There was a cold, predatory nature about him tonight, and his right hand was hidden inside the deep pocket of his overcoat. From the bulk of the weapon, she thought it must be a silenced pistol. She closed the door and took a chair near the wall, now more paranoid than ever.
“Start talking,” he said, not kindly.
She told him about her evening with Jessup in detail, omitting his obsession with the twins, who were due back any time.
“You’ve got him on the ropes, for Christ sake. Why didn’t you invite him back here? One smooth fuck, and you’d have had the whole enchilada tonight!”
“I already told you that’s not going to happen!”
He glared at her. “If you can’t get Jessup to give up Hancock, you’re useless. Do you understand what useless means in our business?”
“Hancock? You already know his name?”
In his entire career, Fields had never let an asset’s name slip. There was no better proof that this upstart little bitch was getting under his skin.
“I also know where to find Crosswhite’s family.” He let that hang in the air a moment. “I know exactly how to hurt him. So if you don’t give me the sniper’s location by this time tomorrow night, I make a phone call — just one — and your friend will be sorry he was ever born. Have you forgotten he has a baby on the way? I haven’t. You’re a slick little cunt, but you are not as slick as you might think.” He got up from the chair and dumped her purse onto the table.
She jumped up from the chair. “Get your fucking hands off my things!”
He snatched her satellite and cellular phones, along with her passport, and jammed them into his pocket.
“You son of a bitch! Give those back!”
He gestured with the bulky weapon hidden in his pocket. “Step away.”
She did as he said, and Fields went to the door. “If I were you”—he pointed at her crotch—“I’d put that thing to good use and get this operation wrapped up.”
He stepped out and drew the door shut behind him.
Mariana stood staring at the door. What was she going to do now? There was no way Jessup would give up the gringo sniper over lunch the next day — not unless she seduced him — and she was sure that Fields would follow through on his threat to have Paolina and the baby murdered. Hell, now that he’d stolen her passport, she couldn’t even return to the US without going to the American consulate and suffering through days of bureaucratic red tape.
Fields was about to pull out of the parking lot when he saw the twins arrive in a cab, instantly recalling having seen them at the curb in front of Villalobos’s motel two days before.
“You clever bitch,” he muttered, now wanting to strangle Mariana with his bare hands. Fields backed into the shadows and sat watching the girls pay the driver. By the way they walked to their motel room, just three doors over from Mariana’s, it was easy to see they’d been drinking.
He got out of the car and walked across the parking lot to the twins’ room, listening at the door. They talked for a couple of minutes, and the television came on. He went around back and listened at the bathroom window for the shower, then he walked back around to the front, drawing a ball-peen hammer from his coat pocket and standing off to the side as he knocked on the door.
“Quién es?” Tanya asked. Who is it?
“La pizza.”
Tanya opened the door a crack, keeping the security chain in place. “We didn’t order—”
Fields rammed the door open with his shoulder and bashed Tanya in the head with the ball of the hammer. She dropped to the floor without a sound, and he kicked the door closed with his heel, stalking directly into the bathroom and ripping back the shower curtain. Lorena spun around, eyes wide, and he bashed in her skull. She fell to the bottom of the stall, and he beat her over the head a second time for good measure, wiping the hammer clean with a towel and dropping it into the toilet. Blood poured from Lorena’s head, mixing with the shower water and running down the drain.
Before leaving, Fields ripped Tanya’s clothes from her body to give the appearance of sexual assault and dumped both purses onto the bed, stuffing their money into his pocket. He found Villalobos’s suppressed pistol and jammed it into his coat. Tanya was still breathing when he left.
As he walked to his car, it occurred to Fields that he hadn’t killed anyone in more than twenty years. He’d almost forgotten how invigorating it could be.
69
After losing the gringo sniper the night before, Vaught had gone back to Crosswhite’s place to check on Paolina and Ortega’s family. He caught a few hours’ sleep and then returned to the police station shortly after sunrise to find it bustling with seventy-five agitated policemen. He found Sergeant Cuevas in the motor pool talking with four trusted men.
Cuevas and the other four officers were each armed with the Mexican FX-05 Xiuhcoatl “Fire Snake” assault rifle. The FX-05, an indigenous weapon manufactured by the Dirección General de Industria Militar del Ejército (General Directorate of Military Industry of the Army), was reserved for the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) Special Forces Airmobile Group. The rifle fired the NATO 5.56 mm round, and instead of the barrel being rifled with traditional lands and grooves, it was rifled with polygonal grooves like the Glock pistol. A sleek, deadly looking weapon, it boasted a higher rate of fire than the American M4, with a slightly lower muzzle velocity.
Sergeant Cuevas’s rifle sported a Heckler & Koch AG36 40 mm grenade launcher. Vaught had seen photographs of the still top secret rifle, which had first entered GAFE service in 2008, but this was the first time he was seeing one in real life.
“Where the hell did you find those?”
Sergeant Cuevas grinned. “Clasificada, amigo.” He cleared the weapon and handed it over.
Vaught examined the rifle. “I hate to admit it, but I’m jealous.”
One of the men immediately unshouldered his rifle, offering to trade Vaught for his M4, but the American smiled and shook his head. “Thanks, but I haven’t trained with it.” He gave Cuevas’s weapon back to him. “You guys have been training in secret?”
Sergeant Cuevas gave him a wink.
Vaught thumbed toward the building. “I know we lost a man last night, but what’s the entire force doing here at eight o’clock in the morning?”
“Ruvalcaba’s men have been spotted entering town from the south,” Sergeant Cuevas said. “An hour ago they hit one of our patrols and wiped it out. Chief Diego called the state police for reinforcements, but the pig Serrano is influencing the state police commander. They’re using the earthquake in the capital as an excuse to not send help.”
“Cocksuckers!” Vaught muttered in English. “How many are we going up against?”
Sergeant Cuevas shrugged. “We don’t have much of an idea, but you can believe it’s more than seventy-five.”
“Are the men going to defend the city?”
“Yes. They know we wounded the sniper last night, and they’re eager for a fight.”
Vaught was glad the sniper had left a blood trail; otherwise the men might not have been quite so high spirited. “You know that son of a bitch is still combat effective, right?”
Another wink from Sergeant Cuevas.
“How’s Diego holding up?”
“He’s scared, but the men respect him for hiding his fear. They’re ready to follow his orders.”
“Good,” Vaught said. “I wish Crosswhite was here. We could use him.”