Fighting Land: Costa Luna

Chase

Chapter Ten: Chase

Uzocarriaga District

Ignacio, Costa Luna

5 October 2013

1615 hours Costa Luna time

Carter Mason and Rosalinda Fiore saw Leo Argus and Vyacheslav Klimov long before the men saw them. Of all the cars they could have brought into Ignacio, they had to bring the most ostentatious one: a silver Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. Carter, who was driving a much, much more modest Ford Crown Victoria, parked the car behind the Ferrari and then walked up to Leo, who was leaning on the driver's door of the sports car. "You always have to have the thing that attracts the most attention, Leo," Carter said to him.

"This is actually an agency car, Carter, believe it or not," Leo replied. "At least I didn't get the Bugatti Veyron."

"Get the fuck out! The agency has a fucking Bugatti!?"

"Yeah, well, the Director's really doesn't want that particular factoid to become public." Leo then put his finger to his lips just for emphasis.

"Yeah, anyway… So, what's this lead of yours that Alex told me about and said that you two assholes needed backup? Something that could connect the Army of Socialist Revolution to a drug cartel or some shit?"

"Oh, that. Yeah, I have a contact in the Costa Lunan underworld saying that the Sons of Sinaloa are planning on making a big hit today, right here."

"Sons of Sinaloa?" Carter parroted. "Are they, by any chance, related or affiliated with the Sinaloa drug cartel over there in Mexico?"

"The Sons of Sinaloa are affiliated with the Sinaloa drug cartel of Mexico in the sense that the Hijos do everything that the mainland tells them to do," Vyacheslav said for the first time. Although he looked like an ignorant airhead, his passive demeanor hid a very smart, calculating, and ruthless mind that knew everything there was to know about the current mission Vyacheslav Klimov was in. "The Sinaloans had big plans of setting up shop in Costa Luna and lording over the then-untapped narcotics trade in the country," he continued. "And, boy did they get the shock of their lives when they came ashore and found out that the Halcon Syndicate of Santiago had not only beaten them to the punch, but it had also successfully monopolized the entire illegal drugs trade in Costa Luna in such a way that they and only they could profit. The Sinaloans, thinking that they're such big hot shots just because they Mexican government couldn't even touch them, tried to scare off the Halcons, not knowing that they just pissed of an organized crime syndicate that dated back to at least 1900. Let's just say that the Sinaloans are not as experienced in crime as the Halcons, but the sad thing is that the Sinaloans don't know that they're already beaten and refuse to bow down to the Halcons, and it's only a matter of time before it all explodes into a massive and deadly turf war."

"Do you have any idea of what they might hit?" Carter asked.

"No idea," Leo admitted. "But my contact was positively sure that it would involve the Halcon Syndicate and will happen right here in Uzocarriaga, or maybe in neighboring Nueva Sinaloa, which coincidentally is the home turf of the Sons of Sinaloa."

"And that's the real name of the place, by the way," Vyacheslav chipped in. "It's been around long before there's even been a Sinaloa drug cartel or even a Halcon Syndicate."

"So what do we do now?"

"We wait," Leo replied. "We wait. Patiently. Hopefully."

It had taken the better part of an hour for Panchito Gomez's men to collect all of the money that they had in the top-floor office of his nightclub. After sorting them by type and denomination, Yelena Abashina ran the cash through the four money-counting machines that she had in her truck. When that was finished, she came up with a grand total of five million Costa Luna solars, three million US dollars, and three million euros.