“Should be a couple of hundred yards to the north of here,” Julio added, slinging an M-2 satchel charge across his back. “If we find the mainlanders, do nothing. Let them go inside the warehouse, then we’ll blow it and do both jobs at the same time.”
“What’s the place look like?” a short man asked, thumbing a 40 mm round into the grenade launcher of the Russian assault rifle.
Tucking the sawed-off shotgun into a holster along his leg, Julio snorted. “What is this, downtown New York?” he snapped, picking up the Uzi machine gun. “We find a building, that’s the one we want. Let’s move out!”
Nodding agreement, the mercs checked their weapons and started along the crude path, their Kalashnikovs sweeping the lush greenery for targets.
Time passed slowly and the two hundred yards gradually became three, then four hundred. Suddenly the jungle broke and the group of men found themselves on a mossy escarpment overlooking a wide, swampy valley. Mist moved along the watery surface and bats hung from the banyon like grotesque fruit. There was no sign of any building, only dank muck and boiling swarms of buzzing insects.
“You sure we went in the right direction?” Julio demanded softly, scowling at the primordial morass in annoyance.
Resting the M-60 on a shoulder, Esteban pulled out the GPS receiver and checked the indicator again. “Yeah, this is it,” he said slowly. “But there’s nothing here, and never has been. So what the…oh shit.” He dropped the receiver and used both hands to swivel the M-60 at the dense jungle.
“It’s a trap!” Julio yelled, dropping to one knee and spraying the nearest greenery with a burst from the Uzi.
Snarling a curse, Esteban cut loose with the M-60, the big rounds chewing a path of destruction through the moist foliage. Instantly the rest of their crew hosed streams of copper-jacketed rounds in random directions, the spent brass from the chattering Kalashnikovs flying everywhere. The leaves violently shook in the dripping trees and birds erupted into the sky even as bloody monkeys tumbled dead to the mossy ground. Hot lead was poured into every bush and flowering tree, even the stagnant pools of water far below. But nobody fired back or shouted out in pain.
After a moment Julio called a halt and listened intently. The gunfire echoed along the swampy valley, but other than that, there was only silence. The jungle was momentarily still from the thundering barrage of military ordinance.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Esteban whispered nervously, digging into the nylon bag at his side to extract a spare belt of fresh rounds. With fumbling hands, he flipped open the breech and tossed away the last few remaining inches of linked cartridges, then laid in the new belt of fifty rounds.
Watching the greenery for anything suspicious, Julio licked dry lips. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he stated forcibly. “Everybody back to the truck!”
Dropping spent clips, the mercenaries reloaded on the run, charging through the strangely quiet jungle. As the VW truck came into view, one of them tripped and went sprawling, his Kalashnikov sliding away into the damp bushes.
“Go get it, stupid!” Esteban snarled, then stopped as he saw a human eye blink in the carpet of leaves alongside the fallen man.
Faster than ghosts escaping from the grave, five large men in military-camouflaged ghillie suits erupted from the ground, the MP-5 submachine guns in their hands blowing flame and death. Five of the mercenaries died on the spot, the rest of the group diving for cover in the ferns and poinciana bushes.
“They’re underground!” Julio bellowed unnecessarily, the Uzi spraying lead. One of the subterranean warriors dodged out of the way. But another took a full burst in the chest. Yes! However, the 9 mm rounds only tore off patches of wet fabric from the ghillie suits, exposing some sort of molded body armor underneath.
Snarling, Esteban added the yammering fury of the M-60 with the same results. The sight sent icy-cold adrenaline into his stomach. Body armor that could stop a .308 round? These weren’t DEA agents, but U.S. Special Forces! What was going on here?
Spreading out, the five camouflaged strangers moved into the greenery, their weapons firing in short, controlled bursts. Screams of pain and bitter cursing came from everywhere. A grenade exploded, the fireball pushing back the jungle dampness for a searing heartbeat.
Bracketing the blast with suppressive rounds from the hammering M-60, Esteban knew that wasn’t one of their grenades. It was something the Army called Willie Peter—white phosphorous—and it could roast the flesh from a person in under a heartbeat.
Constantly on the move, Kalashnikovs yammered in the gloom, the fiery flowers from the muzzles strobing in the thick foliage. The MP-5 submachine guns answered briefly in return, and more mercenaries shrieked into agonizing death.
Firing steadily, Julio backed toward the truck. When the Uzi clicked empty, he dropped the weapon to draw the shotgun. Crouching, the merc leader waited for a target. A shadowy figure lurched from the dripping vines and Julio gave it both barrels. In the bright muzzle flash, he was horrified to see that it was one of his own men. Fuck! Spinning, the mercenary tumbled back into the bushes, leaving a ghastly crimson trail.
Then a big man rose from the bushes, dropping a spent clip into his MP-5. Cracking the sawed-off shotgun, Julio frantically ejected the spent 12-gauge shells and shoved in fresh ones. Raising the shotgun, he saw that the other man was holding a crossbow, of all things. They fired in unison. The shotgun blast obliterated the plants alongside the big soldier, and Julio staggered backward, the long black quarrel from the crossbow sticking out of his shoulder.
Blood gushing from the wound, Julio tried to stanch the flow with his bare hands when he violently collided with a tree, the blow almost knocking him unconscious. He lost his vision for a time period, and silence filled the world.
Sight and sound returned with a vengeance, the jar shocking him painfully alert. Machine guns and assault rifles blazed away constantly all around him, then a grenade exploded nearby and Julio weakly looked up just in time to see his brother flying limply into the air, his arms and legs traveling in different directions. Fury filled his mind, but his body refused to obey and Julio slumped weakly against the tree, tears of rage coursing down his dirty cheeks.
A few moments later it was over. Only the five strangers were still standing, the bloody ground of the crude jungle path dotted with shiny spent brass and twitching corpses.
“T.J., give me a BDH,” David McCarter ordered brusquely, reloading his MP-5 machine gun. “Calvin, see to that man! Everybody else, watch the perimeter.”
The members of Phoenix Force moved without comment.
Gingerly checking his neck, McCarter found that he was bleeding slightly from a graze along the side where one of the mercs had come too close with a thrown knife. A former member of the vaunted British SAS, and now the leader of Phoenix Force, David McCarter was surprised a mercenary had gotten that close. Most professional soldiers held mercs in the same low esteem they did body lice, just something to crush when they got annoying.
Going to the panting leader of the Puerto Rican mercenaries, Calvin James looked down at the man and said nothing for a moment, watching how the blood came from the arrow wound. It was flowing, but not pumping. No arteries had been nicked, then. Good. This guy might just live if he cooperated. The tallest member of the team, Calvin James was a Navy SEAL, the field medic for the team and one of the best underwater demolitionists his teammates had ever seen.
“Drop the knife,” James ordered, his accent a growl of pure southside Chicago. He was still holding the MP-5, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger.
Looking down, Julio was surprised to see that he was holding a switchblade knife. He had no recollection of pulling the weapon. Forcing his fingers apart, he let the blade drop into the moss.
“Better,” James said, slinging the weapon and swinging around a medical kit. “Now, I can stop the bleeding, but it’s going to hurt. And I mean a lot.”
“B-bah. I—I am not…not afraid,” Julio wheezed,
sweat running down his pale face.
“You should be,” James replied stoically and, without another comment, he yanked the arrow free.
White-hot pain lanced through Julio, and he barely had a chance to scream before completely losing consciousness.
As the merc went limp, James pulled out a knife to start cutting away the crimson-soaked fabric so he could clean the wound.
With a Beretta in one hand and the MP-5 in the other, T. J. Hawkins warily approached McCarter, his expression grim.
“We’ve got a problem,” Hawkins stated. “I count seventeen dead bodies.”
Every member of Phoenix Force heard that over their earplugs and went instantly alert.
Standing with his back to a kapok tree, Rafael Encizo tightened his grip on the MP-5 just as drop of moisture fell from the leaves above to hit the hot barrel. The water sizzled into steam. A heavy, stocky man with catlike reflexes, Encizo was less than handsome, his face carrying the scars of too many battles. But the rough looks beguiled a razor-sharp mind.
“You sure about that?” Encizo whispered, studying the area.
Trying to appear casual, Hawkins scratched his nose. “Definite.”
“Shit.” Gary Manning grunted at the pronouncement. The big Canadian shrugged the massive bolt-action rifle strapped across his back to a more comfortable position. Manning was the sniper for Phoenix Force, and his weapon of choice was the infamous .50-caliber Barrett rifle. The colossal weapon fired a bullet that could penetrate most light-tank armor and blow holes through brick walls from a mile away. The colossal Barrett was a deadly machine of distant termination, but only in the hands of an expert marksman.
“Seventeen,” Manning whispered, squinting at the still forms scattered in the gory mud. “But I thought that Aaron said the Miguel brothers always rode with a crew of twenty.”
Down the jungle path, the headlights of the truck suddenly came on, bathing Phoenix Force in a harsh illumination.
“They do!” McCarter yelled, moving and firing at the same time.
As the team separated fast, the V-12 engine loudly came to life and the truck started rolling forward, rapidly increasing speed. From behind the vehicle, something even brighter flashed and smoke puffed.
“Rocket!” James cursed, dragging the unconscious Julio behind the massive tree for some protection.
The fiery dart of a LAW rocket streaked down the leafy pathway and plowed into a stand of sugarcane. A split second later, a thunderous explosion tore the sweet plants apart, spraying debris into the misty sky.
Lumbering along faster, the truck kept coming, and now Kalashnikov assault rifles cut loose from behind the vehicle, the three ducking mercs only partially in view.
Bobbing and weaving among the dripping ferns, Phoenix Force arced through the jungle on both sides of the crude road, only to reappear and close upon the truck from opposite sides.
“T.J. and Gary, go!” McCarter commanded over the radio.
Rising into view, the two members of Phoenix Force hosed the truck with 9 mm rounds from their MP-5 submachine guns.
Forced to quickly take cover behind the moving vehicle, the three mercs pulled grenades from their pockets, clawing to get off the strip of safety tape holding down the arming levers. As the tape came loose, the mercs yanked out the arming pins.
That was when McCarter and Encizo stepped out of the ferns and stitched the three with prolonged bursts. Crying out in shock, the mercs threw their arms high as the copper-jacketed rounds tore them apart, the safety handles falling away free.
As the dying men collapsed, Phoenix Force rapidly took cover, and a split second later the grenades detonated, the entire jungle seeming to shake from the triple blast.
Crouching in the bushes, Hawkins grunted as something slammed hard into his belly. Slapping a hand to the spot, he quickly checked for blood, but his NATO body armor had stopped the shrapnel from penetrating. It had hurt, a lot, but he would live.
Continuing through the smoky trees, the truck jounced over the still corpses of the mercs lying in the bloody mud, until it wandered into the plants and rumbled away out of sight, the dripping leaves and flowery vines closing behind the vehicle.
“Anybody hurt?” McCarter demanded over the radio, slapping a fresh clip into his weapon. These three made twenty mercs total, but he was staying sharp in case the Miguel brothers had brought along some friends.
“No breakage,” James replied, still kneeling alongside the unconscious leader of the mercenaries. He was in front of the man, protecting him from incoming rounds.
“And the area looks clear,” Hawkins reported, scanning the jungle with IR goggles. The optical device registered heat sources, and aside from the Stony Man commandos and the sugarcane conflagration raging out of control, there was nothing within sixty yards that was bigger than an iguana.
“Stay sharp,” McCarter directed, walking over to James and his patient. The Stony Man commando had the mercenary propped up against a banyon tree, and was just finishing off a temporary bandage around the ragged wound.
“What’s his condition?” McCarter asked.
“He’ll live,” James said, adjusting the knot. Satisfied, he moved away from the man and reclaimed his weapons. Only a fool tried to heal an enemy with a gun at his side. “Just not sure how useful that arm will ever be.”
“Can you wake him?”
James gave a curt nod. “No problem.”
“Do it,” McCarter ordered.
Pulling a preloaded syringe from the compact med kit, James gave the unconscious merc a combo shot of morphine, digitalis and amphetamine, a battlefield cocktail guaranteed to rouse the dead if the bodies were still fresh.
He’ll have a splitting headache tomorrow, James thought, injecting the devil brew directly into a vein. But then again, the stupid son of a bitch is lucky to still have a head. Mercenaries he could tolerate. Drug dealers he could execute in cold vengeance. His kid sister had died of an over dose of smack, and there weren’t enough bullets in existence ever to balance the score.
With a low moan, Julio sluggishly came awake. “You…” the man mumbled in blurry recognition. “What did you give me?”
“Something for the pain,” James said, putting away the empty syringe.
Along with other things to try to make me talk, Julio rationalized, waves of soothing warmth spreading through his arm and then his chest. The pain vanished, leaving him feeling slightly disconnected from reality. Then the memory of the fight, along with the death of his brother, came rushing back and he snarled in raw hatred.
“What do you want with me, gringo?” Julio demanded, his tongue feeling thick and awkward. “I tell you nothing. Nothing! Go ahead and haul my ass to jail. I will call my lawyers and be free in a day. A day!”
“That might be true, if we were the DEA or the police,” McCarter said, glancing sideways at Hawkins.
Giving a wink, Hawkins recoiled from a corpse on the ground. “Hey, this guy is still alive!” he cried loudly.
“Too bad. We already have their leader,” McCarter said. “So we don’t need him.”
“No problem, sir.” Pulling his Beretta, Hawkins worked the slide and fired a couple of 9 mm Parabellum rounds directly into the chest of the dead man. The body jerked at each impact, almost seeming to die all over again.
The brutally callous execution caught Julio completely by surprise. These mainlanders were insane! Most definitely not U.S. Army, or even the CIA.
Crouching on his heels, McCarter lit a cigarette and offered it to the prisoner.
As if suspecting another trap, Julio hesitantly accepted and sucked in a ragged breath. He held the smoke for a long time, then let it out slowly. “Okay, okay, you win, I’ll talk,” Julio muttered grudgingly. “What do you want to know?”
“Don’t want to know anything,” McCarter said incredibly. “What you will do is send a message that this job was a total success. We’re dead, and the warehouse was burned to the ground.”
Smokin
g away steadily, Julio said nothing but his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?” he asked, puzzled.
“Our business. And don’t try to lie that it has to go through your sister,” McCarter warned. “She is already in custody, and we’ve raided her files.” Or rather Kurtzman and his cybernetic team had, the Briton thought, which was pretty much the same thing. “We know that she only relays information. Your brother runs the crew, but you make the deals.”
In spite of the situation, Julio was impressed. At least the mainlanders weren’t stupid enough to ask for the name of who they worked for. He had no idea. What a man didn’t know couldn’t be forced out by torture or used in court to bargain for an easier jail sentence.
“No, I run the crew,” Julio lied glibly, dribbling smoke out of the corner of his mouth with every word. “My brother handles…handled the finances. You killed the wrong man. I don’t know any codes.”
“And who said anything about a code?”
The man frowned, puzzled and confused.
With a scowl, McCarter swung around the crossbow and pressed the razor-sharp tip of the quarrel against the bare throat of the wounded man. “Send the message,” he stated in a flat monotone. “I won’t ask again.”
Rendered motionless from the presence of the barb, Julio had trouble taking his sight away from the crossbow. Instead of being made of wood like an ordinary hunting model, this was composed of slim metal tubing, with spare arrows attached to the underside. It looked lightweight and extremely deadly.
Feeling his mind starting to wander, Julio knew that lying would be almost impossible under the numbing influence of the drugs. And these men weren’t trying to scare him. This was a straight deal: send the message or die. Fair enough.
Looming over the supine man, Encizo tossed a U.S. Army laptop onto the damp ground. “Get busy,” he ordered.
Capital Offensive (Stony Man) Page 7