Standoff: A Vin Cooper Novel (15 page)

The assault was over in seconds. My mouth was open in shock. Carlos was yelling at me. He wanted to know why I didn’t shoot. I looked around, distracted, in a daze. Blood was everywhere; on the ground, on the trolley and the bricks of cocaine stacked there, on the side of the plane, over the corpses and the living. Perez’s men were drenched in it. Two of them were high-fiving, high on murder. I looked into Carlos’ face.
“¿Por qué?”
I asked him – why? He spat on my shoes and just walked off like the reason was obvious. First corpse he reached he drew his machete and started hacking off an arm at the shoulder.

One of Carlos’ men strolled past, a dismembered leg in each hand.
“Matan los nuestros, matamos los suyos.”
He shrugged like he was carting luggage – they kill ours, we kill theirs. Maybe he thought I hadn’t understood and added, “
Ojo por ojo” –
an eye for an eye. Which eye? Was he meaning the pile of fly-blown decapitated bodies Marco and I had earlier stumbled across in the jungle? According to Marco they were cartel men, and they wore BDUs identical to the ones worn around here. Were they Perez’s men who’d been murdered? This was payback?

The corpses were hacked up where they lay. The place increasingly smelled of copper, shit and urine as the victims began to soak the earth with their fluids. I heard a man singing a little ditty as he hacked his way through a shoulder. Still in a state of shock, it took several long seconds to register that Carlos was again yelling at me, pointing at a corpse on the ground. A few more seconds passed before I realized that he me wanted to chop it up. I unsheathed the machete given to me, threw it into the jungle and then walked toward the aircraft. Carlos intercepted me halfway there, screaming abuse, spitting as he yelled, his face speckled with someone’s dried blood. He pushed me backward; pushed again; pushed a third time. I ducked low on push number three, unbalancing him, and drove my fist into his gut. While he was winded, I hooked a closed fist to the meat of his jaw. He spun around half a turn before his legs gave out and he hit the ground hard, out cold.

I heard the
clack
of an AK-47’s bolt and a flash suppressor was shoved in my face. The bloodshot eyes of the man on the other end of the weapon, the way they moved from me and then back to the unconscious Carlos, hunting for clues, told me he was uncertain about his next move. He could kill me and that might be a good thing, resulting in a reward, or it might be the wrong thing, in which case a different kind of reward would come down on his ass. I didn’t stand around waiting for the guy to make up his mind and merely brushed the muzzle to one side. And, like that, the tension vanished. The boss was merely down for the count, but otherwise uninjured. He could resolve the issues with me himself when he came around, right? Maybe the men were secretly pleased Carlos’ lights had been punched out. I knew I enjoyed it.

I sat in the King Air’s doorway while the men continued their grisly task, ferrying limbs and torsos to the edge of the runway, setting them down and then moving them, arranging them and then changing their minds like fussy homemakers. The parade made me nauseous. I wanted to get away from there but I was stuck so I tilted my head back, closed my eyes and tried to go someplace else.

When the task was complete, the men returned to the King Air, re-secured the drugs beneath the webbing, and climbed aboard with a groggy Carlos supported between two of them like a drunk at the end of a night out. They sat him in a seat and buckled him in. I went over, patted him down unopposed, removing two knives and, from the back of his pants, an old revolver. He came around as the propellers spun up, saw me sitting beside him. After several long seconds of processing, he leaned forward drunkenly and went for the revolver no longer in the back of his pants. He stopped when he felt my Sig pressed into his ribs.
“Gringo coño,
” he mumbled, still woozy – gringo cunt.

“Sticks and stones, pal,” I told him.

The King Air lifted off, climbing steeply, desperately, the undercarriage smacking through the uppermost leaves of the trees off the end of the threshold. Once clear of them, the pilot leveled out, pulled a tight one-eighty and made a low pass back over the runway. I turned around for a look out the porthole as the words
“Matams a todos”
flashed past down on the ground, spelled out in arms and legs –
we kill you all
. The men in the plane nodded and grinned and slapped each other on the back. These guys weren’t just killers, they were illiterate killers. They’d missed the ‘o’ in
Matamos
.

I needed somewhere else to look. The wall behind Perez’s head would do. There was a black and white photograph of a Mexican bandit hanging there, a large sombrero pushed back on his head and a couple of ammo bandoliers crossed on his chest. I couldn’t decide whether it was an old photo or a new photo made to look old. The bandit was grinning with mischief beneath a thick black inverted V of a moustache. Also on the wall was a map of the north of Mexico and the south of the United States, Texas and the province of Chihuahua butting up against each other.

My attention shifted back to Perez sitting behind his desk. While I couldn’t read anything in those black button eyes of his, the fact that he was stropping the pearl-handled knife against a leather strap hanging from a corner of his desk didn’t bode well. Carlos’ position, though, was clear. The guy wanted me dead. I sat in the chair opposite Perez while his lieutenant paced the room and ranted about how I’d refused to engage in the payback raid and therefore couldn’t be trusted; how I wasn’t one of
them
. I felt like I’d been detained by the school principal, only in this case the headmaster enjoyed separating people from their skin, most likely with that knife he was honing, while his staff’s teaching method was simply to chop folks up.

Meanwhile, I had my own considerations. The base outside the door was large and the significant numbers of men I was yet to quantify were being trained for something more than security. Though the evidence would be considered circumstantial in a court of law, the black King Air and the easy brutality I’d just witnessed left no doubt in my mind that Apostles and Perez had indeed been responsible for the massacre on US soil. I was also certain that Perez himself had led the operation. But all of these pieces were yet to form any kind of clear picture about what they were actually up to. What was coming next? And I was still no closer to getting anything from Perez with his DNA on it that pathologists back in El Paso could use to either positively confirm or eliminate his involvement in the slaughter at Horizon Airport for that court of law. In short, I was getting nowhere.

With a flick of his head, Perez gestured to Carlos to leave. Carlos did as he was told, but only after throwing a malevolent glare at me as he stormed out of the room.

“I asked you to help,” growled Perez in English, his face impassive, the knife sliding back and forth across the strop like he was stroking a cat.

“You have people who slice and dice,” I replied. “You don’t have people who do what I do.”

“How do you know what I have? You would be surprised. I am disappointed. What do I do with you?”

That pool bar in the Bahamas came to mind.

“I agree with Carlos. If you will not do what is asked, you cannot be trusted. I think I will kill you and the Saint can meet with your skinless corpse.”

I forced myself not to swallow. “Dismembering people might happen every other day in your world, but it doesn’t happen a lot in mine. Never, in fact. So maybe after I’ve been around you people a little longer I’ll come to feel it’s like doing the dishes after dinner. Meanwhile, as I said, there are other skills I can bring to the table. But if you’re not tired of US law enforcement confiscating your drugs and costing you millions, you go right ahead and do what you gotta do with that butter knife of yours.”

My impression was that reckless bravado – balls – was the only language Perez understood. He kept stropping back and forth, back and forth, those unblinking pupil-free buttons fixed on me. He put the knife down with care, like he didn’t want to damage it in any way, opened a desk drawer, pulled out a pen and paper and scrawled a note on it. “Wait for Juan de Jesús del Los Apostles de Medellín here,” he said, pushing the folded sheet of paper across the desk toward me. “We will be watching you.”

I reached for it and Perez’s hand flashed out, darting like a rattler. Something lightly touched the back of my hand and a split opened out on the skin, two inches long. Pulsing veins and white tendons revealed themselves. It was horrifying and also fascinating. Somehow that asshole had picked up his knife and cut me, all in the one lightning movement. I looked again at the cut in disbelief. It didn’t hurt – the blade was so sharp the nerves were yet to realize what had happened.

“Carlos!” Perez called, his voice a spray of gravel across steel roofing.

Blood began to well up out of the cut. I kept staring at it, in shock. Carlos and two others walked in. Carlos leaned over Perez and the boss said a few quiet words while the two other men moved behind me. And then the world turned black as a hood went over my head.

*

I could smell Turbo long before the hood came off. The aroma of rotting shit, sea salt and diesel oil was both unmistakable and reassuring. At least I knew where I was. With the boat secured against the quay, I was dragged up onto solid ground and the cuff locks cut away. The hood came off next, removed by one of Carlos’ men, the other flunky covering me with a revolver. The cut on my hand was throbbing, hot bolts of pain shooting up my forearm. Not a good sign. Infection was having a party down there but I couldn’t see much in the darkness other than the wound was caked in black blood.

Carlos grabbed my wrist and lifted my hand, I guessed to inspect the damage. I guessed wrong. “When you meet Jesús del Los Apostles,” he said, “make sure you tell him we treated you well.” He then spat into the wound. One day Carlos and I would exchange words. Or maybe lead. I added him to a mental list I was keeping, a list growing daily on this mission. Any hesitation I had about nominating myself his executioner, a seed planted by CIA dipshit Chalmers back in El Paso, was gone. Perhaps Chalmers’ purpose in planting the self-doubt was to make me question my purpose here, even if only for a fateful second or two – just enough indecision to get me killed. Chalmers was so going on that list.

Carlos climbed back into the boat, laughing, as the flunky tossed a plastic bag onto the quay. It landed heavily not far from where I was standing. I watched the boat reverse a short distance before it accelerated forward and surged into the night. I went to the bag and was surprised to find the Sig, three magazines, my wallet – the cash replaced by the folded front page of the
El Diario
– my cell, and even the bottle of DEET. It was like I was back where I started.

The wound on my hand needed attention. Wandering into town, the only shops open were the ones that sold booze. The bar on the water, the place where we’d stumbled across Perez barely forty-eight hours ago, was heaving with drunks and guitarists belting out tunes. I went in and bought two bottles of
aguardiente
and then headed to the bus station where I was hoping to find a room with a shower in the vicinity. At the station I lucked out, coming across a lone vendor selling an array of items to late-night travelers, from bags of potato chips to sewing kits. I bought a bunch of things including said chips and a sewing kit, and then found that room with a shower.

Standing under the cold-water tap, I soaked my hand and drank
aguardiente.
I examined the puffy red skin around the gaping cut, not a good sign. With the black blood soaked away I could still see tendons and the pain was growing more intense despite the help of the local sauce. With the bottle half drunk, I got out of the shower and went over to the table, where a length of cotton thread and a curved needle had been soaking in booze. I threaded the needle eventually, took another swig of
aguardiente
, and poured the alcohol in and around the cut. It stung like a bitch and made the flesh around the wound pucker. Taking the needle between shaking fingers, I sewed the two sides of red inflamed skin together with half a dozen large, painful sutures. To finish, I smeared toothpaste on the wound to dry it out.

Sitting on the chair, naked, I looked down at myself and drunkenly counted the scars I could see. There were plenty I couldn’t. What a fucking mess. I had broken a couple of fingers on my left hand a year or two earlier that occasionally gave me some trouble. Perhaps this injury to my right would even things out a little. The second bottle of liquor was waiting patiently. I opened it and drank half while I ate dinner, which was a packet of chips, and collapsed facedown on the bed, the timetable for the bus to Medellín under my cheek.

*

There was a Piper Cub mounted on top of the entrance gate to Hacienda Nápoles, Pablo Escobar’s retreat in the Colombian countryside near the town of Puerto Triunfo on the Magdalena River. According to the plaque on the gate, this very aircraft flew the drug lord’s first shipment to America. I’ve heard of self-made millionaires framing their first big check for sentimental reasons and I supposed the Cub was Escobar’s variation on the theme. I stood aside for yet another minibus turning into the driveway, full of tourists come to ogle the dead criminal’s lifestyle.

Drinking the last of a bottle of Gatorade, I flicked it into the trash. The jury’s out on the exact number of people Escobar murdered before he was shot dead himself on a rooftop in Medellín, but it was somewhere in the thousands. The fact that he was a greedy, manipulative, murdering psychopath who turned his country into a financial basket case with stratospheric murder rates was fading from the public consciousness. Folks had short memories.

I got back into my current mode of transport, an ancient purple Kia bought for cash off the sidewalk in Medellín. The thing blew smoke like an old pothead and had to be topped up with oil at every gas stop, but at least it was free of electronic bugs. Perez’s boast that he would be watching me had been on my mind from the moment he said it and I was pretty sure he wasn’t being metaphorical about it. I searched all my returned possessions and eventually found a tracking device secreted in the bottom of the bottle of DEET, which was now in a tourist’s backpack heading south to Rio de Janeiro.

Perez had scrawled the Saint’s address for me on that sheet of paper so he knew where I was going. I just didn’t like the thought of the little blade-stropping gnome sitting on my shoulder and knowing my every move.

As I drove along, the fence lining the road suddenly became new white posts and rails, which suggested money splashed around on maintenance and upkeep, something the authorities turning the Escobar place into a cheesy theme park seemed to lack. The land behind the fence was also not overgrown but a mixture of open land for grazing dotted here and there with islands of tress and thick bushes. The front entrance to Apostles’ place would be coming up soon – Hacienda Mexico. I was wondering what the Saint might mount on top of his gate, other than surveillance gear, when it flashed by suddenly on the right. It was ordinary, if a heavy steel gate between two reinforced brick columns in the middle of pretty much nowhere can be considered ordinary. It was the sort of gate designed to discourage everything from ram raiders to nosy US federal agents. I drove on, unsure about whether I should make an appearance with my hand the way it was. Swabs of iodine and hydrogen peroxide were getting on top of the wound and a local doctor had replaced the sutures I put in with ones that didn’t resemble a kid’s shoelaces. My paw was now thickly bandaged and looked like a Casper the Friendly Ghost hand puppet.

A helicopter appeared unexpectedly from behind a hill, came in low over the road and crossed the fence into the Hacienda not too far in front of me. I watched as it climbed a hundred feet or so, cleared some trees and descended, coming in to land. Was the Saint on the way in, or heading out? I drove on, looking for a place to make a U-turn.

Around a bend an old green Renault was pulled over onto the side of the road, its rear end jacked up. A woman was standing behind the vehicle, hands on hips, a little overwhelmed. I could use some cover for additional hang time in the vicinity, right? I pulled up behind and walked over. “
Hola
.”

“
Hola
,” the woman said without enthusiasm, her car’s trunk open.

“
¿Necesitas ayuda
?” I asked. Need help?

“Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish,” she lied with an accent that was equal parts Spanish and American.

“That’s a relief,” I told her. “Me neither. Need help changing that wheel?”

“No, thank you. I can do it,” she said.

“You sure?”

“A flat tire is nothing.”

The damsel was maybe late twenties, dark eyes, straight dark hair and olive skin. Despite the denial about the linguistic skills, her overall appearance promised that she could
olé
like a native, assuming they did that in this country. I walked past, glanced inside the car and caught a glimpse of a digital SLR camera with a high-power lens and a pair of powerful military-grade binoculars on the driver’s seat.

“Nice camera,” I remarked, and the look on her face suggested I’d just trodden on her foot.

“I am a birdwatcher,” she told me tersely.

I smiled. Of course she was. “Seen any yellow-bellied sapsuckers?”

“What are they?”

“Birds.”

“There is no such bird.”

I was sure she was wrong, but what did I know? “So, you’re good?”

“Yes, I’m good. Thank you.”

The thankyou was an afterthought and there was no thanks in it. I happened to see into the trunk area as the woman replaced the floor mat. “Well, have fun,” I said.
“Buenos días.”

“Buenos días.”

I got back to my car and sat behind the wheel as the woman turned the handle on the jack, lowering the car. She had nice legs. In fact, I couldn’t help noticing that she was nice all over, except for an attitude on the wrong side of testy. I started the car and pulled onto the road, doing that U-turn and heading back the way I’d come. I waved farewell and wondered what she’d changed given there was no spare in the trunk.

The gate came up quickly, diverting my thoughts away from the woman. On impulse, I turned in, stopped and pulled off the sock puppet. What the hell – unemployed fugitives like me who were keen to seek gainful employment didn’t put these things off. I got out of the car and walked to an intercom covered by a surveillance camera, perched on top of the brick pillar like a robot bird peering over the edge. I pressed the button on the intercom.
“Hola.”