by Matt Hilton
'I think that amply proves whose side I'm on now.'
Silva smiled in his genial old man way. 'Gutierrez has been playing both sides, going between me and my competitor, Cesar Calle, taking money from the two of us. It's right that you killed the traitor for me. I'm only sorry that you didn't make it last a little longer.'
'It's like you said earlier, Senor Silva, we have much to plan and much to do. Wasting time on that two-faced dog would be counterproductive.'
Silva indicated Guarapo. 'Take him out of here before he stinks up the place. Make sure that he disappears, Guarapo. He is DAS after all and will be missed.'
Rickard had loaded his Glock with hollow-points. The bullet had punched through the policeman's forehead and fragmented inside, pulping his brain, but there was no exit hole. A slow trickle of blood leaked down his face, following the contours of his large nose and pooling along the edge of his moustache. There wasn't much threat of a mess from the wound, but the man had voided his bowel and a rank stench drifted from him.
Guarapo – obviously deeming the unsavoury task below him – called for help from some of his men outside. Two of those who had sneaked off for a smoke came in looking sheepish under the stares of their leaders, took Gutierrez by his elbows and knees and carted him away. Guarapo gave them explicit orders for his disposal, which earned a lazy smile from Silva.
When they were gone, Guarapo closed the door. He leaned against the door frame, watching Rickard with the same undisguised hatred as earlier. The big German took his post at the other side, but he merely looked aloof at the proceedings. Rickard ignored them both.
He twisted in his seat so that he could stare directly into the eyes of Silva. 'I can give you Cesar Calle, but my terms remain the same as we discussed.'
Silva waved a hand at the circle of men. 'They are all in agreement with me. Lead them to Calle and when he is dead you are welcome to take your prize.'
'Calle is well protected, but I see you have massed your troops. I think they will be enough to keep his army busy while I see to him.'
'I want him to die in pain, Senor Rickard. I want Calle to know what it is to think he can take what belongs to me.'
'You will hear the screaming all the way from here.'
Rickard stood up and lifted his bag to his shoulder. To the assembled group of soldiers, he said, 'Are you ready, gentlemen?'
Rickard didn't care about Cesar Calle. Like Jorge Gutierrez, he was simply a go-between for the one that had hired him to slay Joe Hunter and his team. He would kill Calle, but it wasn't his priority. He wanted his prize: time with the one who thought that Rickard could be discarded like a soiled rag.
Chapter 32
'Is there anything else you need?'
I shook my head at Hector Nunez, and touched the SIG where I'd stowed it in a quick-draw holster on my hip. 'Got everything I need right here.'
He smiled tight-lipped, then nodded me over to the Cherokee. Rink and Harvey were already in the back and Charles in the driver's post. The engine grumbled and a wisp of smoke rose slowly from the exhaust pipe. I climbed in, giving my friends a wink. We were about to get moving again after hours of inactivity I could have done without.
We had arrived at a staging base the evening before – an abandoned shack on the slope of a wooded hill. There we went through our plans for taking down Jorge Gutierrez and forcing the name of my real enemy from him. Normally I'm not one for intricate plans, but in the circumstances we had to be wary. Gutierrez was moving in dangerous circles. We were in a hurry to get started but there were things to do first. Top of the list came showering the sweat from my body. I'd acclimatised somewhat to the heat of Florida, so the temperature wasn't an issue. But here in these high jungles the moisture in the air was so thick it was like a damp rag had been wrapped round my limbs. The shower turned out to be a stream trickling down the face of the hillside, but it did the job nicely. Lack of personal hygiene could kill a soldier as quickly as disease or infected wounds. More than once in my career I'd picked out a hidden ambush by the stench wafting off those waiting nervously in hiding.
Food and water were next on the agenda. I accepted both from Hector Nunez, but turned down the offer of a cigarette. It was a long time since I'd taken a hit of nicotine, and things were going to stay that way. The smell of smoke could give me away as easily as body odour. Nunez dragged on his hand-rolled cigarette, though, and I allowed him the comfort. There was a high probability that some – or all – of us would not be coming back from the raid we planned: a condemned man's last wish shouldn't be turned down.
But now we were in the jeep there'd be no more.
Charles took us back down the hill and on to a single-lane back road where he swung to the south. Somewhere ahead of us lay the house where Gutierrez was reportedly visiting regularly enough to cause suspicion with the CIA agents. Immediate intel said he wasn't there now, but he was due a visit. Our plan was to infiltrate the surrounding countryside and wait for him. It sounds simple in the saying but can be quite different in the execution. Going for us was that we had Rink along for the ride. Rink has the ability to penetrate enemy lines with an ease verging on the supernatural.
Lower down the foothills we passed farmers toiling in fields, and we went through a few small villages where the signs were all in Spanish except for the obligatory Coca-Cola advertisements above cafe doors. I didn't see a McDonald's but if we looked hard enough I was pretty sure we'd find one.
Charles had studied maps the previous evening, so was ready for when a track edged up a hillside and disappeared though a canyon. He took the right turn and within minutes we were back in the wilderness. A river wound its way through the valley beyond, twisting and turning with the contours of the land. We abandoned the Cherokee where the trail ended and set off on foot, carrying our H amp;K MP5A5's ready. Rink took point and I brought up the rear, with Harvey and the two Jungla troopers spread out between us.
The going was slow, the trees hemming us in, the rumble of the river making it difficult to hear anyone approaching. Everything was green and wet. Beneath the green the glistening darkness could have hidden an entire squadron of soldiers. It was some years since I'd engaged in jungle warfare, but the lessons had stayed with me. The trick is to look beyond the darkness, use your peripheral vision which is better at picking up movement than looking directly. And remember to check above regularly.
We walked for hours.
The terrain was constant, high valleys and trees, the river a grumbling companion. It was easy to be lulled into a sense of security by the tranquillity of the forest or by the river's hypnotic music. But we were all on high alert. Without exception we were thrumming with anticipation. We were now within hailing distance of our enemies.
Hector Nunez called a halt and we huddled in a ring, each watching over our opposite's shoulder for anyone moving in on us.
Nunez pointed to the cliffs on our left. 'Beyond that ridge, we will find a trail that leads down into a valley. The house is directly below it.' He spread a diagram swathed in clear plastic on his thighs. Pointing to hand-sketched symbols, he indicated the house and outlying buildings. There was a clear space beyond them and the broken lines of a road coming from the opposite end of the valley. 'Sentries will be posted here,' he said, placing his finger on the map at the far end of the road, 'and here on the cliffs surrounding the buildings.' This time his finger danced over four different locations. One of them was directly above us.
'Do we dare take out the ones up there?' Rink nodded up at the towering ridge. The boulders looked ragged and had been invaded by growths of vines and trees that prickled with sharp thorns. Rink looked like he was upset that he wasn't going to get the chance to scale the cliff. 'If they're in regular contact with the others, we risk giving ourselves away.'
'We need to set up from other vantage points,' I said. 'Near enough to the sentries that we can take them out when the time comes.'
'No problem.' Rink nodded satisfaction. That was his kind o
f work.
On his map Nunez pointed out the cliffs on each side of the valley. At the base of both was a line of cross-hatching. 'The valley was cleared of shrubbery recently. There are mounds of logs piled all along the valley floor. They would make good observation posts.'
'Below the sentries on the cliffs?' Harvey looked incredulous.
'The sentries are watching the trails into the valley. If we got by them, we wouldn't be noticed hiding in the lea of the cliffs.' Nunez looked to his friend for support.
'We have done it before,' Charles confirmed as he batted an insect away from his face. 'They are more concerned with watching for anyone coming from the road and they are there to lay down covering fire from a high vantage. If we're careful they'll be unaware of us.'
'We don't want them above us.' Harvey was in agreement with me. 'Things will be different this time. When you've been here before it was only to gather intelligence. Sneak in, sneak out again. This time there's going to be shooting. I don't want to be pinned down by men on the ridges while reinforcements are brought in.'
'Then we must take them out,' Nunez concurred.
Rink withdrew his Ka-Bar and looked at its razor edge. 'I'll do the ones on the cliff above us, then move on to the others on the far ridge. We only need someone to do the guys on this side. Don't think we have much to worry about with the men at the far end. By the time they realise something's going down, we can be in and out again.'
I stabbed a finger at the cross-hatching nearest the houses. 'I'll take that point. I want to be the one that goes inside. Harvey? You happy taking the sentries on this side of the valley?'
'Sure,' he said.
Nunez and Charles looked at each other.
'I want you guys with me,' I said. 'Rink and Harvey can cover from up on the cliffs, but I'm going to need someone covering the house so I'm not disturbed while I'm inside. When I get Gutierrez I want to know I can fall back without having to run a gauntlet.'
'What about Cesar Calle?' Nunez asked.
'If he's the person responsible for sending Luke Rickard, I'll kill him.'
The best known of the Colombian drug-trafficking groups are the Cali, Medellin and Norte del Valle cartels. They're the most high-profile, but there are others. There are the North-Coast, Bogota and Santander de Quilichao cartels as well. Add the demobilised factions of the AUC, ELN, FARC and Aguilas Negras paramilitary organisations to the seething pot, and you'd think there was no room left for another enterprising group. But there were plenty.
Cesar Calle headed his own group, and though the meanderings of the trail twisted back and forth over the intervening seven years, Calle did have connections to Jesus Henao Abadia. Therein lay a motive for Calle ordering a hit on the team that brought down his old friend, but it was pretty weak. I still believed there was more to it than that.
Last night Juan Charles had mentioned the crimes that Calle was suspected of. They included torturing a pair of French students whose backpacking adventure had brought them unexpectedly to one of his cocaine production bases. The students – little more than children – had been found in a shallow grave, semi-decomposed, but their injuries were still very evident. Calle was never brought to book: a few well-placed bribes in the correct hands saw to that.
Even if he wasn't the person responsible for sending Rickard, I'd have no regrets about killing him. In fact, his card was already marked.
We did a controlled starburst, Rink and Harvey heading off on their tasks while I now led the Jungla troopers further along the forest trail. A cleft through the cliff marked on the map was about a hundred yards ahead, but it meant a climb to get to it. On our right the river twisted away in a tight curve, bottlenecking between massive algae-slick boulders. The noise from the gushing flume beyond was the same as the blood in my inner ears.
Reaching a small cliff-face that blocked our path, I slung my sub-machine gun over my shoulder and hauled myself up on to a ledge. I could see old boot prints in the mud that had gathered in a shallow indentation: proof that Nunez and Charles had been here before. It was bad form to leave such obvious evidence, but I chose not to comment. If anyone had noticed and was watching the trail we'd have been cut down long before this. I nodded to the troopers, then scurried up the cliff, using vines and protruding rocks to pull myself up. About twenty feet up I found the cleft and it was like a huge knife slash through the hillside. Taking my H amp;K in my hands I edged forwards as Nunez clambered up behind me. I indicated that he should keep an eye on the steep cliffs above us: until Rink was in place I didn't want one of Calle's sentries to spot us. I moved on, stepping carefully among loose rocks, while Charles made the climb.
I could see daylight at the far end of the cleft, but it was only a narrow chink through which I could make out nothing of the land ahead, just pale blue sky dotted by clouds of moisture rising from the jungle on far slopes. It was idyllic in its own way, and there was nothing about it to suggest what horrors lay ahead of us.
The first hint I got was the crack of gunfire followed by a man's agonised scream.
Chapter 33
Rickard watched the big German, Burkhard Metzger, stand up in the bed of the jeep and shoot both guards at the front gate. And that was it. The assault of Cesar Calle's stronghold was on.
One of the guards didn't die immediately and reached to hit an alarm in a metal box fixed to a post. Metzger hopped down from the jeep, cleaving the man's hand from his wrist with a large-bladed knife direct from a Rambo movie, halting the warning. He then backhanded the blade across the man's face, chopping loose his jaw and the man's cry of agony, before throwing open the barrier and waving the convoy of Silva's soldiers through. In the German language, Metzger translates as butcher. He was living up to the name.
Scrambling back up on to the leading jeep, he steadied himself by bracing his legs. He glanced sideways at Rickard.
'Good job, Metzger.'
The German set his jaw at Rickard's feigned exuberance.
Rickard shrugged his shoulders. He was impressed by Metzger's cold-blooded manner, but wasn't about to admit it. To do so meant undermining his own considerable abilities. Better that he just got down to business and showed exactly which of them was the better man-killer. He lifted his rifle and fired three quick rounds at a group of men charging out of a hut at the edge of the road. All three went down like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. Beside him, Rickard heard Metzger's grunt of admiration. Stick around, he wanted to say, and you'll learn a thing or two. But he left the boast unsaid, choosing instead to allow his actions to prove the point.
Trees encroached on each side of the road, left to thrive by Calle's people in order to conceal the view of the land beyond, but once the convoy of five vehicles was through the forest the valley opened up to fields cleared of cover, surrounded on all sides by tall cliffs. Timber barricades like giant caltrops ensured that a free approach to the buildings at the far end was impossible. The wide swathe of grass was a typical killing ground where an enemy could be cut down while traversing the open space.
But that was all supposing that Cesar Calle's troops were prepared for such a full-frontal assault. The brashness of the attack had caught them napping, and resistance was slow to follow. It was a good half minute before guns began rattling from up on the clifftops and already Rickard and his team were mid-way through the valley. Second in line in the group was a truck with a M240 belt-fed machine gun mounted on the roof. With a cyclical rate of up to seven hundred and fifty rounds a minute and Guarapo at the trigger, the M240 laid down a torrent of fire that kept the sentries on the cliffs from getting a clear shot. Over the roar of the machine gun Rickard could hear Guarapo swearing viciously. Not the sweet man his name suggested.
The convoy sped through the twisting route between the barricades, the fearless attack taking them beyond the defensive lines and towards the buildings. The house wasn't dissimilar to the one back at Silva's compound. If anything, it was larger and more luxurious. On either side were outbuildings,
quarters for Calle's people or perhaps visiting dignitaries judging by the apparent lushness of the gardens the structures were set in.
Up on the cliff at the back of the house, rifles cracked and bullets struck sparks from the cab of the jeep a few inches from Rickard's head. He ducked, cursing when he noticed that Metzger stood his ground and returned fire. Who does he think he is, Rickard wondered, the goddamn Terminator?
As the jeep lurched to a halt, Rickard vaulted over the side and sprinted quickly to the corner of one of the outbuildings. Glancing back, he saw that the German had also leapt from the stalled vehicle and was running towards cover on the far side. Bullet holes starred the windscreen of the jeep and there was a distinct lack of movement from their driver. Didn't matter to Rickard; the driver had served his purpose in getting him close enough to assault the house.
Leaving Metzger and Guarapo and their goons to engage any resistance from Calle's troops, Rickard rushed through a garden of flowers in full bloom. He hurdled over a fence and found himself on a path, white pebbles underfoot. Machine guns crackled all round him, a din sounding like New Year in Chinatown. Men shouted and others screamed. Rickard blocked it all out, fixating on a window at the side of the main house. As he ran, he raised his rifle and fired a short burst. Glass shattered and the curtains inside danced as the bullets tugged at them. In the next instant Rickard dived bodily through the broken window, thumping down on the top of a dresser and scattering trinkets on the floor. Continuing his roll, he came off the dresser and on to the floor. Without looking, he knew a man was rushing into the room to investigate the commotion, and he lifted his gun and fired. True to form, he heard the agonised yelp of a person mortally wounded.
Coming to his knees, he searched for other targets, but there was only one man squirming on the floor a few feet away. Rickard steadied the rifle and put a bullet into the man's skull. Next he stood and headed for the doorway, heedless of the blood streaming from his forehead where glass had sliced him.
