Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (18 page)

An
officer lay near the window in a wide pool of blood, an M-16 lying under him.
Standing behind him, bent over and choking on the gas, stood another male
police officer. The man’s left arm rested on his knee, supporting his
horizontal upper body, while his right hand furiously dug and wiped at his burning
eyes.

The room
was otherwise empty and the Butcher switched instantly from stalking hunter to
ferocious predator. He let the Uzi fall back to the side of his leg and grabbed
the sword sheath with his left hand, gripping the katana handle with his right.
He expertly removed it in less than half a second and shot forward, his ninja
boots now making a lot of noise on the glass shards as he sprinted forward.

The
officer looked up at the noise, but could barely see anything through his
burning eyes.

The
Butcher grasped the sword in a powerful two-hand hold and scrambled the final
few feet. Before the officer could react, he plunged the sword into his side
with a straight thrust, burying it to the hilt. The sword burst out the man’s
side and the officer shrieked in pain. The Butcher drove his shoulder into the
man’s shoulder and stopped suddenly, yanking back on the sword to free it from
the man’s body.

Blood
gushed down the blade’s shaft and streamed from the sword guard above the grip.
The Butcher hadn’t picked up many of the peaceful aspects of all the martial
arts that he’d studied, but he had learned part of the philosophy: living in
the moment. And as the blood spread across the tiles in a growing puddle below
the sword, the Butcher took it all in, living in the moment and seeing
everything, just as he had been trained.

His sword
hadn’t moved since he had withdrawn it from the officer, and the Butcher
watched the blood on his blade slow from a steady stream to a fast drip.
Pounding footsteps racing down the hall broke him from his trance.

Someone
was running toward him.

The
Butcher slithered away from the draining body and pool of blood toward the wall
behind him, just inside of the door. He waited behind the door, his sword held
over his head.

“Eduardo!”
a man screamed, before coughing and sliding to a halt atop of some debris at
the door. “Eduardo, are you okay?”

The man
entered the room, cautious now, a Glock 9 mm pistol stretched before him. He
wore a T-shirt wrapped around his mouth and nose, but his eyes looked red and
painful.

The
Butcher admired the man’s resourcefulness in wrapping a shirt around his mouth
and nose and chalked up the man’s ability to respond so quickly to this one
small improvisation. But the man looked functional enough to fight and as the
officer turned his sight from the empty side of the room to the corner to his
left that he should have cleared, the Butcher struck.

He
stepped forward, dropped his entire body weight six inches, and swung the sword
with all his might down from its maximum height to the floor. The blade raced
downward in a practiced and powerful arc and hit the man behind the pistol
across both arms, roughly where the elbows were.

The
forged steel katana cut through the man’s left arm at the elbow, after deflecting
off a bone in his upper arm, while on the right arm it cut two inches deep and
shattered bone in the forearm before stopping. Both men watched the left
forearm hang for a moment because of its grip on the pistol, before falling to
the floor. Blood burst out of the man’s severed arm.

The
officer knew he was badly injured, but couldn’t believe his left arm had been
sheared off. After all, it didn’t even hurt, while the right arm throbbed in
pain.

The
Butcher stepped from behind the door, aimed the sword’s blade to the rear, and
drove the handle into the man’s face. It crashed just below his eye and
fragmented bone as if it were a pool cue. The cop screamed in pain. As he
toppled backward into the hall, he realized that his left arm was definitely gone
and his right arm couldn’t even hold the pistol, which had clanged to the
floor.

He kept
screaming as he fell hard back in the hallway. He was completely defenseless
now, a dead man still breathing, but he tried to use his one remaining hand to
help him to his feet.

“No!” he
screamed, upright now in the sitting position. But the Butcher was rushing
forward with blinding speed. He swung the sword to the rear, almost as if it
were a baseball bat, and then swung as hard as he could at the man’s neck, fully
intending to behead the man -- a feat he knew to be possible since he’d done it
to the guard at the ground floor of Flores’s office.

But his
foot slid on glass and blood and he failed to gain enough torque, so the blade
cut through the side of the man’s neck and stopped after it hit the spine. The
blow to the spine sent a spasm of pain throughout the man’s body and
effectively ended all muscular control. The officer smashed to the ground,
hitting his head on the wall on the way down.

Blood
gushed from the officer’s neck and arms and the Butcher knew the man would
bleed out in thirty seconds at most. Firing began off in the distance, at least
a quarter of a mile from the police department headquarters, but the Butcher
didn’t worry. He’d stationed men to ambush any police officers who responded to
the attack. They should be able to easily stop any officers responding.

The
Butcher heard movement down the hall and turned to see the cluster of officers,
who he’d seen earlier, were bringing up weapons and aiming in his direction. He
had totally forgotten about them once he had entered the room earlier. He’d
gotten so caught up in the slaughter that he’d lost his situational awareness
and hadn’t even noticed that he had moved into the open hallway.

But now,
the officers down the hall were yelling with strained voices and bringing their
weapons to bear. They couldn’t see shit with the thick gas burning their eyes,
but the Butcher didn’t kid himself. They had automatic weapons and would be
firing down a narrow hallway. Even poorly aimed bullets would ricochet and
continue down the hallway in a deadly vortex.

Too
little time remained for the Butcher to turn and dart back into the room, so he
released the sword with his right hand and kept it under control with his left.
He then used his right hand to grab the Uzi and stretch it out to the right as
he dove for the ground. He shoulder-rolled and fired off a long burst of fire
down the hall as he tumbled lightly across the tiled floor.

All of
these actions -- from changing his primary weapon from sword to Uzi, to diving
to the ground -- were smooth, agile, and graceful. They were the kind of
actions that result from thousands of hours of practice, and the Butcher had
indeed put that much time into his craft. Even on dives, rolls, and falls. What
ninja didn’t?

The
Butcher had additionally created his own form of modern-day kata, practicing
transitions from wielding his sword to grabbing up his slung Uzi, something his
predecessors in the 1600s hadn’t had to worry about.

The
Butcher had spent thousands of hours mastering his craft, and he’d perfected
nearly every part of the technical aspect of martial arts. He could kick,
strike, and flip with the best of them.

He’d
picked up practically every skill of the martial arts except for the most
important one: the concept of peacefulness.

The
Butcher’s Uzi was firing before he landed softly on the bloody and
debris-littered floor. His Uzi kicked and sputtered out a hail of bullets down
the hallway. Most missed, but the ricochets and snapping of bullets striking
within mere feet of their intended target forced the officers to likewise dive
for safety.

The
Butcher’s men yelled to him from outside the building.

“Lider!
Lider!”

“Leader,
leader,” he heard over the sound of returning gunfire.

The
Butcher turned toward them, still on the ground. He knew they wouldn’t yell for
him unless it was important, so he pushed his Uzi out in front of him and with
the sword still in his left hand, he began to crawl toward them.

“Cover
me,” he said through his gasmask.

Two of
the Butcher’s men appeared just inside the doorway and they lay a withering
fire down the hall through the smoke. It was heavy, long-rifle fire from their
AK’s and the sound drowned out even the Butcher’s ability to think. The roar of
the firing and the accuracy of their shots provided the Butcher with the cover
he needed.

He
crawled within ten feet of the doors and then ripped off the uncomfortable gas
mask. It hindered his ability to breath and obstructed his peripheral vision.
He threw it to the ground and slid the final distance to the door.

“The army
is coming,” one of his men said.

The
Butcher needed no further urging. He jumped to his feet, re-sheathed his sword,
and yelled to his men, “Finish it.”

His man
said something into the radio and more than a dozen of the Butcher’s gunmen
came running toward the entrance. They quickly donned gas masks, organized
themselves, and redistributed ammunition and grenades. Then with a nod from one
of their leaders, they lobbed a frag grenade down the hall, waited for it to
explode, and followed the screams of pain and panic into the building.

The
Butcher heard the muffled yells of his men, and the screams of wounded police
officers as his killers worked their way methodically through the building,
room by room, grenades first, then half a magazine into some unfortunate soul.

The
Butcher ordered his remaining men outside the building to collect the wounded
and dead and turn their convoy around. While his men finished their assault,
the vehicles pulled up by the door.

Once all
the officers were killed, they collected the M-16s from the officers and
several cases of ammo, quickly loading them into the vehicles. The Butcher
watched his men as they worked together, while also coordinating their
security, watching sectors, windows, and roads.

This was
it. This, these finely trained killers, were the secret to Flores and the
Godesto Cartel’s power, as well as the answer to how Flores’s cartel had
climbed to the heights of power among other cartels. How it had ascended above all
others and secured agreements in which each of its “peers” respected it, feared
it, and paid tribute to it.

Flores,
under the Butcher’s leadership, had thirty-plus stone-cold killers. Well, a few
less after this vicious attack, but there were more men raring to join the
ranks for the increased pay and prestige. There always would be.

And these
men truly were stone cold killers. Men who could kill unarmed men who had done
no wrong or committed no crime.

Other
cartels had plenty of muscle. Men who’d defend their leaders or burn a building
down or stand tall in a gunfight if their backs were to the wall. But outright
murder for no reason other than just orders? Most cartels only had one or two
men that demented and sick in the head.

Flores
had two dozen. Or, at least he used to, the Butcher thought, as several
lifeless bodies were tossed into the backs of trucks. These rare killers were
the Butcher’s men now, and they would strike when the Butcher told them to, not
when Flores ordered. After all, he had nearly convinced them that the old man
was past his prime and too conservative.

“Mount
up,” the Butcher yelled. “We stay close together and we fight our way out of
anything that gets in our way. We’re not leaving anyone behind or playing any
‘every man for himself’ bullshit. If the Army gets in our way, we either dodge
them or go through them. Now, let’s go.”

The
Butcher jumped into the backseat of the lead SUV, reloaded his Uzi, and sat
back. Then he noticed blood from the officers he had hacked and stabbed,
thickly staining the front of his shirt. And as the vehicles raced out of the
city of Coyutla, the Butcher ran his fingers through the blood of his enemies
and he licked it off his fingers.

It was a
taste he never grew tired of.

Chapter
20

Dwayne Marcus
looked as shocked as Nick Woods felt.

Isabella
had grabbed Nick and Marcus for a leadership-only meeting earlier and shown
them a local news station report that she had recorded.

With the
two leaders of S3 in the room, she hit play and watched a busty newscaster in a
low-cut dress begin speaking with a graphic over her shoulder that said
“cartel.” The newscaster stopped speaking and the camera switched from her to
an amateur video.

The video
showed a bandana-wearing man in the back of some kind of SUV. He began speaking
and Nick and Marcus couldn’t pick up the Spanish.

“What’s
he saying?” Nick asked impatiently.

Isabella
translated for them. “‘We are the Vigilantes and this is our second operation,
against the evil Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. These officers of this
district are all corrupt and they will die for their crimes against Mexico.’”

Nick
looked at Marcus.

“I know
this isn’t possible, but just to be sure, we didn’t have an operation happen
that I didn’t know of, did we?”

“Of
course not,” Marcus said. He looked offended.

They
watched as the video -- uncut and unedited by the news station -- showed parts
of a vicious firefight against a police station.

“Is it
true?” Nick asked. “We need to find out from the police or someone in government
if this actually happened.”

Isabella
nodded. “I’m on it.”

“Oh,”
Nick said, “and gather the Primary Strike Team in a room with a TV and get this
set up to play.”

Isabella
nodded, and Nick noticed her hips as she walked off, despite trying not to. He turned
quickly and refocused his attention on Marcus.

Forty
minutes later, the Primary Strike Team was assembled and watching the video,
with Nick and Marcus standing behind them. The nearly identical look of “the
Vigilantes,” as well as the brutality of the strike on the police station, had
shocked the team members just as it had shocked Nick and Marcus. Unfortunately,
they looked precisely as the members of S3 had looked in their first video.
Whoever put the video together had made sure their men looked the same,
recorded the video in the same style, the whole nine yards. And the worst thing
was that nearly every news station in the country was playing the video of “the
Vigilantes” assaulting the police station in Coyutla.

“Is this
true?” asked Lizard, who looked scared. “Did it really happen?”

Isabella
assured him that it did.

Nick knew
the background to Isabella’s answer; he had personally followed up with her. On
the one hand, he’d wanted to confirm the information. But more than just that,
he had wanted to see Isabella again. Watching her walk off had awakened
something in him that he hadn’t thought much of since Anne’s death.

Nick had
tracked her down and found her scribbling down some notes on a legal pad. He
had stood closer to her than he had ever been. He had liked how nervous and
alive he felt standing that close to her, and he had listened, as detached as
he could manage, when she looked up and explained that she had supervised an
outboard call from their Mexican contact. She stated in a voice that seemed a
bit nervous that she had let him borrow one of the sophisticated CIA-issued
phones that were supposedly impossible to track or trace. Isabella relayed to
Nick that the Mexican contact’s superiors were furious because they believed
that Nick’s group had conducted the police-department raid -- the video tape
looked that authentic.

Nick had
enjoyed -- a little too much -- looking into Isabella’s big, brown eyes as she
made her report and he had strained to keep his face stern and uncaring. The
news truly was bad, and yet standing next to her, it all just didn’t seem to matter
as much as it had literally ten minutes earlier. Nick had managed to finish the
conversation with a curt nod and nary a word.

Suddenly,
Nick came back to the present and realized that Isabella and the rest of the
team were looking at him and that his mind had drifted from the task at hand.

“I’m
sorry,” Nick said. “I’ve got something I’m working over in my mind. Marcus,
would you take care of this?”

Marcus
moved through the group and stood in front of the TV.

“Our
Mexican counterparts,” Marcus said, “have confirmed that this raid did in fact
happen. They’re confirming the body count and making sure no officers, who were
on duty at the time, were abducted instead of just killed.”

Marcus
was in what Nick called his drill instructor stance. His legs were spread
shoulder-length apart, his fingers clasped together in front of him at stomach
height. Nick had never met anyone with such 24/7 bearing, and Nick knew he was
lucky to have such a man helping command this group of talented killers that
comprised Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter. The men were so skilled and
experienced that it was easy to be intimidated by the task of trying to set the
example and not look a total fool.

Truck,
with his shaved head, big arms, and slight gut, was nursing a beer, but he cleared
his throat and said, “Nobody ever said those sons of bitches weren’t smart.”

Nick knew
he had to keep an eye on Truck and his drinking, but alcohol was just something
that went with being a killer. You usually turned to alcohol, like Truck, or
seclusion, like Nick, or faith, like Preacher. Preacher was sitting off to the
side and had been visibly angry during the video footage of the bloody and
wrecked police station. Preacher hated bullies, and the assault on the police
headquarters had been an entirely one-sided affair with heavily armed
assailants on one side and barely trained, mostly pistol-armed cops on the
other.

“Fuck
it,” Red said, starting to stand. “Smart or not, I’m ready to tangle with these
assholes. You got a target we can go out and hit?”

Marcus
shook his head “no,” and Red sat back again.

Nick
loved the cocky, smallest member of their Primary Strike Team. And he
appreciated the fact that Red was sitting on a couch next to the biggest, most
intimidating member of the team: the giant powerlifter Bulldog.

True to
character, Bulldog sat on the couch in a tank top that showed off his
eighteen-inch arms and had a protein shake in one hand and a grip trainer in
the other. He was squeezing the grip spring mercilessly and Nick hated to think
how bad the Navy SEAL from the rough streets of Baltimore would mess someone up
in a hand-to-hand fight. Correction, Nick remembered, the man had already fed
one Godesto Cartel member a concrete wall, rearranging the man’s face for good.

“We need
to immediately air a response denying this,” Isabella said. “Claim it wasn’t
the real Vigilantes, but some copycat attempt.”

“Great
idea,” Nick said from the back of the room. He was a little pissed that he
hadn’t thought of it first. “Make it happen, Isabella, and grab whoever you
need to help you get it done. Besides releasing it to the media, make sure we
get it up on the website. We don’t need our name trashed by this bullshit.
Lizard, get your gear on and grab a bandana. We’ll need you to do the talking.”

Lizard
and Isabella hurried out and Nick looked to the front of the room.

“Marcus,
go walk the lines,” he said. “Make sure everyone is alert. The rest of you either
need to be practicing assault drills or getting some PT in. We need to be as
sharp as we can be for when we finally figure out where this piece of shit
Flores is hiding out.”

Nick
watched his Primary Strike Team leave the room and felt the strength of the men
and women selected for this task. They were as smart as they were talented.
Nick didn’t know where old, fat-ass Flores was hiding, but when they found him,
the man would be in a heap of trouble.