by Matt Rogers
At the other end of the alley, he spotted his worst nightmare.
By all appearances, the panel van seemed unassuming, but King recognised its true intentions. It had been reversed up to the lip of the alley and its rear doors hung wide open, inviting the four of them into its darkened interior. Even from this distance, King eyed the steel cage that had been outfitted inside the body of the van.
Genuine fear arced through him. His hands turned clammy, his pulse reached its maximum capacity, and his imagination started to run wild. He pictured all the horrors that a drug cartel could enact on him. As a SEAL, he’d gone through intense resistance training, designed to ensure that he didn’t share a word if he was ever captured or interrogated. He had faith in his ability to keep his mouth shut. He wouldn’t share any details of what he was doing in Tijuana.
But that wouldn’t make the pain any less real.
He pictured them melting his skin off with a flamethrower, yanking out all his toenails, waterboarding him, electrocuting him, slicing his fingers and toes off one by one, cutting out his tongue.
He had killed four of their men.
He didn’t think they would take it easy on him.
It provided him with the adrenalin dump necessary to spur him into action. He needed to make a move within the next twenty feet, before he was forced inside the panel van and all his freedom vanished into thin air.
In the darkest section of the alley, he froze.
‘The driver’s telling me to drop my bag,’ he said, gesturing to the duffel strapped across both shoulders.
The three men pulled to a stop behind him. ‘What?’
‘The driver.’
‘What fucking driver?’
‘He’s gesturing at me to put my bag down.’
‘Where?’
‘Right there!’ King said, lacing his tone with sheer confusion, like he could see something in the shadows ahead that they couldn’t.
‘Keep walk—’ the guy started, but King had already reached for the straps over his shoulders.
He slid one arm out of the duffel and slowly lowered it to the ground. He dropped the bag into the dirt, relieving fifteen pounds of weight off his back, and held up his hands to feign innocence. ‘Just following orders, man.’
Visibly frustrated, the first man stepped forward — into range. ‘I dunno what the fuck you think you’re doing, gringo, but…’
Mid-sentence, the guy reached down to angrily snatch the duffel bag off the filthy ground and shove it back into King’s hands.
As he did so, King burst off the mark like a defensive end charging at the quarterback.
27
Bedlam broke out.
King’s first move was to control the wrist of the hand that was clutching the Sig-Sauer. He clamped down both hands on the guy’s meaty forearm and squeezed with every ounce of pressure his fingers would allow. The guy wasn’t budging, no matter how hard he tried.
With the chance of catching a bullet from the first man eliminated, King avoided a desperate punch from the guy’s free hand and tugged him into range. He pressed his body against the guy, awkwardly pinning him in place. Then he braced himself.
His instincts paid off.
After the sudden barrage of motion, the other two trigger-happy thugs panicked. Their pulses would be rising. The terror involved with their target fighting back would be kicking in. King didn’t imagine they would handle the situation rationally.
They didn’t.
Both men fired, once, twice, three times each. By the time they realised their mistake and let their fingers out of the trigger guards, their friend had been pumped full of lead. King felt each impact resonate through his hands as the thug’s body jerked unnaturally, still pinned in front of him.
A human shield.
When he slid his hands down the guy’s wrist to strip him of the P226, he was met with no resistance.
The man had lost consciousness already.
King wrenched the pistol out of his limp hands and let the body fall to the alley floor. It hit the ground with a wet slap, but King saw nothing. His vision had laser-focused on the two murky silhouettes across from him.
They hesitated, staring in abject horror at their dead comrade. The comrade they had stripped of a life.
Before they had a chance to recover their wits, King shot them both down.
The muzzle flares lit up the shadows like a flashing strobe light, briefly illuminating the arterial blood that arced from each man’s chest. They had opted not to wear any form of body protection, instead choosing to blend into the crowd back on the Avenida Revolución.
Loose singlets did little to stop steel core rounds.
The alley went dark again. Over the ringing in his ears from the close-range gunshots, King heard the van’s engine cough to life behind him. He turned to see the vehicle roaring away from the sidewalk, fleeing the confrontation as the driver recognised that his friends had been incapacitated.
Then silence.
Then, only just audible in the unnerving quiet of the alley, a wet gargle.
One of the men had survived his wounds.
King dropped instinctively onto his stomach, landing hard enough amongst the filth to knock the breath out of himself. He didn’t want to take any chances. If the guy still had his hand on his weapon, it would only take one shot to shut the lights off upstairs.
In the field, luck played a significant part.
In the end, he shouldn’t have worried. He scurried over to the pair of thugs in a military-style crawl, staying low, staying quiet. He reached the source of the pathetic noise and frisk-searched the man, feeling for any sign of a handgun in his palms.
Nothing.
King’s eyes began to adjust to the lowlight. He made out the shape of the trio, their incapacitated forms arranged in a rudimentary triangle formation. The other two guys were entirely motionless, already dead.
The guy he’d just frisk-searched was close to it.
King spotted one of the alleyway exit doors just up ahead, set underneath another weak, flickering LED tube. The pale glow that it cast over the entrance would be useful for one thing.
Hammering home the extent of the man’s injuries.
King bent down and snatched the wounded man by the collar, dragging him through the muck. He strode into the radius of the harsh light and dumped the guy back-first against the lone concrete step below the locked door.
In the light, he could see where the man had taken the bullets.
He couldn’t have been far over twenty years old. High on something — crack or heroin, more than likely. But the bullets had stripped him of his thuggish demeanour. Now, he simply came off as a wounded, whimpering youth. Which was exactly what he was, once you were able to tear through the drug-crazed, violent exterior.
A pang of unease speared King in the chest. He realised how vulnerable people were so close to death, and momentarily regretted having to shoot the three of them.
Are you insane? he thought. They were about to hand-deliver you to Ramos to be tortured and maimed.
He hardened his nerves. There was no time for hesitation in this god-forsaken city. He squatted down by the young man and assessed the guy’s wounds.
The kid had taken a bullet through the collar bone, bleeding profusely across his thin singlet. Another round had sliced through his upper arm, and a third had punched straight through his stomach.
The stomach wound was the fatal one. He would die from blood loss within minutes.
King grabbed him by the chin and pointed his pale, gasping face in his direction.
‘Look at me,’ he said.
The guy drew in rattling breaths. He didn’t have much time left.
‘You speak English?’ King said.
‘Little… little bit.’
‘You want to live?’
‘Yes.’
‘You ever had anything like this happen to you before?’
‘No.’
‘Then think very
hard about this. You need to give me information. That’s what I’m here for. You help me, and I’ll get you to a hospital.’
The guy managed a wry smile through bloody teeth. ‘I talk. I die.’
‘You die either way. I’m giving you the opportunity for a chance.’
‘No.’
‘Are you really ready to die?’
He kept quiet, letting the words sink in. The warm silence of the alley settled over them. The only audible sound was the young guy’s throaty rasps as he struggled to suck air into his lungs.
King saw cold fear spread across the man’s face.
‘Where’s Ramos?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’
King believed it.
‘Where had you been told to deliver me?’
‘We…’ the guy said, trailing off. Then he thought better of keeping his mouth shut. Maybe reality was setting in. ‘We hold you overnight. In an apartment. Then we take you to factory in the morning.’
‘Which factory?’
‘Packaging … packaging plant. That’s where we work. Ramos collect you.’
‘Where?’
‘Over the river from the bus terminal. Where all the maquiladora factories are. Ours says Importaciones Perez.’
‘Thank you,’ King said.
‘Hospital, please.’
‘Yes,’ King said, nodding. ‘Close your eyes.’
The man complied.
King shot him through the forehead.
28
King felt nothing as he tucked the Five-seven and the P226 into his waistband, collected the duffel bag, and hurried toward the lip of the alley.
It had been a mercy killing. Even if King rushed him to a hospital, there was a ninety-five percent chance the boy would have died a slow, painful death from his wounds. On the off chance that he survived, Ramos’ cartel would have exacted crippling torture upon the boy for the information he had provided King with.
It was a lose-lose situation.
Best to end it quick. He never would have realised what was coming. It would have been a quick trip into the great beyond.
Shouldn’t have joined a cartel, King thought. And you definitely shouldn’t have fucked with me.
Nevertheless, he pitied the young guy.
They were probably close to the same age. Same as the college frat boy out on the main road.
Different paths, King thought.
Three vastly different lives.
As he stepped out of the lip of the alley, leaving the three dead men lying in great pools of their own blood, he checked the coast for any sign of reinforcements. Finding no sign of hostile intention, he began the slow trek to one of Tijuana’s many cheap motels — something told him that he would need rest for what was to come.
He walked aimlessly, stabilising his breathing and returning his nerves to a normal state. In the moment, the battle felt like nothing, but in the silent aftermath of conflict King had time to reflect on just how brutally the violence had unfolded. More than that, he had time to consider just how little room for error there was at this level. One well-placed bullet from his adversaries, or one ill-timed move on his part, and he wouldn’t even know that he had met his end.
A switch would simply be flipped.
And out he would go.
He also had time to consider the path that he had taken, the path that had led him to the slums of Tijuana on a balmy July night. He didn’t shy away from the strange nature of the decisions that had led him to this point. Most young soldiers joined the Armed Forces due to a broken home life, or a devout, unwavering duty to serve one’s country.
King had experienced neither of those when he’d first signed up.
He’d simply been attracted to the thrill.
Sure, his old life back in the outskirts of Green Bay, Wisconsin, hadn’t been ideal. The grief that had fallen over his father in the aftermath of his mother’s unsuccessful battle with cancer had cast a shadow over the family home. King had barely communicated with his dad for the year prior to joining the military.
They’d never been talkers, the Kings.
So it had certainly come as no surprise to Ray King when his son announced his decision to join the military. To King, it always felt like his father preferred solitude. He considered himself a burden on the peace and quiet that Ray seemingly wanted to live out the rest of his days in.
He remembered it vividly. Striding into the recruiting office in Green Bay with a small collection of personal belongings and nothing else to his name.
Aged eighteen.
Ready for anything.
From there, he had embraced every new challenge — and excelled. He’d risen to the occasion. He’d been drawn to the thrills, the uncertainty, the achievements. He’d been informed time and time again that the opportunities he was being gifted with were far from normal.
One of the youngest SEALs in military history, surpassed only by a seventeen-year-old prodigy born in 1965.
The youngest Delta Force operator in military history, by three years.
He had never protested the promotions. He’d welcomed them with a stern nod and a determination to press onto the next objective.
He couldn’t pinpoint one all-encompassing thing that drove him.
He simply got up every day, and got to work.
For the past four years, life had been moving too fast to process anything else.
Now, he found a single-storey motel on a darkened street corner, with paint flaking off the exterior walls and a small car lot out front. The lot was entirely empty. A fluorescent bulb over the door to reception shone bright amidst the darkness, inviting him in. King glanced at his surroundings, noted how quiet the area was, and nodded approvingly.
He headed into the motel’s reception.
He had the money to book a room in any of the five-star resorts or hotels scattered around Tijuana’s tourist district, yet he considered such a move entirely unnecessary. He needed a bed, and a few hours of sleep. Anything else was inessential.
Besides, he had no time to waste deciding on an adequate room.
He needed somewhere quiet and small, to think about what lay ahead and plan his next move.
This place was perfect.
‘Just yourself, sir?’ the chubby man behind the desk said, deliberately ignoring the cuts and bruises dotting King’s complexion.
King guessed that his appearance was a relatively normal occurrence around these parts. There were fetish clubs in this district, after all.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Can I pay cash?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do we need to bother with ID?’
‘Four hundred pesos extra. I will also ignore anyone who comes searching for you. I’ll tell them I saw you head past hours ago. Might that be something you’d be interested in, sir?’
‘That’ll work.’
King unzipped one of the duffel bag’s pockets and came out with a thick wad of pesos, held together by a heavy-duty rubber band. He slid the band off and counted out one thousand pesos in bills, roughly the equivalent of ninety American dollars. The room fee, plus extra.
A small price to pay for full discretion.
He handed over the money, which the receptionist accepted with a warm smile and exchanged for a single room key.
‘You’ve got the room right next to this one. Largest room in the motel.’
‘Thank you.’ King made for the door, then hesitated, turning back around. ‘Any other customers tonight?’
‘None so far, sir.’
King nodded and continued outside. Immediately, he spotted a group of shadowy figures across the street, laughing harshly and waltzing along the sidewalk.
They looked like trouble.
He kept his head down and unlocked the door to the adjacent room, stepping into a glum space with a low ceiling and a sagging double bed in the corner. It was a pitiful sight — if this was the best place in the motel, King didn’t want to imagine what the
other rooms looked like.
He dropped the duffel bag to the floor and shut the door behind him. As the latch clicked closed, a switch in his head activated, flooding his brain with fatigue. His arms were intensely heavy all of a sudden. The tranquil, steady hum of a small air-conditioner set into the opposite wall only seemed to add to his exhaustion.
It was the first respite he had received since crossing the border.
The motel room turned into a safe house, an area where he could relax and let all the worries of the past twelve hours melt away — of which there had been plenty.
At least … temporarily.
He wrenched the P226 and Five-seven out of his waistband one by one, checking the capacity of each magazine in turn. Then he made sure that both weapons were ready to fire before placing them on the small nightstand next to the bed.
He dropped onto the mattress. A handful of broken springs pressed into his back, but they barely fazed him. With the dim light overhead still shining, he closed his eyes and began to drift into a much-needed sleep.
His adrenalin reserves had been entirely depleted.
And they would need recharging for tomorrow.
As he dropped off, he thought of Importaciones Perez. No doubt a front for one of Ramos’ packaging facilities, where thousands of pounds of coca leaves were converted into pure cocaine powder by a small army of sweatshop workers.
He wondered if Ramos would be there to collect King tomorrow. He wondered if the three thugs who had tried to kidnap him were meant to check-in with Ramos later tonight.
Will he have his guard down? Will he be expecting me in chains?
King doubted it. Ramos was cunning. There would be safety measures in place, detailed check-in times to ensure that King had been apprehended successfully. There was no chance the trio would meet them, all of them marbleised as corpses in the back-alleys of the grimy pleasure district.
They’d got what they deserved.
Junkies looking for a quick payday, giving no regard for King’s wellbeing.
But it meant that Ramos would likely be anticipating King to come in guns blazing.
Good.
I like a challenge.
He began to drift away.
