The small meat cleaver parted the air with a low whistle, then parted the man’s skull with a solid clunk, blood, brain and fragments of bone flying across the pick-up’s hood as the man’s eyes went wide in disbelief.
They were still open when his dead body hit the floor, head split open like a watermelon.
Pretty, no.
Effective, absolutely.
I paused to gather myself, quiet, senses tuned in. Had anyone heard me? Was anyone coming to investigate?
But there was nothing, just three dead bodies scattered around the pick-up. I rolled them underneath, out of the light of the headlamps, just in case anyone looked out of the slaughterhouse windows, or came outside for a smoke.
I breathed out slowly, steadily, as I took in the final target.
The slaughterhouse. Present home to Miguel Ángel Sanchez and six of his goons.
I pocketed the blades, checked my FN pistol was sitting snuggly in my waistband, and made ready with the AR15.
This was it.
Time to party.
Chapter Eight
I rested by the main double doors, rusty metal things that looked like they’d fall off at any moment; there was no reason for stealth now, things had gone beyond that.
By going through the front, I would at the same time be closing off the main avenue of escape for the cartel men inside. By then, I no longer had any doubt in my mind about succeeding in what I had to do; there was no room for doubt, no room for backing out now. I was committed, and with that commitment came a change in mindset. Nothing was going to stop me; it might be seven to one, but I wouldn’t be escaping from them, they would be trying to escape from me.
Aggression. Aggression. Aggression.
I took a deep breath, visualized the positions of the men in the room in my mind’s eye, and span round quickly, kicking open the old iron doors.
My sudden entry caught the men off guard, and I immediately shot the first two in the chest before they’d moved an inch, tracking the AR15 across to the next man and catching him in the face and neck.
The other three were moving now, trying to find cover, to mobilize their own weapons; but I still had the advantage of momentum and pressed on, switching to burst fire on the rifle, keeping heads pinned down while I identified viable targets.
Sanchez – despite his lack of condition – had been the first to move, a pearl-handled Colt .45 appearing in his hands as he rolled across the floor to the table of torture tools, upending it and using it as cover. A smart move.
Another man wasn’t so quick to respond though, and I nailed him through the heart with a burst of controlled fire.
I felt the hot air of a .45 round sail past my face and knew Sanchez was entering the fight; I responded with a burst of .223 into the table, then turned to see another man fleeing through the main doors while the remaining thug drew a bead on me with his own rifle.
I shot toward him, aiming for center mass and instead hitting the rifle itself, spinning it out of his hands. I knew that I’d used the last rounds from that magazine, that I would have to reload; but the last man was already running toward me, just feet away, a stiletto dagger having appeared in his hands almost as if by magic.
As he reached me and swiped the dagger toward my face, I responded by turning the rifle into a blunt trauma weapon, smashing it butt-first into his oncoming face, its range longer than the stiletto’s.
As the man staggered back, his face bleeding, his nose shattered, I heard the roar of a car engine, the movement of headlamps out in the courtyard; saw a blur of movement as Sanchez raced for the double doors, firing blind as he went. The rounds went nowhere near me, but I knew he’d only intended them to cover his exit; for all he knew, there was a whole bunch of us coming to get him, and his natural instinct was to flee. The first man who’d run had just been getting the car ready for his boss, and now they were both about to hightail it out of there.
The SUV I’d left at the bottom of the lane would only stall them for so long; I had to finish this and get off after them as quickly as possible.
The man in front of me stopped moving backward and, hand still on the dagger, came charging at me again; but I’d already been moving, ejecting the empty mag from the AR15 and retrieving another from my pocket; he was almost on me as I slipped the fresh mag in, let the working parts go forward, and pressed the trigger.
The rounds hit the man from nearly point-blank range, the dagger just inches from my face, and dropped him on the spot, guts torn from his belly, steam rising from his internal organs as he hit the floor.
Wasting no time surveying my handiwork, I turned on my heel and ran out into the warm night, watching the tail lights of one of the Cadillacs as it tore out of the courtyard toward the dirt track that would take them to the main road beyond.
I knew that, if they rammed it hard enough, they might just be able to blast the SUV out of the way and carry right on; and so I let rip with a burst of .223, shooting out the rear windows and at least one of the rear tires. The vehicle slewed first to one side, then to the other, but carried on going, and I turned to the Mercedes and wrenched open the driver’s side door, glad to see the keys still in the ignition. I knew why the men left their keys there – who would steal a car from a member of the cartels?
I threw the assault rifle onto the passenger seat, turned the key and gunned the engine, spinning the big sedan around in the courtyard and then taking off after Sanchez and his getaway driver.
I could see the rear lights up ahead, just a couple of hundred yards away, the Cadillac’s headlamps on full beam leading the way. I accelerated off down the dirt track, trying to get the speed up without losing traction and making the wheels spin. I managed it better than the guy in front, and – combined with the extra power of the Mercedes – I started to gain on the Cadillac.
But I also knew what was coming up down the track – my own personal roadblock, courtesy of the stolen Honda SUV. I didn’t want to get too close, or else I might be caught up in the ensuing crash.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I saw it, caught in the glare of the Cadillac’s lights – the Honda, placed sideways across the end of the track, giving the lead car nowhere to go. Would the driver slam on the brakes? Veer off into the scrubland? Try and smash straight through it?
I let off the accelerator slightly, waiting to see what happened, one hand on the wheel while the other reflexively sought out the AR15, its presence reassuring.
My answer came soon enough – I heard the engine dip, then the revs increase, and I knew Sanchez had given the order to ram the Honda out of the way. I saw the Cadillac steam ahead, aiming slightly toward the right, obviously with the intention of clipping the front of the car, much smaller than the rear.
The only trouble was that – despite being visibly smaller – the front was where the engine block was housed, all six hundred pounds of it; he’d probably have been better off aiming for the rear.
The impact came moments later, a colossal clash of metal on metal. The SUV was spun out of the way, and for a second I thought the Cadillac would make it, that I’d have to race off after it to try and take it down on the main road beyond; but then the big sedan veered right, its steering damaged.
In conjunction with the tire I’d shot out, the driver was losing all control, and the car was off the track altogether now, still going fast as it struck a small but evidently sturdy clump of Manzanita bushes.
This impact had an even more devastating effect than my two-ton SUV had done – the Cadillac was speared upward, front end coming off the ground, wheels still driving forward and propelling the vehicle up and over into a wild swing that put the car on its side, before crashing down onto its roof.
Seconds later I was pulling the Mercedes over, out and with the AR15 up and ready, approaching the broken Cadillac quickly but with due caution; the men inside were still armed, and potentially still capable of firing back.
I let off a burst at the upside-down rear, checking for the reaction. No
shots came back my way, and I approached steadily, hunched down as I reached the cabin.
Through the broken glass, I saw the driver, blood leaking from facial wounds, trying to reach for his weapon in what seemed like slow motion, probably brought on by internal injuries. I gave him a blast of .223 and put him out of his misery permanently, before turning my attentions to Sanchez.
The leader of the Los Zetas sicarios was unconscious, blood leaking from one ear. I would have to grab him and pull him out of the car, just in case there was some sort of explosion. I couldn’t question the man if he was burnt to a crisp.
I leant in over the driver and turned the ignition off; and in that moment of distraction, Sanchez pulled out his pearl-handled pistol, eyes opening as it arced toward me.
He’d been playing possum all along, and had the drop on me; but my body reacted before my mind had the chance, and I knocked his gun arm to the side, the .45 slug blowing out the rear side window, deafening in the enclosed space. Letting my rifle dangle free on its sling, I kept hold of Sanchez’ gun arm and reached further inside, grabbing the man by his long hair and slamming his face into the hard plastic dashboard.
He pulled back, dazed, and I picked up my rifle, held it back, and sent the butt straight into his temple, knocking him well and truly out for the count.
I went round to the passenger door, opened it and dragged Sanchez’ unconscious body out of the crippled vehicle, pulling it across the dirty scrub toward the Mercedes. He was short but heavy, and the job took longer than I’d hoped; by the time we reached the trunk, I could already hear sirens far off in the distance, presumably drawn by reports of gunfire. We might have got away with it back up at the abandoned farm, but here – so close to the main road, and more inhabited areas – the sound of automatic weapons being used would have certainly drawn unwelcome attention. Hell, Sanchez might even have called the cops himself as he was driven down here.
I realized he might also have called a few more of his own boys too, and knew that the area would soon be crawling with people wanting to beat, kill or arrest me, and maybe all three. There was no use in going back up to the slaughterhouse to question Sanchez now; our privacy there was about to be terminally disrupted. I would just have to find somewhere else for our little chat, and I already thought that I knew where that would be.
I opened the trunk of the Mercedes, heaved Sanchez up and over the lip, slammed it shut and hustled round to the driver’s seat.
I pulled carefully round the broken Honda, traveled down to the junction with the main road, and pulled out smoothly, accelerating off as quickly as I dared.
I watched as three cop cars raced past me in the opposite direction, sirens blaring and lights flashing wildly, and breathed a sigh of relief.
I’d accomplished one part of that night’s mission – I’d taken possession of Miguel Ángel Sanchez, the man Santiago had taken Elena Rosales to see three years, two months and five days ago.
And now all I had to do was find out what he remembered about it.
Chapter Nine
I watched as the man gagged, convulsed, shuddered, his entire body wanting to shut down but at the same time struggling desperately to breathe, to survive.
I stopped pouring the water from the bucket, put it down on the floor and monitored the effect the latest dousing was having on Sanchez.
Waterboarding has been used for centuries, although the term as a verb or noun was only first used by the media in 2004. ‘Water board torture’ was used to train US Navy recruits back in the 70s, and I remember undergoing the same thing myself with the RRD prior to deploying to Iraq in 2003. Despite the media’s late uptake, we already knew it as waterboarding. It was nasty to be on the receiving end, but it was effective and – compared to many other forms of torture – relatively benign. The CIA, in fact, liked to refer to it as a ‘professional interrogation technique’ rather than ‘torture’.
And let’s face it – who wouldn’t rather undergo waterboarding than having electrodes on the testicles, fingernails pulled, digits cut off, or any of the other horrendous, painful treatments that had been meted out over the years? I knew that Sanchez and his boys liked the bloody stuff, and I felt no guilt whatsoever about what I was doing to him. He’d certainly done a lot worse to plenty of other people, and had supposedly enjoyed it too.
Claims have been made about the long-term psychological effects of the technique, which is essentially designed to make the recipient think they are drowning, but – having experienced it myself – I have to call ‘bullshit’ on that one. There are much worse things in life.
But the effect of the technique is immediate – you do actually feel as if you are drowning, which at the time is terrifying. You’re ready to give up whatever you’ve got within the first half dozen dousings, often less.
So – maximal effect, minimal damage.
What’s not to like?
It’s also easy to set up, as my little interrogation center proved.
All you really need, other than the water itself, is a flat surface – ideally tilted at an angle of ten to twenty degrees, but horizontal will do just fine if that’s all you’ve got; a way of securing the recipient; a piece of thin cloth to cover the face; and a dispenser for the water. In other words – the floor, a bit of rope, a towel and a bucket of water.
I had all these things, and a secure space too, out of the way of prying eyes and ears.
Sanchez and I were ensconced within a large metal shipping container, held within the large acreage of Quetzalcoatl International Airport. We were near the airport’s public parking lot, where I’d left the Mercedes, in the yard of a big trucking firm called Transportes Fema.
The yard was covered in metal containers, literally hundreds of the things, and – with the airport only operating between eight in the morning and eight at night – the site was relatively empty; certainly enough for me to move around unmolested.
I’d left Sanchez in the car while I’d checked out the containers, selecting one well into the middle, surrounded by others to help cancel out any noise we might be making. I’d picked up supplies from an empty janitor’s office, and returned to the car to get Sanchez.
I’d used rope to secure his arms and legs, tying the ends off on the conveniently located floor hooks – normally used for cargo ties to stop cargo from sliding around, but eminently suited for their new role. There hadn’t been the means immediately available to angle him, but lying flat would still work perfectly well.
Performing the routine single-handed wasn’t easy though – you had to secure the cloth to the face at the same time as you poured the water – but where there was a will, there was a way.
I wrapped the towel around his face and tied it off at the back of his head, meaning I had my hands free to monitor the water flow. He thrashed and thrashed as I gave him another dose, but the rope held his body in place, and he took the full effect.
I knew that – despite the logical centers of his mind telling him it wasn’t so – he would believe he was drowning, and would be more than willing to carry on giving me information.
I’d already had quite a large part of his life history – to get our relationship off to a good start, I’d started with something easy – and knew enough about the man to feel no remorse about his fate.
He was a very, very bad person.
He’d evidently grown up on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, one of the most violent cities in the world, and had killed his first victim at the tender age of eleven. Raped his first victim at twelve. Tortured his first victim – by hacking off the hands and feet with a saw – at the age of thirteen.
That had been for the Juárez Cartel but – after getting a short-lived shot of national pride and serving in the Mexican army’s special forces – he later went to work for Los Zetas, who recruited him for his professional military skills.
He soon became their number one sicario and – in his own words – he had since lost count of the number of people he had ki
lled. Men, women and even children. Sometimes raped, sometimes tortured.
He’d set up training camps for the new breed of sicarios, and was now involved in recruitment and organization, although he still apparently enjoyed getting his feet wet on occasion, taking on some of the big hits himself.
He used and abused women in an almost hateful fashion, and was particularly scathing in his opinion of the sex workers brought up to Mexico from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. He considered them less than human, and was not at all concerned whether they survived his ‘treatment’.
Which brought me onto the next topic of conversation.
I pulled the towel from his face, watched as he spluttered and gagged, still thinking he was drowning.
‘What can you tell me about Elena Rosales?’ I asked.
He sputtered again, then groggily asked, ‘Who?’
It was a fair question – it had been three years ago, and a man like Sanchez had probably seen so many young girls come and go that he very well might not remember Elena. Indeed, he might never have even known her name.
And yet he had requested her; and she was an American citizen, unlike many of the others who had been unfortunate to cross his path.
I had the feeling that Sanchez did remember; or would, when I made my questions more specific. His mind would be reeling, it would be hard to think straight, and I needed to remember that, make things easy for him.
‘Three years ago,’ I said. ‘Three years, two months, and five days. You asked a man called Santiago Alvarez to bring you a girl called Elena Maria Rosales. Thirteen years old at the time, a US citizen from right over the border in Laredo. She’d been across a few times, partied here. Santiago picked her up outside Eclipse nightclub, brought her to you. She was never seen again. Do you remember?’
Sanchez spluttered again, shook his head. ‘Yeah, of course I remember,’ he spat.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s good.’ I paused, letting him recover slightly so he could become more lucid. ‘Is she alive?’ I asked next.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR MAN: Introducing Colt Ryder - One Man, One Mission, No Rules Page 11