“No, I’m not calling the fucking police,” Mancini snapped.
“I tried to call out but my phone died,” Luiz said. “Jorge called me a couple of days ago but Senor Logrono answered the call when I left the phone on the desk.”
Mancini flapped his hand at Luiz in an attempt to make him shut up.
Trey heard his ring tone and felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He glanced inquisitively at Leticia who crouched next to him on top of the garden wall.
“Take this a moment,” he muttered, handing Leticia the semi automatic rifle.
Trey dug his phone from his pocket and saw Mancini’s name as the caller on the screen.
“Yo! You still alive, man?”
“It would appear so,” Mancini said. “Listen, Trey, I haven’t got much battery life left so I’ll have to be brief. Do you see a gatehouse by the entranceway to the property?”
Trey leaned forward against the railings and saw a one storey, circular building standing to the left on the inside of the gates. “Yeah, I see it, man. What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to get inside that building and manually crank open those gates so we can all get out of here. But be careful. There may well be some infected goons inside that place, okay?”
“Got it, man. I’ll try my best.”
“Good luck, Trey and I’ll see you in a moment.”
“Did you find the green ice stash in there?” Trey waited for a reply but Mancini had already cut the connection.
“What is it? What’s up?” Leticia asked.
Trey sighed. “Mancini needs us to go open up those gates. We have to open them manually from inside that gatehouse. It’s not going to be an easy ride, especially if we get spotted by those infected freaks over there.” He nodded towards the pool area.
“I’ll come with you and cover you with the rifle whilst you use the crank, if you want,” Leticia said.
“Okay, it’s a deal,” Trey whispered, rubbing Leticia’s shoulder. “Just keep your eyes open for hostiles.”
Leticia nodded. “I will. I’ll keep us safe. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll carry the rifle until we get to the gatehouse,” Trey said, taking the semi automatic and slinging it over his shoulder. “Then we’ll swap weapons. We’ll make our way along the top of the wall to the gatehouse and hopefully, the infected won’t spot us.”
“I’ll follow you,” Leticia said.
Trey nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Mancini kept a watch from the upstairs window and saw Trey and Leticia move across the top of the wall in a crouching gallop. The infected didn’t notice the pair, as the sun was directly behind them and probably masking their progress.
“We’ll wait here until the gates are open and then we’ll have to make a break for it,” Mancini instructed the other guys in the room. “Have those damn car keys ready, Luiz. And lock the doors as soon as we all get inside the vehicle.”
“Where will we go?” Logrono asked, shaking his head. “If the infection has spread as much as you say, then we have no safe place to travel to.”
Mancini glanced away from the window at Logrono. “Anyplace but here. I have to try and get back to LA but you can go anyplace you please. I’m sure a big shot like you can find a bolt hole someplace.”
Logrono shrugged. “Maybe, I have a few properties in rural locations.”
“Good for you. I’d advise you go to one of them and stay there until this mess is all cleaned up. I have a feeling it may take a while.”
The driver of the yellow pickup truck watched the young guy and the young girl scuttle over the top of the wall around the property boundary. They disappeared from sight when they neared the two large gates situated within the front wall. The driver assumed they were trying to open the place up, obviously to try and get a vehicle out of the grounds. If he left it too long, they might get away and he didn’t fancy a long chase through infested, infected and cop ridden areas. It was time to find out what was going on. He rolled the pickup truck forward, driving by the front of the property and came to a halt behind the Thunderbird. He picked up a couple of weapons before exiting his vehicle.
Jorge heard a vehicle pull up behind the Thunderbird and twisted his head around, trying to see who it was. He saw a bright yellow truck then heard the door clunk shut and hoped he wasn’t about to be quizzed by a cop of some kind. Heavy foot falls crunched in the gravel on the shoulder and Jorge swiveled his head to get a glimpse of the approaching figure.
A guy with a busted up face, with two black eyes and a band-aid across his nose strolled alongside the Thunderbird’s rear seats. Jorge glanced at him for a second before he recognized the figure.
“You,” Jorge spat. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Chapter Seventy-Six
“Didn’t expect to see me again, did you, Sparky?” Sonny said, with a grin on his face. “Hell, to tell you the truth, I didn’t think I was going to make it out of that desert alive myself, after you and your pals left me for dead back there.” The arrogant smile dropped from his face.
Jorge glanced around nervously with a rising sense of panic. Where the hell were Trey and Leticia, who were supposed to be watching over him?
“See, I had a little payback plan going on in my mind but then I started thinking. These guys talking about money and all,” Sonny continued. “That young guy…Trey? Is that his name?”
Jorge nodded.
“He was talking about going to La Paz. Now, why in the hell would you guys want to drive all the way down here, through a bunch of road blocks and crazy heads if it wasn’t for a damn good reason?”
Jorge shrugged, attempting to throw Sonny off track.
“One place is as good as another.”
Sonny laughed, loud and false. “I don t think that’s the case at all, Sparky. I think you guys are up to some mischief. I’ve been tracking you all a while. You don’t come all the way out here to a damn fine, big ol’ house like this unless you got a deal going down. And I want to know what it is.” Sonny slipped a long hunting knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh. He held up the sharp stainless steel blade for Jorge to see as the sun glinted across its surface. “Time to start talking, Sparky.”
Trey reached the gatehouse roof first. The building was small and circular and constructed of the same reddish brown stone as the perimeter walls. Trey kept low to the stone roof and scurried across the surface. No infected people had spotted them and so far, their mission was going okay. A couple of inactive CCTV cameras were fitted each side of the gates and one on top of the gatehouse itself, pointing towards the driveway. Leticia followed Trey across the top of the gatehouse and they came to a stop above the entranceway at the edge of the roof.
Trey held his index finger to his lips, ensuring Leticia kept quiet. He jabbed his finger downwards, pointing to the top of the doorway below. Leticia nodded and Trey slipped the rifle from his shoulder. He handed her the semi automatic and she passed him the Heckler and Koch handgun.
Silently, Trey dropped down from the roof onto the stone slab path beside the gatehouse doorway. He took a glance across the gardens and pool area to ensure he still hadn’t been seen by the infected. When no screams of alerted contaminants rang out, he proceeded to slowly push open the gatehouse door. The wooden and glass framed door creaked open and Trey cautiously stepped inside the building.
The gatehouse was small and claustrophobic with a stone floor and a bank of blank CCTV screens stood above a control desk along the wall to the right. A window overlooked the house and grounds to the left and two plastic chairs sat facing a dormant TV set towards the back wall. Trey pushed the door closed behind him and winced when the hinges briefly squeaked once again.
A figure sat slumped in one of the plastic chairs with his back to the doorway. Trey saw blood along the man’s shoulder and sleeve of his once white shirt. He aimed the handgun at the back of the man’s head and took a couple of forward paces.
On closer inspection,
the guy sitting in the plastic chair was missing half the left side of his face and his throat had been torn away. The remains of his face were masked with congealing blood and he was also missing the tip of his nose and his left ear. His eyes were closed and Trey thought the guy was dead.
“Now, where the hell is this manual gate mechanism?” Trey whispered to himself, while glancing around the room. He stepped beyond the chairs to a closet, recessed in the back wall and covered by a wooden door. Trey didn’t notice the guy in the plastic chair’s eyes snap open.
Jorge would have let out a bellowing scream of agony if Sonny’s hand wasn’t clamped over his mouth. Instead, he emitted a series of grunts and muffled groans after the hunting blade sliced off his right earlobe. The fresh pain he was enduring was overriding the dull throb in his ankle. Sonny had sliced each of his nostrils open and was now starting to dissect other parts of Jorge’s anatomy. Jorge rattled against the restraints of the handcuffs and vigorously nodded his head. Sonny slowly took his hand away from Jorge’s mouth.
“All right…I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Jorge stammered, fighting against the pain. “Just…please don’t cut me again.” Blood streamed down his top lip and over his chin as well as down the right side of his neck and onto his shoulder.
Sonny flicked the blood from his hand and wiped the excess on the front of Jorge’s shirt.
“Well…that all depends on what you want to tell me, Sparky. If I don’t like what you’ve got to say, then I might be inclined to cutting off some of your fingers and then maybe your balls.” He lowered the knife and rested the tip on top of Jorge’s crotch. “It don’t bother me none, Sparky. I enjoy inflicting a little torture, once in a while.”
Jorge knew he couldn’t tell Sonny about the stash of U.S. dollars in the trunk of the Thunderbird. Once Sonny found the loot, Jorge was dead meat. Thankfully, Trey had locked the trunk before they’d set off for the house. He decided to be tactful and a little economical with the truth.
“There is a big narcotic stash inside that house,” Jorge stammered, wiping blood from his face with his free hand. “It is a new drug that will revolutionize the whole narcotic trade. My friend has the whole batch in that house and it is a very lucrative product.”
Jorge could almost see Sonny’s mind whirring through possible scenarios by the expression on his face.
“How much do you reckon on that stash of shit is worth?”
“At best guess? Around fifty grand but probably more,” Jorge stammered. “There is a whole uncut twenty pounds worth inside that house.” He hoped the lure of a lucrative drug stash might assuage Sonny’s torturous frame of mind. Mancini, Trey and Logrono and his guy’s would surely stop Sonny’s rampage.
Sonny whistled through his teeth. “Wow, fifty gee’s is a lot of dough, Sparky. But I don’t reckon on you and your pals traveling all this way for fifty grand. There’s more to the story than that.”
“It’s the truth,” Jorge stammered.
“Maybe…but maybe there is more to it than that. I’m going to take a look see and relieve those guys of that stash and whatever else they’ve got hidden behind those walls. I owe that other guy one for this anyhow.” He pointed to his battered face then smiled almost apologetically. “As for you, Sparky. I’m sorry to say, you ‘aint going to be the last man standing.”
Sonny reached forward and roughly grabbed hold of Jorge’s hair at the back of his head. He wrenched downwards, forcing Jorge’s head to tilt so he was looking at the clear blue sky. Jorge gasped in shock and terror then made a gurgling sound as Sonny raked the knife blade across his throat.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Leticia heard the sound of a muffled gunshot from inside the gatehouse below her.
“Trey?” she hissed, crouching above the doorway. “Are you okay?”
She turned her attention back to the grounds and pool area and saw a few of the infected glancing around, searching for the source of the gunshot.
“Hurry it up, Trey. We don’t have much time before we’re spotted,” Leticia whispered, not knowing if he could hear her. She aimed down the rifle sight at the infected nearest the gatehouse, around twenty-five yards away.
A heavy, screeching and scraping sound rumbled through the air from the opposite side of the gatehouse. Leticia turned her head and saw the big iron gates slowly parting. The infected were immediately attracted to the noise and began to move on mass towards the gatehouse.
“Okay, he’s opening the gates,” Mancini barked. “Let’s go, guys.”
Logrono flashed Victor a worried glance and reluctantly made his way to the window. Mancini slid open the sash frame and took a look down below. He saw some of the infected making their way to the gatehouse and hoped Trey and Leticia could fend them off before they managed to drive the Lexus down the driveway to pick them up.
“If we aim to land on top of that SUV, we shouldn’t have to far to fall,” Mancini instructed, pointing to a big Ford vehicle below the window and slightly to their left. “We need to be real quick because my guy has a whole bunch of those infected goons heading his way to that gatehouse.”
Mancini firmly gripped the shotgun and side stepped over the window frame. He held the shotgun above his head as he dropped from the window. He bent his knees as he landed squarely on the Ford’s roof, causing a large dent in the center. Mancini crouched for a second then leapt onto the ground beside the SUV. He glanced up at the window and waved on whoever was next to jump.
Logrono jumped down next. His landing was loud and awkward, causing a loud metallic bang as his feet hit the roof and he rolled sideways off the top of the vehicle. Mancini caught hold of his arm, steadying him and absorbing the impact of hitting the ground too hard. Luiz was younger and slighter. He leapt onto the Ford’s roof with ease and slid down the vehicle’s rear window onto the driveway.
Mancini glanced around the grounds and saw a few infected by the pool area had heard Logrono’s thumping plunge onto the Ford’s roof. They gazed around the front of the house, searching for the source of the noise.
“Get to the Lexus,” Mancini hissed to Luiz.
Luiz nodded, holding up the car key in his shaking hand. He turned and sprinted for his car at the back of the line of vehicles. Mancini noticed the Lexus was parked nose first into the driveway so they were going to have to reverse towards the gates. The turning circle at the far end of the driveway was blocked by the wrecked vehicles and they couldn’t risk a U-turn on the lawns in case the wheels became stuck. Logrono scurried after Luiz towards the car. Mancini glanced back up to the window and waved the remaining two guys to come down. He heard the crack of rifle fire and spun back to face the gatehouse. Leticia crouched on the stone roof, carefully aiming down the rifle scope and picking off a few of the approaching infected.
Victor landed on the Ford on all fours and rolled across his back onto the driveway next to Mancini.
“Go,” Mancini hissed at Victor, shoving him in the direction of the Lexus.
The remaining guy in the light blue shirt, who Mancini thought he’d heard the others call Pablo, jumped from the window. His arms flailed and he didn’t land squarely on top of the Ford. His legs hit the side of the car and smashed through the front passenger window. Pablo shrieked as his leg bent sideways at the knee, his foot stuck inside the SUV interior.
The remaining infected around the pool area heard the scream and braced up, ready to move at speed to the front of the house.
“Shit,” Mancini spat and rounded the Ford. He grabbed Pablo by his arm and wrenched him out of the Ford.
“I think I’ve broken my leg,” Pablo wailed, attempting to stand.
“You have to try and make it to Luiz’s car,” Mancini hissed, hauling Pablo upright. “It’s only a few yards down the track.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot,” Pablo grunted, wincing in pain as his leg gave way under his weight.
The sound of a vehicle engine starting indicated that Luiz, Logrono and Victor had succes
sfully made it to the Lexus. Mancini wrapped Pablo’s arm around his shoulder and shuffled along beside the line of parked cars. He glanced to his right and saw a bunch of infected rapidly heading their way. He looked back to the gatehouse and saw Trey had almost fully opened the gates. Leticia still crouched on the roof firing off a few well aimed rounds but the infected had almost reached the small building.
Sonny had intended using the winch fixed on the back of the pickup truck to wrench open the iron gates at the front of the house. He drove up the access road and was going to spin his vehicle around in the turning area outside the gates so he could attach the winch to the railings and haul them down off their hinges. He laughed and was pleasantly surprised when he saw the gates opening in front of him as he plowed up the inclining road.
“Must have known I was coming,” he snickered to himself.
The previous owner of the pickup truck had been carrying some serious firepower in the cab with him. Sonny had been more than happy with his find.
Once again, Lady Luck had smiled on him when he’d pulled over into a deserted gas station in the beaten up old truck he’d been left with. The engine had been misfiring badly and he doubted whether the old crock was going to make it to La Paz. He’d opened up the hood for a look at the stuttering engine when an over friendly guy, driving a bright yellow pickup truck pulled onto the forecourt beside him.
“Hey buddy, need a ride?” the big, over friendly guy, with a bushy ginger beard, wearing oversized green combat fatigues and a blue baseball cap with a “Dallas Cowboys” emblem had asked, in a broad southern U.S accent.
“Why, sure,” Sonny answered. “You from the States?”
The big guy nodded and smiled as he got out of his vehicle. “Yup, sure thing. I’m from El Paso and I’ve been prepping for this thing for a good few years now. I said the apocalypse was coming but hell, nobody believed me. That’s why I upped sticks and moved my fat ass out down Mexico way.” The big guy laughed haughtily and opened his shirt to reveal a small Colt Mustang handgun inside a holster, strapped around his large waist. “It’s a whole lot more lenient with the kind of firearms you can carry around with you here.”
Green Ice: A Deadly High Page 35