Circle of Death - Strike Back Series 05 (2020)

by Ryan, Chris

  Bald and Porter were leaving their Six-issued phones behind. Along with their go-bags, civilian clothing and sundry personal items. They would be taken to the US embassy in Bogotá, Taylor had assured them, once he left the camp. Arrangements could then be made through Vauxhall for their items to be returned to them.

  Taylor was waiting for them beside the parade ground, dressed in his Bermuda shorts and linen shirt and a pair of Havaianas flip-flops. The guy was dripping in sweat. His shirt was soaked through. The patches under his arms were the size of lagoons. He padded at his brow and neck with a handkerchief in a futile attempt to keep his condition under control.

  Zapata and Reyes stood next to the CIA officer. Reyes was bent down beside her colleague, tying the laces on her mud-caked boots. Bald allowed himself a moment to appreciate her fine arse.

  ‘Ready?’ Taylor asked. Sweat gushed down his pale face.

  ‘As we’ll ever be,’ Hulk replied.

  Taylor nodded. ‘You’ll leave at once and head for the border near San Vicente. Zapata and Reyes will accompany you.’ He signalled towards the two guerrillas. ‘Uribe assures me they’re two of his best people.’

  ‘As long as they get us across,’ Porter said.

  ‘We own the route,’ Uribe replied confidently. ‘We use it for transporting cocaine from the labs to our friends in Venezuela. It’s almost a daily trip for us.’

  ‘You must be shifting a lot of coke,’ Bald said.

  ‘What can I say?’ Uribe grinned. ‘Business is good.’

  Porter said, ‘Someone should notify Strickland. Give her the heads-up.’

  Taylor nodded. ‘We’ll make sure she’s in the loop.’

  Bald said, ‘What’s the plan once we get to San Vicente?’

  ‘The guerrillas have a forward staging post, on the Colombian side of the river. You’ll wait there until their contact is ready to smuggle you across by boat. Shouldn’t take long. You’ll be using one of the main trafficking routes to cross the river.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  Uribe nodded keenly. ‘Very. My people control the land on both sides of the river. Police in that area don’t fuck with us. Military don’t fuck with us. Even the other gangs don’t give us no shit. You won’t have any trouble getting across.’

  ‘I’d prefer it if we were going in civvies,’ Dudley said. ‘Something a little more discreet. We’re going to stand out, dressed like this.’

  Uribe chuckled. ‘Lots of thieves use the same route. Traffickers. People smuggling contraband. All kinds. You won’t stand out. Not on the trails. Everybody using them is breaking the law.’

  ‘What happens once we get to the other side of the river?’ asked Porter.

  ‘One of the guerrillas’ Venezuelan contacts will meet you there,’ Taylor explained. ‘They’ll provide you with onward transportation and essential supplies.’

  ‘Is he reliable?’

  ‘We use him all the time,’ Uribe said. ‘He works for the cartels. Transports cocaine to the fishing villages. Never let us down before. He’ll be there.’

  ‘He’d fucking better be,’ Bald said.

  ‘He’s being paid handsomely,’ Taylor emphasised. ‘The money we’re paying him, he’ll do his job. Once you’ve made it across the border, proceed directly to your objective. You’ll hear from us as soon as we have confirmation that the distraction for the army base is ready.’

  Bald said, ‘How will we know when that distraction deploys?’

  Taylor smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll know.’

  He took a step back, nodded and winked at Hulk. Hulk laughed. Like the two of them were sharing some private dirty joke. Bald wondered about that for a moment. Then Uribe barked an order at Reyes and Zapata and the two guerrillas slung their weapons over their shoulders and motioned for Bald and the others to follow them out of the camp. Taylor said his goodbyes and shook hands with them in turn. Bald pumped his clammy hand and noticed the excitable look in his eyes. The guy looked almost elated. A considerable improvement on his mood a few hours ago. Perhaps he was just glad to be finally checking out of the camp. No more uncomfortable days in the jungle, sweating to death. Bald shoved the thought from his mind.

  Two minutes later, they were setting off for the border.

  TWENTY

  The mid-afternoon sun poked through the gaps in the canopy as they followed a well-trodden track heading away from the camp. Daniela Reyes led the way, with Bald a short distance behind, enjoying the view. Then Porter and Hulk and Dudley, with Zapata bringing up the rear as the tail-end Charlie, his bandoliers of ammunition clinking against one another. They marched at irregular distances from one another, making themselves less noticeable to any hidden observers, with Reyes acting as lead scout, holding her weapon in a two-handed grip. Not for the first time, Bald found himself secretly admiring the professionalism of the guerrillas. They definitely weren’t mugs. He almost wished they were taking part in the stronghold assault.

  We could do with the extra firepower. That’s for fucking sure.

  Reyes set a decent pace as she led the team north through the jungle. Bald and Porter easily matched her stride, but after a couple of miles the bulkier ex-SEALs were soon breathing heavily, snatching at the clammy air as they struggled to keep up. Bald glanced over his shoulder and wrung a smile out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Looks like those two are feeling the pace,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘They’re not the only ones.’ Porter wiped sweat from his brow and shook his head. ‘Humping kit through the trees. Last time I was doing this must have been on Selection.’

  ‘When was that? Before or after the Stone Age?’

  Porter made a screw-face. ‘Know what the sad thing is, Jock? You actually think you’re funny.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Bald. ‘Don’t need to be a comic genius when I’ve got you for a mate. One look at your pathetic face is enough to make anyone crack up.’

  ‘Wanker.’

  ‘Southern prick.’

  Porter laughed and ploughed on through the forest. He would never admit it, but he was at his best when Bald was pushing him, driving him on. The Scot’s merciless lashing on the training ground had fired him up, ignited some long-buried urge to prove himself. He had been a Blade once. Earned the right to wear that famous winged dagger. The pinnacle of his professional career. Had to count for something.

  I might be a lot older now, he thought. My body might be broken and battered and scarred. But I still know how to win.

  Bald looked towards Reyes and said, ‘How far to the staging post?’

  Reyes squinted at the track ahead. ‘Another five miles or so. We’ll get there before last light.’ She glanced back at him, grinning. ‘You’re feeling tired already, gringo?’

  ‘No chance, lass. I’m fit as fuck.’

  She laughed and cocked her chin at Hulk and Dudley. ‘Doing better than your friends, then.’

  ‘They’re Americans,’ Bald said. ‘Spend all their time in the gym, lifting weights and pretending to be fucking hard. They’re not built for operating in the jungle.’

  Reyes made a face. ‘I thought American men were supposed to be tough.’

  ‘You should visit Scotland. Full of rock-hard blokes.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He grinned. ‘You ever get out of the jungle, you should look us up. I’ll show you what a real man is like.’

  She gave him a look of disgust and looked ahead as she carried on. After another three miles they crossed a narrow rock-strewn stream and climbed the bank on the far side before descending a muddy slope. The canopy thinned out as they emerged from the dank, claustrophobic gloom of the jungle to the lowlands. They navigated a mass of muddy tracks and slippery undergrowth, interspersed with areas of tropical forest. Bald guessed they were getting closer to the Arauca River.

  We’re not far from the border now.

  At seven thirty they reached the treeline at the edge of a patch of wild
forest and Zapata threw up his hand and motioned for them to stop. Fifty metres away, across a bare patch of dirt, stood a single-storey wooden dwelling backing on to a wide parcel of cultivated land. A trio of tin-roofed sheds were situated a short distance from the ranch, the doors padlocked shut. There was a mud-spattered white Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck parked in a carport to the left.

  A couple of guys reclined on plastic lawn chairs in front of the shack. Both were dressed in tracksuit bottoms and rubber boots. One of the guys was in his early twenties with a high forehead and heavily lidded eyes and ears like handles on a jug. He wore a bright red tank top and a gold chain around his neck as thick as a boa constrictor. The guy in the other chair looked the same, but older. As if someone had put his face through an ageing app. His skin was the texture of petrified wood. His eyelids were so low they looked like shells glued to his pupils. He had a scar on his cheek and lank black hair plastered to his scalp. Father and son, Bald guessed. The younger guy stared at his phone while the older guy sipped from a bottle of beer.

  ‘This is the place?’ asked Bald.

  Reyes nodded. ‘Wait here.’

  Bald, Porter and the two Americans lingered in the treeline, staying out of sight while Reyes and Zapata approached.

  At the sight of the two guerrillas the guys on the porch both stood up and moved towards them. Behind them, a plump woman lingered in the open doorway, peering out of the shadows.

  Reyes stopped in front of the ranch. There was a brief exchange with the older man, accompanied by lots of exaggerated hand gestures and pointing in the direction of the Americans and Brits in the shadows. Bald got the gist of it.

  ‘We’ve brought some people with us,’ Reyes was saying. ‘They’re going to stay here for a short while.’

  After a couple of minutes, the older guy nodded his assent and Reyes beckoned the others to join them.

  The guy in the red tank top watched them as they drew nearer and nodded a cautious greeting at the party. Reyes introduced them.

  ‘These people are the Canales family,’ she said. ‘Diego and his son, Junior. We’ll be staying here for the next nine hours.’

  Junior said something to them in gruff Spanish. Diego just stood there and smiled. Neither of them could speak a word of English, apparently. Both father and son had the worn look of people who lived a hardscrabble existence, surviving from day to day, barely making ends meet.

  ‘Can we trust these people?’ asked Bald.

  ‘They’re friends of ours. Technically, this place is a farm, but they work for us on the side.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Watching the trail. Supplying intelligence. Transporting supplies to the river. Many things.’

  She led Bald and the others through the door and down a narrow hallway. To the left was a small kitchen. The fat woman sat at the kitchen table, peeling a bowl of potatoes while she watched some domestic soap opera on an old TV. She paid no attention to the strangers as Reyes ushered them through a door on the right and into a communal living area.

  Which could have passed for a crack den, if it had been given an expensive makeover. Cockroaches scuttled across the bare floor. The walls were painted the colour of urine. There was a table in the corner with a vinyl tablecloth and a pair of worn sofas facing a TV showing a football match, and a stained mattress on the floor in the far corner. Someone had made a half-hearted attempt to brighten the place up. A handful of football shirts, scarfs and flags hung from the walls.

  Hulk set his daysack down and glanced round. ‘What now?’

  ‘We wait here,’ Reyes replied bluntly.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Until first light. Then we’ll take the trail to the river. Four miles from this place. One of the fishermen will meet us there. He’ll take you across the border at first light.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A Venezuelan. Freddy Vargas. He lives on the other side of the river, but makes his money taking people across illegally. He does a lot of business. Many people come across each day.’

  ‘Refugees?’

  ‘Some,’ Reyes said. ‘Others send their children to school in Colombia. Many more come to sell gasoline, or food. Anything to make some extra money.’

  ‘Shit must be bad over there,’ Dudley said.

  ‘What happens once we get to the other side?’ asked Porter.

  ‘You’ll land at Freddy’s place and wait until our contact from the cartel shows up.’

  Bald nodded. He knew from the charts they had consulted back at the camp that first light at this time of the year was around 04.50. An hour to walk the four miles through the lowlands to the border. Half an hour to cross the river. Which meant they would reach the Venezuelan side of the river at around 06.30. They had a long journey ahead of them once they had crossed the border, he knew. An eleven-hour ride to the stronghold. Then the assault and rescue. Then another fourteen-hour drive from the stronghold to the extraction point on the north-western coast, and a boat ride to Port of Spain, Trinidad.

  If everything goes according to plan.

  ‘We should get some kip,’ he said to the others. ‘Might not have another chance for a day or so.’

  ‘We’ll go on stag,’ Porter suggested. ‘Two-hour shifts. In case there’s any trouble.’

  ‘No need,’ Reyes replied. ‘We’ve got our people covering the approaches, looking out for movement. If there’s any problems, they’ll raise the alarm.’

  ‘You lot know what you’re doing.’

  ‘We’re not idiots. How do you think we survived this long?’

  Bald stared admiringly at her. Impressive rack. Curves in all the right places. And she knows how to soldier.

  My kind of woman.

  ‘Get some rest,’ she said. ‘We leave at first light.’

  They made themselves as comfortable as possible in their grim surroundings. Hulk and Dudley took the two leather sofas. Porter kipped in the armchair. Bald bedded down on the mattress on the floor. They slept through the night and rose half an hour before daylight, fumbling around for their daysacks and kit in the pre-dawn darkness.

  At exactly 04.45 Reyes stepped inside the living area and told Bald and the others to follow her. They grabbed their equipment and weaponry and headed outside the ranch. The plump woman was still at the kitchen table, doing chores, the sound of canned laughter from the TV filling the air. Bald wondered if she had been sitting there all night, peeling potatoes.

  The first hints of dawn were streaking the horizon as they emerged from the ranch. Zapata was sitting in one of the lawn chairs outside, his weapon resting across his lap as his dull eyes scanned the clearing and the dirt track ahead. Diego Canales and his son were kneeling down beside the sheds at the side of the dwelling. The door to the nearest shed had been unlocked and a bunch of brick-sized packets were on the floor next to the two Colombians. Bald counted more than a dozen packages in total. He looked on as the father and son stowed them inside a pair of small backpacks.

  ‘Cocaine,’ Reyes said matter-of-factly, noting the suspicious look on Porter’s face.

  Dudley whistled. ‘Fuck of a lot of it, too. There’s enough blow to keep half of New York coked up for a month.’

  ‘Where’d this stuff come from?’ Hulk asked.

  ‘The labs. We send it to them from the camp. They process it and bring it here. Our friends look after it for us in the sheds, and then we smuggle it across the border.’

  Porter glanced accusingly at her. ‘Nobody said anything about smuggling a load of coke across the border with us.’

  She shrugged. ‘This is what we do.’

  ‘You’re using this operation to smuggle drugs. You’re making us complicit, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘Get off your high horse,’ Dudley said. ‘This shit’s going across the border with or without us. They’re just being economical.’

  ‘This is wrong,’ Porter muttered as he turned to Bald.

  ‘What did you expect, mate? You know what
these people do for a living.’

  ‘Working with traffickers is one thing. Going across with this shit is something else. We shouldn’t be doing it. They’re making us a target, as well. What if the border forces find this stuff?’

  ‘They won’t. Uribe told us they control the route. Stop getting your knickers in a twist.’

  ‘I don’t like it any more than you,’ Hulk said, lowering his voice. ‘But we’re not in any position to argue. In case you didn’t notice, this is the guerrillas’ rat run. We’re relying on them to get us across.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bald. ‘Now stop fucking sermonising and get a move on. We’re wasting time.’

  Porter stood still for a moment longer, anger pulsing in his veins. Then he took in a deep breath and the rage subsided.

  Forget the cocaine, the voice told him. Focus on the mission.

  He checked his watch: 04.54. Fourteen hours since Fuller had arrived at the president’s mansion.

  We’ve got to get across that border. Rescue her before the interrogators can do their worst.

  Forty-eight hours from now, this will all be over. We’ll be back on friendly soil with the hostage, celebrating the end of the mission. And this will just be a bad memory.

  If we live that long.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They bugged out of the ranch, moving in the same formation as before. Reyes in the lead, with Bald and the rest of the team following and Zapata at the back. The two guerrillas carrying the backpacks stuffed with pure cocaine. Bald saw Reyes give Diego Canales a thick wad of dollar bills before they left. The family stayed behind at the ranch, watching the party from the doorway as they set off down the track.

  The sun was glowing faintly on the horizon, lightening the star-pricked sky as they diverted off the main track and followed a narrow muddy path that corkscrewed between clumps of tall trees. The trail would take them to the river, Reyes said. After a mile or so they passed a clearing filled with a vast sprawl of flimsy-looking shacks and tents. The local slum, Reyes explained. People with less than nothing, living on one meal a day and working for a few pesos. Bald tried to feel some sympathy for these wretched souls and came up empty. He had some abstract sense of their plight. But their suffering was irrelevant to him. He wasn’t interested in the misery of the masses. He was interested solely in the fortunes of John Bald. Joining the ranks of the one per cent. That was his ambition. Leave the hand-wringing to smug liberal types.