With a slow blink, Dak gradually allowed the string to retract until it was back in a neutral position.
"Not today, young fella," he whispered. He didn't speak loud enough for the deer to hear him, but the animal's head shot up and looked around, spooked by something.
It took a few steps forward and then resumed foraging for food in the forest undergrowth.
Dak smiled.
He didn't enjoy killing animals. Hated it, in fact. Animals naturally acclimated to their environment, doing their instinctive best to live in harmony with nature and the planet. People, on the other hand, stripped the land of its resources in their all-consuming hunt for more, more, more.
Dak had hunted since he was young, his late uncle Ben taking him on trips into the mountains for wild turkey, deer, and pheasant. The most important thing about hunting Dak ever learned from his uncle, was to never kill what you don't need. That was one of the greatest sins of humanity against the earth, taking more than people needed.
Back at the cabin, Dak had a freezer full of food that would last him several months. On top of that, he had an emergency supply of MRE-style meals that could stretch a year or more if needed.
He'd considered the irony of not taking more than he needed when comparing it to his long-term food supply, but that was different. Being ready to sustain himself for a while wasn't greedy or hoarding. It was good planning. Killing this buck right now, when he had plenty to eat, was another matter.
The animal looked up again, this time locking eyes with him. The creature blinked, its dark orbs flashing behind wide eyelids. Dak felt overwhelmed by the moment. It was spiritual, serene, surreal, as if looking into the eyes of a ghost reincarnated into this beautiful creature.
Dak watched the buck, observing its movements as it continued grazing. Then, when the animal had exhausted the easily gleaned supply of food on the ground, it trotted deeper into the forest, flicking its cotton tail as it retreated from view.
Dak took a deep breath and exhaled, realizing his breathing had grown shallow while he watched the beast, almost as if he'd forgotten to breathe at all.
The moment over, he shifted in his seat and reached down for the thermos of coffee to his right. He pushed back the magnetic seal on the lid and took a sip. Two hours later, the rich coffee still steamed like it did when he first poured it.
This was what Dak loved most about hunting. Not the kill, but the peace of being in nature without so much as a scratch of humanity to interrupt his thoughts. A few birds chirped and sang in the treetops. The trickle of the mountain spring near his cabin barely reached his ears. Other than that, the location was utterly peaceful.
The smell of dried leaves, pine, and coffee were the only other interruptions the morning provided.
Until he felt the phone in his pocket vibrate against his thigh.
He let out another sigh. Irritated and curious, he pulled the device out of his pocket and looked at the message preview on the screen. Only one person had this number, though he wished he could share it with another. That, however, would be too dangerous. Nicky had helped him get back on his feet. He couldn't risk contacting her again, not with Bo Taylor and the others still out there.
Carson Williams was dead, either still sitting at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Miami, or in the bellies of a hundred sea creatures. But four threats still remained, and Dak didn't dare contact Nicole until they were gone.
Four more, he thought. Dak still wasn't convinced the colonel could be swayed with evidence of his innocence in the events that took place in Iraq more than seven months before. He hoped that could be the case, that he could return to his life as Dak Harper and not some alias hiding out in the mountains. He would do that as long as it took, years even, so long as the men who betrayed him paid for what they'd done.
He tried not to dwell on vengeance, but it was nearly impossible. The only way he truly justified it was knowing that if those men had stabbed him in the back, there was no limit to the sins they would continue to commit against others.
Dak's green eyes fell to the phone again. He pulled his baseball cap off and ran his fingers through thick, almost black hair, reading the message again.
His irritation melted.
"I found Luis. Call me."
The text was from his friend Will in Portugal.
Will had been scouring the globe, going above and beyond what Dak could have ever requested. For the last month, though, he'd come up empty, finding no sign of Luis or the others.
Deep down, Dak hoped Luis would be the next one he found. The Mexican-American had been the softest of their group, the one who—if interrogated—would prove most likely to give up information about the others, assuming he had any. That last part was improbable, but Dak had to try.
He'd known Carson would never share any details about the locations of the others if he had them at all. Carson's overconfidence led to his downfall, but it would never have wavered.
Dak took another swig of coffee, set down the thermos, and pressed the green button to call Will.
The phone only rang once before his friend answered. "Found him," Will said.
"So I saw. Where?"
"Good morning to you too. And you're welcome."
Dak merely twisted his head slightly back and forth. "I'll thank you when you tell me where he is."
"Mexico. And you're not going to believe what he's been up to."
Two
Uruapan, Mexico
Marco Espinal watched the road through the windshield of the black Ford Explorer. For the last two hours, his focus never wavered, eyes always locked on the cracked, undulating pavement that stretched down the hill toward the flats of Tiamba.
Every few minutes, a gentle breeze rolled through the hills and passed through his open window, providing some relief from the sun's warmth. He allowed himself the distraction of a sip of water now and then to keep hydrated, though he didn't dare drink too much. The last thing he needed was to be relieving himself when the convoy passed.
If that happened, there would be no mercy from his employer. And he knew too well the methods his key enforcer would use—he'd witnessed them firsthand more times than he could count. It was that man's plan that Marco was here to execute.
A rival cartel—El Nuevo Guerreros—was rumored to be sending a convoy down this route. It was more than a rumor, though, and Marco knew it. The Guerreros were sending a shipment of guns to one of their factories to the north of Tiamba, a small village on the outskirts of Uruapan.
The village itself was irrelevant. With only a few hundred inhabitants, however, it made the perfect cover for the operations of one of the largest cartels. With the Mexican government under pressure for the last couple of years, they'd been pushing harder and harder in the war against the drug cartels.
Marco knew that much of it was show. Most of the cartel members knew it too. They played their part, sending the most expendable of their ranks into open gunfights against police and military personnel. For the heads of the cartels, it was a win-win scenario.
If the government's gunmen won a fight here or there, killed a few dozen men, it would be plastered in all of the papers. The cartels would look weakened to the public, and the war on illicit drugs would appear to be working. Whenever that happened, profits went up because the authorities had a bad habit of resting on their laurels.
It helped that some of their ranks were paid by the cartels.
On the other hand, if the cartels took out some cops, some government agents, their stranglehold on the region would grow that much more. Some people trusted the cartels more than they trusted the government, which was easy to understand given some of the recent displays of incompetence.
A shootout near a school one week ago resulted in several civilian casualties, including one teacher who died as a result.
The government was vilified in the papers and on social media. The mayor's ability to keep people safe hung on the minds and mouths of thousands. The govern
or, too, was unable to curtail the violence, though many believed he was also heavily influenced by the cartels.
It was impossible to say which one or ones, though Marco knew the truth.
His organization was currently one of the largest in the country, rivaled by few. As it happened, their most notorious rival was located in the same region, making Uruapan the epicenter of much of the violence.
Marco didn't feel bad for the civilians. If they wanted to take an active role, they could take a side. Dying innocently in the war was still dying. He'd rather have a gun in his hand and go down fighting than die as collateral damage.
He reached down to his cup holder and plucked the bottle, raised it to his lips, and took a sip. As he put the container back in its place, he looked down the road. A few thousand feet away, three more SUVs waited, concealed by dense outcroppings of trees along the route. The convoy would never see them coming, just as they wouldn't see Marco and the vehicle across the road.
He noticed the driver of the other SUV looking down toward his lap. Even from thirty yards away, Marco could tell what the man was doing.
Marco touched the button on the radio piece in his ear. "Juan, stop looking at your phone. They could be here any minute."
Marco's driver, a muscular man with a shaved head and a thin beard, looked over with a humored chuckle. "He's going to get killed one of these days."
"Only a matter of time," Marco said. While Marco kept his appearance mostly clean with only a few hidden tattoos, his driver was a canvas of body art. Flames licked up the sides of the man's neck. A skull stared out from his throat. Dozens of other tattoos covered his arms, and probably the rest of his body, Marco imagined, though he didn't care to let his mind wander into too much detail.
The sound of motors moaning and tires rolling along asphalt interrupted his thoughts.
He touched his earpiece again. "All teams be ready. Here they come."
Marco checked the AR-15 in his lap, twisting it over to inspect it for at least the sixth time since he'd been sitting there. He pulled on the charging handle and notched a round into the chamber, then flipped the cover off the red dot sight mounted on the rail.
Two more men in the back of the SUV did the same and shifted in their seats as adrenaline began seeping through their veins.
The first enemy vehicle zoomed by, a silver Chevy Tahoe. Three more vehicles followed; two minivans and an old Toyota Landcruiser.
They weren't the usual vehicles the Guerreros used, but that was probably by design. Most of the time, vehicles running shipments of drugs or weapons utilized a variety of transportation modes to disguise their operations.
Marco waited for ten seconds after the last vehicle passed before giving the order.
"Team one, move into position."
The SUV across the road pulled out from its hiding spot and turned right, heading up the hill until it reached the top, while Marco's driver stepped on the gas and veered toward the convoy.
The other SUV turned and stopped in the middle, blocking both lanes so no other traffic could get through.
"Team two, set the trap."
Marco watched the road ahead, and within seconds the other three SUVs emerged from their cover. They drove out onto the asphalt and blockaded the road, along with the shoulders. The only way any of the enemy transports could get by was to drive into the forest, and that would be a short trip ending in a collision with a tree.
The convoy's Tahoe slammed on its brakes and skidded to a stop. The two minivans did the same, both steering into the other lane to avoid hitting the car in front. The last SUV trailed a few car lengths behind and stopped less abruptly.
Team two flung open their doors and stepped out of their SUVs, leveling their guns at the first truck. The men fanned out, surrounding all four vehicles as Marco's driver sped to the rear, hit the brakes, and spun the wheel to block both lanes—sealing off the enemy's only potential exit.
Marco was the first out, a true general willing to step into battle with his men at a moment's notice. He leveled his weapon, aiming at the back of the last SUV while his driver and the two other men from his ride spread out to encircle the vehicle.
The people in the convoy barely moved, except to look around at the circle of death surrounding them. They never got a chance to put up their hands or even step out and offer to surrender.
"Kill them," Marco ordered.
The sound of gunfire rolled up and down the highway, echoing through the forests. The deadly hail of metal punctured the convoy's vehicles, shattering glass and tearing through metal, riddling the bodies that occupied them.
When every magazine ran dry, all that remained of the massacre was the cloud of bitter smoke that hung in the air from the mass discharge of powder.
Marco lowered his weapon and stalked toward the last vehicle—what was left of it. He stopped at the rear door and pulled on the handle. To his surprise, it wasn't locked. The door swung open and a pale-skinned woman's body slumped over, the seatbelt around her lap and shoulder keeping her from falling out onto the road. The woman wasn't dead, but she soon would be. Her body bled from at least ten bullet wounds in the legs, torso, and arms. She breathed heavily, but each breath brought more blood into her lungs and sent her into coughing fits.
Marco frowned at the sight and immediately peered deeper into the vehicle to the other side. "Gringos?" he muttered.
Something was wrong. These weren't the men they were after. He stepped to the back of the SUV and flung open the rear door.
Instead of guns, he found boxes of food, medicine, and shoes.
He swore in Spanish and closed the rear door, then walked back to the open passenger-side door and the dying woman. He drew the pistol from his hip, pointed it at the top of the woman's head, and squeezed the trigger.
The American woman's coughing ceased, and she went still.
Marco stuffed the pistol back in its holster, took a phone out of his pocket, and called the first contact on his recents list.
"Bueno," a man answered.
"Luis," Marco said. "We have a problem."
Three
Sequatchie County, Tennessee
"You're sure about this?" Dak asked. He immediately regretted slinging the question.
"Sure?" Will said, doing his best to sound offended. "Of course I'm sure. I wouldn't call you if I just had a hunch. It's him."
"Sorry," Dak said, ducking under a low hanging tree branch.
He trudged through the forest toward the cabin, paying no attention to how much noise he made. Disturbing the wildlife didn't matter now. A far more pressing concern riddled his thoughts.
"It's fine," Will laughed. "I'm just messing with you, but yeah, don't think I'm going to call you with information that might be correct."
"I'll try to do better in the future," Dak panted.
"What are you doing, anyway? Sounds like you're a little out of breath."
Dak exhaled as he reached the top of a small knoll. The Swedish timber-style cabin sat perched in a clearing just ahead. A hundred feet of meadow surrounded the mountain retreat on all sides. He'd tilled some of the cleared area for a micro-farm and planted a few varieties of vegetables. It was too late to plant corn, but he'd considered constructing a greenhouse for year-round growing.
"I'm hiking back to my cabin," Dak answered. "I was up in a tree stand."
"Tree stand? It's not hunting season yet. Or is it? I can't ever keep that stuff straight. I'm not much of a hunter and being out of the States for so long, it's hard to remember."
"No, it's not hunting season yet. I was just enjoying the serenity of it all."
"Oh," Will said, then paused. "I hope you got all the serenity you wanted because if you're going after Luis Martinez, it's going to be anything but tranquil."
"I still can't believe he's with a Mexican drug cartel. That doesn't sound like Luis."
"Based on what you told me, none of those guys from your team are who you thought they were."
; Dak reached the cabin and clomped up the three steps onto the wraparound deck. He turned the latch, opened the door, and stepped inside. "That's an understatement."
"There's more," Will hinted. "Luis didn't just join a cartel. He's with one of the biggest in the region and there's a bloody war going on between his organization and a few other rivals."
"That's not unusual. The cartels are constantly fighting for supremacy down there." Dak set his coffee thermos on the counter to the left, slipped off his boots at the door, and ambled over to a wooden writing desk in the right corner. The workstation's position between windows on either side allowed for a wide view of the forest. The peaceful view of nature was only one of the motivators for choosing that spot for his laptop. The other reason was that it allowed Dak to see if anyone approached his property from the trail that led down to the road.
"Yeah, and Uruapan is notorious for the violence. It regularly spills into the streets and sucks in civilians."
Dak didn't know as much about that particular city as some of the others. Juarez, Guadalajara, and other larger cities received more press in the American mainstream media, but behind those headlines, dozens of other towns and villages teemed with violence.
Many of the details Dak had seen were worse than anything he'd ever witnessed during his service with the military. Beheadings, dismembered body parts, public hangings, and worse, were all standard methods utilized by the cartels.
The barbaric display of butchery the cartels used was intended to get people in line, to choose a side, or to let everyone know who was on top—at least for now. With his peripheral view of the Mexican drug wars, Dak didn't know all the ins and outs, but he noticed how it seemed like a seesaw in the way that cartels rose and fell. Few had been around for more than a decade, with new and ambitious leaders climbing through the ranks or building their own operations to rival others.
Some tactics in the power struggle smacked of Romanesque methods with covert assassinations, sabotaging supply chains, and plying corrupt government officials and police for assistance in a multitude of avenues.
The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set Page 14