Chapter 656: Red Sea Fury (Part Six) (Patreon)

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Unlike the scant images in the newspapers, Hal and his companions, who had witnessed the massacre firsthand, stood before this gruesome and brutal scene, rendered speechless.

The slaughter orchestrated by the drug traffickers offered no details worth delving into. They had simply stormed into the village, indiscriminately firing upon any living creature and tossing all the corpses into the sea.

There were no bodies strewn about, no splatters of fresh blood; only a haunting silence enveloped the deserted village. Farming tools lay abandoned in the middle of the road, and judging from the bloodstains, it appeared that a farmer, en route to his fields, had been shot down.

Oliver, trembling, picked up a shard of tile from the ground, covered in blood and bearing a tiny fingerprint.

His eyes welled up as he turned to gaze at the soccer field outlined in the sand. When the drug traffickers had stormed into the village, the children had just finished drawing the soccer field, ready to start playing. They hadn't even had a chance to put down the tiles used for marking the field before being gunned down.

Arthur retrieved the blood-soaked soccer ball from the ground. He clenched his jaw, seemingly struggling to contain his sorrow and anger.

Hal descended from the roof, his tone somber. "We need to leave this place; the journalists are closing in. We can't risk being caught on camera."

"No, we need to see if there are any survivors. Perhaps... perhaps..." Oliver clenched his fists, still holding on to a glimmer of hope, but ultimately heeding Hal's guidance and heading towards the outskirts of the village.

With no forests or cover here, escape opportunities during the massacre had been slim. All of them understood this, and their hopes were minimal.

However, Hal had the advantage of being airborne, granting him a far superior vantage point. Suddenly, he noticed a slight movement in a poppy field nearby. His keen senses detected this anomaly, and he halted in his tracks.

Approaching the location, he descended to the ground and walked closer. Just as he peeled back a poppy leaf, a figure brandishing a machete lunged toward him.

While Hal could use his green energy to defend himself, the sight of his radiant aura prompted the machete-wielding figure to break down in tears and plead frantically in Spanish, "Devil! Devil! Oh God, save me, save us..."

Oliver and Arthur rushed over. Oliver, his voice quivering with excitement, said, "A survivor! He must be one of the villagers! Quickly, ask him what happened..."

Hal did his best to calm the man. When the man finally moved his arm aside, Hal saw a thin, dark-skinned elderly man holding a machete used for poppy cultivation.

In Spanish, Hal asked, "Are you from this village? Did you see who attacked?"

Hearing Spanish, the old man finally calmed down slightly, shaking his head repeatedly. "No, I didn't see anything. I don't know..."

"We won't harm you," Hal crouched down and reassured him. "We're here to investigate the truth. Please, tell us who did all of this."

"No, I don't know," the old man continued to repeat, choking back tears. "You'll burn my fields, drive me away, drive us all away. You did this a few years ago..."

Hal paused for a moment and asked again, "Who burned your fields?"

"Who else could it be?" The old man's emotions suddenly spiraled out of control as he cried out, "That foolish president! And those damned senators! They knelt to the Americans and burned what I planted!"

"But... you do know that what you were growing is harmful, don't you?" Hal was puzzled, glancing at the tall poppies around them. "This stuff is turned into addictive drugs, and the people selling these drugs are responsible for the killings. Your family and friends might have been killed by them..."

However, Hal's words ignited the old man's anger. He yelled, "Yes! You all say it's harmful! Do you think I don't know? But this is the only thing that brings in money, the only thing that can make more money!"

"If I grow crops, no one will buy them. They'll only take these things. I have to sell them to avoid starving!"

"But... why?" Hal was still puzzled. "Isn't the Mexican government cracking down on drugs? Didn't they start the drug war a few years ago?"

"What a nonsense 'drug war'!" the old man scoffed. "They burned the plantations, scorched my fields, all to make way for those foreign companies, those damn American factories!"

"They pointed guns at me, told me to grow these flowers, said they'd pay for them. So, I planted them. But then the government said they wanted to fight drugs, so they burned them, kicked me off my land, and sent me here..."

"But those lunatics from Guadalajara, they said we colluded with government agents, killed their people. They want revenge, so they want to kill us all..."

"Where can I go now? Oh God... where can I go?"

As cries mingled with the evening breeze, the red poppies swayed like waves, and the sins and bloodshed continued unabated on this ancient land. Yet, when everyone heard the mournful cries emanating from the flowers of sin, they all pondered one question: Why?

When they left the field, Oliver saw the sun rising on the horizon. Standing by the embankment, he sighed, saying, "Why... why did this happen? Who is to blame?"

"The Mexican government? But they want to combat drugs. These farmers? They were just trying to survive, even if they failed. Us? We were only trying to help..."

"If we eliminate all the drug traffickers, will it stop everything?" Oliver posed a question that even Hal couldn't answer. Deep down, he knew the answer was negative.

As long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. And as long as there are sellers, they will find people to cultivate, and as long as there are cultivators, there will be sellers, and buyers. It's like an unsolvable deadlock...

Oliver sat down by the embankment, deep in thought about how to break this deadlock.

Killing all the drug traffickers, overthrowing the current government, and saving all the farmers—any one of these actions alone wouldn't suffice. It would only worsen the situation. All three had to be achieved simultaneously, and they had to be executed flawlessly for any chance of a breakthrough.

But Oliver was perplexed. He didn't know how this could be done; it all seemed like an impossible dream. How could anyone achieve all three of these points perfectly? Even with Hal's immense powers, it seemed unattainable.

Or perhaps, strength and innocent willpower weren't what mattered most. It was something else entirely.

On the road heading south, the three of them fell into a deep silence, each contemplating the same question. However, they had no answers, and it wasn't until their fishing boat slowly approached Sinoloa State that they momentarily snapped out of their thoughts and embarked on their true journey to catch the culprits.

The journey was far from smooth because every local in this region seemed to be an accomplice of the drug traffickers. They were fiercely loyal and tight-lipped, making it extremely challenging to gather any intelligence.

The real challenge wasn't defeating them but rather navigating the intricate web of relationships to find the whereabouts of their leader, Galardo. At the slightest hint of suspicion, the cunning Galardo disappeared without a trace.

With Hal's Green Lantern abilities, Arthur's ability to communicate with fish, and Oliver's tactical and intellectual skills, they tracked the culprits all the way to Guadalajara City. Only there, in a very discreet basement, did they finally find the mastermind behind it all.

Compared to these exceptional superheroes, an ordinary person achieving what they had was already quite an accomplishment.

Their main setbacks were their unfamiliarity with the region and a lack of understanding of the drug traffickers' organizational structure. Gathering intelligence had proven to be an arduous task, and they had worked tirelessly to apprehend an ordinary person.

However, this was just the beginning. Galardo, the man they had captured, showed no remorse whatsoever. In the dimly lit basement, his English tinged with a Spanish accent echoed confidently throughout the room. He spoke not only with conviction but also with vitality.

"I was born here, in Guadalajara. Drug trafficking was rampant when I was born, and running drugs for others was my daily life."

"My family was poor, and I needed to earn money. I merely bought a commodity found everywhere and sold it to others. What's wrong with that?"

"I made some money and wanted to make more. Someone approached me, saying he also wanted to make money, so we partnered up. Little did I know that he was Guadalajara's deputy mayor, with two mistresses and three illegitimate children to support. He needed money, and as long as I could make it for him, he would protect me."

"This is crucial. In a place like this, staying alive is more important than anything else." Galardo sat in a chair without a hint of fear and continued in a very matter-of-fact tone, "I want to live, and anyone trying to end my life will meet their own demise."

"I rented boats for business. At first, it wasn't easy, but later, not just the deputy mayor, but also the mayor and the governor saw potential in me. I shared my earnings with them, and they allowed me to do business."

"But you, you greedy Americans, didn't want me to make money. You conspired with your Congress and launched that ridiculous 'war on drugs,' causing me significant losses. You all deserve to die!"

"Do you even know what you're saying?!" The most innocent of them all, Arthur, was the angriest. He said, "Do you realize how many lives your business has cost?!"

"But do you know how many lives you Americans have taken?" Galardo raised his head, disdain evident in his tone. "You not only killed us but also your own people. I can still hear the screams of those agents before they died."

"You..." Arthur was at a loss for words. He said, "You heartless villain! How can you..."

Galardo sized up Arthur and said, "You seem like someone who has spent a lot of time at sea. You're a big guy. If you had joined me, you would have risen to the top by now."

Galardo shifted his posture, leaning back in his chair. "Do you genuinely believe you're righteous? You, yes, you, the big guy. Answer me, why did the U.S. push for the drug war against the Mexican government?"

"Of course, it was to prevent you from indiscriminately killing innocent people," Oliver replied.

"I didn't ask you, but you still didn't give the right answer," Galardo sneered, touching the corner of his mouth. "The U.S. did it to suppress Mexico's local industry, so your companies could come in."

"You burned plantations, drove farmers from their land, sank our ships, and eliminated all armed resistance. The goal was to make the Mexican people kneel before you, to work in your factories."

"When every company here is run by Americans, you can lower wages as you please, hire us at lower rates, and then sell your products at higher prices. You use the money you earn to do the same in other countries, open more companies, hire more people at lower wages. This is your method of world domination."

"I will kill every American I see," Galardo raised a finger. "You deserve this. You should have thought about it when invading our country."

Oliver was momentarily speechless. Galardo's talk about Americans dominating the world struck a chord in his mind, but the feeling of something missing grew even stronger.

"And..." Galardo added, "Those who profited from my business weren't just the mayor and the governor of Mexico. Those big-shot American bosses, with their noses high up in the air, also took money from me."

"Do you know how my merchandise made its way from the West Coast to various parts of the U.S.? Could the Mexicans alone manage it? Let me tell you, Americans on your side are even more skilled in this trade."

"Those big companies, conglomerates, they provided us with trade routes and cargo ships. They helped us with customs. Local gangs helped us distribute our goods. Local government officials helped us with legal matters. My business thrived thanks to them."

"Even the CIA is our partner. They sometimes turned a blind eye on our routes, occasionally cooperating with us. When they needed to eliminate those Cuban folks or during the drug war, if it weren't for their intelligence, my losses would have been even greater."

Hal narrowed his eyes and asked, "In the U.S. territory, who collaborated with you?"

"Don't put on that expression of disbelief," Galardo shook his head. "The majority of coastal cities cooperated with me."

"In Coastal City, there's the 'Frenchman' who worked with me. I heard he's the biggest shipyard owner over there. In Gotham City, the Spencer Family is also my good partners. Oh, and I shouldn't forget my old pal, the Queen Family. We've been working together for over a decade..."

"What did you say?!" Oliver's eyes widened. Galardo's English carried a heavy Spanish accent, so Oliver didn't catch it clearly. He repeated, "What did you say, who have you been working with for over a decade???"

"The Queen Family, ah, Queen—"

Oliver froze in place, thunderstruck.

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 657: Red Sea Fury (Part Seven)