JET - Escape: (Volume 9)

by Russell Blake

  “Yes?”

  “They’re in La Ensenada. Up by Maracaibo, Venezuela. Or at least that’s where they got off the bus.”

  “La Ensenada?” Mosises thought for a moment. “There’s nothing there.”

  “There’s a port. They’re probably meeting a ship.”

  “Damn. Anything else?”

  “No. Our contact in Maracaibo paid the reward. We’ve got to reimburse him, but that’s nothing.”

  “Fine. I’ll phone you back shortly. In the meantime, call the pilots and have them get going as soon as possible. I’ll take care of Ramón and have him break the news to Fernanda.”

  Mosises hung up and called Ramón, who didn’t answer until the fifth ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Get to the airport. You’re headed to Venezuela. We know where they are.” Mosises imparted the bus driver’s information. They discussed strategy for a few minutes before disconnecting, and Mosises made two more calls, one of which was to Fernanda. She listened as he described the situation, and he could hear the frustration in her voice when he told her it would take three hours to reach the town by helicopter. She was adamant that she wanted to bring her weapons with her into Venezuela, and he agreed – there would be no time to acquire specialized guns if their targets were on the move. His Venezuelan contact would smooth the way with customs and ensure they weren’t disturbed on arrival. Mosises moved enough product through Maracaibo to know he could buy virtually anything from the staff at the airport, and it was just a matter of money – something he had in plentiful supply.

  By the time he was done, he’d mobilized everyone he could think of. The murderers of his son would not escape again, he’d see to that. If they had still been in Colombia, they’d already be dead, but Venezuela was a special case, and he couldn’t send an army after them like he wanted to. Still, Fernanda was deadly, and he had no doubt that she would take appropriate steps to locate and execute them.

  Mosises stared at the wooden blades of the ceiling fan circling overhead in the gloom, and after five minutes of sleeplessness, sat up and moved to a cabinet at the far end of the room. He opened it and removed a bottle of twenty-year-old rum and poured three fingers into a tumbler, and then sat in a chair, staring out at the grounds where the moon grinned crookedly in the night sky, alone with the memories of his only son, now lost to him forever.

  “They will pay, Jaime. They. Will. Pay,” he whispered, and threw back half the glass, wincing at the burn in his throat as he swallowed. “You will be avenged if it’s my last act on earth.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Maracaibo, Venezuela

  Drago read his cell phone screen, and after a long pause, turned on the light in his hotel room. He’d taken a calculated risk that the little family would make for the nearest port, and he hadn’t been far off. The text to Renaldo put them only ten kilometers south of him, in La Ensenada. His biggest problem now would be acquiring a gun – he’d left his weapons in Colombia, unwilling to risk detection when he flew into Venezuela.

  He forced himself out of bed and stepped into his clothes. In every town, whatever the country, there was always a district where guns could be had for a price. Whether in Washington or São Paolo or Buenos Aires, the underworld worked the same: if you knew where to look, the streets were a twenty-four-hour shopping center for illicit goods.

  Thirty minutes later he was sitting in an after-hours salsa club, outlining his needs to a young man wearing a flat-brimmed Yankees baseball cap, with tattoos emblazoned on his neck and a scar from a knife running down his right cheek. Two other toughs stood behind him, arms folded, watching him impassively like the posse from a bad rap video. The young thug sat back, a smirk on his face.

  “Yo, man, that’s some heavy shit you need. You planning to start a war or something?”

  Drago smiled dangerously. “What’s it to you?”

  “You got the cash to handle it?”

  “I know the going rate. Three grand should do the trick.” Drago had requested a Glock 9mm and a submachine gun, with suppressors. The thug hadn’t even blinked at the request. In a violent society with a mortality rate that was as high as many active war zones, Venezuela had more guns floating around than it did cars. It hadn’t taken Drago long to find a willing conduit who claimed he could get him whatever he wanted. “And another five hundred for three spare magazines for each.”

  “That might be what it runs over on the other side of the hill, but here there’s a premium, you understand? Five grand for the whole thing.”

  Drago knew he was overpaying, but time was money, and he was in a hurry.

  “How long will it take?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “Two hours, maybe a little more.”

  Drago considered it. “Done. Where do we meet?”

  “Come back here. Place keeps going till dawn.” The thug’s eyes searched Drago’s face. “You want a couple lines on the house, give you a little pick-me-up?”

  “No, thanks. Just the guns.”

  “All right, then. See you back here at…six thirty?”

  “Count on it. You want some cash in advance?”

  The youngster shook his head. “Nah. You look like a man on a mission. I can tell you’ll be here right on the nose. Am I right?”

  Drago smiled again. “You have a bright future in business.”

  “That’s how I roll, Pops.”

  Chapter 26

  Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  The best cell in a Haitian jail was as bad as the worst in a Turkish prison, Jon Renoir thought idly as he stared at the far wall, ignoring the seven other prisoners in the space. He’d been locked up for too long, his attorney unable to get a straight answer on what the specific charge was, and he had a sinking feeling that his arrest had been orchestrated by one of his rivals so he couldn’t coordinate an effective defense when they moved into his territory.

  The stagnant air reeked of stale sweat, urine, and filth. He shot a disgusted glance at the bucket in the corner that served as the community toilet, and then went on studying the other prisoners. They were unanimously emaciated and skittish, junkies who’d been picked up after stabbing someone or trying to mug the wrong person, or who had simply collapsed in the wrong place at the wrong time. What passed for the law in Haiti was both arbitrary and extreme, and often the arrested never made it out of jail alive – the accidental death rate for the incarcerated in Port-au-Prince had been the subject of numerous human rights organization protests, none of which had changed much of anything but which ditch the bodies were dumped in.

  So far Renoir had been fortunate, and none of the inmates had attacked him. But he sensed it was just a matter of time – at least three of the prisoners were eyeing him like he was a drunk college girl at a frat party, and he had no doubt that whenever he drifted off to sleep, one of them would slit his throat in the blink of an eye. If his rivals were behind this, they would have ensured they’d placed professional killers in his cell, which in Haiti meant anyone willing to murder for a pack of cigarettes and a meal. Renoir had arranged enough hits to know the ropes, and he was under no illusion that he was intended to walk out of the building alive.

  But Renoir was powerfully built and street savvy, which had served as sufficient deterrent so far. Each of his legs weighed as much as any of the other prisoners, and none of the captives seemed particularly suicidal, so as long as he could stay awake…

  Which was getting harder to do. He’d refused offers of water from the guards, wary of being drugged, preferring dehydration to a final slumber at the hands of an assassin. The problem was that in the heat he was losing electrolytes as he sweated, and eventually he knew that he’d pass out.

  He shook his head to clear it and caught one of the men studying him.

  “Whatchou looking at, punkass?” Renoir growled.

  “Nothin’, boss,” the man responded, his weasel eyes jaundiced a sickly yellow.

  “Best mind your own business, you hear? Don’t wanna get your
fool neck broken, do you?”

  “No, boss.”

  The popping of small-arms fire sounded from outside the high, narrow window. The prisoners froze – anyone living in Port-au-Prince was more than familiar with the gunfire. Answering volleys from pistols and shotguns boomed from within the jail, followed by the steady chatter of assault rifles on full auto. Shouting drifted from down the hall, and then the deafening explosion of a detonating grenade nearly blew out Renoir’s eardrums.

  “What the hell…?” one of the prisoners cried, and cringed as more gunfire erupted from inside the building.

  A man’s dying scream shrieked from the corridor, followed by another spate of shots. Renoir caught movement in his peripheral vision and spun quickly for a man of his size. The gleam of a blade in one of the prisoner’s hands swung toward him and he blocked it, but too late, and he felt the warm rush of blood from his meaty side as the shank sliced deep just above his waist.

  Renoir ignored the flash of agony and punched his assailant twice in the face, his football-sized fist moving at jackhammer speed. A spray of blood and teeth splattered the wall as the man slumped, but Renoir was on the attack and finished the assault by slamming the prisoner’s head into the concrete wall, the crack of his skull splitting audible over the shots.

  The dead attacker collapsed onto the floor, and Renoir glared at the rest of the prisoners as he held his side, his fingers slick with blood.

  “Anyone else want to play? This boy need some company in hell,” he snarled, challenging any other possible killers. The men looked away, and then the rattle of a submachine gun drew Renoir’s attention to the flat steel cell-block door.

  The shooting stopped and a key scraped against the lock. The bolt opened and the door swung wide, and then three men with AK-47s entered, bandannas hiding the lower part of their faces. The lead gunman’s eyes met Renoir’s.

  The crime boss grinned. “About time you showed up. One of these cockroaches cut me.”

  A fourth gunman entered, carrying a ring of keys filched from a dead guard, and approached the barred door. After several unsuccessful tries, the lock sprang with a snap and the door creaked open. Renoir stepped through it and turned to the men who’d been giving him the evil eye and pointed to them. “Shoot them,” Renoir said, and the lead gunman blew the men’s heads off as the other inmates ducked for cover.

  Renoir nodded in satisfaction and followed the gunmen out of the cell block. None of the other prisoners moved until they heard engines growl from the window and the sound of big vehicles pull off. Without a word they rushed to the open door and made their way into the holding area, where dead police officers lay in contorted positions on the bloody floor. Three of the men scrambled for guns lying by the bodies, their cash value significant on the streets of Port-au-Prince, while the others bolted for the exit, the keening of approaching sirens all the warning they needed.

  By the time reinforcements arrived, Renoir’s group was long gone, as were the men who’d shared the cell with him. U.N. peacekeeping soldiers stepped gingerly through the corpses, weapons at the ready, but more than aware that the threat was past, the jail empty. Police filed in from other stations over the next ten minutes, but by the time they arrived, all that remained to be done was the loading of body bags and the scheduling of a news conference filled with empty promises to bring the perpetrators to justice.

  Chapter 27

  Maracaibo, Venezuela

  The sun was rising over the water when Drago returned to the after-hours club. The only vehicles on the street were a garbage truck emptying overflowing dumpsters and an army Jeep with four masked soldiers brandishing assault rifles. Drago waited until the Jeep had passed and knocked on the door. Moments later it opened, and a bouncer with a face like a ham nodded to him and stepped aside.

  Drago entered the club, the walls painted matte black with psychedelic posters mounted in chromed frames, and moved past the few remaining tables of die-hard partiers finishing their drinks and cigarettes. He approached the door that led to the back room, where one of the gun dealer’s henchmen stood, his jacket barely concealing the shoulder-holstered pistol wedged beneath his meaty arm.

  Drago nodded to him. The bodyguard grunted a greeting and twisted the doorknob. Drago squeezed past him and stepped into the office, where the young dealer was sitting behind his desk, his smirk firmly in place. Bodyguard number two stood behind him with his hand on the pistol in his belt.

  “Yo, youngblood, take a load off,” he said to Drago.

  Drago sat opposite him, his face impassive, waiting. The dealer pushed a mirror with a line of white powder on it to the side, reached onto the floor next to his chair, and hoisted a nylon bag onto the desktop. He unzipped it, removed a pistol and a MAC-10, and set both down in front of Drago, who eyed the machine pistol skeptically.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Best I could get in the time you got, big man,” the dealer said, laying a single small suppressor on the table beside the guns.

  “I’d be lucky to hit a car at ten feet with that piece of crap. MAC-10s are for drive-bys, not serious work.”

  “Ain’t all that bad.”

  “You can’t get me a real gun?”

  “Take it or leave it, Dad.”

  Drago fieldstripped the pistol and examined it, then pieced it back together. He did the same with the MAC-10 and shook his head in disgust. “Does this thing even fire?”

  “It do indeed.”

  “It looks like it’s straight off a B movie set.”

  The dealer shrugged. “You wanted a chatter gun. That’s what it is.”

  Drago shook his head and withdrew a wad of dollars wrapped with a rubber band. He tossed it to the dealer. “Highway robbery. What about a suppressor for the MAC?”

  His host smirked again and began counting the cash as Drago inspected the magazines in the bag. “Couldn’t get one,” he replied, thumbing through the bills with practiced ease. He was looking up from the money when Drago slapped a magazine into the MAC-10, chambered a round, and sprayed the dealer and the bodyguard with slugs. The dealer’s shirt sprouted a collage of red blossoms and the bodyguard slammed into the wall, his weapon half-drawn, now useless to him. Drago waited a beat and then emptied the machine pistol through the wooden entry door.

  The MAC-10 snapped empty and Drago moved to the bag. Even with ringing ears he could hear a woman’s scream from the club floor. He slipped another magazine into the MAC-10 and tossed the Glock into the bag with the remaining magazines. Drago paused and eyed the dealer, who was struggling for breath behind the desk, the wounds in his chest burbling blood with each inhalation.

  “You were right. It’ll do,” Drago said, and after pocketing the money, made for the ruined exit.

  When he stepped over the second bodyguard’s corpse and into the club’s main room, it was cleared of customers. He walked to the entrance, where the sun was shining through the partially open door, and after peering out at the sidewalk, stowed the MAC-10 in the bag and exited onto the street, his movements calm and unhurried as he walked through the run-down district, to all the world just another pedestrian on his way to work.

  Drago checked the time and rounded a corner. When he was out of sight of the club, he increased his pace. At a larger thoroughfare, he flagged down a taxi and slid into the rear seat.

  “How long will it take to get to La Ensenada?” he asked the driver.

  “Oh, maybe fifteen minutes. Depends on traffic, you know?”

  Drago nodded. “If you can get me there in ten, there’s a big tip in it for you.”

  The driver put the car in gear and considered Drago in the rearview mirror. “In a hurry, huh?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 28

  La Ensenada, Venezuela

  Fernanda exhaled impatiently as Ramón piloted a Nissan sedan into the impoverished town. A group of children shambled along the dusty street on their way to school, uniforms ragged and worn, their face
s already hard from an unforgiving life with little future.

  As they neared the waterfront, she sat forward, her nerves tingling. She could sense it: the woman and her family were here, trying to escape Fernanda’s wrath. But they wouldn’t stand a chance. She knew that finding them wherever they were holed up would take too long, but a better idea came to her after studying the harbor and the surrounding buildings.

  The Nissan reached the shore road, and Ramón looked to Fernanda for direction. She pointed to her right. “Do a lap. Let’s see what’s at the docks.”

  Ramón cruised along slowly, and Fernanda eyed the various ships tied to the concrete jetties. When he reached the wall that separated a massive oil refinery from the rest of the harbor, she gave the ships a final appraisal and checked her cell phone.

  “Make a left here,” she said, and Ramón obliged. The sun’s rays washed across the dashboard and they shielded their eyes. Fernanda pointed at a beige spire jutting skyward. “There it is.”

  Ramón rolled to a stop in front of the church doors and Fernanda got out of the car, rucksack in hand. “Wait over on the far end of the strand and call me if you see them.”

  “You sure this is the best way to handle it?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. There’s too much ground to cover for us to watch all the boats. But from the bell tower I’ll be able to monitor the entire area, and when I see them, I can pick them off before they know what hit them.”

  “Okay. Same with you. Ring me if you spot them.”

  Fernanda nodded and turned to the church, impatient and anxious. Even now she could be missing the woman as she neared one of the cargo ships. Ramón was a convenience, but she was tiring of him, although his presence was a necessary evil. Without Mosises’ help, she’d have never been able to pinpoint her quarry to the obscure port, much less get to Venezuela so quickly. But she wouldn’t call Ramón until after she’d put a bullet through the woman’s skull. She’d had enough of the cartel’s ineptness, and had seen all she needed to with Jaime’s botched assault on the monastery and the bad lead on the clinic to involve Ramón until after the shooting was over.