Chapter Twenty Four:     Maneuvers

Transcribed from dictation, ADAM speaking--

It was already dark when we finally pulled out from the bridge at Rio Mazcala, our bus sandwiched between the Army-green vehicles of our "military escort", heading towards Iguala on the way to Cuernavaca. I wasn't sure how much I trusted the military, but we knew for certain that there were lots of gangsters still out there who had been assigned to kidnap me.

The convoy had grown from the 5 military vehicles to include 6 more of the cartelero's fleet-- two of which had been stolen from the military anyway. The other four were those bizarre-looking home-made pickup truck based "IAFVs", which we didn't want the bad guys to retrieve and use against us all over again, so the 16th Battalion confiscated them. We also had a total of 17 prisoners contained in several vehicles. We were an impressively long convoy with machine guns and cannons pointed every which way as we drove north along the Carraterra. Hopefuly we looked scary enough that the gangsters would leave us alone now.

Pokey was driving. Actually, my leg was still hurting from a gunshot wound. At least Magga and Masnia had gotten the bullet out by Sha-haka-ma medicin-- they'd laid me on the ground and squatted (gently) on the wounds, using the magic of their maratli to make the haka flow and draw the bullet out of me. Took about an hour, then Masnia said "ooo-oh!" and merrily plucked a spent bullet out of her pussy. Sounds impossible, I know, but Nokhons do that. It would probably also sound impossible how quickly I heal once the bullet is out, the other two wounds were already closed.

The two Mexican Army lieutenants, Raf and Leo, had asked if they could ride along with us on the way to Cueravaca. They'd been with six other officers in an Army mini-bus when the carteleros had stopped them at the road block. In the interrogation process one of their fellow officers was executed because he'd fought against the cartels, just as they had. But the other three officers had evidently been in complicity with the cartels and were allowed to take their mini-bus and carry on, leaving Raf and Leo stranded-- and to be killed.

"That's pretty cold," Mike commented, "were they friends--guys from your own unit?"

"No," Raf said, "they were from the 11th Battalion, which covertly cooperates with the drug cartels and has come in conflict with our unit several times. The 16th is dedicated to destroying the cartels, the 11th is not. We'd just been to an all-Army meeting in Chilpancingo and assigned to catch a ride back to Cuernavaca with them, so we didn't even know the bastards."

"But we could read the name-tags on their uniforms," Leo mentioned, "so of course we will report those officers for complicity and treason when we get back to base. Although it might not do any good since they were probably under orders and have upper echelon protection."

"I thought the Army was fighting against the cartels," I said, "that it was the police you couldn't trust."

"Well, officially yes, for the moment," Raf qualified, "but only because those orders are coming directly from the office of El Presidente-- and that's only because international protest over the Iguala massacres has gone viral and can't be ignored. Otherwise NONE of the local politicians would allow any interference with the cartels-- there's too much money in it for them."

"And power," Leo added, "like when the Mayor of Iguala was inconvenienced by student demonstrators from Ayotzinapa, he simply asked Guerreros Unidos, the local cartel, to kill them for him, and they did. Forty-three kids died. They can kill anyone, steal anything anytime they want if they're friends with the drug bosses. That's power and they've grown to like it!"

"So the Army is at war with itself?" Mike asked.

"Mexico is at war with itself," Leo summed it up, "no one is ever safe now."

"How about the guys in your own unit?" I asked, "do you trust them?"

"Most of them. Capitan Javier for sure," Raf answered with a sad shrug, "but there's probably one or two cabrones who spy for the cartels regularly. For money. Or drugs."

"Or family obligations-- like keeping their parents alive. The mafias are pretty ruthless."

"Verdadamente, we need to rip apart our whole chain of command," Leo said, "there are too many high-ranking officers playing both sides. The cartels are taking over the military too."

"By the way," Raf informed us, "once we arrive at Headquarters, our Comandante will probably order you all arrested. He's definitely on the cartel's side."

"Mierda, that's really great," Mike grumbled, "thanks a lot for providing an escort to protect us!"

"Yeah," Pokey contributed, "anything else we can do to help you guys out?"

"Yes, sorry, but actually we do need even more help from you. We need you to do to our comandante what you did to that Inspector General de Policia earlier today," Leo told us.

"So that we can arrest our comandante instead of him arresting you." Raf made it sound so easy.

"Our comandante," Leo filled in, "General Camilo Sanchez, is just as dirty as that Inspector General de Policia. We need you to make him confess before many witnesses, so that we can arrest him, depose him, get him out of command."

"But you know that won't work," Pokey began to say, "unless..."

"Exactly!" Raf took his point, "That won't work unless we take out EVERY corrupt officer in the chain of command, because they all protect each other. But if we can indict them all at one time, we'd have a chance."

"You sound unrealistically optimistic," I said, "considering that corruption has been a way of life here ever since Cortez landed in Mexico."

"Perhaps so," Raf admitted, "but otherwise we must simply accept that these drug cartels be allowed to destroy our country. They have made things so much worse than ever; large-scale murders, organized rapes; even the tourist industry is about to shut down."

"Besides," Leo stepped in, "there's a new factor that might make a big difference..." He looked back to where the girls were still "interrogating" the one prisoner we'd kept on the bus. "Ask them to get a name for the top boss of the local cartel."

I conveyed the request back to Masnia. We still had one prisoner as a hostage, mostly because we were getting information out of him. The cartels had me on their hit-list, so it was time to hit back. We'd kept Ramon specifically because he'd been the mission-boss and should know the most details. Plus, he was quite susceptible to hypnotism.

Raf and Leo were intrigued by our interrogation methods; like nothing they'd seen before. Being Latin American Military, they expected that torture was the standard method, even if no one admitted it. But they were amazed by how much more effective Masnia was at getting secrets out of a man. "Man" being the key word: she was using her "feminine wiles" and poor Ramon didn't have a chance.

Ramon was sitting comfortably with a drink in his hand and Masnia cuddled up cozily beside him, her furry body otherwise naked. He was strapped to the seat with the safety belt but otherwise unbound. The drink was a plastic cup of water, but he fervently believed that it was the best beer he'd ever had. Between Masnia and Magga and myself he'd been deeply hypnotized, completely spellbound and feeling quite content.

Masnia teased his cheek with a bare nipple and asked in her now very fluent Spanish, "Ramon, mi tersoro, are you really the biggest, most important boss of all those brave carteleros?"

Ramon laughed, "Ho ho, no, no, mi quieida. Sí, I am an important man, but my supreme commander is El Grand Señor Salvador deVega, who is muy muy rico y influentual. Even El Presidente answers to him!"

"Where does he live?"

"He has a wonderful hacienda near Laguna de Tuxpan," Ramon happily blabbed, "12 km NE of Iguala, you can't miss it. Oh hey-- not far from here, in fact."

"We know the man, and the place," Raf admitted, "we were just testing how accurate your interrogation technique is. Pretty good, it seems."

"But you're not going to use the information?" I ask.

"Oh, we can't bust Salvador deVega, he's protected. In fact, we are under specific orders from our comandante to leave him alone."

"Although," Leo mentioned as an innocent little by-the-way, "we WILL be passing pretty close to his hacienda soon. Just up ahead. A right-turn after the road-sign to Iguala." I'd noticed that both guys were talking faster, as if they had to deliver their pitch within a short time limitation. I saw a road sign for Iguala coming up in the distance. We seemed to be in the neighborhood.

"And you know, IF we had El Grand Señor Salvador deVega sitting beside that furry-but-pretty girl with the magic tetas," Raf fantasized, "we would probably be able to get enough information to indict our own comandante and all those other compromised officers who are sabotaging our war against the carteleros."

"Wait a minute," I said, sensing a set-up. We passed the highway sign to Iguala, then another sign that read Laguna de Tuxpan 5 km. "You guys are thinking I should go to his hacienda and make a citizen's arrest, aren't you?"

"Hombre, we've seen what you can do," Raf admitted.

"You've also seen that I'm not bulletproof. Besides, it's not my battle."

"Oh no? Someone sent those carteleros after your bus, so you've got a deliberate enemy somewhere. Do you think that whoever it is will just give up after one try and let you drive out of Mexico?"

Raf's cell phone chimed. There was a brief conversation with the lead vehicle in our convoy, "Another road block 2 kilometers ahead," he informed us as the entire convoy slowed and pulled to the side of the road to assess the situation. Other traffic whizzed past us, but we were pretty sure the road block was not for them. Or the Army. This WAS my battle.

I asked how they knew about the road block, since we hadn't seen it yet. Raf answered, "Our Capitan had given his cell-phone number to some of the civilians rescued from the first road block, who were driving on ahead of us and asked them to call if they spotted any more mafia road blocks. Which they did, but they weren't stopped, only waved on through. A couple of them called to warn us."

"What do we do now," Melly asked, "get into another gunfight?"

"How about we turn around and find another way?" Lissandra suggested. No one was interested in a shootout, not even the soldiers. They'd been informed that the carteleros had some big guns, canons, in fact.

"But they'll just come after us," Raf said, "so we'll have to fight sometime."

"Two kilometers up the road, you say?" I pondered. "Raf, ask your unit to wait here. I'll go check out the road block and call you when it's time to collect prisoners."

"You're going alone?" everyone asked. But Magga answered, "No, I go too."

I almost objected, then realized there'd be nobody better equipped to accompany me, she's as "superhuman" as I am and anyone else would only hold me back. Masnia also volunteered, but I asked her to go outside the bus, into the dark, from where she could secretly guard everybody else until we got back-- no humans could sneak up on her. Then I made sure we all had cell phones synced, also coding in Raf's and Javier's numbers for direct contact with the military guys. Then Magga and I started walking towards the roadblock. Bigfoot Rangers comin' at ya.

It was a dark moonless night, we were among rolling hills. To the right I could see the lights of Tuxpan, a small town by a large lake. The land was green and lush, not dry like most of Mexico. No jungle, unfortunately, but lightly forested. We ran parallel with the carretera for 2 km and were at the road block in minutes. Then we moved slow, in you-can't-see-the-squatch mode.

This was not so big an operation as earlier, we counted only seven men. They'd lost a lot of men this day, their forces had to be somewhat depleted, although they compensated for that with some heavier weaponry. Two armored personnel carriers were sporting big-caliber guns (later the soldiers told me they were 30-mm Mk44 Bushmaster II cannons). It looked as if they'd been planning to blow our bus to pieces as we drove up the road. We circled their position, on both sides of the highway, to decide how to take them without getting shot.

Traffic was light. They stopped every northbound car or truck that came along the road, but only to shine a light inside and see who it was-- maybe looking for a Bigfoot? --then sent them on their way. When there was no traffic they tended to cluster and talk. Getting bored, impatient for our arrival, talking too much, moving around restlessly.

Finally they made the mistake of gathering all together for some kind of conference. Their leader was talking on his phone with someone, maybe the big boss deVega himself. I hand-signaled to Magga that when he turned off the phone we'd jump them all at once, she bobbed back. We were ready. The leader said a crisp, "Sí, señor!" and stuffed his phone into a pocket, then started to explain what their instructions were, which had every man leaning in closer to him, nobody paying attention to what might be out there in the night around them, unless it had headlights.

Standard squatch attack: Bigfoot howl, everyone freaks. Magga and I jumped at them from two sides and joined hands, our arms reaching around the whole cluster of them. Then we gave them a nice hug, maybe squeezing a little too hard for comfort, but not crushing them to death. Some screamed, some fainted, loosely-held weapons fell out of their hands, some pissed their pants. The fight was over without a shot being fired. Anyone who tried to struggle got slapped and went down at once, but mostly they were absolutely terrified of us two big hairy Bigfoot monsters.

I called Javier, told him the convoy could come and pick up the pieces. In a few minutes they arrived, along with our bus. The soldiers were impressed by the firepower the carteleros could have turned on us and were glad to cram seven more prisoners into their personnel carriers, which brought the total up to 24. Getting pretty full now.

They also confiscated the latest batch of cartelero vehicles and weapons: 2 more of the modified pickups and a SUV. We now had to move 13 vehicles. They took a survey of how much fuel they'd need to get them all to their base, since it wouldn't do to pull into a gas station with 13 gasping vehicles and charge it to the Army. Luckily, they had just enough fuel and drivers to take them all along at once, otherwise they'd have to shoot the engine blocks with a howitzer to keep the gangsters from using them again. Eventually the unit was ready to press on towards Cuernavaca once again.

But Raf reminded me, "The hacienda of their big boss, Salvador deVega, is that way about 6 km, if you're interested."

I was interested, but figured that the bad guys would be interested too, so I asked Capitan Javier to call all the soldiers into formation. Without their weapons. There was some protest about that, but Raf had explained to Javier so he said "Please cooperate with Señor Adam." The soldiers laid their guns on the ground in rows where they could see them, Pokey and Mike standing by. When all twenty-two uniformed Mexican soldiers stood at attention in two neat rows I said to them, "I need to ask each of you a simple question, one by one. Answer yes or no, that's all."

They looked at me funny and over to their captain for confirmation that a civilian Bigfoot had any authority over them and Javier nodded.

One by one I asked them, "Are you a spy for the cartel?" I began with Raf, whom I trusted, and he said, "No," as expected. I moved on to Leo and the captain, they also said No, and on I went down the line. No one said Sí, of course, but I made no comment, nor did I react to any of the 22 denials, so the soldiers hardly felt threatened. They probably thought I was pretty stupid, believing everybody.

I thanked them for their cooperation, then asked the fourth, seventh and 20th man to remain standing as the others were dismissed. One of them tried to go for his weapon but Magga came flashing out of the dark, shrieking, and snatched him away into the night. The other two froze in place, scared silly.

The three men denied that they were spies, said I had no proof. I told them I can hear the difference between truth and lies. Capitan Javier wasn't certain that was possible, but Melly and Lissandra backed me up, saying "Adam is a Bigfoot orator, it's his thing!" as if that was proof of my claim. It was decided that no action be taken against those men except to make certain they could not send a message to anyone while I went on my secret mission.

But the mission wasn't very secret by then, so we had an intense discussion with the officers and sergeants who were against taking action against Señor deVega because they were convinced that they'd all be court-martialed by their superior officers, whose strings were being pulled by the cartel's leaders. Only Raf and Leo and Capitan Javier, all of who impressed me as trustworthy guys, were willing to go against the system and take the chance. But since the captain was in command it was decreed that we go for it. The military could not officially attack deVega's home, but would wait for me to put him in my bus-- their unit hardly being responsible for what some wild & crazy savage civilian Bigfoot decided to do.

Some of them predicted that if I did survive capturing deVega, his carteleros would figure out who had done it and would be after me from now on. I asked them how that was any different than the present situation: except that from now on their leaders could expect a pissed-off Bigfoot coming back at them.

We were warned to watch out for high-tech security systems and many armed guards with night-vision goggles, suggesting that the deVega Hacienda was probably impenetrable and we were going on a suicide mission. I shrugged and said "Que un hombre tiene que hacer lo que un hombre tiene que hacer," paraphrasing John Wayne like I often do. Hey, I can be just as macho as any Mexican.

Magga and I took Ramon as our guide, although he barely knew what was going on, being so happy from all the beer (water) he'd been drinking. We moved through the night the way Nokhons can, nobody saw us, even though we crossed streets and passed through some village neighborhoods. We'd taken off our clothes, going native for this, so that if someone did see us they'd be shocked at seeing big hairy monsters and be afraid for themselves. It would never occur to them that Sasquatches were planning to kidnap a cartel lord right out of his well-guarded hacienda. It should be a movie: Mission Implausible.

I had Ramon riding up on my shoulders, like a little kid, and he acted like one. He was only quiet because I'd commanded him to be, but he was having fun trying to steer me. I'd suggested we play a game, where he'd steer me to the deVega Hacienda: he said he'd been there many times because he and El Grand Señor Salvador deVega were such buenos amigos and had invited Ramon to many fiestas fantasticas. I could hear that he was telling half-truths at least. And sure enough, within a quarter of an hour we were approaching a very fine ranchero surrounded by grasslands and cattle and horses, a nice place. Probably worth lots of drug money.

There were lights on in the house, and music. A cluster of cars were parked in front so someone was definitely at home, hopefully our man Salvador deVega. It sounded like a party: music, laughter, clinking glasses.

There were trees and bushes so we could approach and look in the windows from afar, but close in around the house itself was a wide open lawn with no hiding places. And some guards, ten of them patrolling in two-man teams. I supposed that most of his available forces had been working the road block out on the carretera. They had rifles and night glasses, as we'd been warned, but we could probably see in the dark better than them anyway, since they still couldn't notice two squatches who didn't want to be seen. We commanded Ramon to be perfectly still and silent, so they couldn't even see him on my shoulders. They were professionals on the lookout for human trespassers, but we were coming in Bigfoot-style, moving slow and blending with the night.

We took the guards down in sets of two, silently, simultaneously. We didn't want to kill anyone, or even harm them if we didn't have to, so we'd brought along rolls of gaffer tape. We stacked our captives up in a nearby wooded grove, destroyed their weapons and scattered their bullets into the dark. We asked Ramon where the power lines were, he didn't know on any conscious level but we took him down to deeper memories and he led us there. He also told us about the backup generator in the garage, so we removed that first. Finally we were ready.

We'd peeked in to the party going on in a big ballroom, about 20 people socializing and drinking, looked like an upper-class crowd. Suits and ties, long dresses, a live band, canapés. Ramon pointed out the host, Salvador himself, an elegantly mature Latino man, looking handsome and dignified and rich. We put Ramon out of the way and commanded him to wait, then came back to watch for a while.

A man who must have been a security agent entered the ballroom to speak with deVega. I had an idea it was about guards not reporting in along their rounds-- none of them. I stepped closer to the big picture window, lighting up, now visible from inside-- if anyone happened to look they'd see a big hairy wild Bigfoot lurking out there. Although it took a while before anyone noticed me.

Long before I was found and raised by Art and Elaine, thus finally proving the existence of Bigfoot, there had been many sightings, usually disregarded as tall tales. One of the most famous of those stories was from way back in 1924, about five hunters in a cabin near Mt St Helen's who'd shot a big "hairy ape" and then been attacked all night long by several angry Sasquatches (I won't go into detail, you can Google "Ape Canyon"). It's a classic horror-story: spooky monsters in the night, shrill screaming, heavy boulders flying out of the dark crashing through the cabin walls, powerful pounding on doors, footsteps on the roof-- I'd assumed that carteleros were not especially afraid of human soldiers, but a Bigfoot Attack might just scare the shit out of them. Besides, those bastards had brought out my mean streak and I wanted to enjoy this.

Once again both Magga and I did a simultaneous Bigfoot howl: shrill and scary and loud. Suddenly everyone in that party looked at the big window and saw me doing my best hairy-brute monster pose, waving my arms like a crazy ape, making psychopathic faces for the split-second just before Magga ripped the power cables out of the wall and everything went absolutely dark. Talk about shrill screaming.

I was tempted to smash the big plate window with a punch, just for the drama of it, but then I'd be stepping into that room on my own bare feet and it seemed kind of unwise. Besides most of those party guests were not actual carteleros, but businessmen, women and teen-agers, I didn't want to cut them all up with spraying glass, even if they were living the good life due to drug money. In fact, I was only after one person in that room: Salvador deVega, el big boss. So I went in through the big wide front door-- which I ripped from the hinges as a bit of token drama. It was a nice house: the ballroom had a high ceiling so that I could walk normally without hitting my head.

Magga was running around outside, screaming and shrieking like three or four banshees surrounding the house. Sounded great! She was also throwing heavy things at the house; car tires, garbage cans, the backup generator landed on the roof with a loud crunch and a shattering of roof tiles. Every impact won a chorus of screams. She really did a job of it, seemed to be having fun.

I was having fun too, shoving my way through that crowd of tiny humans in utter darkness; women screaming as they felt my big hairy body brush by, men recoiling in fear and diving away into the crowd; nobody was being brave. It was noisy, so I roared a few times to fill in any gaps in the chaos. A flashlight partially illuminated the scene; a scene from Hell, a sea of squirming heads with a hairy monster towering above them. I saw a pistol sparkle in the hand of the security guy who was also holding the flashlight. I ducked below the sea of heads so he could neither see me nor shoot me. Magga came crashing in from another room, still shrieking, and grabbed the security agent, so he and the light and the gun were gone.

I found El Grand Señor Salvador deVega in the dark: he was lying on the floor in a pile of others, cowering and whimpering with arms up over his head. I grabbed him by the collar and checked him for weapons as he struggled ineffectually, then stood up with him slung over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. On out the door, nobody tried to stop me. Magga went out the other way as she tossed a sofa through that big plate glass window-- all the glass spraying out into the night instead of into the room full of people, but just as much fun --she liked drama too.

Señor deVega was starting to fuss, about to start shouting for help, so I snarled at him and he shut up. I didn't speak to him; just let him believe I really was a "manlike ape". We took a moment to wrap him in gaffer tape, including his mouth, then continued on our way. Magga gathered up Ramon-- we weren't through with him yet --and we headed out into the night, our work done here.

No one pursued us. We retraced our way back to the where we'd left the bus and the convoy at the abandoned restaurant. Before just running home blindly we scouted the area to make certain the carteleros hadn't arrived and attacked or captured our friends, but the coast was clear. I was about to go in when Magga got a grip on my dakh to stop me. Of course, why not celebrate?

We stashed our two prisoners in the restaurant building for awhile and went into a grove of trees, where we had some really fun sex for a while, both giggling and coming again and again. It only took a few minutes, but we finally felt guilty about making the others wait and worry about us, so we gathered our prisoners and reported in: mission accomplished.

Even so, he addressed Capitan Javier: "I formally demand that you release me and arrest these foreign...creatures instead! They have no legal right to invade my home without a warrant and kidnap me! It is the Army's duty to protect the citizens of Mexico!"

Capitan Javier was flustered for a moment, but Raf was not: "Nor did you have any right to order your agents to set up road blocks to have us detained and murdered earlier today."

"What? Was I there? Did you see me? Do you have witnesses that make me responsible for any of that?"

"Yes, we do," I said. "That's the only reason we came for you. We were informed that you gave the orders."

"But do you have witnesses who will testify in court? I think not." deVega spoke with true confidence now.

"Court?" Raf became indignant. "So you believe we are going to play this game by your rules? In which the law is on your side because you've bought it, so you can go free and then send your own army of criminals to kill us? Really?"

Leo said, "We might just have to kill you before that happens, you know that."

So says deVega: "Then you'll be hunted down as common criminals! There'll be nowhere safe for you."

The other soldiers were obviously nervous about how dangerous it was for them to be involved in the kidnapping of such a powerful man: deVega was colossally rich and connected, they were aware it could be difficult to make a case against a man with an army of lawyers. The actual army of armed carteleros concerned them less. They were all for shutting down his cartel of murderers, but wondered: "Do we actually have any legally documentable proof that he is the cartel's leader?"

"What do you mean proof?" Raf asked his unit, "It's common knowledge, he hasn't even tried to keep it secret. All we need is his confession." His fellow soldiers looked at him as if he was crazy.

And deVega laughed, "My confession? To you idiots, you kidnappers? How will you get that? By torture, coercion, threats? Do you expect anything like that to hold up in court? My lawyers will burn you, my friends in the military will see to it that you all be court-martialed and executed at dawn!" He was quite confident that he was untouchable.

He got less confident when I went down on one knee close in front of him so that I could get low enough to look him in the eyes. "One thing I need to know" I spoke politely, "is why you sent your men to kidnap ME. Did someone ask that of you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about..."

"I can hear when people lie, as you are doing now. Therefore you DO know what I am talking about."

"Prove that in court, you troglodyte!"

I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a very gentle squeeze; not to hurt him but just to let him feel the size and weight of it and to understand that I could simply pinch his shoulder off if I happened to lose my temper. I don't like to bully people that way, but he was so arrogant it irritated me. "I asked you a question. Why are you targeting me?"

So he looked a little more scared, was beginning to sweat, but just clammed up anyway. Closed his eyes and wouldn't say a word. I almost admired his resolution: this was a real macho hombre. "Okay," I said, "I give up. I'll just have to let my interrogation expert take over: Magga, he's all yours!"

His eyes snapped open wide. We'd all noticed how deVega was much more afraid of her than me. Maybe she seemed more ferocious than a city-bred Bigfoot like me, and her not speaking Spanish made it impossible for him to intimidate her with words, just like any extremely dangerous wild animal.

Magga laughed, eager to play the part of a sadistic torturer, and grabbed deVega roughly by the front of his shirt, plucking him from where he stood as if weightless and carrying him into the bus with one hand, where Masnia was waiting for the fun to begin. Now deVega whimpered.

By 21:30 that evening the convoy was ready to push on to Cuernavaca. They'd been in radio contact with their base, reporting that they had arrested several more carteleros but did not mention either deVega's name or mine. Raf had insisted that we arrive as a surprise so that their corrupt comandante could not prepare a counter-surprise for us and Capitan Javier agreed. We got back into our bus for the trip, maintaining our position in the middle of the convoy. Liss was driving.

I needed to see how the interrogation was going, and observed that deVega was evidently not so easy a subject as Ramon. He was on the sofa sandwiched between Magga and Masnia, looking much less afraid now that he had caught on to how no one was actually harming him. He grew bolder, confident, his arrogant nature asserting itself. As I faced him he no longer cowered, but sat up and offered me a grim smile and an attitude of superiority.

"Ah, Adam Leroy Forest, the famous media Bigfoot. A shame we should meet like this." His English was impeccable, almost British and veddy upper-class. Definitely snooty.

"Right. You'd rather it was I who was your prisoner, I'll bet."

"I know your life story, of course, everybody does: the Bigfoot Boy of Monroe, Washington, as I recall. And your parents are famous too, that American couple who found and raised you: Arthur and Elaine Forest, I do believe," he sent me a wicked look, "They are temporarily still alive, I suppose?"

"Are you really going to threaten my parents while I have you captive?"

"Why not? You won't kill me. Despite all your size and strength, it's obvious you are incapable of that. And you probably know that threatening families is standard operating procedure for us mafia types."

"Well, you may never get the chance to give that order to your men."

"I don't need to, it's already an established rule for the mafia to go after an opponent's family once they know who is involved. And your attack was not very discreet: two Bigfoots in the night-- oh, who could they be? So if my men do not hear from me within 24 hours the process begins automatically."

As usual, I could hear if he was lying-- but he was not.

"So you believe there is nothing I can do to stop you from killing my parents?"

"Certainly. Simply release me. Besides, as an honest law-abiding American citizen the only thing you can do is turn me over to the authorities, and you must be aware that I shall be immediately released anyway. And you will be arrested instead, since kidnapping is illegal."

"Well, I guess we'll see how it works out." I needed to draw him into a conversation, and yet not to be too eager or he'd sense what I was trying to do.

I've always had a talent for hypnotizing people, definitely part of my Orator abilities: a quality of voice that people respond to, listen to and become entranced by. When Orators tell stories-- or sing songs-- people automatically go into a minor trance. All good public speakers are capable of it, some good priests, or some bad men: Adolf Hitler was expert at it.

I could affect deep trances. I'd been kidnapped at 5 years old and had escaped by instinctively hypnotizing my captors, although I don't remember how I did it. Since then I've been instructed in Sha-haka magic and even taken a course in hypnosis techniques at the UW, so I'm pretty good at it now.

Actually, so was Masnia, although she'd been trying to seduce deVega with her feminine charms as she had Ramon, but he was not responding. She'd also tried her Voice of Authority, but deVega seemed to be immune to that too, as if his own authority was greater-- he was certainly accustomed to obedience. Although Raf and Leo were all for using physical torture, we were all against it. Since I can't lie I couldn't even pretend to threaten the man. So I'd have to hypnotize him into cooperating.

I made sure he was comfortably seated on the sofa between Magga and Masnia, got Mike to softly play some ranchero melodies as background music, and sat on the floor directly in front of deVega, our eyes on the same level. I tried speaking to him in as neutral a tone as I could muster, although that felt like lying to me and I was uncomfortable with it, so I knew it wouldn't work. Then I spoke to him as if he was a dangerous opponent and he responded: he enjoyed thinking I was afraid of him. But I did not mention carteleros or drug wars, I talked about our band, our music, our hopes and dreams, almost putting him to sleep with the triviality of it all.

"But someone seems to have something against our band," I said, "since they've put out a hit on us. Do you happen to know anything about that, Salvador?"

"Oh, I might," he said, looking very smug. It took a few twists of wording but eventually he told us that his cartel had been offered a deal for a protected drug route into California in exchange for eliminating me while I was in Mexico. The offer had come through a series of contacts-- including the very same General Sanchez who Raf and Leo were after --several Mexican politicians, eventually leading back to some American Senator whose name he did not know.

Meanwhile, Raf got a call from Capitan Javier: the convoy had just received new orders to meet with a special Army unit up ahead of us. They were to pull off the Carretera at a certain crossroad and await another convoy from the 11th Battalion, to whom they would deliver all their prisoners.

"Including that bus they'd been escorting and especially that Bigfoot." Those orders had been issued by General Camilo Luiz Sanchez.