The Shadow Cartel (The Dominic Grey Series Book 4)

by Layton Green

  “I was hoping for something more informative,” Grey said. “We still don’t have the link.”

  “We’re staring at the link, though who knows if it ultimately connects to the General.”

  Grey glanced at the door. “I want to search more of the houses, but I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

  Fred swore softly. “Maybe the money’s dirty, and will lead us somewhere.”

  “That’s a long shot.”

  “There’s one more thing I can do,” Fred said. He took out a slender, rectangular case from his pocket. “Emergency fingerprint kit.”

  Fred dusted various parts of the metal shed, including the door handle on both sides. After sticking fingerprint tape over the best prints, he removed the tape and placed it on small backing cards, then stored them in a tiny plastic case.

  After dusting off their own prints, they heard Tata Menga’s voice rising in volume, more forceful than before. A few seconds later the drums accompanied the chanting of the palero.

  “Time to go,” Grey said.

  He knew the reason security wasn’t tighter on the shed was because they were deep inside the jungle, and no one in Mexico was foolish enough to visit Tata Menga’s compound without an invite.

  Or almost no one.

  Grey and Fred sprinted along the darkened fronts of the buildings, crouching whenever they traversed a gap. They reached the spine fence, but just as Grey started to vault the disturbing barrier, truck headlights swung into view.

  They scrambled behind a building. The vehicle, an old but rugged-looking Bronco, pulled into the car park. Grey figured whoever was in the truck was headed to the ceremony, and as soon as the occupant disappeared inside the compound, Grey and Fred could slip back to their car.

  When Grey saw who was stepping out of the truck with purpose, a man with hooded eyes and a muscular build, he knew his assumption was wrong, and that everything had changed.

  Lucho.

  Fred was brushed up against Grey, and Grey could feel him tensing. Lucho took a rifle out of the passenger seat, slammed the door, and strode towards the ceremony. As soon as he passed the first building, Grey pulled Fred into a run.

  Fred stopped to climb over the spine fence, and as soon as they hit the other side, they heard shouting as floodlights popped on above the compound, staining it with yellow light.

  Grey raced into the darkness past the car park, Fred right behind him, slower but pushing hard. Grey thought it was fifty-fifty as to whether they would make the main gate in time.

  Car engines started behind them. “I’m going ahead to work the lock,” Grey said.

  “Go, man!”

  As soon as he reached the gate, Grey grabbed for his heel and pulled out his tools. Car lights swung into view and lit the gate from behind.

  Fred caught up, laboring to breathe. “A hundred yards away,” he said. “At least three vehicles.”

  The engines roared closer, the headlights pinning Grey and Fred against the gate like butterflies on a board. Grey opened the lock and shoved Fred through, then slammed the gate shut on the other side, replaced the padlock, and broke his thinnest pick off in it.

  They sprinted down the dirt road to the sound of cursing and shouting behind them. Someone took a shot at them through the fence, spraying dirt two feet to Grey’s left. Grey wove and ducked until he was a hundred yards down the road, out of range in the darkness.

  Moments later Grey heard a shotgun blast, and then another. “They just shot the lock,” he guessed, confirmed by the sound of engines revving. From his recollection, they were still a few hundred yards from the car. “We’re not going to make it.”

  Fred huffed. “Remember those footpaths on the way in? As bad as it sounds, it may be our only option.”

  Grey looked over his shoulder and saw the Bronco leading the charge, rapidly closing the gap. A shudder of adrenaline rolled through him. “You remember where they were?”

  Fred shone his penlight along the left side of the path, and he pointed up ahead, where a break in the foliage revealed an occluded passage through the trees. “Right about there.”

  They darted down the path. Grey wiped sweat from his eyes and moved forward as fast as he could. He debated hiding in the jungle, but the foliage was too thick and it would be impossible to get far enough off the path in time.

  Shouting from behind spurred them forward. After passing a fork on the left, they saw another path on the right, and then two more on either side.

  A maze which they had no hope of solving in time.

  “Either they’ll cut us off from another direction,” Fred said, “or we’ll end up back at the compound.”

  “Save your breath and keep running.”

  “I’m slowing you down. You go ahead, I’ll distract them as long as I can. Bring Lana and the feds if you get out.”

  “Like I said, save your breath.”

  They heard voices behind them, keeping even with their pace. Less than a minute later, the path dead-ended at a three-foot wide hole in the ground with a rusty aluminum ladder set into the side of it. On the other side of the hole was a wall of trees and foliage.

  Grey shone his light into the hole but couldn’t tell what lay below. Fred peered in beside him. “It’s probably where they throw the bodies.”

  Grey started down the ladder. They didn’t have a choice.

  The ladder ended twenty feet underground. Grey was surprised at what his penlight revealed: a sprawling cavern covered in stalactites and stalagmites. An underground lake stretched almost the length of the fifty-yard grotto, and water dripped from multiple points along the ceiling into the pool.

  “Some type of sinkhole?” Grey asked.

  “Cenote,” Fred said. “The Yucatan is a big piece of limestone Swiss cheese.”

  Grey stepped to the edge of the pool and shone his light into the blueberry-colored water. It wasn’t that deep, and Grey could see the bottom. And on that bottom, he saw hundreds, if not thousands, of bones. A few were intact human skeletons.

  Grey followed Fred’s penlight to the far side of the pool, where it illuminated a decomposing female corpse floating face up in the water. A note of hysteria permeated Fred’s chuckle. “Guess I was right about the bodies.”

  Grey walked along the edge of the pool and found four different exit passages, then started down the passage farthest from the entrance.

  “This is crazy,” Fred muttered.

  The passage was slippery and uneven, beset by jagged limestone protrusions, muddy pools, and piles of pebbles. At times the ceiling lowered to chest or even waist height, and they had to crawl through the mud on their hands and knees. In some of the passages with higher ceilings and in most of the caverns, holes of varying size allowed moonlight to sneak through, illuminating the merger of cave and jungle as if through a viewfinder.

  The underground habitat was a living and breathing organism, warm and humid and smelling faintly of vinegar. The vines and tendrils of giant tree roots hung down through the holes or draped like snakes against the sides of the caverns, though none were low enough to climb. Colonies of bats tucked against the ceiling, insects scuttled across the floor, and their penlights illuminated more than one tarantula.

  They quickly lost their bearings. With no choice but to plow ahead, they peered in vain for a good place to climb out, hoping against hope they had thrown Tata Menga’s men off their trail.

  “This looks promising,” Fred said, as they rounded a bend and saw a large cavern up ahead. “One of these has got to lead to the surface.”

  Grey led the way into the grotto, illuminating yet another large pool. He was about to tell Fred he thought the cavern looked familiar, when Fred aimed his light at a ladder ascending to the surface through a narrow hole.

  “Mother of Christ,” Fred said. “We’re back where we started. If we hurry, maybe we can—”

  A light emerged from one of the other tunnels, followed by shouting voices and gunshots. Just before he scrambled back
into the tunnel with Fred, Grey got a glimpse of Lucho and the goateed drug lord leading the charge.

  The confident tenor of Tata Menga followed them, echoing off the walls, rising in volume with each word. “No tienen que correr, es demasiado tarde por ustedes. Ya les hecho una brujería. La muerte les seguirá como el más fiel de los perros.”

  You don’t have to run, it’s too late for you. I’ve already cursed you. Death will follow you like the most loyal of dogs.

  Fear wormed its way into Grey’s marrow, spiking his adrenaline. They were out of options, lost in the enemy’s backyard, and he knew what fate awaited if Tata Menga caught them.

  They careened down a new tunnel that revealed a nest of side passages honeycombed into the limestone. Shouting echoed from multiple directions, and it was impossible to discern the source. Grey wondered if there was even an exit to be found, or whether they were being flushed like rats back to the entrance.

  They entered a large cavern filled with beehive towers of calcium deposits rising from the floor. The cathedral ceiling was studded with millions of spaghetti-thin stalactites, and a group of pointed stalagmites bunched on the far side of the cavern resembled a field of swords. Just as they cleared the stalagmites, three men rounded the corner in front of them. Grey saw the light from their flashlights swing into the passage a split second before he saw them.

  Grey and Fred rushed them before the men had a chance to fire. The first man was bulky and had a ponytail, one of the bodyguards. Grey chopped down on the forearm holding the gun, sending the weapon flying. Before the man could recover, Grey followed through with a side elbow to the face, a rising elbow to the jaw, and then a throat chop with the opposite forearm, dropping the man as he grasped at his crushed windpipe.

  When Grey saw the next man raise his gun, he crouched low and rushed him, feeling a bullet whizz over his head as the crack of gunfire exploded in his ears. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fred fighting for his life with another of the men, both struggling for control of a gun.

  Grey’s new opponent, the drug lord with the goatee, smacked Grey on the side of the head with his gun as Grey closed the gap. The sound of a clanging bell erupted inside Grey’s head, but he gritted through the pain and grabbed the shooting arm with both hands.

  Instead of yanking on the gun, Grey pushed it towards the man to create muscle confusion, then spun him in the opposite direction. While the off-balance drug lord kept a desperate focus on maintaining control of the weapon, Grey twisted and crouched deep into the drug lord’s center of gravity, lifted him in the air with his hips and one arm, then uncoiled and impaled him on one of the spear-like stalagmites. Only then did Grey rip the weapon out of his grasp.

  The man Grey had first engaged was gurgling his last few breaths. Grey turned to see Fred strike his adversary in the face with the tire iron. The man fell, and Fred hit him over and over, until Grey rushed over and laid a hand on his arm. “He’s dead.”

  Fred spit and shone his light on the ground, until he found the other gun. He pointed the weapon at the man Grey had impaled. “You just killed Ricky Orizaga. The world is now a better place.”

  Grey checked the magazine of the nine-millimeter Beretta he had grabbed, then clicked it back into place. “Let’s go.”

  Just past the field of swords, the passage took a quick turn to the right. After another few minutes, it straightened and they were able to sprint a few hundred yards until they came to a cavern submerged in a pool of water.

  A bridge led across the sump, though the wooden slats were two feet underwater. “I say we cross,” Grey said. “The last side passage was too far back.”

  Just before they reached the other side of the pool, light from a flashlight appeared and the sound of gunshots came from behind. One of the bullets hit Fred in the shoulder, and he cried out and dropped his gun in the water. Grey turned and fired, seeing two men but missing them both. He pushed Fred forward. “Go!”

  They cleared the bridge and dashed into the next cavern. Grey stopped and held his gun out. “Can you shoot?”

  Fred winced but took the gun. “I’ll manage.”

  “Go twenty feet down the passage,” Grey said, “wait till the first man passes me, and shoot the lead man. I’ll take care of the second.”

  Hands at the ready, Grey stepped behind a cone-shaped stalagmite. The men came seconds later, leading with gunfire as they barreled down the corridor. Fred got the first man in the chest, and Grey jumped on the second, Lucho, before he could return fire.

  Grey drove Lucho backwards onto the bridge in a football tackle, and they crashed into the water. Grey had grabbed the sicario’s shooting arm during the tackle, but unlike Ricky, Lucho wisely let the gun go. Instead he slammed his other fist down on Grey’s back, then kneed him in the face and pushed his head under.

  Freezing water poured into Grey’s mouth and nose. Choking and unable to see, he flailed to find a grip, finally managing to drag Lucho underwater by his shirt. Lucho scrambled for the surface, but Grey kept pulling on his clothes until he found an elbow and then a hand, isolating the pinky until he felt it snap backwards.

  Lucho thrashed from the pain, but Grey found the back of his hair and pulled him under, curling his legs around Lucho like a vine. As they sank towards the bottom, Grey reaching for a choke, he felt a stabbing pain in his side.

  Grey knew that sort of pain from experience. Lucho had knifed him.

  It would have been a far more serious blow on the surface. Underwater, it hurt like hell, but Lucho didn’t have enough momentum to thrust very deep. Grey grabbed Lucho’s wrist with both hands and pulled the knife out by pushing off the sicario’s stomach with his foot. Grey flipped Lucho’s wrist and broke his hold on the weapon, and Lucho let the knife go instead of letting Grey rip it out of his grasp.

  The knife thrust had caused Grey to expel his breath, and he was running out of air. He forced himself to remain calm and preserve his oxygen. He kneed Lucho in the stomach, fended off his blows, and wormed his way into a front choke. Grey used Lucho’s knife arm as part of the choke, bending it around his own throat. Lucho thrashed like a spooked stallion, but Grey held on, head-butting him at close range a few times and then corkscrewing the blood choke deeper, cutting off the oxygen from both sides, until Lucho finally went limp.

  Grey would have held on longer, to make sure Lucho was dead, but spots of black were entering his vision. He kicked away and broke the surface, gulping in air. Fred was there to pull him out of the water.

  “It was Lucho,” Grey said, inspecting the stab wound in his left obliques. Though dripping blood, the wound wasn’t that deep. “I doubt he’s coming back up.”

  Fred started to fire into the water, though it was cloudy with blood. Grey stayed his hand and put his finger to his lips. Voices drifted through the cavern from the opposite end of the bridge.

  They hurried back to the intersection. Fred guided Grey down the passage to the left, saying he had seen moonlight.

  “We need something dry to bind your arm,” Grey said.

  “It just grazed me. If I survive these caves, I’ll survive the wound. What about yours?”

  “The same.”

  Fred whistled as they rounded a corner. “Thank God.”

  Grey sagged with relief when he saw inside the next cavern. Moonlight poured through a huge hole in the ceiling, revealing a nest of thick roots tumbling down to the cavern floor.

  COLONIA DIGNIDAD, CHILE

  1984

  Backlit by the setting sun, the snowcapped peaks of the Andes appeared on the horizon like a line of melting ice cream cones. It was a windswept evening, chilly and clear. The man once known as John Wolverton, still putting the finishing touches on his identity, exited his hired car at the entrance to Colonia Dignidad, a utopian community nestled in the foothills of Chile’s central valley.

  He was on a mission to find a man, a German named Paul Schaefer, who was something of a legend in the tight-knit club of South American cult leaders
and criminal overlords. Like most of his peers, Schaefer had deep ties with the CIA and the local government, but Colonia Dignidad was particularly successful, known for its stores of money and weapons, as well as the absolute devotion of its members to the godlike reign of Schaefer. Moreover, unlike most of its cousin communities that had leeched on to South America like ticks on a dog, growing fat on the blood of their hosts and then popping, Colonia Dignidad had prospered for more than two decades.

  As the violet sky faded to black, John Wolverton passed through an eight-foot fence topped with coils of barbed wire and manned by armed guards with German shepherds. He could see cameras and observation posts along the perimeter, men with binoculars peering out of towers.

  To pass through that fence was to step into another universe. Two guards, fawning over John Wolverton as if he were a visiting captain of industry, led him into a hamlet ripped straight out of Bavaria.

  With calm detachment, but filing away every detail, John Wolverton noticed the wool pants and suspenders worn by the men, the homely gray dresses and head scarves assigned to the women, the hairstyles from four decades ago.

  Flowerbeds arranged in neat rows, bike paths and bridges, immaculate streets, fresh paint on the red-roofed homes. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

  On the way in he noticed signs for an airport, a hospital, and a hydroelectric power station. He also noticed the sign that read WORK IS DIVINE SERVICE, an eerie parallel to the ARBEIT MACHT FREI sign he had once seen at the entrance to Auschwitz.

  Under the hum of an electric generator, the guards passed him to a teenage boy, who led him to a sitting room in the largest home in the compound. After guiding him to a leather chair and plying him with Scotch, the boy stood in the room with him until Paul Schaefer finished his nightly duties.

  Tall and lean, Schaefer entered the room in a crisp white suit set off by his tanned skin. His stride was confident, but his lips and eyes appeared sunken, dissipated. As if some terrible disease were ravaging him from within.