Sons of Mexico
By Mojave Dragonfly

Rating: M | Status: Complete | Genre: Action | Series: None
Summary: A few months after the movie, Sands and El are both prisoners of a cartel.  Can they trust each other enough to work together?

Warnings: This story is for mature audiences only. Do not read if you are under 16 years of age.

Go to: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Part 2

In some ways this session was worse, but in others it was not. El's already bruised and swollen body was much more sensitive to the beatings, but this time he knew what they wanted, and he knew they couldn't afford to harm him in any lasting way. He even thought they avoided adding injury to his maimed hands. They left Maria's bandages on.

He had no difficulty groaning pitifully and, to the extent that he could stomach it, cowering from their blows in order to avoid the application of the electrodes. Unfortunately, the Castilian-accented man liked using the juice. Somehow El choked down the promise of compliance that he wanted so badly to give in order to make it stop. Mercifully, his acting must have convinced them, for they didn't spend much time shocking him.

When it was finally over, they had to drag him out. He thought he could walk, but decided not to let his captors know that.

They dragged him over the cobblestones to a different location. Delgado received him while sitting in an armchair in a sumptuous library. El was dropped onto the carpet. He lay there unmoving, savoring every moment of being left alone.

Delgado said nothing at first, and El gradually became aware that someone besides the ubiquitous armed guards was also in the room. He heard sounds of movement and of furniture sliding and banging.

Curious, he opened his eyes.

Fuck, did it have to be Sands?

The agent prowled the room, feeling over every shelf, desk, table, or bookcase. When he came to a cabinet or drawer, he opened it and thoroughly explored the interior before moving on. The guards watched him with amusement.

Delgado watched El. "What is your name?" he asked.

El said nothing.

"What is his name?" Delgado asked Sands.

"Why the fuck would I know?" Sands replied. He continued his exploration, slamming things closed irritably.

"I thought the CIA knew everything."

"His name didn't matter."

"I'm not calling him El, as if he were a king."

"Call him horse's ass, then." Sands, still wearing sunglasses, turned his back to a bookcase and faced Delgado. "Come on, Julio," he wheedled, a note of desperation in his tone. "I won't do it again."

"You displeased the Señora," said Delgado in a bored voice. "You might as well sit back down. There's no perico in here."

"I heard you the first time," Sands replied, and returned to his searching.

Against the background of books and paintings, El saw for the first time how very thin the American was. He was reminded of a wild animal not adapting well to captivity, compulsively pacing its cage.

"So, 'El'" said Delgado, "are you ready to help me?"

"No," said El.

"Why not?" he asked. "You seem to have something against us dishonest businessmen. This is an opportunity to really hurt the Orozcos."

El said nothing. In truth, his resolution to not be used by a cartel was weakening. Days and weeks of torture could very well be ahead of him, all for what? In order to not attack and injure another cartel?

It was a matter of pride. These bastards wouldn't make him work for them.

His gaze moved to CIA Agent Sands. But then there was the matter of the deception. Sands had recommended the torture, but El believed him that he had done it because he knew El could deal with that better than with addiction. The American had claimed that Delgado owned him, but from the start Sands had given El a chance. Perhaps El would be foolish to throw that away over pride. He needed Delgado to believe he feared the beatings.

Or perhaps he was giving himself excuses. His foggy mind was weary of dealing with the pain from his abused body.

Sands himself remained an enigma. El had only to see his pale and pinched face as his craving led him to paw at every nook and cranny of his cage, to know there was no way Sands was faking his total dependence on the Delgados. But a man like Sands - he had to hate it, somewhere deep down. Hate it a lot.

"You know," Delgado continued, "the job will get done anyway."

Also true, El had to admit. Why was he refusing, again? He wasn't sure why Delgado had not threatened Maria or Lorenzo if El did not cooperate, but he was sure to do it soon, and then El would give in. Better if they thought they'd broken him with the torture.

Sands, in his searching, encountered one of the machine gun-toting guards. He treated the man's person as if he were a desk or a cabinet, going through his pockets. The man growled an insult and clubbed the agent beneath the chin with the stock of his weapon. Sands fell back beside a bookcase, blood flowing from his lip. He lay there, unmoving, looking exhausted.

"Agente Sands, go back to your place. There is no cocaína for you. We have already canceled our arrangements with Colombia, so until this new shipment of yours is recovered, we have only inventory on hand. And that, my friend, goes to paying customers, unless you are very, very good."

El currently considered himself something of an expert on pain, and he saw now that Sands was not only exhausted, he was in some pain that didn't come from the blow to his jaw.

The man slowly got to all fours, then stood. He made his way, fumbling with his hands ahead of him, to a chair, and collapsed into it. Gone was the confident navigating he had done along the estate's pathways. He held his head in his hands.

"The next shipments are being prepared, and will be ready by next week," said Delgado. Until then, if we do not recover what the Orozcos have taken, we can't meet our own business obligations. I'm sure you realize the seriousness of the situation."

"Call the Colombians back," muttered Sands, rubbing his forehead.

"You expect me to grovel to them!?" Delgado got to his feet and walked toward El. "Never! We will crush the Orozcos and take any other inventory they have, as well. Fuck Colombia!"

"You need a backup plan." Even in a haggard voice, Sands managed to sound like he was speaking to a small child. "Your customers can't go a week without their shit. They'll defect to more reliable sources." Then he added, in an ironic tone, and El heard the pain in it, "Trust me, I know."

"No! Your advice, my friend, is poor. Your judgment is bad. I told Marco I didn't need him anymore. I will not ask him for help, now."

"It's not help; it's business," said Sands, still resting his head in his hands. "You can pay."

"Pay! Marco will charge me everything I have if he knows our danger. He will overcharge me just out of spite! You are losing your usefulness as an advisor. No aperitif today."

This brought Sands to his feet, his fists balled. "Christ, no!" he wailed. "Julio, think for a second! It's only a backup! You won't have to pay him if you get the first shipment back! You can't … you can't. I'll be no good to you before long."

"You are already no good to me. And no nightcap. We can't afford it."

Sands sank to the carpeted floor with a sound like a sob. "Please …"

"You! Mariachi! Are you ready to cooperate or do I send you back to my cousin?"

"Don't," El said, trying not to overplay his part. "Don't send me back."

"Hah!" crowed Delgado, "This is the kind of help I can use! You will assault this cache and return my property!"

"Yes," said El, looking at Sands.

El's treatment changed almost immediately. Two men in white jackets, not conspicuously armed, came to the library and helped him to his feet. They walked him slowly to a dining area, where Asian servants, also not armed, were clearing away the remains of a meal. Solicitous without being overly friendly, the servants brought him a sumptuous dinner, much of which he didn't have the appetite to eat.

Now that he was not bracing mentally for blows, he was able to look around more and start to build a map of the estate in his mind. Though the servants and his escorts did not appear to be armed, guards were posted, sometimes obtrusively, sometimes not, at every door and in every room he was in. Delgado must be employing a small army, and they were not the fat, sleepy security for hire that Lorenzo had found. These men were trained and loyal, and very numerous. No wonder Delgado was concerned about his cash flow. Besides the damage to his business from losing customers, you can't risk not paying your army. They'll turn on you. El thought about that as he tried to eat.

When he was finished, the white-jackets led him to yet another room, a small infirmary. For a moment El flinched mentally at the reminder of some of the implements the Castilian-accented man had used on him, but this man gently removed his garments, bathed and treated his injuries, and helped him back into his clothes.

"Why do you work for Delgado?" El asked.

The man smiled tightly. "I am not to talk to you about such things. Let me see your hands."

The man rebandaged El's fingers, this time placing small caps of some material over his exposed flesh where his fingernails had been. Another anesthetic, this one with some kind of glue, held them in place. "You should be able to shoot by tomorrow," the man said with satisfaction.

"Is that when I am to go to Villahermosa?" El asked.

"I am not to speak to you about such things," the man said again. El shrugged, and obeyed the man's instructions until they were finished.

He was then led, not dragged, to his, or Sands', room. On the way, he noted that the room was one of a half-dozen doors in a row, facing one of the inner courtyards. He wondered if Maria and Lorenzo were in another. Inside the small room, he found that a second bed had been squeezed in, opposite the first.

"Rest," his escort told him, as an armed guard took his place outside the door. "You leave tomorrow at dawn."

So El rested. Food, drink and civil treatment had revived him considerably, but he was concerned that he wouldn't be in good enough shape for whatever the morning would bring him. His worst physical problem, now, he found, was swelling. He couldn't expect to assault so much as a church service if he couldn't move a little better.

The door opened, and Maria entered, accompanied by two wary guards, and two other men carrying Styrofoam ice chests. These they set down, and everyone but Maria retreated.

El sat up, and Maria came to him, crying his name. "Is it true you are going to work for them?" she asked.

El felt his face grow hot. He thought his decision had been a good one, but it still shamed him. "I have no choice," he said, and changed the subject. "What are you doing here? I thought . . ."

"I am not to stay the night," she said in a rush. "But they want you in good shape. These chests have ice packs." She opened one and produced plastic cuffs with ice in them. Pleased, El took them from her and put them on, himself.

"Lorenzo has a plan," she said in a low tone.

El put a finger to her mouth. "Search the room, first," he said.

He helped her examine the bare room for anything that could be a listening device. The room held only the beds, the tiny basin table with the lamp, and the sink, so it was not difficult to be thorough. Finally satisfied, El allowed himself to sit back down on the bed and readjust the ice packs. "What is his plan?" he asked.

"Our room has molding up near the ceiling, and the room is small, like this one. Lorenzo can hold himself up there, braced against the walls. He tried it today."

El nodded, seeing the potential. "What about you?"

"I am to hide under a bed. They will see me anyway, and that is why they will enter the room. Then Lorenzo will drop on them, and get their guns." The girl's eyes were wide and frightened-looking, but excited.

"Maria, tell Lorenzo to do this tomorrow, while I am away. Then I will know that you are no longer hostages."

"What will you do?"

"If I am to be killing people tomorrow, there will be guns. I will find a small one and hide it on me. Don't worry about me. You and Lorenzo must get away."

Before Maria could answer, there were sounds at the door. The door opened, and someone shoved Sands into the room. The agent stumbled into the foot of El's bed, as the door slammed behind him.

"Shit!" he cried. "What the fuck is this?"

"It's my bed," said El. "Yours is where it usually is."

Sands took the few steps to his bed, stumbling over an ice cooler on the way. He didn't ask what it was, or explore it at all. He had a purple bruise on one cheek. Maria sat on El's bed in order to get out of his way.

"So Florence Nightingale is here again," Sands said bitterly as he lay down on his bed.

"Stay away from him, Maria; he's sick," said El. Maria nodded.

Sands tossed himself onto his side, facing them. "So, El, you decided to work for the big bad drug cartel after all."

"What did you mean," El asked, "when you said you came after me?"

Sands rolled to his feet and went to the sink. He ran the water and splashed it over his face. Then he did it again. And again.

"What did you mean by that?" El asked again.

"Just leave me alone," said Sands, gripping either side of the washbasin and rocking himself back and forth.

"No," said El. "You're going to answer my questions. We're going to be spending some time together in this room, and I don't give a fuck what you feel like; you're going to give me some information." El got to his feet, feeling much stronger.

Sands shrank away from him and fell back onto his bed. He raised a hand to his temple, wincing.

"What did you mean by that?" El demanded.

"They were watching Romero's place, that's all. Waiting for you. What the hell else do you want to know?" Sands pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

El considered. He did have other questions. "Why do they call this 'your shipment'?"

Sands tipped his head back and banged it rhythmically against the wall. "It's genetic engineering. I gave them the recipe for a coca plant that can survive freezing temperatures. They've been growing crops in the mountains where no one will look for them. Now go away and lick your wounds and leave me alone."

His final words were probably intended to be nasty, but El heard mostly desperation in them. He sat back down to consider what he had learned. Sands, he concluded, had not told him all of it. Did the Delgado cartel really want El so badly that they had posted a watch on Lorenzo's place for months? Unlikely. Somehow they had known when El was there.

As for genetic engineering - El reserved judgment. It sounded impossible, to him, but science, particularly U.S. technology, had surprised him before.

"I forgot," Maria said softly. She took a plastic cup to the sink and filled it. Then she poured two large pills out of a pill bottle and held them out to El. "Take these. They're for swelling."

"No, no," said El. "I'm not taking anything from them."

Sands unfolded to his feet. "I will! Give them to me." He grabbed the pills from Maria's hand before she could react. He swallowed them without water in an eager gulp, then sat on the edge of his bed. Maria and El watched him, El holding his breath. After a long moment, Sands made a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "Go ahead and take them," he said. "It's not cocaine." Sands spoke with a level of grief in his voice El had usually heard reserved for the death of loved ones. Sands pulled back into a ball and began rocking on his bed. "Goddamn it!"

Maria came carefully to Sands, holding the plastic cup of water. "Señor, have some water," she said cautiously.

Sands knocked the cup from her hand, again as if he could see. "Water is not what I need," he snarled at her. Maria recoiled back to El.

"You don't need cocaine," El told him. "You only think you do."

"Like you know fuck all about it!" Sands roared. He launched himself off his bed, straight for El. El threw up his arm to block the attack, and Sands landed on both El and Maria in a tangle of punches and kicks. Maria shrieked and scrambled to the corner by the door. Sands managed, despite El's defense, to grab El by the hair and pound his head against the wall. El twisted and punched, but Sands wasn't where he had been. They rolled and flailed, and fell off the bed. Suddenly Sands was every thug who'd beaten El in the last few days. Fury filled him with the exhilaration he usually only felt in a gunfight, and he deftly trapped Sands in a headlock and punched him viciously in the kidneys. He felt Sands sag in his arms, and it was all he could do to keep from pounding the man senseless. Panting, he threw the agent to the wall opposite the door.

"Delgado," El said. "You should be angry at him, not at me."

Sands held his stomach and gasped. His sunglasses were gone again, but El was learning to look at the man despite his ghastly face. His bare agony went beyond any damage El had done him. He gasped and moaned as if unseen demons tormented him. El strode to loom over him. "Don't you want to see him dead? Why are you helping him?"

"Dead?" cried Sands, sounding on the edge of hysteria. "Dead doesn't touch it. I want to see him blind and helpless and desperate and choking on rat poison." Still gasping with pain, the agent struggled to his feet. "I want to see him stripped naked, flayed alive and rolling in his own piss." Sands' back was to the wall and his death mask of a face was half a meter from El's own. He reached out shaking hands and grabbed the front of El's shirt. "I want to see him lose everything he loves - his power, his money, his fucking family."

El raised his own hands and grasped the man's arms. "Then help me fight him. Tell me everything you know about the security here. Tell me quickly." Somehow El sensed that Sands had only a fleeting moment of clarity to work with.

"No," Sands cried.

El shook him. "Yes. How big is the estate? You can tell me this."

El thought at first that he wouldn't answer. Sands tipped his head back against the wall and rolled it back and forth. Then, "About five acres," he said.

"Security systems?" Sands was shaking in El's grasp, but he didn't try to get away.

"Trip wires on the grounds. Everywhere beyond the walkways except for the inside courtyards. There's an outer wall - ten feet high with razor wire. Motion detectors on the outside, and guards walk the perimeter. Also, there are dogs."

"Tell me their weaknesses."

Sands squirmed and panted, as if he were fighting something internally.

"I know you've learned them," El urged. "What are they?"

"The midnight to dawn shift - they like to drink and play cards on the east side," Sands spoke in a rush. "The motion detectors are infrared, dust should show the beams, and the dogs lose their sense of smell if they snuff cocaine."

Suddenly, Sands collapsed. "God!" he yelled. "I need a fix. You've gotta get me something, please!"

El let go of him, triumphant. "I knew you had thought of escape," he said.

"No! No! No escape for me. No." Sitting on the floor, Sands held out a hand. "Maria! You can bring me something. I know you can get it. Give them anything. Fuck anyone you have to. Please!"

El moved away, to take Maria's hand. The girl looked revolted. "You should leave," El told her gently.

In fact, El had an idea, since he was feeling so much better. "Where is your and Lorenzo's room?" he asked.

"I can't . . . no nightcap," Sands moaned. "I can't make it to coffee. I can't."

"In the same place as this one, on the other side of the courtyard," she said, glancing from El to Sands.

"Coffee," Sands breathed, like a prayer. "He said I could have coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee."

El looked down at her shoes - ankle strap sandals. "Can you run?" Maria nodded. "Get ready, then."

El glanced once around the room, now seeing it as part of his stage of combat. He knocked on the door. "Hola! Gomez! Or Martinez, whoever's out there! It's time for the girl to go."

There was no reply.

He tried again. "The Señora didn't want her to stay the night. Or to stay with Sands. I don't want her with Sands, either."

"All right," said a voice. "Stand back from the door."

El moved to right behind the door, holding Maria behind him with one arm. As he had done before, the man entered the room gun hand first.

El slammed the door against the arm as hard as he could. The man cried out and dropped the gun, which El caught neatly. Before the man could make another sound, El threw open the door, hauled him inside by his arm, closed the door, shoved the gun against the man's chest for what silencing he could get, and shot him in the heart.

El's blood sang to him. This was the kind of planning he was made for - this was the dark talent he had discovered all those years ago in Ciudad Acuña, when he began his journey from innocent musician to legendary gunfighter. This, he could do. You shoot men and you take their guns. Simple.

Without any effort on his part, his mind gave him details. If Lorenzo's room was across the courtyard, any guard there could have seen what had just happened. He would have to die next, and quickly. Then El would free Lorenzo. Lorenzo, who could shoot a man over his shoulder without looking.

It was wonderful how adrenaline eased his hurts.

Crouched so as to be below where a shooter would expect him, he opened the door a crack, searching.

The sound Maria made would have warned him, had he been expecting attack from that direction. As it was, he thought she was reacting to the bloody death of their room guard, so he was unprepared when Sands tackled him from behind, yelling for help.

El fought the man in earnest this time - all of their lives were at stake - but Sands fought with desperate intelligence. As El tried to bring the gun to bear on the agent, Sands went for his other hand, and slammed El's fingers against the floor. Blinding pain went through El. He pulled the trigger, certain that Maria was not in range, and hoping that Sands was.

Hope died as Sands wrenched his gun hand against the wall, and took the gun from him. El lunged anyway. The man was blind; El should have a chance, even in close range.

Sands fired, point-blank, with absolute deadly intent. The only reason El lived was because a cooler had overturned and spilled ice on the floor.

El slipped and went down.

Then the room and corridor filled with armed and shouting men.

The chaos cleared, and El found himself in the outside corridor on his knees, his arms bent painfully behind him, in front of Julio Delgado. El put all his hate into the look he gave Delgado.

"I'm glad to see you are feeling better," Delgado said, no geniality in his tone, whatsoever.

"Vete a la mierda," said El.

Sands, divested of the gun, and sunglasses back in place, stood nearby, sheer need emanating from him. "Julio," he said.

"There will be punishment for this, Mariachi," Delgado said. "I promise you."

"And reward?" piped in Sands. He tried to approach Delgado, but El now saw he was being held, too. "Julio, now, please?"

"You will call me Señor Delgado!" Delgado snapped.

"Right, right. Sorry," said Sands. He shifted his weight from foot to foot like a child who badly needed to go to the bathroom.

Delgado turned back to El, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "This was to be expected, I suppose, once you were stronger. You do recover fast. You may live up to your legend yet."

"Señor Delgado," Sands begged, "I stopped him for you. I warned you. You've gotta fix me up."

"You think you are entitled to something? Gomez is dead."

"I told him about the estate security. He knows about the motion detectors, the dogs, everything. I told him how the night shift plays cards instead of walking their beat. Listen, the whole punishment/reward thing? It really requires consistent application when the desired behavior is exhibited. Please . . ."

"I thought I would like it when you begged, you pale-faced sack of shit. Now I only find it irritating."

Sands sagged, to where the men holding his arms found themselves holding him up. "I am what you made me," he gasped, sweat dripping from his chin.

"I made you? I remind you, you son of a whore, you helped yourself to Barillo's merchandise without invitation. Certainly without payment."

With an incoherent howl, Sands lunged at Delgado, actually breaking free of one of his captors before the group of them tackled him to the ground, not far from El. Delgado's lip curled in disgust. "Get him a bag," he instructed a man, in Spanish. "Not too much!"

Sands's response was muffled by his face being pressed to the ground with a rifle butt. "Thank you, thank you, oh God, thank you."

"And tonight," Delgado called after his departing henchman, "check on the night shift."

Delgado turned to El. "Lock him back up," he said with a glare.

In short order, El found himself alone. It felt odd, after what had just happened. Delgado had promised punishment, but had not delivered. Yet.

The room had very little space for angry pacing, so El kicked Sands' bed viciously. He went through every curse he could think of to lay on the man's head, and, because he could, he yelled them all out loud.

When the door opened again, three guards had their automatics leveled at the door. They stood well apart from each other, covering the entrance from every direction. The man opening the door shoved Sands in and stood back swiftly.

"You put him in here, and I'll kill him!" El yelled.

"Not a good idea, Pendejo," someone responded. "You killed Gomez. You make any more trouble, just remember, we're not on your side. He's worth more to us than you are. So far." They slammed and locked the door.

Sands stood just inside the door, holding a paper bag. "They're a little hard on your self-esteem around here, aren't they?" he said.

Very deliberately, El took the bag from him and threw it aside. He then grabbed Sands by the throat and upper arm and hauled him around to where he could press him up against the wall. Sands did not resist. He seemed to weigh very little.

El squeezed very hard. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you," he snarled, and pulled Sands' head forward so he could bang it back again.

"Well," Sands coughed, and El released his grasp just enough to hear what the hijo de puta had to say.

"No, I've got nothing." Sands smiled ruefully. "You probably should."

El pulled his whole limp body forward and slammed it back again, for the satisfaction. Then he did it again.

"Except," Sands said between the blows.

"Yes?" Slam.

"You're not a murderer." Slam.

This brought a short bark of almost laughter from El. "Oh no?" he asked, and released him.

Sands caught himself, so he didn't slide to the floor. He lifted a hesitant hand to his throat. "You're one of the white hats." He coughed. "You don't kill men who are no threat to you."

"I kill men for revenge," El snarled into Sands' face.

"Yeah, you have got just a little bit of a point there, I'll grant you." The words were flippant, but his tone sounded tired. "All right." Sands took off his glasses, which made El, to his annoyance, recoil from his face. "Go ahead."

"Go ahead and kill you?" sneered El, but he was covering his discomfort. The ghastly holes in Sands' head made him seem both inhuman, and paradoxically, extremely vulnerable.

"Might as well," Sands said, as if they were discussing what to have for dinner. "It's a shame to waste this high, though. I don't suppose you'd consider waiting until the next time Delgado withholds my junk?"

El was silent for a long moment, regarding Sands. The blind man must have wondered what El was doing, but he showed no sign of anxiety. It was hard to read expression on that ruined face, but El thought he looked resigned.

El's question surprised himself. "Are you high? You don't act it."

A slight tremor went through Sands, but otherwise, nothing changed. "Are you going to kill me or not?"

"I guess not," El said, as they tossed life and death between them like a football. "Are you going to answer my question?"

Sands shrugged and sank onto his bed. He put on his dark glasses. "It could be better. They only gave me enough to keep me from screaming." He started to stretch out on the bed, and encountered the paper bag. He pulled it out from behind him and threw it, again with eerie accuracy, to El. "Here. Food. They want you healthy."

The bag smelled of beef and cooked beans, but El was more concerned about keeping an eye on his roommate than he was interested in food. The two of them had genuinely tried to kill each other not an hour ago. He hated the man with a pure passion. He could be free by now - free without having worked for a cartel. Lorenzo and Maria could be safe - no more blood of friends on his hands.

He watched Sands lie slowly onto the bed, as if he were getting into a hot bath. Once he was lying down, Sands stretched and squirmed, still in slow motion, almost sensuously. Where, before, he had looked like he desperately wanted out of his own skin, now he appeared to be luxuriating in it. He sighed small contented sounds. El knew those sounds. They were the sounds of relief from pain.

El leaned back on his own bed, wearily taking stock. He was still alive, a condition which often surprised him, considering the risks he was willing to take in a fight. Physically he was much better. Maria was all right, and was safely away from Sands. He had diminished Delgado's army by one, and he no longer had to share his cell with a man in agony. This last, he admitted to himself, was an immense relief. No matter how much he hated the man, El had never been good at ignoring another's pain. Causing it, yes: but not at ignoring it.

You're not a murderer. What a thing to say. Of course he was. Just ask his confessor.

Sands hummed a tuneless series of notes. Over and over. El needed to make him stop.

"What is that?" he asked. "What you are singing."

"Marco," said Sands, and returned to humming.

El shook his head. The man was out of it, now.

"Boy, those guys would give their eyeteeth to know where Delgado is getting his stuff," rambled Sands. "What are eyeteeth, anyway? Eyes don't have teeth. Maybe my eyes are off biting someone somewhere. I hope so." He returned to humming the tuneless tune.

"Sands."

"El."

"What will I find tomorrow in Villahermosa?"

"I hope to Christ you find my cocaine shipment. 'Cause if you don't, Delgado will be fucking stingy with his shit." He hummed some more.

Biting back impatience, El asked, "Where is this cache? How is it guarded?"

"Oh yeah, that. I don't really know, you know? It's out in the boondocks, some isolated building. You know, the kind the kids find when they're playing, and they think it would make a cool hideout, but when they get closer they see the wires and some cartel goon waves them off. So everyone local knows what it is, but no one talks about it. Just the kids warning each other to stay the hell away."

"You have seen this?"

"Hah. Very funny." Sands hummed that damned sequence of notes some more.

"Sands." El spoke like he would to recapture a child's attention. "Have you been there?"

"No way. I don't give a fuck about the Orozcos. They're small-time. Delgado's scouting the area by air today. It was all in the briefs. Guess I won't be reading any briefs anymore."

Sands almost sounded rational. El shook his head. Only a psycho like Sands would be more in his right mind when he was hopped up on dope.

And Sands obviously didn’t stop thinking. "It wouldn't be hard to figure out where the crops are, once you know to look where it's cold. Just find huge acreages owned by Delgado or his friends high in the mountains somewhere," Sands was saying, in between repeats of a tune of thirteen notes that was really starting to get on El's nerves.

El opened the bag and started eating. "So you are planning the ruin of the Delgado cartel?"

"Shit, no. I plan ways to make myself valuable to them. With my help they've just about got a lock on the South, and that means most of the supply lines to Colombia. Hell, my help has given them the reputation of being real bad-asses - like they have some magic legendary gunfighter."

"That is why you came for me."

Sands didn't reply; he just hummed.

"Wouldn't you rather see them all in flames?"

"In flames, El? How poetic. You are an artist. Listen, don't you pay no mind to the crap I was spewing before. Whatever I may think of Delgado, he's my man. No matter what the fucker does to me."

El had some second thoughts about when Sands was and wasn't in his true right mind. "He's your pusher."

"I should think that's rather obvious, yes."

"You can get cocaine other places." It was a distasteful suggestion to El, but he was curious to feel the American out about his options.

Sands chuckled. "Well, no, not so much anymore, if you see what I mean. That's what a monopoly is." That was ridiculous. It was only a monopoly in the south of Mexico. There were plenty of other cocaine sources. Reading El's mind, Sands said, "I can't go that long."

"What?"

"And then there's the little issue of being blind. I would never make it out of Delgado's territory. Not before I turned into a freaking nutcase."

El thought about that.

Sands hummed.

"What the hell are you singing?" El demanded. There was something familiar about it.

"Nothing," Sands said. He stopped. Which was odd. He certainly didn't stop out of consideration for his roommate.

"Did you take cocaine willingly, like Delgado said?"

Sands snorted and blood appeared on his nose. "That cocksucker. I was dying. Getting hooked was the last of my worries. Then they fucking rescued me and continued the 'treatment.'"

"In Culiacan."

"I'm sure you remember the Day of the Dead, right? It's the last day I ever saw. You weren't a lot of help, Mr. Oh I Think I'll Save the President and be a Hero."

El had no patience for the agent's sarcasm. "Shall I list your end of the deal? You were to provide protection. El Cucuy? He sold me to Barillo. Our deal was off."

Sands made no reply to that. He rubbed his nose gingerly. El had considered saving some of the food for his fellow prisoner, but he remembered how he could be free by now, and finished it all.

The next day began as had the previous, but with a few changes. Sands was allowed his morning 'coffee,' and the two of them were escorted, not to the ballroom, but to the dining hall. Even Sands was kept under close guard, and the escorts were wary.

Sands bounced and hummed, but seemed more subdued than he had been yesterday morning. Yesterday morning seemed a long time ago.

Delgado sat at the head of the dining table. Other men also sat there, burly, competent-looking men, who eyed El suspiciously. The chair to Delgado's left was empty, and Sands strode confidently toward it. El marveled distantly, once again, at how well Sands got around, when he wasn’t in withdrawal. El would even suspect that Sands was faking his blindness had he not seen the hideous empty sockets where the man's eyes should be.

El paused, watching Sands sit in the chair by Delgado as if he knew it was for him.

With one of his ironic smiles, Delgado invited El to take the empty chair next to Sands. El sat, and returned the men's stares with a sneer of his own.

"Good morning, Gentlemen," said Delgado.

The wait-staff began serving a veritable banquet of a breakfast.

"I love breakfast," Sands declared with a happy sigh.

Yeah, thought El with disgust, you love the "coffee" that comes with it.

Delgado ignored Sands. "David and Pablo have gone to the coast, pretending to watch the ports for our shipment. They will be noticed. These men," he indicated the others at the table, "will accompany you."

"I work alone," El grumbled.

"Except when you work with Romero and . . . what's the name of the other man? Oh, yes. Fideo Meza. The drunk."

El said nothing, sickened at the thought of involving yet another friend.

"Don't worry." Delgado smiled. "They're really there to ensure your cooperation. They'll be happy to let you have all the glory. I pray you succeed, my friend. I truly do."

"The Orozcos have had time to get the shipment to their secret location. And we have had time to scout it." Delgado nodded at a guard who stood by the wall. The man reached over and turned out the lights. A projector lit up, showing against another wall a photograph of a concrete building in dense jungle. Delgado detailed what they had been able to learn about the building's surroundings and security. El turned off his conscious mind, concentrating instead on putting away as much food as he could manage. He had long ago learned to let what he thought of, ironically, as his "talent" absorb tactical situations. He wondered about Lorenzo's plan for the day. He hoped nothing about yesterday's aborted escape attempt would change his plan, because El was counting on Lorenzo being free before he returned from Villahermosa. Free or dead, he thought with a sinking feeling. Lorenzo would be alone against an army, and burdened by Maria. Either way, he would no longer be a hostage for El.

Well, they knew from the moment they were defeated in Mexico City that their chances were not good.

El seldom prayed. Like a guilty child, he didn't want to call attention to his faults by making requests, but he thought a selfless prayer for the Romeros' safety shouldn't offend.

He looked at Sands. Despite having had no dinner, Sands ate little of his breakfast. His dark glasses seemed to regard the slide show as if he could see it. The only sign of the drug that El could see was the sheen of perspiration on the man's face and his restless fidgeting. The agent jiggled one leg where it was out of sight of everyone but El, and he tapped the fingertips of one hand in a relentless staccato on the table. El was suddenly reminded of the tuneless tune of thirteen notes and he sighed, realizing that now he wouldn't get it out of his head for who knows how long.

El resisted the urge to add a postscript to his prayer, regarding Sands. His wishes for the agent might not be viewed as in the best spirit of Christian generosity.

Delgado ended the briefing, the lights came on, and servants began clearing away the dishes. "And now," Delgado said, with a grand gesture as he stood, "let us adjourn to the courtyard." Delgado led the way out a door El had not been through. El noticed that as soon as the group of them were on the move, guards moved closer to him, watching.

As usual, no one offered Sands any help, and Sands didn't seem to need it. He did follow the wall with his fingertips, though, until it led him to the door. El guessed the agent had not been this way before.

The map of the estate that was drawing itself in El's head confirmed that there had to be one of the many internal courtyards on this side of the dining hall, but El had not seen any glimpse of it from other directions. He now saw why. Except for the door from the dining hall, and one other door, nothing opened onto this courtyard. Like leftover architectural space, it seemed to be formed by the blank back walls of other sections of the estate. No one could see in here, except through those two doors. Consequently, it was not a lovely courtyard: more like a prison exercise yard.

Its resemblance to a prison was heightened by the first sight El saw as he came through the door. A man was tied to a scaffold by his wrists, his hands above his head, his bare back to El and the others. Beyond him, grinning, stood the craggy-faced Castilian speaking man, holding, of all things, a whip. A surge of panic went through El, and he stifled a sudden urge to bolt.

He could not see the bound man's face, but he didn't need to. The man wore only red swimming trunks. "Lorenzo," El said. It was not an involuntary cry; he knew he was betraying his concern as he said it. He didn't care. He wanted his friend to know he was there, and to know that he cared what happened to him.

Lorenzo twisted in his bonds, trying to see over his shoulder.

His heart pounding, El took a place between two of his breakfast companions, gauging the locations of the armed guards and any escape routes. The results were not encouraging. He resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to endure whatever they had planned.

Sands stood not far from Delgado, his head tilted.

"So, Señor Romero," said Delgado, "no longer the wealthy playboy."

"Fuck you," said Lorenzo, and El was glad to hear no fear in his voice.

Delgado smiled. "Mariachi," he said, "your friend will receive a stripe for every time you disobey me or my men. If you betray me, he dies, very unpleasantly." The craggy-faced man with the whip grinned. "Señor Sands? Two stripes, please."

The torturer lost his grin and gave Delgado a disappointed look. He walked to directly behind Lorenzo, and held the whip out toward Sands. "Here," he said to the agent.

Sands approached the man with the whip, slowing as he neared him, and put out his own hand. The man put the whip in the agent's hand and Sands turned unerringly toward Lorenzo, giving the whip a testing flick.

El was appalled. "Wait," he was compelled to say. "I haven't disobeyed you."

Delgado turned an expression on El completely devoid of even his false geniality. In fact, the atmosphere turned so hostile El thought he could feel the chill in the air.

Oh. Yeah.

"Do it," Delgado said.

"Lo siento, Lorrie," El said, resigned.

"Don't worry about me," said Lorenzo.

Sands readied the whip, flicking forward along the ground, experimentally, judging distance. The onlookers, including the Castilian-accented torturer, stepped back, in order to not be in range of the backlash. El stood his ground. If the whip came his way he had some plans for it.

With a leisurely motion, Sands struck. Like a living thing, the whip snaked forward and tore an angry, bleeding brand down Lorenzo's back. Lorenzo yelled with pain and surprise. El was sure his friend had determined to suffer in silence, but he probably had no idea how much the ripping of his skin would hurt. El steeled himself not to flinch.

Sands struck again, the whip cracking, gashing across the first cut to form a gory X on Lorenzo's back. Again, Lorenzo cried out, twisting in his bonds.

El shut his eyes, giving himself a brief respite from reality. He opened them again when he was reminded of being blindfolded. He looked at Sands, forever in darkness. El still found the agent difficult to read, but he saw no sign that Sands enjoyed his task. He did not smile, or hum, or bounce cheerfully in his motions. He reacted like a robot, and showed no emotion. His two stripes administered, he stood still, the whip quiescent beside him.

Delgado regarded El. "I trust, Mariachi, that, like Agente Sands, you understand where your loyalties belong."

El did.

"You've already met my cousin, Tomás. I have given his fun to Sands this morning, but he will administer any further punishment. He will be very grateful if you give him an opportunity to play with his toys." Tomás, the torturer, smiled. "I, however, will not be grateful. I will be very . . . vengeful."

Delgado seemed to await some response from El. Tight-lipped, El nodded. Any insult from him might earn Lorenzo another lash, but he'd be damned if he'd give Delgado any more of a promise of cooperation than that.

Apparently satisfied, Delgado took out a cell phone and raised it to his ear. He removed the phone, gave it a dark look, and put it away. "Call the hangar," he ordered a nearby man. "Tell them we are ready."

The man returned through the door into the dining room. No one said anything. The only sound was the creaking of Lorenzo's bonds against the wooden scaffold as the younger mariachi squirmed from the pain of his wounds. El wished he dared say something encouraging to his friend.

Into the silence came the distant, slightly musical sound of a desk phone being dialed. Cell phones, El had observed in another lifetime, had eliminated the musical tones you could get from dialing a land-line phone.

Musical tones . . .

Holy shit.

"They're ready," the man reported, after a brief phone conversation inside.

Delgado had Lorenzo released and returned to his room. El tried to catch his eye as they took him away, but Lorenzo was lost in a haze of pain and only looked up to give a glare of purest hate to Sands.

Sands, of course, was oblivious to the look. He began cracking the whip around him as if he saw attackers invisible to everyone else. He seemed not to hear Tomás and the others shouting at him, as they dodged and tried to get close to him.

Delgado he heard. "Put the whip down, Señor Sands. This is your only warning."

Sands dropped the whip immediately. Again, El felt a tiny bit sorry for him.

El was ushered through a part of the estate he had not seen, along many lovely paths, until they reached a high outer wall, rimming the grounds. El made note of everything, but in a distracted sort of way, his conscious mind working on the problem of the phone number.

Was zero the highest or the lowest note on a push-button phone?

The thugs with him nodded to the two guards at the gate, and, once it was open, the group of them passed through to find two jeeps waiting just beyond. El studied the gate, the guards, and likely places for motion sensors.

Thirteen numbers. That meant it was an international call, and the first numbers would be the code for calling out of the country. That made zero the highest note and one the lowest.

A short jeep ride up the side of a plateau, and they arrived at a helopad. By the time El and six other goons were seated, facing each other in rows inside the military-style helicopter, he had worked out the phone number.

The flight to the area around Villahermosa was not long. El watched the landscape beneath him in order to get a sense of the estate's location.

As planned, the helicopter set down miles from the building, on the far side of a jungle covered ridge between them and the mountainous rise where the concrete building sat. The helicopter approached low, using the ridge as cover. After the seven men got out, the pilot left in the same direction, staying at the treetop level.

"So," El said to the chief goon, a man named Vasquez, "do I get any guns, or do I conquer the Orozcos with my hands?" He held up his bandaged fingers.

Another man produced two familiar gunbelts, and Vasquez drew out a small cell phone, showing it to El. "We have your own guns for you, Mariachi. I will stay behind to report back on your success. If you make a misstep, and your bullets go astray, your friend will suffer for it. If you betray us, or if I do not call by sundown, your friends die. Understand?"

"I understand," El snapped. He reached for his guns and enjoyed the hesitation he saw in the other men before they handed them to him. He checked them thoroughly, then strapped them on, took a machete and a canteen from the other equipment the men had brought, and, without a word, turned in the direction of the building and set off into the jungle.

He moved easily through the terrain, slicing expertly with the machete. He had grown up in a village surrounded by similar dense jungle, and he knew its ways. He wondered how serious the consequences would be of losing the five thugs who tried to follow him, so long as he still got the mission done. He decided not to worry about whether they kept up or not.

It was a long, hot hike. As he crested the ridge, he paused, looking for a window through the foliage to the rise beyond. His practiced eye found the piece of jungle that had been kept clear by man. The Orozcos had beat back the jungle around their cache - too risky to allow that much cover near their door. El shook his head. They had given up the main advantage they had in this terrain - invisibility. Left to its own, this jungle could completely bury a small structure within ten years.

The fatter of his followers came panting at his back. "Wait," the man gasped.

"You keep up," said El, and he started down the ridge. He saw nothing further of the Delgado thugs as he began the climb up the rise.

Halfway to where he estimated the building should be, he encountered a strange find. In a land where vegetation ruled all, the top half of a bare basalt boulder poked up from the jungle floor. The dome of the four-meter wide rock had been carved in patterns too regular to attribute to nature. El even recognized the helmet-shaped pattern and he was startled into stillness, his mission momentarily forgotten.

He was looking at the top of an Olmec head. A few machete swipes at plants at the downhill base of the dome revealed that once this half-buried boulder had borne the carved features of one of those mysterious, enigmatic faces from an ancient time. Something or someone had long ago damaged this one, de-facing the rock into anonymity. Only the shape of the headgear remained, but once this enormous face had looked out over the ravine he had just crossed, watching.

Despite his closeness to his goal, El felt quite confident that he still could not be seen by any guards the Orozcos had. He patted the ancient guardian in greeting, sat on top of it, and took some deep swigs from his canteen, thinking.

He now remembered an intriguing item in the slide show Delgado had shown him. The landmark Sands had given them to find this concrete bunker in the jungle was a nearby pile of ruins, visible from the air. Too remote, small, and dilapidated to be of interest to any but the most pedantic of archaeologists, the rubble of bygone ages had been left unclaimed by modern curiosity-seekers. Why then was it visible? The Orozcos must have been clearing the jungle around it, as well.

Suggestive it might be, but El didn't know of what. Additional guards, perhaps. He wished for a moment that he had the devious kind of mind that could plot and manipulate, and therefore unravel other people's deceptions. A mind like . . . well, like Sands's.

Oh well. He did well enough once the bullets started flying. He always had.

He finished his water at leisure, waiting for his watchdogs. Eventually they arrived, following his trail of sliced foliage.

"I told you to wait," said one red-faced man.

"I'm waiting," El replied.

"That will cost your friend another stripe," he said.

El said nothing.

The others grouped nervously around the rock, none of them noticing what it was. They drank, swatted mosquitoes, and checked and re-checked their weapons. El enjoyed sitting calmly above them, he and the Olmec head, coolly superior.

"Well, get on with it, great mariachi," the man finally said.

El was ready, the old familiar exhilaration stirring within him. He slid off the domed statue.

"What will you do?" the Fat Man asked.

El shrugged. "Sneak in close and shoot anyone I can see."

"They'll hide inside."

"We'll go in after them. You brought explosives."

"That could destroy the cocaine."

"Then you'll have to be careful, won't you." With that, El turned and left them. This really should be simple.

He crept in the direction of the building, making sure to move the jungle around him as little as possible. Glimpses of grey concrete ahead and above him kept him on track.

His senses hyperalert, he spotted what anyone else would have missed. A trip wire. Cautious, he followed it to where it triggered the detonator on a primitive dynamite pack. El shook his head in amazement. The eternal damp of the jungle made it anyone's guess if the thing would even work. What's more, he wondered how often the wildlife or the wind set it off. He remembered what Sands had said about the kind of place the kids find while playing, and his jaw tightened. The impassable jungle made the location remote, but, in terms of simple distance, the cache was not that far from the city. Obviously these were people who didn't care if they blew an innocent to pieces.

He decided he would allow himself to enjoy killing them.

Too bad he had no way to warn his watchdogs about the trip wires. Shame, really.

Rather than being slowed by his find, El moved more quickly toward the bunker, avoiding putting his feet anywhere he couldn't see completely. He needed to be in position when the first explosion came.

He reached the edge of the cleared area, and saw the building: featureless except for small slits like archers' niches in forts, so the defenders could shoot without exposing themselves. The door was made of heavy steel set in the reinforced concrete walls. It stood partially open. In the cleared area in front of the door, someone had built thick barricades of sandbags for cover. Interesting. Bullets hitting sand made no shrapnel, unlike bullets hitting anything more substantial.

Still, El was not impressed. Heavy enough firepower could shoot through the sandbags, automatic fire or even shotgun blasts could shred the bags, and the barricades were only as high as a man's shoulder. Apparently the Orozcos had never climbed trees when they were children.

El selected his tree and scaled it less agilely than he might have on another day, alert for further traps. Then he waited.

It seemed a long wait, but El was sure that even if his watchdogs didn't get curious enough to come in closer, they'd have to come eventually, to determine if he had cut out on them or not. There was something truly diabolical about waiting calmly for someone to die a gruesome death, and El made a mental note to bring it up to his confessor if he got the chance.

An explosion finally rocked the area, almost directly opposite El's position to one side of the door. A man screamed with agony. Perfect. El had begun to wonder if the dynamite was all too damp.

Two men burst through the door and threw themselves behind the barricades, facing away from El. They carried not only automatics, but larger weapons El couldn't identify. One of them positioned the barrel of this larger gun on top of a barricade.

El shot each of them in the head or chest.

Time to move. There would be more shooters inside. El leaped to the ground, just as a very high caliber rifle shot exploded the tree trunk where he had been. Someone inside was cool-headed and a good shot. Good to know.

He moved swiftly around the perimeter of the building's clearing, away from the explosion, toward the back.

A third man rolled out the door, and positioned himself behind the barricade on El's side of the clearing. The man snatched one of the large weapons from one of the dead men, and positioned it on top of the barricade, pointed at El's previous position. Now at ground level, El had no shot at him. El took cover and waited to see what the immense barrel would shoot.

Flames.

The weapon shot a stream of some kind of fuel, ignited. It might have been more effective had the vegetation not been wet. Or had it actually been aimed at where El was.

Under cover of the mighty distraction of the flamethrower, El broke cover and raced, head low, to just on the other side of the barricade from the man. He moved to below where the flames had been, popped up over the wall of sandbags, and fired.

Blood covered him. He had shot the man in the throat. Very messy.

He returned to the cover of the jungle and continued his maneuvering around to the back of the bunker, stepping over more trip wires as he went. The back of the building had no openings at all, he found. The builders had only allowed assault from the front. Of course, that meant the back of the building was blind.

El adjusted his spurs, created his grappling hook, and scaled the back of the bunker. He ran across the roof as quietly as he could to the front and lay down on his stomach.

This next part would rely heavily on his injured hands, so El took a moment to steel himself for the pain. He changed guns, setting this new one on semi-automatic. Then he slid over the side of the roof, hanging by one hand, and fired into one of the window slits. He shot in every direction he could reach by twisting his wrist. The hand supporting him screamed its objections, and his firing hand was hard pressed to hold position against the bursts from the gun.

In pain, El found he wasn't strong enough to pull himself back up to the roof. He was forced to drop down among the bodies behind the barricades. He'd be a sitting duck for anyone inside as soon as they were brave enough to approach the window slit again. He got to his feet, appropriated three guns from the dead guards and slid right in front of the locked door, pressed against it. The depth and narrowness of the "windows" ensured no one inside could see far enough to the side to see the door.

He caught his breath and nursed his throbbing hands, waiting for someone to get curious and open the door.

Go to: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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