David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

He heard Calo's curt bark, “Garcia? ”as he addressed the room of technicians, then heard one of them respond, “Kitchen.”

Calo, an Italian whom Burden had first met in Buenos Aires, headed up a team that comprised only three people besides himself. Sometimes one or two of them were women, but mostly they were men, and there were never more than four altogether. Calo himself wasn't a big man, middle weight, dark complexion with dark hair, not muscular, not distinctive in any particular way. His face was unremarkable, and he didn't look physically imposing enough to do the things that he was in such demand to do. Close work was often misunderstood. In general his team was always a variation of himself, common in appearance, quiet, observant.

Calo walked into the kitchen and went straight to Burden as if he knew where he would be sitting. Burden was already getting up, and the two men embraced, Calo's usual abrazo that for him served as the sealing bond for any given operation. He turned to his three team members, all of them dressed in street clothes.

“Baas, ”he said, indicating a man with wide-set eyes and a soft smile, his dark hair as tightly coiled as an African's.

“Tito… ”He pointed to a very thin young man with a little series of symbols tattooed on one cheek and a pretty mouth.

“Cope… ”The only blond in the bunch, the oldest of them in appearance, maybe in his mid thirties. He didn't look directly at anyone.

“Good, ”Burden said. He'd seen Tito before, but the other two he didn't know. “The stuff's out here, ”he said, walking out of the kitchen and into a long screened porch that looked out onto the dense cedar woods. The porch was scattered with knapsacks and various other bags that belonged to the van crew that had spent the night there. Burden grabbed a cardboard box next to the wall, swung it into the middle of the room, and sat on the floor. The others followed suit, forming a loose semicircle in front of him.

Burden began handing out photos of the clifftop house on Las Ramitas along with several maps: the street plan, the house plan, an area plan. The four men passed the photos and maps around in silence while Burden went over the little intelligence that they had so far, acknowledging its weaknesses, knowing that every unanswered question created a risk for them.

For the next hour he went over the details of the operation, outlining the logistics of dealing with the various teams Macias had put together, emphasizing again and again the importance of absolute silence and of leaving no trace of their presence.

“No evidence at all. If you touch it, it walks away with you. No abandoned cars, no discarded weapons or casings, no bodies, no blood. Nada.”

“Can't be done, ”Calo said. “Not with this many targets.” He was looking at the list of vehicles and bodyguards that Burden's surveillance crew had compiled from the previous night's operation. “Not enough intelligence. Too little time to plan. Too many targets.”

“I understand that, ”Burden said. “But I'm not looking for a total take here. I'm just saying what you do take has got to be clean. We've got something going for us on this. You saw in the file that Jorge Macias put this operation together. In the past he's followed pretty conventional tactical discipline and procedure. Everything mobile. Everything compartmentalized. Most important: At the first sign of operational breach, everybody disappears. No discussion. Gone. ”He looked around at each of them. “I want you to take out as many as you can. But if the risk of discovery is too high, if you can't do it silently, cut them loose.”

“And Luquin?”

“Isolating him in that house is your main objective. I'll be responsible for him after that.”

There was a pause of surprise. Calo pretended to be looking at the maps on the floor in front of him. But no one was going to ask Burden to elaborate.

After a few moments, Calo rose and went to the kitchen sink. He put his cigarette under the faucet, then tossed the soggy butt into one of the empty pizza boxes on the cabinet. He came back to the porch and leaned against the door frame. Everyone was sweating. The dense cedar brakes cut off any chance of a breeze reaching them through the screened porch. It was still, oppressive. Cicadas keened in the midday heat.

“Isolating him, ”Calo said. “That's a problem.”

“Yeah, ”Burden said. “I know.”

Calo bent and picked up his copy of the notes that had been prepared for them. He looked at them.

“Macias is staying in the same house, ”he said. “With his bodyguard and driver. And then there's Luquin's bodyguard and driver. That's six people. How isolated do you want him?”

“Alone, if possible.”

“And if it's not possible?”

“We've got to get Macias out of there, at least. And his two people.”

“Any head-on confrontation is going to cause a stink,” Calo confirmed.

Burden nodded. “Can't do that.”

Calo looked at his intelligence report. “We don't know their routines, their schedules, nothing.”

“We just barely had time to find out how many there were, ”Burden said.

It was quiet on the porch for a moment, each person taking counsel of his own thoughts. Burden knew the routine and waited, letting them do what they had to do. All of the men had read the file on Luquin, so they knew the kind of man they were stalking.

Calo's teams all operated under the same rule of egalitarianism. He pulled together the best people he could find and then trusted them. Because his teams were small, any individual could pull the plug on any operation. Everybody had to be in 100 percent or it wouldn't work. A small team was like a fine mechanical watch-all the parts were essential, none expendable.

Calo's teams were assembled according to a kind of Zenlike intuitiveness. It mattered, somehow, who the target was, and the individuals he chose for each particular assignment seemed to have attitudes about the kinds of people they were going after. It made a difference, Calo said, in the synergy of violence that was a potential in each mission. He was vague about it, but Burden knew that it was important to Calo and to the team's success. It didn't matter that it didn't seem logical. He had learned a long time ago that logic was only a part of this business, sometimes a surprisingly small part of it.

Burden interrupted the silence. He had to say this before anyone spoke up.

“Look, I know this thing is full of holes, ”he said, “and we'll never get them all plugged. The thing is riddled with risks. Bad odds. But I just wanted you to know that I know that I'm bringing you into a mess. Calo, you can vouch that this isn't the way I work. But I couldn't walk away from a chance at Cayetano Luquin. And, unfortunately, this thing had to happen fast, or not at all.”

There was no response from any of them. These were not men who felt any emotional need to pat Burden on the shoulder and say, That's okay, we understand.

“These guys are ex-Mexican intelligence, you think?” Calo asked Burden.

“That's my guess. It's only a guess.”

Everybody was quiet again, looking at the maps, thinking, playing it out in their minds, trying to see the worst of it.

“Okay, ”Calo said finally, looking up, “let's decide. You have reservations, we discuss them right here, right now. It's go, or no go, right now.”

He turned to his left and looked at Baas, who nodded without any hesitation. Calo's eyes moved to the right, to Tito. Tito was thinking, preoccupied, absently moving a delicate finger over the tattoos on his cheek. Then he nodded. Finally he looked at Cope, who was resting against the wall next to Burden.

“I don't like the skimpy intelligence. ”He had a strong Aussie accent. “I don't like the last minute feel to this thing. And isolating Luquin… shit, that sounds like a snake pit.” He looked at Burden. “But I've read this asshole's files, and I'd like to help you with this one. And you've got a reputation that washes over a whole lot of shit. ”He nodded at Calo. “I'm okay with this.”