Chapter 16 - The SicarioVeracruz, Mexico. 48 Hours Later.
Mateo Cortez paced like a caged tiger in the war room of his heavily fortified compound.
The massive estate was surrounded by twelve-foot concrete walls, topped with razor wire, and guarded by fifty of his most lethal sicarios. It was a fortress. But after losing his Chicago hub and his Miami treasury in less than three days, Cortez no longer felt safe behind his own walls.
"Fifty million dollars," Cortez whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of pure rage and absolute terror. He slammed his fist onto the heavy wooden table. "One man! One retired mechanic did this to us!"
His chief of security, a cold-eyed killer named Hector, stood by the window.
"He is not a mechanic, Patron," Hector said grimly. "The federals have a name for men like him. Los Borrados. The Erased Ones. He is black-ops. He operates without rules, without borders, and without mercy."
"I don't care what they call him!" Cortez roared, overturning a chair. "I want his head on a spike! Find his daughter! We break him by breaking her!"
"We can't," Hector replied smoothly. "Our contacts in Washington say the girl was moved to a Level-5 black site. It’s off the grid. Unbreachable."
Cortez sank into his leather chair, the color draining from his face. "So... we sit here and wait for him to come for us?"
"No," Hector said. He stepped away from the window, pulling a thick envelope from his tactical vest. "If we cannot find his family, we must hit him with something he cannot predict. I reached out to a private military contractor in Bogotá. Former special forces. They don't fear ghosts, because they hunt them for a living."
Hector tossed the envelope onto the table. Glossy photographs spilled out, showing heavily armed mercenaries executing precision raids in the jungles of Colombia.
"I hired their lead tracker," Hector continued. "A man known only as The Bloodhound. He arrives in one hour. If Pendelton crosses the border into Mexico, The Bloodhound will find him before he even gets within fifty miles of this compound."
Cortez stared at the photos, a sick, desperate smile slowly creeping onto his face. "Pay him whatever he wants. Tell him I want Pendelton alive. I want to look him in the eyes when I cut his throat."
Outside the compound, the Mexican sun beat down on the dusty desert road.
Three hundred yards away, buried under a camouflaged netting of sand and dead brush, I adjusted the magnification on my spotting scope.
I had been in position for fourteen hours. My breathing was slow. My heart rate was a steady forty-five beats per minute. The heat didn't bother me. The thirst didn't bother me.
Through the lens, I watched the heavy steel gates of the compound swing open to allow a black armored SUV inside.
The mercenaries had arrived.
I lowered the spotting scope and picked up the suppressed .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle resting on a bipod in the dirt. It fired a round large enough to punch through an engine block.
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Mateo Cortez thought he was hiring hunters to track a ghost.
He didn't realize the ghost was already in his front yard, holding the trigger.
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