by Evan Graver
Mango turned and ran up. He didn’t know how many men were rushing to greet him at the base of the tower. The tower would be easy for him to defend if he could eliminate the sniper. At the top of the tower, the sniper’s rifle boomed. Approaching the third-floor landing, Mango brought the gunstock to his shoulder and focused through the holographic sight. Pressed against the wall again, he moved slower and twisted his body, and therefore the barrel of the MP5, to check for Guerrero’s cartel goons. There was one standing with his back to the stairs, staring down the balcony as he changed a magazine in his AK. He hadn’t heard Mango’s suppressed shots over the din of fully automatic gunfire and didn’t hear the shot Mango fired into the back of his head.
Stepping out on the balcony, Mango looked down the length of the house. He saw no challengers, so he squatted by the dead man and relieved him of his AK and spare magazines. He slung the Russian-made weapon over his shoulder and stuffed the magazines into his cargo pockets.
The sniper rifle boomed again. Mango ran up the stairs toward the top of the tower. Bullets hammered the wall. Mango blindly fired his MP5 down the stairwell then darted for the top floor where the sniper triggered another round. Mango used the big gun’s report to mask his final steps. The sniper’s back was to Mango as he lined up a shot on a figure sprinting across the lawn on the far side of the pool deck. Mango recognized the fleeing man as his partner and put a three-round burst of bullets in the back of the sniper’s head.
More gunfire sounded from below and bullets smacked the roof of the tower, sending a shower of stucco raining down. Mango dropped to his knees and grabbed a grenade from his backpack. He ripped the pin from the device and let it fall through the center of the tower. He laid flat and covered his head and ears with his hands. The tower shook violently with the explosion.
Dropping more grenades inside the tower would only weaken the foundations and collapse his perch of refuge. Shouldering the sniper rifle, Mango slid to the lip of the window and began picking off cartel members. When the narcos got close to the base of the tower, he switched to the AK and pounded them with automatic fire.
Chapter Fifty
Ryan burst through the underbrush onto a grass path and turned toward the helicopter. A man sat in the driver’s seat of a golf cart guarding the landing pad. The guard jerked his rifle up. Not bothering to shoulder the AK, the narco pulled the trigger. Ryan dove to the dirt under a stream of lead and cursed as the MP5’s stock jammed into his ribs. Rolling to his knees, he guided the stock to his shoulder and fired. Three rounds stitched up the guard’s chest and he slumped over the golf cart’s wheel, then fell out of the cart.
Rising, the American saw Guerrero on the far side of the helicopter pad. The Mexican drug lord was using both outstretched arms to motion the pilot down to the ground. Ryan ran to the golf cart and knelt behind it to shield himself from the flying debris kicked up by the rotor’s downwash. Using the cart as a brace, he centered the sights on Guerrero.
On the other side of the clearing, Guerrero glowered at him. He jerked a pistol from behind his back. With one arm, he continued to flap like a bird, directing the pilot to land. With the other, he aimed the pistol at Ryan.
Guerrero’s bullets crashed into the golf cart, splintering the fiberglass. Ryan dove to the ground. He scrambled to the back of the cart to put the engine between himself and Guerrero. Ryan leaned around the bumper and fired.
The Bell Jet Ranger pilot swiveled his head between the armed attacker and his potential passenger. Ryan’s poorly aimed bullets had little effect other than to make Guerrero duck while still frantically motioning for the pilot to land.
Ryan rattled a half-dozen rounds off the bottom of the helicopter. The pilot jerked the collective upward and the bird lurched ten feet higher into the air. Ryan trained the gun on Guerrero and pulled the trigger. Without the cover of the helicopter and the wind deflection from the rotor, the bullets found their mark. The man staggered backward and toppled over as the pilot added power, increasing the force of the rotor wash. The helicopter dipped its nose and raced away.
Without the thunder of the helicopter, Ryan could hear a gun battle raging around the house. Grenade explosions punctuated the cacophony then silence followed. Ryan had left Mango to fend for himself. He hoped the pitched gun battle indicated Mango was still in the fight. He hoped the former Coast Guardsman hadn’t been wounded.
Ryan checked the magazine on the MP5 and slammed home a fresh one. He stood, clutching his left arm across his ribs and stumbled across the clearing. Guerrero lay with arms outstretched. His legs had folded and tangled when the bullets had torn through his body. Dark blood seeped from his back and discolored the sandy soil. Ryan placed the barrel of his MP5 against the cartel leader’s forehead and put a round between the man’s eyes. He wasn’t getting up. Now it was up to Landis to dismantle the cartel leader’s networks inside the US. Ryan had been right all along. And as good as it felt to put an end to this mad man’s reign, all his pent-up aggression didn’t magically disappear. Arturo Guerrero’s quick death seemed too easy for him after all the people he had killed with his bombs and guns and drugs.
On the way back to the golf cart, he glanced down another cart path and saw a gleaming white skiff sitting at a long T-dock. He pulled the guard the rest of the way off the golf cart, climbed on, and raced toward the house.
Before he made it fifty feet, bullets tore through the plexiglass windshield. He ducked behind the wheel and jammed his foot down harder on the pedal. Ryan cursed the machine to make it go faster than the maximum speed it was already traveling. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw a man dart from the brush and run toward the cart. He swerved away from the man, jerking the steering wheel so hard the cart went up on two wheels. The cart traveled off the path and into the yard while Ryan madly sawed the wheel to turn into the lean. The cart slammed back onto all four wheels. Fresh waves of pain washed through his body, and his breath caught in his chest.
The cart’s suspension bounced as the assailant jumped aboard.
Ryan whipped the wheel hard left. The front wheels plowed through the grass before they caught and violently jerked the heavy machine to the right. Centrifugal force took over and the cart began a slow roll onto its side.
Just as the cart reached its apex, Ryan twisted the wheel hard right. The counter-steering failed to work this time and the cart continued over. He tried to jump free. His MP5 tangled in the wheel and he fell hard into the cart’s footwell, screaming as his ribs crashed into the edge where one would normally step aboard. The cart came to rest on its right side. Ryan’s movements were slow as he tried to extricate himself.
Guerrero’s guard yelled, “No se mueva.” Don’t move.
Ryan looked up and groaned when he saw the barrel of the AK-47 pointed at his head. He hung half in and half out of the cart. His body weight trapped the MP5 between him and the cart, and the Picatinny rail, foregrip, and holographic sight stabbed painfully into his bruised ribs. He moved slightly and the gun swung free. A burst of AK fire raked the bottom of the cart. Ryan glanced to his left and saw four neat little holes six inches from his head. He looked back at the guard and dropped his head in defeat.
This was how he was going to die. Painfully, on a golf cart in a third-world country.
And he didn’t even play golf.
Chapter Fifty-One
A sound like a wet melon exploding filled Ryan’s ears and wetness covered his face. The sniper rifle’s report reverberated across the grounds. The guard fell forward, the left side of his head missing.
Pulling himself out of the cart, Ryan groaned through gritted teeth. He cried out in pain when he flopped onto the hard earth. Climbing to his feet, he clutched his rib cage with his left hand and aimed the MP5 with the right. He peered around the cart to evaluate the situation. Guerrero’s men now concentrated their gunfire on the tower at the far end of the house. Perched at the top of the tower was Ryan’s fair-haired friend.
Mango gave him a lit
tle salute, pointed at his chest, and then held out his hand to make a gun with his thumb and forefinger. Ryan could almost hear him say, “Saved your ass, bro.”
Ryan ran for the corner of the garage, using trees and flower beds for cover. Staying close to the wall, he moved around to the driveway. A garage door was open, waiting for the Suburban parked in the driveway.
Inside the garage, he passed a Porsche 911 Carrera and a Toyota Tacoma parked beside a Chrysler minivan. Staying close to the floor, he pushed open a door just enough to see in. Most people expected to see a head at normal height and would shoot into the middle of the door. By staying low to the ground and off to the side, Ryan could keep his head intact and still return fire.
The door opened into a massive kitchen with an island big enough to land a fighter jet on. Stainless steel and granite shielded him from the adjoining living room where a grand piano stood beside shattered sliding-glass doors. He was sure the fireplace at the far end of the room was a fake.
“Who needs a wood-burning fireplace when the temperature rarely gets below sixty? Egocentric narco pendejos, that’s who,” Ryan muttered.
He wiped sweat from his brow and eased toward the busted patio doors. The aluminum rails of the doors were twisted and bent by grenade explosions. Torn and shredded curtains hung limp in the heavy humidity. His feet crunched on broken glass.
Outside, the gunfire had died down to sporadic pops. Ryan kicked the largest shards of glass out of the way before lying on the floor. He slid his head out past the door jamb. Three men were stacked up in a gun train at the base of the tower with their backs to him. He wiped sweat from his eyes and aimed the MP5. He shot the third man of the train in the head. Number Three slumped forward into his companion as Ryan put a round in Two’s head. Number One turned as Two and Three fell into him. One jerked his gun up and staggered forward, trying to get free of the dead weight. Ryan ended the struggle with a shot to One’s neck followed by a second round to the head.
The muscles around his rib cage stiffened when Ryan got to his feet. “Mango,” he called while he braced his ribs with his arm.
“Where you been, bro?” Mango stuck his head out the tower window. Gunfire from the front of the house drove him back under cover.
In the distance, Ryan could hear sirens. “We got company. Can you get down?”
“Did you get rid of those guys at the bottom?”
“Yes.” Ryan scanned the grounds, looking for more of Guerrero’s sicarios. Reinforcements would most likely come from the road. They could also come over water via the dock Ryan had seen at the northeast corner of the thumb-shaped peninsula.
Mango appeared at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the tower. “We gotta get out of here, bro. I’m low on ammo and there’s more bad guys coming.”
“Nice shot back there.” Ryan gave him a fist bump.
“Saved your ass, bro.”
Ryan grinned, grateful for Mango’s help and the chance to be alive but also because he’d called it. “Where’s the gunfire coming from?”
“The woods to the east and south. I think the gate guards stayed home to defend their territory. They were sniping at me the whole time I was up there. I picked them off with the sniper rifle until it ran out of ammo.”
“How’s the leg?”
“Sore. What’s up with you?” Mango watched his companion hug his chest with his left arm.
“Smacked my ribs when I jumped off the roof.”
“That was a crazy stunt, bro. No way I was doing it. I tried to take the stairs, but they ran me up the tower.” He pointed upward. “Had to take out the sniper anyway.”
Ryan sucked shallow breaths and nodded. The sirens were louder. “If we don’t want to be run up there again, we better move. Come on.”
They ran along the cart path to the helicopter pad. When they came abreast of the pad, Mango paused and looked at Guerrero. The bullet hole between his eyes had wept blood and left a trail down his nose and cheek.
“Shit, bro,” Mango said. “We really need to get out of here.”
“Stop wasting time. Let’s go!”
“Where are we going?” Mango asked.
“There,” Ryan pointed at the dock and a white, center console Carolina Skiff. He took off running with Mango right on his six. Mango ran with a painful limp each time his artificial leg crashed into the ground.
They stopped before reaching the dock and took cover in the heavy brush just off the path. Mango dropped to his knees, his chest heaved. Both men breathed through gritted teeth.
Ryan took in his friend’s pale complexion and heavy sheen of sweat. “You good?”
“I’m not used to this leg and it’s killing my stump.”
Ryan glanced at the boat and then down the path to the house. The sirens were louder. He guessed reinforcements had arrived. He told Mango, “Go check the boat. If you can’t get it started, we might have to swim for it.”
“I don’t think so, bro.” Mango pointed at a crocodile eyeing them from a nearby sandbar. Another opened its mouth in a toothy grin.
“Guess you better start the boat.”
Mango ran down the dock while Ryan remained in the underbrush to provide security.
A heavily armored truck barged through the underbrush and onto the path. Welded metal plates formed a pointed boat bow. The same thick plating covered the rest of the vehicle, effectively forming a tank. Three small slits in the steel comprised the windshield, and they’d cut firing slots where the side windows had been. A turret, over the cargo area, sprouted a machine gun. Its barrel swept side to side in search of targets.
Ryan’s insides went cold.
Then he heard the skiff’s engine start.
Forgetting about his aching ribs and tired body, Ryan prepared to run. Adrenaline once again hammered his veins. He rolled two grenades into the path of the tank and sprinted down the dock, yelling, “Cast off!”
Mango looked up to see Ryan barreling toward him. His eyes went wide at the sight of the tank crashing through the woods. He quickly tossed off the bow and stern lines.
Ryan heard the grenades detonate. They must have been ineffective because bullets whipped the air all around him. He glanced back to see the tank stop at the edge of the water. The M60 turret-mounted machine gun belched fire. Splinters flew off the dock boards as bullets chewed through them at his feet.
Ryan leaped for the boat. He landed on the front casting deck. Centrifugal force from the boat’s acceleration slammed him against the center console in a heap of screaming pain. The skiff shot away from the dock, heading south.
Chairel Channel necked down to flow under two bridges, one on each side of Guerrero’s compound. Ryan eyed the bridge they were flying toward. It was low and narrow. The Carolina Skiff should slip right through, minus the T-top. With enough speed, they’d knock it off and keep on trucking.
Two police cars slid to a stop at the head of the bridge, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Four men piled out and aimed their automatic rifles at the skiff. A pickup truck screeched to a stop beside the cars.
“Turn around,” Ryan screamed. “They have a technical!”
Mango saw the technical, a pickup truck with an M60 machine gun mounted in the bed, at the same time as his companion. Ryan, who had gotten to his feet and was standing beside Mango at the center console, almost fell on his face when Mango chopped the throttle and spun the wheel. The boat heeled over dangerously on its port beam and Mango threw the throttle forward halfway through the turn. Ryan latched onto a grab bar on the side of the console to keep from being thrown overboard.
They couldn’t hear the guns firing, but they could see the geysers the bullets made as they impacted all around them. Ryan turned to look and shouted, “Cut left!”
Mango jerked the wheel, and a line of seven-point-six-two caliber bullets ripped through the water where the boat had just been. The maneuver brought them back within range of the tank and its machine gun. It began firing again. The heavy rounds
punched three holes in the port side of the boat. Mango cut hard right and moved to the far bank to get out of range.
“Where to?” he shouted and swerved the boat again to avoid a flotilla of kayakers who suddenly appeared from foliage along the bank and were racing back to the Corona Yacht Club.
The center console’s wake caused two kayaks to flip over. The rest of the paddlers screamed obscenities in Spanish.
Ryan opened his phone’s map application and directed Mango to stay straight. They flew around an island and turned to the right into a canal paralleling Route 700.
In the distance, more police cars and another technical sprinted up the road.
“Think they’ll catch us?”
“We can’t outrun a two-way radio,” Ryan replied, concentrating on the phone screen. “Anywhere we come off the water they’ll be watching, and we’ll have to get off the water to meet up with Greg.”
“Does this go to the Gulf?”
“No.” Ryan watched the dot moving on his phone, indicating their real-time GPS location. “Get ready to make a hard right. We’ll go around this island and head straight past the point with all the houses.”
They rode in silence while Ryan glanced between his phone and the scenery ahead.
Rounding the island, which turned out to be part of a golf course, Mango said, “Dead end, bro.”
“Head for that hotel.” Ryan pointed at a Fiesta Inn. “Slow down and enter the channel to the right of it.”
Mango guided the little boat up the narrow channel. He gunned the motor to make the boat slide over vegetation and into a wider section of what turned out to be a drainage ditch. Past the bridge, it was a trash-choked concrete-lined chute.