“Soon. Here within a few days or my family and I will be on a plane with Juan Soto and we will be seeking asylum either in your country or the UK.”
The Ambassador looked floored, and Rivera continued.
“I am not bluffing. We have six months and we need a team down here operating in just a few days if we’re going to start making a dent in Flores’s operations. If you think you have problems now, wait until our government collapses and Flores puts in one of his puppets as President. Now, call your Secretary of State and President immediately and tell them to get some of your finest men down here. I don’t care if you have to redeploy them from elsewhere, and I don’t want to hear any excuses on this one. They’re here in the next few days or we’re packing up and I’ll hand you the keys to the place before we leave.”
The Ambassador had collected himself by now and said with stunned, but practiced, formality, “Mr. President, I will relay your words to my government and we will move as quickly as we can.”
“Within just a few days,” Rivera said. “And I can see myself out.”
And with that, Rivera walked out of the room and toward his convoy waiting in the walled Embassy compound.
Chapter 3
The United States deployed one of its elite counter-terror teams from SEAL Team Six to Mexico, and they arrived prior to President Rivera’s deadline. The SEAL Team and its support staff quickly set up on a military compound in Mexico City and prepared for operations.
Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel learned of the SEAL Team deployment before the troops even loaded planes in the United States. His millions in payouts to officials throughout both governments proved their worth. And while it was surprising at how fast he learned it, both Mexico and the United States knew he would learn of it quickly.
You didn’t run the most powerful drug cartel in North America without having an intelligence network good enough to make the CIA blush.
In this case, a Mexican Army Major called in to the Godesto Cartel that his base had been instructed to prepare a barracks for an American commando team. Similarly, a Mexican Air Force officer reported that space around an airfield had been cleared with enough room for a half-dozen helicopters. And several government contacts in President Rivera’s administration stated that a troop coordination was in the works between the two governments.
Hernan Flores laughed at President Rivera.
Flores had learned the full situation by this point -- both the threat by Juan Soto to sell his companies and leave the country, and Rivera’s desperate pleas for help from America.
He laughed harder at the thought that Rivera had threatened to seek asylum. That fool thinks he can flee and spare his family, Flores thought.
Flores spewed out half-chewed Funyuns, nearly choking with laughter. He leaned back further at his desk, and his chair groaned beneath his weight. His feet lay propped across the top of his twenty-thousand-dollar mahogany desk, and he held in his lap a big bag of Funyuns chips.
After wolfing down three more Funyuns, Flores flicked the spewed crumbs from his sprawling stomach. Since he no longer wore suits, he didn’t worry about getting grease on his clothes. He looked down at the front of his button-down, short-sleeve shirt and saw the dark shirt showed no greasy stains.
He shook his head in wonder that he used to wear suits -- even three-piece suits complete with vests at one time. He used to dress to impress, with confining custom-fitted suits. Now, he preferred the comfort of a Hawaiian shirt. Untucked, of course.
Short-sleeve shirts were all he ever wore these days -- he liked not having to tuck the shirts in -- and the short sleeves helped keep him from sweating too badly. That was one of the downsides to being big, or really big, if he were honest: You sweat like a whore working overtime, and you smelled like one, too.
Hernan Flores wiped his hairy forearm across his sweaty forehead and grabbed some more chips. Christ, he was hot, and he had his office thermostat set to sixty-six degrees. I’ve got to start exercising at some point, he thought.
He was a big man and he knew these chips wouldn’t help the cause, but he dug deep in the bag and grabbed two more. After all, he was celebrating. Juan Soto was on the verge of leaving. President Roberto Rivera had messed his drawers and called in actual combat troops from the Americans, not just advisers.
The proud Mexican people would be outraged at Rivera’s decision to bring in American troops. Flores laughed as he stuffed more Funyuns down and imagined his plan coming to completion. Now, he just hoped the SEAL Team took the bait.
Chapter 4
The Navy SEAL Team struck its first blow against the Godesto Cartel at 3 a.m.
Four helicopters tore across the city toward an old, decrepit warehouse. Two guards -- caught by surprise on the roof -- scrambled for cover and brought their AK-74s to bear toward the helicopters.
Two shots, unheard over the roar of the helicopters, dropped both guards. Two SEAL Sniper teams already on station reported the confirmed hits to their commander. They had moved into their positions a full day prior to the mission.
The helicopters flared above the warehouse, dropping their speed from sixty to zero almost instantly. Crew chiefs kicked out lines and SEALs fast-roped onto the roof.
They assembled quickly and sprinted to a steel door, where they stacked, blew it, and rushed down the stairwell into a dark warehouse.
Outside the building, a convoy of Mexican Special Forces troops raced toward the target in Humvees. They encircled the target and covered both the warehouse and the routes leading up to it.
Inside, the SEALs cleared the warehouse and easily killed seven barely trained men, who attempted to stop them with light weapons ranging from AKs to pistols.
Mexican Police soon arrived and the forces collected and tallied the loot.
“A good first operation,” the SEAL Team Leader said.
“Yes,” the Mexican military officer said. Acting as the SEAL Team’s liaison, he was impressed with how the SEALs had somehow gathered such great intel. Before him lay crates of assault rifles and sea bags crammed full of heroin.
They wouldn’t know the full tally for hours, but he figured the total seizure would top several million dollars.
“Your men moved quickly,” he said to the SEAL Team Leader.
Tapping his boot against the prone body beside him, the Mexican military officer replied, “They never stood a chance.”
The SEAL Team Leader smiled and said, “That’s how we like it.”
Moments after getting briefed on the operation the next morning, President Roberto Rivera called Juan Soto.
“It has begun,” Rivera said with satisfaction.
“It began many years ago,” Juan said, “when you were elected with lofty promises.”
Rivera ignored the snide remark and quickly briefed Juan on the dead guards and seized weapons and heroin.
“Not bad, but that’s barely a dent in Hernan Flores’s empire,” Juan said.
“You promised to be optimistic until the six months ended.”
“No, I promised to be publicly optimistic. That does not mean I’m buying into this plan of yours. I’m sorry, Roberto.”
“You didn’t see the Navy SEALs in action. I watched them on a drone video. They’re really something else.”
Juan sighed.
“No, what’s something is Hernan Flores and the Godesto. They have an army of thousands. Foot soldiers, informers, corrupt police officers. Do not think your sales spiel from a single night’s operation will change my mind.”
Rivera kept his spirits up. “You’ll see, my friend. Tonight was just the beginning.”
It was a full day and a half later before the raid info came back to the Godesto Cartel.
Hernan Flores was doing one of the things he did best: entertaining others. He stood among several distinguished guests at a fundraiser gala, laughing and smiling. One of his best skills was his ability to charm anyone, whether it’s the man picking up the garbage or an Ivy League
-educated candidate running for governor.
Hernan Flores lacked the education and college degree, but he made up for it with his salesman-like skills and his street-hardened cunning. And he was generous to a fault, donating to various causes with mind-boggling ferocity. Some thought him a saint. Those who didn’t still happily accepted his checks.
Flores excused himself from the crowd when one of his bodyguards stepped forward and reached out his phone.
“Boss, we got problems,” the caller said.
“I’ll be right there,” Flores said. And with that, he bade farewell to his guests and exited the event. He wondered which site the SEALs had raided -- he had left intel on various locations to several government informers, and, of course, not warned any of his men or moved any of his goods.
To have moved any guns or drugs would have caused suspicion among his ranks, and might have tipped off the authorities that he had baited them. Flores hated to lose the men and the resources, but he knew there was a long-term benefit to that, as well.
The men would take their training more seriously and stay more alert in the future. And if they didn’t, then he would replace them with men who would. A new stage in this war against Rivera had arrived, and Flores would do whatever was necessary to win it.
Chapter 5
Hernan Flores used decades of hard-earned intelligence-gathering skills to lay his grand trap for the SEALs and government forces. He sought the advice of his top lieutenants for the best location to stage an ambush, while using his single source to give up still more valuable intel.
The SEALs and government forces continued to make serious headway against the Godesto Cartel, but Flores accepted the necessary losses. He needed his enemies to implicitly trust the tips coming to them, and the best way to make that happen was for the tips to be accurate and noteworthy. And noteworthy they were, as the millions in losses stacked higher and higher.
Hernan Flores never flinched. He’d battled many competing cartels for years. In his younger days, as a nobody seller, he’d fought men for the control of a single street corner. But the delay was also necessary because Flores had special supplies to buy and he needed time for his lieutenant to gather all he could on his opponent.
Within two months, his rare weaponry had arrived and his lieutenant had perfectly uncovered the SEAL tactics through after-action reports from witnesses. Everything was in place, and Flores saw this as much more than a happy opportunity to embarrass the Americans and take out their Special Forces. No, this was a chance to shake the very confidence of the Mexican people. After tonight, the people would know their government could not stand up against his Godesto Cartel.
It was just after 3 a.m. and the SEAL Commandos were getting used to the night-raid schedule. Their four Blackhawk helicopters raced toward their target, their engines screaming as the pilots pushed the machines to their limit.
At the target, a group of guards stood ready and alert tonight without having been warned of any impending dangers by their leadership. Rather, word had gotten out that the Americans struck at roughly 3 a.m. and the guards had adjusted on their own, coming to full attention at all of Flores’s facilities in the early morning hours.
The men guarded rows of stacked drugs intended to be moved across the border into Arizona the following day, as well as something else -- the contents of which they weren’t aware. A special delivery had been brought in the day prior, and laborers had hauled in crate after crate and positioned them throughout the warehouse. The guards thought the placement random and strange, but were ordered not to move the items.
“Each of the locked crates must not be confused with their identical counterpart,” said one laborer to the head of the facility. “And they are marked by where they’re placed, not by any outside numbers or codes, so make sure they are not moved under any circumstance. That is a direct order from Hernan Flores himself.”
“Will do,” said the warehouse manager. Flores’s precautions, though often strange, were legendary, so one learned to not ask questions or wonder why. And marking the crates would, after all, allow clues to anyone who confiscated them, so the warehouse manager figured it made sense in that context. So neither he nor any of his men gave the crates a second glance.
Outside the warehouse, two teams of Hernan Flores’s men waited, in addition to the guards inside. These outside teams held shoulder-launched anti-air missiles, alert and ready. Flores knew how complicated the missiles were and after attempting to train some of his own men to use them, had abandoned that idea and brought in Russian mercenaries who were already trained by the Soviet Army.
Meanwhile, near the Mexican Presidential Palace, more of Flores’s men were making preparations. In a five-story apartment complex that overlooked the Palace, four men knocked on the door of a fifth-floor residence. When the door was answered, the male occupant -- a man in his thirties -- was shoved into the room and promptly executed with a 9mm pistol. Then the four men walked back into the hallway to gather and carry in four heavy duffle bags. Outside the apartment complex -- seven blocks away in a small but busy park -- trucks stalled with their tailgates covered with tarps, and vans idled nearby. All waiting the command from their leader and anticipating their role in the coordinated assault set to take place at any minute.
All awaited the command from their leader.
Back at the target warehouse, Flores had positioned additional forces besides the two teams with the shoulder-launched, anti-air missiles. Lookouts dressed as civilians were posted miles away from the warehouse, watching likely routes into the target.
These lookouts, ranging from teenagers to older business owners, watched the major roads that lead into the night’s target. Once the lookouts discovered the entry route in for the Mexican ground forces, Hernan Flores would position more than two dozen of his men to ambush them. These men carried assault weapons, RPGs, medium machine guns, and Claymore directional mines, which were difficult and dangerous to get. But for tonight’s move, Flores was sparing no expense.
The Godesto needed to land a decisive blow against President Roberto Rivera. With luck, they’d rid the country of both the American intervention and Rivera’s too-honest government, which had been making far more progress than either Rivera or his major supporter Juan Soto knew.
After tonight, Rivera would either be powerless, or forced to resign. And Juan Soto? He’d race out of the country. And if he didn’t, then Flores would make him wish he had.
The Blackhawks were getting close. The crew chiefs signaled the SEALs on board to make ready and the men slid across the metal floor of the choppers to the doors.
The SEAL Leader signaled the sniper surveillance teams watching the building. The snipers fired, dropping the guards on the roof. The helicopters closed within hearing range and raced the final distance, flaring up and coming to an instant, bone-jarring stop. Crew chiefs shoved ropes out and the SEALs descended as black shadows in the pitch-black night.
They fast-roped down, rushed by the dead guards, and secured the roof. Ten seconds later, the breacher had secured the charges on the steel door and they blew it inward, running behind the explosion into the bowels of the building. A gunfight erupted with the guards below, who were ready for an attack. Two SEALs took nasty hits, but the SEAL Team Platoon overpowered the men with rehearsed drills, precision shots, and speedy movements.
Just five minutes behind them, a convoy of Mexican Army Humvees ripped through the city to back up the SEALs. Their radios reported wounded men and a force ready to defend this warehouse to the last man. The Mexican commander worried more cartel reinforcements might be on their way -- the target warehouse was in a very dangerous neighborhood -- and he urged his drivers to speed up.
A call in from a bored drug pusher nicknamed “Too High” tipped Hernan Flores of the route the Mexican forces were using. Flores alerted his men -- who happened to be nearby as it was the most obvious and anticipated route. Godesto men ran out onto the sidewalks trailing wires behind them. Th
ey aimed the crescent-shaped Claymore mines up and down the road where they could. The Humvees would enter an L-shaped ambush that would be full of thousands of flying ball bearings. Charges set, the men ran back to their positions.
The Mexican convoy rounded the corner and its commander -- a good man and an even stronger leader -- yelled at his driver to go faster.
“Men are dying,” he yelled, hearing gunfire over his radio from the SEALs who were calling in updates. “Let’s go. Floor it.”
The Mexican commander of the Quick Reaction Force wasn’t supposed to be in the lead vehicle, but he led from the front regardless of the situation. As he reached for his handset to relay their position to the SEALs, who were taking serious fire, he saw four men pushing a car out into the road ahead of them. And across from those men, more guys shoved another car toward it. Oh shit, he thought.
“Stop!” he screamed to his driver, who had seen the threat, as well, and was already on the brakes.
The road was tight through this stretch, both sides enclosed by small shops and diners, and now that the two junk cars had been shoved into each other -- nose to nose -- the road was completely blocked. The Mexican Commander instantly recognized the tight streets and the obstacle to their front for what it was. An ambush.
“Back up!” he yelled into the handset to his other vehicles, which had been following too close. Above him, his turret gunner began firing his M240 medium machine gun at the men who had shoved the vehicle into the street from the right.
It wasn’t any conscious decision or training that took over; the gunner was simply right-handed and had seen them first. His machine gun spewed out 7.62 mm rounds and caught one man in the lower leg, shattering the bones that supported his weight and dropping him as his leg broke outward at nearly ninety degrees. Another round from the gunner’s weapon caught the man’s buddy through the gut. The bullet sounded like a hand clapping down on wet ham when it found its target.
Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Page 3