by Matt Rogers
Percy cowered in his bunk. Raul and Luis stood side-by-side, fists clenched, ready to attack. Daniel and Mateo looked similar.
Rico let his eyes wander over the ragtag group of men and laughed. It seemed he found everything in life hilarious. ‘You six better not put up a fight. We’ll kill you and bury the evidence.’
‘We’re not putting up a fight,’ King said. ‘Now what do you want?’
‘There’s rumours spreading,’ Rico said. ‘That you gentlemen are inciting something you shouldn’t be. Care to explain?’
Silence.
‘I think I need to talk to the two Westerners,’ he said. ‘They seem to be the ones causing all the trouble lately.’
‘Leave Percy out of all this,’ King said. ‘I’m the one you have a problem with.’
‘Are you?’
‘You know I am.’
‘You’re certainly right that I have a problem with you. But I also have a problem with your friend. So I’ll talk to you both. Follow me.’
He instructed the three soldiers in Spanish to keep watch over the other four men, which King deduced by hand movements and general tone alone. Then Rico gestured for he and Percy to follow. Reluctantly, he stepped forward.
‘King,’ Percy said feebly.
He turned. ‘Let’s go. You won’t change his mind. Just do what he says.’
Percy’s shoulders sagged. Maybe he thought King had some magic solution to this problem. But right now, he had nothing.
The air was already thick and humid in the room, warmed by the body heat of ten men. Raul and Luis watched them go with venom in their eyes. King knew every fibre of their being wanted nothing more than to pummel Rico into oblivion for tearing them away from their family and throwing them into hell.
But they wouldn’t get a chance.
Not yet.
King powered through the small crowd and stepped out into the hallway. Rico kept the barrel firmly trained on him. His hands did not falter. They stayed deathly still, positioning the gun completely on target, standing just far enough away to negate any kind of wild charge King might decide to throw.
He’s well-trained, that’s for sure.
Percy scurried out of the living quarters and stopped by his side. King looked through the pavilion, and outside. It was still dark, but not pitch black. The faint glimmer of dawn had begun to creep into the surroundings, turning the buildings outside a shade of blue.
‘Out there,’ Rico said, motioning with the barrel.
They moved through the pavilion, heading for one of the gates. Dozens of inmates gave King the evil eye as he passed them by. He ignored them and pressed on. He was sure that were it not for Rico escorting them through the compound, he would have caught a bullet in the head by the time he reached the far gate. So far, the prisoners hadn’t started trouble with him, but that didn’t mean they respected him. He presumed that for the right price they would kill anyone.
And Tevin seemed to have his sights set on eliminating King for good.
They stopped by the gate and Rico scanned his keycard on the sensor. He punched in a four-digit code and the lock emitted an electronic beep. He pushed on the steel bars and the door swung open.
King could have killed him in that moment. Rico had taken his eyes off his prisoners while fumbling with the keypad. It would have taken a single motion to disarm him and light him up with Kalashnikov rounds. But that would result in no answers, and would do more harm than good. So King ignored it and stepped through into the prison grounds.
This side of the pavilion faced a number of neighbouring buildings, all plain concrete, all grey, all unassuming. The prison grounds were a maze of interconnected compounds. Breaking out would be all but impossible. He’d have to navigate down paths that twisted and turned — avoiding all guards — then find a way through the perimeter building.
Rico stood across from them in the low light. Beside King, Percy stood hunched over, hands shivering. He was terrified.
‘The fuck are you two doing?’ Rico said.
‘He’s not doing anything,’ King said, gesturing to Percy. ‘He just got here. I’m the one antagonising Tevin, so you deal with me.’
‘Tevin?’
‘The guy who runs the pavilion.’
‘Ah.’
‘You’d know that if you actually worked here.’
Rico chuckled. ‘So you pieced together that I’m not a guard. Congratulations.’
‘I know more than that.’
‘Oh, you do?’
‘I know you want me alive because you want answers to all your questions.’
‘That’s pretty obvious.’
‘And I know why.’
‘Elaborate, if you really are such a detective.’
‘I fucked up your entire operation, didn’t I?’ King said. Then he grinned, as if showing that he had done so intentionally.
Rico grit his teeth in rage and tightened his finger around the Kalashnikov’s trigger.
CHAPTER 21
For a moment King thought Rico would blow his brains across the pavement. But he didn’t, because he was curious. King would humour him.
He raised a finger and pointed it at the drug lord.
‘The three thugs in the alley,’ he said. ‘The ones I beat the shit out of. Now I know where they were headed. It seems they were responsible for securing more of your supply. They missed a meeting of some kind because of what I did to them. The suppliers must have high-tailed it out of there. Maybe they suspected foul play. Or they’re big on punctuality. Anyway, that’s irrelevant. Point is, your supply is non-existent now, isn’t it? Seems you’ve had a communication breakdown with the supplier. I set off a chain reaction. You don’t have enough to get you through. And your gang prides themselves on running a tight ship. Now competitors can creep in. Snatch up the eager customers. Am I right?’
‘You already knew that,’ Rico said. ‘Who put you up to it? Which group?’
‘That’s the thing, Rico,’ King said. ‘I’ve been telling the truth this whole time. No-one did. I worked all that out myself. Percy here tried to buy cocaine from one of the Movers and the guy wasn’t able to deliver what was promised. You’re spread out, and you’re losing your hold on the market. Must have really pissed off your suppliers by not showing up, huh?’
‘You really have nothing to do with this?’ Rico said.
‘That’s what I’ve been telling you. You assumed I did because it was an almighty coincidence. I beat down the three most important men in your organisation on that day. But all they did was piss me off. That’s their fault.’
‘You’re some kind of ex-soldier?’
‘I am.’
‘Just passing through?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Rico smiled and raised the Kalashnikov.
In that moment, King knew he was bat-shit crazy, and that he would never be let out of El Infierno voluntarily. Unless he left via a body bag. He had angered Rico, a man used to getting whatever he pleased. Infuriated him, even.
‘You think that changes things?’ Rico said. ‘Just because you didn’t have a motive? You put your hands on my men. That’s a death sentence.’
‘I’m trying to be reasonable,’ King said.
‘Fuck you. I should kill you myself. But that’d be too quick. I’ll just throw you back in there. You won’t last long.’
‘You’re an amateur,’ King said.
‘What?’
‘You heard me. This entire thing is nothing but a temper tantrum. You should let me go, and forget I ever existed. I made you look like a fool. Accept that. Learn from it. Move on.’
Rage flickered behind Rico’s brown eyes. He surged forward and grabbed Percy by the shirt. Dragged him over.
‘You want to insult me?!’ he roared, loud enough for most of the pavilion’s occupants to hear. ‘Are you forgetting where we are? I run this whole state!’
‘Don’t,’ King said, in a voice barely above a whisper. His veins were ice-cold.
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br /> ‘Who’s going to fucking stop me?’ Rico snarled.
For a single fleeting moment King met Percy’s gaze. He saw the unbridled terror in the man’s eyes. Even worse, he could do nothing to stop what came next.
Rico pulled the trigger.
A barrage of rounds exploded from the Kalashnikov’s barrel at close range, all tearing into Percy’s chest. The man let out a weak cry as bullets shredded his shirt, pulping his torso with lead. Blood sprayed from the wounds. Rico let him go and he collapsed to the pavement.
King saw his eyes. They had already glazed over. The first two or three rounds had most likely done the job. But Rico made sure to put more than ten into him.
Just to send a message.
Something deep inside King snapped. He felt it give, just like that. One second he had his emotions under control. Perfectly subdued, like a lion on a leash.
Then, as he watched the life fade out of a man who had done absolutely nothing wrong, the leash vanished. He couldn’t control what came next. Professionalism and discipline had taught him to battle the primal urges that came with anger. Many times he had successfully done so.
This time, he found it physically impossible to show restraint.
He charged at Rico before the man even had time to stop firing, or swing his aim around, or prepare himself in any way. He seized the gun and wrenched it free. Even in such a state of heightened anger, he felt the strength that fury lent him.
It was a completely different level of efficiency.
He broke Rico’s finger as he tugged the Kalashnikov away. The man couldn’t get it out of the trigger guard in time, and King pulled with a force that shattered the bone into pieces. He howled and recoiled back, surprised by the sudden pain.
King spun the assault rifle in his hands, feeling its familiar weight. He righted his aim and fired, a short tap-tap-tap, three rounds that tore open Rico’s leg, plunging deep into the kneecap. He dropped where he stood. Legs buckling. Mouth opening in surprise. King reversed his grip on the gun again and swung with the speed of a Major League batter. The butt caught Rico on his open jaw. The crack that accompanied the impact sounded gruesome enough. A couple of teeth flew loose, surrounded by droplets of crimson.
Fixated on causing as much pain as humanly possible, King dropped the Kalashnikov and surged on Rico’s battered form. He grabbed one arm and twisted wildly, breaking it at the elbow joint with a juicy pop. Then he wrenched it back the other way. Breaking more bones. Causing more agony. He moved with a savage ferocity that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
In the space of five or six seconds, he’d brought a world of pain on the supposedly mighty drug lord. Rico lay in the dirt, curled into a pathetic ball. Still conscious. Nothing had come close to knocking him out. King had made sure of that. But he would be feeling every inch of the trauma inflicted on his feeble frame.
‘Been waiting to do that for a while,’ King said.
Rico let out a guttural noise somewhere between a sob and a dry heave. He lay on his back next to Percy’s corpse, staring at his useless left arm and his right leg now pouring blood into the dirt, creating a grimy viscous putty as the two combined. More crimson ran from his mouth.
Somehow, he managed a sentence. ‘They’ll kill you.’
‘They’ll try. But things have changed. Now I need to try and escape.’
‘Y-you won’t get out of here.’
‘I might. And if I do, I won’t rest until your entire operation is demolished.’
Rico laughed pathetically and spat blood into the dirt next to his head. ‘Good luck. What makes you think you have a chance?’
King leant down. ‘Because you don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I can do.’
He raised the Kalashnikov, aiming the barrel between Rico’s eyes. Ready to fire the kill shot.
Wild shouting sounded from somewhere above. King looked up and saw a cluster of guards standing on the balcony of the closest watchtower, peering down at them from the vantage point.
They saw the blood pooling into the dirt.
They saw one of the wounded men was a prison official.
They saw an armed prisoner standing on open ground, unguarded.
They raised their weapons.
King abandoned his position and scrambled across the narrow path, sprinting wildly, searching for cover. The dirt kicked up near his feet, accompanied by the distant din of rifle fire. He ducked behind an indiscriminate concrete building opposite the pavilion. Across the path, inmates peered out through the steel mesh, fascinated by the scene unfolding.
The klaxons around the compound roared into life, shrieking and hollering. They signalled an approaching raqueta.
Guardia Nacional would storm the prison at any moment.
Here we go, King thought.
He clenched his fists, hands now shaking from adrenalin. From his position, there was all likelihood that the Guardia Nacional would tear past him, heading straight into the pavilion. In their haste they might not see his crouching form in the lee of a neighbouring building.
Sure enough, ten seconds later a dozen men rounded the corner, coming into view, all dressed in military uniform, all armed with batons and shotguns.
They didn’t notice him. The few that reached the pavilion first spread out across the various gates, punching in key codes, getting ready to swarm the prisoners.
King took a deep breath. He had two options. He could slip past the Guardia Nacional and head back the way they had come. Attempt to find a way out through there. But it unnerved him. The likelihood of stumbling into a dead end was too high. Getting caught was no longer an option. After butchering Rico, he didn’t imagine they would be lenient on him.
The second option was tantalising.
He could instigate a war in the middle of a raqueta.
It would cause complete anarchy. At least, for a while. But he had to draw the prison guards away from the wall. He had to create a situation so insane that all prior systems of controlling El Infierno would become shaky.
So he broke free from his cover and quietly followed the Guardia Nacional into the pavilion, with a single word on his mind.
Chaos.
CHAPTER 22
Already, tensions were heightened.
The military guard storming into the compound were entering a different world. The first raqueta had been frenetic, yet largely uneventful. The beatings dished out by the Guardia Nacional that time were savage, but were not retaliated against. They seemed to be the norm. This time, the atmosphere amongst the general prison population was tenfold more hostile. Many had been preparing for a confrontation with King and his men. Testosterone was high. Violent reactions would be easier to provoke.
King knew he could capitalise on this.
Amidst the screaming and grunting of bodies clashing together, he slipped into the fray and waited for an opportunity to kick things off. It came when a soldier wielding a shotgun turned his back, heading for a group of thugs in the corner. King came up behind him and slammed a boot into the back of the guy’s knee. His leg buckled and he loosened his grip on the shotgun, clearly surprised by the well-placed blow. King seized the shotgun and jerked backwards, slamming the butt into the guy’s helmet with enough force to knock him off his feet.
Then King used the momentum generated by the blow to line up his aim and fire a cluster of riot pellets into two Guardia Nacional soldiers nearby.
It was the first discharge of a weapon inside the pavilion.
The guards grimaced and doubled over, taking most of the pellets to their torsos, winding them, stinging them, surprising them. Soldiers who witnessed the attack cried out in rage and surged towards King. He dropped the shotgun and ducked into the pack of prisoners in the centre of the pavilion, becoming just another body in a sea of brutish men.
He headed straight for the hallway on the far side. On the way through, he made sure to cause as much trouble as humanly possible. He bumped into a tough-looking Spanish thug.
He seized two handfuls of the guy’s shirt, spun him round and heaved him into a pack of men nearby, knocking several of them off-balance. Then he spun on his heel and slammed a fist into the gut of another random prisoner. The guy doubled over, moaning. King pushed him off his feet and he careered into a second cluster of men, all taken by surprise by the violent action.
That was all it took.
Wild brawls broke out all around him, spurred on by the confusion of the raqueta and the overabundance of testosterone rippling through the air. King knew he’d just created a shit-storm. He ducked low and powered through the chaos, using his size and strength to his advantage, bundling everyone in his way aside like rag dolls. This only seemed to further provoke the inmates. In the sea of men vying for physical dominance, getting pushed over like a feather enraged almost everyone he encountered.
King slipped into the hallway just as the fighting reached its peak.
He noted several things at once. First, the grimy corridor was sparsely populated. The majority of conflict had broken out in the main area of the pavilion, leaving only a few drug-crazed stragglers crawling across the muddy floor, too high to even think about fighting. He glanced down the length of the hallway and saw Tevin’s door still firmly shut. The man was hiding in there, avoiding the chaos of the raqueta.
Very likely up to something.
The door to his own room lay ajar. One of the Guardia Nacional had stuck his head out, peering into the pavilion, surprised by the sudden outbreak of hysteria and madness. King knew he had an opportunity to capitalise on the confusion once again.
‘Rico!’ he yelled to the guard, feigning fear. ‘He is crazy! He killed my friend! He’s shooting at the pavilion!’
Unable to understand English, the guard cocked his head, attempting to make sense of King’s panicked sentences. By the time he began to retort, probably telling King to stay back, he had already come too close. He slammed the door back into the guy, buckling him, then charged into the room.
‘Fight!’ he roared as he slammed into a cluster of bodies.
He wasn’t able to deduce the twins’ exact location, but he was sure they would get the message.
