“How much do you want?”
“How much can I have?”
CHAPTER 45
Serpent: midnight, first day
Steel lifted the night vision monocular and looked at the Alvarez compound. A light rain fell and mosquitoes buzzed around the black hood covering his face. The humid air carried the rich scent of the green vegetation surrounding him.
He was fifty feet up in a wimba tree, a hundred meters south of the C-shaped compound building. Tree limbs blocked his view of parts of the garage, barracks, and main building. However, he saw enough.
The main building was dark green, covered with camouflage webbing that stretched to the surrounding trees. It had no windows and only one locked steel door on the west side. Spotlights shone from the roofs of all the buildings and lit the center of the compound. Only a few shadowed areas escaped the light.
The compound was on a small plateau that rose twenty-five feet above the surrounding jungle. The hill made any assault on the compound more difficult.
Earlier he had watched Alvarez arrive with his woman, Marita Lopez, in a black SUV with tinted windows, accompanied by an identical black SUV. Both vehicles had pulled up close to the building door. Alvarez and Marita had immediately gone inside and remained out of sight.
The friar Francis Sotelo wasn’t visible. Steel doubted he was at the compound. Sotelo’s best chance was to have Alvarez out of the picture. He resolved to make that happen.
Nine guards were spread out in the compound, armed with sheathed knives, grenades hanging on their vests, and AK-47s slung over their shoulders. Steel estimated six guards inside with Alvarez, another dozen in a small barracks across from the main building. The guards split the night shifts. Half slept, half stayed awake. Only three guards walked German shepherds on leashes.
Danker’s information about perimeter defenses was accurate. Fencing was absent. Steel had watched the guards take dogs for walks past the perimeter in a number of places, indicating it wasn’t mined or booby-trapped.
He put the monocular in a pocket and used his gloved hands to slide down one of the wet lianas, which he had scaled an hour ago. What he planned was dangerous, but he didn’t see a viable alternative.
Once on the ground he ran into the forest deep enough so tree cover would make it difficult to spot him with night vision binoculars. From another pocket in his dark green camouflage fatigues he retrieved a small, silver tube.
Putting the dog whistle to his mouth, he gave a few short blows. He slid behind a tree trunk.
All three dogs turned his way and barked, moving uncertainly on their leashes. Cradling their machine guns, the guards peered into the forest. Some used night vision binoculars. Guards from the north side of the compound joined the guards on the south side.
One of the guards went into the barracks. Soon the rest of the guards tumbled out, still getting dressed, weapons in hand. No guards came out of the compound building.
Steel gave another long blast on the whistle. The dogs strained on their leashes, barking with more intensity. Guards took up defensive positions behind walls and corners of buildings.
Steel blew the whistle one last time, then put it away.
The dogs gave frantic howls and jumped against their leashes. Several guards conferred with each other, and one unhooked his dog’s leash. The animal bounded down the hill and into the forest. Three guards followed with their weapons raised.
Steel grabbed the HK416 assault rifle lying at his feet and ran south along a planned route. When he neared a tree he had scouted earlier, he jumped over one of its five-foot-high buttresses so he was hidden on both sides. The ground was moist and soft, the humus smelling of rich decay.
He sat with his legs spread and his back pressed against the tree trunk. Drawing two Ka-Bar knives, he kept them against his chest. He couldn’t risk silenced shots for fear the guards would hear them. Adrenaline filled his limbs and sweat coated his skin.
Paws made soft pats on the jungle litter.
A blur of exposed canines, glinting eyes, and open jaws came at him. He shoved both knives up into the animal’s lower jaw and neck and the dog dropped dead on his legs. Grabbing the animal’s fur, he pushed with his heels against the soft ground, pulling the animal closer. He drew his gun.
Low voices whispered less than ten yards away.
Silence.
Steel held the silenced Glock barrel vertical near the side of his face. Footfalls approached. Narrow beams of light lanced into the trees on both sides of his position. His hand tightened on the gun.
The footfalls stopped. He could hear the guard breathing. A dozen meters to the right a voice called out. Next a whistle. Then low voices again.
“...fue un jaguar...”
“...probablemente....”
“...perro estupido...”
The guards suspected nothing more than a big cat. It also meant they might not respond to a repeat reaction from the dogs the following night.
The guards retreated, their voices fading.
Steel allowed himself a slow exhalation and sat still for another half hour. A night monkey twittered. The insect noise increased, and an occasional squeal in the distance signaled predators and prey at work.
Pushing the dog aside, he holstered the Glock. He looked at the lifeless animal. It reminded him of Spinner and he looked away, regret sweeping through him. Swearing silently, he suddenly didn’t like what he had become—someone who traded small evils for the greater good. The evils didn’t feel small anymore.
Slinging the dog over his shoulder, he told himself he had no choice. He had to know how the guards might respond. It also meant one less dog to deal with on the following night. It didn’t make him feel any better.
Slipping off his hood, he walked north. He planned to hike two miles before he buried the dog, in case Alvarez decided to send out men at daylight to search the jungle. Two miles was enough to discourage the guards, even if the dogs picked up his scent. Then he would get rations and water from his sling bag.
During the daylight hours he would find a safe place to sleep. He hoped Alvarez wouldn’t leave the following day. It would render all his work useless. While he walked, he retreated inward. The last weeks were a jumble of pain, death, and confusion that he didn’t know if he would ever be able to sort out.
Though a part of him couldn’t let it go. John Grove and Janet Bellue wouldn’t allow him to let it go. But under the circumstances, for once in his life he felt stumped by an immovable object. This situation was unlike any he had overcome in the past.
Perhaps his sense of commitment was overzealous, always taking things to extreme degrees, not knowing when to back off. With Rachel, retelling his spelunking stories had that flavor. His zeal had also kept him chasing the Paragon mystery, even going after Quenton when maybe he should have called the police. Maybe obsessive behavior drove him to try to make things work with Carol, which perhaps might be a mistake too.
A twittering in the distance made him look to the side. Sweat and rain dripped off his face. He couldn’t wait to sleep.
CHAPTER 46
Serpent: 2330 hours, second day
Steel squatted just inside the tree line of the small clearing, waiting for the Black Hawks, his hood pulled down over his face.
He had reconnoitered the compound again. Alvarez and his woman, Marita, were still inside, their vehicles in the garage. All sides of the Black Hawk landing site were safe too. Free of Alvarez’s men.
Long ago he had dreamed of being in this position—Op leader—but the reality brought a furrow to his brow. He didn’t understand how he had arrived so far from where he had started in his career. Danker’s attitude on command structure was clear—it was the military’s. But now he resented following orders at any level.
The Komodo Op had tainted everything for him. He had no trust in a blind chain of comma
nd anymore. And he didn’t want to ask those beneath him to trust in it either. But there was something deeper bothering him that he couldn’t quite understand.
At least he was helping the friar.
From his sling bag he retrieved, and then activated, the GPS tracking device, which displayed his location. He ran his gaze over the area once more. Loggers had clear-cut a road into the jungle some time ago, so the bigger trees were gone in a fifty-yard-wide stretch that ran several miles out of the jungle. Smaller bushes and growth had filled it in, but there was still a visible swath cut through the forest, ending where he waited behind a tree.
At 12:09 he heard the whirring blades of the Black Hawks. He could see their dark shapes approaching. Remaining behind a tree, he stood up. The choppers flew fifty feet off the ground. But when they neared the landing site they rose up sharply.
He tensed. Before he could move, a bright red and white flame hissed out of the jungle from the east side of the clearing. The closest helicopter exploded in a loud shower of flame, the wreckage dropping into the jungle in a jarring crash.
The other Black Hawk immediately responded with two missiles and machine gun fire, strafing the other side of the clearing. The helicopter’s rockets exploded amid the trees, and the Black Hawk rose high and fast.
Stunned, Steel watched another ground rocket chase it, but there was no explosion.
He tossed his HK416 assault rifle into the clearing and quickly climbed the tree. Stretching his arms around the trunk, he curled his feet in to give him leverage. Digging his fingertips into the gnarled bark, he heaved himself upward. His boots made soft scraping sounds against the trunk.
When he was twenty feet up, a bright light from the clearing flared past the sides of the tree. Adrenaline flooded his chest. He held the trunk tightly as sweat poured down his skin. Numb over the downed Black Hawk and dead soldiers, he tried to focus. Alvarez had found out they were coming—the only question was how.
Footfalls approached from the forest behind him. What he had expected.
Shouts and engine whines came from the far side of the clearing. The enemy must have been far enough from the landing area to avoid forward-looking infrared detection from the helicopters. Those who fired the RPGs had hid behind trees or in pits. They would come at him in force now. His ankles and shoulders burned.
Vegetation rustled. Shadowy figures holding rifles moved below him in a line that entered the clearing. In moments he heard their energized voices when they found his HK416. They would assume he had crawled farther into the field.
He climbed down. The slight scrapes of his boots against the tree furrowed his brow. When his feet were on the ground, he drew the silenced Glock and backed away from the tree one step at a time. Voices reached him from the field.
He quickly moved deeper into the trees. Dogs barked from the clearing. He whirled and ran.
Shouts followed, spurring his feet faster. Beams of light chased him into the forest and the automatic fire of AK-47s tore up the quiet. Hundreds of bullets chewed up bark, lianas, and dirt all around him. He bent over, keeping low to present a smaller target.
Pain bit his calf and his leg convulsed. He stumbled, tripped on a vine, and flew headlong toward a tree. He twisted to protect his head, but his shoulder hit the trunk hard in a crunch of bone against bark. His body crashed into the ground and his hand slapped something hard. The Glock flew from his grasp.
He wanted to get up and run but his limbs wouldn’t respond. The firing stopped, but the barking drew closer.
Gasping, he pushed to his knees. His right shoulder ached, his right hand numb. Crawling, he swept the ground frantically with both hands. And then he saw it. The metal of the Glock glinted a few feet ahead of him.
Soft pats on the forest floor fit a pattern he recognized.
No time.
Ignoring the gun, he pushed himself to his feet with a groan. He had practiced VR sims with dog attacks a thousand times. He drew one of his knives.
They came at him fast—dark, silent shapes from front and back.
He launched himself backward, while he struck out at the neck of the dog leaping for his throat. Missed. Burying one hand in its fur, he tried to hold off eager jaws.
He grunted as he fell atop the animal behind him. It yelped and scrambled out from under his weight. Struggling with the growling animal on top of him, he buried the blade in the dog’s neck. The animal collapsed. Reversing the knife, he swung his arm back without looking. A vise of teeth gripped his forearm.
He cried out and rolled to his side.
Shouts approached his position.
He struggled to his knees. Sweeping his free hand, he searched for the Glock, the shiny eyes of the dog on his. The animal dug in its feet and pulled hard on his arm until he fell forward. His free hand struck the Glock, fumbled with it, and finally found the grip.
The dog released his arm and lunged with bared teeth. Steel twisted and shot it twice. It fell beside him.
The whole action had taken seconds, but the voices were closer. Spears of light flashed through the darkness. Sharp stabs of pain burned his shoulder, arm, and calf.
Scrambling to his feet, he ran, his eyes barely discerning trees, brush, and roots. He fell twice in the first fifty yards and got up so fast he hardly noticed he had fallen. Brush whipped his face and chest. A tangle of lianas caught him and he suppressed a shout, whipping his arms viciously to get free. He stumbled ahead, careened into a tree trunk, bit his lip, and ran on automatic.
A survival run. Pain, bruises, and injuries didn’t register—all were kept buried.
Stopping abruptly behind a tree, he listened for his pursuers. His wounds doubled him over and he regretted stopping. Soft voices approached his position.
Silence.
Bullets ripped into the trees and ground around him. The staccato of three, maybe four machine guns surrounded him, spraying in wide arcs.
Quiet.
Taking shallow breaths, he slowly lowered himself to his knees, and then his belly, remaining behind the tree. He took a quick peek around the trunk, and then crawled on his stomach toward the guards. In twenty feet he stopped. Two shadowy figures appeared on either side of him, both ten yards from his position.
Quietly turning onto his left side, he fired two shots at the figure to the left. The man collapsed. Rolling right, he shot the other guard who still hadn’t spotted him.
Soft voices. Two more men at least.
Hastily crawling to the body of the first man he had shot, he turned it over. He tore off the vest—it held two spare magazines and two grenades—and put it on, and then grabbed the guard’s AK-47. More voices. He crawled on all fours behind a tree.
Taking a deep, quiet breath, he stood and walked out from the tree, the gun level and aimed ahead of him. Five steps out he could make out three shadows huddled over the other dead soldier.
He fired for three seconds, the gunfire filling the forest. The men fell without a cry among them. Avoiding looking at their faces, he grabbed magazines and grenades, and fled south. Shouts chased him.
His calf was on fire. He couldn’t even acknowledge the pain or he would fall, and maybe pass out. A fierce ache settled in his shoulder. Running harder, the pain made him feel deranged—wide-eyed and out of control.
Abruptly he realized how much noise he was making crashing through the thick jungle. Slowing, he walked at a quick pace. Quieter. If he stopped again to listen, he worried he wouldn’t be able to continue. Deep breathing finally calmed his racing pulse. Pain, not exertion, had caused his lungs to heave.
Straining to hear anything beyond the sounds of insects, nothing alarmed him and his limbs finally relaxed. Without the dogs they would be as blind as he was, and maybe even frightened—at least wary—to pursue him. That made him feel good. He slung the carry strap of the AK-47 over his head.
Continu
ing south, he tried to keep a straight bearing, a plan already forming in his mind. It was risky, but he didn’t see any other choice.
His jaw clenched over what had happened. But nothing was clear about that either. Perhaps the DEA informant had sold them out or had been tortured. Or this was all a setup by Alvarez from the beginning to gain revenge.
He paused and ran his fingers over his calf. A jagged bullet furrow still bled. The dog wound on his arm was almost as serious. He let it bleed too. The throbbing shoulder didn’t feel dislocated or broken. Lucky. He barked a short, bitter laugh.
When he considered the next day, what he would have to do, and how much farther he needed to walk, an involuntary shudder swept his body.
CHAPTER 47
Serpent: 0300 hours, second day
He leaned against the tree trunk. Pain and fatigue made him wish he didn’t have to move again. It was still two hours until dawn. The climb up the tree had been hell. Cicadas sang like chainsaws in the forest.
From his vantage point in the tree he could see the center of the compound, the barracks, the garage, and the road gate. Six men were on duty, leaving four to six in the building, another fifteen in the barracks.
Alvarez’s desire for safety might prompt the drug lord to flee. Then again, the man’s desire for revenge might sway him to remain and see if his men could track him.
During the night he had walked four miles west, then a large circle south, and lastly southeast. His compass was cracked and the GPS unit battered. Thus he had wandered a little before finding Alvarez’s stronghold. The compound’s lights had eventually guided him.
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