Exclusive Excerpt from Pandora’s Temple

on Oct 29 in Blog Posts by cosproductions

 

PANDORA’S TEMPLE

 

A Blaine McCracken Novel

 

By Jon Land

 

FINAL DRAFT

   

“No hero is immortal till he dies.”

W.H. Auden

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE:

THE ABYSS

The Mediterranean Sea, 2008

“It would help, sir, if I knew what we were looking for,” Captain John J. Hightower of the Aurora said to the stranger he’d picked up on the island of Crete.

The stranger remained poised by the research ship’s deck rail, gazing out into the turbulent seas beyond.  His long gray hair, dangling well past his shoulders in tangles and ringlets, was damp with sea spray, left to the whims of the wind.

“Sir?” Hightower prodded again.

The stranger finally turned, chuckling.  “You called me sir.  That’s funny.”

“I was told you were a captain,” said Hightower

“In name only, my friend.”

“If I’m your friend,” Hightower said, “you should be able to tell me what’s so important that our current mission was scrapped to pick you up.”

Beyond them, the residue of a storm from the previous night kept the seas choppy with occasional frothy swells that rocked the Aurora even as she battled the stiff winds to keep her speed steady.  Gray-black clouds swept across the sky, colored silver at the tips where the sun pushed itself forward enough to break through the thinner patches.  Before long, Hightower could tell, those rays would win the battle to leave the day clear and bright with the seas growing calm.  But that was hardly the case now.

“I like your name,” came the stranger’s airy response.  Beneath the orange life jacket, he wore a Grateful Dead tie dye t-shirt and old leather vest that was fraying at the edges and missing all three of its buttons.  So faded that the sun made it look gray in some patches and white in others.  His eyes, a bit sleepy and almost drunken, had a playful glint about them.  “I like anything with the word ‘high.’  You should rethink your policy about no smoking aboard the ship, if it’s for medicinal purposes only.”

“I will, if you explain what we’re looking for out here.”

“Out here” was the Mediterranean Sea where it looped around Greece’s ancient, rocky southern coastline.  For four straight days now, the Aurora had been mapping the sea floor in detailed grids in search of something of unknown size, composition and origin; or, at least, known only by the man Hightower had mistakenly thought was a captain by rank.  Hightower’s ship was a hydrographic survey vessel.  At nearly thirty meters in length with a top speed of just under twenty-five knots, the Aurora had been commissioned just the previous year to fashion nautical charts to ensure safe navigation by military and civilian shipping, tasked with conducting seismic surveys of the seabed and underlying geology.  A few times since her commission, the Aurora and her eight-person crew had been re-tasked for other forms of oceanographic research, but her high tech air cannons, capable of generating high-pressure shock waves to map the strata of the seabed, made her much more fit for more traditional assignments.

“How about I give you a hint?” the stranger said to Hightower.  “It’s big.”

“How about I venture a guess?”

“Take your best shot, dude.”

“I know a military mission when I see one.  I think you’re looking for a weapon.”

“Warm.”

“Something stuck in a ship or submarine.  Maybe even a sunken wreck from years, even centuries ago.”

“Cold,” the man Hightower knew only as “Captain” told him.  “Well, except for the centuries ago part.  That’s blazing hot.”

Hightower pursed his lips, frustration getting the better of him.  “So are we looking for a weapon or not?”

“Another hint, Captain High:  only the most powerful ever known to man,” the stranger said with a wink.  “A game changer of epic proportions for whoever finds it.  Gotta make sure the bad guys don’t manage that before we do.  Hey, did you know marijuana’s been approved to treat motion sickness?”

Hightower could only shake his head.  “Look, I might not know exactly you’re looking for, but whatever it is, it’s not here.  You’ve got us retracing our own steps, running hydrographs in areas we’ve already covered.  Nothing ‘big,’ as you describe it, is down there.”

“I beg to differ, el Capitan.”

“Our depth sounders have picked up nothing, the underwater cameras we launched have picked up nothing, the ROVS have picked up nothing.”

“It’s there,” the stranger said with strange assurance, holding his thumb and index finger together against his lips as if smoking an imaginary joint.

“Where?”

“We’re missing something, el Capitan.  When I figure out what it is, I’ll let you know.”

Before Hightower could respond, the seas shook violently.  On deck it felt as if something had tried to suck the ship underwater, only to spit it up again.  Then a rumbling continued, thrashing the Aurora from side to side like a toy boat in a bathtub.  Hightower finally recovered his breath just as the rumbling ceased, leaving an eerie calm over the sea suddenly devoid of waves and wind for the first time that morning.

“This can’t be good,” said the stranger, tightening the straps on his life vest.

* * *

The ship’s pilot, a young, thick-haired Greek named Papadopoulos, looked up from the nest of LED readouts and computer-operated controls on the panel before him, as Hightower entered the bridge.

“Captain,” he said wide-eyed, his voice high and almost screeching, “seismic centers in Ankara, Cairo and Athens are all reporting a sub-sea earthquake measuring just over six on the scale.”

“What’s the epi?”

“Forty miles northeast of Crete and thirty from our current position,” Papadopoulos said anxiously, a patch of hair dropping over his forehead.

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Hightower.

“Tsunami warning is high,” Papadopoulos continued, even as Hightower formed the thought himself.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, we are in for the ride of our lives!” blared the stranger, pulling on the tabs that inflated his life vest with a soft popping sound.  “If I sound excited it’s ‘cause I’m terrified, dudes!”

“Bring us about,” the captain ordered.  “Hard back to the Port of Piraeus at all the speed you can muster.”

“Yes, sir!”

Suddenly the bank of screens depicting the seafloor in a quarter mile radius directly beneath them sprang to life.  Readings flew across accompanying monitors, orientations and graphic depictions of whatever the Aurora’s hydrographic equipment and underwater cameras had located appearing in real time before Hightower’s already wide eyes.

“What the hell is—“

“Found it!” said the stranger before the ship’s captain could finish.

“Found what?” followed Hightower immediately.  “This is impossible.  We’ve already been over this area.  There was nothing down there.”

“Earthquake must’ve changed that in a big way, el Capitan.  I hope you’re recording all this.”

“There’s nothing to record.  It’s a blip, an echo, a mistake.”

“Or exactly what I came out here to find.  Big as life to prove all the doubters wrong.”

“Doubters?”

“Of the impossible.”

“That’s what you brought us out here for, a fool’s errand?”

“Not anymore.”

The stranger watched as a central screen mounted beneath the others continued to form a shape massive in scale, an animated depiction extrapolated from all the data being processed in real time.

“Wait a minute, is that a . . .  It looks like—  My God, it’s some kind of structure!“

“You bet!”

“Intact at that depth?  Impossible!  No, this is all wrong.”

“Hardly, el Capitan.”

“Check the readouts, sir.  According to the depth gauge, your structure’s located five hundred feet beneath the seafloor.  Where I come from, they call that impos—“

Hightower’s thought ended when the Aurora seemed to buckle, as if it had hit a roller coaster-like dip in the sea.  The sensation was eerily akin to floating, the entire ship in the midst of an out-of-body experience, leaving Hightower feeling weightless and light-headed.

“Better fasten your seatbelts, dudes,” said the stranger, eyes fastened through the bridge windows at something that looked like a waterfall pluming on the ship’s aft side.

Hightower had been at sea often and long enough to know this to be a gentle illusion belying something much more vast and terrible:  in this case, a giant wave of froth that gained height as it crystallized in shape.  It was accompanied by a thrashing sound that shook the Aurora as it built in volume and pitch, felt by the bridge’s occupants at their very cores like needles digging into their spines.

“Hard about!” Hightower ordered Papadopoulos.  “Steer us into it!”

It was, he knew, the ship’s only chance for survival, or would have been, had the next moments not shown the great wave turning the world dark as it reared up before them.  The Aurora suddenly seemed to lift into the air, climbing halfway up the height of the monster wave from a calm sea that had begun to churn mercilessly in an instant.  A vast black shadow enveloped the ship in the same moment intense pressure pinned the occupants of the bridge to their chairs or left them feeling as if their feet were glued to the floor.  Then there was nothing but an airless abyss dragging darkness behind it.

“Far out, man!” Hightower heard the stranger blare in the last moment before the void claimed him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART ONE:

THE DEEPWATER VENTURE

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

Juarez, Mexico; the present

 

     The black Mercedes SUV slid up to the entrance of the walled compound, chickens skittering from its path in the shimmering heat as it squealed to a halt.  Dust hung in the air like a light curtain, adding a dull sheen to everything in touched.  A pair of armed guards approached the SUV from either side of the closed gate and tapped on the blacked-out window on both the driver and passenger sides.

“I’m here to see Señor Morales,” said the driver, his face cloaked in the darkness of the interior.

“You’re early,” said the guard, hands closed over doorframe so his fingers were curled inside the cab.  A thin layer of dust lifted by the breeze coated both his uniform and face.

“I know.”

“By a full day.”

The driver feigned surprise.  “Really?  Guess I messed up with my Day Planner.”

“Then we will see you tomorrow,” the guard said, backing away from the SUV as if expecting the driver to take his leave.

“Sorry, I’m not available then.  But if Señor Morales would prefer I take my business elsewhere, I’m sure his competition will be most interested in that business when I visit them tomorrow instead.”

The lead guard moved up against the door again, two others with almost identical black hair and mustaches inching closer as well.  “You will honor the terms of your deal.”

“Just what I came here to do, amigo.  Now go check with your boss and let’s get on with it,” said the driver.

He was wearing a cream-colored suit and t-shirt that was only slightly darker.  The t-shirt fit him snugly, revealing a taut torso and chest expansive enough to strain the fabric.  His face was ruddy, his complexion that of a man who’d spent many hours outside, though not necessarily in the sun.  His thin beard was so tightly trimmed to his skin that it could have been confused for a trick of the SUV interior’s dark shading.  Other than a scar that ran through his right eyebrow and thick black hair sprinkled with a powdering of gray, his only real distinguishing feature was a pair of dark, deep-set eyes that looked like twin black holes spiraling through either side of his face.

“If Señor Morales and I have a deal, then the day shouldn’t matter,” he told the guard at his window.

“I’ll tell him you’ll be returning tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll be returning without this,” the driver said, turning toward the passenger seat where a smaller man who looked ten years his senior held up a briefcase that was handcuffed to his wrist.

The older man’s face was pocked with tiny scars seeming to all point toward a bent and bulbous nose that had been broken on more than one occasion.  His eyes didn’t seem to blink because when they did the motion was so rapid that it might as well have not of happened at all.

“Señor Morales does not like to be threatened,” the guard said, taking a step back from the vehicle.  “It ruins his day.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not threatening anyone.  Now open the gate,” the man in the driver’s seat said, gazing up at the unmanned watch towers left over from Spanish colonial times when the compound had been an active fort and these walls had proved to be the staging ground for all manner of attacks launched against native Mexicans.

The guard backed further way from the vehicle, raising a walkie-talkie to his lips.  The window slid back up, quickly vanquishing the heat in favor of the soft cool of the air conditioning.

“This ain’t good, boss,” said Sal Belamo from the passenger seat.

“Hope you didn’t expect otherwise,” Blaine McCracken said to him, smiling ever so slightly as he opened the sunroof, the cabin flooded immediately by light.  “Otherwise, somebody else would’ve taken the job.”

* * *

With a half dozen assault rifles trained upon him, McCracken spent the next few moments carefully studying the exterior of the compound belonging to Arturo Nieves Morales, head of the Juárez drug cartel, the largest in a country dominated by them.  He could see more guards armed with assault rifles posted strategically atop the walls amid the dust swirl.

“Those college kids Morales is holding should never have been down here in the first place, Sal.”

“Spring Break, boss.  They thought they’d be safe in some resort in Cabo.”

McCracken laid his hands on the steering wheel and leaned back.  “They got taken outside a nightclub, lured into a van by some girls we now know were Morales’ plants.  Not exactly what you’d expect from honor students.”

“Booze will do that to you.”

“I wouldn’t know, Sal.  These are honor students who seem to lead the world in community service efforts.  Their fraternity built a house for those Habitat for Humanity folks—a whole damn house, for God’s sake.”

“Sounds like you’re taking this personal, boss.”

“They’re good kids who didn’t deserve getting snatched in this sinkhole of a country.”

“Parents couldn’t raise the ransom?”

“What’s the difference?  You pay Morales, he just asks for more.  And if you don’t keep paying, you start getting your kid back one piece at a time.”

“Uh-oh,” from Belamo.

“What?”

“I’ve heard that tone before.”

“Not lately.”

“Doesn’t matter, boss.  You’re picking up just where you left off, and only one way this goes, you ask me.”

“What’s that?”

“With a lot of bodies left behind.”

“So long as none of them belong to the hostages, Sal.”

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

Washington, one week earlier

 

“I thought you were out,” Henry Folsom said to Blaine McCracken seven days before.

Folsom had the look of a man born in a button-down shirt.  Hair neatly slicked back, horn-rimmed glasses and youthful features that would make him appear forty forever.  There was something in his eyes, though, that unsettled McCracken a bit, a constant shifting of his gaze as if there was something he didn’t want McCracken to see lurking there.

“Most people think I’m dead,” McCracken said, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

Folsom shifted, as if to widen the space between them at the table.  “All the same, I was glad when your name came up in conversation.”

“Really?  What kind of conversation was that?”

“Independent contractors capable of pulling off the impossible.”

“I haven’t pulled off anything, impossible or otherwise, for a couple years now.”

“Are you saying you’re not interested?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?  But my guess is I wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t pitched this job elsewhere.”

“To more traditional authorities, you mean.”

“Younger, anyway,” said McCracken.

Folsom seemed to smirk.  “The hostages are fraternity brothers from Brown University.  One of their parents is a top immigration lawyer.  That’s why this ended up on my desk.”

“You know him?”

“Nope, but I know you,” Folsom said, folding his arms tightly and flashing another smirk.  “I did my Masters thesis on the true birth of covert operations, contrasting the work of the World War II-bred work of the OSS with the Vietnam era Operation Phoenix where CIA-directed assassins plucked off the North Vietnamese cadre one at a time.”  Folsom leaned forward, canting his shoulders forward as if he were about to bow.  “I’ve been reading about you for twenty years now.”

“There’s nothing written about me.”

Folsom came up just short of a wink.  “I know.”

McCracken had met him in the F Street Bistro in the State Plaza Hotel, a pleasant enough venue with cheery light and a slate of windows overlooking the street he instinctively avoided.  McCracken had arrived first, as was his custom, and staked out a table in as close to a darkened corner as the place had to offer.  He’d used this location in the past because of its status as one of Washington’s best-kept secrets.  Once he sat down, though, the room began to fill up around him, every table occupied within minutes and an army of waiters scurrying between them.  McCracken found all the bustle distinctly unsettling and nursed a ginger ale that was almost all water and ice by the time Folsom arrived.

“You don’t drink,” Folsom noted.

“Never.  So who in the Special-Ops community you call first?”

“Maybe I’ve just always wanted to see your work first-hand.”

“That’s funny, Hank.  A sense of humor makes you a rare commodity these days, what with so many ex-operators running around with their hands out.  Guys who could be my kids.  I turn sixty in a couple weeks, Hank.  That puts me a step beyond even father figure.”

“Normal channels had to be bypassed here,” Folsom told him.  “Can’t send the Rangers or SEALS into Mexico with a new trade agreement about to be inked.”

“And since you always wanted to work with me . . .”

“I needed someone who could get the job done, McCracken.  That immigration lawyer I just mentioned?  He does work for us from time to time.”

“Who’s ‘us’, Hank?”

“The State Department, what else?”

McCracken held Folsom’s gaze until the younger man broke it.  “If you say so, Hank.”

“Name your price.  It will be considered non-negotiable.”

McCracken chuckled at the promise.  “First time for everything, I guess.”

“So how much is it going to take to bring you out of retirement?”

“I wasn’t aware I’d retired.”

“How much, McCracken?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

McCracken sized the man up, from his perfectly tailored suit to professionally styled hair without a strand out of place.  “You been to the Vietnam Memorial lately, Hank?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“There are some names missing, the names of many of the men I served with in Vietnam who never came back.  That’s my fee.  I pull this off, I want their names up there on the Wall where they belong.  I want you to take care of it.”

Folsom’s eyes moved to McCracken’s ring, simple black letters on gold.  “D-S.  Stands for Dead Simple, right?”

McCracken didn’t respond.

“What’s it mean?”

“I think you know.”

“Because killing came so easy.  You still worthy of the nickname ‘McCrackenballs’?”

“You want my services or my autograph, Hank?”

Folsom leaned forward.  “How many times did they ask you to go after Bin Laden?”

“Not a one.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You heard wrong.”

Folsom came up just short of a smile.  “I heard there was a reason why the SEALS encountered so little resistance.  I heard the bodies of eight pretty bad hombres were hauled out after the fact, all dead before the SEALS dropped in.  Word is it was you and that big Indian friend of yours.”

“His name is Johnny Wareagle.”

Folsom said nothing.

“SEALS got Bin Laden, Hank.  It’s nice to fantasize about things being bigger than they really were but that raid was big enough all on its own.  Weird thing is that when I was in, I never got or wanted credit for anything.  Now that I’m out, I get more than I deserve and still don’t want any.”

“You’re not out,” Folsom told him.

“Figure of speech.  What they say when nobody calls you in anymore.”

Across the table, Folsom suddenly looked older and more confident.  “I called.  And I’ll see what I can do about getting those names added to the Wall.”

“Is that what you call nonnegotiable?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Better.  Now give me your word.”

“Why?”

“Because a man’s word means something, even in your world where lying rules the day.”

“Used to be your world too.”

McCracken’s black eyes hardened even more.  “It was never mine, Hank.”  He leaned forward, almost face-to-face with Folsom before the man from the State Department could register he’d moved at all.  “Now tell me more about the job.”

“Mexico,” Folsom nodded.  He leaned back in his chair to again lengthen the distance between them.  “Gun loving Juárez, specifically.  Place is like the Old West.  You’ll be going up against a hundred guns in a walled fortress.”

McCracken rose, jarring the table just enough to send the rest of his watery ginger ale sloshing around amid the melting ice cubes.  “Send me the specs and the satellite recon.”

“That’s it?” Folsom asked.

“Not quite.  I don’t like working for somebody I can’t trust.”  Folsom opened his mouth to respond, but McCracken rolled right over his words.  “You’re not from State.  State doesn’t work with people like me.  It’s not in their job description.  Too busy covering their own asses.  Politics, Hank, something you clearly don’t give a shit about.”

“All right, you got me.  I’m Homeland Security,” Folsom told him.

“Ah, the new catch-all . . .”

“You’re right about the tools at State, McCracken.  But we, on the other hand, get shit done.  Being Homeland gives us a license to do pretty much anything we want.”

“Including going outside the system to call in a dinosaur like me?”

Folsom tried to hold McCracken’s stare.  “Just answer me one question.  Your phone doesn’t ring until I call, it leaves me wondering.”

“That’s not a question.”

Folsom didn’t hesitate.  “The question is, do you still have it or not . . . McCrackenballs?”

McCracken smiled tightly.  “Let me put it this way, Hank:  When this is over, you may want to revise that thesis of yours.”

 

CHAPTER 3

Juárez, Mexico

 

“What’s eating you, boss?” Sal Belamo asked, as McCracken steered the SUV toward the compound’s gates after the guards finally waved him through.

“Folsom asked me if I still had it.”

“Any doubt in your mind about that?”

“Two years is a long time, Sal.”

“You’re not saying you’re scared.”

“Nope, but I was: scared that the call wouldn’t come again after the phone stopped ringing two years ago.”

Belamo gazed around him.  “Well, we can safely say that concern’s been put to rest.”

The inside of the compound jibed perfectly with the satellite reconnaissance photos Folsom had provided.  It reminded McCracken of a typical Spanish mission, not unlike the famed Alamo in San Antonio, with an inner courtyard and a nest of buildings located beyond a walled façade that in olden times would have provided an extra layer of defense from attack.  A lavish fountain left over an earlier era was centered in the courtyard, beautifully restored but no longer functional.  The sun burned high in a cloudless sky, flooding the compound with blistering hot light that reflected off the cream-colored array of buildings.  The air smelled of scorched dirt mixed with stale perspiration that hung in the air like haze, the combination acrid enough to make McCracken want to hold his breath.

Trays of freshly grilled chicken, fish and beef smelling of chilli powder, pepper and oregano sharp enough to reach the SUV’s now open windows, meanwhile, had been laid out on tables covered by open-sided tent.  McCracken could see plates of sliced tomatoes and bowls of freshly made guacamole placed in another section not far from ice chests packed with bottled water.  Many of Morales’ uniformed guards had lined up to fill their plates.  Folsom had told McCracken that many of the men on Morales’ payroll were former Zetas, veterans of the Mexican Special Forces originally charged with bringing down the very forces they were now serving.

“Two years, Sal,” McCracken repeated, angling the Mercedes toward a parking slot squeezed amidst military vehicles that included ancient American-issue Jeeps.

“Took a break from the ring once that long,” Belamo related.  “Knocked a guy out in the first round when I came back.”

“You weren’t sixty at the time.”

“You’re still fifty-nine, boss.”

McCracken couldn’t judge the prowess of Morales’ troops one way or another by what he saw, but their eyes showed no worry or suspicion or wariness of any kind.  If they held any expectation of a pending attack, there was no evidence of it.  Instead men clad in sweat-soaked uniforms who’d already gotten their lunches lounged leisurely, their weapons resting nearby but in some cases not even within reach.  The bulk of the personnel clung to the cooler shade cast by the walled façade while others, likely those lower on the totem pole, stuck to the thinner patches provided by an old yellow school bus with rust spreading upward from its decaying rocker panels.  Morales himself, arguably the world’s most infamous drug dealer, held court upon a covered veranda, enclosed by four gunmen and seated in what looked like a rocking chair next to a younger dark-haired beauty who could have been an actress.

McCracken and Sal Belamo climbed out of the SUV into the scorching heat, the sensation worsened by the sudden loss of air conditioning in favor of stagnant air that was almost too heavy to breathe.  The sky above was an endless blue ribbon, fostering an illusion that the sun itself was vibrating madly.

McCracken and Belamo submitted to the thorough, wholly anticipated pat-down which turned up nothing.  Then six more guards escorted them to the veranda and beckoned for them to continue up the three stairs for an audience with the man whom many said was the most powerful in Mexico.

“So I understand you want to get our business done early, Mr. Franks,” Morales said, rising in the semblance of a greeting.

“I happened to be in the area,” McCracken told him, “with time on my hands.”

“We had an arrangement.”

“We still do.  Only the schedule has changed.  But if you wish to rethink that arrangement . . .”

Morales sat back down next to the much younger woman who flinched when he settled in alongside her, filling out the entire width of the chair.  He was overweight, hardly resembling the most common shots circulated of him from younger days by the U.S. intelligence community.  Withdrawing to a life of isolation wrought by his many enemies had clearly left Morales with a taste for too much food and wine to accompany his vast power in the region. Judging by the thick blotches of perspiration dotting the cartel leader’s shirt, McCracken doubted any of the buildings here were even equipped with air conditioning.

Morales’ hair was thinning in contrast to the thick mustache drooping over his upper lip.  He was dressed casually in linen slacks and a near matching shirt unbuttoned all the way down to the start of the belly that protruded over his belt.  A light sheen of perspiration coated his face and he breathed noisily through his mouth.

He took the dark-haired woman’s right hand in his while he stroked her hair with the left.  “This is my wife Elena.  But she has borne me no children.  Such a disappointment.”

With that, he bent one of the woman’s fingers back until McCracken heard a snap.  He flinched as the woman gasped and bit down the pain, slumping in her chair.

“Everyone is replaceable, eh, Señor Franks?” Morales sneered, seeming to relish the agony he’d caused his wife.

McCracken bit back his anger, keeping his eyes away from the woman who was now choking back sobs.  “Men like us aren’t, Señor Morales.  And I thought coming early was in both our best interests.”

“And why is that?” Morales asked him.

“It stopped you from the bother of staging a welcome for me.”

“I would have enjoyed making such a gesture, amigo.”

“You and I, Señor Morales, we’re cautious men pursuing mutual interests.  You need my network to provide you with new routes to bring your product into the United States and I need exclusive distribution of that product in order to eliminate my competition in select markets.  I imagine we can agree on that much.”

“You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t already,” Morales said, his eyes straying to the briefcase still chained to Belamo’s wrist.  “You see that school bus over there?”

“You mean the one your soldiers are sleeping against?”

Morales ignored his remark.  “I started my career as a runner using that bus to bring drugs into your country.  I would recruit local children and pay them a dollar to play students heading to America on field trips.  I keep the bus here as a reminder of my humble roots.  And even men like us must never lose sight of how hard we worked to get where we are, si?”

“For sure,” McCracken acknowledged, meaning it this time.

Morales’ eyes returned to the briefcase.  A woman clad in a tight satin dress laid a heaping plate she had made from the lunch tables down before him.  Another woman who might have been her twin refilled his glass of sangria, making sure just the right amount of floating fruit spilled in.  Their moves looked robotic, rehearsed.  And the fact that they remained cool amid the scalding heat made them appear like department store mannequins devoid of anything but beauty.

“You have brought your deposit?” Morales asked.

“In exchange for the first shipment to be delivered within the week.  That was the deal.  A fair exchange.”

“Then let me see it,” Morales said, again angling his gaze for the briefcase cuffed to Sal Belamo’s wrist.  “Of course, I could always have one of my men cut your man’s hand off.”

“But that would leave him with only one,” McCracken noted, unruffled.  “And then I’d have to take one of yours in return.  Also a fair exchange.”

Morales grinned broadly, his threat left hanging.  “You are good at math, señor.”

“Just as you are with women.”

The grin vanished.

“Sal,” McCracken signaled.

At that, Belamo pried a small key from his shoe and unlocked the handcuffs from both his wrist and the briefcase.  Then he handed the case to Morales who laid it in his lap and eagerly flipped the catches, slowly raising the lid.  His breathing quieted, his eyes widened.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Morales asked, clearly dismayed as he spun the open briefcase around to reveal nothing inside but two pistols, a sleek semiautomatic and a long-barreled Magnum revolver.

“Those are very valuable guns, señor,” McCracken said, as Morales’ personal Zeta guards steadied their weapons upon him.  “Men have perished under their fire, many with prices on their heads.  You’re welcome to the rewards in exchange for the hostages.”

“Who are you?” Morales asked, tossing the briefcase to the veranda floor as he rose again.

“I’m the man doing you a big favor, Morales.  Someday you’ll thank me for showing you kidnapping doesn’t pay, at least not when you’re bringing in as much as you are from your drug business.  Here,” he said, handling Morales a ruffled piece of paper.

Morales straightened, trying to make sense of the number and letter combinations.  “What is this?”

“The latitude and longitude marks denoting the locations of your largest storage facilities.  If I don’t leave with the hostages, all four go boom.”

Morales smiled, chuckled, then outright laughed.  “You are threatening me?  You are really threatening me?  Here in my home, in front of my men?”  His voice gained volume with each syllable.  He seemed to be enjoying himself; the challenge, the threat.

“I’m going to let you keep your drugs, against my better judgment, but the four Americans, the college students, leave with me.”

At first it seemed Morales didn’t know how to respond.  But then he threw his head back and laughed heartily again, both the women and his guards joining in for good measure.  Only his wife Elena stayed quiet, too busy swiping the tears of pain from her face.

“Just like that?” Morales said, the veranda’s other occupants stopping their laughter as soon as he stopped his.

“Yup, just like that.”

“And what do I get in return for accepting your gracious offer?”

“You get to stay in business.”  McCracken tapped his watch for Morales to see.  “But the clock’s ticking.”

“Is it?”

“You have one minute.”

Morales started to laugh again but stopped.  The two women nuzzled against him on either side in spite of his wife’s presence, his private guards slapping each other on the back.

“I have one minute!” he roared, laughing so hard now his face turned scarlet and he wheezed trying to find his breath.

“Forty-five seconds now.”

Morales jabbed a finger at the air McCracken’s way.  “I like you, amigo.  You’re a real funny guy.”  He stopped laughing and finally caught his breath.  “After you’re dead, I think I’ll have you stuffed and mounted on the wall so I always have something to make me smile.”

“You won’t be smiling in thirty seconds time, Morales, unless you agree to give me the Americans.  Tick, tick, tick.”

Morales reached down toward the briefcase and scooped up the two pistols.  “Are these loaded?”

“They are.”

“So I could kill you with them now.”

“You could.”

“Let me see,” Morales said dramatically, looking from one pistol to the other, “which one should I use. . . .”  A broad smile crossed his lips.  “Eeney, meeney, miney . . .”

And in that moment a portion of the compound’s façade around the gated entrance exploded in a fountain of rubble and dust.  The remainder of the first wave of missiles that followed in the next instant obliterated the unmanned watch towers and took out the compound’s armory in a sizzling display of light and ear-ringing blasts that grew like a fireworks display.

“Mo,” said McCracken.