by Matt Lynn
“What do you mean how many?”
Jack slapped him roughly on the back. “You need to learn how to pick the low-hanging fruit, my friend.”
“Well how many did you have?”
“Maria came back to my room first, then I went back to the pool, and I hooked up with a seventeen year old called Fernanda. At least I think that was what she was called. Spent an hour with her then went looking for Maria to see if she wanted to join us. Hell, make it a threesome. So far as I could tell Fernanda was up for anything, But Maria had already turned in for the night. So maybe next time.”
“Blimey.”
Jack chuckled. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to enjoy this job. When I’ve done my time in Unit Five, I might come back and get a gig here.”
“We’re going to kill the bastard, remember.”
Alex glanced up towards the driver. He was a young Columbian guy, and he was sealed off from the main passenger cabin by a sheet of Perspex. There was some loud R&B playing on the stereo. It didn’t look as if he could speak much English, and even if he could, the racket of the music and the tyres churning along the muddy track were drowning out their conversation.
“Right,” said Jack. He shrugged. “Still, you know how it is in places like this. Get rid of one mad bastard and another one takes his place. I can get a job with the next one.”
“It won’t look so good on your CV. Killing the last bloke, I mean. They don’t look like a forgiving bunch.”
Jack looked briefly disappointed. “I’ve never been too good at career planning.”
“Most guys in Unit Five can say that.”
“Helleva place though.”
“We’ll find you someplace similar. When we finally get out of the unit that is.”
The Toyota jolted suddenly as it drove across a ditch. As they climbed higher into the mountains, the track became rougher and rougher, pitted with stones, and with ditches that snagged the tyres and would have ripped the wheels from a less sturdily built vehicle. The clouds had opened up, and a rainstorm was lashing into the mountainside, and a wind was whipping in from the east, blowing the rain hard into the side of the truck. You could see why gold deposits might remain undiscovered up here for centuries, reflected Alex. It was a brutal, hash terrain, and one that would devour anyone who didn’t know how to navigate their way through it in an instant. Plenty of Conquistadores must have died slow, miserable deaths along this track. The poor sods.
It was a two hour drive to the camp, and by the time they’d completed it Alex felt as if every muscle on his body had been bruised. In total, it was only twenty kilometres from the villas, but through the rainstorm the Toyota hadn’t been able to manage more than a few kilometres an hour. “Looks like we found it boys,” said Richmond, coming up to greet them as they climbed out of the vehicle. “El Dorado.”
The rain was still falling heavily, but even through the storm Alex could quickly get a sense of the scale of the place. Richmond had travelled up earlier in the morning, and had already been given his tasks. It was a Wednesday morning, and the guards were changing shifts. All the men did five days at the mine, followed by three day at the villa. “I’ll show you around,” said Bykov coming up to join them. “But first, get your weapons.”
Alex followed him up the hill. The mine was cut into a steep ravine in the side of the mountain. There was a stream running through the valley, and, at intervals of only a few yards apart, tunnels cut into the rock. Some of them looked natural, others as if they had been blasted by dynamite. The rain was lashing down creating rivers of mud where the water swept up the newly disturbed earth. There were dozens of men with picks and shovels scurrying in and out of the mountain, hauling vast loads of rubble and earth, which was then washed through the stream, where more men sieved it for nuggets of gold. They were striding towards the top of the mountain, where the ground levelled off into a plateau of a few hundred square metres, surrounded on three sides by massive boulders that led up towards even higher mountains, while on the forth side there was a steep cliff where the ground fell away several hundred metres below. As they paused on the flat ground, Alex took a moment to catch his breath. Off to one side there was a helicopter pad, with a Sikorsky H-34 chopper parked on it. To another, there was a barracks: one building for the soldiers who guarded the mine, another two for the men who worked the mountains. Beside that was a storeroom, cookhouse, and armoury. “Here,” said Bykov. “Collect your weapons, then we’ll put you out on patrol.”
Alex wiped some of the rainwater out of his face, and stepped inside. The armoury had a limited but deadly choice of arms: American-made M-16 assault rifles, Italian-made Beretta 92 handguns, knives, ropes, two sticks of P4 plastic explosive per man and a set of RPG’s that were stored here, but which could be rolled out if a major fire fight kicked off. Alex took a M-16 and a Beretta, tucking the handgun into a shoulder holster underneath his sweatshirt, and slinging his rifle over his shoulder.
“You’ll be sleeping over there,” said Bykov, nodding towards the barracks. “There’s no time to rest now.”
They started on a tour of the mine. In total, Alex reckoned there were almost two hundred men here, working round the clock in shifts of a hundred at a time. They were clearly determined to extract as much gold from this place in as little time as possible. The men were blasting into the mountain, taking incredible risks with their own lives as they detonated sticks of dynamite inside hastily built tunnels, and every few minutes the boom of another explosion rippling through the stone core of the mountain shook the camp. For every four workers, there was at least one soldier, keeping order, patrolling the hills and mountains that surrounded them, and searching the men working the mine for any nuggets of gold that might be stolen. Land Cruisers pulled in and out of the site constantly, delivering fresh workers and supplies, and ferrying away boxes of gold at the end of the day. Eventually, they’d be melted down to bars, reckoned Alex, and finally put on a boat to ship to Miami, like the one they had intercepted. The whole place was running with the professionalism and organisation of a mining conglomerate, and must be making a fortune he realised. It was hardly surprising they needed so many mercenaries to protect it.
When the tour was finished, Bykov pointed up to the mountain track that led away from the helicopter pad. “Get up on patrol,” he said. “Our enemies are out there watching us, we’re sure of it. If you see anyone, shoot them first, and ask questions afterwards.”
“Who are they?” asked Jack.
“Rival gangs,” said Bykov crisply. “They have been recruiting their own mercenaries, and preparing an assault. This mine is worth millions a year, and there will always be man who will kill for that. That’s true in any country – but its more true in Columbia than most.”
“And you think they are up there?”
Bykov pointed towards the mountains. “They have men out on watching, preparing their assault. I want you to find them.”
Alex started to walk. The rain was beating into his face and the ground was slippery under his feet. He took each step carefully. The conditions were perfect for snipers. A man would be concentrating on holding his footing, and the racket of the rain beating into the trees and boulders would hide any small movements. You could stalk your enemy, and pick him off at the moment of your choosing.
“Bloody amazing what they’ve found here,” said Richmond, as the three men started to climb up the hill. “It’s primitive mining. Not much more advanced than the conquistadors – but they are still digging up plenty of the metal. Bring in some decent mining engineers, and this place would be worth a billion a year. Maybe more.”
“So this was El Dorado, you reckon?” said Jack.
“I reckon so. And it will be again. Just so long as we can get Bilado out of the way.”
The going was tough. Alex had done plenty of climbing through the Welsh mountains during his Regiment training and that was usually in the heavy rain, and with a heavy backpack to carry rather than
just an assault rifle. But it was a long time since he’d attempted a patrol in these kind of conditions, and his fitness wasn’t what it had once been. A few hundred yards and already he was struggling for breath. There was a reason SAS recruits got sent out into the Brecon Beacons in the pouring rain., he reminded himself. There was no quicker way to sort out the men from the boys.
“Same in any military organisation,” growled Jack. “The new guys get all the crap jobs.”
“We need to prove ourselves,” said Richmond. “The quicker they trust us, the easier it will be for us to get close enough to Bilado to kill the bastard.”
Alex put his head down, and concentrated on following the path. They were tramping along a twisting, narrow lane, already three hundred feet above the mine. In the heavy rain, the track had been turned into a small stream, and the water had already shipped into his boots, making his feet sodden. On either side, there were scrubby trees, and the path was matted with leaves and vegetation they had to wade through. We can worry about the assassination later, thought Alex. Just focus on getting to know the operation: we will find the moment to strike eventually.
Alex slipped. His feet had snagged on something. Some kind of trap, he felt sure of it. His feet were falling away behind him. He shouted once, then twice, but Jack and Richmond were a hundred yards ahead of him, and over the wind and rain his voice wasn’t carrying any distance. A rope, he realised. There was a rope around his ankles. He tried to claw his fingers into the dirt, but it was impossible to get any grip in the mud, and all he succeeded in doing was losing his M1-16. “Bloody help me,” he yelled at the top of his voice as he was dragged back through the mud.
He could see Richmond turning around, but lost sight of him as the rope dragged him off the path and into the woodland. Suddenly two men were upon him. Big guys with beards, dressed in black jeans and sweatshirts, soaked through to the skin. One of them grabbed his right arm, and twisted it behind his back, making Alex cry out in pain, whilst the second pushed a handgun into the side of his face.
“Stand up, amigo,” the first guy growled. “Walk, do exactly what we tell you, and don’t make a noise. And we might let you live through the next few minutes.”
Alex lifted himself uncomfortably to his feet. The rope was still around his ankles, but he could stand, although it was hard to balance. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. Captured on the first patrol. Hardly a great start to my new career.
“I said walk, amigo.”
The handgun was being jabbed into his back. Alex started to walk along a path that cut through the woods. It was even smaller than the main track they had been climbing. He glanced back once to see if Jack and Richmond were following him but there was no sign of them. They’d know he’d been taken by now, that was for sure. But whether they’d try and rescue him, or just hurry back down to the mine to tell Bykov what had happened he had no way of knowing.
“Faster, amigo.”
A thump in the back, right in the spine where it would hurt the most. Alex stumbled forward. Jack would want to come straight after him, he reckoned. The man was always up for a scrap, no matter how desperate the odds against them. But not Richmond. The Australian didn’t look like the kind of bloke who’d put his neck on the line for a guy he’d met a couple of days ago. Which means I’m probably heading for wherever it is these guys are camped out. And I might well be dead by lunchtime.
He thought briefly about Juanita, dwelling on her stepping out of the shower, her nipples pert beneath the towel. At least my last night on earth – if that is what it turns out to be – wasn’t too bad.
A shot. A sudden burst of gunfire echoed out across the mountain. Alex looked up just in time to see Jack standing behind a tree about thirty yards ahead of them. He was loosening off a burst of fire from his M-16, emptying out a full mag in a short, angry burst of fire. Then he darted behind the tree. Alex could feel himself falling as the man behind him pushed him down into the mud, before pulling out his own AK-47 and turning his fire towards Jack. The second man had dived behind a tree, opening up his own assault rifle. Jack had ducked behind the trees, and the bullets were chipping away at the bark. Two against one, decided Alex grimly. Jack was a ferocious fighter, but those were not good odds. Where’s that Australian bastard got to, he wondered.
Somewhere behind him he could hear a movement. The splash of boots in mud. Alex jumped up from the track. Richmond was running straight towards them, his M-16 gripped to his chest. Alex whipped his handgun from its holster. Ahead, the two Columbians turned around. Jack had just been a distraction, realised Alex, creating a space that allowed Richmond to take them head on. It was a suicidal assault, but one that executed with enough guts might just work. By the time the Columbians realised what was going on, Richmond was already upon them. A standard M-16 had a thirty round mag, but he was choosing his moment carefully. The gun was designed for close quarters combat, and there wouldn’t be any time to bomb another mag into place once the shooting started. He’d get as close as possible before slamming his finger into the trigger.
The first Columbian spun around, releasing a round of bullets from his AK-47, but it was wild, poorly directed fire, and stood little chance of hitting its target. Richmond kept running, closing down remorselessly on his prey, until only twenty yards separated them. Bullets from his opponents rifle were peppering the ground all around him, sending splashes of mud and dirty water flying into the air, but the Australian didn’t so much as flinch, moving relentlessly forward, his eyes narrowing as he locked onto his target. He slowed, planting his leg into the mud like tree trunks, dropping the rifle into position, taking aim, then releasing a burst of fire that was both deadly and lethal.
The first few rounds flew wide of the target, but Richmond was making constant minute adjustments to his aim, and by the time the fifth and sixth rounds flew out of the rifle’s twenty inch barrel they were striking home with deadly impact. The Columbian staggered backwards as the rounds punctured his chest, punching holes straight through his heart. Behind him, the second Columbian was running down the track, firing on his own rifle. But Richmond already knew he’d done enough damage to stop worrying about the first man and had trained his weapon on the second. Jack had emerged from behind the tree, advancing rapidly in the man’s tracks, until his was close enough to shoot straight into his back. The man stumbled to the ground, caught up in a hailstorm of crossfire that ripped through his skin, emptying the life out of him in seconds. Within seconds, both guns had fallen silent.
“I thought I was expendable,” said Alex as Richmond caught up with him.
“You are mate. But not quite yet. We’ve still got a job to do.”
“Alex, expendable?” said Jack, stepping over the dead body and joining them. “What would we do for laughs without this guy around?”
“Who were they?” said Richmond, stepping towards the two corpses.
“The enemy Bykov was talking about,” said Alex. “They said they were taking me to some kind of camp. I reckon one of his rival drugs lords is planning to capture this mine and these guys were just out on patrol, scouting for information.”
“Why did they want you alive then?” asked Jack.
“To pump me for information, I reckon. The more they know about the men defending the mine, the higher their chances of success.”
Richmond looked up to the hills ahead of them. The rain was still beating down on them relentlessly, but apart from that the mountains had fallen quiet. “They’ll be attacking soon,” he said. “You only try and take prisoners in the day or two before you kick off the main assault.”
“Then we better get out of here,” said Alex. “We don’t know how many men they have but we don’t want to face them alone.”
Chapter Nine
Jack tossed the body down on the ground. “Who were they?” asked Bykov, looking down only briefly at the bloodied, shot-up corpse.
Alex and Richmond put down the second of the two dead men they had carried down the
hillside. They had decided to bring the corpses with them. They were new here, and their first task was to establish their credentials. In any military organisation, there was no faster way to do that than with a few quick kills. On re-entering the mining compound, they carried the bodies straight across to the barracks where Bykov and Bilado commanded the whole operation. “They captured Alex, but we rescued him.”
“Captured?” said Bilado, walking across to join them.
The barracks was constructed from wood, with a corrugated iron roof. There was a heater in one corner, and a light powered by the camp’s electrical generator. On a set of tables, men were weighting and sorting the gold nuggets retrieved from the mine, and getting it ready for packing, whilst the engineers were mapping out the tunnels already dug into the mountain and working out where to blast next.
“That’s right,” said Alex crisply. “They were taking me to their camp, and from the expressions on their faces it wasn’t too far away.”
“There’s an attack coming soon, we reckon,” said Richmond. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be risking taking men alive.”
The rain was beating down on the roof, creating a ceaseless drumming sound that Alex reckoned would give a man a terrible headache after a few hours.
“Alexis Valleja,” said Bildao, grinding his fists together. “He’s wanted this mine for years.” He looked up at the three men in front of him. “You did well, and you’ll be well rewarded soon. But if you are right and an attack is coming soon we need to get ready.”