" - Might already be compromised as a new recruit for the vamps." Rider spat on the floor and shook his head.
Big Mike shook his head. "Rider, I know you gotta clear your sinuses, as a nose, but can you give the compound floor a rest?"
"No, Rider," Damali said with conviction, ignoring Big Mike's comment. "I don't think Dan's compromised, not yet. I didn't sense that from him. We can't keep anybody truly safe, though, unless we get to the root of it. And that's my point. I say the sooner we get to New Orleans, the better. If we clean out the lair, then the concert won't be a problem. If we miss in New Orleans and get back home safely, then the concert gives us another run at them. Plus, agreeing to do the concert could make them think we have no clue about a possible lair in New Orleans. Is everybody following me?"
When a series of disgruntled replies followed her questioning, Damali folded her arms. "The sooner we start flushing the nest, the better. If the choice is mine, then let's do this."
When still no one answered, she let her breath out hard. "I'm going to get dressed, and while it's still daylight, I'm going to try to head off Carlos. I promise to take Madame Isis with me, and I'll be back way before dusk - if I can't find him, I'll have to just live with that."
Again, none of the team challenged her when she left the room, and she made it down the hall with a thousand thoughts on her mind. If it was going to be bad, so be it. Bring it.
* * *
The mountains north of Beverly Hills were always his favorite place to think. It was where wealth and its owners secluded themselves and did their unseen little deeds. The temperature even dropped here, and darkness was a cloak. Trees stood like giant pillars. Crickets and other things of the night made their own music.
He'd gone everywhere, and threatened every council, and had probably brought a war upon himself. But his weapons remained unfired. Carlos looked into the blackness as he sat alone in the northern hills listening to the night. A double-barrel shotgun leaned on the floor and on the gear shaft beside him, and an AK-47 nestled in the passenger seat like his favorite sweetheart after a night out on the town. He held his custom-made, silver-plated magnum in one hand and the steering wheel ot his black Lexus sedan with the other. He would drop a body tonight or be damned.
The Asians had been traditionally gracious, as expected, and even offered to professionally assist him - of course his hundred-thousand-dollar bounty helped raise their pledge to help in his search. They understood the situation was a matter of honor; that was their way. Their territories didn't encroach - they moved he**in and women, he moved everything else. What had happened was bad for everyone's business. It was a cool truce; all wanted it kept that way - better for business. Small bills, one briefcase. Easy money for info to turn over a few bodies - the law of the jungle, done for lesser offenses, albeit smaller payouts. Let the bounty and the punishment fit the crime.
He'd told them all that, with each day that passed now that the offer was made, the bounty figure would decrease by ten grand. Expediency was, therefore, in everyone's best interest. The Russians had shrugged, and he'd almost taken one of them out. Their blase demeanor had been disrespectful - then he'd reconsidered it, since that was their style ... besides, a lower henchman was not worth jail time. He needed to be on the outside to exact his revenge. The Italians, Dominicans, Jamaicans, and the brothers, all had the same response - for a hundred Gs, they'd do the Pope. So, he waited - without a weapon fired. This would take time.
He thought of sending a message the old-fashioned way. Just flat blast a few establishments his competitors owned. Take out several lower levels and wait like bait for the fight to come to him. But he needed to get to the dons to tell them what was interrupting business at the lower levels, rather than have his message diluted by a level below them. That had been the message. He wanted a meeting. This situation warranted a breach in protocol. He had a right to come before them to state his case. Someone had done his brother and his inner circle. Someone would pay.
Carlos breathed out slowly and watched his breath turn to steam in the frigid night air within the car. Patience was not his virtue. It never had been. But shrewdness had argued with him as he sat calming himself in the quiet. Money - the root of all evil - always turned evidence and he knew how to grow a tree from it.
"Yes, Alejandro ... I pledge to avenge your death." He closed his eyes and let the sound of his own voice echo back to him. They didn't just take his brother's life. They'd mutilated him.
Carlos thought over the options. A shootout would not only send the slime scattering and into hiding, it would also create new vendettas against him, clouding the issue, making the perpetrators harder to find. Word was already on the street that he was looking for those who'd committed the unpardonable sin of killing his family - and he'd bankrolled the hunt, very publicly, within the circles of those who needed to know. He just wanted to see the look in the man's eyes who had done this, and had ordered it. His bounty would have to draw out the offenders to his brother's honor. Then he would hunt them down, and give them a slow death.
He sat with the plan, frustrated, shivering from the cold and hatred, but blanketing himself with the satisfaction of the horrific tortures he'd visit upon the ones that would be finally given up. He'd unearth them, and make them know that there were things worse than death. His cell phone rang and he let his lips curl into a cold half smile. The digital display showed the code he had given to the hunters in order to collect their bounty.
Chapter Fifteen
"Speak to me," he murmured in the darkness.
"We have your man - a meeting is in order."
"You will be handsomely rewarded."
"We'll bring him to the designated place we discussed in the northern mountains - bring the money."
Carlos smiled again. God was hearing his prayer. Something had led him to sit here in the darkness where he often came to think and wait.
"You know the location. Keep him alive until I get there, or the bounty will be cut in half. I want to look into a dead man's eyes."
* * *
Driving deeper into a more secluded area of the mountains, Carlos turned his sedan off the winding, single-lane road and his wheels connected with orange clay, bumping the vehicle chassis as he drove further into the new section of woods. Following the rows of taillights that slipped beyond the tall pines and redwoods, he felt another transition as his wheels sank and moved against dark, moist earth.
Yes, this was a perfect place to finish a kill. He loved the woods, even more so than the beach, for it offered the cloistered environment of secrecy ... it was where wolves hunted and the true force of nature could be felt.
His every nerve ending was on fire; anticipation made him lick his lips. He breathed in the forest, allowing the scent of pines, raw earth, and broken blades of grass to enter his nose - along with a hint of sulfur.
Carlos narrowed his gaze at the semicircle of black sedans. Pure rage made his hands tremble as he gripped the wheel. Sulfur. If they already did his kill, there would be a price. He glanced at his AK-47, and the thought of taking them all out in a spray of bullets made him breathe faster. If they did his kill ...
All senses painfully heightened, he watched the configuration, studied the ritual. Five black Mercedes sedans had come to a stop first, dousing their lights. A long black stretch Mercedes limo made the sixth vehicle. Carlos eyed his shotgun, wishing he'd brought something with a heat-seeker mount. If this was a setup, his magnum and the automatic could get him back to the car. He was the last one in, so he could be the first one out - and the shotgun could take out a pursuing driver, blow an engine, ignite a gas line - maybe enough to blow and flip the first vehicle if it gave chase, blocking the others behind it. So he waited, to see what package they'd brought, then turned off his headlights.
Slowly, one by one, the doors of the sedans opened, and he watched through his black tinted windows, using only the quarter moon as light. An eerie mist seemed to exit the cars with the passengers. One bodyguard got out of each driver's seat, and each went to the backs of their cars to open a door for a higher-ranking boss. Cool. They had brought the upper levels. He stared at them intently, and began recognizing faces he knew. But he waited.