Insertion, page 17
“Do you not trust your source?”
“I do,” Antonio said, “but they’ve been wrong before. They could have reported it at the time and the cartel could have changed their location by the time we arrived on scene.”
Giving the binoculars back to his friend, Max put some chewing gum into his mouth and offered Antonio a piece, which he obliged. “Don’t worry, Courtney will find it if it’s in there. That drone has a thermal mode on it that can pick up anything, even if it’s under thin enough material. And I promise you, that material isn’t thick enough to prevent a heat signature.”
“I hope you’re right, my friend,” Antonio said letting out small sigh. “Max, I’m going to be completely honest right now, I’m getting tired of doing this out here. I feel like all of our efforts are in vain and sometimes they’re not appreciated.”
“Didn’t you just tell me yesterday that because of your operations, the cartel has backed off?”
“Yes, but it’s the same thing day in and day out. We bust some cartel members and they go to jail, but for every one or two we bust, more pop up. We can’t win this battle, and I’m just tired of doing this monotonous thing repeatedly.”
“What are you saying?” Max asked, who turned his attention to his friend, who seemed to be venting to him. He could hear it in his voice. But for being someone in their early forties, he was in better shape than people half his age. Max thought he knew what was coming next and he knew the physical ability was there. He just had to get to him mentally.
“I’m saying I am going to put in my letter of resignation when after we take down Alejandro,” Antonio said, letting out a second sigh, staring at the faint lights at the campsite below.
Max could see how doing this job could be frustrating and just like that, an idea surfaced in his head. “What if I put in a word for you and you come join the Bering Group?”
“You’re serious?” he asked.
“As a heart attack. I initially took this on as a favor to Jack. I’ve been working alone for the longest time, but I think I’m starting to come around.”
“I’d have to think about it. This lifestyle is all I know, and I’ve been doing this since I was eighteen. I’ll have a decent pension to retire somewhere down here, away from Cartagena. I’ve never lived anywhere else and done any other type of work other than this counter-narcotics stuff.”
“Please,” Max said, “why are you acting like you’re gonna to pass this up?”
He laughed and then asked, “What else does this Bering Group do?”
Turning to look back down at the camp below, Max responded, “Shoot and kill people,” he said, “you know, the usual. Just let me know what you think before I leave,” he said.
“I can do that.” Antonio smiled.
“Okay,” Courtney said, “the drone is back.”
“You ready to do this?” Max held out a fist. Antonio hit his fist against his.
“Brother, I was born ready.”
CHAPTER 35
After the group finished going over all considered plan of attacks, they split up into their respective groups. Max, Courtney and Alex descended down the right side of the cliff. It wasn’t steep enough to use rock climbing gear but being careful to not cause unnecessary rocks that fell below was difficult, especially at night.
Antonio took the rest of his men and descended the left side while Jose and another operator stayed above to overlook the campsite from the top. With every step, Max knew that would be the one to cause the rocks to slide, but it never happened.
Once they reached the bottom of the cliff, the three operators knelt next to one another and waited until Antonio radioed in to tell them they made it down safely. As much as Max wanted to take off his NVG’s and look up at the night sky just to admire the view, he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t very often he was able to see so many stars at night without the ambient lights of a big city nearby. It was the small things on missions like this that he cherished.
Shifting his field of view from the stars to the objective at hand, he glanced over at his two counterparts who were scanning for threats beside him. He hoped to God this would go off without a hitch.
“Okay, Max,” Antonio said, “we’re ready when you are.”
“No, my friend, this is your op,” Max replied, “we’re ready when you are.”
“Just like old times, amigo. Execute!” Antonio whispered.
The primary objective was taking out the tents which Max was certain housed people. The subsonic rounds they carried were not like the movies; noise still escaped the barrel of the suppressed weapon, but it sounded more like a subtle handclap than anything else.
Allowing Courtney to take lead, Max and Alex followed. The team was stacked to the right side of the first tent, anxiously waiting to make entry. The tents were massive, about fifteen to twenty yards across and ten yards deep. They reminded Max of the prison camps in Syria. Pushing the horrendous memories of torturing his victims out of his head, he pushed forward. He wasn’t trying to re-live those thoughts in the Amazon jungle—or ever again.
Courtney crept up to the entrance and scanned for threats. “Ready,” she said, as Alex squeezed her tricep. Alex and Max flowed behind her into the tent. Courtney dug the left corner, Max flowed right, while Alex stayed in the middle, all pointing their rifles at the threats in front of them playing dominoes. Shocked, all three individuals made a grab for their respective weapons lying next to them but the infrared lasers with the NVG’s made shooting all too easy.
In a matter of seconds, the muffled noises barking from their rifles spat 5.56 rounds at all three Hispanic men now lying on the ground or slumped over on the table. As they continued to push through the tent, there were nothing but beds lined up against either wall. Making it to the other side and checking underneath all of the beds, Max called it clear as they stacked back up on the entrance to push to the next tent.
“Remember, we can’t afford rounds to be flying into other tents and possibly hitting our guys. So, make sure you don’t miss,” Max said.
Both teammates replied as they continued to flow left into the other tent. It was here they didn’t encounter any enemies, just a mountain of cocaine packaged and ready to go. Max estimated at least twenty thousand kilograms, possibly more all in one location. “This makes it easy when they want to transport it, I guess,” he said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Alex said, picking up the small package to feel its weight. Weighing in at just over two pounds, he tossed one to Courtney who let it fall to her feet.
“What’s the matter, you’ve never played hot potato before?” Asked Alex.
“Are you done playing games?” she asked, picking it up and tossing it back into the pile with the rest of them.
“I thought you said you had never seen a narco-sub before?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, idiot, a submarine, not a mountain of cocaine,” she responded. Alex walked over to her, picked up the key and tossed it back into the pile.
“Okay, let’s hold here,” Max said. “You two, check the rest of the tent.” Walking toward the entrance, he said, “Antonio, how’s your end?”
“We’re done with our second tent, what do you guys have?” Antonio responded.
“Just a couple of tangos in the first one but we hit the motherlode over here with drugs, how about you?”
“We had about five tangos in the other tent and the same with drugs on our end. They’re getting ready to ship out, I think. There are too many drugs in this location to just be sitting here. I wish I could be there when Alejandro gets notified that another one of his shipments was stopped.” Antonio laughed.
“Same,” Max replied. “You guys ready to push on the final target?” He was getting anxious. The faster that this mission was over, the faster he could go back and the team could plan some more and possibly get some more rest for later.
“I radioed the helicopters right just before you keyed me; they’re on their way back. About ten minutes out, so we need to move,” Antonio said. Max signaled for his team to stack up. Flowing out of the tent and moving left, intertwining with Antonio and his men to the dock, they all regrouped. That’s when Max thought he heard something whiz behind him.
“Shit, Antonio,” he said. Freezing the train, everyone knelt and once again took up defensive postures, scanning for threats.
“What is it Max? We’re sitting ducks out here,” Antonio said anxiously.
“Check on your boys on top of the hill,” he said. Looking around through his goggles, he couldn’t see any heat signatures or movement that would cause suspicion, but he knew a sniper round when he heard it. As if on cue, rounds exploded all around them.
CHAPTER 36
“Returning fire!” Max screamed as the team ran as fast as they could down the dock and into the opening that led inside the submarine hangar. Walking backward and shooting wasn’t Max’s strong suit, but desperate times called for desperate measures as he and Antonio tried their best to give covering fire to everyone sprinting into the hangar. Bright lights were everywhere in his goggles, quickly realizing that covering fire was useless as he turned, tapped Antonio and the pair ran with the rest of the team into the hangar.
Half expecting to walk into a gunfight inside, Max breathed a sigh of relief seeing four men dead, floating in the water next to their massive semi-submersible submarine. It had to be at least sixty feet long, but only half of it exposed, with the hatch on top wide open. They were getting ready to load this bad boy up and ship it off, Max thought.
Quickly realizing the hangar was literally just covering a U-shaped pier, he made very careful footwork, not wanting to fall in the water. The team spread out as Max pushed past everyone who were now scattered all over the dock. There was no cover at all and the only way in or out was the opening where the submarine was pointed or the entrance they just came through. The rounds constantly pinging off the hangar were extremely loud and obnoxious. Noise echoed everywhere.
“Anything from your boys on the ridge?” Max screamed, joining Antonio in lying on the pier and trying to not catch a round to the dome.
“Yeah, I can barely make them out, but they said they counted at least ten guys all around them, but they haven’t been seen so they are stuck for the time being.” Antonio responded, who had now pushed his NVG’s up.
“This is bad,” Max said, “how much longer before the birds get here?”
Looking at his watch, Antonio said, “Five minutes, and I told them to step on it.”
“They need to do more than that,” Max responded, pushing his goggles up as well. “We’re not going to have three minutes before they start shooting other things that do more than just ping off the sides of the metal.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Antonio asked, looking at the operators lying down all around the pier. It was nothing short of a miracle how none of them had been shot or killed.
Doing his own quick scan, Max came up with an idea. “What we need is a distraction,” he told Antonio, yelling over the ridiculous noise. “Grab the C4.”
Max watched Antonio call his guy over with the explosives backpack and hand him two long skinny items wrapped in an olive-green package.
Waving for Antonio to follow him, he slung his rifle across his back and quickly climbed onto the submarine and down the hatch. Without time to conduct a proper scan, he hoped that no last-minute human beings were sitting inside. He did a quick survey of what he had to work with, which was nothing but three compartments: one for what looked like sleeping quarters in the front, a massive common space with nothing where they were standing, and the engines in the back.
Walking to the back of the submarine, Max had somewhat of an idea what he was looking at, but he didn’t necessarily know how to start the engines.
He heard a clank behind him as Antonio’s boots hit the deck. “Can you start this thing?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods? Move over, pendejo,” Antonio said, handing him the backpack at the same time.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Max asked.
Giving his friend a raised eyebrow in confusion, he asked, “You mean to tell me all the crap you and Jack have done in the past and you’ve never handled C4?”
“I decided pretty much at birth that I wanted to keep all of my limbs and body parts.”
“Well,” Antonio started, turning back around to mess with the levers and buttons in front of him. “You’re about to learn today. Open the backpack and grab the sticks.”
“Great,” Max said, kneeling down and pulling out the serrated pocketknife. He was all for jumping out of planes, chasing drug runners in the Amazon, getting into fist fights and shootouts with the world’s worst terrorists, but he vowed to never handle explosives. That was his line, and he drew it deep in the sand.
He had never officially done it himself, but seeing Jack do it enough in the field, he got the gist. Gently pressing the blade against the plastic package surrounding the explosives, he sliced a thin line down the length, exposing the white putty-like substance underneath. Removing the rest of the plastic and doing the same to its partner, he wiped the knife off and re-holstered it.
“Now what?”
“Grab the blasting caps out of the bag,” Antonio said as the engine roared to life. Max grabbed the skinny silver-like tubes from the front pocket of the bag just as Antonio knelt and snatched them from his hands. “If you want stuff done right, you have to do it yourself. I got this. Get out and when I say so, untie the submarine from the pier.”
“Roger,” Max said, hustling back to the small ladder and hurrying out of the submarine. The rounds bouncing off the sides of the hangar re-engaged his mind the second his boots hit the pier.
“Okay, now!” he heard Antonio shout from inside the submarine.
Quickly running to the front and aft ropes keeping the sub attached to the pier, he removed them and by the time he was done with the aft, he witnessed Antonio climbing out.
The sub started moving forward as Antonio grabbed Max and pulled him as far back away from the submarine as possible.
“I think we have about a minute,” he said. Just then the noise around them ceased.
“What?” Antonio screamed into his earpiece. “You’re breaking up.”
“They’re moving down the hill.” Max shared the same look of panic.
“Give me people covering that entrance,” Antonio screamed to his men as they scrambled to get up and get in a good position to destroy anything that entered. The rest of the men, including Courtney and Alex, stayed prone on their stomachs, covering the shore to the left of what they could see outside. As the submarine was now halfway sticking outside of the hangar, Max was right on all accounts as rounds pinged off the top of the grayish hull.
The shooters were close, because Max could now hear screaming from someone outside, probably from the person in charge. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but the shooting stopped, so whoever was doing the screaming obviously didn’t want to destroy their boss’s property.
“Standby!” Shouted Antonio. In the next couple of seconds the submarine erupted in an enormous fireball, simultaneously blowing a hole in the top of the hanger.
“It doesn’t seem like any more tangos around us,” overwatch stated. “We count twenty or so total.”
“About damn time, where have y’all been!” Antonio screaming into the headset.
“They were all around us jefe, standby.”
Just then the distant unmistakable thumping of two Blackhawks could be heard overhead as the cycle of mounted automatic weapons were fired. Although they couldn’t see anything from their positioning inside the hangar, Max knew all too well what the carnage would look like on the other end of the guns pouring out lead into whoever was unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of them.
Listening to the spent casings now clanking off the roof of their building, Antonio’s men stood up and cheered. In a matter of seconds, the all-clear came across the headsets from overwatch.
CHAPTER 37
Ben was in a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand he was now officially a bodyguard to one of the most well-known drug lords in the world. If Alejandro Alvarez died, so did his immediate family. On the other, if Ben tried to run, then his family died. There was no way out. Not if, but when Jack sent the team, he would have to defend Alejandro. It was the only way, for now.
The good news was, Alejandro gave him free reign to walk around his massive mansion because he thought he had him wrapped around his finger. Somehow, he would have to play that card to his advantage when the proper time arose.
Now that he was an active bodyguard, he was given the same privileges as the other guards, in addition to new clothes to wear. Ben was no longer locked away in his room, although his barren dungeon of a room was still where he was required to stay. He couldn’t give up even though he was one of the washouts—Jack saw something in him that he wanted and believed in, so now it was up to him to dig deep and pull whatever he saw in him out of his ass and go to work, somehow.
Throwing on his new black slacks and polo, one size too big, he walked downstairs into the kitchen and saw Alejandro on the phone. Judging by his stern voice, he was not happy. Alejandro gave him a look of death and pointed to the veranda. Ben quickly found out: as long as it was a sunny day, they would be eating all of their meals there. Saint Bertrand wasn’t just the name of the cartel, he was the saint the entire cartel believed in, the saint they put their trust in, and the saint they confided in when times got rough. It was by his name the cartel had survived and had accumulated so much wealth over time—or so that’s what Alejandro wanted to believe and credit all his success to.
Sitting down at the table where a man was murdered just days ago, Ben remembered the blood splattering against the tile. Pushing the horrible memory out, he grabbed a seat and waited for his new boss to walk outside. In the background, Ben could hear yelling and something shattering on the ground. Great, he thought. Thirty seconds later Alejandro joined him, pulling up and sitting next to him. Both men sat in silence as the butler brought out some coffee and water for them. Ben could feel his heart jerk once more, because he saw firsthand how dangerous this man was. The last thing he wanted to do was get on his bad side. After taking a sip of his coffee and crossing one leg over the other, Alejandro initiated the conversation.
