Respect

Once again, I struggled with where to place this story. I finally decided to leave it in Loving Wives to be fair to the readers of the first part. I fully understand that this story almost certainly should be in another category.

I apologize if there are more than the usual number of mistakes, but I've rushed this second part to get it on line because of all the requests as to when it would be finished.

The End of the Beginning

For the last six months, my life had been on a downward spiral as my wife, Cassie, was being drawn to her boss, Ted Walker. And I was convinced that if Ted hadn't already, he was going to seduce my wife. Ted is a Narcissistic prick who thinks his shit didn't stink. He's one of those golden boys with looks and charm who uses people and discards them. Years ago, when I was Ted's supervisor, I had written him up for his sloppy work. My reprimand did nothing to hurt Ted's career, nor was it my intention to do so. But in Ted's mind, I had put a black mark against his name, and he was going to make me pay for it. And his payback was to ruin my marriage.

As I said, over the last six months, things had been getting bad between my wife and me. I was hoping that our vacation in Mexico City with the kids would rekindle our relationship. But over the last twenty-four hours, my life had turned from a downward spiral to a shit storm. Cassie had given me an ultimatum. Either I give up my writing career and return to my old accounting job, or she was going to divorce me. I know that was Ted's doing. He was fucking with me every way he could.

I hadn't known whether my wife was sleeping with Ted yet or not, but last night I saw her coming out of his hotel room with her lipstick smeared, her hair messed up, and her clothes askew. As bad as that was, the next day things got even worse. I was now trapped on the hotel's forty-ninth floor with the President of Mexico and my family as cartel gunmen hunted the President. And I knew that if they got to the President, they would kill anyone else with him.

I looked over to Captain Lopez, the President's head of security, for some assurance. At that moment, his radio came to life once again. It was a blast of very excited, rapid-fire Spanish. I could hear gunshots in the background. The Captain translated for everyone in the room. "There are at least thirty or forty cartel gunmen in the hotel. They are trying to assassinate the President. My security forces have engaged them but they are outnumbered. Mr. President, we have to move now."

A moment after that announcement, the fire alarms went off. The Captain swore again and looked around the room. He spoke in English. "The fire alarm will effectively shut down the elevators. They're designed to go to the ground floor and then lockdown."

The President pulled his Chief of Security aside, and they spoke for a few moments. Then the President addressed everyone in the room. "The gunmen in the hotel are here to capture or kill me. But the Captain is right; they will not hesitate to kill anyone they think has aided me. We're going to the roof. Captain Lopez has called for my helicopter to pick us up there. Please be calm and follow my security guard. We'll wait for the helicopter together on the roof."

"We still have time," the Captain said reassuringly. "Since the elevators are disabled, they will have to climb the stairs. That's almost fifty floors.

The people in Maria's suite began to file out and follow the guard to the stairway that would lead to the roof. Captain Lopez's radio squawked to life again, and a moment later, his cellphone began to ring. The person on the other end of the radio was extremely excited, and I could hear more gunfire. The Captain spoke calmly but forcefully into the radio. I assumed he was issuing orders. Then he spoke into his cellphone. Even though I didn't understand his side of the phone call, it obviously upset the security head. He turned quickly to the President and explained something in Spanish.

The President looked at the Captain gravely and asked in English, "What's the situation out there? And please, speak in English so that everyone can understand. Sadly, I have put these people in danger. They have a right to know what's happening."

"The police are surrounding the hotel as we speak," Lopez answered immediately. "Army units are being mobilized, but they may take twenty or more minutes to get here. Still, I believe the helicopter will be here before the gunman can reach this floor."

The President frowned. "Make sure that a second helicopter is dispatched to pick up any that we can't take with the first," The President then patted his security chief on the shoulder. "You're doing an excellent job, Captain, considering the circumstances." The President then turned and followed the people as they made their way to the stairway.

Cassie and the kids had been standing away from us. Apparently, they only heard bits and pieces. When the President began to move away with two other security agents, Cassie approached me.

"Andy, what's going on?" her face was filled with fear.

"The cartels are trying to assassinate the President," I explained quickly. "We need to move to the roof. They're sending a helicopter to take us off."

I could see that my children were as frightened as their mother. Despite what was going on between Cassie and me, my only thought was to protect my family, including Cassie. It was like an automatic reflex. It's what husbands and fathers are supposed to do.

We started to move along with the others when Captain Lopez called out to me, "Mr. Spencer, could you remain behind for a moment?" Then he repeated his request to Peter and Billy. The look of total fear that now filled my wife and kid's faces squeezed at my heart.

"You all go ahead," I said reassuringly. "I'll catch up with you."

The look of concern on Cassie's face surprised me. I couldn't sync it with the woman who had lost respect for me and planned to take up with her boss. Still, it didn't matter. I would do everything I could to protect her and my children. Once they were safe, we could go our separate ways.

I made sure Cassie and the kids followed everyone else to the stairwell and then turned to Captain Lopez. He motioned us over to the floorplan on the wall. Every hotel has several on each floor. They show where the exits are in case of a fire or, in our case, a cartel assassination attempt.

"Have any of you ever fired a gun?" the Captain asked.

I didn't like the sound of that. It meant that Captain Lopez was expecting a battle with these gunmen, and we already knew we were outnumbered.

Billy immediately shook his head. "No, I hate guns."

Pete nodded. "I've fired a.22 rifle and a.22 target pistol.

When the Captain turned to me, I nodded also. "I belong to a shooting club. I own two nine millimeters, a nine-millimeter carbine, and an AR-15."

"Mr. Taggard," the Captain motioned to Billy, "you go ahead up to the roof with the rest."

Billy didn't have to be told twice and took off at a jog.

"I'm not entirely sure about everything that's happening," the Captain began, "but we're in a very bad situation."

Before Captain Lopez could continue, his cellphone rang. He answered it and then swore. "Mierda!" Then he spoke rapidly in Spanish.

"I assume that was bad news?" I asked.

The Captain nodded. "The President's helicopter has a mysterious mechanical problem. I told the pilot to commandeer another helicopter by force if necessary. It may be longer than the five or ten minutes I thought it would take. We may have to fight. And there is more bad news. There are many more cartel gunman in the hotel than I first thought. Also, before the elevators were shut down, maybe forty or more gunmen used them to get to the twenty-fifth floor. Now they only have twenty-five floors to climb to get to us. Still, that means they don't know where the President is and have split their forces, and they will have to go floor by floor looking for him. That will give us some time. Unfortunately, this attack has been well planned. They still have maybe thirty or forty gunmen on the ground floor and, according to my men, have already planted explosives to block entry. I just learned they also have gunmen throughout the city disrupting traffic, making it difficult for the police and army to get here."

"So, what is it you want us to do?" I asked.

"I've ordered my men on the ground floor to make their way up to the twentieth floor and block any gunmen coming up. The rest of my men are to meet me up here," the Captain said as he pointed to the floorplan. "There are only two stairways up to the roof. We're going to have to hold both those stairs. If necessary, we fall back to the doorways out onto the roof. At all costs, we have to delay the gunmen until help arrives."

I knew that the Captain was thinking about protecting the President. But my fear was what if the cartel's men reached the roof? They'd kill everyone there, including my family. Again, an overwhelming fear for my wife and kids consumed me. I knew that I would fight to the death to protect them.

Captain Lopez lifted his radio to his mouth and spoke again in rapid Spanish. Then he turned back to Peter and me. "My men from the ground floor are in position. The rest of my men are making their way up to join us. We have some time but not much. We've got to put obstacles on the stairs to make it as difficult as possible to get to us."

The Captain told us to start throwing furniture down the stairwell. He didn't want the gunmen to be able to rush us. Then he told us to build a barricade on the landing below the last stairs to the roof. We started with Maria Shivers suite, which was still open. At the same time, the Captain quickly opened the doors to a dozen other rooms with the master passkey he had. Captain Lopez then left with three of his men to do the same on the other stairway.

Over the next ten minutes, we all but emptied Maria's suite of furniture and three other rooms. We carried, dragged, and pushed everything we could before dropping it onto the stairway. It wouldn't stop the gunmen, but hopefully, it would slow them down.

Moments after I tossed a piece of furniture over the railing, five men appeared. I immediately grabbed the security agent's gun, leaning against the wall, but the agent grabbed my arm.

"No," he said in English, "good guys."

I watched as the five men began climbing over the miscellaneous pieces of furniture we'd thrown down. To my immense disappointment, they didn't seem to be having much trouble doing it. I hadn't kept track, so I couldn't remember exactly how many security agents Captain Lopez had with us now. Nevertheless, I was very relieved when I noticed that they all carried an assortment of what appeared to be, assault weapons and pistols. One of the men's arms was wounded, and his shirt was torn. Through the tear, I saw that the man was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Captain Lopez reappeared moments after the last man reached the top of the stairs. He started speaking in rapid Spanish, but all I could pick up was "Peter" and "Andy." I assumed that the Captain identified us, but he didn't bother introducing us to his men.

"Andy, Peter, I'm leaving three of my men here. I want you to throw more furniture down the stairs. Then build the barricade," he instructed. The Captain sent the two other men to the other stairway before opening a half-dozen more rooms for us.

With a strength borne out of desperation, the six of us tossed almost another two full rooms of furniture onto the stairs. Still, I had doubts about how long that would slow the gunmen down. But I couldn't dwell on that as we now had to build a barricade. But as I thought about it, I didn't know what we could use to stop the caliber bullets we would be facing. However, one of the Mexican security men already had a solution. He ordered that we grab a half-dozen mattresses and drag them to the landing. Then he went from room to room, kicking the desks apart. I joined him doing this while Peter and the other security men began ripping out as many electrical wires from the lamps as they could.

When all the material was assembled, we stacked the mattresses on their sides with the desktops in between each pair. We tied the mattresses and desktops together with electrical wire so our barrier wouldn't fall over. It wasn't much, but it would give us some protection. Or at least, it would, depending on what caliber bullets the cartel was using.

Moments after we finished, Captain Lopez reappeared. He was going to help defend this stairway. He had brought an assault rifle for me and a nine-millimeter pistol for Peter.

Peter shrugged his shoulders like he didn't really know how to use it. The Captain took it from him and showed him the basics -- releasing the magazine, putting a new magazine in, chambering a bullet, and disengaging the safety. Then he turned to me. "Any questions?

The assault rifle I had been given was a variant of the M-16 used by the United States military. It was not that dissimilar from my AR 15. I pushed the button to release the magazine and pulled back the slid to eject the bullet already chambered. I put the ejected bullet back into the magazine, slammed it back in place, and rechambered another bullet. Then I pointed to the little switch on the side.

It was the selector switch. "This will change it from semi-auto to automatic."

The Captain nodded and handed me four more magazines. He gave Pete three additional magazines for his pistol.

"Peter, Andy," he said solemnly, "if you don't feel up to this, there is no shame if you want to go to the roof. You can defend from up there."

"No fucking way am I leaving," Peter said immediately as he pulled out his cell phone. "I'm setting this up to record as much as I can. This is going to be award-winning stuff."

The Captain smiled and looked at me.

"I'm not leaving unless they force us out of here," I said firmly. "I intend to defend my family to the death."

"Pray God, it doesn't come to that," the Captain said as he crossed himself.

It was another ten minutes before we heard the stirrings below.

"Apparently, they're very cautious," Captain Lopez said to no one in particular. "They know they will eventually run into the President's security force. That's good for us."

I saw the first gunman stick his head up and quickly duck back. An unintelligible babble of Spanish from below told me that they were discussing how to get at us. It was then that I could hear the gunfire from the other stairway. That worried me. If they broke through there, and I was down here, my family would be in grave danger. Still, there was nothing I could do about that. I had to trust that Captain Lopez knew what he was doing.

As if reading my mind, the Captain offered, "I've got all the civilians off to the side, and I've got three additional security officers guarding the President and them."

When another gunman stuck his head up, he didn't pull back as quickly. That was his mistake as Captain Lopez fired, and the man dropped. This was followed by automatic fire from below that was bouncing off the walls toward us. I hadn't figured on that. We had to dive to the floor.

Using the cover, another gunman jumped out and dove behind one of the couches we'd thrown down. Before we knew it, he lobbed something up at us.

"Grenade!" I heard Captain Lopez scream. "Down!"

I dropped to my stomach and let go of the rife. Shoving my fingers in my ears, I clamped my lips together. The explosion pushed our mattresses over toward us at a forty-five-degree angle. But most of the force of the blast had been absorbed by our barricade.

Captain Lopez and the other security guards were up in a flash, pouring fire down the stairs. Most of the return fire had gone into the couch. I came up a second later and started firing also. Peter lay on the floor, totally stunned by the explosion. With a quick glance, I could see blood coming out of his ears.

I don't know whether we hit anything, but we had definitely given them something to think about. During the pause, I checked on Peter. He was sitting up but still kind of out of it.

Captain Lopez bent down and asked, "Can you hear me?"

Pete nodded.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Finger?" Pete said with a smile. "What are fingers?"

"He's fine," the Captain smiled.

"They're coming again!" the other security guard yelled.

From what I could see, five gunmen had bolted forward and hidden behind the furniture while their companions poured fire up the stairs and against the wall. As I dropped to the floor, I realized that our throwing the furniture down probably hadn't been such a good idea. When the gunmen paused, the security men and the Captain began firing down. I heard two or three of the gunmen scream. Maybe the furniture hadn't been such a bad idea. It gave the gunmen a false sense of security, but now they were learning it wasn't bulletproof.

Another grenade came up our way. At first, I thought it hadn't done much damage, but when I looked over, one of the security men was lying on his side with blood pouring out of his neck. The Captain crawled forward tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late. I quickly glanced over the barricade, and I saw that the concrete wall had at least a dozen large chunks out of it. We exchanged gunfire back and forth for the next several minutes. But I was now halfway through my third magazine. The only thing that gave me any sense of calm was that I could still hear the battle raging on the other stairway.

This was a battle that I knew we couldn't win. If the helicopter didn't arrive soon, we were dead. More and more cartel gunmen had arrived. They were getting closer, and at this close range, bullets were beginning to blast through the mattresses. It wouldn't be long before we would be forced to give up this position and move to the doorway.

I started the day knowing that my marriage was over, but I didn't think it would also be the day I would die. For some reason, the prospect of dying wasn't what really bothered me. I was, instead, terrified for my family. Yes, I was even terrified about Cassie's safety. A very sad thought suddenly floated into my brain. If they made it out and I didn't, I wouldn't get to see my kids grow into adults. I wouldn't see them graduate from college. I wouldn't see them get married, and I'd never get to know my grandchildren. I could feel the tears rolling down my face.

After several minutes of quiet, I glanced up quickly. I saw something metal being tossed to a man behind two chairs he'd stacked together. My look must have alerted Captain Lopez. He glanced up and saw the man aim the metal tube because he dropped and screamed, "Rocket!"

The rocket slammed into the stairs five down from us. The force of the explosion blew our barricade back two feet, but miraculously, it was still standing. A security agent lifted up and killed the man who had fired the rocket. The rest of the cartel retreated down the stairs to regroup.

"Fuck!" I said out loud. Then I slumped down against the wall. When I tried to gather myself, I threw up. I tried to piece together what was happening as I was now shaking from the blast. It was then that I noticed my shirt was changing color. It had been white, but now it was turning red. I was bleeding.

At first, I didn't know where the blood was coming from, but a pain in my forehead gave me a place to start looking. Carefully, I put my right hand up to my hairline, and it came away covered in blood. This made me nauseous, and I gagged, but nothing came up. As I righted myself, I probed my wound gently. As near as I could determine, I had a three or four-inch cut diagonally across my forehead. It was bleeding like a son of bitch, and it hurt like hell.