that he was moving in his own territory, his home. A group of intervention police from both countries was waiting for him, armed for combat. They knew Aldo would not give up easily. And they were right. When the group with the eight traffickers accessed the staircase that lead up to the bank, three Federal Police cars blocked the entrance to the narrow street; Aldo took out his gun and started shooting everywhere, not knowing where he was aiming, but guided by his ‘I have nothing to lose’ instinct. The first crossfire ended the lives of three traffickers and one policeman who received a bullet in his head. Surrounded and trapped between the bank’s door and the armored van, Aldo and his men fired in all directions They were answered by shots from snipers up rooftops. From that height, they began to undermine the gunman’s shots, who were death’s grooms celebrating their wedding with shots that were blowing up their heads and hearts. At street level, a burst initiated by a policeman who had thrown himself down on the pavement, got Aldo Ríos on the calf, making him kneel on the bloodied sidewalk. When he tried to react, he found a gun pointing at his temple; his men lied around him as anonymous corpses. The battle was lost and a general of the drug-trafficking army had fallen.
Juno dialed the number that appeared under XL on his phone.
“It’s a clear day”, he said as soon as there was a connection, no waits, no greetings, no answers. He hung up.
He knew that the perimeter at a mile’s radio would be under surveillance, listening to any phone connections. ‘It’s a clear day’. Juno waited for the plane to take off northwards, he turned to the door that was being guarded by a five-foot-nine blonde woman, dressed in a plain suit with black pants; attached to her side, next to her heart was a NP29, nine millimeters.
“We’re going to the wall and we’ll be right back. Tell the pilots to be ready at three”. She nodded.
Don had heard ‘It’s a clear day’. Aldo, his brother was being deported to the United States of America. It was completely silent at the office that rose over Hollywood’s hills in a grand mansion where he remained anonymous under the name of Don Nassar. He touched the picture where he appeared with his brother Aldo. Don had adopted his wife Hela Nassar’s surname; from Jewish origin, a Persian family that had emigrated to America after the fall of the Shah in Iran. Doncel Ríos had taken advantage of his new situation to clean up his record, his surname; there is nothing that a good law firm cannot do in the United States of America. So, Doncel Ríos became Don Nassar, a respectable large real estate investor who dealt with hotels, apartments, marinas, entire buildings and big mansions; still, he continued to manage the millionaire business of opiates trafficking in a border that was impossible to control.
Hela, his wife, died ten years ago from a breast cancer that ended her life in a matter of months. Don had never been truly in love with her; he had confessed it to his daughter once, after three mescals. She interpreted it as the words of a drunk and depressed man. Don looked at the picture of the woman that presided the table; next to it, he kept the picture of Esther Nassar, his daughter, who had the same dark hair his wife had, and the same tough character. A single daughter for a gigantic legacy full of lights and shadows. Esther was in the light side of the business and knew about the shaded side, she was his family. Aldo was his right hand in the dark side of things, the limitless money that chemical addiction provided; that was where little Aldo had been, always out on the field, among tensions, shots and corpses. They saw each other from time to time; traveling in their private jets, they met at a mansion that Don had in Los Cabos.
Don spotted Esther’s red sports car driving through the gate. His daughter was wearing a Versace dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, a Kelly Hermes’ handbag and some exquisite Tiffany’s jewelry; a true ‘Masaryk girl’.
Esther studied and USC and held a master in Finance from Harvard, at twenty-seven she had already outdone everyone. She knew she had power and was completely aware of her future; she was ready to accept her role. Like in a monarchy, where the princess knows that she must choose the man she is going to share her kingdom with, always keeping her own interests and power in mind, rather than following her heart’s desire. It was something she had learnt from her father. Juno, more than a boyfriend, was a duty; above all, was her family’s legacy.
The house’s exterior security was discrete: two uniformed guards stood at the hut by the entrance and another one kept watch of the whole outside perimeter, driving up and down in an armored car. The idea was that it would not draw the attention of their millionaire neighbors, that they would not relate it to the images of armed drug-traffickers. Don rejected anything that might connect him to the Hispanic world and had forbidden the hiring of Spanish speaking employees for the house. If you erase your past, you must destroy all evidence that it ever existed. Doncel Ríos was dead, and only one loose end remained: Aldo.
Inside the house, ten Chinese bodyguards accompanied him day and night in two-people shifts.
Esther walked into the room and directed her eyes to the two men who stood behind him like statues, not even batting an eyelid.
“Hi, Dad. I really don’t get how you can live with these guys stuck to your side all day and night”.
“You get used to it”.
“Besides, you can’t even have a conversation with them”.
“Precisely, they only speak Mandarin. I assure you I sleep extremely well at night. I can close my eyes placidly with two men watching over me. I just pretend they are invisible”.
“Yes, I get the idea of hiring men that don’t speak your language, but I need privacy”.
“Privacy? I once found out that one of the bodyguards understood a little of Spanish, I caught him pulling a face at something I said…. So, I sent him to be killed. They all know about it”.
Don looked indifferently at one of the men in the room, he could very well have been a piece of furniture.
“Your uncle Aldo is on his way”.
“I’m sure we’ll find a way to get him out”, she said and dropped her handbag on the sofa.
“Yes, he will have the best team of lawyers in America”. Don turned to look outside the window where two squirrels played on some branches.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, I’m sure I have. My father, Pedro Ríos, your grandpa, was from the South, from Mérida, the only son of a very poor family. He joined the Army and became a pilot at the Air Force. Few know this, but the Águilas Aztecas squad played a major role in the Pacific War… But, we’ll leave that story for another day. Over there, in the Philippines he fell in love with a beautiful woman, my mother, Flora, the daughter of a landowner of Iranian origin. Despite that, they married and settled there to stay together. I was born in the Philippines and so was Aldo. My grandmother, our Nona, was a very compassionate woman… Long story short: My father convinced my mother to come and visit his country, Mexico. They came here and never again returned to the Philippines. My mother died far away from her family. We were young and our Nona came all the way from Manila to stay with us. By that time, my father had already found refuge in alcohol’s embrace. He drank a lot and appeared dead one day, next to a swamp; half his body had been devoured by an alligator. I remember our Nona sat down with Aldo and me and said: ‘I think, today, your father has taught you the most valuable lesson there is in life. At the swamp, when the deer wakes up, it knows that it must drink from the swamp to save its life. When the alligator wakes up, it knows it must move stealthily towards the deer to hunt and feed itself… Now, you must choose which one to be, and always, no matter who you are, as soon as the sun comes out, your watch begins…’.
Esther listened attentively; the story was well known to her, but she found that there was something in it for
