“You sure that’s enough?” asked Abel.
Rimi nodded. “For several years—at least.” She had that eager “let’s get it on” look in her big green eyes that Abel loved so much.
“Okay, babe, this is it. Do your flying leap thing, stash that stuff in Bibi, and then you and your friends get busy. Remember, scare first. If they leave, good for them. If they fight—well, bad for them, I guess.”
“Remember, you can think to me. I’ll hear you.”
“And I’ll hear you,” said Abel. He wrapped her in a tight hug, and they kissed. “I’ll never let you die,” whispered Abel.
She held up her bracelet. “Remember also your lifeline to me. Remember, we’ll never be lost again!” And with that, she took two quick steps and leaped off the side of the trawler high into the setting sun, and a second later, Abel saw a small splash not far from the mainland-side beach.
He headed the boat around the volcano slowly, and as he neared an anchorage on its other side, he saw that his hunch was right. The construction crew, who must have numbered at least thirty, was unloading equipment at the very same little bay that he’d used so many times to anchor his boat and go ashore. There were lots of chainsaws, explosives, and machetes, but also, ominously, a good number of AK-47s and small arms as well.
A cartel construction crew for sure, thought Abel. These guys wouldn’t be scared easily.
He tossed out his anchor and slipped the rubber raft into the water. He threw in his backpack carrying his Mk 16, as many hand grenades as he could fit, and extra ammo, then made for the shore. He beached the little motorboat and then hustled across some open ground into the jungle, where he quickly hooked up with his jungle trail that headed along the stream and up the volcano. After five minutes of the most vigorous hiking he’d done in years, he was well up the side of the volcano in his sniper nest. He dug the big M107 Light Fifty out from its cave hiding place, along with the ammo box, and set himself up. He also scouted out several areas that he could move to so he couldn’t be pinpointed. Who knew if the armaments of the construction crew might include RPGs or mortars? He didn’t want to be in the same place for more than a minute or two.
As he returned to his main sniper nest, he reminded himself out loud, “Ninety-four rounds. That’s all you’ve got. Ninety-four rounds, after that, you’re human again. Ninety-four rounds—don’t lose count.”
Suddenly, he heard a loud, musical bird call that echoed off the volcano and all around the island.
Rimi, thought Abel. She’s ready.
He took aim at a stack of AKs and other weapons piled on the beach near the path he’d cut two weeks before. Construction crewmen were using it to move equipment and manpower in toward the Cathedral entrance. He fired three rounds into this stuff and watched the guns leap up and shatter spectacularly, and a box, which must have been filled with either mortar bombs or grenades, blew up with a deafening explosion. Several men nearby went down with shrapnel wounds. Other men dove for cover.
“Oops,” said Abel. “Ninety-one rounds left.”
Then he heard another sound, that of a construction crew member screaming, and the loud roar (though far off) of a big cat. There was a short AK burst, and then another man screaming.
Rimi and friends in action.
He turned his sniper scope to the Green Cathedral entrance, where several men had already started in on some of the majestic trees with their chainsaws. Abel aimed carefully and fired.
“Ninety, eighty-nine, eighty-eight,” he said to himself.
***
At the Cathedral entrance, José and his crew had just started working after José had said admiringly that this place looked like the entry into a church. Suddenly, he cried out as something ripped the chainsaw from his hand. Two of his other men had the same thing happen, and they all ducked when their refueling can exploded.
“What the hell?” shouted José. “This place was supposed to be safe. Pass out the weapons and take cover!”
***
Meanwhile, at the river, Rimi saw a boat full of equipment, including torches, being pushed into the water and several men began rowing it across. She called to the crocodiles at the mouth of the river with her mind. They slid into the river and headed upstream. There was also a man with an AK rifle who had found Abel’s cable. He was about to swing across to provide cover for the others. Rimi called out in a screeching sound, and suddenly, the three monkeys that had descended on Abel weeks ago now leaped from the trees and landed right on the man’s head. The man screamed with fear, and in his panic, he fired his machine gun wildly. Bullets flew everywhere. Rimi, who was hiding high in a nearby tree, heard bullets smack into trees all around her. She ducked behind a tree trunk, but not before a bullet clipped her throwing arm. Rimi tried to shake off the injury—it wasn’t deep—but it could affect how hard she could throw her knife. She decided not to tell Abel at this time. These men were scared and might go away soon.
She turned and saw that the men in the boat had made it to the other side, and one man was onshore and had set fire to an area using an accelerant. She contacted Bibi through her mind and then watched as three crocs leaped from the water and dragged the two men who were still in the boat into the river. A fourth rose up on the riverbank and chased the man with the torch, who ran away and set more forest on fire in his panic.
Suddenly, the man saw two long, slender metal tentacles snaking through the shrub near him. He jumped back in horror as one went into the river, and the other began spraying river water all over the fires he’d just set. The water had such force that it doused the blaze in seconds, and then caught the man full in the chest and sent him careening back into the river—and the croc slithered back in after him.
***
Abel had most of the construction crew on the run. Using precision firing, he’d shot up virtually all the munitions the workers had brought ashore. MRE boxes had been riddled. A big one-hundred-gallon water tank had been shot through with several bullets and water was pouring out all over the construction headquarters that was being set up. A portable satellite dish had been blasted, along with communications equipment.
Abel, now with seventy bullets left, noted the chaos as some of the men were panicking. Some ran out of the jungle, screaming that it was haunted, that animals were in rebellion against them. Many were bloodied in some fashion. Rimi had let him know that these men had been attacked and that several were now actually crocodile dinners. When these panicked people saw their comrades at the edge of the Cathedral and at the beach headquarters were pinned down by sniper fire, they spread the panic to others.
Abel now turned his sniper rifle on the rubber boats that had brought the men ashore, and those still ferrying supplies in from their large ship.
“Sixty-nine, sixty-eight, sixty-seven, sixty-six,” he counted as he squeezed off each shot, two in each rubber boat on the beach, two more into the two boats acting as ferries. As the frightened workers saw their comrades sinking and their boats being riddled, they panicked even more. At least a dozen left their heavy utility belts and boots and dashed into the water, hoping to swim for it.
***
One group, though, didn’t panic. It was José’s group, those who had been eating at the All-American Diner earlier in the day.
Contrary to what José had told the American expat proprietor, his men were not just journeymen construction workers who went where the money took them. They were all seasoned soldiers of the cartel in Cartagena, land clearers for sure, but experienced killers as well, brought to this area by Don Vicente Galvan some time ago to be in a position to start work immediately on this project. They would be the core of the construction force.
When they saw other panicked workers fleeing through the jungle, bleeding from animal attacks, they either stopped the men or simply killed them if they wouldn’t stop. Meanwhile, José had been searching for the sniper.
Knowing that the volcano would make a perfect post, he’d been scanning with his monocular for where the devil might be, and now he had found him.
The man was using several different locations around a small cave on an exposed side of the volcano, which gave him an unobstructed view of the entire island, but also gave José an unobstructed view of where he was, aside from the rocks he was hiding behind. There were several ways to deal with a sniper once you knew where they were. One was to have your own sniper take him out, another was to engage him so much that you could resume your work. José’s unit had no sniper or sniper rifle. Another choice would be to target the sniper with airstrikes or barrages from nearby boats or an artillery battery, but they had neither of those as well. Those might be coming later, but this guy could have shot them all up by then. The other way, much less preferable and much more dangerous, was to go after the sniper in his nest with men on the ground. This would almost certainly involve casualties, but it was the only option, and if something weren’t done soon, all would be lost—he and his men would be all that was left of the construction crew.
And so, as an occasional bullet from above crashed through more supplies or blew up another box of dynamite, he had sent several of his men out to scavenge for assault rifles, and they had returned with five, mostly picked up in the jungle or the meadow where panicked workers had abandoned them. There were still a couple of their own assault rifles that were usable, and there was some extra ammunition as well. José told them where their objective was and what their plan was.
***
Of course, this movement had not gone unnoticed by Abel. He watched as the group climbed the slope up the very trail that he and Rimi had used, and how several had split off, forded the creek as it narrowed farther up the hill, and swung around the mountain in a long arc just at the edge of the tree line, thinking they were undercover. This would be almost too easy. He thought to Rimi what was going on, telling her to go after the second group with whatever animals she could find. Meanwhile, he continued to fuel the panic among the others on the island, shooting at their large boat, causing the men to go wild with fear, running and swimming and flailing at the water to get to the ship before it was disabled and all hope of leaving the island was dashed. He would lull these men coming up the mountain into thinking that he had not seen them, and then, when they were closer in and exposed, he’d deal with them with his Mk 16, saving the precious .50 caliber bullets in case they were needed later.
***
José and his five men approached the little pool where the creek originated. They heard the explosions of the .50 caliber gun as it rained its destruction below. A couple looked down and saw how far up they’d come and cringed, but José snapped at them.
“Turn around. We have a job to do! I will see where the sniper is, and then we’ll attack accordingly. We will drive the hornet from his nest, and our friends will finish him off.”
With that, the four others took cover, and José crept out to get a better view. He poked his head up over a rock just the slightest bit and glanced around. The loud report of the sniper gun quickly gave away its user’s position. José smiled.
Suddenly, though, he heard screams and cries from the area where his other team should be. Something was happening to his other team! But the sniper was still here! He raised up again, and this time saw one of the men from his other group—with a wild cat on his back growling and biting at the man’s neck. The animal pierced it, blood sprayed like a fountain, and the man collapsed.
Forgetting himself, José was transfixed, when suddenly, there was a burst of machine-gun fire from somewhere. He was walloped by so many bullets that he was thrown back against a rock. He bounced off it and plunged downward past where his men watched in horror. Those men screamed and ran back down the trail, where the machine gun mowed them down like someone killing rats driven out of a hole.
And then, there was the telltale whistling sound of incoming fire, and the whole area was rocked with an explosion.
***
Abel ducked behind the rocks as he heard the whistle of the incoming bomb. It blew up about thirty feet away, basically where José and his men had been before Abel had slaughtered them. Figuring that the bomb was meant for him, Abel changed position to another of his sniper nests, then did a quick survey of the area, trying to pinpoint the origin of the bomb. Even as he began this, another explosion forced him to duck, but it came closer to his old position, not really near where he was now.
Rimi surprised him from behind.
“There are no more killers behind you. My friends have eliminated them all.” Abel turned, and she gave him a hug. “We have driven all the bad men away! They are all leaving, but where have these explosions come from?”
“I’m trying to figure that out now. It could be from the air, but I don’t think—”
“I’ve found it—where they’re coming from!” said Rimi excitedly. “Look, out to sea!”
Abel saw another boat of some kind coming toward the island from its ocean side, heading for the little harbor where the construction crew boat was just beginning to ease out. Abel trained his sniper scope onto it.
“Watch out! It has sent another bomb our way!” cried Rimi. The two took cover together near the rocks that surrounded them as another explosion pounded the other sniper’s nest. Abel quickly retrained the sniper scope back on the boat. His eyes popped!
Where the hell did Monti, or even Don Vicente Galvan, get a ship like that?
What he was looking at was an old US Navy Mark III Patrol Craft Fast, better known as a swift boat, a craft whose heyday had been in the Vietnam War! Old weapons systems of many types were up for sale on the dark web all the time, but something this old that was still serviceable was remarkable. And dangerous. The old swift boats had been armed with two mounted .50 caliber machine guns and an 81mm mortar that could lob its big shells for almost three miles. That must be what was pounding them now—the mortar. Fortunately, a boat-mounted one wouldn’t be that accurate, but all it would take was one direct hit, and Abel and his gun would be history. The other thing that the swift boat had was an abundance of deck space, and this one was covered with armed men who didn’t look like glorified construction workers. Abel counted another thirty or so, plus the crew of the boat.
“This could get bad, Rimi. That’s a heavily armed boat out there, and there are lots of men on the decks, all armed. What do you think you can do with your knife on that?”
“Not much until it gets closer. My arm was grazed by a bullet fired wildly by an evil man being attacked by my monkey friends.”
“What? Let me see,” said Abel.
Rimi continued as Abel examined her. “I cannot do so much to the boat if it is armored, but plenty to the men. If they stay out on the boat’s floor like that, I can hit many with one throw. But it must come closer.”
“You don’t look too bad, babe, but be careful. Listen. Go back on down, get yourself to where you can use that knife. We’ve got to keep these guys off the land if we can, or we’ll be overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed or not, we will win, my dear companion. This is our Green Cathedral, and we won’t let evil people take it from us!” She turned to go.
“Wait!” cried Abel. She turned just in time to meet Abel, who smothered her in a crushing embrace. They kissed passionately and then squeezed each other hard again. Abel stared into her big green eyes.
“Don’t die,” he said. “Life without you would be—Jesus, I don’t know, really shitty.” He kissed her again.
“Don’t worry, dear friend,” she smiled back. “No one is dying today except those invaders.” She kissed him. “I love you, dear Abel!”
Rimi then turned and bounced down the mountain like a deer, Abel never taking his eyes off her.
Watching her is like watching a never-ending miracle, he thought.
Time to pull his trigger again. N
o way was he dying today. Not even a chance!
There was another explosion, this one more random. Abel raised his sniper rifle again, putting the mortar right in his sights. He squeezed off four more rounds, ripping to shreds the body of one of the operators and damaging the mortar. It was a good shot, but now he was below fifty shots left. He fired another two shots at the men coming to replace the mortar crew, then redirected his fire to the boat’s bridge, scattering several men and putting giant holes in the bridge’s armor. As the men recovered themselves after Abel’s salvo, Abel scoped the bridge again, hoping to kill the captain. And that’s when he saw that the apparent captain was none other than Monti Ruiz!
32
—
It had been one hellacious day for Monti Ruiz.
At first, all seemed to be going very well. Don Vicente Galvan and his crew of heavily armed men had left, and the meeting with the shop owners had seemed to go well, especially when the construction crew arrived and the shops and sodas filled up with friendly customers who had full wallets and big appetites. All had seemed well as the construction crews drifted back to their boat and readied to head to the island, which Monti assumed was safe thanks to DEA Agent Caleb Forrest.
And speaking of Caleb Forrest, it was troubling to discover that he was actually a DEA agent from Cartagena named Abel something-or-other who had caused Don Vicente Galvan much loss, and even more disturbing that Galvan was hell-bent on getting immediate revenge by going after this Abel, who had gone with Faviola’s adopted daughter to the island. Monti was glad that Galvan and his men had left and secretly hoped the DEA agent prevailed against the don. Then, perhaps, he, Monti Ruiz, could assume control of their heretofore joint project.
But then things had begun happening thick and fast, so much so that Monti couldn’t even figure out which were good and which were bad. He’d gotten a desperate call from Don Vicente. He was trapped in his armored car, which apparently the DEA agent had blown up. He needed help and also wanted his big boat and his armed soldiers taken to the island. Monti had called in the boat and sent Paco and some men to Pedro’s scuba school to see what they could do there, but just moments later, his entire community patrol had shown up at his pavilion, armed and in full uniform, wanting answers.
The Green Cathedral Page 28