Trail of the Chupacabra: An Avery Bartholomew Pendleton Misadventure (The Chupacabra Trilogy - Book 2)

by Randel Stephen

  “Hey,” Fire Team Leader Charlie whispered to Fire Team Leader Alpha as he moved another shovelful of dirt to a bucket. “Do you ever get the feeling that the General is about three bubbles off plumb?”

  “All the time. Sometimes I wonder just what the hell we’re doing this for, anyway. You’ve got a good job at the filling station. Why’d you join up?”

  “Well,” Fire Team Leader Charlie replied, “a man’s got to have a hobby, and my golf game sucks. How about you?”

  “My wife’s meaner than a one-eared alley cat. I just like getting out of the house.”

  “Fair ’nuff.”

  “Situation report!” the General bellowed as he stuck his head down the slowly advancing tunnel.

  “I think we’re getting close to the border wall,” Fire Team Leader Charlie called back. “We’ve got her braced up with them two-by-fours and floorboards, but the going is pretty slow.”

  “We need to expedite this mission, pronto. It’s starting to get dark,” the General said as Private Foxtrot crawled past his feet with another bucket of rubble and dirt. “Private Foxtrot, how’re our explosive supplies?”

  “Well, General,” the private said as he handed his pail to Private Zulu, “I reckon I got about a quarter stick of dynamite left, but that’s it. The munitions locker in the HQ was dang near empty.”

  “Well, get it down there, Private. We should already be on the other side of the border and chasing down illegal aliens. I expected at least half a dozen prisoners by now.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Private Foxtrot pulled a small stick of explosives with a short fuse attached from his cargo pocket. “Make a hole! Ordnance coming through!” The remaining members of STRAC-BOM filed out of the makeshift tunnel as Private Foxtrot placed the dynamite at the far end of the hole. “Ready to blow, sir, but I need some matches.”

  “Who’s got matches?” the General asked. His fire teams looked around at each other, shrugging shoulders. “Lighters?” No response. A weasel-like noise escaped from the General’s lips as his pudgy face began to turn scarlet.

  Fire Leader Alpha spoke up. “Sir, my truck’s got a cigarette lighter in the cab. If we can get it in there before it cools off, that might do the trick.”

  “Outstanding, Fire Team Leader. That, men, is how we improvise, adapt, and overcome. Who’s the fastest runner?”

  “I’m mighty quick,” Private Zulu chimed in. “Momma used to make me chase down them chickens when I was a squirt.”

  “Consider yourself volunteered. But be fast. You can’t let the coil get cold.”

  “Uh-rah, sir!” Private Zulu said as he ran to the pickup. After a few seconds of heating the lighter up, he sprang out of the truck and bolted back into the shack. Diving into the tunnel, he passed the still-glowing lighter to Private Foxtrot.

  “Fire in the hole!” Private Foxtrot yelled as he took the glowing lighter and lit the short fuse. The fuse sputtered and hissed as he scrambled back to the tunnel entrance. “Everybody hit the deck!” The entire brigade huddled together in the shack and waited for the explosion. They waited. They waited some more. Nothing.

  “Private Foxtrot, get down there and see what the major malfunction is,” the General ordered. The Private cautiously crept toward the opening of the tunnel. Just as he reached it, a deafening explosion filled the small building. Wood, dust, and dirt filled the shack, blowing down parts of two walls in the process. The men held on to each other in terror as the dust finally settled. Finally, the men began to move.

  “What the hell is that godawful smell?” Fire Team Leader Bravo asked.

  “Nasty,” Private Zulu said as he wiped black sludge off his fatigues. Looking around, he noticed he wasn’t the only one covered in the foul-smelling muck.

  “Oh, hell no,” Fire Team Leader Charlie said, looking at the brackish mess on the remaining walls of the building. He wished he’d worn his chemical warfare suit. “I think we hit a sewer line.”

  “Retreat!” the General cried as he and his men fought their way over and on top of each other to reach what little remained of the door.

  “I’m covered in poo!” Private Tango screamed as he ripped off his disgusting fatigues.

  “In the mouth! In the mouth!” Private Foxtrot whimpered as he spit several times on the ground before tearing off his uniform as well. Soon, the entire STRAC-BOM brigade was stripped down to their underwear and sitting on the hard ground around what little was left of the wooden building, sulking in the defeat of Operation Gold Miner.

  “I think I lost your lighter back in there,” Private Foxtrot said meekly to Fire Team Leader Alpha.

  “Don’t worry about it. I can get a new one from my boss back at the dealership.”

  “Thanks, Fire Team Leader. Hey, what’s that coming from over there?” The men of STRAC-BOM waited patiently as a U.S. Customs and Border Protection SUV pulled up to their position. The exhausted men, including the General, sitting in their skivvies, hung their heads as the Border Patrol agents exited their vehicle.

  “Well, one good thing,” Private Zulu whispered to Private Tango as the agents approached. “At least we won’t end up in one of those Mexican federales prisons.”

  “Yeah, but how bad could them Mexican prisons really be?” Private Tango held his hands out to be cuffed.

  • • •

  The prison was ancient. Dirty white walls topped with concertina wire were crumbling in places. Although the building was originally designed to house eight hundred inmates, the guards in the towers that ringed the open central yard now policed almost three times that many. Inside, the prison was dilapidated and filthy. Cells designed for two or three prisoners held seven or eight. Toilets overflowed, and cockroaches climbed the dank cell walls. HIV and venereal disease were rampant, and almost no medical care was available. Some days the prisoners were fed, some days they weren’t. Many of the inmates had not even been convicted of a crime, only accused or suspected of one. It could take over a year to get a trial in Mexico, and, unlike in the United States, the accused were considered guilty until proven innocent. It was like living in a nightmare with no way to wake up.

  It was a vile, violent, and hellish experience, except for one wing of the building. In there, a few wealthy drug lords lived in relative comfort. They had large unlocked cells filled with their personal furniture and belongings. All had beds with thick mattresses and freshly laundered sheets. Televisions, cell phones, and billiard tables were commonplace, as were alcohol and drugs. Some had their families brought in to live with them; others paid for women and the sexual companionship they brought. The prison guards were not allowed in this wing unless requested by the tenants and only then if they were available. The facility was understaffed even for its original capacity. Guards worked shifts of twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off. Many slept while on duty.

  Despite the relative comfort a few select inmates enjoyed, on balance, most prisoners judged their day on whether they had survived it. Homemade knives and shivs constructed of spare pieces of sharpened metal or glass with cloth or taped handles were common, as were toothbrush handles that had been melted down and had razor blades embedded in them. The guards didn’t bother confiscating the weapons until after they had been used to slash or stab a victim to death. Rival gangs held bitter grudges against one another. Murders and assaults were daily events. Rival gangs and cartels were segregated, but large fights, some more like full-scale riots, occurred from time to time. The prison officials did little to stop them until both sides had tired of killing for the day. It was less dangerous for the guards than actually attempting to break them up in progress. The inmates truly ran the asylum.

  By far the most inhospitable and feared section of the facility was the zona de olvido. It meant the “forgotten zone.” It was the most secure location in the prison. It was located on the top floor of one of the cellblocks. It was kept pitch black during the day. Inmates were locked in windowless nine- by thirteen-foot cells containing only a raised
concrete bed, a shower, and an open hole for a toilet. Prisoners were mandated to only stay in this solitary confinement for no more than a few weeks at a time. Most of the prisoners in the “forgotten zone” had been there for much longer, many for years. El Carnicero, “The Butcher,” had been there the longest of them all.

  The Butcher had been an orphan. He’d been the leader of a gang of child bandits in Monterrey when the Padre found him. The Padre raised him like a son, a violent killer of a son. He was barely fourteen when he was given the name “Carnicero.” He earned it by assassinating more than thirty of the Padre’s rivals. His killing style was brutal. He had no compassion, no mercy. No one ever expected that the innocent-looking child selling Chiclets or begging for spare change would be the last person they were ever going to meet. No one expected that he would be the person to cut their throat and pull their tongue out, hanging it down in front of them like some kind of perverse, bloody necktie. By the time he reached his late twenties, no one really knew how many people he had killed, including him. Sometimes when a number gets too big, people just stop counting. He was one of the Padre’s chief lieutenants and confidants. The Padre treated him like a son. Then one day, everything changed. The Padre ordered the Butcher to kill a local newspaper reporter who had been critical of a local politician who seemed to turn his back on drug-related crimes. The politician was on the Padre’s payroll. The reporter had to be silenced. The Padre wanted to send a message. Not only would the reporter die, but his wife and young son were to die as well. Carnicero found the couple at home one morning. Their son was not with them. Before they died, Carnicero forced the boy’s mother to tell him where he was. He was on his way to school. The bus had just left. After killing the reporter and his wife, Carnicero found the bus and forced it to pull over. First, he shot the driver. He didn’t know what the reporter’s son looked like, so he killed every last child on the bus, even the young girls. The deaths of nine innocent school children shocked all of Mexico. Even the President of Mexico took a stand and expressed his outrage. Mexican police and military units were brought in from around the country. Carnicero had to be stopped, and the President of Mexico wanted him alive. The President was going to use him as an example of how the war against the cartels was being won. The Padre couldn’t protect Carnicero with all of the pressure from law enforcement and the government, and the hunt for his adopted son was destroying his drug business. People stayed as far away from the Padre as possible. The Padre wanted Carnicero to give himself up. If he did, the Padre could protect him. Yes, he’d go to prison, but it would be more than comfortable during his stay while the Padre worked to get him released. Carnicero refused. He wouldn’t just walk into a cell. He was going to run, and he did. For more than three months, with all of Mexico looking for him, he evaded capture. The President of Mexico put a hundred and fifty million–peso reward on his head, more than ten million U.S. dollars, twice the largest price ever. Someone finally took the bait and led the authorities to Carnicero’s location. Twelve police and military personnel were gunned down before he was apprehended, and it would have been more if the Butcher hadn’t run out of ammunition. His incarceration was headline news for over two weeks in Mexico and made the front pages as far away as Japan. Unfortunately for the informant, he wouldn’t collect. The Padre found out who he was and had him killed. The man’s body was dissolved in a barrel of chemicals. The Padre could buy just about anyone or anything, but he couldn’t save Carnicero. Not after what had happened on that school bus. He had to go to jail, and for the last two years, that was where he had been. In the zona de olvido.

  Carnicero was lying in the dark on his stone bed when it started. It began with a large group of inmates gathered in the open area of one of the cellblocks. They carried improvised weapons and pieces of metal pipe. Some carried rocks pried from the crumbling walls. A prison guard handed one of the men a set of keys. The man used it to lock off one end of the cellblock from the remainder of the guards. He then led the gang of shirtless and tattooed men out the other end and toward a separate cellblock. Two men stayed behind and piled up stacks of mattresses and anything flammable they could find. Unlocking doors and gates as they went, the mass of gangsters poised themselves for a fight. Quietly, they slipped into the cellblock of their rivals. They attacked their enemies swiftly, stabbing and bludgeoning anyone they came across. Soon, the entire cellblock was a mass of screaming confusion. Bloodied bodies littered the dirty floor. Smoke began to fill the prison. Sirens and alarms sounded as prison guards rushed to the riot, only to find the gates locked and barricaded with debris and burning rubble. The riot soon spread to the main yard. A group of men playing soccer on the cement floor of the yard joined in the fray. In the chaos it was difficult to tell who was fighting whom. Bodies continued to fall. Bleeding men ran or crawled from the melee to escape. Other men with stones chased them down and beat them to death. By now, the guards in the towers had stopped firing warning shots and began shooting indiscriminately at the mass of men. Helicopters with speakers circled from above, announcing commands for the prisoners to fall to the ground with their hands behind their heads. The vicious fighting didn’t slow down. Men resorted to beating each other to death with their bare hands.

  Inside, the “forgotten zone” began to fill with smoke. As the sirens wailed, Carnicero relaxed on his bed with his eyes closed. His long black hair spilled down to his shoulders. Cries of help from men in the cells around him became more panicked as the heavy smoke filled the corridor. The sound of a key in the lock to his cell and the illumination from a flashlight caused Carnicero to sit up. Even in the dark, Carnicero knew the man standing in front of his open cell. It was the prison warden. A lone guard accompanied him.

  “Come with me,” the warden said. “Quickly. There is little time.” Carnicero followed the two men down the long corridor as desperate inmates pleaded to be released from the suffocating smoke. The warden led them down several flights of stairs before turning to the prison guard, drawing his pistol, and shooting him three times in the chest. “Put on his uniform. Hurry,” the warden said. Carnicero stripped the dead man of his clothes and put them on. “Rub the blood from his wounds on your face. No one will recognize you.” Carnicero, dripping in blood, followed the warden through a set of doors. Ahead, prison guards in riot gear were assembling. “Put your arm around my shoulder,” the visibly nervous warden said. “Now limp along like you are injured.” The two men stumbled through the crowd of men in black helmets and riot shields. Carnicero kept his head down. He looked at no one. “Get to the main yard now!” the warden commanded as he pushed his way through the guards, dragging Carnicero with him. “Move! Out of my way! This man is seriously injured. I must get him out of here.” Clearing the crowd, they headed down another smoke-filled corridor. Slowing only for the warden to fumble with his keys, they passed through a series of locked gates. Soon, the two men arrived at the prison’s loading dock. A black limousine with tinted windows and a driver behind the wheel was idling in the bay. Two armed men wearing suits stood by the rear door of the car. “These men will take you to the Padre,” the warden said. “The guards at the main gate are instructed to let you pass. Hurry. I must get back inside before I’m missed.” He turned to leave.

  “Warden, one moment please,” Carnicero said. “May I have your pistol?” The warden reluctantly handed it over. Carnicero took the weapon, checked the chamber, and fired one bullet straight into the center of the warden’s forehead. “That’s for the ‘forgotten zone,’ you piece of shit,” he said as the man fell to the pavement. Carnicero spit on the man’s corpse before climbing into the limo. One of the men in suits handed him a wet towel. Carnicero wiped the blood from his face. The long car pulled out of the dock and worked its way through a throng of police cars and vans. Once clear of the confusion, it sped through the main gates without slowing down, leaving the smoking prison behind it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Ferret of the Vieux Carré

  Later
that evening, back at the Hotel Sonesta Royale, Avery sat in his dank, humid room and typed away at his laptop while slamming a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. He had some correspondence to catch up on, as well as some online research to knock out regarding the history of Mexico. Not to mention some high-altitude recon via Google Earth. Luckily, the one person in the neighborhood who had wireless Internet service apparently skipped securing their network. But before he could start his research, Avery had some government business to attend to.

  To: The Deputy Secretary

  United States Department of State

  Dear Sir:

  I am writing to you today to convey a matter of greatest urgency. Several months ago I received a facsimile document from an overseas attorney informing me of a recent inheritance of significant value. My timely good fortune has unfortunately come at the untimely expense of one of West Africa’s wealthiest philanthropists. My benefactor, Dr. Onabanjo, expired while stuck in a traffic jam as hundreds of Nigerian citizens clogged the streets to fill plastic buckets with gasoline pouring from a ruptured pipeline nearby. Of course, the greedy throng undoubtedly intentionally ruptured the pipeline for its own benefit. Amazingly, one remarkably dense individual apparently paused during the petrol feeding frenzy for a brief smoke break. The Doctor’s flaming demise was a horrible tragedy for his country. However, the executor of his estate informed me in his communication that the doctor was a huge admirer of my work. He wasn’t specific about which work, as I am well known in many scientific disciplines, although I assume it was probably due to my recently self-published treatise regarding the true story of Dr. Livingstone and Henry Stanley. In short, Dr. Livingstone was not lost in Africa searching for the fabled sources of the Nile River. Rather, he was on the run from a series of overwhelming gambling debts owed to a notorious Welsh gangster, Mickey Biggs. “Brick Top” Mickey, as he was known at the time, sent a violent leg-breaker by the name of Henry Stanley to track down Dr. Livingstone. After catching up with the aforementioned doctor on the Dark Continent, Henry Stanley did not utter the oft-quoted but historically inaccurate phrase, “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” Instead, Stanley snarled, “Doctor Livingstone, you cheeky bastard!” Unfortunately, history texts seem to favor the more gentile conversation. Anyway, I digress. Dr. Onabanjo’s last will and testament instructed that his entire fortune of $17,230,561 and twelve cents be left to myself. Alas, his attorney informed me via his fax that corrupt government officials, upset with the doctor’s controversial views on indigenous land ownership, have seized the estate’s bank accounts and corresponding assets, no doubt intending to use the proceeds for the purchase of secondhand Romanian land mines and flat-screen televisions. My contact generously offered to bribe the appropriate bank officials on my behalf and transfer to me my rightful inheritance. He explained that his only impediment was raising the $2,800 necessary to execute the bribe, as his personal financial difficulties since the doctor’s death had left him illiquid. The offer was clearly legitimate, as the attorney’s knowledge of the English language was horrifically appalling. Only an actual foreigner could butcher the common rules of grammar so proficiently. So I trusted him. Unfortunately, after wiring the bribe money to my contact, our communication has been spotty at best. Several weeks of correspondence, beginning with a string of dubious replies and unlikely excuses ranging from family illness to transit strikes and ending with no communication at all, have left me fearing that my contact will not execute our agreed-upon transaction. I’m formally requesting that the United States Department of State take immediate action on behalf of my situation. Please urgently deploy U.S. military forces to repatriate my inheritance, including my $2,800 wire transfer. I must insist that you utilize only Navy SEAL teams or Delta Force operatives, and under no circumstance inform the United Nations. Their peacekeepers are as useless as WWII German war bonds and as corrupt as carnival vendors. Seriously, never trust a soldier who wears periwinkle blue. Thank you for your prompt attention in this matter.