Steel ended the call and went to his bedroom. He grabbed a new duffle bag out of his closet, one that was Navy regulation size, and packed everything that was his into it. There wasn’t much, and what was there was new—never worn or used—because he didn’t want to risk leaving behind anything that could be used to identify him. The items were only there for emergencies, but since he wouldn’t ever be coming back, they all needed to go.
This job would require more than his normal go-bag materials, including more and bigger guns. He grabbed the second new bag and headed to the living room. In the hallway, he grabbed his duffle from the project they’d just completed. Opening it, he grabbed the three guns packed there, plus his leftover ammunition, and put them all in the new bag.
Next, he quickly moved into the living area. Tipping over his couch, he reached down and ripped out the bottom fabric. Lying onthe floor, he stretched deep for several knives of varying lengths and tips. Smoothly, he rose from the floor, tipped the couch back upright, and placed the knives with the guns in the bag.
As he jogged down the three flights of stairs, he whispered, “Hold on just a little longer, Ka-Bar. I have to make a detour before we come get you. I know you’d understand why.”
6
AUGUST 20, 2024
Steel
At six forty-five a.m.,his teammates gathered at the table. They’d arrived back in the States around two o’clock, and now here they all were, back at the office, some of them not even having slept yet.
Waters set the starfish in the center of the table and immediately engaged the security protocols, turning the room to a muted red glow, like the inside of a submarine on red alert.
Everyone was on edge and looking at Steel for answers. Even the dog knew he was at the heart of this emergency meeting because she’d burrowed under the table to lie across his feet as if to comfort him.
“What the hell is going on, Steel?” God grumbled from his chair at the foot of the table.
God? Janus? What the fuck was he supposed to callthe man? They knew him under two names for two different organizations, and still no one from Tribe knew quite how to balance that.
“I have… well, had… a crash pad. Went there immediately after we got home. Needed to decompress. When I got there, I had a visitor. My uncle. He’s threatening my family if I don’t go back home and join my father and brothers in the cartel. When I didn’t bite, he offered to release Ka-Bar as an extra carrot. Apparently, my family has him in their custody, or at the very least, knows his location.”
Silence met him. Yeah, this wasn’t going to go down well.
TB spoke first. “That’s an awful lot to unpack. Mind filling in all the blank spaces?”
Steel resisted the urge to apologize for the information about to come out of his mouth.
“My parents are Livia Martínez, the daughter of an Argentinian supreme court judge, and Hector Colonel. My parents met when they were in their teens, and she was his mistress for many years.”
“Fuckin’ Frankenstein,” Midas whispered, using one of Kubrick’s favorite swear phrases, his fingers immediately tapping away on his keyboard.
God connected the dots. “As in the Colonel Cartel?”
“Yes. Over the years, my father has assimilated all the smaller cartels in the country under his own, much like a hostile corporate takeover, and he was particularly ruthless about it. He runs the cartel with the help of his two legitimate sons, Guillermo and Ignacio, as well as an assortment of other male family members and, of course, the leaders of the organizations he swallowed up.
“When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she fled illegally to the States and tried to lose herself in the worst part of Chicago. It took less than six months for my father to find her and bring her back home.
“From the moment I was born, I was brought up in the ways of the cartel. I was homeschooled, with every lesson being somehow tied to their operations. My friends were the sons of my family members and other high-ranking cartel members. When I married, it would beto a cartel member’s daughter to solidify ties. Everything was for the business.
“Despite having a child with my mother, Hector was already married—to one of the daughters of his first takeover bids, so my presence created tension within the immediate family, to say the least. And on top of that, I was not like my half brothers, which left me open to a great deal of abuse. In an effort to make me more like them in temperament, he forced me to work for him, using my mother’s life as leverage. I was running drugs officially by the time I was twelve. Killed my first man at thirteen—execution style—to prove my loyalty to the cartel. My only saving grace is that the men I killed over those years were men who deserved it.”
“You did what you had to in order to survive and to protect your mother,” Waters reminded him.
Up on the screen, a picture of Hector Colonel, Maico Colonel, and six other men, including Steel’s half brothers, Guillermo and Ignacio, appeared. There was also a picture of Steel’s mother. His hand, resting on the table, clenched into a fist.
“By the time I turned eighteen, I had earned a reputation as the cartel’s most dangerous enforcer. I desperately wanted to get myself and my mother out of Argentina, but I was trapped. Then I met Agent Salazar, a DEA agent who was sniffing around our operations in Buenos Aires. I convinced him I was willing to give up everything I had on my father’s operation in exchange for citizenship for my mother and me.
“His bosses didn’t believe me at first, but I gave them information on an upcoming drug deal—a big one—as a sign of good faith. When it all proved true, he helped us escape back to the States in return for everything else I could give.
“In the meantime, they hid us by enlisting me in the Navy. We would be on base. Harder to get to. Given my strong sense of discipline and my battle-tested control, I thrived in the Navy and was pushed toward the SEALs. It gave me an outlet for the ugliness that dwelled inside me, but I was using it for good. It alsoprovided my mother with a safe place to live. Protected. At least for a while.”
“How did you get into the Navy if you were considered a criminal?”
“I was a criminal in Argentina, not the US. Even if I had been, it turned out the government had other plans for me, and the Navy was the best cover.”
