Money Knows No Bounds

Chapter Three

January 1st, 2020
0045 hours central
Somewhere in Mexico City
Luke drives into and parks the car in an isolated alleyway as five police cars speed past towards the forest area beginning to catch aflame. Sounds of excited cheers and festive music fill the air behind jeep as the sirens die out of earshot. Everyone else celebrates the beginning of a new decade.
"So," he turns to face John, "what's the plan boss? Where are we going?"
John opens a sleeve on his arm and pulls out a folded piece of paper stained with the residue of oil and grease. He hands the paper to Luke, "we go there. A buddy of mine down here gave me the location of a safe house he uses sometimes. We unload our stuff there, then we will go find a party and have some beers. In the morning, our ride out of here will meet us at a small airstrip used for who knows what. But it's secluded, safe."
"The same guy who gave you the safehouse give you the plane too?" Steve says with a concerned tone. "I mean, can you trust him?"
"Steve don't worry ok? Yea it's the same guy but I've known him for years. He was a good friend in my Army days. I trust him, well, as much as I trust you all."
Steve nods and Luke clears his throat, "well that is all sweet and shit, but crowds are filling the streets John. There is no way I can drive this car to the safe point. Especially since," he slams his hand onto the outside of the drivers side door, "this is covered in bullet holes. We gotta trash it and walk."
John sighs and nods, "all right. We go through side streets and avoid cops if we can help it." John jumps out of the back and picks up a duffel bag full of cash. Steve, Bill, George, and Luke follow John's example and adjourn the car each grabbing one of the bags.
"George, latch one of the last C-4 charges we have onto the gas tank."
George nods and attaches the small explosive to the bottom of the car as Luke sprints forward to the ending of the alley to poke his head around the corners.
John waits for George's nod of confirmation before setting down his bag onto the ground. "Rifles in the bags gentleman, don't wanna make this too easy for the police now." He opens the bag and stuffs his rifle on top of the pile of stacked American cash.
Luke runs back to the jeep and shakes his head, "all clear. A few drinking teens walking around, but this street is clear for the most part." John raises his head to Luke and nods down to the bag. Luke throws his weapons, both his rifle and infamously big knives, into the bag before zipping it back up.
"All right," he yanks the bag over his shoulder and looks at Steve and George while they finish putting away their guns. "Let's move." As one, they stand up tall and walk calmly out of the alleyway.
George chuckles, "heh. Yea nothing says 'nothing to see here' like five guys dressed in all black and carrying duffel bags walking down streets filled with people shaking their asses and dancing to La Cucaracha."
John smiles and shakes his head, "the safehouse has clothes better suited for us." He looks at both sides of the main street as the men began to trudge past him down a small road filled side by side with homes. The adrenaline is ending and the weight of the bags are bearing down hard against their aching shoulders. Steve chuckles at John's reply.
"George is just upset his both his buzz from his whiskey and the rush of the job are leaving his system." He begins to speak with a raise in his octave, "he's just a little grumpy grumps when he doesn't have his drinky winky"
The laughter of the men was dull and tiresome. Of course, even exhausted, George still found the great strength to lift his finger and flip the boys the bird.

"Should be right around the corner. The entrance is on the side of the building," John says gazing at the map glowing on the screen of his smartphone. Walking for well over twenty minutes down side streets made the men even more exhausted. Everybody had their own desires for the next few hours, Luke wants to relax a little, Bill desperately felt the need to pass out anywhere he could, Steve craves some coffee and plan the route to the airstrip. George was the only one left who wanted a beer or anything alcoholic, and yet, John had no idea what he wants to do when they get to the house.
They step onto another main street, the difference of this one is the sight. Hundreds of people just a few yards away from the men laugh, drink and dance. The town center of Mexico City was always known to have a good festival during these holidays. Lucky for John and the men, they were giving little attention to themselves as they slip to the side of a two story complex harboring a small convenience store and a few apartments on the top floor.
John moves in front of a black steel door and knocks three times. The sounds moments later are of the large quantity of door locks on the other side being unlatched. The door cracks open and a man moves to the side letting the worn out soldiers of fate in. John, being the last one to walk in, looks around the street again to see if anyone, even a child, was just staring at the building or, more importantly, the door. Seeing nothing, he marches past the door and throws his duffel and gear onto the floor of the moderately sized living space.
Bill is the first one, of course, to go down. After he sets his bags down he collapses onto the long, sheeted, and cold fold out bed extending from the couch. Steve moves to the kitchen to brew himself a pot of columbian roast as well as check the fridge predicting George's intentions when he finishes his bathroom run.
Luke crouches down toward John's duffel and unzips it enough to yank out his knives. "Aw I missed you my babies," he says as he caresses the sharp blades against his bare cheek.
"Want some alone time?" John sarcastically remarks watching his companion idiotically treat his weapons as if he was holding a woman.
"I would say yes, but I know how much you love to watch," Luke replies with a small smirk growing.
John chuckles softly and walks over to the short elderly Mexican who let them into the home and pulls out a small rubber banded roll of cash from his back pocket. He hands the money to the man who then shoves it into his front pocket and points to John.
"Señor," he says. He moves his pointed finger to the door, "ocho." The man points again to John then to the door and repeats the word ocho. John nods acknowledging what was being said. The man then walks to the door and leaves. John is quick to latch one of the locks to partially secure the only exit.
George sighs contently as he exits the restroom. "That was long overdue."
"That's what you get for drinking Jack right before a jump," Luke replies not even glancing away from his knives as pokes and prods the floorboard. "It goes right through you, always."
George smacks Luke right upside the head as he passes on his way toward the small kitchen. Steve rubs his eyes as the coffee pot fills with the hot black substance that he so desperately wants. He doesn't like sleeping during missions; every time he does, action always seems to follow shortly after he closes his eyelids.
"No beer," he says watching George reach for the refrigerator's handle. George lets out a loud groan and kicks the front of the fridge.
John hears the noise and rolls his eyes, "it's not the end of the world. There is a store right next to us. I'll go get us something to drink."
"JACK PLEASE! AND SOME FOOD!" George shouts as John opens the door prepared embark on the annoying trip to please his squad.
He closes the door and turns to face the street. A new vehicle now appears on the far right side of his view parked on the other side of the road. A grey, slightly outdated, Crown Victoria shimmers underneath a streetlight. Nobody is in the car, but John glances at it back and forth as he turns the corner and enters the small convenience store.
He sighs as picks up a small blue plastic hand basket and begins to walk down the aisles. Only glancing at the stock of bagged chips for a few seconds, he grabs a couple of the known American brands before moving over to the liquor area.
"No Jack...great," he huffs. "Well, George is just going to have to deal with tequila then." John grasps a bottle of the light amber liquid and lays it down gently in his basket. He picks himself up a bottle of cola and five liter and a half sized waters and walks to the cash register. Two men, dressed in simple colored buttoned down shirts, one of them being a dark scarlet, the other one is a navy blue, walk into the store having a conversation in Spanish as John sets his basket onto the counter.
"Speak English?" he asks the cashier who begins to ring up his items.
The cashier, wearing a black light yellow polo shirt, nods. "Yes, I have actually been to New York with my family last New Years. Very crowded."
John chuckles softly, "yea, it's a big city. Never been one of my favorites. Can I also get a pack of smokes?"
The cashier smiles and pulls out a blue colored small square with a spanish name labeling the front. "Best cigarettes I have. I give them to you for half price."
"Really?" John looks amazed. He has seen this brand before on his trip down to Puerto Rico last year. They cost ten dollars a pack normally, but they were absolutely the smoothest and tastiest rolls of tobacco he had ever tried.
"Sí, it is a new year, a time for celebration. And you are also my first paying customer of the new decade. Plus you seem very nice, so I give you half price on your entire purchase," the cashier replies with a grin.
John smiles softly, "thank you, you are a kind man, Mr?"
"Raul. I don't ever really go by my last name. I always have people just call me Raul," the man replies as he bags up John's stuff. "total is $15.48 tonight. Or I should say today."
Reaching into his pocket, John pulls out a $20 bill and hands it to Raul, "don't worry about the change."
Raul nods and hands John the two plastic bags holding his food and beverages. John takes the bags with one arm and begins to walk to the door.
Looking back, he waves to the cashier, "have a good year Raul!"
Raul smiles, "and to you also my new friend."
John turns back to face forward when he smacks roughly into the man wearing the red shirt. The two new people who had entered the store a few minutes ago were just standing near the small soda dispenser and rambling on as they stirred their fresh cups of coffee.
The man in the red shirt turns to face John. His faces wears the look of a man who has seen and done too many things in his life, maybe they were good, maybe they weren't. Only he knows, but John can tell that the wrinkles above his eyes were not a pleasant sight. They way they stuck out of his forehead make him feel uncomfortable.
"Mira por donde vas, idiota," spat the man. John only understood the idiota part but took the whole statement as the excuse to quickly walk out of the store. His body is almost out into the night when he can feel the eyes of both new men bearing down on him.
The man in the green shirt shakes his head and mutters, "gringos idiota." John walks away from the store back into the small alleyway and returns into the safehouse.
"You get me my Jack?" George immediately asks once John's first foot enters the home.
John pulls out the tequila and tosses the bottle at George, "it's Mexico. Drink that."
George groans softly as he catches the bottle and looks at the label, "blech. I'd rather have whiskey."
Luke deepens his voice while throwing in a country accent, "that's because you an American son! Gotta have that pure American Jack Daniels."
"Damn right I do. Besides tequila makes me vomit," George replies.
John shakes his head, "any alcohol makes you vomit, you drunk. Besides, they didn't have and Jack."
"Well how far did you check? I mean did you check the whole aisle?"
"Not really," John shrugs as he tosses the two bags onto the table Steve is currently sitting at sipping at his mug and looking over maps. "Just kinda looked at the area I was standing at, didn't see the infamous square bottle, picked up that instead. Just drink it."
George grumbles as he opens the bottle and takes a giant gulp of the tequila.
John sits next to Steve and pulls the blue pack of cigarettes from one of the bags. "So, how's the route coming along?"
Not looking up from the spread out maps, Steve says in a half yawn, "well, if we take the main highway up northeastern towards Pachuca, the plane location should be right there in the grassland area off the highway." He shrugs, "fairly simple actually. We just need a car."
Luke shoots his arm up into the air, still playing with his knives, "I volunteer for said car retrieval."
"..ok? So Luke will go get the car fairly soon, we move out at 0730," John replies.
"Why the fuck are we leaving so early?" George spits in an annoyed tone.
"Well, for one George, we kinda just blew up shit not that far from the city. Won't take the police to deduce that we fled here. Secondly, the guy who owns this place wants us gone by eight."
George grumbles more and continues to chug down the bottle, now almost half empty.
"Luke, make sure you get a car that is inconspicuous." John says as he pulls out a cigarette.
"Yea,yea I hear you," Luke responds as he waves his hand in the air towards John. "Oh hey, did you ever blow the charge?"
"SHIT!" John shouts and jumps out of his chair toward his bag. He quickly pulls out the remote detonator and presses the button. Nothing happens. "I hope it went off."
Luke stands up, "i'll check." He darts out the door towards the street the men walked down on their voyage to the safehouse. Noticing a huge ball of smoke arising above the treeline down the road aways, he walks back to the door and opens it slightly.
"We're good. I'm gonna go get the car now," he says inside the doorway.
John nods and Luke leaves the alleyway in search for a vehicle. As he walks down the sidewalk past the convenience store, the men wearing the simple color shirts watch him, sipping their coffees, inside the Crown Victoria. Their police radio crackles to life as a female dispatcher talks about a jeep explosion injuring two officers investigating it near the two detectives current position. The two look at each other and discuss who gets to go, as they can't both leave the stakeout. The man in the red shirt volunteers to drive to the scene while the man in green stays near the store.
Their investigation of the suspected drug safehouse was about to end due to no leads and the fact that nobody had entered the place in the past two weeks, but because they noticed Luke leave the place, they felt the need to further their investigation. At the very least, they decided to stay the rest of the night and see if the man comes back and possibly tail him in the morning. But for now, the green shirted man adjourns the car with his coffee and just stares at the steel door.