I’m glad I haven’t started work yet, Candace thought. Kayla needs me here full time right now. She peacefully went about the mundane task of setting out lunch.
Then some movement caught her eye. The leaves on the hedge rustled. Was it a cat? No, it was too high up, and a cat isn’t big enough to make that much movement.
She put the pitcher down and focused on the hedge. It moved again. Something was definitely there.
“Here, Kayla, you start. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Was she imagining things? Did this whole drug cartel thing have her spooked?
Candace slipped into the house and ran to Harry’s game room. She darted around the pool table and went to the gun safe. What was the combination?
Oh yes, Chris’s birthday.
She spun the dial and opened the door. She reached in and grabbed the twelve-gauge Remington pump action shotgun.
This model was familiar to her. She hadn’t used this particular gun, but Harry had an identical model at their Montana ranch. She loved to use it for skeet shooting.
Moving quietly through the house, Candace slipped out the front door. She made her way past the circular driveway and to the laurel hedge. The neighbors had a fence on their side of the hedge. Candace climbed the fence and moved cautiously towards the spot where she’d seen the movement.
She heard a loud whistle and spun towards the driveway.
No one was there.
She turned to the hedge again. A man sprinted across the yard, binoculars hanging from his neck.
“Stop!” Candace yelled. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”
Of course she wouldn’t. She couldn’t shoot a fleeing man. Besides, he was too far away. Why didn’t Harry keep a rifle at home?
She chased after him.
He wore tan Dockers slacks and a khaki windbreaker. She tried to take a mental picture of him. About five-ten, she guessed; average build; dark hair; and fast.
Candace was a fast runner too. She’d won the Idaho State five K championship in high school. She could run Harry into the ground, but she couldn’t keep up with the fleeing man.
He turned the corner of the house, she followed in quick pursuit but the gun slowed her down.
A dark blue Chevy sedan was waiting, with its engine running.
The man piled in the passenger side and the car took off.
Was he Hispanic?
Candace saw Washington plates on the car. She got the first three letters before it was gone, but that was it.
She stopped and leaned on her knees, out of breath. After a few minutes she regained her composure and walked back to her house.
“Harry, someone was here,” she said into the phone. She leaned the shotgun against the table in the kitchen. “Two men, one was looking through the hedge with binoculars, the other waiting in a car. I think the first one was Hispanic.”
“Are you sure they were spying on you?” Harry asked.
“Of course they were. What else would they be doing? Why else would they run when I approached them?”
“Oh, shit.” There was a pause as Harry thought. “Put a couple of bags together for us. I’ll meet you at Boeing Field. We’re getting out of here.”
“Aieeee . . .” Kayla’s scream pierced the air.
Candace dropped the phone and saw Kayla in the doorway, pointing to the shotgun, screaming.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Candace ran to take Kayla in her arms.
“You have a gun . . . They’re here aren’t they? The bad men . . .”
Chapter 27
Chihuahua Dessert, Mexico
“Do you want your brother back? Meet me in the city built in a lake where the eagle sat on a cactus eating a serpent. Find your brother where the president worshiped at the feet of the Aztec Gods. - Yves” Ted turned the note over and over in his hand. “What does that mean? Which president? What Aztec Gods?”
The burgundy Explorer roared down the two lane highway. Catrina rarely slowed below eighty, most of the time hitting ninety miles an hour. As was the custom on Mexican highways, she didn’t bother with solid lines, passing slower cars whenever the opportunity presented itself.
“We know that he means Mexico City,” Ted said. “It’s part of an old Aztec legend that Papa used to tell us about. The Aztecs were a minor tribe from the north; they were forced out of their homes and wandered into the dessert. The priests told them they had to keep moving, until they found an eagle sitting on a cactus eating a serpent. That’s where they should build their city.”
Ted turned to Hope in the back seat. “You remember the story?”
“Of course. How could I forget? He only told it a hundred times.”
“The eagle was on a cactus growing on a rock in the middle of the lake. The Aztecs filled in the lake and built Tenochtitlan, their capital city.” Ted turned back to Catrina. “He’s obviously talking about Mexico City. When the Spaniards arrived, they tore down the Aztec capital and built their own city.”
“But how do we find a president worshipping at the Aztec’s feet?” Chris asked.
“We’ll need some help on that one,” Jeff said. “Where can we find an expert on Aztecs and Mexican presidents?”
“We’re assuming he meant a Mexican President,” Ted said. “He could mean a French president, since he’s French, or maybe even a US president.” Ted shook his head. “Why did he send such a cryptic message?”
There was a moment of silence in the SUV.
“Anyway, there’s a national anthropological museum in Mexico City.” Ted broke the silence. “I’ve always wanted to go back there. They might have an expert who could help us.”
It was a tight squeeze for all five of them to fit into Catrina’s Explorer, but they decided it was better to drop off Ted and Chris’s rented Jeep and proceed together.
Catrina slowed as they approached a dirt road intersecting the highway. She turned off and headed up the road.
“This looks like as good a place as any,” Catrina said, dodging pot holes. “We need to get you guys some target practice. I’m not going into a potential shoot out with two guys that never shot a gun in their lives.”
Catrina drove up the dirt road for fifteen minutes until she found a turn off that suited her purposes.
“This should do,” she said. “Everybody out.”
They climbed out of the car.
“It’s like an oven out here,” Hope said. The air was so hot it burned their lungs.
“Then let’s get it over with and get back in the A/C as quickly as possible.” Catrina went to the back of the vehicle and removed their bags from the luggage compartment. Then she pulled out the spare tire and turned a nut in the spare tire compartment.
A hidden lid in the floor of the baggage compartment popped open. She removed the two M16 assault rifles, a box of spare clips and ammunition.
“Here.” She tossed a rifle to Chris. “You ever use a rifle?”
“Yeah.” Chris looked for the safety on the weapon. “I used to go hunting with my dad in Montana. How do you release the clip? How do you open the chamber?”
“Great questions.” Catrina picked up the other M16. “The magazine release is this button, on the right side of the weapon, just in front of the trigger. See?”
She pushed the button and the clip dropped out of the rifle.
“It’s designed to be real easy to change clips and reload. Look.”
She slipped the magazine back into the rifle.
“No fuss, no muss, no bother. This rifle is extremely well thought out. The designers wanted to give US troops maximum fire power. It’s designed to be able to change out the magazines in the middle of a fire fight without ever taking your hand off of the pistol grip or losing sight of your target.”
She held the rifle to her shoulder, dropped out the clip and replaced it, without ever taking the rifle from her shoulder.
“The safety is on the left side of the weapon. You turn it with your thumb.” She demonstrated. “
Forward is on. You can’t fire with the safety on. Straight up is semi-automatic. You pull the trigger and fire one bullet. Back is full automatic. You pull the trigger and the weapon fires until the magazine is empty.”
“You need to be careful,” Jeff said. “You can empty the magazine in a heartbeat. You can waste a lot of ammunition and not hit anything.”
“The nice thing about this weapon is that it doesn’t kick a lot,” Catrina continued. “An AK-47 jumps around so much that it’s practically impossible to keep it on target in full auto mode. With the M16, you can still keep it pointed at the target when you fire in full automatic.”
Chris dropped the clip out of his rifle and studied it.
“These are small bullets. What are they? .22’s?”
“Actually, yes,” Jeff said. “.223 NATO standard ammunition.”
“Why such small bullets in an assault rifle?” Chris asked. “I would think that they wouldn’t have much stopping power.”
“Two reasons.” Jeff picked up a box of ammunition and opened it. “First of all, they’re very light. A soldier can carry up to six hundred rounds of these little babies.” He pulled a shell from the box. “The seven millimeter shells in an AK-47 are so heavy that a soldier might only be able to carry three hundred of those in his pack.”
Jeff tossed the box of shells to Ted.
“These bad boys are extremely high velocity. Believe me; they’ll stop whatever they hit.”
“Let’s load up and get started,” Catrina said.
“The magazines are designed to be very light and disposable,” Jeff said. “Once again, to let a soldier carry the max firepower into battle.”
Catrina and Jeff tutored Ted, Chris and Hope in using the rifles. It came easily to Chris and Hope was a natural. Ted was so hesitant to use the rifle that he consistently had trouble hitting the target. Mostly he just hosed down the area around it.
“Let’s take a look at your pistols,” Catrina said when she was satisfied that the three could operate the M16s.
Ted went back to the SUV and brought the two .38’s.
“Effective at short range.” Catrina took a snub-nosed revolver from Ted and flipped open the cylinder. “Not much use beyond, say, fifty feet.”
She took the pistol in both hands, spread her feet shoulder width apart and fired. Her shot ripped through a saguaro cactus about fifty feet away.
“Sights look good,” she said.
She handed the pistol to Ted. “You fired it yet?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you should know how it feels, how it works, before you actually have to use it?”
“I never thought about that. I was hoping we’d never have to use it. You know, more for show?”
“Higuera, you’re hopeless.” Catrina punched Ted in the shoulder. “Let’s get started. You guys have a lot to learn.”
****
The State of Mexico, Mexico
Doctor Octopus had one mechanical tentacle wrapped around Guillermo’s waist. With the other three, he grabbed Ted by the wrist and ankles.
Ted fought, but Doc Ock was too strong. Ted shot his web in the villain’s face.
“Ted, Teddy.”
He heard Hope’s voice. It was coming from far away.
What was she doing here? Didn’t she know how dangerous the master criminal was?
“Teddy, wake up.” Hope shook her big brother’s shoulder. “You’re having a bad dream.”
“Huh,” Ted opened his eyes, dry range land flashed by the window. Where am I? He shook his head.
Oh yeah. He was in Catrina’s Explorer barreling through Central Mexico.
After a two day drive to Guadalajara, the team had a long day’s trek to Mexico City.
The landscape changed from dessert to fertile farmland somewhere north of Guadalajara. Tiny lakes, what Papa used to call “ojos de aqua,” (eyes of water) dotted the landscape. Green fields of various crops and herds of cattle dominated the scenery covering the land as far as the eye could see.
Every couple of hours, they hit an army checkpoint. Ted sweated out the first stop. The federales stopped and searched all passing cars for guns and drugs. They had no problems. The young soldiers never asked them to unload their bags, so they never found the guns.
They drove on, only stopping for food, gas and biology breaks. After two days of solid driving, they were all tired and cranky when they hit the city of Guadalajara.
The three hundred plus miles from Guadalajara to Mexico City were the hardest on Ted. He needed to be there right now. Who knew what horrible things they were doing to his kid brother?
“Can’t you push this thing a little faster?” Ted asked Catrina.
“We go any faster and we’ll be airborne.” Catrina kept her eyes glued to the road. She had driven most of the way; she always had to be in control. She only surrendered the wheel to Jeff or Ted when she was too tired to keep her eyes open. “We should be there by early afternoon.”
“You made reservations for the hotel, didn’t you?” Hope asked. “The same one where we stayed with Mama and Papa that time.”
“The Hotel Paraíso,” Ted said. “I remember that trip. You girls had a room with a balcony that looked out over the Colonial District. The boys got stuck with an inside room.”
“Sometimes being a girl has its privileges.”
They arrived in the outskirts of Mexico City in the early afternoon as Cat had predicted. Even with the GPS to give them directions, traffic in the City was horrible. Everyone behind a steering wheel ignored the rules of the road.
“We’re taking our lives into our own hands, driving on these streets,” Catrina said.
Then they hit the traffic jams and slowed to a crawl. Maybe someone familiar with the city would have fared better, but Catrina faithfully followed the directions from her GPS.
“I could walk faster,” Ted said.
“Help yourself,” Hope replied. “We’ll meet you there.” She reached across her brother’s lap for the door handle.
It was close to five in the afternoon when they finally pulled up in front of the hotel.
“Wow!” Jeff stood on the curb and looked up at the impressive structure. The pink and brown stone building was seven stories tall, with a two-story tall arched portal bordered with pink granite. Elaborate wrought iron doors were latched open to reveal the marble lined entry way. Ornate carvings surrounded the arched windows on each floor and the roof-line was trimmed in novo rococo ginger bread. “This place is something.”
“It was built in the 1870’s, I think.” Ted pulled their bags out of the back of the Explorer and set them on the sidewalk. “During the Epoco de Oro, Mexico’s Golden Age.” A bellboy came running to load the bags on a cart. “This whole neighborhood is from that era. All of the buildings here are amazing, and you won’t believe the restaurants. Mexico City is one of the great food cities of the world.”
The group followed the bellboy into the lobby. The brass and glass doors opened onto a seven story tall lobby with granite tile floors, brass trim and tropical plants everywhere. At each level above the lobby, an arcade supported the floor above and a wide staircase went up the center of the structure. Philodendrons draped from the edges of the balconies.
“I’ve got our rooms.” Ted handed out keys. “We’re all on the top floor.” The girls shared a room, Ted and Chris had a room and Jeff scored a room to himself. “Let’s get unpacked. I’m bushed. I could use a little siesta before dinner.”
The elevator was tiny, but the five of them crowded in. The bellboy waited for the return elevator to deliver their luggage to their rooms.
The elevator door opened onto a broad arcade on the top floor. The doors were painted white with raised gold-leaf trim. Oil paintings of Spanish dons and señoritas lined the walls and statues filled little lighted alcoves. The rooms were posh and modern, but kept true to the historic style of the building with antique furnishings and trimmings.
“I’ll meet you in the b
ar in an hour,” Ted said as he opened the door to his room.
Chapter 28
Coyoacán, Mexico City
The white Mercedes limousine pulled up to the reinforced steel doors. The chauffer touched a button on his dashboard and the doors swung open. The sleek car drove inside.
A hard looking man, somewhere between thirty and forty, stepped from the car. The home was an outrageous display of wealth and power.
The complex took up an entire city block. A ten-foot-high cement fence, topped with wrought iron spikes wrapped in razor wire, surrounded the facility. A two-story stone house filled one side of the yard. A single story structure, stuccoed and painted dark blue on the north, pink on the south and yellow on the west, lined the other three sides.
The center of the complex was filled with a series of gardens. Green lawn with palm trees and tropical vegetation packed the yard. A pool with Koi on the west side of the garden lent to the idyllic look. To one side, a cactus garden with bare dirt reminded the man he was still in Mexico. But the single most imposing part of the facility was a replica of an Aztec temple in the center of the yard.
The temple was fully two stories tall, with steep steps leading to a platform on the top. On top of the platform, a wooden structure covered a stone altar. Ornate carvings of gods and animals covered the pyramid.
“I see you have arrived.” Yves stepped out of the shade of a pepper tree and extended his hand. “You are very punctual.”
“Quite a place you have here,” the man said.
Yves swept the grounds with his hand. “Yes, one of my little vanities. When it came on the market, I couldn’t resist. It offers privacy in the midst of the city. It was once the center of the city’s social life yet is built like a fortress.” Yves English was smooth, but slightly accented with his French heritage.
“Come, let’s go inside. I believe that Madame Trufaunt has refreshments ready for us.” Yves turned and led the man into the house.
The Mexican Connection: Ted Higuera Series Book 3 Page 21
