Ghost Sniper by Scott McEwen Page B

across the room. The CIA agent stumbled over the recliner and crashed heavily to the floor against the wall.
    Vaught and Mendoza looked at each other in shock, eyes wide as Crosswhite stepped between them to stand over the bigger man lying on the floor between the wall and the overturned chair. “Either you apologize right now, or I kill you.”
    Ortega’s impulse was to get up and pound Crosswhite into the floor, but there was a fury in the smaller man’s eyes that told him he’d better not even try it. “You’re fucking crazy. Do you know that?”
    â€œI’m not gonna tell you again,” Crosswhite said. “And you’d better hurry, because Fields is about ten seconds away from needing to find another goddamn station chief.”
    â€œOkay, I apologize!” Ortega snapped, rubbing his forehead, where a slight goose egg was already beginning to form. “I meant no offense. I was only trying to protect her.”
    Vaught glanced again at Paolina, who hadn’t taken her eyes off of Crosswhite the entire time.
    Crosswhite pointed at the overturned recliner, saying to Ortega, “That’s your chair.” He turned to Mendoza, calming himself and indicating the far end of the sofa. “Por favor, siéntese,” he said easily. “Nuestra casa es su casa.” Please sit down. Our house is your house.
    Mendoza smiled at him, saying, “Gracias” and moved to take a seat.
    Crosswhite sat down in the center of the sofa between Mendoza and Paolina as Vaught gave Ortega a hand, hauling the big man to his feet and helping to right the overturned recliner.
    Vaught turned to Crosswhite. “Can I bring a chair from the kitchen?”
    Crosswhite nodded, and Vaught went into the kitchen. Paolina followed him. Vaught returned with a chair made of leather and split tree branches called an equipal . Paolina returned a minute later with a plastic bag of ice, which she gave to the embarrassed Ortega.
    â€œ Gracias ,” he said quietly, putting the bag against the swelling over his eye.
    â€œYou’re welcome,” she said in heavily accented English, sitting back down beside Crosswhite and pulling Valencia into her lap.
    Crosswhite wasn’t the slightest bit apologetic or uncomfortable. Fields had said to him the night before: “It’s important that you impress upon Ortega from the start that this is not his operation. It is my operation, and nothing less than his one hundred percent cooperation will be acceptable.”
    Crosswhite felt he had done a fair job of establishing the hierarchy of who shit where in the woods, while at the same time making it clear to everyone present that Paolina wasn’t to be regarded as anything less than the lady of the house.
    â€œSo where were we?” Ortega said timidly, understanding Crosswhite’s utter lack of respect for him must have meant that he was well protected from on high—very probably by Pope himself. He switched to Spanish for Mendoza’s benefit, addressing Vaught: “I’m the one who requested the Operational Immediate putting you under the aegis of the CIA.”
    â€œOh, then fuck you very much!” Vaught retorted in English.
    Mendoza chuckled, apparently knowing enough English to understand that much.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Ortega said, “but I believed then, as I do now, that it’s extremely important. Lazaro Serrano is simply too high up in the Mexican government to let this opportunity pass—not to mention, he’s very probably the one who ordered the assassination of Alice Downly. If he didn’t order it, then he certainly made it possible. What I don’t understand, however, is why Langley doesn’t want this handled by Mexico station. My people are more than capable of handling the logistics of such an op and providing you a safe place to stay.”
    Vaught cleared his throat, glancing at Crosswhite. “Well, my new friend