Nancy Proust, Fields’s secretary, looked up from her desk. “Hello, Mr. Gurich. How can I help you?” She was a matronly woman in her forties. Her dark hair was cut in an angled bob. She never wore makeup, and Gurich had never seen her dressed in any color other than black.
“Is he in?”
She picked up the phone. “Mr. Fields, Mr. Gurich is here to see you.” She put the phone back down. “He said to go right in, Mr. Gurich.”
Gurich thanked her and crossed into Fields’s inner sanctum to find the mysterious CIA analyst (his official job description) sitting at his desk, reading the Washington Post.
Clemson Fields was a medium-size man in his early sixties, dressed in chino slacks, a button-up short-sleeve shirt, and a subdued tie. He was balding from front to back and wore a pair of round wire-rimmed glasses. He folded away the paper and stood up to shake Gurich’s hand. “I assume this has to do with Mexico City?”
“You’ve heard?”
“Just.” Fields put out his hand for the red file folder.
“Did the DDO already call you?”
Fields shook his head and smiled. “Red is the only color anyone ever brings me.”
Gurich gave him the folder. “Webb said to tell you the ball’s in your court.”
“Of course.” Fields took it and sat down to read, saying, “Thank you, Mr. Gurich,” in what was obviously a dismissal.
Gurich eyed him for a moment and then left the office.
Two minutes later, Fields finished reading the affidavit and set it aside to reach for the phone. He dialed a number and waited for someone to answer.
“This is Clemson,” he said. “I assume you’ve heard the news by now?”
“About what?” asked the man at the other end.
“Alice Downly was assassinated right there in Mexico City — less than two hours ago.”
“Who the fuck is Alice Downly?”
5
Daniel Crosswhite hung up the phone after talking to Fields and went back into the bedroom, where his twenty-one-year-old wife, Paolina, lay in bed. They had finished making love only a couple of minutes before the phone rang.
“Who was it?” she asked in Spanish. She spoke no English.
“The devil’s little brother.” He rolled his eyes and took a soft pack of Camels from the edge of the dresser. “Don’t look at me like that. We knew one of Pope’s men would call sooner or later. Today’s the day, that’s all.”
Crosswhite was a former Delta Force operator and Medal of Honor winner. He had returned to the US after multiple tours in Afghanistan to take up a life of crime as a vigilante but had gotten himself caught. Only the intervention of Robert Pope of the CIA and Navy SEAL Gil Shannon had saved him from life in prison.
Paolina lay on her side in the midday heat and caressed her growing belly, which was just beginning to show. She was a Cuban national, but CIA Director Pope had pulled some strings for her and Crosswhite, enabling them to move to Mexico City, along with Paolina’s three-year-old daughter, who was taking a nap in the next room.
“Who is Pope sending you to kill?”
Crosswhite smiled. “Nobody.”
She rolled onto her back and propped herself up on a couple of pillows. Paolina was five feet tall, slender, with dark skin, soft brown eyes, and long black hair full of tight curls. “I don’t trust him. He helped us move here only to use you as an assassin against the cartels.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through her hair. “I made a deal, corazón.” He caressed her breast and got to his feet. “I have to get dressed and go. You remember everything we’ve talked about, right?”
“Yes. I want to know what’s going on before you leave.”
“One of the cartels assassinated the US ambassador and some American woman a couple hours ago.” Crosswhite snatched a pair of jeans from the back of a chair. “I have to bring in a wounded DSS agent who can’t be seen at the embassy. He’s shot in the arm, so make a spot in the kitchen. It sounds like I’ll have to remove the bullet and sew him up.”
“DSS?”
“Diplomatic Security Service.” He crushed out the smoke in the ashtray on the dresser. “Hand me my socks, baby. Have you seen my boots?”
“Under the bed.”
Using the GPS in his Jeep Rubicon’s console, Crosswhite found the building that Fields had given him the address for about seven miles from his house. He and Paolina lived in a nice neighborhood where there were a lot of Canadians, so he didn’t stick out, and all of their neighbors knew that Paolina was Cuban, so no one suspected he was CIA. Most everyone was under the assumption he was a retired American GI living on a government pension.
He took out his phone and called the number Fields had given him.
“Bueno?” answered a Mexican voice.
“Soy Crosswhite. Estoy aqui.” It’s Crosswhite. I’m here.
A door opened, and Mendoza waved for him to come inside. Crosswhite did not generally move around armed because getting caught with a gun in Mexico meant many years in prison, so unless he was sure there was going to be big trouble, he chose to rely on his fists, much preferring death over incarceration.
He locked the Jeep and stole inside the building. The smell of death and burnt powder flashed him back to combat, and his internal systems came online. The hair raised up on the back of his neck. Mendoza smiled, turning to lead him down the hall to a room full of dead bodies and one very pissed off Chance Vaught, who sat in a chair, handcuffed to a steel doorknob.
“Why is he handcuffed?” Crosswhite asked in Spanish, glancing around at the dead cartel members. “Is this your work?”
Mendoza nodded.
“I’m handcuffed because he’s a fuckin’ bastard,” Vaught said in English.
Mendoza explained that he’d needed to take a dump and couldn’t trust Vaught not to leave. Afterward, it had been easier to leave the increasingly mouthy American handcuffed to the door.
Crosswhite looked at him. “You ready to go, champ?”
“Go where?”
“I got you a room at the fuckin’ Hilton. You ready or not?”
Vaught looked sullenly at the floor. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Ninety minutes later, Vaught sat in a chair in Crosswhite’s kitchen, flexing his wounded arm, examining the suture work. “It’s not exactly straight.”
“Well, this ain’t exactly a triage unit.” Crosswhite snapped off a pair of rubber gloves. “And I’m not exactly a medic.”
Paolina sat staring at Vaught from across the table, her gaze flat and reproving. She wanted him out of her house but knew they were stuck with him unless and until Pope’s man Fields found someplace else for him to hide out.
Vaught smiled, asking Paolina her name in Spanish. “Como se llama?”
“Paolina,” she said, not overly friendly. She glanced at Crosswhite.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Chance. I appreciate you welcoming me into your home like this.”
“If it were up to me,” she said, getting up from the table, “you wouldn’t be here.” She caressed Crosswhite’s arm where he carried a scar identical to the one Vaught would now carry in almost exactly the same spot. “I’m going to buy food,” she told him. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Careful,” Crosswhite said. “We’re working now.”
She nodded, kissing him. “Valencia is playing in her room.” Paolina left the house.
Vaught stared after her, unable to deny his attraction. “She’s Cuban, isn’t she?”
Crosswhite went to the sink to wash his hands. “Yeah. If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”