by Lincoln Matt
No one seemed to have a response to this, though some continued to snicker. It didn’t matter. She knew some people would never be on her side. But she could see the tide turning in the room, even if just a bit. At least no one was screaming or fighting at the moment.
“But you must understand, Ms. García,” a woman in the front row pleaded. “If our homes become militarized, it will be the end of what little normalcy you have left.”
Alejandra’s face softened as she turned to the woman.
“I understand this,” she replied. “And I sympathize, I do. But if we do nothing, you’ll lose that normalcy, anyway. And if we go to war with Haiti, well, who do you think will suffer the most in our country? Not Santo Domingo, so far away from the border. No, the ones who will suffer will be you, here on the border and closest to the violence. It will just be a different kind of violence than what we have now. And it will be our fault, not the cartel’s.”
No one seemed to have an answer to this, either. They knew it to be true. They just didn’t want to face it.
“So how about this compromise?” Alejandra asked. “How about we go forward with the administration’s plan to send extra police into the border towns? But we also send police to the border. Amp up our protections there. Invading Haiti isn’t the answer, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get as close to doing so as possible. We must protect our country.”
“But will that not make them angry just the same? And perhaps retaliate?” one of the local officials who had been against an invasion protested.
“That’s why it’s called a compromise,” Alejandra said, giving the woman a small smile. “No one’s going to be happy, but everyone’s getting something that they want, as well. This isn’t my ideal plan, either, but it’s the best I can come up with to get everyone to agree to it, and we need to agree to something. Otherwise, the cartel is going to continue to go unchecked, and that won’t be good for anyone.”
Begrudgingly, everyone seemed to agree to this. There were some grumbles and some smaller arguments that ensued, but overall, everyone seemed content with this. They weren’t happy, but neither was anyone else, so they didn’t feel so bad about it.
Ultimately, Alejandra got everyone except a few lone holdouts to sign a document to this effect. Her father and his cabinet would be happy, at least for now. She had no doubt everyone would find something else to fight about soon enough.
“Should we go home now?” someone asked when they were all done.
“Yes, I think that about solves everything we’re going to solve this week,” she said. “We’ll be in touch about further steps. But be warned, you must comply with what we agreed today. When the police show up, you must cooperate with them. It’s only for the time being. Soon enough, we will deal with this problem, and everything can go back to normal.”
“And then what will happen?” a man asked sourly.
“We must have faith,” Alejandra insisted. “Things have gotten better in the years since the earthquake, there’s no denying that. And my father has made a lot of ground in addressing some of the problems between our two nations, at least before all this cartel business started up again. We can’t get discouraged.”
Most of the conference attendees seemed to leave the room more light-hearted and hopeful than they had been when they entered, or at least less despondent. For the first time in weeks, Alejandra felt as if she’d accomplished something. And she didn’t for a moment think it was a coincidence that as soon as Ethan Marston showed up, things started going her way again. There was just something about that man…
Alejandra was alone packing up her notes from the meeting in her bag when she heard the footsteps of a couple of men enter the room. She thought that they were conference-goers who had forgotten something at first, not taking the time to really look at them as she ruffled through her papers.
“There are a couple of bags over there if that’s what you’re looking for,” she said dismissively, waving in the direction of some seats in the corner.
“We are not here for that,” one of them said, and there was something odd about his voice. Alejandra realized that he had an accent. He was not a native Spanish speaker.
She didn’t even notice when they crossed over to stand right in front of her, and when she was finished with her papers, she looked up to see a gun pointed straight at her face.
“Hand over the document,” the same man said, pointing at the papers with everyone’s signatures agreeing to Alejandra’s terms.
There were five men there, all young, probably in their twenties. They were Haitian and bore gang tattoos that Alejandra knew to be affiliated with the very drug cartel they were after.
Her heart sank, and her pulse quickened.
“How did you know about this?” she asked, clutching the papers tightly and making an effort to keep her voice calm.
“We have our sources,” the same man, the one at the front holding the gun, said. She wondered if anyone else in the group even spoke any Spanish.
“You’ll have to name them if you want what you seek,” she spat back.
The man threw his head back and laughed.
“And how exactly do you think you have any leverage in this situation?” he asked, brandishing the gun threateningly.
He had a point. Even so, Alejandra saw no reason not to try her luck. Or to at least drag this whole thing out until someone came to rescue her. She hoped that Ethan and his partner would be back soon, though she had no idea how long they were planning to be out in the first place.
“I am the Dominican President’s daughter,” she said.
She watched them closely and could see by the slight flicker on the man with the gun’s face that this was new information to him.
“Your sources can’t be that good then, can they?” she chuckled to cover her nervousness. “Now, if anything were to happen to me, that wouldn’t be very good for you, would it?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” the man said, but his hand was wavering as it held the gun.
“And how did taking my brother work out for you the last time?” Alejandra pointed out.
The man started to lower his gun. One of the other gangbangers snapped at him in French, and then they began a furious conversation, going back and forth, presumably about what to do with Alejandra.
She slowly moved backward, knowing that there was an exit on the other side of the room, away from the Haitian men. She tucked the papers behind her and ruffled some similar-looking ones in front of her, just in case she had to pass them off as the signatory documents. It was difficult, given how much her hands were shaking, but she managed it.
None of the men noticed her movements, since they were so absorbed in their own conversation, and she managed to keep them low-key.
Once the papers were rearranged, she took another step back. And then another, and then another, but by then she was obviously much further away from them than she had been at the beginning.
“Hey!” the man with the gun cried. “What are you doing? Watch it!”
He brandished the gun at her again, his entire arm shaking. The man next to him shouted something in French, and she thought she heard her name in there somewhere.
“Hand them over!” the man with the gun screamed, charging at her.
She flung the fake papers in his direction.
“Here, here,” she said, holding her hands up in surrender. “There they are. I can go now?”
She took another small, tentative step backward, but then a shot rang out, and Alejandra braced herself for the incoming blow.
CHAPTER 13
Ethan
When Holm and I got back to the hotel, the desk clerks directed us to the back conference room, where Alejandra and the other conference-goers had gathered after I broke up the fight between two of them earlier.
But when we got there, the conference was already finished, and Alejandra was alone in the room with several men who I took to be Haitian, one of whom was poi
nting a gun at her.
My heart beat uncontrollably, and my breath stopped cold in my chest as I took in the scene before us.
Without even glancing at Holm, I leaped into action. Holm and I hid behind the door so that Alejandra wouldn’t see us and give us away, and I pulled the barrel of my gun around and shot the man with the gun in the back.
It was instinct, really, seeing him pointing that thing at her and yelling at her, though I didn’t understand what he was saying. He and Alejandra were both speaking Spanish, but I knew a threat when I saw one.
I knew it probably would’ve been better to wait, but seeing him threatening her like that was just too much. And I knew I wouldn’t hit her. The man was far larger than she was, and she had moved away from the front of the room by that point, giving me a clear shot.
The shot didn’t kill him, but it hit him in the lower back, and he fell to the ground with a scream and a groan, causing his gun to skid across the floor and away from him.
“Run!” I screamed to Alejandra, but she didn’t. Instead, she reached down and grabbed the gangbangers gun from him before he could get a chance to use it again.
She backed up quickly now, holding the gun up in front of her with remarkably steady hands, considering the situation.
Holm and I rushed forward, looking to get whatever those papers were from the fallen gangbanger, but by then, the other gangbangers had clued in that we were there and swung around to face us, brandishing their own weapons.
“Americans,” one of them sneered at us, and they had another mini-conversation with each other in French. I thought I heard the name “Wallace” in there somewhere and remembered that Jake Wallace was our American victim’s fake identity.
“Hey!” I yelled, pointing my gun at the one who said it. “What does that mean? Who are you talking about? Do you know Jake Wallace?”
The gangbangers looked at each other like they had no idea what I was saying. They probably didn’t.
The one I had shot, who was now lying in a pool of his own blood, shouted something at them in French.
“All these different languages are starting to make me crazy,” Holm growled.
“I guess we should’ve paid more attention in high school,” I chuckled.
“Well, too late now,” Holm said, holding his own gun steady and pressing forward threateningly.
I followed suit, and the gangbangers started to back up slowly. We were at a stalemate. If we shot, they shot, and if they shot, we shot.
But that wasn’t actually the case, I realized. I glanced over the gangbangers down at Alejandra, who was still standing strong with the first gangbanger’s weapon in her hands.
“You know how to use that?” I asked her.
“You bet I do,” she said.
I grinned.
“We’ve got you surrounded, boys,” I told them. “How do you think you’re gonna get out of this one?”
The men looked around their shoulders and saw what I was talking about. They exchanged panicked looks and glanced wildly around the room in search of another exit. But there wasn’t one. So, the choice was surrender or a shoot out.
Unfortunately, they chose the latter.
What looked to be the youngest of them panicked, shut his eyes tightly, and just started shooting at Holm and me, slamming the trigger haphazardly. He didn’t have much of an aim in that state, though, and Holm and I both ducked and rolled, so the bullets just hit the door, leaving gaping smoking holes there.
I shot at the guy and hit him right in the temple as Holm rushed off to deal with one of the others. He died instantly. I hated having to do that, but he forced my hand. I thought back to Emmanuel, the kid back at the patrol outlet, and wondered how far that poor kid was from ending up like this.
Once we killed their guy, the remaining three standing gangbangers lost it. They started shooting at us, and they had way better aim than their younger counterpart.
I kept down low to the ground to avoid the shots but felt painful heat on the top of my left shoulder. I’d been hit. I grimaced as hot pain shot through me.
“Dammit,” I cursed, but I didn’t miss a beat and shoved the pain to the back of my mind, transferring my weapon to just my right hand and shooting back at my attacker. He screamed out and fell to the ground.
The other two were shooting at Holm. He didn’t look to be hurt—which was a miracle in and of itself, given his track record—but he was overwhelmed. The two guys were ganging up on him, and though he’d managed to take cover behind one of the long marble conference tables, it wouldn’t be long until they took him out.
I shot at the nearest one to me several times, since they seemed to be ignoring me after I was hit in the shoulder.
The gangbanger collapsed to the ground, lifeless. The remaining gangbanger darted out of the way and made a beeline toward me as I shot the other guy. Then, more shots rang out. His knees buckled, and he fell forward, blood dripping out of his mouth.
I turned to see that Alejandra was standing behind him, gun held high with a satisfied smirk on her face. I grinned at her.
“Nice shot,” I chuckled.
“It was more than one,” she corrected. Then, coming to help me up, “Are you all right, Ethan? Were you hit?”
I glanced over at my shoulder and touched it gingerly. “I think I’m okay,” I said. “Just a surface wound.”
Sure enough, my hand came back with some blood on it, but the wound wasn’t deep. I’d be just fine to keep going on this mission after some medical attention.
“Are you okay, Holm?” I asked my partner, who was moving out from behind the table where he’d taken cover.
“Yes,” he said. “Just a little winded is all. Are they all dead?”
I walked over to the four gangbangers lying on the ground in front of us. None of them were breathing.
“Looks like it,” I said.
“Not that one,” Alejandra said, pointing to the fifth man who was lying down in the main pit of the conference room. He was the first one I’d shot, the one Alejandra had taken the gun from. “He’s still alive, I think. Just badly hurt.”
“Can we talk to him?” I asked. “Does he speak English, do you know?”
“I don’t think so,” Alejandra said. “But he does speak some Spanish. He was the one who was talking to me earlier.”
“What are those papers they wanted?” Holm asked.
“Oh, that’s these,” Alejandra said, pulling some crumpled-up papers from her back pocket. “I gave him the wrong ones. It’s an agreement the conference-goers signed to have the police and military enter the border towns and do more patrolling of the actual border. It was the best compromise we could come up with without everyone killing each other.”
“Considering how we left things earlier, that’s impressive,” I said, giving her a sly smile.
“I suppose it is,” she agreed. “But I’m not sure how the cartel would know about it. They’d want it to stop their operations from slowing down with the influx of law enforcement, but there must be some kind of mole here at the conference.”
“That wouldn’t be surprising,” I said, walking over to the limp, groaning form of the head gangbanger lying across the middle of the floor. “Can you translate?”
I looked up at Alejandra. She nodded.
“Who told you to come here?” I asked sharply, shaking the man gently so that he would look up at me. Then, to Holm, “Call for help.”
Alejandra translated. The man just laughed, but the sound was strange, a combination of laughing and coughing. Some blood trickled down his chin from his mouth.
“Who told you to come here?!” I yelled, shaking him hard this time.
Alejandra translated, in just as sharp a tone. He said something in Spanish.
“He says it was just some clerk,” she said bitterly. “I should’ve known. I knew we should’ve vetted those people better.”
“That’s good, though,” Holm reasoned. “At least it’s not someone on the i
nside.”
But I had already moved on to more pressing matters.
“Tell us about the drug!” I commanded, shaking the guy again, so he didn’t drift off. “What is it? What are you doing to these people?”
The man just continued cackling and gurgling as his head lulled.
Finally, he said something in Spanish, and then his eyes rolled back into his head, and his body went limp.
“What did he say?” I asked Alejandra.
“He said… it’s strange,” Alejandra said, shaking her head. “He said that we won’t be so confident when we’re looking into the mask of death.”
“The mask of death,” Holm repeated. “Seriously?”
“Yes, that’s the exact phrase he used,” Alejandra said.
“There’s that word again,” I said. “These same words and concepts just keep cropping up over and over again.”
Just then, several uniformed patrol officers came bursting into the room, guns at the ready. Holm and I held up our badges so that they would know we were with MBLIS.
“We heard there was gunfire, and that Haitian cartel members were seen here,” the one at the front said. “But I see you all had that covered.”
“In a manner of speaking,” I grimaced, rising to my feet. “Are there any more?”
“Case the place,” the officer directed his men. “Every room on every floor.”
“One of the desk clerks gave us away,” Alejandra explained.
“Yeah, we’ve already arrested him,” the officer said. “It didn’t take him long to crack. He was just hiding under the front desk, and the second he saw us, he confessed. Said they bribed and threatened him. He’d only been feeding them information for about a day or so.”
“I suppose it could’ve been worse, then,” I reasoned, flexing my sore shoulder.
“They’re all dead?” the officer asked, gesturing at the men on the floor.