by Mark Greaney
Court paused, looked through the dirty windshield at a middle-aged bald man leaving the apartment building, taking his small poodle for a walk along a grassy strip that rimmed a shopping center just outside of the marina. Then he said, “If you know honest men, let’s keep them honest. What I am about to do . . . I don’t want to involve them.”
“Just what are you going to do, Joe?”
“I am going to scorch the earth. I am going to murder, torture, defile. I am going to go ballistic on the motherfuckers who have Laura Gamboa, and I am going to get her back by killing everything in my path. I am not going to play by the rules.”
“There are no rules here, amigo.”
“I am talking about the rules of humanity, and I am prepared to violate every last one of them.”
“Dios Santo,” Ramses muttered. “I have never met anyone like you who was . . . how can I say it? Not on the other side.”
“I am different from other good guys, because I am not afraid to go down to the level of my enemies.
“If you know guys down here, good guys, guys who can still sleep at night . . . let’s not involve them. I’d rather do what I’m about to do affiliated with Madrigal than with the good guys, does that make sense?”
“You are a good man.”
“Thanks, Ramses, but you won’t say that when I’m done. You are going to think I am the sickest son of a bitch you’ve ever met.”
“You have my number. I will help you in any way I can, and not involve anyone else. If you need something, anything, call me.”
“Thanks.”
Court hung up the phone, watched the man with the dog for a moment, and then opened the door to the Mazda truck.
Forty seconds later the poodle was all alone and barking wildly, his leash wrapped around a signpost in front of a tienda that had not yet opened for business.
The dank, dark, ten-by-ten storage room smelled of mold. Lizards and spiders crawled the walls and hung from the ceiling, casting frightening shadows when they moved in front of the two-million-candlepower flashlight that Gentry had positioned in the corner, facing the center of the storage room.
There, in the center, sat Captain Xavier Garza Guerro of the Puerto Vallarta police. According to Madrigal’s intelligence chief, Garza was a paid sicario for the Black Suits, and he oversaw the cartel’s security operations here on the west coast of Mexico, from the Guatemalan border in the south to the southern edge of Sinaloa in the north. He had been instrumental in helping de la Rocha’s efforts in the region. Protecting his drug shipments, his production facilities, his safe houses, even Daniel’s motorcade travel through the city was often aided by squad cars with flashing lights.
Gentry ripped the duct tape off the bald man, tearing mustache hair out by the roots. Captain Garza’s left eye was swollen shut, the result of his face’s impact with the pavement outside the storage room. His hands were strapped behind his back; his clothes had been cut off with a long, thin fillet knife.
For the first hour Garza had tried to be reasonable with Court, had given him the locations of the meth labs that he knew about up in the mountains to the east. He thought this might buy his freedom; he felt the man must certainly be working for one of the other cartels, and if Garza could only convince him he would play ball, then whoever had sent this man would see that a well-connected police officer, with knowledge of the inner workings of de la Rocha’s enterprises, would be much more valuable alive than dead.
But then the gringo stepped in front of the light. He showed himself. The kidnapper made no attempt whatsoever to hide his face from his victim.
And the dirty cop knew what that meant.
Captain Garza was fully aware that now his only chance was to connect himself with Los Trajes Negros, to frighten his kidnapper into letting him go.
He shouted, “You lay another finger on me, and DLR will send Spider after you!”
The American reached out a hand, pointed his finger, and pushed it hard into the sweaty forehead of Xavier Garza. He finished the motion with a shove.
Then the norteamericano looked back over his shoulder at the garage door to the storage room. “When will he come? I would very much like to see him.”
“You will see him, gringo!” Garza tried to control his anger. “Look, if you let me go right now, I’ll forget this, but if you—”
“Oh, Xavier . . . you will never forget this. Not for the rest of your life.” Court looked down to his watch. “You can remember for at least three minutes, can’t you?”
“What do you want?” Garza’s question came out in a scream.
The American shrugged. “Nothing from you, asshole.”
“Nothing? Then what is this? What are you doing?”
“I’m just a force of nature, Xavier. You have lived by the sword . . .” The gringo turned away, disappeared into a dark corner, returned seconds later with a large metal cleaver. “You will die by the sword. Or, in this case, by the meat cleaver.”
“You are with los Vaqueros?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“With the United States of America.”
Garza cocked his sweaty bald head. “DEA? You are not DEA.”
“No, I’m not.”
Garza thought he understood now. This man was some antidrug avenger. “Look, we are just businessmen. All of us down here. We only provide the supply. You gringos provide the demand. We just respond to that demand.”
“So the guy who makes kiddie porn isn’t responsible as long as there is someone who wants to buy it?”
Garza looked at the kidnapper. “You know nothing. You are just a rich American. You don’t understand our culture!”
“Actually, I’m getting the hang of it. I’m going to chop off your head and put it in a bag. Does that sound a little like your culture?”
“Go to hell!”
“Most likely. But in the meantime . . .” Gentry sat on a brown box in front of his victim. “Names and numbers.”
“What?”
“Names and numbers. You give me others in your organization, and I’ll do it quick and fast.”
“You will kill me quick and fast?”
“That’s the best deal I can offer you.”
“And if I don’t give you names and numbers?”
Court looked at his watch. Shrugged. “Buddy . . . I got all damn day.”
FORTY-SEVEN
The Puerto Vallarta police cars parked in the street at nine p.m. The officers left their vehicles and began directing traffic, forcing it on, ordering it to continue to the next intersection. One minute later the first in a long series of armored white SUVs pulled up in front of the beautiful seaside restaurant.
The Black Suits working the advance security detail went about their rounds in the restaurant. A stern-looking but polite man went with the maître d’ to each table and collected mobile phones while letting the stunned patrons know that their food and drinks would be taken care of. A group of four in the security detail moved through the kitchen with the restaurant manager, checked coolers and freezers, hallways and pantries, bathrooms and loading doors. They frisked the staff from head to toe. A pair of guards armed with .45-caliber Mac-10 sub guns stood in the doorways, two more junior members of the unit patrolled out back with AK-47s.
Daniel de la Rocha sat in an armored SUV with the commander of his bodyguards and his own close protection officer by his side. Emilio Lopez Lopez received the radio call from his advance team unit leader that the restaurant was locked down and secure, so he nodded to his boss, and the driver of the Yukon opened the back door of the vehicle. A team of Emilio’s best guards formed around their leader, and they entered the restaurant. Emilio had his right hand on his pistol in his jacket, and his left hand on his patrón’s lower back. An earpiece connected to his radio gave him updates from his team, and any threat would have Emilio Lopez Lopez shielding his boss, turning him around, and hustling him back to the SUVs in seconds.
Close behind the
main scrum of the principle protection force was Nestor Calvo Macias, speaking into his Bluetooth earpiece. Javier “Spider” Cepeda, the leader of the Black Suit’s assassins, was in the crowd, as were a number of local dealers, enforcers, logistics managers, the chief pilot of Daniel’s many aircraft, and a few manufacturing and procurement executives.
Fourteen bodyguards on the premises ensured their leader’s safety, and nineteen other Black Suits all but filled the private dining area in the center of the building.
The private dining area was open-air, a cool breeze blew in from the Pacific and swirled around the tiled courtyard. Daniel de la Rocha sat at a table in the back of the room, behind a tall gurgling fountain and below a latticework arch of lovingly manicured bougainvillea. Other members of the Black Suits sat at tables of four around the courtyard. This was not a business dinner; it was just a dinner. They were here to eat and then to travel east to the safe house a few miles inland. This was de la Rocha’s first visit to PV since the massacre ten days earlier; he had business to attend to in the area and had spent the day working with associates of his commuter airline, and his drug manufacture and transporting enterprise.
The mood among the men was grim because the mood of their leader was grim. He was furious about the apparent escape of the Gamboas and the gringo. He fully assumed they were north of the border, but his hunt was far from over. Right now he had his entire workforce that operated in the United States: in Atlanta, in Chicago, in Dallas, in Los Angeles, in a dozen other cities—he had them all working on finding the Gamboas and the gringo.
So far Calvo had failed him, Spider had failed him, his fiftythousand-member-strong criminal organization had failed him.
But that did not really matter. Because all that mattered to Daniel was that Daniel had failed her.
Daniel gazed across his table to a corner of the courtyard, just a few feet away. A shrine of la Santa Muerte had been brought in by his advance security team, just a three-foot-tall icon of la virgen, dressed in the finest bridal gown handmade by a master dressmaker in Mexico City who worked exclusively on creating high-quality and highprice fashion for icons of la Santa Muerte. She stood on a table festooned with devotional candles that flickered in the sea breeze; the shadows played across the skeleton’s face, creating the appearance of movement and life.
DLR stared into her eyes. To him they were not vacant sockets in the plaster; they were windows into an abyss. Viewing portals into the soul of an angry goddess.
A bottle of Gran Patrón Platinum silver tequila was placed at his table by a waiter in a white coat. Next to the bottle a crystal dish of freshly cut limes, a crystal dish of salt, a small shot glass of the same crystal.
De la Rocha ignored the accoutrements and grabbed the bottle by the neck, took a swig of the clear liquor, stared at his idol, and promised her aloud that he would give her the tribute she demanded.
The unborn Gamboa child.
The waiter stood awkwardly with a menu in his hand, waiting for DLR to finish his prayer. While Daniel was still praying, the man cleared his throat.
Emilio Lopez Lopez stood against the wall just behind his jefe; Emilio stepped forward to the waiter and grabbed him by the arm of his coat, turned him roughly, and prepared to shove him away for his poor manners. But Daniel raised his bottle of tequila.
“It’s okay, Emilio. Thank you.” He looked at the waiter. “Just have your chef prepare something light. Grilled tilapia would be perfect.”
“Muy bien, Don Daniel,” said the waiter, and he shot off to the kitchen, clearly happy to walk away from his error with his life.
Nestor came over to the table, and they talked business for a few minutes, but DLR’s heart wasn’t in it, and finally he asked his consigliere to leave him to eat his meal alone. The rest of the Black Suits got the message; they ate at other tables and talked in hushed tones, worked their mobile phones or their laptops, tried like hell to be the one who determined just where in the world their targets had managed to disappear to.
A different waiter appeared with a cold watermelon soup, and DLR slurped it while lost in thought and melancholy. He continued to sip the tequila between gulps of bottled water and spoonfuls of soup; he just gazed around in the dark, at his men, at the fountain, at his idol on the table in the corner. Decorative paper lanterns strung across the courtyard on lines above the men’s heads swayed in the breeze.
In just minutes another waiter in a starched white coat came to DLR’s table; he pushed a tablecloth-covered rolling cart with a covered dish on it. With a subservient bow the man took away the empty plate of soup from the table and then replaced it with the covered dish.
“Buen provecho,” said the waiter, bon appétit, as he removed the cover and placed it back on the rolling cart.
De la Rocha did not look at the man, did not reply. He just took his fork in his hand, then distractedly glanced down at his plate as he began digging into his dinner.
His hand jerked up and away.
The plate was covered in slimy animal entrails, the reeking head and skeleton of a deboned fish, and other pieces of smelly waste.
“What the hell is this?” Daniel asked.
The waiter answered him in English, “That, sir, looks like shit, and this . . .” He held his hand out in front of DLR, showed him a device clutched in it. “This looks like a dead man’s switch.” The device was clearly a detonator, the waiter’s thumb was pressed down on a red button, and a wire ran from the device, down the man’s palm, and disappeared into his white coat.
De la Rocha looked up at the waiter.
It took a moment with the trim hair and beard, with the darker skin and the black-framed glasses, but he recognized him.
It was the Gray Man.
The American opened his coat and exposed a crude roped vest with two large bricks of yellow material coated in plastic hanging from it. They looked like bags of sand. He said, softly, “If my thumb leaves this trigger, for even one-tenth of one second, then this ammonium nitrate/fuel oil bomb will detonate, and everyone here will die. Including you.”
Emilio had been standing against the wall; he could only see the back of the waiter’s coat. He’d checked to make sure it wasn’t the same insolent bastard who had coughed while his jefe was praying a few minutes earlier. Satisfied that this was a new, and hopefully more professional, server, he’d not bothered to pay close attention to the presentation of the food. But now Emilio noticed the two men were in conversation with each other. It was not often that his patrón spoke to a waiter for so long.
Emilio stepped around the side of the man in the white coat, and when he did, he saw Daniel’s wide eyes. Immediately, he reached into his suit coat and rushed the table, recognizing the Gray Man at the same moment. He drew his Venezuelan Zamorano 9 mm pistol and knocked a chair out of the way to press it against the gringo’s head.
De la Rocha raised his hands into the air, panicked now that his bodyguard would shoot the American without hesitation. “¡No! ¡Tranquilo! Tranquilo!” Relax! Relax!
Guns appeared in the hands of everyone in the courtyard. Handguns, sub guns, a pair of pistol-grip shotguns. Some men approached the table while others stepped back and aimed carefully. No one knew what to do, but they all followed their leader’s wishes, and they held their positions.
“Everyone just take a few steps back. Emilio, lower your pistol and step away, but be ready. Spider, keep an eye on this pinche gringo and kill him if anything happens to me.”
Spider Cepeda held his Mac-10 with one hand. He stood ten feet away; the muzzle pointed at the face of the American assassin.
“You aren’t leaving here with your life, pendejo.” He said it slowly and confidently.
FORTY-EIGHT
Court Gentry was fucking freezing. He’d spent three hours in the meat locker, wearing a warm poncho but sitting still in a corner, hiding behind huge sides of beef that hung from the ceiling. He’d slipped into the restaurant at three p.m. with the produce delivery, carryi
ng two backpacks hidden on a hand truck of boxes of fruits and vegetables, then he’d spent a couple of hours in a dry-storage room before finally moving into the walk-in refrigerator as the evening staff went through their afternoon meeting and tasting in the main dining room.
In the walk-in he’d waited until a text came for him from a police officer outside who took money from both Los Trajes Negros and los Vaqueros.
He’d waited thirty minutes more, body shivering and teeth chattering, then he left the refrigerator, dressed in a uniform he’d pulled from a linen rack, and found a rolling cart and some tossed aside fish guts, with which he’d made his entree. Then, still chilled to the bone, he’d headed out into the dining room, looking for Daniel de la Rocha.
Gentry spoke into Daniel’s ear. “Have your men stand down.”
With a flick of his wrist DLR motioned the rest of Los Trajes Negros back a few steps across the courtyard; they all but disappeared in the dark.
But Court raised a hand. He spoke loud enough now for others to hear. “Not everyone.” He looked back to de la Rocha. “Which one of these guys is the real brains behind your operation?”
De la Rocha’s face flexed like a biceps muscle; Court watched the Mexican’s carotid artery flicker. He spoke through a mouth of clenched teeth. “I make all the decisions.”
“Sure you do, genius. But you and I need to talk business, and I bet there is a guy in this crowd that you would like to have sit in on our little discussion.” Court motioned with his free hand at the skeleton doll ringed by candles in the corner. “Unless, of course . . . your little Barbie doll can take transcription.” He shook his head and smiled. Displaying a relaxed and “in charge” demeanor. “Seriously. What the fuck is that?”
Somehow Daniel’s fury found a new gear. His face was red, even in the low glow of the paper lanterns hanging from the lines over the courtyard. He hesitated a few seconds, then looked into the dark crowd of men. “Nestor, sientate.” Sit down.
