by James Hilton
“Is that what you call them? Followers? Ha.” Angel tapped his pistol on the side of his head. “It will cost you five times what you paid for the delivery, and my men will skin these bastards alive in front of you.”
Ezeret’s throat tightened. Five times? That was a hell of a lot of money, but he knew that the cartel soldiers were more than capable of ending this situation. “I will have to owe you, but you know my credit is good.”
“Yes, you will owe me!”
He’d just made a deal with the Devil. Angel Velasquez was a dangerous man with serious aspirations, but also a man with carnal appetites that he willingly slaked beneath Ezeret’s own house. Ezeret smiled in the darkness. It was a deal he felt sure he could manipulate to his eventual benefit. “I want the men dead and as many of my followers back in their cells as possible.”
“We will kill the men, then your little minions can round up a few drugged-up prisoners. Or is that too much for them as well?”
“This way,” said Ezeret. Moving as quickly as the darkness permitted, he led the cartel soldiers into his bedroom, which smelled strongly of burning incense. This was the place he brought the choice picks from the captives. He didn’t bring every one, just those with a spark of defiance in their eye. There was nothing like watching that glimmer of hope, that fire that made them fight, extinguish. The tiniest amount of Devil’s breath transformed the most defiant subject into a subjugated toy, a toy that he was free to play with in whichever way he pleased.
“If they are trying to free your people, they will have vehicles waiting outside. We need to get out there right now. We will hit them before they leave the compound,” said Angel.
“This way.” Ezeret crossed the room and unlocked a set of double doors. As the doors swung open, the sound of an engine swept in on the evening air.
Angel pushed past Ezeret, the rest of his men following close behind. Ezeret, unwilling to be needlessly amid real danger, held back, watching the cartel soldiers run to the fight. Something his father used to say sprang to mind: You don’t buy a dog and bark yourself. No, he would let Angel’s men do the barking and the biting. He hoped that Weiss would prove his worth and hamper Daniel Gunn’s escape attempt. Between the two, Weiss and the cartel, the transgressors would be crushed.
It would be very bad for business if Gunn did escape with any of the captives. The last thing he needed was a police investigation. He already paid a hefty subsidy to several government officials to prevent such an occurrence, but the price would increase exponentially if he wanted to make an investigation go away. The local police and the men in the official offices all expected and received their monthly mordidas, their “little bites”. Those little bites were sure to grow to veritable banquets, banquets he had no desire to provide.
As he stood in the failing light, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe he should have listened to Weiss and given Gunn a healthy dose of Devil’s breath; that would have allowed for an easy execution.
The sound of more gunfire snapped his thoughts back into focus. Angel’s men must have closed in on Gunn and his little band of escapees.
54
Danny sprinted along a paved walkway that traced a path parallel to the side of the house. He ignored the first vehicle he saw, a compact Mazda, and moved to a larger panel truck. It was a basic model Ford Transit, big and boxy but very functional.
Kneeling at the side of the vehicle, he stretched out the severed arm, which was still attached to his via the manacle chain. Two deft chops with the machete cut through the limb at the wrist. Danny knew better than to try and cut through the chain with a machete blade. He wound the length of chain around his wrist. It would be a simple matter to pick the lock once they were free and clear of the compound. The door of the van opened without resistance. The interior smelled of cigarettes and body odour. Danny climbed into the driver’s seat. A quick check showed that the keys were not in the ignition. He reached up to the sun visor—nothing.
“That would have been too easy.” Danny moved from the van to the closest door of the Quonset huts. It stood to reason that the van would be parked as close to the owner’s room as possible. Danny held the machete close to his right side as he opened the door. The day’s failing light cast dark shadows.
“If I was a key, where would I be?” Danny hunted through the dark room, passing over a vase empty of flowers, a statuette of a rearing horse. Then his hand closed on a small wooden bowl. Inside was a small bunch of keys.
Back at the van, the longest key on the set slipped into the ignition. The engine sprang to life, the deep bass of the diesel engine sending vibrations through the whole van. He turned on the headlights and drove back to where Clay and the others were waiting.
A young woman slid open the side door. “It’s full of boxes.”
Danny sprang from the seat and moved to the side of the van. “Then friggin’ throw them out!” Not waiting for assistance, he lobbed the boxes out. One split and emptied what looked like blank DVD cases onto the ground. Another spilled out an assortment of plastic ponchos.
“What are you waiting for?” Danny’s voice was thick with impatience. “Get yer arses in here! Now!”
He ushered the rescued captives into the cargo space, reminding himself that they were all in a state of shock, probably still under the influence of the drugs Celine had told him about. He was glad to see that the rest of the group were spurred into motion by his action, and clambered inside of their own accord.
“Try to stay low and hang on to each other.” He pulled the sliding door shut. “Ghost, was it? You’re with me in the front.”
“You go on without me.” The black-clad woman kept her pistol trained on the door of the house.
Danny got back into the driver’s seat. Ghost pulled what looked like a refuse sack from her belt and lifted out a grisly trophy. She set it on top of one of the discarded boxes, angling it so it faced the door.
Ghost looked around and saw he hadn’t driven away. She leaned in through the open passenger door.
Danny stared at the disembodied skull. “Heads you win?”
“And tails, they lose!” replied Ghost. “You’re Danny, Clay’s brother?”
Danny shifted the van into drive. “Aye, that’s me.”
“You go on without me,” she repeated. “I’m staying here. I’m going after Ezeret, the leader. I don’t think I’ll get a better chance than this. I need to put that asshole in the ground.”
“There’s still too many to kill on your own,” said Danny. “You’ll die.”
“I never planned on walking away from this. So long as I take that evil son of a bitch with me, I’ll go happy.”
“We need to get these people to safety,” said Danny.
“That’s yours and Clay’s job. Mine is finishing things here.”
“Ghost—”
The back window shattered as a series of gunshots cut through the air. The suited men he had seen earlier rounded the corner of the house, pistols blazing. Ghost turned and snapped off a rapid series of shots. Leaning across the seats, Danny grabbed her collar and hauled her into the van as he stamped down on the gas.
Clay’s shotgun boomed and the men in suits scattered like bowling pins. Danny wrenched on the steering wheel, angling the van so it faced the gates. The scream that Ghost gave carried unmistakable fury as she emptied her pistol at the men.
Several faces peered from the back of Clay’s stolen pickup as it raced through the open gate. Danny followed his brother into the darkness of the Mexican jungle.
55
Clay drove the pickup as fast as safely possible. The road was little more than twin ruts worn into the hard-packed earth. Branches scraped at either side of the vehicle like the claws of some monster from a dark fable. The pickup truck bumped and shuddered as it cut along the narrow path. There was no space for another vehicle to pass.
“You okay?” asked Clay.
Celine nodded. “I’m worried about Marco. He looks terrible.�
�
Clay glanced over his shoulder. Marco’s head bobbed and rolled from side to side. “It’s a very bad way to get shot but it can take a long time to die. If we get him to a hospital there’s a good chance they’ll save him.”
Celine nodded again, the smallest of smiles showing what Clay took to be hope. Her face was tinged blue by the dashboard lights. He took no pleasure in lying to her. Without immediate surgery, most victims died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen, hydrostatic shock, infection and loss of blood all taking their toll. The force from a bullet spread through the surrounding tissue like a miniature tsunami. Nature never designed the human body to be shot.
Danny’s van was right behind, its headlights burning bright. Clay reached over and squeezed Celine’s shoulder. He could feel the tension in her muscles. She was safe, she was alive; that’s what mattered. Yet something in her face had changed. Clay had seen it many times before, usually in the eyes of young soldiers: their first encounter with the reality of war altered them forever.
“I saw men die today.” Celine’s voice carried a slight tremor. “One of the captives died, before Danny showed up. They put him in the pit and one of the guards just cut him open. I’ve never seen so much blood. It was horrible. The man rubbed his blood all over his face after he’d watched him die.”
“Don’t worry, they can’t harm you now. I’ll die before I let that happen,” said Clay.
Celine took another fretful look at Marco. “Not everyone made it out of there. I saw a couple of women go down when Danny was trying to get us out. That white-haired asshole shot them. We just left them there. I don’t know if they were dead or alive. Oh, Clay, we left them behind.”
Clay exhaled long and slow. “It doesn’t sit well with me either, not one bit, but I came here for you. You’re my primary concern. Once I know you’re safe I will come back. I’ll get as many home as I can.”
The pickup lurched as the wheels hit a deep rut. A branch whacked solidly against the passenger door. Celine flinched.
“Danny,” said Celine.
“What about him?” asked Clay. He glanced in the rear-view mirror. The van’s headlights were close behind.
“He killed two of Ezeret’s men in the pit like they were nothing.”
“They were nothing. Scum that deserved whatever he served up for them.”
“He moves really fast.”
“That he does. He’s an ornery little shit at times, but there’s no one better in an honest-to-God, balls-to-the-wall street fight.”
The pickup bounced again, the suspension bumping loudly, and Marco cried out from the back seat.
“Damn it, just what we don’t need. A fork in the road.” Clay made an instant decision and swung the pickup to the left. The next five hundred yards tested the suspension even more. Marco cried out each time the vehicle bounced on its springs.
“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Celine.
Clay answered from the corner of his mouth. “Away from that damned compound.”
A large outcrop of rocks standing much higher than the roof of the pickup caused a V-shaped deviation in the road. As Clay guided the pickup around the tight curve, he cursed and slammed on the brakes. “Well, that’s a shit-stuffed chimichanga.”
The road ahead was bisected by a deep channel, like a giant had dragged an almighty furrow with a clawed hand. There was a bridge of sorts, fashioned from two horizontal girders placed parallel across the crevice. Four upright spars of metal had been welded to the girders. A thick tangle of barbed wire encircled both posts and girders at either end. Without heavy-duty wirecutters and time they didn’t have, there was no way to continue any further.
Danny’s van rolled to a stop behind them. Danny was alongside Clay’s window within a few seconds. “And it was all going so well.”
A worried murmur arose from the flatbed. Clay gritted his teeth. “There’s no room to turn around. Gonna have to back up to that fork and take the other road.”
“Ghost tried to tell me this was a choke point, but you were motoring some. I couldn’t stop you in time.”
“At least we’ve put some distance between us and the camp. We need to get these injured kids to a hospital before we lose any of them.” Clay did not have to elaborate on the dangers of untreated gunshot wounds.
Danny pivoted, looking back along the path they had followed. “You hear that?”
“Engines!”
“They’re coming after us and we’re stuck in this bottleneck. We’d better back-pedal sharpish or we’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Go!”
Danny sprinted back to his van. The vehicle began to reverse almost immediately. The sound of screeching metal cut through the darkening jungle as the van sideswiped the outcrop of rock. Despite the loss of a fender, it continued to reverse at a steady clip. Clay negotiated the obstacle without collision.
Danny’s van had almost made it back to the fork when the first bullets cut the night air. Two new sets of headlights burned bright behind the van. Clay hefted the shotgun from his lap as he braked.
Ezeret’s men had found them.
56
Danny hunched in his seat as an angry lead-bodied wasp punched through the side window of the van just above his head. The window disintegrated into a thousand tiny shards. “Get down. Lie as flat as you can!”
The passengers pitched to the floor of the van. With only a baleful stare as forewarning, Ghost flung open the passenger door and was swallowed by the thick foliage almost instantly.
Several more bullets punched into the van, in one side and out the other. Nervous yelps at different pitches issued from the floor. Danny pressed down on the gas pedal as far as it would go. Staring into the wing mirror, he could see two vehicles blocking the road: a pickup, not unlike the one Clay had stolen, and a boxy sedan. Men in suits were spread out in a skirmish line, weapons raised, peppering the van with bullets as it sped towards them. The rear of the van slewed from side to side as Danny struggled to keep to the narrow track. A scream rang out from the floor of the van as a bullet found flesh.
“Hang on to something! We’re going to hit them hard!”
The shooters leapt in different directions to avoid being crushed. Danny grimaced as he rammed the parked sedan. The deafening sound of protesting metal echoed through the inside of the van, adding to the shrill cacophony. The sedan bucked to one side, its hood crumpled and windscreen spiderwebbed.
One of the women in the back of the van began to repeat the same prayer over and over like a mantra. “Please God, don’t let me die. Please God, don’t let me die.”
“Shite!” The boxy sedan, although shunted to one side, still blocked the road. Danny shifted into drive and the van lurched forward. “Hang on, I’m hitting them again.”
The van had only gained twenty feet when one of the shooters sprang up, his pistol level with Danny’s face. With an angry yell, Danny wrenched the steering wheel in the man’s direction. The bullet smacked into the padded headrest with a disconcerting whump. The shooter leapt away from the van again, this time tumbling into the dirt.
“That was too close for comfort,” Danny said as the tyres of the van lost traction. The other shooters were up and back in the fight. Bullets cut through the van. The vehicle was never designed for the jungle track and Danny cursed under his breath as one of the rear tyres blew out. The van dipped to the rear right corner, instantly becoming even less responsive.
Clay stared at him through the open window of the pickup, his face a glowering mask. The pickup was angled just behind the rocky outcrop that Danny had pranged. The barrel of the shotgun extended from the window. The gun boomed twice in rapid succession and the shooter closest to Danny pinwheeled to the ground.
Danny gritted his teeth. They didn’t have the firepower to engage the four remaining shooters. The risk to the rescued captives was just too high. Danny stabbed a finger towards a gap in the trees. A blocked bridge in front and a roadblock behind. “I’ll make my own bl
oody road.”
Clay’s shotgun roared again. Several of the pistols answered. The shooters had retreated, using the wedged vehicles as cover.
Danny hit the gas. It felt like gravity had found extra purchase on the van’s frame, each second longer than the last. He was sure a bullet would find its mark any moment and he would end his days bleeding out in an unnamed pocket of the big green. He grinned in defiance as the tyres finally gained traction and the bullet-riddled panel truck shot off the narrow road and into the dense jungle.
The shotgun boomed again, and then the lights from Clay’s pickup were bright behind him.
“Stay close, big brother,” yelled Danny.
Danny steered the van down an uneven slope. The gaps between the trees were haphazard and he sideswiped more than one obstacle. The sounds of impact inside the van were deafening. The passengers in the back yelped intermittently, as Danny fought to keep it moving. The gradient of the slope increased. A branch thicker than Danny’s upper arm whipped across the windscreen with a loud thud, and the glass fractured. Another tree branch shattered it. The surrounding canopy was dark and oppressive as the van’s headlights illuminated only the foliage directly in its path.
Danny only managed a brief bark of surprise as he tried to steer away from the shard of rock that jutted from the ground like the dorsal fin of a colossal shark. The passenger side of the van slammed into the unyielding rock with a howl of screeching metal. The van lurched into the air as the side door ripped open, buckling at an unnatural angle. Despite the damage, the van continued to move, listing and shuddering like a dying beast.
Danny glanced over his shoulder. Flashes of light from the damaged door caused a strobe effect on the stricken faces that stared back at him. One of the younger woman gave a heart-rending sob. They all looked so young.
The steering wheel was slack in his hands. The dashboard lit up in orange and red.
