Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

“No, let me go down first. That way I can catch Laura,” I said.

We slid down quickly and carefully from the tree, ignoring the bodies around us, and went straight over to our two captives.

“Laura, retrieve the gun from under the Cripple’s body,” I ordered her, without removing my eyes from them. Only after she had done so, did I acknowledge them.

“Manual, Manuel, Manuel…” I could see he was wasted, but not totally. There was still a spark of awareness left, for him to comprehend what I was saying. Most probably the amount of drugs he had inhaled was smaller than the quantity he was used to. “I want to keep you alive, but my friend here thinks you are garbage and it is a waste to keep you breathing in clean oxygen. She also thinks Joaquin is a justice fighter and that is why he should keep us company.” I paused dramatically, then drew closer to him and asked, “Can we trust you to show us the way?”

Behind me, Zorro translated and also added in my dramatic pause.

“Si, señor,” he answered quickly. “I will take you wherever you want to go…I know this place better than anyone.”

“And you, Joaquin?” I asked

“I am a representative of the law,” he answered in heavily accented English.

“What does that have to do with cooperating with us?”

“That my cover has been blown and I have nothing to lose. I will be happy if you could ensure my safe arrival home.”

“And where is your home?” I asked. Joaquin didn’t answer.

“I have to know whose side you’re on,” I insisted. Joaquin glanced at Manuel, then answered, “I am a representative of the law. I am on the side of the law.”

With each passing moment, I liked his answer less and less. “The law tends to be flexible according to the reward the representative receives. Who is paying you, Joaquin?”

Manuel suddenly became interested as well. “Yes, Joaquin, who’s paying you? El Jalisco?”

Instead of answering, Joaquin tried to knock down our weakest link. Laura was leaning on the tree, her wounded foot hovering over the ground, the rifle slung over her shoulder and the gun steady in her hand.

With agility that was surprising given his looks, Joaquin leaned left towards her, held onto the barrel of the rifle and tugged sharply at it.

Laura cried out in pain, but the momentary imbalance worked to her benefit and she landed on her good foot. But it wasn’t enough to hold her up on the soft wet leaves and she fell on her side. Because Joaquin adamantly clung to the rifle, Laura’s sudden toppling caused him to lose his own balance, and he slipped on the ground beneath the tree. As they fell in a jumble of limbs, underneath the barrels of Zorro’s gun and mine, a single shot rang out, and the whole pile stopped moving. Our hearts stopped, too.

Zorro and I stared at each other. Neither of us were injured. “Laura?” I asked the still tumble of bodies next to my feet, my heart in my throat.

“I’m okay,” she answered. “Get him off of me.”

Joaquin groaned and cursed in Spanish. He was alive, and still held onto the barrel, but at an angle that wasn’t threatening to anyone.

I approached them and caught him by the scruff of his neck, pulling him off her. “Joaquin, Joaquin…” I clicked my tongue. “That wasn’t a clever thing to do. How will you build our trust if you keep acting like this?”

“I don’t know who you are,” he said, his voice loud and unnatural. I thought that maybe his ears still rung from the noise of the shot. “You have killed Mexican citizens and as far as I’m concerned you should also be under arrest.”

“Get up slowly with your hands above your head,” I ordered him. To emphasize my words, Zorro kicked him in the stomach, which made him wheeze and cough, and, more importantly, turn away from the barrel.

Zorro hissed at him, “We are not your friends and we are not playing with you.” Laura, who hadn’t taken her gun from his head during the whole exchange, said to him, “And for your sake and others’, consider a shower once in a while.”

Joaquin almost tripped again as he attempted to stand up, and then put his hands down to support himself on the tree stump. Laura also used the tree stump to pull herself up, and said, “We should check to see if there are any more weapons in the van.”

Zorro replied briefly, “You’re right. I’m on it.” She abandoned her spot next to me.

“We still haven’t received a clear answer from you. I suppose we can’t expect one and it isn’t really relevant. As far as we are concerned, you are just as dangerous as your doped-up friend next to you… and despite that, your cooperation could bring you home safely.”

Joaquin thought for a moment, and then asked, “What do you need?”

“For you to bring us to El Desconocido’s home along the safest and shortest route.”

“Then you can kill me now, because there is no way I will get out of there alive.”

“You won’t have to go there. Just guide us in the right direction and then go on your way.”

Joaquin thought about it once again and with a look of resignation on his face he said, “Okay, I will bring you as close as possible and then get the hell out of there. I think I will be the most hunted man in all of Mexico after I help you.”

“Manuel. What about you?”

“What about me?” he questioned.

“Can we trust you too?”

“Sure. And I will be happy to take you to his door. They have drugs for free there.”

“I don’t promise you that you can come with us all the way to his door, but you will definitely be closer to the drugs than you are now.”

Zorro got out of the van with two guns and twirled then round her finger like a sheriff in a western movie. “It’s