NO EASY WAY OUT a gripping action-packed thriller (Johnny Silver Thriller Book 4)
Page 9
‘I agree to your terms,’ said Rojo. ‘Paco will come to the bar in the village and brief you on the job. He will pay you the fee in American dollars. Be there at noon.’
He turned around and walked to the jeep and climbed inside. Paco was about to leave when I stopped him.
‘What about all these bodies?’ I asked. ‘Burying them is not part of our contract.’
‘I will send some men to do that. Dispose of them where the coyotes can feast on their flesh and gnaw on their bones.’ Charming! ‘Until noon, Johnny Silver. Don’t be late.’
‘Well,’ said Pieter when they had driven away. ‘Will somebody tell me what’s going on?’
‘Seems like we’ve changed sides,’ said Bull.
‘Only temporarily,’ I said. ‘It’s what’s called a ruse de guerre.’ Pieter looked blank.
‘It’s French for the plan hasn’t worked,’ said Bull.
‘OK,’ said Stan. ‘So we do this job for him and then we will get taken on and have access to the house where they hold the girl. That I understand. What I don’t get is the fee. Twenty-five grand for one day’s work. For that money whatever we have to do is going to be dangerous. I don’t like it.’
‘Just look at it as all in a good cause,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is we can handle it.’
‘So we’re back to someone shooting at us,’ said Bull.
‘Not necessarily,’ I said.
‘That’s sounds pretty close to a might or a maybe to me,’ said Bull.
‘Granted,’ I said. ‘If this doesn’t work, we’ll revert to Plan A and storm the ranch.’
‘There is a danger,’ said Stan, ‘that Rojo will get reinforcements and we’ll face greater odds than if we attack now.’
‘The moment we attack is the moment the girl is most vulnerable. We can’t take the chance that Rojo or one of his men will put a bullet through her brain. Because of that, we have to play it safe.’
‘Relatively safe,’ corrected Bull. ‘Let’s get back and find out what we have to do to take the money and win Rojo’s trust.’
‘And get a beer,’ said Pieter. ‘All this killing makes a man thirsty.’
‘It will never make a great advertising slogan,’ said Bull.
* * *
When we got back to the house, Rosa and Chico, not in school as yet, were in the kitchen preparing a meal. She took one look at me and stepped back a pace as if I had the plague and she was terrified of being infected.
‘Is this due to me?’ she asked, gesturing at my camouflage jacket. ‘The blood?’
I shook my head. ‘It was always coming. What happened to you just speeded up the process. No blame is due to you.’
‘Did you kill more people?’ Chico asked excitedly. ‘Oh how I wish I could have been there to see it.’
‘It wasn’t a sight for young boys,’ I said. ‘Or even grown men. There’s nothing clever or brave about killing people. Sometimes it has to be done, that’s all. What you mustn’t do is enjoy it. That’s the route of a sick person. We do what we have to because we have to. That’s the beginning and end of it.’
‘Come,’ Rosa said. ‘Change out of those clothes and I will wash them. I will make some coffee.’
‘No time for coffee, I’m afraid, but we do need to change. That can wait though. How are you today? Have you got over last night?’
‘Got over? In some ways, yes. I am safe now, but soon you will go. What will happen then? Bad men will still be here and they will do whatever they like. We — the village — cannot oppose them and the police will not help. Rojo has money, lots of money. He can buy who he wants. We will never be safe while he is here.’
‘Maybe we can do something about that,’ said Bull.
‘Maybe?’ I repeated. ‘I thought that was not a word you liked.’
‘Maybe this time is different,’ he replied. ‘Will we be able to simply walk away when our task is done? Unfinished business. I’ve never liked that. Can we abandon this village?’
‘Estevez will still be here,’ Red said. ‘Maybe he can take Rojo on. Estevez seems to be a powerful man with good connections. Might he pull some strings? Put pressure on Rojo to leave?’
‘When a man of peace takes on a man of evil, the evil man wins,’ I said. ‘There will only be one way to end this.’
‘Then that’s the way it must be,’ said Stan. ‘I will work on a plan. Assuming you are all up for putting this world to rights?’
‘When did we ever miss the opportunity?’ Red said. ‘Comanches will defend their village to the end.’
‘Then so be it,’ I said.
* * *
The counsellor put a bag on the floor and told the man in the bar to scram. He handed over fifty dollars and the man walked out the door. Probably would have done it without the fifty dollars if he knew what was good for him. Paco went to the fridge behind the bar and took out an armful of newly arrived beers and put them down on the two tables we had pulled together. He passed the bag to me, sat down and spread out a map of Northern Mexico.
I checked the bag first. It was what he expected, so I went through the motions of only caring about the money. Bundles of new hundred-dollar bills. I rifled through a few of the packages to make sure they weren’t padded out with paper.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Tell us what we have to do to justify this much money.’
‘This is Baja California,’ he said, pointing to a long peninsular that ran down the west coast of Mexico. ‘This is the Gulf of California that runs between the Baja and mainland Mexico. Tomorrow evening a motorboat will land at a deserted beach at Bahia Kino. The merchandise will be unloaded there into a truck carrying fruit and vegetables. The truck will then head north through Sonora and cross the border into Arizona. All you have to do is hijack the truck and appropriate the merchandise.’
‘How large is this merchandise?’ I asked.
‘Small,’ he said. ‘No bigger than half a dozen bricks. Any one of you could hold them easily.’
‘How many people in the boat and in the truck,’ I asked.
‘Five on the boat — it’s a long sea voyage and that’s the minimum crew for safety. Only one of those will go as protection for the driver of the truck. They are using as few people as possible to make the truck appear ordinary and insignificant. Not much of a challenge for you.’
‘How do we recognise the boat and the truck?’ Stan asked.
‘The boat is what is called a gin palace. It is under the guise of a deep-sea fishing vessel — big game like marlin and swordfish. It sails under the Panamanian flag.’
‘Whatever that is,’ said Red.
‘Its name is La Gitana. That means The Gypsy in English.’
‘And the truck?’ Stan persisted.
‘It has a large picture of various fruit on the side and the name of its owners — Blancos Hermanos — on the front of the cab. A blind man could spot it.’
‘And where do we find one of those?’ said Bull.
Paco looked at him and shook his head. ‘Anything else you need to know?’ he said. ‘Anything serious, that is.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Where’s the other twenty-five thousand dollars?’
‘What are you talking about? I’ve just given you twenty-five thousand dollars.’
‘The price has gone up,’ I said, testing him. ‘We want another twenty-five thousand dollars as a bonus when we deliver the package. Take it or leave it.’
I leaned back in the chair and looked him in the eye. He looked away.
‘I’ll take it,’ he said, sounding whatever ‘pissed off’ is in Spanish. Not a question for Chico. ‘We meet back here, ten o’clock, in two days’ time for you to deliver the package. I’ll pay you the rest then.’
‘That’s not very friendly,’ I said. ‘We expect better treatment than that. Eh, boys? We’ll deliver the package to the house. Over dinner. No expense spared. Take it or leave it.’
‘I’ll take it,’ he said again, sounding even more pissed off than the fir
st time. ‘Don’t mess this up,’ he said, standing up. ‘There’s a lot riding on it.’
He turned away and walked to the door.
‘You didn’t finish your beer,’ I said to his back.
‘Strangely, I’m not thirsty anymore.’
He slammed the door as he made his exit. Temper! Temper!
‘I don’t like it,’ Pieter said. ‘He agreed too easily. Something’s not right.’
‘Well, I think we all know what will be in the package,’ I said.
‘Toss-up between heroin or cocaine,’ said Red. ‘Nothing we want to be caught with, for sure.’
‘And we’re still going to do it,’ said Bull.
‘What are our assets?’ said Stan, taking a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket. ‘The five of us,’ said Red. ‘We outnumber them.’
‘Guns and ammunition,’ said Pieter. ‘We can outshoot them.’
‘A mean sense of humour,’ said Bull. ‘Laugh themselves to death.’
‘And the most important,’ I said. ‘Let me give you all a clue. Mi casa es tu casa.’
‘Ah,’ said Stan, nodding his head as he made the connection. ‘You know, it might just work.’
Chapter Eleven
When you want to borrow a helicopter it pays to be polite. I complimented Estevez, again, on the quality of his coffee, the level of comfort in the armchair I was sitting in and how well he looked that day. Then I hit him with it.
‘We’ve hit a problem,’ I said. ‘We’re working on a plan to enter his house without having to do it with all guns blazing — we don’t want to take the chance that Maria will be caught in the crossfire or killed as an act of retaliation. Rojo doesn’t trust us — he may be young and inexperienced, but he’s not as big a fool as we thought him to be. He has set us a task — a kind of test. If we succeed, we gain entry peaceably. If we fail, our only option is to storm the ranch. We need your help if we are to achieve the objective.’
‘Tell me what you want from me and you shall have it.’
‘Rojo’s sources tell him that a boat will be landing in Baja California and transferring some merchandise to a truck carrying fruit and vegetables. The merchandise is almost certainly drugs and our task is to steal it. There are many ways we might approach it, but the one that would give us an edge is by helicopter. They’d never be expecting that.’
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Tell me more.’
‘We’ve yet to work out the details, but I imagine it would depend on how good your pilot is.’
‘What do you think, knowing what you do of me?’
‘Hotshot. The best around.’
‘Exactly. He can land on a pinhead.’
‘Take evasive action?’
‘Of course.’
‘Calm under pressure?’
‘None better. When do you need him?’
‘Tomorrow. I’ll send Chico round in a while with a map. Ask your pilot for a flying time and we’ll fit around that.’
‘Good luck. Via con dios.’
* * *
We were sitting at the big table and Stan had spread a map out, its corners held down by the beer bottles we had just finished. To us the map meant little since we had no context, we couldn’t easily visualise the distance involved. But Stan would know. It was what he did. Details were his forte. We waited for him to speak.
‘Shock and awe,’ he said. ‘We’ll hit them so hard they’ll give up the fight.’ I nodded. That was my reckoning, too.
‘They’ll be worrying about getting stopped for some reason by the police and the truck searched,’ Stan continued. ‘They’ll be looking forwards and occasionally in the rear-view mirror in case they’re being followed. They won’t be expecting an attack from above and that is what will give us the edge.’
‘I remember the last time we tried to stop a truck with a roadblock,’ Pieter said. ‘It was a disaster. At least this will be a change. Hopefully, that is.’
‘What’s the plan?’ Bull asked. ‘How does the helicopter fit in?’
‘We fly up and to the side of them. Someone leans out of the helicopter and shoots the tyres. We fly up and to the other side and shoot the tyres there too. The truck will have to stop. We land behind them and threaten the driver and the guard. They’ll be as meek as pussycats. The helicopter gives us the shock and awe.’
‘And where does all this happen?’ asked Red. ‘Firing out of a helicopter is going to attract a lot of attention.’
‘We have to hit them before they reach the main road,’ I said. ‘If we can’t stop them before they exit the beach, we have lost our opportunity.’
‘Hell of a tight window,’ Bull said. ‘And what will the men in the boat be doing?’
‘It takes two of us, say, to keep the guard and the driver out of the action, one of us — that’s me — to search the truck and two of us to keep the boat out of the action.’ I paused to let the details sink in. ‘If anyone has a better idea, then I’d be glad to hear it.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘I’ll do the shooting,’ Bull said. ‘Never shot from a moving helicopter before. Be a new experience. Something to tell the grandkids in years to come.’
‘If you survive that long,’ Stan said.
‘Thanks for the reassurance,’ said Bull.
We were interrupted by a knock on the door. When I opened it, there was Chico standing with his hands on his hips and staring accusingly.
‘You were supposed to take me to school,’ he said. ‘Two days running you missed. Do you care more about killing people than my education?’
‘You know what happened yesterday,’ I said. ‘You saw the blood. School had opened by the time we got back. Today I had to see Senor Estevez. We had plans to make, but I apologise for letting you down. It was a bad example to set.’
‘What do I do now?’ he asked.
‘You go to school each day and learn from Senora Sanchez and Padre Patrick. I will only be here for a few more days. I can only encourage you so much. You need to learn how to be your own person. To do what you know is right, and that includes going to school. Meanwhile,’ I said, ‘you can earn some more money.’
His face brightened.
‘I will give you a map,’ I said. ‘Take it to Senor Estevez. Show him where I have marked it with a cross. Ask him — and this is very important — how much time it will take to get there. Come back and give us his answer. There’s ten dollars in it for you.’
‘I will do as you say,’ he replied. ‘You are my friend again. And that’s not because of the ten dollars — well, not all of it. You said you were wrong. That is a hard thing to say. I thank you for that. Now,’ he said, ‘where is this map?’
‘Come with me,’ I said, heading for the stairs. When we were on the roof terrace he gave a big smile — except to Bull who he watched warily. Showed a lot of common sense, I thought. This was a boy who could really go someplace. Not just to Sonora and working on a production line. He had intelligence and, more importantly perhaps, a gut instinct in summing up a situation.
‘Come, stand by me,’ Bull said. Another person with gut instinct. ‘We’re fresh out of chairs. We can offer you some orange juice. We have nothing else that doesn’t contain alcohol.’
‘Orange juice is fine,’ Chico said. ‘If you like it, that is.’
‘Then I’ll get you a glass. Keep my seat warm.’
Chico moved onto Bull’s seat and gave a wide smile. He was obviously feeling one of us and that peer group identity was the most important thing for him at this moment.
Bull came back with two mugs of orange juice — did he spoil the effect by adding vodka to his? I suspect not, but who can tell with Bull? He passed one to Chico.
‘What do you say in Spanish when you want to share a drink?’
‘Salud,’ said Chico.
‘Then salud,’ Bull said, raising his glass.
We raised ours, too. The Magnificent 6? Time would tell.
Chapter Twelve
The sky was blood red, which I hoped wasn’t an omen. We walked through the open gate of Estevez’s house and round the back where there was a circle that looked way too small to land on. In the exact centre of the circle was the helicopter. Precision. Might come in handy.
The pilot was dressed in a blue suit complete with a peaked cap. The more I saw of this guy the more reassured I became. He was medium height, clean shaven and his hair was neatly cut and short at the sides, exposing ears that looked like they had been stapled to his head. He came over and shook our hands while we introduced ourselves. The helicopter, he informed us, was a Bell 206 Long Ranger adapted from the basic models used by some of the military, police and ambulance services into one with an interior fit for a corporate magnate like Estevez. In addition to seats for the pilot and, if needed for long trips, a co-pilot, there were four deep leather seats and leather trimmings to the interior cabin area, and little cabinets that I suspected contained glasses and refreshments. Maybe on the way back.
The pilot motioned me into the seat which must have been that of the co-pilot, as it had the same controls as the seat to my left. There was a joystick-type arrangement immediately in front of me, two pedals on the floor and a kind of lever to my left, all of which I hoped never to have to use. The pilot took his seat and issued me and Bull with headsets so that we could talk and hear what was being said. The cabin was well insulated for sound and we wouldn’t need the earpieces and microphones until we opened the door to shoot and the wind and noise from the rotor blades would drown out any attempt at conversation.
The pilot told me we would cruise at around 110 mph, twenty per cent or so lower than maximum, but that he’d got 145 mph out of the machine if all flying conditions were right and we needed to make a fast exit. We’d fly below the cloud level so as to take advantage of the view and to minimise turbulence.