Part 4: Trial & Aftermath
Diaz brothers attack on Christmas; Andrea, Winston, Layla, and Rufus are killed; Jesus jumps from the second story with his infant son; fatally shot; dies in peace.
When a firearm goes off, you hear two sounds. The first is a small, controlled explosion caused by the hammer of the gun hitting the detonating pin of the bullet. The second, much louder sound is the sonic boom caused by the expanding explosive gasses causing the casing of the round to accelerate past the speed of sound. If one wanted to significantly reduce the amount of sound caused by the firing of a weapon, all one had to do was drill holes in the barrel of the gun to allow just enough gas to escape, so that the bullet won’t accelerate over the speed of sound. If you did it incorrectly, the gun will backfire and explode, but if one was to correctly drill the holes in the barrel of any regular firearm, they could produce a silenced firearm. The issue with doing this to a handgun is that the barrel of the gun doesn’t allow direct access because the slide is in the way.
The Diaz brothers solved this problem by extending the barrel of their Luger 9mm handguns, military issue imported from Colombia, with specially fabricated pieces that fit into the inside of the barrel. Holes were then drilled into the now extended barrel, producing the silencing effect.
Just past midnight on Christmas day, the two brothers rode along the quiet streets of Baja Leai with two of these silenced firearms and pump action shotguns. They took Rodrigo’s old model T, which was recovered from a beach-head more than two years prior. They had orders to carry out a hit on a place they once did business, against people they once protected and did business with. They felt no remorse.
Such was the nature of the drug business.
The old, beat up sedan rolled to a stop just outside Layla’s house in the quick of the night, holding two silent agents of death. Their plan was already set. One brother was to stay outside and ensure that no one escapes, and the other was to enter the house undetected and execute the inhabitants.
They were the last echoes of the gunshot that ended Leroy White’s life. Justice is not always swift, but it is a definite, unavoidable reality of the cartel life they hailed from.
Their plans went awry before the brother could even enter the house. Rufus began barking madly at the two men who had shown up in the middle of the night as he approached the outside of the large colonial home. A light flipped on inside. There would be no silent, undetected entrance. A solid thump of brass hitting flesh and bone accompanied the muted gunshot, and the barking was no more. The two brothers looked at each other. It was time.
In bed, Jesus was woken from his sleep by the dog barking in the back yard. There was something panicked about the tone, something alarming that told him that this was no common disturbance. A kind of sixth sense alerted him that something grave was afoot. As soon as he had slid out of bed and began to make his way to the bedroom door, a thunderous crash sounded from downstairs. It was the unmistakable sound of the front door being kicked in. Immediately, he was wide awake, adrenaline funneling into his bloodstream like the opening of floodgates. Instinctively, he went to the baby, who was in the crib, already crying, wrapping him up in a blanket. Andrea was up and moving out of bed, too. He could hear Winston and Layla moving around in the next room. What was happening?
Who would want to break into their house in the middle of the night on Christmas day? Had the mistakes of the past finally caught up to him? There was no time to answer these questions, all there was time for was to act with swiftness, which is what Winston had begun doing. Only seconds after the crash, Winston slammed through the bedroom door, one hand on his gun and the other pulling Layla behind him.
“The Window! Open the window!” He ordered.
A shotgun blast tore through the door, narrowly missing Winston. He backed up against the wall beside the door and waited to shoot around the corner. Andrea was already opening the window. Layla had a bedsheet in her hands.
“You go down first, then I’ll lower the baby down to you!” Jesus said to Andrea. Layla was handing her the bedsheet, which had been bunched up into a rope. Another shotgun blast thundered down the hallway and took out a portion of the wall adjacent to the door. Winston spun around the corner and fired three times, out of Jesus’ view.
At the same time, Andrea began to lower herself down the side of the building from the second floor. Another shotgun blast sounded from the outside, and the bedsheet went limp.
“Andrea!” Jesus screamed as he ran to the bedroom window. Outside, he was just able to see a figure standing on the edge of the back yard. Another blinding flash of light, and his hand exploded in pain as he dove away from the window. The shotgun birdshot had missed his body, but flayed his hand into ground meat. He screamed out in pain and anguish.
“Follow me!” Called Winston. Jesus stumbled blindly towards the door, too shocked not to obey.
Layla turned the corner of the bedroom and Jesus followed her into the hallway. He clutched his child close to his chest as he stepped over the deceased body of one of the Diaz brothers, shot down at the top of the stairs.
Oh god. Andrea is dead.
Everything passed around him in an ethereal blur as the reality of the situation hit him. The paradise that he thought would protect him had failed. Somehow, someone had found out what had happened, and had come back for revenge. Had he really killed Leroy? Did it even matter? He clutched his child more tightly as he followed Winston and Layla down the stairs to the first floor. Winston checked the corners with military precision, but not well enough to prevent his own demise. Another shotgun blast boomed through the house, and Winston’s stocky figure was thrown against the wall, decimated by the close range weapon. As the remaining brother rounded the corner into the stairway, the muzzle flared and cracked once again, and Layla’s head exploded into a grisly fountain of blood.
Oh god. this can’t be happening.
Jesus willed his body to respond, time slowed to a frozen crawl. It seemed that his limbs were not his own, they moved too sluggishly for his racing mind. The decimated body of his father in front of him, his mind turned and reeled to make sense of what he was seeing.
The window!
The thought consumed Jesus’ head, not only as his only means of escape, but as the way out for his child, his way of preserving the next generation. He rushed back to the stairs and down the hallways without a second thought. When he rounded the corner into the room that only minutes ago had provided a safe, impenetrable refuge of comfort and sanctuary, his mind lacked any of the normal second thoughts of a sane man considering jumping out of a second story window while clutching a baby. containing only the desperate focus of a man fighting for his very survival and the survival of his bloodline. He was counting on the fact that the man he had seen outside had come inside. If he was wrong, or there had been three or more men, he would be blasted to pieces within moments of emerging from the window, like Andrea. It was a risk that he would have to take. Jesus could feel his pursuer at his heels, following him with violent intention. Any moment, the lead and metal would tear through his back and into the precious bundle that he held closer to his chest with each passing moment. On the pursuer’s heels, The Other followed, watching with eager delight what was sure to be Jesus’ final moments.
When he hit the ground, Jesus’ femur shattered again along the hairline fracture that had improperly healed from when he fell off the dam at the Nueva Casa watering hole, but the pain pathways were blocked from his brain. All that he registered in his fight-or-flight state was that his leg wasn’t responding to his commands as it normally did, like a faulty machine. It would be useless, he realized, to try and outrun his attacker on foot. He would surely be hunted down on the open streets of Baja Leai and shot down, left to bleed out on the streets with his only son in his arms.
I have to fight.
The gun. Winston had dropped his gun when he was shot. It would still be on the stairs, next to his corpse. If Jesus was lucky, he could outsmart his pursuer. The gunman would expect him to move away from the house, and would probably go to the front door, allowing him the most direct path to pursue his injured prey. Jesus could be able to outsmart him by circling around to the back door, entering, and by the time his attacker realized what was happening, he would be able to arm himself and fight. It was a long shot, but it was the only chance that Jesus had at survival. As he staggered to his feet and limped back towards the house, no primal thoughts of fear invaded his mind, only the one-minded certainty of his course of actions. He tried to be as quiet as possible, staying low to the ground and lightening his steps, but the child’s crying gave him away with its continuous wailing. Jesus wrapped the blanket tighter to stifle the sound. If only he could get to the gun that lay inside.
I’ve found my focal point.
The hallway stretched miles ahead of him, leagues beyond the kitchen that led to the back yard.
It was only a few meters, but it felt like a marathon’s distance away. Time stretched and distorted similarly, seeming to slow down to a crawl. Seconds became hours and Jesus begged his body to comply with his requests to move farther towards his goals, his leg protesting all the way.
“You’ll never make it, fool,” Said The Other, goading over him.
”Watching me,” Jesus spit out as he ran, full sprint to the weapon that lay within his view at the bottom of the stairs. His leg failed and broke like a twig, splintering into two halves, causing his body to hit the floor, but he twisted at the last moment to angle himself in such a way that he didn’t hit it dead on.
He fell on his side, as to not land directly on top of the screaming child. Dropping the bundle, he began crawling on his hands and knees towards the gun, which was only feet away now. Just out of his grasp.
“It’s time to pay your dues,” Leroy said, hovering above him ominously. Suddenly, everyone was there. Rodrigo, Andrea, John, Juan, The Other, and the whole host of characters that haunted his darkest dreams, which were now about to become reality at the apex of his life.
Not now! Not here! I won’t let this happen.
Jesus dove for the gun in a renewed attempt to spare his life and the life of his son. Everything in his being compelled him, every muscle fiber tensing and every dream and aspiration, every kiss from Andrea and every article he wrote to advocate for love, peace, and understanding, every single synapse of his being exploding in blind desperation as he leapt towards the gun, but the shotgun blast ended all of it.
There was a quiet absolution in the certainty of death, a chemical trick that your body plays on you when its vital organ begin their death throes. It was the end. The birdshot had severed his spinal cord, punctured his lungs, and cut into his heart. With only seconds of life left, his mind flooded with dimethyltryptamine, giving him an overwhelming sense of peace and acceptance. Death was not a certainty, but a reality. It accepted him into its open arms. Jesus could feel the sunshine of the afterlife on his soul, and his mother’s beckoning call. Finally, he could be together. He could be as one with his mother, his father, and his bride. It was not something to fight any more, but something to celebrate. His vision faded to a blissful, pure white, white as the snow that fell on November the 17th, white as the innocence of his son, an all-consuming, all-understanding, omnipotent white. Jesus rest his head on the floor one last time as his own blood pooled up from under him. He could rest now. It was all over. His eyes began to shut as life waned, but his gaze could not escape falling on the firearm that lay only inches from his face. His final thought echoed in his vacant mind, an observation that would have once been significant in some faraway place and time.
It’s the exact same make and model as my gun.