Cartel: A Jason King Thriller (The Jason King Files Book 1)

by Matt Rogers

  He had never dreamed, never been haunted by the deeds he had committed in the field.

  Not yet.

  As he dropped off, he pondered whether they would start after he was done in Mexico.

  29

  King woke up to eight missed calls on the satellite phone that he fished out of the duffel bag.

  They were all from the same number.

  Lars.

  He stared at the screen for a full minute, weighing up the pros and cons of returning the man’s call.

  Lars had explicitly told him that he could do as he pleased. The task of dispatching Ramos rested squarely on his shoulders, and he had been granted permission to operate regardless of any outside interference. There were no reinforcements waiting for his call. No superiors — aside from Lars — to report his every move back to.

  Full discretion.

  Exactly why he had accepted the job in the first place.

  He decided not to return the calls just yet.

  He didn’t want Lars breathing down his neck for the course of his time in Tijuana. He was hesitant to divulge the fact that he had failed to pin Ramos down the first time. Determined to complete the task on his second attempt, he shoved the satellite phone back into the duffel bag and tucked the entire thing under his bed.

  There was nothing in it that he needed — just identification documents, a wad of cash, and a few changes of clothes.

  The rising sun filtered in through the cheap blinds, spilling a warm orange glow through the room. King showered fast, realised that he hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours, and headed out to find some sustenance. Before he left, he tucked the two pistols into the rear of his waistband and dropped his shirt down over them.

  Violence always dulled his appetite.

  He still wasn’t hungry, despite his last meal having been consumed back in the United States, but he would force the food down.

  He’d need it for the day ahead.

  He locked the motel door behind him and sauntered across the street to a twenty-four-seven diner. The clock on the wall behind the counter informed him that it was six-thirty in the morning. He ordered a large pot of black coffee and a plate heaped high with chilli tomato stew and eggs wrapped in corn tortillas.

  A plastic corner booth in the corner had just been wiped clean by a young waitress with heavy bags under her eyes. King slotted into the booth and drained a cardboard cup of the coffee, letting the warm liquid snake its way down his throat. The caffeine kickstarted his heart rate, bringing his senses up. It had taken considerably longer than usual to shake free the symptoms of lethargy.

  He needed more sleep.

  He helped himself to another cup of the bitter brew and dove into the tortillas, wolfing them down in the space of a few minutes. The first bite activated his hunger, and before he knew it he’d paid for the meal, gulped down a third cup of coffee, and stepped back out into the Tijuana sunshine twelve minutes after entering the diner.

  He had a Sig-Sauer P226 and a FN Five-Seven at the ready.

  That was all he needed.

  He set off for the so-called “city of factories” that was sure to house one of Ramos’ facilities.

  The multi-block district running around the perimeter of the Avenida Revolución wouldn’t appear on any of the Tijuana tourist brochures. It was a rundown, degraded strip — exactly why King had selected it as a place to stay the night. No-one wanted to be here, which he had hoped would allow him to keep a low profile.

  He was still breathing — so, evidently, it had paid off.

  He strode fast down streets that seemed abandoned, like the aftermath of a nuclear war. He couldn’t tell whether that was due to the early hour of the morning, where the junkies and the seedy tourists were still sleeping off the sins of the night before — or whether it was due to the drug war that had escalated over the course of the last few months, forcing good men and women to stay indoors and prevent getting caught in the crossfire.

  The further King headed into the district, the more he thought it was the latter.

  The apartment complexes and suburban developments in this area were all walled-off, as if they were hiding away from the open air. Havens of sorts, there to protect locals and tourists alike from the inherent dangers of the streets.

  He suddenly felt strangely exposed.

  He pressed on, asking the odd passer-by for directions to the maquiladoras. He imagined it would become clear when he had ventured into the city of factories, as his surroundings would be replaced by towering warehouses and the early-morning bustle of determined shift workers heading in for a long day of packaging and processing.

  Some legal, some illegal.

  Eventually, he was pointed roughly in the right direction by an elderly woman from California who had spent over three weeks here. Her directions had racist undertones, but King ignored them. She referred to the maquiladoras as “monkey factories”, an area quietly forbidden to tourists. King nodded his thanks and moved on, letting her go about her business without kicking up a fuss about her poor choice of language.

  He had enough problems of his own to deal with.

  He skirted along the edge of the Avenida, through a collection of shops and bars that sported a similar theme — that of the ancient Mayans. The buildings were complete with artificial bamboo banisters and over-the-top plastic stone blocks. Fake theme park architecture at its finest. Sure enough, the street was completely deserted.

  King chalked it up to the early hour and continued on.

  Slowly, his surroundings started to morph and shift. The wider lots became more and more prevalent, with the claustrophobic, overbearing nature of the residential sector melting away. Factories began to dot the sidewalks, enormous warehouses painted all-white, fenced off from the streets.

  King played the part of a curious tourist taking an early-morning stroll and continued to waltz further into the district.

  The foot traffic shifted from half-tourist, half-local to one-hundred-percent workers. King tried his best to blend in, but it was next to impossible. At six-foot-three he stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the tight clusters of shift workers hurrying through open gates, their heads down, dressed head to toe in cheap and dirty clothing. The atmosphere had an air of determination. He figured that few of the maquiladora workers were permanent, instead opting to make a temporary living for themselves while they searched for a new life.

  Tijuana had that air about it.

  The whole city seemed like a grey-zone, home to no-one but occupied by everyone. There was clearly a strong population of migrants battling to make ends meet while they waited for their opportunity to cross the border into the States. King didn’t want to generalise — he figured that there were broad swathes of the city populated entirely by permanent residents. But the only districts he had spent time in so far felt like giant waiting rooms.

  It would be an effective breeding ground for the types of workers that Ramos would look for.

  The desperate.

  The easily exploited.

  A worker with a dirty face and a rucksack over one shoulder shoved King hard in the chest as he walked by. He let out a string of obscenities in Spanish, gesturing for King to fuck off back to the tourist precinct he’d come from.

  King clearly didn’t belong here.

  He ignored the man, trying not to draw attention to himself. He shoved past the guy and powered on, scanning each building he passed for any sign of the “Importaciones Perez” logo that the young guy had mentioned the previous night.

  Ten minutes into the walk, he found it.

  30

  He pulled to a tentative halt on the other side of the street, already sweating as the sun beat down directly opposite. Still rising, with dawn only having just broken, the harsh light blocked his vision. He held a hand to his brows to act as a temporary visor and peered across the street at the enormous facility, also fenced off from the main street.

  It looked literally identical to the dozens of
factories King had already passed, which made him wonder how many businesses in this district were simply a front for cartel operations. The warehouse stretched out on either side, covering at least five thousand square feet. It was surrounded on all sides by the everyday hustle of factory life — lorries reversing into loading docks, small huts that acted as makeshift guard booths.

  The only difference King could spot between this place and all the others he’d observed was the heightened security.

  Three mean-looking thugs patrolled the front of the property, protecting the thin gap in the wire fence that shift workers were allowed to squeeze through in order to access the factory. They openly wielded Kalashnikov rifles, clearly not concerned with legal trouble. The trio scowled at every passer-by, of which there were few. No-one came to this district without a purpose — King included.

  It didn’t take long for them to notice him loitering on the other side of the street.

  ‘Keep walking, gringo,’ one of them called.

  The man’s voice echoed across the street, ringing off the nearby buildings.

  King nodded, smiled warmly, and kept slowly strolling along the sidewalk. He stared down at his feet, rapidly trying to piece a plan together. He couldn’t do anything to draw attention to himself — it would be a simple matter to gun down the three guards out front, but there was likely a small army waiting for him inside.

  He had severely underestimated the extent of Ramos’ operation.

  Lars’ information had painted the picture of a man who had haphazardly thrown a plan together and executed it in relentless fashion. What King saw now was an airtight setup, which he should have expected in the first place. He didn’t know what the point of the walk into the maquiladora city had been. Perhaps subconsciously he’d imagined strolling through the open gate and finding Ramos sitting in his office with his back turned.

  That would never have been the case.

  King spent so long focusing on his shortcomings that he failed to pay attention to his surroundings. The first indication that all was not right came from an ominous growling in his ears. He had almost reached the far edge of the street and left Ramos’ facility behind when he turned to identify the source of the noise.

  When he did, his eyes boggled involuntarily.

  A convoy of armoured vehicles had materialised on the horizon, their engines screaming as they tore towards King’s end of the street. He tensed up, terrified that Ramos had located him and brought a small army of thugs with him to finish the job.

  Maybe he wasn’t underestimating King any longer.

  Then King realised that he had nothing to do with what was about to unfold.

  Factory workers ducked and ran, most of them screaming and flailing. King sensed the raw, abject terror in the air, and he held his breath for imminent chaos.

  He was right to expect it.

  The trio of guards out the front of Ramos’ facility noticed the long line of armoured dump trucks, Ford pick-up trucks, and modified wagons heading straight for them. They brought their Kalashnikovs up to shoulder-height, all in unison, and unloaded their magazines at the approaching convoy.

  The deafening rattle of automatic gunfire ripped through the otherwise-quiet factory district. Screams rose in a horrifying chorus from nearby buildings — like people knew what the gunshots signified.

  The convoy had been prepared for an attack. The bullets bounced harmlessly off their steel-plated hulls. King heard the metallic clang of ricochets and dropped instinctively, praying that he didn’t get hit by a stray round.

  The lead vehicle in the convoy — a massive semi-truck that had been modified specifically for war — veered off the empty road, mounting the opposite sidewalk. Two of the perimeter guards dived out of the way, but the third man was too distracted, busy unloading his rifle at the bulletproof windshield of the truck.

  He realised his mistake far too late.

  The semi-truck mowed him down, simply pulverising him underneath its giant hood. It carried on, tearing through the flimsy wire fence. The sound of twisting steel screeched through the district. The truck bounced down onto the opposite driveway, its suspension handling the off-road trip effortlessly, and it barrelled into the complex at a blistering rate.

  Capitalising on the opening, the rest of the vehicles sped through the opening. Two, then three, then four, then five.

  Within the facility, gunshots cracked and bedlam erupted.

  King couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d stumbled into a full-scale gang war — his best guess was that the Draco cartel had reached their wits’ end and mounted a staggering retaliation against Ramos’ provocation.

  He paused for a single moment, eyeing the gaping hole in the front of the property and the steel-plated vehicles screeching to a halt out the front of the massive roller doors.

  Then he shed his hesitation, ripped the P226 and the Five-seven free from his waistband, and sprinted across the road toward the site.

  Heading into a war zone.

  31

  It would more than likely get him killed, but he couldn’t comprehend a better chance to capitalise than right now.

  He pumped his arms and legs like pistons, racing across the smooth asphalt and mounting the opposite sidewalk. The two perimeter guards who had dived for cover noticed him barrelling towards them. They scrambled for their dropped firearms simultaneously, desperate to arm themselves. Their expressions had twisted into determined scowls.

  King knew they would gun him down without mercy if he hesitated.

  He raised the P226, preferring to use a single weapon instead of attempting to dual-wield, and pumped the trigger twice, sending a round through each man’s upper back.

  Maximise the target area, he thought.

  Both men slumped forward, abandoning their attempts to snatch at their guns. They started to bleed profusely, crippled by the wounds. A shot through the upper torso spelled disaster no matter where the bullet struck. There were all kinds of juicy, vulnerable organs up there. King let the pair deal with the consequences of their actions and sprinted straight past them, heading into the facility.

  The hundred-foot stretch of flat driveway between the perimeter and the main warehouse left no cover whatsoever. King recognised how vulnerable he was as he raced across the concrete. He abandoned any attempt to minimise his potential to get shot. If someone fired at him from here, he would be helpless to stop it. Instead he concentrated on speed.

  By the time he reached the towering roller doors at the front of the warehouse and vaulted inside, his lungs had started to burn. They screamed for oxygen, but he shut out the sensation, focusing entirely on what lay ahead.

  It was difficult to choose what to concentrate on first.

  A skirmish had broken out inside the facility, waged between the army of gangsters that had just invaded the property and the factory guards already stationed here. Screaming, howling workers cowered underneath long rows of workstations, trying to avoid the crossfire as best they could.

  Find Ramos, King thought. Just fucking find Ramos.

  He brought his adrenalin back under control, just as a volley of rifle fire blasted chunks of concrete into shreds right near his face. He ducked back under the lip of the warehouse entrance, taking cover momentarily.

  Three.

  Streams of Spanish curses ripped through the warehouse.

  Two.

  Gunshots cracked and popped.

  One.

  Screams emanated from the factory floor.

  Go.

  He waited for the gunfire to settle as gangsters on both sides ran out of ammunition and paused to reload. There was still the odd staccato of a three-round burst, but the initial adrenalin dump seemed to have passed.

  King took that opportunity to vault up onto the warehouse floor, landing awkwardly on the dusty concrete. He hurried over to the nearest available cover — a chunky steel workstation covered in half-full wooden crates, each crammed with airtight packages. All the crates had per
manent marker scrawled on their sides, labelling them: C17H21NO4.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, that was the formula for pure cocaine powder.

  Unsuppressed gunshots roared close by, coming from the other side of the workstation. King rose into view and let loose with the Five-seven, firing four shots into a pair of singlet-clad, heavily-tattooed thugs that he assumed worked for the Draco cartel.

  They dropped amidst flying droplets of blood exiting from the bullet wounds.

  Instantly, a cluster of Ramos’ men halfway inside the facility fired their AK-47s, littering King’s surroundings with the metallic clang of ricocheting rounds.

  He ducked back behind the workstation, but the brief reprieve from getting fired upon had allowed him a better look at the layout of the facility.

  He’d glimpsed a row of smaller offices at the back of the warehouse, on the other side of all the production equipment. Between them was a literal maze of workstations, giant industrial ovens, hundred-gallon barrels of unknown product, and at least twenty gangsters from opposing cartels. The infighting had reached boiling point — the invading Draco thugs had pressed further into the facility, turning the gunfight into a close-quarters riot.

  If Ramos was on the premises, he would be in the offices.

  That’s where the Draco thugs were headed.

  That’s where King would head.

  Satisfied that Ramos’ goons and the Draco henchmen were preoccupied trying to kill each other, he skirted around the side of the workstation and hurried over to a vast wall of barrels, arranged by forklifts into neat stacked rows for ease of access. He took cover behind the closest forklift and glanced inside the contents of the first row.

  They were filled at random, with no pre-determined pattern — some contained wet cement that had just been produced for the day’s work, others were full to the brim with gasoline, and a last batch contained some kind of dry fertiliser that gave off a horrid stench.

  King posited that the foul ingredients were used during the process of converting coca leaves into the pure cocaine he’d glimpsed at the first workstation, probably combined into a brew to draw the necessary ingredients out of the leaves themselves.