“We’re not burning anything down,” Nick said. “Place caught on fire during the firefight with the Vigilantes.”
What to do afterward had been discussed prior to the mission, but Isabella hadn’t given up on swaying Nick.
“We should call President Rivera and turn in all this coke,” she said. “Let him take partial credit for its seizure. Or he can pretend a raid elsewhere seized it. It would buy him political capital with both the American government and his people.”
“You missed the part,” Nick said, “where I said I could give two shits about President Rivera or the Mexican government. We’re here to take down this asshole Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Nick’s right,” Marcus said. “We give this stuff up and it’s just a chance for some police informer to get a look at us or pick up a clue when we do the handoff. We don’t need that risk. Plus, you know damn well that this coke would disappear from the evidence room and be back on the streets in two weeks.”
“Not everyone in Mexico is dirty,” Isabella said.
“And there’s not many naive Boy Scouts in our unit,” Nick said, “except for Preacher there. And he’d cut your throat in a heartbeat. Just might pray for you as you died.”
A couple of men laughed, and Nick said, “Burn the place, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What about the prisoners?” Truck said. He had the look of a man who wanted to take care of the problem before they left.
Nick wasn’t to the point of executing men who were unarmed and bound. Yet.
“Marcus, get some of the men to load them up and drop ’em off at some landmark,” Nick said. “We’ll get our Mexican liaison to call President Rivera’s chief of intelligence and let them know where they are. I’m sure they’d enjoy the opportunity to interrogate them.”
Nick turned and walked toward the van, and Marcus issued orders to grab the prisoners and light the place up. They’d be leaving with several minutes dispersion between vehicles and Marcus needed to get the departure coordinated with the other two squad leaders, as well as the four scout snipers who needed to be picked up.
Nick was already dialed out of this op and planning the next, but Marcus appreciated not being micromanaged. He knew delegation was difficult for Nick, and he didn't intend to screw this exfil up.
The next day, the Vigilantes uploaded and distributed a press release and video about the church raid. Besides footage of the cocaine, dead bodies, and weapons in the cathedral, they also inserted loads of evidence against Flores and the Godesto Cartel in the video.
Isabella had spent hours finding pictures of him online in various news clippings and websites involved with the church and its priest, and she provided images of Hernan Flores attending the church and articles describing him donating loads of money to it. Plus, there were about a dozen photos of Flores and the priest together at various events.
In the end, it was a damning (and compelling) video against Flores, and it exploded online and on dozens of news stations across Mexico. Analysts and commentators broadcast and discussed the video to no end, and chat rooms across the internet began to say that perhaps Flores truly was corrupt.
Chapter 18
Billionaire Juan Soto arrived at the Presidential Palace just a few minutes after ten in the morning. Soto hated to arrive late to any meeting, especially one involving a friend, but the capital city had rings of checkpoints, blocked roads, and vehicle barriers on all routes in. Following the attack on the Presidential Palace a few weeks earlier, security had been amped up to its highest level in recent years.
Juan Soto’s limousine and two SUV escorts -- both crammed full of heavily armed bodyguards -- had to be checked and allowed through each of these security precautions, and this lengthy process had Mexico’s number one businessman running late.
The convoy finally pulled through the front gate, which was the most heavily guarded of all. The Presidential Palace had dozens of men on numerous scaffolds along its exterior, all painting and patching its heavily damaged walls. Soto observed the workers with practiced eyes. He had overseen hundreds of building and renovation projects and he wanted to confirm this was an all-out effort, not some dog-and-pony show for him and the media. He stepped from his limousine into his crowd of bodyguards and felt certain this was no matter of pretense. This was a well-organized, effective undertaking, complete with foremen yelling, architects looking over plans, and men rushing to finish assignments.
The restoration task had been given to a rival company, despite the reality that Soto owned the country’s most prestigious and sought-after construction firm. But Soto had agreed with President Rivera that it would have looked terrible to outsiders for Soto’s company to have won the job.
It did chafe Soto a bit that he was donating $10 million toward the work, and that part of his money was going to pad his competitor’s wallet, but such was life. Plus, he had bigger things to worry about right now. He ran his hand over his custom-fitted suit jacket and straightened it, entering the Presidential Palace in a hurry.
A top aide for Rivera greeted him at the door and four security men waved Soto’s bodyguards to stop. The aide escorted him down numerous halls and switchbacks to the President’s private office. The aide opened the door for him and motioned Juan Soto in.
President Roberto Rivera sat at his desk, a phone to his ear.
“Yes, General,” Rivera said, his voice slightly strained. He looked up and saw his friend and held up a finger. “That’s exactly what I want done. Now, I must go.”
Rivera hung up the phone and stood. Soto saw a sense of frustration and weariness in his friend before Rivera broke into his smile and covered his weary state with a practiced veil wielded by all great leaders -- both in business and in politics.
“It’s so good to see you,” Rivera said.
“And you, as well,” Soto said. “I know you’re extremely busy, but I wanted to stop by and congratulate you on the magnificent first strike against Hernan Flores. The Vigilantes taking down the cathedral was great, and the video was even better.”
Rivera’s practiced, fake smile went wide into the real smile Soto knew so well.
“It has only begun,” Rivera said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“It’s a bit early, but we do have something that needs to be celebrated,” Soto said with a grin.
Rivera avoided calling a staffer and walked to a cabinet and poured the drinks himself.
Soto didn’t try to stop him. He had attempted to stop the President the first couple of times that Rivera had rendered stiff drinks, insisting that no leader of Rivera’s stature should serve a constituent, but Rivera had practically ordered him to stand back and allow him to do it.
“You’re a friend and I wouldn’t be here without your support,” Rivera had said back then. “Plus, I must do something to keep myself humble. I can feel this power already going to my head.”
So on this day, Soto bit down any objections and watched Rivera pour the drinks. Soto thought back to other drinks they had shared. Their first shared drink -- at least since Rivera had reached the country’s most powerful position; they used to share them regularly before that -- transpired about three in the morning on the night of his victory. They both wanted to celebrate Rivera’s election as President alone before returning to their wives.
They had repeated the private occasion on the night that Rivera narrowly beat out his primary opponent, who had been the head of the Congress of the Union. No one expected the shaky, first-term President, even with Soto’s support, to pull off defeating their older, more statesman-like rival. Some of Rivera’s first-term supporters had even dumped him in favor of his opponent.
His rival had pushed for peace with the cartels, especially the Godesto Cartel, and the polls showed that the Mexican people desired that, also. And his earlier backers had grown lukewarm in their support of him as the violence escalated following Rivera’s strong moves against
the cartels. But Rivera’s sincerity and charm had pulled in barely enough of the older Mexican voters who felt pursuing peace with the cartels was nothing short of naive and hopeless.
Rivera handed Soto a glass and lifted his own in a toast.
“To the defeat of Hernan Flores,” Rivera said.
“No. Rather, to the death of Hernan Flores,” Soto said. “We cannot allow this man to end up behind bars. He will run his cartel just as efficiently from there as he does now.”
Rivera nodded and they both swallowed their drinks.
Rivera said, “You know I can’t say that.”
“I do,” Soto said, “but had he tried to abduct your daughter, you might feel differently.”
Rivera nodded, looking down. “How is she?”
“She’s still seeing a counselor five days a week,” Soto said. “She was scared out of her mind, and she was close to several of her guards. They went with her everywhere. Recitals, school activities, etc. They probably knew her better than me.”
Rivera couldn’t meet Soto’s eyes. The near kidnapping of his number one supporter’s daughter still caused him great embarrassment. And Rivera couldn’t imagine how a kid was supposed to get over seeing men blown apart right in front of their eyes.
“How’s Camilla?” he asked lamely.
Soto shook his head.
“She still thinks we should leave the country,” Soto said. “Camilla’s a good woman, but we’ve seen a lot of death and too many close calls to count. For God’s sake, I’m traveling in an armored limousine these days, and keeping two SUVs with eight more men around me. That’s far more than I’ve had in the past. Every day is like leaving for a war zone. She worries to no end.”
Soto saw the words cutting into Rivera and knew he didn’t need to add more pressure. Being President in Mexico in good years would be a brutal job; the country was so poor and underdeveloped. But, facing down one of the most powerful cartels in the country’s history would prove too much for most.
Soto walked over and put his hand on Rivera’s shoulder.
“Just get this bastard as fast as you can, Roberto, and everything will be just fine,” Soto said.
“I will, Juan, I promise you. Just give me some more time.”
They shook hands and hugged, and both men departed feeling guilty. Soto, because he had placed additional stress on his friend, and Rivera, because he had fallen so short to date as President in his war against Hernan Flores.
Just fifteen miles away, their opposition likewise wrapped up a meeting.
Hernan Flores and the Butcher had discussed and argued about their response to such a devastating loss -- both in cocaine product and in Flores’s reputation.
In the end, they came up with the perfect response. They polished the idea and finalized their plans.
“Let’s see if we can fight their fire with fire,” Flores said, as they both stood to leave.
The Butcher smiled his sick smile and picked up his duffel bag, crammed full of gear, including his Uzi and katana swords.
Chapter 19
The Godesto Cartel was moments away from striking back at President Roberto Rivera when the phone in the Butcher’s pocket began vibrating. He debated not answering it. He knew it was Flores, and he knew what Flores wanted, but he still didn’t want to answer the phone. He took a deep breath and picked it up.
“Yes?” he asked.
“What is taking so long?” Flores asked.
The Butcher cursed under his breath. It infuriated him to no end that Flores had informants in the Butcher’s assault squads. The Butcher had always suspected some of the men informed against him to Flores, but having the proof now made the Butcher angrier. He assumed Flores used the informers to undermine him, in addition to leaking out valuable information.
These men would make it harder to eventually move against Flores and take his position as leader of the Godesto Cartel from him. And, the fact they existed also definitively proved that Flores didn’t trust him, which would make any power moves he made all the more frightening. It also meant the Butcher might need to move the timetable up since Flores could be planning to move on him first.
The number one rule of cartel politics was also the number one rule of conventional warfare: Better to be on the offense and have the initiative than be caught off guard and stuck reacting.
“Answer the question,” Flores said. “What is taking so long?”
“This is a complicated operation,” the Butcher said. “We’ll move soon.” And with that, he slammed his phone shut, then turned it off vibrate.
The Butcher looked up at his assembled men. He wondered who the informant was, but knew that was something to worry about later.
“Is everyone ready?” he asked.
Men nodded, confidence showing on their faces. Some of them flashed cruel smiles, anticipating the bloodshed.
The Butcher recognized that some were nearly as maniacal as he and he grinned back, knowing he had transformed many into his own image.
“Let’s do it then,” he said, and the group of men broke up and moved off to vehicles. They knew the plans, they knew their assignments. They were ready.
Their target was an isolated police station in Coyutla, a medium-sized city of 20,000. The city lay alone and miles from help, and while it would have been easier to hit a small police department in a tiny, rural town, that wouldn’t have been impressive enough for either Flores’s or the Butcher’s tastes. So, they were going after Coyutla in the central part of Veracruz.
The state of Veracruz lay to the east of Mexico City. The city of Coyutla supported a department of fifty police officers. On a late afternoon like today, there’d be as many as twenty of them in their headquarters. But that wouldn’t matter. Not today. Not against Flores and the Butcher.
The convoy of cars, trucks, and SUVs sped toward the police department headquarters in the heart of the city. Two of the officers from the department, who in the past had provided the Godesto Cartel with occasional warnings prior to raids, had each been paid one hundred thousand dollars cash to give detailed information about the department’s headquarters, its shifts, and its contingency plans.
The building was pretty secure because of the threats from the cartels. It utilized four steel doors with small, wire-reinforced windows as its entry and exit points, instead of more typical glass doors that looked more aesthetically pleasing and allowed in more light. The doors opened outward instead of inward, and were designed that way to make breaching them inward with a breaching tool an impossibility. They were located at the center of each side of the building: north, south, east, and west.
Each door had an overhang to protect the police officers from rain as they entered and exited, as well as two handrails. No parking was allowed near the building for fear of car bombs. But the department lacked the funding to place concrete vehicle barriers twenty feet from it, so the place lay vulnerable. But car bombs weren’t Flores’s style, and they weren’t the Butcher’s, either. Other cartels may use them, but not the Godesto.
Flores and the Butcher had better ideas for attacking this police headquarters than car bombs, which most of the people in Mexico considered cowardly and especially heinous.
The Butcher now sat in the passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner a mere block from the police department. He turned to a man in the back, who held a video camera ready for use.
“Are you ready?” the Butcher asked.
The man nodded “yes,” and the Butcher pulled up a bandana from his neck to cover his face. The rest of the men in the vehicle did so, as well.
The Butcher pulled a Motorola walkie-talkie up and said, “Begin operation. Let’s kill all of the bastards.”
In the backseat of the 4Runner, the cameraman flipped the simple Sony camcorder on and aimed it at the man across from him. The man, wearing a low baseball hat and speaking from behind a bandana-hidden face, said, “We are the Vigilantes and this is our second operation, against the evil Hernan Flores and the Go
desto Cartel. These officers of this district are all corrupt and they will die for their crimes against Mexico.”
The speaker directed the cameraman to look over his shoulder and the man turned the video recorder in time to barely catch a massive garbage truck speeding toward the door to the police headquarters across from them. An officer stood under the canopy shade, smoking as the late afternoon came to a close.
The officer heard the truck heading toward him and suddenly realized the speed and direction was a clear threat. He fumbled for his pistol. Caught off guard, his brain couldn’t decide what to do. So the man indecisively tried to do three things at once: throw the cigarette down, unholster his pistol, and jump out of the way. But his legs tried to dart left, then right, while his hands tried to desperately throw the cigarette down and get his pistol out so he could put a bullet in the driver. The man looked like a squirrel in the middle of a road that can’t decide which way to go.
So, the officer failed at each desperate attempt, and merely looked like a bumbling idiot on the video as the truck, dumpster lifted over its cab, tore through the handrails and the screaming man, its massive bulk and momentum making the task look easy.
Metal pieces, concrete chunks, and bloody limbs flew forward as the truck slammed on its brakes and bounced to a stop. The truck reversed fifteen feet and its arms dropped its big, green dumpster right in front of the door before any officers could react to the sound. The truck’s dumpster doors had been welded shut so there would be no climbing through it. And with the massive, one-ton obstacle in place, the door was utterly blocked unless someone had a couple of blocks of C4.
On the left side of the building, a second garbage truck slammed through another set of guard rails and placed its welded-shut dumpster in front of that exit, as well. This door lacked a smoker, so it was far less dramatic but just as effective.
Now, of the four doors into the police department building, two were blocked: both the one across from the Butcher and the one to his nine o'clock.
Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Page 14
