Warriors in Paradise (22 page)

“I bet that many times the three of you finish one another’s sentences and anticipate what the other is going to do just before he does it. That is your warrior gene speaking to the other carrier’s warrior gene.

“Carriers of the warrior gene are better at making decisions that are beneficial to them. You also display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation.

“Research shows that some natural-born warriors are altruistic punishers who willingly punish abusive behavior for the good of the group. I am sure you all enjoy making bullies suffer. You probably feel guilty when you consider that you have inadvertently hurt a weaker person, but I am sure you don’t feel anything when you hurt those you consider to be bad people. You are not only natural-born warriors, you are also natural-born protectors.

“The results of the research support theories of cooperation, where natural warriors join forces to punish attackers with more force than that used in the original attack, and there may be an underlying evolutionary logic for doing so.

“Every species has outliers created by nature to protect the species. Civilization rests upon the principle that criminals are to be treated better than their victims. Civilized institutions prevent the administration of justice from stooping down to the level of the criminals. However, the implementation of justice does not always prevent more crimes from being committed. You are the outliers. You are nature’s way of redressing the imbalance, of filling in the gaps, to correct for the omissions of civilized justice that threaten society.

“These are not coincidences, nor sheer luck. It is what it is. The three of you are natural-born warriors, and together you are more than a skilled fighting machine. As outliers, you don’t think and act as average, civilized people would. You perceive an injustice, and instead of running away from it, you face it and fight back. You devise the most effective ways to overcome it. This is more an instinctive reaction than a deliberate decision. It is not that you don’t have free will, but that you have more choices than a normal person would normally consider.

“The bad guys can’t tell what is about to hit them!”

“The Law of Unintended Consequences!” said Santi.

“What the hell is that?” asked Caleb.

Santi responded, “It has to do with unintended, unanticipated, or unforeseen consequences different from those originally intended by a purposeful action. Nicanor Toro and Nancy Smith expected no trouble from us. Little did they know that they were unleashing the seeds of their own destruction.”

I said, “Now we know why we are together and act the way we do. Hell! And here I thought I had free will, but no, it is all the fault of our fucking genes and dominant mothers. But don’t you worry guys. Gene or no gene, I still don’t like you.”

We all laughed.

What my Uncle Jonathan had explained to us was something that we had already suspected at an instinctive level. Nevertheless, it was good to have a rational justification for our special kind of relationship.

***

We slept for a couple of hours.

The sound of the television woke me up. The announcer was talking about the American government shutdown because of the impasse in Congress. I thought that while Mexico was suffering the violence of nature, tropical storm Manuel in the Pacific and hurricane Ingrid in the Gulf of Mexico, the United States was suffering one of its ever-recurring political storms. Both were equally destructive in their chaotic behavior—the one creating havoc with floods and rains unseen in thirty years, the other generating economic uncertainty by politicians with different interests.

I could understand the random and destructive forces of nature, but I had trouble understanding the shortsightedness and partisanship of politicians.

We didn’t talk about the matter at hand. We were careful. The plane could have been bugged. Better safe than sorry.

The flight back to the States was short and sweet.

We landed at a private airfield in Virginia three and a half hours after leaving Toluca.

Driving to Vienna

We walked to the parking lot and got into my uncle’s Jeep Grand Cherokee. It was a 2010 model with enough legroom for the four of us. I rode shotgun. He drove toward his home in Vienna, Virginia.

Jonathan said, “It will be safer if you stay with me rather than in your apartment in Arlington. Your apartment is going to be the first place they will go looking for you. It is probably under surveillance as we speak. They will think twice before coming for you at my home, given that I still work for the Defense Intelligence Agency and that five of the homes in my cul-de-sac belong to ex-Special Forces members. We look after one another. Anyway, your mother,” he said, looking at me, “is waiting for you. So get ready for a long, no-holds-barred conversation—”

Santi immediately interrupted. “Charlie, I would like to meet your mother, but I’m so exhausted that I need a couple of hours’ sleep.”

Caleb added, “Me too.”

“Sorry, guys,” said my uncle with a roguish smile, “but both of you are included. Don’t chicken out. My sister is a smart, strong-willed, and fair woman. I suggest you tell her everything without going into the details of how many people you have hurt along the way. Answer her questions truthfully. She is as much a part of this as you are, and not because of her choosing. You owe her that much.”

I responded, “Yes, Uncle, of course. You’re completely right. I’ve been planning to do that ever since I asked her to leave her house in Essex and come to yours. That is another reason why we are so pissed off at these people—because they tried to get to Santi and me through our families. That is unacceptable, and we are going to make them pay for it. They haven’t gone after Caleb’s family because they think he is dead.

“Uncle Jonathan, we need your advice on how to get to Alexander Coombs. Things are a lot more complicated here in the States than in Mexico. No offense, Santi, but it is easier to take the law into your own hands in Mexico than it is here.”

“No offense taken, Charlie!” responded Santi.

I continued. “Most of the people we have dealt with, except Nancy, were just ordinary, run-of-the-mill bad guys. They were untrained. They were dilettantes compared to the people we’re going to be going up against here in the States. These bad guys have been trained and are backed institutionally by powerful agencies and people. So we have to be clever, and we don’t have much time. We need to find our enemies before it’s too late, and all we have going for us is one another and the element of surprise…”

“Don’t forget that we also have the Warrior Gene,” said Caleb.

We all cracked up laughing.

“Yes, we do have that too,” I said, chuckling. “Coombs and company are so overconfident and arrogant that they don’t expect us to come after them here in Washington, DC.”

“Yes, you are right,” Santi said, immediately adding, “The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.”

“Did you just make that one up?” asked Caleb.

“I wish,” answered Santi. “That quote comes from a member of the French resistance during second war.”

My Uncle Jonathan continued as if we have not spoken, saying, “All we have at the moment is Alexander Coombs’s telephone number and his place of work. We need to find out where he lives, what he drives, where and what he eats. In other words, we need to find out everything about him, including his strengths and weaknesses, before we approach him. The stakes are too high, and we don’t know where he’s located in the command structure, whom he reports to, or who has the girls. We need to know all of this to succeed in our first attempt. We won’t have a second chance.

“More than just giving you advice, I will try to provide you with the information that you require for a proper action plan. I need to call a friend, an ex-colleague of mine in Special Forces who works at the DEA. Well, here we are. Are you guys ready for a powwow with my sister Miranda?”

“No!” Santi and Caleb said at the same time.

Talking to Mom

As my uncle parked on the driveway, my mother came out to receive us. She walked up to us saying, “Well, hello, hello.” She held me in her arms while I hugged her back and kissed her cheek.

She greeted and kissed Caleb on the cheek. She stood back and said to Santi, “So you are Santi. You just met these two a couple of days ago, and I have heard so much about you that I think I have known you for a long time.” She extended her hand to shake Santi’s, and Santi grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him, embracing her and giving her a kiss on the cheek, saying, “Very pleased to meet Charlie’s mother.” I could see my mother taking an immediate liking to Santi.

My mother looked at my uncle and said, “Show them to their rooms and meet me in the breakfast room in ten minutes. We need to talk, and I mean talk. You are going to tell me everything—and I mean
everything
—from start to finish.”

***

My uncle’s house was built on a small hill. It was a two-story white colonial with a basement that opened up to a backyard with a nice pool and a small forest. My mother and my uncle were staying in the bedrooms on the second floor, so we decided to stay in the basement, where there was a bedroom, a full bathroom, a workshop, and a large combination playroom and living room.

We left the only luggage that we had, which was Santi’s backpack with our documents, Juliette’s and Camille’s personal belongings and passports, Toro’s money, the firearms, and the cell phones we had been collecting since our ordeal had begun.

We took turns using the bathroom, and then we walked upstairs to the breakfast room to meet my mother and my Uncle Jonathan.

My mother had prepared ham-and-cheese sandwiches. She had placed four large sandwiches cut in the middle on a platter in the center of the round breakfast table, with a plate in front of each chair. There was mayonnaise, American and English mustards, and pickles. As a concession to Santi, she had put out a bowl of jalapeños. While Santi and Caleb sat next to my Uncle Jonathan, I went to the fridge and took out three beers. I placed two in front of Santi and Caleb and took one for myself. My uncle was already having his. I asked my mother, “Are you going to join us?”

She answered, “No, I have already had something to eat.”

Each of us grabbed a sandwich. Caleb and I went for the jalapeños first. We didn’t trust Santi. We each had three jalapeños. We were feeling magnanimous, so we left one for Santi—he was on his best behavior. He just looked at us, not looking very happy but keeping his peace. My mother looked at us, chuckling and saying, “I see you have acquired a taste for hot food in Mexico…or are you trying to out-Mexican the Mexican?”

I answered, “Mom, the taste has always been there. It was just dormant. Now it is fully awake and demanding compensation for all the years that it has been absent from our diet. Just about half of the territory of the continental United States once belonged to Mexico, so I guess we’re more Mexican than we care to admit!”

My mother grabbed the bowl and, to Santi’s relief and eternal gratitude, added more jalapeños. While we were eating, my mother prepared three more sandwiches. She didn’t ask whether we wanted seconds. She could read us almost as well as we could read one another. As we were finishing our first sandwich, my mother had already placed the second batch on the platter. My uncle was still munching on his first sandwich and looking at us with condescending eyes when we were putting to rest our second.

***

As soon as nature’s needs had been partially satisfied, my mother said, “Now please tell me everything from start to finish. Don’t leave anything out.”

I told her everything, from the time we arrived at Acaquila to our departure from Toro’s house that morning. I didn’t mention the people we had hurt.

She said, “I think we are safe for the moment. My brother knows more about these things than I do, or any of you, so please correct me if I am wrong, but I think that this monster Alexander Coombs will probably start getting worried when he does not hear from Nancy Smith and this Mexican drug lord Nicanor Toro—”

“Which should be right about now,” said Jonathan.

“OK! So please tell me, what are your plans?” said my mother.

“First of all,” I said, “we have to find and free our Canadian friends and the Russian girls. Second, we have to find a way to dissuade the bad guys from coming after us.”

“And how are you going to do that?” my mother asked.

“We don’t know yet,” I responded. “We’re constantly planning and making our decisions on the fly. We know that in order to find where they are being held, we have to find out who took them, why they took them, and what they are planning to do with them.

“That is why we have asked Uncle Jonathan for his help. We don’t have any experience on how to deal with people like this. So far, we have managed by winging it, but we are now entering a different phase, and we need expert assistance.”

My uncle was listening without comment.

My mother said, “Well, you couldn’t have come to a better place. My brother and your father were good soldiers and better intelligence officers. If anybody can help you deal with these people, it is your Uncle Jonathan. Should we call the police?” she asked.