Wrath of the Gods (A James Acton Thriller, #18) (James Acton Thrillers)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  It had taken most of the night to transport all of them. The Federales had been called, and help was to arrive later today, though this place would be ripe well before that. The part-time coroner stood beside him, shaking his head.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Santana agreed. “From the tattoos, it looks like Galano’s men hit El Jefe’s lab. Something triggered an explosion, killing pretty much everyone except them.” He pointed at the pile of women from the trucks—the ones he recognized. “They survived, somehow met up with these others”—he pointed at a second pile—“and they were all killed by El Jefe’s men when they came to clean up the mess.”

  The coroner shook his head. “This is absolutely insane. So much innocent blood. All so gringos can stick needles in their veins to escape their problems.” He spat. “They should try living here and see what real problems are!”

  Santana grunted. “They might not be so quick to condemn us if they did.” He unzipped one of the bags sitting on the autopsy table.

  “With this many dead, will you finally be able to do something about El Jefe and Galano?”

  Santana gave him a look. “What do you think? The judge already turned down my request for a warrant.”

  “Puta! Everyone in this godforsaken country is on the take.” He paused, glancing at Santana. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  Santana smiled and bowed slightly. “Of course.” He stepped forward, pointing at the shoulder of the woman on the table, a woman he recognized from his neighborhood. “What do you make of that?”

  The coroner bent down and examined the small welt and frowned. “Almost looks like a smallpox vaccine scar or something, but very recent.” He pulled out a scalpel and made a small incision then spread open the hole. “What the hell is this?”

  42

  1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta HQ

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  A.k.a. “The Unit”

  Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson walked past the empty desk usually manned by his fiancée, Maggie Harris. It was how they had met. She had her eye on him for apparently quite some time, and he was too absorbed in the job to notice it. It was the wives of the Unit that had urged her to take action, and she had.

  He had been reluctant at first, his job, in his mind, too dangerous to risk leaving a family behind. A lot of the men in the Unit were family men, and yes, when tragedy struck, it was made all the worse when there were loved ones left behind, though it also meant there was a legacy. His decision to pursue the relationship—or more accurately, allow himself to be pursued—was one he would never regret.

  He knocked on the Colonel’s door, Clancy forgoing another temporary hire after the disaster that was the previous replacement.

  “Come!”

  Dawson opened the door and stepped inside. “Hiya, Colonel, you bellowed?”

  Clancy grunted, motioning toward an empty chair, formality within the confines of these four walls strongly discouraged. “Looks like your professors have a situation again.”

  Dawson shook his head. He had first “met” Professor Acton when he had been sent to kill him. He had been provided with false intel naming Acton as the leader of a domestic terror cell that had already killed DARPA personnel transporting a top-secret project, and with plans to kill many more innocents if they weren’t stopped. It had turned out to be all bullshit, and it was one of the greatest regrets of his life.

  So many had died, his team used by a corrupt, madman of a president, and he and the others had sworn they would do whatever it took to make up for their actions, including helping out the unluckiest sonofabitch he had ever met. Acton was like a shit magnet, with every cult, madman, or terrorist seeming to be attracted to him or his wife.

  They had kept him and his team busy, and as a result, had allowed him to not only learn to respect the professor, but earn his respect, and forgiveness as well. He actually considered the man a friend after all these years.

  And if he needed help once again, he’d be happy to offer it, especially if it were on the books. The fact he was here, in the Colonel’s office, suggested it was. “What have they got themselves into this time?”

  “Looks like they stumbled into something in Mexico. All we know right now is that Professor Palmer got a text message to Dylan Kane stating that her husband, their friend Hugh Reading, and a Mexican professor had been taken hostage by a drug gang, that many were dead, and she needed help. Langley has confirmed there was an incident in the area, a drug lab explosion, and your friends are missing.”

  Dawson frowned. “If this is a ransom situation, they’ve got the money. If it were anywhere else, I’d say let it play out, but Mexico?” He shook his head. “Too many times they just kill them anyway.” He leaned forward. “What’s our government doing about it?”

  Clancy shook his head. “Nothing in the way you’re hoping. The Mexicans have agreed to send troops into the area to look for them, and have graciously agreed to four observers joining them.”

  Dawson grinned. “When do we leave?”

  “Now.”

  43

  South of Tepich, Mexico

  Javier Diaz was bored, tired, hungry, and sore. They had been hiking for hours, but a poor night’s sleep on the jungle floor with no food or water was taking its toll. He was in good shape, a necessity in his line of work. Guys with poor cardio or large guts too often found themselves dead, and he intended to live a long, fruitful life. He had worked his way up the ranks, now number two in the organization, and one day either El Jefe would retire—voluntarily or not—or he’d break away and form his own gang. He had ambitions, and ambitions needed money.

  He eyed the American. He could be lying, perhaps just a pauper, though for some reason he believed him. He had hundreds of people over the years beg for their lives, bargain away their souls, but he could always tell when they were lying, and this one wasn’t.

  The question was how rich was he? It was something easily discovered once he got back to the compound and its Internet access. Within minutes, he’d know everything he needed about Professor James Acton.

  He decided to kill the boredom. “Professor of what?”

  Acton looked at him. “What?”

  “You’re a professor. Of what?”

  “Archaeology.”

  “Is that why you were here? Some new discovery?”

  The man hesitated to answer, suggesting whatever they had found was valuable.

  Gold?

  The thought excited him, and for a moment, he debated turning around. Enough gold and he’d be able to set up his own gang, no longer under the thumb of the terror that was El Jefe. “Answer or I shoot your friend.” He motioned toward the other gringo, who sounded British to him. “What was in that temple?”

  Acton exchanged a look with the Mexican who nodded.

  Wise man.

  “It was proof that the Chinese discovered America before Columbus did.”

  Diaz paused, turning toward him. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit! That’s incredible! Even here, we’ve heard about the Vikings, though I never believed it myself. How can you farm in Greenland? It’s all ice!”

  Acton replied, still appearing reluctant, though his enthusiasm for his chosen profession was winning over. Diaz could respect that, and it was an enthusiasm he missed, not having felt it for years.

  I want to be El Jefe.

  “The Vikings definitely settled Greenland and Newfoundland.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Eastern Canada.”

  Diaz resumed walking. “The Vikings were in Canada?”

  “Yes, about a thousand years ago. They’ve actually found the settlements.”

  “Huh, well I know Canada has a lot of snow, but not all of it, or least not all of the year, so I guess you could live there. But Greenland? That still sounds like bullshit.”

  Acton smiled slightly. “T
he Vikings settled there and successfully remained for several centuries. People tend to forget about the Medieval Warm Period. The world was a lot warmer a thousand years ago for several centuries. This made the southern portion of Greenland quite livable.”

  “So they had global warming back then?”

  “Yes.”

  Diaz grinned. “I guess they were all driving Saabs and Volvos?”

  Acton chuckled. “No, man had nothing to do with it, just like man had nothing to do with it all the other times it’s happened throughout mostly unrecorded history.”

  “So what’s different this time?”

  Acton shrugged. “Depends on what you believe. Some say it’s just because we have data now. But remember, when people say that the polar caps are the smallest they’ve been in recorded history, they mean since 1979. Data recovered from Shackleton’s and Scott’s logs indicate that when they were in the Antarctic over 100 years ago, the ice had receded just as much as it has now. We don’t have enough of a record to definitively say what is happening today is any different than what has happened a thousand times before.”

  “So it’s all bullshit?”

  “I never said that. Climate change is happening, but it’s happened before, long before we had a polluting industrial society. The question is whether or not what is happening this time is being made worse by mankind, completely triggered by us, or no different than any other time.”

  “El Jefe says it’s just a scam to transfer money from the wealthy countries to the poor countries.”

  Acton shrugged. “Perhaps, though I doubt it. You have to look sometimes at who is pushing the message, and what they have to gain. If ex-Vice Presidents truly cared about the world, and were pushing the message for altruistic reasons, would they now be billionaires? Would they leave their SUVs idling while giving speeches? Would they buy property in San Francisco if it was supposed to be under water soon? If celebrity scientists truly believed we were destroying the planet, would they own multiple large homes? They’ll claim they’re buying carbon-offset credits, but what does that actually mean? I’ll give ten kids cigarettes to smoke in China, but to balance it out, I’ll take the cigarettes away from ten different kids in America? That way the net effect is zero across the planet?

  “Bullshit. If you truly believe that we’re killing our planet, then stop putting carbon into the atmosphere, period. Stop flying around in jets, stop driving around in gas guzzling SUVs, stop living in ten thousand square foot homes. Start living the lifestyle you’re telling the rest of us to live, and stop stifling the voices of those who disagree. Do you realize it’s almost impossible to get any funding now to study projects that might disprove manmade global warming? And if you do disagree, you’re not only called wrong, you’re stupid and evil, should be jailed, and you hate the planet and your fellow man.”

  “You seem to have strong opinions on it. You and El Jefe would get along well, I think.”

  Acton grunted. “Somehow I doubt it. And yes, I have strong opinions. I feel we should be able to openly discuss it and study it, and that hypocrites should be called out, even if they’re right.”

  Something cracked behind them. Diaz froze, spinning on his heel, his eyes peering into the jungle. It had sounded like a branch snapping. “What was that? Was it one of you?”

  A round of head shakes.

  Ybanez jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It came from behind us.”

  Diaz pointed at the three men bringing up the rear. “Go check it out.” He watched them disappear into the thick trees, a frown etched on his face. Someone had slashed their tires and stole their satellite phone. That meant they had cojones.

  And that meant they were too big a risk to leave out there.

  Laura froze, staring at Rosa who stood cringing, her foot firmly planted on a dried branch. A branch now in two pieces. She looked toward the group they were following and could see several now heading their way.

  Shit!

  She turned to run, but stopped. It would make too much noise, and simply confirm the suspicions of those approaching. There was no way they could know for sure it hadn’t been an animal or the wind that had caused the sound.

  She searched for a hiding place and smiled, a large, dead tree stood nearby, the trunk partially hollowed out. She rushed over and peered inside, finding it empty, and large enough for the two of them. She signaled for Rosa to join her and the woman tiptoed over, carefully watching every foot placement. Laura urged her inside as she grabbed a leafy branch from another tree, hacking it off with her knife. She backed into the opening, pulling the branch over the hole behind her, then tried to catch her breath, everything now sounding amplified in the close quarters.

  The three men rushed by her position, and through the leaves, she could see their heads pivoting in all directions as they searched for the source of the noise. One stopped, staring at the ground, apparently spotting something as the other two continued ahead.

  If they find us, Rosa’s definitely dead.

  She slowly drew the large hunting knife she had salvaged from the camp and rose to one foot.

  If I kill one, then they might kill James out of revenge.

  She hated weighing one human life against another. There was no doubt her husband’s life would always win out against a stranger, though it didn’t make it right. But if she were captured, everyone might die, for she was the only one who could tell the authorities where her husband and her friends had been taken.

  The man stepped toward their hiding place and bent over. The tree branch she was holding pulled away, and instinct made the decision for her. She lunged forward, plunged the knife into the man’s throat, then twisted. He collapsed forward, gurgling in terror as Rosa sucked in a breath, about to scream. Laura slapped a hand over the woman’s mouth, Rosa quickly replacing it with her own.

  Confident she would be quiet, Laura let go and pulled her victim inside with them, quickly replacing the branch. She held a hand over the man’s mouth, keeping him quiet as he slowly bled out. She could hear the others returning now and she prayed there was nothing outside that would reveal their cramped position. They walked past, talking rapidly in Spanish, apparently unaware their comrade was dying only feet away. She waited for a ten count then pushed the branch aside and stepped out, peering around to make certain they were alone.

  They were.

  She reached in and pulled the man out, quickly emptying his pockets. She stuffed his Beretta in her belt, a spare mag in her pocket, then with help from Rosa, rolled him back inside the hollowed tree and covered the entrance once again. She turned to Rosa. “We have to get away from here quickly and quietly. Understood?”

  Rosa nodded, terror in her eyes, terror that Laura had a feeling was directed at her and not their common enemy.

  44

  Operations Center 3, CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “Sir, I’ve got Officer Santana from Mexico calling for you.”

  Chris Leroux’s eyebrows rose slightly, surprised at Sonya Tong’s announcement. He grabbed his headset and put it in place, nodding for Tong to put the call through. “Officer Santana, how can I help you?”

  “Sir, we discovered something interesting here.”

  “What?”

  “It’s some sort of implant. All of the people we have examined so far that were working at the drug lab have had these things in their shoulders. I think it could be some sort of transmitter.” Leroux smiled at Randy Child, hopping with excitement in his seat.

  “You need to get me one of those!” he hissed.

  Leroux agreed. “Please set a few aside for me. I’ll have someone pick them up.”

  “Of course. When?”

  “You’ll be contacted shortly.” He ended the call with a flick of his hand over his throat, Tong tapping her keyboard. He turned to Child. “What’s the closest asset we have in the area?”

  Child shrugged. “Delta is inbound. We could have them do the pick-up.”


  “Good idea. Contact their team lead and let him know. And make sure they’ve got the right equipment to pull the signal off those things. If they don’t, arrange rapid transport to our station in Mexico City. We need those frequencies now. We might be able to track it back to its source.”

  45

  Staging Area

  Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico

  Command Sergeant Major Burt Dawson hopped down from the UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter used to transport his team from the Mexican Air Base in Cozumel for their official mission as “observers”. Though he had no jurisdiction here, and relations between Mexico and the United States were strained, he had no intention of sitting on the sidelines should the professors or Reading appear to be in danger.

  Jurisdiction was irrelevant—he never had it when he was on a mission—and he couldn’t care less about the relations between the two countries—things would work themselves out.

  They always did.

  A man dressed in the typical paramilitary fashion favored by Mexican Federales, strode up to them. “Agent White?”

  Dawson extended a hand. “Yes, sir. Inspector Alfaro?”

  “Si. Welcome to Mexico.”

  Dawson looked about at the staging area, there at least one hundred men gearing up, armored vehicles and several support helicopters evident. “What’s the situation?”

  Alfaro led them away from their chopper and the noise of the tarmac. “Everything is on hold. We’re still waiting for the final approval to start the search.”

  Dawson frowned. “What’s the holdup?”

  Alfaro shrugged. “Who knows? It’s this way all the time. Don’t worry, we’ll be moving by tonight.”

  Dawson stopped, bringing the entourage to a halt. “Tonight? We can’t wait that long.”