Hunter Killer

by Brad Taylor

  The Hotel Villa Amazonia was a pretty high-class establishment, maybe the best in Manaus, but it was small, with only three floors, each with twelve rooms, and you still had to put your toilet paper in the trash instead of flushing it, something that annoyed me no end. The last time I’d had to do that, I’d been shitting in a palace Saddam Hussein used to own, not paying for a five-star hotel.

  It had a small pool out back and a bar inside, with the second floor above the lobby housing a restaurant with about ten tables. Each room faced out to the pool, a sliding glass door leading to a tiny balcony that ran the length of the hotel with only potted plants separating one room’s balcony from the next.

  The hotel had a modern key-card system, which, given my limited Taskforce reach-back capability, was something I wouldn’t be able to crack, but the sliding glass doors were typical—meaning it had a cheap tubular hook-lock. Which made sense, because who would climb up the outside wall to the balcony, in full view of the pool, to break into a room?

  Me. That’s who.

  We entered the restaurant above the hotel lobby and walked to the elevators, taking it up one floor. I passed by a maid and unlocked the door to our room, waiting until Jennifer was inside before I began my pre-mission questions. I closed the door and said, “You’re good with the door lock, right?”

  She said, “Yes. I can get in.”

  “And the hotel safe? You can bypass that?”

  “Yes. Pike, you watched me practice.”

  “Okay, okay, but if something goes bad, you climb up, not down. Get back to our room.”

  Exasperated, she said, “Pike, I’m more worried about your climbing skills to get down than you should be about my lock picking. Let’s go.”

  The target rooms were located right next to each other on the second floor. She had one room, and I had the other. To get there we had to climb down, and she was giving me a not-so-subtle jab that there were some things she was better at than me. Not many, but climbing was one of them.

  I smiled at her and said, “Touché, little spider monkey. Touché.” I keyed my radio, saying, “Carrie, we’re about to enter. You and Aaron got the front?”

  “Roger all.”

  Aaron came on, saying, “But someone’s going to pay for the appetizers. Not sure how much longer we can stay. We’ve eaten the entire menu.”

  Knowing he was telling me they had been there long enough to cause someone to question, I said, “Thirty minutes, max, and we’re out. Just give us early warning of the target returning. Break, break, Blood, what’s your status?”

  “You’re good. I’m out here in the boondocks about a half hour from the city center. They went down a dirt road into the jungle. I didn’t follow.”

  “Dirt road? Does it lead somewhere else? Can they get back here without you seeing them?”

  I heard a touch of disgust. “Pike, I’ve been doing this more than a day. Unless that minivan can turn into a fan boat, they’re coming back out the same way they went in.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I have no idea. The mission was early warning, not identification of actions. You want me to interdict now?”

  “No, no. You’re good. It’s just strange is all. We’re about to enter the rooms. Break, break, Knuckles, are you at the pool?”

  “Roger all. And you’re cleared to execute. Pool area is empty.”

  “Make sure you interdict anyone trying to enter the back courtyard.”

  “Got it.”

  I looked at Jennifer and she let a grin slink out, saying, “It’s showtime.”

  I smiled and moved to the sliding glass door, pulling it open and looking down. I saw Knuckles on a chair drinking something frothy, but nobody else. He casually raised a thumb. I exited, followed by Jennifer. We both took a look over the balcony, judging how to get down.

  It was only a four-foot drop from the hang, but those four feet were huge, because a miss would turn into thirty. She came up next to me, bumped my hip, and said, “I’ll catch you if you fall,” and then launched over the railing like a spider monkey crawling down a vine.

  I leaned over and watched her drop onto the balcony below us. I crawled over the railing, shimmied down, and hung, my feet swinging in the air. Which was the moment of truth. I had to hit the balcony below, but in order to do so, I had to fall at an angle.

  I hated this type of shit.

  I heard, “On the balcony. Pike? Status?”

  And I started a slight swing. I went back, then forth, then back, then let go, trusting I was in the sweet spot.

  I cleared the railing, but not far enough for my upper body. I slammed into the iron, grunted, then heard Knuckles say, “Pike, you okay?”

  Knuckles had seen the fall, but I’d be damned if I would give Jennifer ammunition. Holding my side, I squeezed out, “I’m set. Keep eyes on.”

  I heard, “Yeah, sure. That looked textbook. Except I saw Koko.”

  I knew I’d never hear the end of it and set about working my lock. Within seconds, I called, “I’m in. Koko, status?”

  “Still working.”

  And I took a satisfactory victory lap, but said nothing on the net. No reason to rub it in.

  I entered, seeing the room layout was just like ours. There was a small suitcase on the floor and I went through it, finding nothing but clothes, then turned to the hotel safe, seeing the same brand that was in my room.

  Everyone is encouraged to put their valuables in the room safe, but no hotel will tell you that the safe itself is a joke. You believe it’s secure because you give it a secret passcode that only you know, but the hotel has to have an ability to access the safe if you forget the code or if you just leave after setting it. The concept was sort of ridiculous, really. People put their most valuable belongings in a safe that had no protection whatsoever at the end of the day.

  I pried off the brand plate, seeing a normal lockset, and went to work. I didn’t have the master key the hotel did, but I had a skill that would defeat it.

  Within seconds, I had it open, seeing a laptop computer. I pulled it out, hooked up a DragonBall extraction tool to the computer’s USB port—a special Taskforce device designed to drain the entire hard drive—and let it work. While it did so, I placed three recording devices in the room: one under the bedside table, one behind the television, and one in the bathroom.

  I waited on the DragonBall to do its thing, thinking about drinking the bottle of free water on the counter, then heard, “Pike, Koko. I’ve got nothing over here. No computer, no tablet, no phone.”

  I said, “Not a problem. I’ve got a laptop. Place the listening devices. We’ll get something from them.”

  “There is a pile of cash on the table, with a note in Portuguese. American dollars. And it’s a lot.”

  I thought through what that could mean, then said, “Let it go. Don’t touch it. Place the bugs and take a picture of the note.”

  She said, “Roger.”

  I watched the DragonBall drain the computer, seeing it go from 20 percent to 50. Like every human on the planet who’s ever conducted a download, I wondered how accurate the readout was. If it was like my computer at home, one second it would say “20 minutes remaining” and the next second it would jump to “12 minutes remaining,” before jumping back to “1 hour remaining.”

  I took a seat in the only chair in the room, watching the readout, and then heard, “Pike, this is Koko. Someone’s at my door.”

  Chapter 64

  I jerked upright, saying, “A maid?”

  I heard her running, her breath exhaling, and then, “No. He had a key. I’m in the bathroom.”

  Shit.

  I stood up, looking at the balcony door that separated us. I said, “Do I need to interdict?”

  I heard a whisper. “No, no. I’m okay. He’s in the bedroom. He won’t come here.”

  I didn’t believe her. I went out on the balcony, walked over the plants that separated the rooms, and sidled right next to her door, saying, “C
arrie, Aaron, who the fuck is this?”

  Shoshana came back, “There was only one guy who entered the hotel since you dropped. A local. Not the target.”

  I saw movement inside, but couldn’t determine what was happening. I said, “Roger. Koko, Koko, you still okay?”

  She whispered, “Yes. I’m good. I’m in the tub, behind the shower curtain. Whatever he’s doing, he won’t find me unless he wants to take a bath.”

  I saw the shadow leave the doorway and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I heard a crashing, followed by a single shout, “Pike!”

  I jerked open the sliding door and saw Jennifer half out of the bathroom, held in a headlock by some Brazilian guy that looked like he’d taken steroids his entire life, a single teardrop tattoo on his face right below his left eye. He caught my movement, whirled in my direction, and torqued Jennifer’s neck, causing her to scream.

  I held up my hands and said, “Hey, hey, let’s not get crazy here. Let her go.”

  He didn’t understand my words. He stretched Jennifer’s neck again, and I heard her grunt. I knew he was close to killing her. Seeing her in his embrace caused my body to begin to vibrate, looking for release, but I knew he could end her life before I could reach him.

  It was like watching Kurt’s death all over again. I was impotent.

  Panting, squeezing my fists, wanting nothing more than to replace myself with her, I said, “Let her go.”

  He backed into the wall, his eyes wild, looking for an escape. I held up my hands again, trying to calm him, and Jennifer felt the wall behind her. She pushed off, gained space, and then walked up it with her feet, using his own grip to allow it. He started to turn at her motion and her body reached parallel to the floor.

  In the flash of an eye, she rose above him, her head popping out of his hold. She pushed off the wall with her feet, flipped in the air, and landed on his shoulders like a Chinese circus act, cinching his head between her legs. Her momentum carried both of them down, him slamming his chin on the marble floor in an explosion of blood and her landing on his back. The weight of her body snapped his neck like a piece of rotten wood. His eyes went slack. She rolled away.

  I was honestly stunned. I had never seen Jennifer go beast mode in person. It was on tape, one fabled in the Taskforce, when she’d killed a man who had assassinated a teammate, but I’d never seen it in person. In that moment I realized something profound. Jennifer wasn’t my better half. No matter what she said on the surface, she was a killer.

  She sat upright, saw the damage, and went white in the face. She said, “He was . . .”

  I cut her off, saying, “No time for that bullshit. We need to get him out of here.”

  I started thinking about what we could do and heard, “This is Blood, we’re ten minutes out. I hope you’re complete.”

  Well, that’s just fucking perfect.

  I said, “We have a problem. We need a delay.”

  Shoshana came on, saying, “What delay? Get out.”

  I hissed, “We need a delay because you missed a threat. Stop them from entering.”

  Shoshana said nothing back. I turned to Jennifer, seeing she was still a little out of it. I said, “Jenn, check the door. See what’s out there.”

  I started cleaning up the blood on the floor and she turned from the peephole, saying, “There’s a maid in the hallway.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  On the net, I said, “Knuckles, what’s poolside?”

  He said, “Nothing. Just me. And it’s getting dark.”

  I said, “Okay, we’re exfilling out of here. Body will be in the foliage at the end of the pool.”

  Shoshana said, “Seriously? Body? That’s not going to work.”

  I said, “We have nothing else. If the targets enter, stop those fucks at the door. I don’t care how. Stop them.”

  I hoisted the carcass into a fireman’s carry and said, “Jenn. The door.”

  She stared at the body on my shoulder, and I said, “Jennifer. Open the door.”

  She did so, and I walked down the balcony, going two rooms over until I was at the last room on the floor. I looked below me, seeing nothing but shrubbery. I dropped the body into the foliage, the fall loud as hell in my mind.

  I crouched for a second, waiting, then Knuckles said, “No reaction. Get back to the room.”

  I scuttled back to Jennifer, saying, “Close the sliding door.”

  She did so, now focused, and I said, “Let’s get back to our room.”

  She nodded, and I laced my hands together, giving her a foothold. She repeated my maneuver, holding her own hands at my knee. She said, “I’m pretty sure I’m not the one that needs the help.”

  And she was right. I winked at her and said, “Good job in there.” Before she could react, I put my right foot into her hands and hoisted up, grabbing the railing of the balcony above us.

  I raced upward, cleared the balcony, and saw her right behind me, somehow climbing faster than I had without any help.

  Chapter 65

  Alek entered his room, opened the minibar, pulled out a beer, and sagged into a chair. For once, things were working out. He took a long pull, then heard a knock on his door. Aggravated, he stood up and opened it, seeing Pushka.

  He said, “What now?”

  “The money is still there. They didn’t take it.”

  Confused, Alek said, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the money is still on my table.”

  Alek thought a moment, then said, “Well, they’ve lost their right to it. I’m leaving tonight. You stay until it’s full dark, then replace the weapons. If they didn’t want the money, that’s on them.”

  And then he heard the police sirens. Alek looked at Pushka, but neither one could explain the noise, and it grew closer and closer. Eventually, it was right outside the hotel.

  Alek walked onto the balcony and saw a flurry of people by the pool, along with someone on a stretcher, his face covered.

  He ducked back into the room and said, “I think I know why the money wasn’t taken.”

  “Why?”

  Alek ignored him, dialing a cell phone. When it answered, he said, “Sir, we have an issue here.”

  He heard, “Tell me the target is gone.”

  “Yes, sir, the target is gone. Dead, and there’s no connection to us. But there’s a police presence at our hotel. The man you sent to collect the money is dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m looking at the police getting ready to wrap his ass up in a body bag!”

  Alek heard nothing for a moment, then an ice-cold voice. “How do you know the man you’re looking at is the contact?”

  Alek took a breath, relaxing. What Nikita said was true. “I don’t know. You’re right. It could be anyone. But the money is still in Pushka’s room.”

  “Can you see him?”

  Alek walked to the balcony, saying, “Yeah, I can now. He’s surrounded by the police, but he’s splayed out on the ground.”

  “Does he have a tattoo on his face? A teardrop under his eye?”

  Alek stared hard, saying, “I can’t tell. His face is hidden. Why? Is that the man?”

  Alek saw the dead body hoisted onto a stretcher, and then hauled down the walkway. He heard, “You need to make sure,” and the stretcher reached the light. He saw the teardrop on the face.

  He said, “It’s him. I see the tattoo. Who is he?”

  For the first time, Alek heard fear from Nikita. He said, “That’s irrelevant now. The Americans are there. They’ve found you. Get back to Rio, right now. Get out of there.”

  Alek said, “Americans? Here? I thought you took care of them.”

  “So did I, but clearly that’s not the case. Get out of there and come here, tonight.”

  A man who’d seen his fair share of disasters, most staring down the barrel of a gun, Alek let the problem set swirl in his brain for a moment, like a blender mixing things until it created something new.

>   He said, “Sir, you’re wrong. We’re okay here. Why would an American team kill the contact and not interdict me or Pushka? Why leave the body outside the pool instead of in our room? And why let me eliminate the minister if they knew I was here? That makes no sense. We’ve had no contact at all here, and we’ve been looking. There was one woman who I thought was tracking us, but she ended up being with some guy who was clearly a tourist. He’s from Israel, and more out of place here than we are.”

  Alek heard nothing from the phone, and plowed ahead, saying, “Sir, this death is from something that jackass did. It’s not an indicator for us. How well did you know him, if I may ask?”

  He walked back into the room from the balcony, waiting on the answer. After a moment, Nikita said, “You may be right. He was recommended because of his ability to get weapons, but I don’t know his history. He wanted to transfer the weapons at the hotel, and I told him that was not happening. But I let stand the transfer of money in the room, which I’m now regretting. Whatever happened, you’re compromised just by the police presence.”

  Alek knew he was right. He put the phone on speaker and said, “Okay, sir. I have Pushka here. Where are we going?”

  “Come here to Rio de Janeiro. We have a new safe house. Luca and Simon figured out where the ombudsman is living. She was discharged from the hospital and went home. I’m now sitting in it.”

  “So she’s dead as well? We only have one more target?”

  “No. Not yet. When we leave here, it will be a murder, and I’m hoping she succumbs to her wounds first. In the meantime, we need to kill the next target just like you killed the last, as an accident.”

  Alek nodded his head, saying, “Okay, sir. Okay. Since the contact is dead, do I need to replace the weapons?”

  “Yes. We fulfill our obligations. If no one retrieves them, it’s not on us.”

  “Got it. No issues. Do we know the final target’s pattern of life?”

  “Yes. He’s going to an event on Sugarloaf Mountain. We have a plan, and it’s a little bit like yours. A little crazy, but once we get rid of him, our chosen candidate will win. There will be nobody else.”