Cartel Fire

by Tom Riggs

  After an hour’s driving, Munro pulled off the highway onto a dirt track. It seemed to lead to a small pueblo that was just visible a mile or so off the highway. As he got closer he saw that the fields here were being cultivated. Neat rows of stubby agave cactuses were stretched out from the highway. Agave, used to make tequila, was a notoriously thirsty crop. No doubt this pueblo was built around some water. The pueblo itself was a ramshackle collection of houses, some large and concrete, others small and made of corrugated iron. All sun baked. All dusty. He kept driving along the one dirt road until he got to a large sports field. It was the only patch of green he could see. A baseball game was on. It looked as though two high school teams were playing. There was a small concrete stand on the far side of the field where a few families had paid to come in and sit in the shade. On the near side of the field, along another dusty track, a few men had backed up their cars and trucks to the wall surrounding the field. They were sitting on their roofs watching the game. Munro parked the hire car in an alley between two concrete houses opposite the baseball field. He locked Anna, still fast asleep, into the car and crossed the street to watch the game. The standard was not high. The batters seemed to be missing more balls than they hit. The pitching was substandard. Munro took out a cigarette and approached a man sitting on the cabin of an old Toyota pick-up truck. See if he has a light. Fuego. The pick-up was dark blue, local plates, battered to hell. Perfect.

  The man had a light. Five minutes later he also had four thousands dollars. In cash. And Munro had a new car. Toyota Tacoma, 80,000 miles on the clock, a lot of previous owners. No paperwork. No questions. It was perfect.

  Munro left the hire car where he had parked it and threw the keys into a nearby drainage ditch along with the lit cigarette. He did not smoke, but it was always useful to have a pack. The keys slowly sank into the putrid mud at the bottom of the ditch. Too obvious to leave them in the ignition. Besides, from the look of the pueblo, it would not be there long. The whole place had an air of criminality about it. The man had sold Munro the pick-up as if it was routine to sell your car to a stranger at a baseball game. Munro noticed that most of the houses in the village had illegal power cables running to the main power line. There were pueblos like this all over Mexico. Apart from the baseball field, it was probably not even on the map. A collection of semi-permanent houses that had sprung up on some empty land close to some power lines and water pipes. Maybe a river nearby too. Free power, free water. You had to live somewhere.

  Twenty minutes later and they were back on the highway, heading inland. Anna had woken up briefly when they changed cars, but had quickly fallen back into a drugged sleep. The going was good. The highway was new and tarmacked, even though every road that led off it was a sand track. Sand tracks leading to dusty pueblos and small holdings. Occasionally the sand tracks leading off through the arid fields would open out into large sandy lay-bys. Cement mixers and dumper trucks were parked up, indicating small factories or mines over the low hills. But they did not look like big operations.

  The pick-up had stuck on black tint paper on both side windows, so Munro and Anna were invisible to most prying eyes on the road. Even if they were seen, they were both dark and sun-tanned. It was not inconceivable that they were Mexican. Even so, Munro put on a Mexican cowboy hat he had found in the cab. He could pass for a Mexico City businessman no problem, but he looked less like a back-country campesino. He was a foot too tall for a start, and several shades too light, even with a suntan. Anna was the right height and was darker than Munro. But her features were clearly European, sharp and well-defined. She certainly looked different to your average Mexican girl in a pick-up. But she would pass a cursory inspection.

  Once on the interstate freeway, route 15, Munro maintained a steady speed. The freeway was large and new. Three lanes ran either side. The tarmac was new and black, the lines fresh. Munro took the middle lane. Heading east. Sixty miles an hour. It was the best speed the old pick-up could do and he did not want to get pulled over for going too fast. The interstate was busy - it was the main north-south freeway between the border and Mexico City. As the pick-up approached the border with the next state, Jalisco, Munro noticed more police vehicles. White state police pick-ups, pulled over in lay-bys. Black federal police cruisers, in the fast lane.

  A few cars were being pulled over, most of them silver saloons. Cars very like the one Munro had left in the small pueblo. He pulled the cowboy hat a little lower and kept driving. He had an AR15 and a 9mm handgun. The semi-automatic rifle by his right leg, the pistol stuffed into his belt. It was enough to fight off an assault if necessary. But he did not want to start a shoot-out on the freeway. The cops in the clearing had got what they deserved. Munro was not so sure he wanted to start shooting a couple of freeway cops, even if they were on the take.

  But the going was good. If it was him the police were looking for, they had been told to look out for a silver saloon hire car with two gringos and Puerto Vallarta plates. Not a beat-up old pick up truck with local plates. As the sun began to set, they were fifty miles short of Guadalajara. It was Mexico’s second city, with three and half million people and an international airport. A way out. Munro kept recalling Eduardo’s words. The nearest army base is Guadalajara.

  Munro debated whether to call Eduardo. His friend would definitely help him, he always would. But he had just killed five men, five cops. The young army colonel already had a lot on his plate. Munro decided not to call him.

  He pulled into a service station to get petrol. It was a small affair, a few pumps and a cafeteria. The pumps were empty but the café was full. It had picnic tables laid out by the parking area. In the setting sun it looked quite nice. But it was busy and that was bad. He went into the petrol station shop. Brightly lit, packets of chips, chocolate and gum. It could have been anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. But it was empty, and that was good. He paid in cash and kept his hat low. If the teller noticed anything suspicious, he did not let on. Munro also bought some provisions - bottles of water, packets of biscuits.

  Stocked up, he pulled the pick-up into a parking space behind the petrol station. And closed his eyes. Assess the situation. Five men dead. His passport unusable. One witness. Passport unusable. The police were looking for them. The police are controlled by the cartels. It was more than likely that some sort of cartel was also looking for them. A man called Hector certainly was. They were in a foreign country. The borders were a no-go area. The airports were no-go. At least they were with their current passports.

  It was time to call Rudd.

  Munro pulled out his Blackberry and speed dialled Rudd’s cell number. It was two in the morning in London. Rudd answered on the second ring.

  “What?” Rudd did not like being woken up.

  “Hi Charles.”

  “You must stop calling me like this Jack. My wife is beginning to think I’m having an affair.”

  “In you dreams, Charlie, in your dreams.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “The situation has changed. I’ve got Anna Neuberg.” Munro paused, trying to decide how to word the situation. “But there were some complications.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not. Some local police got to her first, they were about to rape her.”

  Rudd paused, “Go on.”

  “So I stopped them.”

  Rudd paused again. “How many dead?”

  “Five. I am not sure if they were all cops, one was out of uniform.”

  “Ok. Do they know it was you?”

  “We have to assume so, yes. I saw them pulling over cars very similar to the hire car that I was driving.”

  “And they certainly know who Anna Neuberg is … what about her grandparents?”

  “They should be alright. They’re heading north now in a friend’s RV, they should be over the border tomorrow. I told them to drive through the night.”

  “They might be stopped.”

  “It’s a risk. I
couldn’t take the whole family.”

  “But you’ve got the girl?”

  “Correct. She’s asleep, I gave her a valium.”

  Rudd laughed, it was all he could really do.

  “Sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle captain.”

  “You could say that Charles, you could say that. Look, I need a new passport. Get the Swiss one out of my top drawer, it’s in the name of Felix Meyer.”

  “Roger that. Where do I send it?”

  “Not sure yet. We are going to need a new one for Anna Neuberg too.”

  “That might be harder.”

  “It’ll be fine. She’s a witness, so we can spend money on her. I’ll take some photos and send them on to you. Use Rawlings, he can normally cobble together something pretty good fairly quickly.”

  “Ok. Anything else?”

  “Yup, look into a man called Hector, no surname yet. Possibly affiliated to the Sonora drugs cartel, possibly a high-ranking police officer in the Nayarit state police. Use our normal Mexico subcontractor, say it’s for some corporate due diligence.”

  “Hector, no problem ... has the witness talked yet?”

  “No. She was in shock, that’s why I gave her the valium. But she definitely knows something. They wouldn’t have taken her if she didn’t.”

  “You alright Jack?”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Charles. But I’ll be much better once I’m out of this country.”

  Munro took the pick-up out of the garage forecourt. But instead of going right and back onto the freeway he took it left, into a concrete lay-by. A picnic area. The space was well covered by coniferous trees and thick bushes. It was also empty. You could only see the pick-up if you actually turned into it. Otherwise you would just drive by oblivious. A good place to hole up for a few hours.

  Anna woke up briefly as he drove the pick-up into the rest area. But she was still semi-comatose. Unable to say anything. When her eyes half opened, he pulled out his phone and took her picture. Passport photos always looked bad anyway. He then made her eat some biscuits and drink some water before she went back to sleep. All the while she just stared into space. Still in shock, or perhaps just drugged. After sending the picture of Anna to Rudd, Munro pushed the driver’s seat as far back as it would go and reclined it down to a 45-degree angle. The road had been emptying-out as the sun got lower. Less cars on the road was bad. Less choice for the police about who to stop. Besides, he was tired. It had been a long day. He pulled out the foil strip of valium. He needed to sleep.

  20

  Hector dismissed the hookers with a wave of his hand. Silvano smiled to himself, the captain definitely preferred boys. He should have got Hector some boys. They were on the terrace of a large villa overlooking the Pacific and Puerto Vallarta. La Bahia de Banderas, Bandits’ Bay. A fitting location for a cartel property. It had its own private jetty three hundred feet below, reached by a steep staircase cut into the cliff face. The cartel occasionally used the jetty to bring in cargo, although only small loads. More often than not, the villa was used for entertaining. El Cazon liked it because it was private – you could only see in if you were in a boat. And anyone who stopped a boat anywhere near the villa was moved on very quickly. Silvano liked it because it looked like something in the movies. Scarface or Miami Vice maybe. The terrace was the size of a tennis court and there was an equally large infinity pool carved into the rocks below it. It had lights underwater that made the water seem all the more blue against the surrounding darkness. Inside the house, through the large open glass doors, everything was marble. White marble floors, black marble surfaces. This floor of the villa was only really one room, but it was huge. It had three seating areas, a huge teak dining table and a kitchen off to the side, just out of sight. In one corner, away from the glass doors, there were three large American sofas around a 46-inch plasma screen TV. This was how a drug lord was supposed to live, thought Silvano. When they had parties, he liked to sit in the hot tub on the terrace with a couple of hookers, an Uzi by his side, and look out to sea. Like Al Pacino in Scarface. It was a long way from the pueblo that he was born in. Silvano had asked El Cazon several times if he could buy the place, or at least live there full time. But the boss liked his lieutenants to keep lower profiles. Most of the time Silvano lived in different safe houses in the big towns of Sonora and Sinaloa. Safe houses that Al Pacino would not be seen dead in.

  But this was not most of the time. It was not meant to have been anyway. The plan had been to get the girl and the English, take care of them, and then have a party at the villa to welcome Hector home. But Hector was not in the party mood. He had stayed at the clearing long enough to check the bodies. Long enough to see that El Ingles knew what he was doing. Five men dead. Most of them taken out with just one shot. Apart from Luis. What he had done to Luis had disgusted them all. The man was clearly an animal.

  Hector was definitely not in the party mood. He had pistol-whipped the police colonel at the clearing. Even for Hector, that was almost unacceptable. They usually had to at least pretend to respect the more senior cops. It was the police colonel who had given them the information. From Silvano’s point of view, he had done little wrong. The information had been accurate, and he had gotten it quickly. Hector had not seen it like that. The colonel had now gone, alive luckily. But Hector had kept the man that got away. The only man El Ingles did not kill. Silvano guessed the man was now wishing he had.

  He was barely old enough to be a man, but Hector had stripped him from the waist up and tied him to one of the villa’s chairs with duct tape. He was on the terrace, facing away from the ocean, but would probably not have appreciated the view anyway. Hector had a bottle of sulphuric acid and was slowly dropping it onto the man’s torso with a pipette. Silvano did not bother trying to stop him, he knew Hector. Instead he went inside to join the MS13 men who were sprawled out on the sofas. They were watching a baseball game in silence. The Salvadorans rarely said much, most of them had dead blank stares that did not change if they were watching a baseball game or shooting someone. But Silvano preferred their company to watching Hector have his fun.

  “Describe the man to me, puta,” spat Hector as he carefully squeezed out a few more drops of acid onto the boy’s torso.

  The boy screamed, the pain was excruciating, but he managed to say, “I promise captain, I have told you everything.”

  “Then tell me again Hilo, tell me again.” Hector’s eyes were alive now; he was enjoying himself properly for the first time in weeks.

  Through screams, the boy managed to tell Hector what he already knew. “We were waiting for Luis to go first on the gringa - smoking and checking her out - when someone shoots from the bushes. The first two guys went down real quick.” The boy paused, and Hector dripped more acid onto him, this time on his stomach. He screamed louder. Silvano turned up the volume on the TV; the Salvadorans did not seem to notice.

  “What did he look like? I want to know,” asked Hector.

  “Tall, dark hair. A strong guy. Foreign but not a gringo.”

  “Was this him?” Hector held up an enlarged passport photo of Munro.

  The boy looked at Hector and started to cry, he had confirmed the photo at least five times to Hector already. Hector dripped more acid onto him, this time on his arms.

  “Yeees!” screamed the boy, “That was him, I promise, I am sure. That was him!”

  “Ok then.” Hector smiled at the boy. “That’s all I needed to know.” He held the boy’s head in his left hand, by the chin and looked him straight in the eye. The boy attempted a smile - anything to stop the pain.

  “You are a good boy”, said Hector, “you tell the truth. That is good.”

  He looked straight at him and said “But you ran hijo, you ran. And for that you must die.” And with that he emptied the bottle of acid onto the boy’s chest. As the acid spat and smoked away on the boy’s chest, Hector turned and walked into the villa. The boy managed one last scream before the acid burnt through his skin a
nd into his lungs. No one inside looked up.

  Hector went into the open kitchen area and took off the rubber gloves he had been wearing. He opened the large American fridge and took out some ham, bread and cheese, all pre-sliced. He turned on the oven and started making himself a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Seeing that Hector had finished his fun, Silvano approached him.

  “You want a sandwich, cabron?” asked Hector, smiling.

  Silvano smiled back. Play the game. He had not missed Hector at all. “No gracias captain, no gracias.” Silvano paused, wondering whether to go on. “Did you get anything from the boy captain?”

  Hector was buttering the now-toasted bread with the care of a model maker. He ignored Silvano’s question and seemed totally engrossed in making sure every square millimetre of toast was covered by an even amount of butter. Silvano tried again.

  “Captain, the policia have found nothing so far. We have every airport covered, every border crossing. They can’t get out of Mexico without us knowing.”

  The toast properly buttered, Hector looked up and asked Silvano “How did he find the girl so quickly? Have you asked yourself that?”

  He did not wait for a response, before continuing. “You saw the file on him. Ex-military, links to intelligence organisations. A man like that might have friends here in Mexico.”

  “Si Hector.”

  “Get our people in Immigration to run some searches, see if anyone else was looking for la gringa.”

  “Si, Hector.”

  Hector turned his attention back to his sandwich. The cheese was grilling and the ham now needed to be cut to fit the bread perfectly. He selected a new, sharper, knife for this delicate task. Silvano left him to it; the conversation was over. He decided to call the police colonel that Hector had pistol-whipped. He would be sufficiently scared to get them the information from Immigration, Silvano could not be bothered to do it himself. He was a gangster, not a detective.