“You expecting trouble?”
“Maybe. The Old Ones and Asag are fighting a shadow war here. I’d love to let them duke it out, but unfortunately, they’re doing it on Earth, and people are just collateral damage. But their worshippers don’t see it that way, and they’ll do anything to stop us from meddling in their affairs.”
Curtis had used his radio, which meant we were away from the jammer or they’d shut it off. I got out my phone to text my team. It was a good thing I’d kept my international plan because of all the travel I’d had to do in preparation for the siege, so it should work here.
I am in Rio with Sonya and Franks.
I hit send. Thought about it a second, because this next bit was complicated, so I just wrote, Going with Stricken to stop big event in Amazon.
A few seconds later, I got a message back from Julie. Are you a prisoner?
Kinda. Shrug emoji.
Tracking your position. We’ll come help. It will take a while. Be careful. And then Julie sent me a heart.
“Awww. Cute,” said the succubus who was watching over my shoulder.
“Buzz off,” I told Lana while I typed, Casualties?
A few. Julie responded. You can’t worry about that right now though.
I took a deep breath. She was right. There wasn’t anything I could do for them anyway. There was some comfort in knowing that if it had been someone on our team, she would have told me. MHI were my people, but my team that I constantly risked my life with was closer than family. Did you kill the last Drek? I hit send.
The little bubbles popped up to show that Julie was typing something.
“Ambush!” Curtis shouted.
I looked up just in time to see something streaking toward our lead SUV. The engine block exploded. The shredded vehicle swerved hard to the side, crashing into a building made of scrap lumber and cinderblocks. It stopped with most of its back end blocking half the road. Smoke billowed into the street. The other drivers hit their brakes.
The visibility was bad. Our attackers had probably smashed most of the lights in prep, but I could see gun barrels being hung out of doorways and windows. There were a bunch of loud pops as bullets hit our car. The armored glass fractured into weird shapes but didn’t break. There was a man running across a rooftop carrying a long tube with a bulbous end.
“RPG. Four o’clock high.”
“Go. Drive!” Curtis ordered.
Except the second car had stopped and was totally blocking the way forward. Our driver threw it in reverse and stomped on the gas. A split second later our front window was washed in fire and dirt as the warhead hit where we’d just been.
Our trunk monkey was shouting something in Portuguese, but the warning was too late, as we slammed our rear end into the container truck that had just pulled out behind us. It was a sudden and violent stop. I think I might’ve gotten whiplash. I looked back to see that a big chunk of broken metal had punched through our back window and nailed the machine-gunner in the face. He was holding his eye and screaming. Everybody else was yelling at our driver in English and Portuguese. He put it in drive, but our tires spun uselessly. Our bumper was stuck.
Trucks had boxed us in on both sides. We were sitting ducks. They must have set up on more than one route to wait for us. Their bullets were bouncing off our armor for now but those rocket-propelled grenades would rip us apart. Our only hope was to hit back. I had a perfectly good precision rifle sitting between my knees and no way to use it. “We’ve got to fight!”
The merc to my left reacted too slow. But Lana opened her door and jumped out. Instead of running for cover she leapt straight up, and with two wing beats had launched herself into the sky. The wings weren’t just for show.
I crawled out and hid behind the heavy door. If I’d had any doubt that the truck driver who had pulled out behind us was some innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time, those doubts vanished as he stuck a subgun out his window and launched a hail of bullets into our roof. I shouldered Cazador and fired twice. Holes appeared in his door and he flopped from view.
There was a lot of gunfire. I picked out the muzzle flashes across the street and started shooting. I went as fast as I could. Put the reticle on one, fire, swing to the next, fire, swing to the next, fire. I didn’t know if I was hitting anyone. We were sitting ducks, outnumbered, surrounded, and basically fucked.
Except suddenly fire arced across the sky above us. I thought it was a flamethrower at first, but it was the succubus’ whip. She was spinning, slicing fire across the favela in a widening circle. When her whip hit flesh, it sliced smoking chunks of bodies. When it hit wood it set the surrounding structures on fire. She hadn’t been exaggerating about getting some fighting upgrades!
Our ambushers turned their guns upward, forcing Lana to dive out of sight, but that momentary distraction had probably saved our ass. The men in Stricken’s vehicle had bailed out and were shooting back too. They’d been trained to fight through an ambush.
Men rushed out of the burning buildings on both sides. Bright weapon-mounted flashlights illuminated our convoy. I concentrated on the ones who were on my side of the car, because there was nothing between me and their bullets besides the door I was crouching behind, and shot at the lights.
One of my targets spun around, illuminating his friends. They were all dressed the same. Not in wacky cultist garb, or even normal clothing so that they could blend in with the populace, but rather they were all in the same black uniform, like some kind of police or military unit.
Oh shit.
It didn’t matter who they were as much as the fact they were trying to kill us. They weren’t interested in taking prisoners. There was a terrible snap as a really big bullet zipped through our front window. Our driver popped like a blood-filled water balloon.
“They’ve got a fifty!” Curtis shouted.
Another huge bullet hit our grill and ripped through our engine block. Antifreeze sprayed out of the hole. The next shot obliterated our battery.
But I’d spotted that big flash from the sniper rifle’s muzzle brake. It was on the roof of a building half a block away. I couldn’t pick out the shooter with my naked eye, but my scope gathered enough light that I could make out the shape of his head. I aimed and brained that motherfucker.
The lead car had been shredded, wrecked, and had caught on fire. That rocket hit had probably killed everybody inside—everybody human at least—because then one of the doors was kicked violently open, and out came Franks, rifle up, and he went to town, dropping dudes left and right as he moved toward the truck that was blocking our way. It was frightening that somebody that big could be that fast.
Curtis had bailed out ahead of me and was using the engine for cover as he returned fire at our attackers. The other back seat merc should have bailed out my door because it was shielded from most of the gunfire, but instead he got out his side, and immediately got riddled with bullets. Our trunk monkey was smarter and crawled out behind me.
Franks reached the blocker truck. The driver stuck a pistol out the window to shoot at him, but Franks was too fast, and shot him in the head. He opened the door, flung the body out, climbed in, and started backing the truck up. Our path was about to be cleared, but our ride was dead in the water.
Curtis realized the same thing. “Move to the next. I’ll cover you.”
I got up and ran while Curtis fired over the hood.
Another RPG gunner rose on the rooftop across the street, but before I could shoot him, Lana fell out of the sky and collided with him, flinging the man screaming over the edge. Then she swiftly launched herself back into the air.
I reached the back of Stricken’s truck and took a knee. One of the Brazilians was lying there, dead. There was movement in one of the favela’s windows to my right, followed by a whole lot of machine-gun fire. Another of the men who had been riding with Stricken got nailed in the face. I flinched as I got hit with skull chunks, then dumped the rest of my mag through that window
and the machine gun went quiet. I yanked a fresh mag and performed a fast reload. Ready to shoot again, I bellowed, “Move!”
Curtis and the trunk monkey ran toward us. The merc got hit in the back and fell. Rather than keep running to safety, Curtis turned back, grabbed him by the arm, hoisted him up, and dragged him along. I nailed the man who had shot him. Curtis shoved the wounded Brazilian through the door and climbed in after. That was it. I jumped on the running boards and banged my fist on the roof. “Drive! Drive!”
We took off.
Franks—being Franks—stubbornly shot people until the last possible instant, and then caught hold of our passing vehicle and hopped aboard. He was on one side, I was on the other, and even as projectiles were landing all around us, Franks kept on shooting his SCAR with one hand and effortlessly holding on with the other. I had to use both hands to keep from getting bounced off, because Stricken would certainly leave us to die in some trash-filled ditch.
I looked back. The light from our lead SUV’s burning gas tank revealed a bunch of black-uniformed men running out into the street to take potshots after us. One of them caught my attention. He wasn’t shooting. He was shouting orders. That was clearly the one in charge. I only caught a brief glimpse of him, an imposing man in a black beret with a beard, but there was something oddly familiar about him.
Then we were out of sight.
Chapter 26
It’s really hard to hold onto the side of a vehicle racing over a shit road in a favela. We hit so many potholes I nearly bit my tongue off. I probably left finger-shaped dents in the roof rack and the bouncing was killing my calf muscles, but there was no time to slow down. If the bad guys had set up multiple ambush points, that meant there were reinforcements nearby who might be converging on our position.
The whole ambush had taken less than a minute. It had been terrifying, but I hadn’t had time to process it. Now it was sinking in that it had been a miracle I hadn’t gotten shot. I caught glimpses of a winged form shadowing us which had to be Lana. Or at least I hoped it was her, and not some other random flying monstrosity. Then we braked so suddenly that it almost yanked my arms out of my sockets, but I managed to not get tossed into the dirt.
The back door opened. “Get in.” Curtis shoved our dead trunk monkey into the street. The poor guy had bled out, so no need for him to take up space. Extra-judicial Unicorn didn’t give a shit about leave no man behind. It was pragmatic, but it definitely demonstrated that these guys didn’t screw around. Franks and I got in the back and they floored it before we had even pulled the doors closed.
The driver turned out to be Stricken. From the amount of blood all over the upholstery and the wind whistling through the huge bullet hole through the armored glass, their original driver had met the same fate as ours. Sonya had wound up in the passenger seat and was holding an old M16 which, from the amount of blood on it, the previous owner no longer needed.
After a few seconds of terror, we were all that was left of the convoy. Holy shit, that had been close. Humans could be scarier than monsters.
“Are you guys okay?” Sonya asked.
“Yeah,” I said, even as I checked myself for holes.
Franks grunted as he inspected a wound in his shoulder. Then he grossed us all out by sticking his finger deep in the gash and probing around. A moment later he fished out a chunk of shrapnel. “I’m fine.” He tossed the jagged chunk of metal on the floor. It was probably still hot. I’d have been screaming and bleeding. Franks just seemed annoyed.
“Who were those guys, Stricken? And don’t lie and say cultists. They looked way too official.”
“Well, yes and no.” He laid on the horn to warn some street urchins to get out of our way. Thankfully, they did, because I had no doubt Stricken would have run them down. “Those were Gatos Pretos. The Black Cats. They’re a death squad that sometimes works for the state, but in this case, they’re taking orders from the cultists who’ve infiltrated their leadership, and they’re going to use the Gatos to kill anyone who gets in their god’s way. Which god they’re working for, I’ve not nailed that down quite yet. But it’s kind of irrelevant since both of them would love to see all of us dead.”
I’d never heard of this death squad, but I had a nagging feeling that I knew their leader somehow. I’d not gotten that good of a look at him, but something was eating at the back of my mind. “Who is in charge of these Black Cats?”
“Don’t know. It’s not like they have a website. You’ll have to forgive me for not having unrestricted access to the entire US intelligence apparatus anymore.”
Whoever he was, that brief glimpse had set my teeth on edge. There was something familiar, but not . . . It was like my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but it hadn’t clicked just yet.
“Sorry about your men,” Sonya said.
Stricken waved one hand dismissively. “They were local hires. Temps. I didn’t learn most of their names. Them’s the breaks.”
“Nance was in that lead car with Franks, sir,” Curtis said.
“That the other American?” Franks asked.
“Yeah. We were on the task force together.”
“He died quick,” Franks said simply.
“Shit . . . ” Curtis stared off into space, then he punched the seat.
“He was a good man,” Stricken said, though I honestly couldn’t tell if Stricken actually meant that or he was just trying to placate his remaining volunteer. After being thrown out of the government, he was probably running low on willing helpers. “We’ll make sure his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”
One second we were speeding through a favela, and the next it was like a switch had been flipped and we were in a different world. We went around one gentle turn, a patch of trees, and just like that, the road was paved and smooth and straight. The buildings were new, tall, and clean. There was no trash or graffiti anymore. It was a jarring jump between extreme poverty and respectable prosperity. It was almost as quick as falling through the portal from Alabama. I’d heard of bad side of the tracks, but Brazil took that concept to a whole new level.
Stricken was checking the mirrors as we got onto a wide, straight, two-lane road. He even wore his sunglasses at night. “I think we’ve shaken them. I don’t see a tail.”
Now that Stricken was deprived of his mercenary army, Franks must have recalculated his previous cooperation because he pulled his Glock and stuck it against the back of our host’s head.
Curtis reached for his handgun, but Franks’ other hand shot out and grabbed Curtis’ wrist. The poor guy winced as Franks twisted. He was so damned strong that he could have snapped every bone if he felt like it, but he refrained. His attention was on the jackass in the driver’s seat.
“I should’ve seen this horrible betrayal coming,” Stricken said. “Oh, wait. I did. Relax, Franks. I needed the private army on hand until you cooled off enough to be rational. You’ve been briefed on what the MCB knows about this situation, so you know it’s serious enough you can’t risk me being wrong. I’m the key to stopping this, and you obviously get that, otherwise the contents of my head would already be all over the windshield.”
Franks said, “You killed Strayhorn.”
I didn’t even know who that was, but the way Franks said it, Strayhorn had obviously been somebody important to him.
Stricken took a deep breath. “Indirectly. And I know you’ll make me pay for that eventually.” For being a former danger guy turned desk jockey, Stricken still had ice water in his veins, because I’ve had Franks point guns at me, and there’s never any doubt that he’s willing to pull the trigger. “But we both know what Dwayne Myers would tell you if he was here right now.”
“I can’t ask ’cause you killed him too.”
Stricken suddenly shouted. “Bullshit, Franks. You know what he’d say. You know damned good and well Myers would tell you the mission has to come first. I know about how your status has changed. You can’t just shrug off that many innocent lives being lost
like it’s no big deal anymore. This is the era of the more sensitive, kinder and gentler Agent Franks. You have to do the right thing now.”
I had no idea what any of that meant either, but we were doing eighty and climbing. If Franks shot our driver, we were hosed.
Sonya was thinking the same thing. “Don’t do it, Franks. You’ll kill us all.”
“Maybe you should have him pull over, then shoot him,” I suggested as I buckled my seat belt.
“I’d be fine,” Franks said, and that was probably true.
“No, you wouldn’t,” Stricken said, and it was obvious from the way he said it that he wasn’t talking about a car accident. “If you’re gonna do it, fucking do it. None of you have a second to waste. I die, you can try to stop this without me, but by the time you figure out what you need to do, it’ll be too late, and all the bloodshed and carnage and suffering that result will be on your head. Yours alone, Franks. How’s that going to go over with the big man upstairs, throwing away all those innocent lives just because you wouldn’t master your pride just long enough to work with me? I wouldn’t want that on my soul.”
I doubted Stricken had a soul, because he’d probably already sold it to the highest bidder. I wasn’t sure if Franks had come equipped from the factory with one either, but as Stricken said all that stuff, Franks just frowned even harder. His beady eyes got even squintier. For a second I thought for sure Stricken was going to die.
Except Franks slowly lowered the Glock. He let it linger on Stricken’s spine, as if still tempted to put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life instead, but then Franks put the pistol back in the holster. He let go of Curtis, who snatched his battered arm away, wrist already covered in spreading bruises.
“I’m still gonna kill you.”
“I’d expect nothing less! Alright, with that uncomfortable real talk out of the way, Franks is now officially on the team too. Fantastic. Finally.” Even though he’d been a few ounces of trigger pull away from death, Stricken got right back on track. “Our destination is only a few miles away. The VIPs will be there promptly at sunrise. I know it’s a terrible time for a big powwow, but the sun thing is symbolic with them. Be on your best behavior. They’ll probably have some muffins and OJ or something but don’t eat or drink anything they offer.”
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