Pablo's Ghost (Strike Force X Book 1), page 6
The man who would be king finished his drink, prepared to make an early night of it and sleep alone for once. He had no wife, no regular lover, no living relatives who might have recognized him after his expensive transformation. At present, it was safest for him to remain a solitary man, immune to physical distractions and emotional entanglements.
There would be time enough to build a family, if he were so inclined, when he was well and truly recognized as king of all that he surveyed.
Until then, nothing else mattered.
And if he failed, at last…well, nothing mattered then, either, except to write his name in history, with blood-red letters ten feet tall.
6
Asomadera Park, Medellín
"You think he'll show?" asked Blake Mahoney.
"Fingers crossed," his brother Grant replied. "We're pretty much dead in the water without him."
"I have to say that Chandler left me feeling hinky."
"I'd agree, but he needs information from us. No percentage in it for him, dicking us around."
"Unless somebody farther up the ladder has a score to settle we don't know about."
"We've never had a beef with DEA before," Grant said. "If they were gunning for us, why not make a move at home, instead of flying us down here?"
"Deniability, for one thing," Blake suggested. "Some of them are just damned devious, besides."
"We'll take it slow and easy, bro. And don't forget we're covered."
For triangular converging fire, in fact, with Hardy, Karpin and Dartnell on station, watching out for any traps, ready to make their move if anything smelled rotten.
Anything beyond the usual in Medellín, that was.
The team had stocked up on equipment from a local dealer they'd done business with before, no reason to distrust him other than the fact that he existed in Colombia. The brothers carried Glocks with sound suppressors, while their teammates had more firepower available at need. Grant hoped it wouldn't come to that so quickly, but it always helped to be prepared.
Asomadera Park was one of Medellín's natural treasures, lovingly maintained, some eighty-three green acres wedged between the suburbs of Las Palmas, San Diego and El Salvador. Its crowning glory, Cerro la Asomadera, looms sixteen hundred feet above sea level, ranked with Pan de Azúcar Hill, El Salvador Hill, El Volador Hill, El Picacho Hill, Las Tres Cruces Hill, Nutibara Hill and Santo Domingo Hill as one of Medellín's "guardian" or "tutelary" hills offering panoramic views of Antioquia's capital city.
After nightfall, it was also a primary "cruising" site for members of the gay community, on par with Central Park in New York City or San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. No lonely men had neared the two Mahoney brothers at their hilltop table yet, nor had they glimpsed the contact Preston Chandler had arranged from stateside.
And Camilo Román, by Grant's watch, was running late. Not much, so far, but seven minutes in the heart of Medellín could be a lifetime and then some.
Grant made a quick radio check with the SFX team's other members, strategically posted around Asomadera Hill. Dartnell and Hardy had no action to report, but Natalie announced a solitary stroller moving toward the hilltop, acting vaguely nervous.
"Physical description?" Grant inquired.
"He looks enough like Román's photograph to pass," she answered back. "Which isn't saying much. He could be any third or fourth guy on the street in Medellín."
"You have him covered, Number Two?"
Grant's query that time went to Hardy, waiting with his sniper's rifle to unload on any threat that came their way.
"I've got him now," the Brit came back. "It could be him, but I'd agree it's hard to say."
Especially with someone running wild and claiming to be Pablo Escobar, Grant thought. And said to all his watchers, "Fair enough. Just cover him and see what happens next."
Blake shifted on his concrete bench and eased a hand inside his lightweight windbreaker, ready with his pistol if the wrong guy showed his face or Camilo Román had some trick up his sleeve.
"I've got him," Blake announced.
Grant turned, followed his younger sibling's gaze, and saw a man approaching. He stood five foot six or seven, seeming smaller from the way his shoulders slumped. Unruly hair—combed better in the photo they'd received from Preston Chandler back in San Diego—crowned an oval face, dark halfmoons visible beneath the twitchy eyes.
"From here, I can't tell if he's high or just about to blow a gasket," Blake observed.
"Could be the jumpy sort," Grant said, "with Chandler squeezing him to give up Pablo two-point-oh."
"Or maybe setting us up," Blake suggested. "Worried about getting caught up in the crossfire."
"If it breaks that way, we'll make sure that he does."
"Damn straight."
The man approaching them now wore a denim jacket, jeans to match, and running shoes that had seen better days. His hands were thrust into the jacket's pockets, out of sight, until Grant signaled him to stop and made a show of spreading out his own hands, empty for inspection. Román—there could be no doubt as to his I.D. now—complied, turning the pockets inside-out to show he'd left no weapons stashed in either one of them.
"Give us a spin," Blake said, and made spun his left hand in a circle, while his right still gripped the hidden Glock.
Again, Camilo Román followed orders, hoisting up his jacket's hem as he revolved, showing that nothing had been clipped onto his belt or tucked beneath it.
"Okay," Grant said. "Have a seat. Let's talk."
Before he sat down on the cold, hard bench, Román surveyed the hilltop park surrounding him and the two gringos he had been assigned to meet.
"Expecting company?" the slightly older, somewhat taller of them asked.
"Hoping for none," Román replied.
"No sweat," the other said. He looked enough like his companion that they might have been related somehow. "We've had people tracking you. You're clean, unless you want to tell us something off the top. Maybe a homer stitched into your clothes? A drone somewhere up high?"
"Nothing," said the Colombian. "I have no wish to be here, much less broadcast the event."
"But here you are," the first gringo to speak replied. Román fixed him in mind as Number One and did not bother asking for a name.
"My manipulador—how you say it, 'handler'—gave me no choice in the matter."
"And his name would be…?" asked Number Two.
"You know his name."
"So, humor me."
"He introduced himself to me as Preston Chandler. Whether that's his name in fact, I cannot say."
"That would have happened when the DEA arrested you for smuggling coke into the States," said Number One.
"Sí." Román saw no point in evading what they must have known already.
"And you cut a deal to save yourself," said Number Two.
"Just as you say."
Still Number Two: "Which brings us to this fairy tale about the zombie, Pablo Escobar."
"I know these zombies from The Walking Dead, eh? We have HBO in Medellín. Pablo is not some wandering cadáver, pieces falling off, lurching about and snarling like an animal."
"You've seen him, then?" asked Number One.
"One time, briefly," Román allowed. "Emerging from a limousine downtown and entering the Woka Lounge downtown, on Calle 38. I recognized him clearly from no more than twenty feet away, with his sicarios."
"You knew him earlier, when he was still alive?" asked Number One. "What were you back then, five or six years old?"
"Seven," Román corrected him. "But seeing Don Pablo in those days was something you don't forget."
"And how'd he look this time?" asked Number Two. "We're calculating that if this isn't a load of crap, he must be going on seventy-eight by now."
Román could only shrug at that. "The Pablo Escobar I saw may have been half that age, perhaps a little more."
"Somebody's had him in suspended animation then, and just now brought him back?" asked Number One. "Is that the theory?"
"I have no teoría," Román said. "I can only tell you what I've seen and what is said about him on the streets."
"So, fill us in on that." Again, from Number One.
"First, that his riches are beyond compare to those of any president or potentate. Like many narcotrafficantes, he was known to dabble in the ways of brujería—what you in el norte call witchcraft, magia negra—and he dealt with many scientists related to his business, some of them with interests beyond processing llello."
"Such as?" Number Two inquired.
"When Nazi scientists escaped from Alemania after the last World War, they did not all wind up in the United States, building your rockets to the moon. More found their way to South America and carried on their scientific research into life and death."
"Uh-huh." The skepticism radiated vibrantly from Number Two.
"You doubt me?" Román challenged him. "Are you familiar with the refugees in Chile at Colonia Dignidad? Each year they celebrate the Führer's birthday with a beauty pageant for the choicest Aryan women among them. Scandal forced them underground in 1991, two years before Pablo was said to have been killed. In fact, only the name changed. It is called Villa Baviera today—'Bavaria' in English—and it's said the same experiments go on with twins and so forth. Josef Mengele was known to visit there and join in certain operations, while he ran a clinic of his own in Paraguay, protected by the Alfredo Stroessner's government."
"You claim that Nazis found a way to bring back Pablo Escobar after the Search Bloc blew his brains out here in Medellín?" asked Number One.
"You asked for theories. That is one of them. Since I did not participate, I cannot say."
"Why would a bunch of German psychos on the run help Escobar?" asked Number Two.
"Perhaps because he was one of the richest men on Earth," Román suggested, "who could bankroll their insanity for years with a small portion of his earnings from your addicts in America."
"All right," said Number One. "Enough about how Pablo or whoever might have pulled it off. We need to know two things from you. First, what has he been up to lately? Second, where can we clap eyes on him right now?"
"The first part is no mystery," Camilo Román said. "Street whispers, what you call the grapevine, follow him as if he were a pop star like Shakira or Andrés Cabas. Each day and night he makes more progress toward reviving his cartel, expanding it beyond the wildest dreams of his former heyday."
"We'll need details," said Number Two.
"I'll tell you what I can but have no proof for much of it beyond hearsay and rumor. As to finding him…" Roman's voice trailed away.
"Go on," said Number One.
"It all depends on how badly you wish to die."
Reg Hardy scanned the park with the PSO-1M2 4×24 telescopic sight affixed to his OTs-03 SVU sniper rifle. No one was encroaching on the three-man meeting underway down range, although a nervous-looking pair of young men was apparently negotiating terms for sex a hundred yards southwest of where the SFX team's CEO and Veep were huddled with the DEA asset they'd come to meet.
Hardy confirmed as best he could that the prospective lovers were not putting on an act as cover for a sneak attack and left them to it, going for another sweep around his comrades and their contact.
Both his rifle and its special sight were Russian made, a nod toward plausible deniability if the weapon was lost or captured before the SFX commandos finished up their work in Medellín. The rifle's "SVU" designation stood for Snájperskaja Vintóvka Ukoróčennaja ("sniper rifle shortened"), distinguishing its bullpup configuration from progenitor, the venerable Dragunov SVD in used by Russian forces between 1968 and 2013, still carried by marksmen in forty-odd armies worldwide.
The transition to bullpup design shaved 1.6 pounds from the parent weapon's weight and shortened it by fourteen inches. Recoil was reduced from the original by adding a muzzle brake to absorb 40 percent of the SVU's energy on firing, further eased by an elastic butt stock with lamellar spring non-rigidly attached to the receiver. Otherwise, it fired the same 7.62×54mmR cartridges that fed the Dragunov, loaded in detachable box magazines holding ten to thirty rounds. The SVU's shorter barrel reduced muzzle velocity from 2,723 feet per second to 2,645, but that scarcely mattered to targets on the receiving end of semiautomatic fire. The SVU also came with an integral flash hider and a bayonet lug, though Hardy couldn't picture any long-range shooter charging over open ground, wielding the relatively stubby Russian blade in hand-to-hand combat.
With no action on the hilltop, Hardy checked on Stan Dartnell and Natalie Karpin. He didn't use his walkie-talkie, saving that for an emergency, but picked out each teammate in turn using his rifle's scope, each still in the position he or she had staked out on arrival at Asomadera Park.
Dartnell was hidden underneath a hedge of marmalade bushes, neatly pruned against the perennial evergreens' constant drive to spread. Karpin was wedged into the lower branches of an encenillo tree, some twenty feet above ground level. Both were armed with AK-9 compact assault rifles, chambered in 9×39mm, equipped with sound suppressors, folding stocks and laser sights. The weapons had an effective range of 433 yards and a full-auto cyclic fire rate of 750 rounds per minute.
Both SFX teammates also carried Glock sidearms, as did Hardy and the two Mahoney brothers, just in case the action moved up close and personal. If it came closer still, they also were equipped with fighting knives, Hardy's personal choice being the Fairbairn–Sykes model he'd mastered while serving with the SAS.
Ideally, none of them would fire a shot tonight. The meeting with their DEA contact would go as planned, fresh information sending them farther along the trail toward whoever was claiming to be the wraith of Pablo Escobar back home on Earth.
Between his time with SAS and taking to the field with conservation officers from Africa to Southeast Asia, Hardy had seen a fair share of the planet he inhabited, while spending little time at home on England's "green and pleasant land." His last significant deployments while in uniform had been "Operation Jubilee" in May 2012 and "Operation Shader," executed fifteen months later.
The first paired SAS commandos with warriors of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) to rescue four aid workers kidnapped by bandits and held in in the Koh-e-Laram forest of northeastern Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province, wedged between Tajikistan and northern Pakistan. The hostages—two Afghans, one Brit and one Kenyan—were reportedly stashed in two separate caves, but that intel had proved to be wrong. When DEVGRU troops hit the first site, arriving in a Blackhawk helicopter, they'd killed seven bandits but found no prisoners. Meanwhile, Hardy's squad, in a second Blackhawk, rescued all four prisoners and finished off four kidnappers. None of the grateful prisoners or their rescuers suffered any injuries.
"Operation Shader," launched in August 2014, was another rescue mission, helping Yazidi refugees besieged by Muslim fanatics from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in its genocidal campaign to rid Iraq and its neighboring nations of non-Islamic influences. That effort lit the fuse for a protracted ground war against ISIL that continued to the present day, producing an official estimate of 4,023 dead—all but ten of them ISIL—plus one journalist missing and presumed slain. British Prime Minister David Cameron had seized the spotlight, vowing that ISIL would "be squeezed out of existence," but so far that bluster had produced no more success than his other media statements before a referendum sent him packing in 2016.
By that time, Hardy had been circulating as a free agent abroad and he preferred it that way, while regretting nothing that he'd done in service to the Union Jack. He wasn't wild about this visit to Colombia, chasing a phantom, but the price was right.
And with a bit of luck, he might just make it out alive.
"That's all of it?" asked Grant Mahoney, eyes raised toward Camilo Román from his notebook, lying open on the concrete picnic table. Its water-soluble pages were nearly translucent, thinner than normal tissue paper, and could be destroyed in seconds flat by placing them inside a subject's mouth.
The days of spies and bookies scribbling notes on flash paper, which could be set alight but smothered and retrieved if raiders closed in fast enough, had gone the way of whalebone corsets and transistor radios.
Mahoney watched Román for any clue that he had lied during their interview or might be holding vital information back. The guy was none too happy to be speaking with them, but he'd flashed no tells that indicated he was lying, struck no body language postures that suggested he'd approached their meeting with intention to deceive.
But if Román believed what he had told them…well, so what?
Belief was easy, the foundation of all known religions throughout history, leaders of most declaring theirs to be the "only truth." That wouldn't wash, of course, since every creed had zealots on its side, committed without question to what finally came down to nothing more than group opinion. If belief alone made something "true," then simple logic proved that all religions, all political assertions must be accurate.
And that, of course, negated all of them across the board.
"There's nothing else," Román replied to Grant's inquiry.
"How long has it been since you confirmed these various addresses?" Grant pressed his informant.
"Most within a week or two," Román answered. "As for the public sightings, accurate or not, the clubs and restaurants are still in business. You can question managers and staff yourselves."
"We just might do that," Blake Mahoney said, frowning at Román, but both brothers knew that kind of legwork would be wasting time. What did it matter if a bartender or bouncer thought he had seen Pablo Escobar alive and well last week, last month?
It did the SFX team no concrete good at all.
To prove the case, the fraud, whatever, they would have to see the man posing as Escobar, devise some way to separate him from his street soldiers, and put hard questions to him.
Find out what in Hell was really going on.
