Chapter 3 - THE ESCAPE FROM CULIACÁN
The sudden glaring brightness of high-beam headlights flooded the interior of the Mercedes. Mariana pulled the tactical blanket over Santiago, squeezing her eyes shut as the infant began to whimper.
"Stay down, Señora!" the driver shouted, reaching under his seat to pull out a compact submachine gun. The front passenger, a fiercely loyal veteran named Tomas, turned to Mariana, his face pale under the dashboard lights.
"The compound didn't explode from an enemy strike," Tomas growled, racking the bolt of his rifle. "The Boss set off the thermite charges himself. He blew up La Quinta to fake his own death and erase every database containing your records! But someone leaked this airstrip route!"
"Hector's men!" Mariana realized with a wave of nausea. "Hector must have alerted the Jalisco cartel before Diego killed him!"
BOOM!
A heavy 0.50-caliber bullet tore through the armored windshield of the Mercedes, leaving a spiderweb crack in the reinforced ballistic glass.
"Hold on!" the driver yelled.
He slammed the transmission into reverse, stepping on the gas. The tires screeched violently as the heavy SUV rocketed backward up the winding mountain trail. Heavy gunfire erupted from the tactical trucks ahead, hammering against the Mercedes' exterior like heavy hail.
The bulletproof armor held, but the sheer force of the incoming rounds was tearing the vehicle's bodywork to shreds.
"We can't outrun four trucks in reverse!" Tomas yelled, firing out his window at the advancing convoy. "Mariana! In the seat pocket in front of you! There is a emergency tracker locator beacon! Press the blue button!"
Mariana scrambled with one hand while holding Santiago tightly to her chest with the other. She ripped open the leather pocket, grabbed a small black rectangular device, and smashed her thumb down on the glowing blue switch.
Instantly, the radio inside the Mercedes crackled to life through the static.
"This is Ghost Actual," Diego’s deep, calm voice resonated through the speakers. "Report status."
"Boss! You're alive?!" Tomas shouted in disbelief.
"I walked out through the underground escape tunnel beneath the compound before I blew the main house," Diego replied cold as ice. "Where are you?"
"We're ambushed on Sector 4 mountain road! Jalisco mercs have us blocked! The armor is failing!"
"Hold your ground for thirty seconds," Diego commanded. "Look up."
Through the thick storm clouds hanging over the valley, a low, thrumming beat vibrated through the air—a sound that shook the very glass of the car windows.
Suddenly, a blacked-out Blackhawk military helicopter dropped through the fog directly above the mountain road. Dual heavy Gatling guns mounted on its sides spun to life with a deafening, terrifying roar.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!
A rain of tungsten bullets poured down from the sky, instantly shredding the four Jalisco cartel trucks into burning heaps of twisted metal and smoke. The enemy soldiers were obliterated before they could even turn their weapons toward the sky.
Mariana gasped, covering Santiago's ears as the explosive shockwaves rocked the Mercedes.
The helicopter hovered ten feet above the road, kicking up a hurricane of dust and pine needles. The side door slid open, and a rope was dropped.
A figure slid down with incredible speed, landing smoothly on the tarmac.
It was Diego. He was dressed in full black tactical armor, his face smeared with soot and combat grease, looking like a phantom risen straight from hell.
He sprinted to the Mercedes and ripped the door open.
"Out! Now!" Diego yelled over the deafening roar of the helicopter blades.
Tomas and Mariana scrambled out into the howling wind. Diego didn't ask questions. He threw his arms around Mariana and his son, shielding them with his heavy body armor as he guided them toward the helicopter’s winch harness.
"You said you were going to stay and fight!" Mariana screamed into his ear as the wind whipped her hair across her face.
"I said I would burn the underworld to keep him safe!" Diego yelled back, locking the heavy metal carabiner onto her chest harness. "I realized I couldn't trust my men to get you to that plane! I only trust myself!"
Within seconds, the winch lifted Mariana and Santiago into the belly of the Blackhawk. Diego hooked himself up right behind them, vaulting into the cabin as the chopper pulled up sharply, banking left into the protective cover of the storm clouds.
Inside the cabin, away from the screaming wind, Mariana collapsed onto the aluminum floor, trembling violently. She checked Santiago immediately. The baby was wide awake, his large dark eyes staring up at the helicopter ceiling, surprisingly silent.
Diego dropped his heavy helmet onto the floor and collapsed into the bucket seat opposite them. Bleeding heavily from a deep graze on his left shoulder, he pulled out a field medical kit and began stitching his own wound without so much as a flinch.
"You're crazy," Mariana whispered, staring at the ruthless leader who had just decimated a private army from the sky. "You are an absolute monster."
"I am whatever I need to be to keep my family alive," Diego said quietly, pulling the suture thread tight with his teeth and snapping it off.
He looked down at Santiago, then up at Mariana. For the first time, Mariana saw something terrifyingly human in his eyes—not anger, not cruelty, but a desperate, agonized love.
"The pilot is taking us to a private airstrip across the border in Texas," Diego said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "From there, a Gulfstream jet will fly you and Santiago directly to Geneva, Switzerland. My bankers, my lawyers, and a team of Swiss security details will meet you at the gate."
"And you?" Mariana asked, her voice soft. "Where will you go?"
Diego looked out the helicopter window at the distant, burning ruins of his empire scattered across the Sinaloan mountains.
"I have to go back," he said softly. "The Jalisco boss, Don Roberto, knows Santiago is alive. He will never stop searching. If I vanish, he will send his hounds across the globe until he finds you. The only way to guarantee your safety... is for me to kill Don Roberto and destroy his entire bloodline."
Mariana felt a strange, terrifying pang in her heart. She hated what Diego was—a cartel kingpin, a killer, a man who dealt in death. But she could not deny the absolute, tragic purity of his devotion to his son.
"Diego..." she began, reaching out tentatively toward his blood-stained sleeve. "If you do this... you will die. You can't fight an entire cartel alone."
Diego looked down at her hand on his arm, then looked up, offering a slow, dark, tragic smile.
"El Fantasma died tonight when La Quinta burned, Mariana," he whispered. "What goes back to Mexico tomorrow... is just a ghost seeking vengeance."
He reached out and gently laid his hand over Santiago’s tiny chest one last time.
"Promise me, Mariana. If I do not come to Geneva in five years... tell him his father was a simple carpenter who died in a fire. Don't let him inherit my dark world."
Mariana choked back a sob, tears pouring down her cheeks as she nodded. "I promise."
Twenty minutes later, the helicopter touched down on a desolate, unlit runway deep in the Texas brush. A sleek white Gulfstream jet stood waiting, its engines whining softly.
Diego ushered Mariana up the steps. He stood at the bottom of the doorway, refusing to step inside the luxurious cabin. He was a creature of the dark; he knew he belonged in the shadows he had created.
"Goodbye, Mariana," Diego said softly. "Thank you for giving my son a second chance at life."
"Goodbye, Diego," Mariana whispered.
The heavy door pulled shut and sealed with a hiss of air pressure.
As the jet taxied down the runway and lifted into the dark night sky toward Europe, Mariana looked out the oval window. Standing alone on the tarmac below, illuminated by the flashing red lights of the airstrip, was the lonely figure of Diego "El Fantasma" Navarro, watching his heart fly away into the safety of the clouds.
May you like
She thought that was the end of the nightmare. She thought they had escaped.
She had no idea that 4,000 miles away, in Geneva, a silent trap was already being set.
