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CHAPTER 1

Ciudad México (CDMX)
Mexico City, Mexico

As he tore through the dense traffic on his stolen Yamaha FZ6R, Phoenix resolved to become the hunter.
“You ready?” he shouted to his passenger as he cut between two cars driving side by side and holding up a conga line of traffic.
Ximena Herrera patted his chest with her left hand to signal she was good to go and then pulled her arm back so she could operate the Uzi submachine gun with two hands.
The female CNI agent on the pillion seat still worked for the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, an agency similar to the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The difference was that CNI focused inward on its own countrymen, whereas CIA had a mandate, which it didn’t always heed, to look outward toward other foreign nations.
At the next light, Phoenix pointed out the target vehicle, a red Renault Duster with one man inside, approaching from a cross street. The Renault turned right and sped away from the light, unknowingly headed in the same direction as the two riders chasing it.
Phoenix smiled at their perfect timing.
Their target, a corrupt U.S. State Department investigator named Damian Collins, had just left his hotel near the Felipe Ángeles International Airport to meet with his confidential informant (CI) within the Sinaloa Cartel. Ximena’s intelligence agency had given her access to Collin’s schedule, and his CI also worked for the CNI.
Overhead, the traffic light turned green, and impatient drivers blared their horns to get the line moving. Phoenix accelerated away from the light and quickly caught up with Collins’ Renault, which had stopped at the next light.
“Get ready!” Phoenix shouted. “This is it!”
Ximena had already unzipped the gym bag draped over her shoulder for easy access, and she gripped the Uzi inside. Ximena knew the firearm was loaded and ready, but she flicked her thumb over the safety for good measure, ensuring the selector switch was still set to automatic. Finding it was as she’d left it, Ximena pulled the gun from the bag and hefted it in a two-handed grip.
Phoenix slowed the Yamaha and carefully maneuvered between stopped vehicles, coming up on the driver’s side of Collins’ Renault Duster. He had no qualms about the hit they were about to perform. Collins was a bad guy doing bad shit.
Taking a page from Griselda Blanco’s playbook, Phoenix and Ximena were about to execute a motorcycle hit just like the Cocaine Godmother. Griselda had invented and perfected this style of execution to personally murder rivals, including her first husband and anyone else who might have looked at her the wrong way. She’d ride on the passenger seat of a motorcycle, have the rider pull up alongside the target vehicle, and then spray the victim with lead.
As Phoenix rolled to a stop at the driver’s window of the Renault, Collins glanced over at the pair of helmeted riders.
The investigator’s eyes bulged at the sight of the Uzi as Ximena lifted it and fired. Bullets shattered glass, tore through sheet metal, and shredded the seats.
Collins took most of the thirty-round magazine to the face, neck, and upper torso. There wasn’t much left of his lower jaw or the left side of his skull. Phoenix saw the driver was dead before Ximena finished emptying the mag. However, he let her squirt off all the rounds as he didn’t want to ride away with her still firing and accidentally hit any unintended targets.
The momentary roar from the fully automatic weapon died away, and the screams of other drivers and nearby pedestrians filled the air.
Ximena stuck the gun back in her bag and yelled, “Go! Go! Go!”
Phoenix dumped the clutch and raced away from the crime scene on one wheel.
Zipping through the city, Phoenix used multiple turns to check his mirrors for anyone who might have followed them away from the drive-by shooting. While he was no longer a clandestine officer with CIA, his decades of training at the agency and in Army Special Forces were still deeply ingrained in his subconscious.
He couldn’t turn off the training but could leave the government bureaucracy behind.
Phoenix didn’t slow until they were at least a mile from the crime scene. Phoenix knew CDMX had over sixty thousand surveillance cameras, several mobile surveillance units, and a significant police presence, but he didn’t expect any trouble. Preparation was key to these kinds of operations, and he’d avoided most of the cameras and all the cops.
To further throw off any investigation, Phoenix and Ximena had dressed to pass as members of the Black Dogs Motorcycle Club, an outlaw biker gang with a heavy presence in Mexico. In fact, Phoenix had stolen the Yamaha FZ6R and an older model Dodge truck from members of the Black Dogs several days ago in planning for the hit on Collins.
Phoenix hadn’t picked the Black Dogs by accident. He’d been tangling with the bikers for the better part of a year. The Black Dogs functioned as one of the primary conduits for contraband through Mexico for criminal mastermind Terry Martin, better known to the CIA by his code name, Dragonfly.
Martin was the real target Phoenix was after, and the Black Dogs were a toehold into Martin’s world. Destroying them and wreaking havoc on Martin’s intelligence and criminal networks was the best way for Phoenix to draw the criminal mastermind out into the open. He had planned to provide the Black Dogs with a better source of illegal weapons and had set up a meeting between the bikers and Cyrus Devlin, the potential arms supplier. However, The Nose, the bikers’ leader, had gotten wind of the scam and used a shoulder-fired missile to blow up Devlin’s plane. In the running gun battle that ensued, Phoenix and his team had cut down The Nose and ten of his henchmen.
Without their leader, the Black Dogs were in a weakened state. The Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and several local gangs had moved into the Black Dog’s territory.
Phoenix had taken advantage of the chaos. His and Ximena’s simple plan was to pin the murder of Collins on the Black Dogs and let the corrupt Mexican government claim that Collins had been an unwitting victim of a cartel turf war.
Damian Collins wasn’t Phoenix’s first target choice and not even the worst on the list provided to him by Venezuelan president Evelyn Acevedo. He was just the easiest to get to. The hit was the equivalent of a symbolic kneecapping, the act of shooting or maiming an opponent’s knee. The hit wasn’t a crippling blow. It was, however, intended to send a message to Dragonfly that Phoenix was back in the game, lurking in the shadows and ready to strike.
Phoenix pulled the Yamaha into an abandoned garage and switched off the engine. He and Ximena climbed off the motorcycle. After he pulled the garage door down, they stretched their legs. Their ride had only been fifteen minutes from start to finish, but their muscles were tense from the adrenaline dump caused by the hit and rapid escape from the scene.
Over the past couple of months, the former CIA case officer had racked up criminal charges like a lottery winner on a shopping spree—theft, murder, illegal arms dealing, carrying an illegal firearm, and corrupting of a government official.
Ximena leaned in and kissed him.
“Let’s go to Playa Zipolite and get a room overlooking the ocean,” Phoenix suggested with a grin.
She returned his lecherous gaze. “You’d have to put a ball gag in my mouth to keep the neighbors from hearing me moan.”
“I like to hear you,” he said, stripping off his outlaw biker gear.
Maybe he was wrong, Phoenix decided—the government official was corrupting him.
Phoenix had thought he knew a few bedroom moves, but Ximena had taken it to a new level. And it had been just the distraction he’d needed after his former lover and CIA handler, Leslie Connelly, had rejected him again. Phoenix figured he might have to use two hands if he were to count the number of times she’d turned him out.
And as fun as the fling with Ximena had been, Phoenix knew she was about to reject his offer.
“You know I can’t go,” Ximena said, stripping down to her underwear before adding her riding garb to the trash bag Phoenix was shoving his clothes into.
They paused and stared at each other, smiles brightening their faces. Feeling the euphoric high of accomplishing a mission, Phoenix grabbed the CNI officer and kissed her as he pulled her into his embrace. Ximena’s arms entwined behind his neck, and soon they were in the truck bed, burning off their excess energy.
He wasn’t one to jump into bed with every woman who came along, but Ximena made him feel like a giddy schoolboy with a crush, wanting to tear her clothes off at the drop of a hat. She made him feel wanted and alive.
Twenty minutes later, the two operatives had on new clothes, distinctly different from what they’d worn to impersonate the Black Dogs. Phoenix retained one of the club’s cuts for later use, stuffing it into a bag he strapped to the back of the Yamaha motorcycle.
Ximena got into the stolen Dodge truck and started the engine. Phoenix leaned through the open driver’s window and kissed her.
She smiled. “I want to go with you more than anything. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I know,” he said.
“Good. Well, someone has to take charge of the investigation into Collins’ death. I’m the best person to steer it in the direction it needs to go.”
“I know,” Phoenix agreed.
They had decided on this course of action during the planning stages of their daring daylight execution of the corrupt U.S. official. The U.S. would send a team of CIA officers and FBI agents to investigate, and Ximena would volunteer to be their Mexican counterpart.
Phoenix opened the garage door, and Ximena backed the truck out of the building.
Moments later, Phoenix mounted the Yamaha and charged out of the city, heading south toward Oaxaca. He liked the mountain town’s vibrantly painted buildings, costume parades, food stalls, and little cafés tucked in narrow alleys dripping with flowering plants that filled the air with sweet perfume. Outside the city, the stunningly beautiful mountain roads had more curves than a sidewinder, making them perfect for motorcycle exploration.
For the past three months, Phoenix had made Oaxaca his base, immersing himself in the rich culture and getting to know the people. As a trained CIA case officer, winning friends and influencing people wasn’t hard. The agency taught their officers tricks to gain the confidence of others quickly, and one of Phoenix’s favorites was to let them talk about themselves and find a shared passion they could bond over. He liked to pick up the tab at restaurants and tip his servers handsomely. Over the years, he’d found that being kind and generous often won more friends than being a cheap braggadocio.
It helped that Phoenix looked like a local with his brown skin and black hair due to his mother being Colombian and his father’s mixed Comanche and European ancestry. And he could speak the language like a native.
His Latin roots had made him perfect for working for CIA, first as a gun bunny in the Special Activities Division and then transferring to the clandestine service’s Latin America Division.
When someone asked him about his background, Phoenix proudly told them he was a Texan. But he couldn’t argue when people joked that the best thing to come out of Texas was the interstate. He hadn’t been to his home state since he’d set fire to a frat house while trying to rescue a friend from being raped. The judge had given him a choice of jail or the Army, and eighteen-year-old Phoenix had wisely chosen to enter the military.
On the motorcycle ride from CDMX, Phoenix decided to move on from Oaxaca. He made a pit stop in the city to dump the Yamaha at a chop shop that would dissect the motorcycle into sellable parts. After getting rid of the vehicle he and Ximena had used for the hit on Collins, Phoenix walked to a storage building to retrieve the Husqvarna FE 501 he’d stashed there. The Husqvarna was also a motorcycle he’d stolen from the Black Dogs, and he’d ridden it almost every day during his Oaxaca occupation.
Rolling the dual sport motorcycle out of the shed, Phoenix fired it up. As the bike idled in the cooler evening air, Phoenix called his favorite hacker. When she came on the line, he said, “It’s done. Release the information.”
After a rattle of her keyboard, Carmen confirmed his request and said, “The information is in the wild.”
Phoenix ended the call and climbed on the bike, heading for the coast.
Like a snake slithering back under his rock, Phoenix would coil up and wait to strike again at an opportune time.

Publisher: Third Reef Publishing, LLC
Publication Date: March 5, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-9920981-2-9
Print Length: 294
File Size: 1MB
Language: English
Series Information: The John Phoenix Thrillers
Book: 5
Bisac: FIC002000 FICTION / Action & Adventure
FIC022090 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Private Investigators
FIC027260 FICTION / Romance / Action & Adventure
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