Free Target Deck - 02 by Jack Murphy

rapport with people who the American government and the cartels would never touch.”
    “We'll see how it works. These guys could be an asset to us and help act as a stabilizing force once Samruk pulls out of the region.”
    “We also took a prisoner,” Fedorchenko reminded him about the man he had knocked out on the submarine.
    “Have you gotten anything out of him yet?”
    “He told us that the guy you shot in the face on the submarine was Captain Nemo himself. This clown that you brought back was his right hand man. He's Colombian of course and doesn't know the local players.”
    “That intel guy I told you about should be here soon,” Frank interrupted.
    “Who?”
    “You don't remember me telling you about my boy Aghassi?”
    “No, I'm afraid not Frank.”
    “He'll be here shortly,” Frank said knowingly. “Aghassi could find a whore in a Wahhabi Mosque. Once he starts working the intel piece we will be able to build a real target deck.”
    “Our other prisoner did start naming some other local heavies,” Pat added. “They are low hanging fruit but it's a place to start.”
    “I don't really care if it's a dry hole at this point. We need to keep up the momentum while we work on developing some better targets and start filling out this chart,” Deckard said pointing to the cartel organization chart. There were a lot of blank slots. “Sergeant Major?”
    “Second Platoon is conducting rehearsals and Pre-Combat Inspections as we speak,” the Kazakh reported.
    “This isn't a time sensitive target so roll when the men are ready.”
    “Understood.”
    “Sounds good, Sergeant Major. Make sure the men are getting at least five hours of sleep between guard and combat rotations.”
    “We are working out the schedule,” he responded in his thick Russian accent. Korgan had been the first Samruk International member that Deckard had met when he arrived in Kazakhstan for the first time and had liked the man immediately. There had been a Serbian Executive Officer whom he had a different opinion about, but that problem had been resolved.
    “There is one more thing,” Cody said in a hushed tone.
    “What's that?” Deckard said prompting him.
    “The nacrocorridos about Jimenez.”
    “I told him that it is nothing to worry about,” Samantha said shaking her head. “We already know that he's an asshole. We don't need to waste time worrying about his crappy folk music.”
    “These songs are unique,” Cody insisted.
    The narcocorridos were type of Mexican folk music that had become massively popular throughout the country and even into parts of the United States. The songs glorified the violence of the cartels and extolled the virtues of the quick thinking gangsters as they outwitted the authorities. They portrayed cartel leaders as Robin Hood type characters that the peasant class could relate too. They might have sounded silly to gringo ears but they were no laughing matter in Mexican culture. Gangsters even hired musicians to write songs about them, the most powerful cartel leaders paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a hit tune composed from a romanticized version of their life story.
    “The nacrocorridos that Jimenez had made about him are flat out creepy,” Cody went on without pausing for breath. “They talk about him skinning people alive, raping dead bodies, weird shit man. Some of them are even about how he worships the devil. The songs refer to him as The Beast.”
    “He is trying to make people scared of him,” Samantha stated.
    “I don't think so. These folk songs are supposed to help the locals relate to cartel leader. They are to make him popular in the eye of the public.”
    “I don't think songs like this would make him very popular amongst a very Catholic Mexican public,” Deckard said.
    “I'm just sayin',” Cody continued. “Watch your back out there.”

    With the briefing adjourned, Deckard followed Frank out into the courtyard. Everyone was quiet for a moment and all of