Chapter Two-Hundred and Fifty-Eight

Chapter Two-Hundred and Fifty-Eight
London frowned. “Could they be working on changing the recipe for the Mezla Cartel?”

“They do have a lab right there on the farm,” Brute assured them. “We have photos of it.” 

Hondo nodded. “They could be altering the original recipe already and maybe downgrading it to screw over the Braza then take the recipe to the Mezla Cartel.” 

“Maybe that’s why Carlos is coming here tomorrow.” Cameron nodded at his father. “And if he ends up dead and you get blamed, they will be able to slip out during the melee and no one would know or care where they went.”

“But someone must know where they are going.” Kota growled. 

London sat down in her chair again.

The group looked over at her.

She wore a haunted expression on her face as she silently shook her head. “It's Hal,” she whispered. “He’s been making money hand over fist but he’s not spending it. He’s also been hinting that he’s moving to bigger and better places. He’s in charge of this. Damn.”

“And what about Gil? The mayor?” Hawkins asked.

London nodded. “Gil thinks he’s golden but I think they’re leaving him behind. He’s pretty set in his ways and they don’t need that. Besides, they might not care about his mid-city ideas. The Mezla Cartel might take on Hal but they would never go with Gil.” She looked over at Hondo and said, “Then you have Trey Ritcher to worry about, he’s DEA and very much on Ronnie’s payroll.”

Hondo shrugged. “DEA is always easy to transfer stations. The cartel I worked for had their own agents as well. I never wanted to know what they were doing, so I kept my nose out of that part of it.”

“We could always call in the US Marshals,” Cash suggested. “We’re going to need them in here sooner or later.”

Hondo stared at him and warned, “Si, but we can’t bring them in too soon. They haven’t done anything yet, all of this is speculation right now. Como si todo fuera trabajo. We hope we can stop it from happening but so far, it hasn’t.”

“So what are you saying here?” London asked. “We wait until they actually do something?” She growled. “Like kill someone?”

“No child.” Hondo shook his head. “Because we know about it, we can stop it, but we can’t anticipate what they will do next. Like I said, it is all conjeturas…Guess work. For instance, we think we know where they are going but we don’t know for sure. We need to be able to prove who they are dealing with before we put that information out there.”

Cameron nodded as he said, “But there again, all we can do is warn the man of the soon to be betrayal. Even then, we can’t tell him what to do, all we can do is tell him. If he chooses not to believe us, there’s nothing we can do and right now we have no proof.”

“Nada,” Hondo added as he nodded his head.

“I think we just got that proof,” JuJu spoke up as he looked up from his laptop screen.

Hondo cocked his head and asked him, “Qué quieres decir…What do you mean?”

JuJu pointed at the screen. “They just got back from their meeting and I think they brought someone back with them.”

Hondo and Cameron went over to where he was sitting.

When they looked at the screen Cameron hissed. “Damn.”

Hondo glanced at his son and asked with a look of dismay, “It is the Mezla, isn’t it?”

“Si, papa, that is Miguel Mezla himself,” Cameron told him.

JuJu snapped a few pictures and shook his head. “There's your proof then.”

Hondo nodded. “Si, we can show this to Carlos when we tell him that he’s going to be betrayed. This isn’t going to sit well with him. It isn’t going to sit well with the rest of the Braza either.”

“And just how are we going to get ahead of whoever is meeting him at the airport?” Hawkins wanted to know.

Hondo turned to look at him as he nodded his head. “I’ve been thinking about that. After seeing Mezla with Ronnie, I have a feeling that they won’t show up at the airport. I think they will leave Carlos to make his own way to the farm. Por que…Why? For two reasons, uno: it will put Carlos down a notch and dos… I think when he does get to the farm, they plan to shoot him and carry his body some place where they think it will incriminate me. What they are going to use to incriminate me I have no idea but they have to be convincing, si? No tengo amor…I have no love for Carlos Ruble. Si, I know of him and we have had words in the past but that doesn’t mean I would kill him just for kicks.”

“Perhaps that’s what they needed Hal for,” London suggested.

“What do you mean?” Hondo asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders and explained her reasoning, “You aren’t that far from the farm, what if Carlos accidentally stopped at your place by mistake and just the sight of him so enraged you that you shot him as he was getting out of his car at your house?” London played the devil’s advocate for a moment. “Or perhaps, he started shooting at you and you returned fire just because he shot at you.”

Hondo snorted. “That is always a possibility.” Then he thought about it for a moment and nodded. “That could be the scenario. Si, I would be angry enough to just shoot that tonto…fool, especially if he started shooting first. We have enough hatred for one another that this event could happen.”

“And of course Hal would have to be there as a witness and to arrest you in that moment,” Hawkins finished the scene. “He might just say you started the firefight and Carlos ended up dead because of it. Either way, you lose, amigo.”

“Si, that would be an open and shut case. I hadn’t thought of that until now. Es realmente astuto.” It is truly sneaky. Hondo growled.

“So what do we do now?’ Cameron asked. “We can’t allow that to happen.”

“We could always warn the cartel of what they might be walking into,” Boots suggested. 

“What do you mean, warn them?” Hondo paused. “You don’t warn this cartel about anything. Nunca. They would never believe you in the first place.”

London sighed. “You send them pictures of Ronnie with the Mezla cartel. Tell them Carlos could be shot and someone else blamed because Ronnie and his guys are leaving the area to hook up with another cartel, taking their brand recipe with him.”

Hondo just raised his brows. “Tal vez…that might get their attention esta bien, but how do we convince them we are telling the truth?”

“You tell them Ronnie is pulling up stakes,” London explained. “That he’s wrapping things up here and he’s going to set fires here that will allow him to slip away unnoticed. You tell them and make them believe you. That’s the only way this will work.”