Chapter 13 - Fire in San Marcos
The execution of Arturo Morales was the spark that set Ciudad San Marcos ablaze.
By noon, the news of the traitor's death had leaked from the estate to the streets below. Hector Rojas, realizing his puppet inside the Morales mansion was dead and that the Master Ledger was now in Gabriel’s hands, abandoned all stealth. He launched a full-scale, desperate military offensive against every Morales stronghold in the city.
From the third-floor balcony of the estate, I stood beside Gabriel and Marcus, watching columns of thick, black smoke rising from the industrial harbor three miles below us.
"Rojas has deployed over a hundred mercenaries into the waterfront district," Marcus reported, his tactical radio hissing with chaotic distress calls from harbor capos. "They’ve firebombed Warehouse Four and seized the main transit drawbridge. They are cutting off our access to the sea."
"He is trying to isolate us on the cliffs," Gabriel said, his binoculars trained on the burning harbor. "He knows that if I can get the digital copies of Elena’s ledger to the federal judges in the capital or the National Syndicate Commission, his cartel will be dismantled by federal troops within forty-eight hours. He has to kill us and destroy the Pelican case before midnight."
Suddenly, the air above the estate was shredded by a terrifying, high-pitched whistling sound.
"Incoming!" Marcus roared, diving toward me and shoving me flat against the stone floor of the balcony just as the first mortar shell detonated against the limestone facade of the east wing.
The explosion was catastrophic. The shockwave shattered every glass window on the third floor, showering us in razor-sharp debris and blinding white limestone dust. The floor beneath my hands shook violently as a section of the roof collapsed outward into the courtyard below.
"They brought heavy military ordnance!" Marcus shouted over the ringing deafening roar in my ears, pulling me up by my coat collar as we scrambled back into the shattered bedroom. "Rojas’s assault teams are scaling the western perimeter wall right now! Our exterior guards are being overrun!"
Gabriel Morales stood amidst the falling plaster and smoke, his face bleeding from a superficial glass cut across his cheek, but his posture entirely unbroken. He reached down, grabbed the Pelican case containing my grandmother’s ledger, and thrust it firmly into my arms.
"Take it," Gabriel commanded, his amber eyes locking onto mine with fierce intensity. "You carry this with your life, Julian."
"Where are we going?" I asked, coughing as smoke from the burning east wing began to flood the hallway outside. "The gates are surrounded!"
"We aren't using the gates," Gabriel said, drawing his tactical assault rifle from a bedside wall rack and racking the bolt. "When your grandmother designed the blueprints for this estate thirty years ago, she knew that one day a man like Rojas would bring an army to my door. She built a way out that isn't on any city map."
We ran down the smoke-filled grand staircase, stepping over shattered marble and fallen chandeliers. In the main foyer, six loyal Morales guards were kneeling behind overturned mahogany tables, firing continuous bursts of automatic gunfire through the shattered front doors at the cartel mercenaries swarming the courtyard.
Gabriel led us past the firefight, down into the sub-basement kitchen, and into the dry storage pantry where jars of preserved fruit and grains lined the brick walls.
He reached behind a heavy wooden shelving unit, found a concealed iron lever set into the brickwork, and pulled it down with his full weight.
With a deep, grinding rumble of counterweights, the entire brick shelving unit swung backward on concealed iron hinges, revealing a dark, damp stone tunnel leading steeply downward into the earth beneath the limestone cliffs.
"Smuggler tunnels," Marcus breathed, raising his flashlight to illuminate the rough-hewn stone steps dropping into the pitch blackness. "They drop all the way down through the cliff face to the old sea caves behind the industrial docks."
"Go," Gabriel ordered, pushing me toward the dark opening. "Marcus, lead the boy down. I will set the incendiary charges on the pantry door to seal the tunnel behind us."
"I am not leaving you behind to fight them alone!" I shouted, turning back at the threshold of the secret door, clutching the heavy Pelican case to my chest.
May you like
Gabriel paused, looking down at me through the drifting smoke of his burning mansion. For the first time, his expression softened into something resembling genuine paternal pride.
"You already saved my life once this week, Julian," Gabriel said softly, reaching out to rest his heavy, calloused hand on the crown of my head. "Now let me save yours. Get in the tunnel."
