TETHER DREAMS IN THE SHADOW GAME Chapter Four

TETHER DREAMS IN THE SHADOW GAME
CHAPTER 4

FELIX GOMEZ-THE SHOT CALLER

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Three men rode into town on horseback, slowly passing the dilapidated buildings and run down store fronts that lined both sides of the dirt road which served as the only street in the dusty little town. They followed the street until they passed the cluster of buildings, and then it reverted back to a trail that ended at the front gate of the Old Spanish Mission Church. Tumble weeds, wind devils, and stray dogs, scurried about, as two of the men dismounted, while the third man remained in his saddle, holding the reins to their horses.

As the sun began to set behind them, the two men stood in front of the glass enclosed sign in front of the old church. The church was large enough to hold ten times the stated population of the town. There was still enough light to read the posting; Our Lady of Victory, Etchohuaquila, Sonora, Mexico, Population 136 Souls, and under the proclamation; Requiem Mass for Senor Rodolfo Enrique Luis Gomez, 5 p.m., September 12, 1969. They looked at each other and then walked through the gate, through the courtyard, and on into the church.

The men’s sombreros, hung against their backs, while the sound of their custom made boots announced their arrival to all the mourners in the church. The sound echoed pass the first pew where the Gomez family sat, mourning the loss of Senor Adolfo Enrique Luis Gomez, husband, father and the patron of the La Santa Muerte disciples. He had been cut down by an assassin’s bullets two days earlier. Now, with incense permeating the air, the parish priest performed the Requiem Mass in Latin, as his body lay in a white Cedar casket at the foot of the altar, surrounded by dozens of red and white roses, placed there by his family, friends, and loyal followers.

  

The widow, Senora Gomez, and her nine children, did not notice the two strangers standing before the casket, as the family bent their heads in prayer. Suddenly, a loud gasp erupted from the mourners, as one of the men reached into the casket, and pulled the corps of Senor Gomez halfway out of it. The man began to curse and strike the body with his fist. Pandemonium broke out as several men rushed the altar in defense of their patron, while his widow cried out in horror, and her oldest son, Manuel, leaped from their pew to lead the charge.

The second man, with a poach mark face, turned to confront them, with a gun in his hand. This did not stop Manuel, from reaching out for him, and the man shot Miguel in the face, and he was dead before he hit the floor. Both strangers retreated through the crowd, holding them at bay with drawn pistols, until they reached their horses, and then all three galloped away into the sunset, shooting wildly into the air.

The murder of Senor Gomez and his eldest son, Manuel Jose Gomez, catapulted eighteen years old Felix Gomez, to the unenviable position as head of the family and the family business, and by default exalted leader of La Santa Muerte in Sonora, Mexico. He was unprepared for either of these positions, his dead brother, Manuel had been groomed from birth to take his father’s place, he being the eldest son, but destiny has a way of charting its own course.

Two days later, after the family had safely interned the bodies of Sr. Gomez and his eldest son; Manuel, at the family plot in back yard of the church, Felix turned to his uncle, Sebastian, and asked him what he should do next. His uncle, Sebastian, had been running the family business for years and the family business was at the root of the trouble between the Gomez family and the Lopez Brothers, who were the two desecraters at the church. The Gomez family business consisted of smuggling people into the United States. They secured the routes and provided the guides and Safe Houses for thousands of people seeking a better life in El Norte, the U.S.A.     

Sebastian told his nephew not to worry, he had everything under control. He would take revenge for the killings and the business would take care of itself, with his guidance.

It was 1969, and times were changing. The war in Viet Nam raged on, and many of the returning vets brought with them a heroin drug habit and a taste for good marijuana, which converged with the flower generation’s penchant for pot and LSD, creating a huge market for illicit drugs in the United States, and the Lopez brothers were determined to cash in on it, there was simply too much money to be made to let this opportunity slip through their fingers.

The Lopez brothers were drug smugglers and they needed the routes that the Gomez family controlled to bring their drugs into the United States safely.

The Gomez family had been bringing people, mostly day pickers, into California for two decades. They supplied the people who picked the crop in the San Joaquin Valley in California, the bread basket of the United States, and therefore of the world. It was a de facto arrangement between the farmers, who couldn’t bring their crops to the market without them, the government officials, who turned a blind eye to the smuggling of undocumented workers, and the county officials whose pockets were lined with money from the farmers and the smugglers, and considered it their civic duty to keep the conduits open.

But smuggling drugs was an entirely different story. The Gomez Family would lose their political protection if they allowed drugs to move along their pipe line. President Nixon’s War on Drugs policy would be enforced and would have a devastating effect on the entire organization. It would be suicide to allow the Lopez brothers access to their network. But not all of the Gomez brothers thought the same. Carlos and Caesar Gomez ran the family operation on the American side of the border, providing safe houses and transportation to the orchards in central California, and they agreed with their older brother, Adolfo, but Sebastian, the second oldest brother, believe that running drugs was more profitable and the way of the future, and any adverse effects would only be the cost of doing business.

The Lopez Brothers got wind that Sebastian was not 100% in agreement with his older brother, and decided that it would be better dealing with Sebastian rather than Adolfo.

They arranged a meeting with Adolfo, to try and work things out. They wanted to avoid a war if they could and they didn’t want to anger the members of La Santa Muerte; they knew what they were capable of. They considered them to be religious fanatics and dangerous, and in that part of Mexico strong religious beliefs prevailed, and La Santa Muerte was around long before the Christians had come to the New World, in one form or another.

The Lopez Brothers wanted to break with the past. Their God was money, and money was power, and although they respected the power of the mystic, they were willing to break with old tradition and defy the Americanos, and anyone else who got in their way. There was just too much money to be made.

They met outside of town near the old water tower that used to service the old steam engines, hauling Box Cars and flatbed train cars, to Mexico City. The spur line was closed, but there was an old station building still standing, not far from the water tower.

They met there at dusk, the Lopez Brothers, Hector and Luis, on horseback, and Senor Gomez and his brother Sebastian arrived in an old 1956 forest green Buick Road Master, with a third man sitting in the back seat.

The Lopez Brothers dismounted and tied their horses to a hitching post, outside of the dilapidated building, as the Gomez brothers exited the car along with the third man. When the brothers saw who the third man was, Hector Lopez immediately went into a rage.

“Why did you bring a Shaman with you? This is about business. ” He spat out, while shaking his head.

“This is more than just business. What you two are suggesting is to end our way of life. Thousands of people depend on us for their livelihood, and if you were to use our connections to move drugs the Americanos would come down on us hard. As it is now, the Americans need us, but to bring poison into El Norte would mean a war that we cannot win. We all will be dead or in jail or on the run. We would know no peace. ” Senor Gomez said, and then nodded his head to the Shaman, who began to chant and move in circles around the Lopez Brothers.

 “What the fuck is he doing?” Hector shouted, as the Shaman began to kick dust in his direction and sprinkle water into the air.

“This is a cleansing ceremony, which is necessary because your mind is full of hate and you do not know what you are doing.” Adolfo answered.

“Tell him to stop or I will blow your fucking brains out.” Hector yelled as he brandished a 38 revolver at Adolfo.

“Do what you must, but a curse will be put upon you and your children.” Adolfo replied, standing his ground.

A shot rang out, but not from the direction of Hector. Sebastian stood there with his hands in the air, as a third man revealed himself from behind some sage brush fifty feet away with a repeating rifle in his hands. He had been lying in wait, hidden in the underbrush, and as Adolfo fell to his knees and turned his head to look at his brother, the assassin fired a second time, and Adolfo crumbled to the ground, and then the assassin turned the gun on the Shaman.

Sebastian lowered his hands and said over his shoulder as he walked back to the car, “I got a funeral to arrange”.

That night Hector Lopez’s eldest son fell ill with a fever and his body was cover with warts, and by morning the child was dead. The next night his son, Ricardo, suffered the same fate. Hector went into a rage, and he blamed the curse that Adolfo said would be placed on his family.

After the Lopez brothers defiled the body of Senor Adolfo Gomez in the church, Felix naturally turned to his uncle, Sebastian, for advice on what to do next. Sebastian effectively cut Felix out of any say in the running of the family business, and his other two uncles did whatever they were told to do by Sebastian.

Felix waited for retribution, for the murder of his father and older brother, which never came. The long arm of the Gringos was being felt by the Gomez organization, just as Senor Adolfo had predicted, and they were being systematically dismantled by Law Enforcement agencies on both sides of the border.

A persistent rumor continued to circulate around town regarding the death of Senor Adolfo Gomez, it was said that his brother, Sebastian, knew more about his death than he had ever revealed, and that the Lopez Brothers were behind it.

Felix didn’t understand why his uncle wouldn’t do something about the Lopez Brothers, and his rage grew as his helplessness became more apparent, even to the locals, who just shook their heads whenever they saw him about town. He became known as the prince without a kingdom, and the children were the meanest of them all, who took to calling him, The Little Prince of Nothing.

None of this bothered Felix, he had been made fun of all of his life.

He was short and stocky with a large head full of straight black hair. He had the features of a pure Indian and had been called the Little Chief all of his life. He had been fighting since he was eight years old, but nobody called him anything to his face.

What he was concerned with was the welfare of his family; he had seven brothers and sisters to look after, and his mother. His uncle slowly stopped providing for them, soon after he took control of the family business. His only diversion was baseball, he loved the game. He and his friend Fernando would day dream about playing professional baseball, but Felix knew that he was too small to take it seriously. But his friend Fernando had a natural talent; he was a natural born pitcher and had already drawn attention from scouts from the triple AAA clubs. But even baseball had no place in his life now; he was the head of the Household, and did not have time for childish games.

He confronted his Uncle about work and the Lopez Brothers, but his uncle wanted him out of the way, and decided to send him north to the United States, to work with his other two uncles in Los Angeles.

He was sent to a safe house in Playas de Tijuana, Tijuana, Mexico a small town next to the border. A concrete wall ran along the border for miles, ending with a corrugated fence that actually ran into the Pacific Ocean for a hundred yards, at the northern end town, and he could see the United States on the other side. So near, yet so far.

There were twelve other people in the house, waiting for the coyotes (guides) to take them across the border. Four of them were migrant workers from central Mexico, four more were young Chinese men from Hong Cong, who had begun their journey from mainland China three weeks earlier, two men from Mumbai, India, one man from Norway, and a woman from Brazil. They all had to pay $2,500 up front, except for the Mexican nationals, who had family waiting for them on the other side, and would pay their fee for them once they were safely in the United States.

They waited ten days for the coyotes, but there was trouble along the border. It was becoming more difficult to take people across the open desert. The border patrols were being augmented with DEA interdiction teams, and no longer was it possible for the law enforcement agencies to turn a blind eye to the illegal border crossings, just as the old man had predicted, it was all out war.

On the eleventh night they were told to be ready, and at half pass midnight they were loaded into a white van and their journey began. Two hours later they were still in Mexico, traveling east, parallel to the U.S. border, away from Tijuana. The going was slow due to the poor condition of the back roads that they were using, and just after three A.M. they were told that they were in the United States, but they still had a long way to go. From that point on they would travel overland by foot. They had seven hours to make it to the next water supply, thirty miles away, and the sun would be up in three hours. Fourteen people, including two coyote guides began the trek across the open desert, with a limited water supply and the clothes on their backs. There were no Border patrols in the area and the coyotes seem to know what they were doing and where they were going.

By 7 A.M. the sun was high in the sky and the desert began to heat up. They were three quarters of the way to the water stash, and they were making good time, but a low flying fixed wing plane gave them a scare, but they were not detected and they continued on their trek.

By nine A.M. they came to a gully and on the other side there was a Joshua Tree and under the tree there was a cooler filled with bottles of water and roasted ears of corn. The coyotes told them that they would stay there until dark because it was too hot to continue now. They found shade in the gully but had to shift their position as the sun moved across the sky, and by three P.M. they were all sleeping, except for one of the guides, who kept watch.

When Felix awoke, he found himself all alone. He rushed to the top of the gully but could see no one in any direction. He went back to the cooler and found one bottle of water. The sun was setting in the west, so he headed north, hoping to find a highway or road that would lead him out of the desert. That was his only chance, either the heat would get to him or the border patrols, and after four hours of walking under the desert sun he began to think that it would be better if the border patrol found him, at least he would be alive.

Night falls quickly in the desert, and the heat escapes the desert floor like a flock of startled ravens, and before he knew it he was freezing his ass off. He was lost and hungry, and for all he knew he could have been going in circles for hours. Exhausted and tired, he lay down next to a cactus tree on the cold ground and looked up into the sky. There was a full moon above in the pristine night sky and a million stars to show him the way, but the way to where, was the question, and that was not the only question pressing on his mind.

Why had they left him? Was his uncle behind it? Would he survive? Soon he fell asleep without coming to any conclusions. Right before dawn he was rousted awake with a flashlight shining in his eyes.

“He’s alive” the border guard shouted to his partner, and then he handcuffed Felix and led him to the Van, with U. S. Border Patrol painted on the side. “Welcome to the United States”.

They put him on a bus at the San Ysidro Border Crossing, and ten minutes later he was back in Tijuana, Mexico. He didn’t know a soul there and he had no money. It seemed as though everyone in Tijuana had been going through hell. The soft under belly of the city was permeated by crime, and a great deal of it was being perpetrated by the police. They had their fingers into everything that was making money, Drugs, prostitution, smuggling, kidnapping, whatever. They shook down the tourists, and made life a living hell for the migrant workers who flocked to Tijuana from every part of Mexico, for a chance to cross the border and find work in El Norte, the United States.

He decided that the only thing that he could do was to try and make it across the border alone, only this time he would swim to the United States. He hitched a ride out to Playas de Tijuana; a small Mexican town, nestle in the northwest corner of Baja California, opposite Imperial Beach, California. A chain link fence, that ran fifty yards into the Pacific, was the only thing separating the two countries at that point.

He waited until after midnight, and then he walked into the water and swam out 100 yards and turned right and swam another fifty yards, and then he swam back to shore. It was that simple, he was in the United States. He made it a full two miles before they caught him, walking along the highway, as if he was out for a midnight stroll. This time they decided to prosecute him for illegal entry into the United States. He was transported to the detention center in San Pedro, California for processing and later sent to the County Jail in Los Angeles because of overcrowding, he was made to wear a blue jumper with yellow stripes, indicating that he was an illegal alien.

He soon found out that the County Jail was a dangerous place, overcrowding and racial conflict made life very dangerous for everyone in the facility. The Chicanos ran the place, and they were at war with the Blacks. Fifty percent of the jail inmates were Chicanos, Mexicans born in the US, and those born in Mexico and Central America were called Pisano, they added another 15 %, and Whites were called Woods, who comprised about 10% and Blacks 25%.

The Pisanos, approached Felix as soon as he enter the Dorm, many of them were there waiting to be release or to be sent to the Federal Prison, in El Central, California to do their federal time, and many of them had reached the United States through the Gomez Family network.

The Pisanos surrounded him at his bunk, and one of them with a large MS-13 tattooed on his arm and the words Mara Salvatrucha tattooed across his chest said, “My name is Roman and we know who you are and where you come from, and we need your help, Patron”. Felix had been ready to defend himself and was taken aback by his statement. “What do you want” he managed to say, when the initial shock wore off. The Chicanos jumped our Shot Caller, and put him in the hospital, he was lucky because they were trying to put him in the morgue.

“And what is a shot caller”, Felix said without blinking. “Oh! come on man, he be the boss, number one, he calls the shots for all of the Pisano in this joint. ” Roman said in exasperation

Felix was really confused now; he couldn’t imagine what they wanted from him. “And how can I help you, he managed to say.”

“We want you to be our Shot Caller.”

“I don’t know anything about being a shot caller. I’ve only been in this country for a few days.” He told the gathering crowd of Pisanos, who numbered about forty now.

 Roman moved closer to Felix, out of ear shot of the crowd, and told him that they were in disarray because the Pisano were all from different countries, he was from Mexico, but the majorities were from El Salvador, Honduras, and several other Central American countries. The problem was that they did not trust each other ever since their shot caller got jumped, but everyone knew who the Gomez family was, most of them came to the states through their network, and as luck would have it Felix shows up as if he had been sent by the Virgin Mary, and after all he was the leader of La Santa Muerte. “Don’t worry I will be your lieutenant. I will show you the ropes” Roman added, and grabbed him around the shoulder.

“Do I have a choice?” Felix manage to say to no one in particular, as Roman told everyone that they had a new Shot Caller, and then he turned around and punched Felix in the face and four or five others join in kicking his ass. After 13 seconds they all stopped and began patting him on the back. “Welcome to MS-13” Roman said as Felix began to rise from the floor wondering what the hell he had just got himself into.   

  

TETHER DREAMS IN THE SHADOW GAME CHAPTER THREE- The Shooter

TETHER DREAMS IN THE SHADOW GAME

By Claude L Arango

CHAPTER 3

THE SHOOTER

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The Shooter was a natural born killer, who had no fear of dying. He was a lethal weapon, with the safety off, a man of few words who believed that actions spoke louder, especially from the working end of a gun. 

He believed that if you let someone get too close it would only end badly. And that loyalty was a precious commodity that had to be earned, and not to be squandered on frivolous relationships with God or man.

Honor, commitment, and resolve formed his core beliefs, but reality forced him to be, above all else, pragmatic. Regardless of obstacles, or betrayals, ultimately he  would  be the last man standing, after the shit hit the fan, because ultimately he was a survivor.

He was seventeen when he went off to war, with a kid named Jones. He had befriended Jones, back in high school. The Shooter stopped a beating that Jones was suffering, at the hands of the high school bully, a big Irish kid by the name of McDuffie, who had an inordinate dislike for Blacks.

It wasn’t much of a fight; the Irish thug outweighed the skinny black kid by fifty pounds, and he stood a foot taller. He was pounding the kid senseless, behind the bleachers on the football field, when The Shooter stepped in and said, “That’s enough, it’s over”. McDuffie towered well above the Shooter, but even he knew that you didn’t mess with the Shooter. He was just too damn dangerous. He had already sent two young men to the hospital, with two broken legs, five fracture ribs, and two broken jaws and both had to be fitted to receive liquid diets. And now the look in the Shooter’s eyes let McDuffie know that he was in imminent danger. McDuffie thought to himself, perhaps he should listen to the Shooter, and let the boy go. When he did not immediately comply The Shooter took a step towards him, and asked him if he had a problem with that. McDuffie immediately released the boy.

So, from that day forward, Jones followed The Shooter wherever he went. And it came as no surprise that Jones was second in line, behind the Shooter, when they joined the army in 1967. He became his spotter in their two man sniper team. On the field of battle there is no bond stronger than one formed under fire, and such a bond was formed between them, in the Asha Valley, in Vietnam in 1968.

The dynamics of a kill are quite simple, when devoid of all emotional context. At twenty yards distance, simply line them up and pull the trigger, the quicker the better, and before long you will have bodies piled up like fresh meat at the slaughter house.

In war things happen quite often by accident, some say, more often than by design, but there at the bottom of a crater, blasted from the jungle floor by a 500 pounder, was no accident. There laid eighteen enemy bodies piled up as they had fallen, with a single round through the head, clean and simple, just as planned. But to think that the taking of human life can always be that simple, even if they be the enemy, would be to ignore the human factor, and the aftermath there of, for ultimately there would be an accounting, even if it was to be a long time coming.

On the night of January 3^rd, 1969, the Viet Cong penetrated Able Sector, and Jones and the Shooter were waiting for them. Jones laid undercover, to the right of the Shooter, in the thick jungle bush. From there, he relayed the movement of the Viet Cong infiltrators as they crawled on their bellies, through the wire, pass the mine field, and on up to the edge of the crater. And there in the tall Elephant grass, waiting, patiently, was the Shooter. He took his time and adjusted his sight. Then, he attached the silencer to the end of his rifle. As each VC began to climb over a strategically placed fallen tree at the rim of the crater, he squeezed the trigger. Each shot sent one VC tumbling down into the abyss, well out of the line of sight of the following man, five yards behind, crawling on his belly, relentlessly inching his way forward, towards his destiny.

     

At dawn it took only a glimpse at his own handy work, for him to understand the finality of life, entangled in death’s relentless grip. There at the bottom of the pit, laid a ghoulish testament to the gods of war.   Eighteen enemy bodies lay atop one another in a haphazard pyramid of death. But alas, his rising euphoria, at the sight of one man’s carnage, came to a screeching halt. For upon closer scrutiny, two women, and what could only be described as a child, were spotted among the dead. All of them dressed in the familiar but ominous black clothing of the Viet Cong, and all of them shot with a single round through the head.

As the sun’s rays filtered through the dawn, an eerily sound could be heard rising above the precipitous howling of the wind. A faint sound, just above a whisper, could be discerned, emanating from the bottom of the pit. After a brief moment of confusion, and then hesitation, there came recognition, as to the source of the vocal aberration.

The unmistakable sound of an infant’s cry could be heard, rising from the shadows at the bottom of the pit. At that moment, Destiny played its hand, for a line would be crossed from which there was no return. The Shooter raised his weapon, sighted the infant, and fired. After what seemed an eternity, the deafening sound of silence was all that was heard.  

Now he was faced with a reality that would have shattered a weaker man’s sense of propriety, for perpetrating such a heinous crime under the pretext of combat. Still it served as a rare moment of clarity, an opportunity for self-examination, a chance to peel back a layer of one’s own false humanity, and witness the true nature of the beast that lie within, and reluctantly, but willingly accept the price that the beast demanded to sustain its salacious apatite.

He felt no remorse for killing the child; it was more akin to relishing the taste of forbidden fruit, knowing that it was he who did the dirty deed that took innocent life in such a cruel manner. All the while his rational mind performed mental gymnastics, attempting to lay the blame at the feet of necessity.

But the act was carried out with such callous indifference, that it could only be construed as having been carried out by a demented mind, out of touch with reality, and totally unaffected by normal human decency, that would have prevented such a tragidy.

He could not even convince himself that the killing was an absolute necessity. But none the less, the deed when rehashed in his mind appeared as if the result had been a foregone conclusion, if not an outright courageous decision. Was not the child also the enemy, just a matter of time before it too, would be targeted, without question? A question presented, with the aid of shifting morality, in a feeble attempt to justify a perverse act that only a demented mind would attempt to embrace. But an act such as this, would be manipulated and banished to a place hidden in the labyrinths of a killer’s mind, hidden between things forgotten and things that even he dare not remember. 

Fate rarely unfolds on an even keel, but works steadfast beyond the pale. So it would be the brutal execution of an innocent child that would strip away his last vestige of denial. Thus, truth was disrobed before the harsh light of reality, and made to release its bounty, and it ultimately revealed himself to be, just who he was, which was of course, a cold blooded killer. 

The Shooter sensed danger before it struck, and quickly rolled to his right, blocking the thrust of the VC’s dagger with the butt of his rifle, while grabbing his own knife from the leather sheathe, strapped to his leg.

They struggled in silence, like predatory animals in the tall elephant grass, for what seemed like an eternity. With an occasional grunt or a muffled cry emitted by one or the other. During their mortal embrace the Shooter caught a whiff of garlic on the man’s breath, diverting his attention fleetingly, but then he quickly refocused on the killing to be had, as they snarled at each other face to face through clenched teeth, till God’s will be done.

He began to overpower his weakening foe, forcing the tip of his blade into the young boy’s neck, while looking him straight in the eyes, waiting patiently for life to surrender. Then while covering his victim’s mouth, he slowly began soothing him like one would a child, as the young man began to slowly loose his fight for life; slowly sinking to the jungle floor, still not understanding what was happening, all the while life was slipping out of him, until he laid quiet and still in the Shooter’s arms, in the tall green grass, next to the crater filled with death. Now, the Shooter was a killer of men, up close and personal, and from that moment on he became a gate keeper to the portals of Hell.

He found Jones not far from the mouth of the crater, gasping for air in a clearing covered with his blood; the VC had found him and had slit his throat. The gurgling sound spilling from the wound along with his blood, told the Shooter that his friend was quickly running out of time. Jones looked up at the Shooter, but was unable to speak, his larynx had been severed, but the panic in his eyes let it be known that he knew that he was dying. And for the second time that day the Shooter tried to calm the fears of a dying man, but this time it was Jones, his one and only friend, but there was nothing he could do. There were no bullies to stare down or bad guys to punch in the face, death was waiting and it would have its way. For the first and last time in his life, he bent his head and prayed.

God simply ignored his plea, a simple plea that came from somewhere deep within, but none the less went unanswered. “No, this time you will suffer, this time you will feel the pain, and this time you will remember.” seemed to be God’s sentence for his sins, as his friend closed his eyes and died, leaving behind a gross violator of the laws of God and man, an unrepentant sinner, a killer bent on mayhem, and now he was as unforgiving as the Lord.

    

Two years later he was mustard out of the Army with a confirmed kill count of 112, not including the work he had done for the CIA, during his last tour of duty in Viet Nam, as an asset of Army Special Operations, on loan to the CIA. After his discharge he used his contacts within the CIA to get back into the game, and after six months at the CIA’s Langley School of Linguistics, he was deemed ready to serve.

His first assignment took him to Japan, and his cover as an Arabic interpreter with the Yemen Consulate, served him well, he being a man of color. His target was a man by the name of Nakamora, a Yakuza gang leader, with a penchant for warm sake and hot women. He somehow had managed to get his name on the CIA hit list, and more importantly, the hit had been sanction by the Yakuza High Council. Apparently, Mr. Nakamora had been dealing drugs to his own people; which was taboo in Japan, and an insult to the Yakuza, causing them to loose great face.

He followed his target for a week, but the man was never alone, but every night his entourage would retire to a public bath house for warm Sake and entertainment.

On the eighth night the Shooter sat in the tea room, next to the bathing pool, wearing a white robe, and eating steamed rice and fish heads with chop sticks. The Gang Lord’s four body guards posted themselves at the four corners of the room, while their Boss bathes alone in the center of the common pool.

The bodyguard closest to the tea room was the first to die, with a chop stick jammed through his left eardrum, straight into his brain. The second bodyguard reacted a second too late, and he went down with a chop stick through the left eye. The third bodyguard was caught off balance, running round the pool, a punch to the solar plexus with a rolled up menu and a blow to his throat with the ridge of the Shooter’s hand, dropped the bodyguard to his knees, and then a twist of the head broke his spinal cord at the second Cervical vertebrae. The fourth bodyguard fared no better, when the Shooter slid under his karate kick, and grabbed him by the waist, slamming him to the floor, and then three rapid blows with the palm of his hand, drove the bodyguard’s nose cartilage and bone into his brain.

The Shooter slowly entered the water, while the gang boss calmly sat still in the center of the pool, awaiting his destiny. He realized that none of this could have taken place without the High Council’s consent, and the only honorable way out now, was the Samurai way. Hari Kari was out of the question, so he didn’t resist when the gaijin reached out to him and pulled him under, and then held him there until his lungs filled with water and his body went limp. This all took place in less time than it took the Shooter to dry himself off, put on his cloths, and slip out the door, unseen.

The Shooter became a master of disguise and languages, and as his repertoire expanded so did his assignments, and he was no longer considered a one trick pony. He was able to penetrate the most secretive organizations, be they fiefdoms of War Lords in Somalia or the Ivory Coast, or the Ivory towers of Western Democracies. He was able to gain access to a Luxemburg based Multi-National Hedge Fund, whose manager double as one of the most prolific illegal Arms Dealers in the world, who no longer enjoyed the protection of the CIA. The man was protected better than the President of the United States, who’s Secret Service had been found to be lacking on several occasions. Wilfred Wolf Hoffman was not a man to be toyed with, he hired only the best, and the new  head of his security was ex-Mossad trained operative, Yusef  Ben Israeli, reportedly, a black Jew from Ethiopia, fluent in Yiddish , Hebrew, and several other languages, but better known to the CIA as the Shooter. One brisk clear morning in Geneva, Mr. Hoffman took a ride with his Head of Security and was never seen again, nor was Mr. Israeli.

The Shooter relied on meticulous planning and faultless execution, which accounted for his success over the years, his mission would be completed before anyone knew that it had begun, which was particularly distressing for the target, but not for long. His real talent laid in reading situations, not destroying people, anyone could pull a trigger. His talent for undercover work arguably outstripped his killing ability, but his forte came in knowing when to kill, often it was a matter of reading the situation and letting the play come into focus. Success or failure often was measured in minute measurements of time and distance, and an immeasurable amount of patients, and sometimes the deciding factor was determent by fate, delivered by a hunch.

The Shooter never asked questions about the intent of an operation, but even without doing so, quite often a pattern emerged, and his mind inevitably connected the dots.

A great deal of the CIA’s efforts were centered around drugs, the cultivation of heroin in Afghanistan and The Golden Triangle in South East Asia, the growing and processing of cocaine in South America, and the transportation of drugs through Central America and ultimately through Mexico. Whoever controlled the smuggling routes through Mexico controlled the drug market in North America, and if you could send drugs then you could send anything. The more he thought about it the more important The Shot Caller became in the Big Picture.

There was no way that the Shot Caller’s organization could have gained the position that it had in the drug world without the explicit consent of the CIA. Although the evidence supporting such a theory would never reach the light of day, the Shooter always suspected that the CIA had more say in who did what to whom and for how long, than anyone would believe, and that included calling shots in the Taliban. It was no fluke that Bin Laden and the leadership of the Taliban escaped from the White Mountains of, Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2002. Today the Taliban produces more Heroin in Afghanistan, than ever before.

The Shooter had infiltrated the Mob back in 2005, and he wasn’t exactly a Sleeper agent. He had nine hits to his credit for the Mob, when the agency told him not to be too pro-active. After all, establishing your cover was one thing, but unleashing a goddamn crime wave was another thing altogether, but as long as his victims were gangsters and known criminals he was given the green light from the agency to do his thing, but when he got a contract from Eduardo to kill the Dishwasher, he was told to tread water. Finally after three days of waiting for an answer he was told to fulfill his contract.

He had a premonition after he was given the go ahead to terminate the Dishwasher, by the CIA. It was a matter of record that the Dishwasher was laundering money for the Mob, that’s how he got his nickname, but those in the know at the CIA knew that the Dishwasher was also an undercover agent for the DEA.

The Shooter had learned to trust no one, especially the people for whom he worked, and definitely not the CIA. Before boarding his flight to Brazil, he hacked into the airline’s web site for Bookings and Reservations, and generated a list of all those who had paid in cash for their tickets. Five names were listed, including his alias, Bruno da Silva. The other four names, he assumed were aliases for what reason he didn’t know, but he knew that that was how hit squads traveled, and during the flight he memorize the faces of those seated in the numbered seats according to his printout.

He would never take a direct flight to his final destination, when it could be avoided, and when his plane landed at Sao Paulo for refueling, he ditched his flight, and took a bus to Niteroi, and from there he boarded a private yacht, dressed as a Macomba medicine man, and came ashore in a small fishing boat, directly onto the shores of Copacabana. This way he could be certain that he was not being followed, and to make sure that his cover was complete he went through a full regalia and ritual, performing a black mass on the beach as soon as he reached shore.

Eduardo had told him that he could find the Dishwasher in Copacabana, and because he always did his own due diligence he contacted his connection in Rio, and he soon found out this to be true. It wasn’t hard to locate the girl that the Dishwasher was banging, her name was Paula. She was a hooker who worked out of a Disco Club in Copacabana called HELP, and for a hundred reais she told his connection everything that she knew, about the Dishwasher. 

The Dishwasher was tight lip around his peers, but as is so often the case, pillow talk reveals the best kept secret between mice and men. She told him about the key he always wore around his neck and how the Dishwasher always told her that it would unlock all of the money that they would ever need. His connection asked her if she knew what the key was for, but not even to her would the Dishwasher reveal the secret behind the key.

The Dishwasher’s real name was Calvin Hanks, a white 63 years old ex-government employee, retired and recently divorced from his fourth wife, Ida. According to his personnel file, he had been a pencil pusher with the Department of Justice, tracking the paper trail in drug operations. When he left the government he tried other kinds of work, but this he was good at, and life kept getting in the way. Unfaithful wives, ungrateful children, and bosses who, by the grace of God, never found out just how far they had pushed him. He never did get rich plying his trade, but he did put in some work every now and then for the other side, and this did allowed him to pursue his vices if not his passions, and quite often not even he knew the difference, and that was enough for him, but no one knew that it was all a part of his cover story.

His mission involve national security, which included tracing laundered money from a street gang out of L.A., that had morphed itself into an international drug cartel, that called themselves “The MOB”. He was close to learning the identity of those who really controlled the MOB, and what their primary purpose was.

On the surface The MOB were a group of Mexican nationals, with ties to the infamous 18th Street, street gang, out of Los Angeles. Normally the two groups would maintain their distance, the 18^th Street gang members, comprised of Chicanos, born in America, looked down on their Mexican brothers from south of the border, calling them Pisas. In prison there existed  a well-defined delineation or separation of the two groups, although they were allies when confronted by blacks, whites, Asians and any other ethnic group that threaten “their” supremacy.

The Mexican Nationals gained status and importance when 18^th   Street took over the drug business in Los Angeles. They needed connections to secure routes, in order to bring in their drug shipments from Mexico, which was the last stop in the pip line, from the cocaine labs in the jungles of Columbia, that turned the coca plant drippings into cocaine bricks, and who better to use than the Pisans, who used the routes to smuggle their own people into the U.S. all of the time; they knew the what, when, where, and how of the smuggling operations along the entire southern U.S. border with Mexico. 

The Mob benefited from the protection of 18^th Street as Felix’s business grew from one broken down El Camino, to a fleet of 32 cars and drivers that brought in a million and a half dollars a day in drug money, and that was just the beginning.

The Shooter went undercover, and started working for the Mob after he was introduced to them down in Cali, Columbia. The Black Eagles, Aguilas Negras, a former Columbian paramilitary group, now disbanded, with ties to the CIA, hired him to do a job for the Medellin Cartel. He dispatched a local Cali Cartel Shot Caller, who had violated the truce between the two Cartels. He had to be handled by an outside source, namely the Shooter, in order to keep the peace between them. Part of his payment was in the form of one kilogram of cocaine. He got twenty grand in cash and the dope, which he could turn over back in the states for $60,000, but instead of keeping it he sold it to The MOB for five thousand dollars, which was the going rate. He was in good with them after that transaction, because nothing makes friends quicker than making money together.

Before long, the Shooter became the Mob’s number one Hit Man, but before he could complete a job he had to get the OK from the agency to proceed. Which wasn’t a problem, as long as the target wasn’t on their payroll? The CIA had a lot of people on their books and they didn’t want any of their operatives to be retired prematurely. The Dishwasher Hit was another matter altogether, although he wasn’t one of their boys, he was a federal undercover agent, but that was a matter for the DEA to handle, as far as the company was concern he was expendable.

TETHER DREAMS IN THE SHADOW GAME CHAPTER TWO

Tether Dreams in the Shadow Game
By Claude L. Arango

CHAPTER 2

DODGER BLUE

A day later and a continent away, “The Mob”, so apply exemplified by the crew riding inside the big black stretched Cadillac Escalade, with 22 inch chrome rims, and a bobbling head of St. Jude in the window, sat in the back of the Escalade, celebrating the Dodger’s victory over the Angels baseball team. They passed round a 40 oz. bottle of Old English Malt Liquor and a joint the size of a good Cohiba.

Three of the of the four ladies present, were bobbing their own heads as they performed fellatio on the entire crew, except for The Shot Caller and Hector, his personal bodyguard. The Escalade rolled through the barrio of Echo Park, in Los Angeles, with the music turned up, all the way. The Shot Caller sat nodding his head in approval, while tapping his feet to a funky Latin beat, thumping defiantly behind the Escalade’s heavily tinted dark windows.

The Escalade slowly glided up Alvarado Avenue, crossing busy Wilshire Boulevard, and Macarthur Park on the right; pass the pimps, whores, and street hustlers that own it now. It followed the traffic up to old Hollywood, and then turned right on Sunset Blvd., and slid in with the heavy traffic heading east, down the once proud boulevard. It continued down, until it entered into the parking lot of Taix, the ‘old school’ Mexican Restaurant, located a quarter mile from Chavez Ravine.


Its occupants were greeted profusely by uniformed attendants, and welcomed inside, with great fan fair, by Carlos, the head waiter. He guided them through the cavernous banquet hall, to the best table in the house. He was ever so thankful that there was no one around to witness this spectacle. It was late afternoon, and the lunch crowd had gone.

The entire crew was decked out in Dodger Blue uniforms. But they didn’t look like a baseball team, but rather like the felonious crew from the film, “A Clockwork Orange”. The Shot Caller’s ominous presence was enhanced by the five pound Louisville Slugger, that he carried by his side. It had been signed by every member of the current Dodger team. They had just left the annual Freeway Game, Dodgers vs. The Angels, the latter now billing themselves as the Los Angeles Angels, although they were from Orange County, and The Shot Caller, the Dodgers biggest fan, didn’t like it.

“That’s territorial infringement”, he told Edwardo, his lieutenant. If somebody tried to pull that shit on us there would be blood in the streets. Somebody ought to do something about that. ” Edwardo knew that if the Shot Caller thought that he could get away with it, he would have the entire Angels management whacked.

The Shot Caller ordered Champagne, burritos, and finger shrimp cocktails for all, and Hector gave the Head Waiter a CD of Latin Funk to play while they eat. And the four young Mexican girls, straight from the barrios of East Los Angeles, duly painted with Maybelline black mascara, black eye liner, black lipstick, and penciled in black eye brows, sat laughing and giggling at nothing in particular. Obviously they were not used to such attention, as they were served, by three waiters, around the thick oak table. And Miss Carlotta Sanchez stuck a wad of gum under the table, in preparation for the meal.


The Shot Caller and his lieutenant, Eduardo conferred, while a rousing Latin Funk song permeating the entire dining hall.

“I am very happy for the Dodger’s victory today, Patron. I think that we have a chance to go all of the way this year”. Eduardo gushed, offering his congratulation to the Dodger’s most rabid fan, The Shot Caller, who was the undisputed leader of The Mob.

Eduardo really didn’t give a damn about the Dodgers, and he thought that the Shot Caller was full of shit. But he knew that The Shot Caller’s fixation with the team was linked to Fernando Valensuela, who was no longer with the team. When the south paw picture first came to the Dodgers, his good fortune coincided with The Shot Caller’s own good fortune; they both had come from the same dirt poor village of Etchohuaquila, in the state of Sonora, Mexico.

With a forced grin, Edwardo told the Shot Caller about a call that he had received that morning, from their connection in Rio de Janeiro. Col. Roberto Javiar Silva of the Federal Police had wanted to speak to the Shot Caller directly. The Colonel would not tell him what the call was about, but he sensed that it was not good news, so Edwardo told the colonel that the Shot Caller could not be interrupted, and asked him to call back after the game.

At that moment, Hector, The Shot Caller’s personal body guard, handed him a cell phone, and Colonel Silva was on the line. The Colonel told the Shot Caller that his emissary, The Dishwasher, had been found dead at their business office in Rio de Janeiro, shot once between the eyes. He was quite dead, and there were no leads in the case, so far. Apparently the only thing missing was a gold key that his man wore around his neck for good luck. They also found something odd, a small wooden doll in the dead man’s lap.

The mentioning of the small wooden doll sent a shock wave through the Shot Caller’s body. He immediately knew that something was terribly wrong, and that he was being sent a message. He thanked the Colonel for keeping him abreast of the situation, and told him that he had done the right thing by speaking directly with him, and if something else came up to call him immediately, and then he handed the phone back to Hector.

He sat back in his chair, and calmly asked Edwardo why was the Dishwasher in Brazil, and how come he had not been told that the Dishwasher was there. Edwardo had a sinking feeling in his stomach, as he sat there and fumbled for an answer. Knowing that there was nothing he could say but the truth, he told the Shot Caller. “Yes this is true. He is in Brazil, taking care of our business. ”

“When did it become our business?”

“Oh, Patron, I did not mean any disrespect. I only meant the Mob’s business. ” “And when did you last hear from The Dishwasher?”

Edwardo did not like the way the conversation was going, and everyone at the table stopped whatever they were doing, to listen to his reply. He didn’t know what else to say, so he told him the truth.

“Three days ago. I haven’t heard from him since he left for Rio.”

“Perhaps he has been detained by one of those Brazilian senoritas. Eduardo”, the Shot Caller offered, pushing a taco into his mouth.

“He is a professional”, Edwardo shot back, a little bit too loud”, “and never before has he failed us, he takes care of our business”.

The Shot Caller let that one pass and said, “Well, Edwardo, The Dishwasher was found shot to death this morning, at our office in Rio, and the killer left a calling card behind, in the form of a small wooden doll, that was found in the Dishwasher’s lap.”

Edwardo’s head went spinning; he too knew that this was the signature of The Shooter, a legend in his own right, who had never failed to deliver on a contract. He was known as The Shooter, but his tools for dispatching people were not limited to the use of firearms. He was equally skilled with knives, ropes, poison, explosives, and hand to hand combat.

He gained legendary status when he took out four body guards and a Yakuza gang leader, in a Tokyo bath house, with a pair of chop sticks and a rolled up dinner menu. The man was a force to be recon with and once he took on the contract there was no calling him back. Any attempt to abort his mission would be considered an unforgivable sign of disrespect and would automatically put the offender at the top of his hit list, and he would still take out the target.

“So, you see Edwardo, we have a bit of problem on our hands.”

 Edwardo’s mind was racing now, he didn’t know what this had to do with the real reason why The Dishwasher was in Brazil, nor did he know what the Shot Caller knew or didn’t know.

“So Eduardo, you say that no one knows who this guy, The Shooter, really is”. “That’s right, Patron. But we do know that he is into Macomba, the Brazilian version of voodoo, and he goes through some kind of ritual before every hit. It is said that before a believer in Macomba can take a life, he has to prepare the way for the soul of the intended victim, by doing three things: he must recognize the attribute of resolve, in a stranger and reward it, he must give hope where none exist, and he must take the life without warning. We used him twice before, and he always leaves one of those voodoo dolls behind.

I told you all this before, Patron. When he worked for us before, we did everything by throw-away cell phones and Fed X. It’s like he was a fucking spy or something, he didn’t want to meet anyone. All he wanted from us was info about his target and his money, but that was OK, because he never missed, and he always got the job done. We had him by the balls because he only got half of the money up front, and the rest upon confirmation of the hit.”

At that moment Hector again approached his boss, and handed him the phone. The Shot Caller listened intently but didn’t say a word, and then he gave the phone back to Hector. Then he got up from the table and started to dance. Everybody at the table watched him, except for Edwardo, who had his back to him. As he got into the groove, holding the bat high above his head, he said to Edwardo “And did you have the Dishwasher by the balls when you decided to help him to steal our money, Eduardo”. The words were barely out of the Shot Callers’ mouth when he swung the bat in an arch of descent, impacting with Edwardo’s head, splitting it like a ripe melon.

Edwardo tumbled from the chair, and was dead before he hit the floor. “Come clean up this piece of shit“, the Shot Caller barked at Carlos, and get him the hell out of that uniform, before he spoils our celebration”.

“You better have them all by the balls, Eduardo, because where you are going they don’t play nice like me.” The Shot Caller said to the dead man on the floor, as three waiters rushed to the body to carry it away. One stayed behind to clean up the blood and brains, and of course, to wipe off the bat.

The taking of life aroused sexual desire in The Shot Caller, and he motioned Carlotta to go under the table, once he seated himself. He then motioned Hector to come to the table, and told him to bring Ramirez to him. The young man approach the table showing no fear, and The Shot Caller motioned for him to sit where Edwardo once sat. “You are my right hand, now. Arrange for our flight tomorrow. We are going to Rio.” he managed to say, through clenched teeth, as Carlotta dropped to her knees and did her thing.

Christmas Holiday Celebrations in Rio

December 6, 2011 | Filed underEntertainment | Posted by Fiona Hurrell

By Fiona Hurrell, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Christmas is without a doubt the season for celebration, and luckily Rio is a city that loves a good get-together. This year, expatriates and foreign residents of the Cidade Maravilhosa can join their fellow countrymen and enjoy a number of family-friendly festivities scheduled to take place during December.

Santa Claus makes an appearance at the AmSoc Rio Holiday Eggnog Party in 2011, photo by AmSoc Rio.

The American Society of Rio (AmSoc Rio) will kick-start the festivities with their annual Holiday Eggnog Party held on Saturday, December 10th from 10AM to 1PM. The venue this year (as in 2010) is the Casa Maternal Mello Mattos, a large colonial-style home in Jardim Botânico.

Families are encouraged to bring their children as the house offers plenty of activities and of course Santa Claus will be paying a visit, armed with a sack of presents.

For AmSoc Rio President David Huffard, the party is a good chance for members to relax and enjoy themselves as well as learn about the various charitable endeavors which have taken place over the course of the year.

Huffard explains “This will be a great opportunity for our members to see one of the charity organizations that we support … and also to have a wonderful year-end party in a welcoming and beautiful setting.”

The event will close with their annual raffle draw which includes a number of exciting prizes including a pair of American Airline tickets for a round trip to the U.S., a mini break in Penedo and several dinners for two at some of Rio’s finest restaurants.

Huffard adds “For the children the high point is always the arrival of Santa. For the adults, the high point is our year-end raffle draw.”

Tickets for the event can be purchased at the door and cost R$10 for members and R$15 for non-members.

On the same day,starting at 5PM, The British and Commonwealth Society of Rio de Janeiro (BCS) will be hosting their annual BCS Christmas Party for both members and non-members in the Jubilee Hall on Rua Real Grandeza 99, Botafogo.

Mary Crawshaw, BCS Chair 2010, and Jane Anderson at the BCS 2010 Christmas raffle prize display, photo provided by the BCS.

Guests will be treated to a high tea party followed by carol singing, whilst Father Christmas will be making an appearance bringing gifts for the Children.

BCS Events committee chair Christine Rutherford is looking forward to the event which is sure to appeal to all who attend, explaining “We’re planning things that would attract kids and their families … Father Christmas will be present, and will distribute gifts for the kids who join a drawing and painting contest.”

In keeping with tradition, The BCS has planned a giant raffle draw to close the party which, according to Rutherford, is always popular amongst guests.

She explains “The biggest high-point is the giant raffle, which always attracts people! We’ll have great prizes, such as a weekend for two at Copacabana Palace!”

Tickets can be purchased at the door and will cost R$20 for members, R$35 for non-members, R$15 for children between 12-18, over-sixties and students, and free entry for children under twelve. Each ticket includes a complimentary raffle coupon.

Alternatively, for a more traditional, religious, celebration, the Christ Church in Rio has organized a carol service followed by a mince pie reception on Sunday 11th December. They will also be holding services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. For more details visit the website.

  shareshare