The Battle for Houston...The Aftermath (28 page)

The three security positions were slow and methodical in their searches as the members entered the large room. Security checks included total body pat downs this time, except for the president who was the only person who wouldn’t be checked. Even shoes were removed.

Carlos was to wait until the very end while his father went in first to check for any changes.

When he entered the large room Manuel was surprised to see one man had beaten him in, a thin, mousy-looking man with thick glasses, who was already sitting several chairs down on the opposite side of the room. He had a briefcase with him and wouldn’t make eye contact when Manuel looked at him.

Manuel had been first in line and couldn’t figure out how this man had entered before him. The doors had been closed until he was allowed in. He immediately returned to the closest security point and ordered the six guards standing there to evict the man from the room, or at least make sure he had nothing on him or in his briefcase. The man was unceremoniously escorted out of the room, briefcase and all.

Manuel returned and sat down, working on whether he had seen the man before. He was sure he hadn’t, and missed noticing a lone briefcase that blended into the shadow of one of the chairs against the wall, one chair away from Calderon’s aides and where the evicted man was sitting.

Slowly the room filled. Carlos was to be the last man in and looked for the two men he was watching for. As he was about to stand and move towards the door, the ambassador and president returned and went in and Carlos rose to join them. He and the ambassador were patted down and their briefcases gone through. All the aides had already gone in. The president was not checked.

“I haven’t seen our targets yet,” he stated in a whisper to his uncle, who nodded. As they were checked at the third security point, Carlos noted that the first security check point was about to start packing its scanners up. Carlos nudged his uncle who turned and noticed as well.

“We still have more people to come. Stay alert until the prisoners are checked through with their bodyguards. There will be nine guards with three prisoners!” Uncle Philippe shouted back to the men at the first and second checkpoints. The president shouted to the security points that they were to stand on duty until the prisoners entered, and then they were to leave.

Carlos had surmised that Calderón and his partner-in-crime would be late and they were; the members were seated and waited five minutes before the two men and their aides arrived, maybe hoping to miss the security inspections. There were shouts and orders given; the noise could be heard through the still open Chamber doors.

Finally, the two men appeared, both looking angry, with their aides close behind and all without their briefcases. The four aides were the same men who sat behind them during the morning session.

Charlie Meyers and three of the Seal team were sitting in the same chairs as in the morning session, behind the Ministries. Two of the admiral’s bodyguards sat behind him and right next to Gonzalez’s aides. To Carlos the six men sitting behind the three members looked more like a football defense line diplomatic than aides.

“We start the afternoon session with a report from the Ambassador to the United States, and the lead up to these Colombian prisoners being captured inside the United States. Then these prisoners will be brought in and viewed,” stated the Speaker of the House.

“Mr. President, members of the Colombian government, what I am about to tell you came straight from the President of the United States, his Chief of Staff and information from the Mexican Armed Forces who tracked these men through Mexican General Miguel Ortez.”

For twenty minutes, the Ambassador told a rapt room the movements of this army of nearly 250,000 men from nearly every country in South and Central America. He described the capture of the Panama Canal by 10,000 Chinese soldiers, who also weren’t meant to be there, to the final battle in Houston and the capture of the three leaders. He did not say anything about Seal Team Six and during the report Carlos kept his eyes directed in Senator Calderón’s direction, and looked for any movement around his area.

Only towards the end of the twenty-minute report, and when the Ambassador stated that the three men would shortly be brought in, did Carlos notice slight movements from behind the area. One of the aides sitting behind the senator quietly got up, walked forward, bent carefully over the senator and whispered into his ear. The same had happened several minutes earlier when Gonzalez signaled one of his aides to get up and, as if to pass on information, whispered into his ear.

“Be ready, son,” whispered his father. “I’m sure everybody in that group is now armed.”

The ambassador looked at Senator Calderón and smiled, then he nodded towards the armed guards securing the closed doors and they opened them and exited. Three bedraggled men, with their hands tied behind their backs and cloth hoods over their heads were brought in one by one. Three Special Forces guards helped each man in and were ordered by Philippe to stand with their backs in the corner furthest from the door.

Only one member had to turn to view the prisoners; the rest of the main table just turned their heads to the left of the president.

“These men were handed over by the United States government and their president,” began the Ambassador, “and asked that a trial be held here in Bogotá for their attack on the soil of two foreign countries, Mexico and the United States of America. Of course, these criminals did not act alone and the governments of both of these countries would like their leaders to be found and prosecuted as well.”

There was total silence in the room and even Carlos couldn’t help but look at the three dirty men standing there, about thirty feet from where he sat.

Uncle Philippe nodded and one of the Seals undid the hood from the first prisoner; there was a loud gasp from many in the room when Pedro Calderón’s dirty face was shown. Carlos fixed his eyes on the aides behind the senator and then on the senator’s face. He didn’t show any emotion. Carlos was aware of Charlie Meyers moving slightly near his right shoulder, but didn’t look. He already knew what the Seal was doing.

“Señor Pedro Calderón, for you members who have never seen this man before, is a Colombian drug cartel member and was born in Bogotá in 1975.”

Carlos moved his eyes towards Pedro and noticed that he didn’t look in the senator’s direction, but in the ambassador’s direction and then spat on the floor.

“Senator Calderón, could this be one of your family?” Ambassador Rodriquez asked blatantly.

“Never saw this gangster in my life!” The senator smiled calmly at the ambassador. “But, Ambassador Rodriquez, he seems to know you well.”

There was still silence and a sort of relief went through the members, thinking that any danger had passed. This Calderón wasn’t the senator’s family. Ambassador Rodriquez nodded a second time and the hood was lifted from the second man’s head.

“Our second captive, Alberto Calderón, born in El Centro on San Andrés in 1971,” the ambassador stated calmly, looking directly at the senator this time. “Maybe since your villa is on San Andrés, maybe this Calderón is a member of your family, Senator?”

“There must be a dozen Calderón families living in San Andrés and another 100 families on the mainland. How am I supposed to know them all? Do you think I was a father to all these children?” the senator replied. Carlos saw this time that the second Calderón had certainly surprised the senator, and even more so, Gonzalez. Both men had reacted this time, sitting straight up.

“Well, maybe the third man might be known to you,” and the Ambassador nodded for the third time and the hood came off revealing Manuel Calderón’s face. This time there was a gasp from certain members sitting around the table and suddenly all hell broke loose. Many knew this Calderón!

Carlos was watching the senator’s face, which froze at seeing his first born son staring back at him and he didn’t make a movement but Police Chief Gonzalez suddenly moved next to him, a small pistol in his hand and pointed it at the admiral sitting right next to him.

Before a warning could get out of Carlos’ mouth, he felt movement next to him and he saw the police chief pull the trigger twice. Then the pistol was turned rapidly, and its third shot hit the ambassador in the forehead as three holes suddenly opened up the police chief’s own forehead.

The senator had now risen, as had the four men behind him; he, too, had a small pistol in his hand and Senator Calderón shot the President of Colombia twice before turning his aim towards the ambassador who was already hit. Senator Calderón got off a third shot at the minister sitting next to the president before the silenced weapon in Charlie Meyers’ hand fired three times, taking off the senator’s entire shooting arm, from the hand upwards.

By now nearly everybody was clearing their chairs and trying to get under the table. Two of the aides behind Gonzalez went down, but not before shooting many of the ministers trying to get out of harm’s way. Calderon’s “aides” were already standing on their chairs, and helping to mow down ministers with one man, Carlos saw, aiming at his own father and the second one about to aim directly at Air Force General Rodriquez.

Carlos rammed his father sideways and tried to push him onto the ground to cover him. He felt a bullet slice through the side of his body, just above the right hip and an inch below the Kevlar jacket as he turned and a second furrowed across his forehead, right above both eyes as his attention was on his father’s moving body. He watched as another bullet entered his father’s arm, just outside the protected area and he felt warm blood gush over his face as his body fell onto the older man beneath him. His head hit the floor hard and that was the last he remembered.

He came to with a nurse looking over him. Seeing his eyelids flutter, she smiled at him then disappeared from his view and called somebody. His head felt heavily bandaged and he couldn’t feel his left arm. Actually he couldn’t feel anything, Carlos felt no pain; the room looked fuzzy, and a new face appeared in front of him, a man with a white coat.

“Señor you are alive, but you need rest. You have lost much blood and need to sleep. Here is something to knock you out.”

When he again regained consciousness, his arm hurt and he managed to move his fingers to make sure they worked. There were a couple of machines around him beeping, and slowly he moved the fingers on his other hand and then the toes of both feet.

“You have not lost any body movement, Señor,” said a nurse, who must have been sitting next to his bed but out of his view. “You have two bad flesh wounds and were pretty much out of blood when you arrived.”

‘Where is my father, Manuel Rodriquez?” he asked weakly.

“He is about the same as you, also one non-lethal wound, lost a lot of blood and is in the next room,” she answered.

“And my uncles?” he asked.

“I cannot say anymore. It is five in the morning and you will have visitors in about eight hours time. Now sleep and let your body heal, Señor,” the nurse responded.

Carlos was sitting up, his head feeling like he had hit a train head on, when Air Force General Rodriquez walked into his room eight hours later. He had awakened an hour earlier and the nurse, a new one with a different voice, raised the top of the bed so that he could take a drink of water. A pain pill came with the water and she told him to only move when necessary; his hip wound was too fresh to hold its stitches with any sudden and abrupt movement.

His head hurt like hell, like a migraine, and his right hip and whole leg felt stiff and sore. He didn’t really want to move, but felt a little better when his eyes focused on the room; he could now see.

The same doctor had entered a few minutes earlier than his uncle. “Good to see you feeling a little better, Señor Rodriquez. You are very lucky the bullets didn’t hit any important parts of your body; the loss of blood from the hole above your hip was the main problem with your being shot.”

“And my father?” he asked.

“The president is doing fine and is in the next room to yours…” the doctor replied being interrupted.

“I don’t care about the president, what about my father?” Carlos asked.

“As I said, Señor, the new president, your father is slightly better than you, took only one bullet in the under arm and is already in a meeting in the room next to yours,” the doctor smiled.

“My father is the President of Colombia?” Carlos asked, shutting his eyes and hoping the pain pill would hurry up.

“I cannot say anymore; you will be visited soon, and that pill will help your head in a few minutes,” the doctor replied and left the room. He shut his eyes until he heard more people enter his room.

“Good to see you have managed to sit up, Carlos,” General Rodriquez stated as he entered the room.

“What about the others?” Carlos asked.

“A bad day yesterday, young Carlos, for the Rodriquez family, but maybe a good day for Colombia,” he responded pulling up a chair and sitting down. “I have a slight wound, one bullet grazed me slightly, nothing like yours and, somebody has to keep the country together.”

“What happened, Uncle?” Carlos asked. “All I remember is falling on my father and that was it until I woke up in this bed.”

“You saved your father’s life, Carlos. One of the bullets that hit you would have killed him if you hadn’t pushed him out of the way. Manuel is alive, thanks to your fast and brave work.”

“And the others?” Carlos asked. “I saw Uncle Luiz get shot, twice I think, and then I pushed my father down.

“Yes, Luiz was actually shot four times; three of the shots hit his bulletproof jacket, one didn’t. He is still alive and on life support. He is in ICU, and we are hoping he will recover; it is touch and go with poor Luiz. Unfortunately, Philippe was killed, two shots from different pistols. The president and six of the highest ministers were also killed. Gonzalez looked like a colander with so many holes in him. The senator was shot in his right arm and is still alive to face trial. Their aides were all killed by the American Seal Team.”

“And my father?” Carlos asked.