Saint Death - John Milton #3 (24 page)

The second SUV was directly behind them. They had visited the restaurant and found it closed down, boarding fixed across the front door. They had asked around at the other businesses nearby and discovered that there had been a second shooting, two days after the first. The owner and the woman who ran the front of house had both been shot dead. No clues as to who did it. It was them who they needed to talk to. Since they couldn’t, that trail had run cold.

But it looked like they didn’t need that trail, after all.

Anna was nervous. She would have preferred to stay behind but Pope had insisted that she come. If the operation proceeded as he hoped they would not delay in getting out of the city and back across the border again. There would be no opportunity to detour and pick her up. Pope had explained what she would have to do calmly and without inflection: stay in the van, don’t get out of the van, leave it all to us.

And Pope needed her help, too.

He parked a hundred yards away from the gated entrance to the compound. Anna saw a guard shack and two men, both of whom were armed with rifles.

“Alright, Anna,” Pope said. “There’s the house. See it?”

“I’m not blind.”

“Do your thing.”

She opened her laptop and connected with the internet. Her slender fingers fluttered across the keyboard as she navigated to the website for the
Comision Federal de Electricidad
and, after correctly guessing the URL for the firm’s intranet, forced her way inside.

“I can’t be surgical about this,” she said. “It’ll be the whole block.”

“Doesn’t matter. Can you do it?”

“Just say when.”

“Ready?” Pope asked the others.

Hammond said, “Check.”

“Check,” said Callan.

“Alright then. Here we go.”

They quickly smeared camouflage paint across their faces. Pope put the van into gear again and slowly pulled forwards. When they were twenty feet away from the gatepost the guards came to attention, one holding up his hand for them to stop. The van had tinted windows and the two of them were unable to see inside. The men made no effort to hide the automatic rifles they were carrying. Pope pulled a little to the left, opening up an angle between the driver’s side of the van and the gatepost. One of the man spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice and stepped into the road. Hammond brought her MP-5 up above the line of the window, aimed quickly, and put three rounds into each guard. Anna was shocked: the gun was quiet, the suppressor so efficient that all you could really hear was the bolt racking back. The men fell, both of them dead before they hit the floor.

Anna’s heart caught. She had never seen a man shot before.

Suddenly, it all seemed brutally, dangerously real.

Pope calmly put the van into gear again and edged forwards through the gate.

Anna compared what she could see in the gloom with the map she had examined earlier. It was a crescent-shaped street that curved around a central garden. Mansions were set back behind tall fences. It was nothing like the rest of the city; it was as if all the money had fled here, running from the squalor and danger outside and cowering behind the gates. One of the gardens was lit up more brightly than the others: strings of colourful lights had been hung from the branches of pecan and oak trees and strobes flashed. The sound of loud
Norteño
music was audible. Pope pulled over outside the driveway of the mansion. They pulled down full-face respirators and added night vision goggles.

They collected their weapons.

The time on the dashboard display said 21:59.

“Now, Anna.”

She hit return.

Her logic bomb deployed.

The time clicked to 22.00 and all the lights went out.

The streetlights.

The lights in the mansion, the colourful lights in the grounds.

The music stopped.

“Go, go, go,” Pope said.

52.

PLATO AND GOMEZ ended up on their usual jetty, looking out onto the sluggish Rio Bravo. The brown-green waters reached the city as a pathetic reminder of what it must have been, once, before the factories and industrial farmers choked it upstream for their own needs. They were beneath the span of the bridge, sitting on the bonnet of Plato’s Dodge. The headlights were on, casting out enough light so that they could read the graffiti on the pillars. Several of the concrete stilts had been decorated with paintings of the pyramids at Teotihuacán. He could see the fence and the border control on the other side. The low black hills beyond El Paso. America looked pleasant, like it always did. The day was ending with the usual thickening soup of smog, muffling the quickly dying light.

Sanchez pulled another two cans of Negro Modelo from the wire mesh.

Plato took a long draught of his beer. He sighed. His heart wasn’t in the banter like he hoped it would be.

“What’s on your mind, man?” Sanchez asked. “You’ve been quiet all night.”

“Been coming here for years, haven’t we?”

“At least ten.”

“But not for much longer. All done and finished soon.”

“What? You saying you won’t still come down?”

“Think Emelia will let me?”

“You wait. She’ll want you out of the house. You’ll drive her crazy.”

“Maybe.” Plato tossed his empty can into the flow. It moved beneath him, slow and dark. Sanchez handed him another.

“What am I doing?”

“What?”

Plato looked at the can, felt it cold in his palm. He popped the top and took a long sip. “I can’t stop thinking about that girl.”

“From the restaurant?”

“And the Englishman. Going after her like that. Going after the cartels, Sanchez, on his own, going right at them. Makes me ashamed to think about it. That’s what we’re supposed to do––the police––but we don’t, do we? We just stand by and let them get on with their murdering and raping and their drugs. We swore the same oath. Doesn’t it make you ashamed?”

He looked away. “I try not to think about it.”

“Not me. All the time. I can’t help it. All that bravery or stupidity, whatever you want to call it, how do I reward him?––by sending him on his way to a death sentence and not doing anything to help him. And then three of his colleagues turn up and I won’t even take them to where he is. Didn’t even try and help them. I just tell them where to find him. They go there, that’ll be another three deaths that keep me up at night. All I can think about, all day, is what am I doing? I’ve just been trying to keep my head down. Get my pension and get out.”

“You’ve done your years.”

“Not yet. I’ve still got one more day.”

“So keep that in mind. One more day then all you need to worry about is your family and that stupid boat.”

“No, Sanchez. I don’t agree. I’ve been doing that for months and it’s selfish. I’m police for one more day. My oath should still mean something.”

They heard a dog somewhere. An anguished, hungry howl.

The receiver crackled inside the car. “We got a 246 at St. Mark’s Close. Repeat, a 246 at St. Mark’s Close. Possible 187.”

“That’s the narco-mansions, right?”

“Yep,” Plato said.

“Gonzalez’s mansion?”

Plato nodded. He pushed himself off the bonnet. His bones ached.

“No-one’s answering
that
call.”

“I will,” Plato said.

“You’re joking––right?”

“No. You coming?”

He gaped at him. “Someone’s shooting up González’s mansion and you want to respond? It can only be another cartel. You want to get in the middle of
that?
Are you crazy?”

“That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

“You promised Emelia––don’t get shot. One more day, amigo. You stay away from shit like that. How stupid would it be to get yourself shot now?”

“I’ve been making the wrong decisions all week. And now I’m thinking what am I going to do to set them right?”

53.

THE LIGHTS went first. The live music, which had been playing loud all evening, petered out and then stopped. Milton winced as he pushed himself upright against the wall. Small arms fire rattled from the grounds outside the house. Beau got up, went to the window and put his eye to the crack between the shutters.

“Can you see anything?”

“Not really.”

“Yes or no?”

“It’s too dark.”

The door opened and a guard came into the room. “
Bajar
,” he told Beau, waving his ArmaLite at him.
Get down
. He unlatched the shutters, threw them aside, switched the rifle and used the stock to smash out the glass. He swept away the shards still stuck to the frame and then put the stock to his shoulder, glancing down the sight and opening fire.

Alright, then. Milton winced as he moved forwards onto his knees, sliding his hands all the way down his back, his shoulders throbbing with pain as he passed them over his backside and then down into the hollow behind his knees. He rolled his weight forwards until the momentum brought him to his feet, stepping over the loop of his closed hands, raising himself up. Milton dropped his cuffed hands around the man’s throat and, with his left shoulder pressed as near to perpendicular to the man’s head as he could manage, he yanked quickly to the right and snapped his neck.

“You’ve done that before.”

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.