The Paper Swan(49)

Every man in the room was connected to the cartel in one way or another. Some owned the farmers who grew local marijuana; others had contacts in Colombia, Peru or Bolivia. A few ran the hidden super labs that manufactured methamphetamine. They were all involved with the preparation, transportation and distribution of drugs, carrying them over the American border via cars, trucks, speedboats, drug tunnels and cross border mules. They had dirty cops and judges in their pockets, and stash houses in Los Angeles, El Paso, Houston, Tucson. From there, the drugs infiltrated other major cities, trickling down to hundreds of suburbs and communities beyond. Damian wondered which of them had been present the day MaMaLu had interrupted the meeting at Casa Paloma. He glanced at his watch. It was 2:45 pm.

“Damian! How’s it going, man?” He felt a hard slap on his back.

Damian turned pale. “Rafael. What are you doing here?”

“I invited him. My mathemagician,” said El Charro, patting the empty seat next to him. Rafael made him look good. El Charro slipped him notes during important meetings and Rafael came up with the numbers he needed for viable options.

“Listen, Rafael—” Damian pulled him back.

“Shut the door, Damian,” said El Charro. “And bring me my cane. It’s time we got started.”

Damian unwrapped El Charro’s cane from the plastic sheathing and handed it to him.

Outside, El Charro’s men prowled the perimeter.

Inside, the king held court with his dark knights.

Damian glanced at his watch again. All the pieces of the puzzle were in place, except for one. Damian had to move quickly. He passed a note to Rafael under the table and got up. El Charro raised an eyebrow.

“Be right back,” said Damian. He let himself out the back door. The two men stationed there recognized him. Damian stopped in the shade of a tall tree and pretended to to take a piss. Behind him, a canopy of coconut palms covered the surrounding hills. A troop of howler monkeys let out loud, barking whoops as they swung from branch to branch across the treetops, startling one of the guards at the door.

“Chupame la verga,” he said, when the other one laughed at him. Suck my dick.

They were still laughing when Emilio Zamora’s men slashed their necks. Damian ducked behind the tree. The foliage concealed him.

The Los Zetas were vicious. And quiet. They had the advantage of surprise and they used it to methodically eliminate the guards outside. Machetes, knives, cords, chains, rocks, batons. No firearms. Emilio Zamora did not want to tip El Charro off, or bring him down in a blaze of gunfire. He wanted him alive so he could finish him off in the most painful way.

Of course, things didn’t go as planned. El Charro’s men started shooting when they realized what was happening, but they didn’t stand a chance. Emilio Zamora did not trust anonymous tips received over the phone. He had his moles look into it, and then he brought a veritable army with him. It was paying off. They overwhelmed the guards outside and stormed into the warehouse, guns blazing.

Damian crawled to the back door, over the bodies of the dead guards. Going back inside was a fool’s mission, but he had to get Rafael out. The only thing that kept him moving forward was his combat training, and the rush of adrenaline that jolted through his system. He ignored the zing of bullets, the splinters flying in the air, the steady stream of spent brass casings as they clanged on the floor. Half the lights were gone, bulbs shattered, and bodies lay around him—some lifeless, some screaming in agony. The warehouse was hazy with gunpowder and the grit of boxes spewing drugs into the air. It was hard to breathe, hard to see, but Damian kept crawling until he was under the table. Rafael was crouched at the other end. His hands were over his ears and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.

Damian had almost reached him when two men fell to the floor, toppling over the chairs. They rolled around, one trying to snatch the gun away from the other. Shoe-polish black hair glistened in the semi-darkness. El Charro was wrestling with Emilio Zamora.

“Damian!” El Charro spotted him under the table. They both saw the other gun, lying discarded by Damian’s foot. “Give it to me.” El Charro held out his hand.

Their eyes met for a fraction. Damian wanted to pick up the gun and pump El Charro’s body full of lead, but he knew that would ruin his plan. At the same time, he couldn’t let El Charro kill Emilio until he and Rafael were safely out of the building.

Damian kicked the gun out of El Charro’s reach. “Maria Luisa Alavarez,” he said. “Remember my mother’s name when you meet your maker.”