The Rebel of Goza

by Steven F Freeman

  “You’re right!” I say. “It even has the handle.”

  “Now we just need to figure out what ‘Little Monkey’ is.”

  A cold wave of realization washes over my stomach. “I think I know.”

  “What?”

  “When we were kids, I used to call Oscar ‘Mono,’ monkey. They must be taking him there.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Could be,” says Carlos, maintaining the calm demeanor he teaches in his martial-arts classes. “But how would they know you called him that?”

  “Because I still do, when he annoys me. In fact, I used that nickname in a text a couple of days ago, when he took my water bottle—again.”

  Miguel runs an index finger across the map, studying it. “Tequila Volcano is on the other side of Guadalajara. Why would they take him way over there?”

  “We can’t know that until we know why they’re taking him there,” I reply, chewing my lip. “It is a puzzle. What’s the point of taking the time and manpower to move him when they have a major drug shipment about to leave?”

  “Maybe they want him out of the area,” suggests Carlos, “so he won’t make a fuss during the actual drug pickup. And if they transfer him tonight, they’ll be back in plenty of time for the product pickup. That’s not for two days.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.” I consider the choices: rescue him now—before he’s taken there—or later, when he’s at Tequila Volcano? “This drop-off would be the best opportunity to rescue him, when he isn’t surrounded by a bunch of narcos in the old distillery. That’s probably why Lily realized this message was so important. The cartel won’t use more than a few narcos to guard Oscar at the Frying Pan.”

  “And I know that area pretty well,” says Carlos. “Like I said, my friends and I hiked there when we were teens.”

  “Could you navigate those slopes at night?” I ask.

  “Sure. We usually camped overnight when we were there.”

  “Plus, we’ll have moonlight,” I mention with a grimace, remembering my escape through moonlit agave fields two nights ago.

  Carlos glances at his watch. “If we’re going to be there by eleven, we need to get going soon. We can talk tactics on the way.”

  Grabbing a few water bottles from the garage refrigerator, we pile into his tow truck once again. Thankfully, the Taekwondo gear we’ll need to defend ourselves remains in the truck’s bed full time, eliminating the potential attention we’d draw to ourselves by loading it up on a day classes aren’t held.

  We set off down the state highway, heading west.

  The sun bakes down. On the horizon, heatwaves shimmer across the road. It doesn’t take long for us to break out the water bottles.

  Barren desert dotted with scrub brush rolls by with monotonous regularity.

  I shake my head. We can’t let ourselves become mesmerized by the landscape. We have work to do before we arrive.

  “Once we get around Guadalajara, you’re going to approach the volcano on highway one-fifty?” I ask Carlos.

  “That’s right.”

  “You know the area,” I say. “How do you recommend we get to the Frying Pan?”

  He purses his lips in concentration. “Once we’re on one-fifty, the easiest way is to head due south on the main road. That would take you right into the volcano’s northern slope. It’s probably the route Oscar’s kidnappers will use. But there’s a turn ten kilometers or so before the volcano, a dirt road that’s not on any map. It leads right to the volcano’s south side. Once we’re there, we can take the perimeter road northeast until we’re a few kilometers away from the Frying Pan. Then we’ll need to find the closest gully to hide the truck and travel on foot.” He glances at his watch again. “This should put us in position at the Frying Pan a couple of hours before the eleven o’clock rendezvous time.”

  “We still need to decide what to do once the narcos arrive with Oscar,” says Miguel. “How are we going to get him back without getting ourselves or him killed?”

  “First,” I say, remembering my earlier escape, “we put our phones on silent.”

  “Ha!” laughs Miguel. “True.”

  “Next,” I continue, “are we going to wait for him to exit whatever vehicle brings him?”

  “I think we’ll have to,” says Miguel. “It’d be too hard to rescue him otherwise. If he’s still in a car, he’d probably have someone guarding him at gunpoint.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. So we wait for him to exit. We don’t know where they’ll be exactly. The Frying Pan is a pretty good-sized area. But they’ll probably be somewhere along here, next to the creek bed,” I say, pointing to the map on my phone. “That looks like the easiest place to drive in a car. Now notice…right next to that is the ridge Carlos first recognized. It’s high ground. We can scout the area below, wait for Oscar to exit his car, and then try to take out his kidnappers.”

  “Um, we just rush them with coas and wait for them to blow us to pieces with the usual assortment of gang weaponry?”

  I chuckle. “Point taken. We’ll have to use some kind of diversion.”

  “The ridge has all sorts of cracks in it,” says Carlos. “Once we spot Oscar, we could find the closest one and hide in it until we’re ready to make our move…whatever that is.”

  “How about this?” I say. “Two of us stay on the ridge to wait for Oscar. The third waits on the other side of the Frying Pan, on the downslope side of the riverbed. Once the narcos arrive and exit their vehicle, our third person breaks out a police alarm sound on their cellphone. That should throw the narcos into a panic for a few seconds. Then whichever of us has the fewest narcos around makes a run for Oscar, grabs him, and pulls him into the riverbed.”

  “What will the other two do?”

  “One will retrieve this truck. The other will have a coa and knife and will protect Oscar and his rescuer. The truck driver picks up the others and hauls ass out of there.”

  The wind whistles by the truck’s windows as we all take a silent moment to evaluate the merits of this strategy.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” says Carlos with a nod. “It looks like we have a plan.”

  CHAPTER 25

  With the exception of quick stops at a roadside food cart and gas station, we head straight for Tequila Volcano, using the time to hammer out the finer details of our plan.

  The sun has already sunk behind the volcano’s rim when we turn off the highway onto an unmarked dirt road crisscrossed with potholes and rainwater cutouts.

  Carlos flips on the headlights.

  “Hold on,” he says with a grin. “It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

  We bounce around inside the truck like microwave popcorn, even after he slows our pace to a crawl. Miguel seatbelts himself in, but the two-seat vehicle has no more restraints for me to use.

  After my head glances off the ceiling, Miguel starts to unbuckle and shouts over the road noise. “You take this seat. I’ll brace myself.”

  “No. Stay there. How about I sit in your lap and you hold me down?”

  Moments later, I’m held fast. Funny…I didn’t realize how strong Miguel has become over the years. His wiry arms lock me down like a vice.

  “This is worse than the last time I was here,” shouts Carlos as he angles around a meter-long pothole. “And it wasn’t good then.”

  We continue in this bumpy manner for another thirty minutes. All the while, the slopes of Tequila Volcano fill our right horizon, reaching nearly three thousand meters high.

  At last, we pull to a stop. Miguel is soaked with sweat, but he never released his grasp. Without his arms around me, I would have eventually dented the cab’s roof with my head or shot out the window like a bottle rocket.

  Carlos stretches a kink out of his neck before speaking. “Now we’ll be off-roading. If you thought the road so far was bad, wait ‘til you see this.”

  I cock my head at Miguel. Can I resume my place?

  He nods. “Better sit here again. We can’t afford to
be down a person before we even get there.”

  From behind the volcano, the last glow of sunlight disappears. Carlos fires up the engine and sets a course for the Frying Pan.

  It’s time to rescue my brother.

  CHAPTER 26

  Carlos was right. This terrain is bumpier. Thankfully, Miguel’s arms keep my head from slamming into the top of the cab.

  Our pace slows to a crawl. Sloped terrain, patches of stone outcroppings, and a succession of igneous rocks large and small flow into the range of our headlights. Carlos lumbers his truck around each obstacle. Good thing it was built to take a beating.

  “We’re nearing the Frying Pan,” he says. “We’ll park the truck behind the next gully or outcropping of rock.”

  Moments later, he points. “There. That’s perfect. We can park in the crack between those two slabs. No one will see the truck unless they drive right up to it.”

  He backs his vehicle into the narrow space between two sections of rock and kills the engine.

  We take a final drink of water and exit the truck. After the clamor of the drive, the still desert air is deafening in its silence.

  We gather a stash of coas and emerge from the gap to a wash of stars spread across an indigo sky. Strange how the actions of evil men can transform a place so beautiful into one so ominous…so fraught with danger.

  The three of us set off for the Frying Pan. Even though we should arrive two hours early, there’s no point in taking chances. So we tread as lightly as possible, using nothing but moonlight to navigate.

  Ten minutes of foot travel brings us to the “handle” of the Frying Pan, a relatively flat but narrow clearing at the foot of the volcano. We traverse the handle’s length and reach its end, where the clearing widens into the “pan.” A dry riverbed forms the downslope edge of this clearing.

  Time to execute our plan. Having discussed it in detail on the ride here, there’s no need to talk.

  Being the most experienced with his truck, Carlos selects a point on the ridge closest to it. That way, he can be the person to run back to retrieve it when the rescue goes down but is here in case he ends up being the closest when Oscar exits his vehicle.

  Miguel grasps his coa in one hand and uses the other to climb the rock face fifty meters or so further along the ridge.

  I take the low ground, using a clump of prickly pear cacti for concealment as I peer out from the riverbed.

  I lower my phone and switch it on for a second to check the time. Nine-fifteen. We have nearly two hours to wait…and discover if our careful planning will pay off.

  CHAPTER 27

  I hear the vehicle before I see it—the growl of a diesel engine echoing across the rolling landscape.

  Moments later, beams of light play over the landscape in a wild pattern, twisting and turning in concert with the bouncing vehicle producing them.

  The pickup truck that rolls into view is huge, a six-wheeled beast with a covered bed. Are these the people dropping off Oscar or picking him up? And why the need to transfer him in the first place? We’ll soon find out.

  The truck pulls towards the rock and shudders to a stop, its back end facing me.

  I brace myself, ready to bolt from my hiding spot the moment Oscar appears.

  Then…nothing.

  No one emerges from the vehicle.

  Of course! They’re meeting someone else here, right? Otherwise, why pick such a remote spot? They’re waiting for the second vehicle to arrive before making the transfer.

  Although I understand the reason for the delay, it’s impossible to rest easy. I’d feel better if I could catch a glimpse of my brother. And if he were in the truck and emerged from it now, we’d be able to mount his rescue without having to contend with the occupants of the second vehicle.

  After an anxious quarter hour, the sound of another vehicle announces its approach.

  A huge truck bounces over the uneven ground and grinds to a halt. This one is even larger than the first: a military-style transport with a cargo area covered by canvas on a metal frame. A canvas flap covers the cargo area, preventing my efforts to search for Oscar inside.

  The new arrival pulls up alongside the first one and stops.

  I tense my legs, ready for action.

  The pair of occupants of the first truck exit their vehicle. The glow of a cigarette penetrates the night as one of them lights up. The orange embers and the silhouette of the man holding the cigarette move towards the back of the second truck.

  The other vehicle’s driver climbs out of the truck, followed moments later by the passenger. The four men converge at the back of the second truck.

  They exchange tense greetings.

  “You have the Little Monkey?” asks the man with the cigarette.

  “Yeah. You got the money?” replies a thug from the second truck.

  “Sure. You get it when Little Monkey is loaded.”

  The two men from the second truck exchange sidelong glances. One of them climbs onto the fender and throws back the canvas flap.

  I raise myself to gain a better view. I’m probably revealing myself more than I should, but there’s no helping it. I have to catch a glimpse of Oscar.

  At first, darkness envelops the truck’s cargo area. But then the man on the fender uses his cellphone as a flashlight and turns the dim beam towards the bed.

  No Oscar…at least not yet.

  All I can make out is a pile of wooden crates. As the owner swivels his cellphone, it throws off just enough light to illuminate his face. An angry scar runs the length of the man’s left jaw, and the cheek tattoo with which it intersects reveals his Sinaloa Cartel affiliation. Not the kind of guy you’d want to tangle with.

  There’s still no sign of Oscar. All I can see are the crates.

  “Hold this,” says Scarface to his companion. “Shine it on that so I can see what I’m doing.” He motions to the uppermost crate.

  As his companion shines the light on the crate’s lid, Scarface picks up a hammer and screwdriver from the bed and begins removing the nails holding it in place.

  The lid bears some kind of symbol. I can’t make it out in the dim light.

  The companion shines the cellphone light on the lid, steadier this time. Stenciled onto the wood is an abstract outline of a monkey, the kind you’d see on a playset of plastic monkeys.

  Little Monkey…

  But what’s inside the boxes?

  With a final heave, Scarface pries off the lid. It clatters to the bed of the truck, revealing a row of four automatic rifles packed in foam. Given the crate’s depth, there must be twenty or more rifles in there.

  My heart sinks.

  Oscar isn’t here. He was never going to be here. This is an arms sale, one cartel to another—Volante using drug money to equip his narcos like an army.

  I’m wondering why Lily thought this meeting so important when my blood freezes.

  Miguel has climbed down from his perch and covered half the distance to the trucks.

  What is he doing?

  Realization hits me. The two vehicles parked facing him. From my downslope hiding spot, I can see that Oscar is absent, but Miguel can’t. Adhering to our plan, he’s readying himself to yank Oscar away the moment he’s off the truck.

  Now what?

  By some miracle, Miguel catches my eye. I shake my head and motion for him to move back to the rocks.

  He freezes.

  After turning around on tiptoe and starting his retreat, Miguel lacks only a few feet from the rock face when the smoker shouts out, “Who’s that?”

  Miguel vaults to the top of the ridge in seconds.

  My cellphone pulses with Miguel’s incoming text. I’ll keep them busy. Get back to truck.

  CHAPTER 28

  Miguel didn’t need to bother.

  The narcos trade angry shouts. It’s difficult to make out every word, but each group seems to be accusing the other of trying to ambush them and take both the guns and the money.

  The sho
uting escalates.

  A shot rings out. The thugs scatter behind their vehicles.

  Within seconds, heavy gunfire erupts. Muzzle flashes light up the night like neon cactus blossoms. The pungent odor of gunpowder sweeps downslope.

  Scarface begins to alternate his fire between Miguel’s hiding place and the other truck.

  We have to get out of this war zone. I text Miguel and Carlos: Get back to the truck.

  The shooting dies down. Reloading, perhaps?

  Time to make our break. I dart along the riverbed, hoping they won’t hear me. Wish I’d thought of that when the din of gunshots filled the air.

  The gunfire resumes. I accelerate into an all-out sprint.

  The Frying Pan’s handle lies ahead. In moments, the riverbed will turn away from the route leading back to Carlos’ truck. At that point, I’ll have to climb back onto the clearing, level with the narcos. At least I’ve put some distance between me and the killers back there. I hope my companions have, too.

  My breath comes in ragged gasps, but there’s no slowing down now.

  Where the riverbed turns, I scramble up the dirt embankment and leap onto the Frying Pan’s handle. Now to retrace my steps back to the tow truck…in a sprint.

  A glance backwards reveals one of Volante’s thugs toppling backwards as a slug finds its mark. The three remaining narcos continue to fire from behind the cover of their vehicles.

  Squaring up, I soon reach top speed on my race back to the tow truck. My heart feels like it’s trying to tear itself out of my chest.

  On the right, Miguel’s form scrambles down the ridge and joins me—thank God.

  “Carlos?” I manage to gasp.

  “Up ahead,” he wheezes.

  We run together, silent but for the sound of our ragged breaths and our foot strikes in the soil. I’m tempted to drop my coa but refrain. If they catch us, it’ll be our only means of defense.

  Behind us, the shooting stops. Are any more of them dead? No time to look around.

  Now that they’re no longer distracted with each other, they’ll have time to come looking for us. I’d increase my pace if I could.