Operation Rigid Pt 09

EIGHT

An Offer Made

I pulled to a stop in front of room twenty-three and stepped out of the PerforMex truck. It'd been five days since I was last in Mata, and I was looking forward to a long sensual romp with Ana.

I hadn't said anything about being picked up by the local

policía

, but a couple days after my visit with Javier, I'd woken to find several ORSS guys watching me fuck three women in a lime green concrete room. On the giant television in the common room, the quality of the video wasn't great, and the sound was worse, but there was no question who the man was, or what he was doing.

It wasn't obvious, but the rest of the guys began subtly avoiding me after that. I didn't care. In fact, in some ways it was a relief because I didn't have to listen to their shit about me fucking whores anymore. I also suspected my time with ORSS would be ending soon, one way or the other. Ken had chilled toward me after our disagreement over Raúl. If they hadn't already, I was pretty sure someone at ORSS in Houston would soon be receiving a copy of the video. I didn't care about that either. A job guarding a gas field wasn't the reason I was in Mexico.

I opened the door and stepped into the sweltering room. It was raining, as it rained nearly every day, making the heat and humidity beyond oppressive. I lived outside of Houston, so I thought I was used to hot, humid weather, but then I came to FSH, Mexico. That's when I realized Houston didn't have shit on Mata for heat and humidity. I shut the door and immediately started the air conditioner pumping cold air. I pulled off my boots and flopped onto the bed to wait for Ana and the room to cool off.

After my last trip into Mata, I'd inspected myself when I'd returned to the bunkhouse at the rig. My manhood had several uncomfortable abrasions scattered over its length, including a particularly large and painful one near the head. The soreness in my cock and elbows were gone the next day, but it took a couple more days for all the scrapes to completely heal. By the time my cock was again ready for action, my knees had also stopped hurting.

There was no set time for Ana to arrive, and I was getting drowsy when I heard the knock on the door. With a smile, I stretched, rolled off the bed, and made my way to the door. Letícia was standing there. I quickly glanced around, looking for danger, but saw nothing alarming.

"What do you want?" I growled.

Letícia wasn't dressed for work, instead wearing jeans that she'd been poured into, a vivid green short sleeved pullover shirt with the buttons open to show off the swell of her breasts, and comfortable looking flat-bottomed sandals. With her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, she was sexy as shit without looking like a whore.

She pushed her aviator style sunglasses up and parked them on her head. "I have an offer for you."

"What?"

She pulled a folded envelope from her bag. "Five thousand, American, if you'll come with me."

"You've got to be shitting me. The last time I went somewhere with you, Javier sent a couple of his goons to pay me a visit. Not just no, but hell no."

She smiled. "Javier isn't involved in this. This," she extended the envelope to me, "is from Voice. He'd like to meet you. All you have to do is talk to him and the money is yours." She continued to hold the envelope out.

I wanted to leap at the offer, but I also didn't want to appear too eager. The money was clearly intended as an incentive because someone, somewhere, didn't think I'd be interested. "

Right

," I said, drawing the word out.

"He told me to tell you that he sent me to

ask

you to come," she said, punching up the important part of the sentence. "He said to tell you that, after you and he have spoken, you'd be free to leave, and you have his word no harm will come to you."

I held her gaze a moment. "Why'd he send you?"

She cocked her hip and looked at me like I was dense. "Why do you think? Because I'm a woman, so you could easily overpower me or use me as a hostage. I told him you wouldn't trust Javier."

"And you're assuming I trust you?"

A smile flickered on her lips. "No."

"And if I go, but say no to whatever proposal he makes?"

She shrugged. "I can't say, but I was told to

ask

you to come and to make it clear you are in no danger." She shrugged again. "When I was in his employ, he treated me well."

"Then why did you leave?"

She said nothing for a long moment. "I... had no choice."

"Why?"

"Can't we talk about this in the car?"

"Tell me now."

"In the car. It's a two-hour drive to Veracruz and I'll answer your questions in the car."

I pretended to hesitate. "Do you think I can trust this Voice guy?"

She nodded. "As long as you don't double-cross him, yes. He's a very powerful man, but he seems to be a man of his word."

I waited a moment before I held my hand out. Letícia smiled and placed the envelope in my palm. I wadded the cash into my pocket without counting it. I didn't care about the money.

"You're not going to count it?"

"Call it a gesture of good faith." She glanced at my feet. "Let me put my boots on."

We stepped into the room, Letícia standing silently by the door as I shoved my feet into my boots and quickly tied them. I stood and she led me to her Beetle. I'd heard her car drive up, but Beetles, the car, were almost as prevalent in Mata as beetles, the insect, and hadn't given it a second thought. I squeezed myself into the small car and slammed the door. It was a late model, and had been well maintained, but to call it spartan would be an understatement. Without air conditioning, and the windows rolled up because of the rain, it was going to be a sweaty ride to Veracruz.

We were about ten minutes into the drive when I looked at her. "You were going to tell me why you left," I said, speaking loudly to be heard over the roar of the engine and the occasional crashing bang of the car slamming through a pothole.

She glanced at me, her eyes slightly sad. "I got too old and I couldn't... compete... anymore."

"How old are you?"

"Now? Fifty-three."

"When you left."

"Forty-nine."

"What do you mean compete?"

She shook her head. "I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"You said you'd answer my questions in the car."

She was quiet for a long moment, but she didn't look at me. "You can't tell anyone I've talked to you."

"This will be just between us."

She was quiet for another moment and then sighed. "I was part of his... I guess you could call it his stable."

"Stable?"

She nodded slowly. "Voice has men and women to compete against other men and women."

"Compete how?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "Fucking. Fighting. Masturbation. Anything anyone of the employers can dream up."

"I don't understand."

She sighed heavily, as if slightly melancholy. "There are four men who arrange... games... between their stable and all the others. Each man has two men and two women in their stable, and once a month the men and women compete to see who can out fuck each other." She glanced at me. "Like I said, it can be anything. How much come can a man produce in a length of time? How far can a woman squirt. Who can fuck the longest? Who can make someone else come first?" She glanced at me and shrugged.

"And you did this?" I asked.

She nodded. "For almost twenty-seven years. I think the men bet on the outcome of the contests, though I don't know that for sure."

"These four men... they're part of the cartel?"

She shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe. Probably."

"And you never saw Voice?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean sometimes I'd see him, but I never saw his face."

"Why?"

She shrugged again. "Most of the time you simply didn't see him. We lived in a separate house, and we weren't allowed to go inside the main house unless invited. When I did see him, he always wore a mask."

"A mask?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"So, you really don't know who this guy is?"

She shook her head. "No. Nobody does."

"How is that possible? He can't wear a mask all the time."

"Maybe not. Maybe when he's not at the compound he doesn't wear his mask, but anytime I saw him, he always had one on."

I stared out of the windshield for a moment. If the guy always wore a mask, no wonder nobody knew who this dude was, but there had to be more to it than that. Walking around on the street wearing a mask would draw a lot of attention, and I wondered if the guy was leading a dual life, like an evil Bruce Wayne and Batman. Cartel

jefe

in his mask, and some respected member of the community out of it.

"So what else did you do? If you only fucked once a month, what did you do the rest of the time?"

"Whatever I wanted. Sometimes I had to go fuck someone else, but the four of us spent a lot of time... training."

"What do you mean 'training'?"

"What do you think I mean? We fucked each other, trying out new things and experimenting on each other."

"And Voice didn't care?"

"Why would he care? The better we became at fucking, probably the more money he made."

"So after a while, you couldn't...?"

She nodded slowly as she downshifted, the Beetle growling its way up a steeper than normal hill. "Yes. For a while I was the best, but then I started losing more and more often." She glanced at me. "One day, I was out."

"You miss it?"

"Yes," she said softly. "When I was there, I made a lot of money, and I was respected, at least by the other people who knew who I was and what I did. Now I'm nothing but a common whore."

"You said you also fucked other people?"

"Sometimes. The women more than the men. Voice would send one of us somewhere to seduce or fuck someone, either as a favor or so he could gain control over them." She shrugged. "It was all part of the job, and I didn't care who I fucked or who was fucking me. When it was some old, fat, smelly bastard, I'd just pretended it was one of the other guys fucking me."

"So, he fired you, but you stayed in touch?" I asked, trying to understand all the nuances of my situation.

She glanced at me a couple of times before she answered. "No. I was desperate. I didn't know how to contact anyone, so I showed up at the gate and begged to talk to him."

"And he did?"

"Not at first." I stayed in Veracruz, so Javier couldn't find me, and for three days I showed up twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, at the gate. Finally, on my third day, the guard at the gate told me to come back the next day." She paused again. "I did."

"And now he wants to talk to me." She nodded. "And you think he's going to want me to join his... stable?"

"I don't know and don't care. I got what I wanted."

"Which was?"

"Which was Javier can't touch me. At least over what you did."

"And you don't think Javier will find another reason to slap you around?"

"As I told you, Voice is a very powerful man, and Javier would be wise not to cross him."

"Why don't you leave?"

"And go where, gringo?"

"Anywhere. Why not Veracruz, if you were safe from Javier there?"

"Because Voice controls the whores in Veracruz. If he'd wanted me in Veracruz, he'd have told me so, but he didn't, so I had to leave and find another place."

"Mata de Juárez?"

"Mata de Juárez," she confirmed. "The oil workers have money and they're away from their fat wives." She shrugged and smiled slightly. "I have the money I made before, a car, and a house, so I'm not trading pussy for chickens, just to eat, like some have to. I do this so I don't have to spend the money I've saved." She looked at me, her eyes sad. "I know that, someday, I'll be too old and too ugly to fuck... and I want to have the money I've saved to live on."

"Here in Mata?"

"No... in Paso Novillo, about twenty minutes from here." She glanced at me. "There, they think I work for PerforMex."

I grinned. "Well, you do... in a way."

We talked some more about her time in the stable as she'd taken to calling it, but I learned little new. As we approached Veracruz, I was surprised that she turned North and began driving away from the city.

"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice hard enough with concern that she glanced at me and smiled.

"Don't worry. Just a bit farther. Voice's compound isn't actually in Veracruz, but just outside it, in Paso Tolome." She could tell by the hardness of my face what I was thinking. "It's not a trap, I promise."

She turned off the road and drove down a long, winding, narrow lane, before pulling to a stop well back from a large and ornate iron gate set in a high masonry wall. Inside the gate stood a man wearing a tie and jacket and holding a rifle. Though the rifle was at low ready and pointed away from Letícia's car, he was watching us intently. I silently groaned to myself. I'd been in his situation before, standing in the heat and humidity wearing a suit while performing security. It'd stopped raining but I knew the guy was still miserable.

"This is as far as I go."

"What? I just walk up to the gate?"

She nodded. "Yes. You're expected. Keep your hands out where the guy can see them and tell him your name."

"How do I get back?"

"I'm supposed to wait for you."

"You're not coming in?"

She shook her head, looking at the gate with what might be longing. "No. I'm no longer welcome here."

"Because of me?"

"No... just because I'm not. When you're no longer useful, you won't be welcome here either."

"So, Voice met with you somewhere else to discuss me?"

"No. I haven't actually spoken to Voice. I spoke to his head of security and personal guard."

"Who's that?"

"I don't know. I never saw her before. She wasn't here when I was."

"It's a woman?"

She nodded. "Yes. She spoke to me at the gate. I wasn't allowed inside."

"So, you'll be right here?" I confirmed. She nodded. I glanced out of the windshield as the man continued to watch us. "I guess I shouldn't keep them waiting."

"No matter what happens, thank you."

"For?"

"For preventing Javier from beating me."

"You need to get away from that bastard."

"And go where, gringo?" she asked, repeating what she'd said earlier. She nodded at the gate. "Go. They're waiting on you."

I held her gaze a moment before I opened my door and stepped out. I held my hands at my ears and stood by the car until the man motioned me forward. I slowly walked to the gate. As I approached, I gradually lowered my arms, but I didn't make any quick movements and kept my hands where he could see them.

I heard the engine of Letícia's Beetle rev. I turned as she began backing away down the drive. I whirled to look at the gate, the combat reflexes drilled into me by Uri taking hold. I expected to see the rifle being turned toward me, but the man continued to watch impassively. I looked back to Letícia as she continued backing away before turning off the narrow drive into the grass, her Beetle coming to a stop in the shade of a large tree. The engine fell silent.

Sighing in relief, my body flooded with adrenaline, I let out a long slow breath and began approaching the gate again.

"That's far enough," the man said when I was about ten feet from the barrier. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm expected. Anders Kraten."

The man touched the PTT--Push To Talk--switch on his lapel. "Anders Kraten at the gate. He said he's expected." Because the man was wearing an earpiece I couldn't hear the reply, but his eyes flicked to mine before he pushed the button again. "Understood." He released the button. "Wait here. Someone will be here to escort you shortly."

I stood sweating as clouds began to build, mother nature brewing up another afternoon rain. I slowly paced back and forth in front of the gate, never approaching closer than where I'd been told to stop. After what seemed like a long wait, a woman approached, walking quickly down the drive on the other side of the gate. I stopped pacing and waited. As she drew closer to the gate, I recognized her from the photo Mother had shown me. She was Valencia Cantor, the rogue DEA agent. I carefully schooled my face into banality.

"You Kraten?" she asked in unaccented English.

"I am," I replied, also speaking English.

She opened a cutout in the larger gate that was designed to allow a man to pass through and waved her hand, calling me forward. I approached and stepped through the opening. She latched it behind me and then turned to me. Saying nothing, she flung my arms out as she quickly, efficiently, and thoroughly patted me down, even grabbing my junk, something no tough guy in the world would do.

"Come with me," she said as she turned and walked back the way she came. She wasn't overtly hostile, but she was all business and no bullshit.

"Your English is exceptional. No accent at all. From the states?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"None of your business."

"Jeez, sorry," I muttered. "Just trying to be friendly."

"Don't."

She wasn't going to give me anything, so I shut up and followed her in silence, enjoying the swing of her ass. The picture I'd seen of her didn't do her justice. I guessed her to be about my age, maybe a few years older, and her hair was shorter than it had been in the picture. Now she was wearing it in an easy-care style that framed her face and caressed her neck, instead of the ponytail she'd been wearing in the picture. She was taller than the average Latina, and I guessed her height somewhere around five-seven, and though she had an athletic build, she had the same full breasts and dark hair and eyes that were common in her heritage. Instead of a DEA shirt, tactical pants, and boots, today she was wearing a stylish but comfortable looking pale-yellow shirt, dark dress slacks, a lighter grey blazer, and some type of low heel dress shoe. She was wearing the same aviator style sunglasses though, and they made her achingly sexy.

Just inside the gate, the paved lane became brick, and we walked several hundred feet around a long gradual bend, before the brick drive fanned out to form an expansive courtyard in front of a five-car garage. Attached to the garage was a huge home in typical Mexican style, with a dark brown clay tile roof, arched doorways, and cream-colored stucco walls. It was an extraordinarily beautiful home with old-world charm and a modern flair.

She led me to the front door where I noticed a camera maintaining an unblinking vigil over the entrance. Inside, the blessed coolness hit me like a wall of relief. The home was as stunning inside as out, with more elegant arches leading off the entrance to other parts of the home, white marble floors with brown inlays polished to a mirror finish, a grand curving stairway with beautifully polished dark wood railings and risers leading to a second floor, and tasteful artwork on the walls. Only the suited thug standing just inside the intricately carved and polished door, with what appeared to be a heavily modified Heckler & Koch G36, marred the otherwise beautiful interior.

"This way," Valencia said as she led me deeper into the house, up a short flight of curving steps, and stopped before a short door set in a rounded wall. "Shoes off," she said, pointing at a finely polished wooden bench that matched the curve of the wall.

"What's going on? I thought I was going to meet... someone." I'd almost said Voice, but I didn't know if that was a name I was supposed to know, and I didn't want to get Letícia into any shit.

"You will. Shoes off."

I sat on the bench, removed my boots, and placed them under the bench.

"Inside," she said as I stood, opening the door and stepping back. The inside of the door had a thick, red plastic pad attached, and there was no obvious way to open it from the inside.

I forced myself not to duck as I stepped through the door, the top of the entrance less than four inches above my head. I stepped into an octagonal room, perhaps thirty feet across, as the door clicked shut behind me and disappeared into the wall, leaving a barely visible seam. I resisted my urge to try to figure out how to reopen the portal.