Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (e reader for manga .txt) 📗

“No…” Laura answered and then added honestly, “But I would like it to be behind us already…”

Once again, we leaned over the aerial photos, this time enlarged. Zorro saw it first. “Do you see the light patch? That’s a newly ploughed piece of land. The exact type of landing target we were looking for.”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ in your tone of voice…”

“But these photos are from last Thursday. Let’s hope they haven’t planted there yet or if they have, that it hasn’t started sprouting. Because if so, then my whole plan, based on land in a different color, is based on something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

I looked at Zorro and asked, “Is there no simpler way to contact this ‘Successor’?”

“Are you also starting to regret coming to me?” She smiled. “‘El Desconocido’, the ‘Successor’ doesn’t accept calls. When he wants to, if he wants to, he makes the contact. It is not a connection one always likes.” The smile disappeared from her face when she added, “Maybe I wasn’t clear enough before, he also doesn’t accept visitors. Which means that we will have to infiltrate his home, and when I mean ‘home’, I mean his well-guarded fortress.”

***

Zorro’s “supplier” turned out to be a small, thin-framed old man, who lived in a dilapidated wooden hut. We entered his home. His shabby living room was attached to a kitchen. We then followed him along a corridor which led to another shabby room. In this back room he moved an iron bed, rolled up the colorful carpet underneath it and then lifted four parquet boards which served as the entrance to another world. We went down a wooden ladder, into what seemed like what was used once as a cooler room for agricultural produce of some sorts and now is used for storing new equipment, everything from clothing to firearms.

Laura immediately announced that she didn’t need any clothing or weapons. She had come well-prepared.

“I still insist on a helmet with a face guard.” I said, “I am sure you didn’t bring that along with you.”

“I didn’t.” She admitted, “But I am sure we won’t find it here.”

In response to what she had just said, the old man silently laid on the small wooden counter, a used helmet but in good condition. Zorro patted his shoulder and asked for two more.

In just less than an hour, we had all the equipment we needed. There were some items he didn’t have but promised to get them for us a little later in the day and would make sure to deliver it to the motel. After we checked that all the equipment we had was in good working condition and we were satisfied, we left. The bill, as I found out, had already been settled, based on previous business relationships. That is how she always did business with him before. I didn’t try to understand how and why. Zorro had a mutual debt system with different types of people all over the world. Her assistance absolved her debt to my boss and that was all I needed to know.

We drove back to Zorro’s club, unloaded the gear, and each of us took our personal equipment with us. While we were doing this, her chef prepared a meal for us and we all sat down at a secluded table.

“If the plane we are supposedly boarding in a few hours looks like your supplier’s hut, maybe we should use the office’s plane,” Laura suggested. I thought it wasn’t a bad idea at all.

“To use the office plane means giving a flight schedule,” Zorro answered.

“Yes… So?”

“So, there goes the element of surprise. Any flight schedule will reach the wrong hands and we will be expected. Haven’t you realized yet, that everyone is in someone’s pocket? Everyone works for the cartel. The question is which one.”

“And if we give a flight plan to Guatemala and cross over the border from the other side? I asked.

“Then I am not sure I will be able to find our way. I am not sure there will be signs.”

“There are signs?”

“There are signs all over. Mexico is decorated with signs, which look pretty to a stranger but serve as a language for the locals. Signs for a drug selling station, signs for the entrance to a tunnel for smuggling, signs for kitchens cooking crystal meth. There are signs, one just needs to recognize them. Each cartel has signs of their own and few people know all the languages. That is one of the problems with the Sinaloa… because the younger generation was born from them, they know the language.”

“And you know all the languages?” I enquired.

“I know the Sinaloa in a few areas and the warning signs of the younger generation. The younger generation doesn’t know the signs of El Desconocido, because he is originally from Tijuana.”

“So, do you know his signs?”

“I know them. I helped make them.”

The question was clear on our faces and she answered before we could ask. “He was my lover.”

“Was your lover…umm… Well, I hope for us, it ended on good terms.”

Zorro laughed. This was the first time that I saw her really laughing and it made her exceptionally beautiful.

“When I decided to settle in Mexico,” she explained, “I looked for an accountant and a lawyer to help me build my business. This time I wanted everything to be legal. El Desconocido was both. A brilliant young man. The only thing he had missing to really make it was the right connections. I introduced him to the right people and thanks to me he enjoys the success he does today. If it wasn’t for who I was, he may still have been on the other side of the law.”

I thought maybe that is why he got his nickname -- the unknown, the stranger. He truly was a stranger and unknown, until Zorro had introduced him to the right acquaintances.

“We are supposed to rely on signs on trees which are changing as we