Retribution

by Brent Towns

  “It was Brenda?”

  Cara nodded. “She never even finished cleaning the bar last night.”

  “Do you think she ran?”

  “It looks that way. Yet I’m not sure. I warned her that if she did, I would put the word out that she helped us.”

  “Meantime, I’m stuck here.”

  “Yes. Art doesn’t seem in any hurry to cut you loose or charge you.”

  “What about the sheriff’s murder?”

  Cara shrugged. “Nothing new. Although I get the feeling, now I know Art is dirty, that something isn’t right there too. If he hasn’t charged you by tomorrow, I’ll let you out myself.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “About Art or the case?”

  “Both.”

  “I don’t know about Art. If Brenda turns up, then I will be able to do something right away. If not … I’ll have to dig something else up.”

  “And the other?”

  “Art says he’s still waiting for the FBI, and since it looks like it is the cartel, we should leave it to the DEA. We’ll know more once the prints come back.”

  Kane gave her a puzzled look.

  “What is it?”

  “You said yesterday that Art would answer the complaints from the Grissom place, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is that part of his patrol route?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did the sheriff go out there?”

  "For the drive, I think, more than anything else.”

  “How did Art take that?”

  “Not great. What are you getting at, Reaper?”

  Kane shrugged. “It may be nothing. But it seems odd to me that the sheriff and the cartel show at the Grissom place around the same time. If Art is involved with the drugs like we think, then who is paying him to keep things in check?”

  “You think he’s tied in with the cartel?”

  “It’s only an assumption.”

  Cara went quiet as she ran things over in her mind. Then, “What do I do?”

  “You need to phone the DEA division office in Washington. Ask for a guy named Ferrero, Luis Ferrero. He was one of the top men we worked with in Columbia. Tell him you want some agents out here and why. OK?”

  Cara nodded. “I’ll do it first chance I get.”

  “Be careful, Cara. If he is cartel, he’ll be dangerous.”

  Washington

  Luis Ferrero hated being a desk jockey. Twenty years in the DEA, most of it as a field agent, and now the powers that be saw fit to put him behind a desk.

  He was a solidly built man of average height, and his hair was more gray than anything else these days. But shit, he wasn’t a damned invalid just yet. Hell, he’d mixed it with some of the toughest cartels in Columbia and Mexico.

  The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Penned up in a small eighty-one square foot office with a pile of paperwork on his desk even Vashti Cunningham couldn’t jump over. Great start to the morning.

  The phone rang. “Thank God.”

  He picked it up. “Yeah?”

  “Sir, I have a call for you from a deputy sheriff in Retribution, Arizona.”

  “What’s it about, Lizzy?”

  “She says that a former marine named John Kane told her to call you.”

  “Kane? There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Put her through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line clicked, and a voice came through. “Hello.”

  “You got Ferrero, who’s speaking please?”

  “Agent Ferrero, my name is Cara Billings, deputy sheriff in Retribution, Arizona. John Kane told me to call you. He said you worked together in Columbia and that I could trust you.”

  “He was right. How is he?”

  “Locked up in our jail at present.”

  Ferrero frowned. “OK. What seems to be the problem?”

  “The Montoya Cartel.”

  Ferrero sat forward in his seat. His face grew serious. “You better tell me what’s going on. All of it.”

  Cara filled him in on everything. From Kane’s arrival to the death of Walt Smythe, and what she’d learned about Art Cleaver.

  “I don’t know how much of what he’s told me is true. He says that if it is Montoya that the DEA has said to stay away from it. He says he’s waiting to hear back from the FBI and that state law enforcement don’t want anything to do with it because it is DEA related to the cartel.”

  “He’s right about the cartel thing. Local DEA would probably jump down your throat if it is cartel related and you interfered, maybe turn their investigation to shit. However, if FBI and State Troopers knew about what had happened to your sheriff, they’d be crawling up every known orifice around the place. I think your man is lying. But we can use that.” Ferrero frowned. “Wait one, Deputy, I need to check something I saw on my computer a while back.”

  He tucked the phone in beside his cheek and tapped some keys on the keyboard in front of him. Stabbing at it with a clumsy precision, he kept going until he found what he wanted. “Shit. Damn it. We got a red flag this morning about a hit on some prints your office ran.”

  “Really? We’ve heard nothing back yet.”

  “Well, I’m looking at it. The prints scored a hit to one Cesar Salazar. He belongs to the Montoya Cartel.”

  “Damn it!”

  “That about says it all. Listen, there’ll be someone there tomorrow to help you out. In the meantime, I suggest you try to find your witness.”

  “All right, thank you.”

  “And tell Reaper he’ll owe me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cara hung up, and Ferrero thought for a moment. He hit a button on the phone panel, and Lizzy answered. “Lizzy, tell Traynor to get his stuff together. We’re leaving for Arizona in half an hour. Also, I want you to find me all you can on a Cara Billings and Art Cleaver from Retribution.”

  He replaced the handset and opened his desktop drawer. He reached in and took out an old-school Smith and Wesson 1911. “Time to go to work.”

  New York

  Colin O’Brien was eating a lunch of fettuccini carbonara when he got the call. The dark interior added to the ambiance of the small and cozy Italian restaurant on West 57th Street. Seated in the plush upholstered booth across from him was Bannon.

  The restaurant was near to full. A popular place with many of the locals, O’Brien seemed to blend in with all the other suits.

  A cell rang, and O’Brien reached into his coat pocket and withdrew it. He pressed the button and put it to his ear.

  “Yes?”

  “We got a hit.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “Yes. Someone did a database search from a place called Retribution in Arizona.”

  “Thank you.”

  The call ended, and O’Brien stared across the table at his enforcer. “He’s been found.”

  “Where?”

  “Arizona.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Take three men who can get the job done. I want him alive. Make sure they understand that,” his gaze turned to granite. “I want the bastard alive.”

  Retribution

  The sun had gone down by the time Cara got back to Kane. After a hot day of searching for Brenda and coming up empty, she wasn’t in the best mood or frame of mind.

  Cleaver was at his desk when she walked through the door with a takeaway meal for their prisoner.

  “What are you doing with that?” he demanded.

  “Food for the prisoner.”

  He grunted and went back to what he was doing.

  “Have you charged him with anything yet, Art?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then let him go.”

  Cleaver sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Tomorrow. He can walk then. Maybe a little extra time in the cell will make him think twice about causing trouble. I still don’t like it. He should have the full weight of the law thrown at him for attem
pted murder.”

  Cara rolled her eyes and turned away. “Whatever, Art. I’m sure it would have been a huge loss.”

  She found Kane lying on the cot and passed him the food which consisted of two ham and pickle sandwiches and a cola.

  “I talked to your friend in Washington,” Cara told him. “He said someone will be here tomorrow.”

  Kane nodded from the doorway. “Good.”

  “Cleaver said he’s going to let you out tomorrow too.”

  Kane nodded. “What else?”

  “Ferrero said that they got a red flag on our fingerprints. Came back as belonging to Cesar Salazar.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Sicario for the Montoya Cartel. He’s called El Monstruo. Word has it he was a Federale who changed sides. As you’ve seen, he lives up to his name.”

  There was a moment of silence, and Kane noticed the look of concern on her face. “What is it?”

  “I spent most of the day trying to find Brenda but found nothing. I checked bus timetables and known associates and came up empty.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to. Every time I do, I get a bad feeling.”

  “Cara! You there?” Cleaver’s voice echoed through the cells.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m going out to get some milk. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “OK.”

  Cara looked at her watch and snorted. “Dick.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He’s going out to get the milk, and the damn stores are all shut. It’s after nine.”

  “You’d think he’d know that,” Kane surmised.

  Cara’s eyes darted back and forth as her mind started to work overtime. “I’ll be back.”

  She rushed from the cell without even bothering to close the door. Kane placed his food on the cot and eased to his feet.

  Out in the office area, Cara went to the fridge and opened it. There sitting on the second shelf was a three-parts full container of milk. “What are you up to?”

  She hurried across to the window and peeked out through the venetian blind, just in time to see a black SUV pull up.

  “What is it?” Kane asked from the doorway.

  She whirled about, a look of apprehension on her face. “I think the Montoya Cartel is about to knock on our door.”

  Kane hurried across to the window and looked out. The doors on the SUV opened, and four men alighted, dressed in black, and carrying automatic weapons.

  “Break open your armory, LT. This is about to go loud.”

  Ramon Conteros tucked the phone into his pocket and checked home a full magazine into the FX-05. He, like the three others in the SUV, were cartel men. The expendables, the meat for the grinder. They were expected to get the job done or die trying. In case of such an eventuality, their families would be taken care of. Their loyalty was bought and paid for.

  Each was covered in tattoos. Arms, legs, chest, even face, and head. Nearly all told a story.

  Conteros was in charge. This wasn’t his first kill mission for the cartel. Five skull tattoos on the right side of his neck were his running tally.

  The phone in his pocket buzzed, so he removed it and checked the screen.

  “All is ready,” he told the others.

  “We kill them all, Ramon?”

  Ramon looked across at the driver. “Sí. When we stop, you will go around the back. We will go in through the front. There are only two. We kill them and then go home.”

  “Just in time to fuck the chicas at the cantina, huh, Ramon?” came a voice from the back seat.

  Ramon whirled in the seat. “Get your mind on the misión, Chico. If you fuck it up, I will kill you myself.”

  The SUV with its headlights turned off pulled into the lot of the jail. They climbed out, and Ramon gave them directions by hand signal. In a couple of minutes, their surprise would be complete, and they would be on their way back to Sonora.

  The driver, Juan, disappeared around the side of the building as the others, led by Ramon, approached the front door. Conteros eased the door open and held it while Chico and Ruis moved inside.

  Across the street, hiding in the shadows, Cleaver watched Ramon enter the sheriff’s office. His heart hammered loudly in his chest as adrenaline coursed through his body. He expelled a long breath that he didn’t realize he’d been holding and stared at the front lot of windows, waiting.

  Then the inside of the jail lit up.

  Chapter 9

  Retribution

  “Here!” Cara snapped and tossed Kane an HK 416. “There’s a few fresh mags there too.”

  Kane gave the carbine a once over and racked a round into the firing chamber. He took three magazines and stuffed them into his pockets.

  “I saw four,” he told her. “One of them looked to be headed around the back.”

  “He’ll be trying to make sure we can’t escape that way. He won’t get in there because the door is locked.”

  Kane stared at the flimsy furniture placed about the room. Damn bullets would pass right through them. Then he saw the filing cabinet. “Give me a hand.”

  Within thirty seconds, they had it lifted onto Cara’s desk. It wasn’t great, but the metal-framed cabinet was all they had.

  He gave Cara a mirthless smile. “Just like old times, LT?”

  “Shit, Reaper. I thought I gave this all away.”

  They crouched behind the cabinet, facing each other. They listened intently for tell-tale signs of the cartel shooters entering the office area.

  The harder Kane listened, the louder his heartbeat sounded in his ears.

  Damn it, Reaper, calm down.

  He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath in through his nose and released it slowly from his mouth. He felt the tension ease in his body.

  There was a tap on Kane’s knee, and his eyes snapped open. Cara was staring at him and mouthed, “What are you doing?”

  Kane never answered. Instead, he brought the HK to his shoulder and rose up behind the cabinet. The three cartel men were standing inside the door, surprised to see him waiting for them with his own weapon.

  His first burst nailed Chico full in the chest. The bullets punched through the cartel man’s torso and out the back in a bright spray of crimson. The soldier cried out and staggered back with spasmodic jerks. His finger squeezed the trigger on the FX-05 in his hand, and it went all the way back.

  The selector on the weapon was set at full auto and bullets sprayed across the room and hammered into the back wall, shattering the window in the sheriff’s office. As the soldier fell backward, the slugs stitched a line of jagged holes up to the ceiling and rained plaster down onto the floor.

  By this time, the other two cartel men had recovered enough to cut loose with their own weapons. Again, they too were on full auto and sprayed the room with careless abandon.

  Bullets beat a staccato drum against the metal cabinet. More plaster dust filled the room as the 5.56 NATO rounds from the FX-05s ripped into the walls. The sound of the gunfire bounced around the small space in what seemed to be one continuous roar. Kane glanced at Cara who was crouched low, biding her time.

  Two shots drilled through her desk and erupted from the timber in a shower of splinters which passed between the two hunched figures, hitting the wall behind them.

  The thing about a weapon on full auto is that the ammunition in the magazine is expended rapidly. Which is exactly what happened.

  One moment the room was full of deafening noise, the next there was an eerie silence as the rounds from the FX-05s were depleted.

  Kane glanced at Cara who nodded. They rose smoothly at the same time, and as the two Mexicans fumbled with a magazine change, they shot them in the chest with bursts from their carbines.

  Both the tattooed soldiers’ shirts flickered, and red splotches appeared as the NATO rounds slammed into their chests. They were hurled backward, and their weapons clattered to the grey, linoleum floor. The top half of one m
an’s body ended up out the interior doorway, his legs inside the room, still twitching. Kane and Cara moved forward from behind their cover, boots crunching on the debris which had fallen, their carbines still aimed at the bodies on the floor.

  “There’s still one more,” Cara pointed out.

  Kane nodded. “You want him?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you while I check these guys over.”

  Kane put the HK up to his shoulder and walked towards the door. He pushed out into the darkness and dropped to his right knee. He swept the area to his front and then rose. Turning left, he moved stealthily for the corner of the building. He eased his head around the side, and an accurate burst erupted from another FX-05 in the hands of the final cartel soldier.

  Bullets chewed gouges from the corner of the sheriff’s office and ricocheted out towards the street. Small chunks of the brickwork were sprayed from the building. This killer was more restrained with his shots, and his weapon’s selector was set to burst.

  Kane leaned around the corner and fired his own burst at the soldier who made for the cover of a large, disused dumpster in the alley. The bullets missed, and Kane fired again, the rounds hammering into the metal-sided receptacle just as the Mexican made his ground.

  The FX-05 rattled off another burst, and the bullets slammed into the brickwork once more.

  Kane took two full magazines from his pockets and held them in his left hand; then switched the selector on the side of the HK to auto and took a deep breath. He stepped away from the corner of the building and squeezed the trigger.

  The HK’s rate of fire came in between 700-900 rounds per minute. Which meant that Kane blew through what remained of the magazine in seconds. With practiced hands, he dropped out the empty and slapped another full one home.

  Before the cartel soldier could open up again, the HK emptied another magazine into the dumpster with a deafening noise.

  Kane slapped home the second magazine and brought the weapon up to his shoulder. He switched the selector back to semi.