Age of Blood

38

Walker woke when someone burst into his room. He scrambled to a sitting position, the sheets like pythons trying to hold him down. Startled, he looked around for Jen, but she’d left sometime in the night. Sunlight shot through the windows.

“Get dressed and downstairs,” Holmes commanded. “We have a problem.”

Walker stared bleary-eyed for only a moment, then surged into his gear. He slipped on his shorts and shirt, pulled on socks and boots, then ran downstairs. As he hit the bottom of the staircase, one of the Knights pointed down the hall. Walker ran until he saw a room filled with people. They parted as he entered to let him get a view of what they’d placed on the table. A naked body. Headfirst toward him.

Black skin. Jagged cut at the neck. Bloodless because it had been done hours ago. So deep he could see the spine and the suppurated edges of the esophagus. Above this stood a diamond-shaped soul patch, obstinate in death. And above the face’s rictus grin and the hollow, milky eyes sprung a head of yellow Afro.

J.J.

Walker became aware that people all around him were talking at once.

“I knew we couldn’t trust him. Fucking bastard, Ramon!” Laws said, spittle flying from his mouth. Walker had never seen him so furious.

“We don’t know that it was Ramon.” Holmes turned to Vega. “Tell us again how he was found.”

Vega gestured to a slight man, dressed in the robes of the Knights. His face was weasel-slender but his eyes remained intelligent and focused as he retold what he’d seen.

“He headed south out of town in a car he’d taken,” the man began.

“You followed him?” Laws asked.

The man glanced at Vega.

“I ordered it,” Vega said with a shrug. “We like to know what’s going on in our town. Now can my man continue?”

Holmes nodded.

“At Piedra Blanca, he pulled into a cantina. The man, Ramon, was already inside. They sat with each other and spoke.”

“How did they interact?” Laws asked. “Was it like an interrogation? Was J.J. angry?”

“Not at all. They seemed to be friends. They smiled several times. They even laughed.”

Walker exchanged a worried look with Yank, YaYa, and Laws, while Holmes stared hard at the body. The meaning seemed obvious, but Walker would wait until someone else said it. To do otherwise seemed a desecration of the former SEAL’s friendship, even if it was for another purpose.

“They laughed?” Holmes asked.

“Yes. Several times.” The slight man watched Holmes warily, as if he might explode.

“Go on,” Holmes finally said.

“They spoke for about half an hour. Then Ramon went to the back. I figured he was going to use the water closet. I waited, knowing that it was your man I was concerned with. Fifteen minutes later, your man also went to the back. I knew then that I’d been made. I hurried around and that’s where I found him.”

“And Ramon?”

“No sign of him.”

“He gave you the slip,” Holmes stated.

“Completely.”

“You’re telling me that you were able to track them to this place and then you completely lost Ramon?”

“Sí.”

Holmes launched himself at the slight man, grabbing him by the fabric covering his chest, and slammed him onto the body on the table. Everyone began shouting as Laws tried to stop Holmes and protect him from the others at the same time. The remaining SEALs pushed and punched their way through the crowd of Knights until they had their backs to the table, protecting their own as hands came forth to punch and grab.

Hoover leaped atop the body and snarled ferociously, snapping at anyone who was stupid enough to get their hands near.

Walker was hit twice, once in the eye and once in the jaw, but he held his ground, punching one Knight square in the face and sending him back into the crowd, then catching another in the groin so hard his target’s eyes crossed.

Beside him, Yank was a one-man pain delivery mechanism, his hands and feet firing outward in precise movements that were almost faster than the eye could track, catching Knights in knees, hips, kidneys, and the pressure points beneath the armpit and on the sides of their necks.

More Knights came from the hall and poured into the room. For a moment Walker flashed to a vision of the Three Musketeers hopelessly outnumbered by the men of Cardinal Richelieu. The press of men became such that he couldn’t even get a punch off with any power. He was in danger of his arms being pinned to his chest by the weight of the man in front of him. He felt his breathing begin to constrict as the mass of Knights pushed into him, pressing him against the table behind him. Just as it seemed as if no more bodies could fit into the room. Holmes fired a pistol into the ceiling. The yelling, the screaming, and all the movement suddenly stopped.

In the immediate silence that followed, plaster dust rained down on Holmes and Colonel Inquisidor Juan Francisco de la Vega, whom he held in front of him, his left forearm cutting off the air supply of the Knights’ leader.

“Stop!” Holmes shouted. Blood trickled from the right side of his nose and he had a black eye swelling above it. A small skirmish broke out by Yank and he fired again, this time sending plaster dust on top of the fighters. “I said fucking stop!”

All eyes focused on him.

Walker felt the pressure of bodies increase as those in the hall tried to push their way into the room to see what was going on.

“Vega, I think we need to call this a draw. No good can come of this if we continue.”

Like a switch, all gazes shifted from Holmes to Vega.

Vega swallowed and nodded.

Holmes released him but kept his pistol at shoulder level, the barrel pointing into the air. “Please tell your men to disperse. If you will allow, I’ll have my people organize their withdrawal and we’ll try and be out of your place within the hour.”

Vega nodded. “I think that is best.” He spoke in rapid-fire Spanish and all but four of his men left the room. They did so grudgingly and it took almost five minutes for them all to back out. When the room was finally clear, it was Vega who looked upon Holmes with something worse than contempt. “Why did you do this?”

Holmes wiped away the blood dripping from his nose with his gun hand. “I have no excuse. Please apologize to your man for me.” He turned to Laws, who had a fat lip and blood seeping from a gash above one eye. “See to it that SPG is ready to go in an hour.” To Walker and Yank, he ordered, “Secure all weapons and equipment and have them staged by the front door. I’m going to arrange transportation.”

“This is not the way I expected you to behave when I allowed you into our home,” Vega said, scolding him like a disappointed father.

Holmes, who had seemed willing to take a bit of it, wasn’t willing to accept this. He nodded to Laws, who pushed his way out of the room and down the hall. Walker heard him yelling for Musso and Jen.

“I find it hard to believe that your man lost Ramon so easily,” Holmes said in a barely controlled voice. “There was probably a vantage point that allowed a view of both the front and the rear. Why didn’t he choose the rear?”

Vega lowered his eyes and shook his head.

“What I’ve found in your country is a complete duality of loyalty, Colonel. I am sure that the men are loyal to you and the Knighthood. But I am also sure they are loyal to cartels. After all, if they can’t be home to protect their own, it is the cartels with whom their loved ones must deal.”

“It is time for you to leave now,” Vega said.

“Your cartels are worse than our mafia ever was. Our mafia had a rule that civilians were not meant to be harmed. When it was broken, the mafia made their own pay. In your country, it seems that life has very little worth. Your cartels kill at will and the Mexican people still support them.”

Vega gave Holmes a pained look. “I don’t need you to come to my country and tell me how bad it is when you have armed men going into your schools and shooting children.”

Holmes held up a finger on a hand that shook with anger. “The difference, Colonel Vega, is that the American people rise up against such things. We fight to make it not happen again. When are the Mexican people going to rise up against the cartels? When are the Knights of Valvanera going to do something for the people of Mexico other than protecting an icon?”

Vega stepped back as if he were struck. He glared at Holmes for a long moment, then resurrected his pride. He straightened his shoulders and his shirt. “My people fight in their own way as they always have. My Knights fight things you can’t imagine. As for you, I expect you gone within the hour.” He bowed slightly. “Thank you for removing the foul cult of Los Desollados.” Then he spun and strode away.

Holmes watched him depart, staring at the empty doorway for a moment. Then he realized Yank and Walker were still there, watching him. “What? You didn’t hear me earlier?”

Both Walker and Yank hurried from the room, intent on being away from the ire of their leader. But not fast enough that they weren’t able to hear Holmes ask quietly, “Why’d you do it, J.J.? Why did you do it?”