“How do we know he wasn’t lying?” Chuck asked.
Roger and Núñez shared a glance, and Núñez said, “He wasn’t lying.”
TWENTY-SIX
Machine-crushed rocks popped and crackled beneath the van’s tires as it crept slowly over the rugged fire road. Garza had his window down as he drove, letting the cool, moist air swirl in along with the sounds of the jungle. Matt couldn’t see anything beyond the tree trunks that lined the road, glowing faintly red as the van’s taillights passed. Behind Matt, Fando had his eyes fixed on a paper map illuminated by a penlight in his hovering fist.
“There should be a big turnout about two hundred yards up,” he said.
Garza had the brights on and leaned forward over the steering wheel as he drove. Sure enough, a minute later the headlights shone across a broad clearing. The bare ground was scarred with deep trenches and three-foot-high walls of sunbaked mud. It was clear that vehicles much larger than the van had driven all over this ground during or after a big storm, rendering it essentially unnavigable to a passenger van.
“Are we supposed to stop here?” Garza asked as they passed the clearing.
“Well, you could take the road to the end if you want, but it just curves left in another hundred yards and then dead-ends.”
“I don’t like a dead end,” Garza replied.
“Exactly.”
Matt said, “There was a flat area back there—not too big, but enough to park off the road.”
Garza stopped the van, threw an arm over the passenger headrest, and said to Matt, “Don’t try to be helpful to an enemy. It doesn’t endear you to them—just reveals weakness.”
Matt swallowed and said, “I’ll remember that for next time.”
Garza backed into the flat space.
“Hmph,” Fando murmured. “Next time . . .”
Matt had to wonder whether they were up here not just to find potential riches but also to execute him, and ditch the body where no one would ever find it. Garza had said as much, but at the time, it had come off as an empty threat.
Garza killed the engine and lights, and they all stepped out into the brisk mountain air. Matt felt farther away from civilization than ever before. There was no sound of distant cars passing, no airplanes overhead, no one to wonder about the echoing crack of a gunshot. He laughed halfheartedly inside at the fact that the closest thing he had to a friend up here was the loathsome Dr. Rheese. As his eyes adjusted to the starlight he looked around. The treetops silhouetted against the sky told him where the woods began and the truck-turnaround clearing ended. Garza read his mind.
“We’re both faster than you, and a bullet beats everyone.”
“If I was going to run, I would have done it when there was actually somewhere to go,” Matt replied.
Garza chuckled. “You say that now ’cause you wish you had.”
Matt hated to think that someone like Garza could be smarter than him. He preferred to think of both Garza and Fando as mindless thugs, but that wouldn’t be honest—or wise.
They pulled out duffels and a big rolled-up tarp. Fando opened a molded plastic case and pulled out a rattling helmet contraption with two scopelike cylinders protruding from the front. They had to be night-vision goggles.
Fando put one on, clicked a switch, and scanned the area. “Nothing moving on the ground,” he said.
“Let’s camp away from the road,” Garza said.
Matt reached for his suitcase, but Garza pulled the hatch down and slammed it shut.
“You don’t need anything from there,” he said. Then, turning to Rheese, he paused for a few seconds before saying, “You need anything, Doctor?”
“Well, if it’s to be a campout, we should have our sleeping bags. We did bring one for Turner as well.”
Garza thought for another moment, then reopened the hatch. Rheese shuffled in and grabbed the two sleeping bags, tossing one to Matt. Matt wondered, was Garza growing progressively colder with him? Perhaps dehumanizing him to make killing him easier?
Garza said, “Let’s go.”
Everyone followed Fando as he dropped into a long, waist-deep trench. The dry mud had kept the mold of the tracked vehicles that first pressed the path into being. He reached a double X where four tracks crossed, and continued where the channel resumed. The track curved right before the treeline, and everyone climbed out and headed into the forest. The duff beneath them squished a little as they walked—nothing like the dry, crackling twigs and pine straw of the drier temperate woods back home. As they walked, Matt could smell Fando’s scent trail of sour sweat and futile deodorant. A few minutes later, Fando spotted a moderately flat location surrounded by thick tree trunks.
“You two have a seat,” Garza said, tossing his bags down.
“Men gotta set shit up,” Fando muttered.
The ground was mossy and wet and quickly seeped into Matt’s jeans and gloves. He took off a glove and slid a hand into the soft mush of decaying leaves, pine needles, soil, and who knew what else. He was at once fascinated and mildly horrified, imagining the kinds of creatures and fungi and slime molds he was touching. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and held it in. It was a rare gift when he could touch things in the outside world without worry. He pushed out the creeping idea that this could be his last moment of genuine pleasure in the world, and wiggled his fingers around. He enjoyed the smell, too. The scent of fertility, he imagined this must be. And then he realized that he recognized that same earthy smell. Haeming the Icelander had been in this area, maybe a thousand years ago, and inhaled precisely this rich scent.
He slid his hand out of the compost and tried to dig the bits out from under his fingernails as he watched Garza and Fando straighten out a large tarp on the ground.
“Should we stake it, bro?” Fando said.
“Yeah, but we need a rock. I’m the dumbass that forgot a mallet.”
The gunshot came from Matt and Rheese’s left. Garza’s blood, brain tissue, and skull fragments sprayed to their right.
* * *
Oliver handed Tuni a headset with a boom mic and pointed out the pinch-activated buttons at the base of the boom. They were riding in a large, bouncing military-type truck with a canvas-covered bed. Before her and to her right sat twelve gun-wielding Cuban men with nothing more interesting than her to look at—and, apparently, no conditioning that prompted them to look away when glared at. At first glance, the men appeared to be soldiers, but their haphazard garb—some with camouflage khakis or T-shirts, others with cargo pants of various colors—struck Tuni as the attire of mere hired guns.
“Is Abel on this?” Tuni said to Oliver, sitting across from her. He nodded and redemonstrated the pinch method on his own boom mic. She squeezed it and heard the click. “Abel, are you there?” She let go.
“I hear you, Tuni. Everything all right?” He was in the cab of the truck in front of theirs, with Isaiah behind the wheel, and another fifteen men in back.
“Yes. Are we almost there?”
“That’s what I was going to tell you, yes. We have information that they are in one of two locations. You’ll go with Oliver’s team to one, and I will go to the other with mine. We will meet up when they are sighted.”
Tuni looked around at the men, then turned toward the wall, hunching over and cupping the mic. “I don’t know about this,” she whispered. “How can we know that this won’t end up a big gunfight with Matt getting hit by one of these . . . guys?”
“Because their weapons aren’t loaded,” Abel replied. “Only mine, Isaiah’s, and Oliver’s. These men are a show of strength only. I would not trust them in so sensitive a situation, either. Now, my men, I trust—they will not fire unless the outcome is certain.”
Tuni nodded and wiped away a tear before it fell, “Okay, Abel, thank you,” she said. “I mean it.”
“Of course, Tuni. But know that you’re assisting here, too. Oliver has seen photos of Rheese and Matthew, but he doesn’t make a move until you approve. Good?�
��
Oliver smiled kindly, and Tuni realized that his headset received everything they were saying. She liked Oliver and couldn’t imagine him actually shooting someone. He was the gentle sort, and being essentially mute, he relied largely on exaggerated facial expressions to communicate. When needed, he spoke with his breath, in a whisper that further enhanced his kindly image.
“Good, yes,” Tuni said. “I trust he will do his job, with Matthew’s safety as his highest priority.”
Oliver nodded to her.
“We are turning off the road now,” Abel said. “Your truck will continue for a few minutes before turning right up the hill. I’ll see you soon.”
The radio crackled off, and she heard Abel’s diesel truck shifting gears as it slowed, turned off the main road, and began bouncing and clanking behind her truck. If they’re up here, they’re going to hear us coming a mile away, she thought. A moment later, she was pushed backward as her truck swung right onto an even rougher surface. In the sliver between the canvas cover and the beating rear flap, she could see that the trees were still green in the light of the sunset.
A few minutes later, the truck slowed and the men with her stiffened, readying themselves for action. Oliver stood up, walked carefully to the back, and peered outside. Reaching up to his mic, he clicked it twice, and Tuni heard the two bursts of static in her headset. He grasped a metal upright beside him one second before the truck lurched forward again.
They parked a couple of minutes later, and everyone piled out. They were at a dead end and had nowhere to hide the truck. Tuni glanced at her watch: 8:18 p.m.
* * *
Núñez looked at her watch: 8:18 p.m. From her vantage point at the top of the crane’s boom, she could see the sun sinking into the ocean. Her left boot sat cradled in the loop of a thick steel cable, her right knee tucked tight against her breast, while her right shin sat nestled in the channel of a huge pulley. It was the best she could do to stabilize herself. The crane was outfitted for winching logs up hills, not carrying people in comfort. The cramped position meant that every ten minutes or so, she must balance the rifle in front of her and switch legs. Now she felt the impending need to pee.
MARSOC was testing her, she used to suspect—bouncing her from team to team, mission to mission. Just two months ago, she had been in a burka in an Afghan market; last year, on an aborted infiltration of North Korea—aborted once she and four others had already reached the shore. That one, she had decided, was a poke test of the North Koreans’ coastal surveillance and defenses. And now this civilian thing. It meant that her real goal was finally presenting itself, as her original guidance officer had told her it would. The CIA was now testing, and—for a while, at least—maybe even watching.
She took a deep breath and gazed across the site to the adjacent hill, where Jess had concealed himself somewhere among the scrubby foliage. She knew roughly where he was, but not precisely.
She caught the whine of an approaching diesel engine.
“Hear that?” she said into her walkie-talkie.
Jess’s voice said, “Yeah. Visual? Sounds like a construction vehicle.”
“What is that?” Roger’s voice cut in.
Headlights swept across the trees as a truck came into view on the road’s final approach.
“Military,” Núñez said.
“Shit!” Jess muttered. “Stay out of sight.”
The truck squealed to a stop, blocking the road right at the exit. The driver shut off the engine, stepped out, and looked around. Others began streaming from the back of the truck, rifles in hand.
“What do you suppose they’re looking for?” Roger said.
“Maybe just some routine check?” Jess said.
The driver made a megaphone of his hands and called out in a strange accent, “Rosher Tuhner!”
“What the . . . ?” Jess said.
“I’m going,” Roger replied.
Núñez popped in. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, sir.”
“It’s okay,” Roger replied. “I’m bringing Chuck with me. You guys just cover us.”
Núñez said to herself, Cover against about twenty soldiers—right . . .
Jess watched through his scope as Roger appeared from the woods beside the truck. He said into his walkie, “Paul, you got visual?”
“Yeah, but this is stupid.”
Roger walked out with his hands in front of him, Chuck right behind him with a shotgun pointed toward the ground.
“Who are you?” Roger said as he approached.
The driver peered at him a moment, then glanced back at the windshield of the truck. Roger looked, too, but made out only the vague outline of a passenger still sitting inside.
“We are looking for your son, too.”
Chuck repeated the man’s message into his radio for the others.
“Izzat so?” Roger said.
“Yes. Workers spot a silver van enter base camp north of here.” He pointed beyond Roger, where the recently logged hill dropped off.
Roger glanced back, then said, “So why would you come up here if they’re down there?”
“Our other team went that way. We are make perimeter. Cut off escape routes. If you want, you stay up here to aid us.”
Chuck echoed this for the rest of the team. Jess’s voice said, “Screw that!”
Roger said, “Yeah. Thanks, and all that, but I think we’ll head down where my son is before there’s a goddamn shoot-out. You guys even trained for hostage rescue?”
The man shrugged. “Some. We are having many skilled soldier.”
Roger raised his eyebrows in a pantomime of being impressed. “I bet. You just tell your people to keep their fingers off the triggers, hear me?”
“Do they have a precise location?” Jess asked.
Hearing the question, the man shook his head apologetically and simply pointed toward the hill again.
“Come on down, Núñez,” Jess said. “Meet up at the north end of the site, everyone.”
Strapping the rifle across her back, Núñez slid down the crane’s vertical beam, feeling the friction heat up her leather gloves as she descended. Then she slipped into the bushes to pee before going to the designated spot.
They all gazed downhill. The steep decline studded with tree stumps reminded Núñez of a gigantic stubbled chin.
“Looks like a giant Plinko game,” Paul said. “You know . . . if Chuck slips.”
“This is an unfavorable change, sir,” Núñez said. “The advantage is now theirs.”
“Not if they still don’t know we’re coming,” Jess said.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Roger said, starting down the hill. “We need to get down there before these morons get my son killed.”
The others spread out and followed him down the slope.
* * *
Isaiah watched the last American head disappear down the slope and opened the driver’s-side door of the truck. Abel was talking on the radio.
“. . . positions down the road. If they spot the truck, they should already be past you. Good.”
Isaiah said, “What now for us?”
“We wait here until the Americans figure out they went the wrong way. We set up a position facing north.”
“And when they come back . . . ?”
“We play dumb. They won’t question it.”
“And Oliver?”
“He has his instructions.”
* * *
Tiny needles of light pierced the trees from up the road. Oliver lowered his head, and Tuni followed suit. Her eyes shifted left across the road, where the other half of the men hid in the undergrowth. Just as the van came into view it stopped, well before its lights landed on the parked truck around the bend. She could hear a man’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. Then the van reversed.
“Did they spot us?” she whispered in Oliver’s ear, but he shushed her and peered through his binoculars.
The headlights suddenly shined rig
ht on them, and Tuni jumped. Oliver put a hand on her back and a finger to his lips as first the lights turned off, then the engine, and four men got out of the van. Their voices carried, but still she couldn’t catch the words. Oliver handed her the binoculars, and she peered through them. And there, standing at the back of the van, she saw Matthew. She couldn’t make out his face or the color of his clothes, but she recognized his shape and the way he wore his beanie low, covering his neck, with the turtleneck layered over it. How many times had she rearranged that overlap for him when it came apart and exposed his bare skin? Then the liftgate swung open, and a light came on and there he was. She could even see his expression of defeated irritation. Swallowing, she fought back the tears. This was not the time.
Oliver put out his hand, and she gave the binoculars back. A moment later, Matt and his captors had walked out of view. Oliver had his men wait in silence for several minutes. It made Tuni crazy to have Matt practically within spitting distance and then watch him walk away.
Oliver finally sat up, picked up the scoped rifle from the log beside him, rechecked the breech, and signaled the men to move out. They crossed the road, and Oliver tapped six men to go right, the other six left. As the Cubans melted into the woods with scarcely a sound, Oliver looked at Tuni for a second, then pulled a small black handgun from his waistband and handed it to her. She held it up close to her face to make out its details. A small lever above the trigger guard pointed to a red dot at twelve o’clock, not to the white one at nine.
Gently, Oliver pulled her hand away from her face, pointed the weapon at a downward angle, and pulled her forefinger away from the trigger, repositioning it straight out along the barrel. She took a deep breath and nodded apologetically, and he gave her another comforting smile before setting off into the woods again, staying low. She followed in the same fashion.
The Opal (Book 2 of the Matt Turner Series) Page 18
