Nothing from Marta.

  "So what is this about? Why is someone trying to blow his cover? This could blow up some serious stuff inside the agency, couldn't it?" Ayers asked.

  "Yes. Yes it would. And someone who knows that is trying to do just that. There are some secrets the agency never wants to see the light of day. He is one."

  "So something happened didn't it?" Ayers put the box back on the shelf and looked down. "Something big happened."

  "Again, that is what we will need to learn." Marta put her cereal box back on the shelf. "Thank you Agent Ayers. The information you have shared is important. And I believe it will save lives."

  Ayers turned toward her briefly and then looked forward like he was about to walk away. "Juarez."

  Marta dropped her head to look down at a lower shelf and the boxes on it. "What about it?"

  "I dug a little deeper into it, went up the chain a few grades."

  "And?"

  "It's only whispers, just rumors. But some of this points to Juarez and that wave of violence and killing in the Cartel a few months back. There may be a connection to that activity and the person in the artist's sketch. Just rumors at this point." Ayers took a step forward and looked at more colorful boxes with cartoon characters on them.

  "Interesting. You'll keep digging in a very careful manner?"

  "Yes."

  "Excellent. Thank you." And she was gone.

  Marta turned from the cereal boxes and pushed her cart away. She pushed it back to the front and left it by the door and walked out.

  An hour later, Marta was 45 miles southwest of Oklahoma City on Interstate 40. A strange realization crept over her as she walked out of that grocery store and got back into her Chrysler. She needed to go home. And home was where her baby was. Her love and need for and otherworldly connection to Lance was now amazingly subservient to another human relationship.

  He would call and report in on some seemingly unbelievable and borderline impossible storyline sometime in the next couple of days. And when he was done with this latest chapter, this need to help, he would return home to his wife and baby and they would just live. Maybe.

  She wondered if she should be feeling sadness, fear. If a tear should be running down her cheek at this realization? No. Not a bit.

  This world of constant lying and killing and running and living a lie every day needed to end. It would never truly leave them alone, but she could face it on her terms. And new terms were dealt just six days ago. She pulled the gun out of her jacket pocket and set in on the passenger seat. She'd put that thing away when she got home and hopefully not get it out again.

  "Priorities Marta." She whispered in Russian.

  Chapter 12

  Frank Wyrick knew the long game. He'd learned everything he knew about it from one of the world's preeminent coaches. Geoffrey Seibel ate, drank, slept and dreamed long-term. All of life was strategy. Maybe a half dozen other humans in all of history adhered to a personal and professional policy of strategy closer than Seibel. That's serious.

  Wyrick could see it in projects and programs across the globe that he was now ostensibly in charge of. Blackmail schemes in Bulgaria, drug-running back channel government corruption plays in Indonesia, messenger service video and audio surveillance in Paris, corporate intrigue and assassination in Caracas; all of it tied to deep strategic initiatives decades in the planning and execution.

  Where it was once all laser-focus aimed at countering, subverting and annihilating the KGB and Soviet Union for three decades, it had now fractured into dozens of enemies with constantly changing characters and characteristics. Drug cartels, terror cells, splintered Russian KGB and mafia, this friggin' Internet and its endless anonymous opportunities to subvert everything. It was a hell of a whole lot easier when it was just the Soviet Union.

  It was now a puzzle and a house of cards and tapestry woven with strands of deception and destruction.

  Wyrick had closed down three long-time operations in the past six months. They quite simply held no strategic importance as the rapidly changing nexus of enmity toward the US gravitated from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Asia and Africa and South America and who's next. Keeping track of it all was full-time and then some. Interruptions weren't appreciated.

  But an interrupting phone call from the Director 16 minutes ago was the reason he was walking down one of the CIA's labyrinthine hallways. He was asked to come to a conference room and meet with the DEA. No other details.

  The door to the designated room for this unannounced and unplanned meeting was closed when he arrived so he knocked. "Come in." The reply from inside.

  Wyrick entered to find a man sitting on the other side of the conference table. The guy didn't get up when Wyrick walked in. The guy was Ray Orozco, DEA, EPIC, El Paso.

  Wyrick knew him, knew his history, his record. Orozco didn't know a thing about Frank Wyrick.

  No talking, no pleasantries. Wyrick took a seat opposite Orozco and pulled out a notebook on which he wrote the date in the top right corner of the open sheet of paper. Then just stares, each waiting for the other to speak. Wyrick was fine with the silence. Years and years spent watching and listening to others created a level of patience most monks would envy.

  Orozco caved after a minute and a half. "You're Frank Wyrick?"

  "I am. And you are?"

  "Ray Orozco, DEA." And then the DEA man charged right into it. He pulled out the photo the artist's sketch had been drawn from and laid it on the table. He spun it and pushed it toward Wyrick. "Is this guy yours?"

  Wyrick reached and picked up the photo to take a closer look at Lance, apparently captured outside of a store in Juarez by an overhead camera. Blurry, fuzzy, but him.

  "One of mine?" Wyrick asked.

  "I've got a real problem. Five Mexican drug cartels are lined up ready to declare war and kill dozens, hundreds. And it is almost totally because of what this man did in Juarez four months ago." Orozco sat forward a bit for emphasis. "I'm told by several credible authorities that this individual is CIA, black ops, a spook. And I'm told he is one of yours."

  Not cool. No one should know any of that.

  "And can I ask who told you this?" Wyrick looked up from the photo and asked. When he got no reply, he added, "Telling someone something like that would be highly illegal. If this gentlemen were an intelligence operative working under cover, releasing this information could get someone arrested and put away for a long time. That would likely be a breach of national security, if it occurred and if it had any element of truth to it."

  "And that would be a shame if someone gave a crap about a silly little law that has been broken numerous times over the years. No, I don't think anyone would be too scared at all to release information about this individual if he turned out to be a CIA operative because in doing so, someone might just save a great number of lives." Orozco wasn't done. "But releasing information about this individual is not what is necessary to head off this impending tragedy. No, the deal requires that this individual be returned to Juarez and turned over to the Cartel. And then, and only then, will their declared war be called off. That's why I'm here Wyrick."

  "So a trade is what has been called for. One for many, if you will." Wyrick shook his head. "And you say this is all in response to that wave of killing in Juarez in January? This is all detailed in your excellent and famous Juarez Report."

  "Yes and yes. I wrote it thinking it was a team of unknowns, maybe mercenaries who committed the murders. Now evidence is pointing to one man with one accomplice doing it all. I missed that, we missed that during our research and review."

  "One man, maybe two; they did all that killing and destruction? That sounds far-fetched, nearly impossible." Wyrick pushed back from the table. "What was it, 35, 40 people killed over five days? That is not the work of one or two men." Wyrick knew intimately that it was 47 killed.

  "One man, with one accomplice. This man." Orozco stabbed the photo on the table with a pointed finger.

  Wyrick's procerus tugged away at his eyebrows as he sat back.

  Orozco settled back in his seat as well. "I never met Seibel. Everyone at a certain security level has heard of him and his accomplishments over three or four decades. But it appears that maybe one of his operations went bad, very bad. Huge failure. Hell, maybe that's why he is gone, in the wind if you will."

  Wyrick's turn to smile. "I got to work with Seibel more than most over the years, and I can tell you that very few of his operations failed. In fact, none of them were complete failures. They might not have achieved every one of the project's goals, but there was always an element of success."

  Orozco thought about that for a few seconds. "So you're saying that Juarez was not a complete failure. Then what was achieved with that mess?"

  "You're asking me questions as if I have knowledge of this event. I can say with absolutely no equivocation that I, or any members of the team I work with, had nothing to do with Juarez. None, nothing. But if it was a mission, what was accomplished? Who was hurt? Who gained? Who was killed? Seems to me some pretty high-ranking Cartel and corrupt Mexican government officials met their end. Who benefitted from their deaths?"

  Orozco shook his head. "See, here you go talking like a spook, acting like a spook. I'll be very clear, I believe you and your Special Activities Division buddies did have something to do with it. I believe that this individual captured in this photo and now corroborated by several witnesses, is one of yours. He might just be the most baddass killer I've ever heard of or encountered, but he made several mistakes along the way."

  "Mistakes?"

  "Yah, mistakes. Like being photographed." Orozco leaned and tapped on the photo again. "That was not very professional. And then being spotted out in the open. Again, not professional."

  "I see what you're saying. But I do want to point out you've got a photo of someone here who could literally be anyone. Why exactly do you believe this is the man who committed these killings? What is the evidence?"

  "Because minutes after this photo was captured, an individual matching this description killed five men in two vehicles and casually got in the first vehicle and drove away. Like it was a stroll in the park."

  "And that's it?"

  "No. The same individual matching this description was spotted in the vicinity of the Castle and the rolling gun battle that followed. More than a dozen killed and left on the street. Again he got away. Disappeared like a ghost."

  "I understand from your report that there were multiple individuals in a truck racing through the streets. And then later that evening near the border crossing another gun battle. And finally, a sniper shooting from the top of a building. You now believe all of this was this mysterious individual."

  "Yes. He was involved in each of the incidents detailed in the report."

  "But your report did not state that." Wyrick's eyebrows rose.

  "Yes. New information has been presented. I said in the report that new information would undoubtedly continue to come to light." Orozco was nowhere near backing down. "We were not looking for a single individual linking it all together. We were working under the assumption of this being a team or a number of teams moving through Juarez taking out Cartel operatives in something of a well-planned clearing operation."

  "And then this new information about this individual pictured here surfaced from some source?"

  "Yes."

  The two of them looked at each other again. No rush.

  It was Wyrick who broke the silence this time. "And this new information, most likely provided to you by the Cartel mind you, points to this individual being a CIA operative."

  "Yes." Time for Orozco to show some more cards. He reached into the leather satchel beside his chair on the floor and pulled out a manila folder. He opened the folder and pulled from it several sheets of paper. On each sheet was a photo or a still of a video. And in each photo or frame, an individual could be seen.

  "At the Cartel's compound outside Juarez; along the highway; in Central Juarez, outside el Castillo; again in city central; and near the border crossing." After each spoken bullet point, Orozco laid a sheet of paper on the table. Six of them now covered a good portion of the tabletop.

  Wyrick scooted closer and leaned in to look at each of the images copied onto the pages. Although in various stages of blur and generally lousy quality, each image presented pretty much the same thing. A man, a man who looked just enough like Preacher to place him at six locations around Juarez. Timestamps in the corners of each image told the chronological tale of death and destruction, murder and mayhem.

  Friggin' killing machine. Beautiful.

  Of course, nothing showed on Wyrick's face. Nothing. No recognition was indicated for the man he helped recruit into this dangerous and deadly shadow world. No pride of ownership showed on his poker face.

  "It appears to resemble the same person in each photocopy." He uttered. "Tough to tell."

  "Yes it does." Orozco replied. "These images were captured from security cameras at these locations."

  "And since these images were not contained in your Juarez Report, I assume these were provided by our friends in the Cartel, especially the one from their compound."

  "That's correct."

  "So, you're letting the Juarez Cartel, or what's left of it, do your work for you and lead this investigation?" Although posed as a question, Wyrick's words were more of a statement.

  "Absolutely. And they can provide more if they want. This individual, whether a CIA operative or FBI goon or mercenary or tooth fairy, is a killer. He's a cold-blooded mass killer. He murdered dozens of people; yes many of them very bad people. But that is still murder and this person needs to be brought to justice and returned to Juarez." Orozco sat forward and placed his hands on the table. "And this needs to happen immediately, within 10 days. If he is not apprehended and brought to Mexico, people will die, good people. My people."

  Orozco reached and tapped each piece of paper on the table. "I need your help. I need the CIA's help with this."

  Wyrick looked up from the assemblage of photos and sat back in his chair. "Absolutely. I want to help you."

  "That doesn't mean you will though. I don't need you to want to help. I need you and this agency to act immediately to save lives. DEA agents and their families are in danger here. Six have been killed in the past few weeks. Two of my men were blown up before my eyes four days ago. I won't lose any more."

  "I am very sorry."

  Orozco held his hand up. "I appreciate your condolences. But I need more, I need action." And Orozco played his final card.

  "I know this is dangerous. I am playing a very precarious game here. You people kill." He shook his head. "You can deny any knowledge of this individual, but you know who he is."

  Orozco reached down and pulled out yet another folder. And from this folder he pulled out a couple of other photos. Wyrick immediate recognized Lt. Stan Meadows. His 6-foot, 6-inch frame was easy to spot. The photos were blurry, until the last one. It was a photo taken at a border crossing. Meadows was behind the wheel. His head was shaved bald.

  The DEA agent then pulled out the last photo from the folder. It was a blown up image. In the photo, Meadows' head could be seen. Just past his ear was another person, another person's face. Riding in the back seat of the car was the individual from the other set of images, the individual pictured in the first set of photos. It was Preacher.

  "This is Lt. Stan Meadows of the US Navy. He is a pilot who flies high-ranking military and government officials around the world. And if I had to guess, he is also a CIA operative." Orozco rubbed his chin. "Meadows was just taken into custody at his home in San Diego by the FBI. He is on a plane headed here. When he gets to D.C., the Lieutenant will provide the identity of the individual who was riding in the back seat of his car as it crossed the border after the extreme violence in Juarez."

  Orozco pursed his lips and shook his head. "And if Meadows does not volunteer this information, I will personally extract it from him."

  Wyrick looked from Orozco to the blown up image again. His face probably gave away the fact that he was pissed. First sign of emotion from the lifelong spook. It wasn't so much the fact the Meadows drove Lance and Marta and the punk kid Felix back across the border. It was the existence of the photo he was holding in his hands.

  He had seen the exact photo and others months earlier in the days after Juarez. He had ordered the acquisition and subsequent destruction of this very image and the video and any negatives. Wyrick shook his head and thought to himself. I have to do everything myself to get it done right.

  Chapter 13

  Some things just work. Grandfather clock mechanisms, photosynthesis, Abbott and Costello; they just plain work.

  Lance Priest out in the world lying his way through each and every day; it also just plain works.

  What also works? Preacher's legs.

  He lifted the left and then the right leg in rapid and repeated fashion, flying, blistering fast, down the parking garage ramp. He bit his left boot into the smooth concrete and burst to the right, jumping a railing in front of a line of parked cars. When he landed eight feet below, he spun and jumped over the railing on that level. He did this five more times until he was on the first level of the garage.

  Tires continued to squeal behind him. Voices shouted. He recognized Pete as one of them.

  This thing escalated rather quickly.

  Four men lay dead up there on the 8th level of the parking garage in downtown St. Louis. But that happens when you corner a ruthless friggin' killer with ice and venom and poison and unhinged hate in his veins.

  Preacher raced out of the parking structure onto the sidewalk and then across the boulevard and into a loose crowd gathered on the street corner. It was like he knew where he was going. And he did, of course.

 

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