Eye of the Cobra

by Christopher Sherlock

  Jules Ortega felt the pain creeping up from his stomach. He could hardly breathe and he wondered if he might be dying. In his mind the pieces of the jigsaw-puzzle refused to go together. There had been one attack and then another. The men who had taken Suzie were not the same as those who were now storming the factory. He remembered the face of one from somewhere, but he could not place it.

  Every movement brought fresh pain, but he knew that he must remain silent. These men who were taking over the plant would not hesitate to kill him if they found him.

  Ortega tried to put himself into the minds of the two men who had taken Suzie - and it didn’t take him long to calculate their course of action. Without a fix, they’d have a hard time trying to cope with her.

  He grabbed the intercom with his good hand and tapped in the number. His brother answered instantly.

  ‘Jules, what is going on? I hear gunfire.’

  ‘Some men came and took Suzie. Talbot has landed with Yankee soldiers. He has betrayed us.’

  ‘Ah,’ Emerson said. ‘But he does not know about the bunker or my own bodyguard?’

  ‘No. Emerson, help me. I am wounded.’

  ‘Pretend you are dead. First, we must find Suzie and shut her up for good.’

  Jules put down the phone and lay on the floor, feigning death.

  Wyatt lay in the darkness, holding Suzie’s body’s close to his. Rod Talbot - so many memories and so much bitterness. They had been groomed to continue the teaching of their style of karate.

  After nine years at the dojo, the Shihan had told them that there were no Japanese pupils who matched them in ability. Now they were to travel to the island of Okinawa, to meet the originator of their style. Only he was sufficiently experienced to teach them at the highest level.

  On Okinawa, Wyatt had guessed he was to be given the highest honour - to become the Shihan in Japan when his master retired. Talbot had realised this as well. He could not accept that Wyatt had been chosen - he could not come to terms with not being first in line.

  So Rod had left. He had sold out.

  Wyatt felt a nagging sense of doubt. Could he just walk away from this?

  He whispered a few words to Carlos. Carlos looked at him.

  ‘Wyatt,’ he said, ‘she will die.’

  ‘There is something I must do -1 can’t explain it to you . . .’

  ‘I can fly the helicopter. Just help me get to a helicopter with her.’

  ‘We must get back to the runway, then.’

  Half an hour later, Wyatt was edging his way towards the side of the runway. It was an all-or-nothing situation. The pilot of the Sikorsky was standing next to his machine, calmly smoking a cigarette. His helmet lay in the cockpit and he was not expecting an attack.

  In the distance came the sound of another helicopter. The pilot put out his cigarette and moved back towards the cockpit.

  Out in the darkness, Wyatt cursed softly. What in God’s name was happening now? They would have to wait till the new chopper landed before they could make their next move. Behind him, Suzie moaned softly in Carlos’s arms.

  The chopper circled several times, and to Wyatt’s immense relief, landed close to the front of the factory, nearly eighty-five yards away from the Sikorsky. Combat soldiers filed out of the building and stood to attention as a man in a suit stepped down from the helicopter. For the second time that day, Wyatt did a double-take.

  It was Jack Phelps.

  Deep inside his bunker, Emerson Ortega felt the rage building up inside him. First the revolution in Colombia, now this attack. Phelps was destroying his life’s work. In one lightning manoeuvre he had ousted the Colombians, and now he was about to take control of the trade.

  Emerson knew he was not safe here. He must get away before Phelps launched a search. Phelps would know that he must be hiding somewhere in the complex - it was only the day before that he’d discussed the latest consignment with him, over the phone.

  Leaving Carlos with Suzie, Wyatt made his move as Phelps stepped inside the building. He padded up slowly behind the pilot and smashed his hand down hard against the man’s skull. Then he dragged him down into the jungle next to Carlos and Suzie.

  The pilot came round ten minutes later, the nose of Carlos’s Colt 45 rammed in the roof of his mouth.

  ‘One shout, my friend, and this goes off,’ Carlos said. ‘Nod if you want to co-operate.’

  The pilot nodded, peering nervously at his strange assailants.

  Wyatt whispered to him: ‘Tell him the take-off procedure.’

  The pilot rattled off a list of complex instructions, and Carlos went over them again and again, memorising the procedure. Then they left the pilot, lying face down, his arms bound behind him, with a primed hand-grenade in his hands. One wrong move and it would spring loose, blowing him to pieces.

  They moved out across the tarmac, moving quietly, watching the building. Carlos slipped down behind the controls of the chopper, and breathed a sigh of relief: they were just as the pilot had described them.

  ‘Wyatt,’ he whispered, ‘we’re going to make it. Lie her on the seat next to me and strap her in.’

  When Wyatt had done this, he kissed Suzie on the lips, then drew away. Carlos looked up.

  ‘Come on!’ he said urgently. ‘We must get out of here!’

  Wyatt stepped out onto the ground.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘I have an old score to settle.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool! They’ll kill you! We must get out of here, now!’

  Wyatt looked round nervously. Carlos was running out of time.

  Carlos stared into Wyatt’s eyes. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I go. But I will come back for you.’

  He eased the controls of the chopper back and felt the machine lift off from the tiny launch-pad. He looked down, seeing Wyatt leap into the green jungle and disappear.

  God, Estelle would never forgive him for this.

  Suzie started moaning hysterically, and he powered the chopper away. The bright lights of the factory buildings faded as they disappeared down into a sea of blackness.

  Then suddenly, without any warning, he felt the cold steel of a gun-barrel, thrust up beneath his right earlobe.

  ‘Yes,’ a voice said, ‘we are all going to make it.’

  Carlos sat uneasily in the pilot’s seat, with Suzie lying next to him, moaning.

  ‘Let me introduce myself, Carlos Ramirez. I am Antonio

  Vargas. I suppose I should count myself fortunate that you paid me a visit. At least, thanks to your assistance, I was able to leave my other unwelcome American visitors behind. And I am a generous man. I will give the young lady a shot of what she craves.’

  Carlos turned, but stopped as the metal pressed hard into his ear. Vargas stuck a hypodermic into Suzie’s arm, and within a few minutes her moanings had ceased.

  ‘My friend, I suggest that you stick to playing polo. You are out of your depth, just like your poor brother.’

  As Carlos listened, the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Memories came flooding back; memories of his brother David and the tape-recordings he had played him of the sadistic pleasures of a certain Mr Emerson Ortega. The voice was the same. He wouldn’t have realised it but for the darkness masking the features of Antonio Vargas.

  ‘You are Emerson Ortega,’ Carlos muttered quietly.

  He felt the pressure of the barrel on his cheek lessen. The silence was chilling. All he could hear was the steady hum of the helicopter’s turbo-shafts.

  ‘You have just sealed your death-warrant, my friend.’

  ‘And you think that will save you life, Ortega? Jack Phelps has very powerful connections, not just in the United States military, as you’ve seen, but also in the CIA. So you’re a dead man as well, my friend.’

  ‘OK, Ramirez, I think you are right. A dead man, but right . . . Yes, I must eliminate Phelps. Take the chopper back to the base.’

  ‘But they’ll kill us before we land,’ Carlos said, holding the cyclic tightly.
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  Ortega laughed.

  ‘My special bodyguard will probably have killed most of them already. But we’ll just make sure that Phelps is permanently silenced.’

  Talbot spotted Jules Ortega’s body lying next to the phone. He leaned down and held the palm of his hand against Jules’s face, and smiled.

  ‘Ah. Not so dead.’

  He pulled out a cigarette lighter and flicked it on, toasting Ortega’s ear, and as Ortega rolled over, clutching his singed ear lobe and screaming, Talbot kicked him hard.

  ‘Where’s Emerson?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your brother Emerson. Or Antonio Vargas, if you want to continue the charade, buddy.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Now talk.’

  Talbot ripped the waistband off Ortega’s pants and yanked them down. He pulled the Colombian to his feet, flicked the lighter on and held it to his penis.

  Jules gave a cry of agony, and the uncontrollable flow of his urine put out the flame. Talbot swore, adjusted the lighter and flicked it on again, this time with a long flame.

  ‘Please!’ Jules Ortega begged. ‘My brother is in the bunker just to the west of the main installation. I will show you.’

  Phelps admired the layout of the factory complex. Talbot had done a good job, using the Ortegas. Now it was just a matter of tidying up the loose ends, and the business would run itself.

  The new military junta in Colombia was successfully destroying all the cartels, so that his would be the only one left functioning. Talbot would run it well. Talbot was a killing- machine fuelled by money.

  He heard screams and gun fire outside, no doubt Emerson Ortega’s elite personal bodyguard were still putting up some resistance. They stood no chance against Talbot’s men.

  Jack Phelps was now the world’s sole supplier of cocaine.

  The door burst open, and he found himself face to face with Wyatt Chase.

  ‘Phelps, you bastard. It was you who took Suzie!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Phelps said. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here either, but you’re way out of your depth.’

  ‘You had her put away because she found out too much. Just like you did my father.’

  Wyatt moved towards the desk, and Phelps raised the Uzi carbine from between his legs and point it at Wyatt’s stomach.

  ‘Try me,’ he said. ‘I practice every day - just like you.’

  Wyatt stopped in his tracks. He saw Phelps’s finger brush the trigger. He shouldn’t have been so stupid, shouldn’t have allowed himself to get into this position - but he was tired and angry.

  ‘Sit down, Wyatt. Enjoy the last few moments of your singularly purposeless existence.’

  Talbot’s men cut down the last of Emerson Ortega’s elite bodyguard. Then they moved into the bunker, throwing a grenade into each room and blowing it apart before entering. The entire clearing operation was over in less than four minutes. A soldier ran up to Talbot and whispered something in his ear, and an ugly expression appeared on the American’s face.

  ‘The bastard’s flown!’ he screamed at Jules Ortega. Talbot dragged Jules still naked from the waist down, close to his face, and flicked his lighter on.

  ‘He was after the two men who took Suzie von Falkenhyn,’ Ortega stammered. ‘Before you came, we were attacked, and two men took her. They must have escaped in the helicopter with Emerson. He cannot fly.’

  Talbot barked out orders to his men and they ran from the bunker towards the airstrip. He turned back to Ortega.

  ‘Let’s go down to the patio.’

  Jules walked nervously in front of Talbot through the lounge and out onto the patio that looked down over the darkness of the Amazon jungle.

  ‘Stand on the ledge.’

  ‘No! Please, no!’

  Talbot dropped his weapon, moved towards Ortega, then turned and delivered a side-kick into his stomach that lifted him into the air and out into the void.

  The screams echoed in the darkness.

  The door of the room opened and Talbot stepped in alone.

  ‘The operation . . .’

  He stopped speaking the moment he saw Wyatt sitting beside the desk in front of Phelps.

  ‘You are surprised, Wyatt, at our visitor?’

  Rod and Wyatt stared at each other. So many years, so much, since then - since they’d first been together in the dojo.

  Wyatt looked from one to the other. Talbot and Phelps. Phelps and Talbot. A trail of evil winding back in time to Talbot, winding its way forward to Phelps.

  Where did it begin and where did it end?

  Where was the eye of the cobra?

  Was he looking at it here, in this room?

  Wyatt saw the challenge in Talbot’s eyes and knew he was ready for it.

  ‘Chase . . .’

  ‘The operation is a success?’ Phelps asked, wondering what the connection between Talbot and Chase might be.

  ‘We’ll commence full-scale production in twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Phelps, rising to his feet. ‘Then I’ll take my leave of you. I trust you’ll take care of Wyatt?’

  ‘Oh yes, very good care.’

  ‘Thank you, Rod. Just make sure he’s dead before the night’s out.’

  ‘I’ll get you, you bastard,’ Wyatt said softly to Phelps.

  ‘You’re just a pawn in the game, Wyatt, nothing more. Just like James.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Phelps settled on the edge of his desk.

  ‘Seeing as you’re going to lose your life, I might as well let you in on one of the facts that shaped it. Your father was like you in a lot of ways. Naive, I think, is a good word to sum you two up. You remember, of course, that I was his biggest sponsor? Well, he discovered, completely by accident, that I was using his racing operation to smuggle heroin into various European countries. He refused to take a cut, which is what I thought he wanted, and then he very stupidly told me he was going to the police.’

  ‘You killed him!’

  ‘Well, not specifically me, but an associate of mine - rather like Rod. Let me unlock your memory. You were going for a drive after the race; an associate of mine actuated your steering-lock by remote control as you drove round the bend. You just couldn’t avoid going over the edge of the cliff after that. It’s actually a miracle you survived.’

  Wyatt tried not to think about it - the hell that his life had been after the accident. He felt the hatred burning in his soul. Phelps had killed his father; Phelps had caused Danny to commit suicide. And Wyatt had taken the blame.

  Wyatt looked up to see the barrel of the gun Talbot was now pointing at him. He knew that if he so much as shifted his body-weight, Talbot would kill him.

  The door closed, and Phelps was gone.

  Talbot put the pistol down on the table and Wyatt moved into the centre of the room. In a moment they were both back in Tokyo, and the intervening years vanished as if they had never been.

  ‘Why?’

  Wyatt asked, moving into the fighting stance.

  ‘Why?’

  Talbot laughed.

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk. You’re the one who got the highest honour. That’s why I left the dojo first, because the highest honour went to you and you would have taken control. I didn’t want to spend my life in a sweaty old dojo knowing I was second choice.’

  Talbot moved closer, poised to launch his attack.

  ‘There was no favouritism, you know that,’ Wyatt said. Talbot smiled a chilly smile.

  ‘Now we will find the truth.’

  Wyatt looked into Talbot’s cold green eyes and saw the madness there.

  ‘I have used my talents as you have used yours,’ Talbot said. ‘To make money.’

  Wyatt was waiting for the blow that must come.

  ‘You kill for money,’ he said. ‘You fight against men who are weaker than you. That is no challenge. You have betrayed everything that you were taught.�
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  Talbot was faster than he’d expected and the kick caught him in the side of the head, even though he tried to block it. The steel toe-cap of Talbot’s boot impacted against the side of his skull and sent him flying across the floor. Talbot whirled after him, piling blows into his kidneys.

  Wyatt raised himself up and dodged the blow aimed again at his skull. He cartwheeled backwards to the centre of the room, his eye on Talbot the whole time. He spun round, and chopped the American hard below the neck.

  Talbot screamed out in agony, then launched another series of blows which Wyatt deftly avoided. Wyatt launched a kick forward which smashed into Talbot’s stomach.

  Talbot sank to his knees, gasping, but then sprang up again. Wyatt drove his open right hand hard into Talbot’s abdomen, spun round and drove a kick into his head.

  Talbot reeled forward, blood bursting from his mouth. For a moment Wyatt hesitated, then the words of his teacher came back to him.

  Bushi no michi wa shinu kotomo osorete inai.

  The way of the warrior is not to fear death.

  Wyatt spun round again and drove his flattened hand hard into the bone between Talbot's mouth and nose.

  Talbot collapsed.

  Wyatt bowed, rose, and breathed in smoothly; in control.

  The door handle turned, and there was shouting outside. Wyatt came to his senses and stared down at Talbot’s bloody body. He side-kicked the window and the pane shattered on impact. Then he dived into the greenness below.

  Carlos felt the sweat run down his forehead as he saw the lights of the landing-strip in the distance. He had thought they were lost. As he came in closer, he glimpsed a figure running between the helicopters on the runway.

  Wyatt.

  Emerson Ortega was further back in the cockpit, keeping the gun trained at Carlos’s head.

  ‘OK, Carlos, put her down. We kill Phelps, then we leave for good.’

  Carlos realised that Emerson could not have seen Wyatt on the ground. He moved in to the landing-point, keeping Wyatt out of Ortega’s view, easing the chopper in lower.