Alfonso Segundo and "El Bocho"

Nat introduced the target like a used car salesman.

“Staring from the left, we have Alfonso Segundo or Alfonso “The Second” if we’re speaking to an exclusively Anglo audience.”

He was speaking to his assistant on the grounds of a hidden terrorist prison camp in the sweaty confines of South Florida.

“Now this guy, he’s got some balls. He embezzled money that Reagan had left over for the Contras, money he siphoned into an off-shore account. He surfaced in Asuncion a few years later, and the moment the trace connected with our boys in Miami, he was ours. Fred thinks this guy could rock the Prime Time news shows, maybe even Meet the Press if we can spring him."

Walking through rows of human cages, with men in orange suits awaiting trial or already convicted, they made their way down to the end of the line, into another corridor of fences. After the third guard accepted another fresh one hundred dollar bill, he closed the gate and admitted the two men into the inner sanctum, reserved for the more despicable criminals and reprobates.

The last guard stood in the immediate center of the cell, which served as a reception area for the last section, the same one that held “El Segundo”.

Nat reached out to the guard, burnt in the sun like the stocky hams that swung like prisoners on the gallows from the market in Alfonso's native Madrid, with a photo and accompanying paperwork, detailing the crimes and sideburns of Alfonso, with four one hundred dollar bills tucked to the underside of the photo, connected by a rubber band.

The eight by ten glossy reflected off of the guard’s Aviator sunglasses, refusing to let in even a scrap of light. The guard stared at the picture and dropped the money as if it was a worthless receipt. His mustache twitched for a moment, anticipating the conflict.

Nat sat down on the lone bench in the tank, adjusting his suit slightly as he stared up at the face of the man who prevented his latest Terrorist superstar from entering the country, even with the customary bribes and detailed paperwork.

“Even with your dirty money and fake bullshit forms, Alfonso still isn’t innocent.”

The guard just stood there, baking in the sun. His tanned forarms guarding the fence behind him, flanked on either side by the presence of two armed guardsman. This guy was the leader, and he didn’t need to carry a weapon.

Nat was troubled by this, but never let it show, for when he was down in the pits, it was better to keep you wits about you, and not lose hope.

Forty million people turned in each week to the shows that Nat’s bosses produced, and he’d be damned if he was going to let some morally upright bureaucrat change that.

“Bribes don’t just come from me your honor; they come from a higher source.”

Nat gesticulated with his index finger to the tower that was ensconced in barbed wire. “There’s no sense in acting like this is the first time you and I have conducted business in this way.”

“Senor, there is no way that I can stare down footage of Alfonso Segundo exchanging half a billion dollars worth of dirty money in Asuncion, a government which I needn’t remind you couldn’t afford a police force to hold back the bloodiest revolution since the country’s recent release from the stranglehold of the last piece of shit dictator that came in full of false promises.”

Nat was getting fidgety. There was no speaking to him, this prick, and he knew that he would have to call up a favor from someone who spoke in clipped speech over forbidden phone lines, a person capable of canceling someone’s life in a matter of syllables. It was time to call in El Bocho.