Ghost Sniper (14 page)

31

PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO

13:05 HOURS

Crosswhite sat beside Mariana on a white leather sofa in the home of Antonio Castañeda, the head of all narcotics trafficking in northern Mexico. His cooperation the year before had been instrumental in preventing Chechen terrorists from using a stolen Russian suitcase nuke to destroy the city of San Diego. In exchange for his cooperation, both the Mexican and US governments had offered Castañeda an informal truce in the “war on drugs.” The terms of the truce had been simple: Castañeda agreed to cease all violence against civilians on both sides of the border, and both federal governments agreed to stop hunting him.

Since the truce, violence against civilians in the North had dropped off to almost nil, and Castañeda had consolidated all narcotics power north of Jalisco State. This meant that not a single kilo of drugs crossed the US border without his say-so. The American DEA continued to interdict his drug shipments at will, but Castañeda was no longer targeted for capture or prosecution.

A former GAFE (Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales) operator for Mexican Special Forces, Castañeda was a bug-eyed man in his late thirties with dark hair and a dark complexion. Enjoying tequila probably far too much for the good of his health, he was a legendary womanizer and took a particular enjoyment in torturing those who betrayed him.

He sat in a white leather chair, smiling at Mariana across the black lacquer coffee table, a glass of straight tequila in his hand. “To what do I owe the pleasure of such an unexpected visit?” he asked her in Spanish.

Mariana had been the CIA's contact and intermediary with Castañeda since the inception of their business dealings, and Castañeda made no secret of the fact that he desired her. Secretly, Mariana feared him a great deal, but she was always careful to keep her fears hidden.

“I'm afraid we have some disturbing news for you,” she replied.

He sipped his tequila. “I am listening.”

“By all indications,” she continued, “Lazaro Serrano will be elected president of Mexico this coming July, and we have good reason to believe that he will not honor the truce after he takes office.”

Castañeda continued to smile at her, his eyes almost perpetually glassed over from the tequila. “I understand why Serrano might pose political problems for the gringo government, but I have nothing to fear from him. Serrano is corrupt, yes, but all politicians are corrupt. The truce is good business for everyone. He will respect it.”

She girded herself. “Would you feel that way if I told you Lazaro Serrano is the real power behind the Ruvalcaba cartel?”

His smile vanished. “What are you talking about?”

As planned, Crosswhite edged forward on the sofa. “Hector Ruvalcaba doesn't run the Ruvalcabas—Lazaro Serrano does. He organizes their protection and allows them an almost free hand in Mexico City. We also have confirmation that he was behind the assassination of Alice Downly a few days ago. Serrano hates the US. He wants another outbreak of violence on the border so he can
eliminate you and consolidate all Mexican drug trafficking under his own tent. That will give him unprecedented power, putting him on par here in Mexico with Carlos Slim.” Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican telecom mogul, was the wealthiest man in the world.

Castañeda sat pondering this alarming revelation. He had long known that the Ruvalcabas enjoyed protection from within the federal government, but there had never been any trouble between the Ruvalcabas and the Castañedas. “How sure is the CIA of this intelligence?”

“Ninety-nine percent,” Mariana answered without hesitation.

Castañeda sipped his tequila, displaying a calm he did not feel. “And the CIA has sent you to see me for what reason?”

Crosswhite sat back. “To ask your help in removing Serrano.”

The former GAFE operator glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Do you think I am crazy? Assassinating a Mexican president would guarantee my destruction.”

“Yes, but Serrano isn't president yet,” Crosswhite said carefully. “We've got four months before that happens, so we need to eliminate him soon—before he becomes the de facto president.”

An ever-darkening shadow was crossing Castañeda's brow. “The fact remains you intend to leave
my
mark on his assassination.”

“No, we don't,” Mariana said.

“If we do it right,” Crosswhite pressed, “your name will never be mentioned. And I can guarantee it will be done right—
personally
guarantee it.”

“Oh? How can you make such a ‘personal' guarantee?”

Crosswhite stared him in the eye. “Because I'm the guy who's gonna pull the trigger.” He postured up on the sofa. “Look, the quake down in Mexico City has wiped out the CIA intelligence network for the foreseeable future. Tens of thousands are dead—maybe more—and that mounting body count will hold the world's attention for the next ten days or so. All I need from you is—”

“This is Pope's idea?”

Crosswhite shook his head, knowing that lying to Castañeda
could prove deadly. “Pope has me working with the PFM to bring Serrano down legally, but I think it's better to take advantage of the quake: to use the chaos as cover. Serrano is still an unknown politico in the eyes of the outside world. Why not kill an ugly baby in the crib before it starts walking and talking and making a name for itself?”

Castañeda switched his gaze to Mariana. “Why are you willing to act without first getting Pope's consent?”

She saw clearly that Castañeda had grown suspicious. If he realized that she and Crosswhite had gone completely off the CIA reservation, he might have Crosswhite killed and take her for himself. Mariana and Crosswhite had discussed this forbidding possibility ahead of time and decided that, in the event the meeting took a bad turn, Crosswhite would kill her instantly and try to kill Castañeda before his guards could enter the room and shoot him dead.

Dominating the fear rising up in her gut, she gazed calmly back at the man she knew to be a butcher. “Because Pope is hedging his bets,” Mariana said easily. “He wants to be in position to call the shots along the border no matter who controls the North. And while I would never say that I completely trust you, Antonio, I do believe you're much more reliable than either Lazaro Serrano or Hector Ruvalcaba.”

Castañeda chortled, remarking,
“Más vale malo por conocido que bueno por conocer,”
which translated roughly as, You prefer the bad guy you know to the good guy you don't.”

She smiled.
“Más o menos.”
More or less.

“It appears, then, I have no real choice,” he said, resting his elbows on his knees. “Your man Pope respects the truce but shows me no loyalty. Whereas you, my beautiful Mariana, you understand the value of trust.”

“We have always been honest with each other,” she said, ignoring his flattery as usual. “And I think such a rapport is worth something, yes?”

He nodded, shifting back to Crosswhite. “Suppose Pope is angry with you for killing Serrano—or the PFM comes after you?”

“That will be my problem,” Crosswhite said. “As I've told you already, your name will never be mentioned.”

Castañeda sat mulling the circumstances, seeing clearly that foreigners were still using the tactic of divide and conquer to manipulate the destiny of Mexico—and seeing equally that he was in no better a position to alter that paradigm than any of his predecessors. At length, he picked up his glass, finished the tequila, and set the glass back down.

“Very well. How I can help rid my country of the dog Serrano?”

32

HAMBURG, GERMANY

16:20 HOURS

Gil and Lena sat across from each other in the back of a prop-driven P-750 XSTOL aircraft, their knees almost touching, flying twenty thousand feet over Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany. Each wore a composite wing suit, sometimes called a “bat suit,” which had extra fabric between the legs and under the arms, adding greater surface area to the human form for the purpose of creating lift. This allowed for a human being to glide, or “fly,” two and a half meters horizontally for every meter of vertical drop, often at speeds greater than a hundred miles an hour, before finally having to deploy a BASE-jumping parachute in order to land safely on the ground.

Gil's suit was black with red fabric between the legs and arms; Lena's, white with blue fabric.

“Nervous?” she said over the rush of the wind coming in through the open door.

He grinned. “You bet.”

She smiled back, liking him very much. “You look like
Die Fledermaus
in that suit with those colors.”

“Like who?”

“
Die Fledermaus: The Bat.
It's a German opera—or an operetta, rather.”

He laughed self-consciously, having no idea of the difference between the two. “Well, a bat knows a helluva lot more about flying than I do.” He tested the zippers on his arms to make sure he would be able to free them easily when the time came to steer his parachute. “You know, doin' this without a formal lesson is really kinda stupid.”

“But more fun!”

“For you,” he chuckled. “Not for me. I'm a trained paratrooper—not a bat.”

“Well, that's about to change.” She leaned across and kissed him. “You'll do fine. Just remember to fly the suit like I told you: make your body like a wing. You have to keep rigid; concentrate on strength of muscle.”

“Strength of muscle,” he muttered, feeling guilty as hell over the fact that Lena excited him much more intensely than his estranged wife, Marie, ever had. They were two entirely different types of women: Marie, loving and gentle; Lena, sexy and adventurous. He reflected briefly on the high divorce rate among Navy SEALs, now understanding it on a visceral level. He told himself that he deserved to die on the jump he was about to make—for many reasons—and with that thought, all nervousness left him.

“Have you done this with Sabastian?” he asked idly.

“With who?”

“Sabastian.”

“I don't know anyone by that name.” She got to her feet and grabbed the rail mounted along the fuselage just above the windows, offering her hand. “The light is red. Almost time.”

He took her hand and got to his feet.

She put her face very close to his, their noses millimeters apart.
“Don't ever mention that name outside of business. We're moving forward—you and me—every second from this day on. Agreed?”

He felt the energy of her personality, their mutual attraction, in the pit of his stomach. “Yes, ma'am.”

A few seconds later, the jump light turned green, and they were out the door.

Gil spread his arms and legs, feeling immediately the strong resistance of the air. Lena streaked past him, her white-and-blue suit shimmering in the bright sunlight. He formed his body to match hers and soared after her, bringing his legs up too far behind him and falling forward into a brief tumble before regaining control and leveling off again.

With no hope of catching up to Lena after that, he decided to experiment with the suit, testing its limitations against his free-fall skills, based on his experience as an expert parachutist. The wing suit had long been employed by American Special Forces, but Gil's own focus had been that of a sniper, so wing suit infiltrations had never been incorporated into his training.

He saw at once the potential for such a swift and accurate infiltration system, knowing that the perfection of a chuteless landing technique must still be the ultimate military goal.

Gil soared after Lena's shimmering form, banking left and right, testing the performance capacity of the suit, and found that his extensive free-fall experience very definitely helped to cut the learning curve. As the ground drew within a thousand feet, he deployed the parachute and unzipped the wing sleeves so that he could reach up and grab the steering toggles.

He touched down lightly within a few hundred feet of Lena in a snowy field at the base of a mountain and quickly gathered the chute into his arms. Gil pulled off the helmet and stood looking around at the beauty of the countryside, which was not unlike the Montana of his youth.

She walked up to him with her chute and helmet under one arm, her blond hair blowing in the wind. “So what do you think?”

“I think I like it,” he said. “When do we do a BASE jump?” BASE stood for building, antenna, span, earth—
earth
typically being a cliff. “I wanna try it off a mountain—or a bridge.”

She vacillated a moment and then replied, “Whenever you like.”

He smiled. “You've never BASE jumped, have you?”

She shook her head. “You?”

“A couple times—but with a chute, not a wing suit.”

“Have you bungeed?”

His smile turned to a deep frown. “Bungee jumping is for drunken college kids. BASE jumping actually takes balls.”

“Good!” she answered. “Then we'll go to Lauterbrunnen. The mountain jumps there are incredible.”

“Where's Luaderbooken?”

She laughed. “
Lauterbrunnen.
It's in Switzerland.”

He saw their ride, a black Land Rover, coming toward them through the snow. “Don't you ever get tired of Switzerland?”

“No!” she said, not quite offended. “I'm a Swiss. Besides, what's to get tired of?”

He chuckled. “You people are too damn tidy. It makes me nervous. You need to make a mess once in a while.”

She laughed. “We made a mess of the hotel room last night.”

“Yeah.” He gave her kiss and sauntered off toward the truck. “But that's a
German
hotel room. It doesn't count.”

33

HAMBURG, GERMANY

19:00 HOURS

The next night, Gil called Pope on his satellite phone. He had intentionally waited to respond to Midori's message regarding the CIA director's desire to talk, wanting Pope to realize that he was no longer at his beck and call.

Pope answered on the second ring. “I was beginning to worry.”

“Midori said low priority, and I've been a little busy.”

“I imagine you have.” Pope chuckled softly. “How are you?”

“I don't know. I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. I might be finished, Bob.”

After a slight pause, Pope said, “I guess she must be something.”

There was a note to Pope's tone that Gil didn't care for. “She is, and nothing had better fucking happen to her.”

Pope's response was immediate and uncharacteristically indignant: “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said.”

“Gil, you're getting paranoid.”

“Maybe I am,” he admitted. “I've got Russians following me all over Germany. There are two outside in the street right now. Where the hell are they getting their intel?”

“You know damn well they're not getting it from me.”

Gil lit a cigarette. He understood that it wasn't fair taking out his frustrations on Pope, but he didn't care. He was too full of guilt, anxiety—and, yes, paranoia. “You dropped the ball in Lichtenstein, Bob. I had no advance warning they were there. If it hadn't been for Lena, they'd have fed me my balls.”

“Gil, you can't expect me to keep tabs on every Russian mobster in Europe. You knew they were hunting you—and I do have other operators to look after these days.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gil said. “I met one of them the other night.”

Pope fell silent as a tomb.

Gil sat calmly, smoking, waiting him out.

“So it was you,” Pope said at length.

“I need Blickensderfer taken off the list, Bob.”

“To keep Lena happy?”

“To help keep my ass alive. I need him as an asset.”

Pope sighed. “I think you should come in. Bring Lena back to the US with you. Take all the time off you need, but do it here in the States, where I can look after you correctly.”

“I'm going to China.”

“China?”
This obviously threw Pope for a loop. “Gil, China is crawling with Russians. What are you going to do in China?”

“Base jump the Dragon Wall.” The Dragon Wall was a mountain in China where people came from all over the world to do extreme BASE jumps. Gil intentionally did not mention the wing suit aspect.

Once again, Pope was left momentarily nonplussed, asking at last, “Is this some kind of phase you're going through?”

“I need an entirely new Canadian passport,” Gil added. “A new name. And I need it within forty-eight hours.”

“Gil, I don't think—”

“Just make it happen, Bob. I'm asking you for a goddamn favor. And take Blickensderfer off the list so I don't have to kill any more of your sloppy ATRU operators.”

“You have to know you'll never make it out of China alive, Gil. Do you have a death wish now? Is that what this is about?”

Gil ignored the question, aware that Pope was back on his heels and wanting to keep him there. “China was supposed to be a one-way trip for me the last time I was there, but here I sit. Are you still looking after Marie for me?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Good. You can have the passport delivered to Lena's place in Bern. We have a couple more jumps to make here in Hamburg before we head back to Switzerland. We leave for China in three days.”

“Gil, I don't believe you're going base jumping. Tell me what's in China.”

Gil exhaled smoke through his nostrils, crushing out the cigarette in an ashtray beside him on the bed. “Normally your suspicions would be right on target, partner, but not this time. I've decided to jump the Dragon Wall, and that's what I aim to do. I'll send you the GoPro footage.”

He was off the phone a few seconds later. Lena stood against the wall with her arms folded. “We're not really going to China, are we?”

“Yes, we are.”

“And when did you make that decision?”

“Yesterday—not long after the first jump.”

“But the Lauterbrunnen jump is almost as intense as the Dragon Wall. It's also right here in Europe, where there's a lot less danger to you. We can handle the Russians down in the street. They're not going to do anything in broad daylight, and back in Switzerland they can't touch you.”

He put out his arms, allowing her to walk into them. “Were you serious yesterday—what you said about us moving forward together?”

She gently took hold of the hair at the back of his head. “You know I was.”

“Then we have to go China. It's the only place Pope can't follow me.”