No Room for Mercy (38 page)

JunJie exited his private Gulfstream jet on a desolate runway on the
island’s north side and was greeted by one lone figure wearing
dark shades, dressed in a black silk tank top, flip flops and khaki
cargo shorts who’d exited a white on white four door 2003
Bentley Arnage. “JunJie, Grover and Phillip Tran. It’s
good to see old friends again,” the man said aloud with a wide
smile on his face.

“Gacha, how’s business?” JunJie asked as he
extended his hand.

“That is something I should be asking of you, Mister Maruyama,”
Gacha replied with a firm handshake. “But me and my family are
living like kings and queens down here if you must know. The
Venezuelan President is very friendly, because we support his
presidency of course.”

“You’re the FBI’s biggest celebrity and the U.S.
Marshall’s favorite fugitive. You could never return to
America.” JunJie chuckled.

“May the sweat from my cojones drip onto their faces, no? Here
they can’t touch me. And even if I could return the city on the
hill, why would I ever want to return to such a place? Look around
you, Mister Maruyama. I live in paradise. You should’ve come
down for New Year’s. I threw a party for the entire island. Oh
and, please, excuse my attire, I went for a dip in the Caribbean
before you arrived.”

“This sure beats the snow back in Seattle that’s for
certain,” Phillip remarked.

“It does doesn’t it? You can’t beat the weather or
the women in this town. Long before there was South Beach in Miami,
there was Porlamar. Take me at my word.” Gacha replied through
light laughter. “Come now. Let us return to my villa where we
talk in private, my friends.”

Rafael Gacha, a muscular, well-tanned and fit man with numerous
tattoos on his neck and arms with a thick head of curly black hair,
was the American network’s supplier. He was a thirty-six year
old Colombian from Bogota that’d fled the South American state
with a duffel bag full of hundred dollar bills just before Pablo
Escobar was killed in December of 1993. The then twenty-six year-old
Enforcer for the now-defunct Medellin Cartel began purchasing cocaine
for as little as three-thousand a kilogram and started shipping the
product back to the United States where he sold them for twenty-five
thousand dollars each. He’d muscled his way to the top by
eliminating rival traffickers and paying off politicians and police
and soon opened his own cocaine processing plant back on the
Venezuelan main land just outside of the city of San Joaquin.

Whereas JunJie was a distributor, Rafael Gacha was one of the top
cocaine suppliers in the business and was responsible for a high
percentage of uncut powder that entered the United States. On top of
that, his organization was backed by the Venezuelan government.
Rafael Gacha, a multi-millionaire up in the low-nine figure range,
was practically untouchable in South America and proudly wore the
crown of Boss of Bosses. Everything involving the movement of weight
for JunJie Maruyama and all involved started and stopped with Rafael
Gacha—he was the man behind the men back in America.

JunJie, Grover and Phillip rode to Rafael’s home that sat atop
a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea with a couple of cars trailing
the group; men packing Uzis for everyone’s protection. Rafael
had many enemies, the Sinaloa Cartel was after him for disrupting
routes into America via Tijuana and the Gulf Cartel had him marked
for death because he’d disrupted their shipping lane through
Eagle Pass, Texas. Here on the island of Margarita, however, he was
impossible to assassinate. In spite of his assured safety, Gacha was
not one to take chances, armed body guards were a must wherever he
traveled on the island.

After a short ride into the mountains, the group reached Rafael’s
six thousand square foot villa, which sat on over one thousand acres
of land. The home was surrounded by palm trees and lush foliage and
even had a waterfall in its garden area. Horses ran about freely on
the low land and farm hands picked oranges from the grove in the
valley below. Rafael led the way onto his patio overlooking the
Caribbean Sea and extended his hand, allowing his guests to have a
seat. A four-man wait staff emerged from the home and one of the men
stepped forth. “What would you and your guests like to drink,
Senor Gacha?”

“Bring us all glasses of orange sangria. Make sure the oranges
are fresh. Use the ones picked earlier this morning along with the
chilled vodka.” Rafael answered as he watched his servants
reenter the home. “Now,” he said as he turned back to
JunJie and crossed his legs and diddled a few petals on the gladiolas
rooted in one of his many gardens, “what is it that I’ve
done to deserve such a meeting?”

“I need info on the Lapiente` Family. You’ve told me
about the problem you’ve had with them in Valle Hermoso a while
back and I’m now under the impression that we now have a
problem with them in America.”

Gacha’s eyes lit up immediately as he righted himself in his
chair. “Lapiente`,” he said lowly as he removed his
sunshades and stared at JunJie. “How can you be certain it is
them you’re fighting against?”

“Take a look at these photographs,” JunJie remarked as he
placed the pictures in Rafael’s lap. “Anyone there look
familiar?”

JunJie leaned back and crossed his legs and watched as Rafael flipped
through the photos. He knew where the photo that may be that of
Carmella Lapiente` lay and he stood up and tucked his hands into his
slacks the moment Rafael paused. “So it is her,” he said
matter-of-factly.

“As sure as the day is long.” Gacha replied as he stood
up and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “This
woman has been a thorn in my side for some time now.”

“I say the same. She’s nearly wiped out one of my
partners in the city of Denver and has the other caught up in an
on-going battle in the city of Saint Louis.”

“No one in your organization can kill this woman on American
soil?” Gacha asked, a little perplexed over the situation.

“She’s like a ghost that’s rarely seen. We hit her
on her home turf in Denver once, but we didn’t have enough
firepower. Now she has a gang of Somalis on board for muscle. I have
a friend who says the best way to deal with a viper is to cut off its
head.”

“Ahh,” Rafael sighed. “But you’ve been
grabbing the snake by its tail, my friend. It is a dangerous thing
because a snake grabbed by the tail is surely going to strike.”

“I can’t disagree with that assessment. But I’m now
left wondering what is it that we can do to close this woman’s
organization down because she’s knee deep in everybody’s
ass in America.”

The servants returned with the men’s drinks and Rafael and
JunJie took a seat once more upon their departure. “The best
place to hit Carmella would be on her home turf, my friend. Valle
Hermoso. I’ve been trying, but I can’t reach her from
here. I can’t penetrate her organization. They would see me
from miles away because they know how badly I want them.”

“Valle Hermoso? That’s risky don’t you think?
Striking on her home turf? If you can’t get to her, what makes
you so certain that me and my organization will get her?”

Rafael looked at JunJie and smiled through closed lips in an overly
assured manner. Without a doubt he was a master manipulator on a
scale far larger than JunJie and those whom JunJie did business with
back in America could ever hope to be. He knew everything that went
on in South America and Mexico and had angles upon angles that he
could use to steer his entire network whichever way he wanted and
needed it to go in order to keep things running smoothly.

For several years, ever since Carmella had killed nine buyers of his,
he’d had it in for the woman. The only problem was the fact
that he couldn’t leave Venezuela unless the F.B.I. and/or the
U.S. Marshalls arrested him. He was limited in what he could do
outside of the country he lived in, but he was well-informed. He knew
as Carmella grew stronger over time, she would cause problems in
America. Some would have to die before the ramifications would begin
to impact JunJie, he knew, but Gacha was willing to sacrifice a few,
to save many. It was only a matter of time before word got back to
him and JunJie had just delivered that message.

“I have a lot of fate in you, Mister Maruyama,” Gacha
said after a few brief seconds. “And I’ll back you by
using every contact I have to aide you along the way, my friend. If
we plan this thing right,” Gacha said as he lit a cigar, “if
we lay a plan out right and bring about something unexpected we can
get her—on her home turf. I want her dead more than anything
and will do all I can to make sure that comes about.”

“You seem to have a sincere hatred for the Lapiente` family.
May I ask the history?”

“This guy Damenga Lapiente` was Carmella’s brother. The
Lapiente` was once the people on the front lines for my organization
in America—but Damenga was a hot head. When Carmella came out
of her coma after she was shot, Damenga told me that this guy down in
New Orleans killed three members out of his crew and shot Carmella in
a home invasion in Memphis, Tennessee. I almost approved of the
retaliatory hit.”

“But you called it off. Why?”

“Damenga told me this guy raided his home in Memphis before he
ever met the guy. I called the hit off because that dealer was offing
at least a hundred kilo a month. It was just the nature of the
business we are in, and I don’t think that guy would have
pulled that hit if he knew Carmella was Damenga’s sister—but
this loyalty thing blinded Damenga and his brother Alphonso. They
broke off from me and cut off the shipping lane through Valle
Hermoso. We were at war over the route going through Valle Hermoso
when Damenga` and Alphonso was killed in New Orleans.” Gacha
said as he took another sip of his sangria. “For all I care,
that guy in New Orleans did me a favor by killing those two brothers.
If he were around I’d shake his hand and congratulate him on a
job well done.”

“Seems as if the Lapiente` family has burned a lot of bridges.”

“That is an understatement. It took me many months, and a lot
of money and lives to establish a new route, and for that, I have a
bounty on my head from the Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel. I had
to step on other people’s toes to keep my ship afloat.”

“Carmella got in your way and forced you into a corner.”
JunJie remarked as he sipped his sangria.

“Yes she did, but if we remove her, I just may be able to bring
about a truce.”

“Because you’ll have your old route back into America
that’s closer to your markets in the southeast. Clever, Mister
Rafael.”

“Thank you, my friend. We have a common interest here. The
ultimate goal for me is to gain access to Valle Hermoso, and it would
be of great benefit to you and your partners back in America,”
Gacha responded. “Let me use the resources we have here to try
and track Carmella down. This move will take some time, but once we
know all we need to know, we’ll be able to take the Lapiente`
family down once and for all, or at the very least, deal them a major
blow. Don’t worry, Mister Maruyama, we’ll get her soon
enough. Here’s to the death of those who oppose us and all that
we stand for,” Gacha ended as he stood and raised his glass and
the group all touched the rims and shared another drink.

To use his own men would force Rafael to kill his most trusted
soldiers once the job was done to prevent the finger from being
pointed back towards his self. It wasn’t something he wanted to
do because he would only open himself up to the Sinaloas and Gulf
Cartels, organizations he could deal with so long as he had his
trusted soldiers by his side. The Americans, however, the Americans,
with a little backing, could do the job and settle a score for him at
the same time. He would sincerely help them eradicate Carmella, but
in his own manipulative way. Thereby keeping his hands clean and
remaining in good standing with the Venezuelan government, who were
turning a blind eye and a deaf ear towards his activities, so long as
he kept the American authorities out of their affairs.

With the information received, the green light was now switched on
for Rafael to move the pieces into place to take down and old enemy
who had a debt to pay with blood, and set the ship right once more
with an organization he’d been holding in high esteem for some
time now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LOSSES AND GAINS

“
Uno de ellos murió
el año pasado, pero estaba equivocado. Debería haber
sido Toodie en vez de Phoebe,”
(
One of
them died last year, but it was the wrong one. It shoulda been Toodie
instead of Phoebe,) were the first words she’d said the moment
she was left alone.

Thirteen year-old Peppi Vargas had never visited her mother’s
grave the three years she’d been in America, but this hot
summer day in August of 2004 was a special day for her because she
was finally able to have a moment of peace in her heart, to shed the
tears that had been held deep inside her soul since the moment her
mother had passed away.

It was a hurting thing for Pepper to endure, witnessing her mother’s
death, and her life had been forever changed by that tragedy. She
stood over her mother’s grave holding a bouquet of red
carnations as tears dropped down into the dirt beneath her feet. She
could still remember the days her mother would take her dancing in
the town square while Mexican salsa musicians played harmoniously
with their trumpets, maracas and guitars. Picking tomatoes was
another outing mother and daughter enjoyed, ironically from many of
the groves owned by Carmella’s family. Those were the fun
times. Times filled with laughter and so much to learn and enjoy
about life. Happy days.

She had such a beautiful smile, Pepper’s mother; it was a broad
beam, separated by pearl white teeth and high cheek bones with a long
mane of jet black hair that flowed towards the center of her back.
Pepper looked every bit like her mother, save for her thin knot knees
and short, curly, coal black hair. Everything else, from her
beautiful tan-skinned face, the cheek bones and the lips that curved
downward to produce one of the most gorgeous smiles one could
witness, was Peppi’s mother through and through.