The Peruvian Exchange (Jack Barr Thrillers Book 2), page 11
And as long as the runners made it to Manaus, the cartel itself could take over from there. They had an army of men ready and waiting for that very thing.
“I had a boy walk by,” the man said. “A kid, to try to hear his conversation."
Victor smiled, this was a wise move. "And?"
"And he was conversing in English, sir. Using codenames instead of actual names.”
"Send me a picture. Can you do that without him seeing?"
"Of course, sir. Give me a few seconds."
Victor waited as he heard the shuffling of getting into position, trying to stay out of sight but also capture a picture of this ‘person of interest.’
A minute passed, and finally the man's voice returned. "Should be coming now, sir."
Victor waited again, but this time the picture appeared on his phone within seconds.
He pulled it away from his ear and clicked on the image, then pinched to zoom in to the man on the phone. The picture was crisp, but the quality of the man's face was not perfect. Part of his hand obstructed the view. He wore sunglasses, obscuring his eyes.
Victor cocked his head to the side. “This is a person of interest, indeed," he mumbled. He pulled the phone back up to his ear.
"Was that, sir?"
"I said, yes, this is a man I would like to watch. Very closely."
He would recognize this man's face anywhere. It had been about six months since he had seen him last, but he had had a feeling then that it wouldn’t be the last time they met.
About six months since Victor had nearly killed him.
Hello, Mr. Barr.
“This man works for the CIA," he told his watcher. "His name is Jackson Barr, Jr. I am surprised to see him down here now, but something tells me he is here looking for me."
"Sir? The CIA has an op against you?"
“They are just gathering intelligence. It doesn't surprise me they are poking around in my business."
"I see. How would you like me to proceed?"
Victor thought for a moment, then spoke. "I would like for you to eliminate this man. I'm moving another squad under your control. Do you understand?"
The man he was speaking with was military-trained, and was no stranger to taking a life. He wasn’t the best soldier Victor had, but what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in ruthlessness.
"Copy that, sir. I will inform you when it is done."
Victor hung up the phone and began pacing the room, an old habit. Jack Barr is here, once again meddling in my affairs.
This time, Jack could not play him for a fool. He could not pretend he was not with the CIA, could not pretend he was ignorant about everything going on.
No, Jack, you have come into my backyard now. You are playing a game you cannot win, on a field you don't even understand.
He stopped pacing, realizing there was nothing more to worry about. Jack Barr, Jr. would die soon, and Victor could simply move on with the rest of his plans.
TWENTY-NINE
JACK
Jack was made.
He hung up the phone and shoved it into his pocket. He could discard it another time, in a trash bin on his way out of town.
And he did need to get out of town. He had been spotted.
The man he was concerned about stood a block away, at a corner just past the liquor store where he had met with Rudy’s asset. It had seemed only slightly suspicious at the time, but he had watched as the man lifted a phone and snapped a picture of him.
Of course, Jack couldn't be sure what the man was actually doing, but he had watched in his peripheral vision as the man lifted the phone up, aimed the back of it directly at him, then lowered it. There was no other explanation for it other than that the man had snapped a photo.
Jack was not about to take the chance that the man was just trying to wave his phone around to get a better signal.
After ending his call, and without looking back at the man watching him, Jack turned the opposite direction and began walking down the street, heading south. He was in a subdivision of Iquitos, one that mixed homes with small commercial establishments, usually in the form of two-story buildings: homes on the top floor, and stores accessible from the street on the bottom floor.
He needed to hustle, to once again get into position so he could meet up with the three targets. He didn’t want to miss whoever would be helping him down the river, and he had less than an hour to get there.
The trouble was, he didn’t want to head directly there. Signaling the direction he was traveling to the man who had snapped a photo of him — and likely had sent it to his superiors — meant he was signaling his direction to the cartel and Shining Path.
Jack examined his mental map of the city, trying to figure out a relatively circuitous route that would take him to the meet up location without making a direct line. He needed to shake this tail and any other tail it might turn into. He focused through the far edge of his sunglasses, where the tiny reflection there showed him an out-of-focus, yet usable, view behind him. Every car that passed caught the sunlight in a particular way that allowed him to keep watch on his six for a few seconds at a time.
The man was following, staying on the other side of the street but making quick progress. He thought the man was close the distance, but he didn't Dara glanced over his shoulder to tell for sure.
At the next intersection, Jack waited for traffic and watched the man approach on the opposite side of the street. He had his phone up to his ear once more. To his credit, he never made eye contact with Jack. It was possible this man was nobody, but Jack wasn’t going to risk it.
He crossed the road and picked up his pace just a bit, trying to move at a reasonable speed so as not to attract undue attention from any locals, and traversed this block and waited at the corner of Guardia Civil and Quiñones. Horns honked — a common occurrence in this area of the world as soon as the stoplight turned green — and once again he paused as he waited for traffic to slide by. Cars and carts passed, and Jack saw to his left a vehicle barreling down the slight hill toward the busy intersection. He began his way across the street, timing it so he could pass before the speeding car reached the three-way intersection.
He kept the car in his peripheral vision, and was about three-quarters of the way across the street when he noticed it had shifted out of its lane and changed course.
It was heading straight for him, and it was speeding up.
Jack continued along the street, feeling his heart rate rise. He reached the curb and hopped up onto it, immediately feeling relieved.
He flicked his eyes to the left, only then realizing his mistake.
The car was also on the sidewalk, and he heard shouts from a street vendor and passersby standing nearby as the car raced past them, inches from their stands and booths.
The car was on the same pathway as Jack now, still speeding toward him, so Jack ran full-speed toward the entrance of the building situated at this street corner. It would be close, but he forced his leg to ignore the dull ache from his previous injury, then dove forward the last five feet.
He heard the vehicle’s engine whining against the strain as its driver applied still more gas, trying to run him down. There was a passenger inside as well, leaning out the side window. The car swerved to the left, catching the corner beam of the building that held up the front awning.
Jack landed. He hit the ground hands-first, but fell into a forward roll and popped back up right inside the building’s entrance as the car bounced outside just behind him, now facing in the opposite direction. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that its front-left tire had been almost sheared clean off, taking the cosmetic bumper with it.
And still the driver pursued him, starting to pull the car around in a tight arc to face it toward the building’s entrance. It hobbled, but it was still rolling.
And still moving fast enough to kill him.
Jack started running now, back out onto the street while the driver overcorrected for the unwieldy vehicle’s movements. Shouts and screams rang out, and Jack noticed a few people already holding out cell phones to record video of the devastation. Jack figured his face would be streaming online in a few minutes, but he had no interest in sticking around for an encore performance.
He turned left and followed the street, seeing the end of the building the car had run into just ahead. Jack saw a slight recess there, a cavity between it and the next building over. He hoped it was the entrance to an alleyway, or at least a recess deep enough that the pursuing car couldn't get its front end into it.
He reached it thirty paces later, pulling his Raging Judge out of its holster with his right hand as he threw his left hand over the frame of the building's corner. He used his left arm as a rudder, sailing his body to the left and around into the alleyway.
It was as he had hoped. The alleyway was narrow, far too narrow for a vehicle of any sort, and he turned into it and ran, hurtling a few trash cans and recycling bins behind him, to dissuade any foot traffic from following him in. He looked ahead as he ran, seeing a busy road. It seemed this alleyway connected to the same street he had been previously.
The car screeched to a halt, doors opening. He didn't look back — he knew he could outrun anyone trying to chase him down, so it wasn't the men behind him that worried him.
It was what lay in front of him. How many more men had that person called? How many more goons would be homing in on his location now?
If the man had in fact taken a picture of him, the cartel — or the Shining Path, whoever the man had been working for — would know his face now. There was no more hiding in plain sight, no more cover using his real face.
And if it was the cartel, Victor would recognize him immediately.
In his pack he had thin, horn-rimmed glasses and a ball cap that had some long, scruffy blonde hair attached to the sides of it. It would work about as well as the inane costumes the two Shining Path men had been wearing the day before, but it might work to get these guys off his tail for the time being.
He didn’t need a perfect, infallible disguise — he just needed to get out of town.
THIRTY
HEAVENS
Heavens looked at the other three men in his squad. "Joseph, Szymon, you two are on point. Alameda, you're with me. We split up, try to get eyes-on, comms-up. I want a tail on these guys within the hour."
“Copy,” Alameda said. Szymon and Joseph nodded, but Joseph raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What's up?" Heavens anticipated the question.
Joseph cleared his throat. “These guys are a American assets, yeah?" he asked.
Heavens nodded. "The op is just recon, got it? Reynolds called this one in yesterday. Guess he needs someone to babysit them for a couple more days."
"It's not a hit, though?"
“Not a hit,” Heavens repeated. "We just need eyes-on, make sure they don’t get into any trouble. We’re just here to make sure the assets are safe and accounted for — and that they stay that way.”
Heavens had given each man bullet-point brief covering all of this, but he appreciated the questions. Questions — and answers — meant clarity. These men were professionals, military trained and experienced, and had run missions with him in and around South America for over a year. Stonefire was a well-regarded paramilitary and security company based out of Boston, with operatives and soldiers in almost every corner of the globe. Most of their operations were simple security- and recon-based, like this one. Protect something or someone, provide an additional layer of security for some rich businessperson, or take on the protection and security systems of a company itself.
Stonefire had amassed a reputation in the private mercenary industry as the one to call for reputable, above-board security and operations.
Reynolds ran teams of two to four, but sometimes up to ten, depending on the mission and responsibility. Heavens had been with this exact squad for a little over a year, and he trusted and respected each of his men and their capabilities. Joseph was a Marine, his other two men, like him, ex-Army. They were good at what they did, no matter what it was they were required to do.
While this was no party, it shouldn’t be a tough op, either. The weather would be nice, the location was great, and the pay was exceptional.
Plus, they had no reason to suspect the American operatives were doing anything but their own recon, collecting HUMINT, so the assets shouldn't come under fire. He knew the men could handle themselves if they did have to use any of the arsenal of weaponry they’d brought along, but it shouldn’t come to that.
Reynolds had given Heavens the overview: someone with enough money and enough power to know how to wield it back in DC wanted the CIA out of the area for the time being. The CIA, however, was not going to budge. They answered to the Director of National Intelligence, as well as the President. Receiving stand-down orders from anyone but those two, following the proper chain-of-command, would fall on deaf ears.
Heavens didn't understand the politics around why he was here now, but he didn’t need to. It was an op, like all the others.
And this one was easier than most. Find the American assets, follow them around, report back.
Make sure no one tried to screw with that.
Due to the nature of the op, he had been filled in a bit on the precarious situation of the region. Reynolds had not flat-out explained it, but since he was here to protect CIA assets, he had been given a few other important details.
There was a cartel operating in the region, and the second-in-command was running it. He was expected to be in the area soon, and while there was no overt action in Heavens’ purview, he had to suspect that the Americans were here to watch the maneuverings of this particular cartel boss.
It was a game of cat-and-mouse, but with multiple cats and multiple mice. The CIA wanted to be the ones pulling the strings, so they wouldn’t take kindly to someone on the Hill telling them to stand down.
What was more, there was talk that there was another hostile third party in the region: the old Communist group Shining Path, or Sendero Luminoso. Heavens had no idea how these goons fit into the equation, but he had been told to watch his back and keep his eyes open.
Heavens looked over at his men seated across from him. They were flying in the back of a cargo plane, landing on an airstrip just south of Iquitos. A four-person ATV large enough to carry the squad and their gear would bring them close to town, where they would immediately begin their operation.
"Loadout is the same as always — M4 carbine, sidearm of your choosing. Rules of engagement apply; we won't be seen or heard. If we do our jobs right, no one knows we’re here.”
"Cover?"
Heavens shook his head. "No, no time to set all that up. We’re going in as soldiers, but not picking a fight. Military presence down here isn't uncommon right now, and there's no reason to suspect we should catch flack from anyone if we’re just minding our own. We’ll stay in the shadows, well away from the target, and leapfrog quadrants around him in order to stay alongside."
“Got it.”
“Great,” Heavens said. “Let’s get a move on. We’ve got a spy to eye.”
THIRTY-ONE
JACK
Jack got his first good look at the man pursuing him in the car when he turned back and proceeded up the street on the other side. A construction scaffolding had been erected along the side of one building currently getting a makeover to its façade, and Jack doubled back to hide behind the plywood front of the bottom of the scaffolding.
If he had to guess, the men following him were locals, or at least native to the region. Dark skin, dark hair, easily fitting in on the streets of Iquitos.
He could not know for certain, but he guessed these were cartel men, people working for Victor. Victor would have many spies in the region, especially now, and the way these two operated so far seemed more professional than the watchers for the Shining Path they had come across the day before.
While the car chase was reckless, Jack had to admit it almost had been effective.
And it was quick — the man on the phone had gotten them here almost immediately. That spoke volumes about Victor’s organization and preparedness.
Were these the man who had killed Rudy in his sleep?
Once again, Jack wondered about his own preparedness — was he in over his head?
Jack doubled back to try to get a look at his pursuers, but also to attempt to use the maze-like streets of this corner of Iquitos against them. At some point he would have to stop running, so he would need a better plan than just guiding his pursuers through the streets. While he had never been here, he had studied layouts and maps of Iquitos and Manaus at length, and he felt he knew the towns better than any recent transplant would.
But he couldn’t run forever. Victor had many men operating here as well, so it would only be a matter of time before he had them arranged in such a way as to be a trap that would be impossible for Jack to escape from.
The street he was on now ran perpendicular to the main highway he had traversed before with Rudy. Eventually this road would veer to the northwest and drop them off at the same back road that led them out of town their first day in Iquitos.
And turning to the right would take him directly where he was supposed to go to meet up with the team that would help him down the river.
Jack was not currently being followed. He didn’t recognize anyone around him, but he had lost the men who had chased him with the car.
The streets were calmer now, locals and tourists once again going about their daily activities. The glances he had been getting from innocent bystanders as he ran had stopped.
