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  “What the fuck?” screamed Marco as he pulled the charging handle of his MP5 and flicked the gun from safe to fire.

  Felix hit the speed dial on his phone for El Gato and cursed as it rang and rang. The rest of his men stumbled through the door taking up positions in the small hallway that looked down the wide stairwell at the end of the hall.

  El Gato finally answered. “Yes?”

  “Fucking Sinaloa, man! They’re coming! We’ve been fucked!”

  “What? Slow down! What’s going on?”

  The men could hear the door smashing open down below on the first floor, and the few hotel patrons screamed for mercy and ran out into the street. There was screaming and plenty of threats, and the hotel’s front desk employee quickly screamed “second floor.”

  “They’re coming!” screamed one of Felix’s men.

  “Sinaloas! They sent a fucking crew! We can’t get out!” The first blast of a shotgun out in the hallway was deafening, and Felix jammed the phone in his pocket without hanging up. El Gato listened, stunned, as he heard gunfire and chaos on the phone.

  The six of them were moving quickly around the open hallway that looked down on the stairs. It was hard to acquire a target with the attackers moving so fast. The first couple of shots had been fired blindly at Felix’s men as the Sinaloas moved to take up positions at the other end of the hallway.

  Felix kicked in a door and took cover in a room as he peered down the hallway. At the end of the stairs, a head peered up over the edge of the top stair and Felix took a shot. He missed, and the intruder returned automatic weapon fire that riddled the walls with bullets. One of the light fixtures outside the door exploded into a shower of glass and rained down outside Felix’s door.

  One of Felix’s men ran across the hallway to take up a position on the other side. He kicked the door, but it was dead-bolted from the inside and didn’t open. A barrage of heavy gunfire hit the man, who spun around twice, spraying the hallway walls with blood as he was cut down.

  “Hector!” screamed Felix. “Shit. We’re so fucked!” He looked back into the room. There was a window at the back. Better to risk a broken leg than to die where he was. He took a few shots blindly down the hall and screamed at his men to shoot. They stuck their weapons out from behind doorways and fired blindly, not hitting anyone. Felix quietly slipped inside his room and ran to the window. He peered over the sill and saw he was facing an empty back alley. He quietly opened the window and climbed outside, hanging from the sill, and then dropped to the gravel road below. He landed with a roll, and shoved his back against the wall. He wanted to tell Marco to come, too, but it was too risky. They’d have to cover his escape. He moved swiftly and quietly down the alley, hiding behind trash bins as he went.

  Inside, his men kept returning fire, but the Sinaloas had them outgunned. Every time they fired a shot, fifty were returned. Marco stuck his gun out and pulled the trigger until he emptied the twenty-five-round magazine. At the click of the empty weapon, a fusillade of fire was returned, one of the rounds hitting his own weapon and knocking it out of his hand.

  “Felix!” he screamed as he fell back inside the room. There was no answer.

  One of his men across the hall leaned out to take a shot and was hit right in the face, dead before he hit the floor.

  Marco saw the man’s head explode only a few feet away. “Felix!” he screamed again. He wondered if his boss had been hit. “Shit!” he screamed, and decided to check on Felix himself. He ran out of his room down the hall without a weapon toward the door Felix had kicked in. A shotgun blast took him right off his feet and he landed on his back as the last gurgle left his lungs.

  The remaining three Zetas kept up their fire, now panicking. With Marco dead and Felix not responding, they were starting to come apart at the seams, screaming at each other hysterically. The Sinaloas began moving closer, taking one room at a time as they leapfrogged down the hall.

  From down below on the street, Felix heard the gunfire becoming steadier and started running as fast as he could toward the warehouse, where he knew he would find the truck.

  CHAPTER 28

  El Gato’s Estate

  Apo watched El Gato’s face nervously as the cartel leader listened on his phone. After a while, he pressed “end” and put it back into the holster on his belt. His face looked even uglier than usual.

  “Everything all right?” asked Apo sheepishly. The two of them had been sitting outside smoking cigars and drinking fine cognac as Apo listened to the ramblings of a sociopathic murderer.

  “No, Alex. Everything is not all right,” sneered El Gato. “I had a deal with the Sinaloa and they double-crossed me. No one double-crosses El Gato, not even the Sinaloa.” He stood up and began pacing. “I’m afraid your visit will be cut short. I’ll have some business to take care of.”

  “Is there nothing I can do to help?” asked Apo, feeling panicked that this event would screw up their plans.

  “Sure. Call your president and have him fire some missiles at these Sinaloa dogs.” He was about to go on a tirade when his phone rang again. Felix’s number flashed on his screen. He answered it quickly. “What’s happening?”

  Felix was out of breath. “I escaped for now, but I think they got everyone else. They came out of nowhere! I need help.”

  Gato thought for a second. There wasn’t much he could do at the moment. “Did they take the shipment?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to get over to the warehouse, but there’s Sinaloa everywhere. More and more of them keep showing up. I can still hear shooting from the hotel. Marco is still in there,” he said, feeling slightly guilty about running out on his friend.

  El Gato kicked a chair over. If the shipment was lost, his heroin supply could be affected. He looked at the American and thought about the lost revenue and new opportunity and cursed. He picked up a vase of fresh-cut flowers from a table and threw it across the patio.

  “You need to get to the warehouse and move the truck. Now! They can’t get the shipment.”

  “I’ll try,” he said quietly, feeling scared for the first time in many years.

  “Just get it done!” El Gato hit “end” and began cursing again. He looked at Apo. “To get to the Sinaloa, I have to go through the Mazatlecos. I can’t just drive a hundred cars through there without starting a war!”

  Apo tried to soothe El Gato. “Listen, I can wait a week or two if you need more time. We’ll be partners for many years to come. One little problem shouldn’t ruin everything.”

  El Gato could feel his face getting red, but understood the man meant well. He couldn’t tell his new customer that a shipment from Syria might affect the supply of heroin they both needed. “Most generous of you, Alex. Hopefully, this will sort itself out. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I have a phone call to make. Finish your drink and admire the sights.” He motioned toward the girls by the pool.

  El Gato walked inside his mansion and pulled out his phone. He called Antonio Reynosa, who picked up immediately. “Yes, Jefe?”

  “Where are you?” asked El Gato.

  “In Greece. I should be home in a few days.”

  “The Sinaloa double-crossed me. The shipment could be a problem. I don’t want it interfering with my heroin.”

  Antonio’s face fell. “Jefe, those animals in Syria won’t release the heroin until their people call in from the boat to say they’ve made it. These aren’t easy people to deal with. Anything happens to that shipment and I can’t go back there. They’ll kill me and that’ll be the end of it. You have to get that container to the ship.” Antonio was sweating. Telling El Gato to do anything was dangerous. He wasn’t a man to whom anyone gave instructions. Antonio looked around at the beautiful Greek countryside and thought maybe he’d be better off staying where he was.

  “Damn it! We had a deal!” He hung up on Antonio and began pacing around his office. Who could he call? Someone had to know something.

  CHAPTER 29

  Mexico Cit
y

  Saturday Evening

  Colonel Rafael Lozano was watching from the tarmac as three hundred Mexican Marines in combat gear and four small transport trucks loaded up into three American-made C-130 Hercules transport planes. His personal phone rang, and he broke a sweat instantly when he saw it was El Gato’s number. He pressed the “end” button to ignore the call and shoved it back into his chest pocket.

  When the planes were loaded, he walked up the rear ramp of the lead aircraft. His men cheered when he walked into the plane, and cheered louder when he pumped his fist into the air.

  He sat in one of the uncomfortable strap seats with his men and wondered what was happening in Mexico. When he had called Joaquin Salazar to tip him off about the impending assault on the Las Zetas operation, he was just scoring some points with the new boss of the Sinaloa.

  Why would El Gato be calling him?

  Salazar wouldn’t have tipped off El Gato, would he?

  Who was to be trusted? The colonel leaned his head back and made a sour face.

  The planes taxied and took off, one after the other, heading north. At the insistence of General Ortega, the Marines would fly north toward the US border, then head east out to sea in the Gulf of Mexico, and finally, loop all the way around to arrive at the Ciudad Pemex Airport from the north. Anyone watching the Marines load up and fly out would think the troops were heading to America for training, or going after a target up north. It was hours out of the way, but no informant on the ground would have any reason to tip off the cartels east of Mexico City, which included the Sinaloa, Mazatlecos, and Las Zetas. The general wondered if he was being overly cautious, but in the end decided it was worth the extra fuel. The cartels had eyes and ears everywhere.

  Instead of a thirty-minute flight, the Marines would be flying for almost four hours in their looped flight plan. They would arrive at the Ciudad Pemex Airport at midnight. If all went well, they’d be able to secure the airport and surrounding countryside without much of a fight. Most of the force would remain at the airport. One platoon of his best men, three squads totaling thirty-six Marines, would use the four transports to rapidly move in the night to assault El Gato’s estate along with the American commandos before daylight. The general’s instructions were very clear: Reinforce the American lead assault team. Capture or kill as many Las Zetas as possible during the assault. Capture El Gato alive and turn him over to the Americans.

  Colonel Lozano’s plans were slightly different. Kill everything that moved, especially El Gato. El Gato couldn’t be taken alive and turned over to General Ortega or the Americans for the simple reason that he would implicate the colonel as one of his informants and “cooperating government officials.” While there was a possibility that the colonel could convince General Ortega that El Gato was lying to save his own skin, he simply couldn’t risk it. El Gato had to die in the assault, period.

  The planes reached cruising altitude and leveled off. It was now time to waste a few hours flying in a circle. The colonel closed his eyes and tried his best to relax. It was a complicated situation.

  El Gato paid him.

  Salazar now paid him for the Sinaloa, with El Chapo back in custody.

  The Mazatlecos paid him.

  The New South People paid him.

  The Office cartel paid him.

  Everyone paid him.

  No self-righteous general or American strike force was going to end a very lucrative business. In a few years, he’d be retired and living very comfortably for the rest of his life. Hopefully, in the safety of the United States.

  CHAPTER 30

  Saturday Night in the Woods

  “There’s more than one way to skin a Gato,” said Moose quietly. He was sitting on the ground, applying black and dark-green camouflage stick to his face.

  “Everybody’s a comedian lately,” replied Ripper quietly.

  Ripper was painting his own face as well. It was getting dark and the team would be moving west soon. The route they had to take went through a mile of farmland, which meant following the patchwork of hedgerows and tree lines. The farmland was bordered on both the north and south with roads and small homes, where they might be spotted. Moving right through the middle was their only real option. They would rely on their speed in the dark to get through the farmland and into the woods at the base of the hill where El Gato’s estate sat perched like the king’s castle.

  Eric and Ray moved silently back into camp. They’d been out on a scout patrol for over an hour.

  Eric spoke softly. “It’s quiet. A few farmers about a klick out to the west, but they were heading home for the day. Should be a fast route to the hill. Once we get there, we can deploy your toy and take a look around.”

  “Roger that,” said Moose.

  Pete held up a small can of fuel lovingly known as a Rip It. “High octane, baby.”

  The team hadn’t made coffee to avoid the smell being detected. Instead, they drank the cans of Rip It that ran American special operations. One hundred milligrams of caffeine that could be knocked back instantly. Each of them drank one and crushed the cans, which they buried deep in the earth. Moose looked at his watch.

  “One hour. Eat, sleep, or dig a latrine. Check weapons and comms. In one hour we hit the ground running.”

  Jon was sitting cross-legged with his M16 across his lap. His rifle had an M203 grenade launcher mounted under the barrel. Jon was the team’s grenadier, and he would be their only artillery support during the raid. He loaded the M203 with an M576 grenade instead of the usual high-explosive round. The M576 was filled with buckshot and was designed for thick vegetation and room clearing. With the approach to the estate so thickly forested, he figured the buckshot would be a more logical choice.

  Pete spotted the rounds Jon was using and laughed. “I remember the first time I saw Mack carrying a sawed-off shotgun. I was laughing like, old-school, huh? He said something like, ‘You ain’t going to be laughing when the shit hits the fan and this baby starts barking.’ He was right, too. Old-school shotgun still does the job close quarters when it’s thick.”

  “Roger that. Twenty pellets in a meter-and-a-half radius at forty meters. I’ll make us a path, the time comes,” said Jon with a small grin.

  CHAPTER 31

  Arista

  Felix had sprinted from building to alley to building for twenty minutes, avoiding the cars and trucks that zoomed by with more Sinaloa gangbangers. He was drenched in sweat and trying his best not to panic and make a mistake. The warehouse where the Arabs were holed up with their truck was nearby, but Felix couldn’t walk straight down the street to get there with so many Sinaloa soldiers around. He was running through the maze of back alleyways like a mouse looking for the cheese.

  When he got to the corner across from the warehouse, he squatted behind a small Dumpster and scanned the street. Did the Sinaloa know where the truck was? El Gato had been very specific about not allowing the Sinaloa to get the shipment, whatever it was. Felix took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He was shaking. Two choices—murdered by the Sinaloa, or murdered by El Gato. Neither would be quick or merciful.

  A long burst of automatic weapons fire snapped him out of his hesitation. The firefight back at the hotel couldn’t last much longer. Felix ran across the street and pulled open a side door to the warehouse. He ran inside and faced the barrel of an assault rifle. He froze.

  Throwing his hands up, he said, “Don’t shoot!”

  The Arab at the other end of the rifle looked just as scared as he did. The man began speaking fast in Arabic, which Felix didn’t understand. Hamid ran up behind him, also speaking quickly, and the man slowly lowered his weapon.

  Hamid looked terrified. He screamed at Felix in Arabic. “What’s happening? Who’s shooting?”

  Felix didn’t understand what he was saying, but recognized the man’s fear. He replied in Spanish, “We need to go! Now!”

  The four Arabs began speaking rapidly to each other, and occasionally screamed at
Felix, but they had no way to communicate across the language barrier. Hamid pulled out his scrap of paper with phonetic words written on it and tried to ask what was happening. The vocabulary on the paper was too basic to convey any real sense of the message. Felix understood the word barco, “boat,” in Spanish and shook his head.

  “No, no! No boat! We have to leave!” He pointed at the truck and motioned for them to leave.

  The Arabs didn’t understand, and scanned the paper for the word “rapido.” The conversation was getting faster and louder out of frustration, and Felix was starting to panic. How long before the Sinaloa figured out where they were?

  “Now! We have to go now!” he screamed. He ran to the truck and pointed, screaming at them to hurry. The Arabs repeated the word “barco” several times, and Felix finally screamed barco back to them just to get them moving.

  One of the men walked to the switch by the large aluminum garage door to open it up and Felix screamed at him. “No! Not yet! Get in the truck first!”

  This explanation was also futile, and Felix pointed to Hamid’s gun and then outside to where they could still hear gunfire. The men were as frustrated as Felix was, but got into the truck and started the engine with the garage door closed. As soon as the truck was started, Felix ran to the door switch and hit the green “up” button. He ran back to the truck and climbed up to the driver’s side of the cab. The man in the driver’s seat reluctantly moved to the rear bench with the two others. The three in the back were crowded, angry, and worried. Hamid was in the passenger seat, asking questions that Felix couldn’t understand and didn’t have time to try and figure out. He shoved the gearshift into first and floored the gas pedal. The old truck groaned and shook as it slid into gear and lurched out of the garage. Felix moved through the gears and pulled out into the narrow street. Where he was going, he had no idea, but wherever it was, it was better than here . . .