The Warrior Code (17 page)

Rest now. Attack tomorrow night. Leave early morning the day after.

No mercy.

The young women alive, all the rest, dead.

They attacked at two a.m. the next morning.

Pacho had a theory about attacking deep in the night when men and women were well fed and were in the land of dreams. Response times and reflexes were slow in those who were awake. He didn’t know if there was any scientific basis for his theory. Luis had told him that armies and Special Forces operated on this same strategy. He didn’t care. All he knew was that he had killed enough at that time of night, and that was good enough for him.

They started a slow crawl at ten that night, three of them approaching the front, two to the right, and two to the left. Pacho himself led three others to the rear, one of Luis’s bodyguards on either side of him.

By one a.m. they were all in position, seven hundred yards away, all having a good view of the house, which glowed white in the moonless night.

There was a dim light inside, and earlier they had heard voices and seen a light flickering inside – the television.

No one had left the house. A couple of Pacho’s men had circled the perimeter when it turned dark, and declared it clean.

Carter and his sidekick hadn’t stepped out of the house since evening.

It was ripe for the taking.

Pacho took a deep breath and signaled.

They all started crawling faster.

Seven hundred yards became six hundred fifty and then six hundred.

He signaled again.

The eleven of them got up, bent double and moved faster.

Six hundred became five hundred, and they stood upright and ran full throttle at the house.

Each of them five feet away from the nearest man.

The night held its breath and watched as eleven shadows carrying death in their hands sped silently.

Then the night became day.

Chapter 18

High-intensity spotlights under the roof turned on and bathed the surroundings in white light illuminating Pacho and his men.

The advancing men faltered for a second, and some of them fired at the lights. This wasn’t in the script.

Pacho gestured silently and urged them on, they resumed their sprint.

All of them braced themselves for enemy fire.

It never came.

In two seconds they had breached the house from the front, rear and the sides, and Maggie McBride’s windows shattered again.

Water struck them from above. Strong streams of cold water.

Pacho staggered under its force, cupped a hand above his eyes, and looked up.

Hoses were taped to the ceiling throughout the house, small punctures in them through which water gushed out in fierce jets. It soaked them immediately and seeped through their outerwear.

They were prepared for guns, enemy fire and grenades. They didn’t expect water.

It was cold and slippery inside the house, but that wasn’t just because of the water pouring down.

All the furniture had been shoved aside. Plastic sheets covered the carpet and floor in the living room, kitchen and dining room.

Small and large blocks of ice were scattered on the plastic, making it slippery, treacherous, and very cold.

Some of the ice had melted, but most of the blocks were intact and floated in the now ankle-deep water.

They were expecting an aggressive entry, a rapid flushing out of the six occupants, even some return fire. They also expected some injuries or even a few of them dead.

They hadn’t planned for ice, water and slippery plastic.

A few men fell as their feet gave way, and one of them smashed his head on an ice block. He was hauled up, and Pacho roared silently.

They fanned out as quietly as they could and cleared the living room, stepping carefully on the wet plastic. The water sloshed and took away their speed and stealth, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

The living room was empty.

They cleared the dining room.

No one.

One of the bodyguards led three others to the bedrooms.

They were empty.

They looked at Pacho for instructions. He urged them to the basement.

Two men braced themselves against each side of the door, and a third kicked it open and dropped flat immediately.

The door burst open but no seeking fire came.

The basement was dark, the bodyguard snapped on a flashlight and took three men down the short stairs.

The shotgun blast took him flush in the face, and another blast took out the man behind him.

The remaining man backed up rapidly, his rifle firing in a long burst.

The rest of the men swung around, seeking other targets.

There were none.

The two men at the top of the basement stairs pointed inside the dark underground room and swept fire from left to right and right to left till their magazines ran empty.

They switched magazines smoothly, but the basement remained silent.

Pacho motioned for more men to inspect the basement.

Three men moved down the stairs, two others covering them. They checked the two fallen men. Both were beyond help. They inspected the tripwires and the now-empty shotguns.

They illuminated the inside with their flashlights. The basement mocked them with its barrenness.

They regrouped gingerly in the living room, where the water continued to drench them. Many of them shivered, some of them stamped, but that made it worse since it splashed more cold water on all of them.

Pacho looked at them and quelled the despairing rage that came over him. These were some of the most ruthless men in Mexico, and yet the unexpected ice cold water had drained a lot of fight out of them.

On top of that, the house was empty.

Fighting men needed an enemy, needed to feel the heat of death, not the silent, mocking cold.

He motioned them to check the house again, knowing it was a futile search. Five of them left and returned in a few seconds and shook their heads.

Trap?

He scanned the ceiling, the corners, the lining, but found no cameras or no explosive devices.

Empty house, no trap, just the shotguns in the basement, no snipers – they would’ve taken us out at the approach.

Pacho tried to reason it out in his mind, but the cold deluge along with his hot rage rendered rational thinking impossible.

He motioned to the eight remaining men.

Exit. Leave the dead men.

They turned.

He motioned furiously at the other two bodyguards.

Exit through the sides.

They nodded.

Four men exited through the dining room side window.

Pacho and four more left through the living room side window.

It was the muted pops that alerted him, and he turned back. The bodyguard behind him signaled that a sniper had taken out three of the dining room four, and the fourth was injured.

They both turned back and saw the three ahead of them fall.

The bodyguard shoved him back and dived out, his rifle stretched ahead, firing blindly in the dark, and then he too fell silent.

Pacho dived after him and felt a seeking bullet burn the air above him.

He rolled over, got up and dived again erratically to evade the sniper. Diving and sprinting, he made his way to the front of the house.

The two snipers were at the side, Carter and his sidekick. The front was safe. The front led to his getaway vehicle.

He saw the blur through the corner of his eye, he ducked and brought his rifle up only to have it wrenched away from his hands.

He sidestepped, forced his mind clear; there was a reason he was the most feared man in Mexico, and instead of retreating, he attacked.

He head-butted the incoming man, heard him grunt, and delivered two rabbit punches to his midriff.

Mistake!

The man was wearing ceramic armor.

Pacho rained lightning fast punches at the man’s throat, one of which connected, the man staggered. A surge of triumph ran through Pacho. He ducked an incoming swing, grabbed the man’s left hand, and twisted it in an attempt to force him to turn his back, at which point Pacho would whip out his knife and finish him.

The man’s left hand stayed hard and firm like a bar of iron, he surged closer to Pacho, like a lover embracing, and this negated the Mexican’s reach. His right hand reached and dug deep in Pacho’s neck, found a nerve, and Pacho howled soundlessly.

The gringo will not win!

He leaned forward, bit the gringo’s neck and was rewarded by a sharp hiss. He dug his right fingers in the man’s face as he sought to blind him, while his teeth continued to dig deep in the man’s neck. His left hand reached down for his knife.

The gringo didn’t withdraw.

The gringo ignored the pain, instead of drawing away from the biting teeth, he grabbed Pacho’s head with his left hand and pulled it deep against his neck.

Pacho’s mouth crushed against the man’s neck muscles and flattened against his teeth. He started to suffocate and tried to break free, but the hand against his head felt like a vice. He tried to flex his leg to get his left hand to reach his blade, but the gringo kicked his legs wide.

He felt a surge go through the gringo, then felt the man’s shoulders and neck flex, and his world went dim as a hammer blow fell against his temple.

Pacho struggled to break free, forgot about the armor, and struck the man in the midriff, his mouth went wide as the ceramic plates broke his knuckles.

His eyes sought the man’s throat, but another hammer blow struck him, this time against his left temple, and his vision dimmed.

He flailed back, but the animal in him didn’t give up, didn’t know what surrender meant, he surged forward to attack.

A third hammer blow hit his jaw, and Pacho fell back as his teeth broke and blood filled his mouth.

He struggled to his feet and staggered forward as the man wrapped a hand around him, hauled him up, and felled him again with a fist against his throat.

Pacho had killed men, he had raped women, he had beheaded children, he had fought stronger men, and he had always won. He wouldn’t give up now.

Even as Pacho’s body struggled for breath, tremendous choking gasps racked through his body, even as his eyes started to fade, his hands reached out to pull the gringo’s legs and dislodge him.

The man fell, his knees landed hard on Pacho’s chest, the Mexican’s last vision was of remorseless eyes boring into him and the flash of steel.

Chapter 19

Zeb checked the rest of the fallen men, none of them would be a threat anymore. Roger joined him from the opposite side, and they stood for a moment taking in the silence, letting it damp down the adrenaline that was buzzing through them.

Roger looked at the neighbor’s empty house. ‘Should we get the women?’

Maggie had a key to the neighbor’s house, and that had given Zeb the idea.

They had crawled for three hours in the afternoon, going out of the rear of Maggie’s house and coming in from the back of the neighbor’s house, Zeb had crawled back once the women were secure in the empty house.

Lurette had adjusted her glasses as she addressed Zeb. ‘This’s the closest I’ve come to the earth. Make sure I don’t go beneath it. I’m not quite ready for that.’

It had taken Roger and him a couple of hours more to rig up the hoses and the plastic, and when it had turned dark, they had brought out the ice.

They had then crawled back and taken sniping positions at the sides of the house after Pacho’s men had circled the perimeter.

The previous evening, Broker had tracked noncommercial flight arrivals at Idaho Falls Regional Airport and Jackson Hole Airport and narrowed down a possible arrival time for Pacho’s reinforcements. That had given them a timeline to work with.

Roger’s chuckle broke the silence. ‘I’ve never come across that idea with the hoses. Where did you pick it up?’

‘Cold water is the surest killer of will and motivation. It’ll affect even us with all our training, and those guys don’t have anywhere near the kind of training we go through.’

Zeb’s mind was far away, as he remembered a distant land, a time when he was water-boarded while the two closest to him watched helplessly. He squeezed the memory in a small ball and locked it away in a tight container in his mind.

Roger drawled. ‘That, and then when they burst in the house, they found nothing. All that adrenaline pumping around in them and the letdown that followed screwed up their thinking.’

Zeb nodded. He glanced at his watch. Forty minutes from the time the hoods had burst into the house. The other neighbor’s house was lit up like it was Christmas. The cops would be on their way.

They searched the bodies and found the scorpion on all of them.

Roger dug out his phone, pulled up the camera, and started snapping away. ‘Broker said this gang was about a hundred strong, didn’t he? Now they’re down to eighty and are facing a bigger threat, the Sinaloa outfit. If I was Zubia, I would drop this insane hunt for the twins.’

Zeb grunted. He’d worked that out some time back.

‘Speaking of Broker.’ Roger dialed him and briefed him quietly. It wasn’t quite late night in New York, but in any case Broker never slept when a mission was hot.

‘Yeah, he’s fine.’ Roger glanced at Zeb in response to a query from Broker. ‘You know how he is. He might be scared and ready to cry, but you couldn’t tell from his exterior. And thanks for asking about me.’ He laughed, a rich Texan sound that floated up in the air. ‘We’ll get back to you.’

The gangsters carried cheap phones and Mexican passports, which were most likely fake.

They searched Pacho last, and his phone was lit up by an incoming message.

‘Is it done?’

The message blinked at them silently.

Roger took the phone.

‘Yeah. All your men are dead.’ He attached a photo of Pacho and pressed
Send
.

The response came a full minute later.