The Treadstone Resurrection

by Joshua Hood

  The terrain was a nightmare, an uphill slog over roots and around tree trunks the size of Buicks. Out of everything, Hayes hated the “wait-a-minute vines” the most. The thorny plants got their name from the fact that because of the jagged thorns, the only way to get untangled was to stop and pry them from your skin. Trying to rip free only resulted in jagged tears of flesh that soon left a man covered in blood.

  But no matter how careful Hayes was to avoid the vines, it didn’t take long to draw first blood.

  Shit. I should have brought a machete.

  He wiped his face with the back of his glove, the caustic scent of DEET stinging his nostrils.

  Hayes pressed forward, moving slowly but steadily, stopping every twenty yards to look and listen for anything that didn’t fit in the landscape. He kept a pace count in his head, noting every time his left foot touched the ground, knowing from his time in the army that every sixty-three paces equaled a hundred meters.

  Overhead, a troop of howler monkeys barked in protest of the gentle breeze blowing in from the east. He looked past the monkeys, his blue eyes seeking a hole in the trees. What he saw confirmed his greatest fear: Angry gray clouds had crept silently over the crystal-blue sky like a roll of lead sheeting.

  Hayes was a mile in when he dropped to a knee, checked his map, and pressed the talk button on the radio. “I’m at waypoint one,” he gasped.

  “Copy, waypoint one. You don’t sound like you are having fun.”

  “The heat,” Hayes admitted. “It’s no joke.”

  “There’s a storm coming in,” Boggs warned over the radio. “It looks pretty rough.”

  Hayes had come too far to turn back now. He looked at the map and saw that the airfield was a little less than a mile away. He was in Indian country, close to where Ford’s team had been hit, and he wasn’t turning back.

  “I’m going to keep moving. Let me know if things get bad.”

  “Roger that.”

  He got to his feet and started cutting for sign—checking the undergrowth for broken branches, bent stems, and leaves and soft soil for any tracks. Despite its name, a rain forest was actually not as wet as a jungle. In fact, because of the thick canopy, most of the rain never made it to the ground, which made it hard to find a track.

  To combat this, Hayes stayed on the lookout for a “track pit”—a puddle of water or patch of mud that would trap the prints of anyone or anything that passed through.

  He found one beneath a ragged hole in the canopy, near the base of a tree. The pool of water was small and covered with monkey tracks, but near the edge, Hayes found a faint heel print. He dropped to his stomach and, staying as low to the ground as possible, scanned the area, looking for the next track.

  The second track was just a scuff, a faint transfer of mud over bark. He pulled off his glove and pinched off a piece of the dirt, squeezing it between his fingers to test the moisture content. The fact that it didn’t crumble told him that it was fresh.

  He replaced his glove and took a tentative step forward.

  Tracking in these conditions was an art—painfully slow and full of stop-and-start moments. Hayes knew that while he was pressed for time, if he lost the track, he’d have to start all over.

  It took five minutes of searching the ground before he found the next print on the far side of a log. He examined the moss on top of the wood, saw that it was pressed down, and then turned his attention to the other side, looking for the toe print that he knew was there.

  He found it, a forward sloping gash in the ground, but without a full boot print—one well-defined print—there was no way of knowing who he was tracking. It was the first rule in tracking: Find a print that is distinguishable from all the rest. Trying to follow multiple prints was like trying to herd kittens—a waste of time and energy. Hayes had been taught the easiest way to cut sign was to find one print and stick with it.

  Then he saw it, a print that stuck out. Hayes got the entire print—the logo stamped clean in the middle of the tread: VIBRAM.

  Ford’s sole of choice. It’s his boot.

  Hayes moved forward, ignoring the clap of thunder rolling through the trees. A cool breeze rustled the canopy and brought the scent of rain.

  He was literally walking in Ford’s footsteps, and as he pressed on, Hayes tried to imagine what his friend had been thinking. Was he tired, angry? Did he know he was being hunted?

  A wedge was the preferred method of travel because it spread out the team, put men on both flanks. But the terrain was too tight for that, and with all the growth, it would have been easy for the men to get separated.

  He would have used a file, Hayes thought, one man in front of the other, with the point man a hundred yards ahead of the column in case they ran into trouble.

  Hayes crept forward, eyes alert for any change in color, anything that would tell him the men had come this way. One print led to the next, and soon Hayes had identified the entire team and knew they’d been in a file, just as he’d guessed.

  He could tell they had come in from the east. He didn’t need to pull out the map to understand. Hayes had spent enough time studying it to know every dominant terrain feature in the area.

  Ford used the river. That’s how he got in.

  The light was failing, and he knew that the storm was overhead, the clouds blocking what little sunlight might have made it through the trees. But he kept moving, knowing that he was close.

  The first drops splattered through the trees. Then the clouds opened up and the rain fell hard and driving against the top of the canopy, like a hammer banging atop an anvil. The moisture drifted down through the canopy, creating a wet fog that cast the jungle floor in shadows of black and blue.

  Turn back, his inner voice warned.

  “Fuck no,” Hayes swore, ducking his head against the rain, the bow slick in his hands.

  Then he heard the buzzing sound emanating from the black shimmering cloud. Flies. As he crept closer, the rotting stench of decaying flesh rose through the wet scent of mud. On the ground he saw a glint of brass, leaves covered in dried blood, and blackened divots that marked where grenades had detonated.

  But, ultimately, it was a spot of white flesh protruding from the freshly turned soil that marked the final resting place of Ford’s men.

  Hayes ducked his head in respect and, swearing to avenge the men, soldiered through the rain, crossing the last hundred yards to the slight rise of his overwatch position. He lowered himself to his stomach and, being careful not to expose any part of himself, crawled to the edge. He pulled the spotting scope from his bag and draped the olive-drab netting over the objective lens so if the sun came out, it wouldn’t glint off the glass, and then he pressed his eye to the lens.

  48

  PENDARE, VENEZUELA

  In the darkening gloom of the storm, the airstrip and its accompanying defenses lay before Hayes like a partially excavated skeleton. Someone had hacked back the jungle, clearing away a brown postage stamp of what appeared to be a long-forgotten firebase.

  The perimeter defenses were a joke—knee-high grass had grown over the rusted wire, and thick jungle vines that could grow to three hundred feet in length had coiled their way up the legs of the closest guard tower. On the far edge, a fire flickered in an oil barrel. Hissing against the rain, it illuminated a knot of buildings hunched like refugees beneath the weight of tattered sandbags.

  Other than the fire, the whole place looked like it could be abandoned, but on closer inspection, Hayes saw signs of fresh work, and the longer he studied the area, the more he understood the ingenuity of the place.

  At first glance the runway appeared too short and tight to accommodate a cargo plane. The surface had been recently graded. Someone had taken all of the debris and carried it to the far end, where it was packed down, forming a ramp.

  The east side was littered with hulks of planes that
had overshot the runway, but it was the Antonov An-12—parked beneath the massive camo net that hung before the dilapidated hangar—that proved it was possible to bring a large plane in.

  Hayes had no idea how the pilot had managed to squeeze the big turboprop plane into that tiny field, but there it was, backed up to the hangar. And the presence of the men straining to carry pallets covered in cellophane up the ramp told him it wouldn’t be here long.

  What do they have on the pallets? Is it dope? Hayes wondered.

  He patiently worked the focus knob back and forth with his thumb, making tiny corrections until the image cleared, and he saw that the fat squares loaded atop the pallets weren’t full of dope, they were full of cash. Stacks and stacks of brand-new hundred-dollar bills.

  Suddenly everything made sense, and Hayes knew the reason they had killed Ford and sent a kill team after him had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with money.

  The rage built inside him, burning hot despite the driving rain. He swung the spotting scope over the perimeter, taking in the defenses and the men on guard, and knew that he could end it right here.

  Hayes backed away from the edge and pressed the talk button with his thumb.

  “Boggs,” he said over the radio.

  There was nothing but static.

  “Boggs, can you hear me?”

  Damn it, c’mon, answer.

  He tried again, but with the same result.

  Hayes knew the radio worked by line of sight and wasn’t sure if his transmission was being blocked by the trees or the thick cloud bank that had moved in overhead—either way he knew that he needed to move to high ground if he wanted to contact Boggs.

  He glanced to his left, remembering the little finger of land he’d seen on the map, knowing it was close. If he could get there, he could call Boggs to him and they could end this right now.

  Hayes packed up his spotting scope, shouldered his bag, and grabbed the bow. He nocked an arrow in the string, knowing the chances of being discovered grew the longer he stuck around. Then he slipped back the way he’d come.

  Thankfully, the egress route was mostly downhill and much easier than the way in. He was moving toward the spur he’d seen from his hide sight when he heard voices to his front.

  Just let them pass.

  It was the right decision, but the narcos had almost passed by when the radio hissed to life.

  “Hayes, there is a . . .” Boggs’s voice squawked over the radio.

  Shit.

  Hayes threw himself to the ground, his finger finding the knob, turning it until it clicked off, but knowing it was too late.

  “Did you hear that?” a voice asked in Spanish.

  Hayes hazarded a quick glance, lifting his head to get a clear view of the men. There were four of them.

  Fuck.

  “The colonel is on his way, forget it,” one of the men said.

  “No, there is something there,” the man said.

  Hayes heard a twig snap and knew the man was stepping closer.

  If he gets a shot off, you are done. Kill him now and go.

  Hayes took a breath, spread his feet shoulder width apart, and turned to the side. He flexed and tugged the bow to full draw in one smooth motion. Cloaked in the shadows, Hayes centered the sight on the man’s chest, took a breath, and loosed the arrow.

  The arrow flew soundlessly from the bow and slammed into the target’s chest at three hundred and seventy feet per second. On impact, the mechanical broadhead snapped open and the razor-sharp twenty-inch cutting head sliced cleanly through the man’s heart before punching out the other side.

  Hayes was already moving before the man tumbled to the ground, knowing he had to kill them all—and fast.

  “Ramón, hey, Ramón, what are you doing?” one of the men asked, taking a step forward.

  Hayes shifted to the left, a second arrow already nocked, the bow coming up on target. It was a side shot, and he aimed for the armpit. He’d seen four-hundred-pound elk taken down with a bow and knew it had the power to punch through the man’s arm and still have enough ass to hit his heart.

  He fired and moved to the right, eyes searching the shadows for the rest of the men. Besides identifying his targets, Hayes also had to make sure he had a clean firing lane. Unlike a bullet, the arrow wasn’t moving fast enough to punch through the undergrowth, and the smallest twig could knock it off course.

  Which is exactly what happened on the third shot.

  The last two men were five paces away from their dead comrades and moving in the opposite direction. Hayes knew that if they kept moving he could get them all, and was looking for the perfect shot when his foot found a dry twig.

  Snap.

  The break of the dry wood echoed like a rifle shot. The man on Hayes’s left snapped his eyes toward the sound and caught Hayes out in the open.

  “Hey!” the man yelled at the same moment Hayes released the arrow.

  He knew it was off target as soon as he released it. He could hear the arrow crashing through the trees as he dumped the bow. His hand fell to the revolver on his right hip and he yanked it free.

  BOOM.

  The .357 echoed like a hand grenade, a jet of fire leaping from the muzzle. Unlike the arrow, the big bullet had no problems with the trees and snapped through the limbs before blowing the man off his feet.

  “Contact,” the remaining soldier yelled, opening up on full auto.

  Hayes fired two shots at the muzzle blast before the hail of fire pinned him down. His left hand found the radio and twisted the knob.

  “Boggs, I’m blown! Get the hell out of there,” he yelled.

  Not waiting for a response, Hayes stuffed the revolver back into its holster and fumbled the Benelli from his shoulder. He flicked the safety to fire, his breathing short and fast. Calm down, you’ve been here before.

  He knew from the way the shooter was firing blind that he didn’t have a target, and Hayes waited for the man to sweep his fire to the left before he circled back to the right. The moment he saw camo, Hayes fired, staying on the trigger until the man went down.

  But the damage had been done. Hayes heard the wail of a siren from the airstrip and the sound of men and dogs crashing through the trees.

  “Over there, he’s over there!”

  A narco appeared through the trees, his Kalashnikov blinking from his hip. The rounds snapped high through the brush, giving Hayes time to rip a frag from his pouch, tear the pin free, and sidearm it toward the man.

  And then he was running for his life.

  49

  PENDARE, VENEZUELA

  He’s here!” a voice shouted over the radio, followed by the chatter of automatic fire.

  “Damn you, Gray,” Colonel Vega snapped, grabbing Izzy by the hair and shoving her toward a sergeant before pointing toward his aide. “Javier, you are in charge—get the dogs, push him south.”

  “What about the prisoner?” the sergeant demanded.

  “Put her on the plane!” he yelled, pointing toward the Antonov.

  He spun on his heel and sprinted to a Huey gunship on the airstrip. He shielded his face against the spray of stones and dirt kicked up by the downdraft and ducked his head beneath the blades. The heat from the turbines scalded his neck.

  Fucking Gray, he snarled, climbing past the gunner manning the .50-caliber machine gun and grabbing the headset off the rack.

  “Vámanos,” he snapped into the radio.

  The pilot juiced the throttle, lifting the aged bird over the trees. In the back of the cabin, Vega worked the radio. He twisted the dial to air-to-ground and depressed the talk button.

  “Javier, I am in the air, where is he?” Vega demanded, leaning forward so he could see out the Huey’s bug-spattered canopy.

  “We are pushing him south,” the man answered, his voice lo
w over the scream of RPGs.

  Vega lifted a pair of scarred binoculars to his eyes. He panned across the green canopy of the treetops, but it was too dense to penetrate.

  “Dogs, we need dogs!” he yelled over the radio.

  “We have two K9 teams on the ground; one more is on the way,” Javier answered.

  “There!” the pilot yelled, pointing at a spark of orange from an exploding RPG. “Targets, two o’clock.”

  “I see them,” Vega said. “Bring us around.”

  The pilot turned north, away from the attackers, and pulled a grease pencil from the arm of his flight suit. He waited until he was out of sight before dipping the nose, and then he pushed the red button on the stick.

  There was a flash of fire from the pylon attached to the side of the Huey and the 70-millimeter rocket lit off, racing toward the ground.

  The pilot made a mental note of his point of aim, and when the rocket exploded, he made the necessary corrections and drew a rough circle on the glass with the grease pencil.

  “Going up,” the pilot said.

  Vega grabbed the lanyard bolted to the roof and held on.

  The pilot pulled the Huey into the sun and its rays blinded Vega, turned his vision white, robbing him of his sight. The rest of his senses went into overdrive. He felt the helo shudder, knew it was losing airspeed. Through the headphones he could hear the beep, beep, beep from the cockpit, the sensor warning the pilot that he was about to stall.

  For a moment they were weightless, the sun hot on Vega’s face.

  He felt it shift to his cheek and then it was gone. They were turning, the Huey accelerating.

  Vega opened his eyes and blinked the stars from his vision. He saw the ground through the canopy and his men pushing Hayes toward the south.

  In the cockpit the pilot switched the mode of fire from single-shot to ripple fire and centered the grease-pencil circle on the target below.

  The pilot depressed the trigger and the rocket pod came to life,unleashing twelve 2.75-inch rockets in the blink of an eye at point-blank range. Before the rockets even hit the ground, the pilot pulled the helo out of the dive.