Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

“I wouldn’t want this to get around,” Castillo replied, “but I estimate there are no more than forty-two of the normal complement of fifty-two cards in his deck. He doesn’t think he’s Napoleon, and he doesn’t, so far as we know, howl at the moon. But…”

“So why hasn’t he been moved out of the Oval Office and into a padded cell?”

“We’ve already forced one President—Nixon—to resign or face impeachment, and actually tried to impeach one—Clinton—in the Senate. Both times, it nearly tore the country apart; we don’t want to do that again.”

“‘We’?” Pena asked softly.

“I meant ‘we Americans,’” Castillo replied. “The decision to—how do I say this?—live with Clendennen and try to keep him from doing real harm was made primarily by the secretary of State, Natalie Cohen, Generals Naylor and McNab, and a few others in pay grades much higher than my own. I’m just a simple old soldier obeying orders.”

“You didn’t make that up,” Pena said. “You stole it.”

“What?”

“I saw that movie, Carlitos. George C. Scott, playing General Patton, was trying to lay some crap on Karl Malden, who was playing General Omar Bradley, and when Bradley called him on it, Patton said, smiling, what you just said, ‘I’m just a simple old soldier obeying orders,’ and Malden/Bradley said, ‘Bullshit.’”

“I can’t imagine General Bradley saying ‘bullshit’ under any circumstances,” Castillo said prissily. “General Bradley marched in the Long Gray Line and was an officer and a gentleman.”

“Oh, God,” Pena said, laughing. “What you are, Carlitos, is an idiot with a death wish. Only an idiot with, say, twenty-two cards in his deck would come back here the way you have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? There’s a big sign in the airport that says ‘Welcome to Cozumel!’ That didn’t mean me?”

“Juan Carlos,” Svetlana asked, “what do you mean ‘death wish’?”

It took Pena a moment to frame his reply, and when he gave it, his tone was dead serious.

“About six weeks ago, Svetlana,” he said, “specifically on April twenty-second, eleven men were shot to death at KM 125.5 on National Road 200. That’s near Huixtla, in the state of Chiapas.

“One of the bodies remains unidentified, but there is reason to believe that it is that of a Russian, an agent of the SVR. Two bodies were identified as those of Enrico Saldivia and Juan Sánchez, both known to be members of the Venezuelan Dirección de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención, commonly referred to by its acronym, DISIP. The remaining bodies were all Mexican nationals. Two of them belonged to the Zambada Cartel, which is run by Joaquín Archivaldo. These bodies were further identified to be former Special Forces soldiers—Mexican Special Forces, trained and equipped by American Special Forces—who changed sides.

“The other six men are known to have been members of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is run by Joaquín Guzmán Loera and Ismael Zambada García.

“Those two cartels are normally at each other’s throats, but in this case were working together. What they had done was kidnap an American Special Forces officer, Lieutenant Colonel James D. Ferris, with the idea of exchanging him for a man named Félix Abrego, who had been convicted in the U.S. of the murder of several American DEA agents. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and was then confined at the Florence Maximum Security Prison in Colorado.

“The American President, Clendennen, elected to abrogate the long-standing U.S. policy of not negotiating in situations like this, and their plan had proceeded to the point where, on April twenty-second, they were transporting Colonel Ferris to the Oaxaca State Prison, where his exchange for Señor Abrego was to take place.

“En route, their convoy of vehicles was intercepted by parties unknown. Colonel Ferris was liberated and shortly thereafter was welcomed home by President Clendennen in Washington.

“Everyone in the convoy—Russian, Venezuelan, and Mexican—died. As each was shot at least two times in the head, it had the appearance of what is known in law enforcement circles as a ‘professional hit.’

“The Zambada and Sinaloa cartels, the Venezuelan DISIP, and, I would suppose, the SVR, believe our Carlito was the parties unknown—the shooter, so to speak—and are very anxious to get suitable revenge for his assault on their prestige. I have heard that after he’s tortured to death, they plan to decapitate his corpse and hang his head from a bridge over the highway in Acapulco, with his genitalia in his mouth.”

Castillo opened his mouth to protest, but in the split second before the words “Hey, I didn’t shoot any of those bastards and you know it!” were to come out of his mouth, Castillo closed it.

That’s moot. While I didn’t actually shoot anybody, rescuing Jim Ferris was my operation. I planned it and I ordered its execution. I had no idea Juan Carlos planned not only to have his men kill them all, but also to personally fire two coup de grâce rounds into their ears, and would have told him not to had I known. But that’s also moot.

And it wouldn’t have mattered if I had left all of them neatly trussed up, but alive, at the side of the road. They would still know I was responsible for grabbing Ferris and would still be planning to hang my head from an Acapulco bridge with my severed dick in my mouth.

“And that, Sweaty,” Juan Carlos said, “is why our Carlito’s presence here suggests he has a death wish.”

“You’re underestimating him again, Juan Carlos,” Sweaty said calmly. “My Carlos is not a fool, and he certainly doesn’t have a death wish.”

I think that’s what they call blind loyalty.

“You’re underestimating these people, Sweaty,” Pena said.

“I never underestimate my enemies,” she replied.