ENCOUNTER

by Hep Aldridge

  “No,” I replied, “I was in the Air Force. Dimitri was in the Army; why do you ask?”

  “Senor Sean was in the Army, and while you were gone, he took me out and taught me to shoot.”

  “Really?” I said in response to both parts of his statement.

  “Si, Senor, actually, he said I should learn how to handle a weapon properly. It was not easy, and it took me a while to get used to it. We had a rifle and a pistol, and he taught me how to use and take care of both. He said I must respect the weapons, and they are only to be used as a last resort or in self-defense.”

  “Is that right? Sean said that?”

  “Si, he said that’s what he was taught; he was in the One Zero One in the Army, and it was important I learned the proper way to handle the weapons.”

  “The One Zero One?” I asked.

  “Si, he said they got to jump out of airplanes and everything.”

  I looked at Dimitri, who had been listening intently to the conversation, and said, “The 101st Airborne Division.” Dimitri nodded and grinned.

  “Si, Senor Colt, that is what he said, the 101st Airborne; that was his unit.”

  O’Reilly said, “101st, you didn’t know about that?”

  “No, I didn’t. I had no idea—interesting new fact.”

  “Indeed,” she said.

  “So, you learned how to shoot a rifle and a pistol?”

  Si, I am a pretty good shot too—a natural is what Senor Sean said.”

  “So, what kind of rifle and pistol did Sean teach you to shoot? A hunting rifle?”

  “No, it was an M-16 like the ones you have, and a Colt .45; he also had an AK-47 that he let me shoot.”

  “Nice,” Dimitri said under his breath.

  “Do you know where Sean got them?”

  “No, he did not say, but he wraps them carefully in oily rags and keeps them locked in a metal cabinet in his office. I had never seen them before. He even taught me how to clean them and make sure they were working properly before we put them away. He said it was important that you do that every time you use them.”

  “Well, he’s absolutely right,” Dimitri said, “So, don’t forget it.”

  “No, Senor, I won’t.”

  O’Reilly leaned over and quietly said, “Hope we never have to ask him to help, but it sounds like he could take care of himself.”

  “I hope you’re right on both counts,” I replied.

  The rest of the trip was made with small talk and discussions about the mountain trek that lay ahead of us. Joe double-checked the GPS unit for our map and waypoints. We figured we would need four mules or llamas to haul our gear and hoped that Senor Mata would be able to provide those. We had noticed he had a small herd of both on our last visit to his farm.

  Late that afternoon, we pulled up to the gate, and Eduardo and Doc went up to the house to announce our arrival. Senor Mata and his sons came out to greet us like old friends. They were delighted to see us and assured us it would be acceptable to park the Beast on his property. Once again, there was a dinner invitation, which we graciously declined, but Eduardo proved to be our diplomatic liaison and accepted. He made sure our refusal didn’t create any hard feelings.

  It felt great to get out and stretch our legs; the ride up here, while not terribly uncomfortable, was an arduous one. So, walking and stretching was the activity for the first ten or fifteen minutes. We had started unloading our gear and setting up camp by the fire pit we had used on our last visit when Reggie arrived. She dropped her pack, laid her rifle down, and after greeting everyone, said, “Great, just in time for dinner.” It was MREs all around. As we were finishing, she said, “You guys know you’re being followed, right?”

  “Not surprised; how far back?” I asked.

  “They were a good mile, mile and a half behind. I’m sure they’ve caught up to us and are surveilling us right now. They had three vehicles, an SUV and two pickups. Maybe twelve to fourteen men.”

  Doc nonchalantly looked around into the thickening darkness and said, “I hope they don’t try anything tonight; I wouldn’t want to endanger Mata and his family.”

  O’Reilly said, “You think it’s the Brotherhood?”

  “Probably, Paco said he only saw six of the mercs at Diego’s. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more, but I doubt it. And you remember the crowd the Brotherhood brought to the barroom brawl. My guess is they travel in large numbers,” I answered. “They don’t strike me as the surgical strike team type. More of a bull in a china shop mentality. Did you see anyone following them?”

  “Naw, couldn’t hang around that long and stay ahead of these guys. Once I spotted them and got a quick count, I hustled on out of there to get here before they did, just in case.”

  “Glad you did and glad you covered our six for us. I figured we’d be followed, and now it’s up to us to control the playing field. We’ll keep the fire going all night and post a guard, three-hour shifts. And be visible; I want them to know we are being cautious. Hopefully, they won’t make their move until we get further into the mountains. The trail out front is still drivable for three or four more miles, so my hope is they will bypass the farm and follow us in their vehicles as far as they can.”

  “Good idea. I’ll take first watch,” Dimitri said as he unrolled his M-16 out of its blanket and shoved a 30-round clip in it.

  After dinner, we had a visit from Senor Mata, walking to our fire, jug in hand.

  Dimitri said as he approached, “Looks like Senor Mata is bringing some of his homemade firewater to the party again,” referencing our last visit and introduction to Ecuadorian moonshine.

  We sat and talked and sipped for a bit. I struck a deal with Senor Mata for the mules we needed and told him we would be leaving the next morning. He said they would be ready and then bid us a good night. We banked the fire against the growing chill, and all turned in.

  The next morning arrived without incident. We had the coffee on when Reggie came trotting up the road and plopped down next to the fire.

  “Well, they’re back there a mile or so. They had one guy watching you about fifty yards back. Other than that, nothing special. They’ve got packs and stuff, so it looks like they are planning on following us into the mountains.”

  “So, you sure no one spotted you?”

  Reggie looked at me over her coffee cup and said, very disdainfully, “Colt, please… You should know better than to ask that. The advance spotter passed within five feet of me on his way back to their camp, completely oblivious to my presence. So, no, no one spotted me.”

  “My apologies, Reggie, I should know by now to never call into question your skill or expertise in such matters,” I said with a slight bow and hand gesture.

  Dimitri laughed and said, “Haven’t even had your first cup of coffee and already getting an ass-chewing; great way to start the day, boss.”

  Reggie returned my mock bow with a smile and said, “Apology accepted.”

  “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, eat up and break camp.” I saw Mata’s two sons leading four mules our way and wanted to load up and be gone before the guys following us got to the farm. Forty-five minutes later, we were loaded and had moved the Beast to an inconspicuous parking spot, not really hidden, but not out in plain sight.

  We said goodbye to Senor Mata and his family and asked if there was someplace he could take his family for the day, away from the house. He said they could move their small herd of llamas and mules to a pasture further up in the mountains and spend the day there if necessary. I said I felt it would be safer for them if they weren’t here for the rest of the day. There may be some troublemakers following us, and we didn’t want him to risk reprisals from them for helping us. He understood and called to his sons to gather the children and women and prepare to move the herd. He assured us he could be gone within 30 minutes. He bid us safe travels and turned and left.

  We got to the end of the road with no incident. From here on, our pursuers would have to travel by
foot. I told Joe to break out one of our new trail cameras and place it so we could see the end of the road and the beginning of the trail. Within minutes, we were viewing the entire area on our tablets. Now, the upward trek began. Less than an hour later, there was a low whistle from Joe, who had been monitoring the camera as we walked. We gathered around and saw the three vehicles pulling up and stopping.

  “Okay, folks, let’s pick up the pace a bit; I would like to keep them as far behind us as possible. With the mules, we may not be able to move as fast as them, but we can try.” The going wasn’t terribly difficult yet, but I knew that would change before nightfall, so we pressed on.

  We didn’t stop for lunch but munched on protein bars and kept moving. I don’t think we started feeling the effects of our exertions until late in the afternoon. We had passed out our earpiece Comms, so I asked how everyone was doing as we kept moving. No complaints, but Dimitri said, “Good thing we only sipped last night with Senor Mata, or this would be a lot more difficult.” I heard an amen from Joe and a chuckle from O’Reilly.

  Dusk was starting to set in, and I told Joe to put out another trail cam. I said, “We’ll keep hiking till dark and see if they get to the trail cam location, then we can decide what our next move should be. We had the benefit of our GPS and map, so we could continue after dark, but that would not be ideal. I had no idea if the bad guys were prepared for a night march or not, so Joe kept a close eye on the camera feed. It was full-on dark now, and I called a temporary halt. More energy bars and water as we sat down and took advantage of the respite while we could.

  Joe came up and sat next to me and said, “Colt, check this out,” and handed me the tablet. I was looking at the scene the first camera had recorded about three hours after we set it. Six men with packs and weapons came walking up the trail from the road.

  Joe said, “The camera recorded that two hours after our ‘local’ bad guys passed by, so we’ve got one group about an hour back and the mercs two hours behind them.

  We sat there talking quietly. “So, how do you want to play this, Colt?” Dimitri asked. “We’ve still got two days before we get to Tamara’s village.” Tamara was the chief of the village we had met the elders at on our last visit to the mountains. “Do we really want to lead these guys there?”

  “No, but if we get into a protracted confrontation with them that could give the mercs time to catch up, then what?” Doc asked.

  “No telling what the outcome would be if that happened,” O’Reilly added.

  “Yeah, at the very least, we have five days before we even get close to finding the city of the gods that the elders talked about, so I’m open to suggestions. I don’t relish the idea of having to contend with these guys for the next five days,” I said.

  Joe had been quiet, obviously considering options before speaking, and when he did speak, it was with a furrowed brow.

  “So, we have two situations to deal with. One, what do we do about the bad guys, and two, can we keep Tamara’s village safe from them?” He paused and then continued, “On the second point, I remember from our first trip to the village that we followed a section of the Inca Road for a bit and then turned uphill on a small path that led to the new trail that took us to Tamara’s village. Remember, we asked Felipe how far the stone road went, and he said for miles. I think it runs parallel to the trail that took us to the village. I can use the GPS to confirm that since I have our original route loaded. So, I believe we could continue on the Inca Road until we are safely past Tamara’s village and then head up to intersect with the trail that leads out of his village and further into the mountains.”

  Joe handed me his tablet. “We can follow the Inca Road until we are about here,” he said, pointing to a spot beyond the village, “and then turn toward the path that leads out of it. We should not come anywhere near the village. We could bypass it completely.”

  “That sounds like it might work; good job. But I was hoping to speak to the elders again to see if we could get more precise directions to the village they abandoned.”

  “We already have that,” Doc said, beaming, as he pulled his notebook from his pack and held it up. “I asked them about that in our initial interview, and they gave it to me. All we have to do is use our maps, start at Tamara’s village location, and plot out, as best we can, a route from their description. I don’t think they could give us any more than I already have.”

  “And then we can plot an intersecting route from the road to that route, using the GPS and our satellite images,” Joe said, “which brings me back to my first point, the two groups of bad guys. From what I see on the mapped-out route, we have about three hours or so before we hit the stone road. What if we created a roadblock of some kind that would slow the Brotherhood group down enough to allow the Vatican mercs to catch up with them? If the mercs are as well trained as we are led to believe, then I’ll bet they’re traveling faster than the Brotherhood, and they have closed that initial two-hour gap that was between them.”

  As we sat in the dark, digesting the beginnings of our new plan, a sneaking feeling of confidence began building inside of me. This could work, I thought.

  Dimitri piped up, “I seem to recall some narrow trails we had to traverse before we got to the road.”

  “Yeah,” O’Reilly said, “almost like small gorges with vertical rock walls on each side; I remember those.”

  “I could cause a rockslide that would close one of them off and really slow down the guys behind us. It wouldn’t stop them, but it would surely slow them down while they figured out how to get through.”

  “And in the meantime, our Vatican mercs could catch up with them, and they could have the confrontation we are hoping for. To what end, I have no idea, but that could at least give us more time to extend our lead and potentially thin the ranks of our pursuers in both groups.”

  Reggie chimed in, “When we get to the turnoff you used on your first trip, we have to make sure they can see that our trail indicates we are continuing to follow the Inca Road. When I followed you guys before, I remember missing it and having to backtrack to find it when I didn’t see any sign of you continuing on the road. It’s easy to miss, so that’s a good thing.”

  “All right, let’s check on our Brotherhood friends. Joe, pull up the last trail cam we put out.”

  He looked at the screen glowing eerily in his lap. “Nope, nobody has passed by, so hopefully, that means they stopped for the night before they got there.”

  “Okay, so, here’s the plan; we camp here for the night with guards posted for three-hour shifts, watching that last camera. If there is no movement, then we leave at first light. If we get movement, then we load up immediately and move on. Tomorrow, Dimitri, you find the best choke point to create the rockslide and make it happen, but we want as small a boom as possible to get the job done. No sense in letting them know we have access to high explosives. When we get to the road, we double-time it for as long as possible until we reach the new turnoff and follow our intersecting route to the trail that passes through Tamara’s village. Sound good?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Doc said, and everyone else agreed. We unloaded the mules, fed and watered them, and tried to get some sleep. First light came, and Reggie was going around waking everyone up; she had the last watch with no new movement at the last camera site.

  I was surprised I had fallen asleep as I shook the cobwebs out of my head. Getting up and gathering my wits, I said, “All right, everyone, fruit juice and energy bars, no time for breakfast, we’ve got a plan to execute; let’s move.” And move we did.

  Chapter Eleven

  Two hours later, Joe called to me, “Colt, check this out; they just got to the last trail cam.”

  I looked at the video, and sure enough, the Brotherhood guys were just passing by the camera.

  “So, they’re at least two hours behind us, not moving all that fast. I’m surprised. I wonder how far behind them the Vatican mercs are.”

  “I’ll keep
an eye on the camera and let you know,” Joe said.

  “Roger that, how far to the Inca Road?”

  Joe consulted his tablet and said, “About an hour away.”

  “Good, let’s hustle and find those choke points in the canyon. We’re going to burn up some of our lead setting the explosives.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the track started to narrow. The first place we came to was not optimal for our plan. Ten minutes later, we came to a narrow section of the canyon, maybe ten to twelve feet wide, with vertical sides approximately seventy feet or so tall. I took out the binoculars and checked out the upper ridge. It was hard to see at this extreme angle, but it looked like there were loose boulders lining the top.

  “Joe, break out the drone; we need to see what that topside ledge looks like. Dimitri, get a charge put together. Remember, not too big. The rest of you take the mules ahead and tie them off. Hustle, people; we’re on the clock.”

  Everyone sprang into action, and in five minutes, Joe had the drone in the air. Within minutes, I had a clear view of the top of the gorge. Sure enough, there were boulders stacked up and lying around, from basketball to Volkswagen Beetle size.

  “Dimitri, come here and check this out,” I handed him the tablet showing the video feed.

  “Can you make all that come down and fill this gorge?”

  He looked at the tablet and had Joe fly the drone around the edge twice, then turned and looked around the space where we were standing. After a few seconds and a second look at the drone video, he turned to me, grinning, and said, “Oh, hell yeah.”

  “Good, now how do we get the charge up there and set? That’s about seventy feet of pretty sheer wall to get up?”

  I hadn’t heard Eduardo come up; he had been standing behind me, listening to the conversation.

  He spoke up, “Senor Colt, I can get up there.”

  I looked at him and said, “No way, kid, this is way too dangerous; besides, that’s a hell of a climb.”