King of All I Survey
Chapter 50: Queen’s Gambit Accepted

Chapter 50: Queen’s Gambit Accepted

"You are forcing me to go to war!" Rafael responded.

"I’m forcing you to choose sides, Rafael. My offer still stands exactly as I said before. If you can walk away from the cartels and abandon your drug empire, I will make you the next President of Guatemala. If you can’t do that, then, as I said, I have no further need of you."

"You’re crazy. I think I’ll be dead in an hour no matter what I decide. You have signed my death sentence with this little stunt, Maribel."

"You would have been killed by the snipers last night if I hadn’t saved you. I can save you again, and protect you. Right now you have about three minutes before ten soldiers arrive at La Ciela to pick you up."

"What, damn! It really will be like Scarface this time. I won’t go with them"

"No, it doesn’t have to be. We can get you out, if I give the order." Maribel hit the mute button on her phone, " Luis, can you delay the soldiers? If you can, do it. Send the pick-up car to his door now."

Turning off mute she resumed her conversation with Rafael, "You need to give me your word that you will simply not contact any of your cartel contacts for any reason. You can maintain your in country contacts, but you must also order them not to contact anyone out of country. I would suggest letting go of any people you cannot trust to be 100% loyal to you personally. I need your word of honor, Rafael Camal de Leon, that you will work to help the people and work as a willing partner in your Presidential campaign. It’s a lot to think about in a short time, so all I ask right now, is that you listen to my plans and you are willing to consider them. Then, if you agree, you get our protection, and I work to make you President. If you decide you don’t like the plan, I’ll turn you loose in a safe place and we are finished."

There was a brief pause with no answer, "Time is ticking, Rafael," Maribel glanced at Luis who showed her all ten fingers then three more, "We’ve delayed the soldiers, you have thirteen minutes until they arrive."

"How can you do this? I have never seen or heard of your network before a few weeks ago. Now you are silently dropping bodies on the Palace of Justice and interfering unseen in military raids. Who do you work for? How do I know I can trust you?"

"I think you must be a good judge of character in your line of work, Rafael. Do you think I am bluffing? Tick... Tick... Tick..."

"I think you believe what you say," Rafael answered. "I will listen to your plan, get me out. Shall I expect to see you in a knight’s armor, a white horse galloping to my rescue like some Princess Charming from the fairy tales?"

Maribel laughed and looked to Luis to see if the pickup was ready. He held up one finger.

"Almost," she told Rafael, "In one minute a van will pull up to your door. It will be a roadside repair van, white with green lettering. You will climb in the back and follow the directions of the driver, without hesitation or resistance. He will not answer questions, so don’t bother trying to get information from him. You may recognize him. You have met before. Do not underestimate him or think to escape, he will kill you if you try. Listen closely, do not bring any weapons, bring all cell phones that you have at your current location. Agreed?"

"Agreed, Princess Charming. You may carry me away," he replied. Maribel could hear the smile in his voice. She could picture it in her mind... She hung up the phone. Damn him, she thought.

Back at Headquarters, I watched as Rafael tried to make a phone call. It failed. He lifted a floorboard and pulled out some papers, dropped his gun in and put the board back in place. He went to the front door and threw a rock threw the window of the second floor apartment where his man was staying in the main hotel building. Glass fell into the room. The man rushed to the window with gun in hand. "Get down here, now! Leave your gun, bring both cell phones." Rafael called up to him.

Five seconds later, the auto repair van pulled around the hotel and rolled to a stop in front of Rafael. Manny hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear cargo door. Rafael recognized him as the delivery driver to whom he had given the original message demanding a meeting with the person in charge of Food First. "You!" He said, surprise evident.

"Yes, Miss Flores wants me to make a delivery again. Get in, sit in the front corner behind the seats, cover yourself with the tarp in case anyone looks in." Manny held out a small metal box, opening the lid. "Put your cell phones in here, it will block the signal to prevent them being traced. Quickly."

Rafael did as he was told, a man came running around the corner of the hotel. Manny didn’t turn at the sound of the footsteps. "Tell him to do the same. He should put on the overalls in the back of the van and get in the passenger’s seat up front. If we are stopped, he is a repairman. His face is not as recognizable as yours."

Rafael called, "Put your cellphones in the box. Climb in, put on the overalls so you can pass as a mechanic. Then ride up front."

He did as he was told, and they both climbed in the back. Manny shut and latched the box, then closed the cargo door and got behind the wheel. As Rafael’s man tugged on the overalls he asked, "What’s going on?"

"The government is sending soldiers after me. It seems they have video of me killing two police officers. This van will take us to a safe place." Rafael answered as he pulled the tarp over himself.

As the van reached the street in front of the hotel, Rafael’s bodyguard slid into the passenger seat, one elbow resting on the door through the open window. Without looking at him, Manny said, "when we pass the soldiers, look at them as if your surprised and curious to know what they’re doing."

Two minutes later, they passed a military truck pulled off to the side of the road. One of the soldiers threw a tire into the back, then climbed in with the others. It started up and sped down the road. "They had a flat tire?" The man asked Manny.

"Yes, left front tire. Took them just over nine minutes to change it," Manny said as the army vehicle grew smaller in his rearview mirror.

Rafael’s voice came from beneath the tarp in the back, "Who the hell are you people?"

Manny grinned, but did not answer.

I looked at Dad in the chair next to mine in the Headquarters Status Room, "Looks like a smooth get away," I said. We had audio video feeds from a drone inside the van, another 20 feet above it, and a low orbital drone that showed us a live image of the city with color coded dots marking all police, government, and military people. Gang members were also marked by color according to their affiliation. Green dots were all employees of Food First with a lighter green for their families. Green stars were the paramilitary-trained people, ostensibly employed by Food First.

If I focused on any one dot or star, the name and important details about that individual appeared on the side of the display. If there was a drone nearby enough, I could even zoom in to watch what was happening there or listen to conversations at that location. It let us see the whole country from a tactical perspective and let us have detailed information for almost any point on the map. We used some of the windfall cash we got form the bonds to add bunches of smaller sensor drones, shielded and invisible, with small infrared and gamma ray lasers. These were powerful enough to kill if needed or punch holes in unarmored targets. Thick concrete or military grade armor would stop these smaller drones. The larger ones with adaptable lasers could take out just about anything on Earth. Targeting was near-perfect with near instantaneous reaction times and lightspeed delivery because, of course, lasers.

"The government has just moved to freeze all of Rafael’s financial assets," Joe informed us.

Dad and I smiled at each other, knowing that they would find only a penny in each of his bank accounts. We had Joe transfer everything out hours ago by hacking into the systems, his funds were now in Switzerland under a shell company. Our reach included even those accounts the government of Guatemala could not get or did not know about. We had even transferred ownership of three properties outside of Guatemala. We had also transferred ownership of his Pilatus PC-12 NG single engine turboprop airplane currently housed at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City. For the plane, Joe had to go back and change histories of the ID numbers so it looked like Rafael never owned the plane.

We also bought, through our shell companies, Blue Island in the Bahamas. It was 700 acres with a small airstrip, water, sewer, and electrical infrastructure already in place. We were building what looked like a resort hotel in the middle of the island. It was actually our emergency evacuation and housing center. If we had to get our people out of Guatemala in a hurry and keep them hidden and safe, this was the place where we would sent them by LITV transports. The entire building was shielded although we turned off the sensor and visual spectrum blocking since it was disguised as a hotel.

The building was almost complete. We had sent a fabrication mech there for the construction. It could already house over 100 people and would soon have 1032 rooms ready for 1-4 people each without crowding. Dad said he hoped we could get some vacation time there as a family some time soon. That sounded like fun to me, I told Joe to put family vacation on the calendar, after we had control of Guatemala, of course.

I returned my attention to the Status Room displays. The van carrying Rafael was just reaching Maribel’s house. Meanwhile, television news in the country was completely dominated by coverage of the films we had left them and the news that the two bodies had been left at the Palace of Justice. The military and police were scrambling to keep things contained. Throngs of reporters were trying to get through the cordoned off area around the building, another group demanded access to the President for comment. Things were about to get very interesting.