Chapter 20: Chapter 20

CANNON

SIX YEARS LATER

“COME IN. TEN fucking four, what’s your stats?”

The inobtrusive buzz sounded in the comms and I fucking went nuts.

If Jason fucking Bates died in this humid and stifling country, I’d unearth him and kill him for a second time.

My comm uselessly tucked in my ear, I called again for any sign of life, my rifle pointed towards the warehouse couple miles away.

Shit in Mexico hit the fan, the minute I realized that my target was no more than a rogue terrorist gang taking immigrants as hostages. Whilst I couldn’t call my old boss, I had resorted to asking for help from the three most annoying fuckers I hadn’t seen in years.

Jason Bates.

Fucking Blaze.

And stuck up in the ass, Holy.

“Cannon?” Holy’s voice came with a pitch and I hissed.

“Jason went in. Motherfucker hasn’t said a word since”

“I know. Blaze’s comms is dead. Seems like they knew we were coming; they’ve got jammers all over the place”

“Your computers able to fix that or what? I need eyes and where I am, I can’t see shit”

“Signal’s a little weak, we don’t have too much time. Blaze took the back, Jason’s not responding. Fucks me to say this but we need to call Berkely”

Like hell we were. Berkely didn’t necessarily feel too homey towards me. Not after I’d gone rogue years ago on bullshit missions as such.

Calling Berkely meant going back to Miami, being a bodyguard and all that shit that was best left in the past.

I was going to handle my shit on my own. The gravity of the situation eating my ass up more than I’d liked, I retrieved my rifle stashed it in my bag before I stood up on the god forsaken roof concrete of a dilapidated building.

“I’m going in”

“It’s your funeral”, Holy badgered and I slung the bag across my shoulder.

Years of running solo and I hated to admit that I missed these fuckers.

“Do what you do with your fucking computers. I need eyes in there”

“We need more than eyes and you know it”

The line went dead and I silently cussed knowing Holy would call Berkely.

Rushing down the shitty crooked building, I blended in with the sorry lowlifes. This part of the country was infamous for all the illegal shit anyone could think of.

Illegal ammo. Training of little as fuck kids to become money launderers, terrorists and whatever vile shit you could think of. While I’d liked to play hero and save some of the kids from here, Mexico wasn’t my fucking circus and as such the people in it weren’t my god damn monkeys.

I came here for the immigrants, that was it. Clean job, clean pay.

The warehouse like a damned fortress from the medieval times, I did some reckon.

Jason had already taken two guards out and if I was lucky, Blaze had tranquilized some of them bastards from the back leaving a straight pathway for me to get in and out easy.

Taking out the Glock that was holstered against my waist, I charged in trying to be as covert as possible. Half an hour later, no shots were fired and no one came in or out.

That still gave me some dumb hope that my men were still alive. Jason was an unkillable roach-I knew this because half of the time I wanted to kill him.

Blaze? Yeah well he was the luckiest man I’d seen in all my years of serving.

Fucker never ate a bullet while the rest of us had scars and wounds for every god damn bullet we’d taken for clients and for the country.

The walls barely holding themselves together, the stench shittier than that of a brothel, I relentless pushed forward thankful I hadn’t seen a sight of them gang fuckers and at the same time apprehensive on what the hell happened to Blaze and Jason.

Fucking containers lay straight ahead and I contemplated my choices.

Assess and attack?

Analyze and fire the damn gun?

Jesus fucking Christ, where was-

Then I heard it. Barely audible, barely recognizable.

Footsteps. By the sound of it, two people?

Staying still, my gun aimed at the damn eerie hallway. My finger on the trigger, I waited.

The shadow in front of me took two steps and when the light permeated on his face, I was ready to shoot.

Two shots, as silent as a breeze in the wind and the five-foot nine Latino fell to the fucking floor.

Behind him, someone spoke,

“What the fuck took you so long?”

Thank fucking Christ.

Jason staggered forward, a MAC-10 in his hands.

“Thought you pussies were dead”

Blood smeared on his right cheek, his blonde playboy hair darker, he gave me one of them old smirks I hated.

“You came in to rescue me? Damn man, you going soft on me”, he joked and I seethed.

“Blaze? Any reports from him?”

“No. but I can tell you what he isn’t”

“Which is?”

“Dead. The fucker is bullet proof I tell you”

He was but I remained quiet advancing to the corner up ahead. This place was like a labyrinth.

Which container had the immigrants? One of them had to. Twenty plus immigrants could fit in one metallic box, question was, which one?

“You know when you invited us to Chiapas, I half expected a little barbeque reunion or something”

I didn’t do barbeques. Plus, meat was meat, whether you grilled it outdoors with supposed friends or indoors at the comfort of your coach. The latter didn’t seem that bad.

“Didn’t realize we were buddies”, I quipped and the fucker laughed behind me as if we weren’t swimming in a place full of sharks.

“As much as I like this solo act, I know you missed us. Where I come from, calling people to clean up your mess that’s called friendship”

It wasn’t.

“Whatever you say”, I grunted walking down to container 83.

“This sounds like a good time to mention we might have a problem”

Turning to him, my jaw ticking I asked,

“What fucking problem?”

“Holy’s statistics weren’t exactly accurate. Three men by the docks, four at the warehouse, two by the back. All of them kids except the one I killed”

Fuck.

“They are not keeping the hostages here”

“That’s what I figured. Apart from the coke in the containers, there’s nothing here. It’s a dead end”

Impossible. The contractor seemed so sure, this was the Reyes gang’s base. Fuck, I should have killed him.

“You check the containers?”

“Yeah. Two of them, maybe three. They have the same stuff, Cannon. Coke”

“Call in with Holy. Confirm with him what you just said and where the hell is Blaze?”

Two weeks in Chiapas wasted on running diagnostics about this damn warehouse. Fuck.

I leaned against the shitty container labelled shipment 84 as Jason tried to get in sync with Holy.

Why go through the trouble of rigging the place with signal jammers if all you were protecting is coke. Still, cocaine brought money to any shit organization that had a loyal system. I was practically standing in the middle of a maze of billion worth dollars.

“He ran surveillance. Some of the Reyes’ goons are six feet under, Blaze called it in with Interpol. That’s about all we can do”

“How many containers did you check?”

If my gut was right, then-

“Two, three. Does it matter?”

“It’s a god damn cover”

“I don’t follow”

“They are either stupid or fucking clever. Think about it, why would they assemble a bunch of amateurs to guard stashes of Coke? That shit makes twice the money human trafficking does”

“You think they are in here?”

I felt it. I fucking trusted my gut.

“Get Holy and Blaze we are cracking open every damn container in here”

An hour later we were down to our last two containers. Signaling me for an answer, I tipped my chin.

Blaze cut the locks of the rusty brown container while Jason did the same to the other.

Both men opening the doors with resignation, I stilled.

Then like birds set free from cages, a hurdled group of people walked out from both containers looking as gruesomely tortured as possible.

Holy tipped his head and I took a step back for the first time feeling some sort of gratification for saving them.

Women who had no homes, children who’d lost their parents. Fuck, I’d hunt every last man of the Reyes gang and kill them all.

Interpol handling all the shit with the coke, the paramedics doing all they could about the immigrants, I leaned against my escalade looking at the dollars that had been sent to my account.

Once upon a time, I had saved people’s lives for the honor and the feeling that came along with it for knowing you’d done something good.

Now? Like a damn bastard, I did it for money.

“Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?”

Cocking my head to the side, I spotted the little kid with the teddy bear roaming around like a lost pup.

Kids had never liked me except for my nephew and that was an exception. I would have ignored the brat and hoped that he found his mommy but I didn’t.

Walking to where the blonde kid was, I knelt on the dusty pebbled ground.

“Hey kiddo”

Blonde, blue eyed, a little roughed up, the kid stared at me and for some unknown reason, I stared back with equal curiosity.

“Mommy. I-I can’t find mommy”

I didn’t know what to say. The little bruises on his arms, he was among the immigrants. Probably an orphan, an abandoned kid, shit!

“Let’s find her then”

I was a piece of shit.

Scooping the kid up in my arms intending to take him to the paramedic who’d eye fucked me the whole time she got here, my steps came to a halt when someone called behind me,

“Connor!”

“Mommy!” the kid wriggled in my arms and I didn’t have to turn around to know whose kid I was carrying.