by M C Rowley
“Get down,” said Reynolds.
They did, and the gunshots started. Against the door, against the wall outside. Loud thuds and shouts from the men outside.
Jairo screamed over the din, “This was your fucking plan?”
Reynolds was lying against the back wall. “Just stay where you are. The office is reinforced concrete with a bulletproof shell membrane. They won’t get through.”
“This is a siege,” said Luciana.
The thuds got more frequent. Jairo rolled closer to the back wall. Luciana was on the side wall, lying straight along where the wall met the floor.
“They’ll just wait for us. Or bring explosives.”
Reynolds said, “They won’t have time.”
He pulled out his phone and tapped and swiped it, and grinned.
“What?”
Jairo was getting angry now.
“Two minutes,” said Reynolds. “Wait.”
They waited. And the thuds got more ferocious. Jairo glared at the wall dividing them from the Código X men and prayed that Reynolds had paid for the right installation. He’d heard of cartel bosses getting their trucks bulletproofed only to find out the installation had been fake when their rival shot it up the next day. Classic cartel tricks.
Bottom line: you trusted no one.
The two minutes passed and the wall held up. They heard a pause in the firing, then shouts. More men, Jairo could have sworn. Entering the warehouse.
“Who is that?”
Reynolds didn’t look at him. “New government of Mexico. Marines. I cut a deal.”
They listened as the thuds started again. More gunfire than before. A battle was going on outside, and they could do nothing but sit and wait it out.
It took five more minutes before everything fell silent. Then there was a shout and a bang at the office door.
Reynolds rolled to one side and got up slowly. He walked to the door and undid the dead bolt and opened up.
In the opening stood a man in a camouflage uniform, black ski mask, and battle helmet. The word “MARINA” was emblazoned across his chest. He pulled back the mask to reveal a muscular face painted the same woodland camouflage design as his BDUs.
He smiled. “Done deal. Thank you for your confianza, señor.”
Reynolds came forward and shook his hand. “A pleasure.”
“Your boat is ready,” said the Marine.
“Good,” said Reynolds. He turned to Jairo and Luciana. “Let’s go.”
They walked through the warehouse, stepping over the fallen bodies of Código X members as they did, while the rest of the Marines unit started moving corpses and picking up shells.
“This way,” said Reynolds, leading them through a back entrance and to the seashore.
Jairo could see a jetty in the moonlight and a large speedboat-shaped vessel rocking on the gentle tide of the Mexican Gulf. They walked up the jetty and found another Marine waiting for them in the boat. Up closer, they could see the armored plating and utilitarian design. A single cab for the driver and an empty cargo space for them to stand in. There was a metal ladder linking the boat to the jetty, and they climbed it and jumped into the hold. The engine was already running. Jairo helped Luciana pull the ladder into the boat and Reynolds banged the window of the cab. Without looking back, the Marine raised a hand and started the engine.
They were no further than five meters from the jetty when a shrill scream rang out from the shore.
“Jairo!”
They all turned and looked back at the shore.
“Go back—it’s her, my mother,” said Jairo.
Standing on the black sand was Eleanor Dyce.
Chapter Forty-Seven
It had taken hours for the men who had grabbed me and Eleanor to come back. I couldn’t say how many, as I’d been drifting in and out of a trance, replaying the scene again and again. Questioning why Eleanor had left me. But eventually, I heard footsteps approaching and the men arrived. What a sight it must have been to behold: the güero (me) still tied up, a dead lady at his feet, stabbed to death through the eye, and his wife nowhere to be seen. Like a Jerry Springer episode from hell.
The men spilled into the room like water through a levee, shouting and arguing about what to do with me.
I hung my head and closed my eyes. Eleanor’s betrayal cut deep. I could not stop seeing the look on her face before she left me alone here. She’d lost her mind and I was to blame. If I had supported her search for Jairo earlier, maybe it might have worked out? I would never know.
The men crowded around me, but I didn’t listen to them. The sound of their voices was a muffled rumble of noise. They would kill me here and bury me here. Where Jairo had been for twenty-two years. The irony wasn’t wasted on me. I thought about the photo Jean had gotten depicting Reynolds running away with Estrella, back in DC. Her little face, unknowing and innocent. I had failed two of my bloodline, my son and my granddaughter. Jairo and Estrella.
I lifted my head and faced the men. They were rural types, dressed in worn-out clothes, with dark, sunburnt skin and small, beady eyes. There were five of them.
The one closest to me grabbed my jaw and spoke in Spanish. “You did this?”
I shook my head.
“Your wife did this?”
I shrugged. I thought it was pretty obvious.
“She stole one of our trucks,” said the man.
I stared at him, “You stole ours.”
“Kill him,” said one of the others. There were grunts of agreement.
I closed my eyes. If it hadn’t been for the thought of Estrella alive somewhere, I would have accepted a bullet. Without Eleanor, I was nothing. My son was not the person I’d thought we might find. But Estrella was different. She had no one except me. And I would be damned if I’d leave her alone, without a family.
I started moving in my ties, and the chair toppled, slamming me into the floor on my side.
“Take him outside,” shouted one of the men.
I felt arms grab me and lift me and we went up the basement steps into the cool night air. I breathed deeply and, for the first time since I was a kid, I prayed to God. I had never been religious, but agnostic in my younger years. I felt like if there was a God, I was pretty low down on His list of people to help. But I prayed for Estrella all the same.
Keep her safe. Don’t let her die.
I pleaded in my mind as the men cut me out of the chair and put me on my knees.
Look after her. Keep her alive.
I heard guns cocking and felt cold metal touch my head.
Keep her alive. Please! I beg you! Kill me, but keep Estrella alive!
“Kill him,” said one of the voices.
I opened my eyes.
The men stood in a semicircle around me, guns ready to shoot.
It was silent.
Keep her alive, you bastard. Forgive me and I’ll forgive you.
I heard a noise. In the near distance. From over the trees.
The guns aimed at my head moved slightly.
The noise grew louder. Something in the sky.
A helicopter.
Then I felt the guns leave my head and I looked up. To the left of the church dome Eleanor and I had used to find this place, a black chopper was turning around and coming toward us. The men didn’t shoot but waved their rifles around, shouting and swearing at each other. One of them ran off into the streets to the side of the plaza. I waited and watched the helicopter as it settled in the air above us and slightly to the right. The force of its blades threw leaves and dust and bits of trash into mini cyclones around us. I had to close my eyes.
The chopper lowered, and the roar of the engine surged and died just as quickly. I heard the rotors slowing and looked again.
The doors opened outward and from within came two figures. They were dressed in full battle gear, with black bandanas across their mouths and helmets, and they held semiautomatic rifles that made the men holding me look like the rancheros they were.
They approached us. One of them, taller than the other, went to the men and began barking at them, gun leveled at their heads. The men got the message and downed their weapons. The other figure walked to me and pulled down the bandana.
It was Agent Jean Santos.
I felt a smile crack open. “How’d you find me?”
Jean smiled back. “The magic of GPS, Scott. Where’s Eleanor?”
I stood up and dusted myself down. “Long story.”
Jean held my shoulder. “Come on. We have to get out of here. Is Eleanor close?”
I walked with her toward the chopper. “No. She went to find Jairo, and Reynolds. They’re together.”
Jean nodded. “Well,” she said. “That’s where we’re headed.”
I turned and saw that the men had dispersed and Jean’s colleague was following us to the helicopter, whose rotors had started again.
“Get in,” said Jean. “You can brief us on the way.”
Inside the chopper, Agent Rose sat on the bench opposite me. I remembered the last time I had ridden in a chopper like this, with Esteban and Jairo back in Lujano as we went to save Eleanor. This time, I was hunting her down.
Rose nodded at me and then at Jean, who was getting back in with her colleague. They shut the doors and we settled in for the ride. I felt the chopper lift off the ground. Within minutes, we were flying at a few thousand meters.
Jean shouted above the noise, “What happened with Eleanor?”
I shouted back, “We tracked a photo of Jairo and Luciana to that town back there. We were captured, but Eleanor got free.” I paused. “And she escaped, leaving me alone.”
Jean nodded.
I said, “She told me she was helping Reynolds and Jairo. That he would make our son a great man.”
Rose leaned forward. “Reynolds’ name is Roberto Andino. He was an informant on the Sons of No One for the DEA. The cartel found out and killed his family. Chopped off his arm.”
“So I did meet him,” I said. “He was Pastor Robert.”
Rose nodded. “Yep. And he’s been paying off the DEA agents for years to help him maneuver. Turns out he stashed ten million in Bitcoin back in 2008 when there was some technical glitch before the currency became big. Guess how much it’s worth now.”
“It’s all about money?”
“And revenge,” said Jean.
Rose interrupted: “We don’t know that. What we do know is that Andino needed a hidden account to transfer the money to. Otherwise it would be flagged and his plan would fall apart. The Sons had such an account. Old school, in Panama, with no names and no trace. Before the regulations came in. Jairo and the nine other Sons leaders had part of the account number each.”
“So Reynolds needed Jairo to get the clean money out.”
Rose nodded. “That’s part of their deal.”
I sat back. The windows were black and all I could feel was the shaking and vibrating of the chopper.
“So where are they?”
Jean said, “We got more intel on our flight down here. Andino bought an old, abandoned coastguard tower off the coast of Veracruz. That’s where we’re going.”
I rested my head on the back of the bench. The chopper stayed steady mostly, but eventually it banked and I felt the air change. I smelled salt and seaweed rising up from below us.
I asked Jean, “What’s your skin in the game?”
Jean looked across at Rose, then back to me. “We need Andino in custody. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Do you think he has my granddaughter with him?”
“It’s possible,” said Jean.
We flew on for another ten minutes before the pilot hollered back and Rose got up and kneeled on the bench directly behind the cockpit. He shouted instructions and the pilot began adjusting the course. The helicopter tilted and slowed. I grabbed the side of the bench and felt us lose altitude gradually.
We were here.
That was when the first bullet hit.
Chapter Forty-Eight
I heard the bullet hit the side of the chopper—a sharp, distinct thud as metal met metal. Then another, then another.
Then a ton.
Rose shouted across the small space that contained us, “We can’t stay here. Have to get down there.”
The pilot was shouting back at us, demanding instructions.
“Pull us directly over the top of the tower!”
The chopper shunted forward, bullets peppering the armored plating outside. We swung from side to side as the weight shifted, and the bullets suddenly stopped. I pictured us hovering directly above the structure, denying the shooter an angle.
“Can we land on the roof?”
“Yes, sir,” said the pilot. “I can’t stay here much longer though, sir.”
Rose went to doors and started getting them open.
“Hold tight,” he said.
The door slid open and the ferocious night wind entered the chopper’s interior. We all swung back again and grabbed whatever we could. Rose staggered back to the opening and peered out.
“Take us down to the roof.”
“Yes sir,” shouted the pilot.
I moved slowly along the bench toward the open door and peered down. The roof was getting closer. The coastguard tower must have been twenty meters above sea level. It was a large square-shaped structure. The roof was marked with a giant H to help choppers land. On one of the corners sat a large satellite dish. On another corner was an extended lookout tower.
That’s when I saw Luciana with the gun. Then—a yellow flash and everything shifted.
She had gotten a direct hit. Somewhere on the rotors above.
Our whole world went sideways. I grabbed the side of the door and watched as Rose went through, into the night. We were only a few meters above the helipad, but he hit the concrete hard. The chopper swung wildly to the side and I watched as the roof below moved and was replaced by sea. Twenty meters down.
“We’re hit, we’re hit,” the pilot was shouting.
Jean was alongside me as we spun and spun.
“We have to jump,” she shouted.
I stared at the black sea below.
“Now!”
I held on, feeling like I was going to throw up from the motion. Then Jean jumped. She was there one moment, gone the next.
I braced myself and pulled my body toward the opening. The noise of the engines swinging through the evening air screaming despair. I smelt burning petrol.
There was no choice.
I jumped.
Air whipped at my ears as I plummeted through midair for a second or two, and then I hit the water’s surface.
There was silence.
I wondered in that moment, under the water, if I might never resurface. It seemed to last forever. I kicked my legs, and as soon as I stopped spinning around, I used my arms to gain traction and swim upwards. I broke the surface and floated in the sea.
The chopper was gone from the sky. I looked to my left and saw it, half in, half out of the water, fire spewing from its exposed tail.
Jean.
I swam hard toward it. It was a miracle that my body was in contact. I went into a forearm stroke, measured and powerful, until I reached the sinking helicopter. I found where the cockpit would be and dived deep into the water. The door was welded shut by the pressure; I would have to smash the glass to get at him. And I only had my fists. Hopeless.
I went back up for a gulp of air and dived down again, this time to the front windscreen. I felt the smooth glass and cupped my hands to it and looked in.
I could see nothing, just blackness.
I stared into it, searching for signs of life. Maybe they had all jumped, too.
Then something slammed into the glass from the inside, making me jump backwards.
The face of the pilot, blood streaming into the water from somewhere below his face. His eyes open yet lifeless.
I swam back to the surface and broke through. The night was windie
r than I had realized when we were floating in the air—a storm was coming in from offshore. I saw sheets of lightning in the distance, and the swell of the waves bobbed me up and down.
I breathed deeply and scanned the area. The tower was visible in the moonlight. It looked like a long-legged beetle standing on the sea. A large hut on stilts. I couldn’t see Jean in the water, or Rose on top of the tower—it was too dark to get a good look. I began swimming to the nearest leg of the tower.
After ten long minutes, I touched metal: a ladder leading right up to the top. I paused as I took hold of the first rung.
If Jairo wanted me dead, he would shoot on sight.
I looked up the long ladder, which made twenty meters seem like two hundred from my point of view, the water beneath me rising and falling a good two meters at a time, and began the climb.
Chapter Forty-Nine
I took each rung with great care. The rust scratched my palms as I pulled my soggy weight up the ladder. If Jairo wanted me dead, or Reynolds or Andino or whatever his goddamn name was wanted me dead, they had a free shot. I didn’t care. I had one objective and no other card to play: climb this ladder and find what I would find. Each move made my body feel a kilo heavier.
Around rung number twenty, I looked down. The sea below was a silent, black, bobbing sheet. I looked out to sea and saw the storm was coming closer. Lightning painted everything purple each thirty seconds and it had started raining. I gripped the ladder harder still. I ached, but adrenalin continued pumping through my bloodstream and I kept on.
After what felt like an hour, but could have only been ten minutes, I made it to the first level of the tower. The tower had various doors and a metal walkway that went around the whole structure. I clambered on and caught my breath.
There were two doors on my side of the tower. The structure was too big to be a single room. I went to the first handle and found it locked. Then the second: same result. I turned the corner and there, standing on the walkway with a pistol leveled at my chest, was Jairo. He was getting wet from the rain. I was soaked through.
