Jackal: Barrett Mason Book 3

by Stewart Matthews

  “But, then as I poured my coffee, I noticed he wasn’t on his phone. He was talking to someone. A man. One I had never seen before.”

  “A friend of his?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He had no friends. The company was his life. He never entertained business partners or clients at his house—he was a very private man.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  Carolina brushed her hair back from her eyes. She took a deep breath with her nose.

  “He wore a business suit, and he was an Asian man. But he wasn’t from Asia. I was curious, so I cracked open the kitchen window to listen to Julio and the other man speak—they both spoke English. I took some English in school.”

  My stomach sank. I already knew who it was.

  “Was he a stocky guy?” I asked. “Did he have a big chest and big arms? About your height?”

  She nodded.

  “What else about him? Did he have any scars or tattoos? Anything that stood out?”

  “His ear,” she said. “The way he sat, his left side was to me, and it looked like his ear had been burned away or bitten off.”

  “Greer.” I punched the dash. The whole car shuddered.

  “You know this man?”

  “Yeah, I know that asshole,” I said. “Confirms my suspicion, too. Your boss was definitely into something. Greer is with the CIA, and I’m guessing he wanted to work out a sweetheart deal for the oil reserve your boss’s company controls. He wants you dead because you saw him.”

  “He wants me dead?”

  Shit. I couldn’t believe I let that slip out like that. I could barely look at her, and as I did, I saw the pieces coming together in her head.

  Carolina knew that I had come to Venezuela not to kill somebody, as I claimed, but to kill her.

  “You showed up to my apartment four days later,” she said almost to herself. “You broke the door down while I was gone, and you were armed, waiting for me.” Her head sank back against the headrest of her seat. Her eyes searched the ceiling. Then her neck went rigid. She sat up straight.

  Before I could react, she turned to me. Her hand whipped across my cheek.

  I deserved a slap.

  And I deserved the next two she gave me.

  “You were in my room this morning!” she screamed at me. “You were standing next to my bed with your pistol in your hand! What were you doing, Barrett? Why were you there?”

  My face went hot. What was I supposed to tell her? That she came within seconds of being murdered in her sleep, and she’d likely be dead if a squad of Venezuelan commandos hadn’t assaulted the house?

  She hit me again. This time with her fist into my jaw. It didn’t hurt, but I kept my head turned away from her and stayed in my seat. She shoved her door open and got out of the SUV.

  Her scream launched through the busted front windshield and hit me square in the gut. That hurt the worst of all. Hearing the anguish in Carolina’s voice.

  Then, after she was done screaming. She started to run for the row of houses in front of us.

  I had to stop her. There was no telling what would happen to her if she went into that town alone. Those men from the raid would be on the hunt for both of us.

  “Carolina!” I shouted as I dumped my rifle and jumped down from the SUV. “Carolina stop!”

  She looked over her shoulder, right at me, while she ran, tears streaking down from her eyes.

  Either exhaustion had set into her, or she was too devastated to move like she had—but she was a damn sight slower than yesterday when I chased her into that alley.

  I caught up with her in the middle of the street, in plain view of the intersection ahead of us. Wrapped my arms around her from behind and held her as tightly as I could. Cars ambled past, and I saw some faces looking our way, but no one seemed inclined to stop.

  “No!” she yelled and tried to wiggle away. “No let me go! Somebody help me! This man is trying to kill me!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “You’re a liar!” her voice had gone hoarse from her screaming. “I can’t trust you! I know how violent you are. You’re a killer! You act like you are a decent man, but I know better! I’ve seen you!”

  More people were looking our way. Just a minute ago it seemed like we were alone on the outskirts of town, but now everybody had popped out from nowhere.

  “You gotta be quiet, Carolina,” I said. “You’re drawing too much attention to us.”

  But I was too late. Wasn’t the townspeople I should have been worried about, but the men I knew were looking for us. Couldn’t see Julio Diaz’s mansion from where we were at the base of the mountain, but the truth was, we weren’t far at all. Maybe a mile as the crow flies. Maybe less.

  A black truck rolled to a stop in front of us. Halted right in the middle of the intersection. Carolina went quiet, instantly. She quit fighting me too. She knew, as well as I did, who rode in that truck.

  Two men, dressed in the same all-black uniforms of the guys we’d escaped earlier, hopped out, their rifles at the ready.

  I scrambled left, behind the house nearest us. Bullets were hot on my heels. Ripped the white stucco corner of the house into a ragged edge just after Carolina and I made it past and huddled behind the house for dear life.

  Women and children screamed. Men cursed—everybody scattered. The two soldiers’ AK-103s cackled like mad.

  We were pinned down. In front of me, our busted SUV, about ten paces off. To my left and closing in, the men trying to kill us. To my right, our only means of egress if we didn’t want to get turned into swiss cheese.

  I let Carolina go. “Go right,” I said.

  She looked up at me with her doe eyes. I didn’t know if she was thankful I let her go, or scared out of her mind. Probably both. In any case, she split to the right.

  I could have run after her—maybe she expected that. I saw her glance back as she hit the far corner of the house, and made another right turn, probably expecting me to be right there behind her.

  But I didn’t. I got to my feet. Pressed my back against the wall, and made myself as thin as I could. One or both of those men would come around the corner, ready to spray. My best chance was going hand-to-hand.

  My heart pounded and my whole body shivered with adrenaline. I kept my eyes left, waiting. Sure enough, I saw the nose of an AK-103 come sniffing around the corner.

  I grabbed the end of the rifle’s barrel with my bare hand. It was hotter than hell. Like doing a handstand on asphalt in the middle of a Houston heatwave. But I pushed that out of my head. And jerked the barrel upward, then I spun on my heel, coming around the corner to face my attacker.

  He was smart. He let go of the rifle, keeping his arms under his own control. He’d already cocked back a fist when I turned, and I was too late to dodge it. His low, left-hook connected with my ribcage. The blow hit me hard enough that I saw the squiggly veins at the back of my eyes for a split second.

  I staggered back but kept hold of the rifle. Hell, for all I knew, the barrel was seared to my left hand, and I wouldn’t have been able to let go of it without using a spatula. I grabbed the gun with my right hand, forward of my left, then jabbed the butt of the gun into his gut, then swung it upward and caught him on the chin.

  He fell backward, knocked out.

  And, behind him, his comrade was hunched over the front of their truck, rifle aimed. Great firing position for them, awful for me. I dove for the corner, and a bullet narrowly missed me. Tore a hole near the cuff of my pants. Maybe even grazed my skin. Lucky for me, my body was pumping so much adrenaline, I didn’t feel that white hot sensation tear across my ankle.

  While the guy from the truck kept suppressing fire on me, turning the corner of this house rounder and rounder by the second, I checked the rifle I’d commandeered. Snapped the magazine out, saw I had at least two rounds, plus one in the chamber, and then snapped the mag back in.

  Only thing was, I didn’t have a
chance in hell at shooting back. If I popped my head around the corner to return fire at the wrong second, I’d get my teeth knocked in by a 7.62 round.

  My one chance was to run. Maybe I’d get lucky and sneak around the far side of the house, and catch the guy at the truck unaware. Odds of that were slim, given he probably had an unobstructed view of the street in that direction. Still, it was preferable to getting killed here.

  So, I took my chance. I slipped out to my right. Ran along the backside of the house, then stopped at the corner, I checked the way ahead—a narrow alley between two houses. Clear. I continued forward, rifle shouldered and ready to blow away anything that moved funny.

  But before I hit the next corner, I heard something strange. An engine letting loose with a full-throated growl. A man screaming.

  I didn’t know what to make of it.

  Then, the commandos’ black truck blocked the end of the alleyway. Shit. They’d figured me out.

  I was a hair away from clamping down on the trigger of my rifle when I noticed the window was down, and a familiar figure was sitting behind the wheel.

  Carolina. “Get in!”

  What was she doing, helping me? Now wasn’t the time to ask. I sprinted for the truck. Planted a foot on the back tire, and leaped into the bed.

  “Go! Go!” I slapped the top of the cab.

  The tires screeched, and we were off. We buzzed past the intersection where the firefight had gone down. The man who’d shot at me was dead—run over by Carolina. The man I’d fought hand-to-hand was back on his feet, sprinting for his dead comrade. He scooped up the other man’s AK right as we cleared the intersection. I ducked behind the tailgate as he fired. He was completely out of cover. So, I let him pop off a couple shots, then raised my weapon and fired back.

  I didn’t miss.

  That problem taken care of, I turned to the cab. I slid open the back window to ask Carolina why she saved me. But she was on her phone.

  “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do!” she yelled into the phone while she wove the truck around boxy foreign cars crawling along the street. “Then you stay right where you are, and I’ll be there!” She hung up her phone and tossed it onto the seat, shaking her head.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Julio—my boss,” she said. “He finally called me back. And he picked the perfect time to do it, the prick.”

  “Right when you were running over a commando,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Thanks. For saving me.” I knew my thanks wasn’t enough. “And for running that guy over.”

  “I guess it gets easier after the first time.”

  Chapter 27

  CAROLINA DROVE US WEST—BACK toward Caracas. My face went hot, seeing the city skyline looming ahead of us. Last thing I wanted to do was go into a populated area—chances were whoever came at us at Julio Diaz’s house would have friends in the capital. Thankfully, she pulled off the highway before we hit the city. We turned south, and we cruised along a two-lane road laid across the Venezuelan savanna at the southern foot of the mountains.

  I checked myself out in the rear-view mirror as she drove. My face wasn’t too bad. Scarred to hell, sure. Lip still busted from my career in the Leavenworth boxing league. Couple fresh bruises on my cheeks, new cut across the bridge of my nose, and a trio of welts on my neck. But I wasn’t winning any beauty contests before this morning anyhow.

  My left palm was a scratchy kind of sore from where I’d grabbed the hot barrel of the AK-103. Like a bad sunburn. But I’d live.

  Considering all the crap I’d been through, I was lucky I still had the top of my skull. I’d take the rest.

  When we Carolina slowed the truck and turned off the highway, I set my attention on the world outside.

  We pulled into the parking lot of a ratty old motel. Could’ve been any place along route 66 in the States. Ice machine out front, a car on cinderblocks at the far end of a parking lot made from broken asphalt, and half claimed by the grass. One of the motel doors was crisscrossed with bright yellow caution tape, and another looked to have been burned.

  But that didn’t give Carolina any pause.

  She yanked the truck’s handbrake, twisted the key like an old mop head, and shoved the driver’s door open hard enough to make the whole truck shudder.

  Suffice it to say: she was pissed. She had a right to be.

  I got out. Opted to leave my stolen AK in the truck. I didn’t want to walk out with it over my shoulder and draw any unnecessary attention. I didn’t see anybody around the motel when we pulled up, but there were drivable cars here, and you never knew who was watching out of the big, ground-level windows.

  “Your boss knows how to pick a hideout,” I said, scoping the open parking lot around us. “You think they have running water here?”

  “If they do, I want to plunge his head into the toilet until he turns blue.” Carolina didn’t break her stride. She marched up to a fading green door, with a rusted number six nailed to the front. “The bastard took long enough to call me back.”

  “I know you’re hot right now, but try to keep a lid on it until we find out what the hell he knows.” I popped my neck. “Last thing we want to do is make him nervous.”

  I was standing behind her, but I didn’t have to see her face to know she probably didn’t agree.

  Carolina slapped the door with her palm. “Open up, Julio!”

  “Easy,” I said.

  But as soon as the door cracked open, and I saw Julio Diaz’s angular, tanned face dappled with designer stubble, I dropped any pretense of playing nice.

  I rammed my shoulder into the door. It flew open, cracking Diaz square in the nose.

  “Mother of God!” he wailed, cupping his face.

  I grabbed him by the neck. Stiff-armed him straight into the nearest wall and made sure the whole room shook when I did it.

  “Carolina!” Julio Diaz’s voice was a rasp. He slapped weakly at my wrist and tried to pull me off, but I’d known kittens who had better arm strength than this twerp.

  Lifting him an inch or two off the ground was a hell of a lot easier than it should have been. His veins panicked against my palm. As much as my body ached from all the crap I’d waded through today, it all suddenly fell away now. I guess I was pretty pissed, too. Julio Diaz sure caused a hell of a lot of trouble for me.

  “What happened to not making him nervous?” Carolina asked with a laugh. She might’ve been enjoying this as much as I was.

  “That was before I saw this smug asshole’s face.” Then I squared my eyes with Julio’s. “Tell me about the deal you made with Vance Greer.”

  Terror danced around his eyes. His lips moved. He could’ve been spilling his guts or begging for his life for all I knew. But with my hand wrapped around his neck, he could hardly make a sound.

  “I know it’s a little tough to answer questions when I’ve got you held up like this,” I said. “So, I’m going to let you down. But when you think even the teensiest thought about feeding me a line of bullshit, even if it’s just a quick flash in the back of your head, I want you to remember this moment right here. The moment I could’ve killed you with one hand, but, instead, I let you go.”

  He nodded.

  I let him go.

  Julio dropped to his hands and knees. Coughing and wheezing.

  Now that I was more than six inches from his face, I finally got a look at Julio. He had the narrow, angular frame of somebody who hadn’t seen a good meal his entire life—like he got his nourishment by sucking particles from the air. His thin wrists stuck out from the cuffs of a designer dress shirt, and beneath his dark slacks, I saw the shape of legs the size of my forearms.

  No wonder I was able to pick him up one-handed.

  He sat up and leaned his back against the motel room wall stained with years of cigarette smoke.

  Instead of standing over him, I turned around and walked to the far corner, where fake green leather chipped off the arms of a high-backed
chair. I sat down, and looked at Carolina, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Carolina, who is this man?” Julio’s voice trembled with impotent anger. He still hadn’t picked himself up from the floor.

  “I’m not sure. But I think his heart is in the right place now.” Carolina winked at me. “I think he and I have come to an understanding this morning.”

  “What in God’s name do you mean by that?” He hacked again, then keeping his back against the wall, he skidded upward, eventually making it to his feet like a drunk trying to avoid getting kicked out of a nightclub.

  “What do I mean by that, Barrett?”

  “She means that she doesn’t think you’re her friend anymore,” I said. “We know you cut a deal with Vance Greer for the oil, Julio. Carolina saw it go down—that’s why Greer ordered me to kill her. And you didn’t bother warning her that she was in danger.”

  “No,” he started to say. But I cracked my knuckles, and Julio reconsidered his position. His eyes quickly shifted from my fists to Carolina. And I swear, even in the dimly lit motel room, I saw the color shoot right out of him.

  His skin took on an oily sheen. And his hair, probably cut every month for a hundred bucks, looked like the fur of a drowned rat fished out of a sewer.

  “Darling, you have to believe me—it wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” he dropped to his knees, and literally crawled from the wall to the end of the bed, where Carolina sat, rolling her eyes.

  “Can you forgive me?” He reached up and brushed a hand across her cheek, but Carolina was stone. “Things got out of hand. But you have to believe that I never would have let them hurt you, if I knew.”

  He gave her puppy dog eyes, then dropped his head into her lap. And, for a second, it seemed like it might work. Carolina craned her head, and exhaled, rubbing the ends of his greasy hair between her two fingers.

  Then she reached back with her other hand. It cracked forward like a steel cable snapping and caught him right in the ear. Smack!