by David Nees
María lowered her eyes as if embarrassed. “He wants me by his side…to make me his woman.”
Dan was silent. This was something he never expected to hear. “He takes over the mansion and Jorge’s wife. That gives him all the trappings of power and leadership, helps solidify his position. And the kids? They’re going to be part of this arrangement?”
She didn’t answer, still not looking up at him.
Dan fought to find the right words but he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he wanted from the conversation. He just stood there, fighting his emotions. The news disturbed in a way he couldn’t fathom. It seemed a violation of the image he had developed about her. Fool, he thought to himself.
“I watched you at the hacienda, before anyone arrived,” he said. The woman looked at him intently. “I watched you through the binoculars. You looked like you were a good mother, even from that distance, that you cared for your children. I don’t understand how you could bring them into this. If there was violence with Jorge, there will be even more violence with Hector; he is the enforcer.”
“I had no alternative. This was the only safe place to go after you killed Jorge and the others. You, yourself are a violent man.”
“Not to you. And now you have made an agreement that locks you into violence. What will happen to your children? Will the boy grow up to be a drug dealer? Will Hector force you to have his own children so he can groom them to follow in his footsteps? You have bargained away any stable future for your children and yourself…for what?”
“What do you care? You killed my husband. You caused this situation.”
“Your situation was bad before I acted. I saw how he used you and the children to create a picture. To create the effect he wanted to give to the other drug leaders at that meeting. That is the only reason you were there. You were his pawn. I know he had his mistresses. There must have been so many insults you had to endure without complaint.”
“So now, Señor Assassin, you judge me?” She looked up. Her eyes flashed in anger.
“No. I just describe what I see. And from your reaction I see it is the truth.” He stepped up close to her and spoke in a quiet voice. “You were a kept woman. A bird in a cage. It was a fancy cage but still you were captive. And now you have let yourself become a captive again…you and your children.”
She looked at him, her gaze not wavering, but tears started to form in her eyes.
Dan continued, now in a softer voice. “You must leave, now, with the kids. Hector is a dead man. I am going to bring death and destruction to this house. This is your chance to break free.” There was urgency in his voice now. He couldn’t fully understand, but it was important to him to save this woman and her family. Was it to bring some salvation out of the carnage he was going to reap?
“I have no place to go. My attorney says I have no money that is not part of the cartel…that is my own.”
“It does not matter, this is your chance. You will have no protection without Hector.”
María thought for a moment. “Come with me. I want to show you something before you act.”
She strode past him to the door. “There is a set of back stairs we can use so we don’t have to go down the main staircase. I want to take you to the basement. There is no one down there. It is underground and considered secure.”
They went into the hall and continued past her door. At the end of the hallway was a small door leading to a narrow staircase. They went down two flights and exited in the basement. They walked down the hallway past multiple rooms with pull down grates holding an enormous collection of wines and liquors.
María stopped at a door, took out a key, and unlocked it. Inside she turned on the light. There, in a stack ten feet across by twenty feet deep and four feet high were neat bundles of U.S. currency of various denominations. In front was a smaller stack of only one hundred dollar bills. There must have been more than twenty million dollars in the two piles.
“This is money waiting to go off-shore. The Mexican banks get overloaded and Jorge and Hector cannot deposit there for a while. This is waiting to get flown to the Caribbean banks. It builds up daily.”
“How much comes in each day?”
“Millions? I don’t really know. Hector says this pile may get larger with how things have been disrupted since Jorge has been killed.”
Dan turned to her and took her arm. “Is this what holds you here? Is this why you accept your cage?”
She pulled away from him, her face now angry. “It takes money to live, money to protect oneself and one’s family. I am lost if I am destitute.”
“María, here is your exit. Pack up some of this. You could take out a million and leave tonight. You are a smart, beautiful woman. You were once a top model. You could become an independent woman again. Everyone knows your husband is dead. They do not know of the bargain you made with Ortega. And he will be dead tonight. No one will know about all of this and it will seem natural to everyone for you to be on your own. There may be risk, but you are taking the risk for your children’s futures. A million dollars will help you get started in a new life.”
María looked into his eyes. Her face softened. “I wish I could believe what you say.”
“You must believe me, because I am going to destroy this place and everyone inside. I’m offering you a way out before I bring hell down on Hector and the gang.”
“You are an angel of death.”
Dan just nodded. He walked over to the stack of the hundred dollar bills, took out his knife and cut open the covering. He picked up handfuls of the wrapped hundreds and put them in two side pockets of his backpack. It took less than a minute to load what he guessed was a half million in hundreds into his pack.
“Have your children pack up backpacks, only essentials. You do the same. You can purchase new clothes after you get out. Then come down here and load a pack or suitcase with twice what I just put in my pack. Then go to the arboretum. Next to the back door there is a panel missing from the window. Use it to get out without triggering the alarm. Wait for the guard to go by before you leave the room and head straight to the back fence. You need to look along the fence. You will find the links are cut at the bottom; you can pull them back. The guard comes around every fifteen minutes so just lay on the ground against the fence if he comes back before you find the opening. He will not see you. Take the kids, walk across the swale and all of you climb the fence to the street. Call a cab and disappear. This,” he raised his pack, “is my exit money, just like you. If you hear gunshots, don’t wait for the guard to come by, just run for the fence.”
“I should hate you. You are a murderer and are going to kill again.”
“I don’t have any more time to argue. Think of me how you will. I had a wife and a gang killed her along with our unborn child. I am now the ‘angel of death’, as you say, to gang members who kill and destroy. Take what I am offering. You have a half-hour to get out of here.”
He pushed past her and headed down the hall. When he reached the stairs he noticed she was right behind him.
Chapter 47
___________________________________
M aría exited the staircase and went to the children’s room. Dan headed down the hall towards Jorge’s wing. He slipped out of the door onto the landing and stopped. There was a guard down in the foyer calling out for the missing guard. Another guard came in the front door.
“He’s probably gone to take a piss,” the man said.
“Or go to sleep, lazy bastard. Don Hector will kick his ass if he finds out.”
“Well I’m not going to try to find him. We better get back outside.”
The two men went back out the front door and Dan crossed the upper landing. He took out his 9mm and tried the door. It opened. Just inside was a guard sitting in a chair leaned back against the wall. The man lurched forward.
“Qué demonios?” What the hell? He shouted as he got to his feet, reaching for his gun.
Dan’s pist
ol gave a muffled spat and the man crashed back on the chair and to the floor. Dan ran to the office door and burst through it. Hector was on his feet and reaching for his gun.
“Basta!” Dan shouted. His pistol was aimed Hector’s chest.
Hector froze.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Dan only stared at him. The gang leader sat down heavily and put his hands in his lap.
“Put your hands on the desk where I can see them,” Dan ordered.
Hector did as he was told. “Who are you and how did you get in here?”
“I am your executioner.”
“Santa Muerte,” Hector said almost under his breath.
“Ángel de la Muerte,” Dan said, Angel of Death; “I’m the deliverer of death.”
“You will not get out alive.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but you certainly won’t. I hope you enjoyed your short reign as boss. Now it is time to go.”
He heard footsteps running up the stairs. Hector must have pushed an alarm button underneath the desk. Dan squeezed off a shot and Hector’s head snapped back with a hole in his forehead. Two more quick shots into his heart and he turned, crouching, towards the door. Two men crashed through firing over his head and Dan shot them both in the chest. He jumped to the side, out of the doorway and holstered his 9mm. He brought up his M4 and put a short burst down the hallway. Two more men fell and two others ran back onto the upper landing. Dan took the moment to run forward, the M4 at ready. One of the men put his head around the corner and paid with his life. The other ran down the stairs. Dan dove through the doorway and flattened himself on the landing. The man below loosed a long burst of automatic fire. The bullets whistled harmlessly over Dan’s head. The guards were armed with what sounded like AK47s. They made a loud bark which could be heard throughout the building. Dan’s suppressed M4 emitted a muffled “pop” when he fired. Dan crawled to the edge and when the man paused to see if he had hit anything, Dan fired. One clean shot, center mass, which dropped him.
Dan heard a car drive up; probably from the front gate. He ran back into María’s quarters and caught up with her and the children just as she was leading them down the hall.
She turned with a panicked look in her eyes as he ran up to her.
“Change of plans,” he said. “We’ll go together. Meet me in the arboretum after you collect the money. I’ll escort you out.”
They flew down the steps of the back stairwell and Dan exited on the main floor while María and the kids went to the basement. From the hallway, Dan went forward and waited, lying on the floor and against the wall. It was only a moment before four gang members came bursting through the door with their weapons ready. Dan opened up with an automatic burst from his carbine and three of them fell. The fourth man let loose on full automatic in his direction but the rounds flew too high. Dan’s second burst dropped him.
He took out the spent magazine, inserted a fresh one from his pocket, and ran back down the hall to the arboretum. There he grabbed the gas cans and headed back to the front. Just before entering the foyer, he took off his backpack and removed one of the C-4 bricks and igniters with its cell phone. He placed the explosive on the floor next to the staircase
Then he grabbed his pack and a gas can and ran back upstairs. He placed the second brick just inside the door of the hall leading to the office where he had shot Hector. Then he poured gas along the corridor and into the office. Retracing his steps, he went back down the stairs splashing gas along the way. He took the second can and sloshed gas into the banquet room and the smaller dining room to the right of the foyer. He could hear two more cars drive up. Dan retreated to the hallway just in time to see María and her two children enter the arboretum. He grabbed his pack and went into the kitchen where he turned on all the burners of the gas stove without activating the igniters. Then he ran to the arboretum. The front door was opening as Dan led María and the kids out onto the patio. They ran to the fence where Dan took out his phone.
The men entered and, seeing the dead bodies, they crouched down not wanting to join the body count. They began to search the foyer for the intruder or intruders. Not knowing how many shooters were inside, they were very cautious. After seeing no one in the foyer, one of the men headed towards the hall past the staircase. He glanced to his right and saw the brick of C-4 attached to the staircase.
“Mierda!” He shouted just as the phone rang.
The explosion took out the men who had entered the foyer. Fire erupted in both the dining and banquet rooms. In the next moment the upper floor exploded and tongues of flame ran down the hall to the office. Back on the main floor the fire followed Dan’s trail of gasoline down the hall and into the kitchen where it ignited the gas coming out of the stove burners, producing a third explosion and a large fireball.
From the fence line the children and their mother looked on in horror as the explosions boomed out across the grounds. They gasped at the force of the shock wave as it hit them even back at the fence. Then they saw the light of flames through the windows. The mansion would be burning beyond salvage before any fire department could arrive.
Dan pulled back the chain link and hurried everyone through. He led them down to the center of the swale.
“Now go straight ahead. The road is only fifty meters away. You will have to climb the fence on the other side, but it is only five feet high. You have a cell phone?”
María nodded.
“You get the money?”
She nodded.
“Good. Then this is the start of a new life for you and your children. I wish I could help more, but I think you are smart and talented enough to make it. At least that is what I’m going to believe.”
“What will happen to you?”
Dan looked at her. A feeling of sadness swept over him. What could he say? “That is not part of your story.” A part of him wished he could stay and help this woman, their stories becoming entwined. “You have your own story to write. You will struggle and you will have set backs but you will succeed.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know how I know.” Dan paused for a moment. He didn’t have time to fully explain. “But I do know there are people who are watching over you. They are good people. I think they wanted me to save you tonight from a darkness that was enveloping you. And so, that is what I tried to do. The rest of the story is up to you.”
He turned to go. María grabbed his arm.
“Thank you for not killing us, for getting us out,” She said.
He turned to her and almost smiled. “I only kill bad people.”
She touched his face. There was a wistful look in her eyes.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m happy that I could bring something good out of all this destruction.”
With that he turned and limped off through the brush.
Chapter 48
___________________________________
I t was 4:30 am when Dan reached the pickup. The street in front of him was empty, as empty as Dan felt inside. He should have felt a satisfaction with a job well done but…nothing. There was a feeling of sadness about never seeing María again. Had he fallen in love? That was a stupid thought. But would the woman take the opportunity for a new life that he had given her? Dan shook his head. He had done what he could. The Watchers, Tlayolotl and the old woman had hinted at a woman, probably María, and Dan had done what he thought he should do, maybe what they wanted him to do. In any case, it was over. Now was not the time for melancholy reflection, now was the time to leave; to get out of Mexico. He could hear sirens from across the drainage swale. Forcing his mind back to his present situation, he started the truck and drove off. A half-hour later he was hammering north out of Mexico City, his pack and weapon bag on the passenger seat, his 9mm under his jacket next to him.
At six in the morning, Jane’s cell phone rang.
“Do you have a burner phone with you?”
“Dan is that you?”
“Yes. Do you have another phone?”
“No.”
“Go out now and get one and call me back. Don’t wait. Do it now.”
The phone went dead. She sat there on the bed wondering what was going on. Of course, Dan would suspect her cell phone was bugged. Even she even worried about it, although Warren’s equipment had not detected any bugs. She sighed and got up to put on some clothes. Better to humor him. He must be under a lot of stress.
A half hour later she called his number.
“You got a new phone? Good. Give me the number and I’ll call you right back.”
In a minute Jane’s prepaid phone rang.
“We should be able to talk now.”
“You changed phones?”
“Yeah, I finished my work. Ortega’s dead and the mansion is burning as we speak. There’s no one below Ortega who can immediately take the reins of power so whatever damage control Ortega was able to institute, will disappear and the disruption you hoped for will break out in full.”
“I’m so glad to hear your voice. Henry thought you might be on a suicide mission. He didn’t give you much chance of success. But I wanted to believe you could pull it off and survive. It’s amazing you succeeded. How did you do it?” Her words came tripping out in rapid succession.
“Never mind that. Just know it will be bloody and people are going to be screaming. Just be prepared. You’ll probably hear the blowback before the end of the day.”
“Where can we meet to exfiltrate you?”
“You can’t. That didn’t work before. I’ll get myself out. You need to contact the DEA or others in our agency. Get them and some honest Mexican authorities over to the mansion right away. There’s twenty million or more in U.S. cash in the basement and it will probably survive the fire. Someone needs to collect that money and keep it out of the cartel’s hands.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
