Retribution Road, Jon Coon [top business books of all time .txt] 📗

saw that Emily was leaning against Gabe’s arm, asleep. She turned back to her dad and said quietly, “Now tell me what this is all about.”

“It’s retribution. We’ve hit the cartel hard and they want paybacks. They think if they hit us back hard enough we’ll back off, but you know we can’t. We won’t. If we do, they’ll end up owning our turf, and that just can’t happen. The illegal immigration problems are bad enough. The tons of drugs they are bringing across the border could destroy a whole generation. Congress just doesn’t want to accept that this fight is for the future of our country. I just don’t understand how they can be so blind. If they don’t change the laws, we are going to be another Mexico or failed socialist democracy like the ones in South America.”

“Dad, isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Honey, wait until you’ve seen what I see to make that call. Things are changing so fast, and none of them for the better. I’m afraid we’re going to lose this country if we don’t wake up and take back control.”

Realizing that was a conversation she couldn’t win, she changed the subject. “You said you have a diving job for Gabe. What’s that about?”

“I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, but Bobby Benson’s plane went down offshore of Galveston yesterday. Our team is doing a sonar search, and when they find it—”

“Oh no. Not Bobby and Susan. How about the kids?”

“They were coming back from Cancun, and we think the kids were with them.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. The senator must be devastated.” She looked for a tissue, didn’t find one, and wiped her tears on her sleeve.

“He is, and he wants answers.”

“If you need Gabe you must think it wasn’t an accident. So what really happened?”

“Bobby was a great pilot. I trusted him enough to let you fly with him. If you remember, he was the only one. Plus, Bob has had threats: ‘Back off or else.’ I think this could be the or else.”

“And you want Gabe to question them?” She put both hands back on the yoke and tensed her arms and neck. It was hard to hear what her dad was saying, much less believe him.

“If what you told me about what he did on that bridge is true—”

“Oh, it’s true. Remember, I was there. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Have there been many threats like that?”

“The harder we push, the harder the cartel pushes back. And the Mexican government isn’t helping. We think the same thing is going on down there. Oppose the cartel and they kill you and your family. It’s never been this bad.”

“So how are we going to protect ourselves?” She felt the knots in her stomach tightening. The situation appeared hopeless.

“Bunker mentality. It’s the only thing I can think of … at least for now. I’ve made provisions at the ranch. Once I know you all are safe and we get Paul back, we can take the fight to them. And I think I know just how to do it.”

“But how are you going to do that? Get Paul back, I mean?”

Chapter 9

EL PATRÓN—“THE BOSS”—JUAN MATEO CALDERA, stepped back from the marble sink and toweled the last of the shaving cream from his bronzed face. He looked both right and left, admiring his firm skin, perfect teeth, and full head of gleaming black hair. The surgeries and dental work, done in a Southern California clinic that catered to the Hollywood rich and famous, had been worth every dollar. Nodding his approval, he picked up a bottle of Frederic Malle cologne and splashed the golden liquid liberally on his face and chest. He’d come a long way from that skinny, pock-faced boy who started life as a farm worker on a coffee plantation in southern Chiapas, Mexico.

Still in the glass-front shower, his wife, Lareina, was washing her long black hair and arching her back against the water pressure. He admired the view, truly spectacular, then refocused on his own grooming.

He’d lost his father in one of the many confrontations between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican army when he was eleven. He was raised to be a Zapatista rebel and was carrying a Russian-made AK-47 by his twelfth birthday. The Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, the southernmost of the thirty-two sovereign states of Mexico, was one of the poorest, with parts of the state boasting a 48 percent illiteracy rate and two-thirds of the population without sewage service, only a third with electricity and half with potable water. This, in spite of a wealth of natural resources including gas and oil, timber, and a third of the nation’s fresh water.

As the Mexican coffee industry experienced competition from Vietnam, the plantation was no longer able to compete in the international market, where coffee is the third largest traded commodity, even with many workers only receiving shacks for lodging and subsistence amounts of food as pay. Facing a desperate situation, Juan went looking for a more promising career.

Like 450,000 others, he found it in the drug industry. During thirty years of ruthless ambition, he’d clawed his way over a mountain of bodies to the top of his chosen profession. He was now “El Patrón.” His word was law to hundreds and his wealth counted in millions of yearly revenue. He was beloved by his sycophants, feared by his enemies, and worshiped for his generosity to hospitals, schools, and churches in the mountains of southern Chiapas. He saw himself as a good father and provider to his own wife and four children as well as a benefactor of needy indigenous tribe members of the surviving Mayan nation, many of whom now served in his international consortium. And in Chiapas, there had been no better friend to the tribes than the Zapatistas.

The rebels took their name from Emiliano Zapata, a hero of the Mexican