Trail of the Chupacabra: An Avery Bartholomew Pendleton Misadventure (The Chupacabra Trilogy - Book 2)

by Randel Stephen

  Barquero pulled off his helmet and unfastened his seatbelt. As he climbed down from the cab of the dump truck, he realized he must have fractured several ribs during the impact. Wincing from the pain, he pulled an assault rifle from the cab with him. Chambering a round in the HK417 battle rifle with attached under-barrel grenade launcher, he approached the SUV that his dump truck had clipped. The vehicle was on its side. Barquero fired a burst into the front section of the car. The driver he was aiming at stopped moving. The men in the back were already dead. To his right, past the armored delivery truck, three armed cartel soldiers were climbing out of the second SUV and spraying automatic rifle fire in his direction. Barquero fired a forty-millimeter grenade at the vehicle. It exploded, sending all three men flying into the road. Barquero chambered another grenade into the launcher before firing it at the bulletproof windshield of the delivery truck. The window exploded. Barquero filled the cabin with a long stream of automatic rifle fire. Nothing inside moved. Gravel dust continued to swirl and cover the roadway. Traffic behind the wreckage slid to a stop. Horns blared.

  Swapping out the magazine in the HK, Barquero strode to the rear of the delivery truck. There were most certainly men inside with the shipment, but even his grenade launcher wouldn’t open the reinforced rear doors of the truck. Reaching into his black fatigues, he pulled out a shaped charge of plastic explosive. He placed it on the doors. Just as he was about to arm the charge, he heard the sound of something rolling across the top of the truck. Looking up, he caught the image of three cylinder-shaped objects rolling off the top of the truck as they landed on the road next to him. Barquero dropped his weapon and dove for cover away from the explosives just as they detonated with a deafening bang and a blinding white flash. Barquero rolled onto his back and tried to get up. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. A dull ringing filled his ears. He couldn’t stand. Suddenly, the rear doors of the armored truck swung open. A man in a military uniform stood in the opening and removed a pair of earplugs. Even through the fog that filled his head, Barquero recognized the man.

  “Cesar,” Barquero said as his world continued to spin. A man with long dark hair stepped up beside Cesar and removed his earplugs as well. He waved his hand forward as two cartel soldiers with assault rifles leapt down from the cargo bay. The first one slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of Barquero’s head, then handcuffed him. The second one injected him with a syringe. The world slipped into blackness for Barquero. The last thing he saw through his spinning vision was Cesar and Carnicero laughing together. Another SUV that had been following a mile behind the convoy pulled up along the shoulder of the road, past the growing line of stalled traffic behind the carnage. It parked next to what was left of the armored truck.

  “Put him in the SUV,” Carnicero ordered his men. “We’re taking him to the farm,” he said to Cesar. “Do you want to come with us? The Padre plans on having quite a bit of fun with this one.”

  “No, I have to get back to work. There’s my ride,” he said, pointing to a military helicopter approaching low from the southeast. “What about the armored car?”

  “Leave it,” Carnicero replied, viewing the damage to the front of the vehicle. Barquero’s dump truck had nearly demolished the engine compartment of the white truck, and the grenade had destroyed the cabin. Thick black smoke and orange flames engulfed the mangled front of the vehicle. “It’s worth losing for capturing this big bastard.” He watched his men load the large man into the back of the SUV. A horn from a motorist blocked by the wreckage blared. Carnicero pulled a gold-plated forty-five-caliber pistol from his waistband and fired several times at the car. “Shut up!” He fired twice more for good measure. The noise stopped. “Here’s an advance on your money,” he said, pulling an envelope from inside his jacket. “The balance will be deposited in an offshore account.”

  “Thank you.” Cesar took the envelope.

  “You know, Colonel Beltrán, now that we are working together, we have some very good investment people if you’re interested. The returns are always guaranteed. Bad things happen to our bankers if they aren’t.” Carnicero grinned as he stepped into the SUV as the military helicopter landed in a field just off the side of the highway. The two men went their separate ways.

  • • •

  Avery tapped his fingers impatiently. The crew had gotten a late start that morning. They were behind schedule, and Avery was beginning to grumble. The cause of the delay had to do with Privates Zulu and Foxtrot spending the better part of the morning on the rather foul toilet inside the Coyote’s Liar while the menudo from the previous evening formed a violent conga line through their lower intestines. With only one toilet in the small, rank-smelling restroom, the two men had to switch places every few minutes, leading to several close calls for the man left standing. Private Foxtrot was particularly afflicted by the painful revenge of the tripe. His complaints to El Coyote were met with indifference.

  “I make a fresh batch every two weeks,” El Coyote explained as he shrugged his big shoulders. “Sometimes every three — it’s hard to keep track. You should have some tequila. Tequila makes everything better.” Private Foxtrot’s face turned a light shade of green as he ran back to the small bathroom and slammed the door.

  “Let go of me!” Private Zulu yelled from behind the door. “I’m not finished!”

  “Soldiers,” the General said, knocking on the bathroom door with his riding crop. “Five minutes, and we’re bugging out. Organize your bowels and fall in. No potty breaks until we reach the target. You understand me?” The General’s question was answered by a series of agonizingly desperate moans from the other side of the door. “Son of a bitch.” General X-Ray stood with his hands on his hips and shouted at the door. “I swear, getting you lollygaggers moving is harder than shoving a wet noodle up a wildcat’s butt.” The General turned and walked away as the painful cries of the two men continued. “MacArthur never had to deal with crap like this. Not even in the Philippines. I need new troops.”

  “I’m leaving,” said Avery.

  “Where?” asked General X-Ray.

  “To see a man about a goat.” Avery waddled out with a determined look on his face.

  • • •

  The room slowly came into focus for Barquero. Dried blood was caked in his eyes. It was difficult to see in the dimly lit space. He was naked and bound to a wooden chair. The room was square. Next to one of the walls, a workbench was littered with various knives, hammers, and horrific-looking medical devices seemingly more fit for coaxing life out of the patient than for healing. In contrast to the evil-looking instruments of pain, the soft music of Handel’s Concerto Grosso in B Minor filled the air. Someone was taking his vital signs. Barquero didn’t recognize the man in the white coat. He did recognize the other two men in the room. One was Carnicero. He was rubbing his knuckles. They were bruised from the beating he’d given the big man earlier. Directly across from Barquero, sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, the Padre smoked a thin cigar.

  They’d been working on Barquero for several hours already, alternating between pummeling him with fists and using wires attached to a car battery on various parts of his body. He never said a word the whole time, and they never asked any questions. Eventually, Barquero had passed out from the torture. Unfortunately, his strength was now a huge weakness. He didn’t fall into unconsciousness easily.

  “How many days?” The Padre blew a ring of smoke into the air.

  “How many days for what?” the physician asked as he measured Barquero’s pulse. “To give you the information you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t want information. I want to know many days you can keep him alive?”

  “The way you’re treating him, two, maybe three days.”

  “He hasn’t begun to see the depths of my hospitality yet. I want you to keep him alive for a week.”

  “At least a week,” Carnicero added as he picked up a scalpel from the workbench and checked its razor edge. “I w
ant to enjoy this as long as possible. The record is eight days.”

  “There are drugs I can administer to extend his life,” the physician said as he placed his stethoscope over Barquero’s heart. “But be mindful of trauma to his head. That’s difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.”

  “What a shame.” Carnicero ran his hand through his long, dark hair as he picked up a pair of pliers with his other. “I’ll just have to work on his pelotas. It takes big balls to double-cross us, Barquero. You won’t have them for long. Do you hear me?” He shouted into the bound man’s face.

  “Quiet,” the Padre said as he ground out his cigar with his boot. “What a shame, Barquero. What a partner you could have been. The weapons you brought us have made my empire what it is today. No more smuggling a handful of bales of marijuana across the border in the middle of the night, running from the agents like scared dogs. No, now I run this part of the country. The police and the politicians answer to me. One day, this business will belong to Carnicero. I wanted you to be his right-hand man. But you screwed up. No one steals from me without repercussions. It makes me sad, though. I worked so hard to get you to join the organization. You once had so much pride in serving your country and fighting the cartels. But you never stood a chance. You never had enough men or resources, yet you continued to gallantly march on. A noble warrior pitted against evil men. Oblivious to the inevitable.” The Padre rose from the chair and paced around the room. “Do you know what the secret is? Shall I tell you the secret to finding true strength? It’s not physical strength, but mental strength. The only way to achieve it is to embrace that which we are told all our pathetic lives to suppress. It is the darkness inside us. Once you do, then you are truly free, and that freedom is power. Do you know why I still wear this Roman collar around my neck? I spent most of my life dedicating my entire existence to God. I threw myself at His feet and begged for answers through my tears. But God never responded. What a sick joke. But in the end, the joke was on Him. I won. This collar is my trophy. It reminds me every day that once you unshackle yourself from the silly idea that the pursuit of virtue is a noble cause, you can achieve anything. Understanding that man is first and foremost a creature capable of unspeakable evil releases him from the chains that bind him. In nature, the wolf kills not because it can, but because it needs to. We are all part of nature, and in nature only the most brutal survive. The weak, they die. I will not weep at the feet of God anymore.”

  “I will…kill you,” Barquero whispered in his raspy voice through a mouthful of blood.

  “No, you won’t. I will live, and you will die.” The Padre placed his hand on Barquero’s head. “You were like my second son. I so desperately wanted you to join my family. When you finally left the military to join us, it was one of the happiest moments of my life. But it wasn’t easy to get you to agree. Actually, it was Carnicero’s idea that finally did the trick, although I don’t think he truly understood it at the time. I think he just wanted blood. Poor Rosalina.” He stroked Barquero’s head. “You do realize that her death wasn’t random?” Barquero struggled at his bonds. “That’s right, my friend. Once she was killed, it was only a matter of time before you saw the darkness and embraced it.”

  “Not to mention the child,” Carnicero added with a laugh.

  “I…will…kill you both.” Barquero’s muscles bulged as he struggled. His dark eyes filled with fire.

  “Once she was gone, I knew you would come to me. That’s what people do in their times of despair. They come to their God, and I am a God. People worship me, beg me for work, and do whatever I say unconditionally. They sell their souls to me for a few pesos. I bargained for your soul with the life of your wife and unborn child. Now I own it, and eventually, when the time is right, I will destroy it.”

  “And when you are dead,” Carnicero added, “I will peel the skin from your face and have it sewn onto a soccer ball. My men will use it for their Sunday afternoon game.” He laughed.

  “I’m sorry, Barquero,” the Padre said. “You’re going to experience a great deal of pain for the problems you have caused and your betrayal. But at your worst moment, don’t bother praying to God. Pray to me. For ultimately, I’m the one who will end your suffering.” The Padre walked toward the door. “Carnicero, again with the battery.”

  “Si, Padre.”

  • • •

  Avery, Ziggy, and the men of STRAC-BOM stood in a circle by the side of the bus. Nancy was examining a small cactus. They were parked in the middle of the desert. A handful of white clouds dotted the brilliantly blue sky around them. Nancy slowly ambled across the rocky and broken ground, stopping to bask in the sun next to a small cactus.

  “How’s your tummy feeling?” Private Foxtrot asked Private Zulu as he clutched his stomach, the death rattle of the bad menudo still rumbling inside him. Private Zulu wiped the sweat from his pale face.

  “I’m going to need to get a whole lot better just to die.”

  “Now, listen carefully,” Avery said to the group. “I don’t have long to train you men in the art of chupacabra hunting. Normally, it requires an intense, three-day workshop that includes a sophisticated, in-depth personality profiling exercise conducted under hypnosis to match you with the most efficient stalking techniques based on a series of over one hundred separate data points gleaned from your subconscious. The waiting list for the seminar has a backlog of six months. Today, I’ve got about fifteen minutes to bring you up to speed. Now, does anyone have any relevant experience in tracking ancient species?”

  “I saw one of them shows about hunting Bigfoot on the television once,” Private Foxtrot said hopefully.

  “Completely irrelevant. Sasquatch hunting is child’s play compared to this. With Bigfoot, it’s all about structures. Find the structure the creature uses for shelter, and you’ll find the sasquatch. The chupacabra is the shark of the desert. It has to keep constantly moving or it dies, and it leaves nothing in its wake but silence and the occasional carcass of its victim. No, hunting this creature takes a different approach.”

  “What about its motivation?” Private Tango asked.

  “Shut up, Private,” the General scolded.

  “No, General,” Avery interrupted. “The private may be on to something. Go ahead. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “What motivates it? What does it want?”

  “It wants khaf,” Ziggy said in a sinister voice.

  “What?” Private Tango looked confused.

  “Ziggy, stop speaking Vulcan.”

  “Worla!”

  “Don’t backtalk me, you little hippy smurf. In the parlance of the Romulans, you are less intelligent than a group of things that are not known for being intelligent. Now, go play with your lizard.”

  “Nancy,” Ziggy called out as he went to find his iguana. “Like, here boy, or, like, girl.”

  “My apologies, Private, he meant blood. The chupacabra’s major motivation is blood. It prefers human, but it can survive on goat’s blood if necessary. They’re extremely smart and experts at the art of camouflage, but when they get even the slightest whiff of fresh blood, they tend to lose their minds. Their eyes glow in the dark, and they become single-minded in purpose. If confronted by one, don’t ever turn your back to it. They can leap twenty feet in the air and can outrun a well-motivated springbok.”

  “How many are there?” asked Fire Team Leader Bravo.

  “My calculations suggest that for a healthy breeding population to survive, there would need to be at least several hundred of them.”

  “Why aren’t there any bodies of the ones that die?”

  “Well, Team Leader, my hypothesis is that they are cannibals when it comes to their deceased pack members.”

  “That would explain it,” Private Zulu said. “Are we going to need some kind of hunting license in case we run into a game warden?”

  “Excellent question, Private. Genetically speaking, the chupacabra falls outside of the spectrum of wolves, dogs, and coyotes.
As such, the Mexican law is silent on the issue. So consider there to be no limit on the bloodsuckers. Bag as many as possible.”

  “If we have any extra, can we barbeque them? Fire Team Leader Charlie makes a damn fine sauce.”

  “Absolutely not. These creatures are scientific treasures. You wouldn’t pan-fry a coelacanth, would you?”