The rough dirt road bounced the Land Rover as Stone drove, keeping his foot down and the engine rumbling. They weren’t far from the 15D and then the staging area where the forces of the Eagle Alliance, and Mike Majors, waited for Stone.
They left the dirt road for a paved road, the tires screeching as Stone jerked the wheel right and followed the pavement toward the freeway.
The ground on either side of them exploded as heavy machine gun fire kicked up dirt and chunks of debris and broke chunks of the roadway in front of them.
A chopper passed overhead, starting to turn back after a short distance.
Stone let out a curse.
Amaya snapped back the action on her SMG and powered down the passenger window.
“Keep it floored!” she said.
“Where did he come from?”
“Valdes keeps the chopper at another spot not far from the house! That’s where he would have run.”
“Is he on board?”
“Fingers crossed!”
The chopper finished its turn and pointed toward them. The side mounted machine guns might as well have been bigger than .50-caliber because all Stone saw was the end and an eternity of black.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
Amaya Olmos climbed halfway out the window and rested her rump on the door sill.
Her submachine gun was a Heckler & Koch MP7, a formidable weapon charged with the 4.6mmX30 cartridge that was more powerful than the nine-millimeter and capable of penetrating 20 inches of Kevlar. With the buttstock firmly in the crook of her shoulder, Amaya lined up the chopper and started shooting, first a long burst, then single shots. She aimed for the chopper’s canopy, not necessarily the pilot, but as the chopper’s Plexiglass began to break apart with the bullet impacts, it was impossible to miss the pilot. When she saw his head snap back and the chopper pitch wildly to the left, she slithered back into the Land Rover. The Rover was perpendicular to the chopper when it crashed off-road, fire and flame shooting skyward and sending thick black smoke into the sunset.
Stone kept his eyes forward. He reached the on-ramp the 15D and took the sharp curve a little too fast, one side of the Rover lifting a little before slamming back onto the pavement with a rough jerk and screech of tire rubber.
“Good shooting,” Stone said.
“I’ll be doing some more soon,” she said with cold finality. “The pilot was alone.”
He didn’t argue with her.
Manny Valdes had made a fatal mistake.
Jackeline Guardado was the woman of the hour but had never felt so isolated.
When word reached her that Amaya had been abducted from the property, she put the whole place on alert. Troops heavily patrolled the ground, her other associates were armed and prepared for action, and her kids were in her bedroom playing games. That’s where she sat now, listening to eight-year-old Meghan and 12-year-old Martin play Monopoly while she cleaned her AK-47.
Back when her husband was alive, and running the cartel was something glamorous, she’d had her husband’s armorer create for her a custom rifle. She liked the AK-47 for its reliability and the stopping power of its 7.62x39mm cartridge, but she wanted a gun that was unique to her. She had the armorer paint the metal hot pink, with matching stock and handguards. It was a garish piece of hardware, but it worked well, and as she reassembled the weapon and started loading magazines, she wondered if the rifle was what stood between her, the kids, and death itself.
She sat at her make-up table, which was now covered with a sheet to protect the wood from the solvents she was using to scrub her AK. She held the rifle on her lap and rotated her chair to watch her kids.
They knew what mommy did and weren’t at all frightened by the sight of the AK or anybody else’s guns.
That’s why she wanted out of the cartel life.
This wasn’t a world where kids could thrive.
A knock at the door. Jackeline lifted the rifle slightly and called for the visitor to enter.
One of her captains stuck his head in.
“There’s been trouble at Valdes’s house.”
“What kind of trouble?” Her accent was thick but understandable.
“His men have been shot, and there’s no sign of him.”
“Amaya?”
“I wasn’t aware she was there, ma’am.”
“She was. Any sign of her?”
“None. Valdes’s helicopter fired on a vehicle leaving the area, but the chopper was shot down too.”
“Thank you.”
The captain departed.
The kids continued playing, ignoring the world around them as they had become to accustomed to doing.
Jackeline rose and set the AK-47 on her bed. She dared not approach the window, so she wandered over to her kids to watch them play.
The fight at the Valdes home suggested to her that the Americans were active and their next stop would be her mansion. With Amaya getting them passed the guards, they could all leave as a group and nobody would be the wiser.
She liked that plan better than what Amaya told her earlier, about a coordinated attack on her place, as well as Beltran-Leyva and Plancarte, but part of her didn’t want to see people who had been loyal to her for so long killed. She wanted out of the cartel life; she didn’t necessarily wish death on the people who worked for her.
But the situation didn’t allow for such luxuries. She had to stay focused on her kids.
Her life easily could have avoided anything to do with drug trafficking, but when she met Eduardo as a young paralegal in Mexico City, the die had been cast. Eduardo Guardado had been a lawyer, a very good one, not necessarily working for his father, but making sure those arrested on drug charges received a proper defense.
Sparks flew between the attorney and the paralegal. Jackeline had always been strikingly beautiful, and few could keep their eyes off her long black hair, the smoldering dark eyes, and her generous bust and backside. She didn’t hide the attributes, often dressing in tight clothes or dresses that covered everything but also made everybody aware of what she was packing.
Tonight, she wore jeans, hiking boots, and a warm shirt. There was nothing sexy about running for your life.
When an unknown assassin’s bullet cut down Eduardo, she thought her life was over. Certainly, one part of it was. But just as Eduardo had eventually taken over his father’s business, she, too, stepped into her late husband’s shoes and continued trafficking operations. It didn’t seem like she was doing anything bad, per se, it was the Guardado family business, she was just doing what had to be done to keep a roof over her and the kids’ heads.
One morning, as she finally awoke to the reality of what cocaine was doing to people, everything changed, and through covert channels she managed to contact the D.E.A. and begin informing on cartel activity. The flood of drugs had to stop.
She decided to let the kids play their game for another five minutes.
Then it would be time to get ready to leave.
Exactly when, she wasn’t sure.
Hurry, Amaya.
The trucks were lined up with military precision.
Land Rovers, Hummers, Land Cruisers, and other large people movers sat in four rows in the desert, while troops milled about and prepared their gear.
Devlin Stone, Mike Majors, Amaya Olmos and three squad leaders hovered over a map spread out on the hard ground, going over arrangements and discussing plans. A cloud of dust from footsteps and the arrival of the vehicles hung in the air; it was everywhere, causing itchy eyes and coughing
Majors wanted the attacks to begin at the exact same moment, so all watches were synchronized.
“Are you ready?” Stone asked Amaya once the meeting broke up.
Amaya had been issued an M-4 carbine like the rest of the crew, along with body armor, spare ammunition and grenades. The chest rig containing most of the combat accessories looked too big on her stocky frame, but she wasn’t complaining.
“This fight
needs to end tonight,” she said. Her eyes looked beyond Stone. Somewhere in the distance. Somewhere not where they were now.
When Majors gave the signal, the Eagle Alliance troops broke for their assigned vehicles. Engines rumbled to life. More dust filled the air as the vehicles moved out, splitting up in three directions.
Stone and Amaya rode in the back of a Land Rover with Majors up front, the driver navigating the memorized route to the Guardado mansion.
Amaya’s job was to get Stone to where Jackeline and the kids were hiding as soon as Majors’ attack force began their raid. After that, they would evacuate the woman and her two kids to an extraction site where a chopper would carry them back across the U.S. border to San Diego. Majors and the Alliance troops had their own extraction plans once the raids reached their conclusions.
One way or another.
Chapter Eleven
The Guardado mansion sat on a flat piece of ground surrounded by green grass and a cluster of trees on the eastern side. At the edge of the grass, the desert continued. It must have cost a fortune to keep the green as green as it was.
The mansion was built in an L shape with a paved driveway at the 90-degree angle. From there, a brick path led to the front door.
Stone, on his stomach at the top of a hill, examined the layout through a pair of night vision binoculars. Amaya Olmos lay beside him. The uneven ground beneath him made the position uncomfortable, and Stone wanted to get into action straight away.
“You probably know every inch of that property,” he said.
“I do.”
“Best way in from this side?”
“We’re facing one of the garages. We can breach the door and get into the house that way.”
“There’s a lot of open ground to cover, though. The troops are going to see us. Why isn’t there a wall?”
“Jackeline doesn’t believe in walls.”
“Really? I love a good wall. One that’s a thousand feet high and has barbed wire on top.”
“What are we talking about?”
“We’re talking about getting your friend and her kids out of there.”
“She’ll be in the bedroom on the second floor of the west corner,” Amaya said.
“Why?”
“The walls are reinforced to withstand bullets and explosions.”
“So those walls are okay?”
“I’m not in the mood to be joking with you, Stone.”
Stone cracked a grin.
“We just have to wait for Majors and the team to start the party.” Stone lowered the binoculars. “Then we go in.”
Both were dressed in black. Amaya carried her borrowed M-4, combat accessories and a pistol. Stone had his usual SIG nine-millimeter in the shoulder harness as the Colt M933 carbine ready for action. An assortment of grenades hung on his chest webbing, M26 high explosive, smoke, and buckshot.
He heard the mortar rounds before they landed on the property, the tell-tale whistle overhead. Three high-explosive projectiles smashed into the ground outside the mansion, the explosions rocking the night, the flash from the blasts lighting up the area in a brief flare before the flames faded. More shells landed, not striking the structure itself, but the ground around it, and hopefully softening the resistance inside. By the time Majors’ team moved in, a swarm of bodies moving among the night shadows, the cartel troops had exited to meet the force head on and automatic weapons fire crackled through the night.
“Let’s go!” Stone bolted down the hill with Amaya Olmos kicking up dust behind him. The cartel troops and Alliance forces kept the fighting to the front of the house, the western side wide open to Stone and Amaya’s direct assault. The gunfire continued, getting louder the closer they came to the house, and Amaya took the lead. She moved along the wall to a door, tested the knob to find it locked, then fired one shot from the M-4 carbine to blow the lock and push through.
Stone followed her into a darkened garage full of cars. Amaya hustled across the tiled floor, the rubber soles of their shoes squeaking as they moved.
“Are these cars all Jackeline’s?” Stone said.
“Her husband’s,” Amaya said. “She only drives the Mercedes. Over there in the corner.”
Stone noted the white four-door Mercedes AMG S-63. They could use it to get to the extraction point.
Stone and Amaya reached a second door, this one unlocked, and she pushed through with the M-4 tight to her shoulder. Stone followed, probing the dim hallway with the muzzle of the M933.
The fighting continued outside. Stone hoped the Alliance shooters were winning handily.
Manny Valdes heard the explosions as he followed the access road to Jackeline’s mansion.
He twisted the wheel and rumbled onto the shoulder of the road, a dust cloud surrounding the SUV, while he jumped out an grabbed an automatic rifle from the back seat. He ran around the back of the SUV to a rise, dropped, and watched. The mortar rounds exploded around the property, a swarm of soldiers rushing to meet the solid wall of cartel gunmen who erupted from inside. Battle sounds filled the night and Valdes knew it would be a slaughter. The assault force greatly outnumbered the cartel shooters.
Rage filled him.
He still had time, yet his partners were attacking anyway.
Then he paused and wondered if he was watching the Americans hit the mansion.
Either way, his dream was on the line and if that was the case, he was going to make sure Jackeline Guardado ceased her existence. If he took her down, he could still make a case to his partners that they hadn’t wasted their time and effort after all.
Valdes hefted the SIG-Sauer MCX rifle with the red dot scope and ran down the hill.
If she wasn’t in the house, Valdes realized he may be signing his own death warrant.
But there was only one way to find out.
He ran faster, his lungs burning, eyes stinging from the dust.
When the bombs started falling, Jackeline Guardado gathered the kids close and stayed within arm’s reach of the AK-47 and her bug out bag.
With each explosion, the kids squeezed her tighter. Meghan started crying. Jackeline tried to soothe the little girl, but obviously this wasn’t something anybody could be easily distracted from.
Then gunfire. A lot of gunfire.
Was it the Americans or Valdes’s partners in the super cartel?
Who might be coming through her door at any second?
Her pulse quickened and she tried to control her breathing so as not to scare the kids further but that was almost impossible. All she could think about was getting them out unhurt.
Should she try to leave?
Had the garage with the cars been hit? If not, she could conceivably get to the Mercedes and race away.
This was madness. This wasn’t what she wanted. What had she done?
Amaya led Stone up a flight of stairs to a hallway. She checked one side, he checked the other; all clear. They moved left down the hall. Amaya kept the M-4 tight to her shoulder.
She hoped she appeared confident to Stone. She didn’t feel confident. She felt violated and vulnerable and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever feel strong again after what Valdes had done to her. She wanted revenge. She wanted him at the end of her gun and when she was done killing him, she wanted to somehow revive him and kill him again.
Her palms sweated on the grip of the M-4. Jackeline’s door was in sight. She held up a hand to signal Stone to slow down and stop. He pressed against the wall, scanning the way they’d come, keeping his weapon pointed that direction, while Amaya approached the door.
They had a knock code for such an emergency. Amaya used her left hand to tap the knock on the door.
One tap, two and three in quick succession, another tap, and two more spaced by three seconds.
“Jackie, it’s me,” Amaya said.
Jackeline Guardado’s voice came through the door. “Who’s with you?”
“The Americans. Come on.”
The door swung open. Jackel
ine pushed her two kids out first, the older boy a little more alert than his little sister, who clung to his arm. Stone stepped toward them and they shrank back. Amaya told them not to worry. “This man is a friend. He’s going to get us out of here.”
Jackeline Guardado slung her bug out back and gripped her AK-47 in both hands.
“So that weapon is not a myth,” Stone said.
“I wish it were, it’s ridiculous now.”
“Devlin Stone, Eagle Alliance,” he told her. “We’re here to get you out.”
“Then let’s go. I have a car.”
“And I have an extraction point, follow us.”
Amaya took the lead once again, Stone letting Jackeline and the kids go ahead of him, and he brought up the rear, taking a quick scan of their six o’clock despite knowing no enemies could get at them that way.
The little girl, Meghan, wouldn’t let go over her brother, but he didn’t seem to mind. He kept looking back at Stone as if to reassure himself. Stone offered a smile hoping it would help. The boy had already lost his father; Stone was not going to let anybody take his mother. He knew all too well what losing family members felt like, and he didn’t wish the pain on anybody.
Down the dark hallway. Back to the steps. Down the steps. Through a set of rooms where Amaya and Stone paused to shield Jackeline and the kids from potential threats. Finally, into the garage, Stone the last through the door as Jackeline and the kids headed for the white Mercedes AMG.
Amaya shouted, “Get down!”
The M-4 popped. Valdes, at the other end of the garage, dived to the floor and slid across to a red Ferrari. Amaya opened fire on the car, her salvo slamming into the bodywork and striking one of the front tires, the rubber blowing thunderously with the front end of the car sinking a little.
Cartel Queen Page 8
