Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (25 page)

Chapter
28

The
Butcher wasn’t the only one on the phone. President Roberto Rivera was
discussing the death of Hernan Flores with his trusted friend and number one
advisor Juan Soto.

“How
could this happen?” Soto yelled after hearing the news shortly after the 10
a.m. report from the head of the bureau of prisons.

“I told
you,” Rivera said, sighing. “We’re still not sure yet.”

It was
the third time that Rivera had said they weren’t sure how it happened and he
was beginning to wonder how many times he’d have to say it before Soto
understood that they truly weren’t sure how it happened.

“And why
didn’t you call me this morning immediately after you learned the news?”

“I was
half drunk, you were half drunk,” Rivera said. “I figured you’d rather sleep
since we had no facts yet anyway. I know if the situation were reversed I’d
have wanted to sleep.”

“You
don’t become a billionaire by sleeping while something big is going down,” Soto
said with intense anger in his voice.

Rivera
was taken aback by that. Soto rarely lost his temper and he was never
self-righteous. It was a sign of weakness, he had once said. Soto’s reaction
scared Rivera -- it underscored the terrible danger they now faced.

But while
Rivera agreed his political career was likely over, he didn’t want to put up
with Soto’s shit. Not with this little sleep. Not on what was likely the worst
day of Rivera’s life.

“I
think,” Rivera countered, “that someone is forgetting that we followed their
plan. I never wanted Flores arrested in the first place. It’s why I called in
more American support after the Navy SEAL Team was destroyed. Flores should
have been killed by the Vigilantes, and then the Mexican people would have felt
empowered. Now, thanks to your brilliant plan, the Mexican people either think
we’re corrupt or incompetent, and I’m not real sure which is worse.”

“Oh,
you’re now placing this on me?” Soto asked.

“No, just
reminding you of the facts.”

“Why
didn’t this man have thirty guards around him? Was that really asking too much?
Hell, you could have placed members of your Presidential Guard around him.
They’ve got a much higher security clearance and I guarantee you that if you
had used some of them, there’s no way he’d be dead. I just can’t believe he’s
dead.”

“Well, he
is. I’ve seen pictures of the body.”

“You
still should have called me.”

“Why?”
Rivera screamed, slamming his hand down on his desk. “What would that have
served? What could I have done? It was already too late!”

“Bullshit,”
Soto fired back. “You could have called up your elite Special Forces Battalion
and rushed them there. They could have been there in thirty minutes and secured
the site. And then you could have arrested every guard in the prison, separated
them, and secured them in holding cells. We could have interrogated and sweated
them and probably come up with what really happened.”

Rivera
couldn’t help but see the merit in this idea. Damn, why hadn’t he thought of
that? Well, being half-drunk hadn’t helped.

And why
hadn’t any of his advisors thought of it? Ah, that’s right. He hadn’t called an
emergency cabinet meeting, instead deciding to try to get a little more sleep.
Could he have even managed a meeting in his impaired state? Who knew. And shit.
Just the thought of not calling the cabinet meeting made him consider the
hearings his opponents would demand once news broke.

What did
Rivera know and when did he know it? What was his response and why didn’t he
react differently?

Rivera
buried his head in his hands. He needed more aspirin.

Soto knew
by the delay in any response from Rivera that his remarks had hit home.

“Next
time just call me,” Soto said, deciding to drop it.

Rivera
swallowed and said, “I will,” like a bloodied kid who’d just been pummeled by
bully.

“What do
we know about this number two man -- the Butcher, I think they call him?” Soto
asked.

“We’re
pulling together all we can on him, but already we know an impressive amount of
information, mostly from informants. Let’s see...”

Rivera
pulled a file toward him and opened it.

“Looks
like he started out as a nobody. Just a really small kid who got bullied a lot.
Fell into the wrong crowd, got busted for theft and grand larceny of a vehicle.
Prison apparently really sucked for him. He made several formal complaints
about being sexually molested.”

Soto
interrupted him.

“Which
reminds me,” Soto said, “we have to get that under control. Our prisons should
be safe for both the guards
and
the inmates.”

“We have
a lot to get under control,” Rivera said, his voice biting. “Worrying about
prisoners is pretty low down my priority list.”

“That’s
the wrong attitude to have,” Soto said, “but we can argue about this some other
time. Like, when your entire career isn’t hanging by a thread.”

Rivera
ignored the remark. He didn’t feel like fighting anymore, so he scanned the
memo further.

“Continuing
where we left off, the Butcher gives up on alerting the prison authorities
about the sexual abuse he’s enduring and takes to weights and boxing.”

Rivera
flipped a page and continued, “Um, I’m assuming the weights and boxing didn’t
work because he left prison and went on to develop a fierce reputation as a
martial artist.”

Rivera
scanned some more, then said, “Hmm. Interesting. So, he apparently takes these
newly acquired martial arts skills and tracks down nearly every man who had
raped him in prison or bullied him as a kid.”

“What did
he do?” Soto asked. “Beat them up?”

“No,”
Rivera said. “He killed every one of them, supposedly. Either by beating them
to death or slashing them up with either a short tanto blade or long katana
blade.”

“My God.”

“No, it’s
worse than that. He didn’t just put them away with a swift killing strike.
Rather, he would cut and slice them up, often as many as eighty or ninety
shallow slices until they bled out, according to the medical report.”

“And why
was he never arrested for these killings?” Juan Soto asked.

“Warrants
were put out for his arrest, but no luck in arresting him. At one point, one
officer called in a suspicious person driving a vehicle he had been linked to,
but before an arrest could be made or backup arrive, the officer was killed by
heavy nine millimeter fire. Detectives suspected it was an Uzi used on the
officer.”

“So, that
may not have been him?” Soto said.

“No, it
probably was. Says here that his second favorite weapon after his katana sword
is an Uzi.”

“Well,
there’s little doubt that the man is a serious killer,” Soto said. “But can he
lead? Running the Godesto Cartel would challenge even the strongest leader.
It’s a huge organization with tons of people in it. That’s a lot of details to
keep up with.”

“Wow,”
Rivera said. He hadn’t even been listening to Soto. The report was simply too
interesting. “Looks like, according to one informant, he once famously killed
one of Flores’s guards who tried to disarm him.”

“But can
he lead?” Soto asked louder.

“Hell if
I know. Guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter
29

“Nick,
you’re going to want to come see this,” Isabella said.

Nick
stood from his desk, where he had been making some notes for a final report to
submit to Mr. Smith. He followed Isabella out of his office, but stayed far
enough behind her so that he could comfortably admire the view as she walked
down the hall. Today she wore tight green fatigue trousers and a black tanktop
that stretched across her chest tighter than anything he’d seen her wear.

Nick
didn’t know if it was Isabella’s goal to torture every man confined to the
farm, but she was doing a damned good job at it. Well, their time with her was
limited and running out, so what the hell, Nick thought.

They
walked into the living room where most of the Primary Strike Team and probably
two dozen others from the three squads stood around a television. Dwayne Marcus
looked up from it and saw the two approaching.

“Make way
for Nick,” Marcus said, his deep, drill instructor voice carrying across the
room like a wave.

The men
shifted a bit and Nick slid into the half-circle. Marcus picked up the remote
and rewound the TV five minutes backward on the DVR.

“Wait
until you see this, Nick,” he said, dropping the remote to a chair. “This is
unbelievable. Or on second thought, maybe it’s not.”

The show
resumed and Nick recognized the Mexican Presidential briefing room. Seeing that
room was becoming a theme.

The Mexican
President walked up to the podium and looked down at a notecard he carried. He
looked grim and Nick felt just a touch of uneasiness in his stomach.

“I’ve
come out today to make a statement and I apologize to the members of the media
present today, but I will be unable to take any questions,” Roberto Rivera
said, nodding to the reporters who stood around him, hovering like a flock of
vultures.

Nick
noticed the man directly to his left -- Bulldog, the huge Navy SEAL from
Baltimore -- step away from him and then Isabella slid into the circle. She
moved in close, and he felt her breast against his crossed arm, then her hand
on his lower back.

Nick
assumed no one was behind them because Isabella immediately began sliding her
hand up and down his lower back, her nails cutting into him seductively. He
tried to pay attention to the press conference, but it was taking all the focus
he could muster. Between the feeling of her breasts and the sensation of her
fingers running up and down his back, he was about to call the entire unit
outside into formation while he took care of more pressing matters.

“I am as
shocked at this news as you are,” Rivera said, and Nick wondered what he was
talking about. He focused harder.

“While
Hernan Flores was no friend of either mine or the Mexican people, he deserved
better than to die in a prison.”

Nick came
fully to his senses. Flores? Dead?

“Make no
mistake,” Rivera said, “this was not justice. And while we were going to seek
the sternest of sentences, this is not an equivalent punishment. Flores should
have faced a judge. The Mexican people should have witnessed the cruel acts of
this man, as the government presented its case against the most dangerous man
in North America.

“I regret
that at this time we’re not more sure of what happened yet, but our facts
do
show that Flores was killed by another prisoner. I want to emphasize that
point. This was not a corrupt guard who killed him. Of that we are certain.

“In fact,
my press secretary will distribute the name and photo of the prisoner who
executed this vicious attack and who also in the process managed to escape from
Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1. As you will note in the profile we
will hand out, this man is a member of the Godesto Cartel. We’re not sure if
this is part of a coup inside the organization or personal revenge taken by
this man. We intend to find that out though, and once we do, we will alert you,
the public immediately. It’s crucial that the Mexican government have your
assistance in this fight against the Godesto Cartel and the other elements of
organized crime.

“Now,
before I step away, I want to address two misconceptions that I’ve already
heard. Some have said the Mexican government, or possibly even myself, had a
hand in Hernan Flores’s death. I want to assure you this is false. Quite
frankly, had we wanted him dead, then we could have killed him in the raid that
netted him. Our officers could have claimed it was self-defense. Thus, you can
be confident that neither I nor the Mexican government wanted this man killed
in prison.

“The
second misconception I’d like to address is that Hernan Flores’s death is
either proof of the Mexican government’s incompetence, or possibly even our
corruption.”

The
President looked down and swallowed.

“It is
true that we still struggle with both incompetence and corruption, but you all
elected me to tackle these two issues and I’m proud of our record and the
improvements that we have made to date. Our government is more competent and
less corrupt than when I took office. And I want the Mexican people to know
that every day we improve the quality of our police and military and root out
more corruption. But this remains a monumental task. Nonetheless, I plan to
continue this fight, and returning for a moment to the matter of Hernan Flores,
I pledge to you that once our full investigation is complete, I will announce
and release its findings to the Mexican people. I furthermore pledge to
continue to be transparent and diligent --”

Isabella
had removed her hand at some point and Nick turned to look at her. She looked
pale and had crossed her arms protectively. Nick remembered her dead father,
and brother. Had Flores been responsible for their deaths? Nick recalled her
file saying they had died at the hands of a drug cartel, but he couldn’t
remember if it had been the Godesto or one of the others.

She had
lost a lot, and that didn’t account for the fellow officers and attorneys and
judges she had known who’d been killed in this war.

Nick
turned and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. He glanced around
and saw that none of the men seemed to notice. They were all focused on the TV
as their entire lives hung in the balance of what Rivera might say and their
focus was obvious.

Nick knew
he had checked out as a leader and he knew it was bad and “unsat” by every
military standard he had ever held himself to, but here she was, and God, why
did he feel this way about her?

He pulled
her tighter and she leaned further into him. Some of his men saw them, but Nick
decided to hell with it. It was their last day. He’d never see the members of
S3 again.

Nick was
beyond caring.

Nick
kissed the top of her head and released her. She wiped an eye and composed
herself. Nick turned and looked back at the scene and saw Rivera was prattling
on.

Nick had
heard enough, and the clock was ticking, so he grabbed Isabella’s hand and led
her toward his office. There, they talked for some time about her family, and
about Nick’s past, as well as the future for both of them, but the impending separation
kept an insurmountable gulf between their desires.

One
hundred miles away, another man was ignoring Rivera’s press conference, as
well. The Butcher was sleeping soundly, resting up for his planned assault the
next day. The Butcher’s time to control the Godesto Cartel had come, and he had
a single goal: to topple the Mexican government.

Tomorrow,
the strike he had planned for many years would be a major step in that
direction.