The men covered the doors with their weapons and the Butcher yanked his long Uzi mag out, threw it into his bag, and pulled out another. He replaced it and looked back at the man in the rear of their group. He was a fat man carrying a huge pack and a shotgun. He was also the only man wearing a mask to conceal his face.
And for good reason. He was an active-duty army demolition specialist, a sergeant with more than twelve years of service. It wouldn’t do for him to lose the lifetime pension he had nearly earned.
Though considering what he was earning today, the pension wouldn’t be necessary if he got many more assignments from the Butcher and the Godesto Cartel. But the Butcher wanted the man’s identity protected as badly as the sergeant did. If the man was recognized and arrested, it wasn’t the imprisonment of the NCO that would bother the Butcher. It would be the loss of access to unlimited amounts of explosives.
This man had the rank to fudge paperwork and exaggerate the volume used in training exercises. The sergeant squeezed through the group of men and went to work. He pulled out a prepared explosive charge that was about twenty feet long and about two inches wide. The man had prepared the charge prior to their arrival at Juan Soto’s building, and as he attached it around the doorframe, the Butcher suddenly remembered that the sergeant had literally been trained by American Special Forces.
Oh, if only Congress and the American people knew about this, the Butcher thought. He laughed at the idea. Well, their dollars were still going toward the war on drugs. Just being used by both sides. And with that he actually laughed loudly. A couple of his men looked warily at him, but feeling he was half-mad already, they quickly looked away without a word.
The sergeant positioned the explosives in about ten seconds -- slow by Navy SEAL standards, and they had been the unit that trained him -- but he wasn’t a Navy SEAL. Just an overweight Mexican sergeant who had the kind of motivation you might find in a regular infantry unit in the U.S. Army.
“We need to move back,” the sergeant said.
No one needed any additional encouragement. They all moved down the hall and back into the far stairwell, as the sergeant unreeled a length of det cord behind him. He fed the line under the fire escape door, and they closed it.
“Hold your ears,” the fat man said to the group hunkered down in the stairwell.
He squeezed the clacker four times and a blast rocked the hallway, along with a heavy thud. The cartel members rushed the hallway, running through a cloud of dust and smoke.
One door had fallen and the other hung twisted and leaning, only one top hinge holding it up. The doorframe had been nearly ripped from the wall, just as the demolition specialist had hoped.
Juan Soto’s guards inside the room hadn’t known to expect the blast since their cameras had been shot out, and a couple of them crawled away from the doors, their heads rattled and their ears bleeding. The Butcher’s men, who had raced in front of their leader, tore the two shook-up men apart in a deluge of barely accurate automatic fire. Flesh blasted apart. Blood painted furniture. Hardwood floors disintegrated.
There was a momentary feeling of victory among the cartel members, and then a snap sounded and a Godesto man’s heads exploded. Another man crumpled and then a third screamed and jumped.
“Get back, you idiots,” the Butcher said. “They’ve got silenced weapons.”
They scrambled back, but another man screamed in pain and fell before they could retreat behind the cover of the wall.
At least one of Soto’s guards had smoked them in a calm and efficient manner with his silenced weapon. Now, four of their brethren lay in front of the missing door. Two were motionless, already dead. One lay on the ground whimpering and clutching his wounds. And one held his neck, bleeding profusely.
Apparently whoever was left alive inside was fully coherent, despite the blast. They clearly had complete control of their senses, including their hearing. The Butcher knew Soto’s men would be some of the best that money could buy, and they might even have submachine guns or assault rifles. Not just pistols. But, he had planned for this.
His men, bloodthirsty by nature and angry at the loss of their friends, didn’t need to be told what to do. They were already reaching into pouches and pockets and pulling pins.
Grenade after grenade was thrown, rolled, and bounced into the room. Explosion after explosion roared and new screams joined the sounds of the Godesto wounded. None of the Butcher’s men wanted to take any chances, so more grenades were tossed and hurled deep into the room.
After those explosions ceased, they rushed the room like a bunch of wild animals. They assaulted the room in typical cartel style. No fire control. No clearing of corners. No communicating.
In fact, it was the precise opposite of the organized, synchronized movement of elite forces that resulted from hundreds of hours of practice and rehearsal. Instead, the Godesto charged in and shot up couches, counters, and furniture sets -- anywhere anyone could be hiding. Their rounds tore through shaken and wounded men. Survivors were gleefully executed. The Butcher stood among his men, the smell of cordite, C4 explosive, and blood filling the air.
“How many are there?” he asked, too loud. “We need a body count.”
He shook his head to clear all the cobwebs in it -- damn, he hated how explosions shook you up, even when you were prepared for them -- and he hoped his ears would stop ringing soon.
“We count five, sir,” one of his senior men said.
“Good,” the Butcher said. They wouldn’t need to go searching through the building looking for any more of Juan Soto’s men. And if his ambush team had successfully dealt with the responding SWAT team, then they should be in good shape, timewise.
“Get the demo man up,” the Butcher said, nodding toward the final, imposing obstacle. “We need to finish this.”
Again the fat sergeant pushed forward from behind the men, though in this case, he hadn’t even entered the room yet. Well, the Butcher thought with a smirk, if all army soldiers were brave, then the cartels would probably be out of business.
He let his Uzi hang and yanked his katana out, slapping the man on the ass with it as he waddled by.
“Hurry up, butterball,” he said.
Several of the man laughed and cursed the masked man. Sweat poured down the back of his thick neck, and the underarms of his shirt were dark with perspiration.
With the way his men stood, their weapons sitting on their hips and cockiness practically oozing from them, the Butcher figured the man worried he would be killed once he finished. But that wasn’t the case. The Butcher needed him too badly, but he didn’t mind the intimidation. It helped keep men like the sergeant compliant, an important requirement given that the man already had a problem with loyalty. Better to be feared than liked.
The man dug in his pack and removed several shaped charges. He stacked them on the floor and then began studying the vault-like door, estimating its weight and strength from up close. The man squinted and seemed to grow worried.
Before he could say anything, one of the most menacing, muscle-bound cartel members walked up, groped his ass, and said, “Don’t mess this up, amigo. You mess this up and the Butcher said I can take you home with me. Do you have any idea how much I love a fat man?”
The cartel member reached around, grabbed the man, and kissed him on his sweaty neck. Even the Butcher grimaced.
“That’s enough, Rocko,” the Butcher said.
The tank-top wearing beast stepped away from the man and winked at a friend, who snickered.
The demolitions man fumbled with the roll of electrical tape and dropped it. The cartel members laughed, and the man wiped his forehead, trying to concentrate again. He got back to studying the door and began affixing charges all along the edges, as well as the hinges and the locking mechanisms. It looked to the Butcher like the man was using an excessive amount, probably hoping to overwhelm it with haphazardly placed charges.
“Is there a problem?” the Butcher asked?
> “It’s a complicated door,” the man said, sounding worried. “More like a safe or vault than merely a reinforced door.”
The fat man pointed at the bottom of the door.
“See here?” he said. “Look at these slots where clearly hardened steel posts have been pushed down into the floor.”
The Butcher could see, but he didn’t want to hear it.
“Enough,” he said. “I don’t want excuses.”
He stared hard at the man and stepped closer, raising his katana until the point of it pushed up the man’s lower jaw.
“Don’t tell me about complications. The only complication we’re going to have is with you if this door isn’t blown down in about sixty seconds.”
“Yes, sir,” the man managed to say, careful not to move his mouth down.
The Butcher withdrew the blade and stepped away.
The sergeant got back to work and the Butcher lifted his radio to check on his other teams. They’d get this door down, one way or the other.
Meanwhile, two vanloads of men from the Godesto Cartel swarmed a bank on the outskirts of Mexico City. They mowed down two pistol-toting security guards in a blaze of gunfire from their assault rifles, executed three tellers until the bank manager finally opened the safe, and swiped four million dollars in as leisurely a pace as probably anyone has ever robbed a bank before.
The robbery only multiplied President Roberto Rivera’s troubles...
Chapter 33
Nick Woods waited outside President Roberto Rivera’s office again. The news reporting on the prior day’s events had been brutal.
Juan Soto? Killed. A major bank? Robbed. A SWAT team? Wiped out.
And that didn’t take into account the nearly seventy cops killed within a fifteen-minute period across Mexico City at roughly the same time. It was the bloodiest day against law enforcement in Mexico’s history. Martial law had been imposed -- a “temporary” martial law, Rivera called it in a late-night press conference -- and the President’s enemies in Congress were screaming for multiple investigations into the day’s events.
To say that President Roberto Rivera was on the ropes was the understatement of the century. None of this really affected Nick. He hated to see the losses, but they were to be expected when you’re at war. He had watched much of the coverage the previous night with his team, and the members of Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter had celebrated their reprieve. Though the carnage was unfortunate, the team members were ecstatic that their mission would be extended. They were like a sports team that had traveled a long distance to play a championship game, and had been told the game was over just mid-way through the first quarter. S3 was ready to get back in the game and even the score and do what they had trained for years and years to do.
Once a summary of the day’s events was mostly digested thanks to Isabella’s translation, and once the talking heads and analysts on the news started focusing on the upcoming investigations and political ramifications, Nick had called Dwayne Marcus over for a private pow wow.
The two had agreed that with their extension looking imminent, the men should enjoy one last night of relaxation before things kicked back into high gear the next day. And with that thought, they planned a rotating security schedule that would allow everyone some time off and instructed each squad to spend some time together out by their own fire, cooking hot dogs and melting marshmallows. They also sent another couple of men out with one thousand dollars in petty cash to stock up on food and beer.
The only caveat this time was no fighting and a two-beer limit. The last thing they needed were men dealing with hangovers the next day, since there was a small chance they could be called to immediately jump into action.
Nick had avoided mingling with the various squads of S3 this time, choosing not to rotate around the fires like he had last time. He knew he should have, but the near early end of their deployment had put the fear of living his life alone again into his head, and there was nothing he had wanted more last night than to spend it with his Primary Strike Team members.
Dwayne Marcus, in typical fashion, lapped Nick in the physical and leadership category, asking permission to PT instead of hanging out with the Primary Strike Team. The former football standout from Florida then did a one-hour calisthenics session before showering and checking in on the other squads, like Nick knew he should have done.
Truck, the former Army Special Forces soldier who had been kicked out for beating up an officer, stayed true to form and broke the rules. Nick caught him drinking four beers instead of two during the night, but didn’t say anything. Mostly, because Truck drank twice as much as everyone else regularly, so the extra wouldn’t faze him, but also because Nick didn’t want to ruin the evening -- for either himself or Truck.
Lizard, the Puerto Rican Marine vet of nine years, had looked nervous the whole night. He fidgeted and avoided drinking at all. Nick reminded himself that Lizard’s profile talked about how he had always wanted out of the Marine Corps, and how he’d always dreaded combat, and yet the man had still done nine years and pulled off two Bronze Stars for valor. When Nick had asked him if he was doing okay, Lizard, staring into the flames, simply said, “I miss my family, but we have a job to do. And I need the money.”
Lizard was a fretter, but not much of a talker.
Bulldog, the massive, 6’4” Navy SEAL from the streets of Baltimore, had arrived late to the fire, having worked out for two hours prior to his arrival. He was easily the biggest PT freak in all of Nick’s unit, and he had doubled the amount of time that even Dwayne Marcus had exercised. And as if that wasn’t enough, even once he showed up, he hardly relaxed. Bulldog declined the offered beer, hot dogs, and marshmallows, choosing instead a protein bar and some kind of gross-looking nutritional drink.
And of course, Red, the short, cocky, and reckless asshole, had scoffed at Bulldog’s selection, asking the giant man if he was there for a war or a bodybuilding contest. Bulldog had threatened to crush the chain-smoking country boy, to which Red then said that he didn’t fear men who shaved their legs and underarms and put on a g-string after lotioning up real well.
Nick had seriously thought he would have to step in between them, but Preacher, the four-tour Marine who rarely said much, played peacemaker and settled Red and Bulldog down.
Preacher had even enjoyed a couple of hotdogs with the team before retiring early. The man was a loner and preferred isolation almost as much as Nick did. Nick assumed Preacher had left to either pray or meditate or maybe read his Bible. But the man didn’t push his views and he was well liked, and with two of his tours having been with MARSOC, Nick knew everyone respected the man who’d been raised by missionaries as a boy.
Nick had spent the night around the fire mostly quiet and simply watching. He had relished the stories told around the crackling flames, tales that ranged from firefights in foreign lands to barfights in shitty ports throughout the world. The men had also indulged in some locker-room talk. And Isabella, the consummate team player and cool chick, hadn’t minded.
The laughs and taunts had lasted for three-plus hours, and Nick had watched his team, and especially Isabella, savoring the entire time as they sat out under the cloudless night, stars lighting up the night sky majestically.
If last night hadn’t been heaven on earth, then Nick didn’t know what it was. But eventually, he had picked up his M14 and headed back to the farmhouse, exchanging a long look with Isabella before he left.
The night had gotten better an hour later.
Nick heard a soft knock and put down the shooting magazine he was reading. He opened the door to see Isabella standing there.
“You wanted to see me?” she whispered, with a coy grin on her face. She stood there in a tank top and a pair of shorts.
“More than anything in the world,” Nick said.
Nick reached for her, yanked her into the room, and stuck his head out the door. Confirming the hallway was clear, he then gently shut the door.
“Most men
would be more focused on what’s in the room,” Isabella said. She now stood against the tall bed, her hips leaning against it, but her arms crossed in mock rejection.
Nick strode toward her, towered over her, and put his hand behind her neck. He pulled her toward him and said, “I’m not most men.”
She resisted, leaned back again.
“I could find another,” she said.
“You could, but you’re in my room.”
He pulled her close again, kissing the spot where her ear and jawline met. He slowly breathed in the scent of her hair, an intoxicating mix of strawberry and fire.
“You’re awfully confident,” she said. “What makes you so sure?”
“I hit what I aim at,” Nick said, lifting her chin and kissing her lightly.
“And I always catch my man,” Isabella said.
Nick pulled her to her feet, leaned forward, and kissed her. She responded, and soon they were locked in deep kisses and passion that had been repressed for too long.
Nick picked her up, and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, her hands in his hair.
They made love, ferociously the first time that night, and later made love again, before they drifted off to sleep with what little time remained.
Nick, thinking back on it, couldn’t help but feel like he was on top of the world. A night with friends, by the fire; a night with Isabella, so full of passion; and now he was about to be handed a hunting license again by the President of Mexico.
Life was grand in his book. This was the life of a warrior. The thing every kid dreamed of: a brave man, a hot lady, a phone call to save the day.
Even that same hot secretary seemed to be looking at him differently this time. Not as some country weirdo in Wranglers. But as something strong and desirable, unless Nick’s eyes were playing tricks on him.
Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Page 26
