Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [81]
“Don’t worry, you weren’t,” Alex told him.
“No?”
She shook her head. “No college professor would ever say anything like that about the left. They adore the President and his bunch as much as the media do.”
“You’re probably right about that.” Delgado straightened from his casual pose. “Some people would say that our job’s going to be easier now.”
“How could they think that?”
He shrugged. “There are no guns. Everybody knows that if there are no guns, there won’t be any crime, ever again.”
Alex knew he was being sarcastic, but she shook her head anyway.
“Something tells me our job just got a whole hell of a lot harder, J. P.”
The splashing of the water in the fountain was like the merry notes of a guitar playing. Enrique Reynosa y Montoya leaned back in his comfortable chair, closed his eyes, and smiled. He heard the girls splashing and laughing in the pool at the other end of the courtyard, and that pleased him as well. Soon he would join them. He loved visualizing them in their sleek young nudity, all smooth skin and dark hair and flashing eyes, the sort of erotic image that many men conjured up in their minds. The difference was that when he opened his eyes, the beautiful girls were really there, at his beck and call, ready to whatever he wished in order to please him.
But first there was business to be dealt with.
Herman had been waiting patiently. What else was he going to do? As the head of Rey del Sol, Señor Reynosa had the power of life and death over thousands of people, including Herman Guzman.
But there was no point in making Herman wait any longer. Enrique sat up, smiled across the table at his second-in-command, and said, “You have a report from across the border?”
“Yes, Señor Reynosa. The American Federal Protective Service has withdrawn its forces from the town.”
“Permanently?”
“It appears so.”
Reynosa reached for the glass of lemonade that was coated with moisture from the heat and humidity. He drank only non-alcoholic beverages, and he never used the drugs that his cartel smuggled so successfully over the border. He believed in keeping his body healthy, so that he could fully enjoy other pleasures.
Such as the young girls who swam naked in his pool like seals.
After taking a sip of the cold lemonade, Enrique said, “So, the town of Home has no guns.”
Herman shrugged. “The police are still armed, but there are less than half a dozen of them. And some of the people no doubt hid their weapons, but there cannot be many.”
“Not enough to matter,” Enrique said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “There is nothing to stop us from putting our plan into operation.”
“The American soldiers have set up checkpoints on the highways, to make sure no one brings guns back into Home.”
“We have our agents in this so-called Federal Protective Force, have we not?”
Herman smiled. “We do, Señor Reynosa. We have agents in places the foolish Americans would never dream of.”
Enrique nodded, thinking of the beautiful Julia Hernandez. She had been brought here to his villa when she was, what, fifteen? He couldn’t remember for sure. She had been quivering and innocent, but he had taught her well, and she had learned quickly. Her intelligence was just as important as her physical skills. She moved now in the highest circles in Washington, and no one there ever dreamed that she was not who she appeared to be. No one had any idea who her true master was.
Enrique forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “When General Garaldo’s forces take over those checkpoints, our agents with the FPS will be able