The roadblock was almost professional. Four old cars arranged in a herringbone pattern that forced any oncoming traffic to slow to a crawl as it negotiated a winding course through the obstruction. A dozen armed men, locals by the look of them, lounged on the bonnets and inside the vehicles, passing around bottles of no-name tequila and Dos Equis lager, and smoking an assortment of cigarettes and reefers.
‘We could take that left,’ suggested Fifi, pointing to a narrow side street that remained open to traffic, just before the roadblock.
‘No,’ replied Shah without hesitation. ‘Too narrow. Nowhere to go. And they have enfilading fire from the roof-line and windows above. We must reverse immediately or go through.’
‘Drive on,’ said Jules. ‘But slowly. Don’t spook them. They’re probably just shaking down the turistas. I’m sure we can talk them around to leaving us be.’
She lifted the dark grey Franchi SPAS 12 auto shotgun from the improvised gun rack that Shah had installed on the dashboard of the Jeep Cherokee, and jacked a round into the chamber. Behind the wheel, Sergeant Shah – they’d all taken to calling him that now – slowed the vehicle and made sure his own weapons cache, a pair of MP5s, was close to hand. In the back seat, Thapa and Fifi readied themselves.
They had almost managed to drive right up to the edge of Acapulco Diamante, the most exclusive tourist enclave in the city, but the roadblock brought them to a halt a couple of hundred metres from the start of the private resorts and clubs. Jules had been expecting trouble even earlier, which is why the Jeep was kitted out with so much firepower. Until now, however, the sight of a few gun barrels lazily produced out of the Cherokee’s windows had been enough to negotiate their passage through the town, where most of the violence they encountered was still small-scale and anarchic.
‘Sergeant Shah, if you wouldn’t mind, I think Fifi and I will handle the negotiations. A prominent display of your willingness to kill anybody who interferes with us would help, of course.’
‘Of course, Miss Julianne.’
The former non-com brought them to a halt at least twenty-five metres from the blockade. A lot of the men up ahead were carrying rusty revolvers and.45s, which were unlikely to hit anything they aimed at over ten metres away. And most of them appeared to be drunk or stoned, which further called into doubt their chances of deliberately targeting anybody. There was a lot to be said for volume of fire, though, and they had plenty of that to go around.
Jules slipped a pair of sunglasses down over her eyes and stepped out of the cabin, fitting a radio headset. Fifi emerged behind her, already wearing her commo gear, the same sets they’d used back on the Rules. Immediately the wolf whistles and catcalls began. It was almost comical, really. It was a hot, bright day and both women were dressed in shorts and hiking boots. Jules wore a Level III A armoured vest over a white tee-shirt, but Fifi had only a sleeveless checked L.L. Bean to protect her. She’d knotted it, exposing a long expanse of tanned, finely muscled midriff, and most of the would-be desperadoes were torn between which of the chiquitas they wanted to objectify and harass the most.
One guy stood out from the rest, simply because he didn’t ogle them or grab his crotch. He just stared cold and hard at the four gunned-up intruders.
‘That’d be our guy,’ Jules whispered into the mike. ‘He’s mine.’
‘Gotcha,’ said Fifi, who took her much-loved Russian PKM from Thapa at that moment. Jules was almost certain she felt the ambient temperature drop as blood began to run cold. ‘What’s happening back at the car?’ she asked.
‘Both Shah and Thapa are good to go, if they have to.’
‘Are they being obvious about it?’
‘Yup.’
‘Excellent, and… Good morning, seсor. This is your turf now, I suppose?’ Jules favoured the gang leader with the full wattage of her smile, holding the shotgun so as to squeeze just a little more cleavage up towards his face.
‘You presume I speak English, no?’ he said in reply.
‘You look like an intelligent, educated man, well travelled and worldly wise. It’s a reasonable assumption.’ She beamed at him. ‘Especially when you use big words like presume.’
In fact, he looked like the worst sort of bad news. Sober and mean and not likely to be sweet-talked or bullshitted into anything he didn’t fully intend to do.
‘I am the block capitбn here now,’ he informed her. ‘I coordinate security for the Mayan and Fairmont resorts.’
You mean you’re shaking them down for protection, she thought. ‘Well, that’s excellent,’ said Jules. ‘Because that is where we are headed this morning. So if you’d like to provide an escort for me and my friend here…’
Fifi winked and grinned, while never taking her finger off the trigger of the PKM. ‘Howdy, Capitбn.’
‘… we’ll be on our way,’ Jules continued. ‘We have business up there, Mr…?’
‘What business?’
He was instantly on guard, alive to the possibility that somebody might trespass on his turf. She wondered about his background. He seemed too smart for a street thug, and yet he’d gathered a vintage crop of them around him. There seemed no obvious structure to his crew, no settled hierarchy of lieutenants or enforcers. He might be telling the truth about them providing a form of security to the resorts. After all, Shah and his men had hired themselves out to do just that to pay for their former lodgings, and of course they were now doing the same for her.
‘There are some American citizens in the resorts,’ she improvised. ‘Their government has arranged evacuation and we’re providing -’
‘They have no government,’ he cut in. ‘It is gone, desaparecido.’
‘Not all of it.’ Jules smiled disarmingly. ‘Not the part with all the guns and tanks and stuff. You know, los militares. There’s a good many of them still hanging around, and if you can still get a news service you’ll see they’re organising safe passage for any US citizen who wants it. We’re just part of that service. We’re… contractors.’
She shifted the Franchi, a big heavy-hitting piece of artillery, just to remind him of his proximity to it. She dropped her voice, however, so that only she and the capitбn could hear. ‘Let me guess what’s happening here, puta…’
Jules noted the instant flush of anger to his face. She could tell he wanted to bitch-slap her for that, but the presence of the shotgun stayed his hand.
She continued in the same low tone. ‘You probably had a couple of your crew back there take a few pot shots at some of the guests. Maybe they roughed up a gringo or two. And then you magically appeared to offer your services, to preserve them from the attentions of such dreadful ruffians. Of course, a premium service like you’re providing, it doesn’t come cheap. There’s all the men to pay, the equipment to maintain – and the smokes and beers and three-dollar whores don’t come cheap, do they? Well, maybe the whores. And you plan on, what, holding them here until you’ve bled them dry? Is that right?’
A quiet smile was all the reply she received. Jules stepped in a little closer now. Spoke a little more softly.
‘You’re obviously the brains of this operation. You look about a hundred times smarter than anybody here. What were you last week – a cop, a soldier, or something?’
He didn’t answer, but then he didn’t smack her down either. He was listening.
‘So think about this, profesor. Think about how much more it costs you to buy a cup of coffee, or a beer, or a taco, than it did two days ago. Think about how the money you’ve been taking off these fat white fools is worth less every day than the one before. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? Because you’re the smart one here.’
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
‘Think about how quickly that’s happening. Ask yourself how long it’s going to be before the money they have in there…’ – Jules motioned behind him, towards the protected enclave – ‘isn’t good for anything but wiping your arse. How long will that be? Another week, maybe two? Their money is going to be worthless a long time before you relieve them of it.’
Jules could see she’d struck a nerve point; now she had to act quickly before he made the logical connection and turned his guns around on the resorts. She moved right into his personal space now, but not in a threatening way. He had a good two or three inches of height on her, and she used it by turning her face up towards his and widening her eyes just a little more.
‘This city is falling to pieces,’ she went on. ‘You’re part of that, aren’t you? You know how it’s going to be here very soon, and you’re setting yourself up as a new power. But you know what? It’s not just you. We drove in here this morning. Some places are burning, some looted. We saw a couple of bodies on the streets here and there – saw plenty of guys like you, too. At the marina where my boat’s tied up, they’ve hired some muscle who would take these faggots of yours down in less than a minute. That’s not meant to be insulting. They’re just better equipped, better trained – better paid too, I’d guess. Looks like a lot of ex-military types down at the marina. Like my Mr Shah and his friend back there.’
The gang leader flicked a glance back at the Jeep, where the two Gurkhas stood, squat and utterly still. Between them they were more heavily armed than his entire crew. They fairly bristled with automatic weaponry and Thapa even sported a kukri dagger at one hip.
Jules was almost whispering now, softly and gently, like an old lover. ‘Not many ex-mil types here though – are there, Capitбn? Just you, really. You’re the only true pro here, which means you know what’ll happen if my guys back there open up on you. I’ll get shot, almost certainly, just because I’m standing so close to you. My friend Fifi, with that enormous Russian machine-gun, she’ll probably make it to cover because she’ll put out enough fire to make sure nobody draws a bead on her. And Shah and Thapa, well, look at them – they’re cold motherfuckers. They’ll do the job. But your guys… well… I think we both know what’ll happen when thousands of rounds of ammunition start heading towards them, don’t we? So let’s not even go there. Let’s see if we can work something out between us, you and me, so that everyone’s a winner. Perhaps you could start by telling me your name.’
‘Miguel Pieraro,’ he said quietly. ‘I am not police, no. I was vaquero – a cowboy… a boss of cowboys.’ His shoulders straightened with real pride. ‘But that was before. I worked in the north, by the border. I worked for an American cattleman, with large herds below the Rio Grande. I ran his business there. He supplied McDonald’s.’ Pieraro invoked the name of the Golden Arches with reverence and awe.
Jules eased back a little, giving him some room. He was a proud man and very obviously cut from finer cloth than his comrades. His grasp of English was excellent. The chorus of sexual taunts and whistles from the makeshift barricade had died away completely now. All of Pieraro’s men watched him closely, straining to hear what had passed between el jefe and the white slut.
‘I will take you in myself,’ he declared. ‘We will discuss your proposal. You have a proposal, yes?’
‘I do,’ she confirmed.
He nodded and called out to another man who was sitting on the bonnet of an old ‘79 Camaro, reclining back against the dirty windscreen. The car was a dinosaur, with faded red racing stripes to match a thick coating of rust and dust. ‘Roberto, you are in charge here! I will take our new friends through to the Fairmont. Call me on the radio if you need to. The phones are useless.’
Jules noted that like Miguel, Roberto was notable for being clean-shaven and sober. Where his boss was a tightly wrapped bundle of steel cord and knotted muscle, however, Roberto slid from the bonnet of the car in one fluid movement. He reminded her of a snake, uncoiling in the sun. In Miguel’s position, she wouldn’t have trusted him to sit the right way around on a toilet seat. Oh well, not her problem.
A few hand gestures from the two men saw their followers hurrying to turn over engines and reverse the cars out of their herringbone arrangement. Pieraro indicated that Jules should follow him, so she signalled to Fifi to hurry back to the Jeep. ‘It’s cool,’ she said over the radio. ‘We’re going in with this chap.’
With the tension evaporating, she allowed herself a few moments to check out the locale as she followed the former cowboy through the gauntlet of leering street toughs. They’d set up their barricade across an avenue that most of them would never have seen before. Twee little fashion shops, jewellery stores and cafйs lined both sides of a street that recently had been a well-manicured boulevard. She noted Givenchy, Prada and Armani boutiques, all looted and burnt out. Rubbish choked the gutters and footpaths, and a couple of spent brass shell casings twinkled in the mid-morning sun.
Pieraro stopped at his car, forcing Jules to suppress a snigger. It was a micro, some sort of courtesy vehicle from the Fairmont resort, according to the livery; not much more than two doors and four dinky little wheels. Pieraro caught her sceptical expression.
‘It is new,’ he said. ‘And environ… environo-mentally sustainable.’
‘Does it run on tanning butter or something?’ she smirked. She would have taken him for a muscle-car tragic. But then she’d taken him for a crooked cop too, hadn’t she?
‘It is just for running about… with work,’ he emphasised.
She made sure the safety was engaged on the shotgun and then climbed in. A misfire would probably peel off the entire roof. ‘My name is Julianne, by the way – Jules, if you like,’ she told him as they fastened their seatbelts. ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘Will you mind if I don’t answer, should the question be none of your business?’ he said. ‘I am an honest person… Not like you, si?’ he added pointedly.
‘Really? Your little shakedown racket here – you’re earning an honest peso with this, are you?’
He started the car but didn’t drive off. ‘I have a family. Three children. I am providing for them. Those men back there, my men now, they have their own to look out for too. Unlike these people…’ he waved a hand to take in all of the Diamante district, ‘my men have nothing to fall back with. La Desapariciуn , it will hurt the poorest the most.’
Pieraro pressed on the accelerator and they pulled away. ‘Your question, senorita?’ he asked eventually.
Jules shrugged. ‘I was just wondering how you ended up on that roadblock, but I guess you answered it. Three children. You were, what, holidaying? Visiting relatives?’
Pieraro snorted at the first suggestion. ‘My wages, they would not have allowed me to clean the streets of el Diamante. I could not holiday here. We were visiting my wife’s cousins further south for a wedding when everyone disappeared. I came as far north as I dared to find work to support them. We have lost everything but our lives.’
Jules glanced in the side mirror to check that the others were still with her. The Jeep was only a few metres behind. She couldn’t get a read on Pieraro at all. He looked like a hard case yet she could detect none of the primitive fear in his eyes that was such a part of the make-up of almost all street thugs – the knowledge that there was always someone harder and meaner than you just around the corner. She could sense anxiety leaking out of him, at the edges, where he couldn’t keep his emotions completely nailed down, but it didn’t seem personalised. If he was telling the truth about his family, that might well explain it. She would have to play him very carefully. In many ways, it would have been a lot easier if he were a simple gang boss.
‘I suppose I should ask how you ended up running that operation. Not a lot of call for herringbone roadblocks, snipers and intersecting fields of fire in the cattle business, is there? Not even when working for Mickey D.’
‘Mickey D? I do not understand… Oh, McDonald’s. I see.’ An arid smile cracked open the dark, sunburnt rock of the cowboy’s face. ‘The catering manager of the resort, an American, once worked for McDonald’s in Houston,’ he explained. ‘I met him on business many years ago. We drank a lot of tequila and he embarrassed himself, eating the worm like a college boy. Well, he was a college boy, I suppose. But I looked after him. I knew he had taken the job here, so this week I came looking for work. Any work.’
‘I see,’ said Jules, nodding. ‘But security work? That’s not your business.’
‘Men are my business. Running cattle and running men. You have never bossed twenty vaquero, no? I have bossed many more. Hard men, not to be crossed. Much harder than those idiotas.’ Pieraro threw a contemptuous look back over his shoulder.
‘Yeah, I get that. But that Roberto guy, he really is ex-military or something, right? He handles the tactical side, yes – where to place your good shooters and how to set up the roadblock?’
The cowboy remained quiet for a moment before finally muttering: ‘He is Colombian. AUC – Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia.’
‘What’s that, some sort of fascist coke-smuggling outfit?’
‘Paramilitaries,’ said Pieraro before hurrying on. ‘So, you have a proposal, Julianne.’ He pronounced the first portion of her name as Chooley.
As the little car wound its way down towards Revolcadero Beach, the signs of breakdown and chaos in the social order became much less evident. The streets remained free of rubbish and any indication of conflict. Huge villas and gated resorts sat quietly underneath palms and soaring canopies of transplanted tropicals. Few people moved about, apparently preferring to hunker down behind their high walls, but those who did, did not seem especially fearful or concerned. Jules scanned the scene for any obvious signs of things beginning to fray, but found none. Perhaps Miguel and his gang were helping to hold it back for now. She decided to take a punt on his honesty.
‘You have three children, Miguel, right?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Two girls and a little boy.’
‘Would you like to get them away from here? From Mexico, I mean.’
There was a slight delay before he answered. ‘Very much so. What you said before, it was not all true. But some was – about how things will soon turn for the worse. I have seen the worst of people. I know what to expect.’
They began to travel downhill through a neighbourhood of large modern houses, some of them set back within vast grounds. Jules caught the first sparkles of sunlight on water as glimpses of the bay showed through the verdant surroundings.
‘Okay, here’s your deal. Passage out of Mexico for you and your family if you can help me put together a passenger list. A short one. People who can pay upfront, right away, in euros, British pounds or trade goods. Stones and jewellery, high-end stuff only – gold, platinum, diamonds, and so on. I have a yacht that can accommodate two-dozen passengers and the same number of crew… well, I can accommodate a hell of a lot more, but I’m not interested in more. I’m not running a budget operation.’
It was Pieraro’s turn to fix her with a measured, vaguely contemptuous look. ‘You have misread me, today, Julianne,’ he told her. ‘Taken me for something I am not. You, however, I can read very well. I have met your type before. You are not an honest person. You are not good. Good, honest people do not carry themselves with weapons into danger, real danger, like you did before, with such… composure, no? You are familiar with men such as that.’ Again, he jerked his head back in the direction from which they’d come. ‘You have used weapons such as this.’ A nod now towards the SPAS 12. ‘You have killed people before. Yes?’
‘When I had to,’ she said tightly. ‘When it was them or me.’
‘This I understand,’ he conceded. ‘But you must understand me now. If I help you, if I entrust to you the lives of my wife and children, your own life, it is entrusted to me then. It is held within my hands. Do you understand? If you give me reason, I will close my hands and take that life from you.’
‘I understand,’ said Jules.
Pieraro slowed down and stared into her eyes. ‘Good. Then we have a deal.’