by Thom J Poore
Chapter 18: The salt mine
After an hour of scrubbing the hanger floors with an oxygen bleach to make any forensic investigation futile, the Llera brothers enjoy several hours of debauchery, re-enacting The Mammoth’s demise. Cathos lays off the juice, to make sure at least one of them can hold it together for the next phase. The three brothers eventually fall asleep in their chairs.
Emilio, Karl and Valencia are fully awake. Karl is going out of his mind, his imagination conjuring up ever-darker scenarios. Emilio and Valencia sit quietly with their backs against the wall, unsure of what will happen next.
Dawn breaks through the cracks in the hanger’s metal panelled roof. The rays hit the floor like spotlights. Cathos awakens first and walks off to make coffee with a cheap black percolator in the corner of the room. The spurt, bloop and hiss, combined with the aroma, stirs The General and Pancho, who both reach for more cocaine to re-invigorate themselves. Cathos parks mugs of black coffee under the powdered noses of his brothers and walks towards the locker room, picking up a machine gun, which is carelessly dumped on one of the defunct printers. Cathos stands outside the locker room and knocks on the door, calling out instructions.
“Stand against the back wall with your hands in the air where I can see!”
The three petrified figures duly line up against the wall. Cathos unlocks the door slowly and moves in with his machine gun at the ready. He pulls Valencia forward and slaps her on the backside.
“Now walk out into the hanger and get in the back of the van.”
Cathos guides the group to the open van doors. They huddle together in a corner, wedged between the hefty stacks of cocaine-packed holdalls, which are stacked up to the ceiling. Cathos leers at Valencia as he shuts the rear doors of the van.
The General and Pancho laughingly exchange insults as they walk towards the hanger doors. They slide the doors open, allowing Cathos to drive the van out. The brothers close the hanger doors behind the van, padlocking them shut, before jumping into the front cabin and setting off for Baja California Salt Mine.
“Where do you think they are taking us?” Valencia asks quietly.
“I don’t know!” Emilio replies uselessly.
Karl is no mood to talk, letting the motion of the truck gently lull him to sleep. As he falls asleep his head crashes into Valencia’s lap, and he awakens, embarrassed and determined to fight the desire to sleep, but after ten minutes he finally surrenders, and falls asleep on Emilio’s shoulder.
“Sleeping beauty, right!” Emilio makes an attempt at humour to lift the painful silence.
Karl slips into a lucid dream and finds himself back in their suite at the Hotel Tropicana, sitting on the black leather sofa with his feet up on the glass coffee table watching a documentary about the Barkley 100; the toughest and most demanding ultramarathon on the planet. The documentary states that only 14 people in 30 years have ever completed it. All of a sudden he hears Valencia’s voice call out to him in a sultry tone from the bathroom.
“Karl, I’m in the shower. Could you come in here and soap me up?”
The dream feels so real. He stands to attention with sexual urges and walks to the bathroom with his heart beating so vibrantly that he is starting to have trouble breathing. As he gets to the bathroom he sees the door ajar with copious amounts of steam arising from it. Karl puts his hand on the door handle, but as soon as he does so he hears a knock at the hotel room door. He is going to ignore the knock and continue into the bathroom when a second knock is followed by Emilio’s voice.
“Yo! Karl! Let me in.”
Karl thinks about answering the door, but he knows he’ll never get this opportunity again. Ignoring Emilio’s constant knocking he walks into the steamy bathroom, where a glass shower screen is concealing the body within. Karl begins to get undressed, his chest thumps with desire. Naked, he walks to the side of the screen, takes a deep breath and steps into the shower. To his horror he sees Pancho, fully dressed, standing under the shower head soaked to the skin, holding a large Smith & Western handgun. Karl is rooted to the spot, feeling exposed, vulnerable and helpless.
“Would you wash my gun, Karl?” Pancho speaks, but it is Valencia’s soft voice emanating from his mouth. Pancho raises his gun, pointing it directly at Karl’s cranium and fires. Karl jumps out of his skin, awakening suddenly.
“How you doing, Karl? You’ve been asleep for the past three hours.” Emilio asks.
“Feels like it’s only been five minutes.” Karl nurses his head as if checking it’s still in one piece.
The van passes a road sign, which reads Baja California Salt Mine. The deep shaft salt mine is active and produces four million tonnes of salt a year, most of which is exported to the US. The van pulls up to the security gates. A short, plump, bearded guard stares out of the small white kiosk gatehouse. He nods to the Llera brothers and opens the gate without question. The van drives on down a salt trodden track, travelling through canyons of salt pyramids to the grand industrial mining facility itself. On one side of the grounds are old office blocks and maintenance warehouses. Within walking distance is the mineshaft, which is bored out of the facing hillside. At the opening of the mineshaft are a series of walkways, which have been constructed for mechanics to be able to carry out regular maintenance work on the hydraulic conveyor system. The entire mechanism is vast; the yellow paintwork has been ravaged by time, revealing the rusting metal beneath. A network of pipes lead from the opening of the shaft to the top of the steep hill. At the top of the hill the land flattens out as it leads to the perimeter fence, which runs the length of the hillside, and surrounds the entire mine.
The van is steered through enormous grey metal doors into a giant warehouse at the back of the office blocks. The van grinds to a halt, the Llera brothers jump out and walk confidently past a row of seemingly abandoned cars, forklift trucks and production machinery.
The brothers’ wander into a dated looking reception area, where they are greeted by a towering black man with a clean-shaven head and goatee beard. He has an intense authority which he has used to climb the food chain and become general manager of the mine.
“How are we today, gentlemen?” He enquires with concern, as he can smell the strong liquor a mile off.
“How we are is none of you concern, Dwight!” Pancho snaps, sensing the critical tone.
Dwight doesn’t respond to Pancho, but turns to The General to try and diffuse any potential hostility.
“Need I remind you, General, that the representatives of Vipercom are here on site because your employees don’t know how to behave. They haven’t been to the mine for over three years and now they have taken it upon themselves to check my side of the operation with a fine-toothed comb.”
“I know, I know, and I can assure you that I take this kind of thing very seriously. I took immediate action. I fired the guy responsible only last night.”
“Good! Luckily for you I run a pretty tight ship down here, so there’s not much chance the Vipercom guys are going to discover any of our side projects. But we don’t want any bloodshed here. I’m serious!” He looks directly at Pancho. “General, you know how important this visit is for us. Remember, I have a legitimate business to run here.”
“Are Vipercom going to turn the screws again?” The General knows perfectly well what the answer will be.
“Every quarter they take a couple of heads from me, and they still expect the same turnover, you know how it works!”
“You’re at the wrong end of the business, Dwight!”
“I’m at the right end for keeping my hands clean!” The man responds, looking judgementally at Pancho.
“Well, someone has to do the dirty work! And that’s why they pay us the big bucks!” Pancho boasts, reacting to Dwight’s critical t
one.
“Let’s get to work gentlemen. And Pancho, please feel free to check your ego in at reception, you can pick it up on your way back out!”
Cathos laughs, siding with Dwight, as he knows exactly how big-headed his volatile brother is.
“We have mules, a girl and two boys. They don’t fit the stereotypes border control usually look for.” The General tells Dwight.
“Excellent. We only have two people, and for this shipment we could do with more. Where did you find them this time?”
“Same place Vipercom has had us guarding for the last couple of years.”
“What are they protecting out there, anyway?”
“Plants. That’s all it can be. There is nothing else. It just happens to be conveniently close to where we’ve been growing our coca!”
Dwight shrugs. “Better go and fetch your guests.” He steers the conversation back on track.
Cathos walks to the van where a mechanic is waiting, smoking a cigarette. The man has a round, friendly face with wide green eyes, which watch loyally over Cathos as he opens the rear doors.
“Hey, Higuain, how you doin?”
“Ah mi amigo, I’m happy. What we got here.”
“The usual. Mules and cocaine. I’m gonna take these three to the training room and leave you to do your magic with the shit.”
Cathos ushers the teenagers out, leading them through smoke stained corridors to a classroom. Higuain hauls the holdalls onto a pneumatic trolley, ready to be taken into the adjoining garage for packing into the waiting cars.
Valencia opens the door and enters the large training room first. As she enters she sees five rows of folding chairs. At the front of the room is a large whiteboard; at the back is a projector and a black-curtained photo booth. There is a large window, which is propped open to give the stuffy room some much needed oxygen in the absence of any air conditioning. Sitting in the second row on the far right hand side are a young couple. The girl is almost skeletal, with purple hair and numerous facial piercings, the boy looks a few years younger than her, with cropped hair and a body encased in comfort fat. They both look stoned. Emilio, Karl and Valencia are brought into the room and take their seats in the back row, as directed. The young couple look round at the new arrivals, and are immediately concerned by what they see. Jaded, grubby, and terrified, they are a far cry from the free-spirited couple they have joined.
Members of The General’s organization approached the young couple as they were travelling through a small town a couple of miles from the salt mine. The couple were trawling bars trying to score marijuana when they came to the attention of The General’s cousin Mata. Mata told them that if they helped take a couple of big packages of marijuana over the border they would be given $5,000 up front and another $5,000 on delivery. The couple had taken small quantities over the border many times before, so this was just a step up, and maybe even a way out of drug running. $10,000 would set them up. Mata gave them $5,000 and then drove them to the salt mine, where they were introduced to Dwight. Dwight eased their concerns by telling them they could walk away any time they wanted.
Sitting in the training room with Pancho, Cathos, and their machine guns, the couple look at each other fearfully. Dwight and the Llera brothers stand in front of the whiteboard displaying a map of Baja California, and then Dwight begins to brief the five mules.
“Ok. Here at the mine we will be loading three vehicles with stock for export into North America. Each of the cars will have one guard until you reach Tijuana, which is approximately eight hours from here, so you’ll get there by nightfall. Once there, the three guards will get out and you will then drive your vehicles to the border. You will get through border control using the passports and driving licences that we are going to supply you with. Once each car is through the border our contacts within the San Diego police force will escort you to our rendezvous point on the upper east side of San Diego. Here you will receive payment and then be sent on your way.
The skeletal girl puts up her hand to ask Dwight a question.
“Yes, what is it?” Dwight asks abruptly.
“Exactly how much is being loaded into each car and exactly what are we exporting?”
“It’s none of your concern!”
“It is our concern! We have a deal and the deal is for two packages of marijuana. Is this a set up? How will we know who your contacts in the San Diego police force are? This is crazy!”
“You needn’t concern yourself with these minor details!”
“These are not minor details! There is something more serious going on here that we haven’t been told about. Look, thanks for the opportunity, but we have changed our minds! You can proceed without us!”
Dwight looks down at his paperwork and smiles, shakes his head and begins to laugh. The General joins in, and soon Pancho and Cathos catch the laughing bug. Dwight then composes himself.
“That will not be possible. You do not have the luxury of changing your mind!”
“But you said we could walk away whenever we wanted!”
“Well, it looks like I’ve changed my mind, doesn’t it?” Dwight turns his attention to her boyfriend. “What about you, buddy boy? You got any questions? Anything at all?” The couple are intimidated and fall into silence. “Good! I’m glad we’re all clear on the whole question and answer thing!”
Dwight turns to Cathos.
“We need to get their photos taken for their new passports.”
Cathos guides the group over to the old black booth and has them take turns to sit on the small swivel chair behind the faded curtain. Once all the pictures have dropped out of the collection vent Dwight gathers them up and disappears down the hall to pass on to the team’s forger, who quickly conjures up legitimate driving license and passports for the mules.