Divide & Conquer Page 3

  “I apologize, Sir.” The deference to Mikhail’s position and apology removed some of Mikhail’s fury almost instantly. “I needed to confirm you were who you said you were. We are in the field and have to take precautions for our safety, Sir.” Pyotr wished he hadn’t been quite as blunt on the earlier call and explained his actions as quickly as he could.

  Mikhail reminded himself he was dealing with Agents operating in a foreign country and not scientists working in ultra secure labs and facilities. Calling them out of the blue and asking orders that he had given them would appear rather odd.

  “You are right, Agent…?”

  “Travkin, Pyotr Travkin, Sir.”

  “It is I who should apologize. Of course you had to check I was who I said I was.”

  “Thank you for understanding, Sir, but if I may Sir, you called and asked us what our orders were?”

  Mikhail didn’t know how to respond. Subterfuge was not his game but he wasn’t about to let the agents know he wasn’t in control.

  “I just wanted to check what version you received, the latest version was the correct one.”

  As Pytor read the orders to him, Mikhail’s blood ran cold but he remained silent and let Pyotr finish.

  “Is that the correct version?”

  Mikhail would have no part in it but his name was all over it. “No, it is not, observe and await further orders.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Mikhail put the phone down and breathed, something he hadn’t done since Pyotr had read out his orders. Mikhail was in a game way above his already elevated position.

  Chapter 7

  Luis knocked loudly on the door and entered. He, as nephew of El Jefe, could interrupt when others could not. El Jefe turned towards the interruption. His orders had been clear and his orders were never disobeyed. He was not to be disturbed. The anger in his face was not missed by Luis.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle,” Luis began, averting his eyes as his uncle dismounted the young bride he had been 'breaking in’.

  “It had better be good, nephew!” he spat. The use of the word nephew was not wasted on Luis either. If he had not been his nephew, he would already be dead.

  Luis watched as the young bride struggled to cover her dignity with the wedding dress that had been lifted to allow his uncle’s entry. Tears streamed from her eyes, no doubt as much for the indignity as for the memory of her young husband, slain just moments after their marriage. Her perfect day had become the last day of her life as she knew it, her husband killed before her eyes, raped by his killer and destined to spend her life repaying her husband’s debts in El Jefe’s whorehouse. Her life, just hours earlier full of so much promise and dreams, was over.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle, but we have news from Laredo I thought you should hear immediately!” Luis eyes fell on the young bride, a real beauty and such a waste.

  El Jefe turned to the bride. “Out!” he barked, understanding his nephew would not discuss business in front of her.

  El Jefe had no concerns over talking business in front of others. He knew that the fear he evoked silenced everybody. Luis, however, was more cautious and never discussed business within the earshot of others, or for that matter in a room he had not personally swept for listening devices. Cell phones had been consigned to emergency use only and never used to discuss trafficking plans. All supply and sales communications were done through encrypted emails, their codes changed daily. Luis was the brains behind his uncle’s brawn. Arrests and interception by authorities had reduced significantly under Luis’ stewardship and profits had increased dramatically.

  The bride stood up and stumbled towards the door in her blood stained wedding dress.

  “Her husband would have had a true virgin bride!” El Jefe laughed with his nephew.

  Luis deplored the actions of his Neanderthal uncle but smiled. He was the power. Without him, Luis was nothing.

  With the door closed behind her and with his uncle’s trousers fully fastened, Luis began. “Federales have taken up position outside of the Fox’s woman house!”

  “I knew we couldn’t trust that bitch!” exclaimed El Jefe.

  “We don’t think she knows they’re there,” explained Luis, taking some of the anger out of his uncle’s reaction.

  El Jefe looked quizzically at his nephew, prompting a more detailed explanation.

  “They’re taking precautions not to be seen by anybody including the Fox woman and nobody has made contact with her. We have her phones tapped and have her under constant surveillance. She’s clean. If anyone contacts her about Fat Jakes’s drugs, we’ll know!”

  El Jefe kicked the base of his bed at the reference to Fat Jake. The bastard had lied through his teeth about every detail of his operation. It was the only time El Jefe had ever been duped by someone he had questioned. The sincerity of the fat man’s lies was astounding and had fooled everybody in the room. What El Jefe would have given to have not killed him that day. The pleasure and time he would take to kill him over again…only this time checking the detail before finally letting the fat bastard die.

  Fat Jake had controlled the entire East coast distribution network. Taking his end would have tripled the cartel’s profits overnight. Luis had warned them to keep him alive but as soon as he had talked, El Jefe had killed him and soon afterwards, the bodyguard too. In fact, all links had been extinguished before the network was established. Not that Luis would ever remind his uncle of his warning. Their largest single customer was dead and their profits and turnover had slumped.

  Nobody questioned El Jefe.

  With every link gone, the only living link to Fat Jake was the wife of his bodyguard, Sean Fox. As unlikely as it was, Luis thought she could be useful. She had been approached and questioned. Her young son was held at knifepoint which pretty much ensured she told the truth. She knew nothing. However, a meeting had been held at their house in the past. Although she didn’t know the men, they knew her husband and her house. It was enough for El Jefe and Luis was tasked with finding the links and gaining control of Fat Jake’s network.

  “So what the fuck do they want then?” asked El Jefe.

  “I have no idea. I’ve tried all our contacts and none claim to know anything about any surveillance team.”

  The cartel’s contacts were extensive and pretty much covered the city and State police and the local FBI and DEA offices. Whoever the Federales were, the local federal officers knew nothing about them.

  El Jefe didn’t waste a beat. “I don’t like it, take her child from her! Make sure she doesn’t fuck this whole thing up more than you have already!”

  Luis could have protested that El Jefe had been the one to fuck up but Luis felt no compunction to learn first hand why his uncle was infamously called El Carnicero.

  Chapter 8

  Laredo International Airport

  Laredo, Tx. USA

  Sean squinted as he exited the executive jet, the sun firing a warmth he hadn’t felt for years deep into his soul. A feeling of well-being began to sink in. He was home, back in the US where he belonged. He took one look at the azure blue sky and once again thought what the hell was he doing. The Texan beaches and her beauties were just a short hop away in the jet or worst case, just over a couple of hours in a car. Why did he really care whether some guy had stolen his identity? Big deal, he was dead. Sean was alive and he had the rest of his life to plan. He spotted the car rental sign in the terminal building. Decision made. Beach.

  With a fantastic deal concluded on a Mustang convertible, Sean reached for his wallet. A small piece of paper fell out as he took the wallet from his rear pocket. He bent down and retrieved the paper, flicked it over and stared into the eyes of the young boy, in his school uniform, who had recently lost his father; the same young boy who, if somehow the DNA test were correct, was in some way related to Sean. The address was written across the base of the photo. Vincent Black’s handwriting with a large question mark placed at the end of the address. Black knew Sean far too wel
l.

  Sean made his way to the car park and noticed a long line of convertibles. They were obviously a popular choice, he thought, as he threw his small bag onto the passenger seat and let the electric mechanism open up to the sky and sunshine. He entered the address details into a small SAT NAV device and was rewarded with a detour of just three miles to visit the widow and her son. Sean pulled out of the covered garage and instantly realized just how stupid he had been. The SAT NAV had not been a complimentary extra but a pity offering. The sun blasted into the open-topped car with its full force and made it apparent exactly why the lot was full of them. Only an idiot would rent an open top car in Southern Texas at that time of year.

  With the roof back in place, Sean pulled into the obviously middle class lakes area of Laredo. Well, at least Sean assumed it was the Lakes area, as it seemed every street name was either preceded or superseded by the word 'Lakes’. Eventually, he caught a glimpse of water. The SAT NAV told him he was at Lake Casa Blanca, the small checkered flag highlighting his target just a few hundred yards ahead. Sean noted, as he neared the lake, that the houses grew in size. His doppelganger had done well for himself. The flag on the screen corresponded to a large white house that backed directly onto the small lake. The columns to the front of the property were more reminiscent of a plantation house than an upmarket estate property but each to their own, thought Sean, as he began to slow down.

  ***

  “What the fuck?!”

  “What now?!” protested the older of the two lookouts, Miguel. He was fed up with his young colleague, Hector, and his outbursts. It was bad enough being holed up in the woman’s loft space without being stuck with some young fool who reacted to just about everything that went past the window. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered giving him the watch.

  “That car!” Hector pointed to the road below. “The guy driving, I recognize him!”

  “So you’re ten miles from home, of course you’ll recognize people!” replied Miguel dismissively, closing his eyes to emphasize he was resting.

  “No, it’s the guy El Jefe cut up, the bodyguard, you know, the woman’s husband!!” He pointed towards the floor and the rooms below.

  “That guy was in about a thousand bits, what the fuck are you talking about?!” Miguel got up from his seat and walked across to the window in an attempt to see whatever had excited his young colleague.

  “Fuck, he’s slowing down, he’s coming here!” exclaimed Hector nervously.

  Pushing his young and excitable colleague aside, Miguel looked down at the approaching car. The closeness of the car did not allow the angle for him to see the occupant but it certainly appeared the car was slowing down and about to enter the drive below.

  “I had to carry the guy’s head, nobody knows better than me what he looked like and it’s him, I tell you!” explained the young man gesticulating wildly and sounding more deranged by the second. He crossed himself dramatically, praying to a god, who, if there were one, would have deserted him many years earlier.

  Miguel watched as the car slowed down but failed to make the turn. Still unable to see the occupant’s face, he lifted the assault rifle that sat next to the window. He was beginning to feel a little freaked out himself. First the Federales had appeared and now this. Some bad shit was going down and he was too long in the tooth to be unprepared. At the sight of the older and more experienced man lifting his rifle, Hector reached for his and cocked it, ready to go.

  ***

  Pytor watched Sean’s car as he approached the house. Unfortunately, the glare of the sun was hitting his windshield and all he knew was that the woman was about to get a visitor. Pyotr nudged Alexa awake and she raised her camera and shot off a few snaps of the car as it slowed down near the house.

  “What should we do?” she asked.

  “Who knows?” responded Pytor. “We don’t even know why we’re here, I mean exactly what are we surveilling?!”

  “So you’ve not heard back from Mikhail?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So we just sit in the car watching the house?”

  “Those are the orders,” confirmed Pyotr. His voice did not hide the monotony that he expected. He had been doing this for many, many years.

  ***

  Sean recognized the young boy from his photo. He had obviously just finished school and was walking home. Sean had passed the school when he entered the estate and knew it wasn’t far for the boy to walk but even so, the heat was unbearable. The boy was approaching from the opposite direction. Sean surmised that either his SAT NAV was useless or there was a shortcut for walkers. Obviously, the heat was a little more bearable for those who were used to it. He then thought about another option. The boy had walked home with a friend and took a slightly different route. Sean shook his head. He had to stop analyzing every situation to death. He was retired. Sean turned his attention to the boy again but rather than focus on his route, he was amazed at the likeness the boy had to him as a child; it really was uncanny.

  The front door of the house he was about to pull into opened to reveal his doppelganger’s wife. Her eyes were fixed on her son and she didn’t even notice Sean’s impending arrival. He had to hand it to his doppelganger, he had seriously good taste. The wife was stunning. It helped that she was wearing nothing more than a skimpy pair of shorts and a bikini top. Exactly the reason Sean was about to spend the rest of his life in the Southern and warm parts of the US.

  Sean caught a movement in his left eye and he instantly chastised himself for letting down his guard. His mind returned to active mode and the serene view of the son returning home to his mother at the end of the school day instantly changed.

  Two agents were in a car further down the street and a camera or some type of lens was being aimed at him. There was movement in a window on the upper floor of the house. There was only one small window, it wasn’t a bedroom, more like a loft window. The sun hit something shiny as the movements seemed to quicken. They were reacting to Sean’s arrival, possibly raising a weapon.

  However, Sean’s focus was not on any of these. He was far more interested in the intentions of a white van that had blasted around the corner at the top of the street and was barreling towards the young boy, its side door being thrown open as it neared the youngster.

  A scream screeched across the scene completing the change from serenity to horror.

  Sean was unarmed, and, it appeared, from the intentions of the people in the loft window, about to come under fire. As the loft window broke, the rifle appeared. Sean calculated angles and distances and came back to his original instinct, get the hell out of there quick. There was nothing he could do. The young boy was already half way into the van. He couldn’t ram the van without endangering the boy and whoever was in the loft was about to start firing with what Sean recognized as a pretty fucking big gun.

  Sean hit the accelerator and thankfully, the one saving grace of his getting screwed by the rental company, kicked in. The Mustang GT’s 400 horses bit into the road and threw the car forward; the screech from the tires drowning out the mother’s scream for her child. Sean could see the flashes but no sound followed. The assault rifle was silenced. Whoever was in the house had some serious equipment.

  ***

  Miguel watched in horror as the sleepy neighborhood exploded into life. First the kid was snatched. El Jefe was going to kill them for that alone. Next, somehow, the driver of the car caught wind of their attack and had accelerated hard. Miguel tried desperately to catch the car with his bullets but to no avail. As he neared the car, it flashed behind the van which had just taken the woman’s son. He had to stop firing. His 7.62mm rounds would have torn the van and its occupants apart. Something he was not willing to do, unless of course El Jefe told him to kill the kid. Through it all, the hysterical screams from the woman below were matched by the shouts of his young assistant who was, Miguel thought, really beginning to get on his fucking nerves.

  Miguel drowned out the screams and let h
is own military training kick in. The man was gone. Whether he was the ghost Hector claimed him to be, he didn’t know. Miguel had not seen his face. The van had the child and was already making its way to the end of the street. Throughout everything that had just happened, one action stood out. The Federales had done nothing. Miguel knew he had to report in as a matter of urgency. El Jefe needed to know what had just happened.

  Chapter 9

  Sean kept the pedal down and continued to accelerate. He had to follow the van and the boy. He glanced at his SAT NAV and was rewarded with a map that showed two exits from the Lakes area but only one near them. He just had to make sure he got there before the van disappeared into the wider Laredo area. He cursed his stupidity for not having purchased even a basic cell phone. Instead, he had planned to go to an Apple store the first chance he got and get the latest iPhone that everybody was raving about. Too late for the boy and a decision he would forever regret. A $20 prepaid cell would have been perfectly sufficient to call the police and ultimately ensure the safety of the child.

  The Mustang tore through the estate as Sean raced to the entrance and was rewarded with a view of the van as it careened onto the main highway, the Bob Bullock Loop, and a sign for the Mexican border. The next sign was even less encouraging - Mexico 9 miles. The van slowed down as it blended in with the mid afternoon traffic. Sean hung back. From the van’s pace, they hadn’t spotted him.

  Sean ran through the options. Stop and raise the alarm. But the risk of losing the van was too high, so not an option. Ram the van off the road and rescue the boy. The van was far bigger than him and unlike the old cliché, when it came to vehicles, it was all about size. So that option was out. In short, he had no option but to do what he was doing. Follow and strike when he had the chance. That chance would only arise when they stopped. However, that would then start a whole new dilemma. Sean was unarmed and he doubted the occupants of the van would have kidnapped the child without at least some weaponry but he’d worry about that when the time came. At that moment, all he could think about was why the hell he hadn’t just gone to the beach.