The Recruit: A Taskforce Story (3 page)

Knuckles said, “Okay, okay, rest easy. I’m going to punch through them and head out.”

Knuckles rolled forward slowly. The men didn’t move. Dressed in rough slacks and torn sport coats, weathered faces as brown as betel nuts, they refused to give way. Knuckles stopped.

“Okay, listen, we can’t end up on an embassy blotter. We get out of here clean.”

Decoy glared at him and said, “Seriously? I’m all about living the cover, but getting my ass kicked is a bridge too far.”

Knuckles scowled at him and said, “Follow my lead. No violence.”

Knuckles exited the truck, stepping into the dirt and kicking away a plastic water bottle. He said, “Hey, sorry. We’re lost. Going to the US Embassy. Can you show us the way?”

The lead man pulled out a large blade, less than a machete but much, much more than a pocketknife. He pointed to the rear and said, “You go back. You not wanted here.”

Decoy sidled up to Knuckles and whispered, “I guess this place is in fact a Sendero Luminoso hangout. Good call following him here.”

Knuckles raised his arms and said, “Understood. No harm. No harm. Paz . . . Paz.”

They turned back to the truck and saw two of the men blocking the door. Knuckles turned back to the leader and said, “Paz, damn it, Paz. Let us go. No harm.”

The man grinned and said, “What you got in the car?”

Decoy hissed out of the side of his mouth, “Are we now going to get robbed because of our cover? Seriously?”

Knuckles said, “Yes. We are.”

“Jesus H. Christ. I cannot believe you recruited me to be a pussy.”

Knuckles glared at him and said, “The mission takes priority.”

The leader pointed the blade at them and said, “Speak louder.”

In a normal voice, Knuckles said, “We work for the US embassy. Don’t harm us.”

The man gave a smile of stained teeth and said, “Move away from truck. Maybe we won’t.”

Knuckles started shuffling back, Decoy right beside him whispering in his ear. “What the hell? Seriously? We’re going to get mugged out here?”

Knuckles said, “Yes, damn it. Let it go.”

The man reached the truck door, the others grinning around him, holding machetes and pipes. He opened the cab, and Decoy whispered, “The name of that woman is in the camera they’re about to take, along with the evidence of our recce. We’re busted when Sendero Luminoso sees it. I never got to send it to the Taskforce.”

Knuckles looked at him, and he nodded. “No shit.”

The leader said, “Shut up. No talking.”

Knuckles closed his eyes for a split second, then said, “Sir, sir, please, I’ll have to pay for anything you take. Please. Let us go.”

Rifling through the cab of the truck, the man said, “Not my problem.”

Knuckles drew a breath and said, “Sir, I’m asking you to stop.”

The man turned from the cab, raised his blade, and said, “You want me to take more than your things?”

Decoy said, “Man, what the hell happened to the guy at BUD/S? You remember that fight at McP’s? Because that idiot stepped on your foot? I think he’s still walking with a limp.”

Knuckles said, “Shut the fuck up. We cannot get compromised. Period.”

“Okay, boss.”

The man held up the D4 Nikon and said, “Very good camera.”

Knuckles said, “That has some technical pictures on it. Give me the SD card and you can have the camera.”

The man handed the camera to a kid next to him.

Decoy glared at Knuckles.

Against his better judgment, with a bit of sadness the men robbing him would never have understood, he looked at Decoy and said, “Okay. But no lethal action.”

Decoy’s face split into a wolf grin, and he turned to the nearest man—a child, really—holding a pipe and said, “You really don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

Knuckles got ready, the blood pumping through his veins, waiting on the gate to open. When it did, the men stood no chance.

The man raised the pipe, and Decoy said, “Guess you do,” then whipped a leg around, buckling the man to his knees. He wrapped his left arm around the pipe, securing it, then hammered the teenager in the nose, ripping the pipe out of his hands as he fell. Now holding a weapon, Decoy whirled around and clocked the first man in range in the jaw. From there, it was pure violence.

At the first hit, like a player on an NFL team, Knuckles was executing, reading the play and taking out men before they could affect the outcome.

In the end, it was easier than Knuckles thought it would be. A collection of bullies holding weapons, each one relying on the arrogance of the man beside him, the two SEALs cut through them, the assailants split open as surely as a melon crammed into the blades of a disposal.

Knuckles ended up on the ground, holding the arm of the leader, the elbow torqued back, his men around him moaning in disarray. He drove the man’s face into the dirt, saying, “I didn’t ask for this, you fuck. All I wanted to do was go home.”

The man said something in Spanish. The only words Knuckles understood were “Comandante Zero.”

Knuckles heard the name and realized it wasn’t a simple robbery.

“Did he order this?”

“Yes, yes.”

Not good.

He said, “How many times have you robbed men? How many times has Zero ordered this?”

Eyes squeezed shut in pain, the man said, “Many, many times.”

Better.

“How many times did the men walk away?”

Now weeping, the man said, “Always. They always walked away. We never hurt anyone.”

Knuckles saw the lie and wondered how many innocents this man had killed. Sendero Luminoso was as bloodthirsty as they came, their calling card being a machete, and he had no illusions about what the man had done.

He looked at Decoy, an unspoken question. Decoy answered it by snapping out with a kick, catching the man just beneath the elbow and shattering his arm. The man screamed, then fell over unconscious from the pain.

Knuckles and Decoy got into the truck and drove in silence for a few minutes. Knuckles broke it, saying, “Send the name to the Taskforce. See what they get from that envelope.”

Decoy started working the laptop, saying, “What about those guys back there? You want to report that?”

“Hell no.”

Decoy grinned and said, “Best intentions.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you had the best intention to let it go, but they weren’t budging. Same as me.”

Knuckles turned to him. “Are you saying that us getting in a fight is the same as you getting laid? That it was inevitable?”

Decoy typed on the keyboard, getting a signal, then sending the message. He said, “Well, yeah, I guess. We had no control over what happened. Same as me last night.”

Knuckles blew out air, sagging in his seat behind the wheel.

Decoy said, “What? It’s the same damn thing!”

Knuckles said, “No, it’s not. It will never be, but one thing is the same.”

Confused, his argument deflated, Decoy said, “What?”

Knuckles smiled and said, “You’re still the same badass that saved me in McP’s.”

Javier Flores—aka Comandante Zero—threw the truck keys on the table and said, “Transfer complete. She accepted the money.”

Felipe Alvarado, his deputy, said, “Can we trust her? If she took our money, who else is paying her? Suppose someone offers her more money. Suppose we’re outbid.”

Zero shook his head. “We can trust her. She has been down here a long, long time. She was working the revolution in Nicaragua and El Salvador before coming here. Money isn’t her motivation.”

“And the additional men?”

“They’re coming. Did you get the delivery vans?”

“One. There was a problem with the other, but I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

Showing a spark of concern, Zero said, “How soon? We have to prepare it. We only have a twenty-minute window.”

“I’ll get it in the morning. Worst case, we use the real caterer’s vans.”

“I don’t want to do that. Too many steps. Preventing them from arriving is bad enough. Capturing one, then outfitting it for the attack is putting too much on a fragile timeline.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t worry. I’ll get it in the morning. We can begin outfitting as soon as I have it. When do the men arrive?”

“They come in tonight. I’ll transfer them after dark.”

“To her house? Will that not raise suspicion?”

“No. La Molina is the last place the authorities will look.”

“Remember Tupac Amaru. They were caught because of food delivery to their safe house. Much, much more food than was needed for a single woman living alone.”

“I know. It’s only for one night. They can eat bread.”

The door to their crumbling shack was opened and a boy, barely a teenager, spilled inside. “El Comandante, El Comandante, come quickly. Your men have been beaten.”

Zero turned and said, “What men? What do you mean?”

“Arturo. He stopped a truck of gringos. He tried to rob it.”

Zero grinned, turning back to Felipe. “And did he say he was working for me?”

“Yes. But the men did not understand. Instead of fleeing, they fought.”

“Serves them right. We are not bandits, and I’m sick of them using my actions as justification for their own. We do what we do for a greater cause. And we certainly don’t try to rob more rich gringos than we can handle.”

“There were only two.”

Zero turned around. “How many men did he use?”

“Four.”

“Four? Two gringos took out four?”

“Yes, yes, and they need a hospital. The gringos hurt them bad.”

Zero looked at Felipe. “What do you think?”

“I think Arturo has learned a good lesson. Let them fend for themselves. We shouldn’t be drawing attention to this place at a delicate time. He’s robbed enough on the back of your name.”

Zero leaned back and said, “Yes, I suppose. But I can’t have gringos spitting on me in my own town. Bad perception. Bad precedent.”

Felipe smiled. “Well, tomorrow night, you’ll be spitting in the eye of all of them. Tomorrow night, Sendero Luminoso rises from the ashes.”

•   •   •

On an outdoor patio in the Barranco art district, Knuckles watched Decoy on the phone, wondering what lack of judgment had led to this meeting. Decoy hung up and said, “She’s on the way. Remember, I introduce you without using her name. You get it out of her.”

Knuckles rolled his eyes and said, “This has got to be the worst decision I’ve ever made. I can’t believe you don’t even know her damn name.”

Decoy looked at the entrance to the patio and said, “No, no. I did. I just forgot it. Come on. Don’t make this hard. You’re the mean boss, and I’m the guy trying to get in your good graces. It’s all cover stuff, right?”

They’d gone back to their hotel after the fight, and Knuckles had called the Taskforce about the name on the envelope. When he’d hung up, he’d said, “No spike. Taskforce doesn’t know who she is.”

Decoy said, “So what now?”

“Now we continue with the deployment. Watch and build a pattern of life. And get you involved with the embassy. Working your cover.”

“Seriously? Come on. I’ve spent my entire life lying about what I do in bars all over the world. I think I’ve got this cover thing down. We should go back to the house. Build a pattern from there. Screw all this beacon shit.”

Knuckles smiled, appreciating the fact that Decoy prioritized the mission, but that wasn’t the point of this deployment. He said, “I hear you, but you still think you’ve got the might of the US government behind you. You don’t. We screw up here, and we’re going to be hung out to dry. Get used to it. For every deployment I’ve been on, only a fraction end up in high adventure.”

“And you want me to join? That’s your recruiting pitch?”

“Well, you could go back to riding carriers on a float. Doing nothing for months on end and staring at gray steel.”

“I have a better idea. Let’s get my date to check her out. She works in the Consular Section, helping out expats. She’ll know something about her. A thread we can use to neck it down with the Taskforce.”

In a fit of apparent insanity, Knuckles had agreed, and now was sitting on the back porch of a bohemian café at noon, drinking coffee that was like tar and wondering when, exactly, he’d let Decoy lead him astray.

The door opened, and an attractive woman came through. Short, about five foot three, red hair cut shoulder length, and with an upturned nose that looked sexy for no damn reason whatsoever, she gave off a tomboy vibe. She was wearing a tight shirt and a flowing skirt that went all the way to her ankles, raising a little concern in Knuckles’s mind.

She works for the embassy? Wearing that?

Decoy tried to kiss her cheek, but she pulled away, giving him a handshake, causing Knuckles to laugh.
Way to go, lover boy.

Decoy said, “Like I told you on the phone, this is my boss, Nathaniel Bridgemaker.”

Knuckles stood, getting ready to use the alias he had for this deployment. He said, “Nice to meet you. You can call me Knuckles. And you are?”

She said, “Nice to meet you too.” Nothing else. Then sat down.

Decoy looked like he was going to explode.

She said, “So Mr. Righteous here tells me you guys are in-country doing a survey for disaster preparedness, and you need my help.”

“Yeah, well, your entire city is built on a fault line, and it’s only a matter of time before you have an earthquake of epic proportions. All we’re doing is making sure you’re ready.”

She said, “And how can I help?”

Decoy said, “We have to get down a hillside, but the house is owned by an expat. All we want to know is how to approach her. We want to set up some equipment in her yard, which extends quite a ways. We want to survey the cell signal for a duration of time, see if it fluctuates. If it doesn’t, we may ask her to let us establish a base station there.”

“So? Go ask her.”

Knuckles pushed back his chair, done with the conversation. Decoy said, “Well, that’s just it. We will, but we were hoping you’d tell us something about her. Like what’s she doing here? Is she friendly? Will she want to help us? Just something before we cold-call her.”

She said, “What’s her name?”

“Linda Devoire. We think she’s American.”

“And you want me to check her out? Unofficially?”

“No. It’s official. Well, sort of. We work for the embassy. We just want to make this painless.”

The waitress came over, and she said, “Get me a salad. I have to use the ladies’ room.”

She started to walk away, then turned, saying, “Watch my purse.”

They ordered, and as soon as the waitress was out of earshot, Knuckles said, “What the hell is she wearing? She doesn’t work for the embassy. They’d never let her in the door wearing that. She looks like she’s out leading a bunch of granola eaters on an expedition. Who is she?”

“She’s who she says she is. A state department flunky. How do you know the dress code?”

“I’ve been in plenty of embassies, and they don’t wear that. Especially if they deal in public relations, working with civilians. Maybe in the mail room, but not with her job.”

Decoy began digging through her purse, and Knuckles rose up, “What are you doing?”

“Getting her damn name. I mean, really, she doesn’t give you her name and you let that slide?”

He ripped open a wallet, read the name, and said, “I was right! Carly! A
C
and a
Y
!”

Knuckles saw a reflection from the glass of the door and said, “She’s coming. Get it back.”

Decoy shoved the wallet home and said, “What now?”

“Now I have some questions.”

The woman sat back down and Knuckles said, “I’ve worked in a few embassies but have never seen the dress code you’re wearing. What do you do?”

She tossed her hair and said, “I’m on the street a lot. I have to deal with locals. I dress the part.”

“Deal with locals? I thought you worked in the Consular Section? Dealing with AMCITS?”

She took a sip of water, saying, “Yeah, that too. It’s a wide portfolio.”

Knuckles had a nagging sense he was being played. He said, “Okay, well, can you help us with the name?”

She looked at her watch and said, “Oh, man. I lost track of time. I forgot about a meeting I have to attend. You guys want me to pay for the meal? I can’t wait for it.”

Decoy looked completely lost, trying to come up with something to say, but failing. Knuckles said, “No. We got it. Thanks for the lack of help.”

She stood up, scrunched her nose, and said, “Well, it wasn’t a complete waste. I think jerk boy here finally figured out my name.”

She walked away with a long gait, eating up the ground, her dress billowing around her steps. She reached the door and said, “We still on for tomorrow night?”

Decoy stuttered, “Yeah . . . yes, of course.”

She said, “I’ll call about the name.”

And was gone.

Knuckles said, “What. The. Fuck. You are worthless. You embarrass even me.”

Sheepishly, Decoy said, “She’s going to run the name. We got what we wanted.”

Knuckles watched the door slowly close and said, “Yeah, she might. I have to admit, I like her. Reminds me of someone else I worked with in the Taskforce.”

Wanting the accolades, Decoy said, “Who?”

Knuckles put the coffee cup down and said, “Nobody you want to meet. You try your man-whore ways with her, and her friend will rip you apart.”