Vaught nodded, reaching for his can of Copenhagen. “Roger that. So what’s next?”
Crosswhite dried his hands and shook a cigarette loose from its pack. “We wait to hear from Ortega at Mexico station.”
“Who’s Ortega?”
Crosswhite lit the cigarette, tucking the lighter into his pocket. “CIA’s chief of station here in DF.”
“So you work for Ortega?”
Crosswhite stood leaning against the ceramic-tiled counter. “Never met him.” He went to the fridge and took out a couple of Coronas, setting them down on the table. “Ortega has to wait on orders from Clemson Fields — who takes his orders directly from Bob Pope. It’s my guess you’ll be kept out of sight until the PFM needs you to testify against Serrano. So in effect you—”
“Building a case against Serrano could take months!”
Crosswhite popped the tops from the beers with a church key. “Welcome to the CIA, amigo.”
“I don’t work for the CIA.” Vaught took a pull from his beer. “And I sure as hell don’t work for the PFM. I’m a DSS agent. That means I—”
“You don’t belong to DSS anymore. You belong to the CIA by executive order — at least, you will within the next few hours, or however long it takes to get the paperwork shuffled across the president’s desk — and there isn’t jack shit you can do about it.”
“So who the fuck is Clemson Fields?”
Crosswhite took a drink. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. “I hope she remembers limes. Fields is the last of the old guard — a right bastard.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Okay, look.” Crosswhite sat down. “During the Cold War, the CIA wasn’t restricted to using personnel from special mission units like Delta Force and SEAL Team Six the way they are today. We were fighting the big, bad Soviets, so they were allowed their own in-house contractors with no official ties. Fields was a recruiter and part-time assassin — an operational goon.”
Vaught took another drink. “So you work for Fields?”
“No. I work for Pope. Technically Fields isn’t even CIA anymore. He’s attached to the ATRU.”
“The ATRU? What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Anti-Terrorism Response Unit. Congratulations, champ. You’re now privy to a newly formed SMU that the vice president of the United States doesn’t even know about.”
Vaught didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “Who gave you clearance to bring me into the loop?”
Crosswhite grinned. “You’re finally starting to ask the right questions, champ.”
“The name’s Chance.”
“Whatever. You’ve been put on ice because you’re a political embarrassment to both countries now. You went off the reservation when you chased that sniper, and you killed three Mexican cops.”
Vaught put down his beer. “I didn’t kill any fucking cops!”
“The guys in the stairwell and the guy on the roof were all Federales.”
“They were wearing fucking ski masks and carrying AK-47s!”
“Well, they might’ve been crooked Federales, but they were still Federales, and that embarrasses—”
“We were taking sniper fire! My entire team was wiped out!”
“Hey, I get it,” Crosswhite said easily. “Everybody gets it. And the PFM probably gets a secret kick out of it. But it’s political now, champ, and politics trumps everything. You’ve embarrassed the Mexican government, and you’ve made powerful people look bad on both sides of the border, which means nobody’s in a hurry to see your face. They don’t know how to spin this yet, so it’s easier to let everyone think you’re dead for the time being. Putting you with Fields is probably the best way of doing that. Pretty soon the PFM’s going to release a statement saying the body of an American DSS agent was found with those of known cartel members. That will put Serrano at ease, and he’ll drop his guard, thinking you’re dead.”
“In the meantime, my family gets to think I’m dead, too? No way.”
“You come from a military family, champ.”
“Chance!”
“They’ll bear up well enough,” Crosswhite assured him, “and think how happy they’ll be when they eventually find out you’re still alive.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Dan Crosswhite.”
Vaught stared at him for a long moment. “Earnest Endeavor Dan Crosswhite?”
Operation Earnest Endeavor had been an unsanctioned rescue operation led by Navy SEAL sniper Gil Shannon to liberate female Night Stalker pilot Sandra Brux, who was being tortured by Islamic extremists in the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan. Crosswhite and Shannon had both received the Medal of Honor for their part in the operation, but both men were ultimately run out of the military by jealous and resentful superiors, costing Crosswhite the career he had loved.
Crosswhite frowned. “That’s me.”
“Last I heard, you were dead. You were supposed be working down here undercover for the FBI or something.”
Crosswhite smirked. “Look at me, champ.”
“Chance, goddamn you!”
“Look at me, champ. How is a gringo gonna work undercover in Mexico? Grow a mustache and buy a fuckin’ sombrero?”
“Well, I can tell you this,” Vaught said. “I’m not sitting around here waiting for the PFM to build a case against Serrano while my family gets the news I’m dead. And another thing: there’s a GI sniper running around down here doing contract work for the cartels. Somebody has to put that guy down, and since I seem to have a lot of extra time on my hands at the moment—”
“You wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”
“Well, unlike you, I don’t need a fuckin’ sombrero. I already look the part, and I happen to know one or two people down here.”
“I’ve been briefed on your Mexican family. I don’t think letting the cartels get wind of them is a good idea.”
Vaught got up from the chair. “You let me worry about that.”
“I don’t think you’d better go fucking around out there,” Crosswhite said nonchalantly, setting down his beer on the counter. “You’ll only make shit worse.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Vaught shouldered past. “Thanks for the beer and the shitty stitch job, hero.”
Crosswhite let him pass. Then he slipped the stun gun that Mendoza had given him from beneath his jacket and zapped Vaught in the ass. The agent dropped to his knees with a shout, and Crosswhite stepped forward to zap him again between the shoulder blades, sending him flopping forward onto his face.
Paolina came through the door a few seconds later with a plastic bag of groceries in each hand and stood in the threshold gaping. “Daniel, he’s drooling on my kitchen floor.”
Vaught lay paralyzed with his cheek mashed against the ceramic tile watching a tiny piss ant making its way past his face as it carried out its little piss ant business. “You fuckin’ cocksuckers,” he mumbled.
6
Later that evening, Vaught sat brooding on the floor in the corner of the living room, handcuffed to an eyebolt protruding from the concrete wall. Paolina sat on the leather sofa, reading a book to her young daughter, Valencia. Crosswhite had stepped out for more beer and limes.
Vaught cleared his throat, and Paolina looked up to see what he wanted. He tugged at the handcuff. “Can I have my can of tobacco?” he asked in Spanish.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want you spitting in my house.”
“Can I have a cigarette?”
“We only smoke in the bedroom.” She caressed the dark-skinned child’s curly black hair. “And never around my daughter.”