ten men stood behind the table and two M249s lay on it. Each of the ten men carried intimidating weapons. Some with M4s. Some with M240 medium machine guns. Some with scoped sniper rifles. They glared at the camera beneath boonie hats, ball caps, and watch caps, and wore a variety of civilian clothes, but mainly blue jeans and T-shirts.

Nick had ordered them to look like a rag-tag militia or gang, and they had achieved the effect. The only thing they each wore that bore any consistency were bandanas covering most of their faces, and even those varied in color (mostly reds and blues).

Marcus and Isabella had picked Latino men to be in the video, but none of them wanted to have their actual identity out on the internet for the rest of their lives, so the hats and bandanas left as little of each man’s face exposed as possible. The men knew that even if they knocked off Flores, they could still be at risk.

Cartels, like the mob, had long memories.

A man sat at the table in front of the line of ten armed men. After getting a nod from the man behind the camera, he began to read from a white paper held before him. Nick hoped the man’s accent matched what a resident of Mexico City might sound like. All of his Hispanic team members said the man’s accent was the best of any of them and lacked any trace of a life in America and the Marine Corps. (The man credited weekly phone calls home to his grandmother for his authentic sound.)

Nick hoped it was good enough. He had considered getting a local native speaker and (after blindfolding him and driving him around a few hours) bringing him to the farm to read the statement. But that seemed almost like kidnapping and hardly a way to win over the local population. Not to mention, unless the guy was a dimwit, he’d know there were a large group of mostly Americans somewhere in Mexico with really bad intentions, and that was knowledge Nick didn’t want Hernan Flores to have.

It was a risk Nick couldn’t take. His whole plan was based on turning the population against the cartels, and it was one thing for Mexicans to support fellow Mexicans. It was another thing altogether for Mexicans to support a bunch of gringos from up north.

The man seated at the table started to read.

“I speak for the men behind me, and for dozens of others who have had enough. We are citizens of Mexico -- bankers, butchers, and farmers. For decades now we have watched as our country has been torn apart by drugs and cartels.

“For most of us, the violence began elsewhere. Other states, other cities, other neighborhoods. But it moved in on us in the night. And soon, just a few criminals standing on street corners had turned into powerful gangs and distribution networks.

“Threats, intimidation, and corruption followed and before we knew it, our neighborhoods and cities were no longer ours. Our police and judicial system was under siege or had already bowed down to these super cartels.

“Since recognizing this threat, our military has tried to fight these oppressors, but they, too, have failed. Their officer corps has been infiltrated or paid off and many brave Mexican soldiers have died fighting in a cause they cannot win.

“There’s only one way to win this war, and that’s through us: the people of Mexico. We, the people of Mexico, will no longer tolerate these pigs with their wealth and their cavalier attitude toward law and order. We will no longer take their abuses and crimes. We will fight fire with fire. For every drop of blood they draw, we will draw ten more.

“We are the people of Mexico. And we are calling ourselves the Vigilantes. We are the true defenders of Mexico. And our first target is Hernan Flores. This man may say he’s clean and may claim to be merely a harmless grandfather and businessman, but we know differently. And you out there watching know differently, at least in your gut.

“This man has wrecked thousands of lives climbing to power, and now he’s killed dozens of Mexican soldiers and attacked our very own Presidential Palace. All within just the past few weeks. He has embarrassed our country and nearly brought it to its knees. But no more.”

The man dropped the paper and looked up at the camera.

“Mr. Flores, you murderer of thousands of good and decent people, we are coming for you. Your days of poisoning our country and our youth with your drugs and your guns and your wads of cash are coming to an end.”

The man nodded and the camera was turned off.

Nick couldn’t understand what the man had said -- it was in Spanish, after all -- but he’d read the message in English that Isabella had prepared and thought it was perfect. Soon, the video would be delivered to several major news stations in Mexico City. With luck, it would go viral within hours.

Nick smiled and thought, “Thanks, Allen Green. I owe you for this one.”

And indeed Nick did. Allen Green, the veteran reporter from New York, was a master of public opinion and had taught Nick much of what he knew. It had taken a while for Nick to come around to believing in the power of public opinion and social media, but he was on board with Allen’s arguments about media strategy now. After what they had been through, Allen was one of the only people that Nick trusted and respected without question.

Nick turned so the men wouldn’t see him and as he walked down the hall, he smiled. Round One just went to Team USA. Or, Team Mexico, really. Nick shifted the .45 on his hip and anticipated the upcoming fight between the Godesto and S3.

Now with their opening media strategy over, it was time to start spilling blood. And Nick? Well, he couldn’t wait for that to begin. There were a dozen-plus SEALs that Nick planned to soon avenge.

Chapter 15

Hernan Flores finished watching the Vigilantes’ homemade broadcast and threw the remote as hard as he could against his widescreen TV that was built into a cabinet inside his office. The remote cracked the screen and Flores slammed his hand on the desk.

Despite the cracked screen, the television now showed a foxy news anchor discussing the newly formed Vigilante group with a university professor who was an expert on the cartels. Flores just wanted to turn the damn thing off and cover his ears, but realizing the remote was now ten feet away, he grabbed the coffee mug off his desk and hurled it as hard as he could at the TV. The mug penetrated two inches, the TV popped, and the picture died in a shower of sparks. The widescreen now smoked and Flores stood still long enough to ensure no flames climbed from the guts of the worthless piece of scrap. Confirming there were none, he collapsed into his chair and buried his hands in his hair.

Who were these people?

He hit his intercom and said, “Maria, how many stations played that tape?”

There was a considerable pause, and then his secretary said, “We’re still trying to figure it out, sir, but we think pretty much all of them did.”

Flores jumped to his feet. He grabbed the phone from his desk and threw it as hard as he could toward the wall.

“Fuck!” he screamed.

The phone made it four feet before the cord stopped its progress and jerked it back in Flores’s direction. He attempted to lift his arms in time to block it, but it caught him in the front of the shoulder and he yelped in pain.

Maria heard the curse and howl of pain. In any other circumstance this might have been funny, but in her case, she worked for an insane cartel leader. And when the fat man grew angry and then topped it off by getting hurt and embarrassed, people usually died. Maria, assuming she could be on some hidden camera, showed nothing and continued her work, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing. The pay was too good, and the fear too great, to do anything but that.

Flores rubbed his shoulder and sunk into his chair. He sat there for a moment and decided to pour himself a drink. He realized he was hungry, too, though it was only a couple hours after he had eaten breakfast. Well, a few Funyuns wouldn’t hurt.

Drink poured and chips opened, he sipped and munched at his desk. In between bites, he considered this new problem. In truth, vigilantes presented the greatest threat a cartel leader could face.

The public was vital in one’s war against the government. After all, the government dominated the cartels in terms of troops, dollars, and vehicles. Plus, the government could operate in the open with armored cars and heavy weapons. But the government also had to keep the public happy.

The cartels struggled under the requirement to stay below the radar. They couldn’t tote long weapons out in the open or assemble in groups near their targets or bases, except in some of their mountain fortress areas. And even there, it was best to not attract attention.

The cartels needed the public’s support. It was crucial. Other than public support, the only other weapons wielded by cartels were loads of cash and out-of-this-world violence. Violence that topped what the government could bring. If you could create sheer terror among individual police officers and prosecutors, then you could thrive and survive.

But Flores had pushed too far with the violence. He had lost the public’s support and this group of Vigilantes had sprung up. Flores needed to win it back, quickly. Even if he discovered who these Vigilantes were, he’d need to be careful. Attack them too ruthlessly and they’d only multiply like weeds.

Flores recalled the footage of the wrecked Presidential Palace and the convoy of shot-up Mexican troops. No one in Mexico had cared about the dead Navy SEALs, but the news footage of the Palace and bullet-riddled convoy littered with dead Mexican soldiers had played for days.

And the Palace had looked terrible in the TV footage and front-page newspaper photos, even after the bodies had been removed. Smoke plumes rose from the riddled, pock-marked Palace walls and bloody spots stained the street among the charred ruins of the convoy.

The Mexican people were poor, but proud, and the sight of their government power center shattered and their military embarrassed on a city street had proved too much. And Flores had known it before the day’s news ended. The media pounced on the footage as if it were war coverage from World War II.

Flores, sensing the rising public anger and humiliation, immediately offered his assistance to help insulate himself. He publicly donated $10 million to the federal government’s campaign to rebuild the Presidential Palace. Best of all, Flores earned some great news coverage after President Roberto Rivera refused to be pictured with Flores. Rivera claimed to be too busy overseeing the defense of the country and its war against the cartels, but several media outlets slapped him on the wrists for not appearing with Flores. “What better way to help raise funds than to appear with those who were donating so generously?” the papers asked.

And Flores’s assault against President Rivera and Juan Soto had done more than turn public opinion against the Godesto. It had also inspired the straight-laced billionaire Soto not to leave the country. Flores knew that President Rivera could not survive without Soto’s support, and Flores had been so close to driving Soto out of the country after he’d killed several of his employees and nearly successfully kidnapped his daughter.

Flores gulped down the final half of his drink and refilled his glass. He’d conveniently brought the bottle from the cabinet to his desk.

What to do with the Vigilantes... As he considered them, he remembered other times he had been pushed to the breaking point. And with those thoughts, a smile crept across his face. This wasn’t close to being his biggest challenge. He remembered so many times he’d faced nearly insurmountable hurdles as he had risen up from the ranks.

He’d climbed to the top of the Godesto Cartel from the very bottom, beginning as a mere foot soldier packing a pistol, rising to a corner captain, then a neighborhood shot caller, and finally to the highest ranks, within the very brain of the organization. And once he was within the ranks of the top twenty leaders of the Godesto, all of whom were jockeying to lead, he’d ascended to the head of it through betrayals, double-crosses, and anonymous tips to the government.

That was achievement enough. Becoming the head of the Godesto Cartel was a monumental task, one aided by luck and intuition and guile.

And yet that had proven a cakewalk compared to his next task: Becoming the most powerful cartel leader in Mexico. By the time Flores had wrested control of the Godesto Cartel from its former leader, who had fled Mexico when he learned of Flores’s intentions to seize power from him, the cartel was holding itself together by a thread -- partly due to the former leader’s weakness, and partly due to Flores’s internal coup.

Regardless, Flores fought internal and external pressures for months as he stabilized the organization and convinced those both under and around him that he was not one to be trifled with or underestimated. He had meted out retribution when he could, and parlayed for peace with other cartels where he was outgunned.

And slowly but surely, he strengthened the Godesto Cartel and plotted his future moves. When Flores took over the Godesto, six major cartels existed. Twenty years later, only three remained: the Godesto, the Red Sleeve Cartel, and a newly formed upstart that at some point he would squash like a bug. The Godesto had an alliance with the Red Sleeve Cartel, which was probably thirty percent as powerful as the Godesto. And the upstart cartel was perhaps four percent as powerful.

Flores reached for more liquor, but stopped when he remembered he needed to stay sober. The announcement of the creation of the Vigilantes pushed back the timetable of Flores’s plans, but he had endured setbacks before. He’d destroy them no differently than he’d destroyed his prior enemies.

He reached for his phone and realized he’d totaled it in his earlier tirade.

“Maria,” he yelled. “Call the TV stations. I’m holding a press conference in two hours.”

Chapter 16

“Nick, you better get in here,” Dwayne Marcus said.

Nick pushed into the command center, which he and Marcus had decided would be in the room that housed the small study/library of the farmhouse.

“What is it?” Nick asked.

“Hernan Flores is about to hold a press conference,” Marcus said. “Isabella has been scanning the news channels and came across it.”

“We got anyone who can take a shot at him?” Nick asked. He knew they had two scout teams of Spanish-speaking undercover agents from the squads of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter out tracking the man’s movements and learning his patterns. The teams were already in Mexico City trying to stake out the number one enemy of Mexico. They didn’t have sniper rifles with them, but they were packing M4s in the trunks of their vehicles.

“Sir,” said Isabella, “we can’t shoot him in front of twenty or thirty cameras and untold millions of Mexicans watching live.”

“The hell we can’t,” Nick countered. “You give me the shot and I’ll shoot through three reporters to bore a hole through that bastard.”

“We’re trying to win public opinion,” Isabella reminded him.

“No, we’re only trying to win over public opinion so that we can take this bastard down,” Nick said. “That’s part one of our directive: Take Flores down. And the first chance we get to drop his ass, we drop him. That’s step one, then we go after his cartel. Public opinion only matters in the short term, and since it’s hot as hell down here, I’m all for getting him sooner rather than later.”

“Sir,” Isabella said, beginning to question him, but Nick held up his hand to stop her and pointed at the TV.

Hernan Flores exited two doors from the entrance of the tower from which he worked. He cautiously walked toward the cameras and looked up and down the road, as if he were worried.

“He’s putting on an act,” Isabella said. “I’ve watched hundreds of hours of footage of him and he’s usually loud and pushy and cocky.”

“He’s hamming it up for the cameras,” Nick said.

“As if he doesn’t have about forty armed men in a cordon around the media,” Marcus added.

“I thought he always wore Hawaiian shirts?” Nick asked, looking toward Isabella. “He looks like a stuffed pig in that suit.”

“He normally does,” she said. “I don’t like this. He hates wearing suits. He doesn’t even wear them to fundraising galas, and no one cares because he donates so much that half of the galas are named in his honor.”

Flores trudged up to a podium. Dozens of microphones and tape recorders were propped or standing in front of him, and a hungry crowd of reporters with cameras and notepads stood eagerly awaiting. Flores looked up and down the street again and leaned toward the microphones.

Nick tapped Isabella on the arm and said, “You translate what he says.”

She nodded as Flores began to speak.

“I appreciate you all coming out today, and I apologize for my men having to search you a few minutes ago,” he said.

Flores took a handkerchief out and wiped his brow, which has already begun to sweat. The man was a fat piece of shit, Nick thought, and hardly looked like a formidable adversary. And yet that’s what made him so dangerous. He was a chameleon. He changed his colors to whatever was necessary. Businessman and philanthropist by day, mobster and murderer by night.

“As you might have heard,” Flores said to the cameras, “a group of law-breaking citizens has come out and claimed they intend to hunt me down.”

Flores paused and looked down. He swallowed, brushed his forehead again, and continued. “I can’t tell you how distressing this is and we’re obviously taking these threats very seriously, as you can see by the security around you. I have made arrangements to fly my family out of the country and I’m trying to determine if I can manage to leave the country myself.”

He looked up and down the street -- like a scared alley cat, Nick thought, caught out in the open on a bright summer day -- before continuing.

“As you all know, I own dozens of legitimate businesses, contrary to what these Vigilantes claim. And while I can afford to quit today, I cannot bring myself to do that for the sake of the thousands of employees and families who depend on those jobs. Not to mention the ongoing contributions those businesses provide to several charities. I’d hate for it to come to this, but I must say that if I can’t move freely or even stay in the country without fear of harm coming to me or those I love, then that giving will have to decrease.”

Now Flores leaned into the microphones and Nick detected the first hint of violence that he’d seen yet. But it was subtle and probably most of the public would miss it. Nick only caught it because he couldn’t understand the language and focused completely on every gesture and action. Looking straight into the cameras, Flores said, “I call on President Roberto Rivera to crack down on these Vigilantes. And while I’ve been a big supporter of his -- including my recent donation to rebuild the Presidential Palace after this horrific attack by terrorists -- I sadly cannot continue to endorse a leader who so blatantly is losing control of his country. I don’t want to endorse a government changeover in the middle of his presidential term, but if he cannot bring these people to justice and cannot stop the attacks on our brave government forces, then we will have to consider whether a handover of power is not the right course of action.”

“Wow,” Isabella said in disbelief. “Did he just say he’s been a big supporter of President Rivera?”

“Probably most folks don’t know how much he funded and worked for Rivera’s opponent,” Nick said. “All they see is this old, scared businessman. The man who reminds them of their grandfather and who they’ve seen hundreds of times on TV during various charity events. They see a businessman and philanthropist who’s reasonable and fighting for them.”

“Nice bit of reverse psychology that he’s using,” Marcus said.

“He’s a pro,” Nick said. “That’s for sure.”

“It’s all bullshit,” Isabella said. “He’s not sending his family out of the country. They have a mountain enclave, and have complete control of the city he was raised in. No way is he letting them leave the country where he can’t guarantee their safety as well.”

Nick didn’t respond. He needed some quiet to think over Flores’s power move. Without a word, he turned and exited the room.

The blowback from Hernan Flores’s performance in front of the country reached Nick Woods two days later.

His CIA contact rushed into the command post where Nick and Marcus hovered over a map. He held a brick-sized phone that was apparently some kind of super-encrypted, satellite phone, Nick had been told.

“It’s for you, sir,” his contact said. “It’s headquarters, and I warn you they’re pissed.”

Nick noted that his contact had his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and looked as flustered as an eight-year-old about to get a spanking.

“It’ll be okay, Hoss,” Nick said. “I’ve dealt with headquarters before.”

The contact handed Nick the phone and darted from the room, looking relieved.

Nick looked over at Marcus, shook his head, and smiled.

“Kids,” Nick said. Marcus laughed.

Nick paused and made headquarters wait a full fifteen seconds. He lifted the heavy phone, but Marcus raised his head to say something.

“I’m going to walk the lines,” Marcus said, holding up his M4.

Nick nodded and leaned into the phone.

“Nick, here.”

“This is Mr. Smith. You mind telling me what the hell you’re doing down there?”

Nick smiled. Smith was the high-level CIA official who truly was in charge of Nick’s operation. Or, so Smith thought. Of course the pencil-neck piece of shit didn’t want anyone to know his name in case the whole mission went down in flames.

A real courageous man.

Nick had called him Mr. Smith once the man had said it was best if he didn’t share his name with Nick. It wasn’t like the man would have told Nick his real name anyway, so at least the name “Mr. Smith” was easy to remember.

“You know exactly what we’re doing,” Nick said. “Your contact updates you at least twice a day, of that I’m confident. He’s too scared not to.”

“President Rivera’s popularity has dropped another ten points since Hernan Flores responded to the Vigilante’s video. Do I need to remind you that he already has a low approval rating and doesn’t have a lot of room to give?”

“Do I need to remind you that you approved of our plan prior to our departure?” Nick asked. “Best I remember, you thought us producing and releasing that video was a great idea. A quote ‘way to win over the people,’ I believe was what you said.”

“The plan wasn’t to release the video and do nothing for the next couple of days while Flores destroys the movement in the press before it really even begins.”

“I didn’t realize we were doing nothing,” Nick said. “I bet that’s news to all the guys patrolling the compound and spread all over Mexico City pulling surveillance in this god-awful heat.”

“You need to make something happen soon. I’ve got the Director on my ass and you-know-who on his ass.”

Nick knew he meant the President, but that wasn’t his problem. He wouldn’t risk a single man rushing his plans.

“I said before I accepted the post that I would work at my own pace. I’m not risking any men because you or your boss can’t take an ass-chewing. Your job is to run interference so that we can get the job done, so go run some interference. Make up some kind of an excuse, whatever the hell you want.”

“Listen here,” Smith said, but Nick didn’t hear another word. He hit the “end call” button and tossed the phone into a chair. He’d heard enough from Headquarters today.

Dwayne Marcus moved about the farmhouse’s interior, his M4 cradled in his arms. He peeked out windows and surveilled the lines from inside the home. Satisfied with what he saw, he leaned his M4 against the wall near the door and confirmed his .45 was concealed under his untucked shirt.

Nick had set strict rules for the unit that no one was to be seen outside with a long weapon of any kind during daylight hours. Though the farm was pretty remote and the population surrounding it mostly sparse, nothing was supposed to be done that could arouse suspicion from outsiders.

Not that long weapons weren’t out at the positions, but they had been moved there during night hours and were kept concealed under tarps and rifle cases.

Nick had also mandated that only street clothes were to be worn outside while in the compound to further hide the fact that this small farm had been transformed into an outpost for a large group of armed men.

“I want us to look like some regular ol’ field hands,” Nick had said. “Or maybe local workers or something.”

Marcus glanced down to confirm he was in blue jeans and T-shirt and stepped out of the home. Marcus took his time and walked the perimeter in a nonchalant manner. He certainly didn’t want to look military in his bearing, but at the same time he couldn’t shake how happy he felt to be in an armed camp again in a foreign country.

This was what he was built for: leading men on dangerous missions. And as he talked with the men in various hidden positions around the perimeter, he couldn’t shake how fragile it all felt. How worried he was -- already -- that when this ended he’d have to return to an administrative leadership position in the Marine Corps. Or, even worse, have to leave the Corps and move on to some shitty civilian job.

And nothing scared Marcus more. He’d known nothing but guns and forced marches since the day he dropped out of college and left his lucrative destiny with the NFL for something grittier, scarier, and tougher. But just like the NFL, which veteran football players knew stood for “Not For Long,” in the military -- even in the blood and guts Marine Corps -- the opportunities to serve in harm’s way were few and far between. Units rotated. Orders changed. You got promoted too high to be on the front line.

And yet Nick Woods had given him that opportunity again and there hadn’t been a moment since that he wasn’t nearly euphoric.

Marcus had seen serious military talent waste away under the weight of serving in a safe location stateside, or under the burden of being forced into an administrative leadership position like supply or logistics. But here he stood. Hundreds of miles away from any kind of reinforcements. The Mexican Army and Police had no idea where they were.

The men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were completely on their own. Just three eight-man teams, plus eight more counting Nick and Marcus in the Primary Strike Team. Thirty-two members in S3, plus the CIA contact and Mexican liaison. Marcus supposed they could handle a weapon if all hell broke loose and the entire unit was surrounded.

Hardly an army or task force, and they were about to tangle with the billion-dollar Godesto Cartel, which probably had a thousand trigger pullers, a couple hundred police-department moles, and maybe as many as five thousand people on their payroll as snitches. It was why Nick had insisted on telling the Mexican government practically nothing.

The Mexican government had only one form of intel on S3, their Mexican liaison, and Nick kept that poor man so in the dark that he didn’t know a damn thing. Besides blindfolding him for hours prior to his arriving at their farm, Nick also kept a 24/7 firewatch on the man. If you had the watch and needed to take a piss, you had to get another member of S3 to watch him.

Nick’s orders were clear; the man was not to be left alone for even a minute, and he was not to go near a phone, computer, or other electronic device at any time. The man couldn’t even hang on to his own phone, and was only allowed to report in to his superiors when a senior member of S3 stood near him. They had been instructed to rip the phone from his hand if he crossed any lines.

Marcus still laughed at that. He felt sorry for the guy, but Nick explained how the SEALs had been destroyed and said that he was doing this for the man’s own protection.

“Believe me, my man,” Nick had said, patting the man on the cheek, “if something happens to us from an intelligence leak, it’s not the men you’ll need to worry about. And I’m sure you didn’t expect to be treated this way, but it’s for both our own good. I’ll have the men buy you some books or something so you don’t get too bored.”

And Nick hadn’t said another word to him since they arrived. He kept him quarantined in a room with a TV, some books, and an S3 member on duty. Nick was straight stone-cold, Marcus thought, and coming from a strict drill instructor, that was really saying something.

To serve under a man like Nick, one of the most capable warriors Marcus had ever met, there was just nothing like it.

And even ignoring his own reputation, Marcus knew that Nick Woods was harder than nails and didn’t have a non-military bone in his body. Marcus hadn’t seen a man wired so tight in all his life. Well, other than himself, he thought, but Marcus’s time as a drill instructor had magnified that. Yet still, Marcus wasn’t above a good laugh or a joke here or there.

Not so with Nick. He was all business and apparently his entire life revolved around killing. Or keeping from getting killed. Marcus hadn’t heard the man mention a wife or girlfriend or even a dog. He seemed to have no roots. No desires. Just a love of heavy caliber rifles and a constant, almost paranoid continuous focus on security, even when they were stateside wrapping up preparations.

But Marcus couldn’t exactly ask him about his love life or anything else, really. Nick kept his distance from all the men -- including Marcus, to whom he was closest -- and Nick kept his thoughts and feelings camouflaged behind a face that showed nothing. The man was a sniper. Nothing more, nothing less.

And honestly, Nick was too distant to be in leadership, in Marcus’s view. At least in a traditional unit. But with an elite unit, where few words needed to be said, it worked.

And even for a giant former linebacker like Marcus, who had yet to find someone he couldn’t handle, Nick Woods caused a deep sense of unease. He screamed grit and determination with everything he said and did, and he looked like a man you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. Not in a loud way like some kind of puffed-up meathead, but in a quiet calculating way. His eyes seemed to cut through you. Eyes that said they had seen deep shit and were willing to pay the necessary price again if pushed far enough.

Of course, all the men of S3 knew Nick’s story. They hadn’t at first, but the CIA contact told the men that their leader was the very same Nick Woods who had exploded across the world’s headlines a few years earlier. None of the publications had ever nabbed a photo of him, but the story of Allen Green and the mysterious Marine Scout Sniper had grown to legendary levels. (Not that it needed to grow to reach those levels.)

But once the men of S3 knew who was coming to lead them, they immediately committed to following him. And Marcus had, too, if he was honest.

Marcus finished walking the perimeter, marked by three strands of barbed wire like on most farms. After checking in with some of the troops, he headed back for the house.

In the house, Isabella sat at a computer desk and rubbed her temples. She’d been surfing news site after news site, and dozens of forums that talked about drugs, gang battles, and rumors about crime.

She stood and stretched, lifting her arms. She wanted to take a break and at least leave the room and get something to drink, but she worried Nick would catch her.

Yesterday, Nick had caught her on just such a break. She had stopped to talk to a few of the guys after grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and Nick had managed to walk by at that very moment. She still seethed at the exchange that had followed.

“Did you find every piece of intel there was to find on the internet?” Nick asked.

“No, sir,” she said. “I just took a break to grab something to drink and stopped to say a few words on my way back.”

“I see,” Nick said, looking at the three men who had been talking to her. Each looked down and Isabella turned red with embarrassment.

“You men have anything else you need to say to Isabella?” Nick asked.

“No, sir,” one of them said.

The other two shook their heads and Nick dismissed them all with a wave of his hand.

They hurried down the hall and Nick turned to Isabella.

“You are aware that we’re counting on you to help with intel and plan our PR campaign, right?” Nick said.

Isabella didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, or the scolding she had just endured.

“You are aware of the double-standard you’re imposing, right?” she asked, nodding her head back toward the men walking off.

She knew she shouldn’t have back-talked Nick, but the attorney in her just wouldn’t let his remarks go. But, other than the crap she had to put up with from Nick, Isabella liked her new team. She was on the Primary Strike Team, composed of Nick, Dwayne Marcus, and five more shooters named Truck, Lizard, Bulldog, Preacher, and Red. While there were some men who went by their last names on the eight-man regular squads, most of the seriously experienced men on the Primary Strike Team only went by nicknames. (Same as with any Special Forces unit.)

Almost none of them would share their real names or even much about their past. Only Nick and Dwayne Marcus knew that information, and only then because they had seen their files as part of the selection process. These men were the best, and their military records proved it.

Nick said he only wanted Isabella on the Primary Strike Team because she spoke Spanish, which put two people on the Primary Strike Team (counting Lizard) with that ability. Nick had also said he didn’t want her on some other squad where the men would be distracted by her tits. His words, not her’s.

But Isabella knew that one of the main reasons she was on the Primary Strike Team was because she could shoot and hold her own. And she also knew Nick wanted her close so he could draw on her expertise of the Mexican culture, even if he was in the middle of a firefight.

Sure, he treated her like shit, but she had been “brought into the fold” so to speak far more than she would have expected after first meeting Nick.

When the Primary Strike Team deployed into the field, Nick left the CIA contact back at the base. Nick explained that it was to protect the contact from possible jail time in case Nick needed to break the law. But Isabella relished this truth: the contact was left at the base because Nick only wanted operators on his Primary Strike Team, and he trusted her to watch his back in the field, though he had never admitted it out loud.

No, her leader claimed she was only on the team because he didn’t want her on some other team where the men would be competing for her attention.

But Isabella knew that despite himself Nick was impressed with her shooting and the way she was handling the pressure from him and Marcus. She also knew that her records had informed him that she had killed her fair share of men, as well.

Not near as many as Nick -- or even most of the other men -- but they were all some of the most experienced warriors that America had. Isabella, on the other hand, had been in different circumstances while on the police force and as a prosecutor. But she had shown courage -- just as much as most of the men Nick and Marcus had selected.

She looked out the window and saw Marcus walking toward the house, and again thought of how vastly different he and Nick were.

Marcus marched places. Perfect military bearing. Ramrod straight posture. S3 utility uniforms pressed and immaculate, when he wore them in the house or back in the states. The man was a drill instructor to the end.

Nick couldn’t have been more different. He was a hard man. Cold. Of few words. His eyes often looked straight through you, and he so rarely spoke that you were always curious as to what he was thinking.

Marcus worked hard to balance Nick out. Marcus was a motivator, always quick with an encouraging word or a positive thought. He could be hard on the men, like Nick, but he had just as many words to cheer them on and lift their morale.

The way Isabella saw it, Nick didn't really fit the role of commander of the unit. He was more of the hard-nosed sergeant, but with Marcus filling the gap by playing the officer role, it still worked. At least so far.

Of course, that could change in an instant if Nick pushed her too far. She smiled as she imagined kicking him upside his head. He probably so underestimated her that he’d never see it coming.

“Doubt he’d act like such a bad ass if I knocked his ass out,” she thought.

But then again could she pull off such a surprise against his discerning eyes? The man noticed everything. And he feared nothing.

And while he didn’t say much unless he was giving her hell, she couldn’t deny that his strength did something to her. He was here, in a foreign land, doing what Mexico’s bravest and smartest men had failed to do: Take down Hernan Flores.

But more than that, his tall, lean frame called her in a way she hadn’t thought about in years. Of course, most of the men she had been around in law enforcement weren’t at the level of Nick. They were practically cowards, who donned masks on most raids. Many had given up on any serious fitness routine and had gained too much weight. They had grown soft, both in body and in concern with staying alive.

Nick didn’t fear death. He courted it -- practically dared it to come his way. He had already taken too many risks, and they were barely getting started.

He was a real man in a world where few men still roamed. And he was good-looking, and strong, and, well, available. Isabella blushed a bit at the thought, but she had a track record with men.

Good or bad, she usually caught her man. The evil ones ended up dead or behind bars. Others ended up wooing her like lovesick teenagers once she broke them. Nick might prove her biggest challenge yet, but, well, that was a nice thought to consider, too.

And with that thought, she opened up another news website to look for clues about the Godesto Cartel.

Chapter 17

Nick Woods and the Primary Strike Team waited alongside the back of a mid-sized passenger van. His men looked like a bunch of anti-government rebels, dressed in jeans and boots and hoodies and bandanas. And like any good group of anti-government rebels, they were armed to the teeth. The best part of playing “vigilantes” was that their weapons needed to vary and not be uniform, so the team members got to pick their weapon of choice. Tonight, they were packing everything from 9 mm MP-5s to 5.56 mm M4s to 12 gauge shotguns.

The van they stood by looked like it had once been owned by a small business of some kind. The team had bought the used van locally for a steal (in cash, of course) and had painted over its commercial markings and given it a cheap coat of white paint. And with the dings and scrapes, the van fit in nicely in the rundown part of town they were currently in.

Mexico City, like every other metropolitan area in the world, had its share of shithole neighborhoods and the Primary Strike Team sat waiting in probably one of Mexico City’s worst slums.

Every one of Nick’s senses screamed danger. The hair on the back of his neck stood high, his ears strained to hear, and his eyes squinted to see.

Nick’s Primary Strike Team waited by the mid-sized van, which had backed into an alley between two abandoned buildings. On the one hand, Nick didn’t like being trapped with no way out but forward. But the alley provided great concealment barely one block from their target, and it would take a lot of Godesto Cartel shooters to take down the eight of them. Plus, Nick had two more squads of eight men from S3, as well as two sniper teams who were recently arrived reinforcements, who could get to their location within five minutes, so he was jittery -- or feelin’ alive, as he liked to call it.

It was the ghetto that put him on edge. He preferred trees and bushes to operate in, not the alleys, street corners, and dumpsters of an inner city. And it didn’t help that he didn’t know the area and couldn’t speak the language.

That’s what you have translators for, Nick thought to himself. You knew what you were getting into before you signed on to come into Mexico and take down one of the most powerful cartel leaders ever.

And indeed he did, but in addition to the immediate danger, Nick couldn’t shake the fact that he was a few hundred miles away from the American border and deep within Hernan Flores’s home territory. He and his team were outnumbered and outgunned, and probably operating with far less intel. It was a formula for disaster.

And when you considered that Flores owned most of the cops, it was a lonely feeling in that alley. No cavalry would be riding in to save the day, and no air power was on call. Worse, even if the police showed up, it wasn’t like they would just get arrested. More than likely Flores would find a way to get to them -- he had that many police officers and judges on his payroll -- and they would be killed, beheaded, and dumped on the side of the road somewhere. After all, beheaded bodies on the side of the road were a near daily occurrence in Mexico these days.

Nick and his team members understood that giving up to local authorities likely meant that some dirty cop would shoot them down in “self-defense” or maybe some prisoner would shank them in their sleep. Pulling off a favor for Flores could set a man and his family up for life.

But Nick remembered he had some incredible shooters, and he’d been in a few wars himself. He was counting on his experience, his incredible instinct for danger, and his ingrained sniper skills. Even in this situation, Nick knew he could conceal his entire unit quickly, just as he had mastered the ability to hide himself, even in an open field.

As long as Flores couldn’t find Nick’s nearly fifty shooters, he couldn’t hit them. And Nick didn’t plan on being found. Part of Nick’s solution to staying out of Flores’s sights was to operate completely free of intel from the government.

The upside to operating in such a way was that no police officers or intel weenies who had been bought and paid for by Flores could sell Nick and his team out.

The downside was that they got very little intel about Flores, some of which would have been legitimate. Without question, Mexican President Roberto Rivera really did want to take Flores down. And Rivera had hundreds of men under him who shared the same goal. Rivera and his loyal supporters had bled a lot trying to take Flores down, that was for sure. But though Nick really wanted the legitimate intel, he couldn’t risk it. Unfortunately, it only took one police officer or intel specialist feeding S3 false info to doom Nick’s unit, and Nick hoped to avoid the fate the SEAL Team had suffered.

Consequently, Nick’s unit operated with limited intel, and what they got was of questionable value. Isabella, and one of the tech-savvy team members, set up a website for the Vigilantes after their video was released. The site contained a dedicated email address where folks could email in clues. Nick understood a phone line would have netted them far more information, but he didn’t trust a phone line to be secure enough.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if you listed a phone number on the site -- even for a temporary, throw-away phone -- and someone called it, Flores could find out from the phone company what cell phone tower it pinged off from. Nick didn’t want Flores to be able to narrow down the unit’s location at the farm to such a small area, so he stuck to email through the website.

But even with the more restrictive, email-only option, the emails came. By the hundreds. And that insanely high amount of emails reminded Nick that they were truly taking on a full-blown cartel -- basically a huge army of more than a thousand armed men. The incoming tips spanned from across most of the country and many seemed completely legit, involving dozens of warehouses, apartment complexes, and shipping ports.

Nick assumed many of them were fake tips submitted by Flores’s people as part of some trap for the Vigilantes. Consequently, he and Marcus decided they would set up more than just typical surveillance on spots they planned to raid. They wanted elaborate and extensive eyes on the possible sites for days and days.

As a result of this need, Nick requested his CIA contact ask for six Scout Sniper Teams to be transferred from active duty in the Marine Corps to S3. And two of those Scout Sniper Teams had been watching the target they planned to hit tonight for five days, 24/7. They had been rotating in and out and watching the building from two different angles, gaining tons of intel. And based on that intel, Nick’s Primary Strike Team was about to spring into real action for the first time since arriving in Mexico.

Nick and the members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were about to strike the first real blow against Flores and the Godesto Cartel.

Nick couldn’t wait to show the fat bully that a new sheriff was in town, but there remained some serious danger before the gloating could begin. Despite the five days of eyes on, in theory, a huge team of men could be hiding in the building waiting to ambush the Vigilantes, having moved into it prior to the tips coming in. That’s what Nick would have done.

Flores could have had food stored up and thus not needed any supplies. And these men of Flores’s could have been disciplined enough to not leave and thus be spotted by Nick’s Scout Snipers.

But, Nick doubted it.

First, it would take a lot of discipline, and cartel guys usually lacked discipline. They liked money and pussy and alcohol, and loads of all three, and you couldn’t get that by waiting in a building for who knew how long waiting to spring an ambush.

Second, you’d have to be paranoid as hell to put up such an act for so many days. Nick wondered if he would be that careful if the shoe was on the other foot and he were Flores. Maybe he would. And maybe not. Flores certainly held an unbelievable number of advantages over Nick and his team, and he would have every reason in the world to underestimate this group called the Vigilantes.

Yet Nick’s gut said this building was a gold mine. The moment the first clue about it came in, it had stood out from all the rest. And Nick appreciated the sheer genius of the location. It was precisely the spot he would have chosen to store tons of cocaine. The building wasn’t a factory or warehouse or even storefront. No, it was far better than that. It was a church. A small cathedral, more accurately.

While the tip was unbelievable at first, they had received three specific and different tips from various neighbors who lived in the area.

The intel later placed on the cathedral supported Nick’s belief. The Scout Snipers -- buried deep in the corner shadows of nearby buildings -- reported odd vehicles coming and going in the middle of the night. Strange deliveries. Ferocious-looking men who wore unnecessary coats on hot nights, overseeing the loading and unloading of boxes.

Nick shifted his feet and took a deep breath in the alley, still trying to calm his nerves. The final confirmation the cathedral was legit would arrive in minutes. Nick had one of the two nearby S3 squads following a vehicle that had departed the cathedral moments ago. The Scout Snipers had called in several boxes being loaded into the car right on schedule. This vehicle was leaving at the same time as it had night-after-night in the five days the target building had been under surveillance.

“We’ll know soon whether they’re delivering drugs or Bibles,” Dwayne Marcus said with a grin, after hearing the Scout Sniper call in the vehicle driving off through his earpiece.

“They don’t deliver Bibles this time of night,” Nick said. “Ain’t enough demand.”

“There just might be,” Marcus said. “Country’s a shithole.”

Nick grinned and knew Marcus was joking. They both felt certain the place was crammed full of drugs or weapons or something else of the Godesto Cartel’s.

Nick had instructed the eight-man squad to ambush the car. It was Second Squad, who got the call. Nick had some ideas on how it should be done, but he believed in delegating and told the squad leader to get with his men and develop their own plans.

The squad leader had briefed his men, they had brainstormed, and he had reported to Nick that they wanted to have one car follow the vehicle away from the cathedral. And then, further down the road, two other vehicles would block the road at the last second, with gunmen taking positions behind the cars. The S3 operatives from behind would rush to the right so that the two units wouldn’t be firing into each other, and the two groups would create a hastily formed L-shaped ambush on the vehicle that had left the cathedral. The vehicle’s occupants would either wisely surrender or die in a hail of bullets.

The answer arrived minutes later as a staccato of automatic gunfire carried across the city. Then more followed.

Nick imagined the scene. Darkness. The blinding flash and roar of gunfire in a black night. The zipping of passing rounds and the slapping of rounds tearing into bodies. The screams of terror.

“Second Squad, report in,” Nick said into his throat mike after the echoes of gunfire had ended.

“Roger,” his squad leader said. “Target occupants killed. Collecting evidence.”

“Move fast,” Nick said, then released the mic button on his chest.

He looked up at his Primary Strike Team and said, “Get ready. Double-check your weapons and get your head in the game.”

None of them had their heads out of the game, but Nick was a big believer in the power of absolute focus. Nick double-checked that the van hadn’t been turned off and was running as he had instructed. Turning off a vehicle in a slum like this seemed really stupid, especially for such an old vehicle.

He watched his Strike Team prepare. They wore various types of web gear over their civilian clothes and the operatives confirmed follow-up magazines were accessible and grenades were attached securely.

Marcus, his second in command, played leader and checked straps and pockets of those around him. Isabella, S3’s cultural expert who was quite a shooter herself, double-checked her MP-5. She could hit a dime at thirty feet with the thing.

Lizard, a Puerto Rican who had served nine years in the Corps, looked nervous, but that was normal. The man looked timid and scared no matter what he was doing. Even when he was fighting, at which he was nearly unbeatable, he always looked like he was on the verge of losing. But Lizard was a black-belt Brazilian Jiu-jitsu grappler and Nick had seen him wrestle with several team members from the other squads, and he hadn’t lost.

And even though Lizard’s commanding officers had all remarked on his pessimistic attitude, he never lost his cool. He always thought every mission would prove a failure, he always showed real fear, he always wanted to get out of the Corps, and yet he had two Bronze Stars, and he’d always re-enlisted once his contract ended. And even stranger, he had volunteered to try out for Nick’s unit, even though he’d told several of the men that he had “a bad feeling” about it.

Nick liked the quiet Puerto Rican and had served with many men like him. Men like Lizard didn’t break. They may seem too humble, they may look shaky, but they'd move heaven and earth once the chips came down. And Nick preferred men who hated danger over men who loved it. Only crazy men would enjoy regular gun work.

And, well, Nick was crazy. And so was the rest of his Primary Strike Team.

There was Truck. Truck was the nickname of a former Army Special Forces operative who had probably seen too much action. Unlike much of the team, he wasn’t a gym rat. And he wasn’t the typical, optimistic soldier either. Frankly, he was a constantly complaining cynic, but Nick appreciated him.

Truck had been kicked out of the Special Forces after he had beaten the shit out of an officer. He had avoided brig time by lying and citing PTSD as the cause of his outburst. His citations for courage, which his defense attorney had read aloud to the jury at his trial, had probably helped.

But, Truck couldn’t avoid a discharge after hurting an officer so badly, and he’d left the base in disgrace and applied for a military contractor job the same day. Men like Truck lived to carry a rifle, so he had done several more tours as a contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Eventually, he had lost that job, too, after abandoning his truck to go running up a hillside in pursuit of insurgents who had ambushed his convoy in Afghanistan. It didn’t help his case that his leadership had found him with three bodies near him, one of whom had taken a final, execution-style shot right in the forehead. Bottom line: He had abandoned his vehicle and recklessly charged a hill. Then, he’d executed a man and practically admitted that this was what had happened.

The contractor company was forced to fire him. He couldn’t get hired on with other military contractors after that; the liability was too high. Police departments wouldn’t hire him either due to his record and PTSD systems. So without further employment opportunities available, he became a truck driver back in America.

Nick had some concerns about Truck until he interviewed him following Marcus’s recommendation. Marcus had a good feeling about the guy after having spent several days with him prior to Nick’s arrival.

Nick asked dozens of brutal questions and fell practically in love with Truck. Turned out that the officer was a prick -- Nick had his CIA contact do research on the man -- and that Truck had the perfect defense for his contractor work.

“Why’d you leave the vehicle and charge the hill?” Nick asked him.

“Ah, hell, I didn’t give a shit about the truck. And I’d lost a lot of buddies over there. Those Taliban shitheads started firing at us and training took over. To hell with ignoring them and dealing with the same thing again the next day, like we’d been doing for weeks. I just decided I’d rather off them.”

Nick imagined the battle, looked over the photos provided by the company’s investigators, and concluded that he’d have done the same. And just like that, a “disgraced” former Special Forces operative was picked up and given a second chance with S3.

Besides Marcus, Isabella, Lizard, and Truck, the eight-man Primary Strike Team also had Bulldog, Preacher, and Red in it ranks.

Bulldog was appropriately named. A former Navy SEAL from the brutal streets of Baltimore, he was a giant black guy -- 6’4,” 250. The biggest man, by far, on S3, and there were some huge guys that Nick and Marcus had hired. Bulldog wasn’t just big, he was also a workout freak. He always lifted and his only apparent weakness was an inability to grow hair. So, he stayed bald and was such an intimidating beast that no one asked him a single question about it.

Preacher was the most religious man on Nick’s team. His parents had been missionaries and the 5’10” man had felt “called” to join the Marines. Nick didn’t know about being “called,” but Preacher had done four hard tours, two of them with MARSOC. And Nick knew from experience that men who joined and stayed because they felt called didn’t know how to quit or run.

Finally, there was Red. Red was a short little shit. He was 5’5” on a good day, red-headed, and covered in thousands of small freckles. About the ugliest man Nick had ever seen, but he was so confident that he had a way with the women. He was divorced, said “let’s do it” a lot, and absolutely loved to fight. In fact, absolutely loved to fight. Red had boxed a lot and Nick was always trying to keep him from jumping Bulldog or any other giant that should be able to rip him in half. But, Nick had seen him in action and wasn’t so sure.

Red was crazy, and Red had small man’s syndrome. He’d come from his fourth Marine infantry unit -- he transferred as much as he could to outgoing units headed off to war -- and had done seven tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

And that was the Primary Strike Team. Eight badasses. All killers. And they operated in two four-man teams. Nick led one of the teams, with him, Isabella, Truck, and Bulldog on it.

And Marcus’s team had Lizard, Red, and Preacher. Nick had placed Lizard with Marcus by default, since Lizard spoke Spanish and Nick already had Isabella on his team for translation duties.

And since Red was a nut-case looking to fight -- except with Nick or Marcus due to his respect for rank -- Nick placed Preacher with him. That helped balance out Red’s aggressiveness, and provided Marcus with a well-rounded fire team.

And by default, with Marcus’s team set, that left Nick with Isabella and Truck, the former Special Forces man, and Bulldog, the big Navy SEAL from Baltimore, to round it out.

Nick’s team loaded up first into the van, and then Marcus’s team followed. Nick and Marcus had argued for hours in private about which team would breach the cathedral. Nick had insisted upon leading from the front and Marcus had tried every angle in the world to convince him otherwise.

He had reminded his boss that nearly fifty men served under him and therefore Nick shouldn’t be operating as practically a point man. He had also subtly suggested that as the oldest man in the unit, Nick might not be the best person to perform the most arduous tasks.

Nick had not so subtly suggested that he’d put his most recent kill count from the past few years up against anyone else’s, and that didn’t account for the dozens and dozens of Soviet troops he had bagged in Afghanistan back in his earlier years, when he and his spotter were sold out and surrounded by more than one thousand troops.

Since neither the argument of leadership nor age had swayed Nick, Marcus finally suggested that since Nick had Isabella on his fire team, and since she had the least experience in room clearing, then Nick’s team should follow and not lead the assault.

The experience argument won out, and Nick conceded that Marcus’s team would breach the building and take the lead. Marcus also pointed out that since Nick would have to oversee the entire attack tonight by S3 and keep track of countless pieces of information, that would allow Marcus to work with his fire team more on breaches and room takedowns. And thus tonight, Marcus’s team loaded last into the van and more than likely -- if Marcus had his way -- would lead all assaults on future missions.

The van doors slammed and the vehicle’s driver -- one of the regular squad members from the squad not taking part in tonight’s op -- roared out of the alley, headlights still off. The cathedral’s entrance was only two blocks away, but the van hit nearly fifty miles per hour on the dimly lit road, before it screeched to a halt near the front steps. The van doors opened and Marcus’s four-man fire team rushed for the entrance, with Nick’s team following not far behind.

The van driver lifted his radio and said, “Primary Strike Team at the door. Snipers, be alert.”

The task of the snipers was now to keep enemy combatants in and reinforcements out.

At the door, Preacher checked the handle to confirm it was locked. He placed a demolition charge on the doorframe and backed up four feet with his team. All eight shooters of the Primary Strike Team were stacked on the wall into two sticks. Preacher clicked the detonator and the charge exploded, setting off dogs barking for a two-mile area.

Red, the number two man in the stack, threw a flashbang over Preacher’s shoulder right after the door blew off its frame, and the entire Primary Strike Team shut their eyes and turned their heads. Each wore lightweight ear plugs to help with their hearing protection and equilibrium in the heavy expected action.

The flashbang boomed and lit up the entire church and even part of the block. Marcus’s team followed the incredible concussion and blinding flash, entering the building with controlled speed.

Preacher, the lead man, turned the corner first and saw two men headed toward them, trying to react to the assault. They were partially blinded and their equilibrium shot from the flashbang, and Preacher stitched them both with his MP-5, firing two to the chest and one to the head of both men.

Red, just behind Preacher’s shoulder, caught movement from a more alert tango who had been far enough away that he hadn’t been affected by the flashbang. The man let loose with an AK in their direction before Red dropped him with four shots from his own AK-74. Of course, Red didn’t make the mistake of firing while running forward, and he had the advantage of an Aimpoint red-dot sight -- not to mention seven combat tours and some of the best Marine infantry training that a man could get. Red’s four rounds punched four holes in the man and threw him back into the wall.

Marcus’s team finished securing the sanctuary, and Nick’s team moved to the lead. They broke into pairs -- Nick with Isabella and Truck with Bulldog -- and started busting into rooms down a hallway past the sanctuary.

Each room proved empty save one. Truck and Bulldog heard movement inside a room they were about to clear, and they hit it with a flashbang and followed the explosion alert and fast.

Inside the room, two cartel men were holding their ears and reaching for weapons they’d dropped when the flashbang hit. Truck could have taken his man alive, but Truck didn’t take prisoners unless explicitly ordered, so he fired two rounds of buckshot from his twelve gauge into the man’s chest. Truck was all trigger.

Bulldog, at 6’4”, 250, loved nothing more than getting his hands on someone and using his strength that he spent hours each day improving in the gym. He dropped his weapon to the slung position across his chest and rushed the man, grabbing him and flinging him across the room into a wall.

The man’s head bounced off the concrete wall and before the man could react, Bulldog kicked him in the back of the knee with one of his massive legs. The man dropped to the ground, and Bulldog shoved his head into the wall again. This time, the collision between concrete and bone yielded an instantly knocked-out opponent and a face reformed with a broken nose and shattered facial bones. Bulldog flexcuffed his hands and feet, and Truck threw the men’s AK’s out of the room into the hall of the cathedral.

No other men were on the top level, but downstairs seven men surrendered without firing a shot. The men had heard enough firing up above, and were smart enough to know that their lack of training stood no chance against flashbangs and practiced assault teams. With the men in the downstairs basement were hundreds of crates full of cocaine.

The priest was nowhere to be found, but after the building was secure, one of the two sniper teams reported having shot a man wearing a hoodie who had tried to flee. It turned out to be the priest, but neither Nick nor the shooter felt an ounce of remorse. The man was at a minimum guilty by association and a hypocrite to boot.

More men from S3 arrived behind them and they shot loads of video of the cathedral, its drugs, and its armed cartel men lying dead throughout the place. Nick, Marcus, and the rest of the Primary Strike Team waited outside while the video and photos were taken.

“Can you believe with all that shooting -- even all those explosions -- that the police haven’t even responded?” Preacher asked, disgusted.

“The cartel would have agreements in place,” Isabella said, “for the police not to respond or investigate anything that happens at this cathedral. It’s a way of life down here, and the people in the neighborhood are aware of it.”

“They probably didn’t even bother calling it in,” Nick said.

“It’s just sad,” Preacher said. “These people have no hope.”

Red spit, his anger obvious. “They had their chances, and they have them every day. I’m not throwing them a damn pity party. They can pick up a gun and do something about these bastards.”

Preacher looked at the short, hot-headed infantryman and swallowed down any response. Before Preacher had joined MARSOC, he had been as agitated and angry as Red. Plus, Preacher had the benefit of religion. He doubted Red had ever stepped foot in a church.

Marcus stepped up by Nick and said, “You sure you want to burn it down?”

“We’re not burning anything down,” Nick said. “Place caught on fire during the firefight with the Vigilantes.”

What to do afterward had been discussed prior to the mission, but Isabella hadn’t given up on swaying Nick.

“We should call President Rivera and turn in all this coke,” she said. “Let him take partial credit for its seizure. Or he can pretend a raid elsewhere seized it. It would buy him political capital with both the American government and his people.”

“You missed the part,” Nick said, “where I said I could give two shits about President Rivera or the Mexican government. We’re here to take down this asshole Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Nick’s right,” Marcus said. “We give this stuff up and it’s just a chance for some police informer to get a look at us or pick up a clue when we do the handoff. We don’t need that risk. Plus, you know damn well that this coke would disappear from the evidence room and be back on the streets in two weeks.”

“Not everyone in Mexico is dirty,” Isabella said.

“And there’s not many naive Boy Scouts in our unit,” Nick said, “except for Preacher there. And he’d cut your throat in a heartbeat. Just might pray for you as you died.”

A couple of men laughed, and Nick said, “Burn the place, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“What about the prisoners?” Truck said. He had the look of a man who wanted to take care of the problem before they left.

Nick wasn’t to the point of executing men who were unarmed and bound. Yet.

“Marcus, get some of the men to load them up and drop ’em off at some landmark,” Nick said. “We’ll get our Mexican liaison to call President Rivera’s chief of intelligence and let them know where they are. I’m sure they’d enjoy the opportunity to interrogate them.”

Nick turned and walked toward the van, and Marcus issued orders to grab the prisoners and light the place up. They’d be leaving with several minutes dispersion between vehicles and Marcus needed to get the departure coordinated with the other two squad leaders, as well as the four scout snipers who needed to be picked up.

Nick was already dialed out of this op and planning the next, but Marcus appreciated not being micromanaged. He knew delegation was difficult for Nick, and he didn't intend to screw this exfil up.

The next day, the Vigilantes uploaded and distributed a press release and video about the church raid. Besides footage of the cocaine, dead bodies, and weapons in the cathedral, they also inserted loads of evidence against Flores and the Godesto Cartel in the video.

Isabella had spent hours finding pictures of him online in various news clippings and websites involved with the church and its priest, and she provided images of Hernan Flores attending the church and articles describing him donating loads of money to it. Plus, there were about a dozen photos of Flores and the priest together at various events.

In the end, it was a damning (and compelling) video against Flores, and it exploded online and on dozens of news stations across Mexico. Analysts and commentators broadcast and discussed the video to no end, and chat rooms across the internet began to say that perhaps Flores truly was corrupt.

Chapter 18

Billionaire Juan Soto arrived at the Presidential Palace just a few minutes after ten in the morning. Soto hated to arrive late to any meeting, especially one involving a friend, but the capital city had rings of checkpoints, blocked roads, and vehicle barriers on all routes in. Following the attack on the Presidential Palace a few weeks earlier, security had been amped up to its highest level in recent years.

Juan Soto’s limousine and two SUV escorts -- both crammed full of heavily armed bodyguards -- had to be checked and allowed through each of these security precautions, and this lengthy process had Mexico’s number one businessman running late.

The convoy finally pulled through the front gate, which was the most heavily guarded of all. The Presidential Palace had dozens of men on numerous scaffolds along its exterior, all painting and patching its heavily damaged walls. Soto observed the workers with practiced eyes. He had overseen hundreds of building and renovation projects and he wanted to confirm this was an all-out effort, not some dog-and-pony show for him and the media. He stepped from his limousine into his crowd of bodyguards and felt certain this was no matter of pretense. This was a well-organized, effective undertaking, complete with foremen yelling, architects looking over plans, and men rushing to finish assignments.

The restoration task had been given to a rival company, despite the reality that Soto owned the country’s most prestigious and sought-after construction firm. But Soto had agreed with President Rivera that it would have looked terrible to outsiders for Soto’s company to have won the job.

It did chafe Soto a bit that he was donating $10 million toward the work, and that part of his money was going to pad his competitor’s wallet, but such was life. Plus, he had bigger things to worry about right now. He ran his hand over his custom-fitted suit jacket and straightened it, entering the Presidential Palace in a hurry.

A top aide for Rivera greeted him at the door and four security men waved Soto’s bodyguards to stop. The aide escorted him down numerous halls and switchbacks to the President’s private office. The aide opened the door for him and motioned Juan Soto in.

President Roberto Rivera sat at his desk, a phone to his ear.

“Yes, General,” Rivera said, his voice slightly strained. He looked up and saw his friend and held up a finger. “That’s exactly what I want done. Now, I must go.”

Rivera hung up the phone and stood. Soto saw a sense of frustration and weariness in his friend before Rivera broke into his smile and covered his weary state with a practiced veil wielded by all great leaders -- both in business and in politics.

“It’s so good to see you,” Rivera said.

“And you, as well,” Soto said. “I know you’re extremely busy, but I wanted to stop by and congratulate you on the magnificent first strike against Hernan Flores. The Vigilantes taking down the cathedral was great, and the video was even better.”

Rivera’s practiced, fake smile went wide into the real smile Soto knew so well.

“It has only begun,” Rivera said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“It’s a bit early, but we do have something that needs to be celebrated,” Soto said with a grin.

Rivera avoided calling a staffer and walked to a cabinet and poured the drinks himself.

Soto didn’t try to stop him. He had attempted to stop the President the first couple of times that Rivera had rendered stiff drinks, insisting that no leader of Rivera’s stature should serve a constituent, but Rivera had practically ordered him to stand back and allow him to do it.

“You’re a friend and I wouldn’t be here without your support,” Rivera had said back then. “Plus, I must do something to keep myself humble. I can feel this power already going to my head.”

So on this day, Soto bit down any objections and watched Rivera pour the drinks. Soto thought back to other drinks they had shared. Their first shared drink -- at least since Rivera had reached the country’s most powerful position; they used to share them regularly before that -- transpired about three in the morning on the night of his victory. They both wanted to celebrate Rivera’s election as President alone before returning to their wives.

They had repeated the private occasion on the night that Rivera narrowly beat out his primary opponent, who had been the head of the Congress of the Union. No one expected the shaky, first-term President, even with Soto’s support, to pull off defeating their older, more statesman-like rival. Some of Rivera’s first-term supporters had even dumped him in favor of his opponent.

His rival had pushed for peace with the cartels, especially the Godesto Cartel, and the polls showed that the Mexican people desired that, also. And his earlier backers had grown lukewarm in their support of him as the violence escalated following Rivera’s strong moves against the cartels. But Rivera’s sincerity and charm had pulled in barely enough of the older Mexican voters who felt pursuing peace with the cartels was nothing short of naive and hopeless.

Rivera handed Soto a glass and lifted his own in a toast.

“To the defeat of Hernan Flores,” Rivera said.

“No. Rather, to the death of Hernan Flores,” Soto said. “We cannot allow this man to end up behind bars. He will run his cartel just as efficiently from there as he does now.”

Rivera nodded and they both swallowed their drinks.

Rivera said, “You know I can’t say that.”

“I do,” Soto said, “but had he tried to abduct your daughter, you might feel differently.”

Rivera nodded, looking down. “How is she?”

“She’s still seeing a counselor five days a week,” Soto said. “She was scared out of her mind, and she was close to several of her guards. They went with her everywhere. Recitals, school activities, etc. They probably knew her better than me.”

Rivera couldn’t meet Soto’s eyes. The near kidnapping of his number one supporter’s daughter still caused him great embarrassment. And Rivera couldn’t imagine how a kid was supposed to get over seeing men blown apart right in front of their eyes.

“How’s Camilla?” he asked lamely.

Soto shook his head.

“She still thinks we should leave the country,” Soto said. “Camilla’s a good woman, but we’ve seen a lot of death and too many close calls to count. For God’s sake, I’m traveling in an armored limousine these days, and keeping two SUVs with eight more men around me. That’s far more than I’ve had in the past. Every day is like leaving for a war zone. She worries to no end.”

Soto saw the words cutting into Rivera and knew he didn’t need to add more pressure. Being President in Mexico in good years would be a brutal job; the country was so poor and underdeveloped. But, facing down one of the most powerful cartels in the country’s history would prove too much for most.

Soto walked over and put his hand on Rivera’s shoulder.

“Just get this bastard as fast as you can, Roberto, and everything will be just fine,” Soto said.

“I will, Juan, I promise you. Just give me some more time.”

They shook hands and hugged, and both men departed feeling guilty. Soto, because he had placed additional stress on his friend, and Rivera, because he had fallen so short to date as President in his war against Hernan Flores.

Just fifteen miles away, their opposition likewise wrapped up a meeting.

Hernan Flores and the Butcher had discussed and argued about their response to such a devastating loss -- both in cocaine product and in Flores’s reputation.

In the end, they came up with the perfect response. They polished the idea and finalized their plans.

“Let’s see if we can fight their fire with fire,” Flores said, as they both stood to leave.

The Butcher smiled his sick smile and picked up his duffel bag, crammed full of gear, including his Uzi and katana swords.

Chapter 19

The Godesto Cartel was moments away from striking back at President Roberto Rivera when the phone in the Butcher’s pocket began vibrating. He debated not answering it. He knew it was Flores, and he knew what Flores wanted, but he still didn’t want to answer the phone. He took a deep breath and picked it up.

“Yes?” he asked.

“What is taking so long?” Flores asked.

The Butcher cursed under his breath. It infuriated him to no end that Flores had informants in the Butcher’s assault squads. The Butcher had always suspected some of the men informed against him to Flores, but having the proof now made the Butcher angrier. He assumed Flores used the informers to undermine him, in addition to leaking out valuable information.

These men would make it harder to eventually move against Flores and take his position as leader of the Godesto Cartel from him. And, the fact they existed also definitively proved that Flores didn’t trust him, which would make any power moves he made all the more frightening. It also meant the Butcher might need to move the timetable up since Flores could be planning to move on him first.

The number one rule of cartel politics was also the number one rule of conventional warfare: Better to be on the offense and have the initiative than be caught off guard and stuck reacting.

“Answer the question,” Flores said. “What is taking so long?”

“This is a complicated operation,” the Butcher said. “We’ll move soon.” And with that, he slammed his phone shut, then turned it off vibrate.

The Butcher looked up at his assembled men. He wondered who the informant was, but knew that was something to worry about later.

“Is everyone ready?” he asked.

Men nodded, confidence showing on their faces. Some of them flashed cruel smiles, anticipating the bloodshed.

The Butcher recognized that some were nearly as maniacal as he and he grinned back, knowing he had transformed many into his own image.

“Let’s do it then,” he said, and the group of men broke up and moved off to vehicles. They knew the plans, they knew their assignments. They were ready.

Their target was an isolated police station in Coyutla, a medium-sized city of 20,000. The city lay alone and miles from help, and while it would have been easier to hit a small police department in a tiny, rural town, that wouldn’t have been impressive enough for either Flores’s or the Butcher’s tastes. So, they were going after Coyutla in the central part of Veracruz.

The state of Veracruz lay to the east of Mexico City. The city of Coyutla supported a department of fifty police officers. On a late afternoon like today, there’d be as many as twenty of them in their headquarters. But that wouldn’t matter. Not today. Not against Flores and the Butcher.

The convoy of cars, trucks, and SUVs sped toward the police department headquarters in the heart of the city. Two of the officers from the department, who in the past had provided the Godesto Cartel with occasional warnings prior to raids, had each been paid one hundred thousand dollars cash to give detailed information about the department’s headquarters, its shifts, and its contingency plans.

The building was pretty secure because of the threats from the cartels. It utilized four steel doors with small, wire-reinforced windows as its entry and exit points, instead of more typical glass doors that looked more aesthetically pleasing and allowed in more light. The doors opened outward instead of inward, and were designed that way to make breaching them inward with a breaching tool an impossibility. They were located at the center of each side of the building: north, south, east, and west.

Each door had an overhang to protect the police officers from rain as they entered and exited, as well as two handrails. No parking was allowed near the building for fear of car bombs. But the department lacked the funding to place concrete vehicle barriers twenty feet from it, so the place lay vulnerable. But car bombs weren’t Flores’s style, and they weren’t the Butcher’s, either. Other cartels may use them, but not the Godesto.

Flores and the Butcher had better ideas for attacking this police headquarters than car bombs, which most of the people in Mexico considered cowardly and especially heinous.

The Butcher now sat in the passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner a mere block from the police department. He turned to a man in the back, who held a video camera ready for use.

“Are you ready?” the Butcher asked.

The man nodded “yes,” and the Butcher pulled up a bandana from his neck to cover his face. The rest of the men in the vehicle did so, as well.

The Butcher pulled a Motorola walkie-talkie up and said, “Begin operation. Let’s kill all of the bastards.”

In the backseat of the 4Runner, the cameraman flipped the simple Sony camcorder on and aimed it at the man across from him. The man, wearing a low baseball hat and speaking from behind a bandana-hidden face, said, “We are the Vigilantes and this is our second operation, against the evil Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. These officers of this district are all corrupt and they will die for their crimes against Mexico.”

The speaker directed the cameraman to look over his shoulder and the man turned the video recorder in time to barely catch a massive garbage truck speeding toward the door to the police headquarters across from them. An officer stood under the canopy shade, smoking as the late afternoon came to a close.

The officer heard the truck heading toward him and suddenly realized the speed and direction was a clear threat. He fumbled for his pistol. Caught off guard, his brain couldn’t decide what to do. So the man indecisively tried to do three things at once: throw the cigarette down, unholster his pistol, and jump out of the way. But his legs tried to dart left, then right, while his hands tried to desperately throw the cigarette down and get his pistol out so he could put a bullet in the driver. The man looked like a squirrel in the middle of a road that can’t decide which way to go.

So, the officer failed at each desperate attempt, and merely looked like a bumbling idiot on the video as the truck, dumpster lifted over its cab, tore through the handrails and the screaming man, its massive bulk and momentum making the task look easy.

Metal pieces, concrete chunks, and bloody limbs flew forward as the truck slammed on its brakes and bounced to a stop. The truck reversed fifteen feet and its arms dropped its big, green dumpster right in front of the door before any officers could react to the sound. The truck’s dumpster doors had been welded shut so there would be no climbing through it. And with the massive, one-ton obstacle in place, the door was utterly blocked unless someone had a couple of blocks of C4.

On the left side of the building, a second garbage truck slammed through another set of guard rails and placed its welded-shut dumpster in front of that exit, as well. This door lacked a smoker, so it was far less dramatic but just as effective.

Now, of the four doors into the police department building, two were blocked: both the one across from the Butcher and the one to his nine o'clock.

“Let’s go. Let’s go!” the Butcher screamed. His driver floored it and the 4Runner peeled out and raced into the street. As the two garbage trucks departed the scene without their cargo, the Butcher’s 4Runner and several other SUVs descended on the primary entrance, which was on the east side of the building. The west and south side of the entry was now blocked.

The first truckload of men attacked from the building’s north side. They jumped from their vehicle and ran to the opposite side of it for cover. They hoisted AK’s and M-16s and aimed toward their target. None of the officers saw this, though, as nearly every one of them had run toward the two opposite doors to investigate the crashing sounds they had heard through the walls.

The four men from the first vehicle poured fire into the door and windows of the building from its north side. The Butcher’s vehicle slid to a stop on the building’s east side, and he and the men in it jumped to the street and rushed behind it for cover. They opened up with glee, their plans working perfectly so far.

The Butcher heard automatic weapons open up to his right on the building’s north side. He smiled. Now the police officers were taking automatic fire from two sides and each opposite exit was blocked by dumpsters.

The windows for the police department headquarters were narrow, long slits -- maybe six or nine inches wide and probably eight feet tall. Designers purposefully installed slender windows to prevent onlookers from seeing in, as well as suspects from breaking out through them. From his earlier recon of the building, the Butcher had assumed a man couldn’t slide through them to escape, but he’d left a couple men watching both of the sides blocked by dumpsters just in case. They’d have no chance though. Anyone trying would have to bust out the glass, clear out the shards, and then try to slide out sideways. And in all that time while they were focused on the windows, they’d be sitting ducks for his men.

Inside the building, rounds slammed into walls and skipped off metal lockers. Officers dove for cover and slid behind desks and file cabinets.

“What the hell is going on?” one screamed.

“We’re trapped!” yelled another, who came running down the hall from one of the blocked entrances. “There are dumpsters in front of both doors!”

A rookie officer screamed, “There are about a dozen of them on this side!”

From the other side of the building, another answered, “There’s probably that many over here, too.”

Panic spread as officers waited to hear what they should do. They lay about, pistols drawn and fear growing. No manual or training exercise had instructed them on what to do if someone waged an all-out assault on the police department. After all, who would be that crazy?

A fat, soft captain, who should have been in charge, lay curled up in the fetal position, screaming his head off.

“God help us! God help us!”

And perhaps he could be forgiven. It wasn’t like he could call for reinforcements. The city was too isolated and reinforcements from the state capital of Xalapa, which sat nearly seventy miles away, would take almost an hour to arrive, at best. And that’s assuming they were loaded up and ready to go. And while some officers in Coyutla were out on patrol, no way would many of them respond to such an overwhelming attack from men so heavily armed. Given morale these days among the officers, some might drive the other direction or possibly even abandon their car, shed their uniform, and rush home for safety. Many were so scared for their family’s safety that they wore balaclavas to cover their faces when cartel facilities were raided.

Besides the captain curled up in terror, other officers sprawled under chairs and desks, or clustered in groups in the halls, hoping for safety in numbers. But the rifle fire from the two sides formed a perfect L-shaped crossfire that cut through walls and obstacles and officers. The full-size battle rifles with their military-designed ammo were doing precisely what they were issued to do: cut through reinforced buildings and wound or kill the occupants inside. And on this late afternoon, they were performing perfectly.

Screams and shrieks spread inside the building and panic set in among the officers. Some crawled toward windows to return fire with their pistols, but few could see through the windows to find a target, and those who could, quickly found themselves prime targets for the roughly twenty men on each side of the building.

It was a turkey shoot, and it was completely one-sided. A few officers, seeing the ease with which their enemies’ bullets cut through the walls, decided to fight fire with fire. They aimed at the walls at the same level of the entry holes and shot back in an attempt to mount at least some defense.

But their smaller, slower pistol rounds barely penetrated the walls and lacked the accuracy of the long weapons firing from outside. A former soldier, who was only a low-ranking police officer and had been hired barely weeks ago, couldn’t take it anymore. If their pussy, paper-pushing captain and scared-shitless, sack-of-shit sergeants wouldn’t lead, then he would.

“Let’s go!” he yelled. “We need to get to the storage lockers and grab the rifles. The SWAT Team has M-16’s stored there.”

No one responded, so he screamed it again. Louder and with more authority this time. Several officers near him crawled toward the locker and he stood to encourage others.

“Let’s go!” he screamed. “It’s our only chance!”

And like that, with the herding instinct taking hold, officers jumped to their feet to join the others. They scrambled for the desperately needed weapons. The small police department had received fifteen surplus M-16A2’s several years ago, which replaced their World War II vintage, .30 caliber M1 Carbines. The M16 rifles were shot-out hand-me-downs, which the U.S. Army had given to the Mexican Army as used weapons more than fifteen years ago. And from there, the weapons had been heavily used and beaten up by the Mexican Army for several more years until finally they were “retired,” transferred, and issued to officers in the Mexico City SWAT Team.

And finally, nearly at the end of their useful life, the weapons had received new barrels from an average armorer, who had half-assed installed them, and given them to the Coyutla Police Department. But, even with all the age, shoddy workmanship, and heavy wear and tear, they far exceeded the capabilities of the officers’ pistols. Best of all, they provided hope since the officers knew they could fight off their attackers with them.

Out in the street, the Butcher studied the scene. His men on both sides had raked the building with probably three mags apiece; some four. The Butcher calculated the carnage: roughly twenty of his men per side, so forty men total with thirty rounds per magazine, or ninety rounds per man. He rounded the ninety up to one hundred to simplify the math and estimated that almost four thousand rounds had ripped through the building.

Of the twenty officers inside, at least five were probably wounded and bleeding. He hoped his count was conservative and that the actual number of wounded was higher, but that wouldn’t matter.

“Phase two!” he yelled. “Commence phase two, and spread the word down the line.”

Some of his gunmen ceased firing and snatched duffel bags from vehicles. Three men from the Butcher’s side of attack, and four from the other flank of the “L” shape, rushed toward the building. The remaining shooters switched to single shot and more carefully fired at the building, taking care to avoid hitting their own men.

The police officers couldn’t see the action on the outside, and in the horror of the attack, they never noticed the reduction of fire. But inside the building, the prior army soldier had twelve of the officers rallied, assembled, and armed with M-16A2s.

“All right,” the former soldier said. “Pair off and set up on windows. Work together to fire back and find targets. We have to get them off us. There’s no one coming to save us.”

The officers split up and scurried toward firing positions, hunched over and low. The battle appeared to have slacked off. Rounds still snapped through, but with less frequency. Return fire from officers wielding pistols remained practically non-existent.

But with the task from the former soldier assigned, the officers felt this could all end soon. They moved forward with their M16s with purpose and confidence.

In one room, two officers -- a man and woman who normally shared a patrol car and served as partners -- scurried from the hallway through a door and toward a shot-out window inside the room. An officer lay curled up on the floor, bled out and obviously dead, but the room was otherwise empty. They moved forward bent over and alert when suddenly bullets started slicing through the room. The two dove to the ground and crawled forward the final distance.

The woman led the man and saw their opponents first.

“I see four of them behind a car,” she said. She looked out across the window, not straight through it, to keep her body behind the wall. She aimed at the one who provided the largest target, her body in the prone position at an angle to the window and six feet back, prepared to provide enfilade fire. Thus, the Butcher’s men had no idea they were in her sights.

She fired, but saw no reaction from the man, who continued to fire slow, aimed shots toward the building to his front. Then she noticed a chunk of concrete chipped off over the man’s head. Shit, she thought. The damned rifle wasn’t sighted in properly. She altered her position and aimed lower. She fired again, this time with her sights centered on the man’s sternum.

The man’s head yanked back and he fell to the ground. She missed where the impact landed, and thus had no idea if it hit the top of his head or dead center. Regardless, it was a hit and she shifted to her next target.

Above her, her partner’s weapon fired, also on single shot. He was kneeling above her and his weapon’s roar caused her ears to ring and knocked her equilibrium off balance. She shook her head to regain her senses and slid back on the tile floor. She couldn’t be in front of his barrel for any more shots.

In other rooms inside the building, other officers -- now armed with M-16s -- engaged their enemy. The fire from the previously silent building was surprising and deadly. The Butcher’s men recoiled from the lethal and savage return fire. The cops felt cornered and frightened, and their targets assaulted them from a mere forty yards away. And unlike the female’s rifle, most of the rifles were sighted in.

The Butcher’s men took to ducking and firing bursts over the tops of their vehicles, afraid to aim at the officers hidden in the shadows. Their only concern was not hitting their men who had closed with their objective.

The officers noticed their attacker's fire was no longer accurate. It now sailed high and skipped over their heads, and the officers applied themselves more fully to the task of repelling their assailants. Now, the momentum was shifting, and they focused harder and aimed truer. Indeed, a wave of relief passed through the building and the panic shifted to elation.

Some grinned. Some shouted. “Come on, you bastards. Come get some more.”

And then, then it happened. A grenade floated into one of the rooms inside the police headquarters and bounced about. Other grenades followed in other rooms, as the Butcher’s men who had rushed the building threw M67 fragmentation grenades through the narrow, shot-out windows.

The baseball-like weapons exploded with massive booms, hurling fragments in all directions. Several officers were wounded, but many more were rattled.

The Butcher emerged from behind the cover of his vehicle and laughed maniacally.

“Stay down, sir,” one of his men warned, but the Butcher didn’t move. He was bent over laughing so hard that he held his side. He coughed and said, “You stupid bastards thought you were going to be okay with your rifles. Well, we’ll see!”

And he laughed even harder, while his men at the vehicles picked up their rate of fire to cover their half-mad leader.

The cartel men against the building realized they had driven their defenders back with their frag grenades and they switched to their real weapon: tear gas grenades. The CS grenades looked like tall coke-cans and the Butcher’s men pulled the pins and threw them in windows now spewing smoke and dust from the frag grenades.

Billionaire cartel leader Hernan Flores had bought the M7A3 CS hand grenades from his Mexican Army contact, and the weapons had come straight from the supply depots of the U.S. Army. The cylindrical grenades were designed for riot control, but in an enclosed building the tear gas from them was designed to produce coughing, vomiting, and difficulty in breathing.

They also created a thick smoke that was impossible to see through, even if tears weren’t pouring out of your eyes in a feeble attempt to purge the burning chemical.

The officers had trained against CS -- it was a fairly decent-sized police department, after all -- and they rushed away from the CS fumes.

“Grab our gas masks,” someone yelled.

They knew it would be more difficult to fire their M16s or pistols accurately with gas masks on, but they had trained for that, at least some. A small group of officers huddled around the gear locker, and the former army soldier saw that his group had dwindled. Worse, some of those around him had caught quite a bit of shrapnel from the fragmentation grenades and bled or limped.

“We’re going to be all right,” he said, coughing and choking through the haze of the growing CS fog as it creeped into the hallway. “We’ll get our masks, regroup, and hang together.”

An officer removed the lock and jerked the doors open. The locker lay empty, a sheet of paper taped horizontally with the following words written in thick black magic marker: “The joke’s on you!!!”

One officer screamed “Noooo!” in terror, while two others leaned back against the hallway wall and slid to the ground, their weapons clanging to the floor. They buried their heads in their arms to try to offer relief from the tear gas.

“We can’t run,” one said between gasps. “They’ll murder us if we run out those doors.”

“Come on,” screamed the soldier. “We can’t give up.”

And then they heard the laugh, one they had heard moments before off in the distance, but it sounded closer.

The Butcher couldn’t stop laughing. His right hand held his cross-slung Uzi, which was aimed at the ground, while his left hand rested on the handle of his sword, which hung from his webgear on his left hip, handle facing forward. On his left and his right, two of his most trusted gunmen stood protecting him, their AK’s aimed down the hallway and their eyes probing for danger.

The Butcher roared with hysteria and watched through the thick fog of tear gas as officers in the hallway remained frozen, clustered, and panicked. Two locker doors hung open, revealing empty shelves and no possible hope of salvation. The tear gas was too thick for them to breathe or see or function at a level of even ten percent of their capability. They were like infants, barely able to think, move, or act.

The Butcher strode toward them, laughing gleefully. Men exactly like these police officers were responsible for arresting him, when he was a young man merely trying to earn a living. And officers no different than these in this hallway were responsible for his safety when they had disarmed him of his pistol and placed him completely unprotected in a jail full of muscle-bound animals, who hadn’t seen the light of day or a woman in years. Instead, the officers had failed to safeguard him and had allowed him to be molested and raped hundreds of times in the six years he was in prison.

Now, it was payback time...

The Butcher paused at the door, his laugh gone and his grin and eyes transformed into a psychotic mask of anger. He choked and coughed as CS tear gas emerged from the hallway. The man to his right leaned into his AK to fire at movement from the officers down the hallway, but the Butcher used his Uzi to push the man’s weapon to the right and off target.

“No!” said the Butcher. “Give me a mask, and wait on me. If I don’t come out in five minutes, grab the men and come in and kill anyone who’s still alive.”

The man on the right swallowed down his anger over having his weapon knocked to the side. He removed his finger from the trigger and lowered his weapon until it hung by its sling across his chest. He reached in his backpack and handed the Butcher a gas mask.

The Butcher turned his head and coughed, spitting out phlegm and snot caused by the CS even at this distance. He put the mask on and blocked the filter with his hand, blowing out the small amount of CS that had crept into the mask. He removed his hand and inhaled the clean, filtered air. Blinking his burning eyes, he tried to clear them of tears and pain.

He cursed himself for walking so close to the building and getting hit by his own shit. But then he remembered that he didn’t give a shit if he died. He lived every night with too many nightmares and too much anger and it was only heavy drugs that allowed him to sleep. To hell with whether he lived or not. You didn’t go through what he’d gone through in prison without coming out completely nuts.

And as he thought of the injustices and horrendous acts he had endured because of asshole officers like the ones cowering before him, rage took over. He checked the Uzi and confirmed it hung in its cross-chest sling, falling (thanks to a half-foot extension that he’d added) to the right side of his right leg. It lay against the side of his right quad, out of the way, but also where he could grab it quickly with his firing hand if needed.

The Butcher reached for the handle of his Japanese katana on his left side, which faced forward and extended beyond his waist by about six inches. He pulled it from its sheath and entered the building. He moved down the hall, staying close to the wall. He didn’t want to catch a bullet moving down its center, but no shots came from the building. Likewise, his men had ceased firing after the signal had been passed that their leader had entered.

It was eerily quiet following all the gunfire, with the exception of gagging and choking. Thick CS clouds drifted down the hall, searching for the opened door that he had entered. Other than the gagging, a few officers whispered and argued up ahead, but compared to the eardrum-shattering firing from earlier, this was blissful serenity.

The Butcher tiptoed down the hall, his rubber-soled boots silent. He saw an open door on his right. He quietly sheathed the sword so that he didn’t enter the room with it extended before him, which would have provided early warning to his entry and allowed someone the possibility to grab the blade if they passed on shooting him.

He gripped his Uzi and slowly pulled it up to his shoulder, creeping through the door, his body lowered and his split-toe ninja boots providing not a sound on the tiled floor. The room looked devastated. Glass fragments littered the floor. Wood splinters, concrete chunks, and scattered papers added to the mayhem.

An officer lay near the window in a wide pool of blood, an M-16 lying under him. Standing behind him, bent over and choking on the gas, stood another male police officer. The man’s left arm rested on his knee, supporting his horizontal upper body, while his right hand furiously dug and wiped at his burning eyes.

The room was otherwise empty and the Butcher switched instantly from stalking hunter to ferocious predator. He let the Uzi fall back to the side of his leg and grabbed the sword sheath with his left hand, gripping the katana handle with his right. He expertly removed it in less than half a second and shot forward, his ninja boots now making a lot of noise on the glass shards as he sprinted forward.

The officer looked up at the noise, but could barely see anything through his burning eyes.

The Butcher grasped the sword in a powerful two-hand hold and scrambled the final few feet. Before the officer could react, he plunged the sword into his side with a straight thrust, burying it to the hilt. The sword burst out the man’s side and the officer shrieked in pain. The Butcher drove his shoulder into the man’s shoulder and stopped suddenly, yanking back on the sword to free it from the man’s body.

Blood gushed down the blade’s shaft and streamed from the sword guard above the grip. The Butcher hadn’t picked up many of the peaceful aspects of all the martial arts that he’d studied, but he had learned part of the philosophy: living in the moment. And as the blood spread across the tiles in a growing puddle below the sword, the Butcher took it all in, living in the moment and seeing everything, just as he had been trained.

His sword hadn’t moved since he had withdrawn it from the officer, and the Butcher watched the blood on his blade slow from a steady stream to a fast drip. Pounding footsteps racing down the hall broke him from his trance.

Someone was running toward him.

The Butcher slithered away from the draining body and pool of blood toward the wall behind him, just inside of the door. He waited behind the door, his sword held over his head.

“Eduardo!” a man screamed, before coughing and sliding to a halt atop of some debris at the door. “Eduardo, are you okay?”

The man entered the room, cautious now, a Glock 9 mm pistol stretched before him. He wore a T-shirt wrapped around his mouth and nose, but his eyes looked red and painful.

The Butcher admired the man’s resourcefulness in wrapping a shirt around his mouth and nose and chalked up the man’s ability to respond so quickly to this one small improvisation. But the man looked functional enough to fight and as the officer turned his sight from the empty side of the room to the corner to his left that he should have cleared, the Butcher struck.

He stepped forward, dropped his entire body weight six inches, and swung the sword with all his might down from its maximum height to the floor. The blade raced downward in a practiced and powerful arc and hit the man behind the pistol across both arms, roughly where the elbows were.

The forged steel katana cut through the man’s left arm at the elbow, after deflecting off a bone in his upper arm, while on the right arm it cut two inches deep and shattered bone in the forearm before stopping. Both men watched the left forearm hang for a moment because of its grip on the pistol, before falling to the floor. Blood burst out of the man’s severed arm.

The officer knew he was badly injured, but couldn’t believe his left arm had been sheared off. After all, it didn’t even hurt, while the right arm throbbed in pain.

The Butcher stepped from behind the door, aimed the sword’s blade to the rear, and drove the handle into the man’s face. It crashed just below his eye and fragmented bone as if it were a pool cue. The cop screamed in pain. As he toppled backward into the hall, he realized that his left arm was definitely gone and his right arm couldn’t even hold the pistol, which had clanged to the floor.

He kept screaming as he fell hard back in the hallway. He was completely defenseless now, a dead man still breathing, but he tried to use his one remaining hand to help him to his feet.

“No!” he screamed, upright now in the sitting position. But the Butcher was rushing forward with blinding speed. He swung the sword to the rear, almost as if it were a baseball bat, and then swung as hard as he could at the man’s neck, fully intending to behead the man -- a feat he knew to be possible since he’d done it to the guard at the ground floor of Flores’s office.

But his foot slid on glass and blood and he failed to gain enough torque, so the blade cut through the side of the man’s neck and stopped after it hit the spine. The blow to the spine sent a spasm of pain throughout the man’s body and effectively ended all muscular control. The officer smashed to the ground, hitting his head on the wall on the way down.

Blood gushed from the officer’s neck and arms and the Butcher knew the man would bleed out in thirty seconds at most. Firing began off in the distance, at least a quarter of a mile from the police department headquarters, but the Butcher didn’t worry. He’d stationed men to ambush any police officers who responded to the attack. They should be able to easily stop any officers responding.

The Butcher heard movement down the hall and turned to see the cluster of officers, who he’d seen earlier, were bringing up weapons and aiming in his direction. He had totally forgotten about them once he had entered the room earlier. He’d gotten so caught up in the slaughter that he’d lost his situational awareness and hadn’t even noticed that he had moved into the open hallway.

But now, the officers down the hall were yelling with strained voices and bringing their weapons to bear. They couldn’t see shit with the thick gas burning their eyes, but the Butcher didn’t kid himself. They had automatic weapons and would be firing down a narrow hallway. Even poorly aimed bullets would ricochet and continue down the hallway in a deadly vortex.

Too little time remained for the Butcher to turn and dart back into the room, so he released the sword with his right hand and kept it under control with his left. He then used his right hand to grab the Uzi and stretch it out to the right as he dove for the ground. He shoulder-rolled and fired off a long burst of fire down the hall as he tumbled lightly across the tiled floor.

All of these actions -- from changing his primary weapon from sword to Uzi, to diving to the ground -- were smooth, agile, and graceful. They were the kind of actions that result from thousands of hours of practice, and the Butcher had indeed put that much time into his craft. Even on dives, rolls, and falls. What ninja didn’t?

The Butcher had additionally created his own form of modern-day kata, practicing transitions from wielding his sword to grabbing up his slung Uzi, something his predecessors in the 1600s hadn’t had to worry about.

The Butcher had spent thousands of hours mastering his craft, and he’d perfected nearly every part of the technical aspect of martial arts. He could kick, strike, and flip with the best of them.

He’d picked up practically every skill of the martial arts except for the most important one: the concept of peacefulness.

The Butcher’s Uzi was firing before he landed softly on the bloody and debris-littered floor. His Uzi kicked and sputtered out a hail of bullets down the hallway. Most missed, but the ricochets and snapping of bullets striking within mere feet of their intended target forced the officers to likewise dive for safety.

The Butcher’s men yelled to him from outside the building.

“Lider! Lider!”

“Leader, leader,” he heard over the sound of returning gunfire.

The Butcher turned toward them, still on the ground. He knew they wouldn’t yell for him unless it was important, so he pushed his Uzi out in front of him and with the sword still in his left hand, he began to crawl toward them.

“Cover me,” he said through his gasmask.

Two of the Butcher’s men appeared just inside the doorway and they lay a withering fire down the hall through the smoke. It was heavy, long-rifle fire from their AK’s and the sound drowned out even the Butcher’s ability to think. The roar of the firing and the accuracy of their shots provided the Butcher with the cover he needed.

He crawled within ten feet of the doors and then ripped off the uncomfortable gas mask. It hindered his ability to breath and obstructed his peripheral vision. He threw it to the ground and slid the final distance to the door.

“The army is coming,” one of his men said.

The Butcher needed no further urging. He jumped to his feet, re-sheathed his sword, and yelled to his men, “Finish it.”

His man said something into the radio and more than a dozen of the Butcher’s gunmen came running toward the entrance. They quickly donned gas masks, organized themselves, and redistributed ammunition and grenades. Then with a nod from one of their leaders, they lobbed a frag grenade down the hall, waited for it to explode, and followed the screams of pain and panic into the building.

The Butcher heard the muffled yells of his men, and the screams of wounded police officers as his killers worked their way methodically through the building, room by room, grenades first, then half a magazine into some unfortunate soul.

The Butcher ordered his remaining men outside the building to collect the wounded and dead and turn their convoy around. While his men finished their assault, the vehicles pulled up by the door.

Once all the officers were killed, they collected the M-16s from the officers and several cases of ammo, quickly loading them into the vehicles. The Butcher watched his men as they worked together, while also coordinating their security, watching sectors, windows, and roads.

This was it. This, these finely trained killers, were the secret to Flores and the Godesto Cartel’s power, as well as the answer to how Flores’s cartel had climbed to the heights of power among other cartels. How it had ascended above all others and secured agreements in which each of its “peers” respected it, feared it, and paid tribute to it.

Flores, under the Butcher’s leadership, had thirty-plus stone-cold killers. Well, a few less after this vicious attack, but there were more men raring to join the ranks for the increased pay and prestige. There always would be.

And these men truly were stone cold killers. Men who could kill unarmed men who had done no wrong or committed no crime.

Other cartels had plenty of muscle. Men who’d defend their leaders or burn a building down or stand tall in a gunfight if their backs were to the wall. But outright murder for no reason other than just orders? Most cartels only had one or two men that demented and sick in the head.

Flores had two dozen. Or, at least he used to, the Butcher thought, as several lifeless bodies were tossed into the backs of trucks. These rare killers were the Butcher’s men now, and they would strike when the Butcher told them to, not when Flores ordered. After all, he had nearly convinced them that the old man was past his prime and too conservative.

“Mount up,” the Butcher yelled. “We stay close together and we fight our way out of anything that gets in our way. We’re not leaving anyone behind or playing any ‘every man for himself’ bullshit. If the Army gets in our way, we either dodge them or go through them. Now, let’s go.”

The Butcher jumped into the backseat of the lead SUV, reloaded his Uzi, and sat back. Then he noticed blood from the officers he had hacked and stabbed, thickly staining the front of his shirt. And as the vehicles raced out of the city of Coyutla, the Butcher ran his fingers through the blood of his enemies and he licked it off his fingers.

It was a taste he never grew tired of.

Chapter 20

Dwayne Marcus looked as shocked as Nick Woods felt.

Isabella had grabbed Nick and Marcus for a leadership-only meeting earlier and shown them a local news station report that she had recorded.

With the two leaders of S3 in the room, she hit play and watched a busty newscaster in a low-cut dress begin speaking with a graphic over her shoulder that said “cartel.” The newscaster stopped speaking and the camera switched from her to an amateur video.

The video showed a bandana-wearing man in the back of some kind of SUV. He began speaking and Nick and Marcus couldn’t pick up the Spanish.

“What’s he saying?” Nick asked impatiently.

Isabella translated for them. “‘We are the Vigilantes and this is our second operation, against the evil Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. These officers of this district are all corrupt and they will die for their crimes against Mexico.’”

Nick looked at Marcus.

“I know this isn’t possible, but just to be sure, we didn’t have an operation happen that I didn’t know of, did we?”

“Of course not,” Marcus said. He looked offended.

They watched as the video -- uncut and unedited by the news station -- showed parts of a vicious firefight against a police station.

“Is it true?” Nick asked. “We need to find out from the police or someone in government if this actually happened.”

Isabella nodded. “I’m on it.”

“Oh,” Nick said, “and gather the Primary Strike Team in a room with a TV and get this set up to play.”

Isabella nodded, and Nick noticed her hips as she walked off, despite trying not to. He turned quickly and refocused his attention on Marcus.

Forty minutes later, the Primary Strike Team was assembled and watching the video, with Nick and Marcus standing behind them. The nearly identical look of “the Vigilantes,” as well as the brutality of the strike on the police station, had shocked the team members just as it had shocked Nick and Marcus. Unfortunately, they looked precisely as the members of S3 had looked in their first video. Whoever put the video together had made sure their men looked the same, recorded the video in the same style, the whole nine yards. And the worst thing was that nearly every news station in the country was playing the video of “the Vigilantes” assaulting the police station in Coyutla.

“Is this true?” asked Lizard, who looked scared. “Did it really happen?”

Isabella assured him that it did.

Nick knew the background to Isabella’s answer; he had personally followed up with her. On the one hand, he’d wanted to confirm the information. But more than just that, he had wanted to see Isabella again. Watching her walk off had awakened something in him that he hadn’t thought much of since Anne’s death.

Nick had tracked her down and found her scribbling down some notes on a legal pad. He had stood closer to her than he had ever been. He had liked how nervous and alive he felt standing that close to her, and he had listened, as detached as he could manage, when she looked up and explained that she had supervised an outboard call from their Mexican contact. She stated in a voice that seemed a bit nervous that she had let him borrow one of the sophisticated CIA-issued phones that were supposedly impossible to track or trace. Isabella relayed to Nick that the Mexican contact’s superiors were furious because they believed that Nick’s group had conducted the police-department raid -- the video tape looked that authentic.

Nick had enjoyed -- a little too much -- looking into Isabella’s big, brown eyes as she made her report and he had strained to keep his face stern and uncaring. The news truly was bad, and yet standing next to her, it all just didn’t seem to matter as much as it had literally ten minutes earlier. Nick had managed to finish the conversation with a curt nod and nary a word.

Suddenly, Nick came back to the present and realized that Isabella and the rest of the team were looking at him and that his mind had drifted from the task at hand.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I’ve got something I’m working over in my mind. Marcus, would you take care of this?”

Marcus moved through the group and stood in front of the TV.

“Our Mexican counterparts,” Marcus said, “have confirmed that this raid did in fact happen. They’re confirming the body count and making sure no officers, who were on duty at the time, were abducted instead of just killed.”

Marcus was in what Nick called his drill instructor stance. His legs were spread shoulder-length apart, his fingers clasped together in front of him at stomach height. Nick had never met anyone with such 24/7 bearing, and Nick knew he was lucky to have such a man helping command this group of talented killers that comprised Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter. The men were so skilled and experienced that it was easy to be intimidated by the task of trying to set the example and not look a total fool.

Truck, with his shaved head, big arms, and slight gut, was nursing a beer, but he cleared his throat and said, “Nobody ever said those sons of bitches weren’t smart.”

Nick knew he had to keep an eye on Truck and his drinking, but alcohol was just something that went with being a killer. You usually turned to alcohol, like Truck, or seclusion, like Nick, or faith, like Preacher. Preacher was sitting off to the side and had been visibly angry during the video footage of the bloody and wrecked police station. Preacher hated bullies, and the assault on the police headquarters had been an entirely one-sided affair with heavily armed assailants on one side and barely trained, mostly pistol-armed cops on the other.

“Fuck it,” Red said, starting to stand. “Smart or not, I’m ready to tangle with these assholes. You got a target we can go out and hit?”

Marcus shook his head “no,” and Red sat back again.

Nick loved the cocky, smallest member of their Primary Strike Team. And he appreciated the fact that Red was sitting on a couch next to the biggest, most intimidating member of the team: the giant powerlifter Bulldog.

True to character, Bulldog sat on the couch in a tank top that showed off his eighteen-inch arms and had a protein shake in one hand and a grip trainer in the other. He was squeezing the grip spring mercilessly and Nick hated to think how bad the Navy SEAL from the rough streets of Baltimore would mess someone up in a hand-to-hand fight. Correction, Nick remembered, the man had already fed one Godesto Cartel member a concrete wall, rearranging the man’s face for good.

“We need to immediately air a response denying this,” Isabella said. “Claim it wasn’t the real Vigilantes, but some copycat attempt.”

“Great idea,” Nick said from the back of the room. He was a little pissed that he hadn’t thought of it first. “Make it happen, Isabella, and grab whoever you need to help you get it done. Besides releasing it to the media, make sure we get it up on the website. We don’t need our name trashed by this bullshit. Lizard, get your gear on and grab a bandana. We’ll need you to do the talking.”

Lizard and Isabella hurried out and Nick looked to the front of the room.

“Marcus, go walk the lines,” he said. “Make sure everyone is alert. The rest of you either need to be practicing assault drills or getting some PT in. We need to be as sharp as we can be for when we finally figure out where this piece of shit Flores is hiding out.”

Nick watched his Primary Strike Team leave the room and felt the strength of the men and women selected for this task. They were as smart as they were talented. Nick didn’t know where old, fat-ass Flores was hiding, but when they found him, the man would be in a heap of trouble.

Chapter 21

Nick Woods and his team members weren’t the only ones upset about the tape.

Juan Soto and President Rivera were having another meeting, though this one was in a conference room with just the two of them, and this one was much less pleasant than their most recent congratulatory visit after the raid on the cathedral. There’d be no drinks lifted in this one, both men knew.

They’d already been arguing back and forth for five minutes and both were to their breaking point, since neither was usually challenged in their respective organizations.

“This is a catastrophe,” Soto said. He’d already said it several times, but he was avoiding saying what he wanted to say. What he needed to say.

“I know it’s a catastrophe,” Rivera said, saying it much too hard.

“I tried to support you on the Vigilante idea, but already they’ve gone too far.”

“This wasn’t the Vigilantes themselves,” Rivera said. “I’ve confirmed that.”

“Great,” Soto said. “So we have more than one group of them out there, operating on their own, outside of the law. The goal was to bring the country back under the rule of law, Roberto, not the opposite, where bands of armed citizens fight it out against cartels and corrupt police officers. How will this lead to tourism and future business investment? How? Just how?”

“This wasn’t the work of citizens, Juan,” Rivera said again. “And this wasn’t the work of the Vigilantes. It was Hernan Flores, using his own people in a strike against our own forces. He knows he must turn the people against the Vigilantes. Flores knows what a threat they are to him.”

“The people don’t know that the Vigilantes didn’t do this. Don’t you see that?” Soto said, his own voice too loud.

Rivera turned away, his anger rising. He took a deep breath and turned toward his friend.

“What do you want me to do, Juan?”

“Tell the Vigilantes to go away,” Soto said. “They’re American Special Forces, aren’t they? Send them away. Ask America for continued assistance in weapons and training, but that’s it. We can win this fight on our own.”

Rivera leapt to his feet.

“We tried to solve it on our own for five years, Juan! Have you forgotten nearly losing our re-election bid? Or the ambush and attack on our Presidential Palace? They assaulted and damn near took over our government headquarters. How much closer must we let them get? They’re in our capital city and at our front gate.”

“How dare you accuse me of forgetting,” Juan said, though he managed to keep his seat. “It’s not your daughter who was nearly abducted.”

Both men turned away and waited, fuming.

“I’m sorry,” Rivera finally said.

“Don’t apologize,” Soto answered, barely meaning it. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper either.”

“These are hard times,” Rivera said.

“Of course they’re hard times,” Soto said. “When hasn’t it been hard times?”

“What do you want me to do, Juan? Please, say what you came to say.”

“At a minimum, bring these Americans into the fold,” Soto said. “Force them into Mexican uniforms and under your control.”

“They won’t do that,” Rivera said. “I’ve tried that already. They operate independently and their leader is crazy.”

The President of Mexico looked off at a painting from the war that gained Mexico independence from Spain. It showed men and horses charging forward into smoke and cannon fire. Rivera looked back at his friend.

“Juan, they lost most of a Navy SEAL Team just a few weeks ago. They’re not going to come in again under Mexican authority. They know we have too many leaks. And honestly, I don’t blame them for not coming in.”

“Then ask them to leave,” Juan said, standing as well. “And issue a warrant for Hernan Flores’s arrest. Let’s follow the rule of law, whether Flores does or not.”

“That won't work,” Rivera said.

“It has to work,” Juan said, his voice raised again.

“He will just run the Godesto from inside. You know we barely control the prisons. Those officers are the most corrupt we have. I haven't even tried to fix the problems there. They’re that bad.”

“We have to follow the law,” Juan said.

“We haven’t followed the law in years,” Rivera said.

“Then it’s a good time to start. Think long term, Rivera. Do we want Mexico to always be a country that follows the rules only when it’s convenient?”

“I’ve been more honest and ethical than any of my predecessors,” Rivera said, defensively. “And you know that.”

“I’m sorry,” Soto said. “You’re right. You have.”

“I’ll think about what you have said,” Rivera said. “I may consider issuing a warrant, and I may ask them to stop working as Vigilantes and at least put on Mexican uniforms, but I will not ask the Americans to come in under my authority.”

Rivera turned away and looked at a painting on the opposite wall, this one from the Mexican-American War.

“My aide will show you out,” he said without looking at his friend. Rivera could barely contain his frustration.

Juan didn’t want to leave with such a cold feeling between them. He walked up to Rivera and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“I believe in you, brother. We must do what’s right. We must return to the purity you campaigned on. The people believe in you, and thousands of officers do as well. Give them something to believe in. Issue a warrant, go public with a big reward, and arrest this man.”

Rivera nodded, but refused to look back at his friend. Juan Soto patted his friend on the shoulder again and exited the room, feeling unhappy about how the conversation had gone down, but hopeful about the possible outcome.

Chapter 22

President Roberto Rivera strode up to the lectern. He approached it in a rehearsed walk that his advisors believed displayed grave seriousness, with just a touch of confidence. Cameras flashed. Every network station not already broadcasting his arrival cut from their regular programming to the show the Presidential press conference.

Rivera reached the microphone and stood tall, staring out at the media horde with his head held high and his chin up. It was his most assured look and advisors, focus groups, and women -- that most important demographic of all -- claimed the stance was their favorite. It was his display of command and it donned posters, websites, and billboards. Rivera practiced it often and he nailed the position again on this day, holding it for long second before beginning.

“I come before the Mexican people today to make an important declaration.

“When I decided to run for President, a single issue compelled my candidacy: crime. Specifically, cartel violence, since it is the root of most crime. Cartel money and influence leads to untold amounts of violence against the Mexican state and Mexican people.

“I made reducing this plague against our country my number one goal during my campaign -- no matter the cost -- and you, the Mexican people, saw fit to elect me to right this wrong. We spent the better part of my first four years cleaning out our government offices of those who were corrupt, weak, and without morals. The cartels had informants that ran the gamut from our police departments to our military units to our judicial courts. My government could literally make no move without the cartels being two steps ahead. Sometimes three.

“But despite the limited success of those first four years, you, the people, placed great faith in me. You, the people, saw fit to re-elect me, despite a strong opponent running against me on the precisely opposite platform. My opponent ran on peace and I ran on war, but this is a war that I maintain we must fight. It’s a war we must win. My re-election platform, just like my initial election platform, was for a single cause: to right this wrong.

“I have focused on the dangers posed by cartels every single day of my presidency, and it is with great pride that I say today that we are announcing our biggest blow to our enemies yet. This case will prove to be a major strike against the cartels that threaten both our government and our way of life.

“As we speak, officers from the Attorney General's office are filing charges against businessman and philanthropist Hernan Flores. While I know many of you may be shocked to hear this news, we have clear and convincing proof that Flores is the lead man of the largest cartel in Mexico. The Godesto Cartel.

“The Mexican Attorney General will step out in a moment to lay out all the charges against him, and I assure you they are many. They range from treason to murder. More than three hundred of them, actually. Yes. I mean three hundred murders.

“I know Flores has always maintained his innocence. To him, I would say that if you are truly innocent, then come forward and stand trial. You will have the opportunity to prove your innocence. You will have a chance to clear your name once and for all.

“Unfortunately, I feel confident that Flores will not stand trial. I think Flores will react differently, and I think his actions to this news will confirm what we in the government have known for years: Flores is no philanthropist or business leader. He’s a maniac who threatens the very existence of what we hold dear.

“In fact, we think he will either go on the run or hide out. Therefore, the Attorney General and I have agreed that setting a reward for information on his whereabouts is appropriate. Thus, the government of the Mexican people is offering a $10 million reward for anyone that has information that helps lead to his arrest.

“Now with that, let me allow my Attorney General to share with you a detailed presentation against Hernan Flores and answer any questions you may have.”

President Roberto Rivera stood tall again, raised his head, and allowed the photographers present to snap some final shots. He then turned and walked away, shaking hands with his Attorney General as the man approached the lectern.

Rivera mentally congratulated himself for nailing the press conference. Juan Soto would be pleased, and actually saying the words -- and doing what the law required -- felt immensely rewarding. And right.

Soto had been correct about following the rule of law, and Rivera felt so much better now that he had decided to recommit himself to that rule of law. Part one of his deal with his billionaire friend was over. He had issued an arrest warrant and was now on the way down the road to incarcerating him.

Part two might be more difficult. How was he to tell the Americans he had changed his mind? That he no longer wanted them in his country, risking their lives, as Vigilantes? He would have to put some thought into how to do this. It wouldn’t be simple.

Back at the farm where Nick’s unit was based, Isabella received a text from a friend with a news station about an upcoming press conference involving the President. She set out to alert Nick.

As she walked down the hall to pass along the news, she secretly hoped Nick would be alone in his office.

Things had changed. Nick had grown softer with her, and she had finally understood his gruff behavior was a means to keep her at a distance.

She then had a better idea and stopped, heading back to her room. Inside her room, she took off a loose, button-up dress shirt, which she liked but which was too conservative for what she now envisioned. The button-up dress shirt was good for wearing around the men, who were always ogling her, but not the right top for what she had in mind with this opportunity -- a rare chance to be alone with Nick, in a room with no spectators, and with luck, no Marcus.

She looked at her thin, toned body in the mirror, then hung the shirt on a hanger and put it in the closet. She pulled a small, white knit shirt from a dresser drawer and wrenched the shirt on, tugging out the wrinkles -- it was definitely tight.

She glanced in the mirror again and saw her figure highlighted by the tight shirt, and her upper arms showing as well, below the short sleeves.

She smiled, opened the door, and stepped off for Nick’s office. She rushed down the hall and thankfully avoided any of the men. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Nick Woods was in the middle of his fifth set of pull-ups. He had asked some of the men to find the studs and install a pull-up bar shortly after they moved into the farm. He was on his thirteenth rep of the fifth set when someone knocked on the door.

“Hang on,” he yelled, then eked out two more. He dropped to the floor and flexed his hands -- his hands bothered him as much on pull-ups as his arms did. It was just a lot of weight to put on one’s hands, and the sheer mass of your body prevented any blood flow from reaching the ends of the fingers.

Nick slapped his hands together a few times and in his command voice said, “Come in.”

The door opened and Isabella stood there. She wore a tight-fitting white top and her typically tight blue jeans.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “and I should have found a different top to throw on,” she added, putting her hands in front of her breasts. “I was in the middle of exercising when I got some important news that I wanted to get to you as quickly as I could,” Isabella said, crossing her arms in front of her.

The shirt was so tight that Nick could make out the curve of her breasts. He wiped his arm across his forehead and said, “I understand. I was doing the same.” He nodded back to the pull-up bar.

She smiled, a bit too wide, and Nick saw her perfect, white teeth. He hated how much he enjoyed her being in the room like this. He broke his eyes away and looked down, noticing he wore a pair of shorts and a tight T-shirt that wrapped around his chest and arms tighter than he remembered.

“I guess,” he said, pointing down to his clothing, “as long as you don’t mind, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, quickly. She closed the door and walked toward him.

“What’s the news?” he asked, fully aware that the door was closed and she now stood mere feet away.

“A media contact of mine texted me to say the President would be holding a press conference in,” she looked down at her watch, and Nick couldn’t miss her breast moving when she did, “about forty-five minutes.”

“Do we know what it’s about?”

“We don’t,” Isabella said. “But I asked my contact to let me know the minute she finds out. Yet, as she said, this is an unscheduled press conference. With the President. It’ll be a big deal.”

“We should round up the Strike Team pulled together and watch it together.”

“Agreed,” she said, turning to leave.

“Isabella?”

She stopped.

He hesitated. “Uh, thanks for getting me the news so quickly.”

She smiled. “Was there anything else?” she asked, raising her eyebrows provocatively.

Nick stood there like an idiot. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d never dated a Latina woman; had barely even been around many in the backwater part of East Tennessee where he’d been raised. But her bronze skin, full hips, and nice breasts were a sight he didn’t want to forget. She most certainly was more than just a set of deep brown eyes, which she’d proved more than once. But, this? This he had never seen. Never even imagined.

Nick looked down, embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” she said.

He looked up at her, hating that she had so perfectly followed his eyes. And worse, his thoughts.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just been a while since I’ve been around many women. Spent a lot of time alone in Montana after I lost my wife.”

“I know,” she said, walking toward him. “Marcus told me your story. You’re quite famous. And really heroic.”

“I just did what any man would do who saw his wife gunned down. And while my story is famous, my face isn’t. Allen Green made sure no photos were ever published of me in his book and on all those interviews.”

“Well,” Isabella said, dropping her eyes down his body, “if they had published any pictures of you, then you’d have been much more famous than you already are.”

Nick tried to ignore her looks.

“Well, long while or not since I’ve seen a good looking woman, it still ain’t right, me being a commander and all, looking at a person in his unit like that. They call that fraternization in the American military. Strictly against the rules.”

“It’s okay,” Isabella said.

Nick turned from her.

“Ever since my wife died, I just --” He shook his head. “Well, I tried to get away from it all by living in Montana, but then learned that I needed to re-emerge and be a part of society or I would go crazy.” He stopped and looked back at her. “I just.” He paused. “I try not to --”

Isabella raised her eyebrows with a slight smile.

He shook his head with a laugh. “I try not to even notice them. I stupidly thought that if I threw myself hard enough into duty, I could forget about them for good.”

“Can’t live with us, can’t live without us,” Isabella said, crossing her arms and shrugging, moving her breasts in a way that Nick felt confident was no accident.

“Right,” Nick said, turning away again. He felt himself blushing. He swallowed, tried to regain control, and faced her again. “Thanks again for the news and call together the team,” he said, back in his typical Nick voice.

She was looking at him again. Her eyes dropped from his face down to his chest. They didn’t stop there.

Nick stepped back. If he could have gotten behind a desk without looking like a coward, he would have.

“Sorry I made all this get weird,” Nick said, taking yet another step back and putting his hands on his hips. He felt more in control now, the danger averted.

“We can’t have this in a unit,” he said, his voice deeper and more like the voice he was familiar with. “We need to pretend this didn’t happen.” He made the last statement definitive.

“Or we can acknowledge that it did,” she said, stepping toward him. She walked up and placed her hand on his forearm.

Nick stepped back, taken aback by her aggressiveness, and wondered how he’d never noticed her signals before. Perhaps he’d been too much of an ass, trying to treat her like the men. Somehow, he had missed the clues.

“I’m not ready for this,” he said, but he didn’t yank his forearm back. Her hand felt too good. “I just need you to understand that it’s been hard for me to get over Anne.”

“I understand,” she said, “but at some point you need to move on. Even she would want that.”

Nick met Isabella’s brown eyes and she slid her hand further up his arm, to his elbow. Her fingers felt light, soft, and inviting.

Isabella could barely control herself. He stood there, so tall, so magnificent, so rugged. And his clumsiness made him even more attractive to her. This was a real man. The kind of man who’d work all day in the fields and come home with a six-pack of beer, not a dozen roses.

Men like him weren’t much for words or romance, but they understood grit. And they’d stick when things went south. In a world full of men who whitened their teeth and shaved their chest, this man appealed to her like old, worn leather. He was from a different period.

A lion, still fierce, but a drifter. He had nothing left to prove -- he had already lived a dozen lifetimes, and carried the physical and emotional scars like a weight around his neck -- and yet he had so much fight left. So much more living to do and even a passing glance at him would tell a stranger that he intended to live it.

A man like him didn’t know how to quit or retire or back down. Like a wandering lion, he was okay avoiding the confrontation of other males eager to prove their strength, but he would not back down if cornered. Or if duty called.

They didn’t make them like Nick Woods anymore, and Isabella couldn’t shake the thought of what a man of his strength would be like. It was something she wanted to experience more than she could possibly explain.

He stepped back again, hitting the wall, but appearing to gain control of himself.

“I can’t do this with a woman I’m in command of,” he said.

Isabella smiled. She knew she had him. She stepped forward again. “And in six months, you won’t be in command of me,” she said.

She stepped against him and ran her hand from his elbow up to his upper arm.

“I’m not ready for a relationship,” Nick said.

“And I’m not looking for one.”

She moved her face just inches from his and she could smell the light sweat of his body. She placed her hand on his chest and moved in, kissing him lightly. She pulled back and allowed her hand to drift down his chest to his abs.

She lightly kissed him again and then turned and walked away, as if nothing had happened. But, as she opened the door, she looked back at him and smiled -- a smile so wide and inviting that she couldn’t possibly have faked something so real.

“I’ll round up the men,” she said, and then looked down at his lower abs and raised her eyebrows again, laughing as she left.

Nick stood there, completely floored. He could feel every single place her fingers had touched, from his forearm, to his elbow, to his arms and chest and stomach. And the way she had just looked at him… He shuddered.

His senses felt as alive as they had felt in a long time and he stood straighter, feeling better about himself than he’d felt in years.

“Nothing like a little romance to get the confidence back,” he thought. Then he tried to suppress the thought. “Enough of that. Get your head back in the game, Nick.”

But he couldn’t shake a single thought: If the opportunity arose, he might just go for it.

Forty minutes later, the Primary Strike Team finished watching President Rivera’s press conference. Nick stood as far away from Isabella as he could, and he wondered if any of the men could read the thoughts he had running through his mind.

This new attraction to Isabella was the last thing he needed. They were in the middle of a war, for Christ’s sake.

When the press conference ended, Dwayne Marcus said, “This isn’t good.”

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Nick said. “But I for damn sure don’t like being surprised like this. I thought we were on the same page with the President, and no plan I’m aware of involved an arrest warrant for this piece of garbage.”

“We won’t have to wait long to find out,” Marcus said. “Probably either Mr. Smith or someone from the Mexican government will be contacting us soon.”

Chapter 23

Marcus’s prediction proved true. Mr. Smith called Nick on his secure, encrypted phone three hours after the press conference.

“President Rivera wants to meet with you,” Smith said.

“Tough luck,” Nick said.

“Nick, don’t be this way.”

“First of all, I don’t do diplomacy,” Nick said. “Secondly, we’re in a secure location and we’re not giving up where we are so we can be followed back -- either by President Rivera’s police or Hernan Flores’s people.”

“President Rivera wouldn’t follow you,” Smith said. “You’re forgetting that he invited the men of S3 there. He needs you. Their government needs you. Their people need you. Don’t forget that.”

“And you’re forgetting,” Nick said, “that he denounced the Vigilantes and now is way off the mark with this public call to arrest Flores. Truth be told, we don’t know what he’s thinking. He could be up to anything.”

“You’re starting to sound paranoid again,” Smith said.

“And you sound like a guy sitting behind a desk in Washington.”

“We need you to meet with him.”

“I’m the wrong man. Believe me on that. If he wants to meet, then you meet with him or send someone else from the Agency. Send the CIA contact you’ve got down here to babysit me. Believe me, it would be a mistake to send me.”

“You represent the Agency,” Smith said, “in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Wrong. I represent a private military contractor named Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter, which won a government contract to help train Mexican security forces, in case you forgot.”

“Come on, Nick. You’re in the Agency. You know that.”

“I’ll remember that if I get picked up wearing street clothes and a bandana, with an AK slung across my back. Otherwise, they might just think I’m an American terrorist or hitman.”

Smith sighed.

“Nick, you know you can’t say you’re with the Agency. You have a cover, you use it. Call it a training op for your company or maybe a --”

“I can handle coming up with a cover story. Maybe you forgot how I snuck out of Afghanistan with a thousand Soviet troops trying to nab my ass?”

“And maybe you forgot that if you listened to our counsel, you could work with the Mexican government and they’d know your location and plans and -- get this -- you wouldn’t have to worry about being pulled over with your AK and bandana.”

“Clearly,” Nick said, as angry as he’d been in a long time, “you fucking forgot about the Navy SEAL Team that got slaughtered down here. I’ll bet you don’t even know how many died.”

“Nick, calm down.”

“You don’t, do you?”

“Nick, I’m not playing this game with you. No, I don’t know off the top of my head how many died, and no, I have not killed as many men as you, and yes, I am a pencil pusher. You win. But remember, guys like you -- even such a big-time hero -- need guys like me, providing intel and support and --”

“You’ve been sending intel?” Nick asked. “I must have missed that.”

“Nick, you are to meet with the President and you will represent the Agency well. He wants to meet tomorrow at --”

“He needs to be meeting with either your boss or our President,” Nick said. “I’m not the one off script.”

“And you need to remember that you are in Mexico at the invitation of President Rivera. You piss him off and this mission is done. And with the mission off, you can kiss your two million dollars goodbye.”

Nick laughed.

“You think I’m doing this for the money? How fucking stupid are you?”

Nick turned off the phone and dropped it on the desk.

“Marcus,” he yelled.

Marcus, who had been standing in the hall in case Nick needed him, stepped into Nick’s office.

“Yes, sir?”

“Marcus, get our Mexican contact to find out when the President wants to meet, and let’s start planning how we get there early -- and safe -- and how we leave and get out without being followed. Oh, and assign somebody to buy about five more used vehicles, for this ridiculous dog-and-pony show I’m going to have to attend.”

“Will do,” Marcus said. He turned to head out.

“Oh, and Marcus? Get with the squad leaders. I want back-up squads strategically located nearby and on exit points along our exfiltration route. This may be the most dangerous thing we’ve done since we’ve been here.”

“Agreed,” Marcus said. “I don’t trust hardly anyone in their government.”

Marcus started to leave and stopped.

“What made you change your mind on meeting him?”

“I’m hoping I can change his damn mind,” Nick said.

The following day, after a marathon night of planning, Nick arrived at the Presidential Palace. He had to leave Marcus, Isabella, Truck, Lizard, Bulldog, Preacher, and Red by their two vehicles outside the gate and was forced to proceed inside alone. They were all heavily armed, with even more weapons in their vehicles, but Nick knew if the Mexican government wanted to arrest him, his team would almost certainly not be able to breach the Palace to rescue him.

But, Isabella and Marcus both felt this wouldn’t be some arrest attempt, but rather a speech to get Nick to stand down. And maybe an attempt to track and follow them back to their base of operations, but nothing more in their opinion. So, Nick reluctantly agreed to enter alone.

However, Nick, being Nick, wanted to plan worst case, so he had all three squads work out contingency plans in case the government tried to arrest him. Nick knew they couldn’t hold off the army once it responded, but he did feel that his Primary Strike Team, working with the three squads, could probably breach the Palace and pull off his rescue. Casualties would be enormous, but with an aggressive attack and heavy weapons and sniper support, they all believed it was possible.

Nick left his Primary Strike Team and allowed security forces to search him and confirm he was unarmed -- a feeling that he did not like at all. Once they were done, an aide walked him down numerous hallways and corridors. Nick tried to stay oriented, but soon gave up. They had him if they wanted him and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Instead, he focused on what he would say and how he would react once he came face-to-face with the President.

Nick knew he wasn't much of a talker or a man who liked to argue, and certainly, the President would be. Like all politicians, he’d be all talk and not much spunk.

The meeting was going to be bad no matter what, but Nick felt even more off-guard since he had wanted Marcus and Isabella in the meeting. Marcus for his counsel, Isabella to translate. But an aide had said the President spoke perfect English, so a translator was unnecessary. The aide had further said that the President had insisted he would only meet with Nick, and Nick alone.

“He doesn’t want other witnesses to this meeting, which of course, isn’t really happening,” the aide said timidly.

Nick had grinned and gripped the young aide who looked about twenty on the shoulder.

“I know the deal, bud. I know far too well about doing things that never happened. Believe me. Now, just show me the way.”

The young aide bowed and led Nick through the compound.

Nick hated the absurd amount of decor and splendor he saw as he made his way to the meeting. Gold lined the walls, paintings that looked priceless hung throughout, and stout, plush furniture unlike anything Nick had ever seen occupied waiting rooms. He wondered if the President had any idea how poor most of his people were.

“All politicians are the same,” he thought to himself. “Stealing from the poor to line their own pockets.”

They finally reached their destination. Nick knew it was the final barrier because it had the hallmarks of any big-shot executive’s inner sanctum. First, it had the hottest secretary he’d ever seen in his life, and she sat behind a boat-sized executive desk. Second, it had a foreboding wall, thick door, and impressive security -- besides what he assumed was a hard-nosed secretary. The impressive security in this case was composed of two stout secret service agents by the door.

Nick wondered how many secret service agents were hidden in rooms and basements throughout the complex. Probably a couple hundred, if he had to guess, after the most recent attack on the Presidential Palace.

“Please, wait right here,” the aide said, pointing to a massive couch.

“I know how this works, young man. The President makes me wait an hour or so to prove his power and then we talk.”

The aide frowned. “Actually, the President is looking forward to meeting you. He will be with you very soon. As soon as he finishes his meeting, in fact. Please,” he said, pointing, “please be seated.”

Nick noticed the two agents staring him down like he was a criminal. They knew when a fellow shooter was in their midst, and their senses screamed danger. Nick waved, fake tipped a hat, and smiled. Then he sat down and sunk into the couch, which was too big and plush to be comfortable.

He looked around for a magazine to read, saw none, and smiled at the secretary who kept looking him over. Nick glanced down at his jeans and cowboy boots and realized he probably wasn’t dressed to code. Yet, he had put on a long-sleeved, button-up shirt, so there was that.

A couple minutes later, the door to the Presidential Suite opened and five men in business suits shook hands with President Roberto Rivera and exited the room. Rivera noticed Nick and followed the group of men toward him.

Nick rose to greet him. The President was decently tall, like most politicians. Nick guessed his height at about six feet -- a tad taller than Nick, but not nearly as lean. Nick had clearly spent more time running miles and shooting lead on the range instead of sitting in meetings and reading reports. But, still, the President was a good-looking man, and he would definitely still qualify as fit. If Nick were a woman, then he’d definitely consider the man handsome. No wonder the man had never lost an election.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Rivera said. “Thank you for coming in.”

Nick nodded.

“Please, step into my office.”

Rivera pointed to a chair and Nick sat, watching Rivera take a seat behind yet another gigantic executive desk, except this one was more elegant and distinguished. It probably came from some historic, wooden battleship or something. Nick knew the drill.

Then he realized that Rivera now sat higher than him.

He’s in a taller chair, Nick thought.

Rivera steepled his fingers in front of his chin.

“Normally, in a meeting like this,” Rivera said, “you don’t want to be the first to speak. It’s a sign of,” Rivera waved his hand, “weakness, if you will.”

“You wouldn’t want to try to outwait me,” Nick said, remembering once outwaiting an enemy sniper for hours.

“So I hear.” Rivera smiled.

Nick didn’t.

Rivera noticed the lack of a return smile and said, “You’re obviously upset about the meeting, and I understand from my aides that you’re afraid that coming in for this talk will give your operating base away to the Godesto Cartel?”

“Seems to be a trend.”

Rivera shook his head in reluctant agreement. “Unfortunately, drugs and money stacked higher than your wildest imagination have indeed corrupted many in our government. But, we have ferreted out many of these who have sold out their loyalty.”

“It only takes one,” Nick said, “but I’m not here to listen to excuses. What did you want to meet about?”

“I feel, respectfully of course, that you need to give more credit to those who resist the pressures of the Godesto, as well as understand better those who can’t.”

“I don’t see me respecting anybody who sells out their brothers for money,” Nick said. “Don’t waste your breath.”

“How would you feel if you were a police officer or government official and you came home one day from a hard day at work, only to have someone stop and offer you a bribe?”

Rivera paused and reached for a cigar. He clearly worked on his storytelling. “Of course, your first thought would be to arrest them or turn them in.”

Rivera offered Nick a cigar and Nick declined.

“As I was saying, your first thought would be to arrest them.” He lit the cigar and puffed on it to get it burning right. “Maybe even shoot them. But, that would quickly disappear once the cartel man mentioned that they knew where your wife worked and where your daughter went to school. Can you imagine that?”

“I’ve actually lost a wife in a similar situation, so yes, I can.”

Rivera stopped, like he had been punched in the nose.

“I’m sorry,” he said, surprised. Rivera didn’t like walking into a trap like this and he reminded himself to chew his aide out later for not providing him with better intel. A mistake like this killed the momentum of a debate, and this was a discussion he needed to win.

While Rivera paused to recover from his misstep, Nick thought of Anne, bloody, in a nightgown in their backyard. He remembered the dew on the grass, the FBI agents standing over her, and him running his fingers through the dirt, swearing he would avenge her.

“As I was saying,” Rivera said, trying to get back on course, “many of these officers will have their families threatened, in addition to being offered untold amounts of money. The temptation to inform the cartels is very great.”

Nick couldn’t help but sympathize.

“I understand, Mr. President. And I need to remind myself that your country has been at war with the cartels for more than ten years.”

“It’s been longer than that, though the casualties were lower and the news coverage much less. Truth be told, we tried to keep it out of the news as much as we could. Didn’t want to hurt tourism, which is crucial for our economy.”

Nick nodded again and wished the man would make his point.

“Respectfully, Mr. President, you didn’t ask me to come in to give me a history lesson. I’m not much on sales pitches. Just ask your question.”

“Indeed,” Rivera said. He took another puff on his cigar, exhaled a cloud of smoke, and continued. “But I am in the presence of one of America’s greatest warriors? Am I not correct?”

Nick said nothing. He knew most of America’s greatest warriors were in graves -- marked and unmarked -- across the globe, but you couldn’t waste your time trying to educate everyone.

“A moment like this,” Rivera said, “in the presence of a man of your reputation, needs to be savored. Just like a great cigar,” he said, raising the cigar and smiling.

Nick half-smiled. The man was certainly charming. No wonder he’d been elected President.

“Nick,” Rivera said. “May I call you ‘Nick’?”

Nick made the smallest of nods.

Rivera stopped smiling and turned serious. He smashed his cigar into a silver ashtray and leaned forward.

“Nick, I need to ask you to stop the Vigilante act. Take down the website, stop making videos, and end the whole charade.”

Nick said nothing.

“I know I initially approved the creation of the Vigilante unit, but things have changed. After the assault on the police station in Coyutla, we can do this no more. I must ask that you stop operating in such a way.”

Nick stopped him.

“You don’t seriously think we did that?”

“Of course not. But that attack hurt your effort. And I’ve since come to realize two things. First, acting as a Vigilante unit encourages other residents to act out as vigilantes, and at some point, this will lead to lawlessness and innocent people being wrongly killed without a trial. Second, I’ve come to realize that it’s important for the prestige of Mexico to have government forces finally take down Flores and his cartel.”

Nick sighed and Rivera stopped.

“Wish you had come to this realization before my team packed up and came down here,” Nick said.

“I understand you’re upset, but I’m prepared to offer a compromise.”

“Not much to compromise on, is there?”

Rivera ignored the snide comment and said, “I’m not asking you to take your team out of the country. I confess, as much as it hurts my pride, that we need your help. I’m simply asking you to operate under the guise of being Mexican forces. Wear our uniforms. Keep a low profile. No one will ever know the difference.”

“I suppose,” Nick said, “that I should tell you I need some time to consider your offer.”

“I understand if that’s necessary,” Rivera said, holding his hands up in a conciliatory gesture and smiling as if he had won.

“It’s not,” Nick said.

“I’m sorry?” the President asked. “It’s not what?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Rivera said.

“I reject your offer. Or your request. Or demand. Or whatever you want to call it. The original deal was we stay off the radar, we keep our homebase and operations off the government’s radar, and that we operate as the Vigilantes. That was the deal, which you approved before we ever came or even assembled our task force, and we reject any renegotiation of it.”

“But, Nick, surely you understand. Things have changed.”

“Nothing has changed,” Nick said, his voice loud. “Just your resolve and independence, apparently.”

Rivera slammed his hand on the desk, then winced, immediately regretting it. He recovered quickly and stood. “I’m sorry you feel as you do. Please, take a couple of days to reconsider. Your contact can call his liaison within my government with your decision.”

With that, Rivera turned away from Nick and looked out the window.

Nick harrumphed. Looks like diplomacy really isn’t my strong suit, he thought.

Chapter 24

Nick Woods left the Presidential Palace feeling defeated. The last thing he wanted to do was pack up the men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter and leave Mexico, but President Rivera was giving him no choice.

The selfish side of Nick wanted to keep going; maybe even come under Rivera’s command. Nick enjoyed being in command and carrying a gun again -- not just carrying a gun concealed, stateside, but carrying a gun in a war zone. A place you didn’t know. A place where danger resided around every corner and in every shadow.

Nick loved war. He loved the stress. The tension. The feeling of being alive. He lived for it, and now he was going to have to leave it again. Possibly for good, given his age. Once you turned forty-seven, your chances to serve started dramatically decreasing.

While Nick’s mind raced, his two Primary Strike vehicles executed a number of complicated maneuvers as they exited the capital city. The Primary Strike Team ditched their vehicles twice -- once in a packed mall parking lot, and another time in a dark downtown garage. They also made two different reverse courses. They traveled north for an hour before changing vehicles one final time and then driving south.

Nick had worried about the cost of buying so many vehicles, but Marcus had smiled and said, “Don’t worry, they’re not affecting our budget. At all.”

Nick immediately assumed they were stolen, but he asked no questions and didn’t want to know any more.

As they drove south, Nick tried not to dwell on the fact that all this was going away. These superb warriors. This incredible opportunity to make a difference. To defend the weak. To do what the men of S3 were all born to do.

He tried to shake these thoughts and realized at this point, about the only thing he wanted was a cold Mountain Dew, a Snickers, and a moment alone with Isabella. He wondered what part of his frustration with leaving Mexico resulted from knowing he’d have to leave her, and forget whatever chances they had to explore whatever existed between them.

He wasn’t sure how much of a role this played, but it certainly played more of a role than he wanted to admit, remembering the kiss and her hand on his body. He tried to pay attention to their route home as well as any possible threats, but it proved nearly impossible. His mind was simply racing too much, trying to find an angle to keep S3 engaged and prevent this all from being over.

Nick’s various units returned to the farm over the next four hours. The squads and six sniper teams came from different directions and spread out their arrival times. Back at the base, Nick and Marcus had left just four men to keep the place secure, so once everyone returned, the first order of business was combing the site for intruders and listening devices. Once that was done, Nick called a meeting of all his leaders.

The three squad leaders arrived, along with Marcus and the leader of the six Scout Sniper teams. Nick briefed them on his meeting with President Rivera. (Nick had already met with Marcus and discussed their options privately.)

With the full leadership team in place, Nick relayed Rivera’s two demands: drop the Vigilante act and come in under the authority of the Mexican government.

“No way,” said the second squad leader. “I’m not trying to undermine you, Nick, but there’s no damn way I want to be a part of going under Mexican governmental authority. And I’m confident I speak for my men. They don’t trust hardly anyone down here, and one of them is Mexican himself, so that is saying a lot.”

“Same with my men,” said the first squad leader.

“Jimmy?” Nick asked, nodding to the third squad leader.

“The same.”

Nick glanced at Marcus.

“Good,” he said. “Then we’re all on the same page. Marcus and I have decided we’re not game for this change in plans. We feel it would be a death wish to come in under Rivera’s control.”

“Damn right,” his second squad leader said. “We know what happened to the SEALs, and as they proved, it doesn’t matter how good you are. If the enemy gets intel on you, you’re as good as dead.”

“Where does that leave us?” the leader of the Scout Snipers asked.

“Probably unemployed,” Marcus said.

“We assumed everyone would favor safety over salary,” Nick said.

“Agreed,” said Jimmy. “It’s one thing to risk your life on a mission for your country. Quite another to take a stupid chance because of the idiocy of a politician. Especially one that’s not even American.”

Nick saw several heads nodding.

“Then we’re in agreement. Go brief your men with the news and let’s meet up again in an hour to decide how we’re going to pull out. And just a heads-up, we plan to do so without alerting either Rivera, Flores, or Smith.”

The entire group reconvened an hour later and spent more than three hours planning their exfil. It wasn’t going to be simple.

Even after racking their brains, the best they could come up with was something extremely risky and arguably very dangerous. But it wasn’t a cakewalk these days getting across the border. After years of griping from the American people, Washington had listened. All the easy ways across were a thing of the past.

Now, a formidable obstacle awaited them. Walls. Cameras. Agents. All worked in concert to stop most of those illegals attempting the famous crossing of the Rio Grande into America. Tunnels were your best hope, but Nick’s team could hardly call up the Godesto Cartel and ask them to allow a crossing.

Marcus had joked, “Maybe if we promise to leave Flores alone, he’d grant us passage.”

“Fat chance,” Nick said.

The problem mainly lay in all the weapons. Each member of Nick’s team had legit passports, but trying to cross the border with enough weapons for a small army would certainly create some attention. And they couldn’t just use their company credentials from the fake corporation Nick had helped create since that would instantly alert Smith as well.

“So we’re left with leaving our weaponry and gear?” the second squad leader asked.

“Not an option,” Nick said. “If these weapons were ever used by the cartels, it would make Operation Fast and Furious, the walking guns case, look like nothing.”

“I’m not game,” Marcus said, “for a bunch of Congressional hearings and dealing with all those assholes in Washington.”

The Scout Sniper leader cleared his throat and asked, “Blow them up? Keep only our pistols?”

“We’re not putting this all on Nick,” Marcus said.

Nick knew that tactically it made sense to destroy the weapons, but he feared the repercussions. Smith and his folks would be pissed enough to learn they had refused Rivera’s request and left the country without alerting anyone. But to blow up several million dollars’ worth of weapons, too? That would be too much.

“Look,” Marcus said. “This is going to be complicated, getting our extraction planned out. Why don’t you ask Rivera for a couple more days to consider how we could work well with his government? Meanwhile, we figure out how we’re going to do this, and by the time Rivera is ready for your answer, we’ll already be gone.”

Nick liked that idea and nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.” And with that, he left the room to make the call.

Chapter 25

Hernan Flores and the Butcher were in the middle of a yet another ugly meeting. Shockingly, they were in the same room, something that didn’t happen much these days.

Partly, it was due to risk. Flores now had a ten million dollar reward on his head and there were plenty of impoverished Mexicans who’d like to have that kind of money dropped on them.

But the bigger reason for not meeting more often was crystal clear in the dingy warehouse office in which they met. Flores had increased his entourage to eight guards in the room with him instead of four, and he had more than thirty heavily armed men in the warehouse outside the room. The Butcher had upped his armament as well. He had his ever-present duffel bag on the floor next to him and a grenade, unbeknownst to Flores, in his right-hand coat pocket.

Neither man trusted the other, and the Butcher didn’t plan on hesitating. If Flores tried anything, he’d pull the pin on the grenade in his pocket and rush him, tackling and holding him close as the grenade blew them both to shark meat.

“What are you smiling at?” Flores asked.

“Just thinking about something.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer you pay attention,” Flores said, standing up from behind his desk -- a desk that had to be the cheapest one he had ever sat behind. “We need to plan our reaction to President Rivera’s move to try to incarcerate me.”

“We need to kill him,” the Butcher said. “Ambush his convoy. Attack the Presidential Palace. Whatever.”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Flores said, “attacking the Presidential Palace is precisely what got us in this situation.”

“No, failing to kill him is what got us in this situation. We need to take out both him and Juan Soto. It’s really a simple equation. They’re the backbone of those who oppose us.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” Flores said. “We don’t want to completely remove the Mexican government. We just want to get the man we want in power as President.”

“While we’ve discussed this,” the Butcher said, “we clearly are not in agreement about the strategy, nor have we ever been. The way I see it, we take the government out, and you don’t have a ten million dollar reward on your head. You’ll be able to come out of hiding again. And ride around in Mexico City and attend your dinners and balls and galas. Life returns to normal.”

“Nonsense,” Flores said. “The Mexican people are too proud to accept such a reality. They’d rather have a weak, corrupt government than a government that’s been overthrown by drug runners. Even those who support the cartels want to at least have the appearance of having a country with its own independent government.”

“Believe what you want,” the Butcher said. “I stand by what I said.”

Flores sighed. He knew his number two man was talking behind his back and undermining him in increasingly regular intervals. Flores had hoped to win him over behind the deception of meeting about tactics, but the Butcher wasn’t going to budge.

The Butcher wanted the government overthrown. Flores wanted the government left in place, but with his man in charge.

This much was clear: neither were budging. And with that clarity, Flores decided he would take out the Butcher once and for all.

Unfortunately for him, the Butcher was having the exact same thoughts.

Exactly six hours later, before Hernan Flores could move to yet another hidden location, cops and SWAT members descended on the warehouse where the meeting with the Butcher had gone down. President Roberto Rivera dispatched more than three hundred officers to conduct the raid once a tip on Flores’s location came in to the government hotline. The fear of Flores and the Godesto proved remarkable, as this had been the only tip since the press conferences.

Armored trucks and vans loaded with follow-up troops swarmed the building from four different directions. Once they broke cover and advanced the final few hundred yards, five helicopters toting snipers in their doors roared in from two directions and surrounded the building from above.

No one would be escaping.

Flores’s guards fought at first, but the well-trained, fully-decked out assault troops cut them down with little fanfare. The snipers from above picked off others. And within thirty seconds, the shock of such a force of three hundred men hitting the building convinced those inside to surrender.

Flores watched his men as they looked about and decided to give up. He didn’t blame them. His men didn’t have armor and helmets and weapons with Aimpoint sights. And certainly very few of his men had fired thousands of rounds in practice. Additionally, they hadn’t rehearsed and trained as a team, so those who tried to defend the warehouse died quickly.

And there was nothing like seeing the man in front of you take a bullet through the face to take the fight out of you. Flores’s men folded like a bunch of kindergartners forced to miss lunch, and he knew he was screwed. He’d have to surrender since this warehouse lacked a tunnel system or any other viable escape option.

But as he walked toward the officers with his hands held high, he surrendered knowing there was no judge and no jail who could hold him. He’d re-emerge soon, and he’d be stronger than ever. Of that he had no doubt.

Less than half an hour later, President Roberto Rivera confirmed his men had the great Hernan Flores in hand and called an emergency press conference once again. He gave the details of the raid and then provided a short speech he’d been working on in his head for literally years.

On the way back to his office, he paused behind a bullet-proof window and looked over the skyline of Mexico City. This. This was the pinnacle of his presidency. Mexico’s greatest days now lay before it. Only weaker cartels remained, and Rivera decided he’d offer more rewards to take down their leaders, as well.

Rivera smiled. This had all gone down on his watch. The history books would sing his praises for literally centuries to come.

He could imagine the entry about his presidency:

President Roberto Rivera entered office in the middle of Mexico’s darkest days.

Yeah, this wasn’t bad. Not bad at all, he thought. Maybe all the emotional stress and fear would prove worth it. Maybe his nearly failed presidency was worth it after all. And with that, he turned and walked back to his office to celebrate with Juan Soto.

Chapter 26

While President Roberto Rivera celebrated the capture of Hernan Flores with Juan Soto, the Butcher took the reins of the Godesto Cartel. He had two of Flores’s most loyal lieutenants killed and immediately began telling a few men to spread the message that Flores had been shanked in prison and was already dead. That would be the truth soon enough anyway.

At the same time, he promoted two of his best men to fill the spots of the lieutenants now resting in pieces, and he pulled his men together to begin planning their assault on the government. In addition, he upped his own personal security, since it was in the early hours of a coup that a new leader had to worry most about his own safety.

While the Butcher ramped up his planning, the exact opposite thing occurred in the operating base of Nick Woods’s unit. The press conference by President Rivera halted the frantic planning of how they’d exit the country under the nose of Rivera and Smith. The press conference and news of Flores’s arrest also led to mixed feelings in the ranks of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter.

Some wanted to celebrate. Flores was down, they’d get bonuses for completing the mission, and each was returning home in one piece. Not a bad couple of months work. But the cynics in S3 warned that Flores would probably be released, or that he would just run the Godesto Cartel from prison.

But as the debates about Flores’s demise (or lack thereof) raged, in the end each member knew it didn’t matter. President Rivera had sent word to the American Ambassador that with Flores now in custody, he no longer needed S3 operating in his country.

This was another suggestion by Juan Soto, and Rivera eagerly agreed with the idea. He was drunk -- literally -- from the success of Flores’s capture and the splendid operation of his Mexican police who had raided the warehouse.

Rivera had watched the entire operation on video from three drones flying high above. He had never seen three hundred men move with such synchronization and force and witnessing it had restored his confidence in the power of the Mexican government. Why he had ever feared Flores so much seemed remarkably strange now.

The American Ambassador sent word of Rivera’s wishes to the CIA Director, who sent a secure message to “Mr. Smith.” Nick Woods got the message ten minutes later.

Nick discussed the situation with Marcus and they cancelled the planning of their own top-secret extraction. Convinced the mission was over, they decided they might as well light a bonfire and get everyone shit-faced drunk. Or most everyone.

As the news spread through the unit, Preacher and a couple of other men who didn’t drink very often volunteered to stay sober and pull duty. Marcus decided it would be wiser for each squad to have its own fire since they had plenty of room on the farm.

“Don’t want any fights,” he said. “And too many alpha males from rival squads around the same fire is bound to cause that to happen.”

Nick agreed and told Marcus to handle the logistics of where each squad area would be stationed. He also told Marcus to grab one thousand dollars of petty cash from the Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter company account and send someone out for all the beer and hotdogs they could carry.

But not everyone was celebrating. One man waited alone, anxious and nervous. Miles and miles away from the Presidential office with its champagne bottles, and nearly as many miles from the field dotted with men from S3 throwing down beer and hotdogs, Hernan Flores awaited his arraignment. He sat in Mexico’s most secure prison -- the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 -- and he knew all too well how many miles away he was from the center of Mexico’s power. But with luck, they would have him arraigned soon.

Thankfully, they had him in isolation, which suited him fine. He felt confident his high-priced attorney -- the best defense attorney in Mexico -- would have him in better quarters in no time. Maybe even out on bond, but that seemed a stretch given the charges against him.

Still, Flores was restless for a meeting with him. And for a chance to plot out his counter attack, which he knew would prove a brilliant defensive strategy.

There were several non-profits whose executive directors owed Flores big-time. If he could get a message out through his attorney to a handful of them, they could go before the media and call the charges absurd. Yes. That’s what he needed. A few high-profile humanitarians standing behind him and defending his character in some media interviews.

These non-profit CEOs would also confirm that Flores was in the process of multi-million dollar donations to their respective nonprofits. Yes indeed. Flores could imagine the interviews and the doubts they would sow in the people’s minds… After all, would a true cartel leader honestly be giving so much money to nonprofits? And look at this man’s track record over the past ten years as a giver and businessman. This wasn’t a new thing for him that just began after the Mexican government charged him publicly.

Flores could imagine the interviews airing on TV. He smiled and laughed at the thought. Heh. Rivera may think he had the upper hand, but Flores still had plenty of cards that he planned to play.

As he mulled over the situation, he put his chances at getting out and free from incarceration within five years at better than fifty-fifty. And if the sentence was longer than five years, he’d be breaking out. For sure. Even here, in this high-security facility, he calculated his odds of escape as at least twenty-five percent. You could never overestimate the sway the Godesto Cartel wielded.

But none of this could happen until he met with his lawyer. He went to glance down at his watch and remembered they had taken that when they stripped him down and threw him in prison attire. Flores paced back and forth in his small cell. What the hell was the hold up with his attorney? That asshole better not be moving slow, he thought.

Flores speculated which judge his case would fall under. Several names came to mind as strong possibilities, but he wasn’t too worried about this part of his dilemma, either. He knew many of them, and most of them were in his pocket. Or in the pocket of some other important businessmen, who was in Flores’s pocket.

These businessmen could help sway their opinion. Flores laughed, his voice echoing in the small isolation cell. The ironic thing was that most of the judges’ wives were friends with Flores’s girlfriend. And with these other businessmen's wives, as well.

If the public knew about all those connections, there’d be riots in the streets. The number of get-togethers they shared was truly staggering. Christmas parties for various civic groups. Non-profit galas. Political functions. And they all sat together and asked about each other’s families and personal lives. It was truly a tight (and small) circle.

Flores shoved the thoughts down and wondered again just where his attorney was. Besides the PR strategy with the nonprofits, Flores wanted to find out the latest news and send a few quick messages to the Godesto Cartel.

Flores’s biggest worry in the coming months -- besides a possible conviction -- was the threat posed by the Butcher. That bastard might be moving against him in a coup attempt from the outside, but as long as Flores could get some messages out to a few key people, he felt confident his men would remain loyal.

Men almost always fall into line when they see decisive leadership. And hearing the PR plan and Flores’s orders would relieve everyone and keep anyone from stepping out of line. Surely they understood that he might get out on bond in a day or two. And should he not, then he’d eventually be released after his conviction. He simply needed them to know that they’d better not dare double-cross him.

But as the hours went by and no one approached his barely lit cell, Flores’s confidence began to drop. Surely President Rivera wouldn’t deny him a chance to meet with his attorney? He bristled at the idea. Could he, legally speaking?

Would he?

Flores struck the wall with his palm. Even without using his knuckles, it hurt his hand and he instantly regretted doing it. Damn, he was getting soft. And clearly his confidence and control were not what they once were. He swallowed down a creeping and growing fear.

While Flores paced and nursed his hand, the Butcher scrambled to find a way to kill him. Unfortunately, it was proving harder than he expected.

First, most of the Godesto Cartel and other cartel leaders still feared Flores would return to power, so they doubted the Butcher’s claims that he had wrested control of the cartel from Flores. And since the Butcher wasn’t as well-known as Flores, and considering Flores was the most powerful man in Mexico -- some said North America -- the Butcher was getting nowhere with his idea.

None of the officers in Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 would kill Flores. Nor would they so much as release a prisoner for a few minutes to kill him. But finally, after spending ten million dollars in bribes from the Godesto Cartel’s flush accounts, the Butcher got enough people on board to make something happen.

Yet it wasn’t going to be simple. No one in the prison would move against Flores, and no amount of money or threats would change that. All were afraid they might attempt it and fail. And all knew that if that occurred, then the Godesto Cartel would come at them with all its fury. They would be tortured and killed for their efforts. Their families, too.

Besides the money, reputation, and influence, Flores also had dozens of men in the high-security facility who could protect him. These included guards who were on the cartel’s payroll, and cartel operatives who remained loyal after conviction.

The Butcher was about to give up his attempt when one guard mentioned in a phone call that they would allow a man in, but his safety would be up to him; they couldn’t guarantee his survival. And that man would have to take care of some guards, who were too straight-laced to be bought.

The Butcher knew just the man for such an assignment.

Two hours later, the Butcher was on his way to Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1. Earlier, a pair of cops on the Godesto Cartel payroll had sent in a memo to prison officials saying that another inmate was being hastily transferred to their care, under cover of night. The memo stated the prisoner had very important information on a crucial federal case and his life had been threatened, thus no one was to know about his transfer.

This included the warden or his top men. The inmate was to be kept away from the other prisoners and off the electronic record, since it was feared the enemy had informants on the lookout for him. The VIP prisoner was to be placed in isolation until the next day. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It was a strange memo, but when you live in a country that’s lost fifty thousand lives to drug violence, weird things occur more regularly than you’d think. And one doesn’t live long, let alone move up through the ranks of law enforcement, by asking questions.

While the memo made its rounds inside the prison, the police officers delivered the Butcher to the castle-like facility. The Butcher had his head covered in a sack and wore a bullet-proof vest over the prison garb that he’d been handed by the officers. The paperwork was a bit of a stretch, but given the secrecy surrounding the “transfer,” they felt it just might work. At least for a few hours. And that’s all the Butcher needed.

He had learned that fortune favored the brave, and besides… He felt no fear of a prison. He’d been incarcerated before, and he knew that none of the inmates could intimidate him now. And certainly not touch him. Not even six men could take him now. And if anyone made the mistake of trying, they would be the ones who needed the officer protection, not the other way around. The Butcher’s days of being tortured and abused by bigger men were done. For good.

The officers drove him to the facility in the back of a prison van. He was handcuffed and had been searched. Since he would be searched again upon his entry, the officers had made clear that he couldn’t go into the prison carrying weapons. There were, after all, a lot of men putting their careers on the line to get him in. They needed this to succeed as much as the Butcher did.

The officers handed him off to the prison authorities. The Butcher was ushered through gates, doors, and halls, all of them running together. He tried to keep his bearings, but it was impossible. It was pitch black outside, so he couldn’t see out any windows, and the prison had been designed to be confusing to help deter breakouts.

Several guards searched and processed him. The Butcher talked to no one, as he had no idea which of the guards were in on his plans and which weren’t. He noticed no signals or clues from any of the guards, so he kept his head down and his shoulders hunched to appear as nervous and submissive as he could. The last thing he wanted was to appear threatening.

After probably forty minutes of processing, three guards escorted him to a cell and pushed him inside. The heavy door slammed behind him and he stood in the empty cell alone.

So far things had gone as planned. But, the joke might be on him, he thought. Could they know his real identity? Could they know his value as such a high-ranking member of the cartel? Could this be his home for the next twenty or thirty years?

The Butcher didn’t have time for these thoughts. He took a deep breath and blew out the air forcefully. Then he repeated this process ten times, just as he’d learned in his martial arts training. He followed the breathing with some push-ups and light stretching. Whether things went smoothly or his plan went awry, he wanted to be ready. Lithe. Warm. Prepared for anything.

His cell had solid walls on both of its sides and rear, and only the front had bars. There’d be no prisoners reaching in from the side cells to grab you or stab you in this place. Someone had designed it wisely.

Taking his eyes from the concrete walls that encased him, he looked across the hall, into the only cell he could fully see. There, it appeared a prisoner lay under the covers. Otherwise he could see nothing and hear only remote sounds of men talking, laughing, and cursing.

The isolation felt crushing, especially when he’d just left the protection afforded by hundreds of gunmen and millions of dollars.

He shook the thought from his head and stretched some more and took a few more deep breaths, trying to swallow down the idea that he might literally be the most stupid criminal ever. Who breaks into a prison? Voluntarily? And the most secure one in Mexico, at that?

He pushed the thought down and started shadow boxing. Throwing some kicks and strikes. Nice and loose. Maybe thirty percent power.

Perhaps Flores knew about his attempt to take over the Godesto Cartel and plan to enter the prison to kill him. How would Flores respond if he did? Did Flores have the power to have guards enter the cell and beat him to death?

The Butcher did fear a bunch of guards with nightsticks. He had skills, but not the kind of skills to fend off multiple men with sticks and basic training. Especially if they came with shields, helmets, and shin and elbow pads.

But if Flores’s plan was to have the guards allow a bunch of prisoners to kill him, then the Butcher felt much better about his chances. Although the cell was pretty small and tight. And prisoners were hardened animals. No question that if they rushed and tackled him in such a small place, where he couldn’t move and dodge, he was doomed.

It rocked him that mentally he was already beginning to weaken. Now that he was unarmed and trapped, his bravado was beginning to fade. He knew he needed to stop thinking so negatively.

He stopped visualizing failure and decided if a bunch of prisoners did come, he’d jump up on the top bunk and throw kicks from there until they drug him off. He could kick deadly fast and hard. He’d break some noses and fingers before they could get him down. And from there he could do far more damage.

The lights in the hall clicked off and darkness flooded the corridor to his front. Small night-lights barely lit the hallway. He wondered how long he should stay up waiting. Perhaps he should catch some sleep in case he had to fight for his life tomorrow in general population against twelve or fifteen of Flores’s men.

As he debated this, he kept bouncing from foot to foot. Nice and loose. Then a sound caught his attention. He recognized footfalls walking down the hall. No, it was two sets of footfalls. Wearing boots.

Then they were there, and he saw the silhouettes of two guards stop in front of his cell in the dark hallway. They looked up and down the corridor before unlocking the door and waving him forward.

The Butcher rolled his shoulders a couple of times and prepared himself. It would happen soon.

The guards led him down several corridors and gates. The Butcher was completely lost by this point, but his escape counted more on the officers who had accepted his bribes than it did on his ability to find his way out.

After pushing through yet another gate, the Butcher knew he was there. These cells weren’t like the other cells. Their front doors weren’t iron gates with bars that you could see and reach through, but steel doors that you couldn’t see out.

This must be their isolation unit, the Butcher thought. The guards led him about three-quarters of the way down the hall and then looked back up the corridor behind them one more time to make sure the path was clear.

“Make it quick,” one of them said in a low voice, finally looking at him.

They placed a massive key in the lock and turned it a full turn, then yanked the heavy door open. Before the Butcher walked in, the officer who hadn’t said a word put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He turned and the man reached in his pocket and handed him a handmade shank.

The Butcher looked down at what had once been a flathead screw driver, but was now a ground-down piece of metal, its handle removed and replaced with tape, its point like a sharpened gaff.

The Butcher entered the dark cell.

Hernan Flores heard men approaching and finally relaxed. He was still reeling over how long it had taken his attorney to arrive. But, as the saying went, “Better late than never.” Especially when you were buried in the depths of Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1.

He started moving toward the door and blinding light, then stopped. Silhouetted in the door was a short man, who was clearly holding a shank.

“Miss me?” the man asked, and Flores instantly recognized his voice.

“You bastard.”

Flores rushed toward him with every intent to knock the little bastard out. Just knock him down, get the shank from him, and take him out. The Butcher was so small that Flores knew he could handle him. He had size and he’d been in his share of fights in his day, so to hell with all that bullshit martial arts the Butcher always practiced.

But as his fist swung hard and wide, he saw his nemesis step to the side as easy as if he were Bruce Lee, and as Flores’s momentum carried him forward, the little bastard kicked him in the back with a side kick that drove him twice as fast toward the opposite wall. Instant, earth-shattering pain in his lower back screamed through his nerves, so intense that he never felt the broken nose or front teeth that the steel wall had knocked out. And the only thing that surpassed the pain was the recognition that his legs had given out and he couldn’t move them as he slid down to the floor. He roared in pain and fear as he imagined having to live a life completely paralyzed, bound to a wheelchair for his remaining days.

The Butcher knew he had kicked him hard. As the fat asshole had come at him, he had simply side-stepped him to the left and leapt forward into a flying side kick as the man went past him, right into the fat piece of shit’s back. He knew the kick must have cracked something because he had hit him so hard with his heel that it had jarred his leg. Badly.

And the Butcher was used to hard kicks on even harder kicking bags, so he couldn’t imagine what Flores’s back must feel like. He might have even broken it, but ultimately it didn’t matter. He skipped forward -- light and fast -- and mounted Flores’s back just as he hit the ground. Without a moment’s hesitation he drove the shank into his right ear. Deep. The entire fight was smooth, fast, and flawless.

The guards watched the whole thing go down, shocked and stunned at the little man’s skills. The entire thing lasted two seconds. Not a moment of fear as the big man rushed him, just a Zen-like calm, a simple sidestep, a powerful flying kick, and cheetah-like speed as he darted forward, jumped on the man’s back, and drove the shank into his brain.

The little guy yanked the shank out of Flores’s head and wiped the blade on the back of the dead man’s prison uniform.

“Who’s next?” the man asked, a sick smile on his face.

The guards looked at each other, shrugged, and then pointed him toward his final destination. They walked him down a hall and guided him toward where their sergeant had instructed them to bring him next. There were three guards who weren’t involved in the bribes and this nighttime excursion. They needed to be killed before the Butcher could successfully get out.

As they led him down yet another hall, the guards wondered if the little man could pull off this final challenge. In all, twenty-one guards were in on the bribes from the Butcher and the Godesto Cartel. That much the Butcher knew. And he’d been told before entering the facility that nearly one hundred and fifty more guards on the night shift didn’t need to be involved, as they were either in different parts of the building, or stationed in guard towers or on reserve as reaction squads (and thus buried deep in the bowels of the building). These nearly one hundred and fifty guards were oblivious to who entered or left the prison. They had specific responsibilities usually involving the area directly around them. They’d never even know the Butcher was there.

But there were three guards too straight and honest to even approach, so the lieutenant in charge of the night shift (and the first guard to be paid off) had worked around them up to this point. But the Butcher could never leave in the middle of the night without these three knowing or asking questions, so they’d have to be taken out. And none of the guards were up for taking care of this nasty part of the plan themselves.

“We know them too well,” the lieutenant had said. “Plus, we can have you take them out in an area where there are cameras, and that will lend credence to the story we must concoct after you’re gone. After all, we must think of our own protection, as well.”

“And these men,” the Butcher asked, “will have billy clubs?”

“Yes,” the lieutenant said.

“And radios?” the Butcher asked.

“Yes. There’s no way we can get their radios off them without them knowing something is up. From day one in training, guards are taught to keep their radio on their body. Even when they go to the restroom. It’s their lifeline. There’s no getting their radios off them without putting them in high alert and possibly causing them to send out a warning. They know some of the guards aren’t honest. They’ve heard rumors of them slipping in drugs or weapons, or slipping shanks to certain prisoners. These three men aren’t stupid, and they’re very wary. Otherwise they would already be dead.”

“So, three men with three billy clubs,” the Butcher asked, “and I have to take them out unarmed?”

“Yes. Because if you used a weapon against them, the investigators would have to figure out where you got it, and that guard would be mercilessly questioned. His finances watched for years. He might be jailed based on suspicion alone. But these men’s guard should be down. I’ll ask them to meet me in the break room,” the lieutenant had said, “so they won’t be expecting anything.”

“All right,” the Butcher said. “I’ll take care of the men, unarmed. But what if they get a warning out on the radio?”

“You can’t allow that to happen.”

“You can’t block the signal or get them on the wrong frequency?”

“They’re already wary. And they barely trust me as it is.”

“And if they get a call out before I take them down?”

“All is lost.”

“Meaning?”

“I mean these officers you’ve paid off can’t ignore a distressed call. Obviously, that involves more than the twenty-one men who are in on this, and those twenty-one can’t be seen as not responding. That would look very suspicious. If one of those three gets a call out, a response force will come and they will beat you half to death.”

“And I’ll be thrown in a cell and you won’t be able to get me out?” the Butcher asked.

“Correct. Probably, the warden will be here within twenty minutes of it happening and there’s nothing I or anyone else can do. Plus, with any call out at this prison, an alert goes out to the Presidential Palace. There are just too many VIP prisoners here. Without question, they’ll figure out who you are and you’re toast.”

“Toast?”

“Yes, toast. For the rest of your life.”

That had been the conversation the Butcher had shared with the lieutenant prior to his entry, and as he neared the task of killing the three straight-laced guards, he fully understood the risks he faced.

The two guards and prisoner walked a bit further, and then the guards stopped and put their arms out to halt the little man. The guard on the left put his hand on the Butcher’s arm and leaned toward him, placing his mouth mere inches from his ear.

“We can’t get any closer as we’ll soon enter one of the areas under video surveillance. But, go down this hallway and it’s the second door on the right.”

The Butcher nodded and looked at the man for any final instructions.

The guard said “good luck” in a low voice, and the Butcher noticed the man had sweat on his forehead and looked very nervous.

The Butcher leaned back into him and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

The guard nodded and the Butcher turned and took a deep breath. He slipped off his prison slippers. He’d prefer to do this with shoes on, but they were right that it would look suspicious if the video later showed him wearing footwear that someone had clearly provided. Thankfully, though the prison uniform was itchy and bright orange, it did have the advantage of being loose enough for him to kick high.

He rolled his shoulders, made several tight fists, and then squatted down and did a couple quick splits. He was ready.

He slipped down the hall soundlessly, his bare feet silent on the tiled floor. He stopped at the door and debated peeking through a small window on the upper part of it. But his gut feelings told him that probably at least one of the three guards was facing the door and would see him, so he decided to go with surprise. It was his only chance.

He placed his fingers around the handle, took a long and deep breath, and turned it slowly. It twisted without a sound and he opened the door slowly. He didn’t want to alarm them by yanking it open.

He entered the room at a normal pace and then saw the startled faces of the men as they looked up. They were the only ones in the room, sitting in a circle around a table that seated four, all three of them facing the door at nine, twelve, and three o’clock on the circular table. The table wasn’t a large one at all, but more a cafe table -- one of four in the otherwise empty break room.

As the men started to stand, the Butcher sprinted across the distance between them. It was maybe twenty feet and the men hesitated as they stood, too shocked to know what to do, whether to reach for their night sticks on their right hips or the radios on their left hips.

The Butcher never wavered. At full speed now -- an all-out sprint -- he leapt into the air over the empty chair in front of him and threw a flying side kick across the table aimed at the man now trying to stand at the twelve o’clock position. He felt like a Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu warrior soaring through the air as he arced toward his target. He skimmed over the table and hit the man at twelve o’clock with his bare heel right in the chest.

Unfortunately as the man flew back into a counter, doubtlessly compounding whatever injury he received from the kick to the chest, the Butcher lost his balance and missed his landing, tripping over the man he’d just kicked. From the ground and lying on his side, he threw an elbow into the man who had yet to recover and knocked at least three teeth practically down his throat.

He leapt up and grabbed the chair that the guard had been sitting in, which now lay on its side, and ferociously hurled it at the man who had been at three o’clock, but was now positioned behind him and on his left.

It was the one man the Butcher couldn’t see and he had learned from long experience that it’s the man you can’t see that you must worry most about. The light, wire chair flew nearly six feet before the man who had been coming toward him with a billy club caught it with his face and arms, with which he tried to block it at the last second. Of course, he didn’t actually catch it. He practically ate it, causing major damage to his arms and face and knocking him off his feet.

That left the third guard, who had been at nine o’clock but was now on the Butcher’s right. He stood close by, but was wisely bringing his radio up to his mouth.

The Butcher took a fast step and leapt up, throwing a hard front thrust kick forward. It landed into the man’s elbow just as he pressed the button to sound the alarm. The arm flew backward and whipped the man around, his radio bouncing across the floor. As the man tried to recover, the Butcher glanced back at the two other guards.

The one he had attacked first with the flying kick and elbow on the ground, was trying to stand, but blood poured from his mouth and he held his chest with his hand. At a minimum, the guard had the breath knocked out of him, but the Butcher felt confident he’d cracked his sternum and possibly ruptured his heart.

The guard who had “caught the chair” held his elbow with one hand and his bloody face with the other. He hadn’t recovered from the shock of such a hard hit. The Butcher marked him as having a shattered elbow and probably a fractured orbital bone. Maybe a broken nose, too.

The glance had taken a half second, but the guard still standing had yet to pull out his night stick -- his one remaining weapon. The Butcher stepped toward him and faked a punch toward his face. The man raised his arms to block it and the Butcher stopped the strike and kicked him with a front snap kick to the groin. It was fast. It was impossible to block. Just a fake strike with your hand, the opponent looking up, and BAM, a fast kick to the nuts. The Butcher had probably practiced the strike twenty thousand times.

The guard doubled over and grabbed himself. The Butcher slapped his palms to the man’s ears, and before the man could react to that, he pulled the guard’s head down into a powerful knee. The man took it right in the face, and his legs gave out instantly.

The Butcher glanced back around and was stunned to see the man who had taken the shot from the chair was actually pulling his radio out. He lay eight feet away, which might as well have been a mile.

The Butcher panicked for a millisecond, then remembered the billy club on the man he had just dropped. He reached down and grabbed it from the belt of the downed guard, and with all his power, he turned, stepped into it, and hurled the heavy bludgeon as hard as he could toward the guard.

The guard saw the Butcher start to hurl the club and stopped his attempt to radio for help. He ducked and raised his arms, but it was too little too late. The billy club slammed into his arms and shoulder, and he dropped his last hope for salvation like a panicked six-year-old infielder trying to hang onto a line drive.

The radio clanked and bounced on the ground, and the Butcher rushed toward him. As he ran to the guard, he looked to confirm the man he had kicked against the counter still lay barely moving. The man was a little more alert, but appeared badly shaken and in pain.

He moved toward the man he’d just clocked with the billy club and grabbed an outstretched leg. He lifted it and then stomped his foot into the man’s open groin. As the man reacted, the Butcher held his somewhat outstretched leg and then drove his heel into the side of the knee. It cracked and broke sideways and the man screamed. As the guard reached for it, the Butcher drove a sword hand strike right into his throat. It was probably enough to kill him, but he needed to be certain. He grabbed the billy club lying nearby and smashed the man’s head twice, just to make sure.

The other two died the same way: billy club strikes to the head, though the one at the counter tried to block the first strike. The Butcher expected it and broke the man’s arm with the first swing, and then finished him with similar strikes.

He checked the pulses of all three men and confirmed he had fractured their skulls and killed them. He had. With room to spare.

He took a deep breath and noticed his hands were shaking. My, that was quite a rush, he thought. Too bad he hadn’t been able to sneak in his sword. His katana would have made the entire business far more fun.

Chapter 27

Back on the farm, Nick Woods’s unit struggled to wake up and get moving. In the post-dawn hours of early morning, most of the men were still hungover. Beer cans and hot dog wrappers littered the grounds where the men had spent the night drinking and laughing among their fellow squad members.

With the capture of Hernan Flores and the word from President Roberto Rivera that Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter was no longer needed or welcome in Mexico, the men and one woman had spent the night relieving some much needed stress and pondering their future employment options. Without question, Nick’s one thousand dollar purchase of alcohol and food had been a big hit.

Nick had spent most of the night with his Primary Strike Squad, hanging out with Marcus, Isabella, Truck, Lizard, Bulldog, and Red. But like any good leader, Nick had also stepped away to spend time at the other squad fires across camp -- the three squads and the six-team Scout Sniper squad. Nick had learned many of the men’s names and backgrounds from the other squads and managed to play the role of funny, wise leader as he walked about.

Nick had also walked the perimeter and checked in with Preacher and the other men who had volunteered to stay sober and play guard so that the rest could enjoy their night. Nick appreciated that these men had volunteered for duty and he spent quite a while speaking with them.

As he walked back to his own fire and the members of the Primary Strike Team, he couldn’t shake the thought of what good men they all were. Without question, Nick didn’t look forward to giving up command of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter.

By the time the night ended (late into the morning), Nick realized he had enjoyed the evening, but he had been frustrated that he hadn’t managed to get any time alone with Isabella. He had caught her eyeing him across the fire several times when he hung out with the Primary Strike Team, and once their eyes met while the rest of the men were distracted by a story. She had smiled deeply and he had found himself smiling back harder than he meant. She had looked beautiful sitting there with the firelight dancing across her face and Nick knew that was not a sight he’d forget any time soon, even if he never got to see her again.

And by the looks of things, there was a good chance he wouldn’t get to see her again. Or really see her, alone, and without the men noticing.

The men were stirring from their drunken slumber, and Dwayne Marcus and the squad leaders were rousting those not already up to get cleaned up and begin the process of packing.

And in truth, there wasn’t a lot to pack, so they’d be leaving in no time at all. Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter was a small unit, living out of sea bags, footlockers, and truck beds. They carried light weapons and didn’t have heavy vehicles and all the required tools and parts that went along with them. There just wasn't any way for Nick to stretch it out to get more time with Isabella. Today was their final day, and it would be the last time he’d see her.

The unit would drop her off at the capitol and she would go back to serving the Mexican government and Nick would go back to what? Driving around the interstate in his red Jeep Grand Cherokee, hoping he didn’t shoot some poor sucker who accidentally looked at him twice?

Nick sighed at the thought. He wasn’t sure what he’d return to, and he honestly didn’t even want to think about it...

President Roberto Rivera hung up the phone up as if it were a fragile piece of glass. He leaned back in the chair and placed his hands on both sides of his face.

He was in absolute shock.

He had been woken up earlier that morning at 5:15 a.m. by a watch officer who had patched in a phone call from the head of the prisons bureau. Rivera still reeled from a deep drunkenness as he tried to make sense of what he was being told by his head of prisons. It seemed impossible, but the man was telling him that Hernan Flores was dead, shanked in his cell not even twelve hours after being arrested.

Rivera wanted to believe he was dreaming but his headache and shaky thoughts reminded him that he was totally awake. No. He wasn’t dreaming, but this was a nightmare all right. A real-life nightmare.

“How did this happen?” Rivera managed to ask in his stupor. “Flores was supposed to be kept in isolation without any visitors, even his attorney. My orders were explicit.”

“We’re not sure yet,” the administrator said.

“I want a full report by ten a.m.,” Rivera said, and then slammed his phone down.

He had crawled back under the covers, but found it impossible to fall back asleep, despite the fact he’d only gone to bed at two in the morning -- an incredibly late time for him. Now he regretted the heavy drinking he and Juan Soto had done following his news conference announcing the arrest of Hernan Flores.

The death of Flores inside Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 would no doubt be a blow to his presidency. Probably a serious one.

First many would assume either he or Juan Soto were behind it. Not that the idea hadn’t crossed his mind, but both were committed to the idea of following the law as they should. Had they wanted to ignore the concept of justice, they would have allowed the Vigilantes to skin Flores alive. But that wasn’t what they wanted. Besides, they had a solid, strong case against Flores. Coupled with an honest judge they’d selected, it was clear that they didn’t need to kill him.

But many of the voters (and certainly Rivera’s political opponents) wouldn’t believe any of this for a second. He would be looking at a blitzkrieg of innuendo and whisper campaigns, practically around the clock.

Second, for those who didn’t assume he or Soto were behind it, they would certainly fall back to the next most logical position: the government of Mexico couldn’t be trusted. It was either corrupt or incompetent, both of which meant it was hopeless. If the government couldn’t keep Mexico’s most wanted fugitive alive, then what could it do?

Rivera hung his hat on the hope that in a few hours, at ten, they would know what had happened. With a small amount of luck, there’d be an elaborate story behind Flores’s death that placed the murder squarely on one of the cartel’s shoulders, and with just a little more luck, Rivera could get out in front of the story. He’d schedule another emergency press conference, lay out the absolute truth, and announce a major investigation.

Those thoughts provided some comfort. With luck, the investigation would root out additional corruption from his prison system that had survived his earlier attempts. And with newly announced resignations and prosecutions, Rivera’s reputation could be restored. His legacy would be reinforced. The columnists, the historians, and the people would all say in one voice: Roberto Rivera would not tolerate corruption or cartels of any kind. He made it the focus of his presidency.

But the ten o’clock phone call from the head of the prisons bureau had left him in shambles. He sat back in the chair, completely deflated, looking at the phone.

How could it be?

The prisons bureau had nothing. Well, actually, they had tried to pull together some small threads to make it appear as though they had something, but Rivera knew better from his years in government. They had nothing.

Somehow, Flores had been killed, and three guards had died, as well. This was a disaster of epic proportions, and Rivera saw no way out of it. His dream to crush organized crime, the legacy he had worked to build throughout his career -- all of it was over now.

The Butcher was on the phone with the prison lieutenant who’d helped arrange the takedown of Flores. Both took protective measures to avoid government surveillance, with the Butcher on a throwaway cell phone, while the lieutenant was on a pay phone deep within one of Mexico’s most dangerous drug slums.

Yet they knew they could discuss precise details and names and not be caught. Mexico was not America. There was no NSA to tape and sort and filter every phone call on some massive supercomputer. But, the Butcher and the lieutenant both wanted to play it safe since it was impossible to know how much support the Americans were providing these days. Perhaps they were recording this as part of their aid.

“Was everything taken care of?” the Butcher asked.

“Yes, sir, it was,” the lieutenant said. “The fake memo has been shredded.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I shredded it myself.”

“And the rest of the story?”

“It fits well. We had your man rough up a couple of other guards, and his fellow cellmates, so it looks like an actual escape.”

This was the best part of the Butcher’s plan. Since they needed to hide the late-night transfer, the two of them had decided that one of the Godesto Cartel’s most evil men would “escape” and kill Hernan Flores on the way out.

It would seem a little odd that the man wouldn’t rescue other Godesto Cartel members, but the story being pushed to investigators was that Flores had planned to eliminate the man, claiming he was a snitch who had caused the great cartel leader’s arrest as part of a deal for a reduced sentence.

But the man had caught wind of it and made his move. He’d beaten up his cellmates, roughed up some guards, and shanked Flores first. Then, as he escaped, he caught three guards unawares and killed them, as well, before finally completing his escape.

So, in one clean sweep, the Butcher had killed his number one nemesis and earned the release of one of the cartel’s best shooters: a man named Felipe.

“The investigators seem to be buying the story?” the Butcher asked the lieutenant.

“Yes, sir. They do. The story has been bought hook, line, and sinker. And we’ve edited videotapes, cleaned up records showing the entrance of a prisoner last night, you name it. And I talked with the cops who made the delivery and they’ve taken care of covering up their log entry of transporting a prisoner to Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1. Believe me, everything is taken care of. I wanted to make sure this was the case as much for myself as for you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the Butcher said. Then he punched a button and ended the call.

Chapter 28

The Butcher wasn’t the only one on the phone. President Roberto Rivera was discussing the death of Hernan Flores with his trusted friend and number one advisor Juan Soto.

“How could this happen?” Soto yelled after hearing the news shortly after the 10 a.m. report from the head of the bureau of prisons.

“I told you,” Rivera said, sighing. “We’re still not sure yet.”

It was the third time that Rivera had said they weren’t sure how it happened and he was beginning to wonder how many times he’d have to say it before Soto understood that they truly weren’t sure how it happened.

“And why didn’t you call me this morning immediately after you learned the news?”

“I was half drunk, you were half drunk,” Rivera said. “I figured you’d rather sleep since we had no facts yet anyway. I know if the situation were reversed I’d have wanted to sleep.”

“You don’t become a billionaire by sleeping while something big is going down,” Soto said with intense anger in his voice.

Rivera was taken aback by that. Soto rarely lost his temper and he was never self-righteous. It was a sign of weakness, he had once said. Soto’s reaction scared Rivera -- it underscored the terrible danger they now faced.

But while Rivera agreed his political career was likely over, he didn’t want to put up with Soto’s shit. Not with this little sleep. Not on what was likely the worst day of Rivera’s life.

“I think,” Rivera countered, “that someone is forgetting that we followed their plan. I never wanted Flores arrested in the first place. It’s why I called in more American support after the Navy SEAL Team was destroyed. Flores should have been killed by the Vigilantes, and then the Mexican people would have felt empowered. Now, thanks to your brilliant plan, the Mexican people either think we’re corrupt or incompetent, and I’m not real sure which is worse.”

“Oh, you’re now placing this on me?” Soto asked.

“No, just reminding you of the facts.”

“Why didn’t this man have thirty guards around him? Was that really asking too much? Hell, you could have placed members of your Presidential Guard around him. They’ve got a much higher security clearance and I guarantee you that if you had used some of them, there’s no way he’d be dead. I just can’t believe he’s dead.”

“Well, he is. I’ve seen pictures of the body.”

“You still should have called me.”

“Why?” Rivera screamed, slamming his hand down on his desk. “What would that have served? What could I have done? It was already too late!”

“Bullshit,” Soto fired back. “You could have called up your elite Special Forces Battalion and rushed them there. They could have been there in thirty minutes and secured the site. And then you could have arrested every guard in the prison, separated them, and secured them in holding cells. We could have interrogated and sweated them and probably come up with what really happened.”

Rivera couldn’t help but see the merit in this idea. Damn, why hadn’t he thought of that? Well, being half-drunk hadn’t helped.

And why hadn’t any of his advisors thought of it? Ah, that’s right. He hadn’t called an emergency cabinet meeting, instead deciding to try to get a little more sleep. Could he have even managed a meeting in his impaired state? Who knew. And shit. Just the thought of not calling the cabinet meeting made him consider the hearings his opponents would demand once news broke.

What did Rivera know and when did he know it? What was his response and why didn’t he react differently?

Rivera buried his head in his hands. He needed more aspirin.

Soto knew by the delay in any response from Rivera that his remarks had hit home.

“Next time just call me,” Soto said, deciding to drop it.

Rivera swallowed and said, “I will,” like a bloodied kid who’d just been pummeled by bully.

“What do we know about this number two man -- the Butcher, I think they call him?” Soto asked.

“We’re pulling together all we can on him, but already we know an impressive amount of information, mostly from informants. Let’s see...”

Rivera pulled a file toward him and opened it.

“Looks like he started out as a nobody. Just a really small kid who got bullied a lot. Fell into the wrong crowd, got busted for theft and grand larceny of a vehicle. Prison apparently really sucked for him. He made several formal complaints about being sexually molested.”

Soto interrupted him.

“Which reminds me,” Soto said, “we have to get that under control. Our prisons should be safe for both the guards and the inmates.”

“We have a lot to get under control,” Rivera said, his voice biting. “Worrying about prisoners is pretty low down my priority list.”

“That’s the wrong attitude to have,” Soto said, “but we can argue about this some other time. Like, when your entire career isn’t hanging by a thread.”

Rivera ignored the remark. He didn’t feel like fighting anymore, so he scanned the memo further.

“Continuing where we left off, the Butcher gives up on alerting the prison authorities about the sexual abuse he’s enduring and takes to weights and boxing.”

Rivera flipped a page and continued, “Um, I’m assuming the weights and boxing didn’t work because he left prison and went on to develop a fierce reputation as a martial artist.”

Rivera scanned some more, then said, “Hmm. Interesting. So, he apparently takes these newly acquired martial arts skills and tracks down nearly every man who had raped him in prison or bullied him as a kid.”

“What did he do?” Soto asked. “Beat them up?”

“No,” Rivera said. “He killed every one of them, supposedly. Either by beating them to death or slashing them up with either a short tanto blade or long katana blade.”

“My God.”

“No, it’s worse than that. He didn’t just put them away with a swift killing strike. Rather, he would cut and slice them up, often as many as eighty or ninety shallow slices until they bled out, according to the medical report.”

“And why was he never arrested for these killings?” Juan Soto asked.

“Warrants were put out for his arrest, but no luck in arresting him. At one point, one officer called in a suspicious person driving a vehicle he had been linked to, but before an arrest could be made or backup arrive, the officer was killed by heavy nine millimeter fire. Detectives suspected it was an Uzi used on the officer.”

“So, that may not have been him?” Soto said.

“No, it probably was. Says here that his second favorite weapon after his katana sword is an Uzi.”

“Well, there’s little doubt that the man is a serious killer,” Soto said. “But can he lead? Running the Godesto Cartel would challenge even the strongest leader. It’s a huge organization with tons of people in it. That’s a lot of details to keep up with.”

“Wow,” Rivera said. He hadn’t even been listening to Soto. The report was simply too interesting. “Looks like, according to one informant, he once famously killed one of Flores’s guards who tried to disarm him.”

“But can he lead?” Soto asked louder.

“Hell if I know. Guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter 29

“Nick, you’re going to want to come see this,” Isabella said.

Nick stood from his desk, where he had been making some notes for a final report to submit to Mr. Smith. He followed Isabella out of his office, but stayed far enough behind her so that he could comfortably admire the view as she walked down the hall. Today she wore tight green fatigue trousers and a black tanktop that stretched across her chest tighter than anything he’d seen her wear.

Nick didn’t know if it was Isabella’s goal to torture every man confined to the farm, but she was doing a damned good job at it. Well, their time with her was limited and running out, so what the hell, Nick thought.

They walked into the living room where most of the Primary Strike Team and probably two dozen others from the three squads stood around a television. Dwayne Marcus looked up from it and saw the two approaching.

“Make way for Nick,” Marcus said, his deep, drill instructor voice carrying across the room like a wave.

The men shifted a bit and Nick slid into the half-circle. Marcus picked up the remote and rewound the TV five minutes backward on the DVR.

“Wait until you see this, Nick,” he said, dropping the remote to a chair. “This is unbelievable. Or on second thought, maybe it’s not.”

The show resumed and Nick recognized the Mexican Presidential briefing room. Seeing that room was becoming a theme.

The Mexican President walked up to the podium and looked down at a notecard he carried. He looked grim and Nick felt just a touch of uneasiness in his stomach.

“I’ve come out today to make a statement and I apologize to the members of the media present today, but I will be unable to take any questions,” Roberto Rivera said, nodding to the reporters who stood around him, hovering like a flock of vultures.

Nick noticed the man directly to his left -- Bulldog, the huge Navy SEAL from Baltimore -- step away from him and then Isabella slid into the circle. She moved in close, and he felt her breast against his crossed arm, then her hand on his lower back.

Nick assumed no one was behind them because Isabella immediately began sliding her hand up and down his lower back, her nails cutting into him seductively. He tried to pay attention to the press conference, but it was taking all the focus he could muster. Between the feeling of her breasts and the sensation of her fingers running up and down his back, he was about to call the entire unit outside into formation while he took care of more pressing matters.

“I am as shocked at this news as you are,” Rivera said, and Nick wondered what he was talking about. He focused harder.

“While Hernan Flores was no friend of either mine or the Mexican people, he deserved better than to die in a prison.”

Nick came fully to his senses. Flores? Dead?

“Make no mistake,” Rivera said, “this was not justice. And while we were going to seek the sternest of sentences, this is not an equivalent punishment. Flores should have faced a judge. The Mexican people should have witnessed the cruel acts of this man, as the government presented its case against the most dangerous man in North America.

“I regret that at this time we’re not more sure of what happened yet, but our facts do show that Flores was killed by another prisoner. I want to emphasize that point. This was not a corrupt guard who killed him. Of that we are certain.

“In fact, my press secretary will distribute the name and photo of the prisoner who executed this vicious attack and who also in the process managed to escape from Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1. As you will note in the profile we will hand out, this man is a member of the Godesto Cartel. We’re not sure if this is part of a coup inside the organization or personal revenge taken by this man. We intend to find that out though, and once we do, we will alert you, the public immediately. It’s crucial that the Mexican government have your assistance in this fight against the Godesto Cartel and the other elements of organized crime.

“Now, before I step away, I want to address two misconceptions that I’ve already heard. Some have said the Mexican government, or possibly even myself, had a hand in Hernan Flores’s death. I want to assure you this is false. Quite frankly, had we wanted him dead, then we could have killed him in the raid that netted him. Our officers could have claimed it was self-defense. Thus, you can be confident that neither I nor the Mexican government wanted this man killed in prison.

“The second misconception I’d like to address is that Hernan Flores’s death is either proof of the Mexican government’s incompetence, or possibly even our corruption.”

The President looked down and swallowed.

“It is true that we still struggle with both incompetence and corruption, but you all elected me to tackle these two issues and I’m proud of our record and the improvements that we have made to date. Our government is more competent and less corrupt than when I took office. And I want the Mexican people to know that every day we improve the quality of our police and military and root out more corruption. But this remains a monumental task. Nonetheless, I plan to continue this fight, and returning for a moment to the matter of Hernan Flores, I pledge to you that once our full investigation is complete, I will announce and release its findings to the Mexican people. I furthermore pledge to continue to be transparent and diligent --”

Isabella had removed her hand at some point and Nick turned to look at her. She looked pale and had crossed her arms protectively. Nick remembered her dead father, and brother. Had Flores been responsible for their deaths? Nick recalled her file saying they had died at the hands of a drug cartel, but he couldn’t remember if it had been the Godesto or one of the others.

She had lost a lot, and that didn’t account for the fellow officers and attorneys and judges she had known who’d been killed in this war.

Nick turned and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. He glanced around and saw that none of the men seemed to notice. They were all focused on the TV as their entire lives hung in the balance of what Rivera might say and their focus was obvious.

Nick knew he had checked out as a leader and he knew it was bad and “unsat” by every military standard he had ever held himself to, but here she was, and God, why did he feel this way about her?

He pulled her tighter and she leaned further into him. Some of his men saw them, but Nick decided to hell with it. It was their last day. He’d never see the members of S3 again.

Nick was beyond caring.

Nick kissed the top of her head and released her. She wiped an eye and composed herself. Nick turned and looked back at the scene and saw Rivera was prattling on.

Nick had heard enough, and the clock was ticking, so he grabbed Isabella’s hand and led her toward his office. There, they talked for some time about her family, and about Nick’s past, as well as the future for both of them, but the impending separation kept an insurmountable gulf between their desires.

One hundred miles away, another man was ignoring Rivera’s press conference, as well. The Butcher was sleeping soundly, resting up for his planned assault the next day. The Butcher’s time to control the Godesto Cartel had come, and he had a single goal: to topple the Mexican government.

Tomorrow, the strike he had planned for many years would be a major step in that direction.

Chapter 30

The next morning, Nick sat in his office. In the corner, his bags and footlocker waited, packed and ready for the trip home. His locked and loaded M14 stood propped by his gear.

Nick knew this was the last day with Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter in Mexico, and he had called a brief formation earlier behind the farmhouse. He had thanked the men for their service and diligence, and wished them all luck wherever their paths took them once they returned to the States.

Now Nick wanted to talk to his Primary Strike Team members one-on-one. Most likely, they would separate at the border, and this would be his last chance to take his time and talk with his men, man-to-man. (Nick and Marcus would take the equipment up to Quantico and then Mr. Smith could take it from there. By that point, Nick would hardly care.)

Nick had been dreading this day since his unit had gotten word from Smith that they were to pack up and leave. Nick had barely slept the night prior; his dread of departing from this mission -- and returning to his old life -- almost too much to take.

He’d be losing the mission he had poured himself into, and he’d be losing the camaraderie and friendship he had with these men. That would be a big blow to a loner like Nick. Of that, he had no doubt.

And he certainly wasn’t looking forward to being dragged away from Isabella. Between the mission, the men, and her, he wasn’t real sure how he’d re-adapt to his old life.

“Send the first man in, Marcus,” he yelled.

Truck walked in, wearing a ratty T-shirt that was half tucked in and did little to improve his look. And the look wasn’t much -- a bald, middle-aged man with the start of a gut.

But he did have a look of ferocity in his eyes and a pair of hulking arms and chest to back them up. Nick had a natural affinity for the man who had given so much to America, and fallen so far. Nick smiled at the man who probably struggled with more demons than anyone could ever guess.

“Well, thanks for not beating me up,” Nick said, laughing now.

Truck shrugged and gave an embarrassed smile.

“Ah, hell, I’ll never live that down. Beat up one dumb-ass officer and it follows you the rest of your career.”

Nick laughed harder.

“Well, it did get you kicked out of Special Forces and the Army. And then you had to forget you were a contractor and go charging up the hill and kill those Afghans instead of just driving on, like you were supposed to do.”

Truck shrugged and smiled. “I’d do it again. Lost too many friends over there and I don’t take kindly to getting shot at day in and day out by the same jackasses.”

Nick stood and reached out to shake his hand. They shook, two strong grips, and Nick said, “Truck, it’s been an honor to serve with you. I just wanted to say thanks for all you’ve done and if I’m ever lucky enough to get in the shooting biz again, I’ll be giving you a call. You’re a damn fine man.”

“Thank you, sir.”

And that’s the way it went with each Primary Strike Team member. Nick had their profiles down by heart, and he wanted just a few words with each of them.

Lizard, the small Puerto Rican who always seemed nervous and scared. But just like his nine years in the Marine Corps, the little Brazilian Jiu-jitsu black belt had never backed down or shied away from danger.

Bulldog, the 6’4”, 250-pound Navy SEAL from Baltimore. He was black, he was big, and he was always motivated, even once the mission end was announced. “There’s always a need for good trigger pullers. We’ll be fine, men,” he had said after the formation broke up, while so many others seemed crushed, as if they had lost a bloody skirmish and left quite a few comrades on the field of battle.

Preacher, the quiet, religious man of average size, who had done four tours with the Marine Corps, two of them with the special unit MARSOC. He had lived up to his billing. Devout. Avoider of nicotine and alcohol. Rarely, without a small Testament in one of his cargo pockets.

Red, the crazy 5’5” Marine who wanted to fight everyone and go on every mission and stand every guard post. The thin man seemed to live on Marlboro Reds, which powered him through impossible levels of sleep deprivation. Nick wasn’t sure if Red’s name came from smoking Marlboro Reds 24/7 or the red, short-cropped hair that topped his freckled face. Nick had seen the action-addict side of Red since they had left the States, and he understood why the man transferred from one Marine combat unit to the next deploying one while he served in the Corps.

Nick had decided not to call in Isabella for any final words. They had exchanged phone numbers the day before and Nick didn’t want to deal with talking yet one more time to a woman he had feelings for.

Without question, he’d grown to really respect her professionally. She was the unlikely warrior, who had gone from lawyer to cop to detective. And she was as motivated by justice and the goal of serving her country as any person Nick had ever seen. No doubt, she’d have jumped on a grenade and given her life if it helped fix the wreck her country had become. And hell, Nick thought, if he had lived her life and lost a father and brother to cartels, he’d probably be the same way.

Nick also spoke with the departing squad leaders and the Scout Sniper squad leader, since he had gotten to know them all pretty well. Nick encouraged each of them to talk with their men as he had -- to say a few words and thank them individually for their service.

He said a few final words to his CIA contact, who had proven as loyal and faithful as one could ask, and then ended his work by talking with Marcus.

The 6’1” University of Florida football star was among one of the greatest men Nick had ever met. He was all-Marine and full of courage and skill, but he also had the discipline and charisma that only a drill instructor can carry. The man never looked flustered or unprepared. He was the textbook example of what a Marine leader should be, and Nicked thanked him to no end for how much work he’d shouldered.

Marcus had taken it all in the position of parade rest and ended the conversation by only saying, “Nick, it’s been an honor to serve with you.”

And with all the goodbyes said, and the hour of departure approaching, Nick sat back in his chair and felt a deep sadness come over him. In just a few hours, he’d have nothing again: no mission, no Isabella, no men to joke with, no command to challenge his wits and determination.

Nick looked over at his secured footlocker and considered pulling out his bottle of Jack Daniels, but knew he should hold off. At least for a little while longer. But something told him he might just drown in the bottle in the months to come.

“You’ve seen too much and done too much, Nick,” he said to himself. “Pretty soon, you’ll just be a washed-up old man down at the VFW.”

But then he remembered how much he hated being around other people and recalled how his life had been after the death of Anne. The two years in Montana, expecting the government to double-cross him again after making a deal with them. And then the realization that they weren’t coming, and the awareness that he was going crazy, all alone in the mountains, constantly on alert for government troops that weren’t coming.

And then his time on the road in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, as paranoid as before, making a cross-country trip, completely aware of how people looked at him. Of how crazy they must think the man that moved cautiously and walked like some wild animal on the prowl. It had been great seeing much of the country, but Nick couldn’t shake the nightmares and paranoia, even with the scenery and big-city traffic.

Afghanistan. His betrayal by a man named Whitaker. His dead spotter. Evading more than a thousand Soviet troops. A changed identity and his time as Bobby Ferguson. Anne and all the sweetness and beauty that went with that name. Her murder. Meeting Allen Green. Hunting down Anne’s killers.

Nick shook his head and stood. He had to get these thoughts out of his head. And with that he reached for his footlocker.

“Just one drink, Nick,” he told himself. “Only one today, and no more thinking about Anne or what you’re going to do tomorrow when this is all done. Just one, small drink.”

Chapter 31

Nick Woods may have been saying his goodbyes and thinking too much about his past and especially his future, but that wasn’t true of the Godesto Cartel. Not even close. Under its new leadership, the cartel was in the process of carrying out one of its most ambitious operations since the three-pronged nighttime attack on the Navy SEALs, their reinforcement column of Mexican troops, and the Presidential Palace.

This time, the Godesto Cartel would hit billionaire Juan Soto.

The Butcher had been looking forward to this attack for months and months. Few last-minute preparations were needed, as the operation had been planned for more than a year. But the attack hadn’t gone down because Hernan Flores -- the soft bastard -- wouldn’t green light it, arguing that such an attack would cross the line and go too far, turning the people against the Godesto Cartel. Flores argued that it would be seen as an all-out assault on an innocent civilian.

The Butcher had argued against Flores, stating that Soto provided a crucial pillar of support to the Mexican government. Flores wouldn’t hear of it, but with Flores no longer in the picture, the Butcher had ordered his men to begin making arrangements for the attack moments after returning from the prison with Felipe.

The Butcher asked his lieutenants to update the plans and begin recon of the target while he and Felipe caught up on rest and sleep. The next morning, the Butcher awoke at 4:45 and made some last-minute adjustments to the plans before sending his men off. It was now 7:30 a.m. and the Butcher looked up from his watch and took one final, deep breath.

Their target Juan Soto resided on the top floor of an eight-story building in Mexico City. Soto owned the building for security measures and lived there most of the work week, before heading off for weekends to his mountain estate with his wife and family.

The Butcher waited with eight Godesto gunmen in a mid-sized van, parked in an alley near Soto’s building downtown. The eight men were jammed in tight, three bodies per bench seat in the back, with the Butcher sitting in the passenger seat next to the driver up front. The six men in the back were mostly hidden behind the dark-tinted windows of the white van, and the van provided adequate camouflage on the busy streets of Mexico City.

It was just a white, industrial passenger van. Unmarked. No business logos. It could have belonged to a hundred different companies or just been a rental. But if any cop made the mistake of checking them out, the Godesto members would quickly be found out since the plates were stolen. Not that it mattered. They had no reservations about gunning down cops.

All eight gunmen wore SWAT uniforms and full battle gear. Helmets, assault vests, and MP5s slung just like they carry them on SWAT teams. Their uniforms failed to precisely match Mexico City’s SWAT team, but they were close enough, including the black combat boots and the patches on their shoulders.

“Let’s go,” the Butcher said.

The eight of them climbed out as calmly as they could and made final checks of their weapons. Their 9 mm MP-5s wouldn’t do at long range, but they were perfect for the kind of close-in work planned for today.

“Ready?” the Butcher asked.

His men nodded in affirmation and made final adjustment of helmets, slings, and assault vests. With the van parked deep in an alley between two tall buildings, and behind three dumpsters, they weren’t concerned with being seen.

The Butcher double-checked his MP-5 and confirmed that his M9 Beretta was strapped down on his thigh holster. He didn’t need it falling out during any ducking and rolling he might have to do. Behind him, his men racked slides and checked magazines. Other than the sounds of metal clicking on weapons and rocks grinding under boots on the pavement, the early morning was quiet.

Traffic passed down the busy road in front of them, but it was rush hour in the middle of Mexico City and commuters had one thing on their minds: getting to work before the clock struck eight. Looking for odd sights like a van disgorging SWAT guys just wasn’t high up on their priority list.

The eight men formed up in a single file with the Butcher taking the third position. He preferred to take point, but he couldn’t lead and make sound decisions if he was looking for targets and other dangers. The eight men exited the alley at a leisurely pace, their weapons hanging loose from their slings and aimed toward the ground.

In their planning, the Butcher had reiterated numerous times that they were to seem as relaxed as possible when they broke cover from the alley. And as expected, the moment they stepped onto the sidewalk and started down the street, they came under intense scrutiny from passersby and residents living in apartments up and down the street.

“Stay calm,” the Butcher said, his voice just loud enough for his men to hear.

They only had a block to cover before they would arrive at Juan Soto’s building. And if their recon was accurate, they wouldn’t come under observation from any guards inside until they were about fifty yards from the front door. It was one of the few security weaknesses of the building.

The group walked in a file toward their target, heads mostly down and bodies seemingly relaxed. The eight men looked unalert and disinterested. A few people on the streets took note, but just barely. Seeing well-armed Mexican police or soldiers on the street was all too common in the cartel-riddled country. And this group didn’t seem concerned about danger, so people went about their business without fear of being blown up or caught in a massive firefight with drug runners.

They strolled right up to the front of Juan Soto’s building with shocking ease, thanks to the cover of the uniforms. And once the first man opened the massive glass door, the Butcher knew there was no stopping them now. The SWAT uniforms had served their purpose well.

Up on the eighth floor, Soto was far more relaxed than usual as he dressed for work. He had eight men -- all prior SAS, Special Forces, and Navy SEALs -- protecting him, which always made him feel pretty safe. But today, with Hernan Flores dead, he felt safer than he’d felt in years.

It seemed a lifetime since he had called President Roberto Rivera and threatened to leave the country and close all of his businesses. And while he didn’t know what Flores’s replacement was like, it was inconceivable that he was more of a concern than Flores had been.

Hernan Flores had posed a special kind of danger because of his ability to win over public support, thanks to how he played the role of businessman and philanthropist. And Flores, having come from the depths of poverty, could relate to the poor. During his reign over the Godesto Cartel, he had often enjoyed more popular support than the President.

Now, with the Godesto Cartel back under the control of a much more common thug, it would be easier for President Rivera to rally the people and the country’s law enforcement agencies. Finally, the tide against the government would be permanently checked and momentum turned against the country’s parasites.

Juan Soto examined the knot in his tie in a mirror and adjusted it, cinching it perfectly against his two hundred dollar, custom-tailored dress shirt. He confirmed his shirt was tucked tight into his belt, showing off his thirty-one-inch waist that he ran miles and miles each day to maintain.

Soto glanced at the clock on his nightstand and noticed he was several minutes ahead of schedule. He smiled. Nothing like getting rid of Mexico’s worst enemy -- and his archenemy -- to put a spring in his step and propel him through his morning routine faster.

There was the possibility that President Rivera would face serious repercussions from the murder of Flores in one of Mexico’s most secure prisons, but Soto couldn’t worry about that right now. His day was too crammed and he needed to be focused on what mattered in the short term. He would call Rivera and they could strategize later tonight about how to handle the political fallout. Until then, it was business. And a lot of it.

Soto’s schedule for the day began with a trip out to one of his rock quarries, where production was down and there’d been a curious, deep drop in profits. But Soto’s chief financial officer suspected profits hadn’t fallen, but rather the plant manager was pocketing increasing amounts of cash.

Soto planned to confront him and give the man a chance to explain what was happening, before they had the man fired and arrested. As he had done before in similar situations, he’d show up with his top legal counsel and some extra security personnel, in addition to his eight bodyguards he regularly kept on hand. And if the man couldn’t explain how he suddenly owned a new car and home under Soto’s intense questioning, then he’d be in for a long day. (It was nice having more than a dozen private investigators on staff who could keep a close eye on employees.)

After dealing with the quarry manager, Soto had to meet with his braintrust about a wealth management firm he was in the process of purchasing. Soto wanted to make a decision and either buy it or move on. He hated over-studying issues and letting them divert his focus, and his team of advisers had been considering purchasing the firm for nearly three months, which Soto figured was probably two months too long.

Finally, the last thing on his day’s schedule was a symposium on economic development with the Mexican Chamber of Commerce. Today’s topic delved into convincing Arab countries to invest a portion of their vast sums of cash into beachfront real estate along Mexico’s coast. And part of the reluctance from the Arab countries involved the cartels and their demand for payments, but Soto couldn’t wait to explain the significance of the death of Hernan Flores to the Godesto Cartel, as well as how that death would reduce the stranglehold the Godesto had on the country.

Soto owned much of that beachfront real estate, and he had almost sold a two hundred million dollar beachfront hotel project to a Saudi prince a couple of years ago. And since he owned miles and miles of similar property, he was looking forward to unloading much of it. For a hefty profit, of course, since he had bought it dirt-cheap.

Suddenly, the sound of an explosion rocked Soto from his thoughts. It had sounded close, very close, and he walked to his bedroom door -- a four-inch thick vault-like slab -- and opened it.

“Gordon, what was that?” Soto asked.

Gordon, an SAS veteran dressed in a suit, stood with his finger pushing his earpiece further in.

He held up a finger and then said, “Sir, we’re still trying to figure that out. Not sure how close to us that was.”

But Soto could tell the decorated veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan was far more on edge than usual.

Gordon noticed Soto looking at him and said, “Sir, please step back in your room.”

Soto resisted and said, “Has anyone alerted the authorities yet?”

“Sir,” Gordon said, with tension in his voice, “we don’t even know what it was. We’ve got this, sir. Let us do our job.”

Soto stepped back in his room and slammed the heavy door. He’d deal with Gordon later. The man was good, but he was too confident. And only a year into working security in Mexico, he seemed in Juan Soto’s opinion to consistently underestimate the power of the cartels. It was as if all his deployments into combat zones, and the insane talent he had in close quarters battle, had created too much confidence in the man.

Soto walked to his eighth floor window to look for a rising smoke plume. But as he looked out his four-inch bullet-proof window, he saw no smoke anywhere. He rushed to the window at the other side of the room and saw no smoke there, either. But then his peripheral vision caught movement, and he looked down in the street below him to see several SUVs and cars squealing to a stop, men jumping from them carrying automatic weapons and rocket launchers.

“Gordon!” Soto yelled.

He raced across his bedroom for the door. The door opened and Gordon no longer looked like a dignified bodyguard in a suit. Now he was cinching down a tactical vest loaded with pockets and magazines. He pulled a submachine gun sling across his body and looked up at his billionaire VIP.

“Sir, we’ve got a problem,” Gordon said.

“No shit,” Soto said. “Call the police.” He pointed back toward the bedroom windows. “There are dozens of them down there!”

“We’re on it,” Gordon said. “But we need you in your room.”

Gordon pushed Soto back and when Soto tried to rush by him, Gordon slung him across the room. Soto landed in a heap against the wall and Gordon stepped into the room. He slammed the thick steel door, locked it, and then turned a foot-wide aluminum wheel in the center of the door that pushed eight-inch steel posts into the reinforced floor and upper wall. Soto’s room was essentially a vault, encased in four inches of steel. It was fireproof, bombproof, and definitely bullet proof.

Its only weaknesses were the two windows, but even they were four inches thick and could handle anything up to a fifty caliber round -- or at least a couple of them. If they got hit with a steady stream, they’d be screwed, especially when the bullets started ricocheting inside the steel vault they were now stuck in.

In truth, Gordon knew there shouldn’t have been any windows, but billionaires get what billionaires want, and Soto refused to spend his nights in a room where he couldn’t look out over Mexico City.

Gordon tossed his submachine gun on the bed and balled his hands into fists.

“Shit!” he said.

“How bad is it?” Soto asked.

“They’ve breached the building,” Gordon said. “Killed our two men at the door and will be having it out with the rest of my men soon.”

“How many men do you have left?” Soto asked. “Five, right?”

“Correct,” Gordon said. “They should be able to hold them off. These men are the best. I just hate that we lost Sherwood and Craddock at the front door. And I hate that I’m stuck in this room as a last line of defense and not out there with my men, where I belong.”

Soto walked back to the window and saw a derelict school bus screech to a halt below. Gang members carrying AKs and pistols rushed off the bus and into the street. There were dozens of men running about and taking up positions on corners and behind newspaper stands.

“Gordon, your men will never hold off this many,” Soto said, a deep dread in his voice.

Gordon walked over and looked down at the street below. Seeing the look of horror spread over the stoic man’s face, Soto grabbed for his phone.

The moment Rivera picked up, Soto blurted out, “Roberto, they’re coming for me.”

Hearing the shakiness of his own voice made Soto realize how scared he actually was.

Sounds of machine gunfire and explosions roared in the background.

“What?” Rivera asked, hearing the sounds of battle, as well. “Hang in there, Juan. Let me call for help. I’ll call you right back.”

Hands shaking, Soto slid his phone in his pocket and moved back to the window. His attackers had parked their cars horizontally in the road, completely closing it off. And the gangsters and thugs had lit tires on fire in the road. Smoke rose from the tires ominously and Soto saw weapons pointed outboard from half-hidden men kneeling in shadows and behind pieces of cover, waiting for anyone insane enough to approach.

What was this? A siege? A warzone?

Soto wasn’t sure, but he was quite certain he was on the losing side right now. By quite a bit. And vault or not, he didn’t feel safe. But he prayed it would suffice until a quick response from the Mexican police or Army broke through.

Back downstairs, before the situation exploded and flooded with armed cartel in view of Juan Soto’s bullet-proof window, things had been quiet and calm, same as any other morning. Then Soto’s two security men at the entrance to the building noticed the SWAT team out front walking toward them.

Soto’s building, privately owned, was about half glass, like most of the other skyscrapers downtown. The difference was that Soto’s building didn’t just have massive glass windows that could survive a bad storm. No, his windows had all been replaced and were now blast and bullet-proof.

Additionally, since Soto had purchased the building, he had turned it into a fortress. No tenants. They were moved out. And no visitors, except by appointment.

Visitors had to come through a single entry point, and even then, they had to be buzzed in. Most weren’t. Under any circumstances. Soto’s security was too important, and threats too many for any kind of other security posture.

So when Soto’s two security men saw the SWAT team, they stood and walked out from behind a desk for a better look. The SWAT team looked unalarmed and casually walked up to the door. The lead man pointed at the door and one of Soto’s suited security men buzzed them in.

“How can we help you?” the smallest guard said, raising his hand to stop them as they walked through the door. “No one called us with an alert so I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you here.”

The uniforms and calm demeanor had clearly worked. Neither of Soto’s men had even drawn their weapons. Then suddenly the point man for the faux SWAT team quickly raised his MP-5 -- it had just been hanging from its sling and directed toward the ground in as non-threatening manner as possible. He brought the smaller guard’s face into his sights and fired four rounds on fully automatic. It happened smooth and fast, the rounds shattering the relative silence of the morning.

The larger guard was reaching for his weapon when the second man in the stack fired a round through his knee. The bullet shattered the man’s knee and he shrieked in pain as he tumbled to the ground. He slid backward on his hands and good leg, dragging his lifeless limb behind him, desperate to gain some distance from the threat. Somehow ignoring the pain, the guard moved his hand to his jacket reaching for his gun a second time.

The Butcher, shoving men out of his way, charged forward. He kicked upward, catching the man in the bottom of his jaw with the toe of his assault boot. Teeth crunched and the man’s head lifted and then banged into the tile floor. Blood poured from his mouth.

The Butcher grabbed the guard’s lapels, lifted him off the floor, and removed the .45 from its holster inside his jacket. He handed it to a cartel member near him, who shoved it in a pouch on his web belt. The Butcher then released his grip, allowing the man’s head to again smack the ground.

He looked half out of it. Definitely suffering from a concussion, in addition to the wrecked knee and remodeled dental work. The Butcher figured he was a prior Special Forces soldier. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be protecting a billionaire who could afford the best. Also, no civilian would still be conscious and trying to resist.

Time to end that illusion, the Butcher thought.

“You’re going to tell us what we need to know,” the Butcher said, “or you’re going to be wishing you had. Either way, I don’t care.”

Two of his men grabbed the guard by his arms and yanked him back to his feet. He stumbled on his good leg, leaning on them for support. One of the Butcher’s other men circled behind the guard, checking him for more weapons and found a revolver strapped to his ankle. He ripped it off the man’s leg and threw it away from them. It skidded across the floor.

The Butcher looked out the front entrance and saw SUVs and cars sliding to a halt in front of the building. He smiled at how easy this would now be. He planned to send a reward to the police captain who had allowed the Godesto Cartel to borrow the SWAT uniforms. Juan Soto’s guards had never stood a chance, and now that his men had made their breach into the building, Soto didn’t, either.

The Butcher watched his men deploy in the streets in front of the building. The rest of his men would be here soon, riding in SUVs, sports cars, and even a bus -- basically, whatever form of transportation they could get their hands on. The Butcher hadn’t sweated that detail, and it ultimately wouldn’t matter. They’d be abandoning many of them and they could steal or buy more vehicles later.

What mattered wasn’t how they got here, but that they got here. They’d have to fight their way out of the city, and they needed sheer numbers of fighters for that. Of course, sheer numbers weren’t a problem for the largest cartel in North or South America.

Not only did the Butcher have nearly two hundred of his own men streaming in from various directions, he had also ordered the various gangs affiliated with the Godesto Cartel to do a single task: kill at least one or two cops in their sector. Ten thousand dollars if they killed one; twenty-five thousand if they killed two, which provided a nice incentive for aiming high, since $25k for a street gang was a lot of money.

The Butcher needed chaos, and a lot of it, across the entire city. And if these gangs wanted to keep profiting off the high-quality coke that only the Godesto Cartel could provide, then they would start shooting at cops in their area beginning at 7:40 this morning -- and not a minute earlier; the orders were clear.

His men out in front of the building looked confident as they rushed from vehicles and looked for targets. He knew they fed off of having their leader actually taking part in the operation. Not some fat ass, wannabe politician safely waiting in some tower cramming down Funyuns anymore. No, now they had someone who would share in their victories and defeats. Who’d put his own life on the line on every mission from here on out.

And he knew they were especially excited that a bank heist would be going down once the police had committed to responding to the assault on Juan Soto’s building. The men appreciated the boldness, and the promised bonuses they’d be getting from the bank robbery.

The Butcher turned from watching the street and refocused on his SWAT team. They had put the wounded guard back on the floor and pinned him down. One of them was screaming questions into his face while another one was stabbing a Kabar knife through the man’s hand and into the tile floor. He’d need a new knife after this, but it looked like an effective technique to the Butcher, who knew a thing or two about sadistic torture.

“Hurry up,” he said to his men, looking down at his watch. They had a short window of no more than twenty-five minutes to finish this. And he wanted Soto’s head on his wall, not some overpaid guard who fancied himself a former war hero.

The Butcher looked at the screaming man and wondered if the big salary he earned protecting Soto was worth it now. But then the knife slammed through the hand again and the Butcher got his answer through the man’s ragged screams. No matter how much you made, sometimes no amount of money was enough.

The Butcher pulled out a tactical radio to check in on his teams outside the building that he couldn’t see. The government forces would be coming soon.

Juan Soto watched the scene below in the street in sheer horror. He felt hopeless, but couldn’t force himself to stop watching. Gordon was pacing, calling into his sleeve mic for updates from the five men below, but they were safe so far. Five men downstairs. Three upstairs. That’s all that stood between Soto and the army below.

Twenty minutes ago, it had seemed overkill. Now, it seemed ridiculously shortsighted.

Juan’s cellphone rang. He looked down and saw it was President Roberto Rivera’s number.

“Juan, hang in there,” Rivera said. “You’re going to be fine. We have an armored SWAT truck on the way. It has thirty men in the back who are armed to the teeth.”

Rivera sounded a little too shaken for Soto’s liking, as if something else was wrong.

“What is it?” Soto asked.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me, damn it,” Soto shouted. “It’s my life on the line here!”

Rivera sighed into the phone.

“The Godesto Cartel is doing more than just attacking your building,” Rivera admitted. “Apparently, there have been dozens of cops murdered across the city in what must be a coordinated attack of some kind. We’ve got all law enforcement pairing up into groups of four and they’re breaking out shotguns and assault rifles until we figure out what’s happening.”

“Meaning?” Soto asked, frustrated.

“It’s affecting our response time,” Rivera said, his voice quieter.

Juan Soto felt a deep, sickening feeling that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Actually, since he filed bankruptcy as a young businessman, twenty-plus years ago. Yet panicking and screaming at Rivera would not help the situation, only make it worse.

“Do the best you can,” Soto said. “We’ll find a way to hold. But, you better send more than just a SWAT truck and some officers. There are tons of armed men in the street below, and thirty won’t be enough. We’re going to need the army.”

Chapter 32

Nick Woods was lost in a feeling of deja vu, remembering another time he had departed a war zone with his work unfinished. That time had been in the ’80s and that place had been Afghanistan. At least this time he wasn’t leaving a man behind, hastily buried in a shallow grave.

He shuddered as he recalled being pursued by more than a thousand Soviet troops, and remembered the blood-drenched body of his spotter and close friend as the man finally succumbed to his many wounds.

Hell, who was he kidding? It wasn't just his spotter. It had been one of his closest friends. And besides leaving a Marine behind -- something you just never did, and something he’d never forgive himself for -- Nick had also learned that his command had sold him out, multiple times. There was no way the Soviets should have guessed his various extraction points as they had.

But that was many years ago, and just a few years ago, it had all come up again and without question, he’d put a lot of bodies in the ground, including one of the men responsible for selling him and his friend out. Now, he was packing up again, yet another mission unfinished. He hadn’t lost any men this time, but an entire Navy SEAL platoon had been wiped out. And these dead Americans, fellow brothers in arms, lay unavenged. Sure, the head of the Godesto Cartel was gone, but Nick had been aiming for more than simply Hernan Flores’s head on a platter.

Nick wanted to destroy the entire cartel. Tear it apart limb-by-limb and return home, knowing his men had made a difference. Make Mexico (and thus America) safer.

The sound of approaching footsteps shook him from his thoughts and his old sniper senses clicked in, his awareness coming back to hyperfocus. The steps stopped at his office door and a fist rapped respectfully on the door. His hopes of a soft knock with Isabella behind it died right there.

“Come in,” Nick said.

His CIA contact stepped in the room, holding up a phone.

“It’s Mr. Smith,” the man said.

Nick looked up at his CIA contact. He was in no hurry to hear Mr. Smith jerking his chain about this or that, or yelling about how they should leave the country in this manner or that manner.

“We’ve been through a lot,” Nick said, holding the eyes of his CIA contact and ignoring the outstretched phone.

“Sir?”

“You and me, we’ve been through a lot. From you volunteering to make contact with me there at that gas station by the interstate, to me abducting your ass and taking you hostage, to all the planning and nasty surprises you dropped on me before we ever left the country. Remember all those? Remember the early departure date and the fact that we’d be a corporation instead of a government unit?”

“Sir, that wasn’t on me. I told you--”

“I know,” Nick said, holding his hand up and cutting him off. “I was just reminiscing before you knocked and I wanted to say to your face that I haven’t given you enough credit. Hell, I don’t even know your name. But, I wanted to say thanks for all you’ve done. I hate our mission down here is ending, but it’s still better than if it had never happened. And I owe you for that. So, thanks. For everything. Especially volunteering to approach a half-nuts, old sniper like me. I’m glad I didn’t shoot your dumb ass.”

The CIA contact stared at Nick flabbergasted.

“Seriously,” Nick said, “had you not done that, I’d have still been driving the roads and I would have never had the chance to command again, so no bullshit, thank you. I owe you.”

“Thank you, sir. The honor’s been all mine. But I think you better take this call or I’m not going to have a job when we get back.”

“Don’t sweat him,” Nick said. He reluctantly reached for the phone. “Now get the hell out of here.”

Nick waited for the door to close and then lifted the phone.

“To what do I owe this shit-tickling pleasure?” Nick asked.

“I wouldn’t be such a smartass if I were you,” Mr. Smith said. “You’re going to put me on your Christmas list when I give you this news.”

“Don’t count on it,” Nick said. “You forget, I really don’t like you, plus I don’t even know your real name. Or do I?”

The man paused, and Nick grinned knowing that the man was probably having a momentary panic attack. Nick did, after all, have quite the record for tracking people down.

“Cut the crap,” Mr. Smith snapped, clearly eager to re-establish his authority over the situation. “What I’m trying to tell you is you may get to hunt a little longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Juan Soto, Mexico’s most influential billionaire --”

“I know,” Nick said. “I’ve done my homework. He’s President Rivera’s most important ally.”

“Of course,” Mr. Smith said, irritated at being interrupted. “But what you don’t know is that his building is currently under assault.”

“Say what?” Nick asked.

“You heard me. A number of armed men have infiltrated his building, with dozens more surrounding the area.”

“So, we going to go play SWAT now or what?” Nick asked.

“No,” Mr. Smith said, “but something serious is going on. Besides the assault on Soto’s building, nearly seventy cops have been killed this morning and a bank has been robbed. And we’ve been informed by the NSA that they have intercepted messages that show some advisers in Rivera’s government are suggesting martial law be implemented.”

“Holy shit,” Nick said. He cut to the chase. “What do you want us to do?”

“Nothing, for now,” Mr. Smith said. “But don’t pack up yet. We’re thinking President Rivera will soon be asking for your help. Tell your team to change gears and forget returning home. They need to mentally prepare for war again. And this one might be longer and uglier than we expected.”

A shot rang out and the Butcher flinched in surprise. He ignored the radio he was talking into and turned. Smoke rose from the pistol of one of the men standing behind him, and blood from the guard’s head was sprayed across the area.

“He told us what we needed,” the man said, shrugging in confusion at the look of anger on the Butcher’s face. A shell casing rolled to a stop on the marble floor, and the blood-soaked wall behind the dead guard had an almost lava-like appearance, as the drops of blood streamed down.

“I’ll get back with you,” the Butcher said into his radio. “Where are they?” he asked the man with the smoking pistol.

“Top floor,” the man said. “There are five more of them, just like we had been told. They’re covering the elevators and fire escape, as we expected. Plus, one locked in the room with Juan Soto.”

The Butcher nodded to his man. They don’t stand a chance, he thought. He lifted his radio and said, “Bring up the assault teams. Quickly.”

A couple minutes later, more than twenty men sprinted through the doors. They were a rough-looking bunch with piercings, tattoos, and bad haircuts, and they seemed eager for the task before them. Each had killed and most had been stabbed or shot in their years of service to the violent drug life. They knew danger and they had been moving toward it since they were young men and had tasted the reward in cash and women that such a life could provide. Today simply equaled higher pay than normal.

“Let’s go,” the Butcher said to the men. “He looked back to his faux SWAT team members and said, “Stay here. You know the plan.”

The SWAT team was to be used in a counter-attack if police managed to fight their way through the defenders outside. The Butcher calculated that police would hold their fire instinctively for just a moment if they saw other men in blue running toward them, if the men looked as if they were retreating. And that would be all the hesitation his men would need. Not that his men would have to kill all of the police, but it would shock the responding forces and cause additional confusion.

With the SWAT members moving toward the front door to stack in case they were needed outside, the Butcher and his assault team marched toward their starting point. There was confidence in their numbers and the accuracy of their plan so far.

“You two cover the exits,” the Butcher said.

Two men stepped away from the group, to cover the only possible routes out of the building. One of them covered the two elevators and the other covered the fire escape on the other side of the building.

The building lacked the dozen-plus exits a building of eight stories would typically have. Several years ago, Mexico City authorities had granted Juan Soto permission to seal off two of the fire exits and completely weld them shut after he had bought the building and reduced its occupancy by more than eighty percent.

Soto wanted a fortress, not a revenue-generating apartment complex. He had wanted fewer entrances and exits to guard as a matter of maximizing his security, but that decision would now cost him his life, if the Butcher had his way.

The Butcher checked his two men one last time to make sure they had the elevators and fire escape covered. They lay in the prone and would certainly get the drop on anyone who tried to escape.

“Sir? Your gear?” one of the men said, holding up a black duffel bag.

The Butcher had almost forgotten.

“Yes,” he said, grabbing the bag.

He took off the uncomfortable helmet and assault vest and threw them to the ground. He then pulled his katana and Uzi out of the bag.

He turned back to his assault team.

“Stay sharp and be alert,” he said.

The Butcher was too close to a final victory to lose now. And he knew if they bagged Juan Soto, President Roberto Rivera would soon fall. Either through resignation, public demand, or countless investigations at how such a horrific string of events went down.

Help for Soto was on the way, and the responding vehicles were closing in fast. Barely two miles separated them from Soto’s building and the convoy charged to his rescue, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

They were just a mile away and the convoy contained four police cruisers -- two officers per vehicle, following the horrific cop assassinations just minutes earlier -- and a massive armored SWAT truck, which was loaded with thirty heavily-armed men crammed in the back.

The lead cruiser had the shift captain in it, and he and the SWAT team commander were conversing over the radio, going over details of how they’d deploy their officers once they arrived. Intel on what was happening at Soto’s building was sketchy, but apparently there were quite a few bad guys there, and even stranger, the President of Mexico himself had ordered their hasty deployment to help protect his friend, despite the lack of details on what was actually happening.

This violated department policy of getting officers on the scene first, but the police chief lacked the balls to stand up to President Rivera himself.

The convoy roared past vehicles pulled to the side of the interstate. Drivers franticly yanked their cars to the shoulder or braked hard in sheer panic -- anything to avoid the screaming police cars.

But the streets were getting narrower as they worked their way through arteries that led into downtown Mexico City. The buildings pushed in tighter to the streets through here, the city growing denser and taller as people and businesses tried to cram as much residential and commercial property as humanly possible on astronomically-priced land. That and the parallel parked cars along the side of the road made moving through the city even more precarious.

The shift captain in the lead vehicle was mid-sentence talking with the SWAT team commander about the opposition waiting outside the building when a parked car next to his cruiser exploded, blowing it across the street. The ferocious two-hundred pound detonation caused the car to somersault five times before it hit the building across the street ten feet in the air. What remained skidded and shrieked down the side of the building, crumpling to the pavement and crushing two bicycles parked near a doorway.

The shift captain and his driver didn’t just die; they were vaporized. The explosion was so big that the three police cruisers behind the captain’s had their windows blown out, as their cars were thrown back and tossed like dice skipping across a table.

The police officers who were lucky enough to have survive the gargantuan blast suffered ruptured eardrums from the shockwaves. Two of them were additionally blinded by flying glass. Those who managed to keep their eardrums intact and their eyes shielded sustained severe concussions that would most likely affect them for the rest of their lives.

The men in the armored SWAT vehicle fared better -- they rode in an armored vehicle with bullet-proof glass enclosing the front cab, and they were farther away from the explosion when it roared across the street. The only injuries to the SWAT members occurred when the truck decelerated so hard that the men in the back were thrown into one another.

Men bled from cuts and wounds caused by the impact from weapons and helmets colliding into exposed faces and hands. The vehicle had fully stopped, bouncing up and down from the severity of the brake pressure applied. The men had just begun to untangle themselves, when the unthinkable happened.

An open-bed Toyota truck tore out of an alley two blocks back. The truck had lain hidden, waiting for the explosion.

And as the SWAT members tried to regain their feet and deploy on the street, the truck sprinted forward the two blocks, hitting fifty mph before slamming its brakes and stopping thirty yards behind the armored vehicle.

Three men popped up from the back of the truck and hoisted RPG’s on their shoulders. They had a non-moving, defenseless target sitting in front of them and the SWAT members hadn’t even opened their armored doors yet.

The first RPG ripped through the back of the SWAT truck, hitting right in the seam created by the two heavy doors. Two more RPG warheads followed, exploding among the mass of men.

After the blasts and explosions from the first three rounds, the three men in the pickup reloaded for a second volley. They fired again into the smoking, ripped-apart piece of metal that had moments before been a fully-functioning, armored SWAT truck. The screaming tangle of men, who were lucky enough to survive the first strikes, had begged for their lives through the smoke and fire. But they were all silenced by the second volley of three RPGs.

Back in Juan Soto’s building, the Butcher snapped his web gear on and adjusted the straps so that they fit snugly. He had thrown off the SWAT gear, tossing the helmet and assault vest against the wall. Now, he wore his familiar web harness, his Uzi cross-slung across his chest, where it fell as always to the outside of his right leg. His Japanese katana was sheathed on his left side, handle facing forward, comforting with its weight.

The Butcher gripped its handle and slid it out a few inches, making sure it wasn’t hung up or stuck. He really hoped he’d get to use it. Against Soto himself.

The Butcher picked up his duffel bag, which was full of more goodies, with his left hand and grabbed the pistol grip of his Uzi with his right.

“Let’s do this,” he said to his men.

The men moved to the stairwell at the far end of the building and entered it cautiously. They didn’t expect anyone to be waiting for them, but better safe than sorry. Seeing no one, they covered the open space above with their weapons and began their climb up the eight flights of stairs.

The men carried AKs, shotguns, and submachine guns; an assortment that varied based on each man’s preference. The Butcher didn’t care what they opted for. They had all killed and each of the weapons had advantages and disadvantages. The variety would probably prove an asset in the close-in fighting to come, depending on what they faced up top.

None of Juan Soto’s men waited for them at the top of the stairwell, and they reached the target floor without any problems. They paused to catch their breath and prepared themselves for the action that was about to commence.

They believed the top door would be locked. It was, after all, purely a fire escape for exit during emergencies from above. But they had brought explosives to deal with it, so the Butcher had no concern when he tested the door by slighting pushing on it. He was surprised to see it wasn’t locked. That struck him as odd.

“Careful,” he whispered, and then started pushing the door open.

He figured going first was a good way to take a bunch of bullets in the chest, but he didn’t have a lot to live for, and he cared more about his reputation than his life on most days. Besides, his desire to kill these guards so that he could get to Juan Soto burned hotter than his sense of survival. If it happened, then so be it.

He placed his duffel bag by the wall and took a two-hand hold on the Uzi, leaning low over it. With that, he nudged the door open and edged around it, leading with his short weapon, which had been mostly designed for close-in work like this.

An empty hallway was all that awaited him.

He could see a couple of waist-high plants and a lush carpet that probably cost twenty thousand dollars, but no bodyguards. His men rushed into the hallway behind him, weapons rattling as slings jingled and gear clinked.

Two elevators and at least one other fire exit could be seen, but otherwise the hallway was empty. The Butcher reached behind him and picked up his duffel bag.

The Godesto assault group pushed down the hall cautiously, taking stock of their final obstacle. It was two doors, but to call them doors was almost a misnomer. They were massive, twelve-foot tall slabs that looked about six inches thick. Heavy, ornate wood, meant to be both spectacular and secure.

The Butcher noticed two small, black domes on both sides of the door. Cameras. Probably high definition and maneuverable, given that a billionaire had installed them. He cursed, stepped back, and blasted both of them. So much for surprising the five guards inside.

The men covered the doors with their weapons and the Butcher yanked his long Uzi mag out, threw it into his bag, and pulled out another. He replaced it and looked back at the man in the rear of their group. He was a fat man carrying a huge pack and a shotgun. He was also the only man wearing a mask to conceal his face.

And for good reason. He was an active-duty army demolition specialist, a sergeant with more than twelve years of service. It wouldn’t do for him to lose the lifetime pension he had nearly earned.

Though considering what he was earning today, the pension wouldn’t be necessary if he got many more assignments from the Butcher and the Godesto Cartel. But the Butcher wanted the man’s identity protected as badly as the sergeant did. If the man was recognized and arrested, it wasn’t the imprisonment of the NCO that would bother the Butcher. It would be the loss of access to unlimited amounts of explosives.

This man had the rank to fudge paperwork and exaggerate the volume used in training exercises. The sergeant squeezed through the group of men and went to work. He pulled out a prepared explosive charge that was about twenty feet long and about two inches wide. The man had prepared the charge prior to their arrival at Juan Soto’s building, and as he attached it around the doorframe, the Butcher suddenly remembered that the sergeant had literally been trained by American Special Forces.

Oh, if only Congress and the American people knew about this, the Butcher thought. He laughed at the idea. Well, their dollars were still going toward the war on drugs. Just being used by both sides. And with that he actually laughed loudly. A couple of his men looked warily at him, but feeling he was half-mad already, they quickly looked away without a word.

The sergeant positioned the explosives in about ten seconds -- slow by Navy SEAL standards, and they had been the unit that trained him -- but he wasn’t a Navy SEAL. Just an overweight Mexican sergeant who had the kind of motivation you might find in a regular infantry unit in the U.S. Army.

“We need to move back,” the sergeant said.

No one needed any additional encouragement. They all moved down the hall and back into the far stairwell, as the sergeant unreeled a length of det cord behind him. He fed the line under the fire escape door, and they closed it.

“Hold your ears,” the fat man said to the group hunkered down in the stairwell.

He squeezed the clacker four times and a blast rocked the hallway, along with a heavy thud. The cartel members rushed the hallway, running through a cloud of dust and smoke.

One door had fallen and the other hung twisted and leaning, only one top hinge holding it up. The doorframe had been nearly ripped from the wall, just as the demolition specialist had hoped.

Juan Soto’s guards inside the room hadn’t known to expect the blast since their cameras had been shot out, and a couple of them crawled away from the doors, their heads rattled and their ears bleeding. The Butcher’s men, who had raced in front of their leader, tore the two shook-up men apart in a deluge of barely accurate automatic fire. Flesh blasted apart. Blood painted furniture. Hardwood floors disintegrated.

There was a momentary feeling of victory among the cartel members, and then a snap sounded and a Godesto man’s heads exploded. Another man crumpled and then a third screamed and jumped.

“Get back, you idiots,” the Butcher said. “They’ve got silenced weapons.”

They scrambled back, but another man screamed in pain and fell before they could retreat behind the cover of the wall.

At least one of Soto’s guards had smoked them in a calm and efficient manner with his silenced weapon. Now, four of their brethren lay in front of the missing door. Two were motionless, already dead. One lay on the ground whimpering and clutching his wounds. And one held his neck, bleeding profusely.

Apparently whoever was left alive inside was fully coherent, despite the blast. They clearly had complete control of their senses, including their hearing. The Butcher knew Soto’s men would be some of the best that money could buy, and they might even have submachine guns or assault rifles. Not just pistols. But, he had planned for this.

His men, bloodthirsty by nature and angry at the loss of their friends, didn’t need to be told what to do. They were already reaching into pouches and pockets and pulling pins.

Grenade after grenade was thrown, rolled, and bounced into the room. Explosion after explosion roared and new screams joined the sounds of the Godesto wounded. None of the Butcher’s men wanted to take any chances, so more grenades were tossed and hurled deep into the room.

After those explosions ceased, they rushed the room like a bunch of wild animals. They assaulted the room in typical cartel style. No fire control. No clearing of corners. No communicating.

In fact, it was the precise opposite of the organized, synchronized movement of elite forces that resulted from hundreds of hours of practice and rehearsal. Instead, the Godesto charged in and shot up couches, counters, and furniture sets -- anywhere anyone could be hiding. Their rounds tore through shaken and wounded men. Survivors were gleefully executed. The Butcher stood among his men, the smell of cordite, C4 explosive, and blood filling the air.

“How many are there?” he asked, too loud. “We need a body count.”

He shook his head to clear all the cobwebs in it -- damn, he hated how explosions shook you up, even when you were prepared for them -- and he hoped his ears would stop ringing soon.

“We count five, sir,” one of his senior men said.

“Good,” the Butcher said. They wouldn’t need to go searching through the building looking for any more of Juan Soto’s men. And if his ambush team had successfully dealt with the responding SWAT team, then they should be in good shape, timewise.

“Get the demo man up,” the Butcher said, nodding toward the final, imposing obstacle. “We need to finish this.”

Again the fat sergeant pushed forward from behind the men, though in this case, he hadn’t even entered the room yet. Well, the Butcher thought with a smirk, if all army soldiers were brave, then the cartels would probably be out of business.

He let his Uzi hang and yanked his katana out, slapping the man on the ass with it as he waddled by.

“Hurry up, butterball,” he said.

Several of the man laughed and cursed the masked man. Sweat poured down the back of his thick neck, and the underarms of his shirt were dark with perspiration.

With the way his men stood, their weapons sitting on their hips and cockiness practically oozing from them, the Butcher figured the man worried he would be killed once he finished. But that wasn’t the case. The Butcher needed him too badly, but he didn’t mind the intimidation. It helped keep men like the sergeant compliant, an important requirement given that the man already had a problem with loyalty. Better to be feared than liked.

The man dug in his pack and removed several shaped charges. He stacked them on the floor and then began studying the vault-like door, estimating its weight and strength from up close. The man squinted and seemed to grow worried.

Before he could say anything, one of the most menacing, muscle-bound cartel members walked up, groped his ass, and said, “Don’t mess this up, amigo. You mess this up and the Butcher said I can take you home with me. Do you have any idea how much I love a fat man?”

The cartel member reached around, grabbed the man, and kissed him on his sweaty neck. Even the Butcher grimaced.

“That’s enough, Rocko,” the Butcher said.

The tank-top wearing beast stepped away from the man and winked at a friend, who snickered.

The demolitions man fumbled with the roll of electrical tape and dropped it. The cartel members laughed, and the man wiped his forehead, trying to concentrate again. He got back to studying the door and began affixing charges all along the edges, as well as the hinges and the locking mechanisms. It looked to the Butcher like the man was using an excessive amount, probably hoping to overwhelm it with haphazardly placed charges.

“Is there a problem?” the Butcher asked?

“It’s a complicated door,” the man said, sounding worried. “More like a safe or vault than merely a reinforced door.”

The fat man pointed at the bottom of the door.

“See here?” he said. “Look at these slots where clearly hardened steel posts have been pushed down into the floor.”

The Butcher could see, but he didn’t want to hear it.

“Enough,” he said. “I don’t want excuses.”

He stared hard at the man and stepped closer, raising his katana until the point of it pushed up the man’s lower jaw.

“Don’t tell me about complications. The only complication we’re going to have is with you if this door isn’t blown down in about sixty seconds.”

“Yes, sir,” the man managed to say, careful not to move his mouth down.

The Butcher withdrew the blade and stepped away.

The sergeant got back to work and the Butcher lifted his radio to check on his other teams. They’d get this door down, one way or the other.

Meanwhile, two vanloads of men from the Godesto Cartel swarmed a bank on the outskirts of Mexico City. They mowed down two pistol-toting security guards in a blaze of gunfire from their assault rifles, executed three tellers until the bank manager finally opened the safe, and swiped four million dollars in as leisurely a pace as probably anyone has ever robbed a bank before.

The robbery only multiplied President Roberto Rivera’s troubles...

Chapter 33

Nick Woods waited outside President Roberto Rivera’s office again. The news reporting on the prior day’s events had been brutal.

Juan Soto? Killed. A major bank? Robbed. A SWAT team? Wiped out.

And that didn’t take into account the nearly seventy cops killed within a fifteen-minute period across Mexico City at roughly the same time. It was the bloodiest day against law enforcement in Mexico’s history. Martial law had been imposed -- a “temporary” martial law, Rivera called it in a late-night press conference -- and the President’s enemies in Congress were screaming for multiple investigations into the day’s events.

To say that President Roberto Rivera was on the ropes was the understatement of the century. None of this really affected Nick. He hated to see the losses, but they were to be expected when you’re at war. He had watched much of the coverage the previous night with his team, and the members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter had celebrated their reprieve. Though the carnage was unfortunate, the team members were ecstatic that their mission would be extended. They were like a sports team that had traveled a long distance to play a championship game, and had been told the game was over just mid-way through the first quarter. S3 was ready to get back in the game and even the score and do what they had trained for years and years to do.

Once a summary of the day’s events was mostly digested thanks to Isabella’s translation, and once the talking heads and analysts on the news started focusing on the upcoming investigations and political ramifications, Nick had called Dwayne Marcus over for a private pow wow.

The two had agreed that with their extension looking imminent, the men should enjoy one last night of relaxation before things kicked back into high gear the next day. And with that thought, they planned a rotating security schedule that would allow everyone some time off and instructed each squad to spend some time together out by their own fire, cooking hot dogs and melting marshmallows. They also sent another couple of men out with one thousand dollars in petty cash to stock up on food and beer.

The only caveat this time was no fighting and a two-beer limit. The last thing they needed were men dealing with hangovers the next day, since there was a small chance they could be called to immediately jump into action.

Nick had avoided mingling with the various squads of S3 this time, choosing not to rotate around the fires like he had last time. He knew he should have, but the near early end of their deployment had put the fear of living his life alone again into his head, and there was nothing he had wanted more last night than to spend it with his Primary Strike Team members.

Dwayne Marcus, in typical fashion, lapped Nick in the physical and leadership category, asking permission to PT instead of hanging out with the Primary Strike Team. The former football standout from Florida then did a one-hour calisthenics session before showering and checking in on the other squads, like Nick knew he should have done.

Truck, the former Army Special Forces soldier who had been kicked out for beating up an officer, stayed true to form and broke the rules. Nick caught him drinking four beers instead of two during the night, but didn’t say anything. Mostly, because Truck drank twice as much as everyone else regularly, so the extra wouldn’t faze him, but also because Nick didn’t want to ruin the evening -- for either himself or Truck.

Lizard, the Puerto Rican Marine vet of nine years, had looked nervous the whole night. He fidgeted and avoided drinking at all. Nick reminded himself that Lizard’s profile talked about how he had always wanted out of the Marine Corps, and how he’d always dreaded combat, and yet the man had still done nine years and pulled off two Bronze Stars for valor. When Nick had asked him if he was doing okay, Lizard, staring into the flames, simply said, “I miss my family, but we have a job to do. And I need the money.”

Lizard was a fretter, but not much of a talker.

Bulldog, the massive, 6’4” Navy SEAL from the streets of Baltimore, had arrived late to the fire, having worked out for two hours prior to his arrival. He was easily the biggest PT freak in all of Nick’s unit, and he had doubled the amount of time that even Dwayne Marcus had exercised. And as if that wasn’t enough, even once he showed up, he hardly relaxed. Bulldog declined the offered beer, hot dogs, and marshmallows, choosing instead a protein bar and some kind of gross-looking nutritional drink.

And of course, Red, the short, cocky, and reckless asshole, had scoffed at Bulldog’s selection, asking the giant man if he was there for a war or a bodybuilding contest. Bulldog had threatened to crush the chain-smoking country boy, to which Red then said that he didn’t fear men who shaved their legs and underarms and put on a g-string after lotioning up real well.

Nick had seriously thought he would have to step in between them, but Preacher, the four-tour Marine who rarely said much, played peacemaker and settled Red and Bulldog down.

Preacher had even enjoyed a couple of hotdogs with the team before retiring early. The man was a loner and preferred isolation almost as much as Nick did. Nick assumed Preacher had left to either pray or meditate or maybe read his Bible. But the man didn’t push his views and he was well liked, and with two of his tours having been with MARSOC, Nick knew everyone respected the man who’d been raised by missionaries as a boy.

Nick had spent the night around the fire mostly quiet and simply watching. He had relished the stories told around the crackling flames, tales that ranged from firefights in foreign lands to barfights in shitty ports throughout the world. The men had also indulged in some locker-room talk. And Isabella, the consummate team player and cool chick, hadn’t minded.

The laughs and taunts had lasted for three-plus hours, and Nick had watched his team, and especially Isabella, savoring the entire time as they sat out under the cloudless night, stars lighting up the night sky majestically.

If last night hadn’t been heaven on earth, then Nick didn’t know what it was. But eventually, he had picked up his M14 and headed back to the farmhouse, exchanging a long look with Isabella before he left.

The night had gotten better an hour later.

Nick heard a soft knock and put down the shooting magazine he was reading. He opened the door to see Isabella standing there.

“You wanted to see me?” she whispered, with a coy grin on her face. She stood there in a tank top and a pair of shorts.

“More than anything in the world,” Nick said.

Nick reached for her, yanked her into the room, and stuck his head out the door. Confirming the hallway was clear, he then gently shut the door.

“Most men would be more focused on what’s in the room,” Isabella said. She now stood against the tall bed, her hips leaning against it, but her arms crossed in mock rejection.

Nick strode toward her, towered over her, and put his hand behind her neck. He pulled her toward him and said, “I’m not most men.”

She resisted, leaned back again.

“I could find another,” she said.

“You could, but you’re in my room.”

He pulled her close again, kissing the spot where her ear and jawline met. He slowly breathed in the scent of her hair, an intoxicating mix of strawberry and fire.

“You’re awfully confident,” she said. “What makes you so sure?”

“I hit what I aim at,” Nick said, lifting her chin and kissing her lightly.

“And I always catch my man,” Isabella said.

Nick pulled her to her feet, leaned forward, and kissed her. She responded, and soon they were locked in deep kisses and passion that had been repressed for too long.

Nick picked her up, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, her hands in his hair.

They made love, ferociously the first time that night, and later made love again, before they drifted off to sleep with what little time remained.

Nick, thinking back on it, couldn’t help but feel like he was on top of the world. A night with friends, by the fire; a night with Isabella, so full of passion; and now he was about to be handed a hunting license again by the President of Mexico.

Life was grand in his book. This was the life of a warrior. The thing every kid dreamed of: a brave man, a hot lady, a phone call to save the day.

Even that same hot secretary seemed to be looking at him differently this time. Not as some country weirdo in Wranglers. But as something strong and desirable, unless Nick’s eyes were playing tricks on him.

“Mr. Woods?” the woman said.

He broke away from his daydream and looked up.

“You may go in now,” she said, and he thought he caught her checking him out as he stood. Well, he didn’t do all that ab work and running for nothing.

She walked him to the door and he liked the way she allowed her hand to drag down his arm.

Nick had found his calling again and his time with Isabella had awakened a man he thought dead. He knew deep down that Anne would be proud. She hated the paranoid Nick, the man who kept a journal of suspicious activity, hid weapons throughout the house, and lay hidden behind cover with his rifle in Montana, waiting for hunter-killer teams that would never arrive.

But Anne had loved him dearly, despite it all. She would be happy to see him opening up and moving on. He was becoming the man she always knew he could be.

And, man, he had loved her back. He knew a part of him always would love her. Although she had struggled to understand his ways, Anne had always believed in him. And even as time continued to take away the details of her face, her voice, and her smile, he knew nothing would ever make him forget how much she had believed in him. He owed Anne that much.

Nick walked into the President’s office amazed at how much he had changed since this mission to Mexico. The President looked nothing like he had the last time they met. In fact, Nick wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Rivera faced away from him, gazing out the bay window. The early morning sun shined through the glass, creating long rays of light over his shoulder, dust particles dancing through them at their own pace, oblivious to the somber mood of the room.

President Rivera wore a wrinkled white Oxford shirt with no jacket. The sleeves were pushed up carelessly and unless Nick was wrong, he held a glass of scotch in his hand. Nick wasn’t sure what he should do since it appeared Rivera was unaware Nick had stepped into his office, but he heard the secretary close the door behind him. Nick eased up quietly to one of two chairs in front of the desk. Uncertain what etiquette dictated in such a situation, he stopped between the chairs and cleared his throat lightly to make his presence known.

Eventually Rivera averted his gaze, turned from the window, and took a big sip of his drink. He walked to his desk and sat down, placing his glass on the desk too hard, splashing some of his drink onto the surface. He nodded to a chair and Nick sat quietly. This felt spooky. And weird. Just plain weird. The confident, charismatic man who had greeted him just days ago was gone.

Rivera poked at the pooled liquor on his desk, and Nick realized that not only was he unshaven, his hair was greasy and his collar was dirty. It looked like the man hadn’t showered since the day before.

“You look rough, Mr. President.”

“I lost my best friend!” Rivera roared defensively.

Nick realized the man was already drunk, and it was just a little after nine in the morning.

He took another swig and Nick raised his hand to stop him. “Sir, I think you need to hold off. Your opponents --”

“You don’t think you’d be drinking if you lost your best friend?” he snapped. “I just got off the phone with Juan’s wife. She’s worse today than when I called her last night to break the news.”

He sighed and said in a lower voice, “I fear reality is sinking in for her.”

“Sir,” Nick said, “I’m not trying to be critical of the fact you’re drinking. I’m not even sure I’d show up to work the next day.”

“Yes, you would,” the President said, sharply. “You’re like me: A workaholic who puts duty first.”

Nick paused, thinking back through the years. He could easily think of a few instances where that was true. He nodded, saying, “Been known to do that a time or two. You’re right.”

“I thought so,” Rivera said, leaning forward. “I’ve researched your background more since we last met.”

The man was slurring his words pretty bad, Nick noticed.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know you’d lost your wife, and I bungled that detail last time. Her name was Anne, I believe?”

Nick nodded.

“But I know your story now. About Afghanistan. About the murder of your wife. About how you hunted down the men behind her death, killing every one of them.”

“No,” Nick said, “there’s one left. But he’s higher up and I haven’t figured out who he is yet. I’ve narrowed it down to one of three men.”

“The man must be very high up to have stayed out of your reach?” Rivera noted. “Possibly even the CIA Director or a Senator?”

Nick felt a deep hatred flare up in his chest and quickly swallowed it down, trying to regain control of himself. He cleared his throat and said, “I promise you, once I figure out who he is, he’ll get his due. You mark my words on that.”

Rivera leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head, looking at Nick strangely. It seemed to Nick like he was being sized up and measured, as if Rivera saw him as some strange animal. And now that Rivera had confirmed his past, the man needed to take it all in and think a moment before going on. Nick felt like a lion trapped in a cage at a zoo. Some strange creature that fascinated some member of a different species. But with Rivera’s grief and unpredictability, Nick didn’t want to say anything. So, he decided to wait and say nothing, and he knew how to wait.

“I didn’t call you in to talk about your past, but I needed to get a better measure of you,” Rivera finally said. “They’ve got me in a hell of a jam now.”

“I can help with part of that jam,” Nick said.

The President continued, as if he hadn’t even heard Nick. “The bastards in Congress are launching multiple investigations. They say I hastily ordered a response from the SWAT team to save Juan Soto, and that a lack of planning led to their deaths. And hell, it’s true.”

He took another drink. Placed the glass too hard on the desk. Nick waited.

“They say I ignored intelligence reports that said the Godesto Cartel was planning something. That’s a complete lie, but a good one, I must say.”

Rivera looked at the glass again, but it was mostly empty.

“They say I shouldn’t have arrested Hernan Flores. That he was innocent. Or that he wasn’t innocent, but was a decent human being, who gave to charity and all.”

Rivera had waved his right hand when he said “and all,” and now looked off again. Nick realized the man was completely, absolutely, drop-dead drunk. Drunk from both shock and liquor, and the lack of sleep wasn’t helping. Rivera was struggling to stay focused.

“I’m going to get that little bastard.”

Nick nodded.

Rivera looked off yet again.

Probably a full minute passed and Nick worried that Rivera might actually fall asleep on him, but suddenly Rivera turned back toward him.

“The bastard used a sword,” he slurred, “and Juan’s wife saw the footage. His daughter, too.”

Nick had seen the video, too, along with the rest of Mexico. The Butcher had taped the whole thing, the complete bastard that he was. It looked like one of his men had followed behind him with the video recorder when they had blown the door off Juan Soto’s safe room. The video showed a Godesto man in front of the Butcher fire a long burst from an AK toward the ground on the right, presumably at a bodyguard. The man on the ground hadn’t returned fire in the footage, so it wasn’t clear whether he was concussed or already dead. Regardless, he certainly died from the long burst.

And there stood Juan Soto, the camera jerky as it moved away from the man who had fired toward the corner and now held Mexico’s richest man, who stood with his hands up in the international signal of surrender. He looked shocked. Dust covered his face and crisp, white shirt. Blood dripped from his ears.

The Butcher asked him if he had any last words, but Soto merely shrugged in confusion, presumably deaf from the blast. And then with two men locked in on him with their weapons, the Butcher turned to the camera.

“This man,” the Butcher said with a sneer pointing back at Soto, “is responsible for hundreds of crimes against the people of Mexico. For years, he has believed that money, the President, and this safe room could protect him from the repercussions of these crimes. But no more.

“This man is guilty of stealing billions from the backs of the Mexican people. He has practically forced people into slavery, paying them pitiful wages, all the while propping up a corrupt President after buying him the election. This man deserves no trial. His wealth alone proves his guilt.”

And with that, the Butcher turned, letting his Uzi hang from the sling, and withdrew his sword ceremoniously. Soto either didn’t believe what was about to happen, or more than likely hadn’t heard what the Butcher had said, since his eardrums had just been ruptured.

The Butcher pulled back the blade and chambered it far behind him, stepped into the stroke, and swung the blade toward Juan Soto’s neck. He drove the sword through swiftly and beheaded Juan Soto as cleanly as was probably possible. The stroke looked crisp and perfect. Well-practiced, for sure.

The news channels had blurred out Juan Soto’s head falling -- at least partially; they still wanted their ratings, and thus it was just obvious from what they blurred out that the man’s head had fallen and his body had crumpled, headless and helpless.

The CIA had studied the footage that had been released to news organizations across Mexico. Several computer programs verified what the human analysts suspected: The culprit with the sword was most definitely the man known as the Butcher. The CIA had immediately compiled a file on the man and sent it to Nick by encrypted document. Nick had begun studying a frustratingly short file on him since he woke this morning at 5:30 a.m.

“Mr. President,” Nick said, “that sword isn’t going to do him any good when I get him in my sights.”

“I want him dead,” Rivera said.

“We can get him,” Nick said. “No problem.”

“No,” Rivera said, slapping the desk with both hands, as hard as he could. “I know you can capture him, but I want him dead. I do not want him taken prisoner under any circumstances. He will not rule from prison. He will not be shanked in prison. I want him killed in the take-down.”

Nick nodded.

“And, don’t worry,” Rivera said, “I’ll deal with the coroner and after-action report. But this man beheaded one of the greatest men in Mexico. He murdered my friend. And he will die for doing so. Even if it’s my last act in office.”

And with that, Rivera stood, refilled his glass, and went back to his window. Nick waited a full five minutes, but Rivera never looked back at him. Nick wasn’t sure if the President had forgotten he was there or if that was all he had to say on the matter. That Rivera simply wanted his final request done.

In the end, Nick finally stood and walked out of the room.

Chapter 34

Nick Woods received a more-detailed briefing on the situation the day after his meeting with President Rivera, and the situation was not good. In fact, it was worse than either Nick or Rivera could have imagined.

But even without knowing that, Nick had decided to do what all warriors do in dead time: Sharpen the sword.

Once Nick returned from his meeting with Rivera, he had ordered the men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter to gather their gear for some much-needed training. The men of S3 had rehearsed immediate reaction drills, fired tons of ammo at a remote mountain range, and exercised with moderation -- about three-fourth’s of their capacity, since Nick didn’t want the men sore the next day. Just ready and relaxed for whatever was coming down the pike. And it would definitely be coming, Nick knew.

The entire team had trained hard, shot well, and completed their PT (a mountain run with full gear and weapons) with lots of motivation. Nick and Marcus were ready to move, and that turned out to be a good thing. Mr. Smith called later that evening, after the team had cleaned up and scrubbed down their weapons.

Mr. Smith shared that both the CIA and the Mexican Ambassador were afraid that Rivera might only have another day or two remaining in office.

“His poll numbers are in the teens,” Mr. Smith said. “The public has bought into the fact that he treated Juan Soto special when he directly, and personally, ordered that SWAT response. And the cartels are really playing the poor-versus-the-rich card, dropping in some talking points about high unemployment and government corruption.”

“And his opponents smell blood,” Nick added.

“Correct,” Mr. Smith said. “They see an opening, and the first of several hearings starts tomorrow. Plus, Rivera hasn’t done a very good job staying away from the bottle. But that’s changing. He realizes he’s in serious trouble. The NSA is intercepting the emails and phone calls of his opponents, and our Ambassador will have him prepped as much as possible for the hearings, but we’ve role-played these hearings many times, and Rivera is totally screwed. He has days left in office. Not weeks. And certainly not months or years.”

“Where does that leave us?” Nick asked.

“Nowhere good. The head of the Congress, who will likely be sworn in after Rivera is gone, is already talking about a truce with the Godesto Cartel, and a return to how things were. Less war. Fewer military ops. More peace and stability.”

“So, turning a blind eye to it all?” Nick asked.

“Precisely. The public is weary. It’s what they want to hear.”

“What does that mean for us?” Nick asked.

“It means you probably have two days to take down the Butcher and the Godesto Cartel.”

“Impossible,” Nick said.

“Probably,” Mr. Smith said, “but it’s reality. Get with your team and figure out how you can pull this off in two days. The Butcher dead. The Godesto Cartel broken in half.”

Nick didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“Look,” Mr. Smith said. “You’ve got the talent and brains around you to pull this off. But know that if you haven’t succeeded within two days, we will have to extract you, for both your safety and our country’s relationship with the new President. There’s no way President Rivera’s replacement will sanction S3 being in the country. And we don’t want that interim President leaking your info or, worse, using the Mexican military to arrest you all. You have two days. Period.”

And with that, Nick had been left hearing a dead dial tone in his heavy, encrypted phone. It was a new experience being the one hung up on. Nick glanced down at his watch and saw that it was 5:50 p.m. They needed to move fast. Like, immediately.

Nick and Dwayne Marcus mustered the entire S3 team, placing the need of garnering input from every single man over the need for security at the farm. Nick and Marcus wanted to hear every possible sound idea that might be out there among the forty-four team members.

The men formed up behind the house at 6:15 p.m., in a platoon-sized formation of five squads. All of the members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter wore uniforms and web gear, and carried their M4s that they had been issued before leaving America.

The S3 members had ditched their undercover civilian clothes and looked uniform and sharp, dressed in olive drab trousers, S3 T-shirts with the logo on the left chest, black jungle boots, and OD green boonie covers. Despite their uniform appearance, Nick could name them all.

They had grown close, though their time together had been short. With no one allowed to leave the farm, they’d practically lived on top of each other in the moderately-sized farm house built for a family of four. Given that each squad had to squeeze all eight of its members into a single bedroom, they practically slept on top of each other on green, Army surplus cots placed just inches apart. Gear was stored mostly in sea bags and footlockers under their cots.

But Nick believed strongly in unit cohesion and the farmhouse had provided more than seclusion and anonymity. It had taken a bunch of superbly trained and experienced warriors and forged them into a tight unit. The men -- and one woman -- of S3 would take a bullet for each other, and they had created this tight fraternity in mere weeks together. And now they faced a completely unfair deadline that would doubtlessly cost several -- or many -- of them their lives.

“All right, men, listen up,” Nick said, walking up with Dwayne Marcus to the assembled formation. His voice halted any light chatting going on in the loose formation.

Nick looked across the formation. They were a good unit. Some of the best men he’d ever seen assembled.

In the front row were the six members of the Primary Strike Team, not counting himself or Marcus, which made eight. Behind them were the three squads of eight. All good men, veterans from the Marine Corps and Army.

In the fifth row stood the six Marine Scout Sniper teams he had requested. Quiet men, tall and lean, and their service records showed that each of them had confirmed kills.

Not in the formation, but inside the house was his CIA contact, who he had still failed to name. Nick had asked the CIA contact to keep watch on their Mexican liaison, so that the man wouldn’t hear what was said and thus couldn’t possibly sell them out.

Nick took a deep breath and put his hands on his hips, standing tall and pushing his chest out.

He knew he had earned the men’s respect, but he needed to nail this set of orders and squeeze every ounce of love and respect he could from them. They’d be knee-deep in shit in just a matter of hours and the lives of his team depended on each of them trusting him enough to die for him. He didn’t usually sweat how he looked, but today he and Dwayne Marcus had coordinated their attire.

Nick wore a tight black T-shirt with a Marine sniper rifle logo on the left chest. Each of the men knew the story of Nick working with Allen Green to take down an out-of-control CIA unit, since Allen had published the entire story as part of a blockbuster, New York Times bestselling work. And the book delved into more of Nick’s work in Afghanistan against the Soviets than the mere article had that had been published originally in The New Yorker. (Though technically, it had been published, retracted by The New Yorker, and then re-published, though Allen had told them to jump in a creek when they had offered him his old job and a double-pay contract for an expanded story of his original work. Allen had refused to expand it and saved those details for his book.)

Nick hoped the sniper logo on his shirt would remind the S3 members of the dozens of crazy, all-out scraps he had survived. Even as experienced as many of the combat vets were, no one had put as many men down as Nick had.

Nick’s black T-shirt was tucked into a pair of jungle camo trousers, bloused into a spit-polished pair of boots. Marcus stood behind him at parade rest, dressed the same except that his black T-shirt bore a Combat Hand-to-Hand Instructor logo from his days as a drill instructor at Parris Island. Both Nick and Marcus wore OD green boonie covers, just like the rest of the S3 unit.

Nick paced a bit in front of the platoon-sized element as he composed his words, just as he had seen countless leaders do. Then he stopped and faced them.

“Men, there’s no need beating around the bush. We’re in a hell of a situation. Again.”

A few men laughed, remembering how they had been forced to deploy early before their training was complete and then nearly had the entire mission yanked from them just a couple days earlier.

“Good point,” Nick said, acknowledging the laughter and thinking about what a disaster this whole gig had been to date. “Well, the good news is we don’t have to leave immediately as we nearly did earlier this week. We do, however, get a chance to complete the mission. There is one catch though, and it’s a big one. The bad news is we have a very short timeline to complete the mission.”

No one said anything or complained, so Nick continued.

“We, no shit, have two days to wrap this up.” Nick let that sink in as he looked them over. “Two days to claim that bastard who calls himself the Butcher. Two days to rip the balls off the Godesto Cartel and turn them from the most powerful cartel in North or South America to nothing but a bunch of crying Boy Scouts.

“The CIA believes President Rivera only has two more days left in office, and that means we also only have two more days. His likely replacement would love nothing more than to arrest a bunch of gringos operating in Mexico to score some easy political points with the public. But the main point of me yapping here in front of you is we need all hands on deck on this one. Marcus and I need every idea and brain cell that we have in this unit.

“And we need whatever solution we can come up with fast. You guys will break into squads, brainstorm how best we can take the Butcher out as well as wreck the Godesto Cartel in only two days. Then, your squad leaders will report to Marcus and me in forty-five minutes. Time is of the essence men. No screwing around in these brainstorming sessions. We’ll probably be locked and loaded and hunting in just a few hours, so get your game faces on.”

Nick looked back. “Marcus, you have anything to add?”

Marcus shook his head and Nick said, “Squad leaders, take your men and make it happen. Dismissed.”

It took more than three intense hours, but Nick and Marcus crafted together a plan that they thought just might work. It was their best chance, and there was no way of guaranteeing a successful plan given the two-day deadline, with the clock already ticking as they raced to plan the op and get everything into position.

With the plan as complete as they could make it, Nick stepped away to call President Rivera. Nick had assumed Mr. Smith with the CIA would want a briefing, but the man had said he didn’t want to know the details when Nick had called him first. Nick could sense the “plausible deniability” and feeling of being sold out if this didn’t work, but he had been sold out before so it was nothing new for cowards who led from behind desks.

Nick looked down at his watch and saw it was 9:13 p.m.

Late or not, Rivera had asked to be kept personally in the loop, since Nick didn’t trust reporting his info to any other Mexican official. Well, maybe Juan Soto, but he was no longer an option.

Rivera had persuaded Nick to call him personally in part because the President had felt confident that Nick would need his help. The President could move men and material, or gather last-minute intel through his generals without explaining what it might be used for. Nick felt comfortable with this arrangement and promised to call once his team had devised some plans.

With it now nearly 9:15, Nick would soon find out whether President Rivera truly wanted to be called no matter the time of day. He pulled out a throw-away cell phone and called Rivera on the man’s personal cell phone. If Nick and Marcus’s plans were going to work, then they would need some big favors from Rivera. Yet as the phone rang in Nick’s ears, he remembered the vengeful mood he had seen the man in… Rivera would come through.

Chapter 35

Just minutes after President Roberto Rivera approved Nick’s plans, the men of S3 crept down the farm’s driveway and slithered into the night.

The squads had been packing and making final mission prep for hours, even while the plans were being finalized by Nick and Dwayne Marcus. Now, with Rivera on board with the strategy, and completely willing to do his part, the deadly warriors of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were leaving to sow some hate and discontent.

And it was a good night to do it. It was black out -- darker than normal.

“Good night for hunting,” Nick said into his radio.

“Oh, yeah,” Marcus answered. “We’re going to bag some people tonight.” He rode in a vehicle further back in the convoy.

In many respects, this was the most dangerous part of the operation. The entire unit of S3 was moving toward Mexico City. All forty-four of them, minus their Mexican contact and CIA liaison, who they had left back at the farm. But otherwise the entire unit had grabbed as much ammo as they could carry and loaded all of their vehicles.

Now the convoy of various vehicles -- SUVs, compacts, trucks; all bought with the purpose of not sticking out -- was dispersed over a two-mile distance. They had waited a couple minutes between each vehicle departing to avoid moving as a large pack. Had they been bunched up together with that many headlights traveling as a group at night, they would have likely been pulled over by some police officer worried they were a cartel group rolling out in force. (Of course the officer would know he couldn't stop that many, so he’d probably call it in, which was even more dangerous.)

Nick couldn’t afford a shootout with a bunch of cops, or a delay if they were stopped and arrested, given how many weapons they carried. President Rivera would have gotten it sorted out eventually, but the delay might still last an hour or two. And their element of surprise would be totally gone once the police department started talking about the large formation of men that had been pulled over and then released following a call from the President.

Nick swallowed down an uneasy feeling as they drove north. Just another hour or so and they’d be at the pick-up point, and then the mission would really get interesting.

President Roberto Rivera stood in front of his bullet-proof window and stared out over the massive city. As part of the emergency renovation to restore national pride, the Presidential Palace had been mostly repaired from the attacks it had sustained. Still, Rivera felt unsettled. After such a ferocious and brazen attack on the Palace, he would never feel safe and secure again.

He sighed. The lack of even a basic feeling of safety was just another frustration of trying to rule Mexico. How could you be a strong leader when your own sanctuary felt like a combat outpost in some Third World country? How could he achieve anything when his orders were leaked as fast as he issued them?

Foreign leaders had no idea of how many unique challenges he faced. He suppressed the nagging thought that maybe Mexico was closer to being a Third World country than he cared to admit.

No. Not even close, he thought. He’d fix Mexico or die trying. And with luck, his country’s fortunes would change in a big way tonight. Rivera no longer cared if he survived his second term. And this was a bigger deal than he could ever explain. He had spent his whole life getting to this point, and yet he had come to grips with the fact that he’d gladly sacrifice that. His legacy meant nothing compared to the necessity of saving his country.

He stared at the cell phone in his hand -- it was one he had taken from one of the lowest aides in the building. He had asked the steward if he had a cell phone on him, and once the young man had said yes, he had handed him five hundred dollars and said to go buy a new one -- that he needed to make some calls with it and he needed a phone that wasn’t monitored.

And as Rivera looked over the city, he knew that now was the moment of truth. With the first of several calls he was about to make, he would break so many laws that he shuddered to consider how long he would serve in prison if it failed and Nick and his team wasn’t successful.

But Nick had laid out the facts as only a non-national could do. Nick didn’t care that he was speaking to the President of Mexico. He frankly and directly told Rivera that he was being told by CIA intelligence that Rivera probably had two days, which meant Nick and S3 had only that much time as well.

Rivera hated to agree, but the wolves were closing in. Congressional hearings were already scheduled and his close aides were jockeying for their own political careers in case Rivera’s nose-dived.

Nick explained that he and his team had devised some possible plans that just might crush the Godesto Cartel and put the Butcher in the ground, if Rivera was game for helping them.

Nick’s ideas were off-the-wall good, and Rivera had slightly improved them, at least in his mind. Nick agreed the additions were sound and once he was sure that Rivera was on board, he asked the man -- the President! -- to take out a memo pad and write down some detailed instructions, as well as what time they needed to happen.

Rivera had complied and now he was seconds from completing step one.

He looked up from the steward’s cell phone and shifted his eyes north toward America. If Nick and his men failed to pull this off, he and his wife, as well as the remainder of Juan Soto’s family, would be flying to America to seek asylum in just a couple of days, if not sooner. Possibly even tomorrow. And once that occurred, someone else could worry about Mexico’s problems.

Maybe one of the bastards in Congress ripping him on 24-hour news channels at this very moment could find out what it felt like to be looking out this window into the dark night, wondering if an RPG would come flying toward you from the apartment complex across the way. He wished they could see what it was like. To go to work wondering if your family or the families of your supporters would survive the day. To have to decide whether to stand up to the cartels or get in bed with them.

He glanced at his watch. It was time for the first task Nick had assigned him.

He typed in the numbers he had looked up earlier. He had written Nick’s plans on a yellow memo pad, adding in necessary details in the margins. No way would Rivera let any assistant help him on this, though it had felt weird having to look up a phone number for the first time in nearly five years.

The phone rang three times and then someone picked up.

“Police Department,” a man answered. “Is this an emergency?”

“No,” Rivera said. “I need to speak to--” he looked down at his memo pad to find the name of the duty officer, “Captain Millan. Immediately.”

“Who is this? What is it regarding?”

“This is a Class 5 Emergency. Password J587IWM.”

A pause ensued, doubtlessly as the person fumbled and looked up the numbers.

“One moment, sir. I’ll get him.”

So far, so good.

Thirty seconds later, a captain picked up the phone. He sounded like he had been running and Rivera figured the man had been down the hall watching a movie.

“Captain Millan, you don’t need to know my name, but I am a high-ranking official who works at the Presidential Palace and is in the know, you might say. I wanted to warn you that you will soon be getting a call -- approximately thirty minutes from now -- that will come as part of an emergency set of orders from the Presidential Palace. And I wanted to warn you that you might want to get twelve of your standard, green police trucks fueled up and ready to go. The ones with rails in the beds for troops. Trust me on this. Gas tanks, fully fueled, as they should be, but often aren’t because officers are too tired at the end of their shifts.”

“Why are you telling me this?” the captain asked.

“My father was a police officer,” Rivera said, telling a lie, but for a good cause. “Now, I must go before I’m busted for alerting you, but make sure you fuel those twelve trucks up. You’re going to thank me, believe me.”

Rivera hung up, then picked up his own cell phone -- government issued and probably tracked, but necessary. So be it, he thought. He had to use it for these calls, or things would seem too odd to those who picked the phone up this late at night. And ultimately, either he and Nick would succeed and that would give him a shot at retaining his Presidency and saving the country, or they wouldn’t, and if they failed, then none of it mattered anyway. He’d be on that plane to America.

His first call was to the head of his Secret Service.

“Herrera, this is President Rivera. I apologize for calling you so late, but I need you to call up two hundred of your men. Full battle gear, in the Presidential Palace as fast as they can get here. And I need your shift leader in my office in the next five minutes. Please, no questions. I must go now and will fill you in later. Just do it.”

Rivera hung up and called his Chief of Staff.

“Mateo, this is President Rivera. I apologize for calling you so late, but I need to call an emergency Cabinet meeting. Get everyone here immediately. And then get with the stewards and have them call some people in. We’re going to need food and drinks since everyone will be here for a while.”

Within thirty minutes, the last Cabinet member had arrived. A police escort had accompanied each of them, so their arrival was unimpeded. And since there had been an earlier Cabinet meeting that afternoon, all of them were in Mexico City instead of out touring their departments across the country.

Rivera kept his distance as they arrived. He stayed in his office and ignored them while they muttered and waited anxiously. Many of them texted him, hoping friendship would trump his plans, but he dismissed their queries without an answer.

He also knew a few would try to meet privately with him to find out what was going on, so he had stationed twelve Secret Service officers in full battle gear, including M4 assault rifles, to stand at his door and admit no one. (And given that he had told the shift leader that a possible coup was under way, these men would listen to no one but Rivera himself, no matter how high ranking a Cabinet member might be.)

Once his Chief of Staff texted to inform him that the last member had arrived and all were seated and ready, Rivera took a deep breath and charged into the conference room. If the door flying open uncharacteristically didn’t get their attention, then the eight men entering behind him in full combat gear did.

All chatter ceased around the conference table and Rivera stopped behind his seat at the head of the table, his hands on his hips. He didn’t plan on sitting down. He stared down at them and said, “Tonight, I’ll be issuing a number of orders. I expect them to be executed immediately and without comment.”

He pulled a folded yellow sheet from his pocket. It provided both his instructions and the only proof that existed of his conversation with Nick Woods from earlier. It would certainly be burned soon, but for now, it supplied the blueprints for his and Nick’s war plans.

He turned to his head of Federal Police -- Mexico’s equivalent of America’s FBI.

“Luis, call the Mexico City Police Department. A Captain Millan is the duty officer. Instruct him to immediately deliver twelve police trucks to this address.”

Rivera popped one of his business cards face down on the table and slid it toward the head of federal police.

“The address,” Rivera said, pointing to the back of the card on which he had scribbled down the address, “is an abandoned warehouse. There will be a number of men there, and these men are American. The police officers are to say nothing to these men, but simply leave the keys in the ignitions and confirm there’s a full tank of gas in them before they drop them off.”

Luis shook his head in confusion.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” Rivera shot back. “Tell Captain Millan to have his men drive a couple of vans down with them so they have a way back to the police station once they’ve dropped the vehicles off. Oh, and if he hears or an officer reports of twelve trucks running throughout the city with their lights on, tell him to leave them alone and ignore the call.”

The Secretary of Interior, Marcos Sanchez, jumped to his feet. He was in charge of Mexico’s internal security.

“This is absurd,” he roared. “Why don’t I know of these Americans? Are these the men of your S3 or some other group?”

“Sit down,” Rivera said.

“I will not sit down. This is how blue-on-blue situations occur. I command all security operations inside this country and I will not allow something to be done without my knowledge.”

“Fine,” Rivera said. “Step out of the room and type up your resignation letter. These two officers will take your cell phone from you and then escort you to one of my offices. By the way, don’t plan on going anywhere. You won’t be allowed to leave the premises for at least the next thirty-six hours. Probably forty-eight.”

Rivera shifted his view from the stunned Secretary of Interior to the rest of his Cabinet.

“Nor will any of you.”

No one said anything. Good, he had them where he wanted them.

“Now may we proceed?” he asked.

The Attorney General spoke up.

“Sir, if there are Americans here and if they’re going to be impersonating police officers and driving around in police trucks, then we better discuss the implications immediately. You are quite likely breaking a number of laws by this action.”

“You seem,” Rivera said, “to always forget that I attended the same law school that you did and I’m aware of what laws I may or may not be breaking. Your suggestion has been noted and declined. With witnesses, so you can breathe easier.”

The Secretary of Finance, a reasonable man and friend of Rivera, said in a humble and respectful voice, “Mr. President, what is going on? The armed men in here. The tone of your voice. The statement that we can’t leave.”

“We’re at war, Lorenzo,” Rivera said. “That’s what’s going on.”

“We’ve been at war,” said Sanchez, the Secretary of Interior, though he had sat down and his tone was a bit more deferential.

“That's right,” Rivera said. “We’ve been at quote war,” he raised his fingers in the motion of quote marks, “for nearly five years now and we’ve gotten nowhere. My time as President could almost be up. I was elected to take care of the Godesto Cartel and I’ve tried to do so within the letter of the law since the day I took my oath. But we’re no closer today to accomplishing that task than we were then. I campaigned on this goal and it’s what the people wanted. It’s also what they wanted when I ran for re-election.”

He paused and took a deep breath. “Now, since my time is nearly up, we’re going to move more aggressively.”

No one said anything to that, and Rivera’s tone made clear it wasn’t up for discussion.

The Secretary of Environment reached for his phone -- probably to tell his wife it would be a long night -- but Rivera said, “Don’t touch that phone. No one is to use any phone or device unless I directly instruct them to. And if any of these security officers see anyone using a device, they have been ordered to immediately arrest them.”

“Under what authority?” blustered Sanchez, the Secretary of Interior, in an almost weary voice.

“My own. I’ll deal with the legal implications later, but for now, it’s my personal opinion that some of you are working with the cartels and possibly even planning a coup.”

“That’s absurd,” the Secretary of Education said.

Roberto knew it was, as well, but he couldn’t admit it in front of these officers.

“I must take the threat seriously,” he said, in what was certainly the most ridiculous statement he had ever made as President. He knew the statement cost him nearly all of their respect with such a fear-based, off-the-wall remark, but it had to be done. He could do damage control later, if he survived the next two days.

Rivera shifted his attention to the Secretary of Communications.

“Olivia, call your people. I want them to draft an emergency press release stating that the Godesto Cartel and the Red Sleeve Cartel have broken their alliance and are going to war with each other. We urge all citizens to be on full alert and as cautious as possible.”

Olivia was scribbling down Rivera’s words on a legal pad before her.

“But, Mr. President,” the Secretary of Tourism said, “that’s not true. And such a baseless -- and fear-based -- claim will only give the American media more ammo to tell their people not to visit here. They may talk about this for two days, and bring up the background of both cartels, and their history of reckless violence. We really don’t need this hit on our already struggling tourism industry.”

“I’m aware of that,” Rivera said. “Your objection has been heard.”

“Mr. President,” the Secretary of Economy said, “this is irresponsible. Our country’s finances are already gasping and our businesses are at their breaking point--”

Rivera held his hand up and stopped him mid-sentence.

“Sir, if I may,” the Secretary of Defense said, his tone so reverential as to prevent Rivera from cutting him off. As a formal general, Ignacio Arango was the oldest and most respected person in the room. When he spoke, even the most puffed-up politician stopped to listen. “We really need not spread misinformation. You’ve said before that once you lose your credibility, you can’t recover. If we say the Godesto Cartel and Red Sleeve Cartel have split and are about to go to war, we’ll have no standing once it’s proven false.”

“We’re going to make it true,” Rivera said, causing several Cabinet members to gasp.

“But, sir,” Arango, the Secretary of Defense, said, “we haven’t provided you any counsel. Or approved any of these ideas. We’re not even sure what you’re planning.”

“I haven’t asked you for any,” Rivera said. “I’ve been asking and receiving counsel from every person in this Cabinet for the past five years, not to mention hundreds of experts in our military, intelligence, and police forces. And if we’re honest, we’ve had more setbacks than progress.”

Rivera looked away from the table and said, “We’re doing it my way now.”

The trucks sat parked right where they were supposed to be, and on schedule to boot. Nick had entered the abandoned warehouse grounds alone, with just his vehicle and two Primary Strike Team members. If it had been a trap, then the damage would be minimal and the rest could split up and make for the border, with Marcus in charge.

But it was no trap. Twelve green Toyotas, with blue police lights across the cab and rails in the back for troops, sat in the parking lot. Keys rested in the ignitions and they had full gas tanks. Nick radioed two of his vehicles to drive around the perimeter confirming there was no trap. Then they repeated their paths working further and further out.

Nick trusted President Rivera, but as Ronald Reagan had said to the Soviets, “Trust, but verify.”

Once it was clear that there was no trap, the rest of S3 pulled in. As all the vehicles piled in, Nick could feel their strength. Like an angry army of wolves waiting to rip into another pack that had crossed over into its territory. It was going to be a bad night for the Godesto Cartel.

With S3 on site, footlockers were unloaded, gear tossed into the bed of trucks, and men shifted into teams. Each of the members knew the plans, knew their assignments, and knew the importance of spending as little time as possible in the pick-up location.

Now, with the trucks in hand and the most dangerous phase of movement to the assembly area complete, Nick could breathe a sigh of relief. Sure, technically the shooting still to come was more dangerous, but Nick could handle that kind of pressure.

It was moving as a large unit or having to rely on a politician that scared him the most. Especially a politician trying his best not to drown.

The Cabinet meeting remained tense and uncomfortable, but President Rivera wasn’t close to done. The Butcher and the Godesto Cartel had backed him into a corner and could taste victory, but in doing so, they had created a desperate man. A man with absolutely no fear.

Nick’s plans had been brilliant. With just one or two men of his talent in the right place, Rivera could have crushed the cartels without needing the assistance of the Americans. And no doubt Mexico had men of Nick’s talent, but the honest ones in the military and police forces never lasted long. They were killed, passed over for promotion by dirty leaders, or corrupted in many cases. Or they just got pissed off and transitioned to other careers after being disgusted by incompetence and corruption.

Mexico had a cancer, and it would need to be cut out. Like amputating an arm. And it started tonight with what were mostly Nick Wood’s plans.

Rivera turned to his Secretary of Defense, Ignacio Arango.

“Ignacio, I want you to get with the head of the Army and ask him for his best hand-to-hand expert. One name. And I want this man delivered to the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 within two hours.”

Arango had a questioning look, but didn’t say anything in reply.

Rivera looked to the Public Security Secretary, Gerardo Jimenez, who managed all the federal prisons. “Gerardo, by the time this hand-to-hand expert arrives, you will have it arranged so that he is accepted into the prison without notice and placed in the same cell as,” Rivera looked down at the yellow legal sheet, “Edgar Argel. Make sure one of your men gives him an authentic shank, as well. One that was actually made in the prison from scraps, and that was seized recently.

“This hand-to-hand expert will kill Edgar Argel, who, for those who don’t know, happens to be one of the highest ranking members of the Godesto Cartel that we have incarcerated. And once Argel is dead, then our man will slash the symbol of the Red Sleeve Cartel his back. Have him study precisely how it should look according to prior times they’ve left their mark in the backs of other victims. I’m sure we have police photos of this.”

“That’s impossible,” said Jimenez, the Public Security Secretary. “You can’t just sneak someone into Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 and then sneak them out.”

Rivera slammed his hand down on the desk.

“That is precisely what the Godesto Cartel did to kill Hernan Flores. Surely, if the cartels can do it, then you can do it. Otherwise, you will hand in your resignation and I will personally lead the prosecution against your corruption and involvement of the death of Flores.”

The Public Security Secretary said nothing.

“Finally, once we’ve removed our man from the prison, and provided him with a good ten thousand dollar bonus, Jimenez will issue a press release tomorrow claiming a member of the Red Sleeve Cartel killed Edgar Argel of the Godesto Cartel. And I expect someone from the Red Sleeve Cartel to be named.”

“That’s unconscionable,” the Attorney General chimed in. “You can’t just frame someone for something they didn’t do.”

“I’m betting,” Rivera said, “that the worst man of the Red Sleeve Cartel that we have incarcerated has probably done everything from execute people to burn women and children alive. I don’t care who’s picked. Ask the warden to name the worst one. If it makes you feel better, pick one of them that raped little girls. It doesn’t matter to me. Either way, I’ll sleep fine. But we will have a name and photo of a Red Sleeve Cartel member to accompany the news release of the death, and that news release better have a good-sized picture of Edgar Argel’s carved-up back in nice resolution and detail. I want everyone in the country, even those who can’t read, to know the Red Sleeve Cartel killed Mr. Argel.”

Rivera looked back to the Secretary of Defense.

“Finally, one last thing before we adjourn this meeting. General, it’s my understanding that the inmate population of the federal prison in Nayarit is mostly composed of Godesto Cartel members. Some of their best men, all corralled off on their own so there’s no prison violence with other cartels. That makes sense, I know, but it also provides a unique opportunity. Given that more than eighty percent of their prisoners are Godesto Cartel men, you will create a disturbance working with Jimenez, who’s going to be a busy man tonight.

“I want this disturbance to lead to a break out. I literally want you, Jimenez,” Rivera grinned, nodding to his Public Security Secretary, “to open the doors of this prison. Call it a malfunction in your after-action report. Or maybe gross corruption. Whatever plan you can concoct, I don’t care. But Ignacio, what I do care about is this: I want a platoon of your coldest, hardest killers waiting a quarter of a mile away, standing by to move in. Once the doors are open and the break-out begins, your men will rush in to support the out-numbered nightshift of jailers, who will certainly be calling for help against this set of mad men.”

Rivera leaned forward and stared as hard as he could into the steady eyes of the former general.

“And they will kill as many of the cartel members as possible. The cartel members will probably stop running quickly, once they see all the automatic weapons open up on them, so it’s important your men kill them in a way that provides plausible deniability. No execution shots to the head. Instead, have your men lay in the prone and shoot into them sideways if the Godesto members immediately lay down. Or come up with a better plan. I don’t care. But, I want at least seventy percent of them killed. Killed. Do you understand?”

Arango understood completely, and hadn’t felt this good about a set of orders since the day he had taken his oath of office as a young man, more than thirty years ago. Thinking of all the men he’d lost to the cartels over the years, the former general was eager to get started. His leash had finally been removed and the Godesto reign of terror and violence was about to run into an angry and vengeful Ignacio Arango. He would personally make sure that the best and most loyal men were selected for the task. And by “loyal,” he meant men who also knew how to keep their mouths shut.

Then, the Secretary of Defense had another thought. With a slick grin, the former general said, “What if a fire accidentally started during their escape attempt and unfortunately killed the majority of them?”

“An even better idea,” Rivera said, “but anyone running out gets shot down.”

“Might look bad,” cautioned Arango.

“Just some soldiers fearing for their lives,” Rivera said.

He glanced down at the unfolded sheet of yellow memo paper and then lit it with a lighter. No way did he want these notes falling into anyone’s hands. The paper caught, the flame rose, and he dropped it on the carpet, ensuring it burned completely before stamping it out. They could worry about the burn mark on the carpet later.

“Finally, Mr. Secretary of Defense, you will call up your generals and devise plans to invade at least three of the Godesto Cartel’s strongholds. I don’t care which three, but they are to be surrounded, hit hard, and as many weapons and drugs seized as possible. Oh, and make sure cellphones among troops are seized prior to the orders being issued. The units are to be isolated so that no warning gets out before their departure.

“Meanwhile, our Attorney General, you will get with our best intelligence experts tonight and by the time the banks open tomorrow morning, you will have judicial orders seizing every possible account that could be tied to the Godesto Cartel. Practically any account in Mexico that looks shady and has more than two hundred thousand dollars in it, I want it seized. Period. And I want it seized one minute after each of these financial institutions open. No warning to any of those affected, of course.”

“Since you went to the same law school as me,” the Attorney General replied, “I’m confident that you know this isn’t legal.”

“I know,” Rivera said, “and I don’t blame you all if in a couple of days you all inform the media that I was acting like a madman and breaking dozens of laws. I’m okay with that, but I’m not okay with the Godesto Cartel ruling Mexico for a single day longer. I’m not okay with the Godesto Cartel being able to attack the Presidential Palace, kill influential citizens such as Juan Soto, or conduct any operation they can conceive of. I know we’ll have to release the funds, but they can see what it’s like to operate without them while we hold off their high-priced attorneys.”

Rivera projected as much confidence and fight as he could muster. Hands on his hips, an edge of fear upsetting his stomach, he stared down his Cabinet and prepared to give his war speech. And perhaps some of his last instructions as President of Mexico. Make it look good, he thought, and stood even taller. It was time to stand bravely in complete defiance of the Godesto Cartel and those in Congress who were trying to bring him down.

“Tonight, my esteemed Cabinet, we finally fight back and commence all-out war against the Godesto Cartel. Maybe it’s true that if we destroy them, another will replace them, but we will set the precedent that no cartel can threaten the government of Mexico as the Godesto Cartel has done. Our entire focus will be on the Godesto Cartel. Leave the Red Sleeve Cartel alone. The other, smaller cartels, as well. If we have Red Sleeve men awaiting trial, let them out. We’re going to shift the balance of power and we need the much weaker Red Sleeve Cartel to make as many gains as possible in the time that we have left. Just as a monopoly will damage a country, so too will a cartel that becomes too powerful. Tonight and tomorrow, we reset the balance of power.”

Rivera walked to the door and looked back.

“As far as I’m concerned, this meeting is over. Those of you with tasks to do, please jump on making them happen. And I apologize, but you all will need to place your phones and internet devices on the table before leaving the room. I’ve had rooms in the Presidential Palace prepared for you, but none of you will be leaving the building tonight. Some of you will be busy, others bored, but it’s what the job requires for the next day or so. And I have several staff members prepared to call your families to alert them that you have been tied up in an emergency meeting, but none of you will be allowed to make outgoing calls except as duty requires, and that will be in the presence of a witness.”

And with that, Rivera shut the door. Firmly.

Chapter 36

The trucks were crammed with equipment and boxes of ammo and supplies, including jugs of water. The mission called for a two- or three-hour timeline, but Nick and Marcus weren’t ones for taking chances. They absolutely could end up cut off and surrounded.

The entire team of S3 had geared up in assault vests and helmets. The team had packed the stuff away for the transit here, but now it was “go” mode since they had the trucks to hide behind. And their S3-issued olive drab cammies combined with the vests, helmets, and trucks would make them look like a police force to casual passers-by. At least close enough for an operation in the middle of the night. And where they were going, most people didn’t want to go looking too closely at cops. They’d be moving in the other direction, most likely.

This was where a leader was supposed to give a speech, Nick knew.

“Pull it in,” he hollered.

He dropped a tailgate and jumped up to the bed.

He took a knee, leaned his M4 against his leg, and removed his helmet. The team slid in close, forming a half circle around him.

“Well, gang, this is it,” Nick said, fiddling with his helmet strap. “I can’t deny that the whole shebang has been a clusterfuck up ’til this point. Hell, Marcus and I didn’t even know if we would have trucks waiting on us until we arrived just a few minutes ago. And you all have served long enough to know that lining up logistics is Planning 101.”

Nick looked at his band of forty-four warriors.

“I’m not one for speeches, and you guys aren’t the type to need them. But I still wanted to say a few words before we go in. You all haven’t given me or Marcus a lick of trouble and we’ve certainly jerked you around from the beginning. Most of it was beyond our control, but in war, a commander is supposed to protect his men from silly games and unnecessary stress and Marcus and I have failed you in that regard.

“But goat rope or not, we’re here now and this is exactly what we all signed up for. Tonight we finally -- finally -- get a chance to really go after these bastards. We’ve been issued our hunting licenses, and there’s no bag limit.”

“Hell yeah,” Red hollered with a smile. Nick noticed how small Red looked, even in his combat gear.

“Now,” Nick continued, “you all know the plans, and you know there aren’t hardly any plans at all. It’s ‘hey diddle diddle, right up the middle.’ This shit-hole slum we’re going into -- Neza-Chalco-Itza -- is one of the largest slums in the world. And not even the Mexican government knows if there’s one million or four million people in it.

“But we do know practically the entire slum is loyal to the Godesto Cartel. It’s the heart of their operation and we know it’s dangerous as hell and rarely entered by police forces. Every time they go, they end up in a big fight, so they don’t go much anymore. Haven’t in years. But we’re not going in to arrest people, and we’ll see how eager they are to mess with us when we’ve splattered a few of them.

“I have no idea if we’ll be fighting our entire way in or if we’ll drive in, pull up to the Butcher’s building, and just take it down. As you all know, we have no snipers providing intel and we aren’t even sure if the Butcher will be at home. If he’s not, we grab every computer and piece of intel that we see and we get the hell out of there. With luck, the intel will give us more clues on how to break the back of the Godesto Cartel and hopefully tell us where the Butcher might be hiding if he’s not there.

“You don’t have to be a genius to know this mission has about a hundred things that could go wrong. Hell, it has ‘catastrophe’ written all over it and with any lesser unit, I’d cancel the entire thing right now. But tonight’s our only chance and I think you all want this as bad as I do.

“Remember, we have no support. It’s just us. If you get hit, administer self first-aid. If we’re under fire, ignore your buddies who get hit. We’ll need every weapon facing outboard so this doesn’t turn into something like Blackhawk Down in Mogadishu. And don’t think if we get in deep we’ll get rescued. We won’t. We’re on our own. We know this is the reality before we even step off, so don’t go expecting anything different. We fight in, we try to grab this bastard, we fight out.”

Nick put his helmet on and stood, now towering over them. “That’s how this plays out. We either accomplish the mission or we all go down together in the middle of one of the biggest shitholes in the world. I suppose that’s how most battles play out. Been that way since the Romans marched off to war. Probably earlier, but I’m not much on history. Anyway, if dying together is what it comes to, I can say that I’m proud to be your skipper and there’s not another set of guys I’d rather go down fighting with.”

Nick looked at each of his men, from left to right, and nodded solemnly. Not a single one broke off their eyes. They were as ready as him.

“Let’s go do this,” he said, his voice quiet and soft.

A few of the men screamed war yells, while others said a few words to their buddies. Others just had a look of determination that Nick appreciated.

What they lacked in numbers, they made up for in experience. They were older than most armies, had been blooded, and they’d definitely give better than they received tonight. Whether that would be enough in Neza-Chalco-Itza, Nick wasn’t sure.

The forty-four members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter loaded up and the twelve trucks lined up, their police lights now flashing in the dark parking lot. All of the trucks had rails that encircled the entire bed, and the rails had been well designed. Not only were they round and padded, they also rose about a foot higher than the top of the cab and came roughly chest high. The height allowed the men to loop their arms over them to hang on or lay their rifles across them for additional accuracy.

“Hold up here,” Nick said to Truck, his driver. Nick’s vehicle was the lead truck, and Nick sat in the passenger seat, with two GPS’s and several maps spread across his lap.

Nick looked back over his shoulder and made sure his men were lined up and ready. He pressed the push-to-talk button on his vest and spoke into the microphone that hung down from his helmet.

“Task Force Leatherneck, this is Six Actual. Radio check and confirm you’re ready to move.”

Nick listened as each truck checked in. The formation was set up in a KISS simple formation. The Primary Strike Team provided the tip of the spear. The eight members of the Primary Strike Team were spread out in the first truck.

Nick and Marcus had decided to place as much firepower as possible up front in case they needed to shoot through any roadblocks. Thus, Nick’s truck had the most shooters in it. He had Truck, the most experienced driver in S3, driving the lead vehicle with him.

Behind Truck and Nick in the bed of his truck were Bulldog, Red, and Preacher. Bulldog manned a light machine gun, an M249 SAW, which rested on the rail above the cab.

Bulldog’s M249 Squad Automatic Weapon faced forward, or twelve o’clock. On Bulldog’s left, Red stood with his M4 watching the nine to eleven o’clock sector, while Preacher leaned over the rail on the right watching one to three.

Behind Red, Bulldog, and Preacher were Lizard and Isabella. Lizard leaned out the left alongside Red. Lizard was responsible for seven to nine while Isabella watched the right behind Preacher. Isabella covered three to five. And in the middle of the truck bed was Marcus. He was there for command and control reasons and to provide additional firepower to whichever side might need it.

Behind the crammed, lead truck -- or, Truck 1, as it was named -- came each of the three remaining squads, in their numerical order for the sake of simplicity. The squads were spread out among eleven trucks. And in the rear of the convoy, in Trucks 11 and 12, were the six Scout Sniper teams.

Everyone in S3 carried M4 carbines tonight. The M4s were the upgraded version of the long-serving, military-issue M16-A2s. These M4s were shorter and lighter than the full-sized M16s, and far better suited for close-quarters battle. They also had upgraded handguard rails that allowed all manner of sights, lasers, and attachments to be added, and Nick’s unit had the budget and brains to soup the weapons up to their most optimal level.

The entire team, including the six Scout Snipers in the rear truck, toted M4s on this mission that included Aimpoint red dot sights, as well as AN/PEQ-16A modules on the side of their carbines. The AN/PEQ-16A was a sighting tool for use in low-light situations. It was currently issued to Marines and other U.S. special operators and the little device did nearly everything. It had a super-bright flashlight that could easily be turned on and off by a button on the rifle, as well as an infrared aiming laser that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, but only by night-vision devices.

And since each of the members of S3 was well-supplied and had a night-vision monocular attached to their helmet (the top-of-the-line, military-issue AN-PVS-14), they would have a significant advantage over the Godesto Cartel members in combat in the dark. They could see and shoot in nearly complete blackness. The Godesto? Not so much.

The unit had also packed some light machine guns before leaving America, as a just-in-case measure since they wouldn’t be operating in conjunction with government forces. Hence, each squad had two M249 SAWs, the standard light machine gun of the American military.

These M249 SAWs fired 5.56 mm rounds -- the same caliber as the M4s -- but they had plastic drums attached with 200 rounds of ammo instead of a mere thirty-round magazine.

Nick figured he had enough men and firepower to allow the unit to get in and fight its way out, but he had ordered the six Scout Sniper teams to pack their sniper rifles and plenty of heavy 7.62 ammo just in case. If they were stuck in the middle of the shithole come morning, Nick wanted the snipers putting full-size hunting rounds through anyone dumb enough to lift their head. The snipers, being good snipers, had brought hard cases to protect the rifles and scopes, since the weapons would be bouncing around in the back of the trucks with the rest of the gear.

They were ready, Nick knew. They had the guts, they had the weaponry, and they had enough ammo to invade a small island. Now it was time to see if they had enough skill and men.

Chapter 37

The Butcher went to bed early. His men had asked if they should send up some women to his room, but he harshly told them “no” and headed straight for his bedroom. He felt exhausted. Too tired to think straight. The past few days had drained him.

The infiltration of the prison to kill Hernan Flores. The huge assault on Juan Soto’s downtown building. The distribution (and arguing that went along with it) of the money from the bank heist.

Then there had been the editing and formatting of the video of Juan Soto’s execution -- it had to be perfect. And coordinating with various members of Congress who were on the payroll of the Godesto Cartel. They sensed victory at hand, but were so incompetent and carried such huge egos that the Butcher could barely keep them on track and wrangled in.

All of this had sucked every ounce of energy that he had. He’d had too little sleep, too many adrenaline shots, and too many close calls.

Now, all he wanted to do was sleep. And nine o’clock or not, he had ordered silence among his foot soldiers. No partying tonight. No bumping music. No fighting or womanizing.

The boss man wanted to sleep in peace and the men knew to give him his way or face his unpredictable nature. Blissful or not from all the successful actions, the new head of the Godesto Cartel was just as likely to pull a pistol on you as the prior head had been to cram down a bag of Funyuns.

The Butcher undressed down to his boxers and pulled back the sheets. He kept his Uzi and katana next to his bed, but he felt mostly at peace. He had two hundred gunmen in and around the apartment building, and dozens of low-level gangsters surrounding him on street corners for miles.

On this night, when he was a mere day or two from achieving his short-term goal of driving President Roberto Rivera from office, he didn’t need a bevy of girls or a grandiose celebration with his men. He simply needed sleep. Just one good night of sleep.

His first step in what would be the total downfall of the Mexican government was nearly complete, but he had pushed himself too hard these past few days. He wanted to be fresh so he didn’t screw up his final moves.

Rivera would soon either flee the country or be hauled off to prison in cuffs for his role in the death of the SWAT team members, and the Butcher didn’t care which.

All that mattered was that the Godesto Cartel was on the cusp of achieving in mere days what Hernan Flores had failed to achieve in ten-plus years: a President allied on their side, who would look the other way and allow them to seek expanded distribution into America. And with that alliance (or “ignorance” of what the cartel was doing by the President and his appointees), they would explode in size and strength.

The Butcher smiled. That wouldn’t be enough though. His ultimate dream? First, topple the Mexican government in a few years. And then in the civil war that would likely follow as states fought other states, he would create his own.

His own independent state didn’t have to be big, at least not at first. But he wanted a place in which the Godesto Cartel could be truly safe. A place so thorny and strong that no foreign power would even bother with them.

And it didn’t have to be good ground. Las Vegas had blossomed in the desert, after all. The Butcher would take a mountain stronghold, or a wet, marshy area. They would establish a puppet government, of course, since the people had to believe they had some power. But once such a state was established, then the power for him and the Godesto Cartel could really come. They could trade for military hardware with other countries. Only a few would recognize the new cartel-backed government. Maybe Syria, Iran, Cuba, and a few others. But that would be enough.

They could import tanks, anti-air missiles, maybe even some attack choppers. Such a country only needed one thing to fuel it, and that was a strong income. The Saudi’s had oil. Africa had diamonds. The Butcher would build his with drug profits from the U.S.

And with that thought, he turned off his light and climbed under the sheets.

Roughly fifty miles away from the Butcher’s bedroom, the twelve-truck convoy of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter rolled out of the abandoned warehouse parking lot and moved toward Neza-Chalco-Itza. The first leg of the journey was low to no danger, so the men were not wired up tight or very alert. Their first goal was to just get closer to their objective, and most of it was down an entirely safe route. This was the men’s last chance to mentally prepare themselves for what was to come.

The trucks sped down the interstate, their lights flashing and their spacing tight. They avoided using their sirens; few cars were out and those that were quickly pulled to the side of the road. All the troops of S3 were ducked down in the beds of the trucks, as facing outboard with intimidating weapons was both unnecessary and likely to draw attention.

The men sat or lay in the truck beds and shielded their eyes from the sixty-mile-per-hour winds as they raced down the interstate toward their target. In the bed of Truck 1 at the front of the convoy, the six members of the Primary Strike Team enjoyed their last few minutes of tranquility.

“I can’t wait,” Red yelled over the roar of the truck to Lizard, patting his M4.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Lizard said, just barely loud enough to be heard over the wind. The small Puerto Rican pulled a wooden rosary that hung around his neck out from under all his armor and rubbed it.

“That Lizard, he’s always nervous as hell,” Bulldog hollered with a laugh, keeping his heavy M249 SAW aimed toward the night sky.

“Not everybody,” Red yelled back, “is a big, black thug from the tough streets of Baltimore. Shit’s a lot scarier when you’re small fry like us, right, Lizard?”

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Lizard repeated, shaking his head.

Preacher yelled from the back of the bed, where he leaned against the tailgate. “Leave him alone, Bulldog. He hasn’t ever not pulled his weight or had our back, and the man’s got two Bronze Stars, so until you can claim the same thing, just let the man worry.”

“You know,” Bulldog yelled back to Preacher, “that half of what I did in the SEALs can’t be recognized since it quote ‘never happened.’ Hell, I would have earned a dozen Bronze Stars by now if they did. Though, you know, we SEALs have a higher medal standard than Marines.”

Preacher laughed and said, “Sure, just like you SEALs have tougher schools.”

That elicited several laughs from the mostly Marine team in the back of the truck. Preacher, a MARSOC Marine, knew most Force Recon Marines and MARSOC Marines believed they were every bit as good as the SEALs.

“All right, guys,” Marcus said, looking up from a map and squinting at an upcoming sign. “Let’s get our game faces on and save all the testosterone for the enemy instead of each other.”

The former Marine drill instructor and Florida Gator football standout met each of his men’s eyes, offering them brief nods or mere looks of respect. When he arrived to the last one, Isabella, he was again stunned by her beauty.

She smiled at him, hotter than ever in her helmet and heavy modular tactical vest. He leaned over to her and said in her ear, “On the one hand, I wish Nick wasn’t here. I think had he not been, I’d have had a better shot at you.”

He leaned back and smiled at that, stretching his arms out in front of him. He laughed, leaned in, and said, “But on the other hand, I might be as smitten with the guy as you are.”

Isabella grinned from ear to ear and leaned toward Marcus. “Don’t be so sure,” she said with a wink. She then patted him on the cheek and said, “Watch yourself. No stupid Marine stuff. Keep your head down in Neza-Chalco-Itza. This place is no joke.”

Marcus nodded at her and patted her leg twice. He leaned back in to her and said, “I’ll keep my head down, and in all seriousness...” He paused, then leaned back in. “I think Nick needed what you have. He’s been in a dark place.”

Isabella made the smallest of nods and leaned back in a final time. “He wasn’t the only one. We both needed it.”

The convoy drove another few minutes and slowed, the twelve trucks dropping their speed from sixty down to twenty as they turned onto an exit ramp toward the slum of Neza-Chalco-Itza. The police trucks worked their way through ten more miles of commercial and residential area, their flashing lights illuminating buildings and homes on the dark night. The team members could feel the area getting rougher and creepier. More empty commercial buildings, fewer working streetlights, nervous people either fidgeting on corners or darting across streets.

The convoy passed a sign that said “Welcome to Neza-Chalco-Itza” in Spanish and English below it. The team members knew the slum’s stats, though on paper it was actually identified and listed as a city. It had been founded in the 1930s and formed as a municipality in the ’60s. It was part of the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City, and listed as twenty-four square miles crammed full of one million residents. At least that’s what the city claimed, but Mexican intelligence and the CIA believed more than four million people resided, hid, or barely survived there, many of them with no identification, no job, no life.

Neza-Chalco-Itza contained 86 neighborhoods and a crime rate higher than nearly any other part of Mexico. The city was poor -- so poor, in fact, that trash collection was handled by carts pulled by donkeys in much of the city. The city also boasted one of the largest landfills in the world. The sprawling landfill covered nearly four hundred acres and had approximately twelve million tons of trash, but had mercifully been closed in 2006.

That hadn’t stopped the people from living there. Hundreds lived in and around the landfill, digging and looking for valuables to sell or metal to salvage. And it was near this infamous Bordo de Xochiaca landfill that the men of S3 headed. Because just two blocks from one of the worst places on earth was a small apartment building that held fourteen units.

From the outside, it looked as old as all the hovels and shanties around it. But numerous pieces of intel data had identified the place as one of the sites that Hernan Flores had used as a safe haven through the years. And with some helo fly-bys and foot intel, Mexican authorities had determined that the place had been improved on the inside, while keeping the rough exterior in its rundown state as a form of concealment.

Flores had reportedly hated the place, but kept it as part of a fall-back position in case of a worst-case situation. But since the Butcher had shanked Flores in prison and taken over the Godesto Cartel, almost all intel pointed to the Butcher spending most of his nights in the small apartment building. It was the safest Godesto hideout and was surrounded by hundreds of foot soldiers on the cartel’s payroll.

According to the map on Nick’s lap, they were roughly two miles from the Butcher’s fourteen-unit apartment building. So far, so good, he thought. They’d seen some tough-looking men standing on a few street corners and the demeanor of those on the streets had changed, from a slight look of fear of possible arrest to increasing bravery and defiance.

No longer was any fear shown of the convoy with its flashing lights and armed men, facing out with menacing weapons. The last set of three men they had seen on a corner hadn’t even budged at the sight of twelve police trucks roaring down the road. They stood defiant and cold, facing the trucks with a look of smugness and meanness that only hardened criminals carried.

They certainly looked armed with their baggy clothes and cocky confidence. However, since no weapons were visible, they were likely armed with pistols or knives. Most of the residents in Neza-Chalco-Itza were too poor to own pistols. Down here, even drug dealers were fighting for scraps and enough to live on. Unless, that is, you were lucky enough to be in the employment of the Godesto Cartel. But usually you had to earn those stripes the hard way.

Nick could feel the hair on his neck standing up and his senses on high alert as the convoy pushed deeper into the massive slum. They were in bad-guy country, for sure, roaring down the pot-holed road at forty miles per hour. It would have probably been safer to do the speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour, but they needed surprise on their side and they’d already been spotted at least a couple miles back. Nick just hoped the Butcher was still in the apartment complex.

Intelligence provided by Isabella, and backed up by analysts in the CIA, stated that if they could just take him out, the Godesto Cartel would probably fall in on itself and fracture into pieces. Losing Hernan Flores and the Butcher -- two of its strongest leaders -- in such a short time span would prove fatal, intelligence officials believed.

The Butcher had four lieutenants under him, but there was little trust or coordination among them, except for the direct orders provided from on top. In the past, Flores had provided the experienced leadership necessary. He had doled out favors and rewards, as well as the occasional piece of harsh discipline. But mostly, he was well regarded and liked. And so he had created stability, something rarely found in most cartels. The men under him, the other cartels they were allied with, and the various government supporters who backed them up and provided reams of intel, all had flourished under the smiling, grandfatherly Flores.

The Butcher had replaced that respect and likeability with ferocious strength and unpredictability. He led based on fear, though his lead-from-the-front example was garnering him some unexpected praise.

Nick just hoped the former prison boy was at home when they arrived. Come on, big boy. Be home and let’s make this our one and only trip into Neza-Chalco-Itza, he thought.

“Take a right up here,” Nick said, looking up from the map.

Truck turned the steering wheel and the convoy pivoted deeper into the dark slum.

“I haven’t seen any welcoming committee,” Truck said.

“Yeah, I’m a little surprised by that,” Nick said. “We’re about a mile out. Maybe half a mile.”

“I spoke too soon,” Truck said. “Looky here.”

His headlights showed a group of men just a block ahead. Maybe about a dozen of them. Truck flipped his lights on bright and slowed to a stop.

The men stood facing the truck, long weapons held across their body and up on their shoulders.

“We’ve got tangos up ahead,” Nick said into his radio.

Trucks 2 and 3 pulled up on the left and right of Truck 1, but the men ahead of them didn’t flinch at so many weapons aimed at them. They stared at the flashing police lights with disdain and hatred.

“Looks like they don’t respect the po-lice ’round here,” Truck said in his country drawl.

Nick and Truck heard the Primary Strike Team behind them moving forward in the truck bed and better aligning themselves toward the threat. The truck bed had a rubber mat in it to dampen noise, but they were close enough to hear their boots moving on it.

“Hold the truck here,” Nick said, putting his hand on Truck’s forearm.

Nick opened the door, stepped onto the cracked pavement, and aimed his M4 at the group. With the headlights on bright, he could see the group pretty clearly through the red-dot scope.

He kept his eyes toward the men and felt only a minor level of comfort knowing all his men were aimed in on the group. Nick knew that it wasn’t these men in their lights that he needed to worry about. They were acting far too confident to be alone. Far too confident.

“Isabella,” he said quietly. “Jump down here.”

He heard her land, but didn’t turn his head. This was like cornering a rattler. You didn’t take your eyes off him, so Nick kept his eyes looking through the M4’s Aimpoint scope.

“What do you want me to do?” she whispered, now standing just behind him.

“Reach in the truck, grab the mic, and tell these men to disperse,” Nick said.

Isabella leaned into the truck to use the built-in speakers.

“On behalf of the government of Mexico,” she said in Spanish, “you are ordered to disperse.”

None of the men moved their weapons, but they spread out a bit.

“Warn them again,” Nick said.

Isabella did, repeating the same words.

Nick leaned into his rifle and said without turning, “Bulldog, scatter those men.”

Nick knew the big Navy SEAL from Baltimore was aimed in on the men with the M249 SAW. He hoped the Squad Automatic Weapon firing a burst over their heads would quickly show these punks that these weren’t typical Mexican police who were easily deterred by some thugs or cartel members.

The SAW ripped off a burst and the men jerked and danced and splattered under the deafening roar of the machine gun. Nick was shocked to see the bullets tear through the men, but those who weren’t hit took only a second to react. Some tried to flee, and others brought their weapons to bear.

Nick already had one lined up in his Aimpoint red-dot site, so as the man started to bring his AK up, Nick pulled the trigger. Since the men were in the headlights of three trucks, and since the Aimpoint sight did a wonderful job of picking up ambient light, the man’s face looked fairly clear in the scope.

The bullet hit about an inch from where Nick wanted at the roughly fifty-yard distance and the man fell hard to the ground. That was the thing with headshots. You put a 5.56 round through someone’s face and into their brainbucket and they dropped and never stood again.

The entire team of S3 opened up, as well, firing over the tops of the truck cabs and using the padded railings to assist their accuracy. The roughly dozen men before them were cut down and chopped up before they even returned a single round. A couple crawled and dragged themselves across the pavement until single shots ended any movement.

Nick wasn’t sure who shot the survivors and while he wasn’t a huge fan of shooting wounded when it could be avoided, he also knew they could roll out a grenade or get a weapon around and shoot you minutes later in the back.

“Clear,” yelled Red.

Others responded by stating “clear,” as well.

“Hey, Bulldog,” Nick said, his ears ringing.

“Yes, sir?” Bulldog answered, his head still lowered over the SAW.

“I only meant for you to scatter them by firing a burst over their head.”

That elicited some laughs, but then a burst of machine gun fire ripped down the street toward them. The bullets clanged into metal and glass and immediately the men of S3 responded at the light of a muzzle flash further down the street, well into the darkness beyond the range of the headlights.

More bullets whizzed by, this from another side of the street ahead. Again, fire was returned.

“Contact rear,” Nick heard over the radio.

And then a staccato of M4s started firing from Truck 12, the vehicle with the Scout Snipers.

“Contact left,” Nick heard someone else say on the radio.

More firing erupted from the middle of the convoy toward an alley to their left. Nick realized they were not in a good defensive position strewn out in a long column, not to mention their mission was to grab the Butcher, not duke it out with the entire Godesto Cartel.

“Let’s get the convoy moving,” he yelled into the mic. Isabella jumped back into the truck and Nick retook his seat. He rolled down the window and leaned out with his M4. He spotted a muzzle flash at his one o’clock and fired three rounds toward it on single shot.

“Let’s go, Truck,” Nick said, anger welling up in his voice. For all he knew, hundreds of fighters were running toward them right now. Staying put meant certain death.

Truck stepped on the gas and knocked Nick back against the seat. The convoy roared forward while the Primary Strike Team engaged targets in windows, around corners, and on roofs. They hung to the bars built up around the truck bed and fired as best they could from the moving truck.

Truck yanked the vehicle left and right as bullets pinged off and through the glass. It appeared the Mexican Police Department hadn’t sprung for bullet-proof glass, something Nick wish he had known a bit earlier in the mission.

“How many you figure there are?” Truck asked, his voice strained.

“Maybe fifty already,” Nick said, holding on to the door, and firing three-round bursts toward various shadows up ahead.

Unfortunately, Nick knew it was only going to get worse as more gunmen rushed to the sound of battle. It was feeling more and more like what the Army Rangers and Special Forces had endured as more than a thousand Somali fighters came at them in the infamous Blackhawk Down battle in Mogadishu.

In his dream, the Butcher pounded Rodriguez’s face against the concrete. The big, prior convict had been one of the men who had taunted and raped the Butcher, and the Butcher had eagerly awaited catching up with Rodriguez for more than five years.

After the Butcher had been released from prison, he had jumped back into the drug biz. There weren’t many other options for a felon, especially one living in Mexico, and he already had the contacts and relationships in place. In no time at all, he had plenty of cash laying around and he immediately got two prison guards on his payroll and on his side. And while the Butcher worked tirelessly to master martial arts with his new found freedom, those guards helped him keep tabs on the release dates of his tormentors.

By the time Rodriguez was paroled, the Butcher had already killed four prior inmates. He had killed them with a super-sharp katana, mostly because he didn’t trust his newly acquired martial arts skills well enough to take them on in purely hand-to-hand.

But Rodriguez got the first introduction to the new and improved cellmate and his now already stupendous martial arts skills.

The Butcher’s dream had been a replay of that re-introduction. The man had headed straight for a Burger King after his release, just as expected. It had been all he had talked about while he was in the pen. A Whopper. Large order of fries. And a large chocolate milkshake. Over and over he had repeated this mantra, until the Butcher had gotten to where he couldn’t stand it.

The Butcher had considered letting him stuff himself at Burger King and attacking him afterward, but ruled that out in favor of killing him just feet from his goal. That would be far crueler, and crueler was something the Butcher became more of every day.

And when Rodriguez had gotten out of the taxi and walked toward the doors of the Burger King, he had been smiling like a six-year-old boy on Christmas day. Then the Butcher had stepped out from behind a van where he had been hiding.

The Butcher relived those next moments in his dream, grunting and jerking with each movement.

Rodriguez jolted in surprise.

“Woah, amigo. What are the chances of seeing you here? What a surprise!”

Rodriguez was smiling like they were best friends. As if the taunting, the raping, the endless threats over a four-year period had never occurred.

“It’s not a surprise at all,” the Butcher said.

“What?” the fat, bald man asked. And then he realized the skinny, little man in front of him wasn’t smiling. And with that realization, an entirely new meaning to the man’s words crept into his mind. And the way the Butcher was standing, feet wide apart, hands out to his side but clenched in tight fists. It looked like some kind of stance he had seen in half a dozen low-budget karate movies.

Before Rodriguez could react to the growing fear in the pit of his stomach, the Butcher rushed and leapt forward, throwing a double kick. It was like one of those kicks you see in the Shaolin Kung Fu movies. The one in which they jump, lift one leg, and then retract it and kick with the other leg. Tough to block, and powerful as hell.

That day, and again that night in his dream, the Butcher jumped in the air and kicked his left leg forward first. Rodriguez partially blocked it, as expected, but the Butcher retracted the left kicking leg and thrust the right one forward into a massively powerful thrust kick that caught Rodriguez right in the lower stomach. The Butcher landed it with his heel, as he hoped, and it knocked Rodriguez four feet back. He stumbled on a curb stop and fell on his back. He had clearly felt intense pain, but couldn’t possibly have known how much internal damage he had suffered in the small intestines.

But the Butcher offered no quarter. He bound forward between Rodriguez’s legs, who lay sprawled on his back.

The Butcher lifted his right leg up past his own head and slammed it down in a straight-legged ax kick right into Rodriguez's open groin. The man instantly balled up into the fetal position and that’s when the Butcher slid around him and kicked him in the face with the toe of his shoe.

The Butcher followed that football-like kick with a heel stomp into the side of the man’s head. And with Rodriguez half out of it from the blow to the side of the head, the Butcher started kicking the man over and over in the side of his head, aiming for the vulnerable ear area. He mercilessly drove his legs down into his former cellmate. Each of the kicks, with the pavement providing a hard backstop behind the target, would be practically fatal if they landed dead-on.

But Rodriguez to his credit knew that giving up wasn’t an option. This wasn’t some schoolyard fight where you eventually gave up. Someone would either die or end up permanently injured. This was prison fighting, only outside prison walls, so he moved his head back and forth desperate to dodge his attacker’s repetitive strikes.

And thus the heel stomps aimed by the Butcher missed the ear and drove into Rodriguez’s jaw, neck, spine, and the top of his head. And since his head had nowhere to go, the result was repeated slams into the concrete. Rodriguez was half out of it by this point, but he could vaguely make out people yelling at the shocking barbarity. But the Butcher ignored them. He had waited and dreamed of this for too long. He had suffered far too much. So, he yanked Rodriguez from his side and rolled him onto his stomach. Then the Butcher jumped on the back of the barely conscious Rodriguez, pinning the man’s arms down with his knees.

Then he grabbed Rodriguez’s head and started bashing it into the concrete, over and over, with more and more force.

The nose and teeth shattered quickly, but that wasn’t enough for the Butcher. Bystanders grabbed his arms, trying to pull the small man off, but the Butcher only slammed Rodriguez’s head harder and harder, trying to crack the man’s skull on the concrete. The sound of his skull slamming into a rapidly expanding pool of blood was one the Butcher would never forget. He was hearing that sound again now in his dream, thrashing and reliving the day that he had cracked open the bully’s head, when he realized the pounding wasn’t the sound of Rodriguez’s skull on the concrete. It was an incessant pounding on his door, which he’d locked.

He shook himself awake and wiped his arm across his sweaty forehead.

“What is it?” he yelled, pissed.

He had told them to leave him alone.

“Sir, they’re coming,” one of his guards said breathlessly through the door. “They’re coming.”

The Butcher reached for his Uzi, katana, and black duffel bag as his feet hit the floor. Then he realized he needed to grab his pants and a shirt.

“How many, and where are they?” he asked, reaching for his clothes.

The twelve-truck convoy barreled toward their target, braking hard and squealing around corners before revving up and roaring forward as fast as the eight-cylinder trucks would take them. Bullets zipped and snapped around them, with occasional pings as bullets smacked home against the trucks.

“I can’t believe how ballsy these idiots are,” Truck said, as he focused hard on the task of driving and leading the entire convoy. He yanked the truck around two burned barrels of trash that someone had hurled in the road to block them. The front bumper caught the corner of one of the half-burned, half-rusted hulks and knocked it across the street.

“Well, I guess,” Nick said, flinching as two bullets smacked into the truck, “that we now know why the police won’t come up in here anymore.”

In the bed of the truck behind them, the members of the Primary Strike Team lit up shadows that moved and fools who silhouetted themselves. Their M4s, and Bulldog’s light machine gun over the cab of Truck 1, blasted away, jarring the night and cutting into buildings and bodies.

“Stop the convoy,” someone said on the radio.

Truck hit the brakes and Nick said into the radio, “We’re not stopping. What’s the situation? Give me a sitrep. Immediately.”

“Truck 7 stopped,” someone said. “I think they had a tire shot out.”

Bullets flew by the cab and Nick flinched, despite his best efforts not to. Someone from the Primary Strike Team fired over the cab and Nick heard Red say, “Nice shot.”

A garbled transmission came back. Nick hit the mic button and said, “Second Squad and Third Squad, ditch the truck with the flat. Put its occupants in another truck and make sure you grab any ammo or valuables from the back of it. We have to keep the convoy moving.”

The moment Nick let go of the transmit button, a nervous voice came over the air. “Man down in Truck 8. I say again, man down in Truck 8.”

The incoming fire was picking up as fighters from throughout the slum of Neza-Chalco-Itza closed in on the men of S3. Nick looked back down the road behind him. The convoy was strung out more than three hundred yards, with ten- or fifteen-yard gaps between trucks. Nick wrestled with whether they should push ahead and leave the supplies in the truck. Every second they sat, he knew other fighters would be zeroing in on their location and rushing toward them. Not to mention it was giving the Butcher more time to get away, which was the true reason for this insane thrust into this hornet’s nest.

“Man down,” another voice said on the radio.

“Damn it,” Nick yelled, slamming the dash with his fist.

“Dismount,” Nick said into the radio. “Take cover no more than fifteen feet from your primary vehicle. Engage targets and be ready to move.”

Nick felt the truck shaking as the Primary Strike Team members jumped from his truck and more rounds zipped by. He kicked his own door open and stepped out, aiming his M4 toward an alley up ahead where he had seen movement.

This was not how he had drawn up the mission.

The Butcher and nearly two hundred of his men rushed toward the sound of automatic weapons. It sounded like a war zone up ahead. Automatic weapons roaring. Rifles booming. And pistols and Uzi’s popping like small firecrackers.

His men had put away their sidearms and toted long weapons as they rushed forward. They carried everything from AK’s to H&K G3’s to full-length shotguns.

They looked like a band of guards you’d expect to see around some terrorist leader in the mountains of Afghanistan. An oval-shaped mass of men, alert, angry, and aggressive.

One of the Butcher’s men came running toward them from the firing up ahead. The Butcher, and the nearly two hundred men around him, slowed and spread out, weapons outboard and aimed toward possible threats.

“What is it?” the Butcher asked the breathless scout.

“Maybe ten trucks or so. Who knows. Maybe fifty or a hundred troops total?”

“Why didn’t you get a better count?” the Butcher asked.

“They are shooting anyone who shows their face. Not just those with weapons,” the man said.

The Butcher had often wondered why the Mexican Army followed such strict rules of engagement. The cartels and gangs regularly used unarmed women and children to act as spotters. Looked like the army had finally learned its lesson.

“Are they army troops? Or Mexican Marines?” he asked.

“No, sir. They appear to be Mexican SWAT.”

This made no sense to the Butcher. First, he had a great inside source with the Mexican police force and there was no way they’d have launched a raid without this man warning the Godesto Cartel. Second, it was nothing short of pure lunacy to launch a raid into the middle of Neza-Chalco-Itza with so few men. Only a hundred? Against a thousand? Who knew the area and had pre-planned defense locations?

The Butcher looked at one of his lieutenants who stood nearby.

“And you talked with the other lookouts in the other sectors? No other units are coming from either the north or west or south?”

“Yes, sir. I just called them all again before we woke you up. All sectors are quiet.”

“Call each of them again,” the Butcher said, dismissing the man with a wave.

The Godesto Cartel kept advance guards posted for miles around, not to mention all the typical dealers and informants who called in suspicious behaviors for cash payouts.

It just didn’t add up to the Butcher, though.

Ten trucks or so? Fifty or a hundred troops? And Mexican SWAT at that?

Why would so few troops so bravely raid Neza-Chalco-Itza? There were so many cartel members and addicts and gang members in the slum that they had literally stopped an army battalion of more than a thousand soldiers several years ago.

There were probably eighteen hundred gunmen the Butcher could call up with enough warning, though this group had managed to make the raid without advance notice from their informant network. But the Butcher worried that there had to be something else going on.

No way would so few SWAT members enter alone. Perhaps there were dozens of helicopters on their way in with more troops. Or maybe an army battalion stationed just outside the slum. Maybe two or three of them, actually. That’s what the Butcher would do if he were in charge of Mexican forces: Send in at least three battalions of army troops.

President Roberto Rivera was certainly in desperate straits. Would he have called up an all-out assault of Neza-Chalco-Itza? That made more sense than just sending in fifty or a hundred cops in unarmored trucks. Losing so many cops -- or perhaps the entire SWAT unit-- would only inflame the President’s critics and opponents.

And then the Butcher had another thought. What if Rivera wanted all these cops killed?

It might very well create sympathy for the federal government and the embattled President. The media might cite it as another example of out-of-control ruthlessness by the drug cartels. More unnecessary deaths of the brave and honorable police who were merely trying to do their jobs, they would say.

This idea sealed the Butcher’s decision. Either more troops were on their way, or it was a huge public relations move by President Rivera. Either way, staying and fighting was a bad idea.

“Pull everyone back,” he said to his lieutenant.

“Why? We can take these guys. Let’s kill them all.”

His lieutenant, one of his loyal aides who had been recently promoted up -- and not one of Hernan Flores’s that had remained -- still thought the way the Butcher used to think. You hit the enemy every time you had the advantage.

But, things were more complex once you were in charge of an entire cartel organization, and not just the striking arm of it. And with the firefight roaring in the distance, the Butcher didn’t have time to explain that more troops could be on the way or the political implications.

They were too close to toppling President Rivera to mess it up now by either a costly battle against thousands of hardened army troops or a terrible media disaster that could be spun out for days of public sympathy.

“No,” the Butcher said. “Pull everyone back. Keep some scouts on the convoy and see where they go, but tell our men to pull back and leave them alone.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, lifting his radio to pass along the new orders.

The stalled convoy attracted additional fighters and emboldened their enemy. Nick realized this and cursed his inability to right the situation. He was their commander. How had he lost control so quickly? His blood pressure continued to rise as the element of surprise drifted away...

Suddenly, an M60 blasted to their front -- a fighter dispersing dozens of rounds down the street from the direction the convoy intended to go. The 7.62 bullets tore down the street, and Nick and the rest of the Primary Strike Team dove for cover. The Vietnam-era medium machine shredded their truck. Several of the members tried to rise up and engage its brave (or suicidal) user, but the bullets were flying everywhere with complete unpredictability. And they came in waves, not like just some three- or four-second burp from an AK.

The gunner was probably firing it from the hip. Nick remembered being pinned down in Afghanistan and tried to will himself to lift his head and find the shooter. At least here he had a helmet, unlike in Afghanistan where he had just worn a boonie cover.

He pushed his M4 up above the car he lay behind on the side of the road. He thankfully had an engine block between him and the gunner, but already several rounds had walloped into the clunker he hid behind.

Nick lowered the barrel of his M4 above the hood to an angle that he guessed would be in the general proximity of the gunman. He then fired off a full mag in the direction of the shooter. Other Primary Strike Team members were doing the same thing, except for crazy-ass Red, who had his weapon up in his shoulder and was firing at the gunman using his sights. He was totally exposed like the insane madman that he was. No wonder the big guys left him alone. The 5’5” Red was batshit nuts, but Nick was glad he was on his side.

As the Primary Strike Team regained fire superiority on the front end of the convoy, Nick reloaded and popped up behind his carbine. He wanted to find the shooter in his scope and put the punk down for good. And with the streetlights shining on the area to their front, he felt confident he’d nail the gunman.

Then he saw him, as the M60 opened up again with a fresh belt toward Red and some of the other team members. Nick could just make out the silhouette of the man behind the yellow flame of the bullets coming out the front of it. Nick placed the red dot on the target roughly eighty yards away and fired four 5.56 rounds into the man.

It was spitting distance for the M4, and was as easy as dropping a piece of crumpled paper in a trash can right next to you if you were a sniper of Nick’s caliber. Not that there were many snipers of his caliber, but the bullets -- even in the low light and hasty firing position -- whacked into the man in less than a three-inch group. Under the one minute of angle expected of snipers, but it was night, he wore assault gear, and his breathing was out of control.

The shooter crumpled and Nick put two more rounds into the body, just to be sure he didn’t get up anytime soon. Another cartel member darted out to the gun, just as Nick expected, and he mercilessly put three bullets into him without having to adjust his aim much. Nick kept the M60 and the two bodies in his scope a few more seconds, but allowed his ears to hear the battle around him. Trying to get a feeling for how the rest of the members of S3 were doing.

Without question, his men were getting hammered. They were outgunned, outnumbered, and still probably half a mile from the target. Nick imagined the nightmare scenario of trying to surround the target building and actually enter it. It seemed impossible. And absurd, now that he saw the ground and resistance before them.

He heard someone slide up beside him, their clothing and equipment scuffing against the ground as they skidded up next to him.

“It’s me, Nick,” Marcus said.

Nick didn’t turn, keeping his Aimpoint sight on the M60 and two bodies.

“We’re in the shit, huh?” Nick said. “Having fun?”

“You know it.”

“What do you think?” Nick asked.

“I just ran down the column,” Marcus said, still breathing hard, “and we have nine wounded and five KIA.”

Nick kicked himself for getting personally tied up in a small part of the firefight with the M60 gunner and not doing what Marcus had done. He should have known to not get locked into using his rifle, instead relying on his leadership skills and radio.

“Oh,” Marcus said, “and we also have two trucks already out of commission. Maybe three.”

Nick recalled the M60 chewing up the lead truck, right through the grill and into the motor when it initially opened up.

“Four trucks out of commission,” Nick said. “That M60 out there hammered Truck 1 before we stopped him.”

Nick cursed. “This isn’t going to happen, is it?”

“That’s kind of what I was hoping you’d say,” Marcus said. “I know you’re prone to stubbornness, but I think we collect ourselves and get the hell out of here. We gave it a whirl, but they were waiting on us. No point in being stupid and losing a bunch more good men.”

It burned Nick to agree, but facts were facts. And if a leader of Marcus’s talent felt the same way as Nick, then they needed to pull back. And fast.

“All units,” Nick said into the mic, “load up. We’re turning around and heading back. All squad leaders, confirm you have all your men and report in. Leave any trucks that aren’t running, but leave no gear.”

Nick stood, fired half a mag down the street toward some movement on the other side, and moved toward Truck 1, which looked like it wouldn’t be driving anytime soon. You just can’t avoid the Mexican heat, he thought, even at night.

He started grabbing gear and maps from the cab to throw into another truck. His men fired and moved, fired and moved, covering each other, working in pairs as they had trained. Nick threw his gear into the cab of Truck 2 and watched as his unit moved and operated like pros. And in that moment, even in defeat, Nick felt pride in his unit. They had been repulsed, but not beaten.

Chapter 38

The day following the massive firefight in the slum of Neza-Chalco-Itza, the Butcher quickly wished he had never gotten out of bed. His assumptions about the convoy from the night prior had been wrong. No other army battalions had entered their slum, and the government under President Rivera wasn’t decrying the dead troops.

He had missed an opportunity to wipe out an entire SWAT team.

Now the Butcher felt numb, like he needed to puke. He was in the middle of an “emergency meeting” with his CFO; the skinny little puke sat in front of him, wearing a three thousand dollar suit.

The Butcher couldn’t stand the guy. The little shit had a finance degree, got weekly manicures, and played racquetball. Worse, he had never lifted a weight a day in his life and couldn’t possibly imagine life in prison or anything else that the Butcher had gone through.

But now the skinny, soft prick looked as shocked and scared as someone on the street, who had just been robbed and nearly beaten to death.

“What do you mean the money’s gone?” the Butcher yelled.

The man shifted nervously and cleared his throat.

“I, uh, got a call at 8:01 from one of our banks. And I’ve since checked the status on all of our other accounts, as well, and, um, most of its gone.”

“What do you mean it’s gone? And how much are we talking here?”

“I’ve still got three of my assistants calculating out the exact figures, but my worst-case estimate is that ninety-one percent of our money is gone.”

“And when you say ‘our money,’ are you talking my personal money or the Godesto Cartel money?”

“The Godesto Cartel money, sir.” The man flinched when he said it. The Butcher hadn’t gotten his name from being a reasonable or forgiving person.

“That’s worst-case. And what’s your best-case estimate of how much money is gone?”

“Eighty-seven percent?”

“Eighty-seven percent?” the Butcher asked. “But you said the worst-case estimate was ninety-one percent. That’s not much of a range.”

“It’s all digital and computerized these days,” the accountant explained, “so there’s not much guess work. Unfortunately, we’re quite certain that most of the corporation’s money is gone.”

The Butcher ignored the man calling the Godesto Cartel a “corporation.” He despised the man feigning ignorance at how they derived their income and had berated him about it before, but not today. No, not with the way this conversation was going.

“What did you do with the money that still remains?” the Butcher asked, trying to breathe and repress the panic seeping into his chest.

“We’ve moved it into new accounts, just to be safe. Although doing so does present some risks. Even at roughly ten percent, that’s a lot of assets to be moving, but I deemed it the prudent course of action.”

The Butcher gritted his teeth and scowled. This couldn’t be happening. How had the Feds seized that much of the cartel’s money without any of his informants warning them? It was inconceivable. The Godesto Cartel even had a man in President Rivera’s Cabinet. This just couldn’t happen without notification.

“Forget the numbers for a moment,” the Butcher said. “How much money will we have after we make our payouts and payroll checks for this week?”

The CFO cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.

“We can’t make them,” the man said, his voice barely a whisper.

“What?” The Butcher sprang to his feet and slammed his fists on the desk and then threw a side kick that drove a hole in the wall. “What are you saying?” he screamed.

The man flinched and shrunk down lower.

“I’m saying we’re bankrupt.”

“But we can get this money back, right?” the Butcher asked. “I’m not an attorney, but we have the best legal team that money can buy. In thirty days, maybe sixty, we’ll get the money back. You need to figure out how to handle this until then.”

“We owe too many suppliers, too many gangs, too many other cartels to wait that long,” the finance man said, desperation in his voice. “Just the one shipment we moved north of the border today has a twenty-five million dollar payment that we owe the Venezuelan Brothers, and they’re expecting that wire transfer today.”

“And how much do we have that’s been moved to other accounts? That we could pay them with?”

“Eighteen point six million.”

“So, not even enough to pay the Venezuelan Brothers?”

“No, sir, but we could require some advances from our various entities. Those who rent buildings from us, and some of those who lease territories to operate from.”

The Godesto Cartel allowed some gangs and organized crime groups to tax businesses in areas it controlled but lacked the manpower to effectively manage. These smaller groups paid a tax to the cartel, while the Godesto Cartel focused on international growth instead of petty, small-turf scuffles over mostly irrelevant amounts of money.

But, the Butcher could envision the rumors spreading among these armed groups and other cartels if they asked for an advance on money owed. These were men of the street. They could smell weakness from a mile away, and they’d turn on the Godesto Cartel in a minute if they sensed that the tides had turned and that the mighty cartel that had ruled for so long suddenly lacked strength.

Especially since the Godesto had really turned the screws into many of these groups, requiring too much, if truth be known. And these groups knew the truth, but had been too powerless in isolated groups to act. But, if the cash started running dry, all of them would turn on their despised landlord.

It was no different than a pack mentality among a pride of lions. The moment the older male showed injury or weakness, he would be attacked and driven off by a rival. Leadership was only held by strength, poise, and confidence.

And this news of their accounts being seized by the government, combined with the news he’d heard earlier this morning about the Red Sleeve Cartel breaking their truce, was enough to make him ready to run.

One of his lieutenants had told him earlier that news stations were reporting that the Red Sleeve Cartel had declared war on the Godesto. The Butcher had immediately called the leader of the rival cartel on his direct line and the man had neither answered nor returned his call. Several immediate calls to the Butcher’s subordinates across the country had led to reports that the members of the Red Sleeve Cartel were acting strange, packing heavy today, and ignoring nods and attempts to communicate from members of the Godesto Cartel.

The Godesto Cartel and the Red Sleeve Cartel had enjoyed a shaky alliance for years, but at their core they were rivals who had temporarily put aside differences for a more unified front against the government. It had been the biggest coup pulled off by Hernan Flores and had catapulted him and the Godesto Cartel to unprecedented levels of power. And it was this alliance that had first brought the Navy SEALs to Mexico.

The Butcher struggled to get his arms around the situation. Money seized. Reports of a declared war by the Red Sleeve Cartel, evidenced by strained relations among the troops in contact with each other.

One of his lieutenants knocked hard on the door and said, “Sir, turn on the TV.”

The Butcher ignored the CFO for a moment and flipped on the television. The news showed a man lying in a pool of blood. He turned the volume up when he saw the name Edgar Argel appear next to a picture of the corpse. A pretty news anchor had a look of concern on her face and she said with great gravity that the high-ranking man in the Godesto Cartel had been shanked in prison. And even the Butcher could clearly see the symbol of the Red Sleeve Cartel slashed into the man’s back.

Photos don’t lie, and Edgar Argel, who had several distinctive tattoos on his lower back and legs, was clearly the man who lay dead and carved up in the photo of the news broadcast. Already police were identifying, the cute news anchor said, one of the well-known Red Sleeve Cartel members, who was also housed in the same prison as the killer.

“Get out, both of you,” the Butcher said.

They shut the door behind them and he collapsed in his chair. The Butcher cursed the fact that he needed to set in motion a reprisal for the death of Edgar Argel or be seen, once again, as weak by those on the streets.

The news anchor followed the report regarding Edgar Argel by talking about the catastrophe that had occurred in the federal prison in Nayarit. He pushed away the idea of reprisal against the Red Sleeve Cartel and focused back on the TV. For five minutes he sat glued to the broadcast. As the shock set in, fear started to grow.

He just couldn’t believe what was being reported. The anchor said the federal prison in Nayarit had faced a huge breakout attempt, but the Butcher hadn’t authorized any such escape. This, too, made no sense.

The population of the federal prison in Nayarit was mostly composed of Godesto Cartel members, so they shouldn’t have attempted an escape unless he gave the order. And why would he? From this prison, the Godesto Cartel controlled a nationwide embezzlement operation of all the prisons.

The news anchor reported that a fire had broken out during the attempted escape and most of the inmates had died. The Butcher couldn’t believe it. These were some of the Godesto Cartel’s heaviest hitters. Men who rotated out on parole to take primary shooter slots in the Godesto Cartel. Men who mentored young gang members out on the street and new prisoners who had just arrived. Men who younger members looked up to as examples of what they should aspire to.

And now they were gone. The backbone of the Godesto Cartel had died gasping in smoke or burned alive. Well, not that the cartel had the money to support them anymore, the Butcher reminded himself, turning the TV off with disgust.

He wondered if all this was propaganda, but the news station had shown a reporter on the scene. They had provided video of a burning prison, which looked exactly like the compound as the Butcher remembered it.

The phone on the desk rang, but he didn’t have it in him to answer it. He gripped the back of his head and buried his face in his arms.

This couldn’t be happening. It was just a bad dream.

But then someone knocked on his door and he knew it was real. The Godesto, and the Butcher, were in some seriously deep shit.

“Come in,” he said.

One of his most trusted lieutenants stuck his head in the door and said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve got problems.”

“What is it?” the Butcher asked, sounding more exhausted than he wanted.

“I’m hearing that the Mexican Army has entered Coacalco, Magdalena Contreras, and Allende.”

The Butcher couldn’t believe it.

Coacalco and Magdalena Contreras were two of the strongest footholds the Godesto Cartel had, after Neza-Chalco-Itza. Both were on the outskirts of Mexico City and they had helped provide the base of operations that had allowed Hernan Flores to take over the country. If they were being hit by the army in strength, then loads of supplies and men were likely going to be lost.

And Allende, the third city mentioned, was their primary northern base of operations. It was hundreds of miles away from Mexico City, just south of Texas, and was a linchpin in helping them hang onto the north, as well a great base of operations for excursions across the border into Texas.

“Are you sure?” the Butcher asked.

“Absolutely,” his lieutenant said. “We’re pulling together casualty figures now, and while our men are trying to get away with some of the supplies, they apparently hit us before six a.m. and our men were completely unprepared. We had no warning.”

“Keep me up to date with the latest,” the Butcher said. “Now, give me some space so I can process this.”

The door shut and the Butcher pressed the button for his assistant.

“Gabriel,” he said, “call our pilots and have them fire my jet up. And also, arrange transportation to the airport for me.”

He hung up on his assistant before the man could say anything and took a deep breath. He just needed to get away from it for a few days. There might still be a chance. Perhaps he could still handle all of this. If a fat, Funyun-gobbling grandpa could run this organization and navigate an untold number of obstacles, then surely he could, too.

The phone buzzed back.

“What?” the Butcher asked, punching the button hard. Gabriel knew to leave him alone. What the hell was his problem?

“Sir, one of the calls that came in while you asked me to hold them is from one of our attorneys representing the aviation wing of our corporation. He said that he had been served with a federal warrant this morning and all aircraft had been temporarily seized.”

“So none of our four aircraft are available?”

“Not according to him, sir. Though he said to inform you that they were drafting counter-motions that should be filed by this afternoon with the courts.”

“And?” the Butcher asked.

“Well, he said with luck they’d be available for use again possibly as soon as four days, if the judge agrees with us and the motions are squeezed in on the court calendar as he hopes.”

The Butcher felt his stomach roll over. He wasn’t sure who he feared more, right then. The Red Sleeve Cartel, the Venezuelan Brothers who were about to get stiffed, or President Roberto Rivera and the government.

His mind was racing and thinking of an exit plan. There might be a way to salvage this sinking ship, but he didn’t see it.

This was the final straw for him. He’d let someone else deal with it, since he had enough money to get a new start somewhere else. Or maybe hide out on a beach somewhere, living a life of leisure and martial arts.

But in no way did he see his future tied to the Godesto Cartel anymore. As a small boy bullied on the mean streets, he knew when it was time to run. And that time had come.

Chapter 39

The Butcher might have made a clean escape from Mexico City and all of his problems, but one of his assistants saw him acting weird and heard him tell his assistant Gabriel that he’d be back and didn’t need his security detail with him.

That struck the assistant as alarmingly odd, so he had made an excuse to get past Gabriel and into the Butcher’s office. Then he checked the internet history on the computer. And there, in plain sight if you knew how to search someone's internet history, was a recent purchase of a first-class plane ticket at Mexico City’s international airport.

And though it was the riskiest thing the assistant had ever done, it was obvious the Godesto Cartel was in shambles. Besides the news outlets practically cheering their demise, the assistants had been talking among themselves about the impending war with the Red Sleeve Cartel, money problems, and Army incursions into Coacalco, Magdalena Contreras, and Allende. Things didn’t look good.

But there remained a ten million dollar reward on the Butcher’s head from the government… And it suddenly looked like whoever turned on the man might actually live to tell about it. Especially if provided a new identity.

And with that, the underpaid and barely recognized assistant decided to make a call about the Butcher’s departure.

President Roberto Rivera stood to shake off his weariness. He felt exhausted, but alive. Very alive.

And very close to victory.

He had kept the entire Cabinet in the Presidential Palace, as promised, and while he had found time for a two-hour nap and shower, he could feel the Godesto Cartel falling to its knees right before them as he monitored incoming reports and media outlets.

And the Cabinet members could feel it, too. Most had slept very little, and they had thrown their full support behind the effort and offered additional suggestions. Now, it was no longer a solo effort by President Rivera. Finally, when it was almost too late to matter, the entire government of Mexico was aligning itself against the Godesto Cartel as it had never done before. No longer did political gain matter for the members. Now it was about winning before their government fell apart in a dozen different investigations.

About the only shortcoming so far, from Rivera’s perspective, had been Nick’s mission into Neza-Chalco-Itza to capture the Butcher. Nick’s group from Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter had been mercilessly ambushed and shot all to hell by the Godesto. They had failed to even make it to their target building.

But practically everything else was going Rivera’s way, including some of the suggestions now being made by his Cabinet members as they jumped onboard with his effort.

One of those ideas brought forward by a Cabinet member was to have all tips into the hotline involving the Godesto Cartel or the Butcher called directly into the Presidential Palace, where actual Cabinet officials would man the phones. It wasn’t like there were that many calls anyway, and having the calls come directly into the Cabinet would throw a wrench into whatever informant system that the Godesto Cartel had set up.

Rivera considered this a wonderful idea. Once the phone lines were rerouted away from the intelligence headquarters and directly to the Presidential Palace, three Cabinet members assumed the first shift.

Besides avoiding informants, the realignment paid dividends in terms of pace, since President Rivera and his security forces could react to tips faster. In addition to taking the possibility of informants out of the tip center, the Cabinet members also avoided command units from alerting the Godesto Cartel by simply ordering units to a certain location -- waiting until the units were a short distance away to inform them of what the tip actually was. And the new technique was scoring big wins.

But when the phone rang regarding a tip about the Butcher flying out of the country, Rivera knew that redirecting tips straight into the Cabinet had proven nothing short of genius. And he knew he only trusted one man to take care of this one.

Nick Woods felt exhausted, despite a shower and shave. He stood on the back porch of the farmhouse -- S3’s humble but well-hidden headquarters -- and looked out at the rising sun, wanting nothing more than a hard drink. Yet he knew he should settle for some breakfast instead. But the memories from last night wouldn’t let him be and had killed his appetite.

The unit had turned around and limped out of Neza-Chalco-Itza in only seven trucks. Three had been left smoking or burning, while two lay paralyzed with flat tires, like beached whales unable to move any further forward.

Nick and his men had rushed their wounded to a hospital in Mexico City and dropped their dead at the morgue before returning to the farm.

By then it was after three in the morning.

The final tallies from Marcus and the squad leaders were thirteen dead and twenty-three wounded. Even the Primary Strike Team had been bloodied badly. Preacher, Bulldog, and Isabella had all been wounded and were in the hospital.

The Lizard’s premonitions prior to the mission had proven true. He had been killed with a bullet to the throat.

And for what? What had they accomplished? They hadn’t even made it to their target building, much less nabbed the Butcher.

Hell, by not reaching the target building, they had done more than just missed grabbing the Butcher. They had also failed to even grab any intel by raiding the building that might have led to his whereabouts. No computers, no file cabinets stuffed full of documents to scan for clues, no cartel punks to question for days and days in an effort to break them.

What had they accomplished? Nick asked himself.

Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch.

A lot of good men had died because of the foolhardy mission Nick had ordered. He knew the plan came from the input of his men, as well, and Marcus had reminded him this morning that each of them had gone out doing what they wanted to do, but Nick couldn’t shake the gloom.

Why had he survived with nary a scratch? He had given the punks inside Neza-Chalco-Itza numerous opportunities to put a round in him as he had walked around and tried to play brave commander.

But his luck continued, as it had from the beginning. First, Afghanistan, against the Soviets. Then his tussle with Whitaker and too many of his cronies to count. And now last night.

He didn’t understand it. Besides the thought of Lizard being dead and twelve others from his command, Nick wanted to see Isabella. She lay in a hospital bed drugged up and with two bullets in her, but Nick knew she’d survive barring any complications.

Marcus, who’d also survived without a scratch, was in classic Marine DI command mode. Nothing knocked that man down. He had ordered the men to line the trucks up in an orderly manner and spray the blood out of the truck beds and off the sides of them.

Then he’d had the men spray off and pack up the gear of the wounded. Then he’d ordered them to clean their weapons and get showered up. Nick had cleaned his weapon, as well, but he wondered for what?

His unit was hardly combat ready. They had organized the survivors into two ragtag squads in case some kind of mission was necessary, but his men had gotten the shit kicked out of them, and failed to even accomplish their mission. They were experienced veterans who had all seen their share of war, but fifty percent casualties on a mission that in the end proved unsuccessful was pretty tough mustard for anyone.

Nick, leaning on the deck railing, spat onto the dusty ground and fought the urge to go grab his liquor bottle. Last thing the men needed was a drunk commander, but boy, that bottle had a powerful call.

Nick had already reported the terrible mission results to Mr. Smith, who to his credit, had been up all night waiting for their call and relaying information about the Godesto Cartel from President Rivera, as well as intel that the NSA and CIA had picked up.

Other than the failed mission by Nick’s men, things were mostly going swimmingly for Mexico and President Rivera, according to Mr. Smith. Maybe it wasn’t all a waste, Nick thought. The men of S3 had come up with the plans that were now throttling and destroying the Godesto Cartel, so there was that. Plus, even with their heavy casualties, they had helped gut the army of the Godesto in the filthy streets of Neza-Chalco-Itza.

Nick’s cellphone rang and he looked down at it. It was President Rivera’s cellphone number. Now what, he wondered?

“How would you like to get your hands on the Butcher?” President Rivera asked.

“Go on,” Nick said.

“He’s headed to an airport to fly out of Mexico. He’s fleeing, Nick, all because of your plans.”

“They were your plans. You make sure that’s how you phrase it to the public from here on out. Now, where is that bastard?”

And minutes after that question, Nick Woods and Dwayne Marcus raced toward the Mexico City International Airport, the siren on their green police truck roaring. As they flew down the interstate, Nick was glad that Marcus had asked the men to spray down the trucks.

They had to move fast for a chance to nab the little punk. President Rivera had decided not to stop the plane or alert other authorities. The Butcher was fleeing, and the last thing Rivera wanted was a court trial or to spook him and keep him in the country, where he might re-assume control of the Godesto Cartel (or what remained of it).

Nick understood Rivera’s thinking, but he was just glad that the President was giving him one final chance to get his hands on his prey. This was one final chance for Nick to avenge the SEAL platoon and all the men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter who had died or been wounded the night before.

He and Marcus had changed into civilian clothes, and Marcus sported jeans, polo, and some kind of hip shoes that Nick couldn’t place a finger on. Nick wore jeans, a tight Sniper shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of work boots. His look failed the undercover/CIA look, but there were plenty of rough looking construction workers south of Texas and he was too square to go dressing like Marcus.

They had put a squad leader in charge of the entire unit back at the farm while they were gone, and picked the truck with the fewest bullet holes punched into it. President Rivera had stated that the Butcher’s flight would begin boarding in one hour and twenty minutes, and since they were well over an hour away at legal driving speeds, they needed to seriously cut down the driving time. After all, they would have to find him before boarding began, since there’d be no way to get him off the plane without attracting attention.

Now they raced toward the airport at a hundred and twenty miles per hour in a truck that should only do eighty. The big tires and heavy steel frame in the back for troops made it hard to drive, but Marcus was handling it.

Nick was trying to control his rage. He had a .357 revolver in the floorboard, but knew he’d probably be going in unarmed on this one. And he was more than okay with that. The Butcher would be unarmed, too, and he wanted to get his hands on this bastard so badly he couldn’t stand it. He’d somehow get him in a bathroom or hallway alone and then beat the shit out of him. And once the Butcher could no longer defend himself, Nick would choke him out and hold the lock until the man was dead.

They arrived in Mexico City without any problems, and as they rushed into the mass of parking lots and garages around the airport, Nick said, “Just pull up to the front.”

“Roger that,” Marcus said.

The truck’s siren was off now, but Marcus kept the lights on as he raced past stalled traffic in front of him. He drove down the road into oncoming traffic, forcing cars to jerk off the road and up onto the curb.

Marcus spotted an opening in traffic in the correct lane and jerked the truck back over with the flow of traffic.

As more cars began to block their path, Marcus was forced to jump the curb and drive down the sidewalk the final half-mile. Marcus laid on the horn and pedestrians dove out of the way as the truck ripped down the sidewalk.

By the time they reached the airport entrance, two police cars were rushing toward them with their sirens on.

“Ignore them,” Nick said. “It might take half an hour to get the situation cleared up before President Rivera can intervene. Pull up closer and I’ll jump out. Then punch it and take these two on a wild goose chase.”

“No way,” Marcus said. “I’m coming with you.” He had come too far to let Nick deal with this alone.

“It’s the only way this will work,” Nick said. “If you come in with me, we’ll be in handcuffs trying to make a phone call and the Butcher will be gone.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Marcus said, anger in his voice.

Nick pushed open his door a few inches. “Marcus, that is a direct order.”

Marcus cursed and slowed, and Nick slipped out the door. Marcus floored it and took off again. Nick hoped the two cruisers hadn’t noticed him, and it stood to reason that they hadn’t. They were still a couple hundred yards away and there were nearly a hundred moving cars and probably three hundred people streaming in and out of the airport between them.

Nick avoided looking back and simply immersed himself in a large group of tourists headed toward the entry doors. He entered the lobby and saw a huge line in front of a security checkpoint up ahead. Being from the South, he hated to be an ass, but the Butcher’s plane would be boarding at any time.

He rushed down the line past the impatient travelers, walking fast and hearing people bitching and gasping as he moved forward. At the front of it, he said to a tired looking family, “I’m very sorry, but I have to break line. My son is up ahead and my wife has lost him. It’s an emergency, please.”

The wife shrugged, clearly unable to understand him.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said, and he walked toward the two federal agents.

“Do you need help finding him?” a security agent said in barely understandable English. He was reaching for his radio with concern.

“She’s already working with airport security,” Nick said. “No need.”

He placed his wallet and keys in the tray and said, “If you could just help me get cleared quickly, we’re both really nervous about this.”

“Of course,” the man said. “I have a son, too. I can only imagine how terrifying it must feel.”

Nick stepped through the metal detector and waited for his keys and wallet in the tray. They took forever to come through the slow-moving belt and he practically ripped them from the agent.

“Thank you,” he said, “and I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go.”

He rushed away and headed for a directory. He found the wing where the Butcher’s flight would depart and headed that way. He looked down at his watch and saw only fifteen minutes remained before boarding began.

Nick wanted to jog, but also knew that the Butcher might be waiting out of range of the departure area, wary and alert. Nick slowed and decided to keep his cool, walking as calmly as possible.

He scanned the crowd, ignoring old men, harried moms, and screaming kids. There also seemed to be a huge percentage of well-dressed businessmen and women, who were looking down at iPhones, laptops, work they had brought with them.

And then he spotted a possible fit. A short man, walking away from him. The man carried a black duffel bag, walking as smoothly as a gymnast or ninja. Nick closed the distance toward him, taking larger steps. His gut told him this was the Butcher.

He caught up to him and slowed, staying just a couple feet behind him while his brain tried to work on the fly. He knew a fight in the open corridor would only lead to both of them being arrested, and he had promised President Rivera that he wouldn’t take the man alive.

“No trial,” Rivera had reminded him on the phone.

“Oh, there definitely won’t be a trial,” Nick said, determination and anger slipping into his voice more than he’d intended.

Neither Rivera nor the country needed a long trial or the chance for the Butcher to rule from behind bars. Or possibly escape at some point down the road.

Besides, after last night and all the dead and wounded from S3, Nick wanted him in a cheap pine box as badly as Rivera did. Nick sped up and came alongside the short man and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Juan Pelo,” Nick said, using the man’s real name, which hardly anyone knew, and which no one in the Godesto Cartel dared called him. He had built up the image of “the Butcher” and he delighted in its sound.

The man tensed under Nick’s hand, and Nick knew he had the right man.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Nick said. “And don’t act like you don’t understand English. I've read your file. Trust me. For your own good, just keep walking like we’re friends. I have an offer for you.”

“Who are you?”

“Roberto Rivera sent me, but that doesn't matter. You see, I have a proposition for you.”

“I don’t need to hear your proposition,” the Butcher sneered. “I could make one call and you’d be cut up into fish bait.

“Well, you could,” Nick said, emphasizing his Southern drawl, “but we already know you don’t have your security detail with you. And I kind of doubt you could get your phone up and dialed before I ripped it from your little hand.”

“I’m not worried about some redneck taking a phone from me. I could break you in half with my eyes closed.”

“And if you try,” Nick said, “security would rush up, arrest us both, and I’m betting they’d probably figure out who you are without needing to break out the fingerprint kit. You’re kind of famous now, you know, so if you want to have the chance to leave the country in a few minutes, you’ll listen to my proposition.”

“I’m listening,” the Butcher said.

“Option one is I cause a ruckus and get security over here to arrest you. We know that gets you into prison after a painful and long court trial that will probably last at least two or three years, with you inside the pen. No parole for you.”

“What’s option two?” the Butcher asked.

“Option two is you step into an empty hallway with me without causing a scene. President Rivera wants you dead, and he’s looking to avoid a trial or you enjoying the easy life in jail, like you cartel members always seem to do. Plus, he can’t kill you in jail because after the Hernan Flores shanking incident, the public would come unhinged if another major cartel leader died in custody. So, option two is we mosey over into an empty hallway and see who walks out. I figure you have about twenty-five minutes before your plane leaves, which gives you time to take care of me, clean up, and leave on schedule. You won’t get to board early, but you’ll have plenty of time to depart and fly off into the sunset.”

“How do I know I won’t be arrested anyway, assuming I win?”

“President Rivera would rather have you gone from the country than on trial or in jail, so that’s why I’m here. I get one chance and you only have one final obstacle.”

“This could be dangerous for you,” the Butcher said, a smile creeping across his face.

“I’m accustomed to danger. Plus, I was paid good money by the U.S. government to come down here and deal with Mr. Flores and the Godesto Cartel. You took care of Flores for me, which I appreciate, but you still bear a right smart amount of blood on your hands. Besides all the Mexican people you’ve killed or leeched off of, you guys took out a bunch of Navy SEALs. And last night, you killed some of my men in Neza-Chalco-Itza. So, it’s kind of personal, you might say.”

“Hah,” the Butcher laughed, as they continued to walk through the bustling airport. “That was you? I should have known only cocky-ass Americans would be so stupid as to enter Neza-Chalco-Itza with so few men.”

Nick swallowed down his anger. He felt the fire and hatred building up.

And he thought back on everything that this little asshole had done. He remembered the video of the Butcher entering the police station and chopping up officers who couldn’t defend themselves because of the tear gas. He remembered the brutal decapitation of billionaire Juan Soto’s head in his room. And he reflected on the helplessness he had felt just hours ago in the slum of Neza-Chalco-Itza, fighting off hundreds of rabid dogs who were snapping at the convoy.

Nick had felt so helpless dragging and carrying his wounded men into the hospital. And then offloading the dead at the morgue, once they had stripped them of their gear to limit the questions from emergency personnel.

“I still can’t believe you tried to enter Neza-Chalco-Itza with so few men,” the Butcher said. “Didn’t Rivera tell you that the cops and army never enter Neza-Chalco-Itza? And did he not tell you that I’m not afraid to die? You don’t know me, country boy. I don’t give a shit if I live or die.”

“Join the club,” Nick said. “You see, you messed up last night. Because not only did you kill a lot of good men, which I have to live with for the rest of my life, but you also shot up my girl.”

The Butcher laughed. “You talk a lot, country boy.”

“Not usually,” Nick said. “But ask yourself this. How come President Rivera had barely made a dent against the Godesto until last night? You ever wonder that?”

Nick felt the Butcher tense again underneath his hand. “That’s right,” Nick continued. “You can thank us cocky-ass Americans for tearing apart your entire organization in a single night. How long did you spend building that thing up? Thirty years? And poof.” Nick snapped the fingers of his free hand. “Gone in one night.”

The Butcher stopped walking and said, “You’re going to be wishing you had called those security guards in just a few minutes, country boy.”

“Well, it’s true,” Nick said, “that some have said I’ve got no sense. But, we’ll just have to see if you’re man enough to do what so many others couldn’t. Tell you what, let’s try this hall up here.”

Nick angled him toward a sign that said “fire exit” on it.

They entered the hall and Nick was relieved that no alarm went off. A chair sat inside the hall next to an old trash can with a pile of cigarette butts in it. Clearly some guard or janitor used the place to sneak a smoke. But it looked dingy and rarely visited otherwise -- the perfect place for a fight to the death.

The Butcher moved down the hall and when he was a safe distance away, Nick grabbed the chair by the trash can and blocked the door behind him with it, wedging it against the handle at an angle. The last thing he wanted was a janitor, cop, or tourist trying to stop them.

Thankfully, the hall was a wide one, built so that golf carts and other emergency vehicles could navigate it. Probably even wide enough for ambulances to drive through.

There’d be plenty of room to dance in here, Nick thought, and then he saw that the Butcher was smiling.

“What’s so funny?” Nick asked. “Oh, that’s right. You like being locked up with bigger men. I seem to recall reading in the police file on you that you had a great time in prison. This bring back some pleasant memories for you?”

The Butcher smiled at him, and the little shit had the creepiest of looks. Nick couldn’t read his face. It was the strangest damned thing.

“What’s so funny?” Nick asked. “You really think your little goober karate moves are going to work against me?”

“Probably,” the Butcher said, “but not as well as this.”

And with that he yanked his katana from the duffel bag.

“Well,” Nick admitted, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Turns out,” the Butcher said with a smirk, “that a ton of money won’t get an Uzi through security, but it will get a sword through.”

Nick was barely listening. He suddenly regretted that the hall was so wide. Or that he had blocked the door behind him with the chair.

No doubt if he turned his back to grab it he’d be a shish kebab. The Butcher would skewer him straight through his back like a piece of meat pierced by a stainless steel cooking rod.

Nick’s brain raced, looking for something. Now it was the Butcher’s turn to have fun.

“What was the term I used earlier?” the Butcher asked. “I believe it was ‘cocky-ass American.’ And look, here you’ve made yet another horrendous mistake, just like last night.”

Nick stood facing him, his legs shoulder-width apart and his empty hands held out to his sides. What the hell had he gotten himself into? And how in the world did you dodge a swift swinging sword? Especially from a little karate dick who knew how to use it?

“I could kill you so quickly,” the Butcher said, “like a stork stabbing a fish out of water, but I wonder… I wonder if you know how powerless it feels to be cut time and time again and not be able to do anything about it.”

Here comes the sadistic, cruel side of the man, Nick thought.

The Butcher held the sword in a two-hand grip directly in front of him and he looked like he knew what he was doing. He had unsheathed it with ease and grace, then positioned the sword expertly. Yeah, he definitely knew what he was doing.

And there was something unnerving about a long blade. Much more intimidating than a pistol or submachine gun, despite the absurdity of such a comparison. Perhaps it was the slow death such a weapon would cause.

“I’ll bet,” the Butcher said, “that I have you giving up and begging for your life after just six or eight slices. Sharp cuts bleed a lot and they burn. They’re really no fun, I promise you.”

“I thought martial artists didn’t use weapons against unarmed people?” Nick asked.

“I’m no martial artist,” the Butcher said. “I’ve just mastered their moves for times like this.”

Nick searched the hallway for anything. His mind raced through scenarios and calculated angles, distances, and possibilities. He knew he had roughly four feet to his rear that he could step back toward. On the wall just behind to the Butcher hung a heavy, red fire extinguisher, and that would be nice, but how to get eight feet forward against a man wielding a sword?

Nick cursed himself for not even having his Benchmade tactical knife on him. What kind of country boy travels without a knife, he wondered. With a knife, he might have had a chance, but the fact this was going down in an airport that had forced him to enter it without any kind of weapon had hurt his chances considerably.

Shut up, Nick, he thought. A three-inch blade only helps so much against a sword that long. And you have your fingers. With a properly trained man, they’re blades. And you have your boots. With a properly trained man, they’re hammers. You’re going to get cut no matter what, but if you start thinking too much or having regrets, you’re going to die right here in this dusty, dingy corridor.

“Come on, you little shit,” Nick said. “You’ve talked enough. You’re the one holding the sword. Why don’t you come poke me with it?”

“That sounds dirty,” the Butcher said with a laugh.

“Probably does to a man who’s had as many boyfriends as you.”

That had enraged the Butcher and Nick saw the man’s jaw tighten and flinch before he charged. He rushed in, the sword aimed right at Nick’s chest, and Nick made himself wait. He knew moving too soon or reacting too early would allow the Butcher to alter the swing.

And so he held as the sword stabbed straight toward him. Nick was partly banking on the fact that if the Butcher planned on torturing him slow as he had stated, then driving a sword through his chest or stomach hardly allowed that to play out. Sure enough, the Butcher lifted the blade and angled it back and right at the last moment, before slashing it down in an angled cross slice.

Nick leapt back, certain he had dodged the swift swing. But as the Butcher retreated following the swing, his shoulder started burning and he looked down to see a sharp cut and blood running down his arm. The moment he saw the cut, it burned worse.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” the Butcher said, with a laugh.

“I’ve been cut worse shaving, you little bastard. Now come get you some more.”

Nick guessed he had maybe two feet behind him to work with after his first retreat. The Butcher took the same stance as earlier: two-hand grip, sword held straight forward. He still had his evil smile plastered on his face.

Again the madman darted forward, the sword held straight forward, and again Nick held his open hand stance, thankful to not have to worry about a straight in stab to the body.

This time the Butcher angled back over his left shoulder and swung it from left to right, high to low. Same stroke, but opposite side.

Nick tried to time the strike again, but this time ducked down placing his weight on his left leg, while kicking out his right leg toward the Butcher’s knee. Again he misjudged the little man’s speed and the sword struck the side of Nick’s head above his ear, instead of the targeted shoulder.

Nick didn’t feel the strike, his adrenaline pumping and his pain sensors completely turned off. His life was on the line and his body didn’t need much convincing from his brain to act and move with purpose and super-human speed and strength. And while Nick had taken a bad cut to the side of his head, the heel of his boot landed hard into the Butcher’s knee, driving him back. Nick had hoped to hyperextend the little punk’s knee, but the nimble fighter had leaned and jumped back to avoid that fate. But what mattered more than the knee getting blown out was the jump back by the Butcher, so Nick completed his follow up move to the kick, which was his plan all along. He pulled in his right leg, spun on his left heel, and reached for the chair behind him.

The chair had been facing legs forward, since that’s how Nick had placed it to keep the door from opening, and Nick somehow -- likely thanks to adrenaline -- snatched up the chair with speed and certainty as he spun around and raised himself back up from the floor.

Now Nick held the chair out in front of him in a guard position, with its four legs aimed menacingly toward his opponent.

“I figure,” Nick said, “that if you’re bringing toys to our little date, I’d bring one, too.”

“You think a chair will help you against this blade?” the Butcher asked, again holding the sword aimed upward toward Nick in his guard position. “It’s a thirty-thousand dollar sword. It will pierce that chair or cut through its aluminum legs as if they are nothing.”

“Yeah, well I was raised in an aluminum trailer, and in the South, we don’t mind cheap homes or drinking from plastic cups. It doesn’t take much to keep us happy, so this chair should work just fine.”

“We’ll see about --”

But Nick was sick of the talking and rushed forward, thrusting the chair forward and twisting it at the same time. The chair’s legs turned from their horizontal position to a diamond shape as they thrust forward as hard as Nick could push and lunge.

The move caught the Butcher by surprise and his brain struggled to change from finishing a sentence to reacting to a multi-point attack rushing toward him. In the end, his brain failed to deal with all the input and speed of the attack. He basically tried to step back and block the thrust with his sword pushing out to a horizontal blocking position.

But the chair’s twisting legs deflected the sword and the upper leg and lower leg of the diamond shape both drove into the Butcher. The upper leg’s point smashed him in the mouth, while the lower leg missed his groin by about two inches, driving in just above it. But both strikes seriously hurt and the Butcher stepped further back after the blow, wiping blood from his mouth and using his tongue to push lightly against his lower teeth. They wobbled loosely and he felt the first touch of fear. The soft muscles around his groin didn’t exactly feel right, either, and he wondered if the chair’s leg might have caused a hernia or soft tissue damage to the inner working of his man parts.

“Hurts doesn’t it?” Nick said with a laugh.

Nick knew he didn’t look so great himself, and he could tell his head wound was bleeding like crazy down his back. It was part of why he hated head wounds.

But he had much larger problems than just a bleeding scalp. Without question, the Butcher was a skilled fighter and he’d solve the problem presented by the chair in no time. At that point, Nick would lose some fingers or maybe the little shit would duck down and slice Nick across the lower legs. Or maybe he’d just use brute force to cut the legs off the chair.

Nick didn’t have time for these kinds of calculations. Some guys liked to study martial arts and spar and consider strategy for literally hundreds of hours. Not Nick though. He practiced just enough hand-to-hand to be good with hard strikes, joint locks, and basic self-defense.

Rather than kicks or strikes, Nick preferred to put down his enemies with a Kimber 1911 .45, or even better, stand off at a great distance, estimate the range to the target, determine windage, and drop some fool from eight hundred yards with his M-40 .308 sniper rifle.

So, Nick wasn’t about to wait for the Butcher to calculate how he might get attacked, and how to respond appropriately. Nick acted instead. He took a step forward, reared the chair back, and threw it as hard as he could with both hands at the Butcher. The Butcher tried to react, but he couldn’t possibly dodge the chair at that distance. The chair hit the Butcher hard in his chest, knocking his arms and sword back into him.

Nick rushed forward behind the flying chair and grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall, and as the chair bounced to the floor and the Butcher’s eyes opened in surprise and serious fear at his own miscalculation, Nick yanked the pin out of the extinguisher and pulled the hose free from its holder.

Nick sprinted forward and as the Butcher extended the sword to defend himself, Nick sprayed a massive burst of chemical foam toward the Butcher’s face. The Butcher released the sword with his left hand and tried to block the spray with his outstretched palm, but he was too late.

Nick didn’t let up, blanketing his face with chemicals. The Butcher turned away and blindly swung the blade around behind him in the hopes of catching Nick by surprise.

Nick ducked the sword and advanced further forward, keeping the deluge of chemicals flying into the back of the Butcher’s head. The man was screaming in pain and Nick figured the stuff was hell on the eyes, mouth, and nose.

The Butcher stumbled and slid in the growing pool of foam. And as the trained assassin and leader of the Godesto scrambled to stand, Nick changed grips and grabbed the extinguisher around the top of the barrel. He swung the thing like it was a thirty pound bat and walloped it into the back of the Butcher's head.

Bone echoed (and possibly cracked) and the man screamed louder. The sword clanged to the floor and as the Butcher reached for the back of his head, screaming still louder, Nick stepped around him, switched his grip, and sprayed a quick burst into the Butcher’s mouth.

Fighting a blind man isn’t hard, Nick thought.

The Butcher gagged and wretched, still blind and completely helpless. Nick grabbed the top of the tube again and retracted it back like a batter in the box above the plate. He then swung it down into the Butcher’s right knee.

A horrendous, bone-crushing impact burst every bone and tendon in the Butcher’s knee. The man dropped to the ground like he’d been shot, spinning in the foam as he screamed and cried in pain. He held the knee in complete and utter shock and terror.

“Going to be hell walking any time soon,” Nick said without an ounce of emotion.

The Butcher screamed and coughed and used his hands to feel the damage to his knee. It was natural instinct and impossible not to do, even if you were blind, barely able to breath, and in the fight of your life.

Nicked watched the wounded man, amused, and then the Butcher somehow came to his wits and searched along the foamy floor with his hands for his sword. He found it and turned blindly toward the sound of Nick’s footsteps.

Nick laughed at the swordsman sitting on his duff, holding a sword toward him as if a blinded man could defend himself. Nick tiptoed two steps to his right and suddenly hurled the extinguisher toward the Butcher’s face from roughly eight feet away. The man never saw it coming and it cracked into his face, the bottom of the steel cylinder punching into his face like a heavy torpedo.

“That was stupid,” Nick said, “but I guess I don’t blame you.”

The Butcher had dropped his sword again and held his face, but now the white foam competed with loads of blood, and the blood was beginning to win.

Nick picked up the sword and wiped his hands and the handle of it against his pants. The foam burned his bare hands so he couldn’t imagine what it must be doing to the man’s eyes, throat, and nose.

Wouldn’t matter soon anyway, and Nick wasn’t one to dwell on topics like mercy and forgiveness. That was God’s business and Nick wasn’t in God’s business. Or maybe he was, but Nick didn’t dwell on such thoughts. If God wanted mercy to be shown now, He’d have sent another man.

This evil thing bleeding helplessly in the foam had played his hand from the day he had gotten out of prison. Perhaps his earlier days of selling drugs and stealing cars could be forgiven because of necessity, but the man had returned to the drug trade after being handed a second chance. And he had done worse than just returned with dealing just to make ends meet. Instead, he had wrought a reign of terror, though Nick didn’t blame him for the revenge he brought against the prisoners that had terrorized him. But it was the man’s reign of terror as the No. 2 man in the Godesto Cartel that Nick couldn’t forgive him for.

The Butcher had killed or terrorized countless individuals. The short little terror had played his hand for years, but this time his cards had come up short.

Nick tested the balance of the sword.

“Nice sword,” he said.

“Please,” the man muttered between screams. He was reaching out with his right hand in mercy, and trying to wipe out his eyes with his left.

Nick kicked the Butcher in the leg, but only with a light tap.

“Listen up, hoss. Quit your screaming and belly aching. I need to give you a little speech here.”

He stepped toward the man, careful not to slip in the foam.

“You see, in the Marine Corps, they teach you that if you’re going to carry or use something, you need to do so responsibly. So, if you’re going to deploy tear gas, you have to spend some time in a gas chamber finding out just how bad it sucks. Same thing with tasers, and hell, if it didn’t cost so much to train new Marines, they’d probably test rifles out on you, as well. My beloved Corps can be a bit thick headed about things like that.”

Nick stepped closer to the sprawled out punk.

“So, I figure,” he said, stepping forward again as the Butcher tried to crawl back, “that if you’re going to go carrying a sword around stabbing people, you need to figure out how it feels. Seems only fair.”

And with that, Nick Woods swung the sword horizontally toward the Butcher’s head. The man had wiped the foam from his eyes and could half see, so he raised both forearms to stop the sword, just as Nick hoped.

Nick stopped the strike before it sliced into the man’s forearms and switched his grip, inverting the blade so that it pointed down.

And before the Butcher could place his hands on the ground to slide or reposition his legs, Nick thrust the sword down into the quad of the cartel leader’s good leg. The blade drove straight through the thick muscle and slammed the concrete floor hard enough to chip out chunks.

“Oh, damn, that’s got to hurt,” Nick said.

The Butcher wasn’t even screaming. His eyes were bugged out and he was hyperventilating, his hands holding the blade’s handle to keep it from swinging side-to-side. Complete shock was setting in.

Blood spilled from below the cut, but not nearly as quickly as might be expected. Nick was glad he had missed the femoral artery. He had hoped not to hit it.

“I wouldn’t pull that blade out,” Nick said. “That’s when the bleeding will really start.”

Nick stepped back and pulled out his cellphone. He turned on the video camera and filmed the helpless, weeping man.

The blood, the foam, the look of sheer horror was a stark contrast to the man who usually looked brave and daring in the videos he emailed into the news stations. Nick stopped recording him and texted the video to President Rivera. He hoped the President would have someone upload it online anonymously, but that wasn’t up to Nick to decide.

He confirmed the text had sent and put a hand up on his bleeding scalp. The thing was pouring blood out pretty fast and he felt a bit weak. He dialed the President's number and waited for him to answer.

Walking past the upturned chair, he stopped and righted it on its legs. He sat heavily and when Rivera answered, he said, “Your Christmas came early. The Butcher has been butchered.”

Nick looked at the man, holding the sword blade with the utmost of care. The Butcher was afraid to move and afraid not to, given the blood draining out of his leg. Shock was creeping up on him and death approached with increasing haste. Nick had seen it in war and battle too many times to count. The Butcher wasn’t dead yet, but he would be before help could arrive.

“Now, get some men here. We’ve got a mess to clean up. I need someone to get me out of here without being arrested, we need to grab all video footage and have it seized for national security reasons, and you probably need to get Marcus, my No. 2 man free. I’d imagine he’s probably in cuffs outside the airport.”

Nick hung up before President Rivera could answer and he sunk back in the chair, relieved but exhausted. The fight with the Butcher, the lack of sleep from the night prior, the emotions from the battle in Neza-Chalco-Itza, the stack of fresh memories from seeing and hearing the wounded and dead men from S3.

He pulled his sniper T-shirt off and placed it against his head, keeping firm pressure against the deep cut. He lowered his head and tried to keep from passing out, and noticed the SS (Scout Sniper) symbol burned into his chest and the HOG tooth, or Hunter Of Gunman, 7.62 round hanging around his neck.

He said a silent prayer of thanks to all the Marine instructors who had trained and beaten him into the person he had become. Thanks, guys, he thought. You came through again.

Epilogue

In the days that followed the Butcher’s horrendous death, the Red Sleeve Cartel hunted down the remnants of the Godesto Cartel, leaving it as nothing but a footnote of Mexican history. Those who were lucky enough to survive, switched sides.

President Roberto Rivera rode a wave of public support. Suddenly, the public nor the Congress cared that he had intervened to send Mexican SWAT members to rescue billionaire Juan Soto. President Rivera was now firmly seen as the cartel fighter, and his legacy and popularity had been secured.

The men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter packed up and convoyed back to America, some of their wounded left behind until a private medical plane could be dispatched from America. Dwayne Marcus handled the logistics and temporarily took command while S3’s leader healed and rested.

Nick Woods stayed behind. He remained by Isabella’s side as she recovered and helped her recuperate. But with the lack of tension in a non-warlike environment, the passion between them sputtered out. They had little in common and no future together.

Nick eventually drifted north, afraid to confront the isolation he now faced. He was two million dollars richer for completing the mission, but what was money to a penny-saving, country boy?

At least Marcus had handled the disbandment of S3. Saying goodbye to Isabella had been tough. Saying goodbye to his men a final time would have been too much for Nick.

He had been told by Mr. Smith to call him if and when he decided to cross back into America. Mr. Smith would handle the details of that, but Nick took his time wandering north.

He dreaded facing his new reality, which was really just his old reality following Anne’s death.

But after two nights getting hammered in rundown bars full of tourists, it was time. He dialed Mr. Smith’s number.

“I’m ready to head back,” Nick said. “I guess this is where it ends.”

“Or, it’s where it begins,” Mr. Smith said. “The administration is impressed with your results. Seems they have some more work in a place you know well.”

“Montana?” Nick asked. “Or, Tennessee?”

“Neither,” Mr. Smith said. “Try Afghanistan.”

Nick tried to follow.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying the entire unit of S3 has not been disbanded. Marcus is running it until you decide whether you’ll return or not.”

Nick tried to process the words. It seemed too good to be true. Frankly, he couldn’t believe it. It was like a gift from above.

Mr. Smith interrupted his thoughts.

“Too bad it didn’t work out with Isabella,” Mr. Smith said. “Well, maybe not. You have men who need your leadership, who’d follow you to the ends of the earth, and you have a country that further requires your service.”

“Let me think on it,” Nick said, and hung the phone up.

He wrestled with the dead he’d seen from S3 after the night in Neza-Chalco-Itza, but he couldn’t deny that he had a gift for war. Or perhaps it was a curse. But he was good at it. And in a sick way, it was all he enjoyed. It was what he lived for.

He called Mr. Smith back two hours later, after spending some time just driving and thinking as his rental car meandered across the desert of Mexico, heat pounding and testing the car’s air conditioner.

“What’s your decision?” Mr. Smith asked.

“War is about the only thing I’m good at,” Nick said.

“So, it seems,” Mr. Smith said. “What should I tell the men?”

Nick never paused.

“You tell them to get their lazy asses in shape. I’m headed back to the only home I know.”

Author’s Note:

One pretty big mistake I made in this book involves the position of Mexico’s president. I learned just weeks before my publishing deadline that Mexican presidents can’t actually seek re-election.

Unfortunately, a pretty good chunk of the book’s premise were the many political challenges President Rivera faced, and how the people had re-elected him with the sole mission of taking down the cartels.

Remove the need to get re-elected, and you cut down significantly much of the tension that he faces. And as an author, one of your key tasks is ramping up and increasing the tension.

Thus, after much deliberation and consideration on how to fix the book, I opted to leave it as it stood. Unfortunately, I just saw no easy way to correct the book and make it more accurate.

Certainly, there are probably more inaccuracies, but the cities and towns named all exist. As does Neza-Chalco-Itza.

There are a ton of people I need to thank, and what follows is a very incomplete list.

But to each of them, and those I’ve overlooked, a big thanks.

To my amazing wife Danah, who believes in me even when I don’t.

To Mark Allen, a hell of an author, and a man with whom I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours discussing stories and scenes. And debating the merits of leg stabs versus disembowelments.

A big thanks to my good friend April, who made the book immeasurably better.

To Tim Dittmer, an Army vet who served in Vietnam, who stumbled across me on the internet and wrote some crucial emails that helped me when I was doubting myself and the whole author gig.

To USMC Cpl Michael Pressley 1/8, '79-'83. A fellow brother in arms and a huge supporter.

To Ashley R. Luna, one of my newest supporters, and an increasingly big-time friend.

And to all the members of Mitchell’s Militia. Thanks a million for your words of encouragement and your assistance in spreading the news about my books.

Other works by Stan R. Mitchell:

Sold Out (Nick Woods, No. 1)

Mexican Heat (Nick Woods, No. 2)

Afghan Storm (Nick Woods, No.3)

Little Man, and the Dixon County War

Detective Danny Acuff, (Book 1)

Soldier On

About the author:

Stan R. Mitchell writes some of the most action-packed, fast-moving novels around. Tired of slow-paced, investigative novels that take 50 pages to excite you? Look no further!

Stan is the best-selling author of 5 novels in 3 different time periods. He's also a prior infantry Marine with Combat Action Ribbon, and a former journalist who spent ten years in the newspaper business, learning how to hook the reader, cut out the filler, and just tell the story.

In short, Stan is knowledgeable, he's fast, and his books will blow you away. You can learn more about him at http://stanrmitchell.com.

If you enjoyed “Mexican Heat (Nick Woods, No. 2),” please consider dropping a short review of it on Amazon. Reviews go miles and miles toward helping readers discover new authors, such as Mitchell.

FREE OFFER: Get a free electronic copy of Stan R. Mitchell's book, "Soldier On," when you sign up today for our mailing list.

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Don’t miss Mitchell’s other exciting book, Afghan Storm (Nick Woods, No. 3)! (Free preview follows.) Book description:

The mission? Practically off-the-charts impossible.

Four men must infiltrate (on foot) 30+ miles into Pakistan and abduct a key VIP of the Taliban.

These men will be offered no support. No air support. No radios. No chance of rescue.

And if they’re caught or killed, America will deny their existence.

This is how the mission in Afghanistan begins for Nick Woods and your favorite members of S3 (Marcus, Truck, and Red).

And unfortunately for them, it only gets worse from there...

Nick Woods and his private, military security company (Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter) are deployed to Afghanistan by directive of the U.S. government. Their mission is nothing less than to save the government (and country) of Afghanistan.

A clock is ticking and the Taliban is poised to seize the capital city of Kabul, taking over the country for good. The Taliban are stronger than ever, and well-led by an impressive spiritual warrior, who is respected across the country by most of the people of Afghanistan.

Making matter worse, America's political leadership is sick of investing men and resources into a war that's now lasted 15 years.

Nick and his team are sent to somehow find a way of dealing with the looming threat, and though the mission is impossible enough as it’s already drawn up, they'll soon find out that their enemies aren’t only in Afghanistan.

Free Extended Preview of Afghan Storm (Nick Woods, No. 3)

Chapter 1

Present Day -- Just inside Pakistan near the border of Afghanistan

Nick Woods took a knee and wiped the ample sweat from his forehead, adjusting his pack in the cool night air. He made a mental note to thank the gods of war that this was the middle of summer, and not the freezing, bone-chilling winter that drove even the tough locals into their compounds and caves.

The three men accompanying him used the short break to adjust gear and sip water, while Nick’s brain worked in overdrive as he scanned his sector. He was definitely putting his men out on a limb this time -- more so than when he had led the assault on the Mexican slum of Neza-Chalco-Itza just six months ago.

The unit’s overall mission this time was as simple as it had been in Mexico: take down Rasool Deraz, a venerable elder who inspired hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters across the country and into Pakistan.

Over the years, Rasool Deraz had grown so powerful that most analysts and several computer simulations reported that under his leadership the Taliban would soon topple the Afghan government. And America felt that it had invested too much in the past fourteen years to allow the Taliban to once again assume control of Afghanistan.

Thus Nick’s company -- Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter, or S3 -- had been contracted by the Afghan government to ostensibly provide training for their police force and consult with the government at the highest levels to assist them in reducing the threat from the Taliban. Or at least that’s what it looked like on paper. S3, however, wasn’t just some private security firm. In reality, S3 was an arm of the CIA. A private company that filed annual paperwork and paid its taxes, which helped create enough distance to allow the U.S. government complete deniability.

S3’s job in Afghanistan had nothing to do with training the police. Although Nick and his band of headhunters had severely limited resources, the plan was simple: find Deraz, shoot Deraz, and hopefully set the Taliban back as much as they could.

However, actually executing the plan would prove to be no small challenge.

So far, they had made it past their first obstacle. The four men of S3 had snuck across the border of Afghanistan and into Pakistan nearly an hour ago with no problems. That, of course, was the easy part. But now, on this side of the border, they were completely on their own. Just four men with no chance of backup, air support, or extraction. In fact, the only guarantee they were given was that America would deny any ties to S3 if they were captured or killed.

You sure know how to dig a deep hole, Nick thought to himself.

But at least he had brought three of his best men with him. He had Marcus, the tall, commanding Marine drill instructor, who served as his right-hand man. He had Truck, the merciless, insubordinate Special Forces trooper, who had seen as much combat as any man alive. And he had Red, the cocky, quick-tempered Marine, who carried a trainload of fight on his 5’5” frame. Red was also one of the best point men Nick had ever encountered.

Their objective on this raid was to infiltrate forty-plus miles into Pakistan (moving only in darkness). They would travel along a moderate mountain range, trekking at higher altitudes to avoid detection. Thankfully, this wasn’t the Hindu Kush mountain range, which spanned as high as 20,000 feet. Instead, this range had much lower elevations, being as Nick and his team were crossing into Pakistan roughly 100 miles south of Khost. That mean much lower elevations, which were much easier to traverse.

At the end of this forty-mile journey into one of the most dangerous countries in the world, they planned to raid a single compound and locate a man named Ahmud al-Habshi.

Ahmud al-Habshi was the primary communications man for the Taliban. Therefore, his private compound promised computers, probably several servers, and loads of files. Essentially, it was a smorgasbord, a tide-turning honey hole, of invaluable intelligence.

Then there was Ahmud al-Habshi himself, who knew the habits, movements, and possibly every hiding spot used by Rasool Deraz. Nick Woods and his three S3 shooters planned to wake him up late one night and take him on a one-way field trip to Afghanistan. If they failed, a drone strike would quickly silence al-Habshi, but it would in turn also destroy tons of evidence and any chance of taking down Rasool Deraz.

Thus, it was critical that Nick and S3 properly execute this raid. Failing to capture the intel from al-Habshi and eventually take down Deraz would certainly doom Afghanistan.

Deraz was seen as a respected leader and legend by the people in Afghanistan, most of whom supported him. Blessed with high esteem and a nation’s loyalty, his power and reach were difficult to fathom.

With just a few words delivered by messenger, Deraz could call upon local fighters among the people, who would spring up and strike an Afghan compound before disappearing into the countryside.

And the strength of Deraz knew no bounds. He had supporters in the countryside. He had supporters in the farmlands. He had supporters in the cities.

Without question, Rasool Deraz was the spiritual leader for many of the Afghan people, and Nick and S3 had to find a way to take him down or Afghanistan was doomed.

Chapter 2

Only two hours later, and the fun and enthusiasm had definitely worn off.

Now it was just dirty, grueling work, pure and simple. Each man hauled an 80-pound pack, a 20-pound assault vest, and a 5-gallon water jug (another 40 pounds) that had to be carried by hand. Even their trusty rifles had become burdens no longer welcomed.

No amount of training could prepare you for continuous slogging across such rough terrain. Steep slopes covered in loose rock in the dark made for a very strenuous and slow pace. For the men of S3, real-life missions such as these also meant they were constantly being forced to stop and take a knee to reposition gear, check their surroundings, or simply remove a stray rock wedged deep in a boot tread. And then there were the full-out halts at the slightest detection of any movement or sound that forced them all the way down into the prone.

So far, Nick and his S3 entourage had heard a lot more than they’d actually seen. The area was known for quite the array of wildlife, some of which were often large and catlike. So the sudden rustle or the cascading of rocks was a common occurrence. Luckily, almost every incident, after further inspection at the evidence (paw prints, a startled bird’s cry, scat, and other fecal material) was agreed to have been animal-based. Apparently, four over-loaded and heavily armed men stumbling across a mountain top worked wonders when it came to deterring curious wildlife.

But then there had been a few close calls of the human variety. This was a very rural area, and its inhabitants were not scared of the treacherous terrain or predatory creatures that came out after dark.

There had been the occasional stray, unarmed villager, including a set of young boys, both no more than ten, playing a game that involved whacking each other with sticks. It would have been a pleasant moment if the damn kids, so enthusiastically lost in their play, hadn’t chased one another all over the hill, and at one point gotten close enough that Nick and his men were forced to fall back and hold until the boys tired of their antics and left.

They had also spotted several goatherders, who thankfully seemed to prefer managing their flocks in the lower lying areas. Perhaps they were avoiding predators or working their goats back home.

However, there had been one very unique exception. After a good hour without seeing another human soul they suddenly spotted a particularly hearty goatherder literally hopping up the daunting slopes with apparent ease all the while singing a peppy tune. Based on the numerous inserted “baa’s,” Nick guessed the song had been composed by the man himself and in dedication to his much-loved goats.

Nonetheless, all had been oblivious to the four heavily armed, English-speaking men who most certainly didn’t belong in this part of Pakistan.

Still, from a distance and under the cover of darkness, they might have remained safe, if spotted. They had worked hard to make an effort to blend in as much as possible, carrying Communist Bloc weapons and wearing Afghan-style clothing: boots, loose pants, and turbans.

But even with distance and darkness to aid them, it was their packs that could easily give them away. Although theirs were foreign in make, packs in general were uncommon in this area. Sure, there was the occasional shoulder bag or belt pouch, but the closest thing to a pack one might see in this part of Pakistan was the random small child’s backpack, maybe. Most families couldn’t even afford those.

And it didn’t help that these particular packs were massive. Any local transporting a load of this size would almost always use a mule, truck, or dirt bike. Even if all a witness could make out was a rough silhouette in the dark, the sheer size and odd shape of the packs could easily draw unwanted attention.

But Nick couldn’t do anything about the packs. He, Marcus, Red, and Truck needed everything from food to water to ammo, and you didn’t go wandering forty miles into a foreign country -- uninvited -- unless you brought along some toys in case you were discovered.

Nick’s back was already screaming in pain, and he was certain his men were hurting, too. Nick raised his fist, signaling a halt. The darkness allowed for hand and arm signals to be passed, as stars and a half-moon shone down unimpeded by clouds or fog.

The men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter passed the signal up and down the line, then stopped, spreading into a defensive circle on the side of the steep hill. Each man eased his pack to the ground and sprawled behind it, facing outboard behind their weapons. They reached for canteens and bits of chocolate or other energy snacks.

Nick’s whole body protested loudly -- several hours of hard rucking was tough for a man in his mid-forties -- as he attempted to lay his pack down as quietly as he could. He wanted to rest a few minutes, like his men, but knew he needed to at least appear unfazed by the three miles they had covered tonight.

Three miles didn’t seem like much, but the unforgiving terrain and need to keep every sense on high alert really took every ounce of energy out of you. Especially when you added in the adrenaline rushes that came from hearing a disturbance or seeing something in your night vision googles.

Despite wanting to rest, Nick heaved himself up and walked toward his point man. He knelt beside Red and put his hand on his shoulder, looking out to their front. The small man was breathing hard and sweating heavily.

“How you holding up?” Nick whispered.

“This ain’t shit,” Red said with a smile.

Nick imagined that the weight they were carrying had to be especially difficult for a man of Red’s size. Being the smallest man on the team meant that proportionally, he was carrying much more than the rest of them.

“Good,” Nick said. “Go ahead and relax a few minutes. Then you and I can check our maps and compare where we think we are.”

“Roger that, boss.”

Feeling his legs and back threaten to mutiny if he attempted to stand from a kneeled position again, Nick made a mental note to stay on his feet as he moved over to Truck. The big man was laid down behind a RPK machine gun. The gun’s bipod legs supported its weight on the front, while the rear of the gun lay on its seventy-five round box.

“Hey, Truck. How you holding up?”

“Good. I was wondering if you might give your pack up so I could make this more of a challenge?” the smartass managed to choke out between deep gulps of air.

Nick smiled, shaking his head.

“Yeah, yeah. Now shut your mouth,” Nick said, “or you’ll be carrying three of them.”

“Shit, sir. I’m Special Forces. I could carry three packs plus little Red up there.”

Nick patted Truck on the head and said, “I’m glad you’re on our side. And you better pray that Red didn’t hear that little comment. Because there is no way I’m carrying your big, dead, dumb ass through these mountains.

Lastly, Nick walked up to Marcus, who was leaning against a nearby rock to keep him from squatting and having to stand again.

“How you holding up, man?” Nick asked.

“I’m hurting,” Marcus admitted. “Damn packs are heavy as hell, and I’m twice as big as Red and in way better shape than Truck. We’ll need to keep an eye on them.”

Nick nodded.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Nick said. “I know my back’s killing me, but I’m not some diesel, former linebacker. Tell you what, before we move out, let’s make sure all of us take eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen to kill the pain and help keep us focused. I know Truck’s probably starting to feel that busted knee about now, too.”

Truck had reinjured his knee five months earlier -- an old football injury that had never fully healed -- but it wasn’t just Truck. All four men were nearly twice the age of most military men, and they’d all been banged up over the years in training or various scrapes.

In truth, all of them were a bit old to be doing this kind of work. They certainly lacked the qualities of younger fighters, but no amount of youthful vigor could make up for the decades’ worth of experience among them.

And there was no question that Nick would always choose seasoned, accomplished fighters over young bucks still trying to prove themselves. Besides it wasn’t like his unit was into parachuting, diving, or any of the other crazy feats elite units had to be capable of doing.

Nick groaned as he pushed himself off the large rock and slipped back to Red’s position. Red was breathing easier and sweating less, the break already doing its trick.

“Ready, Nick?” Red asked.

“Sure,” Nick said.

Red pulled a poncho liner out of his pack and draped it over the two of them. Inside it, they both produced small flashlights, covered by red lenses.

They compared each other’s pace count and azimuth, confirming their location on the map. In the day and age of the GPS, neither man used one. Both had learned that when you relied on GPS, you checked your azimuth and pace count less frequently. And in turn, you paid less attention to your land navigation.

GPSs were a serious crutch that were all too easy to become reliant on, but GPSs broke. Batteries died. Satellites were sometimes not available for accurate triangulation. Armies had made it for centuries without GPSs, and neither of the two veterans wanted to break tradition and chance risky gear. Not to mention tote an unnecessary device and its required batteries.

After determining their position, Red put the poncho liner up and Nick hunched over as he crept back to his pack to rest a few moments. His legs and back ached to the bone and he caught himself guzzling more water than he should.

Part of the thirst came from the fact he was anxious. Nick hated to admit it, but it was true. It was one thing for two scout snipers to sneak into a foreign country, as Nick had against the Soviets numerous times in the ’80s, but quite another to take four heavily weighed down guys. Two men could sneak and hide better, but four required larger hiding places. And larger hides were more obvious and limited. And more likely to be searched by the enemy if they ever detected your presence.

Even now, if the Taliban discovered them, just three miles inside Pakistan, they would be screwed. If one man got hit, it would be all they could do to fight their way back to the border while carrying a man. And even then they’d have to get by the Pakistani army on the border, who would be more alert this time.

Shut up, Nick, he thought to himself. This is how missions fail. You start thinking about all the things that can go wrong, and then you lose your confidence. Before you know it, you lock up with fear. Get in character.

The sound of Marcus approaching broke him from his thoughts.

“Here are those pills,” he said, before handing them to Nick and moving on to the next man.

Nick shook the pills in his hand, placed them in his mouth, and swallowed them with a large gulp of water. He braced himself for the next hour-long leg of the mission. On the bright side, this was physically the hardest it should be. Their packs were heavily laden with water and food, so with every drink and snack consumed, their packs would grow lighter.

Ounces count, Nick thought as he rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen them up.

After everyone was watered and medicated, the team continued on its trek, inching deeper and deeper into enemy territory.

Chapter 3

Hour after hour, the S3 team pushed on. Following one hour of movement, they’d take ten minutes of rest, reorient themselves to their maps, and pick up again.

Although the routine was the same, it now felt like every step was a battle, both physically and mentally. This mission was already much more difficult than any of the men could have anticipated. The realities of their situation and the high potential for failure or even death was quickly sinking in. That realization, in addition to the growing fatigue and unrelentingly harsh elements, had them all headed in a downward spiral of self-doubt. And despite each man’s desperate desire to disguise it all, the wear and worries were starting to show though.

Truck worried whether his knee would hold up. The pain continued to worsen, and when Nick wasn’t looking, he found himself beginning to limp. On breaks, he’d check the swelling when he knew no one was looking.

Red worried about his senses. A nagging fear had been growing that he really had to do more than see the enemy first. Even a successful firefight without casualties would mean mission failure, since it would alert the enemy and attract more fighters. Therefore, he needed to not only see the enemy first, but see them so far away that none of the team could be discovered. And in worrying about this, Red failed to realize that his pace had slowed.

Marcus continued to psych himself up, mentally preparing for whatever would come. He was easily the biggest man on the team. Easily the strongest. And he wasn’t toting a machine gun, as Truck was.

Without question, if someone was hit or killed, it would be Marcus carrying him out. And with so much weight already on him, this was something Marcus wasn’t looking forward to. His pack was already testing his limits, and so he took deep breaths and told himself over and over, “This ain’t shit. Nothing can break me. This ain’t shit. Nothing can break me.” Inside this mental repetition, Marcus maintained his stride in rhythm with his words.

Nick Woods fought the impending doom he could feel coming. It reminded him of the time he and his spotter had entered Afghanistan on what would be their final mission. The two had grown used to the dangers, but when they saw their target location had nearly a thousand troops, and not a hundred as they had been told, they knew they were in deep shit. And instantly, a nagging fear had risen up in Nick’s mind that the two men had been betrayed and sold out.

This mission didn’t feel like they had been sold out, but it seemed fraught with things that could go wrong. It’d been so simple on paper back at the base camp, but now Nick grappled with the realities on the ground: how long it took to cover even a short distance, how far they were from assistance, how they had no means to contact reinforcements or air support, and how totally isolated they truly were.

Aside from the threat of literally hundreds of enemy fighters in the area, the biggest thing eating at Nick was the distance and realities of how slow they must move to avoid detection.

Nick realized that Red was moving slower than he had been, which was arguably needed. If they killed one man, others would soon know -- even if they didn't hear the silenced shot. And once they knew, the hunt would be on.

Besides Red’s pace, Nick hadn’t fully considered that moving at night on such steep terrain would make the forty miles feel more like fifty or sixty.

Nothing to be done about it now, he thought. Just keep pushing and dig deep, baby.

Chapter 4

Nick called a halt at 4 a.m. They needed to find a hide before dawn. The team gratefully stacked packs against each other and left Truck with his big RPK machine gun to watch them.

Nick, Red, and Marcus pulled out compasses and headed off in opposite directions to search for a good position. The men had rehearsed this procedure back at base camp. One would go toward twelve o’clock, one toward four o’clock, and one toward eight o’clock. Dividing up would hopefully help them find the best position faster, plus give them more information about their surroundings.

This search procedure was just one of about two dozen SOP actions, or Standard Operating Procedures, that the team had practiced hundreds of times. Hasty ambushes, break contact, reaction to direct fire (and indirect fire), and countless other tactical responses that might prove necessary.

They knew how each man would react, they memorized where each man had stored every single item in each pack, and they had discussed and rehearsed every contingency they could think of.

Twenty minutes later, Red, the last of the three, returned. They huddled in a circle and debated in whispers who had found the best position in as low of tones as they could speak. Truck kept his eyes outward while they discussed their finds.

In the end, they went with Red’s position. He said he’d found a low spot in a gully between two draws. It would barely be defensible, but had the benefit of being almost perfectly hidden. Without another word, they broke the huddle, and the men slipped on their packs for what they hoped would be the last time today. Well, at least for another twelve hours.

Ten minutes later, Red guided them into the place he’d found. Again, without a word, the team set up a hide as they’d rehearsed. Packs were stashed facing outward and low nets were pulled out and staked into the hard ground by boot heels -- the rubber was much quieter than shovels.

Dawn found all four men under the low net, alert. After it was confirmed they were secure, they began two-man watches. Two on watch facing opposite directions, two sleeping.

Nick and Red took the first watch, with Red looking down the hill and Nick looking uphill. Marcus and Truck laid down to get some much needed rest and sleep.

Nick’s mind wouldn't stop racing. He had followed one of the truest maxims in the military: the KISS principle, or “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Yet as the team lay hidden approximately 4.7 miles inside Pakistan, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gone overboard on the KISS principle. After all, the team had only made it about three-quarters of the distance he’d planned for them to make.

Perhaps they should have parachuted in. The CIA had offered to push them through an intense, mission-specific four-week course, but Nick had ruled it out. It held too many dangers, as it was hard to keep the team together. Gear often got separated. Ankles sprained. Legs broken. As a general rule, Nick thought that if you had to parachute in, you should find another way.

Yet there were other options besides parachuting. They could have tried to take a 4x4 truck past the Pakistani army. They could have taken money and tried to bribe their way through a checkpoint, or snuck past sleeping guards. Option three, which Red favored, was killing the guards and making it look like the Taliban had done so. “And if that leads to some Paki-Tali killing afterward, so much the better,” the short man scoffed with a sick grin.

They had also considered silenced, souped-up four wheelers, but that brought up all kinds of possible gear malfunctions, fuel requirements, and possible toolkit needs. Even studying it for a few hours made Nick’s head spin with the possibilities of everything that could go wrong.

Bottom line, Nick was used to walking, and he’d walked into Afghanistan too many times to count back in the day, so walking is what they’d do. And it’d be a hell of a lot of walking before they were done.

Nick tried to shut his mind down and focus on the ground up the hill, looking for any form of movement. He had three of America’s greatest warriors with him, and they were completely committed to one of the riskiest missions in the world. And in the end, the boldness of the plan would either soar or come crashing down on top of them.

Chapter 5

The various watches passed without any major drama. Despite finally making it into a more heavily populated area, the team’s resting position high up in the hills continued to go unnoticed. It was clear that this far into Pakistan, the Taliban had little to no concern about using the roads and open areas as they pleased. And if there was any fear of coalition forces, either air or ground, it certainly didn't show.

All throughout the day the team observed loads of beat-up cars, a couple farm tractors, and lots of foot traffic pass on the road below. Still no one stopped to even glance up into the hills. The Taliban's confidence must have been contagious as it appeared that even the everyday man had no reason to question their safety.

Dusk approached, and Marcus passed out another eight hundred milligram round of ibuprofen. Nick motioned for the men to crawl closer under the net.

“Alright, guys,” he whispered, “tonight we make up for the fact that we’ve covered so little ground today. Red, I want you to step it out, just like it’s an all-out hump.”

Red raised his eyebrows, giving Nick an apprehensive look.

Nick stopped him before he could say a word.

“Look,” Nick said, “all day long we’ve been here, and we’ve seen that nobody is paying attention. And we’ve also seen that nobody is moving this high up the hill. While we needed to move slow last night, close to the border, our chances of running into anybody tonight are slim.”

Nick turned his attention to Truck.

“If your knee can’t take the faster pace, let me know. We’ll slow it down, or even steal a vehicle if we have to.”

The big man nodded.

Nick met each man’s eyes and asked if there were any questions.

Clenching jaws and fidgeting hands were the only response he got. No, there were no questions about the plan. Questions about how the hell they were going to pull this mission off, however, they had those in surplus.

Nick was right there with them. His back and legs were no more improved from the rest. The cover they camped under during the daylight hours was no match for the malicious summer sun. Their water supply was being consumed at an alarming rate and then unavoidably being sweated back out almost twice as fast.

Nothing you can do about it right now, Nick. Just got to keep moving.

As soon as they were cloaked in the night’s dark, Nick helped his team to tear down and stow the netting, wishing he could stow his worries away just as easily.

That night, they pushed harder than the previous night. Now with the realization that the Taliban wasn’t looking for foreign troops, they were able to move faster. They crossed deep gullies, angled draws, and steep fingers. They walked as fast as the terrain allowed, trudging, slipping, and cursing when it worked against them.

Several times they paused for possible sightings, and Red and Nick would scan the area with their night vision goggles (NVGs), but each time proved to be a false alarm. Before daybreak, they scouted for a hide, then assembled their nets to lay under.

And for four more days they followed this pattern. Push hard at night, stop with enough time to scout a hide, then attempt to physically recover in the day under camouflage cover. Each night they covered 4.0 to 5.0 miles.

Nick lay under the net around noon on the seventh day, keeping watch and feeling like the day was creeping by slower than a single drip could fill a barrel. Now taking stock of their situation, Nick saw that there were more problems than solutions. The heat was burning them in more ways than one. The massive supply of water they had lugged in seemed to be evaporating before their eyes, and the sun relentlessly drained what little energy they had left.

To make things worse, that hellish, oven-like temperature was keeping them from getting the sleep they so desperately needed. The four men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter looked rough, to say the least.

Their bodies reeked, and their clothes were filthy, ripped, and stained. Nick figured he had lost more than ten pounds, and he really didn’t have ten pounds to lose. The sweat, the sleep deprivation, and the inability to keep up his muscle mass from a diet now solely comprised of dried fruits and meats -- all had sapped his body and knocked him down from his optimum operating condition.

Any more than three more days of this, and Nick knew the men would arrive gaunt and weak. Like men who had survived a hundred-mile march. Granted, their forty miles didn’t come close to that, but with the crushing amount of gear they had to carry and their need to be alert -- not a day passed when their adrenaline didn’t spike three or four times from some false alarm -- it might as well have been.

And it wasn’t like they’d arrive to their destination and be greeted by a finish line, cheering supporters, and plenty of rest. Instead, they’d arrive and be forced to fight and make perfect split-second decisions, or they’d all be dead within hours after firing the first shot.

Besides the exhaustion, Nick also knew they were all increasingly banged up. A twisted ankle here, a throbbing knee there, and that didn’t take into account the bumps, scrapes, and bruises each had collected in spades.

Nick realized his plans to cover the distance on foot had erred on what their conditioning could endure. Sure, they were in the top three or four percent of athletes in the world in terms of physical conditioning, but the mission required more than Nick had ever dreamed when he drew it up on paper.

The terrain -- the ups and downs, the slanted slopes, the loose rocks, the requirement to only move at night -- all had slowed them down and made Nick and Marcus’s conservative estimates on distance per night seem like a naive, unrealistic wager made by some drunk and desperate gambler on the Las Vegas strip.

S3 would reach their objective, and they’d be ready to fight, but it was going to be pretty ugly. And that was best case.

Chapter 6

Disaster struck on the following night, just three days away from their destination. It was as if Nick’s fears had cast a line baited for trouble, and then caught a whole school of it. Actually, loads of it.

The four men had barely covered a mile in the dark when Red, ahead on point, signaled for a halt mid-stride.

Nick watched as the little man’s body went completely rigid then slowly inched downward. Attempting to silently crouch with nearly one-hundred pounds of gear working against you was no small feat.

As soon as the bottom of his water jug brushed the ground, Red released it and used his hands to help him take a knee without pitching forward under the weight. Without even looking to Nick for instruction, Red lowered all the way prone while keeping his gaze locked ahead of him.

He didn’t even bother to take his pack off. Going prone with that kind of crushing burden was never something you did by choice.

Nick, in the second position, froze. He moved as slow as he could and passed the signal back to Truck and Marcus in the rear of the formation. Red remained motionless for nearly three minutes, which felt more like three hours in the quiet, night air.

Red’s behavior was so uncharacteristic that Nick avoided moving at all. With the way Red was acting, any sound could be devastating. Finally, Red pushed himself up. He lifted the water jug as if it was full of unstable explosives, and tip-toed backward. His other hand kept his AK-47 pointing straight ahead, and he refused to turn his back on whatever he had seen.

The team moved backward, covering each other in bounds, until they were a couple hundred yards away from danger. The team circled up, and Nick leaned down by Red.

“What’d you see?” Nick asked.

“Enemy troops,” Red said.

“Taliban?”

“Couldn’t tell. Saw a silhouette coming toward me. Thought he saw me, then heard the sound of water hitting the ground. He was pissing.”

Nick considered the situation. Was it one man? Or more? He needed more information.

“Leave your pack and go scout forward,” Nick whispered. The team staged their packs and set up a quick perimeter, while Red dropped his pack, slung his AK-47, and pulled out a silenced Glock .45.

It took thirty minutes for Red to return, far longer than Nick preferred.

“We’re fucked,” Red said, dropping to the ground.

He looked exhausted as he guzzled from his CamelBak. Nick waited, and looked around their small perimeter. Truck faced their front in the prone, lying behind his RPK machine gun and its extended bipod legs. Marcus monitored their rear, while their gear sat stacked in the center of their ten-foot perimeter.

Red and Nick lay huddled among the packs, keeping a low profile. Nick wondered how many men it’d take to spook Red. The crazy little Marine had never shown an ounce of fear as far as Nick knew.

Red stopped drinking and collected himself. Nick saw his face take on a stern look in the rays of moonlight shining through a mostly clear night.

“We’ve got a battalion-sized element of Pakistani troops right in front of us,” Red reported.

“What?” Nick said. “That’s impossible.”

“I would have thought so, too, but go check for yourself.”

Nick chewed on the news.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m certain,” Red said, nodding. “They’re broken up and spread out all over the hill. Straight ahead there’s about a platoon-sized element, cooking fires and all. They’re mostly bedded up, but some of the men are still hanging around the fires, bullshitting. Tried moving up the hill to see if we could go around them. Walked nearly half a mile up it. Troops as far as you could see.”

Nick sat there, stunned.

“I turned around,” Red continued, “moved down the hill back to my starting position, then walked half a mile down from there. Same thing. Troops as far as you can see. There’s probably an entire battalion on that finger ahead.”

“A thousand troops?” Nick asked, shaking his head with disbelief. They had studied satellite images prior to their departure, and the entire region had been clear of Pakistani troops, except at the border.

Nick tried to calm himself. “Are they in blocking positions? Facing this way or the other direction? Like they’re looking for someone? Or maybe looking for us?”

“No way,” Red said. “They’re all completely unprofessional. No fighting positions. Guys horseplaying, singing, cooking shit over fires. But they’re there. No going around them.”

Nick processed the information. The good news was the battalion didn’t seem to be looking for anybody, especially Nick’s group. If they were, they’d be tactical: patrolling, looking, hiding.

That was the good news. The bad news, as Red had stated, was that there was no getting around them. Nick pulled the poncho liner over his head and used his red-lens flashlight to study the map. He wanted to confirm his suspicions. Unfortunately, his suspicions had been right on the money. The satellite imagery showed a hell of a number of cliffs and drop-offs farther up the hill top in this area.

Nick’s team would need mountain climbing gear to ascend the peak and move to the other side, which was a complete no go. They lacked the gear, and it was far too dangerous in the dark when they hadn’t prepped for it.

Nick stayed under the poncho liner longer than necessary. He needed to think, and he for damn sure needed to come up with a solution. Fast.

Chapter 7

Nick Woods made his up mind after less than two minutes of running through the options. None of the possibilities looked good, but that’s how war goes. It doesn’t go your way. Life doesn’t either, Nick remembered, briefly thinking of Anne, his late wife, and wondering if he’d be reunited with her before this mission ended. He shook away the thought and refocused on the present.

As Nick saw it, the team had three major options.

Option one was hold in place, hoping the Pakistani infantry battalion packed up, moved off the hill, and departed the area. The problem with this option was there was no telling how long the unit would be there, and Nick worried about their own rapidly depleting food and water. Plus, the nearby Pakistanis could push toward them and put them in some deep shit.

Option two involved trying to slip through the middle of the Pakistani lines. Maybe attempt it at 0330, when sleep and fatigue are at their greatest. But that seemed fraught with serious risk, given that they’d be carrying heavy packs and water jugs. And since they’d have their weapons at the ready, any guard or sleeping man who woke would instantly recognize them as intruders, despite their similar weapons and local attire.

Option three involved moving down the hill, to the valley that was chock-full of travelers and homes. Nick had a map of that area, but S3’s intel team hadn’t provided the kind of detailed satellite photos that the team needed. So, they’d have no idea how many homes were on that route, as it had been too far out of the planned infiltration route.

Without climbing gear, Nick knew a long and arduous trek to the top of the hill wasn’t a possibility. Bottom line, it had to be one of the three options.

Nick believed waiting out the Pakistani army was dangerous. It could take days for them to leave, and Nick, Marcus, Truck, and Red weren’t getting any stronger under each day’s unrelenting sun.

Infiltrating the Pakistani army’s lines was undeniably their worst option. Maybe if just one of them spoke the language and could talk their way out of being spotted, then maybe. But none of them did, and with the moon nearly full -- a requirement for the mission, so they could move well at night -- sneaking through so many Pakistani troops was nothing short of suicide.

Thus, the men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter were going down the hill.

Chapter 8

Nick lifted the poncho liner and whispered for his team to pull it in. All four ducked below the canopy of Nick’s outstretched arms.

Nick flipped his red-beam flashlight on and oriented the team to their position. He then explained the three options they had. Nick asked if there were any angles he had overlooked, and he received nothing but headshakes.

“Since those are our options,” he said, “we’ll go with option three and push down the hill. We’ll cross the valley road and push up the opposite hill. We’ll move forward a couple of miles and with luck, we’ll be beyond the Pakistani army at that point. We’ll cross back to this side of the valley and continue on our planned course.”

Marcus nodded his head and said, “I like the idea of crossing back to this mountain range. We know from our planning that this side of the valley is our best route in, and we have better detailed satellite imagery of the terrain.”

“Yeah,” Truck agreed, “we’ve practically got our infiltration route memorized, except for Red, who’s too stupid to remember anything.”

“That’s why I carry a map,” Red replied with a grin.

Truck stretched his right leg out and groaned. “All right, but let’s make it quick so that my bum knee doesn’t get any ideas and drop my ass down the hill,” he said.

Red reached over and punched Truck hard in the calf of his straightened leg. Truck’s only response was a grunt.

“So,” Red said, “I guess since we’re down a leg thanks to gimp here, pushing forward and taking on those Pakistani bastards is out of the question?”

Nick smiled and looked over at Marcus, who was shaking his head and chuckling. The team could always count on Red’s confidence.

“Marcus?” Nick asked. “Any other thoughts?”

“It’s a solid plan,” Marcus confirmed. “And it’s the best option we have under the circumstances.”

Chapter 9

The four men of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter descended the hill, picking their way around loose gravel and crumbling dirt that gave way under the weight of their heavy footsteps and gear. Red led the way, followed by Nick, then Truck with his RPK machine gun, and finally Marcus, who pulled rear security.

Each man knew the next part would prove pivotal. On one hand, they were dressed to fit in. Loose pants, turbans wrapped around their heads, Soviet-bloc weapons, and random green and black smocks. On the other, their packs and assault gear, though of non-American variety, still gave them away. Rarely would Afghans or Pakistani be carrying so much gear, and if it were necessary, they’d use pack mules.

But this couldn’t be changed, and taking on some villagers certainly beat duking it out with the heavily-armed Pakistani army.

The team soundlessly descended further and further, attempting to stay in dark shadows. It took almost two hours as they were trying to be patient on Truck and his knee, but they soon neared the road at the bottom of the valley.

Nick was surprised that they had avoided any mud homes to this point. Though the border regions were sparsely populated, luck seemed to be on their side thus far.

Red halted the team and signaled for them to spread out on line -- or in a straight line. Each team member found good positions that were either low to the ground or behind something. They all dropped their packs and aimed in on the “road,” which could hardly be considered such by Western standards. More like a gravel driveway barely wide enough for a single truck.

Nick could feel his heart speed up, as the tension mounted. Now, they were committed. Any contact and it was on. An attempt to retreat up the hill with their heavy packs would surely end in failure. And they couldn’t ditch their packs and try to ascend either, because that meant certain eventual death, given they’d be without any supplies.

No, any contact and they’d attack forward, killing whoever was in the way, as well as those who responded to the gunfire. Nick and Red, the only two with NVGs, scanned the road ahead, which could just be made out with the natural light.

Between the men and the road, Nick estimated about four hundred yards of field. It was mostly flat and planted with some kind of knee-high crop.

Nick looked twice over the ground, but saw nothing. He looked toward Red, and the small point man signaled all clear.

Nick swallowed down some water and reached over to lift his hundred-pound pack. He whirled it around, swinging it into place -- it was too heavy to simply lift -- and tightened up the straps. He bounced up and down, allowed it to shift, and adjusted the straps one last time. Unfortunately when you weren’t using up ammo, it made it harder to lighten your load.

The team was ready. Each man was standing, or truthfully, slightly leaning forward under their packs. The team would push together across the road, despite the unconventional nature of such a move.

Typically, a unit would leave half of its men in place to provide a base of fire from cover, while the forward element moved across a dangerous sector. But S3 was too small to split up, and Nick wanted to rely on speed and keeping his men together. That way, if the shit hit the fan, they could fight together or work their way back.

Thankfully, they crossed the field and the rocky path without incident. The four men pushed up the steep hill on the opposite side of their insertion route without difficulty, other than hauling up all their heavy gear. But they soon started running into compounds, which presumably had mud homes behind their walls. Red shifted their course left and right to dodge them, and they progressed further up the hill without detection.

Soon, their legs and backs were shaky and weak with fatigue, but they’d done it. Now they were back to where there were no trails, no wandering villagers, not even a single pile of dog droppings.

And it was a good thing. Dawn was approaching, and it was time for them to hunker down.

Chapter 10

It had been less than twenty-four hours since their near run-in with the Pakistani army, and despite the detour having cost them an entire night, Nick was filled with relief. After crossing back over to their original infiltration route, they had not seen a single sign of troops lurking anywhere in their vicinity.

Still it had been unsettling to go from marching night after night in the wilderness with little to no trace of human existence, and then to nearly run smack dab into the middle of an army campground. Back on their route, the men of S3 remained on edge. Phantom patrols seemed to be hiding behind every rock and bend, wearing on the ragged nerves of the already fatigued shooters. Eventually, after a few hours of no visible threat, the men began to settle down, and their original routine continued.

Remaining faithful to the routine, the S3 team suffered through another night of painful, arduous hiking. Nick looked and felt like shit. He reeked from nine days of no bathing, and his clothes could be heralded as “the next big thing in fashion,” that is if Bum’s Wear Quarterly were an actual publication. He was also now sporting a throbbing ankle and sharp lower back pains from some kind of wrenched nerve or muscle spasm.

He could tell that the others were silently pushing through various dings, twists, and injuries, as well. They knew their target was close. Computer geek Ahmud al-Habshi sat in his compound just eight miles away, and in two nights, they’d bag his ass, seize his computer gear, and drop any idiots who were stupid enough to tangle with them.

Nick and his team were ready to do the job they’d been hired to do. They’d walked too many miles and slept far too little; they not only itched for some action, they needed it. After all, al-Habshi’s compound was just the first step in this whole mission. They still had Deraz, the terrorist masquerading as a spiritual leader, to hunt and take down.

Unfortunately for the men of S3, their luck ran out again. On the very next night, Red called a halt and pointed out more Pakistani army troops ahead.

Nick nearly screamed with rage. For more than ten years, America had asked Pakistan to deal with the mutinous tribes along their lawless border. President Bush had pleaded with the country and supposed ally, and President Obama had followed, trying to convince them, as well.

But Pakistan had tried and learned its lesson. The area was officially called, “the Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” and the inhabitants were almost all Pashtuns. They were fierce fighters, who were practically impossible to control.

The area’s ferocious independence went back to the 19th Century, during the British colonial period. The British failed to ever gain full control of the tribes and settled on allowing the dangerous region to serve as an effective buffer to Afghanistan. Pakistan itself failed to control the area once the British left. In the ’70s, those passing through the Khyber Pass were warned by the Pakistani government to stay close to the road for their safety.

Things were dangerous then, but they grew far worse after 2001 when the Americans with the help of the Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Those Taliban members who survived the onslaught of the world’s greatest military power fled to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

They quickly gained influence there, and the cross-border attacks into Afghanistan grew so bad that America convinced Pakistan to do something. (Probably with billions in aid packages.) Pakistan deployed 80,000 troops into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in 2004, but even that sizable force failed to tame the area.

Pakistan was forced to sign a truce with the Pakistani Taliban, and though it deployed troops into the area eight more times between 2004 and 2006, control had never been established. The final treaty had stated the Taliban wouldn’t attack either Pakistan or Afghanistan from the tribal areas, while granting them the privilege of carrying weapons and basically ruling the place as they pleased.

Nick knew these details by heart as he and his team had studied the area extensively prior to the mission. And what pissed him off the most was that just ten days ago, when they were planning their mission and studying the satellite and drone imagery, there’d been no Pakistani army units in the area. Somehow, these troops had moved in during the past several days.

The cynical part of Nick was sure these troops were here to hunt them down. But their actions hinted the opposite. This newest set of troops were once again completely unprofessional. They weren’t looking for men, and they certainly weren’t looking for a fight. Fires blazed, laughing men sang, a few even danced.

It truly seemed this was merely another fake incursion into the tribal regions by the federal government, meant to appease America and release a few billion dollars more in aid. Nick assumed that the Pakistani army had most likely warned the tribes they’d be coming, giving the belligerent locals plenty of time to prepare and hide ammunition and pro-Taliban banners and flags.

The team pulled back, huddled, and talked out their options. In this case, going down the hill was a no go. Numerous homes dotted the hillside and valley on the lower slopes. (They’d have to go above the troops, where there were fewer homes. Still, there were homes up there, too, according to their maps.)

“We’ll just have to be careful,” Nick told the team.

And careful they were as they approached the first set of homes. They slipped along walls, through alleys, and even in front of huts themselves. And somehow, even carrying all their gear and water jugs, they managed to infiltrate through the small enclave of homes.

The men of S3 had also pulled off some masterful teamwork. Covering danger areas, using hand signals, and moving like shadows through the dark.

But just when they thought they were in the clear and a good hundred yards from the last compound, they saw movement followed by the sound of a dog growling.

“I got him,” Red whispered.

Red dropped his AK, allowing it to hang across his body in its tactical sling, while he pulled a Glock .45 pistol. Red pulled a suppressor from his pocket and twisted it on as quickly as he could, then moved away from the group toward the threat.

The dog approached closer, his growl growing louder as his eyes now saw what only his nose had smelled. Nick noticed the hair on the large dog raise and knew it was seconds from barking or charging them.

“Shoot, Red,” Nick said.

Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

The beast dropped, hit by three subsonic bullets from Red’s pistol.

“Let’s go,” Nick said.

Although they were on the outskirts of the enclave, Nick signaled the team forward, anxious to get away in case some villager unable to sleep investigated. Red was digging around in the dirt, picking up his shell casings.

“Come on,” Nick hissed. “We gotta move.”

They stepped out quickly, wanting to get as far away as possible from the enclave, as they’d just left their first potential clue since entering Pakistan.

Chapter 11

The early morning silence was shattered by the sound of a boy yelling.

Tariq Hijazi, the village’s chief enforcer, raced toward the commotion equipped with his AK-47. He carried the AK not because of the shout, but because any self-respecting male over the age of twelve carried their weapons with them in this part of the country. Always.

A couple hundred yards from his compound, Tariq pushed through a group of men to have a look at the boy, who he now saw was crying over a dog.

The dog was dead. He yanked the boy out of the way and nudged the dog over with his sandal. Three bullet holes marked the head of what had been the enclave’s biggest and strongest dog.

His first thought was that the tribe of ul-Haq was behind this. This tribe resided in the mountains on the other side of the road below them. Often, boys of each tribe would try to sneak up on each other’s homes as part of a way to show courage.

It was a dangerous game that often left young boys dead, but whoever had made these three shots was no boy. (They were spaced a couple of inches apart -- remarkable shooting in the dark, and pretty good shooting in daylight.)

“Tariq,” someone said behind him.

“Shut up,” he hissed. “I’m thinking.”

The dog was facing down the draw. Tariq followed the direction of the dog’s look and spotted a single shell casing ten yards away. He shoved a sleepy yet curious boy out of his way and picked it up.

It was a short, pistol casing. On the base, it was marked “.45 AUTO.”

Tariq pinched the casing in his hand. Could it have been an American? The .45 was a popular American round, and the shooting had been exceptional. And clearly silenced, since it hadn’t been heard. So, someone with an expensive (and hard to obtain) pistol attachment had shot the dog with incredible skill in the dark of night.

The tracks in the dirt moved down the hill, and Tariq easily determined that the person who had done this wore boots. Further possible proof. Most Pakistani and Afghan men wore tennis shoes or sandals. Boots were a luxury beyond most of their means.

Perhaps it was an American, or perhaps it was a wayward soldier for the Pakistani army. The Army had moved hundreds of troops into the area, but the terms had been spelled out prior to the incursion. And a silencer among their troops? Completely unnecessary and almost impossible to fathom.

The Pakistani army wouldn’t interfere with villagers or search tribal enclaves, and local villagers were supposed to leave the Army alone. But someone -- either an American or a foolish soldier in the Pakistani army -- had made a big mistake. Many of the urban-raised soldiers saw the tribal villagers as nothing but uneducated and dangerous religious zealots.

Tariq wasn’t sure who he hated most: an American or a so-called “Muslim,” who had turned his back on the true teachings of Islam.

“Round up our warriors,” Tariq Hijazi commanded to the men around him. “We will hunt down this fool.”

Chapter 12

Nick and the S3 team had pushed hard after the incident with the dog. They now camped four and a half miles east of the enclave.

In the other direction, less than a mere four miles separated them from Ahmud al-Habshi’s compound. But depending on what was being discovered and decided about the dead dog they’d left behind, that four miles might as well be another hundred miles. If they had a hunting party after them, then Ahmud al-Habshi would be their last concern.

Worries of such a threat had caused them to look for a hideout up on a finger -- a high piece of ground -- that ran down from the ridge, instead of in one of the small valleys nestled just beneath the higher hills, as they had been. If they were being tracked, they’d be found either way. And it was better to be up high and able to defend yourself than down in some gully hoping they didn’t toss grenades down on you.

As the sun and the heat climbed higher and higher, the men sweated under their nets. Each man was awake and alert, fighting off fatigue with the kind of energy that can only come from the feeling of being hunted.

Although they couldn’t be sure, the suspicious and volatile reputation of the people in this area made it easy to assume that danger was not far behind them. The villagers, or possibly even the Pakistani army if they had been alerted, might have spread out and could approach from above, below, or from either side.

There’d be no sleeping today.

Nick laid on his stomach, rolling dirt between his fingers and chewing on their situation. He looked down at the dirt, then dragged his hand across the dry, dusty ground. Damn it, he thought, he was sick of all the humping and more than ready to infiltrate al-Habshi’s compound.

“Hey, guys,” Red whispered. “We’ve got a serious problem.”

Nick turned and saw Red, who was behind him, holding his hand out with two shell casings in it.

Truck saw the casings, as well, and scoffed, “Sorry, you little commie environmentalist, but there’s no recycling bins in the area.”

“No, asshole,” Red replied, clearly not in the joking mood. His eyes were fixated to his palm. “I only have two casings. I thought I fired two rounds into that dog, but I just remembered to reload my pistol and the magazine is missing three rounds. I left a casing back there.”

That wasn’t good, Nick thought. And then he remembered the stress of the moving through the huts and how he’d ordered everyone to move out immediately.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I shouldn’t have rushed you back there.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. I thought I only fired twice.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marcus said. “We live as a team, and we die as a team.”

No one said anything for a moment, and Marcus added, “Truth be known, it should have occurred to me to grab that dog. We could have carried it out of there, and the bloody mess could have easily been buried under loose dirt.”

Nick slung a handful of dirt to the ground with frustration. The situation was spiraling out of control. It was out of the norm for him to have overreacted to his fear. It was out of the norm for Red, such an incredible point man, to have accidentally fired three rounds instead of two. He was typically used to the adrenaline. And Marcus never missed anything.

What the hell was happening to them? He wiped his nose and knew it was the fatigue. This mission just pushed the parameters of what any team could achieve.

He ran his hand through the dirt and wondered if he’d signed their death sentences the moment they crossed the border.

“It is what it is,” Nick finally said. “Let’s stay sharp and with luck, we’ll hit this compound tomorrow.”

He picked up another clod of dirt and sifted it through his fingers. He saw movement, dropped the dirt, and raised a pair of binoculars along the trail behind them.

“Speak of the devil,” Nick said.

Chapter 13

Tariq Hijazi and his men slowed. They had to be getting close. And at some point the trail would end with a man waiting for them. And that man would be armed.

Tariq had more than thirty men with him, and besides being armed with AKs, his men had brought machine guns and RPGs to strengthen their power. At forty-four, Tariq was more than an elder. He was the enclave’s military leader. And this hunt presented a great opportunity for fame.

He was willing to sacrifice them all, including himself, to earn the respect and honor he had spent his life pursuing.

The group pushed to the top of another finger of the mountain range, scanning ahead.

“There!” one of his men yelled, pointing to the next finger.

And squinting, Tariq saw it. Off in the distance, on the next piece of high ground, a small, almost-imperceptible hump. Some kind of netting barely flapping in the wind, with what appeared to be several men hiding in its shadows.

Nick Woods and his team had given up the idea of concealment and were no longer lying motionless. They had been spotted, and now it was time to fight. Red, Marcus, and Truck now faced the same direction, watching their backtrail from under the net.

They had shoved packs in front of them for cover, as well as cushioned rifle rests, and pulled ammo out from the pockets of their packs.

Truck yanked out a big piece of beef jerky and threw it into his mouth, then while prone, pushed himself forward into his RPK machine gun, using his toes to press forward and apply pressure against the bipod legs.

Red popped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. It was his first cigarette in nearly two weeks, and he relished the nicotine rush. Besides, he’d always believed that he shot better when he smoked.

Marcus checked their rear and stuck his head out from the net, looking up and down the hill. He wanted to find the best egress route in case they couldn’t stop the villagers.

And Nick went into his own world. Despite his role as the leader, Nick was, at his core, a sniper first. And in situations like this, it was not possible to focus on sniping individual targets, while at the same time monitor the overall situation as necessary when in command. Thankfully with the vast expertise of each individual and the cohesion they had as a team, there wasn’t really much to command. And whatever leadership was needed when Nick was otherwise engaged, was instinctively picked up by Nick’s more than capable second-in-command, Marcus.

Nick had laid six, ten-round magazines to his left and eased behind the Dragunov weapon he carried. He was the only man on the team toting a sniper rifle, and now he felt glad that he’d made the choice to bring it.

Marcus was watching the group of villagers through his binoculars when he said, “Mark the older one with the white turban and scraggly beard as the leader.”

Nick smiled to himself, grateful to have a man like Marcus in S3 assisting him. Nick moved his scope toward the man in question.

Marcus scanned the group of villagers topping the crest of a hill. “I count at least thirty, maybe more. Hard to tell with them all moving around.”

“Distance?” Red asked.

“Maybe twelve or fifteen hundred yards?” Marcus said, some doubt in his voice. “Nick? What do you say?”

Nick tried to use the Dragunov’s scope to measure the height of the men and assess the range better, but the targets weren’t being cooperative. And he hadn’t drawn a range card as he would have had he been in a true sniper capacity. Range cards had notable landmarks and pieces of cover with the correct distance to within mere yards. When the fighting began, the cards could make all the difference in the world, since thinking that boulder was 500 yards away instead of 700 was a big deal and enough to cause you to miss.

“Nick?” Marcus asked again.

“Sounds like a good guess,” he replied. “Definitely too far to shoot right now. But once they start down the draw, they’ll be in range pretty quickly.”

To continue reading, purchase it from here: Afghan Storm (Nick Woods, No. 3).

Table of Contents

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1Present Day Mexico

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

Author’s Note:

Other works by Stan R. Mitchell:Sold Out (Nick Woods, No. 1)Mexican Heat (Nick Woods, No. 2)

About the author: