The Best Laid Plans

Disclaimer: I do not own Sands or El or Ramirez. Just a twisted imagination, and a brand new house.

Rating: R for violence and language

Summary: Sands and Ramirez attempt to rescue El Mariachi from the cartel

Author's Note: I know very little about the geography of Mexico, so forgive any inaccuracies.

The title of this chapter is a quote from a poem by Robert Burns. "The best laid plans, of mice and men, gang oft aglay." Meaning, they often go astray. In other words, things aren't going to go so well for our heroes…

Many thanks to my beta reader Melody, for finding plotholes and errors for me. You're the best, girl.

Last, I don't know why, but the formatting in this chapter is screwy...my usual **** to change scenes has been replaced with a solid line. Gee thanks, ff.net.


"All right. I'm in," he said.


Long after Jorge had gone to bed, Sands sat up. He needed to do some thinking. The night breeze was cooler than usual, and it was lightly raining. Every now and then a stronger wind would kick some rain onto the porch, and Sands would flinch when the drops struck him, and then force his wayward mind back on track.

First and foremost came the question of why he had agreed to help. Why he was willing to rescue El Mariachi from the cartel.

He hated El Mariachi. El had used him, where no one else had ever succeeded. El had turned him into a slave, and a puppet forced to obey the whims of a crazy mariachi. El had tried to make him kill a kid. As far as he was concerned, El deserved whatever he got, for being stupid enough to get caught, and for being such an asshole.

So why did he care? Why had he agreed to do this?

He shifted in his chair. He wanted a cigarette. Badly. But he denied the urge. He needed a clear head right now.

So, okay, he would grant that being tortured at the hands of a cartel was not a fate to be wished on anyone. Even El did not deserve that.

Even I didn't deserve it.

But did that mean he was compelled to rescue El? Was he expected to put aside years of animosity and just, well, just forgive the mariachi?

Why, the answer to that was a big "Hell no." There could be no forgiving. No forgetting. No live and let live.

However…

If he saved El from the clutches of the cartel, El would owe him, and owe him big. He could use that leverage to get what he wanted from the mariachi. He didn't delude himself into believing that he could use El as El had used him. El would not become his puppet. And in truth there was nothing El had that he wanted. But maybe he could use this as his Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. He could tell El that this was it. El would have to go away, far away, and never interfere with him again. If he ever even suspected El was near, the mariachi was dead. End of story. No second chances, no let-me-explain. Just a bullet between the eyes.

Yes, that could work. Even now, depraved as he had become, the mariachi still had a twisted sense of honor. If he saved El's life, El would acknowledge the debt that lay between them. El would leave him alone, if that was what he said he wanted.

He stood up and went inside. He was done thinking. Because there was nothing left to think about. He had found a reason to help El, and resolved his doubts. And that was it. There was nothing left to worry about. He was not frightened of what lay ahead, or where he had to go.

Not frightened at all.


Morning came. A tropical storm was churning off the western coast of Mexico, and heavy rains were forecast all day. Jorge had wanted to postpone the rescue, but Sands had argued until Jorge caved in. It had to be today. The rain would keep most people inside and make El's guards more relaxed. They would not suspect anything today.

Just like every morning, Sands and Ramirez sat in the kitchen, drinking their morning coffee. But there was something palpable in the air today, and Sands could feel an indefinable tension tightening his muscles and honing his remaining senses. He had to fight the urge to give in to a shit-eating grin. Oh yeah, something was going down today. And he was ready.

Around seven, Jorge drove him toward town. He got out of the car with half a mile still to go, and walked the rest of the way. Jorge was not due in town until noon, when they would meet for lunch. Until then, his time was his own.

Walking in the rain was very isolating. Occasionally thunder rumbled in the distance, but mostly there was just the sound of rain hitting the pavement and drumming on the curved arc of the umbrella over his head. Sands had known a guy at Langley who had sworn that real men didn't carry umbrellas, but he had always scoffed at that idiot. Fuck being macho. He wasn't getting wet unless he had to.

Traffic was light in town. He had the streets to himself, almost. This area of Culiacan was hilly, and there was a danger of mudslides. Nobody wanted to be out driving today, especially on the roads that led out west toward Ramirez's house, and further, to the coast.

He decided to go to the church. It was always nice and cool there, and after yesterday's killing, nobody would expect him to return. He would be safe there. As he splashed up the steps, he wondered with wry amusement if the church would be closed due to the weather, but the door opened easily beneath his hand, and he slipped inside.

The sound of the rain was dulled in the church. He could still smell blood, but the scent was faint; the cleaning ladies had obviously done a good job of getting it up. He wondered if the priest was pissed off at him because of the carnage. Well, he had warned the man, and that had to count for something, right? Besides, if the priest gave him any trouble, he would just remind the man about the old saying, the one about breaking eggs to make an omelet. And if that didn't work, there were always his guns.

But nobody bothered him. Not the priest, not anyone. He had the place to himself, it seemed. He spent several hours sitting in the dim sanctity of the church. At ten minutes to twelve, his watch beeped to let him know it was time to go. He rose to his feet and walked out of the church. Immediately the rain assaulted him, bowing his head and making him curse. The umbrella was next to useless. Before he had even crossed the street, he was soaked through.

Jorge had taken a seat inside the café, instead of the usual outdoors table he favored. He had already ordered their meal. Sands sat across from the former FBI agent and wrung water from his shirt. It pattered onto the floor by his feet, forming a puddle.

Thankfully Jorge was not one of those people who felt obliged to ask if it was wet enough for you. He simply said, "Are we still on?"

Sands grinned at him. "Jorge, baby, it's time for the fat lady to sing."


Over lunch they talked about the plan. It was simple enough. Create a disturbance that would bring the guards to the door, and kill them. Get inside. Kill whoever moved. Find El. Leave building with mariachi safely in tow.

Apparently this morning Chiclet had gone to Ramirez's house with some more information. There were at least four men inside, he had said. He knew this because he had done the very brave and very stupid act of knocking on the front door. When two of the men had opened the door, he had feigned embarrassment and alarm, stumbling over an excuse of looking for a buyer for his gum. While he had stood there, he had seen two more men in the windows looking out onto the street.

"He's an idiot," Sands said sharply. "He shouldn't have done that."

"He wanted to help," Jorge said. He didn't sound terribly concerned.

"Yeah, and you didn't stop him," Sands said. "But you'd feel plenty guilty if he got his brains splattered all over the pavement."

After a pause, Jorge said, "Would you?"

"Hell no," Sands said. "I didn't put him up to this."

But then he had to stop, because that wasn't entirely true. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he would regret it if the kid died. Especially if the kid died as part of some hare-brained scheme to rescue El Mariachi.

The waitress came back to their table. "Is everything all right, señor?" she asked. "You have hardly touched your food."

Sands pushed the plate away. He wasn't feeling very hungry, all of a sudden.


Things started out okay. Hell, they started out better than okay. They started out just perfect, thank you very much.

Jorge lit a firecracker – compliments of Chiclet – and tossed it onto the doorstep of the building where El was being held prisoner and where a butcher named Guevara had once ripped Sands' eyes out. Sands stood to one side of the door while this was happening, hoping the pounding rain would not put out the firecracker.

It did not. The firework exploded, and after a few moments, the door was flung open. Two men emerged, heavy workboots clomping on the stone. Sands took one step forward and shot both of them.

After that it got a bit dicey.

To start with, the inside of the house was very quiet. At first. Sands had only taken a single step forward when the air was suddenly split in two by the sound of someone screaming.

Ramirez swore in Spanish, his voice a bit shaky. Sands just shook his head. It helped to hear someone else's pain. He had been afraid he would step inside this place and hear the ghostly echo of his own screams.

It was bad enough, just being back here. He had to work hard to regulate his breathing. His hands were loose and shaky as they held his guns. He wondered morbidly what had ever happened to his eyes. Maybe Barillo had ordered them placed in a jar as a keepsake. Or maybe they were still here, lost somewhere in this building, crying out for him to find them and take them home.

He shuddered.

"All right?" Jorge asked.

"Shut up," he hissed back. He could do this. He was fine. Just fine and dandy. He forced his hands to stop shaking, and girpped his guns tightly. "Let's go."

They made their way through the building, killing as they went. With every shot the silencers screwed onto the muzzles of their guns became more useless, but that did not matter. Soon there would be no one left to hear the shots, anyway.

El was upstairs, in a back room. Before they even reached the door, Sands knew what was making El scream like that. He could smell the acrid tang of electricity in the air.

He nodded to himself. It wasn't too surprising. Electricity hurt like hell. But it left few marks behind. As such it was the perfect torture device.

That was one bit of information Sands knew from firsthand experience. At Langley, each member of his class had been shocked, so they would know what to expect should they ever be captured and tortured by the faceless enemy. The instructor had shocked them until they had screamed, and half the class had been so frightened they had begun screaming before the first wave of current could even begin to pass through their body.

Sands, of course, had been determined to outlast the instructor. And of course he hadn't. But he had held out longer than most. It had taken two of them to lift him from the chair, because his limbs hadn't wanted to cooperate and obey his brain's commands.

He had never forgotten that day. And right now someone had El Mariachi strapped to a car battery or something, only instead of being let out of the chair when he screamed, the torture kept right on coming.

Well, it was time to end the fun and games. It was a pity Jorge didn't have any bombs. It would have been nice if he could have exploded this place when he was quit of it. Blow it up so no one else could be brought here and tortured. And so he wouldn't dream about what had happened here anymore.

"Keep out of sight," he said.

"Just make sure you don't kill the mariachi," Jorge said dryly.

"Don't tempt me," Sands said, and kicked in the door.

The mariachi abruptly went silent as a switch was thrown. A deep voice said, "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm your fairy godmother," Sands said, and shot him four times.

The man fell to the floor. The only sound in the room was El Mariachi's harsh breathing. Sands holstered his guns and grinned. "Surprised to see me?"


With Jorge's help, he got El out of the chair. The mariachi managed a raspy, "How?" and then all he did was groan.

"Oh, I have my sources," Sands said brightly. "I'm still staying abreast of current events and all, you know."

El could barely walk. Sands and Ramirez had to support him between them. There was a pained note to his breathing, and as they made their slow way down the steps, he groaned loudly.

"Jeez, would you stop being such a baby?" Sands complained.

El said nothing. Jorge too was silent, which vaguely surprised Sands. He had expected a reprimand for being an asshole.

Outside, the rain was coming down even harder, if that was possible. El slipped and stumbled in the wet, dragging Jorge down with him. Sands managed to stay on his feet, although he was bent over and to the left. El's arm about his shoulders weighed a ton. "Christ," he panted. "What have they been feeding you in there?"

This time Jorge spoke up. "That's enough," he snapped.

Sands bit his lip to keep from smiling.

They walked through the rain. Jorge had parked his car a block away, so they could make a quick getaway, yet not so close that the car would be seen by the men in the building. It had seemed like a good idea when they had been making plans, but now Sands cursed their stupidity. They should have parked right across the street. Hell, they should have driven the car right into the front door. That would have made a fine diversion, and it would have made the last leg of their escape that much quicker.

Thunder boomed overhead. El started in fright. "What...?" he whispered.

Sands frowned. If El didn't realize they were in the middle of a thunderstorm, either the mariachi was more messed up than he thought, or... "Hey, El, they didn't take your eyes too, did they?"

"I can see," El said wearily. He tried to walk under his own power and succeeded for about two steps before his legs gave out again.

"Oh well, that's good," Sands said brightly. "Good for you."

"Here," Jorge said. "It's here." With his free hand he fumbled for his car keys. They jingled merrily in the storm.

They stopped in front of the car. Sands gave his head a shake, tossing the wet hair off his face. In weather like this his sunglasses were useless. He thought with some envy of Belini and the eyepatch the man had worn. He could use one of those right now. Or two.

Jorge opened the back door. "Get in."

They helped El into the back seat. The mariachi groaned again as he sank onto the upholstery. Sands frowned, then got in beside him.

"What are you doing?" El asked weakly.

"Hell if I know," Sands said as he shut the car door. Rain washed down the window, a strangely comforting sound. "I should be riding shotgun."

"Then why aren't you?" El asked, as Jorge got inside and started the car.

Sands ignored this. "How hurt are you? What did they do to you?" He remembered the man in the church saying that El had been begging for death. He had thought that was an exaggeration, but listening to the pain in El's voice, he began to wonder.

"I will be fine," El said.

The car pulled away from the curb. "You need a doctor," Jorge said from the front seat, "if you wish to use that hand again."

"What?" Before El could stop him, he reached out and grabbed the mariachi's hands.

El stiffened and tried to pull away, but Sands held on tight. He knew he was hurting El, but he hardly cared. He was too shocked.

"Jesus," he breathed.

He thought back to the first time he had met El Mariachi. The man had been hunched over a rough-hewn guitar, picking thoughtlessly at the strings. Yet the tune he had produced had been pleasing and in harmony. Music had flowed from his fingers without effort, as natural as breathing.

He doubted El would ever play guitar again. They had burned the mariachi's right hand. Badly.

Well, sure. The cartel had fully expected El to be dead once he was in the custody of the Colombians. They would not worry about causing him permanent injury. It would not even be surprising to discover a few vital pieces of El's body missing, Sands mused. After all, a cartel that would rip someone's eyes out surely would not scruple to remove anything else from a person.

He let go of El's hands. Thunder crashed overhead. The car accelerated. "I think we're being followed," Jorge said.

And wasn't it funny, how even after all this time, some habits just never died? Instinctively Sands started to turn around, so he could see who was behind them. The moment he realized what he was doing he clamped down on himself, hard. He was furious with his lapse. He lived in darkness now, and it was not often that he made mistakes like the one he had almost just made. He hoped nobody else had seen it. Since he had barely begun to move before stopping, hopefully they would only think he had been shifting in his seat.

"Can you lose them?" he asked.

"Sure," Jorge said casually. Then a bit louder he said, "Would you bandage his wrists?"

"What?" He frowned. "Is he bleeding?" Of course he knew El was; he had felt the blood on the mariachi's wrists when they had untied him from the chair.

"Yes," Jorge said. "And I would prefer he not do it all over my car."

"Gotcha," Sands said. He took a perverse pleasure in talking about El as if the mariachi was not sitting right there beside him.

He reached for his back pocket and withdrew a sodden bandanna. Only one, though. That was all he had. "Which one is worse?" he asked, holding out a hand.

"Here." El placed a loose fist in his palm.

He shifted his grip and found the raw, bleeding skin of El's right wrist. Without a word he tied the bandanna tightly about the limb. El flinched as he knotted it, but did not make a sound.

"Oh shit!" Jorge suddenly exclaimed. The car jolted forward, and Sands was flung around in his seat. El went for a similar ride, and groaned in pain.

Shots suddenly rang out, muffled by the storm, but still distinct. The back window shattered in a spray of glass and rain. Sands threw himself to the floor of the backseat, and he heard the sounds of El doing the same.

"Where did they come from?" he shouted. He drew his guns and sprang upright, firing wildly through the gaping hole where the window had been. Then he dropped back down, cursing the blindness that left him at such a disadvantage.

"I don't know!" Jorge shouted back. "They must have been just arriving as we left. They saw us."

"Is it Alvarado?" he called.

"I don't know," Jorge said.

"Shit," Sands hissed under his breath. He turned toward El. "I ought to open the door and just dump you out. Think if I did that, the cartel would give me the reward?"

El said nothing. Maybe he was paralyzed by fear of being captured again. Or maybe he was unconscious.

Shots plowed into the car again. Jorge swore loudly. The car jerked from side to side. More glass exploded from the back window.

Sands gripped his guns hard enough to cramp his wrists, and listened for the pause in the firing that would mean the shooter had stopped to reload.

Tires squealing, the car skidded around a curve. The turn was very sharp, and Sands recognized it from the way his body swayed. He realized they were on the road heading west, toward Jorge's house. "What are you doing?" he shouted. It was never good to lead the bad guys back to your home base.

"Give me a gun," El said. He sounded like he was about to faint.

"Yeah, right," Sands said. He popped up and fired twice out the window. That was all he dared. He sank back to the floor.

Thunder boomed overhead. And then another roar sounded. This one was much closer.

"Shit!" Jorge yelled. The car slewed violently to the right as he fought to regain control against the pull of the blown-out tire.

"Come on!" Sands shouted. But he didn't know if he was yelling at Jorge, the tire, or the world in general.

The car veered even further to the right. Jorge cried out, and then something slammed into them from behind.

Sands was thrown into the back of the passenger seat. He heard El cry out in pain, and the stupid jingle of the chains on the mariachi's pants.

The car struck them from behind again.

And then they were flying. At least, that was what it felt like.

The right wheels left the road first. For a little bit they continued on, only half on the road. Then the car hit something on the front end. Glass shattered. Metal crumpled. Sands found himself in the front seat and could not think how that had happened.

That was when they started flying.

Not up, up and away. But down.

All the way down.