Narcos

by Jeff Mariotte

  Aguilar wasn’t much different, except he had a wife, and a baby on the way. Responsibilities. Those weighed on a man, made him more inclined to be careful with his spending.

  Poison seemed to be in charge. He was lean, and wore his hair combed up, making him look taller. He had an anchor-type beard that ran straight down from the middle of his lower lip, then spread like the flukes of an anchor under his chin, a bushy mustache, and cool, appraising eyes.

  “Place we’re going used to be a mercado,” he said, addressing the entire assembly. “Rodrigo will have a lot of guys there, and Costa will probably be in the back.” He bisected the group with an outstretched arm. “You guys will go in the front,” he said, addressing those on his left. “And you guys in the back.” Aguilar and Montoya were on Poison’s right, in the back group, along with tall, skinny Blackie, whose skin was so dark it was no mystery where his nickname had come from. “We’ll roll up, pile out, and hit it fast, all at the same time. It’s gonna be bloody.” He paused for a moment, looking serious, then unleashed a brilliant grin. “That’s what makes it fun, right?”

  The crowd responded with a lusty roar. Aguilar didn’t join in until Montoya nudged him. Then, he opened his mouth along with the others, but stayed silent. Walking back to Montoya’s Nissan, he offered a silent prayer for protection, for himself and for Luisa, in case anything happened to him.

  The vehicles peeled out one after another, tires squealing, engines loud in the quiet of the pre-dawn morning.

  “Who’s Rodrigo?” Aguilar asked when they were en route.

  “Some pendejo from Cartagena who saw Don Pablo, the Ochoas, and Gacha making a lot of money. Decided he wants to get in the business, too. I guess he figured Costa knows all the secrets, so he would grab Costa while he was at his most vulnerable.”

  “Does Costa know all the secrets?”

  “Nobody knows all the secrets, except Don Pablo. Maybe his cousin Gustavo knows most of them, but not all. I’m sure Costa knows plenty, though.”

  “How do they know he’s the one who took Costa?”

  “Nothing happens in Medellín that Don Pablo doesn’t know about.”

  “How does he know where Costa’s being held?”

  “I told you, he has eyes everywhere.”

  “Even inside Rodrigo’s organization?”

  “Look at it this way. Rodrigo wants to move up, but he’s small-time. If you worked for a small-timer who couldn’t pay you much, and someone like Don Pablo wanted to pay you ten times as much to spy for him, would you do it?”

  “It’d be dangerous, though.”

  “So would saying no.”

  “How long have you been part of all this, Alberto?”

  “A few years. Since before he even started moving cocaine. Don Pablo knew it would be good to have some people inside the police. I could have joined him full-time, but this way I still get my police pay, and I can provide intelligence from time to time.”

  “Is this what you thought you’d be doing, when you first went to the academy?”

  “I grew up with nothing, brother. Poor as dirt. I didn’t want to stay that way. Whatever I can get my hands on, I’m going to take. Anybody gets in my way, fuck them.”

  Aguilar didn’t ask any more questions. He was growing increasingly anxious as they neared their destination. The men he would be fighting alongside seemed more than ready for battle. But he had never been the target of gunfire, never had anyone trying to kill him. Or tried to kill anyone else.

  Tonight, in the next few minutes, both of those things would no longer be true.

  “Get your gun out,” Montoya said, rounding the last corner. Ahead, brake lights from the other vehicles in their convoy showed. Some looped around to the front of the building. Montoya joined the chain at the rear. “We’re there.”

  With shaking hands, Aguilar unzipped the gym bag and pulled out the MAC-10. He checked the magazine, slipped two more into his pockets. He felt the reassuring weight of the big knife around his left ankle.

  “You ready?” Montoya asked.

  No.

  “Yeah.”

  Ahead of and behind them, doors opened and men poured out onto the ground, slamming doors behind them.

  Stealth was no longer the watchword, if it ever had been.

  * * *

  Aguilar estimated twenty men in the alley, at the rear of the former market. There was a loading dock for trucks, a little more than waist-high, with five concrete stairs leading up to it from the street. A big roll-up steel door led inside, for pallets of merchandise, and next to it was a regular door for people. Those would both be locked, of course.

  He’d expected to see armed guards outside, but there weren’t any. That didn’t mean they weren’t right behind those doors.

  And, as it turned out, on the roof.

  Pancho—so called because he wore his mustache like Pancho Villa, and favored crossed bandoliers—happened to look up, or heard the scrape of a shoe, or something, and shouted out a warning just as the gunfire started. It was too late to save any lives. Four men on the roof opened fire with automatic weapons, and lead rained onto the attackers. Immediately, six of them went down.

  Others scrambled for what little cover the alley offered. A rolling steel dumpster halfway down the block, some concrete bollards a man could duck behind if he was skinny enough.

  Aguilar didn’t even try for those. Instead, he lunged forward, sprang up onto the loading dock, and rolled to his feet. Here, the overhang protected him from the men on the roof. A few others saw what he’d done and followed suit, one of them catching a round in the top of his head as he tried. Still more stood their ground, trading fire with those above. A body dropped from the roof, landing on the alley floor with a damp thud.

  The gunfire tapered off, then died. Aguilar could hear more, from in front of the store, but for the moment it was quiet at the rear. The survivors, twelve in all, gathered on the loading dock.

  Then rounds punched through the roll-up door from inside, and two more men went down.

  The rest returned fire, including Aguilar. He couldn’t see who he was shooting at, could only see the now-perforated steel door and estimate where people were on the other side. He was fighting for his life, and he was scared, and he squeezed the trigger with everything he had, watching his rounds penetrate the door and disappear. The recoil made his gun barrel float higher and higher, until he realized it and brought it back down. He was still holding the trigger for several seconds after the magazine was empty. In the noise and smoke and fear and heat of the moment, he hadn’t realized it was spent.

  He ejected it and slammed another one home. A couple of minutes had elapsed, he had yet to see an enemy gunman, and he’d already burned through a third of his ammunition.

  What am I doing here? he asked himself. I could be in bed with Luisa.

  Too late to worry about that now.

  One of Escobar’s men trained his gunfire on the human-sized door instead of the big one, shooting around the lock. When he’d done sufficient damage, he kicked it open and hurled something inside. It wasn’t until he threw himself to the floor, hands over his head, that Aguilar realized it was a grenade. “Down!” Aguilar shouted, dropping and covering his ears.

  The explosion came a few seconds later. The steel door absorbed most of the blast, but through the holes in it Aguilar caught a glimpse of a flashing light. The boom was deafening, and he felt the concussive waves even on the far side of the door.

  He could only imagine it was much worse for those on that side.

  The gunfire from inside had stopped, at least in the rear of the store. From the front, sounds of battle still raged.

  “Come on!” someone shouted. He charged through the small door, gun ready. The rest found their feet and followed. Montoya, Aguilar noted, still lived, and he raced inside like he couldn’t wait to kill somebody.

  Aguilar was the last man in.

  10

  INSIDE WAS CHAOS.

&n
bsp; The store’s back room was full of freestanding steel shelving units, empty of everything except for the dust of the years since it had closed. The grenade had collapsed some of them, and those had knocked over others. Bodies were strewn amidst the debris. Smoke hung in the air like a heavy fog. Light fixtures dangled from the ceiling, but they were shut off, so the place was dark except for what little light filtered in through the open door.

  Through the ringing in his ears, Aguilar could hear Escobar’s men moving, some speaking in low tones, and the thunder of the ongoing gunfight in front of the store.

  He didn’t believe the rear was so sparsely defended. There must be more men somewhere, lying in wait. An ambush. Poison had expected Costa to be held back here, but who knew how many rooms there were? Surely more than this storeroom. A market had to have a walk-in freezer, cold storage, offices.

  If only he could see. And hear. If only his knees would stop threatening to give out beneath him, and his hands weren’t sweating so much he was afraid of dropping his gun.

  Blackie found a steel door leading toward the front of the store. He hesitated before it, then waved people away from it so they wouldn’t be in the line of fire when it opened. Standing well to one side, he pulled the big handle. The door swung wide.

  Three men on the other side of it opened fire, raking their gun barrels this way and that. Aguilar dropped to one knee and opened fire. Four more of the attackers went down, dead or wounded, before they were able to put down those three. Then, Blackie still in the lead, they passed through that door and into a nearly pitch-black warren of offices and storerooms.

  “Spread out,” Blackie said. “You see anybody, kill them. Anybody at all.”

  That answered the question Aguilar had asked Montoya earlier. The important thing wasn’t rescuing Costa, it was making sure Costa couldn’t spill what he knew. A dead banker was better than a live one who talked.

  Montoya brushed against Aguilar, gave him a “come with me” nod. Aguilar stuck close. They went off to the right, where an open doorway beckoned, black against black. Two of the other guys followed them.

  They’d just reached the doorway when a muzzle flash farther down the hall blinded Aguilar. He swore and fell through the doorway, Montoya tripping over him as he ducked in as well. One of the guys following was hit, but the other joined them.

  Aguilar reached around the door and unloaded a burst from his MAC-10. He heard a squeal of pain and some muttered swearing, so he kept firing, moving his barrel up and down, side to side, hoping to find the gunman wherever he was. A heavy thump, followed by silence, rewarded him.

  Montoya found his feet, then Aguilar did. The other guy was still there, a shadow in the darkness. Aguilar could hear him moving, sense his presence, smell the cologne he had seemingly bathed in, but could see no detail.

  They were in another hallway. Doors were barely visible down its length, steel ones with big handles. Coolers, Aguilar thought.

  If he’d been hiding a prisoner, this was where he’d be.

  Which meant there would be guards.

  He was sure of one thing: Costa was still alive. Rodrigo didn’t want any ransom, he wanted information. Killing Costa would defeat his whole purpose. He would have him protected, and he’d be keeping the banker quiet.

  Imitating what he’d seen Blackie do, he stood to the side of the first doorway and opened the door. It swung wide. Silence.

  Montoya did the same at the next one. As the door swung open, men burst through it, guns blazing.

  Aguilar felt a tug at his sleeve. For a brief instant, he thought it was Montoya. Then he realized Montoya was on the far side of the doorway, and the tug was a bullet. He wondered if he’d been hit, wondered if he would feel it if he had. Wondered what it would be like to bleed out on the dark floor of an abandoned grocery.

  Those thoughts flashed through his mind in a heartbeat. In the same moment, he was stepping back until he ran into the corridor wall, firing his gun as he did. He couldn’t see Montoya or the other guy anymore, couldn’t see where Rodrigo’s men were; his own muzzle flash had blinded him. The rumble of footsteps told him men were still charging through the doorway, maybe others coming down the hall. He realized—too late, again—that he had once more emptied the magazine.

  He dropped it, fumbled in his pocket for another. Someone slammed into him and they both went down in a heap. At the impact, the MAC-10 flew from his hands. He felt something hard against his lower back and he knew what it was: the other guy had a gun, but his arm was pinned under Aguilar’s hip and he was trying, one-handed, to bring it into a position in which he could shoot Aguilar in the back, and if that happened he’d be crippled for life, or dead, and dear God what he wouldn’t give for some light, any light, even the distant glow of a saint candle.

  He tried to bend his leg up to where he could reach his ankle, but it was trapped between them. He realized then that if he was able to, it would shift the pressure off the other guy’s arm. But he had to try. He could feel the gun against his back, could feel the barrel was almost there.

  Desperate, Aguilar clawed at his leg. He caught the edge of his jeans cuff, tugged it up.

  The gun moved against his back, its barrel pressing against him. The guy was trying to reach the trigger.

  Aguilar touched the big knife’s grip, got his hand around it. It slid easily from its sheath.

  He lashed out, felt the blade connect. Heard a cry. Warm blood splashed his hand. He struck again and again, until the other man stopped moving. Aguilar disentangled himself and rose to his feet.

  Not counting the dead, he was alone. He didn’t know where Montoya had gone, or the other guy. He wasn’t even sure which direction he’d come from. He was lost in the dark, surrounded by enemies.

  He went to his hands and knees, feeling around the floor until he’d located the MAC-10. From its weight, he knew he hadn’t succeeded in getting the third magazine in. He patted his pockets. Not there. It had to be somewhere in the hallway, then, but where? Someone could have kicked it three meters away. In the meantime, sounds of the continuing gunfight reached him.

  He tucked the useless weapon into his waistband, kept his right fist wrapped tightly around the knife.

  At least he had that.

  The dark hallway still needed to be cleared. The other doors hadn’t yet been checked, as far as he knew. Stupid to try it, with no gun. But he was convinced that Costa would be down here, somewhere, and it sounded like the other guys—those who yet lived—were busy.

  He went to the next door, opened it. Nothing.

  Same with the door after that.

  The next one was locked. He pounded on it, shouted, “All clear!” in what he hoped was a convincing tone. No response.

  Nothing more he could do here, then. He couldn’t break through a steel freezer door, if that’s what it was. Couldn’t shoot through it without a gun.

  Then Aguilar remembered the guy he’d stabbed to death. He’d had a gun. It must still be near him. He went back the other way, almost tripped on an outflung leg. When he hit that, he knew he was there. He pawed around, his hands landing in puddled blood and bits of chopped-up flesh.

  He was still on the floor, patting the corpse, when he heard movement in the main hallway. He looked up, saw a lanky form that could only be Blackie, wrestling with two guys. Nobody was using guns; either they’d all run out of ammunition, or they were trying to keep quiet. That seemed unlikely, given the racket still reverberating from elsewhere in the building.

  Still, it was two against one, and Aguilar knew Blackie was one of Escobar’s most trusted sicarios. He abandoned his fruitless search for the gun, rose silently, and worked his way behind the struggling shapes. He could tell which one was Blackie, which meant either of the others were fair game.

  He held the knife ribs-high and stabbed.

  The double-edged blade sank deep and the man it struck screamed. “Fuck!” he cried, trying to reach whatever was cutting him. Aguilar gave the blade a l
ittle twist, then yanked it free. Blood spurted out, and stringy tissue clung to it. The man was still shouting, “Fuck! Fuck!” when Aguilar stabbed him again. His cries turned into wordless grunts. Aguilar drew the knife back, slashing out at the second man. It struck home, sliced through something, and that man gave a pained screech.

  Blackie took advantage of his distraction. He kicked the man in the groin, and when the guy started to buckle, grabbed his head. Aguilar heard the cracking of bones as Blackie twisted the man’s neck, then released him. The man folded to the floor.

  “Thanks, brother,” Blackie said.

  “No problem.”

  The two men stood there, breathing hard—glad to still be breathing. The sounds of battle had quieted. Instead of gunfire, raised voices cried out. Aguilar recognized Poison’s. That meant the men who’d gone in the front had worked their way back. Blackie came to the same conclusion, and started to laugh.

  “We won!” he said. “Motherfucker, we won!”

  In another minute, men came in with flashlights. Trigger was there, carrying a flashlight and a shotgun. Montoya was there, too. “I think we got them all,” Montoya said. “We’re just clearing all the rooms.” He chuckled. “As police do.”

  “What about Costa?” Blackie asked.

  Snake-eyes drew a slash across his throat.

  “Excellent,” Blackie said. He turned to Aguilar. “Man, you’re something with that blade. Like some kind of demon.”

  In the glow from someone’s flashlight, Aguilar saw that the knife was slick with blood and viscera. His hand and arm were soaked. He felt like a Muisca warrior from ages past.

  Or Tarzan.

  Except he doubted that Tarzan had ever been sick to his stomach from slaying his foes. Looking at the gore and thinking about what he had done, back there in the dark, he had to swallow hard to keep from puking. It would have been worse, he supposed, if he’d seen what he was doing, the damage his blade was doing to other human bodies.

  Still, if it hadn’t been them it would have been him.

  At least he’d be going home to Luisa.