THE STORY OF A SAFE-HOUSE.  Screenplay created by Male Survivors of Sexual Violence.

 

None of the following is true because if I say this story is true, the military intelligence unit that is following this blog would have a cow.

It’s all fiction.

I’m harmless. Get over it. Let’s be very upfront about that. I’m just another failed writer with a camera. That is all I am. I am having fun jacking off readers. That is all this is.

There is no such thing as a Nikon thermal vision riflescope. I made that up, too. Nikon makes great cameras. They do not make riflescopes.

It is impossible for Americans to understand the degree to which Mexico has turned itself into a state of tribal warfare.

This is our fault.

We still think we can conduct a War on Drugs and when we win it there will be military parades and the President will fly his very own drone to an aircraft carrier to give a speech about the American dream, and how we have persevered. No more drugs. No more addiction. No more IV HIV. No more killing in Juarez.

I should not be writing any of this. Google Analytics has told me I am being watched by the American military. I was actually surprised. I am nobody.

I am simply saying our War on Drugs is a failed policy.

The American gun industry has flourished. Mexico is a very hot market.

The connection between drugs and guns is not unlike the relationship the heart has with human blood.

The black gate opens. I drive in. The black gate closes.

Ignacio had already sent the rifles. It gets very dicey out there. Cash on Delivery.

We would not be gun running, although I would have done that, too.

We would be running FLIR Systems RS32 1.25-5X Thermal Night Vision Riflescopes. Each Nikon riflescope was only about six inches long. Each one is seven thousand dollars.

The Zapatistas were a militia in Chiapas. At the time they challenged Mexico City’s authority, years ago, they were the only militia in the country. That has changed. Mexican militias were now anywhere you can poke a stick.

The Zapatistas lost. Mexico city won. How do you compare helicopters with mules. The Zapatistas were what is left of Myan culture. Indians and subsistence farmers. These are the poorest people in Mexico. Land reform was an issue because starvation was an issue.

Mexico City sent assistance in the form of a few public health clinics. The same ones handing out the yellow wristbands.

No land reform. No change. Nothing. The Zapatistas had been fucked.

Smuggling thermal night vision riflescopes to Mexican militias was about as legal as smuggling in a nuclear weapon. I kept thinking that whatever risk there was would be negligible because of the small size of the thing. A hundred of them fit in the back of the jeep if you also used the space under the false bottom.

It was supposed to be an easy ride because the military had been bribed. We would not be stopped and searched. In fact, we wouldn’t even be stopped.

Upon receipt of the scopes, we would be escorted through the jungle where El Monstruo ran his drugs and kids.

Quid pro quo.

The rest would be up to us.

The three of us, Tal, Adolfo, and I understood the challenges.

I did not ask why the Zapatistas wanted night vision military scopes. I seriously did not want to know.

All I wanted to know was where El Monstrou was located. He would have the four boys I wanted to steal from him. I also thought I might as well kill the man.

I had no moral qualms about it.

Exposing four boys to the potential HIV they could confront was about as low as a human being can get. Sex trafficking in kids has to stop somewhere even if all this did — killing this piece of shit — was send a message. The message is one I know all too well.

You can run, but you can’t hide. I will find you. Or some other abolitionist will find you, and we will take you out without so much as the slightest hesitation.

In fact, I wanted to see a string of cartel executions take place in Mexico.

Ignacio was only interested because I would need his assistance, and it could go a long way toward eliminating his competition.

There are simply some men who cannot be stopped unless you kill them. Many of these men still ran their cartel directly from the prisons where their rot had been stashed by a government more corrupt than any cartel could hope to be.

How hard can it be to bribe someone who makes five dollars a day with a hundred dollar bill.

It would be no sweat off Major Martinez’ balls. The scopes would disappear, and I would get a guided tour through the jungle of Chiapas.

I was going to take one scope. Eat me.

I told Martinez I was taking one scope — actually, I took four but one scope sounded better than four scopes — and he was quite unhappy about it. I wanted any edge I could get, and I took one scope and put it in my bag. I stashed the other three in the jeep.

The Hotel Plaza Teman has an iron gate and flowers in all the windows. It was the only hotel in town that had running water. I did not know that Martinez owned the place. I thought I would take him for a campesino. He was not that.

He was articulate. He did not like us at all.

“Entra. Hazlo. Ejecute el hombre. Luego de salir.”

The part about getting out was what got emphasized.

The next morning, Adolfo was sitting on the hotel bed connecting the scope to the Remington 700. He would check the accuracy of the scope once we got on the trail.

The one you had to walk. There was no road.

Martinez had been waiting for hours. He didn’t want anyone to connect what was about to happen with his whereabouts. There would appear to be no connection to his going into the jungle, and our doing the same thing.

“I hope you’re ready for difficult terrain.”

We were pumped. It was a full days trek.

It was almost dark when Martinez climbed a tree. We were right behind him. The thermoSight R is perfect night vision. It detects heat energy versus visible light. Body heat stands out against cooler backgrounds. Most night vision scopes need at least some illumination. Moonlight works. But in the jungle, all illumination is diffused. ThermoSight is built to work under extreme conditions. It is water resistant.

The Russians use a cheaper version. It is nothing like the scope on the gun I was holding.

Adolfo and Tal stayed on the ground. After I did what I had to do, they would grab the boys.

I did not even hear Martinez leave.

We were looking at a fortress. I could not believe you could build something out here where there are no roads. Then, I saw the helicopter landing pad through the riflescope.

The helicopter on the landing pad was the same exact Huey that the Mexican military uses. Essentially, they’re older versions of what Americans used thirty years ago. Now, sold to Mexico. They’re old, but they definitely work.

I could detect motion inside the house that was a fortress.

I knew we had arrived just in time when I heard the chopper warming up.

Two adults emerged from the house with four small glowing red beings. One of the adults seemed to be female.

It was the male I wanted.

It’s not like the movies. You’re more removed than that. There’s no juiced rush that Hollywood claims there is. There’s a bang, and there’s a kick. It’s a super kick. It will knock you on your ass. But I was pressed up against the tree. My shoulder would be purple. But the recoil did not knock me out of the tree.

I saw Tal aim his Glock at the female figure. She went down. They grabbed the boys and ran. Men were emerging from the house. The chopper pilot, fearing the outbreak of World War 3, took off. The wake from the chopper did knock me from the tree.

The boys were crying. We put three on our backs. The older one would have to do his best.

They would cry the entire way back to the jeep.

Adrenalin is a very addictive and very powerful drug. It was slow going because it was pitch black. I took the scope off the gun and used it to guide us through the winding path.

I thought they might follow us, but I was beginning to see what kind of edge the thermal scope provided.

Obviously, they didn’t have one. Who is in possession of the better technology wins. It seems to be a cardinal rule. There was no time to feel remorse (I would never feel that anyway) or to feel anything. All you wanted was to get the fuck out of there. The kids were heavy. They slowed us down, but we were ready to run the entire night if we had to. We threw the two older boys in the front with me, the youngest one went on someone’s lap in the backseat. One kid got the back of the jeep where the scopes had been.

The sun was coming up when we roared past the Hotel Plaza Teman with the iron gate and flowers in the window.

We had water with us in the jeep.

I was under no illusions that the deal of not being stopped and searched continued to apply.

Getting there would be one deal.

Leaving would be another, and for that, no deal had been made. I turned the jeep’s headlights off, and drove like hell in the dim pink light.

Until all four boys had to pee.

I had forgotten that boys are like that.

Killing another human being left me almost mesmerized. I’m good at it. Do what you enjoy is what I am always told by people who seem possessed with worthless advice. There are people on the planet who deserve to die.

Assassin.

There’s something about that word that has a cool moral language of its own. I had found my calling. It wasn’t writing. It wasn’t photography. It wasn’t playing monkey in a classroom.

It was a release. That you could make an impact, and the world would never be the same again.

I am perfectly cognizant of what addiction is, how they work, and why. I have alwats read anything and everything about the human brain I could get my hands on.

I am a junkie and have stood on that precipice before. And I have jumped several times.

This would not be unlike the others.

That I knew I could kill anyone I wanted to eliminate was a power I had never known before.

Sex traffickers are my specialty. I see my father’s face in every last one of them.

It doesn’t really matter how you surround yourself with fire power and security. If someone wants to kill you, they can.

We took turns driving for a couple of days straight through. Then, we stopped in Mazatlan to play tourist on the beach.

The boys did not run. They did not play. They did not laugh. A cocoon of numbness was woven all around each kid like someone into bondage who meets his match. He cannot untie anything, and he has to simply face whatever comes at him next.

 

CONTINUED AT: PART TEN