Sergio Guerra had been an enforcer for the Cortes cartel most of his adult life. Over the past few years, the cartel fell apart as their main product was legalized in most of the US. Parts of his group had been absorbed into other cartels, but he had used this as an opportunity to retire. Sergio’s group was not particularly feared. They would beat up anyone trying to move into their territory, but they acted more like local police than a criminal organization. Sergio had never actually killed anyone - he believed that leaving his enemies with broken legs and arms was usually a sufficient deterrent. It kept his victims out of the action, and used up a lot of the enemy’s resources taking care of their members.
Sergio’s claim to fame was an ambush he organized that took out the entire Merida branch of a rival gang. They had been trying to move in on one of his gang's production facilities. He had relished setting traps and picking off the overconfident thugs one by one. After most of their members had been caught in bear traps, fallen into pits, or had their kneecaps shot by snipers, the rival gang had fallen apart. Most of them still could not walk without a cane, and it had amused him for years foiling their revenge attempts.
Sergio’s retirement hadn’t really changed much. He still would intervene in the occasional domestic disturbance, or intimidate anyone trying to steal from tourists. Unlike the police, he had no problem with planting surveillance equipment or cracking some heads. The police chief was an old friend and former member of his cartel. He could get away with a lot, but he also helped them deal with a lot of potential problems.
Sergio was surprised when he received a call from a person named Ms. White. He didn’t advertise his skills, so he had not expected anyone to attempt to hire him for a security job. He wondered if she had a cartel connection, but she was an American so it was doubtful. He always suspected a trap - his habit of not killing anyone left a long list of people who had yet to learn not to mess with him. Some quick investigation indicated this woman had no employment history to speak of. She had appeared out of nowhere a couple months ago when she started using a cell phone and renting an apartment. If she was CIA, it was extremely poor quality work building a cover alias.
He spent some effort placing surveillance equipment around a property she had recently bought. More interesting was that she had negotiated an offshore mineral lease in the area. Her company was an unknown startup - another red flag for a covert operation. Security was nonexistent as she met with 3 men who had joined her shortly after arriving on the property.
There had been a lot of activity - construction crews quickly building a large steel shed, lots of supplies getting delivered in crates. There was a lot of technical talk about robots. Robots? Drones he understood well enough - he used them frequently. Robots were typically used for manufacturing. That was something they did in the U.S. or Japan. Labor was so cheap here, who would waste millions buying robots? Sergio decided to take the job. He would eventually figure out what they were up to from his bugs, but if he took the job he could just walk in there and ask some questions. If they were doing something he didn’t like he could just turn them over to the police.
That had been a week ago. Since then, what Sergio had seen he could hardly believe. Robot assembly, underwater mining, fusion reactors?! This group seemed to be just getting started. They had the right idea of keeping all this tech secret, but they were clueless amateurs. If the wrong cartel or government caught wind of this, these people would be shipped off somewhere and forced into slavery.
Sergio had brought his concerns to Ms. White. She was a strange woman who couldn’t speak normally, but she had an app on her phone that allowed communication.
“Ms. White, I have serious concerns about your physical security. It seems like you have extremely valuable technology, and it is a miracle no one has stolen it from you.” Sergio declared.
“Yes dear, “ Ms. White responded, seemingly not worried. “That is why we are hiring you.”
“I don’t think you understand. Your employees speak freely in front of the cleaning people and catering staff. It is almost a miracle none of your local staff have cartel connections.” Sergio argued.
“Ahh, well I may be clueless about security, but I have a really good HR program.” Ms. White replied. What did that have to do with anything? Sergio thought.
“Anyway, we are at a vulnerable phase of our operations right now. Please let me know your recommendations for securing our facility and if you need additional people. I will provide you with a list of candidates we are willing to hire if you tell me what skills they need, but you can have final say.” Melinda continued.
Sergio had planned to bring in some more guys he knew. If she was restricting who he could hire, it would be tough. He decided to play along for now and listed what he needed.
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Alexey Lukina arrived in Merida. The weather was pleasant, although a bit overcast. His mood was not pleasant. A couple months ago his facility in Russia had been monitoring activity that he believed was the NSA. They had assembled a program on his data collecting center, and his supervisors had ordered him to keep an eye on it. What they did not realize was that it had burned his entire operation, but he was not quick to share that information. A few weeks later, his servers had been attacked. As far as he could tell the rogue program had removed itself and formatted all his drives. After a week sifting through the wreckage, he had found some traces pointing to a known NSA facility in North Carolina. He had mobilized some assets there to get information, but still kept an eye on Horace Mango.
At the University, his agents had infiltrated a couple computer labs that were working on NSA projects. This was a pretty big success which bought him some time with his superiors. But he found no trace of the attack on his systems, leaving him to focus on the Carolina labs.
For two months he had little success. He used this time to re-establish some of his other systems. After all, his best resources were the people he had turned. They did not know that most of the blackmail information was lost, so he was able to survive.
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Late in December, he got notice that five people of interest were headed to Mexico. Kids going on vacation were not noteworthy, but they were all headed to a city that was not known as a popular destination for college kids. There were a lot of expats who retired there for a nice seaside location away from the big hotels. Among the retirees was an ex State Department employee named Charles Steel - supposedly a low-level tech support guy, but Alexey knew the CIA/NSA tried to keep their best assets hidden with phony job titles. Even his name sounded impressive. This had to be the clue he was looking for!
Alexey pulled some people from the US and made some calls. He didn’t have much going on in this area, but he was able to hire some muscle from the nearby Calavera cartel. They were greedy, but willing to talk. He had to pay them quite a bit and shared some information about some undercover DEA agents. The guys they sent looked tough, but their training was pathetic. They would make good cannon fodder - he expected whatever operation was going on would have well trained agents providing security.
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Sergio had received word from some of his contacts that someone had hired a group of mercenaries.
He was worried - the cartels had not paid attention to this region in a while. He had set up some basic monitoring and had a few guys available to help him but had not expected this level of interest. The list of people Melinda had given to choose from was interesting. There were a few guys he knew - he naturally picked them, but some others were expats living in the area. Retired guys older than him, he had been surprised at how good they were. A couple guys were former special forces and seemed to be bored with retirement.
Still, Sergio wasn’t confident in his preparations to fend off a cartel attack. His guys were alerted, and they made some last-minute preparations. They had been building a wall around the property, but it was unfinished and not yet defensible. There were six SUVs approaching - that would probably mean 20 guys so they would be heavily outnumbered. Sergio was regretting taking this job.
But the SUVs went past their house, continuing on the road to the East. He had a drone following them and watched as they continued up the road another mile. The cars pulled up in front of a beach house and men with guns started spreading out and covering the exits. A quick search found the owner of the house was a retired IT guy named Charles Steel. Sergio called his friend the police chief and they had a quick discussion. He wasn’t sure who this Steel guy was, but he was not a fan of the cartels kidnapping people in his neighborhood!
These guys were heavily armed, and he didn’t want any of the police getting hurt. Sergio made the call and his men moved up the road a bit. They might as well cause these guys a bit of trouble, whoever they were.
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Mr. Steel was a scrawny, balding man in his sixties with an expansive gut. He did not look like a top spy, but Alexey figured the best agents would be forgettable in appearance. They had put a hood over his head and zip tied him. He was playing the part of an innocent retiree, begging them not to hurt him and insisting that he didn’t have much money. He had rented an empty warehouse back near the city where they could interrogate Mr. Steel properly.
The thugs he had hired were a disgrace. They had broken windows, furniture, and the front door for no apparent reason. They even wasted time eating food out of the kitchen. He didn’t expect a quick police response, but it was not something he wanted to deal with.
One of his agents notified him of police chatter. They had caught wind of something here and were heading here in force. Idiots! He would send the SUVs to run into the police and hopefully cause a big distraction. He would have to change vehicles and take a different, longer route.
Alexey was satisfied until the tires on the first three cars blew out and his driver slammed on the breaks. His guys boiled out of the cars. He heard some shots fired and there was a lot of screaming. He ordered his driver to turn around and head the other way at top speed. Mr. Steel’s people had set an impressive ambush. It took a real pro to let your guy get captured before springing the trap, but only someone heavily outnumbered would take a risk like that. He could still get away, and they would regret letting him capture their man.
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“Can you believe these guys?” Terrance chuckled. He had set up a sniper position and was happily shooting people in the feet or shins. “They keep getting out of the cars. I don’t think they have even figured out we are firing from both sides!”
“That one guy ran out with a baseball bat!” Caesaro laughed.
“Hey! keep focused.” Sergio reminded them. So far, he was impressed with the old timers Melinda had recommended. They had set up a quick spike strip and taken flanking positions without needing any prompting. The other guys, who he had picked up from his old cartel, were a little slower to pick good spots, but they were also good shots.
One of the SUVs had the sense to run from the ambush. 3 had no tires but one was still trying to drive off, throwing a bunch of sparks as the wheels spun. Of the other two, one had swerved and hit a tree. The final SUV sat idle - the driver having run outside at the beginning of the fight. He was currently lying on the ground moaning about his foot.
“Sotera, are you still tracking the guy who got away?” Sergio asked.
“Yeah, I got a decent picture of the guys in the front but can’t see the passengers. They don’t look local.” Sotera replied.
“We’ll look at it after we get these guys cleared up.”
A couple men were pulling some of the injured guys back into the cars. Sergio left them alone. His guys were having fun shooting the guns the mercenaries had dropped on the ground.
“They are going to get blood everywhere in there. That is going to be hard to clean!” Terrance grinned.
“Caesaro, stick around and keep them pinned until the police arrive. Then disappear and meet back at the house.” Sergio ordered. The rest of his guys left the scene and headed back to the house.
A little while later, Sotera reported “They switched cars, stole a vehicle from one of the houses near here. I’m sending you the picture. I got a glimpse of two other passengers, good face image on the prisoner, but couldn’t get the other guy.”
“OK, bring it home. We’ll leave it to the police from here.”
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“The prisoner was a guy named Charlie Steel. The police recovered him and the driver of the stolen car. Two others got away. We couldn’t ID the guys who got away. Mr. Steel had no idea why they kidnapped him - he is not wealthy and used to work in IT for various government offices before taking his pension and moving here. The other cars all had local cartel guys. They surrendered quickly when the police showed up. Most didn’t even bother threatening the police. The uninjured guys will likely be released soon, but the cartel will leave the wounded in jail, so they don’t have to take care of them. I don’t think they know who shot them up, but they will probably send someone a little more subtle to look into it. We’ll stay alert,” Segio explained.
“That is troubling.” Melinda agreed. “Don’t mention this to my employees. They are focused on some important projects right now and I wouldn’t want to disturb them. Let me know if we need to make any changes at the house to increase security. I honestly had no idea things would turn into a firefight. Are you guys all OK with continuing to work for us?”
“Are you kidding? We haven’t had that much fun in years!”