America Libre

by Raul Ramos y Sanchez

  “Listen to me carefully,” Mano said calmly to the three young men, who were shaken but still composed. “We need to spread out. Me entienden?” He tapped each of them on the chest and pointed in a different direction to reinforce his order.

  “Sí… Yes, I understand,” Tavo said. The others nodded in agreement.

  Mano took the loaded RPG from Tavo’s hands. “OK, now GO!” the big man said and gently shoved Tavo away. As the young men scattered, Mano looked back toward the helicopters. They were closing fast. He knew his unit’s survival was a matter of luck now—and the odds did not look good.

  At 9:21, the fax machine dedicated to Texas operations beeped into life, churning out a message. Jo started reading the sheet before it had completely emerged from the machine:

  Garrison on high alert. Attack failed. Nine dead.

  —TX-4

  The message was from El Paso. Scrawled in an urgent hand, the fax was the latest sign in a disturbing pattern. Although most of the sabotage missions were being carried out successfully, all the insurgents’ assaults against military installations were being decisively repulsed. The rebels were taking heavy casualties. Jo was now certain their attacks had been expected.

  She thought again of Mano. He had not been in touch with her since his coded radio call confirmed he was launching the attack twenty minutes ago. If her suspicions were correct, there was a good chance he and his men had walked into a trap. The thought filled her with dread.

  There was only one way the military could have been alerted—Nesto. She glanced toward the mero sitting in the corner between the two guards, looking very bored. What at this point could she do about his betrayal? The damage was done.

  Before Jo could decide her next step, her walkie-talkie began to squawk. It was one of the Verdugos stationed several blocks south, reporting the approach of two helicopters. As he spoke, Jo heard the low throbbing of the chopper blades in the distance.

  Now Jo faced a more immediate decision. Were the helicopters headed toward her location or merely flying over in response to the attacks Mano had launched against the outpost north of them? As a precaution, she sent Rafael outside to keep an eye on the approaching helicopters. If it looked like the choppers were about to land, he would return and alert them.

  From the corner of her eye, Jo observed Nesto’s reaction. The mero was still feigning indifference to the events around him. That seemed ominous.

  As the door closed behind Rafael, Jo’s RF radio screeched into life.

  “Oso calling Rubia…”

  Mano was calling.

  Mano watched the three Verdugos scramble up the barren slope along different routes. There was little cover at the crest of the hill. Mano knew the Comanches would make short work of the young men if they were caught in the open. He needed to buy them some time. If he could disable one of the helos, it might give them a chance to make it over the treeless summit and into the dense woods on the other side.

  Taking cover in an overgrown arbor, Mano saw the first Comanche appear above the tree line. It hovered for a moment, then charged up the slope, apparently spotting the men running near the crest. Mano could see the pulsing flashes of the chain guns mounted on the Comanche’s stubby fins.

  Mano knew he would have only one shot—and that shot would be at a fast-moving target. He brought the RPG to his shoulder, aimed at a spot about twenty meters in front of the Comanche, and squeezed the trigger.

  Watching his rocket’s smoky trail, Mano knew immediately he’d miscalculated. The Comanche was moving too fast. The rocket’s trajectory was lagging too far behind the helicopter. His heart sank as he realized the rocket would miss. But as the missile continued its arcing flight, it grazed the back of the Comanche, shattering its tail rotor.

  It was not a clean hit. But without the stability of its tail rotor, the Comanche went into a slow spin, and was forced to break off its attack. Mano felt momentary elation as the damaged Comanche was forced to land in a clearing about two hundred meters west. His men might make it to safety after all.

  Then the other Comanche appeared.

  The second helicopter picked up the pursuit its damaged partner had aborted, speeding up the hillside, its chain guns blazing.

  Over the next several minutes, Mano watched helplessly as the second Comanche hunted his men down and slaughtered them with methodical precision. The bitter taste of bile rose in his throat. He had failed to protect his men.

  After destroying its targets at the crest of the hill, the second helo returned to the damaged Comanche, hovering above its wounded teammate, protecting it from further attack.

  Mano was sure the outpost had tracked the position of his last RPG shot. But his proximity to the downed Comanche would spare him from another deadly volley of mortar fire. He now had a chance to escape.

  In that moment of relative calm, Mano began assessing the disastrous events of the last twenty minutes. The rockets from their RPGs had evidently been detected by Firefinder radar. Mano was stunned that a domestic garrison would have this type of sophisticated hardware. And the Comanches were the most advanced attack helicopters in the U.S. arsenal, having been resurrected from congressional oblivion by the Brenner administration. Even more startling, both weapons systems had been on operational alert.

  Clearly, his assault had been expected.

  It could only mean one thing: Nesto had alerted the CIA to the planned offensive.

  He thought instantly of Jo and felt a sharp pang of guilt. Bringing Nesto into the nerve center of this operation had been his idea. Although the rebel leaders now knew where to find Nesto, his presence could also endanger Jo—and he needed to warn her.

  Mano turned on his RF radio, knowing the transmission might alert the outpost to his presence. As the only one left of his command, he would accept the risk.

  “Oso calling Rubia. Oso calling Rubia. Over,” he said into the radio.

  After a few seconds of static, he heard Jo’s voice. “Go ahead, Oso,” she said.

  “You have a snake in the kitchen. Over,” he said, sure Jo would understand the message.

  “Understood, Oso. We’ve also got some hawks overhead here. They’re getting closer. I think—” Jo’s words ended abruptly, replaced by a stream of static.

  A chill traveled down Mano’s spine. “Jo, get out of there. Get out of there, NOW!” he shouted, dispensing with any semblance of a code.

  He listened for several seconds for her reply. The radio only belched static.

  “Jo… Jo… can you hear me?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.

  The radio continued its meaningless squawking.

  After almost a minute without a reply, Mano turned off the radio and tried to calm his mind. There was nothing more he could do to help Jo from here. Crouching inside the weedy arbor, he vowed to himself that Nesto would pay for his betrayal. But to do that—and to have any chance of helping Jo—he would have to get back to the QZ alive.

  Moving east, he backtracked to his original position, offering a silent prayer as he sprinted past the eviscerated bodies of his men killed by the mortar shells. He planned to circle the hill through the thick, protective woods on the lower sections of the slope. That indirect route would put him back inside the walls of Quarantine Zone B by dark—if he could manage to evade the foot patrols the garrison would be deploying soon.

  Nesto tried hard to control his excitement. Jo had just ordered one of his guards outside to watch for the helicopter. He was now being guarded by a single Verdugo. This chica is making my next move a whole lot easier, he told himself.

  The wiry mero had been nonchalantly eyeing the kitchen for the last twenty minutes, looking for a weapon. At first, his visual search had been fruitless. The Verdugos must have combed the area beforehand. But they had overlooked one thing.

  Along the ceiling, almost directly above Nesto, was a disconnected length of pipe that had once carried water into the kitchen’s overhead sprinkler system. The pipe was dangling at an
angle just above the head of the Verdugo beside him. If Nesto could distract the young guard for a few seconds, he could leap up, grab the end of the pipe, and bring it crashing down on the Verdugo’s head. After disabling the guard, he’d have access to the gun he could see bulging in the pocket of the vato’s baggy pants.

  His plan of action set, Nesto now needed the right moment to act. He did not have long to wait. Seconds after the first guard left the kitchen, he heard Jo’s radio squawk.

  “… Oso calling Rubia. Over,” the garbled voice on the radio said.

  Jo walked away from Nesto toward the far corner of the kitchen. It was the break Nesto had been waiting for. If he attacked the guard now, Jo would not be close enough to help.

  As he had been doing all along, Nesto stood and stretched. The guard was now used to his restless behavior and ignored it. With his hands in the air, Nesto unclasped his Rolex and let it drop to the floor.

  The sound of the watch hitting the floor drew the guard’s eyes downward. It was a fatal mistake.

  “… Oso calling Rubia. Over,” Mano’s voice said from Jo’s radio.

  Jo carried the radio into the far corner of the kitchen, out of earshot of Nesto, before answering. “Go ahead—” she said, relieved to know Mano was still alive, but she was stopped in midsentence by a loud crash. She spun toward the sound and saw Enrique on his hands and knees with Nesto standing over him, a folding chair raised above his head. Nesto viciously slammed the chair against Enrique’s skull, sending the young guard crashing to the floor.

  For a heartbeat, Jo stood frozen in disbelief. Then she dropped the radio and charged toward Nesto.

  As she closed on him, she saw the mero turn the lifeless guard over and retrieve the gun from his pocket. From nearly ten feet away, she dove.

  She crashed into Nesto, managing to grab his gun hand as she landed. The two grappled for control of the weapon, Jo’s advantage in agility an even match for Nesto’s superior strength.

  Locked in fierce combat, both Jo and Nesto were oblivious to the sound of a helicopter landing nearby, followed by a flurry of gunfire.

  Jo succeeded in pinning the gang leader to the ground, only to have Nesto pull her down by the hair. She countered with a knee to the testicles that doubled him over, leaving the mero gasping for breath. While he writhed in pain, she slammed his hand against the floor, sending the gun spinning into the corner. Before he could react, she leapt to her feet and retrieved the gun.

  Seconds later, she stood over the prone mero, the sights of the Glock-32 trained steadily on his forehead.

  Staff Sergeant Michael Ellis burst into the kitchen through its double swinging doors, his M4 at his shoulder. The sight he encountered bewildered the Delta Force veteran.

  Standing in the far corner of the room was a tall blonde, bleeding and badly bruised but pointing a handgun at a small Hispanic man cowering on the floor. The lifeless body of another man lay nearby, still bleeding from a head wound.

  The sergeant’s first thought was that the blonde was a Pancho hostage who had managed to overpower her captors. Still, Ellis had been trained to take no chances.

  “Drop the gun, ma’ am—now!” Ellis screamed through his black mask.

  As the sergeant watched in amazement, the blonde turned toward him and began firing.

  The dull stabs of the bullets striking his torso snapped Ellis out of his shock. The blows were painful in spite of his flak vest. He staggered backward. Then, in a reflex developed during years of training, the sergeant dropped to one knee and fired back at his assailant, his three-shot laser-guided burst striking the blonde in the head and upper chest. The force of the bullets hurled the woman’s body backward, still holding the pistol in her hand.

  Certain that the immediate threat was neutralized, Ellis swung his sights to the man lying on the floor, his face wide-eyed with terror.

  “Dorothy! Dorothy! Dorothy!” the little man on the floor shrieked, desperately waving his hands.

  Sergeant Ellis nodded in recognition to the terrified man, keeping his weapon trained on him. “Dorothy” was the code word identifying their mole.

  It was well after dark when Mano emerged from the Tunas Drive storm sewer inside Quarantine Zone B. His return had been delayed by the Army patrols and surveillance drones now bristling around the QZs—another surprise the Army had unveiled.

  He moved warily along the deserted street, normally bustling during early evening. Something—most likely an Army raid—had driven people indoors.

  He did not believe the Army would try to maintain a presence within the zone. The risk of a bloodbath was too great and the government was leery of casualties, both military and civilian. But after today’s debacle, he was not certain of anything.

  As he rounded the corner near the Holiday Inn, a trio of old men gathered round a barrel fire turned their heads toward him nervously.

  “Have you seen any baldies around?” Mano asked, walking closer.

  Looking at his black fatigues with approval, the oldest man pointed toward the hotel. “Two helicopters landed there this morning. There was a lot of shooting and then they flew away.”

  “Everybody’s been afraid to go in there,” added another.

  “Gracias,” Mano said, walking past them.

  “Que vayas con Dios,” the old man called after him.

  A flimsy barrier of plastic crime scene tape left by the Army encased the Holiday Inn complex. Pushing aside the tape, Mano entered the hotel, making his way through the interior courtyard. In the dim moonlight filtering through the skylights, he saw that the electrical generator had been destroyed.

  Just past the generator was the body of Rafael Rodriguez. The young Verdugo assigned to guard Nesto had been shot several times with a high-caliber weapon. Judging by the congealed blood around him, he’d been dead for several hours. The grisly sight raised Mano’s sense of foreboding.

  Mano produced a penlight from his fatigues and opened the door to the kitchen, his dread over Jo’s fate growing with each step into the total darkness inside.

  He waved the penlight around the room. The small light beam moved along the countertops, revealing the battered remnants of their communications equipment. Between the counters, Mano spotted the legs of a man lying on the floor. Moving closer, he saw it was Enrique Rueda, the other Verdugo assigned to guard Nesto. Enrique had been killed by a blow to the head.

  Mano’s anxiety mounted as he flicked his small spotlight around the rest of the room. Then his beacon found a flash of honey-gold hair. He stood frozen for a moment, summoning the courage to look. Finally, he let his penlight travel slowly over the body. Because of her hair and clothes, he was sure it was Jo. Her face was a grotesque mask, distorted beyond recognition by the wounds of two high-caliber bullets.

  Mano turned out the light and stood motionless in the darkness. In that instant, his thoughts converged like a laser beam into a single thought: find Nesto.

  Nesto’s special Nikes were getting seriously soiled.

  “Goddamn those CIA pendejos,” the mero muttered angrily as he walked through the narrow channel of foul brown water trickling along the bottom of the storm sewer, the beam of his flashlight bouncing wildly inside the cylindrical passageway.

  Nesto had been looking forward to the day when he got even with Mano and the DDP. Instead, it had turned out to be a shitty day.

  The first setback had come shortly after the Delta Force troopers secured the rebel command center. Nesto had expected the soldiers to take him away to safety. He did not want to be around if Mano somehow managed to survive.

  He was livid when the sergeant tersely explained there was no room in the chopper for him. But Nesto knew better. Apparently, his value to the CIA had ended. His anger soon turned to fear. He was now on his own in evading Mano.

  After Nesto returned to his barrio, things got worse. He found his vatos had vanished. One of the hookers said they had disappeared after hearing about a heavy baldie crack-down expected after the
big rebel push. Without the protection of his vatos, Nesto was left with little choice. He would have to flee.

  Though terrified that Mano would appear at any moment, he decided to risk a trip to his house. Approaching the large, tile-roofed structure, he noticed the front gate on the ten-foot fence surrounding the property had been left open.

  Nesto entered cautiously and found his house guards gone. Fortunately, the secret cache beneath the floorboards of his bedroom closet was intact. Five minutes later, he left the house laden with all the cash he could carry in his baggy pants. He tucked a .380 Colt Pony into his waistband beneath a loose-fitting plaid shirt.

  He spent the rest of the day sitting in the corner of a private cantina several blocks from his house, nursing a succession of Coors with his eyes constantly on the door.

  After sunset, he lowered himself into the storm sewer main at North Boyle and made his way through the large concrete tunnel toward the L.A. River. His plan was to make it to Mexico and lie low until he learned Mano’s fate.

  He was now less than a hundred meters from the storm sewer’s discharge point into the L.A. River.

  Crouching inside a dense clump of arundo, Mano listened intently, methodically surveying the nocturnal landscape of the Los Angeles River. As was common during most of the year, the river was an inch-deep puddle meandering through the concrete channel. Because of the city’s lack of maintenance over the last several years, an abundance of plants, in which Mano was now concealed, had sprung up through the cracks in the concrete. Mano was grateful for the cover.

  Coming to the river had been a long shot. Mano knew he had only a few hours to find Nesto. By morning, the wily mero would be long gone. Mano was counting on one thing: unless Nesto was in government custody, the gang leader would probably head south along the river after dark.

  Lying in wait along the river was not without risk. Twice in the last hour, a trio of Army Humvees had crossed the bridge just to the north of him.