by Peter Nealen
Just as Ben and I were coming out of our third room, a blast of suppressed gunfire came from the next room ahead. It sounded like a full mag dump, the suppressed claps of the 7.62 shots blending together into a ripping roar. Something had gone down in there. We pushed to the door and rushed in, yelling, “Blue! Blue!” to avoid becoming targets to our own guys, just as Nick yelled, “What the fuck, man!”
The room was the first one that was already lit when we entered. The walls were lined with burning candles. There had to be a hundred of them. Even more were clustered at the foot of what I can only describe as an altar.
It was a low, granite table, covered with flowers. Paintings of skulls and grim reapers hung on the wall behind the statue that loomed almost to the ceiling. The statue was wearing a flowing white dress, with a gaudy crown on top of the veil that was draped over a grinning skull. A skeletal hand gripped a scythe. Burning cigars, several bottles of Tequila and Mescal, and a gently smoking bong flanked it.
The part that had Nick rattled, though, was the young boy's corpse lying on the floor in front of the altar. His throat had been cut, and apparently most of his blood had been drained into a stoneware bowl at the foot of the statue.
Papa Ortega was lying on the floor next to the boy's corpse, his chest and throat turned into hamburger by Nick's fire. There was still a bloodied knife clenched in one hand, and both forearms were drenched red to the elbows.
“What the fuck?” Nick repeated. His rifle was still dry, hanging from its sling, and he had his pistol out and pointed at the drug lord's corpse. He was breathing a little hard.
“I've heard of human sacrifice to Santa Muerte,” I said, nudging the would-be drug lord's mangled corpse with my boot. He was well and truly gone. “I guess old boy here was trying one last, desperate plea for protection. See how well that worked out, motherfucker?” I looked down at what was left of the boy. “Too bad we didn't hit this place earlier.” I knew I'd be seeing that small corpse in my dreams for a while. It would probably be worse for Nick. “Let's finish clearing this shithole, then torch it and get the fuck out of here.”
There was no way I was leaving that place standing.
The rest of the building was empty. Apparently a lot of Los Hijos had already defected, or just plain run away. It had just been Papa Ortega and his last few die hards, and even the die hards were at the end of their rope after the culling we'd done in Culiacan.
There was a lot of money still stashed in the house, along with stacks of weapons and ammo. We took some of the money; it might come in useful. The rest of the shit we set on fire. The place was mostly brick, but there had been plenty of diesel in the nearby garage, so we'd doused the shrine room especially thoroughly, and lit it. The place was burning fiercely as we waded back across the river.
Our work in Culiacan was just about done. Los Hijos was finished. But that didn't mean we were going home just yet.
Chapter 23
“Well, they certainly aren't interested in any new business,” Mia announced as she walked into the safehouse. She put down her purse and started prying out the tiny digital camera she'd carefully stowed inside the lining. “I didn't make it past the first set of functionaries.”
Derek already had his laptop open and ready to take the tiny SD card that held what pictures she'd managed to take. “That was pretty much what we expected, though, right?” he asked, as she handed it over.
“Well, both Renton and Gray did say that the Fusang Group is almost purely a PLA front, rather than a legitimate business,” I pointed out. “They really don't have offices so much as safehouses.”
Derek was scrolling through the take. The photos were pretty much all of the entrance to the building and the lobby, along with the recalcitrant front-desk receptionist and the security behind the front desk.
“Does that look like more of our contractor pals from Managua to you?” Jim asked, leaning over Derek's shoulder to point at the two guys in blazers and khakis standing behind the desk. One was Anglo, the other was Asian, but of a size to suggest he was American rather than actually Chinese. Then again, I could be wrong on that one. I was well aware that there are identifiable physical differences between Asian ethnicities, but I haven't spent enough time in the Far East to pick up on most of them.
“Sure looks like it,” Derek said. “More 'corporate security' than 'contractor chic,' but they definitely have the look.” He looked up at me. “I'd say that probably means we'll be up against reasonably well-trained operators if we go loud on this thing.”
Jim snorted. “Depends on who they recruited. I've seen 'well-trained uber-operators' turn out to be a bunch of fucking Paul Blarts when the shit hit the fan.”
“True,” I allowed, “but for planning purposes we'll assume they paid top dollar and got guys with top CVs and the skills to match. It doesn't pay to underestimate your opposition.” A point that none of us really needed to be told, but at the same time, sometimes a reminder is useful to avoid complacency.
“Holy fuck,” Derek said, as more of the photos loaded. “They've got...shit, it looks like six or seven security goons just in the front lobby, that they actually let people see. How much you wanna bet that they've got a full react team in the back, kitted up and ready to move?”
“That's some hard-core security,” Eddie said. “I hope it means that we've fingered a nice, juicy target that's going to really, really hurt when we tear it apart.”
“That's not all,” Mia put in. “I couldn't get good photos of the doors, but you're going to want to take a lot of breaching tools if you hit this place.” She pointed at the door that two more of the security goons in blazers were standing in front of. “This one's got what looks like a mag-lock on it...”
The office was just down the street from the same Parque Industrial Alfredo V Bonfil where we had met Ernesto only a short time ago, though it felt like a lot longer. I wondered, briefly, if there was a reason for that; was the Fusang Group keeping such close tabs on the operation that they wanted the meet to happen where they could easily monitor it? There was no way to know, short of interrogating Xi Shang himself. That might turn out to be an option, but I thought it ultimately unlikely. Even if we could grab him, he would probably be far, far more resistant to questioning than his proxies had been.
But that train of thought was a distraction right at the moment. We had just turned into our staging area to hit the Fusang Group offices. It was game time.
The staging area was a junkyard for old, retired city utility vehicles. We'd paid the proprietor handsomely for after-hours access to his yard. He thought we just wanted to pick up some parts on the cheap. Considering that we'd paid him more than he'd make in a month for one night, he didn't ask questions, and we let him think we were only interested in scavenging parts off worn-out trash trucks.
Parking the rental vans, we piled out. All of us were rolling as low-profile as we could; no external armor, no helmets, no NVGs. There was no way to really fully conceal the rifles, but if we carried them right, they wouldn't be immediately visible to a passing glance, at least. We wore loose collared shirts, with mags and various other gear on belts underneath. The breaching tools were even harder to conceal, considering that nobody was willing to leave their weapon behind to carry a sledgehammer or Halligan tool. Backpacks weren't entirely out of place, so they were crammed with explosives and distraction devices, and a couple of sledgehammers had been cut short and stuffed in next to the breaching charges.
We had a couple of blocks to cover. There was a fair amount of private security guarding most of the warren of warehouses and vehicle fleet yards that covered the Mazatlan port district, and the port police patrolled regularly but predictably. We had already mapped out their schedule while Mia ran her reconnaissance of the Fusang Group offices, and had laid in our routes and timing accordingly. Granted, Murphy, that sadistic fuck, likes to throw any such plans into a cocked hat with depressing regularity, but we should be good. Most of the port police didn't seem
to be overly motivated from what I'd seen.
We didn't leave the junkyard all at once; that would have been too noticeable. Instead, we drifted out in ones and twos, except for Raoul and Mia, who stayed with the vehicles. This was an all-hands op. Mia had produced an AR pistol from somewhere, along with six mags for it. Raoul was, true to company standards, carrying a Crusader Broadsword.
There were plenty of lights on the streets, bathing the port district in that sickly orange sodium glow. It made things even hairier, as there was little chance to stay in the shadows, at least without making it look like we were skulking around after dark, up to no good. Ever try to conceal a battle carbine while trying to simultaneously walk normally? It's harder than it sounds.
The real trick was going to be getting close to the office unobserved. There hadn't been a lot of security surveillance coverage to avoid on targets in Iraq, and certainly not in Somalia, but here there were CCTV cameras fucking everywhere. And nowhere were they thicker than on the Fusang Group's office building. It positively bristled with the damned things. If we didn't do something about them, we'd be made before we could ever make entry.
Of course, as soon as the cameras started going down the security was going to know something was happening, but it beat having them watch our every move as we breached the door.
Larry, being one of our best pistol shots, was one of the designated camera-poppers. Pistol shots were going to be far quieter than rifle shots; pistol rounds are subsonic already, so they make very little noise. Supersonic rifle bullets tend to make a loud crack despite how muffled the muzzle blast might be.
Larry and I met up under the cluster of trees across the street from the corner building that housed the Fusang Group office. It was one of the truly dark, shadowed spots close to the building. There weren't a lot of extra lights; that would have been too obvious, but I could just barely make out the faint red glow that revealed the IR floodlights attached to the cameras. Larry handed me his FAL and drew his pistol.
The STI was a full-frame job, and the suppressor stuck out another six inches in front of the slide. It still looked tiny in Larry's hands. He took a breath, lifted the pistol, focused for a second, took another breath, and squeezed the trigger.
There wasn't much more sound than the action cycling, the brass hitting the concrete, and a spitting sound as the bullet left the suppressor. He took two shots at one camera, then shifted to the next. I strained my ears to hear, but the shots fired at the other cameras down the street, where I could just barely make out Eric and Ben, weren't audible.
“I think I got 'em,” Larry whispered, slipping the pistol back into its holster and taking back his rifle.
“Well, if you missed we'll know soon enough,” I replied. I keyed the small radio strapped to my belt. “Go,” was all I said. The transmission wasn't going to reach far, but it would get far enough.
I'd barely finished the single syllable before we were rushing the building, sprinting across the street from three directions, no longer making any attempt to conceal the rifles or breaching tools.
Ben, Eric, Larry, and I got to the front door at almost the same time, the rest of the team very close behind. Eddie and his team were going to stay outside on cordon for this one, especially in case the Chinese had a react force somewhere else that might come running.
The lights in the lobby were off, and the bars over the glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows were locked. The Halligan tool made short work of the gates and the lock on the doors behind them. We burst into the abandoned lobby, so far completely unresisted.
The lobby was a simple, relatively unadorned square room. In keeping with the grungy look of the outside, the walls were white-painted cinderblock and the floor was plain white tile. A big, thick reception desk sat a couple of meters from the doors, three chairs were set against the wall to the right, and there were two doors leading elsewhere in the building. Both were solid, and electronically locked.
There had been quite a few advances in electronic locks in recent years; it was getting harder and harder to jigger them. Furthermore, a quick look showed that they were mag-locked, and I fully expected them to be the high-security type, taking the better part of two thousand pounds of force to pop open. Even with the Halligan and some big dudes, that wasn't happening.
With a cutting charge, though, it became another matter altogether.
Assembling the building-block, pre-made charges we had into a linear charge to simply cut the door in half was going to take too long. So Bryan did the next best thing. He blocked off the spot at the top corner where the mag-lock itself was located, or at least most likely located, slapped another one where the bolt was, and primed the charges before yanking the igniters and moving back to where most of us had hunkered down behind the desk. The overpressure from even those small directional charges going off in the enclosed space of the lobby was going to suck.
He'd barely gotten his head down when the charges went off with a loud bang that slammed us into the floor even behind cover. The glass in the windows and doors at the front shattered, scattering fragments across the steps.
The smoke hadn't cleared yet before we were up and moving. The door was hanging slightly ajar; the charges had done their job. Little Bob almost ripped it off its hinges and we flowed through.
There was a short hallway on the far side of the door, that ended in a T with a longer hall that appeared to run most of the length of the building. It was deserted, though the lights were still on, at least a few of them.
I was just thinking that there was no way they could have entrusted all of the security of this place to the locks when a door to the right burst open and four men flowed out.
They were all wearing plate carriers and carrying bullpup rifles. The number one man was Caucasian, two of the others looked like Mexicans, and the fourth was Asian. They moved like they knew what they were doing, but they stopped dead when they saw the four 7.62 muzzles aimed at them.
I was close enough to see the wheels turning in the white guy's head. He was the only one with a weapon actually pointed right at us; the others hadn't quite gotten lined up when they'd seen us. The look in his eyes spoke volumes. He wasn't getting paid enough to sacrifice himself in a hallway in Mazatlan for the sake of whatever the Fusang Group had there. They hadn't been expecting or ready for a full-scale building assault.
I let the Mexican Standoff continue for a few more seconds before I spoke. “Well, gents,” I said reasonably, “looks like you've got a choice to make. You might get a couple of us, but we'll kill all of you as sure as I'm standing here. Are Xi Shang and his cronies paying you enough for that?”
None of them replied for a moment. Then the white guy lifted his rifle muzzle and took his hand off the pistol grip. “I don't know what you want, but we're just contractors,” he said. “We're just here doing a job.”
“And I appreciate that, I really do,” I replied. “But your job is presently standing between us and our objective, and if you don't stand down in the next ten seconds, we will kill you to get to it. I'm sure you can get another contract. You can't get another life.”
He glanced at his compatriots, who were looking just as nervous. They knew they were in a lose-lose situation, particularly as more rifle muzzles moved to cover them. I suspected they were worried about the backlash they'd get from their employers if they just folded, too. Rock, meet Hard Place.
At the time, though, I really didn't give a fuck. I wasn't going to go out of my way to off them, but they were working for the PLA, if only by proxy. They'd get the fuck out of my way or they'd die. End of story.
Finally, they lowered their weapons to the floor. I gestured with my rifle muzzle. “Kit, too. Fucking everything.”
They stripped off their plate carriers and pistol belts, moving slowly and keeping their hands in view. “Who else is in the building?” Larry asked. They looked up, to see that the gigantic scary murder hobo with the FAL had asked the question.
“We ca
n't tell you that,” the Asian started to say. He had an accent; I was pretty sure he wasn't American, though the white guy definitely was.
“Do you need to be reminded just how limited your options here are, bud?” I asked, lifting my barrel fractionally for emphasis.
“We are the only ones, Señor,” one of the Mexicans said. “We are just the night shift.”
“Nobody sitting back in a command post, calling for reinforcements right now?” Little Bob asked, gesturing to them to step forward, leaving their weapons and gear behind them. It would make it that much harder for them to grab for any of it if they got froggy.
The Mexican shook his head emphatically. “No, it is just us.”
I watched them carefully. I wouldn't put it past them to be bullshitting us, trying to buy time. But I wasn't seeing any exchange of glances or other signs of lying. That didn't mean we were going to take them at their word, of course. Apparently, though, the white dude thought it did.
“So, what now?” he asked. “If you're not going to kill us, can we leave?”
There was a chorus of grim laughter in response. “Yeah, sure,” Larry said. “Fuck no, you can't leave. You're going to stay right here while we clear the rest of the building and do what we came to do.”
“Sasquatch, Nigerian, you watch them,” I said to Little Bob and Eric. “Don't be too gentle.” Eric showed his teeth through his goatee, as he chivvied them into the short hallway leading to the lobby.
As we moved to start clearing rooms, I heard the white guy ask Eric, “How did you get named 'Nigerian?'”
“Long story,” he said. “Now shut the fuck up.”
They hadn't been lying; the building was empty except for them. We'd done a number on the CCTV cameras; when we got to the security office a good half of the screens were blank, displaying the simple message “No Input.” True to the contractors' word, there wasn't anyone else there, just an empty chair behind the desk facing the monitors. I wondered at that; why not leave one man behind to coordinate? Were they that eager to “get some?” Or just inexperienced and bored?