by Mark Dawson
Milton frisked the dead guard, found a butterfly knife in his pocket, shook it open and sliced through the plastic shackles. He did the same for Beau. He stooped to collect the ArmaLite, checked the magazine, added a second from the guard’s pocket, and went out into the corridor.
“We’re getting out, right?”
“Not without the girl.”
“Come on, man, we’re fucked as it is. You want to waste time looking for her? Forget what they said––they were pulling your chain. That psychopath probably did her yesterday. She’s already dead, man. Dead.”
“We get her first.”
“She’s dead and you know it. And we got to get out. I don’t know who that is outside, but I’m willing to bet they ain’t gonna be too friendly with us. Another cartel. Military. Anyone in here’s gonna be fair game.”
“We get her, then we get González. How much if you bring him back?”
“Twenty-five large.”
“So why do you want to leave?”
“Can’t spend it when you’re dead.”
“If you want to go, there’s the door. Go. I’m not stopping you.”
Beau sighed helplessly. “I’m gonna regret this.”
“Stay behind me.”
“You’re as crazy as they are.” He settled in behind him. “I need a gun.”
Milton brought the ArmaLite up and tracked down the corridor. As he passed a window all the glass fell out of it. He hadn’t even heard the shot. He looked out of the next window: a pandemonium of gunfire had broken out. Muzzle flashes spat out, three of them, shots aimed by the guards, and as Milton watched all three were taken out by a single frag grenade. The portion of the garden was subdued; Milton saw a flash of khaki as a figure in night vision goggles crab-walked to a forward position, an MP-5 cradled easily between practiced hands.
“It’s not a cartel,” he muttered.
The next room to the one in which they had been held was occupied by two men. They were pressed against the wall on either side of an open window. One had a shotgun, the other had an M-15. Shots from outside passed through the window and jagged across the ceiling. Milton turned into the doorway and raked both men with a quick burst of fire.
“Smith! Look out!”
A third Mexican was coming up the stairs, reaching for a small machine-gun he carried on a strap. Milton turned and fired, the ArmaLite cracking three times, blowing the top of his head against the wall and sending his body spinning back down the stairs.
“There’s your gun,” he said. “Help yourself.”
Beau took the shotgun.
There was a window at the end of the corridor. It smashed loudly, a six-inch canister crashing through it and then bouncing once, twice, before it came to rest against the wall.
Gas started to gush from both ends.
Milton’s mouth was filled with the impossibly acrid taste of tear gas before he covered his face with his sleeve. Whoever was attacking the mansion was professional. They’d cut the power and now they were going to disable everyone inside. Too organised and too well equipped for a cartel. There was precision here. A plan.
If he didn’t know better, he would have said it was special forces.
* * *
54.
FELIPE GONZÁLEZ watched as the grenade looped in a graceful arc over the swimming pool, bounced against the tiled floor and collected against the cushion of one of the loungers. It immediately started to unspool a cloud of brown-tinged smoke and, within moments, the guests on that side of the garden started to choke. Women screamed. One of the guests––it was the mayor, for fuck’s sake––stumbled and fell into the water. Felipe turned back to the mansion––the lights had all been extinguished there, too––and then he heard the first rattle of automatic weaponry.
What?
Que Madres?
More screams.
What the fuck was going on?
“El Patrón?” Isaac said.
“Come with me––all of you.”
He hurried around the pool, away from the spreading cloud of gas. The gringos stumbled after him, drunk.
“Sir,” Pablo said. “Come.”
“Who is it? Army?”
“I do not know. But whoever they are, they are very good.”
“Los Zetas?”
“We need to get you away from here.”
“Where is Adolfo?”
“Inside––with the girl.”
Felipe cursed. “Get him.”
“Javier has gone for him. Come, please, El Patrón.”
“Bring the gringos,” he said, pointing back to the three Americans.
“We will. But we must leave––now.”
There was a garage at the end of the garden. Pablo hurried him down the path towards it. A BMW was waiting, the engine running. An Audi waited behind that. The automatic gates did not function without power and so they were being dragged open by hand. Two other men were waiting with AKs, aiming back towards the house. Felipe allowed himself to be jostled into the back of the car. The gringos were loaded into the Audi. He turned and looked back towards the mansion, his fists clenched in impotent rage. There was an explosion from the first floor. Debris plumed upwards and out, falling down onto the patio below: bricks, bits of window frame, shards of glass.
He thought of his son.
The driver stamped on the gas, the wheels spinning until the rubber bit, the car lurching for the gate and the road beyond.
* * *
55.
MILTON STOOD listening at the door. He took a step back and kicked it open. A bedroom, plush, thick carpets, art on the walls. Caterina was on the bed. A Mexican stood at an open door, across the room. Milton dropped him where he stood. He stepped out of the doorway and stood with his back to the wall. He ducked his head around to look in again. Now the second door was shut. He locked eyes with Caterina. She looked at the door and nodded. Milton pressed in the second magazine and fired a steady burst through the door. A jagged hole was torn from the middle of the panel. He looked through it and saw a spray of pink blood across a white tiled wall.
“Beau,” he said, indicating the bathroom. “Check it.”
“Right you are.”
He went forwards and fired three more rounds through the door, then kicked it open and went in, the shotgun held out.
Milton went to the girl. “Are you alright?”
She nodded.
“They didn’t––?”
She shook her head.
“What happened?”
“The police captain––Alameda––he is working for them.”
“Well, lookit here,” Beau called out. He stepped back, the shotgun still aimed into the bathroom. “Out you come.”
Adolfo González came into the bedroom. His hands were above his head. “Don’t,” he said, staring at the business end of the Remington.
“Hiding in the bath,” Beau said. “On your knees, boy. Hands behind your back.”
There was a nest of FlexiCuffs on the dresser. Beau looped one around Adolfo’s right wrist, then his left, and yanked them tight. He kicked the man behind the knees, forcing him to the floor, and went to the wide window that looked down onto the gardens outside. Beau edged carefully alongside it and looked down below.
“Hey, Smith,” he called. “You want to see this.”
“What is it?”
“The firefight outside? Them fellas ain’t Mexican.”
Milton counted six attackers, each of them wearing load carrying systems and night vision goggles. Five moved with easy confidence, passing from cover to cover, popping out to fire tight and controlled rounds that were unerringly accurate. The sixth looked to be limping. Even from this distance, and despite the goggles and the darkness, he recognised them. Five because he had fought alongside them before. The other because he had looked into the barrel of the man’s pistol, six months ago, in an East End London gymnasium with Derek Rutherford’s body laid out in a bloody mess behind him.
Pope, Ha
mmond, Spenser, Blake, Underwood and Callan.
Oh, shit.
“It’s not the cartels,” he said. “I know them. It’s much worse.”
“Wanna tell me what’s going on, partner?”
“We don’t have enough time.”
He was in the window for too long and Callan saw him. For a moment, their eyes locked, but then the man brought up his M-15. The red laser dazzled his eyes. Milton swung around just in time: the fusillade of bullets shredded the blind and chewed gouts of dusty plaster from the ceiling.
“When you say you know them––?”
“Not in a good way. Look, Beau––you have to listen to me. Get her out of here. Stay away from them. They’re coming from the south. I doubt they’ll be any more of them––they won’t think it’s necessary. Get her back to where they had us––there’s a fire escape there, end of the corridor, go down and then out the back. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“There’s only the six of them. They’ll never take the house.”
“They count double. At least. Please, Beau, go––get her over the border.”
“Alright, alright.”
“And fast. They know I’m here. They’ll be coming up now.”
“Alright.”
“Caterina––you have to go with him.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to buy you a little time and then make a run for it. I’ll see you in America.”
Beau hauled Adolfo to his feet and shoved him towards the door. He looped an arm around his throat and held the shotgun, one-handed, to the side. Using him as a shield, Beau edged out into the corridor.
Another barrage peppered the ceiling.
“Get going,” Milton implored her and, after a moment, she did.
* * *
56.
MILTON KNEW there was no sense in running. The only chance Beau and Caterina had was if he gave the agents what they wanted; if he didn’t, they would chew through the house, room by room, taking out anyone and everyone they found until they had who they were there for.
Him.
He thought about it: six months.
It had been a good run but it was always going to end, eventually.
He wondered, vaguely, how they had found him.
He started downstairs to meet them.
The first floor half-landing gave him a good view into the darkened gardens. The cartel members were either dead or gone. A few people from the party that he had heard from earlier were scattering. One man––older, portly––was pulling himself out of the swimming pool. A lost hairpiece floated towards the filter. Pope and Callan were working through the gardens and poolside area, the flash of their laser sights raking ahead of them. Emptying canisters leaked gas into the night. A dead narco was draped over a piece of topiary pruned into the shape of a machine-gun. Another was laid out in an elaborate swing-set as if he was gently reclining, everything normal apart from the smoking hole in his guts.
The patio doors had been blown in.
Hammond was crouched in the empty doorway.
Milton propped the ArmaLite against the balustrade, raised his hands and came down the rest of the stairs. “Here I am.”
She brought her MP-5 to bear. The red laser sight blinded him as she brought it to rest on his forehead, right between the eyes.
“Knees,” she said, nodding her head downwards.
Milton did as he was told.
She tapped a throat mic to open the channel. “Got him,” she said.
THEY TOOK him outside, to the front of the house. There was an SUV parked in the road with a young woman inside. Milton did not recognise her. They took off their goggles and scrubbed their faces, the puckered red outlines around their eyes. Pope, who had swapped his MP-5 for a pistol, took him by the arm and led him towards the van.
“John.”
“Mike.”
“You’ve led us on a merry dance.”
“Sorry about that.”
“You didn’t think it could last forever, did you?” he said quietly.
“I don’t know. It was going pretty well.”
“What the fuck’s been going on?”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you’re a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.”
He shrugged. “Well, you know––”
“Fine,” Pope qualified. “Even more than usual. Control’s been crucified about this. He’s made you his personal project.”
“Trying to make me feel special?”
“And Callan––”
“Probably best not to get me started on him.”
“Callan was all for putting a bullet in your brain right now. You really fucked up his knee.”
“He’s lucky that’s all I did.”
“Well, that’s as maybe, but you’re not on his Christmas card list. I don’t have the same predisposition and, luckily for you, I’m the ranking officer. So that’s not going to happen.”
“And what is?”
“I have to take you back, John. Back over the border to Fort Bliss. We’ve got a jet there. Back to the UK. I’ll help as best as I can but whatever comes next is between you and Control.”
“Do whatever you have to do.”
Pope paused and looked at him with sudden concern. “What’s this all about, John? Really? What’s going on?”
“It got to the stage where I’d just had enough. I’m not interested in doing it anymore.”
“So what have you been doing instead?”
Milton paused.
“Something useful.”
He could hear sirens.
“Come on,” Pope said.
The sirens grew louder. Milton turned to the development’s ostentatious gate as a police car rushed through, past the two dead bodies on the pavement and towards them.
* * *
57.
JESUS PLATO got out of his car. There were six soldiers. The oldest of the three, the one who had spoken to him at the station, was with Smith. Plato could see dead bodies in the gardens behind him. He saw three, at least, maybe four. A massacre. His stomach turned over. Whoever these six were, they were armed to the teeth and ruthless as hell, and they had just subdued El Patrón’s mansion and all of the sicarios that he had at his disposal.
And now Captain Pope had a gun pointed at Smith’s chest.
“Someone going to tell me what’s happening here?”
“This is the man we’re here for. We’re taking him back over the border.”
“You told me he was a colleague.”
“He is a colleague.”
“And you were going to help him.”
“That’s true.”
“This is helping him?”
“He’s also a wanted man.”
“For what?”
“That’s classified.”
“Not good enough.”
“I’m afraid it’s going to have to do.”
Plato shook his head. He drew his Glock and aimed at Pope.
“What are you doing, Lieutenant?”
“Let’s just keep it nice and easy.”
“Put that down, please.”
“I’m going to need you to explain to me why you think you can take him. You got a warrant?”
“We don’t need one.”
“Afraid you do. Can’t let you do anything without one.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” the woman said. “Step aside.”
“Wish I could, Señorita, but I’m afraid I just can’t. This man is wanted for further questioning––that ruckus at the restaurant on Monday, seems there’s a bit more to that than we thought there was. And, unless I’m mistaken, this is Mexico and I’m an officer of the law. The way I see it, that gives me jurisdiction.”
Pope spoke calmly. “Think about this for a moment, Teniente. We are here with the approval of your government and with the co-operation of the American military. This man is a fugitive. There’ll be serious consequences if you interfe
re.”
“Maybe so.”
“Your job, for one.”
He laughed. “What are they going to do? Fire me? I retire tomorrow. That’s what you call an empty threat. Drop your weapons.”
They did no such thing.
Plato tightened his grip on his pistol.
A stand-off.
There were six of them and one of him.
He had no second move.
He heard a siren; another cruiser hurried through the gates and pulled over next to his car.
Sanchez got out. He was toting his shotgun. “Alright, Jesus?”
“You sure about this, buddy?”
Sanchez nodded. “You were right.”
Pope turned to Sanchez. “You too?”
“Let him go.”
The shotgun was quivering a little, but he didn’t lower it.
“Now, then,” Plato said, stepping forward. “I’m going to have to insist that you drop those weapons, turn around and put your hands on the car.”
The younger man fixed him with a chilling gaze. “Don’t be a fool. We’re on the same side.”
“I think in all this noise and commotion it’s all gotten to be a little confusing. I think the best thing to do is, we all go back to the station and work out who’s who in this whole sorry mess.”
“If we don’t want to do that?”
“I suppose you’d have to shoot us. But do you want to do that? British soldiers, in a foreign country, murdering the local police? Imagine the reaction to that. International outrage, I’d guess. Not what you want, is it?”
“Alright,” Pope said. “Do as he says.”
He took a step backwards.
Sanchez raised the shotgun and indicated the car with it. “Now, then, please––the guns on the floor, please.”
They finally did as they were told.
“Señor Smith,” Plato said. “You’re riding with me. Señor Pope––you and your friends stay with Teniente Sanchez, please.”
Sanchez said that he had called for backup and that it was on its way. Plato turned to Smith and took him by the arm. As he moved him towards the waiting cruiser, he squeezed him two times on the bicep.
