The Lawless Kind

by Hilton, Matt

  At the head of the street was a wall. Nothing as substantial as the one surrounding Molina’s home a little farther over; this was mud brick and adobe, and beyond it was a pretty garden that would be colourful in daytime, but was now a series of gnarly silhouettes on a sequence of low terraces. Rink bounded over the wall, then used it as a barricade to cover me as I clambered over less gracefully.

  ‘Couple of the bastards down there,’ he said, indicating the distant cross street. ‘They’ve spotted their buddies and are heading this way.’

  Ignoring them, we moved into the garden, tracing a route through cacti and small shrubs that tugged at our clothing. Rink paused to check the way we’d come, but there was no view downhill. Which meant we were out of sight of our hunters. We found a gate and exited the garden on to a narrow road that wound a trail up to where we’d left our car. Maybe we’d get away without further bloodshed.

  No sooner had that wishful thought struck than headlights blazed behind us and another SUV came streaking after us.

  ‘Yup, they’re determined fuckers,’ Rink said, echoing my words from earlier.

  Chapter 22

  This SUV was travel-stained. Dried mud pasted the wheel arches and trail-dust smeared the windows. The wiper blades had cut wide swathes through the grime on the windshield. I doubted that the vehicle was one used by Molina’s men around his plush home, which meant its occupants weren’t his hired hands. Not his usual crew at any rate. These had been brought in and it didn’t take too much imagination to guess who they were.

  ‘Fucking Marshall,’ I spat.

  ‘What are they doing just sitting there?’ Rink asked.

  When the SUV had first come roaring round the bend a similar attack to the one down the hill appeared to be underway. Yet, as Rink and I fanned out, finding concealment behind a low wall and a tree bole respectively, the brakes had screeched and the SUV came to a halt, rocking on its chassis. Because of the glare of its lights – on high beam – and the dirt on the windshield, nothing could be made out of those within.

  ‘Maybe he’s having second thoughts.’

  ‘More like he’s waiting for reinforcements. He’s probably heard about what happened to those other punks and doesn’t fancy a similar outcome.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Or he could be a coward,’ Rink said scornfully. ‘He ran away the last time we met. You sure he’s the hard bastard you say he is?’

  ‘Back in the day I knew nobody tougher,’ I said. ‘But who knows how much he’s changed over the years?’

  ‘Back in the day, I bet he wouldn’t have worked for a scumbag like Jorge Molina.’

  I hadn’t mentioned my suspicions regarding whom Marshall was assisting. I hadn’t been sure – still wasn’t to be honest – but the presence of Molina’s guest had given me a good idea. Rink didn’t trust Walter Conrad as it was, and the inclusion of this man in the picture wouldn’t help.

  ‘Whatever his game is, we can’t afford to sit here like this.’

  ‘So let’s go and kill the fucker,’ Rink urged.

  ‘Not yet, I want to see how he plays things first.’

  ‘You want to give the asshole a chance?’

  ‘To explain himself,’ I said.

  ‘Hunter, that frog-gigger tried to kill us out in the desert. Now you want to go speak to him like he’s an old buddy?’

  ‘When he ambushed us, I don’t think he knew who he was up against. I think it’s when he saw my face, realised who he was attacking, that he chose to back off.’

  ‘He ran away because he saw our back-up team arriving and knew he was outgunned. Same thing he’s doing now.’

  ‘We don’t know that. Could be half a dozen gunmen in that rig.’

  ‘And you want to walk over and find out?’

  Without answering, I stood up slowly. No way was I relinquishing my gun, but I held it ostentatiously away from my body.

  ‘Shit!’ Rink didn’t do more than spit out the curse, before he leaned out round the bole of the tree to offer cover should things turn out differently than I hoped.

  ‘I’m just going to speak to him, then we’re out of here.’ I stepped over the low wall and began walking towards the SUV, trying not to limp. The car’s headlights caused me to squint as I approached to within twenty yards. I could sense their scrutiny but still couldn’t make out who was inside, or how many of them. In hindsight walking out there without a get-out plan was bordering on lunacy, but I trusted Marshall not to gun me down in cold blood. The lights were lowered, and I was now able to see two figures in the front seats. If there were others in the back I couldn’t tell. I halted in the centre of the road, my SIG pointed away from the car.

  The tableau held for what felt like a lifetime. From a distance came the strains of an emergency siren. The local cops had joined the hunt and it wouldn’t be long before a squad car came our way.

  ‘Marshall,’ I called out. ‘Let’s not fuck about any longer. If you’re going to try to kill me, bring it on. If not, let’s speak.’

  ‘Tell the Jap to lower his gun,’ replied a gruff voice I hadn’t heard for the best part of two decades.

  ‘Don’t worry, my friend isn’t going to shoot unless you try something dodgy.’

  The passenger door opened and out climbed a tall figure, also holding a pistol down by his side. It wasn’t James Lee Marshall, but his lickspittle buddy, McAdam. With slow deliberation he lifted his gun and aimed it loosely my way. His shoulders and neck were tight with restrained anger.

  ‘What’s good for the goose and all that shit,’ said Marshall easing out the driver’s side. ‘Your boy shoots me, McAdam shoots you, Hunter.’

  ‘Fair enough. Hopefully neither of us needs to get shot, eh?’

  ‘Mind you, after the beating you gave McAdam earlier, I wouldn’t blame him if he put a round in your gut.’

  Aiming my warning at his friend, I said, ‘Just remember my parting words, McAdam, before you try anything stupid.’

  Trying to sound tough in front of his leader, McAdam laughed at my bravado. The sound was strained because he knew what would happen if he tried to get the drop on me. Chances were he’d hit me, but it’d only be a split second before Rink took his face off.

  ‘I’m not afraid of you, arsehole. Never was.’ Trying to regain face, McAdam grinned manically, showing a glistening gap between his front teeth. His whining Glaswegian tone didn’t do much to convince me.

  ‘Sounds like your balls are still aching,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck you, Hunter.’

  ‘It’d take a bigger man than you.’

  Marshall shook his head as he came forward. ‘Christ, it sounds like the good old days listening to you two. Never did see eye to eye, did you?’

  ‘Never had that problem with you, Marshall.’

  ‘Yeah. How the world turns, eh?’

  Fearlessly he’d approached to within ten feet of my position, angling his body so that he could see Rink and the gun that was aimed at his head. The beams from the SUVs headlamps struck his right eye, and it shone glassily, like a Christmas bauble. He’d turned side on so that I wasn’t on his blindside.

  ‘It looks as if life’s treated you OK.’ Indeed, apart from the obvious glass eye, and a scar that cut a razor slash across his cheekbone, Marshall looked remarkably fit for a man who’d made violence his lifelong habit. He stood over six feet, a tad taller than me, and was broad-shouldered and long-limbed. His sweat-dampened shirt clung to a chest almost as well developed as Rink’s. It was only the scattering of grey at his temples, and the thinning of the hair on top that spoke of the two decades since last I’d laid eyes on him.

  ‘Can’t say the same for you, Joe. When we came round that corner back there and caught you in the headlights, I had to take a second look. Shit, man, have you been bathing in a slaughterhouse?’

  I had pretty much forgotten how bad I looked. There was blood all over me from the dozens of cuts received during the earlier gunfights. My clothes were fraye
d and torn in a couple of places, dust and blood adhered to the material as sticky mud, and dark sweat stains showed under my armpits. Yeah, I had to admit: I looked like shit. ‘Trust me, my wounds are superficial.’

  ‘You always were one lucky son of a bitch. Could have done with you when my convoy was hit, and I ended up with this.’ He touched a fingertip to his blinded orb. ‘You’d have probably caught the fucking rocket in your hands and lobbed it back at the ragheads.’

  ‘Heard you were hit by an IED.’

  ‘RPG,’ he corrected. ‘But you know how people like to use the buzzwords, right?’

  See-sawing my head, I said, ‘Shame it had to happen. You must have been pissed at the army when you were medically discharged. Is that why you’re now happy to work for an arsehole like Jorge Molina? A dig at your old employers?’

  He smiled, glancing down at the road. ‘I’m not working for any wetback Mexican drug dealer. But I think you already guessed that.’

  I didn’t confirm that I’d guessed who his employer was. Let him confirm things for me.

  ‘So why try and stop us out in the desert?’

  ‘We were misinformed about your intentions.’

  ‘Misinformed how?’

  ‘After what you and your crew did to that coyote gang back in Arizona, it was believed you were heading out here to sow further dissent among the competing cartels. We were sent in to ensure you weren’t successful.’

  ‘You were told we were coming to Hermosillo to assassinate Molina?’

  He didn’t have to answer. His smile said it all. It also confirmed that they were working for the man I’d seen in Molina’s company, because how else would he know about our fight with the coyotes? ‘When you had the opportunity to rub out Molina you didn’t take it. That tells me that killing that bean-eater was never your intention.’

  ‘We’re not interested in him.’

  ‘I know that now. You came to steal his son.’

  ‘We’re here to liberate a US citizen. Molina kidnapped the boy.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he said.

  ‘So that’s why we aren’t trading bullets now? You know that we aren’t here to kill your mark, so there’s no beef between us?’

  Marshall shrugged. ‘No sense in fighting you when the job’s been done.’

  A quick glance at McAdam told me that he was still pissed at me for beating the shit out of him in the alley, but he didn’t look as if revenge was on his mind.

  ‘Good to know,’ I said. I trusted Marshall’s word, just not far enough to offer him my hand in friendship. ‘We go our separate ways then?’

  ‘For now.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound too promising.’

  ‘Right now I’ve followed instruction to the letter. Can’t guarantee those instructions won’t change.’

  ‘Shame if they do,’ I said. ‘I’d hate to have to kill you.’

  ‘Same here, mate. But we’re both professionals, Joe. You do what you have to.’

  ‘I don’t even want to kill you, McAdam,’ I said, directing my words at the Scotsman, ‘but I meant what I said earlier. If either of you come at me again you’d best come shooting.’

  ‘We’re on the same page then. No hard feelings?’ Marshall held me with his one good eye, and up close like this I noticed that it jiggled slightly, compensating for the lack of binocular vision.

  ‘That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? You don’t have to accept any new instructions.’

  ‘Make me an offer I can’t refuse,’ Marshall said, his lip twitching. ‘Exceed what we’re being paid and I’ll walk away, taking all my lads with me.’

  Snorting, I shook my head. Marshall grunted out a laugh. He’d never been expecting a deal. He was reminding me that this was all about the money. Fuck the right or wrong of it. Fuck old friendships.

  ‘Here are a few words of advice for you, lads. Your employer summarily executed the last person that worked for him when his services were no longer required. You think you can trust him to pay you, or is he planning a similar severance scheme for you when this is over?’

  ‘I’ll make sure I keep my good eye on the prick,’ Marshall said. Then he nodded towards Rink. ‘You and your pal best get going – sounds like those wetbacks are on their way.’

  I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth, releasing it with a sigh. ‘I hope it’s another twenty years ’til I see you again, Marshall.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Suddenly he lifted his gun. I didn’t flinch because he’d aimed it back at his SUV. He fired five shots, placing three in the front grill, two in the centre of the windshield. ‘There,’ he said, a cloud of cordite hanging in the air. ‘Looks like we were ambushed. Saves us answering any awkward questions about why we didn’t run you down. Now, get going. They arrive before you’re out of sight and I’m going to have to start shooting at you. I don’t trust your pal over there to miss if he shoots back.’

  ‘Trust me. He wouldn’t.’

  He smiled again, a twinkle reflecting off his glass eye.

  ‘See you, Joe.’

  ‘Hope not,’ I said, and turned away.

  Chapter 23

  Jorge Molina’s benevolent mask had slipped, revealing the sadistic creature that Howell Regis always suspected lurked behind the thousand-dollar haircut and Botox. The fact that Molina’s was a base character was no revelation; in fact, Regis had counted on Molina’s brutish nature when first he’d groomed and then recruited the man to his scheme.

  Having strangers invade his home and abduct his son wasn’t what had caused Molina’s rage so much as his soldiers’ inability to deliver the heads of those men to him. He was currently in one of the large meeting rooms screaming threats, punctuating his point with a punch or slap. Fearful of what lengths Molina would go to next his troops were rushing off in search of the interlopers, considering disappearing should they fail to bring back the heads of Joe Hunter and his friends.

  After spotting and identifying Hunter and Rink out near the front gates, Regis had slunk back inside the mansion, to wait out the storm and to figure out how he was going to mollify Molina when the asshole turned his attention on him. There was only so long that Regis could keep up the mask of benevolence he wore and if Molina chose to get physical, well, fuck the scheme. In his belt he’d tucked his gun, and he wasn’t loath to place a round or two between Molina’s teeth if it came to it. There were plenty other egotistical little shits among the cartel bosses to be cajoled and manipulated into line. Still, for the time being it remained in his interest to reassure Molina that this slight hiccup should not throw a wedge between them, or disrupt the plan. Money, resources, and most of all time were an issue for Regis, or more correctly for those directing him.

  The Mexican cartels were growing more powerful every day. Some of the smaller factions were still only loosely knit and involved in armed conflict with each other, while jostling for control of the lucrative routes into the US. But some, like the powerful Sinaloa cartel, were run with military precision and might. Molina’s outfit was small potatoes in comparison, but he’d affiliated his group with them. His father, Felix Eugenio Molina, remained an influential and respected voice, because he’d convinced the Sinaloa bosses to infiltrate and align themselves with the Mexican federal government and military, with a view to annihilating the rival groups, therefore controlling the multi-billion-dollar drug- and people-trafficking enterprises.

  Now, the Sinaloa cartel was made up of so many defecting federal agents and military personnel, that should they dominate the other cartels they would be in position to launch a coup d’état against the federal government. If that day came, factions within the CIA wanted their own men at the helm. For years, in secret, Regis and other CIA agents had trained, supplied and sponsored cartel footsoldiers, while also preparing assets the likes of Jorge Molina to take positions of command in the new government.

  When stumbling over Walter Hayes Conrad’s scheme to send his hitters into Molina’s household Regis had feared
the worst, and had mobilised his team of hired mercenaries to halt them. Conrad was engaged in a different and opposing plot to destabilise the coyote gangs up north, and it had come as a surprise that the old bastard had placed Molina in his sights: why would he have to send Hunter to snatch Molina’s child? It didn’t make any sense to Regis. There was more to it than met the eye, and Regis wished now that he’d overheard more of Conrad’s discussion as he’d lurked outside the command module van, eavesdropping after the gunfight at the mine. At the time he’d been more concerned with discovering if his execution of the last of the coyotes had raised any suspicion. Regis hadn’t killed the man in cold blood to cover Hunter’s part in the slayings, as he’d made out, but to shut the man up before he could blurt out anything more. ‘Please . . . I won’t tell anyone . . .’ the coyote had begun, and Regis was sure that he would have ended with, ‘that I’m working for you.’

  Happily, neither Conrad nor Hunter had seen the execution as anything other than the cold-blooded actions of a CIA cleaner – something both had experienced in the past – and his involvement in the sponsoring of the coyotes hadn’t been uncovered. But he hadn’t been as pleased to hear the two men plotting an attack on Molina. If the plan to place their man at the head of the next government were derailed by the injudicious actions of a sub-division director unaware of the plot, it would be a blow to all involved. Regis’s own boss, Thomas Caspar, would blame him, and rather than give Regis the go-ahead to groom an alternative asset, he’d hand the task over to another agent better placed. Such an eventuality would spell the death of Regis’s career, and he’d be burned with impunity. Indeed, he could expect no less than another CIA cleaner to execute him as coldly as he had the coyote.

  Through the walls he could hear that Molina’s apoplexy hadn’t diminished. Regis’s fantasy about shooting the man had never been serious. Kill Molina and he’d never get out of the house alive. Kill Molina and he’d be back to square one. It was important that he manoeuvre the scheme back on track. While Molina was blowing up a storm over his stolen heir he wasn’t concentrating on the major issues at hand: snatching the reins of control from his father, and securing his place at the head of the cartel. Felix Eugenio Molina had the ear of Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, leader of the mighty Sinaloa cartel, not to mention Mexico’s most-wanted man, and it would not do for his ill health to jeopardise his influence before Jorge was in position to take his father’s place. Cancer and Alzheimer’s disease were dual time bombs, and Regis had no idea how much time was left on the clock.