105

Emiliano Graciano Mateos-Corrientes stood down his snipers. He had the entire eighteen-hectare warehouse site ringed with his men. No one could escape. The ones that had run, shooting, from the warehouse, were all being herded towards the cenote – that was the obvious place for them to go. The rest were dead.

It was still somehow inconceivable to Emiliano that a bunch of gringos should come all the way down to the Yucatan simply to take over his crystal meth factory. Were they insane? Didn’t they know he had fifty foot-soldiers under his command, all armed with the latest weapons? That he had snipers equipped with the most up-to-date ‘light fifty’ Barrett M107 rifles, complete with Leupold 4.5 x 14 Mark-iv scopes and AN/PVS-10 day/ night optics? And that these snipers knew how to shoot the nipples off a three-year-old?

Crazy. Crazy.

He spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie.

What annoyed him the most was that the gringos had managed to time their incursion exactly right. Normally, there would have been a minimum of fifteen men guarding the factory. But someone – that fucker Pepito, probably – must have tipped the gringos off that with the consignment now ready, Emiliano was treating his foot-soldiers to the best whores and liquor his brothel in Mérida could provide. It was the Day of the Dead, man. His men expected to let their hair down once in a while. And he had the local police and most of the local politicians in his pocket. What did he have to fear? A bunch of gringos invading his territory? Jesus.

The Hummer burst out from the basement area of Emiliano’s warehouse and up the escape ramp. The Hummer appeared to hesitate, and then made straight for his command vehicle. Emiliano could see two men in the front seats.

His mouth fell open.

As he watched, he heard two explosions deep in the bowels of his warehouse. Then there was a brief silence. It was followed by the equivalent of a vast intake of breath, as the meth vats caught fire. Then the warehouse literally burst from its moorings, its corrugated iron roof rising on a crest of over-heated air. When the roof was about thirty feet up, it flipped over onto its side, as if a sudden gust of wind had caught it.

Emiliano instinctively ducked down beside his Toyota Roraima. As he did so he noticed the rear of the approaching Hummer rising on a tide of hot air, and then smashing down again.

The Hummer was coming straight for his Toyota.

He threw himself to one side, shrieking.

The Hummer clipped his foot as it passed, pulverizing the bone, and twisting the foot three times around on the remaining skin and gristle. Emiliano hit the ground and rolled himself into a ball. He knew something terrible had happened to him, but not quite what.

When he tried to stand up, his leg collapsed beneath him, and he caught his first glimpse of the disaster that had been his foot.

He began shrieking in earnest, now, and calling for his mother.