The Grace Painter (The Grace Series Book 1)

by Mark Romang

  Breathless from the exertion, he shined his light through the vines and saw what appeared to be a vehicular door. His heart danced crazily as his eyes followed the flashlight beam as it passed over faded green letters painted on a yellow door.

  Jackson Dupree Lumber Company. Established 1943.

  He’d found an antique Hayes logging truck. Long before oil companies arrived to drain oil from the Atchafalaya Basin, loggers harvested lumber from its soft and hardwood trees. Apparently this truck succumbed to mechanical difficulties and the lumberjacks left it where it sat. Over the years trees and vines grew up around it and hid it from view.

  His excitement arcing, Sebastian continued investigating the old truck until he located one of its tires. The big tire looked to be about thirty inches tall. A childlike grin spread across his face as he examined the tire with the aid of his flashlight. Cracked rubber sagged around a rusty wheel, a wheel that could very well be the one Claude referred to in his poem.

  As he gazed raptly at the wheel, his euphoria flat lined. He didn’t see how three-million-dollars could possibly hide in the wheel cavity. Perhaps in the wheel’s back cavity there would be more room to hide the cash. But even so, the money would be ruined. Water lapped halfway up the wheel, and this wasn’t the first time the Basin had flooded.

  He knew of only one way to find out. He had to visually inspect the back of each tire, a procedure that would require him to lie on his back in the water. He dropped to one knee in preparation, but then a sharp tug on his rope jerked him back to his feet. He whirled around to confront the interference.

  His stomach dropped like a broken elevator. He thought he might faint.

  This can’t happen now, not when I’m this close to finding the money.

  Henri Boudreaux stood no more than six feet away. Rain sluiced down his raincoat. He appeared out of breath, but sober as a judge. He leered contemptibly at Sebastian, his raven eyes unable to hide the bad blood. They betrayed his true intentions, his docket of cloven-hoofed reprisals. “You’re looking in the wrong place, Sebastian,” Henri drawled. “The money is under the hood.”

  Chapter 28

  New Orleans

  In a dim conference room tucked away at the New Orleans’ DEA field office, tired eyes struggled to focus on a Power Point screen, distracted by the shapely legs winking at them from beneath Elizabeth Chandler’s lemon-chiffon business suit. Chandler held a pointer stick and stood to one side of a pull-down screen. The screen displayed a Morgan City street map.

  “Do any of you have concerns with the operation as it stands now? Don’t be afraid to speak up. I want your input,” Chandler said.

  The planning stage of Operation Pitfall neared completion. Only a few details remained to be ironed out, but they were big ones. Interagency coordination never came easy, but convincing the NSA to move their spy satellites into different orbits proved more daunting than the brain trust of the DEA could’ve imagined.

  Mario Brinkman watched Curt Howell raise his hand. Howell had experienced just about everything that could possibly go wrong with DEA sting operations. He’d even been shot twice during his career. “What if the cargo isn’t seafood? We’re going to look awfully silly wearing USDC lot inspector seafood smocks if they chug in with oranges.”

  The question has merit, Brinkman thought. It had been his idea to have FBI and DEA agents pose as United States Department of Commerce seafood lot inspectors. But somehow he hadn’t thought of Howell’s scenario. “I don’t think it changes anything, Curt. We’re just there as a distraction, a smokescreen to allow the Coast Guard to slip in behind and put the squeeze on Zaplata’s vessel,” Brinkman said.

  At hearing Brinkman’s reply, Admiral Davidson nodded his head. “We should know ahead of time what is on Zaplata’s boat. The shipping manifest they file will let us know what the cargo is,” Davidson explained.

  Agent Howell ruminated on Davidson’s statement. Brinkman knew his colleague well enough to know that Howell would want to understand every operational variable inside and out, backwards and forwards. Famous for his prep work, Howell always made a practice of having a contingency plan, sometimes more than one, for when things went dreadfully wrong.

  “Okay, but what happens if the Boudreauxs are late getting to the rendezvous site? Or what if they don’t even show up at all? And what if they’re captured between now and then? Do we go ahead with the raid?” Howell asked, his astute mind clicking on all cylinders.

  “Of course we go ahead with the raid,” Chandler answered testily. “Zaplata will not be leaving the harbor. Dead or alive, he will be in U.S. custody. But no one moves in until they receive the green light. All on-site players will wear earpieces. I don’t want any confusion out there. We all have to be on the same page or bad things will happen.”

  Howell nodded soberly.

  “Is there anything else about the Operation Pitfall that bothers you, Curt?” Chandler asked.

  “No, Elizabeth. But if I think of something I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Chandler said as she looked at her watch. She set her pointer down on the conference table and slinked away from the map, her full lips pursing together as she headed directly toward Brinkman.

  Oh, great. What is she doing? And why is she heading toward me? Brinkman wondered.

  Elizabeth Chandler’s eyebrows seesawed together when she stopped at Brinkman’s seat. A concerned look clouded her glamorous face. Brinkman had seen this look before. Chandler wore this same worrisome expression whenever she stabbed someone in the back. “Mario, as much as you deserve a prominent role in this operation, your involvement cannot go beyond the planning stage,” Chandler announced. “I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be.”

  “What? Why? I don’t understand,” Brinkman complained.

  “You have a past with Carlos Zaplata. A rather ugly past. He knows your face. He may recognize you, and I cannot allow anything to hamper this bust. There’s too much at stake, too much money and too many lives to allow you to try and settle an old score.”

  “I can wear a disguise, Elizabeth,” Brinkman said hotly. “Our wardrobe techs can change my looks. A wig and a beard. Maybe some glasses. Zaplata will be clueless.”

  Chandler sighed. “Mario, it’s no secret around here that you’re waging a personal vendetta against Zaplata. Bringing him down has been your obsession for the past nine years. But I really feel that it’s time for you to rest on your laurels. After all, we would never be in this position, this grand moment of opportunity without your exemplary behind-the-scenes wrangling.”

  Brinkman didn’t reply. Chandler’s sycophantic drivel made him bristle on the inside. She knew how much it meant to him to apprehend Zaplata. And that’s precisely why she’s putting the clamps on me, Brinkman thought bitterly. Payback for all the times he’d rejected her sexual advances.

  Chandler ambled back to the head of the table. She glanced briefly at Brinkman, and then turned her attention toward the admiral and the FBI representatives. She held up a hand and moved her thumb and forefinger close together. “Mario was this close to killing Carlos Zaplata before Zaplata became a drug lord. It all took place sixteen years ago. The president of the United States wanted to send a message to the Columbian drug cartels. He authorized a quick-strike military raid to take place in Central Columbia. Mario had a prominent role in the risky operation. He led a squad of Rangers, and they jumped out of the C-130 at thirty-thousand feet…”

  Chapter 29

  Brinkman hated the cold. And even though he wore a high-tech jumpsuit designed to insulate against sub-freezing temperatures, the bone-chilling cold skittered its way like a chipmunk up underneath his jumpsuit.

  He and his Ranger unit were performing an almost suicidal HALO jump--high-altitude, low-opening parachute jump--over the Cordillera Oriental Range of the Andes Mountains in Central Columbia. They plummeted through the raven-colored sky at terminal velocity. The lights of Bogotá twinkled far below like an oasis. />
  Brinkman’s airborne unit had been taxed by the DEA and CIA to launch a daring raid on Juan Angelica’s opulent estate. Angelica ran the biggest cocaine cartel in South America.

  Brinkman’s mission called for him to infiltrate the estate and extract Patrick O’Donnell, a deep-cover CIA operative, before the morning raid could start in earnest. The mission’s timeline left little wiggle room. From the time their boots hit the ground they had a half-hour to bury their chutes, grab the spook and get out. The target would be ready and waiting for them at a predetermined pick-up site.

  The spook had been working undercover in Juan Angelica’s drug ring for years in an attempt to unravel the cartel from the inside out. The CIA dearly wanted to capture or kill Angelica in order to maintain political stability in Columbia. Angelica’s henchmen sabotaged political processes whenever possible, and had a nasty habit of shooting heads of state that didn’t fully cooperate with their benefactor’s strong arm tactics.

  At one-thousand feet, Brinkman and his men popped their chutes and drifted silently to the ground like autumn leaves. They quickly buried their chutes and hunkered behind dripping ferns close to the extraction site. The Rangers became one with the jungle as they waited for O’Donnell to make an appearance.

  But the spook was a no-show and Brinkman and his men grew antsy as the time for their helicopter extraction drew closer. His men looked at him expectantly, their hollow eyes staring out from underneath green and brown camouflage paint. Clutched in their hands were M-16s with full clips, while serrated combat knives and fragmentation grenades hung within quick reach from the webbing on their jungle fatigues. They were expert killers on high alert.

  Anxious to get on with it himself, Brinkman got out his secure satellite phone. He called his commanding officer’s number.

  “Maxwell, here.”

  “Captain, this is First Sergeant Brinkman. The spook is a no-show. What do you want us to do?”

  “Engage Plan B with extreme haste, Sergeant. Bring back the spook at all costs, dead or alive.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll do.”

  So they headed out, twelve young men moving stealthily through moist greenery, modern day knights crusading for a higher cause. Nearly invisible, they traveled efficiently, yet not so fast that they risked snapping a branch. The last thing they wanted to encounter were the fierce guerrilla fighters Angelica had patrolling the jungle bordering his estate.

  To this point, other than birds, poisonous snakes, and bloodthirsty mosquitoes, they seemed to be the only life forms moving through the rain forest.

  Several minutes later, the wild jungle halted at an idyllic clearing where Juan Angelica’s estate began. They dropped to their bellies. And like snakes on the move, slithered under a dark morning sky where no stars blinked and a crescent moon hid behind pregnant clouds.

  Having committed to memory dozens of photos of the sprawling compound Juan Angelica based his billion-dollar drug enterprise from, Brinkman and his men knew exactly where they were going. They headed for the only building not visible--the vast underground storage facility where Angelica manufactured, warehoused, and distributed his cocaine, and where Patrick O’Donnell made his living quarters.

  To get to this subterranean location, they had to first enter the camera-monitored mansion, work their way past five sentries guarding a hallway that accessed all the lower rooms of the house, and then enter the billiard room--where according to the blueprints given to them by the CIA--a trap door underneath a billiard table led to an elevator and the vast underground storage facility.

  Brinkman concluded earlier that entering the back of the house afforded his men a better chance of completing their mission. The back wasn’t as closely guarded as the front.

  They army-crawled their way across the picturesque lawn dotted with flourishing flowerbeds and manicured shrubbery. With extreme caution, they skirted a heart-shaped swimming pool, its inviting waters reflecting light from a nearby kitchen where a chef kept late hours preparing hors d’oeuvres.

  Directing his men into position with hand signals, Brinkman crouched at a patio door and waited for Staff Sergeant Sweeny to finish planting C-4 to the door frame.

  Brinkman glanced at the luminous hands on his watch synchronized with Command and Control. He held up three fingers, alerting his men that the raid would begin in three minutes at exactly 0100 hours. Brinkman and his men each donned gas masks in preparation.

  As he adjusted the mask, Brinkman silently recited Psalms 23, a ritual he always performed right before stepping into harm’s way. He had supreme confidence in his men. But all the firepower in the world couldn’t guarantee their safety one-hundred percent.

  Sometimes Jesus power was the only thing that could defend against deadly ordnance raining in from an enemy offensive. He also recited the scripture for his own benefit. He had a wife and young daughter back in the states he wanted to grow old with.

  Keeping a close eye on his watch, Brinkman suddenly held up a fist. His closed fist meant that it was time to rock Angelica’s world. Brinkman pointed at Sweeny, and the big sergeant--a demolitions expert affectionately dubbed Mr. Pyro--depressed a button on a small handheld detonator.

  The patio door disappeared in a small black-and-orange explosion. Sweeny then threw two flash-bang grenades into the house to disorient any armed adversaries that may be lurking inside. Right after the eardrum-splitting detonations, Brinkman waved his men into the mansion. As they infiltrated they heard similar explosions rumble in the distance.

  In the kitchen they found three men sprawled on the tile floor, groaning and clutching their ears. Besides being temporarily deafened by the grenades’ concussive reports, Angelica’s men were also temporarily blinded by intense flashes of light. With help from a staff sergeant, Brinkman rolled the three woozy men onto their bellies and bound their wrists and feet with plastic zip-tie cuffs.

  “Creech, you and Stonum go back and guard the back of the house where we entered. Don’t let anyone in you can’t identify,” Brinkman ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the two Rangers said in near unison.

  The concept of Rangers working in pairs dated all the way back to World War II. There are no lone Rangers in the 75th Regiment. Everybody has a buddy to watch.

  Brinkman and Sweeny led the procession down a hallway. The hallway bypassed a spacious living area. Everyone else in the unit slinked behind with eyes peeled, guns cocked and locked. The sound of breaking glass drew their attention toward an open bedroom. They saw a teargas canister tumble across the carpet and fill the room with acrid smoke.

  Two gunmen, coughing and gagging and desperate for fresh air, stumbled out from a room and into the hallway. They saw Brinkmen and Sweeny and raised their weapons. Sweeny didn’t waste any time bringing his M-16 to bear. He cut the gunmen down in short order with a six-round burst.

  The Rangers continued on, moving stealthily through the tear gas, drifting through the gas like spirits walking through fog on a haunted night. In short order they reached the billiard room and found it locked. Staff Sgt. Sweeny kicked at the door with a muscular leg, splintering the door. They swept in with rifles aimed and determined in seconds the room was clear.

  They began searching under the pool tables for the trap door leading to the subterranean cocaine warehouse. The heavy tables sat on Asian rugs and had to be physically lifted to the side. Underneath the center pool table they found the trap door.

  Brinkman followed Sweeny into the three-foot by three-foot hole and down slippery steel rungs of a ladder bolted to concrete. Six Rangers followed their lead, and like in the kitchen, two hung back in the billiard room to guard the trap door.

  The steps ended at a landing, where a heavy-duty freight elevator stood waiting. They all managed to squeeze in, despite carrying seventy pound backpacks. An unnerving silence enveloped them as they descended deep into the ground, into a secret world of illicit drugs. Six floors later they finally stopped at a cavernous room as large as a small airport ha
ngar.

  From behind a power panel, Brinkman and his men watched a dozen or so Hispanic workers load shrink-wrapped, cocaine bricks onto pallets, which were then transported by forklifts to storage locations in three-story racks. Noisy conveyors carried the bricks to the workers as fast as they could unload them onto the pallets. And if not for the illegal contraband, the scene looked similar to any other nondescript distribution facility.

  Keeping low and using the cocaine stacks to their advantage, Brinkman and his men moved like phantoms through the warehouse. At this critical juncture in the mission, they wanted to stay in stealth mode. They still had a good distance to travel before reaching O’Donnell’s living quarters.

  According to the classified CIA files given to Brinkman’s superiors, the spook kept his living quarters on a mezzanine that overlooked the warehouse. Still mumbling the twenty-third Psalm, Brinkman led the way. Inside his head he seethed. He didn’t like having to put his men at risk like this. The missing spook had ruined everything.

  A worker suddenly popped around a corner and saw them. He took one look at the heavily-armed Rangers and screamed. The other laborers heard their co-worker’s cry and grabbed up automatic rifles stashed close by. Their guns chattered like agitated monkeys. Fortunately for Brinkman and his Rangers, the workers were mere peasants and not trained in combat techniques. Although greater in number, they were no match for battle-tested Rangers. Brinkman’s men returned fire, and the workers crumpled under a blistering counterattack.

  Cocaine bricks exploded under the fusillade and spilled onto the concrete floor. The white powder billowed into the chilly air as shrill horn bleats from an alarm system echoed through the warehouse. Brinkman and his Rangers moved swiftly toward the mezzanine, using the pallets of cocaine bricks as cover.