Blood Tide Page 17

  We waited, both sides willing the other to make a move. Carl and I were used to battlefield chess, being immobile for days on end. Nick too, although probably his skills were slightly rustier. But Teresa and Caitlin … well, not so much. I reached down to grasp Caitlin’s hand briefly. She squeezed back with intensity. I felt a warm glow in my belly. No one was going to harm her. I would make damn sure of that.

  We were up against trained killers, but that’s no big deal for people like us. In fact, in most shootouts, we usually are. We knew that in virtually all sniping standoffs, someone eventually makes a mistake.

  They did. The man Nick had wounded decided he didn’t want to die on behalf of some narco boss thousands of miles away basking in the Mexican sun, and started edging deeper into the willows. He did so imperceptibly, but that was all we needed. Nick signaled us, raised his head above the rock parapet for a nano-second, and shot him.

  Three other guns barked. I took out the first one, and Carl the other two.

  Once again, there was silence.

  I then had an idea.

  “Who’s got the radio?” I whispered. All guides had a radio linked to the lodge’s reception desk.

  “I have.” Caitlin handed it to me.

  Chris answered. It was a rare occasion he was not out on the river with clients.

  “Chris, have you heard anything from the Texans?”

  “Funny you should ask,” Chris said. “One of the guides radioed in about them a minute ago. Their boat has been found abandoned on the side of the bank.”

  I smiled grimly. It was them after all. The lodge is at the bottom of a horseshoe bend in the river and they had paddled downstream. They then ditched the dory, cutting straight across the bush at the top of the horseshoe where they knew we were. That’s how they ambushed us upstream from behind.

  Carl, Nick and I went to investigate. We did so cautiously, Nick covering us, but we needn’t have bothered. The Texans were dead.

  The jigsaw clicked together. They had been hired by the cartel. They had attempted to kill us the night before, but my insomnia had driven them away. So they tried the next day on the river.

  Carl took photos of the bodies and sent them to John Peters. He phoned back minutes later.

  “Yeah, we know them. They’re contractors hired by a murderous outfit called the Barrio Logan Heights Gang, who are the muscle for Guerra in California. They actually come from San Diego, not Texas.”

  “Their accents sure fooled me,” I said.

  By the time we got back to the lodge, the Alaskan police had arrived. The DEA had already briefed them, so we weren’t that vigorously interrogated. However, with police prowling around any attempt to hide the fact that a shootout had taken place at one of the most tranquil fishing lodges in the world was now blown.

  We obviously didn’t let on that these were hired killers, but even so, rumors spread like a prairie fire. Wild stories — ranging from Russians crossing the Bering Strait to influence presidential elections to ISIL terrorists in kayaks — became more and more comic in their absurdity.

  However, guests now looked at Carl and I with wide-eyed astonishment, but nothing that a round of free brewskis at the lodge bar could not amend. Chris was worried this would impact on business, but Nick laughed.

  “Brother — it will just add to the legend of Chris Stone, the dangerous fishing guide.”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t want.”

  “Yeah, right! Good luck with that dad,” said Caitlin.

  *As told in the Apocalypse Chase

  …

  DESPITE GUESTS MAKING good use of drinks being on the house and having a fishing story to tell like none other, our group was subdued.

  Teresa knew with cold clarity her family wanted her dead. And Caitlin … well, she grabbed my hand while sitting at the bar and didn’t let go until we got back to the yurt. She yanked me onto the bed.

  “I don’t care if the others come in,” she whispered as we slid naked under the sheets. I have never felt anything so silky and gorgeous in my life.

  Fortunately, neither Carl nor Teresa interrupted. However, Carl did phone me when he considered we’d had enough time. I was a bit peeved when I saw it was only twenty minutes.

  “Can you guys come back to the lodge?”

  We reconvened in Chris and Debra’s room. Chris handed me his phone. There was a WhatsApp message. It contained Andrea’s last blog.

  “If you are reading this, then you have either heard — or soon will — that I am dead.

  “My name is Andrea Villa. I am a journalist. I left my newspaper because I was no longer permitted to write the truth. The cartels killed anyone who did so, and my Editor could not risk our lives.

  “I refused to be silent, so I wrote under the name of Gustav Farques, inspired by Guy Fawkes who attempted to blow up the British Parliament.

  “The saying crime doesn’t pay is only true if you are poor. The narcos are billionaires; the politicians and the police and the soldiers they pay off are millionaires. And you and me?

  “I do not need to answer that question.

  “In my way, I have tried to fight on behalf of the poor, the humble, the true, the brave. Those who want to live free. That is all we ask. Is it too much?

  “In Mexico, the answer is ‘yes’. It is too much. We are shamed by that awful truth.

  “But yet … but yet. There are still those who fight. Those who will never surrender. Those whose loyalty is infinite. Those who spit defiance in the face of evil no matter what terror or torture awaits. Those like Don Geraldo, who did more for our national soul with unquenchable courage and a hunting rifle than any trouser-pissing politician backed by an entire army ever did.

  “There are those like my Yanqui friends whom I cannot name; two men and a woman who do this as a way of life, and who will never be thanked enough. The gringa is dead, raped and mutilated on behalf of a country that was not her own. Our country, which is not ours. The two men are alive, I pray. All I can say is thanks to them, the mass-murderer Pancho Guerra died with Don Geraldo’s last bullet in his brain.

  “I am inspired by a song for freedom sung by partisans in the Second World War. The final lines go like this:

  ‘An old woman hid us,

  ‘Gave us comfort, bread and water,

  ‘Then the Nazis came,

  ‘She died without murmur.’

  “My friends, my readers, my family, my beloved, this is my final murmur. Please, if you love freedom, make it a shout.”

  I sat on the bed. I put my head between my hands.

  I wept.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “WE NEED TO go back,” I said, my voice rasping as if throttled.

  Carl nodded.

  There were strenuous objections, mainly from Teresa and Caitlin.

  “They now know you freed me,” said Teresa. “They will kill you, no matter what your disguise is.”

  “Which ranges from Patrick Swayze to a shaven-head soldier of fortune,” quipped Nick. “I suppose that leaves us several other options.”

  “This is no joke,” Caitlin joined in the argument. “They have already tracked Kelly all the way to Alaska. And also Carl, of course. To go back to Mexico is insane.”

  I liked her style. Carl was almost an afterthought. But she had to understand that unfinished business was not the code that we lived by.

  Fortunately, I did not have to explain it. Instead Sandra gave her a hug. “They will go back. Thankfully, there are still people like them around.”

  I took Caitlin from Sandra’s arms. “She’s right, gorgeous.”

  The best part of that evening was Caitlin hugging me as if I was precious. I had never felt that before. The next best was the knowing smile on Chris’s face.

  The first winter snow wafted down that night, white and fluffy. At dawn a thin but crisp ice caked the ground.

  It was cold and whenever I feel a chill coming and have nothing else to do, I google photos of sunshine. Fo
r some reason, this time I googled ‘surfing Rosarito beach’.

  The top post caught my eye, no doubt because it contained a snapshot of Miguel Guerra. A surfing contest was scheduled for the weekend, and he was given star billing — ‘Even better than Kelly Slater’, blazoned the poster.

  I showed it to Carl. “I once told him that about Slater,” I said. “And the idiot actually believed me.”

  Carl slapped me on the back. “You’ve done it,” he said. “This is how we get the asshole.”

  I looked at him as if he had been snorting cartel merchandise. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve just had a brainwave.”

  When I say that, people smirk as if it’s an oxymoron. But not when Carl does.

  “Huh?” was all I could utter.

  “We’ll never get close to Miguel on land, particularly as he is now the cartel jefe, so why not grab him on the water?”

  “You mean while he’s competing in a surfing contest?”

  “Exactly. In the surf he won’t be surrounded by heat-packing sicarios. So we approach from the sea, grab Miguel at the backline, toss him into a boat and kill him.”

  Genius. Or not. Like all other plans on this crazy mission, it had more holes than a hobo’s shoe. But the longer Carl and I talked about it, we figured we could maybe — just maybe —pull it off.

  However, we couldn’t do it alone. Key to our plan was getting a small but fast boat and a good driver who could get us out to sea fast once we grabbed Miguel. We would have at the most twenty minutes before the Mexican coastguard gave chase, and in that time, we had to kill Miguel and speed back to American waters.

  The boat, according to Carl, was no problem. He had a SEAL friend who would lend us something sleek and fast.

  Who would drive it, though?

  We both knew the answer to that, so walked down to the river where Chris had just returned with a dory-load of clients. As he hitched the craft to the cedar wood railing, we outlined the basics of our plan. We didn’t go into too much detail. All Chris needed to know was we wanted him to helm a speedboat as fast as possible to co-ordinates that we would provide.

  “What boat do you have?” Chris asked.

  Carl told him about his SEAL friend. “He’s got a Bayliner 175 that’s good for over forty knots.”

  “A bit flimsy for the ocean,” Chris said.

  Carl nodded. “I know. But we’ll have to launch from the beach, so it has to be light. Hopefully the weather will be good.”

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Nah … just drive the boat as fast as you can. We’ll do the rest.”

  “Right. Obviously all this will happen in Mexico. How much firepower have we got?”

  “Me and Kelly.”

  “I suggest you get Nick as well.”

  Nick said yes before Carl finished asking.

  Caitlin drove us to Anvik airport. She was not happy. “Don’t fucking die on me,” she said as we kissed goodbye.

  We arrived in San Diego on Wednesday. Three days before the contest.

  Despite worrying that the boat was too small for offshore, Chris was impressed that it was fitted with a 150hp MerCruiser three-liter stern drive, giving a top speed of almost forty-four knots. As we would only be ten miles from the U.S. border, we would be home in less than fifteen minutes. Once ashore, we would beach the vessel and run for it.

  First thing to do was to find a launch spot. I grew up on these beaches, and remembered a cove my dad once showed us slap-bang on the border. He joked that if the riptide caught us, we would need passports. He called it ‘narco-nook’, as in the days before drones and underground tunnels, drug smugglers usually used fast boats to move merchandise.

  There was a dirt track leading to narco-nook, flattened out over the years by battered surfers’ kombis and plastic Baja buggies with souped-up Volkswagen engines. As we would be pulling an eighteen-foot craft, we hired a Unimog.

  We left at five a.m. on Saturday, speeding straight out to sea. First stop was at a steep drop-off about three miles offshore that local fishermen told us swarmed with sharks.

  I threw a buoy attached to an anchor with a hundred yards of rope overboard as a marker, followed by the vile smelling contents of a large bucket of chopped beef and pork offal. The blood-stained sea starting heaving with scything fins as Jaws and his brethren heard a dinner gong.

  We had four buckets on board. The first was to chum the waters. The other three would be used later.

  The contest started at ten and we cut the engines about a mile offshore, watching through binoculars. I could make out the contestants lining up at the water’s edge, while an excited DJ hyped up the event over a tinny loudspeaker.

  Miguel was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is he?” Carl echoed my fears.

  “I recognize a couple of hijos, but no sign of the main dude,” I replied.

  “There’re three narco-looking Jeeps on the beach. He may be waiting in one of those. I doubt whether he would risk being out in the open more than necessary.”

  The first round started with five surfers vying for small waves on a flat sea. It was not a great surf day, but that was good news for us. It may have been better to abduct Miguel unnoticed in choppy weather, but that would seriously cut down on the speed of our getaway.

  Contestants for the next round got ready. Still no Miguel.

  Finally, the third round, the end of the first knockout stages was about to start. A figure in a bright yellow wetsuit with an equally gaudy gold board sauntered onto the beach.

  I focused my binoculars.

  Miguel.

  Only a hijo born to inestimable wealth could be so arrogant to surf in the flashiest gear. But that made it easier for us.

  Carl and I strapped on scuba tanks and slid overboard. Chris slipped the boat into gear and slowly followed. He needed to be about twenty yards behind when we grabbed Miguel. Our boat had a red and green logo of Golfo Cortes Tequila stuck on the hull to make it seem we were part of the sponsorship team. None of the contestants paid us any attention.

  I popped out of the water to have a look at the surf. There was a small set rising, so assumed Miguel would wait this out, hoping for a larger swell to follow.

  Carl gave a thumbs up, and we finned our way to the bottom until we were directly under Miguel’s distinctive board.

  I shot up, grabbed his left leg, and yanked him into the ocean. At the same time Carl forced his hands behind his back, clicked on handcuffs, then stunned him with a hard jab to the jaw.

  I drove a sharpened pick into the foam board. Attached was a coiled length of rope, which I threw lariat-style to Nick at the stern of the boat. We then heaved Miguel’s inert body onto the surfboard. Nick hauled it to the boat, yanking the narco boss on board.

  Carl and I clambered up the steel transom ladder and Chris gunned the engines. Within seconds we were planing at full speed.

  By now shocked surfers in the water had raised the alarm and the siren on the beach started wailing. The coast guard was based at the Port of Rosarito, and we reckoned it would take them at least twenty minutes to mobilize. The more likely threat would come from Miguel’s bodyguards commandeering a boat from one of the nearby marinas.

  Miguel regained consciousness looking at us as though we were apparitions from hell.

  “You’re dead.”

  He obviously had not yet heard of the failed assassination attempt in Alaska.

  “We don’t die easily,” I said.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Payback.”

  I pointed to Carl. “Imagine us with long hair and surfboards. We met you at Baja Malibu last year at a contest. Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. Point Break. You liked his girlfriend,” I said pointing to Carl. “She was a good surfer. Her name was Caysee.”

  I could see recognition in his eyes, rapidly replaced by fear.

  “You are DEA? You have nothing on me.”

  “We are not DEA. We are Sp
ecial Forces. That’s why your family hired us to fight your dirty drug war. But the woman you killed was DEA.”

  “I did not kill her. My father did.”

  “No, we followed you into the Sonora Desert where you dumped the body. We saw how badly she was tortured. We saw what you had done, and that you enjoyed it.”

  “My father said she must be killed. You have to believe me.”

  “I don’t,” said Carl. “Because your sister told us you personally killed her.”

  “My sister? She is dead.”

  I could see in his eyes, and the lack of conviction in his voice, he knew that was a lie. The Sinaloans had been telling the truth all along. Teresa, the one person who could testify against him, was alive.

  “You already know we rescued her from the Sinaloans,” I said. “She has made a full confession. She saw you torture Caysee and kill her once you discovered she was DEA.”

  “The thing is,” Carl said, “you and I do agree on some things. If someone kills one of your people, you demand an eye for an eye. So do we. But you and I know there will never be justice in a Mexican court for Caysee. She may have been DEA, but she was also one of us. So your death will be the only justice she will get.”

  “No! Please! How much money do you want? I can make you millionaires. All of you. Don’t do this!”

  “The buoy is just ahead,” said Chris.

  “If you kill me, you won’t get money,” he said. “My men will hunt you for the rest of your lives.”

  “I hope so. I hope they never stop. I hope to kill many of them,” Carl said.

  As we got close to the shark-infested drop off, Chris eased the engine into neutral. Nick and I emptied the remaining three offal buckets overboard. Swirls and turbulence instantly erupted on the surface.

  “I’ve got this,” I said to Carl. “You don’t want to tell lies to people afterwards.”

  He knew I was referring to Teresa. He nodded. I drew my knife, grabbing Miguel’s arm, slashing it deeply. Blood gushed onto the deck.

  “You are lucky. Your death will be far quicker than Caysee’s.”

  I tossed him overboard. The ocean exploded in gouts of feeding frenzy. At one stage, Miguel’s upper torso was hit so hard it was airborne.