Search the jungle?
Felix Lima could not quote statistics for the Mato Grosso’s size. He had not excelled in geography—or any other academic subject, for that matter—but he knew the state was huge. A man could spend his whole life rambling aimlessly through the rain forest and never pass the same point twice, unless he started walking in a circle accidentally.
That was one error Lima pledged that he would not commit.
He had a compass and his point man to assist him in holding a true course, but neither would lead him to success without a healthy dash of luck. His enemies, most likely, would not be a stationary target waiting for him to annihilate them. In the rain forest the easiest maneuver—after getting lost—was eluding trackers. If the hunters lacked a certain skill, they might be hunted in their own turn and wiped out.
No problem, Lima thought. He’d been assigned to Braga’s compound for the best part of two years, seeing the city lights only on short furloughs. He had become adept at hunting animals and natives, along with the occasional urban adversary whom Braga transported into the forest for sport. His favorite, so far, had been the Russian mobster who’d been snatched from São Paulo after he had approached some of o chefe’s contacts there and offered them a “better deal.”
The russo was not dealing now.
Lima stepped out of the marching line and watched his soldiers pass, checking for indications of fatigue, distraction, anything that might jeopardize their mission. They were fit and doing well so far—a good thing, since they might be out all day unless they made contact soon.
Contact with whom?
That was the question nagging at Felix Lima’s mind as he brought up the rear, marching like a common soldier at the tag end of the column. Not a safe place, necessarily, when danger could appear from anywhere, at any time. Keeping his mind fixed on the bonus he would earn for bagging prisoners, he scanned the woods around him, hoping he would spot a target and dreading it at the same time.
* * *
BOLAN CHECKED HIS watch and decided to pick up his pace. He’d covered roughly half the distance from last night’s camp to the Cronin mission, spotting signs at several points along the way that could have marked his quarry’s passage, though he couldn’t actually pin a partial footprint or a broken twig on any individual. How likely was it that Bolan would cross the trail of someone other than the preacher—who’d ditched his wife last night and doubled back to reach the spot where he’d been kidnapped only yesterday?
Bolan had seen religious zeal carried to extremes, and he knew that it affected different minds in different ways. One person might sell everything he owned, donate the cash to charity and spend the rest of his life in solemn meditation. Another might hear voices in his head and launch a personal crusade, attacking synagogues or women’s clinics, mosques or military bases. Faith, to Bolan, was a private thing, intensely personal. It could be shared upon request, with someone trusted and well known, but it should never be a weapon.
Grimaldi would be taking off soon. Bolan could have waited until he had Abner Cronin in his hands, then given Grimaldi the signal to begin, but that meant Bolan and his two civilians would be waiting longer at the LZ, while Joaquim Braga’s commandos hunted them. Better to have Grimaldi waiting on them. This way, if anything went wrong and Bolan had to abort the pickup, nothing would be wasted but some fuel and a couple hours of Grimaldi’s time. Jack wouldn’t gripe about it. He had worked with Bolan too many times to think that everything ran smoothly.
Would be nice though, Bolan thought, frowning.
Funny how when you helped some people out of trouble they resented it, ran off on tangents, made things worse, convinced they could do better on their own. It was a part of human nature, he supposed. Cops dreaded being called out to domestic arguments for just that reason: in the middle of a vicious brawl, bloodied combatants were as likely to assault peacekeepers as to welcome aid. His present situation did not rival that, but Abner Cronin’s midnight getaway had seriously complicated matters all around.
The sound of voices somewhere up ahead froze Bolan in his tracks. Two speakers, still too far away to make out what they said or even recognize their language. Bolan spent another moment listening, determined that the sounds were coming his way slowly, and he looked around for someplace to conceal himself.
The simple answer: up.
He chose a tree with branches hanging low enough that he could reach them with an easy jump. The Steyr slung across his back, he caught a limb, pulled himself up, then scrambled into thicker foliage. Most people, in his experience, did not look up while they were walking through the wilderness—or on a city street, for that matter—unless some audible disturbance captured their attention. He could wait and watch, see who passed by and then decide what action was required, if any.
Crouching on a tree limb thicker than his torso, Bolan surveyed the ground below. The voices, two of them at least, were silent now, but he could hear someone approaching through the forest undergrowth. Two minutes later, give or take, a solitary man in camouflage passed underneath his perch, armed with an IMBEL rifle, holstered pistol on his right hip, sheathed machete on his left. A scout, perhaps, taking his time and studying the ground in front of him.
Not looking up.
The point man passed, followed by others in a few more minutes. Bolan counted twenty all together, scout included, guessing from the lack of visible insignia on any of their uniforms that they were Braga’s men. Their route, if they held to it, would lead them to Bolan’s camp from last night, right around the time he would reach the Cronins’ mission.
Mercy.
Scowling, Bolan let the last soldier in line pass by, gave him a lead, then scrambled down to follow.
* * *
MERCY CRONIN HEARD the voices too and nearly panicked. In a harried heartbeat, she considered her three options: turn and flee; rush forward, trying to catch up with Cooper; or find a place to hide. The first two both involved considerable noise, since moving quietly required deliberation and a concentration that was almost physically exhausting. Thus her choice was made—but where could she conceal herself?
She could try to climb a tree, but she was only five feet four inches tall, and the lowest limb on any major tree surrounding her was a minimum ten feet off the ground. Even leaping, with arms raised high, it was apparent that she could not reach a sturdy limb and pull herself into a decent hiding place. The men approaching—she recognized male voices, although not what they were saying—would arrive and find her dangling from the branch, defenseless.
Somewhere on the ground then, but...
Turning to scan the undergrowth, Mercy spied a fallen tree she had ignored in passing, focused as she was on trailing Matthew Cooper. Half hidden by a screen of waist-high ferns, it was a good-size tree—or log, now, she supposed—with branches on its upper side still basically intact. Mercy thought she could hide behind it, if the hunters did not look too closely. Better yet, as she approached the log, she saw that it was hollowed out at one end, where the inner wood had rotted. She could not see all the way through to the other end, but if the fallen tree had room enough for her to crawl inside, she would be safer still.
Unless the log was occupied.
She thought about what might be living in the dead tree’s inner darkness. Insects, certainly, which would attract the predators of their world: lizards, spiders, scorpions and centipedes that grew up to a foot in length with jaws that could inflict a painful, toxic bite. A bushmaster or coral snake might even use the dead tree as a nest. The thought of being wedged in darkness while a host of creatures that she couldn’t even see crept over her, biting and stinging, turned her stomach. Mercy knew she could not force herself to crawl inside the log, but if she hid behind it, maybe even held her breath until the human danger passed, she might be safe.
She moved around the log, inspecting it
s far side for snakes and nests of stinging ants before she lay down close to it, facing in the direction she’d been headed when she heard the voices, pressed against the log’s rough bark from shoulder to ankle. Trembling, tearful, she came close to cursing Abner once more, then realized this part of her predicament was her own doing. If she’d stayed in camp as Cooper had told her, she wouldn’t be in this position, waiting to find out if she would be kidnapped again or simply shot on sight.
And where was Cooper? It seemed the men approaching her had passed the point where Cooper should be, well out ahead of her, so that she barely glimpsed him at intervals as Mercy followed him. There’d been no shooting, so she reckoned they must not have seen him. Had he found a place to hide, as well? No doubt, he would be more adept at it than she was, safer in whatever cover he had found.
If the approaching men saw Mercy, if they started to attack or kidnap her, would Cooper step in to rescue her a second time? Or would he be so furious that she’d disobeyed him, followed him against his orders, that he’d leave her to her fate?
Turning her face away, pressing her cheek into the soft soil of the forest floor, Mercy lay still and waited to find out if this would be her final day on earth.
* * *
FELIX LIMA THOUGHT his men were making decent time. They’d all been out on various patrols before and knew the jungle fairly well—if not this part of it, precisely, then the animals and plants, the soil, the weather. All of them were city boys to start with, but they had adapted to the Mato Grosso when it was required of them, because o chefe willed it so.
Lima had tired of bringing up the rear and granted a brief rest stop, as much for his own dignity as any real concern about the men. It might be awkward if he had to jog the full length of the column to regain his place in front and damned embarrassing if he fell down along the way. They might not laugh at him immediately—most of them were too intelligent to make that serious mistake—but they would not forget it, either. It was better to pretend he cared how they were doing, whether they were tired, and thus forestall humiliation for himself.
After the rest stop—ten short minutes during which the men swigged whatever it was they carried in their canteens—the march resumed with Lima at its head. The scout was still farther in front to watch for traps—or spring them, if his luck ran out. It would reflect poorly on Lima if he lost a man, but sacrificing one to save the rest did not strike Lima as a problem. Most particularly when one of the lives he saved turned out to be his own.
Alas, the rigors of command.
Lima was getting restless as they slogged along, wishing that something would occur to break the monotony. He loathed the thought of going back to Braga empty-handed—a disgrace if the competing teams bagged captives—but it would be barely tolerable if they all returned with nothing to show for their efforts. Even if he caught one of the natives the missionaries had been working with, trying to educate, it would be something. Braga might be able to elicit some response to questioning. Find out if enemies had visited the mission, for example, to plan a war against the syndicate.
That seemed unlikely, granted. Why would anyone discuss such business in the midst of savages? But then again, why scheme with do-gooders in the first place, unless they were something more than simple preachers. Spies, perhaps, disguised as ministers to make themselves seem innocent and harmless.
Possible, thought Lima. The authorities used underhanded tricks routinely, while a rival drug cartel might well decide to gather on-the-scene intelligence before it made a move. Only interrogation of the so-called preachers and the men who’d rescued them would bare the truth of what had happened yesterday.
Lima was packing two canteens, one filled with water, the other with cachaça for emergencies. Or for a time like this, when he was feeling weary and required a pick-me-up. He had raised the second canteen to his lips when someone called out from the rear ranks of the column.
“Onde é Thiago?”
Lima turned and looked back along the line of soldiers, frowning to himself. Where was Thiago? He’d been bringing up the rear, but now there was no sign of him. How could he possibly get separated from the team so soon after a rest stop?
Lima halted the column. He hurried back along the trail, replacing his canteen before he had a chance to taste the liquor, easing his rifle off its shoulder sling. Reaching the man who now was last in line, a soldier named Aluizio, he demanded, “When did you last see him?”
Aluizio shrugged. “I heard a noise like coughing, then looked back, and he was gone.”
Lima called out, “Thiago! Answer me! Where are you?”
But Thiago did not reply. Instead, a spider monkey cackled somewhere in the canopy above them, while a blue macaw whistled derisively.
“Thiago! Say something!”
And again the missing man said nothing.
“Merda! We must find him,” Lima told the soldiers who had drifted back, surrounding him. “You, you and you. Fan out and search for him. The rest, stay here. Don’t move a step unless I order it.”
Reluctantly the searchers started back along the ground they’d covered moments earlier, calling Thiago’s name and getting no response.
* * *
THIAGO WASN’T ANSWERING because a Parabellum slug from Bolan’s SIG Sauer P226 had clipped his spinal cord between the styloid process and the first cervical vertebrae, immediately snuffing out his life. The shot was nearly silent—or no louder than the muffled coughing sound Aluizio had noted as he hiked along the narrow trail. Before he’d turned around to look, Bolan had hauled the corpse aside and was already moving toward a new position in relation to the line of nineteen riflemen.
He had started with a twenty-round magazine in the P226, plus one round in the chamber. Firing one still left him with enough to take down the rest of the team, but Bolan knew the odds were against him on that. Still he’d do what he could before all hell broke loose in the jungle and he was compelled to go hard with the Steyr AUG.
Three men were coming back to find the one he’d dropped already, calling out what Bolan took to be the dead man’s name and shouting other things he couldn’t translate. Bolan waited in the shadows, let the nearest of them pass within arm’s reach, and kissed him with a Parabellum round behind one ear. The soldier dropped, not silently, and as his comrades turned, the SIG spat two more rounds from twenty feet.
Four down.
Back on the line, their leader understood that something was amiss and badly so. He cried out, “Aluizio! Octávio! Luis! What’s happening? Answer me, damn it!”
Bolan was off and moving to the left side of the column, gliding like a shadow through the forest as sixteen survivors huddled closer to their shouting leader. This was crunch time, when he knew the balance could be tipped against him instantly by any small mistake. When he’d flanked them, Bolan moved in closer—steadying the SIG in a two-handed grip—and started rapid-firing through the foliage.
Five, six, seven down, blood spouting from their shattered skulls. Some of the others—sprayed with blood and brains, or jostled as their dying comrades slumped against them—turned, aghast, and raised their weapons, searching for a target.
Eight, nine down, then Bolan ducked and rolled away. One of the soldiers crumpling in a heap triggered a burst of auto fire before his rifle kicked free of his grasp. Those bullets ripped through number ten, and then the rest were diving, scattering to save themselves.
Too late.
While bursts of 5.56 mm NATO rounds peppered the trees and shrubbery above him, Bolan wriggled on his stomach to a new position, fired his pistol from a worm’s-eye view and picked off two more riflemen. Ten rounds still remained in his pistol as he crawled beneath the wild fire poured into the trees by survivors who had no idea how many enemies they faced or where the killing fire was coming from.
Thirteen and fourteen down, their bo
dies still thrashing on the forest floor. A mere half-dozen men remained, abandoning any pretense of discipline as they attempted to escape. Their leader held his ground, kneeling and firing short bursts randomly into the shadows that surrounded him, the others running for their lives.
A Parabellum round from Bolan’s SIG punched through the leader’s left eye, slammed him over on his back, and he was done. The Executioner was up and running then, chasing a pair of shooters who had broken to his right and back along the trail they’d followed to the ambush site. If either of them heard him coming, they were too intent on flight to turn and fire. The SIG coughed twice more and they fell, spines severed, dead or dying by the time they hit the deck facedown.
What about the other three? Bolan turned back, hunting, and found one cursing furiously as he fought to clear a jammed shell from his weapon’s chamber. Bolan shot him on the run, passed by before the body toppled over, searching for the other two.
Scorched earth. No prisoners.
Chapter 8
Mercy Cronin panicked at the first explosive sounds of gunfire, bolting from her hiding place and running off into the forest away from the trail she’d been following since daybreak. She suppressed an urge to scream, knowing it might prove fatal, but in every other sense her fear was absolute, erasing any thought beyond escape.
And within moments she was lost.
The gunfire, while it lasted, did provide a point of reference, but she was not about to head in that direction, back toward what she thought must be another massacre in progress. Matthew Cooper was killing more of Braga’s men, or someone’s men. She understood instinctively that so much shooting would not be required to slay a single man, but must instead mean that the party she’d heard tramping through the rain forest was fighting for its life.
And losing, she decided, when the shooting halted.
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