Mateo, Anders, Thomas and Harriett had bonded in the OpFrame for a view of a border operation.
Hola, bitches. Welcome to the hole. Mateo didn’t bother to waste effort breaking the character that he’d lived on and off for years. Bryce is busy with the dogs. We’re shifting 5,000 heads a month now. Other gangs do more, maybe up to spikes of 20,000 a month, but they don’t get everyone through. We’re chipping at least 50%, still preferencing younger cargo. Street rates to cross the border up now around $7-11k a head, depending on the gang, the route and the cargo. We follow those prices. Our tunnels, routes and pay offs still give us best success. Bryce wants to know when we can get the fuck outta here and take a fucking holiday, pendejos.
We thought you loved the work, Mateo. Harriett’s emote was soothing and mocking at the same time.
Working slaughterhouse don’t mean you love eating meat, lady. I’m a fucking vegan these days.
When do you want to hand over to Jaime and Romina?
ASAP. Bryce is seriously done. The drama’s set up for takeover. We disappear. Old forest for a lil R&R, then maybe I’ll come back to Centre and get a new job.
What about Bryce? Has he got any more ideas about what he wants next?
Impulsive motherfucker, you know him. We both need evals, ain’t gonna lie. I know I need one! Maybe he needs some tellin’.
Understood. Let’s Viewbond and we can talk together again with Bryce later.
A Viewbond was a means of remote viewing in mindspace that was Anchored by someone in the location. This increased fidelity of the view. Viewbonds could be established between two or many people. The Anchor was the person in the location to be viewed. Remote viewing in general was imperfect and something of an abstract experience. This is why the CIA had found it to be less operationally reliable and useful than satellite imagery and other forms of local, tangible intelligence when it had been developing the skill as part of SCANATE. The program had significantly exceeded SCANATE’s viewing capabilities and its personnel were far better mindspace operators, which enabled them to cope with the abstract nature of remote viewing and later develop Viewbonding.
Mateo surrendered his sense of self and began to hum a three note tune. The frequencies reverberated in the OpFrame and the others began to cycle and amplify the notes. Mateo left the single story hovel and stepped into its barren dirt backyard. In the centre, a scrub-like bush with mostly desiccating, thorny brown leaves stood alone. At the bush, Mateo dragged his hands over its leaves, scratching his skin until drops of blood began to smear on the leaves and branches. All the while he softly hummed his tune. He knelt and rubbed his palms into the earth around the bush’s stem, lightly digging downwards. He sang his tune towards the roots in the earth and willed gratitude to this natural punctuation of manmade squalor.
One by one, Thomas, Anders and Harriett began to sense a directionality to the OpFrame’s tonal frequencies. Chasing that sense of direction led to increasing volume, which they themselves returned louder and louder. At a moment of deafening reverb, a sense of arrival filled them and the Viewbond formed. Mateo fell silent when he felt them as a vague sense of his increased weight.
Ready to work, bitches?
Mateo swung back through the hovel and across the dirt street. The operation was in a rundown industrial complex of crappy buildings, some of sturdy brick and render, neglected for decades, now peeling and stained. Others were more recent steel frames clad in corrugated tin or thin steel rooves and walls. There was one modern warehouse type building at the far end that held all the legitimate stock and cargo.
The two guards at the fence nodded and slid the gate open as Mateo approached. He didn’t bother to make eye contact with either one of his dogs as he strolled through the gap. A few paces past them, he heard one of their radios burst into life.
“Two received, third and fourth in 20 minutes.”
Mateo stopped, turned and squared up to Gael. He put out his hand and stared straight into Gael’s face. A meekness had taken hold of the tall, well built guard who seconds before had projected an air of toughness.
“Copied. Front clear.” Alejandro said into his radio.
Gael reached into his jacket pocket and handed Mateo his small transceiver. Mateo didn’t take it and held Gael’s gaze. Mateo’s bulldog-like face was sullen but otherwise unemotional. Inside, Mateo struggled to give a fuck. What was before him was a nothing; a non-entity.
“Is it on?” said Mateo.
Gael twisted the power volume knob on the radio. Nothing happened. Mateo reached and snatched the useless radio from Gael’s grip.
“All stations, all stations. Stop working, it’s break time.” Mateo said into the dead radio. “Party at my place. Bring your bitches and your fucking mezcal and your fucking sombreros, muchachos. Gael is doing BBQ!” Mateo slammed the radio into Gael’s eye, twisting at the hip to maximise the power in his short, instant strike. Gael flew back like a rag doll and bounced off the chainlink fence, returning to Mateo who struck him a second time, downwards, landing the cracked radio around his mouth. Gael collapsed on the ground. Mateo worked two brutal kicks with the point of his tacky but expensive cowboy boot right into Gael’s gut. Mateo threw the radio down onto Gael’s face, turned and stared at Alejandro.
“Gomez, s-send three to the f-front, right now,” said Alejandro into his radio.
“Si, cabron,” came the reply.
Mateo looked at his watch and remained still. At his feet, Gael squirmed and moaned. Alejandro struggled to hide his fear. Ten seconds later, two men appeared from the shadows beside the dilapidated tin-clad building inside the fence and made straight across the front yard for Mateo. Twenty seconds later, another man cracked the small door of the building and slipped out into the courtyard, then knelt and took a firing position in front of the door. Mateo spat down onto Gael and then strolled across the yard to the door. Behind him, Gael was disarmed by the two arrivals and hauled up. Ahead, the guard nodded respectfully and reached to open the door for Mateo.
“I can kill you in less than twenty seconds.”
“S-sorry sir, I…”
Mateo swung the back of his fist across the guard’s face, then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and forced him through the door. Inside the draughty, dimly lit building were two large coaches of 1980s design, one a yellowed white with a wide brown, peeling decal stripe that ran the length of its sides, the other plain white but covered in road dirt and dust. The side windows were obscured by their drawn curtains. Only the large, flat front windows of each vehicle were unobstructed. Each driver seat was empty. Beyond them, the coaches were dark and their cargo couldn’t be seen. Fear and trepidation poured out from the coaches like a stench. Having closed the door behind him, Mateo dragged the guard around towards the door, then lightly shoved his face against it.
“Recognise this spot?” asked Mateo.
“Y-yes, sir.”
Mateo strolled between the two coaches towards the back of the building where four mobiles were lined and stacked to make a two story block. He climbed the steel stairs and entered the first room. Inside were packs of bottled water. Bryce stood with his back to the door, busy doctoring the bottles. The room stank of cigarettes and an undertone of BO.
“Nearly finished. You still bein’ nasty, amigo?”
“These fuckin’ clowns. Need to keep them scared. If we got overrun, it’d be a mess.”
“That’s the charm of a Mexican gun fight, brother. That’s why the odds of gettin’ hit are so fuckin’ low. They’re too fuckin’ slack.”
“These pendejos would run into the bullets. I told them you were done with this shit.”
“Good. Twenty minutes before three and four turn up.”
Bryce and Mateo stepped out onto the walkway to watch the coaches. Men had come out from the lower mobiles and set about their tasks. Four boarded each coach to instruct the cargo. Four more came up the stairs and began to fetch the packs of water and stack them beside each coach. The coach occupants were lead in groups to a line of five chemical toilets and a filthy wash area in the corner of the building. After that station, they were herded along the wall and each person, be they child or adult, were catalogued and photographed while being told this was for forms of fake ID that would be necessary across the border. They were then led back into the coaches and given a bottle of water to drink.
Two more coaches arrived and were backed into the building in front of the other pair. The drivers were led into the ground floor mobiles. The same processing was repeated with the newest arrivals. Bryce and Mateo looked on. When the last of the cargo was back on the coaches, half the guards withdrew into the mobiles. Eight men remained, one on each coach and one beside each coach door.
Bryce and Mateo moved along the walkway to the second mobile. Inside, Jaime and Romina were sat playing cards. Beside them were four black, military style hardcases, about 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high. As soon as Bryce entered, Jaime and Romina set about opening the cases and withdrew from each what looked like a large, black, metalized nail gun and a non-descript black rectangle about the size of a shoebox. Mateo checked his watch. In another 5 minutes, they could start. He lit two smokes and passed one to Bryce. They both inhaled deeply and blew out straight at their compadres.
“Gael’s gone,” admitted Mateo. “We need to reset the standards again. How’s your bunch of bitches coming along?”
“There’s plenty who are happy for you to go,” Romina said. “Gael was a useless motherfucker anyway but some of them liked him. Damian’s served his purpose. He’s agreed a merger after you’ve gone. He did actually agree that we’d be killed, didn’t even consider any other options for us two.”
“Makes things a bit easier, don’t it?” said Bryce. “How many confirmed with Damian?”
“Four. Easy to manage. The rest are neutral.” Jaime rubbed his fingers together to indicate money as he spoke.
“Where you wanna go, cabron?” Mateo looked over at Bryce.
“There’s a spot, somewhere near the Galapagos. Thousands of sharks congregate there. That’s where I’m goin’.” He checked his watch. “Let’s get movin’.”
Bryce opened the door, leaned over the walkway bannister and caught the guards’ attention. They both nodded up at him. He pointed back to the ground floor mobiles and the men started to move. The guard by the front door went out, closing the door behind. Mateo shoved past Bryce and slowly wandered along and down towards the ground floor, watching and counting in the last of the guards. Jaime, Romina and Bryce took the equipment down and moved towards the buses.
Bryce tied back his greasy, greying blonde hair, donned a red MAGA cap, crappy sunglasses and fixed a bandana around his face. Onboard, he began his systematic work at the foremost passenger.
He checked that the drugged water had taken effect with a hard pinch and check of the pupil. Using the nail gun he fired a chip into the upper buttock area. Opening the shoe box, he took out a chunky, rugged, rubber clad rectangle, about the size of a large tablet. In the centre was a thumb-sized depression which seemed lined with light papery material. He waved the device around the passenger’s lower back and a portion of the screen lit as it read the chip. He pressed the passenger’s thumb into the depression and the mechanism drew blood into the trap, stowed the sample internally and reset the collection trap. That was the repetitive job of cataloguing each passenger aboard the coach. Five minutes later Mateo stepped in, lifted the fourth set of equipment and went to the remaining coach.
When the job was done, they restowed the equipment in the hardcases, shuttled them downstairs and exited the building via a door behind the mobiles. They loaded the cases into two black, badgeless and beat up Toyota Hiaces and left the remainder of the work to their treacherous dogs.
253 signals are live. Thomas emoted confirmation to Mateo.
“They’re live,” Mateo relayed to Bryce.
“Hey, Thomas, when are you and Harriett coming down to Mexico for your vacation?” Bryce said to those he knew could hear.
“They said they're just waiting for you set a date for your wedding, pendejo.”
“That’ll be never, then.”
…I don’t fuckin’ know what next. I’m serious about the sharks though. Bryce, Mateo, Romina and Jaime had joined an OpFrame with Anders, Thomas and Harriet. The Viewbond had shown them what they wanted. The Mexican operatives had retreated to a compact villa in dense woodland about 30 minutes drive from the industrial complex. I’m burned out with this borderland shit. I’ve definitely reached the end of my time in undercover work. I need to decompress and settle the fuck down somewhere. If this was the Agency, I’d be getting a decent sized desk and people to throw bits of screwed up paper at. What’s the equivalent at Centre, these days?
There’s definitely desk space here, Bryce. Think about where you want to live. If you want a quiet life you can spin up a farm or just run a portfolio and scratch your balls. Thomas knew full well the toll operational life had taken on Bryce. We might have to prescribe you some therapy with Mateo. Emile might join you as well. How do you like the sound of a road trip? Oregon, Utah and Shark’s Bay, Australia? We’ve got some networking for you to do.
I swear, I need out. I’m going cold inside. The end goal is fine, it’s the fuckin’ scum we need to use to get it done that’s destroyin’ my empathy. It’s operational burn out. We can run the coup anytime, so let’s get it done.
I’m wi’ you, homes. Ready when you are. Mateo and Bryce had been running Mexican program border operations for the best part of three years. The human trafficking aspect was under their control but there was overlap with Cartel drug running. Balancing the risks of Cartel interference and attacks against performing limited drug runs for the Cartels to keep the attacks at bay was an unavoidable chore. Damian was just the latest ambitious up-and-comer in their crew who was cutting deals with Cartel lieutenants behind their backs. The only way to deal with that cancer was to cut it out. Damian would end up in a barrel that would be sent to dampen down such ambitions. His four friends would serve similar purposes with different audiences. To react in any other way would be to alert the Cartels to the fact that this wasn't standard Mexican business. The program ran occasional, very large loads of coke for the Cartels through its trafficking routes for discount rates and guaranteed success in order for the Cartels to allow it to operate. The program knew that the majority of the revenue from these loads were set aside by the Cartels and then funneled into the program’s laundering operations via the farms and rehab locations, which is exactly what was intended. The threat of an aggressive Cartel takeover was always there and forced the program to project adequate force, violence and intelligence back at the Cartels to hold them off, who believed that these border trafficking operations were a totally separate entity from the farms. Bryce was heavily experienced in this work but his need for redemption had become overwhelming. Mateo had joined the program with Bryce and the two had trained together, which made them close and extremely tolerant of each other's present behaviours and circumstances. To keep control over the dogs in their operation they needed to wield the correct kind of criminal power, which was grounded in brutality and violence towards their dogs and anyone else's. The real mission was about how the cargo entered the USA and what happened on the other side. That's where this program operation differed. The program couldn't stop the trafficking of people or drugs but it could create versions of those operations that served its purpose. These migrants were destined for a different experience to those trafficked by others.
How do you want to run the coup? Harriet emoted.
Spoof Damian with a Cartel lure to get them here and we'll set everything up. And book me a ticket to that liveaboard shark tour near the Galapagos.
At the sheds, Damian had overseen the last coach depart for the tunnel staging point. Alejandro, Pablo, Deniz and Mouse were with him in the room where Bryce had drugged the cargo’s water. They played poker and drank shots of Patron as they goaded each other.
A text alert pinged in Damian’s pocket.
“Friends in 23.86 -99.96. Opportunity” read the message from Emilio, their Cartel intel handler.
“Pack up and sober up, assholes. We got a job. It’s time to promote ourselves.” Damian wasn’t one for missing an opportunity and relished the chance to move up in the world. It had taken 6 months to work angles to make contact with the Cartel’s emissary and agree an arrangement. The Cartel had bought him out for $4m dollars. His four lackeys had each settled for a measly $150k each. That was the benefit of keeping them in the dark. Bryce and Mateo were the main targets, but Jaime and Romina needed to be taken out of the running as well. Damian had agreed with Emilio that they would be killed, not demoted. Emilio’s end of the bargain was to conduct professional grade surveillance and spot an opportunity to take out the targets. Damian could expect information on Jaime and Romina soon.
Damian stepped out on to the walkway and dialled Bryce. “Hola, jefe. The cargo’s all gone. Gael’s done. Anything else you need doin’?”
“Gael’s on you. You run those assholes, you make them what they are. Decide if you’re going to meet standard or need us to re-educate everyone. You’ll be first.”
“Si, jefe. I’ll set everything straight and bring it back into line. I apologise. Take this month’s money as a punishment.”
Bryce had hung up before Damian finished his final sentence. A deep wave of contempt and resentment swept through him. He relished the chance to inflict serious pain on both his bosses.
The four turncoats had swept through the ground floor perimeter wings of the isolated villa. It was not what they had expected. Its unfinished nature had made their approach and entry easier. They had walked in, leaving Mouse to roll the car slowly up the track on a ten minute delay. They had approached through the undergrowth, scaled the perimeter wall and cut in a ground floor window. The small villa was 15 meters square, with a single story perimeter and a two story core. The building was unfinished, with external lights unfitted along the eastern wall and perimeter cameras in the process of being installed. Scaffolding and building machinery was visible towards the rear of the house. Inside, partition walls were still in the process of being constructed, leaving large areas in the perimeter open. In the outer ground floor, there was no furniture or fittings. The four men were experienced and equipped and swept through the villa quietly and swiftly in tactical gear, like they were special police. They passed by what was becoming a large kitchen that overlooked the inner courtyard and backed out into the rear gardens, dimly lit by the moon. Through the rear windows they could see landscaping machinery and construction supplies. They headed through the kitchen towards the villa’s core where a dark wooden staircase swept up to the first floor. Stacked up at the base of the stairs, the smell of new paint broke through the dry dust and some faint notes of music floated from above. Damian tapped Pablo on the shoulder to commence his ascent of the stairs and the four man squad crept up, sweeping their compact Kriss Vector rifles through their sectors. At the top of the stairs the floor was lushly carpeted in a mid tone. The upper hallway had been finished to a high standard in a clean, modern look. Furnishings and decor were absent, but the walls were painted in a light colour and all the doors and trims were present. They split into two pairs. Damian and Pablo turned back towards the sound of faint music. Deniz and Alejandro remained in position and watched up and down the dark hallway. Pablo led beyond the stairs into a windowless section of hall with two doors on either wall. The music emanated from the far door, where a faint strip of light leaked from the frame. Stacked up, Pablo eased the door handle while gently pulling to keep the door tight in the frame. With the handle fully down, he gently reversed the pull to test if it was locked. A fraction of movement told him it wasn’t and he looked back at Damian to ready for entry. Damian mouthed a countdown from three then Pablo swiftly swung the door in as he entered, rifle raised. He could feel Damian pressed up behind, following his entry to sweep his half of the room.
The large bedroom was low lit. Inside the door was an antechamber with two doors, both closed. The two men rapidly stepped past the doors into the large bedroom, whose windows were at the far end. As soon as they made the end of the antechamber wall, the full view of the bedroom delivered a surprise. The large, low bed was a mess. White, plush sheets were saturated in blood. Spray patterns from multiple shots carried up the wall. The bedside furniture, headboard and mirrored wardrobes either side of the bed head were heavily spattered with blood spray, coagulated blobs and some visible chunks. Two bullet holes were clearly visible in the wall. Pablo moved quickly to clear the far side of the bed, spun back to Damian and they wordlessly cleared the bathroom and walk-in wardrobe.
“What the fuck?” whispered Pablo.
“Extract.”
They exited into the hallway and tracked straight to the stairs. Alejandro raised his eyebrows in question. Before Damian could issue a command, a thud of something heavy wrapped in plastic came from one of the other rooms they had passed.
“We need to settle this!” whispered Pablo, staring hard at Damian. He thumbed back over his shoulder, taking the command. Damian nodded and all of them moved quietly to stack around the first door. They made a rapid, quiet entry and clearance into a simple, smaller bedroom devoid of life. They moved to the next door and breached into another large bedroom, of similar proportion to the master that they had first entered. It was dark, but moonlight through the floor to ceiling windows was sufficient to reveal two bodies on the floor at the foot of the bed, wrapped in plastic. Some long, light coloured hair matted with drying blood was loose from the plastic roll. The proportions of the form were reminiscent of Bryce’s aging, paunchy frame. The other roll had two pointed boots protruding from the end and the thick set, shortness of Mateo within. The end floor to ceiling window was ajar. A light breeze stirred the net drapes, suggesting a balcony lay beyond. Pablo crept further into the room tightly followed by the other three. As he looked back to Damian, a voice came in from beyond the window.
“They were fat fucks. We should just drop them off. I’m not dragging them down.”
“Fucking Jaime!” whispered Damian. “Wait here till they come in, then kill them.” Pablo and Damian knelt into firing positions, side by side at the edge of the antechamber. Behind, Alejandro and Deniz stood ready to fire over them.
The flashbang blast came from behind. Its booming ring filled the room. Instincts were paused as shock and surprise momentarily overwhelmed the four men. The second, third and fourth flashbangs that immediately followed destroyed any co-ordination that remained. Two booming shots shattered a window and put Pablo and Damian on the floor as the bullets precisely cut into their shoulders. Two more shots from behind spun Alejandro and Deniz at their hips. Alejandro’s spasm of pain was released in a scream and the simultaneous unload of his rifle’s magazine that sent thirty rounds through walls, ceiling and the other windows in a second flat. Two more shots punched into Damian and Pablo’s right arms, disabling their ability to fire. Another two from behind ripped off Deniz’s right forearm and smashed open Alejandro’s left knee. The ping of another loosening grenade handle gave way to the biting stench of CS gas.
Jaime and Romina sat on loungers on the villa’s front porch. Between them was a hold-all stuffed with cash. Jaime had a few beers on hand and enjoyed a cigar, as Romina sipped champagne from the bottle.
The lights of a car appeared through the trees, followed by three more. They rolled in through the open gates. 12 men - junior lieutenants and the most capable thugs - piled out and approached in the dawn light.
“Good news,” said Romina. “You've all been promoted. Jaime's got your pay. I recommend you buy some fucking houses with it.”
Jaime reached into the hold-all and began to throw stacks of bills at each man. $150k was a good bonus for some clean up.
“We’re in control now. Bryce and Mateo are done. Damian was selling out to the Cartel and we were gonna be killed. Mouse is in the car. The others are upstairs. Do what you want, they're still alive. When you're done, barrel them and send them back. Now's the time for questions, objections and negotiations.”
“Who killed Bryce and Mateo?” asked Pedro.
“We did the independent realignment. Mateo had no respect for anyone anymore. Gael was the last dog he got to kill. You know those two were faggots, right? Too old, too fucked up. They were fucking each other when we came along. This is their secret faggot den.”
“They were cunts, for sure. There was a lil rumour about them. I'd rather stay independent.” Pedro knew to play along.
“Good.” Romina held out the bottle for Pedro, who swigged and passed it amongst the men to signify agreement.
Jaime led them inside and upstairs into a spacious kitchen area. He pulled packs of beers from the fridge and handed them out to toast the transfer of business ownership.
“To independent business and prosperity, he said, as the sun crept into the sky. Alcohol was a prerequisite for clean up.
“The four are down the hallway. Question them if you need to. Mouse is in the car. He's not for talking.”
After the beer was sunk, Jaime led them into the kill room. The gas had dispersed but there was still a vicious sting. Damian's team were trussed on the floor. Their belts had been used as basic tourniquets to slow their bleeding from arms and legs, but death was near.
The young Turks knew what to do and began to drag the failed usurpers out into the hallway. They'd be barreled back at the sheds.
“What about Bryce and Mateo?” said Pedro. Jaime and Romina led him to the master bedroom, spattered with gore. The two men's naked bodies now lay face down on the bed, amongst the blood, having been moved from the other room. They had been killed mid tryst. Shot in the back. The sight of entry wounds and blood told the story.
“They don't need to go anywhere. They were cunts, but they weren't traitors,” said Romina. “We'll burn this place and reuse the site.” She turned with Jaime and stepped to leave, forcing Pedro to back up. He'd seen enough. They needed to dominate the tempo and complete the clean up.
Sounds of crude interrogation came from other rooms. It was about confirmation, not intel, and degrees of psychopathic gratification for the soldiers. The punishment for independent treachery and betrayal was a brutal and painful death. Damian didn't have his promised $4m to bribe anyone with, so any money from Jaime and Romina trumped his hollow promises and sealed his fate in a barrel.