Retribution Road

by Jon Coon

  As they approached the third cenote, the bottom dropped deeper, and there was a large crack in the floor. Gabe dumped air and descended. There in the crack, beyond reach, were two scuba rigs and two scooters. Now realizing they had to be close, Gabe motioned Mike to the surface.

  “If the Zapa Army is still hanging around, we’ve got to figure out a way to get those kids out of here. Let’s get that gear, and when we find them, we’ll come out like we’re all one group.”

  “Good idea. I’ll call George and let him know we’re close.”

  “You’ve got your phone?”

  Mike held up a sealed plastic box containing his phone. “Always,” he said with a grin.

  “Man, you can dive on my team anytime.”

  “Thanks. Now let’s do this thing.”

  They dropped back to the bottom and the crevasse with the gear. Gabe knelt on the bottom and ditched his rig. He took a final breath and crawled down the tight space, barely reaching the first scuba rig. He tried the regulator for a breath and got nothing. He tried the tank valve and was delighted to hear air rush into the hoses. A quick breath and a stream of bubbles as he exhaled on his crawl back up. Mike grabbed the rig and set it to the side. The same exercise produced a scooter and then the second rig and finally the last scooter. They carried the gear up from the deeper water toward the shallows. Sunlight was fading, and the last of the snorkelers had ascended the wooden stair. Gabe swept the bottom with his cave light and saw nothing. “Come on, you have to be here.”

  Paul saw the lights approaching and tried to wake Angelica. She was sleeping deeply, probably comatose, and didn’t respond. That scared him even more than the approach of the dive lights. He tried to move farther out of the water, but there was nowhere to go. This was it. He’d been afraid to leave her while there were others in the water and on the stair. Now he was too exhausted from the cold to move. But he would protect her to the end. He turned his back to the lights and wrapped her limp body in his arms.

  More terrified than he had ever been, he prayed harder than he had ever imagined possible: “God, I’m a sinner in need of a savior. Help us, please. Please don’t let them get her.”

  Gabe moved in under the dock. Anything was possible. The sweep of his light revealed nothing, and he started to turn and leave when he realized it was the best hiding place they’d seen thus far. He surfaced and scanned the sand. There, crouched in the darkness, was a body.

  “Paul?” he said quietly. And then repeated his question a bit louder. “Paul?”

  The body moved and shielded his eyes from the intense light. “Don’t hurt her, please. Do what you want with me, but don’t hurt her.”

  “Paul, it’s me, Gabe. Come on, son. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Tom was leaving the truck when he got the call.

  “We’ve got Paul and the girl. They’re severely hypothermic, but we’re warming them up now. He’s not talking yet, but they had Zapatista Army on their tails. That’s got to be a good story. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Come to the hangar. We know where the Benson kids are. I just sent a squad to get them.”

  “Good work,” Gabe said. “Did you get anything else?”

  “Yep. Enough to light up the skies at least tonight. Get those kids here, and we’ll get ready to go home.”

  “Roger that. On the way.”

  Tom disconnected and took a second cell from his pocket. The one he used only to call Maria.

  Maria looked at the number and hesitated to answer. It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. On Tom’s second try, she answered.

  “It’s me. It’s time to go. Things are too dangerous for you to stay. We’re poking the bear in the eye.”

  “I know. He’s furious. I’ve never seen him like this. He wants to destroy you.”

  “Too bad. I’m just getting started, but I need you out of there. I have to know you’re safe.”

  “When have I ever been safe? You’re going to need me here more than ever. Who knows what he’ll do next.”

  “That’s my point, Maria. If he suspects for one minute . . .”

  “He doesn’t and he’s not going to.”

  “Maria, please. I love you. Please come home with me.”

  “That’s not our life, Tom. We’ve talked about this. Afternoon tea in the front porch rockers and spoiling your grandchildren is not what I signed up for. Now let me go.”

  “Hardheaded chica,” he swore under his breath. “All right. When will I hear from you again?”

  “Not until there’s something to tell. Be careful.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Chapter 23

  USING THE INTEL HE’D GOTTEN from Jose, the only surviving prisoner, Tom sent six of his men to rescue the Benson girls. Their Ghost Hawk helicopter, the military’s top-secret, stealth delivery vehicle, a newer version of the stealth-modified Black Hawks used in the Bin Laden raid, set down in a field a mile from the house, landing in darkness, no lights and in whisper mode. A senator on the military appropriations committee was a good friend to have when you needed military support, especially if the mission was to rescue members of his family.

  The team quickly deployed and moved through fallow fields to the electric fence surrounding the house. After attaching jumper wires to avoid breaking the connection and setting off alarms, the wires were cut, and the men entered the massive yard.

  The house was four story and large. Under the cloudy night sky, it gave the outline of a medieval fortress, with a walkway around the upper floor. A vigilant guard with a night scope would have a real advantage from that height. But no guards were visible. It was the dogs who heard them and set off the alarms. Air puffs from tranq guns stopped the barking immediately, but not before several lights came on in the house. The team dissolved into the shadows. Two guns looked down from behind the half-wall of the upper floor, and a door opened at ground level. Two stepped out carrying what looked like AK-47s.

  Lights from the upper level flooded the yard. No one moved.

  “Where are the dogs?” one asked the other. Then he shouted to the men on the wall, “Do you see the dogs?”

  There was no answer. Both had fallen to silenced sniper fire. Still, no one moved.

  More shouting. Two more came through the door with guns and lights. There was movement behind the upper wall. A head was visible over the wall. The sniper rifle made hardly a whisper, and the body twisted and dropped. The four in the yard spread out as if to search. They went down, not having seen a single movement or fired a single shot. Still no one moved. More silenced rounds took out the yard lights, and the night was dark and deathly quiet. Not a sound from the house. Not a whisper in the yard.

  The lower double doors opened again, and the Benson girls stood alone in a well-lit foyer.

  “Show yourselves or they are dead,” a heavily accented voice shouted. “You have ten seconds.”

  “This is the PFM. You are under arrest. Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up. Do it now or we level this building with you in it,” the rescue team leader replied in perfect Spanish. “Send them out and we may let you live.”

  The lights in the house went suddenly out. The sound of a backup generator chugging to life broke the silence, hit its stride, and the lights came back on. The girls were no longer in the doorway. Rangers suddenly appeared from the shadows and black-bagged the guard before he could get off a single shot. The girls ran to the waiting arms of the Rangers.

  “This is your lucky day, amigo,” the Ranger holding the gun to the guard’s head said. “We want you to take this message to your boss. The PFM calls the shots from here on out. You’re the rats and we’re the exterminators. Tell El Patrón we’re coming for him. The war has started.”

  With that, he struck the hooded man with the butt of his full-auto .308 CZ and dragged the unconscious body to the gate and zip-tied him to the wrought iron.

  Sgt. Ferrell looked at the terrified girls, smiled, and asked, �
��Anyone want to go home in a helicopter?” Terror turned to tears as the team led the girls away from the villa. As they cleared the gate at the end of the quarter-mile drive, a deep rumble shook the ground. Behind them, flashes of bright orange flame ripped into the sky and the villa was reduced to rubble.

  “I told them to throw down and come out,” the sergeant said. “They didn’t.”

  Tom sat next to the drone pilot, who was holding the remote control for the Bonanza, and listened for the call from the cartel that would give final landing instructions. When the cell phone rang, however, it wasn’t the call he expected. Tom turned on a recording of plane engine noise and picked up the phone and put it on speaker.

  “What’s going on?” Tom asked.

  “Let me talk to Jose.”

  Jose was tied in the chair, and Tom sat down beside him. Tom held the phone to Jose’s face and held a warning finger up and waited. Jose nodded and then answered, “Si, patrón.”

  “We are under attack by the PFM. They blew up the villa at the lake and took the senator’s daughters. I don’t know if any of our guys got out.”

  “Si, patrón. What shall we do?”

  “Land at the grass strip near Coba. Unload the plane and then burn it. Get rid of everything. Comprende? I’ll have a truck waiting for you.”

  “Si, patrón.”

  “Put el capitán back on.” Sarcasm oozed.

  “Change of plans, amigo. One of my properties has been raided by the PFM and the senator’s daughters taken. I don’t suppose you know anything about that? Until I can sort it out, I don’t want to risk your plane and my cargo.”

  “The who?”

  “The PFM. The Ministerial Federal Police. Our government shut down our FBI and fired half the agents. The PFM thinks they are going to take us down. They’re in for a bit of a shock.”

  “Where do you want us to land?”

  “We have a grass strip near Coba. Jose will bring you in.”

  “We’re near our point of no return. Fuel is going to be tight.”

  “Don’t go back to the hangar. If you have to, put down in a field and have Jose give me your location. Just don’t lose that cargo and don’t get caught.”

  “Copy that. We’ll be careful.”

  Tom turned off the phone and checked it twice to make certain it was off before speaking. “Jose, what do you suppose he’s going to do to you when he finds out you told me where to find those girls?”

  “Please, señor. You wouldn’t . . .”

  “The way I see it, Jose, there’s only one way for you to get out of this alive.”

  “Tell me, señor. Tell me and I will do it.”

  Juan Mateo Caldera, El Patrón to his friends, lived in a twenty-five room, four-story hacienda, much larger than the one Sgt. Ferrell and his team had destroyed. But this hacienda wasn’t it. Caldera had several safe houses used for meetings, warehouses, and sometimes prisons. Now, as he paced the rose ceramic tile floor of this mansion, which they had converted to a drug lab and warehouse, and watched the transponder they’d placed on the Bonanza beep across a mega screen monitor, he knew something was drastically wrong. Tom’s beautiful red plane was headed directly toward this million-dollar factory, with millions’ worth of drugs awaiting shipment.

  “Amigo, what are you doing? Get back on course,” Caldera shouted into his phone.

  Tom calmly responded. “Change of plans, my friend. Charlie Brown here wants to renegotiate his employment contract, and I … well, I just want to blow up your little factory there. I’d appreciate it if you stay, of course. Would make life a lot easier down the road. But you can take this as a warning: The Great State of Texas and your friendly local PFM are going to put you out of business, El Patrón, or whoever the hell you are. And if you ever come after my family or my friends again, the only warning you’ll get next time will be the sound of your heart stopping. Comprende?”

  The phone went dead, and Caldera shouted at his men. “Get out, get out, get everyone out!” From the courtyard, they could see the Bonanza, three miles out, clear the mountain ridge and come at them, flying low and level across the lake.

  Caldera was momentarily transfixed by the approaching plane, but he shook it off and yelled at his men again to move, and they ran from the house, some to vehicles and some into the trees beyond the gate. When the plane hit the villa, an earthshaking tremor rattled the mountain, and the villa vaporized from the several hundred pounds of explosives Tom had loaded when the drugs were taken off.

  The monitors on Tom’s remote flight control station went dark, and he said to the drone pilot beside him, “I loved that plane. But sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.”

  “Yes, sir,” the tech answered with a laugh.

  “Okay, let’s get the kids and get out of here. I think a boat trip home would be nice, and I know just the boat.”

  It didn’t take long to fuel up the three-million-dollar Enchantress, the sport fisherman they had been chartered on the day they arrived. Three of the team with tie wraps and duct tape made short work of the crew, and Tom was delighted to find Javier in the master suite. He was, as usual, elegantly dressed in a white silk shirt and slacks, like something out of an afternoon soap opera. Tom invited him to the helm in handcuffs to smile at the locals as Tom eased the gleaming seventy-foot Viking away from the fuel dock and into the open Gulf.

  Gabe had Paul and Angelica recovering in crew bunks, while the sergeant took the starving Benson girls to the galley for steak and eggs. The crew were restrained in the salon, and Tom sat Javier on the couch in the helm.

  “You can’t imagine you’re going to get away with this,” Javier said casually.

  “Perhaps not, but we’ll enjoy the fresh air and calm seas while we can.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, what I want is to feed you to the sharks the way you did with that little girl, Catalina, if that was her real name. How old was she? Fifteen, sixteen, fourteen? And what about the other two? Did you kill them as well?”

  Silence.

  “The only thing keeping you alive is that I’m wondering if you know anything that will help us bring down El Patrón and his cartel.”

  Silence.

  “Nothing? Fine. Sharks it is.”

  When he was assured Paul and Angelica were warm, fed, and sleeping, Gabe joined Tom on the boat’s bridge. The sun was setting, and there was a light breeze from the southwest. The boat, at thirty-five knots, cut through the light chop effortlessly.

  Javier and his crew were restrained on deck in the corner, hands and feet zip-tied and a double wrap of duct tape around their mouths.

  “What’s up with our friend?” Gabe asked.

  “He’s still deciding if he wants to be shark bait or tell us what he knows about the cartel.”

  “And your bet is?”

  “Well, in spite of being all pretty and stuff, I think he’s a tough guy, because he likes to kill little girls. So I think he’s going to do the honorable thing and sleep with the fishes.”

  “Very noble.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Gabe looked over at Javier and shook his head in disgust. “Let me know when he makes up his mind. I’ll be happy to help with the send-off. Tell me, how did you do that business with your plane? I thought you loved that plane.”

  “I did. But it answered a higher calling.”

  “Okay, but how?”

  “Like I told you, during Vietnam the Army had Beechcraft build a few Bonanzas as surveillance drones. At the end of the war they sold them cheap, and I bought that one and all the gear. I just wanted the plane, so I stripped out the remote controls. But you never know when a drone with a 1,200-pound payload might come in handy. It did. No regrets.”

  “I think I’d have a couple hundred-thousand-dollars’ worth of regrets.”

  “Look at it this way. We got the kids back, blew up his lab, confiscated his three-million-dollar boat, and we get to feed Javier here to the sharks. No regrets.”


  “How long will it take us to get home?”

  “It’s a little less than eight hundred miles. If we can make twenty-five knots, that’s a little less than twenty-nine miles per hour. Let’s guess about twenty-eight hours, plus or minus. Navigation is not an exact science on the water.”

  “Roger that. Let me know when you’re ready for a break. I’ll be happy to take the wheel. I’ve been thinking. What do you suppose the boss is going to do when he figures out we confiscated his boat? Think he’ll come after us?”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Tom’s grin sent a chill up Gabe’s spine.

  Chapter 24

  “THEN SHOULD WE BE DOING something to get ready?” Gabe asked.

  “We already have, but just make sure the kids are safe. They won’t risk shooting up this boat, and I doubt they’ll get close enough to board us. Let the others know not to open fire. They want the boat and to capture us, but that’s not going to happen.”

  Tom’s satellite phone buzzed and he answered, talked briefly, and switched the radar to fifty-mile scan. At first there was nothing. Tom adjusted the gain and watched the southwest quadrant; light shadows, only fleeting blips, momentarily appeared. “There. If you didn’t know what to look for you’d probably miss them completely: three go-fast boats, probably ‘Picuda,’ named for a fast little fish that looks like a barracuda. That’s what they call the new all-glass hulls with big twin or triple two-hundreds. Plenty of range and carry a ton of cargo. They can make Jamaica to Costa Rica in two days. That’s roughly 2,200 miles at forty-five miles per hour, plus in open sea. That’s flying.”