Chapter Eleven #2
Court saw that the curtains were either canvas or burlap or some other type of heavy fabric. His FLIR wouldn’t be able to detect heat signatures inside the buildings.
He didn’t like it, but he also knew these locals had been rushed into this op much the same as he had.
One of Juan Carlos’s men called over the radio, letting them know a vehicle was approaching. Soon Court saw a dark blue Nissan Versa sedan without headlights on pulling off the road onto the drive, heading towards the restaurant.
The pickup facing it flashed its lights two times, and the Versa pulled to a stop ten yards away from it.
The Tacoma’s truck lights turned on as the car door opened.
A woman in a gray tank top and dark pants stepped out, and she raised her hands over her head, her eyes squinting into the headlights.
Both Court and Juan Carlos looked her over through their binos, even though they were only twenty-five yards away from her.
Juan Carlos said, “That her?”
Court rose. “Cover me.” He moved onto the restaurant grounds, past a few picnic tables, and came up on the left side of the woman, who was still facing the pickup.
He recognized the woman code-named Caprice, and he knew she spoke English, but still, he said, “Buenas noches.”
She lurched in fear, not having heard him approach. Quickly, he said, “It’s okay. I’m from the USA. Sent down to bring you in.”
She turned to him, and he stepped up to her and frisked her quickly. Her body felt unbelievably tense. Muscles tight from head to toe, a slight quiver in her arms and hands, a rocking in her legs. When he was done, he waved to the pickup.
The headlights turned off.
In the darkness now, he said, “You sure you weren’t followed?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure.”
“Tell me everything you did since you called your case officer last night.”
“I took the bus from Managua, changed in León. Arrived in Chinandega this afternoon and rented a car. Went to a movie. Stopped at a restaurant, ate in my car, watching the road.
“I waited two hours, like I was instructed. No one passed. Then I came here.”
“Good.” Court scanned the road, the hill. “I’m to ask you why you think you are burned.”
She said, “Fentanyl. It’s coming into the airport in Managua. Direct from Shanghai. From here it’s going north.”
“From Shanghai?” Court said aloud. So, this had to do with China, not just Nicaragua. But why isn’t this a DEA op? he wondered. He asked, “How do you know this?”
“I’m Nicaraguan police. Don’t they tell you anything?”
He did know that much about her, at least.
“Keep talking.”
She looked around nervously. “I conducted an investigation on a man working at the airport. He broke, told me everything. He’s working with the Renazco gang…
a local drug transport organization. He said they are getting the drugs with help from the MSS.
That’s Chinese intelligence, if you don’t know. ”
Court knew, and now he thought he knew why the CIA was running this. “Did you encounter any Chinese nationals in Nicaragua during your investigation?”
“No, senor. Only Renazco. I don’t think the Chinese are working in Nicaragua, but they are involved in sending the drugs from Shanghai.”
She went on. “I tried to go to you guys…my case officer, I mean…Herman. You know Herman?”
Court did not know Herman, but he knew that her case officer worked out of the U.S. embassy in Managua.
“Sure, I do. Good ole Herman. Who do you think sent me?”
“Okay. Anyway, people came to my house. My neighbor told me. Said they were definitely Renazco’s men, sicarios…I didn’t go home. I called my boss, he told me DDI agents were there waiting to talk to me.”
Dirección de Inteligencia, Court knew, was the Nicaraguan version of the CIA. Yep, it made perfect sense now why the Agency had taken the lead with Caprice. Chinese spooks working with Nica spooks to bring drugs into the Americas.
Caprice’s stress was palpable. “I don’t know if they know I’m working with you guys…
but somebody sent fucking drug gang sicarios to my house, and then DDI shows up at my work!
They are all together, and they know that I know.
Why would they send sicarios after me if they didn’t know I was working with—”
“Okay…calm down.” Court was sold on her story. The intelligence she had was enough to get her extracted, and the danger she was in was more than enough to warrant getting her the fuck out of here right now. He said, “You’re coming with me.”
He had her by the arm and they began moving for the truck facing them; he waved a hand in the air, and the truck lurched forward.
On Court’s left, Juan Carlos came out of the darkness, his weapon at his shoulder. Court said, “We’ll take our truck. Tell your three to follow us and watch out—”
Juan Carlos’s radio squawked, and a man spoke. Juan Carlos looked to Court. “Three vehicles approaching from the west. Moving fast.”
“Shit.” Court and Juan Carlos had parked their truck over three hundred yards away to the east, higher on the hill behind them and on a road that wound through the jungle, and then they had approached from there on foot. “We’ll throw her in the bed of this truck and we’ll get in with her.”
Juan Carlos waved the Tacoma forward, and then the same voice as earlier broadcast again over the radio. Court assumed it was the man hiding on the other side of the restaurant behind the pile of firewood, because this man would have had the best view down the road.
“Pickup trucks. Men in the back. I see rifles.”
The Tacoma skidded to a stop next to the Versa, Juan Carlos lowered the tailgate, and while he did this he asked, “How did they know we were here?”
Court began moving Caprice to the rear of the truck, but as he did so, he lowered his rifle, grabbed his FLIR from where it hung around his neck, and looked through it, pointing its objective lens at the buildings on the hillside two hundred meters away.
He did not know why he took the time to do this; he just had a feeling.
The optic immediately revealed what appeared to be a single heat signature in a window of one of the redbrick buildings.
A thick curtain had been moved, and a warm source was revealed inside the structure.
Before he could say a word, a bright flash flared out his optic.
The first heat signature, Court knew, had been a man hidden in the building, and the second heat signature, Court knew, had been the man firing a rifle.
A gunshot boomed in the night, the rear window of the Tacoma shattered just a few feet to his right, and a man screamed out.