by Rob Aspinall
The cowboys outnumbered us, four to two, in their denim and plaid, wearing matching white Stetson hats I guessed must have signified something. The Tragic Dress Squad?
Suddenly, the cowboys withdrew from the building, scurrying away at speed.
“Go, go, go!” I said.
We were halfway across the base of the building when the first shell ploughed into the outer concrete skin that ran around the first few floors. The structure took the hit, but had a good old groan about it in the process; huge slabs of concrete sliding off its steel frame and smashing on the floor behind us.
The next shell hit seconds after. Then another. It didn’t take much to bring the whole rusting, rotting house down; concrete blowing out in huge clouds and steel girders collapsing in on themselves.
We sprinted flat-out through the back end of the structure as it exploded outwards in a burst of debris.
As I looked behind me, the ground gave way beneath my feet. The pair of us slid down a hill full of rubbish. No, not a hill. An absolute mountain.
We slipped and rolled all the way down the dump. Disgusting yet beautiful, saving us from the blast of collapsing building.
We came to a stop at the bottom of the dump, coughing and spitting out powdered concrete.
“What’s that smell?” I asked, pinching my nose.
Nathan lifted an elbow with a dirty cloth nappy stuck to it. “It could be this, he said, peeling it off with the barrel of his rifle. “Or it could be that,” he said, pointing in front of us.
“What?”
As the dust settled, I noticed a slow-moving river of sewage, with islands of bubbling white scum and rubbish floating on the top. It cut right across our path. Yet on the other side, across a patchy field and through a sixty metre high wire fence, sat the rest of Mexico city. Lights still twinkling in the early morning hours.
And before the city; a vast row of plush white apartments with terracotta roofing, lush green lawns, a tennis court and a turquoise pool, with shiny new top-of-the-range cars parked out front.
It looked alien. Like an impossible dream.
“Those line dancers back there didn’t look like cops or La Firma,” I said, as we got to our feet.
“Cartel kill squad,” Nathan said. “Heavy hitters. Experience. They’ll find their way down here before long.”
I peered left and right into the gloom. I couldn’t see any other way across the river than through it. Me and Nathan looked at the river … At each other.
I heard distant voices coming from behind us, through the hanging cloud of debris. Tank tracks too, crunching over steel and rubble.
“That decides it, then,” I said, stepping closer to the water’s edge on an oily, overhanging grass verge. I sat myself on the grass. Nathan did the same, the pair of us gagging at the smell.
“On the count of three,” I said, tucking my hair into the neck of my uniform, like it made any difference.
Nathan counted. “One … two …”
I pushed him from behind. He slid off the grass verge and into the river, up to his chest.
“Shit,” he said, dry heaving, “What the-?“
I shrugged. “I had to know how deep it was.”
Nathan reacted by grabbing my left ankle and pulling me in off the bank.
OMG. The pong of that water, It was ten times worse when you were in. And weird mutant dump flies attacked you like you were a dead body left out in the sun.
We gagged as we waded slowly across the river, rifles held over our heads. The water grew deeper the further we got in, feet stumbling over all kinds of junk, thinking about all the deadly toxins and diseases and scary three-eyed sewer creatures that must have lurked inside the murky depths.
The water was almost at neck level. Soon it would be at chin. If I swallowed any of this stuff, it was literally the end of the world.
43
Spewage
Halfway across the river, the water was a mere centimetre off my bottom lip. Any higher and it would be in my mouth and up my nose. The thought of it turned my stomach. I held in a violent puke, swallowing down the burn and sidestepping one of those bubbling mounds of rubbish, where dragon flies the size of my head buzzed around menacingly.
A minute in the river seemed like a lifetime, but the waterline began to drop off as we got close to the other side, struggling up a rising pile of junk until we waded clear.
We stepped on to the grass bank on the other side, painted boots-to-chins in a yellow-brown film. We ran tired across the patchy grass field and the tarmac road, up to the huge wire fence, brown water pouring off us as we went.
I looked up at the fence, with its rolls of barbed wire across the top. It was amazing how two different worlds could sit side by side, separated by a fence. I’d heard people talk about the poverty line on the news. I didn’t realise it was an actual line.
From the bottom looking up, it seemed to rise all the way to the moon.
“The whole city’s fenced off,” I said.
“No way we can climb it,” Nathan said, doing his thinking face. “Hang on a minute,” he said, padding himself down. “Check your pockets and duty belt.”
“What for?”
“A multi-tool. Usually part of military kit, but knowing these guys …”
I went through my belt and pockets, trying not to think of the sticky goo all over my fingers.
I found something hard tucked away in a side pocket alongside my thigh. It was a stainless steel tool with black rubber handles. I flipped it open. Three different knives, four different screwdrivers, a wrench, a bottle opener, can opener, pliers, a miniature saw and two pairs of wire cutters.
“You’re joking,” I said. “You mean I had another weapon on me all that time?”
I brought out the larger of the two wire cutters and began clipping away on one side. Nathan on the other. We worked our way upwards from the bottom, then cut sideways until we met in the middle.
The blast of an automatic rifle rang out and sparked off the wire fence a few feet along. I knelt and turned, ready to return fire.
I saw three of the cowboys across the field and river of sewage. One deciding to shoot. The man next to him pushing his weapon to the ground, as if telling him not to fire.
The three men hit us with mean stares, but nothing more.
The tank had stopped too, at the top of the rubbish hill, parked on a mound of debris, a cop dressed just like us stood out of the hatch.
Now that we weren’t in the slums anymore, suddenly there were rules. Procedures to follow. Red tape to cut through.
The cowboy in charge got on his phone. No doubt they had a Plan B, C. D and E.
I joined Nathan in pushing a section of wire inwards, big enough to crawl through with our rifles.
I followed him through the hole, onto a lawn like a thick carpet.
We jogged across the grass, to the chatter of crickets hiding in prim-trimmed plants and bushes. We passed by the artificial tennis court, a far cry from the broken bottle courts from my home neighbourhood; lime green with a maroon border and a net pulled tight across the centre. Beyond the court, we followed a narrow path onto a newly laid tarmac driveway that ran in front of the spotless white apartment block. It rose ten storeys high; each apartment with a large balcony and wooden shutters closed over the windows.
As we made our way along the driveway, leaving a trail of sewage water behind us, I spotted the residents’ pool across from the apartments.
“Hey,” I whispered, pointing to it.
“No time,” Nathan said.
“We can spare a few seconds.”
“The sun will be up soon,” he said.
“Sod you. I’m doing it anyway,” I said, peeling off towards the pool.
I opened the gate to the pool area and hurried to the edge of the water. I removed the rifle strap from over my head and dumped the weapon on a sun lounger. I descended the steps into the shallow end, the water cold, but lovely. I dropped deeper into the pool and wa
ded into the centre. I freed my hair from the neck of my uniform; gunky as hell.
That’s when I heard a splashing behind me. Nathan wading in, dropping low in the water.
The pair of us submerged.
Mm. Smell that chlorine.
I turned beneath the water and swam breaststroke beneath the surface across the pool. I pulled myself out on the other side and pushed a hand through my hair, feeling refreshed; my aching limbs reinvigorated.
Nathan popped out next to me and jumped up and down to shake off the bulk of the water. “Good, good,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Slinging our rifle straps over our shoulders, I glanced towards the pool; a black stripe through the middle, clouding out under surface, like some evil spirit trapped underwater.
We hit the driveway again, squidging as we ran.
Almost every car was brand new and fancy. After a night in the slums, even the basic luxuries seemed like the wildest riches.
The only problem with new cars, as Philippe had told me until my ears had turned red-raw, was the fact they had immobilisers, GPS trackers, smart keys, deadlocks and laminated glass you couldn’t just smash an ornamental garden rock through.
Some even had mobile apps that called the police for you.
No, we needed something easier to break into. And we’d have to deal with a security guard, rolling towards us in a white and gold patrol car, yellow headlights fading with the disappearing night.
We passed by a red Audi, a silver BMW and a yellow off-roader, before we came across a puzzle far quicker and easier to solve. A black, 1000cc Yamaha superbike, with a more sedate red moped parked alongside.
“This will do nicely,” I said.
“Do you know how to ride one of those?” Nathan asked.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I said. “Can you keep rent-a-cop talking?”
“Leave him to me,” Nathan said, walking towards the car and flagging it down.
First I went to work on the moped. All I needed was a short strip of wire, which I cut from its starter unit, tucked away beneath the handle bars.
I moved on to the Yamaha, holding the wire in my teeth as I located a cluster of three plastic ignition ports on the inside of the chassis.
I took the piece of copper wire from my teeth and used it to bridge one of the ports to another. I heard the power for the bike click on. I did a little fist pump, detached the ammo from my rifle and slid clip and gun itself underneath separate cars. I stood up and knocked the kickstand up on the bike. I pushed the Yamaha towards the security car, where Nathan stood chatting and gesticulating. The guard gave Nathan a thumbs up, turned his car around and drove out of sight, along the winding private driveway.
I rolled the bike up to Nathan, slung a leg over the seat and pressed the ignition button.
Voila! It started first time, growling into life, like I’d just poked a monster awake.
I checked my watch. We had all of thirty minutes to make our extraction.
“What did you tell the guard?” I asked Nathan, as he flipped his rifle around on to his back.
“That we’re CIA. And we chased a couple of dug runners in through the fence,” he said, climbing on the bike behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist. “I also told him we need to commandeer a vehicle.”
“Good bullshit,” I said, revving the bike. “Now hang on.”
I shoved off and rode the bike at a steady forty towards the entrance to the apartment complex. The guard had parked up alongside his security booth and let us out of a high, solid steel gate.
I steered the bike through a narrow gap as the gate whirred open, pulled out on to the suburban streets and boomed it out of there against the clock.
44
Out Of Time
The Yamaha was a beast. Unlike anything I’d ever stolen before, hitting 100mph in an eye-blink and hugging corners like a hippie hugs trees.
The dawn streets were quiet by Mexico City standards. I flew through a line of reds, across a large intersection, drawing angry honks from a smattering of crossing traffic.
We soon hit a ramp onto a three-lane highway circling the city. I weaved between early morning commuters, following the signs for the airport, knowing the airfield was only a few miles before it.
A red band of light wrapped itself around the horizon, melting into emerald-green and then a navy-blue as the sun rose to the east.
The sight of a distant passenger plane rising into the sky filled me with a renewed sense of hope. But I had to ride fast. Had to weave around every single car and truck in the way if we had a hope of making it in time.
At this speed, bug fatalities were inevitable. A big one hit me on the cheek and felt like a golf ball. Another got itself caught in my mouth. I spat it out to the side and cracked on with the mission.
Yet every mission came with a but. And this was a big, fat but. Coming at us in the form of a police chase bike, lights flashing and sirens blaring in the mirrors of the Yamaha. Yep, definitely for us.
Fortunately, the bike had plenty more juice in the tank. I pulled harder on the accelerator handle and put some distance between me and the police bike. The woman riding it responded in kind, chasing me between cruising traffic. I looked up to the sky as a passenger jet glided in to the airport.
Those planes were getting bigger. We couldn’t have been any more than a few miles off the airfield … If I could find it.
I kept one eye on the traffic signs and the other on the road ahead. Joining the party off a slip road were a pair of pursuit cars. Oh and let’s throw in another patrol bike too.
Suddenly, we had a wall of cops on our tail. So I had to take extreme measures.
I saw a gap in the central reservation. I took it. Veering left onto the opposite highway; traffic speeding straight at us and Nathan giving me the Heimlich from behind.
I slalomed the bike through the onrushing metal, glancing in my mirrors. We seemed to have lost the pursuit cars, but I saw a bike in either mirror, sticking tight to my tail. Meaning I had to raise the stakes even more if we had any chance of shaking them loose.
I made wide S-patterns with the bike, weaving one way and another, before steering into the path of a blue eighteen wheeler pulling a bright orange trailer. It slammed on its anchors, the cabin sliding sideways, the trailer whipping around like a rattlesnake tail and coming straight at us. I hit the brakes. The bike slowed as fast as it took off. As the trailer slid our way, I pushed my weight all the way over to the left, the handlebar touching the tarmac as we slid to a stop.
The trailer was an inch from giving us a haircut as it skidded by over our heads. Nathan helped me push up off the road and we accelerated away from the scene, dodging a couple of screeching cars.
I glanced over my shoulder. We’d lost one of the bikes in the chaos we’d left behind. But the female rider had found a way through. I made the most of the extra gap I’d opened up and rejoined the correct side of the highway.
Just one problem. The pursuit cars had kept on going. Nathan tapped me on the shoulder and pointed towards a green sign on an overpass. This must have been the exit. I punched it to get ahead of a transporter truck.
We flashed across it and cut into the off-ramp within a foot of blasting into a huddle of yellow plastic water barriers.
I saw the pursuit cars fly past the exit; too late to make the turn. But Police Bike Chick was like a stubborn piece of sellotape you couldn’t get off your fingers.
Nathan pointed at another sign for the airfield, complete with a small white plane symbol taking off. It was a straight shoot now. A mile of single-lane traffic, a sharp left into the entrance and a sprint across the tarmac to our designated hangar.
Nathan held up his left wrist in front of my eyes. His digital watch telling me the time: 4.58 a.m. Two minutes until the extraction window slammed shut.
Still, I started to believe we might just make it.
Fuck that, said the universe, putting a slow-moving truck in my way and a
bus coming the other. I cut inside on the dusty hard shoulder, zooming beyond the truck, the cop on our tail following suit.
Fuck that, said the universe again, serving up a silver Chevrolet SUV carrying four kill squad cowboys in front and rear. They came at us from the opposite direction, all guns blazing, the policewoman sliding her bike in a hedge to avoid the spray of bullets.
I leaned into the turn and we sped through the entrance to the airfield, weaving around a yellow barrier as gunfire ripped into a grey security booth where a man in a gold uniform ducked for cover.
The Chevrolet smashed through the barrier, but the Yamaha left that sucker for dead. We flew past a series of open hangars housing a variety of planes, mostly either light aircraft with propellor engines and small, commercial freight airliners.
I didn’t see a private jet anywhere, so I pulled around the back of a hangar and stopped the bike between two delivery trucks, out of sight.
As the exhaust on the Yamaha chugged away, I pulled the phone from my pocket and made the call, the tiniest of slivers left in the battery.
The line connected and Peter’s secretary answered. The usual charade.
“International Exports. How may I help you?”
“Put your boss on,” I said. “Tell him it’s Disciple Two.”
“I think he might be in a meeting,” she said.
“Look, I’ve got your package. Now put the fucker on.”
The line transferred.
“Hello?” Peter said.
“I’ve got the package. We’re at the airfield. Where’s our flight?”
“You’re a minute past the window,” Peter said. “It’s already on it’s way.”
“In the air or on the ground?”
“Let me make a call … One second.”
My foot tapped on the floor, anxious as hell. Even the deep rumble of the bike sounded impatient.
I looked in front and behind for the SUV. No sign of it, but only so long before they found us.
