THE EXTRACTOR

by J. T. Brannan

  Listen. Police. For you.

  That got the man’s attention, Lee saw, the eyes instantly worried; and if he was Silva, then why wouldn’t he be worried? His last customer had been brutally murdered, and the police certainly seemed to be involved in it somehow.

  “Hector Guzman?” Lee asked sadly, before placing a hand on his own chest. “Amigos.” He pointed to door, noise of sirens somewhere beyond. “Vamos.”

  Let’s go.

  Finally, the man nodded his head, and asked the barman for the bill, standing from the stool as he reached into his pocket for his wallet.

  Come on, dammit, let’s go already . . .

  And then Lee felt the atmosphere in the room change, saw that Silva – if that’s who he was – was actually reaching for a gun instead of a wallet, was pulling it on Lee; and as Lee’s hand jammed the guy’s arm at the elbow, stopping the draw, the man next to them was trying to smash Lee’s head open with a bottle of whisky.

  Lee got his elbow up in an instant, slamming the bony tip into the inside of the man’s forearm, causing him to drop the bottle onto the floor, where it shattered; and at the sound, everyone started to move at the same time, like runners bursting off the starting blocks.

  Lee saw the barman reaching low, knew he was going for a shotgun or similar weapon under the bar, and he whipped a high roundhouse kick over the bar top, instep of his foot slamming into the guy’s head. As the barman dropped unconscious behind the bar, Lee grabbed the gun out of Silva’s hand and pistol-whipped the man who’d been holding the bottle at the same time as banging Silva’s head off the bar top.

  As both men slid off their stools and onto the floor, Lee saw the older guys standing up from their table, both pulling what looked like WWII-era Colt .45s from somewhere. Lee sighed internally – what the hell kind of place was this? But he was already moving, throwing first Silva’s gun, and then his own barstool, at the two men. The gun hit the guy on the left square in the face, and the second guy barely managed to get his arms up in time to protect himself; but both of their weapons were off-target, at least for now, and Lee swept to the side as he felt the blow come from behind, turning to confront the other two men at the bar.

  The first held a Bowie knife that barely missed carving a canyon out of Lee’s chest, and behind him was the second, with a .38 snub-nose revolver. The first guy had already missed with the knife, and would need a moment to recover, and so Lee attacked the man with the gun, launching an inner-crescent kick that caught the guy on the inside of the wrist and sent the weapon wide, the bullet shattering the mirrors behind the bar. With the same leg, Lee pushed the man away with a side kick before turning to the guy with the knife, who was coming back for a second pass. Lee struck him in the side of the neck with the callused edge of one hand as he blocked the incoming knife arm with the other, and Lee turned again before he’d even seen the man drop, knowing that unconsciousness was inevitable. He picked up two more barstools as he turned, throwing them back towards the old guys at the end of the bar. They covered up again as the stools sailed toward them, and Lee turned once again, to see the guy with the revolver moving the weapon back in his direction. Assessing the distance quickly, Lee hooked his foot under the bottom of another bar stool before lifting his leg hard, sending it sailing toward the gunman, who reflexively dropped the revolver and caught the piece of furniture before it hit him in the face. Lee shot in, grabbed the legs that were facing him and jerked the stool forward, the seat of the stool smashing into the guy’s face anyway. And then he pulled the stool away and fired a full-power front kick into the man’s chest that sent him flying backwards out of the front door, into the street beyond.

  Lee looked around quickly, saw that five men were unconscious, with the two older guys sprawled under the barstools at the end of the room. The only people uninjured, except for Lee himself, were the two young tourists, who were still sitting in their chairs, staring at him open-mouthed.

  Before they could say anything, Lee grabbed Silva off the floor, saw he was still out of it, and hauled him up over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry before racing for the door.

  Moments later, he was back out into the bright daylight, nearly blinding after the relative darkness of the bar, but he found the bike quickly, the body of the man he’d kicked through the doors lying right next to it, and he laid Silva out on top of the bike before jumping on himself and gunning the engine.

  Amazingly, there were still no cops on the street, and Lee accelerated away, turning at the sound of the bar doors opening again behind him. It was the old guys from the far end, waving their ancient Colt .45s around again.

  But he knew there was no chance they’d hit him on the bike, and he grinned, wishing he had a couple more bar stools to throw at them.

  Chapter Five

  “Where the hell are they?” Phoenix asked Hartman, as she paced around the airstrip.

  “Damned if I know,” the big guy answered. “He still not answering the cell?”

  “No,” said Phoenix, looking down at the screen once more to see if he’d called back. But still, there was nothing, and the police channel was lighting up like a Christmas tree. Phoenix was on the police frequencies, scanning them through a real-time translation program that put everything directly into English for them as they listened. The Feijó PD was after an “armed and dangerous” criminal, of “Oriental appearance”, who had attacked the police station, and they seemed determined to get their man.

  Cops had also been sent their way, to the Hotel Joafran, but Phoenix and Hartman had been long gone by the time the hotel had been raided, packing up and leaving as soon as Lee had placed the call. They’d arrived at the airport in record time, and Hartman had already started sweettalking the owner of the Aerotaxi firm into getting them out of there, if Lee didn’t turn up with a pilot. If push came to shove, Hartman was willing to steal a plane to get out of there. Lee would be able to fly it; although he was no expert, he knew enough to get them up and – hopefully – to land the thing again. If they went down that route though, it would mean rethinking the entire plan, because Lee couldn’t parachute out of the plane he was piloting. Well, not if he wanted Phoenix and Hartman to live, anyway.

  No, Phoenix knew that the ideal solution was for Lee to turn up with Silva before the police did, and for them all to fly out of there. Once in the air, they could find out what Silva knew, and he could then take them to the right area, where Lee could parachute out with his equipment. Silva could then carry on to another destination, where they could set up a secondary headquarters. Phoenix had already scoped out a couple of potential sites in other locations, and had backup plans already in place. Tarauaca was the closest, but potentially within easy reach of the cops if they decided to continue the pursuit. Cruzeiro do Sul was further afield, and perhaps the safer bet.

  “What was that?” Hartman asked, turning to the radios. “What did they say?”

  They both stopped and listened, aghast.

  The cops had found him.

  Lee saw the bikes turning into the residential street ahead of him. There were two of them, and they were already on their radios, telling the others.

  The trouble – or one of them, anyway – was that he didn’t know how many cops Feijó had available. Was it six? Or sixty? Lee had no idea, and the lack of knowledge made him nervous.

  But he had more immediate things to deal with here, and as the cops approached, he turned his bike sharply to the right, heading toward the open front door of a small house. The bike bumped up the two entry steps, then sped inside the house, and Lee negotiated a corner around a beaten-up old sofa and into the kitchen, past an old woman kneading dough at the counter, mouth open in shock.

  “Desculpa!” he yelled over the noise of the engine, frighteningly loud in such a confined space, as he bumped open the door to the rear yard and left the woman behind.

  He bounced out into a small yard, and burst through a small gate into the yard of another house that backed onto the first
. He heard the bark of a dog, and turned to see a huge Rottweiler heading his way, a man reclining on a sun-lounger leaping up and yelling as he accelerated to the side of the house and smashed through the wooden gate, the dog hot on their trail.

  The bike blasted out onto another road, this one lined with a few local shops as well as houses, and a couple of small cafes. The road was wider, with a bit of traffic, and Lee gunned the engine and pushed the little bike harder, hoping to make some distance while losing himself in the other vehicles.

  He wondered if Rodrigues would figure that he was making a run for the airport, and decided it was likely. But would he divert resources away from the main chase? Again, it was down to how many people he had working for him.

  He heard sirens again, and turned to see the 4x4 heading into the street behind him, two more motorcycle outriders with it. He’d only had a glance – he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the road for too long, while weaving in and out of traffic – but he was pretty sure that Rodrigues was the passenger seat of the 4x4.

  The traffic started to snarl up a bit further ahead, and – knowing he had no time to lose – Lee mounted the sidewalk, people scattering as he raced along, missing them by inches.

  He risked a glance behind and saw the 4x4 was getting held up, while the bikes followed his lead, darting onto the sidewalk after him.

  He headed toward a grocery, outdoor baskets full of fruits and vegetables, brightly colored in the midday sun. Customers leaped out of the way as they saw him approaching, and he slowed down, knowing the two bikes would be closing in but wanting to take a risk in order to get rid of them.

  He reached the stands of fruit and kicked out at the bases as he went past, putting his boot through the wooden legs that held them. They collapsed as he moved past, hundreds of items falling and rolling onto the sidewalk.

  He looked over his shoulder to see the first cop get there, the fruit running under the tires, some of it being crushed to juice, while more of it unbalanced the bike and caused it to topple sideways, until the rider was collapsed to the floor; and then his partner, seeing the danger, steered off into the street, only to be sideswiped by a passing taxi and knocked off his bike completely.

  Lee breathed out. He could see the town gates ahead, and knew it was only a short distance then to the airport, maybe four kilometers at the most.

  He just had to hope that Silva would be awake when they got there.

  “He’s coming!” screamed Phoenix excitedly. Lee had called her already to tell them to get the equipment onto Silva’s airplane – either the pilot would fly them out of there, or he’d do it himself, and work out the rest of the plan from there – but now she could see him, and that made it real.

  But there was still a body – possibly unconscious – draped over his bike and, following closely behind, what appeared to be a convoy of a dozen police vehicles, including three cruisers, a 4x4, and a whole bunch of motorbikes. Lee was in the lead – just – and the whole convoy was spraying up so much dust into the atmosphere as they raced toward the airport, it must have been almost impossible to see anything at all for the people at the rear.

  Hartman raced toward the gate, ignoring the terrified cries of the airport staff, and he readied himself with the rifle. Phoenix knew he wasn’t going to go full-crazy and open fire on a whole police department, but he might take a few well-aimed shots at the tires.

  “Come on!” she heard him shout to Lee, who was close now, so close, the nearest vehicles just a hundred yards behind, bullets firing everywhere, like a fourth of July fireworks parade.

  “Get ready to close the gate!” Lee yelled at Hartman, who nodded and readied himself.

  Lee was just fifty yards away now, forty, thirty, twenty, and now some of the shots were peppering the metal fence line, ricocheting everywhere; and then Lee was through into the airport compound, shouting “Now!” at Hartman, who was already moving, pushing the metal gates closed and firing a few warning shots toward the oncoming police vehicles before turning and racing after Lee.

  Lee screeched to a stop by the airplane, hauling Silva off the bike and to his feet, slapping him in the face to try and get some life back into him.

  “Silva,” Lee said. “I know you understand English, so listen to me. If you don’t get us out of here, we’re dead, you got that? All of us.”

  Silva’s eyes opened wider, then narrowed, then went wide again. “Who are you?” he asked in English, before looking over Lee’s shoulder and seeing the invading hordes stopped outside the gate, lining up to try and fire through the fence line. “Woah,” he said, coming almost to attention, adrenaline bringing all the life back into him now, “it doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here, you can tell me when we’re in the sky.” He had already broken out of Lee’s grip, and was heading for the cockpit.

  “Hey,” Hartman called after him, “you sober enough to fly?”

  “Hey, you,” Silva fired back as he climbed aboard. “I always fly better when I’m drunk. Now, you coming, or what?”

  Nobody had to be asked twice, and they were all onboard seconds later; and a few seconds after that, the engines were firing up, and the plane was moving.

  “So much for safety checks,” muttered Hartman as he guarded the door with the M4, watching as the cops worked to break down the fence, shouting orders for the airport officials to stop them.

  But there was no stopping them now, as Silva got the plane taxiing toward the runway in record time, getting there just as the gates broke open and the Feijó police department invaded the airfield, racing toward them.

  At the front of the plane, Silva breathed deep, hit the throttle and – as the cruisers and bikes and 4x4 chased them down the runway, gunfire raging behind them – he accelerated hard toward the horizon until eventually, finally, mercifully, the little plane broke gravity and lifted off the airfield, into the azure blue skies above, and then they were away . . .

  To freedom.

  Chapter Six

  Lee looked down at the vast emerald expanse of pristine rainforest that lay below them, spread out like a magnificent, shimmering carpet of verdant, primal beauty, and his heart soared.

  He had been half-expecting Rodrigues to order a plane up into the air after them, but – although there was a lot of impotent screaming and shouting across the police band – nobody else took off from the airfield to catch them. In fact, it appeared they were in the clear – for now, at least. Lee had already established that the Piper Seneca III twin-engine light aircraft they were in was fully fueled, and gave them a range of over seven hundred nautical miles, more than enough to get wherever they wanted to go.

  It was plush inside despite its three decades of use, and they’d even found space for their equipment. Some of it was loaded into the gull-winged cargo area, while they kept other items – such as Lee’s parachute, and the equipment he hoped to be jumping with – in the cabin with them.

  The equipment was stashed into a large backpack, which Lee would carry through the forest with him. There were rations and bottled water, as well as tabs to treat any other water he found when that ran out, a first aid kit, hi-tech cameras and recording equipment, a sat-phone and a military-grade radio, a hardened GPS tracker, a hardened laptop, some of Mabuni’s special weapons, and a special drone aircraft which could give him a real-time view from above, if he got lost or needed some visual information. The signals would also be sent back to Phoenix, who would be monitoring it all from her new HQ.

  And, of course, there was another set of night vision goggles, which he’d promised Mabuni he would definitely wear this time.

  The accommodation in the cabin was split into two rows of two leather armchairs, set facing each other, with luggage space behind the rear row and the front row backing on to the two seats up front, for a pilot and co-pilot. Lee was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, grilling the man next to him, who -true to his word – was doing a good job of flying the plane while drunk.

  “So
, you don’t think it was the cops who killed Guzman?” Lee asked, turning his attention away from the forest and back to the pilot.

  “No,” Silva said, in accented English not helped by a slur that came from the drink, “it was not the cops, I am sure of it. But they know who killed him, certain people – like your friend, Deputy Commander Rodrigues down there – have been paid off, that is for sure. That’s why I’ve been at that bar, not drinking my life away man, no, no, no – well maybe a little – but that’s not the reason, it’s because I know people there, I was protected there, you know? Although,” he said as he touched his broken nose, courtesy of having his head smashed off the bar by Lee, “not as protected as I thought, eh?”

  “Well, at least it was the good guys who found you, right?”

  Silva touched his face again. “Hmmm. Maybe,” was all he allowed.

  “So, if not the police, then who?”

  “Ah, well that is the question, isn’t it? I suppose the answer is, if I knew, I wouldn’t be alive, don’t you agree?”

  Lee thought about it, and decided the man was right. “But you must have some idea of what happened though,” he said, trying to prize some information out of him, at least.

  The pilot shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? Obviously, someone who wanted to keep him quiet. Or else, someone who wanted to know what he knew.”

  “What did he know?”

  Silva shrugged again. “The reason those crazy American assholes went into the forest in the first place.”

  “Do you know the reason?”

  “Again,” Silva said, “if I did, do you think I’d still be alive? No, I’m just the tour guide, I do not know a thing except how to fly this plane. But Guzman knew, and I suppose somebody knew he knew.” Silva shrugged once more. “Or maybe not.”