Casona Castilla y Zamora looked to be a place of worship and it sat directly next to the University of San Cristobal de Huamanga. Not many people were filtering around the streets any longer and Jill could only spot a few people on the campus grounds beyond.
The double doors to the church ahead of them were standing slightly ajar and with her focus switching ahead, she could make out what looked to be a large fig tree that sat in the center of whatever plaza lay inside.
Carlos led their group slowly up to the doors with Alex flanking his left and Alonzo on his right. Pedro, and David took up similar positions around Jill and when she looked toward David, his slight smile looked more like a grimace.
Jill found herself bumping her shoulder into his and giving a jerk of her chin before she asked, "What?"
"Just got an odd feeling," David relented quietly while he reached up and tenderly touched the bandages on his bald head. The tiny hairs on his scalp were starting to get a little longer and he'd have a full head of fuzz soon.
From the corner of her eye, Jill could see Pedro lean in to catch what he said before he hummed beside her.
"Stay near Carlos," Pedro added when they neared the doors.
"Do you think someone would be so brazen as to attack us here?" Jill asked, attempting to get an understanding of how the resistance teams worked.
"Arturo was our own and that didn't stop him from trying to kill Carlos," David starkly declared.
Jill was silent for a moment after that. She realized then that they were asking her to protect Carlos and not the other way around. The result left her with a building camaraderie for the men beside her; not once had they questioned her abilities.
"So," she asked before they reached the doors and paused. "How does this work? Do they run meetings in a specific way?"
"This is only our second meeting," Pedro waved his hand between himself and David while he spoke. "Usually, it's updates. Although we're in this as an alliance together, each resistance operates differently according to their needs. I'm told it isn't often we go to intercede with the other country's conflicts."
"The cartel has changed that though. There are two main sources we know that are operating through each of us right now: The remaining Medellín Cartel and the Santa Cruz Cartel." David picked up after Pedro, and Jill switched her focus to him. "Prior to the formations of the different resistance leaders, many of our people were dealing with the same issues in Bolivia. Carlos was a part of the guerrilla group that actively kept the gangs away from the indigenous portions of our lands."
"Which group?" Jill asked in curiosity. She jumped a little when Pedro's hand wrapped around her lower back and began to lead her left toward where she could see a group of people waiting in a larger hall.
"The Túpac Katari Guerrilla Army," David said beside her as they entered the hall. "However, that all went to hell in 1992. Many of their leaders were executed or incarcerated."
Jill gave a silent nod and connected the dots for when Umbrella had stepped in to pick up Carlos. She'd have to ask him more about that later. At the thought, her eyes lifted to search for him through the groups of people that stood around now.
Several clusters of people filled the large hall that held pews lined up in neat rows down the center. Two people were near a large table on the opposite side of the room, fiddling with what looked like a TV and AV equipment.
"Rani is going to be pissed," Pedro muttered as he looked over at David now.
David huffed a breath and made a quick gesture to the cigarette burn scars still healing on his head before he said, "Forgive me if I don't run in terror from her these days."
At Jill's raised brows, Pedro explained, "Tatiana Rani is the resistance leader for Colombia, and she can be a little… much. She's arguably had the most encounters with the leftover Medellín Cartel and thus Carlos Lehder—Marcos' father."
"Shit," Jill said without grace.
"Yeah," Pedro agreed. "Gets a little complicated when we kill the son of a co-founder of the old local cartel. He's in prison but there are plenty of old families still around that would avenge Marcos. Rani also isn't a big fan of his father, Carlos. They had a thing—"
"Is she tall, with long brown hair and a scar under her eye?" Jill interrupted.
"Yeah, actually," David said with his brows up while he gazed down at her. "How'd you know?"
"Because I'm pretty sure she's currently threatening your captain." Jill noted with an edge.
To their far left, Alonzo and Alex stood at the elbows of Carlos as he listened with his arms crossed over his chest. The aforementioned woman proceeded to jab her finger into his chest while she spoke. The voices in the hall made it difficult for Jill to hear but she could hear the undertones of the woman's anger through the murmur of the crowd.
Without another word, Jill was making her way toward them.
"—Had you not gotten caught in the first damn place!" Jill caught the tail end of the woman's sentence when she neared.
"Not really something I could control at that point. I had information and I needed to act on it before they departed." Carlos answered with a colder tone than Jill had heard from him yet.
"You're going to get your people killed, Oliveira, and mine if you don't fucking tend to that bleeding heart you carry." Tatiana spat with another jab to his chest.
Tatiana's paisa dialect rang beautifully in Jill's ears as she neared. The words seemed whisper-like and had its own variations of the Spanish language which caused a tonal rise and fall different from the Bolivian accent she was becoming used to.
Carlos and the rest of his men had a more indigenous influence in their accent. Their vowels were more assibilated and resulted in more of a sharper sound delivered in each word.
"Problem here?" Jill asked simply when she came to a stop beside them.
Tatiana turned her face toward Jill's, and it was evident that the woman had seen her own horrors.
Aside from the scar Jill had made out from afar, multiple lined scars rounded at her cheek on the other side of her face. The scar tissue on her cheek was old, but the wound hadn't been patched up as it should have been. The hypertrophic scars were puffy and had caused keloids to steal the natural shape of her cheek, resulting in the skin on her cheeks to bulge out slightly.
Deep set, brown eyes were studying Jill now as the woman stood up straight and cocked her head to the side.
"And who the hell are you?" Tatiana asked before her eyes flickered to David and Pedro beside her, marking Jill already as a person of interest.
"Velaria Rhamnusia." Jill let her eyes purposefully inspect Carlos again before she snapped her attention back to Tatiana. "B & E Specialist and rear security for the Bolivian defense."
Tatiana seemed to pick up on Jill's own formally trained Chilango dialect in her Spanish accent and the undertones of her American accent beneath it. The woman's head cocked just a little more as Jill spoke.
"An American," Tatiana breathed. Unlike the other bids Jill had received, this reaction was not in distaste. "I would advise caution, Sojourn. We're being hunted in our own countries and those in leadership who aren't ready for sacrifices—" her head turned slightly back towards Carlos. "Will end up with no one left to fight. Ask him about his brothers."
From the corner of her eye, Jill could see both Carlos and Alonzo shift, but they remained silent in whatever reactions they had. Jill tilted her head up to the taller woman as she stepped forward.
The air seemed to grow thick with a tension that Jill recognized was an audience that watched her step up to Colombia's resistance leader.
"Something tells me that you think you've conquered fear and earned the right to be so casual in the way you have disrespected the lost and fallen." Jill stated calmly. "That also tells me you have not lost enough, and you soon will if you continue to think that way. Know though, that I am here to stay, so if you'd like to further discuss it, let me know."
At that moment, a voice called out for the teams to gather, and people began to walk past. Tatiana remained with her eyes on Jill before a small smile graced the right corner of the taller woman's mouth. An understanding grew between the both of them, but Jill wasn't smiling when the woman turned away.
"Don't forget what the fuck I said. Your party is looking awfully small these days, Carlos," Tatiana said in departure to Carlos before she shot Jill a look. Colombia's leader soon turned and made her way to a group of members who had been watching from their position at the long table.
Alonzo let out a low curse beside Carlos. The scowl he had told Jill enough of his thoughts to Tatiana Rani.
Jill looked up into Carlos' eyes and she saw a striking approval there that rippled through her before she realized something.
"My apologies," Jill said before clearing her throat. "I overstepped my position in speaking for you and for telling her I was serving in your defense system."
"My money is on the Rhamnusia," Alex said as he leaned in. The hums of approval echoed around from the other two men beside Carlos.
"No, I don't think you did," Carlos said with what sounded like a thoughtful tone while he watched her. He jerked his head for everyone else to follow and they made their way toward the table as well.
Carlos' arm came around behind her until his fingers hooked on her hip bone and he gave it a squeeze.
"I will admit," he said in a low voice while he leaned his head down toward hers. "It is really nice to see you mouth off to someone who isn't me. Especially when it's possessive, Supercop."
"Not sure what you mean." Jill sniffed with her smile hidden behind the steel will that was her pride.
"Old rules, my little B&E Specialist," Carlos' voice lilted her title as he reminded her of her tells. "And I'm liking it."
At the table, around twenty people stood but only four were standing directly in front of each side. The groups that belonged with each leader seemed to cluster behind them as they waited for the last of the attendees to take their places.
Jill watched as Carlos slid away from her and took to the far-right end of the table. He put the bag in his hand on the table and proceeded to pull out papers Jill hadn't seen yet.
Tatiana's eyes met Jill's from across the table when she stepped up behind Carlos, and Jill could have sworn she saw a ring of approval in the woman's eyes before she broke her stare.
"Let's get started," A man with a graying beard called to the right of Carlos. The new man's eyes looked tired and the crow's feet at the corners only seemed to make his face seem more so with the grave way he spoke.
"That's Elden Zamora." Alex stood behind Jill now and his voice was pitched low toward her ear. "Leader for the Peruvian side."
Jill nodded her head slightly and reached back to touch his arm in her gratitude.
"Before we begin our reports, I think you should show us all what you brought, Rani," Elden turned his head toward Tatiana.
Tatiana flicked her hand toward a man who stood beside her, and the response had the shorter man walking over toward the TV that was now positioned behind Elden. After a moment, the man slid a VHS into the VCR and the blue screen of the TV flickered before it took on the dark edge of what was clearly a security feed.
"This was sent to us two days ago," Tatiana spoke up as her eyes traveled around the table before they landed squarely on Carlos. She paused before continuing, "Play it."
Jill felt her stomach quiver. After the slaughterhouse and viewing what had happened to Renata, she wasn't sure she'd be able to stomach torture videos for long. Carlos had previously mentioned that the resistance had received numerous videos on the crimes.
The video began to play.
The image was dark and where the camera was positioned put the proportions of the people in the feed at an odd, fixed limit. The shot was looking down at multiple heads when Jill realized what she was looking at.
The sounds of sobbing came through the cheap speakers on the TV and the clinking of the heavy metal gambrel hooks for the meats caught loudly in the audio due to their position higher up near the camera. Someone below was wailing as two forms dragged a limp body toward the bulky image of a machine.
The time stamp on the video feed was 3:47 p.m. and Jill knew it to be about 3 hours before she had shown up to that very slaughterhouse. The video was of the day she had arrived, and it depicted the slaughter of some of Carlos' men.
Carlos could be seen on his knees watching in the darkness of the room. The grainy image wasn't clear enough to see his face, but Jill knew what it might have looked like at that moment.
The screams had just started when the video feed gave out and cut forward. Someone had spliced different parts of the recorded time together; purposefully including that first part for their intended viewers.
Jill lifted a hand to Carlos' lower back as she stood behind him. He stiffened before he relaxed slightly under her touch. Jill kept her hand there and remained as a pillar at his back.
When the feed updated to the new time, it showed when the vent had been lifted from the wall, and the hooded form of Jill had stepped out. The scene played in full, with their conversations barely coming in, but the name Rhamnusia was clear in the audio.
Jill lifted her eyes to Tatiana's and the look she found there was telling.
The feed ended when the video showed Jill returning to burn the slaughterhouse and then leave the building for good.
Eyes were turning to Carlos then.
"We received this with a note," Tatiana continued to report while she laid her hands on the table. "It said, 'There is a time to fight and there is a time to be clever. Bring us the Rhamnusia.'"
"No," Carlos uttered and placed his own hands on the table while he stared forward at Tatiana. He tilted his head toward Elden as quiet murmurs had broken out.
"And where is this Rhamnusia?" A new man beside Elden bade carefully.
The new man was tall and startlingly young looking. His face was angular and handsome even with the pockmarked skin. The bridge of his nose was slightly cooked, and his deep-set, black eyes were intelligent when they landed on Carlos. His hair was cropped short and even from her position, Jill could see the long scar that interrupted the hair growth from his widow's peak and backwards.
Tatiana tilted her head very obviously at Jill.
When Jill stepped forward, Carlos' hand lifted and aimed itself back toward Jill, but it was too late, the name had been recognized by the tall woman across from them and he knew it too.
"Here." Jill lifted her chin and met the new man's dark eyes.
The new man seemed to take stock of her for a moment before he said, "That was you?" His hand motioned to the TV behind them.
Jill said nothing while she waited for the other shoe to drop.
"DeAndros, we are not—" Carlos began.
DeAndros. They had mentioned his name before. Someone Carlos hadn't seen in a while.
"No," Elden cut him off shortly. "We're not, Oliveira. Luckily for you." He hadn't stopped looking toward Jill when he spoke. "Who are you?"
Alliance or not, Jill knew better than to give her real name. Carlos had warned her enough, but it was Trent's previous warnings ringing in her head now.
"I am Velaria Rhamnusia." The lie was becoming more natural, and Jill was becoming more confident in the way the cadence rolled from her tongue. "I am an American military veteran, and I came out here to search for Carlos. I arrived on February 16th and was alerted on the 17th of Carlos' capture a week prior. Using a series of different intelligences and tactics, I operated alongside one other before I infiltrated that slaughterhouse."
The room had become dead silent.
"You did so under the Bolivian Resistance's order?" Elden questioned.
"No," Jill said with a slight shake of her head while she too placed her hands on the table. "I was denied by Arturo who had assumed command at that point."
"And still you pursued the attempt?" Tatiana spoke next.
"I did." Jill cut her eyes to the woman.
"Why?" Elden pursued.
Jill took a deep breath and rapped her knuckle against the table for a moment before she straightened and bore her eyes around the room at the many faces watching her now.
Outsider. Stranger. Foreigner. Forastera.
Jill had been here before. Walking lands that were not her own and it would be forever tattooed on her soul as a race against a death she wasn't sure applied to her anymore. The title of Sojourner that had been thrown out earlier wasn't far from the mark; she had spent the last few years of her life in places she didn't belong.
But even as she stood there now, with life's poisons tattooed in her spirit and mind, she knew it wasn't the same.
She wouldn't let it be. Not for the man beside her, not for the men behind her, and not for the people at Carlos' home that waited for their return.
Jill allowed a long breath to be released from her nose while she thought how to describe this while also not giving away the shared history between her and Carlos. Honesty was a virtue not always appreciated in time of war and to be honest, she wasn't sure how much Carlos wanted them to know about their growing relationship. The last thing she wanted to do was discredit him at the table.
Deciding to play the part of the American war hero, Jill began to speak.
"Servicemen and servicewomen in the United States Army are taught the Soldier's Creed," Jill finally answered after her pause. She opted to shorten her creed for the sake of time.
"I will never leave a fallen comrade." Her hand lay atop Carlos' beside her on the table.
"I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life." Not one person seemed to breathe as she continued.
"I will never quit." Jill's eyes landed on Tatiana's again.
"This isn't America," Tatiana raised her voice slightly.
"No," Jill agreed. "Yet I still involved myself. This falls on me. Not them."
Carlos' hand lifted from beneath hers and he gripped her fingers tightly before he said, "Who sent that letter?"
"Judging by the quote, which is one of Pablo Escobar's, I'd say this is a dead ringer for Medellín's Cartel." Tatiana supplied before she crossed her arms and turned toward Jill. "Didn't have a signature but given that it was Marcos Lehder's throat you slit, we surely have an answer."
"He deserved it," Alonzo said behind them.
Someone behind Elden was nodding in agreement.
"Maybe you want to inform us about what the fuck you were doing to get yourself caught?" Tatiana threw her glare back at Carlos.
Beside her, Carlos kept a hold of her fingers while his thumb stroked the back of her hand slowly. He angled his head toward Tatiana before he started speaking, "On February 9th, just after 0600 hours, we received word from the locals that some of our people had been grabbed in the town of Taraco, Bolivia. Instead of immediately leaving, they had pulled up to a buoy house on Camino Tihuanacu. By the time we arrived, they were gone, but they left behind a few things when they saw us coming."
Carlos pushed the papers he had out in front of himself further across the table.
"On our return back, we were ambushed, and—" Jill saw his head jerk toward the TV while he spoke. "You know the fuckin' rest."
"And this was worth your capture?" DeAndros asked with narrowed eyes.
"Nothing is worth what happened to my men or those children," Carlos ground out when he met the man's eyes.
"We found out what else Marcos was transporting while we were in there," Alex spoke up next to Carlos now.
Carlos gave a silent nod and Jill could see him grit his teeth while he shuffled the papers in his hands for a moment before he said, "Human trafficking. They're sending our children overseas when they're done with them."
Jill could hear the spat curses from around the room as a level of unease began to push itself throughout all present.
Elden beckoned with his fingertips low to the table and Carlos pushed the papers his way.
Jill craned her neck and took note of the apparent map with a bunch of lines spanning toward the north.
"These are trade routes," Elden announced while he laid out several pieces of papers.
"Look at where they are going," Carlos said before letting go of Jill's hand and walking around the table to stand between DeAndros and Elden. He pointed to the one with lines leading from South America. "Almost all routes go to Mexico."
"The geography would only support that," DeAndros said in annoyance. "Not uncommon when that's the only way the trades can go to America if it's not by air or sea."
"Right," Carlos glanced over at him with an impatient look before he turned his eyes back toward Tatiana and Elden. "Except why do the drop points stop just before the U.S. border? These are last stop markers, not additional transport markers. They make a few stops through Central America but they're stopping in Mexico, not going through it."
"What are you suggesting?" Tatiana's expression was different now as she too walked around the table to look down at the map.
"From Bolivia, and Peru, all of these pick-up points lead to Popayán, Colombia. From there, it all spans out to Mexico. Colombia is transporting for someone else—the remaining Medellín Cartel and the Santa Cruz Cartel are transporting for someone else." Carlos drove home before he pointed down to a marker with the words 'La Alianza de Sangre'.
The Blood Alliance
"No," Tatiana said while she jabbed a finger toward Carlos. "That's not fucking possible. Those left in Colombia—"
"Who's even left of the Medellín Cartel? We haven't been able to verify a damn face behind the activity for years now." Elden interrupted her.
Voices of the people behind each leader were rising as an uneasiness was taking over the room. Only Jill Carlos and oddly DeAndros were silent. The young man was watching Jill from across the table.
Carlos turned his head silently and connected eyes with Jill as the voices in the room were continuing to rise.
Jill stared at Carlos while her mind continued to race. Her eyes were slowly lifting to gaze at the other two leaders who were near a shouting match. Two men behind them were face to face when one shoved the other back. The result was leading to a full-scale brawl fight when Jill let out a sneer and curved her lips over her teeth. She brought the tips of her middle finger and thumb into her mouth and blew a hand whistle that pierced through the calamity around them.
Angry expressions were turning toward Jill as most of the shouting came to a halt.
"What cartel runs Mexico right now?" Jill demanded with her eyes back on DeAndros.
"You're asking me?" DeAndros tilted his head toward her.
"Your accent is of northern Mexico," Jill responded. "Shouldn't you know?"
DeAndros flashed her a pleased grin that seemed to have its own message. Very Good.
"That could be any of them," Elden cut in.
"No," Jill shook her head and leaned over to tap the Blood Alliance name. "Which are in control right now?"
"There's the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization or VCF, and the Sinaloa Organization." DeAndros finally said beside him. He hadn't taken his eyes from Jill.
"The Sinaloa Organization has gone by a few names," Jill said after a moment. "The Pacific Cartel was what they were also called when I departed my home in 2006. They were still a big name, so how big are they now?"
The last of the arguing voices finally came down to another full silence that was filling the room again.
No one seemed to be able to answer.
"This is much bigger than just South America," Jill concluded as she leaned back to her upright position.
"If it's not the remaining Medellín Cartel," Tatiana said, looking at Jill again. "If it's not that family coming for the death of Marcos Lehder, then what the hell do they want with you?"
"I don't know," Jill admitted softly as she glanced down at the Blood Alliance's name on the paper.