Luis crushed the pre-paid cell and extracted another. He gave it ten minutes and tried the emergency cell phone again; it was switched off. Miguel was one of the oldest and most trusted members of Los Zetas. Not answering a call to the emergency cell phone was uncharacteristic but he could have been taking a piss, thought Luis. That was allowed but having it switched off was totally unacceptable and suggested something far more worrying.
He tried again after thirty seconds; it was still off. Miguel would not let it run out of charge; it was for emergency contact and had to be available at all times. Miguel knew that. Luis began to panic. If anything had happened to the woman, all hell would break loose. El Jefe would not rest with killing the son in retaliation, there would be a very high probability that Luis may feature in any reprisals. Failure with El Jefe really wasn’t an option. Certainly not if Luis wanted to live. His life depended on securing Fat Jake’s contacts.
Luis had the landline number for the house but was loathed to use it. It went against every piece of field craft he had advocated over the last few years. Never ever use a line that could be traced or recorded. One-time pre-paid cell phones were a must and, even then, only in emergencies. Luis wanted to keep their voices from the authorities as much as anything else. With their voices came voice print analysis and with voice print analysis came tracking capabilities even with pre-paid cells. If they didn’t have the voiceprints, they couldn’t track them and as far as he knew, he had succeeded. To give that up for a phone not being answered was a risk. Too big a risk, he thought.
Luis walked out into the warm night air and pointed to four guards. “Grab a truck, we’re going out!” he shouted.
As he waited for the truck to materialize, Luis watched El Jefe appear, heavily armed from the ranch house. A large group of guards rushed to join him, including two of the men that Luis had pointed to.
“Hey?!” shouted Luis at his two deserters.
Both waved him off, El Jefe came first and foremost.
Luis walked across the large compound and joined his uncle as another group of men appeared from one of the two barracks that secured the ranch and its surroundings. Over fifty Los Zetas were permanently at El Jefe’s beck and call and ensured the ranch was one of the most heavily guarded places in all of Mexico. El Jefe’s latest toys included two armored personnel carriers, Soviet BMP-2’s and an ex-soviet era Hind Mi24 attack chopper, all courtesy of the earlier unrest in the Ivory Coast.
From what Luis could see, El Jefe was not looking at starting a full-scale war. The military vehicles were being left behind in favor of the heavily armored SUV’s. Five B7 level armored Lexus LX570’s were pulling up in front of El Jefe and full of his men. Pretty much capable of stopping even the largest of armor piercing rounds, God help anyone who got in their way.
“Luis!” said El Jefe noting his nephew’s appearance.
“Going out?” asked Luis watching the men pile into the SUVs, with some bewilderment.
“Doing as you suggested nephew!” he replied with a smile, opening the passenger door of the third Lexus.
“What’s that?” asked Luis perplexed, having no recollection of suggesting his uncle go out that night.
“Using some of my ten thousand men to stop the meeting!” El Jefe climbed into the Lexus and turned to his even more confused looking nephew. “After tonight, no one will be on the streets of Nuevo Laredo and no Americans will be visiting any time soon.”
In answer to Luis’ unasked question, El Jefe picked up the FN Minimi machine gun that sat at his feet and secured to it a one hundred cartridge drum feed. Luis stopped himself from asking anything further. Wherever El Jefe was going, many people were going to die. Nuevo Laredo was about to become a war zone again.
Luis signaled to his two guards to wait and rushed back inside. Takings would be hammered in the next few days and their cash-flow needed to be protected. A number of purchases would have to be put on hold, otherwise Los Zetas may experience a very embarrassing cash-flow issue. As Luis logged into their bank accounts and stopped the payments, he wished his uncle would understand that they had to discuss his actions because whether he agreed with them or not, there were always consequences.
Safe in the knowledge that they’d have enough cash on hand for a few weeks but would not be taking ownership of two new aircraft anytime soon, Luis headed back to his waiting truck. He checked his watch; it had been another thirty minutes since his last call. He powered up another unused pre-paid cell and tried the emergency contact number — it was still off.
“Let’s go!” he said, the concern growing. He really had expected the cell to have rung.
“Where to?” asked the driver, having no idea what was in Luis’ thoughts.
“Laredo!”
Sean looked at his watch over Katie’s shoulder. He really needed to get a move on. She had been stuck to him for over ten minutes, her body heaving against his, rising and falling with each and every deep, long and sad breath. As much as Sean felt for her situation, he didn’t have the time or the inclination to be the shoulder to cry on. He had a boy to rescue.
Time was moving on and whoever had rung the cell phone would be wondering why their man hadn’t answered or returned whatever pre-arranged system they had in place. Sean was beginning to wish he hadn’t killed them both. First things first though, he had to extract himself from Katie.
Sean slowly began to disengage from Katie, removing one arm at a time until she sat before him unaided, her eyes bloodshot and wet as tears flowed freely.
“Please get our boy back!” she pleaded as much with her eyes as her words.
Sean thought better of pointing out it wasn’t his boy, given Katie’s current state of inertia. Patting her knee tenderly, he got up and made his way back to the hallway, retrieving the Mexican’s phone. At least he knew why it hadn’t rung subsequently. The hard tile floors were no place to drop a phone you hoped to use again. He dismantled and reassembled it quickly but the result was the same; the phone was dead. He really wished he hadn’t killed them both but then it was pretty much a rule for Sean. If somebody shot at him, he would shoot back better, which pretty much meant if you shot at him you died. It was a rule he’d never broken and was living proof it wasn’t a bad rule to live by.
However, it wasn’t going to help save the boy. For that, he needed some help but that came at a cost he wasn’t sure he was willing to pay.
“Sean?” Katie joined him in the hallway, having pulled herself together. She walked across and leant into him, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest. She ignored his flinching. “Our baby, Sean, what about James?”
Sean struggled to control his emotions. “James, your son is called James?”
“After his grandfather.” Katie reacted calmly to Sean’s disowning of his child, coping with Sean’s post traumatic stress. “Your father!” she confirmed.
“Jesus,” replied Sean shaking his head, a photo on the staircase caught his eye and he pulled himself away from Katie and realized the wall that lined the staircase was a home gallery. He followed them up the stairs, recognizing many of the photos and remembering exactly when they were taken. They were his photos, his graduation photo, his passing out photo, his mom, his dad, his photo in full dress uniform, his photo with the President. His history, his life. The wedding photo ended the history and the lie. The baby photos of James with his real father and mother took precedence as Sean reached the top landing and looked at the last photo in the collection. Vincent Black with the young James Fox on his lap.
“Just what in the fuck is going on here?!” Sean asked himself, as another twist was added to the already bizarre set of circumstances.