by Rob Jones
“There goes the gear for the Inca mission,” Hawke said. “I wonder what goodies a man like Chastain packs for a holiday to the Lost City?”
“Certainly not deodorant by the looks of his shirt,” Scarlet said.
Lea sighed. “Guns, ammo, rappel lines, Maglites, glow sticks… you name it.”
Hawke nodded. “I think you’re on the money.”
“They don’t look too scary to me,” Scarlet said.
“Don’t get cocky. These are the men who have turned their backs on the peace settlement that FARC have committed to with the Colombian Government. I’m thinking they’re not going to be a pushover.”
Reaper watched through the field glasses as a small crew of men in the far corner of the training quad set up a machine gun.
“They’ve got an NSV to play with mes amis,” he said, passing the binoculars back to Hawke.
“A what?” Luis said from the Jeep.
“It’s an old Soviet heavy machine gun,” Hawke said. “Eats up fifty-round boxes like a hungry wolf on a lamb. Replaced now by the Kord, but still a savage little beast. Eight hundred bullets per minute in our faces so try and stay out of its way everyone.”
“Good advice,” Reaper said with a calm nod of his head.
“Time for the off?” Lea said.
Hawke nodded and put the binoculars on the front seat. “Let’s do it.”
They told Luis to stay with the Jeep, and after tooling up with as many weapons as they could carry, they hiked straight down the old goat track and made their way toward Chastain’s mansion. Hawke knew they would be outnumbered, but they had the element of surprise, plus he was willing to bet that aside from Chastain, the enemy would have zero Special Forces experience, and that gave them an edge.
Closer to the property now, they waited in the jungle while they made another surveillance of the enemy, counting guns and looking for any surprises. The only thing out of the ordinary was a large cage partially covered in vines which was situated a couple of hundred yards from the main house. It looked like it had some kind of viewing platform above it.
“What the hell is that?” Lea said, passing Hawke the binoculars.
He checked it out. “Looks like panthers to me… two of them.”
“Why the hell are they in that cage?” Lexi asked.
“I dread to think,” Scarlet said. “But I doubt Chastain keeps them for petting.”
“We can worry about that later,” the Englishman said. “Let’s do this.”
They fanned out and broke into two units. One led by Scarlet went to the south of the camp while Hawke’s team dropped below the ridge line and approached from the north. Reaper kicked things off when he threw a grenade and took out several men hanging around one of the chalets, and then Scarlet followed suit by destroying one of the Jeeps with another grenade.
The reaction was furious, but panicked, and soon Chastain’s men had split into two groups. One moved into the hills to the south of the property in pursuit of Scarlet while the other skirted the carnage of the burning chalets and moved toward Hawke’s unit.
“Forward!” Hawke shouted.
Their guns blazed as they advanced toward the enemy, and Reaper felt a burst of morale as he watched the CGF men back at the mansion crumble and scatter. They were showing their weakness in the face of SBS, SAS and Foreign Legion training but there was no time for pride or premature celebrations.
Hawke had seen a group of men sprinting behind the Kiowas toward the NSV and that meant trouble for everyone. It was at the far western end of the training quad but it had a range of around one mile, which meant they were well in its sights. Not only that, but the sub-unit who had gone into the jungle south of the house had now regrouped and was starting to advance toward them from the west, creating a classic pincer movement. With the NSV on their right flank they would easily drive them into the loving arms of Chastain’s team back in the cover of the mansion ahead of them.
Hawke’s team doubled back and dipped below the ridge to the north of the training ground before coming in behind the sub-unit. Across the flattened grassy quad they watched a two-man crew open fire at Scarlet and the others, its vicious muzzle flashing white and orange as it spat out over a dozen rounds per second.
Hawke grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin out with his teeth and tossed it into the NSV nest and watched as the men reacted to it with savage, animal panic. They fumbled over each other for it, and then gave up and decided to flee, but it was too late. The explosion blasted them and the NSV to pieces and scattered the debris and body parts in a wide area around the nest.
“We need to get back to the others,” Hawke said. “Chastain must have ordered an evacuation – the Kiowas are firing up.”
“Not so fast, Joe…” Reaper raised his hand and pointed through a gap in the trees. Hawke looked through the gaps in between the trunks and saw the mansion. Standing in front of it was a smirking Ross Chastain and a huddle of men scanning the jungle with guns in their hands.
“Something’s happening,” Reaper said.
Hawke waved a mosquito away and stared at the men. “I don’t believe it.”
“What’s going on?” Lea said, taking the field glasses.
“He’s alive!” Hawke said.
Kruger gave an order and a moment later some men in jungle camos dragged Ryan out of the property and threw him down in the dirt.
“I don’t believe it,” Lea said. “I really thought he was dead. When I saw Kruger on the CCTV I thought maybe there was a chance, but even then…”
“Not me,” Hawke said. “I knew he was alive.”
The sight of Ryan Bale had lifted his spirits. What he had told the others about never giving up on him was true, but what he hadn’t told them was how close he had come to deciding he was dead and letting him go.
And then Chastain called out into the trees. “All right, assholes… listen up! I don’t know who the hell you are or what you want, but this guy’s going to get it in the neck right now if y’all don’t make like in the movies, and come out with your hands up. Any funny business and he’s dead before your next breath.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hawke clenched his jaw with rage and frustration, and knew he had no choice but to submit to Chastain’s demands. Ryan was as good as dead if he defied him. Now, the former Delta was pushing his gun into the young man’s temple.
“Drop your weapons everyone,” Hawke said.
Hawke lowered his gun and stepped out of the jungle. He raised his hands above his head and walked slowly toward Chastain and the others. The rest of the team followed him. Across the other side of the training area he saw Scarlet drop her gun and follow his lead.
Chastain was close enough to see face to face now. Hawke studied the creases on his face, the blinking eyes and the lizard-like lick-of-the-lips and didn’t like what he saw..
“Easy there, tiger,” Chastain said, pulling a holstered Colt out from his side with surprising swiftness and raising it to the center of Hawke’s face. “Hands up nice and high.” His narrow eyes crawled over Reaper’s tattoos. “That goes for you to, Foreign Legion. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you certainly ain’t like the kind of people who usually wind up here. Mr Corzo! Go and get their guns.”
Carlos Corzo glanced at Chastain, flicked his cigarette into the air and walked over to the tree line where Hawke and the others had dropped their weapons. He returned a moment later and dumped them in a heap in front of Ross Chastain’s boots.
“What have we here then?” He pushed the guns around with the steel toecap of his boot and nodded with appreciation. “A professional outfit.”
Hawke knew he had done the right thing given the cards he had to play with at the time, but he was already regretting it. Then Chastain hit him hard in the face with the butt of the Colt and knocked him off his balance. He gasped in surprise and fell to the ground.
“No one comes on to my property and screws with me, you British asshole.”
Hawke’s head swam as he nearly lost consciousness. The pain of the pistol-whipping burned through his jaw and head, and his mouth filled with blood. He felt something moving around on his tongue, and realized Chastain had knocked one of his teeth out. He spat it at him in anger, and it left a bloody trail on his white shirt as it tumbled into the gravel at his feet.
Chastain raised his pistol to hit him again, but something made him stop. He gave an order and two of the men pulled Hawke to his feet and dragged him over to the others. “Who are you?”
“I’m the local health inspector,” Hawke said. “Here to look for cockroaches.”
“I said, what’s your name, asshole?”
Hawke looked at Ryan. “Are you all right, mate?”
“I’m fine…”
“I want your name!” Chastain barked.
“I know his name,” Kruger said. He stepped off the veranda and calmly placed a cigarette on his lip. Taking all the time in the world, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the cigarette. Blowing blue smoke into the muggy air he waved the match out and tossed it on the dirt. “It’s Hawke – Joe Hawke. He and the rest of these bastards run an outfit called ECHO. They tried to kill me in the middle of the Atlantic. Very nasty bunch of bastards.” He dragged on the cigarette and then turned to Lea, placing his fingers under her chin and raising her face up to his. “I was so very sad to read about Dickie Eden’s misfortune.”
Lea scowled at him. “Take your hands off me, you scum.”
He nodded silently and then delivered a hefty backslap knocking her to the dirt. Hawke leaped forward to her defense but was attacked by two of Chastain’s man. One hooked his foot out from under him while the other punched him hard in the back of the head, sending him crashing into the dusty gravel at their boots.
“Down boy!” Kruger yelled, and they all fell about laughing.
Except Saqqal who looked at his watch. “We need to get on.”
Chastain spat on the bull grass as he strolled the short distance toward them. “You boys surely do know how to put on a show, but let me tell you that killing my men was a big mistake.” As Hawke struggled up on all fours, Chastain kicked him hard in the ribs.
“Leave him alone, you coward!” Lea said, her lip still bleeding from Kruger’s slap. She was now pinned against the iron trim of a fence with the muzzle of an assault rifle pointing in her face.
“Ziad is right,” Chastain said. “We have better things to do than play with you assholes.”
“Like play with your own arsehole, you mean?” Scarlet said.
“Shut up!” Chastain screamed, his calm composure cracking for a brief moment. He turned to Saqqal and spoke for a few moments. The Syrian nodded and then Chastain ordered a man into the house. He returned a few seconds later with someone who shocked them all.
Saqqal saw their horror and smiled. “Allow me to introduce Mr Rajavi.”
A well-built man stepped off the veranda and into the Colombian sunshine. He was well over six feet tall and was so muscular he looked like he was built of bricks.
But his enormous muscles weren’t what they were staring at.
Hawke fixed his eyes on the dead, expressionless face of the man as he walked closer and stood beside Saqqal. At first Hawke couldn’t decide what was wrong with the man’s face. It looked almost normal, and yet there was something not right about it that his instincts just wouldn’t let go.
And then he worked it out. The man’s face wasn’t real, but a mask of a human face. A silicon mask that was so close to reality one glance wasn’t enough to work it out, especially from a distance, but a longer look, up-close, and the deception was unveiled.
Saqqal noted their expressions and smirked with a demented pride as if he were displaying a rare animal.
“Mr Rajavi was mauled terribly by a Persian leopard while he was hunting them in the Zagros Mountains. He lost nearly all of his face, and let’s just say the surgical reconstruction was not of the highest quality. Today he hides the horror behind this silicon mask, which apparently is a facsimile of the face he used to have before the attack. Excuse his reluctance to speak – he’s not being rude. The sad truth is the leopard took his tongue along with everything else.”
Rajavi’s dark eyes blinked behind the mask, and the sound of his breathing grew in volume. The silicon mask was almost lifelike, but not quite, and that is what made is so creepy and unnerving. There was no way for any emotion to appear on the mask, so reading the mood behind the silicon was impossible, and yet the eyes were real, staring out at them all from behind the grotesque artifice of the shield he had erected between his disfigured face and the rest of the world.
“He’s not being vain, you understand,” Saqqal said. “The attack was savage, and the mask is there for your benefit, not his.”
Chastain looked suspiciously at the man for a few moments. Hawke didn’t know how long he had known Rajavi but it obviously wasn’t enough to get used to the mask.
After a few long seconds, Chastain took a step back and moved closer to Lexi and brushed his hand over her breasts. “They are so beautiful,” he whispered. “It’s just such a shame to keep them locked up like this.” He ripped her top open and exposed her underwear, making her flinch in disgust.
Hawke leaped forward to help her, but one of the men raised his rifle and struck him hard once again on the back of his skull, but this time with the heavy polymer butt of the weapon. Once again, Hawke fell to his knees in agony, desperately clinging to consciousness.
“All right,” Kruger said. “Enough of this. We have work to do. I don’t care how you get rid of this scum but do it now and then we can get out of here.”
Chastain looked at the South African long and hard for a moment. He looked like he wanted to shoot him, but instead he ordered Corzo and Rajavi to take the ECHO team over to the cage.
The former Delta man strolled along beside them with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. “Let me introduce you to Bonnie and Clyde.” They stepped through the tunnel of vines and got their first unobscured view of the cage. Hawke had been right – behind the bars two large black panthers were snoozing in different corners. The sides of the cage were at least ten feet high, but there was no roof on it.
“You’re looking at two of the finest examples of panthera pardus, or to bozos like you, black jaguars.”
“Panthera onca, you complete fool,” Ryan said. “Panthera pardus is the black leopard.”
Chastain stared at him. “Is that right?”
“It is.”
Chastain gave Ryan a slap with the back of his hand and nearly knocked him over.
The young man’s eyes burned with hatred as he wiped the blood from his mouth and Chastain laughed at his work. “As you can see, their little home is divided into two spacious rooms. The first cage is where they like to sleep and pass the day under the shade of the vines.”
It was now that Hawke saw a dividing wall of bars running down the middle of the cage. “And what’s this half for?”
Chastain grinned again. “Think of this end of the cage as their dining room… Corzo! That one right there is lunch.” He pointed to Lea, and the Colombian marched over to her and grabbed her roughly by the arm.
Lea struggled against him as he dragged her across the scrubby grass and up to the viewing platform. Chastain laughed and spat on the grass. Pulled his pants up with one hand. Sniffed hard and turned to Hawke. “See, boy… the pleasure here is guessing which one of them cats is gonna get her first. They ain’t been fed nothin’ for four days… makes ’em keener.”
Lea stared at the big cats, terrified as they awoke and began to pace around below her. “Joe!”
“Joe!” Chastain said in mockery. “Save me!” He laughed and joined them on the viewing platform for a better of the view. “No one gonna save you, darlin’.”
But then it all changed.
The explosion was enormous, and rocked the ground they stood on. Behind them, the top floor of the mansion wa
s now ablaze, and smoke was pouring from a large hole in the terracotta roof.
Chastain and Corzo turned to see Kruger and the Syrians scrambling away from the house and covering their heads from the debris that was now dropping from the sky. Saqqal looked rattled and immediately ordered his men into the nearest Kiowa. Kruger measured the situation and decided to flee with them.
It was all kicking off again.
CHAPTER NINE
Chastain staggered back along roof, his arms flailing as he went and a look of unbridled terror on his fat face. He tried to stop himself going over by clawing at the air. It was pointless, but he was driven by instinct to survive.
“What the hell was that?” Lea screamed.
“Luis!” Hawke yelled. He pointed to Luis who was on the rise halfway between the mansion and the Jeep. He was waving one of the grenade launchers in his hand.
“Well bugger me,” Scarlet said, impressed.
“National Service!” the young Colombian called back.
But then they heard a scream and turned to see Chastain go over the edge and fall inside the panthers’ enclosure. He landed in what he had smugly described as the dining room.
“Please…!” he screamed. “ Oh, Jesus H. Christ, help me!”
“Call me crazy,” Lea said coolly from the viewing platform, “but I don’t think he can hear ya.”
Clyde moved first, rising to all fours on his powerful haunches and turning his broad, square face toward the new arrival.
Chastain stumbled back a few yards to the edge of the cage, almost surprised when he walked into it. “Please… you can’t do this to me.”
“I thought you said it was fun?” Lea said.
Bonnie now got up and joined Clyde.
Chastain raised his head and saw his own chopper slowly rising above the training area, with Kruger, Saqqal, Jawad and Rajavi all safely on board. He waved a fist in the air and screamed. “You bastard, Saqqal!”
“Looks like you need to learn how to make better friends,” Hawke said, strolling over to join Lea as she climbed down from the platform.
