The Treadstone Resurrection

by Joshua Hood

  The jungle was a far cry from the thin, dry air that he’d become accustomed to in Washington. Beneath the trees it was thick enough that Hayes felt he could take a bite out of it. He was wondering how in the hell Boggs could stomach liquor in this heat when he saw the drop bag on the edge of the clearing.

  “There it is,” he said, breaking into a jog. “You got a vehicle?”

  “Yeah, it’s right over— Oh, fuck,” Boggs said.

  Hayes slowed and turned his head. He was about to ask what the problem was when he saw a jacked-up green pickup, the bed packed with fighters, burst from the far tree line.

  “Who the hell are these clowns?” he demanded.

  “Narcos,” Boggs said, hands closing around the AK. “We’ve got to go.”

  38

  LA ESTACADA, VENEZUELA

  The wind had picked up, pushing graphite clouds across the saltwater-blue sky, when Hayes reached the gear bag. He pulled his knife from the sheath and hacked at the parachute harness, trying to get the bag free.

  “Grinder, this is Covey,” Waters’s voice said in his ear.

  Hayes didn’t have time to talk, so he double-clicked the transmit button instead of answering. The technique was called breaking squelch, and he knew that in the plane Waters would hear the long blast of static and understand what was going on.

  “Grinder, I am five kilometers to your east, and there is some nasty weather coming in. Visibility is dropping to zero. I’m going to have to pull out.”

  “Shit,” Hayes said, throwing his arm through the carry loop and shouldering the bag. He knew that the CASA was unarmed, so it couldn’t help in a fight, but knowing it was there made him feel like he had options.

  “What?” Boggs said.

  “We’re on our own. Where is your truck?”

  “Straight ahead, on the trail,” Boggs answered, moving past him. “I’ve got a partner waiting for us.”

  Hayes did his best to keep up, but the weight of the bag and the humid air dragged him down.

  A second pickup pulled abreast of the first. Hayes could hear the engines roar as the drivers hit the gas and steered toward the fleeing figures.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Boggs said from the top of the hill.

  Oh, you mean I should hurry up? Hayes thought, legs burning from the slight incline. At the top of the hill he paused to catch his breath. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, panting, “I’ll catch up,” and he watched Boggs scamper to the mud-spattered Jeep parked near the trees. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat.

  This humidity is kicking my ass, he thought, dropping his hands to his knees and looking back at the trucks racing to intercept him. He guessed they were a hundred yards away and closing. Close enough for him to see the muzzle flashes every time one of the narcos took a potshot at him, but still out of range of their AKs.

  “Hey!” Boggs yelled, slapping the flat of his hand against the side of the Jeep. “Are you seriously taking a break right now?”

  Hayes stood up straight, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and turned to glare at the DEA agent safely ensconced behind the wheel. A bullet cracked over his head.

  He dropped the bag and unhooked the clasps that held the Kevlar-reinforced cover. Ignoring the shouts from the pair of pickups bearing down on him, Hayes pulled out what looked like a green poster tube from the bag.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Boggs shouted.

  “Be right there, Sancho,” Hayes said, yanking the retaining pin from the M72 LAW and pulling the telescoping body backward until it snapped into place.

  First built for the Army in 1963, the LAW, or Light Anti-Tank Weapon, fired a 66-millimeter rocket that was considered underpowered by today’s standards. But Hayes loved the rocket because it was small and light and had plenty of ass to get the job done.

  “Let’s see if we can get a tune out of this trombone,” he said, slapping the front and rear sights free before shouldering the launcher.

  One of the pickups had surged ahead, and Hayes was lining the sights on the truck when one of the narcos in the back laid his AK over the roll bar and fired off a burst.

  “Not even close, asshole,” he said to himself.

  A second shooter opened up and the bullets kicked a line of dirt on their way up the hill.

  “Good night, ladies,” Hayes said.

  He snapped the trigger down and the rocket screamed from the launcher. Traveling at 475 feet per second, the rocket’s time of flight from the launcher to the front of the truck was almost instantaneous.

  The warhead punched through the grill, slammed into the engine block, and detonated on impact. The overpressure shoved the nose of the truck down into the dirt, ripped the engine from the mount, and shoved it through the dash.

  A wall of flame rushed toward the bed, scorching the men in the back on its way to the fuel tank. And then it was all over.

  “Boom goes the dynamite,” Hayes said, stripping an H&K 416 from the bag before closing the cover. He yanked a magazine from his belt, shoved it into the rifle, and racked the charging handle to the rear.

  The driver of the second vehicle, seeing the lead truck disappear in a ball of flame, toed the brakes and slowed long enough for Hayes to tuck the buttstock into his shoulder, drop to a knee, and center his eye behind the Trijicon 4x32 ACOG mounted to the rifle.

  He settled the red chevron on the tip of the driver’s chin, thumbed the safety to fire, and fired two quick shots. The suppressor spat twice, thwap, thwap, and Hayes stayed in the glass long enough to see the back of the driver’s head explode before getting calmly to his feet, scooping up the bag, and heading down the hill.

  “What about him?” Boggs asked, pointing at the narco running across the field.

  “The little fish, I throw away.” Hayes smiled and hoisted the gear bag.

  39

  LA ESTACADA, VENEZUELA

  The horizon was a sullen gray, like static on a busted TV, when the Jeep pulled out of the trees and bumped onto the hardpan of the road. In the distance, lightning forked over the green hills, Hayes observed from the passenger seat of the mud-spattered Jeep.

  “I can’t believe you let him get away,” Boggs said. “That dude is on his way to Vega right now.”

  “Vega’s small potatoes.”

  “Small potatoes? Are you serious? Colonel Vega is a psycho—well, shit, I don’t need to tell you that, you guys trained him.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you guys’?”

  “Spooks, spies, agents, whatever you CIA cats are calling yourselves these days.”

  “I’m not a spy.”

  “C’mon, man, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night,” Boggs said. “You’ve got the moves, and the look, and need I remind you that I just watched you jump out of an airplane.”

  “What are you talking about?” Izzy asked in Spanish as she leaned in from the back seat.

  “He thinks I’m a spy,” Hayes said, turning his attention toward the woman.

  He’d seen the badge on her belt and the gun on her waist and knew that she was a cop. But on closer inspection, he saw the shield bore the Colombian flag, not the Venezuelan, and Hayes found himself wondering why she was here.

  “Knows foreign languages.” Boggs shrugged before pulling a pack of soggy Camels from his shirt pocket. “Trust me, baby, he’s a spy.”

  “A spy, is that true?” Izzy asked.

  “No, I’m . . .”

  “You’re what?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  “What is this,” Hayes asked Boggs, “twenty questions?”

  “Just making conversation,” the man said, and shrugged.

  “Well, in that case, I’ve got a few of my own, like why you thought it was a good idea to bring a civilian along,” Hayes asked.
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  “It’s complicated,” Boggs said, flashing him a look that told Hayes he would fill him in later.

  “Fine.” Hayes nodded. “Then how about you tell me where we are going.”

  “Little town west of here called El Nula.”

  “Why the hell are we going west?” Hayes demanded. “You said the safe house was in La Macanilla, which is east of here.”

  “I need to drop off a stowaway,” Boggs answered, nodding toward the woman in the back.

  “No, we are not,” Izzy interjected.

  “Yes, we are,” Boggs said.

  “Hey, can we—” Hayes interjected, trying to steer the conversation back to why they were heading west instead of east, but they ignored him and continued bickering like an old married couple.

  “No, we are not!” Izzy shouted.

  When he tried and failed to get their attention a second time, Hayes decided he was done being nice. The hell with this, he thought, grabbing the wheel.

  “Hey, what the—?” Boggs began, but before he could finish the question, Hayes jerked the wheel hard to the right.

  The Jeep swerved off the road, tires bouncing over the mounded dirt that acted as a curb, and into a field. Boggs tried to regain control, but Hayes held on tight, forcing the DEA agent to slam on the brakes.

  “What in the—?” Boggs began when the Jeep slid to a halt.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Hayes snarled, reaching over and turning the key to the off position.

  The engine died and silence fell over the interior, and once Hayes was sure it was going to hold, he turned in his seat so he was addressing both Izzy and Boggs.

  “This Jerry Springer bullshit stops now, you understand me?” he said, waiting for both of them to nod before continuing. “Okay, let’s try this again. I just damn near broke my neck jumping out of an airplane. You know why that happened?”

  Boggs tried to look away, but Hayes wasn’t having it.

  “Look at me, asshole,” he said, grabbing Boggs by the front of his shirt. “I jumped out of the plane because you said the safe house was in La Macanilla. Now you are telling me that it’s in El Nula, which means instead of almost breaking my neck and getting shot up by narcos, I could have just driven my happy ass across a bridge. So how about you cut the bullshit and tell me what in the hell is going on?”

  Boggs tore himself from Hayes’s grip and took an angry drag from the cigarette. “Man, haven’t you figured it out yet?” he demanded, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

  “Figured what out?”

  “That the CIA has a leak.”

  Hayes rolled his eyes. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that shit, I’d be a rich man.”

  “I know you look at me and think that I’m some whacked-out undercover dude who’s been under so long he doesn’t know which way is up.”

  “Well, you do look the part,” Hayes said.

  “Funny. Back when the DEA stood up this whole cartel exploitation gig, there were four of us working Colombia. We ran everything by the book, sent in our target packages, intel reports, locations of safe houses, everything, and never had a problem. Then we come across the border and now it’s just me by my lonesome.”

  “Great story,” Hayes said. “But it doesn’t prove the CIA is leaking information.”

  “Suit yourself, broham,” Boggs said, starting the engine and shifting into gear. “All I know is that the DEA sure as fuck didn’t leak Ford’s grid to whoever wiped his team out.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Hayes asked as Boggs bumped the Jeep back onto the road.

  “Because I never sent it to them.”

  “Wait, back up,” Hayes said.

  Boggs flashed him a conspiratorial smile. “That got your attention, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah, and now you are going to need to explain.”

  “Easy, the DEA didn’t have the location of Ford’s team, because I don’t send shit back to the States. No reports, no memos, no birthday cards, nothing. Zero.”

  There is no way. Is there?

  “Let’s say I buy your little theory. Why does the CIA care about what you have going on?”

  “Because I went after Vega,” Boggs said.

  At the mention of the man’s name, the woman in the back began cursing under her breath with such vehemence that Hayes turned to see if they had picked up a sailor.

  “I take it she isn’t a fan, either,” he said.

  “Her father was the minister of justice under Mateo. He tried to indict Vega and—”

  “And that piece of shit executed my family!” Izzy shouted.

  Great, a drunk and a chick with a vendetta. This day just keeps getting better and better, Hayes thought, settling back to enjoy the rest of the ride.

  He was still mulling over the situation and what Boggs had told him about the leak at the CIA when the Jeep crested a small hill, and far to the right, Hayes saw the white stucco gleam of a town.

  40

  CARACAS, VENEZUELA

  Nestled in the verdant green foothills of El Ávila, Hacienda Bella Vista was a world unto itself. The sprawling estate, like many others in the area, had once belonged to a member of Hugo Chávez’s inner circle—Juan Carlos Osuna, the dictator’s finance minister. The man charged with curtailing the rampant unemployment and homelessness that plagued Venezuela in the late nineties.

  But while his countrymen starved in the streets, Juan Carlos was busy skimming millions of dollars in state funds, using the money to import the Venetian glass that lined the bottom of his Olympic swimming pool and build the training pen where Colonel Vega stood, watching his daughter work the chestnut Selle Français gelding he’d bought for her quinceañera.

  “Eyes up, Catalina,” he admonished her as she brought the horse around the turn and lined up on the first series of hop-over poles. “Yes, good, excellent position,” he said, and clapped.

  “Thank you, Papa,” she said.

  “I told you she would love it, María,” he said, grinning at his wife.

  “You spoil her, Carlos,” she said. “You give a little girl everything she asks for and she will grow up to be a little bitch.”

  “María.” Vega feigned shock. “That is your daughter you are speaking about.”

  “It’s true and you know it.”

  “Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But there are worse things a father can do.” He turned to the stone wall on the south side of the sprawling estate.

  It was a view he and his wife enjoyed, but for different reasons. For his wife, the view was a reminder of how far they had come from the small apartment on the east side of the city. But for Vega, it was a constant warning of where he was heading if this plan failed.

  His eyes drifted over the city of his birth, ending at the skeletal core of the Centro Financiero Confinanzas.

  When construction began in 1990, Venezuela was in the midst of a banking boom and the forty-five-story skyscraper was to serve as the glittering headquarters of the Confinanzas group. But when the lead investor died suddenly at fifty-five, construction was halted, and with the economic crash that followed, the building became known as Torre de David—the Tower of David—Venezuela’s vertical slum.

  It was here that Carlos Vega grew up, on the bottom floor of the tallest slum in the capital. Dreaming of the day when he would look down on the city that had tried to crush them into the gutter.

  The appearance of the two olive-drab Tiunas climbing up the steep incline leading to the front gate of the hacienda signaled the end of his musings and the return to the business at hand. He followed the flagstone path to the front of the house, passing the stone fountain with the statue of Simón Bolívar, with his famous sword raised toward the heavens, on his way to the guesthouse.

  Inside, he walked to the sideboard and chose a Cohiba Robusto from the humidor on the desk and snipped
the end of the Cuban with a gold cigar cutter.

  Where in the fuck is Gray? he wondered, striking a match against the bottom of the desk and holding the flame to the end of the cigar.

  “Colonel,” his aide said, knocking on the door.

  “Bring him in,” Vega ordered, extinguishing the match with a wave of his hand.

  A pair of burly sergeants appeared at the door, dragging a wet rat of a man between them. His face bruised and purple, one eye swollen shut, the other wide with fear at the sight of the metal chair sitting in the center of a rectangle of cut plastic.

  “No . . . no . . . no,” the man begged.

  “Quiet,” one of the sergeants snapped, slamming him roughly into the chair and taking up a position behind him.

  Vega took a long pull from the cigar and blew the smoke toward the man.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked, moving to the sideboard. “Whiskey, perhaps?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer; instead, Vega pulled the stopper on a glass decanter and poured two fingers of Johnnie Walker Black into a glass.

  “What is your name?” he asked, carrying the liquor to the man and handing it over.

  “Alejandro, señor,” the man answered, before downing half of the glass in one swallow.

  “Do you know who I am, Alejandro?”

  “Y-yes, señor,” he said and nodded.

  “Very good,” he said, moving around the front of the desk. “I understand you work for us in Apure.”

  Alejandro gave a vigorous nod that told Vega he was eager to please.

  “And what is it that you do?”

  “I work with the sergeant,” he began, turning toward one of his guards.

  “Eyes front,” the man ordered, cuffing him across the back of his head. “Answer the colonel’s question, pig.”

  “I guard the airstrip.”

  “Now tell me what happened.”

  “I heard a plane flying in low over the trees. It sounded like it was going to land, but there are no shipments today, so I tried to call the boss on the radio.”