Beltrán, born and raised in Bogotá himself, had never liked the jungle. All that greenery, with all those animals—hidden until they leapt out at people from the shadows—made him nervous. He was glad to have Francisco Calderón along, manning the BLACK HAWK’s M240H machine gun, which was capable of spitting 7.62 mm NATO rounds at a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute. He would keep the cargo—and his crew—safe until they landed in Colombia again and all went out for beers, or something stronger.
Flights across the border were innately hazardous, but Beltrán trusted Cardona to make all the necessary arrangements, bribing police and military officers, airport personnel, whatever was required. The money Cardona was making from this shipment, in itself, would keep the average Colombian worker’s family fed and clothed for the next thousand years, with money to put all his children through a university, as well.
Beltrán, for his part, made a decent living as a pilot for the drug cartel, a more or less secure position in the present climate, where some six hundred metric tons of cocaine were produced for export each year, despite the various interdiction campaigns and mostly empty threats of extradition to America. He was more likely to be killed by members of a rival syndicate than sent to prison—where, in fact, members of powerful cartels lived like sultans and were often able to purchase early release. Flying an average of once per month with contraband aboard, Beltrán spent thirty hours or so in the air, with takeoff and landing his most vulnerable times. Someday perhaps he would run out of luck. But in the meantime, he was young and reasonably affluent, with the cachet of danger that so many women secretly desired.
“Francisco!” he called back to Calderón. “Be ready with your machine gun when we’re making the approach.”
“Sí, sí,” Francisco answered automatically. He had the M240H machine gun loaded and had test-fired a dozen rounds from its M13 disintegrating-link ammo belt after they were airborne, safely over open countryside southeast of Medellín. The gun worked fine, and Calderón was not afraid to use it.
Five more minutes and Beltrán would radio Cardona to announce that they were homing in, riding the GPS signal provided by the customer to make sure that they did not go astray. The rest should be a simple operation, touching down on open ground, refueling while the buyer’s lackeys unloaded the cargo he’d purchased. Cardona would be riding back with Beltrán and the final payoff, possibly relieved to let the jungle fade away behind him like a sweaty, stinking memory.
And they would soon be safe at home once more.
If everything went well.
* * *
MACK BOLAN DIDN’T get the radio announcement, but he heard a helicopter coming from a distance. Grimaldi or the Colombians? It sounded slightly louder in his left ear, as he crouched in the shadows south of Braga’s compound, so he reckoned it had to be the cocaine shipment closing in. Grimaldi’s chopper would be coming from the northeast—Bolan’s right ear, more or less—and it was not audible, as yet.
Cutting it close.
If he could hear the helicopter, flying treetop-high at better than one hundred miles per hour, it would soon be visible. Once it had landed, Bolan calculated that unloading its one thousand kilos of prime flake would occupy a squad of ten or fifteen soldiers for the best part of an hour.
Bolan didn’t know if riflemen would have to pack the cocaine out to some other location, and he didn’t care. His plan was to destroy the shipment here, along with Braga and as many of his men as he could manage with Grimaldi’s help.
Or on his own, if it came down to that.
His Steyr AUG permitted launching of rifle grenades, and one such grenade was already mounted on the Steyr’s flash-hider and was ready to fly as soon as Bolan chose a target for its high-explosive charge.
The Steyr let Bolan launch grenades as rapidly as he could mount on the weapon’s muzzle and take aim. Aiming from the shoulder meant that he could land explosive or incendiary rounds on target without the bulky addition of a separate grenade launcher under the rifle’s barrel.
The whooping rotor sounds were louder, closer now. Bolan began to circle north and eastward, toward the open ground where the chopper would touch down, near Braga’s Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter, already on-site. The two together would be sitting ducks for Grimaldi when he started strafing—or for Bolan’s own ground-level grenade attack.
No problem there, aside from Braga’s soldiers standing ready to defend their lord and master’s property. But Bolan also had to think of Mercy Cronin, under lock and key a few yards from the makeshift helipad that would become ground zero when the hellfire action started. Getting in to liberate her would be dicey.
Leaving her behind, to Bolan’s way of thinking, was unconscionable.
So, do it all. Why not?
And if he came up short, the world would never know.
Chapter 12
Hugo Cardona snatched the compact sat phone from his belt the instant it began to vibrate on his hip. Still seething from his frustrating encounter with the female prisoner, he made a conscious effort to control his voice and thumbed the button marked Habler.
“How long?” he asked, without preamble.
“Five minutes, señor,” the cargo chopper’s pilot answered.
“Good. Be alert on your approach.”
“Is there a problem, boss?”
“No,” Cardona said, then hedged. “No problem yet. But be prepared for anything.”
“I understand.”
Cardona cut the link, hoping his pilot understood, indeed. This was the time of danger for a major shipment, when the buyer had an opportunity to seize the cargo and keep half the purchase price. Of course, that would mean war, and he’d seen nothing to suggest that Joaquim Braga might betray him, but it never paid to trust the yes-men absolutely. Knowing that his soldiers would avenge him was no comfort.
How would he celebrate their final victory in Hell?
Relax, he urged himself, but it wasn’t so easy. The woman had unnerved him, just as Braga had contributed to his embarrassment, setting a squalid scene for their encounter that would leave Cardona filthy if he had tried to claim his prize. Not a conspiracy, perhaps, but still a joke at his expense, which he would not forget.
A bad beginning to a long-term partnership.
Cardona thought he could hear the BLACK HAWK coming now. Its sound was muffled by the jungle canopy, but it could not be disguised entirely. As it passed, birds scattered and screeching monkeys flung themselves across the treetops in a kind of aerial stampede. Cardona wished he could watch the scene from the air—perhaps on the trip home, where people were more civilized.
Cardona passed the time by calculating figures in his head. One kilo of cocaine, 99-percent pure, sold presently for $3,200. One thousand kilos thus brought him $3.2 million. Braga had paid half up front, meaning that on his homeward flight Cardona would be carrying another $1.6 million in cash. By the time Braga had cut the drugs and packaged them for street sales, he would make a tidy profit on his original investment.
Hugo Cardona was a businessman, perhaps the ultimate venture capitalist, and he did not begrudge Joaquim his massive markup on the cocaine, any more than he complained about the money earned by mafiosi, Cubans, African Americans or Russians who were peddling his merchandise in the United States. Still, it was something to consider, with Brazil being his next-door neighbor.
What if Braga had an accident? Would Oswaldo Ramos be amenable to a revised arrangement? Possibly a partnership that would, in time, allow Cardona to remove Ramos in his turn and rule both countries like an old time feudal lord?
Why not?
The first thing he had learned from Pablo Escobar was that a man took what he wanted in this world. The second thing had been the need to hold what he had taken with an iron fist, crushing any enemies before they had achieved the strength to threaten
him.
A gift of wisdom from the master.
Now Cardona was on top, or nearly there. Brazil would make a nice addition to his empire, ruled by fear and generosity in equal measure.
Something to consider, as the BLACK HAWK suddenly appeared above the treetops, like a giant prehistoric dragonfly, and started to descend.
* * *
BOLAN SUPPOSED HE could have shot the BLACK HAWK down from where he was, using the Steyr’s first grenade, but that was not the plan. He still wanted Grimaldi with him for the final action, and they had some time to spare, allowing for the cargo flight to land, shut down its engines and sit idle while the shipment was unloaded. It would also need refueling for the flight back to Colombia, which looked like it would be another hands-on operation, without benefit of any slick technology.
So he could watch and wait.
As the BLACK HAWK approached, he saw a gunner in the open door behind its cockpit, on the right, manning an M240H general-purpose machine gun. No one else was visible inside the whirlybird, except its two-man flight crew, meaning that Bolan didn’t have to sweat a new influx of troops at the eleventh hour. The machine-gunner would be a dangerous opponent, but the mere addition of one automatic weapon to the arsenal that Joaquim Braga had on hand was not a deal-breaker.
Not when one of the Steyr’s grenades could take the gunner out, along with the bird he rode in on.
Anytime now. Just as soon as Grimaldi arrived.
Bolan considered Mercy Cronin, wondering when Braga planned to haul her out and start what passed for entertainment in this nest of savages. Would Braga be waiting till Cardona and the cargo chopper left, or would her death be offered up for the amusement of his visitors?
Whichever, Bolan would be points ahead if Braga brought her out himself, better by far than Bolan storming her crude prison hut with Braga’s soldiers all around him. Once outside, she would have room to run, Bolan could drop the guards surrounding her—and then what?
Hope their luck held. Hope that none of Braga’s people dropped her on the run, that Grimaldi could strafe the camp and not take Mercy down among the hostiles. That she had one more chance to survive, before her life was snuffed out half a world away from home.
That was a lot to wish for in the middle of a shooting gallery—one unarmed lady in the midst of seventy or eighty killers who were panicking themselves, who’d be pleased for any target they could blast to bloody bits. If she could make it to the tree line, if the Executioner could help her, Mercy had a chance. If not, her death would be a quicker, cleaner one than Braga had in mind for her.
Small favors, right, but that was common in the hell grounds, where no favors were routine.
Bolan had steeled himself against the possibility of losing Mercy. Not that she was his to lose, by any means, but he had seen lives snatched away from him before, old friends and allies who were now nothing but ghosts haunting his dreams. People no one could have saved, in fact, but he felt the weight of letting them slip through his fingers all the same.
The best he could do for Mercy was to focus on his mission, play it straight. Do everything within his own considerable power to disorient the enemy, wreak havoc on them, raze their jungle hideout to the ground.
The BLACK HAWK settled gently, in a swirl of dust and leaves. Its pilot killed the twin General Electric T700/CT7 turboshaft engines, letting the rotor blades slow and sag as they lost momentum. The doorway gunner stayed behind his weapon, muzzle elevated just enough to keep from being threatening, his eyes invisible behind dark glasses.
Come on, Jack, thought Bolan. Anytime, now.
* * *
JOAQUIM BRAGA MADE a mighty effort to conceal his agitation. The scouts he’d dispatched to seek his two missing patrols had returned with more grim news. Another forty of his soldiers had been cut down in the jungle, with no sign that they’d even wounded one of their attackers prior to being killed.
Por amor de Cristo, what was happening? Who was it that had slaughtered more than fifty of his men, and why?
The timing could not have been worse—and, indeed, Braga could not believe it was coincidental. Having ruled out all law enforcement agencies that he could think of, Braga came to rival syndicates. Or was that what the man behind the raids expected him to think?
As he approached Hugo Cardona, standing well back from the circle of the BLACK HAWK’s rotor wash, Braga put on his most engaging smile. It would be rash, at this juncture, to give Cardona any hint of the suspicion brewing in Braga’s mind. It seemed bizarre to think the Colombian would make a drastic, hostile move against Braga on the very day that he took delivery of his largest ever shipment out of Medellín, but subterfuge and backstabbing was all too common in the murky world both men inhabited. It would have helped to recognize a motive, understand the reason why Cardona would deliver drugs while raiding Braga’s ranks, but—
Wait! What if there were no drugs aboard the helicopter? What if it were all a ruse to steal Braga’s thirty-eight million dollars and change, leaving him empty-handed or worse?
The BLACK HAWK’s machine-gunner showed no sign of relaxing as his aircraft settled to earth. He might cut loose at any moment, and while he alone could not annihilate all the troops in Braga’s compound, other soldiers might be hiding in the helicopter, which, as Braga knew, had room for fourteen men besides its three-man crew. If there was no cocaine on board, if men with automatic weapons suddenly came leaping from the gunship like a flying Trojan horse—
“You see—” Cardona’s deep voice cut through Braga’s bloody fantasy “—my men are always punctual.”
“An admirable quality,” Braga allowed, still smiling.
“A necessity for any well-run business,” the Colombian amended.
“As you say.”
“This method of delivery has never failed me,” Cardona said. “Once the airstrips for departure and arrival are secured, there is no difficulty in the air.”
“We hear of interdiction efforts from America. Their President issued a directive declaring that drug trafficking by air over Brazil poses ‘an extraordinary threat’ to national security,” Braga said. “Of course, he does not pay our air force. I deal with them directly.”
“Good friends in the air force are important, certainly,” Cardona said. “I’ve found them useful for harassing my competitors as well as turning a blind eye to shipments of my own. Imagine the Norte del Valle Cartel’s surprise last year, when 60 percent of their crop was sprayed with chemical defoliants.”
Cardona laughed at his own joke, with Braga joining in. He hoped the laughter did not sound too forced or artificial. Braga did not wish to spoil Cardona’s mood if there was nothing wrong—or to alert him, if Braga’s late-blooming worries were correct.
If anything went wrong, he had a pistol tucked inside the waistband of his khaki trousers, underneath the loose tail of his floral-patterned shirt. At the first hint of treachery, he was prepared to draw and blow Cardona’s brains out. Nothing that occurred beyond that point would halt an all-out war.
Hands trembling at his sides, Braga waited to find out if the BLACK HAWK held a treasure or the end of all his dreams.
* * *
JACK GRIMALDI CHECKED his GPS again and calculated he was thirteen minutes out from target acquisition at his present airspeed. He was tempted to reach out for Bolan on the sat phone, tell him help was on the way, but even if his friend’s receiver had been set to vibrate, it could still be a dangerous distraction. Bolan would be in the killing zone by now, planning his moves down to the nth degree and second-guessing the responses of his enemies to craft his backup plans, if anything went wrong.
And something always did go wrong. That was the nature of a firefight, never neat and tidy like in the action movies, where the hero never missed, never ran out of ammunition, never took a hit that kept him from rebounding w
ith a final knock-out punch.
Toss in an air strike, and the chaos increased exponentially.
Grimaldi had been thinking about helicopters. Not his own so much as Braga’s and the cargo chopper from Colombia. Their satellite photos of Braga’s compound had identified his bird as a Russian Mil Mi-24, once described by Soviet pilots as a flying tank. Its top speed was 208 miles per hour, with a service ceiling of 14,750 feet. Grimaldi’s Huey was slower, with a maximum speed of 135 miles per hour, but he could soar 4,640 feet above the Hind in a pinch.
Grimaldi’s best shot, he decided, was to blitz the Hind before it roared aloft to meet him in a dogfight. Catch it on the ground and hit it with a mighty mouse, or strafe it first thing with his miniguns and make sure it never flew. That would protect his tail and simultaneously limit Braga’s options for escape. Since no highways served the compound, and the nearest river was a mile or more away, grounding the drug lord’s whirlybird meant any escape would have to be on foot.
And stranding Braga on the ground with Bolan cut his odds of living through the afternoon dramatically.
* * *
MERCY CRONIN DID not recognize the helicopter’s sound at first. Two years had passed since her last visit to an airport, and she’d seen no helicopters when she had departed Rio de Janeiro or arrived at her last stop in Várzea Grande. It took a moment for her brain to sort out and identify the noise, helped by the audible response from Braga’s men outside the hut where she was caged.
What did the new arrival mean to her? Nothing perhaps. She guessed that Braga’s camp must be supplied by air, a luxury he could afford in lieu of having men or mules bring food and other items through the rain forest on foot. For all she knew, Braga might have a fleet of aircraft standing by to serve his every need, from hauling drugs around the world to winging him away on fabulous vacations to some luxury resort.
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