Conquistador, page 19
“He’s probably with the people tailing us. Have you spoken with your contacts in the Brazilian government about detaining him?”
“Yes. The problem is that Germany and Brazil don’t have an extradition treaty, so they’re not taking the German request to find him and ship him back home too seriously.”
“Wonderful. What else do you have for me?”
“Fahimah looked into The Scorpions, and you’re not going to like what she has found out about them.”
“General, you’re nothing but good news today. What has Fahimah learned?”
“I’ll let Fahimah tell you herself,” said O’Reilly.
“Ryan, The Scorpions are an international organization of former special forces soldiers,” explained Fahimah. “They are led by Colonel Francisco Sosa. He had a ruthless reputation when he was serving in the Colombian Army. He never took prisoners when he and his men raided illegal drug operations deep in the jungles of Colombia. One of his company commanders was Vladimir Salazar. Both men quit the army and set up The Scorpions.”
“Wonderful,” said Mitchell. “How effective are they? Should I be worried or really worried?”
“The latter. Ryan, The Scorpions are reputed to have about one hundred men in their organization. Private companies and even governments have been known to hire them when they needed something dirty to get done.”
“Do you an idea where these people are now?”
“A friend of mine in the Colombian military told me they’re only hours away in Venezuela. And you’re not going to like this, but they’ve got an MI-26.”
“They could conceivably fly their entire organization to your location and seize the flower for themselves before the Brazilians could do a thing about it,” said Mike Donaldson.
“If these people are as bad as you say they are, why can’t the Venezuelans arrest the lot of them?” asked Mitchell.
“Who do you think they do most of their illegal business with?” said O’Reilly.
“Great. So it’s up to us and us alone to stop Gerhardt Lang from possibly committing genocide,” said Mitchell.
“I’m sorry, but it looks that way.”
“Well, I guess we all saw this coming.”
“Ryan, you’re heavily outnumbered; no one is going to call you a coward if you decide the mission isn’t worth the risk,” said O’Reilly.
“I’ll explain our situation to the group and let them decide what we should do next. Sir, I’ll call you back after we have our vote.”
“Take care, Ryan,” said O’Reilly, just before he hung up.
Mitchell let out a resigned sigh and placed the phone back in its cradle.
“What’s wrong, Ryan?” asked Jen.
“I need to pass on some news to everyone,” he replied.
While Yuri navigated the boat, Mitchell passed on what O’Reilly had told him. He fixed his gaze on Julia. “We’re here because your brother is paying us to protect you. You and Jen aren’t trained to fight. When the time comes, we’re going to be heavily outnumbered. I know we talked about this before coming down here, but things have changed and I’d like to know if you still feel honoring a pledge made hundreds of years ago is still worth it.”
Julia cleared her throat. “It’s not about that anymore. After what happened last night, I’m scared, really scared. I’m no hero, but I want to carry on. If there is an undiscovered tribe out there who have this miracle flower, we need to warn them that people who mean to cause them harm are coming their way. My brother said no one will act without evidence of a new tribe. I say we give the natives a choice. They can either announce to the world that they exist and try to minimize the impact on them. Or, we can help them remain hidden.”
Mitchell looked at Jen. “My resolve has never wavered. I say we help them.”
“Don’t bother to ask me,” said Jackson as he ate his breakfast rations. “You know I’ll do whatever you think is right.”
“Nothing has changed as far as Sam and I are concerned,” said Cardinal.
“Yuri?” yelled Mitchell over his shoulder.
Yuri looked back, smiled and then carried on steering the boat.
“Okay, we’re all of the same mind,” said Mitchell. “That’s good to know. Now let’s see if we can’t put some distance between ourselves and our unwanted friends.”
Yuri heard the order and gunned the engine. A plume of water shot into the air as the craft leaped forward in the water. In seconds, black smoke belched from the exhaust as the boat picked up speed.
Mitchell jotted down a few lines on a piece of paper. He walked over and placed a hand on Yuri’s shoulder. “Let Sam steer the boat for an hour or two. I need you to call your contact in Boa Vista. Arrange for a fuel delivery at last light tonight. Also, see if he can get his hands on some of these,” said Mitchell, giving Yuri the note to read.
“I heard my name!” said Sam, running over to take charge of the boat.
“It’s going to cost a lot of U.S. dollars to get what you’re after,” said Yuri.
“Alejandro has deep pockets,” said Mitchell. “Give your man a call and get us what we need, or the next couple of days are not going to go in our favor.”
32
“Patron, they hit the drone right in its engine case,” said the technician, as he studied the wreckage lying in a heap on the jungle floor.
“One of them must be a good shot,” said Salazar, looking at the three holes shot into the side of the drone.
“What did you say?” asked Lang. His inability to speak Spanish was grating on Salazar’s nerves.
“I said, Herr Lang, that one of the people we are following is a crack shot,” said Salazar. “So don’t draw too much attention to yourself or you’re likely to receive a 5.56mm bullet between your eyes.”
Lang ducked down and looked around. “They’re not around here somewhere, waiting to ambush are they?”
“No, I suspect they’re long gone.”
“Will you be able to find them again?”
“Yes. We have another drone. I’m going to wait until later in the day to send it up.”
Lang scrunched up his face. “Why not send it up now.”
“For two reasons. First, it looks like it’s going to rain in the next little while, and secondly, I’d rather wait and use the cover of night to find them.”
“That didn’t work last night.”
“It will tonight. We now know to keep our distance. If the clouds break, we can fly high in the sky, well out of small arms range.”
“I suppose.”
Salazar looked at the UAV operator. “Please give us some privacy.”
The man nodded and walked back to their boat.
As soon as they were alone, Salazar walked close to Lang and looked him straight in the eyes. His voice grew menacing. “Herr Lang, I know my job. You don’t. A lot of my men understand English, so keep your asinine comments to yourself. Yes, you are paying for all of this, but I’m in charge. Got it?”
Lang’s face blanched. “Señor Salazar, I didn’t mean to imply you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s just that billions of dollars are at stake here.”
“I know. Just let me do my job and everything will turn out as it should.”
“Yes, of course,” said Lang, stepping away from Salazar. “I’ll just take my seat on the boat.”
Salazar fought not to break out laughing at his employer’s scared expression. He glanced up at the gray clouds and prayed for a break in the weather. If he couldn’t launch his last drone, he would have to send the other boat ahead to try and find Mitchell. It was something he wasn’t keen to do, but there weren’t many other options open to him. Salazar climbed back into his boat, made eye contact with the man steering the vessel and nodded.
With a loud guttural sound, the boat’s engine kicked in.
The hunt was back on.
33
The rain let up an hour before last light. Yuri picked a spot to stop and wait for their supplies next to a rocky sandbar, which jutted out into the river.
“I’m never going to be dry again,” bemoaned Jen, as she wrung out her wet shirt over the side of the craft.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” said Mitchell.
“I know, but I had no idea it rained this much in the Amazon.”
“It doesn’t help that we’re here during the rainy season,” said Julia.
In the wheelhouse, the satphone rang. Yuri picked up the phone and answered it. A minute later, he hung up and walked to Mitchell’s side. “That was my contact. He’s got most of what we asked for. We’re at the limit of his helicopter’s range. So he’ll have to drop our supplies nearby and dash, or he’ll never make it back home.”
Mitchell looked at the sandbar. “He should be able to lower his sling load over there without any problems.”
“Da, there aren’t any overhanging tree limbs to get in the way. I’ll make sure I guide him onto the beach.”
“It’ll make refueling a hell of a lot easier if we can get the fuel drums as close as possible,” added Jackson.
“When do you expect him to arrive?” Mitchell asked.
“Sometime around midnight,” said Yuri.
Mitchell glanced at the sky. The clouds were beginning to drift apart. “I don’t think it’s going to rain again for a few hours. So why don’t we build a fire and dry out some of our clothes?”
“I’m all for that,” said Jen.
“I’ll get the fire going, while Sam and Gordon provide security,” said Jackson.
An hour later, they all sat around a roaring bonfire. A clothesline had been strung near the fire. Steam rose from the drenched clothes as they dried.
Yuri handed around the evening meal.
“You know, it’s always fun to eat MREs for about the first day. After that…not so much,” said Jackson. “I’m going to try my hand at fishing tomorrow.”
“Be careful,” said Julia. “Some of the fish in this river can grow quite large, and are strong enough to pull a man into the water.”
“I’ll try for the smaller ones.”
Mitchell sat on a rock, Jen’s tablet in his hands. On the screen was the route they were going to take in the morning. The map drawn in the fifteen-hundreds had been overlaid on a modern map of Brazil. The river they needed to take to get them to the hidden valley was less than twenty kilometers away. It was then that their journey would be at the mercy of the clues left behind in Fernando’s journal. Mitchell still wasn’t sure if he trusted the directions. If they got it wrong and pushed on in the wrong direction, they could die out there in the unforgiving green hell.
A large, dog-sized capybara and her four pups walked to the river’s edge to take a drink of water. If the presence of the people and the fire bothered them, they didn’t show it.
The rest of the evening was spent relaxing. Toward midnight, the mood changed. Everyone was on their toes, looking into the night sky for any sign of the resupply helicopter.
“I hear it. It’s coming in from the north,” said Cardinal, pointing toward the North Star.
Mitchell turned his head and listened. “I don’t hear anything. Are you sure?”
“Gordon can hear me opening a can of beer in the basement,” said Sam. “Give it a second.”
Just like that, the dull, rhythmic thud of the rotors began to grow louder.
“Nothing wrong with his hearing,” said Jackson.
“Yeah, until I ask him to do something he doesn’t want to, and then it’s complete silence,” said Sam.
Yuri activated an infrared strobe light and tossed it out onto the sandbar. Through a set of NVGs, he watched the bright light blink on and off.
The darkened helicopter flew toward them at treetop level. The cockpit was black, as the pilot was wearing his night vision goggles. The heavy sling load brushed the tops of the trees, as the pilot maneuvered his chopper above the flashing strobe light. The noise of the rotor blades cutting through the air was deafening. Dust, sand, and leaves all swirled like a mini-tornado beneath the chopper. The pilot, a former Brazilian army officer, deftly brought the supplies over the sandbar. The moment the supplies touched the ground, the rope securing the sling load to the helicopter was released. The thick cord tumbled to the earth. The pilot brought his chopper up above the trees and turned back toward the east and Boa Vista.
Mitchell and Jackson had been resupplied in the mountains of Afghanistan on more than one occasion. They walked over and opened up the net with the supplies in it. Sam and Cardinal handed off sentry duty to Yuri. While Jackson and Cardinal rolled the fuel drums over to the boat, Mitchell and Sam sorted through the pile of new supplies.
“I count a dozen Claymore anti-personnel mines, a box filled with surveillance devices and four crates of ammo,” said Sam.
“I asked for twice as many Claymores, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers,” said Mitchell. “Come on, let’s get this stuff loaded onto the boat.”
Jackson woke Mitchell with a nudge and a cup of freshly made coffee.
Mitchell took the coffee, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. There was a damp chill in the air. Mitchell looked around and saw the boat was enveloped in a mist. He checked his watch and saw it was five in the morning.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Jackson, as he took a seat next to his friend. In his right hand was a cup of coffee as well.
“What’s the word?” asked Mitchell.
“All is quiet. A couple of hours ago, Gord thought he heard something flying high above us, but he couldn’t find it in the night sky.”
“Did you hear it?”
Jackson shook his head. “I wasn’t on shift at the time. But if he said he heard something, I’m more than willing to believe him.”
“Me, too,” said Mitchell, as he took a sip of his drink.
“I guess our friends have more than one drone with them.”
“Looks that way. When do you want to wake the others?”
“Let’s let them sleep until six. We were up late last night, and today could be a long one as well.”
Jackson placed his cup down and leaned back against the hull of the boat. “Ryan, you know I would never question your plans in front of the others, but are you sure we’re doing the right thing? We’ve been in tough scrapes before but the odds were never this high against us.”
“I know a squad versus a company of battle-hardened mercenaries is not what I had imagined when we flew down here, but here we are, nevertheless. I hear what you’re saying, but I just can’t sit by and let these people, if they exist, be murdered. I joined the army to help people, not to turn my back on them when I didn’t like the odds.”
“I feel the same way you do, but my wife isn’t here with me. My family is safe and sound back home in the States. You risking your life is one thing, but risking Jen’s is another.”
“Nate, believe it or not, but Jen, and I have talked about this very type of scenario, and she is more than willing to put her life on the line for what she believes in. Her family can trace its lineage back to the West African slave trade. If you think she’s going to abandon these people so they can be exploited by people who seek only to make a profit, then you don’t know her.”
Jackson patted Mitchell on the knee. “I’m with both of you.”
Cardinal sat straight up. “That’s it! I can’t take it anymore.” He looked over at Jackson and said, “Nate, where is the missile launcher?”
“In the box next to the rations,” replied Jackson. “Why do you want it?”
“That bloody drone has been flying circles over us for hours, and I’m tired of listening to it.”
“I can’t hear a thing, other than the insects and the animals in the trees,” said Mitchell.
“Well, I can, and it’s driving me insane,” replied Cardinal, as he flipped the lid off the box and grabbed hold of the Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher. He jumped off the boat onto the sand bar and activated the weapon.
Mitchell watched as Cardinal tracked the unseen UAV using the heat from its engine as his target.
“I’ve got you, you son of a bitch,” said Cardinal, as he fired the missile. With a loud whoosh and a bright flash of light from the rocket’s engine, the warhead flew up through the fog.
“Not again,” muttered the UAV operator, as he watched the missile streak toward his drone. He tried to dive away from the incoming projectile, but its fate was sealed. The technician sat, helplessly watching the rocket as it sped straight for his UAV. A second later, the screen went blank.
“What’s wrong?” asked Salazar, shaking his head to wake up.
“Patron, I’ve lost contact with our drone. I think they have a surface-to-air missile launcher with them,” explained the man.
Salazar smiled. The respect he felt for his adversary was growing. He patted the drone technician on the shoulder. “Close up your computer. You won’t need it anymore.”
The man nodded and packed his computer back in its case. “Now what are we going to do, Patron?”
“We still need to keep eyes on,” replied Salazar. “Wake up Chavez and his men. It’s time we let them loose.”
34
“Doesn’t look like it’s going to rain today,” said Mitchell, looking up at the azure sky.
“Yeah, but the humidity is something else,” said Jackson, wiping the sweat from his glistening brow.
“Duck,” warned Mitchell, as a tree branch slid over the top of the wheelhouse, and missed Jackson’s head by millimeters.
“This sucks,” said Jackson. “Ever since we turned off the main river and onto this tributary, the passage has narrowed, and the tree limbs seemed to know we’re coming and are doing their best to impede our progress.”
“What’s our speed, Yuri?” asked Mitchell.
“To avoid all the hazards in our path I’ve had to drop to eighteen knots,” replied Yuri, checking his gauges.
“At just over thirty kilometers an hour, it should take us at least the rest of the day to reach the spot on the map where Fernando claimed to have fallen into the river to escape his attackers,” said Mitchell.
