She squeezed the trigger again and saw the man fall backwards, a red spot spreading across his chest.
The rider was getting closer.
“Stay here with Kayla,” Harry shouted, then dashed down the trail.
Chapter 34
Teotihuacán, Mexico
The steak of black with claws and fangs came from out of nowhere. It swept the first gunman off of the pyramid with a quick swipe of its paw. The second gunman didn’t have time to react. The panther was on him, crushing his neck in its mouth, tearing him open with its claws.
It shook the hapless man like a wet dishrag, then tossed him aside.
Yves pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his back and fired two shots, but they were hurried and went wide. The cat was on him in an instant.
“Noooooooo . . .”
Ted could hear Yves panic from a hundred yards below.
The cat tore and slashed at the man dressed as an Aztec high priest.
The four priests panicked and ran. They scrambled down the steps or ran for cover around the corner of the pyramid.
The cat lifted Yves off the ground in its jaws. Yves pounded at the cat’s head with the pistol. The cat shook Yves, then tossed him aside. His body bounced on the stones and landed in a bloody pile next to the altar. The cat stood, every muscle poised, ready to spring, surveying its surroundings, looking for the next threat.
It didn’t have to wait long.
“Noooooo,” Madame Trufaunt shouted. She picked up the obsidian knife from the ground and charged at the cat. She grabbed the cat’s ear in her hook hand and slashed with the knife, stabbing again and again.
****
Ted and Chris heard the cat’s roar and knew what was coming. While the rest of the people froze in shock, Ted exchanged a glance with Chris.
They each knew what the other was thinking.
Now!
Ted hit the narco with the assault rifle on his left like he was a linebacker blocking his path. The man went down in a heap, the rifle flying. Ted smashed his face with a fist, then jumped to his feet and kicked the man in the ribs. The man coughed and shouted.
Ted grabbed the rifle as the man tried to regain his feet. Ted smashed the butt of the rifle into the man’s head and he went down.
Ted turned to see Chris struggling with the other man. The crazed narco shoved the much larger American off of him. He grabbed for his rifle and pointed towards Chris.
Ted didn’t think, he just reacted. He felt the firing selector with his thumb, like Candace had shown him. It was straight up. He took a bead and pulled the trigger.
The single shot hit the man square in the chest. He dropped his rifle and looked at Ted in disbelief, then looked down at the small hole in his chest, oozing blood. He stood dazed for a second, then crumpled to the ground.
“NO!” Jeff shouted.
He picked up his weapon from the ground. The laser sight was still on. He sighted it on the small woman pummeling the big cat with the obsidian knife.
“Jeff!” Ted shouted. Could he hit her without hitting the cat?
The rifle cracked.
Madame Trufaunt spun around, then toppled down the steps of the great pyramid.
Ted had the image in his mind of Aztec priests, sacrificing their victims, then rolling their headless bodies down the steep steps to the crowd below.
It only took a moment for Madame Trufaunt to tumble all the way down the steps to the courtyard below. When her body came to a halt near Ted’s feet, she was a bloody mess.
Ted looked up at the pyramid, to the platform were Guillermo was still spread-eagled across the altar. There was no sign of the cat.
“Are you okay, my brother?” Ted whispered.
He began climbing the steep stairs. It took an eternity to reach the platform and he was winded by the time he reached the altar. He looked around.
Yves’s body was a bloody pile near the foot of the altar. The two gunmen lay crumpled on either side. A large pool of blood oozed where Madame Trufaunt had attacked the jaguar.
Ted knelt and looked at the blood. Is that yours or hers? He wondered.
He walked around the pyramid on the platform. There was no sign of his benefactor.
Where had the cat come from? Where had it gone?
As he came around the corner, he saw his little brother still on the altar. He scooped him up in his arms and began descending the steps.
****
The Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Montana
The first shot lifted Jorge off of his horse. El Cuchillo spurred his mount forward. He didn’t look behind him, he just rode as hard and fast as he could for cover. He heard the report of a rifle and felt a bullet pass close to his head. He leaned down along the horse’s neck.
The pendejos, they had the nerve to fire on him. As he stopped in the shadow of a large boulder, he looked back. Jorge was crumpled on the ground, his horse nowhere to be seen. His other compadres cowered behind rocks.
Then he heard another shot. José flew backwards.
Caramba! He had to put a stop to this; he needed to work his way up through the rocks to where the cabrón was firing on them.
El Cuchillo had lived in the United States for a few years, working for El Lobo trafficking drugs. By the time he was deported back to Mexico, he had developed a taste for American movies.
This was just like an old Western. Was he the bad guy or the good guy? He wore a white hat. In his mind, those were bandidos in the rocks above him. He needed to flank them, sneak around behind them and stop this madness.
He pulled the M16 from the scabbard on his saddle. It stuck and he had a hard time getting it free. The scabbard had not been made for such a rifle.
Keeping low, he worked his way up the hill under cover. Occasionally, he heard the report of the single rifle, usually followed by automatic fire from his remaining men.
Good, their fire would keep the cabrón tied down.
It didn’t take long to get above the sharpshooter. He looked down the rocks and to his surprise it was a woman shooting down at his men. It didn’t matter, man or woman, he had a job to do: he had to get the girl.
He took a few steps down the path to get a better shot at her and raised his rifle.
Then he froze.
They didn’t tell me Indiana Jones would be here, he thought.
He stared at the tall man with the leather jacket and fedora holding a shot gun in his hands.
It couldn’t be. . .
Before he had a chance to move, he saw the blast from the shotgun’s muzzle, heard the roar of its shot.
****
Teotihuacán, Mexico
The helicopter landed on the Avenue of the Dead, directly in front of the Pyramid of the Sun. Uniformed soldiers poured from the doors.
From the right front seat, Coronel Lazaro, dressed in a khaki uniform, stepped into the cool night air.
Ted recognized the tall officer from his regal bearing, as he moved across the battle field like he was born to command.
Other soldiers appeared on the walls of the ancient city, all armed in full battle attire.
”I see we’re too late,” the Coronel said.
Ted reached for his outstretched hand. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what happened.” He turned to where Hope sat on the ground, cradling Guillermo’s head in her lap. “This is my brother, Colonel. He’s been drugged and battered, but he’s alive.”
“Does he need medical attention?” the Coronel asked. “I have a Med-Evac helicopter standing by.”
Chris walked up to them and interrupted. “Yes, he’s in pretty bad shape. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“Colonel, I want to introduce you to Catrina Flaherty.” Ted turned to Catrina. “She’s been my mentor and the heart of this whole operation.”
Lazaro trained an appraising eye on Catrina. “Señora Flaherty, it is my pleasure.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Jefe.
”
Soldiers swarmed around the compound. Ted noticed a group of them herding the four Aztec priests with their hands secured behind their backs towards the steps in the wall.
“This is a big coup for us,” Lazaro said. “We have been hunting the mysterious Señor Muerte for some time. This will put a severe hole in the cartels’ ability to arm themselves. It is a major win in the war on drugs.”
Suddenly, Ted was so tired that he couldn’t stand. He started shaking violently. He felt his knees buckle.
Catrina stepped up and put her arm around Ted. “Let’s sit you down.” She helped Ted a few steps to the base of the pyramid and helped him sit. “Colonel, do any of your men have water?”
Ted’s breath came fast and shallow. He had a hard time getting enough oxygen into his lungs. He felt moisture in his eyes.
He looked up at Catrina. “I shot a man.” The reality of his deed had just begun to sink in. “All my life, I’ve hated guns. Hated violence. Now here I am. I shot a man.”
“It’s okay, Ted.” Chris kneeled down on the ground besides his friend. “If you hadn’t shot him, he would have killed me. You saved my life . . . again.”
Lazaro handed Catrina a bottle of water. “I have the information you requested.”
She stood to face him. “What do you have?”
“All the details on Rancho Los Martires. It was named by Cortez himself, when the Indians killed three of his men.” He handed Catrina a manila envelope. “Everything you need should be in there.”
****
Ranchos Los Martires, Baja California, Mexico
Catrina’s plan seemed foolproof. Except for all the things that could go wrong with it.
Ted and Catrina approached the rancho on horseback, over the rolling hills. They didn’t dare take the only road in because they would have been spotted miles away.
Jeff and Hope took an RIB, a rigid inflatable boat, through the San Lorenzo Channel to the ranch. An approach by sea at night should go unnoticed.
It was up to Chris to get them out of there alive.
The sun had long since descended behind the mountains when Ted and Catrina reined in their horses on the hill above the ranch compound. In the bright moonlight, much too bright for Ted’s taste, they could see the buildings below.
There were several palatial villas scattered on the low hills above the sea, all with white stucco walls and red tile roofs. A large hotel sat opposite a white sand beach with four smaller buildings on each side. The green of a driving range and putting greens provided a stark contrast to the dull brown of the desert. Just beyond the hotel, Ted could make out a paved air strip.
“Those cabañas on the left are where we’ll find him,” Catrina whispered.
“I’ll get to work.” Ted reached into his saddle bag and produced his lap top. They dismounted and set their horses free. They wouldn’t need them again. It took a moment for Ted to get a satellite link to connect him to the Internet.
“These guys are pretty sophisticated, for a bunch of druggies,” he said as he worked on his computer. “They made a fatal mistake though. No one ever thinks to shield their peripheral cables.”
“Huh?” Catrina was not well versed in computer technology.
“The cables that connect the computer to the monitor, the printer, etc. They give off electronic signals that you can pick up for up to two miles. If you don’t shield your cables, someone, like little ol’ me, can use them to hack into your system.”
After a few more keystrokes, Ted had the satisfaction of seeing a box pop-up challenging him for a password.
“We’ll see how smart these guys are.” He clicked a few keys and another dialog box appeared on his screen.
“ATTEMPTING TO BREAK PASSWORD,” it said. “PLEASE WAIT.”
A red bar appeared on the bottom of the dialog box and slowly worked its way across the screen, then it turned green.
“We’re in.” Ted pumped his fist in the air. It had been a long time since he used his hacking skills. “Good thing I modified Cracker to use a Spanish dictionary,” he said. Cracker was the password hacking program he had worked on for YTS Security in Seattle a lifetime ago. “I needed something to occupy my mind while I was working with Papa.”
The thought of his father brought a lump to his throat. He swallowed and focused on the task at hand.
“Here’s their security system. It looks pretty sophisticated.”
“Can you shut it down?” Catrina asked.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Ted grinned.
He never thought he would be using his hard-won computer skills in the middle of a godforsaken desert in Baja California. He looked up at the night sky, they were losing time fast, the moon was nearly down.
He took a deep breath and turned back to his screen.
“That should do it. I’ve shut the whole system down. I found yesterday’s video recordings from their security cameras. I’ve set them up to run playback so they don’t suspect the system’s down.”
Catrina slapped him on the back. “Teddy boy, you’re a genius.”
He reflected for a moment. Guillermo was safely in a hospital in Mexico City. Maria Gonzales was checking in on him. The thought of Maria brought a smile to his face. His heart felt light for the first time in weeks. He felt a sense of freedom he hadn’t had in years.
“Let’s go,” Catrina said as she picked up her assault rifle. “We have to be in place when Jeff and Hope get there.”
Chapter 35
Ranchos Los Martires, Baja California, Mexico
Hope had no experience with boats. She had taken the ferry across to Catalina Island a couple of times to visit her cousin who cooked in a restaurant there, but she had never trusted her life to a little rubber bath tub.
The RIB was fairly comfortable. It had a hard fiberglass bottom and a padded seat in front of Jeff’s steering console. It wasn’t big enough to get up and move around in. She sat in her seat and held on.
Jeff drove like a madman. As soon as they were clear of La Paz harbor, he opened up the outboard motor and the boat took off like it had been shot out of a cannon. They climbed up on top of the waves and flew across them like a stone skipping on a lake.
The night was warm, but with the thirty mile an hour wind created by the speeding boat, Hope felt chilled. She snuggled down in her windbreaker and gritted her teeth. It shouldn’t take long.
It took them almost an hour to cruise around the shoreline. As they approached the stone breakwater protecting a small fleet of open fishing boats, Jeff throttled back on the engine slowing the boat down.
At low speed, the engine hardly made any noise. It wouldn’t be good to have a reception committee waiting for them.
Jeff hadn’t said a word since they left La Paz; he seemed lost deep within his own thoughts. He ran the rubber boat up on the rocky beach.
“Let’s get unloaded,” were his first words.
“Jeff, is everything all right? You’ve been so quiet.”
Jeff looked at Hope for a moment, furrows on his handsome brow. “I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this. I’m not sure why we’re putting all of our lives in danger for a drug punk like Adams.”
With that he turned, took the boat’s tie line and fastened it around a post. “I don’t know why I’m doing this; we aren’t using the boat on the way out.”
How much had this operation cost? Hope knew that they had to buy the boat and motor, no one would rent it to them for a one way trip. Cat and Ted’s horses were also purchased; they weren’t coming out with them either.
I wonder if she’s run out of money yet? Oh well, Hope knew that if she did, Ted would step in and fill the gap.
“Planet earth to Hope,” Jeff said.
Hope snapped out of her thoughts. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She handed Jeff the waterproof duffle bag with their gear.
Jeff set it on the ground and removed the M16s. He took the night vision goggles and put them on his head. They only had one pai
r; Hope would have to go in with normal vision. He handed Hope a Kevlar vest.
“No,” she said. ”You should wear this.”
“Ladies first,” he said. “If anything happened to you, Higuera would never let me forget it.”
He took one of the back packs and handed the other to Hope. “Let’s get moving.”
The pair walked silently away from the compound. Jeff moved like it was daylight, but Hope had to struggle to keep up. She constantly miss-stepped on the rocky beach and had to fight to keep her balance in the dark.
A couple of hundred feet later, they came to the road and the going was much easier. Jeff led the way towards the air strip.
“This should be good,” he said as he stopped at a drain culvert just across from the runway. He took his backpack and placed it inside the culvert. “Okay, let’s go.”
He crossed the airstrip and found a second location that suited his purposes. A small white building with an orange windsock on it sat off to one side of the runway. He deposited the second backpack in the weeds at the base.
“Let’s get back to the cabañas now.” He reached for the radio on his belt.
“Cat,” he said into the radio as he held down the button. “Good to go, we’re moving to location A.”
“Roger.” Hope heard Catrina’s reply.
I hope Teddy’s all right, she thought. She already had one brother in the hospital; she didn’t want to have to face Mama if anything happened to Ted.
Hope and Jeff moved silently through the night. It was almost a mile from the airstrip to the hotel’s villas. It took them most of a half an hour to get in place.
“Ready,” Jeff said into the radio.
“Roger that,” was Catrina’s response.
They waited in the shadows of the first cabaña, catching their breaths. The wait seemed to take forever, until finally the lights went out and the compound was thrown into darkness.
The Mexican Connection: Ted Higuera Series Book 3 Page 26