The Rebel of Goza

by Steven F Freeman

  “Let’s keep them,” I say.

  “I thought we were using stealth,” whispers Miguel.

  “For sure, but if they do spot us, it’d be nice to have something to shoot back with.”

  “Good point.” He cocks his head. “Gaby, you ever used one of these before?”

  “Alex likes to go to gun ranges and took me along sometimes. I fired an AR-15 then.” I pull back the charging handle and release it, loading a round into the firing chamber. “But I think I’ll manage with this.”

  Carlos chuckles. “In that case, let me get the extra magazines the fat one had in his jacket.”

  While he leaves on his errand, I bandoleer the rifle across my back. Miguel follows suit, pulling the strap tight around his body.

  Carlos returns in no time and hands a magazine to each of us. The extra ammo barely fits in my jeans’ front pocket, but there’s nowhere else to keep it.

  “That’s it for the outside guards,” says Carlos. “If we’re going to save your brother, it’s time to enter the distillery itself.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Marcos Volante resists the urge to pace. The members of his gang respect power—including the ability to stay cool under pressure.

  And what could produce more pressure than a score that will dwarf anything from the past? But that’s how you rise in this business: having a grand vision and the balls to make it happen. You don’t let police or the military or rival cartels stop you.

  And his confident demeanor works. His men don’t seem too nervous. In fact, a rowdy group has formed a game of Monte Bank, gambling off drug money they won’t be paid for another week.

  The half-dozen “on shift” guards lean back in chairs or on unused crates, rifles or sidearms in their laps. With vacant expressions, they watch the hallway leading to the main entrance. They don’t enjoy the discipline of standing guard, but that attention to detail gives them confidence in the cartel’s success—not just this first shipment, but in scores to come.

  Like a static charge, a pulse of excitement buzzes through the air. Volante nods in satisfaction.

  Ramirez, Volante’s lieutenant and the cartel’s number-two man, approaches. “You look happy, sir.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” says Volante. “We’ve been stockpiling this talco for almost a year, waiting for a safer route. Now we finally have one.” He withdraws a Cuban cigar from his shirt pocket, lights up, and inhales deeply. He releases the smoke gradually, savoring the aroma. “By this time tomorrow, the farm trucks will be here, and we’ll be loading product.”

  Volante doesn’t mention the drug’s street value. With twenty-six crates containing twelve kilograms each, and with talco valued at $80,000 per kilo wholesale, he stands to clear just under twenty-five million dollars. Call it twenty-four after paying his men for transporting the goods. The omission is intentional. Best to keep some things concealed, so his lieutenants won’t harbor dreams of becoming generals—at Volante’s expense.

  Ramirez isn’t leaving.

  “What do you want?” asks Volante.

  “You said to let you know if anything happens with the patrols. Fisheyes isn’t answering his walkie-talkie.” The man looks at the dirt floor and shuffles his feet. Why so nervous?

  Volante frowns. Must he do everything himself? “What about Soho?”

  “He doesn’t have one. We were running short, so I figured they’d be together on patrol anyway…” He trails off and shrugs. No wonder Ramirez is nervous. He fucked up and didn’t order enough communications gear. But it still doesn’t explain why Fisheyes isn’t responding.

  “Those pendejos probably didn’t change the damn batteries like I told them to,” says Volante. “Send Chavez out there with a fresh walkie-talkie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The cartel leader throws himself onto a rickety bench in front of the aging barrels and spits onto the floor. He’ll be glad to leave this shithole as soon as the pick-up is over. Then he’ll start work on surrounding himself with accommodations more suited to his new wealth.

  CHAPTER 40

  When planning this rescue mission back at Carlos’ house, we all acknowledged the futility of trying to enter the distillery through the main entrance. And we knew from Abuelo’s blueprints that the building’s only other doors were the padlocked ones in the back. Theoretically, we could try to break the padlocks, but that would be as noisy inside the building as out. Might as well set off firecrackers and shout, “We’re here!”

  Fortunately, the blueprints revealed an alternative entrance, one perfectly suited to our purpose. To use it, we need to return to the oven. The shortest route would lead us across the distillery’s only access road. Rather than take that risk, we opt to return the way we came, trudging through an agave field on which the distillery casts impenetrable shadows.

  Soon we leave the shadows and travel around to the building’s southern side.

  When we’re at the six o’clock position, Carlos stops and leans in to whisper. “That wall right across from us…it should be the aging room, right?”

  I recall the blueprints and my earlier expedition. “Yeah, should be.”

  Carlos grins. “Time to leave our surprise.” After glancing around, he bolts to the side of the building. He withdraws an explosive device he used his decades of mechanic experience to piece together during our hours of preparation earlier in the day. We all agreed that the toughest part of the rescue would be penetrating the aging room, where the narcos would be concentrated. To even the odds, he kludged together parts from his shop into a device that should punch through the building’s exterior wall. He said it probably wouldn’t have enough force to kill many narcos—not a bad thing, considering Oscar will be there, too. But the device will hopefully create enough chaos to allow us to slip through and retrieve my brother.

  Carlos attaches the device at shoulder level behind a ventilation pipe, out of sight from all but the most keen-eyed sentry. He flips the activation switch and stuffs the remote detonator, a key to a 2015 Camry, into his pocket.

  He returns, and we continue our march around the building until we’re once again at the three o’clock position, directly across from the oven.

  We take to scanning the surroundings. No narcos. Looks like they haven’t yet realized their guards have gone missing. That’s good, but surely it can’t be much longer before they notice something’s wrong.

  Crouching, we trot to the building, continue past the oven, and press against the distillery’s wall.

  We search for a moment before finding our objective: a metal chute built into the brick wall. The shaft was used to shuttle freshly cooked piñas from the oven to the building’s interior, where they were crushed and the juice fermented in enormous steel containers. Now it’ll be used to shuttle us inside.

  The chute is hinged at the bottom, allowing the access plate to open flat. Leaning back, I pull on the plate’s rusty handle.

  Nothing.

  Another tug cracks open the plate a few centimeters. Miguel moves in to help. With him straining on one corner and me on the other, the plate swings halfway downward with a rusty groan.

  I wince and duck down. Anyone outside would have surely heard that racket. Maybe someone inside, if they’re close enough.

  Looks like our luck has held out. No one comes to investigate. They’re probably all on the other side of the building, clustered around the main entrance and the stash of drugs.

  Carlos pushes the plate flat, and we squeeze through the narrow opening one at a time. It’s dangerous entering blind like this, but Miguel predicted the room would be empty, given that it’s on the opposite side of the distillery from the main entrance, the only unlocked door. He figured Volante would concentrate his men around the drugs and the main entrance, ready to defend against an all-out assault from another cartel but less prepared for the infiltration of a small band like us.

  I stand in the room, barely able to make out my own hand. Fermentation requires careful temperat
ure control. This room’s lack of windows—except a pair of tiny portholes on each wall—makes that easier, but tonight, it shrouds the space in nearly complete darkness. I strain my eyes trying to make out anything.

  At last, my vision adjusts to the reduced lighting. It’s impossible to make out much detail, but colorless shapes and surfaces appear in tiny shafts of moonlight.

  Miguel was right. In the illuminated sections, undisturbed dust covers floor and steel fermentation vats alike. Looks like the narcos have never made it this far into the structure. Why would they? Their goal was preparing their drugs for shipment, not exploring the deepest depths of an old tequila distillery. Heaven forbid they show an ounce of intellectual curiosity.

  Carlos covers almost all of his cellphone’s faceplate and switches it on, letting the tiny uncovered portion light our way. Across the room is a wide opening into the next step in the production process, the stills.

  The floor’s coat of dust muffles the noise of our footsteps as we steal towards the passageway.

  A drunken laugh erupts from a few meters ahead, just beyond the doorway but still out of sight.

  We freeze, unwilling to move…unwilling to breathe. Carlos switches off his cellphone, plunging the room into almost complete darkness once again.

  “Yah, man,” shouts the narco. “I’m gonna find a bathroom.”

  We listen for his footsteps but hear nothing.

  Carlos and I take two steps to the left, where a fermentation tank conceals us. Miguel tiptoes to the doorframe and presses himself against the wall, his countenance lit in the moon’s faint glow. He raises he coa above his head.

  But will it help? Yes, we’re inside the distillery, but we’re not close enough to Oscar to reveal ourselves yet. If we’re discovered now, with the majority of the narcos located here in this distillery with us, neither we nor my brother will make it out in one piece.

  For now, maintaining silence is the key to staying alive. The worry written across Miguel’s brow suggests he shares this concern.

  Still no movement, no sound from the drunk narco. Is this a diversion, the first part of a trap Volante is drawing around us?

  A hiccup pierces the darkness, then a shuffle. If the narco is faking his inebriation, he’s doing a fantastic job.

  I crouch down and risk a peek from around my tank.

  Miguel tightens his grip on his coa and falls still. In the faint glow of moonlight, his form blends in with the twisted shapes and shadows produced by the variety of equipment in this room.

  The narco stumbles into the room, stops, and begins to fumble with his zipper. From the sound of it, he’s having trouble with this task.

  Miguel creeps behind the man and slips his coa over the thug’s head, then slams it backwards into the gang member’s throat. Keeping the pressure on, Miguel drags him backwards.

  The thug’s arms flail. His feet shuffle on the dirty floor, but no shout escapes his lips.

  Carlos and I emerge from our hiding spot to help Miguel overpower this gang member.

  It’s hard to make out details in the dark room, but a metallic ping announces the arrival of Miguel and his captive at the first of the fermentation vats.

  I head that direction, arriving in time to see Miguel choke the man out. The thug slumps to the floor, unconscious. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s not.

  Miguel doesn’t want to take any chances. He drags the dead weight into the vat, then swings shut the door and turns the captain’s-wheel lock hand over hand until it’s tightly sealed. He then flips the activation switch and cranks the heat setting to maximum. To my surprise, the indicator light blinks on. Not all of the distillery lacks electricity.

  The vat’s temperature gauge inches upwards. My first instinct is to pity the man inside it. Then I remember the hundreds of innocent victims his cartel has murdered over the years. By taking him off the street, we’re bound to be saving lives.

  The wall of the fermentation tank has already grown warm. I’m glad but a bit surprised the thing still works. I think I’ll pass on whatever beverage comes out of that batch.

  As I begin turning back from the vat’s door, I’m stopped cold by a sickening sound: the chuck of a blade burying itself deep into flesh.

  CHAPTER 41

  Volante wills himself to remain seated atop one of the empty crates. Pacing looks worried…distracted…weak. To his men, he must appear in utter control at all times—of the situation and of himself.

  But thoughts crowd his mind. What the devil is taking Chavez so long? The man had better not be sampling the product again. He’d already been warned once, and in The Brotherhood, that’s all the warnings anyone ever got. Volante would hate to dispose of a man who’d been in the cartel since its inception over two decades ago. But he will if Chavez has slipped again. Allowing unacceptable behavior to persist is a recipe for losing control of the men. Before long, they’d answer to no one. What was the expression? Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Volante lives by that rule, and the men of his cartel know it.

  He has decided to send another man after his lieutenant when Chavez’s breathless form emerges from the darkened passage leading from the main entrance into this aging room.

  “What took you so long?” snaps Volante, studying his underling for signs of a drug high.

  “I can’t find the front guards—either of them,” answers Chavez, still panting but exhibiting no signs of intoxication. “And the ones out back aren’t answering their walkie-talkies, either.”

  Trouble.

  The hairs on Volante’s neck begin to rise. One or perhaps two men might be missing for innocent reasons: taking a piss in the agave fields, or stopping together for a quick smoke break. But four? Something’s going down.

  “Everybody to your posts,” snarls Volante. “And don’t forget your toys.”

  The men scramble. Some snatch up rifles leaning against newly constructed crates and dusty oak barrels. Others unholster menacing sidearms.

  Chavez leans close.

  “Sir, do you think it’s the Sinaloas?” he asks, referring to the cartel The Brotherhood battled the day before at Tequila Volcano.

  “No. They know what arms we had, even without the ones they were gonna sell us. We could fight off an army.”

  “Then who?”

  “Federales,” he said, referring to agents of Mexico’s national police drug task force. “Who else would it be? The other cartels, they keep track of us like we keep track of them. They know we’re armed. They wouldn’t have the juevos to attack us.”

  The men carry their tactical gear to their assigned posts. Volante had insisted that the cartel form a protocol for repelling attacks. It works for armies. Why not for drug runners, too? At the start of each mission, he assigns his men to posts in a strategic manner, using defensible positions to ensure maximum protection for the shipment and his men.

  The men always grumble about the extra work. After today, they won’t be grumbling. Not after witnessing firsthand the importance of military techniques and discipline.

  And his armament would warm the heart of any NATO general. A half dozen men carrying brand-new M4s, the U.S. Army’s standard rifle, race between rows of aging barrels to guard the main entrance. Ten more men with Sig Sauer MCX assault rifles deploy behind the barrels themselves, ready to repel any opponents who manage to penetrate the main entrance’s blockade.

  Volante reserves the most lethal firepower for the essential duty of forming a perimeter around the drug crates themselves. Eight narcos armed with Steyr AUG submachine guns—assault rifles on steroids—assemble around the wooden containers. Some crouch behind the crates, while others use nearby barrels for concealment.

  Four men toting M4s deploy to the rear of the room, acting as insurance against opposing forces who might try to flank the crates and attack from the sides. Six more narcos with identical weaponry man the distilling room, the previous step in the production process and next room over.

  Except for those in the
distilling room, all the men face the main entrance. Gonzalez, the cartel’s newest member, takes a knee behind a stack of three crates. He licks his lips and rubs the still-fresh edges of the two-hands tattoo he acquired two weeks ago.

  The men work in near silence. No one speaks, but the sounds of combat preparations echo through the dismal environment: magazines slapping into place…charging handles being pulled and released, loading initial rounds into firing chambers…barrels and crates repositioned to allow the optimal line of sight to the attackers’ most likely route.

  Volante understands the men’s somber mood. The easy mission that was supposed to lead to quick riches has taken a deadly turn. But The Brotherhood has the means to repel any opponent—if they don’t lose their nerve.

  He grimaces and unholsters his own magnum 45. Whoever ratted him out is a dead man—just like the federales he’s preparing to battle.

  CHAPTER 42

  I swing my head to find the source of the lethal noise, the sound of a blade penetrating flesh.

  In the near total darkness of the room, I make out only shifting images—a flash of dull grey metal, a form sliding to the floor—and a soft, almost gentle, gasp as a man’s final breath leaves his body.

  But who?

  I risk a whisper. “Amigos?”

  “It’s me,” replies Carlos in a whisper.

  Now I can exhale my own breathe.

  “Looks like this guy was following his drunk buddy,” continues Carlos. He motions to the floor, presumably in the direction of the narco.

  I squint into formless obsidian shadows. It’s simply too dark to see anything except… There! A leg lies close to an irregular splash of moonlight that has managed to penetrate the building’s filthy windows.

  Using the same illumination, Carlos pulls his coa blade across his jeans, wiping off a smear of blood. “That guy won’t be killing any more innocent people.” He returns and picks up the narco’s rifle, then slings it over his shoulder.