18.
Officers’ Residential Compound, San Rafael, Friday, February 21, 4:45 pm.
Emily paced restlessly back and forth. Too much time had passed with no word from Zúñiga. She’d been checking frequently for messages. Nothing!
She returned to the couch, impulsively reached for the bottle of Chilean ‘Situ Reserva Carmenère’. But it was empty. In exasperation she slammed it back down, managing to crack the glass tabletop.
“Shit!” she growled.
Picking up her phone, she texted to her team waiting outside the compound. “Abort! Leave! … FAST!”
Then snatching up her plate carrier from where she’d left it lying on the floor, she rushed through the villa, headed for its rear entrance, where she paused long enough to assure herself by peering through the door’s window that no one was out there.
She unlocked and opened the door, and on stepping out was immediately brought to an abrupt halt when a gun muzzle was jammed against the side of her head.
“Freeze!” demanded a male voice.
*****************
Justice Minister, Juan Cabrera sucked in his breath and hastily mopped his brow before picking up the phone on his desk. He knew it had to be Mendoza on the line and he guessed it had to do with his signing off earlier that afternoon on Zúñiga’s proposed plan.
“Good afternoon Your Excellency. To what do I owe this call? If it’s about the Morales ‘show trial’ preparations, I can report that arrangements are nearly complete …”
“Knock it off, Cabrera! You know perfectly well why I’m calling. In about two minutes a pair of ‘Seguridad del Estado’ officers will be at your door with orders to place you under arrest and transport you out to San Rafael.”
“I see.”
“Do you have a hand gun, Cabrera?”
“Yes, in my desk drawer.”
“Then I suggest, in order to protect your loved ones, that you remove it from that drawer and use it to shoot yourself before those officers arrive.”
“My family?”
“Will be told you were assassinated by Morales supporters. You’ll be given a State Funeral with honors.”
“And Zúñiga?”
“Either shot or hanged, I suspect.”
The call was abruptly terminated.
*****************
Block C, Friday, February 21, 4:40 pm.
Zúñiga and Bárbara lay side-by-side, their naked bodies stretched out full length on a slanted torture rack … not of the heavy wooden medieval kind … but of a modern, state-of-the-art fiberglass and metal design, with innumerable moving parts powered by electric motors, equipped with a number of ingeniously diabolical special features, and a capacity to handle as many as three prisoners at a time.
Rodriguez was now in charge, promoted by Capitán de Policía’ Sergio Perez, who was also present, to replace Zúñiga as C-block’s ‘chief interrogator’.
Getting Bárbara in place on the rack had been easy enough as she’d been too dazed and weak to offer any resistance. She’d simply been snatched off her feet and tossed onto the rack, wrists and ankles secured,
Zúñiga had been quite another matter. Big, strong and fully alert, it had been necessary to subdue him with stun guns before he could be stripped of his clothing and manhandled into place alongside her.
“Shall we proceed then with the questioning of these two?” asked Rodriguez, eager to get on with it.
“No, not yet, Rodriguez, there’s another one on her way … should be here soon. They captured her a while ago, leaving Zúñiga’s villa. Appears to be an American operative, likely CIA, as best we can tell, and likely up to no good. Soon as she’s brought in we’ll place her on the rack’s third track, right alongside our dear Señorita Morales. And then we’ll apply a little persuasion to all three and see if we can extract some answers out of them!”
****************
The White House, Roosevelt Room, Friday, February 21, 5:05 pm
National Security Advisor, Jake Merriweather, had just convened the National Security Council in the Roosevelt Room, when a uniformed young woman entered to hand him a message. He took a minute or two to read it over once, then again, before stuffing it in his pocket and turning to address his colleagues.
“It appears we have suffered a setback in our special ops mission to rescue and extract Señorita Morales from the facility in Nueva Valencia.”
“Oh no! What happened Jake?”
“Well, Madame President, details are extremely sketchy. But members of the team on the ground there are saying that their team leader, code name ‘Dark Shadow’, appears to have been taken prisoner by Mendoza’s security forces. Her team reports that the last they heard from her was a message to abort the mission … then silence. We can only assume, given that we have nothing more than that to go on, that Zúñiga’s plan to spirit Morales out of the San Rafael complex in which she’s being held and into the hands of ‘Dark Shadow’ has been compromised, and that in the process ‘Dark Shadow’ has either been captured or killed.”
“Assuming that’s the case, what would be our next best move?”
“Well, Madame President, the other ‘immediate option’ available to us would be to activate an overt operation proposed and readied by the Joint Chiefs.”
“And what might that be?”
“Well, in general terms Madame President, it would be launching a military strike force … Navy Seals I’ve been told … that would descend on the San Rafael complex, in which Morales, Zúñiga, and possibly ‘Dark Shadow’ are being held, and bring them out.”
“And what are the international consequences of taking such an overt action? Seems to me it would be seen and possibly condemned as an act of war.”
“It might also be seen, Madame President, as a daring intervention to right a wrong … an admirable act of moral leadership on your part.”
“Maybe or maybe not. How long would this operation take to mount?”
“No more than 24 hours, Madame President. As I understand it, the Joint Chiefs have already taken the liberty of moving the necessary assets into position.”
“In other words, Jake; they didn’t trust me to order it, so they did it without my knowledge.”
“Well … yes, I suppose that’s one way of viewing it, Madame President.”
“And; what about casualties? Won’t there likely be armed resistance?”
“Yes some, perhaps, but within tolerable limits, so I’m told.”
“Define ‘tolerable’”
“Uh … as I understand it, Madame President, casualties of all kinds, including ‘friendly fire’ incidents, accidents, and possible losses to hostile fire, are estimated to range anywhere from negligible to as many as perhaps a dozen.”
“May I remind you that phone calls from the Oval Office to the families of dead service personnel, no matter how ‘negligible’ the number, are never easy or tolerable.”
“Point taken, Madame President. It’s your call.”
“What do you think, Claire?”
“It’s a pivotal moment, Madame President. To go with it could make or break you, depending on success or failure. If successful you’ll come off as a strong female leader with the guts to make the right difficult decision. If it fails, you’re likely to never be taken seriously again. Remember what the failed mission to rescue the Iran hostages did to Carter and his presidency.”
“Alright, here’s my decision. I say we go for it!”
TBC
