Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) Read online

  The Butcher tiptoed down the hall, his rubber-soled boots silent. He saw an open door on his right. He quietly sheathed the sword so that he didn’t enter the room with it extended before him, which would have provided early warning to his entry and allowed someone the possibility to grab the blade if they passed on shooting him.

  He gripped his Uzi and slowly pulled it up to his shoulder, creeping through the door, his body lowered and his split-toe ninja boots providing not a sound on the tiled floor. The room looked devastated. Glass fragments littered the floor. Wood splinters, concrete chunks, and scattered papers added to the mayhem.

  An officer lay near the window in a wide pool of blood, an M-16 lying under him. Standing behind him, bent over and choking on the gas, stood another male police officer. The man’s left arm rested on his knee, supporting his horizontal upper body, while his right hand furiously dug and wiped at his burning eyes.

  The room was otherwise empty and the Butcher switched instantly from stalking hunter to ferocious predator. He let the Uzi fall back to the side of his leg and grabbed the sword sheath with his left hand, gripping the katana handle with his right. He expertly removed it in less than half a second and shot forward, his ninja boots now making a lot of noise on the glass shards as he sprinted forward.

  The officer looked up at the noise, but could barely see anything through his burning eyes.

  The Butcher grasped the sword in a powerful two-hand hold and scrambled the final few feet. Before the officer could react, he plunged the sword into his side with a straight thrust, burying it to the hilt. The sword burst out the man’s side and the officer shrieked in pain. The Butcher drove his shoulder into the man’s shoulder and stopped suddenly, yanking back on the sword to free it from the man’s body.

  Blood gushed down the blade’s shaft and streamed from the sword guard above the grip. The Butcher hadn’t picked up many of the peaceful aspects of all the martial arts that he’d studied, but he had learned part of the philosophy: living in the moment. And as the blood spread across the tiles in a growing puddle below the sword, the Butcher took it all in, living in the moment and seeing everything, just as he had been trained.

  His sword hadn’t moved since he had withdrawn it from the officer, and the Butcher watched the blood on his blade slow from a steady stream to a fast drip. Pounding footsteps racing down the hall broke him from his trance.

  Someone was running toward him.

  The Butcher slithered away from the draining body and pool of blood toward the wall behind him, just inside of the door. He waited behind the door, his sword held over his head.

  “Eduardo!” a man screamed, before coughing and sliding to a halt atop of some debris at the door. “Eduardo, are you okay?”

  The man entered the room, cautious now, a Glock 9 mm pistol stretched before him. He wore a T-shirt wrapped around his mouth and nose, but his eyes looked red and painful.

  The Butcher admired the man’s resourcefulness in wrapping a shirt around his mouth and nose and chalked up the man’s ability to respond so quickly to this one small improvisation. But the man looked functional enough to fight and as the officer turned his sight from the empty side of the room to the corner to his left that he should have cleared, the Butcher struck.

  He stepped forward, dropped his entire body weight six inches, and swung the sword with all his might down from its maximum height to the floor. The blade raced downward in a practiced and powerful arc and hit the man behind the pistol across both arms, roughly where the elbows were.

  The forged steel katana cut through the man’s left arm at the elbow, after deflecting off a bone in his upper arm, while on the right arm it cut two inches deep and shattered bone in the forearm before stopping. Both men watched the left forearm hang for a moment because of its grip on the pistol, before falling to the floor. Blood burst out of the man’s severed arm.

  The officer knew he was badly injured, but couldn’t believe his left arm had been sheared off. After all, it didn’t even hurt, while the right arm throbbed in pain.

  The Butcher stepped from behind the door, aimed the sword’s blade to the rear, and drove the handle into the man’s face. It crashed just below his eye and fragmented bone as if it were a pool cue. The cop screamed in pain. As he toppled backward into the hall, he realized that his left arm was definitely gone and his right arm couldn’t even hold the pistol, which had clanged to the floor.

  He kept screaming as he fell hard back in the hallway. He was completely defenseless now, a dead man still breathing, but he tried to use his one remaining hand to help him to his feet.

  “No!” he screamed, upright now in the sitting position. But the Butcher was rushing forward with blinding speed. He swung the sword to the rear, almost as if it were a baseball bat, and then swung as hard as he could at the man’s neck, fully intending to behead the man -- a feat he knew to be possible since he’d done it to the guard at the ground floor of Flores’s office.

  But his foot slid on glass and blood and he failed to gain enough torque, so the blade cut through the side of the man’s neck and stopped after it hit the spine. The blow to the spine sent a spasm of pain throughout the man’s body and effectively ended all muscular control. The officer smashed to the ground, hitting his head on the wall on the way down.

  Blood gushed from the officer’s neck and arms and the Butcher knew the man would bleed out in thirty seconds at most. Firing began off in the distance, at least a quarter of a mile from the police department headquarters, but the Butcher didn’t worry. He’d stationed men to ambush any police officers who responded to the attack. They should be able to easily stop any officers responding.

  The Butcher heard movement down the hall and turned to see the cluster of officers, who he’d seen earlier, were bringing up weapons and aiming in his direction. He had totally forgotten about them once he had entered the room earlier. He’d gotten so caught up in the slaughter that he’d lost his situational awareness and hadn’t even noticed that he had moved into the open hallway.

  But now, the officers down the hall were yelling with strained voices and bringing their weapons to bear. They couldn’t see shit with the thick gas burning their eyes, but the Butcher didn’t kid himself. They had automatic weapons and would be firing down a narrow hallway. Even poorly aimed bullets would ricochet and continue down the hallway in a deadly vortex.

  Too little time remained for the Butcher to turn and dart back into the room, so he released the sword with his right hand and kept it under control with his left. He then used his right hand to grab the Uzi and stretch it out to the right as he dove for the ground. He shoulder-rolled and fired off a long burst of fire down the hall as he tumbled lightly across the tiled floor.

  All of these actions -- from changing his primary weapon from sword to Uzi, to diving to the ground -- were smooth, agile, and graceful. They were the kind of actions that result from thousands of hours of practice, and the Butcher had indeed put that much time into his craft. Even on dives, rolls, and falls. What ninja didn’t?

  The Butcher had additionally created his own form of modern-day kata, practicing transitions from wielding his sword to grabbing up his slung Uzi, something his predecessors in the 1600s hadn’t had to worry about.

  The Butcher had spent thousands of hours mastering his craft, and he’d perfected nearly every part of the technical aspect of martial arts. He could kick, strike, and flip with the best of them.

  He’d picked up practically every skill of the martial arts except for the most important one: the concept of peacefulness.

  The Butcher’s Uzi was firing before he landed softly on the bloody and debris-littered floor. His Uzi kicked and sputtered out a hail of bullets down the hallway. Most missed, but the ricochets and snapping of bullets striking within mere feet of their intended target forced the officers to likewise dive for safety.

  The Butcher’s men yelled to him from outside the building.

  “Lider! Lider!”

  “
Leader, leader,” he heard over the sound of returning gunfire.

  The Butcher turned toward them, still on the ground. He knew they wouldn’t yell for him unless it was important, so he pushed his Uzi out in front of him and with the sword still in his left hand, he began to crawl toward them.

  “Cover me,” he said through his gasmask.

  Two of the Butcher’s men appeared just inside the doorway and they lay a withering fire down the hall through the smoke. It was heavy, long-rifle fire from their AK’s and the sound drowned out even the Butcher’s ability to think. The roar of the firing and the accuracy of their shots provided the Butcher with the cover he needed.

  He crawled within ten feet of the doors and then ripped off the uncomfortable gas mask. It hindered his ability to breath and obstructed his peripheral vision. He threw it to the ground and slid the final distance to the door.

  “The army is coming,” one of his men said.

  The Butcher needed no further urging. He jumped to his feet, re-sheathed his sword, and yelled to his men, “Finish it.”

  His man said something into the radio and more than a dozen of the Butcher’s gunmen came running toward the entrance. They quickly donned gas masks, organized themselves, and redistributed ammunition and grenades. Then with a nod from one of their leaders, they lobbed a frag grenade down the hall, waited for it to explode, and followed the screams of pain and panic into the building.

  The Butcher heard the muffled yells of his men, and the screams of wounded police officers as his killers worked their way methodically through the building, room by room, grenades first, then half a magazine into some unfortunate soul.

  The Butcher ordered his remaining men outside the building to collect the wounded and dead and turn their convoy around. While his men finished their assault, the vehicles pulled up by the door.

  Once all the officers were killed, they collected the M-16s from the officers and several cases of ammo, quickly loading them into the vehicles. The Butcher watched his men as they worked together, while also coordinating their security, watching sectors, windows, and roads.

  This was it. This, these finely trained killers, were the secret to Flores and the Godesto Cartel’s power, as well as the answer to how Flores’s cartel had climbed to the heights of power among other cartels. How it had ascended above all others and secured agreements in which each of its “peers” respected it, feared it, and paid tribute to it.

  Flores, under the Butcher’s leadership, had thirty-plus stone-cold killers. Well, a few less after this vicious attack, but there were more men raring to join the ranks for the increased pay and prestige. There always would be.

  And these men truly were stone cold killers. Men who could kill unarmed men who had done no wrong or committed no crime.

  Other cartels had plenty of muscle. Men who’d defend their leaders or burn a building down or stand tall in a gunfight if their backs were to the wall. But outright murder for no reason other than just orders? Most cartels only had one or two men that demented and sick in the head.

  Flores had two dozen. Or, at least he used to, the Butcher thought, as several lifeless bodies were tossed into the backs of trucks. These rare killers were the Butcher’s men now, and they would strike when the Butcher told them to, not when Flores ordered. After all, he had nearly convinced them that the old man was past his prime and too conservative.

  “Mount up,” the Butcher yelled. “We stay close together and we fight our way out of anything that gets in our way. We’re not leaving anyone behind or playing any ‘every man for himself’ bullshit. If the Army gets in our way, we either dodge them or go through them. Now, let’s go.”

  The Butcher jumped into the backseat of the lead SUV, reloaded his Uzi, and sat back. Then he noticed blood from the officers he had hacked and stabbed, thickly staining the front of his shirt. And as the vehicles raced out of the city of Coyutla, the Butcher ran his fingers through the blood of his enemies and he licked it off his fingers.

  It was a taste he never grew tired of.

  Chapter 20

  Dwayne Marcus looked as shocked as Nick Woods felt.

  Isabella had grabbed Nick and Marcus for a leadership-only meeting earlier and shown them a local news station report that she had recorded.

  With the two leaders of S3 in the room, she hit play and watched a busty newscaster in a low-cut dress begin speaking with a graphic over her shoulder that said “cartel.” The newscaster stopped speaking and the camera switched from her to an amateur video.

  The video showed a bandana-wearing man in the back of some kind of SUV. He began speaking and Nick and Marcus couldn’t pick up the Spanish.

  “What’s he saying?” Nick asked impatiently.

  Isabella translated for them. “‘We are the Vigilantes and this is our second operation, against the evil Hernan Flores and the Godesto Cartel. These officers of this district are all corrupt and they will die for their crimes against Mexico.’”

  Nick looked at Marcus.

  “I know this isn’t possible, but just to be sure, we didn’t have an operation happen that I didn’t know of, did we?”

  “Of course not,” Marcus said. He looked offended.

  They watched as the video -- uncut and unedited by the news station -- showed parts of a vicious firefight against a police station.

  “Is it true?” Nick asked. “We need to find out from the police or someone in government if this actually happened.”

  Isabella nodded. “I’m on it.”

  “Oh,” Nick said, “and gather the Primary Strike Team in a room with a TV and get this set up to play.”

  Isabella nodded, and Nick noticed her hips as she walked off, despite trying not to. He turned quickly and refocused his attention on Marcus.

  Forty minutes later, the Primary Strike Team was assembled and watching the video, with Nick and Marcus standing behind them. The nearly identical look of “the Vigilantes,” as well as the brutality of the strike on the police station, had shocked the team members just as it had shocked Nick and Marcus. Unfortunately, they looked precisely as the members of S3 had looked in their first video. Whoever put the video together had made sure their men looked the same, recorded the video in the same style, the whole nine yards. And the worst thing was that nearly every news station in the country was playing the video of “the Vigilantes” assaulting the police station in Coyutla.

  “Is this true?” asked Lizard, who looked scared. “Did it really happen?”

  Isabella assured him that it did.

  Nick knew the background to Isabella’s answer; he had personally followed up with her. On the one hand, he’d wanted to confirm the information. But more than just that, he had wanted to see Isabella again. Watching her walk off had awakened something in him that he hadn’t thought much of since Anne’s death.

  Nick had tracked her down and found her scribbling down some notes on a legal pad. He had stood closer to her than he had ever been. He had liked how nervous and alive he felt standing that close to her, and he had listened, as detached as he could manage, when she looked up and explained that she had supervised an outboard call from their Mexican contact. She stated in a voice that seemed a bit nervous that she had let him borrow one of the sophisticated CIA-issued phones that were supposedly impossible to track or trace. Isabella relayed to Nick that the Mexican contact’s superiors were furious because they believed that Nick’s group had conducted the police-department raid -- the video tape looked that authentic.

  Nick had enjoyed -- a little too much -- looking into Isabella’s big, brown eyes as she made her report and he had strained to keep his face stern and uncaring. The news truly was bad, and yet standing next to her, it all just didn’t seem to matter as much as it had literally ten minutes earlier. Nick had managed to finish the conversation with a curt nod and nary a word.

  Suddenly, Nick came back to the present and realized that Isabella and the rest of the team were looking at him and that his mind had drifted from th
e task at hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I’ve got something I’m working over in my mind. Marcus, would you take care of this?”

  Marcus moved through the group and stood in front of the TV.

  “Our Mexican counterparts,” Marcus said, “have confirmed that this raid did in fact happen. They’re confirming the body count and making sure no officers, who were on duty at the time, were abducted instead of just killed.”

  Marcus was in what Nick called his drill instructor stance. His legs were spread shoulder-length apart, his fingers clasped together in front of him at stomach height. Nick had never met anyone with such 24/7 bearing, and Nick knew he was lucky to have such a man helping command this group of talented killers that comprised Shield, Safeguard, and Shelter. The men were so skilled and experienced that it was easy to be intimidated by the task of trying to set the example and not look a total fool.

  Truck, with his shaved head, big arms, and slight gut, was nursing a beer, but he cleared his throat and said, “Nobody ever said those sons of bitches weren’t smart.”

  Nick knew he had to keep an eye on Truck and his drinking, but alcohol was just something that went with being a killer. You usually turned to alcohol, like Truck, or seclusion, like Nick, or faith, like Preacher. Preacher was sitting off to the side and had been visibly angry during the video footage of the bloody and wrecked police station. Preacher hated bullies, and the assault on the police headquarters had been an entirely one-sided affair with heavily armed assailants on one side and barely trained, mostly pistol-armed cops on the other.

  “Fuck it,” Red said, starting to stand. “Smart or not, I’m ready to tangle with these assholes. You got a target we can go out and hit?”

  Marcus shook his head “no,” and Red sat back again.

  Nick loved the cocky, smallest member of their Primary Strike Team. And he appreciated the fact that Red was sitting on a couch next to the biggest, most intimidating member of the team: the giant powerlifter Bulldog.