MONTERREY, MEXICO
“I still don’t like it, sir,” Monica replied, hands on the wheel of their black Chevy Suburban as the streets of Monterrey rushed by. “We needed eyes on the ground around the compound to make sure we’re not walking into a trap. I know the president is giving us extra looks with the satellite overheads, but you and I know we need to have our own people looking at this place before and as we go. We also have little in the way of medical support … and I can go on.”
“You’ve made your case, Cruz,” Dalton replied. “And to the president, for crying out loud, but we’re simply out of time. And for the record, I don’t like it either, which is why I delayed it as much as we could, and I’m letting them go in first.”
He sat next to her in the front seat of their SUV while pointing at the lead Suburban, where Captain Franco Lamar led the raid. Lieutenant Alfonso Domingo followed in the second Suburban, whose rear tires kicked up dust and dirt straight onto her windshield.
They approached the outskirts of the city, headed toward Montoya’s place, nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental. Three more Suburbans plus a troop transport truck packed with GAFE soldiers followed them closely, along with a pair of GAFE Bell helicopters, looking ahead.
“And, albeit not ideal, we do have eyes closer to the ground … up there,” Dalton added, pointing at the sky. A pair of ASACs occupied the rear, staring at the images on their laptops. They were connected to three U.S. Air Force MQ-1 A/B Predators circling the area at two thousand feet, confirming the target’s location, including the number of armed guards that Alfonso had reported.
“Everything looks clear from here to the compound, sir,” reported one of the ASACs.
“And the guard count inside the perimeter also looks as it should,” added the second ASAC.
“See? Relax, Cruz,” Dalton said, staring straight ahead. “It’ll be over soon and we all get to go home.”
Monica frowned while keeping a prudent distance from Alfonso’s SUV. Everything looked as it should indeed, and that was precisely what bothered her: it looked too damned good.
Nothing ever was.
She had already argued—twice—that they should just have the drones fire their Hellfire missiles at the compound and be done with it. But if she was right and terrorists had hidden a nuclear device somewhere inside the place, the explosions from the missiles could likely turn it into a dirty bomb. She had also argued that the daylight attack eliminated the element of surprise and could prompt the terrorists to detonate the nuke. But Lamar and Alfonso had contended that Montoya was not the suicidal type. Once surrounded, he was likely to turn over the terrorists and the weapon in exchange for being left alone to go about his own business.
“And besides, Cruz,” Dalton had whispered to her back at the conference room, “if the damn thing is going to go off, I’d much rather it blew up here than in Texas. And don’t forget that this compound is almost a mile from the city, so damage should be minimal. This may be our best chance ever.”
So she went along with it, even though her inner voice screamed at her that it was wrong on so many—
“Ah, sir,” one of the ASACs said from the backseat while looking at his screen. “There’s people on the rooftops just ahead of—”
She caught the flash off the corner of her left eye from the top of a four-story building near the edge of the city. The light arced toward Lamar’s SUV, which blew up an instant later, almost in slow motion. Tumbling on its side, it slid across the street while exploding. Glass, metal, and flames nearly engulfed Alfonso’s Suburban, which managed to veer out of the way.
Before she could react, gunfire peppered her vehicle. Armed men had emerged from nearby buildings and opened fire on them. The bullet-resistant glass momentarily protected them. Multiple rounds grazed off the glass, leaving tiny cracks that began to propagate across the windshield like spider webs.
We’re fucked, Monica thought, as everything around them seemed to catch fire.
We are so fucked.