Seal team six extra size.., p.46
SEAL Team Six Extra-Sized Holiday Bundle, page 46
Chili and Heath had been reassigned to ratfuck sniper missions in Helmand Province and Manny had been recently taking advanced courses in technical climbing with the 10th Mountain in Colorado. You don't train, you retrain.
Now they were back together and awaiting background on their next mission. Only Manny had received a preliminary briefing from Commander Tolliver and could only share that the op was being called Operation Openhand for now and was being set up in this hemisphere.
The room was set up for a presentation. A digital projector sat on a table before a one hundred inch screen and there was fresh coffee and a tray of pastries. That always meant some civilian humps from Washington would be in attendance. They'd be asking the five SEALs in the room to go kill and die in what was probably already a totally fucked op. But that's no reason not to have all the amenities of a Holiday Inn conference room.
The team bullshitted and caught up, lounging in the schoolroom desks set up in messy rows in the room.
"What are you going to do with the money?" Manny said.
"I'm gonna pay off my mom and dad's mortgage," Pig said.
"Why not buy 'em a new house?" Chili wanted to know.
"They like it there," Pig said. His parents would no more think of selling their house in San Jacinto than they would one of their kids. "I might be able to convince them to put in a pool or add a second floor maybe."
"So, Pig's gonna help his parents turn their house into a beaner palace," Heath said. "What about you, Flame?"
"I haven't thought about it," Flame said. "I guess I'll give my mom some of it to hold onto. Buy a new car. I just don't know. I never had that kind of money on me."
"Yeah, well no more trips to AC" Manny said. "Hang onto that cash as long as you can, bros. You might need it when Uncle Sam puts you back on the street."
"We had all the sin city we can handle for now," Pig said and punched Flame in the shoulder. "My dick still hurts from those honeys the casino sent up."
"Some very patriotic young ladies," Flame grinned.
"Officer on deck," Chili said as Commander Branch Tolliver stepped into the room and removed his cap. Behind him were two unknown men in raincoats and suits followed by Blair Freeman. The SEALs knew Freeman but the other two were new to them.
The team stood to greet the men as Tolliver made the introductions. One of the suits was from State and the other was from the DEA. Freeman they knew from their previous ops. He was CIA and none of the team trusted him fully. They saw him for the opportunistic political animal he was and knew he'd screw them over in a heartbeat if he ever saw the team's actions as a liability to his career plans. They weren't any happier to see the wonk from State either. These worsted wool bureaucrats were all legalities and limitations. The presence of one of them here at Little Creek meant there would be tight-ass rules of engagement on this operation; the kind that give the politicians deniability if things go south and bragging rights if they succeed. Either option is bought with the blood and sweat of the SEALs in this room.
The DEA guy they'd give a pass to for now. He was maybe in his thirties and had a gunfighter mustache that could mean he was the real deal or just some deskbound dude trying to butch it up. They'd all been on ops with Drug Enforcement in Colombia and Guatemala and there were the same mix of assholes and stand-up guys in that agency as any other government organ. But his presence made them think they'd be assisting the military in Colombia again.
It all remained polite as hands were shaken and names exchanged. This was the tight circle; the need-to-know group who'd plan the initial stages of the mission before other talents were brought to bear. They'd sort out who could be trusted as the days went on. In the end it would all be up to the SEALs themselves to make the moment-to-moment, life-or-death decisions that the mission required. Then the rules of engagement wouldn't mean jack shit; whoever stood between the team's success and survival was dead already.
"Agent Freeman, this is your show," Tolliver said and took a seat with the other SEALs. He earned that seat too. He didn't always command a desk. "Tolly," as he was known in SEAL Team Four when they jumped off the coast of Grenada in a boats operation to take the island back from Cuban troops in '83, was one tough hombre. It went hard for the team in Grenada and much of the training the younger men in this room received was as a result of lessons learned in that operation.
Blair Freeman remained standing while the State and DEA guy sat at the table at the head of the classroom after making sure they got themselves some coffee and Danish. None of the SEALs touched the goodies. It was a matter of pride for them. They'd go without even available luxuries to make the silent point that they were separate beings from these government tools.
"What we have is another hurry-up situation," Blair Freeman began. "We'll have first-glance mission profiles for you to look over after we break. But this is the kind of op you guys have had success with in the past."
That meant this was already a clusterfuck in the making. Most SEAL operations were months in the planning with every contingency worked out and the mission clock planned to the second. But the team in this room had broken the cardinal rule for serving military personnel. The one right under "never volunteer." They excelled at the shit job, the snipe hunt. They were the unalloyed best small unit in any service at situations their masters daintily referred to as "fluid."
While other ops had the luxury of practicing in real world conditions with all available intel and strict mission parameters, Manny, Heath and the other men in this room had shown that they could be dropped into the chaos and find their target with bare bones background and spadework. In Surinam they went a hundred miles up river in a mini-sub, tracked a cell of terrorists, and eliminated them without back-up or support in an op that took days when most SEAL ops lasted minutes. In Libya they were served an even thicker shit sandwich when they were inserted in the middle of that country's civil war to find and abduct a Chinese national right from under the nose of one of Colonel Gaddafi's cousins.
They were the long shots; the motherfuckers you sent in when there was no other option and the clock was ticking down to Zulu.
"Five days ago a small craft exploded off the coast of southern California," Freeman went on and tabbed a remote to bring a map of the waters around Catalina up on the big screen behind him. "It was a semi-submersible and was a lot like the kind of boats the cartels build for trafficking drugs into the United States. At first look anyway.
"But this was a whole different animal and, if its construction relates to the narcos, it's only tangentially," Freeman said and brought a new image up on the screen. What looked like chunks of scorched metal scrap lay carefully arranged in no recognizable order on a table covered over in white tarping.
"This is all that's left of what we think was a submersible constructed of explosive materials covered by a thin metal shell." The SEALs sat forward and studied the image on the screen. "Seven tons of Semtex powered by a Kubota four cylinder diesel engine with a four man crew. This is our best guesstimate from Coast Guard witnesses, chemical analysis and the little we could recover of the craft itself."
"Holy shit," Flame said and surprised himself when he said it aloud.
"That about sums it up, " Tolliver said, turning to the team. "Let an old bosun tell you what this is about. This beast displaces about twelve tons once you get it crewed and fueled. The motor they found could propel it at ten knots minimum and given the right sea conditions you could goose it another five knots an hour. Estimated range is roughly fifteen hundred miles. Its superstructure was an aluminum frame with a hull made of Semtex that'd been aerated to create a foam that can be formed around the frame. It's a floating car bomb."
"You said fifteen hundred miles, sir?" Manny said.
"Yes, it has a shorter range than the Colombian submersibles we've seen," Tolliver said and watched while the team did quick mental calculations.
"That's Mexico, sir," Chili said.
"Good work, sailor," Tolliver smiled his kindly country preacher smile that never seemed to reach as far as his Bassett hound eyes.
That's why State was here. This one was going to be dicey from a diplomatic perspective. The team was used to jumping in where they shouldn't be. But this was their neighbor and relationships were always complicated. It was the team's kind of deal though, right smack into a war zone where they'd have no friends on the ground.
Freeman took over the talk with a map of the Pacific coastline of Mexico up on the screen.
"That means the sub off Catalina could have come from anywhere along over two thousand miles of coastline from Cabo or Calima north," Freeman said. "And, depending from where it launched we could be looking at targets along the left coast all the way up to Los Angeles."
"Do we have any idea of the projected target?" Heath this time.
"No. It could be a military ship like an aircraft carrier," Freeman said. "Or a cruise ship. We have no way of knowing."
"A device like that would use up most of its force in the water," Flame said. "The target would have to be something in the water to take advantage of the concussive force. A ship right?"
"Or a bridge," Manny put in. "Moor something of that weight by a bridge support and you're looking at serious structural compromise. You could bring down a whole span."
"Theories are like assholes, gentlemen," Tolliver said. "We all have one. But we need to see that no more of these weapons are deployed."
Freeman felt like his presentation was being hijacked and quickly stepped forward to take control again. He had an opportunity to show off for this guy from State and wasn't going to let the Navy take it from him.
"Exactly, Commander," Freeman said with a nod to protocol and a note of forced politeness. "We're concerned with the source; where are they constructing them, who is constructing them and how are they gaining access to the water. That's what we need to interdict. And we have two conflicting demands for this op; it needs to be mounted quickly and requires a light touch."
"Has the Mexican government been brought up to speed on this?" Manny again.
"God, no," the man from State spoke up. He said no more but what he said was enough.
"Anything on the jungle telegraph about who's putting this on?" Heath said.
"Not one whisper," Freeman said. "We can only assume it's Al Qaeda or their cousins. They've been active in Latin America and you've all seen the classified updates containing evidence of Muslim terror activity along our southern border. They haven't fully infiltrated the cartels bringing drugs in but they both share a revolutionary fervor that could lead them to cooperate with each other in the short term."
"This seems advanced for Al Qaeda," Pig said. "They're down to car bombs and random shootings these days. Something this ambitious means money, time and expertise. Could it be the cartels themselves?"
"It's not to their advantage." The DEA man broke his silence. "Bitching about the Yanqui is a hobby down there but striking at the USA brings more heat on the gangs then they can handle. The last thing they want is the president ordering an invasion of Northern Mexico. It's probably the only thing they really fear, American military intervention."
"But that's what you five will be giving them," Freeman said. "A direct American military action to interdict and compromise their submarine factory."
"You're a contingency at best," the man from State added.
"Right," Freeman went on less certainly. "Once we find the facility where they're building them we'll drop you in. Or failing that, you'll intercept them in transit. At the same time we'll turn to our network of informants to try and roll up the cell responsible from the other side."
"Intercept in transit?" Tolliver said with an edge showing in his voice. "How'd that work out for the Coasties?"
"No one said there's no risk entailed," Freeman said.
"Accepted," Tolliver said, biting off his words. "These guys take all the risks and ask for seconds. But I can't condone sending them to chase a floating bomb that we know damn-all about."
"Worst case scenario," the man from State said and all eyes turned to him. "If we had to take this craft en route, the team could locate it and, given its position vis-à-vis national waters, it could be taken out from the air, correct?"
"Yes, sir," was all Tolliver would offer.
Blair Freeman waited a beat to see if the man from State had more to add and then continued.
"We'll know more about the nature of the operation as more intel comes in and whether or not this team will be needed to participate and what form that participation might take. In prep for a potential insertion, Agent Tartaglione will share the DEA's part in this and present some possible scenarios for finding and negating this current threat."
The DEA guy nodded to all.
"And following his remarks, I'm sure Undersecretary Williams will have some instructions for you," Freeman said and practically bowed to the man behind the table.
"No," the man from State said with a wan smile. "I'm just here to listen."
CHAPTER TEN
MAZATLAN
Three days later and German Reyes was still restless.
He slept late. No alarm clock. The sound of the kids arguing somewhere in the apartment woke him up. He could smell eggs frying from the kitchen. Tejana was making his favorite breakfast: eggs with chili powder and peppers sautéed in butter. Another day of his vacation was starting and he dreaded it.
Vacation? Mierda. This was a suspension. Colonel Pena was smiling when he offered this "reward" but it was a smile that hid a lie. They wanted him away from his own investigation. It was to be enough time for him to cool off and any solid lead to wither away.
The PF's latest strategy for dealing with the cartels was called Alto y Bajo, High and Low. Units would investigate and eliminate street level operations while others went after the finances of the caiques, the chiefs, of the gangs; the ones living high on the hill above the blood and shit of the insurrection.
Those boxes of Egyptian cold pills were a direct link up the food chain to a major supplier of the building blocks for crystal meth production. They provided evidence of an international aspect to the local meth trade. That was a big step up from crystal makers robbing farmacias to steal stocks of allergy drugs off of store shelves. But the colonel was acting as though it were irrelevant.
It was probably political. Someone else wanted to follow this lead and receive the accolades and promotions that would come with it. The colonel had his favorites and German knew, even though he was a decorated officer with many arrests and convictions of hundreds of narcos, he was not one of the golden boys of the bureau.
He slippered into the tiny kitchen where Ciri and Santo were still arguing; silly sibling carping that continued no matter how many times Tejana shushed them.
"I'll eat on the balcony," German said and stepped out onto the narrow concrete shelf with its rusting wrought iron railing. He sat at the cheap patio set they bought at Mr. Sam's when he and Tejana were first married. Ten floors above the street was high enough to discourage bugs and the smell of the street. It also afforded a tiny slice of an ocean view between two other towers to the west.
"I know, I know, they will not keep quiet," Tejana said as she brought him a tall glass of orange juice and a steaming plate piled with scrambled eggs and peppers.
"Easter break will be over soon," German said and poked at the eggs. "They will be back in school again and you'll complain that it's too quiet around the flat."
"There are only four days left in their break," Tejana said and sat down across from him. "It's a chance for us all to do something together. "
"I suppose so." He could hear a sudden flurry of gunshots somewhere far off in the city. They were as much a part of the soundtrack of Mazatlan as the beep of horns on the highway or the sound of construction from the new hotels along the beach.
"But we won't," Tejana said.
"What do you mean?"
"You say you will spend time with the kids but you don't mean it. You're just putting me off."
He took a forkful of eggs. He couldn't meet her eyes.
"You need to settle this. I can tell when something is bothering you. Staying up late. Sleeping into the morning. This is not a rest for you."
"This supplier of pseudo is important. I feel it in my heart. Those feelings have never been wrong. They've led me to my biggest arrests."
"So, you must tell someone. You have to make them see what you see."
"What can I do, Tejana? The colonel gives me the brush off. He tells me it will be looked into. I'm shut out."
"Is there someone else to go to?"
"Where? To the press? The TV? Over the colonel's head? Any of those would end my career."
"There has to be someone you can at least give your evidence to," she said and reached across the table to take his hand.
"It will mean taking the car for the next couple of days."
"Then go," she said. "We'll be fine here. Drink your juice."
It had already turned warm but he drained the glass just to see her smile.
He took the Golf that evening and drove through the night when it was cooler. One-Fifty South along the beaches and then the long climb to Mexico City.
In clothes rumpled from the long drive he stood on a tree shaded boulevard and looked across at a walled compound. A pair of stolid looking armed guards in crisp tan shirts and dark blue pants and gleaming white caps walked sentry. He hesitated and fingered the box of innocent little cold tablets in his pocket. Crossing this street and entering through those gates would alter his life and take him places he could only guess at now. It would be seen as a betrayal by his commanders and fellow officers.
Or they'll turn him away. A box of cold pills? So what? Go home, Pancho.
Then he thought of Padilla lying dead in the street. He thought of his own kids growing up as prisoners in their own apartment because the streets and parks were frequent battlegrounds for the insurrectos.
