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“I’m not Captain Lim. I will fucking spatter your brains all over the walls of this office and then I’ll tear the place apart.”
Zhang tried to take a breath, failed. “I don’t want Yue hurt.”
“Who’s Yue?”
“She’s like my daughter. She’s with this man.”
“I don’t give a shit about her.”
“She can’t get hurt.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Yes, but it is,” Zhang said. “I would gladly give my life for her.”
Retzach studied the fat man’s face, looking deep into his eyes for any hint of prevarication. He found none. “I will make sure Yue isn’t hurt, okay?”
In his turn, Zhang studied the man in whose hands his life lay. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“How do we know either of us can trust the other? Sometimes we have to rely on faith.” This was, of course, a lie. Lacking empathy, Retzach had no faith in anything or anyone. However, he would do his best to keep the girl out of it.
“Push me back,” Zhang said, having made up his mind.
“What?”
“The chair. I can’t move it with that thing to my head.”
Retzach removed the muzzle of the Beretta, and the fat man rolled his chair away.
“Underneath the rug, and keep to the left,” he said with a despairing sigh.
“Flashlight,” Retzach said, staring down at the blackness.
Zhang had no recourse but to give it to him.
Bourne, crouched down, remained absolutely still. After that first sound, he’d heard nothing more, beyond the doleful drip of water somewhere nearby and the incessant scurrying of rats. But there was now a subtle shift in the flow of air along the tunnel, indicative of a moving body blocking a section of it. A moment later he saw the silverfish brilliance of a flashlight beam advancing toward them. He had positioned himself far enough back in the right-hand fork to remain invisible in the periphery of the circle of light trained on the left-hand fork.
As the light, bobbing slightly with each footstep, came ever closer, Bourne prepared himself. At the last moment, the beam swung away to illuminate the left-hand turning, and Bourne could just make out the silhouette of the human form behind the dazzling light.
Whoever was following them proceeded down the adjacent tunnel at a steady pace. Bourne counted to fifteen, then rose, silently returned to the branching, and followed to the left. He was going by scent now, but there was none. Not a hint of a human scent—just the mineral rock, the seeping water, the black earth.
It’s not possible, Bourne thought. He must be here; he must be close at hand.
At that moment something metallic swung into the side of his head and a shot went off.
13
Maricruz and Felipe Matamoros were traveling in his private plane. Three of her men and three of his, plus the pilot, made up the others on board. The plane, which had taken off from a private, hidden airstrip a mile from his villa in Malacates, was headed north to San Luis Potosí.
“This place we fly into,” Matamoros was saying, “is the site of the worst of our turf wars with Raul Giron and the Sinaloa cartel.”
“So now,” Maricruz said, “it will be the last battleground and the first area of the new alliance.”
He stared out the Perspex window at the shell-like sky and, below, the rolling geography of the land north of the Distrito Federal. Maricruz wondered whether he felt like a god—the Aztec winged serpent Quetzalcoatl.
“For so many years the Sinaloa were the kings of Mexico,” he mused. “The cartel was riding high with no one to mount a serious challenge. Then the Gulf cartel made a group of us an offer we didn’t want to refuse and we defected from the elite forces of the army. Right idea, wrong result.
“For a time we worked for them, killing Sinaloa soldiers and gobbling up territories, until we had a complete picture of the lay of the land. Then we broke away and formed our own cartel and turned on our former bosses. Now the Gulf is a shadow of its former self. We have taken over their territory and an increasing amount of the Sinaloa’s as well. But the Sinaloa are stronger, better established, their leadership smarter, hooked into the right politicos. They know how to resist us. Still, slowly but surely, we keep pushing them back, gaining more and more territory.” He turned back to her. “But you’re right, now that you have given us an alternative, the price we have been paying is too high. Now we have you, your foolproof method of money laundering, and your pipeline to unlimited drugs direct from the source. My compadres agree with me absolutely.
“We’re with you now, mi princesa. No longer do we have to make deals with the disgusting pigs who call themselves politicians, with police leaders so greedy they all but drool when I seal my pacts with them. Now we can fuck all of them, as we’ve been longing to do for years.”
The main thing about greed, Maricruz thought now, was that it made you stupid. Even worse, it made you careless. The gloss on Matamoros’s eyes was pure greed. Again, he had given himself away without knowing it. Maricruz was grateful, but she knew better than to gloat. She was still in extreme peril; she’d need all her wits and guile to navigate through the next several hours.
At that point, she could feel the change in air pressure as the plane began its descent into the San Luis Potosí area. Peering out the window, she could already see a contingent of armed men standing around enormous black SUVs, their heads raised to stare at the plane as it came in for a landing on the isolated airstrip.
Matamoros turned to her as the wheels made contact with the tarmac. “My compadres have chosen to allow me to negotiate for them, mujer. There is no need for you to meet them.”
With that enigmatic instruction, Matamoros released his seat belt and, though they were still taxiing, rose and stepped past her men and his to the cockpit where, bending over, he spoke at length to the pilot in a low voice that was not audible to her or to anyone else inside the plane.
Behind him, his men were reaching for assault rifles. When they were armed, they handed out more to Maricruz’s men in a show of solidarity. Matamoros strode back through the plane, grinning at the six armed men.
“Is this necessary?” she asked.
“Protection must be put in place,” he said, “until such time as the alliance is consummated.”
The plane had come to a stop at the far end of the runway, but Maricruz noticed that the pilot had not shut down the engines. Still, one of Matamoros’s men twisted the lock bar, opened the door, and unfolded the metal staircase to the tarmac. He went down first, fitting his sunglasses in place. The other two men descended close behind, followed by Maricruz’s men.
It was almost sunset, the western sky aflame with streaks of red and orange. The oval of the sun, free of the terrible brown haze gripping Mexico City, was clear and strong and hot, even as night was on its way. Maricruz and Felipe Matamoros stood at the top of the steps, surveying the tableau before them—their men at the ready, the Sinaloa contingent smoking with their assault rifles slung across their broad chests. Some of them carried machetes. They glowered at the couple just emerged from the plane.
“You see that man there, second from the left,” Matamoros said without pointing or moving his head.
Maricruz saw a portly man, shorter than she had imagined, with a great Zapata mustache that might have been comical on someone else. It wasn’t on him. He had small, round ears, like a monkey, a hawk-like nose, and black eyes like shiny buttons, sunk deep in his flesh. “I do.”
“Raul Giron,” Matamoros said. “He wears his personality on his face.”
“You don’t respect him,” Maricruz said.
“Respect, don’t respect. I want to crush his fucking head like a beetle underfoot.”
Maricruz recognized the tiny quaver in Matamoros’s voice. “That emotion belongs in the past, Felipe. From this moment on, you must keep the vision of the future firmly planted in your mind.”
“Time to confront that
fucker Giron,” Matamoros said.
“Just take it easy and let me do the talking. That’s all I ask.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, smiling pleasantly as they began to descend to earth.
Then, when they were almost at the bottom of the stairs, a rear door to one of the black SUVs swung open, and out stepped a man as handsome as any telenovela actor. Tall and stately, with slicked-back silver hair and an immaculate mustache, he wore an impeccably tailored suit, expensive lizard-skin boots, and a telegenic smile. He looked as if he had just come from a film’s makeup wagon.
Maricruz felt a slight tremor go through Matamoros. A kind of electric charge lit him up.
“Carlos Danda Carlos,” he said under his breath. “Chief of Mexico’s anti-drug enforcement agency.”
“What in the hell is he doing here?”
Matamoros ignored her question. “In many circles, he is known as Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of judgment, night, deceit, and sorcery.”
At last, they were on the ground. Men shifted, tense, vigilant, waiting with an almost terminal degree of impatience.
“Raul Giron is boss of the Sinaloa, but in a sense he is also a figurehead,” Matamoros said, picking his way at a deliberate pace toward the meet. “He takes his orders from Carlos Danda Carlos, the real power behind the Sinaloa cartel.”
Yue, creeping up behind Bourne, had barreled into Retzach’s legs so that when he pulled the trigger, the shot flew harmlessly into the tunnel’s ceiling. In reflex he kicked out, by chance connecting with her wounded ankle. She cried out, rolled to one side, and crumpled up into a fetal position.
Bourne, head throbbing from the blow Retzach had delivered, reacted in a blur of motion, delivering three kites in rapid succession to Retzach’s ribs. Retzach brought his gun down, but Bourne was ready for that. He grabbed the wrist with one hand, chopped down on it with the edge of the other. Retzach grunted, and, leaning in, jammed his shoulder into Bourne’s chest, using his weight to drive him back against the wall.
As they both struck the side, a shower of dirt and debris rained down on them. Retzach slammed Bourne back against the wall again, causing a heavier shower, which included bits of rotten wood chips. Something groaned above them. Retzach drove Bourne into the wall once again, and now the boards above their head sagged, the most rotten of them cracking as if made of balsa wood.
As Bourne staggered, Retzach whipped him around in front of him, wrapped his arm around his throat, and put the heel of his left hand under Bourne’s left ear. This was one of the killing holds taught to Kidon recruits; it was meant to break your victim’s neck in one short movement.
Bourne, at once recognizing Retzach’s intent, drove the heel of his shoe so hard into Retzach’s instep he shattered it. For a split second Retzach’s left hand wavered as the shock slapped him like an ocean wave. That was all the time Bourne needed. Grabbing Retzach’s left hand, he slammed it against the wall, then bent the thumb back until it snapped.
Retzach, more debris showering him, grimaced, but made no sound. Unwinding his arm from around Bourne’s neck, he absorbed blow after blow while he snapped his thumb back into place, then curled it inside his fingers as he made a fist.
As Bourne continued to pound him, Retzach drew out a knife with a wicked serrated blade and a fishhook claw near the tip that would cause tremendous damage as it ripped into sinew, muscle, and nerves when he pulled the knife out of a stab wound.
He feinted with the knife, then aimed his left fist at Bourne’s right ear. As Bourne moved to counter the blow, he stabbed inward, aiming for a spot between Bourne’s third and fourth ribs. Bourne saw the maneuver at the last instant, shifting sufficiently, striking the knife blade with the edge of his hand to deflect it to one side.
Seemingly oblivious to the pain, Retzach clubbed Bourne with his injured left hand, then redirected the knife to cut open Bourne’s side. Bourne grabbed Retzach’s wrist, wrenched it hard over, but no matter what Bourne did, Retzach would not let go of the knife. His attention had narrowed to the weapon, concentrated on the amount of momentum needed to drive the knife forward. Bourne turned Retzach’s momentum—impaired and slowed by the awkwardness of having to keep his weight off his fractured foot—against him. Using elbows and knees, he swung Retzach around, rocking him back against the side of the tunnel.
That impact was one too many. The boards above their heads cracked through with a thunderous noise, causing the ceiling of the tunnel and the floor of the basement of the building above it to come crashing down on all three of them, burying them in wooden beams, tamped-down earth, and floorboards, along with crates, boxes, cans, and bottles.
14
Ouyang Jidan was in the midst of a business meeting high up in one of the glittering mixed-use skyrises overlooking the Bund when Colonel Sun entered the conference room. Since Ouyang had left orders that he be disturbed for only the highest-priority situation, he broke off his negotiations with the farmers and chemical manufacturers he had agglomerated into a federation that supplied him with the raw materials required to fabricate the drugs inside Mexico.
Giving his apologies, he rose and stepped away from the highly polished paulownia table, strewn with teapots and cups, as well as half-empty bottles of whiskey and squat old-fashioned glasses.
“What?” he said brusquely to Colonel Sun. The negotiations had reached a fever pitch and he was none too happy to be dragged away at this crucial moment.
Colonel Sun gave silent indication that they should step out into the hallway. When the heavy conference room door had sighed shut behind them, Sun said in a very low voice, “An emissary of Cho Xilan’s is here in Shanghai.”
Ouyang started. Emissary was their private code word for “assassin.”
“Is his mission to disrupt my negotiations?”
“Unknown,” Colonel Sun said.
“How much of our business does Cho Xilan know?”
Colonel Sun shrugged. “Difficult to say, but just from the hard evidence I’d say he knows that Bourne is here, though whether he knows what we’re up to is a mystery.”
“How would he know anything, Sun?”
The question hung between them, filling the air with its toxic implications.
Sun took a breath, let it out slowly. “On the face of it, it seems we have a leak.”
“On the face of it?” Ouyang said hotly. Then, remembering where they were, he lowered his voice to its previous level. “The moment I wrap up the negotiations I’ll fly back to Beijing and dig around until I unearth the culprit.”
“And what about the emissary?”
“What information do you have on him?”
“He’s traveling with a woman posing as his wife.”
“Quite the elaborate cover Cho Xilan manufactured for him.” Ouyang tossed his head. “Take care of the emissary, don’t let him get anywhere near Bourne. I’ll plug the leak.”
Turning on his heel, he pulled open the door, and went back into the conference room to nail down the next ten years of his prosperity.
Maricruz watched Carlos Danda Carlos’s eyes spark like miniature suns as he studied her approach across the runway tarmac. At once, even before he extended his hand, before he bent over to kiss the back of hers, or opened his mouth to welcome her like a member of the tourist board to sunny San Luis Potosí, she could see how they all wanted a piece of her—Wendell Marsh, Matamoros, Carlos Danda Carlos. That included Ouyang Jidan. He wanted to possess her body, and she had given it to him, freely, wantonly. Whatever he needed her to be during their coupling she could be. And in return, she was using him to get what she wanted: independence, of course, but also the power and wealth to outdo her father, whom she both loved and hated.
Jidan knew better than anyone just how lucrative she had made the pipeline, and with her father gone, he needed her more than ever—as the shield her father had provided, behind which he could continue to operate covertly. He had no contact with anyone in the Mexican cartels; he never had. Keepi
ng his hands immaculately clean was essential to his political aspirations. In that respect, he had put himself in her hands. In the end, she had no love for him, only need.
“I am most curious as to why you called this meeting, Señora Ouyang,” Carlos Danda Carlos said as he raised his moist lips from her hand.
As for these Mexicans, she thought, they all wanted to take advantage of the pipeline her father had put in place, the pipeline she had expanded and perfected during her time in Beijing.
“You surprise me with your presence, señor,” Maricruz said drily. “I had no idea—”
“A summons from the daughter of Maceo Encarnación, and all the way from China,” Raul Giron interrupted. “How could any of us refuse?”
Maricruz saw the naked hostility in his eyes, the utter contempt for her. He resented what he had called her summons.
But now Carlos was smiling easily as he shook Felipe Matamoros’s hand, murmuring, “A pleasure,” as if they were at a cocktail party. Then he turned to Maricruz and, with a sharp look at Giron, said, “Please excuse this soldier. He has obviously been so long in the wilderness he has forgotten his manners.” Turning slightly, he addressed Giron again. “Raul, please step back and see to your men. Have them stand down. We are among friends here, is that not right, Señora Ouyang?”
“It is,” she said, nodding. “This I guarantee.”
“You see, Raul?” Carlos gestured grandly. “We are in the presence of civilized people. Please remember that the next time you address the señora.”
Giron mumbled something no one could hear, busy as he was instructing his soldiers.
“You must have patience here, Señora Ouyang,” Carlos said in a confidential tone. “These men see only enemies, and react instinctively—it’s a survival technique they’ve perfected. And who can blame them? The endless brutality and bloodshed between the Sinaloa and Los Zetas is a matter of public record.”
“No longer endless, Señor Carlos,” Maricruz said. “This is why I’m here. I am proposing a permanent truce. More, I am proposing a merging of cartels.”
