Rogers inclined his head to the bodyguard. “Sorry about your friend,” he said sincerely.
His companion just grunted and nodded.
Rodriguez checked his gun. “All right, let’s get moving. This isn’t over yet.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Well detective, what do you think?” Rodriguez asked quietly.
Rogers peered through the bushes atop the tree-lined ridge overlooking the warehouse. There was a small building with a dozen or so bays and a much larger building with around a hundred bays separated by a large parking lot. Several transport trucks docked on both buildings, and a dozen or so guards roamed the grounds.
Rogers pursed his lips when he noted that the smaller building was largely ignored by the guards. “I think our luck isn’t anywhere near good enough for Juan Pablo to be in the small building.”
“I tend to agree,” Rodriguez said. “It appears as though the guards are focused on the main building. The question is, how do we get there?”
“I don’t know about y’all, but my ammo situation isn’t exactly conducive to a large scale fire fight,” Stevenson cut in.
Angel rolled his eyes. “Even if it was, you wouldn’t stand a chance against Juan Pablo’s best. Hand selected, well-trained, and heavily armed.”
“I’m sure you friends at the hospital thought the same thing,” Stevenson shot back with a smirk. “Last time I checked, they weren’t on the right side of the ground anymore.”
Before Angel could lunge at the detective, Rodriguez piped up, “We need to get into the main building.”
“I would say we could take the long way around and circle the place,” Rogers mused, “but who knows how many men we’d encounter along the way.”
“What about a diversion?” Stevenson asked. “Distract them on one side while we get into the building on the other?”
Rogers and Rodriguez nodded in unison.
“I think I know how we’re doing this,” Rogers said as he surveyed the area. “Anybody have a bandana? Handkerchief?” When there was no reply, he raised his eyebrows. “A bolt of fabric?”
Rodriguez suddenly caught on to what he was thinking, and said something in Spanish. The bodyguard removed his shirt and handed it to Rogers.
Stevenson eyed the intricate tattoos covering the man’s entire chest and back. “Muy Bueno.”
The big guy just grunted in response.
“All right, you boys get down to the far end of the small building,” Rogers instructed. “When you see the guards go by, give me the signal and I’ll get the fuse lit. With any luck, it’ll go up in a fireball and give us a chance to get across to the main building.”
“How are we getting in?” Angel asked.
“Look closely at the trucks in the bays,” Rogers replied, pointing. “There is a little bit of a gap on both sides. It’s probably going to be a tight squeeze, but we should be able to get in that way.”
Rodriguez nodded. “Good luck, detective.”
Rogers cautiously emerged from the tree line and rushed towards the small building. At the sight of two guards coming into view, he hit the deck, flattening himself into the moderately tall grass. He hoped he was alone in there, being in Texas he could have been cozying up to a scorpion or snake’s home. He couldn’t help but feel like it was a little nice to be worried about that kind of thing instead of getting infected by walking corpses.
When the guards turned around and walked back the way they came, he leapt to his feet and ran over to the vehicle. He drew his knife and wedged open the gas cap and shoved the sweaty t-shirt as deep as it would go. He looked to the opposite end of the building, where Rodriguez had his arm extended high in the air.
Rogers nodded, standing and waiting, and once Rodriguez pointed his finger and thrust his arm down, the detective lit the shirt on fire.
He rushed to join the group, crouching behind the corner of the small building.
“How long until it blows?” Angel asked as Rodriguez kept watch around the corner.
Rogers shrugged. “Fuck if I know, man,” he admitted. “What’s the standard burn rate of a sweaty tank top?”
Before Angel could reply with some kind of snarky comment, the car detonated. A massive fireball punched high up into the air, and the percussion rattled the windows of the building.
Stevenson grinned. “Apparently thirty seconds.”
Rodriguez waited another beat, watching a few guards run towards the blast with their guns at the ready.
As soon as they passed, he waved the group forward. “Let’s go!”
They darted to the edge of the building and looked over the large parking lot. It was another fifty yards to the main building, but the guards had all ran over to the blaze behind the smaller compound. The group sprinted across the lot unnoticed, and ducked behind one of the large eighteen-wheelers.
Rogers ran up to the docking bay. There was a four foot gap between the truck and the wall, and he grasped the platform to hoist himself up. At the sound of footsteps he dropped back down to the asphalt, motioning for everyone to hug the wall.
He watched footsteps exit the bay, and face away from him, likely looking out at the explosion outside. Rogers motioned for Rodriguez to give him a boost, and the cartel member silently pushed his foot up to get him up onto the platform.
He silently moved behind the distracted guard, and jerked him back by the collar, smacking the back of his head against the concrete. He put a knee to the man’s chest and covered his mouth, cocking his gun and putting it to the man’s sweaty head.
“Hola,” Rogers said, as the others clambered up onto the platform.
The man’s eyes went wide as saucers, fear evident in his orbs as Stevenson and the bodyguard wandered over to the warehouse side to keep watch. Angel and Rodriguez knelt next to their new captive.
“Nice job, detective,” Rodriguez said.
Rogers grinned. “Thanks. You want to interrogate him?”
“Be my guest,” his companion offered.
Rogers leaned down so that his face was all his prisoner could see. “Do you understand English?” he asked in a low voice.
The man nodded.
“Do you understand, that if you speak above a whisper or try and alert anyone, that I will shoot your balls off?” Rogers continued, and shoved the gun into the man’s crotch.
He nodded yes with even more intensity.
“Good,” Rogers replied, and slowly peeled his fingers from the man’s mouth. “Now, where is your boss, Juan Pablo?”
The man drew in a ragged breath. “He-”
Rogers shoved the gun against his nuts in a warning for the volume of his voice.
“He’s in the main office,” the man whispered. “Far side of the building.” He motioned in the direction they needed to go, which was conveniently the opposite side of the car explosion. “There’s a door beside the break room that leads to the offices. You can’t miss it.”
Rogers nodded. “How many men are back there with him?”
“I… I don’t know…” The prisoner grimaced at the pressure on his family jewels. “I swear I don’t know… they don’t let me back there.”
The detective released his gun a little. “You believe him?”
“Generally speaking,” Rodriguez said with a shrug. “A man wouldn’t risk his balls over something that small.”
Rogers nodded. “You’re probably right.”
Angel pulled out his knife, and the detective smacked his hand away. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Well what do you propose we do with him?” Angel snapped with his signature scowl.
Rogers looked behind him and saw that the truck door was halfway open. He dragged their prisoner inside before giving him a forceful pistol whipping, knocking him out. He ducked out a carefully pulled the truck door down, doing his best to limit the noise.
“There we go,” he said, smacking his hands together as if dusting them off, “body concealed and no blood stain to set off alarm
s.”
Angel threw his hands up. “But why leave him alive?”
“Not everybody needs killing,” Rogers shot back. “You saw him, he was like fifty with dirty torn clothes. He didn’t exactly look like a huge threat, did he?”
“You’d better be right,” Angel warned.
Rodriguez checked his gun. “Come on,” he said with a wave, “let’s get to the office.”
CHAPTER NINE
They moved quickly and quietly through the empty warehouse, through rows and rows of boxes stacked floor to ceiling. They knelt down along the wall by the office door, Rogers in front.
“The door opens towards us,” he said to Rodriguez beside him. “I’ll fling it open and you lead the way?”
“That’s very generous of you detective,” his companion replied with a smile, “to allow me to go first into a room that is potentially filled with armed men wishing to do us harm.”
“Well, I figure since you’re the second in command of the Rivas Cartel they might think twice before shooting you,” Rogers said with a shrug. “Or at the very least, hesitate long enough for me to get a shot off.”
“Hard to argue with that detective,” Rodriguez nodded and grinned. “I’m ready when you are.”
Rogers got into position, holding the doorknob, and nodded to the group. He did a quick silent countdown, and then opened the door.
There was a long hallway with several offices on either side of it and rows of glass windows. Rodriguez carefully moved up to the first one and peered inside. Rogers checked the one across from him. Both were dark, and the doors were locked. They repeated the process on the second set, as the other three entered the hallway behind them.
As Rogers and Rodriguez reached the third set of offices, there was movement around the hallway corner on the far end.
“Put ‘em on the ground!” somebody yelled, and the entire group aimed at the two AK-47’s pointing at them around the corner. “Put ‘em on the ground!”
“I don’t have a shot, do you?” Rogers murmured, keeping as steady as possible so as not to spook their assailants.
Rodriguez swallowed. “No.”
“Your office locked?” Rogers pursed his lips.
Rodriguez sighed. “Yep.”
One of the men fired a warning shot into the air, and the cartel member and the detective slowly and gently bent to lay their guns on the ground. Just as the two of them stood back up, Angel shoved past them, a cocky smirk on his face as he spread his hands, strutting down the hallway.
The two men emerged from around the corner, aiming at him.
“Do you know who the fuck I am?” Angel snapped.
The men looked at each other before turning back to the young man.
“I said, do you know who the fuck I am?” he repeated, smacking a hand off os his chest. “I’m Angel Rivas of the Rivas Cartel. I demand that you take us to see Juan Pablo, immediately.”
The men hesitated, but slightly raised their guns.
He held up a finger to warn them to wait. “If you pull that trigger,” he purred menacingly, “my father will find you. He will take you to your family, and cut off your eyelids so you can watch him skin them alive. After that, he will seal you away in a room with them, where you’ll spend the last days of your miserable little lives listening to them whimper as their final, painful breaths leave their bodies.”
Stevenson’s breath caught in his throat. “Goddamn.”
The guards lowered their weapons, and motioned for the group to follow them. As Rogers retrieved his gun, he noticed that they still had their fingers on the triggers.
“Last door at the end of the hall,” one of them declared. “No sudden movement or we will end you, threat or not.”
Angel nodded and strutted down the hall like he owned the place. The rest of the group followed after him, though not quite as cocky.
“My apologies, Rodriguez, we should have sent him in first,” Rogers said, giving his companion a playful punch to the shoulder.
Rodriguez didn’t reply, only gave a pained smile. Before the detective could inquire or think about that, Angel threw open the doors to the big office.
It was a huge conference room, set up now as a giant office for a narcissistic boss. A younger man in his early thirties sat behind a dark wooden desk. He had dark slicked hair and his suit didn’t have a scuff on it. He raised his eyebrows as Angel made his grand entrance.
“Angel Rivas, it has been a long, long time since our paths have crossed,” Juan Pablo said, his voice dripping with charm. “What’s it been? Two years? Three?”
The younger man shook his head. “Do you not remember last summer?”
Juan stood up from his seat and walked in front of it, leaning back on the wood as Angel stopped in the middle of the room. The group clustered behind him, the two AK-47-wielding guards lingering in the doorway.
“Oh, yes,” Juan smiled, “I had almost forgotten you were at the police station. You were quite the wild man if memory serves.” He put a finger to his lips in thought, and then raised it in the air. “Yes! You were the gouger! Gentlemen, did you know that you are in the presence of a legend?” He stepped forward, patting the young man on the shoulder. “This man… this legend.” He vigorously pointed his finger at Angel. “He did things I never would have contemplated. There were three… or was it four? No matter. There were several officers who took it upon themselves to do that they believed was the right thing. They saw some of their fellow comrades moving some of our product through the city, and decided to alert the Federales of their activities. But little did they know, their contact was one of ours.”
He began to pace around the room, alternating between grandiose hand gestures and clasping his arms behind his back. “A few days later, Angel and some of his men show up, and join us on a trip to the station. We waltzed right in, padlocked the door, and chased the vermin out from their hiding place into the center of the room. These men… these scum… needed to be dealt with decisively.
“If it had been up to me, I would have put a gun to the base of their skull and fired.” He waggled his finger at Angel. “But this man… this man wanted to send a message. He ordered the other officers to hold them down as he scooped their eyeballs out with a rusted spoon. Forcing the men who were on our payroll to get up close and personal with the consequences of betraying us.
“One by one, he blinded these men, scarring them in a way that would send a message to anyone who gazed upon them. You could see it on the faces of every man and woman in that room. Every scream, every plop of an eyeball hitting that dirty floor. This had more impact than any amount of money or threats could have.
“But he wasn’t finished, oh, no. With every socket cleaned out, he pulled the police chief over to them and shoved his face into theirs. He told the chief that each and every one of these men were to be kept on the force, working in the station every single day. They were to be a reminder of what happens when you go against his family.”
He paused, hands behind his back as he surveyed the room. Angel remained stoic, while the detectives looked both horrified and disgusted. Rodriguez betrayed no emotion, while the guards seemed amused.
“The stories of that brutality spread like wildfire throughout the neighboring police forces,” Juan continued, waving a hand as if over a kingdom. “Within a matter of weeks, we no longer had to recruit officers, we had them volunteering to be in our service. This man deserves our utmost respect.”
“You deserve some too, Juan Pablo,” Angel replied, and they embraced like long lost brothers. “This was your plan, after all.”
Stevenson poked his partner in the ribs. “Rogers, what’s going on?” he hissed.
“We’re fucked is what’s going on,” Rogers replied.
Rodriguez clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry, detective.” He pulled his handgun and pointed it at his ex-companions, motioning for them to drop their weapons. They did so and raised their hands. He waved them over to the corner.
&nbs
p; “Wait a goddamn minute, Rodriguez,” Angel declared. “I know you weren’t about to rob me of my fun!” He stalked over to Rogers, licking his lips. “You’ve been smarting off to me all day, boy. It’s time to show you the consequences of disrespecting me.”
The detective braced himself, but Angel tore away from him and grabbed Stevenson by the back of his shirt. He dragged him back to where Juan stood, and then slammed his butterfly knife into the back of the detective’s knee.
Rogers lunged as Stevenson screamed, but Rodriguez held on to him.
Angel chuckled and kicked him down to one knee, wrapping a hand around his neck as he skimmed the blade around the detective’s face, leaving some deep gashes and some shallow red lines.
“You’d better have your fun with me,” Stevenson spat, “because our boys back at the station will get you.”
Angel let out a hysterical laugh and stepped back, bracing himself on Juan Pablo, who joined in the hearty laughter.
“Detective, I want to thank you,” Angel said. “That’s the funniest shit I’ve heard in a long while.” He wiped a tear from his eye, and leaned down to cock his head as he ran the blade lightly along Stevenson’s neck. “Nobody is going to avenge you, detective. Would you like to know why?”
The detective stubbornly pressed his lips together, chin jutting out defiantly.
“Juan Pablo, would you like to tell him?” Angel sneered.
The cartel boss clapped his hands together with glee. “With pleasure!” He began his leisurely pacing again. “For years, we have been forced to live in your shadow. Extreme poverty on our side, while you Americans embraced decadence. Any time we tried to pull ourselves up out of the gutter, you Americans would smack us down to keep us in our perceived place.
“Well, when this sickness began to spread throughout the land, I knew it was our moment to strike. After securing our city, we came into yours to claim it as our own. Seeing as how at one time, it was ours, and was unjustly taken from our ancestors, I felt it was the right thing to do.” He paused, stroking his chin, and then turned, switching directions. “However! We knew a full frontal assault on the city would be a war we wouldn’t be able to win, especially with the nearby military base filled with troops. So we devised a plan. My men would come into the city and start trouble, and shortly after that, Angel and his men would come riding to the rescue to help out an overwhelmed military and police force. Little did we know, the military was going to cut bait and run away, making our jobs all the easier.”
Dead America The First Week (Book 5): The El Paso Invasion Page 5
