SAN YSIDRO
MONDAY, 7:26 A.M.
THE MOTOR COACH WAS more crowded than it had been before dawn. Quintana Blanco was seated at the dinette table, speaking in low, sharp Spanish on a cell phone and taking notes on a legal pad. Harley was seated across the table from him, talking quietly into another phone.
A new operator had taken over in the cramped little kitchen. He was building a dozen sandwiches on a long counter that looked like a short-order cook’s prep table. The new op had the lean, weather-burned look of a hunter or a cowboy. His gaunt face was buffered with a salt-and-pepper beard. He sliced open packages of meat, cheese, and bread with a double-edged dagger. He had the same focus and economy of motion that the other operators did.
“Do you have any clumsy people in St. Kilda?” she asked Faroe.
“Clumsy ops don’t last long enough to get disenchanted with government service, drop out, and join St. Kilda.”
Steele was conducting a briefing in the rear salon of the motor coach. Three more operators had squeezed into the small space. Two were strapping, muscular men whose lats and pecs bulged beneath snug T-shirts. The third was a woman in her late twenties with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. The big men deferred to her without hesitation.
She was the one being briefed by Steele.
When she glanced up and saw Faroe, for an instant her face softened. Then the moment passed and her look of calm competence returned.
“Hey, Joe, how’s it?” she said quietly.
“Hi, Mary,” Faroe said. “Glad you’re here. You, too, Ciro, Jake. Grace, this is Mary. She’s the coldest sniper in the can. Ciro and Jake here spot for her and provide cover.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “From you, I suppose that’s a compliment.”
She offered Grace a handshake that was strong and at the same time restrained.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever met a sniper, male or female,” Grace said.
“Maybe you’ve never needed one before.” Mary’s smile was as confident and gentle as her handshake.
Steele said, “Joe forgot to mention that Mary is also an honors graduate from UCLA, physics and literature, and she quit the U.S. Army when they wouldn’t let her train in her chosen specialty.”
“Sniping is an old boys’ club gig,” Mary said.
“The bench used to be,” Grace said.
“Step by step,” Mary said, grinning. “We’ll get ’em yet.”
“Go, sistah!”
This time it was Faroe who rolled his eyes.
Steele folded the topographic map he’d used in the briefing. “News?”
“Nothing since I called you,” Faroe said. “We’re still waiting for Beltran to call.”
“He gave that thug a third of a million dollars in diamonds,” Grace said, “with the promise of twice that amount if and when.”
“Don’t worry,” Faroe said. “It won’t show up on your bill.”
“That wasn’t what I was worried about,” she shot back.
“Money is just money, but was it a wise investment?” Steele asked.
“Our final option is pretty much fucked,” Faroe said. “This is the only other dog in the race that Hector doesn’t own, so I’m backing it.”
“A real dog,” Grace said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Steele asked her before Faroe could.
“No,” she said starkly. She closed her eyes. “I-no. I’m sorry. It’s just that Beltran should have called by now.”
Faroe slid one hand into her hair and pulled her gently against him. “You have nothing to apologize for, amada.” Because she was right. “Yes, he should have called. A three-legged dog could have made it from the telephone to the village and back.” He looked at Steele. “What about you? You have a better dog to put in this race?”
Steele smiled oddly at both of them. On another man it would have been affection. With Steele it was hard to tell.
“The intelligence monitors have picked up a lot of traffic,” Steele said, “all scrambled, all on the bands used by the Rivas satellite cell phones. Randy is very impressed by their encryption program. It has three levels that we know of. He’s working on the fourth. From the language he’s using, it’s hard going.”
Faroe said something foul in Spanish under his breath and added, “Not good.”
“No, it isn’t. If we had more time-”
“We don’t,” Faroe cut in.
Steele nodded. “Something has changed just in the last hour or so, but we haven’t the faintest idea what it might be. So if you intend to make use of this miner and his intelligence, you’d better be quick about it.”
“Anything on the law enforcement bands?” Faroe asked.
“The Bureau and the DEA are scrambled,” Harley said. “Traffic volume seems routine but who knows? There are a few local agencies whose freqs are in the clear. Cahill heard what sounded like a surveillance convoy calling out street grid coordinates in Chula Vista. There’s something cooking but we don’t know whether we’ve got the elephant by his tail or his trunk.”
Grace turned inside Faroe’s arm and faced the other people. No one mentioned the tear tracks on her face.
“See if somebody can figure out what frequency the federales use in Tijuana,” Faroe said. “They’re the key. Hector owns them.”
“We’re all over it,” Harley said. “Nothing definitive or you’d know it already.”
“Fine, sorry, forget I mentioned it.” Faroe reined in his frustration, the knowledge that the last hours of Lane’s life were racing away and Faroe was helpless to do anything but take an assault rifle down to All Saints and die with him. “If there’s traffic, there’s action. Let me know when you know.”
Grace put her hand over his, pulling herself closer to him. She didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.
She was thinking it too.
Lane.
Seconds racing.
Minutes gone.
Less than five hours and counting down.
Too fast.
Not enough time.