CHAPTER 20: THE MAYAN BROTHER

PIER 3 - ABANDONED WHARF, OAKLAND MARINE TERMINAL

The Mayans brought a woman over into the middle of the intersection, prodding her to move faster. A Mayan accompanied her closely with a gun pressed against her back.

"Here's what's left of your puta, Thomas!" Frisco screamed with a taunting laugh. "Now JT and Eduardo will come forward like we agreed!" Frisco looked at JT with anticipation.

Except it wasn't Megan at all. The young woman the Mayans were presenting to JT was in fact a prostitute from one of the Mayans' whorehouses. She had tried to escape and had to be taught a lesson. It just so happened they needed a girl to sacrifice. Frisco couldn't believe the coincidence. Killing two birds with one stone, is what the Americans would say. Deal with the Sons and send a message to the other trafficked sex slaves at the same time.

From his perch on the rooftop, Keith zoomed in further with his binoculars. JT and Thomas glanced upward ever so slightly, careful not to tip off the Mayans that they had another man with them on overwatch. JT so wished he could call up command on the radio and have some napalm dropped on the block that was no doubt crawling with Mayans, but now he wore the biker patch, not the uniform, and Thomas and Keith were all there was now. Hiding underneath a large exhaust pipe that snaked across the steel plant's roof, Keith now saw there were two Mayans on top of the Martinez Imports Trading Company next door.

Everything about the situation was off. Yes, this was a mostly abandoned part of the port and it made sense the Mayans would set up their cover operation here, but Martinez Imports didn't seem to be seeing any regular activity at all. He double checked his sniper rifle then grabbed the binoculars again as two Mayans and the woman walked down the street toward JT and Thomas.

Keith knew exactly what to look for, focusing on the woman's neck. Sure enough, both her arms and ears had been cut off, and blood seeped through the many bandages around her head, but the Wahewa tattoo that Megan had wasn't there. Frisco had never imagined this small detail to be a problem as when the Sons got close enough, it was supposed to be too late. Keith made a quick thumbs down signal then immediately switched back to his rifle, taking quick aim at the Mayan gunmen on the roof. One was facing his direction but must have not seen him. The silenced bullet immediately dropped him to the roof before he noticed anything was off.

JT turned to Thomas. "It's not her," he said grimly.

"We need to make sure, we ….."

"I trust Keith on this. You yourself told him to look for the tattoo and it ain't there." Look, we both knew it was a long shot. We only came because of the slight possibility…."

"Megan!" Thomas called out.

There was no acknowledge from the woman, no look of recognition at all. Thomas's heart sank. Either it really wasn't her, or she had been so understandably traumatized by what these scumbags had done to her that she wasn't herself anymore.

Frisco continued walking forward. "Bring Eduardo and Benito to me first!" he shouted. "You better not be playing any fucking games with us, cabrones!"

JT took his pistol and fired a single shot hitting one of the Mayans holding the woman in the head. A second shot in quick succession dropped another Mayan next to him. Thomas in turn discharged his own gun straight into the back of Eduardo's head. With that, the Mayans went into disarray.

"Frisco! They must know! Take them out!" the translator shouted, raising his own gun, shooting and killing the woman.

The other Mayan on the rooftop was facing the street, observing the exchange and the beginning showdown. Keith got him in his crosshairs and pulled the trigger, the man falling off the roof and landing in the middle of the street with a loud thump and a cloud of dust.

"Kill them! Vamo! Vamo!" Frisco shouted, unleashing a heavy barrage of automatic weapons fire from his AK-47. The street provided very little cover, but JT went behind an abandoned mail container and Thomas behind a forlorn looking tree that still managed to grow in the grim landscape.

"Keith! Take out Frisco! Do it now!" JT shouted as bullets whizzed by his ear.

Thomas used Eduardo's dead body as a shield and heard several bullets strike it. He then raised his gun and managed to shoot dead one of the Mayans gunning for him.

Out of the corner of his eye, however, Keith saw a door open on the roof of Martinez Imports and another Mayan emerge on the roof, going straight for his direction. Keith fired a sniper bullet through his throat, the man falling back into the stairwell. Keith then threw his hand grenade, knowing more hostiles were probably coming. His aim was perfect. The grenade exploded inside the stairwell and he could hear the screams of at least two more Mayans as they were blown apart by the blast.

JT fired several times and saw Frisco collapse onto the sidewalk. When he looked again to make sure his enemy was dead, however, JT felt a sharp pain on his arm and saw a splatter of blood. He had just been grazed by two of the bullets.

"Fuck, we should retreat back around the corner!" Thomas said. His grief that they had not brought Megan out alive was now replaced by his desire for self-preservation in the heat of battle.

"We need to counterattack now if we're to make it out alive!" JT yelled back. "Their weapons' range can reach us all the way back to the last intersection, we'll never make it!"

JT took a little comfort in the fact that these weren't trained soldiers, though if they squeezed enough bullets some were bound to hit their mark. By charging straight at the Mayans and with Keith still on the roof, they just might confuse their enemies enough to make it out of here.

By now, two Mayans were dragged a motionless Frisco along the ground, approaching one of the entrances for Martinez Imports. Four more Mayans were taking aim at Thomas and JT. Keith turned his attention back to the street and took down one of the gunmen with a bullet to the head. There was some frantic shouting as the hostiles debated quickly amongst themselves. Then two of them turned their attention to the steel plant roof.

Oscar turned around from his computer in surprise as he heard several Mayans rushing forward, carrying Frisco. "Que en la chingada? What the fuck?"

Frisco began moaning and moving slightly.

"The gringos brought more people!" the first Mayan carrying Frisco said.

"Mierda!" Oscar cursed. "Tell the men to defend this building, hold them off. You two come with me. We'll take Frisco to Plaza Maya. Rapido! Vamo!"

Keith ducked out of sight as the Mayans reloaded and fired more rounds. The clanging of the pistol shots and automatic rounds echoed loudly along the metal sidings of the building, and bullets ricocheted in all directions.

JT charged forward, with his M-16 now, gunning down one of the hostiles, the Mayans dropping to the ground in a heap. They saw another Mayan fall to Keith's sniper rifle, but by now Frisco and the two men dragging his body were gone.

"I'm gonna fucking go in there and kill them all!" Thomas shouted, putting another round in the chamber. The Mayan translator was hit in the leg and was crawling on the sidewalk as his comrades continued to retreat into the building.

The translator raised his hands in the air. "Please, gringo! I speak English! If you get Frisco I can translate for you!"

Thomas raised his assault rifle to the Mayan's head. "This needs no fucking translation." He fired a string of bullets, blowing the translator's head into pieces before he and JT stepped over his body, entering the Mayan property.

MARTINEZ IMPORTS TRADING COMPANY

Three gunshots rang out as they made their way past the plastic tarp in one of the loading docks where the trucks usually came to pick up the Mayans' drugs, weapons, prostitutes and the occasional legal shipment. JT saw several stacks of crates before them, and knew the Mayan was probably hiding behind one of them. Thankfully, Keith had now made his way across the roof and was directly facing the Mayans' warehouse, which allowed him a wide view inside.

Seeing JT and Thomas's position, he pulled the pin off a grenade and threw it onto the stacks of crates, far from where the Sons were. JT and Thomas both covered their ears as the loud blast reverberated through the cavernous warehouse, the metal sidings in the industrial area worsening the echoes. JT went through the smoke and saw two disoriented Mayans stumbling around. He shot the first Mayan in the heart, then quickly turned and dropped the second Mayan with two shots to the chest before either of them even noticed him through the thick smoke.

Then, there was nothing but silence as the smoke gradually cleared. JT had expected more resistance as they approached the offices overlooking the main warehouse floor. That would have been an ideal elevated position where the Mayans could have set up a shooters, but there was nothing. All they heard was the distant sound of a vehicle driving away, and then just the crackling sounds of the burning flames from where the grenades had ignited some materials in the crates and the sound of seagulls flying through the air.

JT kept his gun drawn as they exited the warehouse onto the rusty pier that jutted several hundred feet out from the harbor. "Looks clear."

They heard some footsteps behind them and Thomas immediately turned around, pointing his gun. It was only Keith.

"Anything? Find Frisco's body?" Keith inquired in his Northern Irish dialect.

"No, he's gone," JT said, his mouth clenched in frustration. He then looked further down toward the end of the pier and saw a rusty silver shipping container with its door ajar. He put his hands to his lips, silencing the other as he quietly approached it, making sure to step to the side in case anyone inside was observing them.

JT gagged uncontrollably as a breeze blew toward him from the direction of the container. It smelled like a South Vietnamese village after the communists had engaged in a mass slaughter. Fuck, this ain't good. He saw the look in Thomas's eyes as they took the final few steps to the container door. It was as if Thomas was already prepping himself for what was inside.

Yet there was nothing that could have prepared him for the ghastly scene inside. Megan's body was still tied to the chair, with blood splattered all over the walls. It was clear that this was a torture chamber that had also seen other victims. Not only did Thomas gasp at Megan's severed arms and ears, her chest had been punctured by over a dozen stab wounds. Above all, the distorted, anguished look on Megan's face was something that would haunt Thomas for the rest of his life.

"Thomas, I'm so sorry, brother," JT said quietly. Keith looked downward and didn't say a word, though he began to slowly shake his head.

Thomas grabbed JT by the collar and slammed him into the wall of the shipping container. "Fuck you, JT! This is all your goddamn fault!"

"Hey! Calm down!" Keith said, moving in toward them.

"Fuck you too!" Thomas then turned his attention back to JT. "You wanted to hold out, try to get more info from Eduardo and the Hondurans, and we got shit! This is all because of you!"

JT shoved Thomas back and blocked a blow from Thomas. "We put this plan out to a vote, you went along with it. We both knew it was unlikely Frisco would have…."

"Yeah, all of you pressured me to go along with it in the vote! You can go to hell!"

Thomas attacked JT again, pushing him over a small desk, which he tripped over himself. Keith grabbed Thomas from behind, but Thomas kicked him in the stomach, sending him hurtling out of the container.

Thomas lunged at JT, but he blocked the blow and swept him off his feet, sending him back to the ground. JT followed through with a punch to Thomas's neck that got him out of the fight without causing him serious injury. Keith came over and put a strong hold on Thomas, who unsuccessfully tried to force the Irishman off of him.

"We did everything we could! I swear to God! Fuck!" JT shouted, his own voice filled with desperation.

JT certainly felt Thomas's pain, but the truth was that coming into this, they knew the possibility of finding Megan dead had always been very high. Yes, she had been brutally tortured and gang raped, but that went with the territory for the Mayans. But yes, he had miscalculated and underestimated the difficulty of getting Eduardo to break. Chico couldn't break his cover as Benito as that would have only increased Eduardo and the Hondurans' resolve. JT had figured the only way to truly end this war was to extract from their prisoners all of Frisco's major hiding places. Yes, their clubhouse was at the Plaza Maya restaurant, but Frisco himself was rarely there unless there was a charter meeting and he had properties even Chico didn't know about, since he wasn't a senior club member like Eduardo was.

"Now can we let go of you now?" Keith said.

Thomas was still shaking. "Yeah."

He then went back across the blood-stained floor to Megan's half naked body and cradled it in his arms, running his fingers through her long dark hair and closing her lifeless eyes, giving her face just a slight semblance of final peace.

MAYANS CLUBHOUSE

"AHHHHHH! Puta madre!" Frisco yelled out in pain from the sofa in the Mayans clubhouse.

"It's okay, we got the bullet out! We just have to sow your wound back together, patron," said the illegal student from the University of California – San Francisco Medical School. While this young man obviously wasn't a member of the club, he understood Frisco's prestige in the community and appreciated the fact that the Mayans kept both the police and the immigration authorities out of the barrio.

"It's fine," Frisco grunted, looking the young man in the eye. "You know I appreciate what you've done for me."

"No, patron, everything you've done for our barrio, for nuestra gente, our people, this is only the least I can do to repay you." A waiter from the Plaza Maya Restaurant brought up a plate of food from the kitchen.

Frisco nodded, then was interrupted by the phone ringing. Oscar answered it, then walked it over to their charter president, glad that the cord was long enough that Frisco didn't have to get up and they didn't have to move the couch.

"It's Geraldo, jefe" Oscar said. "He needs to speak with you now."

"Pues, vamo!" Frisco motioned for him to hurry up in bringing him the phone.

"Si?" Frisco said simply into the receiver.

Geraldo sat in his wood-paneled study, glancing out at his large front yard and his kids riding their bikes along the suburban street. "Frisco, the last time we spoke, you promised me you would have these issues resolved."

So Geraldo knew what was going on, Frisco thought, then anger filled his mind. The national president hadn't even cared to ask about his injury, and the losses his businesses had sustained.

"Patron, the gringo cowards deceived us! Benito Chavarria was never one of us, that was not even his real name. His name is Chico Villenueva," Frisco spoke the name with contempt, "He's a fucking coconut who really grew up in Charming with the gringos. He had been operating for them undercover for our club so he could pass information to his friends in Charming, so they could jack our shipments."

"And yet you failed to discover this when you checked his background. You allowed him to be a prospect, even patched him in, even made him an officer. You're saying he was spying for his friends under your nose even before they became the Sons?"

"Patron, con todo respecto…"

"Shut the fuck up, you worthless piece of shit!" Geraldo shouted in English, which probably exhausted Frisco's knowledge of the language, before switching back to Spanish. "So your idiocy has caused us even more harm than this Sons business! This also explains why several of the Salvadorans' stash houses have been hit in the past 3 years! We are only now recovering from the loss of the Salvadoran connection. This is all your fault, Francisco!"

"Por favor, jefe, lo siento para estas problems, I am truly sorry about the problems, but we have done everything we could to fix everything." Frisco could feel his opportunity for revenge slipping away from him.

"And you will do nothing more," Geraldo said with finality, taking a seat in his plush office chair.

"Excuse me, jefe, I don't understand."

"I think you do, Frisco," replied Geraldo. "You are not to take any further action against the Sons of Anarchy. Myself and others close to me will attempt to smooth out the mess you've caused. As we discussed, the national office will no longer support your war. We sacrificed our men, our money, our reputation for nothing because of your incompetence."

These insults were grating on Frisco's ears. How dare Geraldo speak to him that way? They had known each other since they were teens in Mexico, shaking down market vendors and store owners for protection money. They built the club up together. He felt he was still entitled to more respect than he was being given, despite Geraldo's higher status.

"So what now for us?" Frisco asked.

"You will appear before the national council where we will decide whether you are fit to continue in your leadership role. For now, you will go back to focusing on business instead of revenge. Focus on the women. We need a wider selection of pussy in your nightclub and in your streets. All this business with American soldiers had me thinking. Some of these GIs, they go to Vietnam, have some R and R in Thailand, they develop a taste for Asian women. We Mayans can satisfy that need. I don't care how you do it. Go to Chinatown and kidnap some girls if you have to. If you manage to actually do this right, we may even allow you to keep your patch. Claro?"

"Si, patron," Frisco replied. There was nothing else he could say at the moment.

SOA CLUBHOUSE

Chico Villenueva felt an indescribable sense of comfort as he took the exit from Highway 99 and entered the classic streets of downtown Charming. He cruised past the Charming police station and city hall on the Harley he hadn't ridden for three years, wearing a generic leather jacket over his denim shirt. He saw the Swamp Fox Tavern and thought how long it had been since he had an ice cold Budweiser there, or for that matter sat in Harvey's Restaurant and ate a decent all-American meal of steak and eggs with a slide of biscuits and gravy. Being undercover with the Mayans meant that he ate only Mexican food, drank only Mexican beer and tequila, and listened to only Latin music for the past three years of his life.

Yes, the Mayans knew him as Benito Chavarria, an illegal alien who was brought to America at a young age and lived mostly in South San Francisco until moving to Oakland in his senior year of high school after his parents' divorce. He had also turned his back on his suburban background after jocks from the football team vandalized his car with racist messages telling him to "go back to Mexico". It was the perfect cover story to explain his rusty Spanish, his unfamiliarity with the intricacies of traditional Mexican culture, and his fervent desire to join the barrio's violent street culture. It also played into the Mayans' stereotypical beliefs about what America was like beyond the barrio.

In reality, Chico was born at Charming's St. Thomas Hospital to legal Mexican American immigrants who started out working at Oswald Beef's processing plant on the south side of town. He had a idyllic childhood until seventh grade or so, when he started running around with a rough crowd that included Otto Moran and Wally Glazer. It all began when Wally had convinced him to leave school early one day and smoke a joint of weed that he had gotten from some friends in Oakland. The next step was getting drunk on bourbon in the basement of Otto's house while Otto's absentee parents were getting drunk at the Swamp Fox and other local honky tonks.

Soon, Chico was joining Otto, Wally, and more of their friends in pickpocketing wallets at shopping centers, siphoning gas from parked cars to fill their motorcycles, and committing burglaries in the richer parts of town. All three of them had been expelled when they were caught selling marijuana to their fellow students during a Charming High School basketball game, and a search of Chico's locker had turned up a large stash of drugs he had intended to distribute in school the next day. Chico also saw his first taste of violence at this time. Otto discovered it was another student who had snitched on them in exchange for reduced disciplinary actions. The boy in question came from a "good family" that expected him to go to college and become a doctor, and disciplinary school records couldn't get in the way of that.

Chico, Wally, and Otto broke into the kid's home and dealt him a brutal beating that put him in the hospital and left him scarred for life. This time, he was afraid to name any of them. Soon after, the snitch's parents withdrew him from Charming High School and transferred him to a private school all the way in Stockton.

The three of them had no interest in going back to school, so none of them appealed their expulsions despite the school board telling Chico's parents he had a good chance if he would show remorse and enter a special program offered by a local church. They knew they would never make it too big bringing marijuana from the Wahewa reservation in Charming. The Bay Area was where it was at. That was when Chico, who turned out to be the most ambitious of the three, thought of the idea to go undercover with the Mayans, whose territory was the nexus of the drug pipelines crisscrossing Northern California.

Through the Mayans, Chico was able to obtain information about the other gangs they did business with and the location of various stash houses all over the area. Using the intel Chico provided, the Charming crew had hit two properties in the suburban East Bay slum of Richmond owned by a Salvadoran gang. Since Charming wasn't even on their radar, the Salvadorans had assumed it was a Japanese yakuza group they had warred with. Those two raids, however, only yielded modest financial rewards, and Chico wanted to stay undercover with the Mayans until they could make a big enough killing that would get them made financially long-term.

That time would come soon, Chico had told himself, as the Chinese, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans all wanted a piece of the Bay Area. The business the Mayans did with the Weather Underground was only considered a side job, but it turned out fate had a different plan for them after Professor Rogers and his terrorist cell detonated the car bomb at the Armed Forces Credit Union. Chico was never into politics and didn't give a damn about the ongoing conflict in Vietnam one way or another. And if the Soviet Union somehow chose to target little Charming with a nuclear strike, well in that case he was lucky some of his neighbors were paranoid enough to have fortified bunkers under their homes from twenty years ago.

But when the Weathermen attacked first in Lodi and then in Charming itself with the cowardly ambush at the VFW of all places, slaughtering not just local boys who fought in Vietnam but old men who had survived the bloody campaigns in Normandy and Okinawa, Chico knew he had to fight back along with his friends. The communist sympathizers wanted to take their bullshit beyond the cities into the Central Valley. If the FBI was too cowardly to step up to the plate, then the club had to. Sharing the intel about the Weathermen was supposed to be nice and simple, but then Frisco insisted on going to the mall early before the meet to scout the location, something he had never done before.

When the Mayans swore revenge against the Sons, Chico had to become a true mole in the midst of the Mayans. The plan for him to be kidnapped was well-planned, and he even let the Sons torture him for show because he was certain Benito and the Hondurans would give up the information they knew. Especially Benito, who joined the Mayans later than Chico but was promoted first because of his drug connections south of the border. Perhaps from the Mayans' standpoint they were right. Benito was a tough son of a bitch, a true Mexican gangster. Most people would have spilled the beans after experiencing the kind of torture had had.

Each and every one of Chico Villanueva's true brothers hugged and shook hands with him as he entered Teller Automotive Repair, the place where he had worked as a high school student, where he had been shit faced drunk over a dozen times with the rest of the crew, where he worked on his beloved Harley motorcycle at all times of the day and night. But he had never actually been in the private office that served as the chapel before, nor had he ever physically worn a Sons of Anarchy kutte, since he had been patched in in absentia given his undercover activities.

He spoke to Thomas first. "I'm so sorry about Megan, brother. I just need you to know, we did everything we could on our end."

Thomas nodded solemnly. "Yes, I know."

"And about Wally and Otto," Chico said. "That time at the Swamp, I still can't believe that was the last time I'd ever see them."

"We're going to hit back hard," Clay said, "We're going to finish this war."

"The thing is," Chico said, "The Mayan leadership is tired of fighting us and losing all those men in the state park, plus attracting all that law enforcement attention was the last straw. They're sending up some guys from the San Diego charter, which never agreed with Frisco's vendetta, to oversee things while they decide what to do with Frisco."

"I want Frisco's head on a platter, or at least the people personally responsible for butchering Megan," Thomas said.

"I believe the national leadership may be convinced to give him up in exchange for peace," Chico replied.

"You really think so, man?" Clay said skeptically. "No offense, but those are some real bad hombres."

"A new generation's coming to power," Chico said, "Geraldo Morales has actually softened up a bit. Or he's smarter than Frisco, smarter enough to understand the reality that things are different this side of the border." In other words, Geraldo knew how bad the violence and attention was for business."

"Let's just hope you're right, Chico," JT said. "But first of all, welcome home, brother."

JT opened up a bag that revealed Chico's Sons of Anarchy kutte. "It's been a long time coming, Chico."

Chico opened up his arms and let JT put on the jacket for him as is customary for the club. With that, the rest of the club broke out in loud cheers and the liquor was quickly brought into the clubhouse. JT didn't know where Chico stood with all the turmoil and undercurrents of dissent within the club, but at least in this very moment, they all felt like one, and he was going to hold on to that feeling while it lasted.

Author's Note: Okay should be in the homestretch now for this story and approaching the climax. As y'all can probably imagine its not quite over yet! I just realized the body count is probably much higher than a typical SOA season. It's because I got so used to writing "24" stories. I would love to see more authors in this fandom write more suspense/action based stories in addition to all the romances!

Also couldn't resist the homage to "bad hombres"!