Gun Work

by David J. Schow

  “You might have to pick up some spare change on your way over. Karlov, you’ve got two more moving up on your six o’clock.” Not good. Karlov’s hide now had shooters on both sides of it.

  “Copy,” said Karlov. “Betcha a beer I can take seven before you take five.”

  Sirius replied, “Meet me after. These are some scruffy-looking dudes indeed.” As an afterthought he added, “Packing autos; watch out for spray.”

  “Complaints, complaints,” Karlov chimed in through a brief jolt of static. “Grow up. This is fewer than five each, and I have what you call the handicap.”

  Armand’s voice came back: “I can take the bridge shooters from behind.”

  “Negative,” said Barney. “Take the vehicles. Make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

  “Copy.”

  “Take them on my shot,” said Barney.

  The sun ebbed and the shadows lengthened. It was getting crowded out here, thought Barney. The hidden watchers were themselves being watched by his team, better concealed.

  At the appointed time, when the fetid atmosphere was bristling with anticipation, Barney saw El Atrocidad’s golden chariot slowly negotiate its way over roads that were little better than sodden goatpaths. It stopped the same distance from the bridge that Barney had stopped Carl’s limo, in another time.

  Flecha debarked from the passenger side — Barney recognized the tank-shaped man immediately — which meant El Atrocidad was in the driver slot. The car was roughly between Sirius to the south, and Karlov to the north on the far side of the river.

  He saw Flecha raise a cellphone to his ear.

  Barney dog-crawled from his hide. He did not need nightvision, though he was aware the enemy probably had it.

  Flecha repeated his instructions, his low purr of a voice audible, though not intelligible.

  With the semi-auto Benelli in a low-ready dedicated carry, Barney did a double roll to bring him in line with the pathway on the bridge and fired twice from a distance of fifteen running yards. The shooter on the bridge screamed and fell over, pretty much a sieve from the knees up.

  Gunfire perforated the night, muzzle flashes everywhere as the dumping ground transmogrified into a battlefield.

  Sirius took the bridge runners, one-two-three, as they broke cover and started firing machine guns at Atrocidad’s car.

  Karlov took the backup men, having correctly estimated the direction each of them would move once gunshots galvanized them. He poked up from his comfy foxhole and revolved like a gun turret, delivering both hi-cap mags — a blistering salvo of forty-four rounds — in under ten seconds, shooting both of his nines at once. Then he dropped out of sight like a jack in the box with second thoughts. His seven men were all down, dead or howling.

  Barney ran across the bridge, eating up the real estate between him and the two SUVs, one of which was already moving. Two rounds from Armand’s Benelli caused the rear tires to shred apart and the chunky car sat down hard, ass-skidding into a crooked pyramid of rusty 40-gallon drums. Barney put his final four rounds through the windshield, which imploded in a sparkling black hailstorm of safety glass. Armand had command of the other car already.

  Barney dropped the shotgun and cross-drew his .40, approaching the vehicles in a heel-and-toe step, careful not to cross one leg in front of the other and get tangled in his own limbs.

  Sirius answered incoming auto weapons fire with his own shotgun. Then Barney heard the distinct cannonade of Sirius’ .44 clipping stragglers.

  Start to finish, something like twenty seconds.

  Gunsmoke spiced the toxic wind.

  “Hey, amigo!” It was Atrocidad’s voice, coming from the car. “You there? I have a present for you!” The big wrestler’s guttural signature laugh echoed in the sudden silence.

  Barney hustled over while his team checked the dead and the dying, to make sure no opponent could zombie up and start shooting again.

  “Heeeeeyyyyyy!” Atrocidad’s grin was so wide that Barney was afraid it would split his face and make the top of his head fall off. He was holding a ransom runner by the scruff and randomly punching him whenever he twitched. The smaller man’s feet were off the ground.

  “Look at you!” Atrocidad bellowed. “You’re up, you’re walking, you’re fighting, life is good!” He punched his captive again. “You’ll pay for my paintjob, pinche cabron.” Then he dropped his insensate prisoner like a mail sack and wrapped Barney up in a bear hug.

  Flecha de Jalisco was smiling big as well, even though he had one massive hand clamped over his bicep, which was leaking blood through his suit. He gave Barney a thumbs-up. No big deal.

  “It’s good to see you,” said Barney. “But we’re going to have to hold off on the celebration and reunion for a bit.”

  “We know,” said Atrocidad. “But meanwhile, check this puto.”

  El Atrocidad dragged his charge in front of the Cadillac’s headlamps.

  Barney’s mouth belayed into a stall of disbelief. Even past the blackening eyes and ruptured nose, he could still recognize the guy Atrocidad had stopped on the run.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned and completely gone to hell if it’s not my old pal Condorito.” The skittish monkey-man from the hostage hotel, the one who had participated in Barney’s beatings after Sucio and the others had softened him up. Barney grabbed a fistful of his rank hair and got in his face. “This is a rare honor. It’s not every day I get to watch somebody’s life turn to shit right before their eyes, and today, old buddy, that somebody is you.” He held the dazed man’s head in his hands, resisting the urge to smash it to pulp with his SIG.

  Armand came humping up. “Karlov’s hit. We have to get the hell outta here, pronto.”

  A 9-millimeter slug from an HK MP5 had bored into Karlov’s forearm below the elbow, and boy, was he piqued.

  “Damn stupid dumb luck,” he griped. Lacking a field dressing, he applied pressure to the entry and exit wounds by plugging his thumb and middle fingers into the holes and grimacing a lot. Karlov had stamina, no doubts there.

  A brief debate ensued over whether Atrocidad should take him to the hospital along with Flecha, whose pistol wound would be easier to explain. Karlov vigorously protested, saying he needed to get back to his toolkit, and a first aid box they had back at the motel. Too many questions and not enough time. He needed to concentrate on processing the trauma.

  “Let me stay,” said El Atrocidad after he had delivered Flecha to a clínica he knew close to Arena Coliseo. “You need little puto to tell you where los secuestradores are hiding; I can make him sing opera.”

  “It has to be fast,” said Barney. “They’ll be chopping off Almirante’s fingers any minute now.”

  “Sí, claro. But a man can lose many fingers before he is dead.” The wrestler opened his arms in brotherly entreaty. Barney himself was proof of what he said.

  They wrung out Condorito in the motel room while Karlov treated his own gunshot wound. It was a toss-up as to which spectacle was bloodier.

  Armand flinched when he saw Karlov ream out his arm with a sterilized barrel-cleaning brush. He poked it in one side and pulled it through the other while biting on a rolled-up washcloth, making a horrific noise like a prehistoric animal going down in a tar pit. Armand flinched again when he saw Karlov douse the tunnel with peroxide. The table flooded with pink fizzing foam dotted with tiny splashes of Karlov’s sweat, dripping freely from his brows and chin. He packed the wound with antibiotic gel and wrapped it in gauze.

  “If you’ll pardon me now,” Karlov said, “I am going to go vomit, and then lie down. Do not even think of telling me I am out of the op, because I am not.”

  “You can’t do gunfire,” Barney said, looking up from where he was dealing with Condorito on the far side of the room.

  “I’ve got ten years on you, young man, so I outrank you. I just took down seven men firing two-handed. So don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.” Karlov shuffled off toward the bathroom, woozy from shock. He had a bi
t of trouble tacking on the doorway.

  Barney returned his attention to Condorito, holding up the Smith & Wesson .22 revolver Karlov had given him. “Real simple. I shoot this through your foot, like so.”

  Barney placed the eight-inch barrel on top of Condorito’s sneakered foot, beneath which El Atrocidad had lodged a phone book. The bang of the .22 was similar to the snap of a big mousetrap. They could shoot this piece in here all day and nobody would notice or care.

  Condorito contracted in abrupt, undeniable pain. He could not kick or flail much; his extremities were all duct-taped to a tubular metal chair which Atrocidad held down in order to keep it from falling over as the smaller man juddered.

  “Then,” said Barney, “we remove this.” He pulled a wadded towel from where it was crammed into Condorito’s mouth. Condorito blubbered a string of insults and admonitions. “Then,” Barney continued, “you tell us where the hostage hotel is, comprendes?”

  Condorito offered several observations on the nature of pain, on Barney’s sexual proclivities, and possible heritage.

  Barney shot him in the other foot. Bang. Flush, rinse, repeat.

  “Your knees are next. Then your hands. Then your elbows. Then I’ve got two shots left in this cylinder I haven’t decided what to do with yet. You tell us where it is, because you’re going to show us where it is, no matter how many holes I put in you.”

  There was a loud thump against the wall from the next room. Everybody held in position and caught their breath, except for Condorito. There was a pain demon trapped inside his skin, and it wanted out.

  The men looked to each other. Another thump. No, a series of thumps, rhythmic. Then a muffled cry: “¡Ayyy! ¡Ayyy! ¡Papi! ¡Mijo! ¡Ayy! ¡Ayy!”

  Somebody was ramming their dream date against the headboard in the adjacent room with slightly more abandon than you would expect from a comfortably married couple, which is to say a couple married to each other. La Pantera Roja did, after all, have many other paying customers.

  “¡Ayy! ¡Alocate y haste mia! ¡Chupame la cola! ¡Ayy! ¡Ayy!”

  El Atrocidad lit up the room with his grin as the others tried to match it.

  Barney rolled his eyes and turned back to Condorito, gun in hand. “Nobody’s going to hear the gun, not in this place, and for sure nobody’s going to hear you squawking.”

  Not a particularly brave man when it came to saving his life, Condorito spilled everything he could think of. Area, street, security, size of opposing force. Layout. Anything that would keep him from getting married to another tiny wasp-like bullet. El Atrocidad nodded at Barney through some of it. Barney made Condorito repeat everything several times, faster and faster, so no a la carte lies could slip through. By the time he was finished, Condorito’s palate was very familiar with the taste of the gun barrel.

  “All right,” said Barney. “Tape him up and get him into the van.” The rest of their gear had been loaded by Armand and Sirius. “Don’t forget the grenades this time.”

  Sirius winced. “Hey, I was all excited and shit, okay? Let it go.” In his rush to first blood at the crack den he had forgotten the grenade bag; fortunately they hadn’t needed it.

  There was a more important reason for clearing out of the Pantera Roja: Once the kidnappers twigged to the massacre at the bridge, one of them might be smart enough to remember that the Pantera Roja was where they had re-acquired Jesús, and come calling with maximum warpower. It was safer to consider this base blown. Whatever came in the aftermath — food, showers, rest — would come at some other place, utterly unpredictable and totally anonymous.

  “Amigo,” said Atrocidad. “Pardon me for saying so, but—”

  Barney whirled on him. “What?” This man was going to tell him what he was doing was sadistic and unfair, despite helping him do it. This man was going to lecture him on the differences between right and wrong, good and evil, and what was righteous and what was low.

  El Atrocidad spoke measuredly, to insure he was not misunderstood. “I was just going to say, amigo, that you... ehh, stink. Smell really bad, you know?”

  Barney had mopped off his camo but his eyes were still raccooned and black sweat tracks grooved his face. They all smelled like the septic tank of an abortion clinic at high tide.

  “We haven’t got time for a group shower,” Barney said, collecting his refreshed clips from Armand. The motel room was thick with a humid inversion layer of butchershop blood and locker room secretions.

  “That’s what we do,” said Sirius, holstering his Magnum. “We all stink together, baby.”

  Karlov rose from his cot to prove he was far from out of the game. “Or we most assuredly shall stink separately.”

  They had time for one swig from one beer Sirius had left in the fridge. They passed it around and it came to Barney last. He drained it, taking a unique pleasure in seeing Condorito eye the bottle as though it was the closest the little man would ever get to his version of Heaven.

  El Atrocidad did his damnedest to tag along but Barney prohibited it. His mission was to assemble a group of Flecha’s friends, luchadors all, and await a cue via cellphone. Barney stressed this. It was important to have the wrestlers involved, particularly since Flecha de Jalisco had himself been wounded in battle over his own son, but Barney convinced Atrocidad that it was even more important to wait for the cue. Timing was paramount, and if a ring superstar could not acknowledge that, he or she had no business waxing mythic.

  Condorito, his gunshot feet padded in rags wrapped outside his sneakers, proved to be an adroit navigator once the right stimulus was applied. He even suggested shortcuts and alternate routes to avoid the worst of the traffic. From Barney’s dim memory of road-bumps, halts and sudden turns taken while he was hooded and blind, they seemed to be on the right track. If they deviated due to trickery, he would smell it and gift Condorito with another bullet.

  Karlov was in the back of the van drawing and holstering, trying to coax his injured arm up to specs. He had adopted one of the neck slings he had designed for Barney’s aim and stayed busy adjusting it.

  Armand was riding shotgun, and Sirius was next back, propping Condorito up between the seats to plot the course.

  The Iztapalapa district west of Mexico City is a working class barrio ringed with shantytowns competing with monolithic, cinderblock industry, a fast lane in the superhighway of narcotrafico and crime, double-stuffed to bursting with overpopulation and violence-by-the-minute. Razed to the ground in the 16th Century by Hernan Cortez in a genocidal war against the Aztecs memorialized as the Sad Night, Iztapalapa was also the locale of Mexico’s first school shooting spree by a student, in 2001. It is not found on the usual checklists of things to see and do in Mexico, yet paradoxically it becomes the locus for hundreds of thousands of visitors on Good Friday, when the populace goes mad reliving Golgotha — a reenactment of the Passion that has been going on since the 1830s, when the area was decimated by cholera. Fake Christs lug crosses; others tart up in a kind of Busby Berkley approximation of Roman centurions, and amid religious chants and simulated flagellation the crucifixion is dramatized on a southern hill that later turned out to be a lost pre-Columbian pyramid covered in dirt, with squatters encamped at its base.

  Good Friday was months distant, though, and today Iztapalapa was just another urban war zone into which Condorito, wounded emissary, led warriors.

  The building he called the palacio was a half-block-sized brick rectangle with — as Barney had correctly guessed a year earlier — a large interior courtyard accessed through armored doors. It was an old factory fortressed up similarly to the crackhouse they had invaded: bars, metal plating, no window entry, razorwire ringing the roof. The north wall was a gigantic, faded beer advertisement that was decades old and buried in graffiti.

  They circled the building for a look-see, and half the circumference was on dirt roads with no names.

  “That’s where they go in,” said Condorito, pointing to a gated archway in the south wall. It was well bac
k from the street inside its own stone tunnel.

  “Can we drive through that gate?” said Barney.

  Condorito mulled this over. “You hit it at about forty, you probably knock it down, sí, but then a lot of guys be shooting at you.”

  “Sirius, how’re those smoke grenades?”

  “They’ll do the job, like I said. But what I didn’t get to say is that they’re LZ markers.”

  Karlov said, “What is he talking about?”

  “It’s colored smoke,” said Barney.

  Armand lifted one out of the pouch and examined it. “Look, we’ve got flavors: red, orange, green, violet, blue, yellow.”

  “They’re fine,” protested Sirius. “Five vents, 50- to 90-second discharge, one-point-five second fuse.”

  “But they’re in colors,” Barney said with a slightly pained expression.

  “Oh, climb outta my butt,” Sirius said, his dander riled. “Look, we can even launch these out of the shotguns. See? Adapter. Click, bang, just like a TL-1.”

  “Okay, all right, as long as we’ve got coverage.”

  “In color,” Armand said, refusing to turn loose of the joke.

  “Well, this oughta be festive,” said Barney. He turned to Condorito, who looked strung-out, but maintaining. “You positive this van can crash through that gate?”

  “Yesss,” he said, drawing the consonant out, which meant pretty sure. “It swings open.” He demonstrated with his hands.

  “Bueno,” said Barney, “Because you’re going to drive.”

  Picture the gate to the Palacio as the crossbar of the letter H, with the entry through the lower half. Inside that staple-shape a surveillance camera monitored the tunnel, which was arched, almost Moorish, from a tamper-proof mount high on the left. Dark inside. There was no security door cut into the gate; it was not designed to admit pedestrians. This was for deliveries.

  Outside on the street, two men walked past the tunnel entryway, the bottom of the H. One paused, apparently to light a cigarette. The other continued walking.

  When Sirius and Armand had bracketed the tunnel they each tossed in smoke. Red and yellow clouds combined to form a bilious orange, rather akin to a fire without the light or heat. It clogged the tunnel in five seconds. Sirius folded himself into the artificial fog bearing a shotgun adapted to fire the smoke cartridges. His station was upper left corner, below the now-blind camera, the elbow of the bottom of the H. Armand took right corner. Karlov was on standby outside. Under his coat he wore his fabulous four-gun holster rig.