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  Felix apologized, and then searched Apo. He was thorough, looking for weapons or a wire, but unless he had an X-ray machine, they weren’t going to find the seed-sized GPS locator in his chest muscle.

  They drove through pretty countryside, meandering through narrow roads that seemed to wind back and forth through endless farm fields and tiny villages. Occasionally, Apo noticed spray-painted graffiti where Las Zetas tags had been marked.

  Felix had been thoughtful enough to bring a cooler of beers for the ride, and each of them drank one as they made their way west. When they reached the city of Comalcalco, Felix announced, “We’re getting close.”

  Comalcalco was the third largest city in Tabasco, and completely controlled by the Zetas. The Mayan ruins there were in excellent condition, and tourists often visited from around the world. There were a few decent hotels and many restaurants in the city of almost forty thousand. Apo was able to see a couple of the Mayan temples as they drove, and commented on their beauty.

  “One day you’ll come back and spend more time, Señor Alex,” said Felix.

  Apo smiled and kept his thoughts to himself.

  Twenty minutes later, Apo spotted the mansion on a hill. It was the only hill for miles of flat farmland. Its slopes were covered in thick forest, and Apo was glad the assaulting team would have the cover of the vegetation. It looked much thicker than it had in the pictures. The SUVs began their trek up the windy road to the mansion.

  “El Gato’s hacienda welcomes you,” said Felix as they arrived at the wrought-iron gates.

  A guard in the small tower recognized Marco behind the wheel and the gates opened. The SUV rolled across the spotless cobblestone driveway and stopped in front of the massive wooden front doors. The estate was magnificent, and Apo admired the perfectly pruned hedges and beds full of Mexican gladiolas and sunflowers. A square flower bed featured Laelia orchids, in their beautiful lavender. Hummingbirds and butterflies added to the quiet beauty. El Gato was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of fellow Mexicans, yet lived in one of the most beautiful estates Apo had ever seen.

  Apo followed Felix and Marco through the mansion to the back of the house, doing his best to memorize every step. Marco carried both bags, and readjusted the shoulder strap on the cash several times as he walked. Two million dollars was a little over forty pounds.

  The rear of the house was mostly glass—a series of repeating arching glass doors, with wrought-iron decorations that also served as security. From the rear rooms, one could see out to the pools and fountains, and the view of the lush green countryside was incredible. Out on the horizon, at the very edge of vision, was the Gulf of Mexico.

  In the rear of the house, Gato’s people had set up a little welcome party for their new guest. A buffet table had been prepared with everything from split-broiled lobsters to empanadas and fruit. Music was being piped in from the house’s sound system, and fresh flowers were all over the rear yard. Eight of the most beautiful women Apo had ever seen were lounging with cocktails by the artificial waterfall near the large pool. A small pig was slowly rotating over hot coals off to the side, as much to impress as to eat. Several bottles of Dom Pérignon were sitting in sterling silver ice buckets.

  Apo’s eyes went from one item of beauty to another, until his eyes came to rest on one of the ugliest faces he had ever seen. El Gato. The pug-faced, crater-skinned man who wasn’t much taller than Apo himself. El Gato saw him and smiled broadly. His horrid teeth made Apo wretch inside.

  “Mr. Alexandro!” he announced with open arms when he saw his new guest. El Gato walked towards Apo and shook his hand with two of his own. Both of his hands were covered in tattoos. “Welcome! I hope you had an easy journey.”

  “Thank you, Señor Gato. Your estate is fantastic. The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Just amazing.”

  El Gato smiled proudly. “This way, come.” He eyed Marco and Felix. “Put the bags in the rear study for now. Señor Alex must be hungry and hot.” He led Apo to the table and spread his hands wide. “I hope you will find something here to eat that pleases you.” He looked over at the women who lounged under the umbrellas. “Or maybe there.” He laughed at his joke.

  “I’ve been waiting to eat lunch myself. Come. Fix yourself a plate and we’ll sit. Do you prefer champagne or cold beer? Or both perhaps? Or, I have the finest tequila in the world, if you wish, but maybe it’s better to save that for after business.” He laughed again at his own commentary.

  “The feast looks amazing, thank you.” Apo picked up a plate and tried a few things that looked delicious to him. He was actually hungry. His mind went to the team and wondered what they’d be eating.

  When the two men had piled up food on their large platters, they sat at a table under a large umbrella. It was just the two of them. El Gato picked up a tortilla and took a bite. Grease ran down his chin, and the disgusting man chomped through it like a rabid dog. Apo looked at his food to avoid watching the man eat. He pulled a lobster tail from its shell and smiled.

  El Gato began speaking with a mouth full of food. Billions had bought him everything except couth. “So your government is looking for you. Does that worry you? You took quite a risk flying here and then having to return, no?”

  “Not really. My private jet is registered to a shell company out of the Caymans. I’ve been using it for years without a problem.”

  “You and your people, the Havana Sharks, you seem to have appeared out of thin air.”

  Apo smiled and sipped the champagne. Damn, it was good. “We managed to stay under the radar for several years. I wasn’t looking to make headlines. We’re businessmen, no? It’s easier to conduct our type of business when no one knows who you are.”

  “In the United States, perhaps. Here in Mexico, Alex, it’s much better if everyone knows who you are. I go out of my way to make sure everyone knows exactly who I am. And what I am capable of.” He looked into Apo’s eyes, and Apo realized he was looking into the eyes of death. The man was a soulless sociopath, no matter what cologne he wore.

  “Yes, I suppose here, things are much different. You can run the whole country here. Back in the US, if you catch the attention of the government, it gets more complicated.”

  “Exactly. Which is what worries me a bit about you. About doing business with you.” El Gato reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, which he opened and smoothed out. It was Apo’s face on the fake FBI Most Wanted page, printed off the Internet. “Even here in the countryside, we have Internet. The FBI has a price on your head.”

  “Yes, I know. I was insulted at the amount.”

  El Gato laughed loudly and slapped his hand down on the paper. “Exactly! You’re worth much more than that, no?” He laughed again, food still in his broken teeth. He drank his champagne with a quick chug and poured more sloppily. Then he leaned forward and looked very serious. “I don’t want your FBI or DEA coming to visit me, you understand?”

  “Of course. Nor do I want them visiting me. But I am prepared to move one hundred kilos of heroin a week. I can have the flights in and out of the same airport I came in on today. It won’t be me in the future, but my people are professional. Cash in, heroin out. I brought you a two million dollar security deposit so you know I’m serious.”

  El Gato smiled and sat back. He stared for a moment, making Apo nervous inside, but then El Gato roared with laughter and refilled both their champagne glasses, pouring almost as much onto the table as in the glass as it exploded into tiny bubbles—a 2004 vintage worth a couple hundred dollars a bottle, treated like spring water. He raised his glass. “Here’s to our new venture. You’re going to like it here, Señor Alex!”

  They clinked glasses and drank their champagne. Apo averted his eyes when El Gato ripped off the lobster tail and crammed it into his mouth.

  Felix walked over to his boss. “Excuse me, Jefe. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need a word, please.”

  El Gato excused himself and the two
of them moved across the patio. Apo was watching their mouths, trying his best to lip-read, a skill he had worked on for many years.

  “I got the call. The package has arrived. Marco and I will be leading them along the same route we took before. We need to leave now.”

  “Excellent. It’s a lousy chore, I know, but it will reopen our heroin traffic, and we have a new customer who wants large, steady quantity. You’ll be rewarded for your drive.”

  “You’ve already been most generous, Jefe. We leave now.” He bowed slightly and hustled off. Marco, who had been standing by the rear door, followed him back through the house to their waiting SUVs.

  “Everything okay?” asked Apo when Gato returned to his seat. He had lip-read the word “package” and understood Felix and Marco were leaving in a hurry. He wondered if it was drugs, or the package he was really looking for.

  “Oh, yes. Good news, actually. Just ensuring the quality and quantity of your shipments. How long are you staying?”

  Apo made a big show of looking at the girls. “Well, I was going to fly back out today after our business was concluded, but I could easily be persuaded to stay longer.” He smiled.

  “Ha! That’s the spirit, Señor Alex!” said El Gato with another of his obnoxious laughs. “Yes, my new friend. You’ll stay the weekend and enjoy yourself! You might not want to go home!”

  “That sounds perfect,” replied Apo. Because it did.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sierra Madre de Chiapas Mountains

  The truck groaned as it chugged along up the steep incline. The weight of the EMP was straining the old tractor-trailer. Hamid and his men were cramped in the cab without air-conditioning and had been driving for two hours, heading south to the Pacific Ocean. A small town called Puerto Arista would be their final destination, where the truck would be loaded aboard a ship heading north to the American coast. It was only about 175 miles in a straight line, but like most parts of rural Mexico, there were no straight lines. The country roads meandered up and down the Sierra Madres, sometimes turning to gravel or dirt. More than once, they had to wait for cows to move out of their way.

  Two black SUVs accompanied the truck, one in front, the other tailing. Felix rode shotgun in the front vehicle with Marco driving, while the second SUV drove behind the truck with four of their men, all heavily armed. They had left the state of Tabasco and passed the city of Chiapas with its five and a half million people. They were now in a poor rural part of Mexico, where tens of thousands of indigenous people lived. These were the descendants of the Mayans, Zoques, and Chiapa. The roads were extremely poor here, and the trucks were down to ten kilometers per hour as they bumped along the gravel path.

  As the convoy rolled into a small village south of the city, half a dozen men with guns walked out in front of their trucks. They were a scary-looking bunch, covered from head to toe in gang tattoos. One of the men held up his hand, and the SUV came to a stop. Felix opened his door and stepped out with his hands up about chest high to show he was unarmed. They recognized each other from the last visit.

  “El Gato sends his respects to El Mazatlecos. I brought you the other half of the tax.”

  The man approached Felix and stared at him, stone cold—just as happy to slaughter them all without a second thought. The man’s facial tattoos included small stars across his cheeks for each confirmed kill. He had a small galaxy on his face. He held out his hand.

  Felix pulled a large, thick envelope from his waistband and handed it to the man. He looked inside briefly and yelled over to one of the others, who hopped up on the running board of the SVU. At first, Felix was afraid something bad was about to happen, but the man simply tied a large yellow cloth to their side mirror. It was covered in gang symbols of the Mazatlecos. Similar yellow flags were tied to the other two vehicles as well.

  “You’ll be fine to Arriaga. Then you can deal with the Sinaloa pigs.” It was no secret that the Mazatlecos and the Sinaloas were in a turf war. El Gato had managed to stay out of it, and was happy to avoid conflict with both of them, for now. In another year, he’d be even stronger, and then he’d finish the Mazatlecos thugs once and for all.

  The Mazatlecos enforcers disappeared into the side streets, and the small convoy continued rumbling south toward the Pacific, bumping along the rutted gravel road.

  CHAPTER 23

  USS Forrest Sherman

  The guided missile destroyer slowed to a stop. Many of the 380 sailors were topside at the rails to watch the morning’s excitement. The USS Greeneville gently broke the surface less than two hundred meters off the starboard, like a giant black whale. It was astounding to witness a massive 362-foot Los Angeles–class submarine just appear on the surface of the ocean. One minute, empty ocean—and the next, one of the deadliest instruments of war known to man just sitting there with another smaller submarine on its deck.

  The team watched from the stern of the ship, where a small ferrying craft was in the water with four sailors ready to move out.

  Jon smacked Pete. “You call Uber?”

  “That’s it, Frogmen! Get it in gear!” barked Moose. The seven of them climbed down a ladder to the waiting vessel, which bobbed up and down next to the hull of the destroyer. Each man carried a sixty-pound pack, plus weapons. They were armed with HK416 assault rifles with suppressors and laser red-dot sights, except for Hodges, who carried his M40A5 sniper rifle. The team had ditched the ceramic chest plates in their Kevlar vests to save the weight, and wore OD green digi-camo uniforms to blend better into the dark green Mexican forest.

  They helped each other into the boat, which then took off like a cannon shot across the water toward the sub. The skipper of the submarine held the deck just above water, with the bow raised and the stern slightly submerged, forming an underwater boat ramp. When the small boat reached the rear of the sub, the captain killed the engine, and then he and his assistant pulled up the outboard motor. The raft then slid straight up to the aft deck of the submarine until it came to rest on the steel hull.

  The SEALs hopped off the raft onto the black hull of the sub, directly behind their Advanced SEAL Delivery System—the smaller submarine piggybacked on the Greeneville. They said a thank-you to the sailors, who pushed off the sub and roared back toward their ship. The SEAL team then moved quickly toward the conning tower of the submarine, where the hatch popped open and another sailor appeared.

  Moose snapped a salute. “Request permission to come aboard!”

  The XO smiled. “Well if I said no, I guess you’re fucked. Welcome aboard.”

  Moose smiled, not expecting such a casual response, but the man had a point. They were sixteen hundred miles from Virginia, and even SEALs couldn’t swim that far. Probably.

  The team members climbed up the ladder and down into the hatch. The XO introduced them to the skipper of the boat, who was cordial, before taking them aft to their small rooms where they’d bunk up for some sleep before starting their mission. Each of them took the Ambien in their kits and caught some serious sack time. They’d have long days ahead.

  ***

  Ten hours later, the team was up and fed, and ready to move out. They were ten miles out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico, and at midnight, it was pitch-black topside. The submarine had surfaced again, and the sailors aboard the Greeneville were extremely busy preparing the Advanced SEAL Delivery System for launch. A crew of two would be onboard the small submarine that would bring the SEALs in close to shore.

  The special operations officer led them to the sixty-five-foot midget sub that sat on top of the Greeneville. The team climbed in while other sailors removed the locking assembly. If the inside of the Greeneville was cramped, the inside of the ASDS was slightly more spacious than a coffin. The men sat in a small compartment on two benches that faced each other, with their gear at their feet between them. The Greeneville submerged and the two operators of the ASDS went to work clearing the larger submarine. In the smaller sub, the movements of the ocean were much more noticeable, and the
men sat back and smiled, enjoying the ride.

  Frogmen, moving silently underwater. Pure joy.

  Twenty minutes later, the sub slowed and surfaced, its top hatch barely breaking the surface of the black ocean on a moonless night. Ripper and Moose were the first up and out. They walked in ankle-deep water to a rear compartment, which they unlocked and pulled open. The two of them pulled out the deflated F470 Combat Rubber Raiding Craft and laid it out on the deck. Ripper pressed the launch button, and the craft began rapidly self-inflating. As soon as the black rubber raft was rigid, Moose shot a thumbs-up to McCoy, who was helping the others silently pull out their gear and weapons. They put the gear on the rubber deck in the center of the raft and then took their places straddling the gunwales.

  Once in position, Pete McCoy took his place at the engine and turned on the electric outboard motor. Ray Jensen sat on his right and turned on his GPS guidance system, strapped to his left arm. With the other five straddling the gunwales, the seven of them took off silently at twenty knots.

  The CRRC skipped silently along the swells until it arrived at the mouth of the river that led into the lagoon. It was now almost 0400 and they were hustling to stay on schedule, but when they reached the lagoon, they had to slow down.

  As the boat slowed, Moose looked over at Pete, who explained in hand signals that the depth was approximately one meter. With occasional flotsam and mangrove stumps in the water, they had to be cautious about getting stuck. During the day, the lagoon was a busy place, with lots of oystermen out in boats. Now, still several hours before dawn, there was no sign of any human activity whatsoever on the water.

  They reached the far side of the lagoon and the water turned to grassy swamp. Immense mangrove trees bordered the lagoon, and their giant root systems made navigation extremely difficult. When the raft bottomed out and they had gone as far as they could go, the team slid off the gunwales into the knee-deep muddy water. They pulled the raft along as they slogged through the swamp into the mangroves. When the trees became too thick to allow the raft further, Moose turned to Pete and signaled a slice under his chin from ear to ear. The men pulled their KA-BAR knives as Pete hit the scuttle button on the raft, which began emptying out the bladders. The men speeded the process by puncturing their raft with multiple stabs, and the black rubber boat deflated. When it was fully deflated, the team pushed it under the water and wedged it under a mangrove. Their very expensive electric engine was jammed in behind the rubber, where it would rust for the next few hundred years.