Working as a police officer in Mexico.

Chapter 653 Making an example of someone!

Columbia Cali Group!

After the signal was cut off, a long, deathly silence enveloped the room.

There were no angry roars, no vows of revenge, only a suffocating silence.

One of the core members finally broke the silence, his voice dry like sandpaper, "If I fall into their hands, I might as well end it myself."

“Victor doesn’t want a trial, he wants a performance. We’re just actors in the next show,” another person chimed in, his voice tinged with a deep sense of helplessness.

Just then, a knock sounded urgently at the door, and a henchman pushed it open, his face pale: "Boss! Urgent news! The Italians... and the gang they've gathered, are coming again! They're less than fifty kilometers away!"

"What?!" The room was instantly set ablaze.

The drug lords, who had just been immersed in despair, suddenly jumped up like trapped beasts whose tails had been stepped on.

"Fuck the Italians!"

"Do you really think we're pushovers?!"

"Damn it, let's fight them! We'll take a few of them down with us even if we die!"

"Give them a lesson! Let them know that Kali is still alive!"

The room was instantly filled with shouts, the sound of tables being slammed, and the clanging of metal as gun bolts were pulled.

"Boss! Boss, say something, boss!"

All eyes were on Gilbert at the end of the long table.

At the height of his frenzy, Gilbert slowly raised his eyelids. His movements were slow, but they gradually silenced the clamor of curses. Everyone looked at him, waiting for Big Brother to give the order for a bloody battle.

Gilbert's gaze swept over the faces contorted with rage, then he remained silent for several long seconds. Finally, he spoke, his voice low:
"do not fight."

! ! ! !
"What?" someone uttered incredulously.

Gilbert's voice remained calm: "I said, surrender."

"Surrender?!?" The shock instantly turned into even fiercer rage. "Boss! We still have guns! We still have men!"

"Gilbert! Are you fucking insane?! Surrendering to those scum?! Are you waiting to be dragged off to be tortured with mercury?!"

"I'd rather die fighting!"

Gilbert slammed his hand on the table, the loud noise instantly overwhelming everyone.

"Fight? How? Like Guzman, cornered in a rat hole, dragged to the world's attention, and then floundered to death with mercury like a monkey? Let that bastard Viktor put on another grand show?"

"Damn it, do you think I don't want to fight?!"

He took a deep breath, paused, and lowered his voice, “You’re right, it’s better to end it all than to fall into their hands. But have you thought about it? What Viktor wants is for us to die in battle or be executed. Death is the easiest thing to do, but what about after that? What about our families? Our names will become the next bloody billboard on his power show, played over and over again, until everyone remembers how terrible the consequences of resisting him are.”

He slowly stood up, his expression clearing: "Surrender, at least we can choose a more dignified way to die, or, maybe there's a sliver of a chance we won't have our families see our faces, melted alive by mercury, on screens all over the world. We don't deserve to die a glorious death, brothers. What we can choose now is how to make this drama... less to Viktor's liking."

Gilbert took a deep breath. "Most importantly!" His voice wasn't loud, but it struck everyone like a hammer blow, quelling the unrest. "We must surrender, but to the Italians. Absolutely, absolutely not to the Mexicans."

This instantly stunned the subordinates who had just been clamoring to fight to the death.

Surrender is hard to accept in the first place, why do you have to pick and choose who to surrender to?

"Boss, what's the difference? Aren't they both death?" a burly cadre asked hoarsely, his eyes filled with incomprehension and even deeper despair.

“The difference?” Gilbert forced a bitter smile. “The difference is that, in Viktor’s hands, we don’t even have the right to choose how we die. He will strip us naked like Guzman and force us in front of the camera, turning us into his ‘works of art’ to intimidate the entire underworld in the most horrific way! Mercury torture? That’s just the beginning! He will squeeze out the last bit of our dignity, making our screams the background noise of his power!”

His sharp gaze swept across every face, forcing them to confront this bloody reality:
"You think defeating those Italians and their allies will change anything? Wrong! It will only bring about a greater disaster!"

“Victor is just looking for an excuse to crush us completely! We’ve fought the Italians to the last drop of our strength here, and when we’re exhausted, the Mexican army will pounce on us like sharks smelling blood!”

"Back then, we wouldn't even have the strength to sit here and contemplate surrendering like we do now! We would just be like wild animals trapped in a snare, easily dragged out by them for the next performance! That would be truly undignified, a death worse than a wild dog!"

“Surrender to the Italians,” Gilbert’s tone carried a hint of desperate calculation. “At least there’s a slim chance of survival. The Italians have the government and the military behind them. They want credit, to dismantle the Cali Cartel, not to create a globally televised horror show. They have their own rules, their own court procedures. Even if it ends up as a bullet, it’s a million times better than being forced to drink mercury and melting away in front of millions of eyes!”

He placed his hands on the table and leaned slightly forward:
“Brothers, we can’t choose how we live, but at least we can choose how we die, whoever kills us so we suffer less, so we can die with some dignity, instead of being monkeys in Victor’s circus for people to peculiarize! Surrendering to the Italians is the last bit of dignity we can leave for ourselves and our families. We are drug lords, not clowns. Even if the curtain falls, we can’t let that madman Victor direct it!”

Everyone looked at each other, heads bowed.

"Don't worry, I'll announce this myself. I won't let the brothers scold you." Gilbert sat in his chair and waved his hand. "You can all leave now."

"If anyone doesn't want to surrender, they should leave now while there's still time."

After everyone left with their own thoughts, Gilbert sat in the meeting room, quietly smoking.

Around 8 p.m., when the Allied forces arrived less than 20 kilometers away.

Gilbert's voice, broadcast through the public address system:

"To all members of Cali:"

"lay down your weapon."

"Allied forces surrender, cease all resistance."

"This is not an order, this is the end."

The moment the order was given, the room fell into a deathly silence.

There was no expected weeping and wailing, nor any hysterical opposition.

The cadres who had been roaring in anger over the "surrender" proposal were now surprisingly calm; they weren't fools...

Inside a room, a burly cadre, his hand still on the holster of his pistol, suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon, his shoulders slumped, muttering, "Damn! He finally said it."

A lean deputy next to him let out a long, silent sigh, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He swayed slightly and leaned against the wall.

"Damn it, this should have been done a long time ago..."

Meanwhile, the Allied temporary command post was located less than 20 kilometers from Cali's last stronghold.

The atmosphere was completely opposite.

The radio was filled with a jumble of calls in Italian, English, Spanish, and even French slang, along with the roar of engines and the chaotic footsteps of soldiers running.

The air was thick with the smells of diesel fuel, sweat, and the pre-battle anxiety.

Colonel Luca Rossi, the commander of the Italian forces, was frowning as he studied a map, his knuckles tapping on the last defensive perimeter of the Cali outpost. "Their resistance is more scattered than expected? It's like they're not organized at all?" he said to his military advisor beside him, puzzled.

Suddenly, an intelligence officer responsible for monitoring enemy communications abruptly ripped off his earpiece, jumped up as if burned, his face a mixture of extreme shock and unbelievable elation, to the point that his voice distorted:
"Sir! Colonel Luca!"

Colonel Rossi looked up impatiently: "What? Did the Mexicans make their move first?"

"No! No!" The intelligence officer was so agitated he was incoherent, waving the wiretapped data in his hand. "Cali! It was Cali! Gilbert! He... he ordered all Cali members to lay down their weapons via radio..."

The command post fell silent for half a second, as if the air had been sucked away.

"Put down your weapons?" Colonel Rossi repeated, as if he hadn't understood the simple phrase.

"Yes! Lay down your weapons! Surrender! He clearly said to surrender to us! Surrender to the Italians!" the intelligence officer practically shouted, his face flushed red.

Dead silence.

Then, with a "boom," the command post erupted into chaos!

"Holy Mary!" An Italian officer made the sign of the cross on his chest and then burst into loud laughter.

"Surrender?! To us?! Fottutamente incredibile! (Fuck, unbelievable!)" Another officer slammed his fist on the table, making the map jump.

"God bless Italy!" Some people even excitedly sang a snippet of the national anthem off-key.

The advisor gaped, nearly dropping his coffee cup. He looked at the ecstatic Italians, then at the equally bewildered Colombian government representative.

The message was quickly relayed to every Allied soldier on high alert via radio and word of mouth.

"What? They surrendered? To us?"

"Damn! I was all ready to go all out, and they surrendered?"

"Long live Italy! No need to fight anymore!!"

"Hey! Cali's grandsons! You're smart to know what's good for you!"

"Damn, what a feat! A tremendous feat! We captured Gilbert alive!"

On the front lines, the tense and oppressive atmosphere vanished, and some people started boasting without thinking.

It gives the impression that after Lü Bu's death, anyone could exchange blows with him.

The Italian soldiers excitedly patted each other on the shoulder, some even pulling out their privately stored wine bottles and chugging them. Some Colombian government soldiers had mixed expressions, some relieved, others feeling disappointed that they had missed their chance and failed to achieve the greatest victory.

The various people mixed in had different expressions, but all of them were filled with great surprise and a kind of ecstatic joy at finding a treasure.

Colonel Rossi finally recovered from his initial shock. A surge of elation coursed through him, but he suppressed his excitement and quickly regained the composure befitting a commander. However, his voice still trembled with barely concealed elation:

"All units! All units! This is Romeo Sierra One! Stand by! Hold your fire! I repeat, hold your fire!"

He took a deep breath, and speaking into the microphone in a voice that was as authoritative as possible, yet unable to conceal his excitement, he gave the order:

“Establish contact! Secure the surrender! Tell them… tell Gilberto… the Italians accept!”

He put down the microphone, looked at the jubilant scene in the command post, and couldn't help but rub his face vigorously, muttering a curse in Italian under his breath, but his face was beaming with ecstatic joy: "Cazzo... (Fuck...) This is absolutely historic! We've become the ones who accepted the surrender of the Cali Group!"

……

When the news of the Cali Group's surrender to the Italian Allies swept the world like a hurricane, the Italians were smug!

They have never been so glorious since Rome.

When the news reached Mexico.

Casare's facial muscles were contorted with a mixture of unbelievable anger and an indescribable sense of frustration.

"Fuck the Colombians!"

Casare was upset. "Boss! Did you see that? These bastards! They look down on us! It's blatant discrimination!!"

"Why?! Why surrender to the Italians of all people? We were the ones who drove them to the brink!"

Casare's face was filled with offended indignation: "Boss! This is fucking disrespect for us Mexicans! They think we're barbaric? They think we don't deserve to accept their surrender?"

Viktor finally made a move.

He turned around slowly.

His face showed neither the fury Casare had anticipated, nor the gloom of a plan disrupted. His expression was calm.

He took a puff of his cigar, letting the thick smoke swirl in his mouth for a moment before slowly exhaling.

"Casare".

Victor's gaze fell on him. "Do you think Gilbert chose to fawn over the Italians because he discriminated against us Mexicans?"

Casare was taken aback by Viktor's overly calm reaction, his neck stiffening: "Isn't that right, boss! They're afraid of us! Terrified! That's why..."

"Correct."

Viktor interrupted him, his voice still steady: "They're afraid, terrified. So afraid that they'd rather choose a seemingly compliant, respectable path to death, one that might allow them to live a few more days or even years longer, than fall into our hands."

"They're afraid of me!"

“Gilbert is very clear-headed. He’s smarter than Guzman. He knows that if he falls into the hands of the Italians, he might still be able to give a passionate speech in court, or he might be able to prolong his life in prison for a few more years. His death would at most become a news story in the corner of the newspaper. But if he falls into my hands…”

Viktor paused. “He will become the next Guzman! No, he will become a masterpiece that surpasses Guzman, and every inch of his suffering will be magnified… I want to torture him to death.”

"Their choice today will only make those who try to challenge us tomorrow understand more deeply why the name Victor is more fearsome than death itself."

"Did he think he could escape my script by fleeing to the Italians?"

Victor shook his head with a smile: "Too naive."

“Call the Italians and tell them to hand over Gilbert!”

"I said it!"

……

(End of this chapter)