“Thanks, Gramps,” he whispered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stryker, Erin, and Jose finished eating a meal of rice and beans that Jose scavenged from a neighboring house.
"Not as good as dinner last night, but it is food." Stryker sighed.
"I didn't have much to work with," Jose protested.
"It's okay." Erin shot a dirty look at Stryker, who smiled back. "I thought it was a fine meal."
"Thanks," Jose replied.
"So, what are we going to do?" Erin asked.
Stryker had already explained the events of the previous night and where the lookout was posted.
"You two need to go find a trailer somewhere close to the port. Drag it by hand to the Humvee and get it hooked up. Then, you wait for me to get back, and we go get the sailors and head north as fast as we can. I don’t want you to start the vehicle until I get there. That would alert the bad guys."
"Where are you going to be?" Erin asked.
"Killing the two that are watching the ship." Stryker sounded vexed when he added, "I wanted to know how often they called in before I took them out, but that isn't going to work. They are not out in the open where I can see them make the call."
"How do you know they have working phones or radios?" Erin looked puzzled.
"Because they wouldn't be there if they didn’t have the ability to call in reinforcements. It wouldn't make any sense. So, I'll take them out, and we get as far north as we can in four hours. Then we set up the ambush for the gang as they come south to find out what happened to their guards."
"What if they are only supposed to call when the sailors leave the ship?"
"That wouldn't make any sense either. Even amateurs know that, if something happened to the lookout, they could go days without knowing it happened."
"What about the weapons and ammo we need?"
"The armory is on the north side of town, and it is possible the sailors have enough weapons and ammo to see us through. That part of it we are going to have to improvise."
"I know where there are lots of guns. Some of them are very large too."
Stryker gaped at Jose.
"And you waited until now to tell us?"
"I just thought of it," he answered with a defensive tone.
"Jesus." Stryker shook his head sadly and looked at Erin, who shrugged back.
"Where are they?" Stryker asked.
"In Don Francesco’s house."
"And who is Don Francisco?"
"He was the boss of all the mafia in the Baja. He had bodyguards with all sorts of guns and stuff."
"Did Big Carlos work for him?"
"Everybody worked for him. Big Carlos ran the drug side of things, but Don Francisco was the boss and he was into everything. He sold guns and ran a string of high class prostitutes that catered to the Americans that came here to fish.” Jose looked at Stryker with an expression of curiosity.
"He got two thousand dollars a night for his whores. Who would pay that much money for a woman? I could get forty women for that price."
"Stick to the story," Stryker said gruffly. "What else did he run?"
"Smuggling, things and people. And, he ran the gambling and extortion rackets. He was a very bad and dangerous man."
"I take it he had the cops on the payroll?"
"Some of his bodyguards were police."
"Where is the house?"
"I'll show you." Jose rose from his chair, walked to the dining room window, and pointed at what looked to be a fortress on a hilltop to the north,
"Have you ever been in that house?" Stryker stared at the structure.
"No," Jose answered with a snorting sound. "Men like that have no time for men like me."
It was a five minute drive to the mansion and, because Stryker could see the structure from the house where they stayed, they stopped and got two extension ladders at a hardware store before continuing to the mansion.
They stood at the gate in front of the tall brick mansion that had belonged to the drug lord. The front had a portico, and a driveway made of pavers, circled back to the gate. The front door was a huge metal entryway and stood partially open.
The remains of a human skeleton lay directly in front of the entry, still partially clothed. An M-16 lay by his side.
The structure was surrounded by a block wall ten feet high, and the gate was closed and locked.
“Let’s go find out what they have.” Stryker extended the ladder until it was taller than the wall, and leaned it forward. He climbed the ladder and twisted his torso. “Hand me the other ladder.
“When I get on the other side, you two come on up.” Stryker lowered the second ladder slightly to left of the first, swung one leg over and then the other. He looked down at them as Erin started up, and then quickly descended, pulled his M-4 off his shoulder and swept the grounds.
Erin came down, swept the area to her right and they both started toward the front door.
“Wait for me,” Jose said from behind them. Erin turned and motioned him forward as Stryker continued to sweep the area.
They walked together to the entryway, stepped over the skeleton, and Stryker entered first. He quickly cleared the room and motioned Erin and Jose in. Erin moved to his right side, brought her weapon up, and each moved toward opposite walls, advancing through the room quickly and silently.
Stryker passed another skeleton that lay on a couch with a carbine on the floor in front of it.
“Clear,” Erin whispered.
“Same here.”
“Where now?” Erin asked.
“Upstairs would be bedrooms and this is the public area of the house. If there’s anything here it would be in the basement or an out building. If there is a basement door, it is likely off the kitchen somewhere.”
Stryker glanced back toward the entry. “Lord, this place looks hideous.”
Don Francisco had odd tastes in architectural styles and design. There were Ionic columns next to Corinthian ones and what appeared to hieroglyphics on another. Velvet paintings hung next to abstract ones, and the furniture was all over the road, with gleaming metal couches next to European-style wood pieces.
Erin grimaced. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”
“I like it,” Jose said enthusiastically. “It must have cost a lot of money.
Stryker ignored the comment and moved into the kitchen, again traversing his weapon across the room. It was an enormous space with multiple refrigerators and commercial ovens.
At the far end of the kitchen, a door lay open and Stryker could see the stairwell below it from where he stood.
He rummaged through several kitchen drawers before pulling out a pack of candles and a small lighter. He lit one and walked toward the door.
“Watch my six,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
Stryker disappeared down the steps while Erin kept an eye on the kitchen.
A minute went by, and then Stryker yelled, “Get Jose down here with a bunch of candles and holders. Erin, you keep guarding us while we’re down here.”
She heard the sound of footfalls walking away from the stairwell and nodded to Jose.
“Why do I have to go down there?”
“Because he needs you to help. Get some plates so you can melt wax on them and put the candles on them.”
Stryker held the candle high over his head and walked down the far wall of the basement. This was like a museum that featured the best weapons in the world.
They were mounted on the wall of the basement, and beneath each grouping of weapons were ammo boxes.
The first he saw was the M4 Carbine Commando with M203 Grenade Launcher. The grenade launcher, which was mounted under the barrel of the weapon, was an ace in the hole in combat and allowed a marine to not have to reload to continue to keep a rate of hurt on the enemy in a firefight.
Stryker walked by an entire wall filled with the more prosaic M-16 models without the grenade launcher. He stopped to look at them more closely and noted th
at several looked used, with scratches and other signs of wear.
He passed by the ubiquitous AK-47s, mounted to the wall in a rack and then passed a grouping of FN F2000s. He stopped for a moment, admiring the weapon and its futuristic look and then went by another grouping of Heckler & Koch UMPs, which was followed by the last set of weapons mounted on the wall, the Heckler & Koch MP5K.
He felt like rich kid in a candy store.
Stryker moved to the far side of the room and stared at a case of boxes with Chinese characters stamped on the tops. He pried a board loose on one of them with his combat knife and stared down at a neat row of grenades.
They were smaller than the M-67s he was accustomed to, and the casing was cruder and not as smooth, but he was pretty sure they would work.
Stryker heard Jose come down the stairs, and motioned him toward his position.
“Light all the candles you have and spread them around the basement. I want to see what else is here.”
Jose nodded and moved off.
The basement revealed itself as Jose lit more candles and spread them around what amounted to a cavern under the mansion.
Stryker walked the entire perimeter of the basement and made a mental catalog of the ordinance it contained. He smiled briefly, and then walked back up the stairs, and stood in front of Erin. “You were right.”
“About what?” Erin looked perplexed.
“About pulling a page out of the ISIS playbook, finding more weapons and continuing the fight.”
“What’s down there?”
“Everything we need.”
“So, what are we doing?”
“You get Jose to go down the gate, get the key, open it and bring the Humvee here. Then you stand guard here.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to haul up weapons and ammo and we load it, find the damn trailer, get our guys, and find a way to lay some hurt on the assholes.”
“You might want to actually have a plan.”
“I can’t really do that yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because the sailors might have some plans of their own. I don’t know who they lost at the hotel, but if it was anybody important to them, they won’t leave until they bury them and that could take some time.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“It’s probable.”
Stryker hauled weapons and ammo boxes up the stairs and piled them on the kitchen countertops.
"What's all down there?" Erin asked.
"Every sort of automatic carbine you can imagine, and some of it is high end stuff."
"These are all M-16s,"
"I know. We don't know how many weapons the sailors have, and any training they've done would likely be with the M-16, so the more exotic stuff is going to have to stay behind. We don't have room for it all. I would dearly love to take the H and Ks with us, but it's just not practical. Those damn things cost a fortune and are much better than anything we have.”
"Can I go down and have a look?"
"Go ahead, but make it fast." Stryker turned and reviewed the inventory. So far, he had selected four boxes of ammo for the M-16s and M-4s, two cases of the Chinese grenades, eight M-16s, and a Barrett with two boxes of shells.
Unfortunately, the cache contained no shoulder fired missiles.
"Jesus," Erin shouted up the stairwell. "You could start a war with this stuff."
"That's the idea," Stryker murmured.
Erin appeared carrying two sets of NVGs and extra batteries.
"Where did you find those?"
"Behind the ammo boxes."
"Good catch."
"Thanks."
"Let’s go see how Jose is doing." Stryker turned and walked through the kitchen and living room, and then out the front door. Jose was next to the Humvee, a trailer already attached, and the front gate was open.
"That was fast," Stryker said.
"Trailer was behind the garage and the key was hanging on a peg next to the gate."
"Good security," Stryker said with a note of sarcasm in his voice.
"He didn't have much to worry about," Jose replied. "Nobody was going to go after him with the kind of bodyguards he had.”
“Erin, can you and Jose check the house for bottled water and food while I load the Humvee?’
“Sure.”
The three walked back into the house and Stryker hauled their arsenal to the vehicle as they rummaged through cabinets and closets.
By the time Stryker finished the loading, there was a pile of bottled water, canned and dry food, and a bottle of bourbon.
“I got the bottle for you.” Erin smiled.
“We can make good use of it when this is over.” Stryker grinned back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“If we had some way to tell the sailors where the lookout was, they could use the deck gun and blow them to hell and save us the risk and time.”
“And, if we had an airplane we could fly. We don’t have either,” Erin said.
They were again crouched behind the container, all but invisible to either the sailors or the gang members in the hotel. The sun was directly overhead and they were lucky to have found a small patch of shade. As the temperature continued to rise, Stryker felt less lucky with the passing of every minute.
They’d left the Humvee parked in a warehouse two kilometers away and walked to pier in a windless, soundless environment.
“So, what’s the plan?” Erin asked.
“I don’t have one yet.”
“You might want to make it a priority. I am sweating like a pig.” Her voice contained a note of weariness, and Jose nodded his agreement.
“You don’t sweat, my dear, you glisten.” Stryker smiled at her.
“Jesus.” She sighed with a roll of her eyes.
“We might as well go back to the Humvee, get some food and water in us, and talk this over. We can always go after them in the hotel, but it’s not ideal by a long stretch. I hate maneuvering up stairways and that is what we would have to do.”
They backed away from the container, slipped quietly into an alley behind the pier, and then walked back to the vehicle.
They were finishing another plate of beans and rice when Erin smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “All we have to do it throw a few grenades in through the door.”
“That would be fine if the door were window glass. It’s a slider and they are always made with much thicker glass. That might just bounce the grenade back at us, or it would fall to the patio floor and alert them to our presence.”
Stryker didn’t look up from his plate, but chuckled briefly between bites, and continued eating.
“I have it!” Jose said in an excited tone of voice, his face looking as though he received a revelation.
Stryker looked up with a weary expression.
“We burn the building down.”
Stryker looked down again.
“Why not?” Jose asked.
“Well, there is the small problem of how we put the fire out.” Stryker mumbled through his food. “We might not want to burn the whole town down, ourselves included. I think we can rule that out.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Erin’s voice sounded peeved.
“Yes, but I discarded it.”
“What was it?”
“I thought maybe I could get to the ship late at night and use a wrench to tap Morse code to the crew to let them know we were here, get them to open the hatch, and tell them to fire the deck gun at the hotel.”
“Why wouldn’t that work?” Erin asked.
“Well, the bad guys must have NVGs, and I doubt I could get away with it without them calling in the troops.”
“Why do you think they have NVGs?”
“Because it would make no sense to leave the men here without them. They couldn’t keep watch on the ship at night, and the whole crew could just get off and disappear. If that happened, the gang wouldn’t know about it for days, maybe weeks.”
&n
bsp; The three sat in silence for a long moment and then continued eating.
“I guess I am just going to have to root them out and kill them in the room.” Stryker looked away, his brain still chewing on the problem.
“You said you hate moving up stairways, right?” Erin asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you get above them and move down to the room?”
“Give me a second.”
Stryker pulled up his mental image of the building and zoomed to the front of the structure and panned back. He stopped when he got to the fire escape on the south side of the building, and then panned back again and zoomed into the northern end, where he saw another emergency stairway on the opposite side of the hotel.
“Maybe,” he said slowly, placing his fork on an empty plate.
“Yeah,” he concluded. “I could do that.”
The old hotel had wood-framed windows and doors. If Stryker could pry away one of the wood strips that covered the lock side of the emergency exit, he would be able to open the door and get access to the hotel from the floor above the room where the gang was watching the ship. He could also enter on the same floor, but either way, no stairwells.
The flat part of a locking mechanism, where it goes into the strike plate, is almost always on the inside of the door, so a simple screwdriver or credit card would open the latch if it was forced into the area between the strike plate and the bolt.
He grinned.
Stryker glanced around the hotel room before he left. The soft glow of candlelight was sufficient to understand the hotel had been, in its day, a crown jewel in Cabo. The thick lush carpet and the expensive furniture and fixtures all pointed to that conclusion.
Jose was sleeping in the next room. Stryker finished checking his loads, donned his vest, and stowed the NVGs in a pouch. He walked over to the bed and gently kissed Erin's forehead.
"You leaving?" she mumbled, rolling toward him.
"Yes."
"What time is it?"
"No idea, but I'm guessing it's around two in the morning."
"How long do you think you'll be gone?" She was fully awake now and looked anxious.
"I'll be back before sunup."
STRYKER - OMNIBUS: BOOKS 3-5: A Post Apocalyptic Tale Page 43