The Cartel (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 15)

by Jonas Saul

  If they were all dead, Daniel would have no choice. He would have to murder everyone in the house.

  Daniel just prayed the guy in the RV was wrong and that he still had time.

  Chapter 26

  Benjamin understood Raúl’s intent at the second the trigger was being depressed. He twisted his shoulders as Raúl fired, but he wasn’t faster than a bullet. Parkman saw the blood fly out the backside of Benjamin’s shoulder, spraying the plastic behind him.

  Then he fell, shock filling his eyes as he became aware he’d been shot. Parkman stood paralyzed in the aftermath.

  “Move away from him,” Raúl ordered.

  Parkman stepped toward Benjamin.

  “I said, move away.”

  The gun appeared in Parkman’s face, drawing him up straight. The cordite was still fresh, the fear raw.

  “Walk to the tub in the corner. Step in it. Then don’t move.”

  Benjamin squirmed on the floor as blood oozed out of his body.

  “Do it now,” Raúl said, his voice taking on a hardened quality.

  Parkman watched Benjamin as he took his first step backwards. It was over for them. Alone in this plastic room with a gunman and they had no play. How did he let it get this far? It was his fault Benjamin got shot. All this was his fault.

  “It’s okay,” Benjamin grunted. “Don’t get shot on account of me. Do what he says. Alex and Daniel will be here shortly.”

  Parkman took another step backwards. Then he turned and stepped inside the tub. Benjamin had a growing circle of blood under him, his face white and creased at the eyes as he tried to manage the pain.

  Raúl circled Benjamin, knelt down beside him, being mindful to watch Parkman, and punched him in the side of the face.

  “Your friends aren’t coming.” Raúl looked up at Parkman. “See what happens when you don’t listen? Now take your shirt off.” He glanced up at Parkman. “You move out of that tub and I will shoot you in the balls. You won’t die right away, but man, the pain.”

  Raúl grabbed the bottom of Benjamin’s shirt and went to lift it up when, with a burst of speed barely caught by Parkman’s eye, Benjamin shot a contorted fist across Raúl’s chest and into the hand holding the weapon. Instantly Raúl’s wrist went limp, the gun dropping to aim at the floor.

  Benjamin twisted up, slapped something in Raúl’s underarm and his entire arm dropped limp beside him.

  “What did you do to my arm?” Raúl shouted.

  Benjamin laid back down, shot his fist up and did the same to the other arm as Parkman launched out of the tub. He barreled across the plastic covered room and dove on Raúl, dropping all his weight on the man. Under him, Raúl grunted and squirmed, but his arms were temporarily paralyzed.

  Parkman punched Raúl half a dozen times before he stopped. When he eased off, panting like he’d run a hundred meter dash, Raúl had a newly broken nose, shattered lips as they had ground on his teeth under Parkman’s fists, and blood seeping from his left eye.

  It had happened so fast, all Parkman understood was movement, action. Benjamin had attacked. Then Parkman attacked.

  It was over. Benjamin needed a hospital.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Hey, open up.”

  Parkman grabbed Raúl’s gun off the floor, moved to the wall where he yanked the roll of duct tape off its hook, and tossed it toward Benjamin.

  “It’s Alex and Daniel. Open up.”

  Parkman blew out the breath he’d been holding and reached for the lock, then stopped.

  “You alone?” he asked.

  “Our house guests are tied up,” he heard through the door.

  Parkman turned the latch and stepped aside, keeping the gun where it would work best for him.

  The door opened and Alex and Daniel walked in.

  “What happened here?” Daniel asked looking over at Raúl’s ruined face. His eyes moved to Parkman’s bloody knuckles, then Benjamin’s shoulder.

  “Raúl shot Benjamin. Benjamin attacked Raúl. I hit him a few times. What happened upstairs?”

  “One of them approached the trailer,” Daniel said. “Shot a couple new holes in it. He’s out cold. This is his weapon.”

  “I watched you guys walk around to the side of the house,” Alex said. “Two armed men came out the front door and circled in behind you. I slipped inside the house through the open front door when they were preoccupied with you. All other people, even that guy Manuel, are out cold.” Alex reached in his pocket and pulled out car keys. “And I have the keys to the BMW SUV.”

  “Guys?” Benjamin grunted from the floor. “Bit of help here.”

  “Shit.” Parkman dropped to Benjamin’s side and grabbed the duct tape. “Someone, hold him up. We need to stop this bleeding.”

  Daniel and Alex got down by Benjamin’s shoulders and gently lifted him as Parkman applied three pieces of tape to the open wound in his shoulder blade.

  “What did you do to Raúl’s arms?” Parkman asked.

  “Special nerve inside the underarm,” Benjamin said with a surprisingly strong voice for having been shot. “Momentary paralysis of the arm.”

  “Why did you tempt him so much?” Parkman asked.

  Benjamin turned white with the pain. His jaw muscles protruded on either side.

  “Mistake. Didn’t think he’d shoot.”

  “Come on? In this room? Covered in plastic and soundproofed? Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Mistook him for a pussy. All talk. No bite. At the second I realized I was wrong, I tried—” he coughed and then groaned—“I tried to spin away. Caught my shoulder.”

  “I’d have done the same,” Alex quipped.

  “It’s done now,” Parkman said. He nodded at Benjamin. “We have to carry you out. It might hurt …”

  “Just do it.”

  “Okay, Nike.”

  Parkman took Benjamin’s ankles and went to lift him when Alex motioned for him to stop.

  “One second.”

  Alex and Daniel removed their shirts and tied the sleeves together expertly. Gently lifting Benjamin’s head, they slipped the sleeves under his upper body and brought their respective shirts out from under Benjamin’s armpits, effectively placing his back in a sling.

  “Good thinking.”

  Parkman grabbed Benjamin’s ankles and each man lifted their side of the sling. As a threesome, they walked Benjamin out of the basement, along the sidewalk and gently placed him inside the RV on the bed in the back, stepping over Manuel’s thug to do it.

  When Benjamin was settled in the bed, Daniel grabbed the thug’s feet and dragged him outside, his head bumping each step until he hit the cement. Then he dragged him up to the fence and left him there.

  Back inside the RV, they pooled the weapons they had taken along with the car keys from the BMW.

  “Alex, can you follow in the Beemer?” Parkman asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Do that. Stay close. I’ll GPS a hospital and direct Daniel. We have to get Benjamin patched up. There’s no other way.”

  “We’ll be arrested,” Daniel said.

  “It’s the only way to keep Benjamin alive.”

  “Then we go.” Daniel dropped in the driver’s seat and Alex disappeared outside to drive the BMW.

  If there was one thing he loved about these guys it was their discipline. And trust. He was close to Sarah who was close to Aaron. When he said there was no chance, they sprang into action without protest, without whining. He needed men like this in his life. Men he could count on. Men who could help him investigate missing people and cheating spouses. The usual shit he saw come through his private firm.

  He also loved that these guys would take a punch for each other.

  Or a bullet.

  He checked Benjamin’s pulse as Daniel pulled out onto the street.

  “Where’s that hospital?” Daniel shouted back.

  Parkman pulled his phone out. “I’m on it.”

  They drove away from the h
orror house where they were supposed to die no closer to finding Sarah and Aaron.

  They drove away losing hope with each mile.

  Chapter 27

  Aaron got himself set up by the side door of the barn as the loud speaker outside repeated their demands.

  Casper wanted to walk right out the front door of the barn. It was Aaron’s job to create a diversion at the side.

  They had duct taped Alejandro’s body to the office chair. At the side door, Casper had gently stuck a grenade under Alejandro’s butt minus the pin. Then he’d found a black hood and placed it over Alejandro’s head.

  They were ready.

  “One minute and we burn the place down,” the man outside said.

  “Coming out,” Casper shouted.

  Aaron’s heart was in his throat. They had no idea how many men they would encounter outside. There could be two or three, or two or three hundred. Whatever there was, they would die inside for sure. Breaking out of the barn had the best odds of survival.

  “You ready?” Casper whispered to Aaron.

  He nodded. “Locked and loaded.”

  “You know what to do?”

  Aaron nodded again.

  Casper lifted the wooden bar that locked the side door.

  “Coming out,” he shouted. “We are not armed. Don’t shoot.”

  “Thirty seconds.”

  He shoved open the door and let it swing around where it bumped into the outer wall of the barn.

  “We’ve got a prisoner. Alejandro is in the chair. If you shoot us, he dies.”

  “No deal.”

  Casper met Aaron’s gaze. “What the hell?” He turned to the open door. “You fire on us, you will kill Alejandro.”

  “We take orders from him,” came the reply. “Alejandro, you there?”

  “He’s unconscious.”

  “No deal.”

  Aaron smacked Casper’s arm. “Now what?”

  “Roll him out. Then we run for the front door as they’re fixated on him.”

  Aaron nodded and pushed the chair, keeping himself inside the barn. It rolled smoothly on the concrete, out the side door opening, and stopped about four feet from them.

  “There,” Casper shouted. “Come take him. All we want is safe passage.” It was his turn to smack Aaron’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  They sprinted across the dirty floor of the barn carrying what weapons they had salvaged and made it to the large double doors before they heard the explosion. Someone had moved Alejandro and now Alejandro was in a thousand pieces and whoever tried to move him was dead.

  Casper pulled the front door of the barn open enough to slip through, moved sideways and ducked down alongside the barn’s outer wall.

  “Over here,” someone shouted.

  Aaron dove through the door as gunfire tore into the wood above his head.

  Casper fired his weapon toward the muzzle flashes. He raked the area, waited a moment, then raked it again.

  Whatever he did had silenced the shooter. Aaron unclipped a grenade and pulled the pin. He slipped along the wall until he came to the corner. With his awkward left hand, he threw the grenade over his head.

  Then he rejoined Casper by the wall and together they started for the stables where the horses were riled up, whinnying in their stalls.

  The explosion behind them was welcoming. They were leaving a trail of destruction. It was an accomplishment Aaron thought he’d never see just hours ago.

  How many men were at the compound? Aaron ran the numbers through his head. With Alejandro and eight of his team dead inside the barn, plus a few more outside, that made about a dozen men or so. The rest of the security for the Enzo Cartel could be out hunting Sarah and managing business interests. They hadn’t met Enzo himself yet, either.

  It allowed him a smidgen of hope. Maybe they would get out together, tonight. He had hated the thought of leaving Casper behind.

  At the stables, hoping no one would fire on them in fear of hitting the equestrian beauties Enzo had no doubt spent a fortune on, Casper and Aaron ran to the end where they encountered the electrified fence.

  “Now what?” Aaron asked.

  “Don’t know,” Casper said. “Hadn’t thought this far ahead. Thought I was staying behind.”

  “Put down your weapons,” the loudspeaker blasted toward them. “Surrender or be killed where you stand.”

  Aaron lost what little hope he’d had when he looked over his shoulder. Eight men armed to the teeth flanked a jeep with a military grade weapon propped up in the back.

  “We can’t surrender,” Casper whispered. “This was a one-way ticket. They get us now, they’ll torture us for days just to watch us squirm. That’s not my thing.”

  “Mine either.”

  “Then draw their fire.”

  “What?” Aaron’s heart, already beating fast, hit its upper limits.

  “I said draw their fire. Let them shoot at us with everything they’ve got.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To blow a hole in the fence.”

  “Or a hole in us.”

  Casper pulled the pins on his last three grenades.

  “Okay,” he yelled. “We give up. We surrender.” He lobbed a grenade at the base of the fence. Then threw the others toward the jeep.

  The only light came from intermittent lamps that ran along the outer fence. Casper and Aaron had stopped at a part in the fence between two overhead lamps. The Jeep’s headlights didn’t completely reach them. Aaron was sure they were still partly visible to the men standing about eighty yards away.

  “Here’s your weapons back,” Casper shouted. “And here’s your bullets,” he said in a lower voice. “Shoot and run to the side. Stay low. Wait for the fence to open.”

  Casper opened fire as the first grenade exploded at the base of the fence. Two men dropped on the right. Then he dove away from Aaron.

  Aaron fired and jumped the other way as return fire showered their area with dirt-eating bullets.

  With a history of being shot and left in a wheelchair for months of rehab, Aaron wasn’t too keen on being shot again. He stayed down behind a large bush, covered his head with his hands and waited for the gunfire to stop, but it didn’t.

  Casper shouted something. Then he was firing. Casper shouted again. Fired again.

  Aaron raised his head after an explosion. Casper was on the other side of the fence.

  “What are you doing?” Casper shouted. “Let’s go.”

  Aaron saw the hole. The edges still sizzled with electricity.

  Casper’s grenade.

  Casper offered cover fire as Aaron crawled for the hole and rolled through it. Then he got to his feet and headed for open ground, Casper right behind him. They ran and ran, Aaron gaining ground on Casper. It wasn’t an age thing, Aaron realized. Casper kept turning around and firing his weapon to deter any followers.

  Then his weapon died and he dropped it in the dirt.

  The city glowed in the distance. In the dark, Aaron could barely make out the straight line of a road on the other side of the reservoir. He headed that way with Casper jogging beside him now.

  At one point Casper relieved Aaron of his guns and emptied them randomly at any pursuers, but once Aaron had set eyes on the road, he hadn’t seen a single person following them.

  When they reached the road, exhausted, weakened by the ordeal and adrenaline’s retreat, he bent over and gasped for air. Casper was worse off having not eaten since arriving at the compound.

  Without a word to each other, they walked the road toward town, lit in the darkness by a crescent moon with only a knife each as a weapon. Aaron’s severed finger ached, his mouth was dry and he hadn’t known if he would live through the night, but they were free. Somehow they’d done it.

  Casper patted him on the back.

  “You were something else back there, Aaron. I could use a man like you.”

  Aaron beamed with pride and kept walking. He couldn’t wait to tell Sarah that they’d bro
ken out. It was over. They could go home now. But first he needed a hospital. Someone had to look at his severed finger and make sure it wasn’t infected.