Warriors in Paradise (15 page)

Cienfuegos nodded.

Squatting behind him, Caleb took the tape off of his wrists. As his blood began flowing unimpeded again, he rubbed his wrists and said, “I’m cold.” His teeth were chattering. Cienfuegos tried to lick his lips, but he had trouble creating saliva. “I need something to drink.”

“Answer our questions, and we may take you back to Sanborn’s for happy hour. Where are the girls?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Juventino, you’re lying to me,” I said while grabbing his left hand and bringing his little finger back until it snapped.

He cried loudly, and then he whimpered, “The American took them with him to the States in his private plane. I believe he works in Washington, DC.”

“Which American?” I asked.

“Aaron Carson,” he said.

“What about the American woman?”

“Her name is Nina Scott. She is the trade attaché at the American embassy,” he responded, crying.

Asking and answering questions was going to take too long. Time was of the essence. We needed to find Juliet, Camille, and the Russian girls as soon as possible. Therefore, I had to change the modus of the interrogation.

I said, “Juventino, tell us everything you know or you think you know, from what Toro does to his latest instructions about what to do about us. Tell us who knows about us, including what you tried to do at the police station. Remember, Juventino, we know everything. We just need to know if we can count on you. If you don’t want us to break the rest of your fingers and then kill you, you are going to tell us everything. And I mean everything. Juventino,” I said, “look at me! Do you understand me?”

He nodded, looking at me with his frightened, beady eyes, and began talking.

He talked for more than three quarters of an hour. We were all wet from the rain and the surf dancing around our ankles. He told us that Nicanor Toro worked for Mr. Carson, supplying the East Coast with traditional and designer drugs. Mr. Toro was protected by the American and Mexican governments. That was why nobody had ever heard of him. Whenever some stories or rumors came out about him or his activities, these were immediately squelched and the source of them taken care of. He told us that once a year, Mr. Carson asked Mr. Toro for five beautiful, non-American tourists between sixteen and twenty years of age. Mr. Toro would kidnap them and deliver them to Mr. Carson. Ms. Nina Scott sometimes helped with the selection of the candidates. He didn’t know what Mr. Carson did with them except that he flew them out of Acapulco in his private plane—to the States, he thought.

Juventino recapped. “This year, because of the storm, it was difficult to find five good-looking tourists. Therefore, they took the chance of inviting you three and the Mexican girl so they could seize the Canadian girls. You were simply collateral damage. I don’t know why, but they never take Mexican or American girls. I guess they don’t want to risk media attention or the involvement of Mexican and/or American authorities.

“That is why there were so many of Mr. Toro’s soldiers at the party. They were there as a precaution and to take care of the three of you if something went wrong. But things did go wrong. You wanted to leave, so they had to drug you. However, even after being drugged, you were still able to put up a fight and almost got to Mr. Toro’s group. If the yacht’s staff had not assisted them, you would have derailed the operation. The consequences would have been disastrous. Mr. Toro ordered the captain to throw you into the sea. With the storm, nobody would have questioned the drowning of four young party animals. People would attribute the fatalities to booze and Manuel.

“Then the two of you appeared at the police station, making a report. Pedro, the prosecutor, is on our payroll. He called me, and I told him what to do. Unfortunately, before I could get there and file the proper charges, your lawyer got you released. Mr. Toro then instructed me to find and dispose of you. We were going to your home later today and wait until you showed up. Mr. Toro will also be sending people to your mother’s house in Mexico City in case you appear there. We didn’t know that your black friend was also alive. We thought that only the two of you had survived,” he said, looking at Charlie and me.

“Where is Toro now?” I asked.

“He is still in Acapulco,” he responded. “He’s leaving for Mexico City in his helicopter later on today.”

“Juventino, tell us his address, how to get there, how many people are going to be there, and how we can enter his property. In other words, Juventino, tell us everything you think we need to know in order to get to Toro.”

“I can’t tell you that. He would kill me!”

Charlie grabbed Cienfuegos’s right hand and bent his little finger backward until it snapped. He then grasped Cienfuegos’s face with his two giant mitts and said, “I will kill you now if you don’t tell us!”

Cienfuegos told us what we needed to hear.

I said, “Juventino Cienfuegos, you are a bad and cowardly man. You prey on other people from a position of power, but you don’t have the guts to do the dirty work yourself. We hereby sentence you to death for raping my girlfriend and approving our demise.”

“But you said that you were going to let me go, that you were going to take me back to Sanborn’s if I told you the truth.”

“We lied.”

Charlie grasped his head and gave a sharp twist, breaking his neck. We took Juventino’s wallet and cell phone.

***

Charlie and Caleb had been elite soldiers. I was learning by doing, but they had experience. We were up against people who bowed to no moral or legal codes, people who would have no qualms in killing us, our friends, and our families.

You cannot fight criminals and hope to survive saddled with standards and rules. In order to improve your chances of success, you must free yourself of all restrictions, just like them. It is like street fighting but on a higher plane—no rules at all.

***

I took off my clothes and swam with the body into the sea until I felt a strong outward current. I let go of the body. I swam back to shore, got into the car, and changed into dry clothes.

“You know,” I said to them, “this beach is called Revolcadero, Wallow, because of the crosscurrents. Some currents go into the open sea, some flow parallel to the beach, and some flow into land. They are like a small rivers flowing in different directions. Sometimes you can see the difference in color of a current or feel the difference in temperature.

“Attorney Juventino Cienfuegos is on his way to China.”

“I am sure he will miss Acapulco,” said Caleb.

“But Acapulco won’t miss him! Let’s hope the piranhas don’t become Chinese after eating him,” said Charlie.

“Why would the piranhas become Chinese?” I asked him.

“Their eyes will become slanted when they get the bad taste of him.”

We chuckled.

It was 3:30 p.m.

We drove to Toro’s Acapulco compound. It was not far from there.

The loves and hates of Nicanor Toro

Toro’s estate was nearby. The compound sat on two acres of gardens, trees, and palm trees. It was surrounded by a stone wall about nine feet tall. We could see video cameras spaced at intervals of thirty feet along the wall. There were three entrances—one in the front, a service entrance on the side, and a beach entrance at the rear of the property, facing the beach.

We parked the car at the nearby super luxury hotel Vitanova. Caleb and I were dressed in our soaking-wet white uniforms. Charlie was dressed in his preppy Ivy League shirt and slacks and was carrying the backpack. We walked out of the parking lot to the beach under the incessant rain. Even though we were soaking wet, Caleb and I looked as if we belonged there. We could be waiters, bellhops, or musicians. Charlie looked like a tourist, a guest.

We walked on the beach for about a kilometer until we reached Toro’s house. The rain gave us some cover, but we were careful. We approached the house at a forty-five-degree angle. As soon as we were next to the back corner of the house, we moved close along the stone wall to the back entrance. Halfway between the corner and the back entrance, the branches of a large tree protruded over the stone wall, providing some cover from the cameras.

Caleb asked for my shirt, which I took off and gave to him. He walked a few yards away from the stone wall. He turned and ran toward it, put his foot on the wall, and smoothly jumped to the top of the wall, where he covered the camera to our left with my shirt. He then jumped from the wall, pulling the shirt with him in one fluid motion. He was inside the property.

I looked at Charlie and asked, “How the fuck did he do that?”

Charlie responded, “Caleb dabbles in everything. He saw some crazies in Bridgeport in Connecticut, close to Fairfield, where we went to high school, jumping from buildings, climbing walls, overcoming obstacles, and leaping from rooftops. He joined them and practiced with them for a couple of months. Now he can do everything they did. It is called parkour, the art of displacement. He sees his environment not like you and I see it. He sees it in a dynamic manner, imagining the potentialities for movement in and around it. I also think he has some bird DNA in him.”

I chuckled.

A minute or two later, Caleb opened the back gate for us. The cameras on each side of the gate were by now covered with our white shirts.

***

Charlie and I followed Caleb in.

We knew that there were thirteen people in the house—the four bodyguards, the driver, the Colombian, a helicopter pilot, the gardener, four maids, and Toro himself. There were several long palm leaves on the ground. We each picked up two and moved toward the house in a crouching walk with the palm leaves partially covering our sides. I was sure that with the wind and darkness of the storm, we could fool any camera.

We got to the back of the house. The sliding doors were unlocked. The sheer arrogance and overconfidence of bullies and criminals never ceases to amaze me. The saying “A good man always knows his limitations,” I guess, doesn’t apply to assholes.

We couldn’t see anybody inside. We stepped into what looked like a game room. We had our diver’s knives. All we had going for ourselves was our strength, our determination, their overconfidence, and the element of surprise. Caleb took point and silently led us forward. We had to know where everybody was and take each one down silently. The hall was empty. We moved toward the kitchen.

So far, all the information Cienfuegos had given us about the layout of the house was accurate.

We paused at the kitchen door, hearing voices inside. Caleb peeked into the kitchen through the round window of the swinging door. He signaled to us that seven people were in the kitchen. Getting close to us, he whispered, “Inside are the four bodyguards, the driver, two maids, and another male, probably the chopper pilot.”

“How do you know he’s not the gardener?” whispered back Charlie.

“He’s too well dressed for a gardener,” replied Caleb, adding, “And anyway, we have to keep him alive until we find out whether he is or is not the pilot. We will need him if we have to be flown out of here.”

Caleb gave us instructions on whom to go after. We would go in with Charlie on the right, me in the middle, and Caleb on the left. Charlie and I would use overwhelming force and decisive action on the guards and the driver, while Caleb would try to subdue the pilot and the maids. Charlie and I would try to help Caleb as soon as we had finished with the bodyguards.

***

We went in swiftly.

The guards looked up with a shock of recognition and went for their side arms. They were trying to stand away from the kitchen table. We were faster. Charlie grabbed two bodyguards by their heads and brought them down onto the tabletop with tremendous impact. Dishes, tableware, and blood flew everywhere. I did my usual trick. I grabbed the backs of their heads and brought their faces together with great force. There was a loud whack, and they both slid smoothly to the floor. We turned around to see the driver moving toward the maids.

The pilot was on the floor holding one side of his face. Caleb was talking softly to the maids.

The driver arrived and grasped one of the maid’s hands. He turned to Caleb and said, “We are not going to cause trouble. Tell us what you want us to do, and we will do it.”

Caleb said, “Sit the fuck down and shut up!”

We went back to the bodyguards. We took their wallets, cell phones, guns, and ammunition clips. They were all carrying Glock 19s—big, nasty guns. Caleb asked the maids for duct tape. The maid holding the driver’s hand stood up and went to a cabinet, opened it, and brought out a large roll. She went back to sit on the chair next to the driver.

We took extra care in taping the four bodyguards to the sturdy chairs. We reclined the chairs against the wall at the far end of the kitchen, separated from the maids, driver, and pilot. If they tried anything, we would hear the falling of the chairs.

We slapped tape over their mouths.

We told the maids, the driver, and the pilot, “Nothing is going to happen to you, but we need to protect ourselves. So we’re going to tape you to your chairs, and we will free you before we leave. But before that, we need to know the whereabouts of the other two maids and the gardener.”