by Melissa Jane
“Can we trust you?”
“With my life.”
Dusk began to settle over the jungle. The day was spent discussing our approach, Alejandro already proving his worth. From his vantage point up the mountain he had a perfect view of the town. He told us the security weak points. He knew who would be sentry, when and where and how some would be easier to dispose of than others. So by the time we made tracks with the last bit of sun coming through the jungle’s canopy we were confident of what was about to go down throughout the evening.
Every hour on the hour the three sentries in the mountains marking a triangular perimeter would flash a light twice to indicate all was good in their section. The light would reach down to the center guard who was located on the ground in the middle of town. This gave us a window of opportunity. We had less than an hour.
“Jase, you take east, Alejandro and I will take west. By all accounts, the terrain looks almost identical, which means we should make it to the northern point around the same time, then we can advance from there.”
“Got it,” Jase nodded. “Where possible, keep it as up close and personal as you can. Even with silencers, it’s too dark to tell who else is close by.”
We made to head off in our designated directions when Jase grabbed my upper arm. I turned and saw the concern in his eyes.
“Keep Alejandro in your sight at all times.” We looked at the man who could very well be a Judas. “I sympathize with his story but if it comes down to it, if he compromises your position, kill him.”
We trudged through the thick of the jungle and over the steep terrain until we emerged again next to an exposed boulder. It had been our landmark signaling we had reached three-quarters of the way and were ahead of time. With the moonlight glimmering off its surface, we took a seat by its side.
Alejandro scooped up some loose stones and rolled them between his fingers, his ragged breath loud compared to the silent night.
“Would you have killed me back there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I know I won’t come out of this alive. But if you could, please save my sister and nephew. My mother has already disowned me as a child. So I don’t care if I die. But please don’t let them destroy what family I have left.”
I could hear the pleading in his tone and wanting to be able to promise him that I would endeavor to save them. But the truth was, the accounts told by Josiah and Arturo did not leave much room for hope.
“La Balsa is where my father lives.”
His eyes widened, whites shining. “You’re from La Balsa?”
“My mother is American, but my father has lived there his whole life. He has helped build that town from the ground up, so I intend to help end the violence and restore it.”
Alejandro looked at his watch, the rubber band barely still attached. “Only ten minutes left before the flash.”
“Game on.”
The moonlight shone through the thin splattering of trees that protected our target, covering his body with a silver glow. The only noise was our restrained footsteps lightly crunching the dry leaves and twigs beneath our boots, and the low whistle coming from the man who had no idea we were approaching.
A tap on the shoulder stilled me.
“Let me,” Alejandro whispered next to my ear.
Before I could respond, he continued his careful approach.
The whistling came to abrupt stop, replaced with a hacking cough. The soldier doubled over clutching his chest as his smoke affected lungs struggled for air. Taking advantage of the added noise, Alejandro quickened his pace. The target didn’t stand a chance. As he was recovering, the blade impaled into the spinal cord at the base of his skull. His body momentarily went into spasm before he fell to his knees, completely immobilized. Alejandro hadn’t let go of the knife, instead driving it in further with a hate-fueled passion. With a grunt, he pulled the blade free finally allowing the soldier to fall face down onto the jungle floor.
Breathing heavily, hands trembling with adrenalin, Alejandro wiped blood from the blade on the dead man’s shirt before turning to me, his eyes ablaze with a murderous fury.
“You good?” I asked my cautious tone and raised Glock pointed at Alejandro.
He nodded, swallowing hard, his eyes glazing over. “His name was Marco. He took great pleasure in retelling the story of what the Colonel did to my sister every night.” His now saddened gaze fell to the ground.
I lowered my weapon knowing he only acted out of his grief. Instead of thinking I needed to keep one eye trained on him, I now saw that he could be our greatest warrior.
“Look,” I pointed behind him where the bright spotlight flashed three times down to the watchman in the middle of town. Alejandro moved with speed to collect the flash and secure us another hour. I stood behind him as he too signaled three times to base.
“If we leave now, we should make it down in time to meet Jase.”
Alejandro nodded, dropping the torch before taking the lead. He’d spent a lot of time walking the jungle and I trusted his direction. We moved at speed, dodging protruding branches, taking turns at sliding down the steep terrain and navigating the large boulders that seem to be sporadically placed throughout the mountains. Sweat soaked through our clothes and I could taste it on my lips. We were edging closer to town, the laughter and banter of foot soldiers beginning to reach our ears. We slowed down to a crawl and scoped out the area. It appeared everything Arturo and Josiah had said was correct. The outer perimeter was scarred by the fire. A glow of lights came from the two designated areas where the men and women were being housed separately.
“Over there,” Alejandro pointed to the watch tower that was formally the church. “We need to kill them first if we stand a chance of getting close.”
“How many are usually in there?”
“Two, sometimes three.”
“Wait here, and keep an eye on the foot traffic around the area. If you see anyone else even get close to the tower, whistle.”
He nodded and watched as I made my way further up the mountain. I sat perched on a boulder in perfect line of my targets. Setting up my sniper rifle I looked through the scope and waited. The first guard appeared almost instantly, drifting in and out of focus. He wore a helmet and had already established a routine of walking to the western wall where he would prop up his arm and scan the town before walking away to watch the eastern side. Five minutes passed, and I was almost convinced he was the only sentry, when a second man appeared. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and didn’t seem too worried about what was happening beneath him. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he approached the first man.
“That’s it,” I coaxed silently to myself. “All in a line now.” I wanted to take them out with one bullet, not willing to risk giving away my position. My finger caressed the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment. The men were sharing a joke, the one smoking using elaborate hand gestures while he told his story.
And for the briefest of heartbeats, they fell into line.
“Thank you,” I breathed before pulling the trigger. Since one of them was wearing a helmet, I aimed for the neck allowing the bullet a clean exit and entry from one to the other. I could just make out a spray of blood coming from each man before they fell to the ground and out of sight.
“Let’s go!” Alejandro scrambling up the steep hill ushered for me to follow him.
“Changeover could happen at any time,” he warned keeping pace in front of me as we made our way to the base of the mountain. We had only just begun our journey toward the town when we came to an immediate halt.
“What’s that noise?” We both paused, carefully listening for the sound that was cause for concern.
We waited, Alejandro’s face creasing into a frown.
And there it was again, a loud bang muffled by the barrier of buildings. It was a small explosion occurring every minute or so.
“Tejo,” Alejandro guessed, waiting for a follow-up explosion.
“They�
�re playing Tejo in the midst of a massacre?”
Alejandro shrugged like it didn’t surprise him.
“At least they will be distracted,” he offered, and in a way, he had a point.
“Come on then.”
Skirting around the main buildings, we remained unnoticed. Gathering speed in places, and hiding out until it was safe, in others.
“There’s Jase.” I nodded to the lone figure behind the concrete wall of the watchtower. Spying around the corner, we waited until the coast was clear and sprinted across the opening.
“All good on your side?” I asked once we reached him.
“Couldn’t have gone smoother,” he replied, hooking his rifle over his shoulder before pausing. “What’s that sound?”
“Tejo.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What the fuck is Tejo?”
“Colombian national sport.”
“Right… I thought this was a war zone.”
I smiled. “Let’s go blindside them.”
It was clear, all the action was taking place in the center of town. There was little interference as we made our way further in, partly because the housing along the perimeter had been turned to ash in the initial assault. It was uninhabitable, a disaster zone. It certainly was not how I remembered La Balsa.
The space around us took on a faint glow as we got closer. A small building to the left, I recalled as being a produce stall for many years owned by one of the oldest couples in the area, provided us with shelter and an excellent vantage point.
“What in God’s name is that smell?” Jase moaned as we entered. He wasn’t wrong. It was so bad my eyes began watering.
“Rotten fruit,” I answered, gesturing to the upturned carts in the far corner that had decaying, soggy fruit that festered in the heat.
A gunshot had us hitting the dirty floor. All suffering over the foul stench, well and truly forgotten.
Whoever had fired was close, too close for comfort.
Somewhere beyond the shelter, screams erupted followed by the desperate pleas of a man begging for his life. We moved to our knees, the three of us spying out of the small broken window. Ahead, a man in his thirties was pulled by the hair, a gun barrel pressed to his temple. He stumbled and struggled against his aggressors until he was dumped in the middle of the road. There was a group of soldiers, all watching like it was their nightly entertainment. Only a few yards away a woman fended off the advances of a man who wasn’t going to be thwarted.
“We gonna let this happen?” Jase asked, and I could hear the guilt lacing his tone.
“You know the answer.”
The mission was clear and I wasn’t about to blow it on one man. There was a whole town to think of.
“Just checking,” he added, failing to hide the bite.
Jase was never okay with the loss of life. That’s not to say I was. But more so than often, I saw the bigger picture.
The man’s pleas for his life were met with a crack over the head with a rifle butt. He fell in a heap on the road but was quickly hoisted back to his knees by two soldiers.
“What should we do, eh?” he taunted in Spanish. “I know what I want to do. Bring her…” He jerked his head to the girl.
She was dragged over the dirt road to the soldier.
He drank her in. Her vulnerable, bound state only encouraging him further. Tenderly, but maliciously, he gripped her face, assessing the damage. She had a bloodied nose, yet her prettiness was still easy to see. The soldier, uncaring, ripped her dress. She sobbed, her breasts exposed. This sent the male hostage into a rage. He roared his hate, spitting and cursing at the soldiers. They laughed at his reaction. The man was giving them exactly what they wanted. To add salt to the wound, the soldier groped, making a show out of the assault. He turned her face to her partner.
A silent apology passed between them, both knowing what was coming. With her standing and him still on his knees, a Glock was placed in her hands. The soldier folded his fingers encased hers before the gun was raised.
She shook violently, despite the soldier holding her in place.
“This is fucking bullshit,” Jase swore under his breath, and I couldn’t disagree. Here we were three grown men in the midst of the jungle, cowering in the darkness in a rat-infested shed, watching as a woman was coerced into shooting her lover. The soldier whispered in her ear, placing another Glock to her temple.
She cried, begging for mercy she knew she wouldn’t get.
The soon to be dead man demanded she pull the trigger, foolishly believing that if she did, she would be spared.
“Hagalo!” the man demanded of her.
“What’s he saying?” Jase asked.
“Do it,” Alejandro replied. He was next to me, wide-eyed and devastated.
The soldier pressed harder against her temple until her head tilted to the side.
“Hagalo, hagalo,” the lover once again bellowed to his trembling partner.
I could bet on my life it wasn’t her who pulled the trigger.
It wasn’t her who made the fatal decision.
She was just a puppet.
The Glock fired, the boom bouncing between the surrounding buildings.
The demands came to a stop.
The pleas were no more.
The man’s lifeless body fell backward onto the road, the cries of his desperate lover mixed cruelly with sneers and laughter of the taunting soldiers.
“Fuck me!” Jase slid down the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, eyes staring into the putrid darkness. “Estimated number of assholes we need to take out?”
I mirrored Jase’s position and looked to Alejandro for an answer
“Many have left after the initial invasion. Estimated fifty have stayed.”
“How are they feeding all of them? There would hardly be enough for soldiers and villagers since no one is working the fields,” Jase asked. “The villagers come off second best?”
Alejandro gave a grim nod.
“We’ve got to move.” I was first to my feet, peering through the window. The coast was clear.
The soldiers had moved on, leaving the body to rot in the middle of the road.
“There’s a fork in the road further up. The soldiers are staying in civilian housing near the school where the women are being held and the coca fields on the other side.”
“Eating their cake too I see,” Jase quipped
“I think that was their plan.”
These soldiers were ‘living it up’ only mere steps away from getting high on coca leaves and easy access to raping all the women they wanted.
My blood ran cold. It was three against fifty.
If we failed the entire La Balsa community would be killed and no doubt the women, the ones that survived, would be taken as sex slaves.
“Shouldn’t we reach the men first? They can add to our numbers.”
“All good in theory but these men have wives, mothers, daughters and nieces locked away. We don’t need a hundred men acting impulsively and blowing the plan in order to save one person. We get the women out and send them over the mountains and to the Ecuadorian border until it’s safe.”
Jase jumped to his feet hooking his rifle over his shoulder. “Right, let’s blow some shit up.”
The fork in the road led us to the side of a building that had gas lamps ablaze but no movement.
“Two coming this way, bro,” Jase said casually, peering around the corner at the two sentries on duty.
“One each,” I instructed, pulling my weapon of choice free. “Get down,” I ordered Alejandro.
He did as he was told eyeing the metal glistening in the moonlight. The soldiers walked straight past the corner wall of a building we had taken cover behind. They were lost in conversation and inhaling on cigars, completely unaware.
“Go,” I urged.
Jase opted for a completely hands-on approach. With a tap on the shoulder, he waited until his guy had turned just enough before connecting his fist to th
e soldier’s jaw. At the same time I wrapped my garrotte wire around my soldier’s throat. Jase rounded on his, snapping the man’s neck with one fluid motion, while I sliced through the carotid arteries of my soldier. A thin spray of blood coated the gravel but would go unnoticed.
Together they fell, hitting the ground in unison. We were too close to the school to use guns even with silencers. Dragging the dead weights behind the building, we met the wide-eyed stare of Alejandro.
“Who are you guys?” he finally stumbled as I cleaned my wire.
Jase smiled knowingly, not having the heart to tell him worse was yet to come.
“Throw it amongst them.”
Jase raised his brows in question. “You want me to throw a flashbang into a room of already fragile women and their gun-wielding captors?”
“Yes.”
Alejandro rubbed his head, seemingly also doubting my plan.
“The sudden noise and flash will send many, if not all, to the ground. The soldiers will be confused because it’s come from within the room they’re guarding. All their attention will be focused inward toward each other. The men outside playing Tejo is our greatest advantage right now.”
We all stopped and watched from our safe zone, while a group of six men played the game. It involved throwing the metal puck about twenty yards in the hope it hits its target causing the explosion.