C. Dark Ship: A Ryan Weller Thriller Book 2 Paperback

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CHAPTER 1
Aztlán Cartel headquarters
Tampico, Mexico

José Luis Orozco considered cocaine, tequila, subordinates to do his bidding, and the ever-present rotation of beautiful women to be the luxuries of command. One such creature was under his desk right now. He wanted to turn all his attention to her, but he had to finish this meeting first.
He needed revenge for their jefe muerto—dead boss—Arturo Guerrero. Orozco wanted Guerrero’s killers hunted down and killed. Better yet, he wanted them brought back to Tampico, where he could torture them. His gaze drifted to the massive Russian leaning against his office wall, a bounty hunter he’d hired to track down the asesinos Yanquis—Yankee assassins—Ryan Weller and Mango Hulsey.
Suddenly, Orozco’s hand shot out to clamp onto the edge of the desk and his eyes closed.
“Are you all right, Patrón?” Eduardo Sanchez, Guerrero’s second-in-command asked, even though he could see the woman’s bare feet sticking out from under the desk and knew exactly what she was doing. His boss had a habit of mixing business with pleasure.
¬¬¬ “Sí, sí,” Orozco groaned, trying not to let the pleasure he felt from the girl show on his deep brown face. The creases around his mouth gave the appearance of a perpetual frown, accented by the shape of his long goatee. He kept his mustache, beard, and hair trimmed close to the skin.
His men did not dare utter another word. Beside Orozco’s right hand was a massive stainless-steel Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver with rubber grips and a laser sight. He’d shot more than one man in a fit of anger, and no one sitting around the desk wanted to be the next to have his head turned into a canoe.
Orozco pushed the woman’s hands away. She laid her head in his lap, and he stroked her silky black hair. Again, his stare fixed on Grigory Dmitri Morozov, who was examining a statue of Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte—Our Lady of Holy Death, colloquially known as Santa Muerte. The idol, a cross between the Virgin Mary and the Grim Reaper, wore a hooded cloak and carried a scythe. Her face was a grinning skull. Orozco considered Santa Muerte to be his patron saint, and he often prayed to her for guidance.
Morozov smiled back at Orozco, laying his lips back and baring his teeth in the snarl of a feral hound. Even the man’s canines stuck out like the fangs of a ferocious hunter. Most did not know his real name and referred to him only by his nickname, Volk—the Wolf. Orozco did the same because, truthfully, Volk was one of the few men Orozco feared.
Volk was a monster. At six feet, six inches tall, he weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Hardened muscle packed his frame with the only visible fat around his midsection. His arm and chest muscles stretched the fabric of his dress shirt. He wore his blond hair swept back from his forehead. The blue-eyed Russian reminded Orozco of a beefier Dolph Lundgren, when Lundgren had fought Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV.
“Give me an update,” Orozco said.
“Patrón,” Sanchez pleaded, “let me send some sicarios after them. We can take care of this with our own assassins. We do not need this puta interfering with our business.”
Orozco smiled at Sanchez’s assessment. The bounty hunter was a whore, but Orozco’s voice held a warning when he spoke. “Do not bring this up again, Eduardo. Our sicarios are good for killing in Mexico, but not in the United States. We have enough heat on us already because of what Guerrero tried to do. Volk will keep us from being associated with the disappearance of the asesinos.”
“Si, jefe, but—”
The cartel leader cut Eduardo off by wrapping his fingers around the grip of the fifty-caliber revolver. Orozco wasn’t in the mood for insubordination. He was more than ready for this meeting to be over. The woman’s hands were insistent, and he was finding them increasingly difficult to deny. Ignoring them as best he could, he said to Volk, “Tell me how you plan to do it.”
Volk pushed a lock of his blond hair behind his ear. “They work for a maritime salvage company called Dark Water Research.”
“We know this, Lobo,” Orozco snapped, using the Spanish version of the Russian’s nickname. “Guerrero knew this, too. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating them like he did. We need revenge, and I’m paying you for results.”
The Russian nodded, unaffected by the temperamental Mexican. “Mango Hulsey is living on a sailboat at the Dark Water Research facility.”
“Again, this much we know,” Orozco shouted angrily, once again brushing away the woman’s hand.
Volk ran his index finger over the statue’s scythe, letting the tip of his finger linger on the scythe’s point, then picked up the statue to examine it more closely.
“Put that down!” Orozco roared, snatching up his revolver and aiming it at Volk’s head. The laser sight painted a dancing red dot on the Russian’s forehead.
“Neechevo srashnava,” Volk said in Russian. No harm. He set the statue down, aligned as before, and looked at the shorter man. “Ryan Weller is traveling with a Homeland Security agent to Atlanta, Georgia. I sent a team after him. They will take him when they have the chance. Then they will go after Hulsey.”
“Excelente.” Orozco rubbed his hands together. “I want to drag their bodies through the streets of Tampico as an example to anyone who wishes to mess with the Aztlán Cartel.” He couldn’t keep the girl’s hands off him, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. Waving the revolver around, he shouted, “All of you leave. Now!”
When the room was empty, Orozco leaned his head back and thought about his rise to power while the woman pleasured him. After Weller and Hulsey had killed Arturo Guerrero and escaped Tampico, war had enveloped the city. Street fights, car bombs, long range assassinations, and drive-by shootings had punctuated the power struggle for leadership of the Aztlán Cartel.
José Luis Orozco had declared himself the victor.
Before Guerrero’s death, Orozco had been third in command. Guerrero had liked Orozco because the man worked hard, handled himself with confidence, and was not afraid of getting his hands dirty to accomplish his goals.
Because of these attributes, Guerrero had placed Orozco in charge of his cocaine distribution network. Orozco increased shipments and sales, which had pleased the late cartel boss. What had not pleased Guerrero was Orozco’s opposition to his scheme to start a war with the United States and retake what many believed to be Mexico’s rightful heritage: the land stolen during the Mexican-American War via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Guerrero had believed the U.S. had unjustly started a war with their homeland and had forcibly taken more than half of Mexico’s land. Orozco didn’t care about ancient history. He cared only about the money he could make from the sale of drugs, firearms, and slaves across the U.S. border.
When word of a gunfight at Guerrero’s isolated compound had reached Orozco, he’d been one of the first to arrive to provide backup, and he’d coordinated the city-wide manhunt for the murderous pendejos.
Orozco had had no love for Arturo Guerrero, but he needed to take retribution against anyone who dared come into his territory and kill one of his own.
His eyelids fluttered as he braced his hands on the desk, the fingers of his right hand still wrapped around the grip of the pistol. He imagined the thrill of killing the gringos as he lost himself in the woman’s caress.