by Mark Greaney
A voice in the dark. “Guillermo? My son? Is that—”
Both men fired their M1 carbines; in the light from their muzzle blasts they saw an old man, sitting up in his bed. His chest exploded, and he tumbled off the side, rolled head over heels, and settled hunched like a heap in the corner of the room.
Ramses and Martin met up in the sala, both responding to the sound of gunfire in the house. The men shouldered up, with Martin in front, and they moved in a well-practiced tactical maneuver that would allow them to attack enemies to the front of them while protecting each other. They arrived at a right angle in the hall, and then, just around the corner, they heard two pops from a pistol and a woman’s shout.
The two special operations group officers spun around the corner as if they were attached at the hip: Martin ahead and to the left, Ramses just behind and to the right. They trained their weapon lights on the hall and found Laura Gamboa Corrales on her knees in front of an open door, her back to them, and her pistol pointed into the darkness of the master bedroom.
Just then another loud crack and a flash of light from the bedroom. Ramses Cienfuegos flew back and down to the floor with a grunt as the air in his lungs fired from his mouth.
Martin Orozco opened fire into the bedroom, spraying the doorway just above Laura’s head with 9 mm rounds. As he fired, he stepped to the right to cover his fallen partner.
His weapon emptied in three seconds, and he knelt to reload it.
But there was no more shooting from the room ahead.
Martin sprinted past Laura now, and with the light attached to his rifle he saw two dead state policemen by the open window, a wall pocked and broken and chipped from all the gunfire, and then, on the floor on the other side of the bed, the slumped form of Luis Corrales.
Laura had stepped in behind him, and she cried out as she ran past and huddled over her father-in-law.
Martin left her, returned to his partner up the hallway. He was relieved to see Ramses up on his elbows; the gringo was there, too, kneeling over Ramses in the dark. The American was soaking wet. Ramses had taken a round directly into the ceramic ballistic plate on his chest. He’d had the wind knocked out of him, but he was uninjured. The three men looked at one another and breathed a sigh of relief.
The battle was over—for now.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Court sat with Martin and Ramses on the southern mirador, all eyes were trained on the rear of the property. Court had removed his soaked shirt and replaced it with a denim jacket taken from Luis’s closet, but there were no dry pants anywhere in the house that fit him. The acrid smell of gun smoke hung in the air still, soon to be replaced by the smell of the dead bodies on the patio. Court had already decided that he’d tie stone planters to the bodies and roll them all into the pool if it looked like he and the Gamboas would still be here after dawn. The sight and stench of dead adult humans no longer bothered him in the least, but morale would soon suffer amongst the uninitiated civilians here in the casa grande if they had to operate around sun-bloated cadavers crawling with bugs and iguana.
Back in the house he could hear the women crying, then praying aloud, then crying some more. Laura had fallen to pieces when she found Luis’s dead body. She was obviously blaming herself for his death. Inez and Luz and Elena had covered the man with a blanket where he died, and as far as Court knew, he was still right there.
Court knew the old man’s body would begin to smell by noon.
As soon as the shoot-out was over and the surviving sicarios disappeared again into the darkness out towards the southern wall of the hacienda, Court checked on Eddie’s truck. His hopes for a quick escape were dashed when he found three of the four tires flat from the barrage of gunfire the vehicle endured after he’d turned on the lights. There were holes in the hood and grille and left front quarter panel, but the engine still ran, for the time being at least.
But that hardly mattered on a truck with only one inflated tire.
Between her sobs and prayers and moments of catatonic staring into space, Inez Corrales had told Court that the barn to the east of the casa grande held an old farm truck. The engine of the truck had not been turned over in years, but as far as she knew, the pickup was operational. Ignacio, while shit-faced drunk, was also an auto mechanic, so Ernesto sent his son out to the barn to check on the potential of the vehicle to help the ten of them escape.
Court positioned young Diego on the north mirador to watch the front of the property; he’d outfitted the boy with a carbine retrieved from one of the dead cops, told him to hold it to his shoulder, point it at the target, and just pull the trigger over and over until one of the professionals showed up at his side to take over.
Ramses spoke softly to the American. “We did good. We lost one out of eleven. They lost eight out of, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty maybe. Plus we got rifles and ammo.”
Court didn’t see the glass quite so half full. “Yeah, but the survivors got all the intelligence they need. They know there are just a few of us; they know we can’t cover all the points of entry; they know the general layout of the house. These dudes would have been the guys DLR could get here in a couple of hours. This wasn’t their A-team by any stretch of the imagination.” He sighed. “We need to get the hell out of here. We aren’t going to make it through another attack.”
“Where do we go?”
“I’m open to suggestions,” admitted Court.
Neither of the federales spoke.
Court was tired, frustrated beyond belief, and completely without a plan, and his frustration manifested itself in his next comment. “So, other than yourselves, you are saying there is not one motherfucking trustworthy Mexican in Mexico?”
The accusation hung in the air for a moment.
Ramses Cienfuegos answered back finally, with the unmistakable tinge of anger in his voice. “I know lots of trustworthy people. Soldiers, cops, civilians, government employees. There are many of my fellow countrymen who can and do die fighting against the narcotraficantes . But involving them in this will put them at risk. Corruption exists in all levels of every institution in this country, thanks to the sixty billion dollars you gringos spend each year to fuel that corruption.”
Court shrugged. “Don’t blame us for your civil war.”
“Like you Americans would never have a civil war yourselves, right?”
Court ignored the comment, but Ramses was not finished.
“If there was no demand, amigo, de la Rocha and men like him would have to become wheat farmers or some shit. Talk to your fucking drug addicts in the United States; they bear much of the responsibility for all this death and murder. More of my countrymen would be trustworthy if only more of your countrymen weren’t worthless sons of bitches who break your own laws and, by doing so, destabilize our nation!”
Court nodded in the dark. He got the message, and the message was that he was being a dick. “Sorry, dude. I’m just pissed off.”
After a moment, Ramses said, “It’s okay. We all are.”
The three men fingered their weapons and looked into the night.
They heard the sounds of Ignacio trying to crank the engine of the truck in the barn, fifty yards off to their left. Eddie’s alcoholic brother had the starter spinning up, but so far the machine would not turn over.
Court sighed. If they couldn’t get the truck running, they were fucked. Even if they could, he had no idea where they could escape to here in Mexico. He wasn’t from around—
Wait. An idea entered his head. “That’s it.”
“What’s it?” asked Ramses.
“You said the U.S. needed to take some responsibility. What if we could get Elena and her family into the U.S.? De la Rocha doesn’t own the institutions up there.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“It can’t be that hard to get into the USA. Your countrymen manage to do it all day long.”
Ramses nodded. “Last year I was in Mexico City, attached to the AFI, the federal detective f
orce. It’s like the FBI in los Estados Unidos. We discovered a gringo who worked in the U.S. Embassy’s consular office who was selling papers to get into the States. We had everything we needed to arrest this gringo and stop it, but the operation was shut down. We didn’t even tell the Americans what we learned.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think? Mexico makes a ton of money from people going over the border. There was no reason to stop this guy. I figured we would probably try to help him.”
“Okay. So, you guys are shitty neighbors. How does that help us in our—”
“I know who this guy is. You can buy visas for the Gamboas, get them up into the USA.”
Court thought it over for a moment. “What if we don’t have any money?”
“I have money.” It was Laura. She’d entered the mirador from the second-floor hallway, sat down behind them, listening to three men she did not know forty-eight hours earlier now discuss the fate of her family.
Court turned to her. “You do?”
“There is an army pension for Guillermo, my late husband. I am given a little money every year. I can take it all out at once if I want to, although there is a penalty.”
“How much can you get?”
“Five hundred thousand pesos.”
Court did the math in his head. “Sixty grand?” He looked to Ramses. “Is that enough?”
The federale shrugged. “For eight people? No idea. But I’m sure it’s enough to get the embassy man’s attention.”
Court looked back to Laura. “You would do this? You would give up all that money for Elena and your parents and—”
“Of course I would.” She seemed offended. “This is my family. I would do anything for them.”
“And you’d go to the U.S.?”
She shook her head. “They should go. My mom and dad, Elena and Diego. But not me. My home is Mexico. I do not want to leave.”
“Why not?” Court asked, incredulously.
“I just can’t pick up and leave everything behind.”
“Why not?” he repeated himself, then added, “I do it all the time.”
She looked at him a long time in the night. “Then you will not understand what it means to belong somewhere.”
Down below them the truck tried to crank again. Gentry could hear the battery weakening, losing more and more of its charge with each failed turn of the key. After a third long and futile attempt to start the truck, those on the mirador heard Ignacio cussing loudly.
“¡Hijo de puta!” Son of a bitch!
“Well, first things first, we’re still a long way from getting out of here,” said Court.
Ramses and Martin moved off to other parts of the casa grande; there was an entire west wing surrounding a courtyard near the chapel that needed an occasional patrol, as no mirador covered that side. But Laura sat next to Court on the veranda; they drank strong black coffee and looked out together over the back patio.
“This house is something, isn’t it?” Laura said after a time.
Gentry chuckled, looked out on the unkempt estate. “Yeah, it’s a fucking shithole.”
He felt Laura looking at him for a moment, then she turned away. “I love it. Guillermo and I were going to live here when he finished his tour with the army.”
Dammit, Court. Some time, some day, some how, just try to say something right. “I mean . . . it’s nice . . . just needs to be straightened up a little.”
He heard her laugh softly; it even echoed behind them in the bedroom. It was beautiful to hear, though it somehow did not fit her sad, serious, and reverent personality. “You’re right. It would have taken years to fix it up. But Guillermo wanted to take care of his parents, to restart the farm, to have kids here, and to turn it into a happy place.”
“I’m sorry about everything,” Court said.
“Me, too,” she replied.
Two hours later Ignacio was still in the barn working on the truck. Court had relieved Diego at the second-floor window above the front door on the north side of the house. Court lay prone, looking out at the tree line and the windy, rocky drive that snaked down and then disappeared past the dim moonlight’s reach on its way to the front gate, a hundred meters or more to the north.
He fingered Luis’s old shotgun lying on the tile beside him. He’d given the M1 carbines to the others, had taken some double-aught buckshot shells from one of the shotguns taken from a fallen Tequila municipale, but left the man’s weapon out on the patio because the barrel had been damaged in the gunfight. Court had found another pump shotgun dropped by a fallen Jalisco state policeman but had been happy with the feel and function of the long, heavy, two-shot relic, so he decided to keep Luis’s shotgun as his primary weapon.
He was sleepy, but Luz had just delivered him some more violently strong black coffee, and it would help him along for a few hours more.
He’d need it for the jolt as well as the warmth; it was below fifty degrees, and he wore nothing more than the denim jacket and his damp pants as he lay exposed to the night breeze on the balcony.
Damn, he wanted to get the fuck out of here.
Some progress had been made to that end. The battery from Eddie’s F-350 had been pulled and brought to the barn by Ernesto and Diego; fresh gas had been siphoned out of the newer vehicle and transferred to the older. It was just a matter of time now before they all piled in like sardines in a can, raced for the front gate with Martin and Ramses leading the way on their motorcycles with their Colt Shorty’s blazing, and hoped for a lot of luck to get out of here alive.
Court rubbed his burning eyes, fought sleep for the third time this minute.
He looked down at his watch: 4:06. He knew that if the Black Suits could get another crew assembled in time, then they would come before dawn. There was no way they would not; they had no reason to wait for the light of day.
It was well past the prime time for an attack in normal situations. At first the American was pleased; he hoped that by repelling the first wave his little force had caused the enemy to back off, to leave the hacienda for a while in order to regroup.
But no, that was not it at all. The three a.m. time for normally hitting an enemy position was based on standard guard rotations.
His enemy knew there were not enough here to guard this entire complex in the first place, much less rotate in and out for rest and food.
Yeah, Court realized, his enemies were smarter than he was. He had not even considered the possibility until now. They would hit again before first light. No matter how many or few there were.
Come on, Ignacio, you drunk bastard. Get that truck going!
TWENTY-EIGHT
There were only twelve in the second wave, but they had better training, better equipment, better intelligence, and a better plan of attack than that first failed attempt. All twelve were marinos, Mexican marines, and they’d driven up to the hacienda from their base in Guadalajara on orders from Spider Cepeda himself.
Though they were regular military men, they moonlighted as sicarios for the Black Suits. They were well trained in small-unit assault tactics and armed with HK MP5 submachine guns, flash-bang grenades, body armor, and olive drab uniforms that blended well into the green black predawn landscape of this part of the Sierra Madre Mountains. They’d debriefed the survivors of the first assault over the back wall of the casa grande. The shell-shocked “fence posts” who’d scrambled back over the wall to safety without shotgun pellets or 9 mm rounds embedded in their bodies had been ordered to stick around to tell the next crew what they were up against. The marines began gearing up alongside their two-ton truck while the cops nervously smoked and told them all they had seen.
The military men had then given their weapons and radios a final check, broken into three four-man squads, excused themselves from the exhausted and overwhelmed amateurs, and began walking towards the walls of the hacienda.
The four men of Team A, “Antonio” in the Spanish phonetic alphabet or “alpha” in the English p
honetic alphabet, breached the hacienda by climbing over a chained gate on the western wall, deep in the tall grass and wild blue agave. They bound towards the darkened house in teams of two, with one pair covering for the other pair while they moved. They made it to a broken-stone grain silo and approached the chapel that jutted out from the western side of the casa grande.
Team Barcelona scaled the rear wall, near the area where the first wave had gone over three hours earlier. Once inside the hacienda grounds, they pivoted to the right, climbed through the wooden fence of the corral, moved behind an old stable of rotten wood, picking their footfalls carefully to keep from stumbling over the stone and lumber and refuse.
Team Carmen breached the hacienda to the east, landed inside the grounds behind the willow trees near the pond. They moved around to the side and then to the front of the building, directed their attention and their progress towards the old stone and wood barn from where they heard an internal combustion engine desperately trying to internally combust.
Within minutes Barcelona had arrived at the trellis that ran along the eastern side of the patio. They checked in by radio with Antonio and found them in position to the west of the casa grande. This team had sent one of its men towards the freestanding chapel near the house to investigate a light that could be seen through cracks in the old stone.
Seven minutes after breaching the wall, three teams of four men were ready to hit the hacienda’s defenders simultaneously from three positions.
Court rubbed his eyes again. Started to look down to his watch.
A shout from the other side of the house. A man—Martin?
The crack of a rifle.
Gentry’s discipline allowed him to keep his position and to watch the trees and the driveway in front of him.
