Part 38 (1/2)

”No. You guys saved our a.s.ses. I'm the one that should be sorry. I appreciate you sticking your necks out like this.”

”It's our pleasure, sir,” said Cantrell. ”I just wish we could have rolled through the same motherf.u.c.kers that hit our convoy, instead of those cartel rats.”

”Me, too,” said David. ”I'll tell Nathan. Give me a little s.p.a.ce.”

”No problem,” said Gedmin. ”One other thing. I'm uncomfortable bringing these mercenaries on board the AL-TACs with their weapons. Can you smooth that over with them? I'd be happy to store all of their gear externally.”

”Jason. Do me a favor. Cut them a break. This is the same group that saved what was left of my ECI platoon on the interstate. They've been fighting and dying for us since then. You can trust them.”

”I can live with that,” said Gedmin. ”I'll get them loaded up.”

”Thanks again, guys,” said David, waiting for them to disappear before opening the back hatch. He took a flashlight from his vest and waved it inside. ”Nathan. Jose needs to ask you some questions about our meet-up in Las Vegas. Shouldn't take more than a minute.”

When Nathan's feet hit the ground, David guided him away from the door and closed it. He aimed the light upward, between them, illuminating their faces.

”Where's Jose?”

”Jose isn't here,” said David.

”What?”

”Nathan. I have some really bad news,” he said. ”Your father is dead.”

Nathan didn't say anything at first. He looked down at the light before shaking his head slowly. ”What about my mom?”

”She's safe.”

Nathan nodded slowly. ”How did it happen?”

”He was killed at his friend's town house by Cerberus. My dad and Blake took out the team somehow.”

A heavy gust of wind blew a thick patch of sand against them, momentarily blocking most of the light. When Nathan's face reappeared, he was staring at David, his face registering no expression.

”We're going to bring the rest of them down, right?” he said, an edge to his voice.

David was taken aback by the question, though it should have been the easiest for him to answer. He stood there, the wind and sand pelting him for a several moments, before gripping his shoulder.

”I swear it,” said David.

Nathan's stoic facade started to crumble. He patted David on the shoulder and turned toward the faint outline of the vehicle next to him, then stopped and turned back. ”Don't say anything to Keira or Owen,” he said. ”I'll give them the news once we're tucked safely away in Las Vegas. They've been through enough.”

”We've all been through enough,” said David, grabbing the hatch lever. ”I'm sorry about your dad, Nathan. My father spoke of him like a brother.”

”They were brothers as far as my dad was concerned,” said Nathan, hitting the side of the hatch with his fist. ”Best friends until the end.”

David extended a hand. ”Until the end.”

”Until the bitter end,” said Nathan, gripping it firmly.

CHAPTER 61.

Mason Flagg opened his laptop and connected to the jet's encrypted server, settling in for the ninety-minute flight to AspenPitkin County Airport. He navigated to a secure e-mail system and checked for an update from his Sinaloa contact.

The last message he'd read prior to leaving the Point Loma operations center for the flight had confirmed that a convoy of three vehicles matching descriptions from Nogales had pa.s.sed the last turnoff on Highway 93, heading north onto a long stretch of lonely road. His contact had a.s.sured Flagg that his problems would disappear on the highway, despite possible interference from a dust storm of ”biblical proportions.” At worst, Fisher and company might not make it to the ambush site before the storm hit, pulling off the road to let it pa.s.s. A short delay to the inevitable, the Mexican had said. Flagg would believe it when he saw the three cars burning. The past ninety-six hours had conditioned him to refrain from making any a.s.sumptions about the fate of Nathan Fisher.

A new message waited, time-stamped nearly an hour ago. Dammit. He hated using this message drop system, but the Mexican had insisted. Apparently, talking on a satphone had become the number-one cause of death among high-ranking cartel members over the past few weeks. From the sound of things, the United States military had implemented continuous air coverage missions over cartel hot spots. Fully armed stealth bombers cruising at high alt.i.tude above each designated area, waiting for target coordinates provided by sophisticated electronic intercept platforms. One minute, Cartel Joe was discussing the latest armored Range Rover models with a buddy in Mexico City; the next minute, forensic scientists were sc.r.a.ping his remains from the side of a two-thousand-pound smart bomb crater.

Flagg could appreciate the security concern, despite his annoyance with logging in to get updates he had paid millions of dollars to receive. He clicked on the message, encouraged to see that the convoy was less than thirty minutes away from reaching what had been described to him as ”a gauntlet of firepower.”

Don't get excited. The message had been sent close to an hour ago. Thirty minutes had pa.s.sed since he should have received a message confirming the ambush's success. OK-twenty-five. He could understand a small delay. Flagg started to type a message but stopped. The suspense was killing him.

He pulled out his satphone, which he'd already linked to the aircraft's...o...b..ard system, and dialed Javier's number. The phone rang twice before his contact answered.

”I figured you'd call,” Javier said. ”We haven't heard from the ambush team since they last reported. n.o.body can get through to them. It's possible they are having communications problems because of the dust storm.”

”Satellite communications should remain mostly unaffected,” said Flagg. ”How soon can you get a team out there to investigate?”

”They still have blackout conditions in Phoenix. I can't get a team out there until this pa.s.ses.”

”Do I get a refund if your people failed to neutralize the target?”

Javier didn't respond immediately.

”I didn't think so,” said Flagg. ”For that kind of money, you can send someone out immediately. If the ambush failed, I need to know that before I meet with my clients.”

”Let me see if we can send one of the lookouts near Interstate 10. They should be within an hour's drive of the site. Probably twice that with the storm.”

”Don't let me hold you up,” said Flagg.

”I'll be in touch,” said Javier, disconnecting the call.

You better be.

Flagg had hoped to walk into the Ethan Burridge's mountain lair with some good news on the Fisher front but had resigned himself to proceeding without it. The hunt for Fisher had become a stale distraction. At least that's how he planned to sell it. If Fisher had somehow survived the ambush on Highway 93, it was time to permanently outsource the problem to an organization with no traceable ties back to the One Nation campaign. This would allow Flagg to refocus on California, where the tide of public opinion had resoundingly turned in One Nation's favor. The latest polls indicated a seven-point rise in the percentage of Californians supporting the status quo over any form of state secession. Flagg would never admit it in front of the council, but Petrov's rash decision to kill Congresswoman Almeda might have inadvertently triggered a landslide s.h.i.+ft in the way Californians viewed the issue-shepherded by Flagg's targeted damage-control efforts.

Almeda's murder had been squarely blamed on the secessionists after the lieutenant governor had been killed less than one day later. It was the only logical conclusion, given the lieutenant governor's public antisecessionist stance. The failure of the Del Mar nuclear triad plant further complicated matters for the California Liberation Movement.

With public opinion swinging rapidly in their favor, Flagg had decided to accelerate one of Cerberus's cornerstone projects-the Mojave Block option. In a few short days, they would deal a killer blow to California's self-sustainability movement. The catastrophic loss of the Sheephole Valley Solar Electric Station to an earthquake would call into question the long-term viability of California's renewable energy plan. The Sheephole site wasn't the only solar farm located in an active fault zone. Rolling blackouts across much of Southern California would serve as a constant reminder of the fragile state of California's green energy infrastructure.

If the Cerberus-instigated destruction of the solar farm didn't extinguish the last serious vestiges of the secession movement, the council would have to consider a far more direct approach: open season on the California Liberation Movement and all of its supporters.