“What the hell is that godawful smell?” Fire Team Leader Bravo asked.
“Nasty,” Private Zulu said as he wiped black sludge off his fatigues. Looking around, he noticed he wasn’t the only one covered in the foul-smelling muck.
“Oh, hell no,” Fire Team Leader Charlie said, looking at the brackish mess on the remaining walls of the building. He wished he’d worn his chemical warfare suit. “I think we hit a sewer line.”
“Retreat!” the General cried as he and his men fought their way over and on top of each other to reach what little remained of the door.
“I’m covered in poo!” Private Tango screamed as he ripped off his disgusting fatigues.
“In the mouth! In the mouth!” Private Foxtrot whimpered as he spit several times on the ground before tearing off his uniform as well. Soon, the entire STRAC-BOM brigade was stripped down to their underwear and sitting on the hard ground around what little was left of the wooden building, sulking in the defeat of Operation Gold Miner.
“I think I lost your lighter back in there,” Private Foxtrot said meekly to Fire Team Leader Alpha.
“Don’t worry about it. I can get a new one from my boss back at the dealership.”
“Thanks, Fire Team Leader. Hey, what’s that coming from over there?” The men of STRAC-BOM waited patiently as a U.S. Customs and Border Protection SUV pulled up to their position. The exhausted men, including the General, sitting in their skivvies, hung their heads as the Border Patrol agents exited their vehicle.
“Well, one good thing,” Private Zulu whispered to Private Tango as the agents approached. “At least we won’t end up in one of those Mexican federales prisons.”
“Yeah, but how bad could them Mexican prisons really be?” Private Tango held his hands out to be cuffed.
• • •
The prison was ancient. Dirty white walls topped with concertina wire were crumbling in places. Although the building was originally designed to house eight hundred inmates, the guards in the towers that ringed the open central yard now policed almost three times that many. Inside, the prison was dilapidated and filthy. Cells designed for two or three prisoners held seven or eight. Toilets overflowed, and cockroaches climbed the dank cell walls. HIV and venereal disease were rampant, and almost no medical care was available. Some days the prisoners were fed, some days they weren’t. Many of the inmates had not even been convicted of a crime, only accused or suspected of one. It could take over a year to get a trial in Mexico, and, unlike in the United States, the accused were considered guilty until proven innocent. It was like living in a nightmare with no way to wake up.
It was a vile, violent, and hellish experience, except for one wing of the building. In there, a few wealthy drug lords lived in relative comfort. They had large unlocked cells filled with their personal furniture and belongings. All had beds with thick mattresses and freshly laundered sheets. Televisions, cell phones, and billiard tables were commonplace, as were alcohol and drugs. Some had their families brought in to live with them; others paid for women and the sexual companionship they brought. The prison guards were not allowed in this wing unless requested by the tenants and only then if they were available. The facility was understaffed even for its original capacity. Guards worked shifts of twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off. Many slept while on duty.
Despite the relative comfort a few select inmates enjoyed, on balance, most prisoners judged their day on whether they had survived it. Homemade knives and shivs constructed of spare pieces of sharpened metal or glass with cloth or taped handles were common, as were toothbrush handles that had been melted down and had razor blades embedded in them. The guards didn’t bother confiscating the weapons until after they had been used to slash or stab a victim to death. Rival gangs held bitter grudges against one another. Murders and assaults were daily events. Rival gangs and cartels were segregated, but large fights, some more like full-scale riots, occurred from time to time. The prison officials did little to stop them until both sides had tired of killing for the day. It was less dangerous for the guards than actually attempting to break them up in progress. The inmates truly ran the asylum.
By far the most inhospitable and feared section of the facility was the zona de olvido. It meant the “forgotten zone.” It was the most secure location in the prison. It was located on the top floor of one of the cellblocks. It was kept pitch black during the day. Inmates were locked in windowless nine- by thirteen-foot cells containing only a raised concrete bed, a shower, and an open hole for a toilet. Prisoners were mandated to only stay in this solitary confinement for no more than a few weeks at a time. Most of the prisoners in the “forgotten zone” had been there for much longer, many for years. El Carnicero, “The Butcher,” had been there the longest of them all.
The Butcher had been an orphan. He’d been the leader of a gang of child bandits in Monterrey when the Padre found him. The Padre raised him like a son, a violent killer of a son. He was barely fourteen when he was given the name “Carnicero.” He earned it by assassinating more than thirty of the Padre’s rivals. His killing style was brutal. He had no compassion, no mercy. No one ever expected that the innocent-looking child selling Chiclets or begging for spare change would be the last person they were ever going to meet. No one expected that he would be the person to cut their throat and pull their tongue out, hanging it down in front of them like some kind of perverse, bloody necktie. By the time he reached his late twenties, no one really knew how many people he had killed, including him. Sometimes when a number gets too big, people just stop counting. He was one of the Padre’s chief lieutenants and confidants. The Padre treated him like a son. Then one day, everything changed. The Padre ordered the Butcher to kill a local newspaper reporter who had been critical of a local politician who seemed to turn his back on drug-related crimes. The politician was on the Padre’s payroll. The reporter had to be silenced. The Padre wanted to send a message. Not only would the reporter die, but his wife and young son were to die as well. Carnicero found the couple at home one morning. Their son was not with them. Before they died, Carnicero forced the boy’s mother to tell him where he was. He was on his way to school. The bus had just left. After killing the reporter and his wife, Carnicero found the bus and forced it to pull over. First, he shot the driver. He didn’t know what the reporter’s son looked like, so he killed every last child on the bus, even the young girls. The deaths of nine innocent school children shocked all of Mexico. Even the President of Mexico took a stand and expressed his outrage. Mexican police and military units were brought in from around the country. Carnicero had to be stopped, and the President of Mexico wanted him alive. The President was going to use him as an example of how the war against the cartels was being won. The Padre couldn’t protect Carnicero with all of the pressure from law enforcement and the government, and the hunt for his adopted son was destroying his drug business. People stayed as far away from the Padre as possible. The Padre wanted Carnicero to give himself up. If he did, the Padre could protect him. Yes, he’d go to prison, but it would be more than comfortable during his stay while the Padre worked to get him released. Carnicero refused. He wouldn’t just walk into a cell. He was going to run, and he did. For more than three months, with all of Mexico looking for him, he evaded capture. The President of Mexico put a hundred and fifty million–peso reward on his head, more than ten million U.S. dollars, twice the largest price ever. Someone finally took the bait and led the authorities to Carnicero’s location. Twelve police and military personnel were gunned down before he was apprehended, and it would have been more if the Butcher hadn’t run out of ammunition. His incarceration was headline news for over two weeks in Mexico and made the front pages as far away as Japan. Unfortunately for the informant, he wouldn’t collect. The Padre found out who he was and had him killed. The man’s body was dissolved in a barrel of chemicals. The Padre could buy just about anyone or anything, but he couldn’t save Carnicero. Not after what had happened on that school bus. He had to go to jail, and for the last two years, that was where he had been. In the zona de olvido.