“No es tan bravo el león como lo pintan.” Fausto enjoyed taunting Eduardo. In most circles Eduardo was considered a fierce lion, but Durango, Eduardo’s home, and home to a rival drug cartel, was more than six hundred kilometers from Chihuahua. Here, in Sangre Tierra territory, the man had no power.
“Sangre Tierra,” or “blood earth.” The cartel traced its origin and name to the day Arturo Bolivar Soto had ordered the execution of the leaders of the rival Torres cartel in a single, gruesome bloodbath. Ten bound and gagged men, all of them rich from drug money, had been tossed into a previously dug shallow grave near the Pan-teón La Colina. Standing at the edges of the pit were men from Soto’s group, Fausto among them. They were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, and some even wielded Uzis.
“Be it known, today belongs to Soto.”
Those were the last words those ten men ever heard.
Blood spilled from bullet-ravaged bodies, pooling beneath the corpses until the parched earth swallowed every last drop.
Sangre Tierra… Blood Earth.
Arturo Bolivar Soto was its first and only leader. From that moment on, a terror worse than the Torres cartel reigned. Already-dug graves became a trademark of Sangre Tierra, and mass shootings a favorite method of compliance and control. Soto’s ambitions were far larger than the territory currently under his authority. The balance was soon to tip in his favor. Sangre Tierra already had a growing presence in the United States, and from there had plans to extend its area of dominance well beyond the boundaries the Torres Cartel once controlled.
Poor Eduardo had interfered with those ambitions. For that, he would pay.
“I don’t have what you seek.”
Fausto appraised Eduardo anew and suppressed the urge to bend back Eduardo’s fingers with pliers.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” Fausto said, standing and using his pants to brush away the grime collected on his palms. Fausto had a long face, a prominent nose, deep-set eyes, and hair like the mane of a stallion, which he pulled back into a long ponytail that swept across his broad shoulders. He was fit, narrow at the waist, muscled and in perfect proportion. Women were drawn to Fausto, but he preferred the whores, who asked for nothing and never complained of his sexual proclivities.
“When I was a young boy, no more than thirteen,” Fausto began, “I lived in Ciudad Juárez. It was there I met Soto’s cousin, Carlos Guzman, who gave me a gun and ordered me to shoot a man he had tied up and dumped on the ground. Carlos was so drunk he didn’t think he could hit the man at point-blank range. I didn’t know what to say. I had never killed before. But what captured my imagination was Carlos’s diamond-studded watch, the fancy clothes he wore, the pearl inlay on the pistol’s handle. You see I came from nothing, Eduardo. I was an orphan boy who escaped from an abusive master.”
Here, Fausto could have elaborated on the sexual abuse he had endured, the endless rapes by the pervert who had taken him in under the auspices of hiring a young store clerk to stock shelves in his grocery store. Store clerk! His rapist wanted a victim, a plaything, and Fausto was too young, too inexperienced, too frightened, to find a way out.
“Why are you telling me this, Fausto?” Eduardo’s voice snapped with fear.
“Shut up until I finish,” Fausto barked.
Eduardo bowed his head sullenly.
“When I met Carlos Guzman,” Fausto continued, “I had just recently escaped from my captor. I was living on the streets of Juárez, scrounging for food like an alley cat. I had experienced little but the darkest side of humanity for close to a decade. So when I pulled the trigger, blowing that helpless man’s brains out his ears, I did so, hoping one day I, too, could have a pearl-inlaid pistol.”
Fausto reached behind him. From the waistband of his jeans, he produced a pistol exactly like the one he had described. A pleased-with-himself grin creased the corners of his mouth as he put the gun away. The grin widened into a smile; for the first time since his abduction, Eduardo could see the ornately designed gold caps that covered each of Fausto’s teeth. The caps were removable, but Fausto was considering having them affixed permanently. They sent a strong message of wealth and power, Fausto’s two greatest loves.
“When Carlos sobered up and saw what I had done,” Fausto continued, “he was so appreciative that he paid a visit to my so-called employer. The police found the grocery store owner’s liver in one garbage can, his heart in another, and his head in another still. From that moment on, I became a part of something. Something I could believe in. Carlos raised me like a son. And Arturo Soto is a grandfather whom I treasure and adore. They trust me with the most important assignments. They respect me and my ability, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.”
“Again, why are you telling me this, Fausto?”
“Why do I tell you this?” Fausto repeated. “Because you need to know that I view you like you’re a rodent. Your life has that much meaning to me. I feel nothing for your suffering. And I would not be involved here unless this situation was indeed a very big deal.”
Fausto went over to his toolbox, the only object on the warehouse floor aside from a busted wooden chair. He retrieved from within a cordless power drill, with a gleaming silver bit. With a push on the trigger, Fausto showed Eduardo that the drill’s battery was fully charged.
“Now, then,” Fausto said in a perfectly calm voice. “Let’s talk again about the packages you took from us.”
Fausto placed the drill on Eduardo’s knee and squeezed the trigger. Eduardo’s eyes burst with panic at the loud whirring sound. The angry metallic whine quickly dampened as the tip of the drill bored through the fabric of his soiled pants and penetrated the first layer of skin. Blood erupted from the puncture wound; the scream that followed was symphonic to Fausto’s ears.
Fausto prepared to drill again. He had bet himself he could bore nine holes before Eduardo passed out from pain. Fausto steadied Eduardo’s shaking leg in a viselike grip. He set the drill tip on the other knee when his phone rang. Fausto exhaled a loud sigh and returned his attention to the drill, but the persistent ringing proved too much of a distraction. He glanced at the caller ID and sighed once more. Eduardo did not seem certain how to feel. The anticipation of pain was its own form of torture.
Fausto answered the call.
“¿Que quieres?” Fausto said. (“What do you want?”)
Fausto kept the drill bit against Eduardo’s knee, but he waited to pull the trigger. He didn’t want to listen to the caller over Eduardo’s screaming. Eduardo’s blubbering was bothersome enough.
“Soto te quiere ver ahora mismo, Fausto,” a man said. (“Soto wants to see you right away, Fausto.”)
“I’m a little busy right now,” Fausto answered in Spanish.
“It’s urgent,” said the man. “There’s big trouble in America, someplace in Massachusetts. You need to leave immediately.”
Fausto ended the call and turned his attention back to Eduardo. “Always something, eh?”
Eduardo looked like a man who’d been given a new lease on life.
“I’ll have to finish with you later. In the meantime, let me leave you with something to remember me by.”
Fausto pulled the trigger on the drill and wished he had more time to make Eduardo scream.
CHAPTER 3
Ellie Barnes remembered how he stood.
Whenever she thought of the first time she laid eyes on Jake Dent, she remembered that the most.
Jake had drawn his weapon in a fluid motion, arm slightly bent-that little give so important for flexibility. Long, stiff arms create fatigue that can affect the shot. Jake knew this, and Ellie did, too.
Ellie was a police sergeant in the town of Winston, and one of the best shooters on the force. In ten years on the job, Ellie had stopped plenty of drunk drivers, burglaries, and domestic disputes, but never discharged her weapon in the line of duty. The police academy preached preparedness; so if the day ever came, she was practiced and would be ready.