by JT Sawyer
“Doesn’t he look like a fucking Israeli Leonardo DiCaprio?” said Marco as he glanced over at Mitch then back at Petra. “Shit, son, if I had your looks I wouldn’t be hoofing it through this green hell lookin’ for bad guys. I’d be swinging in a hammock in Maui, knee-deep in beach bunnies.”
Petra let out a sigh and then smirked. “I’ll be sure to get with a Hollywood agent when I get back from this mission. And maybe I’ll see if they’re in need of an annoying sidekick with a forty-six-inch waistline while I’m at it.”
Marco’s face grew solemn like a bull before a Matador. The large man swiftly removed his parang from the tree and moved forward a foot. “How ’bout I pound you into the ground like a bamboo stake.”
Mitch moved between the two men, palming Petra’s hand which was over his sheathed blade. “Easy, fellas, the jungle heat is a little intense right now. Let’s cool off some.” He moved towards Marco and yanked him away by the arm. The two men walked off twenty feet towards the river.
“Look, my old friend, these folks—they’re new to the jungle and not as hardened as you are. This is probably a little out of their element so go easy on ’em, alright.”
Marco let out a deep breath and threw his massive shoulders back. “Yeah, sure.”
“You’ve gotten us this far. I’m not worried about you and me, frankly.” He paused, pulling Marco closer and whispering, “But these Israelis are used to running ops in the fucking desert, know what I mean.”
“Right, right.”
Marco looked at Mitch, his narrow eyes relaxing from their former fury. “Anything for you, Mitch, you know that.”
“OK, now, how much further do we have on this trail?”
“Mmm…a few more miles and then we follow the river’s edge to a small log bridge as I recall from the directions my contact gave me. Assuming it’s still there after the last floods. If we can get across on that, then it should only be another half mile or so to the old encampment.”
Mitch unfurled the laminated topographic section from his cargo pocket and pointed to a narrow section of the river. “Is this the region you’re talking about?”
Marco slid his grubby finger along the contour lines and nodded then he abruptly pulled it back, his eyes shooting upward at the canopy. “The monkeys—their chatter has changed.”
Mitch looked around but didn’t share Marco’s intimate understanding of the sounds.
“It’s gonna downpour very soon,” Marco said. “We’ll be able to refill our canteens which is good but it’s going to turn the trail to snot. We should push on and find a place to sack out for the night.”
Chapter 24
Crenna peered out the window of the small cargo plane, his eyes trying to penetrate the inky jungle canopy below on the island of Sumatra. Crenna had used the sub-dermal GPS tracker that Von had inserted into his forearm. It was standard protocol for Crenna’s field operatives though outside of agency knowledge.
At a remote airstrip, he rendezvoused with a team of Egyptian mercenaries that he used on occasion for specialized wet work. Their dark complexion allowed them to blend in better than his European teams and these were men who’d loyally served him for the past six years. He’d made the acquaintance of the team leader, Masala, a clean-cut fighter with a flattened nose, during his days running kill squads for the Jordanian government, when he was on loan from the agency.
Now, he needed their services once more to contain a rapidly escalating situation with Kyle. Crenna rubbed the sides of his temples, trying to ease his tension. It was still possible to cover his treasonous betrayal if he could locate Kyle’s center of operations and eliminate everyone involved, including Von, whose location revealed itself as a red blip on Crenna’s GPS tracker. Either Von was in hiding or he had been captured, given the stationary image of the signal over the past two days. Crenna knew if it was the latter, then Kyle would fill the young agent’s head with his side of the story in order to sway his resolve. Crenna sighed at the thought of losing Von. He’d become an outstanding agent and protégé but Von might soon be privy to what happened in Beijing years ago which meant the man was nearing his expiration date.
The moon was rising and spreading light upon the undulating treetops below. Crenna looked at the GPS unit and knew the drop zone was approaching. He unbuckled and made his way to the back, passing five surly mercenaries who were busy doing a last-minute gear check on their parachutes. Crenna hunched over Masala and whispered in his ear, “Remember, retrieve any pertinent intel and laptops then burn the place to the ground along with anyone still inside.”
Masala nodded, giving him a thumbs-up as a light on the wall turned from red to green. The large figure stood, dwarfing Crenna, and motioned to his men to line up as the rear cargo ramp lowered. Crenna grabbed onto a looped handhold near the ceiling, the humid wind whipping his flossy gray hair around. The other men filed past him, jumping off the platform over the treeline below.
***
The jungle floor came up fast and Masala just cleared the edge of the forest, landing in an oval-shaped swath of grass. He had done his share of airborne operations when he worked in the Egyptian Elite Forces but he never liked night drops in the jungle where you could get hung up in a tree or slam into a shallow riverbed. His other men touched down nearby and they quickly re-assembled by a thick cluster of young palm trees. Masala knelt down and opened up his small tablet, studying the faint green screen for the location of the former Japanese base where his targets were located according to Crenna’s hastily provided intel.
“Three kilometers to go and we’ve got five hours until sunrise.” He motioned to the man next to him to take point while he tucked his device into a cargo pocket on his pants. He stood up, taking in a deep breath and feeling the assault of mosquitos already homing in on his neck. Masala preferred more open landscapes like the desert but he went wherever the American sent him. One short gig with the old man and Masala wouldn’t have to work again for nine months. He dropped his usual bodyguarding work when the American with the raspy voice called, identifying himself solely by the phrase, “I’m calling about a new invoice from Cairo.”
Masala didn’t even know the American’s real name nor did he care. Whenever he received a call, it was immediately followed by a down payment in his bank account with detailed instructions for the job following within eight hours. The balance was always promptly paid within two hours of completing the job, whether it was kidnapping, torture, extortion, or outright assassination. He preferred the latter as it left less residue in his psyche when he was trying to unwind after an assignment.
He glanced over his shoulder at the moon as he slipped into the forest, knowing that this green purgatory would be a distant memory twenty-four hours from now. Then he’d be reclining at a beachside cabana in Thailand with young women who would do anything to him or to each other for the right price.
Chapter 25
Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea
The ninety-six-foot yacht was anchored off the coast of an unnamed island near Malta. Three women clad in bikinis were sunning themselves atop the main deck in view of the captain, who was resting in his chair. This had been the same scene that had played out over the past three days as the vessel moved from island to island.
Around noon, one of the women got up and sauntered down the mahogany spiral staircase that led below deck. She stopped on the first floor to obtain a chilled glass of vermouth before heading down to the lowest level where the sounds of Chopin filled the room. She walked up behind Anton Tokarev and handed him the glass; his arm extended without looking up at her. He took a sip and then let her massage his shoulders for a few minutes before brushing her off and nodding for her to leave.
Putting the empty glass down on a round table whose legs were made from ivory tusks, he continued flipping through his book, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. He’d been forced to read it before in younger days at the boarding school in Kiev before he was expelled for nearly beating anot
her student to death. Now, he was trying to learn from the events leading up to the final days of the once great world that was Rome. He leafed through the dog-eared pages in the chapter that discussed how something as simple as malaria had halted the expansion of the empire and brought its magnificent army to its knees.
His mind was too distracted to digest much and he interspersed each page with a furtive glance at his Cartier gold watch with the diamond inlays. It cost as much as most people made in a year and he had eight of them in his collection aboard the yacht.
Since making the acquaintance of Kyle in the Chinese prison and helping him to escape, he’d grown increasingly dependent on the talented spy for increasing his stranglehold on illegal mob activities throughout Moscow. In the past three years, he had snuffed out most of his competition and acquired enough dirt on the politicians at the Kremlin to assure control of his business holdings. But after spending most of his fifty-two years in Russia, he had grown weary of the cold. He had briefly tried to venture out into new territory with the Triads in China but that only landed him in a dank cell and put him on the receiving end of punishment that he was used to doling out himself.
He wanted to expand his reach but had no desire to get bogged down in endless turf wars in other countries for years. When Kyle came to him, after their escape from the Chinese prison, and discussed his scheme for crushing the two great economies of the world, he was more than intrigued. Now their plan was close to fruition. He glanced at his watch again as if his impatient glare could increase the revolution of the hands. He reached for his glass but remembered it was empty and pressed the buzzer on his recliner.
Anton flipped the voluminous book back to the first few pages, full of black-and-white drawings of the emperors. He gazed upon the haughty image of Caligula, caressing the outline of the face, then raising a hand to his own cheek.
Chapter 26
After they’d put a few miles behind them, Marco led the group to a small finger of land that jutted out above a valley. The view was magnificent and a distant waterfall, which resembled a white ribbon, muscled its way through the jade green carpet below. With nightfall fast approaching, he had everyone set up the hammocks he’d provided after which they dug into some Asian version of an MRE packet. Dev was sitting on a fallen tree, rubbing the sole of her bare foot when Marco came over. He placed a folded green poncho on the rotting log and sat down beside her. She shimmied a few feet away without glancing at him, like he was another annoying feature of this hellish landscape.
“Be careful where you put your hands out here,” he said. “Most of these downed logs are covered with monkey shit. You get some on you accidentally and then touch your skin later, you’ll get a nasty threadworm larva burrowing into your skin. Two days later, you got this little bastard wriggling under your epidermis.” He fluttered his fingers in her face. “Had one get in beside my ribs once and could see it snaking around just below the surface like a piece of fishing line. Nearly took my blade and dug it out myself. Drove me fuckin’ insane for a week until we got to a small village with a med clinic.”
Dev had stopped her foot massage and replaced her boots then stood up and scanned her former seat on the bare wood. “If you’re fucking with me, Marco…”
He raised his hand and was about to respond when Mitch walked by. “Marco’s not telling a tall one this time. I was there on that op. Those threadworms are like something out of a horror movie. I’d pay heed to his advice.” Mitch continued moving past them, rolling down his sleeves as he headed into the treeline to relieve David of guard duty.
Dev followed him with her eyes until he seemed to melt into the foliage. Upon turning around, she caught Marco checking her out. He just smiled and slowly turned his eyes towards the treetop. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me. I never hit on another man’s lady, especially one who belongs to a friend of mine.”
“How honorable. And I don’t belong to any man.”
“Right.” He shook his head and chuckled.
“Besides, Mitch told me about how you nearly got both of your heads removed in a bar fight in Manila years ago.”
“Oh, shit, that’s right. I nearly forgot about that one.”
“Is that how he got that nasty scar on his forearm?”
Marco grew silent and looked at her, his grin disappearing. “No, no. That was from Afghanistan.” He glanced beyond her shoulder in the direction Mitch had gone then turned his eyes back to her. “He never told you about that one, eh?”
“We’ve only known each other a short time though it feels like a lot longer sometimes.”
“He sure likes you by the way he was gushing last night. Thought he was gonna cry on my shoulder at one point.”
Dev kicked him in the leg. “Shut up. Mitch isn’t the whiny type from what I know.”
“You’re right actually, he’s not. And that’s why you’re not likely to ever hear what happened near the Pakistan border.” Marco leaned back slightly, looking beyond Dev one more time before continuing. “We were in a village near Asmar, a remote region in the mountains that seemed to have more dung than peasants. We had been working with a local resistance group for several weeks and our team was tracking a small pocket of Taliban that were doing slash-and-burn hits to anyone suspected of working with the U.S. forces or our allies. This particular group had hit a small outpost of ours and made off with some sensitive data. A late season spring storm had rolled in and we were getting hammered by the snow and wind. It was colder than two-day-old penguin shit and most of us were trying to prevent frostbite.”
Marco leaned back, pulling one knee up to his chest and wrapping his bear-like hands around it. “We came upon this village that had been wiped out, bodies strung up off the bridge with the skin missing—little ones, old ones, women, no one was spared, it seemed. It was like something out of your worst nightmare. There were three survivors hiding in the rubble. A mother and her two little kids, they couldn’t have been more than five years old. The team leader insisted we stay put until the weather cleared so we could help the family. Our unit commander back in Kabul ordered us to push on and retrieve the intel despite the protesting of the team leader. He requested a helo extract for the three survivors but the weather was too inhospitable to risk a flight.”
He grew silent for a long moment, looking up at a bat zipping in figure-eights near the canopy. “We left the family with some MREs and medical supplies then made our way through the valley, picking up the tracks of the insurgents. It took another day before we caught the fuckin’ ragheads in a small canyon. We had the high ground so picking them off wasn’t exactly a challenge. Our team leader was the only one who suffered a wound; an AK round grazed his forearm. With the intel in our hands, we double-timed it back to the village. He swathed the injury and refused any further treatment. Like the rest of us, his thoughts were focused solely on the fate of the woman and her children. We walked through the night over terrain that would kill a billy goat, arriving at the village at sunrise.
Marco lowered his chin and let out a strained sigh. “The family was still there, huddled under the shattered roof of the last remaining hut, their bodies…their bodies…frozen together like statues. The eyes of the little ones still open, looking upward at their mother whose frozen tears were still clinging to her cheeks.”
“Christ,” whispered Dev as she moved closer.
“We had all seen horrors before but nothing like that. Something that could’ve been prevented if we’d only stayed a little longer. Orders were orders though—you look like someone who knows what that means.” Marco looked beyond Dev towards the treeline. “The team leader took it the hardest. It changed him from the man I knew. It took its toll on all of us but a part of Mitch died that day.”
Dev looked up at a sliver of moonlight piercing the canopy, letting out a deep sigh. She looked at Marco, whose facial muscles were quivering, then out at the forest where Mitch had gone.
“Combat is horrible enough to endure without having
to lose one’s soul to remorse. I’m sorry for what you went through.” She folded her arms, taking in a deep breath. “I know from my own experiences, you either get bitter or get better, though some days are easier than others.”
Marco raised his chin slightly, emitting a forced grin. “Ah, shit, you know—you find ways to cope whether it’s burying yourself in the bottle or your job.”
Dev felt the sting of the latter word like a boxer’s jab had struck her in the jaw. Had she been immersed in her father’s company for the sake of carrying on his legacy or because the insane schedule numbed her to being alone with her own thoughts? She wasn’t sure but she forced her mind back to the present and knew it wasn’t time to focus on her own difficulties. She removed her poncho from her pack and put it down on the log, sitting beside Marco.
“So, is that why you disappeared into Malaysia after you left the army?” she said. “Mitch told me you removed yourself from everyone back home and cut ties for a while.”
“When you’re that dark inside, it’s better not to swallow up the ones you care about. I needed a break, hell, we all did after running non-stop missions abroad for so many years. I was always amazed that Mitch stayed in as long as he did but then he’s always been a glutton for punishment—fuckin’ cowboy.”
Marco stood up and arched his back while raising his arms skyward in a stretch. “Better get some rest while you can. Tomorrow is going to be another good bitch-slap in the face like we had with today’s trek.” He nodded to her and walked to his hammock, turning around before he climbed inside. “You’re alright, Dev. I doubted you could hack it when I first laid eyes on you but you’re not half bad.”
She rolled her eyes and snickered. “See you at sun-up, Marco.”
Dev hoisted herself up and walked past Petra and David’s hammocks, hearing both men stir slightly in their light sleep. She walked twenty feet into the jungle to where Mitch was leaning against a tree, his AK strung off the front of his chest as he peered into the valley below, which was illuminated in the moonlight.