Vaught recognized Lieutenant Felix from the morning after the quake. “We didn’t lose the city?”
Felix shook his head. “Toluca still belongs to the people. Where is Sergeant Cuevas?”
“He’s over there.” Vaught gestured at the body. “The sniper got him. I’m sorry. He was a damn good man.”
“Yes, he was,” Felix said, going to the body and making the sign of the cross upon seeing the face of his dead friend.
Crosswhite led Diego into the shoe store so that he could see his wounded men. “How many did we lose?”
“Half, I think,” Diego said, kneeling down to take the hand of a young officer who was obviously dying. “Yes, I think half.”
“Who sent the army?”
Diego had already begun to say the last rights over the young officer. When he finished, he kissed the man’s forehead and rose to his feet, thumbing the tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry. What did you ask me?”
Confused, Crosswhite looked down at the dead young man and then back at Diego. “You’re a priest?”
“No. I am not ordained, but I hope that God will accept this man into his Holy Kingdom long enough for me to become so.”
“I don’t understand. We just won! You’re going back to the seminary?”
“I promised God that if he saved the city, I would return to the priesthood. He sent the soldiers, and the city was saved. I will keep my promise.”
Crosswhite opened his mouth, but seeing the look in Diego’s eyes, he knew there would be no point in trying to dissuade him. “Well… well, good job, then!” He bumped Diego briskly on the shoulder with a bloody hand. “You’re a brave man, Diego. You kept your men together, and you saved the city. Juan would be proud of you.”
“The Holy Father saved the city, and my brother sits at his right hand. Thank you for shedding your blood with us. I am forever in your debt.” Diego shook Crosswhite’s hand, turning for the door and stepping out just as Vaught was striding in.
“Who sent the army?” Crosswhite asked him quietly.
Vaught glanced outside. “That lieutenant out there, Felix, he was good friends with Cuevas. Cuevas got through to him just before the attack, and Felix talked a battalion of men into acting without orders. The federal government doesn’t even know they’re here yet.”
“Well, you can bet your ass they’ll be taking credit for the victory by sunrise. Come on, let’s get these men loaded up. I wanna get home to my wife.”
“Hey, ya know,” Vaught said, following his lead, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“What?” Crosswhite positioned himself to lift one of the wounded men by the shoulders.
Vaught took the man’s ankles. “Does Paolina have a sister?”
“Yeah, she does,” Crosswhite said, grunting as they lifted the man from the floor. “She’s about four years old. Want her number?”
Vaught laughed, backing out the door. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Pull over,” Hancock said, seeing an army truck flash through an intersection up ahead. “Stop the car!”
The driver stopped in the center of the road. “What’s wrong? We have to go. The army is here!”
“I can see that. Put the car in park.”
The driver shifted into park. “What are we doing, cabrón? We don’t have time for this!”
“That’s no shit.” Hancock raised his .357 Sig and shot him through the face. Then he quickly shot the passenger in the back of the head, blowing out his teeth.
He took off his US Army dog tags and slipped them around the passenger’s neck before getting out of the car and jamming the Barrett into the front seat butt-first, leaving the barrel sticking out the window. Stripping his battle gear and extra magazines, Hancock dumped it all in the passenger’s lap and pulled the pin from a grenade, tossing it into the backseat and ducking away down an alley. The grenade exploded, engulfing the car quickly in flames.
86
Gil and Poncho sat smoking Delicados cigarettes in the undergrowth near a winding jungle road just after a rain, ten miles south of the pueblo Frontera Comalapa near the border with Guatemala. Their faces streaked with charcoal, each wore the digital-camouflage battle dress uniforms of the Mexican army, and each was armed with an FN SCAR Mk 17 CQC rifle with a thirteen-inch barrel, chambered in 7.62×51 mm NATO.
Poncho was a dark-skinned Mexican with distinct Aztec features, handsome and somewhat short of stature at five foot six. His English was nearly perfect, with only a slight accent. A former GAFE operator like Antonio Castañeda, he had trained with the Green Berets in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the early 2000s.
Gil took a deep drag from the Delicado. “Shit,” he muttered, suddenly light-headed. “There’s nothin’ delicate about this fucker. It’s like smokin’ a tire.”
Poncho chuckled. “Delicados aren’t for little girls.”
Gil snickered. “I wish you’d’a warned me. I feel like I oughta put on a dress.”
Poncho smiled. He’d been paying Gil close attention for the past ten hours. “What the hell are you doing down here sweating your balls off in the jungle? I can tell from talking to you that you don’t have an interest in our problems — our politics.”
Gil took another drag and shrugged. “This is where the fight is right now.”
Poncho felt he understood. “I know who you are, you know. I don’t remember your name, but I recognize your face from a magazine. You’re the SEAL sniper who won the Medal of Honor.”
Silence hung in the still jungle air, the sun beginning to shine down through the trees in smoky rays. “Partner, you got me confused with some whole other body.”
“No, I don’t.”
Gil scratched his unshaven neck where the sweat was beginning to irritate his skin. “Then I’ll ask you to keep it a secret, soldier to soldier. The world thinks I’m dead, and I want it to stay that way.”
“Why?”
“I got taxes I don’t wanna pay.”
Poncho snorted, deciding the real answer must be none of his business.
“Let me ask you something,” Gil said. “What are you doing working for a butcher like Castañeda? You’re a soldier through and through. It’s obvious.”
Poncho crushed the cigarette against the trunk of a giant fig tree, tucking the butt into a pocket. “I didn’t come to work for him until after the truce with the government. I accept only special operations like this one. He pays very well, but I won’t make war on civilians. He knows that.”
“You helped him kill off the Zetas?” Pronounced “seta,” for the letter z, the Zeta cartel had terrorized Mexico for decades until Castañeda had crushed it with military-style tactics.
“Yeah,” Poncho said. “Those we didn’t kill either went into hiding or came to work for us.”
“So where does your loyalty lie? With Mexico? Or the money?”
Poncho looked at him. “If it was with Mexico, I wouldn’t be working for Castañeda. I’d be a bricklayer like my father.” He hesitated. “I’ll tell you a secret, though: solder to soldier.”
Gil waited to hear.
“If he ever breaks the truce and starts warring on civilians again, I’ll kill him myself. That, he doesn’t know.”
“Sounds like maybe your loyalty lies with Mexico.”
“I’ll let you say it.” Poncho averted his eyes. “I’d feel like a hypocrite.”