Текст книги "The Forgotten"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER

75

MECHO WAS on the phone once more.

It was his “friend.”

Details were gone over. The latest encounter with Chrissy Murdoch had convinced Mecho that his schedule had to be sped up.

The “friend” was sympathetic and agreed to be ready. But he reminded Mecho of their deal.

Mecho impatiently answered the man. It would be done.

He clicked off the phone and looked down at the floor of his room at the Sierra.

He stiffened when the paper was slipped under his door. He didn’t move for a few seconds, wondering if something or someone was going to follow the paper in.

He reached under the bed and pulled out the pistol from where he had slid it between the springs. He rose, inched toward the door, touched the paper with his foot, and moved it toward him. Keeping his eyes on the door, he knelt and picked up the paper. He moved away from the door and opened the folded page.

Two words. Two meaningful words.

“They’re coming.”

Mecho folded up the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

He could attempt to follow the person who had given him this warning.

But he chose not to.

They’re coming.

Twenty minutes later he didn’t hear or see anything coming.

He sensed it with something other than his ears and his eyes. Perhaps it was their smell. The smell of death coming. It could be quite potent.

He reached under the bed, snagged two more items, rose, opened the door, and moved to his left with a speed that was belied by his immense frame.

There was too much light here for what he wanted. He entered the stairwell and moved down one flight at a time, pausing at each landing.

Waiting.

Sensing.

He was using faculties that most people would never discover they had.

But when you had lived as Mecho had, those faculties rose to the surface.

At least for those who survived.

He left the building at the ground floor and headed west.

The people were good.

Not because they had found him at the Sierra. That would take no skill at all.

No, they were good because they had followed him from his room down to here. Even now he could sense their approach, one set from the left, one set from the right.

He slipped his gutting knife into his waistband and then spun the suppressor onto the end of his pistol.

He kept walking, zigzagging his route and moving closer and closer to the water.

These back streets were deserted. Not even the dueños were out. He wondered about this. But then he thought perhaps they had been told to stay off the streets tonight.

The dueños considered themselves tough until they ran into those who were truly formidable. Then the street toughs melted away into little balls of dough and found places to hide in the darkness, like the mice they were.

Mecho was not and never would be a mouse.

He walked on, instinctively varying his route but heading inevitably to the water, to the Gulf.

It had carried him here from a position of slavery, though the last part of his journey had been as a free man swimming for his life.

He would go back to the sanctity of the water tonight.

It would either be his final resting place or simply one more bump in a long road of them in his life. Sometimes all a person could do was not good enough. So be it. He had never been one to regret. Not when it came to survival.

He passed some late-night stragglers who were too drunk to see that he was walking along with a pistol. He turned down one more street and the deepness of the ocean stretched ahead of him.

It was secluded.

It was completely dark.

There were no people around who could see or be harmed by what was about to happen.

And the tide was coming in.

Tides were often handy.

He quickened his pace.

In a few more seconds he was on his scooter, which he had hidden behind a trash receptacle, and was flying down the sand.

This had surprised the men following him.

That was his intent. His other intent was to draw them farther down the beach, away from the town, away from any eyes, drunk or not.

Two miles later he was away from all such eyes except for the ones still chasing him. He had not gone fast enough to lose them. Mecho’s thinking was simple. He could deal with this now or he could deal with it later.

Might as well get it over with.

Mecho calculated he was facing six men.

They would be trained, armed, cagey, cautious, but with enough close-quarter combat skills to size up the ever-evolving battlefield.

The dunes were up ahead. He left his scooter behind and set out on foot. A minute later he skirted a narrow cleft between two dunes. His front flank was now a funnel his pursuers would have to breach. But it was only wide enough for one man to come through at a time. A classic defensive measure. The same one the Spartans had employed to hold off the far larger Persian army so the Greeks could escape destruction. That same technique had been taught in war colleges ever since.

If your opponent has far larger numbers, make it as difficult as possible for them to employ those numbers to their advantage.

Mecho knew this sort of confrontation might happen, so he had hunted for this sort of tactical advantage shortly after he had arrived in Paradise. And then he had spent time doing something to it that would hopefully work to his advantage.

The dunes were thick enough to stop any ordnance unless they were going to attack him with shoulder-fired missiles, and he doubted that was the case.

Mecho only had two worries now.

His rear flank.

And something coming through that opening other than a man.

His next steps would address both issues at once.

The men after Mecho fanned out in a classic attack formation. With a numerical advantage of six to one it would be successful against just about any foe.

The cleft in the dunes was just ahead.

A funnel. These men had seen that one before.

One way in and one way out.

None of them had any plan or desire to breach that opening with Mecho waiting to pick them off as they came through.

But they had come prepared for just such a scenario.

The first man approached, keeping well back of the cleft. He lifted the fist-shaped metal object from his pocket, engaged it, and tossed it through the opening.

It wasn’t a grenade, but it was as good as one.

He turned away from the cleft and used his hands to cover his ears as additional protection over the plugs he wore.

The flash-bang went off.

Blinding light, paralyzing sound.

And a concussive-force kicker.

Anyone in the dune would now be immobilized, easy to kill.

The six men swarmed through the cleft. Sand dislodged by the flash-bang was swirling everywhere. They had guns ready to fire into the paralyzed man who should now be resting on the sandy floor.

He would never know how he died.

The space between the dunes was barely ten by ten. The space had resulted from erosion, wind, and different compactness levels of the sand. The men crowded in, but there was no one lying immobilized on the ground.

What the leader of the squad did see was a now visible knotted rope dangling in the center of the space. He looked up to where the rope was attached to the thick limb of a tree twenty feet up.

None of the men had looked up before coming in here. They had focused on the cleft.

But what was currently up was now coming down.

Mecho landed on two of the men and they broke his fall by breaking their necks.

A third man was gutted by Mecho’s knife, the bodies of the first two kills covered with blood from his dissected belly.

Number four caught two rounds in his face from Mecho’s pistol.

Number five tried to run.

One big arm around his neck stopped that retreat and the snap of the spine was followed by the man collapsing to the sandy ground.

Number six got lucky, however.

Mecho had stumbled over number five as the man’s legs involuntarily kicked out as he went through the last spasms of death.

Six drew his bead on Mecho with his MP5. Shot selector on full auto, thirty rounds fired in a couple seconds, if that.

Not survivable.

Pistol and knife useless against that.

Mecho looked at Six.

Six looked back at Mecho.

A triumphant smile, a finger on the trigger, ready to finish the job.

Mecho had a millisecond left to live and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

One shot erupted.

But it didn’t come from the MP’s muzzle.

A hole opened in number six’s forehead. The MP had no chance to do its killing because its owner had just died.

Six fell headlong into the sand, some of his brain splattered along the wall of the dune behind him, because the shot had come from in front of him and behind Mecho.

Mecho whipped around in that direction, pistol and knife up and ready.

Chrissy Murdoch stood there. She was not outfitted in Hermès and Chanel tonight. Nor a bikini.

She wore all black. Dark smudges were under her eyes and over her thin, high cheeks. The eyes looked very different from the pampered ones of the person lounging around the pool at Peter Lampert’s estate.

They were hard and dark and cold.

They are like mine, thought Mecho.

She held a pistol. It was pointed at Mecho’s heart.

She looked at him and he looked back at her.

She slipped the gun into a belt holster and said, “We have to get rid of the bodies. I have a boat. Let’s move.”

As she came forward to do just this, Mecho could only stare.

She struggled to lift one of the men.

Mecho still hadn’t moved.

She glanced sharply at him. “I said, let’s go.”

“You were the one who warned me?”

“Who else?” she snapped.

He put the pistol and knife away and started to help her.

CHAPTER

76

PULLER EASED OUT from behind a tree and did a sweep of the area with his night-vision goggles. He had picked the surveillance spot with the same care he would on a battlefield. It gave him maximum observation coverage with minimal exposure to prying eyes.

Carson sipped on a bottle of water and watched him. It was hot, muggy, and the sulfur smell was nauseating.

It was also two in the morning and they had been here for three hours.

He sat back next to her.

She said quietly, “Anything?”

He shook his head, kept his gaze moving.

“How much longer do we wait?”

He looked at her. “As long as it takes, General. These things don’t run on a schedule.”

“So all night?”

“Daylight comes, we’ll leave. They won’t be doing anything in the daytime, even at a place like this.”

“What do you think it is?”

Puller shrugged, leaned back against the tree, but remained tensed, ready to move in an instant if need be. “Drugs. Guns. The Colombians have lost the drug pipeline to the Mexicans. But the Gulf is still full of traffickers.”

“Then it could get pretty dicey tonight. We might not have enough firepower.”

“This is an intelligence-gathering expedition only. No engagement. We take what we find to the proper authorities.”

“We might not have a choice about engagement. If we’re spotted.”

“Risk of the battlefield.”

“On U.S. soil no less. Didn’t teach us that at the Army War College.”

“Maybe they should have.”

“Yeah, maybe they should have. I’ll speak to the appropriate parties about it. If I survive hanging with you.”

They fell silent until Carson said, “Something else on your mind?”

Puller didn’t look at her. There was something else on his mind. He had continued his investigative work prompted by looking at his watch outside of Grif Mason’s hideaway. And everything he had found out only reinforced his suspicions. It didn’t sadden him. It angered him. But he would have to productively channel that anger. He looked forward to the opportunity to do so.

“Just a jumble of things,” he said.

Carson was about to say something else when Puller put up a hand. “Stay down,” he hissed.

A few seconds later Carson heard what Puller’s quicker senses had already registered.

The truck crept along the surface road shielded by a line of trees. It turned and puttered down toward the water, easing into the small park-off, where the driver killed the engine. Several men got out even as Puller and Carson hunkered down at their observation post.

Puller held up a finger, indicating to Carson that they would communicate solely via nonverbal signals from now on. She nodded in understanding.

Lying prone in the sand, Puller intensified the power on his night-vision goggles and pointed them at the truck, which sat about a hundred yards away from their position.

At first Puller was thinking that another vehicle would meet the truck, but that didn’t make any sense. Truck and truck at a clandestine meeting site was not logical. Moving over the road you’d get a warehouse and do your transfer in privacy.

The only reason to drive down near the water was if you were expecting a delivery from the water.

A minute later Puller’s deduction was proved correct.

The whine of the boat wasn’t much, but water was a great conductor of sound. The boat was moving fast, and within thirty seconds Puller could see the outline of what he almost immediately recognized as a RIB. It was the same type of amphibious boat the Rangers used.

As the RIB grew closer to shore, Puller could make out many people on board. Too many for the boat’s small footprint.

Carson touched his arm. He looked at her, found her pointing back toward land. Puller focused that way and saw the men from the truck coming down to the beach.

Right now he would have given anything for a night camera to record what was about to happen.

People were being pulled off the RIB. When they hit the sand, Puller could see that they were bound and their mouths taped shut.

They also wore different-colored shirts.

Puller flipped up his goggles and saw green, red, and blue.

He felt a gentle squeeze on his arm and turned to see Carson staring over his shoulder. She looked at him. He shook his head and turned back to what was happening on the beach.

The people were herded up the sand and to the truck where two men were posted there to guard them.

Puller turned his attention back to the beach, where the RIB had disappeared, but another one was now approaching the beach. The scenario that had just happened on the beach was repeated with this second group.

A third RIB beached, disgorged passengers, and left.

Then a fourth RIB came and did the same.

After the last RIB left, the truck was locked and three men climbed into the cab.

Carson said, “What do we do now?”

Puller was thinking this very same question.

What do we do?

“We need to call the police, right now,” Carson urged.

But Puller shook his head. “No,” he said.

She looked at him in bewilderment. “No? Are you crazy? Those people were prisoners, Puller.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Then we call the cops.”

“Not yet.”

“When do you think might be a more suitable time?”

Puller looked at the truck as it started to pull away. “Let’s go,” he said.

CHAPTER

77

PULLER KEPT BACK as far as he could from the truck while still keeping it in sight.

It was tricky. Headlights back here at this time of night would no doubt make the guys in the truck dangerously suspicious.

Carson alternated between looking at the taillights of the truck and scowling at Puller.

“I’m still not getting this tactic, Puller. If you don’t call the police for something like this, what then?”

He said nothing, but kept his gaze upon the truck as it wound around the curves with thick trees on both sides. They might as well have been in a forest. There was no hint of the nearby ocean except for the occasional whiff of brine.

He finally looked at her. “Well-timed op. Secluded spot, middle of the night. Bring them in by water, truck them out.”

“Right, so?”

“How many nights you think they do this?”

“I have no way of knowing that.”

“Let’s say they do it three or four times a week. Maybe seven days a week.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we just got lucky.”

“No one is that lucky.”

“And your point?”

“Maybe this is what my aunt saw. Or what the Storrows saw.”

“Maybe it is.”

“My aunt was a good upstanding citizen. The Storrows were, by all indications, pillars of the community.”

“Granted, they probably were.”

“And you think these elderly solid citizens saw what we saw and didn’t tell the police?”

Carson started to say something and then stopped. “So your point is they did tell the police and nothing happened.”

“Oh, something happened. They ended up dead. All of them.”

“You think the police are in on what we just saw?”

“I don’t see how you can run an op like that, even once a week, and trust that the cops are not going to happen upon you. All it would take is one cop on patrol seeing a boat light, or the truck, or just happening to walk down the beach and see what we saw tonight.”

“And they couldn’t risk that?”

“We just saw four RIBs. They’re not long-distance boats. That means there’s a larger vessel out there that they launched from. I counted eighty people off the boats, and now they’re in the back of that truck. You’re talking equipment, money, and manpower. The payoff has to justify that.”

“Like you said before. Drugs, guns.”

“They were people, General. No guns, no drugs.”

“So maybe drug mules?”

“And there were young women. So prostitutes. And bigger, older men. Maybe slave laborers.”

“Slave laborers? In America?”

“Why not?”

“I thought we fought the Civil War to take care of that little bit of evil.”

“If it’s profitable, evil can come back strong, just like a cancer with fresh blood lines to feed off.”

“Damn, Puller, do you really think that’s what this is about?”

“A pipeline is a pipeline. You can run lots of different things through it.”

“And the police?”

“Part of the equation. Paradise is wealthy and a tourist destination and no one wants to rock the boat and maybe the cops are paid to look the other way. Hell, maybe the whole damn town is.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Maybe not. But if I’m those guys I’m not putting an operation like this together and risking a cop stumbling onto it and blowing it out of the water.”

“Something like that has to come from the top. So Bullock?”

“Maybe. I was surprised at how quickly he turned into my friend.”

“I wonder who’s running the op from the other end.”

“My bet is on the guy who got his Bentley blown up.”

“What? Lampert? How do you figure that?”

“I checked the guy out. Made and lost a fortune. Then made another one back, obviously. Only I can’t find out how. And he screws the hired help. And maybe they’re not hired at all. Maybe he’s got slaves on his ‘plantation.’ ”

“Okay, let’s say he is the guy. Why would someone blow up his car?”

“Maybe a guy with size sixteen shoes has a beef with the man.”

“Size sixteen shoes?”

Puller explained about the footprints outside the guesthouse window. “He’s the same guy who saved my butt the other night. I don’t think he did it out of kindness. And maybe he regrets it now. But he may be the one after Lampert. He works on a landscaping crew. Why do I want to bet he works the Lampert estate?”

“And his beef with Lampert?”

“No idea. And I may be barking up the wrong tree. But guys that big with skills like he has are rare. And I can’t believe he came here to cut grass.”

“So with the knowledge in hand, what do we do? Call in the Army? The DEA? The Border Patrol?”

“We need to know more. If we start making noises and they have moles on the inside, we’ll never get the evidence we need to put them away. They’ll be gone, never to return.”

“Well, when we find out where that truck is going we may have all the evidence we need,” she said.

Puller suddenly punched the gas and the Tahoe sped up.

“What are you doing?” Carson exclaimed. “They’ll see you.”

“We’ve already been seen.”

“What?”

“Twin bogies behind us and they’re closing like an Abrams tank brigade on a soft target.”

She looked behind her and saw the set of twin beams coming on way too fast.

“Shit!”

Carson lifted her pistol from its holster.

Puller shook his head. “Ineffective at this range and tactical position. Take my rifle. I’ll pop the back window. Take up a position in the rear. Use the tailgate to steady the rifle.” He eyed the rearview again. “I’m thinking fifty yards. Aim for the windshield and the radiator.”

She was already scrambling over the seat. “Roger that.”

He popped the window, she took her spot, settled the rifle on the tailgate, but then she paused.

“Puller, what if it’s the police or Feds back there?”

A bullet shattered the back glass, covering Carson in shards.

“Don’t think so,” said Puller. “Fire! Now!”

Carson pumped five rounds from her rifle into the windshield and radiator of the first vehicle. It swerved and smoke started pouring from the hood.

Carson fired twice more and the windshield shattered completely and then came off in one large chunk. She could see the driver hunched over and then the vehicle flew off the road.

“One bogie down,” she called out.

“Don’t declare victory yet,” barked Puller.

Out of the smoky haze thrown off by the first vehicle the second, an SUV, raced, bearing down on them fast.

These people were taking no chances.

Bullets poured from twin gunmen hanging out the windows.

The Tahoe’s left rear wheel shredded.

“Puller,” cried out Carson.

“I know.”

He fought the wheel, keeping it on the asphalt.

Carson fired back but then stopped.

“Keep shooting,” snapped Puller.

“My rifle jammed.”

“Shit,” barked Puller. He checked the rearview. Bogie coming fast, major firepower. They had one bad wheel and as he checked his fuel gauge he saw it plummeting. One round must have pierced the fuel tank.

“We’re losing gas,” Carson called out. “I can smell it.”

“They hit the tank.”

Carson looked back and her eyes widened as the SUV came on hard and fast, its hood nearing the back of the Tahoe. Then it abruptly slowed and fell back.

At first Carson thought they were retreating, but then she saw something that told her otherwise.

“Puller!”

“What?”

“They’ve got an RPG.”

The man on the right side of the SUV was hanging out the side getting a bead on them with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher riding on his shoulder, while another man inside the truck held on to him.

That’s why they had fallen back. To avoid the blast from ground zero when rocket and Tahoe plus leaky gas tank erupted in a flame ball.

Carson ducked down as the man fired. It was a good thing she was holding on, because at that very moment Puller, who’d been watching this unfold in the rearview, cut the wheel hard to the left at the exact instant the grenade launched.

The Tahoe shuddered and then responded.

The grenade passed by on the right, hit a bank of trees, and exploded.

Carson tumbled across the rear of the truck’s interior as the Tahoe skidded off the road and slid onto the shoulder. The rear door was ripped open and a large hand flew in, grabbed Carson under the arm, and lifted her out of the Tahoe.

The next instant she and Puller were running for their lives.