by Matt Lincoln
“He thinks that he is… important,” Ramos replied, pursing his lips together as he struggled to find the words he wanted to say. “More important than he is in reality. He bothers everybody.”
“Is that right?” I chuckled. It was oddly comforting to hear Ramos talk about him so negatively. I felt like it confirmed that I wasn’t imagining the hostility he was directing toward me back at the station, and it meant that it probably wasn’t me, specifically, that he was a jerk to.
Ramos and I chatted for the rest of the ride to the station. It was slow going, but it was still nice, and by the time we reached the road marker with the horse, I felt a lot more at ease about working with these men.
I’d been so absorbed in my conversation with Ramos that I hadn’t really noticed the scenery as we drove here. Now that I looked, I realized that we were in the middle of nowhere. Gone were the cramped buildings, replaced instead with open fields filled with tall, untamed grass and wild-growing plants. The sign that Maduro had told us about was made of weather-beaten wood that had been damaged by the elements over what had to have been years, judging by how dilapidated it looked. The horse etched onto it was still visible, though. Just past it was a narrow dirt road that we might have missed if we hadn’t been looking for it, and it led straight into a thick and dense forest of tall trees, so tightly packed together that the road was completely dark.
A tense silence fell over the car as we made the sharp turn onto the partially obscured dirt road. The incline up the hill was steep, and the police van we were in rumbled and jerked as we drove over bumps in the road.
Before long, all hell broke loose. The sound of gunfire reached my ears before we’d even made it up the hill to the house.
“Crap,” I muttered under my breath. It sounded like the fight had already started. Because the road was so narrow and cramped, we had no choice but to ascend in single file, which meant a couple of cars at the head of the pack were bearing the brunt of the enemy’s attack.
The officer driving yelled something in Spanish before suddenly veering off of the road, trampling over small plants and bushes as he went. I winced as the left side of the car scraped across the side of a tree as we tore through the densely forested area around the house. I turned to look back at the road and saw that the rest of the cars had come to a total standstill. Those officers had gotten out and now advanced the rest of the way on foot. Our driver must have realized we wouldn’t be getting through and decided to forge his own way.
A second later, we burst through the last of the trees and into a small clearing. Set in the middle was a run-down little building that was more of a shack than a house. Already, officers and suspects alike were scrambling around the perimeter of the base. I tried to do a headcount of how many men we were up against, but it was impossible with everyone running around. The suspects were heavily armed, fighting back against the cops with military-grade automatic weapons, including some honest-to-God machine guns. Though some appeared to be trying to escape into the forest, the officers quickly formed a perimeter around the small shack, driving them back toward the center.
The officer driving suddenly brought the car to a stop, and my head jerked forward at the unexpectedly harsh break. He threw his door open but didn’t step out. Instead, he looked forward at something through the windshield. I turned to see what it was and realized that one of the suspects was standing directly in front of us. There was a murderous snarl on his face, and I could see down the barrel of the M60 he was holding.
“Agarrense!” the driver yelled.
Beside me, Ramos grabbed onto the door handle before ducking his head, and I only had a moment to follow suit before the driver slammed on the gas, launching the car forward toward the suspect. Bullets spattered against the front of the car for only an instant before they suddenly came to an abrupt stop as the car smashed into something.
I flinched at the impact, well aware that we’d just brutally mowed down the suspect who’d been shooting at us just a moment prior. It was a necessary action since he had been actively attempting to kill us, but it didn’t make the reality any less morbid.
I snapped my head back up once it felt safe to do so and peered out the window of the car to survey the scene. I froze with shock at the carnage that was unraveling just outside the confines of our vehicle. The traffickers were being gunned down mercilessly by the special forces officers. Diego, in particular, seemed to be relishing in the slaughter, and I watched with stunned disbelief as he fired several shots into a man who had already dropped his weapon and seemed to be attempting to surrender.
“Come on,” I muttered to Holm as Ramos pushed open his door. We needed to get this under control fast, both for our sake and the suspects’. It was evident from what I had just witnessed that the special forces officers weren’t going to hesitate to kill the suspects, and criminal or not, it wasn’t okay to kill people wantonly if there was another option available.
I looked around as I hopped out of the car and reached for my gun. The scene was quickly becoming a bloodbath. The yard in front of the house, overgrown with weeds and covered with trash, was littered with bodies. However, it seemed like the special police force lived up to its reputation because all the bodies on the ground belonged to suspects, and it seemed that none of the officers had been seriously wounded yet.
Nevertheless, the suspects continued to put up strong resistance. There had to have been a dozen down, but it looked like there were at least that many still standing. Just a few feet away from me, one of the suspects suddenly went down with a grunt as a bullet struck him in the arm, knocking his weapon out of his hand. I rushed forward as he fell and slammed my foot down on his arm, pinning it to the ground so he wouldn’t be able to reach for his gun.
The man screamed something at me in Spanish that I didn’t quite catch in the heat of the moment as I forced him onto his side and yanked his hands behind his back. I was certain that he’d said something about my mother, though, so I could only assume it hadn’t been anything very nice.
I had just finished clicking the handcuffs into place when something moved in the corner of my vision, big and dark and coming straight at me. From my crouch next to the suspect, my only available option was to roll to the side. As I did, I turned and got a look at what it was that had been coming toward me. It was a man, brutish and hulking, wearing a gray shirt and carrying a pump shotgun.
I reached for the gun at my hip but couldn’t quite get to it because of the awkward angle I’d landed in. Though Holm was behind my attacker, he was preoccupied dealing with his own gun-toting suspect, so I wouldn’t be able to rely on him for assistance as the thug brought his shotgun up.
I scrambled onto my knees as the man fired, moving out of the way as the spray of shot blasted through the space I had just been, so close I swear I felt the heat from the pellets burning through the air. As he began pumping the shotgun to chamber the next shell, I took advantage of that small pause to get to my feet. Still, with my attacker armed with the superior close-quarters-combat weapon, I decided that staying on the move was better than trying to draw and aim a shot of my own. I ran around him in a circle so he wouldn’t be able to get a clean shot.
He fired anyway, and though it was difficult to distinguish individual noises amidst the chaos unfolding around us, I could have sworn that I heard someone cry out in pain as he fired. I didn’t have time to confirm if he’d hit another suspect or one of the officers, though, not while his attention was still focused on me. He took his eyes off me for a split second as he pumped the shotgun, and I took the opportunity to strike. I lunged at him, tackling him to the ground and pinning the shotgun between us.
The first suspect I’d apprehended, who’d been lying on the ground in shock up to that moment, got shakily back onto his feet as soon as the other suspect and I hit the ground. He struggled for just a moment, unable to use his hands, but a second later, he was off, running at full speed back toward the shack. I gritted my teeth as I watched h
im go. He couldn’t hold a gun or fight with his hands cuffed behind his back, but I still didn’t want him running loose.
Not that I could do much about it right then. I had my hands full with a more pressing matter.
The suspect beneath me struggled to get free, shoving hard against the gun in an attempt to push me off. With my strong grip and all my body weight pressing down, the thug wasn’t going anywhere, but with both of my hands full, I couldn’t make any other move to apprehend him. For several seconds, we stayed in that position, playing a sort of backward tug-of-war as we each pressed against the gun sandwiched between us with all of our might.
A shadow appeared in my vision, and for a moment, I tensed up, certain that another suspect had arrived and I was about to be outnumbered. Then a familiar boot rushed into view and struck the man beneath me in the side of the head, catching him hard in the temple.
Holm had come to my aid. “Sorry that took so long,” he rasped as the man groaned with pain, his grip going slack enough for me to rip the shotgun out of his hands. “One of them suddenly jumped me from behind.” Holm’s lip was bleeding, and there was a spot under his eye that looked a little red and swollen. I wouldn’t surprise me if the entire area was purple and bruised by the end of the day.
The suspect screamed in anger as I pulled the weapon out of his reach and handed it to Holm. The thug reached up to snatch the shotgun back, but I shoved him back down and punched him hard in the face with enough force that his eyes rolled back in his head.
“You okay?” Ramos asked as he came running up to us.
“Yeah,” I huffed as I took another look around. It seemed like things were quieting down almost as quickly as they’d begun. The ground was stained red with the bodies of all the men that had been shot, and the few that remained were being dragged back to the waiting police cars.
“There’s at least one inside,” I muttered as I pulled my gun out of its holster. “I cuffed him, but he got away in the scuffle.” As Ramos bent down to grab our former shotgunner, Holm and I marched over to the shack. There were a few officers standing outside, but the inside looked dark and empty. As I was about to go in, someone suddenly brushed past me, shoving me to the side with so much force that I nearly fell.
“The hell?” I exclaimed as I turned to look at Diego. He was sneering down at me, his nose scrunched up as he regarded me like an unpleasant insect. The desire to punch him straight in the nose flooded through me, but I restrained myself. As satisfying as that would feel, it wouldn’t be a good idea to get into a fight with the local PD, no matter how annoying he was.
The inside of the shack was more spacious than it looked on the outside. Several plastic blue tubs lined one side of the one-room building, while an assortment of trash bins and gasoline cans were arranged on the other. Two tables were set into the center of the room, covered in crinkly plastic tarps and piled high with bottles of chemicals.
So this is where they cook everything up, I thought to myself as I inspected the shack. The suspect I’d seen run in here wasn’t anywhere in plain sight. Had he already been dragged out of here? I stepped cautiously into the room to see for myself, but before I could do so, Diego began to knock things over, even tossing things aside as he destroyed the crime scene.
“What are you doing?” I roared as I stepped toward him. Even if he was looking for the man like I was, he couldn’t just damage evidence like that.
Diego glared at me before shoving me aside again. I clenched my fist this time, prepared to punch him, consequences be damned when he suddenly rushed to the table and pulled off the tarp, sending everything stacked on top crashing to the ground. Several of the bottles of chemicals popped open or smashed entirely as they hit the floor, and some began to sizzle as they let off noxious fumes.
I opened my mouth to yell at him again for being an idiot, but stopped when I realized that he’d found the suspect. He huddled beneath the table, his shoulders hunched and his hands still cuffed behind his back as he looked up at Diego with fear. Diego leaned down and grabbed the man by the collar before dragging him out from under the table and tossing him into the ground, nearly tossing him directly onto the quickly growing pool of chemicals.
I froze in shock for a moment when Diego suddenly pulled his gun from his hip and pointed it at the man.
“No met mates!” The man cowered in terror, his eyes filling with tears as he looked up at Diego. My legs were moving before I’d even made the conscious decision to step in, rushing toward Diego and slapping his arm away before he could shoot.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled as I stood between him and the suspect. As Diego put his gun away, Holm quickly moved to the man’s side, lifting him up off the ground and away from the chemicals. “His hands are cuffed behind his back! Why are you pointing your gun at him?”
“Vete a la verga, desgraciado Americano!” Diego roared as he swung his fist at me in response.
I ducked out of the way, but he was fast and quickly brought his other hand up to punch me. He struck me in the jaw, and I winced as pain resonated across my face. He moved to hit me again, but I blocked his punch with my left arm and used my right to punch him in the face. Normally I would have gone for the stomach to knock the air out of him, but since he was wearing a bullet-proof vest with plate inserts, I was just as likely to just hurt my own hand than to deal him any damage.
It was clear that he was a specially trained officer, though, because he took my punch like it was nothing and tried to hit me again. I ducked to the side this time, lunging around him and sweeping my leg out to try to knock him off his feet. While he had the presence of mind to shift his stance to keep his footing, I still clipped his knee, and he wobbled for a second to regain his balance.
It was enough of a distraction for me to gain the upper hand, though, and I lunged bodily at him. Diego and I tumbled to the ground, and I locked my arms around his neck in a chokehold, squeezing tightly as he struggled and attempted to break free.
“What’s going on in here?” A shadow fell over the doorway. I looked up and found Captain Jacinto staring down at us, bewilderment etched across his features. I sighed as I let Diego go. Even though he’d definitely started the fight, the fact that I’d been the one beating him when Jacinto arrived made me look like the instigator.
“This moron attacked me,” I replied at the same moment that Diego launched into his own explanation.
Jacinto groaned and shook his head before glaring at us. “Whatever, I don’t care,” he barked.
You don’t care?! I thought incredulously. He’s just walked in on one of his officers physically fighting with a federal agent he was supposed to be working with, and that was his response?
“Diego, ve y ayuda con los sujetos,” Jacinto grumbled as he turned to look at the officer. Diego looked like he wanted to protest, but a challenging glare from Jacinto was all it took for him to stand up and saunter away.
“Sorry,” Jacinto muttered as he watched him go. “I’m sure I don’t have to ask who started it. Diego can be a little difficult to work with.”
“And you still assigned him to the case?” I retorted, unable to reign in my thoughts after having to bear the brunt of the aggressive officer’s unprovoked attack.
“He’s a good officer,” Jacinto insisted with a frown. “He gets the job done. Just look around/ we got everything here under control in less than five minutes!”
No thanks to you, I thought to myself. I hadn’t seen the captain at all during the battle. It seemed like he’d stayed true to his word and decided to hang back, probably from the safety of the car while the rest of us risked our lives.
“So no one escaped?” I asked, exerting effort to avoid speaking my grievances out loud.
“As far as we can tell, no,” Jacinto replied. “Though we are combing the surrounding jungle, just to be sure. That being said, it appears that Sandoval is not here.”
“What?” I balked, all the blood draining from my face as
a chill ran through me. After all of that effort, we hadn’t actually managed to catch the ringleader?
“Sandoval?” the suspect still standing next to Holm spoke up.
I turned to him expectantly, curious about what he had to say on the matter.
“Yo se,” he stammered as he looked back and forth between Jacinto and me. “Yo se donde esta.”
“He says he knows where Sandoval is,” Jacinto murmured with surprise.
“Donde?” I asked, recalling the little Spanish I knew to ask him directly where we could find Sandoval.
“Te dire.” The suspect nodded, his face twisting into a furious grimace. “Me salvaste la vida, asi que te dire donde encontrar ese traidor!”
“He says he’ll tell you because you saved his life,” Jacinto translated. “And he also said that Sandoval is a traitor.”
“What does he mean by that?” I asked Jacinto, who quickly relayed my message.
“El nos dijo que iba ir a hablar con el de Aruba, el tal Maduro o como se llame,” the suspect grumbled. I couldn’t totally understand what he was saying, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was angry. “Ya me doy quenta que nos estaba mintiendo. El esta en el airopuerto. Intenta huir!”
Jacinto gasped, and I snapped my head around to look at him, curious about what the suspect might have said to cause Jacinto to react that way.
“He says that Sandoval told the men he was going to go speak to Maduro,” Jacinto explained, “but he realizes now that was just a lie. Sandoval must have known we were coming, and he’s at the airport now attempting to flee.”
I froze as I heard that. How had he known that we were coming, and how long had it been since he’d left? For all we knew, he was already on a plane already, out of the country and out of our reach. Before I could voice any of these thoughts, a commotion erupted outside as several of the men began to yell.
“Oh, what is it now?” Jacinto grumbled as he raced outside. Holm and I followed him out, and it shocked me to see Diego pinned to the ground beneath two other officers, including Ramos. A few other officers were standing above them, trying to pry them off of Diego.
