Jackal: Barrett Mason Book 3

by Stewart Matthews

  “Let’s go, Nestor,” the General said as he opened his door. He got out, and Colonel Milares followed suit.

  Now, on the far side of the car, he saw a lighted billboard over the entryway to the building. Black letters hung off it, some on the sidewalk just beyond the car. Of those that remained on the sign, Milares pieced together a message: “Live Music, Friday Nights!”

  “Was this a nightclub?” he asked as the General cupped his hands over the glass doors to see inside.

  “I don’t know,” the General said. “I never had a free evening to visit. Plotting a coup took up most of my time.”

  The General pulled open the front door.

  “I didn’t expect that to work,” Milares said.

  The General went through. Milares followed. Inside, the club was dark. Smelled like dust, cobwebs and spoiled beer.

  “Nice to be somewhere that doesn’t smell like smoke,” Milares said as he took out a small flashlight and clicked it on. “Nice not to hear the sirens.”

  “You say that now, but you’ll miss them when they’re gone,” General Barrios said.

  “I don’t think I will,” another voice answered from their right.

  Milares spun to hit the spot with the beam from his flashlight. The light came upon a man, dressed in a three-piece suit. He was short, with a close-cut, graying beard and looked much more well-fed than the average person living in Caracas. He might’ve been handsome if he wasn’t so chubby.

  The suited man sat on a barstool, his back slumped against the wall, his hands folded on his lap.

  “Who are you?” the General snapped at him.

  “Who do you think I am, General?” he asked. “I don’t hang out in abandoned nightclubs waiting for conspirators to come bumbling past me—my time is much more valuable than that. I wouldn’t be here unless I had been instructed to be here. The same as you, I’m guessing.”

  He was kind of a prick. But Milares held that in. Was best to let the General do the talking, and flinging of insults.

  “So you’re with Los Chacales?” he asked. “I won’t bother asking your name.”

  “If that makes you feel more comfortable,” the suited man said. “You don’t have to know my name to understand the message I’ve been told to deliver.”

  “Which is what?” the General asked.

  “Stop making messes,” he said. “We are at a very delicate time, and any more blood spilled unnecessarily will be followed by your own. Understand? The Constituent Assembly must still believe that you are working in their interest.”

  “That was my plan as well,” General Barrios said, “but when one of them comes to my office—the office I’m told is secure by members of Los Chacales—I can’t simply let him walk away.”

  The suited man cracked out a tense smile. He wasn’t pleased with the General’s justification, apparently.

  “You know what the protocol is if you’re discovered. Either you deal with the problem, or you self-terminate.”

  Colonel Milares scoffed. “Self-terminate? Do you realize who you’re talking to? The General doesn’t—”

  “I don’t remember addressing you,” the suited man said.

  The hair stood up on the back of Milares’ neck. He wouldn’t take lip from a fat man in an expensive suit—a man who didn’t have the slightest clue what he and General Barrios had been through for Venezuela, the good men they had lost along the way.

  He started to lurch toward the suited man when General Barrios stuck his arm in front of Milares.

  “Please, Nestor,” he said, keeping his attention on the suited man, his voice low and intense. “This man is clearly our friend. And perhaps he hasn’t realized that I did deal with the problem. Marco Erazo is dead, and Los Chacales kept any mention of my name out of the newspapers.

  “And our position is that much better with Erazo’s death. The Socialists are left reeling without their two senior-most party members. They’re weak, and they’ll be unable to respond once Los Chacales makes their final move.” The General nodded his head. “You’re welcome.”

  The suited man didn’t appear thankful. His jowls trembled and his stubby fingers rubbed over his thumb knuckle as if he meant to peel off his own skin.

  “You’ll kill us all—you’re just as reckless as everyone suspected,” he said. “But remember, the next time you want to have a politician ripped apart by a crowd, Los Chacales will not tolerate another deviation from the plan. If you don’t keep that in mind, it’ll be your blood in the street next.”

  General Barrios didn’t flinch. Didn’t seem he cared about threats from a fat man in a nice suit. He only cocked his head and looked the other man over.

  “Thank you for delivering the message,” the General said.

  He turned on his heel and went for the exit. Milares followed behind.

  “We should kill him now,” Milares said as soon as they got back in the car. He twisted the key in the ignition, feeling like he could snap it apart. “Save ourselves the trouble of hunting him down later.”

  “He’ll be dealt with at the same time as everyone else, Nestor,” the General said. “At least we won’t have to worry about him running.”

  Chapter 13

  I WOKE UP FROM MY LUXURY suite in the aft hold of the boat with the toe of Marquez’s boot prodding my ribs. Not a kick. Only something slightly more uncomfortable than sleeping on the grimy steel floor all night.

  Marquez’s smiling face looked down at me. His long, thin nose glistened in the sunlight coming through the lone porthole above and behind me.

  “Time to move, my friend,” he said. “We’ve got business in the port.”

  “I don’t care about your business,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. I popped my neck. Still hurt, anyway.

  “You should. My business is your business. Of course, you can always refuse to join me, but I thought you’d rather not have your body dumped in the harbor.”

  Guess I didn’t have a choice.

  “Well, you drive a hard bargain,” I said. “What kind of business are we talking about, boss?”

  He smiled at me. “There’s a good employee. Come topside, and I’ll show you.”

  Marquez let me climb the ladder first. Outside my hold, the morning light blasted my eyes. I saw only sky above me and the big gray wall of the boat’s bridge in front of me. As I braced my eyes against the sun, and acclimated myself to the fresh, ocean air, I heard Marquez’s boots clunking on the rungs of the ladder behind me.

  “You weren’t down there that long,” he said. The hatch swung shut. “I once spent three days in that hold.”

  “Isn’t this your boat? Why would you do that?” I forced my eyes open. Only way to get used being outside again.

  “Wasn’t always mine. The man who owned it before me... he wasn’t a friend,” Marquez said. “He was going to leave me in that hold to die.”

  “He might’ve made the world a better place,” I said. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Marquez walked around me, toward the portside rail where La Playa was tied-on when I was up here last. “Let’s get you presentable.”

  I followed him. I used the rail to steady myself as we made for the ship’s bridge. Ahead of Marquez I saw lush, green mountains and a city in the foothills, its off-white buildings appearing smudged with smog. I had never been to Caracas, but I knew this was it.

  A thick column of smoke started somewhere among the buildings, disappearing in the sky. Must’ve been a pretty big fire. Maybe an apartment high-rise burning down.

  “Caracas looks nice this time of year,” I said.

  Marquez stopped and turned to me, his eyes sharp.

  “Keep those comments to yourself,” he said. “There’s a lot of trouble at home. Most of my men have families in danger, and none of them have my easy sense of humor.”

  I looked past him, at the hazy skyline of Caracas. “What the hell is going on there?”

  “The president was murdered. People say there’
s going to be a coup. Until then, and probably for a long time after, there are going to be riots.” He opened the door to the bridge and motioned for me to go inside.

  I went in.

  Inside, the bridge was filled with the sounds of radio traffic. Someone on shore directing the man at the helm toward one of the long docks in front of us.

  “You need to change your clothes.” Marquez was behind me, digging in a long cabinet tucked in the corner. Then, he tossed a pair of dark pants and a shirt at me. Neither looked like they had been worn. “Lucky for you, nobody else here is your size. So, you get something fresh.”

  I sniffed them. They smelled like dust and faintly of cigarettes. “They don’t smell fresh.”

  Marquez shrugged. “Close as you’ll get.”

  He wasn’t wrong. So, I pulled off the dress shirt Greer gave me, which was now stained with dirt and grease and my own sweat. And I started to put on the shirt Marquez gave me.

  “My God, Mason, you’ve got more scars than me!” Marquez said. “What the hell did you do? Roll down a mountain?”

  “Probably at some point.” I pulled the shirt on, then the pants. Then, I remembered my bare feet.

  “I’ll get you something.” Marquez disappeared through a door at the back of the bridge, which led to a staircase headed down. As the door opened, I heard the sounds of men laughing and talking. Smelled cigarettes and booze. Then, almost as quickly as he left, Marquez was back with a pair of beat-up black combat boots.

  “My old pair,” he said. “They should fit.”

  A wad of socks had been tucked into one of the boots. I pulled them out, put them on, then slipped on the boots and laced them up. A little tight, but they’d do.

  “Good. Now you look like a man ready to work.” Marquez pulled open the door at the rear of the bridge. “Let’s find you something to do.”

  Maybe I should’ve been more nervous than I was. Or at least more weary. After all, yesterday, this guy murdered an innocent man and his son. But I think being cooped up in that hold after being locked in prison messed with my head. Specifically, following that up with being let out under the big open sky on a boat with fresh air brushing across my skin.

  But as much as it scrambled my brains—and as much as I knew it—I couldn’t help myself. Felt damn good to be out of that hold.

  The staircase took us down to a small galley. Six men were packed inside, three on a bench at a small table, three more fitting in along the walls wherever they could. Some smoked, some drank beers, one or two sipped coffee. But all conversation stopped as soon as they saw me coming in behind Marquez.

  “Time to work, my friends,” he said.

  Marquez’s crew hopped into action. Some of them giddy like a pack of kids on the first day of summer.

  “Mason,” Marquez said, “I have a special assignment for you.” He walked over to a red cooler—like something you’d take on a camping trip. Except the lid on Marquez’s cooler was taped airtight with duct tape.

  “I want you to keep an eye on this,” he said, scooting it across the floor to me. “Don’t let it out of your sight. Don’t let anybody near it. And don’t open it. Protect it with your life, because, well, your life depends on it, friend.” He grinned.

  I wondered what was in it. If a guy like Marquez told me to protect it with my life, it couldn’t have been anything good. Drugs probably. Could be a bomb. Somebody chopped up and stuffed inside.

  “Help me take it topside.” He grabbed one handle on the cooler, I grabbed the other. It felt weighed down. Definitely too heavy for one man to carry. I took the lead, going up the steps, through the bridge, and back to the stern—under Marquez’s order.

  The other men weren’t far behind us. They joined us at the stern.

  “Everyone here? Good.” Marquez opened another hatch—to the left of the hatch where I stayed. I hadn’t noticed it until now. He hopped inside, disappeared for a moment, then an olive-green duffel bag came shooting out.

  “One each!” Marquez said as another bag hopped from the hold. Six bags went out, and his men each took a duffel bag in turn. None of them seemed particularly full, but they all held something.

  By the time Marquez re-emerged, our boat was slipping into the marina on the edge of Caracas. I looked at the moored ships. Sailboats, fishing boats, tugs, pleasure craft of every kind. They weren’t wrecked like the boats I’d seen in Puerto Rico, but most of them looked as if they hadn’t left the docks in months.

  “Alright boys, let’s tie off and get moving. Mason, stay here. Stay with the cooler.” The other men started to shuffle around the boat. I sat down on my cooler while they tied the lines off.

  A few minutes passed while I watched Marquez and his crew tie up to the dock. At some point a pair of armed men dressed in dark fatigues—similar to what Marquez’s crew wore, but a little different—came marching down the dock toward Marquez’s boat. They didn’t look like they were part of the same unit. If any of them belonged to a unit at all.

  “My friends!” Marquez called to the men on the docks. I could only see the back of his head, his arms out wide, but I knew he was grinning that big, happy smile of his. “How has life been in beautiful Caracas?”

  “Completely shit,” one of them answered. “Who’s the big guy on the cooler?”

  Just what I didn’t need: people asking about me. I played it cool. Acted like I didn’t understand them.

  “He’s crazy,” Marquez said. “Some kind of missionary or something. Wants to go talk to some tribe in the Amazon. He’s coming through Venezuela because he was banned from entering Brazil, Guyana, Suriname—I don’t know, a whole bunch of places.” Marquez circled his finger on the side of his head. “Crazy. Gonna get shot by an arrow or skinned alive.”

  They looked at me and laughed.

  “Hello,” I said, smiling and waving, doing my best dumb tourist impression.

  “Is he armed?” one of the guards asked.

  “No, he’s not armed,” Marquez answered in Spanish. Then, in halting English: “Stand up. Please.”

  “Oh, sure!” I popped up and waved again. “Hello from America,” I said. I guess I moved one of my hands too quickly. Because one of the guards shouldered his rifle, and pointed it straight at me like he was going to cut me in half.

  Marquez hopped back, surprised, and the other smacked his comrade’s rifle down.

  “Don’t do that,” he hissed.

  “He’s a little jumpy?” Marquez asked.

  “An old lady shot at him yesterday. The riots have people acting crazy around here.”

  “She won’t get a chance to shoot at me again,” the jumpier guard said, trying to save face.

  “You killed an old lady?” Marquez sounded a pinch disgusted. Which I found a funny, considering what he’d done yesterday.

  “I know you’ve shot people like that,” the jumpy guard said. He started to spread his feet apart like he was going to shoulder his rifle again, this time at Marquez. “Don’t try to act like you’re better than me.”

  A gun battle was about to break out, and here I was, babysitting a cooler.

  “My friend, no,” Marquez said coolly. “I was only surprised at what the city has come to since I’ve been gone. Please,” he unzipped his duffel bag, and rummaged around inside, “I want you to take these. I meant no offense to either of you gentlemen.”

  Marquez’s hand came from the bag, carrying a long, shrink-wrapped white box. No, two of them. Cigarette cartons. He handed them over to the calmer of the two guards.

  “Very generous,” he said as he tucked a carton under his arm, and handed the other to the jumpier guard. Then he tapped his finger in the air, toward me. “You keep him out of trouble. Get him off the docks and on his way out of the city as quickly as you can.”

  “Of course,” Marquez answered, grinning. “Thank you.”

  He motioned for me to come along, and to be quick about it.

  Chapter 14

  I DRAGGED THE COOLER to the edge
of the boat. From the dock, the jumpier guard extended a gangplank—just some two-by-fours nailed together. Once he waved us forward, Marquez and I left the boat, his six men following being us.

  One of the guards gave Marquez a handcart—a two-wheel dolly. He slipped it under my cooler, and I was relieved I didn’t have to haul the damn thing into the port.

  We moved forward. Ahead of us, a large, commercial harbor, fitted with cranes and loaders for semi-trucks. Stacks and stacks of big steel shipping containers were off to my right, about a mile in the distance.

  I saw men dressed in dark clothes stationed throughout the port. Paramilitaries. All of them armed with a rifle or a handgun or manning a fixed position with some kind of Russian or Chinese heavy machine gun.

  But as we went further in, handing off cartons of cigarettes and booze and porno mags from Marquez’s duffel bag, or one of his men’s bags, I noticed there were dozens of guards, with a whole lot of nothing to guard.

  There were a handful of dock workers. Men in hard hats, work shirts and jeans, but they were all lounging on loaders or stacks of junked wooden pallets, hiding in the shade of the few small buildings dotting the port.

  Nobody was working. Because there wasn’t anything of value here—other than what Marquez and his crew brought in. And whatever was in my cooler.

  The whole damn port had stopped.

  “This place is a ghost town,” I whispered to Marquez after he and his boys were done handing a pint of Mexican tequila to a trio of paramilitaries in a guard house.

  “You’re sharp as they come, Mason,” he said back to me. “Now keep your eyes on that cooler.”

  I could tell we were coming to the edge of the port. The only substantial thing left in front of us was a long, low cinder block house. Probably the nerve center of the whole port. The one entrance I saw was a white steel door with an armed guard posted to either side of it. Not paramilitaries—but by the Venezuelan flag patches on the sleeves of their fatigues, I knew they were regulars.