THE EXTRACTOR

by J. T. Brannan

  After his meeting in Chicago, Lee had flown back to Miami, where he’d met Phoenix at the airport for the onward flight to Manaus, an international airport that acted as the gateway to the Amazon. Hartman had also been there, to arrange for secure transportation of Lee’s weapons and equipment, which Mabuni had stressed were to be used, this time.

  From Manaus, Hartman had arranged a charter flight to Feijó, and the three of them had arrived just two hours ago. They’d taken a taxi with their secure luggage to the Hotel Joafran – the same place that the Chicago team had stayed the month before – and Lee had left the other two there, to set up their headquarters, while he had quickly headed out onto the streets of the town. Lee knew that time was of the essence, and was keen to get things moving.

  Back at the airport – which wasn’t much more than an airstrip in the middle of the jungle, really – Lee had seen a couple of aircraft that belonged to Rio Branco Aerotaxi, alongside a handful of other small planes that the guard on duty said were privately owned. Further enquiries showed that one of them belonged to Eduardo Silva, the pilot who had been flying Guzman around for the past few weeks – first to drop off supplies, and then to search for the missing team.

  Silva wasn’t at the airport, and didn’t seem to have a cellphone, or any other way of contacting him. But the guard had mentioned that if he was likely to be anywhere, it would be at Bar Uniao, where he’d been seen the past couple of days, drinking himself into oblivion.

  He was someone else that Lee would be speaking to that day, if he could be found; and Lee wholeheartedly wished he could be, as Silva was obviously perfectly placed to act as the pilot for this mission, seeing as how he was the only person around familiar with the route taken by the missing group.

  He wandered the streets of Feijó for a good thirty minutes while trying to spot a tail, wondering all the while about Guzman and the pilot. He saw a couple of people who might have been watching him, but they appeared to be locals, and it might just have been that they didn’t see that many tourists in town, and were just staring out of natural curiosity. Either way, by the time he’d turned onto Avenue Plácido de Castro – the street where the police station was located – they had gone on their way. Lee had committed their faces to memory though, just in case they appeared anywhere else. Seeing a guy once was one thing, but if the same person appeared twice, then alarm bells should always start ringing.

  He looked down the street once again as he crossed the road, double-checking for those locals. If Guzman had been murdered – as Lee suspected – then it was possible that someone was watching him right now, tracking his arrival and subsequent movements through Feijó. Who it might be though, Lee couldn’t say. Members of a drug gang, private security hired by loggers or oil companies, even agents from intelligence agencies, the list of people who might be involved was long and disturbing. It might even be a rival university, Lee figured, although Dunford and the others had thought the idea crazy. They firmly believed that such institutions were bastions of morality. Lee, for his part, wasn’t so sure.

  Lee was glad that Hartman was in the hotel with Phoenix. He’d been a logistics specialist in the army, but the man knew his way around a rifle. He’d seen action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and was a real pro. In fact, although Lee himself eschewed lethal weapons, Hartman hade made sure to pack a Colt M4A1 assault carbine, along with a few of Mabuni’s special “home defense” devices. As per Lee’s requirements, the devices were all non-lethal, but he knew Hartman would use the rifle if he had to, and Lee wasn’t about to tell him he couldn’t. If it was a life or death situation, the man had the right to defend himself – and Phoenix – in the best way possible. Lee was sure that the hotel room was about as secure as it could be, and it put his mind at rest as he spotted the police station across the road.

  The building was larger than Lee had expected; given the remoteness of the location, he’d thought the station might be little more than a guard shack. But then again, he supposed, the town was home to over thirty thousand people. It was a one-story white-painted block with a sloping roof and an archway in the center with a ramp that led inside. There was a 4x4 cop car outside, and a carport full of motorbikes. Two cops, handguns on hips, stood outside, smoking and chatting.

  Lee passed the two cops outside, walked up the wooden ramp, and turned left toward what looked like the main office, wondering – perhaps too late – if the police might be involved in this too.

  “Mr. Lee,” Deputy Commander Rodrigues said warmly, shaking hands with Lee before they took their seats opposite each other, a cluttered, workmanlike desk between them. The office was small and incredibly hot, even with the window open and the ceiling fan working overtime. Lee gazed out of the window, saw that it looked out onto Avenue Plácido de Castro, could see the strong sun reflecting off the hood of the 4x4.

  Rodrigues shifted some of the paperwork to one side, before propping his elbows on the table and steepling his hands under his chin. “So, you are here about Professor Guzman, yes?”

  “Yes,” Lee said. “Professor Guzman, and the US team that he was searching for.”

  “Ah yes,” Rodrigues said, as if he’d already forgotten all about them, “the Americans. They still haven’t turned up, as I understand it.”

  “I thought you were investigating it?”

  “Mr. Lee,” the cop said, hands gesturing to the air around him, “do you see our resources here? That team was last seen hundreds of kilometers away, in a rainforest that – at that location – is almost, how do you say . . . impenetration?”

  “Impenetrable,” Lee said.

  Rodrigues raised his hands and shoulders, as if that explained everything. “Impenetrable. Yes. I mean, what do you think we can do, really? Send everyone out into the forest to look for them?” He laughed, and shook his head. “We would never find them anyway.”

  Lee tried not to show his anger over the cop’s attitude. Things were different out here, he knew, and he had to remind himself of that; and if he upset the deputy commander of the local police department, he might well end up in a jail cell rather than heading out on his rescue mission.

  “And Professor Guzman?” Lee asked.

  Rodrigues pulled out a cigar before he answered, offering Lee one from the box. Lee shook his head, the cop shrugged and put a match to the end, filling the room with the acrid odors of the cheap cigar.

  Rodrigues puffed away on it happily for several moments, before answering Lee’s question. “We suspect that Professor Guzman has run away with a local girl,” he said at last, waving away some of the smoke.

  Lee could barely believe what he was hearing. “You think what?”

  “We think this is connected to a romance the honorable professor was having with . . . ah . . .” – he broke off to leaf through one of the papers on his desk – “. . . a girl named Alessandra Torres. Yes,” he confirmed, jabbing his finger at the report, “Torres. A barmaid from town, suspected of other, let us say, more intimate work too, yes? Well, we have received numerous eyewitness accounts that Guzman was seen in the company of this woman for several days before he went missing, perhaps a week or more. You know, he’d go out in the plane, fly around all day, then meet this woman at night.” He puffed on the cigar a bit more, and held Lee’s gaze. “You know he was married, yes?”

  Lee nodded. He did know, although he didn’t see how it mattered in this particular case. If Guzman had been involved with a woman down here, then it was morally questionable perhaps, but that didn’t mean she was involved in his disappearance, didn’t mean he’d run away with her.

  “You’ve got evidence that he was with this woman,” Lee pointed out, “but do you have anything concrete to indicate that he definitely left town with her?”

  “We checked his hotel room, no sign of – how do you call it? – foul play, yes? And his luggage was gone, room paid for.”

  “In person?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, did he pay the bill himself, di
d anyone see him pay the bill?”

  Rodrigues shrugged again. “Nobody remembers.”

  “So, an open and shut case, right?” Lee asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Rodrigues grinned broadly, showing all of his yellow, stained teeth at the same time. “I am glad you understand, my friend. An open and shut case, that is right.” He waved more of the smoke away, although the office was so small, it had nowhere to go. “He will probably turn up somewhere in a day or two, you know? Manaus maybe, perhaps Rio, who knows?”

  “Well,” Lee said, realizing he was not going to get anywhere further with Rodrigues, “thank you for your time. An efficient little operation you’ve got here.”

  Rodrigues’ eyes narrowed, and Lee wondered if he’d recognized the sarcasm in his tone. But then the friendliness – and the smile – were back in full force as he stood and held out his hand in farewell, banging the desk with his leg as he pushed himself out of his chair, knocking over some more of the papers.

  Lee took it, and as he shook the hand, his eyes wandered down to the desk, taking in the newly scattered paperwork that lay across it.

  His subconscious brain picked it up before he properly recognized what he was seeing but – when he did – he froze, eyes locked onto it.

  It was a black-and-white crime-scene photograph, still half-hidden under a pile of other documents; but it was enough for Lee to recognize the face of Professor Hector Guzman, from the file provided by Dunford. Half of the skull had been shattered by what could only have been a gunshot, the ground around his head a halo of blood, his eyes black and almost forced from their sockets by the eight-ball hemorrhage.

  The deputy commander had been lying; the reasons didn’t matter, for the time being at least, but the fact that the cop had sat there and sold Lee a line about Guzman running off with a woman while he had photographs of the dead man on his desk, meant that things were about to go downhill very quickly.

  Rodrigues noticed the sudden tension in Lee’s body, his eyes flicking down to his desk, and Lee knew the man understood what Lee had seen.

  Within an instant, the cop tried to jerk Lee forward by his hand, throwing a short punch toward his head as he did so. Lee slipped to the side, slamming his open palm into the cop’s chest, breaking the handgrip and sending him sprawling back into his chair.

  Rodrigues was fast though, drawing his handgun even as he fell backwards. By the time he hit the chair, it was already up and aimed in Lee’s direction. With nowhere to run in the small office, but with Rodrigues out of reach of his arms, Lee felt himself already pivoting on the ball of one foot, the other leg whipping around and over the desk in a spinning kick that hit the cop on the wrist, smashing the arm wide.

  Rodrigues squeezed the trigger even as the rotator cuff of his shoulder was blown apart completely, and even though the round buried itself in the wall and missed Lee entirely, the sound of the shot was deafening in the tiny room and he knew it would bring the other cops running.

  Rodrigues started to yell, as if the sound of the shot wasn’t enough, and Lee leaped across the desk and took the cop out with a jumping front kick to the face that blasted Rodrigues backward, his head whiplashing against the rear wall.

  Lee turned and raced to the office door, pulling it open before slamming it shut again when he heard boots racing down the corridor, accompanied by the sound of men shouting loudly in Portuguese.

  Lee ran past the desk, the unconscious body of Rodrigues still slumped behind it, and as he went, he picked up the chair he’d been sitting in just moments before.

  He was already swinging it as he reached the window, smashing it apart when it made impact, shards flying into the street outside, Lee following them as he jumped through the open frame, body narrowly missing the jagged edges that remained.

  He hit the concrete outside and rolled, coming up to his feet in one fluid motion. It was no harder – indeed, it was actually easier – than many of the stunts he’d had to perform with the movie studio in Hong Kong back in his younger days, but at least back then, he didn’t have to worry about people trying to shoot him with real guns. Not on the set, anyway.

  This time, as he came up into a crouch, he scanned the area and immediately saw the two cops who’d been chatting and smoking earlier. Alerted by the gunfire, and then the broken window, they both had their weapons out, and were tracking them toward Lee.

  Lee double-stepped across the hot asphalt and kicked the first man in the gut, doubling him over and making him drop the gun; and at the same time, his hand went to his belt and took it off in one smooth action, letting it whip out toward the second man, the buckle making contact with the guy’s forearm. The cop yelled in pain and dropped the weapon, and Lee whipped the belt back into the first cop’s face, the buckle catching him above the eye and stunning him, knocking him to the ground. A moment later and the belt was whistling through the air again, striking the second cop in the groin, dropping him to the ground with his friend, accompanied by a high-pitched squeal of pain.

  Lee’s eyes quickly took in the scene, heard doors opening through the archway, knew he would see armed men racing toward him moments later, and he was moving again quickly, sprinting for the carport and the motorbikes.

  His heart racing, he selected the first bike he saw, swinging his leg over it even as he went to work on the ignition, all too aware that within seconds, cops with pistols, shotguns and maybe even assault rifles would be turning into the garage. But then the engine caught, and he accelerated out of the car port, turning the bike toward the station’s archway rather than away from it, knowing his only chance of escape was to attack whoever was there; if he tried to race away, he’d almost certainly get a bullet in the back just instants later.

  He saw the men as he turned the corner, was gratified to see the surprise on their faces as they realized the bike was heading right for them. There were four cops, three with semi-auto pistols, one with a pump action shotgun, and two of them managed to dive out of the way as Lee drove right at them. The other two, slightly out of the direct path, started to raise their guns, but Lee kicked one in the balls on his way past, then took out the other with the belt, which he whipped into the guy’s temple.

  Lee screeched around in a tight arc, and started to move in the opposite direction, targeting the two remaining men, who’d managed to jump clear on the first run. They were to either side of the bike, their backs to Lee but turning toward him, and Lee put his weight forward onto the handlebars, balancing himself as he kicked out with both legs simultaneously, smashing his boots into the men’s faces as they turned.

  A fraction of a second later and he was sat back on the bike, accelerating away down Plácido de Castro. He heard shots fired a few seconds later, but knew it was too little, too late; he was away now, and the chances of them getting a hit at this distance were slim. But still he hunkered down over the bars, keeping his head low between his shoulders, only relaxing slightly when he made a left turn onto President Kennedy, leaving the cops behind.

  He knew they would be on his tail soon though, once they’d got themselves together, and he pulled out his cellphone as he raced the bike down the narrow streets and alleyways of Feijó, dialing Phoenix’s secure cellphone.

  “It’s me,” he breathed as the call was answered. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing, get everything together, and meet me at the airport, as quickly as you can.”

  “What happened?” came the reply, voice tight with worry.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just get there with Marcus, I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “On my way to get us a pilot,” he replied, hoping desperately that Eduardo Silva would be at Bar Uniao.

  Because if he wasn’t, Lee didn’t know what the hell he was going to do.

  Chapter Four

  Lee pulled up outside the bar, hearing the sound of sirens in the distance. If Rodrigues had woken up by now, then he’d have certainly sent his troops straight to the Hotel Joafran
. Lee was in no doubt that the deputy commander would know exactly where they were staying, which was one of the reasons why Lee had been so concerned that Phoenix and Marcus move as quickly as possible. Feijó as a base of operations was out of the picture now, and they were going to have to get up in the air with him if they wanted to escape arrest – for he would surely be brought in for questioning, at the very least.

  He burst through into the bar – which was just a one-story shack on a narrow dirt road – and his eyes took in the scene in seconds. It was small, a long bar running the length of one wall and about a dozen tables scattered over the tiled floor. There were two older guys at a table at one end, a young couple that looked like tourists a little closer, and three or four regulars propping up the bar itself. Behind the bar, wiping off glasses, was a guy in his sixties that looked like he’d worked there his entire life.

  He strode over to the guys at the bar, who’d all turned to observe the new customer, and stared down the line. “Eduardo Silva,” Lee announced, hoping beyond hope that the pilot would be there.

  Nobody moved, but Lee observed a tiny flicker of the eyes from one of the customers, and the barman, toward the guy sitting on the end stool. Late forties, with a short crewcut and a weather-beaten face like old leather, the guy had a paunch to his belly that hung slightly over the belt of his cargo shorts. There wasn’t even a flicker of response at the mention of the name Eduardo Silva, but Lee knew it was him from the body language of the others. Or at least, hoped it would be him.

  With everyone in the bar staring straight at him, Lee marched around to the far end and put his hand on the shoulder of the man he believed was Silva.

  “Eduardo Silva,” he whispered to him. “You need to come with me. Right now.”

  “Eu não entendo,” the man said gruffly, shrugging off Lee’s hand.

  Lee reached in even closer, his mouth close to the man’s ear, and used what little Portuguese he knew. “Ouço,” he said, drawing the man’s attention to the sounds of sirens on the streets of Feijó. “Polícia. Para voce.” He tapped the man on the shoulder again to emphasize the point.