Chapter 19 - CheckmateMateo Cortez was locked inside his private safe room—a reinforced steel cube buried in the center of the villa.
He was frantically pounding on the keypad of a satellite phone, his hands slick with sweat.
"Answer, damn you, answer!" Cortez hissed, listening to the dialing tone.
Finally, a voice clicked on the line. It was the head of the Sinaloa cartel, the man who pulled Cortez's strings.
"El Jefe," Cortez pleaded. "I need an extraction team. The American is here. He’s inside the compound. He wiped out the mercenaries. I need a chopper, now!"
"Mateo," the cartel boss said. His voice wasn't angry. It was terrifyingly calm. "Thirty minutes ago, the DEA raided our primary distribution hubs in Texas and California. They had our ledgers. They had our routing numbers. The American gave them everything."
"I... I can fix this," Cortez stammered, his eyes darting toward the heavy steel door of his safe room.
"No, Mateo. You cannot fix this. You brought a ghost to our doorstep over a petty real estate dispute. You are a liability. I am not sending a helicopter. I am sending you my prayers."
The line went dead.
Cortez stared at the phone in sheer disbelief. He was abandoned. The empire he had built on blood and terror had evaporated in less than a week.
BOOM.
The heavy steel door of the safe room shuddered violently.
Cortez shrieked, dropping the phone and snatching a gold-plated Desert Eagle from his desk. He aimed it at the door, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold the heavy weapon.
BOOM.
A shaped breaching charge blew the hinges completely off the frame. The heavy steel door crashed inward, filling the safe room with thick, gray smoke.
I stepped through the smoke, my tactical armor covered in the white dust of shattered plaster. My thermal goggles were pushed up onto my helmet. I looked Mateo Cortez directly in the eyes.
"Stay back!" Cortez screamed, pulling the trigger on the heavy handgun.
The gunshot was deafening inside the small metal room. The bullet struck the ballistic trauma plate in the center of my chest. It felt like being kicked by a mule, knocking the wind out of my lungs and staggering me backward.
But the armor held.
Cortez tried to fire again, but I was already moving. I stepped inside his guard, grabbing his wrist and twisting it violently outward. The bone snapped with a sickening crack, and the gold-plated gun clattered to the floor.
I drove my knee into his stomach, dropping the cartel boss to his knees, gasping for air.
I didn't draw my gun. I looked down at him.
"I told you," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I told you I would kill everyone who knows how to hold a gun."
"Please..." Cortez sobbed, clutching his shattered wrist. "Take the money... take the territory... I will disappear. You will never see me again."
"You're right about that," I replied.
I drew my pistol, aimed at his chest, and pulled the trigger twice.
Mateo Cortez slumped backward against the wall, his eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling of the steel box he had built to protect himself.
The king was dead. The empire was ashes.
I tapped my earpiece. "Echo-Actual. The target is neutralized. The board is clear."
May you like
"Copy that, sir," Echo's voice crackled in my ear, filled with a deep sense of relief. "Extraction bird is inbound. ETA, three minutes."
I turned my back on the dead cartel boss and walked out into the Mexican sun. The Ghost was done. It was time to go home.
