The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1)

by Patrick Astre

  BETA-001

  CHARLIE-001

  The team was in place and ready. Daniels sent the reply:

  ALPHA-002. Stand by. Expect the GO signal in two days.

  Daniels had left a message at the front desk that he was expecting a Mr. Carlos Garcia who had been hired to assist in locating the site for the shoe factory. There had been previous inquiries and messages so it was known that a North American company wanted to set up shop in Zacotacas.

  Nothing in the plan required any forward information or action in Mexico. The team carried all they needed and the informants were unaware of what went on. Carlos would be the first outsider to learn the details since he was a participant. From the time they would meet at the hotel, early the next morning, Carlos would stay with Daniels. At this point Daniels trusted no one outside of the team members. He wasn't very concerned about the missing informant, Antonio. The only thing he could have known was that US agents were asking questions. Not exactly ground breaking information for the Durands.

  They were on schedule to go in thirty-six hours.

  Chapter 9

  Carlos, Mexico,

  Town of Zacotacas,

  Guadalajara Sector.

  The one thing Carlos Garcia wanted above all was to avoid the Durand brothers. As the millennium came around, the influence of the Durands grew like a monstrous octopus. The tentacles spread far and wide as the head rooted deeper into Zacotacas and the surrounding countryside. Each year, the composition of the patrons at Carlos' Cantina changed a little more. From the Campesinos and locals employed by the factories in Guadalajara, their hands and weary faces ground by the hard labor, to a different kind of men.

  Those men had more Pesos and spent them freely as if money was easy to get in Mexico. They would come dressed in finer clothes then could be found in Zacotacas. They were also more demanding and harsh. Carlos could feel their cruel edge like a vicious undercurrent. Although they generally behaved themselves, an aura of violence hovered around them like a dark mantle, restrained but ready to burst out.

  As he drove the old Ford pickup toward Daniels' hotel, Carlos thought that avoiding the Durands and their crew was like getting thrown into a small tank with a large octopus. You couldn't avoid the tentacles there was nowhere to go without being involved.

  Carlos felt something reassuring about Daniels. The man seemed to have an undercurrent of strength like a jungle animal. The North American was the only way out for him, Mama and Rosa. Especially Rosa. Carlos thought he would die happily if he could be sure his little sister Rosa would be all right. He worried about them all the time.

  Carlos parked the truck behind the hotel in a cloud of blue oily smoke. He slammed the sagging door shut. Flecks of rust fell from the fender as he turned and walked through the rear door. Richard Daniels watched him come in from his place at the rough wood table in the kitchen.

  Daniels' face broke into a grin. He was finishing a mug of black Mexican coffee and a day old tortilla. It was six AM and he had roused a sleepy kitchen helper with a five dollar US bill.

  "Breakfast of champions," said Daniels waving his mug.

  "Madre De Dios, whoever said Gringos have good taste. That's pig swill, we will have lunch at the Cantina. I will make sure you have decent food."

  They drove in Daniels' Landrover, following the narrow potholed road to the Nacionale Numero 3, a somewhat better, two-lane road. A few miles further they turned into a dusty one-lane road that wasn't much more than a trail. They continued as the road wound its way up a long, low incline that peaked on a wide boulder strewn plateau. From this point the Durand's compound was visible, sprawled in the rocky valley below.

  Daniels spent over two hours studying the compound and surrounding areas. The satellite surveillance photos may have been accurate, but Daniels had to see for himself, had to get the feel of it.

  They shared a quart bottle of water from the ice filled cooler.

  "You seen enough, Pandejo, you know what you gonna do?"

  "Maybe," Daniels said as he threw the empty bottle in the back of the Landrover.

  Not a word more, thought Carlos, he won't let me in on it until the last minute. Maybe that's good he thought—cautious is better.

  They rode back to town, the windows open and the dusty hot air blowing through the Landrover. Daniels never used the air conditioning, didn't like the sluggishness that assailed him when exiting from the refrigerated interior to the outside furnace blast of Mexico.

  "Listen Compadre," said Carlos on the way back, "you know what the deal is right? You know my price? I gotta have, like, some kind of insurance before this goes down, you know?"

  Daniels turned and looked at Carlos for a long moment before answering.

  "Yeah, I know," said Daniels. "We bring you, your mother and sister to the US."

  "Like I said, what insurance do I have? If you pull this off and I get left behind, we're dead."

  "I know your history Amigo," replied Daniels. "You got no choice. The Durand brothers own your ass. There's no way you can pay back what you owe them. But there's one thing I don't understand. Why did you get into those card games with Aquilino and Hector Durand? Couldn't you figure out what was going to happen? Playing with them is like getting into a pissing contest with a skunk. There's no way you can win."

  Carlos slammed his hand on the steel dash of the Landrover.

  "Hijo De Puta," he shouted, "you think I don't know that? You think I have, like a choice? Let me tell you a little story Compadre. There was a man named Raff who was the shoemaker in Zacotacas. He was a good man, minded his business, never bothered anybody. All he wanted was to fix shoes and make enough to feed and take care of his wife and kids, a good man. Then one day, this, this... Maricone," Carlos spat the word, his mouth contorted, the mustache dancing on his lip. Daniels watched the emotions transforming Carlos' face as he relived the story.

  "This Maricone, his name is Choku, El Toro, he's the bulldog for that other Hijo De Putana, Miguel Aquilino. El Toro brings his boots to Raff to fix a little tear. Expensive boots, snake-skins, cost more than half of what everybody in Zacotacas earns in a year. This El Toro, he don't work, see, his job is to scare people for the Durands. He's like a mad bull, Toro they call him. Toro goes to pick up his boots, but he goes late, it's like eleven at night. Him and that henchman of his, a psycho they call Rat, they been drinking and snorting product all evening. Now they bang on Raff's door. Raff gets Toro's boots. They're perfect. Raff is a craftsman. He's proud see, he done a real good job. Toro takes the boots and walks out. Raff follows him outside, his wife trying to hold him back, his kids crying, but Raff, he's proud, he's a Pobre, a poor one, but he's proud. He tells Toro that he owes him thirty Pesos for the repair on the boots. Thirty Pesos, that's less than those cheap sunglasses I wear. Toro, he turns around, that fucking Maricone, he sticks him with his knife, in the gut. Raff, he goes down to his knees, his wife screams, she runs out to Raff, he's dying, she tries to push away Toro, but she's small, she hits him in the face, he pushes her hard, she falls down and when she tries to get up, Rat pulls out his shiny silver Colt revolver and shoots her. Three times, Bang, Bang, Bang, in the head. The kids screaming and crying, both parents dead. It wasn't over the thirty Pesos you see, it was because they just wanted to kill them. Just for nothing, or maybe to let us all know they could."

  Daniels listened in silence. He remembered from his briefing the three most dangerous men in the Durand brothers' crew. It was Hector Durand, Miguel Aquilino and Chuko, El Toro. Diego Durand was the business head, the accountant with no taste for bloodshed. His brother and his two lieutenants more than made up for it.

  The vicious cruelty of Carlos' story had sickened him. He tasted the dust in his mouth and smelled the misery of the surrounding countryside.

  "What about the Police?"

  Carlos laughed and spat out the window.

  "That's another set of Maricones. The Judiciales come and they investigate. They get their payroll from Diego Du
rand. It's a joke. They call it a fight between husband and wife. They write it up like she stabbed him and he shot her."

  Carlos' voice became calmer as they approached town.

  "Que Lastima," what a pity. "So you see, when Miguel Aquilino, El Toro and his Maricone friend Rat, when they walk into my cantina one night, what can I do? They say, Carlos, you play cards with us. I say no. I die. I know what they want, I seen them looking at my little sister Rosa, but what can I do? I played card. They cheated. I lost. I owe them Mucho, Mucho Dinero. They know I'll never pay it back, there's no way I can. There isn't that much money in Zacotacas."

  Daniels turned behind the Cantina and parked the Landrover. They sat in the car a few moments more, Daniels' eyes hidden behind the sunglasses.

  "Dios Mio, it's not like I'm one of your tourists in Las Vegas. One of those Cabrons who gambles more money than they have. That's just their way of saying they own us, me, Rosa, Mama. If we don't get out we're dead, all of us, or I work for them. That only lasts so long. Until they decide they want Rosa, then I die."

  They entered the Cantina from the back, Carlos leading the way into a corridor connected to a thin wooden door. The door opened into a smoky kitchen. Odors of grilled meat and spices wafted out as an angel walked into the hallway.

  Daniels stopped and realized he was staring. The child was about thirteen or fourteen. Her black hair gleamed around a small rose arranged just over her left ear. Daniels thought he had never seen such beauty anywhere. The child's features were exquisite perfection, golden alabaster skin and features that would grow to match any world-class model. Large dark eyes looked at Daniels with innocent expectation.

  "Rosa," said Carlos, "say hello to my friend."

  Her voice was a sweet symphony of lilting Spanish. Daniels smiled and returned the greeting. A large woman bustled out of the kitchen, ushering them past rows of tortillas, fragrant with spiced meat, awaiting the cooking pot.

  "Carlos," she gently chided her son, "you and your friend must sit, you must let me prepare a lunch so good, you will spend the rest of the day in La Siesta, I will..."

  She suddenly stopped as she entered the open dining room behind Carlos and Daniels.

  Patrons at the three occupied tables were leaving abruptly, plates still heaped with food remaining behind. Sitting at a table by the door were two men. The one with his back to the wall filled the wooden seat with his bulk. He wore a sleeveless white tee shirt that contrasted with the tree-trunk arms. Forearms, knotted with muscles laid casually on the cloth table cover. Coarse jailhouse tattoos covered his upper arms and wound their way under his shirt like oily snakes in a fetid burrow. A baldhead, brown and scared, rose from a neck that was almost invisible, giving him the appearance of a huge and dangerous gargoyle. In the seat next to him, a pale and skinny man picked at a spot on the tablecloth with a long bladed hunting knife. The face like a narrow pockmarked blade, topped with a beak of a nose above a stringy mustache, small eyes lacking brows, gave him a startling rodent-like appearance. Daniels recognized them immediately from his briefing. He was looking at Choku and Benjamin Fuentes, AKA El Toro and Rat.

  "Hey Carlos," called out El Toro, "come here, tell me who the Gringo is."

  Carlos walked over to where the two men sat.

  "Senor Choku. It's good to have you here for the best Comida in Zacotacas. I will prepare you a very special meal."

  "I asked you who the Gringo is."

  "He is a North Americano, a rich one who wants to build a shoe factory here in Zacotacas. It is business, I have been showing him sites."

  "A shoe factory. We don't need a shoe factory. Get rid of him or he will be found in the canyons, another corpse for the crows and vultures to pick at."

  Daniels crossed the room and stopped at the doorway. Leaning against the wood frame, he put his sunglasses on and casually gazed outside, seeming to ignore the conversation a few feet away.

  El Toro laughed, a dissonant rumble in the now empty dining room. The other man puffed some air out of his cheek in a derisive cackle. Both men's eyes glittered, the pupils shrunk to pinpoints. It was clear to Daniels they had hit the Coca early this day.

  "Si," said El Toro, "you make the best food you know how, but you don't bring it to me."

  "I will bring it Senor," said Carlos' mother, "I will bring you the.."

  "Silence you old Putana," said El Toro, the loud grating voice bouncing off the brick walls of the Cantina.

  "You will get little Rosa to bring the food. Soon she will make a fine little Guapa." He turned to his friend and said, "Quien Sabe? Maybe we will find her a job at the house."

  The other man's face opened in a laugh revealing yellow and blackened teeth. Daniels thought people always looked better smiling or laughing. These two were definitely the exception. A wave of loathing and repulsion washed over him like a demon's breath. He turned slowly until he faced the table, his face impassive as if he hadn't understood. He ignored the two men sitting and looked directly at Carlos.

  "Mister Garcia. I have much business to do. I do not pay you to waste time talking with your peasant friends."

  Although his command of the Spanish language was excellent, he spoke haltingly, the accent exaggerated, the tone haughty and contemptuous.

  The thin man started to rise, the knife in his hand. El Toro restrained him with a hand the size of a canoe paddle. His eyes locked on Daniels. Daniels looked away.

  "Vamos," go, said El Toro, "go with your Gringo friend. I have lost my appetite. Go do your business."

  Daniels waited until El Toro and Rat walked to the Mercedes SUV parked just outside the Cantina. He steered the Landrover in front of the Mercedes and headed toward the other side of Zacotacas. A few minutes later Daniels saw the Mercedes make a U turn and follow.

  "You know where you going Pandejo? They following us you know."

  Daniels didn't reply. He kept driving, eyes straight ahead.

  "So where you going?" Carlos grew more agitated, his head swiveling between Daniels and the Mercedes SUV following them a kilometer behind.

  "Relax my friend, we're going to Barbota. Should be a nice business property."

  "Barbota! Madre De Dio. Esta Loco? That's El Toro following us. That's not some pissed off little punk. That's the most feared enforcer in the Latino world."

  "You want me to let you out here? You can tell them we had a disagreement."

  Carlos rolled his eyes and unzipped a pocket in the side of his cotton pants. He pulled out a nickel-plated Berretta and slid back the barrel, chambered a round and placed the weapon back in his pocket. He continued to mutter, Esta Loco.

  Barbota was an abandoned gristmill named after its long departed owner. The sun had passed its two PM position when Daniels turned the Landrover into the canyon road leading to the property. Heat devils rose in undulating waves from the baked earth as they stopped at the end of the road facing the half collapsed mill.

  Thousands of years ago, a river had carved this canyon into the rock. The road that ran through it was bounded on both sides by six-foot rock walls. The trail ended at a muddy riverbed that hadn't seen water in months. There it formed a V. The ruins of the old mill were located at the point of the V.

  Once the river had been several feet deep and flowed with clear water. Now, it was reduced to about an inch of stagnant mud. Without water, the mill had been abandoned and the riverbed blocked by large boulders. The canyon walled road was the only way in and out. The Mercedes SUV nosed into the edge of the road and stopped, effectively blocking the exit.

  "This is not good Compadre," Carlos said. "This is very bad."

  "You should learn to relax, take a couple of deep breaths."

  "Deep breaths? We're trapped and you want to talk about breathing? Madre de Dios, enjoy the breathing. It may stop real fast."

  "Have you heard of the Caribbean Stone Fish?" asked Daniels.

  Carlos looked at Daniel as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head.

  "We may be about t
o become as muerte as road kill and you want to talk about National Geographic shit?"

  "The Caribbean Stone fish backs into the mud until he's just about covered and his wide jaw open, looking like a cave. The fish then sends out this long tongue under the mud and wiggles it. Another fish sees it and thinks it's a worm caught in the open. The fish goes after it and the worm dashes into what appears to be a cave. The fish thinks it's got its worm trapped. When it goes into the cave, the mouth of the Caribbean Stone Fish, it gets its head bitten off. The trapped becomes the killer. The hunter becomes food."

  Carlos blinked and shook his head.

  Daniels grinned at him and got out of the Landrover.

  * * *

  Carlos moved away from the vehicle as El Toro and Rat approached. Richard Daniels stood on the balls of his feet, hands at his sides, relaxed and calm. He looked for all the world like a man spending a day at a zoo, watching animals pace in their cages.

  El Toro came within a yard of Daniels and moved closer, in his space. The Mexican brute's baldhead was covered with a blue bandana and his right hand held low, just behind his back. At six foot two, Daniels was tall, but dwarfed by the bulk and height of the big man.

  "So you do not like Mexican peasants, eh Gringo?"

  "No comprende senor," said Daniels, a small innocent smile playing across his face.

  "Perhaps you will understand un poco mano-a-mano, eh?" A little hand to hand.

  The big man moved with incredible speed. The right hand whipped out from behind his back as he stepped forward. It was a well-practiced move, a street knife fighter's move, a powerful upward swing that started almost at ground level and would drive the wicked eight-inch blade of the hunting knife through flesh, sinew and bone, a killing blow.

  Richard Daniels became a blur of speed and motion. He stepped aside and caught the wrist in a cross-forearm hold. The entire energy of the powerful strike redirected inward, and upward, focused on the big man's wrist. Both wrist bones broke with a loud snap and tore through the flesh in a spray of blood. A shriek began in the man's throat.