Click, click, click, click … click.
Pop! Pop!
The boy collapsed. and the guy with the assault rifle looked right into David’s eyes, turned, and continued hunting his intended targets: Los Tiburones Cartel members.
Chuck followed the employees to a small door where they could take out the trash and restock. As the workers disappeared, the gunshots intensified as the two groups found each other. David almost had a heart attack when he felt someone grab his collar. It was Fritz, and Nat was with him, so David let her go in front of him.
“Where are the Sandoval security people?” David asked Fritz in a low voice.
“They left us when they figured out what we’re facing.”
That made David appreciate Fritz and his team even more. He might joke around about firing them, but after today, that would always be an empty threat.
To be honest, he didn’t blame the other security team for bailing. They were outnumbered and outgunned. He would probably choose to go home to his family, too.
In the distance, sirens could be heard rushing to the scene.
Then the shooting suddenly stopped.
David made it outside and saw that the trunk of the armored car was open, and up above, the swarm of drones was circling. The queen drone was acting as the eye in the sky, guiding the smaller drones’ movements.
“Holster your gun,” Fritz said to Chuck as Fritz took David’s gun back.
The hovering queen drone would have labeled them as threats with their guns drawn.
He understood a moment later when the men with assault rifles came running out of the market. They must have finished off the other cartel. When the drones spotted the gunmen, they came screaming out of the sky and began to drop them with their built-in Tasers.
David knew from experience that it would only knock down the bad guys for a few minutes.
“Run! Get in the car!” David yelled as the rest of them stopped to gawk.
Everybody dove in, and Paul had just started to pull from the curb when bullets ricocheted off the car’s body. He didn’t slow down as he sped away, only to see two jeeps, full of men, in pursuit. Everyone in the back was tossed around as Paul swerved in and out of traffic.
“Call ahead and have your jet prepped,” Fritz told David. “This could spiral into something nasty, and we may need to get out of here.”
David called his copilot and told him to get everything ready.
In the meantime, they’d come to a stop.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Fritz yelled.
“There’s an accident up ahead,” Chuck said.
David looked out the back window, and six men were running between cars with guns raised.
“Why are they chasing us?” Chloe cried.
“Because we’re in this car. They know we’re a high-value target. They may think some of the Los Tiburones Cartel got away,” Alex said.
“I don’t care what you have to do, get us out of here,” Fritz ordered.
Paul jumped the curb and began driving down the sidewalk as he honked his horn to get people to move. David felt terrible when they ran over a couple of stands, but stuff could be replaced. They cleared the accident and jumped back onto the street.
The bad guys had done the same. They were almost to the wreck when Chuck guided the queen drone—the one that directed all the smaller swarm—into the windshield of the lead jeep. That caused the jeep to slam into a light pole, which trapped the other jeep behind it.
Alex was on the phone with his dad. His uncle and his key men had already bugged out, leaving all the women and children at the compound.
“We have company!” Fritz called out when they were a quarter-mile from their destination.
“Dad’s ready for them. Go through the gate,” Alex said.
When they got to the gate, Sandoval security men had their guns raised. The jeep slammed on its brakes and quickly turned around and left.
“Drive to the airstrip,” Alex said.
They arrived in time to see the second jet race down the runway and fly off. As David exited the car, he saw that there were still women and children milling around. His copilot looked agitated.
“I told them that we can’t take everyone. We don’t have enough seats.”
“I don’t care,” David said and then turned to the crowd. “Leave all your bags. Only take the stuff you absolutely need, like medicine. We will be tight, so I’m going to ask that the children sit on someone’s lap. When the seats are all taken, sit in the aisle.”
David noted that boarding happened in record time compared to a flight back home, and with zero bitching. They were packed in like sardines when he finally closed the door and went to the cockpit.
“We’re too heavy,” his copilot bitched.
“We are,” David admitted as he taxied to the runway.
“Perimeter breach! We have a perimeter breach!” came over the radio.
“Should we stay?” David asked his copilot.
“It’s going to fly like a pig.”
David wound the engines up as far as he dared with the brakes on and then released them. They lumbered down the runway. The added weight was more of a problem than David had thought. He had the jet at full throttle, and he watched his speed slowly gain.
“Our fucking speed is too low!” the copilot yelled as they drew close to the end of the runway. “Abort! Abort!”
David had a sphincter-tightening moment as he ignored his copilot. He could see they were going to roll off the end of the runway at full speed. There was no doubt the front wheels would probably snap off, and they would crash. Fortunately, the aircraft finally began to feel light on the wheels, so he pulled the yoke back a bit, lifting the nose, and the wheels broke loose from the ground—right at the edge of the runway.
“Oh my, God! We’re alive,” his copilot said in disbelief.
That was when David realized that he had to piss like a racehorse. That reminded him of another lesson his mom had taught him: always go to the bathroom before you leave home.
◊◊◊
An hour later, they were landing at Alex’s uncle’s landing strip outside Bogota. As soon as they landed, he was out of his seat, had the door open, and dropped the steps. He was under the plane peeing on the runway when Ariana found him.
“You’re such a classy guy,” she said with a smirk.
“If I owned that plane, I would have just peed in the cockpit,” David admitted.
David discovered that one of the people on the plane was Orlando’s mother. Her opinion of him had improved a bit. He wondered what it would take to actually win the woman over.
His copilot, on the other hand, wasn’t a fan, and he quit.
Umberto found David a half-hour after they landed.
“We need to leave for LA as soon as possible.”
“Why? What’s going on?” David asked.
“The troubles here in Bogota are escalating. My brother suspects that the Los Tiburones Cartel wants to take over Colombia, which means my brother and his men are in danger. It’s not safe for us to return to Cali right now. I’m asking that you fly my family out of the country.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. But I can guarantee you that the FBI will be waiting when we land,” David warned.
“My lawyers will be there to smooth everything over,” Umberto promised.
If by that he meant an absolute shit-storm, then it was smooth. It would have been easier to fly into Mexico and walk across the border than deal with all the idiots from the different agencies that wanted a piece of Umberto. Which meant anyone with him was also fair game.
The reason they were in a tizzy was that there were several incidents across Central and South America. Besides the 21 people killed in Cali, there were 19 deaths in Mexico. The one that got the most press in the states was two men executed on a Cancun beach in front of hundreds of American tourists.