“What’s all this?” demanded a woman in the back of the van.
“Answers... We’ve got to wait,” retorted Armando.
CHAPTER 69
When Namara opened the doors to the green shed, he found exactly what he’d been looking for. A staircase descended about ten steps underground to a steel door that looked to be locked.
“Mike!” said Namara, motioning him forward.
Mike descended the steps and pulled out a plastic explosive strip, which he pressed onto the door from top to bottom. He rushed up the stairs and motioned everyone back before activating a detonator. There was an explosion and a flash of fire. A piece of the door flew out the shed and landed a few meters away from them. Taz threw a blinding grenade through the door into the smoky interior.
The explosion of the grenade gave sign to the group to enter. Twinkie was the first down, followed by Gonzo. It was a bunker, small and concrete. Less than a meter from the door was a room with a wooden table at which several men had been in the process of eating. The room was set out as a place where they could sojourn, having everything they would need, including a kitchenette and a television. A card game was in process on the table, but most of the cards had been scattered by the explosion. Blinded by the flash from the grenade, they tried to gun down their enemy with their submachine guns. Gonzo and Twinkie fired at their targets with maximal precision to minimize ricochets in the tight space while Namara, Guerra and Mike ran down the corridor to the three cells.
Namara burst into the first unlocked cell, a concrete windowless room with a steel door. A man was waiting inside with a pistol. Namara’s reflex was quicker than the decision-making capacity of the man. He didn’t have time to fire before taking a bullet in the heart. What Namara hadn’t noticed was the presence of another man hidden behind the door. He fired several shots to his chest. Namara’s reflex, despite the gunshots, let him seize the hand that held the pistol. With his other hand, Namara chopped his neck. He repeated the hit until his attacker’s eyes dulled. The pain of the shots finally struck him, but the bulletproof vest had absorbed most of it. Three young women were sitting in the corner of the room.
“Clear!” cried Namara, signing to the women to stand.
While Namara tried to catch his breath, he recognized the faces of the men he’d killed. The men were indeed Eduardo’s. The noise of the explosions, the blinding grenades and the gunfire was heard throughout the little bunker.
“Clear!” cried Guerra, followed by Mike.
Namara got the women out of the room and found that Guerra and Mike had some with them as well. About ten women in all climbed toward the exit with the group.
“There’s a woman’s body in a cell. It’s too late for her,” said Guerra, glancing at Namara as he lurched out of the bunker. They ran to escape the yard in the direction of the vehicles where Shinsaku, Ming Mei and Kamilia waited at the wheel. Armando watched the young women stream out of the yard.
“My God…”
He drove forward with his van and Guerra recognized him. He motioned him closer.
“Can you take them with you!?” he asked urgently.
“Of course!” he said, climbing out of the driver’s seat to open the truck’s rear doors. His friends climbed out to help. They filed one-by-one into the van.
“Twinkie, burn everything that’s left!” cried Taz.
“Understood!” he shouted, seizing his Arwen shotgun. He inserted incendiary cartridges into the magazine and ran to the front of the garage. The cartridges blew through the windows into the interior. In a few seconds, flames licked out of the open windows. Namara, who had raised his hood, walked around the vehicles to gather his thoughts. He didn’t feel good. One of the bullets had hit; he realized this when he put his hand to his chest and wiped a lot of blood. He was losing pints, but he hadn’t realized it from the adrenaline. It had slid right under his vest. He felt the ground turn under his feet and measured his breathing, trying to recover. Breathing was hard. There was a trickle of blood spilling over his lip.
“Namara, what are you doing! This is no time to take a tour!” shouted Guerra. “We need to skedaddle!”
At that instant, Namara collapsed. He was face down, unmoving on the sandy ground. All froze when they saw him go down.
“Shit! He’s hit!” Guerra ran in his direction, followed by the rest.
“What’s happening?” shouted Kamilia, sticking her head out of the vehicle as they ran by. She had no way of seeing what had just happened behind her.
“Namara’s hit!” said Gonzo.
“Fuck!!” she cried, pounding the steering wheel.
Guerra and Gonzo turned him onto his back. Blood was running out of his mouth, but he was semi-conscious.
“Come on, you bastard, you’re not going out like this. Hold on!” begged Guerra, pulling his arm over his shoulder. Gonzo did the same and they had him up.
“That looks bad,” said Gonzo, blanching at the sight of the blood trickling out of his chest.
“Yeah, we got to get him to a hospital like five minutes ago or he’ll die at the rate he’s losing blood,” retorted Shinsaku.
Shinsaku pressed a bandage into the wound and tied it in place.
“Get him in the car!” shouted Kamilia desperately as she watched Guerra and Gonzo’s slow advance.
Namara’s feet dragged in the dirt. He was still conscious, but his eyes were getting darker. He was slipping away. Gonzo had blood on his face and Guerra’s hands were stained. Armando recognized the men who had sat at his table not long ago. He feared he was watching Namara die. The people with Armando couldn’t look away. Without knowing who they were, they had gotten answers today. That which they had never thought possible was happening in front of them.
“Armando, you need to get yourself out! Go with them!” shouted Guerra as he passed.
Armando watched Namara, frozen. A woman by his side watched as well. Their looks crossed as they passed.
“No-one will forget what you did, mister! God will not forget you!” she said.
Namara, who was barely conscious and clinging to life, remembered Chao Heng and a discussion he’d had about certain means of meditation that had succeeded in lowering cardiac rhythm to such a point that one could be pronounced dead. Namara began to concentrate on his breathing, trying to stay awake. They piled him into the vehicle, packing his chest with bandages.
“Stay with us, godammit!!” said Gonzo, watching the bloodstain the back of the car in such a short time. The three cars left in a whirlwind with Armando. Slowly, Namara’s heartbeat slowed until it was practically imperceptible. The blood flow lessened throughout the journey as Namara gave himself over to his breathing.
CHAPTER 70
Danny woke up in a hospital bed. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious for, or if he was dead. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds as the most recent events came back to him. Then he lowered his eyes to find his entire team sitting at his bedside, dozing on each other’s shoulders. His eyes met Kamilia’s.
“He’s awake!” she crowed.
The others turned to see whether she was joking. They realized she wasn’t.
“How do you feel?” she asked, leaning over him.
She kissed him. Namara smiled.
“Good… finally, I think…”
“You gave us a huge scare, you fucking imbecile,” said Guerra with a smile, squeezing his hand.
“How long have I been out for?”
“A while. The doctors induced a coma. When you got here, you’d lost a lot of blood. The bullet nicked an artery, but no organs. But…”
“But what!?” he asked desperately.
“Well… I did all I could to change their minds, but the doctors couldn’t do anything else. The bullet was in there, you see, so they had no choice but to cut off…” He trailed off and lowered his eyes.
“Cut off what!”
“It’s not easy for me to tell you this. They had to amputate… your equipment,
” he stammered, pointing to his crotch.
Namara eyes opened wide and checked under the sheet to check what was left. After a few seconds of groping, he realized Guerra’s trick, but he was too frazzled to be relieved. His heart went crazy. Guerra’s solemnity transformed into a cackle.
“Oh, you fucking idiot!!!” he shouted, throwing a nearby bowl of strawberry ice cream at him. Everyone laughed and Guerra managed to dodge the dessert; it spattered against the wall.
“Hey everyone, shut up! Listen, they’re talking about us on the TV!” said Ming Mei, raising the volume as they turned to the mounted television with great interest.
An FBI spokesman was giving a press conference. Special Agent Pat McGrady, who was in charge of the case, stood in front of a hoard of journalists in a suit and militant hair cut. He gave his speech dryly in an even tone, posing proudly in front of the camera flashes.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has brought to light a network of human traffickers operating out of Texas and Mexico, more specifically San Matanza. The network, in fact an offshoot of a Neo-Nazi militia, had taken up residence in a small village near the Mexican border to communicate with a San Matanza crime organization responsible for the kidnappings of hundreds of women. The group is implicated in about four hundred confirmed murders and kidnappings on Mexican territory for a decade. For reasons on which we are not clear, the members of the network declared war on each other, effecting an internal purge. Because of the killings, several imprisoned women have succeeded in escaping and revealed everything to the authorities following. Thanks to the diligent work of our investigators, these revelations permit us to track down the rest of the network. The professionalism of the FBI and the collaboration with Mexican authorities as led to the solving of this series of unsavoury murders that have up until now gone unsolved. All those culpable have been found dead and…”
The discourse continued for several minutes. However, Pat Grady himself knew that the story he fed to the journalists and the population was nothing but a fabric of lies. The truth was something else entirely. All the clues found indicated that it was no internal war, but professional assassinations. The investigators had found several projectiles on the site of Sauvalito. Traces of explosives were also recovered. In fact, the place was a true war zone, at which remained nothing but desolation. It was professional work. All who saw it came to that conclusion.
In reality, the FBI had never had any contact with the San Matanza police. The latter, grappling with the scandal, had quickly closed the file, explaining that there had been an internal purge and that the San Matanza murders were finally resolved. The responsibility returned to Ed and his group and they didn’t care to look any further. Ed’s bar and the garage where he had kept the women had been levelled, and they eliminated each other at the site of the discord. The living victims were with their families. The world was satisfied, the population was appeased and the media had their story. For the FBI, however, it was much more complicated. How to explain that a Neo-Nazi group, known by the FBI, had operated over ten years on American soil while completely evading suspicion of the authorities? The found women had no wish to collaborate with the investigators.
In reality, the FBI had only collected what remained, but the identity of the authors remained a mystery. The evidence of such a network jumped out at them upon seeing the dead, but it was too late. The FBI had failed. In ten years, they had seen nothing, and the United States was now implicated in a series of murders, the most terrible they had ever seen. Someone had to take the blame for this laxity, not to mention the population’s illusion of security that had been trounced by their failure. It was all made OK when a certain Oscar Schwartz had presented himself to Pat McGrady as a representative from the Ministry of Defence. He explained that the file had to close in the interest of American security, and that all was under control. There was no cause for further investigation. While Pat McGrady was sceptical at first, he eventually admitted that it would be the easiest thing to do. Nobody bore the blame, and while it was regrettable that the FBI had not been up-to-date on the activities at Sauvalito, they immediately fixed the situation by solving the (in some cases) decade-old murders.
The world was satisfied, the file was closed and the mysterious architects of the sweep had taken out plenty of criminals. Under order of Oscar Schwartz, they put themselves to cleaning the site and to rid themselves of any evidence. Pat McGrady knew that it was the right and only decision. He was now in front of cameras in his best suit, accepting the merits for exposing a crime syndicate. When the cameras flashed, he turned his chin to expose his best profile.
* * *
There was a knock at the door. Armando, who was sitting in his living room with his family watching the television, got up to answer it. He peeked out the window and saw no-one; he frowned and opened the door quickly. There was a big blue canvas bag on the steps of the door. He checked in all directions and saw nobody. He thought for a few seconds and then bent to open the bag, driven by curiosity. He drew the zipper.
His eyes opened wide when he realized that the bag was crinkling with bundles of American banknotes. It was the same reaction that Renata had experienced at the aid centre in San Matanza upon opening such a bag in her name several hours earlier. Armando took a bundle in his trembling hands, realizing that he was holding thousands of dollars. His eyes filled with tears as he took in the money at his feet. He ran out into the road to try to find the mysterious deliverer. In the distance stood a little silhouette in the sun, one he knew very well. Armando, wiping the tears with his shirt collar, raised his hand in the air to salute him. Namara returned the gesture. Then he turned and walked away under the burning rays of the sun.
CHAPTER 71
Chinatown, New York, USA.
Andy walked down a near-empty side street. The sun was near to setting and he approached the meeting point.
“Evening, Andy,” said a voice from a dark nook between two buildings. Andy jumped with the shock. He watched Namara step out of the darkness, smoking a cigarillo.
“You almost killed me, chrissake!”
“Sorry,” he said with a smile.
“How are you?”
“I’m all right, thanks.”
“And your chest?”
“All good.”
“Much better…”
“Thanks for the help, by the way. You helped us a lot.”
“I should be thanking you. You and your team did a remarkable job… really,” he said, shaking his hand.
“Maybe, but I wonder…”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, really, we failed. All those deaths before we could stop them. It’s sad…”
“I get it. But you have to tell yourself… how many lives did you save? It’s true that there were way too many deaths before something could be done about it, but I’m sure so many more were saved by what you did! Of course, we’ll never know exactly how many.”
“No doubt.”
“By the way, I verified the information Ming Mei sent me. It’s still nebulous, but it seems that Brakan came from a rich family in Mexico. He’s implicated in the drug traffic, but indirectly. He was more preoccupied with his Satanic devotions than anything else. Basically, money was no object for him. He had links to Mexican architects and several businessmen. He’s the chief of a group of Satanists of which the members must have been influential enough. His network of guys in high places let him find clients for his paedo-business. I have plenty of names that look like clients or followers of Brakan. Apparently, it’s still going. I’m continuing my research to find out more.”
“And Senator Murdoch?”
“I’m still thinking on that one. For now, let’s wait.”
“Ok.”
“You know, this network is beyond anything we’d suspected. We’re in talks with an American senator. If we decide to launch an attack, we make sure we don’t attract any attention. If you don’t want to go that far, I understand, you know.
”
“We have an agreement.”
“All right. What are you going to do now?”
“I think I’m going to take a vacation.”
“Good idea. But don’t go too far, we might need you to take care of Mr. Senator.”
“I hear you. A senator… unbelievable!” he mused, taking a drag on his cigar and watching an old Chinese man sweep the front steps of his shop.
“I know… but you know, Namara, the world’s not all bad.”
“It’s possible. I’ll think of you when I’m in doubt,” he said with a smile.
“Alright... take care, Danny!”
“You too, eh?”
They shook hands and smiled, and then Namara turned to leave while Andy took a moment to breath in the humidity in the air. After a few meters, Namara caught sight of a little girl in front of a blue illuminated façade of a restaurant. The neon reflections gave her skin a blue tint. She stared at him for a couple of seconds, and then smiled. He smiled in return and continued on his way. Andy, who had watched the scene, stood there a bit longer, watching a mist creep through the streets. For a long time he’d been asking himself if he’d done the right thing in accepting Oscar Schwartz’s offer. Tonight, in the intermittent rain of the Chinese quarter, he knew he’d done good as he watched the silhouette of Danny Namara disappear into an alley. He smiled, turned, and left in the opposite direction. His own silhouette melted quietly into the darkness of the city.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
―Edmund Burke
Redemption Page 33
