Green Ice: A Deadly High (46 page)

Mancini diverted the rifle scope and returned his attention back to the house. He was summing up whether to bother trying to gain access inside the place. Movement inside one of the upstairs windows suddenly alerted his senses. He homed in on the window on the far left of the second floor.

A sweaty faced, overweight man with sparse gray hair at the back and sides of a mostly bald head stood behind the window. He was engaging in a heated conversation with somebody else inside the room. His argument was with a person who Mancini couldn’t see from his position. He watched the guy’s jaw move rapidly up and down
, spitting out unheard words. His arms waved around in frenzied gestures as he stood behind a wooden desk and his white shirt was heavily sweat stained.

Mancini noticed another stern faced guy, with short cropped black hair and dressed in a light blue shirt and a black tie
, skirt around the desk and briefly glance out of the window, then duck back inside the room. The stern faced guy wasn’t the recipient of the older, bald man’s wrath though. Somebody else was in that room with them.

“Who is in there with you
, Senor Big Shot?” Mancini muttered to himself.

Mancini watched the scene through the window for a few moments and a skinny guy lurched forward towards the desk, as though he had been roughly shoved from behind. The skinny guy was dressed in a gray suit that looked two sizes too big for him and a worried expression engulfed his thin face. A shock of black, tousled hair hung from his head and Mancini immediately recognized the anxious figure.

“Bingo, I see you, Luiz,” Mancini whispered. He’d met Luiz on a few occasions, back in LA when Oreilles had held a few meet and greets to discuss plans for the future at his place in Beverly Hills.

Another guy, dressed in a black shirt and matching pants stepped across the room into Mancini’s view. He stood
directly behind Luiz, in a menacing stance with his fists clenched at his sides. Mancini assumed the big guy spouting off was Logrono, the big shot cartel boss. He thoroughly scanned all the other windows on both floors with the rifle scope and stopped moving when he spotted movement in some of the rooms. A woman dressed in a gray maid’s uniform happily chomped on a severed, bloody bare foot in one room and a huge, fat guy in a ripped green and blue Hawaiian shirt stuffed what looked like a string of intestines into his gaping, blood smeared mouth. Several more contaminated people moved by various other windows in small groups, circulating the rooms on each floor. 

The infected were also inside the house, along with Logrono,
Luiz and co. The first problem Mancini faced was covering the ground between the wall and the house without being spotted by the infected roaming the grounds. The second problem would be gaining access to the property. The third problem was locating the stash of green ice and persuading all the non-infected people in the house to leave with him. The fourth problem was exiting the building and getting through the closed gates.

Chapter Seventy-One

Mancini had seen enough and decided he wouldn’t be capable of pulling off the mission on his own. He’d have to use his traveling companions as accomplices in the operation.
Trey seemed a willing combatant but he wasn’t sure how useful Leticia could be and Jorge, with his injured ankle and ulterior ambitions was totally out of the picture for this particular maneuver.

Mancini slung the rifle back over his shoulder and jumped down from the top of the wall. Heading back down the ridge was a far easier task than moving in the opposite direction.
Mancini soon scaled the rocky surface and jogged back to the Thunderbird, parked beside the bay.

Leticia and Jorge sat in the rear seats while
Trey patrolled the area around the vehicle, with the pump action shotgun cradled in his arms. He flicked his head backwards when he saw Mancini approach from the rear.

“So…what’s up, man?”

Mancini slowed to a brisk walking pace. He felt overly hot and didn’t relish the task ahead.

“The good news is
Luiz is still alive and kicking inside the house but the bad news is the place is crawling with infected, both inside and outside the property.”

“Shit, how the hell are we going to get them out of there?”

Mancini sat on the edge of the Thunderbird trunk and sighed.

“I think maybe our best chance of pulling this whole thing off is if I go in alone and you cover me from the wall with the
assault rifle.”

Trey’s eyes widened.
“You sure about that? I’m no fucking crack shot, sniper G.I. Joe type guy, man. I can fire a handgun at close range but taking out a whole bunch of infected through a rifle scope is a different ball game all together, dog.”

“Look, I know it’ll be tough and if it fails, then you guys take the cash and get the hell out of here,” Mancini groaned. “But that stash of green ice must be inside
there someplace and I am going to find it before it gets discovered by some other whack job with aspirations of flooding the market with that shit.”

Trey shuffled his feet and looked sheepish. “You seriously think your plan will work?”

Mancini shook his head. “No, Trey. I’m not sure it will work but if I get bit on the way in, I’ll make certain that nobody leaves that place alive and I’ll burn the whole fucking house down, if I have to.”

“You’re really determined to do this thing, ‘
aint you?” Trey said.

Mancini glanced up at him, squinting against the sunlight.

“You’ve seen at firsthand what that green shit does to people. We can’t just give up and let more people suffer. We have to either destroy that stuff or make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“Or die trying,” Trey muttered.

“Absolutely,” Mancini grunted.

Trey nodded.
“Okay, I’m digging the positive vibes, dude. Fuck, yeah. Let’s do it, man.”

Mancini stood up and slapped Trey on the shoulder. “Okay, grab all the spare ammo. We’re going to need all the fire power we can muster. Leticia, we’ll leave you one of the handguns in case you meet
up with any trouble.”

Leticia’s head snapped around to face Mancini. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to come with you. If we’re going to do this task, then we all do it together. I too want an end to this horrible nightmare.
” She jumped over the side of the car onto the ground. “After all, I lost my grandfather and I told a terrible lie to the police to get us here. And I can handle a firearm, if that is what you are concerned about.”

Mancini’s gaze turned to Trey for
assistance. Trey shrugged and a crooked smile crossed his face. “Well…she could be my backup on top of the wall. You know, like a sniper’s spotter or whatever the hell they call themselves.”

Mancini sighed. He didn’t want to put Leticia’s life in any more danger but hers and Trey’s argument was a convincing one.

“Okay, that kind of makes sense but don’t go into the grounds after me, whatever happens out there.”

“Agreed,” Trey said, nodding and turned to flash a grin at Leticia.
He moved around the Thunderbird and took the spare magazines and shotgun cartridges from the glove box, leaving the cover open.

“What about me?” Jorge protested. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

“I’m afraid so, Jorge,” Mancini sighed, following Trey to the open glove box. He took out the set of hand cuffs inside. “And because I don’t trust you as far as I could spit, I’m going to make sure you don’t try and head off into the sunset with all that cash in the trunk.” Mancini closed one of the cuffs around Jorge’s wrists and manacled him with the remaining cuff to the convertible roof supports behind the backseats. He took the keys and slipped them into his pocket.

“What are you doing, Mancini?” Jorge growled. “You can’t leave me locked up here. What am I going to do? I can’t even walk let alone drive. Besides, Trey has the car keys in his pocket anyhow.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you to hot-wire the ride and drive away while we’re gone, Jorge,” Mancini said, shaking his head slowly. “You’re lucky I haven’t already killed you. The only reason I haven’t is because we can’t spare the ammo.”

Trey snickered and slapped Jorge on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, man. Leticia and I are going to be up on that ridge right above you. We’ll be able to see if any bad guys are heading your way. You’ll be okay, man.”

Mancini checked the glove box for any more ammunition that had gone astray and found the can of pepper spray he’d taken from the law agent.

“You never know,” he muttered and slipped the canister into his pocket.

“I guess you’ll be taking this bad boy?” Trey asked, holding out the shotgun.

Mancini nodded and took the weapon along with the spare cartridges. He slipped the rifle off his shoulder and handed it to Trey.

“Let me guess, look down the scope, aim and shoot,” Trey said, grinning while taking the rifle.

Mancini nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve played
Call of Duty
for like, a million hours, man. I know how it works,” Trey said, studying the rifle.

“This situation is way different from a computer game, Trey,” Mancini growled.

“I know. I’m just fucking with you, man.”

Mancini sighed. “Now is not the time for fucking around.”

Trey shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Just shut up will you and give Leticia your Heckler and Koch and any spare
mags you have for it,” Mancini said.

Trey grinned and complied with Mancini’s instructions.

“Will you guys hurry up and get on with it so we can get the fuck out of here,” Jorge croaked.

Mancini tipped his head sideways towards Jorge. “The man’s right. Let’s go.”

Chapter Seventy-Two

The pickup truck driver watched
through his binoculars as three of the four Thunderbird occupants headed up the ridge to the west of the front of a large house. He wondered why they were leaving the remaining guy handcuffed inside the vehicle. The guy left in the Thunderbird looked as though he was unarmed and didn’t seem to pose much of a threat.

Mancini, Trey and Leticia scrabbled up the ridge, sweating and groaning with exertion. Mancini reached the summit first, followed by Leticia then Trey. Mancini held his hands together for Trey and Leticia to each use as a foot hold to climb up the stone wall. The shade of the tree on the other side of the wall again provided them with a dubious amount of cover. Mancini scrambled up the stone surface and all three of them huddled in a line across the narrow ledge.

Trey
looked through the rifle scope at the scene of carnage inside the grounds. He turned to Mancini with an expression of shock and horror etched over his face.

“You still want to do this, man?” he gasped.

Mancini shrugged. “Not many alternative choices here.”

Trey
blew out, making a long rasping sound. “That’s a fucking suicide mission going in there, dog.”

Mancini ignored Trey’s negative comment. “Okay, I’ll try and keep to the shadows in the flowers beds and under the trees but there ‘
aint much cover near the house. You start taking out those infected fucks when they spot me and don’t allow them to get too close.”

“Got it,” Trey hissed.

“I saw Luiz and Logrono in that room to the far left.” Mancini pointed towards the building. “I’m going to see if I can get inside the house and make my way on up there.”

“Good luck with that,” Trey whispered.
“Hey, if you don’t make it out of there…I just want you to know…”

“Save it for later, Trey,” Mancini grunted. He handed Trey the shotgun and scaled the wrought iron fence railings.

Mancini slipped over the fence and crouched on the ledge on the other side. He held out his hand through the railings and Trey passed him the shotgun through the bars.