He vowed to die fighting for both himself and his brother.
Chapter 14
Robert Cabrera was leaning casually against the wet bar when Craig was brought into the room. The living room was bright now in the light of a beautiful morning, with white sunshine streaming through the large glass patio doors.
One of his captors roughly gave Craig a push. “El ratero wants to work for us again, Señor,” he said in a sneering voice while the other one laughed.
“I knew you would see things my way, Phillips,” Cabrera said simply.
“How could you have destroyed my brother like that?” Craig spat. “You didn’t have to go that far to get me down here!”
Cabrera shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business, and you might as well learn it now.” There was absolutely no remorse in his voice.
Then his eyes narrowed ominously. “And don’t think I’m through with you yet. You still have a lot to learn, like showing more respect for the hand that feeds you.”
He paused as he reached into the elegant porcelain box on the bar and pulled out a rich, Colombian cigar. He put the flame of the table lighter to the tobacco, and the smoke swirled around his face when he spoke.
“I have given some thought as to how I ought to handle you,” he began with chilling authority, “and I think that some time in my new business venture would be a good place for you while I make arrangements for my move on Fairchild. Perhaps a little time in the fields will change your attitude about working for me again.”
Cabrera turned to the guards. “Put him in one of the spare bedrooms for now,” he instructed. “Then take him out to the east field house after dark.”
“I’m not leaving Shaun here,” Craig said.
“Forget about him and concentrate on your own survival,” Cabrera snapped, his voice sharp. “By the time your stay in the fields is over, you will have long forgotten about your spineless little brother.”
He glanced at his gold watch. “Get him out of here.”
The two men roughly pulled Craig out of the room and up the stairs that led to the second floor. They passed the elderly Mexican housekeeper along the way. She watched the men take Craig up the steps, but said nothing.
They took him down the hallway to the last door on the right, which opened into an elaborately furnished bedroom. After being fed a meager ration of bread and Spanish rice, he spent the day alone, with his wrist securely fastened to the bedpost. After darkness descended on the hillsides, the men returned and put him into the same black sedan that brought him to the house. Then they drove into the bowels of the Mexican Sierras.
The ride became rough as they ascended the uneven, rocky road, until they finally arrived at what looked like a work compound cut out of the hills, crudely constructed of dirty wood and concrete. Craig sat silently, hoping to make a break for it when the car stopped, but when he was pulled out of the car, he took one look at his welcoming committee and knew there was no chance.
In front of him stood six heavily armed Mexican men, who were dressed in commando-type fighting gear and knee-high leather jackboots.
As soon as he was pulled from the car, they gathered around to inspect him. When they saw he was a foreigner, they all smiled like a group of hungry wolves who had just cornered a prize buck. Craig felt a prickly tingle of fear begin to creep up his spine.
Suddenly the leader of the pack strode forward to size him up while the others moved aside.
“So, Señor Cabrera sends us a new worker,” he sneered. Then he grabbed Craig tightly by the collar. “Comandante Suarez,” he said, thumping his chest. “I am in charge here. Understand?” he snarled in broken English. “You cooperate or I ride you good!” He shoved Craig again to drive his point home, then led the way while the group escorted him to the doorway of a large, dilapidated building and pushed him inside.
Craig looked around at his new “home.” It appeared to be a poorly built but functional concrete military barracks, perhaps dating back to the Second World War, filled with old, dirty, coverless bunks and hostile-looking Latin American men, who stopped what they were doing to silently stare at him. The walls were sloppily painted a dark, dingy gray. The bulbs that hung from the ceiling of the cabin were blanketed with a sickly combination of dust, cobwebs, and dead insect debris. The dim, dirty light made their faces look deathly yellow. The floor was a dull, gray concrete which matched the walls, and the entire room seemed alive with bugs.
Without a word, the guards swung the door shut. Craig looked around nervously. Most of the men were older than he was, and they all looked like descendants of Pancho Villa himself. They all stared at Craig, whispering softly to each other in Spanish about their new intruder.
The door to a small bathroom stood partially open, revealing a filthy, bug-infested latrine where a group of men sat on the floor, shooting up the chocolate brown, powdery heroin.
One of the men approached him. He had a huge knife scar that ran down the side of his face to the corner of his mouth. Shabbily clothed, unshaven, and with a nasty, predatory grin, he reminded Craig of a snarling jackal.
He looked Craig up and down. “Hey, muchacho, where you come from?”
His voice was thick and unsteady, and Craig noticed the insides of his arms were covered with thin scars, evidence of countless knife fights. The bend on the inside of one elbow contained tracks of needle marks.
Craig remained silent, not knowing what to say.
The man smiled a toothless grin. “You afraid, no?”
“No.” Craig tried to keep his tone as even as possible, to hide the panic that began to well in his throat.
“No,” the jackal repeated thoughtfully. He glanced back at his friends and jerked his thumb toward Craig. “The muchacho, he is not afraid.”
He moved closer.
“You a fighter, no?” he asked. Before Craig could answer, he said, “We see how good you fight!”
He lunged at Craig, knocking him off his feet. Then a half a dozen others surrounded him like a school of sharks on a feeding frenzy, all swinging at him at once.
Some stared blankly at the scene, while others moved back and huddled together in bunks to avoid any stray fists or kicks. Craig found himself suddenly reeling from blinding blows and hard punches that rained on him without stopping.
Just as he was beginning to lose consciousness, he heard someone speak.
“Hey! What’s going on, Rodriguez?” Craig heard a deep, American voice say.
The action ceased immediately. There was an awkward silence.
“Nada,” his attacker finally stammered. “The muchacho and me, we just playing around.”
“Yeah, well, the game’s over.”
When Craig dared to open his eyes, he saw a tall, rugged-looking man come into focus. Craig guessed him to be well into his forties, and he stood as tall as Craig. He was dressed in dirty, worn clothing like the others, but he exuded a strength about him that seemed to demand respect wherever he stood. He was arrogantly unafraid before the entire group of men, and Craig figured him to be either completely crazy or the bravest man he had ever seen.
The men who had jumped Craig seemed to be afraid of the American, for they all began to retreat together back to their places against the dirty, thick concrete walls.
“If I ever see you lay hand on the gringo again,” the American threatened, “you’re a dead man, understand?”
The jackal mumbled something in the affirmative.
“That’s more like it.”
The stranger’s gaze went to Craig. “You,” he commanded like a drill sergeant, pointing to a dirty lower bunk in the corner of the room. “Over there. Now!”
Without a word of protest, Craig staggered to where the American indicated and collapsed on the bunk, his body throbbing from the attack he had just u
ndergone.
A minute later the man sank down on the bunk next to Craig and made himself comfortable. He didn’t say a word, acting as if Craig weren’t even there.
“Thanks for—” Craig began.
He snapped his head at Craig. “Don’t thank me for anything,” he said gruffly. “Just learn to survive, or you’ll wind up having your guts torn out of you before long.”
Craig looked at him curiously. “Why did you help me?”
The stranger chuckled. “I pegged you for a greenhorn as soon as they threw you in here.” Then his eyes softened, and he extended a rough, work-worn hand. “Jim Walden’s the name.”
“Craig Phillips.”
“Phillips,” Walden repeated. “You have a British accent. Why, you’re not a gringo at all!” He surveyed Craig closely. “So what the hell are you doing so far from home?”
“Cabrera.”
Walden nodded. “That’s why we’re all here,” he said bitterly. “Me, I got busted at Customs in Mexico City five years ago, carrying some coke back to Texas for a friend. I was transferred to Durango, then Cabrera put me out here with these other assholes last year on work detail.”
Craig looked at him blankly. “Work detail?”
Walden laughed. “Boy, you are green, aren’t you? Don’t you know what Cabrera does in these hills? You’re in drug country, man! He has heroin poppy fields on the bulk of his land, and he harvests them for himself and the mobs down here.”
He nodded solemnly at Craig’s stunned expression.
“Yep, a few thousand acres, I’ll bet, all laid out in carefully camouflaged tracks all over these mountains,” he continued. “It’s fiercely hot out there, with plenty of rugged terrain that would thwart any serious invasions by the drug authorities. The land is farmed by tribes of farmers who grow the opium for Cabrera in exchange for cash. They live in these damned hills. We do the rough labor of maintaining and harvesting the plants. Cabrera gets the long-term prisoners from the jails and sets them up in compounds like this to do the job. Money really sings to these prison officials down here.”
“I don’t bloody believe it!” Craig said, amazed.
“That ain’t all, kid,” Walden went on. “After the shit’s harvested, he and his Mexican connections work together in makeshift labs to refine the stuff. Then it goes across the border to the States and down to South America. He pays locals to act as loaders to move the stuff through and bribes the police and local officials at the border and beyond to look the other way.”
Craig listened to the story, astounded. He soon realized that all the chips were on Cabrera’s side. He had the law and the Mexican military backing him, he was a master at the drug trade, and he had the cunning of a sly fox. How would Craig ever stand a chance at getting away from Cabrera’s clutches?
“Why do the farmers help him?” Craig asked.
Walden gave the international money sign with his fingers. “Pesos, man. Those people are dirt-shit poor, and any little change Cabrera throws their way is like a fortune to them. They don’t care what’s legal or not, as long as they get a handout for their labor. For some of these farmers, Cabrera’s money is all they have to live on.”
“Somebody ought to be able to shut him down,” Craig muttered.
Walden chuckled. “When the hills disappear, kid, that’s when he’ll go out of business. And with America’s insatiable desire for illegal drugs, he has little fear of ever getting caught. The Coast Guard, Border Patrol, none of them are enough to stop the flood of drugs going into the country. The Pacific coast alone has thousands of coves and inlets which make the area virtually unpatrollable, even for the most fully staffed agencies. So he’ll go on raking in the money, regardless of the human misery of the addicts he leaves behind.”
“Why can’t the government just come in and bust him?”
Walden shook his head. “What government? The dope industry here is no different from any place else in the world. It is intricately intertwined and inherently vicious. With as many people as he has working for him in different places, the authorities could end up fighting a whole network of traffickers. Very few even want to attempt it. The chances of any federales successfully putting an end to him without the backing of a joint national effort are few.”
“How long are you here for?” Craig asked after a pause.
Walden shrugged. “Who knows? Remember, the Mexican legal system is different from what you’re used to in the civilized world. The law here is based on a system inherited from the old Spanish, which says, more or less, that you’re guilty as charged unless proven otherwise. There is no trial by jury as we know it, so you’re basically screwed as soon as they grab you.
“I have yet to see a lawyer or a courtroom,” Walden continued. “When they busted me at the airport three years ago, I didn’t have any money to bribe the Customs officials, so the police told me I was getting ten to twenty, until the court decided my guilt or innocence. And of course, being a gringo put me at the bottom of the heap for a long time. In Mexico, all gringos are presumed to be rich. They won’t believe you’re broke, even if you prove it.”
His eyes narrowed as he reflected on the past. “I was the only American in the cellblock last year when Cabrera saw me one day, just hanging around. Not long after, they pulled me out of my cell one night and drove me out here. Been here ever since.”
“No one seems to bother you, at least,” Craig remarked.
“Yeah, well, I’ve managed to survive,” Walden replied. “I’ve been here quite a while, along with your new friend, Rodriguez. It was tough going at first, and I had to knife some punk to death once, but nobody messes with me. All in all, I’m in a pretty good position around here. I mean, this place is a palace compared to a real Mexican prison, kid.”
Craig’s eyes widened. “You killed someone?”
“The unwritten rules around here are no different than prison laws anywhere else,” Walden said firmly, “and you best learn them fast if you want to survive. You must learn to fight and defend yourself.”
“Fight?”
“Listen, kid,” Walden said, “if you can’t talk with your fists, then you’ll never make it. If you’re tough, no one will fuck with you. That’s how it is in conditions like these. The weak don’t survive.”
Craig nodded quietly and the two lapsed into silence while he tried to retain all the new “rules” of his new environment. Walden’s arms and right shoulder showed faint knife marks, evidently his own collection of battle scars.
“What about your family?” Craig asked.
“Don’t have any,” Walden replied. “The only friends I had were the ones I was smuggling for back in the States.” He laughed cynically. “They sure disappeared as soon as I got busted. The police wouldn’t let me call anyone the night I got caught because I didn’t have any money to bribe my way out of there. They didn’t have any family or friends of mine to extort money from on my behalf after they had me in custody, so they made life pure hell for me at the prison for a long time. My only chance of getting released is doing what I’m told, and hopefully, Cabrera will one day go easy on me.”
“You never tried to escape?” Craig asked incredulously. “There’s got to be a way out of here,” he added, almost to himself.
“There is no way out of here, and what you ought to be thinking about right now is staying alive right where you are,” Walden said. “It won’t be easy at first with a greenhorn like you, but I think you’ll make it if you stand tough. You’ve got to be quick and ready to strike back at a moment’s notice.”
“The main thing,” Walden paused to look directly at Craig, “is not to be afraid. Never be a coward. These crazy prisoners will pick up on your fear in a minute and have you drawn and quartered in no time flat.”
“I was lucky you came when you did,” Craig said.
“And by the way,” Walden gestured to the flat designer boots on Craig’s feet, “stuff like those look mighty attractive to these scums around here. Be careful and hang on to what you’ve got, or someone will steal it.”
Suddenly the overhead light went out and the room was pitched into darkness.
“Rest time, kid,” Walden said complacently in the dark, and Craig heard him settle down into the thin, filthy mattress of the bunk. “Get all the sleep you can. The morning comes faster than you think.”
Craig huddled on the bunk, trying to keep warm without any blanket to protect himself from the cold mountain air that seeped through the walls. He dared not lay his head too comfortably on the tattered mattress, lest the bugs that infested it would find a new place to nest in his hair.
He never felt so alone, so thoroughly frightened, in all his life. Was this nightmare really happening? His mind, numbed with the shock of being in such a predicament in the first place, could not even think clearly at the moment. He only knew that he was now surrounded by the most violent and vile forms of humanity. Cut off from the rest of the world and in such deplorable conditions, these prisoners were nothing less than barbarians. Here he was, dropped from the comfortable, pampered lap of an American rock star into hell itself. He felt as though he and Shaun had both fallen into the worst alternative universe ever created.
Shaun. How was he? Craig agonized. Was he dead by now, or still spinning in oblivion from the euphoric high of the heroin? Craig prayed that Shaun wasn’t feeling any pain, but he knew with sickening certainly that his captors were nothing less than brutal, probably playing out Shaun’s newly acquired addiction to the fullest to achieve their own perverted goals. He knew Shaun would never be able to stand up physically or emotionally to what they were capable of doing to him.
A Perilous Pursuit Page 17