Ghosts of Guatemala

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Statistically, one hundred people a week were murdered in Guatemala. It was one of the most dangerous countries in the world, yet Antigua was known for its safety. That was because many cartels kept their children in Antigua. Teenage guards held shotguns guarding storefronts. They were never robbed. Who would be stupid enough to commit a crime with cartels keeping the city peaceful?

The government and local authorities were corrupt. This was known. Everything was owned and run by economic elites known as the oligarcas familias. The family of oligarchs. Mostly everyone else was poor.

Yet Antigua was called the ‘Jewel of Guatemala’ because of its beauty.

Pablo Puentes believed in Antigua.

Pablo was slightly shorter than average and had a squatter frame, olive-brown skin, and beady eyes. Anyone would recognize him as a Mayan. He was proud of this. He was one of many whose forefathers had originally flourished before Spanish conquest and colonialism had wiped the existing civilizations and created an underclass that lasted even today. But unlike the majority of Mayans in Guatemala who were poor and destitute, Pablo was wealthier than the city itself.

He lived on Cortega Street; one of the richest neighborhoods in the city, boasting a line of trees decorating either end, shading passersby from the sun. His estate was at the end of the street, vast, with ten foot walls keeping itself hidden away from peering eyes. Vines crawled up the towering walls and were lined with barbed wire. It surrounded the largest courtyard in Antigua. Guards wearing camouflage uniforms and colored berets patrolled the walls and the dozens of long hallways and luxury suites. They held wicked Remington Model 870 TAC-14 shotguns.

It had been two weeks since his brother, Sandor Puentes, had been killed. Pablo was now the new head of one of the largest cartels in Guatemala, and today would solidify his position more than anything he had done so far. But there was no wealth without danger.

“Tío, please,” Juan Puentes pleaded, folding his arms to stop himself from using them as he spoke. He was trying to live up to his station and be the strong, imposing man his father had been. “Blackmail has never been our business. Business is our business, no? What am I missing here?” His beret spun slightly as he shook his head. It was white, the only one among the others holding that color, distinguishing him as el comandante. Many guards in the room wore the new black berets marking them as Pablo’s chosen men, while still others sported the red berets of common guards.

Pablo couldn’t have been more opposite, wearing a polo shirt with white and cream pants made of cotton. He sat with his legs spread wide and comfortable, elbows resting on the massive oak table. He radiated power.

“You are right, Juan. Business is our business. Every opportunity seized.” Pablo raised a fist and clenched it. “You are thinking of money. This is a small thing to think about. I have money. You have money. We all have money. But now I have something no one else does.”

“Then keep it. Don’t give it away.”

Pablo smiled and shook his head like a man who refused to share a secret. “To become invincible, I must declare war.”

“Yes, but tío, this opens another front in a war we don’t need to-”

“And there is no need to call me tío. Uncle. I much prefer being your father.”

Juan grew quiet. After his father died, Pablo had quickly married Isabella, Juan’s mother. Pablo was now both his uncle and stepfather.

Isabella sat beside Juan, cradling a laptop. Her slender frame was cloaked in a loose, blood-red dress. She gave her son a sympathetic look, then spoke softly to Pablo.

“Juan is right that these are not simple cartels, or even politicians to threaten or bribe, mi amor.”

Pablo pointed an index finger down at the table and opened his mouth to make a point, but Isabella continued.

“I am not saying no. You decided this. Juan is simply being cautious. There is a reason he heads your security.”

“I am not being cautious,” Juan snapped, immediately regretting the rudeness shown to his mother as he caught her glare. He touched her shoulder lightly in unspoken apology before turning back to Pablo. “I am asking you to be more ambitious. There is more we can do with this information.”

Pablo raised a hand to cut off Juan’s protests. It was clear Isabella would not sway him either. He had decided. Pablo reached for a small gray cell phone lying in the middle of the table. He opened it solemnly and handed it over to Isabella.

Isabella’s eyes flicked from her laptop screen to the phone. She punched in a number, then handed the phone back to Pablo.

They waited as it rang.

Pablo did not put the phone on speaker for the benefit of his wife or stepson. He shared so much with them and kept few things even from his guards. He had a reputation of being strangely open and keeping little to no privacy. Yet even Pablo wanted this conversation to be kept from his family. This moment would be his own. He held the phone close to his ear.

The line continued to ring.

Juan pursed his lips, eyes fixated on the phone. Isabella’s face was a mask, unreadable.

There was a click. Static, then a breath.

“Go ahead.” The voice on the other end was hard and flat, and full of contempt.

Pablo smiled. His voice would not be the one they expected, and he reveled in this surprise; the tension before a magician turns his hand.

“Your man is dead.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“But perhaps you already knew that.”

Some static and a shuffling sound.

“Who is this?” It was a different voice now. Another man’s voice, hard, short, strong. A voice that gave commands instead of taking them.

“They call me the patrón of Antigua,” Pablo continued. “I have always liked the title.”

“Pablo Puentes.”

He was surprised how quickly the man had identified him. He had hoped for a little more playfulness in this exchange. “It seems you have heard of me.”

There was a brief pause, and Pablo thought he could hear the chattering of a computer keyboard. The voice spoke again.

“We know you front one of the largest illicit cartels in Latin America, dealing primarily in cocaine and s*x trafficking. You extort protection money from half of Antigua. Money laundering. We know you have members of the oligarcha familias on your payroll — the respected López family voted to suppress the anti-corruption commission. We know you are currently located at 117 Cortega Street. We know your wife, Isabella Muñoz, 43, and stepson, Juan Puentes, 27, and son Pablito Puentes, 8.”

“It seems you know quite a lot about me.”

“We even know you killed your brother Sandor Puentes. Does Isabella know that, Pablo? What about Juan? Mr. Puentes, this is an office of the United States of America’s Central Intelligence Agency. We don’t know a lot about you. We know everything about you.”

Pablo had to admit, some of this was concerning. But a fire was lit in his mind and though Pablo’s fists clenched, his smile did not waver. Instead, if anything, his determination was steeled. His voice cut the air like a knife.

“Do you know about this, Mr. Central Intelligence Agency?”

Pablo turned to Isabella, smiling, and nodded to her. She smiled back and took his hand and gave it a firm squeeze. Then she took a breath, shook herself, and sent a simple email to the man they were speaking with.

Pablo waited patiently. There was the sound of keyboards now — he was sure there was more than one — and hushed whispers saying something incoherent. Finally, the voice replied.

“You think you’re clever, Puentes? You’re not. We know about this.”

Pablo put one of his hands up, as if making a sign of surrender, even though the man on the other end of the line couldn’t see. He was enjoying himself. “Alright, alright. It seems there are no secrets. This is good. I hate secrets.” Pablo leaned forward in his chair and bared his teeth. “I’m sure the American people know about this if it’s no secret.”

“If you send any of this information to the-”

“It is too bad you cannot do anything.”

“Pablo, it appears you misunderstand the sheer power of the United States of America. Within hours, a Reaper drone loaded with Hellfire missiles can be called to strike wherever we choose around the globe. Its blast is a focused fifty-foot kill radius. You and your family can run. We don’t miss. It doesn’t leave dirt in its crater because the thousand-degree Fahrenheit chemical reactions are too hot. It makes glass. I have 117 Cortega Street prepared for a priority cue. All I have to do is give the word.”

“I don’t think the Guatemalan government would like that very much, or the United Nations for that matter.”

“For Christ’s sake, we bankroll the United Nations. All I have to do,” the man broke up the sentence for emphasis. “Is give. The. Word. Do you know what the word is, Pablo? The word is go. I know my drone pilots personally. Maybe they should get to know you too.”

“My brother used to say it’s not what you do, it’s who you know.”

Silence.

“I disagreed with him. It is what you do. That is why he is dead and I am alive. Señor, I have a very long list of emails for respected American journalists who are very good writers, and they write for very curious citizens. If I am killed, these journalists will receive the same information I sent to you.”

More silence. Pablo thought for a moment that the line was dead. He continued anyway.

“My brother did not know what I could do. But you, you know what I can do. Perhaps you will be safe.”

The silence continued for a moment, then there came a sound of exasperation.

“What do you want? What bizarre stroke of madness made you think you could get something out of this?”

Pablo shrugged. “Maybe send some money. Maybe do some favors.” He leaned forward again. “But whatever you do, or do not do, does not matter. You cannot kill me. That is what you did not know. Now. You. Do.”

He ended the call. Pablo snapped the small cell phone in two pieces and tossed the remains on the table in front of him. Juan let out a breath of air through his teeth. Pablo gave him a sideways glance and winked. Juan probably hadn’t liked the way he had spoken about his late father. But Juan was his son now. He would be stronger. He would be part of something much bigger.

Isabella stroked his leg, bringing him out of his reflections. “You have become the most powerful man in Guatemala, mi amor.”

“No,” said Pablo, stroking her cheek, although she wasn’t wrong. “I have become the most powerful man in America.”