America Libre (14 page)

Mano’s pulse was racing. Lying near the edge of the roof, he focused his binoculars on the three approaching vehicles. Nesto
and his men had already been alerted and were poised to strike on his signal. Mano would have to decide in the next few seconds.

“Do you think it’s them?” Jo asked, lying next to him.

“We have to be sure,” he said softly.

The vehicles were two blocks away, traveling at a normal speed, but staying suspiciously close together. A Chevy Suburban
led the pack, followed by a Camry sedan and a ragged Chrysler minivan.

“We’re running out of time,” Jo said through gritted teeth.

Mano’s heartbeat was now thundering in his ears. If he made the wrong choice, innocent people would die. Then he saw the proof
he’d been waiting for. As the convoy gained speed, gun barrels emerged from the windows of the vehicles.

“Signal the trucks,” Mano said with a calm that belied his pounding heart.

“Go, Go, GO! HURRY!” Jo yelled into her vu-phone.

The vigilante vehicles were now racing past Mano’s position near the middle of the block, bearing down on the crowd outside
El Lobo. On the cross street just ahead of the convoy, two Mack trucks trundled into the intersection from opposite directions
and stopped, forming a roadblock. The neat line of the convoy became a swirl of vehicles fishtailing wildly as they slammed
on their brakes.

“Open fire,” Mano said into his walkie-talkie.

The syncopated barking of assault rifles erupted in the concrete gorge. Mano heard Jo’s AK-47 firing beside him in short,
controlled bursts as the pockmarks of bullets began to cover the vehicles.

The driver of the Suburban floored the SUV in reverse and succeeded in ramming a utility pole. The Camry, its windshield shattered,
rolled to a stop. The minivan managed a U-turn and began retreating from the ambush, a panicked shooter firing wildly into
the night from its rear window.

Mano’s fire plan for the RPGs was devastatingly simple. Holding the battery-powered spotlight by its pistol grip, Mano directed
a thirteen-million-candlepower beacon onto the roof of the minivan. Two seconds later, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the
front of the minivan on the passenger’s side. A second shot missed, striking the pavement behind the vehicle, but it didn’t
matter; the minivan, still rolling, burst into flames.

Mano then turned his spotlight on the Suburban, which was pulling forward for another try at an escape. The first grenade
struck near the rear wheel of the vehicle, destroying its axle and leaving the SUV foundering. The second hit the vehicle
dead center on the driver’s side, sending a shower of flying metal whirling over Mano’s head. All three vehicles had been
neutralized.

“Keep them pinned down,” Mano said into his walkie-talkie. “We’re headed for the ground.”

With the chatter of AK-47s echoing below, Mano and Jo donned black masks and scrambled down the fire escape at the building’s
west end. After reaching Agnes Street, Mano peered carefully around the corner of the building. The minivan was engulfed in
flames—no chance of survivors there. But there was still movement inside the sedan and the SUV.

“Cease fire,” Mano said into the walkie-talkie.

The shooting died away, leaving a stillness broken only by the crackle of flames from the minivan. “Come out with your hands
up,” Mano yelled.

A man wearing thick glasses emerged from the Suburban, stumbling on a wounded leg, frantically waving his hands in the air.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’m not armed, see?”

Then the door of the Camry opened slowly and a tall, rangy man stepped silently into the street, his hands above his head.

Less than six minutes after the first shots were fired, La Defensa del Pueblo had taken its first prisoners.

The slam of the massive door echoed throughout the vacant building.

“They’re on ice,” Nesto announced after locking up the prisoners. “I say we start with the big one. He’s gonna be a lot more
fun to mess up.”

Nesto, Jo, Ramon, and Mano were gathered outside their makeshift jail—the steel-lined impeller test chamber at an abandoned
jet engine plant. This was the moment Mano had been waiting for. He was face to face with the men who had slaughtered so many
innocent people—the Jimenez twins, his neighbors, his niece—people he’d known and loved. Still, there were some things Mano
could not bring himself to do.

“We’re not going to torture the prisoners,” Mano said.

Nesto laughed in derision. “Are you shittin’ me, man? You’re not gonna get anything out of these guys without some major pain.”

“Mano, this has been your operation from the start,” Ramon said. “In my opinion, you should decide how to interrogate these
men.”

“I agree,” Jo added.

Mano stared at the floor. The time to help his people was here. Just as in Afghanistan, the speeches and patriotic words were
gone. All that remained was the raw truth of life and death. He was beyond hatred and vengeance now. These men were a cancer,
a sick cluster of cells that had to be removed. Turn them over to the police and they would alert the others, the ones who
really pulled the strings. It was up to him to put an end to this. As he’d been trained in the Rangers, he had to put aside
his feelings and act with the cold swiftness of a surgeon. “I think we can make the one with the glasses talk,” he said finally.

The vigilantes were seated on the floor in opposite corners of the test chamber when Mano and Nesto entered the steel-lined
room.

Mano approached the tall vigilante holding his Glock-32. “I want to know who organized these raids.”

The vigilante spit at Mano’s feet. “Go to hell, greaser. If I’d known it was you that attacked us instead of the cops, you’d
never have taken me alive.”

Mano pulled the man to his feet and pressed the gun under the man’s chin. “I’m going to count to three,” he said with ice
in his voice. “If you don’t tell me who organized these raids, you’re dead.”

The tall man quivered but maintained a defiant look. In a soft voice, Mano began a slow count. “One… two… three—”

He squeezed the trigger.

Blood and tissue from the man’s head splattered the steel wall and sprayed the others in the room.

Mano turned to the other vigilante, his thick glasses now spotted with blood.

“Oh my God, please don’t shoot!” the man shrieked, holding his hands up and turning his face away.

Mano pulled the vigilante to his feet and gently held him against the wall, keeping the gun pointed toward the ground.

“Who is responsible for organizing these raids?” Mano asked him softly.

“O’Connor… Wally O’Connor,” the vigilante replied in a hoarse whisper, tears streaming from his eyes. Mano released him, and
the man slid slowly down the wall until he lay, sobbing, on the floor.

Mano crouched beside him. “Are you telling me the truth?”

“I swear it. I swear it,” he whimpered. “Wally’s a real estate agent—got an office in El Segundo. He brought us all together
and bankrolled the whole deal.”

Mano, Nesto, and Ramon huddled around the Volvo while Jo sat inside navigating through the touch-screen Internet feed on the
dashboard.

“It checks out,” Jo said. “Walter O’Connor is a Realtor, affiliated with Hopewell. Rather successful, too. He grossed over
sixty million in sales last year. Not bad for an ex-con. He spent three years in San Quentin for armed robbery and was paroled
in ’98.”

“I did some time in San Quentin,” Nesto said. “The place is lousy with guys from the Aryan Fatherland. Sounds like we know
where this dude went to school.”

“It all fits,” Ramon agreed. “A group like the Aryan Fatherland would do anything to incite a race war.”

“Are we sure this is our man?” Mano asked.

“That dude with the glasses looked too terrified to lie, ese,” Nesto said. Then he turned to Mano. “You’re one bad motherfucker,
man.”

Mano’s face was expressionless. “The tall one was never going to talk. Executing him in front of the other one served its
purpose. That’s all.”

Ramon pointed to O’Connor’s address on the display. “It’s too bad this guy’s house isn’t on a Green Planet pickup route. We
could learn a lot from his garbage.”

“He don’t seem like the type that recycles his Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets, you know what I mean?” Nesto said with a sneer.

“Even if O’Connor isn’t their top leader, he could lead us to the others,” Mano said.

Jo nodded in agreement. “I say we move on O’Connor.”

“In that case, there’s one more thing I need to do,” Mano said, walking back toward the test chamber. A few moments later,
the trio outside heard the muffled pop of a gunshot. Then Mano emerged from the building.

Jo and Ramon exchanged glances. In that moment, they both knew Mano had become more than a hired bodyguard. This deed had
committed him to their cause in a way no oath of loyalty could have.

“He would have alerted O’Connor if we’d turned him over to the police,” Mano said, his voice chillingly sober. “The man was
a criminal. We have no courts to try him. For now, this is our only choice for justicia.”

As the others stared at him in stunned silence, Mano realized he’d crossed a threshold from which he could never return.

Arriving on the scene shortly after the skirmish on Agnes Street, the LAPD found eight bodies amid the charred wreckage of
three vehicles. The names of those killed were withheld pending notification of next of kin. No weapons were found, but the
police conjectured they’d been carried off by the winning faction.

The only public record of the event came from an E! Network camera crew shooting a puff piece on Tomas Cruz’s appearance at
El Lobo. After hearing gunfire and explosions outside, the E! crew emerged from the club in time to film two masked figures,
both in black fatigues and armed with AK-47s, sprinting past the corner of a building. The exclusive footage would be showcased
with stunning impact.

Twenty-four hours after the clash, NBC aired a special report titled
Attack on Agnes Street
. Using the E! crew’s footage and archival images of urban guerrillas from Belfast to Beirut, the NBC program sensationally
documented the new phase in the unrest: a coordinated paramilitary attack by the insurgents.