Everett saw this and then grabbed the first girl he could reach and brought her to his side as he spied one of the first holes in the large culvert they had come across inside the long and dark tunnel. He was just about to lift her up when the beast suddenly turned to face its rear. Something or someone had come up from behind it.
“Rescue team, hit the deck!”
Jack heard the shouted command just as Guzman reacted and charged the new threat that had come upon it from behind. He turned and threw his body into several screaming girls, sending them crashing into the muddy, running water. Everett, Sarah, Mendenhall, and even the Frenchman did likewise. Just as the last girl hit the water, a cacophony of noise erupted in the confines of the culvert. As Jack raised his head he saw Guzman take the first volley of the automatic weapons’ fire from the rear. Its body shook and the awful-sounding scream started from deep inside the Anaconda’s chest. Then even more fire erupted in the darkness and Collins could see tracers as they hit the beast. More than a hundred rounds slammed home, but Guzman still came forward one faltering step at a time. Jack winced as a ricochet slammed into his hand. He saw tracer fire as it rebounded off wet concrete and he prayed that it didn’t find any of the poor women behind him.
Guzman bellowed in anger and then three bullets finally hit the vital part of his malformed head and changed body. Its skull jerked back and Guzman spun around. With its wide eyes staring at Collins, it went to its knees. The right arm came up and then Jack saw a large man in black Nomex, its shiny material gleaming in the moonlight, step up to the back of the Anaconda and then fire two more rounds from a Walther automatic into the back of the large skull. Guzman, with one last wince of his tortured eyes, went face down into the running water.
The man who had placed the bullets into Guzman’s head holstered his weapon and stared down at the thing he had just killed. He raised a set of goggles not unlike the ones Jack and his small team had had earlier. The man looked from the giant creature that was once called the Anaconda and then saw Jack lying a few feet away. The stranger was soon joined by six others who took up station behind the first. Collins slowly started to pick himself up in the near darkness.
“The way is clear. May I suggest you get these people out of here?” the man in the lead said as he gestured for his men to assist the girls.
Collins cradled his wounded hand and then stepped up to the rescuer who had undoubtedly saved their lives.
“Thanks, it was a little dicey there at the end,” Collins said as he looked the man over. His eyes roamed to the left shoulder where the American flag would have been hidden under a Velcro patch, but there was none. Jack searched but could find no U.S.-issued equipment of any kind. As he studied the man, the girls were pulled and prodded by men dressed exactly the same. All kept their goggles and their black nylon masks in place. The leader before him looked from Collins to the body lying at his boots.
“What in the hell is this thing?” the large man said as he went to his knees to study the unmoving corpse of Juan Guzman. “It took at least fifty rounds to bring it down.”
“What is your command?” Jack asked as the man raised Guzman’s head up by its hair. Then the sickening sound of the long black strands tearing free from its scalp was heard and the head fell unceremoniously back into the murky running water. The man stood and looked down at Collins.
“That was a ballsy thing you did at the hacienda, so I may ask you the same question: who in the hell are you?”
Jack realized he was in a bit of a confrontation and didn’t know why. Was he looking at a possible DELTA operative? Were they Rangers perhaps? He felt Captain Everett step to his side and knew the former SEAL was looking their rescuer over just as he had.
“Seems we only lost the one girl, Col—” Everett caught himself before speaking aloud Jack’s rank, but not before the large man in black Nomex clothing looked at Carl and a small smile crossed his lips. “We have one down, and it looks like we may not lose anyone except for our French friend, who’s lost a lot of blood.”
“There’s help just across the river. In the meantime we have a large group of men heading this way from the hacienda. I suggest you get the hell out of here. Look, is there anything back there at the hacienda that needs retrieval?”
As Jack waved Everett out and when he saw that Will and Sarah were assisting Henri toward the opening of the culvert, he stepped closer to the man in charge of the highly trained professional group that had come to their aid.
“There’s nothing left back there. Again, your unit and rank?” Jack asked again, softening the question somewhat with a smile and an offer of a handshake.
“If you have the training I suspect that you have … colonel, is it? Then you should know better than to ask that, especially of someone who just saved your ass. For now let’s just say it’s just a tad above your pay grade to know.”
Jack watched the man turn and head for the opening of the culvert. He saw that Carl was waiting for him. He held out a bottle of water one of the rescue team had given him and Jack took it with his uninjured hand and drank deeply.
“Who in the hell are those guys?” Carl asked as he watched the man splash his way out into the moonlight. “He’s not navy, that’s for sure.”
Jack lowered the bottle of water as he started forward to get out into the night air. “And you know that because?”
“Because he didn’t start bragging about what a great operation they had just conducted.” Everett smiled, “You know a SEAL would have never passed up the opportunity to gig the army like that.”
“You have a point.”
Ahead Mendenhall and Sarah helped the weakened Farbeaux out of the opening and into the cool night air along the Rio Grande. Across the river they could see border patrolmen and helicopters as they flew low with their spotlights shining across the way. Mendenhall hit a slick moss-covered rock and lost his footing. He almost went down, pulling the Frenchman with him. As Sarah tried to hold both of them upright, something fell from Henri’s shirt. It rolled into the water at their feet and before Farbeaux could react, a large, gloved hand reached out and retrieved the glass jar Farbeaux had removed from the laboratory in the final moments of their escape.
Sarah, Will, and Henri righted themselves and then looked up into the face of the man who led the team that saved them. He looked from the jar of amber liquid to the faces of the three people standing before him.
“What is that, Henri?” Sarah whispered into his ear.
“Something that needs to be handled carefully,” Jack said as he removed the jar from the stranger’s gloved hand. Holding it, he looked at Farbeaux closely and the Frenchman meekly shrugged his shoulders.
“Bad guy, remember?” he said in a pain-filled voice.
Jack handed the large sealed jar off to Everett and then looked the big man over once more as he heard shouts from across the river.
“Since you can’t tell me what your unit is, perhaps you can tell me if we have any air assets nearby?”
The man’s eyes were still on the jar that Everett was holding, and instead of answering Jack’s question, he asked one of his own. “Does that,” he said nodding at the jar of amber liquid, “have anything to do with that thing we saved you from — the Incredible Hulk — looking bastard in there?”
Jack smiled. “I’m afraid that’s a bit above your pay grade.” He stepped closer to the man, happy he could reciprocate this jerk’s earlier rebuke. “Now, are there any air assets close by?”
“Number three, radio please?” the black-clad man said holding out his hand while never letting his eyes leave the filthy face of Jack Collins. “TAC three.” The man took the handheld radio and then offered it to the colonel who took it without removing his eyes from the strangers. “I believe national command authority has ears on TAC three,” the man said as his eyes flitted from Jack toward Everett and the jar he was holding. He slapped Collins on the left shoulder, expertly placing a small tracking device that was radium based and cou
ld be tracked from space. Then he stepped a few feet away as Collins raised the radio. Before he spoke he changed the frequency from tactical channel three to another he knew by heart. He turned his back on the others and faced the river.
“Viking Two, this is Berserker. Over.”
“Good to hear you voice Berserker,” answered the familiar voice of Niles Compton. “We have company listening in, the CEO in fact … do you copy, Berserker?”
“Copy. We are somewhat compromised, so I’ll make this as brief as possible. We have to strike at that compound. We have to level it.”
The others heard Jack’s words and not one of them was surprised to hear the request.
“No can do. We have questions that need to be answered first. The Mexican authorities are almost there to take possession of Perdition.”
Jack knew the sound of the president’s voice. He grimaced and then raised the radio to his lips, but before he could answer the commander in chief, the large Nomex-clad man interfered.
“Are you saying there is more of this over there?” he asked not too politely.
Jack ignored the large man and stepped away. The man tried to follow, but Everett stepped between him and the colonel. The captain just shook his head, saying that following Jack was a bad idea.
“Listen, we have a mess inside that hacienda,” Jack said. “There are chemicals there that are as dangerous as any I’ve ever seen. If they are not destroyed we could be looking at a bleak situation if they fall into bad-guy hands. I mean serious trouble.”
“We are in enough trouble. Stand down, Colonel. That is a direct order.”
Jack lowered the radio and then looked at the tired faces around him. That was when he noticed that the large man and his team had vanished. He looked around and saw that Everett pointed to the edge of the river where the last of the darkly clothed men vanished into the water. As he turned back and raised the radio one last time, he angrily hit the transmit button.
“You can send a DELTA unit in to help us, but we can’t level the distribution hub of a known terrorist and drug dealer?”
“Just what are you talking about … no, never mind, just get your asses back across the border. We’ll talk later.”
Jack thought the president had gone and then he heard a question that relaxed him a little.
“Colonel, is Lieutenant McIntire alright?”
“Yes, sir, she’s been roughed up some, but she’s fine.”
“Good … good,” the president said after an eternity of silence.
“Jack, just across the river Pete Golding will meet you with a Blackhawk. May I suggest you get on it so we can go home?”
“Niles, we have to make sure that the hacienda is totally destroyed. If the president can send in a rescue team, why can’t we send in air assets to knock Perdition’s Gate flat?”
“Colonel, the rescue the president ordered is still in the air and won’t land in Laredo for another thirty minutes. There was no rescue OP that came across the border on his orders.”
Collins lowered the radio. He then looked at the staring eyes of Farbeaux, Mendenhall, Everett, and Sarah, who were just as shocked to hear Niles’s explanation of events as he had been. His head turned and looked at the spot where their rescuers had vanished into the flowing waters of the Rio Grande River. Then Collins cursed himself and suddenly turned and ran back into the large opening of the culvert. Will and Everett followed. Sarah turned with the weight of the Frenchman and watched as the three men vanished into the darkness once more.
“We have to recover Guzman’s body or people are going to have a hard time believing this story.”
As Jack approached the spot where Guzman had been downed, his eyes saw smoke rising from the running water. Everett and Mendenhall saw the same thing and froze. Lying in the water where Juan Guzman should have been was nothing but a smoking ruin. The clothing was totally eaten away and only a fragment of bone here and there was recognizable. With the jar of fluid still clutched in his uninjured hand, Collins leaned down and looked at the eaten-away remains of the world’s most wanted criminal. Jack recognized the chemical smell almost immediately.
“What is it, Jack?” Everett asked as he too scowled at the smoking remains.
“It’s something like hydrochloric acid, but different, stronger, a lower ph — but similar.”
“Well it did a job on the old Anaconda,” Will said. “Good riddance.”
As Jack stood up he faced the lieutenant. He held up the jar of fluid. “Now this is the only evidence outside of our own accounts of what this stuff can do.”
Will regretted his remark, realizing that the colonel was talking about evidence, and he had just cracked wise about the magical disappearance of Guzman through chemical means. He eventually turned and followed Everett and Collins out of the culvert. He approached Jack, who was looking at the spot where their mysterious rescuers had vanished into the river. Mendenhall stepped forward and faced in the same direction as Collins.
“Okay, those men obviously destroyed what remained of Guzman before they split out of here, so just who in the hell were those guys, Colonel?” Will asked.
As Jack watched the flowing river, he knew he had been had by somebody, but what do you say to a team of men who had just saved your life but destroyed the evidence that you needed?
“I don’t know who they were, Will,” he answered while looking from the river to the amber-colored fluid in the jar.
Perdition’s Fire had left the hacienda, and it would be none other than Colonel Jack Collins who carried death with him back home to the Event Group Complex.
PART TWO
A JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS
The path to paradise begins in hell.
— Dante Alighieri
5
CASSINI SPACE-BASED SYSTEMS, INC.,
BOULDER, COLORADO
The Colorado-based space systems company operated no less than ten satellites in low-earth orbit around the world for a consortium of companies. All privately based and funded, they contracted with this small Boulder operation to download telemetry and feed these companies vital information from their gathering of information — everything from GPS tracking to far more reaching enterprises. Each bit of information is coded and sent to the corresponding company who contracted for the telemetry received by the 130-person operation only three miles distant from the University of Colorado.
On the third floor of the six-story building, a technician was currently tracking a trace program in Nevada. As he bit into a stale Twinkie his eyes roamed over the telemetry streaming in from one of their newer satellites launched just last year. As he chewed he watched as the new KH-21 photo-recon bird made its way across the American Southwest. He noted the red blip on the map and its corresponding latitude and longitude.
The young technician, a young man who never knew who his work was going to be sent to, was curious as he had never seen a tracer like the one he was tracking. This little gem was priceless in its accuracy — down to plus or minus sixteen inches on the accuracy of the coordinates.
The tech took the last bite of his Twinkie and then leaned forward to examine the small red blip still on the computer-generated map before him.
“Now that is a good old-fashioned ‘bug,’” he said as he watched the red tracer hesitate at a spot ten miles north of its original landing position. Then his eyes widened as the coordinates, while changing, started to get strange. At first he didn’t understand what he was looking at. Then he tapped a computer command into his keyboard and he smiled as he realized that the tracer he was watching wasn’t moving north, south, east, or west, it was moving down — moving into the bowels of the earth.
“Must be a mine of some sort,” he mumbled and then punched the send button on his keyboard that would shoot the coded information out to the company or individual who had contracted for the tracking satellite’s services.
The technician, who really never got out much, had tracked the tracer blip to a spot fifteen miles
outside of the city of Las Vegas. And then he missed the coordinates that would have told him his telemetry streaming from the satellite overhead was looking down on Nellis Air Force Base just outside of Las Vegas.
How could the technician know that the final coordinates before the bug died due to power loss placed his target at 5,700 feet below the desert in Nevada — at the north firing range of Nellis and to a complex that ran almost two miles beneath the desert sands inside a natural cave formation that wasn’t on any geological map and was home to — The Event Group.
CIA HEADQUARTERS,
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Hiram Vickers was sitting in his office going over a file spread out on his desk. He looked up when a light knock sounded on his door. The bookwormish man waved at the girl he recognized as being stationed in the space-based imagery department two floors down.
“Hi,” he said as he removed his thin-rimmed glasses. His eyes went from the young girl’s face to her small chest. The man in charge of cheap tricks around the globe never lost his smile, but he immediately dismissed the young photography expert as not up to his usual standards. “What have you got?”
The girl stepped into the immaculately cleaned office and held out a large manila envelope. “We just received this from Cassini Space-Based Systems in Boulder. It came coded to you, but the office checkoff doesn’t have the director of intelligence in the information loop as it usually does.” The girl placed the large envelope against her chest, as if she wasn’t about to let the information leave her until she had a little bit more detail on why the agency chain-of-command signoff wasn’t included in the package.
“Ah, we’re just running a test. We had a major screwup the last time this small company gave us tracking info. They sent it, but it never arrived. Who knows, it probably went straight to the Russians or Chinese,” he said with a broad and disarming smile as he stood from his desk and removed his glasses. He stepped out from around the sensibly clean desk and held out his hand for the envelope. “This was to be passed straight to my desk.”
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