Drone

“Helicopter?” Ulises knew that Mexico was too far away for a helicopter unless it had air-refueling capabilities.

“I have made arrangements for you with one of our agents in Aruba. He is making arrangements to smuggle you from there to Veracruz. We must be extremely cautious, hijo, if we hope to get you home alive.”

* * *

Udi called Pearce with the news, hoping that the kill order would take effect when the helicopter crossed into international waters. Every other team had killed their respective targets. He and Tamar wanted their shot, too.

“Wait until they are at least one hundred kilometers out” was all Pearce said.

“You got it, boss!” Udi beamed.

Thanks to Dr. Rao and the mosquito drones, the GPS implant in Ulises’s body still functioned perfectly, drawing energy from the static electricity he generated. Ulises traveled by car to Ribas’s private heliport at Simón Bolívar International. Moments later, a big ugly Russian Mi-35 Hind E helicopter landed. The airport was near the water, so Udi and Tamar repositioned their yacht a quarter mile off the coast, out of the flight path of commercial aircraft. Fortunately, there weren’t any Venezuelan Coast Guard patrol boats in the area so they could keep their surveillance gear up and running.

Tamar’s camera recorded seven Venezuelan commandos in combat fatigues exiting the helicopter. The unit commander was a sergeant according to his insignia. He saluted Ulises, then shook his hand with a curt smile.

Ulises turned and bear-hugged Ribas, then he boarded the chopper after the commandos had loaded back in. The door slammed shut, and the rotors cycled up. The big Hind lifted off the tarmac and swung lazily toward the ocean. Ribas stood below, waving good-bye until the chopper cleared land.

Udi stood on the aft deck of the yacht and watched the helicopter roar overhead through a pair of mil-spec binoculars while Tamar kept the video camera locked on it from inside the cabin. They obviously didn’t have the opportunity to place any surveillance equipment on board the military helicopter on such short notice, so they couldn’t hear or see what was going on inside.

“We shouldn’t follow them immediately,” Udi suggested. “No point in getting too close and alerting them. We have plenty of range.”

“I agree. But you’ll have to drive the boat.”

“Why?” Udi asked.

Tamar grinned. “Because it’s my turn to shoot the Stinger.” She kept the camera focused on the massive helo as it sped north out to sea. Udi started the engine and turned the yacht in the same direction as the helicopter, which had climbed to a thousand feet. A moment later, the Hind froze in space.

“Tamar—”

“I’m getting it, love,” she shouted from inside. Pearce needed everything recorded to video.

Tamar watched the helicopter door slide open on the video monitor. “What are they doing?”

A couple of seconds later, Ulises’s body tumbled out, falling like a bag of wet cement. Tamar followed his unmistakable corpse all the way down with the camera until it splashed. Udi focused his binoculars at the spot where Ulises’s body had hit. No movement in the water.

Udi glanced back up at the helicopter. It rotated 180 degrees on a dime, then roared away back toward the airport. Tamar followed it with her camera as it flew over the airport and then climbed over the mountains behind the city on a direct course for Caracas.

“Why?” Tamar asked.

“Why not? With his father dead, he became a liability.”

“And the idiot walked right into it.”

“That’s why Ribas had the armed escort. Just in case he came to his senses.”

Tamar radioed in to Pearce as Udi throttled up and sped toward the splashdown. He knew Pearce would want a DNA sample just to be sure.

JULY

25

Los Pinos, Mexico D.F.

“What do you mean Castillo’s dead?”

“Castillo, his son Ulises, his three brothers. All of them.” Hernán sliced his throat with his thumb.

“The Americans?”

“Who else?”

Antonio fell back into his ornately carved presidential chair, despondent. “If it weren’t for César Castillo, I wouldn’t be president.”

The Barrazas had cut to the front of the political line with cartel muscle and money. Hernán had engineered it all. He knew that many political dynasties had been midwifed by crime syndicates. The Triads in communist China, even the Kennedys and the mob. And God only knew if the rumors about Putin and the Russian mafia were true.

Hernán shuffled over to the credenza and poured himself a whiskey. He held up the bottle and glass to his brother, a silent offer of a drink. But Antonio waved him off. Hernán shrugged and tossed back the glass, then poured himself another.

“You needed Castillo to win the office. You don’t need him to keep it,” Hernán said. “Now that he’s gone, there will be a ‘peace dividend’ for you and Mexico.” He tossed back his second.

“Maybe it was the Bravos who finally took him out,” Antonio said. “Maybe we’ve been backing the wrong horse the whole time.”