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- Herausgeber: Craig Rainey Creative, LLC
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Carson Brand is a tough guy in his world. The Cartel traps him in a new world where his experience may not be enough.
Stolen Valor opens a door to the reality behind the daily news headlines, presenting a shocking view of a dark world that exists next door to our homes and schools.
In this fast-paced crime action thriller, Carson Brand and his best friend Bert cross the Mexican border for a night out. Brand doesn’t know about his friend’s secret association with organized crime. He also doesn’t know this will be his last night with Bert. Brand is pursued by murderous Sicarios, sought by federal and state authorities, and seduced then betrayed by the lovely Christina.
Read the first book in the brand new Carson Brand series and learn why readers are adding it to their favorite crime action reading lists.
Reviews of Stolen Valor, A Carson Brand Novel.
- The author paints vivid scenes…He sheds light on drug trafficking and human trafficking…which the average person doesn’t encounter daily. The exceptional editing adds to the book’s quality. Stolen Valor deserves a rating of 4 out of 4 stars because it is a gripping and eye-opening read.
- An impressively violent adventure that moves at a quick pace – Kirkus Reviews
- Wow! Great first book in a series I will follow! – Reader Review
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Copyright © 2019 by Craig Rainey Creative, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Craig Rainey/Craig Rainey Creative, LLC
Austin, Texas
https://stolenvalornovel.com
https://craigrainey.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Artwork by CreativeParamita.com
Stolen Valor/ Craig Rainey. -- 1st ed.
ISBN: 978-1-7339867-0-0
OTHER CARSON BRAND NOVELS
DARK MOTIVE
REASONABLE SIN
SOVEREIGN RULE
NATIONS LAW
ALSO BY CRAIG RAINEY
MASSACRE AT AGUA CALIENTE
THE ART OF PROFESSIONAL SALES
HOODOO WAR
Reviews
“The author paints vivid scenes…He sheds light on drug trafficking and human trafficking…which the average person doesn’t encounter daily. The exceptional editing adds to the book’s quality. Stolen Valor deserves a rating of 4 out of 4 stars because it is a gripping and eye-opening read. I will recommend it…to lovers of crime stories, and lovers of psychological thrillers. I rate it 4 out of 4 stars.”
- OnLineBookClub.org
“An impressively violent adventure that moves at a quick pace.”
-Kirkus reviews
“Wow! Great first book in a series I will follow!”
-Reader Review
For Mom and Dad. It is your love and guidance which I still treasure and am proud to have received.
Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
― ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Reviews
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Bert’s Tale of Booze
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Acknowledgements
When one decides to pursue as personal an endeavor as writing a novel, the process impacts nearly everyone around you. That which defined you before is slow to change, no matter how ardently you crave redefinition. An author’s first book is remarkable but not as impressive as the second. One of my favorite books, The Writer’s Art, by James J. Kilpatrick, contains a reference which I revisit frequently to remind myself of who I am and what I want to become. ‘Someone who writes a book is an Author. Someone who writes several books is a writer.’ A writer I must be.
As I wrote at the start of this page, this process impacts nearly everyone around you. Because of that imposition I must apologize to all those dear people I love and who love me in return. I apologize for monopolizing conversations with my uncontrolled excitement for those most recently written pages of my latest book. I am sorry for the confusion which ensued when I expected to be thought a serious writer, although my body of work did not support my desire. I heartily apologize to my dear Alexandra, who was integral to my process as a sounding board for ideas, and guinea pig to my prose.
I must thank those same people for their support and advice. My mother and father, who showed excitement for my passion to write - even those awkward stories written from the singularly innocent perspective of a child.
To my brother Jimmy, who asked the obvious question no one else would ask: Why hadn’t I done this all my life?
Thank you, Charlie, who took time from his political non-fiction to placate a brother’s ego.
Thank you to my sister Tracey who has always been strong in her beliefs and from whom I re-earned a treasured trust.
Thank you, Clan Valhalla, for your support and interest in all things Craig Rainey.
To Karen, my first fan who never let me quit, thank you for your faith and devotion.
My deepest thanks go to my love Alexandra. If it hadn’t been for you, I would never have finished Massacre atAgua Caliente. If it hadn’t been for you, I would not have found the ability to follow the writer’s path.
Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to tell you my story. Your time is of value, and I am grateful you are investing it in me.
I thank God, above all, for the gifts he bestowed upon me at birth, among which writing seems to be a part.
CRAIG RAINEY
Prologue
Juarez was known as the kidnapping/murder capital of Mexico for many years before the Cartel took over the country’s politics, commerce and economy. The years that followed advanced the violence to a frantic pace.
The citizens of the large city were poor, offering little to obtain from which the Cartel could profit. Drugs, stolen goods, and cash were far from the only source of profit for the Cartel.
Pablo Rojas had ascended to his position as head of the Cartel through a powerful combination of cunning and ruthlessness. Both traits were respected and feared within his organization.
The newspapers and TV anchors referred to him as Cabeza de la Serpiento, Head of the Snake. He disliked the term from the first. The name was never uttered by anyone within his organization after the hangings in Nueva Laredo. The hangings represented the ruthlessness in his formula for success.
He considered Juarez, like all cities on the Mexican/American border, a working farm from which he harvested, but never had to plant or maintain. The crops he sowed grew naturally and readily like a weed or invasive grass. In decades past, the harvest was only a supplement to the considerable profits the organization realized from a thriving drug trade.
The dominance of Human Trafficking and White Slavery within the Cartel wasn’t prevalent because of the pressures of an escalating War on Drugs. The seizures of product and personnel represented a quantifiable cost of doing business. He ran the operation as any large corporation might, accounting for adverse environmental and process conditions. Human Trafficking moved to prominence in his business model due to the growing number of states moving towards the legalization of Marijuana. Profits shrank with the lessening demand.
Beautiful girls would never be regulated nor legalized in any state or country. The demand, particularly in the United States, was immense. His farms were closer to the marketplace than his drug suppliers. His was a perfect world of supply and demand.
Selection and distribution of young girls was handled on a case-by-case basis. The harvest was targeted and specific to a very exacting definition of the type of girl the market demanded.
The large number of kidnappings and murders in Juarez consisted of a diverse demographic within which the organization easily hid a comparatively small number of abductions of young girls. The disappearances were included in the general tally by law enforcement and news organizations. A small number of special interest groups and involved citizens railed against the kidnappings. Their warning of the prevalence of enslaving young girls was a weak message largely ignored by the news editors and the news station managers. The newspapers rarely gave his Trafficking activities more than an upper right-hand column in the Editorials.
Three dark trucks choked the few people who were outside their houses with a thick cloud of dust. Inside the lead vehicle, Elias Uriegas relaxed against the passenger seat. He was a thin man with a thick mustache. His bucked teeth were yellow stained with stripes of brown from snuff and chewing tobacco. He rarely spit, preferring to swallow the juices.
Tonight was another pick-up and delivery. He was paid handsomely for his work. Years of providing the finest product had raised his pricing to the highest amongst his contemporaries. His success was chiefly due to his preparation. He had a nine-man team. All of them were in the trucks behind his. They were scouts, acquisition fronts and harvesters. Elias grinned, baring his dull striped teeth. The boss liked to call the worst jobs in the organization by neat, harmless titles.
His “Scouts” were those who wandered the streets looking for suitable girls. The scouting process could take up to three years depending upon the age of the prospect (another Rojas term). Elias kept the names and locations of the girls on a note pad. Computers and the internet were too vulnerable to be trusted with the damning information.
The men who Rojas called “Acquisition Fronts” were the most attractive and appeared the most innocent amongst his crew. They got close to the girls, learning about the girls’ habits and home life. The information was critical to the success of the harvest.
The “Harvest” was a quick and violent snatch and go.
The three trucks and the nine men sped towards the city where they would harvest the next crop.
Nina, Maria and Christina leaned against the chain link fence outside of Christina’s small home in Juarez. She drew circles with her toe in the dirt along the inside of the fence. Nina and Maria stood outside the fence. The sun had only just dropped below the dusty horizon, but Christina felt prickles of alarm, causing her a growing anxiety. Everyone knew it was unwise for teenage girls to remain outside their homes after dark. It had been several weeks since the last kidnapping, but the danger was no less real.
“Come inside, meja,” her father called from within the small house. The front door was open, the screen door guarded against the clouds of flies. The soft glow of the living room lamp and the flicker of the TV comforted her.
“Si, papa,” she called back to him.
“You are such a good girl,” Maria chided her.
They giggled at the dig.
Nina lifted her head to listen. The sounds of the night seemed to have changed. The others paused, watching her with puzzled expressions.
“You too?” Maria asked Nina.
“Listen,” Nina said, lifting a hand.
The two girls canted their heads to listen for what Nina claimed she heard. Gradually the other two heard a growing din of noise as yet unidentifiable.
“What is that?” Maria asked no one in particular.
The intersection nearby glowed with the light of approaching automobiles. The sound became the clearly defined noise of gravel under tires and the roar of engines. Three trucks heaved into view, sliding as they turned onto the street.
The girls were frozen in place, fear rooting them to the ground.
The stories were familiar. The three trucks were the specters of every girl’s nightmare. Their nightmare was approaching terrifyingly quickly.
Maria and Nina turned to run as the trucks slid to a stop before Christina’s house. The doors flung open, and men spilled from the trucks, giving chase after the two girls.
Christina ran across the yard and up the stairs. She yanked the screen door open violently. She ran into the house where her father sat.
“Papa, Papa! Ayudame, Papa!”
Papa stood from his chair before the TV.
The screen door burst open and a short but powerfully built youth entered the room. He carried a black revolver in his right hand. Papa moved forward, pulling Christina behind him. The young man strode directly before Papa and bashed him across the face with the big pistol. Papa went down with a groan. The thug kicked Papa and grabbed Christina.
Christina screamed and clawed at the iron grip. The man pocketed the pistol and covered her mouth with a strong sweaty hand. He dragged her out past the broken screen door and to the trucks where several men waited with Nina. As he brought Christina through the gate, three men returned to the trucks, Maria struggling with her captors. The girls were bound with large plastic slip ties, their mouths sealed with duct tape, and dropped into the bed of the first truck.
Elias grinned his filthy smile as he looked over the girls. He nodded at Christina. She was singularly beautiful. Elias grabbed her ass as he leaned towards her over the side of the truck.
“Time to ride the Vaca Train, Meja.”
The men hurried to the trucks. Soon the little house on the dusty street in Juarez was quiet once more.
Chapter 1
A thick blue smoke cloud fogged the dark bar. A popular country tune twanged an empathetic broken-hearted message from the corner jukebox. Carson Brand sipped bourbon rocks from a heavy high ball glass. His thoughts rankled him. He was troubled by his strong doubts of Natalie, his girlfriend of eight months. His brow furrowed in anger as he studied the drink before him. He was convinced Natalie was cheating on him.
Like a strong wind driving dry leaves before it, a looming danger scattered his troubled thoughts. A sense of impending violence provided him a strange relief from the painful images in his mind - Natalie lying in ecstasy beneath another man. He looked up in alarm.
Normally, any diversion from his dark suspicions would have been a welcome interruption. The danger of the moment, however, was a diversion as dire as his jealous doubts.
His gaze moved left towards the ominous presence which had roused him from his quiet thoughts. He didn’t want trouble, but here it was.
He felt a grim surprise he registered no internal alarm at the impending threat before him. He realized, with habitual practicality, that his reluctance to fight was more related to the five dollars he had recently sacrificed to the merry glow of the digital juke box, than the threat of imminent danger descending upon him.
He was well into his favorite part of his daily ritual: getting to the bottom of the first of three bourbons: a hard and fast after-work therapy. The haze of an infant buzz had just begun to weave a dull screen through which life would soon appear pleasant and full of possibility.
“Fourth of the one-thirty-third, huh?”
A bearded man stood just outside of foot range. His tattooed, logger-size arms were crossed over an airborne T-shirt which struggled to hide a barrel chest and lean washboard stomach.
He referred to the Texas Army National Guard unit with which Brand had served years before.
Brand did not immediately react. Sometimes one paid for friendly intentions. In bar life, one thing led to another thing, and the last thing was Brand making a friendly connection with a military brother at the bar.
“Last time I checked, that was a weekend warrior F.A. battalion.”
Airborne pointed a thick accusing finger at Brand.
“You were never in Falusia, because they were never in Falusia.”
The oaf was right. His former National Guard field artillery battalion had never seen any service in the desert. The forbidding heat of Fort Hood for two weeks every summer was no picnic, but it wasn’t life threatening if you observed proper heat discipline.
Resigned to the inevitable looming conflict, Brand drained his drink. Ice fell rebelliously onto his upper lip. A small cold stream escaped his chin and darkened his shirt.
Karen, the dark-haired bartender, watched the developing situation dubiously. Brand glanced at her to gauge how far he could go without the police intervening.
Karen was a veteran of countless bar conflicts and seemed nonplussed thus far. He smiled weakly at her. She was more than his bartender. She was his friend and a former lover. She had placed him firmly into the friend zone once she had learned he was married at the time they dated. He was no longer married, but he remained in the friend zone, nonetheless.
Karen was one of the few blondes who colored their hair brunette. He had only known her with dark hair. Blonde was the hair color of her old life. This new chapter was likely as dark as the hair change.
Mr. Muscles was growing impatient with Brand’s wool-gathering.
“You’d best come out of it, Mr. Nasty Guard.”
Brand returned his glass to the moist coaster, embossed with a colorful beer logo. He wiped the ice trail from his chin with a disapproving frown. He considered the indignant big man impassively.
The unavoidable conflict to come had little to do with the insult of the exaggerated claims of his military service. The underlying cause of this confrontation was the large breasts and gym-honed curves of the dusky brunette at the end of the bar.
Her name was Gwen. She was a real estate broker with a big national firm. She drove a Saab and lived in a million-dollar house in the hill country. She had arrived early for her date by more than two hours. She had spent most of that time downing dirty Martinis and putting Brand in his place.
The latter was recompense for his loitering gaze and friendly small talk. In his experience, beautiful women displayed their interest through deprecating comments, delivered in the context of helpful advice regarding the hopelessness of winning their favor.
His philanderer buddy, Bert, had an opening line that never failed. Women like Gwen were his favorite quarry. He began with an hypothesis:
‘Is it fair that when a woman has many sexual partners, she is considered a slut, but when a man has many partners, he is considered a stud?’
No matter the answer, he invariably followed the first question with an unlikely challenge. He would say in a low conspiratorial tone, ‘When I tell you why, you will agree it is not only true, but completely fair.’
Invariably, his challenge was accepted, and his prediction of their agreement summarily rejected.
In Brand’s opinion, Bert was halfway there merely being given the time to work the angle. He had successfully made it to the “chair.”
Bert would explain to the skeptical woman a man’s nature is to meet women. If he is not good at it, he has a faulty Approach Mechanism. A woman’s nature is to reject the man. How the man handles the rejection determines whether he is an appropriate mate or not. If a large number of men get through the screening process, she is said to have a faulty Filtering Mechanism.
Mr. Muscles shifted his weight, frustrated with Brand’s delayed reaction to the danger he represented.
Brand understood the reasoning behind the theory, but he suspected the line only worked if delivered with proper skill. Brand had never been much of a lady’s man. Drunken Gwen was just hot enough he had given the method a try. The line got her attention but failed to impress her in the payoff. Luckily – maybe that was not the right word – she found Brand attractive enough to flirt with him in return.
Brand’s eyes brightened as his thoughts returned to the angry bigger man.
“Let’s get down to what is really bothering you, big boy. Your girl chatted me up before you got here. From what I gather, she is the brains of the operation. She is also, apparently, pretty proud of how much of a woman she is.”
Brand raised his voice a fraction to include Karen.
“I’m gonna need another in just a minute, sugar.”
Karen moved forward cautiously and collected his glass. He nodded his thanks and continued his thought.
“You are backing a losing cause. I was minutes away from hitting that in the parking lot when you arrived. I’m having girlfriend problems of my own, so she caught me in a weakened state.”
Mr. Muscles lowered his huge arms. He flexed his hands as his rage grew. He was big, at least six-five. He likely lived in the gym. He was former military, confirmed by their earlier conversation, his taking offense at Brand’s boast of military combat service, and the Airborne T-shirt.
Although Mr. Muscles was a formidable adversary, Brand felt pity for him. The poor guy had arrived to his date a doomed man. Drunk Gwen was past her Filtering stage and was well into the next. Brand wasn’t sure how Bert would characterize the metamorphosis, but he saw it as the phase where rejected hot girl sic’s intimidating boyfriend on guy with faulty Approach Mechanism.
The inevitability of the battle to come galvanized Brand in his reaction to the threat. There was no point taking this thing sitting down.
Brand stood to his full six feet and faced the behemoth. He was in good shape for a regular guy who ate what he wanted and drank frequently. He was thick in the right places and his arms and legs were sturdy from a lifetime of outdoor labor. His dark blue eyes reflected a menace the bigger man innately recognized.
“This is about to go bad for you,” Brand said calmly. His tone belied the rage growing within him in reaction to the confident aggression of the bigger man.
He glanced at Karen with a look meant to assuage her rising sense of alarm. Her expression assured him she was not assuaged. He looked at the big man once more.
“Being a big guy has kept you out of fights. Most guys don’t like to tangle with six-foot-five assholes.”
Brand felt a familiar heat rising deep within him. His anger at Natalie’s likely indiscretions, coupled with the threat of violence, narrowed his eyes and stiffened his back. He awaited the hum of adrenalin which always led to the next stage, a release deep within him which blossomed into the freedom of full, unbridled fury.
Although his passions mounted, his voice remained even.
“I’ve got bigger problems than you right now. Why don’t you go back to your girl and your drink while you can.”
He pointed mildly towards Gwen and the nearby empty seat.
The giant made no move to retreat.
Brand was near the point where he would no longer be able to resist the growing desire for conflict. With his remaining calm near its end, he tried to reason with the big man.
“As I said, you are a big guy and that has gotten you out of a lot of trouble. If you were a smaller man, I would feel guilty about stomping a mud hole in your ass. If you keep annoying me, I am going to whip your ass right in front of that slutty girlfriend of yours.”
Brand watched the giant’s eyes. He saw the dullness of fear and doubt cloud them. Mr. Muscles had never been faced down before. This was unfamiliar ground for him.
Brand’s lips tightened into a disapproving tight line. He watched fear grip the bigger man. He clearly saw the man’s mind working to understand this new approach to backing down from a fight. Unexplainably, the brute’s growing doubt drew a deeper anger from Brand.
Mr. Muscles experienced a troubling quandary at this uncharacteristic reaction to his aggression. He had been in this position many times. The expected flurry of retractions, apologies and calls to reason were not being used here. This smaller man was, in fact, skipping the part where he hurled impotent threats and promises of violence intended to bluff his way out of the fight. He was moving with unflinching purpose towards the physical conflict phase at a tempo the big man had never before experienced.
Brand recognized a growing reluctance in the bigger man. He worked to master the rising wave building within him. He felt genuine pity for the man. Gwen was getting what she wanted, but at the cost of a good man’s pride. The pity, however, was not enough to halt his headlong descent into violent rage.
With a visible effort, Brand relaxed his body language, though not enough for his stand-down to be perceived as fear.
“Go back to your girlfriend,” he muttered dismissively. “I’ll buy you a drink for the exaggeration about my military record.”
Brand sat again, dismissing the giant. Karen placed a fresh drink before him, watching Mr. Muscles suspiciously.
The big man stayed in place for a long moment, unsure how to proceed. Finally, he moved slowly behind Brand and back to the end of the horseshoe-shaped bar where Gwen glowered at him silently, eyes blazing.
“This isn’t over,” Karen confided in a low voice.
“Maybe,” Brand replied, sipping his drink. He struggled to master the surplus energy of his untapped rage.
The couple at the end of the bar argued in hushed but urgent tones. Brand knew she was excoriating him for his cowardice. Mr. Muscles was likely trying to explain away his retreat with a combination of reasonable assertions for avoiding trouble, and swaggering boasts of how the smaller guy wasn’t worth his time and effort.
Gwen wasn’t buying it – not one bit.
Karen served Mr. Muscles the drink and gestured across the bar towards Brand, crediting him with the purchase.
Mr. Muscles looked at the drink. All the while his girlfriend poured poison into his ear. Finally, her goading took hold.
He slammed both fists on the bar and threw the drink onto the stained floor. Glass exploded, and amber liquor splashed on his boots. He left his chair at a sprint. He lowered his shoulders in a wild and woolly move to tackle Brand.
Brand saw this immediately. He rose, grabbing his sturdy wooden and steel bar chair. He threw it at the attacker’s feet.
Mr. Muscles’ boots tangled in the heavy falling chair. He grabbed the stout wooden trim at the edge of the bar, trying to catch himself. His head rose as he struggled to right himself.
Brand hammered a right into the middle of his straining visage. The crack of his breaking nose sounded like a pool cue broken over a knee. Brand followed the blow with a left to the side of his head, just behind the ear.
The giant landed on his battered face, out cold.
Brand waited in surprise. The behind-the-ear shot had been lucky. He fought by the credo ‘hit hard and hit often.’ His military training, albeit on weekends and two weeks each summer, had included handgun training. In shooting, it was called a double tap. Never trust a single shot – or blow. The lucky finishing punch was a last resort as his target fell out of range.
Karen looked directly at Brand with a helpless expression.
“I’m calling the police…guy who I have never seen before.”
She went to the phone and dialed 911 as Brand dashed out the front doors.
Chapter 2
His name was Christopher, and he was not enjoying the heat. His journey home from school was a daily pilgrimage which ended in the dark cool sanctuary of his small bedroom. Within those hallowed walls lay a wonderful portal to a world in which he was the lone master.
His rule was law and his digital subjects saw clearly the flawless hero which he knew slept deep within him in the real world. This, yet unseen personal attribute was, to him, a character trait he concealed from those unworthy critics at school and on the playground.
His castle was a thin computer screen, aglow in his dark bedroom. His kingdom was a digital video game world in which anyone could be anything. He viewed the long walk from the school to his home as a daily penance, for which he suffered the heat and the humiliation of passivity.
His slow shambling steps lifted in an increasing but reluctant tempo. The thought of his awaiting fantasy world beckoned. He wiped his moist brow with the back of his hand. He dried the hand on his baggy jeans. The heat was thick and clinging like a barber’s towel. His white button-down was dark with broad stains, and moist with sweat beneath the shoulder slings of his heavy backpack.
Despite his discomfort, Chris smiled at the boyhood memory of his parents’ favorite method for escaping the relentless summer heat. He and his sister Lea would walk with Mama and Papa, enduring the baking Sun. Slowly they would make their way to Garcia’s Grocery.
The small family would enter as any legitimate customer might. Mama and Papa would feign interest in the specials and weekly advertised sales. Pulling a basket from the racked carts, they would stroll the cool aisles, occasionally selecting an item from the shelves, dropping it in the basket. The cool air was soothing, and their visits were long.
He and his sister always stayed close and quiet. Running and playing upon the cool vinyl floor tiles was not tolerated. Christopher learned early to be inconspicuous in order to maintain the comfort of anonymity.
His long walk to and from school had included no nearby grocery store to offer him respite from the early summer heat. Instead, he trudged wearily upon the graduated segments of scorching sidewalk. Bordering the dusty street were rows of white clapboard houses behind dull chain link fencing.
He was lost in his thoughts when a small but voracious dog slammed against the fence, howling and barking as if Chris were a hapless cur trespassing within the dog’s claimed territory.
The boy stumbled away from the attacking dog with a gasp and quickened heartbeat. He muttered under his breath, cursing the little beast and his own easily thwarted courage.
The dog represented the most recent insult Christopher had weathered that day. He was only an hour separated from the latest ridicule of many perpetrated upon him by the class bully, Joel. The humiliation was fresh, and the dog added a painful reminder that Christopher’s was the tragic plight of the weak.
At the beginning of the school year, early in the tirade of Joel’s pranks, Christopher had confided in his father about the evil bully. His father had assured him on that, and several subsequent occasions, that Joel would desist if ignored. Chris did his best to follow his father’s advice, but it was difficult to ignore a kick in the pants, or a spit ball to the face, or being tripped from behind in a crowded hallway. This last was the most recent prank Joel had visited upon Chris. From his prone position on the hallway floor, Chris had looked up at the bigger Joel. The sadistic boy was surrounded by students who joined him in laughing and pointing at his fallen victim.
Chris suspected many of the onlookers probably felt relief they were not the fallen in that moment. He was certain many within the laughing crowd had taken their turn as the victim of Joel’s pranks.
Sufficiently dispirited, Christopher moved away from the annoying din of the little mongrel. He felt frustration tighten within him to the point of pain. His thoughts darkened as he reflected upon the prospect of a school year filled with pain and suffering at the hands of the bully. To his troubled mind, the occurrences combined as one huge offense whose scope was enormous and unforgiveable.
Christopher lapsed into a fantasy version of that afternoon’s event. But in this version, he rises angrily from the cold floor tiles and rushes Joel, fists flailing. His pale lips open with a torrent of curses and epithets rained upon his surprised and cowering victim.
In his imagined victory, Joel reacts with an impotent, off-balance retreat. Although his victim falls away from him, Christopher continues to pummel the bully until Joel lands heavily on the floor, his cries for mercy unheeded.
Christopher’s imagined triumph faded as he again focused on his pitiful reality. He walked slowly along the hot sidewalk, thankful when the next dog did nothing more than watch him pass with lolling tongue and curious eyes.
Christopher watched with a casual regard as an aged white car slowed visibly as it drew closer, approaching from the opposite direction. He could see the dim silhouettes of two people in the front seats.
A small tickle of prescience grew like a faraway voice, calling out a warning. He was unaccustomed to hearing, much less heeding, the curious sensations of his innate survival instincts. He didn’t know this unfamiliar danger signal was something bestowed upon all living creatures since the first single cell organism evolved into a creature which drew fearful breath. Animals in the wild depended upon this instinct as much as they depended upon their hunger to signal their need to feed.
His mind had just begun to register the warning when the car stopped alongside him, and a grim-faced Latino male pushed a large pistol out the window upon a stiffened arm. Flame leapt from the dark muzzle and Christopher felt a sharp hot pain pierce his chest. The impact of the slug struck a bone deep inside him, knocking him flat upon the hot sidewalk.
He tried to draw a breath to relieve the pressure building within his chest. He felt a strange rattling in his throat. He heard the car’s tires squeal as the shooter fled. He couldn’t move, his vision clouded with a red hue.
Tears darkened the fresh dust at the corner of his eyes as he died. His last thoughts were of Joel lying on the hot sidewalk. Joel should have been there to pay for his sins.
It was hot. Momma and Papa should take Lea to the store today.
Chapter 3
Miguel wiped the tears from his eyes. He could hardly see to drive. He was Mu-Ha now - his final test passed with flying colors. He felt real pride for a fleeting moment. For scant seconds the dying eyes of the frightened teen fell from his thoughts. The reprieve was brief. His swelling pride fell violently to guilt and despair, as the kid had fallen to his colt revolver.
Next to him Javier watched the driver with keen interest from his place in the passenger seat. He was only a few months removed from his own Probar. Everyone did it. Everyone wept. That was the process. He felt an urge to console the Driver with this information. Instinctively he knew it wouldn’t help. His Shotgun hadn’t said a word to him when he was the Driver. He said nothing to this Driver.
Miguel managed to merge the road worn white Toyota Corolla into the speeding traffic of the freeway. Hot wind buffeted them as the exits moved slowly past. The sun wouldn’t set for hours. Without the benefit of darkness, they had to move carefully, exposed and vulnerable in broad daylight. With anxious glances, they searched the mirrors and the rear window.
Their nervous vigilance relaxed only after they reached the safety of the South Side. They left the freeway and followed the access road for a few miles before turning onto a narrow residential street lined with 1940’s style houses. White clapboard and chain-link fencing defined the style within the neighborhood.
Miguel turned the Toyota into a caliche alley and soon parked before the closed doors of a dilapidated detached garage. One of the rickety garage doors rose on rusty tracks, and a thin older man watched them exit the car. Miguel felt as if he was wading through the tepid waters of a dream.
“Bring the car inside,” the older man urged sharply.
Clumsily, Miguel rushed to obey. He started the car and hurriedly pulled it into the cover of the structure.
Javier ducked into the wide doorway as the man lowered the garage door with a worn nylon cord. Miguel stepped from the car and moved next to Javier. The man of some fifty years of age turned from the closed door and faced the two. He was the leader of Muchachos Hablidad.
“It is done?”
Miguel remained mute as if the question held some hidden puzzle he must solve before answering.
Javier turned from his observation of Miguel and spoke for them both.
“Si, Señor Fuentes. It is done.”
Fuentes watched Miguel for a long moment. Finally, he moved towards a side door and left the garage. Javier pushed Miguel gently ahead of him and they followed the older man. The sidewalk hugged the vine covered chain link fence which enclosed a small backyard with an old swing set, abandoned and slightly akilter.
The house was of the same aged architecture as the detached garage. Fuentes climbed three concrete steps and opened the side door. He entered the house and the two followed him into the cool darkness within. Dripping window units forced chilled air into the house, creating a din like a small sheet metal plant built upon a floating barge. The old air-conditioning units bubbled and groaned at their tasks.
Fuentes led them through a narrow kitchen and into what had been a living room when the building was used as a residence. It now looked like a communications bunker for a special operation’s military unit.
Mounted in a rough wooden shelving unit, a bank of eight 12” black and white monitors displayed scenes of gates and security doors for industrial buildings and warehouses. Others offered rounded views of the house’s entrances.
A long squat table supported two of every kind of radio known to man. Every level of wireless technology from handheld walkies to CB radios and even HAM units shone with green and red LCD gauges and displays. The volume controls were adjusted to the lowest setting. The radio noise added to the air conditioners’ roar a staccato buzz like the rise and fall of scores of cicadas crowding mesquite trees on a hot summer day.
Fuentes moved a roller chair from behind a large green metal desk. He opened the narrow under-table drawer and withdrew two stacks of bills. He tossed the larger of the two to Miguel and the thinner to Javier. He watched the two as they looked at the money with a mixture of surprise and confusion.
Fuentes ran his operation based upon the simplest of credos. He paid cash on delivery and tolerated no mistakes or excuses.
“Sit,” he instructed the two youths.
He lowered himself into the heavy metal office chair and pulled himself up behind the large desk. He rocked against the creaky steel springs under the chair, as he waited for the young men to pull over two chairs and settle upon them. Once the scraping of chairs across the scarred hardwood flooring ceased, he leaned forward, crossing his arms in preparation for the important information he would share with these young men. His rough wards finally settled, and the room was silent other than the dull hum of the air conditioners and radios.
“It is time you both became one with Muchachos Hablidad. My concern is not just for what you can do for me, but also what I can do for you in return.
Fuentes leaned back meaningfully.
“We make sharp edged tools here. These tools must be formed from the hard steel of strong-willed men. Taking a life is a thing. This thing is done by accident every day. This thing is done out of anger or jealousy every day. Everyday this thing is done carelessly and with little meaning.”
The two young men looked at each other with confusion. They had both taken lives recently with no thought or care about the meaning of the act other than to enter the MuHa organization. Where was the meaning otherwise?
Fuentes nodded as if he read their very thoughts.
“Tools must be forged in fire to create hardness and temper. The tempering process also involves hammering away the impurities in order to leave only true steel. You have been forged, now comes the tempering.”
Fuentes looked at each man earnestly. He gave them a look of critical scrutiny before continuing with his instructions.
“You both will report to my associate, Señor Salazar. He is building a large concrete foundation near downtown. You will work for him every day until I call for you.”
Both young men stiffened in their chairs. It was obvious they had imagined their new lives differently.
“Is there a problem?” Fuentes asked with a mild innocence to his tone.
Javier cleared his throat nervously.
“Señor Fuentes, my father toils in the hot sun. I will not be my father.”
Fuentes considered Javier through narrowed eyes. After a moment he nodded to Miguel.
“And you?”
Miguel looked down, uncertain of the proper response. He marveled at the workings of his mind. There was a logic to Fuentes’ methods. Maybe his was a unique case compared with others who had completed the Probar.
For an unknown reason, his memory locked in upon a day some ten years past. In the memory, his uncle Raymond grinned at him. He sat in a scarred wooden chair. A man with burly arms, tattooed from knuckles to rotators leaned in close as he scratched ink into his uncle’s bicep. The tattoo pen buzzed like an over-revved electric razor.
Eight-year-old Miguel watched his uncle’s face with open awe. Uncle Ray’s eyes sparkled at the boy. His teeth clenched in a set grin at the pain he was enduring.
“Does it hurt, Uncle?” Miguel had asked.
“Of course, Mejo,” was the tight answer. “Today’s pain is the price for tomorrow’s gain.”
Miguel leaned back in the hard chair as he recalled the days following that one. His uncle had occupied the sofa in Miguel’s father’s living room for months. Miguel relished the time he spent with his Uncle Raymond.
Raymond was nearly the same age as his brother, Miguel’s father, but he had none of the harsh criticisms nor the ready corrective judgement of Miguel’s father. Uncle Raymond was a man who had never progressed past the mischievous openness of boyhood. He treated Miguel with an equanimity, elevating the youngster to the coveted level of a peer rather than an adolescent subordinate.
Several days had passed after which Raymond had shown Miguel the new tattoo. It had changed magically from a colorful scabbed mass to a vivid image with as much allure in its detail as the man who wore it.
Raymond told Miguel the pain no longer defined the moment. But because of the pain, the tattoo was now a testament to the man who bore its mark.
He lived with his uncle Raymond now. His father had been deported years before, and his mother had remarried and invested no effort to staying in touch with him. Raymond’s tattoo had faded over time, but its message was one Miguel still treasured.
Miguel raised his eyes to Fuentes. The Probar was his tattoo. His instincts told him the pain would pass, and the experience would live within him as a badge of honor like Raymond’s tattoo.
“I am what you would have me to be, patron.”
“Good. You will be texted the address and date to start your journey to MuHa.
“You,” he continued, speaking to Miguel but looking at Javier, “Are free to leave as you arrived.”
Miguel stood. Fuentes nodded and Miguel left the room. Javier remained in his seat. Fuentes withdrew his cell phone from his pocket and manipulated the screen. He seemed not to notice that Javier continued to occupy his seat. He tapped the screen, typing out a text message.
“Señor?”
Javier’s voice quavered nervously.
Fuentes answered but did not look up from his manipulation of the phone.
“You are excused,”
“Señor Fuentes, I joined you to be more than some common Mojar.”
His voice strengthened with the resolve of his statement.
Fuentes looked from his phone finally. He sat the phone on the heavy desk, resting his hands lightly on the green top.
“You agreed to obey me when you joined me…”
“But I didn’t know you would want me to dig ditches and sweat like el Trabajador.”
Fuentes frowned at the interruption.
“Your words are more important than mine, I see.”
“I didn’t say that. I said, I didn’t sign up to be a peon.”
“So, my words are not only unimportant, but wrong as well.”
