America Libre (41 page)

Staff Sergeant Michael Ellis burst into the kitchen through its double swinging doors, his M4 at his shoulder. The sight he
encountered bewildered the Delta Force veteran.

Standing in the far corner of the room was a tall blonde, bleeding and badly bruised but pointing a handgun at a small Hispanic
man cowering on the floor. The lifeless body of another man lay nearby, still bleeding from a head wound.

The sergeant’s first thought was that the blonde was a Pancho hostage who had managed to overpower her captors. Still, Ellis
had been trained to take no chances.

“Drop the gun, ma’ am—now!” Ellis screamed through his black mask.

As the sergeant watched in amazement, the blonde turned toward him and began firing.

The dull stabs of the bullets striking his torso snapped Ellis out of his shock. The blows were painful in spite of his flak
vest. He staggered backward. Then, in a reflex developed during years of training, the sergeant dropped to one knee and fired
back at his assailant, his three-shot laser-guided burst striking the blonde in the head and upper chest. The force of the
bullets hurled the woman’s body backward, still holding the pistol in her hand.

Certain that the immediate threat was neutralized, Ellis swung his sights to the man lying on the floor, his face wide-eyed
with terror.

“Dorothy! Dorothy! Dorothy!” the little man on the floor shrieked, desperately waving his hands.

Sergeant Ellis nodded in recognition to the terrified man, keeping his weapon trained on him. “Dorothy” was the code word
identifying their mole.

It was well after dark when Mano emerged from the Tunas Drive storm sewer inside Quarantine Zone B. His return had been delayed
by the Army patrols and surveillance drones now bristling around the QZs—another surprise the Army had unveiled.

He moved warily along the deserted street, normally bustling during early evening. Something—most likely an Army raid—had
driven people indoors.

He did not believe the Army would try to maintain a presence within the zone. The risk of a bloodbath was too great and the
government was leery of casualties, both military and civilian. But after today’s debacle, he was not certain of anything.

As he rounded the corner near the Holiday Inn, a trio of old men gathered round a barrel fire turned their heads toward him
nervously.

“Have you seen any baldies around?” Mano asked, walking closer.

Looking at his black fatigues with approval, the oldest man pointed toward the hotel. “Two helicopters landed there this morning.
There was a lot of shooting and then they flew away.”

“Everybody’s been afraid to go in there,” added another.

“Gracias,” Mano said, walking past them.

“Que vayas con Dios,” the old man called after him.

A flimsy barrier of plastic crime scene tape left by the Army encased the Holiday Inn complex. Pushing aside the tape, Mano
entered the hotel, making his way through the interior courtyard. In the dim moonlight filtering through the skylights, he
saw that the electrical generator had been destroyed.

Just past the generator was the body of Rafael Rodriguez. The young Verdugo assigned to guard Nesto had been shot several
times with a high-caliber weapon. Judging by the congealed blood around him, he’d been dead for several hours. The grisly
sight raised Mano’s sense of foreboding.

Mano produced a penlight from his fatigues and opened the door to the kitchen, his dread over Jo’s fate growing with each
step into the total darkness inside.

He waved the penlight around the room. The small light beam moved along the countertops, revealing the battered remnants of
their communications equipment. Between the counters, Mano spotted the legs of a man lying on the floor. Moving closer, he
saw it was Enrique Rueda, the other Verdugo assigned to guard Nesto. Enrique had been killed by a blow to the head.

Mano’s anxiety mounted as he flicked his small spotlight around the rest of the room. Then his beacon found a flash of honey-gold
hair. He stood frozen for a moment, summoning the courage to look. Finally, he let his penlight travel slowly over the body.
Because of her hair and clothes, he was sure it was Jo. Her face was a grotesque mask, distorted beyond recognition by the
wounds of two high-caliber bullets.

Mano turned out the light and stood motionless in the darkness. In that instant, his thoughts converged like a laser beam
into a single thought:
find Nesto.

Nesto’s special Nikes were getting seriously soiled.

“Goddamn those CIA pendejos,” the mero muttered angrily as he walked through the narrow channel of foul brown water trickling
along the bottom of the storm sewer, the beam of his flashlight bouncing wildly inside the cylindrical passageway.

Nesto had been looking forward to the day when he got even with Mano and the DDP. Instead, it had turned out to be a shitty
day.

The first setback had come shortly after the Delta Force troopers secured the rebel command center. Nesto had expected the
soldiers to take him away to safety. He did not want to be around if Mano somehow managed to survive.

He was livid when the sergeant tersely explained there was no room in the chopper for him. But Nesto knew better. Apparently,
his value to the CIA had ended. His anger soon turned to fear. He was now on his own in evading Mano.

After Nesto returned to his barrio, things got worse. He found his vatos had vanished. One of the hookers said they had disappeared
after hearing about a heavy baldie crack-down expected after the big rebel push. Without the protection of his vatos, Nesto
was left with little choice. He would have to flee.

Though terrified that Mano would appear at any moment, he decided to risk a trip to his house. Approaching the large, tile-roofed
structure, he noticed the front gate on the ten-foot fence surrounding the property had been left open.

Nesto entered cautiously and found his house guards gone. Fortunately, the secret cache beneath the floorboards of his bedroom
closet was intact. Five minutes later, he left the house laden with all the cash he could carry in his baggy pants. He tucked
a .380 Colt Pony into his waistband beneath a loose-fitting plaid shirt.

He spent the rest of the day sitting in the corner of a private cantina several blocks from his house, nursing a succession
of Coors with his eyes constantly on the door.

After sunset, he lowered himself into the storm sewer main at North Boyle and made his way through the large concrete tunnel
toward the L.A. River. His plan was to make it to Mexico and lie low until he learned Mano’s fate.

He was now less than a hundred meters from the storm sewer’s discharge point into the L.A. River.

Crouching inside a dense clump of arundo, Mano listened intently, methodically surveying the nocturnal landscape of the Los
Angeles River. As was common during most of the year, the river was an inch-deep puddle meandering through the concrete channel.
Because of the city’s lack of maintenance over the last several years, an abundance of plants, in which Mano was now concealed,
had sprung up through the cracks in the concrete. Mano was grateful for the cover.

Coming to the river had been a long shot. Mano knew he had only a few hours to find Nesto. By morning, the wily mero would
be long gone. Mano was counting on one thing: unless Nesto was in government custody, the gang leader would probably head
south along the river after dark.

Lying in wait along the river was not without risk. Twice in the last hour, a trio of Army Humvees had crossed the bridge
just to the north of him.

Mano had chosen his intercept point in the riverbed carefully, roughly one klick outside the border of Quarantine Zone B.
No matter which of the many tunnels Nesto might use to escape, his trail would lead him here if he was heading south.

The moon was rising higher, casting a cold gray light over most of the river, leaving a narrow band of darkness along the
left bank. Mano knew Nesto would travel in the shadows. This was where he waited.

Blocking out the pale glare of the moon with his hand, Mano scanned the left bank with his peripheral vision, which was more
sensitive to light.

There
, he almost said aloud as a blur of movement appeared near a willow about fifty meters away. He spotted the movement again.
This time, he could make out the outline of a figure darting in his direction between the clusters of vegetation. All he had
to do was wait.

For the last two hours, Mano’s mind had been in stalking mode. Any feelings of grief and loss had been pushed aside. Now,
as his quarry drew near, a surge of emotion coursed through him that felt very alien. Killing Nesto quickly would not be enough.

He wanted to see Nesto suffer first.

Mano drew his Glock as he heard the soft scrape of footsteps on the pebble-littered concrete. Through the willow branches,
he saw Nesto stride into view. In a single motion, Mano rose to his feet and swung his left forearm, catching Nesto below
the chin in a clothesline tackle, sending the mero down on his back.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Nesto,” Mano said, his voice cold and dry. “You got a lot of good people killed today… and now
you’re going to pay for it.” He leveled his pistol.