Muerte Resurrected

The Death of Muerte

Carlos Guzman, "Otoniel" (Powerful Lord), sat next to his pool. The air was excellent, and the evening was enjoyable. Carlos" security men stood in the shadows, not as alert as they should have been. Years of doing the same thing, day after day, week after week, month after month, had made them complacent. A distant sound began to confuse both Carlos and his security team. Carlos recognized the sound at the same time as his guards.

"Otoniel"Several vehicles, moving at high speed, were approaching the Villa.

All of a sudden, there was the sound of suppressed gunshots. Bullets began to ricochet off the buildings and the pool"s marble tiles. Men began to die. Carlos jumped up to run, but a man dressed in black knocked him to the ground. Carlos looked up to see the face of Rico Garcia.

"What the f**k are you doing?" Carlos shouted in a rage. He started to stand, but Rico threw a sidekick at Carlos" head. He collapsed to the floor, and his left eye began to swell shut. "You estúpido (stupid), you can"t take over! My men will kill you within a day!"

Rico squatted next to Carlos and grabbed the drug lord by his hair, "Carlos Guzman, you are under arrest."

Carlos hissed, "You can"t arrest me!"

"Actually, you"re going to disappear. Whether you live or die will be up to you." Two black-clad men stepped up with a wave of Rico"s hand and jerked Carlos to his feet. One of the men cuffed Carlos"s hands behind his back and moved him toward the open front yard.

As soon as they walked into the yard, a black helicopter descended from the night sky and landed. The two men picked Carlos up, carried him to the chopper, and unceremoniously tossed him inside. More rough hands grabbed him and placed a hood over his head as the black machine climbed into the night sky.

More black-clad armed men moved about the grounds and house, engaging and killing the Narco-guards, while others ransacked the house. Bodies lay everywhere, as no one other than Carlos was taken alive. Rico entered the home where he saw Paula Guzman, Carlos" wife, dead. A pistol in her hand and a bullet in her forehead. Rico turned to see several of his men coming down the stairs carrying bags, boxes, and computers.

One of the men said to Rico, "Good thing we brought the trucks. Never saw so damned much money."

"They haven"t seen anything yet!" thought Rico. "Get everybody loaded up. I"m setting the charges to go off in ten minutes."

"They haven"t seen anything yet!"Twelve minutes later, an eruption of C-4 explosives and white phosphorus lit up the night sky. The explosions were heard and seen from miles away. When the Columbian Army and the local police arrived, nothing was left but burnt rubble and bodies.

The residents of Las Vegas couldn"t remember seeing so many law enforcement officers at one time. Uniformed police, men dressed in SWAT uniforms, and men in suits with guns and badges were moving throughout the city. The media was caught entirely off guard. They scurried about trying to interview men whose only response was, "No comment." At the same time, the news wires flashed stories about massive explosions in Columbia. Those stories were followed by newscasts that reported multiple explosions in Mexico. The attacks appeared to target the drug cartels.

Soon, the Las Vegas area looked like a kicked anthill. The police set up two warehouses to receive and hold prisoners. The Civil Liberties Union was sure something illegal was going on but couldn"t put their finger on it. One TV news anchor, who badgered a cop-friend about what was going on, was quietly told, "This is what a REAL war on drugs looks like."

REALThen, word began to circulate that several prominent citizens had been arrested, including some bank officials and a couple of judges. So far, there were no reports of shots fired. However, a few bad guys, it was reported, had "slipped and fallen" during the human trafficking arrests involving underage girls and had been hospitalized.

The following day, people watched the latest news about the raids. They heard about similar operations in Florida, New York, Louisiana, and other states. Stories began to emerge about a "real war on drugs." Panic was building across the country as junkies discovered that drugs were hard to find and non-existent in some locations.

The next day, the local newspaper and TV stations reported several hundred people arrested in Nevada alone. Law enforcement had seized tons of m*******a and several thousand pounds of pure cocaine. A load of Black Tar h****n in an eighteen-wheeler, valued at sixteen million dollars, was found by a DEA agent.

Metro officers Sergeant Barnes and Commander Conrad would receive commendations for the four-year investigation. Only Barnes and Conrad knew that a former Metro officer named Rico Garcia had fed them the information. They remained silent, having been threatened with Federal prison if they ever spoke of it.

Drug enforcement agents reported that an attack on a Mexican Cartel had claimed the lives of nearly a hundred Narcos. Black tabi-clad men were seen by survivors, blowing up drug processing plants and killing the drug makers. The local police were unsure if a Narco drug war was going on or if it was a secret government operation.

Several judges and government officials began resigning, retiring, or disappearing in Mexico, Peru, and Columbia.

Within a small circle of law enforcement, word got out that Rico Garcia, a corrupt Las Vegas Metro cop, was killed in a plane crash. He was trying to escape the Columbian authorities. The impact had also claimed the lives of the two pilots, alias Chang and Brody, both known Narcos of a Mexican Cartel.

Near Port Lligat, Spain, the ocean breeze cooled the Villa high above the clear blue sea. Noisy gulls flew about, stealing food from each other. The Villa was built above a cliff, where the waves broke noisily on the rock face below. A woman, the locals had begun to call el Solitario "The lonely one," sat on the marble deck of the patio.

"The lonely one,"A soft knock on one of the French doors drew her attention. Turning, she saw one of the servants. "What is it, Rita?"

“Señora, there is a man at the door. He wishes to speak to you.”

“Who is he, and what does he want? You know I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“He says he’s un policia, Señora.”

The woman felt a twinge of fear when she heard the police were at her home. But she went to the door and slowly opened it. At first, she felt light-headed, and then she burst into tears as the man put his arms around her and pulled her close. Rosa and Rico hung on to each other as if their lives depended on each other, not letting go.

“I knew in my heart you would come, but the news stories… it all seemed so final,” sobbed Rosa.

Rico guided Rosa back into the house, saying, “The jet did what we wanted it to do. But the police nearly caught us when we went for the other plane. It delayed us an extra week, but we made it. ‘Muerte is dead.’ He died in that plane crash. It is our turn now. No more killing, no more looking over our shoulders. For us, it’s ‘La Dolce Vida.”

Muerte is deadMuerte