Luis looked into the calm of Sean’s eyes and took some comfort, although whether it was enough to pull off what Sean had asked him to do was another matter.
“Are you being serious?”
“Absolutely and more importantly, the clock is ticking. We have less than three hours before all hell breaks loose!”
“Fuck!” he exhaled as he picked up the phone. “Are you sure?” he queried once more before dialing.
A firm nod from Sean told him to hurry up.
El Jefe answered the call after two rings. “Que?” his only response.
Luis did as Sean had prompted. He didn’t ask if his uncle had shot the Colonel, he just assumed he had.
“Uncle, I need the rifle you used!”
A short pause by his uncle as he justified a response was all that was needed to prove they were right.
“Why?”
“You shot a Colonel! That has consequences beyond our control.”
El Jefe had realized almost instantly after his actions that the repercussions could be intense and had led to him sacrificing his own man. The fact that his nephew had guessed instantly it was him was no surprise. However, he was surprised at his nephew providing some kind of solution.
“What will you do?” he asked intrigued.
“The less we talk and you know the better,” replied a very confident Luis.
El Jefe was in no mood to argue. His actions of earlier were beginning to weigh rather heavily as the blood lust began to drain from his psychosis.
“OK, where are you?”
“On the other side!” replied Luis telling his uncle he was in the American Laredo.
“6.”
Luis shook his head as he answered. “No, 15!” he said with some conviction and added. “In forty five!”
In answer El Jefe ended the call.
“Let’s go!” said Luis as he removed the battery pack from another used cell phone.
Sean looked at him as though he were mad.
“I’m not going anywhere near your psycho uncle unless the boy is with him.”
“It’s your plan!” replied a somewhat less confident Luis.
“Exactly, you go get the rifle and I’ll do the rest!”
As Luis hesitated, Sean moved. He eyed up the small collection of corpses in an attempt to ascertain who his patsy was going to be.
“Miguel was the most experienced soldier,” offered Luis as he walked past Sean towards the door.
Sean looked at Miguel. He certainly looked the hardest and most convincing shooter but he had been killed some time before the Colonel had been shot. Sean needed a few days not a few hours to sort things out. The chances of the patsy being accepted had to fit the timeline.
Sean picked the larger of the two bodyguards that had accompanied Luis to the house. He certainly looked the part and was shot after the Colonel, which made him a far better candidate than Miguel.
“Be quick, the timeline for this is tight!” reiterated Sean.
Luis nodded his head nervously. He jumped into his car and sped off.
With Luis having left, Katie and Sean were once again alone in the house. Katie left the safety of the living room and walked towards Sean as he struggled with the bodyguard’s lifeless corpse.
“So who are you?” she asked candidly.
“My name really is Sean Fox,” replied Sean, lifting the dead weight up and onto his shoulder.
Katie watched as he struggled towards the door. The life that had flooded back into her on seeing Sean again had drained completely away. The loss of her son compounding the second loss of her husband was obviously a weight she struggled to bear. Sean dumped the bodyguard’s body in the trunk of his rental and despite his lack of time, returned to the crestfallen Katie. Small and vulnerable he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and make everything right. Something he knew he would try and do but to have that chance he had to ensure Vincent’s team of assassins stayed as far away from Laredo and her Mexican twin as possible.
“We’ll figure this all out, I promise.” He stood arms length away and held her as you would a child, somebody it was your job to protect and look after. He was treating her as someone he cared for and would save from harm. He hardly knew her but the look in her eyes said much more. She knew him, she read him like nobody had ever read him. She smiled, weakly but it was there, she believed him, she believed in him.
“Thank you,” she replied. “Now go!”
Sean kissed her on the forehead and ran from the house. He needed to get in position and that was not going to be easy.