Rayna looked at Barry. “Despite all the proof about tobacco causing cancer and car emissions causing global warming, people are still smoking cigarettes and buying cars. Get me some Philip Morris and GM stock. Use half the money for my core positions. There are also some highly undervalued Canadian home care companies available. Get those. There are lots of old people and they all need healthcare.”
Smiles all around. “Welcome aboard, Rayna,” congratulated Arthur. “Anything else?”
“Yes. This is non-negotiable. Find out everything you can about Serpiente. Taking them down will be my first assignment.”
“When you’re ready,” said Barry.
“What do you mean, ‘When I’m ready?’ I’ve just spent four years with the toughest Special Forces in the world. I’ve had more than three hundred combat missions.”
“You ready to go up against a guy from Seal Team Six? And then got meaner after he retired? He’s gonna take over your training.”
“Oh.”
Chapter 8
ILLINOIS
When Barry and Rayna disembarked, a military-style Mercedes G Wagon popular with Canadian Forces waited for them.
Rayna groaned. “I thought I was through riding in these damn things.”
“Actually, I prefer my restored WWII Jeep but Diana hates it.”
“We’re in California? I wasn’t paying attention.”
“No, we’re in Illinois. Central for our purposes.”
“What purpose is that?”
“Training.”
* * *
An hour later, the German vehicle rolled into a well-hidden dirt road. Fighting low hanging branches and mosquitoes in the convertible, it was a bumpy two-hundred-yard ride into a gravelly plot—a sorry excuse for a parking lot. From there, they hiked a quarter mile deeper into the woods before arriving at two wooden structures. Rayna glanced at a log cabin built for ten people and the barn beside it. Not bad. A pretty darn good place to hide if that was your goal.
Barry knocked on the door of the cabin.
The creaky hinges swung the door open wide.
Rayna almost jumped. Hovering in front of her, with arms folded across his chest, was a six-foot-three muscular black man built like the proverbial brick shithouse. There were several nasty scars on his face and arms.
“He’s the badass who’s going to train me? Size doesn’t matter. I thought you guys were professionals?”
“Hey, Chuckie. Good to see you again,” laughed Barry as he handed a large paper bag with clinking bottles inside.
“At least you bought refreshments this time,” grinned Chuck. “Welcome to the ‘Habitat’.”
“Rayna, meet Chuck Hanson, the dirtiest Navy Seal that ever walked this planet. An absolute disgrace to the uniform.”
“Whoa there, Barry,” interrupted Chuck.
“Who after being dishonorably discharged went on to become New Jersey’s mafia don Franco Capelleti’s weapon of choice until I ratted on Chuck and got him sent to Rikers Island for murdering some shit gangbanger,” shrugged Barry.
“Three years in hell,” grunted the big man.
“There, my good friend managed to add another half dozen to the list he sent to their eternal destiny.”
“There was actually more, but they couldn’t prove those.”
“So why aren’t you still there?” Rayna sized him up, keeping a loose stance.
“I died. Kinda the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Rayna shot him a bewildered look. “I don’t get this at all.”
Chuck jerked a thumb at the businessman. “Barry’s my guardian angel.”
“Or deliverer of death. If Chuck didn’t go to the big house, he would have died in two days since he managed to totally piss off Capalleti’s oversexed little squeeze for not answering her midnight booty call. She was going to accuse Chuck of trying to rape her, and when Franco is pissed off…”
“He wouldn’t stop until I was lying with the garbage at the bottom of the Hudson.”
“Two years later, I ate some bad hamburger and died for five hours until Barry’s guys got me. So now I’m here as a ‘special trainer’ for Barry.”
Rayna took a look at her surroundings with refreshed eyes. She ogled Barry. “How many field operatives do you have here?”
“Enough, but they’re not just for me. I hire out the services strategically.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Sometimes it means, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Other times, I’ll scratch your back and then I’ll have someone on the inside of your operation who can feed me information I might not otherwise get.”
“How long am I here for?”
“Ideally, six months, but I’m hoping in ten days, we’re going to have enough intel to go after Serpiente.”
“Can’t we do it in two? I can come back and finish up after.”
With lightning speed, Chuck scooped her up in one arm and did a pull-up off some bar over the door with the other. Rayna jabbed the peroneal nerve pressure point under his forearm and twisted just enough to free herself, hopefully without hurting him too much. Barely flinching, Chuck let go of the bar and slammed his free fist into her solar plexus. He then snagged her by the hair and twisted her to her knees.
Chuck snatched a lamp and brought it down hard against her temple, but stopped at the last second. He let her hair go and leaned in close.
“You’re in the real world now, Rayna. There are no rules and no backup. You aren’t part of a team all equipped with guns, duking it out against another group with their own firepower and grenades. This is hand-to-hand combat with a real street fighter. Kick, gouge, bludgeon… the whole nine yards. If you want to survive against Serpiente, or anyone else like them, you have to step up your game a thousand percent. I don’t care how long you stay but if you think you can handle guys like me in two days, you’re crazier than Barry.”
* * *
It didn’t take long for Rayna to agree with Barry. Six months was truly necessary to train at the Habitat. Hell, she might never be ready.
There were no gyms, firing ranges, fitness equipment, showers… only a forest and a lake. By the lake sat a full-sized, replica city block, complete with three-story buildings, fire escapes and plenty of secret rooms.
Rayna’s breath was taken away when Chuck opened the storage room of weapons in the barn. The armory held all sorts of pistols, rifles and assault weapons, ranging in price from a Walmart special to Navy Seal tactical weapons. The same thing with knives. Everything from a Swiss Army knockoff to a fourteen-inch-long carbon 1095 Hi Carbon steel blade were on display.
There were also eight other “students” with Rayna. Chuck had a strict rule against giving out real names or personal information, but accents and physical features told her a lot. Rayna figured there were attendees from at least five different countries here. The youngest seemed to be in her teens and the oldest looked to be close to retirement. All had one thing in common—they were already fantastic marksmen.
There were two trainers, Chuck and Horace. Rayna could not believe Horace was there—the man was a legend among legends. Rayna knew Horace was really Fergus James, who had earned the moniker of “toughest bastard on earth,” for leading the victorious assault against terrorist warlords in Baghdad who held the British Embassy captive.
Chuck’s idea of training was much different from Special Forces doctrine. At JTF2’s Dwyer Hill, their idea of comprehensive range training was to jump over or through obstacles, dashing, hiding and shooting in burned-out vehicle hulks, buildings or dragging yourself through a swamp before firing at the targets.
For Chuck, that was just step one. Instead of stationary targets, the enemy were the other students or trainers. With an unlimited supply of dummy bullets and dull-bladed knives, they stalked each other in the forest or in the “city,” trying to kill or capture each other. Sometimes they partnered up and sometimes they flew solo. Never once did they have it easy.
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Everything was filmed in high-definition detail. At the end of each two-hour session, there was an extensive post-mortem or after-action-review. Once they relived their mistakes, it was time to go again.
Almost immediately, Rayna recognized the wisdom of this unconventional approach. Everyone in the program was already a shit-hot shooter that could kick extreme ass. This regime took “reality” to the extreme. The training went on for twenty-four hours—there were no beds anywhere so you had to grab a few winks whenever you could. All of them had plenty of fighting practice in controlled circumstances and even some real combat experience, but that wasn’t enough for where they were going.
More than once someone chucked a grenade at Rayna while she slept.
Snipers with rubber bullets picked her off on the way to the bathroom.
Every time she grappled one-on-one with a fighter and started to win, a second would appear from nowhere and put a knife to her throat, regardless of the scenario’s rules.
It was the best training of her life.
Reality was never predictable and Chuck’s methods were designed to hone the trainees’ improvisation skills, rather than following a set standard of drills, like the regular military.
Rayna, was allotted two hours a day, from 7-9 a.m., when she was not in training mode but instead focused on “operational development.” Barry made a digital introduction to Helena, one of the “office staffers.” Helena was friendly and had mauvish hair and a nose-ring, which was about all Rayna could see of her on her laptop. That was all Rayna needed to know for now, which didn’t make a difference. There was so much ground for them to cover.
Rayna told Helena everything she knew about Tanner and Serpiente. When Rayna was training, Helena scoured the internet and other backchannels, pumping sources for info. It didn’t take her long to find something useful.
“Hello, gorgeous.” Helena beamed from the screen.
“I look like hell, but thanks for lying.” Rayna threw a grumpy smile, but she looked forward to these daily sessions with Helena. With no camaraderie between the other students and trainers, Helena was her little spot of daylight.
“Yeah, well, you know how to pick them. Now, I’ve been looking into your stalkers. There isn’t a ton of stuff out there on Serpiente, but it seems their leader is a huge Pablo Escobar fan. Even changed his name to Pablo Domingo. Even though the Colombian drug kingpin has been dead for more than twenty years, the guy is still a legend. Can you imagine? At his height, he was responsible for eighty percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. Check this out.”
Photos of Escobar appeared onscreen, including one with a library shelf full of cash. The next was of La Catredal, his so-called country club “prison” and another showed Escobar’s body, dead from suicide on a Medellin rooftop.
“Since the King of Cocaine’s death, the industry has fragmented. While Escobar controlled as much as he could from cultivation to distribution, the baby cartels are different. They specialize in lab work or marine transportation, often working with paramilitary groups. Rather than try to compete, Serpiente harkens back to Escobar and took control to an even greater degree. They control the whole process from planting the coca plants to supplying major distributors in the United States. With fewer middlemen, they can maximize profits.”
Helena turned off the photos and her face appeared again. “It’s a great idea in theory, but horribly unwieldy and unreliable in execution. While there was no problem at all in Colombia, the American operation has been and continues to be spotty at best. Dealers and distributors fight endlessly over turf and customers; no amount of muscle can control the cheaters or unfaithful. Weak and decentralized leadership only hampers their organization further. Not to mention the people they recruit often wind up being the biggest users, rendering them useless for major deals. Which does not mean Serpiente is unprofitable. Most organizations would be ecstatic to have a return on investment of two hundred percent per year. However, given the inherent risks, personnel turnover is a constant headache. They’ve tried expanding several times, but it never works. New York has been and continues to be the only place that seems to work for them. That’s all I’ve got for today.”
“Wait.”
“Yes, darling?”
“Can I have a hug? I am so damned sore. These animals are trying to kill me.”
“I doubt that. They’d rather throw you in the sack.” Helena blew Rayna a kiss and the screen went black.
Rayna sighed as Helena went back to working the phones and contacting sources in Colombia and New York, trying to gather intelligence to build a strategy for action. Hopefully, she’d also put together an ironclad identity for Rayna to assume for this mission.
That day was another day of physical, emotional and psychological torture. Rayna ached inside and out but damned if she was going to let anyone know that.
“I don’t know why Barry hired you. You are such a terrible bad judge of character.” Helena wagged her head.
“It wasn’t Tanner’s character I was interested in.”
“Yeah, his ass was certainly an asset.”
“Not that part either,” winked Rayna.
“Uh huh… I had to piece this together from a variety of sources, none of whom really wanted to talk. Tanner was one of Serpiente’s personnel problems. According to one of the actors Tanner was in Les Miserables with, he started off as a customer shortly after you left on your first tour. He missed you so much and coke was just something to take the pain away. Or so he said.”
“I knew about it, but I… I kept on thinking he would change,” said Rayna bitterly.
“You just confirmed that you’re an absolutely horrible judge of character.”
“Was it George Stephenson who told you? He and Tanner were close.”
“Yeah, it was. George said Tanner’s habit grew, and within a year, it was bigger than his wages as an actor. It affected his performance and it became so spotty, the company had to let him go. He was broke.”
“No,” said Rayna, “he was still making money singing at Lucille’s.”
“Oh, girly girl. Can I sell you some swampland? Tanner never made a cent there, Rayna. Sorry. Well, technically he did make some money through Lucille’s. That’s where he convinced Jorge, his main contact, to give him a shot in the drug business and he was great at it. He was good-looking, friendly… Everyone wanted to spend time with him or buy from him. He had two problems though: First, Tanner was soft. If someone didn’t pay up, he couldn’t bring himself to correct the situation. Second, he couldn’t control his own consumption and a lot of the profits went up his nose.”
Rayna hung her head. “I was so stupid. He said he needed money to help finance his album. I gave him everything I had. Total idiot. I was so excited to return. I thought Tanner was just waiting for me to get back before having an album release party. And then he proposed.”
“I guess he didn’t tell you this either. There never was an album or studio deal.”
Rayna sighed. “He didn’t tell me. I found out the hard way from a Serpiente guy that wanted to put a piece of lead in my cranium.”
“Serpiente was sure Tanner had funneled a wad of cash to you.”
“That’s yesterday’s news. What I want to know is how they tracked me to Indiana.”
“I can do that. This was a surveillance feed from Lucille’s.”
Helena played the video in slow motion. Rayna watched emotionlessly as bullets riddled Tanner’s body. Then her mouth dropped. When the attacker grabbed at her, he was able to attach a very small item—obviously a tracking device—to the part of her dress that was torn. “You never felt that and that’s how they were able to follow you to Hope University.”
Of course. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Barry said you speak Spanish?”
“That was stretching it. Haven’t spoken it since college.”
“Start brushing up. Sending you some phrases to learn.” Helena sent a P
DF file.
Rayna opened it and squealed. “This is… I hate… I’m not some cheap whore!” Rayna tore at her hair. “Tease me, squeeze me!”
“Pablo’s preference is young girls whose sole goal in life is to please.”
“Well, I’m twenty-six.”
“Which is why we have to make an old fart like you more enticing. Bye.” Helena twinkled her fingers and blew a kiss. “See you tomorrow.”
* * *
It was day six and Rayna opened her laptop. It’d been a rough night. She slept under a rowboat by the lake, which seemed like a safe bet, until Chuck kicked it over at 3 a.m. He proceeded to give her a solid whipping until she landed a lucky punch in his balls and was able to escape. A few hours of coffee and no sleep later, she could finally chat with Helena.
“Hey, girly girl. You look like hell. Rough night?”
“Just a little fun with the boys. They like the-plane-is-going-to-crash turbulence, if you catch my drift.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“But I’m not. Pack your bags and be ready to go in an hour. We’re sending a chopper over to pick up that fabulous butt of yours, Chica China.”
“China girl?” groaned Rayna. “Can’t you be more creative than that?”
“Would you prefer Puta Asiática (Asian whore)?” giggled Helena. “I’m sure you would make a fortune.”
Rayna tossed her English/Spanish dictionary in the air. It thudded on the floor. “Yeah, and you’ll be my biggest customer. So what’s the deal?”
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