by Paul Lally
A sharp burst of gunfire.
“Wait one.”
The familiar POP-POP-POP an unsilenced SCAR assault rifle. Minus its noise suppressor for maximum muzzle velocity, the NATO round does short work of its target because CW’s headphone comes to life.
“Target neutralized,” Booger-man says.
“Good work.”
The admiral says, “Status?”
“Playing whack-a-mole with these jokers, but there aren’t many left as far as I can figure.”
“That won’t last long. Word spreads fast.”
“No shit, Sherlock—correction—understand and agree your last, sir. I highly recommend putting the pedal to the metal. God ain’t going to hang around much longer protecting us with this miracle.”
Carmelita screeches to a stop up at the corner of Tizmul and Xuencal, just down the street from the disabled Mercedes Streeter 75. She hops out of her cab, stands by the front fender and waves down the other taxis, traffic-cop-style, as they approach from the north and south.
Jack joins her on the street, more for moral support than anything else. This “Type A” woman has got the situation by the short hairs and isn’t about to turn loose of it or share it with anybody.
“You know a quick way back to the ferries?” Jack says.
“Si, señor, unless they closed the 180 detour for construction again.”
“How will you know?”
“Not until we get there.”
Two taxicabs approach, take Carmelita’s wave, and head down Xuencal. Jack catches the briefest of glimpses of Battleship Boys sitting in the back seats and he salutes them as they pass. Their daring smiles and brisk salutes give him a small measure of comfort and a quick burst of pride.
When the occasion arises for youthful memories to re-surface and reinvigorate, old men discover the young men who’ve been hiding inside them all along and take them out to play.
“That makes five cabs so far,” Jack says.
“And one van.”
Jack goes back to Tommy, who’s standing by the taxi’s open rear door, hand to his brow to shade the sun’s glare as he peers down Xuencal street.
“Be careful out here, Pop. Things can get messy fast.”
“I like messy.” He points down the street. “Can’t see a damn thing from here except a silver dot—that’s the bus, right?”
“Right. And no gunfire. A good sign.”
Tommy shoots him a sharp look. “You sound like Bruce Willis.”
“No way.” Jack doffs his Battleship Boys baseball cap, rubs his head and grins. “I got more hair.”
CW pats the backs of two hostages as they tumble into the backseat of the waiting taxi. One each, DEA and Infanteria Marina guys, wearing Hawaiian shirts in sharp contrast to their tactical pants and boots. But who gives a damn? Willie thinks as he leans inside to speak to the grinning geezers waiting inside.
“You boys been drinking?” he hollers (half of them are hard of hearing).
“It’s Cancún, ain’t it?” Harold the Farmer hefts a half-full bottle of Dos Equis. “And we still are.”
Willis slams the door, pounds on the hood and shouts, “Vamos!”
Behind him, two more taxis are doing the same thing, doors flung open, Delta Force guys hustling hostages inside, slamming doors, slamming roofs, cabs taking off.
Booger-man and his squad continue the defense perimeter during the loading sequence. CW spots something and double-times over to the front of the bus where Booger-man crouches, weapon upraised, looking for any unfortunate asshole who thinks he can get the drop on the guy.
Willie says, “Why didn’t you tell me you got hit?”
“I did?”
“Don’t bullshit the bullshitter. Look at your damn arm.”
“Bee sting, I guess.”
“My ass.”
“Flesh wound, Major. No biggie. Take a deep breath.”
“You’re bleeding pretty good.”
“Compression bandage will stop it, once we get these yahoos out of here.”
“You sure about that?”
Two seconds of silence. Two experienced warriors looking straight at each other. Eye to eye, heart to heart. This is not a movie, no clever dialogue, just absolute silence between two men who know exactly what it’s like to go in harm’s way for the sake of a higher cause, and to do it again and again.
Despite what politicians preach about the glories of serving one’s country (while they try to win votes by spouting hot air), Major Williston and Army Sergeant First Class Robert (Bobby) Vaughn, (aka Booger-man), could care less about glory.
They care about each other.
It’s that simple.
But unless you crouch in a foxhole, leap from an airplane, charge an enemy position, or simply march with your fellow warriors, boots hitting the ground in perfect unison with the incessant thump-thump-thump of a military band, you’ll listen to the politicians every time. Maybe even vote for them.
Don’t.
Their brief silence over, CW says, “You got this, Sergeant?”
“Yessir.”
“We’ll tend to your wound if we make it to the ferry.”
“Correction your last, sir. When we make it.’
“They’re getting away!” Hector Muñoz pounds the steering wheel of his Toyota pickup.
“Let them go,” Iván barks. “Keep driving, damn it. We have to get there before the chopper does.”
The cartel’s security team leader grits his teeth so loud it’s a wonder Iván can’t hear it. But the street noise and thump and bump of negotiating Cancun’s impossibly narrow side streets blots out anything below a roar.
Muñoz, a bulldog on hind legs, has a right to object. His sole purpose in life is to assure the physical welfare of the Garcia Cartel, starting with Hector and his family, down through the descending ranks of lieutenants and sub-lieutenants.
Never one to delegate authority when things go from bad to worse, Muñoz always “takes the wheel”—in this case literally, when Garcia ordered him to help Iván stop the gringos from snatching Miguel Vargas from beneath their very noses in a city they “own.”
Since that very moment, he’s also been trying to snatch the reins away from Garcia’s second-in-command, Iván Zambadas. He can’t help it. It’s in his DNA.
But to no avail.
Instead of leading his convoy of black-hooded, armed-to-the-teeth security guards packed like sardines in the back of a fleet of Toyota pickup trucks straight to corner of Calle Hotzuc and Xuencal to reinforce the smaller security team taking a licking, Ivan’s got him driving in circles—or so it seems to him.
Why?
Unknown to Muñoz, the last thing Iván wants to do is to stop the Delta Force from snatching the budding cartel superstar. But how to do so without looking like he’s in cahoots with the bad guys? Which he is, of course, but not really, unless you’re the DEA nitwits who wouldn’t know a double-agent if he knocked on their door and confessed.
Which Ivan isn’t about to do.
It’s bad enough that this guy’s burning his candle at both ends by trying to serve two masters; Hector Garcia and the DEA, he’s got a third idea in the works that will start a flame in the middle of that candle.
He’s got to dream up a way to delay Muñoz’s response long enough for the Delta Force to make a clean getaway in that high-speed ferry.
How the hell did Iván find out about all this?
Easy.
Just before heading out with Muñoz and his Toyota pickup convoy, a tense phone call from his Mexican Police officer informer brings him up to speed about what exactly the hell is going on.
“Vargas had backup at the bank.” the SIU agent says. “Just like at Brownsville.”
“How did he know?”
“He didn’t. Just bad luck for us.”
“Damn.”
“It gets worse. Extraction by air is out,” he said. “Aircraft engine trouble. Delta Force has to go out the way they came in.”
“They’re going back to that fucking battleship?”
“Si.”
“Reliability?”
“One hundred-percent. My runner told me firsthand.”
“Let me think.”
“You’d better do more than that.”
A chuckle on the other end makes Iván want to scream.
That was less than a half-hour ago, and Iván still wants to scream, but instead, he holds his phone to his ear and pretends to be talking to somebody who isn’t even there.
“Si... si... gracias. Eres el mejor. Adios.”
He turns to Muñoz whose mental boiler’s about to explode and tries to lower the pressure. “Another change of plans. A chopper’s inbound to land in Leona Vicarno. We’ll blow it out of the air as it arrives and then capture them all. Let’s go, let’s GO!”
“How do you know all this?”
“Got an SIU guy in my pocket.” He taps his phone. “He’s sending me the exact location soon.”
Impressed, Muñoz orders his convoy to make a U-turn and drive the nineteen miles southwest to the neighboring town.
“He’d better be right,” Muñoz says.
“Has been so far.”
With Admiral Lewis’s recall to the ship passed along from phone-to-phone and mouth-to-ear, a waiting mob of Battleship Boys throngs the ferry pier when Carlita’s taxi convoy starts arriving. Ice-cold kegs of beer and a boiling hot sun create a festive mood that grows more festive when the cab drivers start hooting their horns.
It was Jack’s idea on the way over, and Carmelita happily complied by turning the daring getaway into a parade of geezers and their sons and relatives whooping and hollering as they tumble out of the gaily decorated vehicles and merge with the waiting group of fellow vets.
No secrecy here. No stealth by night.
They’re escaping from the bad guys by hiding in plain sight and swimming in a bright blue ocean of matching Hawaiian shirts and blue baseball caps worn by sweating, smiling, laughing old men and not-so-old men who once stood watch, ate chow, went on liberty, did their duty, and forged lifetime friendships that began on battleships.
Add to those memories. a new one: rescuing hostages held by a drug cartel intent on having it their way. Talk about something to talk about when all this is over!!!!!
But that’s then, this is now.
And so far, thanks to everyone concerned; from the Delta Force guys to Admiral Lewis, to Jack Riley and Tommy, and Stanley, and to each and every ex-bluejacket on board the Rock, the Battleship Boys are showing the sons-of-bitches the finger as they make their escape on a watery highway.
Vargas maintains a stony face as two smiling, laughing, Delta Force members half-carry, half-drag him up the gangway, as if they’re all three drunk and Miguel the most.
Gone is his short-sleeve khaki shirt. In its place, a billowy, XXL, bright-blue Hawaiian shirt with historic battleships silkscreened on it and a blue baseball cap two sizes too large to hide his face.
Free from his zip-cuffs, his arms hang loosely at his side, creating the appearance of an uncoordinated drunk. But closer examination reveals small slits cut in the shirt, through which cleverly fastened zip-ties anchor his forearms to his belt. This is not the Delta Force guys’ first cattle drive, that’s for sure. They not only know how to wrestle a reluctant steer to the ground, but how to “brand” it too.
Despite CW’s heavily polarized Ray-Bans, he squints as he regards the sunlit, happy scene taking place before him. At the sound of his name, he turns to see Tommy walking toward him with two red Solo cups brimming with cold beer.
“Three cheers for hiding in broad daylight, major,” he says. “Great idea and an even greater follow-through—careful with this....” He hands him his cup. “It’s so damn cold it’ll give you a headache if you chug it.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Consider yourself warned.”
They “clink” cups.
Tommy says, “Here’s to a quick getaway.”
“Amen to that.”
Williston downs the sixteen-ouncer in four enormous gulps. Pauses. Then pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Didn’t I warn you?” Tommy says.
“Affirmative your last.”
The high-speed ferry’s departure whistle BOOMS out. The crowd turns toward the sound in unison like kids on the playground when recess is over. With one difference: they hold on to their beers.
Tommy says, “They’re playing our song. Care to dance?”
They merge into the crowd of geezers moving toward the embarkation gangway.
Muñoz’s cellphone conversation is one-sided, but Iván knows he’s in deep shit from the way his security chief keeps looking daggers at him as he responds to the caller.
“When did they leave?... Are you certain?...You swear this?...wait...”
He turns his head long enough to hurl the final dagger. “So much for your “reliable” contact. They stayed in Cancún the whole time. Drove to the ferry terminal. Departed a few minutes ago.”
Iván scrambles to buy time. “Who’s ‘they?’”
“The gringos who captured Vargas! They’ve got the hostages too.” He pounds the steering wheel. “I should have never listened to you.”
“They must have turned him—my SIU guy, I mean. Why else would he have lied to me and sent us in the opposite direction?”
“Lied or...”
Iván lets the silence build. “Or what?”
Instead of answering, Muñoz shouts into the phone, “Use one of our transfer boats in the marina. Keep them in sight...for now.”
He listens for a moment.
“I know it’s a fast ferry. Just do your best to keep up with it. Now, MOVE!”
Muñoz shifts his attention to driving while drumming his fingers rapidly. Iván imagines any number of action-scenarios racing through this stocky, never-smiling, always-serious-as-a-heart attack, security professional.
But considering where they are now and where that high-speed ferry will be a half-hour from now, the odds are in his favor that this wild-goose chase south to Leona Vicarios has effectively short-circuited any attempt to save Vargas from his rendezvous with the American justice system.
When it’s all over and they’ve got him dead to rights, Iván can honestly tell Garcia he tried, and then shift the blame onto the SIU agent, declaring him to be the traitor to the cartel’s noble cause, and watch the drug lord do what he does best: exact eye-for-an-eye retribution—and then some.
After tomorrow, that fat SIU cop will never see the light of day, let along stuff his wide ass into a red Ferrari in America.
No way.
A year from now, his bones will be bleaching in the open desert at a “disposal location” Iván knows as well as he knows the streets of Cancún and Mérida.
That thought, plus the thought of Vargas in handcuffs, arraigned before an American judge, charged with first degree murder of United States and Mexican citizens prompts a smile of contentment—one that lasts for about thirty seconds.
That’s because it takes that long for Muñoz to choose a plan of action.
Without warning, he exits off Mexico 180 and the convoy follows. But instead of using the overpass to get back onto 180 and head northeast to Cancún, like Iván expected, they continue southeast, accelerating as fast as allowed on the two-lane road. The dust from the four pickup trucks behind him billows into the air like a traveling forest fire.
“Shortcut?” Iván says, trying to be calm, but warning bells are clanging inside his traitorous psyche.
Muñoz shakes his head. “You really expect me to believe your story?”
“My story? What are you talking about?”
“That there is a traitor other than yourself.”
Iván’s mouth goes dry. While he licks his lips, Muñoz continues, “I may look dumb, but I am not stupid. All along, you have wanted them to succeed and for us to fail.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
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“Smart to keep it simple: with Vargas and his brother in the hands of the gringos, you hop back in the saddle again.” His grin is malicious. “Am I right?”
Iván tries not to react, but the swarthy Maya’s cunning perception of the truth ambushes Iván’s facial muscles and he unconsciously nods in agreement.
Muñoz’s face lights up in response. “I thought so. That is why I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself; to accept the fact that you are no longer Señor Garcia’s chosen successor. Miguel Lopez-Vargas is.”
The very idea makes Iván laugh. “Tell me how he can run our business from a jail cell in America.”
“Won’t need to because he’ll never get there—not if I can help it. And I can. And so will you, if you want your part in this treachery to remain between you and me alone.”
“Are you threatening?”
“No. I am promising Garcia will learn of this, and you will end up begging on the street—but only until he tells me to take you out. And we both know he will. And so I shall, with utmost pleasure.”
Muñoz darts around a slow-moving tractor trailer and accelerates to allow his security convoy to follow suit on the narrow highway that dips and curves as it follows the arid, vegetation-starved terrain.
Iván’s mind also dips and curves around what is rapidly becoming an inescapable fact: Muñoz has hooked him as surely as a Bonita tuna in the Gulf.
For sure, he can wriggle and squirm and leap into the air, then sound the depths in hope of tearing free. But sooner or later, Muñoz will land him flopping and floundering at Garcia’s feet. While it’s true, the FBI always “gets its man,” Muñoz will too—with one big difference—he makes sure they’re dead when he’s done.
“What do you want from me?” Iván finally says.
“To enjoy the ride. Puerto Morelos is beautiful this time of year—or so I’m told.”
It’s then that Iván understands his security leader’s plan of attack. “Los botes de cigarillos?”
Muñoz laughs as he pounds the steering wheel. “Exactamente!”