by James Samuel
They continued breaking through clusters of pedestrians until they came to La Espadaña, the modern restaurant with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. A few unoccupied tables sat outside on the patio. It seemed like any ordinary restaurant, rather than a narco hangout.
“How do we know he’s in there?” James paused on the other side of the street to get the lay of the land. “We can’t just walk in and hope he’s there.”
Diego clicked his tongue. “You should stay here. We don’t want a gringo attracting the attention of every table. I’ll go in and see who’s there.”
James leaned against the wall of a low, colourful building and pulled out his packet of cigarettes. He watched as Diego pushed himself against the restaurant door. The door didn’t open. A waiter dressed in a crisp white shirt came to the door and spoke to Diego, who retreated from the restaurant.
“What’s wrong?” James took a long drag on his cigarette. “Are they closed?”
“Only to us they are.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The narcos have taken over the restaurant. Didn’t you ever hear how narcos go out to dinner? Lieutenants and the rest of them walk into a restaurant, hand hundreds of dollars to the staff, pay for everyone’s dinner, and then lock the doors until they’re finished. Anyone who’s in there has to stay until the narcos are done with their meal.”
James’ eyes widened. “Sounds like a good deal if you’re in there at the right time.”
Diego smirked. “Sure, as long as you don’t mind being a sitting duck. They do that for their own protection. If another cartel decides to roll up on you, you’re going to get caught in the crossfire. Let me bring the car around.”
James opened his mouth to ask another question, but Diego jogged away. He shook his head, wondering what Diego had in mind. His lack of knowledge of Mexico and the cartels astounded and worried him in equal measure. Without someone like Diego, he wouldn’t know where to turn.
It took Diego just a few minutes to arrive with the Land Rover. Stubbing his cigarette out, James folded his arms as Diego climbed out of the car.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“We have two options. We can wait outside for them and try to take Parejo alive. Or we can go in there shooting and see what happens.”
James thought about it. Both options had their pros and cons, and each choice came with considerable risk. Either way, they had no indication of how many men Alex would have around him or how heavily armed they were.
As he considered the scenario, he fished about in his pocket for a five-peso coin and showed it to Diego. “How about this? Heads we shoot the place up. Tails we wait.”
Diego laughed. “I like the way you work, Winchester. Sure.”
James flipped the coin, caught it in the air and flipped it over onto the back of his hand. He lifted his hand off the coin. Heads.
“Well, I suppose God has decided for us,” said Diego. “Luckily, I got us something just in case we needed backup.”
Diego flicked his cigarette to the curb and threw open the Land Rover’s trunk to reveal a large, long lump. He whipped aside the sheet wrapped around it and two Colt M4 carbines looked back at them.
“They have bump stocks attached so these are fully automatic.”
“Are they loaded?”
“Yes, ready to go.”
James nodded, understanding what lay ahead for them. He didn’t know the layout of the restaurant, or how much resistance they might face. They didn’t even know if Alex was in there.
“Watch the civilians,” said James. “Nobody needs to die if they don’t deserve it.”
Diego shrugged. “We can try. But they better make sure they get down. If the narcos try to use them as shields, I’m firing either way.”
James bit his tongue. No, he wouldn’t shoot innocents even if they were in the way of his target. The narcos deserved everything they got. They’d chosen this life. The civilians in there had just found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of their own.
James and Diego donned their balaclavas and affixed their heavy-duty combat gloves. With their final preparations complete, they grabbed their Colt M4s and advanced on the restaurant.
“Now!” Diego ordered.
James gave the door a good kick, right under the lock. The poor-quality lock burst open. Everyone in the restaurant jumped as the two men burst in. It didn’t take long to tell the narcos from the innocents.
James and Diego aimed their weapons at the first table of narcos, tattooed, dressed garishly, and with their characteristic cruel faces. Diego and James took aim and the table of four fell on all sides in a haze of blood.
“Get to cover,” yelled James.
James dove for the wall of the L-shaped floor. He got around the corner just as a bullet whizzed past him and shattered the large pane of glass behind him. The glass tumbled in a cascade of shards. He moved a foot and a shard of glass crunched underneath.
Diego managed to get behind the lectern of the maître d. James knew he wouldn’t last long there. He threw his weapon around the corner and raked the scene. Arms and legs hidden behind tables marked the locations of the civilians. James directed his fire between the screams, taking one narco to the ground.
“I’m pinned down,” Diego yelled above the din.
James let out another burst of fire.
Diego sprang forwards through a clutch of tables. He took refuge next to a man and his partner.
The narcos retreated towards the kitchens, hiding behind the heavy-duty door. The others in his party cowered in a small alcove. No signs of Alex.
“I’ll cover you,” James shouted.
He unleashed some fire at the narcos hidden behind the alcove. One went down with a bullet to the arm. Diego used the opportunity to get away from the family and inch towards the kitchens.
James knew he had to move. He couldn’t do much good from his position near the door as the battle made its way deeper into the restaurant. He took a deep breath and dove to the ground as more fire came his way. He crawled across the floor as a bullet splintered the wood of the table next to him.
Diego fired towards the alcove again. Little by little, the narcos lost their cover. Diego advanced with three-round bursts, massacring the cartel members. The last of them went down with an agonising scream.
“I’ve got them. The kitchens,” said Diego.
James got up and moved from overturned table to overturned table. He stepped over the corpse of a boy who barely looked over eighteen, a bullet straight through his neck, his shocked face still trying to make sense of it all.
“Diego, get down,” James cried out.
Diego ducked as a narco opened the kitchen door and fired. James heard the sickening cry of his comrade Diego. He lifted his weapon from the right and fired. The door provided no protection from his M4. The narco fell out of sight under his vengeful hail.
“Are you okay?”
Relief washed over him when he heard Diego cursing the narcos in Spanish. Crossing the restaurant floor looked treacherous. Narcos hiding out in the kitchen could easily pick him off.
“They only got me in the arm. It’s nothing,” said Diego.
James sighed. “I haven’t seen Parejo. Do we go in there?”
Diego crawled around the side of a table, one arm limp and bleeding and his gun in the other hand. “I can’t fire this with only one arm.”
“Shit,” said James. “Let me go alone.”
“Fuck, no, he’s not here,” said Diego through gritted teeth. “I didn’t see him when we came in. If one of them called the police or their friends, it’s over. I can’t protect your rear.”
James glanced at the kitchen door. A silence fell over the restaurant. Nobody in the street dared approach the carnage. For all James’ bloodlust, Diego was right. If anyone came in from the rear, Diego would die, and James would find himself pinned down.
“Alright, let’s go. He wasn’t here.”
Diego screamed at the civilians in Spanish to leave. The few remaining made a mad dash for the door. James watched them, satisfied that none of them had sustained any injuries.
“Come on.” James stood, his gun never pointing away from that kitchen door. “Can you walk?”
“Yes. It’s only my arm.”
“Go ahead of me.”
James backed up out of the restaurant as Diego led the way to the car, cradling his arm. The screeching of police sirens cut their way through the city. The operation was a failure.
Chapter Eighteen
Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico
A bloody bullet from a nine-millimetre pinged as it hit the metal tray. Dr. Miguel Carlos Silva worked on Diego’s wound with his various tools of torture. Diego’s face twitched every time Dr. Silva poked and prodded at the bloody hole in his arm.
“Will he be okay?” asked James as they sat in the courtyard of the doctor’s mansion.
“Sure, a few weeks and the strength will come back into the arm. You kids need to be more careful.”
James gave a little half-smile. Dr. Silva had retired from his practice. Diego knew he didn’t ask any questions and gave good advice. His white hair looked transparent in the glare of the sun.
The doctor lived in a rural colonial mansion outside of Guanajuato City. His home’s internal courtyard had a stone fountain bubbling away and a large orange tree. The season for the oranges had almost reached its crescendo, with a thick citrus smell emanating from the fruit.
“We did all that for nothing,” said Diego. “All that work and this in my arm for nothing.”
James tasted the ashen sense of failure in his mouth. They had failed and were no closer to finding the location of Jessi Montoya. Now Quezada’s men knew they were being hunted.
“How could this have happened? Rosher’s information was good. There were narcos there, just not the one we were looking for.”
The doctor continued to work away on his arm, splashing disinfectant onto the wound. Diego screwed his face up as the liquid burned into the crevices of his wound.
“Rosher?” asked Dr. Silva. “That idiot governor of ours?”
“The same,” said Diego.
“Ah, they found him earlier today. It was all over the Internet. Wandering along the highway with that wife of his.”
The colour drained out of James’ face. “What?”
“Yes, he flagged down a car. Got one and it was the police. They took him into custody and they’re investigating who took him.” Dr. Silva winked with a knowing look. “Not that I care, of course; he’s a pig.”
James didn’t know what to say. They’d locked Rosher up in the bordello, a narco bordello at that. He couldn’t imagine how he would have escaped from a room with bars on the windows. Those rooms didn’t have any tools for people to use.
“You think –”
“I studied in the United States.” Dr. Silva cut Diego off. “The state governor is kidnapped from the road and you turn up at my house with a bullet in your arm. My dear Diego, you must think I was born yesterday.”
James chewed on the inside of his mouth. They should have never come to this Dr. Silva at all. Now they had another pair of lips to sew shut. If Rosher got the word out that Diego kidnapped him, Quezada would realise they had taken the side of La Familia. Then they were legitimate targets of war.
“You better not –”
“Diego,” Dr. Silva snapped. “First of all, stop moving. Second of all, I’m retired. I have no interest in your business. My only concerns are the few patients I have, such as yourself, and my gardens.”
“Alright, fine.”
“In any case, I’ve kept your confidence for years. Why should you think I’d turn on you now? What would I have to gain from it?”
“Money,” said James.
Dr. Silva glowered at him. “When you get to my age, you’ll understand money isn’t everything. What would I do with an extra million dollars? I’ll be dead within a few years. I don’t speak with my kids, so I wouldn’t give them a cent of it.”
James sighed. It didn’t matter what they said aloud now the doctor knew about their involvement. In his head, he cursed Diego for putting them at risk like this. The more people who knew their business the more tentative their positions became.
“Rosher must have lied to us,” said Diego. “He sounded so sure.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Think about it. How many narcos were in there?”
“Eight or nine, counting the ones that went into the kitchen to get away.”
“Who goes to a restaurant with eight or nine people all sitting at separate tables in the restaurant? If you bring a lot of people, you join a few tables together and make one big table.”
James considered Diego’s theory. He remembered the locations of the narcos when they kicked in the door. They shot a group at the closest table, but the narcos were sitting all around the restaurant, including some near the kitchen. That didn’t make sense.
“I suppose you have a point,” said James. “You’re not thinking they expected us, are you?”
“Hold still,” Dr. Silva hissed. “I’m preparing the stitches. You move, we’ll have to do it all over again.”
Diego growled at Dr. Silva. The normally emotive Diego couldn’t stay still as the conversation grew more animated.
“That would change everything, Diego. I know what you’re saying, but I hope it isn’t true.”
“Rosher was bought by Quezada, remember? He admitted that himself. It’s why he stopped taking my calls. Politicians always sell themselves out to the highest bidder. If he escaped, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to find a phone to call Quezada.”
James tapped his foot on the ground.
“We should have butchered him like a pig there and then and we might have got to Parejo. He probably ran away when Rosher told him that we were coming for him at his favourite restaurant. Sent a few of his foot soldiers down to the restaurant to take us out.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re right. He’ll know who we are now. He already knows your name and it won’t be difficult to pick out a white man hanging around away from the tourist sites. At the very least, he’ll have a description of me.”
“Told you we should have killed him.”
“Alright.” James raised his voice. “You don’t need to keep going on at me about it.”
Diego’s shoulders rose up and down as he shook with rage. The doctor struggled to hold him still.
“I recommend two weeks and you should be in well enough condition to continue your work,” said Dr. Silva. “Well, you’ll be able to fire a gun, at least.”
Diego nodded.
“So, what now, Diego? We’re no closer to finding Jessi, our cover has been blown, and Rosher tried to have us murdered. Where do we go from here? This contract has turned into one big mess.”
“It wasn’t my contract until you called me into it. Now I can’t get out of it because I’m a target,” Diego snarled. “Thanks to you, I’m in this to the end.”
James pulled out his pack of cigarettes as he seethed. His breaths came short and sharp. Diego’s dodgy domestic dealings were quickly becoming more of a liability than a help.
“We need to decide where to go next,” said Diego. “Rosher should be our priority. As long as he remains alive, he’s a threat to us. He controls the police in Guanajuato. If he starts trying to track us, he could cause us a lot of problems.”
James nodded in agreement.
“The issue we have is Rosher is going to go underground. We won’t find him attending many events or working in his office for a while. He will have an armed guard surrounding him.”
James tossed his head. “Not that it matters. He had an armed guard when we kidnapped him. Those police can barely shoot.”
Diego scoffed. “That’s because Mexican police have to pay for their own bullets. That’s why they almost never practice. On their salaries, th
ey can’t afford regular practice.”
Dr. Silva grunted as he continued to stitch up Diego, never taking his eyes off his work. “He may have recruited the Federal police after this incident. They get plenty of practice. Mexico City will have authorised it, in light of the situation. This is national news not local.”
“You’re right. Rosher may be protected by people who can actually shoot,” said Diego. “Well, I can always call some guys in again.”
James folded his arms. The two of them may be well-trained, but even they couldn’t fight off an army. And Gallagher wouldn’t authorise drafting in any additional field agents to complete the contract. If anything, he would chastise James for letting things get out of hand.
“Maybe we don’t need to get to him, after all,” said James.
“What do you mean?”
“He might have an elite squad of guards around him, but can we say the same for his wife?”
Diego opened his mouth to speak. Then his face broke out into a wicked smile. They had a way to get to Rosher.
Chapter Nineteen
Los Angeles, California, United States of America
The smog of Los Angeles tinged the air with the stench of gasoline. Romero wrinkled his nose as his car arrived in Korea Town. He got out on a street full of art deco buildings with terra cotta facades. Instead of moving towards them, he went in the opposite direction, towards a selection of white-faced bungalows.
Romero peered over his shoulder to make sure nobody had followed him then hammered on the front door of one. He stepped back and put his hand on the gun inside his suit jacket. The door opened an inch, held by a chain, and a single brown eye looked back at him.
“Mr. Romero,” said Davarius Hawkins, the leader of the local drug ring. “Welcome, please come in.”
Hawkins was a beefy African American with a barrel chest and a face that meant business. Romero barely came up to his shoulder. A native of Los Angeles, Hawkins had spent the last two years handling Romero’s dealings in the city. In exchange, Romero diverted some of his imports and exports to the west coast. Like most shipments in the west, they came through Baja California or the state of Sonora.
