Team Barcelona scaled the rear wall, near the area where the first wave had gone over three hours earlier. Once inside the hacienda grounds, they pivoted to the right, climbed through the wooden fence of the corral, moved behind an old stable of rotten wood, picking their footfalls carefully to keep from stumbling over the stone and lumber and refuse.
Team Carmen breached the hacienda to the east, landed inside the grounds behind the willow trees near the pond. They moved around to the side and then to the front of the building, directed their attention and their progress towards the old stone and wood barn from where they heard an internal combustion engine desperately trying to internally combust.
Within minutes Barcelona had arrived at the trellis that ran along the eastern side of the patio. They checked in by radio with Antonio and found them in position to the west of the casa grande. This team had sent one of its men towards the freestanding chapel near the house to investigate a light that could be seen through cracks in the old stone.
Seven minutes after breaching the wall, three teams of four men were ready to hit the hacienda’s defenders simultaneously from three positions.
Court rubbed his eyes again. Started to look down to his watch.
A shout from the other side of the house. A man—Martin?
The crack of a rifle.
Gentry’s discipline allowed him to keep his position and to watch the trees and the driveway in front of him.
Only the tips of the pine trees swayed. There was no more movement on this side of the house.
Damn, damn, damn. All his training told him to hold his ground, not to turn, to trust his plan and his fortifications and his fellow defenders to each stay responsible for his or her field of fire.
If Martin’s sector was attacked, Ramses and Laura would be on either side, they could see what was going on, and they could respond much better than he, here on the opposite end of the building.
Trust them. Don’t leave your post. Just trust your plan.
Another shot. And then a full automatic burst from a submachine gun.
Gentry focused his worry, turned it to a concentrated stare into the dark before him.
Nothing. No movement, no attack. Nothing at all.
Trust your plan, Court.
More gunfire, more shouting behind him.
Trust your plan, Court!
An explosion. A flash-bang grenade detonating inside the house on the second floor.
Shit! Trust your plan, Court!
Then Laura Gamboa’s voice. A shout.
A scream.
Fuck the plan.
Court Gentry rose to his knees, leapt to his feet, hefted the heavy shotgun in his right hand, and he turned and ran back into the house as fast as he could, leaving his post behind.
Only by pure dumb luck did he see the first assassin. Court ran into the dark living room along the western wall; the archway to the kitchen was just ahead and on his left, on his right the archway to the formal dining room. He’d planned on shooting past this room to hit the stairs to make his way to the landing and Laura’s position down the hall.
But there in the dark, not ten feet ahead in his path, the black tip of a weapon’s barrel appeared from the dining room. Gentry reacted in a single bound, let his feet fly out ahead of him, and he dropped to the cold stone tile like a ballplayer sliding into home plate. He slid on past the dining room’s archway on his right side, his long shotgun barrel up high towards the threat. As he slid into the archway, he saw the sicario in the dark; the man had obviously heard a noise, but he had not yet lowered his weapon towards its source.
Court pressed his shotgun’s muzzle into the marine’s belt buckle as Court stopped there on the ground, pulled one of the triggers, and pumped nine.33-caliber rounds into and through the man’s midsection, nearly ripping him in two and sending him flying backwards through the air behind the echoing boom and short, wide flame. His shredded body landed flat on the dining room table. There it bucked and spasmed as the electrical current from his central nervous system trickled out to his dying muscles.
Gentry rolled up to his knees before the man even came to rest on the table. He had not seen which way the sicario’s weapon had flown, and he did not want to waste time searching for it in the darkness, so he got back up and ran on, reloading the smoking barrel of his big gun as he reached the staircase.
He ascended three steps in a bound.
More firing, from two locations now. At the top of the stairs he turned right, heard an incredible blast ahead in a room off the hallway. Through smoke and dust and darkness, he saw Laura Gamboa backing up quickly from the master bedroom. Her pistol was out in front of her, but Court could plainly see it had locked open after firing its last round.
Court shouldered up to her, she stumbled backwards towards him in the hallway, and he caught her before she fell to the ground. At first he worried that she’d been shot, but then he recognized the telltale effects of a concussion grenade. Her pupils were dilated, and she wobbled wildly on her knees. “How many?” He asked. Her body was small but sinewy and muscular; he helped her regain a standing position.
She recovered a little and looked at him. “I don’t know. Marinos. They just appeared in the hallway!”
“They are in the house?”
“¡Sí! They are everywhere!”
Court grabbed Laura roughly by the arm, turned, and ran back up the hall, away from the mirador and towards the eastern part of the house, running past the landing overlooking the darkened living room.
Gunfire in the near distance did not stop Ignacio Gamboa from making one last adjustment to the carburetor. Neither did the tears fogging his vision and streaming down his face. By the light of a single red candle positioned on the engine, he finished his final turn of the screw. He shut the hood seconds later, staggered around towards the open passenger door, and pulled the half-empty bottle of clear anejo tequila off the rusted roof of the old Dodge truck.
He took a long, gulping swig.
Cracks and snaps and pops of weapons of differing calibers grew in frequency back behind him in the casa grande as the battle intensified.
Ignacio spun, threw the tequila bottle across the barn; it slammed against the stone wall and shattered into wet crystalline shards. He then climbed behind the wheel of the old Dodge and reached for the key. With a single turn the truck fired; the engine coughed and missed here and there, but the engine’s power was strong enough and constant enough to trust the vehicle.
Ignacio put his head in his hands and cried.
He had known for the last hour, all along while he worked, that he would get the truck started, he would get behind the wheel, he would put the transmission into drive, and he would drive the fuck out of here and leave everyone behind.
His parents, his sister, his nephew.
His brother’s unborn son.
Nothing he could do could possibly save them. And this was the only way to save himself.
He turned on the headlights.
No one survived a death warrant by the Black Suits. Staying with his family would be suicide, and suicide required a strength Ignacio Gamboa knew well he did not possess. He was not his little brother Eduardo, valiantly fighting his enemies and always providing for his family and friends.
And he was not his little sister, Lorita, giving of herself and relying on her faith.
No, Ignacio Gamboa had neither the gift of valor nor the gift of faith. He was just a man, just a weak man, and he was scared.