by Joshua Hood
“I . . . was . . . sc-scared,” Boggs choked.
Hayes watched the man’s face turn purple, his eyes start to roll back in his head.
Get it over with and get moving, the voice ordered.
“No,” Hayes said, releasing his grip and letting Boggs crumple to the ground. I might be a killer, but I’m not a murderer.
He stuffed the blade back into its sheath and forced himself into a jog, bounding past the Jeep and up the side of the gully. Knowing how close he’d come to killing Boggs. Afraid that the anger would come back and he’d lose control.
“H-Hayes,” he croaked. “I-I’m s-sorry.”
Hayes was panting when he reached the high ground, his heart racing in his chest, hands balled into ghost-white fists.
You’re soft, and it is going to get both of you killed, the voice warned.
“Leave me alone!” Hayes yelled, dropping to his knees, pounding the earth with his fist until his anger was spent and his head slumped to his chest.
He was still there when he heard Boggs’s tentative footsteps behind him.
“H-Hayes, I’m—”
“You’re what—a burnout, a drunk? Someone who is going to get me killed?” Hayes demanded without turning his head.
“Yeah,” Boggs said, squatting down beside him. “I am a drunk and a burnout. I’m also a shitty dad and a bad husband, but I’m not a coward.”
“Did you know that Ford’s dad was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian?” Hayes asked, the sudden change of subject sending a confused frown over Boggs’s face.
“No, I, uh, didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, he was Force Recon in Nam, did three tours. The first night we got home, Ford’s mom threw this big party, lots of people inside the house. We were having a good time, but I guess I drank too much or something, because all of a sudden the walls started closing in and I couldn’t breathe.” Hayes paused. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this shit.”
“Keep going, man. What happened next?”
“I didn’t know if I was having a heart attack or what, but I knew I had to get out of there, so I ran out to the backyard, and kinda fell down in the middle of the yard, and the next thing I know, Ford’s dad is kneeling down beside me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the same shit happened to him when he got back from Nam and how everyone told him it was normal and that it would go away on its own. He said that was a bunch of bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
“Yeah,” Hayes said, turning his head and looking at Boggs. “He said that inside each of us there is a battle between two wolves. One wolf is good and wants to do good things. But the other, all he wants to do is destroy everything, tear you down, and keep you there until one day you can’t take it and you eat a bullet.” Hayes went silent and looked out over the flat scrubland, remembering the moment like it had happened yesterday.
“Then what happened?” Boggs asked.
“I asked him which wolf won,” Hayes said, getting to his feet and brushing the dirt off his knees.
“And what did he say?”
Hayes looked down at the man, his eyes playing over the red finger marks on his neck and the shame in his eyes. Like looking in a mirror, he thought, offering his hand.
“He said the wolf that wins is the one you feed,” Hayes answered, pulling the man to his feet.
“I fucked up and I’m sorry,” Boggs said.
Hayes was about to reply when he heard the distant thrum of turboprops. “Quiet,” he ordered, holding up his hand.
“What is it?” Boggs asked.
“Sounded like a plane. Something heavy,” he said scanning the sky.
“I don’t—”
Pointing to the four-engine cargo plane skimming east across the sky, Hayes said, “It’s an Antonov 12, same model that Ford was tracking, and what do you want to bet it’s heading to Pendare?”
46
PENDARE, VENEZUELA
It was 1300 when they finally pulled into Pendare. Hayes hadn’t been sure what to expect from an Amazon mining town. His expectations were based on what he’d seen in the movies—a generalized picture of a muddy shanty town, lacking even the most basic of necessities.
Pendare did not disappoint. The town looked like it had been built from materials found during a scavenger hunt. The only permanent structure was a wilted brick building with AMAZONIA MINING LTD painted across the side in flaking letters.
“Now, I’ve seen some shitholes in my time, but this place . . .” Hayes whistled.
“Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s go to the building not made of trash,” Hayes said, parking the Jeep in front of Amazonia Mining.
“So how do you want to play this?” Boggs asked, stepping out of the Jeep.
Instead of answering, Hayes tugged the Glock off his hip and reached for the gun bag.
“Don’t tell me you are going in there without a gun.”
“Boggs, I don’t go to the bathroom without a gun,” Hayes said, trading the Glock for a large leather holster with an equally large revolver inside.
“That’s not a gun, it’s a fucking cannon.”
“You just let me do all the talking,” Hayes said, and clipped the pistol to his belt. He was almost to the door when he saw the strip of paper with a handwritten note advising that the proprietor was having a siesta.
“Now what?” Boggs asked.
“That place looks open,” Hayes said, pointing to the red structure with a gravel lot full of mud-spattered trucks and a sign that showed a pig drinking a beer.
Hayes read the sign. “Cochiloco.”
“Crazy Pig? What the hell is that?” Boggs asked.
“I figured you of all people would be able to pick out a bar,” Hayes said, pointing to the stack of rusted kegs sitting on the side.
The bar was native ingenuity at its finest. The exterior was a façade made out of wood taken from shipping crates and stained red.
It didn’t matter where Hayes was going, he approached every room the same way. He grabbed the door handle with his left hand, his right closing around the butt of the .357, and then tugged the door open.
He’d cleared 80 percent of the interior before crossing the threshold. During his time at Fort Bragg, Hayes had been to his share of dives, but it wasn’t until he joined Treadstone and started hunting men across the globe that he gained a true appreciation for the meaning behind shithole.
But Cochiloco put them all to shame.
To call it a shithole was an insult to the word. The inside was two aluminum shipping containers with a floor made of plywood. A rectangular section of split timber made up the bar, and the four tables were empty cable spools. He saw that the left side of the room was empty and jerked his head in that direction, signaling for Boggs to take the corner and hold it.
The right side was a different story—there were two men: a native passed out on the floor and a thick-necked man with the air of someone who knew how to take care of himself, sitting with his back against the wall.
“Keep your eyes on that one,” Hayes said, noticing the man’s right hand duck beneath the table.
“Got it,” Boggs said and nodded.
“This place open early or just never close?” he said, crossing to the bar.
The barman wore the weary, wrung-out look of a man who has spent his life listening to other people’s problems. The scars on his fist attested to what happened when he got tired of hearing them.
Hayes knew from the look in his eye that the man had been in the business long enough to recognize trouble, and when the barman saw the pistol at his waist, he reached for something below the bar.
“Tranquilo, easy,” Hayes said, holding up his hands, palms out. “We don’t want any trouble. I just have some questions to ask and then
we will be on our way.”
That was when he noticed the third man sitting in the shadows. Unlike the rest, this man didn’t look like shit. His clothes were clean, and his arms and face were tanned—the skin around his eyes wrinkled from squinting at the sun.
The pilot.
“You fly that Antonov in?” Hayes asked, walking over to the man.
“What’s it to you?” he asked.
“I apologize. Where are my manners? Can I buy you a drink?”
“Already got one,” the man said, nodding to the mostly full mug of beer on the table.
“Well, you sure do,” he said, grabbing the glass and pouring the contents on the floor. “Problem solved.” He shrugged. “Now, how about that drink, and while we’re at it, how about the coordinates to that airfield you just landed at.”
“Haaayes,” Boggs alerted him.
“I see him,” he said, already alerted that Muscles was on the move by the ponderous scrape of the chair against the plywood.
“Someone pull your chain, son?” Hayes asked, without taking his eyes off the pilot.
“We don’t serve Americans here.”
“What about him?”
“I said, fuck off.”
“Now you’re just being rude. Do you know this guy?” he asked the pilot.
“Y-yes, Mr. Vega hired him to—”
“That’s enough,” the man said, “and you need to get the fuck out of here before I lose my temper.”
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Hayes asked, turning to face the man, who towered over him.
“I said, get the hell out of here.”
“It was someplace shitty. You were working a security detail, and someone got lost. C’mon, help me out. Damn, it’s right there on the tip of my tongue.”
Then he remembered.
“You worked for that asshole Kaplan in Belgrade,” Hayes said, snapping his fingers. “You had a dog’s name, like Rex, or Champ, or—”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“Ace, that’s it,” Hayes said with a triumphant snap of his fingers. “I’m right, aren’t I?” Hayes asked, turning to the pilot and receiving a nod of affirmation. “You don’t remember me? The night on that convoy and you got lost and—”
“This is the last time I’m going to tell you,” Ace said, his hand dropping to his pistol.
“You pull that pistol,” Hayes said, his voice turning to ice, “you better be ready to kill me.”
Every man had a tell, something he did when he got nervous or was about to lie. The entire time Hayes was badgering Ace, he was watching his face, cataloging his reactions, which is how he knew before the taller man had made any overt move that he was going for his pistol.
Ace was fast, but not fast enough.
Hayes was moving before the pistol cleared the holster. He grabbed the man’s wrist with his left hand before the muzzle of the battered Sig could rise past his kneecap. He stepped in and drove his right elbow, smashing across the man’s face, and felt blood spurt onto his arm.
Using his left hand, he swept the man’s arm out of the way, his right hand closing around the hilt of the blade strapped at the small of his back. Hayes was a gunfighter by trade, but had been raised around knives and fists, and while he preferred the bullet, he trusted the blade.
The blow knocked the man off-balance, and Hayes took advantage, tugging on his right arm, pulling him toward the ground.
Ace fired two shots. The bullets hit the floor, spraying the two men with fragments of wood.
The blade came out with the gentle hiss of steel on leather, and Hayes was bringing the blade around when he saw the barman reaching for whatever he kept beneath the bar.
You’re out of position, the voice warned.
Hayes tried to turn Ace in front of him, use the man’s body as a shield, but when he drove the blade between Ace’s ribs and saw the barman come up with the FAL, Hayes knew he was about to die.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
He flinched, waiting to feel the burning pain of the bullets, and then he saw the spread of crimson across the barman’s chest and smoke trailing from the muzzle of Boggs’s Glock.
“Owe you one,” he said, yanking the blade from Ace’s side and waiting for the Sig to clatter to the ground before he let the man fall.
“Anytime,” Boggs said, holstering the pistol.
Hayes reached down and wiped the blade across the man’s shirt before returning it to the sheath.
“You really know that guy?” Boggs asked.
“Small world, huh,” Hayes said, turning to the pilot. “Now, I know that nobody is going to miss that piece of shit, but you seem like a nice guy, so what’s it going to be?”
47
PENDARE, VENEZUELA
According to the pilot, there were only two ways to reach the airfield. The first was by air, the second was through the main gate.
“So this is the airfield,” Hayes said, marking the position on the map with an X. “Now, where is the road?”
“Here,” the pilot said, tracing the route from the X to the town of Pendare. “But unless you brought an army, I wouldn’t even think about it.”
“You let me worry about that,” Hayes said.
Twenty minutes later, Hayes eased the Jeep into a dry streambed two miles short of the road the pilot had marked on the map. Hayes cut the engine and scanned the tangle of vines and stocky rubber trees that formed an impenetrable curtain around them.
“End of the line,” he said, cutting the engine and hopping out.
“You don’t want to try and get any closer?” Boggs asked, looking down at the map.
“Can’t risk it, especially if they have Izzy,” Hayes answered, taking an olive-drab compact from his pack. He popped the lid, revealing four colored squares of oil-based paint.
Hayes started with the green, using the color as a base to cover the white of his face and neck. For contrast and shadows, he used jagged bands of gray and brown—ignoring the black since it wasn’t a color found naturally in the wild. When he was finished, Hayes returned the compact to his pack and doused himself with DEET before tugging on a pair of gloves.
“How do you think Ford got in?” Boggs asked.
It was the same question he’d been asking himself since the pilot gave them the coordinates to the airfield. There was only one possible answer.
“Same way I am. He walked.”
“Through that?” Boggs demanded.
You always were a stubborn bastard, Hayes thought, reaching for the map.
“You do much land navigation in the Corps?”
“At Parris Island, but not too much after that. Mainly used GPS over there.”
“It’s a dying art,” Hayes said. “And fighting in the desert sure hasn’t helped. Over there you never have a problem getting a signal.” Hayes pulled the GPS from his pocket and held it up to the sky. “But out here, under this shit, it’s a totally different ball game.”
Nothing, he thought, looking at the blank screen.
“Looks like we are going to have to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said, spreading the map out on the hood. “We are here,” he said, pointing at the X he’d penned on the map. “According to the pilot, this mysterious airfield is two miles north of us.”
“Right where Ford took those pictures,” Boggs said.
“Yep, and if we want to get to the bottom of this story, there is only one thing to do.”
Hayes folded the map and stuffed it inside the plastic bag he’d brought with him and walked to the rear of the Jeep. He opened the drop bag and tugged a rectangular hard case free.
“More spy shit?” Boggs grinned.
“Nope, we are going primal,” he said, snapping the lid open and pulling out a compound bow.
“Are you serious right now?” Bo
ggs asked.
“The jungle is like the desert; sounds and smells carry a lot farther than you think. I’ll use the gun if I have to, but this gives me the opportunity to operate with stealth.”
“But c’mon, a bow?” he asked, pulling one of the arrows from the quiver. “I mean, this doesn’t even look like an arrowhead,” he said, pointing at the inverted Y of the broadhead.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hayes warned, a second before Boggs’s finger touched the metal ring at the tip.
“You didn’t poison it, did you?”
“No, dumbass,” Hayes said, taking the 125-grain carbon-fiber arrow from his hand. “It’s a mechanical broadhead—a Rage Hypodermic—and I just saved you a finger.”
He tugged the Spyderco folding knife from his pocket and flicked the blade open. “This is the lock ring, which holds these two nasty beasts in place,” Hayes said, pointing to the ten-inch serrated blades on either side of the point. “And when the arrow hits the target . . .” He pressed down with the tip of the knife and snapped his hand out of the way before the blades deployed with the snick of a switchblade, forming a twenty-inch cutting surface.
“There is something wrong with you,” Boggs said.
“Maybe so, but right now I’m all you got, so you stick to the plan and we might get out of here.”
“Roger that, I will keep my ass here,” Boggs said, imitating Hayes’s voice, “and keep the radio on and my eyes open.”
“And?” Hayes asked.
“And if you are compromised, I get the hell out of here.”
“I’m serious about that, Boggs. No cowboy shit.”
“Hayes, I’m not going to let you down.”
“I know,” he said, shouldering his assault pack and stepping through the green curtain.
Having spent most of his life in the South, Hayes thought he knew about humidity, but he’d never experienced anything like what he found as soon as he moved off the trail.
It was as hot and muggy as a greenhouse on steroids beneath the dark green of the triple-canopy jungle, and by the time he’d gone a quarter of a mile he was sweating profusely and the camo face paint he’d applied was starting to run.
