by Matt Rogers
Stay right there, the gesture commanded.
King complied.
There was little else he could do.
He watched the four-man riot squad clear the local police sedan in clinical fashion. The other officer in the back seat caught a round through the forehead, killing him instantly. Then the only man left was the guy who had spilled out of the car alongside King.
King glanced over at the man — a young guy, his uniform a size too large, probably ambitious that he would pack on some muscle throughout the years and grow into his gangly frame. The man was on Draco’s payroll, clearly, but King got the sense — as he had a few times in Tijuana — that there was little other choice for men like them.
Work for us, take a bribe, or meet your demise in a shallow ditch for daring to defy us.
‘Run,’ King mouthed.
The guy had seized up in terror, caught in the no man’s land between the row of traffic that had banked up at the mouth of the intersection and the sinister-looking team of law enforcement hitmen in the middle.
He flapped his lips like a dying fish, confused, unsure.
‘Run!’ King screamed.
The guy turned his back and took off.
He made it three steps.
King watched the rounds punch through the back of his thin shirt. The shirt had been recently ironed — maybe the guy wanted to look good for his new job. King grimaced as blood fountained from the wounds and the man face-planted the asphalt, coming to an unceremonious halt just a few feet from where he had first taken off.
He never stood a hope.
King had known that.
But it was either stay on the spot and see the barrel aiming in your direction, or make a run for it and never see the end coming.
King wished that the man had been holding onto some semblance of hope when he died.
It might have made it easier.
He turned to face the squad of federal policemen. There was no point shying away from his own death. With his hands useless and his position vulnerable, he knew that he was at the mercy of the approaching federal policemen.
In the midst of the adrenalin dump, he had no time to think about why the different police divisions had attacked each other.
It didn’t cross his mind until the barrels of the assault rifles dropped to point at the ground.
They weren’t going to kill him.
At least, not yet.
King registered the confusion of the situation, and decided to use it to full advantage.
One of the federal officers stepped forward from the rest of the pack, brandishing a set of keys that he had fished out of the half-demolished sedan. King nodded his satisfaction and turned on the spot, indicating that he wanted to be freed as fast as possible. The officer complied, unlocking his cuffs and tossing them onto the asphalt by their feet.
King spun back to face the man, secretly astonished as to what was unfolding.
The federal officer said something in Spanish.
‘I’m American,’ King said, rubbing his wrists in an attempt to soothe them.
‘Oh,’ the man said.
‘Thanks for getting me out of there.’
The man paused, studying King’s accent, analysing his demeanour. ‘In what capacity do you work for Ramos?’
So that’s what this is, King realised.
These men were on Ramos’ payroll. Evidently, Ramos had sensed that existing local law enforcement wouldn’t budge if he attempted to sway them over to his side. They were already firmly in the clutches of the Draco cartel. But Mexico had a complex web of authorities, separate divisions that had no loyalty to Tijuana but operated in the same territory.
He’d bought certain members of the federal police.
And in the confusion of responding to the warehouse attack, these men had set about freeing anyone who had been apprehended by the Draco-bought police.
A complex web, indeed.
King would use it.
‘In no capacity whatsoever,’ he said. ‘But thanks for the help.’
He reached down and wrenched the Colt 9mm sub-machine-gun out of the man’s gloved hands with enough force to throw the policeman off-balance. The guy’s fingers stayed wrapped around the grip, with one slotted into the trigger guard, but King tugged harder, breaking the man’s finger with a gut-wrenching crack.
The guy slackened his grip, and King tore the weapon free.
He had a gun.
34
King knew he needed to act fast.
There were three armed federal officers ahead, all having already killed fellow law enforcement comrades. They clearly cared little about murder, and would happily gun King down if they recognised that he wasn’t part of Ramos’ operation. They were protected by anonymity, their features concealed by riot masks.
They wouldn’t hesitate to add another body to their kill count.
But neither would King.
This was a reckless city, and he would have to compensate to survive.
He noted the model of the Colt SMG in his hands — a RO639. The selective fire had been set to three-round-burst. Three bullets expended for every pull of the trigger.
King darted sideways, stepping out of the way of the man he had stripped the weapon off, opening up the space in front of him. He raised the Colt SMG to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger three times.
Nine rounds total.
The federal officers were suitably geared up for the occasion, clad from head-to-toe in body armour. King targeted the narrow slit between their chest plates and their riot masks with each three-round-burst, working his aim like he was back on the shooting range. Before he fired, he allowed his nerves to calm, turning his trembling hands into stone. He narrowed in on his targets and let all other thoughts flow out of his mind.
It paid off.
The three officers dropped one after the other, arterial blood spilling from the bare skin below their riot masks. They went limp in unison, offering no resistance to King’s attack.
When the trio had collapsed to the road, King sliced the barrel back around to lock onto the man he had disarmed seconds earlier.
‘Fuck,’ the guy said, a single syllable that spelled out every thought in the man’s head.
‘Yeah,’ King said.
The officers had taken an unnecessary risk. They’d mercilessly gunned down an entire squad of local police officers just to appease their unofficial boss.
It hadn’t worked out for them.
King killed the fourth federal officer with the same tactic, sending three Parabellum rounds through his throat. He didn’t have a shred of remorse while doing so.
Out here, it was kill or be killed.
With eight law enforcement officers dead on the scene, King knew he couldn’t waste a second. He sprinted over to the three dead federal police near the sedan and swapped his near-empty Colt SMG for two of their fully-loaded ones. Then he continued his pace across the street, darting between two long, low buildings and vanishing out of sight of the civilians who had witnessed the carnage.
Alone in a filthy alleyway, he was able to let out the breath that had stalled in his throat since Ramos’ warehouse had been invaded.
It had been a chaotic chain of events. At any point he could have caught a stray bullet or disappeared into the bowels of the corrupt police system. As he made it through to the next street and shoved the two sub-machine-guns underneath his shirt to prevent any unwanted attention, the shock began to set in.
He had come horrendously close to death time and time again, with nothing to show for it. A handful of cartel thugs and police officers were dead — little else had been achieved.
He was no closer to Ramos.
He hurried through the Eastern La Mesa district, home to a sprawling network of rundown offices, warehouses, and industrial complexes. The sun beat down overhead. King wiped his shirt-sleeve across his forehead, which came away stained with a mixture of sweat and blood.
He must have hi
t his head against the asphalt while falling out of the police sedan.
He shook off a brief spell of dizziness and continued through the narrow streets. Traffic ran thick in these parts of Tijuana, with thousands of battered vehicles resting almost bumper-to-bumper. The daily rush of mid-morning, as workers headed for their shifts.
He kept up an awkward gait, half-shielding the bulky sub-machine-guns with his shirt. To a keen eye, what he was concealing would be obvious. But he had no intention of hiding it completely. He simply wanted to avoid arrest until he made it back to his motel room.
The time passed slowly. It couldn’t have been more than a fifteen-minute-walk back to the motel, but his limbs seemed to drag as he started to overheat. The flood of neurochemicals to his brain that had allowed him to operate at peak capacity during the conflict was beginning to disperse. His hands and feet were heavy. It took great effort to put one foot in front of the other.
And — at all times — the fear never left.
He imagined running into Ramos’ men, or members of the Draco cartel, or any of the multitude of police divisions operating in Tijuana who had been bought off by gangsters.
He wanted peace.
He wanted quiet.
But he hadn’t achieved anything yet, so he would press on.
When he reached the motel complex and eased back into his room, he made the decision to call Lars.
It was now ten in the morning in Tijuana. He’d delayed getting in touch with his handler for long enough. Lars was probably close to abandoning all hope of King’s return.
Maybe the U.S. thought he was dead.
Would they send a squad of elite operatives to retrieve him?
Of course not.
He would be chalked up as another statistic of the war on drugs, and the new division that Lars had pioneered would be swept back under the rug.
A colossal failure, in all regards.
Not just yet, King thought.
He dumped the two Colt SMGs on the mattress and pulled the duffel bag out from underneath the bed frame. He fished the military satellite phone out of the top of the duffel and dialled the single contact number in the phone.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ a voice barked barely a second after the call went through.
35
‘Lars,’ King said.
‘So you are alive.’
‘Unfortunately,’ he quipped.
‘Do you have results?’
‘I wish I did.’
‘Tell me everything that’s happened so far.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You’ve done something right,’ Lars said.
‘Oh?’ King said. ‘Please enlighten me. Because it feels like I’ve fucked everything up completely.’
‘Whatever happened… it sure scared Ramos off.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He’s not in the country.’
‘How do you know any of this?’
‘I’ve been trying to get in contact with you all night,’ Lars hissed. ‘Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone?’
‘I was avoiding this very conversation. Thought I might have something to show for my work this morning.’
‘And?’
‘Still got nothing.’
‘What did you do this morning?’
‘I thought I’d pay one of Ramos’ facilities a visit. I was supposed to be delivered there by a trio of kidnappers last night. Thought Ramos might be there.’
‘Like I said, he’s not in the country.’
‘How the hell do you know where he is?’
‘The TOR encryption that he’s using for all of his operations,’ Lars said. ‘We made a breakthrough. With his tech team gone, he’s had to try and handle the digital workload himself. And, frankly, he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s left a trail of breadcrumbs through his encryption. He isn’t coding things correctly.’
‘And you can capitalise on that?’
‘We invented TOR,’ Lars said. ‘The US Naval Research Laboratory actually developed the technology that the encryption is based on.’
‘You’ve lost me entirely,’ King said.
‘Basically, we know the encryption very, very well. Any slip-up is something we can take advantage of. His previous team were bulletproof — they didn’t make a single error the entire time we were keeping tabs on them. But Ramos has made plenty. He’s been trying to anonymously communicate with his men back in Tijuana. He left his location wide open.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Northern Guatemala.’
King glanced at his watch. ‘Already? Jesus Christ. That’s a few thousand miles from here.’
‘It’s obvious that he’s retreated to somewhere familiar,’ Lars said. ‘From what we can guess, Ramos has processing facilities out there. It’s cheap labour, and all the cartels seem to be doing it these days. The Mexico-Guatemala border is effectively lawless. Ramos can take advantage of the hordes of locals looking for work, then smuggle his product through to Chiapas and up to Tijuana.’
‘Is this all just a guess?’
‘There’s no other reason for him to be there. He’s in the middle of the jungle. Near an ancient Mayan city by the name of Piedras Negras. Unless he’s decided to revert to living as a caveman, then he has important facilities out that way. He’s gone into hiding.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ King said. ‘He almost killed me over and over again yesterday.’
‘Well, what happened this morning?’ Lars said. ‘This situation is multi-faceted. There could be any number of reasons why he decided to flee.’
King recalled the convoy of Draco vehicles storming into Ramos’ warehouse. ‘One of the rival cartels hit him hard this morning. Maybe he was expecting it.’
‘Maybe. It seems like everything unfolded all at once. He’s in panic mode.’
‘You think he’s growing his product out that way?’ King said.
‘No. Cartels rarely grow their own product. It’s packaging — I’m sure of it. A number of different gangs fight for power out there. All the coca is grown in either Bolivia, Colombia, or Peru. Cartels are like supermarket chains. They buy from the farmers, process the drugs themselves, then sell onto dealers. At least — that’s what Ramos is doing.’
‘So he really has fallen back to his last resort?’ King said. ‘Where will he go from Guatemala?’
‘Our guess is that he’ll stay there as long as he needs to,’ Lars said. ‘We can put a team together to take him out. Look, King, you did your job. You funnelled him into a corner. SEALs or Delta can do the rest of the work. Well done.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ King said. ‘It was the Draco cartel. I’m just a slight grievance to these massive organisations.’
‘I realise that,’ Lars said. ‘But it doesn’t look that way. I can spin this to look like we achieved our plan flawlessly.’
‘But we didn’t.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it?’
‘Oh, I get it,’ King said. ‘But I’m not happy about it.’
‘There’s not much time to be happy in this business.’
‘I’m going to Guatemala.’
‘You’re … what?!’ Lars yelled, suddenly infuriated. ‘No, you’re fucking not.’
‘We can spin this however we want,’ King said. ‘But in the end, the truth will come out. I did nothing but exacerbate the problem. You want something to show your superiors? Let me go into the jungle. I’ll come out with Ramos’ head.’
‘You won’t come out at all. You know how that corner of the world works? It’s madness.’
‘I like madness.’
‘There’s nothing left for me to do here,’ King said. ‘It took what happened this morning to make me realise the extent of the drug war that’s gripping this city. Nothing I do will change that. The corruption runs deep. There’ll always be people to replace the ones I kill.’
‘You were never there to do anything else,’ Lars said. ‘
You were there to kill Ramos.’
‘Then let me do what I came here to do.’
‘I’ve been informed that we have other operatives who can deal with that.’
‘Then send me back to Delta.’
‘You’ll be a useful solo operative,’ Lars said. ‘You’ve proven that you can be sent in to stir things up. That’ll be seen in a positive light.’
‘I don’t want to exist solely to stir things up. I want to exist to get the job done.’
‘King…’
‘I’m going to Guatemala,’ he said. ‘You can discharge me from the military if you want. Arrest me, for all I care. I’ll kill Ramos if it’s the last thing I do. You sent me into Mexico with a task, and I know I can complete it.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘If I give you permission to head in there, and you don’t succeed…’ Lars said. ‘You know what’s at stake here.’
‘I’m not asking for permission. I’m going to do it. I have a personal grudge against the man.’
Lars drew air in sharply.
‘You don’t let anyone hear that apart from me, okay?’ he hissed. ‘What on earth are you thinking? You think we have time for personal vendettas in this business?’
‘If it didn’t involve the job, I’d abandon it,’ King said. ‘Luckily, it involves the job.’
‘How do you propose you’re going to storm a heavily-protected processing facility?’ Lars said, his tone sardonic. ‘Not to mention the other cartels that operate out of that area. You’ll run into a war zone. There’s ten or more entities fighting for territory out there, and a small army of hired guns to protect each camp. You understand that, right?’
‘I understand.’
‘You’re more than likely going to get yourself killed.’
‘What do you care?’ King snapped. ‘You barely know me. Don’t let your heart get in the way of your head, Lars. We don’t know each other well enough yet. You shouldn’t care if I die out there. Just another deceased operative. Move on to the next.’
‘I think I have something with you,’ Lars said. ‘Your reflexes. They’re not like anything I’ve ever seen before.’
