Papal Justice (16 page)

The two men stared at each other.

“Faith,” President Zimmer finally said, his voice even and calm. “Maybe we just need a little faith.”

Travis would have laughed if Zimmer didn’t look dead set on his decision. They’d rarely had “the religion talk.” Sure, they crafted the President’s “official” religious stance for the media, but both men held their spirituality in a private corner of their choosing. It was no longer en vogue to profess your religion on the national level. There were too many organizations ready to take pot shots if the opportunity presented itself.

“We can’t do this, Brandon. It’s not right.”

“Take off your political hat for a minute. What if the Pope told you to trust his men, to trust our men, your cousin being among them. Do you trust them? Do you have faith that they can get to the bottom of whatever this conspiracy is?”

It was like getting called to the carpet by your commanding officer. Shit or get off the pot.

The words came from his subconscious.

“I should be with them.”

It took the President a second to comprehend. He nodded.

“You mean with Cal.”

“Yeah. With Cal, Trent, Gaucho and Daniel. Instead I’m up here, reading reports and serving as your glorified secretary.”

He wished he hadn’t said that last part, but the truth slipped through his normal restraint. To his credit, the President didn’t look upset.

“I understand. Do you think I always want to be president? Sometimes I wish I’d met you and Cal earlier, like when I was in college. Maybe you could’ve knocked some sense into my Ivy League brain then and dragged me into the military.”

“You don’t mean that. You’ve had a good life.”

Now Travis really felt bad. Brandon was a good boss, on his way to being a great president, maybe one of the best who ever served his country.

“I do mean it. I have a good life because of you guys. I’ll never forget the sacrifice of so many of our brave troops. It’s the reason I understand why the Pope asked me to wait. He has complete faith in his men. It doesn’t hurt that he probably has an oversized helping of God on his side, too. I think we should wait, see what happens.”

Now he sounds like a president
, Travis thought, staring at the man who’d once been a spoiled politician full of his own inflated worth.

“Okay. So what do we do now?”

The President smiled, the warmth in his tone soothing some of Travis’s misgivings.

“First, I suggest you let the agents on board know. I’m sure they can monitor the situation from here.”

“Anything else?”

This time the President’s eyes seemed a little sadder, but still resolute.

“Yeah. Call your cousin and tell him you’re coming to help. You are one of them, after all.” 

Chapter 22

Outskirts of Puerto Peñasco

3:55am, March 15
^th

They arrived under the cover of darkness. Instead of flying into the small resort town’s airport, Gaucho’s uncle had them land at a hasty landing strip away from the coast, its runway lined with upturned LED flashlights set in little tin buckets. From what Cal could see, the place looked like a perfect smuggling hub: remote and perfectly hidden in a shallow valley. Improvements were minimal, but someone was definitely taking care of the dirt runway. He imagined some old guy out there every day, picking up pebbles and smoothing out rough edges. Not a bad gig for an old-timer, if you didn’t mind living in the desert. From what he’d seen of Ruiz, the guy probably paid pretty well, too.

They were thirty men strong. While Ruiz said he would love to take an army north, even he had limitations. Even at thirty, keeping concealed would be close to impossible, but everyone agreed that the extra firepower was needed.

“Here come the vans,” Daniel said, pointing into the darkness. Everyone turned that way.

It was a short hop into town, maybe twenty minutes. Ruiz had already gotten confirmation that a couple large fishing vessels had come in earlier. If they were lucky they could cut off El Moreno before he bolted north. Cal was concerned that they had no idea where the guy was going. The U.S. border ran hundreds of miles. If their thirty-man force couldn’t snatch him, it might be like looking for a single grain of sand on a pristine beach.

The passenger vans rumbled closer, opting to turn onto the runway. Cal’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Travis.

Cal answered. “Hey, Trav.”

“Can you talk?”

“Hold on.” Cal moved a few feet away from the others, Daniel following close by. “Okay. We just got to the port. We’re about to hop in our transport and—”

“Cal, your plans just changed.”

“What happened?” His mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario. Had El Moreno somehow gotten past them and already bounded across the border?

“The Pope just got kidnapped.”

“No way,” Cal exhaled.

“Yeah. He got a call in to Brandon a few minutes ago. Said he and his security team were attacked. We thought he might’ve been killed, but the Secret Service guys with us are monitoring the police channels. The cops think it’s a shipment exchange gone bad. No sign of the Pope, but a bunch of dead Swiss Guards who they still think are hired guns.”

“Holy shit. Are the spooks coming in, spec-ops?” Cal assumed that the President had pressed every emergency button he had to get the Pope back. This could look bad for everyone involved.

“No.”

“Wait, what?”

“We’re not calling anyone in.”

“Why the hell not?! Let me talk to Brandon. He’s about to make the dumbest—”

“Cal,” Travis interrupted. “The Pope asked Brandon not to call in the big guns.”

Cal almost screamed at his cousin. He gritted his teeth instead and said, “So what the hell are you going to do?”

“The Pope asked for you and the monks to find him.”

That almost surprised Cal more than Travis’s admission that the President wasn’t going to lift a finger to help the Pope.

“Look, Trav. What you need to do is shut down the border. Call the Mexican government, make them deploy their troops and we do the same on our side of the border. I’m sure they didn’t go far.”

“It’s already done, Cal. It’s you guys or nothing. Are you telling me you won’t do it?”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying. Of course we’ll do it, but this has the potential to get really fucking ugly.”

“I know that and so does Zimmer.”

Cal knew it was no use to keep up the barrage. Like Travis said, the plan was set. The Marine’s mind clicked over as he refocused on their new mission: save the Pope.

“There’s one more thing,” Travis said.

“Please don’t tell me the Pope said we couldn’t use guns.”

“No. The last thing is that I’m coming to help. I got a hookup with the Marines at Yuma. They’re going to insert me and four Secret Service agents wherever you think we should meet.”

Most people would have scoffed at the idea of a paper pusher coming along on a rescue mission. But Travis was a SEAL and barely forty years old. He’d somehow kept his elite level physical abilities despite his demanding job. He’d even heard from the President that Travis liked to sneak out on military installation visits to train with the troops. Cal bet his cousin hadn’t lost a step. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t give him a hard time about it.

“You sure you can keep up, old man?” Cal asked, warming to the idea of his cousin joining their merry band.

“I’ll smoke your ass, sonny.”

Cal grinned. It was like old times. “Okay. Let me talk to Ruiz, and then I’ll let you know where we want you.”

“We’ll be ready.”

The Jefferson Group operators, the monks, and Armando Ruiz listened as Cal told them about the Pope. He left out any mention of the President. Shock and anger radiated from the Brothers of St. Longinus. Determined scowls were cast by the TJG boys. It was Ruiz that surprised Cal the most. The man looked like he was going to cry. Not like a couple of tears, but a full on blubbering meltdown.

The stoic leader somehow kept it together until Cal finished.

“So that’s it. We need to get up to Mexicali as soon as we can. They’re pretty sure the attackers slipped back through the border from Calexico. Now, the problem is transportation. Trav says they’ve shut down the airports in both cities, so flying straight in is a no-go. If we take the vans, I’m afraid to ask how long it would take.”

Cal’s eyes rested on Ruiz for the answer. The cartel leader had regained a measure of his composure and answered in a strained voice, “Four hours barring any traffic.”

“That’s too long. Any other ideas?” Cal asked the rest of the men. Maybe Brother Hendrik had a miracle up his robe sleeve.

No one answered. Instead, Daniel asked, “What about El Moreno?”

Cal had almost forgotten about the Guerrero Cartel and their terrorist companions.

“I think our priority is the Pope. Anyone disagree?” Cal asked.

Even the monks agreed.

“If we’re lucky, they’re part of the kidnapping,” Cal continued. “I find it hard to believe this is a coincidence. Ruiz, do you think your competition could pull this off?”

Ruiz’s eyes snapped up, like Cal was accusing him.

“Whatever my competition is, many of them are still men of faith. No, I don’t think they would do this, but El Moreno would. Few people know this, but he hates the Catholic Church. I don’t know why, but I’m sure it has something to do with him being an orphan.”

Cal nodded. “That’s good to know. At least now we have suspect number one identified. Any ideas on how we can get north?”

Ruiz spoke up again. “I have an idea, but you won’t like it.” He had a look on his face like he’d just remembered something he’d left hidden away.

“What is it?”

“The Mexicali Cartel owes me a couple of favors.”

“But I thought they were the enemy,” Gaucho said.

Ruiz shrugged. “Like any business, competition is fierce, but sometimes we work together on things. The Mexicali Cartel makes a lot of money ferrying other cartels’ drugs across the border just like we help with import in Acapulco. Besides, Barachon won’t like the fact that the Pope was kidnapped.”

“Who’s that?” Cal asked.

“The leader of the Mexicali Cartel. His brother is a priest, and Barachon has funded a handful of churches around his city. If there’s anyone who would like revenge, it’s him.”

“Okay, but I’m not sure we should tell him about the Pope,” Cal said, worried that the word could spread and make any rescue attempt impossible.

“The way I see it, our options are pretty limited, Cal,” MSgt Trent interjected. “I say we listen to Ruiz and take our chances.”

It was a crapshoot any way you looked at it. Cal gave the Pope a twenty-percent chance of survival. If the jihadis got their hands on him, no doubt an internet video was about to hit the waves. Had that been their play all along, to lure the well-meaning Pope to Mexico and snatch him to be the world’s best piece of propaganda? It was bold as hell, but someone had already pulled off the hardest part. Time was ticking.

“Fine. Make the call,” Cal said. “The faster we get there, the better our chances.”

Ruiz nodded and moved off to call his fellow cartel jefe.

+++

The conversation went smoother than Ruiz expected. Other than the shock on the other end, Barachon took it well. As Ruiz knew he would, the Mexicali
padron
wanted blood.

“You let me cut them into pieces, Armando.
Animales
. You let me do that, and I will give you anything you need,” he’d said.

Barachon gave Ruiz the secret coordinates for one of his cartel’s hidden landing strips. Each faction had them and this one happened to be very close to Mexicali. They’d said their goodbyes and Ruiz hung up the call.

He looked up at the sky, stars twinkling down in the pre-dawn air. He said a prayer, then another. Maybe it was time. Could this be the sign he’d been waiting for? He’d first thought that divine intervention was in play when his nephew called. They’d been close, more like father and son than uncle and nephew. Ruiz was the strong male influence Gaucho needed as a child. In turn, his nephew had loved him unconditionally. On his long deployments with the Army, the fatherless soldier had always carried a photograph of a smiling Gaucho wearing a cowboy hat and the gunslinger’s belt he’d given the boy.

Ruiz yearned for those days. He’d secretly watched his nephew and his American friends. They were good men. Ruiz said a final prayer and went in search of his nephew. They would have a few minutes before the airplanes were refueled.

+++

“Gaucho, can I talk to you and Cal?” Ruiz asked. Gaucho looked up from where he was stowing his gear in the luggage compartment of the food transport plane. It bore the faded lettering Acapulco Produce, and was apparently one of his uncle’s many business ventures.

“Sure.”

They went to find Cal. He was talking with Brother Hendrik, who had just talked to his superiors in Rome. The monk was as heated as Gaucho had seen him. He looked like he would likely rip off the head of whoever had taken the Pope.

“We’ll do everything we can, I promise,” Cal was saying. Brother Hendrik nodded curtly and left.

“Cal, my uncle says he wants to talk to us,” Gaucho said.

“Did he get in touch with Bajon?” Cal asked, skewering the proper pronunciation.

“It’s Barachon,” Ruiz corrected, “and yes. He has a secret strip outside of Mexicali. He’ll be waiting with vehicles to get us inside the city.”

“And the police? Do you think they’ll be a problem?”

“He tells me they won’t. The ones that are on his payroll will stay out of the way.”

“Great. Anything else?”

Ruiz nodded slowly. “There’s something I think you should know.”

Oh shit
, Gaucho thought.

Ruiz continued after making sure no one was within earshot. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Cal’s eyes narrowed. Gaucho had seen that look before. “Tell me.”