Chapter 27

It was more unsettling than a relief that Teeny Delgado had not tried to retaliate since his number two, Mateo De Toro had vanished. True, he didn’t have any compelling evidence that Four Corners had been involved, but that was the only logical explanation. Mateo had gone there to collect $35,000, and had not been seen since.

Claire didn’t like Martin Schroeder’s next suggestion. But when Luke said, “We have to do something, our Army guys can’t stay here indefinitely,” she reluctantly gave the okay. Memories of what Teeny had done to her husband made the decision easier. She didn’t have the proof, but she was almost 100% convinced that he was behind the brutal murder.

One night over two years ago, Bobby Freestone didn’t come home. Claire didn’t start worrying until another day had passed. He didn’t respond to texts, calls, even emails. One week after his disappearance, Claire received a FedEx package. Even before she opened it, she knew.

It was Bobby’s head, packed in dry ice. His penis and testicles were stuffed in his mouth, the head of his cock poking out. Claire expected the rest of his body to arrive in parts, but that had been the only shipment. She knew without knowing that Tiago ‘Teeny’ Delgado was behind it.

Then she made the hardest decision of her life — she did nothing. She didn’t have the manpower, the talent to retaliate. She was a businesswoman, and didn’t want to lose the circuit girls that Teeny provided. Claire told herself, “Someday. Someday.”

The time had arrived.

That night, around 3 in the morning. Martin’s strike team was in place two blocks from Delgado’s. Teeny’s armed patrol —- four two-man teams were making its rounds, the same as always. They walked the four streets that circled his cinder-block complex 24/7.

Martin assembled his own four teams, each with four seasoned veterans. They had four anonymous vans for the snatch-and-grab mission. In the briefing, he told his men, “Try to be silent, but if you have to shoot, do it.” Sixteen raiders, sixteen pistols, sixteen suppressors.

After combat experience, surprise was their primary asset. Martin led one team; Luke, a second; the two most seasoned vets, the other two.

No battle plan survives the first shot. But this time, not a single shot was fired. On Martin’s signal, the teams simultaneously exploded from the side doors of the vans. Teeny’s guards were swarmed, disarmed, and flung into the vans without incident. The guards had been toward the end of their shift, were bored, and, most of all, had had no combat experience other than drive-by shootings.

Each van was turned into an abattoir, a slaughter house. The soldiers swiftly used eight Chris Reeve serrated fixed-blade combat knives to slash eight throats.

Grim, silent work.

The vans then drove to a preselected abandoned warehouse in East Des Moines. Once Claire had agreed to the attack, she added the next phase. She and Willow were waiting at the darkened structure when the vans pulled in.

The eight corpses were stripped, and the same combat knives severed their cocks and balls. They were wrapped in dry ice and sealed in eight small boxes pre-addressed to Tiago ‘Teeny’ Delgado.

Claire had explained to Willow, “Once his guards disappear, he’ll know it was me anyway.”

Willow nodded, “Yep.”