by Matt Rogers
‘I’m sorry.’
‘This man has put the fear of the devil in you.’
‘Yes,’ Bautista said.
He couldn’t help but admit it.
‘Well, then he is your responsibility.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He lives near here, yes? You said so yourself.’
‘I don’t want to go back there.’
Santiago’s eyes flared with fury. ‘You will never utter those words again. You sound like a snivelling child. You are a snivelling child. Pathetic. How were you so easily intimidated?’
‘Vicente. Iván. Tell him what you saw.’
Neither of them said a word.
Bautista sent a withering glare in their direction.
It fell on blind eyes.
And his words fell on deaf ears.
‘They don’t seem too concerned,’ Santiago said, his face now contorted into a manic grin.
‘They’re scared of you.’
‘They should be.’
‘We’re hurt. We can’t…’
‘I know. That’s your fault.’
‘How do you expect us to—?’
Santiago reached out and slapped him on the top of the skull, shutting him up mid-sentence. The blow had little force behind it, more of a precursor to a beating than an actual attempt to hurt him, but the ripple effect seared down his temples and flooded through his mangled jaw. He moaned.
‘I don’t expect you to do anything but follow the orders I give you. That’s our deal. That’s why the three of you are out here making a fortune instead of slaving away at the maquiladoras back home. Do you understand?’
Bautista understood.
‘You have nothing to bargain with,’ Santiago said. ‘The three of you are hurt, yes, but you will deal with your problem before you see a doctor. Take any of the men with you.’
‘They’re all useless.’
‘I’ve never heard you voice these concerns before.’
‘I’ve never encountered anyone like this guy before.’
‘Then all the more reason to put an end to it.’
‘And if I say no?’
‘I think you know.’
Bautista knew.
He nodded grimly. ‘Tonight?’
‘Tonight. I will deal with the Americans.’
‘Deal with them?’
‘You planned to send a message. I still intend on sending that message.’
In the corner of the room, an old-school video camera and a collection of blood-stained blunt objects ranging from baseball bats to wooden planks lay dormant.
Bautista eyed them warily. ‘Isn’t that a little … extreme?’
‘Weren’t you going to do the same?’
‘Yes, but that was in the heat of the moment. I’ve had time to cool down.’
‘Do you not understand what we do?’ Santiago said. ‘We cannot afford to cool down.’
‘I know.’
‘You don’t seem to. Understand this. A single moment of weakness spirals into something uncontrollable. We can never compromise.’
‘Yes.’
‘They pay us with fake currency. We show the rest of the country how we respond to that. We set the example.’
‘Yes.’
‘Load up on painkillers. Take something extra, if you need. And then go finish it. You know where this guy lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hit it hard.’
‘Always.’
Santiago disappeared. Moving to the next task. Relentlessly checking off his to-do list.
Bautista swallowed, tasted sweat and blood, and stuffed down the ball of fear lodged in his throat.
A sensation he couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced.
Why was he so afraid of this man?
He knew why.
He touched a finger gently to his jaw. Not broken like he originally thought, but close enough.
16
Deeply inebriated, Jake mumbled, ‘I don’t understand,’ as Casey shoved him in the direction of the hostel at the end of the street. The sidewalk out the front of Chocó Retreats was deserted, with most of the backpackers either out exploring the hidden treasures of the region or drinking themselves into oblivion.
Casey studied her surroundings with a newfound apprehension.
Her heart raced in her chest, thudding beat after beat against her breast. She tried not to focus on it at risk of descending into an anxiety attack. She’d suffered one of those before, one night in college, grasping at her chest and gasping for air, convinced she was about to suffocate or suffer a heart attack. It had materialised in the midst of a particularly stressful revision week before exams. She’d been horrifically underprepared.
This was a hundred times worse.
It put the rest of her life’s problems in perspective. She pictured a convoy of vehicles pulling up alongside them, stuffing the four of them into the cars, carting them off to the lawless depths of the jungle. She shivered despite the heat, and the sweat on the back of her neck turned cold.
Harvey said, ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’
Casey nodded.
‘You fucking idiot, Jake,’ Whitney said.
Jake shrugged, his eyes glazed over. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’
‘The drinks are kicking in,’ Harvey muttered to Casey.
She nodded again.
She searched for words, but found nothing.
Nothing could summarise the extent of their mutual idiocy.
‘We’ll be fine,’ Whitney said. ‘That guy dealt with them.’
‘Who the hell was he?’ Harvey said.
‘Fuck if I know,’ Jake mumbled. ‘Did he beat them up?’
‘Stop talking,’ Casey said. ‘Walk.’
‘Don’t tell me what to—’
Casey slapped him, hard. The crack resonated down the street, and it shocked the other three into stunned silence. None of them could believe it had happened — Jake most predominantly. He wheeled to her, almost losing his balance in the process. Fury laced his eyes. He started to formulate aggression when…
Casey launched into a tirade. ‘You morons don’t understand how close we just came to something really, really bad. We need to get to the hostel, pack our shit, and get the hell out of here. Next bus out. Got it?’
None of her friends could remember the last time her intensity had reached this level. It all hit them at once, and they nodded, suddenly scared and aware and on edge all at once.
‘Okay,’ Whitney said, throwing a paranoid glance over her shoulder.
‘Now get moving,’ Casey hissed.
They hurried toward the lobby.
17
Bautista, Vicente, and Iván nursed their wounds and felt awfully sorry for themselves. The atmosphere dripped with nervous anticipation. They completed rudimentary weapons checks and adjusted the ceramic vests compromising the entirety of their body armour. They looked at each other, silent the whole time, but deeply aware of how the other was feeling.
All three were terrified.
Bautista couldn’t speak for Vicente and Iván, but he’d never experienced anything like this. For a brief, flashing moment he flirted with sympathy for the people he’d slaughtered over the last few years. Then that went away, because if he dove down that rabbit hole he would never resurface. So he locked the emotions away.
Because his life had been dominance. From start to finish. Constant acting and reacting, always getting his way, seizing a leg up over his competition. He’d never found himself in a position of true fear. No-one hammered an objective like he did. It was half the reason he’d been plucked from the slums and carted out here to the unforgiving jungles. The heat and the humidity and the discomfort hadn’t deterred him, so how the hell could he expect to face any kind of resistance out here? He was an enforcer, through and through, and he’d made every part of his life revolve around being the best enforcer a man could be. He cut no corners. He fulfilled Santiago’s every wish
.
And now the boss was treating him like pond scum.
He hefted the Colt AR-15 into his right hand and tested its weight. It had been some time since he’d wielded this kind of firepower. In fact, the gun seemed foreign in his sweaty palm. It added to the unease. He gulped, wiped sweat off his face, and muttered something reassuring to himself.
‘You’re the fuckin’ man,’ he snarled under his breath.
Vicente looked across. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
But it wasn’t nothing, and it was blatantly obvious. His friends had never seen him like this. And he hadn’t seen them so scared either. They were a trio of hard, cruel men thrust into a dynamic they knew little about.
And none of them wanted to speak about it.
‘The fuck are we doing here?’ Vicente finally said.
Sweating too.
All three of them, sweating hard, tasting the foul air.
Bautista dropped the AR-15 to the rickety table in front of them. Stifled a curse. Breathed.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who is that guy?’ Iván said. ‘How’d we get like this?’
‘I’m in so much fucking pain, man,’ Vicente said.
Nursing his injuries.
‘Get over it,’ Bautista said. ‘When we get this done we can relax.’
‘If.’
‘Shut your mouth.’
‘Who’s coming with us?’
‘All of them.’
‘All?’
‘I’ll do this shit for him,’ Bautista said. ‘But I’m not underestimating this motherfucker.’
‘Are any of us?’
‘What about the Americans?’ Iván said. ‘Who’s picking them up?’
‘Santiago.’
‘Alone?’
‘No. He’s taking the help from Guatemala.’
‘The hired guns?’
‘Yeah. The brothers.’
‘Christ. I almost feel sorry for the kids.’
Bautista fought down a knot of nerves in his gut. ‘No you don’t.’
18
The hostel corridors were, as usual, a raucous hive of activity. Drunk youths trundled from room to room, pausing in open doorways to converse with whoever lay in the bunks in each dormitory. Casey shoved a young guy with broad shoulders and absurdly enormous sunglasses aside. He sipped his beer and stared at her with disapproval sweeping over his expression.
‘Hey,’ he started.
She held up a hand to silence him for just long enough to get past, wheeling her suitcase behind her with manic intensity. The bag was stuffed to the brim. There’d been no time to pack with care. Jake shouldered past her, suddenly physical. She’d never seen him like this.
‘You okay?’ she said.
‘Sorry,’ he slurred. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No.’
‘Uh, yeah, I’m okay.’
‘Let’s just get out of here.’
He nodded, staring at a fixed point at the end of the corridor, his trainers scuffing on the cheap carpet. He seemed to realise he’d overdone the day’s drinking session, and it came at the most inopportune time.
‘We’ll be okay, right?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘We’ll be fine. We just need to leave, right now.’
‘No, I mean … us.’
‘Oh.’
‘Casey?’
‘Now’s not the time. Let’s go.’
She led him through the hostel’s hallways, each indistinguishable from the last. She’d had a few too many to drink herself, and the obscene yellow paint on the walls swam before her eyes. The first day she’d walked into the hostel, dead sober, she’d found the attempt at seeming vibrant wholly distasteful. Now it was obscene. The toxic hue radiated outward, threatening to send her into a mad spiral if she wasn’t careful about keeping her mind on the present moment.
‘Relax,’ she told herself.
She heard Harvey and Whitney tearing down the corridor behind them, and she quickened her pace in turn. She’d been waiting for them to catch up before putting the pedal to the metal. Now she hurried into the lobby, nodding once to the rotund receptionist with the awful combover. The man nodded back, his brow furrowed. She’d checked out the second they’d arrived, to make sure there was nothing left to do when their bags were packed.
They burst out onto the street, now strangely deserted. The surrounding buildings seemed akin to a fake town erected for a nuclear test site. Casey half-expected to see mannequins propped up at regular intervals, painted dizzying shades of neon to accentuate the illusion. Her head swam. Her temples throbbed. She wheeled in circles — where the hell had everyone gone?
Unless the cartels had more of an influence on the region than she’d originally expected.
And why wouldn’t they? she thought.
They’ve got the money.
Out here, they’re gods.
A fuzzy black insect materialised at the edge of her vision, roaring into full view of the hostel’s entrance. It took her a second longer than necessary to recognise it as a moving vehicle. An SUV, to be specific, its windows blacked out, its tyres screeching against the gravel underneath. Like something out of a horror movie it jerked and jolted toward them, almost in separate freeze frames. She briefly wondered if someone had slipped something in one of her drinks at the bar. Or, more realistically, the fear had leeched into the effects of the alcohol and created something horrifying.
Before she could even hope to react, the SUV skidded to a halt in front of the four of them.
Casey.
Jake.
Harvey.
Whitney.
All frozen in place.
Unsure of how to react.
None of them moved. A dizzying wave of regret washed over Casey, chilling her temples. Briefly, she figured she deserved whatever was coming. How could anyone be so stupid? She hadn’t been the one to go through with the deed, but merely associating with someone like Jake was reason enough.
No.
This isn’t your fault.
A man slipped out of the passenger seat, in no rush to intimidate them. In fact, he kept quiet. His appearance said everything. Built like a truck. Massive shoulders. Hands like bricks. A bald head. An ugly, squashed nose. An acne-ridden complexion. Fat, full lips. With a little beautification and some facial care he might have been able to clean up his aura, but it seemed he had no interest in such things.
He held a fat black pistol in his left hand. Casey knew nothing about guns. She couldn’t identify the make, or the model. But she saw the man’s finger around the trigger, and noted the fluidity with which he wielded the weapon. He knew how to use it.
She gulped.
He smiled through yellow teeth and said, ‘You know what you did.’
They all nodded.
No-one was even remotely ready to put up an argument.
He gestured to the back seat. ‘Get the fuck in the car.’
‘No,’ Jake said.
The expression on the man’s face didn’t change in the slightest, which was probably the most unnerving part of the entire ordeal. Keeping the false smile plastered on, he strode forward with far too much agility for his weight and smashed the butt of the gun into the bridge of Jake’s nose.
The crack almost made Casey faint, but she held it together for the sake of Harvey and Whitney.
Jake crumpled, vomiting on the way down, the horrendous pain bringing the nausea of the day’s drinking session to the surface. He spouted like a fire hose into the gutter, a sorry sight for any passersby.
But there were no passersby.
No doubt compliments of the man standing in front of them.
For good measure, the man kicked Jake in the ribs. He moaned and mopped his mouth with the sleeve of his outrageous floral shirt. The big man hauled Jake to his feet, dragged him over to the car, and threw him into the backseat. Casey caught a glimpse of Jake collapsing into the footwell, too uncomfortable to function.
‘Anyone
else want to say no?’ the big man said.
Casey didn’t react, and neither did Harvey or Whitney, but the hesitation lingered. She knew she was giving up her life if she got in the car. And it wouldn’t be a quick death. The alcohol was keeping most of the awareness at bay, and the extent of her situation hadn’t quite sunk in yet, but she knew she was making a fatal mistake if she complied.
But what choice did she have?
The big man sensed the resistance. He levelled the gun at Harvey’s head.
The boy broke down in uncontrollable tears.
‘Okay,’ Casey said. ‘We’ll get in.’
‘Good call,’ the big man said, and smiled his sickly smile.
Casey headed for the back seat, trying not to gag.
Now the anxiety set in.
Truly.
Completely.
She focused on her breathing, trying to find a way out of this personal malevolent hell, and hoped with every part of her soul that the stranger from earlier that afternoon would find them.
But how would he?
A rare stroke of luck had protected them before.
And lightning, as far as she could tell, didn’t strike twice.
19
Night fell. Thick, hot, overbearing.
The dark provided no relief from the humidity, or the stench.
The sweat flowed freely in the shadows.
The convoy ghosted through the jungle. Traversing the undergrowth, wading through the warm dark puddles coating the forest floor. Their faces blacked out. Their pulses racing from the Dexedrine pills they’d popped. Their grips slick and sizzling on the AR-15s in their hands. Considerable firepower, spread across a previously coordinated semi-circle. Closing in on a strange amalgamation of steel and glass and concrete slapped onto an otherwise deserted riverbank, way off the beaten track.
A prime target.
Bautista gnashed his teeth together as he closed in on the opposite riverbank. He knew he was foolish to be so scared. But maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Maybe this was the wake up call the three of them needed. The faceless goons around them would make effective cannon fodder, and then either himself or Vicente or Iván would fire the kill shot and that would be that. The devil in human form would be cut down, and they could return to lording over the Chocó Department.