stood closed at the end of the hall, and the men listened intently for any hint of movement behind it. Briones nodded from his position, and they threw it wide.
“Nooo. Please. Don’t hurt me!” a female voice screamed, terrified and very young. The officers moved through the room and the sergeant motioned to the girl to stand up. She did, shivering from fear, wearing only panties and a T-shirt, and followed their directions to stand against the side wall. It was obvious that she wasn’t carrying any concealed weapons, so she wasn’t a threat.
Her eyes darted to the bed. Briones froze, and then pointed to the king-sized mattress. The sergeant motioned to two of the men, who fixed it with their assault rifles, and then he spoke softly.
“We know you’re under the bed. Slide any weapons out and show yourself, or in three seconds we’ll use it for target practice, and you won’t survive. One...two...”
A Glock 19 slid from under the bed, and then a man’s muffled voice followed. “I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.”
“Crawl out face down. Once you’re out from under the bed, put your hands behind your back and lie on your stomach. Now, or you’re dead.”
A man slid slowly from beneath the bed and did as instructed, lying face down while an officer cuffed him.
“Turn him over,” the sergeant instructed, and when the officer complied, a frigid smile crossed his face.
“Well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn’t our friend El Gato. Hiding under his teenage puta’s bed. Very nice,” he said.
The drug lord glared at him hatefully. “You’re brave men when I have cuffs on and you can hide behind your helmets, eh? I bet you’re praying I don’t learn your names,” he growled.
“Coming from a man who was whimpering under the bed, the irony isn’t lost on me,” the sergeant responded, then gestured to his men to pick El Gato up. “Make sure this shitbird doesn’t hit his head on anything on the way to the lockup van. I want to make sure he’s in perfect health to answer for killing the officers outside. Now get him out of here.”
Two muscular policemen in full assault gear lifted El Gato to his feet and dragged him down the hall. Briones watched them without comment, and then keyed his helmet mike. Cruz’s voice came over the channel.
“We got El Gato. Everyone but his girlfriend is dead.”
“That’s good news. He’s the most important. What about casualties?”
“We’re checking now. It’s hard to tell until all the smoke clears. I’d say we lost eight, maybe nine men, and have at least four more wounded. They’ll probably make it. But this was ugly. I’m...I’m sorry, sir. They had some sort of early warning system that surveillance didn’t spot. Motion detectors is my guess. They cut us down before we could find cover. I should have been more cautious,” Briones spat.
“It’s always easy after an assault to find fault with your actions in the heat of battle. Don’t beat yourself up. You took the objective, captured El Gato, and eradicated a key player in the Sinaloa cartel’s power structure. I’d say that’s a good day’s work,” Cruz said.
“Not for the dead men, it isn’t.”
“Everyone knows the risks going in. Sometimes we take casualties. Sometimes they do. That’s the job,” Cruz reminded him.
“Their wives and children aren’t going to be reassured by that.”
“I know. Get me a list of the names. I’ll make the calls myself.”
Briones nodded silently as the crime scene technicians stepped around the bodies and began photographing the devastation. He had no doubt that the dead cartel gunmen would be replaced by the weekend, if not sooner. And nothing would change except the names and faces. Drugs would still flow like water, and guns and money would work their way into the cartels’ hands, to be used against men like himself, who were trying to make the country safer. A thankless job that seemed pointless on nights like this one.
Chapter 4
Jean-Claude Bouchard peered at his watch with annoyance and lit another cigarette with a thin gold lighter that had been in his family for generations. His refined features spoke to an aristocratic heritage, as did the insouciant way he sucked greedily on the Gitanes and then blew smoke at the ceiling, as if disgusted with it even as the tendrils left his lips.
He should have been asleep at this late hour, or at the very least, been rolling around with one of the young German lasses that he