by Rob Jones
Viktor Sobotka rolled on top of his last will and testament, gone forever.
*
When the work was done, Jorge Mendoza and his men closed up the back doors of the Atego and casually secured the lock. Now, with the drive ahead of him, he remembered his work as a freight train driver when he used to smuggle drugs over the US border. He hid the cocaine packets under the driver’s seat beside the battery.
He climbed up into the cab and positioned himself in the driver’s seat with Juana beside him. Behind him, Aurora Soto and a handful of Wade’s most loyal acolytes jumped on board and clambered into the rear of the truck. Not as impressive as the massive locomotive he used to drive, but it did the same job.
Their orders were simple enough: ensure the Hummingbird was delivered to the airfield then fly her to the agreed location. Not a problem, Señor Wade… no pasa nada.
He nodded with satisfaction as remembered how he would drive the train of death, revving up its monstrous 3500 horsepower V16 diesel-electric engine as it groaned to life. This then was the truck of death, and when they were in the air they would soon be over the border with the gabachos and the new age of the Sixth Sun could start at last. Only then would the world be cleansed and mankind finally able to transform one step closer to the gods. His brother and Aurora didn’t believe in any of this, but that was their failing. He knew it was all true. He had seen Wade talking to the gods.
He moved up through the gears and got the Hummingbird on her way. Jorge missed riding the rails. He missed the feeling he got when he increased power to the throttles and the massive freight train began to move forward along the searing-hot tracks. Beside him, Juana Diaz glanced over her shoulder at the rear of the truck and lowered her head in terrified silence.
It was good that she knew her place, he mused. That would come in handy later, but for now he had serious business to attend to. He crunched up through the gears and tried to focus on the mission but then his brother’s voice drifted into his mind on the breeze, mingling with the sweet scent of the pitaya vines…
Eat the heart, Jorge… tu debes comer el corazón!
He shuddered at the thought. Yes, he had done it.
But only because Silvio had told him to do it.
It was the only way into the serpientes, but now he felt like crying. It would all be over when he rode the Hummingbird into the heavens.
In top gear now, he pushed the Mercedes Atego along the dirt track but in his mind he was on the rails again, increasing power as he brought the five thousand tonne freight train up to cruising speed. He looked ahead. The dirt track and soaking wet rainforest had melted away. All he saw was the sun flashing on the twin steel tracks that he knew so well, stretching out to the vanishing point in the vast Sonoran Desert ahead of him.
It would all be over soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The ECHO team had landed in Mexico’s rainy season, and thanks to the tail end of a tropical storm front, the helicopter journey out to Wade’s coffee plantation was longer and more turbulent than even Hawke had considered it might be. The UKSF had trained him many times in this part of the world – Belize mostly – so he knew vaguely what to expect in terms of landscape and humidity, but this place was something else altogether.
As they weaved their way over the undulations of the luscious landscape below, it reminded him of something out of Jurassic Park with the steep drops at the side of the roads and the dense tropical rainforest as far as the eye could see – and then they were almost at the plantation.
With some chunky binoculars, he looked at Wade’s hideout from the air and made his calculations. It was vast, with Wade’s hacienda in the center. Moving out were plush tropical lawns and even what looked like an artificial lake with an island in the middle of it. Surrounding all of this were the coffee fields – an endless carpet of the precious commodity that stretched to every horizon.
Lexi offered him a stick of gum and when he declined she ran her finger up his leg.
“You might have noticed but I’m with someone,” he said, glancing over at Lea who was in animated conversation with Kim and Reaper.
There was a short moment of awkward silence and she gave him a look of disappointment. “Don’t you want to finish what we started in Zambia?”
Hawke lifted her hand away, distracted by the mission ahead. “We already finished what we started in Zambia, Lexi.”
He liked Lexi, but she was unpredictable. On the flight she had spoken to him about the Zodiacs and that had made him realize she wasn’t invulnerable to attack after all. She had the same concerns and worries as everyone else. He thought about the assassins she had described – Tiger, Rat, Monkey and Pig. Their simple names had the desired effect of dehumanizing them and making them hard to read or understand. That was why they did it. He took a deep breath and tried to relax, but if these assassins were half as good as Lexi then that meant more trouble.
Of even more concern was the fact Alex Reeve was on the mission. She had successfully appealed to Richard Eden to let her go into the field and he had agreed, but Hawke wasn’t so sure. He had a bad feeling she wasn’t ready.
Two miles out, the choppers landed in a clearing and the pilots killed the engines. Any closer and they risked giving away their presence to the enemy. That meant a hike through the rainforest before they could properly case Wade’s hacienda, but they were all up for it, except for one.
“This humidity is ridiculous,” said Ryan.
“It’s not that bad,” Scarlet said. “Stop being such a baby.”
“Are you kidding? It’s like walking through a bowl of hot soup.”
“In that case,” Hawke said, “you’ll be glad to know you’re staying here with the choppers.”
“What?”
“You heard me, mate. I want someone here to guard these birds while we get about our business over on the plantation, and that someone is Maria. You can keep her and the two pilots company. Any objections?”
Ryan shook his head, and Maria’s reply was to slide a bullet into the chamber of her gun and sit back down inside one of the choppers.
Hawke led the way into the jungle, taking the occasional compass reading as they went. He knew from experience that the lack of light meant getting lost inside a heavy rainforest was easier than falling off a wet log so he kept his wits about him.
The hike was made easier by the usual banter which continued with much eye-rolling until they reached a rise in the jungle, at the top of which a break in the undergrowth offered just the view they were hoping for.
Hawke took up the monocular and studied the compound on the far side of the valley. It was breathtaking in its beauty and the limitless opulence of the property impressed even the former SBS man, who wasn’t exactly known for his appreciation of the finer things in life.
He was looking at the large white hacienda that Wade had converted at considerable expense from an old monastery, and it was surrounded by immense tropical gardens. A luxurious spa house glistened beside some tennis courts, and just behind the main house Hawke spied some stables and a horse-riding facility Wade had carved out of the side of a gentle rise.
To the east of the house was a sprawling coffee plantation over one hundred acres in size, and at the far end of it in a shady valley was a jumble of broken-down huts made of plywood and canvas flapping in the breeze. This was the little favela where Morton Wade’s plantation workers lived. Paid no more than sweatshop workers, Wade worked these people in the toughest conditions.
If they were anything like many coffee pickers, these men and women would pick hundreds of pounds of coffee beans a day for which Wade would pay them no more than three dollars. It was for this reason that many workers in the coffee fields put their own children to work in order to increase the pay they received at the end of the day. Hawke thought about Wade’s private jet and nearly crushed the monocular in his hand.
He handed it over to Reaper and the burly French mercenary viewed the same scene, lingerin
g as Hawke had done on the favela.
“I could do with a cup of coffee right now as a matter of fact…” he said. “Just un petit café au lait, je crois. You think they would pick just one little cup for me?”
Hawke gave him a look. “Is this the famous French sense of humor?”
Vincent Reno gave a Gallic shrug and grinned. “I meant before we take Wade out.”
“I’m not liking that I can’t see that damned truck anywhere,” Hawke muttered. “Maybe they already moved out.”
“Could be,” Kim said. “We won’t find out till we’re in.”
Maria gave a wry smile. “Old Russian saying – you can take a wolf by his ears, but you can never let go…”
“What?” Lexi said.
“She means when we’re in there’s no going back,” Lea said.
“Oh, sure,” Lexi said. “I knew that.”
Hawke ignored the banter as he wrapped up his surveillance of the hacienda and turned to the team. “All right – now we break into two. Lea and I will go down the western part of the valley and go into the hacienda to take out Wade and anyone else in there. We’ll also see if we can gather any intel from his HQ – there has to be a study or something in a place that size. Scarlet here will lead Vincent… “ Hawke paused, noting the expression on Vincent’s face. “What?”
The Frenchman sighed. “We’re on a mission. It’s Reaper.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Scarlet here will lead Reaper and the rest of the team to the favela and take out the men guarding Wade’s coffee slaves. Make it midday precisely.”
And with that they set their watches, re-checked their weapons, divided into units and made their way down through the thick grove of coffee trees stretching as far as the eye could see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Hawke watched Reaper lead his team into the west and disappear in the steaming jungle. Then, with Lea at his side he led the way through the coffee fields toward the hacienda. He’d forgotten how much he hated the jungle, but Mexico was doing its best to remind him. The mosquitoes were bad in the rainy season, especially here in the humid south. The ultimate predators, they had your blood and were long gone by the time you felt the itch. On top of that were the boa constrictors, scorpions and Hobo spiders crawling all over everything… not to mention the cockroaches.
“Just what the hell is that noise?” Lea asked.
“What noise?”
“Sounds like a cheap hedge-trimmer.”
“An ocelot.”
“That’s not a brand of hedge-trimmer, is it?”
“No. It’s a dwarf leopard.”
“A freaking leopard?” she gasped, glancing over her shoulder at the low raspy growling noise.
“You used to be a Ranger. You’ll deal with it.”
“Yeah, but do they eat people?”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “They’re only twice the size of a house cat. Salvador Dalí kept one as a pet. Just relax.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“But look out for the jaguars, because those bastards can get ugly.”
“Oh sure, no problem… wait – what?”
“Forget it – we’re here.”
Hawke pulled apart some undergrowth and now they were able to see the hacienda close-up. They were no more than twenty yards from its north wall now, and close enough to hear some music playing on a radio inside one of the ground floor rooms.
“I can’t see anyone,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They crouch-walked across the north lawn and slipped through a set of Louvre doors to find themselves inside a cool, tiled hall. The radio was louder now, and Hawke peered inside a room to see a man sleeping with a gun on his lap.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Fortune favours the brave.”
They went inside the room and walked over to the man. Hawke grabbed the gun, waking him, but knocked him out with the stock of the weapon before he’d even opened his eyes properly.
Making their way deeper into the property they climbed a sweeping staircase and found themselves facing what looked like Wade’s private quarters. The door to some kind of anteroom was ajar and through the narrow gap he saw a desk littered with papers and a large map of Mexico on the wall behind it.
He turned to Lea. “I think that’s our next stop.”
“We need to hurry,’ Lea said, glancing at her watch. “Not long till Scarlet’s attack and then all hell will break loose.”
Suddenly they heard a floorboard creak and Hawke spun around to see a tall man with a Cold Steel Folder knife in his hand. Seeing he was rumbled, the man lunged forward with the knife. With no room for a roundhouse and no time to think, Lea powered a stunning switch kick into his lower right jaw and snapped his neck back so fast he never saw it coming.
“Nighty night,” she said, but the noise of the fight alerted someone in the room and a second later the door slammed shut.
Hawke took a step back and piled into the door with a chunky shoulder-barge. The heavy panel door gave way just enough to give him some hope before smacking back into the frame. He gave another shoulder-barge and this time it gave way some more but not enough.
Lea sighed. “You want to take a rest while I do that?”
Hawke glanced at her but made no reply. Inside the room he could hear that his work was raising a panic. He launched a third attack and this time the bocote panel splintered and popped out of the frame.
A young man with a shiny neck knife jumped forward from behind the door. He was lean but while his physical body was up for a fight, Hawke saw in his eyes that his mind wasn’t so sure. Behind him he saw the second door was also closed now.
He gestured for the man to come forward. “Bring it on then.”
Neck Knife threw the blade from one hand to the other and licked his lips with fear as he sized up the enormous Englishman now facing him. Behind him was a second heavy bocote door that obviously led to where they wanted to go, so Hawke padded closer to the young man.
Neck Knife moved back, but then thought better of his cowardice and what the Boss might think about it. He moved forward and took a swing at Hawke with the blade. Hawke moved his head to the side and dodged the attack as the steel whistled past his chin. Neck Knife had come in close for the failed attack, and Hawke now used that proximity against him to lay a devastating shovel hook on the side of his head. The young man crumpled like a sack of garbage and fell down on his backside.
The shock of the punch made him release the knife and it tumbled out of his trembling hand onto the floor. Hawke flicked it out of his reach with the toe of his boot and then grabbed the front of his shirt to haul him back up again, this time without the weapon.
“Is that door locked too?”
“No hablo inglés!”
“No problem,” Hawke replied. “Se cerró la puerta?”
The man looked shocked at the unexpected Spanish, albeit delivered with an Argentinean accent. “No, man… that door’s open.”
Hawke narrowed his eyes. “I thought you couldn’t speak English?”
“I… well…” he looked at Hawke sheepishly, but the Englishman ended his sentence for him with a speedy, violent sucker punch and lowered his unconscious body to the floor.
“Ah,” Lea said softly. “Don’t you just love it when the kids go off to sleep nice and early and give us some much needed Us Time?”
“Funny,” Hawke said, and opened the second door.
The study was as opulent as Hawke had speculated, with double French windows at either end of the room. They both opened onto the second floor veranda and the warm breeze outside was gently blowing the voile panels into the room. Another window on the adjacent wall looked out over Wade’s courtyard.
Above their heads an ornate ceiling fan was circulating the sticky air and a pedestal fan was whirring beside a leather wingback. In the far corner behind the desk was a strange stone object around half the size of a bath. Hawke looked at it with uncertainty before raising his eyes again. A view of the sprawlin
g coffee fields lay beyond the windows but Hawke’s interest was much closer to home. He moved toward the desk where Wade had used paperweights and old books to pin down a large map of the jungle.
“Wade’s nowhere in sight but we got the next best thing,” he said.
Lea nodded. “What are we looking at, Joe?”
Hawke frowned and traced his finger along the surface of the map. “If this is the coffee plantation right here, and these are the ruins where Ben and other others were killed, then what the hell is this over here? The mark around this other location is several weeks old. There’s something not right about all of this. ” He pointed to an area in the deep jungle that someone had marked with a roughly drawn circle.
“Congratulations,” said the Texan twang. Hawke and Lea spun around to see Morton Wade in the door. Behind him were Silvio Mendoza and Aurora Soto. “You seem to have found my new temple.”
*
Scarlet Sloane was in her element. Crouched low now, and with a well-oiled Heckler & Koch MP5 complete with suppressor in her hands, she moved through the jungle like a jaguar, her face hidden behind a thick layer of camo paint. To her right, Reaper looked equally relaxed, but she knew Lexi, Alex and the BDS-CIA team weren’t at home in this environment.
The Mexican rainforest was as harsh as it got, and yet it supported thousands of species of plant and animal life. Ryan had regaled her with the details on the chopper journey. According to him, this was all part of what was named the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor because it facilitated the migration of so much flora and fauna between the two continents of North and South America. Its ecosystem was staggering in the diversity of its many biomes, or at least that’s what the boy had told her. Not only that, but it had also been home to the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec civilizations for countless centuries and all over the area was the evidence in the form of overgrown archaeological sites.
She pressed on, leading her team closer to the battle. A few hundred yards ahead, a break in the tropical undergrowth opened to reveal the flapping canvas shanty huts that made up Wade’s disgusting, fly-blown favela. It was going to be a pleasure smashing up Wade’s empire and freeing these people, not to mention avenging the deaths of the murdered ECHO team and Agent Doyle.