"That's a funny question coming from a guy who put out a million-dollar bounty on my head."
"It was a mistake."
"A mistake. You'll live with it. Or you'll die with it."
"Hey, just a minute here," Godfried cut in. "Bolan, we're not your enemies."
"Then why did you agree to Alchupa's offer?"
Godfried shrugged. "We made a mistake."
"Seems like there have been a lot of mistakes made lately."
"You could say that. But we want to join forces with you. You'll need us when you run into Pinadante. And if you're going downriver, you'll run into the marshal. You'll have to, if he's looking out for Alchupa."
"If I run into him," Bolan said, "I can handle him."
"Are you refusing our offer?"
"Why should I accept? I could just blow Alchupa away right now and walk off."
Fear cut Alchupa's features. "Just like that... in cold blood... you would do that?"
"Why not, Colonel? I wonder how many people you ever gave a chance to."
"Not many," Alchupa replied in strange defiance, considering the circumstances. "Look, I will help you against Pinadante."
"How?"
"I can just walk in there, set him up. Buy time for you and these others to move in and kill him. He is a fool. It should not be hard."
Bolan didn't like it. He was being asked to sleep with the lion. But maybe... just maybe if he gathered all the vultures in one place... Hell, there was no reason at all for him to trust Alchupa or any of the three assassins. He was sure they wanted to use him, too. He had the gunboat, after all. But they couldn't have known that — unless they were hoping he would provide the transport. Okay, perhaps they did want his gun as added firepower against Pinadante and his forces. Perhaps, yeah. Still, he would be stepping into a nest of vipers any way he cut it.
"How many soldiers does Pinadante have?"
"I am not sure," Alchupa answered. "He just came here to make sure the shipment arrived in Belém."
"He can forget that. That shipment won't be making it."
Bolan read the bitterness and hatred in Alchupa's eyes. Tough.
Alchupa went on. "Pinadante travels with his own entourage of soldiers and mercenaries. He does not trust me."
"I wonder why," Godfried grunted.
"Earlier," Alchupa continued, "my own men spotted his outpost. It would appear that the marshal was waiting to see what I would do. They say he brought at least fifty men with him. He was prepared to make a power play against me."
"So the revolution was never meant to get under way?" Bolan queried.
"Pinadante led me to believe that it would," Alchupa answered. "But he is a pig and a liar. He swore he had enough backing in high places, enough soldiers under him. A part of me wanted to believe that he was telling me the truth, but another part of me knew that the pig just wanted the shipment for himself. He would have killed me as soon as he got what he wanted, I believe."
"Then he's smarter than you make him out to be," Godfried cracked. "Okay, Bolan, you've got the story here. Now... what's it going to be? Are we in?"
"Have the other two come out and show themselves first."
Godfried hesitated, then, his voice edged with resentment, called out, "Show yourselves."
Moments later Rolaff and Khan stepped into the narrow space between two tongues of fire.
Bolan sighted down the AutoMag.
Godfried tensed as he spotted the firelight glinting off the stainless-steel hand cannon. "What are you doing? I thought that..."
"Shut up. Now throw down your weapons."
Godfried grumbled a curse, then dropped the G-11. "Do it," he told Khan and Rolaff.
"Okay, Fernando," Bolan told the boatrunner, "here's where you earn your keep."
A wry smile cut Fernando's lips. "Again?"
"Get out there and gather their weapons. Frisk them good, while I cover you."
Fernando made the sign of the cross. "The things I have to do to support my family. In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and all that is holy."
"Cut it and get moving."
AK-47 low by his side, Fernando moved into the ring of fire. First, he frisked Godfried, Rolaff and the Mongol, then he gathered their weapons. "They are clean now. As clean as can be expected of buzzards."
Satisfied with the search, Bolan stepped away from his tree cover. "Okay, people, this is the deal," he told the assassins. "You three will get your weapons back when we near the outpost of this Pinadante. I strongly suggest you use your weapons against Pinadante's men. You, Alchupa," Bolan growled at the colonel, "are finished either way. You screw me up on this, you're dead. You deal straight, you go back to the States with me. I understand you have some so-called sponsors there, too. You'll finger them."
Hatred shone in Alchupa's eyes.
"Oh, and one more thing," Bolan told the foursome. "We'll be picking up somebody on the way downstream. I'm sure everybody's anxious to see the Viper again."
The roar of fire filled the Executioner's ears as the colonel and the assassins met his words with only a cold silence.
17
Bolan dumped the Viper on the deck of the Nabuco. Nobody was pleased at all to see the man responsible for so much treachery, misery and death. But the Viper would serve Bolan's purpose long after the final engagement with Anaconda in the Amazon jungle. The Viper was going back to the States. The Viper's bosses were going to be bitten with their employee's own poison. And if the Viper wouldn't bite, then the Executioner determined he would kill Weiss and leave him right there in the jungle to rot.
First, though, they had to get past Pinadante and his forces. If he looked too far ahead, Bolan knew he might never get the chance to look back and regret counting the numbers before they were tallied.
Weiss, hands and feet still bound by rope, struggled to his feet, then sat on the bench. Bolan pulled the gag out of his mouth. Bolan could sense the rage, like a palpable force, being directed at the Viper from Alchupa and the three assassins.
The Viper spit.
Alchupa could no longer control his fury. Fists clenched, the colonel charged the Viper and began pummeling him about the head and face. Bolan stepped in right away, grabbing the colonel by the back of his shirt and flinging him across the deck. The colonel slammed into a bench. Grunting, he stared at the Viper, his eyes burning with hatred. Then, for a second, Alchupa glowered balefully at Bolan, as if undecided whether to direct his murderous wrath at the Executioner. He decided to stay where he was.
Fernando's laughter became raucous. "A well-liked man, eh? The Viper, heh-heh," the boatrunner scoffed, guiding the gunboat away from the bank. "He is another bad man. So many bad men here. Bad hombres. Bad gringos. Bad animals. But that one, the Viper, he is one I would never trust in a million years. He even looks like a Viper. But he smells like a pig, heh-heh. By the look in his eyes, I can tell he is an hombre who has screwed many people, señor," Fernando called to Bolan. "You know the saying, what goes around comes around? Heh-heh. Dishonesty is the worst policy." Cackling, Fernando grabbed his hips, began gyrating and squealed like a pig. "You screw somebody, you get it in the shorts yourself eventually. Worse even, heh-heh-heh. That is why you deal straight with people. That is why you always tell the truth."
"Shut your fucking face," the Viper snarled at Fernando.
"Ah, señor, you should not talk to me like that. No, you are in bad, bad position. If I had my way, I would cut out your tongue right now and feed such a vile piece of meat to the caiman."
"What the hell do you intend to do with me, Bolan?" Weiss asked as the Executioner stood examining the weapons of the three assassins, who were sitting on a bench beside the Viper in silence.
"When this is over, we're going back to the States. We'll be going to meet with your buddy, Clarence."
"Fat chance."
"Hey, señor," Fernando chortled. "I know how you may get him to loosen up a little. The Viper seems like one tense cabr�
�n. I think he needs a swim."
"Tell him to shut the fuck up," the Viper said to Bolan.
"Si, he is a bad, bad hombre now. But perhaps the fish are biting tonight. Perhaps he would be more respectful if you hung him overboard. You know, like chum."'
"The piranha do not come this far downstream," Alchupa informed him with a growl.
"You are wrong about that," Fernando shot back. "With so many bodies in the stream, all the blood... they will come swimming, believe me. I have seen it many times. The piranha can strip a man to the bone in less than a minute."
The Viper leveled a hard gaze on Bolan. "If you think I'll! chum for you so you can nail Clarence, you're wrong, Bolan."
"Chum there," Bolan said. "Or chum here. It's up to you."
"You're a rotten son of a bitch, you know that."
"I know. And you'll find me getting more rotten before this is over."
"And what about those three?" Weiss growled, pointing to the assassins and taking care not to address them directly. "How do they fit in here?"
"So far, mate," Godfried quipped, "we fit like a glove. We're going along with Mr. Bolan to wipe out the rest of Anaconda."
"You hope," Alchupa said with more spirit than he had shown since his capture by the assassins.
Bolan looked hard at Alchupa. "Remember what I said, Colonel. Our hope is your hope."
"We'll see."
"Yeah, that we will."
Bolan handed the three assassins their weapons, and they accepted them eagerly.
"If the colonel is right," Fernando said as the gunboat began rounding a bend in the stream, "we should be at Pinadante's just before dawn."
Perfect, Bolan thought. "Okay," he told the assassins, "you three are going in with me. Stay in front of me at all times. And you'll go ahead of us all, Alchupa. You'll go into camp and give Pinadante your song and dance. We'll be watching you the whole time."
"When will we attack?" Khan asked.
"You'll know when."
Mack Bolan began to reload the empty chambers of the MM-1. They would know when, all right. The fireworks had only started.
* * *
Marshal Pinadante was becoming increasingly exasperated with jungle life. He felt like an outlaw, hiding out in the jungle like Alchupa, but he was realistic enough about the situation to know that this was the way it had to be. Still, the waiting was beginning to stir his wrath. And when he got angry, he loved to watch men die.
Alchupa, he had decided, would have to die slowly and in great pain. Impalement might do, the marshal thought, or perhaps skinning him alive, then dunking him in boiling water. There were many ways to cause a man great agony. One thing Pinadante was certain about: Alchupa would experience great suffering when he discovered that promises to him were going to be broken.
Yes, Pinadante had promised to start the revolution for Anaconda, but he had known all along that was impossible. The other branches of the Brazilian armed forces would move in on the capital at once and crush any revolution. Things were not so good in Brazil, but they were not so bad, either. There were men in the government, rich men, who would not just stand idly by and watch Alchupa make his power play. Was the Colombian colonel a fool? Yes, he was, Pinadante decided. The colonel had played right into his hands. Pinadante knew he himself would be the only one making a power play here. He wanted the colonel's cocaine action. All to himself.
Alchupa had transferred his operation from Colombia to Brazil, but then seemed to have forgotten just who the hell his friends were. Without Pinadante's connections, Alchupa would never have made it as far as he had. The coke came from Colombia via Alchupa's pipeline there. Pinadante only wanted the colonel around as long as Alchupa kept him supplied with coke. Once the colonel's source dried up, he would be ancient history. Pinadante knew there was a fortune to be made in dealing cocaine. He had always wanted to be rich. Wealth would buy him everything he had ever desired: a huge mansion, a Rolls-Royce, imported French wine and plenty of beautiful women.
Sitting in a wooden chair in his tent, Pinadante took a long swig from his bottle of imported American rum. He cursed Alchupa. As he sweated profusely, he cursed the heat. He swatted at the giant mosquito that had somehow gotten through the protective netting around his tent and cursed it, too. In his exasperation with jungle conditions and impatience at having to hide out, he wished there was someone or something there he could legitimately lash out at or at least curse.
Pinadante had had enough. He had almost reached the point of ordering his forty soldiers to board the gunboat at the river and take by force what Alchupa had. His motivation was simple: Pinadante was itching to scratch his white-line fever, and Alchupa had his sample. Still no sample. Still no Alchupa.
Sucking down a healthy swallow of rum, Pinadante stood and walked to the netting across the front of his tent. It was still dark outside, but dawn was coming. When dawn broke, Pinadante would issue the attack orders. He was sick and tired of waiting for Alchupa to show. For ail he knew, Alchupa could be dead. The stupid colonel had gotten himself involved in some kind of war with Americanos. For ail Pinadante knew, the hated CIA could be hot on the colonel's trail, and everybody knew the CIA was just a bunch of ruthless gangsters. If, in fact, the CIA was there in Brazil, Pinadante could make some useful propaganda out of that later, and even if they weren't in the Amazon jungle basin he would resort to lying. An attempted coup, an assassination attempt — there were dozens of possibilities, and when Alchupa fell, Pinadante would have his scapegoat. Yes, the Colombian colonel was part of a CIA-backed drug ring that had sought to undermine the Brazilian government. Wonderful. It would work. Pinadante would make it work.
The marshal lifted the bottle to his lips. Then he froze, staring into the distance across the clearing.
Through the trees walked Hector Alchupa. Speak of the devil, Pinadante thought.
Instantly three of Pinadante's soldiers led Alchupa across the clearing. Then the smile vanished from his lips.
Alchupa was coming to camp empty-handed.
Pinadante scowled and cursed.
Still no sample.
Pinadante slapped his own face, squashing a mosquito against his bloated cheek.
* * *
They were long gone. The Viper was alone on the gunboat with the Spaniard, Fernando. He decided he'd better do something. Fast.
At first he thought there was no way he could go back to the States with Bolan. The Executioner would force him to take him to Clarence, and that would be disastrous. That would be fatal. But then the Viper got to thinking a little harder about being forced to return to the States with Bolan. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all.
Hell, he knew for a fact that Clarence commanded his own personal cadre of hit men. And he also knew that if Clarence hadn't heard from him, then the guns would have been called in — as protection for Clarence and his fortress, if nothing else. Yes, Clarence would assume the worst and would be ready for anything. Clarence would assume that the Amazon venture had failed somehow. He would assume, too, that Bolan hadn't been killed and that through a brutal interrogation the Executioner had discovered who Clarence was, and where he was. All of those assumptions, the Viper knew, would be correct. He only hoped that Clarence was actually thinking along those lines.
But he was sure that he was. After all, he had worked with Clarence on covert Central American operations and knew the guy like the back of his hand. Clarence was a guy who knew how to cover his own ass. Clarence was nobody to fuck with. Okay, so maybe the Viper should just lead Bolan right to the guns. That was assuming on his part, of course, that Bolan and the others returned from their engagement with this Pinadante character. But if Pinadante was as big and as incompetent a slob as Alchupa claimed, the Viper knew that Bolan would be coming back. In triumph. Well, that victory would be short-lived.
The Viper decided he would cooperate with Bolan — up to a point. Now...if he could get loose, the Viper thought, then he would go headhunting for Bol
an and end the whole damn thing soon. Forget the money. Forget the cocaine. Forget the glory. It had become personal. It would come down to the Viper versus the Executioner. And the Viper knew he was one bad son of a bitch. If Bolan thought he was tough, well, by Christ, the Viper was going to show Bolan just what tough was all about.
The Viper saw that Fernando had his back turned to him. He contemplated rushing the Spaniard and kicking him overboard. There was an AK-47 next to Fernando. Then Weiss decided a little verbal persuasion might be better than what could turn out to be a suicidal charge.
"Hey, amigo."
Fernando turned. There was steel in his voice as he told the Viper, "I am not your amigo."
"Sure, sure, my apologies. I just want to know something."
"What is that?"
"How much is Bolan paying you to be his lackey?"
"I am no man's lackey. The hombre, Bolan, is not paying me."
"Come on, you're a boatrunner, a gunrunner. You've got to make a living. You expect me to believe that bullshit, Fernando?"
"You will believe whatever you want to believe."
"And I'm believing you're nobody's fool, Fernando. Did you ever think that Bolan may just kill you when he's finished business here, that he's just using you? Once you serve his purpose... well, he'll just pump a bullet in your brain. The guy's a cold-blooded killer. I've seen him in action."
"I do not believe that. The hombre, Bolan, he is a man of his word. There are certain things you can sense about men. One is honor. The other is deception. Bolan is a man of honor. You are a man of deception."
Weiss tried his damnedest to hide his mounting impatience. He was getting nowhere, and he was starting to get pissed off. "Listen, Fernando, you cut these ropes and let me go, and I'll make it worth your while. Alchupa didn't bring it, but I know he's got money back at his camp. We can go back there and dig it out. It's yours."
Fernando laughed. "You must think Fernando Ortega is indeed somebody's fool, cabrón. Alchupa's camp was burned to the ground."
The Viper's gaze narrowed. "What?"
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