by Ross Sidor
Avery launched himself at the table, grabbed onto it, and flipped it over onto its side. He threw his body behind the overturned table, ducked, and folded into a tight ball. He tucked his head in, covered his organs, and prepared to be ripped to pieces.
The grenades kicked off, one after another, like loud firecrackers, the noise amplified in the close confines of the suite. There was the terrifying sound of shrapnel blasting into the ceiling above Avery and the walls around him. The sliding glass doors shattered behind him. He felt the heat of the blasts and smelled the burning sulfur stench of the smoke. The table top shielded him from the tiny, jagged metal pellets cutting through the air. Most of the fragments became embedded in the thick, solid wood in front of him, while a few of the larger ones went right through. Avery felt the wood splinter against his face, taking a couple through his cheek, and he felt something hot and sharp go through his left shoulder, slicing through the meat of the deltoid, and he cried out. Pieces of glass hit him and showered the carpet around him.
And then quiet and calm settled over the smoky, wrecked suite.
There was tonal ringing in Avery’s ears, and everything sounded muffled, as if he had cotton stuffed into his ears. There were frantic and frightened voices from the neighboring suite. A woman screamed hysterically for help, and doors slammed and more voices shouted in the hallway. The paper-thin walls were shredded.
As Avery bolted onto his feet, painfully lifting the Glock two-handed and swinging it around over the top of the table toward the entrance to the suite, to track the inevitable enemy entry, he heard the impact of a shot bore through the underside of a table right where his head would have been less than a second ago had he not been in the process of jumping up.
It came from behind him, but he hadn’t heard the subsonic round whiz past his head.
Fucking sniper!
Avery sidestepped away from the table and ran right. Every muscle in his body tensed as he envisioned a set of crosshairs tracking him. As he reached the bedroom, he just glimpsed through his left peripheral someone entering the kitchen from behind the fridge.
Crossing the threshold into the bedroom, Avery saw that instead of a solid exterior wall, there were more sliding glass doors for terrace access, as well as conceivably providing the sniper line of sight into this room as well.
Avery turned left, wanting to get as deep into the room as possible and find cover on the floor behind the bed or in the bathroom, but the sniper was ready for him, and he barely made it two steps.
He heard glass crack behind him and felt the blunt blow strike him center in the back against his armored vest with the force of a sledgehammer. His whole body reeled from the blow, the shockwaves seizing his upper body. He staggered and fell over onto the carpet.
Pushing through the pain, he rolled to the right, behind the queen bed and hopefully out of the sniper’s view. He tried to reach a hand around his back, but he couldn’t reach the spot where he was hit. Despite how badly it hurt, he didn’t think the bullet went through. If it had, it’d be in his lungs or through his spine right now, and he wouldn’t be fumbling around on the floor.
He rolled over and lay flat on his back, trying to catch his breath.
___
Aguilar stepped off the elevator onto the thirty-third floor. His first observation was that Castillo didn’t man his post in the lounge area and was nowhere in sight, but Aguilar also didn’t see a body, blood, or signs of a fight.
He advanced quickly down the hallway with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. His right hand held the SP-21 Barak with the safety disengaged. Doors opened on either side of him, and guests poured out and rushed past him. One man tried to stop Aguilar and tell him in Spanish that there were gunshots and explosions and to turn around, but Aguilar ignored him, his eyes scanning hands for weapons, and continued forward.
Nearing room 3314, Aguilar saw the lean, tough looking Latin man standing in the open doorway, and caught a glimpse of the wrecked, smoky room inside. Maneuvering around another group of hotel guests, Aguilar saw the pistol the man held against the outside of his leg, and the tattoos signifying his membership in Los Perros, a local street gang. The man’s eyes locked onto Aguilar, instinctively recognizing a fellow predator when he saw one, silently daring the Colombian to try something.
There were too many civilians present. Aguilar didn’t want to risk engaging. He averted his gaze forward and continued walking, aware of the gang member’s eyes on his back until he rounded the corner.
___
Avery heard broken glass crunching beneath boots, followed by a broken lamp kicked and sent rolling across the floor, stopping short against something solid. On his back, Avery held onto the Glock, but he didn’t know what he was going to do. He was in no shape to move quickly. That sniper would take him the minute he lifted his head above the bed.
“Are you in here, Avery?” Jon Castillo’s voice called out from the living room. He waited a couple seconds. “If you’re alive, then slide your gun across the floor, put your hands in the air, and stand slowly up. I’m supposed to take you alive. But if you don’t answer me, I can’t take the risk that you’re not playing dead, so I’ll toss in another couple grenades. First one goes right over the bed. Then I step in and toss the next into the bathroom.”
Avery’s mind raced through his options.
He could either get shredded by the grenades or make a move against Castillo and likely get his head blown off, either by the sniper or by Castillo. He couldn’t place Castillo’s voice accurately enough to try putting bullets through the wall dividing the bedroom from the living room. He couldn’t hold out for Aguilar, who might be dead by now, for all he knew.
He heard the high pitched blare of sirens on the street below. He estimated they had maybe five minutes at most before cops swarmed the floor.
“This really isn’t necessary, Avery, but I can’t stand around here all fucking day. Last chance.”
Avery set the Glock down and gave it a shove, sending it skittering several feet across the carpet and into the center of the room.
Leading with his Uzi, Castillo entered the bedroom while the Glock was still in motion. He came around the bed and stopped, towering over Avery and pointing the Uzi at him. Castillo held up his free hand high to signal the sniper through the terrace door.
“Get up,” he ordered Avery. “We have to get out of here.”
Avery winced and gasped as he rolled over onto his side like an old man. He maneuvered slowly onto all fours, reached out to hold onto the bed for support, and worked his way onto his feet. He was barely able to stand upright without gasping. The pain was excruciating.
Castillo gestured toward the door with his Barak and took a few steps back, careful not to allow Avery to become too close. The Colombian let Avery pass him and then followed him out of the bedroom.
“If you don’t want to kill me, why the hell was your sniper taking shots at me?”
“Hey, I don’t want to kill you. It doesn’t matter to me what happens to you. But the thing is, there’s this crazy bitch, and she sure as fuck wants to kill you. Her first preference would be up close and personal. Sorry, man. You’d have been better off eating the grenade or getting sniped, because she’s one nasty, demented cunt.”
Avery didn’t have a clue what Castillo was talking about.
“How much did they pay you, Jon?”
They stepped over Muňoz’s body and crossed the kitchen.
Avery saw another Latin shooter standing near the doorway. He wore a t-shirt, and his arms were adorned with the same gang tattoos as the first man Avery had dropped. The gangbanger stepped out into the hallway and then called out to Castillo in Spanish, telling him that it was clear.
“Fifty-thousand,” Castillo answered. “It was an impulsive decision. I heard that I was being turned over to that guy Daniel to back you up on some secret spook shit. Right after this guy from the cartel says FARC is offering money for anyone with information about an Ameri
can codenamed Carnivore. I fucking couldn’t believe it, man. Sometimes you just get lucky.”
Avery lifted his eyebrows, surprised to hear that his life was worth $50,000 to someone.
Castillo guided Avery into the hallway. The bullet-riddled bodies of four hotel security staff were heaped on the floor, oozing blood. The hallway was silent now. All of the guests had either fled or were hunkered down inside their rooms, too afraid to leave.
Avery and Castillo followed the gangbanger down the hallway toward the stairwell, where he opened the door and stuck his head into the stairwell to take a peak before venturing inside. Avery and Castillo were right behind him.
“Sorry, man. It’s nothing personal, but money’s money,” Castillo said as they descended the stairs.
“Gonna take care of your kids with that?”
“Yeah, get them the fuck out of here, give them a fresh start. Give me one, too. No more doing shit like this or getting bit to hell by bugs in the jungle.”
“Who bought you out, Jon?” Avery asked as they descended the stairs. Each step sent a flash of pain through his upper back. The feeling grew more intense as the adrenaline wore off.
Castillo didn’t answer.
Leading the way, the gangbanger stepped onto the thirty-first floor landing. As he turned the bend for the next set of stairs, he saw something and shouted a warning in Spanish, urgent and surprised, and brought up his pistol, but his warning was cut short by a single gunshot.
The gangbanger’s head snapped back, spraying a small red mist through the air, and he fell over onto the concrete landing.
Felix Aguilar came up the stairs and met Avery and Castillo on the landing. Seeing his teammates, he lowered his weapon, surprised to see Castillo.
“Where the hell did you come from, Jon?” Aguilar glanced down at the body near his feet. “I saw this guy standing outside Canastilla’s room when I walked by a minute ago. I knew he was carrying, and I recognized his tattoos. He’s Los Perros.”
“Come on,” Castillo said, taking a step forward. “Let’s go. This place is filling up with police. My fucking radio died.”
But Aguilar saw that Avery, a step behind Castillo, didn’t budge. He read the expression in Avery’s eyes, quickly assessed the situation, and glanced back to Castillo.
“I asked where were you, Jon?”
Castillo raised his Uzi in Aguilar’s direction. As his finger tightened around the trigger, Avery dived into him from behind, wrapping his arms around him and knocking them both over. As they tumbled down the stairs, Castillo’s hand lost the Uzi, and he came to a stop with Avery on the next landing. He head butted Avery, stunning him and breaking his nose. He pushed Avery’s weight off him, offering Aguilar a clear shot.
Without a second’s hesitation, Aguilar fired twice into Castillo’s forehead. Then he holstered the Barak, covered the remaining stairs to the landing, and extended a hand to help Avery onto his feet.
“Mind telling me what the fuck just happened?”
Avery used the back of his hand to wipe Castillo’s blood off his face. His own blood gushed from his nostrils, but he didn’t care about that, except for the attention it would draw. He hated getting other people’s blood on him.
“Castillo sold us out. I don’t know to whom. He was right about one thing, though. We need to get out of here.”
Fuck, his back hurt. It was getting worse. He could barely stand. Now his head hurt, too.
“You okay, man?” Aguilar asked.
“I took a bullet back there. It’s bad.”
Aguilar slipped a hand beneath Avery’s vest, slowly felt around for holes in his flesh, and shook his head. His hand came out dry.
“No, you’re good. It didn’t go through. You’re going to have a hell of a bruise, though.”
Avery retrieved the pistol—a Brazilian Taurus automatic—from the Los Perros corpse.
They went down another flight of stairs. Then they took a crowded elevator to the foyer and walked to the main entrance, blending in with the roving crowds of people who were in a hurry to get to safety. One cop stopped them, when he saw Avery’s bloody face, and Aguilar said that he was pushed over during the stampede. The cop accepted the answer, telling them there were paramedics outside, and moved on. More police armed with submachine guns ran in the opposite direction.
___
The Viper passed the rail-mounted telescopic sight once more over the large bands of people pouring out in disorganized waves from the brightly lit front entrance of the Trump Ocean Club Tower some four hundred feet below. Police officers directed people away from the building to make room for the newly arrived ambulances and fire trucks. As guests and residents streamed out, police in tactical gear continued going into the tower with paramedics standing by outside until they were told it was safe to enter.
Scanning the crowds, the Viper looked out for the bright blue windbreaker worn by Castillo, or Carnivore’s black hoody, but she could not discern either in the mass of bodies. She’d lost them the moment Castillo had escorted the American out of the hotel suite in the adjacent tower directly across from her.
She’d fired two shots at the American, using 9mm SP-5 subsonic ammunition. They’d been good shots, and she’d successfully eliminated targets with this weapon at longer distances, but her mind still struggled to process the fact that she’d actually missed.
Never before had the Viper pulled the trigger twice and not eliminated her target.
The VSS Vintorez, or Thread Cutter, was a Russian-manufactured rifle, essentially a modified AS Val assault rifle, designed for KGB spetsnaz. This one originated from Soviet stockpiles originally provided to Cuba, later passed on to FARC. Vintorez was a good weapon, but the drawback was that the heavy, subsonic tungsten-tipped, armor piercing ammunition wasn’t suitable for long distance kills. The rounds continuously and rapidly dropped in flight.
The Viper’s first shot missed because the target had jumped up from his hiding spot behind the table the split second she hit the trigger. Ridiculously good luck on his part.
The second shot should have gone through his back, but he apparently wore a quality plated vest and the bullet, fired from a downward angle, must have grazed the ceramic plate rather than striking it head-on.
Seeing him for the first time, the image of Carnivore became seared permanently into the Viper’s mind. With his closely buzzed black hair, and stubble beard of matching length, and his trim, muscular build, he looked so typically, obnoxiously American. His voice was confident and priggish. Even if she didn’t have the recording, she’d still never forget that voice. She wanted to hear it scream and beg.
The Viper was normally dispassionate when it came to killing. But this time she felt an overpowering urge to take a life. She’d killed Americans before—there was the diplomat in Bolivia, done with the VSS—but never one like Carnivore, a supposedly elite soldier. She relished the opportunity and thought that she would use blades on him. She wanted to open him up and see what lay inside him.
The Viper swiftly disassembled the VSS, taking apart the suppressor, the receiver, the scope, and the buttstock, and placed the components into a small, specially fitted briefcase. She packed the audio surveillance equipment, and looked over the room once more to make certain that she left nothing behind.
Next, she moved the furniture back to where it belonged and shut the sliding glass doors and opened the curtains, removing any traces of her sniper hide.
Carrying the rifle case, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and was out the door. She left the hotel without checking out—she’d used a fake passport and credit card under an assumed identity prepared for her years ago by the Venezuelans—and disappeared into the pandemonium outside.
SEVEN
Upon arrival at the Palanquero air base, fifteen hours later, the medical staff who treated Avery’s wounds expressed how lucky he was that the Vintorez’s 9mm hadn’t gone through his vest. If the bullet had hit him straight on, he’d have been dead. The
y removed the larger shrapnel fragments from his shoulder, which required a couple incisions and stitches. A couple smaller pieces were left in place, but they weren’t the first bits of metal left in Avery’s body. It hurt, but the shoulder was still functional, and the ball and socket weren’t damaged. He also sustained bruised spinal cord tissues, which needed time to heal. He was fatigued and sore all over, but was expected to fully recover within a couple weeks, assuming he followed instructions, which basically consisted of getting plenty of rest, keeping his head elevated, and not exerting himself. He’d probably need surgery in the future to fully repair the nose, but he wasn’t going to worry about that now, and doubted he ever would, unless it hindered his breathing.
Adverse to drugs and toxins in his body, wanting to keep his mind and reflexes sharp, Avery declined painkillers. The hell of it was that his body no longer repaired itself as quickly and painlessly as it had just a few years earlier.
Regardless of Culler’s plans for him, Avery intended to follow up on the action in Panama. Someone had made it personal and went to great lengths to get a shot at him, and he wanted to know who and why. Not just to satisfy his curiosity, but to tie up any loose lends. He didn’t want someone holding a grudge to catch up with him in the future and put a bullet in his head when he didn’t expect it.
His mind was still going around in circles trying to make sense of what took place in Panama.
After escaping the hotel, Avery and Aguilar slipped through the concentric layers of police, and eventually returned to the Holiday Inn. There, Avery iced the purple, soft-ball sized bruise already forming on his back and applied disinfectant and gauze to the multiple open cuts and gashes in his arm and shoulder.
They knew they were in trouble when Aguilar turned on the television and they saw Avery’s picture from his forged passport plastered on every other channel with the announcement that he was sought by police in connection with the violence at the Trump Ocean Club. News anchors also reported that the grenades had killed a man staying in the neighboring suite and critically injured his wife and son.