Against All Enemies (21 page)

The crowd had formed a ragged rectangle that was roughly the width of the street, and maybe fifteen feet deep. As the distance closed to zero, Jonathan pointed himself toward the sliver of space that separated the two men in the front of the crowd. That’s where he would part them. He drilled the two young men with his eyes. “We’re leaving now,” Jonathan said in Spanish. “Don’t try to hurt me, and I won’t try to hurt you.”

He didn’t slow, and because of that, shoulder-to-shoulder impact was inevitable. But the youngsters rotated out of the way, lessening the impact. Jonathan took that as a peace offering. They needed to bluster, but they were willing to avoid a fight. This might turn out well for everyone after all.

To check on Dylan’s progress would mean looking behind, which would be a show of weakness, so Jonathan kept his eyes forward, scanning the eyes of everyone he confronted. Most looked away in less than a second. The tougher ones took two or three seconds. By the time they’d made it to the back of the crowd, even the shoulder-knocking had stopped.

And then they were in the open, and Calle B lay ahead. One of the most frustrating features of Panama City—actually, Panama in general, in Jonathan’s experience—was the nonsensical logic of street numbering and naming. How was it that Avenue A ran parallel to B Street? In North American cities, streets and avenues were different, if only to conform to an organized layout of roadways. In this stinking corner of the world, there was no such thing as consistency.

“I’m really not sure what just happened,” Dylan said as they were clear of the crowd.

“Boxers calls it gun-barrel diplomacy,” Jonathan said. “But we’re not in the clear yet.” He sensed a change of posture in Dylan. “Do not look back. We are one hundred percent sure that we don’t have a care in the world.”

“And if they shoot at us?”

“Then we’ll shoot back,” Jonathan said. “We do not hold a position of strength, but they haven’t realized it yet. You don’t want to do anything to clarify the reality.”

“How far to the exfil site?” Dylan asked.

“We turn left here,” Jonathan said, executing the turn, “then we take the next right and the vehicle is parked on that block.” He held up a finger as a
wait a minute.
“Hey, Big Guy. Where are you?”

“So, you
do
remember me,” Boxers said. “I’m down on the street, four blocks from the exfil site. I think I might have picked up a tail, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means other gringos that look like agency pukes walking in the same direction as me.”

“Are they preparing to engage?”

“I don’t think so. I’m pretending not to see them so I can’t really turn around and glare, but they haven’t made any threatening moves.”

“Well, don’t divert from the exfil,” Jonathan said. “If we need to deal with them, we’ll deal with them, but it’s time to fly away.”

“Roger that.”

“Hey, Scorpion, we’ve got company,” Dylan said. “That whole crowd is following us.”

He spoke the words just as they were approaching the right turn onto West 24th Street, so Jonathan could catch the reflection in the window. It seemed that
literally
the whole crowd was following them.

Nothing good could come from that.

Chapter Fourteen

J
onathan picked up his pace as he turned the final corner, and he sensed that Dylan was relieved to do the same. They still didn’t run, but it was definitely no time to dawdle. Half a block away, Miguel and his buddies had formed a roadblock of their own, more or less surrounding the exfil Jeep.

“Where are we going?” Dylan asked. His voice carried a nervous edge. “This is a trap.”

“I don’t think so,” Jonathan said. He picked up his pace even more. As he closed to within a few hundred feet, he called, “Miguel! Do you know these people?” He tossed a thumb back at his pursuers.

Miguel stepped forward from his buddies and squinted to see the approaching group, a gesture that registered as nearsighted, though Jonathan couldn’t imagine how that tidbit of intel could possibly help. “Some of them,” Miguel said.

“Then tell them that we are good guys. That we’re on their side.”

“You know him?” Dylan asked.

“We’re old friends,” Jonathan said. The separation distance closed even more. He kept his eyes on Miguel. He trusted this kid to do the right thing. He hoped he wasn’t being foolish.

“Hey!” Miguel called, raising his hand as if to be called on. “Give these guys a chance. We should listen to what they have to say.” Then he pointed at Dylan. “I don’t know this one.”

“He’s with me. Big Guy is on his way.” He used the phrase
el gordo
to refer to Boxers, which translated to “the fat one.” He knew Miguel would get what he was talking about, and Boxers wasn’t here to take exception.

Jonathan pulled to a stop when he was separated by, say, fifteen feet from Miguel, and then he turned to face his pursuers. “We are not here to hurt anyone,” he said.

Someone yelled, “Then why do you have guns?”

“The American CIA is trying to kill us,” Jonathan said. He didn’t know for a fact that that was the case, but he felt it was close. And there was no better way to fire up a civilian population in any third world country than to invoke the name of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“We heard shooting,” Miguel said.

“Some of that was us,” Jonathan said, “and some of that was them. We were better at it.”

That brought a smile from Miguel, and he heard a ripple of laughter from the newcomers.

Jonathan sensed opportunity. “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “We are Americans, but we do not work for the American government. We are not police. We are being pursued by government agents who want to kill us.”

That brought a rumble of discontent. And excitement.

“We need your help to get away,” Jonathan continued. “In a few minutes, a very, very large man will come this way. He is our friend, and I need you to let him through. But there are others—men and maybe women with guns—who will also be coming this way. I need you to surround them. Don’t harm them. Don’t push them. But surround them and slow them down. They will try to intimidate you, but they have orders not to hurt any local residents. They may make threats, but they will not follow through with them.”

Heads nodded. Elbows prodded the ribs of people standing nearby. “How do we know that we can trust you?” someone asked.

“He has money,” Miguel said. “Lots of money.”

Well played,
Jonathan thought. He reached into his pocket for the wad, and offered it to the presumed leader of the pursuing group. “I think this is three thousand dollars,” he said. “It’s all one hundred dollar bills, but I gave some to Miguel and I didn’t count it all that closely.” That was both a peace offering to Miguel and a threat. Peace offering to let it be known that Miguel’s group had already been paid, and threat to let the new guys know that the folks on the other side had money to spread around. And of course, there were the guns.

The leader of the pursuers stepped forward and reached for the cash, but Jonathan pulled it back. “I need to know your name,” he said. Some drills never changed.

“Roderick,” the man said.

Jonathan felt himself twitch. It wasn’t the kind of name he’d been expecting. “Nice to meet you, Roderick.” He held out a hand in friendship.

Roderick took it, and Jonathan squeezed just tightly enough to make sure the other man couldn’t pull away. “Understand,” he said in a voice that couldn’t possibly be heard by anyone standing more than three feet away, “that by taking this money, you’re making a business arrangement. You will allow my big friend to pass, and you will stop the CIA killers from approaching. If it all works, you will never see me again. If you betray me, I will kill you first, and then I will make it my life’s work to kill everyone else who is with you.” When Jonathan said stuff like that, he had no idea how much was hyperbole and how much was real, and at one level, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the other party believed it to be true. “Do we understand each other?”

Roderick’s expression never faltered. He didn’t even flinch. “I take your money for myself and my friends. I will do my part. And if you ever threaten me again, I will cut your throat.” He closed the deal with the kind of smile that signaled a fight to the death.

“Here’s hoping that it never comes to that,” Jonathan said. His smile was genuine. This was the last man he ever wanted to fight, but he admired his attitude. If you’re going to trust your life to a stranger, it always paid off to trust it to a tough guy.

The deal was done. Jonathan turned to Dylan. “We just bought some time,” he said in English. He knew the locals likely spoke the language, but by switching, he felt his words would be less threatening. Anything for an edge. He pointed to the Jeep. “Those are our wheels.”

He pulled on the door handle and stopped.
Shit.

“Really?” Dylan said. “You don’t have the keys, do you?”

Jonathan felt himself blushing. “Yeah, well. He was supposed to get back here first.”

“Yeah, I heard that.” Dylan laughed. “Well, Scorpion, I’ll hand it to you. My life has never been more exciting than the twenty minutes we’ve been working together.”

Jonathan laughed, too. “Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, we really are very good at what we do.”

“I’ve heard,” Dylan said. Then he put a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder—a gesture of friendship. “Actually, I know. What you did for Christyne and Ryan . . .” He trailed off.

“That was a hell of a fight,” Jonathan said. “A lot went right that night, but only after everything went wrong.”

“If you boys are gonna kiss, will you promise to get it done before I arrive?” Boxers said over the radio.

“How close are you, Big Guy? You heard the protection deal I made, right?”

“Affirm. My Company shadow is still with me. I’m about a quarter-klick out. If your friends are gonna swarm, this would be the time to start.”

Jonathan turned to the Panamanian crowd and pointed to the distance over their heads. “They’re coming.”

They turned. After a few seconds of confusion, with a little light shoving and pointing to coordinate the movement, Roderick and Miguel got their teams organized, and they moved out—slowly at first and then they gained momentum as they surged like a single organism up the street.

“Well, this looks like it could get ugly,” Boxers said.

“Remember, they’re on your side,” Jonathan reminded.

“I haven’t drawn down on them yet.” A few seconds later, Big Guy turned the final corner and became visible, head and shoulders taller than anyone else around him. The crowd flowed past him as if he were a boulder in a stream. As he approached even closer, Jonathan made a wide sweeping motion with his whole arm to get Boxers to pick up the pace. “I said we bought
some
time,” he shouted in English. “Not all day.”

“You know you’re still on VOX, right?” Big Guy asked. He picked up his pace a little, but not enough to make it look like he was caving.

“Switching off VOX,” Jonathan said, and he reached for the switch. And he waited, contemplating the vast number of ways that interaction with an automobile was dependent upon access to the key.

Chapter Fifteen

I
an drove the bare-bones Chevrolet SUV to the first gate and pulled to a stop. A camouflaged sentry stepped forward as Ian rolled the window down. “Good afternoon, Colonel,” he said.

“Hello,” Ian replied. He reached to his back pocket for his wallet, and presented his identification card. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“I don’t think I ever told you my name,” the sentry said. He examined the card closely. “Where are you going, sir?” This one was older than the average soldier in this army, and he exhibited much more attitude. And not in a good way.

“How is that your business?” Ian said. Attitude begot attitude.

“Well, sir, it’s my business, sir, because I man this gate, sir. And I have standing orders from the general not to let anyone out who does not have a good reason to leave. Sir.”

“I’m guessing you don’t come from a military background,” Ian said.

“You might be right. So, sir, are we going to do this all day, or are you going to answer my question?”

At one level, Ian admired this guy. In a world steeped in bullshit, the soldier tolerated none of it. The real Army could use more of that, Ian thought, especially in the senior ranks. “I’m going into Whitesville for a money order,” he said. It was the God’s honest truth.

The answer seemed to confuse the nameless sentry.

“It’s like a check,” Ian explained. “I have bills to pay. One of the best ways for me to stay under the radar to do my job here is to make sure that my bills don’t go into default. Don’t you think?”

The guard thought a little longer. “How long will you be gone?”

“As long as it takes. Two hours? I don’t even know how long the drive is.”

“About a half hour.”

“Okay, then, a half hour there, a half hour back and an hour to do what I’ve got to do. If I did the math right, that’s two hours.”

After another few seconds’ consideration, it appeared that the explanation was adequate. “All right,” the sentry said. He nodded to the other man on duty, who leaned on the counterweight that lifted the gate out of the way. “I’ll call down to the other gate and tell them that you’re coming through.”

Ian started to roll the window back up.

“Oh, and Colonel?”

Ian stopped cranking.

“Remember your oath, sir. You don’t want me coming to look for you.” He smiled. “Have a nice day, sir.” There was no salute.

Ian was not a fan of the compound’s apparent dual role as a prison for those who’d volunteered to the cause, but he understood the need for limiting access to the rest of the world. People liked to talk, after all, and given the youth, inexperience, and exuberance of the rank-and-file, he cringed at the boasting and pillow talk that would run amok if the soldiers were allowed to run free.