“Don't drink.”
Saavedra shrugged. “Let us go and see these guns of yours.”
Behind Morgan, the door creaked open. A man, wearing a gray tailored suit and tie, balding, so thin and bony that he gave the impression of having been stretched, bowed in deference to the big boss. “Señor Saavedra.” American. Morgan studied his face, committing the features to memory.
“White. This is Bevelacqua. The man with the guns.”
The suit turned to Morgan with a cheerful businesslike demeanor. “Mr. Bevelacqua. You can call me Mr. White.”
This would be Acevedo International's point man for their gun-smuggling operation. If their intel was correct, he knew enough to bring the whole corporation down.
“I look forward to working together,” Morgan said, shaking the man's hand. “We were just about toâ”
A frantic knock reverberated from the office door. Saavedra motioned to one of the bodyguards, who opened it and admitted a younger man in shorts and a T-shirt. Deferential even to the bodyguards, the man knew his place at the very bottom of the totem pole. He spoke into Saavedra's ear, and
el jefe
stood. “We have a situation outside.” Then, he addressed Morgan. “Come. This may be instructive to you.”
Saavedra led the procession out through a veranda and onto a manicured lawn. A commotion of cartel soldiers had gathered around a central point on the grass. As the partyâMorgan, Paco, Saavedra, White, the bodyguards, and the messengerâapproached, Morgan saw that it was a man, beaten to the point of missing teeth, held up by his armpits by two cartel enforcers. His face was a mess of blood, which had trickled down to soak the chest of his worn yellow T-shirt.
“Miguel here is a snitch,” said Saavedra. “He has been reporting our activities to the government authorities. I lost a good shipment to his interference.”
The man moaned in pain. With a twitch of Saavedra's hand, one of his men kicked Miguel in the gut. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain, too beaten down to offer any resistance.
“Tell me, Mr. Bevelacqua. You are a tough man. What should I do with him?”
Morgan didn't respond. He looked at the face of the doomed son of a bitch. He was young, with a wisp of beard that wasn't done growing in, and not enough life lived to meet an end like this. Here was a brave man dealt a bad hand. Caught between justice and the cartel, he chose justice. And now he was going to pay.
Morgan knew what was about to happen. He knew he was powerless to stop it, even if he tried.
“You know how to deal with a rat.”
Saavedra nodded. “That I do,” he said. Then: “Elvis.”
A man stepped forward. A man with dead eyes. Morgan could tell right away there was something off about him. He had seen his kind before. The kind of man who had no ambition, no pleasure in his life but to inflict pain on others.
Someone handed him a machete. Miguel caught sight of it, his eyes widening in fear. He tensed and squirmed, but the two gorillas held firm and pulled him along, the entire company of onlookers moving after them like a crowd of jeering chimpanzees. The men pushed Miguel's head and neck down against a tree stump bearing the gashes of countless strikes of the blade. One put his boot on his head so that he couldn't move, but had a clear view of Elvis making his practice swings with the machete, making a show of feeling its balance as if he were a goddamn martial artist. Miguel gurgled in desperation.
Morgan couldn't look awayâSaavedra would be watching him carefully. He tamped down the anger that was growing inside.
Elvis stepped forward, and Miguel emitted wretched animal sounds. Legs apart like a golfer's stance, Elvis held the machete two-handed over his head. The blade glinted in the hot sun. The bastard was taking his time, enjoying the moment.
Then he swung, metal hitting flesh and bone. Not even close to a clean cut, the blade was no more than a quarter of the way in. Miguel's desperate cries turned to a bawling shriek as Elvis pulled out with a spurt of blood and swung the machete again and again. It took five or six swings to sever Miguel's spinal cord, silencing him, and as much again to do the butcher work of hewing the head free of the body.
Elvis picked up the head by the hair and raised it, beaming like a child during show-and-tell. The crowd whooped and jeered. Paco looked bored. White maintained a façade of professionalism throughout. Saavedra had the nonchalance of an aristocrat at a gladiatorial game.
Elvis carried off the severed head while two of the lackeys dragged the body behind him. The remains would be mutilated and displayed in Miguel's hometown as a warning. Maybe along with his family's.
Morgan's nostrils flared as he tried to contain his rage. He looked down to see that blood had spattered on his boots.
“Now,” said Saavedra, “I was told you had a sample to show me.”
Morgan shook off all emotion. It was time to get to work. Their party, along with three of the younger men and the two bodyguards, walked across the lawn to the driveway where they had left the old Dodge and the pickup truck.
The three men pulled the crate off the pickup truck, holding it by its rope handles. They strained and grunted at the weight of the thing and set it down, too hard, on the cobblestones.
“
Cuidado!
” Paco yelled.
He took a crowbar from the backseat of the Silverado and pried open the crate with a crack of the wood. After the men pulled off the lid, Paco swept aside the packing straw. Underneath was a neat row of black AN-94 riflesâRussian military standard, confiscated from an arms dealer two months before. Under Paco's instruction, the men removed the top rack, which held the rifles, and placed it on the driveway next to the box.
One of the men took a rifle to inspect it. White did the same with another. Saavedra just watched.
“You got these in,” he said to Morgan. “Why do you need my guy?”
“Cost too much, risked too much,” said Morgan. “And that's just for this one crate. I can't get the entire shipment in by myself.”
“This is crap,” said White, tossing the rifle to clatter on the cobblestones. “Third-world knockoffs. If this is what you're looking for, I can get you the same for half the price.”
Morgan glowered at him. It was bullshitâhe knew these were the real deal, and far better than what Saavedra's foot soldiers were used to. The asshole was sabotaging the deal. And if Saavedra had no more use for Morganâ
Saavedra looked to Morgan, questioning. “This is quality hardware,” said Morgan, without taking his eyes off White. “He doesn't want competition.”
“This is good stuff,” Paco broke in, and then spoke in frantic Spanish until Saavedra held up one hand and looked at his other man, who was inspecting a rifle, for his opinion.
“
Es bueno
,” the man said.
“My man says they're good,” Saavedra said.
“Señor Saavedra,” said White, “could we speak in confidence for a moment?”
Saavedra motioned for White to follow him down a small path toward a set of wrought iron chairs under a sprawling Mexican elm.
Goddamn it
. The Acevedo bastard didn't bite. He was going to blow the whole deal. Morgan kept an eye on Saavedra's reactions as White spoke.
“What's happening?” asked Bloch through the comm.
“What do you think Saavedra and White are talking about over there?” Morgan asked Paco, for Bloch's benefit.
“Maybe they are negotiating terms for transporting the guns.”
Idiot
. White was speaking, a hand on Saavedra's shoulder, and the drug lord was nodding. “No. That is the sight of us losing this deal.”
“You don't know that,” Paco insisted.
“Steady,” said Bloch. “We're not getting Acevedo this time, but you can still ID this Mr. White for us. It's progress.”
Yeah. Progress.
Morgan looked at the drying blood on his boots. He couldn't get the image of the dying kid, Miguel, out of his head. He was hardly much older than Morgan's daughter Alex, come to think of it. Twenty, maybe twenty-one. Probably had a similar headstrong idealism, too.
Saavedra and White returned from their little conference. White shot him a self-satisfied smirk.
“Señor Bevelacqua,” said Saavedra. “Your offer is appreciated, but we do not have a deal. I apologize for making you come all the way here. I will have my men put your sample back on the truck.”
“Keep it,” said Morgan.
He would survive, at least. Whatever White offered him, Saavedra needed Morgan alive if he was to be a bargaining chip with Acevedo.
“Just get out of there, Morgan,” said Bloch.
Paco was still pleading with Saavedra, the idiot. Morgan's eyes were drawn to the tree stump, some fifty yards away, where Miguel had lost his head. A maid had brought a hose and was now washing away the blood, as if it were nothing more than a spilled drink. Morgan turned back to the smug, tranquil face of Saavedra and then cast his eyes down to his blood-spattered boots.
Paco was bent over the crate, nestling the F1 grenades to make room to repack the rifles, the pearl handles of his Desert Eagles sticking out on their hip holsters.
Oh, hell
.
Morgan grabbed the two guns, pulling them from their holsters. He undid the safety with a flick and, before anyone had any time to react, opened fire.
Chapter 3
T
he IMI Desert Eagle Mark XIX is among the most powerful semiautomatic handguns money can buy. Paco's particular ten-inch variant carried eight .44 Magnum rounds each. Its extra-long triangular barrel makes it an iconic gun, popular in movies and video games and, as a result, among idiots like Paco.
It packed a hell of a punch.
Morgan took out the bodyguards first, one shot each, close range to the headâhe couldn't miss at this distance. Then he turned the twin hand cannons to the other armed enforcers, six shots fired, three men down, too fast for anyone to do anything about it.
As for Paco, Morgan settled for breaking his leg with a well-placed downward kick to his knee.
White ran off into the house. Much as he might want to, Morgan wasn't about to shoot him down in cold blood. He could still be useful.
That left Saavedra, frozen in place.
“Need backup!”
The gunfire drew others from the house. Men with AK-47s, coming out to the veranda.
“Morgan, report!” said Bloch.
Morgan discarded the gun from his left hand and grabbed Saavedra by the collar, holding him hostage with the remaining semiautomatic in his rightâfour rounds left against the small squadron of gunmen that was approaching. Morgan counted eight, and more emerging from the house.
“Stay back or
el jefe
gets it!” Morgan called out. He didn't know whether any of them spoke English, but the Desert Eagle pressed against the boss's temple seemed to be getting the message across just fine.
Of course, this still didn't put him in a
great
position.
“You will die,” Saavedra hissed.
The men were creeping forward, all eager to save the boss and just as scared of putting a bullet through his skull by mistake. Through his peripheral vision, Morgan felt them flanking him. He could only hold the stalemate for so long.
“Back! Move back!”
“Chopper's on its way,” said Bloch. “Hold tight.”
What he needed was time. Morgan inched forward, prodding Saavedra toward the crate of weapons.
“Back!” he screamed against the small army gathered around him. Sweat trickled down his forehead and from the back of his neck under his shirt. He pulled on Saavedra's collar. “Tell them to move back.”
“Screw you.”
Morgan knelt before the crate, yanking Saavedra down with him. Nine pairs of eyes were on him, eighteen hands gripping their weapons. The only sound was Paco moaning in pain on the ground.
Releasing Saavedra's lapel, Morgan reached in and drew out one of the lemon-shaped grenades. The cartel lackeys tensed up, raising their rifles. He stood, pulling Saavedra along with him.
Here goes
.
He pulled the pin and released the grenade back into the crate with its twenty-three brothers. It seemed to fall in slow motion. For a split second, there was no reaction at all. But before the grenade had covered half the distance to the crate, some of the men were turning around to hightail it while the most loyal or reckless lunged forward to help the boss.
Morgan took two steps back and kicked Saavedra in the spine, forcing him to stumble forward, against the crate. Then Morgan spun around and darted like hell in the opposite direction.
Gunfire cracked as bullets whizzed past him, and then yells to watch out for Saavedra. Counting off the five seconds to detonation, Morgan ran as far as he could and dove headfirst onto the grass behind an ornamental stone.
Then came the fireworks. An eruption of death and mayhem.
Feeling the wave of heat pass, Morgan didn't even turn to look at the damage. He just ran, feet pounding the grass, now scarred with grenade fragments. Ears ringing and legs unstable, he dashed into the vast field of coconut trees.
After a three-second lag, renewed gunfire. Others were coming out of the house, drawn by the explosion. A Jeep packed with security guards was driving in from the gate.
Morgan stumbled. He had misjudged how competent he was to runâthe blast had compromised his balance. He lost and regained stability only to step on a coconut, which sent him flying to the ground, kissing the grass.
Saavedra's men surrounded him. He waited for the bullet that would kill him, but instead what came was a kick to the gut and another to the face. Morgan spit blood. Four heavy arms picked him up and dragged him back.
Morgan surveyed the scene of destruction as they passed. The driveway was riddled with bodies around the blackened bloom of soot radiating from the splintered crate. One belonged to the poor bastard Paco, unable to run away with his broken leg. The Dodge and the pickup truck had caught a hail of shrapnel and were as torn up as any of the corpses except for one.
Saavedra. There wasn't much left of him.
They hauled Morgan all the way to the bloody stump where Miguel had lost his head. Elvis, Morgan was less than thrilled to see, had survived the explosion, with a couple of nasty cuts on the right side of his face. He was already standing by the chopping block, brandishing the machete that was to cut his head off.
Morgan knew the drill.
They kicked the back of his knees and forced his head against the stump. A heavy boot came down on his temple, sodden with blood and dirt, to hold him in place.
Elvis came forward, the rage in his eyes not quite eclipsing the relish he had in the prospect of his second beheading of the day. A short stride at a time, running a finger against the cutting edge of the machete, he approached until all Morgan could see were his hairy, blood-spattered shins.
“
Adiós, gringo
,” he said, raising the blade.
And then Elvis's head erupted in a mist of blood and brains.
Morgan had to admit, Diesel was one hell of a shot.
The boot came off Morgan's head as the men scattered, looking for the source of the bullet. Morgan ran low as the chopper burst onto the scene and Bishop rained beautiful death from the sky from the side-mounted M60D heavy machine gun. Crouching next to him, Diesel loosed single shots from his custom H&K PSG1 Precision Rifle, a surgical counterpart to Bishop's hack-and-slash approach.
The two other members of the tac team rappelled down, providing covering fire as Morgan ran, head low, toward the chopper. As he came closer, he made out Spartan's more slender outline to his right, made bulkier by her Kevlar vest, her close-cropped blond hair hidden by her black ballistic helmet. To Morgan's left was Tango, thickset, face painted with black streaks, gritted white teeth showing through a grin as he shook with the recoil of his Colt M4 Carbine.
“I have to hand it to you,” said Spartan, between three-round bursts from her FN SCAR MK 17, “nobody raises hell quite like you do.”
The landing skids of the UH-72 Lakota touched down on the grass, the scream of the rotors punctuated by cracks of gunfire. Bishop held out his hand, and Morgan, wincing against the wind whipped up by the blades, took it and hopped onto the corrugated metal floor. He held onto an overhead strap as Tango and Spartan boarded after him. They lifted off, Bishop spraying bullets at the handful of men who were still shooting at them from behind the carcasses of the cars. Within a few seconds, the chopper was out of range.
They circled around and flew north over the Caribbean Sea as a thin billow of smoke still rose from the mansion, leaving the world one drug kingpin lighter.