Stephen Randel - Trail of the Chupacabra

P.S. — During my stay, I observed a large, unruly group of vagrants in combat gear stealing from the buffet. Keep an eye out for them.

“Anything new to report?” Cesar asked as he entered the room.

“Stop interfering with my work! I’m trying to work here!” Avery put down the candy bar he was eating and slammed his laptop shut.

“Like, want some chips, army dudes?” Ziggy asked as the men of STRAC-BOM raced into the Padre’s entertainment room.

“Where have you been?” the General asked.

“I don’t, like, really know, man,” Ziggy said as he puffed away. “You tell him.” The skinny hippy looked at Nancy, who was resting at his feet on the couch. The iguana ignored him. “Want a smoke?”

“Hell, no!” the General said as he ripped the joint from Ziggy’s grasp and crushed it out on the floor. “Snap out of it — we’re under attack. Men, board up the doors and windows with anything you can find.”

“Attack?” asked the suddenly severely paranoid and positively stoned Ziggy. “Like, by who, man?”

“By them damn chupacabras,” Private Zulu said as he tried to move a heavy armoire in front of a window that had been shot out during the firefight. Ziggy looked at the haunting werewolf on the television screen and gulped.

The city noise leaked through the windows the same way the smog did. Cesar paced back and forth in the informal command post. He hadn’t heard from Barquero in hours. It made him nervous. The Padre was in Monterrey. He was close. If he slipped away again, it was over. He would disappear, but his drug dealing and killing wouldn’t. The phone rang. Cesar picked it up.

“Good.” Cesar hung up the phone. “I’ve got him. What are you doing? Sleeping?” He smacked Avery across the head.

“No.” Avery rubbed his ear. “I’m simply reciting pi backward from its one-thousandth digit. It helps me to relax and concentrate. If someone isn’t hitting me!” he yelled. “Thanks for not helping.” Avery looked back at his keyboard. “I’m almost there.”

“Never mind that — my contact has found him.”

“Where?”

“At a warehouse. Here.” Cesar pointed to a spot on a map pinned to the wall.

“I doubt that. I’ve…”

“Shut up, we’re moving out. Sergeant, alert the team!”

“Really, you should listen to me…”

“Sergeant, I mean now!” Avery shrugged, and packed up his equipment and followed Cesar to the ground transportation.

In a sedan along a crowded highway, a man with a dark suit, wide-brimmed hat, and Roman priest’s collar talked on a cell phone. From inside his suit coat pocket, he took out a small silver case and removed a thin cigar. He lit it.

“Yes, I understand,” he said as he exhaled a ring of smoke and hung up the phone.

“Move, move, move…” Cesar exhorted his men. “We leave now!” Avery dragged himself into the dark SUV with another half dozen heavily armed troops dressed in black.

“Anyone have anything to eat?” Avery asked. A Mexican Army Special Forces operator next to him pulled out his pistol, stared at Avery, and chambered a round. “Why do you carry a forty-five?” Avery asked.

“Because they don’t make a forty-six,” the man with a ragged scar on his face responded with a cold grin as he pulled a black ski mask over his head.

“Going skiing?”

“We cover our faces. We can’t let them know who we are,” the special operator replied. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together.

“That’s really delightful,” Avery said in disgust as he looked out the window as the city passed by. It was a hard city, but anyone could tell it once was a seat of power. The old combined with the new to create a strange mix of architecture. Twenty minutes later, they reached their destination. Cesar led his armed men as they fanned out around the warehouse. They took up concealed positions in buildings around their target. From the rooftops, snipers scanned the area. Meanwhile, Avery continued to work on his laptop.

“Colonel, I think we may be in the wrong place.”

“My contact was very specific. This is the location,” Cesar replied.

“Colonel Beltrán, come in, over,” a voice came from Cesar’s radio. He picked it up.

“What is it?”

“I’ve got a visual on a car approaching the warehouse.”

“I see it,” Cesar said. “All units hold until I give the go. Be sure to watch for a large Mexican national dressed in civilian clothes. He’s with us, over.” The car pulled up in front of the warehouse. A man dressed in black got out. “Is he wearing a priest’s collar?” Cesar asked into his radio.

“Affirmative,” came back a reply.

“Good, that’s our target. Stay on him, over.” The man in black took a key from his suit pocket and entered the warehouse as his ride pulled away. “Let the car go,” Cesar said. “Stay with the target. All units prepare to go in. I want him alive if possible. Take up breaching positions. Go now!” Cesar and his men moved quickly from their concealed locations around the building. Two of his men stood beside the main door. “Breach it now!” Cesar commanded. One of the men pointed a shotgun at the hinges of the door. Two quick blasts roared out. The door fell away as the second man threw a concussion grenade into the building. A deafening roar was followed by a procession of Cesar’s men into the warehouse.

“Stay down! Stay down!” the first soldier through the door yelled at a figure prone on the concrete floor. Using zip ties, the soldiers restrained the stunned man. Cesar used a flashlight to illuminate the man’s face. The man just laughed. It wasn’t the Padre. In the back of the warehouse, Barquero quietly made his exit.

“Who was the man?” the Padre’s driver asked as the armored limousine cruised out of Monterrey.

“Just someone who owed me a debt,” the Padre replied as he lit a cigar. “It was his misfortune that he happened to look like me. Vaguely.”

“It must have been quite a large debt.”

“Yes, but the alternative was for him to die. He’ll spend some time in jail, but I’ll pay his family something, and, most importantly for him, he gets to stay alive.”

“ Plata o plomo ?”

“Yes,” the Padre chuckled. “Silver or lead. It’s always an easy choice. Take me to the meeting.”

Avery hunched over his laptop. A half-empty can of Mountain Dew rested within easy reach. He took a swig and continued to work.

“Colonel.”

“Yes.” Cesar seethed with anger over losing his mark for the second time.

“Was the Padre involved in any major construction projects that you are aware of?”

“He has many different businesses under his control. He mainly uses them for laundering drug proceeds. It’s possible that one of them is involved in construction. Why?”

“Well,” Avery said, “there are a number of files here regarding the construction of a facility outside Monterrey. He’s been arranging major deliveries of equipment and supplies.”

“What kind of equipment?”

“Heavy equipment, including excavation and drilling machines and lots of chemicals, too. Looks like all the transactions were in cash.”

“There’s no way it’s legitimate.”

“There’s also the purchase of an abandoned building nine months ago.”

“Do you have the exact location?”

“Of course I do,” Avery said in disgust. “Do you think I’m stupid?” Avery scratched the stained armpits of his dirty yellow tracksuit.