Chapter 121: Todo Claro
Our small assault team was further divided into two squads—mine and Guzman’s.
As always, I was at the head of the snake. My squad would lead, while Guzman’s would be the tail. For that reason, Medina was with me—to fulfill his role as our guide and also to provide skilled firepower.
I looked at the determined faces in my squad before we crossed over. They were mostly young men—some had never even bedded a woman. Yet they looked older now, grizzled and hardened by the smoke, dirt, and grime of battle. The chaos in Kasily and the fighting over the past hour had aged them more than any peace-time soldier’s career ever could. This was experience—bloody, terrifying, and real.
I had chosen the best men for this task.
Finally, I ordered us to move. We crossed the barricade through its leftmost part, where a pile of broken chairs had been temporarily moved to make a path.
We kept to the wall, rifles up, eyes fixed ahead toward the cluster of houses on the eastern side. If anyone spotted us before we could make a break for the presidencia, it would be someone looking down our alley from the opposite side.
To our surprise, no one had noticed the Cazadores switching sides. Perhaps Vicente and Cristobal were laying down enough distracting fire. Or maybe it was the fences, the scattered carts and crates, or the dimness in the alleys that shielded our movements. Whatever the case, we were still ghosts in the street.
The wall we were leaning against was stained with old, dried blood—now brown and flaking—and peppered with fresh bullet holes. Some of the blood looked recent, almost crimson. This must have been where members of the principalia had been cut down. The splatters, the spray patterns, and the drops on the ground reminded me of what we’d seen in the huts of Gasan. Machetes had done their grisly work here.
We had killed enough pulajanes to know what they were capable of. I was no longer afraid—only angry. Angry and eager to return the favor.
Less than a few meters to the south stood the two-story presidencia municipal building. The windows and doors were wide open, but Medina’s report seemed accurate. The building was not busy. It looked like a house hastily abandoned with all the clatter—but it wasn’t.
At the left-side window on the ground floor, an armed fighter leaned on the windowsill. He clutched his rifle close to his chest as he worriedly looked across the presidencia’s southern flank, where Dimalanta was giving them a taste of biblical fire and brimstone. I wouldn’t even be surprised if his men breached the defenses in no time.