En El Medio

by Christopher Metcalf

It was simple math. Addition and subtraction. And the resulting answer would lead one day to Preacher's door.

  That was that. Two hours and 26 minutes had passed. Preacher opened his eyes from his fitful dream on the bare floor and turned to look up at the filthy window.

  He'd come across the border under the auspices of rescuing a boy, a young man, from a ruthless drug cartel. That had been a lie. But in allowing himself to be co-opted by this lie, Preacher had put his life, her life, their life together, in danger. Maybe that was a little dramatic. Hell, their lives are always in danger.

  He had introduced new danger into the equation. A new danger that was potentially worse than the others because to him it felt like a virus in its early permissive stage when the virus has entered a host cell and is in the process of circumventing the host's defenses in an effort to replicate and produce as many progeny as possible.

  Felix the punk was dangerous and even though he'd only spoken with the kid a few times over the past day, he could tell in his vocal intonation and cadence that the kid was thinking forward, looking to the future and the danger he needed to wipe out in a preventive and proactive move. The punk now had a voice and a more than accurate suggestion of connection to the CIA.

  "Great, she's going to friggin' kill me for this," he whispered and rolled over to do a hundred push-ups to get blood and hormones flowing and nerves firing. Marta was indeed going to be pissed about all this. When, not if, she found out.

  Chapter 7

  Night brings with it a certain amount of danger. For some, night carries certain danger. Night brings death.

  Directly to the north of the Juarez Cartel's Castle sits a row of houses. These particular structures, likes many of those to the south, east and west of the central property, were likely connected to the center by a series of tunnels hidden under the quiet streets above. The casual observer wouldn't see the connection.

  Preacher was anything but casual in his observation. The black night that surrounded him and everything else at 2:59 a.m. was thick, deep. Streetlights were sparse. Shadows were easy to slip into and disappear. Black clothing, a black cap and black face paint helped absorb the color of night.

  He crouched on his haunches across the street from a house at the center of the block. He'd been here for 22 minutes. Watching. Nothing had happened. No movement. No one moving inside the small house directly across from his position. No lights on. The small pair of binoculars he held to his eyes had scanned just about every visible inch of the perimeter. He'd looked closely for video cameras, mounted microphones or motion sensors. The only cameras he'd spotted on this side of the complex were positioned above the gated entrances to the walled Castillo.

  The only humans he'd seen in the last hour were positioned at the four external corners of the block. Those humans were armed. As well they should be. These were dangerous times with dangerous people about. He brought the glasses back to the structure directly across from him. He focused on each window. Nothing. Ready to move.

  He was off in a black flash. No hesitation. Over broken asphalt, scaling a short fence in a hop, up to the stucco covered cinderblock sidewall. He pressed his gloved hands into the top right and bottom left corners of the first windowpane. He had no idea just how he knew where to place his hands on this piece of melted silica to achieve breakage. Funny, he just knew. The steady pressure at the corners caused the glass to crack, snap really. It was just a tiny noise. He grasped the two large pieces, lifted them out and placed them on the ground.

  Preacher climbed up through the window and into the room. He reached into his belt and pulled out the silenced Beretta and then the knife from the sheath. Again without hesitation, he moved from this room into the hall to the front room and into the others. As he had deduced through observation, the place was empty. After confirming the emptiness, he came back around to the kitchen and a door that appeared to be a closet or maybe a pantry.

  His guess was accurate as he pulled the door open and looked down to a small landing and a set of stairs going down. From his backpack he pulled the small flashlight purchased at the hardware store and lit the way down. At the bottom, he found a short passageway that led to another tunnel hallway that intersected, going both ways. He knew from basic geometry that the Castle lie straight ahead, but the tunnel only went left and right. He chose the left.

  A string of light bulbs about 20 feet apart lit the way. After 50 feet he came to a tunnel to the left, obviously going to the house next to the one he had entered. Up ahead he saw a tunnel to the right. That's the one he wanted. He reached it and was about to turn when he heard footsteps coming from that direction. He needed information, human intelligence. Some were approaching.

  He stepped back from the mouth of the tunnel leading to the right, dropped to a knee and counted the steps coming his way while listening to a catchy 70s toe-tapper by the Climax Blues Band. Was it 70s songs now? He actually looked down to see his own foot tapping to the beat just as it did on the floorboard of his mother's Buick as they sang along to this song driving from Florida to Texas nearly 20 years earlier. He shook his head to let the images fall away.

  The problem with songs like this one streaming into his mental jukebox usually meant others from his late 70s formative early teenage years were up next. Songs by Player and Paul Davis and the Babies and 10 CC and the Little River Band and Al Stewart and Gerry Rafferty and Dave Mason and the Eagles and Electric Light Orchestra and Hall & Oates and...

  The two sets of footsteps reached him. The guy that turned the corner was older than Preacher expected. Fifty-three, maybe 55. Distinguishingly graying at the temples, dressed in slacks and a sports coat, expensive leather dress shoes. This was no henchman.

  The dude behind him was, so Preacher exploded up at this second man and violently, ultra-violently, slammed the man's head into the rough rock and stone wall. It was a quick ending for this particular human as he collapsed to the ground.

  Preacher turned to the other. He needed information, but didn't need this guy to scream out. Before the poor fella could even see it coming, Preacher delivered a backwards hand chop to his Adam's apple. Nuez de la garganta, in Spanish. He even spoke it, "nuez de la garganta." Loved the way some Spanish words rolled off his tongue.

  The blow shocked the man. He reached up to his throat as his knees buckled and he caved to the rock floor. Preacher stepped past the collapsed man to peer down the tunnel in one direction and then the next. No one. He stepped back in front of the man struggling for breath and flipped him onto his back. Preacher stuck the razor sharp knifepoint into the guy's neck just above the collar of his dress shirt. The shocked look on his face took on a new dimension as Preacher bent down to him.

  "No time for misdirection. Tell me where the boy Felix is now, or I slice your throat and find another who will."

  The man instinctively moved his hands to a raised position with fingers spread, an act of submission, but it was delay. Preacher had no time for the act so he pulled the knife back and switched his grip from a forward thrust to a reverse grip so they he could slice deep into the man's neck to sever all arteries, esophagus and vocal chords.

  "No, wait."

  "I have no time for your delay." And he started the blade down.

  "I am going to meet him now. He is just a few steps away." He blurted out, pleading. "I can take you to him."

  "Now." Preacher yanked the man to his feet. The stopwatch in his head told him it had now been three minutes and 14 seconds since he'd crossed the street to the house above. He spun the guy around, shoved the Beretta back into his belt and brought his right hand up to cover the well-dressed man's mouth while swinging the knife down and stabbing it into the back of the man's left leg.

  The pain immediately rifled through the guy's body like an electric shock. Preacher released the grip on the knife and brought his left hand up to the man's back pockets, searching for a wallet. He moved the man's left ear to his lips. "Let me find out very quickly who you are and then we'll be on
our way. Anything funny and I rip that blade out sideways and plunge it into your head." That sounded mean.

  He pulled out the man's wallet and flipped it open. The driver's license listed him as Roberto Gonsalves Mendoza. "Roberto, I'll make a wild assumption that you are number three in the leadership pecking order of the cartel. And I see from your address that you reside in Chihuahua. Hmm." He spread his fingers over Mendoza's mouth.

  "You did not have to stab me to get my name." Mendoza whimpered.

  "I could have put a blade through your eye and into your brain and obtained this information from your wallet. Your life and those of your family back on Cerro El Zirate in Chihuahua mean nothing to me. You are all going to die, whether today or in 20 or 50 years. We all return to the earth from whence we came."

  Preacher shoved Mendoza, leaving the knife in the guy's leg. Just plain mean. They walked forward, the direction Mendoza had been headed a minute earlier.

  "Roberto, what are we going to find at the end of this tunnel," Preacher whispered in Mendoza's ear.

  The poor guy limped along, wincing with each movement of his left leg. "The boy and a few others."

  "Who? Who will be there?"

  "Some men. Our men."

  Preacher brought his chin to rest on Mendoza's shoulder as they inched forward. "Roberto, I get a strange feeling that you aren't telling me everything." Preacher reached down to the knife sticking out of the guy's thigh. He squeezed his hand on the grip. The pain jolted through Mendoza's body and he stopped.

  "I'm not lying. Just him and a few others. You'll see."

  Preacher spun the older man around. A bulb hanging just over their heads put harsh shadows on their faces. But the madness in Preacher's eyes couldn't be mistaken. He leaned in close. "I'll make a little prediction Roberto. If I remove the gringo punk from the equation here, you get a clean shot at the head honcho position. But with him here, you have to deal with that wildcard. And I'll bet he's a hell of a wildcard."

  He turned Mendoza and shoved him forward. They moved another 70 feet down the tunnel where they came to an opening to the left, like the one Preacher had come down.

  "Here." Mendoza pointed while he leaned against the wall. He looked down at the back of his leg. Blood had drenched his pant leg all the way down to his ankle.

  "Let's go." Preacher pushed him off the wall and into the opening. They soon reached a set of carved stone stairs. Preacher gripped Mendoza's left elbow to help him up the steps. They reached a landing and a door at the top. Preacher squeezed Mendoza's elbow tightly. "We open the door and move through quickly to the boy. If I have to kill everyone in the place, don't make me start with you. Si?"

  "Si."

  "Bueno, open it."

  Mendoza grasped and turned the doorknob and pushed open the door. No one was in the immediate vicinity. Preacher looked over Mendoza's shoulder into a hallway going left and right. He had the silenced Beretta in his right hand and Mendoza's 32mm in his left. The bleeding Mendoza nodded to the right. Preacher gave him a little shove in the kidney with a gun barrel.

  Several voices could be heard from up ahead. Preacher looked back over his shoulder to be sure no one was coming from the other end of the hall. They moved forward. In a few steps they came to a kitchen on the right. No one there. The voices could clearly be heard in the next room. Male voices and at least one female.

  They inched forward. Mendoza couldn't see the man behind him rolling his head in a counter-clockwise direction to loosen muscles. Mendoza hesitated just a couple of steps from the end of the hall. It didn't take much imagination for Preacher to figure what was running through the man's head. Looking at the back of the guy's skull, Preacher could virtually see the cognition, the synapses firing in his brain under skin and bone. He knew one thing for certain that this human was thinking -- life, living, surviving the next minute.

  Preacher was counting on that most basic of instincts. There aren't many true martyrs in this world. The well-dressed Mendoza wasn't one. He'd undoubtedly had to work his way up through a brutal and bloody world to make it this far in the drug cartel business. His demeanor and attire told the story of a man accustomed to a certain lifestyle replete with excess and luxury.

  "Ready?" Preacher whispered in a high voice, encouraging in its tone. Trying to give a sliver of hope to the man. And right on cue another late 70s tune fired up on his cranial turntable. He recognized it within the first second. Doobie Brothers.

  He propelled Mendoza into the room and came in like the man's shadow. Five men and one woman were occupied the space. All except one were seated. The kid was in a side chair on the right near the corner. The others were on a couch and two other chairs. This was a meeting.

  Life happens in seconds. Every moment life passes by, along with time and eternity. The eventual end awaits us all. It comes. No avoiding it.

  Hesitation is a quick route to death. Whether making a left turn across speeding traffic or waiting to call the doctor when crushing chest and shoulder pain kicks in.

  Preacher was gifted at birth with a recessive hesitation gene. This missing sequence in his chromosomal makeup made him different deadlier than most. But there are others like him.

  He saw it in a tiny fraction of a moment the instant their eyes met. The kid was lacking the hesitation gene also.

  Preacher looked from the punk's eyes to his lap and the gun resting there. It was an Uzi. Damn.

  A lot can happen in a moment, a second. Eyelids close and open. Hearts beat. Lungs expand, taking and then expelling breath. Heads turn. Electrical impulses burst through nerves. Fingers and thumb tighten around the grip of a submachine gun. A forefinger squeezes a trigger. Bullets explode from a muzzle and find their way into flesh and bone and vital organ.

  Before Preacher could move the Berretta from Mendoza's back to take aim at the kid, the punk released more than a dozen rounds into the room and the humans gathered in it. As Preacher ducked behind Mendoza, the older man took 22 caliber rounds to his chest and shoulder.

  The kid showed absolutely no hesitation. And he was faster on the draw than Preacher. That didn't happen. Shouldn't happen.

  By the time three whole seconds had elapsed, Preacher had ducked, dove to the right, shoulder-rolled and rose to a knee ready to fire. But he was too late.

  The kid had swept the Uzi's spray of bullets back across the assembled humans to finish them off and then was gone. Vanished.

  A recovered Preacher glanced to the left at the ridded and bleeding bodies and then to the right where the kid had been. Preacher inched further to the wall and then slid down to his belly and wormed along the wall until he came to the doorway leading from the room into the kitchen. He stuck his head and gun around the corner at foot level. No one in sight.

  He turned back to the carnage, pushed himself up the wall and quickly examined the dead and dying. Mendoza was moaning on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. He looked at the other people and saw suits and uniforms. He was no expert at Mexican military apparel, but the one in the chair with a bullet-riddled face and chest looked to be high-ranking. Maybe a general.

  Looking to the next, he saw another uniform. It was like the one on the guy who'd been standing over by the front door. Appeared to be police. Finally, the woman. She was collapsed sideways on the couch grasping her chest and wheezing. She had only moments left. She was dressed immaculately. Fine fabrics and very expensive shoes. All ruined.

  What the hell? Why did the kid just kill everyone in this room? Execute them.

  No time to stick around and look into any of this. People were coming. He could hear voices shouting, shoes hitting the street and tires squealing on pavement outside. Preacher sprinted from the front room, down the hall and down the stone stairs into the web of tunnels below. He pulled the flashlight out to provide additional light and kept the silenced Berretta aimed forward as he ran.

  He didn't think he could go back up the way he'd originally come down. That house was too close to the blood-spattere
d one he'd just left. He kept going straight, past the tunnel to the right and moved forward, ready to put a bullet between anyone's eyes who appeared in front of him. He could hear activity in the distance behind him; footsteps, shouting, but nothing distinct.

  After passing two more tunnels to the right, presumably going up to other homes on the street above, he came to a 'y' in the main tunnel. He could go left or right. Left, toward the main structure, el Castillo. Right, toward something else. He went left.

  Enough of being a rat or a mole, he needed to go up. He came to an intersection with tunnels going all four directions. Right felt best. He stepped into the tunnel and immediately dropped to a knee. Someone was coming. He extinguished the flashlight and waited six seconds until two sets of tramping footsteps came running at him. He turned the flashlight back on and lit up two gents carrying mini-assault rifles. He placed a bullet through the first fella's forehead and moved his aim to the legs of the second guy. He put a bullet into his right thigh and left knee. The guy screamed, stumbled and crumpled upon the first guy.

  Preacher was on him a moment later, placing a hand over mouth and silencer into the man's chest. The wounded man looked up at him through crazy, pain-filled eyes.

  "We all die my friend. You die here with a bullet through your chest unless you can give me information. Yes?" Preacher spoke calmly, whispering really.

  The bleeding, wild-eyed man nodded his head under Preacher's gloved hand.

  "Good. What is back the way you came?"

  "The garage. Cars and a few trucks."

  "Inside the walls of el Castillo or outside?"

  "Outside. Across the street."

  "How many men are in the garage?"

  "Two. We left two there after we heard the shots."

  "Names of the two?"

  "Geraldo and Juan Carlos." The man winced as Preacher put a knee into a damaged right thigh.

  "Good. Did you happen to see the kid, the gringo?"

  "No. Not since earlier today."