by M C Rowley
“We need a distraction. Something to get them out for a moment. Then we get in, search for Jairo.”
I nodded. “Get into which building?”
“The bigger one. If the operation they’re running is what you described, they need a bigger space.”
“Makes sense.”
“But we’re too exposed if we make a move now. Who knows what’s behind the door? We wait for nightfall.”
“Okay,” I said. I judged it to be around six p.m., which meant at least two hours before dark. I was hungry and Jean must have been too.
“We should eat something,” I said, expecting a scolding reply.
But Jean said, “Good thinking. I’ll go and bring something back. You keep watch. If Jairo appears, make a run for him and give him this.”
She pulled a small handgun out from the small of her back and passed it to me.
“What do you mean, give him the gun? This little thing?”
Jean smiled. “You really don’t know who your son is, do you?”
I looked down and felt a tug of shame.
“He won’t need any more than that,” she said, before clambering over the wall again and disappearing into the street that led away from the one we were monitoring.
I went back to the window and glued my eyes to the door.
By the time Jean came back over the wall with what smelled like roast chicken, I had seen three cops come and go through the door, each passing directly in front to the bigger building. Jean settled next to me and opened the plastic bag she was holding.
“Here,” she said.
“How did you get it?”
“Does it matter?”
I shook my head. It didn’t, and I was starving.
As we ate, I reported my sightings and Jean nodded.
“It’s almost dark enough. I got something else for the distraction.”
We finished the chicken, threw the plastic bag and bones to the side onto a mound of trash, and went back to the window. Almost as we did so, the blue door opened and this time two people came out of it. Two people carrying a third.
The cops were struggling under the weight of the third, because the third was unconscious, and dressed in what appeared to be a hospital gown. We watched as they dragged the flailing limbs and heavy body across the street to the bigger building, waited, and then entered.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I said.
Jean nodded. “Time for our distraction. Follow me.”
We jumped back out of our hiding hole and around the corner to find that Jean had hot-wired an old jalopy, an ancient VW Jetta that had seen much better days about three decades back. The windows were devoid of glass—black plastic refuse sacks were used instead—and the hood had the remnants of an almighty dent. I guessed the color used to be black. It really was a faded shade of gray now.
Jean had checked the area, and our target building, the bigger one, was on a block about 200 yards long on each side. Jean would create the distraction at the blue door and we would sprint around the block to get into the bigger building from the opposite side.
“Simple,” she said.
That word stayed with me as I stood out of sight around the corner of the block and Jean accelerated the old wreck out of the side road and out into the street diagonally, heading straight at the house with the blue steel door.
It happened in seconds. It felt like minutes.
The plume of dust and smoke as the bumper, and behind it the motor block, slammed into the flimsy one-breeze-block-thick wall.
Jean’s black figure in the car jolted violently forward.
Everything quickly came to a halt. Nothing moved beside the pillars of smoke coming from the Jetta’s rear end, and from the front, via the new hole in the wall.
As the smoke began to clear, Jean moved fast and flung open the door. She rolled out of the wreck and stumbled to her feet and ran to me.
“Go-go-go,” she said. “Now!”
I turned and ran in the opposite direction.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It always took a while for Reynolds to connect the voice distorter to the telephone, and now it was being particularly irritating and slipping off the damned plastic of the mouthpiece. But today nothing could spoil his mood. Not even the usual frustrations he lived with.
He punched in the number of the Founders’ Jewish lawyer in New York, a scrawny little man who enjoyed the power and influence he believed speaking with people such as the Founders and Mr. Reynolds bestowed upon him. Mr. Reynolds tolerated him. He was a necessary mediator, and a rather good one at that, to be fair.
The line rang once, then the lawyer’s whiny voice came on.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” said Reynolds, who never stopped worrying that the voice distorter was not doing the conversion correctly. Every time he made a call, his paranoia that it had failed and his real voice was coming through haunted him.
“Yeah, I guessed,” said the lawyer, and then, in hushed tones: “I can’t really talk right now, to be honest.”
“Then just listen,” said Reynolds.
Silence. Agreement.
“Tell the Founders that it’s done. We need the transfer by the end of business tomorrow, no later. Eastside time.”
“It’s done?”
Reynolds breathed deeply. It was none of the goddamned lawyer’s business and his instinct was to tell him so, but he breathed instead, collected himself, and focused on the positive.
“War has started in the south. Full-on civil war as promised. Within a week, operations will start in the U.S. We need the funds agreed by tomorrow. Tell them that and make sure it happens. No one gets paid until it happens. Got it?”
“Got it,” said the lawyer. “I’ll make the calls this afternoon.”
“Good,” said Reynolds and hung up.
He detached the distorter from the mouthpiece and walked to the window. Outside, the tall eucalyptus trees swayed in the wind. He had been patient. He was good at being patient. And now, almost all the power he could have imagined would be his.
He jumped when the secure direct line went off. He turned and walked to the desk and picked up the phone without saying anything.
Luciana’s voice came on. “We’ve secured Jairo Morales, sir.”
Reynolds smiled. He let the silence feed across to his aide, knowing she would speak into it.
“He’s under control too. We’ll be stateside by tomorrow.”
Reynolds’ smile stretched wide.
“And his father?”
“It was impossible,” said Luciana. “He won’t make it. He’s weak.”
“If the chance arises, take him too,” said Reynolds.
“Yes, sir,” said Luciana and she hung up.
Reynolds put the receiver back on its holder and returned to the window. In the faint light, his reflection was almost invisible, but he could see his own grin, spread across his face, in the glass.
It had been a good day.
He had secured nearly ten billion dollars in liquid cash investment.
He had secured the force of the most terrifying army known to man since Hitler in Germany, 1939.
Luciana was on her way back already, the hunt over.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We sprinted and made it to the next corner of the block in less than five seconds. Jean overtook me and her long strides made her a lot more adept at running than me, but I was tall and a good runner and I mirrored her movements and maintained a decent speed. We cleared the back end in another five seconds, then ran to the last corner, turned it, and ran the last stretch back toward the front of the house in another five seconds.
About fifteen seconds in total.
It was chaos.
Jean’s plan had worked. The wreck, now smoking outside the house with the blue door, had caught the attention of the people in the larger building. They were pouring out of it now, some in cop uni
forms, others in white doctor coats, and there in black, amongst them, Luciana.
Jean grabbed my shoulder to pull me back from our viewpoint and turned me to face her.
“We go in, check it, and get out. If shit goes off, get under cover. I’ll take out as many as I can.”
She tapped the gun at her hip.
I nodded and tapped the pistol in my pocket.
We ran.
The fire from the ancient Jetta was spluttering, the smoke getting darker, and I realized the motor had gone up in flames. We could have danced to the door of the big building and no one would have seen us.
They’d even left the door open.
We slipped in and found ourselves in a large warehouse-type space, similar in size to the drug lab at the Badland. But there were no vats, or tanks of gas.
The smell of excrement and urine hit me hard. And bleach. I looked up, trying to keep my cool alongside Jean.
The entire space was filled with hospital beds.
Each with an inert body and accompanying drip feed.
“You start there,” said Jean, pointing to the right. “I’ll start this side.”
I did as I was told and ran to the first bed. It was a man dressed in a Federal Police uniform. His face was badly beaten. The drip ran into his left arm and I looked at the label and read Benzodiazepine.
No time to wonder. I moved to the next bed.
In it was a short guy dressed in a check shirt and jeans and long brown cowboy boots. He too was beaten-up and bruised, and totally out of it.
I moved to the next.
After six more comatose victims, there was no sign of Jairo. I looked across at Jean, saw she was going faster than I was, and kept moving.
Outside, gunshots sounded, and then a crack.
Jean glanced across at me.
“Faster!”
I moved to the next. Another cop. The next, an old man. The next, a young woman.
Some of them had a bloody X cut into their forehead. A mark of the cartel. No time to wonder. I moved on.
Outside, another shot.
I heard Jean curse. “No time,” I said under my breath. “Come on.”
As I was about to give up hope, I saw him. His tall, muscular figure lay flat, the same setup as the rest.
I ran to his side. His face looked peaceful compared to his usual scowl when awake. He was pasty-white and ill-looking.
“Here!”
Jean ran to me.
Jairo’s face had sunk to the side, inert.
“Well done,” said Jean. “Let’s go.”
I looked up at her. “What?”
“We can go now,” she said.
“What the hell do you mean?” I went to slide my arm under my son’s heavy frame. “Help me,” I said.
“No,” said Jean. “We should go now.”
“What the hell?”
“Don’t worry,” she said again. “I know where they’re taking them now.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see. For now, we have to go.”
Outside, the commotion grew louder. They were coming back.
“Okay,” I said, pulling my arm back and leaving Jairo as he was. I looked at his face. So peaceful. I could see Eleanor in him. I realized that since I’d found out he was still alive, I’d spent no more than a second actually looking at his face. I was ashamed. Ashamed that I’d let him be taken when he was a defenseless baby. And ashamed at the things that had been done to him since. The things that had made him a killer.
“Now,” said Jean.
We ran back to the door. Jean peered outside. Satisfied, she nodded back to me.
We swiveled and sprinted once more to the corner. Once out of sight, we slammed our backs to the concrete wall and gathered ourselves.
“Where are we going?”
Jean caught her breath and looked at me. “Back to the military base. To the airstrip. They’re going to fly those people out of here, Jairo included.”
Of course.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I get it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We got to the edge of Miahuatlán, where the concrete faded into the green of the jungle, and sat down awhile, off the main track, back in the jungle. The mound on which we sat was slightly elevated and provided a decent view of the road cutting through the bush without making us too visible.
Jean said, “If we get there before the next flight, Jairo will be on one of those planes. I think Luciana’s taking him to Reynolds.”
I nodded.
“So we need to be on that plane too.”
I nodded again. I understood the task ahead. The base had been around half an hour away by bus, so walking would take three hours. A car would take twenty minutes, tops.
“We need a car.”
Jean nodded this time. “That’s what I’m waiting for.”
And she got up to a stoop, eyeing the road. I heard the sound a motor rattling a short distance away.
“Wait here,” said Jean, and she stood and started off toward the road. I followed her order and watched.
She made it to the bank above the road and disappeared down to the tarmac below, out of sight. The sound of the motor was closer now, chugging away. An old car, with its parts barely hanging on, probably rusted to hell.
And then the motor sound stopped.
A pause.
And then a gunshot and a scream.
I stood out of instinct.
Jean’s face appeared over the bank, and she looked at me intently.
“Come on!”
I ran across the foliage to her and looked down. The ancient blue Chevy had its two doors wide open. About twenty meters away, a pair of old people and a young lady were walking away from us.
“You carjacked them?”
Jean nodded, her pistol still drawn. “Get in, Dyce. We haven’t got much time.”
Desperate times.
I clambered down and got in.
Jean revved the engine and started a three-point turn that became a ten-point turn, and once we were facing north, we set off.
As we passed the poor ex-owners of the Chevy, they dived into the bushes. Jean kept her gaze forward, ignoring them.
“They wouldn’t have kept the car for long anyway,” she said. “Lucky it was us and not Código X who found them.”
As we accelerated around the first bend, I thought of X03 and his cartel.
“This is happening everywhere, isn’t it?” I said.
“The chaos?”
“The war,” I said.
Jean nodded. “The cities are worse.”
We drove for just under twenty minutes before we reached the strip of road on which the military base’s entrance lay. It was a rare straight section of road, with the Sierra’s ubiquitous green walls of jungle at either side. Jean pulled over and drove the Chevy as far into the bushes as it would go and killed the engine.
“This is perfect. We wait until dark. Then we go in and find the plane.”
“How do we know which one?”
“Well, in the last few days, since they started taking off, I’ve seen nothing but military personnel carriers. C-130s.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound informed.
“I think they’ll only have one on the strip at a time.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I think they’re doing with those drugged people.”
I didn’t push it. I had learned to keep quiet when people like Jean were concentrating on a mission.
We waited in the car, both staring at the entrance fifty yards away, for another four hours. The sun went down and we were surrounded by darkness and the constant hum of crickets.
Jean got out first and I followed her to her side, back in the bushes.
“Over the wall,” said Jean, pointing across the way through the trees and bushes to where a four-meter-high wall separated us from the base.
We crossed the road, still devoid of cars, and made it to the bottom of
the wall.
“Hunch down. Make a cradle with your hands,” said Jean.
“Why you first?”
She looked at me in the moonlight.
“You’re fitter than I am,” I said, trying to sound reasonable.
“You’re a lot taller,” she said. “I’ll help you up.”
“Alright.”
I hunched down. We were like two naughty kids trying to get their ball back from the asshole neighbor. Jean’s boot settled on my joined palms and I felt her body weight press down as she placed her hands as high as they’d go on the concrete surface of the wall.
“Now lift!”
I did, and her other boot smacked me in the head as it flew past. I lost my balance. Jean tumbled to the side and I crumpled like a rag doll.
Jean groaned from where she’d fallen. “Idiot!”
“Sorry,” I said. “Let’s try again. Your foot hit me.”
Jean got up and brushed herself down and then stopped suddenly, panic on her face.
“Shush! Get down.”
I did as I was told, and as we got behind one of the low bushes, a truck drove past. It was a military personnel transporter.
We watched it go by.
“We have to do this now,” she said. “That could be them.”
Once we were sure they had passed, we returned to our position, and this time I lifted as hard as I could. Jean’s boot flew past my face without contact and with my palms and her feet at eye level, I pushed extra hard to lift her high enough to reach the top of the wall.
Her voice came from up there, distant. “Got it!”
I smiled, straining against the weight.
I didn’t notice the figures walk out from the roadside and encircle us until it was too late.
“No, you don’t,” said the voice of Luciana.
Chapter Thirty
I froze. Luciana stepped forward. To either side of her stood five men dressed in black combat gear and aiming machine guns at me and Jean.
“Let go of her feet,” said Luciana in a calm voice. The voice of somebody in control.
“She’ll fall,” I said.
