"Raúl Salinas?"
The bald-headed president's brother?
The idiot who stood in Mexico's busiest bar and shouted, "There's nothing in Mexico I can't fix"?
He apparently had good relations with several cartels.
He narrowed his eyes. He hadn't wanted to bother, but seeing his old boss Alejandro's look, he took the call.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Victor." The man on the other end clearly wanted to sound gentlemanly, but his voice was damn unpleasant.
"What is it, Mr. Raúl?" Victor held the receiver in his left hand and made small talk, casually brushing him off.
"I heard you attacked a cartel camp on the Sonora border??"
Victor knew at once he'd come to pick a fight. He sat up and cut him off. "Raúl, let me correct you. That wasn't an attack. That was anti-drug enforcement!"
"Don't misuse words! You have an education, right?"
With scum like this, Victor had no interest in polite fencing.
Anyone who cooperates with cartels can go to hell!
Extreme?
Victor would show you what "extreme" meant—by caliber.
Alejandro rubbed his brow. Victor's temperament was certainly a problem, but he was easy enough to deal with—so long as you didn't traffic drugs.
If you did, why the hell would I talk to you?
Raúl Salinas was thrown off by Victor. He was the president's brother, royal kin, got it?
His nose practically twisted with rage. He shouted, "Victor! I'm here to mediate the conflict."
"With who? The traffickers? Mr. Raúl, you're a Mexican citizen, not a Mexican drug dealer. And why are you yelling? Who the hell do you think you are, yelling at me! Fuck you! Watch your ass when you walk at night, and don't sleep too sound—keep your eyes open."
Victor cursed him out, then hung up, looking at the slack-jawed Alejandro. "From now on, don't let me take calls from that kind of trash. I'm afraid I won't be able to stop myself from blowing his head off."
I've got plenty of men under me. If you've got balls, bring your brother and say it to my face.
Alejandro gave a wry smile and poured him a glass of water. "The president's brother is said to have a violent temper. He killed a maid as a boy and never improved as an adult."
Victor narrowed his eyes. "Scum like that living is unfair to everyone else!"
A cop's duty isn't just anti-drug. Maintaining public order and protecting civilians' rights are part of the job.
Let a murderer walk free?
That's trampling the law!
He was Mexico's "vanguard of the law."
He needed someone to bag him and bring him in. Victor wasn't the type to offend a man and then let him make the first move.
Either don't offend, and if it's a real feud—go all the way.
You thought Victor telling him to sleep with his eyes open was just a scare?
"My heart's not great. Him yelling at me is looking down on me."
In a Mexico City mansion at that moment.
Raúl Salinas stared at the busy tone, Victor's curses still ringing in his ears.
"Fuck! Fuck!" He came to, yanked the phone and smashed it on the floor. His shoulder-length hair whipped with anger. Compared to his bald brother, he had more hair.
Who knew if he was even blood.
A servant rushed in at the noise, saw the phone on the floor, and froze.
"Get out! Get out! Who told you to come in?" Raúl snatched up the ashtray and hurled it. It hit her forehead dead-on. The maid cried out in pain.
That seemed to excite his beast nature. He grabbed her head and rammed it into the wall.
"Hurt? Does it hurt?"
At first she screamed and threw up her hands to block. In the end her strength gave out. Her face was covered in blood. When Raúl let go, she collapsed on the floor.
A complete psycho!
Eyes red, Raúl panted as he flopped on the sofa, lifted a goblet of red wine, and chugged it. His gaze was vicious.
He loved scheming. When someone once vied with his brother for position, he handled it. That man's whole family burned to death!
Get used to using violence and you want to solve everything with violence. But… Victor's fists were harder.
"I refuse to believe no one likes money, Victor! If you don't like money, I'll buy off the people around you!"
Raúl smashed the glass, looked at the maid lying there. A glint flashed in his eyes, and his lips twisted in a grin.
…
The next day, May 20, 1990.
Cambra Valley.
Officers everywhere!
Reporters from about 37 TV stations nationwide had been invited. A press conference would be held here, and ordinary citizens were allowed to visit—but capped at 200.
Everyone was searched.
If someone brought a weapon, things would go south. Cartels had less bottom line than the filth in roadside gutters.
The valley was scrubbed spotless. Bodies? Long gone. The blackened soil had been shoveled up overnight.
Fifteen tons of drugs lay stacked on the left; seized weapons on the right.
Reporters' fingers hammered shutters. Gasping ran through the crowd.
"We're starting. Gentlemen, please take your seats. You'll have time to shoot later." Officers keeping order called the press to sit.
Wearing his uniform with rows of medals on the left, Victor walked up from below.
Those medals… were issued by the Guadalupe Island Police Department.
Mexico City was miserly.
Victor looked at the reporters seated below, smiled slightly, shifted the mic, and was about to speak when four or five people suddenly stood up, stripped off their clothes, and bared their bodies—across them was written: "Using white phosphorus is a crime!"
The leader was a woman—her chest was big enough to write on—screaming hysterically: "Resist the police's use of lethal weapons! Cambra Valley was all civilians, no traffickers!"
She lunged toward the stage.
Victor watched, calm and above it all.
Officers keeping order stepped up and smashed her with rifle butts—no, each one got a buttstroke—then grabbed her hair and dragged her off like a dead dog. She kept howling: "This is slaughter! Not stability!"
The reporters all raised their cameras at the scene.
"Chief Victor, treating a protesting woman like that—don't you think that's over the line?" A female reporter stood, righteous indignation blazing. Her colleague beside her tugged hard at her sleeve.
"In Mexico, the only people who plead for traffickers are traffickers. That lady's husband is a trafficker who killed 17 people. She herself is an addict who also ran drugs. The Guadalupe Island Police have been after her for a long time. Who'd have thought she'd run into us." Victor glanced at her and knew exactly what she was.
"Evidence! Where's the evidence!" The female reporter pressed on.
Victor narrowed his eyes. "If you don't believe what I'm saying, you can leave, ma'am. But here, my word is evidence!"
"Don't throw a fit here—or I'll have officers escort you out."
She wanted to speak again, but her colleague clamped a hand over her mouth and forced her down, grinning apologetically at Victor.
"Idiot." Victor scoffed.
Some people love to debate "human nature." They think traffickers are people too and deserve "respect." Add in some imported notions from the U.S. that life must always be respected, and that "respect" ends up pinned on criminals.
This would only grow louder later.
Wasn't Breivik in 2011 like that? Seventy-seven murdered in 135 minutes, then in court said either give him the death penalty or the best prison.
The result…
Norwegian victims chose to forgive him.
Fuck that!
No matter what, heinous crimes should mean the death penalty. In Victor's eyes, traffickers aren't human. It's just inconvenient to do it now. One day he would livestream a "burn the traffickers" event!
To shock everyone.
Law is for deterrence, not for adjudication.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Mutter"]
[Every 100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]