Pandora's Temple Read Online Free

old yellow school bus with rust spreading upward from its decaying rocker panels. Morales himself, arguably the world’s most infamous drug dealer, held court upon a covered veranda, enclosed by four gunmen and seated in what looked like a rocking chair next to a younger dark-haired beauty who could have been an actress.
    McCracken and Sal Belamo climbed out of the SUV into the scorching heat, the sensation worsened by the sudden loss of air-conditioning in favor of stagnant air that was almost too heavy to breathe. The sky above was an endless blue ribbon, fostering an illusion that the sun itself was vibrating madly.
    McCracken and Belamo submitted to the thorough, wholly anticipated pat-down, which turned up nothing. Then six more guards escorted them to the veranda and beckoned for them to continue up the three stairs for an audience with the man who many said was the most powerful in Mexico.
    “So I understand you want to get our business done early, Mr. Franks,” Morales said, rising in the semblance of a greeting.
    “I happened to be in the area,” McCracken told him, “with time on my hands.”
    “We had an arrangement.”
    “We still do. Only the schedule has changed. But if you wish to rethink that arrangement . . .”
    Morales sat back down next to the much younger woman who flinched when he settled in alongside her, filling out the entire width of the chair. He was overweight, hardly resembling the most common shots circulated of him from younger days by the US intelligence community. Withdrawing to a life of isolation wrought by his many enemies had clearly left Morales with a taste for too much food and wine to accompany his vast power in the region. Judging by the thick blotches of perspiration dotting the cartel leader’s shirt, McCracken doubted any of the buildings here were even equipped with air-conditioning.
    Morales’s hair was thinning in contrast to the thick mustache drooping over his upper lip. He was dressed casually in linen slacks and a near matching shirt unbuttoned all the way down to the start of the belly that protruded over his belt. A light sheen of perspiration coated his face, and he breathed noisily through his mouth.
    He took the dark-haired woman’s right hand in his while he stroked her hair with the left. “This is my wife, Elena. But she has borne me no children. Such a disappointment.”
    With that, he bent one of the woman’s fingers back until McCracken heard a snap. He flinched as the woman gasped and bit down the pain, slumping in her chair.
    “Everyone is replaceable, eh, Señor Franks?” Morales sneered, seeming to relish the agony he’d caused his wife.
    McCracken bit back his anger, keeping his eyes away from the woman who was now choking back sobs. “Men like us aren’t, Señor Morales. And I thought coming early was in both our best interests.”
    “And why is that?” Morales asked him.
    “It stopped you from the bother of staging a welcome for me.”
    “I would have enjoyed making such a gesture, amigo.”
    “You and I, Señor Morales, we’re cautious men pursuing mutual interests. You need my network to provide you with new routes to bring your product into the United States and I need exclusive distribution of that product to eliminate my competition in select markets. I imagine we can agree on that much.”
    “You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t already,” Morales said, his eyes straying to the briefcase still chained to Belamo’s wrist. “You see that school bus over there?”
    “You mean the one your soldiers are sleeping against?”
    Morales ignored his remark. “I started my career as a runner using that bus to bring drugs into your country. I would recruit local children and pay them a dollar to play students heading to America on field trips. I keep the bus here as a reminder of my humble roots. And even men like us must never lose sight of how hard we worked to get where we are, si ?”
    “For sure,” McCracken acknowledged,