The Mexican Connection: Ted Higuera Series Book 3

by Pendelton Wallace

  ****

  Ted followed Catrina down the steep slope towards the small white building. Colonel Lazaro had provided them with a detailed layout of the compound. He even had aerial shots so they had a bird’s eye view of what it all looked like.

  The dessert appeared strange in the darkness of the night; weird shapes loomed over them from every direction. As they got close, Ted realized they were Saguaro cactus. Those funny Dr. Seuss trees, with a bunch of long sharp leaves close to the ground, like an agave cactus, but long trunks and a puff of leaves on top, hovered over them. Ted heard the sounds of the night, small animals scurried out of their way, and in the distance he heard the occasional coyote.

  The assault rifle felt strange on Ted’s shoulder. He felt a wave of cold fill his body and sweat broke out on his brow at the thought of having to use it again.

  He couldn’t let himself think like that. Cat and Jeff had come to his aid and helped him rescue Guillermo. He wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever he had to do to help them find this James Adams dude.

  Catrina dropped to the ground. “Down,” she whispered.

  Ted dropped down beside her.

  “There’s a guard on the building. He just turned the corner.” Catrina took off her night vision goggles and handed them to Ted.

  They weren’t expecting to have help on this mission, Ted thought, she only brought two sets of goggles. I wonder how she would have pulled this off without us?

  He pulled the contraption over his head and the world took on a green glow. Sure enough, he could see a man walking slowly around the building, with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  The man stuck a match and a fireball appeared in Ted’s eyes. “Yeoww!”

  “Shhh,” Catrina cautioned, taking back the night vision goggles.

  Ted didn’t need them now. The glow from the man’s cigarette was a clear beacon in the dark.

  “We wait until he turns the corner,” Catrina whispered, “Then we beat feet down there. I want to be in place by the time he comes back around.”

  “Okay.” Ted tried to sound confident. How the hell was Catrina so sure of herself?

  “When he comes back around the building, you take him out. I’ll get the door open.”

  As soon as the man turned the corner, Catrina and Ted were on their feet, running toward the building. Ted could hear the hum of machinery as they got closer.

  They disappeared into the shadows at the side of the building.

  Ted took big gulps of air to slow his breathing. He didn’t want the cabrón to hear his gasping.

  They waited . . . ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.

  Then Ted heard the shuffle of boots, and he saw the guard came around the corner.

  “Hey, buddy, got a match?” Ted stepped into the man’s path.

  The man froze.

  Ted didn’t hesitate, he smashed the man’s head with the butt of his rifle. The man dropped to the ground.

  “Clear,” Ted whispered.

  He turned to see Catrina fiddling around with the door latch.

  “It’s locked.” She said, as she reached into the pocket of her pants and removed her pick set. It only took a few seconds for her to open the door.

  Catrina lifted the night vision goggles away from her eyes and they went inside.

  A huge diesel generator rattled and puffed in the center of the room.

  “How do you shut this thing off,” Ted wondered aloud.

  He studied the machine for a moment. He knew engines. He grew up helping Tío Ernesto in his garage. There it was, the red button on the control panel, that should do it.

  “No movete!”

  Ted froze.

  A Mexican man grabbed Catrina around the throat and aimed a pistol at Ted. That was a bad mistake.

  Catrina stomped the heel of her boot down on her attacker’s foot. Ted heard a sickening crunch.

  “Madre de Díos!” the man screamed and loosened his grip on Catrina.

  She spun out of his grasp and kneed him in the groin, he doubled over and his hands went to his cajones.

  Catrina danced back a step and placed a kick squarely on his jaw. He straightened up for an instant, then sank to the ground. Catrina moved like lightning, stomping down on his gun hand.

  Again, Ted heard the crunching sound of breaking bones, as she liberated his weapon from him.

  “Okay, Higuera, kill the lights.” Catrina wasn’t even breathing hard.

  Ted watched her in amazement for an instant, then hit the red button.

  Silence enveloped them, in an instant darkness descended over the compound.

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” he said.

  “Too late,” Catrina laughed. “That ship has already sailed.”

  Chapter 36

  Ranchos Los Martires, Baja California, Mexico

  “Now!” Jeff whispered and took off at a sprint.

  It was all Hope could do not to lose sight of him. How could anyone run that fast?

  They sprinted down the paved walkway along the beach. The red rocks that marked the edges of the path were easy to see against the lighter colored concrete.

  After they passed the first two cabañas they had the entire hotel complex to negotiate. There was a pool to their left and a courtyard with tables and chairs to their right. Further down the path, a palapa covered an open-air bar.

  It was pitch dark and there were no traces of movement, but from somewhere far off, Hope heard men shouting.

  They made their way past the hotel and to the first cabaña on the left, labeled Unit #1. This was where Ricardo Lazaro said they would find their target.

  Jeff was already pressed up against the wall, next to the door when Hope caught up to him.

  He nodded his head towards the door and whispered, “Somebody’s home, it sounds like they’re doing the horizontal mambo.”

  Hope listened to the sounds coming from the cabaña. The windows were open and she could hear a woman’s squeals of delight and a man’s heavy breathing.

  “I hate to interrupt,” Jeff said, “but we have a schedule to keep.”

  He turned to face the door and held his rifle in front of him as he kicked in the door.

  It sounded like the world was coming to an end. The door splintered under Jeff’s kick.

  “AIEEE!” The woman shouted.

  Hope stepped into the room.

  The couple was naked on the bed, the man’s head between the woman’s thighs.

  She screamed and jumped to her feet.

  James Adams leapt to his feet, his hands covering his rapidly shrinking manhood.

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “What do you want?”

  “Hello, James, or should I call you Jimmy?” Jeff asked. “We have a message from your lovely wife, Lisa. She would like you to come home.”

  “Lisa?”

  “Cuff him,” Jeff shouted.

  Hope pulled the handcuffs from her belt. She stepped behind James and pulled his hands behind his back.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me get dressed.”

  “No time for that, amigo,” Jeff said. “Here, this will help.” He pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it at Hope.

  She caught it and draped it around James’s shoulders.

  “What about her?” Hope asked, pointing to the girl who had one hand covering her breasts and the other over her pubis.

  “Leave her. She’s no threat to us.”

  Jeff motioned with the barrel of his rifle. “Let’s get going, buddy. We don’t have all night.”

  ****

  Ted couldn’t remember ever running so hard or for so long. His lungs were ready to burst. How did Cat manage to outpace him, considering she was twenty years his senior.

  They ran through the dark over unpaved desert, dodging cactus, jumping rocks and juking around mesquite trees. How far was it? A few hundred yards? Maybe a mile or so.

  Finally, the airstrip came into view. Ted thought his lungs would explode. His le
gs felt like they were made of lead.

  He stopped at the end of the runway and bent over, resting his hands on his knees as he sucked in large amounts of air. Catrina was breathing hard too, but she hardly seemed to notice how hard they’d run.

  “C’mon, Higuera,” she said. “Man up. We’ve got a job to do.”

  Ted reached into his backpack and handed Catrina two packages. “You take this side, I’ll take the other.” He stood up straight and jogged to the other side of the airstrip.

  He found a big rock and opened his package; he used the rock to anchor one end of the LED light strip. This is just like stringing Christmas lights, he thought as he unrolled the strand. When he got to the end, he connected a second one. He had four strips in total. Not enough to illuminate the entire side of the runway, but enough to show Chris where it was.

  He hooked the end of the strip into a converter, connected the converter to a battery, then dashed back to the other end of the runway.

  The runway began at the beach. Too short of an approach, and the pilot and passengers would be swimming. If the plane didn’t get airborne by the end of the runway, it would make for a watery grave.

  Ted took the second package out of his backpack and tossed the backpack aside. He took the battery-powered lantern out of the box, switched it to red light and turned it on.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to see Catrina had illuminated her side of the runway and her red light was glowing at the other end.

  Ted took the radio from his belt and pushed in the mic button.

  “Click,” He said.

  “Click, click,” he heard back.

  ****

  The Cessna Caravan was a new experience for Chris. To his surprise, it flew much like a big 172.

  He’d done about two hundred hours in his father’s planes. When Chris was a teenager, Harry caught the flying bug. He started with a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. It didn’t take long for his father to graduate to high performance, then twin-engine airplanes.

  Chris had flown them all. Never as pilot-in-command. He always flew with Dad in the right seat, but over the years, Harry had relinquished control of the aircraft to his very skilled son.

  . Chris never took the test to obtain his pilot’s license, but he was confident at the controls none the less.

  As he flew out over the Sea of Cortez, he could see the lights of La Paz behind him, but there was nothing except blackness ahead and below.

  Ted had found him a good machine, it was equipped with the latest GPS navigation system, so he could plug in the coordinates and easily find his destination.

  Ted was quite a talker, he’d haggled with the flying service, finally flashing enough cash to get them to yield. No FBO in the US would rent a plane to an unlicensed pilot, but in Mexico, cash was king, and everything had a price tag.

  Earlier that day, the five of them had flown out along the San Lorenzo Channel to get the lay of the land. They’d had a birds-eye view of the rancho.

  Chris noted that the paved runway, which wasn’t on his aeronautical charts, was about a mile long and ended right at the sea’s edge. Landing during daylight shouldn’t be much of an issue, but at night it would be dangerous. He needed to know exactly where the runway ended and the sea began. Missing by a few feet would be a disaster, he would be under the water and his friends would be trapped.

  He looked at his watch; it was a little after three am. Ted should be there by now. Their getaway hinged on whether or not Ted could light up the runway.

  No lights, no landing. He would fly around, waiting until he ran low on fuel and had to return to La Paz, but if he couldn’t see the runway; his friends would be on their own.

  Then the lights went out at the rancho. The whole complex plunged into darkness and Chris sighed with relief.

  It didn’t take long for the first string of lights to appear, as a long tube of yellow light in a sea of darkness became visible. Then moments later, the second string marked the edges of the runway. It didn’t light the whole runway, but enough for him to tell where it was.

  He saw the glow of the first red light. That has to be the end of the runway near the hills. Where’s the beginning? The second red light appeared, right where he expected it.

  “Click.” He heard Ted’s voice in his headset.

  “Click, click,” Chris replied.

  Chris turned the big single engine plane onto final approach and reduced the power. The Caravan sunk towards the water below. He pulled down the flap switch and heard the electric motor grinding. The flaps dropped to forty degrees. The plane wanted to pitch up.

  He maintained downward pressure on the yoke and rolled the trim wheel forward until the pressure relented. He was on a good glide-slope.

  He crossed over the first red light fifty feet up, cut the engine and let the plane sink onto the runway. The wheels screeched as they came into contact with the tarmac and he pressed hard on the brakes.

  The plane slowed and he taxied to the end of the runway and turned the plane around.

  ****

  Ted heard the sound of the Cessna’s engine overhead. Chris was flying without running or landing lights. Could he make this landing in the dark? Ted wondered as its wheels reached for the pavement.

  It touched down just beyond his red lantern with a slight screech. Chris rolled out to the end of the runway and turned around.

  Ted ran the length of the runway, at least another mile, to meet up with Catrina.

  She was already hunkered down with her M16 at the ready. Chris was standing beside her with a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Hey, amigo, good to see you.” His voice sounded like he just kicked the winning field goal.

  “Yeah, you too buddy, any signs of Hope and Jeff?” Ted panted.

  “Jeff,” Catrina said into her radio. “Report.”

  “We have subject. We’re making our way back to the LZ.”

  Then the lights came back on.

  Ted could see armed men running around everywhere. He saw three figures heading in their direction, one of them stumbling.

  He heard an engine start up. A group of men, carrying rifles and sub-machine guns, climbed into the back of a monster pickup truck. The pickup took off, with a spot light on Jeff, Hope and Adams.

  “Shit,” Catrina yelled. She put her rifle to her shoulder and pressed the trigger.

  Fire flared from the muzzle of her weapon. The pickup swerved from the road, bounced over the dirt, then came back onto the road.

  The men in the back of the pickup opened fire. At that range, bouncing around in the back of a truck, there was little chance that they would hit anything.

  Catrina took aim again. She squeezed off three shots. The third one hit the spot light. Jeff, Hope and Adams ran on in the dark.

  Ted shook off his shock and got his rifle unslung. Automatic or single-shot? He flipped the selector lever straight up and squeezed off a round.

  He had no idea if he hit anything, but the incoming fire was bound to add to the gunmen’s confusion.

  Jeff and Hope were getting nearer. They were dragging a man covered in a blanket. He seemed to be hopping around.

  “Hurry up, damn it!” Catrina shouted.

  The truck was closing on them.

  “The culvert,” Jeff shouted into his radio. “Hit it when they’re over the culvert.”

  They ran as fast as they could, dragging the reluctant James Adams with them.

  Ted could hear him complaining.

  “My feet,” he screamed.

  Jeff ignored him and continued to drag him along with them.

  More gunfire came from the pickup.

  “Shit!” Catrina yelled as she was lifted from her feet. She collapsed on the ground.

  “Cat!” Ted yelled. He pumped a few more rounds into the pickup and turned to Catrina.

  She was pulling herself up, gasping for breath.

  “Damn. Those things kick like a mule.” She grinned and pulled two slugs from her Kevlar vest.
She reached in her pants pocket and produced a small electronic box.

  A cold wave of fear flowed through Ted’s body. He hadn’t thought about it in years. He didn’t even remember it, until now.

  He could see the Arab man on the big fishing boat with the same little box in his hand. He saw the man push the button and his world was blown to hell. They lost Meagan and Jack, and Chris was badly wounded in the explosion.

  “Higuera.”

  Ted snapped back to the present. Catrina was shouting at him.

  “Give them covering fire.”

  Ted put his rifle back to his shoulder, switched to automatic mode and squeezed off a burst.

  His sister and Jeff crossed the culvert onto the runway. The truck was right behind them.

  “They’re too close!” Catrina shouted.

  “Now,” Jeff yelled. “Now!”

  Catrina pushed the button.

  The C-4 explosives in the culvert exploded, sending the truck and men flying. Gasoline spewed from the truck and caught fire.

  Jeff shoved Hope to the ground and lay on top of her. James Adams sprawled on the tarmac.

  Ted ran over to his sister and pulled Jeff off. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said in a small voice. “Jeff?”

  Ted looked over at the handsome black man. Jeff was sprawled on the pavement, a dazed look in his eyes.

  “Let’s go, everyone, in the plane now!” Chris shouted, as he sprinted around the nose and climbed into the pilot’s side.

  Hope tried to help Jeff up. He just lay there.

  “Get Adams,” Ted shouted. “I’ll get Jeff.”

  Hope pulled James to his feet and pushed him towards the plane. “Move!” she shouted as she gave him a shove.

  Ted put his hands under Jeff to lift him and felt warm sticky liquid. He rolled him over. There was a huge gash in his back with a large piece of metal protruding from the wound.

  “Oh my God. Cat,” he shouted. “We need help here.”

  More men were running towards the runway, firing guns.

  “Pick him up. We’ve got to get out of here now.”