by Jack Slater
The driver placed the cigarette between his own lips, sipping carefully on the stick. He took a little nicotine smoke in his mouth, holding it there for a few seconds to cool down before inhaling. The smoke irritated his lungs a little but wasn’t much more intense than consuming Fidel’s secondhand emissions had been.
This realization perhaps tempted Geraldo into throwing caution to the wind. A second, deeper, drag irritated the tender flesh at the back of his throat. His lungs convulsed as the smoke entered them, rejecting the foreign invader in an involuntary but sustained fit of coughing.
Fidel’s dark features creased as he looked over, attracted by the sound. “You don’t smoke, man?”
Now even more embarrassed, Geraldo shook his head jerkily. “No. Just nervous, I guess.”
The Venezuelan plucked the cigarette out of his fingers, tossed it on the floor in front of him, and scraped the heel of his boot over it. “Don’t start tonight. This shit kills. Believe me, I wish I could quit.”
The incongruity of a man like Fidel warning him about the dangers of smoking a cigarette almost provoked a fit of nervous laughter from Geraldo, though a glimpse at the handgun half-heartedly concealed within the man’s waistband promptly stilled that impulse, even as the nicotine now flowing through his blood made nausea rise within him. “Yeah, good idea.”
“You had anything to drink?”
Geraldo shook his head, his reaction this time entirely honest. “No way, man. Just soda.”
“Keep it that way.”
The conversation between the two men returned to silence, which prevailed for about another ten minutes before the heavy growl of a nearby engine prevailed over the low background hum of Interstate 25 a couple of miles in the distance.
This was it, Geraldo understood without needing to be told. The moment they’d been waiting for. He tried swallowing, but his mouth was too dry, so instead his tongue scraped against the roof of his mouth and barely moved.
Fidel was now rolling a cigarette across his knuckles. Right to left, then back again. It was unlit and stayed that way. Geraldo sensed that the Venezuelan was searching for the source of the engine noise, just like him. He tucked the cigarette behind his left ear and levered himself off the pickup truck they were both leaning against, half turning toward him as he did so.
“Listen, bro,” he murmured as the eighteen-wheeler – approaching them without any running lights – came within a hundred yards. “The Crusaders aren’t like us, you understand? You look at them wrong, that’s it. They won’t give you a second chance. You want my advice?”
Geraldo nodded, not trusting in his ability to speak.
“Don’t open your mouth. You do the driving, I’ll do the talking. Deal?”
“Deal,” he croaked in reply.
The truck came to a stop about ten yards from the pickup, tiny stones rattling against its undercarriage as it skidded to a halt. It let out an almost feminine sigh as its hydraulic suspension settled.
Two men climbed out as soon as it stopped. Their boots hit the desert soil at about the same moment, and the impact might have caused Geraldo to flinch if he wasn’t entirely stilled by fear. He hung behind Fidel, who at least seemed to have done this before.
A helluva time to start, he thought, cursing himself for agreeing to this.
But ten thousand dollars was a lot of money, and while it wouldn’t make a dent in the medical debt that stole the rest from his nights, a few more jobs like this one would. And then he would quit, he promised. After all, it wasn’t the first couple of cigarettes that killed you. Just as long as you didn’t get hooked.
“Come,” one of the two men grunted without offering any other form of greeting, jerking his thumb toward the back of the trailer.
Fidel walked with them, and Geraldo followed a couple of steps behind, not trying too hard to keep up. He watched as one of the two men pulled out a flashlight, which blinked into life, then as the other levered open the heavy metal latches at the back of the truck. Geraldo winced as they squealed open, clattering against the trailer’s side. Fidel and one of the Mexicans climbed in.
The flashlight’s beam played out over the trailer’s contents – pallets stacked side by side all the way to the back—and Geraldo squinted to make out what it revealed. At first, he saw only dark shapes ensconced by layers of plastic wrap. Then Fidel leaned down and pulled a blade from a sheath at his boot.
Geraldo almost had a heart attack.
“You mind?” Fidel asked.
The man inside the trailer with him shook his head, and with permission granted, the Venezuelan made a small cut in the plastic that coated the nearest of the pallets. He reached inside and pulled out a…
Coconut?
Fidel grinned, hefting the small, hairy orb and tossing it experimentally into the air once or twice. “Not bad. All of them?”
The man nodded and held out his palm before speaking in guttural, rural Spanish. “Let me show you something.”
Fidel parted with his knife, and then the coconut. Geraldo watched as the cartel driver squatted to the floor of the trailer, placed the coconut on the deck, and balanced the tip of the knife over it. He paused for a second, then brought his palm down onto its hilt with sudden force.
A thin, pale liquid leaked from a crack on the fruit’s side, staining the scratched wood panels of the trailer’s floor dark. Then he twisted the knife, splitting the coconut into two pieces. Inside, dotted by droplets of what even from Geraldo’s distance smelled distinctly of coconut milk, was a ball of a white substance nearly as big as a baseball, coated in vacuum-packed plastic.
Fidel laughed with delight.
The man with him stood back up, wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, and said, “So, we good?”
“We good,” he confirmed, jumping down from the trailer. He leaned in and retrieved his knife, wiping its blade before returning it to its sheath.
“What about that one?” one of the two men asked, a smile playing on his lips. “He don’t speak?”
“He’s new.”
“This is an expensive cargo,” the man remarked.
Fidel shrugged. “He’s a good driver. Ain’t that right?”
It took Geraldo a couple of seconds to realize that he was supposed to respond, and in the end he didn’t muster anything more impressive than a squeak. Thankfully, he was by now beyond the point of embarrassment.
The handover now complete, the two groups traded vehicles. Fidel tossed over the pickup truck’s keys, and the cartel drivers did the same in reverse. The Venezuelan handed them straight to Geraldo.
They climbed into the vehicle, and as Geraldo settled into the driver’s seat, Fidel murmured, “Just keep your cool, bro. This is an easy job. You see a cop, just keep on doing exactly what you were doing before. Don’t brake, don’t accelerate. Just keep it nice and easy, okay?”
“You got it.”
Geraldo depressed the clutch and slipped the heavy truck into gear, feeding the engine gas until the wheels started rolling. It took a couple of minutes to reach the turning on to Interstate 25, and after the gloom of the desert, the overhead lighting briefly strained his eyes.
It was almost two in the morning now, and the highway was quiet. Most of the vehicles on the road at this time of night were trucks just like his, and he wondered how many of them were carrying a similarly illicit cargo. It could be hundreds, for all he knew.
Now able to concentrate on something he was good at, Geraldo finally allowed himself to relax. Neither he nor Fidel spoke a word for at least 40 minutes, until the suburbs that clung to either side of the interstate and along the Rio Grande began to fade away, replaced only by the darkness of the desert.
The heavy truck was only traveling in the high fifties, though the speed limit was posted at 70 mph, and Geraldo stuck resolutely to the slow lane. And so, he noticed, did a red Honda SUV about thirty yards up ahead. The vehicle stuck with him like a barnacle for another ten minutes without either slowing or accelera
ting.
You’re just paranoid, Geraldo assured himself.
He glanced to his right, to where Fidel was sitting, then checked his mirrors. The Venezuelan didn’t seem to have noticed anything was amiss. Another truck was behind, though far enough back that he wasn’t sure what make or model.
Geraldo took his foot off the gas and slowed the heavy truck. Not much, and not quickly enough that it was immediately noticeable to anyone riding inside – or outside. He took it down to about 50 and held it there, waiting to see if either of the two vehicles would react to the change.
The pickup behind quickly closed the distance, growing in size in the truck’s side mirrors. Geraldo held his breath, going down a gear as he bled off a couple more miles an hour. Still the vehicle behind slowed with him, at one point getting close enough for Geraldo to make out that it was a souped-up F-250.
Panic began washing up from Geraldo’s stomach. There was no way someone driving a truck like that would stick behind him without passing, not at that speed. Was it cops? Were they being followed?
Fidel shifted in his seat, squinting at his driver with obvious confusion. “Hey, what the fuck you doing, man? Something wrong with the truck?”
Geraldo put his foot back on the gas, and the tractor slowly began to build up speed. He glanced over at the Venezuelan. “I think someone’s following us. You see that SUV back there –?”
“Of course someone’s following us, dumbass. You think we move $50 million worth of puro without security? They’re here to protect us. You just concentrate on driving.”
Relief at the explanation battled with the shame licking its way up Geraldo’s cheeks. He pursed his lips and resolved not to say anything next time.
A cell phone trilled within the truck’s cabin. Fidel answered it, staying silent and uttering only a single word before ending the call. “Okay.”
“Who was that?” Geraldo asked.
“Cops a few miles up ahead,” Fidel answered, pulling up a map app on his phone. “Okay, there’s a turnoff up ahead, just before Caballo Lake. Follow the SUV, okay?”
Geraldo’s fingers clenched around the steering wheel, and he nodded his agreement. Not long after, he followed the Honda off the interstate, the Ford coming just behind.
The truck’s headlights played out over miles of empty scrubland as they drove, falling on endless desiccated, spindly bushes and not a whole lot else. The small convoy drove for about 10 minutes before coming to a halt at the side of the road.
“Kill the lights,” Fidel grunted. “We’ll wait here until we get the all clear.”
From who? Geraldo wondered, too afraid to ask. He figured that in addition to the two vehicles parked nearby, Fidel must have posted sentinels further up the interstate, maybe driving a few miles ahead of the cargo.
It was smart, there was no doubt about that. There was clearly a lot he didn’t understand about this business.
And maybe it’s best it stays that way.
It was a little cooler outside, but not a whole lot, and with the engine off, heat quickly built within the truck’s cabin, causing Geraldo to sweat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stared out into the darkness. Behind him, he could hear Fidel’s clothes rustling quietly as he turned his head in every direction, scanning the empty darkness for…
For what?
The answer to that question came barely a second later. In his peripheral vision, Geraldo caught a series of dull flashes in the truck’s side mirror. The bullets thumped into the Honda a second later, punching holes through its chassis and spidering cracks through its windows.
Geraldo had never seen gunfire before, though it didn’t take a genius to work out what the hell was going on. The knowledge by itself was useless. He was frozen with fear.
“Fuck,” Fidel hissed, dropping into the footwell and pulling out his pistol in one swift movement. “Santos. Santos!”
Reactions dulled by a panic response, Geraldo slowly turned his head, even as a round collided with the truck’s mirror and shattered it. “What do I do?”
“Drive, you idiot!” Fidel yelled. He twisted, seemingly searching for a target in the surviving mirror, but finding nothing. “Drive, or we’re both dead.”
The talk of death prompted Geraldo into action in a way that mere awareness of the prospect hadn’t. He started the engine and, limbs heavy with fear, stalled it twice before finally wrestling the big vehicle into gear. Ahead, several men had spilled out of the Honda, including one who was very definitely dead – or at least nearly so.
Geraldo had never seen blood like that. Nor the way the man’s frame sagged, lifeless, against the desert floor. “Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed underneath his breath, cursing the truck’s heavy cargo for holding him back. He wished he could dump the trailer, but there was no amount of money that could compel him to leave the relative safety of the truck’s cabin.
The gangsters in the Honda had guns. Real ones. Not just pistols like Fidel, but rifles. The chatter of their gunfire was wild, and they were firing into the darkness to the left of the truck and somewhere behind. With his side mirror a shattered wreck, only splinters of glass remaining, it was impossible to see what they were shooting at.
“Where the hell are they?” Fidel yelled, evident panic growing in his voice too. He was brandishing his weapon rashly now, and suddenly to Geraldo seemed no more assured than a scared school kid.
Geraldo drove the lumbering truck over the scrub and to the right of the now shattered SUV, missing one of the gunmen by mere inches as he swerved back onto the road. He went up through the gears as quickly as he dared, though it was difficult to build speed quickly, and the engine squealed in protest.
Fidel rolled down his window, twisted in his seat, and started firing into the darkness. What he was aiming at, Geraldo had no idea. But a second later, he heard three words that chilled his soul.
“Hell, they’re coming.”
“Who?” Geraldo screamed over the gunfire now disappearing in the darkness behind, feeding the engine as much gas as it would take. “The cops?”
The speedometer hit 30. Then 35. Then 40.
Fidel’s pistol magazine ran dry, and he ejected it into the cabin, ramming another one home. “Not the cops, you idiot. Must be Carreon’s people. Faster!”
Geraldo glanced his side and saw the gleam of headlights from behind in the shattered mirror. He vainly hoped it was the Ford, but in his heart of hearts he knew it was not. Fidel was swearing as frequently and loosely as he was firing now.
The gun ran dry a second time.
And as it did, gunfire raked the side of the trailer, sounding no more threatening than sticks rattling against the skin of a drum. Geraldo reassured himself that he was protected by several tons of steel, as well as a few thousand coconuts, but the comfort rang hollow.
A pickup truck accelerated past the truck and swerved back onto the road, slowing until it was only a few yards ahead of them. Geraldo flicked the big truck’s headlights on to high, then wished he hadn’t.
Two men were lying in the bed of the pickup truck. They had guns, long ones, just like Fidel’s men.
They opened fire.
And they did not miss.
28
The safe house was in a small neighborhood of Culiacán called Los Olivos, a place that was neither working class nor home to any of the major beneficiaries of the city’s most lucrative industry: narcotics.
The building itself had two stories above ground and one below and was painted a faded pink. It sat on Calle Castizas, among many just like it. Most were roofed with terracotta tiles and painted pink or white or yellow, facing out at each other through barred windows.
A careful observer might have spotted other evidence of security precautions, but the bars were the most obvious to an untrained eye. Culiacán wasn’t quite in the top 20 most deadly cities in the world, but it only missed out by one spot, and only then because fully half the list was comprised of other cities in Mexico.
<
br /> But as far as Ramon Reyes could make out, standing on the inside and staring out, there were no observers – careful or otherwise – to be found.
“Boss,” ventured a lanky, hazel-eyed sicario named Miguel, who was cradling an automatic rifle against his chest. “Is it wise to stand there? Someone could see you.”
Reyes sucked his teeth with irritation, not at the mild suggestion, nor even the milder way it was delivered, but at the position in which he now found himself. His key lieutenants were being taken out one after another. In only a few days of fighting, his organization had lost a month’s worth of product after an archipelago of safehouses, trucks, and mules were hit by this invisible enemy. That was on top of the mess north of the border. Operation Wishbone, as the feds were calling it, had wiped out half his American distribution operation.
Only the night before, another convoy had been taken in Texas. Carreon’s doing, he presumed. They’d taken every precaution, and still they’d lost the shipment. Another month of this, and the Crusaders Cartel would be a footnote in history.
Hell, another couple of weeks will probably do it.
“Boss –?” Miguel said again, raising his voice a little with obvious hesitance.
“I heard you the first time,” Reyes said, turning on his heel and retreating from the window. “Where is Emiliano?”
“Cleaning his tail, boss,” came the reply.
“Is he being followed?”
The sicario shrugged. “He thinks not. But it is better to be safe than sorry.”
The Crusaders chief grunted in agreement and resumed pacing the confines of the safe house. About a dozen of his men were stationed with him for security. Fighters he knew he could trust, for they had either been with him since the beginning or were related to those who had.
Any more bodies might raise suspicion, even in a city like this where the residents knew better than to ask questions. He had sicarios stationed in other houses in the neighborhood, living with their usual owners. Emiliano had arranged that, as he did most things.