Viper: A Thriller (30 page)

Both men pulled
out their cell phones and placed calls; Ibarra to the Viper, informing her of
the agreed price, while Silva called Carlos, who was still watching the
Colombian Gulfstream sitting on the desert airstrip, to notify him that the
deal was going through and that their client was to be given safe transit over
the border.

From the Geo
Cell’s surveillance van, Abigail Benning’s team registered both numbers on
Stingray, and then went to work to trace the locations of the numbers they’d
called.

At Tijuana
International Airport’s military section, Contreras’s agents were standing by
with un-armed Predator reconnaissance drones to deploy if and when Benning gave
them the coordinates.

Then, the
unexpected happened, as it invariably did when something was going just too
smoothly. An overworked and overstressed waitress with an overloaded tray of
food and drinks carefully maneuvered through the packed floor space of Café de
la Flora’s terrace seating, navigating the narrow aisles between the closely
packed tables.

 As the family
of five stood up from their table, preparing to leave, a six year old boy
giggled, abruptly and excitedly turned, and ran directly into the waitress’s
path. They collided. The serving tray, balanced in one hand, tilted. The waitress
brought up her other hand to save the tray as dishes and glasses slid along the
inclined surface. She managed to save the tray itself, but not all of its
contents. A full pitcher of water went through the air, overturned, and hit the
table where the pair of undercover DEA agents was seated, while a bowl of chips
flipped in midair, hit the floor, and scattered.

The commotion at
once commanded everyone’s attention. Heads turned in the direction of the
waitress, who struggled to control her anger, and eyes then shifted from her to
the couple, a Hispanic male and a Caucasian female, seated there.

Contreras had
pushed his chair back, an automatic reaction to prevent the spilled ice water
from pouring into his lap. In the process, his legs parted and the miniature
microphone positioned in his lap, beneath a napkin, fell to the floor.

Carlo Ibarra’s
eyes locked onto the small dish attached to the black handheld grip exposed on
the floor. He frowned, and felt his heart skip a beat. He heard Silva’s voice calmly
giving orders to his men, but tuned out his words. When Ibarra glanced up, he
met Contreras’s gaze staring right back at him. Ibarra watched as Contreras
then tilted his head and spoke into his shirt.

In the adjacent
bar, before he was able to piece together what had just taken place, Avery
heard the yell in his earbud from Contreras that they were compromised.

“What the fuck
is going on over there?” Avery thought out loud to Aguilar, fighting to
maintain a calm, external face.

Avery saw Ibarra
suddenly spring onto his feet and push a nearby waiter out of his way. The
waiter fell over into a table, creating a new spectacle for the café’s patrons.
Maneuvering around one of the Zetas, who had jumped onto his feet to cover Silva,
Ibarra produced his Taurus pistol as he stepped over the low railing and onto
the exterior sidewalk between the café and Roots. He looked frantically around,
hesitated as he considered which direction to go, and then headed in a sprint
for the south parking lot.

Avery and Aguilar
bolted out of Roots and took after him, ignoring the shouts from the waiter and
hostess calling after them.

Padilla’s voice
boomed over the radios, ordering his officers to move in on the subjects.

Silva and his
men were now also calmly making their way across the café toward the exit door,
hoping to use the chaos and confusion to mask their escape.

Stepping outside,
Silva and his entourage found themselves staring down the barrels of MP5
submachine guns in the hands of Padilla and seven other Federal Police officers
wearing ski masks, body armor, and Nomex fatigues. The Mexican cops spread out,
forming a wide, half circle covering the doors to Café de la Flora.

 Before Padilla
could bark the order for Silva and his men to put their hands in the air, his
eyes caught a blur of movement, a flash of gray as a pistol came up in one of
the bodyguard’s hands. Reflexively, Padilla sighted the threat and triggered
his MP5, catching the Zeta man three times in the chest. The second bodyguard
reached for his own gun, and three cops simultaneously fired into him. He
caught nine bullets from two directions before he hit the pavement, and the
third and fourth Zetas likewise absorbed a hail of gunfire. The officers then
charged ahead, screaming orders, and converged on Silva. They threw him down to
the ground, and disarmed and handcuffed him.

In the
background, sirens blared, and more police cruisers pulled up, dismounting
additional officers, who made their way through the panicked crowds.

Simultaneously,
a hundred feet away, sprinting full out, Ibarra reached the south parking lot.
When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw Avery and Aguilar coming after
him, thirty feet back. Pedestrians were quick to get out of their way, while
others ran for cover.

Hearing the gunshots
behind him, Ibarra searched the sidewalk and parking lot ahead for a way out.
And he found it. He sidestepped and extended his freehand to reach for a
startled woman. His left hand clasped her arm, and he pulled her in close. He
spun around with her to face his pursuers.

Twenty feet
away, weapons drawn, Avery and Aguilar stopped in their tracks.

Ibarra
positioned himself behind his hostage and put the Taurus to the side of her
head. The expression on his face indicated satisfaction at believing he’d
gained the upper hand, even though his mind, in overdrive, was incapable of
thinking more than one step ahead.  

Tires squealed
and sirens screamed as four black Federal Police Dodge Chargers skidded across
the parking lot and braked to a stop thirty feet behind Ibarra. Officers
dismounted from their vehicles, taking up cover behind the Kevlar doors. They
drew their pistols on Ibarra’s back. The Spaniard heard them, but he didn’t
turn around, didn’t dare take his eyes off Avery and Aguilar, who he recognized
as being something more dangerous than the cops.

Avery held his
Glock level in the isosceles stance, with the tiny white dot aligned over
Ibarra’s panic-stricken face.

A second later, Avery
felt the pain and tension flare in his shoulder where the shrapnel had nicked
him in Panama, extending in a line halfway down his arm. His aim wavered, and
the hostage’s face entered his target picture. He immediately shifted aim.
Knowing that he couldn’t possibly take the shot without endangering the woman, he
lowered his weapon.

Aguilar stood
two feet away and kept Ibarra covered in his Beretta’s sights, his hands still
as rock.

Avery shifted
his eyes on Ibarra’s gun hand and saw the index finger tighten around the trigger,
taking up first pressure, the knuckle bulging against the flesh. 

“Drop the gun
and let her go, Ibarra,” Avery commanded. The dossier from Spain’s National
Intelligence Center indicated that Ibarra spoke English. “We know about the
missiles, and we have agents moving on the Viper right now. It’s over.”

“No! Lower
your
weapons and clear the area now! The only way you’re taking me is over
her
dead fucking body!”

From the
intensity in Ibarra’s voice and the glare in his eye, Avery knew this was a
desperate man who was never going to surrender. He intended to put up a fight,
and he’d make sure to kill as many innocent people as possible.

Then Avery heard
a new voice through his earpiece: “Slayton for Carnivore. Benning thinks
Ibarra’s phone can lead us to the Viper. We only need his phone.”

“Roger that.”

Well, too bad
for you, Carlo
.

“What did you
say?” Ibarra asked, pressing the Taurus’s barrel harder into the woman’s head. “Drop
your fucking weapons now!”

To Aguilar, without
taking his eyes off Ibarra, Avery said, “Drop him.”

In response, Avery
heard the single discharge of the Beretta near his right ear.

Ibarra’s head
snapped back. He never knew what him. The hostage screamed as blood spattered
her face, and she suddenly supported the weight of Ibarra’s slack body as his
legs gave out. She pushed forward, breaking free of his arms, and the body
collapsed onto its knees, then slumped forward face first onto the sidewalk as
she stepped clear. Blood streamed out of the small hole above his right eyebrow,
and the back of his skull was blasted apart.

Aguilar
holstered his Beretta and caught the terrified hostage as she ran in his
direction while police swarmed on them.

Avery approached
Ibarra’s body and crouched near it, taking a wide stance to keep his foot out
of the expanding pool of blood. He flipped the body over, padded it down, and
searched its pockets until he found the cell phone. They keypad wasn’t locked,
and Avery thumbed his way to the recent calls. His lips formed a tight smile
when he saw the time and date of the last call; three minutes ago.

“That number has
to be the Viper,” Slayton said six minutes later in the back of the Geo Cell’s
surveillance van.  

Contreras’s
Predator drones were standing by, fueled to capacity and prepped for flight,
waiting for someone to point them in the right direction. 

Abigail Benning said
that she could hack the phone’s SIM card of the recipient of Ibarra’s last call,
and find a location.

But curiosity and
impulsivity got the better of Avery.

He picked up the
phone and dialed the number.

There was no
risk. If this caller was the Viper, then she already knew they were compromised
anyway, because she’d been on the phone with Ibarra when the surveillance was
blown, right before Ibarra bolted.

Avery wanted to
know for sure, though. He wanted to hear her voice.

A woman answered
on the third ring.

“
Que pasó
?”

“Viper,” Avery answered
in English. “It’s over.”

There was
silence for several seconds, and Avery wondered if the call was disconnected.
But then he heard heavy breathing and finally recognition.

“Carnivore.”

She ended the
call.

“It’s her.”

Twenty seconds
later, Benning reported that the phone had just vanished from Stingray’s grid,
indicating that the phone was turned off. Her attempt to remotely hijack the
cell phone tower and turn the phone back on didn’t work, but she still had the
general area the phone was in, based on the base station to which it had
connected when it received the call from Ibarra’s phone. This data was relayed
to Tijuana Airport, and the drones went into the sky.

___

The Viper screamed, breaking even Mirsad
Sidran’s stoic shroud. Outside the Gulfstream, the Zetas surely heard it too,
because Carlos and another man jumped out of their truck, looked at the
Gulfstream, and then exchanged looks.

She removed the
phone’s battery and SIM card and threw the phone against the cabin’s floor. It
bounced along, end over end, until coming to a stop ten feet away, and then she
hurled the battery after it and snapped the SIM card in half. 

“Perhaps it
would be prudent to pay Carlos for the fuel and fly out of here,” Sidran said.
“We are compromised, and are quickly losing control of the situation.”

“Never. I will
not turn back now. We can still make it over the border. You can go back with
the plane if you want to, but I’m going forward.”

Trujillo scooped
up his Uzi off the table. Glaring at Sidran, he told the Viper, “I’m with you.”

Sidran sighed.
He wasn’t going to argue further. He’d have to go along, but he suspected it
would quickly become necessary to execute Kashani’s contingency plan. A pity,
he thought, that all of this had been for nothing.

“Hey, it looks
like somebody wants to talk to you,” the pilot’s voice called out from the
cockpit.

The Viper stepped
away from Sidran. She bent over to peer through a window, and saw Carlos
approaching the aircraft. He held his hands out to the side, palms facing out.

“Cover me,
Benito.”

Carrying the
VSS, the Viper opened the cabin door, stepped out, and descended the stairs
toward Carlos.

 “Did you speak
to Arturo yet?” she said. “A price was agreed.”

“Don’t you know
what’s fucking happening? The
federales
took Arturo, and your man too,
you stupid cunt. If the gringos are involved, you can bet they’ll be here
shortly. Everything is fucked now. The deal is off, senorita.” 

Movement caught
the Viper’s eye, and three more men emerged from the nearby garage. They
carried AK-47s.

And she
understood. The cartel was going to hold her here and turn her over to the
Americans. She tightened her grip around the VSS, which she held at her right side
along her leg. The approaching Zetas already had their weapons shouldered, and
she wouldn’t be able to get the VSS into firing position fast enough.