Whoever waited for his mobile army in the dark, he would destroy them, and if he laid hands upon Esguerra, Sarmiento’s vengeance would be terrible indeed.
To that end, each man in the convoy packed at least one pistol of his choice, together with a rifle, submachine gun or shotgun. The GMC Savana’s load included two RPG-7 rocket launchers with ten 40 mm rounds apiece; one .50-caliber Barrett M82 sniper rifle, loaded into 10-round box magazines; 100 pounds of C4 plastic explosive in two-pound blocks, with blasting caps and timers; a full case of M26 antipersonnel grenades; plus box upon box of ammo in various calibers ranging from 9 mm to .50 BMG.
God help any police who tried to stop the convoy, for they’d find no help on Earth.
Sarmiento kept in touch with his gunmen via the two-way radios in their respective vehicles. All kept pace with the rest, their gas tanks freshly filled before departing Medellín, each member of the team provided with a sandwich, candy bar and single cans of beer, thereby avoiding stops for food. And if the beer passed through them too quickly, he had that problem covered, too. Each car carried two plastic jugs to serve as urinals.
Sarmiento’s army would arrive ready to fight. What happened after that depended on their skill, the hostile force they faced and possibly a whim of fortune.
Would it smile on Sarmiento tonight, or would he finish up among the dead?
At this moment, rolling across a highway bridge that spanned the Río Porce, the drug lord felt he was prepared for anything.
He palmed the two-way radio’s dash-mounted microphone and pressed the talk button. “Checking in,” he said. “Car number two?”
“Here, sir,” came the answer.
“Good.” Sarmiento worked his way along the convoy, registering confirmation from each vehicle in turn, until he’d heard from all the cars and the van. Behind him, in his wing mirror, he saw their headlights following his point car through the night. He would have liked to bring a helicopter gunship on the raid, but there’d been no time to arrange it or prepare a flight crew. Still, he thought the men and weapons he had brought along should be enough to do the job.
If Sarmiento closed his eyes, he could imagine Diego Esguerra’s severed head inside a glass display case, treated by an expert taxidermist to preserve it through the ages. It would be his finest trophy, one seen only by his very closest, most trusted associates—or by selected persons whom he wished to shock and utterly intimidate.
And if tonight went badly for him? Then what?
Then, Rodrigo thought, nothing.
Despite his parents trying to innoculate him with religion as a child, Sarmiento had rejected their beliefs, particularly with regard to what the priests called an afterlife. He placed no faith in Heaven, privately convinced that each person pursued a lifelong quest for paradise on Earth, most dying far short of their goal. And as for Hell...
“Pardon me, sir?” his driver said.
Sarmiento turned to him, asking, “Pardon for what?”
“I’m not sure I understood what you just said. It sounded like ‘I’ve already been there.’”
“Forget it,” Sarmiento said, embarrassed that he’d been caught talking to himself aloud. “I must have been thinking out loud.”
“Ah. If the coordinates we’re using are correct,” his driver said, “we have about ten minutes left before we reach the access road.”
“Time to make final preparations, then,” Sarmiento said, and reached out for the two-way’s microphone.
Highway 258, Antioquia
Agent Cabrera was beginning to suspect that she had made the worst mistake of her life. What was she thinking, leaving a short message for the DEA’s agent in charge at the embassy and then proceeding on her own, without backup, without a warrant, without anything resembling official sanction to invade the compound of Diego Esguerra?
If she was killed this night, dressed in civilian garb and acting far outside the scope of her legal authority, she would die in disgrace, perhaps even be censured posthumously, with her government insurance canceled, nothing for her widowed mother but a legacy of bitter dreams.
“What was I thinking?” Cabrera spoke the words aloud, as if expecting some response despite the fact that she was traveling alone. A gospel shouter on the radio seemed to be mocking her through static as he cried, “Praise God and all His works!”
“Does that include cocaine?” she asked the radio, then switched it off before she found herself drawn into a fruitless argument with some preacher who didn’t even know she was alive, much less how she planned to spend her evening.
The rented Honda Civic hummed along, the scattered lights of Anzá fading in its rearview mirror. Cabrera had placed her service pistol on the seat beside her, covered by a highway map if she were stopped for speeding by police. Her DEA badge ought to get her out of that, she thought—unless her boss had put a message on the law-enforcement network, asking that she be located and detained.
In that event, her choices were severely limited. She could attempt to flee, at risk of being killed by officers who could invoke the “law of flight,” interpreted by some judges in Mexico and farther south to mean that any shooting of a fleeing suspect was “justified.” Of course she also had a weapon of her own, but using it would make her a cop-killer, and there was no coming back from that.
Her best course was to pass unnoticed on her way, and let whatever fate awaited her be dealt out by her rightful enemies.
And why not? Despite the impact on her mother, sudden death would be the perfect capper for a day in which she’d blown a long-term undercover job at Horizon Enterprises, been caught, tortured by her boss and then had knifed to death the sadist known as the Butcher.
If this should be her last night on Earth, at least Cabrera knew she’d lived it to the fullest possible.
Altough she’d racked her brain to think of one, she had no working plan per se beyond locating Diego Esguerra’s compound, creeping up to it and barging in. With luck she’d have a chance to render one of his gunmen unconscious, maybe kill him quietly and claim his weapons for herself. Beyond that...nothing.
There was no doubt in her mind that she faced mortal danger, while the odds in her favor were infinitesimal. She had faith in her own abilities, but she was not a superhero, much less indestructible. She thought of other DEA agents who had been slain on duty, photos posted on the Wall of Honor at headquarters in DC, and knew that if she died this night, her picture would not be among them. She would be remembered as a rogue and a loose cannon, maybe as a lunatic who’d lost her mind and run amok. Her actions might even result in lawsuits being filed against her agency.
But if she made it through somehow...
The access road that Cabrera had been searching for since she had left Anzá nearly took her by surprise, a mere break in the trees, tire tracks scoring the unpaved course that lay beyond, shrouded by darkness. Peering forward, then into the Honda’s mirrors, she saw no traffic approaching her from north or south, and no place on the highway’s narrow shoulder meant for parking.
“Screw it,” she said, and pulled the Honda over until its right-hand side was nestled against shrubbery. On the off chance that reinforcements were dispatched to aid her, they could use the rented Civic as a landmark. If Esguerra’s soldiers found it first, so what?
By that time they’d have found her, too—or she would have found them.
Afoot, clutching the Bersa Thunder Plus in her right hand, a compact flashlight, a Maglite, in her left but presently switched off, she moved along the side road, staying to the middle of it, navigating by moonlight except where trees from either side met overhead. Occasionally she would flash the Maglite on and off, checking the road for snakes or any other hazards, pausing after each quick flash to let her night vision restore itself.
Proceeding in that manner, Carbrera had a stroke of luck, spotting a lookout up ahead and to her left. Th
e man was smoking and distracted by it. She could see the glowing tip of his cigar and smell its pungent smoke well in advance. She crept up on him, thankful for her dark clothing, moving with almost catlike grace, though quaking inwardly with fear.
If she were captured once again, subjected to more torture...
No!
Determination steadied the woman, easing closer to the negligent sentry. Afraid to blink, for fear he’d move during that fleeting interval, she felt her eyes burning. Cigar smoke teased her nostrils, tickling her throat, and threatened to expose her with a coughing fit.
Not yet.
When she was close enough to nearly touch the sentry, still unnoticed—could he really be that stupid?—Carbrera raised her flashlight to eye level, flicked it on and blinded him.
He blurted out, “Jesus!” and swiveled to face her as she pistol-whipped him, knocking the cigar out of his mouth. He dropped to one knee and she hammered him again, stretching him facedown in the dirt, then raised her foot and brought it down with crushing force, where skull and lanky hair met vertebrae. A second stomp, and he lay quivering before her, then went limp.
She crouched beside him, feeling for a pulse below his dislocated jaw, and found none.
“Smoking kills, my friend,” Cabrera whispered to him, then relieved the sentry of his weapons. First she took a 9 mm Daewoo K5 pistol from his belt and tucked it underneath her own, around in back. Next she relieved the lookout of his AK-103 assault rifle, one of the countless Russian variations on its classic AK-47, this one chambered for its parent’s 7.62 mm cartridges with thirty rounds per magazine. A bandoleer across the dead man’s chest—the hardest bit to strip away from his limp form—held seven extra magazines.
Cabrera thrust her own pistol under her belt, in front, and found she had to loosen it a notch with two guns tightening its fit around her waist. “That’s better,” she told no one who could hear her, and continued on along the straight, tree-shadowed road.
* * *
No matter how he tried, Diego Esguerra couldn’t shake off a sense that something had gone wrong. He could not swear to it, of course, nor could he even guess exactly what he thought had gone awry. But there was something...
“Daniel!” he called out, while he scanned the camp in search of his replacement for Luis Medina. “Daniel! Where are you?”
“I am here, sir,” Daniel Cuesta answered, jogging toward Esguerra from the general direction of the compound’s motor pool. “How can I help you?”
“You can contact the perimeter watchmen,” Esguerra said. “Make sure they’re all on post and tending to their duties, no one slacking off.”
“Yes, sir. I impressed upon them all the seriousness of—”
Esguerra cut him off, saying, “Don’t tell me what you did. Check in with them and see what they are doing now.”
“Of course, sir. At once!”
Taking a walkie-talkie from its holster on his belt, Cuesta moved off a few paces and started calling each lookout in turn. Esguerra heard them answering with curt acknowlegments and counted off their numbers: eight, nine, ten...
But no number eleven.
“Number eleven,” Cuestra said again, from his end. “Respond at once!”
The only response was hissing silence.
“Who’s number eleven?” Esguerra asked. “Stationed where?”
“Raúl Vélez, sir. Watching the road.”
“Is he a slacker, Daniel?”
Cuesta shook his head emphatically. “No, sir. He has never let us down.”
“Until tonight,” Esguerra said. “Send someone out to find him. Make it two men, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If they find him sleeping at his post, don’t bother waking him. Just put a bullet in his head and bring his weapons back to camp.”
Cuesta nodded, as if afraid to speak, and strode off toward a small group of gunmen standing around an open fire. As soon as he had finished issuing instructions, two of them moved off in the direction of the access road, with rifles cradled in their arms.
Esguerra saw now that his feelings of foreboding were correct. Something had gone amiss, whether it was the simple matter of a sentry dozing off and begging to be shot, or something worse. He wouldn’t know until the two searchers returned, unless...
As if on cue, Esguerra heard a pop from somewhere out beyond the camp’s perimeter. He turned in that direction, eyes scanning the dark forest, and then he was blinded by a flash of light as the compound’s prefab storage shed exploded, its cocaine consumed by a fireball.
A heartbeat later, the concussion of that blast slammed into him and drove him backward, sprawling to the ground.
Chapter Fifteen
Bolan didn’t know what his first target was used for, but it stood to reason that a sturdy shelter in Esguerra’s compound had to have some significance. Whether it was a storeroom, an armory or a communications center, he was pleased with the result of his shot with the AUG’s 22 mm HE grenade, exploding into flames and scattering twisted debris around the camp.
That blast put all of Esguerra’s soldiers on alert—except, perhaps, the two whom Bolan had seen leaving camp seconds before he fired, embarked on orders issued by a goon he took to be Esguerra’s second in command onsite.
Whatever. Bolan figured that the pair would either double back and face the chaos waiting for them, or continue with their task, jogging along the forest access road. Or then again maybe the two would just wise up and run away, rather than doubling back to die for the commander who’d dispatched them from the battlefield.
Meanwhile he had enough to think about with a force of armed gunmen preparing to defend their woodland base.
Grimaldi had been circling around the west side of the compound, headed for a vantage point they’d chose prior to splitting up. Bolan had timed the passing seconds on his wristwatch, thankful when no sounds of firing ocurred to indicate his partner had run into resistance on his side. And now, on cue, the flyboy struck.
Bolan didn’t observe Grimaldi’s frag grenade wobbling through leafy darkness, landing in the camp beside its motor pool, but when it blew on impact, there was no mistaking either the grenade’s source or its shock effect. Shrapnel from the blast caught one gunman racing toward Bolan, clutching an SMG. He fell to the ground, screaming, while other razor shards took out the windows of a snazzy sports car parked nearby, rocking a couple of the compound’s ATVs and leaving them to list on punctured tires.
By then Bolan had tipped his Steyr’s muzzle with a fresh grenade, aiming the rifle from his shoulder, sending off the lethal bomb downrange to strike a corner of what the Executioner took to be a barracks building. Its explosion sheared through a supporting beam, crumpled a portion of two walls and left the tin roof angled downward like a poorly built ski ramp. Part of the airborne siding struck a pair of gunmen jogging past the structure, slicing off one’s head, and striking the other with enough force, Bolan guessed, to crush his right shoulder and ribs along that side of his body.
Esguerra’s men had opened fire now, but they clearly didn’t have a target spotted yet. Their muzzle-flashes lit the night, as yet another of Grimaldi’s frag grenades took out the compound’s rumbling generator, switching off all the electric lights in camp. Only an open fire built near the center of the property still lit the battleground, together with the dying flames from where incoming HE rounds had struck.
That turned Esguerra’s hideout into Bolan’s kind of killing ground. He advanced, letting the mix of forest darkness and the leaping flames conceal his forward movement from gunmen accustomed to hunting their enemies on city streets, often in daylight. It required a certain skill set to survive nocturnal warfare in the woods, and while some of Esguerra’s men had doubtless raided rural villages of drug-processing plants at one time or another, none of them showed any signs of matching Bolan’s Special Forces tra
ining.
So he killed them as they crossed his path, trying for single shots whenever that was feasible, his Steyr’s standard-issue flash hider further confusing matters, throwing off his adversaries’ aim. Two compound guards went down, then three, now four, and still none of them seemed to get a clear fix on their enemy.
So be it. Combat soldiers made their own luck, more often than not, by reading ever-shifting battlefield conditions, understanding their opponents and whatever they were gunning for. Failure at preparation was a critical mistake, often the last one that a fighting man would ever make.
And with the Executioner in their midst, dispensing sudden death, a second chance for most of them was out of reach.
* * *
Groaning in pain, Esguerra struggled to his hands and knees, then forced himself upright, clutching the arm of a gunman who passed close by him, turning back to strike before he recognized his boss leaking blood from a scalp wound.
“Sir, can I help you?”
“Are my quarters still standing?” Esguerra asked.
The soldier craned his neck, seeming confused by drifting smoke and dust, the hammering of automatic weapons all around them. “Yes! I see it. Come with me, sir.”
Still holding his arm, Esguerra did as he’d been asked and went along, too shaken to recall the soldier’s name and giving up on that. It meant nothing just now, but if he helped Esguerra flee the camp alive, he’d stuff the gunman’s pockets with more cash than he could carry—or, in the alternative, pay for a lavish funeral, should he fall along the way.
Outside the doorway of his home away from Medellín, he turned the knob—not locked; why would it be, when he felt safe?—and pushed his way inside. He glanced at his reflection in a mirror set above the room’s washbowl, ignored the wound at his hairline as trivial, and crossed the main room of the bungalow to reach a cabinet standing upright against one wall.
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