Hunter and I put a few rounds in the chests of a few hostiles, pausing to reload our weapons behind cover.
“That is some Dirty Harry shit,” I muttered to him as I hastily slammed bullets into my pistol chamber.
He finished loading his gun, and we nodded together before rising up from cover. With reflexes just quicker than mine, he let off a couple of shots from both wrists, missing once or twice but downing three cartel fighters in the process. We continued to mount our assault, aided by our team of fighters – most of whom were members of the Devil’s Dragons. They defensively stuck close to their leader, ready to annihilate any threat that appeared.
Even down here, exposed wiring and limited panels showed just how new the structure was. The rooms appeared to be filled with scattered construction equipment and debris, and a lot of walls were only built on one side, or lacked external plating. Still, the further forward we went, the more the various rooms and hallways started coming together.
The cartel members were spread a little thinner here, and we reduced their numbers with every corner we turned.
Before we could sweep the entire floor, a pair of bikers caught up with us.
“We found them!”
Hunter whipped around. “How many?”
“Fifteen girls!”
He was stunned by the news, pausing to process this. His gaze shifted to meet mine, and then he asked the biker: “Any Caucasians?”
“No sir…”
“Damn,” he hissed. “But at least we found the other abductees. The cartel must have spent its time shifting operations up here, instead of actually getting around to selling the captives…
“Where were they?”
“There was a fortified room up a floor, tucked away real neat-like in the back,” the biker answered with a grin. “We mowed down their guards, but the girls look pretty drugged up…”
“Keeps them complacent and unaware of their surroundings… What else is going on up there?”
“Still some scattered resistance, putting up a fight. Nobody’s surrendering. They’re gunning down to their last man and there’s still no sign of any of this money you promised…”
“It’s here,” Hunter murmured. “Come with us and offer some backup. We’re going to find the leader of this shit-show and he’ll be sitting on enough money to make your goddamned head spin.”
We pushed forward, facing fewer opponents than before. I suspected that our three teams had mowed through the vast majority of them already, and that this was a skeleton crew down here.
“We’re close,” Hunter finally observed, gazing at a small map on the wall. “This looks familiar again… I think that we’re right on top of the brains of this little operation.”
His eyes glanced over to a few doors nearby. He directed the team to split up and take each door in trios, and left the furthest one for the two of us. The bikers bashed into the doors and started gunning down the remaining opposition.
“This is it,” he told me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded in agreement, and with his hand on the doorknob, he pushed open the entrance…
Chapter 49
The chamber was brightly lit, with metallic siding and a tiled floor. But the compelling imagery that stood out was the single, well-dressed Mexican gangster in the back, facing us with a highly reflective revolver in his hand.
More compelling were the three white girls he was pointing the gun at… They sluggishly glanced up at us as we entered the room, clearly doped up out of their goddamn minds.
The cheerleaders!
“Arturo Alvarez,” Hunter replied coolly as he held his pistol high. “If I’d known I’d have the treat of seeing your pretty face again, well… I’d have sprung for a nicer gun.”
“It’s… it’s you,” the cartel leader muttered in disbelief. His face curled into one of undying rage. “You, after all these years… oh, amigo, how I have longed to put a bullet between your eyes after you killed my cousin!”
“Your cousin struck first. He tried to sell my sister into sexual slavery,” Hunter replied with gritted teeth. “As far as I’m concerned… the man got what was coming to him.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked.
“Arturo Alvarez is one of the most dangerous men in Víboras Verde,” Hunter replied, his eyes glued to our adversary. “Doesn’t surprise me that you’re heading up the kidnappings side of things here… although that’s a little disappointing, all things considered.”
“And why’s that?” He laughed. “You were so happy to see me again, you white demon…”
“There are much fouler cockroaches in this organization than this fucker,” Hunter answered, verbally knocking Arturo down a couple of notches. “You are horseshit in comparison to what I’ve seen.”
Our enemy bristled with irritation. “Horseshit, amigo? You think that I’m nothing? I’ve come a long way since we’ve last seen each other, pendejo… don’t underestimate me.”
“If you’re the guy in charge here then your cartel just might survive my little midnight ride,” Hunter replied. “Which is a damned shame. I was hoping to find someone worth my time…”
Arturo bristled with anger again. “The others aren’t needed to deal with you.”
Hunter remained unfazed, but he lowered his voice to address me. “Víboras Verde is led by a vicious inner circle known only as The Brothers. This leadership is a union of four close friends, bound by spilt blood and heinous crimes… and eight years ago, I killed one of them.”
“The one who took your sister?”
“Not exactly… but the one who oversaw their kidnapping operations,” Hunter explained. “That leaves three Brothers left to put in the ground. I’m stuck with the runt of the litter here… this guy is nothing compared to the others.”
I realized quickly what Hunter was doing. He was egging Arturo on… Trying to get him to make a mistake.
“Nothing?” Arturo demanded. “You think that I am nothing? We are equals, the three of us are equals, you stupid motherfucker!”
I expected Hunter to chuckle, but he regarded Arturo Alvarez with something akin to pity. “You were always the weakest link… weaker than the one I’ve already put in the ground. Arturo, you will always be in their shadow. Why else would they send you so far from home? They put you in my fucking backyard for a reason Arturo.”
Arturo moved slowly, pressing his gun against the nearest cheerleader’s head. “I will never be in their shadow.”
His hostage mumbled incoherently, still trapped in her drug-fueled daze. I had to do something. We were trapped in our standoff, and Arturo was about to splatter her brains against the wall as a final act of defiance…
“Drop the gun,” I demanded.
Arturo’s smile faded.
“You would have me kill this girl?” He demanded, shaking her shoulder as he held his pistol to her head. “I’ll put a bullet in her skull…”
“And you’ll join your friends in hell,” Hunter said, his arm steady as a rock as he kept the barrel of his gun carefully trained on Arturo.
“If you were going to kill me, you’d have already done it,” Arturo replied, the edge of his lip curling upward. “You want something from me, don’t you pendejo?”
Hunter took a step forward. “The Brothers have been playing you. They put you here to get my attention and they knew one of us would end up dead… So yeah… I want something from you.”
Arturo glared at us.
“Spit it out white devil.”
“I want your brothers,” Hunter replied coldly. “You give them to me and I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
“You want my blood? You want my family?” Arturo asked furiously.
“I want the men who sent you here to die,” Hunter replied as Arturo moved behind the cheerleader, placing her between the two of them like a makeshift shield.
“I’m walking out of here with this bitch… You touch me and I kill her.”
“You’re not leaving thi
s room with that girl Arturo. You can die here now, or you can tell me what I want to know…”
“And why should I believe you?”
“Because you’re dead if you don’t, and that pretty little thing you’re holding isn’t going to stop a goddamned magnum from punching a hole straight through your sorry ass.”
“If I accept… I have your word that I leave here alive?”
Arturo hesitated. I watched as the cheerleader he was holding up floated on the edge of consciousness, her head rolling slightly to the side. It fell forward, and he shifted her body just slightly, the barrel of his gun moving ever so slightly away from her face.
And a shot rang out.
My glock kicked upward, a single cartridge skittering off the floor to my side.
Arturo fired, a round bouncing harmlessly off the roof and sending a shower of concrete flakes across the room. There was no further movement as he crumpled to the floor, taking the cheerleader with him.
My eyes were on Hunter in a heartbeat.
“What the fuck? Why?!” Hunter snarled. “He was surrendering! He could have helped us destroy the entire fucking cartel!”