War to the Knife (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 9)

by Peter Nealen

  “Well, nobody until now.” Brannigan let the words hang in the air for a moment.

  Cruz studied the two Blackhearts for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “Maybe this is where you tell me exactly why you’re here, and what you think you need from me.”

  Brannigan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Someone wants Clemente dead. They also want it to happen in a very specific place, at a very specific time. We’re here to do some preliminary reconnaissance, to see if it’s feasible to off Clemente and see this whole ‘Green Shirt’ thing you mentioned go away.”

  But Cruz was already shaking his head. “Clemente’s the figurehead, and maybe something of a leader, but he doesn’t have the charisma to have pulled this all together by himself. He might think he did, and someone might be using him as a commander, but he doesn’t have the kind of personality that men will follow without an established rank structure having put him in command.” His eyes narrowed as he stared into the dark, thinking.

  “You think that if we off him, somebody else in his organization will just take his place?” Flanagan’s voice was low and quiet. He hadn’t said much since they’d arrived, and now he was sitting back from the lantern, letting Brannigan take most of the attention and ask most of the questions.

  Cruz nodded. “Either that, or the Venezuelans will move in to ‘restore order.’” He grimaced. “They’re a lot closer than the Army right now.”

  The two Blackhearts traded a look. They didn’t know who in Washington DC had ordered this mission, but it was getting sketchier and more suspicious by the minute.

  Cruz rubbed his chin. “I will be honest, amigos, this sounds like one of those bright ideas that a politician thought up to buy himself some glory, all without putting in the effort. Even the cartels with flashy capos in charge don’t disintegrate overnight when the capo gets killed or captured. And these Green Shirts, from what I’ve heard, are even more fanatical than any regular narcos. Many of them were narcos, but a lot more were FARC. Diego Galvez, Clemente’s right hand? He was a FARC revolutionary, one of the ones who denounced the organization for caving to the government when the ceasefire was signed, no matter that the ceasefire has benefited the FARC a lot more than it has the rest of Colombia.”

  “You think he’d take over if Clemente bit it?” Brannigan mused.

  “It’s possible. He’s got the force of personality, even if he’s more feared than respected.” Cruz didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “The man wants to top Che Guevara. And he just might do it, if he gets the chance.”

  Brannigan watched Cruz, his own expression unreadable, slowly stroking his mustache as he thought.

  This could be any number of things. The easy interpretation is exactly what Cruz thinks—that somebody high up wants to score some points and thinks that he can defuse this situation with one ambush, then reap the rewards as Clemente’s little coup crumbles. We’ve certainly seen it before. Most of the people making decisions in DC that lead to these little deniable operations don’t have the experience or the knowledge to know what they’re doing. A combination of hubris and naivete. Dangerous as hell.

  But Cruz is right. Something’s even more off about this. Unfortunately, I can’t tell exactly what it is.

  We need more intel.

  “What kind of information is actually getting out of San Tabal?” he asked. “If the takeover is as thorough as you say it is…”

  “Not a lot. That’s not helping to expedite any response, either.” Cruz was watching Brannigan carefully, though. He could tell where this was going.

  “So, since you’ve got as much knowledge about Clemente and his cabal as you do, can I assume that means you have contacts in the area?” Brannigan studied Cruz with equal intensity, and saw the faint glint in his eyes.

  “I might.” A faint, hard grin spread across the other man’s face. “Are you going to need weapons and gear, too?”

  Brannigan returned the grin. “I believe we have an understanding, Señor Cruz.”

  Chapter 8

  Galvez could hear Clemente before he even got into the office. The swearing echoed down the hallway outside.

  Diego Galvez was not perturbed by Clemente’s ranting. Even as several of the younger Green Shirts who had been assigned to guard the Leader tried very hard not to look through the door, Galvez strode past them, carefully smoothing the expression of contempt that threatened to overtake his features.

  The Green Shirts had converted Jurado’s entertainment room into Clemente’s office. It was well-placed, opening up onto the balcony that overlooked the plaza. From there, Clemente could give his speeches and “inspire” the people the Green Shirts had “liberated” from their capitalist oppressors.

  In truth, while Galvez believed strongly in the goal of eventual global Communism, far more than Clemente did, he had nothing but contempt for “the people.” They were small-minded, hidebound, and far too religious for their own good. Even those who weren’t religious were still too obsessed with “morality.” They were good for nothing but forced labor.

  Much like Clemente himself. The people were only tools to be used—and used up—in service to The Cause.

  Clemente turned as Galvez stepped inside the office, clasping his hands behind his back. The Leader—clad in the pseudo-uniform that he had spent entirely too much time and energy working up after Jurado’s hanging—stared at him, his face flushed.

  “You! Tell me you didn’t know that the Americans have sent operatives into Bogota!” Clemente stabbed a finger at Galvez, and the Green Shirts’ chosen killer had to briefly bite back the white-hot flare of rage that tempted him to draw the Jericho 941 from its patent leather holster at his belt and finish Clemente early.

  Who does this corrupt bastard think he is? He’d be nothing without us. A puppet in a uniform.

  But the plan was too well-thought-out to abandon it now. There was too much to gain. Even at the expense of some of its chief players.

  “What is surprising about Americans in Bogota?” Galvez kept his voice level and calm. “They have been working with their puppets there for decades. Their special operations troops come to Colombia every year. Even their Secret Service trains here. What would make you think that Americans in Bogota have anything to do with us here in San Tabal?”

  What would make you think that? Has someone talked? Has that fat fool, Ballesteros, given something away? If he has, I’ll kill him just after you make your ultimate sacrifice for the Revolution.

  “I have my spies in Bogota,” Clemente snapped. “Spies you know nothing about. Not everyone went along with those bastards when they stripped me of my position. They know the American special forces, they know where they come from and where they go. These men were like them, but they came by charter flight and then disappeared into the city.”

  That did sound strange, but Galvez didn’t react. “Many of those special forces troops take lovers here in Colombia. It was probably only a couple of them on vacation.” Things were too far along for Clemente, already paranoid, to begin to suspect that the noose was tightening. He would need to find out who Clemente’s spies were and have them arrested or eliminated.

  Clemente eyed him with naked hostility. Galvez met his gaze with a blank expression, well-practiced from years of circulating through revolutionary and criminal circles—there was a considerable overlap there—that were never entirely trustworthy.

  “General.” Galvez spread his hands. “Two Americans coming into Bogota means nothing. They are far from here, and our partners in Washington would have warned us if any moves against us were afoot.”

  “We have everything under control, General.” Ballesteros probably thought he was being soothing, but his unctuous tone grated on Galvez’s nerves. He could only imagine how much more it was going to infuriate Clemente. “This has been long in the planning, and we were prepared for many of these eventualities when we seized the city. The Americans have their own problems, and enough lobbyists to bog down any resp
onse for months, at least. The presence of the Venezuelans so close by will keep the Colombians in check. We are safe here, General.”

  Galvez watched Clemente carefully, waiting for the outburst. But the expected temper tantrum didn’t materialize. Instead, Clemente looked with narrowed eyes from one to the other of them, clearly weighing their words in his head with what he’d already found out, not to mention the endless planning meetings they’d had in ELN camps and several official—if clandestine—buildings in Caracas.

  He suspects something. But such is the nature of the Revolution. We must always suspect those around us. He does not know our plans. At least, Galvez hoped not. That would mean he would have to move the schedule up, and he didn’t want to do that. Not all the pieces were in place. Not yet.

  “Of course. You are right.” Clemente leaned on the table with a sigh, one that Galvez suspected was more than slightly affected. “Forgive me, comrades. The strain of dealing with the resistance to the people’s will has weighed on me.” Clemente was mouthing the right words, but Galvez could hear the insincerity there. No matter. He knew where they all stood. “What did you find at Camacho’s house?”

  “Very little. He wouldn’t talk, no matter what we did to him and his family. I executed them all and burned their house. The photos will be distributed and posted up in the plaza in the morning, as a warning to the rest.” He poured a glass of Jurado’s aguardiente. Enjoying the mayor’s luxuries was one of the perks of being a leader of the revolution. “Do not worry. Camacho was always going to be a hard case. We will root them out.” You might not live to see it, but it will happen.

  “See to it that you do. We have already had problems with the farmers.” That was no great surprise. Most of the farmers in those mountains who weren’t already growing coca had made the conscious decision not to. Being forced to convert their fields of corn, beans, and coffee to coca would naturally be met with a certain degree of resistance—especially when they realized, accurately, that they would see none of the profit from the refined cocaine.

  “Everything is under control, General.” Galvez sipped the aguardiente and savored it for a moment before swallowing. “In six months, no one will be able to touch us.”

  ***

  Brannigan was waiting by the airstrip at Palonegro Airport, on the high tableland above Bucaramanga, as the charter plane taxied off the runway and toward the hangars and the civil air terminal. A plain, white, unmarked Learjet, it wouldn’t stand out to anyone, not even the Colombian Army security posted around the airport.

  Of course, the short, stocky man next to him helped with that, too.

  Alejandro Pacheco was not a young man. His hair was solid silver, turning white. There was still a hard gleam in his eye, though, the gleam of a man who’d seen a lot of death, and dealt out his share, too. He was a veteran of the Search Bloc, the special operations unit formed from the Colombian Army and police to hunt down Pablo Escobar, years ago. Many of the Search Bloc were dead, and few of them of old age. That Pacheco was still around spoke volumes about him.

  He also had contacts. It seemed he had not been idle in the years since the wars with the Medellin and Cali cartels. Cruz had introduced him to Brannigan, and he was going to be their primary supplier going into the mountains. He’d provided the two trucks that they’d driven to the airport. Neither was anything special—ancient, creaky diesels with covered beds. But they ran well, and they’d had no trouble with the mountain roads from Pacheco’s farm.

  The Learjet slowed and came to a stop, the engines winding down before the door opened, the stairs lowering toward the tarmac. Wade stepped out, scanning their surroundings carefully before his eyes lit on Brannigan and his companion.

  Wade was too far away for Brannigan to read his expression very well, but he knew the other man enough to see the thought process well enough, anyway. Okay, no armored vehicles or men with guns. The Colonel looks relaxed. Two trucks, no other security presence. We should be okay.

  He saw Wade turn inside and say something, then the big man started down the steps, his duffel over one shoulder. Bianco and Burgess followed, with Jenkins, Hank, Curtis, Gomez, and Javakhishvili coming after. They crossed quickly to where Brannigan waited.

  “Welcome to Colombia, gents.” Brannigan jerked a thumb toward the trucks behind them. “It’s not a long drive to our staging point, which is Señor Pacheco’s farm, about ten miles outside of town. We’ll go over what Joe and I found out and get kitted up once we get there.”

  “I take it that this is still just as sketchy as we thought?” Wade asked.

  Brannigan just waved toward the trucks again. “Like I said, we’ll talk once we get there. The trucks are too noisy to carry on much of a conversation, anyway. Load up.”

  ***

  “So, where’s Joe?” Curtis asked as he dropped down out of the back of the truck. He looked around at the farm, the modest, stuccoed house with cracking paint around the slightly ill-fitting window frames, the fields with a few cows and a fair bit of corn just reaching knee height, and the rough stables built of wire, sticks, and corrugated sheet metal. “I can’t imagine that you introduced him to a Colombian beauty hot enough to pry him away from Rachel.”

  “He’s already up in the mountains, with Cruz.” Brannigan was already leading the way toward the house. Pacheco had disappeared inside. “We need more information, so they’re running some early reconnaissance. Once they get back, hopefully we’ll have enough pieces of the puzzle to know where we need to dig deeper.”

  “So, this is still sketchy as hell.” Wade’s assessment wasn’t a question.

  “Always was. So was Azerbaijan.” Brannigan led the way inside, and Pacheco waved them toward the back. “The implicit blackmail was the first red flag, and there haven’t been many signals since that led me to think otherwise.”

  “I think it might be getting time to send a message.” Wade’s growl made it obvious what kind of “message” he had in mind. “I’m getting a little tired of this catspaw bullshit.”

  “You and me both, brother.” The Blackhearts followed Pacheco into a relatively large living room in the back, with windows looking out on a garden that was already a riot of color, the mountains and the jungle looming beyond.

  The living room was a little crowded at the moment. Nearly a dozen plastic storm cases lined the walls, and the furniture had been pushed toward the middle of the room to make space. Most of the Blackhearts eyed the cases with a glint of interest as Pacheco waved them to seats on the well-worn chairs and sofa.

  “Coffee? Or maybe something a little stronger?” Pacheco’s English was pretty good, and most of the Blackhearts probably couldn’t have distinguished his accent from any other Spanish speaker, though Gomez cocked his head slightly, as if trying to place it. Half Texican, half Mescalero Apache, he was a fluent Spanish speaker, and was fairly familiar with a lot of Central and South American dialects. More so than most Southwesterners might be. For all his silence and capacity for horrific violence, Gomez was a thinker, and he liked to learn.

  “Coffee’s fine.” Brannigan wasn’t worried about any of the Blackhearts getting drunk—well, maybe Curtis and Jenkins—but the last thing they needed right then was alcohol to cloud the planning process. And he’d heard good things about Colombian coffee for most of his life.

  As Pacheco called to his wife to get some coffee brewing, Brannigan laid out what he and Flanagan had learned from Cruz. It really wasn’t much, only some slight clarification of the already slim information they’d gotten from Van Zandt. “I’ve been on the horn with Carlo—he’s digging. But he’s got even less in the way of information that we can use on the ground. He’s pressing Van Zandt, but so far, Mark’s been reluctant to disclose much about our employer.” When expressions turned dark, he held up his hands. “That doesn’t mean he’s stonewalling, not exactly.” He momentarily reflected on the fact that there had definitely been a time when he would have expected Van Zandt to do exactly that. Maybe things had
changed. Maybe they hadn’t. “If the client is a senator, then he’s got some serious resources to keep his skeletons in the closet, especially when someone like Van Zandt goes sniffing around.

  “That said, Cruz told us that someone has given Clemente backing. He couldn’t have pulled this off without it. Now, that might just mean the Venezuelans—they’ve certainly funneled FARC and ELN plenty of support since Chavez took over in Caracas. But…”

  “But the strange interest in just taking out Clemente, no questions asked, means that somebody on our side of the fence is dirty.” Burgess wasn’t asking a question, either.

  “It would hardly be the first time, would it?” Brannigan had seen plenty of instances of American politicians with their hands in the cookie jar of drug dealers and human traffickers—and worse.

  “At any rate, Cruz doesn’t think that just offing Clemente’s going to do much. I’m inclined to agree with him. So, depending on what intel Joe and Cruz can bring back, we’re going to see if we can set up the whole cabal to go down.”

  There was some silence after that. “And what happens to us when our employer knows we’ve gone off the reservation?” Bianco sounded a little perturbed. And well he might. Most of them had lives outside of the mercenary profession, and while they often lived for the fight, the consequences if their employers turned on them could be disastrous.

  “I’m working on that.” Actually, Santelli was working on their cover story more than he was, but that was part of why he’d had Santelli stay home. He and Hector Chavez were good at that particular dance, and they’d have a plan by the time the Blackhearts were ready to go loud on the ground. “We’ll be ready if they try something. And if I have anything to say about it, if they do, we’re going to turn their plan around and cram it right back down their throats.”