Age of Blood

by Weston Ochse

  Navarre had returned after his reconnaissance. The town was a madhouse, but since the procession was moving back and forth along a different road, their journey to the safe house would only take twenty minutes, if that. Everyone piled into the three cars and drove into Alamos.

  Navarre, Holmes, and one of Navarre’s men were in the first car. J.J. and Laws were in the second car, and Walker, Yank, and Ramon were in the third. Walker was behind the wheel, and as he drove into town, he recognized the difference between Cabo San Lucas and Alamos immediately. There was no dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots here. Or if there was, it was undetectable from an outsider’s point of view. One of the things he noticed was the lack of foreign tourists. This was a Mexican town for Mexicans, not for tourists. The streets were clean. The buildings were free of graffiti. Many of the buildings were older than America, or at least as old. Two-, three-, and four-story whitewashed colonial buildings lined the streets. Families moved together dressed in colorful clothing on wide sidewalks. They passed numerous open-air markets, vegetables gaudy with their healthy color.

  The SEALs circled the Plaza Principal Alamos, which was ringed by towering royal palm trees. A gazebo was set in the middle, much like in an American park, from which a norteño band was playing ranchero music. The plaza was framed on one side by the Iglesia de Alamos, the great church with a seven-story-tall steeple along one side. Made of hand-cut stone, this was the home of the Virgin of Balanera.

  They headed south about six more blocks. Walker saw Navarre’s man wave him into an alley. He turned in, drove about ten meters, then turned again into a private lot behind an immense U-shaped building which had to be the old shoe factory. Walker left the keys in the car. He and Ramon exited and moved quickly inside.

  They were led to a large room on the first floor that seemed to be both a common area and an area of worship. At one end of the sixty-by-thirty-foot space was a raised dais on which a shrine was built. Walker only glanced at it, but was still able to make out many different paintings of a Virgin inlaid in the wood. Instead of taking the time to examine the shrine, he was more interested in the men arrayed before it.

  He counted roughly thirty men of all ages. They were as different as could be, but the one thing they all shared was a fire in their eyes. They didn’t wear a uniform, but several wore the same necklace—a stylized cross and sword encircled with what looked from his vantage to be barbed wire.

  “Is this all of them?” one asked Holmes. Rail-thin, the speaker had the stature of a military officer. His head was shaved and he had tattoos on his neck descending past his collar, disappearing beneath his shirt. His skin was dark like a mestizo’s, or perhaps, thought Walker, an Aztec.

  “This is it,” Holmes said.

  The man turned toward the SEALs, J.J., and Ramon. He gave Roman a long hard look, then smiled the sort of smile a man wore who was unused to humor. “Welcome to our, how you say, military camp … no, castle. Yes, welcome to our castle.” His English was rough, but understandable. “We are the Cuadrilla de los Caballeros Sagrados de la Virgen de Valvanera.”

  “Order of the Sacred Knights of the Virgin of Valvanera,” Laws translated.

  The man nodded. “I am Colonel Inquisidor Juan Francisco de la Vega and these are my caballeros.” He turned to point to the men, who in unison slapped their chests with an open hand and saluted in the British style.

  The members of SEAL Team 666 snapped to attention and returned the salute in the American way. They held it for as long as the caballeros held theirs; then as one, everyone returned to ease.

  “Today mi casa es su casa,” Vega said. “You’ll forgive me if we cannot be of much help. My men have been guarding the Virgin.” As he said the word, he and his men crossed themselves. “We have two more days and then we can help you. But for now, please be at home.”

  Then he turned, said a quick word to Holmes, and left. Most of his men left with him, except for a handful. These came and introduced themselves, but Walker didn’t remember their names. They showed the SEALs to their quarters and then left them alone. Holmes gave them about half an hour to wash and relax before he had everyone meet in the common room downstairs.

  “Here’s where we’re at,” Holmes told them. “SPG is inbound along with YaYa and Hoover. They should get here within the next three hours. During that time, we’re going to try and find the leprosos.”

  “Any news on who they might be?” Walker asked.

  Laws and Holmes exchanged glances. Laws answered the question. “Yes. Vega knows of a group operating in Alamos. Since the group doesn’t seem to be posing a threat to the Virgin, the Knights have left them alone. Still, they know who the leprosos are and why they’re here.”

  “So who are they?” J.J. asked. When everyone looked at him, he spread his hands. “What? Am I the only one who wants to know?”

  “They are called Los Desollados. They are neo-pagan Aztec worshippers.”

  “What does ‘Los Desollados’ mean?” Yank asked

  “It means the Flayed Ones,” Ramon interjected. “I should have known.” He shook his head. “Those putas are bad news. They worship Xipe Totec,” he said, making the X sound like an S. “They believe that all the bounty comes from their god and by him giving his skin to them for sustenance, they are then able to live.”

  “They. Eat. Skin?” Yank asked, pronouncing each devastating word carefully.

  Ramon nodded. “And they wear skin, too—but not their own. This is why the facilitators probably thought they were lepers. They were wearing the skin of the dead and much of it was probably falling off.”

  Walker shook his head in disbelief. He’d seen enough to where this sort of thing shouldn’t faze him. But cannibalism, especially the eating of a person’s skin … it just seemed so absolutely primitive that he felt himself becoming sick at the notion.

  “The idea as I understand it is for the Flayed Ones to wear the flesh for the period between the new moon and the full moon as it rots. During the full moon they step free from the skin, symbolizing rebirth and shifting from the old to the new.”

  “And these are the ones who have the senator’s daughter?” Yank asked.

  “We’re going on that premise,” Laws said. “The good news, if there’s any to be had after Ramon’s explanation, is that we know where the Flayed Ones are headquartered. They’re holed up in an abandoned asylum on the western edge of town.”

  “Of course they are,” J.J. said, frowning. He repeated the words “abandoned asylum” before shaking his head.

  “Walker and Yank,” Holmes said, pointing at the pair. “You’re currently the only ones with a full kit. I want you on site and ready in case the Flayed Ones decide to move before our new gear gets here.”

  “Clear, sir.”

  “And the rest of us?” J.J. asked.

  “We need to come up with a plan of attack. I have some rough schematics of the building. If Emily Withers is in there, we might only have one chance at getting her out safe. We’re not going to turn this into another Waco. We’ll get information, then act.”

  Laws nodded as he made eye contact with each and every member of the team. “Getting her out dead is the same as not getting her out at all.”

  26

  ALAMOS, MEXICO. KNIGHTS’ CASTLE. LATER.

  After they’d made their plan of attack, J.J. went to scrounge some space for the incoming personnel and Ramon took off on his own accord. He was going to see if his contacts were still around, he said.

  Holmes and Laws were the last to leave. Laws could tell that Holmes was worried about something. “What is it?”

  “Couple of things,” Holmes said. “First is the SPG coming. I don’t like the fact that I’ll have a group of analysts I’ll need to take care of. That’s bad enough, but to also have—”

  “Walker’s girlfriend,” Laws said, finishing the sentence. Although Walker had tried to keep it low-key, the team knew about his relationship with the young CIA gal in charge of the SP
G. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too. Not that there’s anything we can do about it.”

  “I agree. Billings probably thought it was going to help to have them on-site, but this isn’t the other side of the world. This is Mexico. We have contacts here and could reach out in real time to get whatever support we need.”

  “She meant well, I suppose.”

  “The road to hell is paved with meant-wells.”

  Laws wiped his face, as if he could wipe away his fatigue. “We just have to count on them to keep it professional. Do you want me to talk to them about it?”

  Holmes shook his head. “If they don’t know how to be professional now, no amount of words is going to make them grow up.”

  “I think we’ll be all right, boss. What was the second thing?”

  Holmes glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Do you feel like we might be getting led by the nose?”

  “Glad I’m not the only one.”

  “So you felt the same way.”

  Laws nodded. “In some ways, this is like the Myanmar mission. We could just never get ahead of it. Just as soon as we’d get more information, that would spur us on to another part of the mission. This is starting to feel the same.”

  “Not at all what we’re used to. Remember the ’cabras on the border?”

  “Simple mission. We knew there were chupacabras around. We used intelligence to project where they might be. We put men on target, found the ’cabras, then took the beegees down.”

  “Right.” Holmes tapped the wooden table. “Where’s our projection? Where’s our intelligence? We have Ramon giving us information that we should already have.”

  “Ramon is another issue.”

  “He sure is. But with regards to the intelligence, if the SPG is going to be with us then we’re going to keep them busy. I want multiple projections regarding the possible plight of Senator Withers’s daughter. Enough of this reacting. I want to do some proacting. We’ll have them input all the raw data we have, then have each of them use their thirty-pound brains to figure it all out.”

  Laws couldn’t agree more. If they could get ahead of the mission then maybe they could get to the girl while she was still alive. Still, there was the issue of Ramon. Neither Laws nor Holmes trusted him. Not only because he’d been a hit man, who by necessity was morally bankrupt, but also because they couldn’t be sure of his loyalty. As far as they knew, he worshipped at the Church of Ramon and anything else was secondary. That wasn’t the way the SEALs operated. They placed themselves second to the mission.

  Holmes stood to go, then stopped and snapped his fingers. “One more odd thing.”

  “Odd?” Laws chuckled. “What isn’t odd about anything we do?”

  “Nevertheless, this is odd. I got a sitrep regarding the recovery of the ’cabra bones, which for the most part are on their way to the Salton Sea facility. Looks like it went off without a hitch. YaYa secured the items, then left with Agent Alice Surrey. Remember her?”

  “Yeah, I remember. So what’s so odd about that?”

  “She’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re right. That is odd. What did Jabouri say?”

  “He said that she dropped him off at LAX after the mission.”

  “Do we know if that’s true?” Laws asked.

  “No reason to doubt YaYa, so no, I haven’t checked. But they found her SUV on Manhattan Beach … empty.”

  “They found her SUV on the beach? What was she doing there?”

  “Like I said, it’s odd. And it probably has nothing to do with us, either. Alice is a successful NCIS agent. I’m sure she’s made a lot of enemies.”

  Laws was getting a feeling that worried him. “I’m sure that’s it. Still, I might have a word or two with Jabouri. Perhaps he can shed some light on this odd situation.”

  While Holmes went to check on J.J.’s progress, Laws remained sitting, thinking about the need for better intelligence, Ramon’s loyalty, and the odd circumstance of the missing NCIS agent. He had a policy about odd circumstances and coincidences, and he was hardly ever wrong.

  27

  ABANDONED ASYLUM. AFTERNOON.

  After dressing in the local style of cotton shirts and slacks loose enough to hide their body armor, Walker and Yank made a circuitous route, traveling on the back alleys and side streets, to their final destination, the abandoned asylum believed to house the cult that wore other people’s skin.

  They hadn’t received too many looks, probably a benefit of the pending religious holiday. Any other time, a blond-haired gringo and a young black man might have received a modicum of attention, but the locals were too busy celebrating or trying to make money at their open-air markets to care.

  Each of them carried packs. Walker’s held a broken-down SR-25 and Yank’s held a broken-down HK416. When they finally found the asylum, it was a two-story building at the end of a street called La Esperanza on the very edge of town. The nearest buildings were two homes, a farmhouse, and a tractor garage. These were to the west of the asylum and none of them offered a decent prospect for surveillance. Forest grew to the north, east, and south edges of the asylum, making those directions even more difficult to surveille from. Their only hope was to move back to a higher location.

  A five-story building sat at the corner of Quinta del Rey and La Unidad. The first floor was a farmacia, but it was closed for the holiday. They didn’t hear anything from the other floors and had to assume they housed some sort of businesses as well. They waited for the right moment, then scurried up the fire escape, pulling it up with them as they made their way to the top. Once on top of the building, Walker checked for possible avenues of countersurveillance, but didn’t find any place high enough to observe them as they were watching the asylum. They established an observation post with Yank providing security.

  Once that was done and they’d checked in with Laws, they settled in for a long wait. The target building was L-shaped, with the leg of the letter pointing toward the west. This created an entryway that had an overhang. The front doors were chained shut, meaning there must be a different avenue of ingress and egress, probably from behind. Half the windows had been busted out. A third of the ones left had been boarded up. Walker began the task of dialing in the windows at full magnification to see if he could detect any movement from within.

  “Know what’s been bothering me?” Yank said, breaking the silence.

  “What’s that, noob?” Walker had the bipod in place to support the barrel. At these distances, even the smallest shake would throw his vision off by meters.

  “Ramon and that Juan Carlos guy. I forgot to tell Holmes or Laws, but they were fast.”

  “You shouldn’t forget those things. Still, Ramon is a lycanthrope. Maybe that makes him faster than normal.”

  “What about Juan Carlos? He wasn’t a lycanthrope.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If he could change into something, then why’d he let himself get caught? Why’d he let himself get killed?” Yank asked.

  “Yeah. And him getting killed bothered me, too,” Walker said. And it had. The idea of killing the informants went perpendicular to his idea of right and wrong. “Either Ramon or J.J. killed those men. If I was to bet, it had to be Ramon.”

  “Well,” Yank said, drawing out the word. “We don’t know a lot about J.J. either, but I’m with you. I’d trust a former SEAL before I would a mafia-hit-man werewolf any day.”

  Walker thought he saw movement in a window. He zeroed in and stayed there a moment. Yeah, there it was again. Nothing specific, just something moving across the interior. He held the scope in place to see if he’d be able to get a better picture.

  “When you say fast, how fast are we talking?”

  “Comic-book fast.”

  “What do you know about comic books?” Walker asked.

  “What? Can’t a black kid from Compton collect comics?”

  “I have to adm
it, I find it hard to believe. There is a stereotype, you know.”

  “Yeah, no shit. The way LAPD profiles, I know all about stereotyping. Just the same, I did read my share.”

  Walker laughed. “Where? In juvie?” But he noticed that Yank wasn’t laughing. He took his eye off the scope long enough to glance at the other SEAL. Yank had the look of a killer. “Whoa. I didn’t mean … were you really in juvie?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “What for?”

  “Part of the Scared Straight program. My parent, the one who gave me my name, decided I should go to jail for a little while so I could see how bad it really is. He arranged this before I’d even lived with him for a day.”

  “Seems like it worked out.”

  “Oh, it worked out all right. Scared the shit out of me. The way the program worked was that I’d only be in general population during meals. The rest of the time I was in my cell. It just so happened that the only thing they had I could read were comics. Not the cool Marvel comics, with the X-Men and all their shit, but some old DC comics. Not even good ones like Batman and Superman.”

  “Don’t get me started on Superman,” Walker said. “You talking Wonder Woman, The Flash, Rubberband Man … those?” He turned back to his scope and found his sight picture again.

  “Yeah. There were a couple of Lobos in there. I liked him. Got to love it when they make a brother an alien and he gets to beat up on Superman.”

  “Lobo isn’t black,” Walker said definitively.

  “What … because he’s blue-skinned you decide he’s white and not black?”

  “No, idiot. I’m just saying he’s not black. He’s blue.”

  Yank shook his head as if the secret of the universe had been laid out in front of Walker and he’d missed it. “You’ll never understand. Being a brother is something you get on the inside. Lobo is a brother. Pure and simple.”

  There it was again.

  “They also let me read a Green Arrow and about a dozen Swamp Things.”