The Last Inferno

by Michael Cross

  Earlier in the day, I’d chartered Rodrigo’s small fishing boat to take me out to where I wanted to put in. I’m about a mile offshore and can see Vargas’ house lit up like a beacon in the night. I slide my mask down over my eyes and pick up my portable scuba tank. It’s handheld and has enough air for about thirty minutes of dive time. Should be more than enough for me to get to shore.

  “Don’t wait around,” I tell him. “I’m going to swim back to shore after I’m done down there.”

  Rodrigo looks at me skeptically. “Leave you here?”

  I nod. “Yeah, just go home to your wife. I’m fine. I’ll get back on my own.”

  He looks around at the vast expanse of the ocean. It’s overcast tonight, so it’s blacker than pitch out here. Which, of course, makes it perfect for me. I unzip the pouch on the leg of my wetsuit and fish out the small stack of bills I’d stored in there, knowing they would come in handy. I flip through them for a moment— must be a few thousand pesos in here, equivalent to a couple hundred US dollars. I thrust them into Rodrigo’s hand and clap him on the shoulder.

  “Take her somewhere nice for dinner,” I grin.

  He looks down at the bills and whistles low.

  “Estás un poco loco, gringo.”

  “No,” I chuckle. “Soy loco totalmente.”

  I sit down on the railing of the boat, give him a thumbs-up, then tip myself backward and splash into the water. It’s darker than pitch. For a moment, I’m disoriented, so I pop my head above the surface to get my bearings. I see Rodrigo’s boat motoring off, making the wide turn to go back the way we’d come, wondering what he’s going to think of all this once the news breaks. It doesn’t matter though. I won’t be here long enough for him to make the connection.

  Once I have the location of Vargas’ house locked firmly in my mind, I submerge and make the swim. Fifteen minutes later, I climb out of the surf and take shelter behind a large standing pile of rocks close to the house. I drop my scuba gear and slip out of my wetsuit, leaving it all in a heap at the base of the rocks for when I return. I quickly unzip my bag to take out the earpiece and put it in, tapping it to turn it on.

  “Justice, can you read me?” I whisper as I slip on my tactical gear and boots.

  “Loud and clear,” she replies. “And let me log my final objection to this op.”

  “Noted,” I say. “How are we looking on your side?”

  “Ready to go.”

  I pull the pieces out of my bag and quickly assemble my weapon. It’s an Israeli-made Galil MAR. It’s lightweight, compact, and packs plenty of punch, which makes it ideal for this job. I screw on the sound suppressor and slam the magazine home, slipping four spares into the pockets of my tactical pants. Ideally, I’m not going to need them, but I’d rather be overprepared than get caught with my pants down.

  I peek my head over the pile of rocks I’m sheltering behind and watch the rear of the house carefully. I don’t see anybody patrolling the area, but it’s pretty well lit up. Unless I can knock out those lights, anybody who happens to glance out the window at the wrong time is going to see me like I’m crossing the back deck in the middle of the day.

  “Need to do something about all the damn lights,” I mutter. “Don’t suppose—”

  “It really is a good thing I’m on your side,” Justice chirps. “In doing my own due diligence, I learned that Vargas’ house is modern as heck. It’s a smart house.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that everything, and I do mean everything, is computerized,” she says. “I’ve already been poking around in their systems, and I have to say, I’m impressed. If I ever have my own house, I want it set up like this.”

  “So somebody like you can hack into it and do what I’m about to do?” I say. “Not a great plan, kid.”

  “Please. I’ll design it myself to keep people like me out,” she scoffs. “Duh. Obviously.”

  “Call me old fashioned, but I like turning on the lights on my own.”

  “I would call you old fashioned anyway,” she points out. “Sometimes you live life like it’s perpetually 1999.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t such a bad year,” I offer. “Senior year. You remember high school in the 90s, right?”

  “I was four.”

  I chuckle and peer over the rocks again. There are two men now standing on the back deck near where I recall the jacuzzi being. Judging by the weapons in the holsters on their hips, I’d say they’re part of Vargas’ security team. They’re probably on the inside detail but slipped out to cop a smoke.

  “Come on, come on,” I mutter.

  “Problem?”

  “Couple of guys having a smoke out on the back deck,” I explain.

  I take the moment’s delay to slip the balaclava over my head and fish my night vision goggles out of my bag, holding them in my hand as I wait. I glance at my watch as if that’s somehow going to make them smoke faster.

  “Maybe this is a sign,” Justice says.

  “A sign of what?”

  “That you shouldn’t be doing this.”

  I chuckle. “Or maybe it’s just a sign that these two are addicted to their nicotine.”

  “At the risk of sounding redundant, why are you doing this?” she asks. “Why are you doing this for Temperance?”

  “I’m not doing it for Temperance. I’m doing this for me,” I tell her. “Vargas has it out for me personally. He needs to be taken off the board before he gets another chance at me. Doing a favor for Temperance just happens to be an unfortunate side effect. But depending on what you and Jafi find, she’ll get hers.”

  “Still working on that on our end,” she replies. “You know, Jafi’s kinda cute. Oh, and you still owe me that puppy.”

  “Stow it, partner,” I mutter. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready.”

  I watch as the two men toss their butts down and crush them out before turning and walking back into the house. I pull the balaclava down and settle my night vision goggles on top of my head, getting myself hyped up and ready.

  “Okay, Justice,” I say. “It’s showtime.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Okay, when I cut the power to the back lights, you’ve got thirty seconds before the emergency generator kicks in,” she tells me. “And before you ask, it’s on a different server that’s air-gapped inside the house. It’s a security measure designed to mitigate what I’m about to do. Once you’re in, I’ll chain the power back to the primary generator, so they won’t suspect a thing.”

  “Should be enough time for me to cross the deck and get to the door,” I muse.

  “It has to be,” she replies. “Because you’re not getting a second more.”

  I chuckle. “That’s fair,” I acknowledge. “Okay, on your count.”

  “Get ready to move,” she says. “In three…”

  I settle the night vision goggles down over my eyes and flip them on, giving myself a second to get used to the bright green light.

  “Two…”

  I get to my knees, keeping my head down to avoid blinding myself by looking into the light through my goggles.

  “One… and go.”

  The estate behind me is plunged into darkness, and I quickly clamber up and over the pile of rocks. With my Galil leading the way, moving as fast as I can, I run in a crouch toward the stairs that will lead me up onto Vargas’ back deck. I quickly ascend the stairs and move quietly across it toward the house.

  “Fifteen seconds,” Justice says in my ear.

  I press my back to the wall beside the sliding glass door and drop down to a knee. I hear voices inside the house. The people inside are undoubtedly scrambling around in the darkness. The door slides open, and I raise my weapon. The moment I see the first guard coming out, I squeeze the trigger.

  With the muffled thud of suppressed gunfire, the man’s head jerks to the side. Thick, red, viscous gore sprays across the glass of the sliding door. The man pitches forward, hitting the pavement beneath hi
m heavily. I wait for a moment, but nobody follows him out, so still in a crouch to keep below the level of the window, I cross to the body.

  “Five seconds,” she says.

  I grab the fallen man by the collar and drag him out of the house, leaving a dark red trail across the pavement.

  “Two seconds,” she says.

  “Going dark,” I reply. “Stand by.”

  I turn off my earpiece and night vision as I step through the doorway, going in low and fast with my weapon at the ready. The room beyond the slider is suddenly flushed with light as the backup server kicks in. I hear voices echoing through the house, but they seem less frantic.

  I move through the ground floor quickly. The voices grow louder, but they’re laughing and joking with one another. The light spills out from a doorway up ahead, and I can see shadows on the wall across from the door. I move to the side of it and give myself a count of three, then swing into the doorway with the barrel of my weapon raised.

  The two men sitting across a table from each other look up at me, their eyes wide, their expressions startled. As they move for their weapons, I fire off two quick bursts. The two men slump forward, thick crimson blood pooling all over the cards and cash that litters the top of the table, their gazes fixed in that glassy, faraway permanent stare of death.

  I hear the shot a split second before I feel the burning pain slice along the back of my calf. Gritting my teeth at the sudden flash of agony, I turn to see another man standing at a junction at the end of the hallway. He’s perfectly framed by the light in the cross hallway, giving me a clear shot at him.

  I squeeze the trigger twice. The man jerks and twitches as my bullets punch through his flesh. He drops in a heap and is still.

  “That’s four,” I note.

  I move to the front room and carefully pull the curtain aside, peering out toward the front gate. I see half a dozen men out there, some of them smoking, talking, walking back and forth. Justice kept the front lights on. None of them have any idea what’s going on in here—which is how I want to keep things.

  I stand still for a long moment, straining my ears as I listen. I don’t hear anything. No voices, no footsteps, nothing. Even though one of Vargas’ bodyguards got off a shot before I could down him, it sounds like a house asleep to me. That makes me nervous.

  I turn and move deeper into the house, keeping my ears peeled for the slightest sound. I don’t know if, or how many other bodyguards he might have roaming the halls. I don’t like going in blind. I don’t know where Vargas’ room is, which means I’m going to have to search for it. And that is going to take time—time I might not have since I don’t know their security protocols.

  It feels like the back of my calf is on fire. I can feel the warm, tacky blood flowing into my boot. But I can tell it’s just a graze. The bullet didn’t actually penetrate my flesh, which is a good thing. Or at least, better than it could have been.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I get to the top floor quickly. I’m guessing a guy like Vargas would prefer to be on the top floor so he can look down over his little fiefdom. I really lucked out. Telltale signs of soundproofing are on the walls and floors of the top floor. If Vargas heard anything, it would just have sounded like a faint knock in the distance. The walls are a dusty yellow color, and the floor is made of a dark hardwood. The walls are lined with pictures of his two daughters. I don’t see any pictures of their mother, which is interesting. But his pride in his two little girls is more than obvious.

  I want to feel guilty about taking a father who dotes on them away from them, but in the long run, they’ll be better off without a monster like him in their lives. His lifestyle will eventually get them killed. By taking him out now, I’m sparing them the heartbreak and danger they’ll likely be facing later on in life.

  At least, that’s how I justify it to myself. But now that I know I have— had— a son, the realization of what I’m doing still weighs on me.

  I pass by a number of open doors, then come to a junction and turn to the right, rolling the dice on the idea that he’d want an ocean view from his bedroom. As I continue down the hallway, I catch movement from the corner of my eye and spin, my weapon up as a door on my right opens. I let out a long breath and take my finger off the trigger as I find myself staring into the wide, terrified eyes of one of Vargas’ daughters.

  “Shit,” I mutter.

  I hold my finger to my lips in a shushing gesture— not that she can see them beneath my balaclava. I’m sure it looks even more terrifying to her. She stands in the doorway, shaking like a leaf in a strong breeze, her lower lip trembling, and her eyes shining with tears.

  “Está bien, está bien,” I whisper quietly. “Go on back to bed.”

  The keening shriek that comes from her is high-pitched enough to shatter glass. She pushes her way past me, sprinting down the hallway, that ear-piercing, blood-curdling scream seeming to grow louder by the second. A moment later, from the bedroom, her sister starts to cry and wail along with her sister.

  “Goddammit,” I mutter.

  As I turn and head toward the room at the end of the hall, I hear the front door downstairs crash open and shouting voices coming toward the stairs. I know I have a scant few seconds before I have a hail of bullets coming my way.

  I’m still several yards away from the door when it flies open, and I see Vargas in nothing but a pair of shorts standing there, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched. In his hand is a large handgun—a gold plated .44 caliber Desert Eagle, judging by the look and size of it.

  His eyes widen as he sees me rushing toward him and starts to raise his weapon. He’s too late though. I squeeze off a burst and watch as three tightly grouped blooms of red blossom on his chest. He twitches and fires a round from his sidearm. It thunders like a cannon, echoing down the long hallway.

  The voices behind me are growing louder, as is the sound of bootsteps on the stairs. His men are closing in on me. I’ve got no choice but to keep moving forward. I squeeze off another burst and watch as one catches him in the head, sending him sprawling backward. He’s dead before he even hits the ground.

  I slam the door behind me and dash through the massive room, heading for the doors that lead out to the balcony. I turn around, and as I hear his men closing in, I raise my weapon and fire a few quick bursts through the door. I hear one man scream and the hard thump I take to be him hitting the ground. It won’t hold them for long, but it will give them something to think about. I’m sure by now, they’ve called for reinforcements and might be content to try and wait me out.

  I throw open the doors to the balcony and am immediately hit by a blast of cool, salty air. Stepping to the low wall encircling the balcony, I realize that I’ve screwed myself. Or rather, Vargas’ daughter screwed me. I’m three stories up with a group of heavily armed men on the other side of a flimsy door. I’m trapped.

  “Shit,” I growl. I tap the earpiece again. “Justice, do you read me?”

  “Loud and clear. What’s going on?”

  “Vargas is down. His men found out, and I’m trapped on the top floor. Don’t have much longer before reinforcements come.”

  I step back to the doorway and fire a couple more bursts through the bedroom door. I don’t hear anybody screaming, which tells me they’ve fallen back a bit, waiting until their reinforcements show up to take me. Time is on their side. I can’t afford to wait, because once their men get here, they very well may cut off the only avenue of escape open to me.

  “Justice, I’ll need you to work your magic here. I’m going to jump from the balcony into the pool and exit. On my mark, cut all lights in the estate.”

  “Got it.”

  I step to the edge of the balcony again and try to judge the distance to the pool below. If I don’t jump far enough, I’m not going to make the water. And if I don’t make the water, I’m definitely going to break something on the concrete deck below. Which would be about the same thing as putting my weapon in my mouth and pulling
the trigger, since I won’t be able to defend myself from Vargas’ men.

  But then, I have no other choice in the matter. It’s my only way out of here. I walk back in and fire another burst through the door to sell the illusion that I’m still in here. After that, I climb up onto the low wall that encircles the balcony and take a deep breath. I crouch down then take the leap out into space.

  “Justice, now!”

  Everything goes black. My stomach feels like it’s in my throat. I’m wrapped in a feeling of weightlessness. I hang I the air, suspended for what feels like an eternity. As I fly, I don’t even bother looking down. At this point, there’s no use in stressing about it. If I didn’t jump far enough, I’ll be dead soon.

  But then I hit the surface of the pool, and my momentum carries me straight to the bottom.

  I suck in a mouthful of water by accident, and when I’m able to get myself above the surface again, it’s to a chorus of choked, wheezing, coughs. Moving as quickly as I can, I swim to the side of the pool and climb out of it.

  “You’ve got twenty seconds before lights are back, Echo.”

  My calf feeling like it’s on fire, I run as fast as I can to end of the deck, everything darkened now by the total blackout. I jump down into the sand and start running off toward the pile of rocks I came ashore behind.

  Behind me, I hear angry shouting and curses in Spanish. The chatter of gunfire splits the air, and as I make it to the rocks, I hear them ping and whine off the stone. I jump down behind the pile and grab the mask and portable scuba tank I left behind. Quickly stripping off my goggles and balaclava, I toss them aside and put on the swim gear.

  Behind me, the lights turn back on. In the glow of the bloody estate, I catch the silhouettes of Vargas’ men—ten of them now—racing across the sand. I see the muzzle flashes of their weapons firing. Tufts of sand spark up into the air as the bullets hit the ground.

  I sprint for the water, pushing through the surf and shoving the regulator into my mouth as I dive below the waves. I swim down as far as I can, hoping to hell a stray bullet doesn’t hit me.