Loose Ends (The Hammer Commission Book 3)

by John Van Stry

  "This one is doing cocaine," Michael said, nodding to the one on the right he was in front of.

  "Hear anything?" Mark asked.

  "No, it sounds quiet."

  Mark nodded and padding over, he balanced on his hind legs and grabbing the doorknob opened it and went inside.

  "What?" Michael asked, following him.

  "Easier to check from in here," Mark told him.

  Inside they found a number of grinding machines, and stacks of empty bags, as well as ones full of coca leaves.

  "This looks like a pretty serious operation," Michael said, and looked at the hallway that opened into the next building.

  "Let's take a quick look," Mark said, and they both padded down the hallway, going from the first building to the next, and the next after that.

  The first two were for grinding the leaves. The next four seemed to be filled with acid baths of some sort and drying equipment. The last four were all chemistry labs, high-end ones, with sophisticated processing equipment.

  "This is a pretty advanced facility," Michael said as they went back to the door they'd come in.

  "I think I'm starting to see how they got involved in the biotech industry," Mark agreed. "They upscaled to improve production and along the way they started to learn about other things."

  "Well, let's see what's on the other side," Michael said.

  Mark nodded and when they got back to the door they'd come in through he stopped as he opened it a crack. He could hear men talking.

  "What do you mean, 'It nearly killed Jose?'" said a man's voice in Spanish with a thick eastern European accent, Mark couldn't tell if he was German or Czech, his ear for accents wasn't the best. It was even worse when they weren't speaking English.

  "Jose shot a cat! A big one! And he went out to get it, but it wasn't dead, and it attacked him and ran off into the woods! He's lying in the canteen now, on a table! The doc isn't sure he'll live!" A second man, sounding more like a local, jabbered back quickly in Spanish as well.

  The first man laughed, loudly, then said, "Serves the idiot right! You are not supposed to leave your posts during guard duty! And you shouldn't be hunting! Not on duty! It's probably laying dead in the brush somewhere. Take a few men in the morning to go look for it, if you still want it that badly! I'm going back to bed!"

  "Yes, Herman," the other man said.

  Mark waited until he heard a door close, and then the other man walk off, muttering something about Europeans.

  "I think we found Herman," Michael whispered in his ear.

  "You speak Spanish?" Mark asked, surprised.

  "These days, you have to, if you want to work in the FBI," Michael said.

  "Interesting," Mark said, "I wouldn't have expected to find him here. Carlos doesn't live here, he just visits."

  "Maybe he's here to keep an eye on their new project?" Michael suggested. "This is a pretty religious, as well as superstitious land. If Smith had a better idea of what this stuff was than what he told your brother, it may well be he shared that information with Carlos before he died."

  Mark nodded, and then they slipped out the door and padded over to the building across from it, and slipped inside that one.

  "Whoa," Michael said looking around.

  Mark had to agree. This looked like one of the labs in his brother's building, and there were three of them set up, from front to back.

  "Well, I guess we now know where that new flood of designer drugs is all coming from," Michael said looking around.

  "Let's check out the next one," Mark said.

  The next two proved to be exactly the same, but the hallway connecting to the fourth building had a door and it was locked and had a keypad next to it.

  "I think we found our sample," Michael said.

  "Let's not be hasty, there are six more buildings, let's see which other ones are locked as well."

  Going back outside, they carefully checked the remaining six. They were getting close to one of the guard towers now, so they had to be careful and stick to the shadows. But they found that the door to each of the remaining buildings was locked and had an identical keypad next to it.

  "So, one in six chance," Michael said as they made their way back to the spot they'd snuck under the fence.

  "Tomorrow, we can sit up in one of the trees outside the perimeter and watch who goes in where, and see if we can figure it out then," Mark said.

  "Just as long as they can't see us, I don't feel like getting shot!" Michael growled.

  "Eh, we'll make Clem do it," Mark chuckled, "as punishment for not listening to what I told him to do."

  "You know, if they do go looking for his body tomorrow, we really should stage a surprise," Michael said with a purr.

  Mark almost laughed, "That sounds like a very good idea indeed."

  When morning came Mark sent the girls to tell Judith that they didn't need anything and to come back at noon in two days. Next he sent Clem up a tree to keep an eye on the buildings he was interested in. Then he and Michael went off to wait and see if anyone came looking for the cat they shot last night.

  Mark watched as the four men came out of the gates, each carrying an AK rifle, scanning the road side to side as they came.

  "Notice anything," Mark whispered.

  "What?" Michael said.

  "They're not looking up," Mark grinned.

  Mark had taken the time to kill a rabbit a few hours ago, and made a nice little blood trail into the woods. As the men drew closer, he and Michael quickly climbed up into two different trees, and waited well up above the ground.

  When they came to the blood marked spot on the ground where their buddy had been attacked, they started to look around. Within minutes one of them found the blood trail that Mark had left, and they started into the trees single file.

  Mark motioned for Michael to take the one to the rear, and then he just dropped out of the trees onto the second one in line, screaming 'Death from above', which of course to the men on the ground sounded like a rather loud cougar scream that was quickly getting closer.

  By the time they looked up, Mark and Michael had both landed on their targets, claws out, and started tearing into the men around them. Neither one was trying for a kill; they just wanted to injure them enough that they'd not be able to work for a while.

  It took Mark about three seconds to do a nice fillet job on the man he'd landed on, though getting hit by almost two hundred pounds from above probably had broken a few bones as well. The man behind Mark brought his gun up but got hit by Michael as Mark dodged. He must have had his finger on the trigger, because as he went down he shot his friend, the man who was first in line and who had been turning around to bring his gun to bear in gut about twenty times.

  Someone had obviously left the select fire switch in the wrong position.

  Mark grabbed the weapon of the now dying man, as Michael did a quick job on the one who had shot him, then ripping off his bandolier of spare magazines; Michael followed Mark deeper into the forest.

  Circling back to camp, they dropped everything with the rifle they'd liberated last night, and then snuck off to a rise to watch the drama unfold in the camp below.

  As they watched, Herman came out and organized twenty of the men and took them down to where the attack had gone off and went into the brush. Ten minutes later they came out with the four men, and brought them into the camp, where someone came out and started to dress their wounds, except for the one who had obviously been shot, they just left him to lie there.

  When they came to one of them, Herman came over and waved the doctor or medic away, and pulling out his pistol he shot him in the head.

  "That is what you get for shooting your own man!" Herman yelled out to the onlookers, who were shifting back and forth nervously. "Now, get back to work!"

  "Wow, harsh," Michael said.

  "Very," Mark agreed.

  "What do we do next?"

  "Let's watch and try to get an idea of how many people there are he
re. Then tonight, maybe we should stage a few more surprises. Show them that they aren't as safe as they think they are."

  "Sounds like a plan."

  25: Guatemala City, Guatemala

  Carlos sighed and hung up his phone. The supervisor of his lab had called up very upset. Two days ago one of his men had been badly mauled by a puma. The next day several more had been ambushed in the forest and one of his men had shot the other by accident, killing him, and then Herman had killed that man in front of everyone for his mistake.

  Then, last night, some pumas had gotten into the camp somehow and run around attacking people and causing all sorts of mayhem, throwing the camp into chaos. This morning he had ten more men mauled badly enough that they'd need to go to the hospital, twelve more enough so that they couldn't work.

  But as if that wasn't bad enough, three people had been shot in the confusion during all of the gunfire, and two of the four generators had received enough damage from stray bullets that they needed to be replaced!

  He couldn't shut down the cocaine laboratory, he needed that to stay up and running to meet demands or Manuel would be upset with him. Carlos' lab had been so successful that it was the only operation that Manuel ran now, which allowed him that much more profit as he only had to bribe a few government and local officials to keep the police out of his business.

  But without all four generators Doctor Huffman couldn't continue his experiments and try to work on production of the experimental strength drug that Smith had told him about. The supervisor had assured him that the sample wasn't in danger; however, they no longer had the power to run everything and Huffman was quite upset, so could they send out some replacements?

  Carlos shook his head, and picking the phone back up he called Herman. He'd left him out there to keep an eye on things, and because with the attack last week, the last thing he needed was for Herman to be seen walking around in public. Right now the media and several intelligence agencies were all abuzz with what had happened way up north and frankly, Herman stood out in a crowd, what with his accent and his short blond hair and Aryan looks.

  "Yeah? What do you want?" Herman answered the phone.

  "Herman, this is Carlos. Just what is going on out there?"

  "Oh, Hello, Carlos," Herman's tone softened, Herman did understand who paid his salary after all. "It's nothing much. We've just had a run in with some wild cats. I think the guys stirred them up or something when they shot one of them."

  "Herman, they're not people, they're stupid animals. Dangerous, sure, but they do not get 'stirred up'; now tell me, what happened?"

  "Well, last night, after midnight, two of them got inside the wire; there was a hole by the generator. Big ones from the size of the prints they left. I guess the guards spooked them or something because they went after the guards. Then some idiot set off the alarm and everyone thought we were being attacked and ran outside with their guns shooting at shadows and making things worse. By the time I got down to the front gate, the cats were gone and the damage was already done."

  Carlos swore, "They came in by the generators? Is that why the generators got shot?"

  "Hell, Carlos, I have no idea on that. No one will admit to shooting at them over there, so I don't know how that happened. Like I said, it was all over when I got down there."

  "What happened to the pumas? They were pumas, right?"

  "I guess so; everyone said they were kind of brown and all."

  "You didn't see them?"

  "They were gone by the time I got there."

  Carlos sighed, "Let me get this straight, we have fifty men out there, and not a single one managed to kill either of those cats?"

  "Nope."

  "I can not believe that!" Carlos said loudly.

  "Yeah, well maybe you need to hire better people? And definitely not let the workers have any weapons! They were running around like the chicken with its head cut off! They were actually shooting each other!"

  Carlos sighed, Herman had a point, many of the workers sampled the product, which he allowed because it kept them working long hours. But they weren't the brightest or most disciplined of people. "Take away the guns from anyone who is not working on security, we do not need more of our people shooting each other."

  "I'll take care of it, Carlos."

  "As for the pumas, does anyone know why they even came into the camp? Does anyone even know where they came from?"

  "Well, Ricky thinks they were attracted to the trash behind the kitchen. There was a pig carcass in there from dinner a couple of nights ago. He thinks the scent of the meat attracted them. As for where they're coming from?"

  Carlos heard Herman pause for a moment, and then he continued.

  "The men say that local legends say this place is the domain of the cats, and that maybe they're unhappy with us being here."

  "Please do not tell me you believe in that kind of superstition!"

  "No, Carlos, of course not. I'm just telling you what they are saying."

  Carlos sighed into the phone, "Well, I'll have them send two more generators immediately; they should be there in a few days."

  "You might want to send some men along too," Herman told him.

  "Why?"

  "Half of the men here are too injured to work, and ten of those are the men who work on the coke production line. We've got some other men filling in, but that meant pulling men off of guard duty, so I had to raid Huffman's staff, he was very angry and upset."

  "Oh? Just how angry?"

  "He yelled at me," Herman laughed, "I never knew he had the nuts!"

  "Doctor Huffman is very dedicated to his research, when anything gets in the way of it; he has a tendency to lash out at those around him."

  "Well he best not lash out at me," Herman warned.

  "Don't hurt him, Herman. He's a brilliant man and would be very hard to replace. Just be wary around him when he's upset. He has a tendency to stab people."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  "Oh, and Herman?"

  "Yes, Carlos?"

  "If this keeps up, I want you to mount a hunting expedition and track down these pumas and kill them."

  "I'm not a big game hunter, Carlos!" Herman protested.

  "You are there, earn your pay," Carlos warned. "I'll be up there soon enough to check on progress. Goodbye," Carlos said and hung up.

  Carlos shook his head, in the seven years his lab had been there; they'd never had a problem with the local wildlife. Well, not after they'd put up the fence at least. From the sound of it, things had gotten too lax. Holes in the fence? A pig carcass laying around for a couple of days?

  It was times like this that Carlos wondered if he'd made the right choices in his life, leaving the respectable, if poor, family business of running the nickel mine for the far more lucrative illegal drug trade. But he'd gone to far to change now, of that he was sure. He turned his thoughts back to the lab and the homicidal maniac he'd left up there. If there were problems, leaving a heavy-handed man like Herman alone might not be the best idea.

  Perhaps it was time for him to fly up there and take a look at things himself.

  26: Laguna Del Tigre, Guatemala

  "So, now what?" Michael asked Mark as they looked out over the installation.

  "I'm thinking we need some more ammunition so I can get one of the girls to take out the other two generators tonight," Mark said. He'd had Jess shoot up the first two, but she'd run out of bullets in the hunting rifle before she'd been able to destroy another one, and the bullets in the AK's just weren't powerful enough. Though Gail had managed to shoot several men in the legs last night during the confusion, while he, Michael, and Clem, were running around the installation.

  "And then?"

  "Then we'll see if those doors unlock when they're not powered."

  "Why don't we just grab one of the people who know the code?" Clem asked.

  "Because I'd rather not advertise to the world that we exist," Mark sighed.

  "I think your
son has a point," Michael said.

  "Really?" Mark asked and even Clem looked surprised.

  "We incapacitated half of their people last night; they're going to have to send in reinforcements. I don't think they'll get here today, but tonight might be our last night to get in there easily and deal with them."

  Mark sighed and nodded, "I think you may be right. I just didn't expect us to do as much damage as we did last night."

  "They were pretty pathetic," Clem laughed, "they didn't even manage to hit a single one of us."

  "That's because the guards didn't want to accidentally shoot each other after Herman's little lesson yesterday, and the workers were too coked up to shoot straight," Mark said. "Whatever we do tonight, however, expect them to be a lot better prepared."

  "Umm, Dad?" Jess said padding up to the three of them.

  "Yes?" Mark said, backing away from the rise they were on top of and turning to face his daughter.

  "There's someone back at the camp I think you need to talk to."

  "What?" Mark said, surprised. "At the camp?"

  She ducked her head in a nod.

  "Clem, keep an eye on things, Michael, come with me."

  Mark trotted back to their camp, with Jess and Michael in tow. Jess didn't sound upset or scared, so he wondered just who it was. It couldn't be Judith; she wasn't due back again until tomorrow.

  Coming into the area where they'd been sleeping Mark saw a rather large jaguar sitting in the camp, quietly waiting while Gail watched him. He looked up as Mark padded into the area and said something that Mark didn't quite follow.

  Shifting back to his human form Mark looked down at him.

  "I don't speak Jaguar very well," Mark said in Spanish. "What do you want?"

  The jaguar shifted and Mark was suddenly looking at a rather large and strong looking man. He had brown skin and looked very much like a lot of the indigenous people Mark had seen while they were here, except for being a little taller than Mark and being of a much stronger build.

  "I could ask you the same thing," he replied. "Why are you here? And why are you causing problems? What are you doing here?"