Black Flag: A Taskforce Story (8 page)

The desk clerk, a trembling, rail-thin man of about sixty, was brought in and slammed into the wall next to Jack. Behind him a dapper man in a business suit entered, taking a seat. The original hard-asses both remained standing. All four were of Hispanic origin.

The gunslingers stayed mute. In Spanish, the dapper man said, “Who do you work for?”

Jack feigned ignorance again, saying, “I don’t speak Spanish.”

In English, the dapper man said, “You may call me Carlos. Please, tell me why you are here.”

Holding nothing back, knowing it might help him survive, Jack said, “I’m a reporter for the
Dallas Morning Star
. My editor knows where I am and will be looking for me. It does you more harm than good to hurt a reporter inside America, and I swear I didn’t hear anything incriminating.”

Carlos turned to one of the gunslingers. “His phone?”

The man passed it over, and Carlos checked the call log. “What did you tell the man on the other end of this phone?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. “It went to voice mail. All I said was I was in trouble. I swear I haven’t
heard
anything.”

Looking at the number, Carlos said, “Then why would you feel you were in trouble?”

“Because of who you are. What you represent.”

Carlos squinted at the phone, then said, “This isn’t a Dallas area code. Who did you call?”

Confused, Jack said nothing, unsure if Carlos was trying to trick him. Carlos held out the phone, allowing Jack to read the number. His heart sank deeper into the void.
Andy isn’t going to do anything.

He said, “It’s nobody. I misdialed.”

“Misdialed the entire area code? Who is it?”

Jack struggled to come up with an answer. Anything to deflect attention from the true answer. “It’s just a friend I have on speed dial. Someone I went to school with. His speed-dial number is next to my editor’s.”

Carlos brought up the menu, checked the speed dial, then chuckled and pulled out his own phone, saying, “Not exactly Woodward and Bernstein, are you?”

He dialed a number and stood, moving to the bathroom and letting a gunslinger close in on Jack. Carlos began speaking in Spanish, laying out what had occurred up to this point. Fairly fluent, Jack learned he had interrupted something much more sinister than the expansion of drugs into the United States.

“No, Señor Fawkes still believes we’re computer people like him. Hacktivists. He does not know the reasons behind our meeting. He’s paranoid but not stupid. He just about fainted when my men came in with pistols. He’ll realize something else is afoot if I don’t give him some misdirection.”

The man on the other end spoke, and Carlos answered, “Yes, I think he can do it. He works at the air force base in Colorado, the one that controls the navigation satellites. The ones that tell the drones where to fly. I think it’s worth continuing. We take out their eyes, and we can go back to the old days. The old ways. We’ll be the only ones who can do it. Los Zetas will still get caught by them, and the plaza will be ours.”

Carlos listened a few seconds longer, then turned his eyes on the desk clerk, saying, “We have paid him handsomely many times in the past. He deserves death for his treachery, but I think we can use him to deflect attention if anyone comes around asking. Keep him alive a little bit longer. I’ll pay him before I leave and remind him that I know where his family lives. What about the man himself? The reporter?”

Jack saw the desk clerk’s eyes widen and strained to keep his face neutral, waiting on his own fate. What he heard caused his heart to stutter.

“I can’t do that here, in America. I’ll need a car that can get across the border. Send someone with a SENTRI Pass. I’ll be staying at house four.”

They’re going to take me to Juárez. Kill me using our own trusted-traveler program.

Carlos hung up and said, “Watch him.”

 • • • 

Carlos reentered the original hotel room and saw Mr. Guy Fawkes sitting in a chair, pasty and sweating.
Guy Fawkes. Cute little alias name
.
Playing me for a stupid cabrón.
An obese Caucasian with greasy hair and a three-day growth of beard, he was clearly out of his depth.

“Mr. Fawkes, sorry for the interruption. My men thought someone had followed you, but apparently they are just overeager.”

“Carlos, I don’t do violence. I do computers. I’m about transparent information. I was told you could use my information. Let it out inside Mexico.”

“I understand completely. I’m sorry, but where I’m from violence is a way of life. I apologize, but tell me, why didn’t you send this to someone here? Someone you trust in the networks in the United States?”

Fawkes licked his lips and rubbed the sweat off his brow. “With my job I can’t afford it getting back to me. I want it nowhere near me. You saw what happened to Bradley Manning? The WikiLeaks soldier? Or Edward Snowden? The NSA whistle-blower? The damn US government is all over this stuff. They have tendrils everywhere in America. But not in Mexico.”

Carlos nodded. “I see. So it has nothing to do with the money I’m willing to pay you?”

Fawkes looked flustered for a moment, then said, “Hey, don’t question why I’m doing this. I want it out.
Everyone
wants it out. Fuck this, man, I didn’t ask for some
Miami Vice
shit. I’ll go somewhere else.”

Carlos said, “Calm down. I just have to make sure. If you want it out so badly, I’ll take it for free. Because I’m in Mexico, and as you say, I can get it into the world.”

Fawkes shuffled in his chair a bit, then wiped his nose like a fifth grader. “I have what you want, but it’s not free. Understand?”

Carlos remained silent for a moment, watching the man twitch and knowing he could get whatever he wanted without paying a dime. But he needed something more. He needed the man’s skills. He said, “Do me a favor. Run this number for me. Tell me who it belongs to.”

Fawkes said, “A test?”

“Perhaps. I, too, have to make sure you are who you say you are.”

Fawkes opened up a laptop and got online. Carlos passed him the number, then waited, Fawkes’s sausage fingers racing over the keyboard. Eventually, he looked up and said, “It’s an archeological firm in Charleston, South Carolina. Not a whole lot of information tied to it. I got a Dun and Bradstreet number, some credit stuff. What in particular did you want?”

Carlos thought about it, wondering what the hell Jack’s call could have been about.
Maybe it really was just a friend. Or maybe he’s working for the Federales.

Carlos smiled. “I’d like you to take a closer look when you get back home. Just poke around and see if you can find anything strange.”

Fawkes pulled his head back like a turtle, exposing the folds of his double chin. “You think this is someone after me?”

Not after you.
“No, no. I’m just curious. Consider it a favor. How long before your product is ready?”

“I’m not sure. It depends on a lot of different factors. They’ve just turned on the new control system, and it has some glitches. I have to wait for an aberration, and then when they call me to patch it, I can build the bridge. Shouldn’t be more than a week, though.”

Carlos passed across a cell phone. “Call me on this when you’re ready. Don’t use it for anything else.”

Mr. Fawkes rose unsteadily, his face glowing with a rancid glean of sweat. He skipped past Carlos, giving him a wide berth on the way out, his body odor lingering long after he closed the door.

A few minutes later, Jack was brought in and thrown onto the floor, the gunslinger passing Jack’s wallet across.

Carlos flipped through it and said, “Well, Mr. Jack Cahill, as I’m sure you are much more self-aware than that one wrong phone call would indicate, I’m really going to need everything you heard. I have to know what I envision is still safe.”

“I swear to God, I thought I was investigating a drug deal. I have no idea what is going on here. I didn’t tell anyone a thing.”

“You found this meeting somehow. Someone talked. I need to know who.”

When Jack said nothing, Carlos motioned to one of the gunmen, who pulled him to his feet.

Carlos said, “Don’t worry, we have plenty of time.”

Brad Taylor, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.),
is a twenty-one-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, popularly known as Delta Force. Taylor retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as classified operations around the globe. His final military post was as Assistant Professor of Military Science at the Citadel. His first four Pike Logan thrillers were
New York Times
bestsellers. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.