Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(38)
The seconds seemed to tick by at a comically slow pace. One… Two… Three…
The man laughed and swallowed his drink, slapping Rapp on the shoulder and pointing to the booth. Two girls slid out to give him space and the people on the dance floor went back to grinding, drinking, and whatever the hell else it was they were doing.
“I’m told you’re someone who backs his mouth up with action,” the man at the back said with a perfect American accent. Probably one of the many MS-13 members who had grown up in Los Angeles and then been deported.
Rapp just nodded.
That seemed to satisfy him and he pointed toward the lines of powder on the tray in front of them. Close up, they had a grayish color and strange granular quality.
“What is it?” Rapp asked.
“A proprietary blend.”
If there was one thing Rapp had learned over the years, it was to run from anything described as a proprietary blend or a delicacy. That wasn’t an option, though. It was clearly another test.
He leaned forward, closed off one nostril with an index finger, and discovered that, whatever it was, it kicked like a fucking mule. He temporarily lost his sense of up and down, tilting to the left far enough that the girl next to him had to push him back upright. A hard shake of his head left hair pasted across his sweat-soaked face. When he tried to speak, he discovered his tongue was numb enough to give his words a thick drawl.
“That’s good shit.”
Rapp was sliding along the wall, staying as far away from the dancing mass as he could. His fifth beer was in hand and the alcohol was just now starting to calm the jitters he’d gotten from whatever it was that he’d put up his nose. The edges of the building were dotted with various seating options, and he zeroed in on one that looked like a cushion-strewn queen-sized bed. There were already two girls lounging on it, but they were small enough to leave plenty of room. Neither protested when he collapsed in the space between them. The chances of him sleeping that night were precisely zero, so he just stared up into the spotlights playing over the crowd.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there before his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Two minutes? Two hours? Enough time that the girls had fallen asleep and were now curled up to the sides of him. He moved one of their legs and fished out the phone, inserting a set of wired earbuds in an attempt to deaden the music.
“Go ahead!” he shouted, holding the cord mike close to his mouth.
“You gonna live to see sunrise?” Scott Coleman said.
“Sixty-forty. You?”
“A woman who people seem to be afraid of has taken me under her wing. I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to pay for the protection, though.”
“I’m sure you can handle it.”
“I dunno. She outweighs me by about fifty pounds and half her face is inked to look like a skull. Something about a split personality, I think. My Spanish is pretty marginal.”
“What’s the word on our package?”
“It came into Puerto Barrios a few hours ago. Last report I got was that it sailed through customs and is on a truck coming our way. Should make it with time to spare.”
“And our plane?”
“It’s ready and waiting for our instructions. I don’t want to name the airstrip until the last minute, though. You never know who’s listening.”
“Roger that. I’ll see you tomorrow. And in the meantime, watch your ass.”
“I don’t have to. Clarita’s doing it for me. Seriously. Right now. Staring right at it.”
Rapp disconnected the call.
CHAPTER 17
THROUGH heavily tinted windows, Rapp could see that the poverty-stricken slum had given way to a middle-class shopping area. It wasn’t yet dark at six thirty in the evening, but there was enough traffic to make their improvised motorcade blend in. He scanned the pedestrian-filled sidewalks and then looked past them to the outlines of volcanic peaks on the city’s outskirts. He’d finally managed to get to sleep when the party died down around eleven a.m. Despite what had seemed like a seven-hour coma, he still felt like he’d been rolled down the side of a mountain. It had crossed his mind to ask his host exactly what he’d snorted, but then decided he really didn’t want to know.
On the bright side, his performance the night before seemed to have moved him up in the pecking order. He was traveling in the same vehicle he’d arrived in, but this time he rated the front passenger seat. Behind the wheel was Carlos, the man he’d put on his ass the night before. The young Guatemalan wasn’t holding any grudges, chatting away in amicable but virtually incomprehensible English. The expensive clothes had disappeared, replaced by a pair of grimy jeans, running shoes, and a completely bare torso. Through the tattoos, Rapp could see an impressive road map of bullet holes, knife wounds, and burns. There was no question that the man had been in a lot of fights in his twenty-odd years, but based on the number of scars he’d accumulated, he might not have won any.
Rapp was scheduled to rendezvous with Scott Coleman at a drug runner airstrip a little less than two hours away. In theory, the weapon they’d requested from the Latvians would be there along with the plane designated to transport it. Whether that was really going to materialize, though, was hard to say. MS-13 wasn’t exactly known for its operational precision, and he hadn’t been able to reach the former SEAL since they’d talked the night before.