HE HAD LIT HIS THIRD CIGARETTE since arriving at Lake Huntington that morning.

Gomez stood on the burnt stilled boardwalk dock, looking below at the sunken floatplanes. He discerned that the place was attacked by the authorities, less than 8 hours ago, at night...

Reeves must have escaped when that happened or before — or at least — there would be blood trails.

Gomez delayed coming over after Li Chi's call from Mexico, for a reason — he had furtively rounded up some old acquaintances outside the AOG so that they could find the woman in a coma and demand their Jensen's ransom — and furthermore, he needed this gig which would get him back into his feet — to fund the capital, to revive his former crystal-meth business.

Gomez was in Tombscradle since he was eleven — arrested for couriering crystal-meth from LA to Texas — but was caught on the road during a shootout at a boarder-police roadblock. He was later thrown into the other side of the fence with Ramirez's Hispanics gang clan in prison, where he spent most of his days playing soccer.

He could not put a face to Reeves, who came in with the White orphans a year later to Tombscradle, for Cory's semen milking program. He also learnt Reeves had his heroic fame during the Preacher's insurgence by taking down a SWAT Blackhawk — it was later rumoured too in the Mojave Desert, that he was also related to the infamous Killer-Cop Jensen. But, Gomez was acquainted seeing the fat one — Big Joe from the mug-shot on Jensen's reward TV announcements...

Big Joe used to move with another nonentity all-White group in prison, who wanted to be known in TC as the Wesleyans. They were some learned morosoph who thought they were different than the rest because they were the educated ones. They also did things that defied the Latinos too, like deliberately playing football on their own turf, while the rest of the Hispanics played soccer — Gomez hated them and their ways, reverberated their slurs while they gathered on their side of the fenced enclosure...

'...some carousing faggots that act like wiggers, to be cool in prison.'

If it was not for the warden's fences of 'divide and conquer' — he would have killed some of those White bastards — then, along with Hajja's Niggers at the further end, who were also separated by another balustrade.

Then the revolutionary riot broke later at Tombscradle, in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert — the Preacher liberated them all out of the detested prison walls and took them to the wilderness. Gomez was then a nonentity foot soldier for God's Army when they later fought and lost The Battle of New Orleans against Cory's army.

He then escaped back to LA — with the rest of the surviving Hispanics.

Gomez had since been in hapless hiding, still taking orders from the remaining of the surviving members of the Council of 13, who were preparing for a new battle — this time around, it would be in his own turf in LA.

In times of war, the demand was greater when the meth supplies, in the pipelines were cut — in which, he wanted to profit from...

Now as a free-male Chicano, he felt disappointed that despite the New Orleans defeat, their leader Ramirez had remained in the AOG legion — instead of linking with the street drug-market like they once did for the Cartel. Gomez felt it was futile to remain any longer in the Preacher's army, and fighting an inane cause against the superior armed dominatrix — in the name of an imaginary god that he did not believe in any more.

He wanted to get back into the lucrative crystal meth-business with his vato — Santiago Isidro — where they both once ran a meth-lab in LA, before Gomes's own distribution run had gone bust, after his arrest in Texas. Their former lab in LA was later raided by the DEA after that — but Santiago Isidro managed to escape the incursion, and he stayed in the dark ever since...

After losing the Battle of New Orleans, Gomez had secretly hooked up with Isidro and some of his pandilleros since returning back to L.A. He had discussed his big aspirations and the possibility of using the Jensen's huge reward money, as his investment to get back into the LA drug dealing business. His cousin sister, the chemist grad was also keen to start cooking again.

There would be big bucks to be made, once their product start hitting the streets again — and he longed to be an ambitious player once again in L.A., competing with the current Russians mobs, who were dealing the drug monopoly in major cities.

***

He caught the sight of the boys coming over from the smoking ruins, of the cabins — that was once occupied by the late Jamaicans. The three of them looked more bored than disappointed, after their two hours' drive from L.A. — Santiago Isidro spoke in Spanish...

"Nothing Gomez, no bodies anywhere."

Gomez lit up a fat Burrito and passed the joint to him. He laughed at their thwarted faces looking back at him, and he replied in fey to them in English.

"That means to say that they are still alive, vato!"

But Isidro responded back in disgruntlement to him...

"My Cholos think your big-dreams are a waste of time — and you must be loco ever since springing out of prison! Hey! you are a Preacher's AOG rebel, but now, you want to extort from that killer-cop Jensen — come on, Gomez, this can be another trap by those cops — let's call it off now, let's all head back to L.A."

Gomez comprehended their hesitation — the boys — probably had their private calumny discussion behind his back...

He also understood that it had been six years that they had been out of the drug game — and now his homies were reluctant to jump on the wagon since the incursion on their lab, by Agent Renee Osborne from the DEA many years ago —and Osborne was the same daredevil woman — who had single-handedly crippled the entire drug-running families across America, with her daring Federal raids, in many Cartel operating territories.

The high profiled Special Agent Renee Osborne was later featured — on the TV program 'Guinness Book of Records — the Medusa edition' in the History Channel — for her daring feats, with the most successful raids by any DEA agent in departmental history.

It was until months ago, when Osborne finally met her own fate — in the hands of the equally daring, and perilous Chako Hernandez — who had grown and bred, by the LA's old school street OG laws — with the L.A. Chicanos.

He had heroically used a grenade launcher to kill the legendary Osborne and her DEA agents — during a hair-raising pursuit in the infamous drug street Battle of Columbus, Ohio.

Gomez bore two tattoos on his chest, inked in Tombscradle — one was his die-hard Hollywood iconic character named Machete — and the other tattoo inked closer to his heart, was his real-life hero — Chako Hernandez of the LA Chicanos — whose notorious exploits would never be featured in any of the female propaganda TV shows — such as on 'The Guinness Book of Records' series.

But it was sad where, the legendary LA Chicano's gun-for-hire gangster was too killed that very same day — Hernandez was shot down by the super-cop Roberta Jensen — who later become an overnight sensation, for recovering one of the biggest hauls of cocaine to date — with street worth in the millions.

It was also rumoured in the drug circle that a diminutive part of the millions of dollar worth of the coke, belonging to the Russian gangland, The Oligarch Daughters of America that had gone missing — which only meant that — Roberta Jensen had pilfered part of that stash — and probably would have sold it in the black-market...

"Hey Santi, this is money on the floor if we find that woman in a coma! So why the fuck go back to LA empty-handed — when we can and will demand double, or even triple — the amount of the ransom offered? That fucking Jensen will have to pay us — or else her bitch-sister dies!

"Come on hombres, we can be back in the business — if we stick to the plan. The trail is still hot here...

"We can find those rogue deserters — with that vegetable-brained sister of that God-fucking-damn cop out there if we move in now!" The adamant, loquacious and stoned Gomez — hollered out at them — to pursue the lead given by Li Chi, for their own personal gains.

The two battered cars soon backed — one of the tires crushed the scattered skull of Capt. Howdy on its path — forthwith heading off, to search for Laura Jensen.