Off Guard: A clean action adventure book

by Glen Robins

  A feeling lower in his gut wouldn’t subside. He recognized the feeling and rifled through the pack for the toilet paper he had watched Freddie pack in there. This was Montezuma’s Revenge. He had heard about it, but not for many years, figuring the water in Mexico was now OK to drink. Remembering the two full glasses he pounded down at the big guy’s insistence, he now regretted using tap water from a cheap motel to hydrate. But that water couldn’t affect him this quickly, he thought. Then he remembered drinking from a glass in Puerto Lempira, two days prior. And before that, he had been in Panama, Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, staying, at times, in dives in the not-so-classy parts of town. Maybe he had not been as careful as he should have been about water since he left Europe a month and a half earlier.

  Walking back to his pack, Collin’s knees were wobbly and his head felt like a helium balloon attached to a string. His watch told him he had eight hours to get to this destination while his GPS told him he still had almost seventeen miles to go.

  With no time to lose, Collin tried to lift the pack so he could put his arms through the straps. The pack wouldn’t budge. It felt like a thousand pounds. Carefully avoiding his own pool of vomit, he manhandled the pack up on the rock using what little strength he had left in his legs to help. He struggled to hold the pack in place while he maneuvered his body into position. His arms and legs felt like they were full of lead. A deep yearning from inside pulled at him like extra gravity, making him want to just curl up in a ball and sleep. Tempting as it might have been to lay down for a few minutes, his mind pressed upon him the importance of his mission. Penh’s words rang in his ears. Rob’s life hung in the balance, as did the security of the United States and, perhaps, much of the world. Pushing himself to keep moving, he wrestled the pack onto his back.

  Once the shoulder straps were on, he leaned forward and pushed himself up to a standing position. Steadying his balance against the rock, it took him a full minute to stand up straight and tighten his belt strap, then another half-minute to get his bearings and coax his feet into motion. Collin shuffled forward, climbing ever higher up the shoulder of the mountain, his thin athletic shoes struggling to grip the rocky surface, his hollow body struggling to stay upright.

  He persevered for as long as he could before Montezuma demanded more. In a fit of manic flailing, he dropped the pack, dashed toward a rocky outcropping, and prepared himself for the onslaught. The contents of his bowels exited with such force that he worried his guts would shoot out, too.

  While he was at it, his stomach revolted again, just for good measure, making it hard to keep his balance and concentration. The shoes took the brunt of the onslaught from his mouth. Vomit splattered off the left shoe and onto the rocks in front of him. To add to his misery, his foot was now soaking wet and pungent.

  This would not have been a pleasant experience in even the most luxurious setting, but to have this happen when he was all alone, twelve thousand feet up the side of a mountain in a foreign country with an ominous deadline looming, presented a severe test of not only his physical endurance and his desire to survive, but his commitment to stopping Pho Nam Penh “at all costs.” Collin had to fight off the thought that rest and recovery were more important at this time than making the rendezvous and preventing Penh from wreaking whatever havoc Lukas thought he was planning. In his exhausted and depleted state, Collin questioned whether it really mattered and if what Lukas told him was true. He wondered why Lukas and his team couldn’t just do it without him so he could rest. His body kept insisting on sleep while in his mind he heard Lukas urging him on and Penh threatening him. In the end, his trust in Lukas and his desire to do the right thing prevailed and his body reluctantly followed what his mind told it to do.

  At roughly forty-five-minute intervals, Montezuma returned and a similar scene repeated. He was making less than one mile per hour. With so little strength left and unable to hold down food or water, Collin worried that he wouldn’t even survive the day, let alone make it to the meeting spot.

  With his mouth dry, his throat raw, and his body in pain from head to foot, it was time for Lukas’s semi-regular check-in call. It couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time, but Collin was always glad to hear from his wise and loyal friend. He answered the bright yellow satellite phone on the third ring and spoke to Lukas for less than ninety seconds, but his voice and his calm assurance added just the boost of courage and vision Collin needed to get himself going again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  London, England

  June 18, 3:40 p.m. London Time; 9:40 a.m. Mexico City Time

  Nic found himself gathering his things and preparing to leave the office in the middle of the afternoon. This day had taken a strange turn, one he never expected, when Alastair called him into his office five minutes ago and informed him he was heading to Mexico City to take Pho Nam Penh into custody.

  “What? Have you gone mad? Arrest Penh? Just like that? What makes you think he’s even there?” Nic had questioned in his squeaky voice, which elevated in pitch whenever he got excited. “Last I knew we were still trying to get Collin Cook. We knew he was in Mexico, but not Penh.”

  Alastair held up a hand and Nic stopped the questions. “We have it on good authority from both the Americans and the Mexicans that he will be landing there just five hours from now and is meeting with some high-level government insiders later this evening. We’re a bit behind the eight ball here, Nic, but the terms of the agreement between the Americans and the Mexicans is that Interpol is to make the arrest. So get to it. Your plane leaves at half four.” Nic left the office in a daze and was called back in just seconds later. “Be sure you’re carrying your firearm and your badge, Detective Lancaster.”

  Now Nic’s head was spinning. He had no idea what prompted this sudden turn of events or how the information had come or how reliable it was. All he knew was that his boss ordered him to go and he was going to be on a special military jet flying over the Atlantic in less than an hour. He found it interesting how quickly things could change sometimes in this line of work, but how painfully slow they could be at other times.

  With barely more than the clothes on his back and his laptop computer in its carrying case, Nic was whisked away in a company car with a company driver for the first time in his young career.

  Maybe he was back on the fast track after all.

  ****

  Mt. Tlaloc, Mexico

  June 18, 2:38 p.m. Local Time

  After the sixth or seventh episode with Montezuma—he’d lost count—as he lay on his side with his pants around his knees, wondering if he would be able to carry on, Collin began to feel something inside. Something like a surge of energy. Something like a call from his stomach and a cry from his muscles, asking for food, asking for fuel. But he was completely wiped out, unable to move. Every ounce of strength had been depleted. The surge continued, as did the call for something to eat. Answering the call, he crawled the few feet to where he’d dropped his pack and pulled out one of the MREs, the infamous military “meals, ready to eat.” He read the instructions, tore open the packaging, and began to eat the food many vets had told him was inedible. He didn’t care. It had calories and it filled the void and would give him energy that he so desperately needed.

  The other thing his military friends had told him was that MREs had several nicknames. One of them that he remembered as he looked at the package was “Meals Refusing to Exit.” If that was true, he thought, it might be exactly what he needed right now. Anything that could counteract what Montezuma was doing to him was a worthwhile and welcome solution.

  His throat was so burned from stomach acid that he couldn’t taste anything and his gut was so hollow it would accept even protein-fortified sawdust. Collin shoveled in the foodstuff and washed it down with a generous slug of water, flavored with some sort of electrolyte drink packet that tasted mildly of raspberry. Of the three liters of water he started with, he was now down to about half a liter. He knew he needed to f
ind a lake or a stream to filter water and refill his supply.

  Within minutes, Collin felt rejuvenated enough to continue. His hind end hurt to move. Too many of these violent episodes in too short a time. Walking was already painful, thanks to his feet. This problem would only exacerbate the trauma of moving his legs. Every muscle in his midsection was sore and tender from the relentless retching. His throat was raw and burning. Even his back was sore, probably a pulled muscle during one of the gastrointestinal revolts.

  Despite his physical pains, a renewed sense of hope and power began to take hold.

  Thoughts of his mother floated through his mind. He said a silent prayer for her, sensing deep inside that she prayed for him, too. At the same moment, an image of Emily tied up and gagged flashed through his mind. Penh and his men had intended to hurt her, as well as his mother. A dark anger welled up inside, fueling the renewed strength coursing through his muscles and veins. Pho Nam Penh had to be stopped and he would have to pay for what he had done. The real question was how and what could he—Collin Cook, an untrained, unskilled, civilian—do? Especially considering his current condition.

  He was off the trail now and had been for the past few hours, heading cross-country as best he could through patches of open, rocky terrain punctuated by the occasional stand of trees and bushes. Dried grass and low-lying, flowery succulents surrounded the rocky outcroppings where he stopped for this latest break.

  He checked his watch. A little more than seven hours until pick up at the rendezvous point. The GPS said he still had just under sixteen miles to go. Strapping the pack onto his back, he sucked in a lung full of the fresh mountain air and steeled his resolve to be there on time. He wanted to get back to civilization and find a comfortable place to rest, yes, but he also wanted to speak with Lukas and learn all he could about what he had in mind for dealing with Pho Nam Penh and getting Rob back.

  With the first glimmers of renewed energy finding their way to his muscles, the next big impediment to making good time now was his feet. Despite the duct tape on his shoes and mole skin on his feet, blisters were forming everywhere. The flimsy athletic shoes were not supporting his feet in the rugged, volcanic-rock-strewn terrain. His feet moved around inside his shoes, causing friction, which caused hot spots on his skin, which caused blisters, which caused pain and discomfort.

  The shoes were not only creating blisters, they were showing signs of distress. Around the joints of his toes, where the most flexion happened, holes were widening in the lightweight, stretchy fabric. Along the sides of the big toes, the upper was separating from the sole on both shoes. Other tears had started every time he scraped against the rough edge of a rock. He had wrapped duct tape around the worst spots, hoping it would hold the shoes together long enough for him to get off this mountain.

  The tread wasn’t doing much better. It was getting carved up on both shoes by the metamorphic terra beneath them. Every jagged rock pierced through the spongy soles to the bottoms of his feet. The air trapped in the highly-touted cushioning was no match for the conditions, nor the additional weight Collin lugged on his back. With this kind of foot pain, he knew from experience with long-distance running events, that even standing was going to be a chore before this journey was through.

  As the agony mounted in his feet and with his legs still not at full-strength, not to mention the beating the shoes were taking, Collin wondered how he was going to make it, especially considering most of the remainder of hike would be downhill and cross-country, which was tougher on the feet, legs, and shoes. But he had no time to stop or slow down. He just kept moving and kept praying.

  As Collin pounded his way downhill, doing his best to follow the straight red line on the GPS, he heard something echoing off the peaks around him. It was a thumping sound, accompanied by a dull roar. He stopped to listen more carefully. The thumping grew louder, but he could not tell where it was. He knew that sound was from a helicopter somewhere in the area and it sounded like a big one, which could only mean one thing: the military was searching for him.

  ****

  Licenciado Adolfo Lopez Mateos International Airport, 40 miles south of Mexico City

  June 18, 2:50 p.m. Local Time

  As the Gulfstream taxied to the private hangar on the north end of the busy airport, Pho Nam Penh was already working the phone, contacting members of his team who had set up in Mexico City. His first phone call was to Senator Juan Miguel Rivera Torres. In short guttural bursts, the senator assured him that his team was prepared and standing by. His voice was hushed, just above a whisper, and he ended the call hastily, explaining that he could not speak right now, but would call back shortly. Penh scowled at his phone after the call and tapped it on his knee repeatedly.

  The senator, of all people, knew what was at stake. He had been recruiting and assembling his forces for months. They were moving into place, making ready to seize the moment and claim the ultimate victory. Of the senator’s grand and devious ambitions, Penh could rest assured.

  He let the moment pass without redialing as the flight attendant brought him his suitcoat and briefcase. Trust, though currently under strain, had been established between Penh and Torres because of their common hatred of the gluttonous, greedy capitalists that had pillaged both of their countries over the generations. That commonality propelled the relationship and the schemes from their earliest stages to this point—the brink of Western civilization’s collapse. As the final details of Penh’s plan drew near, his trust in Torres had begun to slip. Torres’s personal agenda had shown itself, so Penh knew he would need to constantly remind Torres of the end goal they had agreed upon. Vision and execution, that was the name of the game and those two things would have to be made crystal clear to his fellow conspirator and all those working with them in order to bring about the long-awaited, fast-approaching culmination of those plans.

  When the plane’s door opened, the nearly deserted northern reaches of the private tarmac were bathed in hazy sunlight. Mexico City was as polluted as Los Angeles and many other major metropolises Penh had visited. Not as bad as Beijing, but it was bad enough for him to take note.

  Penh emerged from the temperature-controlled luxury of his plane to the warmth of the mountain-ringed Valley of the Damned, as it was sometimes called. A sense of pride and the thrill of anticipation swelled within him as he sucked in a lungful of the thin, polluted mountain air. It was all very fitting. Being in this place, this aptly named mega-metropolis, as it became the epicenter of a true modern-day revolution, harked back to the days when the Aztecs dominated this hemisphere. Since their fall, they had become like Penh’s people in Southeast Asia: forgotten, looked over, and betrayed. Now, as Penh’s scheme worked its way through its final phases, the forgotten and the damned would rise again and claim the place where now stood the self-appointed, overindulged, hypermaterialistic gluttons at the top of the world’s old-order. The old guard would soon be toppled. And Penh would usher in a new era, headed by the new guard, and there would be order. Or else.

  Surveying the area, Penh could see no sign of Collin Cook or the guards that should have delivered him upon Penh’s arrival. The senator had promised. Anger rose within him and a hard scowl overtook his countenance.

  Moments later, when his phone rang, a deviant smile returned to his face. It was Senator Torres. “Where is Collin Cook?” Penh demanded of him. “We had a deal.”

  “My men found those responsible for hiding and transporting him. I am happy to report those men are now dead. They have confiscated the computer, but as of yet, they have not located him.”

  Penh clenched his jaw and sucked in a breath slowly and loudly through his nose. “My instructions were explicit. Have him here when I land.”

  “I know what you demanded, but I don’t know how we can find this man who keeps disappearing. I know you have had your own troubles apprehending him, so please do not lecture me about his escape. We are working to remedy the situation as we speak.”

  “Do you kn
ow where he is? How did he escape?”

  “We believe he escaped into the mountains east of the city. We have a helicopter in the air searching for him as we speak.”

  “Why was this not done sooner? We are wasting valuable time.”

  “Please understand the limitations we have at the moment. Though our forces have grown and will continue to grow, we do not yet have all of the military units under our control. Acquiring the use of a military helicopter for our purposes required time and persuasion. Then, once the helicopter was in the air, we have had to cover more than three hundred square miles with just one aircraft. It is a long and difficult process.”

  Penh huffed. “What is your estimated time of delivery?”

  “We have not yet located him, so I do not have a firm time to give you.”

  Penh shut his eyes tight and held the phone in front of him to let the storm inside settle. “Remember our bargain: no Cook, no money. If you cannot deliver him, you will not receive the money.”

  “We will deliver him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mt. Tlaloc, Mexico

  June 18, 3:45 p.m. Local Time

  When he first heard the thumping of the helicopter, Collin was out in the open, eating an MRE at the crest of a ridge. The peak of Mt. Tlaloc towered above him to the right. Begging his aching body to obey, he had managed to hustle downslope a quarter mile or so to a gulley where a clump of trees stood. The trees provided cover from the overhead observers looking for him, but they only extended a few hundred yards. He checked overhead and listened closely in an attempt to locate his would-be captors. When he thought it was clear, he darted, as best he could, to the next copse of trees two hundred yards away. A similar pattern had repeated for the past forty-five minutes, greatly reducing his speed. Run to cover, stay under the cover for as long as possible, take a visual check, then run like mad for more cover. It was easier when there was a stream to follow, as in the gulley areas. But when he had to circumnavigate around a hill or ridge, it became more tedious and difficult and slow-going, as well as risky.