He tried not to panic and slammed the car into reverse. The smoke billowed from the spinning tires and the bitter stench of burned rubber came in through the dash vents.
He swung around to check the rear was clear and that was when he saw the third man, standing in the center of the road. He was tooled up with a Mossberg 590A1 pump-action shotgun and the sun flashed off his sunglasses as he took aim at the Nissan.
Then the rear window shattered into a million pieces as a devastating hail of tungsten buckshot drilled into the rear of the Japanese sedan. A hot air chaser rushed into the car on the tail of the flying shot and Viktor felt his panic rise. Heart rate up, sweating and vaguely dizzy now.
He skidded to a halt, not knowing what to do. They had blocked both ways out, but he had no time to think. Several more blasts followed and he felt the car listing over to one side as the air rushed from his tires. He was going nowhere.
Then they approached his car and opened the door like they owned it. He guessed they did.
Pointing the barrel of a shotgun in his face, the woman spoke.
“Get out.”
Viktor shifted out of the car and stared at her. “What do you want?”
“I am Aurora Soto,” she said. “I want everything.”
For a few seconds, Viktor Sobotka forgot to breathe. He watched the woman glance at his trembling hands. She grinned at him.
“What do you want?” Viktor blurted again. He glanced at his wrist and then snapped open the stainless steel band of his Omega. “You want this? It’s not even worth a thousand dollars.”
This time the man at Aurora’s side replied for her, and his response came in the form of a sharp and unambiguous backhand slap across the scientist’s face. As his glasses spun into the desert air, Viktor crumpled to the blacktop like an empty suit. He was shocked by the sudden escalation of the situation… by such violence. He was sixty, and yet he had never been struck in the face before. He had no idea how much it could hurt as the pain seared through his bruised cheekbone and flooded over the side of his head. The taste of blood filled his mouth and ran over his gums and teeth like coppery wine.
A moment later, Aurora leaned over him. “Forgive Garza. He can get carried away sometimes. But some advice — if you want to stay alive then you will learn to keep your mouth shut until I tell you to speak. Understand?”
Viktor nodded that he understood, and reached out for his glasses. Before he got to them the other man crushed them under his boot heel and ground the lenses into the gravel until they were no more than splinters.
“And Delgado here has a unique sense of humor. I suggest you don’t antagonize him.”
Garza laughed, and then Aurora ordered them to take Viktor into the Vandura.
They drove east, and Viktor grew more nervous when he began to recognize the bends and twists of the road. Were they taking him home? He got his answer when they pulled up and the door swung open to reveal his family’s house. His stomach turned over. His wife was in there… and maybe his daughter too. Not good.
They dragged him up the garden path and kicked the door open. His wife screamed when she saw her battered husband.
Aurora turned to Garza and Delgado — two former cartel men with their own disturbing backgrounds — and spoke quickly. “Make sure there’s no one around.”
“On it.”
“And see to it that we’re not disturbed by that thing,” she said, pointing at the phone.
Garza ripped the cable out of the wall and tossed the phone on the floorboards where it landed with a plastic smack. Delgado chuckled and stamped on the phone. It smashed into a dozen pieces.
Aurora watched Garza for a moment. She didn’t like the way he was looking at Alena Sobotka, but returned to the business at hand. She moved in close to the scientist’s sweaty face and held an oily switchblade against his throat. “Any other cell phones?”
Sweat trickled down Viktor’s panicky face as he nodded at his terrified wife and told her it would be all right.
“Aww, cute,” Aurora said as Alena reached into her bag to get her phone. Before she could get her hand inside to reach it, Garza snatched it from her and tipped it upside down.
The contents spilled out over the floor, clattering on the floorboards and rolling under the couch. Her spare glasses tumbled out of the case and landed with a gentle smack on the wood. There, in the center of everything was Alena Sobotka’s cell phone.
Garza grinned and picked it up, making sure to crunch her glasses under his boots as he went.
“Tie them up,” Aurora told the men.
Aurora watched the routine without emotion. Truth was, all her years in the cartels had numbed her to suffering… at least the suffering of others. When Silvio Mendoza had brought las serpientes, or the snakes, back together one last time to assist the Texan it didn’t take much persuasion to get her on board, especially when she saw the size of Mr Wade’s generous offer of cold, hard cash.
Now she watched with dead eyes as Garza put his hand up Mrs Sobotka’s skirt and made Delgado laugh. Viktor Sobotka screamed at them to stop but his protest earned him a swift and hard punch in the stomach. As he tried to wheeze the air back into his lungs, Delgado jammed a greasy kitchen cloth into his mouth to silence further objections.
“Leave her,” Aurora ordered Garza.
The younger man gave her a look of hatred but deferred to the boss. There were few mutinies in cartels like las serpientes — questioning the chain of command was never a good idea. The punishment for insurrections was usually death, and not an easy one. Like Mendoza, Aurora Soto had lived and breathed in a lawless world since she was a young child, and she knew the rules better than anyone. Garza would do as he was told.
And he did.
When Garza pulled back from the sobbing Mrs Sobotka, Aurora ordered Delgado to remove the gag from Viktor.
“You bastards!” the Czech man screamed.
Another heavy punch in the ribs from Delgado and a cracking sound.
Viktor screamed as the pain from the broken rib radiated through his torso.
Aurora yawned and stepped over to Viktor once again. She squatted on her haunches so they were face to face and then she ordered Delgado to pull the scientist’s head back by his hair.
Viktor gasped and stared at his torturers with bulging, fear-stricken eyes.
“Everyone in this world is a bastard, Viktor.”
“What do you want?!”
“Money and power, Viktor. Money and power. When a person has these things they can run through the fingers like water. If that happens, they must be taken back.”
Alena Sobotka flinched as Garza began to run his sweaty fingers through her hair.
“I am a scientist! You’ve seen my house — how much money and power do you think I have?”
Their tormentors laughed.
“I know you have nothing, Viktor — nothing except one little thing.”
Aurora pushed the tip of the switchblade against Viktor’s temple. Its sharp point punctured the skin and a bubble of red blood emerged from the surface. It ran down the bottom half of the blade before hitting the finger guard and dropping down onto the shiny floorboards.
Viktor shot a look of knowing panic at his wife. “I don’t understand.”
Aurora noticed the exchange and grinned. “I think you do… mi amigo. Today we go north to Los Alamos.”
Viktor shook his head. “Never!”
“The drums of war are beating, Viktor. When I close my eyes I hear them clearly. I hear the Lacandon Jungle — the wind in the trees, the call of the toucans and see the hummingbirds as they fly in and out of my dreams… but above it all the drums of war are beating loud, amigo.” She paused for a moment and studied her captive’s terrified face. “You will give me what I want or I will kill your wife.”