Ballistic(128)
DLR stared into her eyes. To him they were not vacant sockets in the plaster; they were windows into an abyss. Viewing portals into the soul of an angry goddess.
A bottle of Gran Patrón Platinum silver tequila was placed at his table by a waiter in a white coat. Next to the bottle a crystal dish of freshly cut limes, a crystal dish of salt, a small shot glass of the same crystal.
De la Rocha ignored the accoutrements and grabbed the bottle by the neck, took a swig of the clear liquor, stared at his idol, and promised her aloud that he would give her the tribute she demanded.
The unborn Gamboa child.
The waiter stood awkwardly with a menu in his hand, waiting for DLR to finish his prayer. While Daniel was still praying, the man cleared his throat.
Emilio Lopez Lopez stood against the wall just behind his jefe; Emilio stepped forward to the waiter and grabbed him by the arm of his coat, turned him roughly, and prepared to shove him away for his poor manners. But Daniel raised his bottle of tequila.
“It’s okay, Emilio. Thank you.” He looked at the waiter. “Just have your chef prepare something light. Grilled tilapia would be perfect.”
“Muy bien, Don Daniel,” said the waiter, and he shot off to the kitchen, clearly happy to walk away from his error with his life.
Nestor came over to the table, and they talked business for a few minutes, but DLR’s heart wasn’t in it, and finally he asked his consigliere to leave him to eat his meal alone. The rest of the Black Suits got the message; they ate at other tables and talked in hushed tones, worked their mobile phones or their laptops, tried like hell to be the one who determined just where in the world their targets had managed to disappear to.
A different waiter appeared with a cold watermelon soup, and DLR slurped it while lost in thought and melancholy. He continued to sip the tequila between gulps of bottled water and spoonfuls of soup; he just gazed around in the dark, at his men, at the fountain, at his idol on the table in the corner. Decorative paper lanterns strung across the courtyard on lines above the men’s heads swayed in the breeze.
In just minutes another waiter in a starched white coat came to DLR’s table; he pushed a tablecloth-covered rolling cart with a covered dish on it. With a subservient bow the man took away the empty plate of soup from the table and then replaced it with the covered dish.
“Buen provecho,” said the waiter, bon appétit, as he removed the cover and placed it back on the rolling cart.
De la Rocha did not look at the man, did not reply. He just took his fork in his hand, then distractedly glanced down at his plate as he began digging into his dinner.
His hand jerked up and away.
The plate was covered in slimy animal entrails, the reeking head and skeleton of a deboned fish, and other pieces of smelly waste.
“What the hell is this?” Daniel asked.
The waiter answered him in English, “That, sir, looks like shit, and this . . .” He held his hand out in front of DLR, showed him a device clutched in it. “This looks like a dead man’s switch.” The device was clearly a detonator, the waiter’s thumb was pressed down on a red button, and a wire ran from the device, down the man’s palm, and disappeared into his white coat.
De la Rocha looked up at the waiter.
It took a moment with the trim hair and beard, with the darker skin and the black-framed glasses, but he recognized him.
It was the Gray Man.
The American opened his coat and exposed a crude roped vest with two large bricks of yellow material coated in plastic hanging from it. They looked like bags of sand. He said, softly, “If my thumb leaves this trigger, for even one-tenth of one second, then this ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb will detonate, and everyone here will die. Including you.”
Emilio had been standing against the wall; he could only see the back of the waiter’s coat. He’d checked to make sure it wasn’t the same insolent bastard who had coughed while his jefe was praying a few minutes earlier. Satisfied that this was a new, and hopefully more professional, server, he’d not bothered to pay close attention to the presentation of the food. But now Emilio noticed the two men were in conversation with each other. It was not often that his patrón spoke to a waiter for so long.
Emilio stepped around the side of the man in the white coat, and when he did, he saw Daniel’s wide eyes. Immediately, he reached into his suit coat and rushed the table, recognizing the Gray Man at the same moment. He drew his Venezuelan Zamorano 9 mm pistol and knocked a chair out of the way to press it against the gringo’s head.
De la Rocha raised his hands into the air, panicked now that his bodyguard would shoot the American without hesitation. “¡No! ¡Tranquilo! Tranquilo!” Relax! Relax!