The cartel lieutenant wore a loud floral shirt that completely failed to conceal the heavy bulge of the pistol holstered at his waist.
Three more enforcers climbed out of the black Chevrolet Suburban idling behind the truck. They wore identical black tactical shirts, their hands resting casually near their waistbands.
Jimmy closed the manila folder.
"There are massive discrepancies on this waybill," Jimmy said, his voice completely steady. "I need you to open the rear cargo doors for a physical inspection."
"Do you have any fucking idea what we are transporting?" The lieutenant in the floral shirt stepped forward, invading Jimmy's personal space until they were inches apart. "Do you have any idea what the consequences will be if you touch this truck?"
"I only know my job," Jimmy didn't back down an inch.
The lieutenant glared at him. He slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy gold coin, and held it up between Jimmy's eyes.
The High Table coin caught the harsh afternoon sunlight, reflecting a blinding, golden glare.
"Do you recognize this, officer? If you do, you will get the fuck out of my way."
Jimmy stared at the coin for two full seconds. Then, he looked the lieutenant dead in the eye.
"I don't recognize it."
The cartel lieutenant froze, genuinely shocked by the defiance. Then, a dark, venomous rage twisted his features.
He violently backhanded Jimmy across the face with the hand holding the coin. The heavy, ridged metal edge of the coin sliced a deep gash across Jimmy's cheekbone. Blood instantly welled up and began to drip down his jaw.
"Do you recognize it now? Huh?" the lieutenant spat. "You pathetic dogs in uniform are just wasting my fucking time!"
The gold coin slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the asphalt and rolling to a stop against the cruiser's tire.
Jimmy didn't bend down to pick it up. He didn't even wipe the blood off his face.
His partner standing behind the cruiser instinctively rested his hand on his service weapon, but Jimmy gave a sharp, microscopic shake of his head to wave him off.
"The cargo doors," Jimmy repeated, his voice dropping an octave. "Open them."
The lieutenant laughed. It was a vicious, cruel sound.
He turned over his shoulder and shouted at the bald driver in Spanish. "Open it! Let these country-bumpkin cops see exactly what happens to people who ask too many questions."
The bald driver jumped down from the cab, walked to the rear of the trailer, and jammed a heavy key into the industrial padlock. He threw the latch. With a sharp hiss of pneumatic pressure, the heavy insulated doors swung outward.
The stench hit them first—a physical, suffocating wall of ammonia, feces, and rotting blood.
The trailer was packed even tighter than the previous one. There were at least thirty people inside.
They were chained to heavy steel D-rings welded along the interior walls. The space was so cramped they couldn't even sit down; they were forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Some had their faces pressed into the backs of the people in front of them. Others hung their heads, unconscious or dead on their feet.
The ribbed metal floor was slick with human waste.
A young woman nearest the doors slowly raised her head. Her eyes were entirely empty. They looked like shattered glass beads.
The lieutenant turned back to Jimmy, a smug, sadistic grin on his face. "Satisfied, Blue Devil? Can you get the fuck out of my way now?"
Jimmy's hands were trembling violently at his sides, but he forced them to unclench.
He raised his right hand into the air and roared.
"CONFIRM!"
The instant the word left his mouth, a suppressed gunshot cracked through the air.
The first round shattered the lieutenant's right kneecap.
He screamed, a high, piercing wail, collapsing onto the asphalt as his leg folded underneath him in a spray of blood.
Crack! Crack!
Two more shots echoed in rapid succession. The two cartel enforcers who had just begun to draw their pistols from the Suburban took 9mm rounds directly through their wrists. Their weapons clattered uselessly to the pavement.
Sergei and two heavily armed PMC operators surged out from the shadows of the abandoned repair shop, their rifles raised.
The bald driver reacted the fastest. He lunged back toward the open cab of the truck to grab a sawed-off shotgun off the dashboard.
He never made it. Anthony was suddenly standing directly beside the cab.
Anthony's Glock 17 wasn't suppressed. The deafening roar of the unsuppressed 9mm echoed off the metal canopy of the gas station. The bullet sparked violently against the asphalt, mere inches from the driver's boots.
"Do not move," Anthony commanded, his voice cold and absolute.
The driver froze in place, his hands raised in the air.
James and his fireteam materialized from the perimeter, leveling their suppressed MP5s at the remaining cartel enforcers.
The Sicarios looked at each other in absolute, paralyzing shock. In their entire careers, they had never encountered anyone—gangster or police—insane enough to open fire on operatives carrying High Table coins.
The lieutenant writhed on the ground, clutching his ruined knee. His face was chalk-white from the agonizing pain, but his eyes still burned with arrogant ferocity.
"Do you... do you have any fucking idea who we are?" the lieutenant gasped. "You touched us! Your entire bloodline is dead!"
Anthony casually strolled over. He knelt down on the asphalt and picked up the blood-stained gold coin.
He held it up to the light, inspecting the Latin crest.
He looked down at the bleeding man and offered a polite, friendly smile.
"Which Cartel are you representing?"
"Fuck you!" the lieutenant spat blood onto Anthony's shoes. "You fired on the High Table! You're a dead man walking, you—"
Anthony didn't let him finish.
He stood up, placed the heel of his Italian leather shoe directly onto the man's shattered kneecap, and slowly applied his body weight.
The wet, grinding sound of bone fragments tearing through cartilage was entirely drowned out by the lieutenant's agonizing shrieks.
The bald driver's eyes went wide as he suddenly realized who he was looking at. "Who the fuck are you?"
"My name is Anthony," he replied, turning to look at the driver without removing his foot from the lieutenant's knee. "Anthony Tarasov. Of New York."
Anthony looked back down at the screaming man beneath his foot. His voice remained perfectly calm.
"I asked you a question. Which Cartel?"
"Los Angeles!" the lieutenant finally shrieked, tears of agony streaming down his face. "Carlos Mendoza! I don't care who the fuck you are, Carlos is going to skin you alive!"
Anthony ignored the threat. He casually stepped off the man's leg and turned to Sergei, who had just finished inspecting the interior of the trailer.
Sergei's face was uncharacteristically pale.
"Thirty-four targets, Boss," Sergei reported grimly. "They are in critical condition. Severe dehydration and malnourishment. At least two of them need immediate trauma surgery, or they will die within the hour."
"Load them into the transport vans," Anthony ordered. "Take them all to the Queens compound. Wake up the family doctors. Tell them to bring the trauma kits."
Jimmy walked over. The blood from the coin strike had dried into a dark red streak across his cheek.
"Do you require any further assistance, Anthony?" Jimmy asked.
Anthony's lips curled into a faint smile. The young beat cop was vastly braver than he had given him credit for.
"This is no longer your war, Jimmy," Anthony said softly. "I will handle the cleanup."
Anthony pulled a fifty-dollar bill from a silver money clip and handed it to Sergei. "Go buy Jimmy and his partner some coffee and donuts."
"Keep your money," Jimmy managed a weak laugh. "I'll buy my own coffee."
"Thank you for your service, officers," Anthony nodded respectfully, dismissing them. He turned his attention back to the Cartel enforcers currently pinned to the pavement by James's men.
"Who is your primary logistical contact in New York?" Anthony asked the group.
No one answered.
One of the younger enforcers—a kid who couldn't be older than twenty—raised his head, glaring at Anthony with pure defiance.
"You think you won this? The Mendoza Cartel is going to find you. They're going to butcher everyone you love."
Anthony stared at the kid for two seconds.
He looked at James. "Take one of his fingers."
James didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second.
He drew a heavy, serrated tactical knife, grabbed the kid's hand, and pinned it flat against the asphalt. He pressed the razor-sharp edge directly against the base of the kid's ring finger.
The young enforcer began to thrash violently, but two PMC operators threw their weight onto his back, pinning him down completely.
"Wait! Stop!" shouted an older Cartel enforcer. "I'll talk! I'll give you the drop!"
James didn't stop. He pressed his weight down on the knife.
"AGH! FUCK—!" The kid screamed through gritted teeth, but surprisingly, he didn't beg for mercy.
He stared up at Anthony with watering, hate-filled eyes. "You are going to die."
"Perhaps," Anthony nodded thoughtfully. "In about seventy years."
BANG.
Anthony casually raised his Glock and pulled the trigger.
The bullet entered through the top of the kid's skull, blew out through his lower jaw, sparked against the concrete, and buried itself in his chest cavity. The kid went completely limp.
"I strongly dislike uncooperative employees," Anthony said, idly checking the action on his pistol. "Now. Does anyone else have any complaints?"
The older enforcer stared at the corpse of the kid, swallowing hard.
"We are just transporting 'raw materials,'" the older man stammered rapidly. "We collect the transients in Los Angeles and ship them to the East Coast. Two or three trucks a week, depending on the client's quota."
"I need the specific delivery coordinates," Anthony demanded.
The older man hesitated, terrified, before breaking.
"The Pritzker Pharmaceutical facility in Manhattan. We are strictly a transport crew. We don't know what they do with the bodies."
"We only deliver the truck to the exterior loading dock. We are forbidden from entering the facility. The Pritzker logistics team verifies the High Table coin, then they drive the truck into the subterranean bays themselves."
"Was this truck scheduled for delivery today?"
"Yes," the man nodded frantically. "The handover window is strictly noon. You have less than an hour."
Anthony checked his watch. He walked over to the rear of the refrigerated truck and looked up into the dark, sweltering compartment.
Thirty pairs of empty, shattered eyes stared back at him. There was no pleading. There was no hope. There was only the absolute, crushing numbness of the damned.
A young woman near the front weakly moved her dry, cracked lips. No sound came out, but Anthony could read the shape of the words.
Please. Kill me.
Anthony forced a gentle, reassuring smile. "You are going to live."
"Boss," Sergei whispered, stepping up beside him. "This absolutely has nothing to do with Winnie. She doesn't know about this."
"I know," Anthony said softly, his eyes darkening. "Enrique is running this operation under her nose."
"Unchain them," Anthony ordered. "Let them breathe."
Sergei found the ring of heavy iron keys in the cab and tossed them onto the floor of the trailer. "Unlock yourselves. Come down. We have food and water."
Anthony lit a cigarette, waiting patiently as the captives slowly, painfully climbed down from the truck.
James's men immediately moved in to support the ones who were too weak to walk, offering them canteens of water. The captives flinched away from the heavily armed men, utterly terrified.
Anthony raised his hand.
Sergei stepped forward, drawing his Glock 17. He racked the slide, chambering a round.
"Which one of you wants to kill them?" Anthony asked, pointing his cigarette at the Cartel men pinned to the ground.
The captives stared at Anthony with deep suspicion. They had been tortured for days; they fully expected this to be some sick, twisted psychological game where the volunteer would be punished.
A heavy silence hung over the gas station.
Then, the young woman who had begged Anthony to kill her slowly stepped forward.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice like grinding sand.
She practically snatched the heavy pistol from Sergei's hand.
She walked up to the lieutenant in the floral shirt. She aimed the gun at his chest.
She pulled the trigger, and she didn't stop pulling until the slide locked back empty, emptying all seventeen rounds into the man's torso.
Sergei gently took the smoking pistol from the woman's trembling hands. He ejected the empty magazine and smoothly slammed a fresh one home.
"Who's next?" Sergei asked calmly, holding the gun out to the crowd.
Empowered by the woman's vengeance, ten more captives stepped forward, their eyes finally burning with something other than fear.
"Two shots to the head is sufficient," Sergei advised them. "There is no need to waste ammunition."
A tall, emaciated man stepped forward and took the gun.
"One shot will be plenty for me."
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