"Thought you might want to play some slots," the bartender said with a professional smile.

  It was probably casino policy and Flame let it go and ordered a shot of Maker's Mark to go with the beer. He drank in silence watching a soccer game of all things on the big screens behind the bar. What other sports could be live at this hour?

  The beer gone and the bourbon knocked back, he scooped up most of the quarters and walked out on the casino floor again wondering if he'd killed enough time to beg off and head upstairs.

  Maybe it was the alcohol but the waitresses were all looking even prettier now. And they were looking him over too. Why not? He was 6' 4" of SEAL muscle with bad boy looks. Everyone here was on the make be it for money or sex. He was overdue in that latter department. Long overdue. He hadn't been to bed with a woman since Mo back at Camp Liberty. The flesh had been willing but the spirit was weak. Pig said the cure for losing a woman was another woman but Flame wasn't so sure. It was one thing to be dumped. He was used to women dropping his sorry ass when the charm faded; even more used to leaving them wondering if he'd ever be back.

  But Mo left him so sudden and so final that it still hurt. He knew he needed it. It was just getting back to where he wanted it or would allow himself to want it without welcoming memories of her.

  This was Pig's leave and Flame wasn't going to piss on it by moping. He'd get himself in the swing or at least pretend he was having a good time. It was the least he could do for Pig who went to all this trouble to welcome him home in style.

  Flame took a seat on a stool before a slot machine and idly plunked a quarter in. They were lever operated. That was better than the push button type to Flame's mind. Where was the fun in stabbing buttons? A sharpie in an Aloha shirt and tinted glasses on the next stool frowned at him.

  "That bitch is dead, man," the sharpie said.

  "Yeah?"

  "A guy just got up from there," the sharpie continued without a break in his own mechanical routine of dropping coins in the slot and heaving down on the arm. "He spent an hour feeding maybe a hundred into that bitch. Nada. Stone cold."

  "Or maybe it's due," Flame said and hauled the lever down. The digital images flashed and spun in the three windows and came up with a hat trick of matching gold bars which activated a fourth window that flashed and spun and came to a halt on a dollar sign. Atop the machine a red strobe light came to life and a siren burbled to life with a yipping scream.

  Flame stepped off the stool in reflex and the sharpie by him met his eyes, mouth dropped open like a fish.

  "Holy shit," the sharpie said and his eyes widened.

  Flame thought he'd done something wrong as the machine kept flashing and wailing. A crowd was moving toward him as slot machine slaves left their stools. A guy in a dark suit followed by two big dudes in black polo shirts with casino logos over the breast. Security. What the fuck did I do, Flame thought.

  Before he could decide on how to handle the bruisers closing on him the guy in the dark suit had a hold of Flame's hand and was pumping it in both of his.

  "Congratulations, sir!" the suit was saying. One of the bruisers in a polo shirt had a camera up and was snapping pictures.

  "What?" was all Flame could manage as he looked at the sea of smiling faces all around.

  "You just won the night's big progressive payout!" the man insisted. "That's over two million dollars."

  "Shit." Flame said and a camera caught his big stupid grin and that chick-charming dimple was joined by an expression no man had ever seen in Flame's eyes before.

  Fear.

  "I'm not sure what to do about this," the casino manager said. "This has never come up before."

  Flame and Pig were in a windowless basement security office several levels below the casino floor. They had requested a meeting alone with the highest corporate official on site.

  "We understand, sir," Pig said. Without speaking about it with each other, the two SEALs had decided that Pig would do all the talking. "But we're in kind of a special situation."

  "The casino makes wins like this public," the manager said. "That's why we offer random prizes like this. It's good publicity and brings in traffic. Makes people think that anyone has a shot at the big money, not just the high rollers."

  "We appreciate that, sir," Pig said in a voice he might use to talk a cat out of a tree. "But our commanding officer would shit a blue brick if we showed up on the TV. We'd compromise security."

  "National security," Flame said with a straight face.

  "I don't know how to handle this," the manager said. "We can't use your faces. We can't use your names."

  The SEALs sat silently regarding him across the desktop.

  "But we'll pay you anyway!" the manager insisted. "A win is a win and what's fair is fair. But there are legalities. I can't let you walk out with two million three in cash without a pile of paperwork this high" The manager held his palm a foot above the tabletop.

  The SEALs sat unmoving.

  "There's state and city and county and federal taxes," he said after bit.

  "We can do all that," Pig said. "We just can't appear on TV or in print."

  "I realize you have a boss, men," the manager said and his eyes darted to the phones on the desk. "But I have a boss too and he's going to want to know why we let you take the winnings without making a whole publicity thing out of it."

  In answer, Pig took out his wallet. From a pocket in the wallet he produced a brass insignia of an American eagle holding a flintlock pistol in one claw and a trident in the other. He leaned forward and slid it across the desk.

  "Do you know what this is, sir?" Pig said and watched the manager pick up the medal.

  The medal was a reproduction of the SEALs trident. Pig bought them a dozen at a time online and handed them out when the moment called for it. There was a whole posse of barmaids, strippers and airline hostesses all over the lower forty-eight who treasured one of Pig's tridents as their very own. It was better than a platinum card.

  "I've seen this before," the manager said and held the medal in his fingers as if it might burst into flame without warning.

  "Then do you understand our request for anonymity?" Pig said.

  "Yes...I'm beginning to," the manager swallowed and went to hand the SEAL's trident back.

  "No, sir. I want you to keep that," Pig said making no effort to take the medal back. "In consideration."

  The manager nodded and his eyes returned to the medal in his fingers.

  "I'll see that everything is smoothed out for you gentlemen," he said after a moment. "I'll also make certain that your stay here at our casino and hotel is a memorable one."

  They waited while the manager left the room and returned twenty minutes later with a check made out to Randall O'Donnell in the amount of one million one hundred and twenty three thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars and seventy nine cents. Uncle Sam and the state of New Jersey had taken their bite. Flame signed the inch-thick stack of papers and the manager suggested placing the check in the hotel's safe until they left. Flame agreed and was presented with a receipt and the check was taken by two uniformed guards.

  Flame and Pig were then brought up in a private elevator to a five room suite on the top floor that casino was upgraded them to at no cost. Their bags were already here. They were assured that everything was comped. Everything. Room service. Massages. Open bar. Everything.

  Laying back on the king-sized bed in one of the suite's two bedrooms, Flame surfed channels on the eight-foot flatscreen while Pig quietly freaked.

  "A million dollars!" he said.

  "More than a million. And half of it is yours, bro," Flame said, settling on an old war flick on TCM. It was one of his dad's favorites.

  "Say what?" Pig stopped his pacing.

  "It was your twenty got me in the game," Flame said. He smiled as he remembered the scene playing out on the TV. "I was flat busted, remember?"

  "You mean that?" Pig said.

  "I wouldn't shit you, bro," Flame grinned recalling how hard his dad laughed at this scene every time. Lee Marvin was giving someone shit.

  Pig stood aghast but shook it off when he heard a gentle rapping at the door.

  "Must be our lobsters," Pig said and swung the door wide.

  "Compliments of the house," said the tallest of the four young ladies standing in the doorway wearing little more than their pride under open raincoats.

  "They're pretty, Colonel. But can they fight?" said Donald Sutherland to Robert Ryan on the big screen.

  The two SEALs got the call out the next morning and hauled ass for Little Creek.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BASE AEREA MILITAR NO. 10 CULIACÃN, MEXICO

  In 2002, Mexico's biggest illegal drug concerns, the Sinaloa cartels and the Zeta gang came to an understanding. They agreed that, rather than bloody one another in a drug war that neither could win, they would unite against a common foe. That shared enemy was the Mexican government, army and their gringo allies from the USA.

  When the war against el narco turned from a free-for-all firezone to an open civil war, the PF moved their operational headquarters out of the cities and onto bases of the Mexican Army. The transition wasn't difficult as much of the ranks of the federal police agency was made up of active-duty military personnel.

  The move was made for physical security as well as intelligence security. The insurrectos were brazen enough to attack police stations and government offices to murder and kidnap. No amount of fortification could make them secure in the escalating level of violence. And the billions in Yanqui dollars flooding over the border served to corrupt police and politicians alike so that any operation mounted against the drug gangs was compromised before it even left the planning stages.

  The states of Sinaloa, Guerrero, Durango and Jalisco had become lawless regions where the police aided the criminal class with information, guns, and often served as enforcement themselves; they carried out hits and abductions in full uniform. A man you might trust today would be a traitor tomorrow. And those the gangs could not buy were made to cooperate through extortion or threats.

  German Reyes drove up to the military checkpoint in his Volkswagen Golf and waited in the line behind other cars as the sun hammered down. He had no air-conditioning and the back of his shirt was already soaked through.

  Ten years old and this was the only car he could afford on his salary. It ran like shit and looked like shit and could not produce enough speed to get out of its own way. Its only recommendation was that it was too damned ugly for anyone to steal. But he drove it with pride because it was an outward sign that he could not be bought. He knew many on the police force of Mazatlan and Culiacan who drove Hummers and BMWs that cost many times a year's pay with no shame though everyone knew who made their car payments for them. These cops were protected by officers and politicians above them. They arrogantly displayed expensive watches and shoes and lived in mansions in gated neighborhoods like rich gringos.

  The line inched forward as each car that pulled up to the gate was inspected for explosives. The soldiers examined identification papers and photo ID and ran mirrors under the wheel wells. Alsatians trotted and sniffed around each car. Someone might drive through this gate every day for years and still be checked no matter their place or rank. German knew that the soldier who failed, even once, to fully vet each driver would have to run five miles in the sun holding his rifle over his head.

  And all because, in the Mexico of today, everyone was for sale. Enough money or enough fear could bend any man. The most loyal of the loyal could be turned and no one could be trusted. Police crossed the line from lawman to lawbreaker and back again with such frequency that the line had been all but rubbed away.

  It was finally German's turn at the checkpoint and he urged the Golf forward and showed his photo ID and badge and answered the questions of a pimply faced soldier in rumpled fatigues and a camouflaged cap black with sweat. They opened his trunk and rummaged around and opened his car doors to let the panting dog drink in the smell. Then they waved him on.

  All of this just to park his car.

  He walked to the PF main facility under a scorching yellow sky and stood in another line as visitors were run through a metal detector and a light pat-down protocol; this time by uniformed PF officers and, gracias a Dios, in the air-conditioned foyer of the building.

  German took an elevator to the third floor and the office of the state commandante for the Policia Federale, Colonel Rodolfo Pena. There were other officers waiting in the room and German left his name with a receptionist and waited his turn.

  Colonel Pena greeted him warmly when it was German's turn to be ushered into the Colonel's office. The office occupied a corner with the windows that were on two walls covered on the outside with chicken wire to prevent grenades from being fired in through the glass.

  "An excellent operation last night, Capitan," Pena said and came around a desk piled with paper files to grip German's arm in his hands. "You wiped some scum away and stopped a very dangerous operation before it could get started."

  "Thank you, sir," German said. "But we lost some of our own."

  "Always regrettable," Pena said and shook his head slowly. "The wives and children left behind. I always think of the mothers. They suffer most."

  "I believe the criminals we brought down are part of a larger operation," German said. He was anxious to get the reason for his visit and long drive up here from Mazatlan.

  "There is no evidence of that," Pena said and retook his own chair and motioned for German to sit. "These Pecadores Diez are small fish and, besides, there cannot be ten of them left today, eh?"

  Pena chuckled at his own joke and German smiled politely.

  "Still, it bears more investigation," German said.

  "Why? You have broken their meth operation. And my reports state that the core of their gang was some cousins in a family who run errands for the Sinaloa cartel. Small fish."

  The kind of errands the Sinaloa caiques needed done were murder, torture and rape. You moved up in these criminal clans by doing things, ugly things, that seared away your soul.

  "I respectfully disagree," German said and pulled a small box from the pocket of his sport coat. He placed it on the Colonel's desk.

  Pena picked it up and inspected it and tossed it back on the desk.

  "A pseudoephedrine-based drug, right? I take one like it when the trees are in bloom. I know they use it to make the crystal. What is special about it, Capitan?"

  "The company that produces this medication is Egyptian," German said and took the box back. "They have no distribution for these pills in the western hemisphere. Yet the van in Old Town was packed with a hundred cases of these boxes. A half a million pills."

  "So? The criminals found a new source. They bought them on the black market."

  "It is not as simple as that, Colonel. This amount of pills, all from the same production lot, would have to have been stolen from a pharmaceutical warehouse. I checked with the company in Cairo. They have no record of any thefts and can, in fact, provide documentation that this lot of pills was legally purchased in bulk."

  "By who, Capitan Reyes?"

  "An Iranian company. A nationalized corporation that deals in weapons systems and has nothing to do with medicine in any way. It is a company with direct ties to the Iranian military."

  "And what is the significance of that?" Pena said with a smile that was becoming brittle.

  "I'm not sure. There's a lot that doesn't make sense."

  "You are tired, German," the colonel said and stood, signaling that their meeting was over. "And you are giving in to the compulsion that every cop feels: that the job is never done. And it is never done but you have done a great thing in any case. You have wounded these narcos in a way they will not forget."

  German stood. The colonel was right. He was tired. The investigation had lasted months and now it was over and there was a nagging sense that he could have accomplished more.

  "Take some time off," the colonel said and threw an arm around German's shoulders and led him to the door. "A week. Two weeks. Re-introduce yourself to your family. The war will be here when you come back."

  "Thank you for seeing me," German said but Colonel Pena was already greeting his next appointment, an Army major with a chest full of ribbons and medals.

  German made the trip south along Highway 15 which ran along the coast as it got closer to Mazatlan. The tang of salt came rushing in through open windows of the Golf to keep him awake. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was giving in to the ennui; the sense that his work was meaningless and desire to see every investigation through to the end.

  Padilla was dead and he blamed himself even though he knew he could not have changed the events of the night before. It could just as easily have been him who fell. It could be his wife and children crying today.

  He would go home and hug his eleven-year-old daughter and six-year-old son and eat dinner with them and laugh with them. And then he would make love to his wife and go to sleep in their bed. And he would wake up the next morning and see the world as it was and forget his thoughts of a deeper significance to the colorful cardboard box inside this pocket.

  And German Reyes did all those things except that when he woke up the next morning he was more certain than ever that there was more to the bust in Old Town than narco business.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LITTLE CREEK NAVAL AMPHIBIOUS BASE

  "You are shitting me," Chili said. "You fuckers won a million bucks?"

  "One point one million after taxes," Pig said. "Flame's splitting it with me."

  "I'd have just given you your twenty back," Heath said.

  "Well, Flame's not a cheap asshole like you," Pig said.

  The team was seated in the whitewashed old building they used as a briefing room while on base. It was the first time the five of them had been together in one place in months. Angel "Pig" Bravos had been absent for months from injuries received in Operation Bullrush; the team's incursion into the Borneo jungles had brought down an Al Qaeda website inspiring terror actions inside the home country. Randall "Flame" O'Donnell had been recovering from wounds gotten during their recent mission to Libya and was laid up at Ramstein until just a few days ago.