by Rob Jones
This time the man at Aurora’s side replied for her, and his response came in the form of a sharp and unambiguous backhand slap across the scientist’s face. As his glasses spun into the desert air, Viktor crumpled to the blacktop like an empty suit. He was shocked by the sudden escalation of the situation… by such violence. He was sixty, and yet he had never been struck in the face before. He had no idea how much it could hurt as the pain seared through his bruised cheekbone and flooded over the side of his head. The taste of blood filled his mouth and ran over his gums and teeth like coppery wine.
A moment later, Aurora leaned over him. “Forgive Garza. He can get carried away sometimes. But some advice – if you want to stay alive then you will learn to keep your mouth shut until I tell you to speak. Understand?”
Viktor nodded that he understood, and reached out for his glasses. Before he got to them the other man crushed them under his boot heel and ground the lenses into the gravel until they were no more than splinters.
“And Delgado here has a unique sense of humor. I suggest you don’t antagonize him.”
Garza laughed, and then Aurora ordered them to take Viktor into the Vandura.
They drove east, and Viktor grew more nervous when he began to recognize the bends and twists of the road. Were they taking him home? He got his answer when they pulled up and the door swung open to reveal his family’s house. His stomach turned over. His wife was in there… and maybe his daughter too. Not good.
They dragged him up the garden path and kicked the door open. His wife screamed when she saw her battered husband.
Aurora turned to Garza and Delgado – two former cartel men with their own disturbing backgrounds – and spoke quickly. “Make sure there’s no one around.”
“On it.”
“And see to it that we’re not disturbed by that thing,” she said, pointing at the phone.
Garza ripped the cable out of the wall and tossed the phone on the floorboards where it landed with a plastic smack. Delgado chuckled and stamped on the phone. It smashed into a dozen pieces.
Aurora watched Garza for a moment. She didn’t like the way he was looking at Alena Sobotka, but returned to the business at hand. She moved in close to the scientist’s sweaty face and held an oily switchblade against his throat. “Any other cell phones?”
Sweat trickled down Viktor’s panicky face as he nodded at his terrified wife and told her it would be all right.
“Aww, cute,” Aurora said as Alena reached into her bag to get her phone. Before she could get her hand inside to reach it, Garza snatched it from her and tipped it upside down.
The contents spilled out over the floor, clattering on the floorboards and rolling under the couch. Her spare glasses tumbled out of the case and landed with a gentle smack on the wood. There, in the center of everything was Alena Sobotka’s cell phone.
Garza grinned and picked it up, making sure to crunch her glasses under his boots as he went.
“Tie them up,” Aurora told the men.
Aurora watched the routine without emotion. Truth was, all her years in the cartels had numbed her to suffering… at least the suffering of others. When Silvio Mendoza had brought las serpientes, or the snakes, back together one last time to assist the Texan it didn’t take much persuasion to get her on board, especially when she saw the size of Mr Wade’s generous offer of cold, hard cash.
Now she watched with dead eyes as Garza put his hand up Mrs Sobotka’s skirt and made Delgado laugh. Viktor Sobotka screamed at them to stop but his protest earned him a swift and hard punch in the stomach. As he tried to wheeze the air back into his lungs, Delgado jammed a greasy kitchen cloth into his mouth to silence further objections.
“Leave her,” Aurora ordered Garza.
The younger man gave her a look of hatred but deferred to the boss. There were few mutinies in cartels like las serpientes – questioning the chain of command was never a good idea. The punishment for insurrections was usually death, and not an easy one. Like Mendoza, Aurora Soto had lived and breathed in a lawless world since she was a young child, and she knew the rules better than anyone. Garza would do as he was told.
And he did.
When Garza pulled back from the sobbing Mrs Sobotka, Aurora ordered Delgado to remove the gag from Viktor.
“You bastards!” the Czech man screamed.
Another heavy punch in the ribs from Delgado and a cracking sound.
Viktor screamed as the pain from the broken rib radiated through his torso.
Aurora yawned and stepped over to Viktor once again. She squatted on her haunches so they were face to face and then she ordered Delgado to pull the scientist’s head back by his hair.
Viktor gasped and stared at his torturers with bulging, fear-stricken eyes.
“Everyone in this world is a bastard, Viktor.”
“What do you want?!”
“Money and power, Viktor. Money and power. When a person has these things they can run through the fingers like water. If that happens, they must be taken back.”
Alena Sobotka flinched as Garza began to run his sweaty fingers through her hair.
“I am a scientist! You’ve seen my house – how much money and power do you think I have?”
Their tormentors laughed.
“I know you have nothing, Viktor – nothing except one little thing.”
Aurora pushed the tip of the switchblade against Viktor’s temple. Its sharp point punctured the skin and a bubble of red blood emerged from the surface. It ran down the bottom half of the blade before hitting the finger guard and dropping down onto the shiny floorboards.
Viktor shot a look of knowing panic at his wife. “I don’t understand.”
Aurora noticed the exchange and grinned. “I think you do… mi amigo. Today we go north to Los Alamos.”
Viktor shook his head. “Never!”
“The drums of war are beating, Viktor. When I close my eyes I hear them clearly. I hear the Lacandon Jungle – the wind in the trees, the call of the toucans and see the hummingbirds as they fly in and out of my dreams… but above it all the drums of war are beating loud, amigo.” She paused for a moment and studied her captive’s terrified face. “You will give me what I want or I will kill your wife.”
Viktor and Alena exchanged another frightened glance.
Aurora sighed and checked her watch. “All right, amigo – have it your way. Garza, take the woman somewhere private. And be kind – it’s her birthday.”
“No, please!” Viktor yelled. “Leave her alone!”
Aurora silenced Viktor’s screams by ordering Delgado to plant a solid punch in the soft flab of his stomach. Then she ordered Garza to stop dragging Alena toward the bedroom. The commands had the desired effect, as she knew they would: Viktor was broken, and would now do whatever they told him.
People always react the same way under pressure, she thought. They were as predictable as a trapped pig. Now she watched as Delgado cut the rope holding Viktor to the chair and barked at him to stand. They were loyal men, and sharper than Silvio’s brother Jorge. Poor Jorge, she thought… he believed that Wade had a direct line to the gods.
Viktor rose wearily to his feet. He raised his trembling, cuffed hands to his face to wipe some of the sweat from his eyes.
“It’s okay, Viktor,” Alena said.
Aurora’s black-painted lips bent up into a grim smile. “After our trip to Los Alamos, we’re going on a little vacation, amigo – south of the border… and you’re coming with us.”
“What about my wife?”
“She’s right behind you, Viktor. Stay calm now. You have important work to do.”
After glancing through the window to ensure the street was clear, Aurora led Viktor through his front door and out to the drive where the GMC Vandura was parked beside Alena Sobotka’s Toyota Prius.
She swung open the Prius’s driver’s door. “Get in. You’re driving.”
Aurora watched the street as the old man got inside and then Garza cli
mbed in beside him. She sat in the back behind Viktor and closed the door with a chunky thud. “I have a gun pointed at the back of your seat. That’s all you need to know.”
“What about my wife?”
“She’s going in the van with my associate.”
Behind them, Alena Sobotka struggled up into the Vandura. Delgado helped her on her way with a heavy, unwanted slap on her ass.
“They’re going to follow us, Viktor. Now, drive to Los Alamos.”
Viktor Sobotka fired up the Prius and reversed out of his drive.
As they cruised through the neighborhood, Aurora lit a cigarette and casually surveyed the houses on either side of the street. Expensive, well-maintained properties where those with too much money idled away their weekends trimming lawns and dropping chlorine tablets into their swimming pools. She thought about her mother raising her back in the favela and felt the anger rise in her heart. The hatred she felt for these people, who lived in such luxury, burned inside her. How hard she would laugh when the Hummingbird gave her poison to the world.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thousands of miles away in the tropical heat of the Yucatán Peninsula, Jorge Mendoza pulled a crumpled pack of Delicados from his shirt pocket. He fumbled for a moment with his lighter before firing up the unfiltered cigarette and taking a long drag. Lighting a cigarette was not normally a problem for Jorge, but today his hands were shaking, and with good reason. At least his brother Silvio wasn’t here to see his fear.
Jorge was sitting in a cartel Silverado parked up south of the dunes on the Calle de Arena, watching the supertankers transport oil across the Gulf of Mexico. All very boring, but one ship had his interest. It was a Greek container ship registered in Antigua and Bermuda and it was slowly making its way toward him as he waited at Progreso Port.
He glanced in the rear view mirror at his men. They were parked up behind in a Mercedes Atego, a light-weight truck from the Wade carpool. All ready.
He turned to the woman at his side. Juana Diaz was younger than Jorge, and wore a fresh black eye on her face as a reminder not to argue with him. He looked at her and sneered. She should know better than to make trouble. It was Jorge who rescued her from the favelas and pimps of Iztapalapa and this was the thanks he got – backchat and disrespect. He hoped the purple shiner on her cheek would teach her who was boss.
“I want a drink,” was all he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon outside the windshield.
She reached inside the glove box and pulled out a half bottle of Espolon. Jorge glanced at it.
“Open it.”
She unscrewed the bottle wordlessly and held it out to him. It shook in her fingers.
Jorge snatched it with a greasy hand and greedily swigged at the earthy, peppery liquid. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and handed the bottle back to Juana.
“Put it back.”
She did as she was told and Jorge returned to his business, studying the sunlight as it danced on the intermodal containers. They were stacked like multicoloured bricks on the ship’s vast deck. These ships carried endless amounts of junk from one side of the world to the other, and this one was no exception. On board were cars, trucks, processed food and electronic equipment among countless other commodities. But there was one important difference – one special factor that made this ship different from the others.
Only this ship carried the Hummingbird.
Jorge tried not to think about the Hummingbird. He might be the man who helped one of the country’s most feared drug cartels in the notorious Guerrero massacre, but some things unsettled even him, and the Hummingbird was one of them.
A second deep drag on the Delicado. He held the smoke down for slightly longer than usual before releasing it into the clammy air of the Yucatán coast.
Guerrero.
His mind drifted back to the massacre. Visions of hangings and decapitations and terrible punishment beatings blew through his mind as if they were carried on the humid breeze. He hadn’t paid for those deeds in this world, he mulled, but maybe he would in the next.
But not even that concerned Jorge Mendoza. Like his brother, he was a serpiente – a snake… as if he could ever forget. Until they were smashed by a joint exercise between the Mexican Federal Police Drug Division and the American DEA, the serpientes were one of the most ruthless drug cartels in Mexico.
As he recalled the memory of his initiation ceremony into their unyielding, cutthroat ranks he shuddered with disgust. Had he really done such a foul and unforgivable thing? As the tequila burned down his throat, he shook his head in denial. It’s not my fault… Silvio told me to do it.
Maybe the gods would strike him dead, or had they enjoyed watching him? In any case, a lot more people would be journeying to the next world very soon, he mused – more than anyone could count – and he wondered if they were as ready for it as he was. Jorge had never worked out why, but he’d never been afraid of death.
If anything, he mocked it. Not like those people he’d tortured back in Guerrero. He winced at the thought of all the begging and pleading. He would never beg for his life like that, not Jorge Mendoza. And yet... Señor Dios, sé muy bien que soy pecador, y sé muy bien que he pecado... Dear Lord, I know well that I am a sinner, and I know I have sinned…
Slowly the container ship pushed through the tropical waves and moved closer to the shore. Jorge hung the cigarette off his lower lip and turned the engine over. He shifted the stick into drive and spun around in the dunes on his way toward the port.
He made good time, driving in silence with the Atego just behind him. Now, in the heavy, humid air of Progreso Port, Jorge watched anxiously as the towering container crane lifted the deadly cargo from the deck of the Paralus and lowered it with a gentle crunch on the dockside a few yards from his men.
His men prepared to load the Hummingbird into the back of the Atego. It had its own entourage of around half a dozen Kazakhstanis. These were the men who had brought the package from Semipalatinsk all the way through Turkmenistan and Iran before loading it onto the Paralus in the free port at Chabahar. Quite a journey for such a precious cargo.
Jorge’s men now loaded the container onto a Hyundai forklift truck. He winced at the noise of the hydraulic system as it whined and raised the load to the height of the Atego’s interior. The Hyundai tipped forward and the container slid along the forks until it banged into the large truck’s tailgate.
Through his sunglasses he was suddenly aware of the fear on the Kazakhstani men’s faces but he smiled and shook his head in disbelief. It would take more than a nudge to upset the Hummingbird.
But fear was good, he thought as the Kazakhs turned and went back into the ship.
He slid back into the Silverado. “Señor Wade will be pleased.”
Juana moved a few inches away from him on the vinyl seat. “I heard a rumor he walks among the ancient gods,” she said meekly.
“Shut your mouth,” Jorge said dismissively. “You know nothing.”
He didn’t want to talk about it because it was more than a rumor for Jorge Mendoza. He had seen Wade in that damned creepy chamber in the coffee fields… he’d caught a glimpse of one of the ancient gods talking to Wade… after that his life changed, but no one had believed him when he told them what he’d witnessed. Even his own flesh and blood, Silvio. Especially Silvio, his own brother. He mocked him. After weeks of ridicule he stopped talking about it.
He turned the engine over.
All that mattered was that Mr Wade got the Hummingbird on time.
*
Scarlet Sloane felt the vodka fight its way down inside her. Forty thousand feet below her window was the Jamaican capital, Kingston, but it passed without so much as a glimpse. Scarlet had been this way before, and few things in life excited her these days.
She sank another vodka, but this one went down more politely. Maybe, she considered with a shudder, she was getting old.
Unlike her parents – they never aged. A sad side-effect of being g
unned down in their thirties. She squeezed shut her eyes to push the memory from her mind, but it struck back with a vengeance.
Now she could see it all.
Sir Roger Sloane’s quiet voice as he reassured her everything was going to be fine. Lady Philippa Sloane less convincing as her husband put Scarlet and her brother in the wardrobe and told them to stay silent. That was the last time her mother spoke to her.
And then the sound of the guns.
And the screams.
She was just a child.
She often wondered what her parents would be doing had they not been murdered – her affable but ruthless property developer father and her keen-eyed archaeologist mother. They would be sitting back at the family home in soft retirement, surrounded by their gardens and family.
But instead they were in the graveyard not five hundred yards from their home and Spencer was in the house. She and her brother rarely saw eye to eye. He had inherited the baronetcy upon his father’s murder and the rest of the property was held in trust until he was twenty-one. Scarlet got nothing except her mother’s Maserati Spyder, and Sir Spencer Sloane as he was now formally known, was several degrees less generous than their father had been during his life.
Maybe one of these days her luck would run out and Spence would get the Spyder too… or maybe she would quit ECHO once and for all… She gazed dreamily out of the window as her thoughts turned to destroying Wade’s depraved empire. Family was tough, but that kind of stuff she could handle.
She checked her watch. They were still another two hours out of Acapulco.
Reaper belched loudly and dropped a used bottle of lager into the bin in the galley. Not formally one of the team, he didn’t even know if he wanted to be one. He liked being the outsider, the former French legionnaire with a mysterious past and an even more enigmatic future.
Truth was, even mercs had to sleep and he liked to do that with Monique, his on-again-off-again ex, while knowing that his two boys were safe in their beds down the hall. Leaving all that behind to work full-time for Eden wasn’t his style, even if these days he seemed to be spending more and more time doing just that. He grabbed a second beer and headed for his seat.