The Drug Lord's Daughter (John Standard Book 3)

Book summary

In the tranquil beach town of Zihuatanejo, a food blogger's murder draws John Standard into a dangerous investigation. Despite his desire for a peaceful life, Standard's search leads him to the daughter of a drug lord and a partnership with a Shakespeare-loving DEA agent, resulting in a deadly pursuit of truth.

THE DRUG LORD'S DAUGHTER is a gripping thriller filled with intrigue and suspense.

Excerpt from The Drug Lord's Daughter (John Standard Book 3)

Three weeks earlier

Zihuatanejo, Mexico

A Spanish version of Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff seeped out of the van’s dashboard radio. A half block up the street, a skinny, inbred dog dived headfirst into an overturned garbage can, using its paws to dig through empty Styrofoam containers and greasy paper sacks. In the van’s back seat, two tequila-guzzling cholos stared out the tinted side windows, dumbly waiting for orders from the driver.

Annoyed by the whole scene, Santiago Perez drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then angrily turned off the radio. Donna Summer quickly gave way to the drone of golf-ball-sized insects and the irritating hum of a flickering streetlight. Perez looked at his watch: three a.m. Good enough, he thought. Too late for revelers home from a night of drinking. Too early for workers trudging off to menial jobs at hotels, restaurants, and panderias. The norteamericana tourists were still six hours away from spending another day soaking up sun and beer, trading gossip, and trying to decide where to go to dinner.

As good as everything seemed, Perez still wanted to shoot holes in the windshield. He flexed his neck and shoulders to relieve the tension. This was not his kind of job. Not having enough time to double check everything made him nervous. One drive by the house was all he could manage, but he had no choice. She wanted it done now. The woman who hired him and the two in the back seat was rich and demanding. She was too much like her father, or at least she tried to be.

They needed to get the job done tonight, or there would be hell to pay. “Matarlos a todos,” she’d said. Fine, he thought. They would kill them all. That’s what they all said. She was no different. There was no reason for her to be. She held all the cards … and all the money.

Perez had parked the ten-year-old van on the shoulder of a narrow, cobblestone street next to a scum-filled canal that trickled through town before oozing into the tranquil bay a quarter mile away. During the day, the benign street served as a waiting area for little white taxis. Happy-go-lucky drivers sat in the shade hoping to pick up fares at the boutique hotels and modest-priced condos two blocks up the hill, the ones offering bay views, sun-soaked patios, and lobby bars serving sangria at sunset.

But there were no taxis or tourists at that hour. No nothing except the cheap plastic streamers hanging over the street, an abandoned car on the curb along a weed-filled lot, and the persistent odor of rotting garbage. And that damned mutt continued digging through the garbage can on a relentless search for some moldy treat.

Perez pulled the pistol out of his shoulder holster, dropped out the clip, then jammed it back in place. Three years earlier, he’d taken the gun off the dead body of a soldier from a rival cartel. The words “Mark 23 .45 caliber Auto” were engraved on the barrel. He wasn’t sure what all of it meant. He only cared that it felt good in his hand and bullets came out when he pulled the trigger. He looked over his shoulder at the two cholos—Eladio and Miguel—still slumped dumbly in the back seat. He trusted them just enough to do what they were told, as long as it wasn’t too complicated. “Let’s get this over with,” he said while screwing a silencer onto the barrel of the pistol.

Eladio, tall with a shaved head, wore black leather pants, cowboy boots, and a black western-style shirt with snaps instead of buttons. The dress was the norte style of the Mexican states along the Texas border.

He was three months away from turning twenty years old, a milestone that Perez figured Eladio would probably never see.

Miguel was short, a few years older, and muscular with a crew cut, camouflage pants, and a faded blue work shirt. A grinning human skull adorned the front of the sweat-stained bandana tied around his head, biker style.

Image was everything to Eladio and Miguel. It meant nothing to Perez. He knew they were little more than narco wannabes, half-breed drones from the colonias of Juarez or Monterrey eager to move up to the Knights Templar, Los Zetas, or one of Mexico’s other vicious drug cartels—if they lived that long. The looks on their faces told him they were more interested in the money and the women that it bought than about what they had to do to earn it. If they thought for one second that they could be dead tomorrow, neither showed it. The future doesn’t matter to those who don’t have one.

Without a word, Eladio slid open the side door, then looked up and down the street before getting out. Miguel followed him out, and together, they walked to the back of the van, moving with the arrogance of those who knew that someone would die tonight but it wouldn’t be them. Perez could only shake his head and try not to laugh. He had seen dozens of Eladios and Miguels come and go. They were like goldfish: feed them, but don’t name them. So, what if they ended up dead in a ditch, hanging from a bridge or buried in a shallow grave in the desert. They wouldn’t be the first and surely not the last. Not that it mattered.

There were plenty of others eager to take their places. More cholos. More wannabes. More poor bastards who considered the high risk of death better than the low life they were living. Their only other choice was to sneak over the border to the United States to work in the fields of California and Oregon or wash dishes in Denver and Chicago. Eladio and Miguel, Perez knew, were not that ambitious.

Eladio opened the back doors of the van. He pulled out two AK-47s, handing one of the assault rifles to Miguel. He looked around again before closing the van door. With the rifles held down at their sides, they looked at the driver one more time. Perez nodded and held up his hand with fingers spread. The two men silently moved off—Eladio back down the street to the left and around the corner, Miguel off to the right and up the hill. Watching, Perez sighed. At least they looked like they knew what they were doing.

Perez would be five minutes behind them. They had agreed that was all the time needed to make everything ready for him. Earlier, they’d driven by the house, checking out the surrounding homes and shops, looking into parked cars, trying to gauge if police patrolled the place on a schedule. They skipped a second pass. There was no time, and they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. Even though the small, cramped neighborhood was like an asilo de ancianos—a nursing home—he knew a white van with Sinaloa plates would eventually attract attention. He hadn’t seen any police since late afternoon. There would be no problems as long as they followed the plan, quickly took care of business, and moved on.

Bang. Bang. Done deal. Trato hecho.

After that, fade into the city for a few days. Hang out with whores. Get drunk. Stay out of sight. When things returned to normal, as they always did, the streets would once again fill with cars, taxis, and buses. Then they would quietly disappear north on the highway to Puerto Vallarta, then back to the more familiar sights of central Mexico.

Santiago Perez knew the drill. No questions, follow orders, kill without remorse, get paid, repeat.

Still, something nagged at Perez. He was uneasy. Maybe it was the place. He had no experience in Mexican beach towns. Too many Americans and Canadians. Too many tank tops, plaid shorts, and flip-flops. Too many sunburned faces and muffin tops. Too many locals carrying trays and wearing aprons. He preferred small cantinas with cheap tequila and cheaper whores. He looked around for the hundredth time, thinking he might as well be on the moon.

He lit a cigarette, leaned against the front of the van, and blew smoke out into the night air. He ran his finger along the deep scar on the side of his face, a souvenir from a long-ago bar fight in Nuevo Laredo with a member of a rival cartel. He escaped with his life. The other guy died on the cantina floor, sliced navel to chest and coughing up blood.

Perez looked at his watch and sighed. Time to go. Tossing the cigarette over the concrete wall into the canal, he opened the car door and pulled a dusty bottle of Hornitos out from under the front seat. He took one long drink, grimaced, and then gulped down another. Putting the bottle back, he checked the street in both directions. In the distance, a dog barked. The only light a dim halo from the humming streetlamp at the corner. Its meager twin flickered halfway up the hill. Together, they cast faint shadows on the inexpensive hotels advertising albercas, TV, and free Wi-Fi.

The closed-up restaurants on the street in front of him and around the corner were dark. Menus taped to shuttered front doors offered fish tacos, shrimp three ways, and cold beer. Cheap flat-screen TVs hung from the ceiling over the plastic tables and chairs. Across the street, ten-foot terra cotta-colored walls topped with razor wire surrounded a condo complex with locked gates. Perez sensed that hyper-vigilant snowbirds were either patrolling the inside or sleeping in air-conditioned comfort. He smiled to himself. Did they really think they were safe? Did they think that someone like him couldn’t just kick in the wooden gate and kill them all in their sleep?

This was Mexico. No one was safe.

He checked his gun one more time, more out of habit than need, then started walking up the hill. The small, one-story house was one block up and around the corner for two more blocks. It had peeling orange paint, an iron, spike-topped fence, and a badly chipped concrete arch over a metal gate. Two other houses on the same block had identical paint and design, but he had double-checked the address. He was headed to the right place, Eladio and Miguel already there waiting for him.

The closer he got, the more wary he became. The persistent fear of something going wrong rattled in his head. Setting traps or getting caught in them had taught him always to be on guard. That was why he had survived this long. No way could it all end on a job that was little more than a “viaje rutinario,” a milk run. Besides, if something was wrong, then either Eladio or Miguel would have come back to tell him. At least that was what they were supposed to do.

Still, the gnawing anxiety in his gut wouldn’t go away.

At the corner, he checked the streets and buildings around him, looking for lights in windows or sounds from the dark buildings. He walked past a closed tienda, two more shuttered restaurants, and a small hotel, all encased in padlocked iron gates. He crossed the silent intersection at the end of the block, moved to the left, and eased through the shadows.

Thirty feet away from the house he was looking for he spotted Eladio. He was standing in the darkness of a flower-covered arbor over the house’s small front porch. When Perez walked through the gate, Eladio tilted his head toward the rear of the house, the signal that Miguel was standing guard in the backyard.

So far so good, Perez thought as he followed the short path to the porch and stopped.