VENGEANCE REAWAKENED
Page 15
Abreu put hands to hips. “I know someone was in here.” His eyes locked on the backdoor’s break-in damage. “I told you to just see if it was unlocked. Why did you fuck it all up?”
“I didn’t do that,” Felipe said. “I was going to tell you it was already like that.”
Abreu’s face snarled at Felipe. “When were you going to tell me? After I searched the place a few more times?” He moved to the backdoor and gazed outside. “Whoever was in here did this to get in, and it’s also how they got out.”
“Now what?” Felipe said.
Abreu kicked the door closed. “Fuck it. Let’s go home.”
“What about Mr. Cardoza? He’ll be waiting to hear from us tomorrow.”
“Fuck Cardoza too. He rolls into my favela and into my crib and gives me orders. I’ve chopped up motherfuckers for a lot less than that.”
“Why don’t you?” Felipe said.
“Shut up.”
Abreu and Felipe exited through the front door.
Molka’s ear remained pressed to the false wall during Abreu and Felipe’s conversations, but their voices were too muffled for her to discern.
She listened for another full five minutes of silence before daring to slide the wall back a crack and put an eye to it. She viewed across the room, out the open bedroom door, and into the main room.
No one in sight.
She slid the wall all the way open and eased from the hidden room—weapon first—and then eased into the main room.
Intruders gone.
Time to leave.
Molka holstered her weapon, ran back into the hidden room, grabbed her gear bag, ran out the backdoor, and ran back down the narrow alley toward the street and her car.
She reached the alley’s end, turned the corner, and startle-stopped.
A muscular mass in a red muscle shirt, tight blue jeans, and black boots leaned against her car’s left front fender.
She recognized the massive man from the Major Fernandes’ briefing: Alejandro Abreu, also known as ‘The Bull,’ acting boss of the CV in Esperança.
Also new on the scene was a white SUV parked across the street parallel to Molka’s vehicle holding two younger males and emitting a strong cannabis aroma.
Abreu grinned at Molka’s unamused face and then spoke over his shoulder at the two males in the SUV. “Told you!” He focused back on Molka. “I told them you’d be back. This car is too new and nice for this street.”
Molka stood silent.
Abreu eyed her. “Find anything good in there, officer?”
Don’t speak! He’ll know you’re a foreigner and a fraud.
Molka remained silent.
Abreu continued. “I see you took off all your identification patches for your…off the record break-in and stealing. Smart. Who you with?”
Molka remained silent.
“Are you one of Cardoza’s people?”
Molka remained silent.
Abreu’s face became annoyed. “It don’t matter who you’re with or who you are. You know who I am. And I know you found out about that dumb fucker who killed himself today and decided to rob his apartment before the detectives got in there. Because I know how crooked you fuckers who work in this favela are. But I don’t blame you. Your pay is shit. Let’s see what you got so we can split it.”
Molka remained silent.
Obviously, she couldn’t allow Abreu to look in the bag.
She needed to leave. Fast.
Molka moved toward the driver's door.
Abreu side stepped from the fender and put his back to the door. “You’re not leaving until we split the take.”
No more debate. Move him and leave.
Molka quick-drew her weapon and pointed at Abreu’s stomach. The position of her gun hand was unseeable to the SUV pot smokers across the street.
Abreu smirked at the Ruger. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
Molka nodded, she would, and motioned with the barrel for him to move aside.
One of the pot smokers called out: “Bull, everything ok?”
“Just chill,” Abreu said. “Stay in the car.” He addressed Molka again. “You know, if you kill ‘The Bull.’ my people will kill 100 of yours and then get to work on your families. Now cut the shit and put the gun away.” He planted his rear end against the driver's door. “I’m not moving until I look in that bag.”
Unfortunately, for her situation, shooting Abreu to move him out of her way and escalating the blood-filled war between the CV and the police was not an option she could live with.
And unfortunately, option two was something she might not be able to live with too.
Because it could kill her.
To the positive, her position on the curb and his slouched, relaxed stance against the car made him ripe for a front kick to the face. But could she put enough behind the kick to fell a beast his size? A beast who wrestled professionally and probably took many hard face shots even in mock combat.
What would Yossi say?
He would say use the new double kick variation he taught her during their recent sparring sessions.
Ok, Yossi.
Abreu spread his arms. “Well, we gonna do this tonight?”
Molka smiled, nodded, and holstered her weapon.
Abreu nodded, satisfied. “Good. Toss me the bag.”
In blink-fast motions, Molka tossed the bag to Abreu, fired a left boot front kick into his groin, bending him over, and snapped off a right foot jump kick, impacting his forehead.
Abreu dropped the bag and dropped unconscious.
Molka snatched the bag, pulled out her keys, unlocked the car, and jumped into the driver seat.
The SUV pot smokers cursed, opened their doors, and stumbled into the street.
Molka started the vehicle and sizzled rubber leaving.
The pot smokers—one being Felipe and the other a teen CV soldier—watched her leave, looked at each other, and then looked to their boss struggling to his hands and knees.
Felipe ran to Abreu and helped him stand. “Bull, you ok?”
“Not yet,” Abreu said.
“Want to go after her?”
“She’s already out of the favela by now.” Abreu took two deep breaths and stumbled back but caught himself before he fell. “Damn, that lady cop shoots stiff.” He grinned at his own professional wrestling reference and then started to laugh.
Felipe and the teen CV soldier laughed along with him.
Then the teen said: “And Cardoza’s going to laugh his ass off too when he finds out ‘The Bull’ got laid out by a woman cop.”
“No, Cardoza won’t laugh his ass off,” Abreu said. “Because Cardoza’s not going to find out.” He snatched the teen by the neck with his right hand and raised him into the air.
The teen clutched Abreu’s gigantic forearm and started choking out fast.
Felipe yelled with frenzy: “No, Bull! Chill! Chill! Let him go! He won’t say nothing! Neither of us will!”
Abreu dropped the teen.
The teen gasped for air.
Abreu moved toward the SUV. “Fuck it. Let’s go home.”
PROJECT MOLKA: TASK 6
WEDNESDAY
APRIL 21ST
CHAPTER 29
Counsel Basement Office
Israeli Embassy
Brasilia, Brazil
2:10 PM
After a predawn airport parking lot meeting with Maximillian to return his gear, Molka’s early morning flight to Rio put her back in the basement before 9 AM.
Her VC message to Raziela was returned with the number 120.
She spent the two hours by going back to their apartment, working out in the apartment complex’s little gym, eating some oatmeal, showering, changing into a white polo shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals before returning to the basement with 30 minutes to spare.
She used that time to boot up a cubicle computer and check out a couple of news websites from Rio, which reported four shootings the previous day in th
e Esperança favela.
CV vs Police.
Police vs CV.
IDI vs CV.
CV vs IDI.
But no reports about a public suicide.
If no one acknowledges your death, did you ever really live?
Molka’s video conference report of her clean-up errand in the safehouse and her surprise encounter with Abreu drew the following response from a nonplussed Raziela: “Nice work. And you did the perfect thing concerning Abreu.”
Molka gave Raziela’s onscreen image a perplexed stare. “You’re not freaked he showed up at the safehouse?”
“No,” Raziela said. “I expected it. Just not so soon. Good thing I sent you last night. Today might have been too late.”
“Last night was almost too late. Why did you expect him?”
“It stands to reason Cardoza would ask his favela-king associate to find out about the IDI assassin who came to kill him.”
“But what about Abreu telling Cardoza of the rogue female police officer he caught in the assassin’s apartment?”
Raziela grinned. “Don’t sweat that. Cardoza would want to know what Abreu found her taking from the apartment. But he can’t tell him that he doesn’t know because the rogue female police officer knocked him out in his own favela. He would be laughed out of the place. The favela is a very machismo culture.”
Molka’s eyebrows rose. “Ok. If you say so.”
“In spite of that; notwithstanding, and all the same, something much more important came up for you to worry about.”
Molka sighed. “Now what?”
“I heard back from Tel Aviv. After the unfortunate failure of our contractor to remove Cardoza, it’s now been decided that we will inform the Ministry of Justice that Yakov Andreyev, aka Gabriel Cardoza, is still alive and where he’s been hiding the past 11 years. Of course, it will take some time for them to conduct their investigation and then request Brazil detain Cardoza while extradition is negotiated. And that poses a big problem.”
Molka nodded. “That problem being Cardoza’s close relationship with the president, which could make extradition very complicated and lengthy. And with Cardoza’s resources and connections, it’s a good possibility he’ll flee to another country with even less chances of getting extradited. Like right across the border into Venezuela.”
Raziela’s face alit. “Yes! You’re all over this task now! Very good, baby sister!”
Molka smirked. “Thank you, older sister.”
“Please call me big sister. So, for the reasons you stated, it’s also been decided that before the evidence on Cardoza is turned over to the Ministry of Justice, he’s to be brought back to our country and detained.”
“How do they plan on pulling that off?”
“With your help,” Raziela said. “Your task is now to bring Cardoza into the embassy, detain him, and wait for a special team to arrive from Tel Aviv to take custody of him and covertly fly him out of Brazil and back to our country.”
Molka’s eyebrows rose again. “You want me to kidnap him?”
“I want you to bring him into the embassy and detain him by any means necessary.”
“Assuming I can get him into the embassy, where do you want me to detain him?”
“Right there in the basement,” Raziela said. “Once you have him in there, the extraction team will arrive within 24-hours.”
“Alright. What’s the new plan?”
Raziela shrugged, “You tell me? It’s your task. You’ll have to make a new plan for it yourself. I have my hands full here. But I do have a suggestion to get you started if you want to hear it.”
“Please.”
“Ask Marvelous to give you all the tracking info on Cardoza’s vehicles for the past month and look for any regular travel routes and times and then analyze those routes for a good place and time to intercept him.”
“That’s a good suggestion,” Molka said.
“When you get your plan fully formulated, call me back for a briefing and my approval. But take a day to rest and clear your mind. You’re basically starting your task all over.”
Raziela ended the call, and the screen went blue.
CHAPTER 30
Setting aside the personal, irreversible trauma the tasks had already inflicted on Molka, her first task was hard because the first time you do anything new and complicated, it’s hard.
Her second task was harder than the first one because Sago was always one step ahead of her thinking.
Her third task was harder than the first two because she had to outsmart two geniuses.
Her fourth task was harder than the first three because she had to accomplish it while babysitting the wild and unpredictable Project Laili.
And her fifth task was harder than the first four because it ended with her hovering near death in the hospital.
Azzur told her early on that the tasks would only get harder.
Fine. She had accepted that and prepared her mind for it.
But she had not prepared her mind to get right to the very end of a task, have it snatched away, and be told she would have to do it all over again.
Molka removed her last load of laundry from a dryer in the apartment complex’s laundry room, packed it into a pillowcase she used as a laundry bag, and headed back toward the apartment. At least she had all clean clothes to restart her task in.
But even if she took the whole day to rest—as Raziela suggested—it wouldn’t clear her mind.
Her mind wouldn’t be clear until she finished all her tasks.
Her mind wouldn’t be clear until she finished the one she would die to kill.
Molka entered the apartment, tossed the pillowcase on the couch, removed Raziela’s phone from her purse on the kitchen table, pulled up the Marvelous app, and spoke into the phone on speaker mode: “Marvelous, Project Molka.”
Speaker voice: “Project Molka, Marvelous. Authenticate.”
Molka framed her face within a red box on screen.
Speaker voice: “Authenticating Project Molka. Stand-by.”
CHAPTER 31
Lake Tranquility
140 Kilometers Northeast of Rio de Janeiro
10:11 PM
A rented, 25-foot, 200HP outboard-powered, open fishing boat lay anchored about 300-meters offshore from Cardoza’s well-lit estate.
At the boat’s control console sat the fit, white male, in his 40s with deep blue eyes, short dark hair and a close-cropped dark beard who chased the Ghost Crew and the Kozlov brothers across the Brazil-Venezuela border and later met with Cardoza’s man Dimitri in the Rio bar. He dressed in a navy-blue tee shirt, khaki shorts, and sockless sneakers.
Seated side-by-side on a padded bench in the boat’s bow were two fit, clean-shaven white males, in their 30s. One wore a red tee shirt with his khaki shorts and sockless sneakers, and the other a green tee shirt with his khaki shorts and sockless sneakers.
Beside all three men, rented fishing poles stuck into rod holders were cast bait-less into the smooth, black, Lake Tranquility waters on a warm, humid night while a million-frog chorus sang from the nearest vegetation.
The bearded man at the console removed military-grade binoculars from a gray tackle box near his feet and raised them to observe the rear of Cardoza’s main house. As on the previous night, no less than three thin to wiry-built males—each sporting an identical buzzed haircut, identical black tactical tee shirts, black tactical pants, and black tactical boots and carrying Ak-47s—stood guard on the house’s pool deck protecting all the rear entrances.
He swung the binoculars to the left and scanned the estate’s tall and extensive perimeter wall. Two more AK-47 guards stood posted just outside the closed entrance gate, and two stood posted just inside it. And another AK-47 armed guard—walking alongside the wall’s interior—passed by the gate every 10 minutes. Which—when taking into account the estate’s vast size—must have required a roving patrol of no less than 15.
Dimitri was right. While on the estate, the Koz
lov brothers were too well protected for the resources he had available. A much more unconventional plan would be required to capture them and take them out of the country.
Movement at the main house’s rear caught the bearded man’s attention. He swung the binoculars back over to observe Cardoza and the Kozlovs—all dressed in open-collar dress shirts and dress pants—making their way down stone steps toward the estate’s two-story, two-slip boathouse berthing a gold, ultra-sleek, 40-foot race-style boat.
“Here they come,” the bearded man said.
The red tee-shirted man checked his watch. “Same time as last night.”
The bearded man spoke again. “Dimitri said it’d become a pre-bedtime ritual.”
Cardoza and the Kozlov brothers boarded the boat without an escort. A moment later, the two powerful motors started and grumbled loud enough to drown out the frog chorus.
The younger Kozlov cast off the lines, and Cardoza at the controls backed the boat from the slip and swung it around at high speed. When the boat’s bow pointed toward the lake’s center, Cardoza buried the throttles and, with a high whine, the boat jumped forward.
The three men in the fishing boat watched Cardoza tear a high-speed lap around the entire lake.
When Cardoza sped by them for a second lap—at about a 100-meter distance—the green tee-shirted man said, “What if this isn’t a nightly ritual? Or what if this is the last time they do it?”
“What are you saying?” the bearded man said.
“I’m saying let’s take them now. We’re here. They’re here. They’re away from their army of guards.”
“I agree,” the red tee-shirted man said.
The bearded man said, “And what will we do with them until the extraction team arrives?”
“Keep them in our cabin,” the green tee-shirted man said.
The bearded man said, “But it might be three days or more until the extraction team is ready.”
The red tee-shirted man stood, lifted his seat cushion, and removed an MP5 submachine gun. “We can do it.”