by Rob Jones
She recalled the mission with a shudder. She was part of a unit rescuing hostages from a FARC outpost south of Bogota when it happened. The mission had been a success, but she never got to celebrate. She was on a chopper to the nearest hospital and hours later awoke from an operation to be told she would never walk again.
And she hadn’t – not for years… not until Joe Hawke walked back into her life and handed her the mysterious elixir they’d found in the Ethiopian Highlands. If all that seemed like years ago, then the shooting in Bogota was another lifetime. Either way, it felt good to be back in the saddle, even if Richard Eden had taken some convincing that she was ready to go back into the field. She was trained for more than just intel work and she wanted to show it.
But then she felt the stabbing pain in her legs again.
It receded.
But came back… probably nothing, she told herself, and charged into the fray where Scarlet was deconstructing someone’s face with a ferocious salvo of heel kicks.
“Need a hand?” Alex shouted.
“Hardly, darling… but thanks for asking.”
Scarlet spun around once more, striking the man off his balance. He staggered back, dazed, but then yanked a gut hook from his belt. With blood pouring from his lips, he stormed toward Scarlet and Alex, swearing revenge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lea felt the fear rise in her stomach as Silvio Mendoza pressed the muzzle of his gun against her neck and whispered at her to get moving along the jetty. The cold touch of the steel pressed on her warm flesh and was accompanied by the feeling of his breath on her ear. She recoiled at the hoarse chuckle of the Mexican as he revelled in the power he had over her. Ahead of them, three men struggled to haul the unconscious body of Joe Hawke into an inflatable launch where they dumped him unceremoniously on the rear seat.
“Your turn,” Mendoza said.
Lea stepped down into the boat as Wade joined them on the jetty, hands in pockets and eyes shaded by his crumpled Reiner hat. In the background they heard the distant chatter of gunfire and the occasional grenade explosion as Scarlet’s team continued its assault on the favela. Wade was starting to look anxious as he slipped his hands out of his pockets and lit a second cigar. “Like Professor Barton, it is now time for you depart this world. In this lake are my sharks, and now you are going to be fed to them.”
“Sharks? This is a lake, Wade! Sharks swim in the ocean because of the salt.”
“Correct, but sadly for you only partly so. The third most dangerous shark in the world is the bull shark. It is a truly remarkable creature, able to alter its osmoregulatory system in order to ensure its survival in either fresh water or salt water.” He paused for effect. “There are bull sharks in this lake.” He grinned and moved his eyes up from Lea to the surface of the lake. “I wonder where they’re swimming today?”
“Let me go!”
Wade ignored her pleas. “The females can grow up to eight feet in length and they have the strongest bite force of all the sharks. I can’t imagine it will take long to tear you limb from limb. I would relish the sight, Irish, but sadly I have to move on.”
Lea struggled against the bonds. “What’s the matter with you, Wade?”
“The matter with me?” he asked, perplexed. “Why I should think nothing is. If I were you I’d be more concerned about myself. You’re the one who’s going to get turned into shark chum in a few short moments, after all…”
He laughed at the image in his mind for a few seconds and then ordered Mendoza to fire up the launch’s engine. The cartel man unlashed the mooring rope and pushed the two of them away from the jetty. Slowly, they began to chug out to the center of the enormous lake.
With bull sharks slowly moving toward the launch, and encircling them, the small boat pushed its way deeper into the lake. Lea leaned forward, her hands still tied behind her back. “Joe! Wake up, damn it!”
The sun beat down on her, burning the back of her neck and shoulders, but out on the water there was nowhere to seek shade. She squinted to protect her eyes from the high ultraviolet and kicked Hawke in the ribs. “Wake up, ya fool!”
Then she saw his eyes flicker and gave him another kick. “Joe!”
“Yes, damn it! And stop kicking me.” He opened his eyes and tried to sit up in the boat.
“Sorry – I’d have preferred to massage you awake but it just felt like the wrong moment, plus did I mention my sodding arms are tied behind my back?”
“Yes, I can see that, and mine too. What’s going on?”
“Wade says he’s going to feed us to his bull sharks. I’m hoping that’s a Texan expression for something much nicer than it sounds.”
“Sorry – Wade’s chumming bull sharks with us as the chum?”
“If that means using us as bait to lure them – then yeah!”
Hawke struggled against the rope binding his hands behind his back, but it was too tight. Every time he strained against the cords, the thin nylon cut down hard into his wrists. “I’ve woken up to better news, I’ll admit.”
Lea looked at the shore. “What are the bastard little poxes doing over there now?”
Hawke squinted in the sun and saw Mendoza pull his rifle off his shoulder.
“He’s loading the Nosler deer rifle. I knew that thing was going to be trouble.”
“I thought that sick bastard wanted to feed us to his sharks – not shoot us!”
“They’re not aiming at us, Lea – they’re aiming at the dinghy. They want to sink it so we go into the water.”
“Ah… he’s a man of his word then. I’ll give him that.”
Hawke struggled against the yachting rope and looked warily into the water. “I’ll give him more than his fucking word if I ever see him again.”
Mendoza raised the deer hunter and took aim. He began to squeeze the trigger and then everything stopped when the deep roar of another explosion ripped through the valley, only this one was much closer to the hacienda. Wade and the others instinctively ducked and ran for the cover of the lake house.
“Sounds like Scarlet and Reaper just cranked the volume up a notch!”
With his hands still lashed behind his back, Hawke increased power and directed the launch toward the jungle on the other side of the lake.
On Wade’s shore, chaos reigned as they tried to work out where the explosion had come from and what was going on, but Hawke knew they didn’t have much time to exploit before Wade saw they were trying to escape. The launch’s bow hit the shore and they jumped out onto dry land as the small craft plowed up into the sand.
“Quick – use the propellers to cut the ropes!” he yelled. “The leading edge isn’t exactly like a razor but it should be enough.”
Hurriedly they used the blade to cut through the nylon ropes and then moved as fast as they could toward the jungle tree line while Wade and his men were distracted by Reaper’s explosion.
As they climbed onto the far bank, Wade saw their escape bid and ordered Mendoza to stop them. They began taking pot-shots at them, but Wade yelled at them to stop when Hawke and Lea disappeared into the tree line. From the safety of the jungle shadows, they crouched in the undergrowth and watched Wade and the others on the far bank. After a brief conversation, Mendoza nodded and called over some of his men. He ordered them into another launch and seconds later they were giving chase.
“What the hell are they holding?” Lea said. “They’re not guns but I’ve seen something similar somewhere before.”
“So have I – back in Covent Garden. They’re holding blow pipes – the same thing that killed Barton.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Lea said, swatting at a mosquito on her neck.
“We’ll see them off, don’t worry about it.”
“We’re being hunted by fucking Jaguar Knights armed with poisonous blow pipes through the Mexican jungle, Joe!”
“They’re not Jaguar Knights. They’re just wankers paid by Wade to hurt people.”
“I don’t know�
� they look pretty serious to me.”
Hawke gave her a sideways glance. “Where’s your spirit of adventure, Donovan?”
*
The man with the gut hook made a vicious swipe in the air with the sharp blade, narrowly missing Scarlet’s face. She dodged the attack and replied forcefully, ramming her hand up into the man’s throat, and Alex took a step back to get out of the way.
Maria was cutting her way through the favela guards with a sustained and brutal display of sambo, the Russian combat sport she had learned as a teenager in Moscow and perfected in the FSB. She piled forward into them, smacking knives out of hands and pile-driving the heels of her boots into unshaven jaws.
Camacho fought the old-fashioned way, with his two fists, driving forward through the fight with cross punches, jabs and sidesteps while Kim Taylor was only just keeping a tattooed thug at bay.
Scarlet’s opponent stumbled back and gasped as he tried to suck air through his crushed windpipe. He recovered fast and lunged forward with renewed rage. She turned to see another thug almost upon her and then she felt a heavy blow come in hard in the small of her back. Before she could respond, she felt a second punch a little higher that went into the side of her ribcage. The thug pulled a gun and prepared to fire, but she smacked it out of his hand with a downward chop on his wrist. A savage close-range scorpion kick knocked the man out and she snatched up the gun.
Further into the favela, Reaper stormed forward and took advantage of the new chaos. The bullet wound he’d sustained in Sweden was painful, but it was a matter of pride to keep going. Watching the broken men, women and children move back and forth from their canvas shanties to the coffee fields had raised an almost unquenchable rage in his heart, and now he wanted to end it.
He grabbed the man who was now gripping Kim Taylor by her throat and twisted his tattooed arm around until a loud cracking noise filled the air followed by the agonized screaming of the injured man.
When he fell to his knees and cradled his shattered arm, Reaper caught a glimpse of his own tattoo – the burning grenade. March or Die, was the unofficial motto of the French Foreign Legion and he lived by it.
“Thanks, Vincent…” she gasped.
“De rien,” he growled. “And it’s Reaper. We’re on a mission.”
Scarlet heard the banter but then the gun was knocked from her hand and a hard smack in the face brought her back to the fight. Inwardly she cursed herself for losing her focus at such a time. Getting old, you silly cow, she thought, and spat a wad of blood out on the gravel.
She sidestepped the thug and after hooking her foot around his lower leg she twisted him to the ground and landed a lethal dim mak or death-point strike to the pressure point on his right temple. With the threat neutralized she spun around to see more men streaming out of the guardhouse, this time armed with handguns and one of them even had what looked like a Colt Tactical Carbine.
Reaper grabbed the muzzle of the Colt and wrenched it from the man’s hands with so much force it tore his finger off inside the trigger guard. Before the screams even started the French mercenary spun the carbine around and rammed the stock assembly into his face. The man fell backwards with two split lips and a mouthful of broken teeth, crashing unconscious on the gravel with a heavy smacking sound.
“He’ll need some ice on that if he wakes up.”
“Keep fighting!” Scarlet yelled.
Reaper searched for a way to reach the guardroom – the last hiding place of the slave-drivers who had worked these people almost to death. He saw a short path leading up through a low line of bushes.
“This way!” he screamed, waving his arm for the others to move forward and moments later they finally smashed their way into the guardroom. This was the last line of defense and they had nearly broken through it, but it was too early to celebrate.
Chaos reigned, and now as they moved through the guardhouse, they came under a renewed attack as the final wave of goons rushed them. Guns were fired, bullets flew and a man in a red bandana loosed a savage salvo of punches at Jack Camacho.
Reaper stormed forward to help him when a large man built like a concrete gym smashed open a door, padded into the guardroom and grabbed the French legionnaire by the neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lea’s spirit of adventure disappeared when a poison dart tore through the air and thumped into the trunk of a sapote tree twelve inches from her face. “Don’t you give me that spirit of adventure crap!” she said, somehow managing to resist the urge to slap him. “That thing nearly killed me!”
“Would you have preferred the bull sharks?”
“Well…”
“Into the jungle, now!”
Hawke grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the jungle, almost heaving her from her feet as he went. He pounded through the undergrowth as fast as he could, and her view was reduced to a blur as his broad shoulders powered through the tropical foliage ahead of them. Somewhere behind her she could hear the shouts and screams of Wade’s Jaguar Knights as they climbed off their boat and pushed into the jungle on the trail of their prey.
Lea ran faster to keep up with him, feeling his powerful arm pulling on her wrist, urging her forward. She sensed the terrible danger looming behind her – half a dozen men armed with poison darts and blow pipes. They were hunting them like this as part of Wade’s sick Aztec fantasies – playing with their lives simply to fulfil the monstrous delusions of an insane maniac. Her heart pounded from the thrill of the chase as the adrenalin coursed through her body and drove her ever onwards through the sultry vegetation.
Above her head a macaw cried out, started by their heavy footfall as they fled from the self-styled Jaguar Knights. Then a hollow, ghost-like shriek she didn’t recognize – some unknown creature deep in the jungle… It was followed by more cries and whoops as the men closed in on them. A second later she felt a dart whistle past her head and puncture a sapodilla leaf brushing her cheek.
“Jeaaaaus, that was close!”
Hawke glanced over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Me?” She panted hard with the effort of the chase. “I’m just absolutely… bloody… fantastic, Joe Hawke. Nothing I like better than this sorta thing.”
“Good stuff. Keep it up.”
The look she gave him went unseen. He was ahead of her and had released her hand now in order to clear much thicker vegetation out of their path, but behind them the Jaguars drew ever closer.
“Is that a clearing up ahead I can see?”
“Nope.”
“Joe, they’re almost here.”
Hawke peered over her head along the path they had forged through the undergrowth. “Good.”
“Good?!”
“Sure – look ahead – that clearing you thought you saw is actually a waterfall.”
Lea followed his hand and saw the far bank of a ravine – high, steep rocks, wet and black with water vapor. “This time, please God, let this man be joking.”
“Sorry, but no. Fancy a swim?”
Lea peered over the edge of the waterfall. “Joe, it must be a hundred feet down!”
“No way.”
“You think?”
“I’d say a hundred and fifty.”
She looked at him and bit her tongue. “The guy in the front’s almost here.”
“Stay where you are and I’ll surprise him.”
“Not this again! Why can’t you be the bait for once?”
Then the man who had been leading the hunt reached them. He burst out of the jungle with the blow pipe in his hand and looked almost surprised to see Lea standing right in front of him.
She raised her hands. “Please… I’m unarmed.”
He wiped the sweat from his stubbly face and offered an uncertain grin. “Maybe I have my fun with you first…”
“Ya startin’ on me, ya skanger?”
He looked confused, and then raised the blow pipe to his mouth.
Hawke stepped out of the tree line and rammed the p
ipe into the back of the man’s mouth. He staggered back coughing and spitting blood, and in his agony he sucked in and swallowed the dart. His eyes widened with terror when he realised what he had done.
Hawke left nothing to chance, and after wrenching the pipe from his mouth he hit him with all the strength he could muster. It was a big, solid jab right in the middle of his face and it exploded his nose as if it were made of modelling clay. The man flew off his feet and smashed down into the jungle floor, catching the roots of a frangipani tree as he landed.
“Layabout,” he said and dusted the blood and dirt from his hands.
Lea rolled her eyes. “So what now?”
“Want to take a shower together?”
She smiled at him. “Don’t mind if I do!”
“Just what I was hoping you’d say.”
Hawke held her hand and they moved to the cliff edge. Behind them they heard the other men thundering closer through the jungle. Everyday with Hawke was a day she felt stronger, and this was no exception. But none of that changed the fact he could be a real mad bastard sometimes.
He looked at her and winked.
This was one of those times.
Lea closed her eyes as they leaped off the edge of the cliff. She felt the warm, humid air rush over her as she tumbled down into the abyss inside the raging waterfall. Now she felt Hawke’s hand slip from hers and she was alone, falling through the void, racing toward the white water turmoil far below.
*
Reaper reacted in a heartbeat, employing a speedy taekwondo collar-grab defense to knock the man’s arms away and then picked him up by his waistband and collar before piling him through a closed door like a battering ram. The man smashed face-first into a smooth floor of Talavera ceramic tiles and burst open his nose and lips with the force of the landing.
Behind him, Camacho was making good progress against the man with the red bandana around his neck. The former CIA man was a force to be reckoned with, but his bulk slowed him down if a fight went on too long, and Scarlet feared this is what was happening now as Bandana danced around him with a flick-knife in his hand.
