Warriors in Paradise (13 page)

What a mother I had. She had brass balls. I was beyond lucky!

This couldn’t have happened at a worse moment. We were in the middle of a black swan, as economists call an unexpected event that comes as a surprise with catastrophic consequences. Nobody had predicted downpours and flash floods spawned by the convergence on Mexico of a hurricane and a tropical storm. There were more than thirty people dead in Acapulco and forty thousand stranded tourists.

I went to Caleb’s room. He looked much improved, although his head looked a little deformed due to the large bump on the back of his skull. The three of us had bumps, but his was the largest. “Hello, egghead,” I told Caleb.

“Hello, pinhead,” responded Caleb.

“We need to talk,” I said as I sat on his bed.

“Our problems continue. Toro, Nina Scott, Mr. Carson, and perhaps the Colombian Millán expected us to be dead. They now know that Charlie and I survived. They are coming after us. That is for sure. They know where we live. They don’t know Valentina and you,” I said, looking at Caleb, “are still alive. We don’t know whether Juliette, Camille, and the Russian girls are still alive or onboard the yacht. They have infiltrated the police, so we are on our own.

“Hence, the questions we should be asking ourselves are, What should we do? and, How should we do it?”

“We didn’t ask for this,” said Charlie. “They drew first blood. They have come after us twice already. I don’t like playing defense. I don’t want to be sitting on my ass when they come after for us a third time. We should now take the fight to them. It is time for us to take the offensive.”

“We find them!” said Charlie.

“We fry them!” said Caleb.

“And we finish them off!” I said.

Their response was not a surprise. We were alike in many ways. We even had a dash of telepathy. We were beginning to finish one another’s sentences. We didn’t feel the need to explain our actions among ourselves.

I said, “All we need now is to devise a plan. We are tired; let us sleep on it. We’ll talk tomorrow in the morning.”

I went back to Valentina’s room. I held her hand and kissed her eyes. She was breathing with the help of a respirator. I replayed it all in my mind as far as I could remember, which by then was pretty much everything up to the point when I lost consciousness and Toro was hitting Caleb with a champagne bottle over the head.

I was exhausted and fell asleep holding Valentina’s hand. Her whimpers and cries woke me up in the middle of the night. I wondered what her unconscious was telling her. I assumed she was coming out of her coma. I called the nurses. The nurses called the doctor. The night-watch doctor came and told me she had started to come out of her coma. Doctor Díaz would talk to me tomorrow. Nothing that I didn’t know.

Looking at that face that I had begun to love, I made a promise, then and there, that I would not stop until I got the people who had hurt and demeaned her and make them pay.

I knew our lives had changed forever. We would never go back to the way we were. Since I was sixteen, I had lived by the adage that the true measure of a man is doing what he can when nobody is looking. They had awakened the beast inside of me. It was now a question of defending, surviving, and striking back. I would do what I could do to bring them down.

I remembered some of the words of a poem by Venezuelan poet Andrés Eloy Blanco:

Do not mourn the death of a passenger,

mourn the death of a road.

Chapter 6: The Mexican Bull

Decision time

I
woke up angry, with feelings and fantasies of revenge.

I kissed Valentina’s forehead and left the room. She was off the respirator.

I went to Caleb’s room to find him, and Charlie already up and about. I said, “So I guess you have decided to come with us.”

Caleb responded, “You would be useless without me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we are entirely useless without you, but I have to admit that we are much better with you.” I told them about Valentina starting to come out of her coma.

I looked at Charlie and said, “Please give me all your money.”

“What for?” asked Charlie.

“We cannot pay the clinic with a credit card. We don’t want to leave a credit trail. We have to pay with cash,” I said.

Charlie opened his wallet and gave me all his money. We went down to the administration office and filled out various claim forms and Caleb’s release papers. We left a ten-thousand-peso deposit.

***

We left the clinic and walked two blocks to a small restaurant. We were famished. We ordered a fruit salad, a pitcher of fresh orange juice, huevos rancheros, steaks, refried beans, a breadbasket, and coffee. We were quiet while we ate, each of us with his own private thoughts.

As soon as we finished, we looked at one another, and Charlie said, “Decision time! What do we do? And how do we do it?”

I said, “Before getting into that, let’s be clear about our goals. First, we have to find out what happened to Juliette, Camille, and the Russian girls. Once we know whether they are dead or alive, we will decide what to do next and how to go about it. That is our first goal.

“Second, we have to stop them from coming after us and our families. That means we have to take the initiative away from them. Moreover, the only way we can do that is to go after them and find out what is it that we know that they don’t want us to divulge.”

Caleb said, “It is clear, then, that our first course of action is to find out who they are and where they are. So the key question now is, Which one of them can we get to the fastest and easiest?”

I said, “We know the lawyer’s name and that he practices here in Acapulco. It shouldn’t be difficult to find out his whereabouts. We also know the name of the American woman, Nina Scott, and that she was staying at the Nirvana Hotel. We could try to find out her particulars at the hotel. Finally, we know that the yacht is still in the bay, probably at the same spot where we first saw it. I am sure the captain should be aboard. He should know a thing or two.”

Charlie said, “I think the easiest would be to get to the captain. I don’t think the American woman’s real name is Nina Scott. She was probably using a fake name. I also don’t think that the American, Aaron Carson, gave us his real name. I am sure both of them were protecting their real identities.”

Caleb said, “I agree.”

I nodded and said, “Once we talk to the captain, we will know whom to go after. Perhaps he even knows the real names of the two Americans. We go after the group of five, one by one, until we find out about the girls. And then we figure out how to stop the bad guys from coming after us.

“Even though we can’t stay at the house anymore, we need to go back to retrieve our documents and whatever else we need. Then we will go to the bank to get cash. And only then will we try to reach the yacht.”

We paid the bill and left the restaurant.

We walked to the CR-V and headed for home.

***

We arrived at the house a little before nine o’clock. We didn’t see any strange vehicles or people, so we went in. Sandra and the dog were gone. Nobody was waiting for us. Probably we had the storm and a lazy lawyer to thank for that.

As we got into the house, I said, “Charlie, Caleb, I think we should take the girls’ documents in case we find them. Toro’s men might come here and try to erase any trace of them. So take whatever you think is valuable and personal for them. We should travel as light as possible. We need mobility. Take your documents and basic toiletry items. We should dress in all-weather clothes. We might need to travel to Mexico City or to the States. We should only take one backpack for the three of us. Forget about a change of clothes. We will wash what we have on as need be, or buy new clothes if we need to.”

Charlie said, “Right on. Let’s do it; time is of the essence. We will meet back here in half an hour.”

We went our separate ways. I went to Valentina’s room and packed all of her stuff in one suitcase. I took a quick shower and dressed casually in khaki trousers, a blue shirt, black socks, black belt, and black-leather walking shoes. I grabbed my toothbrush, razor, comb, documents, and bank and credit cards. I took three diver’s knives with their arm sheaths. I was up in the garage twenty-five minutes after we had arrived.

We left the house and went to the bank. I withdrew all the money in my account, which came close to forty thousand pesos. Charlie used his debit card to withdraw three hundred dollars and his Visa card to get another three hundred, the maximum he could withdraw from the ATM. We could not use Caleb’s cards. We didn’t want them to find out he was still alive.

Boarding the yacht

On the way to Icacos, we stopped at the clinic. I took Valentina’s suitcase to her room. She was still in a coma, and when I talked to Doctor Díaz, I learned that though she had not regained consciousness, all her signs were favorable. I wanted to be there when she came out of it, but I knew I couldn’t.

I went back to the CR-V and drove to Icacos.

It was 10:15 a.m.

It was still raining when we parked the car and walked to the beach. We could see the Camaney II. We took off our clothes and hid them among the rocks.

We swam to the yacht with only our diver’s knives strapped to our arms for clothing. The water was rough and dirty with all of the flotsam and jetsam from the floods. We arrived at the yacht unseen and unheard. The boarding platform and gangway were down. They obviously were not worried that we might pay them a visit.

Their mistake.

We boarded the platform and climbed up the stairs to the deck. Two guys in gray were fixing something in one of the portholes. We approached them from behind. Caleb and I put them out with chokeholds. Charlie looked in their toolbox and found duct tape. We immobilize them with the tape. They were small men, so we couldn’t use their gray overalls.

In order to get to the bridge, we had to walk by the main cabin. I glimpsed inside and saw three of the thugs who had been at the party. One of them had a patched nose, courtesy of moi. I turned to Charlie and Caleb, and, without a word, we nodded.

***

We walked straight into the cabin. The three thugs looked up at us, surprised and stunned.

There is something unnerving when three large, naked men with tremendous muscles are attacking you.

They were not expecting a confrontation. They were unarmed. We went at them rapidly with the accumulated frustration of the last couple of days. We didn’t have to draw our knives. They attempted to put up a fight, but it was useless. Charlie and Caleb knocked their two adversaries unconscious in a matter of seconds.

I concentrated on the one with the patched nose. He was lean, fit, and about six feet, one inch tall. As I went for him, he threw a right jab, which never landed. I got to him first. I seized the top of his head and the bottom of his jaw while I twisted it to his right. I pushed him toward one of the frescoes on the wall. I got close to his ear and whispered, “You only have one chance to live, and that is to answer all of my questions.” Then, raising my voice, I said, “Do you hear me? Look at me! Do you hear me?” I twisted his head a little more.

“Yes, yes, I hear you,” he responded in pain.

“How many people are onboard?” I asked, adding, “Remember, we have been here before, and we’re now here again, so you had better answer truthfully.”

“There are ten of us onboard: the captain, four officers, two mechanics, and the three of us,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “Where are your other five friends who were here at the party?”

“Four are the personal bodyguards of Mr. Toro, and one is his driver. They are always with Mr. Toro. They are with him at his house in Acapulco.”

“You’re doing well, very well,” I said. “Whom do you report to?”

“My boss is Mr. Nicanor Toro, but our orders are usually given by his lawyer, Lic. Juventino Cienfuegos.”

“Where are the Canadian and the Russian girls? Where have they taken them?”

“I don’t know. We are just hired help.”

“I told you, you only have one chance. Are you lying to me?”

“No,” he said in a whining voice. “I am not lying to you. We don’t know where they have taken the girls.”

“Perhaps you think you don’t know, but I am sure you have a very good idea.”

He said, “I think they have taken them to special sex clubs in the United States.”

“Why do you think that?”

He said, “Because we never see them again. Because the girls are flown out of by the Americans in their private plane.”

“Why didn’t they take the Mexican girl?”

“I don’t know. They never take Mexicans or Americans. They only take girls of other nationalities.” This he said looking remorseful and guilty.

“Tell me,” I said, “what is Toro’s business?”

“He’s very important. He supplies drugs. He has nightclubs and several companies.”

“Who are the two Americans who were here?”