Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3)

by Michael C. Grumley

  He was right. That much uphill driving would require extra fuel. They could ditch the cans once they reached the top, but it still meant less space for gear. They’d need a second vehicle, which would provide some redundancy in case they ran into mechanical problems, but it also increased their chances of being spotted.

  Standing to Caesare’s right, Tiewater shook his head. “It’s not gonna work. Even if we got transportation, there’s no way we’d make it to the top without being stopped.”

  Caesare straightened and folded his arms. He was right. They wouldn’t have much problem disappearing once at the top, but it wouldn’t matter if they didn’t make it up first.

  “Maybe we need a diversion.”

  “Better be a damn good one,” Corso shrugged. “If they’re stopping flights in and out, it means they’re already suspicious.”

  Caesare frowned. “And if they have any brains at all, they know a lot of people are already looking for other ways in.”

  Anderson, the youngest of the four, was still staring at the map. “Christ, we haven’t even left yet and this thing’s already FUBAR.”

  Caesare’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and raised an eyebrow at the number. “Caesare here.”

  After a moment, he glanced up at the other men. “Well, hi there.” He paused, listening. “That’s good news…how soon?” He checked his watch. “Great. We’ll be there.”

  He hung up and turned his attention back to the men around the table. “It looks like they’re in.”

  “Draper and the monkey?”

  “Gorilla,” Caesare corrected. “And Juan Diaz, one of their tech guys.”

  “Sounds like we got ourselves a full house.”

  Caesare nodded pensively, his eyes back on the digital map. “Yes, it does.”

  They weren’t expecting Diaz, but it made sense. However, given their difficulty finding a way into the jungle undetected, an extra person was going to make it that much harder.

  The only option he could see was trying to get into the jungle from the West. It was a significantly longer distance though, which meant it was a long shot. Yet even if they managed to make it in, it immediately presented a much bigger problem. Getting back out.

  The option was feeling like a scenario in definition only. Because he was pretty damn sure that both DeeAnn and Juan were going to hate the only insertion possibility he had so far.

  21

  At that same moment, Steve Caesare’s bigger problem was sitting comfortably in a leather chair, peering out a double-paned window at the scene unfolding below him. From the air-conditioned third floor, Otero watched as over a hundred Brazilian soldiers assembled on the vast expanse of concrete outside.

  So much for subtly.

  Several covered trucks, all painted in the dark green colors of the Exército Brasileiro, also known as the land arm of the Brazilian Armed Forces, remained motionless nearby. Already parked beside the row of transport trucks were two medium-sized fuel trucks, with more on their way. The logistical challenges weren’t so much the men, it was the supplies. Transporting food, water, fuel, and even ammunition, was a herculean task, especially over a narrow road hundreds of kilometers long.

  Even Otero knew that an army’s supply chain was the most critical, and most vulnerable, component of any mission. But he also knew things didn’t have to take so damn long.

  He had managed to obtain an entire company, which involved pulling out all of Otero’s political stops. But now, his goal of keeping things quiet was hopelessly lost, leaving Otero shaking his head in frustration. Miraculously, most people believed that a government’s “bloat” somehow failed to transfer through to its military forces. How wrong they were. All bloat ran downhill, no matter what the nation. And it was something Otero was painfully witnessing firsthand.

  If the Brazilian government ever tried to run itself like a business, they would find themselves bankrupt. Otero promptly caught himself, almost laughing at his own thought. The Brazilian government was already bankrupt.

  Russo, Otero’s head of security, approached from behind. “Salazar is here.”

  The older man continued peering forward as if not hearing but eventually turned his head. “Wonderful.”

  A grin spread across Russo’s face, and he moved next to the large window. He watched the soldiers outside with a sense of nostalgia. Something Otero didn’t share.

  Unlike his boss, Russo had himself started in the army. At that very base. It was in Belem that he had completed his training to become an infantry officer and subsequently led his first platoon during the last year of the Araguaia Guerrilla War.

  But Otero had no such fondness for the base or its soldiers. He had never been in the military. To Russo, he was little more than a rich politician. Or perhaps a businessman with extremely deep pockets. Pockets, of course, that also paid Russo’s rather generous salary, especially given Brazil’s current economic climate.

  “This is not what I wanted,” Otero murmured from the chair.

  Russo nodded. “It’s going to make things messy.”

  “Messy is an understatement.”

  Both men heard the click of the door opening behind them, followed moments later by a louder clunk when it was closed.

  Wearing his perfectly pressed uniform, a stout and balding Captain Salazar continued into the expansive meeting room, rounding the arm of a chair with a wry grin.

  “Mr. Otero. So good to see you,” he said in a sullen voice. He reached out and offered his hand.

  Otero shook it from his position but remained seated. It was a clear gesture to the Army Captain.

  The truth was that neither man liked the other. Not a surprise given both their roles within a deeply corrupted government. Just as it was in neighboring countries, the military complex was quickly eroding into an “every man for himself” mentality, and Salazar was the very personification of it. Thankfully some government structure still remained, but given Otero’s urgency, Salazar and his company were the only available option.

  “When will we be ready?”

  “About four hours,” Salazar answered, between tight lips. “But it will take at least two days to arrive. Hundreds of kilometers on that road will not be fast. And once we’re past Sipaliwini, we don’t know the full condition of the road.”

  Otero nodded but said nothing. He wondered if he’d made a mistake not taking Alves’ approach and flying up in a helicopter. It would have cut the trip down to a few hours, but it also would have meant taking only a very small group of men. Most likely not enough to find what they were looking for. No, Alves had held a huge advantage, which was having the monkey in his possession already. Now, finding the thing in the wild was going to require every man he could get.

  Otero turned back and continued watching the soldiers loading their trucks in the sweltering heat. He had no choice but to make do. If they could leave today, they might still arrive before anyone else knew what they were up to. Then secure the area to keep everyone else out.

  And if things got messy, he had a plan to clean it all up once he had what he was after. A plan that would also make this the last mission for Salazar and most of his men.

  Putting his distaste for the man aside, Salazar and his men were little more than resources to Otero now. Resources that would help him seize the ultimate prize. And one which, thanks to a dead Alves and Blanco, no one else appeared to know about.

  Otero took a deep breath and leaned his head back against the chair’s headrest.

  Standing at the glass, Salazar continued watching his men in silence with his hands clasped behind his back. It was imperative to maintain a relaxed appearance in front of Otero. For what the billionaire didn’t know was that Salazar had a plan of his own: direct orders on what to do when he had Otero alone on the mountain. The old man was about to find out that his money and influence only went so far.

  22

  It took six hours before the convoy of trucks was finally moving. In tight formation,
they headed due south past Tucurui, crossing its half-mile-wide river. From there, their route turned northwest over highway BR-230, also known as Brazil’s infamous Trans-Amazonian Highway.

  Extending more than 4,000 kilometers through the heart of northern Brazil, the highway was conceived in the 1970s as a means of integrating the northern states with the rest of the country. However, the project came to an abrupt halt when later in the same decade the Brazilian Financial Crisis left behind a devastated economy and vast stretches of the new highway completely unpaved.

  Salazar’s lead car, a deep-green painted Humvee, was followed by Otero and Russo in a white Land Rover, driven by one of Russo’s men and another ex-military type named Dutra.

  One by one, the stream of powerful belching trucks bounced over the rough dirt road, attracting little attention as they passed through increasingly smaller towns. Trains of military vehicles had become almost commonplace with yet another deteriorating economy. And like many floundering governments desperate to retain control of their populations, various aspects of martial law were already common throughout much of Brazilian life.

  The convoy was headed for the northwestern forests of Pará. It was Brazil’s second largest state, second only to Amazonas, and spanned a massive 1.2 million kilometers. More importantly, it was the state which provided Salazar’s company the only clear route into the Acarai Mountains of southern Guyana.

  Otero relaxed in the back seat, checking his email and messages on a small tablet. The device finally lost connection as they pushed deeper into the jungle, which was fine with him. He preferred no one know where he was, or better yet, where he was headed.

  He slowed to read the last of his downloaded emails carefully. It was from the lead contact for an international genetics team. A team he paid to have flown quietly into Belem. In the email, his contact confirmed the team and their equipment had left Munich and were due to arrive in seventeen hours. They would be waiting when Otero and his team returned.

  In a growing world of scientific privatization, the German team Genetik Jetzt was one of the best in the world. They were confident they could not only isolate whatever genes Otero brought back within a few weeks, but could also have a prototype retrovirus designed within three months.

  The team agreed to then test the prototype on human subjects, provided they were outside any medical regulations protecting Brazilian citizens. Subjects that were in no position to complain should something go awry, which it always did. And Otero knew exactly who those subjects would be. During his years backing some of the largest mining giants in South America, there was one group he had truly come to despise. The Kayapó. A group of indigenous tribes who had been sabotaging his efforts for decades. Tribes who continually waged war against the machines they insisted were destroying their native lands. Most were cooperative, but some small pockets of the Kayapó proved to be devastating to people like Otero. But individually, they could be captured and used for a far greater good than anything their simple minds could have fathomed. One of the most incredible leaps in human development. A leap now miraculously within his own reach.

  Yet despite his materialistic and opportunistic flaws, Otero was still a patriot. Even without a sense of basic compassion, he remained a man deeply rooted to his nation and its former glory. His mighty country was destined to rise again, but this time it would not be through iron ore, oil, or even soybeans. Instead, it would be through the control of perhaps the greatest evolutionary achievement in man’s history. An achievement that would drive every powerful government to align with Brazil, through either desire or desperation. And he would be the one to control it all. He would be the one to help his once proud country return to greatness.

  Sitting directly in front of Otero, in the Land Rover’s passenger seat, Russo had a very different thought. He could clearly see the change taking place in his boss’s thinking. He was growing paranoid and obsessed, with thoughts becoming more linear and one-dimensional over what may or may not lie in the mountains. It was sheer folly as far as Russo was concerned. He’d seen more than his share of desperate, aging men pursuing big dreams only to have their spirits crushed by reality in the end. Dreams forever promising to deliver a miracle to change the world. The details were different, but the quest and the conclusion were always the same.

  Otero’s obsession was some kind of magical DNA stored in the bones of a monkey now hiding in the jungles of Guyana. Something Russo wasn’t all that worried over. He had a much more practical concern.

  Someone was watching Otero, which meant they were also watching him. One of his men was dead with another still in the hospital. Both were ordered to eliminate the rest of Miguel Blanco’s bloodline, but instead his men had found someone even deadlier waiting for them. And that someone appeared to be an American.

  Russo’s man in the hospital claimed they barely saw the attacker before he pounced. But how did he know? How did he know either of the men was coming?

  Even worse, Russo was convinced the man waiting for them had been a U.S. Navy SEAL. The marking he left on Carlos’s jacket was clear. But was it a warning…or an invitation?

  The obvious link was the CIA, but Otero’s attention was waning quickly as this new obsession slowly consumed him. Otero could no longer see the more pressing threat before them, nor could he conceive that it might just be the beginning. If the threat were confirmed, all the DNA in the world wouldn’t help either of them in a war with the CIA.

  Yet while Russo remained concerned, he was far from vulnerable. He still had contacts within Brazil’s intelligence agency, the ABIN. A group who was utterly ruthless when it came to tracking down information. Eventually, they would find out who the American was. And then the predator would become the prey.

  23

  Russo was just approaching the Guyanese border when the man who both he and Brazil’s ABIN agents were searching for stepped off a plane in Puerto Rico.

  For the second time in a week, Steve Caesare hailed a cab from outside the small airport. This time, however, his team remained to supervise the transfer of their equipment aboard a Beechcraft C-12 Huron. Based on two older Beechcraft variants, the C-12 was a thirteen seat, multi-use aircraft with primary duties of general transport and small-scale medical evacuations in other countries. It was the aircraft’s latter reputation that Caesare was counting on to help avoid undue attention while flying over a few unfriendly countries in South America.

  Now resting on a private corner of the Mercedita Airport’s tarmac, the C-12 was quickly being refueled and prepared for its nonstop flight to Iquitos, Peru. The fifth largest city in the country by size, Iquitos was the largest city inside Peru’s tropical and seemingly endless rainforest.

  Caesare knew their options still hadn’t gotten any better as he watched the palm trees zip past him from inside the taxi. He was deliberating the best time to break things to DeeAnn and decided it was too soon, knowing they still had another seven hours before reaching Iquitos. There was still a chance another scenario could present itself, but he was no longer holding his breath. Especially when the problem was neither DeeAnn nor Juan. It was Dulce.

  He reached the research center in less than fifteen minutes and found DeeAnn exactly where he expected her to be. In Dulce’s man-made tropical habitat.

  She was sitting with her back against the glass wall, playing a simplified game of tic-tac-toe with the gorilla.

  In her hand, Dulce held a stick of bright green chalk and studied a large blackboard on the ground between them. The grid lines were preprinted on the board with X’s and O’s drawn inside. Not surprisingly, Dulce’s X’s looked like anything but X’s, when compared to DeeAnn’s. Her O’s were drawn as perfectly as possible as an aid for Dulce, who was practicing her manual dexterity.

  Dulce heard Caesare’s footsteps first and tilted her small furry head, peering curiously down the concrete walkway. When she saw Caesare appear from under the shadowed overhang, the small gorilla immediately leaped to her feet and
ran excitedly to the clear door.

  Steve here! Steve here!

  When he reached the door, Caesare smiled down at her and turned to punch the entry code into the keypad behind him. After a loud click, he pushed the heavy glass door open just in time to catch Dulce in his arms.

  “There’s my sweetheart.” Caesare suppressed a muffled groan from the strain in his side and gingerly raised his left arm to rub her head.

  The word sweetheart no longer produced the familiar rejection tone after Lee Kenwood had manually programmed the unknown word into IMIS’s vocabulary. The giant computer now translated the literal definition of Dulce’s own name as the word, but Dulce still managed to pick up on the affection in Caesare’s voice.

  Under his dark black hair, he glanced down at DeeAnn, who was still seated on a patch of grass. “Everything okay?”

  She stood up and forced a grin. “As okay as we’ll ever be.”

  We go find friend. Dulce announced.

  Caesare tilted his head back from Dulce’s wide smile. “You need a breath mint. How much celery have you eaten?”

  Dulce looked at him curiously when IMIS failed to translate.

  Caesare laughed and gave her a squeeze. “I’m joking.” He then winked at DeeAnn. “Kind of.”

  DeeAnn’s grin seemed to grow more sincere. “She’s been practically jumping up and down since I told her.”

  “I bet.”

  She checked her watch. “Juan should be down in a few minutes. He’s bringing some equipment.”

  “I figured as much.” Caesare glanced down at Dulce, who fell silent once again comparing the hair on her lanky forearm with his. “You look more Italian than I do,” he said to her.

  DeeAnn watched with amusement and then answered his next question before he could ask it. “I’m not sure how she’s going to do, but so far so good.”

  “Listen, Dee. I really appreciate you coming. I know it’s not easy. Considering your last trip, I-”