Cartel Fire

by Tom Riggs

  “Cool car,” said Anna, smiling for the first time that morning.

  “Chevrolet El Camino, 1974 model,” said Munro. “The classic ‘coupe utility vehicle’. Six litre V8 engine, three speed automatic transmission. This one hasn’t been that well looked after, but it should get us to Acapulco.”

  The mechanic handed Munro the keys and Munro gave him a wad of cash and the keys to the pick-up.

  They both got in and Munro pulled out of the forecourt and accelerated away. The noise of the engine was intense, like someone firing a heavy machine gun at a suit of armour. But Munro liked it. He worked the transmission and accelerator, gunning it as hard as it would go. They tore through the barrio, accelerating past slower farm vehicles that were meandering along the road.

  “Easy captain,” said Anna, “We do need to get to Acapulco in one piece.”

  “Sorry,” said Munro, taking his foot off the accelerator slightly as the road narrowed and they drove past houses with children running around them. “I get a bit carried away in a muscle car like this.”

  Anna smiled. “Like a boy with a new toy. How are you going to get it back to that mechanic? I take it you didn’t tell him we were going to Acapulco?”

  “Of course not, and I’m not planning on giving it back to him. He knew the score straight away, that’s why he asked me for the thousand-dollar deposit. He knows he won’t see the El Camino again, but it’s not a bad deal. Believe me. A Japanese pick-up goes a lot further around here than an old American muscle car, however cool it looks.”

  As the side road approached the highway again, Munro hit the accelerator hard. He floored the Camino up the exit ramp and sped onto the southbound lane of the highway at fifty miles an hour, keeping his foot on the accelerator as it slowly climbed to sixty-five, which he reckoned was its optimum cruising speed. The machine-gun engine found its pitch and calmed down slightly. Munro pulled into the cruising lane, the lane closest to the ocean, and wound down his window. For the first time that morning, they both smiled.

  30

  Munro had been right. The rookie cop was diligent.

  Two hours after Munro had seen the cop drive out of the clearing with a friendly wave, Teodoro Lopez’s cell phone rang. It could not have come sooner for Hector’s new deputy. He finished the call and smiled. It was information, and information was good. Hector liked information.

  Still, Teodoro was nervous.

  He walked down the stairs to the bedroom level of the villa, below the terrace and the living room, almost below ground. He knocked on the master bedroom door. Once, hard.

  “Hector?”

  There was silence from the other side. Teodoro waited for thirty seconds and then knocked again. Three times, hard and urgent.

  “Hector? Captain?”

  There was a muffled voice from inside that Teodoro took as being an invitation to come in. He opened the door slowly but forcefully. Show no fear in front of Hector. The only light in the room came from a narrow rectangular window high above the bed. The window was curtained, but the curtains were thin and the sun outside was strong, casting the whole room in an odd blue half-light. Teodoro opened the door wide. More light came in from the corridor behind him. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust, but he could make out Hector, lying prone on the bed. The sheets looked like they had been thrashed around in. Hector was wearing only his undershorts. Thinking he was asleep, Teodoro apologised and turned to leave.

  “Que pasa Teodoro?”

  Teodoro stopped and turned. Hector’s voice was clear and alert, he was not asleep. He had not moved from his prone position, but was lying flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “Perdon Hector, I have some news on El Ingles..”

  Hector still did not move. He continued to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling.

  “What is the news?”

  Teodoro paused a beat. It was odd talking to the captain like this. Odd and undignified.

  “Captain, we have some news. Colonel Manzaro, the chief of pol…”

  “I know who Manzaro is,” said Hector cutting off Teodoro, “what does he have for us?”

  “Captain. One of Manzaro’s men spotted the pick-up in Santa Rosa.”

  “Santa Rosa? Which Santa Rosa?” asked Hector, still not moving.

  “Jefe, the Santa Rosa that is eighty kilometres north of Manzanillo. It is a small beach village. Gringos go there to surf. The police reported the pick-up, but they did not arrest El Ingles. They are on their way back there now to arrest him.”

  “Incompetents,” said Hector. He paused, thinking. “He will be gone by now. Tell Colonel Manzaro to block every road in and out of Manzanillo. If El Ingles is heading there he probably thinks he can get onto a container ship. Tell him to shut down the port too.”

  “Shut down the port, Hector?”

  Hector turned his head towards Teodoro. The driver’s large frame was cast into shadow.

  “Which bit of that didn’t you understand, hijo?”

  “None Hector. It’s just that…”

  “Just what, Teo?”

  “Captain, forgive me. But Manzanillo is the largest port in all of Mexico. Even Colonel Manzaro may not be able to shut it down completely. The navy have a base there captain.”

  Hector turned his head back to face upwards.

  “Just do it, hijo. Just do it.”

  As they drove towards Manzanillo, Munro checked his cell for messages from Rudd. The traffic was light and he guessed that Mexico was not as strict on mobile phone usage while driving as England was. Still, he held the phone below the steering wheel whilst checking the small screen.

  There was one message from Rudd, sent an hour earlier.

  “En route to Acapulco, will be out of contact for eleven hours. Have passports. Safe house address: 165 Avenue Costera, apartment 371. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  Munro smiled at Rudd’s language. Safe house. You could take the man out of MI5.

  Anna looked over. She still seemed quieter than usual, although less embarrassed than she had been in the morning.

  “Any news?”

  “A message from my partner. He’s on his way to Acapulco now. He’s got a passport for you.”

  “He has? That’s amazing.”

  “All part of the service.”

  “But won’t I just get in more trouble if I’m caught trying to sneak out of the country on a false passport?”

  Munro paused. The thought had occurred to him.

  “It’s a possibility,” he said. “But our options are limited. You’re wanted by the police – on what charge, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be hard to make one up.”

  “Why can’t I just go to the Canadian embassy? Surely they wouldn’t hand me over to a bunch of corrupt police given that I’m innocent?”

  “I’m afraid that’s exactly what they would do. They don’t know you’re innocent, for a start. And in my experience of embassies, they’re unlikely to stick their necks out. The best deal you could probably get would be for them to hand you over to the federal police, who might be less corrupt. But they would still hold you in prison. If these guys can pay policemen to arrest you, they can easily get to you in prison.” He paused. “But it’s up to you. There’s a Canadian consulate in Acapulco. I can drop you off there if that’s what you want to do. But then I’ll go. I’m not going to take my chances in a Mexican jail.”

  Anna looked at Munro and then out of the window. They were driving around the outskirts of Manzanillo. The highway had turned inland and they had lost sight of the ocean. She looked out of the window at the new view. The wasteland that so often runs next to a highway, home to only the most desperate. Little more on the ground than rocks and litter. Certainly nothing growing. The ground was scorched dry, a washed-out brown. Here and there was a small concrete shack, open on two sides to the elements. Most of them consisted of little more than concrete breeze blocks and plastic sheeting.

  After looking out of the window, seemingly lost i
n thought she said: “So the choice is between almost certain death in a Mexican jail, a knifing in the showers or something, and trying to get onto a plane with a fake passport. Sneaking through customs and immigration in the full knowledge that probably every cop in the airport will have our picture by now. Is that right?”

  Munro pulled the Camino into the outside lane to overtake a slow-moving van. He gunned the accelerator and the huge old engine lurched into action as the automatic transmission moved up a gear.

  “That’s about the size of it, I’m afraid to say. I’m sorry I can’t come up with a better plan, but our options are pretty limited. If it makes you feel any better, the passport should be a good fake. Our guy in London is one of the best.”

  Anna wound down the window a bit and let the warm air hit her face.

  “If those really are the options, I say we stick with plan A.”

  Munro swung the car back into the slow lane and lowered his speed to the official limit, fifty-five miles per hour.

  “Agreed,” he said. “Now all we have to do is get to Acapulco.”

  Anna followed his look and saw what he was looking at. The cars ahead of them were slowing. Even further on, they had stopped.

  “Why are they stopping?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. Although he thought he could guess.

  Munro turned on his GPS. They were still on highway 200, heading south. They had passed numerous turn-offs indicating the city, but Munro had ignored them. It would have been more direct to drive through Manzanillo, as from his map it looked like the highway took a wide loop inland to avoid the city before continuing south. But taking the city route meant more police, more people, more chance of trouble. So he had stayed on the highway. But as he slowed the Camino to a halt, he was beginning to regret his decision. He could see, just visible at the head of the stopped traffic, some blue flashing lights. He hoped that Anna’s eyesight was not as good as his.

  “Are those police cars?” she said nervously, narrowing her eyes. It was mid-morning and the reflection of the sun on the cars in front of them made looking anywhere difficult. Munro looked ahead, squinting himself against the glare.

  “I’m afraid so…” Looks like that cop in Santa Rosa did his job, he thought.

  The cars in front of them started to inch slowly forward. Munro left some space between the Camino and the family station wagon in front of them. If you could see the back wheels of the car in front of you then you had enough room to turn out of your lane. It was the first thing they had taught him when driving in Northern Ireland. Driving around West Belfast, the last thing you wanted was to be boxed in by the car in front when you stopped at lights. The traffic in the overtaking lane to his left had also slowed. No escape that side. On his right, the tarmac of the road gave way suddenly to a deep ditch. It was half filled with litter, but the sides were steep. There was no way the Camino could get across it. No escape that side. Slowly the traffic continued to inch forward. After five minutes, they were closer to the blue lights and could see what was happening. There were three police cruisers in the highway. White cruisers, they looked like city cops. Local cops. He remembered Eduardo’s warning. On the other side are the drugs cartels and the local police forces that they control.

  One was blocking the slow lane. Three large cops, in black military fatigues and holding automatic rifles, stood in front of the cruiser. Ten yards in front of them were three small red traffic cones. The message was clear: go over the cones and we will shoot. The traffic was being funnelled into the overtaking lane where ten yards on the same formation of three armed police, three red cones and one cruiser forced the cars to change lanes once again, back into the outside. It was makeshift but effective. The traffic had to slow to a crawl to navigate the zigzag between the two sets of police. As the cars did so, they passed the third cruiser, pulled onto the side of the slow lane, parallel with the cruiser blocking the fast lane. Four cops stood by this cruiser, looking into every car that passed. Two of the cops looked senior, they were not carrying rifles. But the other two had M16s, and were standing either side of the lane, rifles prone. As each car slowed, the two senior looking cops peered inside the car. One of them held a piece of paper in his right hand as he checked the driver of each car against a picture.

  Munro assessed the situation. They were about thirty cars from the roadblock. As roadblocks went, it was effective at slowing the traffic, but little else. By the time the senior cop came to check him against the picture, there would only be the two cops with rifles to deal with. The other six well-armed men would be facing the cars behind them. Facing away from him. Munro was fairly sure he could accelerate though the gap between the last two cruisers if he slowed enough to let the car in front of him gather some distance from the roadblock. He was also fairly sure he could take out the last two cops with his handgun. It would be at close range and he would have the element of surprise. But it would be messy. And they would still be over three hundred miles from Acapulco. Three hundred miles from Acapulco, with every state and city cop for a hundred miles looking for a beat-up Chevy Camino.

  Munro looked to his right. The ditch was too deep, and any drive across the wasteland would, due to the slight right turn in the road, put them directly in sight and range of the first three cops. It was too obvious. As the traffic started to crawl forward again, Munro saw his chance. Three cars behind him, in the lane to his left was a large articulated truck. Large and tall. Tall enough to hide a low- riding Chevy Camino. The cars in front of him continued to inch forward, but Munro did not move the Camino. Instead he let the cars in the lane to his left inch forward as well. The gap in front of him was now noticeable. The car behind him was a bland white Japanese commuter car. A worker late for the office. As a second car began to inch past them to the left, and Munro did not follow suit, the man in the commuter car sounded his horn. Munro looked in his rear view mirror. The commuter looked angry and frustrated.

  “What are you doing?” asked Anna, her nerves making her voice catch.

  “Evasive manoeuvres,” replied Munro.

  He wound down his window and raised his hand in apology. It seemed to mollify the commuter as the second car continued to inch pass them on the left. One more to go. As the second car went past, its occupants looked at Anna and Munro, curious as to why they weren’t moving. Horns started to sound from further back in their lane.

  “Evasive manoeuvres? Isn’t this just drawing attention to us?” said Anna. “Are you insane? Move the car forward!”

  Munro paused and re-checked the mirrors. A man in a pick-up three cars behind them was leaning out of his window to see what the hold-up was. She was right. They were getting attention and it wasn’t good.

  “We can’t get any closer to that roadblock,” he explained. “They’re checking every car that goes through it. They may have our pictures. We go through that roadblock, we get a lot more attention, I guarantee you. Our only chance is to get onto the other side of the highway. Go back the way we came and find a way around that roadblock. But to do that we need cover.”

  The third car to their left now started to go past them. Behind it was the articulated truck, huge and gleaming in the morning sun. But the horns were getting louder and more frequent. The commuter car directly behind them was quiet, but the others weren’t. As one horn sounded, others followed, happy to be able to vent their frustration somehow. Munro could see the first line of cops fairly clearly now, which meant that they could probably see him too. Forty yards. One of them had noticed the honking and lowered his gun to look over. He turned to one of the others to say something. The other two now looked over too.

  The third car was almost past them. Just the truck now. The man in the pick-up opened his cab door and was getting out. One of the cops started to walk towards them. He did not seem concerned, more curious. His gun was lowered as he walked. Lowered but still there. He walked slowly, curiously. He was big. And armed. Twenty cars away now. Munro could read the ‘Po
licia’ written across the front of his black Kevlar vest. Anna saw him too.

  “For God sake, move forward!” she cried. “That cop is getting closer. Everyone’s looking at us!”

  Just then the car to their left accelerated into the space that Munro had left in front of him. The car in front to their left, seeing the same possibility, did the same thing. Suddenly the truck was going past them too. Munro turned the Camino aggressively into the left lane, cutting off the car behind the truck, causing more horn honking. The frustrated commuter behind him also accelerated forward as did the cars behind him. The honking stopped as the drivers behind moved forward in turn, mollified with a few yards. The cop, seeing that the drama was over, turned and started to walk back towards the cruiser.

  They were now in the left lane, behind the truck. It was tall enough that the bonnet of the Camino was actually in shade.

  “Now what?” asked Anna, the panic in her face now visible. The traffic was back to stationary, as the cars had all gained every inch that they could.

  Munro did not answer her immediately. Instead he waited until the truck began to inch forward. He looked forward and around. The highway ahead of them curved round to the right, meaning that the truck was blocking their sight of the police. And the police’s of them. Munro waited. Waited until he could see the back two tyres of the truck. The oncoming traffic was light, and between his lane and the other side of the highway was a grass verge. The verge was wide, at least twenty feet. But it was low. The drop to their highway lane was no more than a foot. No problem for the Camino. Munro put the transmission into neutral and began to gun the accelerator. Like a boy racer at traffic lights.